The city placed Chief of Police Paco Balderama on paid administrative leave during the investigation.
I've been a little loath to talk about it because there are different media
outlets running with different stories at different levels of confirmation, and so I was
a little bit I was a little hesitant to talk about it in too much
depth. Our friend Alex Tavlian from the Sanlaquin Valley Sun kind of had the
story in its details. He had sort of confirmed and ran with it sooner
than the Fresno b and other television outlets did. But now pretty much everyone
is reporting largely similar things as far as the nature of the allegations against Paco
Balderama, basically that he the City of Fresno, I think, frankly,
in their initial press release, massively downplayed the significance of it in terms of
what they said. What they said was technically accurate. Balderama was being investigated
for a possible inappropriate relationship quote with a non city employee. The police union
issued a statement sort of angrily pointing out that the city left out a very
key detail in its characterization of this relationship Balderama was having. It wasn't just
any quote non city official. It was a two year long affair with the
wife of another police officer, another police officer under Balderama in the chain of
command. That's a much bigger deal. Okay, yeah, if I mean,
in all fairness, if Balderama was just having air with somebody you know,
I don't know, but with the I don't know, some ranom so
the lady who runs the dry cleaning store where he does his dry cleaning,
who has no relationship with the police department whatsoever, her husband's not in the
police department whatever. That would be terrible, that would be deeply morally wrong,
but it probably doesn't rise to the level of, you know, this
kind of an hr problem. If you're sleep, if you're the chief of
police and you're having an affair with another officer's wife, that's a much bigger
deal. That's a much bigger deal. So the City of Fresno announced they're
finally putting Balderama on paid administrative leave, and that made sense, especially yesterday.
So yesterday, Baldorama, he didn't really have a press conference. It
was sort of just a media media we're sort of hanging out outside the city
council chambers. Baldarama was walking by. He said, I'm not going to
talk about the investigation, and then proceeded to talk about it, which is,
you know, bad PR you know bad PR one oh one. If
you're not going to talk about something, don't talk about it. So a
couple of outlets and GV wire had has the video of it of him talking
at length about this thing, and at one end I got to say the
video hearing him talk about it, I was Look, I've never had any
reason to dislike Paco Baldarama. He has seemingly done a very good job.
All the statistics about crime rates in Fresno have been positive. Nobody has an
ill word has up to this point had an ill word to say about Balderama
other than extreme liberals. Frankly, when Balderama came in, it was right
after all the George Floyd's stuff and Fresno had set up that I think bogus
Police Reform Commission, which had gotten stacked for Oliver Bains, I think had
gotten railroaded by Sandra Celadon and all these ultra left wing, lunatic nonprofit activists
who were very much within the you know, the the about you know,
defund the Police School, of thinking, and Baldarama basically said, yeah,
some of your recommendations are just not workable and we're just not going to do
them. And I thought that was great. I was, you know,
applauding the guy. So I've had no occasion to dislike Baldarama up to this
point. You know, I don't know him. I don't know of him
all that well. All I know is what I know of public stuff,
and most of the public stuff I've seen from him has been just fine.
But gosh, his attitude in this little press scrum was so arrogant and so
like unaccountable. I mean, first of all, getting angry at the media
and saying, don't ask anything salacious here, to which I was thinking,
don't ask anything slatious. Maybe you don't, maybe you shouldn't do something salacious
like a two year long affair with someone else's wife, Ask anything slatious.
And I don't think any of the media was asking anything salacious. They were
asking this is the story, this is the story that's out in the open.
He First of all, Balderama has himself now admitted to an inappropriate relationship.
