OB Rag

For the fourth time over the last 5 years, the OB Pier has been damaged by big waves.

High surf and a high tide combined on Monday, Jan. 11, to raise the 10- 12-foot waves up enough to skin at least 100 feet of railing boards off the south side of the pier, a witness told NBC 7.

The Pier was damaged in 2016 2018, and in 2019. Lifeguards stated in a tweet that they anticipate the pier will remained closed until Tuesday, the 11th.

If you thought the siege at the Capitol was a one-time event, you need to rethink that. The Trump seditious insurrection is not over yet.

Encouraged and spurred on by their “success” on January 6, White supremacists and armed militias are planning further violent attacks against the Capitol – and state capitols around the country. They have plans for January 17th, the 19th, and January 20th – the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration.

These plans have been seen on the platforms that the extremists use. Just Monday, an internal FBI bulletin reported they are warning of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration. The FBI bulletin warned that, as of Sunday, the nationwide protests may start later this week and extend through Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

By Frank Gormlie

This is not news: the entire country is reeling from Trump’s insurrection attempt, and we’re in a very serious national security crisis as long as he’s in the White House.

The OB Rag believes this is such a serious crisis that we will refrain from publishing our usual array of articles – until the crisis has been resolved. We will continue, however, to post articles about this dark moment.

So, this is not a time for pot-holes and height limits. We cannot in good conscience pretend that everything is back to normal – and be focused on the local issues that usually take our attention. “Pot-holes” are synonymous with those ubiquitous, nagging problems that we wish government would fix. Height limits are damn important – but mean nothing if our federal government is attacked.

The Rag will continue to remind and inform our readers about this still evolving crisis. It’s not over yet. Armed white nationalists are still planning on more violence later this month – and not just at the Capitol on January 20 for Joe Biden’s inauguration.

There is some good news: there is a dramatic and deep revulsion going on across the nation against Trump, his acolytes, his fellow insurrectionists, his enablers in Congress and around the country.

By Ammar Campa-Najjar / Times of San Diego / January 7, 2021

Wednesday’s terrorist attack was painful to process on many levels. People I love were in the Capitol, hiding under their desks, recounting experiences that reminded me of my own in the war zone of Gaza.

For years, I’ve been called a “terrorist trying to infiltrate congress” by my former Congressman and the outgoing President’s supporters because of my Palestinian-Mexican American heritage. Now, the world has seen who the real national security threats, domestic terrorists, infiltrators are.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, when patriotic Americans aboard Flight 93 spent their final living moments fighting hijackers to save the Capitol from attack and prevent terrorists from claiming the symbolic victory of smashing the center of American government.

Twenty years later, that same Temple of Democracy came under attack by terrorists who stormed the halls of Congress, forced our elected officials to evacuate, and resulted in four people killed. This time the terrorists weren’t outside fundamentalists recruited by Bin Laden, they were our fellow citizens — fueled by hateful nativism and emboldened by a vacating President’s falsehoods and false hopes.

We’ve done to ourselves what our enemies could only dream of doing, and that is what’s most heartbreaking of all.

By Geoff Page

If ever there was a reason to leave Facebook in droves, the scene on January 6 in Washington, D.C., would be it. The LOSER would never have been elected were it not for Facebook.

In mid-November 2018, I wrote a piece in The OB Rag explaining why I deleted my Facebook account. I quoted the following paragraph from an article by Evan Osnos in the New Yorker. And before anyone turns their nose up at the New Yorker look at the piece titled “Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy?” It is an exhaustive, detailed article.

The quote is from the LOSER’s campaign staff.

“During the campaign, Trump used Facebook to raise two hundred and eighty million dollars. Just days before the election, his team paid for a voter-suppression effort on the platform. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, it targeted three Democratic constituencies—“idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans”—sending them videos precisely tailored to discourage them from turning out for Clinton. Theresa Hong, the Trump campaign’s digital-content director, later told an interviewer, “Without Facebook we wouldn’t have won.”

By Colleen O’Connor

In medicine, a malignancy that threatens the life of a patient, must be removed.

So, too, in politics. When an American president threatens the very existence of democracy, he must be removed. And a constitutional remedy does exist.

Rep. Sara Jacobs of San Diego and Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer are correct. The Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet must invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment asap.

Section 4 states that if the vice president and a majority of Cabinet concludes the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” they can put that in writing and send it to congressional leaders.

Once that happens, the vice president immediately becomes acting president.

If the president disputes it, (which he will) Congress decides the matter, with a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate needed to keep the vice president in charge. Surely, that discussion can eat up the remaining 13 days of the Trump presidency and deprive him of more abuses of power.

Quickest solution and should have been triggered last night.

