LOS ANGELES

JUSTICE -The Los Angeles County Department of Probation is overcharging probationers from county jails and state prisons with fines and fees they can’t afford, while the Board of Supervisors directs the cash into county coffers before compensating victims, according to a lawsuit filed September 20 by a grassroots group of formerly incarcerated Angelenos. 

WHISTLEBLOWER WATCH--House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal is reportedly sitting on a credible and "potentially explosive" whistleblower complaint alleging that President Donald Trump attempted to influence an IRS audit of his tax returns.

BACKTALK--In regard to your article on the Brentwood Community Council, I think there are a few things that you got wrong and am rather surprised that you wrote a public piece without doing the investigative reporting such a piece would require. 

PERSPECTIVE--Earlier this year, a number of wealthy parents, celebrities, and college prep coaches were accused of offering large bribes to elite universities in order to get their children into schools they didn’t qualify for. 

ONE MAN’S OPINION-Since few of us recall pre-World War II America, we know of no time when America was not the leader of the Free World.

PHARMA POLITICS-Congress and other decision makers need to act now to bring back to the United States the manufacturing of not only our prescription drugs and our over-the-counter medications, but even more importantly, the precursor chemicals used in the manufacturing of those medications.

@THE GUSS REPORT-In my recent return to 790-KABC, I told host Peter Tilden that LA City Council president Herb Wesson’s campaign to become an LA County Supervisor poses an existential threat to Los Angeles because Wesson – a career politician who has been in his current gig since January 12, 2012 – deserves most of the blame for the myriad crises facing the city, most of which are far worse now than then. (Photo above: LA Times.) 

CLIMATE POLITICS--A home burns as the River Fire, part of the Mendocino Complex, moves through the area on July 31, 2018 in Lakeport, California. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

ALPERN AT LARGE--I've never met Scott Presler, who is a Virginia activist that spends an extraordinary amount of time cleaning up and bringing hope to the homeless and the forgotten amongst us.

NEW GEOGRAPHY-The term “useful idiot,” often credited to Vladimir Lenin, applies to people supporting a cause or movement injurious to their own self-interest.

GELFAND’S WORLD--I walked into Fry's Electronics in Manhattan Beach on Saturday afternoon. My first clue that something was amiss was that the parking lot was nearly empty.

DEEGAN ON LA-“We are never going to get our planet back to the way it was,” exclaimed 16-year-old Claremont high school student Sofia Cervantes, whose role model is 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl climate activist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Greta Thunberg (photo above). 

BUSINESS POLITICS-Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote of being leery of a fast-talking huckster who visited his home: “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons,” Emerson exclaimed. 

ONE MAN’S OPINION-Family therapists know that families often ignore the elephant in the living room.

CALBUZZ--Joe Biden’s tossed word-salad response in the last Democratic debate on the question of how government or society ought to respond to the legacy of slavery –

LIES MATTER-My entire working life has been dictated by offshoring. I’ve spent my career jumping from one factory closing to another. 

SOUTH OF THE 10---After his office had “no comment” to a proposed 577 unit housing, with zero set aside for low-income residents, L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson is proposing ‘anti-displacement zones’ to keep rent prices down around certain market rate developments. One in particular being the new Crenshaw/LAX rail line.

AN AMERICAN CRISIS--During a fundraising trip to California this week, President Donald Trump hinted at his administration’s imminent crackdown on the state’s homelessness crisis.

CITY LAB REPORT--This week, senior Trump administration officials are making their way to Los Angeles as part of the president’s high-profile promise to intervene in California’s homelessness crisis.

RANTZ & RAVEZ-Recent political moves by Governor Newsom clearly demonstrate he doesn’t give a damn about victims of crime or the law enforcement officers who enforce the laws to keep people safe in the once Golden State of California.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Let me start this article that I remain an unswerving, unrepentant law-and-order kind of guy. Don't want prisoner abuse, don't want to see innocent people get prosecuted, don't want to short-change rehab programs...