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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-29/democrats-republicans-trump-walsh-never-trumpers
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Op-Ed: Democrats cling to the myth that Trump is an affront to GOP values. In fact, he embodies them
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Op-Ed: Democrats cling to the myth that Trump is an affront to GOP values. In fact, he embodies them
Democrats foolishly wasted the first two years of Trump’s presidency waiting for Republicans to see the light. They hoped for a savior from behind enemy lines, cheering in turn as new candidates for the role came along: Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, the anonymous author of a New York Times op-ed article about dysfunction in the White House.
But what the Democrats have failed to understand is that just because someone is an enemy of their enemy, he isn’t necessarily a friend. They keep hoping for that “reasonable” Republican who can save bipartisanship and the fate of the country. But there will be no such miracles. Where the Republican Party is concerned, what you see is what you get.
Yes, Trump has caused some Republicans to abandon the GOP, including Iowa’s longest-serving Republican lawmaker, Andy McKean. Others, including right wing radio host Joe Walsh, have broken with the president but not the party. The importance Democrats have attributed to these defections is as crazy as it is seductive. Liberals infer the turncoats are sure signs that the GOP establishment secretly opposes Trump and that the Republican Party is cracking. Trump is an outlier, they conclude; a crazy figure, a cancer on Republican politics.
But that’s nonsense. In fact, poll after poll has found that more than 80% percent of Republicans nationwide approve of Trump’s performance in office.
And if you’re thinking an alternative Republican would fix everything, let’s consider Walsh, the latest disaffected conservative to repudiate Trump, announcing that he will mount a primary challenge to the president. As recently as 2017, Walsh tweeted that President Obama “was held to a lower standard cuz he was black.” When declaring his candidacy to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Walsh expressed regret for his role pushing the long-discredited racist conspiracy that Obama is Muslim and born in Kenya, as well as his sexist and racist 2017 tweets against Sen. Kamala Harris: “If you’re black and a woman, you can say dumb things. Lowered bar.” And of course there is also Walsh’s longstanding trickle-down, Tea Party worldview.
Many of the prominent Trump-rejecting conservatives are speaking out from comfortable perches in the mainstream media — Ana Navarro, David Brooks, Meghan McCain, Joe Scarborough. It’s debatable whether their opposition is more likely to change unsettled minds or reinforce support for Trump. The Republican never-Trumpers are far smaller in number and more impotent in political influence than their large bullhorns suggest. The Trump turncoats and defections from the Republican Party make for dramatic news but they are simply political aberrations with outsize visibility and little political consequence.
Dangerously, Democrats cling to the myth that Trump is an affront to Republican values and that he represents a cult figure who is singularly yanking the party rightward to insanity. Trump is not deviating from current conservative values; he uses his hateful, scurrilous persona in service of advancing those political values.
In fact, Trump is the unsurprising, direct byproduct of years of Republican policies and politics. He is cut from the same cloth as his Republican predecessors, pushing tax cuts for the wealthy, suppressing the black vote, defunding climate science, fighting reproductive rights, and denigrating facts and expertise to make our politics more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright lies. He is from the same party that insisted there were “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq to initiate an ill-advised war, the party that brought us birtherism.
Trump has marched in lockstep with the party’s goals, opposing living wages and slashing corporate taxes. He has doggedly pushed to limit healthcare access, expand government assistance for millionaires and guarantee the right of billionaires to pollute our air and water. Yes, Trump may be cruder and more duplicitous than his predecessors, but he is cast from the same mold. That’s why no one should have been surprised that Dick Cheney co-hosted a recent fundraiser benefiting both Trump’s reelection effort and the national GOP.
The liberal fantasy holds that ship-jumpers like Walsh can help peel votes from Trump in a general matchup. If anything, the president’s Republican opponents are his useful idiots. He can turn them into handy, willing foils, holding them up as misguided, self-serving jesters whose late-coming, dubious political conversions ultimately highlight Trump’s steadfast conservatism. The truth is, the never-Trumpers can’t truly change their spots without denouncing the bulk of Republican values.
Rich Benjamin, the author of “Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America,” is a contributing writer to Opinion. Follow him @IAmRichBenjamin
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4660186585065a170bf9bcd7eac821d6
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-29/harvard-freshman-denied-immigration
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Letters to the Editor: A Harvard freshman was sent back to Lebanon. Are we trying to create enemies?
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Letters to the Editor: A Harvard freshman was sent back to Lebanon. Are we trying to create enemies?
To the editor: This would be the appropriate response by President Trump in response to incoming Harvard freshman Ismail Ajjawi being sent back to Lebanon after trying to enter the U.S. with a visa at Boston Logan International Airport:
First, he should get down on his hands and knees and apologize to God for the U.S. immigration official who allegedly yelled at this young man and denied him entry to the U.S. because of a few social media posts by his friends that were critical of the United States.
Second, he should go to Lebanon to apologize to the young man and his family and beg him to come back to study at Harvard. If this is not straightened out quickly and fairly, we may end up with a highly intelligent adversary.
Our inhospitality will destroy us just as effectively as our hospitality once built us.
Steve Krimmel, Glendora
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985b7ee1c1ac10b21247439ff4c55d3d
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-29/people-first-language-criminal-justice
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Letters to the Editor: How the language of justice is dehumanizing and counterproductive
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Letters to the Editor: How the language of justice is dehumanizing and counterproductive
To the editor: As someone who works with victims of crime, I believe that the use of person-first language is absolutely essential. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors calling for the adoption of language guidelines in the city’s justice system is a step in the right direction.
Language plays a critical role in the criminal justice system, especially when working with people who are incarcerated and people who have experienced trauma. For example, the system may label an individual as either an “offender” or a “victim,” but this is a false dichotomy. More often than not, an individual who commits an illegal act will also have experienced past trauma, and using person-first language humanizes and empowers that individual.
Less interchangeable language such as “individuals with trauma histories,” “individuals who have been criminally charged” or “people who have survived a crime” is more accurate. As the proposal states, “people-first language places the individual before the criminal record by using neutral, objective, and non-pejorative language.”
Criminal justice reform is best implemented when programs and policies are authentic and centered on the community it is aiming to serve. It’s time we use language that most accurately and respectfully represents our communities.
Mai Fernandez, Arlington, Va.
The writer is executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime.
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a6cfd2b21551b6bc79af66b0de2dea8e
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-30/islamic-state-afghanistan-taliban
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Editorial: The presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan isn’t a reason to stop talking to the Taliban
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Editorial: The presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan isn’t a reason to stop talking to the Taliban
Once-unthinkable negotiations between the United States and representatives of the Taliban have been making progress and could soon result in an agreement paving the way for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. But anticipation over a possible breakthrough has been clouded by a concern that, even if the Taliban agrees not to provide a haven for international terrorists, an Afghan affiliate of Islamic State would continue to pose such a threat.
The rise of the group, known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province, has given opponents of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan what looks like a potent argument: If Islamic State’s savagery in Syria and Iraq justified military action by the U.S. even in the judgment of the intervention-averse Barack Obama, why doesn’t the group’s presence in Afghanistan counsel against withdrawing U.S. forces?
That’s a simplistic reading of the situation. The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, which the United Nations estimates at between 2,500 and 4,000 fighters, is undoubtedly a problem. The group has engaged in violent attacks, including a horrific suicide bombing at a wedding celebration in Kabul in August that killed more than 60 people. There is also a real possibility that if the Taliban lays down its arms, some disaffected members of that movement will defect to Islamic State-Khorasan.
But the threat posed by Islamic State in Afghanistan doesn’t discredit the negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban or the idea of a significant reduction in the 14,000 U.S. troops now operating in Afghanistan as trainers and advisors for Afghan forces and also in a counter-terrorism role. In fact, if an agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban leads to a political agreement between the Taliban and the U.S.-supported government in Kabul, it might actually be easier to suppress Islamic State.
President Trump has committed more than his share of foreign-policy blunders, but his decision to engage the Taliban in talks was a responsible one. It also was a reversal of position. In a speech in August 2017, Trump suggested that a political settlement involving the Taliban was a remote possibility, conceivable only after an “effective military effort” against the Taliban. Trump allowed the Pentagon to send 3,500 additional troops to Afghanistan.
Two years later, the security situation remains dire and the Taliban controls significant portions of the country. Rather than wait for conditions to improve, Trump and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo dispatched Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and a native of that country, to hold talks with Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar.
Reportedly those talks are aiming at an agreement in which the Taliban would promise not to allow Al Qaeda or other militant groups to operate in Afghanistan. In exchange, the U.S. and its allies would significantly reduce their forces. (Trump has indicated that he plans to reduce the number of troops to 8,600 even without an agreement.) It was because the Taliban government had provided a haven for Al Qaeda that the U.S. attacked and later deployed troops to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The agreement isn’t a done deal, and even if the U.S. and the Taliban come to terms, it’s unclear whether the Taliban will be willing to negotiate in good faith with the Afghan government in Kabul — an absolute necessity, obviously, if a durable peace is to be established. There are also concerns that Trump might be tempted to withdraw all U.S. forces prematurely in order to bolster his chances of reelection next year. Pentagon officials have told Congress that even if an agreement with the Taliban is reached, threats from Al Qaeda, Islamic State and other militants will require the U.S., the Afghan government and the international community to maintain a “robust” counter-terrorism capability for the foreseeable future. (On Thursday, Trump said vaguely: “We’re going to keep a presence there.”)
Bringing peace to Afghanistan obviously will be difficult. Still, the current negotiations offer the possibility of an end to the civil war and the departure of most if not all U.S. forces after 18 frustrating, costly, bloody years of involvement. As for Islamic State, it has clashed with the Taliban in the past. Khalilzad has argued that accelerating the peace process with the Taliban will put Afghanistan in a “much stronger position” to defeat Islamic State. We won’t know if he is correct unless these negotiations continue.
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aab690e8b25458cec06b2212ce24b335
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-05/joe-biden-black-voters-woke-liberals
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Letters to the Editor: No, Joe Biden isn’t the overwhelming choice among people of color
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Letters to the Editor: No, Joe Biden isn’t the overwhelming choice among people of color
To the editor: Columnist Jonah Goldberg implies that black voters’ conservatism and superior pragmatism will lead former Vice President Joe Biden to triumph against his more liberal Democratic presidential primary opponents who “pander” on race to “woke white liberals.”
But Goldberg’s assertion that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) victory came from white liberals acting out their “white savior” complex is wrong; her broad coalition was driven primarily by young voters across racial lines.
Last month the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of black voters, far more than other groups, were undecided as to who they supported for president. A majority of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) supporters were people of color and also female.
Regrettably, Goldberg refers to people of color as “non-white.” It’s unsurprising that his level of “wokeness” comports with his misguided, fallacious assertions about the electorate and the coalition ready to beat President Trump in 2020.
Margaret Okuzumi, Sunnyvale, Calif.
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To the editor: Goldberg claims that “white liberals have become ideological, shedding the coalitional and transactional orientation that long defined Democratic Party politics.” He asserts that Trump “smashed” the polar opposite but historically equally rigid “ideological purity that consumed and ultimately bedeviled the Republican Party.”
Wrong. Here’s what happened.
Trump along with GOP majorities in the House and Senate for two years delivered “ideological purity” to Republican voters by appointing two new U.S. Supreme Court justices and by gutting or killing numerous regulations meant to protect our physical and financial health.
In exchange, formerly level-headed, work-with-the-other-side members of Congress, exemplified by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), stopped negotiating with Democrats and became fiercely loyal to Trump, apparently able to stomach the president’s incompetence and lies.
Democrats can’t be “transactional” or form cross-party coalitions, as Trump’s grip on the GOP demanding his version of ideological purity makes that impossible.
Mark Davidson, Santa Ana
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6a54ff9dfe1f941d19ba7130ae8c7504
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-27/terrifying-decision-not-to-charge-the-cop-in-the-costco-shooting
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Letters to the Editor: The terrifying decision not to charge the cop in the Costco shooting
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Letters to the Editor: The terrifying decision not to charge the cop in the Costco shooting
To the editor: The inability of the grand jury in Riverside County to indict an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department cop who killed an intellectually disabled man after being attacked by him is just another example of the overreaching power of the police in this country.
First, off-duty officers should not be armed. When police are not in uniform, they are regarded as no more and no less than ordinary citizens.
Yes, the officer was knocked down while he was holding his small child. But that is no justification for declaring himself a police officer and firing 10 rounds at the individual who hit him. Not only that, but both of the deceased’s parents were also shot.
Just consider if there was no gun. An argument might have ensued, police may have been called, and an arrest might even have been made. Instead, we have a terrible tragedy.
We cannot have this lawlessness by the police, and this is not the only high-profile example lately. In Dallas, an ex-officer is on trial for entering an apartment she believed was hers and shooting the rightful occupant dead. Enough!
Frances Vizier, Los Angeles
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To the editor: I find it outrageously unacceptable that an unarmed man and his family can be shot without criminal penalty. In what nation is this legal? Only in those places with terrible human rights records.
That this unarmed man was disabled makes it doubly egregious. This is no different from Ferguson, Mo., where the shooting death of an unarmed man by police in 2014 resulted in large protests (and rightly so).
This is unacceptable, and the Riverside County district attorney should have more courage and integrity.
Jacque Emel, Redlands
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aab40c4c7eb3b7fc81efb9b8dc1f24e3
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-01/costco-shooting-20-feet-away-gun-corona
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Letters to the Editor: If only the off-duty cop at Costco hadn’t had a gun
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Letters to the Editor: If only the off-duty cop at Costco hadn’t had a gun
To the editor: The attorney for an off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officer who shot and killed a man in Costco after a brief physical confrontation said his client “had no choice but to use deadly force” (“Costco shooting: LAPD officer was 20 feet away when he opened fire, police say,” Sept. 29).
In a split second, the good guy with a gun became a killer who fired 10 rounds from a distance of 20 feet.
In the same situation, what could a good guy without a gun have done? Retreat, perhaps?
In the presence of a gun, an argument, altercation or a confrontation too often escalates and too easily becomes homicide. In the absence of a gun, it’s likely that an unarmed 32-year-old man with an intellectual disability would still be alive.
Please remind me about how guns make us safer.
Loren Lieb, Northridge
The writer is board president of the group Women Against Gun Violence.
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To the editor: Police officers get perks that are not available to ordinary citizens because they lay their lives on the line for the public good. This is fine as long as they really lay their lives on the line.
A police officer who, when faced with the slightest potential for personal danger on or off the job, would always opt for deadly force over other nonviolent alternatives such as retreat, is not laying his life on the line. In fact, an individual with such a mindset, albeit sincere, should probably not be a police officer and should certainly never be allowed to carry a gun in public.
The victims of the incidents in the Corona Costco and the Dallas apartment complex, where a man was shot in his own home, would both be alive today if they had not had the misfortune to cross paths with overly sensitive off-duty cops carrying guns.
Pamela Foust, Los Angeles
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04dc4e6839bc489b0bbd9daaa1128700
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-02/botham-jean-guilty-costco-shooting
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Editorial: Finally, a deadly police shooting is found to be beyond the pale
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Editorial: Finally, a deadly police shooting is found to be beyond the pale
At least we now know that an off-duty police officer can’t walk into someone else’s apartment, shoot him dead and then successfully claim self-defense because she mistakenly thought she was killing an intruder in her own home.
Instead, a Dallas jury on Tuesday convicted Amber R. Guyger of murder, and then on Wednesday sentenced her to 10 years in prison. The white officer killed her 26-year-old African American neighbor, Botham Shem Jean, last year.
The verdict is in some sense a relief, because had it gone the other way it would be hard to say just how poor an officer’s judgment has to be before she can be held fully accountable for such an outrageous misuse of deadly force. Police officers do make fatal mistakes, but we hire, train and deploy them to protect us, not to rule over us, and some mistakes are so egregious as to be criminal. Surely killing an innocent man in his own home is one of them.
Reciting the circumstances of even just a few high-profile police shootings of African American boys and men over the last several years is like descending a staircase of fear and oppression, with each step pockmarked by excuses.
Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson was not charged in the 2014 killing of Michael Brown because there was insufficient evidence to refute the officer’s contention that he was in fear for his safety.
The person who called the Cleveland Police Department about the young boy waving a gun in 2014 warned the cops that it was probably fake, but they arrived at the scene and, seconds later, shot 14-year-old Tamir Rice to death. Officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback were not charged.
Philando Castile notified the officer who pulled him over in 2016 in St. Anthony, Minn., that he had a gun in the car, which is exactly what a driver is supposed to say in those circumstances, for his own safety and the officer’s. But Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot Castile to death anyway. He was charged with manslaughter but acquitted.
There has to be a floor for police deadly misconduct, does there not? Even if the misconduct is abysmal judgment. Entering into someone’s home and killing them is quite a low floor.
Now let’s work on raising that floor in order to demand better conduct from police. That was the point of two bills recently signed into law in California in response to the deadly shooting last year of Stephon Clark in Sacramento. Clark was unarmed.
Assembly Bill 392 raises the standard for police deadly force, permitting officers to shoot only when necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to innocent third parties or themselves. Senate Bill 230 requires departments to offer better training to curb unnecessary shootings. These new laws impose some of the highest standards in the nation for police conduct.
But their reach is limited to this state. Elsewhere, as in Texas, the case has to get to the jury.
Even here, police shootings are often not even charged. Consider Los Angeles police Officer Salvador Sanchez, who was off-duty June 14 when he shot to death unarmed Kenneth French in the Corona Costco and wounded French’s parents.
A Riverside County grand jury decided last week not to charge Sanchez, even though French was unarmed, and even though Sanchez shot him in the back. Corona police later said Sanchez opened fire when French was an estimated 20 feet away.
The French killing is a reminder that troubling cases of police force do not always involve white cops and black victims. In an era of declining crime, the United States continues to grapple with the challenge of deadly police force, often but not always exacerbated by race.
The line that separates acceptable and unacceptable police conduct is set by the police themselves, and what conduct a typical officer in the same circumstances would consider reasonable. That line slowly moves forward over time, as training improves, as juries in civil cases award damages in wrongful death cases and as juries in criminal cases find officers guilty.
The French killing doesn’t move the line, and won’t, unless the officer faces consequences from his LAPD employer. The Jean killing doesn’t move the line forward either. But at least it won’t move it in the other direction.
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0313d822540f6d537239da03ed68f48f
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-02/jamal-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-killing-mohammad-bin-salman
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Opinion: Trump and money are shielding Saudi Arabia from accountability for Khashoggi’s killing
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Opinion: Trump and money are shielding Saudi Arabia from accountability for Khashoggi’s killing
Following the brutal killing of Saudi dissident and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, one year ago, the Saudi government became something of a toxic commodity in American politics. Several high-profile lobbying and public relations firms dropped the Saudis as a client. Think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, severed ties with the Saudi government. Businesses pulled out of a major conference in Riyadh shortly after Khashoggi’s death.
As the U.S. intelligence community, and the United Nations, were determining that Saudi Arabia was culpable in the killing, members of Congress demanded accountability. Democrats led the charge on a series of bills that would have halted U.S. arms sales to the kingdom and ended U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s disastrous war in Yemen. Republicans were outraged too. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who claimed on “Fox & Friends” to have once been Saudi Arabia’s “biggest defender on the floor of the United States Senate,” announced shortly after Khashoggi’s death that Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “has got to go.” The crown prince denies a role in Khashoggi’s death; the U.N. sees credible evidence warranting further investigation.
Despite the backlash directed at the kingdom, the Saudis haven’t faced serious consequences for the slaying of Khashoggi or its slaughter of civilians in Yemen. That is thanks in large part to one man — President Trump. He has loudly and emphatically defended Saudi Arabia at every opportunity. According to a July House Oversight committee report, he recently considered giving Riyadh nuclear technology without appropriate safeguards to prevent nuclear proliferation, in part at the behest of the chair of his inaugural committee, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. He has also tweeted at least a fleeting willingness to go to war with Iran on Saudi Arabia’s behalf following the attacks on Saudi oil fields, something the American public overwhelmingly doesn’t support.
Trump’s principal argument for siding with the Saudis has to do with the alleged economic benefits of U.S. arms sales to the kingdom. It all began during his May 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia, when he touted a purported $110-billion arms deal that would mean “jobs, jobs, jobs” for Americans. The deal itself, according to the Washington Post “Fact Checker,” was considerably smaller than the administration claimed, with much of it composed of sales already approved under the Obama administration or speculative offers that would happen years from now, if ever. And a report from our organization, the Center for International Policy, found the president’s claims of U.S. jobs tied to Saudi arms deals were greatly exaggerated — 10 to 20 times the actual number.
The facts, however, have not prevented Trump from vetoing a series of congressional measures aimed at ending U.S. military support and arms sales to the region.
While Trump appears to be the commander-in-chief of Saudi Arabia’s public relations efforts in the U.S., he’s far from alone. Even with several firms abandoning the influence machine the Saudi’s had assembled before Khashoggi’s killing, the Saudi lobby is still represented in the U.S. by more than 20 “K Street” firms, according to the Department of Justice . This includes influential operators such as Squire Patton Boggs and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck — whom the Saudis paid over $1 million on Oct. 4, 2018, just two days after Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate — and the McKeon Group, whose namesake, former Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), was once the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Saudi Arabia has also dramatically increased funding to many of the lobbying and public relations firms that stayed with them post-Khashoggi. In fact, one firm — Qorvis Communications, the Saudis’ longtime public relations gurus in America — received nearly $18 million from the kingdom in just the first three months after Khashoggi’s death, more than most countries spend on all of their lobbying activities for an entire year. Washington lobbyists acting as agents of Saudi Arabia have also continued to give lavishly to House and Senate campaigns, in some cases on the same day they met with members of Congress or their staffs to discuss the kingdom.
All of this has served a critical function for the Saudi regime: maintaining enough support in Congress to ensure Trump’s vetoes aren’t overridden, which keeps the U.S. government from punishing the Saudis for Khashoggi’s death.
President Trump’s protection of Saudi Arabia is at best a temporary shield. Veterans, peace and human rights groups, and other interest groups have been pushing Congress to block U.S. military support for the kingdom by invoking provisions of the War Powers Resolution and making amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. Human rights organizations also have pushed beneficiaries of Mohammed bin Salman’s private charity — among them the New York Public Library and the United Nations — to abandon their connection to the foundation, which the crown prince uses as a propaganda platform.
Yet, one year after Khashoggi’s killing, and 4 ½ years into the brutal Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, Congress and the president have yet to hold Saudi Arabia accountable. That cannot be allowed to stand. On the anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder, we owe it to him to stand up to the Saudi lobby and the president, and once and for all punish the Saudi government for what it has done.
Ben Freeman is the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy. William D. Hartung runs the center’s Arms and Security Project.
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0f2dce6e824f293b3f640dfca8368c4f
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-04/meghan-markle-prince-harry-royals-tabloid-racism
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Opinion: Meghan Markle vs. the tabloid mob
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Opinion: Meghan Markle vs. the tabloid mob
Brexit is roiling Britain. Prince Andrew has been accused by a woman of abusing her as a teenager in Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex exploitation network. Yet the British tabloids are obsessed by another royal: Meghan Markle, the most high-profile woman of color in Britain.
Why Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has become the reigning royal chew toy isn’t obvious. She is a self-made professional who has eagerly become a royal champion of charities benefiting girls and women. She quickly accomplished the traditional job of female royals: providing a male heir. Among British millennials, she is more popular than Prince Charles, and she shares his 46% positive rating among Britons overall, according to a recent poll. And she’s married to the most popular male royal, Prince Harry.
Markle’s ascendance was an inspiration to many black girls and women. Yet the duchess has acquired a virulent mob of media detractors, who provide a megaphone for attacks from estranged relatives, snipe at such non-offenses as Markle cradling her baby bump, and single her out for the luxurious lifestyle she married into — though she hardly invented British royalty and its costly trappings.
Perhaps a Department of Meghan Studies will someday ponder why Markle is endlessly jeered for things that win other royals applause, like wearing one-shoulder gowns and jewels, and expensive parties and vacations. Or explain how, after tabloid reports that Markle has brought discord into the royal family, the British monarchy remains strangely intact.
Those wondering what Meghan and Harry have been thinking about this onslaught got their answer this week, when Markle filed a lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday newspaper for publishing a private letter she sent to her father.
“I have been a silent witness to her private suffering for too long,” Prince Harry wrote in a statement, decrying “relentless propaganda” by a “press pack that has vilified her almost daily for the past nine months.” He further elaborated, “I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces,” referring to his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris while being chased by paparazzi on motorcycles.
To some, the takedown of Markle is all about race.
“Dear England and English press, just say you hate her because she’s black, and him for marrying a black woman and be done with it,” tweeted British actress Jameela Jamil. “Your bullying is so embarrassing and obvious. You’ve all lost your marbles.”
Markle’s biracial heritage has been mocked since the day the Daily Mail’s headline announced “Harry’s girl is (almost) straight outta Compton.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel described Harry’s then-girlfriend as the daughter of a “dreadlocked African American woman” who would bring “rich and exotic DNA” to the royal family. “The problem is that Meghan Markle is a mixed-race woman, occupying a space which was presumed for a white woman, in a notoriously white institution,” journalist Ilayda McIntosh wrote on the online Common Sense Network.
As the razzing grew, the actor George Clooney scolded the British press. “She’s a woman who is seven months pregnant and she has been pursued and vilified and chased in the same way as Diana was,” Clooney said. When the royal baby, Archie, was born, BBC presenter Danny Baker tweeted a photo of a posh man and woman with a chimpanzee, captioned “royal baby leaves hospital.” Baker was fired. A BBC summer satire show portrayed a cartoon Meghan with darker skin threatening to knife Kate Middleton in a caricatured urban accent.
Meghan was even criticized for her guest editing of a fall issue of British Vogue, though Kate Middleton had guest edited the Huffington Post. “Was the criticism racist? Some of it, yeah,” Edward Enninful, the editor of British Vogue, told the Guardian.
British tabloids thrive financially by turning their monarchy into a soap opera. Royal women bear the brunt of media criticism, which is sometimes crassly sexist, like the suggestion Meghan suffers from “American wife syndrome.”
After the Sussexes were criticized for preaching environmentalism while flying in private jets — Harry said he was concerned for his family’s safety — a Guardian columnist joked that maybe the royal couple should just stay home, where the “[b]uzzwords for Meghan’s mood board might be: silent, stoic, dutiful.”
Instead, Meghan and Harry flew British Airways to South Africa, where Markle told a cheering crowd that, “while I am here with my husband as a member of the royal family, I want you to know that for me, I am here as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of color, and as your sister.”
The trip was a reminder that the Meghan-and-Harry love story has put a modern face on British royalty and Britain’s long history of race-based colonial exploitation. In dismantling this image, Britain has far more to lose than the Duchess of Sussex.
Anne-Marie O’Connor is a London-based journalist and the author of “The Lady in Gold, the Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.”
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71baf630e9413d65106b3ee595918468
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-06/diving-arctic-climate-change-iceberg?fbclid=IwAR06UAsfVXWmmUiDr44QWE7YKc1C88WlOA-UBgYKnHc7YbJPZafiBs03SsA
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Opinion: I am a diver who documents climate change in the Arctic. And I am running out of time
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Opinion: I am a diver who documents climate change in the Arctic. And I am running out of time
Nearly 20 years ago, I led a National Geographic diving team that made the first cave dives inside the largest floating piece of ice ever seen on our planet. The B-15 iceberg had calved from an ice shelf in Antarctica, and we were moved to explore the inside of what was regarded as a potential harbinger of global climate change. While I wrote the script for the accompanying documentary film, “Ice Island,” people cautioned me not to use politically charged terms such as “climate change” and “sea-level rise.”
Scientists recently announced that the polar ice is collapsing faster than predicted. And every week, the headlines are filled with new warnings of accelerating ocean-level rise. Climate change is happening. I have dived and documented it firsthand for decades. How we plan for it and adapt to it in the next few years will determine the future of our civilization. That’s what draws me to scuba dive under the ice in the northern reaches of my homeland, Canada.
According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, the Arctic is transforming more rapidly than anywhere else on Earth, with temperatures rising at twice the rate seen elsewhere. I am caught up by the urgency to document Earth’s fragile ice-covered geography — the cryosphere — hoping that my photos and films will bring attention to the vulnerable and fleeting ice. Nobody can be certain when the Arctic sea ice will be gone, but scientists agree that we are on a precarious downward spiral. The loss of nearly all Arctic sea ice in late summer seems inevitable, and an ice-free Arctic Ocean will probably arrive within decades, if not sooner.
For the last two years, my Arctic expeditions have been undertaken earlier each season. The frozen surface of the Northwest Passage that provides the base for our summer camps melts sooner each succeeding year. Even more worrying is that the ice is thinner each year. The Inuit call the sea ice “the land” because it offers freedom to travel, visit family, hunt and pass along cultural practices to the next generation. Time on “the land” is shorter and more dangerous every year. Will the Inuit have to abandon their traditional wooden sleds, called qamutiks, and snowmobiles for small boats?
The complex Arctic food web is declining with the shrinking sea ice, disrupting the tenuous balance of food security for marine life and people alike. For a society that has always lived in balance with nature, permafrost melting, sea-level rise, erosion and an increase in stormy weather pose risks. With the Arctic becoming more navigable and accessible, resource speculation is on the rise. Oil, gas and shipping industries are jockeying to snag new routes and drilling rights in the open water. These activities will indelibly alter the complexion of the Arctic and bring new threats to an otherwise pristine sanctuary.
On a recent Arctic expedition, I got a firsthand look at the transient nature of the melting pack. Pouring rain created shin-deep rivers that ran through our tents in camp. While traveling on the ice, the qamutik sled hooked to my guide’s snowmobile swung sideways, spraying a rooster tail of slush in the way that a boat creates a wake. We turned abruptly to run alongside a wide crack in the ice. A mile closer to shore, we found a spot where our snowmobile could bridge the gap. My guide unhooked the qamutik and revved the engine to full speed, then flew across the open water to the other side. He threw us a rope and pulled the longer sled across.
We resumed the race to a pinnacle on the horizon — an iceberg that had broken free from the glaciers of Greenland and traveled across the Davis Strait to become locked in the sea ice. A small strip of open water near the berg showed that this frozen monument was struggling to be released from the grips of the ice floe. Freshwater cascaded down the face of the ice in streaming rivulets that furrowed the surface in vertical channels. We needed to dive immediately. The berg was an ideal spot for an exploration dive, but it wouldn’t last long before breaking away and melting into the ocean.
I settled in the water and pushed away the slush that obscured my view, dropping through a blurry zone of mixing fresh and saltwater. Long runners of algae flapped horizontally in the current, held fast to the undersurface of the ice. This algae and other nutrients contained within the ice will feed the phytoplankton and zooplankton that serves as the base of the Arctic food chain. Bottom dwellers such as anemones, sponges and halibut will, in turn, feed other fish and marine mammals such as belugas, narwhal and bowhead whales.
The surface of the ice was dimpled and fluted, carved by the undersea currents that pulled my safety rope taut. Descending along the bluish frozen facade, I observed virtual layers of time that could date this ice back 10,000 or more years. Each stripe represents a season of snowfall on Greenland. Some strips were transparent, others filled with gray dust, perhaps evidence of some ancient volcanic eruption. Small air bubbles within the ice fizzed and drifted upward as they dissolved.
Deeper, a colorful carpet of orange kelp fronds draped itself over a miniature garden of crustaceans and sponges. I looked upward in the glaciated cathedral to see my dive partner falling toward me on a silver stream of bubbles. Her silhouette glided through the cerulean depths as she worked to pull her safety rope in my direction.
I am grateful for the opportunity to preserve images of this endangered kingdom, but what will happen to the people and animals of the North?
Within 24 hours of our dive, the giant monument of ice we explored broke away from the floe edge and started its journey south. Within weeks it would tumble, turn and dissolve , leaving a wake of nutrients and fresh water and adding to the slow rise of the world’s oceans.
And then it would be gone forever.
Jill Heinerth, author of “Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver,” has spent more than 30 years documenting and researching submerged caves around the world.
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fe96a004cd49f168daacd3de522e564e
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-07/supreme-court-unanimous-jury-louisiana-oregon-laws
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Opinion: Real justice requires unanimous juries for criminal convictions
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Opinion: Real justice requires unanimous juries for criminal convictions
In 1983, a jury convicted Archie Williams for the 1982 rape and stabbing of a woman in her home in Baton Rouge, La. No physical evidence tied Williams to the crime, but 11 of the jurors were persuaded that Williams was the assailant based on the victim’s testimony. A lone juror disagreed.
At the time, the 11-1 vote would have resulted in a hung jury in 48 states — Louisiana and Oregon being the only exceptions — and Williams would have been entitled to a retrial. Louisiana’s law, however, permitted non-unanimous jury convictions in any case where prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty. Williams was eventually exonerated and released in 2019, after fingerprints found at the crime scene decades earlier were matched to another person, a convicted serial rapist.
Last year, Louisiana’s voters abolished the non-unanimous jury practice after a spirited campaign about the system’s grievous failures. But the changed law applies only to felonies committed starting this year. It doesn’t help the hundreds of people in prison who were convicted by non-unanimous juries prior to Jan. 1, 2019.
Today, the Supreme Court will consider a challenge to the constitutionality of the old law in the case of Evangelisto Ramos, who was convicted of a 2014 murder. Only 10 of 12 jurors voted to convict Ramos, the minimum needed for a conviction in Louisiana. A judge sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole.
The Louisiana statute that permitted the non-unanimous jury convictions has an appalling history, as does Oregon’s similar statute.
After the Civil War, African Americans started to serve on juries in significant numbers for the first time. But the backlash that followed Reconstruction essentially dismantled all rights guaranteed by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
In 1895, a white Louisiana judge alleged that when African Americans were included on juries, “there was no possibility of just verdicts.” Three years later, the state held a Constitutional convention whose stated purpose, according to a Democratic Party advertisement, was to eliminate “the vast mass of ignorant, illiterate and venal Negroes from the privileges of the elective franchise.” The new state Constitution imposed restrictions on voting, created a poll tax and eliminated Louisiana’s long-standing jury-unanimity requirement and permitted convictions for any non-capital felony with just 9 of 12 jurors. Louisiana amended the law in 1973, requiring a 10-2 vote for conviction.
Oregon enacted its non-unanimous jury law in 1934. It was passed after a media storm developed over the failure of a jury to convict a Jewish man named Jacob Silverman for murder; the jury found him guilty of manslaughter. The media coverage included an editorial in the Morning Oregonian that proclaimed “the vast immigration into America from southern and eastern Europe, of people untrained in the jury system” had the made “the jury of twelve increasingly unwieldly and unsatisfactory.’’
In 1972, a deeply divided Supreme Court upheld these laws in Apodaca vs. Oregon. The court ruled that even though unanimous juries were required in federal criminal trials under the 6th Amendment, the Constitution did not impose that requirement on state trials. Since 1972, civil rights organizations have tried to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn the laws in Louisiana and Oregon but have failed.
Today’s argument could well produce a new result. Prominent legal scholars, including Eugene Volokh, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, say that recent Supreme Court decisions applying the Bill of Rights to the states have increased the likelihood that the court will reverse field. Volokh predicted that the court will rule that the 6th Amendment’s guarantee of an impartial jury must also apply to the states because of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process of law.
While the Constitution does not specifically mention unanimous verdicts in criminal cases, they have been a common requirement in Anglo American jurisprudence for hundreds of years. It’s long past time for the Supreme Court to correct this anomaly in the criminal justice system.
Henry Weinstein is a professor at UC Irvine School of Law. He was a Los Angeles Times staff writer from 1978 to 2008.
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e4c24817bdfb18c2d821f01b21e773eb
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-10/garcetti-c40-climate-change-mayors-bus-bike
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Editorial: Fighting climate change globally takes political courage at home, Mayor Garcetti
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Editorial: Fighting climate change globally takes political courage at home, Mayor Garcetti
As Mayor Eric Garcetti takes on his latest challenge, he should remember this simple mantra: Think globally, act locally.
Garcetti was elected this week to head the C40 Cities Climate Leadership group, a network of cities around the world committed to concrete action to combat climate change. Congratulations to him. Now, let’s see some action on the ground in Los Angeles.
While she was chair of the group, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo used her city as a proving ground for projects that aim to dramatically cut the carbon footprint of the French capital.
Under her leadership, the city banned cars from certain roads to turn them into pedestrian thoroughfares and redesigned streets to replace car lanes with electric trams and protected bikes lanes. The city even closed a highway and turned it into a park and created monthly car-free days in neighborhoods throughout the city. All the while, Paris has been planting trees to vastly expand the city’s urban forest.
Paris’ green revolution has been both wildly popular and incredibly controversial — in part because the transformation has been so swift. But the mayor has been unrelenting in her campaign, showing what is possible when a major city commits to fight climate change on the ground.
Garcetti could do something similar in Los Angeles. He could, for example, build bus-only lanes, protected bike lanes and safer streets. He could set a powerful example for the entire world by starting to transform a city famous for its cars (and the traffic and pollution and greenhouse gases they bring) into one that people can navigate without them.
For the moment, though, Los Angeles is likely to struggle to meet the ambitious targets that Garcetti and his fellow C40 mayors have committed to. The transportation sector is California’s largest source of greenhouse gases, and emissions have risen despite the arrival of vehicles that burn less fuel per mile. Slashing emissions enough to meet the group’s climate goals will require persuading people to drive less. That means building a mass transit system that is fast, convenient and comfortable, and streets that are safe for walking, biking and scootering.
Los Angeles County voters have supported tax hikes to build a better transportation system, but many of the new rail line projects are many years from completion. The need for climate action is now.
With committed leadership from the mayor and other city officials —and inspiration from Paris — Los Angeles could have more high-quality transportation options within a few years. It doesn’t take a lot of money to install bus-only lanes and protected bike lanes. What it does take is a lot of political will to convince skeptical Angelenos that transforming the transportation system is not only vital to slowing the effects of climate change, but it could make Los Angeles a cleaner, greener, more livable city.
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5e04bae4596ddd9dac6d56566e746dc3
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-10/unanimous-jury-verdicts-supreme-court
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Letters to the Editor: If jury verdicts must be unanimous, should Supreme Court decisions?
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Letters to the Editor: If jury verdicts must be unanimous, should Supreme Court decisions?
To the editor: UC Irvine School of Law professor Henry Weinstein makes a strong case for the value of unanimous verdicts, which, he said, “have been a common requirement in Anglo American jurisprudence for hundreds of years.” His explanations of how this came about in Louisiana and Oregon as a result of racial and ethnic bias was especially interesting.
