Irresponsible mom Leandra Blades, and self-infatuated YouTuber FRod.
Okay, are you ready to hear about some ridiculous shenanigans at the Orange International Street Fair last weekend? Culture Warriors acting really stoopid, and then crying about it afterwards? Well, we’ve got that for you, but first you’ll need a:
CAST OF CHARACTERS.
The Orange Unified School District Board, with the election last year of Madison Miner (funded largely by anti-gay megachurch pastor Jack Hibbs), quickly became one of those wacky, performative school boards you see in the media, defying state laws, steeped in lawsuits, and pushing policies hostile to the LGBTQ community. The first thing they did was fire, for no stated reason and with no notice, their popular Superintendent Dr. Gunn Hansen, enraging the public, wasting a million dollars so far, and leaving the district without a superintendent for most of the past year.
The OUSD Recall movement – a necessary reaction to the above, focused on removing two of the more troublesome members, Miner and Rick Ledesma, and restoring the board to sanity. The movement is very close to having the required signatures to put the recall on the ballot, and they had a booth at the Street Fair this weekend, for sharing information and getting more signatures.
Leandra Blades, member of neighboring (and equally extreme) Placentia / Yorba Linda School Board, an anti-masker celebrity who attended the Jan. 6, 2021 Insurrection (and claimed it was done by Antifa.) Secure in her Yorba Linda seat, she has been able to be active in supporting her OUSD comrades, especially her good friend Madison Miner, and fighting against the recall.
Frank Rodriguez, aptly nicknamed “FRod,” a self-infatuated YouTuber and rightwing prankster, who has also made it his mission to harass and stalk OUSD recall organizers. Gay himself, and leading an imaginary group named “Gays Against Groomers,” he spent Pride Month ridiculing the Gay Pride Flag, proclaiming the US flag is HIS pride flag, and earning “Attaboys” from all the local gay haters.
Well, FRod and Leandra (with her teenaged son) showed up at the Street Fair last weekend to make trouble at the Recall booth, and THIS is the best they could come up with:
Wah. The big teenager claims that some recall organizer “ASSAULTED” him. Can’t you just tell right away when some dipshits are leaving out most of a story? Note a few things – how neither the cop nor the Street Fair director took these people’s complaints seriously – geez, how deep does the Deep State go!? Also, note how FRod identifies Leandra as “the mother” of “a minor,” not “Leandra Blades, local Culture War celebrity.”
But my favorite bit of these two minutes is Leandra saying (in regard to the teenager testifying to the assault) “I do think that’s kind of a ridiculous thing to ask of a kid.” Because it’s probably her and/or FRod that gave the “kid” the idea to go up to the booth, feign interest in the recall, lie that he was a registered voter, and sign a fictional name. (Violation of California Elections Code 18613).
Yes, the main action occurred 15 minutes BEFORE the alleged “assault.” FRod was setting up his cameras near the Recall Booth, as stealthily as he could, with a couple of younger assistants; Leandra Blades was skulking around nearby with her cameraphone at the ready.
And a large young man, who looked around 18-20, wearing a baseball cap, strolled up to the booth to feign interest in the recall. He consulted the district map, told workers falsely that he was indeed a registered voter who lived in the district, and signed the name “Billy Hamilton.”
Going by his cap and choice of alias, we can guess that Leandra Blades’ teenaged son is a baseball fan – Billy Hamilton is a popular center fielder who’s played for many teams. And it soon became clear that the teenager – let’s call him Young Blades – was also one of FRod’s assistants, and that this was all part of some half-assed plan to embarrass the signature gatherers.
Finally noticing the bothersome FRod with his equipment, recall organizers complained to the police and the Fair organizer who were nearby, and they made FRod & the boys move on. At the same time, recall organizer Alex Brewsaugh scolded Young Blades: “It’s against the law to sign a false name on an official document – it’s fraud, a violation of Elections Code 18613, and it’s a FELONY.” (Note that “fraud” does sound just like FRod.) Properly chastened, the little Culture Warrior gang slunk off, and Alex the organizer crossed out the “Billy Hamilton” signature, to alert the registrar that this was bogus.
(Really, what kind of dumb prank were they attempting anyway? To show that there was a fake name on the petition? The registrar goes over signatures with a fine-toothed comb anyway.)
But after a few minutes, Young Blades and his mom apparently got panicked – he had committed a felony? So all at once the teenager was back at the booth, trying to elbow his way through the crowd, so he could wipe out that “Billy Hamilton” for good, and not be a felon! When that didn’t go smoothly, because people were in his way and a cop was watching, he raised up his hands and cried out, “They ASSAULTED me!”
Well, the recall folks made their OWN two-minute video about the whole thing, and they’ve also filed a criminal complaint on FRod and Leandra:
That’s about it. A really stoopid episode, but the kind of thing our Culture Warrior school board members and their prankster pals like FRod do all the time. The important thing is that Orange Unified School District gets its sane, competent Board back, meaning the recall of Rick Ledesma and Madison Miner.
