Dick Price: As a result of the Federal budget sequestration, the local Federal Public Defender’s Office serving Los Angeles and surrounding counties faces furloughs this fall similar to ones already affecting other offices around the country
About Dick Price
Dick Price is Editor of the LA Progressive. With his wife Sharon, he publishes several other print and online newsletters on political and social justice issues. He has worked in publishing as a writer, editor, and publisher for a quarter century. In earlier releases, he was a cab driver, bartender, construction worker, soldier, and farmhand, and for many years helped operate a nonprofit halfway house for homeless alcoholics and addicts. To contact him, please use the form on the Contact Us page.
Koch Brothers: Out Now!
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Dick Price: Thursday, a hundred or so veteran agitators gathered in Will Rogers Park on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills to protest the conjectured sale of the Los Angeles Times to Charles and David Koch, plutocrat owners of the $115-billion-annual-revenue Koch Industries, who have expressed interest in using the paper to spread their drown-government-in-the-bathtub invective.
Prop C: Primal Scream Shouted from the Mountaintop
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Dick Price: In their fondest hopes, the activists behind Prop C and measures like it see these messages prompting members of Congress to support a constitutional amendment overturning the Citizen United ruling.
How Los Angeles Wrestles with Mass Incarceration
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Dick Price: With jails straining to absorb thousands of prison inmates, jailhouse guard-on-inmate beatings grabbing headlines, and public concern rising about possible spikes in crime rates, public safety issues have Angelenos of all stripes scrambling for answers.
Fixing California’s Mass Incarceration Mess
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Dick Price: As California grapples with a prison system so broken that the U.S. Supreme Court has mandated reductions in the number of prisoners it holds, the three-part “Smart Justice: Rethinking Public Safety in California” discussion begun this past week is examining both consequences and possible solutions to the state’s mass incarceration mess.
ACLU-SC Pasadena / Foothills Looks at Gun Violence, What to Do About It
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Dick Price: “You can take it all the way back to Columbine. We have had 31 mass murders since Columbine. We get upset for six or eight months and then we go back to sleep again.
What Sweat Equity Can’t Do
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It’s a labor of love for us and we’re eager to keep at it. But sweat equity can’t cover everything. Sweat alone won’t pay for upgrades to our computer systems, which are on their last legs. That’s where we need your help.
Coming Home Again
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Dick Price: I have thought, at least at times, that my life has been better for having served in combat in Vietnam, that what I learned about myself eventually made me a better person, clearer about what to believe and what not to believe, surer about my own moral compass. But what if the luck of the draw had gone the other way?
Loving LA Progressive
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Dick Price: And I absolutely love working with my wife and partner, spending endless hours with Sharon in our shared office figuring out what to publish and how to bring it to our readers’ attention. Help keep my love affair going.
Romney: The Gun Lobby’s Mitch
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Dick Price: Mitt Romney – because he has no values beyond promoting his own and Lady Romney’s welfare – he’ll take the NRA’s money and oppose any sort of reasonable gun regulation. Which makes him forever the Gun Lobby’s Mitch.
Safer Foods, Saner Prison Sentencing, No Death Penalty Vie for Voter Attention
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Dick Price: At the American Civil Liberties Union’s Pasadena/Foothills Chapter forum this past Tuesday, September 11th, advocates made their case for three particularly contentious initiatives on California’s November ballot:
5 Things I Want from Charlotte
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Dick Price: I struggled to watch the Republican Convention, fast-forwarding through the recordings when the “snow” got too deep. As I watch the Democrats in Charlotte, I certainly hope I see enough to recover at least a part of my enthusiasm from four years ago.
My Road to Socialized Medicine
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Dick Price: Because the shrapnel cut a nerve in my leg — or possibly because I was so amped up on adrenaline — I felt little pain and so was able to bandage my wound and begin returning fire.
Progressives Debate Death Penalty: How Can We Win By Losing?
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Dick Price: In question was wether a soul-killing sentence of lifelong imprisonment with no chance of ever being released is any more humane, any more decent, any more sensible than the uncertain prospect of eventual execution on Death Row.
