Illegal Immigration, Murder, and a Corrupt L.A. Mayor. The Southern California Cesspool Coming Soon to a City Near You.

I felt truly saddened when this story broke on March 2nd. Jamiel Shaw Jr., a 17 year old high school football standout and ostensibly good kid was brutally and viciously gunned down near his home in Los Angeles by an illegal immigrant punk named Pedro Espinoza who apparently was eager to earn his killer wings at the ripe old age of 19. Was young Jamiel Shaw a gang member in the wrong place at the wrong time? No. Did Jamiel Shaw flash incorrect gang signs at the car load of 18th Street Gang Latino thugs that passed him by on the street? No sir. Shaw reportedly had no gang affiliation. Jamiel Shaw did absolutely nothing to contribute to his untimely and tragic end.

There is a lot more to this story and we're going to discuss it. Some have easily pigeon-holed the issue as a "Latin gang members kill blacks and black gang members in the Crips and Bloods kill Latinos" but the issue reaches into the darkest recesses of our national immigration policy and specifically into the corruption of Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The death of an innocent child in this way is senseless enough but to know that the United States government and specifically one corrupt politician did nothing to prevent the tragedy through the utilization of concrete policy steps bloodies the collective hands beyond measure. The mayor of L.A. should be hung from a yardarm in a public street to be spat upon. Wait until you learn about his current and past affiliations.

Where should we start? Let's start with the cowardly killer. Pedro Espinoza lived in our (not his) country illegally since the age of four. Now this mindless murderer spent little of his time slithering through back alleys in the City of Angels to avoid detection that might lead to his deportation. In fact he was well acquainted with our criminal justice system and proudly owned a rap sheet longer than the California coast. Did anyone bother to check his legal status in regards to his physical presence on U.S. soil or his ties to the violent 18th Street Gang? Apparently they missed that unimportant and minute detail. Immigration officials and law enforcement officers in L.A. County are too busy running around trying to do the impossible without offending anyone. To dig into the immigration issue in a sanctuary city or arrest someone that is not white will inevitably result in hours of press conferences and apologies that result in internal affairs investigations while crime runs rampant and unchecked. Yes the rumors are true. There are neighborhoods in east L.A. that cops do not enter unless accompanied by the equivalent of a military division. That should comfort God-fearing Angelinos.

The day before Espinoza murdered Jamiel Shaw, Jr. in cold blood he confidently strode out the doors of a detention facility in Los Angeles County just as pretty as you please. He just spent four luxurious and fun-filled months there on charges involving illegal weapons possession, assault, resisting arrest, and obstructing a peace officer. Classy huh? Now maybe it's just me but would it be beyond conception to think that in these modern times of lightning quick computer databases and electronic information transfer that somewhere along the line a "cross-check" or document verification system existed that would tell officials whether or not an inmate was a legal resident? Does it concern you to know an illegal immigrant, gang member, and defendant possessing a firearm with a violent record avoids detection while in CUSTODY? It frankly boggles my mind. I know, I know I just don't understand. That is way too much to ask for. After all California is and has been the Ellis Island for western illegal immigration since the dawn of man it seems. The city cowers in the shadow of illegal gang activities that leave the streets littered with rotting corpses both innocent and culpable. After the murder of young Shaw a U.S. Immigration and Customs officer explained away the agency's lackluster involvement by saying "the system isn't 100 percent." You got that right sister. I'd venture a guess and say our system isn't even 20 percent. At any rate, Espinoza finds some 18th Street Gang members to cruise the streets with doing nothing more than wasting oxygen fit for productive members of society. Maybe before the shooting they all cuddled and got some of those gay tattoos pictured above. While driving down the street they encounter young Jamiel Shaw walking on the sidewalk near his home. Espinoza slows the car and mutters in his best "hey dude" voice to Shaw, "Where you from?" Espinoza expects to hear an appropriate gang response but probably kills the young man regardless of an affirmation that did not come from Shaw's lips. Jamiel falls to the ground on the 2100 block of Fifth Avenue after being riddled with bullets as his father runs to cradle the dying child in his arms. Ironically, young Shaw dies near a tree he planted with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa three years ago. Let's move on to the second criminal in this case identified as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Villaraigosa became the city's mayor in a 2005 runoff election against Mayor Hahn. Villaraigosa is a long time philanderer of absent morality that has publicly admitted to infidelity twice. I believe his wife finally filed for divorce after living with this jerk for however many years. She must have been sleeping with Prince Valium or the like to let it go that long. Villaraigosa is believed to be a mover and shaker in the Democratic Party and many believe he has his sights set on higher office. At the least the mover and shaker part is right if you include headboards as part of the shaking process. No wonder he's a Clinton supporter. I don't know if he smokes cigars or not but he claims his personal matters have no impact on how he manages the city. Yeah, the state of the city pretty much debunks that argument Romeo.

