Les Miserables E-Mails: The Annotated Moxley-Diamond Conversation on SD-29

Someday even you, Dear Reader, may find yourself hounded by R. Scott Moxley or someone like him.  What’s it like when he comes after you?  Is is like being Nixon during Watergate — or Joseph K. in Kafka’s The Trial?

Moxley is, after all, one of the county’s most-known investigative journalists — the one who is supposed to be in the “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” spot.  In some cases (such as his recent writings on Larry Agran, about which I’ve written), he seems to be to be completely out of bounds and off his nut.  But we don’t see what happens behind the scenes.

The voters have had their chance to judge me as a political candidate; Moxley arguably swung at least one race (in Irvine), so shouldn’t we get a sense of what he’s like when he goes after his quarry?  I’m in the odd position of being able to show you exactly what it was like for me.

You shouldn’t even think of reading Part 2 in one sitting unless you somehow find yourself unable to stop.  (No, that is not a joke or a dare.)  I have no idea whether anyone will try; if so, I expect that they will regret it.  A friend calls this all “a pissing match” of which nothing good can come; that person may well be right.  I just think that, for those who find it of interest, it’s worth documenting.

All that said, that’s the second part of this story, though I expect that it will get more attention than the first.  So, if you’re just here to read the e-mail correspondence between me and Scott Moxley, skip down to part 2.  Those of you interested in a campaign post-mortem — and those who better want to understand the answers that I give to Moxley both in the e-mails and in the annotations that I add now — please get yourself some refreshments and wade through part 1.  (Yes, I know this is very long.  It’s the weekend, it’s December, and you can read this at your leisure.)

Octomom with six babies

I know of no existing photos of Moxley. Given that this story is about the Weekly, though, I decided that one can’t go wrong with a photo of their prurient obsession, Octomom. I tried to choose a relatively respectful photo. Frankly, it was this or the thumbnail they keep promoting with the topless woman and the guy with the upper third of his penis showing. This seemed better.

Part 1: Senate Race Post-Mortem

The results of the 2012 general election are to be certified tomorrow, so I suppose it’s past time for me to formally concede defeat to Bob Huff.  (I’ve already done so on Facebook, but I don’t think it’s really official until I do so here in Orange Juice.)  So: congratulations to Sen. Huff on running a good race.  You should feel good about your victory. I’ll console myself with your party having lost four, rather than just the expected two, seats in the Senate.  I don’t blame your leadership for that, though — then again, my opinion is not one of the ones that matters.

The campaign was a great (although wearing) experience for me, even though one very different from what I’d expected going in.  I never expected to win, barring some Mike Duvall-style meltdown from my opponent — in which event I believed that I had set myself out to be a “credible alternative.”  That’s one of the things that a “sacrificial lamb” — a term I don’t entirely embrace here — is supposed to do.  Would I have been elected in the event of such a meltdown?  I don’t know for sure — but I did get 44.9% of the vote without much campaigning.  On the other hand, I didn’t get much of a campaign against me, either.  I expect that I’d have had a real shot — better than any alternative candidate I knew of (of which there were none.)

Most of what I wanted to do in this race was to:

(1) help to get out the Democratic vote, using my (perhaps undeserved, but so what?) “stature” as a candidate to give speeches, motivate campaign workers and raise money for a coordinated campaign (I believe that I contributed over $1500 — making the commitment early, when it mattered most — to the local Democratic headquarters that proved to be important for Sharon Quirk-Silva’s and Jan Flory’s victories.)  In my case, I could also use my novel position as a candidate-blogger-politico to help publicize local races and promote Democratic positions (including, importantly this year, “Yes on 30” and “No on 32”.  I still don’t understand why FFFF didn’t go after Sharon Quirk-Silva hammer and tongs this year, but my sense is that part of it was that I kept successfully turning the topic to myself, despite the fact that the smarter people there knew exactly what I was doing and pleaded with other commenters to ignore me.  It’s plausible to me that I was much more effective at that than otherwise because I wasn’t just some random dude commenting there, but an actual nominee for legislative office.  Someone else would have to explain it — and they might well lie about it!)  So: beyond being a “credible alternative,” that and the third item below were pretty much all that the party wanted from me.

(2) help promote Occupy Wall Street (local incarnations being Occupy Orange County, Occupy Santa Ana, and for a while Occupy Fullerton) and its philosophy to voters.  That, and not “winning the election,” are what I had promised to “fight like hell” to do.  I and my friends in Occupy mostly seem to be pretty happy with how it turned out, though I’m disappointed not to have become a rallying point for Occupy in a way that many candidates have become for the Tea Party.  (That’s what happens when your organization really, unlike the Tea Party, really is low-budget and grass-roots.)  To me, the most important thing I did was to spend $5500 of donor money to get my campaign statement into the voter guide, where 430,000 voters had a chance (and often an inclination) to read it.

(3) draw Huff’s fire — keeping him a little unsure of what I might come up with and how much money I might have on the way (either directly or through IEs.)  If I did that successfully, he would not comfortably be able to donate money to other campaigns — meaning Democratic victories both statewide and locally.  I was less successful here than elsewhere.  Despite Democrats almost running the table of competitive Senate races, I won’t have much idea how much I helped there until I see his final expense report, but my hope was that hitting him both with online ads and especially with ads in the widely read online “insider publication” The Nooner” in the second week of September may have given him some pause.  Even some delay while they waited to see what other shoes might drop is a big victory for me — especially with ads that only cost $50/day (although they took a lot of time to create.)

(I’ll tell you who one of the unsung heroes of the California Democratic Party is in this last respect, though — Jay Chen.  Even though Jay lost by a 58%-42% margin to the racist campaigning of Ed Royce, he made Royce spend what will probably end up being more than $5,000,000 to beat him.  That is money that Royce had been supposed to send, as he had in years past, to other competitive Republican campaigns statewide (and maybe beyond), such as Tony Strickland’s Congressional race against Julia Brownley in CD-26 (Ventura County).  Brownley won by only 52.7% to 47.3%.  The money that Ed Royce could have sent there — and that others could have sent there instead of sending it to Royce — might have tipped the balance to Strickland.  And that’s just one race out of many that Royce could and generally would have funded!  If Royce could have stomached contributing to Kiger, he’d have likely tipped the Fullerton City Council race too.  Honestly, people have been made Ambassadors for less service to the party than Jay Chen demonstrated this time — the party owes him big time.)

So, overall — except for the effect on my finances (the workload for my solo legal practice picked up unexpectedly in mid-summer, leaving me less time than expected to campaign, and I had to turn away other cases at the same time, income I would have liked to have) — I consider my campaign to have been a politically useful as well as personally satisfying (although expensive in terms of lost opportunities) enterprise.  That’s why I was surprised and somewhat amused to see myself referred to continually as the “worst State Senate candidate in California” by the OC Weekly and those that ape them.  But that didn’t bother me — people with any actual understanding of electoral knew the truth that I was doing well for a challenger and extremely well for a “sacrificial lamb.”

I deny being a “sacrificial lamb” only because I did have a plausible (though unlikely) path to victory — Occupy Wall Street rallying behind me.  This might have brought in big money donors from LA who wanted to feature me as a spokesperson for the cause (which I was doing anyway.)  I did realize that it was a long shot and wasn’t too emotionally invested in the possibility.

I held out hopes until late July or so — when I swallowed hard and took an extremely unpopular activist public stand against Prop 35, including inviting public denunciation in front of the State Party and its quarterly meeting in Anaheim, followed by pretty much no one from the party hierarchy making eye contact with me for a month, which is not good for a campaign.  Later my position became respectable — with the LA Times and several party leaders agreeing with my position — by I was the one who “broke the ice” with my challenge to a Democratic Party endorsement at a time when it was leading in pulls by almost 90% to less than 10%.

In the last two months of the campaign, I received a lot of thanks from people who had read the text closely in light of my critique and become convinced — but the damage was done at that point.  No regrets on my part — someone had to do it — someone who wasn’t a sex worker, that is, as they were the main opposition to Prop 35, aided by the widely read article against it that I had published here.  But it did make for a possible sizzling attack against me that could have caused problems for Sharon and Jay had their opponents made Prop 35 an issue.  So I ratched the level of campaigning way down.  (Sharon’s likely victory was infinitely more important to me than my unlikely one.)

So call me a “sacrificial lamb” if you must, but I was a lamb who was chewing through the ropes and until mid-summer had legitimate plans of escape.”  Had I caught on as a cause celebre with Occupy, I would have moved fundraising into high gear; as it was, though, I was not going to call everyone I’d ever known in my life and put the squeeze on them for a campaign that I didn’t think could win.  Those who had donated to me knew that they were paying for a candidate to take a loud, strong, and principled position on the issues — and they got it.  Many of my close friends contributed just because they appreciated what I was doing and wanted to be part of it — and that was enough to allow me to run a campaign good enough to pick up 11.1% of the 28.1% of the independent vote.  That’s good enough that I expect to see a well-funded (although probably more moderate) Democratic candidate taking a swing at SD-29 when it opens again in 2016.  And that’s a real and significant accomplishment!

Overall, I am quite pleased with the race.  I’m thrilled if I contributed to the success of Sharon Quirk-Silva; I’m thrilled because I have no doubt that I contributed to the victory of Jan Flory (who I believe will turn out to be a wonderful reformer on Council rather than a reanimated Don Bankhead.)  Only one thing leaves me … how to say this? … baffled, disappointed, irritated, and aggrieved.  I’ll share that with you now.

2. Pursued by Inspector Moxley

There was only one thing I didn’t expect in this race — though, except for when it dipped into actual defamation of me, I suppose that it’s a public service that it happened.  (It was highly revealing.)  That surprise was my treatment in OC Weekly.

I expected to be slagged at FFFF and it didn’t bother me much.  Most of it the insulting commentary about me was pratfall-funny; some of it was even witty, which I appreciated for its craft and tried to return in kind.  That’s, believe it or not, “normal stuff.”  But I surely didn’t expect what happened to me at the OC Weekly, because I expected at least a little professionalism and dignity and integrity from what was, at all, a professional and for-profit publication.

You know from reading above (if you did so) what I was trying to accomplish in the campaign.  So now, I’m going to republish the entire e-mail exchange between the OC Weekly‘s R. Scott Moxley and me, beginning in _________, including some annotations referring to the material in Part 1 to explain things like why I didn’t want to tell him certain things (mostly to keep Huff guessing about my plans and resources and thus to freeze up his donating money to other races just in case I ended up having $100,000 for late expenditures.  If he paid for a poll, just to be sure, then that has an example of a win for me.)

