Goodbye, San Francisco. Hello, Nashville. Americans are fleeing dysfunctional cities. The bottom line is that Democrat-run cities and states suck. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, and name your Democrat-run city, have been turned into shitholes by Democrat policies. When you’ve lost liberal USA Today, you have a problem.
“I must say, in my view at the local, state and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors and governors, city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental health,” Schultz said in a video posted on Twitter.
Earlier in the week, Starbucks announced store closures in four Democrat-run states and the District of Columbia.
Why I’m Leaving California. Like thousands of others, Ben Shapiro has it figured out. Luckily for him, he can afford to move out of California. Meanwhile, we’d guess there’s no shortage of people who would like to leave but can’t.
A federal court ordered Los Angeles to hand over more than $100,000 to the National Rifle Association after ruling that the city had violated the gun-rights group’s First Amendment rights.
Federal district court judge Stephen Wilson struck down a city ordinance aimed at punishing prospective contractors with ties to the NRA as an infringement on the right to free speech and association. On Tuesday, he ordered city officials to pay for the Second Amendment group’s attorney fees, which totaled nearly $150,000.
Federal prosecutors charged Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar in a 34-count indictment Thursday as part of an ongoing corruption probe, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Huizar, 51, was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. He stands accused of leading a criminal enterprise in which he personally profited off his position as an elected official through bribery and other forms of corruption.
The indictment details 42 alleged acts of corruption by Huizar such as money laundering, bribery and honest services fraud.
He told Paige that Thursday morning between 5:30 and 10 a.m., there were just three patrol cars assigned to the West LA division. Two cars to protect more than 200,000 people in a 65 square mile radius.
L.A. County is now demanding that Alan Fahey tear down his “unusual” home or face up to seven years in jail.
Alan Fahey started building his home 20,000 square foot home thirty years ago in Acton, California, a ramshackle community that sits on the sandy fringe of Los Angeles County. He calls it “Phonehenge” because it’s built atop pilings made of telephone poles.
Unfortunately, the county is now demanding that Fahey tear down the home or face up to seven years in jail.
Welcome to Phonehenge, located in lovely Acton, California
Yahoo News has the story:
A jury began hearing the county’s case against Fahey last week: He is charged with 14 criminal misdemeanor counts, including unlawful use of land. L.A. County deputy District Attorney David Campbell told the paper that Fahey repeatedly ignored city officials’ warnings that he was violating multiple municipal building safety and fire codes and thinks he is above the law.
“He has set up his own arrogant interpretation of the law,” Campbell told the paper.
Fahey’s lawyer Jerry Lennon says county officials were negligent in enforcing their own rules, leaving his client alone for two decades before deciding to crack down.
“This is an exceptional place,” an L.A.-area advocate for code reform, David Lewis, told the L.A. Times. “Most of the properties that are involved in code enforcement actions are not visually striking. It’s something the public can look at. It’s something special that shouldn’t be demolished.”
The Watts Towers, piles of junk that have been designated as a National Historical Landmark.
On the other hand, the city of Los Angeles honors an equally unpermitted and inelegant series of structures known as the Watts Towers. Here’s how Wikipedia describes them:
The Watts Towers … is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato (“Sam” or “Simon”) Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. The work is an example of non-traditional vernacular architecture and American Naïve art…
The sculptures’ armatures are constructed from steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh and coated with mortar. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with found objects, including bed frames, bottles, ceramic tiles, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called the towers Nuestro Pueblo (which means “our town” in Spanish). He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools and window-washer’s equipment. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia, some of which were added, but the majority of his material consisted of damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery or CALCO (California Clay Products Company), located nearby. Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles from the 1930s through 1950s, some still bearing the former logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles.
In other words, the Watts Towers are giant piles of junk, yet they were declared a National Historical Landmark in 1990. Perhaps Los Angeles County should follow the example of Los Angeles City and, instead of prosecuting Fahey, support a similar designation for Phonehenge.
As our reader Kimmy Queen said, “You decide: Should the government enforce safety measures or is the government out of control because it chooses to enforce NOW after 20 or 30 years of doing nothing? Hands up if you believe that they will throw the tax code book at him if he turns it in a museum and asks for donations.”
We can only assume that the district has already laid off all its math teachers. Because it’s easy to see that $600 million for two schools minus 5000 employees, mostly teachers, does not add up.
Where do they find these geniuses? Are they all born and raised in Los Angeles or do they have to bring them in from other districts?
The Daily Breeze has the details:
Faced with an estimated $408 million budget deficit in the coming school year, the Los Angeles school board on Tuesday will consider authorizing layoff-warning notices for more than 5,000 employees, including more than 4,000 teachers.