Villaraigosa has long believed in free borders in regards to illegal Mexican immigration. A kind of "more is better" policy if you will. When asked he refused to address the issue of illegal immigrant healthcare and the closing of many hospitals in the area due to the free treatment of illegals and the resulting budgetary collapses of several hospitals. He apparently believes that new Mexican blood infused into the city somehow promises a brighter tomorrow. I see it like an infestation of cockroaches on a mostly eaten cherry danish. Eventually the best part of the pastry is gone and the cockroaches have to feed off each other to survive. If you're a race card player out there stand still a moment. I do not think Mexicans here legally or illegally are cockroaches. I am making a symbolic analogy and any comments to the contrary validate you are not intellectually competent to contribute to the discussion. We press onward.

While in college in southern California Villaraigosa participated in and retained proud membership in MEChA. I don't get the small "h" either but that's how it's listed. This is the nearly or soon to be militant wing of the illegal immigration support movement that not only wants to overrun the southwestern United States with an influx of illegal Mexicans but literally wants to reclaim this part of our country and place it under Mexican rule. They want to reclaim as they put it "Aztlan." Yeah folks, that's who the mayor of Los Angeles is and the pursuit of vanity is his indulgence. It's kind of like putting Michael Jackson in charge of a home for runaway boys. Yet the media considers him a darling and none of the Hollywood nitwits speak out against him. That's because those that control the money and media in Lalaland are rich and liberal elitists that feign compassion for those elements in society deemed as less fortunate as long as the resultant filth doesn't spill pass the gated entries to their palatial estates. Mayor Villaraigosa is a bad man that represents the denigration of any moral code however insignificant that provides stability and direction to a city, state, or country and the tax paying inhabitants. He should be banished to Cuba or the like.

How does it end? I don't think it does. At best we might be forced to struggle to stem the flow of this mutating plague. Do we have to amend the Constitution and take to the streets with our own military to wipe out gangs in the country with extreme prejudice? It's not that far fetched of a call to action. Do we rise up and physically remove corrupt politicians like L.A.'s mayor? Where is the line drawn between anarchy and the salvation of our city streets? People elected the mayor with their right to vote but do they have to die and be violated before a change can be made? What do we do? How do we stop it? The time to pray is now. Action rather than hollow words may be all that is left if the very idea of hope itself is to survive.

I'll write again tomorrow. Please forward the blog address to your friends and neighbors. I love to hear from you.

http://www.montanaconservative.blogspot.com/

There's Only One L.A.

I remember growing up like a lot of other kids in the 70's and 80's enjoying peace and prosperity and thinking quite astutely that the world was my oyster. Growing up in a town of 1000 people isolated me from the reality of what was really out there in the big world and how exciting it could be. Yes, until adulthood I had no idea that everybody in America didn't go cow tipping! We had to travel by car over 250 miles just to get to an airport with scheduled passenger service. We couldn't really consider old Paul Winters and his Super Cub "scheduled" passenger service even though he could boast at least four successful forced landings after engine failures. He only tore off one wing and knocked down one power pole during those emergencies. I think that record stands yet today.

There wasn't a hell of a lot of hustle and bustle to deal with in my farming and ranch hometown in eastern Montana except for the occasional traffic jam caused by old man Johnson at the one yellow flashing light in town, you know the one at the Corner Bar and the abandoned hotel. He'd start out into the only "downtown" intersection in that yellow 72 Ford pickup and invariably stop in the middle because in the distance he saw a farm truck meandering it's way through the middle of town destined for the grain elevator. So he'd sit there until the truck passed his precarious position in the middle of the intersection a couple of minutes later making its way at a blistering 20 miles per hour. Morning traffic was such a headache! Our morning commute to school never exceeded about 8 minutes and that encompassed the entire walk and a quick stop at the old fountain drug store on the way.

One of the fondest memories of childhood consistently remains the old theater downtown. It closed for a period of years before reopening and even now the interior looks exactly the same as it did when my parents went to movies there in the 1960's. I still maintain that regardless of the many home entertainment systems available out there, the only way to see a movie is to see it on the big screen and allow yourself to be drawn into the fantasy for the next couple of hours. The house lights darken as the smell of buttered popcorn wafts through the seating area. Your pulse quickens in anticipation as the sound booms through and beyond the flickering previews on the screen. Don LaFontaine, the voice of Hollywood, captures your entire attention as that voice of his pulls you into the images of the theatrical trailers presented on the screen with that signature and commanding speaking style. Nothing felt quite like going to the movies in that old theater.

