Politics

Scenes from a Democratic Convention

There were no fireworks at the seventh biennial San Diego County Democratic Convention on Saturday, Oct. 21 at Escondido’s California Center for the Arts. The old cliché of organizing Democrats being akin to herding cats did not apply to this particular gathering. Some people–gasp!–were even having fun. The trauma of Trump has eased, and what I saw were a bunch of folks bound and determined…


Trump targets Issa, the last Cal Republicans

It’s hard to know exactly what shape Republican “tax reform” will take. Many details are missing from the “framework” that the administration presented last month. (Describing actions, or promises of action, by the Donald Trump administration often necessitates the use of quotation marks.) But it must have seemed a good idea to someone to complement Trump’s culture war against liberals with a fiscal war. The…


How much more of an ‘F.U.’ can Californians send the Republican Party?

What is to be done in 2018 and beyond, to get the country back on track? Just how liberal is California? It’s the home state of Amanda Chantal Bacon’s Moon Juice and a shit-ton of cannabis — but it’s also the headquarters of Scientology, the launchpad and burial place of Ronald Reagan, and where the landmark 1978 anti-tax measure Prop 13 still polls remarkably well. So how…


Congressional office merry-go-round

Given the (supposed) gravitas of Congress, one would imagine top staffers would be grizzled veterans well-versed in the affairs of state. One would be wrong. Many congressional staffers are young, not attached to geography as they represent congressional offices far removed from their native lands. And many in the Republican brand play a game of office musical chairs where no chairs go unfilled although they swap…


Local House members, staff on the fly

In the past 12 months, San Diego County’s congressional delegation and the people who work for them have taken 17 trips paid for by nonprofits, think tanks and private companies. In all, $37,525 was spent on travel to places that include England, Austria, Azerbaijan, New York and Seattle. The privately funded travel is legal. Congress members and their staff just have to file a disclosure…


Duncan Hunter brings his kids to work for ‘Stealing from your Campaign Day’

“Father of the year” — Reprinted by permission from “Five Dollar Feminist” at Wonkette. For more from Wonkette visit the International Home of the Resistance. When God closes a door, he opens a window. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-50th District) knows this, because he is a Christian who loves Trump and hates gaybortions. For instance, Hunter tried to close the door on a Congressional investigation into…


Issa lies about eugenics event attendance

eu·gen·ics yo͞oˈjeniks/ noun: Science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis. Last week, as President Trump and many congressional Republicans prevaricated on the events in Charlottesville and sought to justify the…


Ousting Hunter: Dem challengers debate

One way or another, to paraphrase Blondie, we’re gonna to find ya’, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-50th District), and we’re gonna get ya’, get ya’, get ya’, get ya’… Either you’re going to prison for campaign finance and bank fraud, or going to go, end of political story, period, courtesy of one of these Democratic challengers at the ballot box. Indivisible North County hosted a Democratic…


Issa participates in D.C. eugenics event

eugenic noun, ( used with a singular verb)  Study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having   genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits.   So much for being a so-called Republican “moderate.” Embattled Congressman Darryl Issa (R-49th District) on June 28 participated in the eugenics founded and funded Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) annual “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event at Phoenix Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.. Also prominently featured were some of the the most anti-immigrant members in Congress such as Representatives Lou…


Issa: Get off the roof, support free speech

It’s time for Congressman Darrell Issa to come down from the roof and support the First Amendment. Our First Amendment freedoms ensure that anger and political disagreement don’t fester into violence. — Edward Sifuentes On May 30, Rep. Darrell Issa’s San Diego County constituents saw a different side of the nine-term member of Congress. Angry at peaceful protesters outside his district office building in Vista,…