The Los Angeles Times has some important articles in its Sunday paper, not surprisingly. For all my criticism of corporate bias in the LA Times, it remains one of the most important newspapers of the past 50-60 years. It is often reliable in its presentation of facts, has a scope and breadth that most newspapers cannot compete with, and I find its reporters generally knowledgeable, if often ringed in to protect their jobs from the more corporate oriented editors and publishers. The history of Los Angeles is tied up with the history of the Los Angeles Times, as this wonderfully brilliant biography of a former publisher, Otis Chandler, explained. Anyway, here we go:
*Here is a great backgrounder piece on Adam Schiff (D-CA), and why anyone who sees Schiff as a "leftist" is delusional. He is a law and order type guy, a veritable Boy Scout in demeanor and actions, and is nothing like the people he is chasing after. He is certainly ambitious, and a corporate Democrat, however.
*Here is a great backgrounder on the potential upcoming screen/television writers' strike. The Times is at the top of the heap on the topic of the film and television industry.
* Inside Beltway thinker Doyle McManus writes a decent opinion oriented article about Bernie Sanders' foreign policy, much better than the horrible one at the NYRB I commented about earlier this morning. He criticizes Sanders for being naive, but that is par for the course, and silly when one compares the hubris and naivety of the foreign policy establishment. So many "mistakes," people like McManus intone over the years, instead of recognizing the patterns of deceit, delusions, and again naivety in the foreign policy establishment.
*Shouldn't this trove of documents about GOP gerrymandering be as important as DNC emails? Funny how it isn't. Well, it does reflect corporate values and interests.
* The official editorial from the Times today on housing is important reading. One need not agree with its trajectory or overall view to see how thoughtful the Times is being on this important topic.
*This is my vote for the second best op-ed you'll read today. It captures my long believed point about the bias against city dwellers in American political cultural discourse over the past 150 years. It is entitled, Trump says he loves America, but he sure hates cities, by Windsor Mann, who is no far leftist, either.
* The best op-ed you'll read? Here. It is entitled, Slavery's Golden State History. It tells us things Californians may not want to know, but which shows how much slavery is caught up in nearly all aspects of American history.
* Flint, Michigan; environmental injustice against minority communities; and the list goes on. Add this dumping of jet fuel over Cudahy to this list of shame.
* And finally, Michael Hiltzik analyzes the China deal from Trump in ways we will never see on corporate broadcast media. The corporate cable news media is too busy promoting body language experts. And yes, I agree with Glenn Greenwald's conclusion set forth in the link about MSNBC being a "f-ing disgrace." At least when I compared, in passing, Trump's weird body language with people at the G-7 and with Putin, I did not claim to be an expert on the topic, and Trump's body language was certainly obvious. The "expert" the odious Joy Reid (a noted Bernie hater from way back) put on television strikes me as an overrated hack, based upon her previous statements per the article to which I linked.
