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  • Oakland City Council Declares the October 7th Hamas Massacre of 1200 Israelis "A Hoax."

    Stan Greene, Observer Staff Writer|Updated Oct 23, 2024

    After hearing a number of speakers, the Oakland City Council declared Hamas' October 7th massacre of 1200 Israelis, mostly civilians, as "a hoax." "Calling Hamas a terrorist organization is ridiculous," said one female speaker. Dozens of residents showed up to DEFEND Hamas. Some claimed calling them a terrorist organization is racist. Others denied the Oct 7 attack ever happened. The Council unanimously approved resolution calling for ceasefire in Gaza, becoming second city in...

  • Gaza War Reporting by the New York Times "The Daily," Reveals a Bias in Favor of Hamas and Against Israel.

    Phil Isaac, Letter to the Editor|Updated May 23, 2024

    Today I listened to Patrick Kingsley's report on his visit to Gaza on the NY Times " The Daily". The reporting showed a clear double standard by Kingsley in favor of Hamas. Why? Kingsley and the NYT accept facts and figures reported by Hamas as "true" while demanding a higher level of proof from Israel. This is now a systemic tool of NYT reporting. When shown the entrance to a deep and well constructed tunnel entrance, right next to Shifa Hospital, Kingsley said that he...

  • Santa Monica Voters React to Proposed Salary Increase for City Manager David White

    Alyssa Erdley, Observer Staff|Updated Dec 23, 2023

    December 19, 2023 - In an email, John Alle of the Santa Monica Coalition, supplied comments from Santa Monica residents regarding the proposed ten percent increase in the salary of City Manager David White, and they are not in favor. The Santa Monica Coalition is a group of residents, property owners, and businesses that advocate restoration of safety, cleanliness, and prosperity to the city. The proposal to be considered at tonight's city council meeting is to raise White's s...

  • Raising Base Salary of Santa Monica City Manager- Urgent Questions

    Stan Epstein, Special to the Observer|Updated Dec 23, 2023

    Email to City Manager David White and Lori Gentles Dear David and Lori. You have generally been highly responsive to inquiries from me, so I believe you will reply to this urgent email today. The issue of the increase in David's salary comes before Council only 6 days after it was announced in yesterday's Council meeting Agenda for Tuesday., so time is extremely of the essence. The public and media should know your thoughts now on an issue that might be significant( both on...

  • Wiener Whines About an Antisemitism He Helped Create

    Corva Corvax, A Logical Opinion|Updated Dec 23, 2023

    December 14, 2023 - California State Senator Scott Wiener tweeted on X today his horror at hearing bystanders shout "Free Palestine" at him in Union Square at a Hanukkah celebration there. "Harassing Jews celebrating a holiday has nothing to do with the war & everything to do with antisemitism," he wrote. One wonders what planet Wiener has been living on. Does he still think those who oppose the Jewish State of Israel separate their feelings about Israel from those about...

  • A Convo About Santa Methica, 35,000 Feet Above Kentucky

    Jon Berg, Special to the Observer|Updated Dec 20, 2023

    In Early November, I had an illuminating conversation about Santa Monica on American 2916 heading west from LaGuardia to Dallas/Ft. Worth. The middle seat on the Airbus was empty and the 60ish gentleman sitting in the aisle seat was well groomed and well dressed. Quiet at first, he began to chat somewhere over Kentucky. Introduced himself as Paul K., a lifetime New Yorker, proud of his humble southern Italian origins and subsequent success in the restaurant/food business. He...

  • Gascón's Audacious Bid to Overturn Cop Killer's Conviction Foiled

    Kathleen Cady, Association of Deputy District Attorneys|Updated Dec 16, 2023

    In the previous article, I brought to the public's attention a covert plan orchestrated by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón aimed at securing the release of a convicted cop killer and prominent figure within the Mexican Mafia from state prison.[Previous article can be found at https://www.smobserved.com/story/2023/12/04/opinion/gascns-secret-scheme-to-release-a-convicted-cop-killer-and-mexican-mafia-shot-caller/7959.html] Earlier this week, in response to...

  • A New Dawn in Santa Monica: Embracing Mayor Phil Brock's Vision for a Revitalized City

    Houman Hemmati, Special to the Observer|Updated Dec 16, 2023

    As the sun rises over our beautiful Santa Monica beaches, marking the end of Mayor Gleam Davis's tenure and the beginning of Mayor Phil Brock's, there's a palpable sense of hope and anticipation in the air. Today, we stand at the threshold of a new era, an era where the voice of the residents reverberates through the corridors of City Hall, promising a future that aligns with the dreams and aspirations of those who call Santa Monica home. Mayor Phil Brock, a true son of Santa...

