When San Juan native Rafael Rodriguez opened Señor Big Ed in Cypress in the mid-90s, there were few Puerto Rican restaurants in Southern California.
“A lot of customers were driving long ways to come to eat at Señor Big Ed,” said restaurant manager Veronica Coronado. “They would get very emotional when they would eat the food, because it reminded them so much of their childhood.”
While cities like New York and Miami have come to be veritable hubs for Puerto Rican cuisine, the food community here in Los Angeles — more than 3,000 miles away from the island — still remains relatively small.
“His whole movement and everything that he’s been doing for the island … has really been this big boost for global awareness of the Puerto Rican identity and culture,” said Carmen DeLeon, the actor and chef behind Capicu, a Puerto Rican pop-up in L.A.
While longstanding restaurants like Señor Big Ed have anchored communities for decades, newer spots like Taínos in Woodland Hills and La Casa de Iris in Long Beach are expanding the Boricua food landscape in L.A.
“Everyone comes to look for this food because this is like gold,” said Edwin Torres, chef at Taínos in Woodland Hills.
In addition to traditional guisados, mofongo (mashed green plantains) and banana-leaf-wrapped pasteles, Taínos shares Puerto Rican dishes rarely seen outside of home kitchens. Soon, co-owner Odessa Rodriguez plans to add guanimes con bacalao, boiled flour dumplings with salted cod, a Taíno dish that traces back centuries.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are just trying to bring back essential plates that our ancestors ate,” Rodriguez said.
DeLeon, known as the Not Starving Artist on Instagram, started her pop-up in 2023 with her sister Anabel, serving small bites at bars, farmers markets and local events. The siblings grew up in Arizona cooking Puerto Rican food with their island-born parents, and DeLeon said she’s passionate about making the cuisine accessible to others.
“I want to attract people first, and then I can talk about where these dishes derive from and where the inspiration comes from,” she said.
The current menu features pizza empanadillas, vegan arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas), vegan tostones and gazpacho, and mini sandwiches with ham, cheese and sweet pimiento peppers.
DeLeon hopes more people will grow excited about Puerto Rican food as they discover the culture and meaning behind the cuisine.
“There’s so much history and structure and love behind this group of people, this environment, this culture, this food, this identity,” she said. “I hope that when people eat this food … I want your belly to feel full, I want you to feel as if you’re sitting at my house with my family.”
Similarly, Rodriguez hopes Taínos will become a cultural hub for Boricuas in L.A.
“It fulfills me to feel that I am providing a sense of comfort, nostalgia, home,” she said. “It’s bigger than food.”
Whether you’re craving nostalgic flavors from home or looking to experience L.A.’s small but growing Puerto Rican food scene, here are four restaurants serving up a taste of the Isla del Encanto. — Angela Osorio
On a Tuesday evening in Eagle Rock, used-bookstore owners Jeremy and Debbie Kaplan were closing up for the day when a stranger rushed through the entrance. He tossed an envelope onto the counter, said something like: “Building’s been sold,” and slipped out.
Inside the envelope, the Kaplans found a 30-day notice: The shop’s $1,200 monthly rent would be increasing to $2,805 on April 1, they were required to decide whether they would accept the more than 133% price hike a month in advance, and they’d need to agree to a three- to five-year lease if so. The letter arrived Feb. 17, which meant the Kaplans had 11 days to accept the new landlord’s terms or leave.
“We couldn’t even consider it,” Jeremy Kaplan said. “It would be suicide.” The couple looked around the 680-square-foot shop. From the floor to ceiling, more than 20,000 books were crammed every which way into shelves they’d built and stained themselves nearly 20 years before. “My first reaction was panic,” he said. “How are we going to move out of this place?”
Their children had grown up at Read Books (pronounced like the color, as in: “These aren’t new books, they’re previously read books.”) The realization began to set in, Jeremy said, that they were being pushed out with intimidation tactics. “We started getting angry. So the next day, we started looking into our legal rights.”
