WHAT'S THE ROLLING STONE SMOKING?
For those who keep up with such things, the recent issue of Rolling Stone Magazine has an article on the cartels written by Guy Lawson. He's listed on the masthead as a Contributing Editor.

While there were some good things in the article, some of his assertions and conclusions were absolutely the product of bong hits.

Here's a link to my rebuttal:
http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36298

In the interest of full disclosure, I contacted Rolling Stone to ask if I could submit a rebuttal but I got the usual silent treatment. I also tried the usual media outlets and they all said (rightly) that it's not their fight.

As the resounding silence on the ACORN scandal has convincingly demonstrated, the usual media is not the disseminator of news, it's the gatekeeper. It's not news, or significant, until they say it is. Remember the silence on the hate crimes and racially motivated homicides until the Federal case was filed against The Avenues in 2007. The media was able to ignore me, and others working the same stories, but it was hard to ignore the U.S. Attorney filing a major hate crimes case.

TONY V., THE MAYOR OF CHINATOWN.
In a brilliantly researched piece for the LA Times, David Zahniser directed another blowtorch at Mayor Tony V's ethically challenged administration. This time the scandal involves a wind farm and a former aide to the mayor. Here's the link.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wind15-2009sep15,0,839175.story

The usual suspects were named, the usual machinations were uncovered and the usual dissembling was articulated by the people who behave like French royalty while soaking up taxpayer billions.

It seems amazing that every time there's a questionable deal afoot, the same players seem to pop up - CIM, the DWP, mayoral aides, CALPERS, CRA-LA and various union operators.

Tony V. apparently doesn't talk to his friends who stand to make millions of dollars from city deals.
The mayor's spokesman said, "It's not part of the mayor's agenda to worry about people's private business dealings." It is apparently part of his agenda to benefit politically and otherwise when those friends make windfall profits from policies that he wants rammed down the taxpayer's throats.

Do yourself a favor and read Zahniser's piece in the Times. Then start doing Google searches for the operators involved and make up your own mind. Rational people will come to the conclusion that Tony V. is sitting on a ticking time bomb. When it goes off, enough political shrapnel will be unleashed to bury every member of the City Council, the heads of municipal employee pension funds and all the creeps that have attached themselves to schemes calculated to enrich the well-connected at the expense of tax payers.

Let's hear it for Zahniser and the LA Times. The Times doesn't always get it right. But when it does, it lives up to the very best of what newspapers are supposed to do.

Next step? Let's have Carmen Trutanich launch an investigation and muck out the stables at City Hall.