He released a letter in which a letter that he released to other officers
within the police department, expressing his remorse for having had this relationship. He
does not specify that this was with another officer's wife, so he has admitted
that he's done this. There's no question he's done this. So he's in
this press scrum. At one point, he's almost like trying to rationalize or
justify it when he says he had this quote if I sold insurance and I'm
ellipsis, and he's giving other examples of other kinds of job, or if
I think he was saying, you know, if I sold insurance, or
was head of another department, or was the principal at a school, would
any of this would this make news, to which the reporter from GVRE sort
of said back to him incredulously. But you're the chief of police, and
yeah, that's the point here he is like, he's like, well,
well, this wouldn't even be any news if I were a principle or if
I were, you know, selling insurance or something. Yeah, it probably
wouldn't be. Well maybe it wouldn't be. I maybe I'll get to that
later. Maybe it wouldn't be. But that's the point. You're the chief
of police. This is a very very big important job. You're the chief
of police of a major California city. This is a huge job. It
has, this is an enormous public trust, and you spent two years on
the job. And by the way, he's been here for not that long
of a time. I mean, he was worn in in January of twenty
twenty one. He's been having an affair with this woman for two years.
We're in June of twenty twenty four, so basically about he'd been on the
job for a year and then he already started having an affair with this person.
So he's spent most of his tenure having an affair with another officer's wife.
If the reporting is accurate here that this was a two year long affair,
I'm sure that the exact parameters and details of this are you know,
maybe it's probably not exactly twenty four months on the dot or something, but
seemingly he spent most of his time as mayor having an affair. He talks
about out of one side of his mouth and the other he's sort of saying
two different things about sort of his standing and his ability to keep doing his
job on an ongoing basis. So, on the one hand, he on
the one hand, he kept saying things in this press conference that MA can
indicate he fully intends and expects to keep being the police chief, that you
know, I'm going to continue to lead this department. I intend to continue
leading this department. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah.
And then he says two things. One is that he's got so much support,
that so many people in the community supports me, and I know this
because I've heard from them and everyone, so so many people in the community
have reached out and supported me. But then on the other side of his
mouth he's got he's sort of saying stuff like like there's a shadowy cabal that
definitely wants to take him down. There are definitely people who want to see
me fail. That was one of the things he said in this little press
scrum. Nearly people that want to see me fail. No, there I
reject that contention. Out of any prominent person in Fresno public life and Fresno
political life, there are probably few people who had a better approval rating than
Paco Balderama did. Nobody wanted to see him fail. Nobody, he as
by his own admission. He had a pretty good working relationship with the union.
He had two union grievances against him that had both been withdrawn prior to
this, but that was it. He worked pretty well with the union,
He worked well with the city council, He worked well with the mayor.
Mayor likes him, Everyone likes him. Nobody had any reason really to dislike
Paco Balderama. He got in one little spat with Sandra seladon the ultra lefty
nonprofit sort of side of the universe, and that was it. Paco Balderama
had a very higher proof. I really don't think there are a lot of
people who would be happy to see him fail. I don't know, maybe
other than the husband, other than the husband of the woman he's sleeping with.
So he's sort of talking out of both sides of his mouth to say,
well, this community supports me, but there are definitely people who want
to take me down. It was also sort of one of the questions he
was asked, was you know, are you worried? He said, I'm
not worried. There's so many worse things happening every day and said, I'm
not worried about it. The BS, of course, you're worried, you're
having an investigation about your job. Don't tell me that this is a huge
job that you uprooted. He used to be an officer in Oklahoma City.
He was hired from Oklahoma City to be the chief of police for the city
of Fresno. You uprooted your whole life to come out here to be the
chief of police of a major city. Of course you're worried. Dingle Berry.
He's got this false tough guy machismo thing combined with this all this kind
of religious talk that frankly not sounding as great coming from a guy who's you
know, had an affair for two years. Frankly, the city should have
put him on paid administrative leave before this. I think, I think,
if you're actually doing an investigation into somebody about whether or not he's had an
ef he's having an affair with a subordinate's wife, that where he has admitted
he's had he had an affair with a subordinate's wife and it went on for
two years. I guess I don't understand how you don't put him on paid
administrative leave right away. And then after this press conference it becomes painfully obvious
because that was a train wreck of a little press scrump. What he should
have said was, I had my letter that I wrote to the President police,
which was released to the media. That's all I'm going to say about
it. Move on away from the camera. Maybe if he handled it like
that, I mean, that would be better. But you know, he
has this press scrum. He says all these stupid things. He's at the
verge of breaking up in tears throughout the press scrum. I mean, you
can tell his voice is like cracking throughout the whole thing, Like this should
not be someone who's around a television camera at any point. But it's also
a thing I heard, you know. I think it's a little odd to
have someone still sitting there in the big guy's chair while the investigation is going
on as to his conduct. I mean, are subordinates going to be as
free and open with their thoughts about him if he's still in the big seat.
