Subject: City of Bell Scandal

I received the following email and thought it might be of interest to fellow Southern Californian.

This is from my friend Steve Martini, a writer of novels, and although he is a little right of center he makes some strong points and you can see why he is a successful novelist.

Many of us grew up or lived in Southern California. Some of you still live there. Those were happier times given what is happening to the state now.
I have followed with some interest the scant news and rather limited accounts of the recent happenings in the City of Bell.
There the City Manager, his assistant and a handful of city council members were involved in a detailed conspiracy to loot the city and its taxpayers (mostly blue collar low income wage earners) of millions of dollars. (See the antics of Robert Rizzo, the City Manager on the Internet.)

What is interesting however is the very narrow reportage that is occurring on this story. The Los Angeles Times which has garnered a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of these events has circumscribed is coverage so narrowly one must wonder whether it has some objective in protecting local political interests.
The Times and every other news outlet in Southern California has carefully avoided any coverage on the deep back story behind this scandal.
What was revealed here is not limited to the City of Bell, but involves many of the small incorporated municipalities in the southern reaches of Los Angeles County.
It is a scandal that involves the Democratic Party machinery that runs the State of California through its death grip on the State Legislature and virtually every other state wide elective office in California.

Approximately a decade ago I was informed by a lawyer who was employed by the Secretary of States Office in Sacramento, a highly placed legal officer in that agency that his office was having serious problems monitoring elections in many of the small cities of Los Angeles County.
This is one of the functions delegated to the Secretary of State in California by state law.

The problem was that many of the cities had become lawless enclaves run by organized municipal gangs. In some cases city council members fielded their own private armies that showed up at council meetings armed to the teeth with concealed weapons intent on intimidating anyone who resisted the will of their bosses on the council.
At times there were competing and contending private armies present at these meetings in which heated exchanges occurred. The situation was so bad that employees of the Secretary of State's office investigating charges of election irregularities in these cities were forced to obtain escorts from the California Highway Patrol before venturing into these communities to conduct their investigations.

I was told that this information was passed to news outlets in Southern California including the L.A. Times, and that at that time the newspapers showed no interest in covering the story.
The conclusion was that in part this was due to the fact that these gangs often had ethnic roots within the communities in question. They were either Hispanic or in other cases African American. Notwithstanding that these practices violated state law and in some cases crossed over into clear acts of voter intimidation and violations of federal law the Times and other local news outlets apparently did not want to get involved in what was perceived as a negative story involving minority communities. Apparently it violated their sense of political correctness.
Accordingly they ignored the story and allowed these problems to fester. In the news vacuum that followed the misconduct in Bell was allowed to occur, unchecked and without any press scrutiny.

Efforts on the part of officials within the Secretary of States Office to get at election problems observed in these communities often met with severe resistance from elected Democrats in the State Legislature whose legislative districts included these communities. In short, these legislators were providing cover to their friends on these various city councils to prevent state officials from properly monitoring the activities of these local governments which were in fact political subdivisions of the state.
The bottom line is that the problems in the City of Bell are but the tip of a much larger ice berg.d

The Los Angeles Times which is now patting itself on the back for a job well done and holding high its Pulitzer for reporting on the localized scandal in Bell is in fact by its conduct inoculating and immunizing an entire generation of local and state officials who have engaged in serious misconduct.
These include current and past members of the state legislature as well as members of Congress from California.
In some cases these officials were interested in keeping local elected officials happy in order to discourage them from running for higher office and becoming competitors for their own seats in the Legislature or Congress. What difference did it make if these local officials were stealing money from taxpayers and using private armies to bar voters from access to polling places.
As long as these activities were being carried out in the interests of Democratic Party unity it was all in a good cause. These legislators were happy to use their offices to prevent and obstruct investigations into these abuses and to receive the benefits that flowed from that obstruction.

One of the state officials who jumped on the City of Bell scandal the moment it appeared in the Times was recently re-elected California Governor Edmund "Jerry" Brown, Jr. who at the time was State Attorney General and Democratic Party candidate for Governor.

