Category: Election

By David Helvarg

The U.S. Coast Guard is the only Armed Service not located within the Department of Defense.

That’s why the incoming Trump administration was able to have its acting head of DHS fire Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan on Trump’s second day in office. It was an effective shot across the bow for bringing the Pentagon brass to heel given that even a President can’t fire the heads of the other Armed Services, only have his new Secretary of Defense, former Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth reassign or court-martial them.

Expect a number of reassignments and likely court-martials of Pentagon leadership under Hegseth. He’s already promised to get rid of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown plus, “any General, Admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.”

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

In the Trenches–

The term “fog of war” is an apt description of what’s going on now in Washington.

Confusion, fear and paranoia stalk the halls of the federal bureaucracy, often maligned and rarely appreciated these days.  So says a long time source whom I’ll name “S” who holds a senior leadership position with a large federal agency.

“It’s important that Americans know what is going on” says “S” and says he/she is not motivated by belonging to any political party; the skin in the game for “S” is having served this country for more than 25 years of federal and military service. “S” worked in San Diego in the past but has been in D.C. now for over ten years.

Noon this Friday, January 31st, is the deadline to register to vote online for your local representatives to the California Democratic Party.

If you’re in California Assembly Districts 77, 78, 79 or 80, you’re in Region 22, which covers all of San Diego County. Here is the link 

For those who are still appalled by the shellacking last November at the national level, or concerned about cronyism at the local level, this is an opportunity to weigh in on who gets to decide which Democratic candidates you get to vote for.

From LA Times

By Kevin Rector / LA Times / Jan. 21, 2025

California, a coalition of other states and the city of San Francisco sued the federal government Tuesday over President Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship via executive order — calling it an unconstitutional directive that flies in the face of long-standing legal precedent.

“I have one message for President Trump: I’ll see you in court,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said during a morning news conference — calling the order “unconstitutional and quite frankly un-American.”

The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts to block Trump’s order from taking effect — which it is meant to do in less than 30 days — and to “ensure that the rights of American-born children impacted by this order remain in effect while litigation proceeds,” Bonta said. “The president has overstepped his authority by a mile with this order, and we will hold him accountable.”

What we are witnessing is not simply right-wing ascendancy in national politics but a long-term decline and corporate consolidation of American journalism.

By David Helvarg / Common Dreams / Jan 13, 2025

Two billionaire publishers, the Washington Post’s Jeff Bezos and the LA Times Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked their editorial page editors from endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election (a Washington Post editorial cartoonist than quit when her cartoon depicting Jeff Bezos, Son-Shiong and other billionaires abasing themselves in front of Trump was killed). If you believe the Washington Post’s slogan that ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness,’ their owner was the first to switch off the light.

Soon-Shiong also blocked an editorial asking the Senate to perform its constitutional duty to provide advice and consent on Trump’s cabinet picks. Next ABC News (owned by Disney) agreed to pay $15 million in a settlement of a Trump defamation lawsuit

Edited from ACLU Press Statement

In response to the inauguration of President Trump and his administration’s initial executive orders, ACLU leaders convened in Sacramento at the California State Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 21, to urge state policymakers to lead the national fight against the Trump administration’s extreme agenda.  [ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union founded in 1920. There are branches in every state.]

At a press conference with ACLU supporters and activists rallying before the State Capitol, the national ACLU’s Chief Political and Advocacy Officer Deirdre Schifeling said:

 “We are here to defeat, delay and dilute Trump’s extreme agenda at every level, including the state and local level, and …as the fifth largest economy in the world, California has the opportunity to lead the frontlines of the movement. California’s leaders must act now and fight Trump’s extreme agenda.”

Here are 2 very poignant rants by Rag readers.

Long Past Time to Take Our Neighborhoods Back

By Missing Old San Diego

It is long past time to take our neighborhoods back. Our zoning laws are being violated daily and too many of our green spaces are now cheap, ugly concrete high rises.

Seeing this story gives me some hope! [Revolt in Encanto]

The density that is being creating is insane. It is very clear San Diego City government is no longer representing taxpayers or the communities we live in.

We’ve lived in North Park for 15 years, ugly, cheap apartments are flying up all around us.

By Alanna Durkin Richer and Michael Kunzelman / PBS / Jan. 21, 2025

President Donald Trump on Monday said he was pardoning about 1,500 of his supporters who have been charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, using his sweeping clemency powers on his first day back in office to dismantle the largest investigation and prosecution in Justice Department history.

The pardons were expected after Trump’s yearslong campaign to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 attack that left more than 100 police officers injured and threatened the peaceful transfer of power. Yet the scope of the clemency still comes as a massive blow to the Justice Department’s effort to hold participants accountable over what has been described as one of the darkest days in American history.

Trump also commuted the prison sentences of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as plots to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

By Carrie Johnson / NPR / January 14, 2025

The Department of Justice’s long-awaited election interference report against Donald Trump, released early Tuesday, said the evidence against the president-elect would have led to his conviction at trial — if not for his election victory that led to charges being dropped.

Prosecutors wound down the two federal criminal cases against Trump after he won the 2024 election, following longstanding department precedent, and the final report by special counsel Jack Smith is their last chance to explain their decisions.

Smith, in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland prefacing the report, defended his work and his team, as well as his impartiality in pursuing the federal cases against Trump, whom prosecutors ended up charging with election interference in Washington, D.C., and with hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and refusing to return them to the FBI.

The report says the evidence would have led to Trump’s conviction at trial, “but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency.” Longstanding Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.

Who Will Labor and Business Choose? Candidates Include IB Mayor Paloma Aguirre, CV City Councilmember Carolina Chavez, CV Mayor John McCann and S D City Councilmember Vivian Moreno

By Michael Smolens / San Diego U-T / January 12, 2025

The race to replace Nora Vargas on the county Board of Supervisors is shaping up at warp speed.

But while some familiar dynamics are emerging, much remains unsettled.

For one thing, the remaining four supervisors have not yet called a special election to fill the vacancy in South Bay’s District 1, though that is expected soon. The board has the option to appoint a replacement but virtually no one thinks that will happen, given the even partisan split on the board.

Once again, the county faces an election where the partisan control of the board is at stake.

By Paul Krugman / Substack / Dec. 29, 2024

Like many observers, I expected severe buyers’ regret fairly early in the second Trump administration. After all, many Americans who voted for Trump did so because they believed he would bring down grocery prices. He was never going to be able to deliver on that promise and stopped talking about the subject as soon as the election was over; sooner or later, voters were going to notice.

I did not, however, expect a MAGA civil war weeks before Trump had even taken office. But in retrospect I should have seen it coming.

Background: Every political movement is a coalition made up of factions with different goals and priorities. Normally what holds these factions together is realism and a willingness to compromise: Each faction is willing to give the other factions part of what they want in return for part of what it wants.