  • Harvard President Claudine Gay Has Published Not One Book, And Yet She Leads Our Most Prestigious University. How Did That Happen?

    Bill Ackman and Geoffrey Miller, Twitter|Updated Dec 12, 2023
    3

    I learned from someone with first person knowledge of the @Harvard president search that the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office's criteria. The same was likely true for other elite universities doing searches at the same time, creating an even more limited universe of DEI-eligible presidential candidates. Shrinking the pool of candidates based on required race, gender, and/or sexual orientation criteria is not the right approach to...

  • Ivy League University Presidents: If Hateful Anti-Semitic Free Speech Must be Countered with More Free Speech, Where is the Latter?

    Corva Corvax, A Logical Opinion|Updated Dec 12, 2023
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    December 7, 2023 - At a congressional hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday, the presidents of three Ivy League universities declined to admit that calls for genocide against Jews violated their policies against bullying and harassment. The presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all called on the primacy of free speech in a university setting and stated that only when speech was...

  • Gascón's Secret Scheme to Release a Convicted Cop Killer and Mexican Mafia Shot Caller

    Kathleen Cady, Association of Deputy District Attorneys|Updated Dec 7, 2023

    On May 29, 1979, Jesse Gonzales murdered Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Jack Williams and left William's two daughters -- then 11 and 12 -- without a father. Those daughters have missed their dad every day for 44 years. But now Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and a former public defender he brought on to gut the county's most heinous and serious murder convictions are just days away from letting Gonzales out of state prison. And they are trying to do it...

  • Mysteriously, MIT Thinks It Can Stop Campus Antisemitism Without Addressing Whether it's Wrong to Say "Intifada Revolution" and "From the River to the Sea"

    Alyssa Erdley, News with Attitude|Updated Nov 28, 2023
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    November 15, 2023 - The President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sally Kornbluth, released a public statement to the community, including parents of students and alumni, that attempted - and pathetically failed - to address recent events on campus that have made national headlines and TV and Internet news reports. In her cover email letter, she claimed she was going to include a written update that "clears up some false rumors and answers some common questions...

  • The Story of Barbara Phillips: A Potentially Innocent Woman with 26 Years Behind Bars

    Amber S. Jackson, Special to the Observer from Chino Institute for Women|Updated Nov 19, 2023
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    UPDATED: to include Barbara Phillips's contact information. Behold, this is the story of Barbara Phillips. We call her "Ms. Bobbie" here on the prison women's prison yard. Ms. Bobbie is here with an LWOP sentence with 26 years down. As California courts implement new resentencing laws, male prisoners regularly get relief from the courts and ultimately leave BEFORE female prisoners. Younger prisoners also get relief before older ones. Now, honestly, you should know that I...

  • Santa Monica Police Reform Commission Votes to Disallow Police Pretextual Stops Citing Fears of Racism

    Arthur Jeon, Special to the Observer|Updated Nov 17, 2023

    Letter to the editor: I am appalled by the City's "Police Reform Commission" that voted 6-4 against allowing our police to make pretextual stops because they think the Santa Monica police are making traffic stops based on race. You have gamed the statistics and revealed yourselves as out of touch with reality. This will soon come up as a vote by the city council. Residents will be watching. Because yet again Santa Monica, held hostage by a tiny group of people with an...

  • Your Loan is Between You and Your Bank

    Glenn Mollette|Updated Nov 15, 2023

    November 9 - Many years ago I took out a second mortgage on my home. The house had grown in value and had at least $30,000 of equity. At that time, I had multiple reasons. The second mortgage added a second monthly payment to my already very tight budget. I made both the original payment and the second mortgage payment for a couple years until I was able to refinance both loans into a ten-year fixed interest rate loan. Fortunately, I was able to pay off the ten-year loan in...

  • UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Justify Hamas' Brutality in Israel

    Updated Oct 29, 2023

    SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, Oct. 25 – After learning of an appalling letter sent from the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council that justifies Hamas' brutal murder, mutilation, beheading and burning alive of women, children, babies, the elderly, the disabled and others, 115 organizations today demanded that the University of California (UC) reject a proposal for a UC ethnic studies admissions requirement. The faculty who wrote this letter are the same faculty t...

  • Santa Monica is Able to Hire Police Officers After Ending Vaccine Mandate

    Adnan Safadi, Special to Observer|Updated Oct 29, 2023

    Santa Monica's Police Department recently hired a bunch of new sworn officers. Why now? Why didn't Santa Monica's police department hire a bunch of new sworn officers in December of 2021? Well, because the City Of Santa Monica was mandating an experimental MRNA treatment for new police recruits. The experimental MRNA treatment causes heart attacks in some people. So for the entire term of the vaccine mandates Santa Monica has had an impossible time hiring new sworn officers....

