WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — “Natural” medicine is big on the Left Coast, and what’s more natural than sexual assault?
Gardena police arrested a self-described witch doctor on Wednesday on suspicion of groping at least two women or girls. Rigoberto Padilla Carranza, 53, was arrested at his Gardena business — Productos Naturales Rigo at 2210 Marine Ave., suite A, — as police served a search warrant there this afternoon, Gardena police Lt. Steve Prendergast said.
Carranza, who has a Los Angeles address, was booked on suspicion of sexual battery, he said. The alleged crimes occurred in the shop as Carranza was supposedly treating them for back pain or other maladies.
WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — My host, Ladd Ehlinger Jr., tells me that this is known as the “Porn Capital of the World,” but that’s not why I’m here or why Ladd’s here. He’s doing political ads, trying to bring to California some of the viral video magic he patented in Alabama. (See: The greatest political ad ever.)
Among other things, the topic that interests me is the same question a lot of conservatives keep asking, “What the #$%* is wrong with the California Republican Party?” (Short answer: Everything.) Some of the stories I’ve heard about the incompetent bumbling of this state’s GOP . . . well, it’s sad and tragic. This is a year when there might be hope for Republicans in California, but if the state party can’t get its act together, opportunities will be lost.
California is not lost, but Republicans in this state have got to stop playing “me too” politics. To quote Jennifer Rubin: “The opposition party must oppose.”
We have scheduled a blogger meet-up Saturday in Santa Monica — Little Miss Atilla, Joe Fein and the Rhetorican have already RSVP’d — and my schedule today will include, among other things, watching Ladd audition actresses for parts in his upcoming commercials.
EXIT QUESTION: Should Republicans write off a congressional district that went 53?% for Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006?
As you know, I’m actually on a plane to California now, and this was written in advance for posting while I’m offline. The whole “traveling campaign correspondent” thing is kind of fun, but it’s tough being out on the road so much. Anyway, don’t forget I love you.
Leaving today on a non-stop flight and I’ll be there by supper Pacific time. If you don’t remember my friend Ladd Ehlinger Jr., you’ll remember the World Greatest Campaign Ad he did for Dale Peterson. Ladd’s doing some work in California now — kind of top secret — and wants me to come hang out with him for a few days. Contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund will be appreciated. Readers in the L.A. area should get in touch, as we’ll be having a blogger get-together Saturday in Santa Monica.
“George Bush, in the middle of a war, had an all-station news conference to announce how horrible it was for the safety of America that gay people were getting married in San Francisco, which pissed me off enough to get on a plane and go get married . . . It was like an act of . . . defiance . . . If you’re gonna count up everybody who you think is not of value and round ’em all up and slap a pink triangle on ’em.”
You see that O’Donnell has bought into the Bush-as-Hitler analogy so deeply that she deploys it automatically, unthinkingly, with this divisive “pink triangle” nonsense. Furthermore, like many of those on the Left, Rosie is so accustomed to getting her news filtered through biased venues, that she “remembers” things that never happened.
Tim Graham fact-checks Rosie’s bogus history, pointing out that there was no “all-station news conference” and that Bush’s 2004 statement was actually a very thoughtful and measured expression of the conservative position on marriage.
It’s sad, but not really surprising, to think that Rosie’s San Francisco wedding with Kelli Carpenter was merely a political publicity stunt — which is what Rosie means when she misuses the phrase “civil disobedience.” We could scarcely expect any union solemnized under such a pretext to endure, and thedissolution of the O’Donnell-Carpenter romance was one of those “second time as farce” episodes:
Rosie was talking about her long-haired chihuahua Misty with pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick . . . And she then revealed further, “What happened [was] when Kelli moved out two years ago, I got the dog. Because I wanted another child or something to love. And I got the dog.”
“I got the dog,” indeed! Speaking of marriage and children, pro-life blogger Jill Stanek notes how Judge Walker’s decision in San Francisco v. Schwarzenegger is being likened to Roe v. Wade.
Further commenting on the undemocratic nature of Judge Walker’s ruling, Melissa Clouthier of Liberty Pundits expects that “the disenfranchised masses will add this to the list of ways that the government treats them as worthless dung.”
