OB Rag

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

by Ernie McCray

My heart continues
to bleed miserably
for the incredibly hapless residents
of Los Angeles
and I, particularly,
can’t imagine
how hard it must be
for the LA football teams,
the Chargers
and the Rams,
that had to board planes
to make it to NFL Playoff Games
while their beautiful city was aflame
due to a firestorm of a magnitude|
that’s almost impossible
for one to make sense of in his brain,

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 Staff / Mexico News Daily / Jan. 21, 2025

Just hours after his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders directly related to Mexico. At least some of those orders have the potential to have a significant impact on the Mexico-United States relationship, especially in the early period of Trump’s second presidency.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that she will maintain “a cool head” and respond “step by step” to the actions taken by Trump on the first day of his second term.

Here is a summary of five Mexico-related executive orders Trump signed in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday night.

1. Emergency at the United States’ southern border

Trump signed an executive order “Declaring a national emergency at the southern border of the United States.” “That’s a big one, a lot of big ones, huh?” Trump said after an aide announced the order he was about to sign.

The public is invited to join the Point Loma – Ocean Beach Democratic Club meeting for a panel discussion on Housing in San Diego.

It will be held Sunday, January 26th at the Point Loma Assembly, located at 3035 Talbot Street in Point Loma (San Diego, CA 92106). Ample street parking is available.

The meeting will start at 4pm, although people are urged to come at 3:30 for snacks and to check in.

The Housing discussion panel will include:

• Representatives from Homeownership Opportunities for SD,
• Neighbors for a Better San Diego,
• Frank Gormlie- OB RAG,
• Mandy Havlik- Peninsula Community Planning Board-1st Vice Chair.

UPDATE: Forward Progress of Fire Stopped, Evacuation Order Still in Place in Immediate Area, Friars Road to Be Closed

As of 1:15 p.m., the evacuation warnings were lifted, while the evacuation order in the immediate area of the fire was still in place. The San Diego Police Department told an ABC 10News producer on the scene that crews stopped the fire’s forward progress.

SDFD says Friars Road will be closed west of State Route 163 for an “extended time” as crews work to mop up the remaining hot spots. SDPD said on X that Linda Vista Road to Genesee Avenue was closed as well.A vegetation fire ignited in the area of Friars Road in Mission Valley Tuesday afternoon, prompting evacuations nearby.

According to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department’s website, the fire was first reported at 12:09 p.m.

So far, the following resources have been sent to battle the fire: five engines, three brush rigs, three helicopters and 55 personnel.

The San Diego Police Department confirmed to ABC 10News they are beginning to inform people about evacuations in the area. Specifically, they mentioned Camino Degrazia and apartments at the top of a hill north of Friars Road.

By Paul Krueger

A passionate revolt against the Mayor and City Council’s “Bonus ADU” program is gaining momentum in the Encanto area of Council District 4 as well as in the Chollas and Emerald Hills communities, and basically throughout the district. The revolt is being led by Neighbors for Encanto.

The area is being targeted by developers who are buying up large single family lots and building — or planning to build up to 42 ADUs on a single parcel, with no parking, no added infrastructure, and — equally important — no approval, input, or feedback from neighbors and residents.

Organizers have identified 11 of these projects in the area and in response have crafted their own website — bonusadubadforsd.com and placing pallet-sized signs throughout the neighborhood. Some of those signs have been repeatedly defaced which I witnessed myself on Monday.

There’s two important political angles to this revolt.

By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams / Jan 20, 2025

Just minutes before leaving office, Joe Biden on Monday commuted the life prison sentence of Leonard Peltier, the elderly American Indian Movement activist who supporters say was framed for the murder of two federal agents during a 1975 reservation shootout.

“It’s finally over, I’m going home,” Peltier, who is 80 years old, said in a statement released by the Indigenous-led activist group NDN Collective. “I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.”

While not the full pardon for which he and his defenders have long fought, the outgoing Democratic president’s commutation will allow Peltier—who has been imprisoned for nearly a half-century—to “spend his remaining days in home confinement,” according to Biden’s statement, which was no longer posted on the White House website after Republican President Donald Trump took office Monday afternoon.

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 Teri Figueroa / The San Diego Union-Tribune / January 18, 2025

The images of the fires in Los Angeles stopped some Harmony Grove residents cold.

Debbie O’Neill knows the stress of evacuating as fire bears down. A decade ago, she and her husband fled after they saw the flames from the Cocos fire crest a nearby hill and hurtle down toward their Harmony Grove home. And that was before more than a 700-home development went up in the semi-rural area.

There’s the potential for 453 more residences in the area. O’Neill and neighbors are fighting it, arguing that they — and the new residents — will be vulnerable if there is a fire due to inadequate evacuation routes.

“We don’t want to die in here,” O’Neill said Tuesday. “And if we do, I want to make damn sure that everybody knows that the county Board of Supervisors knew that this was not a safe development.”