The Racist LA Times Strikes Again: "Should Black People Get to Own Guns?"

Black guns matter -- all guns matter
because All Lives Matter

The LA Times is a racist newspaper.

They denigrated a black man, calling him the blackface of white supremacy. You can also see their hate against him here, and the LA Times promotes racist professor Melina Abdullah, who called Elder as much and more.

They have reporters on their staff who support open anti-Semites who think "The Jews should get the hell out of Palestine."

They recently published a massive editorial plus a letter from the owner of the newspaper, in which they acknowledge that the LA Times is racist.

And now, they publish an article questioning whether black people should be able to own guns:

Wow. The entire political philosophy of the American left hinges on their opponents being racists. If, as is the case, that’s not true the whole thing falls apart. https://t.co/cRtS1VDROR

— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) June 27, 2022

This kind of assertion sounds like something that white supremacists would chant at a Klan rally. After all, the Ku Klux Klan was committed to disarming black people (as well as white Republicans, who believed that black people were just as much American citizens as everyone else born in the United States). 

Here's the entire article (reprinted in bold print), written by racist SJW Erika Smith, with my comments:

Racist Erika Smith
(Why do black people hate other black people so much?)

Nathan W. Jones leads the Bay Area chapter of the Black Gun Owners Assn. But until a few years ago, he wasn’t even into guns.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, sending racial justice protesters into the streets. And white supremacists trashed the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The lies are already pouring in. There were people of all backgrounds at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Wow, the racism just oozes out of this report already.

Suddenly, it seemed as if America was on the brink. And with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade on Friday, emboldening a militant array of white Christian nationalists, we clearly still are.

"White Christian nationalists ..." really?

“I had visions of mobs dragging people through the streets, and something just kind of switched,” Jones told me. “We can’t rely on anybody else to come and save us. It has to be us.”

So, on Thursday, while many were apoplectic over the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the rights of gun owners to carry a loaded weapon in public — throwing gun control laws in California and New York into limbo at a time when shootings are increasing — Jones was thoughtful.

On the one hand, he wants it to be easy for law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves “if and when the time arises.” But on the other hand, he’s a 50-year-old realist who knows that fear and hatred of Black people run deep in the United States, especially when we’re armed.

Has anyone shown him the statistics, in which black people kill other black people in the highest numbers? Does anyone bother to check facts or read data anymore?

“There’s no overt racism when we go to the gun range, but we know how people are looking at us,” Jones said of the dozens of Black members who meet up to go shooting. “We know the things that people think.”

It sounds to me that this person is just obsessed with himself. Most people don't have time to care about other people, they are so busy thinking about themselves and their families. 

California Democrats are scrambling to craft and enact new legislation this week that would somehow salvage the requirement — assuming local law enforcement continues to enforce it — that residents get a permit before carrying a concealed weapon. Current law forces gun owners to show “good cause” for needing such a permit, and that is now unconstitutional.

Forcing citizens to show good cause to obtain a CCW was always unconstitutional. It's strange how this racist writer, Erika D. Smith, doesn't point out that weapons permits (limits) were initially implemented in order to prevent black people from carrying firearms in the first place.

“Our state will continue to lead in the fight to keep our people safe,” Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted on Thursday. Indeed, of all states, we have one of the lowest rates of dying by a bullet.

No, California is not a safe state. The rampant crime rates throughout the larger urban areas, combined with the declining enforcement and incarceration rates around the state, plus the growing proliferation of gan activity, have all but assured that the criminals have the rights, and the victims have to pay for it.

Gun crimes are up, murders are up. California is not a safe state for many residents. The gaslighting from Governor Hairgel is just astonishing. Of course, voters had their chance to recall this fool last year, and they threw it away. Of course Governor Newsom is arrogant.

But the governor and lawmakers could fail in their efforts, and the Supreme Court’s ruling could stand. And then, California could be forced to confront a reality that has long made many self-proclaimed liberals uncomfortable: Black people — potentially a lot of us — legally carrying guns in public.

Why is it that people find allowing black people to carry guns in public so scary? Notice also how ridiculous this question is, in that the NYPRA v. Bruen decision clearly extended to the right keep and bear arms to outside of the home, but that does not necessarily mean that people can carry a firearm openly.

Lest you think I’m being facetious, recall how California got started on its journey to having the toughest gun control laws in the country.

It was in 1967 that members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense staged a protest at the state Capitol. Armed with the handguns and shotguns they normally used to protect Black neighborhoods in Oakland by “policing the police,” they announced that the time had come for “Black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.” And then they went inside.

“We have a constitutional right to bear arms,” they shouted as they wandered the halls of the Capitol.

 Yes, indeed, American citizens do have a right to keep and bear arms. I also share the belief that citizens should be able to carry firearms in government buildings, not just in general public spaces. After all, the government is supposed to be of the people, for the people, by the people, is it not?

Lawmakers were so freaked out that they quickly passed the very bill the Black Panthers had been protesting — the Mulford Act, which banned the open carry of loaded weapons without a permit. Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it posthaste.

Shame on Gov. Reagan. Many conservatives today are moving away from Ronald Reagan as the biggest standard of conservatism now, and this action was one of them. Most people also forget that in 1968, Republicans captured marjorities in both chambers of the California State Legislature, and even then they were passing gun control measures. Sadly, California has a more liberal streak than most California conservatives are willing to recognize. Even the Republicans were pretty bad, and this is going back to when Republicans had a considerable toehold in state government and federal representation.

Over the next few years, the Mulford Act, which the National Rifle Assn. supported, inspired a slew of gun control laws in other states and Congress.

The National Rifle Association had been co-opted by liberal elements at this time. Conservatives would retake the NRA in the late 1970s.

Of course, these days, the NRA is very much against gun control, although its stance on Black people doesn’t seem to have changed very much.

Where's the proof for this? Nowhere, because the writer of this article is racist, simple as that, in part because she sees racism in everyone else, and thus cannot accept that she is a racist herself. 

Still, over the last few years as Americans have stocked up on guns at record rates, it is Black people — especially women — who have been buying them the most. Between 2019 and 2020 alone, there was a 58% spike, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Can you blame them? The pro-criminal, pro-defund the police policies that white and black liberals, leftists, and regressive progressives favor the most are hurting black communities the most! The George Soros district attorneys getting elected in urban areas all over the country are letting criminals commit all sorts of crimes with impunity, only to release them back onto the streets a second time, and they recidivate the most in black areas!

Black people are some of the most outspoken in support of pro-police and public safety measures. They want to be safe in their communities, and racist blacks like Erika Smith.

Emmanuel Choice, who runs a Black gun club in Los Angeles, has watched this trend play out in Southern California. Black people are not only buying guns in big numbers, but also eager to get the training to follow the law and handle them safely.

