OB Rag

By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa San Diego / Feb.3, 2025

Democrats and labor unions, which are usually united in campaigns, are facing off against each other in a contentious special election to replace San Diego County Supervisor Nora Vargas, who resigned unexpectedly just weeks after winning a second term.

Three elected Democrats are among the seven candidates who qualified to run in the April 8th Special Election called by the four remaining County Supervisors.

Vargas, 52, who was elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ District 1 in November 2020, won her re-election in November 2024.

District 1 includes the South Bay areas of San Ysidro, Nestor, Otay Mesa, Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, National City, Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, and areas of San Diego to North Park.

But on December 20th, just two weeks before the date to assume her second term, Vargas announced she would not attend the January 6th meeting to be sworn in.

Within days of her announcement, several potential candidates emerged to run for a seat that has only been open for election without an incumbent once before in more than 50 years.

By Kate Williams / The Point PLNU /  Feb 5, 2025

California’s State Assembly Bill 413, a measure that prohibits cars from stopping, standing or parking within 20 feet of both red and unmarked intersections, went into effect Jan 1.

The Daylighting Parking Law’s goal is to give drivers and pedestrians more visibility around crosswalks.

Alex Irving, a second-year communications major at PLNU, commutes to Marine Physical Training in Mission Bay twice a week. She experienced difficulty turning when cars were parked right along the intersection, blocking the view.

By Josh Meyer / USA TODAY / Tue, February 4, 2025

Democratic lawmakers and government watchdog groups are pledging to fight back against Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government’s payment system, which they say may be the biggest privacy and security breach in American history.

“If we were watching this happen in Venezuela or Malawi and we saw a billionaire seize the money supply and the checkbook of the government, we would call it a coup,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative economic policy group and a former Senate senior economic policy advisor.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, is an unpaid advisor to President Donald Trump. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has been tasked with finding ways to cut spending and regulations.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, said that Musk sent young DOGE computer programmers into the Treasury Department’s headquarters, where they allegedly strong-armed civil service workers to gain full access to the system that cuts checks for all congressionally authorized government payments.

Reports emerged over the weekend that Musk’s DOGE operatives were at Treasury, going through the payment systems and that they had effectively ousted the top civil servant at the Treasury Department, David Lebryk, after he refused to grant access to Musk’s emissaries.

And they ultimately pressured Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “turn the keys over” to them, said Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

SanDiego7 – City News Service / Feb. 3, 2025

The San Diego City Council voted Monday [Feb. 3] to adopt an ordinance intended to prevent developers from converting homes deemed as affordable to market rate or luxury housing units.

The Affordable Housing Preservation Ordinance will expand state laws to preserve deed-restricted affordable housing for very-low, low- and moderate-rate housing by requiring owners to issue a notice when they intend to sell housing fitting those parameters — regardless of any expiration date on such affordability.

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.”

President Trump, faced with pushback from both Mexico and Canada, blinked — and folded on his threatened tariffs. At least temporarily. For 30 days.

At the 11th hour, both Mexico and Canada made small concessions and Trump shelved his 25% tariffs on the countries. The 10% tariff on China went into effect today, Feb. 4.

American businesses along the border breathed a sigh of relief — as they – and American consumers — were to be mostly affected by the immediate rise in prices.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum made a small concession and pledged to send 10,000 national guard members to its northern border. Mexico  has long stationed troops at the border so this was not a new thing.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin also made some slight concessions, one of which was to fortify its border with the U.S.

By Alexandra Mendoza, Roxana Popescu and Caleb Lunetta / The San Diego Union-Tribune / February 3, 2025

Several San Diego County business owners closed their doors for the day, kids stayed home from school and protesters rallied on street corners, including one group that briefly marched onto Interstate 5, as part of “A Day Without Immigrants” Monday.

Social media posts called for people to stay home from school and work and to refrain from shopping in solidarity with the movement that seeks to highlight the contributions of immigrant communities and push back against President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations. Cities across the country, from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C., to Chicago, participated Monday.

From CNN / Feb. 3, 2025

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened two dams on Friday [Jan. 31] in Central California and let roughly 2.2 billion gallons of water flow out of reservoirs, after President Donald Trump ordered the release with the misguided intent to send water to fire-ravaged Southern California.

Trump celebrated the move in posts to Truth Social post on Friday and Sunday, declaring, “the water is flowing in California,” and adding the water was “heading to farmers throughout the State, and to Los Angeles.”

There are two major problems, water experts said: The newly released water will not flow to Los Angeles, and it is being wasted by being released during the wet winter season.

As they say, “One person’s shack is another’s beautiful historic beach cottage.”

And yesterday, Monday, Feb.3,  a wonderful beach cottage was demolished in less than an hour at 4962 Saratoga Avenue.

A local neighbor was upset and contacted the District 2 City Council office and the planning department. They confirmed that no demolition permit was issued. Plus, there was no notification to neighbors on the impending development or demolition.

Hundreds of mostly young protesters swarmed downtown San Diego on Sunday, Feb. 2, protesting Trump’s immigration policies and raids by ICE. After converging on the Convention Center, the crowd set off on a huge loop through downtown, taking over streets with their march, many waving Mexican flags and signs of protest. I saw a few American flags and a good number of half-American, half-Mexican flags.

San Diego police accommodated the demonstrators, corralling off streets as they went. It appeared to be a non-permitted event — yet it was very festive.

The marchers returned to the area near the Convention Center — now several thousands. Vehicles bearing flags followed the demonstration — and besides chants, yells and the blare of horns, the event was entirely peaceful.