Time to clear the air
If you woke up on December 16th, 2016 and opened the LA Times here’s what you would have seen:
And if you read the Orange County Register on that day you would’ve seen roughly the same story:
Both articles claimed that I was an Islamophobe, an anti-semite and a racist.
Case closed Right ??
These articles began a solid month of personal attacks on me, more than 100 emails were sent to Councilman Peterson calling for my firing. Curiously, I never received one email or phone call.
After some contemplation I chose to resign my post on the planning commission. I’ve never spoken on the issue… until now.
Most people don’t know that there is a war going on in Huntington Beach. This battle started in 2012 when the residents ran out of patience with the city council trying to socially engineer Huntington Beach to their liking. Those same citizens decided to change the balance of power on the city council. This culminated in the election of 2014 where Connie Boardman and Joe Shaw lost their council seats and Erik Peterson was elected. It continues to this day.
Because of my experience with real estate and development councilman Peterson asked me to join the Planning Commission, where I served with honor for two years. My favorite moment was researching how OC’s population had stalled in many cities, I brought that information to a PC meeting concerning HB’s housing element, it derailed that process:
I’m an outspoken Conservative, this caused problems with certain radical factions in Huntington Beach…my appointment came with some notoriety from the start.
Now, let’s take a look at what really happened during December of 2016.
On December 6th I received this text from John Earl, a local radical leftist environmentalist.
12/6/2016 Michael: I’m writing about your Cultural Marxism lectures. Would like to know why you use source material that contains lurid anti-Semitic content, including caricatures that could be right out of Dur Sturmer? Also, you “like” blatantly anti-Semitic images (from the same source material “Frankfurt School Western Subversion by Design”) on Twitter and follow a neo-Fascist/Nazi “Smashing Cultural Marxism” on Twitter.
I knew the second I saw his text that bad things were coming. To say John Earl is an unhinged progressive Leftist would be an understatement. He runs a blog called surf city voice that fixates on environmentalist issues. He was referencing the video of a talk I had given the previous month to a local conservative group. The subject was the History of Political Correctness.
What I didn’t know at the time was that former planning commissioner and failed City Council candidate Mark Bixby had sent an email to Councilman Peterson on December 4th, complaining about my political correctness video and how I needed to be fired from the planning commission.
This timeline will show former planning commissioner Mark Bixby was the inception of the intentional political hit job against me. The following shows him clearly as the smear’s starting point, the language almost exact between his letter, Earl’s website and the newspaper’s articles about me.
On November 16th, 2016 I gave a talk regarding “The History of Political Correctness”, I videotaped this talk and uploaded it to youtube on November 19th, 2016.
Two weeks later on Dec 4th Mark Bixby sent this letter to Councilman Erik Peterson complaining that “Michael Hoskinson has always held extreme views, but it appears that he also holds anti-Semitic / neo-Nazi views which have become emboldened since the election of Trump. These views render him unfit to serve on the Planning Commission and he needs to be replaced.”
There is literally nothing in the video that could be construed to be “Anti-Semitic”….and, that he even mentioned the term “Neo-Nazi” shows how disconnected from reality he is. Pick up a history book Mr. Bixby.
On Dec 7th John Earl, a radical liberal environmentalist and close friend of Mark Bixby, published this hit piece on his blog:
To counter his lies I quickly published this rebuttal on my website.
On Dec 16th the OC Register & LA Times both ran articles parroting the same smears.
A day previous to publication the LA Times “reporter”, Ben Brazil, a recent Berkeley anthropology graduate, called me for quotes. Since the media’s motivations regarding Conservatives are always suspect I agreed to respond by email for transparency..i’m so glad I did. Mr. Brazil sent a list of 18 questions, half were about Islam. My video was nearly 2 hours about the subject of political correctness and the Frankfurt School. During the video I made one offhand quote about Islam in response to an attendee’s question. Seeing Brazil’s questions about Islam let me know he was preparing a hit piece on me. I declined to speak with him. However, one question stood out-
“In the same Youtube video you spoke about a Jewish group called the Frankfurt School. I admittedly don’t have much knowledge about this group.”
At least he admitted to being the wrong guy for the job…the job of honest journalism.
Sadly, this type of liberal character assassination even has a name: the Wrap Up Smear. Here is Nancy Pelosi inadvertently describing how liberals smear conservatives: “You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it”
If all this sounds familiar, it is. At this moment in 2019 the Left in America is calling anyone who disagrees with their ideology a Nazi, Fascist, Islamophobe or an Anti-Semite. The Left’s entire playbook is not just to shoot but to kill the messenger…Dead.
What makes this even more ironic is that the very people leveling these slurs can’t define them contextually or historically.
