Tax Day? Tea Time!

Anti-Obama, Anti-Medicare, Anti-Tax, Pro-Ryan, Tea Partying Angelenos' Day in the Sun?

What they lacked in numbers during tax season 2011, they made up for in zealousness

By Thom Senzee

WOODLAND HILLS (RoLA)--Patti Hutchens (far left, w/flag) came out in the late afternoon sun Saturday to a park in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of the City of L.A. and did something she's done every April 15 since 2009--wave the red-white-&-blue at passing cars to express her passion for what she believes America needs most: lower taxes.

"I like the Paul Ryan plan," Hutchens, 56 of Canoga Park, said.

Asked whether the part of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Minn.) plan to end Medicare as we know it today in favor of a system that would give seniors a voucher and marching orders to fend for themselves in the private health-insurance market bothered her or not, the self-proclaimed former liberal aanswered in with a definite "no."

"I don't think [ending Medicare] is a problem," she said. "They can just go to Kaiser."

Hutchens and many of her fellow Tea partiers seem to believe seniors will find few if any barriers to obtaining health care from a largely for-profit private system, despite the fact that politicians and business leaders from both parties have long decried as dysfunctional and inaccessable to at least 40 million people in this country.

But on one defining aspect of the Ryan plan, Hutchens seemed confused. Republic Of L.A. asked her if she really believed an 80- or 90-year-old with pre-existing conditions (is there such a thing as a 90-year-old without pre-existing conditions?) would be able to find coverage with an $8,000 government voucher. That amount that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would be the average value of a voucher for a person aged 65.

"I think it's $12,000," she said. "I think Kaiser would insure someone like that for $12,000."

In fact, according to the non-partisan CBO, the cost for coverage of the kind now enjoyed by all seniors who receive medicare would cost, at minimum, $16,000 on the open market. The Paul Ryan voucher system would allow the average 65-year-old $8,000. The individual would have to come up with the other $8,000 on her own--assuming she could find an company that would accept her (keeping in mind that Republican plans also include repealing Pres. Obama's Affordable Care Act, and returning the nation to a system that allows for denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions).

Yet Tea Party "patriots" such as Hutchens, are confident that not only will insurance companies welcome 65-year-olds with pre-exisint conditions, they'll also roll out the red carpet for 85- and 95-year-olds too.

L.A.'s Overlooked Overlooks

We drive by, walk past and stumble upon some of the most spectacular vistas you could ask for each and every day in this town without ever noticing. Here's one that caught my eye recently. Photo taken from the rooftop parking lot of the Pavilions grocery store in West Hollywood last Saturday afternoon. The challenge for we Angelenos is finding a few minutes to stop and breathe in this storied land. But the payoff is nealy always worth the effort. Slow down once a day and realize how lucky we really are here.

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Green Irony

GOT GREEN?
I was walking back home from the gym on Sunset (Arclight 24-Hour Fitness). Across from Amoeba, there iT was: somebody's dead-tree flier advertising something in an apparently greenwashing manner (greenwashing, of course, means falsley coloring your ad campaign, corporate image, etc...in the colors of an enviornmentally friendly entity).

"OMG, Thom; give these folks a break! It's a friggin' flier...shit happens. The wind probably blew it off of a telephone pole or a bulletin board. Maybe some jerk tore it off and threw it on the ground. This is probably a flier from a cool non-profit, or a small business. Whoever it belongs to is just trying to make a living in the Great Recession!" you say.

Okay, but zoom in a little. See? It's masking-taped to the sidewalk, for crikey's sake."

Pundit Declares Senate Minority Leader a Political Street Fighter: RoLA Disagrees

Tough Guy?

Last night on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," the host described Mitch McConnell as "tough." Correction: Senate Minority Leader (and he'll still be the minority leader after the new congress is sworn in, as Democrats kept their majority in the senate Tuesday) Mitch McConnell (R.-Kentucky) is not tough.

There's a difference between tough and mean. You can easily impose your will in the United States Senate simply by folding your arms and saying "No! I vote we DON'T vote on it." and thus, because of the rule requiring 60 or more votes to override your filibuster, stopping anything and everything in the form of legislation that comes down pike. McConnell led his party to just say no (or use the threat of filibuster) to stall or kill several pieces of legislation that arguably help middle-class families and individuals (take extending unemployment benefits and assistance for those paying for COBRA health-care coverage).

Mitch McConnell is like the kid who owns the soccer ball and doesn't like the way the game is going. He snatches the ball up, puts it under his arm and takes it home so no one gets to play. That doesn't make him a tough guy, or even a bully. Mitch McConnel is just a brat.

Obama Channels 'W.' on Daily Show

HECK OF A JOB SUMMY?

click here for clip

Giving props to top economic advisor and Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, Pres. Barack Obama, appearing on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with John Stewart" conjured memories of George W. Bush, whose comments on camera during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina included a pat on the back for then FEMA director, Michael D. Brown followed by the now-notorious compliment: "You're doin' a heck of a job, Brownie."

