LOS ANGELES

RANTZ & RAVEZ- Talk about throwing more and more tax money down the drain with little improvement to the ever-increasing homeless population in Los Angeles and beyond! 

ALPERN AT LARGE--Once Upon a Time, there was bipartisanship, a Common Enemy who was either Hitler or Stalin or the Ayatollah Khomeini, and both Democrats and Republicans disagreed with each other but respected each other's talking points as issues that we ignored at our collective peril. 

NO ONE ABOVE THE LAW-On August 27, 2019 I sent the following complaint to LA County Deputy District Attorneys Alan Yochelson and Michele Gilmer: 

OTHER WORDS-This Labor Day, Democratic presidential candidates will no doubt be touting their support for a $15 per hour minimum wage. None have opposed the idea. 

GUEST COMMENTARY--2UrbanGirls has long been skeptical of the “friendship” Los Angeles Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson (MHD) struck up with the late Nipsey Hussle. (Photo above: Councilman Harris-Dawson (l) and Nipsey Hussle.)

PERSPECTIVE-You may have read the recent news about the City stepping up enforcement of homeless encampments within the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZA). 

EASTSIDER-After being passed by the voters in November 2018, Measure W disappeared into a black hole.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The existence of the two secret weapons is rather bizarre as both are beyond his control and none of the pundits will mention them. The first is Nancy Pelosi’s Group Rights (Identity Politics) agenda, and the second is Trumpy-Doodle’s Histrionic Personality Disorder. 

AT LENGTH-No, I didn’t invent the single word headline I’m using this week, and it isn’t a political term that you got wrong on your Advanced Placement government exam in high school.

LABOR DAY 2019--Author Steven Greenhouse is convinced that too few Americans fully understand what, he says, “unions have accomplished for tens of millions of workers in the United States.”

@THE GUSS REPORT-Last week, in case number 19STSC02923, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ray Santana ordered the City of Los Angeles to pay this columnist $2,000 for the LAPD’s continual abuses of my 1^st Amendment rights, fraud, breach of contract and denial of due process rights as I pursue stories about corruption and failure in local government.

VIEW FROM HERE--In his book, Atlas Of A Lost World, author Craig Childs points out that "The first arrivals keep getting older and older because we’re finding more evidence as time goes on.

ACTION ALERT--SB 330 is set for a public hearing at 9 AM, Wednesday, August 28, 2019, before the State Assembly Appropriations Committee. 

NEW GEOGRAPHY--California likes to think of itself as the brain center of the universe, but increasingly much of that intellectual content comes from somewhere else. Once a leader in educational innovation and performance, California is now toward the bottom of the pack.

ALPERN AT LARGE--When I first heard about City workers laying down infrastructure for the homeless encampment on Venice Blvd., and when I first heard about used needles and human feces at the Farmers Market location on Venice Blvd., my first reaction was one of revulsion and anger.

GELFAND’S WORLD--Most of us have gone on the assumption that at some point, a new president can and will undo the Trump trade war with China by abolishing the tariffs and promising that the lapsed tariffs won’t be brought back.

CLIMATE POLITICS-A decade ago, several prominent climate scientists discussed the prospects of a 4C Earth.

OTHERWORDS--This August, a phony controversy erupted over wealthy donors to President Trump’s campaign and political action committee being publicly named.

DEEGAN ON LA-Cattle rustling and Texas have been “pardners” in so many movies and stories about the wild west with thieves often brought to justice is a way that’s bigger than life, much like the Lone Star State itself. 

OTHER WORDS-As another school year starts, I look forward to heading back to the classroom. I love class when I’m teaching it. I hate it when I’m there as a student.  

URBAN PERSPECTIVE--In a move that’s raising eyebrows from workers and patients across the country, healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente is one of only a handful of the nation’s nearly 200-largest corporations that refused to sign