So here goes.  Moxley’s messages in red, mine in blue, my present-day commentary in black.  Enjoy.  Marvel, even.

First, appropriately printed in purple, some context.  I strongly urge you to skip this section unless you can’t help yourself.

You should understand that since around the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012, my participation in Occupy OC was the primary reason anyone would have read my name in local blogs or papers other than in OJB, Moxley and I had developed a somewhat bad relationship in OC Weekly comments.  I’m picking out just one example — comments to a July 15 Moxley story on food truck regulation, which essentially said “Steve Greenhut’s column in Reason magazine is great, go read it!” — because it’s both illustrative and handy.  (I had reason to suspect that the Greenhut column might have been ghosted by former OC Weekly editor and now libertarian-claiming-to-be-progressive Will Swaim.)

Interestingly, the previous comments to which I was replying have apparently been deleted.  (Maybe they still exist elsewhere.)  If they were deleted, I have to wonder why.  I’ll check later to see if they’re among the ones I kept just in case the Weekly started deleting its own comments.  For now, I’m including every relevant comment — here’s what I can infer about what was in the now-deleted ones.

As I recall, the first reply was to Gustavo Arellano’s responding to my complaint that they hadn’t published a comment of mine by saying that it had been captured by their spam filter – and that this was “telling.”  The second was by (or alluded to) someone with the name “Scooby Snacks.”  The third involved Moxley stating that I had lost my primary (which I did by 64.3% to 35.7%) despite  having “campaigned as hard as I could.”  The fourth involved someone named Jon chiding Moxley (and maybe Arellano) for saying that they were “better than that.”  The fifth involved Moxley’s saying that he had had “no ax to grind” in this story, and referenced a previous (now apparently missing) comment of his telling me to “Go ahead and weigh in for government harassment of food truck owners.”

Greg Diamond  Jul 16, 2012

Yeah, “telling.”  If I had wanted to stay out of the spam filter I suppose that I should have mentioned Octomom’s vagina or something.
 
Greg Diamond  Jul 16, 2012
Yes, I am well aware of the extent of my solemn responsibility to represent the ideas of people named “Scooby Snacks.”  Rorry riscreant.

I “campaigned as hard as I could” for a meaningless primary?  No, I hardly campaigned at all, given that I had already made the runoff. I got 36% of the vote (across the three counties), Arse Caught.  Your 6% figure is because of extremely low turnout statewide, for which I’m not really responsible.  (By your standards, you could make fun of Bob Huff getting JUST TEN %, and that would be pretty silly. Do you show the same degree of care and forthrightness with your reporting?

Greg Diamond  Jul 16, 2012

I had thought so too, Jon — but apparently they’re NOT better than that. Maybe it’s pressure from the bosses back east, though I’m not one to ascribe motives without good basis.

Greg Diamond  Jul 16, 2012

Of COURSE you had no ax to grind, Arse Caught; that’s why your first response to me was “Go ahead and weigh in for government harassment of food truck owners.”  Who do you think you’re fooling here?  You were pimping the work of a fellow anti-union libertarian. I started commenting here because I respected you and Gustavo based on your work and looked forward to interesting conversations.  Now I do it in part to get you to expose your actual opinions — the beasts within — which to you is “obnoxious.” Point me to something you published from an Occupy OC activist making that critique of me.  If it wasn’t published, and was just anonymous background slander, then why should anyone give it any weight?  Put up or shut up, “journalist.”  (“Alexander Haig of OC leftwing politics” — you mean that I’m endorsed by Mort Sahl?)

Greg Diamond  Jul 16, 2012
 
I could read the Weekly right through either Gustavo’s or Moxley’s [thin] skin.
 
Not Greg Diamond  Jul 16, 2012

I have graduated from the 4th grade.  I realize that Mox and Gustavo are not advocates of Greenbut or his necrotic party affiliation.  I understand that each has a critical & fundamental disagreement with Greg Diamond’s pedagogy.  And all that makes me feel pretty smug about myself.

R. Scott Moxley  Jul 17, 2012

After all this cowardly whining, you still can’t get anyone to visit your blog, huh? So sorry…

R. Scott Moxley  Jul 17, 2012

Greg Diamond: Nearly 30 percent of Americans believe there’s a good chance that Big Foot exists. Yet, you and your ideas could only get a laughable 6 percent of eligible voters in your June election. Big Foot is five times more popular than you and nobody has ever seen him! You might want to take a clue from Big Foot and improve your image by disappearing too.

Given the low turnout in the primary, in which I didn’t campaign, Bob Huff received about 10% of the vote from the eligible electorate and I received about 6%.

R. Scott Moxley Jul 17, 2012

Greg Diamond: It is also a fact that your recent campaign as a Democrat drove Democrats to vote for the Republican, Bob Huff. Beeee-u-tee-full. Nice job, genius!
R. Scott Moxley  Jul 17, 2012
Greg, please tell us again how you believe you are the angry old white guy defender of Latinos. I really like that story. PS–How is your popularity now in Occupy OC?
joe doe  Jul 17, 2012

You can’t crow about the small petty nature of the “Weekly way” and still claim to be doing any meaningful journalism.  Your total lack of logic  and self-awareness SHOULD be embarrassing, but that of course would require brain power. The more you guys post the stupider you look.

Greg Diamond  

And this whole comments section underscores your ridiculous delusions of competence.

Greg Diamond  Jul 18, 2012

So by that logic Bigfoot (one word, scribe) is three times as popular as my opponent?  Cool!

Greg Diamond  Jul 18, 2012

If you’ve been following our occasional conversation over the last several months, Gustavo, “Arse” is short for “Arse Caught” — which is like “R. Scott,” but has the additional connotation of describing what happens to him when he tries to push tripe like this on readers.

How interesting.  My vote total was greater than the Democratic proportion of the district (even before adjusting for turnout), so how do you figure that, Arse?  Can you “show your work”?  I can’t rule out that I got every single Democratic vote.  How can you?

Note: the district composition is 38.1% Republican, 33.8% Democratic, 28.0% No Party Preference, 5.1% Other Party.  This next was to an apparently now-deleted comment by Gustavo Arellano.
Greg Diamond  

Well, your lack of help as Editor-in-Chief really shows.

Greg Diamond  

From what I can tell, my popularity with Occupy OC is fine. Hey, is it true that Will Swain, your former boss, is working for Greenhut’s group and you didn’t disclose it in this article?  Did Swain, um, ghostwrite the Reason piece for the Hut?

Greg Diamond: You regularly flop around this website desperately hoping for attention and pretending you have important insights. Yet, you and your knee jerk ideas managed only to bring a pathetic SIX percent of eligible voters to the polls to vote for your candidacy in June. That fact–whine and bitch and throw mud at me all you want–underscores you are a bloated, nobody hack. Now, go back to the laughable, irrelevant blog you operate with Mr. DUI and complain some more about how your greatness isn’t recognized. Boo who…

“‘Bigfoot’ is one word” and “30=3×10” are somewhat important insights to people who don’t understand them, but they’re not whining, bitching, flopping, mud-throwing, knee-jerking, complaining, proclaiming greatness, or — sigh — “boo-hooing” (note spelling).  They’re just setting the record straight. I know that it would nicer for you pornographers to be left alone, but when you uncritically reprint an article from Greenhut as (I presume) a favor to Will Swain, expect criticism.  Not whining, mud-throwing, complaining, etc. — criticism, because you did something bad.

So that’s an example of my relationship, as of mid-July, with Scott Moxley — and it may explain why I greeted his inquiries into my campaign with some skepticism as to his good faith and willingness to adhere to professional journalistic principles.  I forget that while to me, having to defend myself online like this is commonplace, to most readers it will seem bizarre, disgusting, and upsetting.  I know, I know … I just really believe in setting the record straight; I don’t pretend that it’s for everybody.  You will probably now need to take a shower and possible a Xanax, Dear Reader — when you come back, we’ll begin.

[1]

From: Scott Moxley <smoxley@ocweekly.com>
To: gregdiamond@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 1:22 PM
Subject: Candidate Profile

Greetings Mr. Diamond,

In preparation for an upcoming feature on you, I have a couple of initial questions for you:

–What legal accomplishments have you attained in the last three years?

–As a self-promoted influential member of Occupy OC, what specifically do you think you accomplished?

–What was the ethnicity of the person(s) you personally have sued in Orange County Superior Court?

–What public policy positions of yours do you think can help you defeat Huff?

–How much money do you hope to raise for your political campaign?

–Given your blog buddy’s DUI past, please tell me if you have ever been arrest and, if so, describe the circumstances.

I await your answers.

With warm regards,

R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly / Village Voice Media, Inc.

I took him seriously and decided to play it straight in answering.

Re: Candidate Profile

TO:Scott Moxley
CC:Vern Nelson
Wednesday, July 18, 2012 2:48 PM
Thanks, Scott.  In other circumstances, I’d say that I was honored to be part of a feature; in this case, I’ll simply take your questions seriously and brace myself.  I’m cc’ing Vern just to have a contemporaneous witness to my answers.  (I request that he not print them at least until your piece is out, if even then.)
 
Legal accomplishments: For the most part, I’ve been involved in representing plaintiffs in employment law matters (harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, etc.) leading to confidential settlements, the specifics of which I can’t discuss due to confidentiality agreements.  I do have three active cases right now with filed complaints that are heading towards trial — but most cases heading towards trial get settled and if that happens with these then I won’t be able to discuss them either.  In the past three years, I’ve also been involved in an appellate-level civil rights appeal (though I did more of that in New York.)  For about a year, starting when I was heading the Brown for Governor campaign in OC (such as it was), I also did regular contract work with a big firm in Irvine on commercial cases to feed my “involvement in politics” habit (and my family.)
 
I’ve regularly used my legal training and skills to explain legal concepts and cases to a lay audience in a major national political website, with audiences (that I know of) of up to 40,000 to 50,000 or more.  I’ve regularly done the same pro bono, most notably with Occupy OC and occasionally Occupy Santa Ana.
 
Accomplishments with Occupy OC:  I don’t recall “promoting” myself as an “influential member” of Occupy, but if you found someplace where I called myself that they I’ll have to own up to it.  (Did you?)
 
