Councilman Charles Lewis

From the Union Tribune -

"Federal corruption charges against the late San Diego Councilman Charles Lewis were dismissed at a hearing yesterday, and afterward two remaining defendants vowed to see him vindicated. "

Swift Boat

from the New York Times -

"At best, cable news programs swing into action when a crisis or major news development occurs, marshaling their resources to give viewers instant, live access. At their worst, they amplify the loudest voices and blur complexities. People can blame the confusion of combat for some of the discrepancies over Mr. Kerry's war record, but cable has done little to clear the air. "

White House Press Corps

From the Washington Post-

"Now for an update on the White House's ongoing effort to kill the press corps. The White House travel office signed a contract last week with an airline called Primaris to fly the press corps to Bush events. The two-month-old company has only one airplane. True, media representatives gave their blessing to the deal. But that was before they learned that the company's president twice had his pilot's license revoked related to his flying of an "unairworthy" aircraft, that the chief executive flopped in his last attempt to start an airline and that the 15-year-old plane itself was damaged in a hailstorm a decade ago and spent most of the past two years mothballed in France. "

Does that really say in France...

Busted

From the Union Tribune -

'San Diego officials were accused yesterday of violating local and state election laws by not using impartial wording in a ballot measure that would shift many of the city manager's powers to the mayor.

...

At issue is language in the measure that says the change offers "a means to increase the accountability of government and the efficiency of services delivered to city residents." '

Charter Schools

What I love about politics is how simple questions become complicated by sides that have axes to grind. Take the question of if Charter Schools are better than Public Schools. It seems straight forward, but its not.

From the NYTimes -
The Bush administration's education program received a devastating setback this week when long-awaited federal data showed that children in charter schools were performing worse on math and reading tests than their counterparts in regular public schools. Among other things, the data casts doubt on a central provision of the No Child Left Behind Act that encourages the states to hand over failing schools to commercial companies and nonprofit community groups that want to run them as charter schools."

From the WSJ Editorial Page -

"But do any of these findings -- within ethnic groups or otherwise -- say anything meaningful about the quality of charter schools? Not a bit. For starters, one must do much more than look separately at students grouped by free lunch status, ethnicity or school location, in order to take into account family influences on a child's learning capacity. All of these factors -- and many other considerations -- must be combined into a sophisticated analysis in order to begin to gauge how well students perform."

Special Elections

From the Union Tribune -

"A little more than a week after the death of Councilman Charles Lewis, four potential candidates have emerged as possible successors in San Diego's 4th Council District.

The four who said yesterday that they are considering running to finish Lewis' term are George Stevens, who held the office from 1991 to 2002; Anthony Young, Lewis' chief of staff; Dwayne Crenshaw, whom Lewis defeated in the November 2002 runoff; and Marissa Acierto, who lost in the March 2002 primary.

Mayor Dick Murphy has said the City Council, when it returns Sept. 7, will call a special election for Nov. 30 to fill Lewis' seat"

Being a Terrorist

From the Washington Post -

"...Antonio Romero is also how I am known to many of my friends and family members. Unfortunately, the name Antonio Romero also appears on a U.S. Treasury Department list titled "Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons." The government provides only this name, some known aliases and a date of birth for Antonio Romero...

- The writer is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union"

Now is it just me of is the Federal governement just asking for trouble by including the Executive Director of the ACLU on the terrorist watch list. Or maybe they thought it would be funny...

Bonds Bonds

From the Union Tribune -

"A third major Wall Street firm downgraded San Diego's bond rating yesterday, and warned that it might do so again.

Moody's Investors Service said "confidence in the city's financial management has eroded" for reasons including the city's $1.15 billion pension deficit, its low reserves, rising debt and failure to complete a fiscal 2003 audit. "

Why I love San Diego

From THe Union Tribune -

"Metropolitan's records show that it has spent more than $4 million on consultants during the past few years, many of whom were Southern California community leaders and former elected officials, to purchase good will around the state.

