Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The FBI has finally caught up with and arrested two suspects in a Planned Parenthood clinic firebombing that happened in March of last year.

Two California men, one of them a Marine, were arrested Wednesday and accused of firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Costa Mesa last year, federal authorities said.

Tibet Ergul, 21, of Irvine, and Chance Brannon, 23, of San Juan Capistrano, an active-duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, are charged with using an explosive or fire to damage real property affecting interstate commerce, the U.S. attorney’s office for Central California said in a statement.

A criminal complaint alleges they ignited and threw a Molotov cocktail at the clinic’s entrance early March 13, 2022.

Damage was estimated at $1,050, and appointments for about 30 patients had to be rescheduled, the complaint says.

"My office takes very seriously this brazen attack that targeted a facility that provides critical health care services to thousands of people in Orange County," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in the statement. "While it is fortunate that no one was physically harmed and responders were able to prevent the clinic from being destroyed, the defendants’ violent actions are entirely unacceptable.”

Security videos show two people wearing hooded sweatshirts and masks approach the Planned Parenthood around 1 a.m. and throw a flaming device at the front door, federal prosecutors said.

Investigators found burn marks on the entrance door and the adjacent wall, according to the complaint. Prosecutors said an analysis showed that a glass container and other materials collected from the scene contained gasoline.

The FBI in January released a poster announcing a reward of up to $25,000 leading to the identifications, arrests and convictions of the suspects, according to the complaint.

And once again, we have domestic terrorism suspected from someone with a military or law enforcement background, as we have seen so often in the past several years. An entire machine churning out a generation of radical right-wing cultists ready to commit horrific acts in the name of "making the country great again" should surprise no one at this point. I've been documenting this movement for years now.

It will continue until the head of the snake is dealt with. Luckily, we saw the effort to do just that take a huge step forward in the last week.

The New Village Chief

With the firing of Tucker Carlson from FOX News and CEO Chris Licht from CNN, it seems the Villagers have elected a new chief.

 

Fox News's years-long streak of weekly rating dominance has reportedly ended, with new data showing it ceding the top spot to its rival network, MSNBC.

Nielsen data regarding the week ending this past Sunday was shared on Twitter on Tuesday by A.J. Katz, a reporter specializing in the cable news business. According to the data, Fox's primetime 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET viewership averaged 1,504,429. The average viewership for the more left-leaning MSNBC over the same time frame averaged 1,520,857, narrowly beating out the conservative network that has long been a leader in cable news viewership.

As Katz noted in a tweet, the data from last week marks the end of a lengthy streak of rating dominance for Fox News.

"Barring a last-second data reporting change, Fox's 120-week-long winning streak in primetime appears to be over," Katz wrote.

This development comes as Fox News continues to bleed viewership after the abrupt firing of host Tucker Carlson, one of its biggest ratings draws, in late April. The network has yet to name a permanent replacement for its 8 p.m. ET primetime slot, opting in the meantime for a rotating cast of guest hosts for the hour. The timeslot has, according to Media Matters, seen viewership drop by half since Carlson departed, with viewership declining across its entire lineup as a whole.

 

You'd think MSNBC would be ready to meet this moment. So far, they are, and even CNN has learned a thing or two. 

As the Trump circus continued into Tuesday evening, so too did anchors’ decisive monitoring of their broadcasts. Neither CNN nor MSNBC carried Trump’s speech live from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he was holding the first fundraiser for his 2024 campaign. MSNBC anticipated that the address would be “essentially a Trump campaign speech,” just as his speech was following his first arraignment in April, Rachel Maddow explained to viewers as Trump began his public remarks. “Because of that, we do not intend to carry these remarks live. As we have said before in these circumstances, there is a cost to us as a news organization to knowingly broadcast untrue things,” said Maddow. “We are here to bring you the news. It hurts our ability to do that if we live broadcast what we fully expect in advance to be a litany of lies and false accusations—no matter who says them.” She added that “this is not a glib decision” and that MSNBC would “monitor the speech…if he says anything newsworthy, we promise we will turn that right around and bring it back to you.” On CNN, Anderson Cooper made a similar point, noting that CNN would monitor the rally for news and share anything noteworthy with viewers. Tapper said that they would not be carrying Trump’s remarks live “because frankly he says a lot of things that are not true and sometimes potentially dangerous.”

