By Miriam Raftery

October 4, 2016 (San Diego) — Republican presidential contender Donald Trump may be the first major party candidate in U.S. history to not be endorsed by a single newspaper for the general election. His rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has been endorsed by dozens—including prominent newspapers that have never endorsed a Democrat before.

Far from making America great again, the editors across America agree that a Trump presidency would be disastrous for our nation.

East County News Service

August 17, 2016 (Kiev) — Ukraine’s new anti-corruption bureau has revealed that handwritten ledgers list $12.7 million in secret and illegal cash payments earmarked for Paul Manafort, campaign chairman for Donald Trump, from 2007-2012, the New York Times reports.  Manafort was a consultant at the time for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian president later deposed.

East County News Service

Rep. Duncan Hunter defends Trump's remarks

August 10, 2016 (Washington D.C.) – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is drawing fire for remarks that many believe were intended to incite gun owners to shoot Hillary Clinton, his rival, and potentially, justices she may appoint to the Supreme Court if elected. Trump’s campaign has said he only meant to encourage political action, not violence.

By Miriam Raftery

August 3, 2016 (Washington D.C.) - It’s been a bad week for Donald Trump.  A recent poll shows him trailing his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, by 8 points.  Trump has continued to alienate a broad swath of the electorate and prominent Republicans within his own party, even insulting families of fallen military members and showing eagerness to launch nuclear weapons. Now, an online petition is asking the GOP to require a mental health screening of the party’s presidential candidate following his latest erratic actions.

Reprinted with permission from The Moderate Voice, ,a member of the San Diego Online News Association (SDONA)

July 28, 2016 (Washington D.C.) - Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump is now cheering on and encouraging hacking by Russian hackers increasingly — and strongly — believed by experts to be working for the Russian government to undermine Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump’s own running mate Sen. Mike Pence is distancing himself from Trump, but I’m betting Sean, Rush, and many conservative Internet writers will not repudiate it but a)defend it, b)try to change the subject, c)do a mixture of defense and changing the subject.

It’s a unique moment in American political history: the nominee of a political party cheering on hackers to not just hack into the Democratic National Committee’s emails, but into a former Secretary of State’s private emails written when she was Secretary of State.

What was that old conservative book? “None Dare Call it Treason.” This is NOT from The Onion:

By Liz Alper

Slideshow photo credit to Bede735 on Wikipedia

July 21, 2016 (Cleveland) – On Closing Night, Day Four, perhaps the biggest day of the Republican National Convention, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump formally announced his election as Republican presidential nominee.

By Liz Alper

July 18, 2016 (Cleveland) - Day one of the Republican National Convention was already filled with drama, as Trump supporters and anti-Trump delegates took the floor for a tug of war.

By Daniel J. Smiechowski

June 23, 2016 (San Diego) -- There are approximately 78 million Catholics in America. Fifty percent of them voted for President Obama in 2012. Donald J. Trump has a problem, if history is a window to this election.

East County News Service

Photo: 10 News Twitter feed

June 6, 2016 (San Diego) – At a concert and rally in Qualcomm’s parking lot Sunday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told a crowd of around 4,500 supporters that Donald Trump will  not win in November, “because in the year 2016, the American people will not accept a bigoted president.” 

First, though, Californians will head to the polls for Tuesday’s primary election—and California polls show Senator Sanders running neck and neck with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  

Sanders told San Diego supporters, “Real change has never taken place from the top down, only from the bottom up.” He urged people to reject income inequality and billionaires seeking to “buy elections.”

By Miriam Raftery

Photos: Left:  Trump in San Diego by Shor Masori, courtesy of San Diego Jewish World, a member of the San Diego Online News Association. Right: Police in riot gear, courtesy of Nadin Abbott,Reporting San Diego.  Cover:  Protesters, by Nadin Abbott.

May 28, 2016 (San Diego) –Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of several thousand people at the San Diego Convention Center yesterday, while a crowd estimated  by police at at least 1,000 people  protested outside. The protesters included representatives from labor, the Democratic Party, Mexican Americans, Muslims, women’s rights advocates and an array of progressive groups who urged that voters oppose Trump's divisive politics.

Trump sounded his familiar themes denouncing illegal immigration and calling for a wall, slammed trade deficits with Mexico, China and other nations, said he would eliminate Common Core in education, inexplicably claimed California has no drought, called media “bloodsuckers” and bashed Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an Obama appointee set to hear a civil fraud trail in San Diego after the election over the now defunct Trump University.  

 “I love you San Diego—get out and vote,” he concluded. (View video of Trump speech on CSPAN.)  

Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections, by Richard L. Hasen (Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2016, 241 pages).

Book Review by Dennis Moore

May 28, 2016 (San Diego’s East County) - Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections, this scholarly and insightful book by Richard L. Hasen, a leading expert on election law, gives a compelling answer to the dilemmas of money in politics, and comes at a time when presidential candidates such as Bernie Sanders has as his mantra campaign finance and reform. Hasen, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, has written this book in the midst of one of the most unusual presidential campaigns in memory, where the character and personas of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders seem to shape our political history and agendas.

East County News Service

May 25, 2016 (San Diego) – Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, will hold a rally at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego this Friday, May 27th at 2 p.m.  You can register for tickets here.  The stop is one of several for Trump in California in anticipation of the June 7^th primary.

The billionaire businessman and reality TV star’s visit has also sparked a counter-protest planned by San Diego County Democrats.  A “Stop Trump” rally will be held starting at 12 noon (gathering at 11:30) in the plaza at the southeast corner of the Convention Center across from the Bayfront Hilton.  You can RSVP here, sign a Stop Trump petition here  and visit a Facebook page for the event here.)

East County News Service

Photo, left, by Leon Thompson: Sanders speaks to overflow crowd in National City

May 22,2016 (San Diego) -- The Democratic presidential candidates’ campaigns both held rallies and other events in the San Diego region over the weekend in anticipation of California’s June 7^th primary.

Senator Bernie Sanders drew about 10,000 people at a rally at Kimball Park in National City on Saturday, the San Diego Union-Tribune estimates. On Sunday, he held a second rally at a high school in Vista.  Earlier, he toured Friendship Park at the international border, a meeting place for separated families between San Diego and Tijuana.

Trump gets 66% of Oregon votes in uncontested Republican primary

By Miriam Raftery

May 19, 2016 (San Diego) – Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will each pick up 27 delegates in the Kentucky primary where with 100% of precincts counted,  Clinton received 46.8% of the vote and Sanders 46.3%.

In Oregon, Sanders scored victory with 56% of the vote, while Clinton took 44%. Sanders will get 34 delegates and Clinton 25, as of the results with 96% of the count tallied, Associated Press reports.

By Leon Thompson, Tribal Beat reporter

May 5^th, 2016 (Up State New York) – Presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his new campaign manager, super-lobbyist Paul Manafort, first collaborated in 1993 to halt the construction of a casino by the St. Regis Mohawks in the Catskill Mountains.

Trump feared completion from the casino would hurt his investments in Atlantic City, so Trump poured money into a shell group called the New York Institute for Law and Society. The group existed solely to publish ads smearing his potential Indian competition.