But what surprised me was that he never questioned the fact that the Supreme Court will be deciding the constitutionality of non-unanimous jury verdicts by issuing what is almost certain to be a non-unanimous decision.
In criminal trials in almost every state, one person can be saved from suffering unjustly if just one jury member is on his or her side. Yet the whole country could suffer from a Supreme Court decision even though 44% of the justices disagree with the decision.
Requiring high court decisions to be unanimous could solve many of our Supreme Court problems and bring “real justice.”
Larry Goldman, Claremont
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To the editor: Early reports indicate that the Supreme Court is ready to dispense with the last vestige of non-unanimous verdicts in state criminal cases.
Although this decision is long overdue, it does have one consequence not addressed in Weinstein’s op-ed article: Unanimity goes both ways. A jury split 10-2 for acquittal now becomes a hung jury rather than a jury that acquits.
Although I doubt that this situation arises more than once in a blue moon (I had it happen twice in well over a hundred jury trials; the prosecution dismissed one case, and the other jury came to a compromise verdict, convicting on one charge of 38, which satisfied the holdout), it is a collateral consequence.
Andrew E. Rubin, Los Angeles
The writer is a former criminal defense attorney.
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6743dcdcea501c705e6cd7c64f648434
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-17/supreme-court-transparency-television-rules
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Opinion: The Supreme Court shrouds itself in secrecy. That needs to end
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Opinion: The Supreme Court shrouds itself in secrecy. That needs to end
On the eve of its new term, the Supreme Court adopted a revised rule for oral arguments, changing 200 years of practice. This should be the impetus for other long overdue reforms, specifically to increase the transparency of the court’s work.
Under guidelines announced on Thursday, October 3, advocates will now have two minutes to talk uninterrupted before the justices begin asking questions. As one who sometimes argues before the court, I welcome this change. At my first oral argument in 2002, I got out about five words before Justice Scalia interrupted me. The new procedure will allow lawyers to express their basic thesis before the questions begin.
This reform likely reflects how oral arguments in the Supreme Court have changed over time, with far more questions from the justices and much less time to answer than before.
This new practice will affect the justices and the 150 or so lawyers who appear before them each year, but there is a need for reforms that are far more important to all Americans. The Supreme Court continues to operate with much less transparency than any other government institution.
For example, when the Supreme Court agrees to take a case or denies review, there generally is no indication of which justices voted to take the case and which voted against hearing it. Occasionally, a justice might write a dissent from the denial of review, but other than that there never is a public revelation of how the justices voted. The court has virtually complete discretion about whether to hear a case. I do not understand why the justices keep secret their votes on which ones to take.
Another area where there is unjustified secrecy is not announcing a day or two in advance which decisions will be handed down. Many state courts do this and it has posed no problem. But in the Supreme Court, except for the last day of the term when it is obvious which cases are left, no one knows which decisions will be anounced. Again, I cannot understand what is gained by this secrecy.
The most urgent need for openness in the court is having all of its proceedings broadcast. The court hears cases that affect all of us, often in crucial aspects of our lives. But few can attend oral arguments or the announcement of decisions. Broadcasting court proceedings would permit the entire nation to see a crucial branch of government at work.
The Supreme Court releases transcripts on the day of an oral argument and audio recordings on the following Fridays. Occasionally, for very high profile cases it has allowed broadcasting of the audiotapes of oral arguments immediately after they conclude. But if people can hear the tapes a couple of days later and sometimes just minutes after the arguments conclude, it is impossible to see the harm in allowing the public to see or hear the proceedings live.
The argument against broadcasting from the court is that it will change the behavior of lawyers. But many federal courts of appeals and state supreme courts broadcast their proceedings and have seen no indication of this. Especially in the Supreme Court, there is no basis for concern. The lawyers, who are focused on answering intense questioning from the justices, are unlikely to alter their arguments to play to the cameras. Besides, anyone who has witnessed a Supreme Court argument, knows that the justices are firmly in control of the proceedings. Justices and lawyers know that the arguments, especially in high profile cases, are going to be extensively covered in the media and audiotapes will be publicly available. In this context, there is no reason why live broadcasting will change behavior.
I have heard justices express concern that if television cameras were allowed, the media might broadcast excerpts that offer a misleading impression of arguments and the court. But that is true when any government proceeding is taped or even when print reporters cover an event. A newspaper or television reporter could quote a justice’s question or a lawyer’s answer out of context. The Supreme Court should not be able to protect itself from misreporting any more than any other government institution can do so.
My sense is that broadcasting Supreme Court arguments would enhance the credibility of the court at a time when its esteem with the public, like that of all government institutions, has suffered. If people could watch the arguments and the announcement of decisions, they would see men and women – the justices and the advocates – dealing with issues of great importance in a careful, reasoned manner. Everyone would benefit from greater transparency.
Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and a contributing writer to Opinion.
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4b2dee0a30481b540a7942b97312c83a
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-18/get-over-it-says-so-much-about-trumps-recklessness
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Letters to the Editor: ‘Get over it’ says so much about Trump’s recklessness
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Letters to the Editor: ‘Get over it’ says so much about Trump’s recklessness
To the editor: “Get over it” is a simplistic, thin response used by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and this administration to defend actions that are indefensible. To execute foreign policy by whim and tweet without regard to consequences has only disastrous outcomes.
Now, President Trump claims success in northern Syria, despite all evidence to the contrary, because of the deal for a five-day pause in fighting brokered by the United States. A pause is not a cease-fire.
Reports of deaths, injuries and displacement in Syria are evidence of the worst impulses of a failed commander-in-chief.
Lenore N. Dowling, Los Angeles
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To the editor: While it is unlikely the president will win the Nobel Peace Prize, he should be awarded the Neville Chamberlain Prize for Diplomacy in brokering the the five-day cease fire between Turkey and the besieged Kurds.
Howard Fabrick, San Luis Obispo
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a5728d6cc19e25c7505390bee52cb077
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-20/issues-democrats-2020-primaries
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Cleaning up Trump’s mess
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Cleaning up Trump’s mess
The next presidential election will be about character and fitness to lead the nation above all else. But the Democratic primary will also be a contest of ideas, which helps explain why the candidates have been cranking out plans, proposals and white papers like blue plate specials at a diner.
As the 2016 election showed, though, having binders full of detailed initiatives won’t necessarily help in a contest against Trump and his irrational, often unfulfillable promises. So some Democrats are following his lead, serving up sweeping proposals to combat climate change and spread prosperity that could best be characterized as “aspirational.”
It’s reasonable to demand solutions bold enough to meet the enormous challenges of the day. But voters beware! Do not be beguiled by patently unachievable initiatives designed to win primaries. Keep your eyes focused on November, on the issues that matter most to Americans of every political stripe.
At the moment, the 2020 candidate are split into progressive and moderate camps on most of the issues that rank high among voters’ concerns, including climate change, the economy and education. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) typically proposes the most ambitious, comprehensive and expensive initiatives, with the greatest amount of intervention by the federal government. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also calls for an aggressive federal role policing the private sector, although she differs with Sanders on some important details. The rest of the candidates offer less expensive but also less far-reaching ideas, while still calling for the federal government to do significantly more than it is doing today on those issues.
The price tag of the various plans is the easiest number to grasp, but that’s not the only factor voters should be paying attention to. At least as important is the plausibility of the proposal. Does the candidate have a fully fleshed-out plan? Are the central ideas backed up by research and experience? Is there support already from the major stakeholders? Does the candidate have a track record of getting his or her proposals through Congress? And if Congress won’t get on board, how does the candidate plan to make progress anyway?
That last question looms large, considering the polarized politics of the times and the ability of each party to frustrate the other’s priorities. Give Sanders credit for candor: he freely admits that his signature proposals won’t become law without a voter “revolution” that replaces many of the lawmakers now in office with his allies. But is such a revolution even possible? Other candidates have suggested eliminating the Senate filibuster rule to make legislating easier, although it is worth remembering that the rule has restrained extreme GOP ideas as effectively as Democratic ones.
And some have promised to make even more aggressive use than Trump has of executive orders; the best example of that is Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who has promised to use executive orders to achieve results on such contentious issues as gun control, immigration and prescription drug costs. Even if you like the end result being sought, you need to consider the opening that might create for future presidents to impose their own, less appealing agendas.
Trump’s strongest claims will be on the economy, with its record low unemployment, rising wages and stock markets, and stable prices. It’s not all good, of course. Growth is slowing now in part because of the fusillade of costly tariffs Trump has exchanged with China and other U.S. trading partners, reviving the strong-arm protectionism that Trump’s predecessors sought to eliminate from global commerce. Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturers have fallen into a recession, median income has barely grown in two decades, and Trump has threatened to cut federal aid to California for having the temerity to challenge multiple administration policies. Nevertheless, Democrats may find it hard to persuade the masses that Trump’s policies have created a dystopian landscape of haves and have-nots.
The one pocketbook issue that Trump is clearly vulnerable on is healthcare, where rising costs are straining the budgets of voters in both parties. Yet it’s not a slam-dunk issue for Democrats.
Seemingly every 2020 candidate wants to make health insurance more affordable, but then, Trump says that’s exactly what he’s been doing. The difference is that the Trump administration and its GOP allies in Congress have been promoting cheaper, thinner insurance plans and enabling people to choose to go without insurance, while also taking countless swipes at the Affordable Care Act passed under President Obama — actions that have raised ACA premiums and undermined the ability of people with preexisting conditions to get the coverage they need.
Still, Democrats can’t simply defend the ACA as it currently exists; the premiums are straining some Americans’ budgets, while millions of others in this country are ineligible for coverage they can afford. And the 2020 candidates are not standing pat; instead, they’re advancing two competing routes toward universal insurance coverage. One would extend a version of Medicare to all Americans, eliminating out-of-pocket spending for healthcare but raising federal spending by trillions of dollars; the other would make Medicare or a similar public insurance plan available as an optional alternative to private insurance, leaving most people with the coverage they have now.
Of the most popular candidates, Sanders, Warren and businessman Andrew Yang are the ones dedicated to full-blown Medicare for all. Former Vice President Joe Biden, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) and current Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) reject some key tenets of Medicare for all as too disruptive, and would instead offer a public option to compete with private insurance plans. The rest of the candidates still on the debate stage, including Sens. Harris and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, favor a gradual path to Medicare for all.
While each route has its pros and cons, the key for voters is deciding whether the more ambitious plans are too costly and divisive to be achievable, or conversely whether the less ambitious plans offer too modest a contrast to Trump’s approach. We all need to hear more from the candidates before we can make that judgment.
Another issue to watch: How would the candidates repair the damage Trump has wreaked upon U.S. institutions, political norms and relations? It’s more than just bringing a polarized nation back together; it’s about rebuilding the public’s trust in government, restoring the rest of the world’s faith in the United States as an ally and a moral leader, and reversing direction on policies from climate change to immigration. Accomplishing these tasks is going to take time, leadership, resources and strong political skills.
Again, polls suggest that most voters trust any Democratic candidate to do a better job than Trump and other Republicans on the issues they care about. But that may change once their ideas are held up to the harsh, negative light of a general election campaign, which is why voters need to look at the 2020 candidates’ competing plans with an eye toward which ones will stand up best next November.
More from this editorial series
Opinion
Part 1: Undoing the great mistake of 2016
Opinion
Part 1: Undoing the great mistake of 2016
There is no issue more important than driving Donald Trump out of office at the ballot box in 2020.
More Coverage
Opinion
Part 2: Trump’s presidency is a train wreck. Let us count the ways
Opinion
Part 2: Trump’s presidency is a train wreck. Let us count the ways
Amid the impeachment inquiry, it’s important not to forget the full sweep of the damage Donald Trump has done, and continues to do.
Opinion
Part 3: Sorry, ‘electability’ matters
Opinion
Part 3: Sorry, ‘electability’ matters
The single most important issue in 2020 is ending the misrule of Donald Trump.
Opinion
Part 4: Moderate and progressive Democrats have to unite to win back the White House in 2020
Opinion
Part 4: Moderate and progressive Democrats have to unite to win back the White House in 2020
With an incumbent as dangerous as Donald Trump, there’s too much riding on the outcome of the election to risk the post-primary infighting we saw in 2016.
Opinion
Part 5: Democrats need to talk honestly about race. But can they?
Opinion
Part 5: Democrats need to talk honestly about race. But can they?
Trump’s racism is a visible expression of bigger, older, deeper problems. He is a symptom rather than a root cause.
Opinion
Part 6: Cleaning up Trump’s mess
Opinion
Part 6: Cleaning up Trump’s mess
Democratic candidates have put out countless plans and policy statements. Voters beware! Do not be beguiled by patently unachievable ideas designed to win primaries.
Opinion
Part 7: How old is too old to be president?
Opinion
Part 7: How old is too old to be president?
Are Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren — and Donald Trump — too old to be president of the United States?
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e31ce17a9cb8346d32c546fbf31bca70
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-21/trump-travel-ban-marriage-comedian
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Opinion: Trump’s travel ban forced my husband and me to start our life together on different continents
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Opinion: Trump’s travel ban forced my husband and me to start our life together on different continents
In September, my husband and I celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary. Or at least we tried to. Feeling celebratory is difficult in our situation.
My husband, Arya Shoaee, is Iranian, a nationality covered by President Trump’s travel ban, and while the ban is supposed to have exemptions for cases where it creates “undue hardships,” we haven’t yet been granted an exemption and don’t know whether we will be.
As a result, my husband has never been to my home in Los Angeles, the place we hope to make our home.
My husband’s visa request has been in “administrative processing” since Oct. 24, 2018, and we get little information.
Instead we get notifications like this one from May 5 of this year: “We regret any inconvenience, however, we can only confirm at this time that the case remains in administrative processing and unfortunately, we cannot predict the amount of time the administrative processing will take.”
Administrative processing is basically immigration purgatory.
To the U.S. government, my husband is case number NPL2018686001. But to me he is more than a number. He is the man I love.
Arya and I met on February 1, 2017, in Florence, Italy, where he owns a bar and restaurant. We instantly had a connection. I was attracted to him not only because he is handsome, but because he is attentive and chivalrous; goodhearted and generous; calm, wise and intelligent.
He is certainly not a threat of any sort. Under different administrations in the past, Arya was issued multiple tourist visas to travel in the United States and there was never a problem.
Waivers are supposed to be granted in cases of undue hardship when allowing entry would pose no threat and be in the “national interest.” But the government provides little guidance on what those terms mean. And according to published news reports, the government has granted waivers in only a tiny percent of cases.
I have always tried to do my part for my country. As a stand-up comedian, I have entertained U.S. military troops in Iraq, Korea, Guantanamo Bay, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, Singapore, Japan, Guam, the Marshall Islands and a number of military bases in the United States.
But in the current atmosphere, that doesn’t seem to count for much.
The government also doesn’t seem to care about our hardships, either, though they are certainly “undue.”
It is an undue hardship not being able to live in the same place, to cook a meal together or share a goodnight kiss. Paying for monthly international trips and taking costly time off work in order to be together is an undue hardship. Uncertainty is an undue hardship.
When I found out I was pregnant, we had to celebrate long distance, and Arya couldn’t go with me to my first obstetrician appointment. Then, on my birthday, I miscarried, and spent the day in the hospital scared and alone.
We are still hoping for a baby, but I worry that the emotional stress of our separation will cause me to miscarry again. Meanwhile, we have to schedule our visits around my ovulation calendar.
When I was offered a Netflix special, Arya wasn’t here to share my joy, and he could not attend the taping.
I spent years dating before finally finding a man who is kind, smart, loving, stable, family-oriented and emotionally supportive. When we got together and decided to marry, I thought the hard part was over. But it was just beginning.
I have spent my adult life trying to bring joy to people — including men and women in the armed forces who are serving the United States in difficult situations. It’s ironic that now my government is bringing me such pain.
It saddens me that the United States, a nation dedicated to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and built with the labor and dedication of people from all over the globe, has gotten so off course.
April Macie is a stand-up comedian who currently appears on the Netflix show “Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready.”
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c0810d767e8a4d6592691d0f57b74bc9
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-23/we-cant-afford-a-utility-that-doesnt-shut-down-during-high-winds
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Letters to the Editor: We can’t afford a utility that doesn’t shut down during high winds
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Letters to the Editor: We can’t afford a utility that doesn’t shut down during high winds
To the editor: Seems like everyone wants a perfect power grid, perfectly controllable and perfectly safe. Can it be done? Yes, absolutely. Could you afford it? Absolutely not. (“PG&E warns of 10 years of power shut-offs. California officials don’t like it,” Oct. 19)
Nothing in the electric utility industry is cheap or easy. Huge neighborhood-scale transformers are custom-designed and built. Automatic reclosers and capacitor banks on mountaintops will never be perfectly reliable. Raccoons and squirrels eat them or get fried in them. And, the California Public Utilities Commission would never allow rates to go up to what it would take to upgrade the grid to be perfectly safe.
The electric grid was designed for highest reliability at the cheapest rates possible, not custom flexibility and fail-safe emergency cutoffs. Utility management is correct: It would take decades to reverse that design philosophy, and the cost would be staggering.
The answer is not to make the electric grid spark-proof but to stop building houses in the wilderness to building codes that are applicable to the city. Fire-zone houses must be built to a different code, with fire resistance being foremost.
Whatever the solution, count on it being more expensive. There is no free lunch.
Harry Pope, Long Beach
..
To the editor: With the recent electric utility shutdowns due to the concern of sparking forest fires, and with the announced prospect of such shutdowns recurring for the next decade, this is a good time to consider a home solar system with a battery backup to handle grid failures.
Another green solution is an electric car with bi-directional charging that allows the owner’s home to be powered by the car battery when needed. Bi-directional charging is already available on some vehicle models.
Protecting the climate and being ready for electric grid failures go hand in hand.
Michael Schneider, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
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To the editor: The power companies contribute to the fire risk by deciding to place power lines on and through areas of high fire danger.
We have built tunnels under the oceans and through mountains. Here’s an idea to consider: Move the power lines underground.
There, they won’t spark fires, and the sheer ugliness of above-ground power lines will be gone.
Steve Fondiler, Oak Park
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186dbdefad3a0a9b6d1b0d50fde7f302
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-24/brexit-trump-chlorinated-chicken-boris-johnson
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Opinion: Why American poultry — and Donald Trump — have loomed large in the Brexit debate
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Opinion: Why American poultry — and Donald Trump — have loomed large in the Brexit debate
America has loomed large in Britain’s Brexit debate. Or rather, Donald Trump and American poultry have.
It would be an obvious overstatement to say that U.S. chicken — or even President Trump — is the reason consecutive prime ministers have been unable to manage a disobliging Parliament in efforts to leave the European Union. But no Brexit debate is complete without its chlorinated chicken moment.
The poultry issue is this: American processing plants dip their chickens in chlorinated water to kill pathogens, and they sell those chickens the world over — but not to any country in the EU. EU residents, including Brits, don’t like the idea of eating chlorine with their chickens.
So, as Britain contemplates a post-Brexit trade deal with the United States, one continuing cry of the anti-Brexit contingent, and not only the anti-Brexit contingent, is that we Brits do not want to choke down your foul (forgive the pun) chlorinated chicken. And if that weren’t bad enough, we’d have to negotiate the matter, as well as other points of a trade deal, with Donald Trump.
The Brexit debate is always peppered with other — you may think weightier — themes, of course: The need to honor the 2016 referendum result and preserve peace in Northern Ireland and protect the British economy.
Almost all the forecasts provided by reputable economists, including those in the U.K. Treasury, suggest that Britain would be considerably poorer if we leave the EU than if we remain in it — no matter what deal, if any, is finally approved.
Forecasts are, of course, imperfect, something the leading Brexiteers stress. The believe the predictions are based on a pessimistic, even defeatist, view of an insipid Britain unable to take advantage of the apparently marvelous opportunities that await when we are finally liberated from our current trade patterns shaped by our EU membership.
The Brexit cause holds as an article of absolute faith that, free from the “shackles” of the EU, we will strike trade deals that will more than make up for the new obstacles to our trading relationship with the EU — currently our largest trading partner by a long way.
This is, to put it mildly, a gamble. Above all we will certainly want, and need, a deal with the United States. During the referendum campaign, Barack Obama suggested that his administration would be in no hurry at all to sort out the fiendishly complex details of any such deal — a statement widely seen as trying to help the Remain cause. Donald Trump, strongly hostile to the EU as a multinational enterprise, has tried to suggest the reverse.
Trump’s enthusiasm may be necessary, but it is as much an embarrassment as it is helpful to the Brexit cause. In part, this is because of the widely held view throughout Europe that not only are U.S. poultry regulations unsatisfactory. Much of the entire American economic model is thought to be based on a harsh view of workers’ rights — not enough job security, not enough paid holiday, not enough guaranteed maternity and paternity leave.
But it is more than that. The United States is easier to attack now, in almost any argument, because of President Trump. Very few people who criticize the American version of a market economy have any detail at their command. Yes, it has long been the case that many European governments see the U.S. as too keen on deregulation and too unforgiving a society, but every suspicion is now given more potency by Trump.
Throughout the Brexit debate, Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that the version of Brexit being pursued by the British government was based on following the U.S. “downhill” by diluting workers’ rights currently cemented by our membership of the EU. But Corbyn’s lifelong anti-Americanism is understood. He has, after all, spent decades blaming the United States for more or less everything — Cuba’s less than perfect human rights record, Venezuela’s chaos, ISIS, the Cold War.
What has been striking in the Brexit debate is that, when challenged by more moderate voices than Corbyn’s, no government minister — even those deeply hostile to the EU’s rules — chooses to make even a broadly positive case for the United States’ way of going about its business. If U.S. policies were precisely the same but some more orthodox figure occupied the White House, there would be less anxiety.
Johnson now effects a “close pals” relationship with Trump to add icing to the obligatory view for any British prime minister that we have “a special relationship.” But whatever he actually believes about worker rights — and he has said contradictory things — he dares not now say outright that he wants Britain to have an economic and social model closer to the United States’ than to the EU’s.
In any event, a British-U.S. trade deal will be very tricky and will probably take a long time to negotiate and ratify. That poultry issue will need sorting. But Trump’s advocacy is not going to warm many British hearts. Boris Johnson will need him to kickstart any deal — but Johnson will be holding his nose.
Mark Damazer, is the former master of St. Peter’s College, Oxford, and former head of BBC Radio 4. He is currently an honorary fellow at St. Peter’s and at Caius College, Cambridge.
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0c457d35bdd2b39f4e0033edd8c3b615
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-25/woolsey-tick-fire-report-climate-change
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Editorial: Will California ever learn anything from its wildfires?
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Editorial: Will California ever learn anything from its wildfires?
To anyone who’s followed the news of wildfires in California in recent years — or this week’s Tick fire — the 200-page report commissioned by Los Angeles County officials on last year’s Woolsey fire will sound terrifyingly familiar.
The Woolsey fire, which burned nearly 100,000 acres from Oak Park to Malibu, was bigger, faster and more destructive than anyone expected, according to the county’s report. Even in a region accustomed to and prepared for fires, the blaze shocked and overwhelmed authorities. There simply weren’t enough fire engines or water-dropping aircraft to match the scale and speed of the fire. Residents, so used to firefighters saving their homes, complained that they couldn’t get an engine to come to their street. And people fleeing the fire were trapped in clogged evacuation routes.
In the end, the Woolsey fire joined the growing list of monstrous wildfires in California that are apparently becoming the norm. Five of California’s deadliest wildfires have occurred during the last two years. And six of the most destructive wildfires, in terms of structures lost, occurred over the last 10 years.
Now Los Angeles County is dealing with a new fire in the Santa Clarita area that has prompted the evacuation of at least 40,000 people. And like last year, state fire resources are stretched thin as agencies fight another conflagration in Northern California and additional wildfires throughout Southern California.
It should be crystal clear by now that California needs to make major changes in the way communities prepare for these inevitable blazes. The warming climate is creating conditions that fuel more devastating wildfires as more and more people are moving into the wildland-urban interface, where homes and offices abut foothills, forests or other open land.
Yet lawmakers at all levels of government still refuse to fully grapple with the challenges posed by the new normal. Can we make existing homes in fire zones safer and if so, how? What responsibility and obligations do residents in high-fire-risk areas bear for their own safety and that of their property? Are there some areas where it’s too dangerous to rebuild? Why, when we know the danger and the cost, do we keep allowing new subdivisions to march deeper into high-fire-risk areas?
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Instead, the focus has been on firefighting, equipment and brush clearance. The county’s post-Woolsey fire review was requested by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl to help agencies understand what happened and how to minimize damage in future events. The report lays out dozens of practical recommendations for government agencies to better coordinate and respond to the next disaster. It’s a smart exercise. County leaders are talking about a tax increase to expand the fire department.
But the report only briefly touches on the harder policy decisions that we ignore at our collective peril: “We cannot expect that all population growth in Very High or High Fire Hazard Severity areas can be protected simply by increasing resiliency to wildfire and by adding more fire engines,” the report says.
Of course existing homes have to become more resilient in the face of wind-driven blazes. And California may need to invest in more firefighting personnel and equipment to deal with the worsening fires. But it is folly to think that stricter building codes and more fire engines can eliminate the danger we create by building and rebuilding in high-fire-risk areas.
Lawmakers can’t necessarily stop people from rebuilding on land they own, given the 5th Amendment’s protections for property owners. But California could buy out owners to prevent them from rebuilding in high-risk areas. Cities and state agencies are talking about “managed retreat” — or relocating threatened homes — from communities facing coastal erosion or flooding. Why is there not a similar policy discussion in areas that repeatedly burn?
Nor is there any serious discussion of limiting new development in high fire-risk areas. In fact, local leaders in L.A. County, San Diego County and throughout the state are still approving massive new subdivisions on hillsides in the urban fringe — exactly the areas that are most likely to burn and burn again. And for existing homes, there are few, if any, requirements for home hardening or maintenance, and little assistance for homeowners who want to do it voluntarily.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has dismissed the idea of blocking development in fire-prone areas, saying such restrictions would be counter to California’s “pioneering spirit.” Perhaps. But the pioneers didn’t face subdivisions aflame or tens of thousands of neighbors trying to evacuate at the same time.
The death and destruction caused by recent wildfires should have served as reminder enough that California can’t keep sprawling into dangerous wildfire terrain. So far, California leaders have refused to act. What will it take?
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af3d3597138f9d34512ec44e52ce1f17
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-26/abcarian-meghan-markle-princess-diana
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Column: Princess Diana was hounded to death. Don’t let that happen to Meghan Markle
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Column: Princess Diana was hounded to death. Don’t let that happen to Meghan Markle
Why would anyone marry into the British royal family?
Especially an outspoken, biracial, successful American actress such as Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex?
The arc is so painfully familiar: The press falls in love with you, can’t get enough of you, covers your lavish wedding lavishly, then starts ripping you apart: You’re too demanding, you want too much privacy, you spend too much money. And your family, hoo boy, what a mess.
I watched the ITV documentary “Harry and Meghan: An African Journey” the other night to see how things have been for Markle since she married Prince Harry in May 2018, and had baby Archie a year later.
Not great, it turns out. The pressure, she said, has been unexpectedly intense.
“Look, any woman, especially when they’re pregnant — you’re really vulnerable, so that was made really challenging,” Markle, 38, told ITV interviewer Tom Bradby in what appeared to be a candid moment. “And then when you have a newborn … it’s a lot. So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mom or just trying to be a newlywed. And also thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I am OK.”
I got the feeling she was talking less about the tabloid media than about the royal apparatus responsible for making sure that members of the House of Windsor toe the line.
In that moment, I did feel a little sorry for her.
But she soon proved she is not as powerless as she would like to appear.
In a speech to children in the South African township of Nyanga — known as the murder capital of the country — she said, “While I am here with my husband as a member of the royal family, I want you to know that, for me, I am here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of color, and as your sister.” (The line — for which she will be remembered — came to her at the last minute. “It just felt right,” she said later.)
Then, a day before the couple left Africa, Harry, 35, announced that his wife had filed a breach of privacy and copyright infringement claim against the Mail on Sunday tabloid, accusing it of illegally publishing a letter that she wrote to her father and also of publishing “false and deliberately derogatory” stories about the royal couple.
On his ITV special, Bradby shared the news wistfully: “The media thought the couple had gone mad. After such a successful tour, why blow it up like this?”
It did seem misguided. Not Devin-Nunes-mad-cow misguided, mind you, but it’s hard to imagine even if they win damages (which they have vowed to donate to an anti-bullying organization), that the incessant — and negative or made-up — coverage will ever stop.
On the other hand, the anger and the will to change the intrusive coverage are understandable. Harry has been traumatized by bad press behavior in a way few others have been. His mother, Princess Diana, died in a car crash in 1997 at age 36, after paparazzi pursued her in Paris. His fear for his wife’s emotional health is not paranoia.
“Though this action may not be the safe one, it is the right one,” he wrote in a statement published on the Sussex family website. “Because my deepest fear is history repeating itself. I’ve seen what happens when someone I love is commoditised to the point that they are no longer treated or seen as a real person. I lost my mother and now I watch my wife falling victim to the same powerful forces.” He also filed his own claims against two other newspapers, alleging they had hacked his phone.
Strictly for professional reasons, I read Markle’s letter to her father.
Thomas Markle said he had no choice but to release the letter after one of his daughter’s friends had publicly mischaracterized it as “loving and conciliatory,” as the Daily Mail put it.
The letter, in fact, is accusatory. It is written in the wounded tone of a daughter who is laying out an item-by-item case against her father.
“Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces,” it says, “not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain, but by making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this.”
It reads like a giant kiss off.
The Sussexes are reportedly coming to Los Angeles next month to celebrate Thanksgiving with Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland.
I can think of one new grandpa who probably won’t be invited over for pumpkin pie.
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34c694e8f6c17b2af5811daa983c1992
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-26/impeachment-justice-department-ukraine-mueller
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Opinion: Dueling investigations by Congress and Justice Department threaten faith in government
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Opinion: Dueling investigations by Congress and Justice Department threaten faith in government
Now this is what you call divided government.
Americans have grown used to the idea of the two major parties splitting control of the White House and Congress. In fact, voters seem to prefer things that way; one-party control rarely lasts long in Washington these days (see, e.g., the elections in 2018 and 2010). But what we’re seeing now is two parties pitting the institutions they control against one another in remarkable ways.
The clash threatens to make the public even more distrustful of government and major public institutions. Yet we’ve been heading in this direction for years, pushed by political factions such as the tea party and Occupy Wall Street that paint the federal government as a wholly owned subsidiary of evil forces, whether it be “the elite,” “the swamp” or corporate America.
Today’s situation may look like the typical partisan battling in the run-up to a presidential election. What’s different is the weapons being used in the fight.
On one side you have House Democrats with their impeachment inquiry into President Trump, which they launched without the optional but customary vote of the full House. Impeachments are by their nature highly partisan exercises, but so far the current one — which focuses on whether Trump abused the power of his office by pressuring Ukraine to investigate one of his top political rivals — is overwhelmingly so.
On the other side you have the Trump administration, which has instructed its agencies and employees to stonewall the impeachment inquiry. At the same time, the Justice Department has stepped up its efforts to substantiate Trump’s preferred counter-narrative: that Democrats alternately colluded with Russians and Ukrainians to try to swing the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton.
Those efforts take the form of a criminal investigation that Atty. Gen. William Barr ordered into the roots of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into whether Russia colluded with Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. In the notorious July 25 phone call with new Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky, Trump pressed Zelensky to help the Justice Department run down rumors that Russian agents weren’t the ones who’d hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s computers during the 2016 presidential campaign; instead, under this factually challenged conspiracy theory, that evidence was concocted by Ukrainians.
If the Department of Justice somehow declares that Mueller and the U.S. intelligence community wrongly blamed Russians for the DNC hack, that could make Trump’s request for “a favor” from Zelensky seem more palatable. Or if it finds that the Mueller probe was built on a house of cards assembled by Democrats, that would aid Trump’s argument that the impeachment inquiry is just an extension of Democrats’ efforts to overturn the 2016 election.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s inspector general has been conducting a lengthy investigation of his own into the FBI counterintelligence probe that led to Mueller’s appointment. His report has already been submitted to Barr, so all or part of it may become public soon.
Ideally, the competing investigations would yield consistent results about their overlapping topics, particularly by refuting the conspiracy theories surrounding Ukraine and the Mueller probe. That would be a tremendous boon to the credibility of all concerned. If they don’t, the public will find itself having to choose whose facts to believe: those assembled by House Democrats, based mainly on the input of career diplomats, or those gathered by the federal government’s top law enforcement agency.
That’s not a tough choice for partisans on both sides. As my colleague Mike McGough noted earlier on this blog, Democrats have already raised red flags about Barr’s objectivity. But for people in the middle, it would be an invitation to throw up one’s hands and say, “A pox on both your houses.” It also would send a disturbing signal that partisanship has corrupted some of the federal government’s most serious undertakings.
The Justice Department has been conducting its probes outside of public view, as Mueller did his. The fact that House Democrats have done the same with their impeachment inquiry, though, has drawn sharp rebukes from Trump and other Republicans, who contend that the president is being denied his due process rights. That’s led Republicans to try to undermine the inquiry, even though Republicans are participating in the private hearings being held by three House committees. Dozens of House Republicans interrupted a deposition the committees were trying to conduct Wednesday (the witness was eventually deposed), and key Senate Republicans have threatened to summarily dismiss any House-passed articles of impeachment.
You’ve got to suspect that one reason Republicans are complaining is because they want to have subpoena power, something the minority doesn’t typically have the unilateral power to wield. And how would Republicans use that power? Presumably to shift the focus away from Trump and onto another of the president’s preferred Ukrainian narratives: that former Vice President Joe Biden corruptly shielded a Ukrainian energy company that employed his son by forcing the country’s parliament to fire its top prosecutor. The facts don’t serve that narrative well either.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) has said that the initial hearings are being conducted behind closed doors to prevent witnesses from colluding, and that the committee will soon shift to public sessions featuring many of the same witnesses. Still, my colleagues and I on the Los Angeles Times editorial board have criticized the lack of transparency and the lack of a formal authorization vote, which have weakened the public’s faith in the process.
House Democrats clearly have the authority to do what they’re doing; the Constitution gives them carte blanche to establish their own rules for impeachment, which is neither a criminal proceeding nor a trial. With the Justice Department’s competing investigations potentially coming to a head at the same time, though, the credibility of the House process is every bit as important as the results it produces.
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48f0cbbbd47271b192f091e23eacd7e2
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-29/democrats-deny-trump-supporters-an-impeachment-talking-point
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Opinion: Democrats to take away a favorite Trump talking point by making impeachment inquiry official
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Opinion: Democrats to take away a favorite Trump talking point by making impeachment inquiry official
President Trump and Republicans in Congress have railed against House Democrats for pursuing an impeachment inquiry without a vote on the floor to authorize the probe.
On Monday the Democrats deprived them of that issue.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, announced that on Wednesday his panel would mark up a resolution that would “ensure transparency and provide a clear path forward” for the impeachment inquiry that Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared “official” last month.
Pelosi, who long had resisted calls for impeachment from members of her caucus, changed her mind in September after a whistleblower complained about the July 25 telephone call in which Trump suggested to Ukraine’s president that that country should investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
But even as she blessed impeachment inquiries by several House committees, she stopped short of announcing a vote on the House floor to authorize the investigation — even though such votes occurred in the impeachment investigations of Presidents Clinton and Nixon. (In Nixon’s case, the floor vote occurred more than three months after the Judiciary Committee launched its investigation.)
You don’t have to be a Trump supporter to advocate a floor vote. The Los Angeles Times editorial board urged one as long ago as September because it would enhance the investigation’s credibility.
In agreeing to a floor vote, possibly as early as Thursday, the Democratic majority hasn’t conceded that such a vote is necessary. (It isn’t, as a constitutional matter.) Paradoxically, the Democrats may have found it easier to move to a floor vote after a federal judge ruled last week that the House Judiciary Committee was acting pursuant to its impeachment power in seeking grand jury information that had been blacked out in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.
On Monday, Pelosi sent a letter to House Democrats saying the resolution “affirms the ongoing, existing investigation that is currently being conducted by our committees” as well as establishing procedures for transfers of documents to the House Judiciary Committee and for “due process rights for the president and his counsel.”
The president’s supporters aren’t taking yes for an answer. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham reacted to Monday’s announcement by claiming that “Speaker Pelosi is finally admitting what the rest of America already knew — that Democrats were conducting an unauthorized impeachment proceeding, refusing to give the president due process, and their secret, shady, closed door depositions are completely and irreversibly illegitimate.”
Pelosi was admitting to no such thing. But her willingness to hold a floor vote demonstrates her confidence in the outcome and signals that the testimony the inquiry has adduced so far is ominous for the president.
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f5db18b3cc5820848141ed37e2affc29
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-29/mcmuffin-smuggling-jail-sheriff
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Editorial: When McMuffin smuggling is a big deal
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Editorial: When McMuffin smuggling is a big deal
No point getting all bent out of shape over an Egg McMuffin, right? That was the gist of the reaction by Sheriff Alex Villanueva to concerns raised over his rehiring of a former deputy who was once banned from the Los Angeles County jail.
But there is indeed reason for concern when an ex-deputy improperly dons his old uniform, violates an agreement not to enter the jail and then sneaks contraband to an inmate, even if the forbidden package may have contained just a cup of coffee and a rubbery McDonald’s breakfast sandwich.
In case you missed last week’s story, Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian reported that sheriff’s detective Mark Lillienfeld retired several years ago and became an investigator for the district attorney. It was while he was working for the D.A. that he was videotaped last year in his tan-and-green sheriff’s uniform, entering Men’s Central Jail with a plastic bag that he reportedly left in the inmate chapel.
The prisoner who later took the bag said it contained coffee and the McDonald’s version of eggs benedict. The bag was apparently intended for a different inmate, who was acting as an informant in one of Lillienfeld’s D.A. investigations.
The previous sheriff’s administration was concerned enough about the incident that it banned Lillienfeld from the jail and warned sheriff’s personnel not to allow him past security.
Despite that history — the breaking of the previous agreement not to enter the jail, the misuse of the uniform, the smuggling of contraband, the failure of the McMuffin hand-off — Villanueva rehired Lillienfeld this year on a temporary assignment, investigating public corruption.
