OB Rag

By Annie Karni / New York Times / Jan. 3, 2026, 10:46 a.m. ET

While President Trump crowed on Saturday about the dramatic capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela by U.S. authorities, Democrats in Congress sounded alarms about the legality of the action and raised questions about recent briefings in which administration officials assured them that they were not seeking regime change in the nation.

Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of having “blatantly” lied to Congress when they said the administration’s objective in Venezuela was not about toppling Mr. Maduro. He called the move to oust the Venezuelan leader “disastrous,” arguing that it would further isolate the United States on the global stage.

“Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war,” Mr. Kim, a former national security official in the Obama administration, wrote on social media.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat who represents a district in which Venezuelan immigrants cheered for the news, said that Mr. Maduro’s capture was “welcome” but that the way it was done raised serious questions.

Early Saturday, January 3rd, the Trump regime conducted a blatant and illegal act of war against Venezuela by bombing civilian and military sites and illegally kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

This act of aggression is a imperialistic continuation of U.S. policies against the sovereign South American country with attempts to seize and plunder Venezuela’s natural resources and threatens the sovereignty of other countries in Latin America.

The aggression goes against the will of the American people and against our Constitution. Nearly 70% of Americans oppose another war and reject the endless cycle of military interventions carried out in their name.

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to military action in Venezuela, according to a Quinnipiac poll published in mid-December amid an escalation of U.S. pressure on President Nicolás Maduro.

Sixty-three percent of respondents told Quinnipiac they are against military action against Caracas, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out, with just 25 percent expressing support. And 53 percent of respondents said they opposed the administration’s use of military strikes to kill alleged drug smugglers in international waters.

As domestic and international condemnations of the attack and kidnapping mount up, there are typical sycophantic expressions of support from Trumpian Republicans.

By Donna Frye

As we head into the new year, it’s time once again to let the city council know that we oppose paid parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park for residents and non-residents alike.

Last year, four councilmembers (LaCava, Foster, Moreno and Elo-Rivera) included paid beach and bay parking in their budget priority memos as a potential revenue source.

Fortunately, on November 18, 2025 the paid parking proposal was not included as part of the council resolution being sent to the mayor’s office for consideration in preparing the FY 2027 budget.

However, as part of the annual budget cycle, the city council is required to update their budget priority memos and provide them to the Independent Budget Analyst (IBA) by January 9.

We need to make sure that the next round of budget priority memos do not include proposals for paid parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park.

There are many reasons why paid parking at our beaches and Mission Bay Park is a bad idea.

By Kate Callen

Just before midnight on December 31, my sister, Brae, and I were toasting the new year with champagne when the house was filled with a flash of blinding white light followed by a window-rattling boom. A minute later, it happened again.

My North Park street has been plagued by fireworks on July Fourth and New Year’s Eve for as long as I’ve lived here. But these weren’t sparklers or ground spinners. These were commercial-grade fireworks that should never be set off in residential neighborhoods.

What the hell is going on? Why does a handful of morons (an estimated 99 percent of whom carry the Y chromosome) need to set off explosives to celebrate holidays? And why do the rest of us tolerate lawless behavior that terrifies small children, scares pets into hiding or running away from home, triggers military veterans with PTSD, and poses a public safety risk?

It’s not hard to find the perpetrators. While I searched for my cats, Brae marched down the street to the place where the sound came from. She confronted three men standing on the sidewalk (we’re from Philadelphia, it’s what we do), and they denied any involvement.

Then the snarky one started arguing. Hey, what’s the harm? People just want to have a little fun. And it’s only one night a year.

Every Saturday at 10:30 am. San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition Meetings January 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st.

Every Saturday 10 am – 12 pm Peace Vigil for Palestine:

The San Diego River Park Foundation has volunteer opportunities in Ocean Beach

Every Sunday 1:30  pm – 4 pm Otay Mesa Vigil Otay Mesa Detention Center

January 1st Thursday – January 4th Sunday 10 am – 6 pm San Diego Auto Show

January 3rd Saturday 5 pm doors open “From Ground Zero” film screening fundraiser for a family in Gaza.

January 5th Monday  12 pm – 1 pm Interfaith Vigil For Earth Justice Event by Interfaith Coalition for Earth Justice

By Alex Cheney / CBS8 / December 30, 2025

San Diego’s music scene is grieving the loss of Tim Lowman, who died in a fatal motorcycle crash early Sunday morning near Balboa Park. The versatile musician, known for his performances as both a band member and one-man-band showman, was struck by an SUV on Pershing Drive at approximately 1:40 a.m.

According to the San Diego Police Department, a Harley Davidson motorcycle driven by Lowman was hit by an SUV, whose driver remained at the scene. Police say the SUV driver is not suspected of DUI, and Lowman’s impairment is considered unknown.

Lowman was a member of the band Blackout Party and performed as a one-man band called Low Volts, where he played all the instruments himself. Timothy Joseph, a producer and co-host of the Loudspeaker Show on radio station 91X and a close friend of Lowman’s, recalls the musician’s distinctive performance style and the impression he made.

By Erwin Chemerinsky / San Diego U-T / January 2, 2025

In one of its most consequential rulings of the year, just before breaking for the holidays last week, the Supreme Court held that President Donald Trump acted improperly in federalizing the National Guard in Illinois and in activating troops across the state.

