Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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Pfizer has submitted a request to the Food and Drug Administration to approve its innovative Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 15 years old. At present, this vaccine is only approved by the FDA for emergency use for individuals aged 16 and older. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is solidly behind the vaccination of children. "To prepare for this change, Public Health is urging providers to consider expanding the range of vaccines they are delivering to include Pfizer."...
In his latest newsletter, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin wrote, "The sooner people get vaccinated, the sooner we can more completely reopen businesses." His implication is that only once a threshold percent of the population receives their Covid-19 vaccination may society return to pre-pandemic norms. The notion that a return to normal social behaviors depends on the agreement of a very large segment, if not the totality, of the population agreeing to an injection that is,...
April 21, 2021 A fight that broke out April 11 in the pier's north parking lot among six members of the Murcia family, ending in their arrests, highlighted the ongoing and unchecked activity of the allegedly criminal Murcia family regarding the vendors. According to a highly placed city official, the Murcia family brings in dozens of vendors every day to Santa Monica. None of these vendors have city permits or county or state licenses to operate. Instead of licenses, they pay protection money...
A fight that broke out among pier vendors on Sunday afternoon highlights a persistent and dangerous problem at the Santa Monica landmark: criminal gang involvement in illegal street vending. Several police officers were called after a fight began in the parking lot just north of the Santa Monica Pier at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. After the fight was stopped, with great difficulty, six individuals were eventually cited and released. According to a highly placed government official, all of the...
On every page of the official Black Lives Matter website, a button urges one to "donate today." Benefactors may warm themselves with supporting BLM's "ongoing fight to end State-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy forever." In their 2020 Impact Report released in February, the activist organization attempts to explain how they are going about achieving these lofty, distorted, and utterly vague goals. In the process, they try to explain what they're doing with all...
The case against Assembly Bill 101, a law that would require ethnic studies be a part of the high school curriculum in the state's public schools, was made by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the Amcha Initiative in the San Diego Tribune. AB 101 will be heard before the California Assembly Education Committee this week. The Amcha Initiative is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to combating anti-Semitism on school campuses. Rossman-Benjamin's contention is that the entire curriculum is based on flawed...
Dressed up in the language of compassion and social justice, the City Council's vote on March 30 to accommodate 6,168 affordable housing units, 70% of whatever new housing is built, and then to disperse these affordable units throughout the city, including along Montana Avenue and Main Street, is in reality a despicable theft of the earnings of hardworking residents and will end up benefiting no one. There are so many fatal flaws in the logic, data, and goals involved in both the city staff's...
Last fall, Governor Newsom vetoed AB 331, which would have made an Ethnic Studies course a high school graduation requirement. His objection to the law was the model curriculum on which it was based. Now, the Ethnic Studies requirement may come before the state legislature again as the State Board of Education (SBE) unanimously passed a revision of the model curriculum. The issue has now passed to the Assembly Education Committee. Although the SBE claims they made 240 changes to the earlier,...
Police were needed to protect construction workers on Wednesday night at Echo Park as over 200 protestors arrived to decry the attempt to clear an estimated four dozen homeless people who'd set up camp on park grounds. The City of Los Angeles said they need to close the park to conduct about $500,000 in damage to lighting and plumbing and to remove hazardous waste and make public safety improvements. The park has been the site of a tent city commune of up to 100 people at times, reportedly with...
In a press release that proves he has no idea of his job description, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon boasted of the ways he has helped criminals and flouted state and local laws during his first 100 days in office. The top "accomplishments" he lists are "no longer seeking the death penalty in 17 active cases" and "a 71 percent reduction in enhancements filed" in sentencing demands. Gascon claims his electoral victory gives him the justification to institute such "reforms" to...
March 17, 2021 A bill to turn currently felonious robbery assaults into misdemeanors was heard for the second time in the California Senate yesterday. The proposal, SB 82, was authored by Senator Nancy Kinner of the East Bay area and will also provide means for individuals currently incarcerated to have their sentences retroactively reduced and those already out to have their sentences vacated. The law creates a third degree of petty theft, petty theft in the first degree. "Petty theft in the...
UPDATE March 11, 2021 - The Los Angeles County Health Department announced the daily case rate has dropped to 5.2 cases per 100k people. They expect to be able to move to the red tier on March 17, almost exactly a year since lockdowns were first instituted. At this time, grades 7-12 will be allowed to return to school, assuming the schools follow the appropriate safety protocols and procedures. Of course, the teachers' unions will have to sign on. March 9, 2021 The Los Angeles County Health...
