Month: April 2016

ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERT TO DISPEL MYTHS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Dr. T. Todd Elvins to Represent Citizens Climate Lobby at Local Dems Meeting

Derek Casady to also speak on Climate Mobilization

Special Appearance by Supervisor Dave Roberts

 

The only Democrat on the Board of Supervisors, Dave Roberts, will lead off our May 4 meeting and seek our endorsement.

 

 

Following Supervisor Roberts, we take a breather this month from our months’ long series of candidate debates, discussions and endorsements and get back to all important Climate Action!

 

Local climate expert, Dr. Todd Elvins will be the KEYNOTE speaker at the May meeting of the La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club. Dr. Elvins is an engineer, entrepreneur and executive with many years of leadership success. He holds a PhD in Engineering from UCSD and for 10 years, teamed with earth, ocean and space scientists at the UCSD Supercomputer Center. Today, Dr. Elvins serves on the executive team at a San Diego cleantech company and is a renowned speaker for the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. CCL is a national grassroots non-profit that puts together upbeat interactive climate presentations for groups throughout the country. We are thrilled Dr. Elvins will be spending time with us on Wednesday evening, May 4th.

 

Among other things, Dr. Elvins will discuss:

-Climate change is a fact: It’s caused by humans burning fossil fuels.

-Economists worldwide agree that the fairest, fastest, cheapest, and most effective solution is to charge fossil fuel companies a gradually rising fee on the carbon in their fuel products.

-A carbon fee is a market-based solution that creates millions of jobs, adds a trillion dollars to our country’s gross domestic product, saves lives due to avoided air pollution, and quickly decreases climate pollution.

-The world’s faith leaders, including the Pope, recently have directed their followers to care for the environment, our common home.

-The fact is that there is NO SCIENTIFIC DEBATE about climate change. Some 99.9 percent of peer-reviewed literature concludes that burning fossil has been wonderful for advancing civilization, but terrible for the climate. Despite the cooling effects of volcanoes and earth axis wobbles, the earth is warming, which means that humans account for 100 percent of the observed warming.

Sharing the dais with Dr. Elvins will be Derek Casady speaking on behalf of The Climate Mobilization.org. The Climate Mobilization is a new, all-volunteer organization devoted to protecting civilization and the natural world from catastrophic climate disruption. They are dedicated to living in climate truth and believe that working to solve the climate crisis is everyone’s responsibility. Dozens of leading environmental analysts have determined that the only way to save civilization from climate change is with a wartime-style mobilization, akin to the American home-front effort during World War II. This stark appraisal lies at the heart of this project. In that sense, The Climate Mobilization is a single-issue campaign. They demand a WWII-scale mobilization to restore a safe climate.

Derek is a retired Copy Editor at the Los Angeles Times, retired Associate Editor of Psychology Today magazine, and retired Administrative Assistant to the President Pro Tempore of the California Senate. He is the President of the La Jolla Democratic Club. Derek and wife Nancy have both run for elected office and have played active roles in supporting successful Democratic Candidates throughout San Diego County.

 

If you missed our April Meeting, you also missed a great discussion with the UT’s Government Editor Michael Smolens, and an update from Todd Gloria, SD Council member and candidate for the 78th Assembly District. And we met Ed Harris, a great candidate for San Diego Mayor and a veteran of San Diego politics as head of the City Lifeguards Union and appointed City Councilperson from District 2. We enthusiastically endorsed both Todd and Ed in their respective campaigns and know they’ll be tireless advocates for working people, open governance, and the environment.

 

YARD SALE UPDATE: It appears this year’s yard sale, Saturday, April 23rd from 7 AM to 1 PM, is shaping up to be the biggest ever. Word is that many members are Spring Cleaning in an effort to ensure we have more quality goods and better bargains than our previous 7 successful sales. This year we’ll again be at the Perkins’ Residence, 5009 Randlett, La Mesa, just a couple blocks East of our monthly meeting place at the La Mesa Community Center. DON’T MISS THE YARD SALE and check out our Facebook page for updates on merchandise and other deals.

 

 

If you live in San Carlos, Del Cerro, Allied Gardens, College Area, Santee, La Mesa, Mt. Helix, and other nearby communities and ARE NOT YET A MEMBER of LMFDC, you are missing scintillating monthly programs, great camaraderie among like-minded progressives, political action and get-out-the-vote efforts, community involvement on many fronts, our monthly newsletter, and regular informative updates from members and Club President, Linda Armacost.

This year, it’s VITALLY IMPORTANT to get involved with local and national politics as the stakes are higher than ever! There are generational changes pending on issues spanning immigration reform, women’s health, voting rights, Supreme Court appointments, climate change, living wages, Convadiums, open space, and so much more.

 

The last year has seen a jump in both club memberships and meeting attendance with over 100 members and guests joining the festivities each month. We meet the first Wednesday of every month at La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Dr., just North of University Ave. Our meetings begin with social ½ hour at 6:30 PM and then the business and speakers start at 7 PM. We offer light snacks, healthy sides, desserts, and beverages of all sorts. Check out our very informative website at www.lamesafoothillsdemocraticclub.com. Please join us soon.

