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Who Is Rick Caruso? The Man vs. The Ads

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Who Is Rick Caruso? The Man vs. The Ads

BOB GELFAND for CityWatch March 24.

https://citywatchla.com/index.php/395-gelfand-s-world/24149-who-is-rick-caruso-the-man-vs-the-ads

GELFAND’S WORLD – If you, like me, saw the first set of Rick Caruso for Mayor ads on television, you would have come away from them not really knowing the man.

He’s just a very, very rich guy who makes promises he can’t keep, like every other politician running for president. Some might even think of him as the west coast version of a Donald Trump.

Looking at his website and reading some of his biography, this does not appear to be the case, but the tv ads are a good example of how advertisers working for politicians miss critically important points.

When I participated in politics at the level of a local Democratic club, I began to notice that there was a sort of ladder with its own pecking order for election to public office. If you were running for governor, it was expected that you would show some prior experience in government.

Being the state Attorney General and creating a strong anti-crime image was the standard method. Holding some other statewide office and being the son of a popular former governor was also a way to be near the top of the ladder. Pete Wilson moved from Mayor of San Diego to U.S. Senator, and from there to governor.

People who wanted to have a career in politics and were otherwise unaccomplished would run for the Community College District because there were a lot of seats and the voters typically had no idea who was any good or even who the incumbents were. It didn’t usually work out for most of these people — they couldn’t even afford to send a postcard to every mailing address in the district — but it shows that they did recognize that the ladder exists.

So is Rick Caruso doing the exact same thing — running for mayor instead of for governor or the U.S. Senate — because he has lots of money and can afford to start at a higher level? That would be the impression you get if the only information you were to rely on comes from those television ads.

What we are looking for in a candidate and what we are not looking for in a candidate

Recent history suggests that successful candidates had a lot of name recognition, had a lot of experience in government, and could make a credible case that they had made things happen.

The rich guy without government experience

There is another approach to government which is simplistically described as being rich enough to buy a lot of advertising. This is supposed to provide name recognition, the first requirement for successfully running for office.

But is it enough? Experience tells us that this is not the case.

The prime example was Ross Perot, who had gazillions of dollars and fought his way into a presidential debate. He didn’t win.

A parallel track to the rich guy who buys a lot of advertising is being the son or daughter of a well known politician. The logic seems to go like this: People know the family name because Dad has been elected many times and people seem to like him. “When my name goes on the ballot, people will see Unruh or Dymally and check that name.”

It didn’t work back then. My take-away impression at the time was that the children of successful politicians seemed to be rejected by the voters almost automatically. Admittedly, George W. Bush was an exception, but he had also been a state governor and had a lot of clout within his political party.

The problem for a beginner trying to break into the system

When I saw the recent ads for Rick Caruso, I saw somebody who doesn’t — as yet — present himself very well. In brief, I don’t know the man after seeing his ads, and I certainly did not gain any feel for how he would govern.

Here’s the little I remember from the television intro: Caruso says he will declare a state of emergency on his first day in office. That’s a big “so what” to me. Which of our many emergency declarations has worked out in the past? What does it even mean? Caruso also said something about getting rid of waste, which is the first and last statement used by conservative politicians who want to promise big changes without increasing taxes. They promise to pull this mythical rabbit from a mythical hat. The ad also said something about creating low cost housing from abandoned buildings, or maybe it was surplus buildings, or something like that. The Caruso campaign is free to correct me in the comments, but that’s actually my point — I didn’t actually follow the proposal (if it actually has any meaning in the real world) because it flashed by so quickly and didn’t really give any details.

So that was my first impression: It was a ho-hum political ad making exactly the same promises as every other politician has ever made, and it was entirely unconvincing.

But maybe that first impression was itself wrong.

I base that second opinion on his biography, as presented in his web page titled Meet Rick Caruso, which you can see here. [https://carusocan.com/meet-rick-caruso/]

Let’s start with one of my first impressions that is belied by the claims in his biography:

As I said above, the ads would suggest that Rick Caruso has no experience in government and wouldn’t know how to start. (Being mayor means dealing with the City Council and dozens of departments, and that means knowing how to do politics in the positive sense of the word.)

Well, is that the case?

Caruso reminds us (if we even knew) that he was appointed to the DWP Commission by Mayor Bradley back in 1985. He was appointed again in 1997. In the website biography, he takes credit for “saving the department from financial ruin, slashing billions in debt and cutting wasteful spending.” It’s an interesting assertion. I’ll leave it to our other columnists to decide whether the pension debt at the DWP is now solved, but at least the candidate is trying to claim some government experience.

