OB Rag

by Douglas Letter  / Time / January 6, 2026

On Jan. 6, 2021, I was in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives as violent insurrectionists attacked our nation’s Capitol, bent on interrupting Congress in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities and doing serious harm to Vice President Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and members of Congress.

[Please go to original here for all the links]

As I reflect on this dark day for our precious—and often fragile—American democracy, I keep returning to one of the underlying forces helping to fuel the violence: Second Amendment extremism.

Second Amendment extremism comes from what legal scholars describe as the “insurrectionist” interpretation of the Second Amendment. This seriously flawed reading believes that Americans have a right under the Constitution, and even an obligation, to take up arms against the government when they disagree with its direction. At the core of this extremism is the dangerous view that the founders viewed aggrieved citizens who attack the government through armed violence as righteous patriots, rather than the enemies of the state.

By Steve Rodriguez

The start of a new year always brings forth a flurry of predictions for what to expect in the coming months. Predictions can range from the wild to the more reasonable, with prognostications coming from a variety of individuals to include mystical clairvoyants, creative visionaries, and more research-based futurists.

Instead of just waiting to review such predictions, I thought this year I would do some hard thinking and come up with my own look into what 2026 might bring forth at both local and national levels.

My approach is a mixture of amateur psychic, sophisticated seer and analytical trend forecaster.  Not to intentionally downplay my prophetic talents, but some of these predictions are easier to make than others. After all, predictions are often based on data and patterns reflecting past behavior. On the other hand, some of the more extraordinary prophecies can be attributed to my exceptional gut instinct.

Quite frankly, I enjoy being called a “futurist.”  In fact, just the other day as I was walking through the neighborhood, I heard someone say, “Look, it’s the smarty pants futurist, too bad he can’t bother to look ahead to figure out which week to put out the blue recycling bin.”

In any event, here is my list of the top 26 headlines we can expect to see sometime in 2026.

1.     Padres Hire New Batting Instructor

By Farnoush Amiri and Jennifer Peltz / Los Angeles Times / January 6, 2026

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Monday after an audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela over the weekend to capture leader Nicolás Maduro, with the United Nations’ top official warning that America may have violated international law.

Before the U.N.’s most powerful body, both allies and adversaries blasted President Trump’s intervention and him signaling the possibility of expanding military action to countries like Colombia and Mexico over drug trafficking accusations. He also reupped his threat to take over the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is “deeply concerned that rules of international law have not been respected with regard to the 3 January military action.”

He added that the “grave” action by the U.S. could set a precedent for how future relations between nations. Denmark, a fellow member of NATO with jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland, echoed Guterres’ concerns, saying the “inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation.”

By Angelo Haynes

On Sunday January 4th, protestors and organizers gathered at the Otay Mesa detention facility to protest the alleged crowded and unhygienic conditions of immigrant detainees currently held there. The protest was organized by local activists Blue Wong and Mariel of SD Bike Brigade in tandem with a coalition of other groups and individual activists from across San Diego County.

The protest is characterized as a “standing” protest and has been conducted once a week every Sunday, since last summer in June of 2025 and is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

Protestors occupied the space for two hours, positioning themselves on a compacted dirt walkway on the edge of the facility with megaphones, loudspeakers, kites, flags and signage. They then began a campaign of yelling over the fence in an attempt to communicate through the walls of the detention center with the detainees being held there and glean important information that could be used to support them.

by Lu Rehling

Confusion was the order of the day in Balboa Park on January 5th , and no wonder, with info about the city’s new parking policy and rates missing and mixed throughout the Central Mesa and beyond.

As Visitor Center reps reported that they were fielding questions and complaints all day, one major block to even figuring out the new parking regime was signage. Some are just not there.

For example, there is none to identify which parking lots cost what under the tiered parking system. So, consider your options:

To find out what parking costs at any given lot, you can check at the payment kiosk for that lot. Could be $16 dollars a day or $10, and maybe with partial day parking available at a lower cost, or maybe not. If you pull in, go up to the kiosk, tap it; then, if you don’t like what you see, you can always turn around and exit that lot to try another, hoping to get luckier.

Next, if that doesn’t work out, you can enjoy driving back to the closer lot that you’d checked out in the first place. But wait, wait!–the first rate that you see on the kiosk screen actually may not be the correct one for you, IF you’re a city resident AND already have registered for discounted parking (which, by the way, cannot be done on the spot and costs $5 up front online, with a two-day wait to confirm). In that case, presumably, your registered resident rate won’t come up until after you enter your license plate number.

The Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) is seeking candidates to fill a vacant board seat. This is a great opportunity for community members who want to contribute to local planning, land use decisions, and long-term neighborhood decisions.

As a recognized advisory body to the City of San Diego, the PCPB plays an important role in ensuring community voices shape future development.

Eligibility Requirements
To be considered for appointment, applicants must:
• Be 18 years of age or older.
• Be a resident, property owner, renter, or business owner within the PCPB planning area boundaries.
• Have attended at least one PCPB meeting within the past 12 months.
• Be willing to comply with PCPB bylaws, including Article VIII, Section 6(6), which requires proof of identity and eligibility to participate.

How to Apply

Hundreds of people were forced to flee a homeless shelter near downtown San Diego as floodwaters rushed through the front door just recently, leaving many with few belongings.

Officials evacuated Alpha Project’s Bridge Shelter, a massive gray tent near 16th Street and Newton Avenue on the edge of Barrio Logan, early New Year’s Day. About 325 men and women are now sleeping in the Municipal Gym in Balboa Park.

More than 2 inches of rain fell on San Diego County on New Year’s, breaking local records and causing multiple water rescues. The shelter was one of the first casualties.

Now Alpha Project is calling on San Diegans to donate items — and they’re asking people to deliver them to the Recital Hall in Balboa Park.

A parade featuring more than 100 antique automobiles will take place in Point Loma on Sunday, January 11th, retracing a historic six-mile road race that occurred in 1915. The free event, organized by the Horseless Carriage Club, will begin in Balboa Park and conclude with a car show at Liberty Station.

“We will have over 100 antique cars. I think the oldest signed up right now is 1906,” said Dave Ness, San Diego Excursion organizer.

“In 1915 they used a route that you can drive today. They went down Rosecrans, up Chatsworth, all the way along Catalina, a short jot on Talbot, down Cannon Street back to Rosecrans,” said Hess.

The vintage car collection will include a diverse range of vehicles. “We’re going to have a spread of cars. We’ve got Rolls Royces, Packards, Pierces, a lot of Model T’s and Model A’s,” said Ness.

Organizers plan to drive two laps around the route to give spectators multiple opportunities to view the vehicles. “We’ll drive two laps of the race route, so people can see the cars twice as we go around,” said Hess.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board holds its first 2026 meeting Tuesday night, January 6. Here is the official agenda:

By Donna Frye

As we head into the new year, it’s time once again to let the city council know that we oppose paid parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park for residents and non-residents alike.

Last year, four councilmembers (LaCava, Foster, Moreno and Elo-Rivera) included paid beach and bay parking in their budget priority memos as a potential revenue source.

Fortunately, on November 18, 2025 the paid parking proposal was not included as part of the council resolution being sent to the mayor’s office for consideration in preparing the FY 2027 budget.

However, as part of the annual budget cycle, the city council is required to update their budget priority memos and provide them to the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA) by January 9.

We need to make sure that the next round of budget priority memos do not include proposals for paid parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park.

There are many reasons why paid parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park is a bad idea.

By Erwin Chemerinsky / San Diego U-T / January 2, 2025

In one of its most consequential rulings of the year, just before breaking for the holidays last week, the Supreme Court held that President Donald Trump acted improperly in federalizing the National Guard in Illinois and in activating troops across the state.

Although the case centered on the administration’s deployments in Chicago, the court’s ruling suggests that Trump’s actions in Los Angeles and Portland were likewise illegal.

Trump has said that his deployments of troops to these metro areas were just the beginning and that his administration planned to use military force in more cities across the country. The specter of U.S. troops being deployed against its citizens is inconsistent with a long history of not mobilizing the military for purposes of domestic law enforcement. Images of troops patrolling city streets are more often seen under authoritarian regimes, not in the United States. The Supreme Court’s ruling will immediately put a stop to this.

By Paul Krueger / Special to the OB Rag 

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday, December 30, placed another hurdle in the City of San Diego’s effort to allow high-rise development throughout the Midway/ Pacific Highway area.

The state’s highest court affirmed a lower court ruling that the city must fully analyze the negative environmental impacts of high-density, multi-story projects and give voters that information before they agree to override the existing 30-foot height limit in the Midway/ PacHwy district.