CNN’s Oliver Darcy, in his Reliable Sources newsletter, noted that the move “notably represented a departure from how the network handled Trump's post-New York arraignment speech. In that case, under former boss Chris Licht, CNN aired most of Trump's remarks.” I’m told that Licht, who left the network earlier this month following a disastrous Trump town hall and brutal Atlantic profile, saw Trump’s reaction as a key part of the story to cover and had communicated as much to staff. On Tuesday, though, anchors appeared newly empowered to do otherwise.

Meanwhile, Fox News and Newsmax carried Trump’s speech live. A chyron on Fox claimed, “TRUMP’S REMARKS IGNORED BY OTHER NETWORKS,” and, before Trump began speaking, Fox News Tonight host Brian Kilmeade referred to Trump as the “president of the United States.” Later, airing footage of President Joe Biden speaking at the White House side-by-side Trump speaking at Bedminster, a Fox News chyron read: “WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED.” Asked for comment, a Fox News spokesperson told Vanity Fair, “The chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.”

 

MSNBC and even CNN are learning.

 

FOX News...is not.

 

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Republicans know Trump is screwed even with Judge Aileen Cannon running interference, and this is before Jack Smith's January 6th case and Fani Willis's Georgia election fraud RICO case land like daisy cutters.

 

It’s long been Republican orthodoxy that no matter what Donald Trump does, the GOP base will stick with him. After his last indictment in New York, the party rallied around him.

But this time, privately, Republicans aren’t so sure.

An operative in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ orbit, who requested anonymity to speak candidly without approval from higher-ups, said that “from an objective standpoint,” the federal charges Trump faces for his post-presidency handling of classified documents are far more serious than the earlier ones around hush money payments before the 2016 election.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in Georgia,” this person said, referring to the investigation into possible election interference by Trump and his allies. “But the man is going to prison. It’s happening. So at this point, where we are is ‘Who’s going to be the nominee?’ … Donald Trump broke the law, and frankly, I’m not a never-Trumper. I’m really not. But this is too much."

“This is something that if you were to get George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and sit them down and explain to them what’s happening … they would disagree with what Donald Trump was doing and would agree that he should be prosecuted,” the person added.

That sort of comment is further than where many of Trump’s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination will go publicly. Still, even out in the open, there are indications that they believe this federal indictment is far more serious than the last one. Many of the candidates are criticizing the Justice Department while avoiding giving Trump a bear hug of support.

Still, just what the GOP does about it remains up in the air. Interviews with more than a dozen Republicans associated with the presidential campaigns, allies, donors and aides revealed no cohesive strategy for how to handle a GOP presidential front-runner who is staring down a historic federal indictment.

“Every campaign right now that is not Donald Trump is receiving pressure from donors to go harder against Donald Trump,” an aide to a rival presidential campaign said, adding: “The pressure is there. Is that where the larger Republican [electorate is] as a whole? Look at the comments from these various campaigns. You would see that none of them are taking that advice.”

 

With the exception of 1% also-rans like Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie, both former federal prosecutors themselves, the GOP field that is running against Trump is also publicly committed to pardoning Trump for all of his crimes if they are elected, with Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence both saying they would purge the Justice Department of the people that investigated Trump.

Meanwhile, President Biden is telling Democrats to never mention the Trump indictments, ever.

President Joe Biden and his top aides have taken a vow of silence on the federal indictment of his predecessor, Donald Trump — and have explicitly ordered the national Democratic Party and his reelection campaign to do the same.

That directive was issued in recent days after Trump was hit with federal charges for his handling of classified documents after he left the White House, according to three people familiar with the instructions. But that decision has some Democrats and allies worried that Biden could miss a chance to underscore the seriousness of the national moment as well as deliver a political blow to his top White House rival.

Biden declared at the start of his presidency that he would not discuss Department of Justice investigations, particularly those about the former president, and he remained tightlipped when Trump was arraigned Tuesday in a Florida courthouse.

