Plot twist -- former HB city attorney and former DOJ attorney Michael Gates ineptly sank the 2025 Texas redistricting maps which were struck down by a three-judge panel today: tinyurl.com/nhe6er4j 1/6

Hey friends - we’ve been working extremely hard on efforts to protect queer lives in Orange County. But we’re struggling to do this work with our limited resources - and queer, trans lives are in extreme danger now more than ever. Please help us protect our community. Bit.ly/donatetopatp

Is that you, Huntington Beach city councilmember Butch Twining, dressed in black, holding a candle and a small flag, at the very end of this clip from last night's Charlie Kirk rally at the pier as the crowd is shouting "WHITE MEN FIGHT BACK!"?

Great LAist article expanding an important story brought to light by Surf City Sentinel. :-) Key quote: “Surveillance equipment and surveillance, in general, are a lot of times a crutch for bad social policies,” he said. “They don't solve the underlying issues of crime.” laist.com/news/politic...

Without transparency, there can be no trust when it comes to government surveillance. surfcitysentinel.substack.com/p/oak-view-s...

Huntington Beach's unofficial poet laureate nailed it at last night's city council meeting -- "their mission is quite clear, stoke up cruelty, hate, and fear".

Property owner seeks rezoning to build up to 800 medium-density residential units and 350 hotel rooms inland of PCH between Seapoint and Goldenwest. www.facebook.com/surfcitysent...

Credit: @ochuddle.bsky.social

The erasure of history is Orwellian. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Anyways...

In the end, the Huntington Beach MAGA city council years will only be remembered for the partisan circus sideshows meant to entertain and distract, and not for any lasting accomplishments that might have built a better future for us all.

Huntington Beach is a defendant in a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging sexual harassment by a police officer against a resident, followed by intimidation from other officers to keep it quiet. Read the details here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Trumpflation is driving my Amazon subscription list prices higher by 5-38% in my upcoming delivery. :-(

In this week's CDC MMWR, dairy workers in two different households may have passed H5N1 bird flu to exclusively indoor cats. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes...

In a defeat for MAGA City, the State Court of Appeals has ordered the OC Superior Court judge in the HB voter ID lawsuit to render a decision on the merits, and the writing is on the wall that the charter city justification for voter ID will fail. voiceofoc.org/2025/02/stat...

Exactly this.

My latest Substack post.

My Surf City Sentinel presence has expanded to include Bluesky. :-)

San Clemente is smart -- they don't want to be like us in Huntington Beach when it comes to fighting the state over the SB54 California Values Act re "sanctuary cities".

The 2016 song "Amerika" by Canadian rockers Wintersleep speaks to the complicated relationship between Canada and America. At about the 4:30 mark in the video, there is an eerily prescient clip of Trump talking about making America great again and winning at trade. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKJ8...

Bruce MacKinnon, the editorial cartoonist at the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, drew this last November. No newspaper would print it. It now deserves an outing.

Adios to the last of my pre-tariff Mexican limes purchased for $0.59 each.

Conditioning federal disaster relief on unrelated political demands is monstrous.

It turns out that the lyrics Alice Cooper wrote for "Don't Give Up" to describe COVID19 in 2020 work equally well for Trump in 2025. 😆 www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi-O...

I have mapped most of the police license plate surveillance network in Huntington Beach. Subscribe to my Substack if you enjoy long-form watchdog reporting. surfcitysentinel.substack.com/p/surveillan...

My Surf City Sentinel coverage of Huntington Beach, California, can now be found on Substack in addition to Facebook. open.substack.com/pub/surfcity...

Former mayor Connie Boardman and I have sued the city of Huntington Beach to overturn the outrageous airshow settlement which is a $50 million illegal gift of public funds. Details here: m.facebook.com/story.php?st...

My knees and other joints are rooting for the osteoarthritis clinical trials to bear fruit, LOL.

Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates has no discernable humanity. He's urging President Felon to punish Los Angeles in a time of dire crisis.

👇🏽🤔 (We don’t know who made this… but 🎯)

Vegan diets for the win. :-)

The Huntington Beach petition to require a public vote for library privatization has qualified for the ballot. Both library petitions are now waiting for the city council to do further study, adopt outright, or call for an election. laist.com/news/politic...

laist.com/news/politic... The HB City Council is definitely dragging its heels in announcing when this will appear on the ballot.

Thoughts and prayers do nothing to reduce gun violence.

MAGA poked the bear when they came after the Huntington Beach Public Library. The book banners have never been the good guys at any time in history.

Huntington Beach is being dragged kicking and screaming to switch to district city council elections. In a tentative ruling ahead of a Monday 12/16 hearing on the city's defendant motion for summary judgment, the court writes that the plaintiff "has shown a likelihood of success on the merits".

Wow, Tesla FSD v12.5.4.2 was impressively courteous during morning rush today by leaving a gap for left-turning cross traffic despite no road markings or signs for "Do Not Block Intersection".

Cats in Los Angeles County have died of presumptive bird flu after consuming raw milk from recalled batches from Raw Farms. www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influe...

There may be another H5N1 child case in California without a known source of exposure. This one is in Marin County, close to Alameda County where the previous unexplained child case was. It's too early to know whether the geographic proximity is community spread or just coincidence.

Fuel your resistance with a good breakfast. ;-) Indian dhokla, a light & spongy chickpea flour cake, is one of my favorite breakfasts, because it yields me three days each with about 20g of vegan protein when subbing cashewmilk yogurt for dairy yogurt. Yum! www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu9M...

Thanks to all the atheists out there just doing the right thing without me threatening you with fire and brimstone.

The bird flu pandemic may be just a single mutation away.

My legal fight against Voter ID in Huntington Beach also continues, with my attorney filing an amended complaint later today.

Newly sworn-in Huntington Beach City Councilmember Butch Twining calls for unity, but only among far-right conservatives. The rest of us simply don't exist to him.

There's no better illustration of MAGA being based in hatred and grievance than Huntington Beach. The new council has no interest in governing. They'll do nothing but spew bravado and try to humiliate everyone who's not in their camp. Sadly for residents, their legacy will be all damage and no good.

Here is the despicable parting gift given by Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark to outgoing councilmembers Dan Kalmick, Natalie Moser, and Rhonda Bolton. Never EVER assume that a MAGA can't go any lower.

Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach, a thriving Japanese agricultural community in the early 1900s, is being nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. To help with that effort, please donate to this fundraising campaign: givebutter.com/wintersburg

This nutrition science interview was fascinating and wide-ranging! Ultra-processed foods, vegan high carb diets, keto low carb diets, diabetes, GLP-1, continuous glucose monitors and more.