The incident only serves to heighten concerns about Villanueva’s judgment in rehiring deputies (like Caren Carl Mandoyan) who had been terminated for cause by the prior administration.
Lillienfeld isn’t in that group of fired deputies, but he does have a fairly serious note in his file, as they say.
As for the Egg McMuffin, and the suggestion that when push comes to shove a sandwich is no big deal, it’s important to keep in mind that sheriff’s personnel at the time of the incident had only one lucky inmate’s word about what actually was in the bag.
Remember that one corrupt sheriff’s deputy was sent to jail for two years for attempting to deliver a burrito containing 24 grams of black tar heroin to a man associated with Mexican Mafia while he was locked up at the Los Angeles airport courthouse. Burritos, Big Macs and similar food have been used numerous times to smuggle drugs, shivs and other dangerous items into jails.
Contraband in the jails is a serious issue. Even the smuggling of an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee should not be taken lightly.
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a799131d37174c922e0f6e8f7d3a4fb5
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-30/newsom-shocking-recklessness-building-in-fire-prone-areas
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Letters to the Editor: Gov. Newsom’s shocking recklessness on building in fire-prone areas
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Letters to the Editor: Gov. Newsom’s shocking recklessness on building in fire-prone areas
To the editor: Although my wife and I lived in Idyllwild for 13 years, loving the forest and community, we recognized the constant threat of fire. We and others co-founded the Mountain Communities Fire Safe Council and worked with the U.S. Forest Service and Cal Fire to educate the public about the need for hardening their properties and actively helping homeowners reduce fuel and dead trees around their homes.
The council has accomplished a great deal and is continuing that work. But we always warned that a wind-driven fire in the forest would not respect our efforts.
While understanding the attraction of the the forest environment, I agree with and embrace the recommendations of your editorial calling for restrictions on developing and rebuilding within the wildland-urban interface. I was shocked and dismayed by the statement by Gov. Gavin Newsom (for whom I voted) that such restrictions would be against California’s “pioneering spirit.”
I suggest that your reporters ask some of the panicked people fleeing these historic fires whether they feel like pioneers or refugees.
Blair Ceniceros, Claremont
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To the editor: On a day of wildfire tragedy, the paper of record in Los Angeles has the bad taste to perpetuate the fraudulent meme about building homes in so-called fire-prone areas.
The National Park Service has asserted many times that naturally occurring fires in our region were and remain a centennial event. That is less frequent than other recurring natural disasters in America.
The difference is not that people build in fire-prone areas; the difference is that our utility companies and resource management agencies have been derelict in maintaining the infrastructure and resources on which we, as taxpayers and captive rate payers, depend.
This is victim blaming on an epic scale, and The Times’ endorsement of it is irresponsible. Point the finger where it belongs — those who have failed to maintain essential infrastructure and responsibly manage resources.
Wade Major, Malibu
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6bae96cf619b5a74dc346258e85602ff
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-31/pge-warning-customer-culver-city-power-outages
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Letters to the Editor: Why is PG&E warning a ‘customer’ in Culver City about outages?
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Letters to the Editor: Why is PG&E warning a ‘customer’ in Culver City about outages?
To the editor: The L.A. Times reports that Pacific Gas & Electric failed to notify 23,000 customers about precautionary power outages. The company blamed some of the gaps in notification on residents not having contact information on file.
Well, I can personally verify that PG&E’s analog records are in working order.
Here in Culver City, I have been receiving PG&E’s “important safety alert” voicemails for the past two fire seasons. They warn me about possible power outages in our neighborhood and include a special code to enter on the website to pinpoint our specific location’s warning level and provide additional instructions.
Why is this happening? In the early 1980s my parents retired and relocated to El Dorado County. They returned to Southern California in 1990. My number must have been listed on their old PG&E “in case of emergency” paperwork.
Both my parents have long since shuffled off this mortal coil. But sometimes I wonder about the safety of whoever bought the home my father so lovingly built years ago. Hopefully they’re getting the calls too.
Ginny LeRossignol Blades, Culver City
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To the editor: Investor-owned utilities have been raking in our dollars for decades while failing in their duty to maintain the infrastructure as they should have.
The cost of doing business must include taking the measures necessary to avoid catastrophes. The managers at these companies already know of regular high winds in parts of the state, that the Earth is getting hotter and much of California is dryer, and that the infrastructure they built is old. But they have spent decades hording money and failing to upgrade.
Instead of prioritizing themselves and their shareholders, they should spend the money to ensure that the customer is safe and receives service. Utility company management and shareholders need to be held accountable for their negligence, and they ought to pay for losses incurred by customers.
Sally Rivera, Rancho Cucamonga
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To the editor: If your readers are anything like me, they are anxious to know where PG&E’s fire safety money went.
In a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “For years [PG&E] skimped on safety upgrades and repairs while pumping billions into green energy and electric-car subsidies to please its overlords in Sacramento.”
As Californians have our lungs scorched with fire smoke, can the L.A. Times figure out where the fire safety money went? For years many people knew we were playing a dangerous game on this.
Elayne Taylor, Long Beach
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5779e2a720bf7c1fbbc25b2044f22df0
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-20/gordon-sondland-testimony-trump-impeachment-hearing
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Letters to the Editor: Gordon Sondland’s testimony shows how a corrupt president operates
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Letters to the Editor: Gordon Sondland’s testimony shows how a corrupt president operates
To the editor: During his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland linked President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the Ukraine quid pro quo. Republicans on the committee did their best to undermine Sondland’s remarks by asking if the president directly ordered Sondland to communicate a quid pro quo.
Sondland’s response was classic: “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.”
The same could be said of Al Capone. Did he ever order anyone to be killed? He didn’t have to. His underlings knew exactly what their mob boss wanted. Again, everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.
I’m not saying Trump is a gangster, but it’s pretty clear his underlings knew exactly what he wanted from Ukraine and its new president.
It’s taken a long time, but it finally happened: A Republican ally of Trump has put country before party. It couldn’t have been easy for Sondland to testify as he has, so the nation owes him a debt of gratitude.
Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach
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To the editor: Watching these impeachment hearings reminds me of the days I worked in New York City. Employees would gather at a local watering hole and gossip about the boss and what he was doing. Cocktails often lead to crazy theories.
This impeachment — replete with the same sort of innuendo and conjecture — underscores one simple fact: The Democrats have an unrelenting zeal to rid us of Trump. The means are not important — just get this guy out of the White House.
Every few years we lament low voter participation. We wonder why people wouldn’t take the time to pick their representatives. The answer is always the same: “It doesn’t make a difference.”
For the first time in my life I am starting to believe that as I see one of our political parties using its power to overturn an election instead of trying to win one.
Joseph Schillmoeller, Gardena
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To the editor: Boy, if there were ever an argument against political-appointee ambassadors, Sondland is it.
Susan Shell, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: Trump supporters fall all over themselves to honor our service members, thanking them for their service at every opportunity.
Given Army. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s statements, it seems that their gratitude now might need to come with a qualifier: “Thank you for your service — unless, of course, you testify, truthfully or not, in a manner harmful to the president.”
Terry Sternberg, West Hills
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874a987c4f632a835ac907ee77e2c1b4
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-12-08/criminalizing-homelessness-boise
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Letters to the Editor: Criminalizing homelessness is cruel and financially reckless
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Letters to the Editor: Criminalizing homelessness is cruel and financially reckless
To the editor: The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision last year on homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks did not create this problem. Rather, the biggest cause of this crisis is exorbitant rents.
Criminalizing homelessness by allowing police to cite people who sleep in public will only make the problem worse. People incarcerated for sleeping on the sidewalk will be released, but any mental disability or substance use disorder they may have had before will have been exacerbated.
Los Angeles County jails are already over capacity. It costs an average of more than $100 a day to keep someone in jail, and that’s before an inmate receives any very expensive medication for a psychiatric disorder. After inmates are released with a criminal record, it is even harder for them to get a job.
It would cost less and provide better results to spend funds on paying rent and providing services that lead to recovery and employment instead of incarceration with the consequent destabilization and unemployment.
Marsha Temple, Los Angeles
The writer is executive director of the nonprofit Integrated Recovery Network.
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46cf84a0edf2da7e78bc6333e18e733c
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-20/california-presidential-primary-voting-confusion-threatens-election
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Editorial: Is California’s presidential primary a disaster waiting to happen?
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Editorial: Is California’s presidential primary a disaster waiting to happen?
California lawmakers moved the state’s 2020 presidential primary up to March 3 to give voters in the most populous state more influence over who will be running in the November general election. But millions of voters might be left out anyway unless they pay close attention to the rules for crossover voting and take action soon.
Voting in California has changed a lot in the last decade. The state dumped traditional partisan primaries in most races in favor of the “top two” system, devised a system to draw legislative and congressional districts that is more insulated from politics, and made it far easier to register to vote. And this year, the changes go nuclear in Los Angeles, Orange and a few other counties, which will be shifting from in-person voting on Election Day to voting at centralized polling centers that open weeks before ballots are counted. For the most part, the changes have been designed make it easier for people to vote.
But what hasn’t changed much is how we run presidential primaries every four years. Unlike races for state legislature and Congress, where any voter can automatically vote across party lines, presidential primaries are open only to members of the political party in question, unless the party decides differently. Some parties choose to let unaffiliated voters participate, but in that case those voters have to ask for an additional ballot. It’s a clunky process compared to other state primaries, and it seems as if many voters haven’t gotten the message amid the hubbub of an otherwise high-interest election.
More than one quarter of California’s 20 million voters are registered with no party preference. And those who vote by mail, which is the majority of them, will receive their ballots in about two weeks with no presidential candidates on them. If they want to pick a presidential candidate for a particular party they must either contact the county registrar and ask for the ballot for one of three primaries open to unaffiliated voters (in Los Angeles county they can do that up until a week before the election) — Democratic, Libertarian and American Independent parties — or reregister if they want to vote for a candidate in a party whose primary is open only to members. Anyone who wants to cast a vote for President Trump in the Republican primary must be a registered member of the GOP to do so.
Los Angeles County has just under a million unaffiliated mail voters and has sent out postcards twice informing them of the process. But only about 47,000 people have responded to ask for crossover ballots so far, with just two weeks until the ballots are mailed. That trend is reflected across the state; fewer than 10% of No Party Preference voters had responded to notifications about requesting a ballot by earlier this month, when political data analyst Paul Mitchell checked in with county registrars. Worse, some people have been spreading misinformation (argggh, Susan Sarandon!) and conspiracy theories that are not at all helpful.
Registered voters with no party preference who cast ballots in person will not be affected by this; they can request a ballot from among those primaries open to them when they show up at the polls, which open Feb. 22 in Los Angeles County. Also, vote by mail unaffiliated voters in L.A. county can choose to vote in person and get a new ballot with presidential candidates so long as they haven’t returned their mail ballot first.
Our concern is that potentially millions of voters around the state will wake up on March 3 to realize they are shut out of participating in this important decision. That’s why the process of voting for president ought to be as much a part of the conversation as whom to vote for. Don’t just ask your friends which candidate they are pulling for. Ask them if they know how they are going to make that selection. Elections officials especially need to bump up their voter education game in the next few weeks, if they haven’t done so already. And candidates who want to get votes from unaffiliated voters ought to be broadcasting details about how to check registration status and what to do to receive the correct ballot.
It’s reasonable to allow state parties to continue to set the rules when it comes presidential primaries. That doesn’t mean, however, that California can’t figure out ways to make the rules clearer and more easily understandable in the future. Colorado, which pioneered many of the election changes that are coming this year to Los Angeles, has found a simple way around the crossover voting problem. All nonpartisan voters in that state are automatically mailed ballots for parties open to unaffiliated voters, with instructions to return only one.
That may not be practical in California, which is so much larger, but it could be worth exploring along with other ideas if we wake up on March 4 to find millions of voters who wanted to vote were left out of the primary.
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f3c6b4e037e1e653bd06ef3ce553f704
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-20/hollywood-walk-of-fame-star-may-seem-silly-but-it-means-a-lot-to-us-iranians
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Op-Ed: A Walk of Fame star may seem silly, but it means a lot to us Iranians
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Op-Ed: A Walk of Fame star may seem silly, but it means a lot to us Iranians
Andy Madadian, the Armenian Iranian singer and actor, got the 2,684th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday. For Angelenos not familiar with Andy’s raspy, soothing voice, he’s made more than a dozen albums and has loyal fans around the world. He’s not a household name in Los Angeles, where he has lived since 1979, but for Iranians, he’s a beloved icon.
In the grand scheme of things, the star is not a big deal. Even Donald Trump has one on the Walk of Fame.
And considering Iranians are fighting for their lives protesting against the regime that shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing 176 people, it’s almost thoughtless, silly and even unnecessary to celebrate a pop star receiving a bedazzled block of stone on a street where a homeless man once offered to take a selfie with me if I gave him weed.
But it’s not. In fact, this is the time we need these small victories of recognition for immigrant communities, in this case the very large population of Iranian expats in Los Angeles for whom Andy — who’s known only by his first name — is nearly as important a fixture as the cultural sites in Iran that Trump had threatened to attack just a couple of weeks ago.
We earnestly love this man the way Americans love Paul Rudd. He is ageless, timeless and a constant source of goodwill and just pure joy.
Whether he’s the best Iranian musician is arguable, as anything of an artistic nature usually is. But he’s the only one who’s managed to navigate the realm of pre-revolution Iran and modern diaspora life in the United States, being both a source of nostalgic comfort and a voice for social justice through his charity, Voices Out. He’s old school and somehow new school, rocking a less amplified version of the same hairstyle he’s had since the 1980s.
In 2009, Andy, Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora joined forces to record a Persian-English version of “Stand by Me” in solidarity with the protesters during the pro-reform Green Movement in Iran.
This is what Andy has always been good at. He knows the value of his voice, and even more so when it’s joined with internationally beloved American musicians. Their record didn’t solve any crisis, but it helped those of us outside of Iran — as well as in Iran — cope, sending a message to our non-Iranian friends to say, “We’re in this together.”
With Iran making headlines again and Trump making threats one minute and then claiming to stand with the Iranian people the next, life can get confusing for Iranians living abroad. Most immigrants, no matter how long they’ve lived in their “new” country, can feel a sort of a low-grade identity crisis when every newspaper in the world is covering some atrocity happening in their home country.
So Andy receiving a star on the Walk of Fame, an iconic L.A. institution, is important for reasons that are not obvious to most. When we see ourselves represented in any way, it’s a victory. As any immigrant knows, when one of us gets recognition, we like to huddle in and bask in what is a shared glory.
Orly Minazad is a freelance writer and editor who was born in Tehran.
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0e44f1a2159ee9523e74e9d7892a356f
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-25/newsletter-why-impeachment-feels-oddly-reassuring
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Newsletter: Why impeachment feels oddly reassuring
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Newsletter: Why impeachment feels oddly reassuring
Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.
After coming frighteningly close to war with Iran, it feels oddly relieving to watch members of Congress explain for a week why the president poses such a grave threat to our national security and constitutional order that he must be removed from office.
Of course, it bolsters no one’s faith in government to see senators demur over considering new evidence of the commander in chief’s thuggish behavior — behavior from which only the Senate, by virtue of its power to remove him, can protect us — but I’ll take continued indifference to President Trump’s authoritarianism over another war in the Mideast. (And really, I cannot recommend enthusiastically enough Andrew J. Bacevich’s commentary on that topic, no matter how old it might be.)
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So let’s ignore for a moment the frightening instability in the rest of the world so we can get a true sense of the magnitude of this moment: The president is on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors, no one can seriously dispute that Trump did everything for which he was impeached, and yet senators will almost certainly decline to exercise their oversight authority.
Most puzzling, as columnist Virginia Heffernan points out, is that Republicans were agitating for impeachment before Trump took office: “The dynamism the party once showed, when it dared to condemn Trump in 2016, is gone. In more courageous days, Republicans started this impeachment. Too bad they won’t see it through.”
Trump’s presidency won’t end with impeachment, but it won’t end well either, writes Jonah Goldberg. The reason: Character is destiny, and Trump’s character won’t allow him to govern as a servant of the people. As for those who love the way he governs, they don’t have to worry about the ugly facts of his crookedness, because their favorite news channel doesn’t mind ignoring the president’s trial, notes Brian A. Boyle. And if Democrats want the Senate to hear all the evidence of Trump’s Ukraine extortion, they should jump at the chance to accept a Bolton-for-a-Biden testimony deal, says Jon Healey.
Even under impeachment, Trump provides fresh evidence of his corruption. The president flew to south Florida this week to address the Republican National Committee at Trump National Doral Miami. Yes, that’s the president’s golf resort, where he notoriously tried to steer next summer’s G-7 summit of international leaders. “Trump’s self-dealing is of a piece with the behavior he’s been accused of in the impeachment inquiry,” says the L.A. Times Editorial Board. “It’s all about using the power of the presidency for his personal benefit.” L.A. Times
It’s 1856 all over again, and that isn’t a good thing. The first Republican Party presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, came from California, and in 1856 he was one of the most admired Americans. But Democrats’ fear of losing forever gave rise to scare-mongering and outright lies over the nascent party that would go on to put Abraham Lincoln up for election. James Buchanan beat Frémont and quickly set about entrenching his party’s pro-slavery agenda in Washington. The results were disastrous and carry ominous lessons for Americans today. New York Times
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Good news: If you have a blocked artery, you probably don’t need a stent. Bad news: Your doctor might not tell you. Decisive evidence has emerged showing that angioplasty and stents are no better at preventing heart attacks in patients with blocked arteries than noninvasive and inexpensive medications. But the angioplasty-and-stent treatment is so deeply embedded in medical culture that physicians reflexively perform it despite knowing the risks and questionable effectiveness, says cardiologist Rita F. Redberg. Plus it’s expensive, and doctors are rewarded for performing procedures. L.A. Times
Why is the Trump administration going after UCLA? A student was deeply offended when a guest lecturer in an anthropology class asserted that Israel engaged in ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. A conservative Israel advocacy organization complained to the federal government, saying the student was a victim of discrimination and harassment, and the Justice Department said it would investigate. This poses a serious risk to free and open expression on college campuses, even if it makes people uncomfortable, write David N. Myers, a Jewish history professor at UCLA, and Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller. L.A. Times
Stay in touch.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re the kind of reader who’d benefit from subscribing to our other newsletters and to the Times.As always, you can share your feedback by emailing me at [email protected].
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c0a87d8575043ebcb49d4cbe639b7238
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-26/is-trump-really-still-a-climate-change-denier
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Letters to the Editor: Is Trump really still a climate change denier?
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Letters to the Editor: Is Trump really still a climate change denier?
To the editor: It seems incomprehensible that we have a president who is still a climate change denier. (“At Davos, Trump rejects climate crisis, lauds U.S. economy and fossil fuels,” Jan. 21)
If you visit Miami Beach today, you’ll need to take your boots. “Sunny day flooding” is happening at each high tide, and President Trump’s golf course in Doral, Fla., is just 15 miles away. Eventually his courses near Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla., and in Aberdeen, Scotland, will be in trouble; so will the entire island of Manhattan, home to Trump Tower.
“Yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers” can already tell Trump they told him so, as their “predictions of the apocalypse” are unfolding in front of his blind eyes.
Kathy Harty, Sierra Madre
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To the editor: During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, most leaders agreed on the need to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels in order to mitigate the developing global climate crisis. Trump, in contrast, touted the use of “traditional fossil fuels” to maintain economic growth.
Trump revealed his ignorance of economic reality. According to a study by Morgan Stanley, climate disasters due to global warming have cost North America $415 billion over the last three years.
Promoting renewable energy, including solar and wind, would stimulate the U.S. economy. Currently, more than 260,000 Americans are employed in the solar power industry. The long-term cost of renewable energy is lower than that of power from fossil fuels.
Renewable energy installations generate power for many years without needing continuous transport of fossil fuels to a plant.
Al Barrett, Santa Monica
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To the editor: Trump said about Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, “She beat me out on Time magazine.”
He is wrong again. He was never in the running. She stands for right action, and he embodies narcissism’s worst traits.
Thunberg is well spoken and strong in standing up for her beliefs. He stands for hatred and does nothing but belittle anyone who disagrees with him. He called Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) a “sleazebag” and referred to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) as a “corrupt politician.”
Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying that when one is pointing a finger in blame, one also has four fingers that are pointing back. Trump needs to take a look in the mirror.
If he is removed by the Senate, Trump might get the cover of Time.
Sue Robin, Los Angeles
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To the editor: It is clear to just about everyone that our climate is changing. There may be some winners, but the likely result will be a less stable world as extreme weather events cause death and destruction and leave many places uninhabitable.
The U.S. government can continue to put its head in the sand, but that will not change the facts and we will all be worse off for it.
Gerda Newbold, Santa Monica
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729f728fd7ff60fafae9983921325b12
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-26/new-and-dangerous-coronaviruses-will-keep-emerging-until-we-focus-on-preventing-them
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Op-Ed: This new coronavirus was preventable. But we never seem to learn the lessons of former outbreaks
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Op-Ed: This new coronavirus was preventable. But we never seem to learn the lessons of former outbreaks
In recent days, in the largest quarantine effort in history, Wuhan city in China was put on lockdown and the Chinese government imposed wide-ranging restrictions on both domestic and foreign travel. The actions are aimed at containing a brand-new coronavirus called 2019-nCoV, which as of Monday had killed more than 80 people and sickened nearly 3,000 in China.
But the quarantine’s effectiveness is far from certain. Local transmission may be reduced, but the virus has already spread beyond China, with cases as far afield as Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Japan and the United States.
And even if the quarantine is effective, it doesn’t address the far bigger issue: How do we stop this from happening again?
The emergence of this new virus was predictable, even inevitable. To understand why requires looking back to an earlier virus that emerged in China, SARS. Like the new illness, SARS was caused by a coronavirus. In 2003, it exploded out of a “wet market” in Guangdong where civet cats, raccoon dogs and multitudes of other animals were caged together in tight, squalid conditions.
It appears the new virus has similar origins. The initial victims were all connected to a huge wholesale market in Wuhan, where a thousand stalls housed untold numbers of live animals kept in crowded, filthy conditions. Such “wet markets” are widespread in China, providing a newly affluent upper class with status-enhancing exotic animals to serve at dinner. Some people also believe that eating wild animals has health benefits.
The problem with the markets is that the unsanitary and tightly packed conditions in which the animals are held create perfect environments for the evolution of viruses that can jump from one species to another. The Chinese government shut down wet markets after the SARS outbreak, but that ban was short-lived.
With SARS, the virus came initially from bats and then was passed, apparently, to civet cats and eventually to humans. Initial indications point to the new coronavirus, too, having come from bats, but it isn’t yet known how it made its way to humans.
Coronaviruses have proven themselves masters at jumping from one species to another, and how they affect each species can differ greatly. An infection hardly noticeable in a wild animal, perhaps a civet cat, may spread easily to the next cage, whether that cage houses more civets or another mammalian species. With coronaviruses, the jump from species to species appears to happen fairly easily.
The massive poultry farms of Asia, which may house as many as 5 million chickens, present a different but also potentially lethal source of human infection. There, viruses such as influenza become highly adapted and, in crowded circumstances, ever more deadly to chickens, as there is no cost to the virus if it’s lethal — the next host is only a beak away. These virulent avian influenzas can and have killed people. But humans have to catch them directly from the birds. Because they have become so precisely adapted to chickens, the viruses have little potential for human-to-human transmission.
The same evolutionary process can occur on massive pig farms, and can be even more dangerous to people, since people are more like pigs than like chickens. The deadly 2009 swine flu pandemic sprang out of one such massive pig farm in Veracruz, Mexico, where hundreds of pigs died in an outbreak that eventually moved into people.
Caging different wild beasts together by the hundreds or thousands, as in a wet market, can produce a particularly dangerous environment for infectious diseases like coronaviruses. Not only is there an array of possible host species, but large numbers of humans are brought into close contact with the animals, too.
With SARS, as well as the new coronavirus, it appears that the virus jumped first to the people working with these animals in the market, and then began another process of evolution, which allowed it to spread from human to human, adapting to its new host species and becoming more effective at that adaptation all the time. As a result of such evolution, we get brand-new human diseases like 2019-nCoV, which did not exist only months ago.
It’s too early to know what kind of threat the present virus poses. What’s important is that we finally learn the right lesson.
If we want to forestall the evolution of ever-newer, and possibly deadlier, human-adapted viruses, live animal markets must be permanently shut down. Until the Chinese government outlaws these markets, until factory farms housing millions of animals are eliminated, until we take the inevitable logic of disease evolution into account, novel, and potentially deadly, human diseases will continue to arise. Again. And again. And again.
Wendy Orent is the author of “Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World’s Most Dangerous Disease” and “Ticked: The Battle Over Lyme Disease in the South.”
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b8dc4d2da4ec1b79dbf2ff52319b5754
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-27/birth-control-pill-over-the-counter
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Opinion: Birth control should be available over the counter. How Congress can make that happen
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Opinion: Birth control should be available over the counter. How Congress can make that happen
Congress should revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s power to require women to obtain prescriptions to purchase hormonal contraceptives, a change that would reduce the price of birth control pills and finally allow consumers to buy them over the counter. Congress should make this move without requiring insurers to cover over-the-counter contraceptives, which would cause prices to increase.
Daily-use oral contraceptives offer tremendous benefits and are no more dangerous than countless other drugs, such as acetaminophen, which the FDA allows even children to buy over the counter. Many in Congress, from progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), support making “the pill” available without a prescription.
While women in a majority of countries can purchase birth control without a prescription, neither party’s leading reform bill would give American women that ability.
The current prescription requirement is a significant impediment to reproductive freedom. Nearly a third of women report difficulty obtaining prescriptions. The doctor visit alone might cost up to $200. In a 2016 survey of barriers to accessing contraception, women cited such obstacles as scheduling and getting to their appointments twice as often as they cited difficulty paying for the visit or the prescription.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Family Physicians support eliminating the prescription requirement. A 2016 survey of reproductive healthcare providers found a majority support over-the-counter status, which would probably increase adherence.
Switching a drug from prescription to over-the-counter status also typically causes its price to fall. For instance, the price of a day’s supply of the anti-heartburn medication omeprazole fell nearly by half, from almost $4.20 to $2.35. The price of the antihistamine loratadine also fell by half, to just $1 per pill. Prices for drugs that become available over the counter often fall below what many insured patients had been paying in copays.
Neither the Republicans’ bill nor the Democrats’ would deliver lower prices because neither would make the pill available over the counter. Instead, each leaves that decision with the executive branch — the same branch that blocked access to “Plan B” emergency contraception (a.k.a. the morning-after pill) — for political reasons for more than a dozen years under Republican and Democratic administrations.
Adding insult to indifference, the Republicans’ bill would entrench existing prescription requirements, while the Democrats’ bill would increase prices for contraceptives.
The FDA imposed the current prescription requirement, which means the agency has the authority to remove it. The Republicans’ bill would lock in that requirement with regard to minors by requiring an act of Congress to remove it — a much higher hurdle.
This makes no sense. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urges over-the-counter access to all hormonal contraceptives “without age restrictions.” Congress already leaves minors free to purchase Plan B— and even lethal doses of acetaminophen, aspirin and other over-the-counter drugs — without a prescription. Yet the GOP bill would deny minors access to a low-risk drug that prevents them from getting pregnant and reduces the incidence of abortion.
The Democrats’ bill attempts to expand access by requiring insurers to pay 100% of the cost of over-the-counter contraceptives for their enrollees. But after the government phased in an identical requirement for prescription contraceptives in 2014, prices for hormones and oral contraceptives stopped falling and instead skyrocketed. By 2019, they had risen three times as fast as prices for prescription drugs overall.
Again, the Democrats’ bill would not make birth control available over the counter. But if it did, such a mandate would make it more expensive. Higher prices would reduce access for consumers who purchase contraceptives without health insurance, including minors who don’t want to purchase them through their parents’ insurance.
Women have a right to purchase contraceptives without government either forcing them to obtain a doctor’s permission or increasing the price of their birth control.
Congress should revoke the FDA’s power to require women to obtain a prescription to buy contraceptives, whether or not their insurance covers them. If Congress fails to act, the FDA should use its authority to eliminate the prescription requirement.
Birth control should be affordable and so easy to access that women can simply send the men in their lives to the store to buy it.
Michael F. Cannon (@mfcannon) is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute. Jeffrey A. Singer (@dr4liberty) is a Cato Institute senior fellow and a general surgeon in Phoenix.
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ef6b98166ed726b36e6137da51b79f7b
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-27/bolton-book-senate-impeachment-trump
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Opinion: Getting John Bolton to testify is only half the battle
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Opinion: Getting John Bolton to testify is only half the battle
Are there Las Vegas odds yet on whether former national security advisor John Bolton reveals more in his book than he will in President Trump’s impeachment trial?
On Monday, Amazon revealed that Bolton’s account of his time in the White House will be published March 17 (hat tip to CNN’S Brian Stelter for noticing that). People who saw drafts of the book told the New York Times that it includes at least one impeachment-related bombshell: Bolton’s claim that Trump said he wanted crucial military aid to Ukraine held until the country’s new leaders had agreed to open two investigations seen as helpful to Trump’s reelection campaign.
The Senate is expected to be done with its quick-and-dirty review of L’Affaire Ukraine well before March 17 — unless four or more Republicans agree with the Senate minority to call Bolton and other witnesses.
(A bipartisan trio of legal experts argued in the New York Times on Monday that the trial’s presiding officer, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., could subpoena witnesses at the request of either side, and only a two-thirds majority vote could quash such a subpoena. Hmmm.)
Just getting Bolton to testify is only half the battle, though. Trump’s team would almost certainly raise objections based on executive privilege, the Supreme Court-endorsed separation-of-powers principle that Congress should not be able to force the administration to reveal what the president and his top advisors discussed. Roberts would rule from the bench on any such motion, and if it’s like any other ruling from the presiding officer, it could be overturned by a majority vote.
You could game this out in any number of head-spinning ways. Would a Republican who votes to compel Bolton to testify defy the GOP again to override executive privilege? That would certainly be an easier vote if Roberts ruled that it didn’t apply in this circumstance. What are the chances Roberts would do that?
The problem for anyone opposed to hearing Bolton testify, though, is that they’ll simply cede the narrative to whatever version Bolton tells in his book. Trump has already taken to Twitter to deny the New York Times’ version, of course:
I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the...
If it’s a battle over whom the public will believe, do Republicans really want to bet on Trump?
The more that Senate Republicans outside the Trump orbit signal their willingness not just to call Bolton but also let him testify, the more likely it is that Republicans will pivot toward a different defense strategy: offsetting the impact of any Bolton testimony by summoning one or both of the Bidens. Although many Senate Democrats may recoil at the idea, they don’t have the votes to block a unified GOP on that front.
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72dcedcf42e5610f2fe77d8b2cdb7c7e
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-27/calculator-sat-testing-math
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Opinion: Ban the use of high-end calculators that give students ‘the edge’ on the SAT
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Opinion: Ban the use of high-end calculators that give students ‘the edge’ on the SAT
As colleges across the country debate whether to require standardized tests as part of college admissions on account of their perceived bias against low-income students and students of color, there is a built-in bias in SAT test-taking that seemingly no one is talking about.
As a high school sophomore, I learned this the hard way last year, when a student I didn’t expect to bested me on the math PSAT. He soon confessed the secret to his success: the TI-Nspire CAS Graphing Calculator from Texas Instruments.
The College Board, which owns the SAT, allows an array of relatively expensive niche calculators to be used on part of the test. The most advanced calculator can save experienced users time solving the more complex problems. Those calculators have the potential to enhance the test scores of students who can afford them. Their use puts all other test-takers at a disadvantage, some of whom take the SAT without a calculator.
My fellow test-taker made clear that the TI-Nspire was able to solve all of his SAT equations. He claimed all he needed was his knowledge of seventh-grade math and the calculator did the rest.
From experience, I know it isn’t that simple. A fancy calculator that costs about $150 is not that useful if you don’t understand what the question is asking. And it probably can’t help a student who has a poor foundation in math.
Ethical considerations aside, I had to try the TI-Nspire and was lucky enough to afford it. After it came in the mail, I shrieked with glee as I solved problems in record time. My days of self-calculating for x and y on standardized tests were over.
In technical terms, the TI-Nspire calculator has a computer algebraic system (known as CAS) that essentially allows a person to use the calculator as a computer. Equations and notes can be stored for use during the test, and the calculator can solve all complex equations input by the user.
As the company TestPrepHQ says: “It almost feels like cheating” because the calculator makes it so easy.
It does feel like cheating. Within seconds of opening the box, it was obvious to me that this calculator should be banned from SAT testing.
Aside from being financially out of reach of many students, CAS calculators have the potential to misrepresent math ability and problem-solving skills.
The wonders of the TI-Nspire and others like it are well known to those who specialize in SAT performance, and message boards and blogs are filled with recommendations. Conquer Your Exam calls it “the best out of the bunch” of calculators the site recommends and says it “can give you the edge during the SAT.”
In my large public high school in Idaho, many students take the SAT without a calculator mainly because they don’t realize they can use one or they can’t afford one. I became aware of this last year when a girl in my exam room raised her hand and asked to borrow a calculator for the test. She was told none were available and that she didn’t need one.
Recognizing this problem, my school recently sought donations to purchase basic $8 calculators for use in testing — a good move, since over 200 students at my school alone showed up last fall to take the PSAT without a calculator.
It’s unfair to allow such an incredibly helpful advanced calculator unless every student has access to it. Especially when the test has the potential to affect a student’s educational trajectory.
In response to an email asking whether the College Board is aware that the TI-Nspire is seen as greatly helping those who use it and whether it has considered banning such calculators, a communications officer sent a link to the SAT calculator policy, which spells out the permitted calculators. Seven models of the TI-Nspire CAS are on the College Board’s list. The ACT, which competes with the College Board for test-takers, prohibits calculators with CAS functionality.
PrepScholar, a popular website for students hoping to attend selective colleges, points out that the College Board’s calculator policy “says that you don’t need a calculator for the SAT. They say that because the College Board needs to make the SAT seem accessible to people of all income levels. ... A calculator, and the right calculator at that, is an absolute must.”
If all students had access to a better calculator, how many could improve their test scores enough to get into their dream school? How many students get in to better schools because of this privilege hack? It isn’t right and shouldn’t stand.
The simplest solution would be to eliminate the math section that allows calculator use or permit test-takers to use only the most basic calculators, provided by the College Board.
Before the next round of SAT testing begins in March, CAS calculators such as the TI-Nspire should be banned and an effort made to arm every test-taker with a calculator.
The equation for fairness is simple: You know it when you see it, and this calculator inequity isn’t it.
Lilian Smith is a high school junior in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
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c54ea40d213eac7d9b483e430f6be073
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-28/john-bolton-call-a-news-conference-and-tell-us-what-you-know
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Letters to the Editor: John Bolton, call a news conference and tell us what you know
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Letters to the Editor: John Bolton, call a news conference and tell us what you know
To the editor: I have found very little with which to agree in former national security advisor John Bolton’s assessment of world events and his recommendations for U.S. foreign policy. Yet I always felt he was proceeding based on strongly held beliefs about what was best for the country rather than personal gain. (“The Senate has to hear from John Bolton before voting on Trump’s impeachment,” editorial, Jan. 28)
So I appeal to his patriotism to stand up and be heard.
Bolton should not wait for a subpoena. Instead, he should give a news conference with a complete summary about what he knows. The public needs firsthand information about the Ukrainian “drug deal” as well as the president’s cozy relationships with strongmen.
Bolton would still sell many books, plus he would have the respect and gratitude of the American people.
Joel Jaffe, Beverly Hills
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To the editor: In the face of overwhelming evidence, how do Senate Republicans sleep at night if they oppose the mere act of allowing witnesses, which would bring us closer to the truth and a just resolution?
Hearing witnesses doesn’t predetermine an outcome, but it does express a sincerity of purpose and integrity.
I always believed nobody, Republican or Democrat, had cornered the market on integrity. Now’s the time for Republican senators to show what they are really made of, and to teach me whether my assumption is correct.
Eric Searcy, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Imagine the headline: “John Bolton saves the world.”
Of all the people to save us from President Trump, Bolton is probably the least likely. Have you ever heard a Democrat say a kind word about Bolton?
Let me be the first: John Bolton, you just may turn out to be my hero.
Bob Klein, Culver City
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To the editor: Trump’s impeachment has taught me one important lesson: Truth has no place in political discourse.
While the prosecution works hard at digging up facts and witnesses, the defense wants no part of it. He did what he did; so what? That is Trump’s defense.
Senate Republicans should be salivating at the opportunity to call a few witnesses. It’s a win-win. They will appear to really care about the oath they took to be impartial jurors, and they still get to vote against removing Trump no matter where the facts lead.
This political theater gets two thumbs down from me, but who cares? Certainly the Republicans in the Senate do not.
Bob Bascelli, Seaford, N.Y.
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a86ac910446f4a781832fbd727a5ab01
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-28/kobe-bryants-sexual-assault-charge
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Letters to the Editor: Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault charge wasn’t just another obstacle he overcame
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Letters to the Editor: Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault charge wasn’t just another obstacle he overcame
To the editor: The helicopter crash that killed former Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant was a tragedy for his family and those of the other passengers. But it was jarring to see the pages of hagiography in the Los Angeles Times treat the 2003 sexual assault accusation as just a bump on his road to greatness, like his Achilles tendon injury or his difficulties with teammate Shaquille O’Neal.
Injuries and personal squabbles are things he overcame through the sheer force of his work ethic and will to succeed. But in 2003 and 2004, the L.A. Times and other media abetted his defense team’s attack on his accuser’s credibility, dragging into public details of her sexual history and battle with depression.
Regardless of the ultimate truth, it’s hard to imagine that being tolerated in #MeToo era.
Dennis Hathaway, Venice
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To the editor: I feel badly for the deaths in the helicopter crash in Calabasas. Young people had their lives cut short.
As for Bryant, he redeemed himself as a better person later in his career, but we should always remember that he was credibly accused of sexual assault.
Manuel Reynosa, Ventura
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c5f4768a35a2c09f0c43046b0ebffb2f
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-29/latino-voters-outreach-democrats-campaign
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Op-Ed: There are right — and wrong — ways to court voters of color
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Op-Ed: There are right — and wrong — ways to court voters of color
My granddaughter is part of a new generation that will swell the number of Latino voters to 32 million this year. Somewhere in the United States, a young Latino turns 18 every 40 seconds, and the Pew Research Center projects that in 2020 we will become the largest nonwhite segment of the electorate, surpassing African Americans.
