WARNING: DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED TO JOIN ARMS WITH OTHERS FOR THE PURPOSE OF OVERTHROWING THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES.
DIRECTOR’S NOTES:
Scene 1: Opening: Gadfly Michael Carreon — whose decent and mild-manner is attested to later by Council President Herb Wesson — gives a Nazi salure and cries, “Heil Hitler!” after presiding officer Tom LaBonge, later described as “The Idiot,” tries to squelch his remarks in public comment.
Scene 2: Councilman Paul Koretz, takes the remark referring to the Gestapo tactics of the City Council, as a slur upon Jews and the Holocaust and threatens to “clock” Carreon.
Scene 3: Backup: The Council session opens with a 20-minute lovefest for America’s No.1 TV station, KMEX, on its 50th anniversary and then a moving Pledge of Allegiance by new Councilman Joe Buscaino accompanied by his father Matteo.
Scene 4: Presiding officer Tom LaBonge ignores a scheduled presentation to a Japanese educator by Bill Rosendahl while disrupting the meeting to tell gadfly Arnold Sachs in the back of the Chamber to shut up.
Scene 5: Gadfly and candidate for mayor Zuma Dogg does an incredible mockery of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s latest humiliation — losing in court over his claimed ballot designation for District Attorney as “Chief Prosecutor.” The greater significance is that when “Nuch” was a nobody and not a flunky of unions, Tim Leiweke and the political machine, it was Zuma Dogg who introduced him to the community activists who helped him win the City Attorney election over the much despised Jack Weiss.
Scene 6: Union leader Tim McOsker reports that yet another person died last week because the 15 Council members and the mayor gutted funding for the Fire Department.
Scene 7: Gadfly Michael Carreon picks up on McOsker’s comments about the decline in fire services and points out the Council members are paying utterly no intention. LaBonge cuts him off, unsettling and confusing Carreon who fumbles for words and finally says, “I’ll just salute you, Heil Hitler!” Clearly, he is comparing LaBonge in particular and the Council in general to Nazi, quite the opposite of expressing support for the fascists.
Scene 8: Koretz, who is Jewish, reacts in his usual mindless knee-jerk fashion and says he is deeply offended and threatens to “clock” Carreon although he acknowledges there was no disruption of the meeting. The City Attorney — in oblique bureaucratic language typical of someone afraid of losing her job for crossing all powerful politicians who act like fascists — says nothing unacceptable was said, nothing that is not protected by the Constitution which they had just sworn to uphold in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Scene 9: Astonishingly, Council President Herb Wesson pushes the bumbling LaBonge out of the presiding officer’s chair to try to restore order. He witnesses to the decency of Michael Carreon and offers — in his usual manner — to make the problem go away without actually dealing with anything.
Scene 10: The aforementioned idiot LaBonge apologizes to Koretz for being in charge when the words that “should never be spoken” — Heil Hitler.
Scene 11: Self-proclaimed civil libertarian Bill Rosendahl, describing himself as a German, is appalled and outraged by the reference to Hitler and calls on the City Attorney to find a way to ban its use “because it is an outrageous and immoral term that should never be used in the United States government.” A sentiment that Wesson quickly notes is shared by all Council members.
Scene 12: Gadfly Matt Dowd makes the point that Koretz threatened violence against someone exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech, and explains precisely that the expression Carreon used was not supportive of Nazism, but a denunciation of the Council’s fascistic behavior. Then, he launches into a rant about how the city violated the constitutional rights of rights of entertainers like himself and Zuma Dogg among others at Venice Beach, adjudged in court for hundreds of thousands of dollars and then dragged out the case on appeal for “six f—ing years” – a remark that prompts a warning from Wesson that one more “f—ing” from anyone will lead to their banishment.
Scene 13: Incredibly, the dim-witted Mitch Englander says vast numbers of children are watching the Council meeting as a school assignment during spring break and the use of the “f” word will damage their psyches so he proposes that the Council “shut off 35 for the remainder of this meeting.” His request for a second to his motion falls on deaf ears as Wesson asserts he can restore order and suggests the Council discuss the matter further later, apparently out of earshot of the public. No one asks how turning off the cameras will help the children complete their school assignment.
