Month: January 2022

In brief, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke for nearly a half hour to assure the American public that the Department of Justice is committed to holding all perpetrators at any level accountable for the violent Capitol insurrection one year ago. The DOJ investigation, he said, will follow the facts no matter where they lead.

Garland ticked off a number of accomplishments the nation-wide investigation has accomplished to date:

• 725 defendants involved in the siege have been arrested and charged;
• 145 defendants have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in the early months of the investigation;
• 325 defendants have been charged with felonies, assaulting police officers or disrupting congressional procedures;

A new Associated Press-NORC poll shows results similar to other major polling. They show that the vast majority of Americans have not lost their minds, are not crazy and blame the rioters and Trump for the violent attack on the US Capitol one year ago.

Here are other major points:

• Most Americans recall a very violent day and support Congress’ investigation.
• Eighty percent of the public consider the individuals involved mostly responsible,
• but 57% also say former President Donald Trump deserves a great deal or quite a bit of blame for the attack on the Capitol, more than said so at the end of January 2021.

Attorney General Merrick Garland will give a speech Wednesday about the Justice Department’s efforts to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, remarks that come as the country’s top law enforcement officer is facing calls to do more.

In announcing the address, scheduled for the day before the anniversary of the attack, the Justice Department said Garland would “update the American people on the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible” and “reaffirm the department’s unwavering commitment to defend Americans and American democracy from violence and threats of violence.”

By Joni Halpern

I was taking a little inventory of paramount American values that are still viable after the onslaught of the last few years of intractable divisiveness among our people. I thought my list would be long. It wasn’t.

I started out listing a value Americans have always cherished. We insist we are the architects of our own destiny, that the lowliest members of society can reach the stars if they work hard enough to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. However, if we look closely at this “bootstrap” value, we can see it appears to be crumbling at its foundations.

The “bootstrap value” has become something of a fiction for many people who have been trying to keep themselves and their families fed, housed and clothed, let alone managing whatever it takes to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Even in what remains of the middle class, there is great uncertainty about how to prepare children for economic stability.

Republicans are busy undermining the next election. But giving up on democracy isn’t an option. We must fight back, and here’s how

By Laurence H Tribe / The Guardian / Jan. 4, 2022

Only free and fair elections in which the loser abides by the result stand between each of us and life at the mercy of a despotic regime – one we had no voice in choosing and one that can freely violate all our rights. So everything is at stake in the peaceful transfer of power from a government that has lost its people’s confidence to its victorious successor. It was that peaceful transfer that Trump and his minions sought to obstruct and almost succeeded in overthrowing when Joe Biden was elected president.

Here is an excerpt from a Jan. 3, 2022, Op-Ed by Jim McGovern, a US representative from Massachusetts –and not by some aging radical hippie:

A year later, a fundamental question remains: Will the Jan. 6 insurrection be swept under the rug, or seen for what it could be — the beginning of the end of American democracy as we know it.

Many of the people who failed to overturn the election are now using the levers of power at the state level to rig future campaigns.

They’ve introduced more than 440 bills across 49 states designed to hijack the election process and suppress the right to vote.

By Mary Clare Jalonick / LA Times – SD Union-Tribune / Jan. 3, 2022

They’ve interviewed more than 300 witnesses, collected tens of thousands of documents and traveled around the country’ to talk to election officials who were pressured by Donald Trump.
Now, after six months of intense work, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is preparing to go public.

In the coming months, members of the panel will start to reveal their findings against the backdrop of the former president and his allies’ persistent efforts to whitewash the riots and reject suggestions that he helped instigate them. The committee also faces the burden of trying to convince the American public that their conclusions are fact-based and credible.

It’s anti-insurrection week at the OB Rag.

One year ago this week, Trump instigated an attempt at a violent coup and thousands of his supporters laid siege to the Capitol while the Presidential election was being certified.

Over the course of the next few days, we plan to acknowledge the anniversary of this act of treason and review what the status is of the Big Lie. Here are some major points worthy of note (in the coming days we’re examine many of these with accompany links and evidence):

• In the year since the insurrection, no one of any significance has been brought to account for the act of treason, despite plenty of evidence that shows high-level planning and coordination of the riotous siege of our democracy.

By Anonymous Blogger

I can relate to the following article by Erik Anderson at KPBS. Within the last week or so, two of my roommates have come down with COVID. Another roommate was sent home from work because of the positives in the house.

That roommate did not have COVID symptoms but in order to get back to work, they had to test negative. Other roommates also wanted to be tested just to be on the safe side.

But, lo and behold, nobody could find those at-home COVID test kits. Several pharmacies were tried. Nothing.

By Ernie McCray

Joan Didion.

Betty White.

Both touched my life.

After hearing that Joan had died, I suddenly remembered how she helped me when my wife passed on, leaving me trapped in heart-rending sorrow and grief beyond belief, feeling as though I would die, too, with all the pain I was going through.

But as days and weeks and months passed the intensity of my suffering eased a tad – and I read Joan’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” her account of losing her husband and daughter within a couple of years of each other.

We have an avid reader who raises a good point:

I’m probably missing the obvious, but I can’t figure our why Nathan Fletcher, who jump-started his tenure on the board of supervisors by literally stealing the spotlight every day with his COVID pronouncements, is now no where to be found on the issue.

His publicist won’t even respond to a request for any sort of comment, from the UT.

I’m sure other San Diegans have noticed him MIA, and would also appreciate any insight into his disappearance, as well as this new-found silence by other board members, the county health department, Mayor Todd Gloria, etc.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board meets this Wednesday, January 5. It will be held virtually via Zoom at 6 pm. Register for the meeting here.

Notable agenda items include a presentation by the Election Committee for the March 2 annual election of board members, and another presentation by the Monarch Group, one of the five redevelopment teams vying for the Midway Sports Arena contract with the city.

The board will also review and make recommendations to the city’s Draft Housing Action Package, including possible revisions to the City Code regulating Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) or so-called granny flats.