These events were not random. This was a planned character assassination. But more importantly none of it was factual. Further, because Bixby and his cohorts made the charge of “Islamophobia” there was always the chance of a local jihadist deciding that I or my family needed to be killed for “blasphemy”. If you think that’s a bit far-fetched here is a clip from a Daily Titan article published on November 27th, 2017 in which, terrorist-linked group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) made a lengthy quote about me:
“In December 2016, Michael Hoskinson stepped down as Huntington Beach planning commissioner following a set of disparaging comments he made about Islam, questioning whether or not it was a real religion and the ideology of the Quran, which he said was “hard to reconcile.”
Earlier that year, CAIR’s Los Angeles sector penned a letter to Hoskinson’s supervisors, expressing concern over his words.
“We find these comments and views repugnant, and believe these actions call Mr. Hoskinson’s ability to perform his official government duties without prejudice and bias into serious question,” the letter read.
Hoskinson responded to the outcry over his comments in a December Facebook post last year, claiming his remarks on Islam were backed by years of research.
“Fate handed Europe multiple deadly Islamic terror events,” the post read. “When will society ‘connect the dots’ to stop vilifying anyone who asks basic questions about the connections between Islam and Jihadism and find a way to stop the violence?”
While Hoskinson remains concerned with Jihad, Muslims in Orange County experience a different kind of violence.”
Who is CAIR ? a HAMAS-linked terror group with millions of followers. Thanks to Mark Bixby I was made the target of a worldwide Islamic terror group.
Now lets look at what didn’t happen. Other than family, friends and supporters who have actual experience no one bothered to ask “is any of this true? the public has gotten far too comfortable with “the accusation is the proof” and very few people question what the Media is telling them. This affair shows that we need to question everything we are being sold by the Media. They don’t tell “Truth to Power” any longer…they sell Narratives.
This leads to why the smear campaign was invented. 1) To remove me from the Planning Commission. HB has its own version of the “Deep State” permanent bureaucracy and the people that feed off it, I was an impediment to their progress and had to be removed. My video gave Bixby the opportunity he’d been wanting for years. And 2) To put a permanent mark on Erik Peterson, one his enemies could drag out whenever they needed to smear him. That failed.
It’s not hard to understand the timing for the defamation campaign against me. What happened on November 8, 2016? The greatest political upset in our country’s history. When Donald Trump won the presidency liberals and progressives started their descent into madness. It was no surprise that local Huntington Beach progressives, who felt Hillary Clinton was going to come in and finish the job that Barack Obama started, became mentally unglued when Trump was elected. Mark Bixby, a highly-partisan Progressive political activist, one that focuses on people he believes are his enemies, needed a target to vent his poison and I was top of the list. Plus, I was about to be named chairman of the Planning Commission in late December, the smear was timed to stop that, Mark Bixby couldn’t allow me to become chairman, it would just too much for him to bear.
Also, since he lost his planning commission seat after Connie Boardman lost her council seat he was left without the thing he craves most: a seat of power to manipulate the public. After losing he was heard to remark that I “stole his planning commission seat”…As they say in the detective business, he had motive and opportunity to smear my good name.
For context let’s examine Mr. Bixby’s record for a moment. Like his close friend John Earl Mark Bixby is a radical progressive environmental activist. In his 2014 City Council campaign Mark Bixby’s central issue was “sea level rise”. I’m sure as a taxpayer in Huntington Beach you realize we have many more pressing issues than environmentalist fantasies. He has a long history of wasting the taxpayer’s money to make his ideology come to fruition.
- Bixby cost the city over $2.5 million in lost revenue when he complained to the Coastal Commission about the Russo & Steele car show, saying that “it would use parking spaces and deny beach access”. The show decamped for Newport and that city enjoyed the much-needed tax revenue.
- He cost the city over $1.5 million when he sued over the Central Park Senior Center which was eventually built.
- While on Planning Commission he wasted precious staff time, money and resources directing them to obtain information for his PC meetings. This isn’t staff’s job, as commissioners we have the duty to do our own research.
- He threatened to complain to the FPPC about councilwoman Lyn Semeta’s receiving a campaign contribution. After she attempted to rectify the issue he complained anyways. At the time he was quoted saying “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. The complaint cost her $4000 of her own money.
- He complained to the City Clerk and threatened a complaint to the FPPC about me. It was literally a “dot the i, cross the T issue” but nothing could stop Bixby from wasting time for his revenge.
- Mark Bixby scours the mandatory FPPC filings of each Conservative candidate expressly to catch and publicize any possible mistake his enemies might make, no matter how small. True to his radical roots he ignores any Progressive or Liberal candidate’s filing. Bixby says “he has “zero-tolerance” for those he believes flout campaign finance laws”..this is only true for Conservatives and Republicans. Here is an FPPC complaint against Bixby’s close friend Gina Clayton-Tarvin, someone else had to investigate her because he’d never investigate anyone who thinks like he does.
