LOS ANGELES

CALIFORNIA STIMULUS - As California continues the slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down many businesses last year, new $600 state stimulus checks have begun arriving in the bank accounts of residents who earn up to $75,000 annually, to help them get back on their feet.

THE DOCTOR IS IN - Well, it looks like Governor Gavin Newsom, after infuriating quite a number of Californians (both Democrats and Republicans alike), has the potential of following Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in ALSO infuriating quite a number of Californians (both Republicans and Democrats alike). 

COMMENTARY-Yes, everyone can vote for a replacement governor on the recall ballot, but should they? 

CAL MATTERS - Republicans running to replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in the recall election have talked about making some big changes in California: Cut taxes.

HYPOCRISY REIGNS-As law enforcement officers across the country don uniforms and equipment to face another shift, it's difficult to imagine their heightened sense of defensiveness.

SOUTH OF THE 10 - Inglewood Mayor James Butts and the city council declared a fiscal emergency in August, citing a $12 million deficit, while sitting on $15.5 million received from the Biden Administration to cover revenue losses attributed to the COVID pandemic.

THE FIRE FIGHT - As large chunks of the Western U.S. burned over the summer, lawmakers in Washington quietly inserted measures into the massive infrastructure package that they hope can be almost as potent as water in fighting them: cash.

COMMENTARY-Earlier this month, CityWatch published an article about SB 2, the Kenneth Ross Jr. Police Decertification Act of 2021 which is wending its way through the halls of Sacramento.

GUEST WORDS - California’s leaders might see themselves as a vanguard of progressive and eco-friendly values. But in reality, their draconian climate policies have created a racially segregated state more akin to the pre-Civil Rights era South.

MEDIA WATCH - A former military officer and Fox News personality was among the many right-wing figures to dish on how Fox News has used bigotry, including anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, to fuel Donald Trump’s influence and his Big Lie election conspiracy theory in a new docuseries.

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-It’s not just our recall elections that are broken in California. It’s all our elections that are broken. 

PLANNING WATCH-Was the Afghanistan mission really accomplished? The war that George Bush began 20 years ago ended on August 31 with a total U.S. withdrawal and Taliban victory.

COMMENTARY-We have a raft of right-leaning Republicans vying to replace Gavin Newsom as Governor of California. 

My parents and grandmother in 1950 were able to afford to buy a duplex in Los Angeles for us to live in for $11,000, a mile north of the LaBrea tar pits.

IMMIGRATION - After a whirlwind of court actions this month, the Biden administration will be forced to restart a Trump-era border policy that trapped tens of thousands of people seeking asylum in dangerous conditions in Mexico while they awaited their court dates.

COVID WATCH - Since the numerous vaccines for Covid-19 were fast-tracked through trials and production in the second half of 2020 the news media have been covering their development and deployment nonstop, and as a bit of a news junkie, I’ve been reading and, mostly, watching with great interest.

THE DOTOR IS IN - For those who were and are interested in truth and history, Pravda was the famous and infamous rag that was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was founded for those who followed Leninist and one-party government in that former Soviet Union. 

ERIC PREVEN'S NOTEBOOK - As a self-described liberal who has battled against LAPD over the use of Tasers and attacked the Fire Department and Mayor for falsely scapegoating the homeless for the Skirball fire in Bel Air, I'm not the first guy you'd think of to start an Angry Landlord Organization Extraordinaire. [ALOE] There are plenty already, but mine would be soothing

VIEW FROM HERE - The threat of internal disintegration has stalked the nation from its founding.

PLANNING WATCH - Lately my in-box has included emails from local community activists dealing with “progressives” who won recent Neighborhood Council elections. 

COMMENTARY - We all have needs that have to be fulfilled, first to survive and then to achieve some degree of that ephemeral state known as happiness.