People Respond to Conviction
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Dick Price: Obama showed conviction with his stances on marriage equality and justice for DREAMers — and that has paid off. We can only pray for more of the same
The Hunting Knife Dad Sent Me
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Dick Price: If I did it right, the patients — some still wearing old jungle boots or ragged fatigue jackets 20 years down the road — could see that I knew at least some of what they knew about Vietnam. And about drinking, too.
Foreclosure Crisis Discussion Marries Activists Old and New
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t’s an old saw that the Vietnam War was ended not by protests on college campuses, as dramatic as they were, nor when the political elites in the nation’s capital stopped playing with dominoes. Rather, it was only when the war’s relentless horror and pointlessness became the main topic of conversation at Rudy and June’s [...]
California Death Penalty Proposition Makes November Ballot
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Dick Price: When you look at the $184 million we would save each year by stopping the death penalty, wouldn’t that money be better used to keep firefighters and teachers on the job?
LA Police Chief Updates Procedures Involving Transgendered Individuals
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Dick Price: Police Chief Charlie Beck announced new guidelines to his officers for dealing with transgendered men and women designed to make his force more professional and sensitive to the needs of all communities within the city.
Taking Responsibility for Killers Among Us
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Dick Price: We can surely guess that you, me, and our neighbors down the street are not likely to shoulder any part of the responsibility ourselves. No, we’ll focus our attention on these two bad seeds, these misfits perpetrating unthinkable crimes, these alien beings so unlike us.
Veterans: The War After The War
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Dick Price: Veterans who gathered last week in San Diego were eager to find out what California’s political leaders might do about the alarming rates of homelessness, unemployment, suicide, and disability among the state’s veterans.
Wells Fargo Meets Occupy: Where There’s Smoke There’s Smoke?
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Dick Price: Occupiers expressed satisfaction that their concerns had been heard by Wells Fargo leaders, but frustration that little concrete action had been taken and no promises made for future steps.
Saturday Survey Shows Moderate Support for Obama Among Progressives
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As we gear up for the long march to November’s election, many of us are struggling with this choice about the Obama campaign, prompting us to launch our LA Progressive survey last Saturday.
From The Editors: Blogger Butts and the Gold Line
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Dick Price: With no commutes to bookend our days — other than the walk down the hall to our office in our home — and no workmates other than each other to remind us that it’s time for lunch or time to leave for the day, we found ourselves working nonstop from morning to night on LA Progressive and its companion, Hollywood Progressive.
Saturday Survey: Legalize Marijuana?
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As should come as no great surprise from a survey about legalizing marijuana from a progressive political magazine, an overwhelming majority in our latest LA Progressive survey support the legalization of marijuana. Fully 80% of the 126 people who responded strongly support outright legalization of marijuana, with another 16% mildly supporting legalization. Just 2.4% oppose. [...]
10 Most Read This Week Led by Reich’s “Obama-Clinton Ticket”
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As he often does, Robert Reich topped our weekly chart during this vacation week with his article discussing the advantages of a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton for November’s election, with Joe Biden moving to State.
From The Editors: Four New Ways to Engage Our Readers
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Dick Price: Sharon and I are reminded of the various methods we have taken to engage our readers. Here, I thought I’d tell you about three new features we unveiled — and one we’ve revitalized — in the waning weeks of 2011:
Join Occupy, Jesse Jackson Tells LA’s Black Community
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Dick Price: Reverend Jesse Jackson urged the black community to get involved with the Occupy Movement, saying, “Whenever the Freedom Train comes to town, get onboard.”
Iraq: Out Like a Lamb
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Dick Price: I can now honor the service of the military men and women who have fought so long in Iraq—the great majority of whom who have acted honorably under fire—just as I hold fast to the notion that the Iraq invasion was undertaken for disreputable ends.
Judge Sides with Portantino on Open Records Issue
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Dick Price: “I’m ecstatic that the judge gave a decisive ruling on behalf of transparency and accountability,” Portantino said.
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