Before the ink was dry on the Times first article Brown launched an investigation vowing to get to the bottom of things.
As always Brown skillfully avoided the question, 'how it was that this scandal took place and was allowed to develop during his watch as the state's chief law enforcement official?' Typical of Brown and the left leaning > media of the state he was permitted to side-step that question entirely.
Instead he took credit for the seeming promptness of his investigation, aided by his dim-witted Republican challenger who seemed to ignore the issue entirely.
Brown has always possessed a slick political tongue and can slip the bonds of accountability with the best of them would like nothing more than a quick conviction and long prison terms for the culprits in the City of Bell, which they richly deserve. That of course would put an end to the entire matter.

Brown and other Democrats would like to ignore the much more serious cancer of corruption growing within the state -- a one party government that is entirely out of control and headed for the abyss.

Brown is part of the problem, and a big part of it. He is the man who gave birth to public labor unions in the state and the abusive public pension systems that they spawned which are at the heart of the City of Bell scandal.

Brown planted the seeds of California's economic collapse as well as the current national calamity during his first two terms as Governor in the 1970's.
His entire political career lies at the very root of the scandals in Bell as well as those that will surely follow. He is the poster child for profligate public spending and failed government.

The man who gave us collective bargaining for public mployees and turned over the keys to the kingdom to the teachers unions, the Association of Federal, and State Employees and other narrow interest groups, he now reaps the benefit of that bargain by taking large amounts of campaign cash in the form of contributions from the mandatory dues paid by union members. Why not? These unions now buy entire state legislatures as well as legions of Democrats in Congress.

We have seen the lengths to which these "bought and paid for" legislators will go in their recent bid to absent themselves from the legislative process in the State of Wisconsin rather than play by the rules and accept the results of a fair election.
America is waking up to the fact that for Democrats there are no rules. It is whatever is necessary to win. Fair or foul it doesn't matter.

There is another dimension to this that many wish to ignore. Sharing a border with Mexico, how long can it be before the narco cartels to the south see the rich pickings and corrupting opportunities within organized public labor in California?
These unions are so powerful and their grip on state government so complete that to capture them is to capture the state. We worry about Mexico becoming a narco state.

What about California? The opportunity to skim pension funds and use public employees in positions of trust to infiltrate drugs into the country is not something that the narco underworld would have missed.

Demographics tell the story. Unchecked illegal immigration from the south is something Democrats refuse to address because it fosters their dream of one-party government. Their ultimate victory they are certain is assured by the law of gravity. It is a downhill slide.

Ultimately a majority of third world migrants will control the balance of power not only in California but in the nation. This is certain if the borders are left untended as they are now.
If these new migrants are socialized to accept the handouts from the Government class, which is more than they ever received in their homeland, they can be controlled and counted on for their votes.

The answer as always is "comprehensive immigration reform" -- code for continued unchecked illegal migration across the southern border, followed by countless Congressional acts of amnesty in order for Democrats to immediately garner the votes of the newly minted citizens.
There is no mystery to this. It is a party plank of Democrats and has been for thirty years, ever since the last Ted Kennedy inspired amnesty.

In the meantime Jerry Brown and others like him will continue their smoke and mirrors campaign to assure uninformed voters that all is well in the Golden State, that he is on the job, as always, looking out for their interests. When will the voters wake up and realize that Brown wants what every other politicians craves, erpetual personal power over their lives.
He wants the power to dictate the terms upon which ordinary citizens are permitted to exist and he wants to tilt the election scale so that he never loses.
He wants to give everyone something for nothing and take it from the rich, which is a class that in California is rapidly dwindling.
Why is it that so many Californians, people of property and talent have left that state? Ask yourself. The answer is not that illusive.
Substitute the name Obama for Brown and you get the same answer to the same question.

We are back where we were more than a century ago, and the question remains whether the nation will be free or slave.