That, of course, led to a nickname that will stick with Mr. Brown for the rest of his life. From Nantucket, to Nome, he's still referred to as Heck-of-a-job-Brownie--the tragic irony being that he was waxing conceitedly about his telegenic looks while elderly women died in the streets of New Orleans.

Shall we now call Larry Summers, Heck-of-a-job-Summy?

If you Love NPR Help Save it from a Full-Blown Attack by Sean Hannity and the other Nazis at Fox News NOW!

V.

DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH

Fox News Channel Sets its Sites on

Destroying NPR in Coming Days

NPR Has fired ever-crazier Juan Williams after Williams, a once-actual journalist, now a Fox news analyst and former NPR analyst, decided to proclaim that Muslims on airplanes scare the shit out of him while he waxed bigotedly while appearing on, you guessed it, Fox News Channel.

First, how stupid do you have to be to not be able to guess that the next time someone tries to bomb an airplane or execute some other horrible terrorist act, they're NOT going to "look Muslim?"

NPR is kind of old-fashioned about its reporting, its reporters, and its other journalist employees. You see, technically-scratch that-actually, you're not supposed to know if a reporter at a traditional news organization hates or loves babies, or hates or loves Muslims, or hates liberals, or conservatives or can't stand broccoli.

Really? Yes, really. A blog is different. It's not traditional. It's a bastard child of a perverse universe in which the wrongdoing right gets to act righteous and indignant while a left-lurching liberal like me gets to do the same online because there's so much frigging noise on the cable networks and the radio stations of America that all the gloves have come off and no one really does news any more!!! Except NPR.

Okay, there are a few others--but only a few. But, just about everyone who actually listens to NPR says the network is fair.

Now, because it doesn't allow its journalists to go around spewing forth lists of a few of their least-favoritist things, and has fired one for doing just that, the only major power on the side of obective news-gathering and reporting will be battling to survive in tact as that bastion of objectivity, which people who just want to know the facts and figure out their own opinion about an issue or an event after hearing the facts, so desperately need.

Fox will be trying to rally support to pull all of NPR's federal funding. They'll be surprised by, and won't share, the fact that NPR only gets two percent of its funding directly from the federal government. This ain't your grandfather's public radio.

So come on all of you smart people, call NPR, email NPR, Tweet NPR, Friend Request NPR, Become a Facebook Fan or Myspace Fan of NPR right now! And just give the editorial team, the management team and the ombudsperson's office the good word that you stand by their decision to can Juan Williams for basically making himself useless to a news organizaiton that requires objectivity in order to maintain credibility in its reportage. So far the right-wing whiners have been louder than you and me.

How could Williams ever do analysis objectively on anything terrorism- or Muslim-related and be considered objective? How, I ask, could he be considered a fair source about those issues after saying people who look Muslim are spooky when he sees them on airplanes? He may think that. You may think that; I may think that. But we don't work for NPR. Part of his job is to keep Juan Williams out of the story, unless it's a story about Juan Williams (in which case, he should recuse himself from the story).

Now the story is about him, and about Fox news, because not only have they started screaming and whining that NPR is mean, and liberal and spooky and mean and snobby and liberal and mean, it's also just given Juan Williams $2 million and a three-year contract. So there! Mean old liberal-pants NPR. Nanner-nanner na.

By the way, you don't hear Fox News complaining that NPR, last week, banned its reporters from attending as participants upcoming liberal events, such as Stephen Colbert's and John Stewart's "Restoring Sanity" event in Washington D.C.

No, you won't hear Fox point that out at all, because it would disprove the lie that Williams was fired because he's become a regular-old Fox News right-wing whack-job. That would prove that NPR expects all editorial staff, liberal or conservative, to keep their personal beliefs to themselves.

Here's how to Tweet regarding NPR (click me)

Here's where to send snail mail: NPR, 635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001

Here's where to call by phone: NPR Listener Care (202) 513-3232, Hours: 10am to 5 pm ET, Monday through Friday

Click here to email.

You know how to friend and fan request on Facebook, I'm sure. If not, just email!

Ask God Why You Did It: Clarence Thomas' Wife to Anita Hill

"Who has put a pubic hair on my coke?"

Those were the words that echoed through the halls of congress in 1991 during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearing. Justice Thomas confirmation was contested by a former employee named Anita Hill. Now a Brandeis University professor, Hill accused Thomas of having been a chronic harasser of the sexual variety when she served under him as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But, as descriptions of a multi-behavioral pattern of inpropriety emerged from multiple witnesses, it was Ms. Hill's retelling of a situation where then Director Thomas allegedly proclaimed to an office full of women that someone had intentionally deposited a pubic hair upon the surface of the can of Coca-Cola he was enjoying.

So weird.

But now, even more weirdly, Thomas's wife, Virginia "Ginny" Thomas, has "reached across the airwaves and the years to implore Professor Hill to become chaste regarding her now nearly 20-year-old testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, recant it, apologize for it and ask her maker what made her do it.

