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Random Letters: 7-7-22

RLn
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Random Letters: 7-7-22

RE: SCOTUS Ruling Limiting EPA’s Power

I condemn this decision and the harm it will bring to families, workers and our environment, particularly in communities like ours in South LA that have lived with environmental injustice and, as a result, healthcare disparities for far too long. It is not acceptable to have elected officials and appointed justices that are bought and paid for by corporate polluters. Our leaders need to do what’s in the best interest of the people, not polluters and fossil fuel executives. I am proud to stand with and be endorsed by the following organizations who are fighting for environmental justice and action on climate change: Sierra Club California, CBE Action, Sunrise Movement LA & Long Beach, Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, Jane Fonda PAC, South Bay 350 LA and CEJA Action. The lack of action on environmental injustice by my opponent’s tenure was a primary reason I stepped into this race. I will continue to work with frontline organizations to ensure a healthy and safe environment for future generations.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair,Candidate for California Assembly District 65

Donald Trump is a Cop Killer

“Mike [Pence] did not have the courage to act.”— Donald Trump

prison-bound Putin puppet

The January 6th congressional committee not only hit a historic political home run with its public televised hearings in June, demoralized Donald Trump — who is clearly 100% guilty — has only further incriminated himself since then. Trump can forget about running in 2024.

If there’s one thing that we all can agree upon about that tangerine traitor is that dimwitted Donald Trump cannot keep his stupid mouth shut for more than a few seconds. Donald Trump is a blithering idiot!

Witness tampering and witness intimidation, for example, is just another series of felony crimes that the Department of Justice will be able to charge Donald Trump with (along with Trump’s partner in capital crimes, Mark Meadows) after the January 6th hearings conclude in July 2022.

Lock these conservative cop killers up and throw away the keys! These traitors must pay, no matter how hard their cult members cry. The GOP is Jonestown, and Donald Trump is just a fat, old, orange version of Jim Jones.

Jake Pickering,Arcata, Calif.

Tamale Vendor Harassed with Racial Slurs Speaks Out

A few weeks ago, RLn posted a video news report regarding the massive outpouring of support for San Pedro tamale vendor Juan Aguilar, who was harassed and called racial slurs while working by a man neighbors described as a “white supremacist.”

In two hours, Aguilar sold 1,500 tamales. A personal record.

Although it wasn’t the first time Aguilar had experienced racism while selling his tamales in San Pedro, it was the first time he recorded an incident. The video received more than two million views on TikTok. Below are just a few of the comments the RLn video received

1fastmex

‘Disgraceful what a POS. This man just working hard and clearly grateful for the opportunity. I’m sure he didn’t retaliate because he didn’t want to jeopardize his opportunity. Hope someone put hands on that guy’

Don’t Care

‘BIG MISTAKE!!! To mess with a working proud Mexican Man for his family. He has the support of the people.’

Jokawild

‘Hustle not like these wyte bums always begging for money’

San Bruno

‘PEACE LOVE UNITY PROSPERITY CALM WISDOM OPTIMISM’

‘All of Our Rights Hanging In the Balance’

RLn
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‘All of Our Rights Hanging In the Balance’ 

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stark warning in her dissent to a school prayer case

By Travis Gettys

The right-wing majority ruled 6-3 in favor of a Washington high school football coach who led student prayers on the field, which the majority opinion described as a private exercise of his religious liberty, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent described the ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton as “no victory for religious liberty.”

“Today, the Court once again weakens the backstop,” Sotomayor wrote. “It elevates one individual’s interest in personal religious exercise, in the exact time and place of that individual’s choosing, over society’s interest in protecting the separation between church and state, eroding the protections for religious liberty for all.”

“Today’s decision is particularly misguided because it elevates the religious rights of a school official, who voluntarily accepted public employment and the limits that public employment entails, over those of his students, who are required to attend school and who this Court has long recognized are particularly vulnerable and deserving of protection,” she added.

Joe Kennedy, a coach for Bremerton High School in Washington state, began a ritual in 2008 where he would pray on the field at the final whistle.

But the school told the Christian military veteran to bring an end to the custom in 2015 after players began joining in — arguing that he was violating its ban on staff encouraging students to pray.

He was placed on administrative leave when he defied the order and did not reapply for his job after his contract ended soon after, opting instead to sue the school district.

The Supreme Court is being asked to rule on whether the public official’s prayers amounted to government speech, or private expression protected by the Constitution.

Education officials say they supported Kennedy’s religious rights — offering him private places for prayer — but could not allow his post-game ritual, which could be perceived as the school endorsing religion.

Kennedy lost the case and a subsequent appeal in which a three-judge panel said he was “not engaging in private prayer, but was instead engaging in public speech of an overtly religious nature while performing his job duties.”

But the Supreme Court’s conservative justices backed Kennedy’s claims.

The Day After the Fourth

James Preston Allen
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The Day After the Fourth

Some laws are just unenforceable for better or worse but insurrection must be prosecuted

They say that the amount of air pollution after the July 4th fireworks extravaganza all across Los Angeles is about three to four times as bad as the air quality would be normally. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued advisories for increased particulates in the air for the days following Independence Day.