After searching the internet, the Kaplans found California’s Senate Bill 1103, the Commercial Tenant Protection Act that passed last year. The law offers protections for “qualified commercial tenants” and requires landlords to give a 90-day notice for rent increases surpassing 10%.
When the Kaplans tried to contact the new property management company, Jeremy said, Systems Real Estate was evasive.
“It’s the one bill that protects commercial tenants, and it’s a fairly toothless bill because they don’t have to acknowledge it, unless you make them acknowledge it,” he said. The Kaplans, along with Sharon Kroner, whose neighboring vintage boutique Owl Talk is facing the same fate, wrote to Systems Real Estate, citing SB 1103. They had the letter certified and attached their rent checks for the next month.
In response, the 30-day notice was amended to 90 days. Systems Real Estate did not respond to a request from The Times for comment.
The Kaplans had more time to search for a new location, but Jeremy quickly saw a trend in Northeast Los Angeles. “Vacant spaces all over the place,” he said. “When we inquired, they were ludicrously expensive, most over $5 per square foot. The second thing we started noticing was small stores like ours going out of business or being priced out in the exact same way we were.”
Jeremy Kaplan stands inside his bookstore on the last day Read Books is open for business.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Building a coalition
When Jeremy started posting about Read Books’ plight, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Many customers who reached out said they wanted to help — the bookstore had been in Eagle Rock for as long as they had.
“Not mere condolences but calls to action from people I barely knew,” he said. “Lawyers, journalists, activists, parents, children.”
Two days after the rent-increase notice was delivered, the Kaplans and their supporters were devising a plan to fight back — if not to save Read Books, then to save other small businesses.
Save North East Los Angeles Shops was born.
Chris Newman, an immigrant rights lawyer whose son learned to read with books bought at the Eagle Rock shop, told The Times he showed up to the group’s first official meeting with the intention of trying to save the bookstore.
“I was surprised to see so many people talking not just about the situation that Jeremy’s in, but an epidemic that small businesses are facing,” Newman said.
At one coalition meeting in April, Jeremy rushed in late.
He’d just come from an event where he’d been able to talk with Mayor Karen Bass about the plight small businesses are facing and asked about the possibility of imposing a commercial vacancy tax on property owners who leave storefronts vacant for extended periods.
Although sympathetic, the mayor shot him down pretty swiftly, Jeremy said, saying nobody in L.A. wants more taxes.
A representative for Bass told The Times that under her leadership, “the City is focused on cutting red tape, expanding support for local businesses, and advancing solutions that address the broader affordability crisis.”
Signs against rent increases are posted outside Read Books.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
The precedent
In March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down, small businesses in San Francisco had been grappling with rising rents that increasingly led to empty storefronts. Then North Beach’s beloved corner gem, Caffe Sapore, got its notice. Like Eagle Rockers, San Franciscans were done merely lamenting the community’s loss. They started organizing.
Aaron Peskin, who at the time served on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, said that while there are a variety of factors contributing to the vacancy issue, impractical property owners were the most common thread.
“Commercial landlords had unbelievably unrealistic expectations of rent, and a small business can only sell a T-shirt or a hamburger or a service for what the market will bear, and none of them could swing the rent,” Peskin said.
That year he authored Proposition D, a commercial vacancy tax ordinance that applies to street-facing, ground-floor properties that sit vacant for more than 182 days a year. It passed with nearly 70% of the vote.
“I served on that Board of Supervisors for 17 years, and it’s one of my proudest pieces of public policy,” Peskin said. “In the years since it passed, it has been working and has really helped in the post-pandemic recovery in our neighborhood commercial corridors. It’s been a rare instant success story.”
Demonstrators march toward Eagle Rock City Hall carrying protest signs against rent hikes for small businesses.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
The landlords
The question as to why someone would purchase a commercial property, raise the rent so current tenants are displaced and prospective tenants look elsewhere, only to have a onetime community hub collecting cobwebs, has inspired myriad theories.
