Author: Frank Gormlie

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:

A day after the strikes on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president by elements of the U.S. military, I guess we can now relax over any concerns that our military men and women wouldn’t follow illegal orders. For, the invasion of a sovereign country and the illegal abduction of its leader without Congressional approval (or even notice) by our army and navy are clearly illegal and against the Constitution.

Apparently, our boys and girls wearing US uniforms didn’t stop their actions in this attack against US and international law.

What a sigh of relief.

It was not even two months ago that a squad of Democratic congresspeople produced a video distributed widely telling military and intelligence officers to “refuse illegal orders.” Which is the law. Here’s that video they made:  a video .

Early Saturday, January 3rd, the Trump regime conducted a blatant and illegal act of war against Venezuela by bombing civilian and military sites and illegally kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

This act of aggression is a imperialistic continuation of U.S. policies against the sovereign South American country with attempts to seize and plunder Venezuela’s natural resources and threatens the sovereignty of other countries in Latin America.

The aggression goes against the will of the American people and against our Constitution. Nearly 70% of Americans oppose another war and reject the endless cycle of military interventions carried out in their name.

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to military action in Venezuela, according to a Quinnipiac poll published in mid-December amid an escalation of U.S. pressure on President Nicolás Maduro.

Sixty-three percent of respondents told Quinnipiac they are against military action against Caracas, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out, with just 25 percent expressing support. And 53 percent of respondents said they opposed the administration’s use of military strikes to kill alleged drug smugglers in international waters.

As domestic and international condemnations of the attack and kidnapping mount up, there are typical sycophantic expressions of support from Trumpian Republicans.

The Rag has an update on the Corey Bruins’ criminal fraud case stemming from allegations against him that he stole thousands of dollars of funds from the then-OB Town Council.

A Rag reporter attended his readiness conference just recently. During that brief conference, the parties agreed that the preliminary hearing scheduled for January 26th in the New Year will go as scheduled — unless a plea is reached before then.

Preliminary hearings — or “prelims” — are part of the process in which any felony is charged. It gives the prosecution a chance to place sufficient evidence before a judge in order for the case to proceed. It also causes much of the evidence to be brought out into the light of day, before the public as it were.

On Tuesday, December 16, the San Diego City Council approved new updates to community plans of two long term neighborhoods– Clairemont and the College Area. The updates are considered blueprints for development changes over the next 30 years — and both project thousands of new residents to both of the neighborhoods by allowing mid-rise and high-rise housing in more places.

Although approved on the same day by votes of 7–1, the updates were treated differently. The College Area plan slams the community with a projected tripling of the current population to nearly 77,000. U-T reporter David Garrick calls the approach to College as “more aggressive…” Clairemont is projected with a 50% population increase.

Also, as Garrick reported:

The number of housing units in Clairemont would rise by 59%, from 33,300 to 52,800, while the number of units in the College Area would more than quadruple, from 8,200 to 34,000.

By Chase Wilson / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / December 11, 2025 

If you want to understand San Diego’s housing crisis, forget the jargon for a moment. Forget the zoning charts, the staff reports, the alphabet soup of agencies. Start with something simple anyone can picture: a house. Now imagine it being knocked down. Imagine a demolition. Now imagine that happening 10,600 times.

That’s the number of San Diego homes now functioning as short-term rentals — Airbnbs, VRBOs, vacation bungalows dressed up as houses. Charming little demolitions, each one. They stand upright, freshly painted, Instagram-ready, but in housing terms they might as well be a pile of rubble. Some are empty second homes, rented only occasionally. Many are investments, rented constantly. But however often they’re booked, the effect is the same. Once a home becomes a short-term rental, it undergoes a quiet demolition — not with a wrecking ball, but with a booking link.

Once demolished, a family cannot live in it, a nurse cannot rent it, a young couple cannot begin their lives in it. That unit vanishes from the fragile ecosystem of available housing stock, and the disappearance doesn’t happen in isolation. A would-be renter stays where they are. Their home doesn’t open up for someone else. The chain reaction continues — down the market, across neighborhoods, through generations.

The preliminary hearing for Evan M. Anderson, 24, accused of striking and killing Tracy Condon while she sat on a curb in Ocean Beach has been scheduled for March 25, 2026.

Anderson pleaded not guilty to hit and run to the Nov. 4 traffic fatality at Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Santa Monica Avenue.

Condon suffered from homelessness, was 59 years old, and was sitting on a curb next to her wheelchair around 5 p.m. when she was struck by a Toyota Tundra, allegedly being driven by Anderson.

There may be a major shake up in the race for the District 2 San Diego City Council seat.

Times of San Diego reported on Friday, Dec. 5, that former Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey has moved to San Diego — but even more specific, Times reports, “he confirmed this week he now lives in Point Loma.”

That could mean that Bailey is now planning to campaign for the D2 seat, now occupied by termed-out Jen Campbell.

The title of he Times piece expressed this thought: “Coronado’s former mayor moved to San Diego. He’s acting a lot like someone running for something.”