The amateur pyrotechnics aren’t relegated to just my part of the metropolis as it seems to be everywhere no matter how many times city leaders proclaim they’re “illegal.” From a vantage point looking north from Cabrillo Beach towards the rest of San Pedro and beyond, the spectacular display of explosives is quite astounding. I wonder if the Los Angeles Police Department or Los Angeles Fire Department responded to anything other than calls from people mishandling sparklers and firecrackers or improperly disposing of the explosive pyrotechnic materials. It seems a bit delusional that on one singular day and the weeks leading up to and after are filled with loud explosions, setting off car alarms, scaring dogs and cats and perhaps rattling war veterans struggling with post traumatic stress. It’s damn annoying any way you look at it to have otherwise placid neighborhoods abruptly attacked by juvenile explosions. It is a rebellious outpouring and a prime example of a law that can’t be enforced.

As long as it’s legal to import fireworks and as long as some Southern California cities allow for legal sales there’s probably little that other cities like Los Angeles can do to stem the tide. Years ago I contemplated just having the fire department set up free fire zones where the fire fighters might monitor and contain a certain amount of the activity and be on hand to supervise the event. That might contain some of it, but there’s something more beneath the exuberant July 4 lawlessness that’s akin to the American attachment to guns or women’s desire to exercise their right to an abortion despite what SCOTUS, their state government, or what they claim their position is on the issue. People are going to do what they need or want to do because they feel they have a right to do it!

Laws can only go so far if people don’t believe that those laws are fundamentally just and fair. We clearly have a nation divided on guns on one side and female autonomy on the other. However, both gun control and legal abortion seem to have overwhelming public support no matter what the rightwing majority on the Supreme Court opines. And their recent rulings taking away states’ right to control concealed weapons while giving all states the right to control womens’ reproductive health in a whiplash of hypocrisy. Both seem suspiciously related to fundamentalist religious beliefs that should be separated by the church and state doctrine, which the court now seems primed to do away with entirely by allowing religious prayer on a Washington state football field.

People are not going to obey or respect these court decisions and I predict that just like the runaway slave laws of the 19th century there will be a new abolitionist underground railroad for women seeking abortions. Some are already calling these anti-abortion laws “Jane Crow Laws.” There will continue to be mass protests against gun violence and mass shootings, as the mass shootings continue. And it may just come down to private businesses and entertainment venues simply banning guns from their premises. No guns will accompany no shoes, no shirts and no service signs either!

The contradictions of all of this have vexed our nation from the very beginning — the conflict between freedom and liberty — asks the question “whose liberty and freedom from what and at whose expense?” Guns, like fireworks, are held onto by some in this country with a kind of religious ferocity that can only be viewed obscurely. It is best explained in the 2008 book by Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. We are experiencing both a class and culture war that is exacerbated by Donald Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court, Fox News and the Big Lie of the stolen election.

So as the gunpowder in the Southern California air begins to clear from the exuberant display of rockets and their red glare in a celebratory display of lawlessness, just remember it could be worse, far worse — Trump could still be president and the fascist mob could have been successful in attacking Congress. At least for now their defeat is something to celebrate this Independence Day. But it’s a sobering thought the day after to realize how close we came to losing this republic to a tyrant.

At this point, only the conviction of Donald J. Trump for insurrection and adding three more liberal judges to the Supreme Court will clear the air regarding our national conflicts and the toxic nature of our politics. But fireworks are probably here to stay.

No Permits, No Rights — Street Vendors Often Forced to Throw Out Food

Hunter Chase
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No Permits, No Rights — Street Vendors Often Forced to Throw Out Food

By Hunter Chase and Fabiola Esqueda, Community News Reporters

Life isn’t easy for street vendors in Los Angeles, and the vendors in San Pedro are no exception. Permits are hard to come by, and without them, they can be fined by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, and even have their food and carts confiscated.

Victor Cortez, a street vendor who has worked in San Pedro, Long Beach and Harbor City, said that prior to the pandemic, the health department has confiscated his cart three to four times. Each time he has had to pay $1,400 to replace it. However, since the start of the pandemic, the health department has been more lenient, and has only fined him or confiscated the fruit he is selling and thrown it away.

Edin Amorado, an activist who helps street vendors, said that the process of securing a permit takes a few weeks. The problem is that it is only possible to secure a permit for a tamale cart.

“It’s just super hard for them,” Amorado said. “For example, if you have a corn mobile stand, it’s impossible for you to get a permit right now.”

Amorado says this is because tamales are simple. They are already cooked; the cart is just meant to keep them warm. Other types of food can require preparation onsite.

The other advantage the carts have is that they are fully mobile, they don’t have to be set up in one place. Some San Pedro residents are not happy with where street vendors have been setting up.

At the June 13 meeting of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council, the board passed a resolution 14-0 asking for stricter enforcement against street vendors.

“It’s not a problem so much with the vendors themselves, it’s where they choose to be,” said Melanie Labrecque, chair of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council’s public safety committee.

Labrecque said there was a vendor who was selling on private property.

“It’s on somebody’s yard, and it’s in the red zone,” Labrecque said. “So, it makes it very unsafe for the cars to stop there.”

Labrecque said they could cause an accident, especially if cars are lined up. Officer Chris Eick of the Los Angeles Police Department Harbor Division said that his department might try to work with the vendors to find them a better spot when he spoke at the June 23 meeting of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council’s public safety committee.

“[I’ll] say hey, I looked around, and there’s a spot over here,” Eick said. “It’s got a huge sidewalk, it’s got a lot of space, you’ll get a lot of customers. Maybe you can go over there. So not just tell them no, but tell them hey, try over here, there’s more space, you won’t have any issues from us or anybody else, and people can park, and there’s no safety issues.”

