Category: Election

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.

It is the role of the world of independent online news and opinion sites such as the OB Rag to call out the corporate media when it goes over the top on something that we can just not ignore.

One of the latest ‘over the top’ instances of reporting was done by the local outlet for CNS, City News Service, a little-known and even less understood network of regional news services, including a branch here in San Diego.

Here is what I’m getting at. In an article about how Mayor Sanders criticized mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio, the article included a list of recent endorsements received by the other mayoral candidates – but oh, wait! It included the endorsements that just the Republicans have received, totally excluding recent endorsements to the sole Democrat in the race, Bob Filner.

ENDORSEMENTS PRIMARY ELECTION JUNE 5, 2012

CITY OF SAN DIEGO MAYOR

• BOB FILNER

US REPRESENTATIVE 51^ST DISTRICT

• DENISE MORENO DUCHENY

Go Inside for the rest of our endorsements ….

By Josh Eisman

While Romney’s firm ran Dominos, the customers’ cost of a pizza was cut by nearly 35%. Pizza price and taxes are both forms of revenue, Mitt Romney has now vowed to cut government revenue.

In order to stay afloat with such low revenue, Romney’s firm cut the quality of current products and the research and development of future healthier products.

To deal with these cuts, Mitt Romney has vowed to cut social programs, green jobs and the development of college student’s (through student loans). He suggests he would de-regulate business and corporations, which would automatically reduce quality of these businesses.

Another Endorsement That Hasn’t Happened Yet (But Still Could)

I didn’t realize that my House congressional district had been redrawn until a Juan Vargas campaign walker knocked upon my door in City Heights. I had to stop and think a moment. I had spent a number of yes, dramatic years, in Susan Davis’ district and it took me a moment to process the impact of the redistricting and that now I’m in the 51st Congressional District.

It took me less than a minute to respond to the question whether I would support Juan Vargas. When asked I said “No. Absolutely not and I’ll tell you why. He went missing on the single payer healthcare vote earlier this year.” Vargas ducked the vote, twice, despite receiving thousands of calls urging him to support the bill.

Vargas was presented with the “Spineless Rubber Chicken” award for sitting out a critical vote on this particular issue. We have a Democratic governor and a Democratic majority in the California legislature and the single payer health care option with dental coverage for our families and neighbor is dead, lacking two votes.

If you really want to understand what’s at stake in the race for the 52nd Congressional District between Scott Peters and Lori Saldaña, the most important thing to consider is not personality conflicts or whether the candidates get along with the media but which wing of the Democratic Party they would represent. Both want to unseat incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray, but whose interests would each candidate serve? What kind of Democratic Party would they help shape?

As has been noted elsewhere in the OB Rag, Saldaña has the backing of many local and national progressives and would certainly head straight into the Progressive Caucus. This is the most liberal caucus in the House and describes itself thusly:

Our Caucus members promote a strong, progressive agenda, what we call “The Progressive Promise–Fairness for All”. The Progressive Promise is rooted in four core principles that embody national priorities and are consistent with the values, needs and aspirations of all the American people, not just the powerful and the privileged. They reflect a fundamental belief in government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The four, core principles of the Progressive Promise:

1. Fighting for economic justice and security for all;

2. Protecting and preserving our civil rights and civil liberties;

By Donna Frye / Voice of San Diego / May 21, 2012

If you don’t know about the relationship between state low interest loans for city wastewater and water projects, city bond offering documents and Proposition A’s proposed ban on Project Labor Agreements, you will probably want to read this to the end.

Fact is, they have a lot in common and it’s an interesting relationship.

On Tuesday May 22, the City Council will vote on two agenda items, 51 and 52, that allow the city to borrow money from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) program at a “low 2.0933% for a 20-year term”. Both items are for public infrastructure projects; one is for wastewater and the other is for replacing old water mains. Combined, the city is seeking to borrow approximately $30 million at this low rate of interest.

Some background in the agenda:

Thirty-two months on the 21^st of May my husband of 44 years passed away from Lung Cancer. He began smoking while still in high school, and before he stopped smoking 34 years later, he admitted to smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I always wondered that if he admitted to smoking 3 packs a day, how many packs did he really smoke.