Almost two-thirds of Latino voters align with the Democratic Party (62% Democrat compared with 34% Republican), so it seems evident this wave is a boon for Democrats. But there’s potential danger as well. Recent research shows that Democratic efforts to woo Hispanics — or, more precisely, certain forms of outreach — can cause liberal white voters to shift their allegiance from Democrats to Republicans.
My own research on racial dynamics in voting confirms this insight. But I’ve also found that there’s a way to galvanize Latino voters that, far from alienating whites, energizes them as well. In a close election, 2020 could well turn on whether — and how — Democrats reach out to Latino voters.
One way to connect to Hispanic voters is to run ads in Spanish. This appeals to voters proficient in Spanish. And even for those who are English-dominant (as are 90% of Latinos born in the U.S.), campaign ads in Spanish can communicate respect and welcome. But to a disturbing number of white Democrats, Spanish seems to communicate something else entirely.
The research of the political scientist Mara Cecilia Ostfeld should give Democratic campaigns pause. Ostfeld conducted a 2012 experiment with almost 600 white adults using a 30-second ad taken from the Obama campaign. Half the group watched the original in English. The other half watched a version in which the audio content was presented in Spanish, supplemented by English subtitles.
Whites who identified as Republicans largely rated Obama poorly. Whether they watched the English or Spanish version mattered little to them.
But among whites who identified as Democrats, the Spanish ad had a significant negative impact. “Levels of favorability toward Obama were about 11 percentage points lower among white Democrats after viewing the ad with Spanish-language content — despite the fact that there were English subtitles and the content was, therefore, fully accessible — relative to when viewing the same ad entirely in English,” Ostfeld reported.
Ostfeld found similar negative effects when Democratic candidates were described as “courting” Hispanic voters. In 2016, she showed white adults two versions of an online news headline. One said “Hillary Clinton Courts Undecided Voters.” The other declared “Hillary Clinton Courts Latino Voters.”
When shown the Latino outreach version, white Democrats were about 9% less likely to say they would vote for Clinton, and 11% more likely to vote for Donald Trump. The difference in reaction among white Democrats — currently 59% of all Democratic voters, according to Pew — could easily swing the 2020 election if this effect were to manifest in the voting booth.
This effect is similar to what I’ve found with race in electoral campaigns. Many whites have long filtered Democratic efforts to woo African Americans through a zero-sum frame in which they worry that gains for blacks come at the expense of whites.
But a large research project I co-directed found that there are ways to address race that generate enthusiasm for progressive positions among people of color while increasing, rather than diminishing, support from whites as well.
To study how to talk about race in political campaigns, in 2018 we polled a nationally representative sample of 2,000 people. Among other things, we asked respondents which came closer to their views: a pro-business message or a progressive economic message. The pro-business message said: “To make life better for working people we need to cut taxes, reduce regulations, and get government out of the way.”
For the progressive message, we offered respondents two versions. One included the italicized text and the other did not: “To make life better for working people we need to invest in education, create better paying jobs, and make healthcare more affordable for white, black, and brown people struggling to make ends meet.”
The race-silent version of the progressive message beat the pro-business message by a margin of 32 points. This result suggests that voters generally prefer progressive over pro-business economic policies.
But when the progressive policy message included the phrase “white, black, and brown,” the winning margin over the pro-business message increased to 41 points.
Importantly, this included a big jump in favorable response from whites. Hearing that progressive policies would help “white, black, and brown people” increased white support for investing in education, creating better-paying jobs, and making healthcare more affordable by 12 percentage points. The inclusion of whites in the message seemed to dispel the concern that gains for nonwhite groups come at the expense of the white group.
Democrats should recognize that mobilizing nonwhite communities risks alienating white voters, if done in the wrong way. Democrats have not won a majority of the white vote in a presidential election since 1964. To defeat Trump, they need to win big among voters of color, including among young people who are the most diverse rising generation ever, while also building enthusiasm among white voters.
Democrats can do both by reaching out to communities of color while stressing that empowering each group is good for every group, whites included.
Ian Haney López is a law professor at UC Berkeley and the author of “Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America.”
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c2656e09c916aaf21468ebd537781cdd
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-31/coronavirus-china-quarantine-world-health-organization?_amp=true&fbclid=IwAR1Mwmx5D1zv80Na9tZp93FRYACTr7bFyrSDnMVkkWAAud4FURV_8wdBaPw&__twitter_impression=true
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International overreaction to the coronavirus is more dangerous than the virus itself
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International overreaction to the coronavirus is more dangerous than the virus itself
In April 2003, I was evacuated from my post teaching English in Guangzhou, China, at the height of the SARS epidemic. I was 23. While transiting in Chicago on my way home to Philadelphia, I called my parents. That’s when they informed me that they were not coming to pick me up. Convinced that I was going to be Patient Zero for an American outbreak of SARS, they told me to take a cab to my sister’s apartment, where they intended to lock me up for 10 days with only a bag of groceries and a DVD player to keep me company.
I had no symptoms of SARS and had not been in contact with any SARS patients. According to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the time, that meant that I was not a risk. Deciding that my parents were overreacting, I went to the worst possible place to travel to when you might have a deadly disease: Manhattan.
I did not have SARS and did not seed a new plague in Manhattan. But the message that SARS was a cause for panic was received — not just by me, but eventually by my Chinese friends as well.
Fueled by press criticism and considerable pressure from the global health community to prove that it was doing something, the Chinese government jumped into gear. It did what it does best: exercise its authoritarian power in the most dramatic, highly visible way possible. Cheered on by the international community, it took disease control measures including many things that would not and could not happen anywhere else: sealing off entire hospitals, schools and apartment buildings full of people; rapidly building SARS facilities, including an entire SARS hospital in one week; and setting up neighborhood watch systems to root out potential carriers of the disease.
Quarantined in their university dorm rooms, my friends back in Guangzhou were so frightened that they said that they finally understood how Americans felt after 9/11. The World Health Organization praised China’s actions and credited them with the success of the global SARS containment effort.
As I learned over the next several years while traveling back and forth to China to study the aftereffects of SARS, the message that the Chinese received from that outbreak was that draconian actions in the name of infectious disease control are necessary, desirable and should overtake any other public health concerns.
China’s No. 1 public health goal became to never again be the source of a global epidemic like SARS. In the years following SARS, China spent vast amounts of money to overhaul its public health infrastructure, expand its infectious disease departments and develop sophisticated surveillance and containment systems. It eliminated most of the live-animal markets and restaurants that gave cities like Guangzhou much of their character. It set up strict screening and quarantine protocols at hospitals and ports of entry.
Seventeen years later, the disease-control apparatus has cranked into high gear with the coronavirus outbreak, quarantining tens of millions of China’s own citizens, shutting down entire metropolises in the process. And once again the international community is fueling panic and overreaction.
The U.S. has raised the threat level for travel to China to the same as for Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Russia is closing down swaths of its 2,600-mile border with China. And the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has declared the outbreak a global health emergency and has praised China for taking measures that would not be acceptable or even legal in a large number of the WHO’s member countries.
But what the WHO is cheering is both ineffective and dangerous. The virus has already spread. Barricading Wuhan, a city larger than New York City, is very unlikely to prevent further spread of the virus. Current efforts by other nations to ban travel to and from China or to shutdown trade routes — which the WHO advises against — will likely take a large global economic toll but also will not contain the virus.
The coronavirus is scaring people because it is new and much is not known about it. But what we can tell so far is that this is no Ebola. Most people who contract it recover just fine. The fatality rate appears to be considerably lower than SARS and is probably much lower than it appears right now, since so many cases are very likely going unreported and mild versions of the disease are probably not being counted at all. Most fatalities are among the elderly and those with preexisting conditions.
The situation in Wuhan, where the vast majority of cases are, is being made far worse by the panic and extreme measures being taken. Panicked and trapped citizens are rushing to the hospital at the first sign of a sniffle. Hospitals are overwhelmed with thousands of people who probably do not have the virus — but are far more likely to contract it after waiting for hours in crowded waiting rooms with people who do.
Meanwhile, those with other diseases and urgent health needs are not able to get timely care as huge amounts of resources are redirected toward fighting the virus. How many people might be dying from heart attacks in China because hospitals are paying attention to nothing but the coronavirus?
What is needed now is calm — both in China and throughout the global community. Citizens of all countries should stay home if they are ill and should wash their hands often in any case. Scientists should do their jobs in tracking and studying this new disease, without inciting public panic. In the meantime, broad quarantines of the general population (beyond those who are sick) should be lifted. This is not the end of the world. Treating the coronavirus outbreak as if it were will do a lot more harm than good.
Katherine A. Mason is an assistant professor of anthropology at Brown University and author of “Infectious Change: Reinventing Chinese Public Health After an Epidemic.”
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8352a8feeefb6a6b22d548e2fe249871
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-31/trump-hhs-medicaid-block-grants
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Editorial: Trump offers the wrong fix for Medicaid’s shortcomings
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Editorial: Trump offers the wrong fix for Medicaid’s shortcomings
Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, is one of the costliest, if not the costliest, program that states operate. Total Medicaid spending by states and the federal government, which covers more than 60% of the claims, neared $600 billion in fiscal 2018; in California alone last year, Medicaid spending topped $100 billion.
One reason the program is so pricey is the vast number of people it covers: more than 71 million as of October, or roughly one of every five Americans. But in numerous states, particularly in the South and Midwest, Medicaid doesn’t reach as many people with subsistence-level incomes as it should, especially able-bodied adults with incomes just above the federal poverty level.
On Thursday, the Trump administration took steps that could affect whether and how states cover those residents. It offered states more freedom from cumbersome federal Medicaid mandates in exchange for the states shouldering more of the financial risk. Specifically, Washington would no longer promise to pick up 50% to 90% of those individuals’ healthcare costs; instead, it would give states a lump sum each year, based either on previous spending levels or the number of people enrolled. If a state spent less than its block grant, it would be allowed to keep some of the money to invest in other aspects of its Medicaid program; if it spent more, it would have to absorb the loss.
Republicans have been pushing for years to convert all of Medicaid to block grants, but as a way to control costs, not to expand coverage. And when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House in 2017 and 2018, they voted on several proposals to do just that, none of which passed. And that’s a good thing; such ham-fisted efforts to cut spending and cover fewer people would have betrayed Medicaid’s mission of providing quality healthcare to Americans too poor to afford private insurance coverage.
The initiative the administration unveiled Thursday, which carries the Orwellian moniker “Healthy Adult Opportunity,” is far more modest. Exempting the impoverished parents, children, pregnant women, elderly and disabled people covered by a state’s traditional Medicaid plan, it would apply only to able-bodied adults under 65 who are either impoverished but childless or somewhat less poor, regardless of family size. That’s much of the same group targeted by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, but more than a quarter of the states did not agree to expand their Medicaid programs to cover those adults, despite the help the ACA offered.
The administration’s pitch may be more palatable to these 14 states — as well as the states that did expand their Medicaid programs, but have been daunted by the cost — because it would give them the flexibility to impose a variety of measures to limit spending on the newly covered individuals. These include encouraging people to use more effective forms of care by charging lower copays for them, dropping coverage for some prescription drugs to negotiate better prices, trying out more efficient ways to deliver care, and putting tighter limits on who’s eligible for coverage.
Giving states more flexibility to innovate in pursuit of Medicaid’s mission is undeniably a good thing, which is why the Medicaid statute gives the administration that authority. The challenge, though, is making sure the innovation improves the quality, accessibility and efficiency of the care that poor Americans receive. Otherwise, states will have a powerful incentive to save money simply by providing less care and leaving more people uninsured.
So far, the Trump administration hasn’t met that challenge. It has already encouraged states to apply for waivers to require Medicaid recipients to work or enroll in job training a certain number of hours per month, which is also one of the flexibilities offered by the new initiative. The handful of states that have obtained such waivers, however, have been sued by people who lost coverage, and their courts have been sympathetic to their complaints. That’s because the states’ own data shows that the requirements are expected to drive thousands of people off Medicaid without lifting them out of poverty; instead, most of them will lose eligibility because they fail to comply with the paperwork.
One cannot help but suspect that the initiative unveiled Thursday is a stalking horse for a broader effort to end Medicaid’s guarantee of healthcare for anyone who’s eligible. And that would be painfully shortsighted; it’s more humane and, yes, cost-effective to provide managed and well coordinated care to low-income Americans than to treat them for acute, costly problems in the emergency room. Rising healthcare costs are a problem for everyone in America, not just taxpayers and Medicaid enrollees. We should be exploring ways to cut costs by getting more bang for our healthcare bucks, rather than denying care to people at the bottom of the economic ladder.
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9020d775113ce7884f15fdd65a8cc931
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-02/bulldozing-old-growth-forests-for-cattle-grazing
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Letters to the Editor: Bulldozing old-growth forests for cattle grazing is profoundly reckless
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Letters to the Editor: Bulldozing old-growth forests for cattle grazing is profoundly reckless
To the editor: So the federal Bureau of Land Management is bulldozing millions of acres of native pinyon-juniper forest in the American West? Are we now emulating Brazil in its unashamed destruction of the Amazon rain forest?
Is a relative of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro the new chief of the agency? (It wouldn’t surprise me too much, given the other appointments this administration has made.)
I’ve walked in these native forests and seen and enjoyed the wildlife. Op-ed article writer Christopher Ketcham is right: “An ecosystem that defines the West deserves better” — certainly better than this idiocy.
Paul Cooley, Culver City
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To the editor: Ketchum raises excellent points. The fragile forests in the arid West will never recover from the federal government’s deforestation. Doing so in the name of ranching should make all Americans’ blood boil.
To add insult to injury, Western ranching on our lands goes mostly uncompensated. When such companies have exhausted a parcel of land, they simply lobby the BLM or the U.S. Forest Service for another parcel to destroy, leaving the taxpaying public holding the proverbial bag in terms of damaged streams, loss of critical wildlife habitat, loss of critical topsoil, loss of wildlife species and more.
The Western ranching and mining industries are among our nation’s largest recipients of taxpayer welfare. We continue to give these industries our public lands to destroy for free.
Our Western lands don’t receive precipitation as reliably as other parts of the country. The solution is pretty simple: Raise livestock where grass grows, and do so on private lands. We simply cannot afford to continue giving this industry a free pass at the expense of critical forest habitats that belong to all of us.
Mark Van Leeuwen, Newhall
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To the editor: Ketcham shines a light on the little-known destruction of public lands and forests to provide grazing lands for cattle.
The destruction is part of the Trump administration’s overall efforts to turn over public lands to private interests, which often results in the decline of wildlife and the degeneration of fragile ecosystems.
As Ketcham related in his book, “This Land,” President Trump pardoned ranchers Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, who were serving prison terms for arson on public lands. By pardoning this criminal conduct, Trump demonstrated how little concern he has for preserving our public lands.
Ketcham’s enlightening piece about the assault on public lands informs all citizens and should prompt congressional investigations into Trump administration practices.
Bob Ladendorf, Los Angeles
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ca056f7404f9f01af031d48c0bcf3bf5
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-03/coronavirus-china-media-censorship-propaganda
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Op-Ed: China’s media censorship is making the coronavirus outbreak even more lethal
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Op-Ed: China’s media censorship is making the coronavirus outbreak even more lethal
As reports of new coronavirus infections soar, it’s becoming clear that Chinese government leaders have been putting their political interests ahead of public health. This is not a surprise but a long-established pattern.
In recent days, medical experts have found evidence that the origin of the outbreak was not a seafood market in Wuhan, as the Chinese government initially reported. That evidence also suggests that the first human infections occurred in November, if not earlier, rather than in early December.
Local officials in Wuhan quashed the first reports of a SARS-like illness in the city in December, in part to maintain a positive environment for a series of political meetings. Even now, there is reason to believe that the scale of infections is greater than the official figures and censors are continuing to delete investigative reports by local journalists raising those concerns.
Analysis of leaked government censorship directives dating to 2013 by Freedom House shows that suppression of public health information is commonplace. In 2016 and 2017, for example, public health and safety were among the two most censored categories of breaking news.
Given the rapid spread of the virus and the enormous economic effects expected, censorship and propaganda are certain to continue — and to extend beyond China’s borders — as the regime seeks to protect its hold on power and international reputation. While Chinese authorities assure domestic and international audiences that their efforts will contain the outbreak, censors are busily deleting social media posts and journalists’ reporting that contradict the official narrative.
Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a nonprofit organization with extensive contacts in China, has already tracked more than 300 cases of internet users who were penalized for sharing unofficial information on social media.
Beyond domestic censorship, the Chinese government is likely to use its multipronged apparatus to influence foreign reporting. Localized internet shutdowns, arrests of citizen journalists and expulsions of foreign correspondents are standard tactics to halt the flow of information to international audiences. These measures may be supplemented with more aggressive actions against foreign media, like harassment from Chinese diplomats or cyberattacks against critical outlets. Such efforts — once mostly focused on overseas Chinese media — have been deployed with increasing frequency against mainstream news services in recent years.
The government’s propaganda system can also readily mobilize state media as well as more covert channels to amplify its message globally. The hundreds of diaspora outlets in 61 countries, many with a track record of uncritical pro-Beijing reporting, that participated in a state-sponsored summit for Chinese-language media in October will face implicit or explicit political and economic pressure to adhere to coverage by official Chinese sources. Already, pro-Beijing outlets in the United States are parroting the official line, while Chinese state media accounts on Facebook and Twitter have spread proven fabrications.
Global disinformation campaigns on social media platforms could also be deployed. Since 2017, Russian-style disinformation tactics have been used to smear the government’s perceived enemies — such as Hong Kong protesters, Uighur Muslims and Chinese democracy activists — on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which are blocked in China. Similar campaigns could be launched, for example, to discredit Chinese medical professionals who challenge the official version of events. Chinese-owned social media platforms such as WeChat, which is popular among Chinese speakers around the world, are a potential hotbed even for unintentional misinformation.
To counter the effects of Beijing’s censorship and propaganda related to the coronavirus, American public health agencies should make a conscious effort to relay critical updates to Chinese-speaking communities through both privately owned and government-funded Chinese-language news services. U.S. officials should also protest any media interference by Chinese diplomats and security agents, and provide emergency funding to expand the capacity of online censorship circumvention tools to address demand from users in China trying to access and share uncensored information on the global internet.
During any public health crisis, there is a legitimate concern that false information from any source could result in panic. But censorship of credible and important information that happens to make the Chinese government look bad could be equally harmful.
Medical experts report that the wave of infections has not yet reached its peak. In the coming months, transparency about the coronavirus and efforts to combat it will be critical to reducing its spread. Chinese media controls have always had deeply corrosive effects at home and abroad, but their potential threat to human life if this outbreak becomes a pandemic would be devastating.
Sarah Cook is a senior research analyst at Freedom House, director of its China Media Bulletin, and author of “Beijing’s Global Megaphone: The Expansion of Chinese Communist Party Media Influence since 2017.”
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251a8c18250fbd78a70099f1699158d2
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-03/la-times-election-endorsements
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Editorial: Election season is finally here. Here are the races in which the L.A. Times plans to endorse
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Editorial: Election season is finally here. Here are the races in which the L.A. Times plans to endorse
The California primary is underway, with vote-by-mail ballots going out to Los Angeles County voters Monday (to apply, see information at the conclusion of this editorial). Voters who want to cast their ballots in person will be able to do so as early as Feb. 22, this time at new L.A. “vote centers” rather than traditional neighborhood polling places. So even though it’s called the March 3 election and voters can choose to wait until then to cast their ballots, much of the voting will be done throughout February.
We endorse selectively, which means we pick and choose the races in which we make recommendations.
Opinion
The complete list of L.A. Times endorsements in the March 3 California primary
Opinion
The complete list of L.A. Times endorsements in the March 3 California primary
Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsements for the U.S. House, California ballot measures and more.
Endorsements are made by the Los Angeles Times editorial board, which is a team of opinion writers and editors. The board does its work separately from news reporters and editors, who have no input into the endorsement process.
We make our decisions after a careful process of reporting (including interviewing the candidates and ballot measure proponents), discussion and deliberation.
The Times will endorse in the election for Los Angeles County district attorney. The county is by far the nation’s largest local prosecutorial jurisdiction, and the person who leads the D.A.'s office here will have an enormous role in setting the direction that criminal justice policy takes nationwide.
Those issues also loom large in elections for three seats on the county Board of Supervisors — one being vacated by Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has reached his term limit, and two held by incumbents Janice Hahn and Kathryn Barger, both of whom face challengers. The Times will endorse in each of those races, which are a referendum of sorts on the county’s efforts to deal with homelessness and social services.
We’ll also weigh in on two county ballot measures, one to boost the Fire Department’s budget with a parcel tax on property in unincorporated county areas (Measure FD) and one to grant the civilian commission that oversees the sheriff authority to subpoena Sheriff’s Department records, as well as require changes in planning for jails and alternatives to incarceration (Measure R). And we’ll make a recommendation on Proposition 13 — not the famous property tax measure from 1978, but a statewide $15-billion school construction bond.
The Times will also endorse in races for seven Los Angeles City Council seats, four Los Angeles Unified School district positions and the race to fill the seat in Congress vacated by former Rep. Katie Hill (D-Agua Dulce).
We’d like to recommend candidates in the Los Angeles Community College District election as well, but we can’t. The district exercised its odd, unusual and ill-considered authority to simply do away with its primary and allow voters to weigh in only once, in November. We’ll be saying more about this strange situation later this election season.
Perhaps the ballot’s most baffling decisions for voters are in the races for Superior Court judge. Little information circulates about the candidates or their qualifications. We’ll do our best to sort through the fog and guide voters to what we believe to be the most responsible choices.
As in all Times endorsements, we endeavor to provide our reasoning so voters can put us to the test and accept or reject our thinking and not just our decisions.
Follow the Los Angeles Times editorial page in print and online to keep up with our endorsements. Yes, voters can cast their ballots early, but some of the most informative candidate forums and interviews — and The Times endorsements — roll out through February.
Apply for a vote-by-mail ballot electronically at https://lavote.net/Apps/VoteByMail.
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a22be4491defc1e8ac8daaa86e079835
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-04/notes-from-the-iowa-caucuses-where-every-candidate-is-a-winner-and-the-pundits-are-seething
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Column: Notes from the Iowa caucuses, where the pundits are seething and every candidate is a winner
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Column: Notes from the Iowa caucuses, where the pundits are seething and every candidate is a winner
The debacle in Des Moines.
The calamity in Council Bluffs.
The waterloo in…Waterloo.
Call it what you will, the failure of the Iowa Democratic Party to receive and report results of its ultra-hyped first-in-the-nation presidential-nominating contest in a timely manner was a huge disappointment to Democrats, a boon for Republicans and a reminder that there doesn’t need to be voter fraud for there to be post-caucus chaos.
All it takes is a new way of counting votes, an untested app, and misplaced faith in technology. Remember the botched rollout of the Obamacare website in 2013?
That said, everybody was a winner in Iowa on Monday night!
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar gave the first televised “victory” speech, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who just kept talking and talking. “Iowa,” he began, “you have shocked the nation.”
Boy and how, though probably not in the way he meant.
It was, in any case, delightful to hear the first serious gay contender for the White House refer to “the love of my life”— his husband — who stood out of camera range. How I wish Chasten had sidled next to Pete, just as Jill Biden did with Joe, and Jane Sanders did with Bernie.
The premature victory speeches were a bit jarring but a blessed relief for CNN talking heads, who, in the absence of results, stared at a blank Iowa map and just kept getting angrier and angrier at the Iowa Democratic Party.
::
On Monday evening I attended a large, well-run caucus in Ankeny, one of the fastest growing suburbs in the country, according to its Democratic state Rep. Heather Matson, who ousted a Republican incumbent in 2018. Ankeny is north of Des Moines, with new, upscale subdivisions filled with the kinds of suburban women who could help flip this purple state, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, back to blue.
In the well-lit gym of Prairie Trail Elementary School, there was no hint of the confusion to come. Some 337 caucusgoers, many with children in tow, sat quietly in orderly rows of folding chairs, listening to instructions. After some quick calculations, it was determined that a candidate needed at least 51 votes ( 15% of the total ) to be considered viable, or eligible for a share of delegates.
It took about an hour to dispense with the basics, after which folks were instructed to pick up their folding chairs and move into candidate preference groups. For a moment, the room looked like a giant game of musical chairs.
It soon became obvious that Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bennet and Michael Bloomberg had not attained viability. Biden came closer, but ultimately only 36 people sat under his sign; they dispersed to viable candidates, or went home.
After half an hour or so, the room had shaken out. The final result: Buttigieg got 149 votes and four delegates; Warren got 100 votes and Sanders got 83, and each got three delegates.
Caucus chairwoman Andrea Dencklau told me Tuesday morning that she didn’t even have the reporting app that caused so much strife. But when she tried to call her results in, she was kept on hold for more than 30 minutes before hanging up. Finally, she took a photo of her results and emailed it to the Polk County Democratic director, then drove her paperwork to the county Democratic office.
The complete Iowa result is impossible to know at this writing. But it looks as if the vaunted “three tickets” out of this state will be the same as Ankeny’s choices — Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders.
I was not surprised that, in Ankeny at least, Biden was not viable.
Certainly, he has universal name recognition, a reservoir of goodwill from his time as President Obama’s vice president and a tremendous reputation for empathy, having suffered unspeakable family tragedy.
But watching him onstage during the final day of campaigning here was jarring. He was not the smooth orator of the past. He relied on notes, hesitated and often raised his voice to a shout, as if mistaking volume for passion. His slogan is on point, though: The November general election will be a battle for the soul of the nation.
I find Buttigieg too rehearsed, too given to bromides and too green. When I saw him in Ankeny the other day, his performance felt lackluster. Maybe he was tired from the nonstop campaigning. But his constant refrain about how Democrats only win when they back fresh candidates with fresh ideas is undercut by his platform; like Biden, Buttigieg is a moderate. His selling point is pragmatism.
I am not enamored of Sanders’ fierce personal style, but the doomsayers who have been predicting that a Sanders nomination spells disaster for the Democratic Party are blatantly — and disingenuously — ignoring polls consistently showing he is capable of beating President Trump in a general election.
His critics claim he has not been truly vetted because his opponents are loath to provoke his irascible foot soldiers. But as any number of political writers have shown, this is a preposterous argument against a man who has a 50-year (at least) public record of embracing the label “democratic socialist” and fighting economic inequality.
Just about everything attackable about him is known: his praise for Fidel Castro, his honeymoon in the Soviet Union, etc. But how could anyone seriously criticize Sanders for some of his principled (if misguided) beliefs while our impeached, unethical president writes love letters to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and slavishly defers to Russian President Vladimir Putin?
I remain a big fan of Warren, whose presence on the campaign trial is uplifting.
She is the happiest warrior of the bunch, ideologically consistent, and someone whose record puts her squarely on the side of working- and middle-class Americans. She delivers a Sanders-like message in entirely palatable terms; she doesn’t demand a revolution; she wants “big structural change,” including imposing what she calls an “ultra-millionaire tax” that would affect the estimated 75,000 households whose net worth is greater than $50 million.
As Democrats reeled from the botched caucus reporting on Tuesday, Warren was characteristically upbeat. “We know that three of us will be dividing up most of the delegates coming out of Iowa,” she told supporters. “I’m feeling good.”
I needed that.
Twitter: @AbcarianLAT
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08dba81cb6d7d5b9d79aa76e112180bb
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-04/public-access-hollister-ranch-beaches
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Letters to the Editor: Can the public access Hollister Ranch beaches without destroying them?
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Letters to the Editor: Can the public access Hollister Ranch beaches without destroying them?
To the editor: The photos with Steve Lopez’s column on Hollister Ranch owners joining forces with the Pacific Legal Foundation to fight a state law on public access to beaches show a rugged, remote terrain, with no amenities or creature comforts.
I understand Lopez’s indignation at being denied access to this “little stretch of paradise.” I also appreciate his fury that some thoughtless, privileged residents treat the beach as their private drag strip.
If every potential visitor were as conscientious as Lopez about caring for this pristine area, I would have no qualms about increasing the public’s access to Hollister Ranch beaches. But when I look at the photos and consider the logistics of visiting this spectacular outpost, I have to ask myself, how many visitors have the knowledge or resources to follow that critical code of conduct, “pack it in, pack it out”?
What will the visitors leave behind besides footprints?
Catherine Cate, Irvine
..
To the editor: So, the Pacific Legal Foundation defends landowners’ rights where threatened by government overreach.
Maybe the Texas landowners along the Rio Grande who will have their property taken for the border wall should hire the Pacific Legal Foundation to sue the Trump administration. Maybe taxpayers should hire the Pacific Legal Foundation to sue the Trump administration for damage the wall will do to Big Bend National Park. Perhaps we the people should hire them to sue the Trump administration for the wall restricting access to a part of our property in that national park.
Would be interesting.
Kay St. Peters, Orange
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5ab1da4698d91e6561bb92406c285a5a
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-04/trump-state-union-economy-wars-climate-change-gridlock
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Editorial: The real State of the Union you won’t hear from Trump
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Editorial: The real State of the Union you won’t hear from Trump
President Trump is scheduled to deliver his third State of the Union speech before Congress on Tuesday evening. Expect an earful about how great he is and how he single-handedly has saved the republic from America-hating Democrats and Obama-era policies. Expect a rosy picture involving low unemployment, a frothy stock market and upbeat expectations. It will be a through-the-looking-glass experience in which reality gets distorted by misleading statements, half-truths and outright lies — a standard Trump performance.
The true state of the union, in fact, looks much different from the one seen from inside Trump’s head. The economy is, indeed, moving along with continued record-low unemployment, including for African Americans, as the president often crows. But in addition to the steps he’s taken that have fueled the expanding economy he inherited from President Obama — most notably, the deep corporate tax cuts and the huge increases in defense spending — his protectionism and inconsistency have damaged some industries, leaving the rate of growth roughly where it was when he took the job. According to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, the president’s ill-conceived imposition of tariffs has cost Americans $88 billion. His much-touted NAFTA 2.0 (the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement) in the end will change relatively little. And while the economy is doing better for some people, it’s doing a lot less well for others, exacerbating the nation’s growing problem with income inequality.
On the most pressing issue of our time — global warming — Trump continues to stalk off alone on his own misguided path, ignoring the changing climate around him as he pursues ever more profits for industries reliant on coal, oil and natural gas, the very products that got us into this mess in the first place. The administration has sought to reduce controls over emissions from drilling sites and factories, expanded access to federal lands for further drilling and loosened mileage standards for new motor vehicles — while attacking the state of California for pursuing its own legally authorized effort to curtail greenhouse gas and other pollutants.
On immigration, Trump’s fix for the long-broken system is to, in effect, shut the borders to as many newcomers as he can — in the process trampling the internationally recognized rights of asylum seekers — while hounding people living here without permission, most of whom pose no threat to the nation. He has expanded the immigration detention system — prisons for those awaiting a decision on whether they can stay — and, despite increasing the number of immigration judges, his policies have pushed the backlog of pending cases to nearly 1.1 million (up from 630,000 during his first year in office). As for real immigration reform, in which the country’s laws would be rewritten to create humane, rational rules to govern who comes in and out? That seems to be a foreign concept to this president.
Trump has said some of the right things on healthcare, expressing concern about rising insurance premiums and prescription drug costs. Yet the steps he’s taken have made matters worse for people who need comprehensive coverage but don’t have employer-sponsored insurance — in other words, the people most dependent on the coverage provided through Obamacare. At the same time, he’s backed away from his boldest proposals for bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, and he’s been missing in action as legislation to protect consumers from surprise medical bills — supposedly a priority for the Trump administration — has been stymied in Congress by industry opposition.
Internationally, Trump’s hardline approach to relations with Iran, reflected in the assassination he ordered of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani, nearly brought us to war. It was exactly the kind of military encounter he had pledged to avoid as part of his effort to extract us from unnecessary or unwinnable wars around the globe. His one-sided proposal for Israeli-Palestinian peace, which upends decades of American policy in the region, pretty much guarantees no further progress there in the foreseeable future. His hasty withdrawal from Syria abandoned allied Kurdish forces to attacks from Turkey and Syria. His personal-diplomacy approach to North Korea has failed in dramatic fashion (to be sure, his predecessors didn’t do any better); the president’s unpredictability has made the U.S. an unreliable player on the international stage, weakening decades-long alliances with allies in Europe and elsewhere; and he has a dismaying penchant for cozying up to authoritarians like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and even North Korean dictator (and Trump penpal) Kim Jong Un.
And there’s no small irony in the timing of Trump’s speech, which comes on the eve of his likely impeachment acquittal in the U.S. Senate. The president’s blatant attempt to abuse the power of his office for personal political gain is being treated by that body’s sycophantic Republicans with a well-practiced shrug.
So this is the state of the union: The economic expansion continues into its 11th year, with modest growth, steady job creation and high consumer confidence. Yet the body politic, cynical and torn by political and cultural tribalism that continues to gridlock Washington, struggles in many quarters for financial security, riven by racial and ethnic inequality. Meanwhile, the nation remains mired in expensive and dangerous foreign military campaigns, and without a plan for confronting climate change. Don’t let President Trump persuade you otherwise.
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258b94693ef4fe319fffc41883382e63
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-05/los-angeles-parking-too-much-housing-for-cars
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Op-Ed: Los Angeles is building plenty of housing ... for cars
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Op-Ed: Los Angeles is building plenty of housing ... for cars
Everywhere you look in Los Angeles, there is parking.
There is parking next to houses. There is parking surrounding restaurants and coffee shops. There are parking lots adjacent to Metro stations. There is parking under, above and in front of apartment buildings. Once you start noticing how much space L.A. devotes to car storage, it’s hard to unsee.
The data back up this observation. L.A. has almost 6 million parking spaces, or 1.5 for every resident, including children. In downtown, our city’s most walkable, Metro-accessible neighborhood, there are about 400,000 spaces. If every downtown resident and worker parked at once, there would still be more than 100,000 open spaces.
We’ve literally paved paradise and put up a parking lot. Why?
Because it’s the law. In L.A., most buildings are required to provide on-site parking, a policy known as mandatory parking minimums. In almost every part of the city, apartments must include one or two parking spots per unit, depending on the unit’s size. Most commercial properties must offer one space for every 100 to 200 square feet, forcing many businesses to provide more space for parking than for the business itself.
L.A.’s Department of City Planning recently proposed a much-needed step away from this destructive rule. As part of a farsighted plan for downtown that would encourage the development of thousands of new apartments and jobs, mandatory parking minimums would be eliminated. Instead, downtown builders would be free to decide how much parking to offer.
Opinion
Livable City: Building a better Los Angeles
Opinion
Livable City: Building a better Los Angeles
Ideas and commentary on building a livable, sustainable Los Angeles.
This is great news for downtown, and for our city, because mandatory parking minimums have made L.A.’s most serious problems harder to solve. Parking minimums increase traffic, smog and carbon emissions by encouraging car dependency. When people anticipate that their destinations will have space for their cars, they’re likelier to choose driving over walking or transit.
Parking minimums also worsen our housing crisis. On-site parking reduces the housing supply by taking up space that could otherwise be used for additional apartments. Also, providing on-site parking is expensive, costing $27,000 to $35,000 per space to build in L.A. This cost is passed on to renters and home buyers, regardless of whether they own a car.
Ending parking requirements downtown would be a welcome departure from decades of car-centric planning choices. But it’s still not enough: even with no minimum requirement, developers will probably still err on the side of building too much parking.
In 2017, downtown Santa Monica eliminated minimum parking requirements. In the subsequent two years, more than 1,700 downtown apartment units were proposed or approved, including all-affordable housing without parking and market-rate projects with small garages. Nevertheless, many newly proposed projects contain huge underground garages. One mixed-use development at Lincoln Boulevard and Colorado Avenue will include 232 parking spaces for just 100 apartments — four blocks from Metro’s Expo Line. Meanwhile, downtown Santa Monica’s municipal garages have an average of 1,800 open spaces, even during times of peak demand.
Instead of simply removing parking minimums, L.A. should introduce parking maximums downtown. New buildings would still be allowed to construct on-site parking, but only up to a limit. Developments requiring more parking than the maximum could lease it from existing buildings and garages with surpluses. Additionally, a tax on new spaces could finance public infrastructure improvements, such as protected bus and bike lanes, parks, and pedestrian amenities — reducing the need for driving altogether.
By replacing parking minimums with maximums, L.A. would be following the lead of cities such as London, Oakland, San Francisco and Mexico City. This approach is effective: After London reformed parking regulations, new residential buildings included 40% less parking.
And why stop with downtown? L.A.’s housing and transportation problems are citywide. Pollution and high rents don’t stop at neighborhood boundaries. Given the existing oversupply of parking throughout L.A., building even more parking would be like bringing sand to the desert.
It’s time to eliminate parking minimums throughout L.A. and introduce parking maximums near all Metro stations.
Of course, this bold action would face long political odds. L.A.’s transit network still leaves much to be desired — and even modest recent attempts to prioritize transit at the expense of cars have been met with rage from angry drivers. With L.A. City Council elections this year, any council member proposing a move as bold as parking maximums would naturally fear political pushback.
But voters’ frustration is already boiling over. In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, voters cited homelessness, housing affordability and traffic congestion as the city’s most pressing issues. Ambitious parking reform could strike a blow against all three problems at once, without costing a penny.
L.A. needs its leaders to take a stand. We have enough homes for cars. Let’s prioritize homes and mobility for people.
Anthony Dedousis is director of research and analysis for Abundant Housing L.A.
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a24deb2ffb96d67f70cbabd26ee7f2e7
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-05/trump-abortion-rights-attack-sotu
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Opinion: Trump’s State of the Union attack on abortion rights was pathetic — even for him
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Opinion: Trump’s State of the Union attack on abortion rights was pathetic — even for him
It was beyond the pale outrageous that President Trump, in his State of the Union address, would somehow link support for (admirable) advances in neonatal medicine to asking for a (probably) unconstitutional ban on late-term abortions.
On a night when he claimed he supported healthcare for all, he exhorted — bullied — the lawmakers in the room to cut off and demonize those who would exercise their right to abortion.
The fact that neonatal medicine has managed to keep alive babies born extremely prematurely is remarkable and a tribute to medical advancement. How wonderful that a woman whose baby daughter was born at 21 weeks, weighing less than a pound, has watched her survive and thrive and celebrate a 2nd birthday. Both were among Trump’s guests at his speech Tuesday night. It’s fine for Trump to say that every premature baby should have medical care that helps their chances and, toward that end, he asked Congress to fund an additional $50 million toward neonatal research.