Cortez said it is difficult to choose a location, as he never knows where he will sell the most product. He constantly thinks of the best place to sell, as he does not want to throw any of the food away.

Eick said that his department will assist the health department when they go to enforce permits.

“They need a permit from the city to vend, and they need a health department permit to sell food,” Eick said. “We aren’t really involved, per se, we are more there for security purposes for the health workers.”

Eick said the police and the health department workers go to places where they have heard complaints and throw away the vendors’ food. Sometimes they do not fine the vendors because they do not have identification on them. Eick said his goal is to work with the health department more often, and bust the vendors several days in a row.

“Because if you do it once, and then they don’t see you again for a long time, then they’re just going to start setting back up and doing the same thing all over again,” Eick said.

Cortez said that when health department employees throw away all his food, he feels like crying, as he has been selling for many hours under the hot sun when they take away all his food. He has been fined up to $470 and can spend from $250 to $300 every day on the fruit he sells.

Melissa Arechiga, an activist and one of the founders of Buried Under the Blue, said that the police should have more compassion for the vendors.

“That costs money, when they take it and throw it away,” Arechiga said. “At least, if you don’t want them to sell, at least give them the opportunity to eat, take their stuff and leave, instead of confiscating it and then just throwing it in the trash. We have so many people that are hungry, and products costing so much. That’s just wasteful, not just to the person, but to our whole environment.”

Juan and Luz Aguilar, a married couple that sell tamales in San Pedro, said they have not had trouble with the police or the health department. In fact, the police have even bought from them before. However, on June 8, Juan was harassed by an older white man who yelled racial slurs at him and kicked his cart.

Juan recorded the incident, and posted it on TikTok, where it got more than 2 million views. In response, activists, including Arechiga, organized a sell-out for Juan on June 11, where he sold 1,500 tamales in two hours.

Juan filed a police report for the incident, but not much has come from it.

“We went to the police department, but they said because there was no physical damage, there was nothing that can really be done,” Luz said. “At this point, it’s kind of like, well, if you see the man again, call us.”

The difficulty of getting a permit

Cortez does not have a permit because the county asks for a lot of documents from him that he does not have. He is not alone.

According to Civil Eats, only 204 out of about 10,000 vendors in the City of Los Angeles have permits. A study from UCLA said that part of the reason for this is the prerequisite that vendors must first have a license from the health department, which requires them to follow rules in the state’s Food Retail Code. It requires things like a three-basin sink, and 20 gallons of water at all times. In addition, it also bans cutting fruit and reheating and hot-holding food. These rules were written with food trucks and catering in mind, before street vending was legalized in 2018.

Amorado said the language barrier is also an issue.

“The majority of vendors that speak Spanish, they’re also in fear of deportation so they don’t bother with it, because they feel their information might be exposed,” Amorado said. “The ones that have tried, it’s close to impossible for them to get one.”

With pending state legislation comes both hope and more worries — Senate bill 972 would make it easier for vendors to get permits and reduce fines, whereas Senate bill 1290 would criminalize street vending further.

“It’s an oxymoron how these two bills were passed through the Senate,” Amorado said.

Amorado said that SB 1290 was written by someone who did not want to see street vending in California, and that if it passed, it could significantly reduce the practice.

“During the pandemic, there was a lot of brick-and-mortar owners that lost their business who are now street vendors, and they’re just trying to get back on their feet,” Amorado said.

Port Breaks Law Again With China Shipping SEIR

Paul Rosenberg
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Port Breaks Law Again With China Shipping SEIR

The Port of Los Angeles violated the law with its most recent plans to mitigate harm from the China Shipping terminal, a judge ruled on June 27. Judge Timothy Taylor ordered the port and the City of LA to “set aside the August 2020 certification of the SEIR [supplemental environmental impact report],” which involved replacement mitigations for 11 measures in the 2008 EIR that were never implemented.

“The port violated CEQA [the California Environmental Quality Act] in several ways by certifying the SEIR in August of 2020,” Judge Taylor wrote. Crucially, “The critical assumption underlying the SEIR’s environmental analysis — i.e., that China Shipping would agree to amend its lease in 2019 to require mitigation — is completely baseless,” which in turn “renders even the port’s watered-down mitigation measures unenforceable.”

The port was justified in eliminating some measures as infeasible, but not others, he also ruled, and he declined to pursue a specific remedy. “The court may not direct the port to carry out its obligations under CEQA in any particular way,” he wrote.

Homeowners represented by the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC) filed the initial China Shipping lawsuit in 2001 when the port approved the project without any EIR at all. They won on appeal in 2003, leading to the 2008 EIR. This lawsuit was notable because homeowners and activist organizations were joined by both state and regional air pollution agencies — CARB (California Air Resources Board) and the AQMD (South Coast Air Quality Management District) — as well as the Attorney General.

“The forceful words from this judge’s decision underscored the port’s repeated failures to comply with environmental laws or to respect the health impacts to residents from their industrial expansion,” said Janet Gunter, one of three local activists who spearheaded the initial lawsuit.

“This decision is a victory for the port-adjacent communities in Los Angeles,” said CARB Chair Liane Randolph. “The Port of Los Angeles must finally require China Shipping to set in place the required measures they have been flouting, and take steps to reduce the air pollution they produce that is harming the residents of multiple AB 617 communities.” Assembly bill 617 requires specific emission reduction protections for environmental justice communities, including Wilmington, Carson and west Long Beach.