I’ve been the primary “Civic Liaison” for Occupy Orange County (and have at times helped out with the separate “Occupy Santa Ana” group, which focuses primarily on homelessness-related issues.)  That has meant dealing directly with police departments and city governments: negotiating on behalf of Occupy, letting each side know what the other is thinking and doing, and trying to keep our people out of trouble.  After a rocky start in Irvine, I’ve developed good relationships with cities and police most of the time.  I’ve also generally (though not always, and not always successfully) been a peacemaker within Occupy.
 
I’ve worked very hard (occasionally clashing with people) to ensure that the Occupy Movement in OC remains entirely non-violent with respect to persons and non-destructive with respect to property.  Partly this is because I believe in non-violence; partly it is because I think that if we want to appeal to the larger community within OC, it’s a tactical necessity — we can’t expect any significant help from the community if we engage in violence or property destruction.  Orange County residents recoil from both.  Beyond that, I’ve pushed for us to be law-abiding; again, I think the OC residents reject protests that lead to arrests, no matter who was in the right.  Because we have a message that we think ought to appeal to average beleaguered OC residents, we’ve tried where possible to evade “freedom to protest” issues and get to our substantive criticism.
 
Beyond that, I can’t really distinguish my own accomplishments from Occupy’s in general.  We had one of the longest (and possibly the longest) continuous Occupations in the country, with a continuous presence on sidewalks or in encampments, which was useful in gaining a forum to present issues to the community for over five months.  (Until the last week, it was without protest-related incident.)  We had events, showed movies, had speeches, and basically got our message out on a shoestring budget.  We haven’t changed the world, but we’ve taken a good swing at it and have created a network that is still in continual contact and comes together as needed for events.  While our membership ranges from far left to pretty far right and from mainstream to off the charts, we’ve managed to have a high degree of cooperation and mutual respect overall.  I don’t think that anyone had expected OC to have a successful Occupy movement, but by many measures we’ve had among the most successful ones in the state.
 
I should note that these are my personal opinions and I am not speaking for the Occupy movement.
 
Ethnicity of people sued on OC Superior Court:  I haven’t sued anybody in OC Superior Court as a plaintiff.  I have represented clients who have sued people; I’m not sure of the ethnicity of the various defendants, but I believe that they were mostly non-Hispanic Caucasian.  The only current case I can recall where ethnicity is an issue is one that I took over at the last minute (and obtained a postponement) when the client’s lawyers left her case and she was left having to fend for herself with against impending summary judgment motion.
 
Policy positions re Huff:  First, I recognize that I’m an underdog against the Senate Minority Leader.  I judge my campaign efforts in comparison to other venues for my political activism, where I think running for office has been effective, rather than as being worthwhile only if I win.  So, whether my positions will “defeat Huff” or not, here are the ones I emphasize.
 
– I favor bringing new revenues to California government and balancing the state budget through a millionaire’s tax; an oil severance tax; a split-roll on Prop 13 (distinguishing between residential and most commercial property); and legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana (which, by the way, I don’t personally use and of hemp cultivation.
 
– I favor protecting the interests of the middle class from the “vampire capitalism” of the wealthiest financial interests in the country.  This includes developing a single-payer health insurance system within California and in the interim giving the Insurance Commissioner the ability to reject unreasonable increases in health insurance premiums.  I’m happy to work with the 1% when it is willing to play fair, but unlike Huff I don’t favor shoveling public money and other consideration to campaign contributors.  I’m running explicitly as someone who favors the grievances of the Occupy movement.
 
– I favor “radical transparency” in government.  When I meet with lobbyists, I want to livestream it and let the public hear exactly what I’m hearing.
 
Money I hope to raise:  I hope to raise $100,000.  If I don’t, I’ll just print fewer signs, less literature, etc.  Much of my campaigning will make use of free on inexpensive resources such as YouTube.
 
Arrest record:  No, I have never been arrested (or even detained) other than for a few traffic tickets for speeding (not, as I recall, within the past two decades.)  Vern has paid the price for his actions (and I believe has learned and changed as a result) and I find attempts to classify him solely by his arrest record to be misleading and disingenuous.  (I wonder how you’ll cover Darrell Issa.)
 
Thanks for asking!
 
Greg Diamond
Candidate, 29th State Senate District
 
P.S.  I *thought* that you guys were part of Village Voice Media!  That’s in Phoenix, not in New York?

Note: At this point, I really did hope to raise $100,000.  It wasn’t until the reaction almost two weeks later to my public opposition to Prop 35 at the California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting, that I postponed my broad fundraising campaign — which I ultimately abandoned, for reasons explained in Part 1.  I focused instead only on political bloggers and a few close friends, who could perhaps donate enough for me to print some signs and literature.

Also: I had expected to be included in the Weekly’s annual “Scariest people” issue, which seemed fine.  Little did I know….

From here on out, I’m excluding “header” information except for titles and the time stamps.

Re: Candidate Profile

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 8:04 PM
Mr. Diamond:Thanks for your answers.When we started OC Weekly in 1995 our company (the original Village Voice Media) was based in New York. The latest version of the corporation is based in Phoenix.

Re: Candidate Profile

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 11:33 PM
Oh, that’s right; New Times changed their name to what they acquired.

Re: Candidate Profile
Thursday, July 19, 2012 7:33 AM

We went from being owned by the billionaire behind the Hartz flea collar empire to being nothing but numbers on page for a NY investment group and then back to the comfort of working for owners (in Phoenix) who care about journalism.

Note that to this point it’s a relatively polite interchange, as I’d have wanted and expected.

29th SD
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 8:53 AM

I see that Mr. Huff had a mid-year cash on hand of about $400k. How much money have you raised and spent, and what was your campaign’s cash on hand on 6/30/12? Now?
Regards,R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly / Village Voice Media, Inc.

One has to put in a detailed campaign report when one reaches $25,000 in contributions, which I never did.  (One can still get the information, though, as the Republican operatives at OC Political did.  I couldn’t figure out why Moxley didn’t just do so.)  My next report was due in early October for the period ending Sept. 30.

At this point, ambiguity was beneficial for me: 40 days out from the election, if I could keep Bob Huff from feeling confident enough to donate to other campaigns for another week or two, so much the better!  That’s just “playing within the rules” — and it’s one of the few benefits of minimal fundraising.  So I didn’t see any reason to allow Moxley to break the news to Huff before I was legally required to do so.  Any actual political journalist should understand why.  Besides, he wrote me on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when I’m not supposed to be working!  It ended at sunset, so was a good reason to delay him past what sounded like a deadline.

Re: 29th SD

Wednesday, September 26, 2012 10:51 AM
Talk to you after Yom Kippur ends.

Re: 29th SD

Wednesday, September 26, 2012 9:48 PM
Scott,
 
I’ve spoken to my Treasurer; she won’t be free to meet with me until Friday, at which time we’ll review those figures.
 
However: as I thought about your message today, though, I wonder why this information is of interest.  Do you think that my cash on hand should determine whether people should vote for me?  I don’t.  If you want to know whether specific people groups have donated to me, which I suppose could be newsworthy, just ask.
 
I can tell you this:
– I’ve raised under $25,000 at this point (or we’d already have been required to file a public report)
– My donations have overwhelmingly come from small donors, none over $1000 (meaning little likelihood of corruption)
– I have a fundraising pitch out now aimed at funding late expenses during these last several weeks
– I acknowledge that I obviously face an uphill battle, though I knew that coming in
– I’ve  been doing better than my spending level would indicate by making good use of free media
– I’m also fortunate in that the success of other campaigns overlapping my district should help me out
– (It’s also nice not having to defend the widely divergent Ed Royce and Chris Norby at the same time)
On reflection, it would probably make the most sense for me to leave Huff in the dark about my status.  I do look forward to reading about how much more he’s got from lobbyists in the past three months, though!
 
Greg Diamond
 
P.S. Did you see my ads in The Nooner during the week of Sept. 10-14?  They were quite well-received.

These were the ads that I had planned as a smack on the head against the Huff campaign to get them wondering if had more (and better) of the same planned.  I have no idea if they worked, but plenty of Democrats seemed to have really loved them.

Re: 29th SD

Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:58 PM
Greetings again candidate Diamond: Thank you for your reply. Please tell me if this would be a wrong assumption based on what you’ve stated: you have not raised more than $25,000 for your senate race. I’ll ask again, what have you raised and what is your cash on hand?
Also, you threatened to publish some sort of an expose on Norby re domestic violence a few months ago. Did you publish that story. If so, can you send me the link. If not, can you tell me why you didn’t go
with your story?

Ah, the Norby story.  I had been told by various sources that there had been an FPD cover-up of Norby’s physical abuse of his wife — specifically, that there was a witness named in a police report filed by his wife and that photos had been taken of her bruises, which was also reported by FPD Sgt. Andrew Goodrich and then apparently disappeared.  (Tony Bushala would freak out about and denounce Goodrich’s comments whenever they were mentioned.  I mentioned them a few times because I wanted to see how sort of a spot it was.  It was a very sore spot.)  None of these sources wanted to go on the record, for understandable reasons.  I didn’t want to print something like that unless I could verify it — so I turned in a public records request after the recall, trying to complete it before the new Council took office in hopes that the FPD might be willing to cooperate.  This was my first public records request ever.  It turns out that I wasn’t entitled to the information — to which I said “OK, then.”  But some anonymous writer on FFFF supposedly did a public records request that turned up my public records request, and they started hounding me for “dumpster diving.”  (This seemed odd to me; I had no idea that Fullerton  kept its public records in a dumpster!)

To that point, I had given up on the story.  Now, under attack, I defended myself — first making sure that Sharon Quirk-Silva and her campaign had not solicited me to do so (which was true) and then saying that I considered domestic violence to be a legitimate area of public interest.  Then I said that I planned to still planned to publish something, probably neglecting to state that this was predicated on one or more of my informers being willing to speak up.  None were; I dropped the story a second time.  But one person on FFFF — whom I suspect but can’t prove, in that cesspit of vicious anonymous posts — was Moxley, wouldn’t leave it alone and kept badgering me over it.

Re: 29th SD

Thursday, September 27, 2012 10:27 PM
I have not currently raised more than $25,000.
We are complying with all reporting requirements.  I don’t see any point in going beyond them, thereby aiding my opponent in crafting his strategy.  Is there a reason that you think I should?
The primary reason that I haven’t gone ahead with the Norby story is that I not been able to get copies of the police reports — and I don’t have a jounalist’s [sic] level of trusted sources within the Police Department (or, in the case of Michael Sellers, “formerly of.”)  If you think that you could do a better job of doing that, I’d be happy to tell you what I’ve heard, and how I’d proceed given the resources, although I won’t provide you with confidential sources.Let me know if you’re more interested in the “Assemblymember’s possible elected violence” story or the “candidate blogger having difficulty getting on-the-record info” story.