But to then follow that thought by saying that was the reason he was also “calling upon members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies” was ridiculous and unconscionable.
First of all, abortion laws don’t stop neonatal research. They are unrelated. Second, the whole point of constitutionally-upheld abortion laws is to allow women to choose whether they want to carry a fetus to term.
Also, late-term abortions (generally meaning early in the third trimester) are rare and highly regulated already. The women who choose them generally either have a fetus with a profound disability or are, themselves, at grave danger if they continue with the pregnancy. The idea of banning all access to later abortion cuts off a woman’s right to control her body and protect her own life.
And by the way, the state laws passed by Republican-controlled legislatures that impede a woman’s access to a timely abortion or discourage clinics from operating only serve to delay abortions and push them later into a woman’s pregnancy.
This was not the first State of the Union address in which Trump talked about banning late-term abortion. But it was particularly galling to hear him intimate this year that it’s the flip side of promoting heroic medical efforts to save extremely premature babies.
This is nothing more than a dark political calculation on Trump’s part. I don’t believe for a minute that Trump is publicly antiabortion for any reason beyond currying favor with his far-right base and the evangelicals he is counting on to help him win reelection.
Alarmingly, most of the damage Trump has done to abortion rights is on so many other fronts — trying to end federal research on fetal tissue, reinstating a policy banning U.S. funding to organizations overseas that provide abortion (even when though they don’t use the federal funding for abortion), preventing organizations that provide desperately needed health services to underserved populations across the country under the Title X program from receiving federal funds if they do nothing more than offer a pregnant patient a request for an abortion referral.
Trump’s rhetoric on abortion is vile, and his State of the Union speech held a prime example of that.
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ea7da677f45abffe1bcb0db11483f90e
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-06/executive-power-impeachment-donald-trump-joe-biden
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Op-Ed: Can’t remove the president from power? Do the reverse: Remove power from the president
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Op-Ed: Can’t remove the president from power? Do the reverse: Remove power from the president
Now that Democrats have failed in their attempt to remove the president from power, it’s worth asking why they haven’t seriously considered the reverse: removing power from the president.
We have seen, over the 33 months since Donald Trump took the unusual step of firing FBI Director James B. Comey, any number of behavior-specific explanations for why the 45th president must go: For coordinating with the Kremlin, obstructing the Russia investigation, making “racist comments” about four congresswomen, saying he would accept “dirt” from foreign governments about his domestic political opponents and finally the House’s two impeachment articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
But what we have not seen is anything like a structural critique of ever-accumulating executive branch power itself. Democrats don’t like the way Trump uses his authority, but that doesn’t mean they want any less of the stuff in the White House, particularly when they get back the keys. To the contrary.
In his response to Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, leading presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) lamented that the tariff-happy president wasn’t being punitive enough toward American companies. “The NAFTA 2.0 deal that he recently signed,” Sanders said, “will not prevent a single corporation from shutting down factories in the United States and moving them to Mexico.”
In her official Democratic Party response, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer focused not on Trump’s monarchical gestures during the speech — granting a scholarship, promoting a veteran, presenting a Medal of Freedom on the spot, theatrically reuniting a military family — but rather, on all the things Democratic governors are accomplishing by executive fiat in defiance of their legislatures.
“Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers unilaterally increased school funding by $65 million last year,” Whitmer bragged.
The Democratic presidential field, with the notable exception of faltering front-runner Joe Biden, has been engaging in a race to see who can make the most elaborate promises of immediate executive action. Forget 100 days; we’re now talking 100 hours to see what that magical Oval Office pen and phone can do.
On Day One, President Elizabeth Warren would wipe out student loans for 42 million people, ban fracking “everywhere” and block any future fossil fuel leases on public lands and offshore. We are still awaiting the full Day One list from a future President Sanders, but we know it includes an executive order to “legalize marijuana in every state in this country.”
Legalizing marijuana is a wonderful and long-overdue idea, but Sanders’ way of getting there is not. Federal law, including the odious Controlled Substances Act, is constitutionally required to originate from or be struck down by either Congress or constitutional amendment. A presidency with enough power to legalize Activity X irrespective of Congress or the desires of states is a presidency with enough power to criminalize that same activity when the other team wins. It’s a seesaw of authoritarianism, and we should all want to get off.
What’s remarkable about the personal response to Trump’s imperial actions is how completely different it is compared with the structural reaction against President Nixon’s. Democrats (and some Republicans) in the wake of Watergate went on a spree of pruning back the runaway executive branch.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution reasserted the legislative branch’s authority to declare war and approve emergency military actions. The 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act — which, fun fact, is the law Trump violated by withholding appropriated aid to Ukraine — sought to reestablish congressional power of the purse. The 1974 upgrade of the Freedom of Information Act was designed to prevent governments from hiding their activities. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was supposed to block warrantless snooping of U.S. citizens.
Even reciting the names of those reforms helps explain why anti-Trump animus has not translated into renewed skepticism of executive power. Presidents of both major parties, particularly during this century, have fought doggedly to break free from their institutional shackles. George W. Bush, with his high-ranking veterans from the Nixon administration, made rolling back the Watergate reforms a key philosophical aim. Barack Obama, after campaigning as a constitutionalist, made a mockery of war powers in Libya.
And the more tribal Congress has become, the more willing it has been to forfeit anything like the consistent application of constitutional prerogatives, particularly concerning the wielding of life-and-death military power.
For anyone who would like to once again see an independent legislature, the 99% partisan impeachment process in both chambers of Congress is cause for despair. As is the Democratic presidential field’s will to executive power. If ever America is to get off the populist seesaw, we’re going to need to root less for politicians, and more for the rules and mores than can restrain them.
Matt Welch is editor at large at Reason magazine and a contributing writer to Opinion.
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05e7e13374c827a7cce3441ccd6d752e
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-06/health-care-swing-states-democrats-campaigns
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Op-Ed: The winning 2018 Democratic playbook: Avoid talking about ‘Medicare for all’
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Op-Ed: The winning 2018 Democratic playbook: Avoid talking about ‘Medicare for all’
To retake the presidency in November, the Democrats will need to win the electoral college. The clearest path to do that is to win the swing states that had the closest margins in the 2016 election. Fortunately, the Democrats have a playbook to follow from the 2018 midterm election.
There are many factors that led to Democratic victories in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2018, and it’s always hard to isolate any single cause. But the successful Democrats all talked about healthcare — with a focus on fixing the Affordable Care Act and reinforcing Medicare.
I looked at the congressional districts in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin where Democratic House candidates picked up the most votes in the 2018 election relative to the 2016 presidential election. (I excluded Pennsylvania from the analysis because it drew new congressional district lines in 2018.)
Healthcare was the most prominent message of the Democrats who won those House seats. They focused on creating an option to buy in to Medicare, building upon the Affordable Care Act, and lowering costs of prescription drugs. Those campaign messages seemed to resonate with voters in the upper Midwest states.
Across these three states, 12 Democratic House candidates received more votes than did Hillary Clinton in 2016 in their districts. This feat was impressive because turnout is lower in midterm elections. In these districts, there were between 35,000 and 60,000 fewer votes cast in each, yet these candidates received between 3,900 and 116,000 more votes than Clinton.
For example, Democrat Ron Kind in Wisconsin’s 3rd District received 187,888 votes in 2018. Hillary Clinton received 160,999 votes in 2016 in that district — even though 48,000 fewer total votes were cast in 2018 than in 2016. Kind and these other candidates were able to capture more votes than Clinton without increasing turnout, which suggests they were able to win the votes of many who had not voted for Clinton in 2016.
The results in the 12 districts I examined — the 1st, 5th, 7th, 8th and 11th in Michigan; the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 8th in Minnesota; and the 3rd and 6th in Wisconsin — may be able to offer some insight into the policy platforms that can generate stronger voter support. Ten of these 12 districts cast more votes for Trump than Clinton in 2016 and six were close enough in 2016 that the two presidential candidates were within 10 percentage points of each other. These are not solid Democratic districts.
For my analysis, I examined the campaign web pages from the morning of the election, Nov. 6, 2018. Ten of these 12 websites presented a list of issue priorities, showing how the candidates chose to present themselves to voters seeking information.
For the winners in the 12 districts, healthcare was a top issue. Eight of the 10 candidates’ websites listed healthcare first or second in their issue priorities, the remaining two listed healthcare third. Other important issues listed were supporting veterans, the Flint water crisis, education, protecting working families and campaign finance reform. This focus on healthcare was not limited to these districts. Among all Democratic candidates, healthcare was a central theme in their 2018 campaign ads.
Among these 10 Democratic candidates, seven proposed allowing those aged 55 to 65 the option to buy in to Medicare, six wrote of fixing and building upon the Affordable Care Act, six supported having a government policy to lower the cost of prescription drugs, and four expressed opposition to Republican efforts to repeal the ACA.
None of the candidates’ campaign sites mentioned “Medicare for all.” This suggests Democratic presidential candidates should be cautious about departing from the messages and policy platforms of the 2018 midterm winners, without good reason and careful discussion.
Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at UCLA, argued in “The Message Matters” that a presidential candidate challenging an incumbent during a strong economy must come up with an “insurgent issue” on which to run the campaign. The insurgent issue should have two characteristics. First, the challenger’s position must be more popular than the president’s. Second, the president must be constrained from changing course and adopting the challenger’s position to co-opt the challenger’s advantage.
With the strength of the economy in 2020, Vavreck’s argument suggests that any Democratic nominee needs an insurgent issue to win. The 2018 outcomes make a good case that healthcare could be that insurgent issue. The Democrats’ position is likely to be more popular than President Trump’s, and he is constrained by the Republican effort to repeal the ACA. The healthcare agendas of Democratic winners in 2018 demonstrate the kinds of policy proposals that work with voters in critical swing states.
Seth Hill is an associate professor of political science at UC San Diego and studies how citizens motivate politician behavior.
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714ebcbbe41206b417b85df2c11f20bf
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-06/mitt-romney-donald-trump
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Op-Ed: Sorry, liberals, you can’t claim Mitt now when you hated him then
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Op-Ed: Sorry, liberals, you can’t claim Mitt now when you hated him then
If you praise someone’s great moral character when it is in your best interest but refuse to do so when it is not, you aren’t doing it right.
That’s what I thought after Utah Sen. Mitt Romney collected a wheelbarrow full of fair-weather friends in the wake of his vote to convict President Trump during his impeachment trial. It took America’s liberals about .00009 seconds to heap praise upon the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, a man they once pilloried as: a murderer, a tax cheat, a felon, a robber baron who destroys jobs and hates workers, a misogynist who would return women to the 1950s, and a joke for worrying about Russia’s malign influence on the world.
Romney was reborn a liberal hero when he explained his impeachment thinking like this: “As a senator juror, I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am.”
This is a perfectly fine way to arrive at a decision of this magnitude — laudable, even — and wholly consistent with the way Romney approached his politics in 2012 when running against President Obama. It’s surprising that Democrats would suddenly get on board with such a faith and politics rationale.
If you are a liberal extolling Romney today, ask yourself this question: What if Romney’s declaration had been about a vote to upend Roe vs. Wade? The pro-life Romney once wrote: “I believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother.”
Or do a gut check on yourself if he were announcing his position on same-sex marriage.“As a society,” Romney said in 2012, “I think we’re better off if we encourage the establishment of homes with a mother and a father.” He said that same-sex marriage isn’t “appropriate and needed for a strong society.”
And, finally, ask yourself this: What if Trump gets another Supreme Court vacancy to fill and Romney casts the deciding vote for a justice that fits his socially conservative worldview? Will you stand with Romney on that day and praise his “moral courage”? After all, the vote to confirm would have been born of the same faith that led Romney to convict the president.
Still on the Mitt bandwagon, liberals? I didn’t think so.
I worked my heart out for Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and came to believe that he was indeed a compassionate man possessed of great moral courage who would have been a terrific commander in chief, who deeply loved his family and country, but who lacked the intangible, next-level political skills required to win a presidential campaign. (It’s true — he just isn’t as good at campaigning as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama or Trump.)
Many in my party are also proving to be Romney’s fair-weather friends, or perhaps bad-weather enemies. They vehemently disagree with his conclusion that the president is guilty of abuse of power and should be thrown out of office and off the 2020 ballot. But just as liberals are wrong to cravenly adopt Romney now that it serves a political purpose, the GOP is wrong to organize an outrage mob against him.
Of course, Republicans and Trump have every right to feel angry. In his post-impeachment news conference, the president accused Romney of using “religion as a crutch” and he predicted that Romney’s poll numbers were “going down … big.” His unhappiness is understandable.
But just as Democrats haven’t gained a caucus member, any loose GOP talk of excommunicating Romney is not just wrong, it makes no sense as Republicans seek to hold the White House, the Senate and to retake the House.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has learned to play the long game with his conference members, even when they go the wrong way on things. Although he was “surprised and disappointed” in Romney, McConnell took a wise posture when asked how long Utah’s junior senator would be in the doghouse:
“We don’t have any doghouses here. The most important vote is the next vote,” McConnell said.
Romney is a Republican. His vote against the president doesn’t change that, even though it robbed Republicans of their narrative that Democrats pursued a completely partisan impeachment.
Even without that talking point, however, the president is in a terrific position: He has the highest job approval of his presidency and his ratings on handling the economy are better than any president since George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11, according to Gallup. The Democrats’ primary is in disarray and they may even nominate a socialist to run against him. One impeachment vote to convict — soon lost to history, even if it came from a principled Republican — won’t hinder the former or help the latter.
Scott Jennings is a former advisor to President George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell and a CNN contributor. He is a contributing writer to Opinion. Twitter: @ScottJenningsKY
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2945ef12f688e313ec2e9470f587dd06
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-07/rush-limbaugh-presidential-medal-of-freedom-donald-trump
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Column: Trump dittoes Limbaugh’s bigotry with a Presidential Medal of Freedom
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Column: Trump dittoes Limbaugh’s bigotry with a Presidential Medal of Freedom
Larry Lujack, the sarcastic Chicago top-40 DJ who died in 2013, once did a stunt where he stormed into theaters to punish moviegoers for smoking.
Obviously Lujack, a longtime smoker and self-styled degenerate, wasn’t offering a public service announcement. He was mocking the killjoy practices of what his show called, derisively, “normal mature people.” Prigs. Health nuts. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Lujack was the idol of one Rush Limbaugh, the right wing talk-radio host who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday, in a Trumpian stunt during the State of the Union address. The award came on the same day Limbaugh announced publicly that he has lung cancer.
Limbaugh once acknowledged that Lujack was a mentor, “the only person I ever copied.” Indeed, Limbaugh’s schtick still includes grousing about “health Nazis” who would have red-blooded Americans give up butter, cigars and caffeine.
What attracted Limbaugh to Lujack — and perhaps the president to Rush — is libertarian showboating, crabby comedy based on the complaints of amped-up white men who imagine themselves the shock troops of a transgressive counterculture. If smoking, sexism and fast food are considered declasse, these geezers are going to double their intake. They traffic in disdain.
The best of them could be funny: Rodney Dangerfield, David Letterman, Howard Stern. But Limbaugh’s dyspeptic rants curdle in a way the others’ never did. As Limbaugh got meaner and darker, even Lujack rejected him: “His appeal escapes me.”
Over the decades, Limbaugh has spent way too many shows prattling on about “feminazis” and the barbarism of black athletes, as if in a bigoted fever dream. His success, in cultural critic Neal Gabler’s words, comes from “saying things that no one else will say” (because they’re boring and infantile, I might add).
Among Limbaugh’s many preoccupations, an especially weird one is “studs” — male collegians whose manhood is allegedly being curbed by evil coeds who want to emasculate them. “Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud,” Limbaugh once said. His castration anxiety also surfaced in his complaints that Hillary Clinton kept a “testicle lockbox.”
Just as right-wing grievance personalities Alex Jones and Sean Hannity have done, Limbaugh periodically excuses his blunders by calling himself a mere entertainer. This allows him, he said, to “embellish” his statements with “confidence and cockiness.” He also uses exaggerated diction and dials his volume to 11. Similarly, President Trump’s misconduct — his relentless lying in particular — is often explained away as the excesses of a showbiz guy.
But Limbaugh’s fans don’t see him as merely a blowhard carny tubthumper. They see him as an oracle. For decades, they’ve called themselves dittoheads, happy to mechanically reproduce Limbaugh’s noxious memes. They espouse the Trump-era reality: If it’s rude, stale and mean-spirited, it has to be true. And of course Trump himself enjoys dittohead-style devotion from his redhats.
The president surely sees himself in his Medal of Freedom awardee. He and Limbaugh, close in age, have something deep in common: an abiding conviction that, whatever their successes, the phantom “elites” look down on them, and their followers.
The Trump crowd insists that any criticism of the impeached president reflects only sneering contempt for Trump voters. And Limbaugh trolls his listeners with the insistence that they’re hated by the elites, who hate him, too.
Limbaugh’s grievances engender in his dittoheads an anguish that can be exploited — to get them to accept conspiracy theories, pay for Rush-branded golf gear, or vote for Rush-branded candidates. Having been credited with reviving the Republican Party in 2010, Limbaugh let down traditional Republicans four years ago when he took aim at them and marshaled his forces for Trump.
“Now, [Republicans] can concoct all the reasons they want [to reject Trump],” he said. “But ... there’s also this cliquish, elitist club characteristic here that, if you’re not in it — and the only way you can get in it is to be accepted, to be invited. You can’t succeed your way into it.”
Limbaugh has long fondled this story. According to his biography, Limbaugh believes a personal elite has always conspired against him, beginning with his prominent Missouri family, who were angry when he dropped out of college some 50 years ago.
You’d think Limbaugh’s signature grandiloquence, Gulfstream G550 and Florida estate — featuring a supersized salon modeled on Versailles — would allay his insecurity. Still, old resentments die hard, and Limbaugh is the Sun King of resenters. He shares the trait with Trump.
Limbaugh is an unusual recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which has generally gone to world-historical figures such as civil rights supernova Rosa Parks and Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. First Lady Melania Trump draped the medal around Limbaugh’s neck up in the House gallery on Tuesday, apparently commemorating Rush’s supreme contributions to humanity.
Limbaugh’s actual accomplishments demean the medal. He and his president-benefactor are a pair of nasty swells from Palm Beach trying to get one up on their betters, while pretending to work for the little guy.
As Limbaugh once said, the “formula” for manipulating his followers never fails: “People keep falling for it. It amazes me.”
@page88
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ba76cd66731fde2f8715d8bb40c393b5
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-07/traffic-congestion-killed-kobe-bryant-bad-weather
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Letters to the Editor: Traffic congestion killed Kobe Bryant as much as bad weather did
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Letters to the Editor: Traffic congestion killed Kobe Bryant as much as bad weather did
To the editor: Nearly two weeks after the helicopter crash that took the lives of nine people, including former Lakers star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, we must now ponder how this tragedy affects all of California.
I believe that the blame for Bryant’s death lies not with the company that operated the helicopter or with the pilot. I don’t blame the lack of onboard terrain warning equipment.
What’s really at fault is Los Angeles’ traffic congestion and California’s inability to fix it. This is a statewide issue, and traffic can be just as bad in Sacramento and San Francisco as it is in Los Angeles. The governor should appoint a commission to recommend solutions to this problem.
California is the global leader in creating technology solutions in the business and science sectors. It is time that the state took the lead in solving traffic congestion too. We need to get people out of their cars, and we should use technology to solve this issue once and for all.
Bryant used helicopters as a personal solution to this problem, and in the end it cost him his life. Let his passing be not in vain.
William Baumiester, Stockton
..
To the editor: It is indeed a tragedy that Bryant and eight others died in a helicopter crash.
But in these days of climate change and wealth inequality awareness, why is there no criticism of “elite” individuals getting to take a helicopter to save a little time? Why should these people not also have to take a vehicle, perhaps even electric, to get where they need to go like the rest of us?
Think of the carbon emissions every time Bryant flew and the danger to people on the ground in the event that his helicopter crashed on the freeways or homes he flew over.
Andrew Bressler, Culver City
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afff2bd82fb57abb60fa95ae82dd9fa8
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-07/trump-administration-supports-predatory-lenders-again
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Editorial: Trump administration sides with predatory lenders. Again
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Editorial: Trump administration sides with predatory lenders. Again
One hallmark of President Trump’s tenure is the zeal with which federal agencies have sought to shred federal regulations, either by repealing or simply not enforcing them. That’s been true even in cases where the deregulation is likely to raise costs for the public more than it will lower them for industry, as is the case with the administration’s effort to ease limits on methane emissions.
But the administration’s assault on regulations hasn’t been confined to those adopted by the federal government. Trump also has sought to prevent state governments from imposing their own rules to protect consumers and businesses within their borders — for example, by suing California for adopting net neutrality rules that bar broadband internet providers here from interfering with the traffic on their local networks.
Now, the administration is on to its next outrageous proposal. Two top federal bank regulators — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — want to allow lenders to evade state consumer protection laws in order to charge obscenely high interest rates. Proposed rules by the two agencies would bless “rent-a-bank” schemes in which high-cost lenders join forces with national or federally insured state banks to market and issue loans with interest rates far above state interest caps.
California and other states have imposed such caps (36% is a common maximum) because non-bank lenders were charging 100% or more to borrowers with bad credit ratings and, in most cases, low incomes. These companies argued that the high interest rates were needed to compensate for the potential losses posed by risky borrowers, but the loans often sucked those borrowers into a debt trap they couldn’t escape. The state-imposed rate caps make it harder for desperate borrowers to obtain loans that leave them in even worse shape financially, pushing them toward less damaging alternatives.
National and federally insured state banks are not subject to state caps because they are covered by federal banking laws that preempt state consumer statutes. And in practice, these banks have stayed away from high-interest loans, presumably because federal bank examiners would consider them too risky. In the early 2000s, federal regulators also cracked down on the rent-a-bank model, which involves a non-bank lender signing up customers for high-interest loans that a bank issues, then sells back to the non-bank lender.
The Trump administration, which had moved previously to deregulate predatory payday lending, proposes to reverse that crackdown, reopening the door to rent-a-bank arrangements. That prompted about two dozen state attorneys general (including California’s) to accuse the two bank regulators of misreading federal law in their effort to erase state consumer protections. They’re right: The freedom granted to federally regulated banks doesn’t extend to unregulated non-bank lenders. If the administration doesn’t abandon its effort to promote predatory loans, the courts should stop it.
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87902c6e0c0052a2791ebaadad51d3df
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-08/mitt-romney-is-a-hero-who-deserved-to-lose-in-2012
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Newsletter: Mitt Romney is a hero who deserved to lose in 2012
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Newsletter: Mitt Romney is a hero who deserved to lose in 2012
Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.
Can you praise Sen. Mitt Romney for casting the lone Republican vote to remove President Trump and still be glad that he did not win the White House in 2012? Of course you can!
In that election, Romney promised to repeal Obamacare, gleefully accepted the endorsement of prominent birther Donald Trump and crassly wrote off the so-called 47% of Americans who he said got free stuff from the Obama administration. Just as much as he deserved to lose in 2012, he deserves to be praised in 2020 for taking a principled stand against a president rightly impeached for soliciting foreign interference in our election.
But to Opinion contributing writer Scott Jennings, a former Republican strategist, it isn’t so clear-cut. As someone who “worked [his] heart out for Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and came to believe that he was indeed a compassionate man,” Jennings recalls a nastiness among Romney’s harshest critics, who pilloried the Republican as “a murderer, a tax cheat, a felon, a robber baron who destroys jobs and hates workers, a misogynist who would return women to the 1950s, and a joke for worrying about Russia’s malign influence on the world.” For Jennings, it’s more than a little hypocritical for liberals now to claim Romney as their hero.
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I get that, but Jennings’ objection is more an indictment of those who are prone in any election to painting their political adversaries as evil, a judgment Trump throws at his critics with abandon. Adopting the intellectually lazy rationalization of this president’s most craven enablers, who brush off any number of Trump’s offenses with the meaningless concession that our leaders are human and therefore imperfect, those lionizing Romney could similarly concede that he too isn’t perfect and just be done with it.
But in reality, Romney is being praised for simply doing the right thing. Today, that counts as heroic.
Trump’s acquittal leaves us in a very bad place. The outcome of the Senate trial was never in doubt, says the L.A. Times Editorial Board, but that doesn’t make it any less disheartening, especially since the president is emboldened to run afoul of the Constitution again. In an op-ed piece, UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky warns that the defenses used by Trump’s lawyers and the senators’ behavior during the trial strip the crucial constitutional check of impeachment of all its meaning.
Speaking of foregone conclusions, Sen. Kamala Harris of California took to our op-ed page to explain why she was voting to remove the president: “Donald Trump thinks he is above the law. He’s told us that multiple times. Before he was elected president, he said, ‘If you’re a star, they let you do it,’ when talking about sexually assaulting women. He told a group of young people that Article II of the Constitution gives him the power to do anything he wants. He has declared himself to be someone who should be free from accountability, and it’s the Senate’s job to tell him no.” L.A. Times
Trump’s presidency is an argument for constraining executive power. Instead of asserting that the problem is the ever-accumulating power of the presidency rather than the actions taken by this president in particular, the Democrats running to replace Trump believe the antidote is to use such power, just differently. That’s a far cry from what Congress did in the wake of Richard Nixon’s imperial presidency, says Matt Welch, the editor at large of the libertarian Reason magazine and an Opinion contributing writer. L.A. Times
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Welcome to the club, New York: The Trump administration came for California, and now he’s coming for you. California has long been in the White House’s environmental cross-hairs, and now both states have offended the vindictive president with their policies on harboring immigrants targeted by the Trump administration for removal. This week, the White House announced that residents of New York state can no longer enroll in the Trusted Traveler Programs under the Department of Homeland Security, part of what the New York Times editorial board says is a “well-established pattern of seeking to penalize jurisdictions that displease and defy him.” New York Times
There’s no housing crisis in Los Angeles — if you’re a car. The city has about 6 million parking spots, or 1.5 spaces per resident. Local laws require them, so space that could be devoted to more housing or retail is instead set aside for vehicles, accounting for a massive footprint in a city starved for housing. One solution, according to housing analyst Anthony Dedousis: Instead of mandatory minimums for including parking spots in new construction, the city should pass mandatory maximums. In other words, developers could still build parking, but only up to a point. L.A. Times
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If you’ve made it this far, you’re the kind of reader who’d benefit from subscribing to our other newsletters and to the Times.As always, you can share your feedback by emailing me at [email protected].
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fb029182a34880eac3a2d756f1d8f95c
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-09/astros-dodgers-sign-stealing
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Op-Ed: Baseball’s steroid era was bad, but the Astros cheat was organized crime
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Op-Ed: Baseball’s steroid era was bad, but the Astros cheat was organized crime
Baseball has been the background music of my life. Now, thanks to the Houston Astros and their sign-stealing cheat, I’m humming a different tune.
I grew up in a Wisconsin town just big enough to have minor league baseball. The team name was the Indians, and nobody gave that a second thought. They were a Class-D Dodgers farm team; they played in a park a bike ride away, with a roof over the bleachers and walls with vines. One of their stars was a catcher named John Roseboro, and, years later, in the big leagues, he was hit on the head with a bat by the Giants’ Juan Marichal. My hometown hated Marichal. Probably still does. Baseball creates impenetrable loyalty.
When I was barely old enough to drive, I scraped together enough money to take my great-aunt to a Milwaukee Braves game. Yes, Braves, not Brewers. These were the Braves of the National League, of Warren Spahn, Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews, the Braves of the 1957 (won) and ’58 (lost) World Series, both against the Yankees.
Great-Aunt Dora, in her 80s, navigated the stadium stairs and saw her hero, Aaron, get fooled on a down-and-out curveball, flick his wrists and hit it into the right-field bleachers anyway. We talked about it forever after that. She was well into her 90s when she died in a nursing home, within reach of the little radio that brought her every game and every flick of Aaron’s wrists.
College led me to my first newspaper job, which was only a temporary distraction from baseball. I married a woman whose mother had spent long hours sitting in her family’s fishing boat in Wisconsin’s Little Sturgeon Bay, listening to a transistor radio and Earl Gillespie (our Vin Scully) bringing her every pitch of her beloved Braves. My mother-in-law was a star writer at the Sheboygan Press in the town where I grew up. I was 60 miles away at the Journal, in Milwaukee, and she wasn’t happy when I wrote about her beloved baseball team, by then the Brewers of the early 1970s. I wasn’t always gentle. At that point, the lure of tough journalism outweighed any devotion for a home team, or the game itself.
I wrote about Bud Selig’s driving ambition, for instance, to return a major league team to his city. The Braves had left for Atlanta in 1966. The characterization of Selig as too corporate and relentless was always a bit incomplete. He was, first, a fan, like the rest of us. The difference was that, when the Braves left, he did something about it. I sat with him in hotel hallways as major league owners met behind closed doors. I told him about my great-aunt and Aaron’s wrist homer. He waited to collar one or two owners and make his pitch for Milwaukee. Mostly, they just walked past him.
Eventually, Selig got his way and became president of the Milwaukee Brewers. He visited the press box often. He said he was checking on us reporters. Actually, he was hanging out with us. He always smoked a big, ugly, smelly cigar. I amused myself by mentioning it in just about every story I wrote. I referred to it, accurately, as “a big, ugly, smelly cigar.” He feigned anger. One day, it was real. His wife, tired of my cigar reports, ordered him to quit.
A few owners who had walked past him in those hotel lobbies were still around in 1992, when Selig became commissioner of Major League Baseball. He was the boss until 2015 and still retains the title of commissioner emeritus. Now, he must be sitting in his office in Milwaukee, brow wrinkled, and, like me, wondering if the sport we thought we knew so well and loved so completely can retain its mystical wonders, its power as an influencer.
I eventually went to a bigger paper, this one. I wrote about baseball’s trials, steroids, ending an All-Star game in a tie, new playoff formats. I suffered with millions of L.A. fans over Dodger owner Frank McCourt and how to get rid of him. But none of that prepared me for the Houston scandal.
Steroid use is probably more serious but less conspiratorial than what the Astros did. Electronic sign stealing is unsettling, and what wasn’t high tech is disconcerting in its stupidity: garbage-can banging? An assumption that nobody would squeal, even after they went to another team?
Steroid users were on their own. The Astros were a gang, organized crime. Almost worse: An entire baseball team adopted a philosophy that should be anathema to baseball. They decided seeking any edge was worth it, no matter the moral and ethical damage. The bad behavior may have leaked over to the Red Sox; it may have robbed the Dodgers of a championship.
In my twilight years, as a sports columnist, baseball’s background music kept playing for me. I heard it when I talked to class acts in the game, such as Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Torii Hunter, Howie Kendrick and Mike Scioscia. I thought I was dealing with the same when I spoke, less frequently but often enough, with Astros stars George Springer, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman.
I apparently was wrong. None of them has fessed up, which for me only accelerates the presumption of guilt. They need not wonder what will appear in the first paragraph of their obits.
The Astros say now they will apologize as a team at spring training (pitchers and catchers arrive in Florida this week). It will be too little, too late.
Now, I will think about the joy of watching Hunter in the clubhouse, a true leader, about the underrated Kendrick becoming a postseason hero. I will think about my grandson, a high school catcher in Maryland who believes that calling the right pitch and blocking balls in the dirt is the best thing in life. And I will think about my great aunt, gone now some 40 years, and how much Aaron’s quick-wrist homer thrilled her.
Maybe then, the music will come back.
Bill Dwyre is a former sports editor of The Times.
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8b141b2df86cb7c68af1a3972cf031c0
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-12/editorial-kobe-bryant-helicopter-crash-should-air-safety
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Editorial: Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash should have us all thinking about the safety of our airspace
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Editorial: Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash should have us all thinking about the safety of our airspace
No one will ever know for sure what transpired in those minutes before the helicopter carrying Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter and seven other people plummeted into a hillside in Calabasas on Jan. 26, killing everyone on board.
The experienced pilot, Ara Zobayan, had left John Wayne Airport in Orange County for Camarillo Airport at 9:06 a.m. that Sunday and ended up following the 101 freeway west, not just as a route but also as a visual reference. As the terrain rose and the clouds got lower and thicker, he made a left turn south over the hills of Calabasas, which were cloaked in clouds and fog.
In his last communication with air traffic controllers, he reported that he was climbing to 4,000 feet above sea level, which would have put him above the clouds and let him see for miles. But he never got that high. He climbed to 2,300 feet, began a left turn and then descended rapidly, still turning and accelerated to 184 mph, investigators say. The helicopter crashed into the hillside at 9:45 a.m.
There is, however, one thing that the National Transportation Safety Board established in its recently released preliminary report: There was no engine failure on this sophisticated twin-engine Sikorsky S-76B helicopter.
It will take months for safety investigators to figure out what probably went wrong here. There’s already been plenty of speculation about the pilot’s choices that morning, about what he did and didn’t do and why. In the meantime, what this horrific crash should do is make safety investigators and federal regulators take a step back and look at commercial helicopter safety in general.
One piece of equipment lacking in the otherwise well-equipped helicopter was a terrain awareness and warning system, which gives pilots visual and audible alerts when they are flying near obstacles. After a commercial helicopter with two pilots ferrying eight passengers to an offshore oil drilling ship crashed into the Gulf of Mexico in 2004, killing all 10 on board, the NTSB concluded that a terrain awareness system could have warned the pilots of their trajectory toward the water and given them enough time to avoid hitting it.
Since the NTSB’s report on that crash in 2006, the board has repeatedly urged the Federal Aviation Administration to require terrain awareness systems on all commercial helicopters carrying six or more people. But the FAA has never accepted that recommendation.
The NTSB also called for all emergency medical service helicopters (and airplanes) to have these safety systems on board. In a 2006 study, the NTSB concluded that of 55 emergency service aircraft crashes (41 involving helicopters), 17 might have been avoided with terrain warning equipment.
The FAA accepted the safety board’s recommendation for air ambulances, noting that emergency missions are often flown at night or in areas not well known to the pilots. But an FAA spokesperson says the circumstances are different for non-emergency flights, as commercial helicopter pilots generally fly in populated areas with numerous routes and landing points. According to the spokesperson, the FAA has collaborated with the industry on improving safety through new technology, policy changes and outreach efforts. And the number of fatal accidents has declined dramatically over the last two decades.
That’s commendable, but it’s nevertheless troubling that the NTSB’s recommendation has gone largely ignored by the FAA for a decade and a half.
After the recent crash renewed talk of mandating terrain awareness systems, there’s been tremendous pushback from experienced helicopter pilots who believe it not to be useful and even a dangerous distraction when they are flying low — as helicopters often do — with good visibility. Constant audible warnings of obstacles that the pilots can see and are well aware of are nothing but a nuisance, they contend.
And there’s no way of telling whether warnings from a terrain awareness system would have gotten the pilot of Bryant’s helicopter out of the trouble he found himself in.
Nevertheless, the FAA should reconsider its decision not to require terrain awareness equipment because it would give commercial pilots and their passengers another tool to enhance their safety. Sen, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has called on the FAA to do so; in fact, terrain awareness systems have been standard equipment in every Sikorsky S-76 made since 2005. The safety of everyone flying in older commercial helicopters should be just as important.
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046591a3a56d25278aef152cd5867895
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-12/endorsement-christy-smith-for-congress
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Endorsement: Christy Smith is the best choice to replace Katie Hill in Congress
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Endorsement: Christy Smith is the best choice to replace Katie Hill in Congress
After up-and-coming Democratic Rep. Katie Hill resigned from her 25th Congressional District seat in October amid a swirl of scandalous allegations and leaked photos, more than a dozen candidates lined up to replace her in the Santa Clarita-area district.
Among them are Steve Knight, the Republican former congressman whom Hill unseated in the 2018 blue wave, and a number of local grass-roots candidates, as well two relatively well-known political figures from outside the district: George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign advisor convicted of lying to the FBI during special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, and Cenk Uygur, the fiery progressive founder of the Young Turks online talk show.
But the best choice voters can make is the candidate whom many of them already have voted for: Christy Smith, a low-key but effective member of the California Assembly and former school board member. Smith is a centrist, pragmatic Democrat who in just a year in the state Legislature has distinguished herself as an elected official more interested in pushing good policy than playing politics, something we’d like to see more often in Congress. We recommend that voters choose her on March 3, and that they do so twice.
Opinion
The complete list of L.A. Times endorsements in the March 3 California primary
Opinion
The complete list of L.A. Times endorsements in the March 3 California primary
Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsements for the U.S. House, California ballot measures and more.
Why twice? Because — bizarrely — there are two concurrent elections for the seat on the March 3 ballot. The first is a special election for someone to fill out the remaining months of Hill’s current term, and the second is the primary for the regularly scheduled election for the two-year term that begins in 2021. Voters don’t have to choose the same person in both elections, but they ought to for the sake of continuity.
In a sense, Smith has been preparing for this job since she got involved with student politics at Santa Clarita’s Hart High School. After getting her undergraduate degree at UCLA, Smith moved to Washington to do policy work at the U.S. Department of Education during the Clinton administration. She and her husband returned to Santa Clarita after the birth of her first daughter, and Smith continued to advocate on local education issues, including starting a nonprofit to raise funds for school technology while a stay-at-home mom. And in 2009, Smith was elected to her first term on the Newhall School District board, where she served until she was elected to the state Legislature in 2018.
Smith is not a part of the progressive left that is pushing for dramatic changes in Washington, and she’s certainly not a carbon copy of Katie Hill (though Hill has endorsed her). Smith’s appeal is that she spends her time crafting policy and working with colleagues to get it passed. A good example is AB 1507, one proposal in a package of bills to improve regulation and oversight of charter schools. A number of the other, more politically motivated bills in the package were clearly meant to obstruct new charter schools, but Smith’s was a sincere and sensible policy fix that stopped a sketchy money-making practice by small school districts to approve charters outside their boundaries. Nevertheless it was a tough political fight and one that the first-term legislator won.
As for the higher-profile candidates whom we aren’t endorsing, Mike Garcia, a real estate businessman and former Navy pilot, is the Los Angeles County Republican Party’s pick despite the fact that Knight is also in the race. Garcia’s lack of relevant experience in government or politics suggests that he will not have the ability to rise above the party line when it comes to making important decisions for the nation. Papadopoulos, who is running only in the race for the full two-year term, seems more interested in hawking his new book than campaigning. Uygur is seeking the seat to further the progressive agenda he has promoted on his show. But while we agree with him about the corrupting influence of money in politics and some other subjects, we find his pugnacious style off-putting and not conducive to a more civil Congress.