Peskin pointed to an impractical landlord mentality; an L.A. council member suspected landlords were after tax breaks; a professor of economics said that his sense is that there’s more going on and tax benefits are likely not the driving factor; and a commercial real estate expert said landlords are likely pricing tenants out so they can tear the buildings down.
The Times reached out to Dr. Ari Ucar, the new owner of the Eagle Rock Boulevard building, who did not respond.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, a former tenant rights attorney, told The Times that landlords can benefit by claiming the vacancy as a loss on their taxes. “For landlords who own multiple commercial properties in a wide portfolio, a vacancy can be marked as a loss. In essence, when you file taxes and mark this as a loss, it reduces the total income generated. That’s the perverse incentive of having a vacancy.”
But a tax attorney in Los Angeles, Andrew Gradman, wasn’t convinced the tax incentive was enough to curb a landlord’s appetite for the passive income of steady rent payments. “You have to consider the most reasonable premise, which is that these landlords think they can get a better tenant, or they think that the lease would stand in the way of their getting some other better deal, in the form of, say, selling the whole building.”
A commercial real estate broker, Nick Quackenbos, said the likely motive for such a price hike is plans to scrape the building and build apartments in its place. He pointed to a recent landmark bill, State Senate Bill 79, which overrides local zoning laws to allow for taller, denser buildings near major transit stops. The bill will take effect statewide July 1, but L.A. plans to delay citywide upzoning until 2030 by carving out bespoke plans that target 55 single-family and low-density areas, allowing for 4-16 unit buildings up to four stories tall.
The 55 areas are mostly in Central L.A., West L.A., the Eastside and the San Fernando Valley. While Eagle Rock isn’t what L.A. city planners are designating an “opportunity hub” right now, Read Books is located a stone’s throw from the upcoming Colorado/Eagle Rock station, a stop on the North Hollywood to Pasadena BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) line slated to launch ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
“The bill is allowing things to take place which could disfigure a city like Eagle Rock,” said Quackenbos. “I bet that’s what you’re going to find down the road: These places will become vacant, and suddenly there’s groundbreaking for a new apartment building going up.”
Jeremy Kaplan speaks to community members outside his store, Read Books, about the issues small business owners face.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
The rally
Read Books was set to close last weekend, and the Kaplans wanted to go out with a bang. In the shop’s front window was a single book: “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto” by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, surrounded by signs that read “Forced Out!,” “Shame on Greedy Landlords,” and “Our Family Loves Read Books.”
As Debbie sat at the register inside, helping a steady flow of the shop’s final patrons, protesters gathered behind the building, clutching homemade posters and waiting for Jeremy to speak. Choking up, he addressed the crowd.
Debbie Kaplan, who co-owns Read Books, hands a customer books.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
“Three months ago, when this all began, my initial action was to fight back, because fighting is my default setting. But I also felt … fear of insignificance, of disappearing, as if everything we built in the last 19 years, often working seven days a week, might soon be dismantled and forgotten. The support you’ve gifted us with these last few months has been a constant reminder that we’re all in this together.
“The real estate lobby is rich and powerful. They have more lobbyists than our representatives have staff, but we are building a coalition to fight them.
Workers represented by a local union say ICE presence would create a climate of fear during the FIFA World Cup 2026.
Published On 19 May 202619 May 2026
Workers at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles have decided to go on strike if federal immigration enforcement agents are deployed at the venue when it hosts FIFA World Cup matches in June and July.
The UNITE HERE Local 11 – a labour union representing some 2,000 hospitality employees – on Monday demanded federal guarantees that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not be used during the matches scheduled at the stadium.
The venue, which will be known as the Los Angeles Stadium during the tournament, will host eight World Cup games, including the opening fixture for the United States on June 12.
Workers at the world’s most expensive sports arena say the ICE presence would create a climate of fear for themselves and for fans.
