Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Editorials: Where I rant to the wall about politics. And sometimes the wall rants back.

California 2013

Jerry Stratton, July 31, 2013

January 27, 2014: Bob Filner’s party

I’m tacking this onto the end of California 2013 because I don’t feel like making a California 2014. We’re out of here—for the most part already gone. (I’ll have more to write about that later.) Also, this is a footnote to the 2013 Filner scandal.

We had a visit from the David Alvarez campaign yesterday. Alvarez is the Democrat’s successor for Bob Filner in our special election for mayor. And when I say “we” had a visit, they really just wanted to talk to my girlfriend. She’s registered to receive Democrat ballots here, so they’re assuming she’s a guaranteed voter. The purpose of the visit was to make sure she votes in the February 11 special election.

“We’re not Californians any more. We’ve moved to Texas and won’t even be in California on February 11.”

“Can’t you mail it in?”

Stay classy, San Diego Democratic Party.

In fact, she wouldn’t likely even be a guaranteed Democrat vote—during the last mayoral election she was very supportive of DeMaio. And during the Filner scandal she was very angry at how the Democrats covered for him before the scandal broke and while it was breaking. “Why do they think I’d vote for them after what they did the last time?”

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August 25, 2013: Bob Filner media post-mortem
Where in the LA Times is Lori Saldaña?: Lori Saldaña is pretty hard to find in Los Angeles Times articles about Bob Filner.; media bias; Bob Filner; Los Angeles Times

No mention at all of Lori Saldana’s claim on the Los Angeles Times.

Looks like Filner is out. Like the New York Times having to break it to their readers that Donald Manes committed suicide, the press is now having to explain why the mayor of San Diego is resigning when it just wasn’t a big deal until now. And they’re still having a hard time remembering he’s a Democrat. These are the sites I visited from Google News and Memeorandum immediately after the news hit:

  • LA Times: mentioned in second-to-last paragraph.
  • CNN: not mentioned.
  • USA Today: mentioned twice, first in the third paragraph.
  • Time Swampland: mentioned once in third paragraph—listing this twenty-five-year politician as a “first-term Democrat”.
  • UT San Diego: not mentioned.
  • Huffington Post, sourced from AP: not mentioned
  • NBC San Diego: not mentioned.
  • Politico: not mentioned (a search on Democrat indicates it exists 33 times on the page, but none of them are visible)

What’s interesting is how bad it had to be to fall apart for Filner. It was as if a dam broke, and he was just walking around as the water rose around him. And the media just kept pretending there was no water, and even if there was water, that wasn’t a politician drowning in it, and even if it was a politician, it wasn’t a Democrat, and even if it was a Democrat, the water must have been partisan for rising. Even after all their covering for him, Filner had the gall to complain about a “media lynch mob”.

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August 7, 2013: Gosh, Mr. Filner. Are you a corrupt sleazebag? Why no, Mr. Chairman! Not enough for charges anyway!

It’s getting crazier and crazier. The Democratic Party here knew about the accusations against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner before he even ran. They covered it up. Their investigation consisted of… asking him about it.

You have to look in the updates of the article for this news.

He assured me there was nothing to be concerned about,” [Jess Durfee, party Chairman] told the U-T. Filner also assured Durfee that no one had filed a sexual harassment complaint against him and that he had many female staffers.

No, says Filner, no one’s filed a complaint, so I’m good. Also, I have a lot of female staffers, so I can spread it around a bit.

Note that they’re still hedging: he says the allegations never rose above rumor, and no one came forward. But the deputy mayor of Escondido did—and to Jess Durfee.

The Democrats and the press are covering up a Democrat’s one-man war on women.

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August 5, 2013: Why isn’t Bob Filner resigning?

It takes a level of arrogance to be a career politician that makes a person unfit to be a politician. The media, with its habit of pretending that Democratic scandals are local news and Republican scandals are national news, only feeds that arrogance to the point where we get someone like San Diego Mayor Bob Filner who thinks he can get away with crimes that would make a sailor blush with shame1. Filner is even claiming that the city is responsible for his behavior, because they didn’t make him take sexual harassment training.

It is blatant arrogance, an assumption that he has nothing to worry about. But the chances aren’t bad that he really can get away with it, and worse. Moves that ought to have the media howling collusion but instead are ignored as local news:

  • Congresswoman Lori Saldana reported his behavior to the California Democratic Party; they threatened to cut her funds if she didn’t support Filner. Reporters in DC and in San Diego saw his behavior, but never investigated.
  • One of Filner’s supporters filed first to recall Filner—which apparently in San Diego means that he’s the person who signatures go through. He isn’t going to attempt to collect signatures, so there probably won’t be many anyway.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times is trying to pass off Filner as a Republican and nobody in the media is pushing the recall scandal or the Saldana accusations. Democratic operatives conspired to suppress a recall effort, and it’s not news. Democrats themselves threatened a female congresswoman to shut her mouth, and that’s not news either.

As I write this, there have been eleven accusers, some of them from his time in DC, where it should have been national news. It is almost impossible in a city like DC for reporters not to have known about behavior this blatant—they simply chose not to report on it.

This is a concerted effort by the California Democratic Party, local Democratic activists and funders, and national Democrats, to cover up for a serial sexual harasser; but it’s worse that the media is backing their effort. The Democratic Party has created a culture of harassment, an actual war on women, and the media is no longer interested.

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  1. <- Michelle Shocked and political boycotts
  2. Post child sex ->