“The judge understood the history of the port’s malfeasance in this case and I think that his ruling reflected that,” NRDC senior attorney David Pettit told Random Lengths News.

“This is another in a long line of court rulings finding the port has violated laws designed to protect public health and the environment,” said Joe Lyou, president and CEO of the Coalition for Clean Air, another community plaintiff represented by NRDC. “It says a lot about their continual prioritization of money over the health of their neighbors. It’s time for the city and port to make the systemic changes necessary to start making the health and welfare of the residents of Wilmington and San Pedro a higher priority than maximizing profits,” he said.

“The port has a 20-year record of flouting the law with this project, including issuing secret and illegal waivers of environmental protections to China Shipping. This took place at the highest levels of the port, perhaps the mayor’s office,” said Peter Warren of San Pedro and Peninsula Homeowners Coalition. “The port has shown that it cannot be trusted to follow CEQA, or to report honestly and transparently on mitigation compliance without independent oversight. This court victory is one step along the pathway to justice and accountability. As the court notes, the port allows and China shipping places priority on its profits ahead of ‘compliance with California environmental law and the health of harbor workers and residents.’ This must stop.”

While the judge warned in his ruling that “this court is only a temporary first port of call on the voyage to appellate review,” Pettit was not so sure that would happen, and the port itself has refused to comment. “While the Port of Los Angeles does not comment on ongoing litigation, the Port is evaluating its options in response to the Court’s ruling,” Port spokesman Phillip Sanfield said via email.

In addition to the central ruling striking down the SEIR, the judge also ruled on each implementation measure where the adequacy of the port’s analysis was challenged, upholding some while striking down others. For example, the port tried to weaken its AMP (shoreside power) requirement from 100% to 95% compliance, arguing that “some third-party vessels may not be equipped to use AMP, certain ‘situations’ may prevent an AMP-capable vessel from utilizing AMP, and 100% compliance has never occurred,” as the judge summarized. But, “These findings are not supported by substantial evidence,” he wrote, going on to explain how the original measure anticipated and allowed for precisely such difficulties. “The measure was unlawfully modified in violation of CEQA,” he concluded.

On the other hand, a similar reduction in compliance for vessel speed reduction (12 knots within 40 nautical miles of Point Fermin) was found to be “supported by substantial evidence” and was upheld. Perhaps most seriously, the court upheld the elimination of the drayage truck measure requiring a phased transition from diesel to LNG trucks, and the failure to adopt a replacement measure. As noted in the AQMD’s brief, this is strikingly at odds with the port’s own timeline of 2035 for 100% phase-in of zero-emission technologies.

All these could be challenged on appeal, but it could be months before it’s clear if there will be any. If there is none, what happens next is also unclear, particularly with a new mayor and new Harbor Commission coming in just a few months. When that happens, “there could be a different approach to this,” Pettit noted.

But Gunter was less optimistic.

“Our plaintiff’s celebratory mood regarding this second court win is tempered by the results of our first court victory,” she said. “If the port has proven anything at all, it is simply that they should not be trusted.”

Bruce’s Beach Returned to Descendants

RLn
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Bruce’s Beach Returned to Descendants

For the first time in the history of Los Angeles County and likely anywhere in the United States, land will be returned to Black descendants whose ancestors were robbed of their property and generational wealth due to unjust laws and practices rooted in systemic racism.

Just days after Juneteenth celebrations took place, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion June 24, from Chair Holly J. Mitchell and co-authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn that returns Bruce’s Beach to the great-great grandsons of Charles and Willa Bruce.

Hahn remarked that it is never too late to right a wrong.

“The Bruce family will finally have the opportunity to start rebuilding the generational wealth that was denied them for decades,” Hahn said.

Hahn added this will be the first land transfer of its kind, but it cannot be the last; she hopes the county sets a precedent that governments across this nation will follow.

Mitchell noted that Bruce’s Beach was a refuge for Black families who came from across the state when racist laws wouldn’t allow for any other safe beach going options.

“It holds the memories of countless Black families, the deep pain of multi-generational loss, and the hope that comes from facing the heinous acts of our past and having the courage to do what is right today,” Mitchell said.

The transfer agreement is the culmination of years of advocacy and has taken several steps to set the county on the path to legally return the land. Hahn, alongside Mitchell, originally announced her intention to return the Bruce’s Beach property to the living descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce in April 2021. However, at that time the county was unable to transfer the property due to limitations placed on the land by the state. Hahn reached out to State Senator Steven Bradford who authored Senate bill 796, which codified into law the county’s ability to transfer the piece of public property back to private ownership.

The land being returned to the legal heirs of the Bruce family are lots 8 and 9 of Peck’s Manhattan Beach Tract, an estimated 7,000 square feet that have been appraised at a value of $21 million. These lots are currently being used by the LA County Fire Department as a lifeguard training facility. The motion authorizes the county to lease the property its lifeguard training facility is located on from the Bruce Family, LLC annually for $413,000.

Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang told RLN that the Bruce’s Beach property will be assessed based upon the 1975 value based on Prop. 13, with the incremental Consumer Price Index or CPI increase of no more than 2% from then to now. The reason for this formula of assessment is embedded in the state legislation to return the beach property to the Bruce family.