Greg Diamond

I didn’t think that Moxley would take me up on it — but if he had, great!  If he didn’t, though, that would show that his interest in investigative journalism was awfully selective — because my guess is that a real professional journalist (which I’m not) could have gotten a witness to talk.

I decided to share with Moxley an offer I’d made, based on the possibility that the Norbys might separate after the election over the domestic violence — and again, I don’t know that there was any and I hope that there wasn’t and that their marriage is as stable and secure as Martha Norby wants it to be.  Someone using the pseudonym “James Cameron” had asked me why I hadn’t yet published the Moxley story.

Re: 29th SD

Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:32 PM
You should see this comment I left on FFFF the last time that someone (could even be you?) asked me about this:
 
Stonewalling. It’s hard to get things “for the record.”
Let me ask you something seriously: do you believe that he is completely in the clear regarding domestic violence, or do you not care, or do you have reason to think otherwise but can’t abandon him for political reasons?
Right now, I’d be satisfied with an ironclad pledge from Norby that if his wife leaves him and asserts that he committed domestic violence against her within a year of the election, he’d immediately resign the seat. Does that seem fair? If he did that, I’d happily drop the issue between now and the election. It’s unpleasant to deal with.
If there’s really no fire behind the smoke, it should be an easy call for him. After all, she wouldn’t risk messing up her citizenship application for no reason. What do you think?
(P.S. I’d e-mail you privately about this, but I don’t know who you are.)
I’ll ask you too — does that request seem fair?  If you want to know why I made that offer, we should talk.

No e-mail reply.

Debevoise

Saturday, September 29, 2012 8:40 AM

Greetings Senate Candidate Diamond:

Why did you leave your junior associate position at Debevoise & Plimpton? And have you ever been fired or forced to resign from any job?

Regards,

R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly

After clerking for the recently deceased and utterly wonderful Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Betty Binns Fletcher, I went to work for the Midtown Manhattan law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, one of the most prestigious firms in the world, where I had interned for two summers.  I love Debevoise as an institution, retain several friendships there, I liked lots of the people there, and I would recommend it without hesitation to any law school graduate who wanted to work for a prominent Manhattan commercial law firm, because they were among the most human and humane.  Some of the work was excellent (mostly the pro bono work), some was perfectly good (in my case, mostly construction litigation), some was less enjoyable, and I managed to avoid anything that I found actively offensive.

Well, at a high-powered firm like that, you can’t have only the work you like and not the work you find offensive, so I hadn’t expected to seek partnership track there.  I had a lot of what I considered “morally neutral” work — and the work was literally killing me.  For the first time, I developed very high blood pressure and related symptoms.  Then I injured myself on the job (which could have led and may still lead to loss of function in one arm.)  I could have committed despite that to increase my workload further and go on partnership track — but it was wrong for me.  So, my last year there, I did a lot of mid-level supervising younger lawyers in pro bono work, mostly asylum and a lot related to relief for Hurricane Katrina victims in Mississippi (helping the firm win recognition for its pro bono practice), and then left to take part in the 2006 election.

I didn’t particularly feel like explaining all of that at the time — least of all to Moxley.  (Remember that part up there in purple?)  “Stay on message.”  To me, it was a distraction from the issues best ignored.  (Looked to me like he was just “fishing.”)

Meanwhile, Moxley had written a truly putrid, and I mean dunderheaded, article about the Democratic Party of Orange County’s Truman Dinner, our annual fundraiser.  I had written a reply (linked below.)  If Moxley was going to ask me personal questions, I decided — being a blogger — to do the same to him.

Re: Debevoise

Saturday, September 29, 2012 11:09 AM
Greetings, Senior Editor Moxley,
 
I did not leave my “junior associate position at Debevoise & Plimpton.”  I left my “mid-level associate position at Debevoise & Plimpton.”  You should understand the difference before you publish.  (As is customary, I received one year of work credit for my prior judicial clerkship.)  I left D&P because I had reached the point in my time there where one decides if one wants to devote oneself fully to striving for partnership at a major commercial law firm — and, despite my (continued) affection for the people there, I had decided that I didn’t.  I also wanted to start working directly in electoral politics — and I subsequently did so.
 
I will construe your second question as follows (so that it recognizes basic principles of privacy and confidentiality in the employment setting): “Have you ever been fired or forced to resign from any job for any reason, including honesty or competence, that would reflect on your capability to serve as an elected official?”  The answer to that is “no.”  I would be fascinated to know why you ask.
 
Now, Scott: it seems to me that, unless you do the same level of research into all aspiring elected officials — and your lack of interest in information regarding Asmb. Norby suggests to me that you do not — you seem to be engaged in an effort to brandish your power as an investigative journalist.  This is apparently either to dissuade me from criticizing your actions in your own job as a journalist or to punish me for having done so in the past.  (Most recently, here: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/09/what-barack-obama-who-moxley-finds-putrid-elephant-but-misses-the-mark/.)
 
So, writer to writer and subject to subject, let me ask:
 
(1) Have you ever used your position and prerogatives as a professional journalist to settle personal scores?
 
(2) Have you ever used your position and prerogatives as a professional journalist to advance a partisan or ideological political agenda?
 
(3) In asserting that “President Barack Obama seemed forgotten” at the recent Truman Dinner, did you weigh evidence of whether the following excerpts sited in the link above:
 
     – (a) “Richard J. O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award winner Chris Townsend‘s delightful mockery of Clint Eastwood’s ‘Invisible Obama’ (aka ‘Old Man Yells at Chair’) speech at the Republican convention”;
 
     – (b) “Rabbi Michael Mayersohn‘s invocation, including ‘We must build a more just and equitable society.  We must create a society in which we all care for each other. Yes, we are expected to be our brother’s keeper. The welfare of our enemy is even our concern'”;
 
     – (c) “Truman Award winner Sharon Quirk-Silva‘s declaration of ‘the battle between Republicans and Democrats to really be a fight over “me versus we” philosophies’ – [a sentiment derived] straight from the Democratic convention”;
 
supported, contradicted, or otherwise had any bearing upon your thesis that “Obama seemed forgotten”?
 
I’ll try to have some follow-up questions, when next we are in contact, about the “elephant in the room” of the “elephant in the room.”
 
Greg Diamond
Media Critic
Orange Juice Blog

This did not go over well, regardless of how much he deserved it.  He continued fishing.

Re: Debevoise

Saturday, September 29, 2012 12:16 PM
Greetings again candidate Diamond:

Thank you for the responses that were relevant. Are you sure you weren’t really “lower-mid-level” at D&P? Did you reject a contract or did they fail to make you an offer to stay? (There is, of course, a
huge difference.) And has the firm provided positive recommendations for your job performance after your departure?

Regards,

R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly

PS–I can’t recall ever reading anything you’ve written for publication, but I do hope to do so soon.

Re: Debevoise

Saturday, September 29, 2012 2:06 PM
Dear Scott,
 
I left Debevoise a couple of months before I completed my fourth year (which, again, includes the clerkship year.)  You may wish talk to someone whom you trust from a white-shoe firm in New York, ideally one who graduated around 2002 (in case terminology has changed), and ask them whether or not I was a “mid-level associate.”  Fourth year is usually the first year of being a mid-level, but I cannot recall the term “lower-mid-level” ever being used there or anywhere else.
 
Your question “Did you reject a contract or did they fail to make you an offer to stay?” suggests to me that you have an erroneous idea of how employment works for associates at large Manhattan firms.  You may want to, once again, consult with someone knowledgeable and try to rephrase it.  The short answer to your question is that at the time that I made the choice that I would leave, I did have the opportunity to stay — but here you’re getting into questions of personnel decisions.  I believe that the firm would prefer its specific personnel practices to remain confidential, so I’ll respect that.
 
“The firm” does not provide recommendations for former attorneys; individuals at the firm do.  (The firm may, however, inform prospective employers if someone was fired; I was not.)  Yes, I have gotten positive recommendations from people with whom I worked there every time that I have asked for them; I retain good relations with plenty of people there.
 
Now: you evaded my questions entirely, Scott.  Refusing to be interviewed?
 
Actually, you’ve read and responded to comments I’ve made to the OC Weekly (for publication) several times.  If you’ve missed my writing in OJB, that may explain some of your tenuous grasp on aspects of contemporary Orange County politics.  That’s easily remedied (and has been for a year); I join you in hoping that you “do so soon.”
 
I’ll be at a campaign event until about 9:30, so I’m afraid that the rest of the conversation will have to wait.  Cheers!
 
Greg Diamond
 
P.S.  Please ask if there any reporters at the Weekly who may be interested in talking to me about using the greater resources of the Weekly to pursue my leads on the Norby situation.  If there are, please let me know.  I know that this may seem like I’m setting you up to be criticized for your priorities in covering political “scandals,” but I’m quite sincere in saying that it is also a legitimate offer regarding a significant story that I haven’t had the resources to cover adequately.

This precipitated a degradation of the tone of our conversation.

Re: Debevoise

Saturday, September 29, 2012 3:10 PM
Dearest candidate Diamond:I should have known that someone like you would consider his comments to blog posts as an authorship feat to celebrate. My apologies for failing to realize your status sooner. Because I have never read anything of yours other than blog comments, it’s my sincere hope that your non-comment writings are more substantive than knee-jerk rants.I believe I have asked you about your guesses/speculations/hunches regarding Norby’s affairs and you have been coy. In my experience, this usually means someone–especially a political character, such as yourself–is playing games. Texans might call your chatter all broth, no beans.Nice diversion attempt though.Back to YOUR campaign: Since July 1, how many hours a day on average have you spent campaigning for your senate race and what events have you orchestrated? How much money has the Democratic Party or Democratic Foundation in Orange County contributed to your campaign?  Do you have a campaign manager–paid or volunteer? If so, who is it?  Will you have a public face-off with your opponent?Alas, if you don’t like fielding legitimate questions about your qualifications/experiences/campaign from a veteran journalist at a long established news organization, don’t run for office. Obnoxiously pretending that I am in the candidate’s seat and you (a secretive, hyper-sensitive Brea man who wants voters to put him in the California Senate) are interviewing me is laughably juvenile. I hope you are more mature in other parts of your life.Regards,R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly

I think that Moxley is doing well so far in our exchanges, don’t you?  Just hold on — if they didn’t get worse, I wouldn’t think them of enough general interest to publish them.

