Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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I was Steve Miller's first boss. He wrote an anti-Freshman Seminar for me. This was long after he was in third grade, and apparently eating glue, according to a third grade teacher recently suspended by SMMUSD, the local school district. "He was a creepy loner," she recalled. https://www.spin.com/2018/10/stephen-miller-teacher-suspended-ate-glue/ Then as now, I publish a local print newspaper in Santa Monica, CA called the Observer. In 2002, a 16 year old kid named Steve...
It may come as a disappointment to city cheerleaders and cause an eye-roll to the rest of us that the city has announced their plan to become "self-sufficient" in water use has been delayed by three years. Back in 2011, the Santa Monica City Council - largely the same people it is today, seven years later - set a goal of reaching water self-sufficiency by 2020. One can only speculate that their idea was it was somehow more environmentally friendly and also cost-efficient to us...
Update, My Take, and My Analysis on the California Voter Rights Act (CVRA) post-trial hearing that was held in Judge Yvette Palazuelos Courtroom on Friday December 7th to discuss proposals for remedies in legalizing Santa Monica's illegal at-large election system; or in other words abandoning the at-large based election system and implementing district-based elections. No decision was made by the Judge on Friday. The City's attorneys tried to sneak in a re-argument of the...
Perhaps you are like me, and you have become lost in the whole Russia Collusion narrative. You don't know precisely how or why Russia, a country of $176 million with no real stake in the US political game, got a Manchurian candidate named Donald Trump elected in 2016. You don't know why the main stream media continues to blame Russia for Donald Trump and his policies, despite the fact that Russia remains an outsider under sanctions in the Western system. Robert Reich...
The County of LA adopted an inspection program to ensure that housing facilities for the homeless are clean and responsive to needs of residents. The official COLA press release follows below. We asked Olga Zurawska, an advocate for the new legislation, whether higher standards will make it more difficult for cities to provide shelter to the homeless. She wrote back to us: First off, the standards are a moral necessity as homeless clients have been mistreated and abused by...
Greg Morena will join incumbents Sue Himmelrich and Kevin McKeown on the Santa Monica City Council. Morena, a restaurant owner, won election to be the newcomer on the Council. Pam O'Conner, who has been on the City Council since the Reagan administration, was somehow turned out by voters. She has voted for every large development project ever proposed in Santa Monica, and voters evidently finally understood that. Lori Brown lost her bid to be the only landlord on the Santa...
At the Santa Monica Observer, we received not one dollar in city funds for advertising the last two years. No candidate this year has placed even one ad with us yet. Trust me, we have no friends at City Hall either. Santa Monica officials even try to avoid me when they run into me at Ralphs. The same could be said for most of my old friends. Is this anything to be proud of? Probably not. But at least it's true. Anyway, with no axe to grind and no dog in the fight, we present...
At long last, America's Democratic Resistance has a chance to go to the polls and vote against President Donald J. Trump. Arguments about Russian Collusion have disappeared from the National narrative, as have any references to Brett Kavanaugh, gun control or the US Supreme Court. Now, the rhetoric from the left is mostly that the President is a Divider in Chief, not a uniter like his immediate predecessor. Speaking of Barrack Obama, the former President has hit the campaign...
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti headlined a rally at the Federal Building in Westwood, to protest the violence that unfolded Saturday morning at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. And the person most of the Democratic speakers blamed, needless to say, was--well, you can probably guess. The vigil which was organized in 24 hours, stood up against anti semitism and hate. Garcetti, Jewish himself, read the names and ages of all 11 victims, which included at least one holoca...
"Participants made clear that they were concerned about their day-to-day ability to express themselves: They worry that a lack of familiarity with a topic, or an unthinking word choice, could lead to serious social sanctions for them." A new report says that 80% of Americans have just had it with Political Correctness. It was based on a nationally representative poll with 8,000 respondents, 30 one-hour interviews, and six focus groups conducted from December 2017 to September...
First, in Los Angeles County, No on Measure W, a new property tax on homeowners, apartment buildings and businesses to pay for stormwater projects. It would raise $300 million per year, just enough to fill up a pot of money for politicians to spread around. No on Proposition 1, a $4 billion general obligation bond for affordable housing, including $1 billion for veterans' home loans. The veterans' loans cost taxpayers nothing but the rest of it will run $200 million per year...
Santa Monica employs very well qualified police and fire personnel. It's an open secret that Santa Monica Police and Fire fighters are also the most overpaid first responders in the world. It's not unusual at all for a Policeman to make $100,000 a year. The chief of police makes more than $350,000 a year. 100 Santa Monica employees make more than $300,000 a year (!!!), and 20 of them are Police Officers. It will probably not surprise you to learn that "the Santa Monica Police...
There has been a subtle shift in the narrative from Mainstream news sources, on the Kavanaugh nomination. The guy who could soon be in a position to roll back Roe v. Wade, is about as clean as they come. But with one woman from his past set to be rolled out each week until the election, the MSM is playing his defeat as all but certain. Yes, it's not just Christine Blasey Ford anymore. There's another woman who says Kavanaugh wasn't nice to her. It seems Brett exposed himself...
