Source:  National Action Network San Diego

July 18, 2016 (San Diego) - Reverend Shane Harris, president of the National Action Network San Diego branch, will meet with Congresswoman Susan Davis today at 3:30 p.m. to find common ground in policy and reform in regards to the recent police shootings.

By Miriam Raftery

July 5, 2016 (Washington D.C.) -- FBI Director James B. Comey announced Tuesday that his agency will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

By Miriam Raftery

July 3, 2016 (Washington D.C.) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation spent three hours Saturday questioning presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of a private e-mail server while she was Secretary of State. 

Some fault Council for lack of transparency on selection process

East County News Service

July 2, 2016 (La Mesa) -- The La Mesa City Council has appointed Yvonne Garrett as the new City Manager, replacing Dave Witt, who is retiring on August 5 after 31 years with the Planning Department.  Garrett has served as Assistant City Manager Director of City Services for a decade. 

By Miriam Raftery

June 27,2016 (Washington D.C.) – A Texas law that sought to shut down most of the state’s abortion clinics, forcing some women seeking the procedure to drive hundreds of miles, has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional in a 5-3 ruling.  The decision is expected to impact at least 25 other states that have enacted similar restrictions.

The law required abortion clinics to meet surgical-center operating standards and for doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has said that the state’s goal was to “protect innocent life, while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women.” But the court’s majority found just the opposite—that medical risks for women would rise as a result of the law.

East County News Service

Photo: Iraqi Chaldeans rallied in El Cajon in 2014 pleading for the U.S. to help to save Christians from ISIS.

June 23, 2016 (San Diego) — Fear rippled through the community here, as word of Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court vote reached San Diego, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Iraqi Christians.

“Today’s announcement is alarming for immigrant families everywhere, but it is particularly frightening for Chaldeans,” said Mark Arabo, spokesperson for the Western U.S. Chaldean Catholic Diocese and the Minority Humanitarian Foundation, a San Diego organization that has rescued over 400 Iraqi Christians fleeing genocide in the Middle East and seeks to help another 700,000 victimized by religious persecution.

“People who came here to escape religious persecution and extermination at the hands of ISIS are now being told they have to go back. They’re terrified.” Arabo said.

East County News Service

June 23, 2016 (San Diego) –Although more than 60% of Americans support limits on access to assault weapons, Republicans in the House and Senate refused to allow votes on such measures.  In the Senate last week, Democrats filibustered to force a vote, but the Republican majority defeated a measure authored by California Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Last night, House Democrats staged a sit-in seeking to prevent the House from adjourning without taking up a similar measure. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan shut off cameras to prevent TV coverage on C-Span, so San Diego Democrat Scott Peters  live-streamed the action on his cell phone with a Periscope app.  Democratic Congresswoman Susan Davis, whose district includes San Diego and East County cmmunities, also spoke—and sat—on the House floor.

Hear Congresswoman Susan Davis’ floor speech here:  https://www.facebook.com/RepSusanDavis/videos/1183815441661009/

View video highlights from C-Span of the House Democratic sit-in here:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. --2^nd Amendment to the United States Constitution

By Dennis Moore (a survivor of gun violence)

June 15, 2016 (San Diego)--The framers of the Constitution did not have in mind that the right to bear arms would result in the countless deaths of ordinary citizens by other ordinary citizens throughout our great country by “Glocks” and other semi-automatic weapons at malls and schools. Nor could they have envisioned the shooting deaths of  nine members of a church in South Carolina at a worship service by a deranged young man, as well as the mass killings by gunfire at a theater in Colorado.

By Chisato Iversen

Miriam Raftery contributed to this report

Photos, left: Loretta Sanchez and Kamala Harris

June 9, 2016 (San Diego)--Three dozen candidates vied in the primary race to replace California’s U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a long-serving Democratic who is stepping down.  The November run-off will be between two Democratic women, both minorities: the state’s Attorney General Kamala Harris, and and  10-term Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.

By Miriam Raftery

June 9, 2016 (San Diego)—Seven Assembly seats and one state Senate race in San Diego County were among those on the ballot Tuesday.   Under the rules for state legislative elections, the top two vote-getters in each race will advance to a run-off in November. 

