LA ELECTION 2022 - The Los Angeles Superior Court has granted an injunction ordering companies owned by Rick Caruso to cease suppressing criticism of their owner’s failing political run at the Grove, a 750,000 square foot shopping mall.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - Don’t get all excited; LA city will still be a corrupt feudal society run by oligarchs.
SACRAMENTO HAPPENINGS - With a midnight Friday deadline to determine the fate of hundreds of bills on his desk, Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a busy man.
PLANNING WATCH - There are still some fence sitters when it comes to figuring out who City Hall’s puppet masters are.
ACCORDING TO LIZ - Are you tired of being told to post your pronouns? I am.
LA WATCHDOG - Shall an ordinance providing funding for parks, recreational centers, pools, playgrounds, waterways, beaches, green spaces, open spaces, childcare, and other facilities, and increasing park equity in the City of Los Angeles,
SOUTH OF THE 10 - California’s commitment to address the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis received collaborative and bipartisan boost with the signing of legislation by recently elected Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D – Inglewood).
ERIC PREVEN’S NOTEBOOK - There was a lot of sloganeering on and off agenda at Tuesday's six plus hour board meeting:
ONLINE BETTING - Odds are, one of the many ads for legalizing sports betting has snagged your attention, given their ubiquity on TV, websites and billboards across California.
GUEST COMMENTARY - A year after Los Angeles adopted an ordinance to protect renters from harassment by taking their landlords to court, the law has largely failed its purpose.
SUPREME IN JUSTICE - Adults in the United States say they lack trust in the federal government's judicial branch and nearly three-fifths disapprove of the way the U.S. Supreme Court is doing its job,
CLIMATE WATCH - Our worldhome is critically ill and on fire, but the politicians and economically powerful are fluffing about with rockets, gleefully banning abortion, spending US $932 billion on new oil and gas fields, and goofing around with carbon trading, as though our living conditions and survival were a leisurely card game.
UNIONS - After vetoing similar legislation last year and threatening to do so again last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed Assembly Bill 2183 into law, making it easier for farmworkers in the state to participate in union elections.
AN ALMOST MISFIRE - It was an intelligence failure of a scope to vastly exceed all others, when one nuclear superpower perceived the other moving to a nuclear first strike and prepared for war, while the other missed all the signals and believed it was business as usual.
GELFAND’S WORLD - A hard piece to write, because it ultimately comes down to excitement over a wonderful production with only two performances remaining.
ABORTION RIGHTS - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is the top law enforcement officer and a zealous anti-abortion crusader in a state that has become ground zero in the right’s efforts to eliminate access to the procedure.
LGBTQ WATCH - In several anecdotes, an upcoming book on Donald Trump’s presidency by New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman – entitled Confidence Man – shows his obsession with the possibility of LGBTQ people working for him, including when he asked whether an imaginary trans student was “With cock or without cock?”
GUEST COMMENTARY - Many Americans seem to be giving up.
NUCLEAR DISASTER - What does surrender look like in the world of geopolitics?
CLIMATE WATCH - Ithaca, a city of 30,000 people in the Southern Tier of New York state, has pledged to be carbon-neutral by 2030.
THE VIEW FROM HERE - During the debate on September 21, 2022, Sheriff Alex Villanueva showed that he is out of step with Los Angeles.
UNHOUSED - The homelessness crisis in Los Angeles just didn’t happen out of nowhere.
Across CityWatch
Somebody Please Think of the Children, Who Are 44, 40 and 38-Year-Old Crooks
- Details
- Written by Abby Zimet
SAY WHAT? - As always, the competition was stiff. But this week's Head-Spinning Right-Wing Hypocrisy Award goes to former A.G., longtime fan of mass incarceration, and egregious, serial abuser of the prosecutorial power of office as a political weapon Bill Barr, who went on the T.V. - Fox, duh - to whine that New York A.G. Letitia James suing the Trump Mafia was an "abuse of office" and "political hit job" that "grossly overreaches when she tries to drag the children into this." Whew. There are so many layers of irony, fraudulence, hilarity and out-and-out dickishness here - where to begin? James' 220-page lawsuit, the result of years of exhaustive investigation, found that for decades Trump committed even more "staggering" criminal fraud than everyone thought, issuing annual financial statements packed with lies that wildly inflated the worth of almost all his crappy properties - for example, tagging the gaudy Mar-A-Lago as worth $739 million when its actual worth was maybe $75 million - to get loans, while simultaneously deflating them to avoid paying taxes.
"With the help of his children and senior executives at the Trump Organization," James said after the lawsuit was filed, "Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and cheat the system." Of course his "children" - endangered animal-killer Don Jr., 44, fashion grifter and icky daddy's girl Ivanka, 40, doofus Eric who stole money from a kids' cancer charity and took the 5th over 500 times in a deposition for the suit though "only the Mob takes the 5th," 38 - are almost middle-aged executives of a multi-million company they helped manage while raking in millions from it, and oh yeah one was a "senior presidential adviser." Still, Barr argued in laughably patronizing fashion, none had the smarts to understand things like loans or contracts or financial statements: "The children aren't going to know the details of that, nor are they expected in the real world to do their own due diligence." And besides, Hunter Biden.
