HOUSING POLITICS--It’s only January, and Big Real Estate is already shelling out major cash to stop California’s rent control movement.

LA WATCHDOG-Jan Perry has literally earned our votes for Supervisor because her successful efforts to increase the transparency and accountability of the Department of Water and Power that resulted in savings of hundreds of millions of dollars for Ratepayers. 

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS-$10.6 billion is a lot of money but that’s the amount the City of Los Angeles will be spending this year. 

GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE--To borrow a phrase from the late Laura Nyro, Colleen Boland has a lot of patience, and that’s a lot of patience to lose.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Some of us fight for more affordable housing, and some of us choose to instead lie their tails off and use the venerable goal of affordable/middle-class housing as a way to empower creepy liars to build non-affordable housing and make a whole lotta cash to make higher-end and more expensive housing instead. 

AFFORDABLE HOUSING CATASTROPHE--While much focus regarding our housing crisis has been on issues like San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener's disastrous SB 50, falsely promising affordable housing when it’s really a vehicle to boost developer profits through the building of luxury units, the slow pace of providing housing for the homeless, the inadequate enforcing of the city’s Airbnb ordinance and new state rent gouging law, the lack of legislative movement to repeal Costa Hawkins and the explosion of “cash for keys” tenant buyouts to get them to move, one thing has been constant. 

EASTSIDER-Back in the days of the Vietnam War and the Watts Riots, Martin Luther King Jr. was characterized by a lot of folks as “way too accommodating” and establishment.

OTHER WORDS-With Greta Gerwig’s new take on Luisa May Alcott’s classic 19th century novel, “Little Women,” in theaters, I decided to reread the book. 

ROYAL SEPARATION-In a move that reflects the time-worn pathologies of powerful aristocratic families, the House of Windsor has agreed to allow the Queen’s grandson, Harry, currently sixth in line to the throne, and his California-born wife, Meghan, to leave the family business (The Firm) and attempt to establish independent lives in Canada, a former colony which remains a member of the British Commonwealth. This represents their exile from the territorial, ceremonial, financial, and emotional heart of the royal family. 

ELECTION POLITICS--With thousands of residents of Porter Ranch still suffering serious health effects from the devastating Aliso Canyon gas leak of 2016, it would seem tone-deaf for any Democratic candidate in L.A. County to accept campaign donations from oil and gas corporations. 

@THE GUSS REPORT-Domestic violence is a tragedy that can happen in any household, including those connected to the rich, famous, political and powerful. The same can be said when someone is wrongfully accused of it. 

AT LENGTH--The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Jan 14, unanimously approved a plan proposed by Supervisor Janice Hahn to use a vacant County building in San Pedro as an emergency homeless shelter for three years.

WORLD WATCH-Those who applaud the assassination of General Soleimani seem to simply equate him to a terrorist who certainly deserved to meet his fate.

CLIMATE POLITICS-The northern continental shelves of Russia, inclusive of the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea (ESAS) are some of the least researched yet most controversial subjects in climate science today.

ONE MAN’S OPINION-The ramifications of Speaker Pelosi’s incompetence are now on full display in the United States Senate.