Some in his inner circle hope the decision will be revisited if next year’s general election looks like it could be a rematch with Trump, even if the legal fight has not been resolved by then. As the president’s advisers chart a court for the campaign to come, they are aware that continued silence about the charges facing Trump would deprive Biden’s reelection effort of a potent political weapon.

The number of criminal cases Trump faces are growing and could soon include charges of election interference and inciting the Jan. 6 riot. Those acts make up much of Biden’s long standing case that Trump poses unique threats to American democracy, and there could eventually be a move to allow surrogates and leading Democrats, even if not the president himself, to squarely address the criminal charges.

But Biden to this point has been explicit: The entities that the White House controls, which includes the reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee, are not to publicly discuss any of the criminal investigations into Trump. Those closest to the president are deeply wary of any perception that Biden is trying to influence the investigations.

 

I understand why President Biden feels like he has to take the high road, but it's not going to stop the accusations of "Biden's corrupt Justice Department" one bit, so I'm not sure what the benefit of not attacking Trump now is. Republicans already think Biden is a monster who will be arrested the moment a new GOP President takes office (along with the Clintons and Obamas). On top of that, Republicans are openly accusing Biden of bribery and calling for his immediate resignation.

Having said that, taking the high road has worked so far. The GOP has nothing on Biden, and things will only get worse for Trump. Biden sticking to his morals and doing the job of POTUS that Trump can't do is the right move for Biden.

Now, as far as the rest of Democrats go, burning down Trump when Biden can't is also the right move.

Last Call For Lost Angels And Found Angles

Los Angeles's City Council is almost as corrupt as Cincinnati's these days. What's the country coming to?

Los Angeles City Councilmember Curren Price was charged with 10 counts of embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest on Tuesday, becoming the latest in a years-long parade of elected city officials to face public corruption allegations from state or federal prosecutors.

Price, a 10-year veteran of the City Council, is accused of having a financial interest in development projects that he voted on, and receiving tens of thousands of dollars in medical benefits from the city for his now wife while he was still married to another woman, according to a news release from the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

He was charged with five counts of grand theft by embezzlement, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest, according to a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office.

The district attorney’s office alleges that Price’s wife, Del Richardson — founder of the consulting company Del Richardson & Associates — received “payments totaling more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before he voted to approve projects.” Price is also accused of failing to list income Richardson received on government financial disclosure forms, according to the release

“We have not seen the charges filed against Councilmember Curren Price. It’s highly unusual for charges like this to be brought up against a sitting City Council member without any prior notice or discussion,” Price spokesperson Angelina Valencia said Tuesday afternoon. “Curren Price is a long-standing public servant who has given his life to the city of Los Angeles. He looks forward to defending himself once he’s had an opportunity to address these charges.”

Price’s attorney, Dave Willingham, declined to comment, saying he had not seen the complaint. Price left the City Council chamber shortly after Tuesday’s meeting ended around 2 p.m.

The charges are the latest in a series of criminal allegations and scandals that have rocked City Hall. Last year, the leak of a conversation among City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo and L.A. County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera containing racist remarks ended Martinez’s council career and drove Herrera from his post.

Earlier this year, Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was found guilty of conspiracy, bribery and fraud for extracting benefits for his son from USC while voting on issues that benefited the school.

Councilmembers Mitch Englander and Jose Huizar also pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in recent years following an FBI probe.

Price was one of several City Hall figures mentioned in the FBI probe that ensnared Huizar and Englander after he was named in a federal search warrant filed in November 2018. Federal prosecutors never brought charges against him.

A date has not been set for Price’s arraignment, and he is not going to be arrested, according to the district attorney’s office spokesperson. No information about the charges against him was available on the L.A. County Superior Court’s website as of Tuesday afternoon.

 

Seems pretty open and shut to me, and L.A.'s leadership has been a garbage fire now for several years, just like Cincinnati under Mayor Cranley. Here in Cincy though, the difference is Mayor Pureval and multiple new City Council members are in place.

We'll see if the City of Angels gets the hint.

BREAKING: Trump Under Arrest

 

Well that's a shame. I wonder what's on Netflix.