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ABORTION RIGHTS - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is the top law enforcement officer and a zealous anti-abortion crusader in a state that has become ground zero in the right’s efforts to eliminate access to the procedure.
With its esteemed reputation, it’s no surprise that blackjack is one of the most widely-played table games in the world, enjoyed by millions at online casinos and real-life gambling venues alike. The goal of blackjack is to get as close to 21 without going over and to have a higher hand than the dealer.
Blackjack, unlike roulette and craps, is not solely reliant on chance. While a good run of cards can certainly make you some money in Zodiac casino Canada, there’s always an element of skill involved in blackjack that can be used to increase your chances of winning. So if you’re looking to take your blackjack game up a notch, check out our tips and tricks below!
Blackjack Basics
If you’re new to blackjack, the first thing you need to do is learn the basic rules of the game. Once you understand how blackjack works, you can begin experimenting with different strategies to see what works best for you.
Blackjack is a comparing card game played between a player and dealer, meaning that there are typically two hands involved in each game — the player’s hand and the dealer’s hand. The object of blackjack is to have a higher hand than the dealer without going over 21.
If both the player and dealer go over 21 (i.e., “bust”), then the player automatically loses the game.
Cards 2-10 are worth their face value, while Jacks, Queens, and Kings are each worth 10 points. Aces can be worth either 1 or 11 points, depending on what’s more advantageous for the player at any given time.
The odds in blackjack can be improved by using a basic strategy, which is a set of guidelines that tell you what action to take in every possible situation. By following these guidelines, you can minimize the casino’s edge and give yourself a better chance of winning.
Winning Tips
There are many different blackjack strategies out there, but the most important thing is to find one that works for you and stick with it. It’s also crucial to remember that no matter what strategy you use, the house always has an edge. With that in mind, here are some general tips to help you improve your blackjack game:
- Always split aces and 8s.
- Never split 5s or 10s.
- Hit on a soft 17.
- Stand on a hard 17 or higher.
- Double down when you have a 10 or 11 and the dealer has a 9 or lower.
- Double down on a soft 18 if the dealer has a 9, 10, or 11.
- Surrender if you have a 16 and the dealer has a 9, 10, or ace.
While there is no guaranteed way to win at blackjack, following these tips can help you increase your chances of success. So give them a try next time you’re at the table, and see how much of a difference they make!
RACIAL RECKONINGS - California’s task force on reparations has begun putting dollar figures to potential compensation for the various forms of racial discrimination, generational pain and suffering Black Americans experienced in the state.
RUSSIAN DRAFT - The head of a military draft office in the Russian town of Ust-Ilimsk was being treated for injuries on Monday after being shot by a gunman who—like more than 1,000 people who have been arrested for protesting in recent days—was reportedly angry over President Vladimir Putin's recent military conscription announcement.
WAR WATCH - On 2 December 1943, 105 German bombers made a surprise air raid on Bari in southern Italy, where they sank 27 Allied cargo and transport ships.
RISING EXTREMISM - Energy and food bills are soaring. Under the onslaught of inflation and prolonged wage stagnation, wages are in free fall.
CANNABIS WATCH - California is significantly overhauling its cannabis tax structure, including entirely eliminating a tax on growers, in an effort to boost a struggling legal industry begging for relief.
420 FILE - Working regular overnight shifts has distorted Samantha Kadera’s sleep schedule, so the emergency room doctor smokes cannabis a few times a week to relax before bed.
POT WATCH - Since legalization and the light shining on cannabis and its benefits, the cannabis industry has grown rapidly in a short space of time.
MEDI-CAL HEALTH WATCH - More than 1.7 million Medi-Cal patients may get a new insurance provider in the coming months as a result of the state’s first-ever competitive bidding process, but critics and some providers fear the change will cause major disruptions to care.
WELLNESS - Former grad school classmates Kelsey McQuaid-Craig and Chelsea Oruche have recently bonded over a similar struggle — trying to place loved ones in assisted living.
YOUR HEALTH - Due to hazardous amounts of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) discovered in it, the well-known heartburn medication Zantac, also known as ranitidine, was banned at the end of last year.
It might be challenging for a novice to get their bearings at a real casino if they want to play that way.
GUEST COMMENTARY - I keep hearing the refrain from Evita– the song made popular by Madonna – “Don’t cry for me Argentina”
POLITICAL WATCH - It’s The Ronald Reagan Memorial Competition: which Republican can make the rich richer and the poor poorer the fastest?
DC DISPATCH – (This interview was conducted in 2020 before the untimely death of my husband Anthony Schinella, aka Spooky.
You may be counting the hours and minutes until August 31, 2021, but a word of caution in what you wish for.
VOICES-In response to an October 29, 2020 CityWatch opinion piece about DxE, counsel of DxE informed us of the following: No grooming allegations have ever been made against DxE or anyone in its leadership, neither in the Berkeleyside article referenced in CityWatchLA’s piece nor anywhere else, apart from a single, not credible allegation by what is termed as a ‘high-profile accuser.’
