Los Angeles

4 LA men admit to Skid Row voter-fraud scheme, DA announces

Four men have admitted to offering homeless people in Los Angeles money and cigarettes in exchange for false and forged signatures on ballot petitions and voter registration forms, authorities said Wednesday. Richard Howard, 64, and Louis Thomas Wise, 37, pleaded no contest last week to one felony count each of subscribing a fictitious name, or the name of another to an initiative petition and registration of a fictitious person, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said. Christopher Joseph Williams, 41, and Nickey Demelvin Huntley, 45, each pleaded no contest to one felony count of circulating an initiative or petition containing false, forged or fictitious names. Four defendants — one of whom is still being sought by authorities — have yet to be sentenced, the district attorney’s office said. An office spokesperson declined to specify what group or organization the defendants were working with when they committed the alleged fraud. Prosecutors said the group solicited hundreds of false and forged signatures on state ballot petitions and voter registration forms in Los Angeles’s Skid Row neighborhood, a downtown area long plagued by homelessness. They allegedly offered individuals $1 and cigarettes for their participation in the scheme during the 2016 and 2018 election cycles. Howard was given a three-year suspended sentence and three years of formal probation. Wise received a suspended sentence of 16 months. Williams and Huntley were each given three years of formal probation. Another defendant, Norman Hall, 62, was sentenced in February to a year in jail, formal probation and 100 hours of community service.

Normally we avoid the crime beat reporting here at The Daily Buzz.  But, for this story we’ll make an exception.  After all, we are told all the time by Democrats that there is no voter fraud in this country.  Soo.. when we see stories like this, we’ll be sure to post them here for you.      🙂

LA teachers union advocates for illegals, then complains of overcrowded classrooms

About 30,000 Los Angeles teachers and school employees are holding education hostage to demand higher pay and “smaller class sizes” – a popular phrase that equates to more dues paying union employees. On picket lines across the district Monday, striking teachers toted protest signs in the rain as they swapped horror stories about classes with 40 or more students packed in “like sardines.” What they didn’t discuss: How the United Teachers Los Angeles union’s immigration policies contribute to overcrowded schools and its demands for more staff to handle the situation. “It’s absolutely not about the pay raise. It’s about class size reduction. In other words, hire more teachers,” teacher Andrea Cohen told CNN. “We want to have fully staffed schools. That means librarians, nurses, psychiatric social workers and their interns. We have 46, 45, 50 students in a class. That’s unacceptable.” UTLA doesn’t define its demand for “fully staffed schools.” Los Angeles Unified School District negotiators offered to add nearly 1,200 more educators, counselors, nurses and librarians, with hard limits on class sizes. The district also bumped up its previous offer by $24 million, with a proposed 6 percent raise and back pay for the 2017-18 school year. UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl described LAUSD’s latest offer as “woefully inadequate.” Some have used the same phrase to describe the government’s response to illegal immigration and its impact on public schools, in Los Angeles and elsewhere. The Education Trust-West estimates roughly 250,000 undocumented children between the ages of 3 and 17 are enrolled in California schools, with the highest concentration in Los Angeles County. The group estimates 750,000 K-12 students in California have undocumented parents. The parents come to California and Los Angeles schools because of sanctuary policies that shield them from federal immigration officials, as well as the vast resources provided by the district and teachers union. UTLA holds an “Immigrant Rights for Educators Workshop,” for example, to arm union employees with legal information, resources, and “a network of concerned community members and educators who stand up for immigrant students and families.” The union’s Social Justice & Action Resources also advise on how to “Shield Against Immigrant Detention and Deportation.” Union members hosted and participated in several rallies in recent years calling for “Freedom for Immigrants!” and declaring illegal immigrants are “Here to Stay.” Keeping illegal immigrants in LA schools is likely a key to keeping UTLA members employed, as district enrollment data shows the overall number of students in district schools has declined every year 2002-03, when it peaked at 746,831 students. And as student enrollment has steadily slid to about 600,000 students this year, an increasing percentage are also moving to independent charter schools, which are typically not unionized. Since 2002-03, the number of students attending charter schools increased from less than 50,000 to well over 100,000 for 2018-19, according to the superintendent’s final budget. Illegal immigrants equal demand for teachers, which pay dues to the UTLA. It’s why the union focuses more on immigration rallies and contract demands than keeping students in class. Ironically, many immigrants aren’t fond of the teachers strike. Grandmother Juventina Hernandez attended a UTLA presentation to immigrant families as the union prepared for the strike last fall, and she told LA School Report she wasn’t impressed with what she saw. “We wanted to know more about their demands, but all we heard is that they want us to commit in supporting them to go on strike,” Hernandez said. “But how are they committing to our community, to our kids? I wanted to know how they were prepared to support our kids if they go on strike for those two weeks, but we heard none of that.” A union official left a petition with the parents asking for their support, mother Margarita Gilley said, but very few signed on. The UTLA “knows very well our needs, and then they used them to lie to us,” she said. “Out of the entire presentation, I didn’t see anything that reflected our real needs, only their needs. I’m glad most of us didn’t sign their petition.” Azucena Gonzalez, a mother of two at John Marshall High School, also saw through the charade. The union’s focus is on “convincing us to give them our support, what they are asking for them, what is in their best interest,” she said. “That’s all we heard.”