Good for them. Then they need to start voting Republican so that they can keep those rights. Let's hope they learn the history lesson quickly that Democrats are committed to keeping black people enslaved, down and out, unable to protect themselves.

“This is not a country where you want folks just randomly walking around with firearms,” said Choice, who thinks the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday was shortsighted and reckless. “The one thing I will say about California and their concealed carry requirements is you got to get a lot of education.”

Why shouldn't we allow people to walk around with firearms? That is not an argument. That is paranoia. I visited Arizona twice one year, and I got used to the constitutional carry provision in the state. Yes, people walk around with guns, and guess what? People are safe!

Jones said he also has seen a huge uptick in interest in his Bay Area club over the last six months, often by Black people looking for camaraderie and an alternative to the NRA.

Most who join say they bought a gun for self-defense, Choice and Jones agree. Many reach out after getting — forgive the phrase — triggered by high-profile racist incidents, including last month’s massacre of Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

"Forgive the phrase ..." This is professional journalism now? For the Los Angeles Times, perhaps ...

But even before that, during the height of the racial justice protests in 2020, Black people armed themselves and formed groups for self-defense and community protection in Minneapolis, Atlanta and Detroit, among other cities.

Since when is burning down buildings, destroying black businesses, or anyone's businesses for that matter, an example of racial justice? Would someone please explain?

“Black folks are choosing more frequently and in greater numbers to be prepared,” Choice said. “There’s a concern that I haven’t seen before. And there’s a willingness to, you know, step up.”

But this isn’t 1967.

That meme that has been floating around social media for a few weeks — the one that half-jokingly suggests that Republican politicians could be prompted to support gun control if more Black people were to start packing heat?

Thing is, Black people are already packing more heat, both legally and, unfortunately, illegally. But gun control laws are still getting weaker — the rare exception being the bipartisan bill President Biden just signed.

That bipartisan bill is trash, and everyone who voted for it is trash. Shame on them!

And the other, truly weird thing is that race is now actually being used as an argument in support of loosening gun laws.

It should be used. It was racism that put in place gun control measures in the first place. I wonder how many of these black liberals realize that they are mouthing the same talking points as the racist Democrats of the late 1800s and early 1900s? They are useful idiots for a hateful cause to take away people's rights. Shame on them!

Justice Clarence Thomas, in his opinion for the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. vs. Bruen case, waxed philosophical about how the right to bear arms was crucial for the self-protection of Black people in the South during Reconstruction.

And how in 1868, Congress “reaffirmed that freedmen were entitled to the ‘full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security ... including the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.’”

For some reason, Erika Smith has a problem with a black man on the highest court in the land reaffirming the natural rights of all men, including black men. Why does Erika Smith have a problem with her own community?

Meanwhile, a coalition of progressive organizations, including the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, the Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services, filed an amicus brief in the case, urging the Supreme Court to rule exactly as it did.

Exactly. But again, Erika Smith has a problem with black people owning guns, and therefore she thinks that those black organizations are racist, too, no doubt.

Their argument? That gun control laws in New York, like California, disproportionately harm Black and Latino people who carry guns for self-defense. They complained of clients who have been “stopped, questioned, and frisked,” and deprived of their livelihoods because they “exercised a constitutional right.”

“We represent hundreds of indigent people whom New York criminally charges for exercising their right to keep and bear arms,” they wrote. “For our clients, New York’s licensing requirement renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction.”

::

How all of this will play out remains to be seen.

It will play out with lower crime rates, that's what!

Choice, the leader of the L.A. gun club, is doubtful that more Black people in Los Angeles will start carrying guns in public, even if doing so without a permit becomes common practice in California. It would just attract too much attention.

“I don’t think I’m going to be going to Roscoe’s to sit there with a sidearm,” he said.

Besides, he added, most Black people just want to come home safe every night and so will avoid taking risks that could result in injury or death.

“No. 1 is the police. I don’t want to interact with them ever. And they never give you a break when they pull you over, so you’re always under suspicion,” Choice explained. “So, if you have something under your seat, and you want to argue with them about the new ruling from.... Please! Are you kidding me?”

But to Jones, this is part of the problem.

As a business owner in Oakland, his gun club — like Choice’s club — is full of fellow Black professionals. Doctors, even cops. Law-abiding citizens with wives and husbands and children, and deep ties to their communities.

“Still, we know that all eyes are on us,” Jones said. “And so we also know that we cannot be the group that has an accidental discharge. We cannot be the group that is handling our firearms in an unsafe manner. We have to be more in control and knowing what we’re doing more than anybody else, because all eyes are on us waiting for us to make a mistake.”

Jones sees it as part of the mission of the Black Gun Owners Assn. to challenge preconceived notions many Americans have about who should and should not be able to carry a gun. But he laments that this is the reality, even in liberal California.

Liberal California is run by racist Democrats right now. That is why there is so much suspicion about black people owning guns and protecting themselves.

“It’s, ‘We’re all for equal rights and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ but they are still uneasy when it comes to the idea of Black folks being legally armed,” he said.

Not me. I have no problem with anyone exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

If the Supreme Court’s ruling sticks, Jones believes more Black people could start carrying their weapons in public — particularly if the white supremacists and Christian nationalists in our midst start doing the same.

In our polarized political environment, that’s a dangerous scenario that seems increasingly likely. Just as likely as some Black people wrongly getting shot by police while legally carrying a firearm. When society is armed to the teeth, bad things are bound to happen.

Jones feels he has little choice but to be a gun owner, though.

“What we need to do,” he said, “is redefine the notion of Black people with guns and what that means.”

Final Reflection

Erika Smith is a racist. She does not believe that black people should be able to keep and bear arms. But it gets worse: the LA Times editorial board allowed this trashy article, with its hateful title, to be printed in the first place. What were they thinking? The fact is that the LA Times is a racist newspaper, simple as that.

Media Fail: Black Lives Don't Matter Mob Shuts Down City Council Meeting

It is essential for us to hold the local press as well as our local leaders accountable.

The fact is that the headline provides too much balance, and thus makes no effort to communicate the whole truth.

Check out the headline:

Clash between protesters disrupts Torrance City Council meeting

There was no clash. The people who were opposing Black Lives (Don't) Matter did not stand up and shout, nor did we interrupt or shout down other people who wanted to speak at the podium.

Three people were taken away in handcuffs and the Council Chambers were cleared

WRONG. Four people were arrested. One was cited out, three others went to jail and had to post bail. More info on that coming soon.

Three people were taken away in handcuffs and the Council Chambers were cleared after Black Lives Matters activists and counterprotesters clashed during the Torrance City Council meeting on Tuesday, May 14.

The room erupted into angry exchanges as one of the counterprotesters spoke at the podium during the public-comment period, sparring over how the city has handled the Dec. 9 police shooting of Christopher De’Andre Mitchell.