“ICE should have no role in these games,” said Isaac Martinez, a stadium cook, at a protest outside the venue.
“We do not want to live in fear coming to work, or fear being detained going home.”
“If we do not reach an agreement, my colleagues and I are ready to strike,” Martinez added, speaking on behalf of a workforce composed largely of food and beverage concession staff.
SoFi Stadium workers protest in Los Angeles on May Day [Jae C Hong/AP]
ICE has led the charge in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Human rights groups have condemned the agency for its conduct during raids in several US cities, including Los Angeles last year.
In early 2026, ICE agents fatally shot two American protesters in Minneapolis.
Workers on Monday also raised alarms over FIFA’s accreditation process, which requires employees to submit personal data before the tournament, which runs from June 11 to July 19 across the US, Canada and Mexico.
“We ask FIFA not to share our information with ICE agencies, foreign countries, or intelligence services,” worker Yolanda Fierro said.
Protesters carrying plastic balls and signs reading “Kick ICE Out of the World Cup” drew support from Tom Steyer, a Democratic candidate in California’s gubernatorial race.
ICE’s mandate is border control, the financier-turned-politician said.
“Can anyone explain what that has to do with the World Cup? Nothing,” Steyer said.
“How is it possible that this is the agency that is going to be here when we know in fact they’re an absolute threat, a lawless threat, to workers in California?”
It’s all too easy to overlook the grilled cheese sandwich when ordering at a restaurant. It can feel like something that is best reserved for picky eaters and the kids menu. But a great version is so much more than bread sealed together with a generous layer of cheese — everything must work harmoniously together. When something is this simple in construction, each ingredient really matters, from the type of bread to the selection of cheese to any additional toppings.
Luckily, restaurants around Los Angeles are taking the grilled cheese seriously, whether leaning into nostalgic versions with American cheese and sourdough bread or experimenting with unexpected ingredients like spicy labneh and caramelized onions. The results are delicious and comforting. Here are nine of the best grilled cheese sandwiches to try in L.A.:
Three of the leading candidates for Los Angeles mayor — incumbent Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman and reality television personality Spencer Pratt — will share the stage for a debate Wednesday evening.
The hour-long forum, broadcast on NBC4 and Telemundo 52, will be held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Brentwood starting at 5 p.m.
The debate will also air online at nbcla.com and telemundo52.com and be available via streaming channels on platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Samsung TV Plus.
Voters have already been mailed their ballots for the June 2 primary election, which can be returned by mail or at designated drop box locations. In-person voting is already open at the county’s Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office in Norwalk, and will expand to county Vote Centers starting May 23.
Wednesday’s debate will be moderated by anchor Colleen Williams and political reporter Conan Nolan of KNBC-TV, and anchor Enrique Chiabra of Telemundo 52. The debate is held in partnership with Loyola Marymount University and the Skirball Cultural Center.
One of the things journalism teaches you over and over again is that nothing ruins a good story quite like the facts.
Consider, for example, this week’s renewal of the chattering classes’ infatuation with the “tea party” movement, timed to coincide with the deadline to file federal income tax returns. The group is conventionally portrayed as a burgeoning populist expression of discontent that sprouted spontaneously from the grass-roots and cuts in new ways across sectional, class and gender lines.
Reams of analysis have proceeded from those assumptions, but like a great deal that’s based on anecdotal reporting, it turns out to be wrong. To their great credit, the New York Times and CBS undertook extensive, and expensive, polling that provides the first reliable look at the tea party supporters. Little that has been generally assumed survived the scrutiny.
As it turns out, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans “supports” the tea party movement in any respect, and just 4% of all adult Americans have contributed to it or attended one of its events or both. (On any given day, you probably could drum up twice as many people who think the Pentagon is hiding dead aliens in Area 51.)