THE END
NOTE: Here’s the LA Times story “Gadfly’s ‘Heil Hitler’ Gibe Angers LA Councilman Paul Koretz” and the Daily News reports “F bombs and threats of fights cloud LA City Council meeting”
“Scene 2: Councilman Paul Koretz, takes the remark referring to the Gestapo tactics of the City Council, as a slur upon Jews and the Holocaust and threatens to “clock” Carreon.”
Wasn’t it Paul Koretz who compared Arizona to Nazi Germany?
Do you think we might be able to hire (by voting) officials who will
earn their pay, favors like health insurance and retirement (what is in this for us???)
instead of playing idiotic games during the meetings?
Ron,
I don’t respond often to your reports but I do read them almost everyday. They are both informative and witty. Of course, I agree with 99 percent of what you say. Keep up the good work!
One thing to remember is that the council members are constantly aware of being on TV- although Ch. 35 is local cable, there is online and recorded on-demand viewing, too. CM Englander’s idea to cut the feed to Ch. 35 to save the children possibly watching (paraphrasing) “if the assigned spring break homework was to view the meetings” was a little too knee-jerk of a response. The Nazi salute that Carreon gave to LaBonge was a direct response to the LaBonge style of handling things and frustrating the speaker by arguing and eating up the time. The point LaBonge based his “correction” on, address ME, not the individual members was misstating the rule and the facts. Addressing the body is the proper rule and Carreon was doing a play-by-play of the disinterested CMs, something the TV cameras will never show you.
But since TV is what they play up to for visually embedding their worthiness in the minds of viewers as earning their keep by such “performances.” If this were not so, a lot of time would be saved by skipping all the real gas-baggery practice. And that blather extends the meetings at least double, maybe more, to what is needed to get the business done.
No one wanted to lose TV time but they were not gaining from this exposure. As with being afflicted with the attention deficit, hyperactive disorder, “ADHD,” the least distraction can take the council into myriad side issues since they have absolutely no sense of prioritization to begin with. Well, no prioritization EXCEPT to get themselves re-elected or lined up for a new office as a 24/7 mission- see Villaraigosa who practices that very visibly.
The public comment frustration is just too weighted in favor of restraining the public’s comment, both in subject matter and in time allowed to speak. IF only we had a log of the CMs time spent with lobbyists each week and the subject matter that draws them together, we might understand how severe of an imbalance exists between those with gifts in hand, figuratively speaking, or maybe literally- just can’t be sure- and the lowly members of the public who may or may not get an office appointment with the CM of choice.
But coming to meet with a CM empty handed seems to invite a commensurate amount of attention you will receive, so you have to at least represent somethig of value, some cluster of a voting block to gain even minimal attention.
There are too many practicing tyrants chairing meetings there- Zine being one big one and LaBonge- both very vocal and annoying. At least Garcetti gave the appearance of paying attention and displayed courtesy, even if he didn’t care about the view expressed, but you still have so much side distractions and who knows if any is absolutely essential to any CM at the moment when a speaker is up for a two-minute segment.
Remember that it’s only the GENERAL public comment that is the nearly wide-open area so often used to chastise the council. The rest is agenda-related and I think there’s a total daily time maximum of 6 or 8 minutes for each person speaking- it’s not an endless opportunity to speak. For what council is paid, they need to move on more and not be so thin skinned with people criticisms.
The Brown Act limits council members in their responses to non-agenda public comments, but too frequently their rebuttals are squeezed into what is arguably allowable. I think it backfires on them most of the time. It approaches the Hamlet line, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Huizar and Zine are the most recent ones I have noticed in that regard and they tend towards a condescending or berating attitude to the speaker.
As for the council as a whole, they bring these incidents upon themselves and then the aftermath escalates it all. It becomes just another revelation of what goes for being “important” at council meetings, showing them to be the embarrassment for the city and cluing us in on why they don’t produce for us.