One of the lesser-known candidates shows a lot of political promise: Aníbal Valdez Ortega, a thoughtful young lawyer from the Antelope Valley who impressed us with his energy, intellect and accomplishments. We hope he continues to seek elective office. But in this race, Smith is the best candidate. Vote for her on March 3, and do it two times.
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2a7132f2c3952844b8284b016147e02e
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-12/nominate-mike-bloomberg-to-beat-trump
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Letters to the Editor: Sorry, Democrats, you might have to nominate Mike Bloomberg to beat Trump
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Letters to the Editor: Sorry, Democrats, you might have to nominate Mike Bloomberg to beat Trump
To the editor: I’ve regretfully come to the conclusion that Democrats must nominate former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for president. The thought of two billionaires fighting over the presidency makes me slightly nauseous, but the thought of another four years of Trump makes me violently ill. (“Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire primary, narrowly beating Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar,” Feb. 11)
Bloomberg is the only candidate who Trump cannot tar with the socialist label, and he’s is the least likely one to alienate cautious moderates and scared conservatives.
Sure, Bloomberg has some liabilities. His plan for a more progressive tax system will attract charges of “socialism,” but with any luck, even some Trump loyalists will see though this. His left flank is exposed from “stop and frisk,” which he has disavowed, but not everyone’s convinced. His support for charter schools will also put off teacher unions.
Plus, he’s a billionaire.
But we haven’t the luxury of insisting on everything we want. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has observed that Bloomberg is the only one who can “stand toe-to-toe” with Trump. I think he’s right.
Claude Goldenberg, Seal Beach
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To the editor: Scheduling several short debates between the leading Democratic contenders to help voters choose a nominee is one of the worst political decisions ever made.
What are we gaining by this debacle? We hear how wonderful all the candidates are, and then we hear how incompetent they are. Democratic voters had some trouble at the beginning trying to decide which candidate they liked the most; now their trouble is determining which candidate they dislike the least.
I believe that if George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were running today, the nomination would go to Bloomberg.
Owen Keavney, Pomona
..
To the editor: Come on. Sen. Bernie Sanders “edges” out Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire, as your print headline says?
How many times has the corporate media downplayed Sanders’ campaign? His win in New Hampshire is a major event within the Democratic Party.
CNN, NBC, the L.A. Times, Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting — all you people continue to show disdain for Sanders, and he continues to rise. Give the man some respect. Against all odds he prevails while you do your best to drag his name down.
J. R. Ball, Inglewood
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To the editor: Like California surfers catching waves, New Hampshire primary voters caught Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s wave Tuesday. Thankfully, her “Klomentum” outpaced the back and forth between her rivals, carrying her to a strong third-place finish.
In order to win in November, Democrats must do well in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Klobuchar, who hails from Minnesota, speaks their language.
She represents the best of my party in 2020. I hope the voters in Nevada and South Carolina agree.
Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach
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8435bec8e069595d6107585a5db64cf2
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-12/op-ed-liberals-should-save-their-fire-for-real-issues-rather-than-mock-trumps-every-foible
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Op-Ed: Liberals should save their fire for real issues rather than mock Trump’s every foible
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Op-Ed: Liberals should save their fire for real issues rather than mock Trump’s every foible
For the first time in memory, I agreed with a tweet from Donald Trump. After a purportedly authentic photo of the president’s forehead, colored a grotesque orange, went viral, Trump responded: “More Fake News. This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!”
Yes, there’s something to demean: the liberal response to the photo. Progressives on social media relish whatever makes Trump appear foolish or incompetent. A misspelled word or misidentified country becomes the talk of Twitter for days on end.
When I ask friends and family why they find these things noteworthy, the most common responses are: “It shows what an idiot he is” or “You have to laugh to keep from being depressed.”
They are dangerously wrong on both counts. Trump may not be the genius he claims to be, but he’s far from stupid. The desperate desire of liberals to believe otherwise gives Trump and his allies a massive strategic advantage. Not to put too fine a point on it, but while Democrats were entertaining themselves sniggering at Trump’s foibles, he and his associates were expanding the use of land mines, proposing significant cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, removing environmental protections for streams, wetlands and groundwater and collecting massive amounts of money and data for the fall presidential campaign.
They were also using the latest social media uproar to bolster Trump’s claim that he’s treated unfairly.
By denigrating Trump for small foibles, the left intensifies the political and cultural divides in our nation, making it even harder to go after swing voters. Mocking a candidate a voter is seriously considering is likely to make that voter feel mocked as well.
Remember during the Obama years how easy it was to write off people who made fun of the president’s use of a teleprompter, or of something he or one of his daughters wore?
To stave off despair and help their cause, liberals would better spend their time reading and retweeting facts and analyses about things that Americans across the political spectrum care about. Follow nonpartisan organizations like Child Care Aware of America, the National Institutes of Health and American Forests. Read the Democratic presidential candidates’ plans and Republicans’ rebuttals.
If you want to take a jab at Trump’s failings, go after something substantive that might resonate with broader audiences. Rather than helping the forehead photo go viral, circulate the photo of the fourth-grader in Philadelphia who Trump used in his State of the Union address to promote charter schools. She was, Trump told us, the poster child for countless students “trapped in failing government schools.” The president billed her as the daughter of a single parent who, he said, “would do anything to give her daughter a better future.”
In reality, neither the girl nor her mother are unhappy with her current school. The mother told reporters she does not view the current school “as a school you want to get out of at all. I view it as a great opportunity.”
This comes at a time when Trump is pushing a $5-billion tax credit program to pump money into charter and religious schools, which supporters of public schools point out diverts taxpayer money out of school districts that are already poorly funded.
Or how about this for the next time you get the urge to make a meme? Instead of an unflattering photo of the president, use a clip of his son Eric proclaiming in an interview last fall that “the government saves a fortune” when his father stays at one of his own properties. “We charge them, like 50 bucks,” he said. Juxtapose that with a headline from the Washington Post last week: ”Secret Service has paid rates as high as $650 a night for rooms at Trump’s properties.”
We lose the right to upbraid the president on serious matters if we’re constantly mocking him for trivialities.
If you need a laugh online, follow your favorite comedian.
And the next time you’re tempted to pass along something about Trump’s appearance or his latest blooper, bear in mind that some of us who have no intention of voting for Trump will unfollow you.
We might even unfriend you, and not only on social media.
Barry Glassner is the author of “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things.”
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f96cb0dcc91bcc159701027e03a7e7c8
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-13/dave-mccoy-mammoth-mountain-death
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Letters to the Editor: Remembering ‘Mr. McCoy’ on the slopes of Mammoth Mountain
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Letters to the Editor: Remembering ‘Mr. McCoy’ on the slopes of Mammoth Mountain
To the editor: It was so long ago that even in California, teenagers called those older than them “Mr.” and “Mrs.” It was 1965, and my friends and I would drive up Highway 395 to the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area and stay in a dormitory for $5 a night. (“Dave McCoy, who gave skiers and boarders Mammoth Mountain, has died at 104,” Feb. 8)
We’d get up early the next day to be the first skiers on the slopes. And in the lift line we’d see a friendly, older man we knew as Mr. McCoy, and he’d invariably ask us, “How was your run?”
Dave McCoy had a well-deserved, long run of 104 years, and I won’t forget him or his graciousness.
Dan Caldwell, Pacific Palisades
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To the editor: While noting the development of the winter sports, nothing was said about how instrumental Mammoth was in the development of the summer use of the mountain.
In the early 1990s, Mammoth was one of the first to develop a summer bike park using the ski lifts to get bikes and riders to the top. Once at the top, there was a variety of maintained bike trails of various skill levels that you could ride all the way down to town.
Even after all these years, I have not experienced any other mountain bike park that is so well organized and maintained with so many trails.
Laura Newman, Santa Barbara
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e61191c9012aef2f0ea5602aa77be7b0
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-13/pumas-are-native-to-the-santa-monica-mountains-livestock-are-not
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Letters to the Editor: Pumas are native to the Santa Monica Mountains. Livestock are not
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Letters to the Editor: Pumas are native to the Santa Monica Mountains. Livestock are not
To the editor: I am befuddled by the recent slaughter of P-56, a male mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains who preyed on livestock.
So, someone can get a permit to kill wild animals where they live if they place attractive meals (such as sheep or other passive livestock) for them on their land? Isn’t this called baiting, which is illegal for hunters to do in California?
This particular 2014 exception to the 40-year-old mountain lion hunting ban should be looked at closer to find out who pushed for it in the first place and who approved it, so we know who the real killers are.
Also, if you own property in the mountains, why would you want to raise livestock and attract these beautiful but natural-born killers directly to you? If that’s your “business,” then your business model needs work.
Scott Vyduna, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Joseph T. Edmiston, the executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy who said he’s willing to take drastic action to prevent the death of the last remaining male mountain lion in the area, should be careful what he wishes for despite his good intentions.
If P-63 or another mountain lion were to kill someone, especially a child, he has exposed himself to some serious liability and lawsuits from the victim’s relatives. There are plenty of attorneys out there who would gladly take the case.
Trent Sanders, La Cañada Flintridge
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To the editor: Let’s get this straight: If I put a bunch of chickens in my front yard and the neighborhood cats start killing them, I can shoot the cats?
I respect the fact that whoever shot P-56 tried to pen or protect his livestock, but here’s the bottom line: Sheep or whatever other livestock you have are not native to the Santa Monicas. Mountain lions are.
These predators and other native species belong to all of us and deserve to be protected. Close your buffet.
Chuck Heinz, West Hills
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f43b805488c4243588b2c7eef7895f41
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-14/accusing-israel-of-breaking-international-law-puts-jews-in-danger
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Letters to the Editor: How accusing Israel of breaking international law puts Jews in danger
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Letters to the Editor: How accusing Israel of breaking international law puts Jews in danger
To the editor: UCLA professor David N. Myers insists Israel is “threatening international law” by seeking to assert sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).
Actually, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter (an instrument of international law) basically incorporates the Balfour Declaration by reference, trouncing Myers’ allegations. Yet this is no mere legal misunderstanding on Myers’ part.
It is rather a proclivity for accusing the world’s only Jewish state of illegal acts, and to hell with the consequences in terms of ensuing Jew hatred. Call me out on this, as it is easy to show that violent terrorists who slaughter Jewish civilians with impunity “justify” their barbarism using the type of illegality rhetoric that Myers, who is Jewish, is unwisely indulging in.
Susie Dym, Rehovot, Israel
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To the editor: Myers wisely points out that illiberal politics underlie land grabs by militarily powerful countries. His examples include Israel gobbling up the West Bank, India grabbing Kashmir and Russia the Crimean Peninsula.
But in Israel’s case, the land grab is being done under cover of President Trump’s “peace plan” that does not seek compromise between the sides, but rather follows the extreme Israeli position to take everything for Israel while humiliating the Palestinian population and leaving them crumbs that will still be under Israeli control.
That approach might work in real estate, but it will not stop the Palestinian people from resisting Israeli control and seeking their freedom.
Jeff Warner, Los Angeles
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To the editor: For thousands of years the Jewish people lived in and around Judea and Samaria. Then in 1948 Jordan illegally occupied the land and in the process expelled most of the Jewish population with the enthusiastic support of the Palestinian Arabs.
After a defensive war in 1967, Israel forced Jordan out of its illegal occupation and allowed the Jewish people to return to their homes after 19 years.
Neither Meyers nor “long-standing international consensus” can change the fact that Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention was never intended to prevent Jews from returning to their homes from which they were ethnically cleansed by Jordan.
Richard Sherman, Margate, Fla.
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507f6897c6fb0052e471ab5775bf0d86
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-14/did-pope-francis-cave-to-conservatives-and-his-predecessor-on-married-priests
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Opinion: Did Pope Francis acquiesce to conservatives on married priests? Sure looks like it
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Opinion: Did Pope Francis acquiesce to conservatives on married priests? Sure looks like it
Conservative Catholics, including some critics of Pope Francis, are doing a victory lap because the pope has not, as expected, endorsed the ordination of married men as priests in the Amazon region of South America. At a Vatican synod it in October, two-thirds of bishops from that area had supported an exception to Western Catholicism’s celibacy requirement to deal with a severe shortage of priests.
The pope had been expected to endorse that idea. But he declined to do so after a firestorm that included the publication of a pro-celibacy book, “From the Depths of our Hearts,” that originally listed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as a coauthor. (The principal author of the book is Cardinal Robert Sarah, a prominent church conservative, but Benedict did contribute some reflections.)
In an “apostolic exhortation” about the Amazon made public Wednesday, Francis didn’t announce a change in the celibacy rule for that region. Instead he suggested other ways to deal with the priest shortage such as encouraging bishops in other countries to encourage missionaries to “opt for the Amazon region.”
The pope’s decision is rightly being described as a victory for conservatives who cherish the celibacy rule. But it may have broader and more ominous implications, not just for Catholics of the so-called Eastern-rite churches, in which married men may be ordained priests, but for the prospects of reunion between Rome and Eastern Orthodox churches.
As I explained here, there are already married Catholic priests. Most minister in the Eastern rites, which share traditions, liturgy and theology with ancient churches such as the Eastern Orthodox that don‘t recognize the pope. But there are also Catholic priests who were previously Anglican, Episcopal or Lutheran clergy who were allowed to be ordained Catholic priests even though they were married. (Ironically, it was Benedict XVI who in a 2009 decree paved the way for large-scale ordination of married former Anglican clergymen.)
The Vatican’s acceptance of married priests in Eastern-rite churches has been grudging at times. In the early 20th century, it prohibited those churches from ordaining married men in North America, South America and Australia, a concession to Roman Catholic bishops in those places who were worried that their faithful would be scandalized by the presence of married Catholic priests in their midst. That prohibition was lifted only in 2014.
Granted, Francis’ decision not to create a new exception to the celibacy rule preserves the status quo. But coming after the controversy over the retired Pope Benedict’s contribution to “From the Depths of our Hearts,” it might be seen as a retreat from the Roman Catholic Church’s position that its celibacy requirement is a matter of discipline, not doctrine.
That’s because excerpts from Benedict’s contribution to the book suggest that the retired pope sees an absolute incompatibility between priesthood and the married life. Benedict wrote: “From the daily celebration of the Eucharist, which implies a permanent state of service to God, was born spontaneously the impossibility of a marital bond.”
To say that it’s impossible for priests to be married seems to elevate the ban on celibacy to the status of doctrine, calling into question the legitimacy of the vocations of married clergy who already minister in the Catholic Church. On Thursday the Washington Post charmingly profiled one such priest, a cleric in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. “Married priests are not above the folks,” the Rev. Oleh Kindiy told the Post. “My wife is friends with the parishioners. My kids are growing up with parishioners’ kids.”
Especially in light of Benedict’s intervention, Francis’ refusal to relax the celibacy rule for the Amazon also sends a discouraging signal to the Eastern churches not in communion with the pope — that reunion with Rome could render their married priests second-class clergy.
I’m sure the pope didn’t intend to demean the ministry of married priests — Catholic and non-Catholic — with this decision. But it could have that effect.
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147298d0373e1a187f3a21384d121914
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-14/joe-biden-moderate-voters
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Letters to the Editor: Joe Biden lost two small states. Moderates can still save him
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Letters to the Editor: Joe Biden lost two small states. Moderates can still save him
To the editor: Will black voters save Joe Biden’s presidential campaign? The answer is no. What might win Biden the Democratic nomination is moderate voters who value experience and compromise.
Although the results of the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries indicate a shift among Democrats toward the left, history shows that those numbers rarely carry much weight in the final count. One mistake that Biden should avoid at all costs is to rely too much on the nostalgia of the Obama administration. Even President Obama might be ill-suited to win this year’s election.
Anti-establishment forces elected our current president. Will left-wing populism shake up the political order in the United States? Much remains to be seen.
Berta Graciano-Buchman, Beverly Hills
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To the editor: The claim that moderate candidates got the largest share of votes in New Hampshire misses an important fact: None of the Democratic candidates is a moderate, and most New Hampshire Democrats voted for either Sen. Bernie Sanders — a self-described democratic socialist — or Pete Buttigieg, a self-described progressive.
Buttigieg is far to the left of Hillary Clinton. He has proposed $7 trillion in tax increases; Clinton proposed only $1.4 trillion in tax increases.
Not even Biden, the Democratic candidate most often described as a “moderate,” actually has centrist positions. In December, Biden proposed raising taxes by $3.4 trillion.
Hans Bader, Arlington, Va.
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To the editor: Early pundits are making sweeping predictions from the results of voting in two small, very white states. Sanders looks as though he is suddenly surging ahead, while Biden seems to be losing ground.
Hopefully, Democrats are not foolish enough to be unaware that some conservative Republicans have said that they plan to vote for Sanders in the primary but for President Trump in November. They believe Sanders would be the easiest Democratic nominee to beat.
Although Sanders or Buttigieg could take coastal states, neither would win nationally. Democrats need to be smarter and vote for the candidate most likely to beat the guy in the White House. Michael Bloomberg along with a female candidate of color come to mind.
Marcy Bregman, Agoura Hills
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To the editor: Sen. Elizabeth Warren is still running for president. You wouldn’t know it from the news coverage that favors her male colleagues. You wouldn’t know it because this erasure stems from the sexism that acts on all of us, all the time.
If any woman is ever going to hold power in the public sphere, we must name the biases in our institutions that keep her from succeeding. We must also be brave enough to proclaim our support: Warren has a reflective leadership style that makes her open to receiving feedback from marginalized communities.
I’m voting for her in the primary, but regardless of which candidate you support, we must all call out the sexist double standards that Warren faces.
Jean Thomas, Los Angeles
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eb2b9bdde97048b163fb8730e7c610f0
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-14/trump-corrupting-the-justice-department
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Letters to the Editor: How will Trump’s supporters explain corrupting the Justice Department?
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Letters to the Editor: How will Trump’s supporters explain corrupting the Justice Department?
To the editor: Journalists are once again reporting this president’s corruption of our normal democratic practices, things he smears as horrible and unfair. In fact, what President Trump targets are legal and honest attempts to make this country the true democracy it used to be.
Trump does not represent me or our country. I see him as he is, a lying bully who will lash out against anyone who opposes him. As bad as he is, I cannot understand those who support and excuse his actions.
I suppose that by appealing to one of his policy issues — say, less immigration, less gun control, climate change denial and so on — his backers can forgive his many other faults. Or, maybe they are just afraid of a president who can do whatever he wants.
I will continue to vote as I have in every election in the vain hope the people in this country will wake up to the terrible direction this man is taking us.
Stephen Smith, Sherman Oaks
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To the editor: Senators said it was too close to the next election to remove the president from office — let the people decide, in other words.
But it turns out that mostly non-elected officials have been the ones with the courage to speak out against the authoritarian regime that Trump is imposing on us. Ambassadors and staff have been fired for speaking truth to power. Federal prosecutors have quit rather than stand with injustice.
Where are our elected representatives? Did Republican Sen. Susan Collins actually believe that impeachment would teach Trump a lesson? Can Republican Rep. Devin Nunes sue a cow on Twitter rather than do his job? Will the people elect morally courageous Republicans like Sen. Mitt Romney?
We have 10 months until we can make it clear that we want our democracy back. Let’s not waste that time.
Katherine Reuter, Santa Monica
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24e4aacd07b3427d5b0e26730214aad3
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-15/has-william-barr-gone-full-maga
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Has William Barr gone full MAGA?
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Has William Barr gone full MAGA?
Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.
A long, long time ago, just after Democrats had been swept into power in the House and none of us realized just how much we’d miss the recently fired Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the L.A. Times Editorial Board urged the Senate to “confirm William Barr, even though it requires a leap of faith.” That leap of faith was on the question of whether Barr would protect Justice Department special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and make the contents of his report public.
If only anyone knew how long of a jump we’d need.
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Since then, the attorney general has misled the public about the conclusions of the Mueller report before releasing most of its contents, alleged that the Trump campaign was the target of “spying,” appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and most recently undermined his own prosecutors who recommended a seven- to nine-year prison sentence for former Trump advisor Roger Stone. Here’s what the editorial board says now about the attorney general it reluctantly supported for confirmation two years ago:
“The Justice Department said officials made the decision to change the sentencing recommendation before Trump’s tweet, and Trump himself said Tuesday that ‘I have not been involved in it at all.’ But skepticism is understandable, given Trump’s demonstrated disrespect for the impartial administration of justice and his past actions, including his documented efforts to impede the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
“That is why the Justice Department’s inspector general must investigate this episode and why Atty. Gen. William Barr needs to be open about the chain of events when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee next month.
“On Wednesday, Trump congratulated Barr ‘for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought.’ The burden is on Barr to prove that the Justice Department wasn’t doing the president’s bidding.”
The Justice Department’s independence has been massacred. Columnist Virginia Heffernan was much more unsparing in her criticism than the editorial board, saying that this episode “confirmed Barr as nothing but a butler to the squalling Trump, adding to his cover-up of the true contents of the Mueller report, which, guess what, did not exonerate the president.” Readers have been similarly strident in response to the latest Trump administration scandal.
That feeling when a week-old editorial seems like it was written a year ago: Days after Trump was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial, the editorial board lamented the hyper-partisanship that took root long before this president took office. Since then, it’s safe to say that concerns over worsening tribalism in politics have given way to fears of outright corruption of the Justice Department after impeachment. L.A. Times
It’s easy to forget there’s a presidential campaign going on — several of them, to be more accurate. Sen. Bernie Sanders may be heading into South Carolina and Nevada atop the crowded Democratic field with two victories (or near-victories, depending on how you tally the results in Iowa), but editorial writer Scott Martelle points out an important caveat: The “moderates” in the Democratic primary together received a much larger share of votes in New Hampshire than the self-identified democratic socialist. L.A. Times
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What’s the best medicine for heart disease? Being rich. Common killers like Alzheimer’s and many forms of cancer still lack effective treatments; not so with heart disease, but medications that fight high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes aren’t reaching people who live in certain ZIP codes or below certain income levels. “Not only must clinicians advocate for patients at their bedsides; they need to put pressure on elected officials to expand access to healthcare,” writes cardiologist Haider Warraich. “A healthy heart should be a right, not a privilege.” L.A. Times
Liberals, stop mocking Trump — it emboldens him, makes his supporters feel attacked and reduces your effectiveness at fighting his policies, writes Barry Glassner. He proposes a different line of attack: “Instead of an unflattering photo of the president, use a clip of his son Eric proclaiming in an interview last fall that ‘the government saves a fortune’ when his father stays at one of his own properties. ‘We charge them, like 50 bucks,’ he said. Juxtapose that with a headline from the Washington Post last week: ‘Secret Service has paid rates as high as $650 a night for rooms at Trump’s properties.’” L.A. Times
Stay in touch.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re the kind of reader who’d benefit from subscribing to our other newsletters and to the Times.As always, you can share your feedback by emailing me at [email protected].
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486d8c9b58257ac5e8f5449f6ff69a74
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-05/morson-schapiro-rival-hatred-politics-trump-meteor-survey
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Op-Ed: You might hate other people’s politics, but being too extreme imperils us all
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Op-Ed: You might hate other people’s politics, but being too extreme imperils us all
In the mid-1990s one of us had a friend who was a fanatically proud graduate of Auburn University. His man cave was a shrine to the school’s football team — Tigers everywhere. But one day he admitted something disturbing: As much as he loved watching his Tigers win, he took even greater satisfaction watching the Alabama Crimson Tide lose. The hatred he had for his rival was more powerful than the love he had for his alma mater.
Welcome to the world of American politics in the year 2020, where voters have taken rival-hatred even further than football fans.
Consider this: A poll of likely New Hampshire Democratic voters taken on the eve of their primary found that 95% disapproved of the job President Trump has been doing. Not at all shocking. But when asked which of the following outcomes they would prefer on election day this November, “Donald Trump wins reelection,” or “a giant meteor strikes the Earth, extinguishing all human life,” 62% picked the meteor.
Seeing a favored candidate lose a presidential election is something Americans have experienced since the country was founded. It’s unpleasant. It might even feel like the end of the world, but you make the best of it for four years. To actually prefer the end of the world to four more years of Trump is mind-boggling. We hope, of course, that respondents were exaggerating, but these days, who knows for sure?
Here’s what’s so dangerous about that kind of thinking: Preferring Armageddon to having the opposition in control of government means you regard the other side as the embodiment of pure evil. Once that happens, there is a tendency for things to get more and more extreme, as happened in both the French and Russian revolutions.
And the logic of hatred does not stop. As soon as one side has won, the victors begin examining their own ranks for factions to punish. Lest we forget, Robespierre, one of the French Revolution’s leaders, was later sent to the guillotine by those he fought alongside, and Stalin’s secret police chiefs also met gruesome deaths.
Reading of such events, one might experience the grim satisfaction at just deserts. But surely it would be better if politics as hatred had not been practiced at all.
Even if the people who said they’d prefer a meteor strike didn’t really mean it, it is still scary that they were willing to say it. Once we demonize our opponents, it’s easier to sign on to extreme positions we don’t really believe. And that brings us another step closer to democratic collapse.
It does not take a majority of people to believe in mass cruelty or harsh punishment to make it happen. We have witnessed that horrible tale all too often. It takes only a dynamic in which the other side is considered unequivocally evil, where people belonging to one faction feel that they are not just a group of fallible human beings but are part of a congregation of the blessed, fighting demonic forces. History suggests that once “the slide” begins, everything accelerates. Positions that are inconceivable one year become fringe the next, and then mainstream soon after.
This is what we call political fundamentalism. As in the apocalypse, all the good are on one side, and all the evil on the other. There is no middle ground, and there can therefore be no compromise.
In a world governed by such beliefs, the only valid election would be one that the “right” side was guaranteed to win. The Soviets, of course, perfected that approach, staging “elections” wherein people were offered a “choice” of only one candidate.
The 20th century philosopher Eric Hoffer would not have been surprised by much in our current situation. True believers may not believe in a god, he said, but they must believe in a devil. And it is hatred for this devil, not love or respect for what is good, that unifies them.
Still, Hoffer noted that on occasion great leaders emerge who “harness man’s hungers and fears to weld a following and make it zealous unto death in service of a holy cause; but unlike a Hitler, a Stalin, or even a Luther and a Calvin, they are not tempted to use the slime of frustrated souls as mortar in the building of a new world ... they know that no one can be honorable unless he honors mankind.”
Honoring mankind! Finding and speaking to what is good in all of us. What a novel idea, one that we need desperately to rediscover today, before the political meteor strikes.
Gary Saul Morson is a professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Northwestern University. Morton Schapiro is university president and a professor of economics. They are the authors of “Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can learn From the Humanities.”
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a343c240d17c72602378a450945300a1
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-09/englander-indictment-corruption
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Opinion: Corruption, escorts and dirty cash at L.A. City Hall? You don’t say
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Opinion: Corruption, escorts and dirty cash at L.A. City Hall? You don’t say
For anyone who’s been following the ongoing corruption investigation at L.A. City Hall, including the flurry of FBI raids in recent months, take a look at your indictment bingo card to see if you have former Councilman Mitch Englander.
The former North San Fernando Valley councilman is the first — and so far, only — politician to face charges in the wide-ranging corruption probe.
For the record:
7:58 AM, Mar. 11, 2020An earlier version of this article said Englander went to Las Vegas with two of his council office aides. He went with one council aide and a city staffer, both of whom were unnamed in the indictment.
Englander was arrested Monday on charges that he obstructed an investigation. The investigation was into whether he had accepted cash, female escort services, hotel rooms and expensive meals from a businessman during trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs. Englander allegedly lied to the FBI about his conduct, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
For months now, we’ve been waiting for something, anything to come out of the lengthy federal investigation that’s hung over City Hall. It started in Nov. 2018 when FBI agents raided the offices and home of Councilman Jose Huizar, who was chairman of the council committee that makes key decisions on some of the most important real estate policies and development projects.
Then reporters dug up a search warrant that suggested the Huizar raid was just the tip of the iceberg, and that the feds were actually conducting a broader investigation into an array of potential crimes, including money laundering, bribery and extortion. The warrant was a who’s who of City Hall power brokers, naming Huizar, Councilman Curren Price, an aide to Councilman Herb Wesson, one of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s appointees and his former deputy mayor for economic development.
Then the FBI came back a few months later in July 2019, this time raiding the Department of Water and Power and the offices of City Atty. Mike Feuer. This investigation appeared to be targeting questionable contracts and the city’s settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed after the disastrous rollout of the new customer bill system in 2013.
Now comes Englander’s indictment, which was a surprise because he wasn’t named in the previous warrants. But it might explain why Englander abruptly resigned from the City Council in late 2018, two years before the end of his term, ostensibly to become a lobbyist for a well-connected sports and entertainment firm. By that time, Englander was well aware that the FBI was looking into his behavior, according to the indictment.
The charges unveiled Monday stem from a June 2017 trip to a Las Vegas resort and casino. Englander went with an unnamed businessman, along with a council aide, a city staffer, a lobbyist and a real estate developer, according to the indictment. (One of those aides was John Lee, a senior staffer to Englander who subsequently was elected to the council himself.)
The businessman allegedly got them all hotel rooms and treated the group to dinner and drinks — including approximately $24,000 in alcohol at a nightclub, investigators found. The businessman also told Englander he was ordering female escorts for the group, and paid the women $300 to $400 in cash for their services, the indictment states.
And, while at the resort, Englander took an envelope containing $10,000 in cash from the businessman in a bathroom, according to the indictment.
Needless to say, Englander did not report any of these gifts on his annual financial disclosure forms.
The FBI reached out to Englander within a few months of his trip. Unbeknownst to the councilman, his businessman benefactor had begun cooperating with the FBI and apparently provided evidence of how Englander allegedly lied and tried to cover his tracks.
Englander faces seven counts — three of witness tampering, three for allegedly making false statements and a single count of scheming to falsify facts. He could face a maximum of 50 years in federal prison.
Is Englander the first domino to go down in a larger corruption probe? Will the indictment affect Lee, who was with Englander in Vegas but said he was unaware of illegal activities and has cooperated fully with the FBI? It’s impossible to say. But the Englander indictment only adds to the longstanding view that L.A. City Hall is tainted by cozy relationships and pay-to-play politics.
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89f7e5766f97d341149951d8682a3ce2
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-11/englander-indictment-corruption-los-angeles
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Editorial: Mitch Englander’s arrest should be a warning to L.A. City Hall: Time to clean up
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Editorial: Mitch Englander’s arrest should be a warning to L.A. City Hall: Time to clean up
Los Angeles City Hall observers have been waiting more than a year to learn what, if anything, would come out of the ongoing federal corruption investigation into city officials and real estate developers.
On Monday, the feds issued their first indictment and it’s a doozy. The case only adds to the longstanding perception that L.A. City Hall is tainted by cozy relationships and pay-to-play politics.
Former Councilman Mitch Englander, who resigned at the end of 2018, was charged with obstructing an investigation into his activities, which the Justice Department alleges included accepting cash, female escort services, hotel rooms and expensive meals from a businessman during trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs. After FBI agents began asking questions, prosecutors claim, Englander lied and schemed to cover up his misdeeds.
The indictment reads like a seedy novel. The tale it tells starts with a lavish trip to Las Vegas in June 2017, courtesy of a businessman involved in major development projects who wanted to increase his business in the city.
According to the indictment, Englander traveled to Vegas with the businessman, a top aide, another city staffer, a lobbyist and a real estate developer. Councilman John Lee — who was Englander’s chief of staff at the time of the Vegas trip and was elected to the seat last year — has acknowledged he was on the trip, but said he wasn’t aware of anything illegal and has cooperated with investigators.
Here is what prosecutors allege happened in Vegas:
At the hotel, Englander, Lee and the others were treated like VIPs. They were wined and dined. Englander was given $1,000 in casino chips to gamble with. In the casino bathroom, Englander took an envelope containing $10,000 in cash from the businessman. The businessman also bought $24,000 worth of alcoholic beverages for the group at a nightclub; the developer spent $10,000 more. After they returned to the hotel, the businessman told Englander he was ordering female escorts for the group, whom he paid $300 to $400 in cash for their services.
Almost two weeks later, prosecutors allege, Englander met up with the businessman again — this time at a golf tournament in Palm Springs — and took an envelope containing $5,000. Later that month, according to the indictment, Englander arranged for the businessman to pitch his services to a different developer who was a friend of the councilman’s.
Needless to say, Englander did not report the cash or freebies prosecutors accuse him of accepting on his annual financial disclosure forms.
Federal authorities reached out to Englander within a few months of his trips. Later, prosecutors allege, Englander repeatedly contacted the businessman, including meeting with him in the councilman’s car, and instructed him how to lie to the feds; unbeknownst to the councilman, the businessman had already begun cooperating with agents.
Envelopes of cash exchanged in bathrooms. Hookers in Vegas. Conspiratorial meetings in cars. These allegations are sleazy, and they may be just the first chapter.
FBI agents raided the offices and home of Councilman Jose Huizar in Nov. 2018. A search warrant suggested the raid was part of a broader investigation into an array of potential crimes, including money laundering, bribery and extortion. The warrant named a who’s who of City Hall power brokers, including Huizar, Councilman Curren Price, an aide to Councilman Herb Wesson, one of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s appointees and his former deputy mayor for economic development.
None of those figures have been accused of crimes, but federal officials described the Englander indictment as part of “an ongoing public corruption investigation.” City Hall should be worried.
Generations of Los Angeles leaders have fostered a corrupt political culture in the city, centered on real estate development. It’s well-known that the mayor and individual council members wield tremendous influence over development decisions, so developers and business interests spend heavily to curry favor with those in power. Is it any coincidence that the three council members whose names have been cited in the investigation — Englander, Huizar and Price — all served on the City Council’s Planning and Land-Use Committee? This committee calls the shots on the city’s most important real estate policies and development projects.
Over the years, in response to various pay-to-play scandals, L.A. elected officials have dabbled in ethics reforms. They often say they want to eliminate the appearance of corruption. They never concede that there might be actual corruption in their midst, or that their extraordinary influence over development decisions can breed corruption. Los Angeles has to fundamentally change how real estate developments are approved and land-use decisions are made. The city needs clear rules for officials and developers, and it needs modern land-use plans that allow developers to build housing and commercial projects to meet the city’s need for homes and jobs — without having to buy their way into the council’s good graces.
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8b21953ca0cfb461b9c5dbae804b4de9
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-11/panic-covid-19-worse-for-everyone
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Editorial: Panicking might work in zombie films, but it’s making coronavirus worse for everyone
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Editorial: Panicking might work in zombie films, but it’s making coronavirus worse for everyone
With the coronavirus spreading throughout the U.S., Americans are reacting in a variety of ways. Some of them are smart, others … not so much.
Staying away from big crowds, stocking up on prescription medication and food in case of in-home isolation and washing hands frequently are all wise in the face of a pandemic that is spread through virus-laden droplets sneezed or coughed by sick people.
On the other hand, hoarding enormous quantities of toilet paper, crates of bottled water or five-year supplies of hand sanitizer as if the end is nigh is irrational and unhelpful to your fellow citizens. For one thing, public health experts say the best way to clean germy hands is to wash them with soap and water. It could also be counterproductive to deny hand sanitizer to others, who could use it to avoid spreading the infection to you. And even though the virus isn’t going away tomorrow, medicine to treat coronavirus infections is expected in the coming months. A vaccine could be ready sometime next year.
And then there are simply idiotic and selfish reactions, such as stealing stocks of medical facemasks from hospitals and research facilities, as has been reported in the United States. The nation already has a woefully inadequate supply of facemasks, and taking protective gear away from those who work with sick people endangers everyone.
Panicking in the face of pandemic might make sense in a fictional zombie apocalypse, where 100% of those infected turn into flesh-eating monsters, but this kind of selfish and irrational behavior could very well make the coronavirus outbreak worse for everyone else.
Of course, people should be concerned and take extraordinary-but-rational precautions to avoid coming down with COVID-19 — for themselves, but also for others in the community who are at higher risk for serious illness or death, such as elderly people and those with underlying health conditions. And it’s true that health officials have good reasons to be more alarmed by the new virus than the seasonal influenza, despite the fact that the former is responsible for far fewer deaths this year than the latter. But the reality is that the vast majority of people who get infected will have moderate, mild or even no symptoms. There’s simply no good reason for the masses to freak out.
As testing ramps up after a troubling delay, the number of confirmed cases will most likely rise quickly. Same with the global death toll. As this happens, people need to hold their panic level in check.
This means:
Not demanding diagnostic tests from health care providers if you are well and have had no known contact with a sick person. The U.S. has a shortage of testing kits, and priority should be given to those showing signs of illness or with documented exposure, not to nervous germaphobes.
Not buying into “miracle cures,” such the drinkable silver concoction that televangelist Jim Bakker has been hawking on his show that he claims can cure people of a COVID-19 infection in 12 hours. It can’t; in fact, no cure has been found. There’s got to be a special place in hell for those who are profiteering from this outbreak.
Being skeptical of home remedies shared by friends that supposedly offer protections from infection, such as a shaving off facial hair (a myth that stemmed from respiratory safety poster for health providers from 2017) or avoiding ice cream and other cold food.
Showing compassion, rather than distrust and disdain, for those who are infected or are self-quarantining to protect the rest of us.
And having patience with state and local government officials who are grappling with difficult decisions and trying to walk the line between complacency and overreaction to protect the community. Does it make sense for an entire county to quarantine, as Italy has done? We will only know in hindsight.
With the stock market seesawing and our usual work or school routines disrupted, it may feel a bit like the end of the world as we know it. It’s not, and we should act accordingly. Be careful, be responsible, but don’t give in to pandemic panic.
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868423d977122b1650b6464d7b155050
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-12/university-admissions-recruitment-out-of-state-students-affluent-white
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Op-Ed: State universities say they want diversity but recruit well-off, white, out-of-state students
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Op-Ed: State universities say they want diversity but recruit well-off, white, out-of-state students
In 1996, I was a junior at Newton North High School in Newton, Mass., a wealthy Boston suburb. I was a lackluster B student who often lobbied to take lower-track classes to avoid the work. I had few extracurricular activities and did just OK on the SAT. So I was surprised to start receiving stacks of glossy college brochures. What did these schools see in me?
It took me 20 years to learn the answer: American higher education gives second chances to rich kids.