YES. That was me.

Here's a photo of my trying to speak to the Torrance City Councilmembers:

Mayor Patrick Furey called for a recess while the protesters shouted at one another and police officers swarmed in the front of the auditorium. Face to face with a line of police officers, activists chanted and shouted as city officials left the chambers.

Huh?

As of 9:30 p.m., it was unclear if the meeting would be restarted. With protesters and other audience members waiting outside the chambers watching the proceedings on TV monitors, the council discussed whether they could begin again.

Ultimately, officials allowed members of the media back into the room, but proceeded without allowing the public to return.

It was the city’s first meeting since the City Council removed the topic  of Mitchell’s shooting from the weekly agenda.

This part just goes to show that giving in to bullies just eggs them on to continue shutting down the city council meeting and violate the rights of otehrs.

At every City Council meeting since January, family members and other protesters attended the meetings to demand that police release body-cam footage of the deadly confrontation between Torrance police officers and Mitchell in the parking lot of a Carson Street supermarket.

They have not just demanded, they have bullied and disrupted the meeting at length.

Last month, the video — both edited and unedited versions — were released to the public, showing how Mitchell died.

Mitchell died by suicide by cop. He chose not to follow the lawful orders of two police officers, both of whom had their guns pointed at the thug. He chose to disobey, and therefore he chose to die.

Previously, the agenda item had given the activists a place to speak during each meeting. Without it, they were forced to speak during the 30-minute public comment period in the beginning of the meeting.

This week, the Black Lives Matters protesters were met by at least two counterprotesters, one of whom carried a sign that read “Black Lives Don’t Matter in Chicago/900 Aborted Black Babies Don’t Matter.”

The meeting went south when a counterprotester who identified himself as Arthur Schaper criticized the protesters’ efforts to disrupt the city’s meetings.

Yes, I did, and I am glad that I did so. Someone has to step up and start saying something.

“There’s a grieving mother here,” the activists yelled in response. As Schaper tried to continue, they shouted: “Say his name! Christopher De’Andre Mitchell.”

They did not yell in response. They yelled to silence any and all dissent. So much hate! When does it stop?

Schaper spoke after several Black Lives Matter activists, including Sherlyn Haynes, Mitchell’s mother, took to the podium.

“I’m demanding that I receive the officers’ who murdered my son names,” Haynes said. Activists snapped in support as she called for the officers to be fired.

Honey, it ain't gonna happen. Your son was a ruthless, chop-shopping, car-thieving, gang-banging thug. He didn't want to obey the laws, he didn't want to respect the rights of others. He got the outcome that he deserved!

Haynes and others urged the council to create a police oversight commission to review officer-involved shootings.

We need to commit these self-righteous, hateful bigots into a prison or a mental institution. We cannot continue to allow those nonstop abuses of power and mob rule.

More Winning: Gay Porn Bookstore Closes Down in West Hollywood

Hailey Branson-Potts, the shallow El Segundo Times propagandist with an Anti-Semitic mentor, wrote another glowing article about a trashy dive in West Hollywood. This article was a hagiography of an adult gay bookstore in the Homosexual capital of Southern California.

Is it any surprise that the El Segundo, or rather Los Angeles Times is going bust?

How can anyone look at an adult bookstore and consider it any kind of legacy? A city which awards a porn-star, hard-up slut like Stormy Daniels the Key to the City, the same municipality


These grandparents sold gay porn for decades and almost went to prison. Now, they are calling it quits

For 37 years, the couple — now septuagenarian grandparents — have run Circus of Books, a West Hollywood bookstore that sold gay and straight nudie magazines, hardcore pornographic films and sex toys, as well as international newspapers and classic literary titles.

“I always assumed that we would end up doing something else,” Karen said. “We don’t know anything, really.”

The Santa Monica Boulevard store gained legendary status in Southern California’s LGBTQ community as a place where people could peruse gay erotica or meet other gay people, hanging out in a place free from homophobia.

This is the best that the LA Times can come up with.

Hailey Branson is a narrowminded bigot, she has no real skills as a journalist, and her mentor was a notorious anti-Semite who said "The Jews should get the hell out of Palestine."

Is this really journalism?

And now she takes time to write about a gay bookstore which featured salacious, disturbing material.

I hope that the good doctor from South Africa is not paying this trash reporter.

Over the years, Circus of Books has survived an FBI raid, federal obscenity charges and complaints from law enforcement who said the store attracted prostitution and other criminal elements. It remained open during the AIDS crisis, when numerous employees died.

Does anyone not see the problem with all this LGBT nonsense now? This is beyond unreal.

Look at all the health, all the legal problems associated with this death-stye

But it could not survive Amazon.

Strangled by the internet — where pornography and dating apps abound — Circus of Books will close for good Saturday.

That's a good sign, I guess. It's too bad that innovation is making it even easier to poison their minds, but that's the reality, the outcome which comes with liberty. Allowing people to make choices about what they do with their time, with their money means allowing people to make poor decisions.

“A lot of people are sorry to see it go, grateful it’s been there all this time,” Karen said. “And as we’re closing, people are saying, ‘You know, this store saved my life.’ ”

"A lot of people", like whom?

When the Masons started out in the early 1980s, “Circus of Books and the gay bars were places where people would go to meet, to find each other,” said West Hollywood Mayor John Duran, who is gay. “There was no Grindr or Scruff or Tinder. If you wanted to find community, you had to go out and seek it.”

This is the same mayor slammed with a host of same-sex #MeToo issues. Do we really want this guy talking to us about finding community? This guy undermines community. This is beyond unreal.

For many customers, the gay erotica was revolutionary, he said.

“It’s not like any of us got this through sex ed or at home with Mom and Dad,” Duran said. “We had to learn.”

Learn what? How to destroy your body? How to give into a false sense of entitlement? How to fall for a lie which corrupted the civil rights movement? I cannot believe any mainstream newspaper would print this trash.

Of course, the LA Times is not really that mainstream anymore, is it?

In the 1970s, Barry made a decent living selling accessories he’d invented for dialysis machines until the cost of medical malpractice insurance became too much.

Liberalism at work.

After Karen, who had worked as a journalist, spotted a newspaper ad seeking magazine distributors for Larry Flynt — the publisher of Hustler and Chic — Barry started driving around to liquor stores and newsstands, taking orders.

Ugh. How shameful is this? Someone would sell their soul, their integrity just to make a buck. No wonder the LA Times resorts to writing such a high-profile article for a low-brow business.

Karen did deliveries. She was pregnant at the time, so she hired unemployed musicians — she preferred drummers, who always seemed the most reliable — to help with heavy lifting.