Re: Debevoise
Saturday, September 29, 2012 11:58 PM

R. Scott,
 
I was just pointing out that you had in fact read published writing of mine.  I find your apparent pride in not having read anything of mine amusing.  I’m now among the most-read political bloggers in OC; I’m surprised that you haven’t even been tempted.  Then again, even since Vern slammed you for being in the sack for Righeimer, I suppose that you’ve had reason to keep away.  You couldn’t write much of what you have if you didn’t maintain your “innocence” of the facts.
 
What I have re Norby (not about his affairs) are not guesses, speculations, or reports, but off-the-record allegations from sources whom, if I could name, I would have published myself.  If you’ll let me tell you confidentially what I’ve been told, because I don’t want you to publish it on my say so but I’d be happy to see you investigate it and take the credit for publishing if you find anything, I will do so — not out of any love for you, but because I believe that the truth should out.
 
How much I’ve campaigned per day and what events I’ve orchestrated that aren’t already public record are closely guarded secrets.  (Alternatively, there’s just no reason for me to tell you — especially you.)  As indicated in my report, the Senate President Pro Tem Steinberg’s office paid my $900 & change filing fee.  (Of course, I had previous paid the party $500 to be considered for an early endorsement.)  I have had volunteer help in campaign management; given the tenor of our conversation I would prefer not to release identities to you.  I don’t expect to have a public face-off with Sen. Huff (I have asked, others have apparently asked as well) although I would certainly like to have one and welcome any credible sponsor to set one up.  I believe that, he, like me, was invited to the CAIR-CA-PAC panel discussion and dinner today, but only I showed up.
 
I’m not “pretending that you’re in the candidate’s seat”; I’m doing a “media criticism” story about the OC Weekly and its new ownership.  This is a rare chance for me to get you to read something that I write; of course I’d take advantage of it and ask you questions.
 
Your welcome to ask me questions about my qualifications and experience.  For the most part, you haven’t.  (Did you ask me what I think my qualifications to be?  Did you ask me what experiences I think have prepared me for office?  I’d answer those, as well as your most trenchant relevant follow-up questions.  So far, you’ve primarily pursued a question of whether I’ve ever been fired or denied a contract — something that we lawyers would say is not “probative” — because (as I can attest from my work) people are constantly being fired or denied contacts because of noble or blameless actions on their part (such as whistleblowing, resisting illegitimate commands, or exercising legitimate and protected rights.)
 
Beyond that, you’ve asked some questions about my campaign that  I don’t even think I can recall ever reading in a story before.  (They might be legitimate for a deposition, but highly optional for an interview.)  How many hours I campaign per week — really?  If I say 1 or if I say 10 or if I say 100, what does that mean?  (Depending on what time period we’re talking about and how broadly one defines “campaigning,” I’ve done each of the above this year.  Recently, for example, I had to put everything on hold for a week because of some flare-ups with cases that I’m handling.  That was a pain.)
 
What you seem to be driving at, without asking me the question directly, is whether I think I’m a “serious candidate.”  My answer to that is: yes.  Six months ago, I was as serious as Syed Taj, whom I heard speak tonight and had a delightful conversation with over dinner, was.  (You’ll probably have to look him up; it will be worth your while.)  You might respond, “but do you think you have a chance to win?”  I’d say, “yes, I think I have a chance, but I think that I’m a definite underdog.”  You could then pursue the question as to why; I’d answer it if it seemed that it was at all asked in good faith.  You might ask “if you’re such an underdog, why do you think you’re as serious candidate?”  I have an answer for that one too.  I could explain to you the ways in which I see this campaign as already having been a worthwhile success even if I get only 36% of the vote, as I did in the primary.  You could certainly challenge me on that opinion — and I’d be happy to discuss it at length.
 
That would be an interesting and probably useful conversation, if you want to know what makes a blogger and lawyer think that it’s worth spending this much time (and lost opportunity to earn) into running for office.  Sadly, your agenda seems to be something else.
 
The funny thing is that, far from my being “secretive,” I have already written about much of this in Orange Juice — writings that you claim never to have read.  Is that the standard of “veteran journalism” at your “long-standing new [sic] organization”?  (“News” apparently is being defined here — ever more since your change in ownership — as “who’s committed what crimes recently, what does Gustavo feel like being snotty about this week, and where can I find an appropriate prostitute for my needs”?)
 
Your calling me “hyper-sensitive” suggests that you also haven’t read my exchanges with readers either in OJB or in Friends for Fullerton’s Future; my skin is substantially thicker than yours, as you have displayed it in your comments section.  What I don’t like, and so need to cooperate with, is your roaring into my Inbox and demanding to know any damn thing about my campaign that you’d like — even strategic decisions about which I have not wanted my opponent to know.  So either ask me some legitimate “legitimate questions” like the supplicant you are or just write down that in some cases I thought your question was pointless or otherwise not worth answering — and I’ll take the heat with the reading public for resisting your withering journalism.
 
But: let’s keep communicating in writing, shall we?  I think that I do need a record of all of this.
 
Pleasant dreams,
 
Greg

Re: Debevoise
Monday, October 1, 2012 6:31 PM

Candidate/blogger Diamond: Thanks again for another hearty laugh! It’s amusing that you get so incredulous that a reporter wouldn’t read your blogging attempts. I routinely read a cross section of accomplished county political bloggers. Examples: Art Pedroza, Dan Chmielewski, Jon Fleischman, Chris Prevatt, Geoff West, Tony Bushala and Allan Bartlett. It’s in comments at OC Weekly and on the work of other writers that I’ve read your self-absorbed, rambling, knee-jerk musings. You must think you can have no accomplishments in the local political scene, beat your chest like you control the jungle and then insist everyone must pay attention to you. Uh, no, but nice try. I do hope that someday you find the applause/fear you are desperately seeking to satisfy that fragile psyche. PS–Refusing to answer my simple questions about the extent of your campaigning for state senate under an asserted top secret cloak is also priceless–especially since one of your top stated (and obviously disingenuous) campaign themes is increasing “transparency” by public officials.

The next comment I have in my e-mail search of “Moxley” is from a political friend.  I won’t reproduce it.  It is dated Oct. 4 and is entitled “Moxley Unhinged.”  It’s about this story of his, Greg Diamond: In the Rough – [Moxley Confidential] The Brea resident prefers digging into another man’s marriage rather than focusing on his California senate race, published in print as well as online, notable especially for its imaginative illustration of me blogging in the nude (which I’m thankful to say all of my friends who have contacted me thought was funny.  Potential clients?  Maybe not.)  After reading it (it was published just after midnight), I wrote this story, Apparently, I Somehow Broke Poor R. Scott Moxley’s Brain and Left Him Gibberingin response — because, really, there’s no rule book I know of when someone bullies you like this, so punching back is a probably good a choice as any.  The desired response, my cowering, was out of the question.

I posted links to his article and mine on Facebook — might as well let my friends know what I up to these days!  A friend from law school wrote back with the question “Am I right that you really do sit at your computer in the nude — but do so to reduce the need for air conditioning and so help mitigate the effects of global warming?”  I replied “I think that I’ve never discussed publicly what I do or don’t wear when at my computer.  They just drew me that way because “fat and naked” disgusts people.  It’s OK; I have a thick skin.  (Generally, though, less of it is visible!)”

I did do one other thing in response to that story: I wrote Sharon Quirk-Silva and her husband Jesus Silva, with whom I had pointedly not discussed what I had been doing about the Norby story, apologizing for any negative effect this might have on Sharon’s campaign and inviting them to publish the disclaimer I conveyed to them if they thought it appropriate.  They neither replied nor published.  I think now that the goading from FFFF (and Moxley) was to set up a story that Sharon was attacking Norby over his marriage — she wasn’t, although I am sure that she must have heard the same stories I was hearing — leading to the puzzling mailer attacking her for something that she hadn’t done, which I reviewed here.  (I can understand why the Norby campaign wanted to have it ready; I still can’t understand why they actually mailed it out.  That was beyond stupid.)

No more e-mails between me and R. Scott for the next while.  He wrote his follow-up attack, Greg Diamond: The Frightening Picture of OC’s Most Inept 2012 Political Candidate, which apparently some people interpreted as suggest that I was the famous morbidly obese naked man in the viral internet picture online; I replied to it within the day.  Moxley’s Apparent Brain Damage Worsening; Professionalism Circling the Drain.  Despite the provocation, that headline the only thing I’ve written this year that I regret; I think that I was a little bit over the top.

I came to know about Moxley’s story because someone e-mailed me about it after midnight on Sunday night as I was getting ready to go to bed, reporting also that its headline had apparently changed.  I think I commented about it or something based on that report, which turned out to be mistaken.  When I’m called “a liar,” this appears to be the “lie” in question.

Insider OCW knowledge!

Monday, October 8, 2012 9:15 AM
Dearest Candidate/Blogger Diamond: Your lie about pretending to have inside OCW knowledge of my original column headline is so funny, so absurd and so blatantly boneheaded that it proves to me you are one sick, stupid puppy. Next time you want to invent “facts” in hopes of hurting my feelings try to base it on at least one little misleading kernel of truth. Best wishes in therapy. You do have comprehensive mental health insurance, right?

In fact, it is covered.  This, along with a conversation I’d had with a friend over the weekend, led to a long response.

Scott,
 
I reprinted the entire Facebook conversation in my latest reply to you: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/10/moxleys-apparent-brain-damage-worsening-professionalism-circling-the-drain/.  (I understand your refusal to read it, but maybe you could have someone else read it to you.)  It wasn’t a lie; apparently, my informant was simply wrong.
 
Taking off the gloves [sic — intended to mean “setting down the weapons”] for a moment, I was informed for the first time this past weekend that you’re openly gay.  I’ve known that you provide some of the best coverage of gay-rights-related news in the area, but I didn’t presume that you were gay on that account.  (Wishful thinking that a straight guy could do that, I suppose.)  I mention this only because it raises the possibility that some of your problem with me is that you may have taken my calling you “Arse Caught” as a homophobic slur.  If that’s what’s underlying all of this, then I understand your reaction and I very much regret having given you or anyone else that impression.  That sort of resonance for the name I came up with for you was not even in my mind; I had just wanted to needle you for your going after Vern for calling you on the Righeimer story.  I express my regret in the linked story for possibly giving you that impression, but I want to do so here as well.  If your stance towards me has no relation to that — and I raise this at all just because you brought up my calling you “Arse” in your latest piece — then I make no apology for it.
 