He would say that if he had known the evils of tobacco he probably would never had had that first puff. That’s what he would say, but is it the truth? Who knows?

He was a charming blue-eyed Irishman that frequently had a twinkle in his eye. He was a leader, not a follower, and I suspect that if he thought it was “cool” to smoke, he would have smoked. But there was no research like there is today; when he finally did stop smoking – 31 years BEFORE he died – he stopped because he finally believed what research was telling him. He thought that by quitting smoking, he was prolonging his life, and the cause of death would never be “lung cancer.”

Just having finished a review of who – and what – the San Diego Left endorses for this June’s Primary, I wanted to offer a summary of where different groups and media projects are at with the current crop of candidates and propositions. (Note: not all races are covered, especially those of smaller municipalities and non-controversial propositions).

First – of course, there is a left in San Diego politics – so, those who cannot accept it, get over it. (For a refresher course on left vs right, see here and here.) The groups reviewed for their endorsements are all left or left-of-center. And by reporting on any group’s choices does not mean that I necessarily endorse them, their choices, or politics.

I scanned the endorsements of the following news sources and organizations:

• CityBeat – the weekly magazine is generally left-of-center in their views, policies, and endorsements.

• Democratic Socialists of America – clearly a left organization – an out-and-out “socialist” stance. Here’s their endorsements in a pdf file: Download File

• Progressive Democrats of America – they have a local progressive group, on the activist left side of the Democratic Party.

• San Diego Labor Council – labor and its manifestations are usually on the left side of the political spectrum.

TIJUANA, MEXICO — The signs at the union rally were lettered in red and green on a white background, reminiscent of the Mexican flag.

“!Con DeMaio al Norte!”
(“With Demaio to the North!”)

“!Si, se puede, jefe!”
(“Yes, we can, boss!”)

“!Te amos Carl!”
(“We love you, Carl!”)

The setting was a south-of-the-border parade on Tijuana’s famous Avenida Revolucion, where a union representing undocumented workers hoping to migrate to the United States endorsed Republican candidate Carl DeMaio for San Diego mayor.

Editor: Just to ensure that our readers and the world know where the OB Rag stands on Carl DeMaio, we’re running two posts today, one by Doug Porter, and this one by Jim Miller.

“We have a conservative movement that has learned, over the decades, to mimic
many of the characteristics of its enemies.” – Thomas Frank

As Frank Gormlie noted in an OB Rag piece last Saturday, Carl DeMaio used a pull quote from one of my OB Rag columns describing Nathan Fletcher as a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.” More specifically, DeMaio’s mailer cites this passage:

Nathan Fletcher is not a man of great political courage. He isn’t even a particularly independent thinker. But he is politically clever, and he knows that San Diego’s Democratic base has a long history of being bamboozled by wolves in sheep’s clothing from the days of Pete Wilson to the present.

Residents of San Diego were stunned just recently when they opened up a campaign flier from Carl DeMaio and found there in plain sight, clearly printed, a quote from an OB Rag article that was very critical of one of DeMaio’s mayoral opponents, Nathan Fletcher. DeMaio’s flier also used the Rag logo.

Of course, in no way did the OB Rag give DeMaio permission to use this quote or our logo. We here at the Rag view DeMaio as a right-wing extremist bent on creating a Wisconsin West right here in San Diego, with his anti-labor and anti-union views and policies against ordinary people, the social net, etc. A DeMaio Mayor would be an uncategorical disaster for San Diego.

One of our columnists, Jim Miller, wrote a stinging repute of the so-called “independent” candidacy of Fletcher back on April 24th, entitled, “The Fletcher Flim Flam”. In it, he states:
Nathan Fletcher is not a man of great political courage. He isn’t even a particularly independent thinker. But he is politically clever, and he knows that San Diego’s Democratic base has a long history of being bamboozled by wolves in sheep’s clothing from the days of Pete Wilson to the present.
This is the exact quote that DeMaio’s campaign used in their flier.