Although the case centered on the administration’s deployments in Chicago, the court’s ruling suggests that Trump’s actions in Los Angeles and Portland were likewise illegal.

Trump has said that his deployments of troops to these metro areas were just the beginning and that his administration planned to use military force in more cities across the country. The specter of U.S. troops being deployed against its citizens is inconsistent with a long history of not mobilizing the military for purposes of domestic law enforcement. Images of troops patrolling city streets are more often seen under authoritarian regimes, not in the United States. The Supreme Court’s ruling will immediately put a stop to this.

By Michael Smolens / San Diego Union-Tribune / January 2, 2026 

Maybe this time will be different.

For several years, the California Legislature and some cities like San Diego have approved numerous measures aimed at increasing home construction in the hopes that will ease the state’s chronic shortage of affordable housing.

Yet progress hasn’t met the promise as large segments of the population remain priced out of the housing market or struggle to keep up with rent.

A new year has dawned on the heels of more pro-housing regulations at the local and state level, and a vague pledge from President Donald Trump for aggressive policies to make housing more affordable nationwide.

[Please go to original for all links.]

Big real estate brokerage firms are anticipating good things this year.

Redfin has dubbed 2026 “The Great Housing Reset,” while Compass has described it as the start of a “new era,” according to CNN.

That could be. There are a lot of things to further encourage development, potentially boosting the housing stock, and some indicators that suggest the housing market, now in a lull, will pick up.

By Paul Krueger / Special to the OB Rag 

The California Supreme Court on Tuesday, December 30, placed another hurdle in the City of San Diego’s effort to allow high-rise development throughout the Midway/ Pacific Highway area.

The state’s highest court affirmed a lower court ruling that the city must fully analyze the negative environmental impacts of high-density, multi-story projects and give voters that information before they agree to override the existing 30-foot height limit in the Midway/ PacHwy district.

Voters twice — but narrowly — approved the height limit waiver. But state courts said the environmental impact studies failed to study possible negative and unavoidable impacts of high-rise development on traffic, noise, pollution, and other issues.

The most recent ruling against the city was a strongly worded and unanimous October 17 decision by the state Appellate Court.

FROM COASTAL CARETAKERS

Ring out the old year, ring in the new!  Coastal Caretakers appreciate what all of you have done in the past to keep major developers out of Ocean Beach.

However, the City of San Diego has a new attack underway: to remove the protection we now have by declaring that the Ocean Beach Historic District is not a District.  One response is to cave in, give up.  They, the powers at the State and City, have all the balls in their court, and they can bounce them around any way they want.  They can rewrite the law, law they wrote in the first place and got it wrong.

The one or two minutes per person we get during public comment is for a decision that our elected officials have already made.  But we are OB!  Ocean Beach IS a Complete Community!  We will be there once again to let the city and developers know one thing: We will not go away.  No to 23-story buildings on Point Loma Ave without adequate parking spaces!  No to Lower Voltaire Skyscrapers!  And NO to an all-new Newport Avenue.  OBceans will be there to protect our Historic District.
We want to take this time to remind you where we have been and where it is going, and  WHY we need to get the attention of City Hall. Here is a summary:

August 29, 2024, Coastal Caretakers and friends won our appeal to the Planning Commission, and the 20-unit building designed by Galba Architects never happened. Bad press tried to imply we were NIMBYs and wanted that corner to remain in its current state of disrepair, earning us the title bestowed on all objectors.

By South OB Girl

It will be a challenge to come up with something more poignant than Ernie’s poem, with his great knack for words and rhyme.

I’ve lived in a few places in the world, but San Diego will always be home. It has sadly become a little harder to say “home sweet home.”  It is not so sweet here anymore.  Being ranked #1 in the United States for inflation is nothing to be proud of.

San Diego has the potential to be a really great city. For many years it has been great.

Here in OB, we have enjoyed over a hundred years of greatness! Why are so many people doing such a great job trying to wreck it? Along with many other San Diegans, I have lost positivity about many aspects of local politics.

Trump bombs Venezuelan land for first time: Is war imminent?

By Usaid Siddiqui / AlJaseera / Tue, December 30, 2025

United States President Donald Trump said the US carried out a land-based strike on Venezuela on Monday, marking a sharp escalation in Washington’s recent military activity against the South American nation.

Trump said the operation had targeted a docking facility being used to load boats carrying narcotics. Venezuelan authorities, however, have yet to confirm the incident.

Tensions between Washington and Caracas have risen sharply since September, when the Trump administration began a series of strikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which the US government claims are trafficking drugs.

However, despite aerial strikes on more than two dozen boats, which have killed at least 100 people, the US has presented no evidence of drug trafficking.

More recently, US forces have seized Venezuelan oil tankers, which it claims are carrying sanctioned oil and ordered a naval blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers near the coast.

Caracas has long accused Washington of using allegations of drug trafficking as a pretext for forcing regime change in Venezuela, raising renewed concerns about the legality of such actions and the risk of a broader conflict. Indeed, legal experts say the targeting of vessels in international waters likely violates US and international law and amounts to extrajudicial executions.