First Things First

I know the price of freedom, is getting more than a little high

now I know the Independent has turned into a frilly Wine Boutique mag pandering to alcoholics...the reporters are scared of something so the stories are pretty tame...the rag has gone all Wendy-like since Randy Campbell left...and former Wendy cohort Joe Cole joined up with publisher Marianne..

I think Joe is porking Marianne!! at night in their Montecito townhouse, Joe puts on the eye patch, mounts Marianne and says: c'mon, I bet you can squeal like a pig....OUWEEEE! louder! OUWEEE!! LOUDER!!!

but when they start praising Lanny Ebenstein as some sort of a brilliant author, well, I must raise my voice in protest...

we know who first responders are, right? the public service workers like firefighters, cops and others who would take a bullet or big wave for you...I happen to think they deserve to be paid well and retire well..with good job benefits...Lanny on the other hand spent his time as Guest Editorialist at the New-Press demeaning public workers and trying to reduce their pay and benefits...editorial after editorial said pretty much the same thing....public workers get paid too much and have too many benefits...Lanny never mentions the managers who need to cut the fat, just the rank and file..and Lanny even tried to stop collective bargaining for public workers..he tried to put initiatives on the ballot, but they all failed...

Lanny said not a word about taxpayer bailouts of the banks and insurance companies or the realtors who were complicit in the mortgage crisis.. all this facilitated by Bush as president..oh and the staggering cost of the Iraq invasion...

no Lanny instead concentrated on messing with public worker salaries..

Lanny has a new book and the Independent thinks he's a financial genuis...but I did cover Lanny's issues in Eureka Ca...bought some houses up there, had some foreclosures and was sued by his neighbors for operating a pot house..Lanny was a nuisance...I brought this to Wendy's attention a few years back back she told me "there's no story here...there's no story"

au contraire Wendy, my cherie...

and now that Lanny's off the radar politically, he's pushing his pathetic little "books" about economic issues..

but how can a guy who seemingly lost his houses through foreclosure and lives off his daddy's retirement pension from UCSB claim to be an expert on the economy....

he doesn't even work for a living!!!