Mid-Week Musings

It’s been a crazy busy week and here’s a short summary of things hitting my in-box:

• Two OC Register reporter notes — the first is long time political reporter Martin Wisckol  has announced his retirement.  Martin is as fair as the day is long and was amazing at doing the deep dives into researching claims politicos in OC would make.  There was a city council candidate in Laguna Beach who insisted he had a law degree from UCLA; Martin ripped the fake diploma apart because the signatures on the document did not reflect the people at UCLA at the time. It was brilliant work.
• The second OC Register reporter making news was Marla Jo Fisher, also known as Frumpy Middle-aged Mom. Marla’s photo was used by a fake Instagram account known as Katie Porter for US Senate and Marla was identified as “Sandra Costa” from Rosamond.  Marla’s social media post about this outed the fake page and raised questions about a possible run for Senate by Porter.
• Irvine Council member Larry Agran announced he is running for re-election to a full four year term, ending speculation he was considering challenging Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan.  Agran was endorsed by Democrats of Greater Irvine who also endorsed Dr. Kathleen Treseder.  Khan did not receive the club’s endorsement but was endorsed by the Democratic Party of Orange County.  Former DGI board member Scott Hanson also announced a run for city council and has the endorsement of Khan and council member Tammy Kim but not the endorsement of DGI.  Kim ought to endorse Agran because who else will she and Council member Mike Carroll steal ideas from? (City Health Agency, Botanical Garden, Great Park CFD..all things Agran issued a memo for and asked for a second only to have Kim/Carroll steal the idea).
• Judge David O. Carter, who presided over the lawsuit this blog won against the Orange Juice Blog in 2011, issued an opinion where he believes evidence shows former President Donald Trump may have committed felonies.
• Former Santa Ana councilmember Sal Tinajero has launched a campaign for Mayor; in attendance at his event last week was current Mayor Vince Sarmiento who also won the DPOC endorsement for Board of Supervisor’s district 2.  Also attending was Sean H. Mill, a former Democratic Santa Ana Planning Commissioner, who resigned in July 2016 when an investigation into his residence proved he was residing in Riverside, where Mill is now a Trumper Republican. Mill was appointed by Tinajero.  When Mill ran for city council in Riverside, he claimed to serve on the Riverside Airport Commission in 2015 which overlapped with his time on the Planning Commission in Santa Ana. Now that both Tinajero and Sarmiento are facing the voters for new positions, people need to ask “what did you know about this situation and when did you know it?”  Mill can’t keep his stories straight either telling the OC Register one set of lies and the Press Enterprise another.  Mill claims he was cleared of the issue of his residence by the city of Santa Ana and that’s not true either because there was never an investigation.  Tinajero had to have known about Mill’s residency and looked the other way.
• A reader sent a photo of one of Sarmiento’s large lawn signs and noted there was no Union bug on the poster — a faux pas for someone seeking labor support. Meanwhile, Kim Nguyen continues to rack up endorsements in the BoS race.
• Lastly, my hometown is in Central New York and one of the city’s claims to fame is that its the hometown of Francis Bellamy, the author of the Pledge of Allegiance.  Bellamy was an avowed socialist and the original pledge had no reference to God or the United States.  A fascinating article in the New York Times reveals that another person — Frank Bellamy  — may be the true author of the Pledge.  Read about it here:  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/us/pledge-of-allegiance-francis-bellamy.html