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Rachel Rossi, currently a criminal defense lawyer at Cohen Williams, a fancy downtown Los Angeles law firm, has announced her candidacy for Los Angeles County District Attorney. You read that right. A boutique defense lawyer wants to be chief law enforcement officer of the county. Her platform reads pretty much exactly as you'd expect from this information. She would like to transform the DA's office into one big powerful defense firm for criminals. Excuse me. Not criminals....
The Vaxxed bus rolls into town. It parks outside of the Laemmle Theater, in downtown Santa Monica. On the outside of the bus, there are nearly 10,000 names. All painstakingly written by hand, a lot of hands. Inside are the echoes of their voices, their tears, their sorrow. Polly Tommey has heard them all. Day after day, week after week, she works from early in the morning, sometimes until midnight, to try and accommodate the crowds. Because, she says, they are desperate for...
Ballot Measure R, also known as Reform LA Jails, will be on the ballot this March. Somewhat confusingly, the measure tackles two disparate issues. The first issue is assuring that the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission will have the power to subpoena documents from the county Sheriff's office without the Sheriff having the power to demur. The second issue the law tackles is to find "alternative options to arrest and incarceration for nonviolent crimes where mental health,...
Following a unanimous resolution by the Santa Monica Airport Commission opposing construction of a 'temporary' facility for the city's Public Landscape Division (PLD) at the airport, and numerous articles in local newspapers about it, the City Council directed the construction be halted. For now. Construction of an $800,000 facility for the PLD, the division that takes care of the city's parks, began at the airport over the summer, surprising and alarming nearby residents,...
The City of Santa Monica is spending over $116 million to modernize (i.e., rebuild) their City Yards near Bergamot Station, but the project, on which construction began in July, is already exposing its inadequacy. The modernization project includes demolishing thirteen buildings on the site that date from the 1940s and replacing them with six new buildings. However, missing from the plan is any sort of recycling center or space for the Public Landscape Division's (PLD) Park...
Santa Monica Police have arrested 30-year-old transient Joseph Jean Gilbert, for assaulting an elderly man. Long-time Santa Monica resident Dr. R.L. Wong was buying coffee at the Coffee Bean on 9th and Wilshire, on Saturday morning. The 79-year-old man,, who uses a cane, then walked slowly to the corner of Lincoln and Wilshire. The corner is bordered by Reed Park, Chase Bank, 7-11, and the Prosper Hotel. There is also a city video camera at the intersection. Right after he...
That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.--Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols (1888). The impeachment hearings are in trouble, and that is now obvious to the world. The Democrats are looking for an honorable way out, and that will probably take the form of censuring the President for asking Ukraine's president to investigate Sen. Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. It was obvious when Congressman Adam Schiff went on MSNBC and considered the possibility that Democrats...
The following comments were made by Keith Kaplan of the Fur Information Council of America, after Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed Assembly Bill 44 into law, which bans the sale and manufacturing of fur products in California. "Governor Newsom has now made California the first state in the nation to abolish a centuries-old, lawful, highly regulated, job-producing, environmentally sound, tax-paying industry. He has failed to recognize the human toll here resulting from the govern...
For decades, federal and state courts have dismissed employment lawsuits because the person suing his or her employer for harassment, discrimination, or retaliation did not first exhaust "administrative remedies" by filing a complaint with either the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) or the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and obtaining a "right to sue" notice. Employers have used the "failure to exhaust administrative remedies" def...
Sunday the 22nd of September is a historic day for the USA when a sitting US president was a guest in the largest gathering of a foreign head of state. Indian Prime minister Hon Narendra Modi spoke to the largest gathering in the US of over 50,000 in Houston, Texas on Sunday. In what is being described as an unprecedented gesture of solidarity, US President Donald Trump was present in Houston to share the stage with Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi during his mega rally....
Narendra Modi gave us a handshake to remember during the G7 Summit that took place in Biarritz, France this weekend. Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi had a meeting with President Donald Trump during the Summit to discuss bilateral trade and the US- Indian relationship. PM Modi was invited to the G7 as a special guest of French president Emmanuel Macron and certainly made his presence felt. He took the opportunity to clear up the air about the recent Kashmir issue. Kashmir...
"As this audience can see, I am alive" she said to thunderous applause at the Library of Congress National Book Festival on Aug. 31, 2019 - Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added her work on the Supreme Court has kept her going by distracting her from her aches and pains from cancer treatment. It is clear however that whoever is elected president of the United States in 2020, will choose her replacement. Her Third bout with cancer seems to be the final blow for Ginsburg, 86....
