By Hunter Chase, Community News Reporter
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[See Walker’s, p. 5]
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Emma Rault stands in front of Walker’s Cafe, which closed in October. Rault is leading the effort to make the café a historic-cultural monument. Photo by Arturo Garcia-Ayala
Trump Confesses! This is an admission, and a massively un-American statement “he [Pence] could have overturned the Election!” — Former President Donald Trump “This is what prosecutors call guilty knowledge. And also, intent…” — Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
A year after the Jan. 6 coup attempt, crimes hidden in plain sight — the insurrectionists’ seditious conspiracy, Donald Trump’s election-interference phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the submission of fraudulent electoral college slates — are finally getting the public attention they deserve. It’s causing many to question why Trump seems immune to scrutiny, while Trump himself provided possible reasons at a rally in Conroe, Texas on Jan. 29. He raised the specter of violence if he’s charged with any crimes, while baselessly accusing two Black prosecutors of being racists, and also dangling promises of pardons, which could constitute obstruction of justice. He followed up by openly admitting he had tried to get Vice President Mike Pence to “overturn the election.”
“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt,” he told his audience, in the midst of an 80-minute lie-packed speech. Minutes later, he promised to “treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” if he runs and wins in 2024, “And if it requires pardons we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.” In fact, as early as late August, the Washington Post reported that, “Federal judges in Washington are questioning whether rioters who have admitted to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 in support of President Donald
Trump are being treated too leniently.” Never-Trump Republicans were quick to condemn Trump’s most recent remarks. “Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election,” said Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, co-chair of Jan. 6 Select Committee on Twitter. “He’d do it all again if given the chance.” On Jan. 30, Trump released a statement attacking recent congressional efforts to definitively close
February 3 - 16, 2022
For Valentine’s Day: ¡Holy Mole mi Amor! p. 12
Local activist submits application for historic-cultural monument status
Real People, Real News, Really Effective
alker’s Cafe was one of the places that convinced Emma Rault to move to San Pedro. So, when it closed down in October, she was very concerned. “The first time that my wife and I visited here … we just had this really wonderful experience,” Rault said at the Jan. 18 meeting of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. “It kind of drove home that this might be a place where you can find things that … can be quite difficult to find in Los Angeles, which are community and historic continuity. And Walker’s Cafe kind of represents both of those things and is now under threat.” The café, which is right next to Point Fermin Park, has been a beloved mainstay of San Pedro since its founding in 1944 by Bessie Mae Petersen and Ray Walker. Before its closing, it was open on and off during the pandemic. Rault, who is a board member of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council, began looking into ways to preserve the café shortly after it closed. “I was very concerned because suddenly the prospect of this place possibly disappearing from the community forever began to seem very real,” Rault told Random Lengths News. Rault was already somewhat familiar with preservation advocacy, so she started a petition on change.org to preserve the café, which has gathered more than 2,500 signatures.
[See Un-American p. 10] 1