Santa Monica has more than its fair share of drama over local elections. The powerful and longtime influential group of Santa Monicans for Renter's Rights (SMRR) has recently noticed fierce (if futile) attacks from new groups of residents opposed to their policies of rampant over-development, unwise fiscal policy, and anti-business positions. Measure TL, which would impose term limits on city council seats that are now effective lifetime positions, is one heroic attempt to w...
We were told once again, that it was the storm of the Century. 3 million people were evacuated, down highways whose direction police reversed, to aid the evacuation of entire Counties. Governors grimly warned "first responders will not come and get you. leave now." Comparisons were made with Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in 2004, and Irma, which forever changed Puerto Rico in 2017. But the truth was far more pedestrian . Yes, there was rain. And wind. And storm...
Tuesday, September 11th, Homeland Security agents arrested a thirty-year old Marine Corps Veteran, Cory Richard Morgan Gleeson, during a 9/11 Occupy ICE L.A. rally to shut down the Metropolitan Detention Center, in front of the Alameda Street entrance of the facility. Gleeson had joined activists at the event, hosted by Occupy ICE L.A. and ten other grassroots groups so that he could learn more about the Abolish ICE movement. Protesters and activists mobilized to occupy the...
I suppose it is the elephant in the room of national Democratic Politics. Cheated out of a nomination that should have been his but for a rigged process in 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders remains enormously popular with rank and file Dems as well as the donkey fund raising class. He is 74 years of age and will be 76 on inauguration day in January 2021. But Sanders is the beneficiary of the Ashkenazi longevity gene, His age will not bar him from competing against populist President...
Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has resisted a glioblastoma for 12 months, will no longer be undergo treatment, reports the New York Times citing McCain's family. Meghan McCain announced that he was discontinuing treatment on Friday, a sign that the Republican senator is most likely entering his final days. The Republican nominee for President in 2008 described his opponent, then Sen. Barack Obama as "A good man." He has objected repeatedly to the tone and tenor of the...
Our source in the Trump White House says that the president is preparing to fire Attorney General Jeff sessions by the end of August. The two have butted heads since sessions appointed independent prosecutor Robert Mueller. Mueller may also be sacked in shades of Richard Nixon firing independent prosecutor Archibald Cox 50 years ago. ( in fact the joke in 1970 was that Nixon was a "Cox Sacker"). After the simultaneous plea agreement with Trump attorney Michael Cohen, and the...
The trial in the voting rights case brought by by former council candidate Maria Loya and the Pico Neighborhood Association against the City of Santa Monica finally began last week. A bombshell dropped in court on Friday Morning. Plaintiff's attorney Rex Parris told the Court that on Thursday, councilman Tony Vasquez revealed that the City Commissioned a study of voting patterns in Santa Monica, but the City never disclosed that study to Plaintiff's. According to Parris, some...
Santa Monica for Renters Rights have had a near lock on City council elections since the group was founded in 1979. Are local voters finally fed up enough by the non stop construction, traffic and enormous block apartment projects, to choose someone else? Armen Melkonians thinks so, The man behind the "Residocracy" page on Facebook, used that platform to announce last Sunday that he had pulled papers to run for Santa Monica City Council. Joining him on a local anti...
At the San Diego border last Friday, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Tekae Michael jumped out of the van with her partner, Agent Theron Francisco, to catch up with two male "give ups," who had crossed the border and were walking toward the agents. Agent Michael said, "When we see illegal aliens walking East West, they are looking for someone they can turn themselves into, and they are referred to as "give-ups." Most likely, according to Agent Michael, they were going to claim asylum...
A photo of the restauranteur who told Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave the Red Hen restaurant because she works for Donald Trump has emerged. The photo is apparently from her Facebook Page. Sarah Sanders says she was asked to leave restaurant because she works for Trump, reports Kathryn Watson / CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/sarah-sanders-says-red-hen-virginia-restaurant-owner-told-her-to-leave-2018-06-23/ Red Hen Restaurant Owner Stephanie Wilkinson has become a h...
Alison Hartson, is running her campaign to unseat Senator Feinstein on people and policy over profit and politics. Hartson, 37-years old, and national director of the Wolf-Pac group that tries to get money out of politics, wants to get the "politics out of politics" as she's vowed not to take a single dime of corporate or PAC money. Also, she does not believe in the endorsing of candidates From public high school teacher, to builder of an intervention program for at risk...
During a "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday porn star Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper that President Donald Trump told her she reminded him of his daughter Ivanka, while revealing little details about the alleged affair. "You know-- he was like, 'You're smart and beautiful, and a woman to be reckoned with, and I like you. I like you'" she said. The adult film actress could be fined up to one million dollars for breaking a "hush-agreement" she signed in 2016, just days...