But if you were to rely on the television ads for your knowledge of Rick Caruso, you wouldn’t have the faintest idea that he has ever stepped through the front door of City Hall.

Caruso also claims that he “Reformed LAPD as President of the LA Police Commission.” The website also says, “Caruso restored public trust in the LAPD, especially among Black, Asian and Latino Angelenos.” I’ll leave that to you to decide whether you think that our minority communities trust the LAPD. It’s a pretty brash claim, but at least it suggests some experience in government, even if it was just at the commission level.

There’s one other point in the biographical sketch. Caruso takes credit for hiring William Bratton as the police chief during a particularly difficult time in LAPD history. I guess I always thought that the mayor has something to do with choosing the new police chief.

But there is some meat in the website as opposed to the television ads, showing a man who has worked in city government and claims to have fixed things that were broken when others could not. That’s a pretty substantial point, and if he could make that case to the voters, he might well win on it.

Is it going to be a Caruso vs. Bass runoff?

It may or may not be fair, but I suspect that everyone currently in the city council or holding citywide office is fatally tarred by the city council’s corruption scandal. When three other city council members have already been charged with felonies and the city attorney is allegedly involved in another major scandal, it will be easy for voters to disqualify the candidates, one and all. That leaves Karen Bass, Rick Caruso, and whatever other nonentities are on the ballot.

We’ll see.

I leave Joe Buscaino as a possible break-through candidate because he, seemingly alone, makes the logical argument that the city has the right to regulate its sidewalks and public spaces, whatever else we might do about the plight of the homeless.

There’s one other thing in the Caruso website biography that might come back to bite him. Here’s how it is phrased:

“Caruso’s father Henry ran track at Marshall High, served in World War II and attended the University of Southern California on the GI Bill. He achieved great early success in auto sales but took a massive personal fall early in his career and was indicted and served time for fraud. Rick drew the ultimate lessons from his father’s refusal to allow his mistakes to define him. After this setback, Henry founded Dollar Rent-a-Car, one of the most successful car rental franchises in America.”

Talk about euphemism: “massive personal fall” is the description of being a crook. Will Caruso be accused of being soft on (white collar) crime? That’s how his own website presents him. It’s not important that the candidate has a relative who did time, it’s the way he presents his own attitude towards crime.

It’s also of interest that Caruso ducked the first couple of debates and now is joining the process. Perhaps he realized that he couldn’t just buy the nomination and has to play the game. I suspect that this is how most people will see it.

He has a chance to separate himself from the standard candidates. For example, he could promise to put a moratorium on salary increases for city employees during his term in office. That should go double for DWP employees. I doubt that he will do so, but it would be a start on doing something about our chronic structural deficits.

Gov. Newsom Swears in Justice Patricia Guerrero to California Supreme Court

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Gov. Newsom Swears in Justice Patricia Guerrero to California Supreme Court

The First Latina to Serve on State’s Highest Court

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Gavin Newsom March 28, swore in Justice Patricia Guerrero to the California Supreme Court – the first Latina justice to serve on the bench of our state’s highest court. A highly regarded jurist, Justice Guerrero’s nomination to the court was unanimously confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments last week.

Raised in the Imperial Valley by immigrant parents from Mexico, Justice Guerrero has served as an associate justice at the Fourth District Court of Appeal, division one since 2017 and has wide-ranging experience as a trial court judge, partner at a major law firm and Assistant U.S. Attorney.

Click here to watch the conversation between Gov. Newsom and Justice Guerrero on her nomination last month. Justice Guerrero replaces Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who left the bench effective Oct. 31, 2021.

As an appellate justice at the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Justice Guerrero authored numerous opinions to protect the rights of consumers and individuals, while also ensuring that defendants’ constitutional rights are protected and that all parties, including the government, are treated fairly and consistent with the rule of law. She served as a Judge at the San Diego County Superior Court from 2013 to 2017 and was supervising judge for the Family Law Division at the Court in 2017. Justice Guerrero was hired as an associate at Latham & Watkins and became a partner in 2006. She served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California from 2002 to 2003.

