OB Rag

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.

By Kelly Davis / SD Union-Tribune/ January 13, 2025

San Diego County Sheriff’s Office policy requires weekly sanitation and hygiene inspections at its jails, but a report by an environmental health specialist, hired by attorneys suing over jail conditions, questions whether that policy is being followed.

“Based on the conditions observed during my inspections, it is doubtful if meaningful sanitation and hygiene inspections are occurring,” Debra Graham wrote in her Aug. 7 report.

From Stanford University / Science Daily /January 14, 2025

Beneath sandy beaches, microbes filter chemicals from groundwater and safeguard ocean health. A Stanford-led study reveals that sneaker waves provide a lens to explore the impending impacts of sea level rise on beach hydrology, chemistry, and microbiology.

A hidden world teeming with life lies below beach sands. New Stanford-led research sheds light on how microbial communities in coastal groundwater respond to infiltrating seawater. The study, published Dec. 22 in Environmental Microbiology, reveals the diversity of microbial life inhabiting these critical ecosystems and what might happen if they are inundated by rising seas.

“Beaches can act as a filter between land and sea, processing groundwater and associated chemicals before they reach the ocean,”

By Jackie Bryant / San Diego Magazine / January 13, 2025

Cannabis culture in San Diego is finally getting its Amsterdam moment. Sessions by the Bay, opening next month in National City, is making history as San Diego County’s first legal cannabis lounge. Yes, you can smoke there, and yes, it’s highly encouraged—but don’t mistake this for a smoke-filled dive. This is a lush, high-concept escape where cannabis meets cocktails (sans alcohol), all-day brunch, and immersive art installations that make you wonder why you ever settled for Netflix.

The brainchild of San Diego natives and married couple Alex and Pearl Ayon and co-owned by the Sycuan tribe, Sessions took nearly four years to bring to life. The 16,000-square-foot venue is spread across three stories, starting with an Apple Store-esque dispensary on the ground floor, a sprawling 5,000-square-foot lounge on the second floor, and—eventually—a rooftop bar with sweeping bay views.

While Sessions hopes to host guests someday and serve alcohol on the rooftop, cannabis consumption will remain a second-floor privilege, and the rooftop plans are, at present, just a heady dream until the lounge is up, running, and smoothly sailing.

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 Ernie McCray

The raging fire
in Pacific Palisades
darkens my soul
as it’s part of me,
the home of Nancy
my very dearly departed soulmate,
the mother of three of my six children.

I know that she,
if alive,
would be destroyed inside,
viewing an inferno, miles wide,
leaving her old neighborhood
burning away
in its wake.

By Kate Callen

Density advocates kicked off the new year by lamenting what a January 10 Union-Tribune editorial headline called “the latest housing initiative to flop.”

The commentary followed a December 29 U-T report that the Trolley’s Blue Line corridor along Linda Vista and Clairemont hasn’t seen a glut of high-rise development.

Editors pouted, “Why doesn’t City Hall … ask builders exactly how the government can best expedite new housing?” and added, “How many more years of housing failure must San Diegans endure?”

Come again? Housing failure? Not enough government incentives for builders?

For four years, City Hall’s “Complete Communities” venture has opened the floodgates to rampant density. Throughout the city, the initiative has spurred construction of mid-rise housing towers with few affordable units and scarce on-site parking.

The owner of a 3-level home designed by renowned San Diego architect, Robert Quigley, has placed the property on the market. It’s called “the OB del House” and the building sits off an alley in the 4600 block of Del Monte Avenue in Ocean Beach.

It has 3-bedrooms, 2 1/4-baths in 2,113 sq. ft. on a 7,000 square foot lot. The seller / realtor offers the building in glowing terms, naturally:

By Alex Henderson / AlterNet / January 13, 2025

After winning the 2024 election, Donald Trump doubled down on his promise to declare a national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act and use the U.S. military for mass deportations. And the president-elect has also said he would use the military to quell possible protests if they turn violent.

But many of the president-elect’s critics think that using the Insurrection Act in the ways that Trump has proposed is a very bad idea, including some veterans.

Hirsh reports, “One fear is that domestic deployment of active-duty troops could lead to bloodshed given that the regular military is mainly trained to shoot at and kill foreign enemies. The only way to prevent that is establishing clear ‘rules of engagement’ for domestic deployments that outline how much force troops can use — especially considering constitutional restraints protecting U.S. citizens and residents — against what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. And establishing those new rules would require a lot more training, in the view of many in the military community.”

Trump has said he wants to use active duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply?

By Michael Hirsh / POLITICO Reader Supported News / January 13, 2025

The last time an American president deployed the U.S. military domestically under the Insurrection Act — during the deadly Los Angeles riots in 1992 — Douglas Ollivant was there. Ollivant, then a young Army first lieutenant, says things went fairly smoothly because it was somebody else — the cops — doing the head-cracking to restore order, not his 7th Infantry Division. He and his troops didn’t have to detain or shoot at anyone.

“There was real sensitivity about keeping federal troops away from the front lines,” said Ollivant, who was ordered in by President George H.W. Bush as rioters in central-south LA set fire to buildings, assaulted police and bystanders, pelted cars with rocks and smashed store windows in the aftermath of the videotaped police beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist. “They tried to keep us in support roles, backing up the police.”

By the end of six days of rioting, 63 people were dead and 2,383 injured — though reportedly none at the hands of the military.