In a startling turn of events, the run-off in the 71^st Assembly seat vacated by Brian Jones due to term limits will be between Santee Mayor Randy Voepel and jeweler Leo Hamel in November—despite Hamel announcing he was dropping out of the race shortly after the ballots were printed. 

"In a “top-two” primary, the two candidates with the most votes advance to the General Election. The only way a candidate can be removed from the ballot is by dying or via court order. This must occur no later than 68 days before the election (Per Elections Code 8810)," Sam Mahood, press secretary for Secretary of State Alex Padilla told East County Magazine.  San Diego Registrar Michael Vu confirmed that state election code provides that Hamel will be on the November ballot, once the results are officially certified.

The district spans two counties. In San Diego, Voepel got 61%, Hamel 27%, and businessman Tony Teora 12%.  In Riverside County, the placement order is the same, though Teora had 14% there.

By Miriam Raftery

June 8,2016 (San Diego’s East County)—Timothy Caruthers won 59% of the vote in the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District 4 race. He will run off in November against Elena Adams, who received 33% of the vote. Incumbent Mary Kay Rosinski, who withdrew from the race but whose name still appeared on the ballot, got 9%. 

Although the race is nonpartisan, Rosinski was a Democrat and Adams has the backing of the Democratic Party after Rosinski’s withdrawal.  Caruthers is endorsed by the Republican Party, giving the GOP a chance to pick up a seat on the community college board in November.

Photos:  Kathleen Harmon, lifetime San Diego County Democratic Central Committee member, Miriam Plotkin, Democratic Central Committee member from La  Mesa, Asssemblywoman Shirley Weber,  former Secretary of State and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton

"It is an amazing experience to believe we will have the first opportunity to elect a woman president—to see what people used to say was the impossible happen.” – Assemblywoman Shirley Weber

By Miriam Raftery

June 8,2016 (San Diego)—For the first time in U.S. history, a woman is poised to be the nominee of a major political party on the presidential race in November. Hillary Clinton has taken nearly 56 percent of the vote in California over Senator Bernie Sanders at 43 percent, with 99% of precincts reporting, capturing enough pledged delegates to  have a majority nationwide.

Clinton, who also leads soundly in superdelegates,  is now the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, though Sanders has said he will remain in the race until the July convention.

June 7, 2016 (San Diego's East County) -- A lot has changed in the 71st Assembly district race.  Leo Hamel dropped out, though his name still appears on the ballot.  East County Magazine invited both remaining challengers vying for the open seat vacated by Brian Jones due to term limits onto our radio show.

Santee Mayor Randy  Voepel failed to respond to multiple requests. Businessman Tony Teora did sit down for an interview with East County Magazine on KNSJ to discuss the hottest issues facing our region.  You can hear his interview by clicking the audio link below.

By Miriam Raftery

June 4, 2016 (San Diego) –  Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will be back in San Diego on Sunday, June 5th at Qualcomm Stadium’s parking lot for a “Future to Believe in and Get Out the Vote Concert and Rally.”  Doors open at 3 p.m. 

The concert and rally will feature Nahko and Medicine for the People, Michael Mowgli & The Altruists, Joel Rafael, and special guests George Lopez, Shailene Woodley, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Kendrick Sampson and Dr. Cornel West.

This event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Admission is first come, first served.  To RSVP or get details visit https://go.berniesanders.com/page/event/detail/rally/gplf2x

Update June 3, 2016:  Trump has fired back, stating, "“My temperament is so much tougher, and so much better, than her temperament. And, by the way, we need a tough temperament,” The Hill reports. He further blasted Clinton over the federal investigation into her emails, claiming "Hillary Clinton has to go to jail."

By Donald H. Harrison; photo by Chris Stone

Originally published in Times of San Diego, a San Diego Online News Association member

June 2, 2016 (San Diego)--Democratic presidential hopeful and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took aim in San Diego at Donald Trump’s views on foreign policy, saying they are “dangerously incoherent” and “not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.”

“He is not just unprepared, he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility,” she said in a major foreign policy speech.

Peppering her speech with one-liners casting doubt upon Trump’s readiness for office, Clinton spoke in the Prado Auditorium of Balboa Park’s House of Hospitality before 300 invited attendees and nearly as many members of the media, whose working areas described a giant “L” on two sides of the room.  Her speech was interrupted by some 40 instances of applause, cheers, and occasional “boos”– the latter deriding Trump’s positions.