LOS ANGELES

ALERT---Justice Clarence Thomas issued an opinion today that repeatedly attacked the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges – which legalized marriage equality in all 50 states – as unconstitutional because it “bypassed” the “democratic process” and cause people “with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage” to “find it increasingly difficult to participate in society.”

CITYWATCH TODAY-This report comes under the ICYMI label. In Case You Missed It, here’s Ted Koepple’s report from CBS News Sunday Morning.

GELFAND’S WORLD--Did Donald Trump already know he was Covid-19 positive on Tuesday September 29, the day he left for the first presidential debate of the 2020 election?

GUEST COMMENTARY-Over a year ago, in an attempt to reduce emissions caused by the idling of diesel trucks and buses on the streets and freeways of Los Angeles,

@THE GUSS REPORT-For most of 2020, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti lectured us daily on TV about Corona Virus Disease (“COVID”) and devised insane, unscientific orders like allowing us to walk on the damp sand of a shore but prohibiting us from lying on the dry sand of its beach while telling us he “listens to scientists” who gave no such warnings. 

EASTSIDER-Newsflash: This post is being submitted early, because the meeting of the Planning Commission on this Project is scheduled for Thursday October 8, at about the time the article would normally  post online. Thought the Planning Commission could stand a reality check before they vote. 

LEANING RIGHT-Although "woke" lately has come to mean being sympathetic to the rights and potential double-standards of criminal standards and police interactions of black Americans versus white Americans, another consideration of "wokeness" has also occurred:

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA-How will Californians ever recover from this year of apocalypse and conflict, of pandemic and fire, when landscapes and lives were broken, seemingly forever? Where can we find a miracle? 

NEW GEOGRAPHY-They paved paradise...And put up a parking lot...With a pink hotel, a boutique...And a swinging hot spot...Don't it always seem to go...That you don't know what you've got ‘til it's gone -- Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi,” 1970 

CLIMATE POLITICS-As of September 29, Brazil’s Bolsonaro government has fired the civilian-run National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which has monitored the Amazon rainforest for the past three decades.

VIEW FROM HERE-Yahrzeit is Yiddish for the anniversary of someone’s death.  For political purposes, truth is dead, but exactly when and how did it die? 

GELFAND’S WORLD--With all due respect to the learned statisticians and pollsters, the simple question of who finished the debate ahead on points – who educated the voters more on issues of federal reserve policy or steel tariffs -- isn’t very important.

PLANNING WATCH-Robert Reich is a distinguished UC Berkeley professor of public policy, a former Secretary of Labor, and a frequent ed-op writer.

THE CITY-It can honestly be stated that the Los Angeles Police Department is top-heavy with Command staff and that many of them are not qualified to hold those positions. 

420 FILE--I have a vested interest for the Los ANGELES Department Cannabis Regulation ( LA DCR) ‘social equity’ licensing process to work and ACTUALLY licensing cannabis operators for retail storefronts. 

TONY CASTRO’S AMERICA-I stopped watching the Presidential debate Tuesday night after the first few minutes when it became apparent that Donald Trump had maintained enough self-control to not pull out his White House machete,

EASTSIDER-Seems to me that much of the back and forth over Amy Coney Barrett‘s nomination to become a U.S. Supreme Court Judge is misplaced. Let’s see what the Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell process tells us about the players and the Court. 

REVENGER-IN-CHIEF-During its planning process for Point Reyes National Seashore, the National Park Service received overwhelming public input opposing commercial ranching on and supporting the recovery of the rare tule elk. (photo above)

RANTZ & RAVEZ-Many of the elected officials at Los Angeles City Hall and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have lost sight of their responsibility to the voters who have elected them to office.

LEANING RIGHT-We live in a pandemic world that is vastly, ever-more-complicated (beyond words, really) by competing perspectives of the right approach to getting through this health/economic crisis, and anyone who tries to address it either "has to say the right things" or ignores the obvious, two-faced reality of it all:

OTHER WORDS--Today I looked at a graph of income inequality over time in America. This was not new information to me, and yet it was still shocking.