Trifling though it is, the only cheering news about the Los Angeles City Council robotically approving its $15 minimum wage law this morning is that the jelly-spined boys did not – yet – grant the Los Angeles Thugs the exemption they sought for unionized businesses.
After the 13-1 vote – thank you again Mitch Englander — the boys preened, virtually strutting about Council Chambers pounding their heartless chests in oldtime “Me, Tarzan” fashion.
One of the noisiest chest-pounders, excited Westside Councilman Mike Bonin, had to put down his arm-waving ballpeen hammer so he could swallow a whiff of his own arrogant message.
Forcing business owners of all stripes to knuckle under to the City Council’s raggedy socialist tactics felt good to non-businessman Bonin.
Putting a cannon to the heads of business owners, bragged Mr. Bonin, “is probably the single biggest thing we will ever do to positively impact the lives of the people in Los Angeles.”
Studies have told this bozo and his bozo colleagues that many of the low-grade people holding low-grade jobs will lose them when this ego-inflating ordinance staggers into law July 1 of next year.
As a liberal, Mr. Bonin never learned that kids and other door-knobs work minimum wage jobs, not grownups with families. These downscale jobs never were intended for family-supporters or anyone with a modicum of ambition.
When yutzes like Mr. Bonin, flashing an intimidating hammer in each hand, strut into workplaces where they don’t belong, I hope sensible minimum-wage workers pepper them with rotten tomatoes.
Mr. Bonin’s last words were dripping with phony bravado:
“Today we’re going to say that we’re a city that doesn’t tolerate poverty,” Mr. Bonin said. “Today we’re going to show that we’re a city that really, really sincerely believes in economic and social justice.”
You know that the boys on the Council retained a quivering teaspoon of common sense because they agreed to excuse Los Angeles city enterprises with 25 or fewer employees for an extra year, until July 1, 2017.
We call that assuaging guilt.
To say it differently, guilty as charged.