In college I became a serious student and now I’m an assistant professor of higher education. I study “enrollment management,” industry speak for how universities attract desirable students. The consultants I talk to — hired by universities to identify prospects — often mention “slugs.” That’s the derisive term for barely admissible prospects from “full-pay” households with incomes north of $200,000.
“They want us to find more slugs,” the consultants say. That’s what colleges saw in me as a high school student.
Last week, I published a report, with UCLA data scientist Crystal Han and in conjunction with the think tank Third Way, about the recruiting practices of public research universities. We based our analysis on a research project I started with Karina Salazar, who was my doctoral student when I was an assistant professor at the University of Arizona. Karina’s experience of college access differed from mine. She gave me permission to tell her story.
In 2007, Karina graduated third in her class at Sunnyside High School, in a low-income, predominantly Mexican and Mexican American community in Tucson, six miles from the UA campus. She had a GPA above 4.0, took every AP course offered and did well on the SAT. But she never received glossy college brochures, and no admissions officers visited Sunnyside — only military recruiters and the local community college. Despite the lack of guideposts, she found her way to the University of Arizona, but most of her college-going classmates attended a nearby community college, a decision that every major study shows reduces students’ chances of ever obtaining a bachelor’s degree.
The dominant explanations about inequality in college access generally blame students and K-12 schools for not being college-worthy — the infamous “achievement gap” — or they cite “undermatching,” the theory that high-achieving, low-income students fail to apply to good colleges because they get bad advice about what’s available to them. In turn, policy solutions focus on “fixing” students and high schools.
What if, Karina and I wondered, public university enrollment priorities are actually biased against poor communities and communities of color? If so, improved achievement and counseling would be unlikely to fix inequality in college access, or to achieve what the colleges claim to want — a racially and socioeconomically diverse student body. We decided to examine university recruiting, based on the idea that knowing which students are targeted would be a credible indicator of enrollment priorities.
The Third Way report concentrates on one aspect of recruitment: visits by admissions officers to high schools, college fairs and other prospective student meet-and-greets. Twelve of the 15 public research universities in our study made more out-of-state than in-state visits. Seven made more than twice as many out-of-state visits. And the emphasis on out-of-state recruiting was on affluent public and private schools, and on predominantly white schools.
The in-state visits tracked in the report also emphasized relatively affluent communities, but to a much lesser degree than out-of-state visits. Further, in-state visits did not show that same strong evidence of racial bias that out-of-state visits showed. That is, the racial breakdown of the in-state schools visited by recruiters was similar to the schools they ignored.
(Two University of California campuses, Irvine and Berkeley, were in the sample. They were among the three schools that made more in-state recruitment visits than out of state, which comports with a cap the UC system was forced to put in place on out-of-state admits in 2017. )
Overall, the recruitment data underscore a fundamentally broken system for funding higher education, as well as ongoing racial biases.
First, funding: The decline in state support for public universities is well documented. The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity recently calculated a 50% decrease in such support since 1981, and earlier research I conducted shows that in response, universities dramatically increased out-of-state enrollment.
The Third Way findings, in turn, show that out-of-state students — both slugs and achievers — aren’t showing up at these schools out of the blue. Universities are devoting substantial resources to recruiting them. And such recruitment was strongest at the schools with the least state support (for example, the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Alabama). The reasons seem clear: Nonresident tuition is often two to three times higher than resident tuition at public universities.
The bias toward recruiting at white high schools is harder to explain. Nevertheless, the data are clear: Out-of-state recruitment is concentrated at white affluent schools rather than nonwhite affluent schools.
Although out-of-state recruitment isn’t only about slugs, it also isn’t primarily about merit. When schools scour the nation for kids who can pay the full nonresident tuition, slugs (like me) look good. When they ignore high-achieving, poor students and students of color in their own backyards, they systematically funnel too many to community colleges rather than university.
Karina’s story has a happy ending. She is now an assistant professor of education at the University of Arizona. In July 2019, Karina defended her dissertation, based on our research project, at Sunnyside High School, with school district administrators and UA leadership and faculty in attendance. It helped galvanize local change that many others had been demanding. The president of the university made increasing enrollment from Sunnyside School District a priority, including hiring a counselor dedicated to local admissions. That September, UA recruiters made a surprise visit to Sunnyside, where 135 seniors received acceptance letters.
I’m happy the University of Arizona is finally looking for talented students on Tucson’s south side. But many public universities continue to ignore schools like Sunnyside. They are too busy looking for B students in wealthy Boston suburbs.
This is the real admissions scandal in American higher education.
Ozan Jaquette is an assistant professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. The data on university recruitment he developed with Karina Salazar is available online.
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f30eb47fdab5bfe0d9f01f22e02717c5
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-13/coronavirus-lausd-school-closures
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Editorial: Closing LAUSD schools in the face of coronavirus sounds like a reasonable decision. Is it?
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Editorial: Closing LAUSD schools in the face of coronavirus sounds like a reasonable decision. Is it?
The Los Angeles Unified school board appears to have made the popular decision by closing all of its schools indefinitely. But there’s no getting away from the enormous disruption this fraught decision will cause to children, families and even for public health.
The board is following the lead of Ohio, Maryland and an increasing number of states and school districts that are shuttering public schools for at least a couple of weeks. On its face, it makes sense: If people are supposed to stay away from groups and maintain social distancing to avoid catching and spreading the novel coronavirus, it seems strange to place children in close proximity for most of their waking hours.
Yet the decision to close schools isn’t as simple as it seems, especially for big urban school districts such as L.A. Unified, the second largest in the nation. About 80% of its 700,000 students live in poverty and rely on subsidized school lunches and other services they receive at school. Their parents are more likely to work in jobs that don’t allow them to telecommute or miss shifts, meaning that they can’t stay home to watch their kids; many won’t be able to afford day care. They certainly can’t afford to go without work for an extended period.
California
Coronavirus closes schools: What do parents need to know?
California
Coronavirus closes schools: What do parents need to know?
Here’s a parents’ guide to school closures because of the coronavirus. What to do?
To its credit, the district already has planned the distribution of box lunches for students in need, and it will be offering some educational services online, through its TV channel and through an innovative partnership with PBS. The last two are particularly important because a fourth of the district’s students lack access to broadband.
Of course, public health takes priority over difficult family situations. But it’s also unclear whether the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will spread more slowly with schools closed. By attending school, students were spending much of their time in a place that was being sanitized regularly in the wake of the outbreak. At school, they were continually prompted to wash their hands. They were not gathering in large groups, defined so far as 50 or more. These all helped prevent spread of the disease.
There have been no cases of the novel coronavirus detected so far among L.A. Unified students, staff or their families; the district checked with county health officials at 5 a.m. each day to determine that. The disease generally appears to spare children while threatening the elderly. The real health concern involving schools is less about students falling ill than about how best to prevent them from picking up the virus and spreading it rapidly through the larger community.
Advocates of school closures argue that schoolchildren are much less likely to encounter the coronavirus if they don’t spend their days clustered in groups — the same reason why many of their parents are working from home. But it’s not a given that students or the public will be safer with the schools closed. Some children might need to stay with extended family such as grandparents; elderly people face the highest mortality risk from the virus. And parents might take their children to public places where both are more likely to be exposed.
The district is opening 40 centers to provide childcare in the safest possible environment for parents who cannot find alternatives. Priority should be given to children of healthcare workers and first responders; the region can’t afford to lose their vital skills in the fight against COVID-19.
Of course, there’s a financial aspect to all this was well. The state generally pays districts a certain amount per student who shows up each day. No students, no money. Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t told districts how the state would handle all these absences. L.A. Unified has committed to continuing to pay its teachers and other staff. In addition, schools have the annual standardized tests coming up this spring, and test scores would sink if school time is lost.
Here’s where the state should be taking more of a leadership role. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Friday calling for schools to continue to be funded if they close during the outbreak, which is a good start. But the order offered no help for schools that remain open. In those districts that continue operating, the state should not penalize schools for low attendance; parents are understandably nervous, and if they feel the need to keep their children out of school, that decision should be respected. The state should also examine ways to subsidize child care and provide increased services to low-income families.
And all states should be demanding a suspension of federally mandated standardized testing of students this year. The last thing families or school officials should be worried about this spring is which way the test scores are heading.
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f2c9b423e7d301846533d4f8f15504f4
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-14/city-councilman-john-lee-englander-resign
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City Councilman John Lee, the indicted Englander’s ex-aide, should resign
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City Councilman John Lee, the indicted Englander’s ex-aide, should resign
To the editor: In your editorial on the federal corruption indictment of former Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander, you note that City Councilman John Lee, Englander’s former chief of staff, “said he wasn’t aware of anything illegal” occurring during their trip to Las Vegas with a businessman, a lobbyist and a developer.
Let’s give Lee the benefit of the doubt and conclude that the then-chief of staff (who is supposed to know and plan every step that his boss undertakes) wasn’t aware of the envelope with money that the developer allegedly left in a bathroom for Englander.
But did the word “illegal” not occur to him when neither he nor Englander had to pay for the luxurious resort where they stayed? Did he not think of that when someone else paid thousands of dollars for drinks in the nightclub or for the escorts who allegedly entertained the men?
Several days ago when I voted, I didn’t know about this trip or the investigation, and Lee did. He should do the right thing and resign.
Nestor M. Fantini, Northridge
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To the editor: The editorial on Englander’s indictment is unbelievably damning to Lee. I would hope this helps the election of Loraine Lundquist to Englander’s former seat, should that race go to a runoff.
Lundquist is a dedicated environmentalist of good temperament and ethics. My work with her on the Citizens’ Climate Lobby tells me she is the sort of person we want on the City Council.
Robin Doyno, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Once again that old adage is proving true: We have the best politicians money can (allegedly) buy.
Steve Leffert, Lake Balboa
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f2ea9d654257a967924c984fe02980c1
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-16/editorial-its-time-for-action-on-coronavirus-mr-president-not-prayers
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Editorial: Trump finally shows some leadership in the coronavirus fight. Let’s hope it lasts
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Editorial: Trump finally shows some leadership in the coronavirus fight. Let’s hope it lasts
As Californians awoke Monday morning to a cascade of new state and local restrictions on public gatherings, and to very bad news from Wall Street, President Trump lamely tweeted “God Bless the USA!” Just two days earlier, he had similarly declared a “National Day of Prayer for All Americans Affected by the Coronavirus Pandemic.”
Prayers and blessings are all well and good, but much more than that is obviously necessary. Now, after weeks of dithering, the president finally seems to have gotten the message that Americans are desperate for more than empty assurances that everyone will be fine and that we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about it.
On Monday afternoon Trump’s coronavirus task force seemed to wake from its lethargy, releasing a set of guidelines aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 infections. They recommended the temporary closing of businesses and social distancing in areas with documented community transmission; all other Americans were urged to avoid eating out, traveling and congregating in groups of more than 10 people.
Trump’s recommendations bore a strong resemblance in many ways to those announced by California Gov. Gavin Newsom the day before. On Sunday afternoon, Newsom called on bars and nightclubs to close immediately and asked restaurants to exercise “extreme social distancing.” He also said that the state’s 5.3 million people 65 years and older or with chronic conditions should remain in “home isolation” for the immediate future.
We’re grateful to Newsom and state governors in Illinois, Ohio and New York who stepped into the leadership vacuum when it was necessary, and we’re grateful that they appear to have pulled the federal government along behind them. Cases in California and nationwide are surging. On Monday alone, Los Angeles County saw its confirmed cases jump from 69 to 94.
Epidemiological modeling predicts that the U.S. is on a course to reach the level of COVID-19 infections currently seen in Italy soon unless we undertake rapid and robust interventions. There’s a real risk that more people will need treatment than our healthcare system can handle, raising the likely death toll.
Neither Newsom nor Trump has mandated closures or ordered people to stay at home; they’ve stuck to recommendations thus far. We’re not saying this is a bad strategy to start out with. But it may not do the trick. It’s not reassuring that the White House is focusing just on places with documented COVID-19 cases. The scary truth is that just because there aren’t any confirmed cases in some places doesn’t mean that the infection isn’t already spreading. The incubation period for COVID-19 can be as long as two weeks. Meanwhile, a series of missteps and missed opportunities has left the nation woefully behind in testing for infection and tracking contacts, which has almost certainly allowed the virus to spread undetected. So far, fewer than 28,000 people in the U.S. have been tested for the coronavirus.
Even now, several weeks into this crisis, too many people seem blithely unconcerned about the danger posed by a virus that has killed thousands of people globally and is still spreading at a frightening pace. This is in part due to the mixed messages that have come from the president and his allies in recent weeks. California Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) told viewers on Fox News on Sunday that it was a “great time to go out” and that they should “go to your local pub.” That’s shockingly irresponsible advice.
To their credit, other local government leaders have shown appropriate concern. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Sunday night ordered bars and nightclubs, gyms, bowling alleys and other entertainment venues to temporarily shut down and restaurants to limit service to takeout, delivery and drive-through patrons. On Monday Los Angeles County announced similar actions for the other 87 cities in the county. Meanwhile, authorities in six counties in the Bay Area have gone even farther, ordering their collective 6.7 million residents to stay at home until April 7, except to get groceries, supplies or medical treatment. This is an extreme measure, to be sure, but that region has logged the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the state. On Monday afternoon, Newsom called on the state Legislature to allocate as much as $1 billion to fight coronavirus.
Will stronger measures become necessary in the hours and days to come? Will some things that are currently being recommended soon be mandated? We suspect they will, but we don’t know. Either way, it seems obvious that transparency and honesty from government officials about the facts and criteria on which they are basing their decisions will make it easier for people to understand the situation and accept the enormous changes in behavior that are expected of them.
There are hard times ahead for Americans. Many stores and schools are already closed; jobs are threatened. Around the world, borders are closing, flights are being canceled, deaths are mounting. On Monday, the stock market plunged again, down 30% from its peak last month.
We hope the steps taken this week will protect against complete shutdowns later. But whatever comes, the president needs to have the courage and foresight to respond with more than just a hope and a prayer.
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fa4003b7ebeba581bda829d5884a989f
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-17/op-ed-as-a-doctor-i-use-telemedicine-with-the-coronavirus-threat-it-could-revolutionize-healthcare
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Op-Ed: As a doctor, I use telemedicine. With the coronavirus threat, it could revolutionize healthcare
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Op-Ed: As a doctor, I use telemedicine. With the coronavirus threat, it could revolutionize healthcare
As a physician, waiting for the worst of coronavirus to hit, I see a lot to fear. It seems increasingly likely that this will be one of the most significant pandemics in modern human history, and that it will change our approach to healthcare going forward. But not all of its legacy will be negative. Here’s one thing I hope will come out of the crisis: an increased reliance on telemedicine, something that should have happened long ago.
A few months ago, when I was between jobs, I took a part-time job in a rural hospital serving a county of more than 150,000 people. On the verge of bankruptcy, the hospital was unable to attract many specialists to join its ranks, and in desperation, had turned to telemedicine to cover many services. So, for example, if a patient was rushed to the emergency room after a stroke, there was unlikely to be a neurologist in the room. Instead, a neurologist would assess the patient on a mobile screen from far away, with local nursing staff and doctors aiding him or her.
I had been skeptical of telemedicine going in. Physical exams are the bedrock of how doctors and nurses assess patients. We look patients and their loved ones in the eye, palpate sore spots with our fingers and offer comfort with a hand on a shoulder. Physical contact, I’d always thought, was at the heart of how doctors and patients communicate.
It was with this skepticism that I found myself next to a young man who been brought to the emergency room after attempting to take his own life. Again. This time, instead of seeing a psychiatrist in person, he saw one on a screen with wheels. The psychiatrist was in some distant location, but she had been in touch with the local doctors and had access to his medical records. Despite her physical remoteness, she connected with him, and he opened up. She knew of all the local resources to refer him to, and at the end of her conversation, she had developed a real rapport with him. After the visit ended and the nurse wheeled the monitor out of the room, I asked the young man what he thought, and to my surprise, he told me he was more comfortable with this than an in-person visit. He wasn’t the only one — many patients say they prefer a virtual doc to one sitting across from them.
Over the past few decades, medical care has been transformed by technology. Whenever a new drug becomes available, or a medical procedure is approved by the FDA, the medical community is quick to deploy it. Yet, when it comes to how we see patients, our current practices haven’t changed much since the time of Hippocrates. If a patient is sick they either have to come see us in clinic, urgent care, the emergency room or the hospital. Despite the internet transforming every aspect of our lives, from how we find love to how we order groceries, the way we deliver medical care has stagnated.
In the United States, not only are doctors often inaccessible for those living in rural areas, hospitals everywhere have huge economic challenges. One healthcare executive jokingly told me his hospital made more money from its parking lots than its clinics.
The response to COVID-19 might help change that. One of the main reasons China has been able to slow coronavirus transmission has been because of a dramatic increase in virtual visits. In fact, China has moved half of all medical care online, allowing patients to consult with their doctors and get prescriptions from the comfort of their homes. Hospitals have been notorious petri dishes for deadly bugs since long before COVID-19, and this pandemic has brought that risk into crystal-clear focus. On Tuesday, Medicare announced that it will greatly expand coverage for telemedicine visits, previously sharply restricted. And at a White House briefing, the government announced it was urging states to similarly expand Medicaid coverage to include telemedicine visits by Skype, Facetime or other platforms. Some insurers have also said they will cover telehealth visits at parity with in-person visits.
These measures are commendable, but policies need to be put in place to ensure that the expansion of telemedicine is not temporary. Of course, in-person visits will still be necessary in many cases. But supporting telemedicine on a par with such visits has the potential to protect patients and healthcare personnel and allow for much more efficiency in the system. That said, physicians and nurses will need high-quality training to provide compassionate and thorough care to a patient from across a computer screen. Technology that allows patients to be “examined” remotely needs to be better studied and made more accessible. And since the backbone of telemedicine is reliable high-speed internet, Congress should consider Elizabeth Warren’s plan to bring broadband internet to the remotest parts of this country, to ensure broad access to these services.
This week my team converted most of our clinic visits from face to face to virtual visits. Some were over the phone, others were over video, often with a family member present as well. While there were some patients that still needed to be seen in person, we were able to minimize the risk of viral transmission not only for patients, but also for valuable members of our clinical team. Even before this crisis, as part of my job at the Veterans Affairs Health System in Boston, I often consulted with patients I had never seen as part of an “E Consult” system. While I was initially nervous when I first started doing this, it allowed me to expand my footprint far beyond what I could manage if I were seeing every patient in person.
At some point, I fervently hope the coronavirus will be a thing of the past. But I hope it leaves behind a legacy. I hope it changes how well we wash our hands, how well we fund public health and how well we protect the healthcare workers caring for our sickest patients. And, most of all, I hope it pushes us to embrace telemedicine.
Haider J. Warraich is a cardiologist at VA Boston Healthcare System, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and author of “State of the Heart — Exploring the History, Science and Future of Cardiac Disease.”
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6a81f938005106921ea5e1e3a66eac7d
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-18/airline-bailouts-benefit-shareholders
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Letters to the Editor: Airline bailouts benefit shareholders. Why not bail out people?
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Letters to the Editor: Airline bailouts benefit shareholders. Why not bail out people?
To the editor: The airline industry’s trade group is calling on the federal government to provide about $58 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks. Other industries are sure to follow; they will say they need the money to preserve jobs, maintain vital infrastructure and stimulate the economy.
These are all myths intended to obscure the fact that bailouts benefit some of the richest people in America.
The first myth is that bailouts preserve jobs. Airlines will continue to cancel flights, idle planes and furlough employees as long as demand for their services continues to fall. Bailout money will go to the bottom line.
The second myth is that bailouts protect infrastructure. Our air transportation infrastructure is endangered neither by the coronavirus nor airline bankruptcy, which wipes out current shareholders and allows a company to be reorganized. As travel demand recovers, the infrastructure will be put back to work. Only the shareholders benefit from a bailout.
The third myth is that bailouts stimulate the economy. Corporate bailouts will be used primarily to preserve the assets of shareholders, not to stimulate consumption spending. To stimulate the economy, bail out people, not corporations.
Michael M. Murphy, La Cañada Flintridge
The writer is a visiting professor of business and economics at Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan.
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To the editor: If the airlines want a bailout, here are the terms we taxpayers are laying out:
You have nickeled and dimed passengers for years, adding tremendously to your bottom line. Therefore, for the next five years, beginning with this bailout, you will not be allowed to charge for checked baggage, pillows or blankets.
Thank you for listening. The deadline for replying is March 20.
Bernadine Bednarz, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Up until the coronavirus crisis began, the airlines seeking a massive bailout from the federal government were together making billions of dollars in profit. Why would the government rush to bail these companies out with taxpayer money?
These airlines should first use the huge profits they’ve made to pay their idled employees during the coming months when the demand is reduced for airline travel.
Any financial support that our government decides to give these companies should be in the form of loans made with a scheduled plan for repayment and should include government oversight and supervision of how the money will be used.
Carol J. Smith, Cerritos
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c002886022321850712a137eb2a174af
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-18/pundits-predictions-election
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Letters to the Editor: Why does anyone care what pundits predict about an election?
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Letters to the Editor: Why does anyone care what pundits predict about an election?
To the editor: Jon Wiener writes that pundits’ predictions are often wrong, but he does not say why.
They get it wrong for two simple reasons. First, they live in a bubble. They look around at all the young college graduates who surround them and think that this is the world.
Second, they are blissfully untethered from real life. How many have actually run anything — a country, a city, a company or a business? How many have faced the loss of everything they’ve lived for and fought back, working 20 hours a day to do it? How many are homeless because they cannot afford rent even though they work two minimum-wage jobs and see their kids only a few times a week?
Speaking for me alone, I really appreciate fact-based journalism that provides the information for me to form an opinion. I don’t care what the pundits think.
Rett Lemoult, Laguna Niguel
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To the editor: I have a quick observation in addition to Wiener’s helpful piece on Big Data and political polling: Any poll can only provide a snapshot of a particular moment in time.
Surveying voters, consumers or any group for any purpose is a little like taking a picture of a school of fish or a flock of birds. They may be moving in one general direction, but the overall shape of the group constantly changes.
It’s possible for a poll to be dead accurate the day before an election and dead wrong the day of an election. Even in highly partisan times, a large part of the electorate remains difficult to pin down.
Craig Curtis, Altadena
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To the editor: Wiener’s article about the difficulties of political forecasting reminded me of the saying, “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Richard Jackson, Arroyo Grande
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e91c4b031c1b484307e79df183df7b13
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-19/donald-trump-coronavirus-covid-19-george-w-bush-katrina
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Column: Is COVID-19 Donald Trump’s Hurricane Katrina?
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Column: Is COVID-19 Donald Trump’s Hurricane Katrina?
When Hurricane Katrina smashed the Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, President George W. Bush was kicking back at his Texas ranch. He’d managed to ignore the news.
The evacuation of New Orleans. The mounting death toll. The desperation on rooftops, where people shrieked as the water rose.
Bush was a low-information president, but he could, with effort, metabolize bad news. When an aide finally presented a lively video montage of the tragedy, Bush headed back to Washington, staging an airborne photo op: the president looking out a window during an Air Force One flyover of the disaster area. He may have hoped to look like a shrewd general on a tactical mission. Instead, he seemed clueless and detached.
His popularity tanked. “He never recovered from Katrina,” said one of his former advisors.
President Trump, in his erratic efforts to manage the COVID-19 crisis, likewise has been squirrelly, scatterbrained and late. His approval rating, falling a bit since mid-February, bumped up a touch Wednesday, but nearly every election poll has former Vice President Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, beating him soundly in November’s presidential election.
It’s a fool’s game to call anything Trump’s Waterloo. But this virus might be his Katrina.
As we now know, had Trump posed less and strategized more, he might have helped the U.S. better contain the virus, save lives and forestall vicious damage to the global economy. But for weeks he dithered. In public, he lied, spoke in unsettling logic loops, flagrantly violated even the good-hygiene practices he advocated and lashed out at his usual phantoms for inconveniencing him with the disease.
Instead of coming up with a cohesive approach to sophisticated leadership in a plague year, Trump, along with his valets and his news agency Fox, went about devising a Trump alibi. Coronavirus, they were saying as recently as two weeks ago, was largely an invention of the media and Democrats.
Democrats think the virus will be “what brings down the president,” said Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting chief of staff. Trish Regan, of Fox Business, called the virus “yet another attempt to impeach the president.”
According to the New York Times, Trump took advice from his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who told him the media was exaggerating the threat posed by the virus, and that he ought to weather the epidemic as a personal PR crisis. (Kushner told the Saudi crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, something similar soon after it was discovered the prince ordered the barbaric dismemberment of a journalist.)
The coronavirus might be novel, in other words, but Trumpworld’s response is not.
The president has long displayed something worse than indifference when confronted with the suffering of others: contempt. He sneered at the late Sen. John McCain’s captivity in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. He called Hurricane Maria, which led to the deaths of more than 3,000 in Puerto Rico in 2017, “not a real catastrophe.” In 2018, he praised the “very fine people”— white supremacists — who marched in Charlottesville, Va., one of whom murdered activist Heather Heyer with his car.
The self-styled counterpuncher and his crew killed a lot of time, and maybe some people, windmilling around, seeking a target, broadcasting nasty tweets, spreading nonsense about how brilliant Trump is at “this stuff.”
But this week, having failed to act in the crucial early days, Trump at last seemed to face reality. He is now trying to muster resolve and clarity. Squaring his jaw, aiming for full sentences, configuring his features into “solemnity.” He is also moving on plans to showcase his newfound magnanimity with money from the U.S. Treasury.
But as with climate disasters, pandemics and markets, timing is everything. To watch the commander in chief, whatever his peacetime politics and disposition, vacillate and shadowbox when he needs to show alacrity and purpose, is radically destabilizing. If Trump’s missteps don’t cost him the short-term approval of his base, they will surely erode his reputation over the long run, just as Katrina did Bush’s.
Alternatively, should the outbreak curve flatten and the death toll come in below worst-case scenarios, Trump may try to claim he alone vanquished the pandemic. But we will no doubt be reminded of his grave and consequential failures in campaign ad after campaign ad. In the meantime, combat-tested Biden announced a cogent and thorough response to COVID-19 last week, while Trump was thrashing around.
Dan P. McAdams, in a new book, “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump,” argues that the president holds onto his base because “bad news can’t quite pierce the Trumpist bubble.” But COVID-19 has unprecedented piercing powers. Its ravages can be felt and seen. Along with stats on the ever-mounting death toll, videos of people suffering from the disease are surfacing. Patients lucky enough to get ventilators and pain medicine are nonetheless in agony. To suffocate is a terrible way to die.
Bush never recovered his popular standing after Katrina. After the straits Trump has put this country in, his reputation should permanently tank too. After all, we are all living close to the bone now. Far too many of us will, literally, never recover from the pandemic he did so little to mitigate.
@page88
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0a53a1a6401b5eae335c6d2e3721b681
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-20/covid-19-testing-lakers-unfair
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Letters to the Editor: Lakers can get tested, but a man whose wife died of COVID-19 can’t. Outrageous
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Letters to the Editor: Lakers can get tested, but a man whose wife died of COVID-19 can’t. Outrageous
To the editor: In his March 17 piece on Lakers players being quarantined and tested for COVID-19, Sports columnist Dylan Hernandez correctly stated the coronavirus itself does not discriminate.
But our democratic system clearly valuing some lives over others sure does.
I could not help but notice the Lakers gave all asymptomatic players the “opportunity to be tested” simply because they had played against a team whose members tested positive, while, according to another article, an everyman who gave his coronavirus-infected wife mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in an unsuccessful attempt to save her life was thereafter denied testing unless and until his temperature were to rise high enough.
God bless America.
Amy Lawrence, Burbank
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To the editor: This pandemic is a nightmare, and the lack of testing is only a small part of it. There simply are not enough tests available.
Roddy, the 72-year-old man whose wife died, should be treated as positive whether he was tested or not. The degree of contact almost guarantees transmission, and there are false negatives with any test.
Also, to state that “he could receive supportive care only if he tested positive” is misleading. Care of sick patients goes on regardless of whether they have COVID-19 or not. There are still heart attacks, influenza, diabetes and kidney failure.
We have not abandoned the treatment of other illnesses.
Patrick A. Mauer, M.D., Pasadena
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To the editor: The basic principles of epidemic control are identify the patients, isolate and treat them, identify their contacts, test their contacts, isolate and treat if positive, and keep going until the epidemic is contained.
Until every patient who needs COVID-19 testing can get tested, the epidemic cannot be controlled. Until accurate numbers of COVID-19 cases are reported, we won’t know if the epidemic is getting better or getting worse.
President Trump has said that he wants the number of people with this disease to be kept low. Without enough tests, the numbers will be low. The financial market numbers will be low too.
A healthcare administrator told me she set up a tent in the parking lot because her urgent care clinic in the Los Angeles area has been designated a regional testing center, but she has only 200 test kits for 60,000 patients. That’s the harsh reality.
The lack of testing is an abject failure of the federal government, plain and simple.
Daniel Fink, M.D., Beverly Hills
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To the editor: I read the sad story on your front page about the 72-year-old man who gave CPR to his wife who was dying of COVID-19, but couldn’t get tested himself because he had no symptoms.
The Lakers, in contrast, are all getting tested. It makes me wonder whether supermarkets are letting celebrities in at 2 a.m. to buy up all the toilet paper.
It also makes me wonder how many untested people are walking around with the coronavirus.
Russell Stone, Westchester
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2aaf24a521bf65368c72c38e6b87158c
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-22/buying-a-gun-oronavirus-makes-no-sense
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Letters to the Editor: Buying a gun to stay safe in the coronavirus pandemic makes no sense
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Letters to the Editor: Buying a gun to stay safe in the coronavirus pandemic makes no sense
To the editor: It is disconcerting that some Americans have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by arming up.
In these stressful and uncertain times, we have been urged to take care of one another through acts of human kindness and concern for our friends, family and those putting their lives on the line to keep us safe. Instead, some are prepping to kill.
A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide, suicide or unintentional shooting of someone in that home. A woman in a domestic violence situation is more likely to be killed if her partner has a gun. Storing the firearm safely (unloaded, locked and with the ammunition locked separately) can mitigate some of the risk.
These gun owners say they fear unrest. The irony is that they are the ones the rest of us have to be afraid of.
Loren Lieb, Northridge
The writer is board chairwoman of Woman Against Gun Violence.
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To the editor: Firearms are a leading cause of death for children and teenagers. The vast majority of these deaths occur in the home.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself when it comes to arming ourselves against a social uprising. The chances of being a victim of gun violence increase greatly if guns are present in a home.
Gun owners need to be held accountable for safely storing their weapons, especially now that children are not at school.
Fiona Carroll, Mission Viejo
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e55afb8cea731c3dbb2ee47cd11f9476
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-22/letters-to-the-editor-we-dont-need-checks-for-1-200-we-need-toilet-paper-and-hospital-beds
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Letters to the Editor: We don’t need checks for $1,200. We need toilet paper and hospital beds
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Letters to the Editor: We don’t need checks for $1,200. We need toilet paper and hospital beds
To the editor: Economist James K. Galbraith is dead-on right about a government bailout that benefits primarily corporate shareholders and gives cash mainly to employed Americans.
I am a 70-year-old man with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. I don’t want $1,200 from the government. I want toilet paper and Kleenex and a hospital bed when and if I need one.
Instead of throwing that money off the back of a campaign train, President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin should spend it on beefing up our medical infrastructure.
Bob Warnock, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Instead of a check for $1,200 to every American, why not send $2,500 to every person among the 4 in 10 that the Federal Reserve says would have trouble paying for a $400 emergency expense?
The total cost to the government would be about the same, and those who really need help would get twice as much money.
Glenn Shull, Los Angeles
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To the editor: The proposed bailouts for companies aren’t what is needed, will not be very effective and are very shortsighted. The $1 trillion that is to be spent should be directed exclusively at combating the coronavirus.
If you have a headache, you don’t go to the pharmacy and buy motor oil.
Fred Lakey, Los Angeles
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3e4c29705f0e5df02fcad8607179f299
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-23/opinion-coronavirus-elizabeth-warren-to-be-vice-president
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Opinion: The coronavirus has made it abundantly clear — the world needs Elizabeth Warren to be vice president
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Opinion: The coronavirus has made it abundantly clear — the world needs Elizabeth Warren to be vice president
Remember the good ol’ days — six months ago — when a Democratic presidential candidate with the adorable catchphrase “I have a plan for that,” was surging in the polls?
The most endearing part was that her catchphrase wasn’t just empty sloganeering. She did have plans. Big ones. Plans underpinned by a righteous moral center.
Intellectually, she was heads above the rest of the field. In less than two minutes, she obliterated half a billion dollars worth of political advertising and took down Michael Bloomberg. Imagine what she could do with four years?
And then Democratic voters decided to play pundit. Perceived electability won out over ideas, ambition and intellectual acumen. Her campaign ended in ignominious defeat, shortly after she came in third in her home state of Massachusetts.
Yes, I’m obviously talking about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass).
Cut to the present, with a coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe and economic collapse imminent. The existential threat of climate change clearly wasn’t enough to hammer this point home, but the coronavirus has made it succinctly: Politics isn’t a reality show. It’s life or death.
We don’t need to grab beers with our presidents, we need them to make sure our public health and emergency medical systems can keep millions of people alive — and that the rest of us have the resources to survive and thrive during quarantine.
Opinion
If you’re ‘essential’ enough to work through a coronavirus pandemic, you’re essential enough to be paid living wage
Opinion
If you’re ‘essential’ enough to work through a coronavirus pandemic, you’re essential enough to be paid living wage
Healthcare professionals are bravely battling coronavirus. But there are other “essential” workers in harm’s way. And they aren’t being paid fairly.
Despite ending her candidacy, Warren has offered the most prominent, thoughtful and urgent response to the coronavirus crisis of any politician in America. While Republicans, including the president, were still denying the threat of the coronavirus, Warren was already preparing plans for an inevitable economic catastrophe. And while most of her Democratic colleagues were occupied tossing political barbs, Warren was shaping policy that would eventually form the basis for the Democratic response to the virus.
Throw all other political considerations into the garbage: The world needs Warren in the executive branch, a heartbeat away from the presidency. She should be the vice presidential pick on the Democratic side.
Consider Joe Biden’s response to the virus. As news of its spread grew more dire, Biden has been largely quiet since his overwhelming win in last Tuesday’s primaries. We’ve heard little from him on policy. We’ve heard little from him in the way of offering public guidance. We’ve heard little from him in general, other than a few political attacks on Trump’s coronavirus response.
This, perhaps, shouldn’t be a surprise. Biden isn’t necesarily running as a man of action. His appeal is almost exclusively political. His pitch is that he can beat Trump. And, once he does, he intends to “return dignity to the office” of the presidency, along with experience. That’s all well and good, but the coronavirus doesn’t respond to civility.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) too, it should be mentioned, carries an almost exclusively political appeal. Yes, he has grand plans. But those plans are so sweeping as to feel less actionable and more like blunt instruments to pull the political center of the country to the left.
This is a role he’s perfectly capable of continuing as a senator.
We need leaders at the highest levels of government who have the intellectual capacity and moral backbone to protect lives during national crises — and to get us through those hard times with a plan for coming out the other side better, stronger and more prepared than we were before.
Here is where I state the obvious: Our current president doesn’t just lack the capacity to rise to this challenge, he lacks the interest even to try. His goals are exclusively political and/or self-serving.
Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, either through incompetence or an inability to exert the slightest influence on the president, is useless. Tasked with heading up the executive branch’s coronavirus response, Pence has acted like a feckless sycophant whose primary job is to massage the president’s ego, instead of protecting the nation from the most dangerous outbreak the world has faced in a century. He is executive cheerleader of the United States.
There’s a time and place for mat talk, and it is not in the middle of a global pandemic.
Yes, vice presidential picks aren’t supposed to outshine the top of the ticket. They are selected almost exclusively for their ability to provide some kind of political advantage — either by making up for the perceived shortcomings of the presidential candidate, or offering an edge in the electoral college. This is how we wound up with a human bowl of unseasoned mashed potatoes, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate.
There may be candidates out there who can provide Biden with bigger political boosts. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) could help shore up undecided voters in the Midwest. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) might reassure young voters of color that Biden won’t ignore their interests the moment it becomes politically convenient.
But there is only one candidate with the surgical competence to address the issues facing our country and the planet. The coronavirus pandemic has made it abundantly clear that Elizabeth Warren is the person who should be leading the nation. Since that’s no longer an option, we need her as close to the presidency as possible.
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c9db3cbf36a4e799a752505812a210ee
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-25/doctors-selling-covid-19-tests-to-their-rich-patients
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Letters to the Editor: Doctors selling coronavirus tests to their rich patients aren’t helping
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Letters to the Editor: Doctors selling coronavirus tests to their rich patients aren’t helping
To the editor: I am a physician practicing in Southern California. I read with increasing anger the article on Dr. Jay Gordon and other physicians in private practice selling coronavirus test kits to their affluent patients.
As I go to work in a hospital where the rationing of our personal protective equipment is a reality, and where guidelines for testing are rigid and conform with government guidelines, I find it disgusting that these high-end practices in a time of crisis are still catering to the rich and well-connected.
I would ask Gordon if “providing the best medical care possible” involves alternative vaccine schedules and testing asymptomatic people when it won’t change their medical course. If so, then he should provide his expertise to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as these are not their current recommendations.
Look at the distribution of COVID-19 patients in Southern California, and you will find they are concentrated in the wealthiest communities. This just tells me that they are getting access to tests while everybody else waits in line.
As physicians we must collectively lead as a group, setting profit and patient “wants” aside to assure that everyone gets the best care possible.
Dr. Jacqueline Pachon, Chatsworth
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To the editor: From a public health perspective, we should make coronavirus testing widely available for triage, research and treatment purposes.
Gordon has been justifiably criticized for supporting the rights of parents to refuse or delay vaccinations. But it is not as clear that helping his patients get test kits is wrong.
If the federal government has withheld approval of home tests because they are dangerous or wildly inaccurate, they should not be sold by anyone. If the approval has been held up due to limited availability, then the government is letting the public down.
Dr. Thomas Einstein, Santa Monica
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4a2eb2fd7201e862dd4a158cc4983403
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-03-28/readers-dont-disagree-on-need-for-social-distancing
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Opinion: Two letter writers are mad at Gov. Newsom, and readers are having none of it
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Opinion: Two letter writers are mad at Gov. Newsom, and readers are having none of it
It’s safe to say that the vast majority of our letter writers are on board with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “stay at home” order to slow the coronavirus’ spread. Some have sent letters expressing worry over what the restrictions mean for people’s livelihoods, but fewer still have questioned the need for much of the economy to shut down.