As, again, a friendly gesture, I want to suggest to you that you may want to reconsider whether you want to continue sending me private trash-talking e-mail like this.  It doesn’t really have the desired effect on me, I don’t think that its content makes you look good — and it’s fair game for me to print.  That last is not a threat: I expect to publish our exchanges either way.  (You’re hardly in a position to complain at this point.)  It’s just that I don’tactually have the desire to mess you up gratuitously — but only to do so if need be and for cause.
 
I hope that you have a good and honest friend out there who can sit down and talk to you about how all of this is playing out.  My worried friends tell me not to rise to the bait, even if I’m right on the merits, because but you have higher readership and they presume that you can harm me more than vice versa.  You should understand that when it comes to matters of principle, which include standing up to that sort of bullying, I simply don’t care about that.  Ask people (outside of your present small circle of sources, if any) in DPOC, in Occupy, or from any other period of my life.  I care about doing what’s right, without regard to career success.  If you want to keep trading punches, we will.  If you wonder why I think that I’d be a good addition to the legislature, as an independent voice who won’t feat [sic —  intended as “fear”]political consequences, that’s a big part of why.
 
Have a nice day, Scott; see you online.  (Good catch on the “why Frank Barbaro didn’t mention me at the Truman Dinner” thing; it’s a good story, but it doesn’t mean what you think it does.  You’d have to be more familiar with Frank and how he addresses the DPOC Central Committe than you are, though, to be able to grasp its significance.)
 
Greg
Didn’t really get a reply to that.  Instead:
Monday, October 8, 2012 11:10 PM
Hola Blogos Hog:Quite an interesting night, huh?…..😉Do you think others thought of you as brilliant or, well, too mature to be obsessed with personal vendettas?PS–Do you still want to maintain that you’ve been entirely honest about your less than stellar work career?Not that I expect an honest answer from you, given your blatant willingness to lie.But, of course, I do have to ask, and am genuinely interested, in any of your attempts spin yourself into a hero.

And it was when I read that part about “less than stellar word career” when I said  to myself “oh, ‘darn,’ this guy’s getting ready to libel me.  I just couldn’t figure out on what basis that would be.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:10 AM
Yeah, but not so much online.  The DPOC meeting was interesting.
 I don’t understand your first question beneath the smiley.  I don’t have a vendetta against you; you’re projecting.  I don’t have a vendetta against Norby, either.  I had dropped the record request and wouldn’t be writing about it at all were if not for you and FFFFsters apparently wanting to goad me into it.
 
Entirely honest?  I don’t think that I’ve told you any lies, if that’s what you mean.  Have I volunteered all information about my work history that is not your business?  No — mostly because I’m not an idiot.
 
I’m proud that Occupy OC remained non-violent and respectful of property, if that’s the “failure” you meant.  Do I think that that makes me a “hero”?  No, nor do I think I’ve ever said so.
 
This is weirdness, Scott.

The “interesting” DPOC Executive Board meeting was when we had decided to donate $10,000 to the anti-Measure V (Righeimer charter) campaign in Costa Mesa, $10,000 in Irvine, and essentially as much as we could beyond that to Sharon Quirk-Silva.  So I was in a pretty good mood about that.

Re: Matters

Tuesday, October 9, 2012 6:29 AM
Candidate/Blogger Diamond: I enjoy reading emails you’ve sent me but are crafted for a future audience where they might not be aware of your dishonesty and laziness. You clearly realize that you’ve been able to hide some of your less than positive traits/quirks behind the banner of organizations. We both know you lie with reckless abandon.
By the way, why does Vern Nelson use a sock puppet to bark? Funny–one of you acts like a vicious dog and the other cowers in a dark corner waiting for someone (obviously you) to pet him and fill his bowl with a refreshing beverage. Interesting dynamics. PS–Last night’s meeting surely was . . .  revealing! Fascinating how resources are allocated to more hardworking candidates, huh?

Actually, I try to write, even in private, as if I expect that anything I say might be published — though, as you can tell, I’m pretty open to the things I have to say being published.  The “you lie with reckless abandon,” though, bothered me — because I don’t believe that’s so.  If he was going to take that tack with me, it could create problems.

Re: Matters
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 8:53 AM

Scott,
 
I presume these days that anything that I write privately may be quoted; we live in that sort of world.  If your party to many of my communications within Occupy OC, you’ll probably see that I’ve tried to promote that perspective among my mostly younger colleagues as well.  You seem not to do so quite so much.
 
No, Scott, I do not “lie with reckless abandon” or any with any other kind of abandon; I can’t claim to be a saint, but I don’t lie abundantly or, I think, materially.  (I am far more likely to get into trouble for being forthright.)  If you want to do some journalism and ask me about statements that you believe to be lies, you’re welcome to do so.  I may not answer some of them because I think that I have the same privacy as anyone else, or because in some cases I’d be protecting others’ privacy, but at least we can hash that out in advance.
 
I simply don’t know what you mean by “you’ve been able to hide some of your less than positive traits/quirks behind the banner of organizations.”  It sounds like one of those things that, if true, is true of everyone.  I’m sure that, like everyone, I have some arguably less than positive traits and quirks; one of them is excessive stubbornness in the face of bullying and another is that I tend to take personal responsibility for making the world a better place, whether in politics or in personal dynamics such as the one in which we’re currently involved.  A prudent person would cringe in the face of your abuse and try to mollify you, which I take it is what you had hoped for and expected.  In that sense, I’m insufficiently prudent — but I sort of like being that way.  I think that it would make me a refreshing addition to Sacramento, too.
 
Vern rarely writes stories a pseudonym (if you don’t include “Admin,” which on today’s OJB — as opposed to Pedroza’s — is usually reserved for either true administrative announcements or for press releases that receive minimal editorial processing.)  As I recall, the only pseudonym I can recall him using is revealed on the “About OJB” page.  I don’t think that he comments under a pseudonym at all, but it’s not something I can recall discussing with him.
 
As for last night’s meeting, I think that you have the wrong conception of it.  I was not a supplicant coming to DPOC for help, as you seem to think.  I was one of three Board members on a subcommittee making decisions about where the Party’s resources would be go over the next month, which was then submitted to the full Executive Board.
 
Feel free to ask me about what we decided.  I won’t tell you, though, because it’s not for general publication yet.  That’s how political strategy works.  It’s also why I won’t tell you some things that I don’t yet have to make public regarding my own campaign — and that omission is not “lying.”
 
Greg

 29th State Senate Race

Friday, October 12, 2012 8:17 AM
Greetings Blogger/Candidate Diamond:What actual campaign events did you hold in the last seven days? From what I’ve heard from sources, there were any meaningful ones. But I want to give you yet another opportunity to wow us with your work “like hell” campaign effort in the state senate race. If you can help it, try not to lie again in a response.Regards,R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly

Re: 29th State Senate Race

Friday, October 12, 2012 9:11 AM
Scott,
 
Sad to say, I think that you’ve disqualified yourself as an interviewer where I’m concerned.  Have someone from theWeekly contact me for comments who hasn’t been screeching at me in comments and procuring what are intended to be highly embarrassing depictions of me, if you wish.  Alternatively, try to convince everyone that this request of mine is unreasonable under the circumstances.  Have a good weekend.
 
Greg

Re: 29th State Senate Race

Friday, October 12, 2012 9:17 AM
Just what I expected: blah, blah, blah. Once again, you did no meaningful campaigning, did you? What’s remarkable is that you obviously are content wallowing in your laziness and ineptitude. It’s no wonder Democrats in OC, even prominent ones, consider you an embarrassment. Have a wonderful weekend. Don’t work too . . . oh, yeah . . . no worries there.

This had begun, by this time, to seem less like the journalism that I was used to and more like a flame war.

Re: 29th State Senate Race

Friday, October 12, 2012 9:30 AM
I presume from your response that you either chose not to read my reply to you or just wanted to be snotty.
 
I’m not going to answer questions from you because you’re being a worse journalist right now than I think I’ve ever even heard described before.  However, I am trying to be reasonable, so if you actually want me to talk to a journalist from OC Weekly you will have to dispatch someone else.
 
Yeah, I have detractors among OC Democrats, as well as fans.  Maybe you can make a list of both (if any of the latter will speak to you, given how out of control you are), give the list to one of your staff members who can still think clearly, and see if they can figure out how they might distinguish between those in the two lists.

Hint: I’m on the more liberal side — although I value the presence in and contribution to the party by our more business-friendly “centrists.”  Not all of the liberals like me, not all of the non-liberals don’t, but that’s a good place to start.  Who knows who — if anyone — Scott was talking to here.

Okay, here you go
Friday, October 12, 2012 9:38 AM

You seem to like Brandon. Why don’t you tell him about all of your major campaign activities for, say, the last month? Or would you prefer to use Amber? You’ve done that before, right? Either way, I don’t care. But I do want to give you one more opportunity to answer the question honestly–if that’s even remotely possible.Regards,R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly

Actually, I don’t dislike anyone at the Weekly.  I think that they’re generally good-hearted — Arellano and Moxley included — but some of them are think-skinned prima donnas and they seem to believe themselves to be political actors for candidates they like (mostly libertarian, but also good ones like Sharon and Jay) and against candidates they don’t.  When you’re not an objective journalist, I say: admit it and face the consequences.  Brandon did some lousy writing on Occupy when he appeared to have been won over by one of the factions, and I called him on it.  Amber has written about Occupy intelligently, even though she seems to be cut from the Weekly’s libertarian cloth.  But “would you prefer to use Amber? You’ve done that before, right?”  In person, this would have led to a shouting match at least.  Screw it, I thought.

Re: Okay, here you go

Friday, October 12, 2012 10:01 AM
I don’t know why you’d think I’d like Brandon — he’s the one who goaded us for not occupying the federal courthouse earlier this year.  I like Amber, but we have our political differences and she has to deal with you as management.  Put me in touch with whomever you’d like.  (And no, I’ve never “used” Amber.)

Brandon called, I answered him factually, and that was that.  That was it until the 5:30 p.m. on October 17, when Moxley published a story called “[UPDATED] Gregory A. Diamond, OC State Senate Candidate, Went Postal in the Wee Hours of the Morning”.  That was not what the article was about; that title was changed on the morning of the 19th, when I left a bunch of comments on it defending myself overnight, because that was, to quote the article, “additional, disturbing revelations about Mr. Diamond’s mental health.

