OB Rag

By Judi Curry

In beginning this blog I want to point out that this is MY opinion. There is too much going on to have to defend myself to those of you that will disagree with me. You already know that I am an “anti-trumpster” and January 6th, 2001 did nothing to change that; rather it only reinforced my beliefs about the evilness of this man. With that in mind……

I am not a television fanatic. With the exception of MSNBC, local news daily, and an occasional “Jeopardy” I seldom have the television on. After the Chargers left San Diego my interest in football stopped; I have never been a Padres fan, and I do not like to watch movies or sitcoms on the tube.

So when I began watching the news on January 6th, 2001, I wondered why a movie about the Civil War was being shown?

by Ernie McCray

I look back at January of last year and I can’t help but think: “Damn, I hope I don’t experience anything like that ever again.”

Referring, of course to the scene, in the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021: a vision of huffing and puffing and blowing your house down mentality dialed up a billion degrees, treason in the form of pushing and shoving and smashing and pummeling, a tearing of the fabric of our democracy.

Led by the president of the country where this melee takes place.

In our face.

And this man is still dancing in the street, talking smack about this and smack about that, doing as he pleases, held to no rules, in fact.

Thoughts on the Capitol Riots One Year On

By Mat Wahlstrom

Most people respect authority because they believe it to be justified by objective criteria, such as scientific evidence, transparent electoral processes, or the rule of law. For them, reason is the basis of power. Only when authority is exercised in the absence of these principles do they question it.

The crisis we are in is due to a minority who demand obedience to authority in itself, even or especially when it lacks any objective justification, and for which they are willing to say or do anything to claim. For them, force and fraud are the basis of power, and they deny any appeal to something greater that would deny it to them.

By Donna Frye / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / Jan. 5, 2022

While much has changed since I last ran for office, there are some behaviors by candidates, their supporters and those who engage in political protests that must never be normalized for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with one wit of common sense. These behaviors should not require an explanation about why they are morally wrong, are mostly illegal and can result in people being hurt or killed. It should go without saying.

But after witnessing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the many out-of-control political protests over the past few years, it’s a discussion that is probably long overdue. I never thought I would be writing a list of things like this, but here we are. The following guidance is especially helpful to candidates and their supporters.

• Do not wear a fur hat with horns, paint your face and go shirtless while carrying a spear into a government office to disrupt a political proceeding.

We don’t have all the facts yet, but we have names. Or at least the names that have been floated about of those maybe running against Jen Campbell for the newly-redrawn District 2. The primary is June 7.

The Point Loma & OB Democratic Club stated the following Democrats were candidates in the race against Campbell:

• Joel Day
• Mandy Havlik
• Lori Saldaña

But wait, there’s more.

In brief, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke for nearly a half hour to assure the American public that the Department of Justice is committed to holding all perpetrators at any level accountable for the violent Capitol insurrection one year ago. The DOJ investigation, he said, will follow the facts no matter where they lead.

Garland ticked off a number of accomplishments the nation-wide investigation has accomplished to date:

• 725 defendants involved in the siege have been arrested and charged;
• 145 defendants have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors in the early months of the investigation;
• 325 defendants have been charged with felonies, assaulting police officers or disrupting congressional procedures;

A new Associated Press-NORC poll shows results similar to other major polling. They show that the vast majority of Americans have not lost their minds, are not crazy and blame the rioters and Trump for the violent attack on the US Capitol one year ago.

Here are other major points:

• Most Americans recall a very violent day and support Congress’ investigation.
• Eighty percent of the public consider the individuals involved mostly responsible,
• but 57% also say former President Donald Trump deserves a great deal or quite a bit of blame for the attack on the Capitol, more than said so at the end of January 2021.

Attorney General Merrick Garland will give a speech Wednesday about the Justice Department’s efforts to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, remarks that come as the country’s top law enforcement officer is facing calls to do more.

In announcing the address, scheduled for the day before the anniversary of the attack, the Justice Department said Garland would “update the American people on the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable those responsible” and “reaffirm the department’s unwavering commitment to defend Americans and American democracy from violence and threats of violence.”

By Joni Halpern

I was taking a little inventory of paramount American values that are still viable after the onslaught of the last few years of intractable divisiveness among our people. I thought my list would be long. It wasn’t.

I started out listing a value Americans have always cherished. We insist we are the architects of our own destiny, that the lowliest members of society can reach the stars if they work hard enough to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. However, if we look closely at this “bootstrap” value, we can see it appears to be crumbling at its foundations.

The “bootstrap value” has become something of a fiction for many people who have been trying to keep themselves and their families fed, housed and clothed, let alone managing whatever it takes to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Even in what remains of the middle class, there is great uncertainty about how to prepare children for economic stability.

Republicans are busy undermining the next election. But giving up on democracy isn’t an option. We must fight back, and here’s how

By Laurence H Tribe / The Guardian / Jan. 4, 2022

Only free and fair elections in which the loser abides by the result stand between each of us and life at the mercy of a despotic regime – one we had no voice in choosing and one that can freely violate all our rights. So everything is at stake in the peaceful transfer of power from a government that has lost its people’s confidence to its victorious successor. It was that peaceful transfer that Trump and his minions sought to obstruct and almost succeeded in overthrowing when Joe Biden was elected president.

Here is an excerpt from a Jan. 3, 2022, Op-Ed by Jim McGovern, a US representative from Massachusetts –and not by some aging radical hippie:

A year later, a fundamental question remains: Will the Jan. 6 insurrection be swept under the rug, or seen for what it could be — the beginning of the end of American democracy as we know it.

Many of the people who failed to overturn the election are now using the levers of power at the state level to rig future campaigns.

They’ve introduced more than 440 bills across 49 states designed to hijack the election process and suppress the right to vote.

By Mary Clare Jalonick / LA Times – SD Union-Tribune / Jan. 3, 2022

They’ve interviewed more than 300 witnesses, collected tens of thousands of documents and traveled around the country’ to talk to election officials who were pressured by Donald Trump.
Now, after six months of intense work, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is preparing to go public.

In the coming months, members of the panel will start to reveal their findings against the backdrop of the former president and his allies’ persistent efforts to whitewash the riots and reject suggestions that he helped instigate them. The committee also faces the burden of trying to convince the American public that their conclusions are fact-based and credible.