OB Rag

The National Guard is typically brought into American cities during emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances or to provide support during public health crises — when local authorities require additional resources or manpower. There was no indication that was needed or wanted in Los Angeles this weekend, where local law enforcement had kept protests over federal immigration raids, for the most part, under control.

Guard members also almost always arrive at the request of state leaders, but in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment of troops “purposefully inflammatory” and likely to escalate tensions. It had been more than 60 years since a president sent in the National Guard on his own volition.

Which made President Trump’s order on Saturday to do so both ahistoric and based on false pretenses and is already creating the very chaos it was purportedly designed to prevent.

Mr. Trump invoked a rarely used provision of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows for the federal deployment of the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.” No such rebellion is underway. As the governor’s spokesman and others have noted, Americans in cities routinely cause more property damage after their sports teams win or lose.

By Thom Hartman / AlterNet / June 10, 2025

Trump: Well, we’re going to have troops everywhere.

Reporter: What’s the bar for sending in the Marines?
Trump: The bar is what I think it is.

The 2026 and 2028 elections may have just gotten a lot more distant. First, the backstory.

It was around 2 a.m. on July 15, 2020, when Mark Pettibone, then 29, was walking home from a relatively calm Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Portland, Oregon. He hadn’t done anything more provocative than wearing a black shirt: no slogans, no mask, no glimmers of violence. Yet an unmarked minivan pulled up alongside him. Out jumped several armed men in camouflage, with no insignia, to slip a bag over his head and kidnap him.

“I was terrified,” Pettibone told reporters, his voice trembling with the memory. “It was like being preyed upon.”

He was shoved into the van, blindfolded, driven to the federal courthouse, interrogated, and held — with no Miranda rights, no paperwork, no explanation — for nearly 90 minutes before being released without charge or citation.

No uniforms, no accountability, no transparency, yet a citizen was stripped of his rights and dignity in a blurry high-stakes operation. And around the same time in Washington, DC, Donald Trump was trying to talk Gen. Mark Milley into having the National Guard shoot at protesters in that city.

This was not some fringe vigilante action. It was federal agents wielding brute force under cover of Trump’s executive order, agents whose silence spoke louder than any badge. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon called it an unconstitutional kidnapping. Legal scholars said probable cause was nowhere to be found.

Yet Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General under Joe Biden, decided it wasn’t worth investigating or prosecuting. Let’s just move on. And so here we are.

As Trump levels attacks on Los Angeles — sending in federal forces to “restore order” amid unrest provoked by ICE’s illegal tactics —

By Kevin Hastings

Every day, I drive past a half-finished structure that is covered in tar paper and crumbling away behind weeds and chain-link fencing. It stands at the corner of West Point Loma and Sunset Cliffs Blvd. as a monument to the utter dysfunction of San Diego’s Development Services Department (DSD).

In 2021, the owner of the former Valvoline station applied for a permit to “remodel” the building into a modern drive-thru oil change facility.

Plans included the excavation of a basement-level service pit under the entire building and the addition of garage doors for vehicles to exit onto Lotus Street.

In DSD terminology, a “remodel” project reuses at least 50% of the exterior wall’s structure. While the building is, for all practical purposes, a completely new structure, the “remodel” status allows the applicant to use certain design elements, or “previously conforming conditions,” that are no longer allowed under new building code.

Remodel projects also can qualify for a “ministerial permit,” a simpler and cheaper permitting process. Removing more than 50% of the exterior wall structure triggers what is called a “discretionary permit.” This treats a project as a new construction that must follow all the new and more restrictive codes, including parking, setbacks, and building envelope.

And here in Ocean Beach, discretionary permits also require an expensive Coastal Development Permit,

The 1.7-acre landmark overlooking the San Diego Bay was built for fast-food mogul Robert O. Petersen

Introduction by Geoff Page

There is a very unique home in upper Point Loma that was designed for the founder of Jack in the Box, Robert O. Peterson, by architect Russell Forester. During some research on Peterson, a story popped up about that home in Mansion Global, a digital site for all things mansions. The home is on the market valued at $16.9 million.

For those not necessarily familiar with Peterson, his other claim to fame was his fourth marriage to Maureen O’Connor, who went on to become the first female mayor of San Diego from 1985 to 1992. Peterson was 61 years old, O’Connor was 26 when they married.

It was a bit ironic when Peterson’s partner, Richard Silberman, was almost married to a woman mayor, the political rival of O’Connor, Susan Golding. He was married to Golding, but, Golding dumped him right before the mayoral election when Silberman went from being an asset to being a huge liability. The money-laundering conviction was the problem.

By Greg Moran / inewsource / June 5, 2025

They were four hours in at a San Diego City Council budget review meeting when the discussion got around to the mystery worker of the Environmental Services department.