The water district paid out more than $1.5 million to five local companies from April 2001 to last month.

The consultants include Herman Collins, a former chief of staff of retired San Diego City Councilman George Stevens; George Mitrovich, president of the San Diego City Club civic organization; and Mitrovich's 40-year-old son, Mark. Collins was paid $365,000 and the Mitroviches $145,000, according to Metropolitan records.

The agency also hired Mitrovich's brother Dan and sister-in-law Linda, a former Poway City Council member, who received $724,000 through the couple's company, Solution Strategies Inc. "

While I guess it is important that the water district get its message across, but maybe we should try not handing out contacts as politic favors...I am glad to hear they didn't renew the contacts, of course it would have been nice if some one notice this back in 2001 when it started.

Councilman Charles Lewis

From the Union Tribune -

"San Diego Councilman Charles Lewis, the soft-spoken representative of the city's most racially diverse council district, died Sunday of apparent natural causes. For nearly a year, he had battled federal corruption charges along with two colleagues.

Lewis, 37, died at 1:12 p.m. Sunday at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Allied Gardens, where he was taken hours earlier for what a hospital spokeswoman described as 'some internal bleeding.' "

Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin

From the Washington Post -

Nine Months and Counting

Keeping up with . . . The Pentagon inspector general's office must be working day and night, 24/7, to wrap up what must be an incredibly complex investigation of Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Loop Fans may recall the investigation began more than nine months ago after Boykin, in uniform no less, was caught on videotape talking about the war on terrorism as a "spiritual battle" and made disparaging comments about Islam. Muslims naturally were furious.

In April, we were told the report would be ready in a couple of weeks. Then in June, it was going to appear pretty soon. So now it's August and still no sign of any conclusion.

Could it be his comments were a secret psy-ops effort gone awry? A truly innovative approach to winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world?

Bush Speaks

NY times Bob Herbert: -

"The pressure may be getting to Mr. Bush. He came up with a gem of a Freudian slip yesterday. At a signing ceremony for a $417 billion military spending bill, the president said: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Where's Arnold???

From the Union Tribune -

"A re-energized California Republican Party will gather in San Diego this weekend to rally the party faithful for an all-out push leading up to the Nov. 2 election.

But the source of that energy, the state party's biggest and arguably only star, won't be there. ...

The governor's office didn't cite state business or a scheduling conflict for Schwarzenegger's absence. He's just not coming. "

Wow... that has got to be at lest a little embarrassing for the Republican's. I never really liked the Movie star, but I do appreciate that he is not going out of his way to brow beat the Democrats, which he could have done after showing them the what-for in the special election.

"Schwarzenegger is selective and cautious about his partisan activities. He has campaigned for Republican candidates in key legislative districts without criticizing their Democratic opponents as he seeks to forge bipartisan solutions to state problems.

"He's walked a very fine line between supporting Republican candidates on one hand and trying to work with members of both parties on the other," Schnur said. "

Prop C Again?

If you don’t succeed at first try, try again, seems to be the philosophy of the Prop C people. What is sad is that now the Tax Money, which is raising the Hotel Tax from 10.5 to 13 cent on the dollar, isn’t earmarked for the police, fire and tourism promotion that is was in March. But because it isn’t earmark it only needs 50% to pass not the 2/3 it needed in March. By the way it got about 60% in March, so the chances are good it will pass.

From the Union Tribune -

"The City Council voted 6-3 yesterday to place a measure on the November ballot to raise the transient occupancy tax from 10.5 percent to 13 percent. If approved, it would generate about $28.5 million in new revenue each year that would go into the city's general fund and be spent at the council's discretion.

The proposed increase means the transient occupancy tax on a $100-a-night hotel room would go from $10.50 to $13.

In March, voters rejected Proposition C, which would have increased the room tax to raise revenue for police and firefighting needs and tourism promotion.

Proposition C failed to muster the two-thirds majority required for passage. The Nov. 2 measure needs a simple majority for approval."