Month: March 2012

Last week wasn’t so good for Jerry Brown. First the Public Policy Institute of California put out a poll that found that the Governor’s measure was favored by only a very slim majority of California voters at 52% approval. This number is 16% below where it was in a January PPIC poll and, if accurate, pretty much dooms it. What changed? In this survey, people were given the actual language that will be on the ballot (including the regressive sales tax), which appears to kill voter enthusiasm.

Making matters worse for Brown and company, another poll followed this one that eviscerates one of the governor’s main arguments. This poll confirms that a majority of Californians would prefer to have a choice of tax measures on the ballot.

A funny thing happened on the way to figuring how to get President Obama not to sign HR 347. Yesterday late afternoon, I was on an urgent national conference call to discuss how to stop the bill. HR 347 is a bill that was passed with lightening speed with almost no opposition just recently by the Senate and House.

During the call, we were told that the bill is on President Obama’s desk and that he had until March 12th to sign it or veto it. This national phone connect was a “call to action” against the bill.

On the one-year anniversary of Japan’s nuclear nightmare at Fukushima, San Diego peace, anti-nuke, environmental, and civil libertarian activists will be converging on our own nuclear- nightmare-to-be – the San Onofre power plant. The action will be this Sunday, March 11th, from 1 to 3pm.

San Onofre Nuclear Power plant has the worst safety record of all US nuclear reactors …

by Dixon Guizot

When I called in to schedule a vasectomy a few months ago, my health insurance company said I’d have to first attend a one-hour class at a Point Loma medical office.

I showed up to the class along with 9 other guys, and the woman running the class kicked things off by asking each guy in the room how many kids he had.

I was the last guy she called on. I was the only one who said this: “I don’t have any kids.”

I arrived at the Federal Building while the San Diego Occupellas were still practicing. This Women Occupy group rewrites the lyrics of well know songs with punchy occupy themes. As one of the speakers would later point out, 99% of women use contraception, which is just one more reason to be part of the Occupy movement.

Editor: Our good friend Eugene talked to some of the women who took part in a rally downtown today, in front of the San Diego Federal Courthouse, about issues that are affecting women right now.

All videos by Eugene Davidovich

Come inside for Eugene’s Video interviews…

By Michael McAuliff / Huggington Post / March 8, 2012

WASHINGTON — A pair of lawmakers on Thursday offered a bill that would repeal laws that allow the indefinite detention of Americans and others by the military without trial.

The power of military authorities to arrest and jail people …

Independent Grassroots Education Movement to March From Balboa Park to State Building Downtown to Protest Next Round of Cuts to Budgets

San Diego, CA – March 10th, 2012 – 9:15am – Balboa Park (Park Ave. & Presidents Way)

The next round of education budget cuts will be devastating to our schools, our children, and our teachers. In an effort to be proactive in fostering a change in priorities at the state level, a broad coalition of parents, teachers, students, and concerned citizens will be marching from Balboa Park (corner of Park Ave. & Presidents Way) to the State Building downtown.

By Lee Fang / AlterNet / March 7, 2012

Why we still put hundreds of thousands of people in steel cages for pot-related offenses.

John Lovell is a lobbyist who makes a lot of money from making sure you can’t smoke a joint. That’s his job. He’s a lobbyist for the police unions in Sacramento, and he is a driving force behind grabbing Federal dollars to shut down the California marijuana industry. I’ll get to the evidence on this important story in a bit, but first, some context.

By Paul Rogers / MercuryNews.com / March 3, 2012

Hunters and environmentalists don’t often agree.

But there’s no dispute between them on one thing: This week’s sizzling controversy over whether a top California wildlife official should be removed from his post for shooting a mountain lion in Idaho is about much more than mountain lions.

It’s the latest example of a cultural shift afoot in America’s most populous state — a profound change involving urban and rural, old and young, red and blue — in which the traditional political power of hunters and fishermen is in steady decline while environmentalists and animal rights groups have grown in influence.

If you have been following the story of the unarmed Marine sergeant gunned down in front of his two daughters last February up in San Clemente, there is some more news and information about the case.

The latest ugly info about this horrific and ugly incident is that Sgt Manny Loggins’ daughters were incarcerated for 13 hours without contact with their mother – this after watching their father being shot in front of them.

Not only that, but a claim that the family is filing against the Sheriffs states that Sgt. Loggins was shot multiple times. Also, Loggins’ wife, Phoebe, who was pregnant at the time of the shooting, just had her baby last Sunday.

Does anyone know what happened to the “OB Dude”? You know, the woodman that always stood by that cottage on the 1900 block of Ebers Street, across from the small neighborhood park next to the Rec Center. The wood guy who always had pithy messages or words on him – that changed with the seasons.

Some of them we recall were “Peace”, and there was a “Thanks” during Thanksgiving, and “Share” during other holidays.

Where are you, OB Dude? We assume your owner had to move – as the cottage is now up for rent and is empty, according to one of our bloggers, Gail Powell.