The Bruce family operated a thriving resort, welcoming to Black patrons when legal segregation kept Black families from accessing California public beaches up until 1929 when the City of Manhattan Beach condemned the property. Through government actions, the Bruce family lost their land, business, their home and generational wealth. This is a historic moment for the county in its process of addressing current and historic prejudice under its Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion initiative.

“This is a day we weren’t sure would ever come, the return of our family’s property happened thanks to the hard work of many, many people. It means the world to us,” said the family’s spokesman, Anthony Bruce.

“But it is also bittersweet. My great-great-grandparents, Willa and Charles Bruce sacrificed to open a business that gave Black people a place to gather and socialize, and Manhattan Beach took it from them because of the color of their skin,” Bruce said. “It destroyed them financially. It destroyed their chance at the American Dream. I wish they could see what has happened today. We hope this opens people’s eyes to a part of American history that isn’t talked about enough, and we think it’s a step toward trying to right the wrongs of the past.”

“I am extremely proud to have authored Senate bill 796 that allowed the County of LA to transfer the Bruce’s Beach land back to its rightful heirs,” Bradford said. “The county’s plan will accomplish my legislation’s objective of rectifying the historic injustice that was done to the Bruce family. This will allow the Bruce family to realize the generational wealth which they have been deprived for generations, simply for being Black in America! We cannot change the injustices done to our people in the past, but we owe it to the future generations to eliminate structural and systemic racism that still exist today.”

Details: Read the full motion here, www.file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/Bruces-Beach

—RLN Staff

Long Beach Playhouse Ill-Equipped for Sondheim’s “Company”

Greggory Moore
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Long Beach Playhouse Ill-Equipped for Sondheim’s “Company”

My friend just finished coaching a season of rec league basketball for 10-year-olds, kids who can’t maintain a dribble and miss 90% of their free throws. Despite his best efforts to get them to work on fundamentals, he couldn’t stop them from regularly hoisting up three-pointers even though they were rarely able to get the ball anywhere near the hoop.

Call it the Steph Curry effect. If you don’t know, Curry is a little freak of nature who’s changed the NBA over the last decade by shooting with abandon from beyond — often way beyond — the arc. It’s a wildly entertaining style that’s helped his Golden State Warriors win four championships.

Problem is, if you can’t make a significant percentage of such shots (Curry has a career 3P% of .428), you hurt your team by playing this way. You have to know your strengths/weaknesses and act accordingly.

Stephen Sondheim musicals are like Steph Curry/Warriors basketball: there’s a high degree of difficulty, and they can fail miserably without the right talent.

Alas, Long Beach Playhouse simply has not amassed anywhere near the talent to pull off Sondheim’s Company, seemingly blinded to their own limitations by ambition and love.

Clearly, Artistic Director Sean Gray loves him some Sondheim. Including Company, three of the 12 shows he’s helmed at the Playhouse have been Sondheim. I missed Assassins but caught Sweeney Todd: it was, er, not Warriors basketball, without a single player on the roster able to capably sing his/her role and a three-piece band painfully failing to approximate Sondheim’s chamber-orchestra score.

The good news is that Company — a meditation on intimacy and avoidance through the eyes of just-turned-35 Robert (Cris Cortez) as he considers his single life in contrast to those of his married friends — is not that bad. Despite vocal and physical shortcomings, the cast is spirited. Highlights include Colleen McCandless, Sasha Badia, and Carole Louise delivering a tight “You Could Drive a Person Crazy”; Mabel Schreffler managing the nearly impossible diction of “Getting Married Today”; and some nice blocking here and there making use of the entire Mainstage Theatre to spread out the individual parts of Sondheim’s dense harmonies.

The bad news? Many of Sweeney Todd’s problems are reanimated in Company, starting with the music itself. Although this time Gray and musical director Stephen Olear have enough musicians (six) to pull off the score in play, they’re simply not the right musicians with the right equipment and mixing. Horns regularly hit sour notes, violin ranges from pitchy to out of tune to seemingly random (strings are always a problem in Long Beach Playhouse musicals), and drums are muddy and often out-of-sync even on simple 4/4 pulses. Clearly, blame here lies not just with the musicians but also with Olear, who handles the keyboard that is the center of the Company score. With all these drags on the orchestration and a piano setting where glissandos sound like shit, it’s sometimes hard to know what to make of his playing, but there notable shortcomings include “Another Hundred People”, where Olear inscrutably swaps the piano for a harpsichord setting employed to such convoluted effect that the singer doesn’t stand a chance.

While there is no doubt that the music drags the singers into dubious territory they might otherwise avoid, there’s no question that, once again, Gray is staging a challenging show with vocal talent that doesn’t quite fit the bill, at least not for the way he and Olear have directed them to sing. There’s a long history in top-shelf musical theatre (Broadway, West End) where actors triumphed despite vocal shortcomings — Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd, for example, or Anne Reinking in the 1996 revival of Chicago. The key is to dial the performance to the vocalist, leaning into the acting rather than the notes when needed. At the very least, Gray and Olear have not done that enough with this cast.

For a company that does not specialize in musical theatre, Long Beach Playhouse has been doing an awful lot of it in recent years. Occasionally it turns out fine: last season Olear was musical director on a Sister Act that was downright charming.

