No Christmas bells for Bell CA

Last updated on January 3, 2023

I don’t care how much money someone makes. I’m a capitalist, and good on you for being rich. I was amused, then, to watch the Bell CA fiasco, when the LA Times Reporters noticed what the ignorant populace there didn’t: just how much money the Councilmen, Robert Rizzo, Police Chief, etc were making. Surprising, but THEY WEREN’T CHARGED WITH A CRIME. Because Rizzo and the others did nothing wrong except reward themselves a lot of money by voting for themselves. Nothing wrong with that.

Afterwards, of course, they were accused of nasty misappropriation of public funds. The 2 reporters in the LA Times investigation, Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, spoke at the LA Press Club about their investigation. Interesting story, but I still don’t hate the accused.

Of course, when the populace is so apathetic and uneducated that only 1% of them voted in the election, these kinds of oversights and mishaps are bound to happen from time to time. :)

Last week, the LA Times reported that for at least 8 years, the City of Bell has been seizing vehicles for imaginary code violations, and then telling the owners that they had to pay various fees.

Normally, such cases would be reviewed by a judge to ensure that they had been settled fairly. But the vast majority of these cases do not appear to have been presented to a court.

The LA Times doesn’t stop after explaining this fraud and lack of due process. The article continues:

A number of those caught up in the enforcement efforts were struggling to get by.

Of course, the income of those having been bamboozled by these fake charges has nothing to do with the illegal activity of the City of Bell; these unlawful shakedowns by the city would offend and penalize both rich and poor.

But that’s the LA Times for you: if there are any low-income people connected with a story, the uber-liberal Times will point them out, as if they have more feelings and are more vulnerable than other citizens. Infuriating! Who knows, perhaps they hope that readers will get emotional and vote for more social services…

Bell, CA cartoon

California cartoonist Bill Schorr was right on top of the situation with this funny Bell cartoon. There aren’t enough cartoons about bad Councilmen. Online, most cartoons look better in color, and even the cratchety “classic” editorial cartoonists are beginning to work in color now, but black and white for prison works just fine! The vertical jail bar stripes also look good with the horizontal captions, so thanks, Bill.

You can find more Bill Schorr cartoons here, and if you wonder what will happen to this council, you might want to check out this scary cartoon. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.)

Am I right about the LA Times, or am I right? I wrote more about this in the link below.

Related:

• You can run, but you can’t hide in Bell, California (examiner.com)