Gee.. What a surprise..  Not.

Los Angeles County agrees to purge up to 1.5 million voters from its rolls in settlement

Los Angeles County has agreed to conduct a purge of its voting rolls, in a move that could strip perhaps 1.5 million inactive voters from the lists of those eligible to cast ballots. The county made the deal in a settlement last week with Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest firm, saying that under a recent Supreme Court ruling, it has a duty to remove names of people who appear to have either died, moved from the county or lost interest in voting. The county committed to mailing hundreds of thousands of voters already deemed inactive to see whether they are still eligible voters, and to removing names of people who don’t respond to notices and who miss two subsequent federal elections. The county also agreed to try to weed out dead people still on the rolls. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who was also part of the settlement, committed to send notices to all registrars informing them that they, too, must take steps to cancel voters who miss voting in repeated elections and fail to respond to follow-up notices. Judicial Watch called the settlement, involving both the nation’s biggest state and the biggest county, a significant win for conservatives who have been trying to harness the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, better known as “Motor-Voter,” to try to clean up voter rolls even as Democrats use the law to expand voter access. “This is a major NVRA victory — probably the biggest in the history,” said Robert Popper, the Judicial Watch lawyer who fought the case. He said he expects most of the more than 1.5 million names on the county’s inactive voter list will end up being removed.

‘Iron Man’ missing: LAPD search for $320K suit

A $325,000 “Iron Man” costume that helped launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008 was reported stolen this week. Marvel movies have grossed over $6.4 billion since its iconic movie universe began, but a key prop for Robert Downey Jr. at its inception is now missing. The theft comes in conjunction with the big-screen success of the studio’s latest project, “Avengers: Infinity War.” A specialty storage company in Pacoima contacted the Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday after failing to find the prop, a local CBS affiliate reported. The business has been looking for the costume on its secretive lots since April. Investigators told the station that parts for the Iron Man suit’s head, chest, leg and arms are all missing.

No!!!  Hopefully the LAPD will find the missing suit..

174 percent pay increase for LA school board, report says

A Los Angeles commission on Monday voted to give members of the L.A. Board of Education a 174 percent raise that increase their pay from $45,637 to $125,000 a year, The Los Angeles Times reported. The increase fell short of a former member’s call to increase their salaries to match a city council member: $191,000 annually. A first-year teacher in the city pulls in $50,368 to $80,116 a year. The report said that board compensation is set by an outside comittee every five years. In 2012, the economy was blamed for no salary increase. “It’s very obvious how much hard work the school board members put in day in and day out,” Efren Martinez, a commission member, told the paper. Martinez said that an average school board district is larger than City Council district. He called $125,000 “a good starting point.” The LAUSD Board of Education Compensation Review Committee, a seven-member body, voted unanimously for the raise. The committee is set up by officials outside the school district. The report said that most board members carry a heavy workload. The school board election was last month and its new majority is backed by charter school advocates, The L.A. Daily News reported. One of the biggest challenges that the board will have to reportedly confront will be labor negotiations.

