Morning Briefs on the Los Angeles Political Machine for Friday

...... and the cost in campaign contributions to buy your local 2013 mayoral candidate ....

..... like "Eric Garshady", seen here shilling for the re-election of fellow Wal-Mart money recipient CD 14 City Councilman Jose Huizar.

The bloggin love of highlighting political hypocrisy!

Before the 2013 Mayoral Election process runs its course sometime in the early summer of 2013, we will have been treated to countless act of political hypocrisy in the name of garnering favor with the voters. But more important, to reap the windfall of campaign cash to finance the facade that will hopefully curry favor with big donors.

For former City Council President and out-going CD 13 representative Eric Garcetti, his campaign facade of being a loyal brother to the labor left progressive faction took a well mark hit in today's David Zahniser piece in the "Old Gray Hag on Spring Street" and the cost? Both small and big.

Small would describe the $100 dollar donation from Wal-Mart's local director of community affairs Javier Angulo. But big is this slapback from Los Angeles County Labor Federation Leader (and friend of Tony V.) Maria Elena Durazo.

"It is one thing if a Wal-Mart cashier or warehouse worker makes a contribution to a candidate," Durazo said in a statement. "It's a different kind of political contribution altogether when a senior-level representative of Wal-Mart who is actively organizing for a Wal-Mart store in Chinatown writes the check. Wal-Mart money is Wal-Mart money." 

 But lets not forget what "close friend" of Durazo helped get city approval for Wal-Mart's proposed Chinatown location. Hypocrisy reigns.

....... and this on CD 14 Councilman Huizar and City Council Wannabee Assemblyman Felipe "Mini Padilla" Fuentes.

Angulo, the Wal-Mart representative, has also donated in the past year to Councilman Jose Huizar and Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar), who is running for the seat being vacated by Councilman Richard Alarcon. Garcetti called last month for L.A. politicians to give back any Wal-Mart money they have received.

Hypocrisy reigns supreme!!

** Other News: 


** In the democratic jihad that is the 30th Congressional District contest between Congressmens Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, Team Sherman has released a poll that shows their candidate leading by 17%. Being the trailing candidate has prompted Team Berman to go negative. Will Sherman unleash the Gatto Truthers in response?


** Various democratic clubs are stepping back from making endorsements in the 50th Assembly District runoff between Besty Butler and Richard Bloom. Why you may ask?  Its in the numbers according to the "Weekly of Record's" Patrick Range McDonald.

Your thoughts ..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14

Los Angeles Politics HotSheet for Monday

The well reported Martin Declaration by Deputy City Attorney Claudia Martin isn't helping Carmen Trutanich much. Going into next week the City Council is looking to emasculate Trutanich by pulling various functions from his office and handing them to private attorneys.  We discussed this matter at length on Live LA Saturday Night this past weekend with blogger and activist Zuma Dogg and Deputy DA David Berger.

Jerry Brown and the State Legislature are taxing online purchases, leading to e-tailer Amazon shutting down thousands of mom and pop affiliate businesses in California.  Who's behind this travesty? Liberal Democrats? Well, yea, but there's a bigger villain here: Wal-Mart.  Amazon is prepping a ballot measure.


Read more »

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

Happy Birthday wishes to CD 2 Councilman Paul Krekorian, from all of us here at Mayor Sam!
And Happy One Year Anniversary to the Health Care Reform Law! Still standing strong and fully funded!

SurveyLA is coming to North Hollywood! "SurveyLA has been conducting a citywide historical survey and is coming to North Hollywood and Toluca Lake soon. According to its website, it is looking for places that are important because of reasons such as architecture, city planning, landscape design, ethnic heritage, residential development, commerce or industry." Full story at North Hollywood-Toluca Lake Patch. No word yet if North Hollywood's Gateway Arch is considered significant, historical, or just embarrassing (see pic below).

At least you can't miss it.