There's not a lot left over for teachers when you spend $500 million for the Roybal Learning Center
The notices don’t necessarily mean all of the employees will lose their jobs for the 2011-12 school year, but school districts by law must notify workers that their positions are in jeopardy.
“We must plan for the worst because it just might happen,” Deputy Superintendent John Deasy wrote in a memo to the board and Superintendent Ramon Cortines.
We can’t help but wonder how many employees might be able to keep their jobs if the Einsteins in charge of the school district hadn’t spent nearly $600 million building just two schools in recent years.
Yes, you read that correctly. $600 million building just two schools.
One of them was the Carson-Gore Academy of Environmental Sciences, which set the district back $75.5 million. But that one pales in comparison to the infamous Belmont High School, which cost nearly $500 million.
ParentAdvocates.org has that story:
Costs to date for the development are $175 million. The Los Angeles Unified School Board has already approved an additional $110 million for demolition, reconstruction and completion of the on the Belmont campus, which was built on top of one thousand closed oil wells and is plagued with methane gas and other toxic substances. Unbudgeted remediation cost estimates vary from $14 million to $107 million.
Of course, they’ve now changed the name of the Belmont Learning Center to the Roybal Learning Center, so add the cost of new signs to that total.
We can only assume that the district has already laid off all its math teachers. Because it’s easy to see that $600 million for two schools minus 4,000 teachers and 1,000 other employees does not add up.
Los Angeles is broke. Strapped for cash. In the middle of an “urgent financial crisis.” It needs a giant “Will work for food” sign next to every city limits sign. And it owes it all to the global warming scam.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presents next year's budget to the city council
Los Angeles is broke. Strapped for cash. In the middle of an “urgent financial crisis.” It needs a giant “Will work for food” sign next to every city limits sign. And it owes it all to the global warming scam.
The Wall Street Journal has the details:
What’s brought the famed city to this pass? Global warming, of course. Or more precisely, the crusade against global warming.
A couple of months ago, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed electricity rate hikes of 9% to 28% to wean the city off coal and pay for its aggressive renewable energy portfolio. Residents and businesses bristled at such a steep increase in their electric bills, especially during a recession. Facing irate constituents, the city council nixed the utility’s proposed 5.7% three-month rate hike, the first of four increases planned.
This in turn prompted the utility to withhold $73.5 million of the $220.5 million surplus revenue it was expected to transfer to the city. Without the rate hike, the utility’s interim manager S. David Freeman says it doesn’t have enough money to pay its own bills and hand the city the $73.5 million. The city council complains that the utility is holding the city hostage.
What’s really holding the city hostage is the state’s global warming law and the mayor’s green energy agenda, which includes boosting renewables to 40% of the city’s energy portfolio by 2020. The state’s renewable goal is 33%. The mayor says the city could face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines if it doesn’t comply with the state’s numerous renewable energy and carbon reduction mandates. But of course complying with these mandates means a sharp increase in energy prices, as Los Angeles residents are now discovering.
Global warming is real. The weather is warm. The actresses are hot. And the city’s finances have melted down.
How much more proof do you need, you filthy denier?
There's nothing more fun than watching the media devour themselves. This may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but the truth-challenged New York Times has attacked the Los Angeles Times for disguising advertisements as news stories.
One day after catching holy hell for disguising a front age ad for a new TV show as a news story, the LA Times did it again.
An ad in Sunday’s Calendar entertainment section ran alongside a four-page ad for a new movie called “The Soloist.” The four pages are designed to look like a news.
A Paramount Pictures spokesperson said the Times approached them with the idea. The complete advertising package included an online contest and promos that ran on KTLA, which is a Times sister company.
“You dress an ad up to look like editorial content precisely because you think it will make it more valuable,” said Geneva Overholser of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. “Fundamentally, that’s an act of deception.”
This is shocking. No, not the deception on the part of the Los Angeles Times. Everyone knows that. What’s shocking is that Overholser seems surprised by it.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will issue a proclamation by Supervisor Mike Antonovich this morning declaring the first week of March “No Cussing Week.”
Why stop there, guys? While you’re at it, let’s declare next week “Nero Fiddles While LA Burns Week.” The week after can be “Rearrange the Deck Chairs on the Titanic Week.” And the week after that can be “How the $#%@ Did We Get Elected Week.”
We predict that “No Cussing Week” will have a devastating effect on LA County’s economy.
Hollywood will be forced to shut down all movie production. Morning DJs will have to go silent. And the rap music industry will nosedive into a deep depression.