Justice Guerrero has contributed many hours of pro bono work, including as a member of the Advisory Board of the Immigration Justice Project, to promote due process and access to justice at all levels of the immigration and appellate court system. She has assisted clients on a pro bono basis in immigration matters, including asylum applications and protecting vulnerable families by litigating compliance with fair housing laws. The Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court named her to the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Future of the California Bar Exam and Justice Guerrero has been active in the Chief’s “Judges in the Classroom” civics program.

Biden’s Unhinged Call for Regime Change in Russia

Norman Solomon
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Biden’s Unhinged Call for Regime Change in Russia

Ever since Joe Biden ended his speech in Poland on Saturday night by making one of the most dangerous statements ever uttered by a U.S. president in the nuclear age, efforts to clean up after him have been profuse. Administration officials scurried to assert that Biden didn’t mean what he said. Yet no amount of trying to “walk back” his unhinged comment at the end of his speech in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle can change the fact that Biden had called for regime change in Russia.

Nine words about Russian President Vladimir Putin shook the world: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

With a reckless genie out of the bottle, no amount of damage control from the president’s top underlings could stuff it back in. “We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Sunday. Such words might plausibly have less than full weight; Blinken was chief of staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when, in mid-2002, then-Senator Biden wielded the gavel at crucial hearings that completely stacked the witness deck in support of the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq, with the explicit goal of regime change.

The USA’s commander in chief, brandishing the power to launch one of the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals, would be out of his mind to consciously announce a goal of dethroning the leader of the world’s other nuclear superpower. Worst case would be that he was blurting out his government’s actual secret goal, which would not speak well of impulse control.

But it’s not much more reassuring to think that the president simply got carried away with his emotions. The day after, that was part of the messaging from Biden’s cleanup detail. “Administration officials and Democratic lawmakers said Sunday the off-the-cuff remark was an emotional response to the president’s interactions in Warsaw with [Ukrainian] refugees,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

However — before the cosmetics began to cover Biden’s unscripted statement — the New York Times provided a quick news analysis under the headline “Biden’s Barbed Remark About Putin: A Slip or a Veiled Threat?” The piece, by seasoned establishment reporters David Sanger and Michael Shear, noted that Biden’s off-script close to his speech came with “his cadence slowing for emphasis.” And they added: “On its face, he appeared to be calling for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to be ousted for his brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Mainstream journalists have avoided putting a fine point on the likelihood that World War III just got closer thanks to Biden’s words, whether or not they were “a slip” or “a veiled threat.” In fact, it might never be possible to know which it was. But that ambiguity underscores that his slip and/or threat was mind-blowingly irresponsible, endangering the survival of humanity on this planet.

Outrage is the appropriate response. And a special onus is on Democrats in Congress, who should be willing to put humanity above party and condemn Biden’s extreme irresponsibility. But prospects for such condemnation look bleak.

Biden’s impromptu nine words underscore that we must not take anything for granted about his rationality. Russia’s murderous war in Ukraine does not give Biden any valid excuse to make a horrendous situation worse. On the contrary, the U.S. government should be determined to promote and pursue negotiations that could end the killing and find long-term compromise solutions. Biden has now made it even more difficult to pursue diplomacy with Putin.

Activists have a special role to play — by emphatically insisting that members of Congress and the Biden administration must focus on finding solutions that will save Ukrainian lives as well as put a stop to the slide toward military escalation and global nuclear annihilation.

To even hint that the U.S. is seeking regime change in Russia — and to leave the world wondering whether the president is slipping or threatening — is a form of imperial insanity in the nuclear era that we must not tolerate.

“I’m addressing the people in the United States,” former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said during an interview on Democracy Now just one day before Biden’s speech in Poland. “How many times ha(s) an attempt by the American government to effect regime change anywhere in the world worked out well? Ask the women of Afghanistan. Ask the people of Iraq. How did that liberal imperialism work out for them? Not very well. Do they really propose to try this out with a nuclear power?”

Overall, in recent weeks, President Biden has jettisoned all but the flimsiest pretenses of seeking a diplomatic solution to end the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Instead, his administration keeps ratcheting up the self-righteous rhetoric while moving the world closer to ultimate catastrophe.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of a dozen books includingMade Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State, published this year in a new edition as a free e-book. His other books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters Secures Critical Funding for Lomita’s Water System

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Congresswoman Maxine Waters Secures Critical Funding for Lomita’s Water System

Congresswoman Maxine Water March 25, presented the City of Lomita with $940,000 to invest in the future of Lomita’s water supply.

