In light of Bell residents' recent outrage over the city's salaries, Downey's city council voted yesterday to sever ties with their city attorney Ed Lee and the firm Best, Best & Kreiger. The firm has represented Bell since the early 1990s, and the city of Downey seeks to distance themselves from any relationship to the corruption-riddled city. On Wednesday, city councilman and former Downey mayor Mario Guerra told The Downey Patriot: "To be put in the same breath is an embarrassment to our City staff, City Council and more importantly, to our citizens... We are a great, conservative and ethical city and any association with them and us is wrong and I resent it."

Separately, Guerra expressed his outrage about the Bell salary scandal to the Huffington Post: "It's obscene to get $100,000 for serving in the city council. It's obscene to get $700,000 or more as a city manager. I make $697.35 for serving in the city council." But he quipped, "I do get a really cool parking spot."

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After the Senate's vote, which effectively removed appropriations language for minority farmers, Senator Harry Reid released a statement saying, "Republicans should be held accountable for standing in the way of justice for those affected." I am no politician, I am a farmer, but it seems to me everyone should be held accountable for standing in the way of justice -- not just Republicans.

Last week, the White House often referred to the handling of Shirley Sherrod's firing as presenting "a teachable moment" for Americans. Unfortunately, one of the things I learned from that moment was that a black woman can be fired for the mere accusation that she discriminated against a white farmer, yet thousands of instances of discrimination against minority farmers over several decades go unresolved. After being included, and then cut from three separate appropriations bills, I also learned that despite the government's "settling" of the Black Farmer case, it refuses to fund the settlement. The Black Farmer settlement was a compromise on the part of the farmers. Despite the fact that the government entered into a settlement largely on its own terms and certainly its own timeline -- it remains unfunded.

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Before I begin this little recommendation, I would like to stress that I know nothing at all about the business issues involved in the aquisition by Ronald Tutor of Miramax Films from Disney. My only interest in this matter is to pass along to you this morning one of the most juicy examples of executive viciousness I've seen in quite some time.

We become used to veiled utterances from our statesmen, business people and politicians. So it's rare and somewhat welcome to see a kingpin unleash a world of hurt on a former associate, and to study how it's done. The honcho in this instance is said Ronald Tutor, a construction magnate who runs Tutor Perini, #432 on the FORTUNE 500. He is also now a film mogul, too, having entered the business with a partner by the name of David Bergstein. Bergstein will not apparently be part of Tutor's plans for Miramax going forward, however, a fact made clear in this remarkable interview, which appeared on the front page of today's Hollywood Reporter.

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