OB Rag

Pentagon’s 18 spy plane missions near US-Mexico border spark surveillance concerns

MND Staff / Mexico News Daily / February 12, 2025

“We can’t rule out [espionage] because we don’t know what they did.”

With those words, Mexico’s Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla Trejo responded to a reporter’s question about whether United States military aircraft had engaged in “espionage” missions near and south of the U.S.-Mexico border to surveil and collect intelligence on Mexican drug cartels.

“They didn’t violate national air space,” added the top military brass at President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Tuesday morning press conference.

The questioning of the defense minister came a day after CNN reported that the U.S. military “significantly increased its surveillance of Mexican drug cartels over the past two weeks, with sophisticated spy planes flying at least 18 missions over the southwestern U.S. and in international airspace around the Baja peninsula.”

The OB Rag needs help — no, not money donations — but writers and reporters.

OB – Point Loma Restaurant Reviewer

With the retirement of our mainstay restaurant reviewer, Judi Curry, we are without one. It’s a very popular gig and chore to check out the eateries in Ocean Beach and Point Loma and express your opinions and experiences. If you have any culinary experience, writing experience, live in either OB or PL and would like to be considered, please contact us at our gmail account — obragblog@gmail.com and indicate which position you’re applying for. We can afford $35 to $50 a review.

Local Reporter / Writer From the Peninsula

We’re also looking for a writer or reporter and more for local news in Ocean Beach or Point Loma. If you have any writing experience, live in either OB or PL and would like to be considered, please contact us at our gmail account — obragblog@gmail.com and indicate which position you’re applying for.

By Lisa Mortensen

There will be a Fire Safety Town Hall on Thursday, February 13, at 6:00 PM at the Balboa Park Club Ballroom (2150 Pan American Rd W, San Diego, CA 92101). Representatives from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department and Councilperson Stephen Whitburn will be in attendance to discuss fire safety related topics.

by Ernie McCray

I don’t see how anybody

who took time

to really watch

Kendrick Lamar do his thing

between halves

at the Super Bowl Game,

could call his performance

boring and trashy

as it was very entertaining

to me,

A military E/A-18 G Growler fighter jet crashed into the San Diego Bay off Shelter Island late Wednesday morning, February 12,2025, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

Southern California Grocery Workers Are Rising for Fair Wages and Better Working Conditions

By Todd Walters, President, UFCW Local 135

For too long, the hardworking union grocery workers of Southern California have been overworked, understaffed, and underpaid. These essential workers, who showed up day in and day out during the pandemic to keep our communities fed, now find themselves struggling to make ends meet. With inflation driving up the cost of living at an alarming rate, it’s time for major grocery corporations—Kroger/Ralphs, Albertsons/Vons, Stater Bros., and Gelson’s—to step up and provide the fair wages and benefits that these workers have earned.

Southern California UFCW Locals are gearing up for what will likely be the toughest round of negotiations in decades. Bargaining with Kroger/Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons kicks off on February 13, with Stater Bros. negotiations beginning on March 6.

UPDATE:

The two-person crew of an EA-18G Growler is in stable condition after their aircraft crashed during an attempted landing at Naval Air Station North Island, Navy officials told USNI News.

“At approximately 10:15 PDT, a U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 135 crashed while landing,” read a statement from Naval Air Forces.
“Two aircrew ejected into San Diego Bay and were quickly recovered before being transported to a local hospital for medical assessment. Both personnel are in stable condition. Naval Base Coronado has stood up an Emergency Operations Center in response to the mishap, and assessment of the crash site is ongoing.”

The aircraft had traveled from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and was in San Diego for an exercise. The Growler was not assigned to the air wing that is currently training with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group.

According to radio traffic at the time of the crash, the two-seat electronic attack aircraft was approaching NAS North Island. Shortly after leaving the runway, the crew of the aircraft ejected, and the plane crashed into the water. The two aviators were initially picked up by a sport fishing charter before they were transferred to a Customs and Border patrol vessel, according to radio traffic. According to ABC 10, the aviators were taken to UC San Diego Health.

Following the recovery of the crew, emergency crews were responding to the debris and fuel from the crash, according to radio traffic.

The following is the complete statement from Naval Air Forces.

Law professors have long debated what the term means. But now many have concluded that the nation faces a reckoning as President Trump tests the boundaries of executive power.

It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of President Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court.

By Adam Liptak / New York Times / Feb. 10, 2025

There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse.

It can also be obvious, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.

“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” he said on Friday. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”

Prepared by Kate Callen

Source: Citizens Budget Review Committee

The first of four 2025 Budget Review Town Hall forums explored a range of public concerns about San Diego city finances, from diversion of developer impact fees (DIFs) to inflated management payrolls to sparse infrastructure maintenance.

More than 50 people gathered for the February 8 forum in the Mission Hills-Hillcrest/Knox Library on Washington Street. Chief Operating Officer Eric Dargan and Randy Reyes, a Community Representative for Mayor Todd Gloria, were in the audience. Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, whose District 3 includes Mission Hills, did not attend.

Throughout the two-hour forum, which began with a slideshow from Independent Budget Analyst Charles Modica, several points of public consensus came through strong and clear, including:

When constituents challenge City Hall funding decisions, and they are told, “Well, that’s what the policy dictates,” they must exert pressure on their elected officials to change the policy.

by Ernie McCray

As I still reflect on the positive and hopeful vibe
that I basked in
at a Dr. Martin Luther King Day
celebration,
I find myself
thinking about
the night before the event
when I went to bed
feeling a little trepidation
because of the upcoming inauguration
of a man who stands against
any and every idea that ever played
in MLK’s warmhearted imagination,

Videos on social media are circulating showing Latinos rejecting or turning away from American products in response to mass deportations taking place around the country.

One video shows a family about to have dinner together when a young man emphatically tells his mother “how could you do that when Coca-Cola is turning its back on Mexicans.”

In response, the mom takes a large bottle of Coke and pours its contents down the drain.

This is part of an effort by a group called Freeze Latino Movement to boycott American companies while poking fun of the ongoing deportations launched by the Trump administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.