So, I I don't know. I find it odd how relatively kid
Glove the treatment of Balderama has been. And I'll note that yesterday the city
Council met in they had a one particular closed session portion of their meeting.
Certain for most things, the city council has to meet in public, in
public session that's open to you know, scrutiny. And there's California a good
government like transparency laws that requires city council meetings to be open in public.
But there are certain kinds of things that need to be that can be in
closed session, particularly city personnel questions and city litigation questions. And apparently they
met in closed session for an undisclosed potential city litigation question. So I wonder
if Baldarama's people are trying to indicate to the city, you know, hey,
if you take adverse action against mister Balderama, that we might you know,
sue here. I don't know. I don't know if Balderama's secured council.
I'm not sure. The timing of it, though, is suspicious.
Now, when we return, I want to talk about the idea of sexual
harassment in the workplace the John Girardi wherein John Girardi starts moralizing. That's next
on The John Girardi Show. In light of this whole Paco Balderama's story,
I want to just talk through the conversation my wife and I had last night
about this. So my wife has an ongoing list. It's a list you
don't want to be on. It's Holly Gay's list of people who have engaged
in inappropriate sexual conduct that she just basically despises for the rest of all eternity.
And when you get on the list, you don't get off because Holly
remembers. Holly's got a mind like a steel trap, and you This is
not to say that Holly does not believe in forgiveness, and that you know,
you can seek forgiveness from God and get forgiveness from God, but you're
not going to get forgetfulness from old Holly Girardi. That's that's That's that Hollykleivsky.
She does not forget. She remembers things I've forgotten that there was another
there was some athlete from twenty years ago or something who had done something really
stupid and she had remembered and I had forgotten. Like Ben Roethlisberger. She
does not forget that time that Ben Roethlisberger possibly maybe sexual assaulted some woman and
the cops basically didn't charge him. With the prosecutors, the local prosecutors didn't
charge him, but they were like, hey, they released a bunch of
info about it to say, hey, something fishy happened here, but we
don't have the evidence to actually bring charges, but we're pretty dang sure something
fishy happened. Holly's never forgiven or forgotten. Well, she's never forgotten anyway,
that about Ben Roethlisberg. She's still not forgotten Tom Brady ditching Bridget moynihan
for Giselle Bunch, and Tom Brady's on her list. A lot of guys,
a lot of people are on Holly's list, And it's just a thing
of with Balderramo. He's been the police chief for three years, almost three
and a half years. He's carried on an affair with another officer's wife for
two of those three years. How do you find the time? This is
the thing that baffles me. And maybe I'm maybe I'm just a dough eyed
naive, you know, naive person. How do you find the time?
I mean, being chief of police has got to be an unbelievably time consuming,
stressful, your phone is buzzing twenty four to seven kind of job.
It's a high stress, high work demand job where you're working a lot.
And I've had time, you know, I you know, I can't say
that being a nonprofit director is as time consuming as being chief of police.
I highly doubt that, but I've had times over the course of my career,
especially like when we were starting our clinic where I was burning the candle
at both ends. I was working really hard. I I don't know.
Maybe I've just got less game, I guess, But I not only I
don't have the time in my life to spend trolling for some other woman to
sleep with even if I and nor do I think. I don't understand how
he I would even to have the opportunity, Like it just baffles my mind,
Like I try to think of myself, like, Okay, here's this
person who has succumbed to human weakness. Could I see myself in these shoes?