Voters twice — but narrowly — approved the height limit waiver. But state courts said the environmental impact studies failed to study possible negative and unavoidable impacts of high-rise development on traffic, noise, pollution, and other issues.

The most recent ruling against the city was a strongly worded and unanimous October 17 decision by the state Appellate Court.

Drone light shows as alternatives are on the rise in San Diego and elsewhere for public safety and environmental reasons

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / July 5, 2023

The air quality was almost certainly better over Ocean Beach and La Jolla Tuesday night than it was around San Diego Bay, Imperial Beach and SeaWorld.

Likewise for water quality. That’s because O.B. and La Jolla planned Independence Day celebrations with drone light shows, while the other locales went with traditional fireworks.

Compare Editorials from Washington Post with New York Times

Below the masthead at the Washington Post sits this small phrase: “Democracy Dies in Darkness”.

But with the almost giddy editorial by the Post on Saturday, Jan. 3, in total full-throated support for Trump’s illegal strike in Venezuela, the Post editorial board have now proven that they’re willing to help snuff out whatever light is left in American democracy. They need to remove that phrase from the masthead for the American people can no longer rely on the Washington Post for truth and any light in the darkness.

If Jeff Bezos had owned the Post back in the early 1970s, we would never have known about the Watergate scandal — that eventually forced President Nixon to resign.

With Bezos’ manly bear hug of Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, America not only lost one of the country’s great pillars of truthful journalism, it’s just one more incredible sign that US corporate media are bending their knee to our tinpot dictator wannabe. One more institution has fallen.

Here are a few key segments of the Post’s editorial:

By Andrew Keatts / Times of San Diego / Jan. 2, 2026

San Diego’s housing shortage routinely ranks among residents’ top concerns, and disputes over specific projects routinely rank among the region’s biggest policy fights.

Here are six housing projects that could deliver a significant impact this year, either because the project’s are so big on their own or because of the precedent they could set.

Golden Hill’s test of “Complete Communities”
“The Lawson,” an eight-story, 186 unit development, shook neighborhood groups in Golden Hill into organized opposition in 2025.

Those groups won a rare and seemingly major victory in October, when their lawsuit over the project convinced Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil to issue a restraining order halting construction.

The judge last month declined to extend the work order, after he determined the group does not have “a probability of prevailing” at trial.

Still, the outcome of that trial will determine more than whether one Golden Hill project goes forward.

By Gary Wonacott

The time has com for the District 1 office to initiate a formal review by the Planning Department to evaluate the feasibility and benefits of consolidating the Mission Beach and Pacific Beach Community Planning Areas (CPA).

The current boundaries— drawn more than half a century ago— no longer reflect the realities of how our communities function, nor do they support the level of representation and planning capacity required to address today’s coastal challenges. Reunification is not simply an administrative adjustment; it is a necessary modernization that would restore political balance, strengthen resident voices, and finally give Mission Beach a fair opportunity to secure long?overdue infrastructure investment.

Mission Beach was originally part of the Pacific Beach CPA before being separated in the mid?20th century to provide more localized planning control. Yet the Mission Beach Precise Plan, drafted in the 1970s, identified a long list of deficiencies— aging infrastructure, visual blight, inadequate landscaping, and a lack of community amenities— that remain largely unresolved today.

Over the past two decades, the situation has only deteriorated. The seawall continues to crumble along its entire length. Alleys and utilities lag behind modern standards.  In spite of many “Get it Done Requests,” court lamp lights remain burnt out for months at a time.  Vehicles fail to stop at stop signs and speed down Mission Blvd with impunity.

By Brian White / CBS8 / Jan. 2, 2026

Parking frustration is boiling over in Bankers Hill, where several newly installed parking meters along Sixth Avenue have been vandalized just weeks after enforcement began.

CBS 8 found several meters near Balboa Park appear to have been deliberately damaged, some clogged with what looks like spray foam or contractor-grade glue, and one spray-painted green, obscuring the screen and payment slots.

San Diego Police tell CBS 8 that 12 pay parking stations were vandalized over the course of a month. According to San Diego Police Officer Anthony Carrasco, one was covered in a “biological material, believed to be fecal matter.” He said officers investigating took a DNA swab of what was smeared on the screen.

People who live nearby say they’re not surprised.

“I’m really not surprised,” said Joshua Jones, who lives along Sixth Avenue.

Giovanna Allain echoed that reaction, saying, “I’m not surprised, we’re just kind of rebelling against it.”