It is a story of corruption that will stay secret, politicians who will need fewer votes to win, even dangerous communicable diseases that will spread faster as our best scientists struggle to fight them. The story is the slow and painful demise of local newspapers, a story whose ending is not yet written but which — without bold intervention and strong reader support — could…
Turns out when you’re indicted for massive campaign finance fraud, it ain’t so bad. Having been prohibited by House Republican leadership from ever having another committee assignment — committee work is a major facet of congressional time and power — U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Vape Hut) has a lot more time to do what he loves most, promote vaporizing, hang out with the Bro Caucus…
(EDITOR’S NOTE: WHILE THE US GOVERNMENT HAS RE-OPENED FOR THREE WEEKS, THE ESCONDIDO MAYOR AND COUNCIL PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY SHUTDOWN GOES TO DAY 20 WITHOUT ANSWERS. It is Wednesday, Feb. 6. The Escondido mayor, and four council members, have yet to answer, or even acknowledge, they received, the series of questions listed below. These questions were emailed and Facebook messaged to each of them Thursday, Jan. 17,…
San Marcos has an open city council seat. However, leaders won’t schedule an election. Instead, council members want to fill the seat themselves and appoint the new council member. Wait, what? On Tuesday, Dec. 11, council members voted unanimously to fill the seat left open by Rebecca Jones when she was elected mayor last month, by voting among themselves for a new member. Does that sound…
What do beer, oysters, table salt, air & tap water have in common? They’re all ways humans are ingesting microplastics, tiny bits of plastic waste ubiquitous in oceans, lakes and rivers and even soil and air. Wildlife as diverse as whales, seabirds, fish and zooplankton are polluted by ingesting plastic debris. It’s naïve to assume that humans, sharing the same global environment and eating at…
Mensch (Yiddish: מענטש mentsh, cognate with the German word Mensch meaning a “human being”) means “a person of integrity and honor”.[1] Highly savvy in the ways of journalism, and a brilliant analyst of the ways of the world, Bruce Kauffman was the very epitome of a mensch. He always was ready to lend an ear to a friend’s tale of joy or woe and help…
Last week, a woman approached me at lunch. “You inspired me to vote for the first time,” she said, pulling out her phone for a selfie. “So what happened, did you win?” I replied, “Not this time.” The final count — 48.3 percent versus 51.7 percent. After running for two long years in a district President Donald Trump won by 15 points, my first election…
Mankind has only 12 years left to make unprecedented cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if we want to stave off unimaginably catastrophic effects of runaway global warming. This is the warning detailed in October’s report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the recognized global climate authority which represents the investigations of hundreds of climate scientists and 195 participating nations. A…
Criminal grifter Duncan Duane Hunter Jr. stole his latest election metaphorically speaking since it was, at best, the epitome of a pyrrhic victory, defined as a victory “won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor.” Fact is, Hunter’s 9 percentage point victory over Ammar Campa-Najjar means only that the 50th Congressional District will NOT be represented during the initial part…
(Editor’s Note: This article is taken directly from https//duncanhunter.com. Also a reminder that Hunter was one of 265 mainly Republicans who voted to reverse a landmark FCC privacy rule in March 2017 opening the door for ISPs to sell customer data. Lawmakers provided no credible reason for this being in the interest of Americans. The only people who wanted this were the people who were going…