"Eric Garcetti, LA’s Prince of Maskless Privilege. Thanks, LA Times!" by Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - It is the Monday morning after the L.A. Rams’ victory in the NFC championship game (played in Inglewood, not L.A.), and the local team punching its ticket to the Super Bowl in two weeks isn’t the only headline-grabber.

The other national headline from the game is that L.A.’s Prince of Maskless Privilege, Mayor Eric Garcetti, mugged for photos with unmasked Magic Johnson, S.F. Mayor London Breed, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jessica Alba to name a few.

They then gave L.A., whose local health laws they each broke, the middle finger by posting those photos online.  

In other words, they keep laughing at us by making but ignoring their own delusional and unscientific COVID rules when among one another in the executive suites at Sofi Stadium.  

The 70,000+ attendees, scores of vendors and employees, were forced to wear masks before the vast majority ditched them once inside.

Remember Newsom’s tearful apology when he and his wife, Jen Siebel Newsom, were exposed to the entire nation as privileged, hypocritical jackasses, dining maskless and indoors at one of the nation’s fanciest restaurants, The French Laundry?  

“I made a bad mistake,” Newsom said when busted from coast to coast.

“I should have stood up and … drove back to my house. The spirit of what I’m preaching all the time was contradicted,” he added. “I need to preach and practice, not just preach.” 

It should come as no surprise that Garcetti recently wound up going overseas with President Joe Biden, caught COVID and could not fly back on Air Force One, rather stranding himself in a hotel for a week.

Then there’s the news this morning that Garcetti’s maskless buddy, Candian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tested positive, which Facebook censored early this morning.

And of course, our pals at the L.A. Times Editorial Board, which, over the weekend, referred to the recall of disgraced L.A. City Councilmember Mike Bonin as “mean-spirited,” remains as out of touch with Los Angeles as ever. Have they been to Venice, Echo Park, MacArthur Park, Hollywood and Van Nuys? (Doubtful they spend much time in South L.A.)

Meanwhile, after more than a one-month winter break, the L.A. City Council, which held its meetings maskless and indoors until recently, but kept out the public to insulate itself from criticism, canceled its upcoming meetings without explanation.

That decision comes from L.A. City Council president Nury Martinez, who can’t figure out how to properly wear a mask but had time to get her name printed on them with taxpayer dollars.

What do these hypocrites have in common?

They were all endorsed, or repeatedly endorsed, by the Los Angeles Times despite the hypocrisy, homelessness and crime. And it was the Times that loudly discouraged the recall of Newsom.

Shouldn’t this be the end of people considering the Times’ political endorsements with local primaries right around the bend?  

Want more of the same? You can bank on its ongoing endorsements of the same tired old failures. And the Times will keep doing that until people do what Ricky Roma said (paraphrasing) in Glengarry Glen Ross, “...subscribe to the law of contrary L.A. Times Opinion... If it recommends one thing, then I say, vote the other way.”

But hey, for 99 cents, you can get unlimited access via the Times’ app…

Los Angeles does not have to be the patsy of the L.A. Times and its hand-picked politicians. Just stop electing weenies and stop listening to those who recommend keeping them in office.

Follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport. Feel free to share this widely.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and runner-up in 2021 in the Activist Journalism category. He has contributed to Mayor Sam, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers.)