I know I know, PINK TOADS, especially when there’s two of them. But I do go and regularly look at Dan Chmielewski’s Liberal OC as well as Matt Cunningham’s two blogs, just because I need some kind of foil, and when I see how the former (which is supposed to be a “liberal” blog) is totally dominated now by HB rightwing bomb-thrower Charles Keeler “Chuck” Johnson (writing as “Bob”), I think… “When did Chuck Johnson last totally dominate the Liberal OC?”

And I’ve got it, it was spring of 2018, we wrote about it at the time! (Priceless comments section too.)

Do you even remember the name Hans Kierstead, seven years later? As the 2018 pre-“Blue Wave” primary approached, OC Democrats were evenly divided on which Dem candidate could best take out nutty 30-year incumbent Dana Rohrabacher. Some, like this blog, preferred Harley Rouda, while some, including the Liberal OC, preferred Kierstead. The rivalry grew bitter and ugly.

Meanwhile far-right “hate vessel” Chuck Johnson, who then had his own blog, the “HB Sledgehammer,” and who loved him some Dana Rohrabacher, decided to secretly enter the Dem-on-Dem fray. Like us (and correctly) Chuck believed Harley had the best chance of beating Dana, so, thinking himself very clever, Chuck decided to put all his time and energy into discrediting Harley among Democrats. (So that Dana could face the weaker Hans in November, you understand. Chuck admitted all this elsewhere.)

And Dan let his “Liberal OC” become Chuck’s dirty playpen – as long as they were both trashing Harley Rouda it was all good. Chuck commented under lots of different names, mostly pretending to be a Democrat disgusted with Harley. He created a fake anti-Harley liberal woman called Kristen Sullivan, full of righteous outrage at Harley and his friends. He sent off obscene, slanderous e-mails to the whole DPOC under the fake name “Henry Lipton,” and got them reprinted on Dan’s blog. It was hard to find anything credible to throw at straight-arrow Harley, so Chuck tried hard to tie Harley to folks he hated in HB like Gina and Victor, about whom he could invent and exaggerate dirty stories.

None of it worked, LOL. Harley beat Hans in the primary, and went on to gloriously take out Dana in November! Remember this:

The influence of Chuck Johnson on Chmielewski was lasting, however, and as late as 2022 Dan was telling folks NOT to vote for the HB Democrats that Chuck hated – if I thought the Liberal OC had any influence at all, I’d blame that blog for the MAGA takeover of Surf City’s Council.

***********************************************

Fast forward to Trump’s tragic victory last November, and suddenly there was a new, obnoxious troll commenter on both my blog and Dan’s, calling itself “BOB.” It was clearly Chuck Johnson, either back from another controlled-substance sentence or suddenly energized by Trump’s reign of destruction. I printed a couple of his comments and then blocked him – this isn’t the kind of person you can have a conversation with, not at all interested in facts, only interested in gleefully rubbing everyone’s face in the latest Trump depredations.

But on The Liberal OC, it’s gotten to where Chuck Johnson writes more than Dan himself – he gets dozens of comments a week published there, each one hateful and of ZERO value. They get published because Chuck knows how to manipulate Dan – all it takes is to, once a week, write “You’re a smart guy, Dan.” And if any comment of his doesn’t show up, scream bloody censorship! And the “Bob” show has probably increased Dan’s hits by a lot. But Dan isn’t capable of answering Chuck’s ravings – he doesn’t have the energy or wit. (He shouldn’t even be printing his comments, Chuck should go restart “HB Sledgehammer” if he can’t keep quiet.)

Some of Dan’s readers do a little better at responding to Chuck, like one “Ken Cooper” responding to Chuck blaming his 2008 job loss on Democrats:

Lol. It is obvious you lost your job in 2008 because you were not considered valuable enough to keep.

All of the things you are wanting will do nothing to improve your life. You just want to make others as miserable as you.

The problem with just about every fanatic like yourself. And most are too self unaware to recognize it. Regardless of their ideology. Is they are too inept to get by in the world. So their only recourse is to try and curtail the enjoyment of others.

You only have two or three brain cells left. And they are both fighting for third place. Have a good day. This was fun.

And it was this “Ken Cooper” who also turned us all onto the new Reddit thread “Leopards Ate My Face.” Yes, all of the above was an intro to “Leopards Ate My Face” on Reddit. You’ve heard the expression maybe, referring to folks who vote for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party so they can watch the leopards eating other people’s faces, and are then dismayed and righteously pissed and shocked when the leopards begin to eat THEIR face. Or as the Reddit thread description explains,

“Revel in the schadenfreude anytime someone has a sad because they’re suffering consequences from something they voted for or supported or wanted to impose on other people.”

And there’s new material there all day every day. If you need a daily or hourly dose of politically charged schadenfreude, bookmark “Leopards Ate My Face” on Reddit! It’ll help get you through these 2-4 coming years of hell.

Have I blathered on enough to introduce a new open thread for the Mad Month of March? I think we are missing one thing – and of course that is Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, donating her Tesla (festooned “Elon Sux”) to NPR!

https://www.tiktok.com/@therealelvira/video/7476664890879397162

NOW you are ready to Open-thread:

HAVE AT IT, my pretties!