But there’s something to be said for knowing your limitations. I can’t blame anyone for loving Stephen Sondheim or wanting to stretch themselves by trying him on for size. But if you’re going to take it public, a critic’s job is to report on the fit. To that end, I’m sorry to say Long Beach Playhouse is way too small for Sondheim.

“COMPANY” @ LONG BEACH PLAYHOUSE THRU AUGUST 6

Time: Fri. – Sat. 8pm, Sun 2PM

Location: 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach 90804

Details: 562-494-1014 – lbplayhouse.org

Cost: $14–$24

Every Crime Imaginable

Paul Rosenberg
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Every Crime Imaginable

“We’re going to charged with every crime imaginable”

— White House Counsel Pat Cipollone on Trump’s plans for Jan. 6

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson may have changed the course of history with her damning testimony about the Jan. 6 insurrection in a hastily called hearing on June 28 — but the question looms: by how much?

Hutchinson provided damning specific details showing that the Jan. 6 insurrection was not a non-violent demonstration that got out of hand, but rather an intentional disruption planned days in advance.

“We’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great,” Rudy Giuliani told her on Jan. 2, after which her boss, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told her, “Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.” Donald Trump knew that the crowd was armed as he exhorted it to “fight like hell,” and wanted to go with them to the Capitol to prevent certification of his election loss.

As a result of her testimony, “There will be way more information,” from new witnesses, GOP committee member Adam Kinzinger told CNN. And pressure is rising to indict Trump on a variety of counts, pointing to two distinct potential futures, each dangerous to the future of democracy.

In the first, Trump declares his 2024 candidacy early, seeking to discourage his indictment as a declared candidate, but turning the mid-terms into more of a referendum on his threat to democracy, which could favor Democrats, making them more able to prevent a repeat 2020-style election-theft scenario. In the second, Trump holds back, Republicans make gains in the midterms, and are better positioned to undermine the 2024 election in less ham-fisted ways, and/or continue to undermine American democracy more broadly.

Potential erosion of support for Trump could push him towards the first alternative, while a spate of extreme-right Supreme Court decisions — most notably the overthrow of Roe v. Wade —underscores the danger of the latter. Significantly, after the last Supreme Court decision of the term was handed down, the court announced it would hear a case next term involving the “independent state legislature” theory, a version of which was central to Trump’s plan to derail Joe Biden’s election in the Electoral College.

Early on Jan. 6, Hutchinson said, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone warned her something to the effect of “Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.” Taped witnesses and contemporaneous text messages confirmed that was Trump’s intention.

The committee also played taped police radio transmissions about weapons in the crowd, including glocks and AR-15s. This was among those who chose not to pass through security checkpoints with magnetometers (aka “mags”) screening for weapons. Trump was furious that they weren’t being let through, Hutchison said, paraphrasing Trump saying, “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take that effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in.” That was before he told them to “Fight like hell.”

In short, he clearly intended to lead an armed mob to the Capitol — which could bring charges of both incitement to violence and seditious conspiracy, according to multiple experts.

But the Secret Service nixed the idea as unsafe when he got in his vehicle after the speech, and Trump exploded in anger, trying to grab the steering wheel himself, according to an account Hutchinson said she received shortly afterwards from Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato. This account was disputed in the first 24 hours after Hutchinson’s testimony, but its essentials were then confirmed by multiple anonymous sources.

Trumpism Without Trump?

A Possibility Grows

Hutchinson’s testimony came just as the Supreme Court was concluding the most conservative term since 1931 according to a popular expert metric. With a hard right majority in place on the Court, Trump now seems more expendable than ever, even as he’s transformed the GOP along the way.

“Hutchinson’s sworn testimony closes a gap in the criminal case against Trump, and Trump is closer to a credible prosecution than ever before,” wrote David French, an editor at the conservative publication The Dispatch. And the right-leaning Washington Examiner said Hutchinson’s testimony “ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trump’s political career” and that “Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.”

“We’re seeing an avalanche of stories, an avalanche of people openly talking about considering a run in 2024, whether it’s Mike Pence, whether its Ron DeSantis, whether it’s Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, there are people who are putting themselves in place to run, regardless of what Donald Trump does,” former GOP congressional staffer Kurt Bardello said on MSNBC. “That tells you that there is a very real crack in the foundation and frankly, the idea of the Republican Party being remade into the image of Donald Trump, has been successful. They don’t need him anymore, because they have all embraced this radical extreme portrait of America, and they’re all acting on it now. They don’t need Donald Trump.”

White Christian nationalism has been key to Trump’s election and that transformation. He enjoyed 81% support among white evangelicals in 2016, running on the promise to remake the courts for them, and having delivered, he recently gave the keynote speech at the Road to Majority Policy Conference, where he led the way in demonizing Democrats. Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, reported on what she saw there in a New York Times op-ed:

[T]hree clear trends were in evidence. First, the rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appeared to have increased significantly from the already alarming levels I had observed in previous years. Second, the theology of dominionism — that is, the belief that “right-thinking” Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society — is now explicitly embraced. And third, the movement’s key strategists were giddy about the legal arsenal that the Supreme Court had laid at their feet as they anticipated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Trump didn’t invent any of this, of course. But he was instrumental in normalizing and mainstreaming the more extreme, violent, confrontational elements. And now that he has, there appears to be no going back. Instead, would-be successors and allies are working to refine the effectiveness of the power-grabbing strategies and opportunities he and his Supreme Court appointees have advanced.