Ron — thanks for the video and commentary, unbelievable stuff. Eagle Rock — great additional observations and research notes. This is a circus — I hope every kid in LAUSD was tuned in for this one, better than the Hunger Games.
The council members played right into the Gadflys’ hands. If they had never over-reacted to what was being said, this issue would never have gotten the play that it has received. Anyone that has ever been to a city council meeting knows that the council members largely ignore the public when they are commenting. They talk amongst themselves, go out for smoke breaks (Mr. President) and wander about the chambers. They treat the public with contempt in the meetings and with their conduct in general. Then they want to be treated with respect? Seriously?
Arizona was called a Nazi State by the Dictator Paul “Hess” Koretz! We the voters and property owners voted and supported David Vahedi for our Councilman. On the Primary in 2009–WE WON! CAME IN #1. Mr. Hess-Koretz came in 2nd. In the May 2009 RUN-OFF, the big MONEY DONORS from New York, and others OUTSIDE CD5 poured enough $$$ into the Hess ’09 campaign that it still wasn’t enough—Mr. Vahedi was set to win. SO HOW DID HESS-KORETZ GET IN?
On thousands of SAMPLE BALLOTS, Mr. Vahedi WAS TAKEN OFF THE BALLOT!!
His Number on the ballot was replaced by a candidate for the Community College Board—SHE BY THE WAY WON RUNNING AWAY ON HER RUN=0FF CHALLENGE! No doubt the several thousand folks who FILLED OUT THE SAMPLE BALLOTS FIRST then DID THE SAME NUMBERINGS FOR THEIR CANDIDATES.
HESS-KORETZ didn’t live in L.A for EONS—HE LIVED AND RESIDED IN WEST HOLLYWOOD, EVEN SERVING ON ITS CLOWNCIL AND SERVING AS IT’S STATE REP!! The UNIONS AND DEVELOPERS IMPORTED HESS-KORETZ and PAID FOR HIS RUN, and then somehow someone SCREWED WITH THE BALLOTS and still HESS BARELY EEKED OUT HIS 4 year term.
Well, as it goes in L.A. Hess-Koretz gets 8 MORE YEARS (2 MORE TERMS) UNTIL HIS FAT, UGLY, WEEBLE ASS GETS THE HELL OUT OF CD5 and our lives.
Fear not—another SCUMBAG will be imported and purchased and seated in CD5 and the rest of our CDs in L.A.
Now we get to Tuesday’s bruh-ha-ha: ITS A MIRACLE A FEW HUNDRED PISSED OFF ANGELINOS DON’T GO TO THESE MEETINGS EACH DAY AND TAKE THE FULL 2 MINUTES TO BLAST THESE 15 FUCKING CORRUPT CLOWNS for what they do. They raise our rates, break our roads, blow up our sidewalks with their lack of care, rape our kids with rapist teachers, bankrupt our city with their union buddies, and destroy our neighborhoods with massive overdevelopment.
On KFI–640, the 7 to 10 show is hosted by a guy named Tim Conway Jr (son of Carol Burnett’s Tim Conway.) He covered this Hitler-Fest and he MOVED AWAY FROM L.A. TO BURBANK AND CALLS L.A. A “HELLHOLE!”
People are starting to pay attention to these 15 FAILURES—and they are REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY SCAAARRRREEEDDD!!!! They know they know nothing, and they know their chairs vote AUTOMATIC YES for all votes!
Koretz IS A NAZI—he came from Nazi-Survivor parents, born in best Nation on Earth to do what?—TO OCCUPY ENCINO AS A NAZI-DICTATOR! He is in favor of Socialism while allowing his uber-rich buddies to own the means of building anything they want. He’d put you and I in the ovens if he legally could get away with it.
LaBonge is a Hamster-headed Nazi—he rules over his district with an iron fist!
Rosendumb is more the Vichy-Nazi: He’s a NAZI-SYMPATHIZER, he doesn’t like the way L.A. is run, but he takes his orders and carries them out in Venice.