By Frank Gormlie

It’s difficult writing anything today after watching 16 hours of TV yesterday, trying to be a witness to the fully-anticipated attempt at a coup by Trump and his supporters – one of the darkest days in American history.

But the main thing that comes to mind is that Trump and those who instigated the attempt at a fascist coup yesterday on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol, need to be held accountable for what they did.

Read no further if you’re bothered by the term “fascist” here as I’m not going to spend time trying to justify the use of the word to describe Trump and his cohorts.

And plenty of pundits and politicians have already called what happened Wednesday, January 6th – a day of infamy – a “coup” and “insurrection.” Why, newly-elected President Joe Biden used those terms just today. He also called the mob that stormed the Capitol, “domestic terrorists.”

The terrorists, the insurrectionists, the mob, the fascist crowd – packed with Proud Boys, Qanon supporters, white nationalists, Klan supporters – have to be held accountable. They tried to take over our government and disrupt the business of Congress – making the final certification of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ election.

The woman who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol Building on Wednesday was from Ocean Beach, according to local media who have had contact with her extended family.

35-year-old Ashli Elizabeth Babbitt has been identified as the person who succumbed to a gunshot wound during the mob action. She had been carried out of the area on a stretcher and reportedly died at a hospital.

Babbitt was part of the violent pro-Trump insurrection and attempted take-over of the Capitol.

According to the Union-Tribune, a reporter spoke to a family member who said they saw videos of the incident and are positive the woman shot was Babbitt. “It’s her. It’s her. It’s definitely her,” the family member said. The family as of the local media reports had not been able to confirm anything with DC authorities. No one at the time of the report had contacted the family.

An Air Force veteran, Babbitt was a big Trump supporter, promoted QAnon conspiracies and her twitter page contained references to the fringe, extremist group. She had gone to DC to “stop the steal.” She wrote:

National Guard Deployed, Proud Boys Mobilized and Street Closures Are Matched by Warnings from 10 Defense Secretaries and Wall Street

The nation’s capitol is in hunker-down mode as the city – and the country – prepare for Wednesday, January 6 – the day Donald Trump has called for rioting in the streets. A seditious insurrection. Called by a sitting president – the most treasonous action since the Civil War.

The DC mayor, Muriel Bowser, has asked residents and other demonstrators not to come downtown and not to engage with those “seeking confrontation.” She also warned pro-Trump people visitors that local laws bar anyone from carrying firearms within 1,000 feet “of any First Amendment activity.” City police have closed down many streets near the Capitol as preparations are made for a multitude of rallies, marches and demonstrations by pro-Trump supporters. The DC National Guard has also been called up – but in limited numbers and with more restrictions that previous engagements.

Could Faulconer Really Represent 11 Million California Voters Who Voted for Biden?

By Frank Gormlie

Well, your former mayor didn’t take long to get back into the political spotlight.

Kevin Faulconer has established his mandatory exploratory committee to make a run for governor of California. And at the same time, he has jumped onto the “Recall Newsom” bandwagon, a bandwagon being pushed by “dark money”, it has come out.

So, Kevin has his feet in both pots: a gubernatorial campaign and getting ready to benefit if the recall effort is successful (unlikely however).

Now, don’t forget, our Republican mayor recently admitted he voted for Trump in November 2020.

By Colleen O’Connor

Exactly one year ago on January 2nd, 2020, I wrote a column with 10 predictions to cover the next 18 months. Checking now, almost all have come to fruition 6 months early.

In order of rank: Wins and Losses.

Best Prediction: “There will be a woman on the Democratic 2020 presidential ticket. Why? Because Nancy Pelosi will insist and California will deliver. That candidate will be Kamala Harris (whether as President or Vice-President).”

Next Up: Mitt Romney will rise to be the “conscience” of the Republican Senate. Indeed, the only GOP member to vote for impeachment; the earliest to confront the “election fraud” allegations; same with the separation of families on the border. And now his quote of the day,” “The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic.”

By Ernie McCray

Oh, it’s quite a shock when you check into Facebook and the first entry on your timeline says: “My brother, Elton Harris, is gone.”

The absolutely last thing I was ready for was hearing that a friend had died.

Elton was quite a man and I missed a lot of his life when his aunt, my first wife, and I, broke up. I’d hear about him every now and then, though, as he was my son, Guy’s, favorite cousin and close friend.

What little I heard was mostly negative, but without any details, so I never made any judgments about him. He just became somebody who was out of sight and out of mind, as they say.

And then one day, not too many years ago, when I was in Tucson for a reunion of some kind, I stopped at Al’s Barber Shop to catch up with a childhood friend and, as Al and I reminisced about old times, I hear “Hey, uncle. How you doing man? Elton. Aunt Sweet’s nephew.”