This is another trademark, hallmark, watermark of Branson. She has no real skillset, and she spends time writing 

One West Hollywood store, Book Circus, ordered 600 gay titles, including Blueboy and Honcho, each month and instantly sold out. “I’d have to fill the whole truck up just to fill those titles,” Barry said. Customers were so glad when the magazines arrived, “they would come out front and help me unload it.”

The Masons eventually learned the bookstore’s owner, who had fallen behind on magazine payments, was being evicted. Barry made a deal with the property manager: He’d pay half the man’s $1,400 monthly rent until he was evicted if the Masons could take over the lease afterward.

Interesting. The Gay Bookstore was selling lots of stuff, but the original owner couldn't pay all the bills.

The couple kept the staff and changed the name to Circus of Books. Along with the pornography, they sold obscure novels from LGBTQ authors, as well as science fiction books, foreign newspapers, even Bibles.

They sold Bibles. OK. I wonder how many they actually sold!

Gay-themed magazines played an important role in assuring people they weren’t alone at a time when homosexuality was taboo, said Joseph Hawkins, director of the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC.

I think that the fact that this behavior has not been restored as taboo is creating much of the problems in our culture, in our society. Why do local newspapers want to continue promoting this "gay ideal", anyway?  Who are the editors of the LA Times trying to help out here?

For decades, gay magazines — including ONE, the non-pornographic magazine for which the archive is named — that were sold at newsstands in big cities were obscured behind a tarp or curtain and sold alongside bawdy straight magazines, even if the gay periodicals had no nude pictures.

The whole thing is illicit.

“There was just enough space to edge in and look, and there were porn magazines for the straight men and the gay men. Everybody was in there,” Hawkins said. “Sometimes the men in there looking at straight erotica would see you looking at a gay-oriented magazine and get upset.

This is what happens when social justice warriors turn into so-called "journalists." This stuff is a flaming crock on so many levels, I have no idea where to start in exposing this stuff. Do these university "educated" types really think that they are going to change the world, change its perceptions about the uneven drudgery that is liberal ideology?

They are pleasing themselves, but they are educating no one and they are not really changing minds. This insanity must be pushed aside at all costs. I cannot wait to see the El Segundo Times crash and burn. This is unreal.

“You never had a sense of safety. You’d worry there was a vice officer in there who would arrest you for looking at the magazines. ... The place was selling the magazine, but you weren’t allowed to look at it.”

Rachel Mason said that when she was growing up, her parents were much more strict than her friends’. She and her two brothers had to get straight A’s. They weren’t allowed to watch TV. They had to go to synagogue with their mother.

Oh boy! Make sure the kids go to schul and synagogue, and don't let them read the smut that the parents were peddling. Wow! The hypocrisy should have gotten more coverage than the actual sale of the trash itself.

“I was this little rebel, and what I didn’t know was that they were outlaws in their own way,” she said. “They were just so good at this balancing act that we had no clue about it. I was fighting with my mom about my hair color … and they were actually dealing in hardcore videos.”

Rachel, 40, an artist and musician, is making a documentary about her parents’ shop, which will debut on the film festival circuit this spring. It wasn’t until she started making the film that she realized how revered Karen and Barry were in the LGBTQ community.

"Revered", a term which implies divine respect and autthority.

Oh, since the owners of this adult bookstore were Jewish, I wonder if Hailey bothered to reveal that her mentor hated Jews and hated Israel? I wonder if her subjects would have consented to an interview and article expose?

“This store represents a time capsule of a different era … when being queer was really underground,” she said. “It was truly a hidden culture.”

Let's Make Queer Underground Again!

Rachel and her brothers sometimes sneaked into the pornography section to giggle at the movie covers until their mom yelled at them to get out. In the 1980s, young Rachel noticed that her parents’ clerks kept disappearing.

They were dying of AIDS.

That above paragraph is so poorly written. So, we go from reading about the kids' sneaking into the pornography section to learn that the bookstore clerks were dying. Huh?

“Somebody I just met would be dead the next week, then another person and another person … as a kid, I didn’t have any perception that that was unusual.

“They were extraordinary young guys who I looked up to.”

Seriously? Why?

If employees felt well enough to work, the Masons encouraged them to come in so they could have some normalcy. If they needed public assistance to pay for expensive medication, the couple would pay them off the books in cash so they could keep unemployment benefits. It was the only time, Karen said, she ever broke the rules.

Wow! So these bookstore owners were thieves and frauds, and they were helping homosexuals steal and defraud the government of the state of California!

“They were just so young,” Karen said, sighing. “It just — um — they shouldn’t have died.”

They wouldn't have died if these old fools were not promoting the very lifestyle which killed them. This is a sickening report, to say the least.

The Masons by that time had bought the building, which had several apartments upstairs, and their tenants were dying, too. Many were estranged from their families.

“A lot of parents wouldn’t come to get their things or come to their funerals,” Barry said.

“And sometimes,” Karen said, “I would get a call from a mother. ‘Tell me about my son.’ Where were you, lady? I had nothing to say to parents like that.”

At its peak, Circus of Books had three locations. A short-lived Sherman Oaks store closed in the late 1990s after the city ordered it to stop selling porn because it was too close to an elementary school. The Silver Lake shop closed in 2016 amid declining sales.

How about that? These awful parents, the owners of this perverse book store, were trying to sell their garish goods near elementary school children. That is hideous!

The West Hollywood store had its share of drama. The alleyway behind it was a well-known gay cruising spot, and residents and sheriff’s deputies said the 24-hour bookstore attracted prostitutes and drug dealers.

Oh, more lawlessness. And of course, Hailey Branson celebrates it.

In 1989, the city ordered the store to close daily from 2 to 6 a.m. Karen told The Times then that they were being used as a scapegoat for a problem they didn’t create.

"The hustlers are around the building like roaches,” she said at the time, “and we've tried to get rid of them.”

No you didn't! Karen and her corrupt crew depended on their business. They helped it to thrive!

In the early 1990s, an employee shipped several gay and straight pornographic VHS tapes — including “Licorice Twists,” “Latex Slaves Discipline” and “The Best of Bruce Seven, Vol. 1” — to a customer in Pennsylvania’s Lebanon County.

But it was a sting. The Masons were indicted on federal charges of interstate transportation of obscene materials, and the FBI raided their warehouse, carrying guns.

“They were looking for a copy of what was shipped,” Barry said, “a girly title, and all of them, every time they’d pull out a box they’d laugh at the titles.”

After years of litigation, the Masons avoided jail time by agreeing to a pretrial diversion program and a $20,000 fine. For about a year, Barry had to report to federal court once a month to show he was still working and not committing any crimes. Federal investigators, he said, later mailed back the tapes they’d taken as evidence.

Lol!

Karen, who gets a bit embarrassed when talking about the pornography, said she’d never watched any of the films. It all seems kind of boring, she said with a shrug.

