I didn’t think that Todd Spitzer would like be as good of a DA as his campaigning suggested he would be in 2018, and I’d like to believe that he wouldn’t be as bad of a DA in his second term as his current behavior suggests, but it is getting harder to think otherwise. My best guess as to why Spitzer seems to be going bullfrog loony is that his internal polls must show him either in a tight race — or actually behind and he’s desperate and freaking out.
And look: Spitzer has both my phone number and Vern’s. If he wants to present his data showing that he’s somewhat, or comfortably, or even wildly ahead, he can produce it. But there’s something else I’d like him to produce first.
I challenge Todd Spitzer to produce any evidence that Pete Hardin sent (Spitzer says “sicced”) people (whom Spitzer calls “a mob”) to a Spitzer campaign rally (and look at the photo and I don’t think you can call it anything else but that) “to harass, intimidate, and silence” “mothers of murdered children.”
I’d also like him to explain whether he thinks that protesters at a candidate’s political rally, simply by dint of there being there and making noises of protest, are “harassing, intimidating, and silencing” participants in the rally. Presuming that he doesn’t think that their mere presence meets this standard — and let’s bear in mind that Spitzer is allowing people to threaten various school boards with violence with impunity for trying to impose public health measures at schools, or at least at meetings — then what does he think that this crowd did that constituted harassment? What constituted intimidation? What constituted silencing them?
I don’t even dispute that “harassment” and “intimidation” is possible — again, we’re seeing it at school board meetings, we’ve seen it in anti-mask/vaccine rallies in Huntington Beach. And “silencing” is certainly possible, as in the case of a “heckler’s veto” where jeering and chanting crowds drown out a speaker. (Did that happen here?)
It seems to me that Spitzer is saying that the presence of protesters — not of the mothers of dead children, but of Spitzer himself, who is apparently “hiding behind their skirts” — at a political rally where, at Spitzer’s request, these mothers are telling their stories in order to help Spitzer get re-elected, is not only disrespectful towards them, but actually puts them in a position of being assaulted (harassing and intimidating) and denied their rights of free speech.
If that’s what Spitzer thinks, he should have the courage of his convictions and bring charges against the protesters at his campaign rally for their actions the mothers of murdered children! But he won’t do that, because he knows that the whole charge is arrant bullshit. These mothers have made themselves available to him as campaign advocates! If he thinks that they couldn’t stand the foreseeable heat of protests (of Spitzer, not of them) at the rally, then he should not invite them to the rally! They can speak on video if the experience of facing protesters is too frightening or painful!
What scares me is that — by calling protesters a “mob” that have been “sicced” like dogs to “intimidate” and “harass” — he implicitly argues that people should not be able to protest at his rallies, so long as he has the mothers there as his human shields.
That is, in essence, moving from “#NoLAinOC” to #NoLawfulAssemblyInOC — and we can’t have that.
But that’s only half of the problem.
Spitzer alleges that these people didn’t just show up to protest him, but that they were sent by Pete Hardin with a mission of harassing, intimidation, and silencing of the mothers of murdered children.
I don’t want to start by asking whether he has a shred of evidence for this. I want to ask whether the level of evidence he has for this is the equivalent to the level of evidence that his agency uses in criminal complaints.
If not, why not? If so — well, that’s the sort of admission that defense lawyers would love to hear.
OK, NOW I want to ask what evidence Spitzer has that Hardin dispatched people to protest this rally at all — and, if so, whether he dispatched them to harass and intimidate the mothers, or simply to protest Spitzer — who, by any measure, is fair game for such criticism — without their even knowing or caring that these mothers would be there.
DA Spitzer should keep in mind that OC has voted against Trump twice now — and that he’s not doing himself any favors by evoking the former President with wild accusations and fake claims of persecution. All he’s doing is increasing Democratic turnout in the primary.
The weird thing is that Spitzer doesn’t have to do this. He could simply and calmly run on his record of managing the DA’s Office. He has a viable case to make for re-election, especially if any of his more serious accusations of Hardin’s serious wrongdoing pan out.
