As a hardline, fuming-mad left-wing journalist, Jimmy Rainey of the Los Angeles Titanic smells like a struggling misfit.
Once upon an uneven time at the ethically uneven left-wing Titanic, Juvenile Jimmy was assigned to politics. Didn’t work.
Next, the Titanic assigned him to entertainment. Didn’t work.
Amidst further red-faced fanfare, they yanked him off the show biz beat and announced loudly that henceforth Juvenile Jimmy would draw long-term special projects – what ever it took to flush him from sight for months at a time, it seemed.
Since the Titanic covers hometown elections with all the fervor and regularity of Chubby Hillary passing a lie detector test, it was no surprise the other day that the Permanent Tryout Kid resurfaced in yet another venue.
Employing his standard performance pattern – halfhearted, haphazard efforts while garbed in a fulltime smirk – he is covering the Los Angeles mayoralty race.
Turning the Page
This morning, with the deliberate brassiness of a high school boy, he tried to sabotage, or at least embarrass, the campaign of Kevin James ¬ ahem, the only non-liberal in the field.
Wotta stunner, Juvenile Jimbo. Ji
The four most visible candidates are three (mostly termed-out) retreads from City Hall plus a dynamic, articulate, knowledgeable, knifingly smart conservative whose presence seems to offend Mr. Rainey.
Background: Since early January, Mr. James has been rigorously on the trail of one rival, City Controller Wendy Greuel, amidst reports of ethical violations, according to findings on her daily calendar.
Two weeks ago last Tuesday, Mr. James – who has found it nearly impossible to break through the partisan Titanic’s Wall of China that discourages coverage of non-liberal office seekers – held a press conference in front of Ms. Greuel’s office to declare his findings. He received the widest and fairest coverage of his campaign.
Since then, Jeff Corless, Mr. James’s campaign manager, has turned up the heat on the now-squirming Ms. Greuel, releasing drops of new findings one at a time.
This has vexed Juvenile Jimmy.
And so this morning – kicking ethical journalism in the teeth, as is his habit – he did what liberal journalists find irresistible. He mocked Mr. James’s discoveries – expressly because Mr. James is a dreaded Republican. The Titanic encourages this behavior while banning such treatment where liberals are involved.
Like a baby crying to be breastfed, the undisciplined Juvenile Jimmy finds it temptingly unavoidable to bellow out his crude dislike of Republicans.
He was assigned to write a news story – just putting out the information at hand, eschewing his opinion.
The poor guy, however, finds it impossible to control his bile when writing about non-liberals.
The funny pages may turn out to be Juvenile Jimmy’s last refuge:
Below is the Jeff Corless press release, exactly as it arrived two days ago and ticked off Juvenile Jimbo and drove him to apologize for Ms. Greuel.
We say, let our readers decide.
Date: Mon Jan 23, 2012
7:30am Meeting with John Noguez, County Assessor
Where: Farmer Boys (Donor, 07', 08')
1:00pm (DOWNTOWN) Coffee with Renata Simril
Where: Checkers (Donor, $1,300.00 12-14-12)
2:00pm (DOWNTOWN) Meeting with Ira Handelman & Matthew Aleksich
Where: Checkers (Lobbyist and Donor since 01')
4:00pm (DOWNTOWN) Meeting with Robert Mulder & Ruben Guerra, LBA
Staff: Marisol (Donor, $500.00 12-15-11, $500.00 8-30-12)
Here's The Rub Part 1: John Noguez is the Los Angeles County Accessor who was arrested this past October on 24 felony counts including bribery, conspiracy, and misappropriation of public funds that cost the County more than $1 million in property tax revenue. John Noguez also donated to both Wendy Greuel's City Council campaign in 2007, as well as her Controller campaign in 2008. Wendy Greuel also endorsed Noguez for County Assessor in 2010.
Question: Why is Wendy Greuel, the chief fiscal watchdog of the city, meeting with Noguez just months before his arrest? What did she know and when did she know it? Was Noguez a pseudo-advisor to Controller Greuel on how to manage city funds?
Here's The Rub Part 2: In a three hour span, during the Controller's office hours, Wendy Greuel met with three different donors who have either donated to her campaign or donated after she met with them.
Question: Are the taxpaying citizen of Los Angeles paying Wendy Greuel's nearly $200,000 salary so she can fundraise for her mayoral campaign?
Here's The Rub Part 3: It has become standard practice for Wendy to assign her taxpayer funded Controller's office staff to campaign and fundraising events. According to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission Ordinance number 172891 Section 49.5.5
“No City official or employee of an agency shall engage in campaign-related activities, such as fundraising, the development of electronic or written materials, or research, for a campaign for any elective office or ballot measure:
“Question: Why does Wendy Greuel continue to staff her Controller employees at campaign events?