How would she know? Why would she stay mired in the business for so long if she was so embarrassed by all of it?

In her spare basement office, Karen still keeps contacts on a Rolodex. She also keeps two sketches done by her children hanging above her desk.

One is a portrait of Mother Teresa. The other is a drawing of a frail man with an oxygen tube in his nose. They’re a reminder, she said, that everything in life is finite.

Huh?

Final Reflection

It's a good thing that the gay porn bookstore "Circus of Books" is gone. It's sad, however, that the LA Times, or El Segundo Times, or whatever anyone wants to call them, resorted to a second-rate propagandist to write such a telling, glowing report about this trashy store.

Notice that they broke a number of laws, and notice also that they spent more time promoting illicit materials for the public while shaming and steering away their children from the very smut they were pushing onto the general public.

Someone please explain to me why anyone would glory in this sad, sordid tale?

We have Hailey Branson-Potts, a veiled Anti-Semite (Since she refuses to disavow her bigoted mentor Helen Thomas) who routinely reports nice things about LGBT everything, while the real news is ignored or skipped over. She has a problem with conservatives, and with minorities who support President Trump.

She also has issues with anything that has to do with facts and pro-family interests. She went to great lengths to point out that MassResistance has been unjustly smeared as a "hate group" because of the discredited SPLC.

When does this nonsense end?

But back to this story ...

Isn't it incredible how all the reporting about the homosexuals who died because of AIDS is treated almost as an afterthought? The reporter refuses to draw the line between the high-risk behaviors and the higher incidence of disease, dysfunction, death. What kind of journalism is this?

It's gotcha, clickbait journalism, nothing more. Incidentally enough, this tragic-comic reporting is good news in some sense, since one more smutty bookstore is out of business, and the most left-wing reporter out there could not dress it up nicely.

CA RINOs Say CAGOP Needs to Drump Trump? They Need to Get Dumped!

On my birthday, the Los Angeles Times printed--as they often do--the opinion of left-wing RINOs in the California Republican Party.

The CAGOP is going DOA ASAP, and we need some real leadership to turn the ship of state before we hit an iceberg, or we face a nuclear winter in 2020.

Let's see how the Los Angeles Times revelled in the CAGOP epic losses this past election cycle.

Dec. 8, 2018, 4:32 p.m.

 

By PHIL WILLON

Former California GOP officials call on state Republicans to renounce Trump's rhetoric and 'nationalism metastasizing in the party'

Nationalism is a fundamental aspect of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln ran on a platform of keeping the United States of America ... United!

Five former political directors of the California Republican Party have called on state GOP leadership to renounce nationalist speech used by President Trump as well as candidates who embrace “messages of hatred, division and rhetoric that divides us by race.”

Where they hell where these other directors five years ago? Ten years ago?

A letter sent Friday to the party’s board of directors blamed Trump for the GOP’s stinging losses on election day in California. It said the California GOP must return to its conservative roots to have any hope of reviving the Republican Party in the state.

Trump is the most conservative in action, demonstrating an astonishing pragmatism that works in conjuction with it. The people who scream and yell about dumping Trump are not even conservative!

“This election proved that choosing Nationalism over Conservatism is a losing proposition. President Trump’s nationalist rhetoric has alienated far more than the diverse electorate that turned out to oppose him on election night — Republicans abandoned Republicans in historic numbers as well,” the letter said. “It is our hope that you will publicly renounce the nationalism metastasizing in the party, advance the cause of conservatism and return the greatness to our Grand Old Party.”

The letter was signed by Mike Madrid, Debbie McCall, Jimmy Camp, Jarryd Gonzales and Matt Robbins, all of whom served stints as party political director since the late 1990s.

These old hag RINOs are useless. Who are these people, again?

A spokesman for the California Republican Party on Saturday declined to comment on the letter.

There is really nothing to talk about at this point. Thjey want to get rid of Trump, but Trump is the only Presidential candidate who has front-lined the illegal immigration issue that is overrunning the country. The crass trop bras who have been running the California Republican Party want to make excuses and embrace controlled failure, nothing more.

They want to keep talking about demographics, when they should get off their asses and start reaching out to these very demographic groups which need to be swayed.

I don't know ... how about treating people like ... respectable individuals? That has often worked in the past. Why not pick up the pace? Let's reach out and make our case, rather than shrinking back and doing nothing? Mark Meuser's idea makes sense: let's reach out to voters, not to donors. What's the point of bringing in big money when we are not connecting with what voters care about?

Big donors want to lose gracefully so that they can sit at the "kool kids' table."

Not buying it. We need more Trump and better money. Ballot harvesting is the way to go, and all other legal avenues available to us in the state party.

Democrats won big because they spent big. They won big because they harvested votes, and they have lots of voter fraud behind them. Democrats win because they fight hard for what they believe.

LA Times' New Owner Pledges to Fight "Fake News" ... Really

Patrick Soon-Shiong, biotech billionaire born in South Africa, now living in the United States, has completed his acquisition of the failing, flailing Los Angeles Times.

The new headquarters will be located along Imperial Highway in El Segundo, CA, which guarantees nothing but a terrible commute for the vast majority of reporters and staff which still remain with the newspaper.

The liberal chattering classes are celebrating this move because it means "local control" has returned to this newspaper. Lying is still lying, however, and liberal bias remains liberal bias, whether the owner of a media company is located right next door to the employees or is situated one thousand miles way.

Soon-Shiong also pledged not only to compete with the New York Times, but to fight as hard as possible against Fake News.

Check out his open letter to readers (what few remain) and the general public below:

Today marks a new era for the Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune and publications across the California News Group. My family and I are truly honored and privileged to assume the mantle of these storied institutions of democracy. To me, this is the culmination of an immigrant’s American Dream.

From today, our important work protecting and building on a rich history of independent journalism begins — with a sense of urgency and purpose.

I believe that fake news is the cancer of our times and social media the vehicles for metastasis. Institutions like The Times and the Union-Tribune are more vital than ever. They must be bastions of editorial integrity and independence if they are to protect our democracy and provide an antidote to disinformation. We will continue our papers’ dedication to truth, integrity, journalistic independence, and storytelling that engages, informs, educates and inspires with care and compassion.

Editorial integrity and independence have fallen into increasingly short supply in the United States. The media has become so obsessed with Donald Trump, looking for every perverse opportunity to see him fail rather than simply reporting what he is doing and what other newsworthy events are taking place in Los Angeles and around the country.

Notice also that Soon-Shiong refuses to define "Fake News". What is he talking about? Does he have any intention of writing the truth about individuals? Let's hope that he expects his writers, reporters, and staffers to get the whole story

In an era of digitally enabled disruptions which pose an existential threat to the traditional newspaper industry, the California News Group must be run as a business in order to grow and thrive, never losing sight of the needs and interests of our readers. 