Wow..  No wonder California is on the verge of bankruptcy!  It’d be one thing if we were talking about teachers (and even then, this is a ridiculously high wage).  But, these are just bureaucrats.  Unreal..

MS-13 gang targeted in pre-dawn sweep across Los Angeles

Hundreds of federal and local law enforcement fanned out across Los Angeles in pre-dawn sweeps, serving arrest and search warrants as part of a three-year investigation into the ultra-violent street gang MS-13. Federal prosecutors unsealed a sweeping indictment Wednesday morning charging dozens of members and leaders of the brutal street gang with a variety of crimes, including murder. Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra Brown said the 127-page anti-racketeering indictment targets 44 members and associates of the gang, including the one-time leader of a Los Angeles faction of MS-13. Three people accused of murder could face the death penalty, she said. Twenty-one people named in the indictment were arrested in pre-dawn raids across Los Angeles and Brown said warrants were served at more than 50 locations. Jail officials around the region also conducted cell searches, as some of those indicted were already in custody on unrelated charges. About a dozen of those arrested were so-called “shot callers” for the gang. At least three people were still at large Wednesday. “It’s one of the largest and most entrenched gangs in Los Angeles,” Brown said. “Today’s actions will deal a critical blow to the top leadership.” Brown said MS-13 is responsible for murders of rival gang members, drug and human trafficking, prostitution and illegal alcohol sales, among other crimes. She described the racketeering case as one of the largest single cases targeting MS-13, a gang that started in Los Angeles but has expanded to nearly every state and El Salvador. The gang is blamed for horrific violence that has sent Salvadoran immigrants fleeing that country for the United States. Because of the group’s propensity for violence, federal and local agencies used tactical and SWAT teams to serve some of the warrants, including at a storefront along a strip of dilapidated buildings near downtown that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said was being used as a “casita,” or sort of club house, for one group of gang members. Just before 4 a.m., heavily armed ATF agents raided the building and found at least seven people locked in a room. FBI Assistant Director in Charge Deirdre Fike said investigators are trying to determine if those people are human trafficking victims. As the agents made their way through the building, they described over a police radio a labyrinth of walls and secreted rooms, something that made clearing the building time consuming. The raids and the indictment are part of a multi-agency case led by the FBI that started in 2014. More than half of those arrested and charged in the case are in the country illegally, Fike said. It was unclear how long they had been in the United States or what countries they are from. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck and others said the suspects’ immigration status was of little consequence, given the nature of the criminal charges. “These are criminals. Regardless of their immigration status they are going to go to prison,” Beck said. “If they ever get out…their immigration status may become an issue, but it has nothing to do with their arrest today.” The chief said this latest indictment and raid marks the seventh time that local, state and federal authorities have targeted MS-13 and its leadership. That law enforcement pressure, he said, has led to a steady decline in the gang’s influence in the Los Angeles area. In 2012 and 2014, his department ranked the group as the number one street gang in the area, but the group has since dropped to seventh, Beck said. There are currently about 800 known MS-13 members in the city, down from a peak of about 1,200 in recent years. Beck said the indictment and arrests may not dismantle the gang, but they will have significant impact on its power structure, as have previous busts. MS-13 has become a primary target of the Justice and Homeland Security departments amid the Trump administration’s broader effort to crack down on illegal immigration and violent crime. President Donald Trump and members of his administration have repeatedly said MS-13 poses a particular risk to American communities and is among the most ruthless street gangs. Trump signed an executive order in February specifically directing federal law enforcement to focus resources on combating street gangs and transnational criminal organizations. MS-13 leaders in El Salvador were targeted for financial sanctions by the Obama administration in 2012 as part of an earlier executive order targeting such groups.

