What a joke, Antonio the political chameleon is once again changing his stripes.
Only Antonio Villaraigosa would have the audacity to go to Sacramento today to audition his new act as the political progressive he once pretended he was in order to get ahead.
He actually thinks he can put himself into position to succeed Jerry Brown as governor or Dianne Feinstein as US senator despite a record of having run LA into the ground and failed to come to terms with the reality of the runaway costs of employee salaries, pensions and healthcare while giving away the farm to billionaires and wealthy corporations and slashing services to the poor, the elderly and everybody in between except the rich he fawns over.
Here’s some of what
he had to say to the Sacramento Press Club as he attacked everyone from Tea Party activists to Gov. Brown who he criticized for seeking spending cuts that were needed to actually produce something resembling a balanced budget.:
“Progressives have to start thinking – and acting – big again.
“If the Tea Party in Washington and their counterparts here in Sacramento are intent on pitching jobs overboard in the mindless pursuit of
ideology over country, we have to be willing to stand and defend our
people … And yes, that means making a case
for new revenue to sustain long-term investment.
“Governor Brown, I say we need to have the courage to test the
voltage in some of these so-called ‘third-rail’ issues, beginning with
Proposition 13, We need to
strengthen Proposition 13 and get it back to the original idea of
protecting homeowners, Proposition 13 was never intended to be a
corporate tax giveaway but that is what is has become.”
Right on, Antonio.
Under his leadership, homeowners — down to barely 40 percent of the city’s population — have been savaged with spectacular increases in water and power charges, required to pay the full cost of recovery for almost every service they receive even as they make up the overwhelming majority of the people who actually pay soaring city fees and fines.
His “progressive” policies has drained our residential neighborhoods of police and fire services while giving billionaire Eli Broad $52 million in tax money to build a garage for a Grand Avenue museum to house his personal art, bestowed huge tax giveaways and subsidies for luxury hotels and condos, boasted that his greatest economic development achievement was to attract a Chinese electric maker to set up its US headquarters with a 100 workers to create tens of thousands of jobs across the Pacific.
Antonio had his chance to be a great leader. He had his moment when the housing boom went bust and then the economy collapsed.
His LA is ranked 18th among the nation’s top 20 cities for lousy economies with half a million or more people out of work or having lost any hope of even finding jobs.
The mayor’s answer is to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize businesses like football stadiums and hotels that provide low-wage service jobs — not the highly-paid jobs that require advanced skills.
He is an opportunist who has run out of opportunities, and so has reached a level of desperation that makes him dangerous.
I, for one, have believed Antonio Villaraigosa had the potential for greatness, to use his charisma to translate progressive ideas into policies that attracted broad support and reinvented LA as the great city it could become.
He failed. Everyone knows it. He’s the 11 percent mayor taking freebies to sports and entertainment events and having the same corrupt self-serving interests he sold us out to pay his fines. He got away with taking even more freebies in the form of $1,000 bottles of wines and lavish dinners.
He has lived high at our expense. It’s a joke, alright, his latest attempt to reinvent himself, a very sad joke.
.”I’ve
traveled the world, and there was once a great mystique about LA, but it’s
gone. And I look at the leadership, and it’s gone. No one much cares.”
See the corrupt mess Antonio Villaraigosa and his office created when it took the Los Angeles City College Satellite Campus at the historic Van de Kamps Bakery away from residents/taxpayers of Northeast Los Angeles.
http://www.hollywoodhighlands.org/HollywoodHighlands.org/MPV.html
Now State Controller John Chiang has issued the first truly independent audit of the Los Angeles Community College District’s $5.7 billion bond construction program. More than $140 million of improper expenditures, hiring of an unqualified crony as Inspector General, and a passive, perfunctory, and ineffective Citizen’s Bond Oversight Committee.
More details at:
http://www.hollywoodhighlands.org/HollywoodHighlands.org/MPV.html
Including the LACCD’s new Inspector General swinging on a Playboy Mansion stripper pole…..
If there is one thing I can guarantee is that Antonio has enjoyed his last feed at the public trough. He may as well buy a time share at Leisure World where he deserves to be.
I for one can hardly wait for the court documents to be enforced and the gangster, Failure of a Mayor has to go back to his original name Antonio Villar. He’s the laughing stock of the nation. The Latinos who voted him in office are pissed off at his sorry ass for embarrassing everyone who believed in him. He is the perfect example of the Peter Principle of how incompetent people keep getting promoted to higher office. We need not look any further then Janice Hahn. Shocking the gangster Tony Cardenas is running for Congress to. Could all of us be so wrong? HELL NO!!!! And where may I ask are the local media on this bullshit? Antonio Villar is chairman of Metro Board now and guess what he’s up to on our tax dollars? He’s having 1,700 buses play a webcast of “Los Americans” Spanglish show of a middle-class Mexican-American family on Metro buses across LA. Interestingly enough Mexican Americans speak ENGLISH AND ARE PROUD AMERICANS dumb ass!!