Must the cancer that afflicts California spread until Americans are forced to leave the country to find opportunities for life that are free from the ever widening grasp of corrupt politicians who can envision no limits on their own power? America is rapidly out-stripping the former Banana Republics in terms of its tolerance for political corruption.
Much of the media, the so-called press and the electronic news outlets are themselves complicit. They see no problem with a government class that controls the economy Soviet style.
This flows from an uninformed, under educated and disinterested electorate, people who are more concerned with the latest hip-hop tune and the unbalanced ravings of Charlie Sheen that they are with the actions of local, state and federal elected officials who are happily selling the souls of their children into bondage.

Booking photos provided by LA County Sheriff's Dept: The eight are charged
with taking more than $5.5 million from the working-class suburb of Bell, Calif.
Scandal triggered nationwide outrage and calls for more transparency in government.

From top left, Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, and Oscar Hernandez;
from bottom left, Teresa Jacobo, George Mirabal, Robert Rizzo, and Peir'Angela Spaccia.

America is waking up to the fact that for Democrats .........there are no rules. It is whatever is necessary to win. Teacher and public employee unions now buy entire state legislatures as well as legions of Democrats in Congress.(The NEA alone collects annual union dues in the hundreds of millions of dollars).

It's becoming crystal clear that our job is to get control of public employees at all levels of govt---these people are ruining us.

=============================================

Jerry Brown planted the seeds of California's economic collapse as well as the current national calamity during his first two terms as Governor in the 1970's. His entire political career lies at the very root of the scandals in Bell as well as those that will surely follow. He is the poster child for profligate public spending and failed government. The man who gave us collective bargaining for public employees and turned over the keys to the kingdom to the teachers unions, the Association of Federal, and State Employees and other narrow interest groups, he now reaps the benefit of that bargain by taking large amounts of campaign cash in the form of contributions from the mandatory dues paid by union members.

Hard to believe this idiot Brown got back into office. Guess sap-happy Cali
libs believe anything a pol tells them. Course, we have to factor in massive voter
fraud, as well as Jerky, er, I mean, Jerry,'s incipient Alzheimer's.

BACKSTORY The Cali govt's "campaign money machine scam" to buy
votes with tax dollars was engineered in the 1970s; the pols calculatingly
legalized tax-paid public-employee unions ability to organize and bargain.
Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the campaign money-machine bill in 1978.

"Wasn't my fault," 2010 Candidate Brown told cheering Democrats.

That email is very well written...and it (the "takeover" of Bell) is one of those things that strains the bounds of what is believable; but as layers and layers of the onion are peeled back, the apparent "extremism" voiced by the email-writer become more and more clear and more and more accurate.

What happened in Bell can NOT be an isolated example. It simply can't, there's too much money at stake. Separating out the "Jerry Brown" aspect of the author's thesis, Bell was an utterly classic case of Chicago-type municipal corruption, and frankly it was brilliantly conceived and perpetuated, based upon the innate habits of Latino voters who will vote for Latino pols (If I have to be "racist" about it) but otherwise, it's the same story substituting "Dem". If you've ever been to Bell, it is an amorphous nothing of a city, and in LA, there is really nothing delineating its' boundaries from the nail salons and donut shops on one block and nail salons and donut shops on whatever next-block it is that's in the next town over. It's absolutely impossible to go there and think "Oh man, I REALLY want to live in Bell!"

Now you know why infinite immigration is desired, now you know why sloppy voter registration is wanted, and everyone reading this should think very carefully about the implication: For the people who can be swayed, as a bloc, by appeals to their racial status, their immigrant status, their ability to perceive a Latino surname and will vote thereon; THOSE PEOPLE ARE MORE VALUABLE VOTERS THAN YOU ARE.

Great article/email! Thanks for posting it!

Democrats will use every tool in their arsenal to regain and maintain power. They will use every government power at their disposal no matter the ethical concerns.

Republicans for the most part still play by the rules.

Hopefully when the train wreck happens, the drivers will be hanging from light poles.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.