Category: Culture

By Thom Hartmann / The Hartmann Report / Oct. 21, 2026

Trump is empowering Putin, abandoning Ukraine, and preparing to bargain with dictators over the future of the world. The Republicans who could stop him are doing nothing…
What the hell is going on in the Republican Party?

See original for all the links

Trump gutted his own Russia sanctions law, cut a diesel deal with Putin, and is now talking about carving up the world with Putin and Xi. Congress has the power to stop him right now: why are Thune and Johnson still on vacation?

Yesterday Donald Trump told reporters he’s ready to sit down with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Shenzhen next month — apparently, a modern-day Yalta conference to carve up the world — and that Ukraine’s president may not be invited to the meeting that will decide Ukraine’s fate.

That came just three days after he spit on the grave of Lindsey Graham by signing an executive order waiving every operative section of the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act that both houses of Congress had passed on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis.

Gone are the 500 percent tariffs on Russian goods, the secondary sanctions on Putin’s oil customers, and the requirement that the sanctions stay in place until Russia made peace on terms Ukraine accepted. All destroyed on a Friday night while Congress was out of town. And now he’s publicly, shamelessly defending it and essentially daring Republicans in Congress to do anything about it.

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

The son of a San Diego City Councilmember — who earns $181,545 a year plus benefits — was hired two years ago as a summer intern at City Hall as part of a state-financed program designed to target disadvantaged youth.

Henry Foster IV, the son of Councilmember Henry Foster III, was chosen to work in the same department — Purchasing and Contracting — where his father had served as Equal Opportunity Contracting Program manager a decade ago. The councilmember took office in April of 2024.

Revelations about the summer internship award come as Councilmember Foster is running for reelection to his District 4 seat in what is expected to be a tight race.

While the summer job raises ethical questions of nepotism, the team managing Foster’s campaign points out that the council member’s son never interned in the District 4 office. Instead he worked for a mayoral department.

The internship program, known as Employ and Empower, was launched in 2020 by Mayor Todd Gloria’s office, and it was financed with the help of $18.5 million in state funding from the California Volunteers program. The city’s website for the program states that priority will be given to applicants who “come from communities of concern who are low-income, unemployed, justice-involved, in foster care, currently or previously unhoused, military-affiliated, or have experienced substance abuse or mental health issues.”

From La Prensa San Diego / Oct. 22, 2026

The Pentagon has authorized the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to test a military-grade weapon known as a “heat ray” for potential use along the U.S.-Mexico border, prompting concerns from border-community advocates about the expansion of military technology in immigration enforcement.

The weapon, officially known as the Active Denial System and deployed atop an eight-wheels armored vehicle, emits an invisible beam of electromagnetic energy that heats the surface of the skin, causing an intense burning sensation intended to make people move away from the beam.

CNN reported Oct. 21 that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a seven-month loan of the system to DHS for testing and the development of tactics for possible border operations. The authorization does not mean the weapon has been approved for operational deployment.

The Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC), a network of organizations advocating for border communities, condemned the decision, calling it another step toward increased militarization of the region.

According to the U.S. military, the beam can reach more than half a mile. Officials have described the resulting sensation as intense but temporary, although advocates have raised concerns about potential injuries and other health effects.

From Voice of San Diego / Oct. 23, 2026

Ever since we broke the news that a huge data center might be built in downtown San Diego, local Democrats have been insisting its time to pump the breaks.

Thursday morning, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria posted a photo of himself signing an executive order that temporarily bans data centers on X.

“San Diego is putting clear rules in place before we allow data centers in our city,” he wrote.

San Diego Councilmembers Sean Elo-Rivera, Joe LaCava and Kent Lee gathered outside City Hall later that day announcing the proposal of a new city law that would place requirements on data centers built under their jurisdiction.

By Alysse Dodge / Fox5 – Yahoo News / October 22, 2026 

El Niño’s impacts are already being felt across the nation, including elevated sea levels and coastal flooding.

For example, Tropical Storm Rachel caused surf to overtop and breach the bulkhead protecting the Long Beach Peninsula on the weekend of October 11-12, collapsing part of one of the state’s oldest boardwalks and leaving eight buildings red-tagged as unsafe. The same storm severely flooded 15-20 blocks of Newport Beach’s Balboa Peninsula, prompting a local emergency declaration.

The East Coast is also being affected by the 2026-2027 El Niño, which the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration says has an 83% chance of being the strongest ever on record. New Jersey and New England coastal communities were flooded by a powerful nor’easter at the end of September.

After storms like these, the response is typically the same — rocks, sandbags and concrete are put on the beach under emergency permits. However, in most states, nothing ensures they ever come off.

The Surfrider Foundation released its annual State of the Beach report on Monday, which focuses on the negative impacts of emergency shoreline armoring.

Once a hard structure is in place, the beach is pinned in place, upland sand replenishment is cut off and erosion accelerates on neighboring properties, which creates a need for more armoring. In some states, temporary structures become permanent without any new permit.

Judge: Feds Using “Flawed” Data; Likely Violating Voting Rights Act

By Jude Joffe-Block / npr / October 22, 2026

A federal judge in California is putting limits on pre-election field operations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security that the agency says is aimed at trying to find noncitizens who have illegally voted in nine states.