Compare that to a complaint Mark Bixby filed against Katheryn Gonzalez. She ran for OVSD in 2016, he filed an FPPC complaint stating that “Gonzalez did not not properly state her employment income from the Federal National Mortgage Assn., or Fannie Mae, on a state disclosure document known as Form 700”. She was cleared in a week as there was nothing to the complaint other than Bixby’s desire to smear an opponent of Ms. Tarvin’s.
People like Mark Bixby believe they are noble because their “intentions are good”. They believe to their core that anyone who opposes them is corrupt and evil and that gives them license for their assaults on people like me. They are 100% wrong.
When Mark Bixby was on planning commission he was caught bragging online about driving around HB in his Prius looking for businesses with code violations. As a former planning commissioner I can tell you unequivocally that type of activity does not fall in our job duties in any way. But, in fact he was spying on his fellow citizens…not what any of us want in a public servant.
The fact that Mark Bixby is a pathological bureaucrat (a person that is compelled to control others, be it over ideology, self-interest or both) brought us into conflict. I believe in small government, he believes “smart people” like him, technocrats with no oversight, are best suited to decide what the public is allowed to do and say. The state of California is currently being destroyed politically, fiscally and culturally, by people who believe like Mark Bixby. For a hard-core progressive like Mark Bixby politics, and the control that it exerts over the general public, is the reason they are always seeking positions on boards and commissions. It’s the only way they can control our lives because, as the 2014 results prove, when given a choice the public will not vote for him, their candidates or their plans.
His record is finally going against him. In 2017 he was being considered for an OVSD board position and was turned away by the city council. His friends at the Ocean View school district weren’t happy about his appointment being denied and had their lawyer threaten the city council to bring it back up for review. Ask yourselves…why did they want him on that board so badly that they had a lawyer threaten the city ?
People will ask “why make this video now”…it’s been 2 and a half years.
1st is to clear the air and point the blame where it belongs. Mark Bixby is a bad person, he couldn’t have cared less that his false defamation of me led to my family or I being hurt or killed…much less losing business or being made a pariah in the community. He deserves to be expelled or blocked from any public post he is occupying now or in the future. Mark Bixby simply does not hold the public’s best interest at heart and will stoop to any tactic to further his radical beliefs.
2nd, and more importantly, is to implore the public to stop allowing these crybullies to destroy anyone’s life they disagree with. The 1st Amendment and Freedom of Speech are the bedrock of Individual Freedom. To allow and reward this bad behavior invites our own destruction. People like Mark Bixby want us silent, and if we’re not they’ll try to remove us from the public square…heaven help us if they push that any further. You only have to look at what they’ve put Donald Trump through in the last 3 years to see what the future holds under their control.
My time on Planning Commission was a tremendous learning experience and I treasure *almost* every minute. But it wasn’t about me. I agreed to serve because I wanted to help my hometown. If I had stayed on the commission after the uproar started I knew that the people who concocted the smear would protest my appointment for months and derail much of Mayor Peterson’s work. I understand the type of people Mark Bixby and all his cohorts are, their only concern is forcing their beliefs on the rest of us…by any means necessary. And, it wasn’t just me. My friend Gracey Van Der Mark ran for the Ocean View School Board in 2018 because she saw a tremendous amount of corruption under Mark Bixby’s close friend Gina Clayton Tarvin and wanted to clean it up. Tarvin’s mob ran the same smear campaign against Gracey and it derailed her bid. This same leftist mob spent many unsuccessful months trying to force her off the Finance Board where she still serves with distinction today. Consider the source.
What was my actual crime ? being a Conservative and challenging local liberals in Huntington Beach, disagreeing with their views and working actively to stop them from making my hometown worse.
This cannot stand. One side that feels impunity to slander and destroy anyone who gets in the way of their “utopia” is begging for a correction. Society has the choice to stop these individuals or face the natural consequences of their actions.
Mark Bixby is a coward and a liar, a person so mentally diseased with hate for people like me that he can never be relied upon to serve the public with clarity, honor and honesty. Mark Bixby and people like him cannot be allowed to influence the public from positions of authority. But, he wasn’t alone. Because he’s a coward Mark Bixby doesn’t have the ability to front a public smear like this. From the moment this happened I knew exactly who was involved, I promise that the people who worked with him will also be exposed going forward.
I hope all of you reading this understands my call to you: know the threat that people like Mark Bixby presents for our towns and speak up against them.
I hope you never have to see your name in the LA Times, headlined with filthy lies told by angry small people bent on controlling all of our lives. We must stop them now.
As Dennis Prager quotes in “The Rape of a Name Is Also Rape”
“Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?” That was the question the secretary of labor in the Reagan administration, Raymond Donovan, asked, after being acquitted of all charges for larceny and fraud.
Where, indeed, does one go after having one’s reputation unjustly ruined?
Writing this piece is where I start.
PS During the firestorm in December 2016 I received this anonymous support letter, whoever you are thank you !!
