At 6’6″, William “Big Willie” Andrew Robinson III — a bowler hat perched atop his head, his voice booming — cut an imposing figure among the youth of South Central Los Angeles during the 1970s. That figure both belied and contributed to his mission, which was to end gang violence and racial unrest through drag racing. Robinson died this past Saturday after a short illness. He was 70.

For a life lived in the furtherance of “peace through racing,” as was his mantra, Big Willie should get the Jalopnik Peace Prize. If there were such a thing.

His seemed an impossible task in a city whose racial entrenchment began decades before. Post-war racial violence in Los Angeles traced its roots to the 1920s, when blacks began to exit a claustrophobic ghetto, seeking elbow room in traditionally white areas, and were met with fists, blackjacks, knives, and gasoline bombs.

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

Some of the most powerful unions in Los Angeles want to make sure that Wal-Mart doesn’t have a chance of opening anytime soon in Chinatown. Perhaps they should meet some of the Chinese senior citizens who support it. I did—and with the help of a translator and my own rusty Chinese, I learned that “fresh fruit,” “always low prices,” and “cheap stuff” sound good in Mandarin and Cantonese, too, especially to those immigrants and seniors living near the poverty line or in assisted living centers.

For decades, there’s been nothing on the vacant first floor of the apartment complex where Wal-Mart wants to open its Chinatown store—which it hopes will be the first of many “neighborhood marts” in Los Angeles County. Slightly smaller than a Whole Foods supermarket and only one-fifth the size of a typical Wal-Mart, the 33,000 square-foot store on West Cesar Chavez Avenue would offer fresh fruits and groceries, beauty products, and—most crucially for the seniors I spoke with—a pharmacy.

Right now, Chinatown has only one grocery store and a highly priced CVS drugstore to serve its nearly 50,000 residents. The lack of competition allows these stores to charge even more than the area’s high-priced small markets for what should be cheap products like aspirin.

In addition, many residents worry about the quality of the meat at some of the Chinese shops that Los Angeles city officials say a Wal-Mart will undercut. Indeed, all of the Chinatown residents I spoke with emphasized that at some of the Chinese markets, meats and other items are displayed on the sidewalk, exposed to the air and heat.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Charles C. Johnson.

One of the most popular Super Bowl advertisements last night was the Chrysler ad featuring Clint Eastwood, titled “Halftime in America.”

The spot is supposed to be encouraging, as it focuses on the resilience of Detroit. “It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half,” Eastwood says in the spot. “It’s halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what they’re going to do to make a comeback. And we’re all scared, because this isn’t a game. The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again.”

But contrary to what the might ad suggest, the spot was actually filmed in New Orleans and Los Angeles. “Yes, part of it was filmed in New Orleans . . . and some was filmed in various parts—such as Los Angeles,” Dianna Gutierrez said. She specifically points to the tunnel scenes as being taken at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, while the stadium shots were in New Orleans.

Asked whether any part of the ad was filmed in Detroit, Gutierrez said that previously taken footage from various parts of the Motor City was used. No image of Detroit was shot for the specific use in this ad.

“Detroit’s showing us it can be done. And, what’s true about them is true about all of us,” Eastwood says in the ad. “This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah, it’s halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin.”

Yet, while Detroit’s comeback might be the message of Eastwood’s ad, its physical imagery comes from New Orleans and Los Angeles.

Source: The Weekly Standard.

Two British tourists were barred from entering America after joking on Twitter that they were going to ‘destroy America’ and ‘dig up Marilyn Monroe’.

Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.

The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: ‘Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?’

After making their way through passport control at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) last Monday afternoon the pair were detained by armed guards.

Despite telling officials the term ‘destroy’ was British slang for ‘party’, they were held on suspicion of planning to ‘commit crimes’ and had their passports confiscated.

CONTINUED at The Daily Mail.

Exercises “designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments”

Joint military training exercises involving helicopters are being conducted in downtown LA all this week through Thursday with the police providing support, according to a statement issued by the LAPD.

As reported by CBS News, the LAPD statement says that the exercises, closed to the public, are “designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.”

Training sites “have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routine,” a department spokesperson said.

Police also noted that the training, which has been coordinated with local authorities, involves helicopters.

At time of writing we have not received any reports of military activity in downtown LA or the Greater Los Angeles area.

The exercise is yet another in a spate of recent military drills to hit heavily populated areas throughout the country.

Back in April last year, residents of Brickell, Miami witnessed at least three large Black Hawk-like helicopters conducting military exercises over their heads. Some initially believed it was a movie shoot.

Further exercises of the same nature were reported in Boston in August:

Commenting on this week’s scheduled drill in LA, Rob Richardson of Off Grid Survival notes:

“Maybe it’s just the prepper in me, but when I heard the U.S. Military will be conducting a massive training exercise in the streets of Los Angeles I must say it made me feel a little uneasy. And how could it not?”

“With the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which gives the President the power to arrest and detain American Citizens, it makes one wonder why the military is conducting drills in Urban America. While it could be, as LAPD insists, just a training exercise the timing sure does make you wonder what’s going on.”

