NAKED CITY, a daily news report

DEPARTMENT OF HOW-DUMB-DO-THEY-THINK-WE-ARE

The mayor’s own poll found that 53 percent of the people feel the city is “pretty seriously off on the wrong track,” according to George Sanchez in the Daily News.No indication if anyone actually thinks the mayor is on the right track.

So what’s the mayor’s take on that: “Like all Americans, Angelenos are suffering the
effects of the national mortgage crisis, high fuel and food prices, and
are anxious for our national leaders to help hard-working families and
not just the large Wall Street banks,” said spokeswoman Janelle Erickson.

And LAUSD: 73 percent think it’s doing a poor or just fair job.

Superintendent David Brewer’s response: “That’s nothing new.”

LITTLE GIRL GUNNED DOWN IN LAWLESS GANG ATTACK IN SOUTH L.A. –

A witness told KNBC-TV that she heard the gunfire and then
saw the girl being held by her mother. Capt. Dennis Kato said it
appeared that the gunmen were firing at a group of male youths nearby.

The gunmen reportedly ran off and escaped through a nearby alley.
The corner, which is near the LAPD’s 77th Street Division station, was
soon flooded by scores of police officers, who cordoned off the area
and began searching for the attackers and interviewing witnesses.

ARNOLD TURNS THE STATE BUDGET FIASCO INTO A CIRCUS WITH A PHONY PLAN TO MAKE STATE WORKERS (TEMPORARILY) PAY FOR POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE

Brilliantly running up a $15 billion budget deficit even as state revenue soared, the govenor and the state legislature are now a month overdue in meeting their constitutional responsibilities to write a spending plan for the new fiscal year.

So why not create a constitutional crisis about something else and distract public attention from the real issue?

Great minds have guided Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to come up with a scheme to reduce the wages of 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55  an hour to conserve cash in the treasury. The move, of course, is only temporary — and probably impossible to do in actuality because of the way computers spit out paychecks — and the workers will eventually get their full pay.

It’s the big headline in the Times over a breathless story without context or irony — a story that suggests exclusivity although Google counts 206 news articles on the subject already today.

The Democrats, innocent lambs and compassionate advocates of working people that they are, are outraged by the governor’s stunt. They are prepared to defy his executive order. They are prepared to fight it in the courts and on the streets. They are prepared to do anything to distract attention from their own failure to act responsibly with the people’s money.

Is it any wonder that many people are fed up with our government at all levels and most people have given up and pay no attention?

GANGS RUN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, OFFICIALS SQUANDER YOUR MONEY — ISN’T THAT THE PERFECT TIME FOR THE MTA TO VOTE TO SEEK A TAX INCREASE?

Excellent breakdown today by Steve Hymon on the MTA board voting today on yet another half-cent per dollar tax sales tax hike — the third — to fund transportation projects.

The board almost certainly will vote to put the $30 billion, 30-year plan on the November ballot despite the fact there is no agreement on what it should be spent for, despite the fact it would not generate enough money to complete most of the projects, despite the fact it was designed to give something incomplete to everybody just to get votes.

Still, the MTA has spent a fortune on polls and focus groups to give them confidence they can hoodwink the public into approving the tax in the middle of a recession. Besides, the contractors are hurting and need the business.