Blocked on Twitter, About to be Hit by the Times

Stop us if this sounds familiar…

An anti-establishment candidate has been suspended from X (Twitter) and the mainstream media is set to run a hit piece on said candidate, all within a few days.

And this time the target is former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Villanueva is running to oust LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn from her District 4 seat in the March 5 primary; there is a third candidate, Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank, meaning a November runoff between the top two candidates is quite possible.

First, the X matter.

Villanueva very recently discovered his campaign account had been suspended.  He is appealing the decision, but received no official answer to his question as to why the account was suspended.

But the ex-sheriff has a few thoughts of his own on the matter.

“Apparently you can’t criticize an incumbent,” Villanueva said.

The account featured multiple posts regarding Hahn, asking her to resign, criticizing her decisions, and in general trying to make life miserable for the supervisor and convince people to vote for him.

In other words, it was a standard political campaign account.

“We kept it clean, we used her own words and votes and we still got suspended,” Villanueva said.

Hanh’s office stated that they “did not report his account” to X.

Attempts to contact the Hahn campaign were unsuccessful as her website contains no direct contact information (very transparent, by the way, Janice).

While Hahn’s office may not have reported Villanueva’s account, someone did, brining to mind another recent episode of LA County getting an account shuttered: Public health director Barbara Ferrer versus those who questioned her pandemic response overreach.

While a judge inexplicably found in favor of the county, court records clearly show Ferrer’s office reached out to the office of Rep. Adam Schiff – then chair of uber-powerful (especially in the social media world) House Intelligence Committee – to help it get an opposition account shut down.

And, like so many other candidates who question the current order anywhere in the nation, Villanueva said today he expects the Los Angeles Times – a virulent opponent of him as sheriff – to unveil a “hit piece” on him in the next day or so.

According to Villanueva, the story will center on the actions of a staffer of Supervisor Hilda Solis, one Esther Lim, a former ACLU employee and now Solis’ “justice deputy.”

While Villanueva was sheriff, Lim constantly and aggressively and obscenely blasted him and law enforcement in general, i.e. “#FuckICE.”

While the tweets were on her personal account, many of them were sent during working hours; Villanueva filed an ethics complaint in early 2021 against Lim with Solis –  (the complaint contains numerous screenshots of Lim’s tirade.)

The complaint went nowhere.

Time passes and Lim, last October, filed a complaint against now former sheriff Villaneuva sparking a full investigation involving two law firms who – shockingly – sided with Lim (weeks before the primary) and put Villanueva on a county “do not rehire” list.

Whether or not such a list is actually a real thing, Villanueva, who said “they pulled it out of the ass,” is not actually sure. But if it is a long-standing, often-used, actual real thing, Villaneuva wondered if it should contain former supervisor and convicted federal felon Mark Ridley-Thomas?

The reportedly soon-to-be-published Times; piece will most likely focus on this issue, Villanueva said.

If the name Esther Lim rings a bell, it was her idea last year to try to get the Board of Supervisors (through Solis) to instantly release half of the county’s jail inmates. When the public noticed the proposal – days before the scheduled vote – the reaction was, shall we say, not good and Solis pulled the proposal:

“Exactly whether or not Solis knew the political firestorm the proposal would create – or even exactly what the actual impact it would have – is unclear.  What is abundantly clear is that Solis’ office “Justice Deputy” Esther Lim (who has a masters in social work and is not an attorney) knew exactly what the motion meant; prior to joining Solis, Lim – again, not a lawyer – headed up the local ACLU branch’s effort to – wait for it – close the Men’s Central Jail.  For more about Lim and to read her near-parody of a woke biography, see here:  https://about.me/esther.lim .”

Again, the county sided with Lim.

“The county has become a banana republic,” Villanueva said.

Solis office did not respond to a request for comment..

Interestingly, while Villanueva seemingly cannot get hired by the county he can still be a county supervisor.

“That job’s not hired by the county,” Villanueva said. “It’s hired by the people.”