LA Times, “Dead”?
On Jan. 14, I sent the letter, below, to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times. As expected, no response.
Erik Kongshaug, former Editor, Random Lengths News
Dearest LA Times,
Give us back your Editorial hand. You owe it to us the people of your city. Especially now in the face of our common disaster. Do not reduce us to the ones and zeros of your venture-AI algorithms, to the fears of the privileged versus the fears of the homeless. Only when stripped of human context does the opposing opinion to courage become an opinion driven by fear. In real human context the true opposition to fear reveals itself, rather, as community. So show us that much courage, LA Times, in these times of our shared suffering. Give us your honest opinion as a group, as an institution: As an Editorial.
In today’s e-paper as well as in the print edition, two “Op-Ed”s appeared opposite one another — one from the right and one from the left— with no paper’s “Editorial” in between. Today one can forgive even an experienced journalist for assuming that “Op-Ed” stands for “Opinion Editorial.” In context it really and still stands for “Opposite the Editorial” as it always has historically, in the physical layout of a broadsheet. If the editorial opinion of your paper is to be the opinion of its owner, then own it. By withdrawing your Editorial hand, as you have since the last presidential election, and by replacing it with a more perfect AI glove for privileged narcissism, you leave us truly on the one hand with what Adam Smith only hoped with sufficient human empathy might come to exist as “Invisible.” And on the other, you leave us with what is only the opposite out of context: What Pasadena native Upton Sinclair referred to as “Dead.”
Faked Assassination Attempt Could Become Real
As usual, that 78-year-old senile sex offender disgusting Donald Trump is his own worst enemy. Traitor Trump’s non-stop suggestions to his fascist followers that their fraudulent failure of a Fuhrer be allowed an unelected third term as Putin’s puppet president beginning in 2028 is insane, much like Trump’s pathetic plutocratic posse themselves.
Specifically, if you conservative Kool-Aid drinkers want to lose your GOP cult leader Orange Jim Jones to an actual assassination attempt (unlike Trump’s own faked assassination attempt in Pennsylvania which was actually a staged TV event), then keep on talking about a blatantly unconstitutional third term in the White House. Then there’s Trump’s demand that America’s generals behave more like Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler’s generals. That can be arranged. Calling Colonel Stauffenberg!
Didn’t you wonder why adjudicated rapist and convicted felon Trump is replacing his original Republican choice for FBI Director Christopher Wray with an imbecile like corrupt Kash Patel, that asinine anchor baby from India? Beta male Mr. Patel is politically dead meat as far as his potential subordinates at the FBI are concerned. And they are concerned, believe me. But being patriots, they will take Patel down eventually, because everyone at the FBI knows Kash Patel is a criminal whack job.
Current FBI Director Christopher Wray however sealed his fate when at a televised congressional hearing Director Wray admitted the FBI’s investigation of candidate Donald Trump’s faked assassination attempt concluded Trump was not shot.
Jake Pickering
Arcata, CA, USA
Birthright citizenship is a Constitutional right in the United States of America
Donald Trump cannot take that away by the stroke of his pen.
Birthright citizenship holds that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, regardless of their parent’s status, and was included in the 14th Amendment when it was passed in 1866.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” – 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment was created in direct response to the Dred Scott v. Sanford case, which called into question denying citizenship to the descendants of slaves despite their birth in the U.S.
Eroding the protections of the 14th Amendment would create an underclass of an essentially stateless population and deny crucial benefits to children born in the U.S. to immigrant parents. It would also harm those with pending Visa applications, which could lead to permanent status.
An executive order does not override a Constitutional Amendment.
The LACDP stands in solidarity with the ACLU and the 24 states and cities suing the Trump administration over this blatantly racist attack on immigrants in our country. We are committed to supporting and defending Constitutional rights and the core principles of democracy for everyone in the United States.
In Solidarity, Mark Ramos, Chair, LA County Democratic party