To run successfully as a business, however, the Times must provide a service which people want.

Most people don't want the left-wing propaganda pablum which passes for news in the LA market. Can Soon-Shiong takes necessary steps to get rid of the wannabe social just warrior reporters at the Times?

As a private, locally owned enterprise, we will invest in the group’s future. While ad-supported print publications will continue to feel the pressures occasioned by the digital era, we are confident that our print products will remain viable and vital. This is especially true for those readers who, like myself, still enjoy the tactile and leisurely experience of a physical newspaper. Yet we are impatient and ambitious when it comes to introducing new products that will inform and delight local and global audiences.

I predict that the paper will fold within one year. The print market is falling on harder times. It's just so much easier to look up articles on-line. It's also become easier to see through the corrupt bias of the mainstream media.

Many of you may wonder why we bought these publications. The decision is deeply personal. America and, more particularly, Southern California, have given me unimaginable opportunities. Here is where I deepened my education, built a family, found ways to contribute to advances in medicine and science, and took inspiration from sports, entertainment and the arts. I grew up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the son of a working-class shopkeeper.

Working-class and now upper-class. Will he remain committed to doing what is best for working and middle-class Americans? For Californians?

My parents had fled southern China during World War II after the Japanese occupied their ancestral homes. When I was 14 years old, I began earning money to fund my college education by distributing copies of the Evening Post newspaper.

Oh, that's how personal his connection to print media has become. Interesting.

I still recall the sounds and smells of the printing presses as the first papers rolled off the conveyor belt. I would grab as many as 800 copies from an ink-stained pressman, handing them off to my cadre of “runners” who would then deliver them to local businesses and residences.

This is a nostalgia move. I doubt that it's going to generate any long-term victories, however. Just because someone has a strong sentiment about the newspaper industry does not mean that consumers will warm up to the brand.

Newspapers were not only in my blood, they also engaged my mind. Reading the Post’s headlines and stories, I learned what it meant to grow up “non-white” under apartheid. I came to understand the evil consequences of racism and discrimination. I began to appreciate the essential role journalism plays in fostering and sustaining democracy and free societies.

Really? We have another social justice warrior at the top of the newspaper food chain again, it seems. We need newspapers to report the news, not push an agenda. Or if they are going to push an agenda, it should push principles and values in line with the truth.

We purchased the California News Group because we want to preserve the integrity, honesty and fairness we’ve observed in our decades as avid readers of the Los Angeles Times. My family and I fervently believe that The Times, the Union-Tribune and our other titles must continue to serve as beacons of truth, hope and inspiration binding our communities.

"Integrity, honesty, fairness" - I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Dr. Soon-Shiong still does not explain how his prior experience with selling newspapers makes him qualified to ensure quality reporting. 

We view the publications we acquired as a quasi-public trust. We understand they will be the voice and inspiration for our cities, our state, the nation and the world.

We also understand the importance of editorial integrity and independence. We share our commitment to both with the talented journalists at our publications. They are our lifeblood.

I grew up believing the best newspapers are the voice of the people. None of my personal success has changed that belief.

The press has become the voice of the corporate interests and the political class, which is more invested in telling people what they should be believe and what to think. They have pushed an interest for open borders, cheap labor, the destruction of natural marriage and spiritual values. The smug elitism of the printing-press class is particularly damnable.

Will Soon-Shiong ensure that discrimination against all Americans, all Californians receives due exposure, including hatred of citizens of European and Asian descent?

We are grateful for the opportunity to serve you. The California News Group will continue to play its pivotal role in our communities, from Los Angeles to San Diego, projecting out to the world. This region is an incubator for change, innovation and discovery, and we are deeply committed to telling its stories.

When I came to Los Angeles, decades ago, I could not imagine the opportunities this region and this country would provide for me. My family and I are deeply grateful for this opportunity to support our institutions and to continue this vital mission.

Sincerely,

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong

Final Reflection

I have a strong sense that this venture is going to collapse right before the good doctor's eyes. His discussion about the "cancer" of Fake News is well-played, considering that he is a researcher and scientist working to eradicate that terrible physical scourge.

But the true cancer of Fake News has been the liberal, anti-American bias of the local and national press. Will Dr. Soon save the LA Times?

No, he will be the final hospice care clinician for this rotting corpse, nothing more.

The Self-Inflicted Mass Murder of the Press (Steve Lopez Editorial)

The press isn't dying because of outside assailants.

The press is dying due to self-inflicted wounds, from its incapacity to innovate, to its perverse attachment to out-of-touch, elitist sentiments with no grounding in reality.

Working people get tired of reading how being working people is somehow something to be ashamed of.

Just to show how much they have lost their way, one of the few remaining editorial writers still calls the United States a "democracy", and he is convinced that democracy is in danger as the printed press loses power and presence.

The staggering body count as California newspapers founder, and democracy loses

Steve Lopez is bemoaning the fact that he will be out of a job soon, too.

The body count is staggering.

In my 43 years as a journalist, armies of trained bloodhounds have been run out of newsrooms where I've worked, victims of layoffs, and buyouts, and battle fatigue. I've lost so many hundreds of colleagues, I can't keep track of where they ended up.

They were never really colleagues, I suppose. What business were they supposed to be in? Telling the truth, reporting the facts, informing the public. The press turned into a propaganda mill for the left, pushing hard to make readers think the way they wanted them to think.

That is not acceptable. Not at all.

Of course, the histrionics of "body count" shows the self-importance with which reporters view themselves. It's time that they were scuttled out. The moment you start believing the headlines, or believe that you had everything to do with the headlines in the paper, that's the moment you become expendable.

These were smart, curious reporters, photographers and editors who told stories that defined place and time and made us all know each other a little better. They covered the arts and the local sports teams. They bird-dogged city councils, courts, law enforcement, school districts and other agencies that spend our tax dollars, bearing witness, asking questions and rooting out corruption.

So much self-serving praise from Skelton. Where are your jests now, O Yorrick!

There is less watching today, even though California's population has nearly doubled since I began my career, and we are all poorer for it.

The state of California is poorer since the state's population doubled, since much of the in-bound migration consists of deadbeats, welfare queens, and illegal aliens.

Yes, mass migration has made California poorer, much poorer.

It might seem like the opposite is true — that there's more information available than ever, because of incessant chirping on cable news, nightly car chases on local outlets, digital news sites and social media news feeds.

There is more reporting, that's for sure. Americans want news still, but the liberal press was not interested in reporting the news, as much as shaping it and then making it. How many false reports are unsubstantiated rumors ended up on the front page of national periodicals like Gospel truth? How many reporters were canned from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other periodicals because of failing journalistic standards?

But what's vanished or been greatly diminished in far too many places is good, solid reporting on local and state affairs, and we don't even know what that has cost us through mismanagement, misuse of funds and outright corruption.