Have you witnessed military activity this week in the downtown LA area? If so please contact the Infowars team with details or post to the Prisonplanet.com forum.

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Infowars.

A Los Angeles woman was arrested after she offered sexual favors in exchange for chicken McNuggets, Burbank police said.

Khadijah Baseer of Los Angeles reportedly opened customers’ car doors in the drive-thru of McDonald’s on the 1700 block of Olive Avenue about 11 p.m. Wednesday, asking for free chicken McNuggets in exchange for sexual favors, Officer Joshua Kendrick said.

A man told police Baseer approached him but he refused the offer.

Baseer was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of prostitution.

Source: The Burbank Leader.

My Two Cents: Now they protest jobs, money and innovation in hopes to create jobs, money and innovation. I’d like to see these people block my path to work. So they want to stop the ports to hurt corporations yet they can’t seem to add up the fact that if they hurt the corporations they are in turn hurting themselves. These people are getting really annoying now. Their 15 minutes are up. They need to go take a nap while the grown-ups get back to work to continue to provide for them. End Two Cents.

Protesters chanting, “Whose port? Our port!” protested at West Coast ports on Monday, temporarily shutting down some of the facilities in a protest against what they called corporate greed.

The protesters, affiliated with the nationwide “Occupy” movement, set out in the pre-dawn hours in Oakland, California; Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, to shut down ports in an effort to “disrupt the economic machine that benefits the wealthiest individuals and corporations,” according to organizers.

Long Beach police arrested two people during the demonstration there, police Chief Jim McDonnell said. Port operations were not significantly impacted beyond some traffic delays, he said.

A spokesman for the port in Portland, Oregon, said the protests had partially shut down the port there. In Oakland, the port said in a statement that operations were continuing “with sporadic disruptions for truckers trying to enter and exit marine terminal gates.”

About 80 protesters demonstrated outside the gate of San Diego’s port, but caused no disruption because, port spokesman Ron Powell said.

“They were there at a time when we really didn’t have a lot of truck traffic coming in and out,” he said.

Four people who sat down in the road were arrested he said. San Diego police did not immediately return a telephone call seeking information on the arrests.

Protesters were planning a second occupation of the Oakland port Monday afternoon. Protesters in Seattle also were preparing to protest at the port there, according to organizing websites and posts on Twitter.

In addition to the West Coast port blockades, protesters also were planning to demonstrate at the port in Houston, while demonstrators in Salt Lake City and Denver were planning to disrupt operations of Walmart distribution facilities. About 40 to 50 people protested at the Denver facility, CNN affiliate KCNC reported.

CONTINUED at CNN. Video at link.

Undercover police officers infiltrated Occupy LA’s tent city last month to spy on people they suspected of stockpiling human waste and crude weapons for resisting an eventual eviction, police and city government sources said.

Authorities also used security cameras mounted outside City Hall, where the camp was located, and monitored publicly available Internet chatter and video on social-networking sites such as Twitter, sources said.

Evidence gathered through the surveillance led to more than 40 arrests for drug use, public intoxication and other offenses in the weeks before police shut down the camp on November 30, one senior official in the Los Angeles Police Department said.

That official and most other sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity because of department policy barring police from publicly discussing undercover operations.

They insisted that covert surveillance of the camp was aimed not at anti-Wall Street activists exercising their constitutional right to freedom of expression but at those they considered anti-government extremists bent on violence.

Civil liberties advocates said they were troubled by law enforcement’s infiltration of peaceful demonstrations, although the LAPD’s undercover efforts were not unique.

“We had reports that there were individuals advocating violence against police and taking steps to commit violence,” the senior LAPD source said. “In that vein we investigated that. What we didn’t do was spy or monitor or interact with those engaged with First Amendment activities.”

Elise Whitaker, an Occupy LA organizer, said she was not surprised to hear that police sent undercover officers into the camp but said she believes such surveillance proved unwarranted because the demonstration was peaceful.

CONTINUED at the Raw Story.

The Los Angeles Angels swooped in to win the Albert Pujols sweepstakes with a quarter-billion dollar offer the superstar slugger just could not refuse.

With his old team the St. Louis Cardinals and the Florida Marlins engaged in a bidding war for the first baseman’s services, the Angels appear to have blown everyone out of the water with a 10-year offer that may be as much as $260 million.

Pujols led his team to a World Series title this past season, but his longtime manager, Tony LaRussa, announced his retirement and Pujols previous contract expired. At the beginning of the season, the Cardinals exercised a $16 million option, which allowed them to keep their star at a below-market rate for the season. But Pujols rejected a multiyear extension and broke off talks during the season.

The Angels’ rookie general manager Jerry Dipoto pulled off the deal, but with Pujols set to turn 32 in January, the deal may last longer than his days as a productive player. He’s actually coming off the worst season in his illustrious 11-year career, having failed to bat .300 or drive in 100 runs for the first time.

A sure Hall of Famer, Pujols has a lifetime batting average of .328 with 445 home runs and 1,329 runs batted in. He’s been the National League’s Most Valuable Player three times.

CONTINUED at NBC Los Angeles.