Lomita is making significant investments in upgrading the Cypress Water Production Facility and Well Number Five, which pulls groundwater to supply the city water. The four new recently installed tanks are the heart of the granular activated carbon filtration system project designed to further improve water quality for residents. The project represents more than a $5 million investment.

Even with these improvements, Well Number Five is Lomita’s only groundwater well, and when it is offline as it is currently during construction, the city must rely on imported water from other parts of the state to meet its residents’ needs.

Through this partnership, Congresswoman Maxine Waters has secured critical funding that will help Lomita explore the potential for a secondary well that will serve residents’ needs locally. Residents will not have to rely on costly imported water and to invest into critical infrastructure and pipe replacements, ensuring that local water continues to be delivered to residents’ homes safely and securely for years to come.

South Bay Woman Charged with Attempted Arson of Bank Branch

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South Bay Woman Charged with Attempted Arson of Bank Branch

LOS ANGELES – A South Bay woman was charged today in a federal grand jury indictment alleging she threw a Molotov cocktail inside a bank in Torrance after having a dispute with the branch manager.

Teranee Millet, 34, of Gardena, is charged with one count of attempted arson and one count of unlawful possession of a destructive device. A federal grand jury returned the indictment today. Millet’s arraignment is expected to occur in the coming weeks at United States District Court.

According to an affidavit previously filed in this case, on Sept. 20, 2021, Millet entered a Bank of America branch in Torrance. She spoke to the bank manager and demanded to be helped by another teller because she believed she had been waiting in line for too long.

When the bank manager informed her that no other tellers were available and she would have to continue waiting, Millet allegedly used profane language and then yelled, “I’m going to blow this bitch up!” In response, the bank manager called 911 and informed law enforcement of Millet’s comments, court papers state.

A few minutes later, Millet returned to the bank branch and threw a Molotov cocktail into the bank, lighting a fire in the middle of the bank. A bank customer attempted to put it out. Law enforcement officers responded within a few minutes, secured the scene and recovered the item that Millet allegedly threw on the floor of the bank to start the fire. On her way out of the bank’s parking lot and before law enforcement arrived, she allegedly threatened another customer and threw a glass bottle at the customer’s truck.

Law enforcement used bank surveillance photos to help identify Millet.

Millet was arrested in Fulton County, Georgia on Dec. 2, 2021, after she allegedly led law enforcement on a chase in a stolen U-Haul van that ended with the van crashing. Law enforcement recovered from the van, among other items, a gym bag containing four packs of glass bottles with tissue paper inserted inside the bottles, a can of lighter fluid and a five-gallon can of gasoline, according to court documents. Millet sustained injuries in the crash and later received medical treatment.

If convicted, Millet would face a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment for the attempted arson charge. The possession of a destructive device charge carries a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison.

Recommended Overhaul of Police Oversight Would Leave Long Beach Without Independent Investigations of Complaints

Greggory Moore
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Recommended Overhaul of Police Oversight Would Leave Long Beach Without Independent Investigations of Complaints

[Author’s note: This article is not intended as a comprehensive review of the “City of Long Beach Citizen Police Complaint Commission Independent Evaluation Final Report” (February 2022) issued by Polis Solutions & Change Integration Consulting. Rather, it is a partial examination focusing on the recommendation that Long Beach jettison, rather than strengthen, independent citizen investigation of complaints against police officers.]

After evaluating Long Beach’s Citizen Police Complaint Commission (CPCC) for nearly a year, a 61-page report by a pair of consulting firms highlights numerous shortcomings with the current version of the CPCC and “recommends that the City of Long Beach use a new approach to police oversight involving an Auditor/Monitor hybrid model and a Police Oversight Commission,” which they say would better address systemic policing problems and “increas[e] the sense of legitimacy experienced by all stakeholders in the work of civilian oversight in Long Beach and to enhance accountability and transparency.”

But under this new model, authority to independently investigate complaints against police officers would be removed from the commission, leaving the Internal Affairs division of the Long Beach Police Department as the only determiner of whether individual complaints against officers are valid and deserving of action — despite the fact that the commission would be tripling its budget and staffing.

Polis Solutions and Change Integration Consulting, the pair of consulting firms jointly responsible for the report, recommend stripping the commission’s investigative powers because “[p]arallel investigations result in inefficiencies and squandered resources through duplicated steps by CPCC and Internal Affairs,” who at present each conduct their own investigations into every complaint.