The article itself noted that

Like a rabid street dog that believes attention–even swift kicks to the noggin–equals love, Diamond thinks that he’s scoring points with voters in California’s 29th state senate district by writing comment after comment after comment that have nothing to do with the campaign.

For example, the Orange County Register wrote a Monday story that had nothing to do with Diamond’s laughable campaign but he posted six comments on the article and tried to take credit for Occupy Irvine.
 
Know that with the campaign in its final weeks, Diamond–who claims he works with the law firm Jones Day but I’ve yet to see any evidence of his self-serving assertion–hasn’t held even one, meaningful campaign event for himself in his alleged hope to defeat incumbent Republican Bob Huff.
 
He’s even pathetically enlisted a foul-mouthed high school senior to send me F bomb loaded comments.

Four paragraphs, at least one lie apiece.  (1) No, I didn’t think that writing comments was helping me, but that was not my primary concern as a blogger/commenter.  I thought that it was helping people I was defending, like Sharon, Jay, and Jan Flory.  Not a bad use of my time!  (2) No, I didn’t “take credit for” Occupy Irvine, though I think that I contributed substantially to its success — as apparently did many others.  (3) No, I didn’t claim that I was working for Jones Day.    Then came this.

Your employment lies
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:18 PM

Dear Blogger/Unemployed Lawyer/Candidate Diamond:
Do you want to come clean on your employment lies or will you leave that for me to explain to the public?Warmest regards,R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly / Village Voice Media, Inc.

OK, so there it was.  The investigative journalist’s plan was to defame my work in my profession.

Re: Your employment lies

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:28 PM
I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure that it will be most persuasive and enteraining.
 
Is this about my time as a contract attorney (do you even know what that is) with Jones Day?  If so, be my guest.  They may tell you that I was not their employee because I was employed through a staffing agency.  If that’s what you’ve heard, I concede that the placement was through a staffing agency — but it doesn’t mean that I did not do work for Jones Day during that period.  There’s some applicable law regarding whether they would be considered an “employer” — yes for some purposes and no for others — but I’ve never claimed to have been a regular permanent associate there.
 
You should be more careful than this before accusing someone of lying about their professional activities.

Maybe reminding him that it is possible to defame a public figure might do some good?  I don’t think that I yet knew that the article was already out.  Vern had posted the first comment, trying to warn me off of commenting, but I think that when someone lies about you, you call them on it.

Re: Your employment lies

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:35 PM
Jones Day is now “staffing agency”!You almost put a permanent smile on my face.Thank you for all the laughter you’ve given us at OC Weekly in recent months.Please, please don’t stop!Oh, and don’t forget to tell us when Larry Agran rewards your lame defense of his election cheating with a no bid contract.You need to $, don’t you?

Re: Your employment lies

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:52 PM
No, Scott.  Jones Day hires attorneys for document discovery tasks (though that’s not all I did there) from legal staffing agencies.  I was employed by the staffing agency (sort of like a temp job for professionals) and contracted to Jones Day for the better part of a year.  (That amount of time is unusual, but I’m not whooping about it.)  When those contract jobs ended, I had no other connection to them other than knowing people there — nor have I claimed one.
 
If there’s a particular quote of mine that you think is inaccurate, you can ask me about it — or not.

Re: Your employment lies

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 7:55 PM
Uh-huh. I am thinking about hiring a famous artist to capture your
impressive essence for an upcoming article. Will you pose in your Brea
rental?

Re: Your employment lies

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 9:10 PM
No, but I’d happily meet him or her in our campaign office, despite the likely assignment and results. 
Note that I switched the previous and next messages to keep them in their proper threads, for clarity.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 8:36 PM
Dearest Blogos Hog,
Like a normal person, I’ll be in bed asleep before midnight.If you want to rant, can you do it before that time rather than at 2
or 3 or 4 am?Unless, that it is, you feel the need to have the wee hours to bark
when nobody is listening.Your pick, cowboy!
Re: Late night rants
Wednesday, October 17, 2012 9:17 PM
I presume that you understand that there’s no real problem with internet comments being posted at different times of day.  It’s not a phone call or a chat session where one expect an immediate response; it’s fine for people to see it in the morning or the next day.  I was up at 1:30 a.m. because I’d fallen asleep earlier in the evening, then woken up, and since I was awake I decided to check out some blogs, which is when I found your comments.  That’s how sinister the timing was.
 
By all means, though, if you want to go after me over this, that’s your prerogative.  I’m sure that an alt-weekly columnist telling people that they ought to be asleep by midnight is perfect for your demographic.
 
By the way, I’m bcc’ing someone only because I get the sense that they simply couldn’t believe that you were actually sending me e-mails like this.  That is not affecting the content of this comment.
 That bcc was Vern; I wanted to demonstrate why I wasn’t standing down.  Normally I hate bcc’s; when I do it at all, I usually announce it out of a sense of fair play.
Re: Late night rants
Thursday, October 18, 2012 7:35 AM
My point, the one you purposefully mangled, was that your commentsposted in the middle of the night at OCW–like the FIVE you posted to me in the wee AM hours the night before–would have no audience. Go back, G, and please find the words where I tried to say there was a “real problem” with anyone, even the likes of you, commenting whenever. And BCC to your little precious heart’s content. Your scare
tactics are laughable. Besides, everything I’ve sent you has also been BCC’d. I’ve known you were a snake (garden variety, but nonetheless, a snake) for months and months.

I still just don’t get his argument.  No audience — except those who read them when they woke up.  And how would he know that I’d mangled his point “purposefully”?  (Or, for that matter, “purposely”?)  What’s his standard of evidence for coming to a conclusion of fact?

Re: Late night rants
Thursday, October 18, 2012 9:02 AM

You didn’t make that point about my supposedly lacking an audience clear.  (Thanks for sending people looking for them, though!)  Now that you have, I’ll correct it: yes, they will have about as much of an audience.as they would have if I had posted them five (or however many) days previously, when you did.  We’re having a public dialogue, Scott.  It may be strewn all over the place now, but it will be collected in a form more readily accessible.
Scott, the fact that you posted a story based on the fact that I commented on your posts for 20 minutes from 1:23 to 1:43 a.m. (presuming that it took me three minutes to read your first comment and reply to it) is suggesting that there is something so unusual about it as to be newsworthy.  I haven’t quoted you saying “real problem” here; yet you’ve responded as if I have.  That’s my term.  The mere act of publishing your story suggests that you think that it reflects a real problem with me — or my sleep schedule, or something.  If you didn’t mean to give that impression — well, I’m surprised.
(By the way, would you please acknowledge publicly that my “fight like hell” comment referred to representing the ideas of Occupy rather than being a commitment to win the seat?  Go back and read the quote.  I’m tired of correcting you.)
As to bcc’s, then — OK, I guess that the difference between us is that when I do it, I think that it’s rude (not wrong, just rude) to do it without informing you, so I prefer to tell you that I’m doing it.  No matter.
Got work to do today, so I may not be replying as quickly as you’d like to your messages.  Have someone read the story I just posted on CA-47 on your behalf, recognizing that you don’t do it yourself, because I think it’s something newsworthy that you might think worth covering.  http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/10/stupid-candidate-tricks-gary-delong-denies-science-of-climate-change-on-video/

I thought that bringing his attention to the DeLong story was right neighborly of me!

Then back in comments on his story, things were about to get worse.  I’ll once again put comments from the Weekly in purple:

OCPunk

Mox.  Diamond won’t return the campaign contributions because he’s got a family to feed off of the campaign contributions of other people.  Most reasonable and sane people don’t stay up until 2am on a weeknight obsessing over what people say about them.  Why?  Because they have bigger things to worry about and probably have jobs in the real world.  Which is something that seemed to bypass you years ago, Greg Diamond, based upon your rants here.

rscottmoxley

@OCPunk You nailed it. Under the guise of a legitimate state senate campaign, this Diamond guy is luring contributions from good people for himself–an unemployed Brea lawyer–and not disclosing to the public or the voters what he’s doing with the money. Because Diamond is so oddly secretive, we can only guess that he’s spending the contributions on culinary feasts for himself at Denny’s or Arby’s. Guy’s gotta eat, right?

OCPunk

 rscottmoxley Speaking of which, my pizza just arrived.  A pizza that I am going to pay with money that I earned from a 40 hour a week job.  Not from campaign contributions taken from other people who I convinced that I am going to “fight like hell” for,
GregDiamond
Wow.  Please let me know if you’re seriously making that charge, Scott.  That would create a whole new ballgame here.  For the record: your charge is false and you’ve never even asked me for comment on it before publishing it..
Greg, you’ve taken thousands of dollars from unsuspecting progressives who were hoping that their hard earned money would be used for tangle good. You have GLOATED about not revealing ANY details about what you have and haven’t done with the campaign contributions you’ve lured under false pretenses. You promised to seriously campaign against Republican Bob Huff and yet over and over and over you’ve demonstrated that you haven’t campaigned at all. In fact, you are so inept that you have spent week after week, month after month ignoring your alleged state senate campaign to do nothing but write inane blog comments. To this very day–just a few weeks before the Nov. 6 election, you STILL haven’t held ONE meaningful campaign event. So, big boy, yes: I am making the charge that you are California’s worst, most inept Democrat candidate for 2012. You’re an unemployed embarrassment and, as I suggested yesterday, Orange County Democrats need to enact The Diamond Rule: all future rookie state senate candidates must pass elementary mental health standards.
We’re getting too far indented, so I’m going to reel it back this way.

GregDiamond

 rscottmoxley I honestly don’t care whether you are “making the charge that you are California’s worst, most inept Democrat candidate for 2012.”  That “charge” is a matter of subjective opinion — and, as I’m sure you know and depend on, as such it is not actionable.
 
Your statement that “you’ve taken thousands of dollars from unsuspecting progressives who were hoping that their hard earned money would be used for tangle good. You have GLOATED about not revealing ANY details about what you have and haven’t done with the campaign contributions you’ve lured under false pretenses” also sounds like it’s not actionable (especially given the strange term “tangle good”) until perhaps the last two words — which, if you’re accusing me of fraud, might finally be more than just your benighted opinion, and therefore actionable.Your statement “You promised to seriously campaign against Republican Bob Huff and yet over and over and over you’ve demonstrated that you haven’t campaigned at all. In fact, you are so inept that you have spent week after week, month after month ignoring your alleged state senate campaign to do nothing but write inane blog comments” is something that you could try explain away as your ignorance — and so by itself is probably not actionable.
 
