Just A Few Thousand People Will Determine Who Wins L.A.'s Mayoral Race: You Should Be One Of Them

Fill in the blank:  Put your _____ where your mouth is.

Do you realize how very few people contribute to the campaigns of people running for Mayor in the City of Los Angeles?

The City Ethics Commission requires candidates to disclose the names of only of those people who have contributed $100 or more.  As a result, I can't tell you exactly how many people and businesses have contributed.  But I can tell you how many contributions of $100 or more each candidate has received -- some of which, by the way, can be multiple contributions from the same people.

Let's start with Kevin James. Mrs. Moore and I have each made our modest initial $100 contributions to Kevin's campaign, and I hope you will contribute, too.  (Here's a handy link for you to do so.) Our contributions are two of 401 contributions of $100 or more Kevin's campaign received in 2011.

Austin Beutner, the billionaire, received just 896 contributions of $100 or more. Eric Garcetti, the career politician, received 1,860 contributions. Wendy Greuel, another Spring Street insider, received just 1,910 contributions of $100 or more. Jan Perry, another member of the Spring Street Gang, got 1,416 contributions of $100 or more.

Add it all up, and you find there have been just 6,483 contributions of $100 or more to all of the candidates combined -- including all those career politicians who will be cannibalizing one another's voting blocs.

Why Beutner Thinks He's An "Outsider:" Austin Amnesia

Billionaire Austin Beutner is running for Mayor of Los Angeles by portraying himself as an outsider. An outsider? Are you kidding? The man was the de facto Mayor for over a year. Villaraigosa turned the management of the City over to Beutner for something like 15 months.

How then, can Beutner hope to dupe voters into thinking he's some kind of "outsider," when he was at the helm while this Italian cruise liner of a city scraped along the reef for month after month? I've discovered the answer:  "Austin Amnesia." The poor soul has simply forgotten that he already acted as Mayor.

You can tell from this video of the City Council hearing to confirm his appointment as manager of DWP. Even then, he couldn't remember how many departments he was already running, or which ones, or what there names were. His memory can't have improved with time.

Not only did he forget which 13 departments he was running, but the City actually got even worse while he was running them. 

Dude, we've already seen what you can do for the city. Thanks, but no thanks.

Newt Getting Carried Away With Moon Base Thing

So I was watching re-runs, when I remembered who was in that horrible show all those years ago....

Mayoral Campaign 2013: Averell Abandons Austin

Austin is VERY different from Antonio: he uses his right hand.

Slimey slimey Averell Smith, who calls himself "Ace," has managed Villaraigosa's campaigns in the past. He is, I believe, the man who managed to help Villaraigosa squeak by in the last election with a 6% margin despite having a budget that was 14 times greater than that of his closest opponent, yours truly.

So it was natural that billionaire investment banker Austin Beutner, who mismanaged the City for a couple of years as Villaraigosa's deputy, would turn to Smith to run his campaign. Beutner, however, decided to try passing himself off to voters as come kind of "outsider." Yeah, right, tell me another one, Pinnochio.

Part of Beutner's "outsider" schtick is to criticize the way City Hall is run. Well, that apparently won't fly with Averell. I suspect Averell wants to run Villaraigosa's next campaign, and he really can't do that if he wages a campaign highlighting the past seven years of incompetence at the top. So Averell is divorcing Austin. Read all about it in the Los Angeles Times.

Averell. Who names a kid "Averell?" How many times did he get beat up per week in elementary school? Dude, you know you can legally change your name, right?

As for Austin, not only is he just another Spring Street insider, but he has all the charisma of _______________ (fill in the blank with the name of someone you know who has no charisma). His speech literally -- and I'm a person who knows what "literally" means -- put former mayor Richard Riordan to sleep, according to the LA Weekly.

Bring on the debates.

Villaraigosa Charter School Show-And-Tell: Show Me A Knife And I'll Show You A Gun

"Lord of the Flies" Day at Samuel Gompers Middle School

Besides having way-above-average unemployment rates, the City of Los Angeles has something else that makes life here really, really hard for working families: horrid public schools.

I know, because I taught in one of them until a kid attacked me. I was bitten and bruised, and I quit after learning that the student's "punishment" for this crime would be a three-day suspension, followed by return to my classroom.  Oh hay-ell no! Even in the most contentious lawsuit I ever handled, no one bit me, for Heaven's sake!

Well, the latest jaw-dropper occurred in middle school the other day. And not just any middle school, but one managed by the illustrious mayor himself, Antonio Villaraigosa: the Samuel Gompers Middle School One little kid pulls a knife, and the other pulls out a gun.

Kids don't need to read "Lord of the Flies" in this town; they are living it.

Read about it in the LA Weekly.

A gun in middle school? A knife? What has become of this city?

Now, unless you've got a job paying you enough money to put your kids in private schools, why would you move to this City? And how are you going to find such a job when the City is run by career politicians who are bought and paid for by special interests? You're not.

So the locals better start paying attention to local politics or start packing -- which most of the middle class here has already done.

L.A. Is Run By Dino's: Democrats In Name Only

The City of Los Angeles is run by a bunch of "Dino's:"  Democrats in name only.

The Democratic Party is supposed to stand up for the little guy.

The Democratic Party is supposed to protect people from, among other things, big businesses that, left unchecked, have a tendency to take unfair advantage of their power and wealth.

Now, you may think the people running Los Angeles are Democrats. After all, they're all registered as Democrats, and they claim to be Democrats.

But they're all phony Democrats.  Eric Garcetti, Jan Perry, Wendy Greuel, Antonio Villaraigosa and all the rest are not Democrats at all. They're counterfeits, knock-offs, Democrats in Name Only -- Dino's. They call themselves Democrats because that's what you have to do to get elected in this city.

They don't care about the little guy, or the working single mother, struggling to get by. Rather, they are posers, bought and paid for by the special interests that really run this town. The insiders vying running for mayor are props in a city that is not a democracy, but is instead the poster child for "crony capitalism," where welfare is for the rich, not the poor.

You say you want an example? The L.A. Weekly has a report on the latest example of welfare for the rich. The Spring Street Gang has again chosen to take money away from the city's hard-working taxpayers and hand it to the uber-rich for yet another downtown subsidy.

Is that the action of a Democrat? Or is that a sign that special interests run this town, and have installed their agents in positions of power by passing them off to the public as Democrats?

If you're a Democrat, don't fall for the labels candidates put on themselves. Judge them by their conduct.

Comic Book Guy Cleared In L.A. Arson Case

Comic book guy has been cleared in the L.A. arson case. Tomorrow, he says, he'll report for duty back at the set of The Simpsons.

Villaraigosa Sets Timer On $100 Million Debt Bomb To Detonate After He Leaves Office

To create the illusion that he is fiscally responsible, Villaraigosa is, in effect, putting his massive overspending on your credit card -- "you" being the taxpayers of the City of L.A. Think of it as setting the timer on a $100 million debt bomb to detonate after he leaves office on July 1, 2013.

Read all about it in the L.A. Times. And hey, don't blame me.  I voted for Walter Moore.

Now, here's the leadership test for all those wannabe Mayors on the City Council and the Controller's Office: will they take any action whatsoever to prevent this? Or will they aid and abet it by doing nothing?

The correct answer is: they will do nothing. Why? Because there is no difference between Villaraigosa, Garcetti, Greuel, Perry and Beutner. They are all exactly the same special interest puppet politician.