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The Ocean Beach Town Council (OBTC) Board of Directors is now accepting Candidate Statements for the 2021 board election.

If you would like to take your community involvement to the next level, here’s a great opportunity to do so.

As a volunteer OBTC Director you would help to plan and organize the many local OB events produced by the Town Council. You will also serve as an elected voice communicating the views and needs of the community to the appropriate agencies, be at the forefront of community discussions, take appropriate action on community issues and be a leader in promoting the general betterment of Ocean Beach.

There are 15 seats on the Board of Directors. OBTC members elect Board Members for two-year terms. Half of the Board stands for election every year. This year, eight seats are up for election.

By Colleen O’Connor

Helen Keller could have been describing today’s Republican party, when she remarked (over half a century ago); “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”

An apt portrait of today’s GOP that finds itself in disarray, disbelief, and even disgust as a minority party, lacking any vision (except blind loyalty to Trump) while now desperately trying to divorce themselves from his malignant legacy.

The Democrats won the trifecta; White House, the House and Senate.

Nowhere to hide after the Trump-inspired insurrectionist mob stormed the Capital, waving their Trump flags and promising eternal fealty to overthrowing the certified 2020 election results.

Then came the swift move for a second impeachment of the now “most unpopular President in U.S. History). Speaker Pelosi marshaled the House votes and signed the verdict to impeach Trump “willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States” –

5 Things to Know About Alex Padilla

By Ben Christopher / CalMatters / Updated Jan. 18, 2021

After Joe Biden picked Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate in August, the parlor game of choice for California’s most politically plugged-in was: Who will Gov. Gavin Newsom pick to fill her vacant Senate seat?

Alex Padilla — California’s secretary of state, a Democrat from Pacoima, loyal Newsom ally and a Latino in a state that has never had a member of that largest ethnic group serve as senator — was a top pick among the predictions of insiders. The governor announced his choice in late December and made the appointment official today.

By Eugene Robinson / Washington Post / Jan. 19, 2021

On Wednesday, the nation will have a president who would never summon thousands of his followers to Washington, whip them into a frenzy with lies and then aim them at the Capitol.

We will have a president who sees the unimaginable and unacceptable national tragedy in every one of the nearly 400,000 Americans who have died from covid-19, rather than lamenting the calamity only as an unfair stain on his precious “brand.”

And we will have a president who, I am confident, won’t seriously inquire about buying Greenland.

The moment Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris are sworn in as president and vice president the world becomes a better and brighter place.

Editordude: The following column by Thomas Ultican was written before the announcement that President-Elect Biden had chosen Cindy Marten for his education team.

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican / Jan. 16, 2021

Joe Biden has garnered wide spread praise for his choice of Miguel Cardona as Secretary of Education; maybe too wide. The co-founder of Bellwether Education, Andrew Rotherham says Cardona is “a Goldilocks on charter schools.” However, Goldilocks was a fairy tale and Rotherham is a well known neoliberal who campaigns for “school choice.”

At the Democratic convention in 2008, the largest groups of delegates cheering the loudest for their new standard bearers were teachers.

By Colleen O’Connor

An American dies from COVID-19 every 33 seconds.

Repeat. Every 33 seconds an American dies from the COVID-19 virus.

With that in mind, I write this blunt message to you as President Biden’s Chief of Staff-to-be.

There is no time for festivities. No time for press conferences. No time for photographs. Repetitious speeches or platitudes.

This is war; albeit against an invisible enemy. As Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese general, military strategist, and philosopher wrote: “Every battle is won or lost before it is even fought.” Plan, prepare, execute.

And most importantly, “Quickness is the essence of war.”

In order of priorities:

By Emily Sinsky and Zachary Searight / Times of San Diego / January 17, 2021

If Rep. Darrell Issa is going to uphold his oath to serve the people of the 50th District, he must stop abetting the destruction of our democracy.

An elected representative cannot condemn the violence of groups such as the insurrectionists at the Capitol or Defend East County and at the same time cast a vote in support of their effort to overturn the election results. By voting against the election results certification, Issa essentially attempted to finish the job started by those who stormed the Capitol just hours after he and other Congress members were forced into protective custody before they were able to cast their votes.

by: Associated Press / Jan 17, 2021

Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.

A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.

Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.

The day before Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, he gave his final speech, known as ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ speech. Here’s the full text.

By The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., MEMPHIS, Tenn.,/ April 3, 1968

Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt

Here’s a Channel 8 news report about Ocean Beach in 1978 by reporter Cathy Clark – inside.

It’s a great journey down memory lane for some – those of us who lived in OB that year.

But also, it’s a reminder of the problems OB has had over the decades. Check out the complaints by residents, businesses and visitors – do they sound similar?

Hosted by Steve Chiotakis / KCRW / Jan. 14, 2021

The death of military veteran Ashli Babbitt at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 is shining a light on far-right extremism in San Diego County. Family and friends say the Ocean Beach resident was fervent in her beliefs on social media, amplifying QAnon conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant sentiment.

“Our region’s history of reactionary fascism goes back several decades,” says Joel Day, a research fellow at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy who specializes in combating violent extremism and homeland security.

From 13CBS-Sacramento
Gov. Gavin Newsom has deployed the California National Guard in Sacramento to protect the State Capitol ahead of the presidential inauguration. In the week since the attacks on the U.S. Capitol, the FBI has warned capital cities around the nation of potentially armed protests as inauguration day nears.

On Thursday, Newsom announced a series of actions the state is taking to “bolster security.” The governor said California’s State Operations Center is working with federal, state and law enforcement to assess threats and share intelligence “to ensure those disgraceful actions are not repeated here.”