Month: April 2019

The president is treating Congress with contempt. This cannot stand – and Congress must fight back

By Robert Reich / RSN – Guardian UK / April 30, 2019

“We’re fighting all the subpoenas,” says the person who is supposed to be chief executive of the United States government.

In other words, there is to be no congressional oversight of this administration: no questioning officials who played a role in putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census. No questioning a former White House counsel about the Mueller report.

By Dylan Stableford / Yahoo News / April 29, 2019

President Trump passed a historic milestone in his presidency over the weekend.

The Washington Post, which has been tracking the truthfulness of the president’s public assertions in tweets, speeches, interviews and press conferences, reports that Trump surpassed 10,000 false and misleading statements since his inauguration.

On Friday, the president passed the 10,000 mark by making 49 false or misleading claims — including 24 in a speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Indianapolis. At his rally in Green Bay, Wis., Saturday, Trump made 61 false or misleading claims, for a total of 10,111 claims in 828 days, or an average of more than 12 per day.

Friends of the OB Library are pretty riled up. Mayor Faulconer did not include any funds for the Ocean Beach branch’s expansion. Nor did he include any funds for the OB Lifeguard station.

But it’s the lack of monies for the planned but decades-delayed expansion of the OB Library that’s most concerning – and insulting.

So, the guardians of our library have issued a call to their fellow OBceans: contact the Mayor’s office immediately about this and plan to attend city budget hearings – starting Wednesday, May 1st – down at City Hall.

By Judi Curry

I had one of the worst experiences that I remember having in years today when I went with my student – Hitomi – to buy a used car.

Let me give you some background:

Hitomi was a student learning English with me for almost three years. She was a flight attendant in Japan and wanted to be able to fly international flights and needed to improve her English. When she went back to Japan she was not hired in that capacity, and after looking for jobs decided to work as a travel agent. Surprisingly enough, they sent her to San Diego for her internship for a year and she will be working on Convoy Street in a travel agency.

While she was here before she had rented a car; this time she decided to purchase one instead. We did a lot of “on-line” looking and finally she narrowed it down to three cars – one of which was an Fiat 500.

When I saw the car I tried everything in my power to dissuade her from this purchase.

Ocean Beach and Point Loma – as well as other beach communities – were hit with a power outage Tuesday morning, the last day of April. OB and PL were down around 5:55 am and about 3,600 customers were effected.

Power was restored for most, according to SDG&E, by 7:50 am – and everybody will be back online by 2pm. SDG&E crews determined it was caused by equipment failure.

Actually there were two outages. The second one hit at 6:20 am and affected about 4,700 customers in the Mission Bay, Pacific Beach, La Jolla and Bird Rock communities.

OBceans celebrating Independent Bookstore Day found themselves at Run for Cover, OB’s only bookstore, on Saturday, April 27.

Besides the usual fare at a bookstore, the band ZZYMZZY Quartet played for customers – and passersby – of the storefront. Here they were caught by Judith Starker.

The Book Crawl celebrating the small bookstores continues today, Monday, April 29.

There are no development projects on the agenda for the Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting Wednesday, May 1, but there are plenty of other issues up for the volunteer panel to review. The Board meets at 6pm sharp in the Community Room of the OB Rec Center, 4726 Santa Monica.

Lane Reductions for West Pt Loma Blvd?

The Board will wade into the increasingly sticky issue of the city’s proposed “road diet” for a section of West Point Loma Boulevard. The proposal calls for a reduction of the 4 lane boulevard to 2 lanes between Nimitz and Sports Arena Blvd and the removal of some parking along that stretch. Apparently, as per the agenda, the OB Board took a vote on the issue back in June 2018.

May Day March Kickoff:
Wednesday, May 1st at 3:30pm
at Thomas Jefferson School of Law
701 B St. San Diego, CA. 92101
Rally: 5:00pm at Sempra Energy
488 Eighth Ave, San Diego, CA 92101
After Rally, March Continues to Barrio Logan

By Jim Miller

The majority of Americans don’t know much about May Day or they simply associate it with the state sponsored holiday in the former Soviet Union. For the most part, it’s lost down the memory hole. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll discover a whole forgotten history of American workers and their struggle for basic dignity and rights in the workplace and in society.

The truth of the matter is that May Day has deep American roots. It started in 1866 as part of the movement pushing for the 8-hour day. As historian Jacob Remes reminds us:

The demand for an eight-hour day was about leisure, self-improvement and freedom, but it was also about power. When Eight Hour Leagues agitated for legislation requiring short hours, they were demanding what had never before happened: that the government regulate industry for the advantage of workers.

Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day with Book Crawl – April 27-April 29

Run for Cover Bookstore and La Playa Books will celebrate America’s Independent Bookstore Day, April 27-April 29 as part of a book crawl collection of local bookstores.

By Marjorie Cohn / TruthOut / April 22, 2019

After a nearly two-year investigation, culminating in a 448-page report, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election but found insufficient evidence to prove the Trump campaign conspired with Russia. Mueller did not decide, however, if Trump obstructed justice.

The special counsel detailed 10 acts that could constitute obstruction of justice.

They seem to keep coming. Yet another Ocean Beach restaurant has applied for an alcohol license to sell beer and wine.

This time it’s Hummus Mediterranean Kitchen at 4884 Newport Avenue – they put up their notice on April 20. They’ve applied for a 41 type of license, an “on-sale beer and wine – eating place.”

The wild parrots of Ocean Beach (and elsewhere) were the main attraction at last nights Ocean Beach Town Council meeting.

Other issues brought up during the course of the meeting included good news about the OB Pier’, the city’s budget hearings where OBceans are needed, the new regs on scooters, a “Hat Contest”, an expanded membership program for the Town Council, and tragically, a death in Point Loma due possibly to fentanyl.

The Parrots

Brooke, Josh and Sarah from SoCal Parrot brought their traveling road show of 2 live parrots and a power point presentation of the parrots of the greater San Diego region to the dozens of people in the audience at the Masonic Center. (Go to socalparrot.org/obtc2019 for more info on Peninsula parrots.)