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My couple of days away from regular posting somehow extended into a week. Today's buzz includes some catching up from last week.
City, county and federal offices, courts and libraries and post offices will be closed today. State offices are open. Transit service and LA trash pickup unaffected.
Gov. Brown directed the California Air Resources Board to increase the fuel supply by allowing the immediate sale and import of cheaper and more available winter-blend gasoline. AP, LAT, Bee
Sunday's gasoline prices were record-breaking in California. AP
SpaceX launched another craft to supply the International Space Station. AP, KPCC
President Obama made jokes about his panned debate performance and told the crowd of about 6,000 at his Sunday fundraising concert at the Nokia Theatre that "everything we fought so hard for in 2008 is on the line in 2012. And I need your help to finish what we started." Hollywood Reporter, LAT
Siblings Molly and Charles Munger Jr. have so far put $51 million into the campaigns for measures on the November ballot. Different measures. SF Chronicle
Up close and somewhat personal with John Thomas, the 27-year-old political campaign consultant who is "trying to make his name in heavily Democratic L.A. County with mostly Republican clients." He's guiding Alan Jackson in the DA's race, after previously working with Carmen Trutanich. LAT
Thomas got hooked on politics at age 13, watching President Clinton's impeachment trial on TV. The following year he volunteered for one of the prosecutors, Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale), who was running for reelection. Thomas' first assignment was baby-sitting Rogan's small daughters...."We're in this to win, not to make friends," he said.
He went negative in a big way on Trutanich in the primary, setting up a website that skewered the city attorney for not honoring a pledge to serve two terms before seeking another office. He also masterminded a lawsuit that forced Trutanich to change the ballot description of himself as "Los Angeles chief prosecutor."
There is "poisonously bad blood" between the Mike Feuer and Carmen Trutanich campaigns as the race for city attorney heats up, says Jim Newton. LAT op-ed
John Shallman was, until recently, Trutanich's campaign consultant. It was Shallman who guided Trutanich's disastrous campaign for district attorney, in which the city attorney, having broken his pledge not to run for another office during his term, failed even to make the runoff against a field of lesser-known opponents. Like many, Shallman had expected Trutanich to win, and figured he would then represent Feuer in the city attorney race. When Trutanich lost, Shallman dumped him and jumped to Feuer. Incensed, Trutanich sued Shallman, demanding an accounting of the campaign's finances. Rick Taylor, who's now running the Trutanich campaign, lashed out hard at Shallman when we spoke last week. What Shallman did, Taylor said, was "beyond despicable.... He stabbed his client in the back."
Rick Orlov's Monday Tipoff column: Paul Koretz tries to ease Obamajams, volume rises in Berman-Sherman, Gil Cedillo's unflattering Wikipedia entry. DN
It's Eisner vs. Katzenberg again as Hollywood chooses sides in the LA mayoral race. Hollywood Reporter
LAPD chief Charlie Beck stepped into the national immigration debate by announcing that hundreds of illegal immigrants arrested by his officers each year in low-level crimes would no longer be turned over to federal authorities for deportation. LAT, DN
Grounds maintenance at the new LAPD headquarters remains a problem. DN
City Controller Wendy Greuel announced she is endorsing legislative deputy Raul Bocanegra in the 39th Asssembly District over Councilman Richard Alarcon. DN
Republican congressional candidate Gary DeLong ripped the cell phone from the hand of a Democratic Party tracker who was recording him Friday night at the end a candidate forum in Long Beach, leading to a scuffle. Press-Telegram
Applications for LAUSD magnet schools are due earlier than usual, on Nov. 16. LAT, KPCC
The LA City Council is considering a three-year ban on the sale of commercially bred dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores to push more adoptions from city shelters. DN
Times columnist Sandy Banks says that Sheriff Baca is out of time and excuses over violence by jail deputies: "It's hard to know what to make of a leader — nationally respected and locally beloved — who ignored a decade's worth of brutality complaints and rarely visited the jails he runs..." LAT
TJ Simers fetes former Herald Examiner sports scribe and Santa Anita publicist Jack Disney. LAT
Cory Baker's long career in radio and music. Fishbowl LA
The acidity of the oceans is rising as the seas absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the effects are already being seen. LAT
The wind-down of local redevelopment threatens to undo an agreement to bring the Museum of Neon Art from downtown Los Angeles to Glendale, which could leave the venerable curator of all things neon without a home. News-Press
Daniel A. Olivas has three questions for Sandra Cisneros about her new book, "Have You Seen Marie?" LA Review of Books
A 70-year-old Idaho retiree has recreated a scale model of the downtown Los Angeles of his youth in his basement. Spokesman-Review
Lois Smith, a longtime New York celebrity publicist who co-founded the firm that became PMK/HBH, died at age 86 after suffering a fall while in Maine. The Wrap
LA Observed photo: Park at the Police Administration Building in Downtown