Stewart highlighted the role of two crucial, but less-noticed Supreme Court decisions in strengthening their legal weaponry:

They intend to use that arsenal — together with additional weaponry collected in cases like Carson v. Makin, which requires state funding of religious schools if private, secular schools are also being funded; and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which licenses religious proselytizing by public school officials — to prosecute a war on individual rights, not merely in so-called red state legislatures but throughout the nation.

No Crime At All

Meanwhile, on the pure political power front, the Supreme Court announced it will hear a case next year involving the “independent state legislature” [ISL] theory, which played a key role in Trump’s attempt to steal the election. The theory alleges that state legislatures have virtually unchecked power over federal elections—even the power to ignore the results in Trump’s extreme version. Less extreme versions prevent election officials, state courts or governors from having any role—as many did in response to COVID-19 in the 2020 election.

Marc Elias, a leading Democratic voting rights attorney who won scores of post-election court cases against Trump, explained what is afoot to the Washington Post:

Republicans tried to subvert the 2020 election, but were clumsy and they are now learning from that where the pressure points and vulnerabilities are in our election systems, and refining their tactics.

The Supreme Court has already gutted the Voting Rights Act, and given a green light to gerrymandering, so the ISL would be one more giant step toward destroying democracy in America. Not only could Trump (or another GOP candidate) will the presidency with minority support—like Trump in 2016 or Bush in 2000—he wouldn’t even need to win a majority of the Electoral College votes if enough state legislators were organized to elect him instead.

While attention has rightly been grabbed by Hutchinson’s alarming testimony, and more details are sure to come, the more serious long-term threat to American democracy comes from an entirely different direction—from the same folks who just destroyed a constitutional right for the first time in American history. In 2024, Republicans won’t have to commit every crime imaginable to steal the election. If the Supreme Court goes unchecked, stealing the election will be perfectly legal.

NOP/IS Released for Improvements to Vopak Liquid Bulk, Cement Terminal, Wilmington

Reporters Desk
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NOP/IS Released for Improvements to Vopak Liquid Bulk, Cement Terminal, Wilmington

SAN PEDRO — The Port of Los Angeles has released a Notice of Preparation/Initial Study or NOP/IS of a Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Berths 187-191 or Vopak Liquid Bulk Terminal Wharf Improvements and Cement Terminal Project, located in Wilmington at the Port of Los Angeles.

The proposed project includes improvements to the existing liquid bulk terminal wharves located at Berths 187-190 to comply with Marine Oil Terminal Engineering and Maintenance Standards or MOTEMS and repairs and structural upgrades to the Berth 191 wharf to support the resumption of maritime cement operations. The proposed project also includes issuance of a new 30-year entitlement to Vopak for continued operation of its two primary locations and associated pipelines at Berths 187-190 and the Berth 191 cement import terminal.

The NOP/IS is available for review at portoflosangeles.org/ceqa. The NOP/IS is intended to solicit feedback, which helps to identify any potential environmental impacts and suggest possible alternatives for the project that can be incorporated into the Draft Environmental Impact Report or DEIR.

The Port will hold a virtual scoping meeting July 20, via Zoom to receive comments on the NOP/IS. No registration is required. Simultaneous Spanish translation services will be provided. Find information on how to join the meeting at portoflosangeles.org/ceqa.

Written comments on the NOP/IS may be submitted via email to ceqacomments@portla.org or to the following address during the 45-day public review and comment period through Monday, August 22:

Christopher Cannon, Director of Environmental Management

Los Angeles Harbor Department

425 South Palos Verdes Street

San Pedro, CA 90731

Include the Project title “Berths 187-191 [Vopak] Liquid Bulk Terminal Wharf Improvements and Cement Terminal Project” in the email subject line and the commenter’s physical mailing address in the body of the email.

Time: 5 p.m. July 20

Details: portoflosangeles.org/ceqa, or ceqacomments@portla.org.

Venue: Online

“Will You Stay” — A Psychedelic-Folk Exploration into the Broken Heart

Melina Paris
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“Will You Stay” — A Psychedelic-Folk Exploration into the Broken Heart

Singer-songwriter Alyssandra Nighswonger, a Long Beach music scene star, has hosted an open mic at Viento y Agua Coffee House for ten years. She has collaborated with Long Beach music acts The Dovelles, Lucky Penny, Ellen Warkentine and the Balboa Amusement Company Orchestra. Nighswonger has also hosted a series of multimedia Vaudeville Spectaculars at the Historic Art Theatre in Long Beach.

Given her range of experience, Nighswonger knew perfectly just how to set the tone and the stage for her new album, Will You Stay, with a dreamy release show, under the trees at Los Ranchos Cerritos on June 18.

“Will You Stay is an album about the soft and bittersweet goodbyes you make to the part of yourself that you leave behind when a relationship ends, and the newness of embracing the world on your own again; it’s the alchemy of a broken heart,” says Nighswonger.

The album explores this alchemy supported by sounds of a live indie-rock combo with the mellotron, vibraphone, Hammond b3 organ and harp. Nighswonger started work on it in 2016, after being dealt a broken heart. She wrote a new series of songs that were more intimate and close to her heart than anything she’d ever written before.

Will You Stay brims with rich sounds from samba, country to rock songs, buoyed in an ethereal soundscape. As an album, Will You Stay sits on high, guiding its songs through trials, playing music that invites the listener to expand sonically and emotionally as they recognize a broken, healed and open heart.