[… M]any stakeholders point to the wastefulness inherent in the process, particularly given that CPCC does not have full access to LBPD information and personnel, so many CPCC investigations are incomplete. Finding recommendations are made even if the CPCC has not been provided with all evidence available to the LBPD Internal Affairs and, given this, it is understandable why the City Manager’s Office might arrive at a different final disposition than that recommended by CPCC. There is clear inefficiency in the system if CPCC does not have access to all information relevant to a complaint investigation, but nonetheless completes its work and the Commission expends time reviewing the matter and recommending a finding, only to have the City Manager base its final finding on facts only available to Internal Affairs.

The authors also point out that under the current model there is “concern that conflicts could arise given that the Police Department, Internal Affairs, and the CPCC all report into the City Manager’s Office, particularly since CPCC is intended to be an independent oversight entity. While no specific conflict incident was noted, the lack of transparency about the final decision-making process […] contributes to those concerns. A perception of conflict has similar impacts as an actual conflict.”

What the authors do not consider is the possibility of a strengthened CPCC, one with increased resources, full access to officers and police records (including subpoena power), and independence from the City Manager’s Office.

Moreover, under the proposed Auditor/Monitor hybrid model, the City Manager would retain a great deal of power over the commission. For example, although the Auditor/Monitor would have the authority to “[i]nvestigate specific types of issues, such as complaints against the Chief or Command Staff, complaints involving a conflict with Internal Affairs, an officer-involved-shooting, an in-custody death, or other critical incident,” they would be able to do so only “when requested or approved by the City Manager’s Office.” And any disagreements between the commission and the police department would be resolved by the City Manager, rather than an independent arbiter, despite the fact that Polis-Change Integration point to a lack of transparency and timeliness of action in the City Manager’s Office — even with recent improvements — as one of the problems limiting the CPCC at present. (The authors do provide recommendations for requiring the City Manager’s Office to improve in both these areas.)

Polis-Change Integration justify removing independent citizen investigatory powers under the theory that such investigations do not address core policing issues. “Although incident-based outcomes and disciplinary actions may answer calls for accountability and justice in the immediate term,” the authors state, “the failure to address underlying cultural and systemic problems that created and allowed for the incident to occur leave communities feeling like their efforts never address all police misconduct, causes of misconduct, or inequitable policing. Similarly, changes to leadership at the executive level often do little to affect change in the underlying culture of a police department.”

The authors do not address the possibility of a citizen oversight commission that would do both: “address underlying cultural and systemic problems” and effectively and independently investigate individual complaints.

As Polis-Change Integration note, “the current model as structured [i.e., the CPCC] does not meet the City’s or the community’s calls for increased transparency, accountability, and input on addressing broader organizational culture issues within the Long Beach Police Department.” But by removing, rather than strengthening, the ability of Long Beach civilians to independently investigate the actions of individual police officers, will the community feel their calls for police reform are being adequately addressed?

Although Polis-Change Integration have issued their recommendations, it is the purview of the city council how or whether to draft a new model for police oversight; and although many interim changes can be made to the existing CPCC, a complete overhaul would need to go to ballot for voter approval.

During a discussion of the Polis-Change Integration report on February 15, Mayor Robert Garcia and the city council expressed their intent to bring the matter to the ballot in November and provided city staff with instructions to begin the process based on the Polis-Change Integration recommendations. But during those two full hours neither the mayor nor councilmembers ever so much as questioned, let alone expressed any concern, with the recommendation that Long Beach citizens lose the ability to independently investigate individual complaints against police officers.

Barring any shift in that position, passage of a new model of police oversight will leave the LBPD as the only ones investigating whether individual complaints against their officers merit any sort of discipline.

Diplomacy Only Option in Ukraine

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Diplomacy Only Option in Ukraine

https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/diplomacy-only-option-in-ukraine?utm_source=LA+Progressive+NEW&utm_campaign=b6ee3af018-LAP+News+-+20+April+17+PC_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_61288e16ef-b6ee3af018-287069891&mc_cid=b6ee3af018&mc_eid=5b824ca0b6

There is no good reason to think that righteousness will bring an end to the bloodshed. The history of conflicts in the nuclear age has made clear that compromise is the only safe option.

Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is horrific and barbaric. Yet it could still be ended with a diplomatic solution in which Russia withdraws its forces in exchange for Ukraine’s neutrality. Putin signaled his openness to this possibility in his recent call with French President Emmanuel Macron: “this is first and foremost about demilitarization and neutrality of Ukraine, to ensure that Ukraine will never pose a threat to Russia.” Translated into action, this could mean that NATO and Ukraine would forswear Ukraine’s future membership in the Alliance if Russia immediately withdraws from Ukraine and forswears future attacks.

In a diplomatic solution, no party gets everything it wants. Putin would not get to restore the Russian empire, and Ukraine would not get to join NATO. The United States would be forced to accept the limits of its power in a multipolar world (a truth that would also apply to China).

To be sure, a diplomatic compromise does not fit with the current mood. The world is appalled by Russia’s perfidy and moved by the Ukrainian people’s heroic resistance. Yet Ukraine’s survival (and possibly even the world’s) ultimately depends on prudence prevailing over righteous valor. Ukraine is calling for more fighter jets, more heavy weaponry, and a NATO no-fly zone. Each of these steps would increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO – one that could quickly escalate into a nuclear showdown.

European and US leaders’ instinct is to crush Russia economically, to prove decisively that barbarism does not pay. From this perspective, compromise seems like appeasement, yet the compromise would be to save Ukraine, not to cede it. Economic warfare is also fraught with profound risks. The global dislocations will be enormous, and the demands to move beyond economic warfare to a military response are bound to rise. In the meantime, the fighting will continue, producing massive bloodshed and probably leading to a Russian occupation anyway.

Diplomacy can work even in the starkest of confrontations. In fact, diplomacy is essential to resolve great-power disputes in the nuclear age. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a case in point. Whether one blames that incident on the US, for having backed an invasion of Cuba in 1961, or on the Soviet Union, for having deployed atomic weapons there in 1962, the conflict brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

In the end, the crisis was defused by diplomacy and compromise, not by a one-sided victory. US President John F. Kennedy agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey and pledged never again to invade Cuba, while Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the Soviet missiles from the island. The world got lucky. As the historian Martin Sherwin later showed, nuclear war between the two powers almost erupted despite Kennedy and Khrushchev’s efforts to avoid it.

In response to Putin’s war, the US and Europe rapidly deployed an impressive range of economic measures to disconnect Russia from global trade and finance. These included freezing Russia’s central bank reserves and other private asset accounts; seizing yachts; stopping technology flows; ending insurance coverage; and delisting Russian securities.

But such sanctions rarely deter, much less bring down, a ruthless regime. The US tried similar measures to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but succeeded only in crushing the economy. According to the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela’s per capita GDP declined by more than 60% between 2017 and 2021, yet Maduro remains entrenched (and now is being courted by the US so that Venezuela will pump more oil). Nor have US sanctions overturned the regimes in Iran and North Korea.

Moreover, the Russia sanctions are likely to wear thin over time. After producing enormous short-term havoc and distress globally – with oil prices soaring and major commodity supply chains being disrupted – they will create countless arbitrage opportunities for Russia to sell its valuable commodities to entities beyond the reach of US sanctions. China and others will not be keen to enforce a sanctions regime that could well be used against them next. Russia thus will not be as isolated as the US and Europe seem to think. After the initial shock of the new sanctions, its trading opportunities will likely grow, not diminish.

In addition to the economic sanctions, the US and Europe are also funneling weapons into Ukraine. Again, this is very unlikely to prevent a Russian occupation, but it will make it more likely that Ukraine becomes another perpetual killing field, like Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria before it. Even more ominously, the flow of arms into Ukraine will risk a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO. Whereas Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria had no nuclear weapons, Russia has nearly 6,000, with an estimated 1,600 active and deployed.

Diplomacy might well fail. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying. As Kennedy famously declared, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” That sentiment saved the world in 1962, and it could save it again now.

Russia watchers are deeply divided about Putin’s real motives. Many believe that he will stop at nothing to recreate the Russian Empire. If so, God help us. Others believe that he aims to destroy Ukraine’s democracy and smother its economy, so that it cannot become a beacon to the Russian people. Still others, however, argue that Putin’s vociferous opposition to NATO enlargement – and to US political meddling in Ukraine (including its support of the uprising against Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014) – is genuine.

It is time to test that proposition. What if Ukrainian neutrality really is the key to peace? Pursuing diplomacy is not appeasement; it is prudence, and it could save Ukraine and the world from an unmitigated catastrophe.