And honestly, I have a hard time thinking about how I could even
manage my time and my schedule, which is not as intense as his,
in order to facilitate a two year long affair of cheating on my wife.
And it's also a thing of it's not just a succumbing to human weakness,
all right. I'm standing by the fridge at night, grabbing something for dessert,
and I s come to the human weakness to grab one more cookie than
is good for me. This is a two year long affair. There's so
much like deliberate planning that has to have gone on and deception that has to
have gone on. I guess I just don't understand. I find it difficult
to fathom that. And again maybe I'm just naive. I mean, clearly
people do that all the time, and it remind it reminds me of this
that. Okay, there are certain conservatives during the whole me too thing who
were like, oh Jesus, no, people are so upset about sexual harassment
and the world. These liberals have taken the me too thing too far and
bar bla bla blah blah blah blah. And I'll agree that with there was
a certain aspect of the you know, believe all women thing that I think
turned into at times deny basic due process protections for men. And I think
I try to have a balanced view on the idea of sexual harassment and sexual
assault claims that yes, we should take claims of sexual assault seriously and follow
the evidence where it leads, and while still though respecting due process rights for
those who are accused, but when it comes to sexual harassment, in the
workplace. I take a very moralizing view. I've been working for you know,
when did I graduate laws? Twenty thirteen? Okay, I've been working
ever since. I've worked with all kinds of people. I've worked with women,
I've worked with women. I've worked with older women, I've worked with
younger women. I've worked with very attractive women. I've worked with all kinds
of people. It's very easy not to sexually harass somebody. It's very easy,
in the context of your work, not to be a creep, not
to sexually harass somebody, not to touch people in ways that don't call for
it, not to sleep with someone else's coworker's wife. It's really very easy.
And it's the thing where it isn't really human weakness here. Human weakness
again is standing in front of the fridge and eating that one extra oreo that
you shouldn't eat. It's so stupid, it's so evil. It involves so
much planning and positive decision making and lying and sneaking around. I think we
should it's and it's so easy not to do. I think they should just
canbald I'm on the spot, like to do that to another officers with another
officer's wife. It destroys trust within the department. How can you possibly how
can you possibly be a leader if you're doing stuff like that, How can
you possibly enforce you know, correct HR standards within the department if you're off
doing that. I think he's got to go. It's just I have a
very short fuse with stuff like this, and this is such bs. I
think he's got to go. When we return, I want to talk about
this lingering in the background noise of stories about Justice Alito. Now beyond commenting
on the flagsy waves, we're now talking about comments he made that were secretly
recorded. That's next on the John Girardi Show. Justice Alito has been the
target of everybody on the left. Really, all the conservative justices on the
Court have been part of this consistent campaign that I think probably goes back to
at least the appointment of Amy Cony Barrett to the Supreme Court. Amy Cony
Barrett being put on the Supreme Court to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg was for Democrats
this unacceptable catastrophe because they knew there's now a genuine conservative majority on the Court
at least five to four, if not in some cases. It's going to
be six to three, and that they are in deep due to the Supreme
Court. That they'd always been able to count on for years and years and
years at least being on any important issue, being five to four in their
favor was now flipped and it was something that was now so far outside of
their control that it was making them panicky. And indeed that panic was justified,
as the Court would go one in twenty twenty two to overturn Roe v.
Wade, the most precious, sacred thing for the left. So ever
since then there's been this sort of campaign. Liberals realized they couldn't just come
out and say we want to pack the Supreme Court. They sort of tried
that at the start of the Biden administration. It got nowhere. They couldn't
get all well, they got I think they got like forty eight out of
the fifty Democrat senators to basically be on board with getting rid of the filibuster
rules so that they could expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
So again, let me just let me just res give our definitions here.