As for Wesson—didn’t he just ANNEX AND DISENFRANCHISE THE 2nd LARGEST KOREAN POPULATION ON THE EARTH? Sure he did, so he’s another Nazi Dictator too.
Then we have the 1rst Dwarf ever elected to public office in L.A. County: the whore of Northridge Midget Mitch Englander. Sure he thinks of what kids see on T.V.—he probably watches cartoons all the time, the poor little guy!
The rest of the 15 Clowns===they were smart enough to take the 5th on this one, so I’ll leave them out of my Public Comment here. (Beep—2 minutes up!)
You’ll only get this coverage here on Ron Kaye L.A!
NEXT SPEAKER…..
Michael Carreon is my favorite council commentator. He always calls it like he sees it and does so with dignity. I wish he’d run for mayor, or at least for council district 14. City Hall could use some dignity that’s not artificial.
Memo to Herr Carreon: Next time just say “sieg heil” and click your heels together. If they don’t get the point they really are the dumkoffs we think they are.
Scene 13: Always leave ‘em laughing!
There is a very legitimate legal argument that public speakers should have the right to use the names of individual Councilmembers. For example, a public speaker is addressing the City Council as a body, but wanted to bring up some action taken by an individual Councilmember and use his or her name to identify that Councilmember – Why should that be restricted?
Furthermore, in this particular meeting, a member of the public in Van Nuys (Ms. Pearman) used individual Councilmember names when she stated that she is not sure who she supports for Mayor and then mentioned “Eric Garcetti.”
The rule not to address Councilmembers by their individual names is not enforced consistently.
If you are complimenting individual Councilmembers (especially the President) you can get away with it without interruption.
Ha Ha Ha! I see my post from earlier got removed. HA HA HA!
Just learned about Empower LA – organized just in time for the election.
Way to go!!!!
Council doesn’t like to be attacked with words. We don’t like to be attacked with rate/fee increases and ridiculous code penalties that are really another way of taxing.
‘Seems like we’re at an impasse.
Impasse? No way, this is not their city, it is the people’s.
May I ask if you work for us? Sounds like union talk to me. This
is not funny. Push equals shove. Remember that. Line up a regular
job now. I personally think you should get the same retirement I get:/ZILCH!
Hahahahahahahaha , Koretz throwing a punch. You think he can lift his hand? hahahahaha
Teddy–Hi-I wrote the “impasse” comment. I’m sorry. I was being a bit sarcastic. Really, I know the words they hear do not compare to how they vote and negatively impact our lives. What’s astounding is they do not care. If I didn’t have family here, I’d move.
I don’t give a rat’s ass Ron if you delete my posts—Walter Moore did the same shit so I moved on and no one cares. I guess it’s everyone for themselves. You can go back to work for the L.A. Times and walk around the Clowncil chambers like Zahnheiser and pretend you’re there to report the news. I’ve got an important homework assignment for you Ron. Rent the movie “Casino” starring Robert De Niro. Watch the first 10 minutes (it shows De Niro apparently getting blown up in his 1980 Cadillac Eldo). Then fast forward to the last 10 minutes. It shows De Niro (playing a Jew who is an expert gambler) old and grey living very very well off (He survived off a fluke in design of the car.) Everyone he knew and rolled with got killed, OD’d on drugs, or disappeared, or went to jail. EXCEPT HIM. See if you learn anything from that. What do you see? LIFE’S LESSON RON. GO RETIRE RON—YOU’RE NOT DOING A DAMN THING WORTHY OF MENTION HERE ON THIS BULLSHIT BLOG. AND I CERTAINLY AM NOT EITHER.
The gadflys say what most of us would love to say to the corrupt, inept and criminal Council. Hurray for them.
IF THE COUNCIL VOTES TO PLACE GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT AT THE END OF THE MEETING THAT WILL NOT SERVE AS A DETERRENCE. INSTEAD OF SHOWING UP AT 9AM TO SPEAK AT CITY HALL, I’LL SHOW UP AT NOON.