ABC News has reported the content of a voicemail left to Prof. Hill by Mrs. Thomas as: “Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” she said, according to ABC News. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”

Anita Hill has not yet made a public statement (it would really suck to typo the sixth word in the preceding phrase as I almost did by leaving out the letter "L"), but has apparently found it of enough concern regarding her own safety and wellbeing that she reported campus security at Brandeis, where the voicemail was left by the supreme court justice's wife. In turn, the university has turned it over to the FBI.

It's worth noting that Mrs. Thomas is a conserviative activist with ties to the Tea Party Movement. That may be what has scared Prof. Hill most, given the history of the Tea Party and the issue of racism among some of its ranks. Professor Hill is African American.

Ft. Worth Council Members Breaks Down in Chambers. Something Every Man, Woman & Child in America Should See

Finally, something good out of Texas.

Fraud Scheme Exposed

DMV Employee Jailed for Peddling Drivers Licenses
Charged $500 a pop to unqualified drivers

California Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown has secured jail terms for a former DMV employee and two associates for "jeopardizing the safety of thousands" by running a scam in which unlicensed drivers paid up to $500 to acquire a phony driver's license without taking a DMV driving test.

"This trio of characters allowed wannabe drivers to acquire a California driver's license without passing a single driving test," Brown said, "thereby jeopardizing the safety of thousands of Californians by putting ill-prepared drivers on our roads and highways."

Former DMV employee Rodney Wheatly, 46, of Fairfield and his two co-conspirators, Donald McGowan, 55, and Maricar Bazemore, 37, both of Vacaville, all entered no contest pleas to a single felony charge of unlawful access to a computer system (PC 502(c)).

Wheatly was sentenced to one year in Sacramento County Jail, and the other two defendants were sentenced to six months. Their prosecution was handled by Brown's office following a DMV undercover investigation. Investigators believe the trio issued about 20 fraudulent driver's licenses, but they were unable to confirm a precise number.

The investigation was initiated in late 2009 after a concerned citizen called DMV's Office of Internal Affairs to report a scheme involving the illegal sale of California driver licenses at a Napa DMV field office.

DMV investigators set up an undercover operation in which one of the agents posed as an unlicensed driver with a record of failed driving test attempts. The agent made initial contact with Bazemore over the phone and claimed to be a friend of a friend with an interest in purchasing a license. Bazemore agreed to meet the agent at a Taco Bell in Vacaville, adjacent to the senior citizens' home where she worked, and told the agent to bring $500 for the license.

At the Taco Bell, the agent and another undercover investigator posing as her boyfriend met with Bazemore and McGowan, who was introduced as the best friend of Wheatly, the DMV employee. Bazemore and McGowan instructed the undercover agents to drive to the Napa DMV field office where Wheatly would process the driver's license.

Before entering the Napa DMV field office, the agent paid McGowan $300. Inside, Bazemore instructed the agent to complete an application for a driver's license and directed her to Wheatly's window where she was told her driver's license would be mailed to her.

Upon leaving, the agent requested that Bazemore and McGowan provide her with a temporary driver's license before she paid them the remaining $200. They agreed, and the exchange was made the following week at the same Taco Bell in Vacaville.

Did You Know California Law Forbade Suing Adults who Supplied Booze to a Drunk-driving Minor who Killed your Kid?

...That's About to End

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed a measure that will end that prohibition.

The governor signed AB 2486, written by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) after the measure – jointly sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California and Mothers Against Drunk Driving – sailed through both houses of the Legislature with virtually no opposition.

Although it is illegal to supply alcohol to a minor under state law, California is one of just three states that prohibit a civil recourse even in cases that end with teen deaths. By ending that restriction, AB 2486 seeks to boost responsible behavior and deter adults from providing alcohol to minors. Entitled the Teen Alcohol Safety Act of 2010, the measure will allow a civil action to be brought against an adult “social host” who spawns tragedy by providing alcohol to underage teens.

A lawyers' group co-sponsored the measure along with Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

“We’re very grateful for the governor’s signature and support,” said Christopher B. Dolan, Consumer Attorneys of California president. “As we’ve said all along, this effort is about saving young lives. We hope that by strengthening the legal consequences, adults will think twice before providing alcohol to teens.”

Not that it negates Mr. Dolan's or any of his organization's 3,000 attorney members, of course, AB2486 will provide much new work for members of CAOC and many other attorneys.

California has seen a surge in recent years of teens hospitalized or even killed after engaging in binge drinking. Some cases involved parents or other adults knowingly providing alcohol to teens.

The bill was inspired by the tragic death of Shelby Allen, a 17-year-old from Redding, Calif., who died of alcohol poisoning in December 2008 at a friend’s home with the parents present.

When efforts to seek criminal prosecution failed, Shelby’s parents attempted to pursue answers through the civil courts only to be rebuffed by California’s barrier against such lawsuits. An attorney for her parents brought that restriction to the attention of CAOC, which enlisted MADD California in supporting the bill.

Under AB 2486, the families of a minor injured or killed by alcohol would still need to prove in court the elements of negligence – that an adult breached their responsibility to uphold the law and knowingly provided alcohol. Because of the measure’s limited scope, its greatest impact would be to act as further deterrence to help keep parents from promoting behavior that runs counter to common sense and criminal law.