Of the 18% of all adults who expressed support for the tea party, the overwhelming majority were white (89%), male (59%) Republicans over age 45 (75%) and significantly more affluent and better educated than the majority of Americans. One in five has an annual income greater than $100,000, and 37% have advanced degrees. More than 9 out of 10 think President Obama is pushing the country into “socialism.”
The survey also found that more than half of the tea party supporters say “the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25% think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11% of the general public.”
If all this is beginning to have a familiar ring, it’s because you’ve met these guys before: They’re the “angry white males” we’ve been reading about since political strategist-turned-analyst Kevin Phillips first identified them as an electoral presence during Richard Nixon’s successful presidential campaign in 1968.
They share many qualities with other Americans. For example, while 96% of tea party supporters say they disapprove of the current Congress, 40% think their own representative does a good job, a sentiment shared by 46% of all adults, 73% of whom disapprove of the performance of Congress as a whole.
They aren’t, however, implacable foes of “big government” or even of taxes. More than half (52%) told the pollsters they think their own “income taxes this year are fair,” just 10% less than all American adults. Moreover, a majority told follow-up interviewers that, though they wanted “smaller government,” they didn’t want cuts in our largest social programs, Social Security and Medicare.
So much for the surge of a new anti-government populism.
What the movement really amounts to is old wine in new skins, a re-branding of the old-fashioned angry white male in a camera-ready package tailored to the demands of the 24-hour cable news cycle.
Let’s return to this week, for example: There’s nothing harder for TV to cover than a tax-filing deadline — no conflict, no action pictures. By staging rallies on April 15, and particularly in Washington, the tea party’s strategists made themselves and their speakers the center of cable news coverage. This was true despite the fact that, as the poll demonstrates, a majority of the movement’s supporters think their taxes are fair.
As regular readers of this column will recall, the public packaging of the tea party movement — and particularly events that win it TV airtime, like cross-country bus tours, rallies and ads — is mainly the product of California Republican political consultants, foremost among them the Sacramento-based firm of Russo Marsh and Rogers. That company has not only promoted the movement but also used it to raise money for a political action committee, Our Country Deserves Better, founded to oppose Obama during the general election. This week, Politico reported that, according to federal filings, the Our Country PAC has raised $2.7 million since launching the Tea Party Express bus tours.
“That fundraising success,” Politico wrote, “has also meant a brisk business for Russo Marsh.” The website found that Russo Marsh and a sister firm received $1.9 million of the $4.1 million in payments made by the PAC; some of those funds would have gone for TV airtime and to vendors.
It’s good to see that all the creeping socialism in the nation hasn’t silenced traditional voices, like those of the angry white male, nor wrung the profit motive from our politics.
Los Angeles didn’t get many April showers, but May flowers are blooming just the same, leaving a lingering scent of jasmine as the star-shaped flower blossoms across the city. Jacaranda trees will soon follow suit, turning the skyline of entire neighborhoods lavender as spring stretches into summer.
Marine layer aside, this season invites us to get outside and make the most of living in L.A. The Metro will soon open the expansion of its D Line, making it convenient to peruse Museum Row, the Grove and bars and restaurants along Fairfax and in Beverly Hills without a car. Local farmers markets are more abundant than ever, with rainbow assortments of stone fruits and tomatoes.
And there are plenty of patios and rooftops for enjoying sunny evenings and taking in city views. Keep reading if you need dining inspiration this month, like exploring a new hand roll counter in downtown L.A., a buzzy Larchmont diner that lives up to the hype and a pan-African destination for customizable “slop bowls” in Gardena.
When Juan Antonio moved to Los Angeles from his hometown of Puebla, the capital city of the Mexican state by the same name, he got straight to work doing what he knew best: baking cemita bread.
Antonio started baking at a panadería in Lincoln Heights in about 1996, churning out dozens of fresh cemitas daily and selling them door to door. At the time, there were few places selling the bread, and the community recognized him as “el cemitero.”
