Category: Politics

By Greg Palast / Nation of Change / June 5, 2013

This month –as early as tomorrow— the US Supreme Court will tell us whether Black and Brown citizens have the right to vote.

Now, if you saw the film Lincoln, you probably thought that issue was settled about 143 years ago. But Honest Abe never imagined a High Court occupied by Dishonest Thomas and Scalia the Scurrilous.

There’s been a lot of nonsense talk fogging the issue before the Court. To cut through the BS, the Palast Investigative Fund has made a little film, How Do You Steal a Dream?

You could call it ‘The Idiot’s Guide to the Voting Rights Act.’ The idiots, of course, are on the Bench.

Press covers ceremony honoring death of paid mercenaries, traditional military sacrifice honors ignored

By Fran Zimmerman

Now that Memorial Day 2013 is over, let’s record how the red/blue politics of the day trumped history and tradition and every lemming newspaper in this Navy town went along.

Apparently the Los Angeles Times, U-T San Diego, San Diego Reader and La Jolla Light forgot that San Diego is home to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery, final resting place for more than 115,000 servicemembers and their families from all branches of the armed forces and site of the largest Memorial Day commemoration in the city.

Minnesota Congresswoman swears she’s not retiring because of that little ol’ ethics probe.

AlterNet / By Janet Allon

Minnesota far-right Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann has declared she will not run for a fifth term in 2014, and is making the dubious claim that her decision has nothing to do with that ongoing ethics probe into her campaign fund-raising in the 2012 race, or her falling poll numbers. No, she is a newfound convert to term limits.

Right.

By Jim Miller

In the first part of my interview [at the San Diego Free Press] with Peter Zschiesche, he discussed Golden Hill past and present and described what he calls “the Golden Hill vibe.” Much of that feeling came out the politics and culture of the late sixties and early seventies. In this second and final installment of our interview, Peter talks about that time period and outlines some of the key places and players that made Golden Hill a vital, progressive community.

By Chad Peace / IVN San Diego

Former congressman and Democratic Mayor of San Diego Bob Filner took the unusual step of publicly calling for jury nullification in the prosecution of Ronnie Chang, who faces 60 felony charges for violations related to his ownership of marijuana dispensaries in San Diego and Riverside Counties.

“This is way overdoing it when local laws, state laws allow compassionate use of medical marijuana,” Filner told reporters at the downtown U.S. District Court complex Monday. “Someone should not be going through this stage of prosecution for trying to help people to have access to medical marijuana.”

For once with good reason, the GOP is exorcised with the scandals involving the IRS targeting political groups and the FBI’s spying on A.P. reporters. The broader public is legitimately concerned. However, in its classic overblown breathlessness at all things Obama, the gleeful Republican leadership is already calling for impeachment and dragging out desperate comparisons to Nixon’s Watergate.

A Brief Summary of May 19, 2013 Meeting of Peninsula Dems

It has been a long time since I attended a meeting of the Pt. Loma Democratic Club. My husband was an officer of the club, and when he passed away I decided that I no longer wanted to attend their meetings. The reason for that was many – I didn’t want to hear how much Bob was missed; I loved the President of the club – Nancy Witt – but didn’t know the other officers well and from what Bob had said I didn’t want to know many of them.

The other thing that disturbed me was that the average age of the club was – well, let’s just say “old.” There were very few young people attending meetings, and although this is an intellectually sharp group, I wanted to be with younger people with younger ideas.

Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: The GOP finds a new Watergate, the Justice Department bullies the AP, and Bloomberg News gets caught snooping on Bloomberg clients.

By Frank Rich / New York Magazine- RSN / May 16, 2013

RICH: Last week, conservatives called Benghazi Obama’s Watergate. Now they’re applying that label to a new scandal in which IRS officials admitted applying special scrutiny to tea-party-affiliated groups applying for tax-exempt status. President Obama has condemned the IRS’s actions. The FBI has opened an investigation. Do you see this having a major impact on the administration and its credibility?

The Triumph of Progressivism: Graduation 2013 and 1968

By Robert Reich / RobertReichBlog / May 13, 2013

Many of you soon-to-be college graduates are determined to make the world a better place. Some of you are choosing careers in public service or joining nonprofits or volunteering in your communities.

But many of you are cynical about politics. You see the system as inherently corrupt. You doubt real progress is possible. “What chance do we have against the Koch brothers and the other billionaires?” you’ve asked me.

Poisoning the Conversation at CBS8

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

I see this image of the chickenhawk/ wingnut/ GOP-intern type of internet player in my head; he’s the sort that girls and women avoid by changing aisles in the supermarket if they see him before he sees them.

He (rarely a she, for reasons I’ll speak of later) hunches over the keyboard so the Cheetos shards don’t fall on the rug.

The Campaign to Get Big Corporations Out of Our Constitution and Big Money Out of Our Elections The OB Rag…

Local Races in Assembly District 80 and City Council District 4

By Jim Miller

Before I devote the month of May to the San Diego Free Press’s upcoming focus on my Golden Hill neighborhood, recent events compel me to do one last column on the special elections in Assembly District 80 and City Council District 4.

The 80th California Assembly District: Lorena Gonzalez vs Steve Castaneda

In the race to replace Ben Hueso in the 80th it shouldn’t be shocking that Lorena Gonzalez’s opponent has attacked her for being a “union boss” except for the fact that that charge was hurled at her not from a Republican but from fellow Democrat, Steve Castaneda. Indeed, Mr. Castaneda, who would surely have taken labor’s endorsement if offered, was far too quick to turn to cartoon like right-wing anti-union stereotypes. This should tell us all we need to know about this variety of Democrat.