In fact, the high number of sharp rebuttals to two readers who on March 20 harshly criticized Newsom help illustrate how strong the consensus is among our letter writers on social distancing and the governor’s order. Here are some of those rebuttals.
Newsom’s speech was scary because it had to be, writes Mindy Taylor-Ross of Venice:
One letter writer from Pasadena said Newsom “outraged” him with too much bad information in his address to the state on March 19 announcing his stay-at-home order. The writer said that people “understand the seriousness of the situation fully,” which we do not, and are “doing all we can,” which we are not.
Doing all we can is not partying like it’s 1984 on the beach. Get real, stay home, listen to advice, and protect your loved ones and people around you.
John Reed of Hemet lashes out at people who refuse to stay at home:
“Is the governor kidding me?” So begins the diatribe from a reader in Redlands. “No one is going to order me to stay at home. ... This has gone too far.”
Well, at least he gets one thing right: “This” has gone too far. Of course, he’s talking about government intervention in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, while most of us are referring to the spread of this disease because of people like the writer who are so determined to look out solely for themselves that they don’t care about the rest of us.
The writer sounds like he would have joined the spring breakers in Florida. Let no man tell him what to do; it’s only for the sake of our world.
Richard Schmittdiel of Glendale wants more imformation:
I admire the letter writer’s dedication and work ethic. I’m also really glad he still has a job to go to.
But he would do the rest of us a favor if he’d let us know where that is and where he’ll be, so that we can protect ourselves by staying the heck away from him until this virus thing blows over.
Steve Durgin of Woodland Hills has a request:
In response to the writer who said he has a job, that job is not at home and the governor has gone too far, unless he is providing essential services, that job is on hiatus, as is mine.
Stay safer at home and help keep the rest of us safer, please. No man, infected or not, is an island.
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004a18fc0220e4ecf44e7e82eaf0578a
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-03/sba-payroll-protection-program-delay
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Opinion: Is the cavalry finally on the way to help keep small businesses alive? Kinda sorta
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Opinion: Is the cavalry finally on the way to help keep small businesses alive? Kinda sorta
Are you a small business owner or employee scared stiff about the COVID-19 pandemic putting you out of work? Or a small nonprofit or sole proprietorship? Good news — the calvary rides in today! Well, some of them. Maybe.
Amidst one of the biggest surges ever in U.S. unemployment, banks were scheduled to launch a new federally guaranteed low-interest loan program Friday to help small businesses avoid layoffs, furloughs and pay cuts. The Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, the first tangible fruit of the $2-trillion economic rescue bill that Congress passed last week, offers businesses and nonprofits with 1 to 500 employees short-terms loans that will be completely forgiven if the money is spent mainly on their workers.
The loans would cover two months’ worth of payroll, rent and utility costs, keeping even a mothballed company on life support while waiting for the pandemic to pass. Except that it looks like many desperate borrowers are going to have to wait a little longer for the help to arrive.
Nearly $350 billion for the loans was included in last week’s big stimulus bill, H.R. 748. That money will cover the costs of forgiving the Payroll Protection Program loans and the fees paid to banks — from 5% of the principal amount for loans of $350,000 or less, down to 1% of the principal amount for loans of $2 million or more.
(Yes, it’s grating to see that the banking industry will once again be profiting from our misery. But banks are far better equipped to get these loan dollars out rapidly to struggling businesses than the government is, and their services aren’t free.)
There’s a lot to like about the loan program, starting with the fact that it will keep people in their jobs. After the bloodbath in the labor markets over the last two weeks, with 10 million people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits, that’s a welcome tonic. Friday’s unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed an increase of 1.4 million idled workers and an unemployment rate of 4.4% were based on data collected before states started issuing the stay-at-home orders that are choking the economy. Adding the last two weeks’ claims would more than double the unemployment rate.
Opinion
Opinion: Arkansas, Iowa, South Carolina! What are you thinking? Shut down now!
Opinion
Opinion: Arkansas, Iowa, South Carolina! What are you thinking? Shut down now!
The 11 states that are still foolishly acting as if the coronavirus isn’t a problem.
Washington is moving so fast to get the program going, though, it may have given too little attention to some crucial details. In particular, bankers are saying the Small Business Administration wasn’t providing guidance on how to evaluate would-be borrowers. With the feds guaranteeing the loans, a bank may not care whether Struggling Business X can repay it. But the SBA might, and banks needed to know that.
That’s why a number of banks have said they probably won’t accept any loan applications Friday, which no doubt means some struggling small businesses and nonprofits won’t be able to make payroll this week.
The agency issued an interim final rule providing answers to that question and many others last night, giving banks little or no time to digest the instruction before they were supposed to start signing businesses up for loans. On the other hand, the guidance on underwriting was explicit: Any business that met the program’s criteria in terms of size and payroll could have a loan, with no consideration for its ability to repay. No collateral is required, nor any personal guarantees. And banks can rely on the borrowers’ certifications, rather than demanding other forms of proof, to “determine eligibility of the borrower and use of loan proceeds.”
In short, these are the SBA’s equivalent of the infamous no-document “liar loans” that fueled the housing bubble. Back then, it was reckless risk-taking based on the dubious assumption that property values would keep rising in perpetuity. Now, the point is simply to use banks and employers as a conduit to deliver money to workers while the economy is in free fall.
Because at the end of the day, the government isn’t planning to get its money back. As long as at least 75% of a loan is spent retaining or rehiring employees and maintaining payroll, and the rest on rent or mortage and utilities, the SBA will forgive the principal. If you borrow money through this program, you’ll owe only the interest payments, which are capped at 1% per year and deferred (along with any principal repayments owed, which could happen if a borrower lays off workers) for six months.
Here’s hoping that banks digest the SBA’s tardy guidance document quickly — it’s only 31 pages, people! — and get the loans flowing forthwith. Independent contractors and self-employed people are scheduled to be able to apply starting April 10, so banks need to get cracking.
For more information on whether you’re eligible, how much aid is available and how to apply, check out this Q&A from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A number of banks also are providing information about the loan program on their websites, although in cases like this, the message Friday was the not-so-helpful “We aren’t accepting applications for this program at this time. Check back for updates.” Others, like Bank of America, appear to be accepting applications, but only from businesses that already have accounts there. Or in BoA’s case, accounts and outstanding loans or credit card accounts.
Could it be that the program doesn’t allow banks to profit enough from our misery?
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8e2001368f002ce8bebeb177ef642cec
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-03/voting-pragmatically-for-biden
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Letters to the Editor: Voting ‘pragmatically’ for Biden over Sanders may give us four more years of Trump
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Letters to the Editor: Voting ‘pragmatically’ for Biden over Sanders may give us four more years of Trump
To the editor: Erin Aubrey Kaplan’s op-ed article on why black voters are supporting former Vice President Joe Biden over Sen. Bernie Sanders was exactly on target. Comparing Sanders’ ideas to those of Martin Luther King Jr. was right on.
Kaplan wrote, “In the decades since King’s death, many black people have lost touch with the necessity of idealism and imagination.” She also pointed out that the “overwhelming fear of a Trumpian future” is “making pragmatists of us all.”
Not only black voters have traded their idealism for fear. I’m sure many other groups have forsaken idealism for fear-based pragmatism, and they may end up with the very Trumpian future they so deeply fear anyway.
Richard Robinson, Arroyo Grande
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To the editor: Kaplan makes the astonishing statement that socialism is about government policies for the common good.
Throughout history and around the world, socialism has benefited only a small clique: the rulers, their cronies and their henchmen. The average person is sucked dry for the benefit of these few. The poor of course suffer the most.
This is why capitalist countries, rightly or wrongly, sometimes build walls to keep people out, while socialist countries have had to build walls to keep people in.
Kaplan’s statement reminds me of the saying about those who forget history being condemned to repeat it. With many tens of millions murdered in the name of collectivism in the last century, one would hope that we have learned something, but apparently it is still a work in progress.
Jaco van der Colff, Woodland Hills
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d536b1da439e9ea7fef183413bcf738d
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-04/obama-ex-presidents-coronavirus
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Letters to the Editor: Time for Obama and other ex-presidents to come to our rescue
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Letters to the Editor: Time for Obama and other ex-presidents to come to our rescue
To the editor: From my six decades of observation, it is obvious that a presidential “boys’ club” exists, with past commanders in chief granting the current officer holder courtesies that their predecessors afforded them as well. However, the COVID-19 pandemic requires an immediate change in protocol to protect our country and the world from this burgeoning malady and its disastrous consequences. (“Trump’s not the first president to face a deadly epidemic. But he may be the least suited for the task,” Opinion, April 1)
Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have the ability to step to a microphone and change history. With doctors and nurses falling gravely ill because of our nation’s lack of preparedness, something they did not sign up for, it is past time for these past leaders to ascend the bully pulpit and insist on a nationwide quarantine, a mobilization of military forces and a legal directive from the federal government to private industry to manufacture all the needed personal protective equipment and critical medical supplies.
Where is the outcry? Where are our leaders? Stop complaining about the inadequacies of the White House and just get the job done before thousands more needlessly perish.
Jonathan Lewis, Wrightwood, Calif.
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To the editor: As I sit home in isolation like so many Americans, I am disturbed and incensed by the refusal of President Trump and his fellow Republicans refusal to act judiciously and responsibly.
At no time have sincere words of care, concern or empathy come from their ranks. Instead, they are in full damage-control mode through the use of lies, misinformation and blame. They undermined early efforts at containment by downplaying the need for social isolation, perpetuating conspiracy theories among their supporters and encouraging people to congregate.
Their actions are self-serving and irresponsible. A $1,200 check will not appease me.
Doris K. Reed, Palm Desert
A guide to the internet under quarantine: 100+ things to do
A guide to the internet under quarantine: 100+ things to do
Life right now is largely online. Here’s how to make the most of it.
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To the editor: We are in the middle of a pandemic, an event that will go down as a once-in-a-lifetime ordeal for everyone, yet to the L.A. Times it all takes a backseat to the constant barrage of bashing Trump and everything he does.
Most Americans could not care less about politics at a time like this. They want to show appreciation for government officials at all levels who are trying to do what they can to get us through this.
Even Gov. Gavin Newsom has been complimentary of the president, because he realizes the danger this pandemic poses to all.
Steve Selland, San Diego
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To the editor: After the 2016 election, it was obvious that Trump received more media coverage than Hillary Clinton mainly because of his obnoxious rhetoric and untrue statements.
Now it is happening again. He is using his daily briefings as a political rally. It is true that reporters are able to ask questions, but Trump manages to sell his actions or attack reporters or others who do not praise him.
Every day, every newspaper and all TV stations report on Trump. The coverage makes clear that what the president is doing is not helping with the pandemic, but because most people do not read the articles, it looks as though he is doing what is needed. This is free advertising for him and his reelection.
I tune out the daily White House briefings until I see a doctor or scientist come on. I hope that the press will not continue to give him this bully pulpit and, instead, cover those who are actually on the ground fighting this virus and the officials who encouraging the public to act responsibly.
Jean Dragonette, Yorba Linda
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To the editor: As a “never Trumper,” I still fill that in times of crisis I should resolve all doubts in favor of the presidency and support the person who holds that office to the best of ability.
So in these times, I pray every day for the president to do his best for all of us in confronting the pandemic.
Gregory Humphries, Topanga
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be616a59c9ab8ed5d1b77f2745cc1083
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-05/apartment-renovation-essential-business
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Letters to the Editor: It’s ridiculous to consider apartment renovation an ‘essential’ business
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Letters to the Editor: It’s ridiculous to consider apartment renovation an ‘essential’ business
To the editor: For the safety of construction workers, many of whom share tools and necessarily work in close proximity to one another, and for the peace of mind of neighboring residents (many of them elderly) faithfully following stay-at-home orders, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti should follow San Francisco’s lead and temporarily suspend work on purely cosmetic remodels. (“Tenants fed up with noise, dust, and water shutoffs from renovations amid coronavirus,” April 2)
We certainly don’t want infected construction workers further overburdening our emergency rooms, nor do we want neighboring residents, subjected to incessant noise, becoming even more anxiety-ridden.
David Schaffer, Woodland hills
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To the editor: It is not just the residents of high-density apartments who are subjected to daily, all-day noise from renovations to adjacent units.
For the last several weeks we have been listening to nearly daily construction noise as we “shelter in place” and the new owner of the next-door property readies it to become the latest short-term vacation rental in this neighborhood.
Is constructing a mammoth party bar and barbecue considered an essential service?
Gary Tereshkow, Palm Springs
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To the editor: For those who have to deal with cosmetic construction and renovation noise daily in Hollywood, this issue isn’t new; it’s just been ignored by the proper officials.
Now that it’s affecting everyone because so many of us are now at home all day, maybe the agencies responsible will scrutinize more sites and finally take action and stop the gentrification train, at least during this crisis.
Don’t we at least deserve respite in our own homes?
Peter Hopkins, Los Angeles
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d88cb9b096dbc73be745e9938e411c8d
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-05/juvenile-life-without-parole-requires-magical-thinking
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Editorial: The absurdity of life without parole for juveniles
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Editorial: The absurdity of life without parole for juveniles
Despite their robes, judges are not wizards. They have no conjuring superpowers that allow them to see through juvenile offenders and know the course of their adult lives in prison. Nor are they equipped to determine, today, whether any particular offenders will have a sufficient change of heart, mind and spirit that would warrant their release 10, 20, 30 or more years in the future.
So it is absurd to grant judges the power to brand any particular juvenile they see in front of them as “incorrigible” or so beyond redemption that no future judge or parole board should ever be able to consider how the offender had lived his or her life as an imprisoned adult.
The issue arises because the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to review the case of Brett Jones, who at 15 killed his grandfather and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Jones appealed on the ground that the judge imposed the sentence without first making a finding that the teen was “permanently incorrigible.” The state of Mississippi argues that such a finding was unnecessary.
Arguments are not yet set, and the case may not be heard until the next term, which begins in October.
Over the last several years, the high court has begun to acknowledge what has long been known by most psychologists, neurologists, nations, state courts and, indeed, average people: Juveniles are not the same as adults. Their still-undeveloped brains make them more impetuous, more emotional, less capable of making moral judgments, more capable of eventual rehabilitation. Less moral capacity means less criminal culpability — and a different level of punishment.
In 1988, the court banned the death penalty for offenders under age 15. In 2005, the court extended the ban to offenders under 18. In 2010, it ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide cases. In 2012, it banned automatic life sentences without parole for juveniles. In 2016, it said the previous ruling applied retroactively.
The justices have acknowledged again and again that juveniles are different and should be treated differently — but they’ve done it incrementally and at a creeping pace that leaves the United States as the only nation on the globe where it is still possible to sentence people to life without parole for crimes they committed before they turned 18. They made a point of noting that they’d left a window open for “the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.”
Unfortunately, the question before the court in Jones vs. Mississippi is not whether Jones’ judge had the superhuman ability to foresee whether the offender would change in prison, but whether it matters that he failed to make a finding on the record of “incorrigibility” or “irreparable corruption” or “irretrievable depravity” or any other term that suggests that a judge can magically know more about a young offender today than anyone else would know in the future.
These are all terms that, as applied to juvenile offenders, are as meaningless as “abracadabra.” They cannot imbue any judge with access to a young killer’s future psyche, no matter how horrid the details of the crime. Reading a crime for evidence of the defendant’s imperviousness to change makes no more sense than reading his palm.
Rather than being magic, words like “incorrigible” actually indicate superstition and fear. They symbolize the folk belief that we can know the full measure of a man based only on his heedless actions as an adolescent, or the companion belief that some young people are superpredators, essentially subhuman, and unable ever to live in civilized society. That’s at stark odds with our society’s religious faith that people can change and our scientific knowledge that they often do.
Prison may not be an ideal place for teenagers to grow into adulthood, but it is there that young killers will mature and have time — plenty of time — to look back on the crimes of their youth with the developed brains and perspectives of adults. They may take the opportunity to seek education. They may learn empathy. They may feel remorse. They may be rehabilitated.
Or they may not, but who’s to know? Their lives and their progress should be reviewed by parole boards or judges who have the benefit of considering the perpetrators’ adult conduct over many years in prison.
The justices one day will have to acknowledge that their exception for “incorrigible” youth says less about any offender than it does about adult fears, prejudices and superstitions. It’s a shame that they won’t be discussing that question in the case of Brett Jones.
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9bf33accb053311f845c9a993667b6a4
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-05/newsom-eviction-delay-policy-landlords
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Letters to the Editor: Gavin Newsom’s eviction delay policy is fair to renters and landlords
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Letters to the Editor: Gavin Newsom’s eviction delay policy is fair to renters and landlords
To the editor: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s delay on evictions is a measured response to a critical problem.
The governor has given short-term relief to tenants because of the COVID-19 crisis without providing carte blanche for widespread abuse. Most of my landlord friends and I are working with our struggling tenants to create mutually agreeable arrangements.
Keep in mind that property owners still have to pay for water, repairs, insurance, real estate taxes and mortgage payments, all of which can be very expensive. Can you imagine another industry that has to provide free services? Consider if supermarkets were required to provide food without payment for an indeterminable number of months.
Many rental property owners have saved and invested their money, played by the rules, and depend upon these rentals for their own immediate survival or retirement. They do not want vacancies or evictions, but they cannot survive by providing free or heavily discounted housing indefinitely, and unfortunately, the threat of eviction is a necessary tool.
Given the dire circumstances faced by all parties, Newsom’s policy is fair to all.
Daniel Post, Culver City
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To the editor: I understand the concerns of the L.A. Times Editorial Board for people who live paycheck to paycheck and may be evicted from their homes for lack of rent payment. But what about the landlord who relies on rental income to live?
The majority of my income comes from an eight-unit rental property in Boyle Heights. I still need to pay for water, property taxes, insurance, upkeep and maintenance, among other expenses to keep the apartments functioning.
The editorial board needs to be responsible in its recommendations to include downstream implications and solutions for all involved.
Gail Feuerstein, Irvine
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dfff362217874c66cec56ef507522887
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-06/supreme-court-wisconsin-voters-primary
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Opinion: Hackery at its worst: Supreme Court conservatives just gave Wisconsin a green light to disenfranchise voters
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Opinion: Hackery at its worst: Supreme Court conservatives just gave Wisconsin a green light to disenfranchise voters
The Los Angeles Times warned in an editorial last month that the COVID-19 pandemic threatened not only the health of individuals but the democratic process. The Supreme Court exacerbated that infection Monday when the justices blocked a lower court’s decision to extend the period in which Wisconsin voters could mail in absentee ballots.
Tuesday is election day in that state, and the Democratic presidential primary is only one of many contests on the ballot. As the COVID-19 crisis deepened, it became obvious that some voters would face a choice between exercising the franchise and protecting their health by staying home. But first the Wisconsin Supreme Court and then the U.S. Supreme Court failed to rise to the occasion.
On Monday the state Supreme Court rebuffed an attempt by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor to suspend in-person voting on Tuesday and expand voting by mail. Then late Monday the U.S. Supreme Court, with Democratic and Republican appointees on opposite sides, stayed an order by a lower federal court requiring Wisconsin to count mail-in ballots if they arrived by April 13 even if they were mailed after election day.
In an unsigned opinion, the court’s conservative justices providing a textbook example of exalting form over substance. The majority complained that the extended deadline for absentee ballots “fundamentally alters the nature of the election.” It cited the precedent of a 2006 decision in which the court overturned an injunction preventing Arizona’s use of a photo ID requirement — a ruling from a calmer time. Precedent loses its force in unprecedented circumstances.
This ruling is outrageously oblivious to the emergency posed by the pandemic. In the 2006 case the court emphasized that a state “indisputably has a compelling interest in preserving the integrity of its election process.” But given the pandemic and the disruptions it creates for the election process, the lower court’s order promoted exactly that objective.
As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in a dissent signed by three other Democratic appointees, the court’s order means that absentee voters must postmark their ballots by Tuesday, even if they didn’t receive their ballots by that date because of a backlog. The result, she warned, could be “massive disenfranchisement.”
As disturbing as the result of the court’s ruling is the fact that it pitted conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents against liberal justices appointed by Democratic presidents, seeming to validate the perception that the justices are “politicians in robes.” So much for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s campaign to portray the court as being aloof from partisan politics.
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c20e95e149da92df381952e7ef07ac46
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-07/coronavirus-worst-week-just-the-first
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Editorial: This could be the first worst week of many worst weeks to come. Prepare yourselves
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Editorial: This could be the first worst week of many worst weeks to come. Prepare yourselves
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 passed the 10,000 mark on Monday, just slightly more than two months from the day the first case was confirmed in the state of Washington. As bad as that is, things are going to get worse.
That’s the gloomy message coming from federal, state and local authorities, who’ve warned that this will be the worst week yet for the nation during the pandemic. With dramatic increases in deaths from COVID-19 likely in such hot spots as New York, Louisiana and Detroit, U.S. Surgeon Gen. Jerome Adams told Fox News Sunday that “this is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly.”
California too is bracing for a tough week. The state now has nearly 16,000 identified cases, more than 6,300 of which are in Los Angeles County. And the numbers are still rising. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 cases jumped 10% overnight, Gov. Gavin Newsom reported Monday; the L.A. County Department of Public Health on Sunday reported 15 deaths in the county since the day before.
There’s no reason to doubt the bleak outlook. In the past two months, every week has been worse than the one that came before. But don’t misinterpret the warnings coming from government. New cases and deaths are not expected to fall off after this one intensely bad week. Next week will likely be worse still. And the week after that? More sickness and more death. Newsom said Monday that he didn’t expect the pandemic to peak in California until May.
How long it will go on and how many Americans will die before the pandemic is played out is an open question. Will it be the 100,000 to 240,000 people that President Trump’s coronavirus task force suggested last week, based on a selective reading of epidemiological models? Will it be 49,000 to 136,000 deaths by Aug. 1, as modeling by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests? Or something closer to the 1.2 million death scenario painted by the Imperial College London’s models?
We don’t know. We can’t know. While statistical models of the pandemic’s trajectory can be useful to shock complacent elected officials out of denial, they cannot tell the future, only suggest possible outcomes based on an educated extrapolation from known data. And in the case of SARS-CoV-2, which was identified only in December, there aren’t enough data.
That’s why the wisest course now is to stick with the social distancing strategies that are currently in place, despite the damage they’re inflicting on our livelihoods and the economy. Indeed, officials in places such as Singapore and South Korea who thought they successfully flattened the pandemic’s curve with quick action are now seeing a resurgence in cases from incoming travelers. The safest bet is that this week will be the worst, followed by an unknown number of even worse weeks.
Opinion
Editorial: The U.S. Supreme Court just made it easier for police to pull you over
Opinion
Editorial: The U.S. Supreme Court just made it easier for police to pull you over
The justices give police the OK to stop drivers with nothing more than the barest fig leaf of a reason: that the car owner’s license has been revoked.
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caf088cfd74888572fafb9de88da418f
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-07/federal-stockpile-medical-supplies-coronavirus-trump
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Letters to the Editor: If a federal stockpile isn’t for states, then what is it for, President Trump?
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Letters to the Editor: If a federal stockpile isn’t for states, then what is it for, President Trump?
To the editor: In the event that we are attacked by a foreign enemy, is each state going to be required to buy their own missiles and bombs in order to defend themselves? Instead of every state vying with each other to secure needed goods, they could join together to form a union. (“Trump administration tries to narrow stockpile’s role for states,” April 3)
They even could give it a snappy name, such as the “United States of America.”
This U.S.A. could have a federal government that would procure and disseminate necessary supplies in an emergency. We could even elect a chief executive, someone called “president,” to see to it that these vital supplies are distributed evenly and compassionately to the entire nation.
Or we could just stick with the punitive, third-world system we have now.
Steve Berliner, Venice
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To the editor: When President Trump and his son-in-law advisor Jared Kushner describe the Strategic National Stockpile as “our stockpile,” it suggests that they want to be first in line for masks and ventilators. And when Trump says that “our” means the United States, without implying that the United States is indeed the states, he reinforces his irredeemable ignorance on the structure of our government and nation.
Yet when the Department of Health and Human Services website is changed to reflect the administration’s fun-house mirror perspective of the stockpile, it is unabashed autocracy. Elected officials who do not condemn it become accessories to the breakdown of American democracy.
Judging by the Republicans’ efforts to prevent the use of mail-in ballots in November, it would seem that the elimination of representative government may well be the president’s goal. If we allow that to happen, the coronavirus will be viewed as a simple annoyance.
Peter Altschuler, Santa Monica
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To the editor: Trump once said that he could walk down 5th Avenue, shoot someone and not lose any political support. That is not too far from what he is actually doing right now.
By not releasing supplies from the national stockpile as needed, he is needlessly putting thousands of lives at risk. The president needs to be stopped and held accountable for his actions.
Sheryl Kinne, Van Nuys
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aa0ea981f45c6512a0fbaa0c50c07eda
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-07/op-ed-how-living-through-the-siege-of-sarajevo-prepared-me-for-coronavirus
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Op-Ed: How living through the siege of Sarajevo prepared me for coronavirus
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Op-Ed: How living through the siege of Sarajevo prepared me for coronavirus
I started my career as a foreign correspondent in the 1990s, reporting and living for months on end in Sarajevo, a relatively modern European city subjected to an almost medieval siege as it was encircled, isolated and bombarded.
The siege of Sarajevo lasted for three years. By the time it was over, 14,000 people were dead — about 2% of the city’s population. I met no one who hadn’t lost a close relative or friend. In one of the bleakest periods, I remember a woman asking me, “How do you think you Americans would survive in conditions like this?” It was question I pondered frequently over the years. Now, with coronavirus, I’ve gotten a glimpse.
That is not to equate the suffering of Sarajevo with Americans today. The shortage of toilet paper, for example, is a practically the definition of a First World problem; in Sarajevo, people couldn’t get water.
But as we hunker down at home, we too are under siege. In Sarajevo, like here, people went through stages of denial. At the beginning children watched the tracer bullets in the sky as if they were fireworks and cheered that they had days off from school. The reckoning came slowly; first it was a relative of a friend of a friend who died in another neighborhood, then a neighbor or a relative. It has been the same for me reading on Facebook about people I know who are dead from COVID-19. I wait with trepidation: The bombs are coming ever closer.
The Bosnian war started so abruptly in 1992 that people essentially had to shelter in place; relationships were severed, as lovers, spouses, parents and children found themselves on opposite sides of siege lines. Flights were suspended. Public transportation ran sporadically before stopping entirely. Schools closed. Shops emptied. To leave home in search of food was to risk your life.
Opinion
Op-Ed: I was laid off and denied unemployment. Now I could lose my home of 15 years
Opinion
Op-Ed: I was laid off and denied unemployment. Now I could lose my home of 15 years
Maybe it’s enough just to be a witness to these crazy times.
The recent news that Rhode Island was stopping cars with New York license plates at the border and requiring 14-day quarantines for New Yorkers reminded me of the checkpoints that proliferated throughout what had once been Yugoslavia after the war began. (Journalists like me carried spare license plates in our trucks and swapped them on and off as needed.)
Just as we are doing now, Sarajevans adjusted to the new normal. Trapped in their homes or bomb shelters, people made an extra effort to keep up appearances. They tried to change clothes daily (even if it was hard to do laundry without a regular water supply). If they ventured outside, women put on makeup and did their hair. A teenager living mostly in a bomb shelter told me she liked to get dressed up and pretend she was invited to a dinner at the White House.
Living under siege required a high level of creativity. Soccer teams played mini-matches in bomb shelters. And people devised “war recipes” to emulate the cuisine of happier times. One popular recipe started with shaping stale bread into an imitation Wiener schnitzel. “Air pie” was, as it sounds, a pie with absolutely no filling. When they ran out of coffee, people blackened lentils on the stove, ground them up and brewed.
During a siege, art and music take on a new urgency, eliciting emotions repressed in happier times. While watching recent videos of Italians singing opera from their balconies, I was reminded of the cellist who played Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor in the wreckage of Sarajevo’s library. Hardship inspires. In the 1990s, Sarajevo became famous for its black humor, edgy posters and graffiti. (“Run or RIP” was the message of a large mural at an intersection targeted by snipers.)
Throughout my reporting career, I saw similar coping strategies in other societies under siege. During the famine that killed 2 million North Koreans, people made corn porridge using not just the kernels of corn but also the husks, cobs and leaves. They salvaged sheet metal from shuttered factories to make small ovens in which they baked biscuits to sell at the market. The hospitals used old beer bottles for IVs; doctors picked mountain herbs for medicine. Today, I see masks made of repurposed coffee filters or brassieres.
Wars, famines, natural disasters can bring out the best in people, releasing untapped reserves of strength that turn ordinary people into heroes. But they can also bring out the worst. In recent weeks, we have seen a tide of racist attacks against Asians and Asian Americans, who have been unfairly scapegoated for a virus that began in China.
The Bosnian war was largely an ethnic conflict, started by Serb nationalists who objected to Bosnia’s secession from what remained of Yugoslavia and so took to the mountains surrounding the city, cutting it off from the outside world. But many moderate Serbs supported the new Bosnian government and remained in Sarajevo, under constant bombardment from their nationalist brethren.
On the street where I was living, the mostly Muslim residents went out of their way to be kind to the remaining Serbs. The neighbors used to bring food to an elderly widow, even though her son had joined the Serb militias bombing the city from the mountains. What surprised me most was that my landlords (we were one of the few houses with a working telephone) would allow this son, an enemy soldier, to call her phone to speak to his mother. Whenever he rang, no matter how late, the landlady would run out to fetch the Serb widow to talk to her son, then send her home with a gift of bread or vegetables.
It was not necessarily that these Sarajevans had superhuman qualities of compassion and there were many who were not so tolerant. But people recognized that their goal was not merely to outlive the siege, but to preserve their civilization. To survive the siege, they had to constantly remind themselves who they were in the past and what they hoped to be in the future.
The same guidelines apply to our situation today.
Barbara Demick is former foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. She is the author of “Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood” and “Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.” She lives in New York City.
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e6af6735ea5e8f3eaf8af67a82439ef8
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-07/renewable-energy-future-global-warming-coronavirus-economy
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Opinion: Renewable energy must be the future, if we are to have one at all
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Opinion: Renewable energy must be the future, if we are to have one at all
The world still relies far too much on burning fossil fuels for energy, but an annual accounting of new energy sources carries some heartening news: Nearly 75% of new electricity generation capacity last year involved renewable energy — an all-time record.
Yes, the world still relies too much on burning fossil fuel to create energy. But the 2019 annual report from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that the world continues to move in the right direction, at least in some areas, as it has for the past decade.
Carbon Brief, a British-based nonprofit covering climate science, notes that too many countries are still building too many coal-fired power plants, particularly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Opinion
Editorial: Why we wrote our series on climate change
Opinion
Editorial: Why we wrote our series on climate change
The Los Angeles Times editorial board has written about climate change for years. Here’s why we thought this was the right moment for a bigger, broader series of editorials on the subject.
Over the last 20 years, the world — driven by China and India — has doubled its coal-fired capacity to about 2,045 gigawatts, Carbon Brief reports, adding that another 200 gigawatts in coal-fired capacity are under construction, with 300 gigawatts more on planning boards. That growth contrasts with significant net reductions in coal-fired capacity through the retirement of plants in the U.S. and Europe, and a slowdown of new construction.
Notably, much of that coal power is being replaced by natural-gas-fueled plants, which produce far less greenhouse gas emissions than coal plants but nonetheless contribute to global warming.
So the faster the world can minimize reliance on burning fossil fuels, the better chance we have at limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, the limit scientists (yes there are such people walking among us) say we need to observe if we are to avoid the worst effects of our profligate carbon emissions.
According to Carbon Brief, observing that 1.5-degree Celsius limit will require us to reduce global coal use by 80% this decade.
The current coronavirus pandemic has, at least temporarily, made a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. But that reflects a stalled economy rather than smart energy consumption choices. The pandemic is a naturally occurring threat to humans, as were SARS and MERS before it. Global warming, by contrast, is being driven by human behavior; it is a self-inflicted crisis.
Opinion
Editorial: Climate change is just as real as COVID-19. Now’s the last, best chance for our government to treat it that way
Opinion
Editorial: Climate change is just as real as COVID-19. Now’s the last, best chance for our government to treat it that way
President Trump and Congress should keep climate change in mind as they prepare economic aid packages for businesses and industries.
We can best address the climate crisis by changing practices, by converting our global economy from fossil fuels to renewable sources, by using the force of our collective will to change our collective behavior and reduce the damage our actions inflict on the environment, which we rely on for our very survival.
The stats that show we are moving in the right direction, albeit it too slowly, are a positive sign during these trying days.
But they are also a further spur to action. We can see where decisions, policies and actions lead to positive effects, but also where continued self-destructive actions — beginning with burning coal — imperil us all.
And that threat lies far beyond the reach of a vaccine.
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06a2d3da993af4c1401f9de884b28cf4
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-08/editorial-trump-takes-aim-at-inspector-generals-who-keep-the-government-honest
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Editorial: Trump whacks at the inspectors general appointed to keep him honest
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Editorial: Trump whacks at the inspectors general appointed to keep him honest
During President Trump’s impeachment trial, there were warnings that if he were acquitted for abusing his power to induce a foreign country to investigate a political rival, he would be emboldened to continue to put his own interests above the nation’s and resist any meaningful oversight of his administration. Trump’s assault this week on the independence of inspectors general — the watchdogs that monitor waste, fraud and abuse of power in government agencies — confirms those dire prophecies.
There’s always been some tension between presidents and the inspectors general who monitor the executive branch from the inside, demanding accountability and calling public attention to missteps. But while his predecessors may have grumbled, Trump has lashed out, putting IGs on notice that “if you cross the president, your job is at risk,” John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institute, said. “That’s an extraordinary threat to the independence of these offices.”
Last weekend Trump removed Michael Atkinson, the inspector for the intelligence community, who had informed Congress of the existence of an “urgent” whistleblower complaint involving Trump last summer. The complaint exposed Trump’s outrageous attempt to pressure the president of Ukraine, whose country was desperately dependent on U.S. security assistance, to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
After removing Atkinson, Trump told reporters: “I thought he did a terrible job, absolutely terrible.” Atkinson gave a more accurate account of his firing, saying that “it is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial inspector general, and from my commitment to continue to do so.”
In removing Atkinson, Trump is pressing on with a purge of officials he seems to blame for his impeachment by the House over his improper approach to Ukraine. But removing Atkinson was more than act of petty vengeance. It also signaled to other inspectors general that Trump has contempt for their watchdog role.
Trump continued to send that message this week. On Monday he publicly berated the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services, who had the temerity to issue a report documenting the shortages of COVID-19 tests and protective equipment at hospitals across the country. “It’s just wrong,” Trump said, as if he could simply wave off the interviews the IG had done with hundreds of hospital administrators.
Then, on Tuesday, Trump demoted Glenn A. Fine, the acting inspector of the Defense Department. The move made it impossible for Fine to continue to serve as chair of the pandemic response accountability committee, a group of inspectors general responsible for overseeing implementation of much of the recently enacted $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. This came on the heels of Trump appointing a White House legal advisor, Brian Miller, to be the inspector general overseeing a $500-billion loan program created by the act — a pick that doesn’t inspire confidence in the IG’s independence.
Although not a household name, Fine is widely respected for his integrity and served as the longtime inspector general of the Justice Department. On Tuesday Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee who had hailed Fine’s appointment, said that his removal by Trump was “a direct insult to the American taxpayers — of all political stripes — who want to make sure that their tax dollars are not squandered on wasteful boondoggles, or incompetence or political favors.”
Political pressure on these watchdogs isn’t new. But Trump’s warped notion that the executive branch exists to loyally serve his interests makes it especially important that these watchdogs don’t lose their bite — including when it comes to ensuring that funds appropriated in response to the pandemic are honestly and transparently spent. The importance of the panel Fine was to head shouldn’t be underestimated; a similar oversight body Congress set up in the 2008 Wall Street rescue bill has saved the government more than $10 billion.
The need for accountability on this issue may embolden even some in the GOP to insist on new protections for inspectors general. With the support of enough Republicans, Congress could include in one of the next pandemic relief bills a requirement that inspectors general be removable only for cause. But Trump’s disdain for the role of inspectors general is part of his larger insistence that all departments of government, including the Justice Department, show fealty to him above all. The only certain remedy for that warped attitude is his removal in November’s election.
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fbccda5c31bb7b79e524713fe3cb2d57
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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-08/going-to-church-coronavirus
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Letters to the Editor: Going to church right now proves your selfishness, not your faith
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Letters to the Editor: Going to church right now proves your selfishness, not your faith
To the editor: The stubborn, selfish souls determined to flock to church during these days of pandemic-driven institutional closures remind me of that classic Christian anecdote about the drowning man (or preacher in some versions).
During a torrential rain storm, a man stands in front of his church. As the waters rise, a rowboat, a motorboat and a helicopter offer the man safety, yet he refuses each time, assured in the knowledge that God will save him.
After he drowns he asks God why he didn’t save him. God replies, “What else did you want? I sent two boats and a helicopter.”
As for the real world, my sister works at West Hills Hospital. I’m terrified she will be exposed to the coronavirus.
God does not need you to prove your devotion right now. Please, stay home.
Maddie Gavel-Briggs, Sherwood, Ore.
..
To the editor: The pushback from pastors who continue to gather with their congregants, claiming 1st Amendment rights, reminds me of a similar controversy dating to the 1970s over limiting prayer in schools.
I remember telling my young children back then not to worry, because the Bible tells us to not make a spectacle of our faith. I encouraged them to feel free to pray in school or anywhere else they wanted to, but to be private and discreet about it.
So I have little respect for the pastors who defy the quarantine and hold services during the COVID-19 crisis. It smacks of a sense of entitlement. They don’t have the right to endanger the already imperiled healthcare workers who will be called upon to treat them should they contract the virus, nor the rest of us when we venture out to the pharmacy or grocery store.
My own church is holding online services. We elders also reach out to members of the congregation about prayer requests and other needs.
Is it the same as gathering at church? No, but then I don’t believe our faith is so fragile that it cannot withstand a temporary separation from one another for the greater good.
Jean Hastings Ardell, Laguna Beach
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