Author: Source

by Doug Porter / San Diego Free Press / May 29, 2012

I read the Daily Fishwrap(s) so you don’t have to…

Filner’s Kenyan connection?… Absent a potential birth certificate scandal, reporter/columnist Matt Hall has decided to make the Mayoral candidates cough up their college transcripts in hopes that something, anything will make for a story. And at least one of the SDUT’s reliably right wing commenters is having a cow because candidate Bob Filner apparently ignored the request. The lone democrat in the race has been known to not suffer foolish requests lightly, as he did earlier this year when the Voice of San Diego wanted him to give up political positions in three sentences or less. Our sources say that Filner’s crew is, in fact, trying to get the stone tablets from Cornell shipped off to Hall; they’re just having problems finding a shipper.

Friends of Mountain Group Steps In to Aid State in Preventing Park’s Closure

By J. Harry Jones / U-T San Diego / May 30, 2012

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN — Palomar Mountain State Park has officially been saved.

California State Park’s Director Ruth Coleman has signed an agreement permitting the park and its popular campgrounds to remain open for the next three years as long as a nonprofit citizen’s group is willing to cover the deficit between the park’s income and expenses.

Move Reflects Fallout Over Former President’s Killing of Mountain Lion in Idaho

By Juliet Williams / MercuryNews.com / May 29, 2012

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—The state Assembly approved new restrictions governing who can be appointed to the California Fish and Game Commission on Tuesday as part of the ongoing fallout over the former president’s killing of a mountain lion in Idaho.

Lawmakers approved AB2609 by Assemblyman Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, on a 55-22 vote, sending it to the Senate.

China cited the treatment of protesters participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement, stating that their arrests can provide a “glimpse of the truth regarding the United States’ so-called freedom and democracy”.

China Daily/ May 26, 2012

Beijing on Friday swiftly hit back at Washington’s annual report on China’s human rights, saying in a report that the US government’s crackdown on protesters in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration is the real illustration of American democracy.

In the report, Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011, the State Council Information Office demanded the US stop its double standards.

Beijing issued the report less than 24 hours after the release of the Washington report, which Chinese experts said used harsher wording than previous editions and reflected US double standards that meet political needs in an election year.

Jury Deadlock in Med Herb Trial Is Another Blow Against San Diego DA Bonnie Dumanis’ Costly and Irrational Resistance to the Will of California Voters; Judge Parsky Declares Mistrial.

By Eugene Davidovich / San Diego Americans for Safe Access / May 25, 2012

SAN DIEGO – On May 16th, twelve jurors and two alternates were selected in the trial of DA Bonnie Dumanis v. Dexter Padilla, navy veteran, medical marijuana patient and president of Therapeutic Healing, a San Diego based non profit medical marijuana coop.

The jury began deliberations on Tuesday, May 22, after a long week of arguments and testimony from experts and the defendant, Dexter Padilla.

Two notes were turned in by the jury less then an hour after deliberations. The first was a request for the defendant’s testimony to be read and the second was a concern from all the jurors about juror #10 being hostile, refusing to participate, and preventing everyone from working towards a verdict.

U.S. prosecutors asks Manhattan Federal Judge Katherine Forrest to undo ruling against military detention law

By Basil Katz / Chicago Tribune – Reuters / May 25, 2012

NEW YORK – Federal prosecutors on Friday urged a judge to lift her order barring enforcement of part of a new law that permits indefinite military detention, a measure critics including a prize-winning journalist say is too vague and threatens free speech.

Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest this month ruled in favor of activists and reporters who said they feared being detained under a section of the law, signed by President Barack Obama in December.

The government says indefinite military detention without trial is justified in some cases involving militants and their supporters.

From Dirty DeMaio / May 22, 2012

Still trying to answer questions about the rank hypocrisy of pushing the private imposition of a billion dollar tax while railing against taxes and closed-door deals, Carl DeMaio is doubling down on the outright absurd rhetoric as we come down to the wire.

Speaking on KOGO this week, DeMaio said that allowing private companies to tax the public without the public getting any say “is a very conservative, business oriented, free market principle. Some would say libertarian.”

That’s an interesting definition of libertarian that Carl has, giving corporations unilateral power to pick the public’s pocket. He goes on to explain that the reason he supports it, the reason it’s such a conservative idea, is because the setup gives private corporations the power to decide who pays instead of the public or their government deciding.

By Ben Cartwright / SDGLN / May 23rd, 2012

SAN DIEGO – More than 100 people gathered at what is now the corner of Harvey Milk Street and Centre Street in Hillcrest to witness the unveiling of the signs that indicate the new street name at a late afternoon ceremony on Tuesday, May 22.

The ceremony was held on Milk’s birthday, who would have been 82 years old on Tuesday.

San Diego lays claim to being the first city in the world to honor Milk, the iconic gay-rights champion who served in the Navy while based in San Diego, with a street naming. Hillcrest’s Blaine Avenue was the street chosen to be named after Milk, primarily because of its location in the heart of the city’s LGBT neighborhood and the fact that it ends in front of The San Diego LGBT Community Center.

by George J. Janczyn / Grofsurf’s San Diego / May 24, 2012

The San Diego City Council Natural Resources and Culture Committee (NR&C) approved on Wednesday (May 23) two substantial reports that recommend how recycled water can be used more effectively in the future as San Diego struggles with ways to reduce its extreme dependence on imported water that is becoming an increasingly expensive and less reliable source [link to the agenda].

• 2011 Recycled Water Master Plan Update [link to the report].

By Leon Dale Thompson / East County Magazine / May 24, 2012

More than 50 people called Wednesday, May 23rd, for Sempra Energy Chief Donald Felsinger to come down and address the public’s concerns over the San Onofre nuclear reactors, which have been closed for months due to serious safety problems. (Felsinger was invited last Friday in a written-hand-delivered petition.) The crowd chanted “Donald Felsinger come on down” on this overcast afternoon, with Sempra Energy’s building looming above.

Editor: Last Sunday outside the NATO conference, dozens of American Iraqi and Afghan veterans threw their medals away in protest of the wars. A very similar protest by veterans was held during the anti-Vietnam war days in 1971. .

By Dave Lindorff / Nation of Change and This Can’t Be Happening / May 22, 2012

Once again American troops are being asked to keep fighting for a mistake — this time the 2001 fantasy of the Bush/Cheney administration that it could make a client state out of Afghanistan.

John Kerry, back before he was a pompous windsurfing Senate apologist for American empire, back when he wore his hair long and was part of a movement of returned US military veterans speaking out against the continuation of the Vietnam War, famously asked the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing, “How do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?”

Police from Internal Affairs Unit Allowed into Closed Sessions and Bullied Dissenters

The report : intimidation resulted in high turnover rate of prospective board members, including minorities.

By Kristina Davis / U-T San Diego / May 23, 2012

SAN DIEGO — The county grand jury investigating San Diego’s police citizen review board uncovered an atmosphere rife with “prejudice, fear and intimidation,” and determined that bullying and a lack of decorum impairs the board’s ability to be a true watchdog on police practices, according to a report released Tuesday.