We’re definitely glad to see this effort to target MS-13 by law enforcement.

LA police official gets restraining order against Black Lives Matter activist over ‘threats’

A prominent Black Lives Matter activist in Los Angeles has been hit with a temporary restraining order requiring him to stay away from the head of the police commission. L.A. Police Commission President Matthew Johnson told a judge he was seeking the order against Trevor Gerard out of fear for his own and his children’s lives. Johnson said in court papers that he had been stalked and threatened by the Black Lives Matter leader. He charged that at various board meetings Gerard had mouthed threats, including “I am going to beat your a–” and “I am going to f—— kill you.” The official said that in recent weeks Gerard went looking for him at his private law office and family home. Johnson said police detained Gerard in front of his house. “The conduct and threats by [Gerard] put me in fear of harm to myself, my family and my co-workers when [he] is near,” Johnson says in a court declaration accompanying the restraining order request. The temporary restraining order signed by a judge does not allow Gerard to get within 100 yards of Johnson, his wife and children, and his law partner, except at police commission meetings. There the restriction is five yards. Gerard could be arrested if he ignores the restrictions. A lawyer for the City of Los Angeles applied for the restraining order on Dec. 19, the day after Gerard paid the unwelcome visit to Johnson’s home. The police commission is the LAPD’s civilian oversight board. LA Weekly reported Thursday that Gerard went to the home as part of a group of demonstrators with signs. Gerard told the paper Johnson was distorting the truth in retaliation for Black Lives Matter LA’s confrontational style of activism. “I never told him that he should be afraid of me,” Gerald told the weekly. “I never told him to meet me outside. I never threatened him with any kind of physical violence.” LA Weekly reports that Johnson advocates sharing more information with the public about police shootings. The paper reports that Gerard regularly attends meetings of the police commission, where he has derisively addressed Johnson, who is also black, with the epithet “houseboy.” The judge set Jan. 10 for a hearing on the restraining order.

As we’ve been saying all along..  Black Lives Matter is nothing but a bunch of domestic terrorist thugs and losers.  Just think..  This Gerard piece of garbage has been harassing a BLACK police commissioner (along with this family)..at his home and place of employment.  Fathom what he does to white police officials..  This temp restraining order really isn’t much of anything.  But, in the big scheme of things, it’s significant..because even in a liberal state like California, BLM is getting a little pushback from the courts; pushback that is way overdue.

Donald Trump’s Walk of Fame star destroyed, police investigate

Five police officers and yellow caution tape surround Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star — or what’s left of it. The Los Angeles police say they are investigating the smashing of Trump’s star following footage that showed the sidewalk tribute was destroyed with a pickax. Det. Meghan Aguilar says investigators were called to the scene before dawn Wednesday. By mid-morning, an LAPD spokesperson at the scene told FOX411 the Chamber of Commerce was sending out a crew in the hopes of getting the star repaired as soon as possible. “Investigators are looking at [a] felony vandalism [charge] because of the value which the Chamber of Commerce has placed [on the star] at $2,500…” the spokesperson told us. “As soon as investigators can positively identify the suspect, which they are very sure they can do… they will go ahead and make a decision whether they want to arrest that suspect or seek a warrant.” A worker from Top End Construction told FOX411 the vandalism of the GOP presidential nominee’s star is “probably the worst I have seen.” Workers were seen tending to the star as a crowd formed around the area. Deadline Hollywood reports a man named Jamie Otis claimed he vandalized the star. The site posted a video of a man wielding a pickax and ripping apart the star. Deadline reports Otis said he wanted to auction the star off to raise funds for the 11 women accusing the GOP presidential candidate of groping them. Trump has denied the groping allegations. Trump’s star on the Walk of Fame was awarded to him in 2007. Back in April, it was vandalized with a swastika. President and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Leron Gubler said the organization “intends to prosecute to the full extent of the law.” “The Hollywood Walk of Fame is an institution celebrating the positive contributions of the inductees,” Gubler stated. “When people are unhappy with one of our honorees, we would hope that they would project their anger in more positive ways than to vandalize a California State landmark.”