Jeffrey Sachs Project Syndicate

 

Ports Extend Public Comment Period on Draft 2021 Cargo Handling Equipment Assessment

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Ports Extend Public Comment Period on Draft 2021 Cargo Handling Equipment Assessment

SAN PEDRO — The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have extended the public comment period to April 29 to provide opportunity for additional public comment on a draft feasibility assessment of emerging cargo-handling equipment technology.

The draft assessment, which builds upon the inaugural 2018 assessment, examines the current state of technology, operational characteristics, economic considerations, infrastructure availability and commercial readiness relating to cleaner cargo-handling equipment.

The ports released a draft feasibility assessment for cargo-handling equipment on March 3 for a four-week period of public review and comments that was set to end on March 31. At the request of commenters, the ports have doubled the time period for public comments. Comments will now be accepted through April 29 and can be emailed to caap@cleanairactionplan.org.

The draft feasibility assessment for cargo-handling equipment is available on the Clean Air Action Plan website, posted here.

 

Former Manager at U.S. Auto Manufacturer Allegedly Accepted Over $3.4 Million in Bribes

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Former Manager at U.S. Auto Manufacturer Allegedly Accepted Over $3.4 Million in Bribes

LOS ANGELES – A former manager at a U.S.-based automobile manufacturing company was taken into custody this morning after being indicted this week on a federal bribery charge alleging he solicited a $5 million bribe from a South Korean company with promises of delivering a large contract for various car parts.

Hyoung Nam So, 46, of Irvine, who was also known as Brian So, surrendered this morning to federal authorities after a federal grand jury on March 23, charged him in a bribery conspiracy. So is expected to be arraigned on the one-count indictment this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

The indictment alleges that the foreign parts supplier paid So a total of $3.45 million in cash. Homeland Security Investigations seized $3.19 million believed to be proceeds from the bribery scheme from a private vault in Los Altos, California in 2017, and HSI subsequently returned the money to South Korean authorities.

As a manager and team leader at the Michigan-based car manufacturer – referred to as “Company A” in the indictment – So oversaw the supply of parts used to build interiors for Company A automobiles in North America. In October 2015, the indictment alleges, So promised a contract to the owner of the South Korean parts company – “Company B” – in exchange for $5 million, which So demanded in cash.

The following month, the owner of Company B arranged to have $1 million in cash transferred to the United States through money brokers, which an accomplice then drove from Los Angeles to Michigan, according to the indictment. The owner of Company B allegedly flew to the United States in late November 2015 and personally delivered the cash to So in a meeting at a hotel in Troy, Michigan.

By the time the $1 million payment was made, So had learned that Company B was not the lowest bidder on the contract, and he arranged for information to be provided to Company B so it could revise its bid on the contract, according to the indictment. On Dec. 8, 2015, So recommended to Company A executives that the contract be awarded to Company B, and the contract was awarded to Company B on the same day.

“So refrained from notifying Company B of the contract award, and continued to withhold the information until [Company B’s owner] paid the remaining portion of the bribe,” the indictment states. On Dec. 20, 2015, the owner of Company B allegedly paid So another portion of the bribe at a restaurant in Detroit – $2.45 million that also had been driven from Los Angeles to Michigan. The following day, So arranged for Company B to be told it had won the contract.

The indictment charges So with one count of conspiracy to commit federal funds bribery, a charge related to the fact that Company A received money through federal assistance programs. This offense carries a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison.

The owner of Company B was prosecuted for offenses related to the bribery scheme in South Korea.

The Music Center Opens Applications For SW!NG OUT

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The Music Center Opens Applications For SW!NG OUT

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Deadline extended to April 10

TheMusic Center joins The Joyce Theater to invite L.A. County-based artists to apply for a free, five-session artist mentorship program with professionals from the cast and creative team of SW!NG OUT — a contemporary Swing dance presentation directed by Caleb Teicher. The mentorship program focuses on such areas as musicianship, choreography and improvisation, among others. Selected participants will be paired with a member of the SW!NG OUT creative team to work one-on-one in their individual category during five virtual sessions that will culminate in an experience sharing workshop.

The program is for L.A. area dance enthusiasts, musicians, choreographers and other performers interested in developing skills and partnering with artists for professional development. Professional and aspiring artists are eligible to participate.

The program runs virtually from May 16 to June 16, with a culminating in-person event at The Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles on June 25 or 26, 2022.

Complete online application form and submit up to three personal or professional references along with work sample submissions.

Details: http://musiccenter.org/swingoutonetoone

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