Good morning. It’s Monday, Oct. 19.
- Billionaire tax lags amid heavy opposition spending.
- Rapturous praise for Elizabeth Holmes documentary.
- And free concerts for homes near the Hollywood Bowl.
Statewide
1.
California election officials responding to Trump administration demands to verify the citizenship of roughly 20,000 “likely” noncitizen voters said the government provided a list of names so sloppily compiled that it may be impossible to comply. Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for L.A. County’s registrar’s office, said names on the list lacked key identifying information. “It was basically a data dump,” he said. The Trump administration earlier claimed that Nevada had nearly 16,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls. The confirmed number ended up being zero. N.Y. Times
- “It’ll get laughed out of the courtroom.” Law professors ridiculed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to preemptively set aside flagged ballots. S.F. Chronicle
2.
California’s ultrawealthy have been spending more than a $1 million a day since September to defeat a proposed 5% billionaire tax, flooding airwaves, phones, and mailboxes with ads portraying Proposition 40 as an economic wrecking ball. “We are going to get carpet-bombed. There’s no question about it,” said Dave Regan, a labor leader pushing the tax. A poll conducted in May found that 54% of voters backed the tax, a reflection of frustrations over affordability. More recent polling put support around 45%. Politico | The Guardian
3.
As it turned out, Katie Zacharia’s first White House briefing was also her last. The Californian’s chaotic run as press secretary lasted just five days. Zacharia was seated behind her new desk in the West Wing on Friday afternoon, telling reporter Kara Voght about her plans for the role, when an advisor to the president knocked on the door. “JD wanted to chat with us real quick,” he said, referring to the vice president. “Zacharia never returned — to the interview, or the job,” Voght wrote. Wall Street Journal
- When Zacharia was young, her family moved from Huntington Beach to the Central Coast hamlet of Cambria. She described it as “a liberal cesspool.” She was guided instead by the radio show of “the great, late Rush Limbaugh,” she said. Sacramento Bee
4.
Winter is coming, and California’s bears are especially active as the try to fatten up for hibernation. Surveillance cameras have captured some mischievous behavior in recent days.
- In Mammoth Lakes, a bear wandered into a library and raided a stash of peanut butter and honey. Mono County/Facebook
- Near Sequoia National Park, a bear made itself at home in a cabin for five hours, raiding the refrigerator and showing “a clear preference for Hershey’s chocolate and caramel syrup.” CBS 8/YouTube
- In La Cañada Flintridge, a bear got distracted by a punching bag on a porch, seeming to take swings. KTLA/Instagram
Northern California
5.
“You Can See Everything,” Nathan Fielder’s three-hour documentary on Elizabeth Holmes, had the best opening for a documentary, with more than 2,000 sold-out shows, since the 2004 film “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The praise has been rapturous. A sampling:
- Daily Beast: “It’s not just the film of the year — it’s a documentary that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the form’s all-time greats.”
- Washington Post: “It’s both wildly hilarious and incredibly cringe, and also magnetic, odd and horrifying.”
- New York Times: “As a portrait, the movie is intimate and analytic, informative and incomplete. It’s also off-the-charts bonkers.”
- The New Yorker: “The film is more than fascinating and ingenious; it’s strangely, poetically, poignantly beautiful.”
6.
Mendocino County’s Skunk Train, a historic logging railroad-turned tourist line, has added an adults-only cocktail lounge known as the “presidential class” experience. The Skunk Train runs through lush redwood forest between Willits and Fort Bragg. In the rolling cocktail lounge, up to 22 guests sit on leather chairs and plush couches, while jazz plays over the sound system and servers in white jackets serve cocktails. L.A. Times
- See video of the Skunk Train’s “presidential class” railcar.
Southern California
7.
Joey Ippolito was like a character from “Goodfellas”: a mafioso, a drug runner, and a prison escapee. He was also a close friend of Al Cowlings, who was a former teammate of O.J. Simpson’s and the man who drove the white Ford Bronco as Simpson fled from the police after the 1994 murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. A new investigation of court files, interviews, and other materials by the New York Times uncovered an explosive new claim: Ippolito may have been an accomplice in the murders.
8.
The data-center rush has given rise to modern-day prospectors seeking to cash in on the lucrative industry. Among them is Sebastian Rucci, a 66-year-old lawyer from Huntington Beach, who convinced county leaders in the rural Imperial Valley that a massive data center would bring thousands of jobs and millions in tax revenue — while also making him rich. “What Rucci didn’t expect, however, was the firestorm of resistance his project set off in the community,” the Guardian reported.
9.
The Democratic Socialists of America seem to sincerely believe in class revolution. But they have also become protective of the clout that comes with winning political office. The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells mentioned to Leslie Chang, co-chair of the DSA’s Los Angeles chapter, that DSA mayoral candidate Nithya Raman is unlikely get behind restructuring society to put workers in control of the means of production:
“Chang nodded agreeably. I asked, ‘Do you care about that, or do you not care about that?’ Chang thought about it, but only briefly. ‘I sort of don’t really care about it,’ she said.'”
10.
Berlin has roughly the same population as Los Angeles, close to 4 million people. Yet while the German city has a police force of roughly 18,000 officers. L.A. has only about 8,500. The best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell writes:
“Americans believe themselves to be overpoliced. Many conservatives believe that to be a good thing. Many liberals believe it to be a troubling fact. But few question that America is a place that spends more money on law enforcement than do its peers around the world. And that belief is completely and totally wrong.” The Atlantic
11.
The endurance swimmer Catherine Breed made history on Sunday, becoming the first person to swim the entire 900 miles of California coast. Breed, 33, began in July, averaging more than 10 miles a day through rugged waters past the Golden Gate Bridge, Monterey Bay, and Point Conception on her way to the Mexican border. The finishing stretch presented a noxious obstacle: the long-running sewage crisis in the waters off Imperial Beach. She took antibiotics and swam a mile offshore to avoid it. KPBS | S.F. Chronicle
12.
When Paul Oakenfold showed up to tour a home for sale in the Hollywood Hills in 2008, he didn’t realize that its backyard faced the Hollywood Bowl. The real estate agent had failed to mention it, as some homebuyers might see the proximity of the storied concert venue as a drawback. Oakenfold, a D.J. and record producer, made an offer on the spot. “I was like, ‘This is unbelievable,’” he said. He installed bleachers, a full bar, and cameras for closeups that he projected onto a screen. N.Y. Times
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