Ever since Bailey recently showed up on San Diego’s political scene, he has appeared to be a politician looking for an office. He has been shooting out mailers that look a lot like campaign literature, he was very visible during the brief anti-Senate Bill 79 campaign here in town, he’s been busy publishing websites and policy positions concerning San Diego issues, like trash fees and infrastructure.

And now, Bailey has immersed himself into a group that recently formed that seems to be his stalking horse for a council seat, called San Diego United Communities. They probably would deny that, but he was a featured speaker at their formation meeting and is very prominently displayed on the group’s website.

Bailey says he’s no longer a Republican and has told people he’s an independent now. Even though races for council seats are supposed to be non-partisan, party endorsements play a big part in this town.

By San Diego Business Journal / Nov. 2025

A former Point Loma hotel that closed in 2019 and has been vacant ever since is being redeveloped into apartments in a $23 million project by Ambient Communities and C2 Building Group.

“It struggled as a hotel in Point Loma because there are thousands of hotel rooms in Point Loma right along the water,” according to Robert Horner of Ambient Communities.

Built in 1971, the 110-room Consulate Hotel at 2901 Nimitz Blvd. is about two blocks from the waterfront and couldn’t compete, Horner said.

Ambient communities bought the hotel in February and renamed it Celeste.

Since it closed, the hotel had been used as a training ground for police to practice breaking down doors and a crash pad for vagrants, according to Horner.

By Paul Krueger

At this morning’s Planning Commission meeting, Thursday, Nov. 20, I demanded that Vice-Chair Matthew Boomhower apologize to the public — and his fellow commissioners — for his attempt to silence a speaker at the Commission’s November 9th meeting.

I read aloud Boomhower’s comment that the speaker shouldn’t be allowed to continue speaking because he supposedly made what could be considered some sort of “legal threat” against a project being developed by his colleague, Commission Chair Kelly Moden.

I also read aloud from the accepted summary of what sort of speech is prohibited when members of the public address a public body, and pointed out that nothing the speaker Boomhower tried to silence could, by any interpretation, be construed as prohibited speech.

See this interaction in this video of my comments (about 3 minutes in)..

By Frank Gormlie

It so happens that despite everything else, San Diego’s coastal 30-foot height limit has been thrust back into the the public’s consciousness and into the minds of Mayor Gloria and the nine city councilmembers who all sit in City Hall.

Just this October, California’s 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that the City of San Diego violated California’s Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, when it put Measure C — the initiative that aimed to eliminate the height limit in the Midway District — before voters on the 2022 ballot because the city did not sufficiently study the environmental impacts of taller buildings. The three-judge panel decision ruled in favor of plaintiff Save Our Access, and directed the trial court to issue a writ of mandate to invalidate the ordinance and restore the 30-foot height limit in the Midway District.

While some environmental activists were popping champagne bottles in celebration of the ruling, local developers, city council members and Mayor Gloria were wringing their hands because they immediately knew this court decision could have devastating implications for the massive redevelopment project called Midway Rising and its plans for 86-foot tall buildings in the Midway District. Ultimately, these folks did more than wring their hands — they made plans.

One month after the city lost this court appeal case, City Council members voted 6 to 2 in closed session to authorize a petition for review of the case to the Supreme Court of California. (Councilmembers Vivian Moreno and Raul Campillo were the ‘no’ votes, while Henry Foster was absent.) These city leaders want the state’s highest court to keep intact the ballot measure — which passed by only 51% — and allow the Midway Rising project to continue its redevelopment of the 1,324-acre Midway District.

It’s in this context then, that we must revisit the origins of the 30 foot height limit — and the 50 plus year fight to preserve it.

Afterall, the 30-foot height limit has been blamed for everything from the housing crisis to the lack of affordability at the coast, to the homeless situation. A lot of myths surround the measure and law, and some treat it as just a passing fancy of the seventies or as just another political initiative to be tossed aside by the changing winds.

They ignore — out of ignorance — that it was a citizen-driven measure and scores of volunteers — repeat, volunteers — gathered signatures for months and months, and in the end, collected 36,000 to place it on the 1972 ballot as Measure D. And it then passed overwhelmingly and decisively with 64% of the vote — it was a landslide. Nearly two-thirds of city voters voted “yes”. And it wasn’t just the coastal communities that voted for it – it was across the board – many neighborhoods went for it with the attitude, ‘they’re our beaches, too’. Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach voted for it by 80%.

The winning vote was immediately contested by the building industry.

On Tuesday this week, the Rag reported on yet another pedestrian death in the Midway District.

An unidentified male pedestrian was killed late Friday night, Nov. 14, when he ran across a street in the Midway District and was struck by a SUV. …The man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Yes, the unfortunate pedestrian had run across the street against his light just before he was struck. He dearly paid for his mistake.

When we reported on the story, I cynically added:

So many pedestrians have been injured or killed in the Midway District over the last few years, there ought to be a chapter in the Book of Dead just on the Midway.

After publishing this, I got to thinking, that ‘yes, it does seem like there’s been a rash of pedestrian deaths and injuries from cars in the Midway of late.’ So I set out to investigate and rifled through OB Rag files and postings. The tragic following is what I found: