Weekend Open Thread: Gold Coast Pup Honest About Lying About Politics

By
Greg Diamond
– March 2, 2019Posted in: "The OC", Fresh Juice

.

.

.

This illustration would have been easier if we had had a profile shot of Wohl, but this works too.

Read this story about a young man from Costa Mesa who prides himself on spurting out fake news.  His name is Jacob Wohl, he’s 21, and he’s proud about tweeting straight up lies about matters including the Mueller investigation, and getting all sorts of people to believe things that aren’t true.

COSTA MESA, Calif. – A false claim bubbled up from the internet last month that Sen. Kamala Harris, the recently announced presidential candidate, wasn’t eligible for election because she had immigrant parents and spent part of her childhood in Canada. The claim, an echo of the “birther” conspiracy that trailed President Barack Obama, was widely debunked but still addressed seriously by mainstream news pundits, including CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Even better for Jacob Wohl, the 21-year-old Californian who ignited the Harris birther claim with a tweet, some people actually seemed to accept it as fact.

“The believability stuck at about 15 to 18 percent by my measurement,” Wohl said in an interview shortly afterward, declaring it “not a bad campaign.”

Wohl, a self-professed “political and corporate intel consultant” and supporter of President Donald Trump, is dedicated to plying the malleable fringe of the electorate with dubious claims and disinformation schemes.

Orange County has a grand tradition of this sort of thing, part of a larger category called (and I didn’t make up this term) “rat-fucking.”

What do you say, folks?  Should Orange County try to do something to implant some respect for the truth into Jacob Wohl?  Read the whole story, then come back with your suggestions.  Only legally permissible actions will survive our editorial filter — but a hell of a lot of responses to this are legal.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: I call on all Republican politicians in OC to publicly reject and denounce this sprout’s practices.  (I’d call on the Democratic Party to denounce him — or even figure out whether it has standing to sue this fly speck for defamation over tweets that meet the standard for libel even of public figures, but that would require effort.)

We may not have to gin up a lawsuit, though.  Sooner of later it will occur to Wohl to intentionally defame the winners of the four tight Congressional races in his country — and between Cisneros, Porter, Rouda, and Levin I’ll bet that they could raise enough cash to crush him into a fine paste.

This is your Weekend Open Thread.  Do your thing.

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.)