Political news & views for independent-minded voters 

Holy cow…they’re done.

The most impactful Blog in Orange County is going on a long, if not permanent hiatus per this mid-afternoon post from Tony Bushala.  Tony and colleagues like Travis Kiger, and a host of other anonymous posters and commentors spent the last few years turning Fullerton on its ear with their activism and coverage of city politics that ran circles around the mainstream media and set a standard that the rest of us admired and, frankly, envied.

The FFFF played a national role in revealing the murder-by-cop death of Kelly Thomas, a homeless man with mental issues.  Three BAD cops are no longer on the Fullerton Police force (and likely destined for jail) due to FFFF’s diligence and the copious reporting they committed to the blogosphere.  They caused the retirement of Fullerton’s feckless police chief and revealed plenty about this gang of nasty, violent cops that often ruled the city with fists and billy clubs.  Tony and Travis were frequent guests on KFI’s John and Ken Show — that’s rare, and even rarer that they convinced this drive-time program with over one million daily listeners to come down to Fullerton for multiple events spawned by the Thomas killing.

Tony announces his recall plans to last year's Fullerton City Council
Photo credit: OC Weekly

They succeeded in ousting an utterly worthless City Council majority in a rare recall election, and replacing them with three intelligent, responsible citizens who managed to turn their city, at least for awhile, away from the dark side.  As long-time followers of Orange County politics, we always appreciated FFFF's exposures of some of the smarmier actors here like Curt Pringle, who they often exposed and pinned with the permanent label of "Mayor for Hire".  Schnooks like Tom Daly, Dick Ackerman and Brett Barbre were also frequent, and deserved, targets of their commentary and fact finding.

We won't speculate why FFFF is shutting down (but thankfully not deleting its extremely valuable content as it makes for excellent research material).  Art and I have known Tony for years, and have been privileged to be invited to his home to participate in the great Grover Cleveland events that he and Steve Greenhut hosted.

But, good Blogs are damned tough to do, and especially stay relevant over time.  Tony obviously spent plenty of time and his own money in making FFFF what it was, and he and his folks monumentally succeeded as the local focal point that brought so much attention to what had been one of the worst City Councils and out-of-control Police Departments in Orange County.  They'll never be forgotten for that.

Thanks FFFF, for setting the bar so high.

==================== UPDATE ======================

Here coverage of FFFF's shutdown from the Register and OC Weekly: