The Starting Line – SDG&E’s Trojan Horse; Koch Bros Confab Set for San Diego

From San Diego Free Press

—SDG&E’s trojan horse… Michael Hiltzer in the LA Times reported Sunday on a scheme proposed by SDG&E that would give its 1.2 million customers the option of prepaying their electric bills. While the plan may sound appealing to those mostly working class consumers who favor prepaid cell phones and the like, there are significant disadvantages for consumers built into the proposal. Sign up for the prepaid program and you’re signing away virtually all the consumer protections governing disconnections. Run out of money on the prepaid deal and your power will be cut off, no notice required. Regular customers get a two week notice prior to disconnection and the option of extending any back bills over a three month period when they run into financial difficulty. Mind you that this SDG&E scheme is merely a proposal in front of the Public Utilities Commission at this point; public opposition can stop it from becoming reality. San Diego’s Utility Consumers Action Network (UCAN) and the Utility Reform Network are advocating against the proposal. You can also contact the Public Utilities Commission directly at public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov.

Secret ultra-rich conservative confab set for San Diego... Washington DC’s Politico broke the news on Friday that the notorious Koch brothers are planning their next summit for the super rich right here in San Diego this coming weekend. Shrouded in secrecy,--the location is unknown at this point— these meetings bring together ultra wealthy individuals to convince them to pool their monies on behalf of right wing and conservative causes. Koch Industries, the brothers’ privately owned oil, chemical and household products company, has sponsored the summits twice a year since 2003. Past meetings have included big names conservative speakers like political stars like Eric Cantor, Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck along with Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Thomas. The Koch cabal’s spending goal for the 2012 election cycle is estimated to be $395 million dollars, much of which will be deployed towards defeating incumbent President Barack Obama.

Hey, you didn’t count my vote! Oh wait, they did! UPDATE: The UT now says all votes are included except for a couple of small precincts where voting is exclusively by mail. UT-San Diego’s Sunday paper features a dandy series of maps purporting to show mayoral election results by neighborhoods throughout the city. And the on-line version is even niftier, allowing the user to drill down to specific voting precincts to see results. There’s only one problem: all the “vote by mail” ballots aren’t factored into the analysis, according to an inset adjacent to the graphics. As I recollect, 52% of all voters in the region requested mail-in ballots. H/T to Liam Dillon for setting me straight.

A dog, a Cadillac and a candidate…. Activists at MoveOn.org have announced plans to have GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney followed around the country by a Cadillac with a fake dog, named Seamus II, on the roof. Romney’s multi-state bus tour was disrupted on Saturday, when 150 to 200 protesters — some of them brought out by MoveOn — showed up in advance of a scheduled stop at a Wawa mini-mart just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike; the contender then had to go further down the road for his meatball sandwich. Romney kicked off a bus tour Friday of six states in an effort to win the support of ‘small town folks’.

Supremes set to rule on healthcare… The Supreme Court is expected to issue rulings soon on the constitutionality of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (what the right wing calls Obamacare). These decisions will not only guide how every American receives medical care but will also establish precedent-setting boundaries for how government regulation can affect a range of social areas. Your health and your finances could be on the line. The Campaign for a Healthy California is kicking off a statewide “Medicare for All” town hall tour tomorrow night at St Paul’s Cathedral (6:30, RSVP here) here in San Diego. There will also be free health care screenings at the same location from 3-6pm.

The National Waffler Service has issued a Mitt Romney Base Abandonment WATCH effective immediately in the following area:Immigration.

[Yesterday] morning on CBS, Mitt Romney was asked five times whether he would continue Obama’s new policy on immigration, ending deportations for DREAM-eligible youth. Romney flatly refused to take a position.

A Mitt Romney Base Abandonment Watch means that conditions are favorable for Mitt Romney to back away from his “severely conservative” GOP base-friendly positions—including the mandatory and immediate “self-deportation” of all undocumented immigrants—by increasingly desperate leaps and bounds. Waffler Service Alert Courtesy of Bill @ Daily Kos.

On This Day…In 1873 Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote for a U.S. President. In 1928 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales. In 1967 The Jimi Hendrix Experience made its debut performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in California.

Eat Fresh! Today’s Farmers’ Markets: Escondido (Welk Resort 8860 Lawrence Welk Drive) 3 – 7 pm

I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to… Catch “the Starting Line” Monday thru Friday right here at San Diego Free Press (dot) org. Send your hate mail and ideas to DougPorter@SanDiegoFreePress.Org