In a document that could have come straight from a reverse version of Jim Crow, "The Whitest Law School Report" ranks 200 of the nation's law schools in terms of the percentage of white students attending and how "excessively White" each school is. A Professor Emerita of Law from the University of Dayton, Vernellia R. Randall measured diversity in law schools by comparing their demographic makeup to that of the state, the region, and the national Law School Admissions Council applicant pool....
March 5, 2021 On Thursday, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon released a press statement regarding a poll conducted by Californians for Safety and Justice, claiming the results proved that crime victims prefer public resources go toward crime prevention and rehabilitation of criminals rather than their incarceration. Gascon wrote, "Large majorities [of victims of violent crime] support policies to shift resources away from incarceration and move toward prevention and rehabilitation."...
On February 23, the Los Angeles City Council heard an update on the work done to create a non-police response program to deal with nonviolent calls. The city council called for the program development in June, 2020, during the height of outrage sweeping the country following the sensational death of George Floyd, arrested for allegedly trying to pass a counterfeit bill. Floyd was later discovered to have a great deal of fentanyl in his system. Since then, the city's chief legislative analyst...
During an alarming surge in the number of homicides committed in Los Angeles, with the majority of victims people of color, Black Lives Matter-LA has begun a campaign to deplatform and abolish unions protecting law enforcement officers. At a news conference held during a protest outside the Los Angeles Police Protective League office, BLM-LA made it clear this is just the first step in their determination to completely eliminate law enforcement. The LAPPL is the union representing approximately...
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (RR/CC) Dean C. Logan announced Vote Centers are open and available for voting for the March 2 Special Elections, including the Senate District 30 Special Primary Election. The election is limited to the City of Los Angeles and to this particular senate seat, which opened up when 30th District State Senator Holly Mitchell won a seat on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors last year. Seven candidates are running. The frontrunner...
February 26, 2021 Community health clinics think the answer to solving vaccine rollout disparity is to let them administer more vaccines. At a webinar on February 24, representatives from health clinics and the President of Chares R. Drew University of Medicine and Science made the case for allocating more doses to health clinics that service poor communities. "Advancing equity is in our DNA," said Louise McCarthy, President of the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles. Equity is...
The owner of the luxury Le Merigot hotel on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica will have to face the California Division of Labor Standards in May to explain their side of a labor dispute with labor union UNITE HERE Local 11. Eleven housekeepers charge the hotel unfairly overburdened them with increased workloads after a minimum wage increase. Columbia Sussex, owner of the JW Marriott hotel on the beachfront, is currently attempting to sell the property, unencumbered by brand or management. According...
February 22 District Attorney George Gascon issued a statement today explaining why his office accepted a plea bargain from convicted sex offender Kenneth Rasmuson for the murder of two 6-year-old boys rather than seek the death penalty. Rasmuson pled guilty to two counts of murder and admitted the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders. A recent court ruling would not allow the special circumstance to be dismissed. The defendant admitted he killed 6-year-old Jeffrey Vargo. On July...
February 22 Los Angeles County Sheriff's detectives and attorneys in the Cold Case Unit discovered the murderer of a man killed at an El Monte motel in 1978. Anthony Davis, 61, was charged on Friday with one count of murder. On or about January 7, 1978, the defendant allegedly stabbed Rudolfo Chavez, 42, more than 40 times. The murder occured at the Spic and Span motel in El Monte. The vitim was found the next day by a motel employee. The event happened so long ago that the motel no longer...
Los Angeles's new district attorney, George Gascon, announced yesterday that he is seeking a life sentence for Tracy Walker, 56, accused of murdering three transients between June 7, 2020 and February 7, 2021. The defendant, an ex-felon, will face additional charges for possession of a firearm although a knife was also used in all three murders. Gascon's choice to apply sentencing enhancements and attempt gaining a life sentence for the defendant is a surprising break from his previous...
In their daily email to the public on Saturday, February 13, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health appeared to be moving toward a mandate of double masking. On February 3, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the de facto czar of national coronavirus policy, asserted that double-masking could be a method of helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19. On Saturday, the county reiterated this message. According to the county, all...
A Change.org petition of "Mandalorian" fans to reinstate actress Gina Carano to her role as Cara Dune reportedly has thousands of signatures. The actress was fired by Disney from her spot in the "Star Wars" TV series, "The Mandalorian" after an allegedly anti-Semitic post that compared the way the Nazi government encouraged its citizens to hate Jews with the way today's society is encouraging people to hate others with different political views: "Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi...
A bill introduced by Senator Eggman in the California State Legislature would significantly change the legal position of doctors regarding the state's 2015 assisted suicide legislation. Currently, doctors may opt out of assisting patients who want to commit suicide based on their personal and professional code of ethics. This was what the California Medical Association was promised at the time the legal death legislation was first proposed. Because of this promise, the CMA moved from a position...