The digital economy has had the effect of concentrating more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands. As far as housing goes, the AIRBNB app allows well heeled millennials to rent apartments in Santa Monica, Venice and other beach areas, for less than a hotel room (say $200 a night). Enter the City of Santa Monica, which trying to protect its stock of housing, forbid AirBnb and other room sharing apps, from renting out rooms that would ordinarily go for monthly housing...
Update: Stricken with Pancreatic cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seems set to retire from the Supreme Court. Editor's Note; We first posted this story in September, 2018. Sadly we were correct, as Justice Ginsburg underwent surgery on December 15th to remove a cancerous growth from her lungs. We are reposting it since so many people contacted us to ask if it was true that she has pancreatic cancer, which sadly, it is. Shehttps://www.smobserved.com/story/2018/12/20/news/sno...
President Trump is a real estate guy. He recently tweeted that the US should consider buying Greenland and this was met with derision, as so many suggestions this president makes are. But upon closer examination, the idea makes more sense than you might think. 1. The United States almost purchased Greenland in 1917 when it purchased the formerly danish now US Virgin Islands for $100 million, Denmark offered to sell the worlds largest island to the United States for just $100...
A 72-year wait is over today. Prime minister Narendra Modi of India has reversed the political blunder committed by Jawaharlal Nehru with regards to the state of Kashmir. It is a day that will be remembered as the day history was rewritten. People will be talking this decision and the way it happened for decades to come. The Indian parliament has voted to integrate the state of Kashmir fully and finally with the rest of India. Something the county has been longing for 72...
With Hong Kong is paralyzed by a general strike, Beijing appears to have lost patience with its restive former British colony. The extradition law that initially sparked the protests has been withdrawn, but the protests have continued and China has decided to show who's in charge in this City of 4 million Chinese people. The People’s Liberation Army will mobilize and take control of the streets by Friday, according to mobilization orders released to the local press. On the e...
The protesters blocking the access road for construction of a new Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii are only the latest in a long line of protests regarding the dormant volcano. All of these protests have had ample cause for frustration and anger. The volcano, designated a conservation district in 1964, has been exploited since that time with unpermitted construction, toxic waste, spilled sewage, and uncollected trash - all under...
Oxnard, CA - July 24, 2019 - The Los Angeles Times included the remarkable dog named Seven in a story about the many candidates of the 2020 Presidential Campaign. Seven threw his collar in the ring for President of the United States earlier this year. His goal is to "Bring America Together Again." The canine candidate hopes his special Therapy Dog love can help bridge the gap between both Republicans and Democrats. The five-year-old former show dog is offering his services to...
Protesters have camped at the foot of Mauna Kea, a dormant 14,000-foot volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii for a week now, blocking the access road and demanding the halt to construction of a $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope. Mauna Kea is one of the best places on the planet, and certainly the best in the northern hemisphere for astronomical research. The shape of the volcano and its distance from urban light sources create unrivaled conditions for viewing outer space. At...
Twitter shows agents arriving to serve search warrants on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. There has been no comment from the Los Angeles City Attorney, and the Court has sealed the file on what the Federal Bureau of Investigations is seeking. One theory is that rate increases have been more than allowed by law. This seems unlikely, since laws limiting rate increases would not properly be the subject of a Federal investigation. The LADWP has been criticized for...
Move over FIFA, Wimbledon, Basketball, American Football and the rest. The biggest sporting event in the world, which took place over the weekend, is none of these, but actually a Cricket match between India and Pakistan! And it's happening during the preliminary rounds of the Cricket World Cup in Manchester, United Kingdom on Sunday. And it beats all the rest! The FIFA World Cup Final last year between France and Croatia had roughly 1.5 billion viewers. Yet this standard,...
A bill proposed by Santa Monica's State Senator Ben Allen would repeal Article 34 of the California State Constitution. On June 4, Allen's bill was approved unanimously by the California State Senate's Housing Committee. It will now move to the State Senate floor. If approved there, the proposal to change the State Constitution will be put to the voters on the 2020 ballot. Article 34 was passed in 1950 as Proposition 10. The legislation requires a local ballot referendum to...
Hong Kong (dpa) - Hong Kong's largest protest in decades ended with clashes late Sunday as hundreds of protesters attempted to break through police barricades to enter government headquarters. Police used tear gas and batons on protesters, many of whom wore surgical masks and came from the pro-independence student groups. The clashes lasted around 30 minutes until around 12:20 am (16:20 GMT Sunday), the South China Morning Post reported, but stand-offs between police and...
Washington (dpa) – Mexico and the United States on Wednesday failed to reach an immediate agreement to prevent Washington from imposing a 5-per-cent tariff on all Mexican imports, but will resume talks on Thursday, both sides said. US President Donald Trump tweeted that there was progress during the talks at the White House, "but not nearly enough." Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the US had shown a will to bring the two sides' positions closer and that he r...