Month: January 2017

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

The 115th Congress convened for the first time earlier this week. After their disastrous behind closed doors attempt to gut the Office of Ethics went down in flames, they decided that it was time to concentrate on the number one priority–Repeal and Replace Obamacare.

Repeal and Replace Obamacare has been the Republican mantra since 2009. Their call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act is gratuitous, but it has kept the base hopeful if not happy. Repeal is infinitely easier than proposing a replacement and Republicans have nothing to offer in its place.

By John Lawrence

The Safety Net Will Soon be in Shreds

The Trump administration will take over in a couple weeks. Essential benefits for tens of millions of low-and moderate-income Americans are in danger of being phased out or canceled immediately.

These include the Affordable Care Act, the Medicaid health-insurance program for the poor and further reduction of already squeezed funding for scores of other important programs serving the most vulnerable Americans such as rental vouchers for low-income families, programs to fight homelessness, job training, funding for poor school districts, Head Start for young children and Pell grants to help low-income students afford college.

Restaurant “Re-review”

Point Break Cafe
2743 Shelter Island Drive
San Diego, CA 92106
619-758-9870
pointbreakcafe.com

I have been asked by many of my readers if I ever revisit places that I reviewed in the past, either to see if the quality of food has changed or if menus have changed. Since several of the places I reviewed last year – and gave less than a stellar rating have closed – I decided I would start out the new year with a revisit every month or so. The first place I went to is the Point Break Café.

(Here is Judi’s first review of the restaurant in July 2013.)

‘Millions must rise up in a resistance [to] stop the Trump/Pence regime before it starts!’

By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

Thousands of activists, journalists, scientists, entertainers, and other prominent voices took out a full-page call to action in the New York Times on Wednesday making clear their rejection of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence with the simple message: “No!”

Progress at Apple Tree Market on Newport

Community Beach Cleanup – Jan. 7th

Larry Himmell Remembered in OB Son’s Foundation

Local Muralist Puts Brush to Wall – Paints Storefront

Silver Gate Students Get New Crosswalk

OB’s Serial Sharpie Tagger – “Mama Bear” – Gets Some Press

Suspect Jumped into San Diego River in Midway Area – Refused to Leave Sandbar

Sensory Deprivation in OB?

Now that La Jollans Are Upset with Planned Flight Route Changes – Something Might Happen

Worries About the Eucalyptus in Loma Portal

Sleeping Toddler in Jeep Stolen in Point Loma Heights Found After Thief Calls Cops

COME INSIDE FOR THE STORIES

By John Loughlin

Restaurateurs make a political statement by adding a surcharge to ‘cover’ the cost of paying the poorest workers a higher wage.

The Union-Tribune article helpfully provides a list of restaurants to boycott as well as some to support.

Back in May 2016, David Cohn speaking at a CREW event:

“It is so easy to vote for that [minimum wage] increase, but it is going to really raise your cost of entertainment and spark a new round of inflation that we haven’t seen since the 1970s.”

He was reported as predicting that the results could lead to menu prices increasing a minimum of 30% over the next few years. From Jan 1, 2017 the Cohn Restaurant Group is adding a 3% surcharge to cover ‘mandated’ cost increases.

High-end Ocean Beach and San Diego Restaurants Poised to Add Surcharge for “government mandated” Costs to Business

By Anna Daniels

Over the past ten years consumers have absorbed higher costs at the check-out counter for all manner of goods. Remember when gasoline costs spiked and affected more than gas at the pump?

Everything from the potted plants at the local nursery to grocery items reflected an attendant price increase. Remember when the cost of coffee went up? What about the shortage of cheese and how that was reflected in higher consumer costs?

These consumer cost increases reflect everything from volatility in the commodity market to shortages caused by natural disasters to price fixing. We weren’t handed restaurant checks or grocery bills with a surcharge added for “free market” or “act of god” or “corporate greed.”

So why are some San Diego restaurants considering a surcharge on bills to cover the most recent “government mandated” wage hike which raises the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour?

4 Deaths and 3 Serious Injuries During the Year

Last year 2016 ended up as another deadly year at Sunset Cliffs, the beautiful yet dangerous cliffs that abut the Pacific Ocean on the west side of Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

By our calculations, four people died at the cliffs and 3 were seriously injured during 2016. In comparison with 2015, that year had 3 deaths but 8 serious injuries/ rescues.

The month of July, in particular, was the most deadly and dangerous, with 2 deaths and 3 serious injured people.

The January 2017 monthly meeting of the Ocean Beach Planning Board has been rescheduled for Wednesday, January 18th. Usually the Board meets the first Wednesday of each month.

By Anna Daniels

AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, recently sent a call to action letter to its members about the need to secure future Social Security benefits. That opening line should have generated a sigh of relief from AARP’s 37.8 million members over the age of 50 who have been following the rumblings from the new Republican Congress to privatize Medicare and Social Security.

Read a little further and you find out that AARP is not alerting us to the potential unraveling in 2017 of two wildly popular and essential components of our social safety net–but rather the potential insolvency of Social Security in 2034. Imagine that your house has been doused in gasoline and an arsonist is standing close by with a box of matches but you are being told that your problem is that you aren’t saving enough money to tent the place for termites seventeen years into the future.

Nuclear Shutdown News December 2016

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free world.

Here is our December 2016 report:

1. Summary of 2016 nuclear shutdowns.

This year continued the acceleration of the permanent shutdowns of US nuclear plants.

On December 8 nbcchicago.com reported that the Palisades nuke plant on Lake Michigan would be shut down in 2018, according to its owner, Entergy of New Orleans. NBC said Palisades was “too old and dangerous,” and a chronic money loser.

By Jim Miller

The era of hope is over. We are done with the messianic rhetoric about the arc of history bending toward justice and the false notion that, despite all signs pointing to the contrary, we were making real progress toward the grand goals of addressing the deep inequities in our society or moving toward a more sustainable future and becoming more just. We weren’t.

We bought hope and got polite neoliberalism with some padding on its sharp edges, and the delusion that we were better than we are.

Now the gloves are off and the wolves’ teeth are bared. There is no pretty bullshit to mask the fact that the future is grim and the worst are full of passionate intensity. Being responsible and respectable won’t save us; neither will looking to make a deal with the devil.