 Everyone's favorite predatory pricing, mom & pop shop destroying, vendor exploiting retailer, Wal-Mart, may soon face the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in U.S history! The decision to allow the class-action lawsuit to proceed is now in the hands of SCOTUS. If successful, the lawsuit could affect 2 million women and cost the big box billions of dollars!

Damn, why didn't I think of that?  Sales of Emergency Bunkers are skyrocketing! From portable ones that run a few thousand to $20 million dollar "fit for a king" luxury hide-a-ways, the disaster protection business has never been better; "...U.S. companies selling doomsday bunkers are seeing sales skyrocket anywhere from 20% to 1,000%". And it's only March!

Finally, I hate sending people to this jerks blogsite but Phil Jennerjahn is in full homophobe/neanderthal mode today as he throws Republican Mayoral candidate Kevin James under the bus for simply supporting gay marriage and opposing the Mormon Prop 8 law.
Go witness the sputtering human trainwreck known as Phil "Dangerous Enemy of Brain Cells" Jennerjahn , but please don't do it if you just ate.

The Free Market Works

Some people think that chain outlets like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Starbucks, etc. kill competition and harm small business. However, no less a left leaning blog than CurbedLA has found that Starbucks actually brings more business to competing independent coffeehouses by expanding the category while the upstarts manage to offer alternatives to corporate coffee.

There was a very similar experience in Glendale where competition from an innovative local store was one of the factors that lead to closing down a Home Depot.

Just as they once uprooted veteran retailers like Sears, K-Mart, Builders Emporium, etc. corporate behemoths like those mentioned above are potentially the dinosaurs of the near future when someone else figures out how to do it better.

Ergot - no need for the government to protect us from the likes of them.

And that, Jack Hoff, is the free market perspective.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Thursday

Happy New Year!

Though NBC is planning to move its Beautiful Downtown Burbank facilities to Universal City, the Burbank Leader reports its not a done deal. Though the City of Burbank has approved NBC transferring its development rights to a new developer, the City of LA has yet to approve this deal which will bring significant economic opportunity to the San Fernando Valley. Due to NIMBY nonsense and the lack of foresight of Councilman Tom LeBong, NBC is going to have tough sledding here.

This is kind of odd. Its an old story and as far as I know nothing has come up lately, but a fine waters website is carrying a post about LA's Toilet to Tap water program.

The blog Cheat Seeking Missiles declares Mayor Villaraigosa as Bill Clinton's "spiritual brother." The blog posits that Antonio - who says of his conversations with Iowans - "I say I'm mayor of Los Angeles, and some of them put up a smile," probably doesn't tell the locals that "his popularity has plummeted with his zipper" since The Summer of Love.

"Wacko Jacko" Weiss continues his journey towards libertarianism as he promotes a sort of modified free enterprise approach to transit in Los Angeles - some degree of privatization of subway and transit lines. He doesn't go far enough but this type of heresy coming from a local elected is a breath of fresh air for an old, dead Republican Mayor such as, well, uh, me.

I've been trying to tell my friends in Sunland-Tujunga (as well as Wal-Mart and Costco haters) that the best andidote to big box stores is the free market. And it appears I was right. Big boxers like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and even chains like Starbucks often find its not so easy to compete against small independents and are struggling because as Reason Magazine's Michael Moynihan writes; "The inability to adapt to local tastes and the failure to anticipate technological market shifts have been the Achilles heel of many big box retailers."

Speaking of Sunland-Tujunga don't forget our big Mayor Sam wing-ding there on Sunday, January 13th. To RSVP click here.

The Poor Pay for NIMBYism

Union dominated towns like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York apparently have the juice and enough NIMBYs to keep mega-retailer Wal-Mart out of their towns.

One writer thinks that Wal-Mart could approve its shrinking bottom line by giving up its fight against the company's left wing critics and give into their unreasonable demands. Of course he acknowledges they'd have to raise prices to do so, but hey, its Wal-Mart's low income customers who will have to deal with that, not liberals who refuse to shop there because of their "morals."