In recent weeks, armed Homeland Security Investigations officers have carried out field operations and visited homes to interview people suspected of illegally voting as noncitizens. The targets can include people who became citizens but voted before they naturalized.

In a 19-page order late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that the federal government was using “flawed” data in the initiative and that its efforts likely violated the Voting Rights Act, which bars voter intimidation.

Martínez-Olguín referenced a disclosure last month from a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services whistleblower that alleged rushed efforts to match data to create a target list of potential noncitizens on voter rolls, and that the list includes U.S. citizens. She also pointed to HSI’s social media posts, including one that showed agents handcuffing a California man accused of unlawfully registering to vote.

The judge wrote that the government’s use of unreliable and incomplete data along with highly publicized arrests “lead to an objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote.”

HSI field operations were planned in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, according to documents produced in the case and CNN reporting.

It appears that the City of San Diego is getting ready to turn off the automated license plate readers. At a Wednesday, Oct. 21, council budget committee meeting, enough members voted for a proposal to rescind city approval of the use of the controversial technology and end the city’s contract to use ALPR cameras provided by Flock.

Councilmember Kent Lee was joined by Councilmembers Henry Foster III, Sean Elo-Rivera and Vivian Moreno in voting to stop using the readers, reported UT writer Teri Figueroa. Take these four plus Councilmember Stephen Whitburn — who very recently announced that he is withdrawing support for using ALPRs – and you have enough votes for the city to stop using the cameras.

The issue will have to come, of course, before the full council and Figueroa says that any vote could happen before the end of the year. With public opinion heightened on the issue, it’s very likely this being an election year that will happen. Yet, any vote would have to be sufficient to override a possible veto by Mayor Gloria; that’s a 6-3 tally.

Gloria continues to support the cameras.

Recent closures and management changes highlight challenges facing local musicians and student communities

by Ashley Bueno Leon / The Daily Aztec -SDSU / October 20, 2026

Independent music venues across San Diego face uncertain futures as leasing issues, ownership changes and closures reshape spaces that act as community hubs for local musicians and showgoers.

In August and September alone, three independent music venues underwent major changes to their operations. The venues face ambiguous circumstances that have raised questions about the long-term stability of mid-size and smaller musical spaces as a whole.

Closures and lease changes
Brick by Brick, a heavy metal venue in the Bay Park neighborhood, closed its doors Aug. 13. Although the owners did not respond to repeated requests for additional comment from The Daily Aztec, the closure followed a lease dispute, according to a report by ABC 10 News.

The Bancroft Bar, a dive bar and live music venue located in Spring Valley, finalized its run in August. Its website, which once highlighted upcoming shows, now emphasizes the venue as the past home for live music and cold drinks, displaying a list of past shows from 2013 to 2026.

In Ocean Beach, Winstons Beach Club, though not completely out of the live music scene, held its final show under the Winstons name on Sept. 26 before reopening under new management, according to the venue’s Instagram.

by Ernie McCray

It seems to me
that the most bothersome aspect
regarding Donald J
talking out of his asshole
about Iran
taking out Los Angeles
and San Diego,
should be the cheers of support that rose
from his followers.

I mean there wasn’t a single boo
that escaped the lips
of the MAGA folks
this traitorous felon
was talking to
and that leaves one to wonder
how anybody,
with an ounce of love in their soul,
never mind their politics
or points-of-views
or personal situations,
can be okay

Billionaire Stan Kroenke Is Starting with a 7-Story 223-Unit Project at Former Perry’s Cafe

By Dorian Hargrove and Andrew Keatts / Times of San Diego / Oct. 16, 2026

Billionaire Stan Kroenke, the nation’s largest landowner and professional sports team mogul, is looking to transform the Midway District.

And he’s not stopping at Midway Rising, the megaproject to redevelop the city-owned Pechanga Arena property that is on its way to a City Council vote.

His development team is nearing completion just under a mile away, across from the Old Town Transit Center, on a seven-story, 223-unit housing project.

That tower is at the site of the former Perry’s Cafe, a once-popular greasy spoon diner on the edge of Old Town. It is now the first piece of the puzzle for Kroenke’s Midway vision.

Alex Gibney’s documentary “Musk” shows a man who has delivered important innovations for the public good, and who now holds a dangerous concentration of power over our data, our democracy and our idea of what it means to be human.

By Rev. Michael J. Christensen

My tech friend Michael Dotson and I watched Alex Gibney’s new documentary “Musk” at Fashion Valley last weekend, so you won’t have to. It runs nearly four hours. It is meticulously researched and theologically provocative. Musk did not cooperate, though his father and other family members did, so Gibney uses an AI-generated avatar to speak Musk’s own recorded words. The effect is eerie, dare I say, demonic, and fitting for a film about a man who wants to remake humanity through technology.

The film credits what Musk has built, with help from administrations of both parties. SpaceX’s reusable rockets slashed the cost of reaching orbit and now carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Tesla pushed the auto industry toward electric vehicles. Starlink connects rural communities and disaster zones, and it has been a lifeline for Ukraine since 2022.

But the film also catalogs promises that never arrived: a crewed Mars mission by 2024, a million robotaxis by 2020, and fully self-driving cars that are still “next year.” And it shows a growing pattern of social and political control.

From Point Loma Association Newsletter