Was it solid? Is the reporting gone?

Individual citizens with community interest at heart have provided plenty of reporting on their own. Activists can record events live, in person, and get the whole story out to the public without a filter. The corrupt, destructive nature of the mainstream media can no longer color to distortion what is going on in the world.

Sure, the Los Angeles Times and other papers can still pull off exposes such as the freeloading scandal in Bell or the payola bonanza involving the developer of a Harbor Gateway project. Just note the Pulitzer won by the East Bay Times last year for its coverage of the Ghost Ship fire — an achievement its staff earned after years of deep cuts and consolidation.

Regular, everyday citizens can do this, and do it more often in their own cities. They have a more intense interest to do so, since it's their own cities which they fight to protect.

But those investigations take lots of time and people, and they don't happen as often as they should because fewer and fewer snoops are checking records, knocking on doors and making a nuisance of themselves.

To better describe what's happened to the business, let me take you back to 1975. I'd just gotten my first job out of college, as a sportswriter in the Sacramento suburbs. I was assigned to the Davis branch of the Woodland Daily Democrat at a weekly salary of $135.

Let's also talk about how the forced wage hikes and regulatory burdens that are hurting businesses large and small. Their devastating consequences hurt newspapers and media industries, too!

Today, there is no Davis branch. When I checked with the Daily Democrat last week, editor/reporter/photographer Jim Smith told me that in the last 20 years, his staff of 15 has gone down to just five.

I moved from the Daily Democrat to three nearby newspapers over the next few years — the Pittsburg Post-Dispatch, Concord Transcript and Oakland Tribune, where I pulled a switch from sports to news.

None of those papers still exist.

Papers are disappearing in large numbers, or they are folding into larger newspapers. Just now, I found out that the Ventura County Star is part of the larger Southern California News Group, which covers pretty much every major newspaper in, you guessed it, Southern California.

Funny but true. The main story in all of these papers focused on the efforts of pro-Trump, pro-rule of law activists going from one city council to the next denouncing sanctuary state and pushing for the restoration of the federal immigration law as the Supreme Law of the Land. The story had wide enough currency that readers could get something out of it, I suppose. But we have only begun to fight, and there is so much work to be done in Ventura County.

My next stop was the San Jose Mercury News, a storied newspaper with a first-rate editorial staff of about 400 at its height. Today the Mercury News is down to about 110 people and has lost about 70% of its staff in the last two decades, even as Silicon Valley became one of the most important stories in the world.

Ouch! I would submit that there is a direct correlation with the number of middle-income earnings fleeing the region and the state to the declining circulation of the print media. What do you think?

I saw the same trends in my years with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Time magazine, and the problem was never a lack of public demand for news. What changed was that the internet offered new options to advertisers, and newspaper revenues diminished despite ongoing attempts to make the industry more digitized. Soon, newsrooms had so many empty desks, they looked like furniture showrooms.

They probably provide a better service as show rooms. Ha Ha! Empty desks tell no tales, right?

Bankruptcies and shutdowns followed, independent voices became corporatized, and the cost of continued profits was more bloodshed.

What a crock. The Big Media empire had been corporatized for decades. How else did we get a creep like Barack Obama in office? How about the fact that Bill Clinton got away with lying under oath to a grand jury?

Consider this:

The first five newspapers I worked for — in Woodland, Pittsburg, Concord, Oakland and San Jose — were folded into a single company over time. That company is Digital First Media, which has followed the same consolidation pattern with its newspapers in Southern California.

I have considered it, and it's awesome!

A smarter guy would have gotten out of the business. But I didn't know how to do anything else, so I kept moving, like a man trying to outrun a wildfire. Behind me, the earth was scorched. But there was no smoke rising in Los Angeles when I arrived 17 years ago, so I told myself this was it. Between the mountains and the beach, a million untold tales. No more running for me, except to chase good stories and bad actors.

Now Steve Lopez shows some humility. Newspapermen aren't that smart anymore. They are so committed to their liberal regressive worldview, that there is no right or wrong, but rather environment and culture determine relative interests and commitments. What a shame, since that biased shameful sham of worldview colored every aspect of their reporting, to the hurt of the readers and the general public. No wonder so many editors were comfortable with "We only have to be right for one day."

Now their papers may not see the light of day.

I wish I could tell you it's been nothing but cupcakes and cartwheels ever since, but the Los Angeles Times got hit by the same beetle that sawed through the rest of the industry, and the staff today is just more than one-third the size it was when I started.

And you are all moving to El Segundo!

I can't tell you how many clowns, buffoons and scoundrels have taken the reins of the parent company, promised great things and then fled in the night with blood on their hands and briefcases full of money.

Do you think it's a good idea to mock your employers, there, Stevie boy? They still don't get that they work for others, that they have a service and a product to provide to consumers. Most people simply don't want what they are delivering anymore.

You get to thinking there's no way out. Then you wake up one day and hear that somebody wants to come to the rescue.

Naturally, you're skeptical. It's a professional duty.

Once again, that flimsy distance from that funny thing called "truth." Journalists stopped believing in objective reality, or something? Perhaps it's racist. That kind of thing matters more than reporting the events, since social justice warriors are the only ones seeking degrees in journalism.

I've never met billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who is closing a deal to take over The Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, Hoy and our community newspapers. You'd think a man whose goal is to cure cancer would have his hands full, but now the good doctor wants to take on a different kind of terminal patient.

Notice that Lopez calls his parent paper "terminal patient." There's no helping this rag.

Soon-Shiong dropped by the office Friday and told his story. He grew up in South Africa during apartheid, locked out of all-white schools as an Asian. In his first job as a doctor, he got half the pay of white doctors. He moved on to Canada and later Los Angeles, making a home — as an Asian African American — in one of the most diverse places in the world.

There's a telling irony in this new publisher. He cuts through the lies of the modern liberal mindset about poverty, race, and class. This doctor came from a tough, troubled background, yet accomplished so much. He would have fallen into a "victim class" according to many reporters.

But he was no victim. He has done great deeds, and maybe his final effort will be shuttering the Los Angeles Times for good.

He said he wanted to grow the paper, that he believes in compassion and consideration, and that the business model is quality, and that the newspaper's role in the community is vital. He wants The Times to be a beacon, a barrier against the tides of fake news, a voice of the West and beyond.

Soon-Shiong is concerned about fake news. How about calling it what it really is--lies? If he wants to protect "The West", then the paper needs a decidedly conservative tilt.

But will there be anything close to that? What community does the new publisher hope to target?

Was this a hoax?

Right after Soon-Shiong said the newspaper is a public service in the private sector, I wondered if he'd pull off a mask to reveal the face of a Tribune or Tronc executive.

But it didn't happen, and it was nice, after years of casualties, to hear someone talk about rebuilding locally, nationally and internationally.