“In regards to Clean SD,” Councilmember Henry Foster III began, a note of exasperation in his voice. He was referring to the program within the department that cleans sidewalks, picks up piles of trash that were illegally dumped, cleans up homeless encampments and scrapes up road kill.

“It looks like we are looking at adding a program manager, and I am just curious as to — this program seems to have been around for quite some time,” he continued. “I believe it was started under the Faulconer administration.”

“Why are we now, so many years in, today being presented — having to add an additional management position in regards to this program?”

By David Garrick / SD Union-Tribune / June 10, 2025

A sharply divided San Diego City Council voted 6-3 Monday to impose the city’s first fee for trash collection at single-family homes, despite complaints the $43.60 monthly charge is much higher than earlier estimates.

The vote came shortly after City Clerk Diana Fuentes determined that a protest against the new fee had failed to get enough support. Residents turned in just over 46,000 protest cards — well short of the 113,000 necessary.

Supporters said the fee will help San Diego close a large budget deficit, lengthen the life of the Miramar landfill by boosting recycling rates and eliminate an unfair situation for people living in condos and apartments.

By Danna Givot / June 9, 2025

San Diego’s Bonus ADU program is not producing truly affordable accessory dwelling units. Even worse, it is making single-family homes more expensive.

Let’s start with the single-family homes that developers are buying up for their high-density Bonus ADU projects. They prey on starter homes, especially smaller homes on larger lots where they can build the most ADUs for the lowest investment. The developers are willing to spend more than a first-time home buyer can afford because they are valuing the property based on its investment potential, which is the maximum rent they’ll charge for those studios and one-bedroom units.

These developers – often backed by out-of-town investors – offer cash up front for the property, while most home buyers need a mortgage, which requires time-consuming inspections, appraisals, and lots more paperwork for the seller.

Almost invariably, the developers secure the property, and the market reflects these new, higher prices for future buyers.

By Joni Halpern

“Go ahead and take my place in line,” said the old man in front of me as we stood recently in a long queue of people waiting to enter a local Social Security Administration (SSA) Office.  “I’ve been here since 7 o’clock this morning,” he told me.  “I can’t take it anymore.”

He had just climbed out of the ground cover into which he had fallen after one of his bandaged legs had finally given way.  He had been waiting in line to schedule an appointment so he could return at some later date to resolve a Social Security problem of which he had been notified by mail some weeks earlier.

Americans who need help from SSA staff members cannot enter an SSA office without an appointment.  The trick is to schedule the appointment.  In the long line of people I met that day at the SSA office, every single one had tried to get an appointment by calling the highly publicized phone number listed on the SSA website and on every other communication issued by SSA.  Most had also tried to get an appointment by going online.  When that failed, their last resort was to go in person to an SSA office to wait in line to schedule an appointment.

Here’s two brief reports on Bernie Sanders’ reaction to Trump deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

By Sudiksha Kochi / USA TODAY / June 8, 2025

Progressive firebrand Sen. Bernie Sanders said he believes President Donald Trump is “moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism” after Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to help quell immigration protests in Los Angeles.

“This guy wants all of the power. He does not believe in the Constitution. He does not believe in the rule of law. My understanding is that the governor of California, the mayor of the city of Los Angeles did not request the National Guard, but he thinks he has a right to do anything he wants,” Sanders, a Vermont independent, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

The protests come as the Trump administration has taken stronger actions to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. Demonstrators allege the administration’s immigration enforcement has violated civil and human rights.

By Marty Graham / Times of San Diego / June 8, 2025

San Diego is broke and its leaders have convinced voters that people who live in less dense housing should pay more into city coffers.

Elected leaders’ efforts targeting people who live in single-family homes and fewer than four-unit condo or apartment buildings will come to a head on Monday when the City Council may approve fees of nearly $600 a year for some residents — fees that will rise rapidly to nearly $800 over the next three years.

To sell those fees, the city hired Bay Area consultants known for setting the highest trash collection rates in California (including Long Beach, Oakland and San Jose) and spent no less than $4.5 million to hold the least scientific survey ever — aimed at raising the cost of service from the $73 million in the city’s request for proposal to the $155 million the consultants arrived at. And despite requests, city officials so far won’t release the consultants’ underlying data.

By Paul Krueger / June 8, 2025

A Hells Angel convicted of brutally stabbing a black man two years ago on Newport Avenue will serve 14 years-to-life in state prison for that crime, plus seven more years for related felonies.

Prosecutors said Troy Scholder has a history of violence marked by racial hatred, and was an “proud, continuous and unrepentant” member of the violent motorcycle gang.

A jury convicted Scholder of multiple felonies for his role in the June 6, 2023 attack on three black men. Prosecutor Miriam Hemming said the attack was prompted by a complaint by one of the gang member’s girlfriends that one of the victims made inappropriate comments to her outside a Newport Avenue bar.