What Democrats wanted to do is pack the Supreme Court Court. Packing is a
term of art within American history and American legal history. It calls to mind
the actions of Franklin Roosevelt, who was very annoyed that so many of his
New Deal policies were being blocked by the justices, the Republican appointee justices on
the Supreme Court. He was getting really frustrated they kept stopping him, stopping
him, stopping him. And so in the nineteen thirties, Roosevelt proposed legislation
to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court. Roosevelt had massive Democrat
majorities in the House of Representatives in the US Senate, and so basically what
Roosevelt was proposing was he wanted to increase the number of seats on the Supreme
Court so that he could appoint and have his Senate confirm all these new replacements
in order precisely to change the ideological balance of power on the court and get
different outcomes. That's what court packing means, and that's what Democrats want to
do. Now, Democrats have retorted, well, Donald Trump was court packing.
No, Donald Trump was aggressively filling vacancies. He was not creating new
judgeships or new seats on the US Supreme Court. In order to change the
ideological outcome. He was filling vacancies. That's not court packing. That's just
aggressively filling vacancies. That's it. Every historian prior to the year twenty twenty
or yeah, basically, every historian prior to the year twenty twenty thought of
Roosevelt's conduct trying to pack the Supreme Court. History has judged it very,
very negatively. Essentially, every historian, every historian of law, every historian
of the court has thought that Roosevelt's desire to pack the Supreme Court in the
nineteen thirties was a hugely destabilizing thing. It was not good, and it
was thoroughly rejected at the time by Roosevelt's own Democrat majorities in the House and
Senate. The Democrat leadership in the House and Senate said, nope, look,
we love the new Deal, but President Roosevelt, this is a step
too far, and you absolutely should not do this. We should never take
this step of packing the Supreme Court just purely to achieve ideological outcomes. We
favor that that's wrong. So Democrats know that if they're just purely brazen about
this, about wanting to pack the Supreme Court today because they think the current
conservative majority is unacceptable. They can't just do it baldly saying, Hey,
the Supreme Court has issued all these decisions we disagree with, We need to
flip those. They need to give some other kind of bs rationale or why
they want to pack the Supreme Court now. They're not really in a position
to do that right now. Republicans have control of the House to Representatives.
It would make no sense for Democrats to try to introduce legislation right now to
pack the Supreme Court. And frankly, I don't think Democrats have the votes
to do that in the Senate either. So what are Democrats hoping. Democrats
are hoping that they get at least fifty two or so votes in the Senate,
that they take back the House to Representatives, and that they win the
White House, that President Biden gets re elected this November. If all that
happens, what they're going to say is that the Supreme Court is so compromised
right now, so ethically compromised, that the only thing to do that would
be fair. We can't, you know, we don't have the votes to
to kick to you know, to impeach the sitting members of the Supreme Court,
although maybe they will initiate such proceedings once they have the house back.
But at the very least, we have to to bring balance to the court.
To restore the court's reputation. We have to add four seats to the
US Supreme Court. And how are they doing that with this campaign of stories
alleging ethical improprieties on the part of all the conservative justices. So first,
it was Clarence Thomas who had this friendship with this billionaire who he wrote on
his jet a bunch of times, This billionaire who never had any cases in
front of the court. He was buddies with Justice Thomas. He let Justice
Thomas fly in his private jet. There was nothing he was doing that was
violating any kind of ethics, code of conduct or anything of the sort.
But the story gets reported, and you find enough lefties who just hate Clarence
Thomas, some lefty lawyer who's willing to say in a news story, oh,
this raises some very serious questions. Okay, well, it raises a
serious question. And here's the serious answer. It's not a conflict of interest.
It's not something that he has to recuse himself from. It's not something
he inappropriately failed to disclose he didn't do anything wrong. They release a story
about Justice Roberts that his wife is a high powered attorney in Washington, d
c. That she's basically kind of a legal headhunter who helps recruit sort of
people to come into law firms as sort of partner level status. So not
you know, new recruits coming fresh out of law school, this is a
law firm that's looking for existing lawyers with the long standing track record of practice
to kind of come in a sort of a lateral move. Oh, that
she makes something like a million dollars per year. Yeah, his wife is
a really successful, accomplished attorney. Lots of Supreme Court justices have had spouses
that were highly successful, accomplished attorneys. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's husband was a very
successful, accomplished the fact that she has a job and makes income, and
you know, yeah, probably she's a little more prominent because her husband is
the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But that's not her. That's not
something that's inappropriate. That's not some inappropriate cashing in on her husband's position.