The cemita sandwich is a staple in Puebla, a gastronomically rich region in East-Central Mexico with Indigenous, Spanish and Middle Eastern roots. Alongside cemitas, Puebla is known for traditional dishes such as mole poblano (the sauce complex with chocolate and chiles), chiles en nogada (stuffed Poblano chiles drenched in a walnut cream sauce) and tacos arabe (tacos with spit-roasted pork, wrapped in pita bread).
Cemita bread, speckled with sesame seeds and crisp on the outside with a soft, fluffy interior, is believed to have originated in 16th century Puebla, brought to Mexico by Spanish conquistadors and later developed with French baking techniques.
Due to its long preservation period, the bread was commonly found on ships with long voyages, and some believe it was offered as a tribute to the Spanish crown.
The sandwich started with simple fillings like beans and cheese and gradually became more layered over time. Now, cemita sandwiches typically consist of the titular, toasted sesame seed bread; a heap of stringy, salty Oaxacan cheese; avocado; jalapeño or chipotle peppers; pápalo, an herb with a cilantro-minty taste; and some choice of meat, with milanesa — a breaded chicken or steak cutlet — being the most popular options.
Cemitas, often wrapped in crinkly yellow paper and eaten on the go, have grown a steady presence in L.A. since Antonio first started selling them in East L.A. almost 30 years ago. Today, he continues to bake cemitas at El Cemitero Poblano, his family restaurant in Boyle Heights, and is joined by food trucks, street vendors and other sit-down restaurants offering traditional and creative takes on the iconic Poblano dish that’s usually priced between $10 and $20.
In Puebla, thousands gather for the annual Festival de la Cemita Poblana, a celebration that takes place around Cinco de Mayo and features dozens of cemita vendors.
Though commonly misunderstood as Mexico’s Independence Day, Cinco de Mayo is a holiday with special significance to Puebla, as it recognizes the Mexican army’s victory over France at the historic Battle of Puebla in 1862. In L.A., the holiday is often celebrated with mariachi bands, free-flowing margaritas and tacos, but if you’re looking for ways to tie in Poblano traditions, consider stopping by one of L.A.’s top spots for cemitas, from classic East L.A. stands to places in La Puente, Mid-City and Van Nuys.
Re “Obama prevails on arms treaty,” Dec. 22, and “Treaty vote is key for Obama,” Dec. 21
The Times’ Dec. 21 article quoted three people: an unnamed Senate Republican aide, the Nixon Center’s executive director and the chief obstructionist, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. None of them had anything positive to say. Might some Democrats have had something newsworthy to contribute?
Fortunately, reason prevailed and the treaty pulled enough votes later in the day to guarantee its passage. This was arguably the most important Senate vote, so far, in the 21st century.
The entire community of nations was watching to see if the U.S. would take this critical step toward world peace. And McConnell vowed to vote against it, and against the Joint Chiefs of Staff, citing the possibility of President Obama holding a news conference?
God help us.
John Stickler
Murrieta
The Times treats the vote on the New START treaty as one that is important primarily for the political agendas of President Obama and the Senate Republican leadership.
Is it not possible that this vote is more important for the American people? Must The Times add to the corrosive partisanship in Washington by treating such a serious subject as a political test? Is that really all that is at stake here?
Michael Byrne
Oxnard
::
After reading that 11 GOP senators joined Democrats in cutting off debate on the START treaty with Russia, my Republican despise-o-meter went down considerably.
It’s great to know that some of them are putting their country first. Maybe we can all dare to hope.
Ramona Salinas Saenz
Alhambra
—
Pro and con on the Expo Line
Re “The Expo Line’s noisemakers,” Opinion, Dec. 21
Do Karen Leonard and Sarah Hays really think homeowners, with orange and black signs on their property protesting the Expo Line light rail project, are in the minority? If these Light Rail for Cheviot co-chairs truly listen to their neighbors, they might learn why so many protest signs adorn our front lawns.