I'd always wanted to go to Los Angeles as a kid but never had the means or opportunity. I wondered how neat it must be to wander through Hollywood or the streets of Beverly Hills. I'd only seen pictures of the mansions and palatial estates but wouldn't it be something to go there and meet a movie star or see the magic of a movie set! I guess it makes a mark on you knowing that L.A. represents the entertainment capital of the world (you New Yorkers can argue your point for NYC) and most of what mesmerized you in that old hometown theater had its origins in this city on the west coast. At any rate, Los Angeles seemed to me as much about the concept of fantasy as it did the pavement, people, cars, and beaches.

I finally got my chance to descend on the L.A. basin in 1990. Although it wasn't in the way I would have preferred as in being discovered as the next Clooney, Pitt, or Cruise, I at least got to see the city for the first time. I was working for a guy that hauled pigs, yes oinking pigs into a processing plant in Vernon in east Los Angeles. We loaded them at different Hutterite colonies in Montana and switched off driving sleeper team in the semi-truck so that we would make L.A. in less than 32 hours from Great Falls. I know, the jokes are just waiting to spring from your lips but I'll continue anyway communicating this redneck adventure to you as best I can. I remember looking around in Victorville thinking wow this must be it and was shocked to know that even the suburbs of L.A. still waited some 20 miles in the distance.

We dropped down El Cajon and past the San Bernardino split and continued south on I-15. Shortly after passing the entrance to I-10 we travelled west on 60 or the Pomona freeway. About 45 miles later I got my first really good shot of the Los Angeles skyline, kind of like that early morning scene featuring Richard Gere in "Internal Affairs." I guess Los Angeles isn't known for having the most domineering skyline in comparison with other cities but for a small town kid like me it was still pretty cool. I remember arriving in that area at about 2:00 in the afternoon and the term concrete jungle finally took on a reality it never had before that day. The 60, I-5, I-10, the 101 all came together and twisted over and under like cornonary arteries feeding pulsating heart muscle. One wrong move and we would have been stuck as some of those neighborhoods down there didn't afford a lot of room or patience for truck movement and emergency manuevering.

You had to be in the proper lane to make the Soto Street exit and God forbid if you missed it. California interstate exits and on-ramps aren't necessarily designed for large vehicles to make a quick exit and turnaround on. The pace of traffic and precise handling required force you to be at the top of your driving game. Some of the corners are tight to make with that trailer coming around and car traffic views you with contempt and disgust. We make a left on Slauson or Vernon I don't remember which and enter the cramped parking lot, back up to an unloading chute, and offload our smelly squealing cargo that by now are quite grumpy after having ridden in a trailer for 1500 miles. Yes, after unloading I donned coveralls and shoveled over 1300 pounds of pig waste from the trailer so that we could load a legal load of cattle later in the week. I remember leaving the Farmer John's plant and traveling north on I-5 up past Dodger Stadium and seeing all the signs along the freeway indicating the exits for Burbank. Up over the grapevine and into the south end of the San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles is a distant memory in the past. It was exciting to see and a little scary too. I felt ill-equipped to match the pace with which people seemed to live.

Since that first trip in 1990 I've made many like it over the past 18 years into the L.A. basin. I've hauled flatbed loads of decorative moss rock into Rolling Hills Estates near Lomita and plastic pipe from Ontario to Yakima, WA. I've delivered onions in Commerce at 3:00 am and I've hauled malt barley from Spiritwood, ND to the Miller Brewing Company in Irwindale. I've delivered barley to Anheuser Busch and lumber to a small yard in Van Nuys and loaded roofing granules in Corona destined for Owens-Corning in Portland, OR. It's still exciting to see the city and it still is a little stressful to navigate a large tractor-trailer unit there but I find myself more confident having developed somewhat of a truce with the city and her traffic.

I still marvel that I found myself in the city I wondered so much about as a young person after some dangerous and tragic times. I remember going into Vernon in 1992 shortly after the L.A. riots and seeing a cop literally on every corner. I remember the network of concrete overpasses that collapsed just north of the Santa Clarita exit several years ago. I passed under what had collapsed only days before that quake. I was in the city the day the Alaska Airlines flight plunged into the Pacific after unsuccessfully trying to navigate the damaged plane to LAX. It doesn't really mean anything to anyone else but I've developed my own bond with L.A. I've yet to be discovered, meet a star, stare at the ocean from the Santa Monica pier, or wander the streets of Beverly Hills but it really doesn't matter. To me there will always be only one L.A.