Hanging out with her close friends Heather Sommerhauser (vocals), Lili de la Mora-Archambault (vocals), Lono Archambault (bass) and Matt Hill (guitar) Nighswonger said they started creating the type of music that she had always wanted to make, “something fresh with both beauty and grit.” Warm sounds of the band playing together, live, were created in Antoine Arvizu’s open airy Compound Studio in Signal Hill. Arvizu also played drums on the album. Nighswonger likened it to capturing a moment in time. She was dedicated to getting everyone to play live in the same room at the studio.

“Its tagline is it’s an organic recording experience,” Nighswonger said. “It’s very breezy and not concerned about isolating every noise to get this great sound. It’s like you’re capturing the life of it, the breath of it. The way the band moves together, I feel like that’s what we captured with those sessions.”

The project was hard to finish with everyone’s different schedules, and it was moved to the back burner. Nighswonger began working on her Nighswonger Sings Nilsson project, which she said was like a runaway freight train in another direction. The pandemic happened just as she released that album, then everything came to a halt.

“The pandemic was a very reflective time,” Nighswonger said. “One thing that I found so valuable was the people that I love, [who] are near and dear to me.”

She recalled how far she had come since that time, with her previous heartbreak so fresh, but now it’s a new chapter. She noted that her growth since then has only flourished and flowered more. After letting the album and old feelings rest, Nighswonger returned to it, deciding to expand its sound into something with a bigger, more ethereal atmosphere for the songs to live in.

Nighswonger had been stuck on the idea that everyone had to be in the same room together for the album “to be true to what it needs to be.” Since then, she met other musicians who considered the arrangements behind the album a little differently. Considering this, she listened to the songs one-by-one and thought of people to bring in on the project. Those additions feature R. Scott Dibble on piano and Hammond B3 organ, Joy Shannon on harp and percussionist, Slam on vibraphone. Inspired by influences like The Moody Blues and King Crimson, the work is also immersed heavily in the mellotron, played by LA producer/multi-instrumentalist, Fernando Perdomo. R. Scott Dibble was the first musician she brought in.

“He’s so great at what he does,” Nighswonger said. “I wondered what it would be like (to get) him on the Hammond b3 organ on a couple songs.”

Nighswonger let go of some of her original ideas for these songs and started to consider how they could also reflect how she had grown — “and how about building a whimsical universe for these songs to live in?” she asked.

The piano that R. Scott (Dibble) added to Will You Stay with its samba / bossa nova feel to it, Nighswonger said, was so classy, it’s beautiful. The lyrical refrain, “I don’t wanna … sleep alone,” is repeated rapidly like a whispered mantra, along with the others: “Please don’t go” and “Stay a little longer.” This honest plea meets that musical whimsy, resulting in a reckoning of human emotions, sans drama-inducing heartache.

“Having [Slam] on the vibraphone really kicked the album up a notch. He played the vibraphone on Will You Stay too,” she said. “[And] for Survive Sunrise [R. Scott] added the Hammond b3 organ, which you hear on a lot of beautiful classic rock songs like, of course, the Doors.”

Blending dreamscape sounds via mellotron — a small electro-mechanical instrument — and Hammond b3 organ crack open Nighswongers Survive Sunrise, offering a sonic touchstone that prepares you to wander through your imagination. Grounding organ tones are punctuated by Arvizu’s percussion/cymbals and then, sounds of oboe, flute and strings, alongside Sommerhauser and de la Mora-Archambault’s angelic vocals, let you drift languorously, carrying you through this ethereal number.

“On Pond of Lillies, I’ve always wanted that song to sound [how] a Busby Berkeley film looks, with the waterfalls and the dancing ladies,” Nighswonger said.

Nighswonger’s voice has a vintage quality to it. Her silky vocals combined with the lilting Pond of Lillies indeed arouses Berkeley’s blissful, kaleidoscopic dreamscape. Nighswonger credited vibraphonist Slam with unleashing the magic on this track, adding, “Everyone on the album, including the original band, took what’s in my heart and illuminated it for the world to hear.”

She also brought in producer and multi-instrumentalist Fernando Perdomo. He played on the Echoes In The Canyon documentary with Jacob Dylan. They connected through the Nighswonger Sings Nillson album and tribute concert and became friends with similar loves.

Perdomo had a mellotron guitar pedal and Nighswonger asked him to lay that down on her album. He had something better, the new mellotron keyboard.

“I went to his studio in Reseda and we did a session,” Nighswonger said. “Hearing him play the mellotron for the first time on all those songs was magical. I was taken back to these memories of riding in the backseat of my parent’s car, on road trips when I was a little kid and with cassettes of the Moody Blues playing on repeat in our car. These sounds are on my music now. It feels so … unattainable but with a little help from my friends I can do anything.”

To aid in the alchemy of a broken heart, Nighswonger said, “When you are weary of the world, may these songs provide a little sanctuary. Close your eyes, feel the warmth of your hand over your heart and know you are not alone and you are holding a heart of gold.

“The success that I’ve always sought, was to make something that’s really good that can help people or that people can connect to and feel a little less lonely in the world. This is my next step towards that. It’s the album I’ve always wanted to make.”

Details: www.alyssandranighswonger.com

Will You Stay is available on Bandcamp, CD, cassette or digital download, and for streaming and download on all digital platforms.

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