 

Linda Armacost, President

Jeff Benesch, VP Programming

President’s Message
Linda K. Armacost, Ed.D
2016 Presidential Election Issues: Gun Control

So far, the Democrats and Republicans have had 20+Primary Election debates. Debates are supposed to educate voters about important issues and the candidates’ stand on those issues. I believe gun control is a very important issue for our nation. Gun proliferation, in my opinion, is the number one public health issue affecting our nation. This column looks at the problem of gun violence and where the candidates stand on gun control.

The day after a shooting spree in Oregon last year, President Obama said people who support gun control would “just have to, for a while, be a single-issue voter” if gun laws in America were ever going to change.

Obama said he’ll follow that philosophy himself.

“Even as I continue to take every action possible as president, I will also take every action I can as a citizen,” he said in an op-ed for The New York Times. “I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform. And if the 90% of Americans who do support common-sense gun reforms join me, we will elect the leadership we deserve.”

Here are some staggering statistics: Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and injuries annually. According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2013 firearms were used in 84,258 nonfatal injuries (26.65 per 100,000 U.S. citizens) and were used in 11,208 deaths by homicide (3.5 per 100,000), 21,175 by suicide with a firearm, and 505 deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms-use with ‘undetermined intent” for a total of 33,169 deaths related to firearms.

In 2010, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 67% of all homicides in the U.S. were conducted using a firearm. In 2010, gun violence cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $516 million in direct hospital costs.Last year at least 278 children unintentionally fired a gun and injured or killed someone. U.S. gun violence kills significantly more people than terrorism — even factoring in 9/11. Since 2001, the harm from terrorists to Americans both here and abroad accounts for 0.8% of all American deaths by firearms in the United States in the same time period.

In the U.S., guns are used in homicides more often than in many other countries
Obama has delivered statements on gun violence 15 times during his presidency. After the latest shooting, he said the nation had become numb to the carnage.

“We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings,” he said. “Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.”

A Mother Jones story in October 2015, reports a majority of Americans now support tougher laws controlling gun sales, according to a Gallup poll. In a year marked by a series of deadly mass shootings, 55 percent of Americans favor stricter gun control legislation—an increase of 8 percentage points from last year.

While the American people have voiced their desire for stricter gun control, state Republican officials seem oblivious: for the second year in a row, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin pulled the emergency brake on legislation that seemed almost tailor-made to bring harm upon law enforcement. The bill in question sought to give persons over the age of 21 the right to carry concealed handguns without a permit. Later that day, flanked by police at a press conference, Tomblin, a Democrat, provided an explanation for his veto. “When you’re [an officer] and you walk into a dangerous situation, you almost have to expect that everyone’s carrying a gun,” he said, suggesting that the likelihood of a shootout would increase if this bill became law. But the legislature would not be deterred. On Friday, the House of Delegates voted to override the veto, and on Saturday the Senate followed suit “I can hear freedom knocking at the doors in West Virginia,” said Senator Craig Blair, a Republican who supported the bill. “That’s exactly what this does.”

Where do the Presidential candidates stand on gun control?

Clinton has publicly said she will fight for “common sense” gun reforms. In 2013, she backed bipartisan legislation requiring universal background checks on gun purchases.
“I know that gun ownership is part of the fabric of a lot of law abiding communities,” Clinton told the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco following the Charleston shooting. “I also know that we can have common sense gun reforms that keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and the violently unstable while respecting responsible gun owners.”

Sanders has an uncertain track record when it comes to guns. As Politico reported, Sanders’ campaign manager says he is “very moderate” when it comes to gun control. However in the past, Sanders has voted against the Brady Bill (law that requires a waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks on those who wish to purchase handguns), voted for a ban on assault weapons, voted to allow firearms on Amtrak trains, and voted for universal background checks.

Ted Cruz has an “A+” rating from the NRA and has firmly expressed support for Second Amendment rights.
“The Second Amendment to the Constitution isn’t for just protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice,” Cruz has said, per the New York Times. “It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny — for the protection of liberty.”
Like many other Republican colleagues, Cruz voted against moving forward on the 2013 Senate legislation to expand background checks.

During a 2013 interview with FOX News, Trump described himself as “a very strong person on the Second Amendment.” But in his 2000 book “The America We Deserve,” Trump said he supports a ban on assault weapons and longer waiting periods on gun purchases.
“I believe in the 2nd Amendment. Everybody has the right to keep and bear arms to either protect your family, protect yourselves, to be a hunter (like his son who’s Facebook photo showed the aftermath an elephant he killed while it was grazing). The 2nd amendment is part of that Constitution. It’s something I believe in”.

John Kasich noted that the two students who killed 13 people and themselves in Littleton, Colo., violated 19 existing gun laws. “There were already a bunch of laws,” Kasich said. “The kids didn’t pay attention to the laws. I don’t think new laws will solve all the problems.”
More parenting better than more gun laws “In most homes, both parents work and nobody has the time to spend with their children anymore,” he said.
Opposes restrictions on the right to bear arms.
Voted YES on decreasing gun waiting period from 3 days to 1.

I agree with President Obama and do not support any candidate who isn’t serious about gun control.