State Controller John Chiang found $140 million of improperly expended capital bond funds by Los Angeles Commumity College District in his audit of the $5.7 billion bond program.
Tomorrow at 6:30 pm during a special nighttime meeting will be conducted by the LACCD to hear from taxpayers what they think of the results of the Audit. How many additional buildings could you build with $140 million?
Here is the meeting agenda:
http://www.laccd.edu/board_of_trustees/board_agendas/documents/DOC_20110816163256_000.PDF
I only wish A.V. has enjoyed his last feed at the public trough, but I think that Teflon Tony will keep grazing there until his last day on Earth.
Even with his horrid record and stories depicting him as a total incompetent and corrupt to the gills, he’s like pond scum that keeps rising to the surface every time the water roils.
Need proof? He was recently elected as president of the conference of U.S. mayors. Either all those mayors who voted for him to represent them are dumb as dirt; or never read a paper or critical story about one of their own; or they are all as corrupt as he.
To the Van de Kamp crowd, yours is not the only pond that Tony Villar has polluted. He is doing the same at MTA where bulk of Measure R monies are going to fund highly-paid and unnecessary staff. Similar funds are being wasted as documented by Stephen Box at City Watch to fund DOT employees. Is this what we voted for? Did anyone think that it would be used to fund staff rather than transit. Those rail lines will cost billions more than what we expected. And, anyone who thinks this staff is needed, BS, I have inside knowledge that bulk of them sit there doing nothing.
Well you could have sent him packing 2 years ago. But no, Walter Moore was not good enough for you but this thieving low-life apparently was OK. So all of you shut up now. You will again vote for Villar since he has the right party affiliation for you. Plus he has monolithic blocks of unions and illegals (you think they don’t vote? Ha!) all lined up. Say hello to governor Villar or senator Villar.
Antonio has joined the ” Wendy hypocrites Club “. Now that he is thru running for political office, he is courageous. What a farce! What a clown!
“I REALIZE I’M A DEMOCRAT! I’M A PROGRESSIVE TOO!
I SUPPORT LEGALIZED POT AND HIGHER TAXES ON COMMERICAL PROPERTY!”
(In a few years you’ll have to recite this statement above to AVOID being “detained” by the Liberals.)
OR JUST MOVE OUT OF CALIFORNIA!
Which one will you pick?
DO YOU DUMBSHIT DEMOCRATS SEE NOW THE NEED TO MIX UP YOUR BALLOT WITH SOME DAMN NON-LIBERALS FOR A CHANGE? JESUS—VOTE FOR DIVIVED GOVERNMENT, WOULD YA?
Nice to see the political pundits after the Failure of a Mayor’s speech already going after his dumb ideas. One of them stated Antonio’s ideas will lose jobs. This is exactly what our City needs at already a 12% unemployment rate
I couldn’t believe (but should have) my ears when I heard the Mayor’s statement on the radio.
The first thing I thought is what is he talking about? – The mayor is the one who gives away working class taxpayer payer dollars to the rich with favors to Developers such as AEG or Cim.
He waives taxes or allows taxes to be used to pay back loans (making the loans actually gifts).
So if the Mayor thinks “rich” corporations should pay more taxes, he only needs to start practicing what he preaches.
Scum rises to the top.
The sad thing is that our two major dailies/rags spread lies about this scumbag. They have turned him into some national hero rather than the reality of how he has f—-d up this city.
1:10&4:29
It is worth asking again-didn’t you see what crooked scum Villar isin 2009? Why didn’t you, your friends and families run to the polling places to vote him out?
I bet you didn’t bother to vote. It is too late people. And it is even worse-who is going to run against the establishment if they know nobody cares to vote
You lost,Villar won. Live with that
To 8/19/11 9:19 am. 1:10′s haiku response:
Oh, false assumption.
This girl voted contra V.
Virtue lost. Suffer.
If Antonio wanted to be progressive, he should have stated that Prop 13 should be modified that properties over $1 million to $2 million, should be increased to 1.5%, properties over $2 million increase to 2%.
This would raise much needed revenue and then also stick it to the rich.
For clarity, 1:10pm’s haiku edit:
Oh, false assumption.
This girl voted for Walter.
Virtue lost. Suffer.
Why shouldn’t he run for higher office? The fools in LA kept re-electing him along with all the other crooks. Tony V is a winner! Thanks to Angelenos.
While LA sinks deeper into the slime of corruption and incompetence, Tony V will move on to where he can do even more harm. Again, thanks to LA voters.