Unlike the Gold Line, which they point out is within a mile of 38 schools, the Expo Line would be only 50 feet from the Overland Avenue Elementary School. Our residents believe mass transit should be built where density is highest; the Expo right of way doesn’t conform to that standard. The light rail’s street crossings should be underground.
If Los Angeles wants to build light rail, it must do so correctly. Leonard and Hays can walk the neighborhood exhaustively, but it doesn’t change the facts about the Expo Line’s negative effects.
Lucie Bava
Cheviot Hills
The writer is secretary of the Cheviot Hills Traffic Safety Assn.
::
As a neighbor of the future Expo Line, I totally agree with the need for the line and applaud the authors’ efforts to really talk to the community.
The implication that L.A. can’t adjust to alternatives to the car, or that residents can’t do what millions around the country can, is a slight to our population. Light rail alone certainly won’t solve traffic problems, but it will give us an alternative and move us along the path to cleaner air and safer travel.
The signs made by the group Neighbors for Smart Rail that say “Think traffic can’t get any worse?” amuse me. Unfortunately, it will if we don’t build this line.
Annette Mercer
Los Angeles
::
The “quiet majority” noted in this piece is a chilling characterization.
In 1969, as “vocal zealots” protested the Vietnam war, Richard Nixon went on TV to appeal for the support of the “silent majority.” This is deja vu on a local level.
I guess all those protesters back then should have just shut up.
Darryl Rehr
Los Angeles
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Mortgage tax deduction
Re “Mortgage deduction on the line,” Dec. 20
How appropriate that in this season of watching “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the idea of eliminating the mortgage interest deduction should come up. As a boon to the middle class and home ownership, this “third rail” can finally come up for consideration.
We have had a long period of easing the burdens on our overtaxed corporate “citizens,” the wealthy, the unfortunate inheritors of large estates and hedge fund managers. This policy move would continue this new American tradition of squeezing the middle class.
We are now ready for the sequel to the Jimmy Stewart movie: “It Is a Wonderful Life, Mr. Potter.”
Leif Regvall
Los Angeles
::
Please don’t scare your readers with reports that the sacred mortgage deduction might be taken away.
As long as the politically conservative National Assn. of Realtors and the National Assn. of Home Builders maintain their powerful lobbyists in Washington, the mortgage deduction will never go away, national deficit or no deficit, Republican majority or no Republican majority.
Martin A. Brower
Corona del Mar
::
For the last five years I have used my mortgage tax deduction to take vacations I would have been unable to afford otherwise. I also spend some of the money on other activities, food, drink and gas; this puts all of the money back into the economy.
I believe that most people, like myself, spend this money as soon as they get it.
Apparently, politicians want the people to pad their wallets further so they can continue their reckless spending.
Robert LePage
Long Beach
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Deporting a young scholar
Re “Scrambling to avert his deportation,” Dec. 19
Nice work, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. You nabbed your man. Mark Farrales is finally off the streets. The last thing this country needs is another illegal immigrant brought here as a 10-year-old by parents escaping tyranny.
Clearly, Farrales is one dangerous guy. Who else would have the nerve to become valedictorian of his high school, graduate magna cum laude from Harvard and continue on to get his master’s degree at UC San Diego?
I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate that Farrales was locked up before he could finish his doctorate.
Marley Sims
Valley Village
::
How sad that young people who were brought to this country by parents who came here illegally now face deportation to countries they barely know.
As for the senators who voted to end their dream, I am appalled by their complaint that being forced to stay in Washington to do the nation’s business might keep them from celebrating Christmas with their families, while at the same time punishing children for the sins of their fathers.
How Christian is that?
Joan Walston
Santa Monica
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Policing Bell
Re “Deep cuts and unrest in store for Bell,” Dec. 20
The city of Bell may need to disband its Police Department and contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. But the head of the city’s police union says that a better move would be to put more police officers on the streets to fight crime.
The city is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for aggressively towing vehicles and charging residents exorbitant fees to get them back. If in fact the Bell police are implicated in this illegal practice, it follows that some reduction of crime would be accomplished if this police force were replaced.