Well, this is a slam-dunk.  This Jamie Otis moron admitted to doing this on video, and is seen doing it.  Sooo..  The cops need to get their warrant, arrest this idiot, and charge him criminally.for felony vandalism.. And then he should be made to pay for the damage..after spending a little time in jail.

Caught on Video=> MUSLIM WOMAN at LAX Trashes Gays, Threatens to Bomb America

A Muslim woman was caught on video threatening to bomb America and trashing homosexuals at LAX the day after the Orlando terrorist attack. Before boarding flight she threatened to bomb America. One day after the Islamic terrorist attack in Orlando, a Muslim woman showed up at the Los Angeles International Airport, making terror threats. The news media was silent. Journalist and cameraman Tony Vera captured police questioning a Muslim woman at the airport and searching her luggage, but finding nothing wrong, they released her and let her continue on inside the airport. Vera stopped her as she walked past him, and that’s when she let lose again, with verbal terrorist threats against America. “F*** America,” the woman said. “I will make sure we bomb America. You wait and see!” She ranted on for several minutes, and eventually police arrested her again at the ticket counter, this time for real. The video has been turned over to the FBI.

This is a MUST-SEE video!!  Click on the text above to see this…and then forward it on to all of your friends and family members.  Just think..  This is just one crazy woman dumb enough to actually say this sorta thing to someone with a video camera…at an airport.  Imagine how many other Muslim nutcases are right here in America that are actually plotting attacks right here..but not dumb enough to say as much on camera.  And THEN…  Think about how many hundreds of thousands of Muslims from the middle east and northern Africa, who have NOT been properly vetted, are being brought here because they are s0-called “refugees.”  Some may be.  But, a large number of them are Muslim terrorists just taking advantage of the open door our idiot President has so foolishly left open for them.  Be afraid..

Playboy Mansion’s Neighbor to Buy the Property

The Playboy mansion, a stately 1927 manor in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills, is in contract to be sold to a financier who owns the adjacent property, according to a representative for the buyer. The mansion was listed for $200 million by broker Mauricio Umansky of the Agency, as well as Gary Gold and Drew Fenton of Hilton & Hyland. The sale price couldn’t immediately be determined. Messrs. Umansky and Fenton declined to comment, and Mr. Gold couldn’t immediately be reached. A Playboy spokesman confirmed that the mansion is in contract but declined to provide further details. The buyer, Daren Metropoulos, a principal at private-equity firm Metropoulos & Co., lives in the house next door, which he purchased from Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in 2009 for $18 million. He is passionate about the neighborhood’s architecture, a representative said. “The heritage of this property transcends its celebrity and to have the opportunity to serve as its steward would be a true privilege,” Mr. Metropoulos said. According to the terms of the sale, Mr. Hefner has the right to remain in the mansion for the rest of his life. After Mr. Hefner’s tenancy ends, Mr. Metropoulos intends to connect the two estates into a combined 7.3-acre compound, the representative said. The roughly 20,000-square-foot Playboy mansion has 29 rooms, including 12 bedrooms, on 5 acres, according to the sales listing. It is one of the few private residences in Los Angeles with a zoo license, the listing says. Playboy Enterprises acquired the property in 1971 for $1.05 million. Mr. Metropoulos, 32 years old, is the former co-chief executive of Pabst Brewing Company. His firm, along with Apollo Global Management LLC, in 2013 purchased Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies, promising to revitalize the brand.

If  you’ve not seen a photo of this famous mansion, click on the text above.  Then expand the view/window.  Wow..