That sentiment ought to be repaid with interest Nov. 2.
If you live in Los Angeles, the term “People’s Republic of Santa Monica,” comes up a lot in conversation. Heck, one of my favorite films, Southland Tales has Justin Timberlake protecting the Santa Monica Pier (and doing a great version of The Killers “All the Things that I’ve done,”).
As a political activist, I don’t just think in theory, but in practicality: How do we win back the People’s Republic of Santa Monica? Simple, raise money and support a great candidate for the 41st Assembly District of California . . .
Let me introduce to you Mr. Terry Rathbun, candidate for the 41st AD.
Here is his biography:
Terry was born and raised in Los Angeles County and currently lives in Encino. In 1990, Terry left to join the U.S. Navy and served on active duty until 1999. During his time in the military, he served in theater in support of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. In the year 2000, Terry returned home to Los Angeles where he attended college and currently owns and manages his own IT consulting business. Terry is actively involved in the Kiwanis Club of Northridge and coaches youth baseball.
Military veteran running for a state legislative seat in a district where Democrats don’t think a Republican can compete. But if Terry Rathbun can get a nationwide online fundraising effort — $5, $10, $20 at a time — this could be a shocker.
Allow me to suggest that let’s not scream “raaaaacism” at these idiots. Rather, let’s point out the ironic absurdity of someone whose native language is Spanish telling other people to “go back to Europe.”
Think about the moronic Luddite impulse on display here. Not only is this lady’s language imported from Europe, but she’s yelling through a bullhorn — a device employing technology invented by Euro-Americans like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. And she’s yelling outside a baseball stadium (Abner Doubleday?) in Anaheim, a town founded by German settlers in 1857.
Where did the Brown Berets get the inspiration for this kind of rhetoric? It was not from the Klan or the Know-Nothings or other white nativist groups. Rather, the roots of Chicano radicalism — like so many other contemporary radicalisms — can be traced to the 1960s.
This megaphone-wielding moron isn’t imitating the Klan or neo-Nazis, she’s imitating SDS, SNCC, the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground. She isn’t mimicking J.B. Stoner or George Lincoln Rockwell, but rather Mark Rudd, Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton and Bernardine Dohrn.
Yelling “raaaaacism” at these ethnic hustlers doesn’t achieve the same effect as when liberals scream “raaaaacism” at conservatives. Why? Because the the Brown Berets’ implicit claim to legitimacy is rooted in the radical conception of non-whites as universally victimized.
Conservatives don’t really win any important argument merely by pointing out that militant are racist, because the radical rhetoric of the militants is cloaked in the sacred mantle of victimhood. If their claims of victimhood are valid, then their militancy is justified.
Debunk the victimhood narrative, however, and you have exposed the militants as peddlers of a bogus mythology, charlatans who are not authentic spokesmen for any legitimate grievance.
Therefore, let me point out that, judging by her greater fluency in Spanish than English, this Brown Beret woman is evidently not a native Californian, a fact that would tend to undermine her authority to tell other people living in California to “g0 back to Europe” or anywhere else. (Really, why should she single out Europeans? Does she have no quarrel with the immigrants from Korea, Pakistan and Kenya who have taken up residence on the sacred soil of Atzlan?) And far from seeking the universal oppression of Latinos, not only did these Tea Party protesters — supposedly hateful white racists — fail to inflict violence on her, but on none of them even suggests that she “go back” to wherever she came from.
California’s white population has declined since 2000 at an unprecedented rate, hastening the day when Hispanics will be the state’s largest population group, according to newly released state figures. . . .
By 2008, whites made up 40 percent of Californians, down from 47 percent at the turn of the century. . . .
Hans Johnson, a demographer at the Public Policy Institute of California, said white women in recent decades have tended to pursue higher-education degrees and stay in the workplace, leading them to have fewer children. The white population is now “below the replacement” level, Johnson said. “They’re simply not replacing themselves.”
Gardena police arrested a self-described witch doctor on Wednesday on suspicion of groping at least two women or girls. Rigoberto Padilla Carranza, 53, was arrested at his Gardena business — Productos Naturales Rigo at 2210 Marine Ave., suite A, — as police served a search warrant there this afternoon, Gardena police Lt. Steve Prendergast said.