Q. Los Angeles has been selected as the site for how many Democratic National Conventions?
A. Three. Sorry, it’s a trick question. Besides the two real conventions now and in 1960, a reenactment of the 1924 convention was shot in the Shrine Auditorium for the movie “Sunrise at Campobello,” starring Ralph Bellamy as Franklin D. Roosevelt. The filming took place in 1960 just before the real convention convened.
If you were going to pick a single issue whose treatment exemplifies the forces at work in this midterm election, the best choice would be one over which there’s been relatively little contention — climate change.
That’s not because there is any broad agreement among the candidates on the severity of global warming or human activity’s contribution to it. To the contrary, the question seldom has been discussed in this campaign because views on it have become utterly politicized. Skepticism about human technology’s role in accelerating climate change, and doubt concerning the phenomenon’s very existence, have become, at least on the Republican side, a matter of lock-step partisan orthodoxy.
For example, 19 of the 20 GOP candidates who are in closely contested races and have expressed a position on the issue say they have doubts about the scientific evidence for global warming, despite the overwhelming consensus among scientists. That includes Arizona’s John McCain, who formerly supported legislation to reduce carbon emissions. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who voted for cap-and-trade as a congressman, is the lone Republican holdout. Some of the other senatorial candidates express ambivalence about the science but firmly reject any legislative or regulatory remedy; more agree with Louisiana’s David Vitter, who calls the evidence for climate change “pseudo-science garbage.”
Recent polls show just how deeply partisan the split over global warming has become, and how closely it conforms to the deep fissures that have reshaped this year’s electoral landscape. A survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, for instance, found that over the last four years, the percentage of Americans who believe there’s solid scientific evidence for climate change has declined from 79% to 59%. In 2006, half of us believed that global warming was caused by human activities; today, only 34% do. An Opinion Research Corp. survey found that while 82% of Democrats feel the United States should take a leading role in addressing global warming, only 39% of Republicans now do.
In part, public opinion researchers agree, the rise of the “tea party” movement accounts for both the growing skepticism and the demand, which we now can recognize as characteristic, for ideological conformity. In its survey, for example, Pew found that 70% of self-described tea party sympathizers don’t believe there’s convincing evidence that the Earth is warming. A New York Times/CBS poll found that only 14% of tea party supporters say that “global warming is an environmental problem that is having an effect now.” Opinion Research reported that only 27% of tea party adherents support the idea of America taking a leading role on the problem.
The New York Times also has documented among some tea party adherents a strong streak of religious objection to the reality of climate change. As Norman Dennison, one of the group’s Indiana founders, told the paper, global warming “is a flat-out lie…. I read my Bible. He made this Earth for us to utilize.” Another Indiana tea party member asserted that “being a strong Christian, I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country, and it’s not there to destroy us.”
The fundamentalist delusion, whether about the Constitution or theology, and demands for a purified orthodoxy are defining characteristics of this campaign. When it comes to the politicization of a purely scientific question — climate change — so too is the role of money quietly or covertly dispensed by big business and the self-interested rich. Some of the tea party’s biggest funders, including Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, are creatures of the oil and coal companies. They’ve also supported virtually the entire network of fringe scientists, think tanks and publishers who over the past few years have raised a host of spurious questions and allegations concerning the consensus on climate change among reputable scientists.
They’re the same individuals and companies putting up big money to support Proposition 23, which would gut California’s attempts to reduce carbon emissions. Koch Industries and Murray Energy Corp. already are major givers to the U.S. Senate’s biggest deniers, including James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has called global warming “the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
Think back to the billions Big Tobacco spent on the long guerrilla war to stave off regulation of its death-dealing products and you’ve pretty much got the picture here, though this time around, the corporate manipulators are hoping that they’ve co-opted the climate skeptics in order to fill the oil and coal companies’ coffers for years to come.