  • Cash Bail Will Help Santa Monica's Residents and Business Owners

    Adnan Safadi, Special to the Observer|Updated Oct 27, 2023

    Last Tuesday, Santa Monica City Council Woman Caroline Torosis delivered a scripted speech about cash bail. She said that she has "Seen first hand" how cash bail "destroys families." No she hasn't. She's reading from a script she didn't write. Caroline Torosis said that cash bail "criminalizes poverty." No it doesn't. It criminalizes criminals. Caroline Torosis said that cash bail resulted in "either below or similar to historical average" failure to appear in court. That is...

  • Columbia Professor Shai Davidai Pleads with University to Protect Jewish Students by "Taking a Clear Stand Against Murder."

    Shai Davidai, Columbia University NYC|Updated Oct 27, 2023

    I am an assistant professor at Columbia Business School. I am a father, a husband, an uncle, and a son. I am a forty-year-old man, and last week I found myself crying in front of a group of complete strangers. In a video that has since gone viral, I stood on Columbia University's main campus and pleaded with my employer to protect me and help me protect the thousands of Jewish students whose lives and safety have been entrusted to us by worried parents all across the United...

  • Rand Conference on Homelessness is Clueless About the Reality on the Streets of Santa Monica

    Arthur Jeon, Letter to the Editor and City Council|Updated Oct 24, 2023

    Dear Council, This article reporting on the Rand conference on "homelessness" is revealing. Round-and-round we go, as criminals prey on us, threaten us when we step out to walk the dogs, trespass, and senselessly steal anything and everything (below, this addict, holding either a weapon or a butane lighter for his drugs, steals our dog's ball in broad daylight. Why, my dog Bonnie asks? Because he's here. Sorry, Bonnie!). Not as bad as breaking into our garage and stealing...

  • The Election of Mayors and City Councils who side with criminals, homeless, outsiders, unions, over taxpayers is Killing California

    Houman Hemmatti MD PhD, Special to the Observer|Updated Oct 24, 2023

    Steve Hilton wonders how California has gone so far in the wrong direction. "California has gone from the pinnacle of the American Dream to the place that everyone can't wait to leave. How did that happen in a matter of decades?" he writes. Here's my brief take: 1. Election of Newsom, an empty shell of a handsome spokesman, who turned California into a piggy bank and playground for the special interests who own/control him (see below). 2. Election of Soros-backed DAs (Gascon,...

  • Israel Backs Down: IDF Ground Invasion of Gaza to Remove Hamas is No Longer Imminent or Likely

    Stan Greene, Observer Staff Writer|Updated Oct 24, 2023

    For those waiting for the show, you're about to be disappointed. US President Joseph R. Biden, in his trip to appears to have convinced Benjamin Netanyahu, to punt. No Gaza invasion despite the buildup of tanks and troops. "Let's be clear: President Biden and his administration are the only things holding Netanyahu back from absolutely leveling Gaza," said one armchair analyst on Twitter. "While Biden has rightly stood firm with Israel, he has also called for restraint, reflec...

  • Humane Society of the United States 2022 Tax Return Shows Only 1% of Money Given to Pet Shelters

    HumaneWatch|Updated Oct 17, 2023

    We obtained the latest tax return for the Humane Society of the United States, a national organization that raises money to save homeless animals. The tax return, covering 2022, shows HSUS wasting millions. Despite its name, HSUS is not affiliated with local humane societies. And it generally only gives about 1% of its money as financial grants to pet shelters–which once again appears to be the case in 2022, based on reported grants. Here are more highlights from the 2022 t...

  • Open Letter to Council Alleges City Intends to Censor Public Comments

    Olga Zurawska|Updated Sep 30, 2023

    Dear Mayor Davis, Councilmembers and City Attorney Sloan, The purpose of this open letter is to express grave concerns regarding the constitutionality of item 5-K agendized for the upcoming September 26, 2023 City Council meeting. The name of the item is "Adoption of a Resolution Amending and Restating the Civility at Public Meetings Policy set forth in Resolution No. 10642 (CCS)." The item seeks the addition of the City's Statement Against Hate to the existing civility...

  • Masking up Again? Yes? No? Depends on What Fauci Said When

    Jill Chapin, Special to the Observer|Updated Sep 30, 2023

    As we are starting to see Dr. Anthony Fauci in the news again to tout the benefits of masking, we should take the time to follow his directives on this during the past several years. At the beginning of Covid, he went back and forth on the usefulness of masks. In January, 2020 he said they don't work. He doubled down on this two months later when he said people shouldn't be walking around with masks because they're not providing the perfect protection that people think it is....

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