Archive for October 18th, 2012

Banana republicans watch: October 18, 2012.

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

We may need a banana republicans police blotter, too.

The mayor of the city of Hawthorne has been charged with two counts of perjury.

[Daniel] Juarez is the second mayor of the South Bay city to be charged by the L.A. County district attorney’s public corruption unit and the third member of the council in recent years.

The charges against Juarez allege that he took a $2,000 cash contribution from the manager of a Gold’s Gym in Hawthorne, and didn’t report it. This was in 2010:

The gym closed in 2012 after filing for bankruptcy protection and defaulting on a $2.5-million loan from the city.

Which makes me say, “Gold’s Gym needed a $2.5 million loan from a municipal government to open? They couldn’t get a private loan? Doesn’t that…I don’t know…tell you something?”

Meanwhile, L.A. County Assessor John Noguez has been charged, along with two other gentlemen, with taking bribes to lower property taxes.

Last year, distric attorney’s investigators began probing secret, improper tax breaks granted to more than 100 wealthy Westside property owners since Noguez’s election. They also started looking into complaints from assessor’s office employees who claimed they were under pressure to lower property taxes for clients of prominent Noguez contributors, like [campaign contributor Ramin] Salari.

Salari, also indicted, allegedly “loaned” Noguez $180,000, and contributed $5,000 to his campaign. The indictment apparently alleges that the contribution and the “loans” were actually bribes; supposedly, bank records show that repayment of the “loans” started after the LAT began asking questions.

(The third person indicted is Mark McNeil, Noguez’s aide.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Random notes: October 18, 2012.

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

Now that we’ve had the better part of a day, here’s the Statesman‘s coverage of Lance Armstrong’s resignation, as well as his dumping by Nike, Trek, Radio Shack, and 24-Hour Fitness.

As soon as USADA brought charges against Armstrong in August, questions emerged about what would happen to Livestrong. But since Aug. 23, the foundation has received 16,468 donations at an average of $97, twice the normal levels, said spokeswoman Rae Bazzarre.

On the other hand, the Ride for the Roses (Livestrong’s major annual event) is coming up this weekend; did that cause a donation spike, or is the increase in donations over and above the normal run-up to the event?

The HouChron has been running articles on events at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. There’s a controversy over the organization’s grant approval process: the organization gave M.D. Anderson an $18 million grant to work on commercial production of cancer drugs, over the objections of various scientists who did scientific reviews and grant evaluations for the institute. Now, the agency’s two leading scientific officers (both of whom are Nobel laureates) and all of the other reviewers have resigned.

By the way, CPRIT is a state agency, established by a constitutional amendment in 2007, and funded with $3 billion in state issued bonds. And guess who was behind the campaign for CPRIT?

Newsweek has snuffed it. At least in print. The magazine is going all digital, which should be interesting; why would I pay for a subscription to a magazine that summarizes all the news I read online the week before?

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