However, your agreement (viz., “you nailed it”) in response to the statement of an anonymous commenter that “Diamond won’t return the campaign contributions because he’s got a family to feed off of the campaign contributions of other people” — suggesting that I’m misappropriating funds for personal use — THAT captures my attention.I notice that you didn’t repeat that affirmative charge in your latest statement about me.  (You did say “you’ve taken thousands of dollars from unsuspecting progressives who were hoping that their hard earned money would be used for tangle good”  — which is inaccurate, but which you can once again later pass off as merely a mistake made of your own ignorance, and thus argue that it’s not defamatory.)
 
Your not renewing that particular line of attack may suggest that you’ve gotten some good advice that, while you can insult me and lie about me in MOST ways as much as you want without crossing any legal line, you have to back off actually accusing me of actual wrongdoing or else risk legal consequences.  (Or maybe you’re not backing off of that statement at all.)
 
Here’s a formal demand: if you deny that you intended to adopt that factual assertion as your own, or if on reflection you think that it was a mistake to do so, please clarify and retract or distance yourself from that assertion explicitly.  If you choose not to do so, that’s your choice — as well as that of Gustavo and your publisher.  The rest of what you say is just noise; that one statement wasn’t.
 
I will write Gustavo separately to further demand that OC Weekly treat that statement from “OCPunk” as a defamatory statement and take whatever customary action towards it, if any, that it considers appropriate to reduce any damage caused by such a tort.  (I recognize that normally, OC Weekly would not be responsible for a commenter’s statements, and that any action I might take there would depend on the relationship or understanding, if any, between OC Weekly and its agents (including Scott Moxley) and “OCPunk.”
 
As these recent developments have now changed the nature of my legal relationship to both you and your publications, Scott, as it stands I will indeed try to stay out of future conversations with you here until after the election, except to respond by referring people to this and to previously posted comments.

I’m not going to publish what I wrote to Gustavo, which was labeled as “Confidential,” but as the recipient he’s able to release it.

Then nothing … until Saturday, Oct. 27th.

Your Jones Day story

Saturday, October 27, 2012 5:46 PM
Greetings state senate candidate Diamond,
Given your fondness for lies and half-truths as well as your declaration that your goal in communications is to cause misery for anyone who doesn’t agree with you: I want to offer you again a final chance to come clean about your “relationship” with Jones Day.Isn’t it true that Jones Day had a contract with a legal temp agency and that that legal temp agency then paid you a percentage of its related revenue for your temporary, relatively menial work?There is that question and this follow-up one just to make sure we’re on the same page: Jones Day did not seek you out for employment on its own, right?Greg, I know you love to play games because you believe you are brilliant and superior to everyone else, but–seriously–think before you answer….Regards,R. Scott Moxley
Senior Editor for News & Investigations
OC Weekly / Voice Media Group, Inc.New York / Los Angeles / Miami / Dallas / San Francisco / Orange
County / Denver / St. Louis / Seattle / Phoenix / Kansas City /
Minneapolis / Houston

Re: Your Jones Day story

Saturday, October 27, 2012 6:38 PM
It’s as much a pleasure as always to see your name in my inbox this weekend, Scott.  Let me break your inquiry down into a simple list of questions.
 
(1) Yes, Jones Day had (and for all I know still has) a contract with what you might call a “legal temp agency”; I suspect that they use more than one.
 
(2) I received a flat salary for my work.  I don’t know how it related to the company’s revenue, percentage or otherwise.  (I remember that some workers had suspicions, but I don’t recall actually knowing for sure.)
 
(3) Yes, the work was “temporary,” although in my case I was placed on various projects stretching out to about 10-1/2 months, with gaps in between them.  I believe that I worked more than 26 work weeks within that 46-or-so-week period.
 
(4) The first project I was on was relatively menial, compared to what advanced associates were doing, in that it involved the sorts of tasks that a first-year or second-year big-form lawyer might do.  The later projects became less so.  I do not feel comfortable discussing the specifics of these later projects as I consider that covered by confidentiality, but as I recall they involved more than rudimentary legal analysis.
 
(5) For the first placement, I was not sought out by name; I answered a “cattle call.”  For the later placements, my understanding from the agency, which I recall being confirmed by some of the attorneys, is that in some or all cases I was specifically requested based on my previous work.  Frankly, none of it approached being the most complicated legal work that I’ve ever done, so it was nothing I’d want to boast about anyway.
 
I’m betting that any negative comments from Jones Day are either going to be anonymous or general (and possibly spurious), so you be careful too.  If you have any specific comments that you want me to address, you have that opportunity.
 
Greg

Place your bets — what do you think that Moxley would eventually publish about me and Jones Day?

His story came out Sunday, two days before the election.  He let me know about it himself.

Happy Sunday, Greg!

Sunday, November 4, 2012 10:16 AM
“I know how to bring it and make it hurt.”Yeah, right. You are a disgrace.See:http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/11/greg_diamond_state_assembly_la.php

The story was entitled Greg Diamond Wants To Be A California State Senator But He Can’t Stop Obsessing About Another Man’s Marital Relations — and it had nothing to say about any improper claims on my part between me and Jones Day.  What that suggests to me is that his employer’s lawyers probably got involved — but who knows?  His closing argument against me was my trying to find out — not “presenting evidence about” but “trying to find the truth about” through public … public! … records requests — whether a prominent candidate for state legislative office had physically attacked his wife.

I think that this was probably an unwise decision on Moxley’s part.  I was going to lose anyway — that’s why I chose to spend my August and September working rather than pressing the flesh of voters — but maybe this led a few more people to check out Norby’s story — to which I provided a link in comments.

Many of the commenters to the article — or a few people posing as many commenters — foretold doom and humiliation for me in the SD-29 race and a loss for Sharon Quirk-Silva in her race because of my existence — neither of which happened.

Back to Moxley.  I wrote a message in response to him (an abortive version of which went out about an hour earlier):

Re: Happy Sunday, Greg!

Sunday, November 4, 2012 2:00 PM
Scott,
 
I demand that you, or the OC Weekly, or its corporate owners, retract the knowingly false and otherwise defamatory misstatements of fact in the article that you published about me today.  You are entitled to your absurd opinions about me; you are not entitled to lie about me or my actions.
 
Of those lies, the most important at the moment (with the election approaching) is your statement that “Diamond then incredibly declared in his blog that Norby–who was never charged with any crime–had ‘forcibly . . . kneed his newly pregnant wife in the stomach.'”
 
No, I didn’t.  As you note, I don’t know that that happened; I only heard it from sources whom I consider to be credible and whom had spoken to people in a position to know.  I found it highly disturbing, though — I hope that I don’t have to explain why — and not a “private” matter at all.
 
What did I do?  I was informed of three leads towards evidence: (1) the presence of the deliveryman who had called the police after witnessing some interaction between the Norbys, (2) the alleged presence of photos showing bruising of Martha Norby’s abdomen, that had allegedly been taken when the went into the police station to file a report in her husband’s absence the following day, and (3) that the FPD, directed by then-Chief Sellers, had agreed to hush up the report, although one allusion to the photos made it into a report by Andrew Goodrich.
 
Did I publish the rumors then?  No.  I turned in a public records report — at a time that it seemed to me anyone who had knowledge of or access to the file or photos might be willing to provide it.  That request was denied — and I dropped it.  It would have stayed dropped — but the Norby-promoting FFFF blog supposedly did a public records request that found my public records request — yeah, that’s what “Mr. Peabody” on that blog said — and publicized it, claiming that I was just fishing for dirt on Norby.  I wanted to explain myself at the time, but then decided not to do it.
 
Then months later, you decided to publish the story about how I was fishing into another man’s marriage — as if the right to beat one’s wife is a matter that should not be of broader public concern.  At that point, I decided that I had to publish the story.  In that story, I did not seek to address what Norby did, but what I had been credibly informedthat Norby had done, simply to explain why I had — not publicly accused him of anything — but simply turned in a public records request.
 
Your statement that I accused him of doing this thing, rather than that I had explained that my having been told that he had done this thing led me to take a step that an investigative journalist might reasonably take and try to find out, is false and defamatory.  You should retract it immediately.
 
Your behavior is similar to that of Norby himself, which I describe in a story here — http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2012/11/dedicated-husband-chris-norby-puts-out-the-most-shameful-mailer-of-the-year/ — in which he falsely accused the Quirk-Silva campaign of attacking him and his family, without explaining what they had supposedly done, when they had in fact issued no such attack on him.  Apparently he thinks that being accused of domestic violence helps him. With journalists like you around, Scott, who are either credulous or bought, maybe he’s right about that.
 
I’ll mention one other thing that you should retract:  you state that I presented a “disingenuously embellished tale about being hired by acclaimed law firm Jones Day.”  That is false, and you either do or should know that it’s false.  Notably, when you quote me, you don’t present your quotes in context.  It’s a bad journalistic practice — but I guess that’s appropriate, as you’ve become a bad journalist.
 
Greg Diamond

By the way: the statement in the last paragraph about Jones Day does not occur in the story as now online.  Maybe it exists elsewhere.

That’s it through Election Day.

Moxley, Gustavo, Vern and I mixed it up about some in the few days after the election about something that one of my young associates from Occupy did without my knowledge or encouragement, but I wrote to Gustavo in confidence about that so I won’t publish it unless he waives it.

I’ve criticized Moxley’s writing since the election as well, most recently in taking apart line by line his recent writings about Larry Agran, which seem to be no more grounded in reality than what he’s said about me.  I think that it’s time for people in and around OC to take a good hard look at Moxley’s credibility as an investigative journalist.  Some of the time, he does good work — though it looks to me like he does it as part of political hatchet jobs.  (Agran, Troy Edgar) that may match his political predilections.  I don’t know.  All I can say that, judging from my experience of the difference between what he reports and what I know to be true, and the temperament he shows in attempted bullying of sources (I’m not even going into all of the OC Weekly comments), I feel that I can’t trust a single thing he says without independently verifying it.  If he were standing in front of me and told me that I had two working eyes, I’d want to wink both of them separately just to be sure.

I think that that poses a problem for political discussion in Orange County — online and beyond.  Sorry for going on at length — I told you not to try to read it all at once!


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)