Does the Good Doctor have any business experience or business sense? I have a feeling that he is going to discontinue print workings entirely and move to an entirely digital experience.

Dying of thirst, we wanted to drink the Kool-Aid, even after Soon-Shiong shocked the room with news that the home office is moving to El Segundo, with a satellite office downtown.

Talk is cheap, though, as we were repeatedly reminded by previous owners.

We'll work hard. We'll hope for the best.

We'll see.

I can't kid you. We've lost tons of knowledge and experience over the years. But what's left is a lot of talent, hunger, young energy and diversity, and a fighting spirit that led to formation of a union to take on the evil deeds of corporate thugs and beat a drum on pay disparities. Here's hoping Soon-Shiong comes through on the promise to grow the paper's staff and reach, because the city and state need more watchdogs, more eyes and ears in places where today there is no witness to the daily dramas that shape our lives.

The buzz word "Diversity" emerges out of the paragraph. Even Steve Lopez has been taken in by the dissimulation. This is the final standard, a newspaper office filled with people who just happen to have different shades of skin color. Whatever happened to judging people--and their reporting--by their content?

I feel like I was in hospice and a new doctor said hold on, don't plan the funeral just yet. With appreciation, I thought back on how I almost ended up in an entirely different line of work.

So much histrionics. This is not a death for the reading public, but an expansion and an opportunity for real journalism which exposes waste, fraud, corruption, and the like.

The Decline and Fall of the Los Angeles Times: Major TRONC Media Layoffs

It's a sad, sad day in the mainstream media world.

Who would have known, who would have predicted that the once might titan of news the Los Angeles Times would be selling itself off and spinning away its legacy to hedge-fund managers and venture capitalists who realize that the liberal print media is no longer a viable business model.

Nobody wants to read fake news!

Tronc cutsdozens of employees, including former Times Editor Lewis D'Vorkin

  

Tronc cuts dozens of employees, including former Times Editor Lewis D'Vorkin

Lewis D'Vorkin was named chief content officer for Tribune Interactive in February 2018.

Wow, that was a fast hiring and firing, now, wasn't it?!

Former Los Angeles Times Editor in Chief Lewis D'Vorkin was fired by Tronc Inc. on Thursday and several dozen other employees of the company were laid off.

D'Vorkin was the chief content officer of Tribune Interactive, a newly formed digital business unit of The Times' parent company. The reason for his removal was not clear.

D'Vorkin said the decision to part ways with the company was mutual. He noted that his "heart just wasn't in" the various initiatives that Tribune Interactive was planning.

Sure it was mutual ... sure it was. I have heard that kind of rhetoric many times before. 

Not buying it.

"In discussions with the company that were going on for a while, finally I said, 'You know, it's time for me to move on and explore new ventures that take me back to my entrepreneurial roots,'" he said. "Those are the things that are appealing to me."

In other words: "My services are no longer needed here, because the propaganda of the newspaper is no longer wanted by the general public."

The layoffs, which included Tribune Interactive's Los Angeles-based video and online content teams that operated separately from The Times, were due to a change in the company's business strategy, according to a source familiar with the cuts who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The new business strategy is most likely: "Decline gracefully and close up shop quietly."

A spokeswoman for Chicago-based Tronc declined to provide details, citing personnel privacy.

Departing employees in Los Angeles said they were laid off en masse during a staff meeting early Thursday afternoon that was originally supposed to be led by D'Vorkin. But he did not appear for the meeting, and instead, employees were told by a human resources manager that they were being let go. The manager cited a reorganization, according to people who were there.

OUCH! There is an easy schadenfreude in all of this, however. The corrupt left-wing media in this country has done so much damage to this country. They promoted some small-time state senator turned US Senator who had no business serving in the White House. They created Barack Obama and covered for his failures, fraud, sin, and anti-American animus. Only now are we learning that he was not just a friend of race-baiting hate-monger Jeremiah Wright, but he had close to Jew-hating Louis Farrakhan, too.

So much evil, so little time. How could the press be so incompetent and misleading?

Because they had a progressive, left-wing racist agenda dedicated to overtaking this country for decades.

The news comes after a tumultuous few months for Tronc and The Times, starting in August when several top editors were ousted from the newspaper. Tronc named Ross Levinsohn, a former Yahoo and Fox executive, as Times publisher.

Red wedding for the Los Angeles Times.

Levinsohn in October named D'Vorkin editor in chief of The Times. D'Vorkin's tenure was brief — just three months — and marked by several hostile encounters with the newsroom.

In January, Levinsohn was placed on unpaid leave after NPR reported that he had been a defendant in two sexual harassment lawsuits earlier in his career and engaged in "frat boy" behavior in work settings before joining The Times. He was later cleared of wrongdoing after a company investigation into his conduct and was made chief executive of Tribune Interactive.

#MeToo controversies in Big Media. Why is anyone still surprised? They covered for Big Hollywood, Big Media, and Big Academia for decades. The sins, crimes, and perversions of corporate media will only get worse as more is revealed. What a staggering failure of the media industry. 

Staggering.

Levinsohn remains with the company.

Also in January, The Times' newsroom voted overwhelmingly to join the NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America — in part out of frustration with corporate ownership and concerns about pay.

And how has that worked out? More layoffs. So much

A month later, Tronc announced that it had entered an agreement to sell The Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune to L.A. biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong. The deal is expected to close this month.

Tribune Interactive was formed after news of Soon-Shiong's agreement to purchase the papers; many of its employees previously produced digital content for The Times.

In announcing the formation of the business unit in February, Tronc Chief Executive Justin Dearborn said Tribune Interactive would "deliver value for our shareholders through growing digital audiences for our award-winning journalism, new creative content and product initiatives, and growing digital and diversified revenue streams."

But how it would accomplish that was unclear. In recent weeks, Tribune Interactive employees in Los Angeles said they were not given tasks and felt abandoned by management. They were especially concerned when several Tribune Interactive executives, including D'Vorkin, moved out of their downtown L.A. offices to the Westside without alerting them.

That's because they were getting FIRED!

Thursday's layoffs came a few weeks after layoffs at the Chicago Tribune and other Tronc publications. On Wednesday, journalists at the Tribune announced that they had decided to form a newsroom union.

Final Reflection

LA Times headquarters is moving to El Segundo. Who knows how long the paper is going to last in the "Mayberry by the Sea". It's clear that the newspaper is under the pressure of creative destruction. The industry has to shift considerably now because of rapid technological advances, and they can't stop it.

The press rebelled against reality and lost. They can't stand up to innovation, either. The regressive left which has taken over the state of California is locked in a dying battle that they cannot win. The press had carried water for socialist, communist principles for decades.

Now they are being carried out to the graveyard of old and dead ideas. It's over.