They had all these stories. They had even they tried to go after Neil
Gorsich because he sold one of his He had a house in Colorado that he
decided to sell and he sold it to some other lawyer in Colorado, and
it was all this. This is such raises questions of propriety. No,
he sold a house. They're trying to raise issues about Clarence Thomas that his
wife is super right wing and she was kind of super supportive of Stop the
Steal stuff. It's like, okay, maybe she is. You cannot attach
espouses opinion to a justice. We don't do that. You can't say that,
well, Ginny Thomas was supportive of Stop the Steal. Therefore Clarence Thomas
needs to recuse himself from any cases involving the twenty twenty elections. No,
Thomas hasn't expressed anything. Clarence Thomas himself has not expressed anything. The fact
that Ginny Thomas believes what she wants to believe, that's her business and it
does not necessarily impact anything that Clarence Thomas does. Well, now we get
to this whole thing with sam Alito. So you've got the flat this idiotic
story that sam Alito's wife flew an upside down American flag at their house.
This was after one of their neighbors was really nasty to her. It was
after January sixth. She was really upset, and for a couple of days
she flew the American flag upside down, which media members are allegedly saying that
was a notorious stop the steel logo or message to fly your flag upside down.
No flying the American flag upside down. First of all, I've never
heard of that as a stop the steel thing. I know plenty of right
wingers who very firmly believe in stopped the steal. I've never seen any of
them fly the American flag upside down. I think generally flying the American flag
upside down it's just a distress signal, like what is wrong with this country?
What is you know? We're in distress. Then they said, oh
yeah, this other flag that was another stopped the steel thing. No,
it was some flag George Washington's secretary design it said appeal to Heaven on it
and flew that at his beach house. And that's another stop the steel thing.
No, it's not to stop the steel thing. The arguments being made
he should therefore recuse himself from Donald Trump's January sixth cases presidential immunity stuff.
No, that's ridiculous. Then we have this reporter who secretly recorded comments by
Alito and Roberts at some party where frankly, the specific comments were made.
Alito was talking about divisions in the country. Justice privately said the Justice leader
is talking. He's talking to private context where he said he hopes the country
couldn't return to some form of godliness was one of the things he said,
which, yeah, I think a justice in a private moment is allowed to
express an opinion like that. He said that he had little hope that the
country would be able to find compromise on certain things, again in private.
That's probably true and not exactly an inappropriate thing for a justice to think in
private. So this is when we return. I want to talk about this
concept called the fog of news and how I think that's the strategy that's being
employed next on the John Girardi Show. I think the problem we're facing when
it comes to the justices on the Supreme Court and all these stories about Sam
Alito some comments he made to a reporter who lied to him, who clandestinely
recorded what he thought was a private conversation where he said some very bland political
views about hoping the country returns to godliness, something that probably millions and millions
of Americans believe, and that he doesn't have much hope that there's going to
be much compromise in American political life. This is on top of story after
story after story after story, none of which had any merit to them,
about conservative justices allegedly doing things that were unethical and not recusing themselves for alleged
unethical conduct. Let's ignore Elena Kagan not recusing herself from the Obamacare case when
she had been Obama's Solicitor General working on that precise case. Let's ignore Ruth
Bader Ginsberg openly opposing the election of Donald Trump not appropriate. Let's ignore Sonya
Sotomayor openly encouraging college students to oppose pro life laws. All these stories,
I think are creating a fog of news. It's creating a fog of Well,
the court seems pretty unethical. So therefore, if Democrats get all the
majorities in the House and Senate and win the White House, it's okay if
they want to pack the Supreme Court because we got to fix this. Yeah,
it seems like the Supreme Court's pretty unethical. No, they're not unethical.
This is a bogus attempt by the left to pack the court. That'll
do it for John Jordi Show, See next time on Power Talk.