One thing you may have noticed in this article: When I describe the Board and its supporters, I say “culture warrior” or “anti-gay,” I do NOT say, “Trumpy,” “MAGA,” “Republican,” or even “conservative.” For one thing this is more accurate, but also the organizers tell me that they’ve been getting lots of signatures from Republicans, even MAGA-hat-wearing Republicans, once they learn about this Board’s insane WASTEFULNESS.
The Orange Unified School District includes Orange, Villa Park, Anaheim Hills and other parts of East and South Anaheim, Silverado, and parts of Garden Grove and Santa Ana. If you’re in the district…
…the Orange Juice Blog strongly encourages you to sign the recall petition, and then when the election happens (hopefully during the March primary) VOTE TO RECALL MADISON MINER AND RICK LEDESMA!
Vern out.
Really makes you sort of sad after a while.
This is why we must laugh through our tears.
You know what’s ironic here are the new recall rules that were established after the Newman episode to make it harder for Republicans to recall Democrats.
yup.
It’s gonna be real hard for UNITE-HERE to recall Natalie R here in Anaheim, and her replacement would still get picked by the klepto majority.
The cop union in Santa Ana got enough sigs to recall Jessie and we hope to beat them in the election… otherwise Valerie’s cop-loving crowd will pick her replacement.
Those are both Dem vs Dem though.
They made it harder for anybody to recall anybody, right?
Um, how many Republicans are in the Legislature? And how many large cities have Republican councilmembers?
A superminority, as I recall. But we don’t need to restrict ourselves to large cities — and then there’s the fact that “business Democrats” like to go after progressive Democrats.
and vice versa.
I signed the recall and they almost have enough signatures to pull it off now
Thank you Paul!!!!
I’m reading the other comments and as sad and frustrating as this is, we are so close to succeeding.
More than ever, we need signatures.
And yes, these people are bringing a horrible presence to our school board, but if someone starts acting foolish at your house THEY HAVE TO GO, right???
Let’s send them on their way, please help with the recall.
You clearly are dumb and would rather protect pedophiles.
Trump had sex with Jeffrey Epstein’s little girl companions.
YOU would rather protect pedophiles.
I would not consider Leandra Blades “firmly entrenched” in the PLAYA district. She only one last time because two sane candidates split the sane vote.
I wish that the DPOC could be trusted to either endorse a candidate if a Democrat is clearly more viable or else sit it out and let a sane pro-school Republican take the office. But that won’t happen under Ada.
I think that one important thing to note here is that we’re not talking about simply someone violating an election law in question. We’re talking about a CONSPIRACY to violate the election law. The son is not the only one who could be held criminally liable.
Where’s Spitzer going to stand on this? Arguably, give that this is happening in his old Supe district and he’s unlikely to act, it should go directly to the criminal Grand Jury.
This is not accurate in any way!!! Get your facts straight before posting political articles! So angry at whoever wrote this.
HA! So you’re mad at ME? It is not impressive that you can’t find the author of a story, right up at the top.
So were you there? And what are the biggest things you think I got wrong? Or just name one if you can.
Really Vern? This type of article is one of the reasons things have become so inflammatory in this nation. Why don’t you concentrate on articles that address things like, oh I don’t know, looters being treated like law abiding citizens, inflation, rising interest rates, our nation’s debt and the US credit downgrade, schools boards ignoring parents, the constant breach of our borders, benevolent dictatorship, etc. Concentrate on the big picture, because I fear for this country and society if things continue this way. Stop feeding the “us against them culture” move on from picking on a teenager and be a man!
Tell that to Dr. Gunn Hansen.
Lies bc you really can’t be that dumb
Someone might have directed her son to write it. Just saying.
You hit every Trumpy grievance. And you want to dampen inflammation?
And what is the Big Picture?
You’re angry about looters and fail to mention the traitors who tried to loot the Constitution and overturn an election that their demented, sociopath leader LOST.
“OUSD: Leandra Blades coaches minor son to commit Felony Fraud at Street Fair”
Unsubstantiated garbage that the kid was “coached.”
OK, skallywag, give us your scenario for how he ended up doing this. Is he that much of a bad seed?
He’s a kid who did a dumb thing to impress – wow, first time THAT ever happened …
To impress his mom? The Registrar of Voters?
How did he know that signing a petition while unable to vote would impress them, if they didn’t mention it to them? They weren’t going to see it, after all.
I don’t think that your scenario provokes a reasonable doubt.
This is so stupid Antifa did it it’s obvious. The only person who wasn’t Antifa was forced to be there whoever wrote this clearly doesn’t understand how bad the economy is under Biden and yet this article is complaining about freaking Same sex liking pedophiles?! Seriously!!! Wtf take this crap off.
What facts lead you to suggest that the economy is bad under Biden?
Pretty sure Emily is satire. Drunken perhaps but satire.
Perhaps. In that case, this is an invitation to continue the gag. It’s a good question either way.
What dumb b*tch wrote this clearly will go to hell either way.
Clearly.