Politics
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India Votes for Prime Minister This Thursday. The World Should Pay More Attention
In a couple of days, will take place the largest democratic exercise on the planet. India will be voting in its parliamentary general election. In a country of 1.3 BILLION people, a whopping 900 MILLI...
Dead Bodies, Conflicts of interest & Fat Salaries: The Murky Waters of City's Social Services
I have serious concerns about the qualifications and performance of the Santa Monica Social Services Commission, and particularly its Chair Mr. Parent, as well as the staff liaison Ms. Yavari, whose...
Affordable Housing: Be Careful Whom you Trust, City of SM, When You Loan Money
When Step Up on 26th Street came to our street 3 years ago, I decided to become informed, so I have attended every Santa Monica Housing Commission meeting for the last 3 years. I am not on any Board...
Water Rate Increase is Entirely Intended to Subsidize Development in Santa Monica
By January 8, when the City Council voted to increase water rates in the city, there had already been well-above-average rainfall throughout California. To date, California has received 18 trillion...
LA County to Build One or More Units of Affordable Housing Over Next Two Years (Seriously)
On Monday, the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative awarded $4.5 million to five different organizations in a contest to propose "game-changing creative and scalable permanent housing solutions for...
California Voting Rights Act Upheld in Federal Court After Gerrymandering Lawsuit
A San Diego politician lost his federal lawsuit challenging California's Voting Rights Act. Don Higginson, former mayor of Poway, a city in San Diego County, had sued in 2017, claiming the drawing of...
Kamala Harris, the Harpy of Climate Change and Poster Child of By Any Means Necessary
In her first campaign speech as a presidential hopeful for the 2020 election, Kamala Harris, presently the junior Senator from California, roused the crowd with her progressive agenda and...
Call for City's Social Services Commission to Resign over The People Concern scandal
At the Commission's 1/28/19 meeting multiple speakers expressed their frustration with the Commission's reluctance to act. Public comments by Olga Zurawska are below. The Santa Monica Social Services...
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Re-Opens After Federal Shutdown
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- With the enactment of the continuing resolution, staff at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) have resumed regular operations. Some areas of the park...
We Can't House All the Homeless, But At Least we can Count Them
On Wednesday night, volunteers in Santa Monica and across Los Angeles County conducted the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. From 10:30 pm until 2:30 am, volunteers in teams canvassed the...
Council Appoints Ana Maria Jara to Fill Vacancy on Santa Monica City Council
To the surprise of no one, the Santa Monica City Council appointed longtime resident and community activist Ana M. Jara to fill the city council seat vacated by Tony Vazquez. Vazquez resigned in...
Sick With Pneumonia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Fights For Her Life, Setting up SCOTUS Battle
Update, 1/16/19: Justice Ginsburg today cancelled a public appearance set for January 29, 2019, as she remains in a hospital fighting Pneumonia. The elderly judge appears to be nearing the end of her...
Snopes.com Labels Story That Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg Has Cancer, as "Fake News"
The sad news broke Friday morning. US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, underwent surgery for lung cancer. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/supreme-court-justice-ruth-b...
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Will Retire from the US Supreme Court in January, 2019
Update: Stricken with Pneumonia, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about to Retire from the Supreme Court. https://www.smobserved.com/story/2019/01/07/news/stricken-with-pneumonia-ruth-b...
What did Republican candidates in California promise to do if elected? Nothing, Pretty Much
The California Republican Party is like a big, empty aircraft carrier drifting along the coast. It could be powerful, if there were any people on it and if it had a plan to go somewhere. Here's a...
Redistricting: Time for the Santa Monica City Council to Admit They Don't Know Better
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...
City Water Sustainability Delayed 3 Years After A Decade of Non Stop Construction
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 y...
Robert Reich from MoveOn, Explains Trump Russia Collusion Theory in Just One email
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...
L.A. County Enhances Interim Housing Standards for Homeless People
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...
SMRR City Council to Continue, but Pam O'Conner Finally Loses seat. Local Santa Monica Election Results: Measure TL, SMS, SM all approved.
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...
Election Day Finally Here, Both Sides Agree 2018 is a Referendum on President Donald J. Trump
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...
Observer Recommendations for Santa Monica Election Nov. 6th: Time for a Change
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...
Vigil at the Westwood Federal Building in Solidarity with Pittsburgh Synagogue Victims
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 perso...
80% of Americans Decry Political Correctness, Saying It Has Replaced Free Speech with #SJW Crap
"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...
At 15, Stephen Miller was no longer Eating Glue. He Was Protesting Against Leftism at Samohi
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...
