Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
*** Boat Parade tomorrow in Newport Beach, read to bottom for details! ***
Sheriff Don Barnes, who was elected in the 2018 election cycle to serve for 4 years (linked here), took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States as the Supreme Law of the Land. Recently, when Gavin Newsom illegally ordered the beaches to be shut down (linked here), Don Barnes publicly stated that he would not enforce unconstitutional orders, doubling down on his oath of office. We cheered him on, as did the nation.
But on Thursday, May 21 at approximately 9am, a protest was occurring in San Clemente. The protest is a familiar one: Like Newport Beach, the City Council of San Clemente voted to illegally bestow the full powers of city council to the City Manager, an unelected bureaucrat with no legal authority in the City Charter to even receive that power– let alone exercise it. But exercise it, they did. In both San Clemente and Newport Beach, the City Manager erected fences to block things without any data behind why they were being blocked– and in some cases (like the beach), where the data runs contrary to the actions itself that were taken in the name of “health”. The city managers in both cities did this with no public hearing (as required by law), no notice (as required by law), no agendized meeting (as required by law), and no city council vote (as required by law).
In Newport Beach, we uncharacteristically rolled over and took it. Some people hopped the fence to surf, but aside of one protest (which was welcomed by our PD) that was about the extent of disobedience. In San Clemente, uncharacteristic for their area, Constitutionalists rallied to protest the illegal fencing, and some even wanted to take the illegal fencing down.
But Don Barnes’s gang of oath-breaking Sheriffs attacked them, sacking 8 of them into jail with trumped up charges like “failure to disperse” and “trespassing” (on public land). Don Barnes’s Sheriff’s office was so excited about their arrests that they publicly bragged about it on Facebook– how great they were for hauling 75 year old men into jail on trumped up charges (linked here). Then the comments began to roll in– by the thousands. “Oath Breakers!”, “Nazis!”, “Gestapo!”, “Cops yet again choose tyranny over the Constitution” said another. The comments are endless– I encourage you to check them out, here: https://www.facebook.com/OCSheriff/photos/a.94687544677/10157798318304678/?type=3&theater
It was only after the Sheriff was publicly shamed for his actions (actions, again, that he was in the middle of bragging about on Facebook) that the Sheriff realized he needed a scapegoat. Instead of apologizing for violating the 1st Amendment himself or through his deputies, he shifted blame to the city council of San Clemente, where he penned a letter to them, literally calling them “dysfunctional” (linked here and here), and saying he was contemplating ending his policing contract with them (unlike most cities, San Clemente has no municipal police forces, and contracts their security through the county sheriff)
To which, the councilpeople responded, (kept for posterity in image form, here), linked here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=584819575484806&id=265496854083748
To recap:
The city council of San Clemente– like Newport Beach– made the move to illegally empower the city manager, an unelected bureaucrat, with all of their elected powers.
The city manager in San Clemente– like the city manager in Newport Beach–made the move go illegally put up a fence.
People protested the fence.
The sheriff made the move go illegally enforce the fence, instead of protecting the 1st Amendment or even demanding that the local government operate legally.
The Sheriff was barraged with negative comments.
Instead of anyone actually apologizing for what they did do, now everyone is pointing fingers at every other agency involved in order to avoid their own blame. The sheriff is blaming the city council, the city council is blaming the city manager, and the city manager is blaming the governor.
Shame on all of these cretins. Oath breakers, the lot of them. Especially Don Barnes. Even after I personally brought his attention to it, Don Barnes has been sending his so called oath-takers to illegally enforce the Dog Beach area between Newport and HB for years now– illegally. I’ve got a ticket pending from them myself, for refusing to leave, so oath breaking against the 1st amendment for people standing on the public beach is not exactly new territory for this group. But we’ll let that play out in court in July (we keep getting delays due to the virus– but doubtlessly, they’ll drop it).
To make matters even crazier? Newport Beach has announced that it was going to ban an organic parade held this weekend, on its Facebook page, here: https://www.facebook.com/CityofNewportBeach/posts/10159792608004278 (screenshots kept for posterity, here). The city warns sternly on their Facebook post “The City has reached out to the organizers listed in the advertisement to inform them that no permits will be issued for boat parades or boat gatherings of any size over Memorial Day weekend.”– Stern words. But who gets to enforce them? The OC Sheriff.
So once again, the OC Sheriff will be put into a position to either enforce the unconstitutional and anti-first amendment threats of a local city government, or uphold the Constitution itself. The parade is open for public participation and will begin on the Northwest part of Bay Island near the mooring field at 12:45pm on Monday (+/-15m, say the organizers). This initially started as a “Pro Trump” rally, but now has taken on a life of its own, as part of a larger, Constitutionalist movement.
If the Sheriffs don’t enforce this, it makes a mockery out of the City of Newport for trying to do unconstitutional things and being called out by law enforcement for even attempting them.
If the Sheriffs do enforce it, then they are just digging their heels in deeper as Constitution-stoppers.
Will they be oath breakers or oath keepers on Monday? We know they were oath breakers on Thursday, but after public shaming, they changed their tune (again, for the third time). It will be interesting to see if they flip back to the oath-breaker side, once again.
If anyone has a boat I can hitch a ride on, I would be interested in documenting the exchanges between boaters using our public waterways and our Sheriffs, who now have been called upon by the City of Newport Beach to enforce unconstitutional laws.