I presume that Spitzer is rattled by the allegations in Voice of OC and coverage in the OC Register about harassment within the department by his wife’s good friend and his own Senior District Attorney Gary LoGalbo, as well as the recent reinstatement of former supervising investigator (and Spitzer accuser Damon Tucker; if so, it’s not surprising that he is doing his best to change the subject. But for the love of (the other) Pete, he doesn’t have to do so in ways that undermine the right to freedom of assembly, and he doesn’t have to make accusations that he can’t back up!
Spitzer may well have a useful campaign tactic in attacking “woke” prosecutors like LA’s George Gascon, though I’m going to keep on asking what part of “woke” he finds so offensive. (We’ll go over “wokeness,” starting from Miranda rights and the right to counsel and moving on from there, in some future post.) If Spitzer is against any police accountability, for example, he can go proudly campaign on it! But this sort of accusation against Hardin for supposed engineering an assault on a Spitzer campaign rally — something that Spitzer is more than capable of eliciting himself — is just going to make him look unhinged, and that’s the real danger for his campaign. To quote another famous Orange County politician, going off like that is “handing his critics a sword.” He — or anyone advising him — should know better.
So, Who Here Attended the Rally?
Meanwhile, I’m betting the some of the people who attended, and maybe even organized (if it was organized, rather than just being a lot of people who had heard about the rally and independently decided to protest it) the rally to speak up here. (Please, it’s much more effective if you use your own real names,) Did you get any orders or requests from Pete Hardin? If so, what were they? Were you supposed to make the mothers of the murdered feel awful and fear for their safety? Is that what you think happened at the rally? We could use your testimony here! Leave it in comments or send it to Vern at his Gmail address, vernpnelson, if you prefer.
I was thinking the same thing, “Hiding behind their skirts.” And “he’s freaking out now?” Todd has been freaking out about this election for six months now, probably since he learned about Pete Hardin.
Sometimes people reveal too much about themselves when they “protest too much.” One of the funniest parts of his presentation to the Anaheim Republican Assembly a few months ago was when he said, “SOME politicians define themselves by their office, and they cling to that office desperately as if their life depended on it. I’M NOT LIKE THAT” Everybody silently smiled, “Yes you are.”
The ARA chairman at the time, George Grachen, asked Todd to try to not make his appearance a “campaign speech” but to educate the Assembly about various new laws. Todd agreed, a promise he kept to for the first five minutes before he defaulted to “Woke, Woke, Woke, Gascon, Gascon, Gascon, LA, LA, LA, Hardin, Hardin, Hardin!” Donna and I and others were laughing.
I assume Greg’s story refers the Wednesday rally. I wanted to go to that but had a conflict. I know people who went though. For example the Justice for Hector Hernandez folks went, including my friend Bill Brown, whom I’ll ask to comment here. We purposely didn’t publicize this because we wanted it to be a surprise.
AND PETE HARDIN HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PROTESTERS. This county is full of concerned citizens who want to see Todd defeated (including former supporters of his), and they are capable of organizing themselves quite well, thank you.
There’s another rally this Sunday in Orange… flyers below:
NOTE: There’s a mistake in the above flyer (an old one) – Stewart & Main are in ORANGE, not Santa Ana. It’s an intersection near the Children’s Hospital.
I can confirm that the Soros-funded clown of a #gasconclone DID in fact meticulously orchestrate this. And yes I have the screenshots to prove it. And no, I won’t email them to Vern, but to the article’s author, Greg Diamond. Izak had disseminated an email to close, trusted supporters including Luis M Huang, who then forwarded same to me. It contains exquisitely explicit instructions, right down to what to say to local media, if asked. Oh and the “home-made signs”, were from Team Hardin. I used to be a supporter of Pete.
* Todd Spitzer’s right about him & vice versa.
#nowokeDAinOC
#toddspitzerforprison2022
Poor Todd has spent HALF HIS LIFE freaking out about something or other. Mostly how to get his mandibular self in front of a TV camera.
He also has also made lots of enemies, especially in the Tony Racetrack/Michael Schroeder/Susan Kang neighborhood. I even expect (well, fervently hope, anyhow) that Bible Boy will pop up someday to remind us of how the gun-totin’ Supervisor got scared over a loving glance and a table knife at Wahoos.
One weird thing about the Wahoo’s Bible Boy story, apart from Todd’s paranoia and overreaction: If Todd really thought Bible Boy was on the verge of grabbing that knife and going berserk, why did he take his time going out to the car for his gun and handcuffs rather than take the knife himself or prepare to subdue the guy if necessary? Didn’t he consider (if he really believed Bible Boy could actually be Berserk Knifey Boy) that he could be walking back into a bloodbath?
It’s enough to make you think the whole thing was a stunt, which would go over well with the scaredy-cat voting public.
I don’t think it was a stunt. I think it was Spitzer’s ever-present paranoia and narcissistic need to be seen as a hero dysfunction hard at work. I think he wound himself up to a point where he couldn’t think straight (I’m certain this happens all the time to him) and it was off to the races.
Todd’s full crazy-eyed caption is now: “Pete Hardin stooped to a new low when he sicced a mob on mothers of murdered children to harass, intimidate, and silence them as they shared their stories. Disgusting tactics, although unsurprising considering his entire woke platform is about emboldening criminals and silencing victims. But Pete miscalculated – these mothers are as tough as they come, and we will never cave to the woke mob. #NoLAinOC “
That may have been the entire original caption; I just a screenshot from Fox News and cropped it.
If it weren’t for the right-wing violence we have going on these days, the portion I quoted would be bad enough. But in the present context, talking about mothers — there because they’re his political supporters (although not all crime victims in OC are) — never cav[ing] to the woke mob” is putrid.
He’s killing himself by adopting the message of the Proud Boys and 3%ers. How big does he think that that faction of the county electorate is, anyway? I suspect it won’t be long before Republican candidates start backing away from him. What a massive, stupid, horrible miscalculation.
Todd complaining about people showing up at his rally is hilarious. Spitzer himself showed up at Hardin’s kickoff and positioned himself front row center for Hardin’s press conference, which included crime victims Todd failed, and victim’s of his office’s harassment.
Yes, but Hardin didn’t have the great tactical sense to hide behind the skirts of human shields, so that he could claim that all of the chanting was aimed at them rather than at him.
I was ready to see a wide variety of things from Spitzer in response to Hardin — but I really didn’t expect tactical incompetence.
Total lies.
A group of us including some of us that are crime victims ourselves went out to let Spitzer know enough is enough when it comes to lying to the OC community in front of the cameras. I myself wanted to personally confront him about the false and 14 month fabricated 16 page legal review of the execution style murder of Hector Hernandez in Fullerton by officer Jonathan Ferrell. I had emailed him for months and months and was told by his own investigators that he was reading my emails but never responded to me.
I was a critical witness to the crime and he didn’t want anything to do with me because he knew he was working on his own false version to exonerate the murdering law breaking officer.
Also when we made any comments it was between the victim speakers rotating their turns to the podium out of respect to them. When Todd was at the podium we spoke out objectively in disagreement of his false information and lies.
To be factual, it was his crowd and a few of his campaign members standing to his right that tried to aggressively bully us back by physically touching us and trying to verbally bully us to lower our signs. One of his campaign members (a young male) repeatedly used his shoulder to push against a women’s right arm in front of me so she would lower that arm from holding up a sign. I had to intervene to help her because two women started verbally attacking her because she told Spitzer’s team member to please stop touching her. Spitzers team members and the women on his right side were super hostile, physically and verbally.
Thanks for your witness statement. Sad but not surprising. Did anyone get video (or at least a photo) of the guy pushing down the woman’s arm?
Did she loudly say “STOP TOUCHING ME!” or anything like that? People should be told to do so if (and only if) something like that happens.