JOHN WALSH IS DAMNED NEAR UNSTOPPABLE! I’VE BEEN PUBLICLY
EMBARRASSIN OFFICEHOLDERS FOR 40YEARS.
IN 1972 I VOWED TO OUTLIVE MY ARCH-ENEMY,THE COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY AND I HAVE OUTLIVED THE COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY!
I WAS SPEAKING UNDER PUBLIC COMMENT AT COUNCIL MEETINGS BEFORE
THERE WAS A CHANNEL 35.
SO LITTLE TIME . SO MANY WINDMILLS.
Last night on the 101 freeway towards Woodland Hills (which is currently ran by the 3rd world dictator Herr Zine) I saw the helicopter shining its Nazi beam of light in the middle of the freeway. Turns out a 19 year old POLICE CADET who happens to have a Muslim name, was fired upon by many LAPD-Nazi forces. Why? What was this young man’s crime? He was driving a car that LOOKED like a CRASH-LAPD car (aka undercover cop for the older generations) and called 911 and uttered that he had a weapon and would use it if chased by the cops. This kid had problems with the cops before no less. Well he got gunned down by 200 rounds of ammo! He even tried running across the freeway into incomming traffic, but no good—he was going to die no matter what! Just another day in L.A.
Go John Walsh!
Ron – I hope you are writing a piece on today’s release to the City Controller’s Audit and the efforts of the incompetent boobs on the Coliseum Commission who released a letter trying to shift the blame from themselves to the City Controller. Reeeeeally? It’s the fault of Wendy Greuel that more than a decade of corruption festered under the direct supervision of Zev Yaroslavsky, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Don Knabe, Bernard Parks and City Recreation & Parks Board President Barry Sanders, and City Recreation & Parks Board Member Jonathan Williams. These are the same little assholes who just voted to try to hand the Coliseum over to USC in another sweetheart deal while reserving for themselves 10 tickets each for USC games. I wonder how much cash each of them will make selling these tickets on Ebay? It’s just another form of the corruption in our City.
Ron, Just read LAMENTATIONS – the book in the old testsment about Jerusalem
and we are living in a new Jerusalem right now, aren’t we? Badly damaged but not dead and We shall overcome. Thank you for your patience, and I thank our Lord for you and your talents and patience.
I see the missing posts ARE NOW POSTED. I love the one about “Herr Carreon!” I took this good advice at Friday’s Public Comment and Corrected Herr Wesson and Field Marshall Koretz and at the end of my Zwei Minuten did an appropriate “sig Heil” to the chair (with a half-decent Goose-Step to the podium.) It actually Seemed Herr Wesson appreciated the appropriate salute!
Pleeeze Koretz, we do not own Hitler, we did not take out a copyright on Hitler or on all references Nazi Germany. We were not the sole victims, nor do people have to obtain your consent to make Hitler, Nazi references.
The Nazis did begin with the abrogation of civil rights. While Football Tommy is not a Nazi and he would not engage in atrocious — just in Tomfoolery after which he was apparently named by prescient parents.
I suspect everyone else knew that the comment was not meant literally. Carreon was objecting to Football Tommy’s habitual disregard for other people rights.
It’s a distraction. They can’t Do Anything Right, it seems. Oh, Im sure there are some things that Work in the City. Never the less, it’s a distraction, Tom Labong for example, x football player still gets Hot under the Collar, and Shorty, the little black fellow, He too gets very upset EASY. Without Garcetti, our elected Officials are ready to Undress their Suits, Clock speakers, why? Because these guys really Have No Solution to Any of the Problems, and their Ego will not surrender to 42.15 and the Plaintiffs in the case. Tom Labong: what about security? 2006 April. This stubborn mentality is their ego. Elected my ass. 4 million people. How many vote? These are Career Politican. Meanwhile on the Ground, the City Treasury is being Stole, taken out the back door ON City Councils Watch. Very Troubling.
Great post. What a shame we have such lame-ass politicians running our city. Absolutely no accountability, many of them corrupt as hell. Thank God CD4′s LaBonge is in his last term. Thank God. Although we do have to put up with him for another 3 frickin’ years…