The prosecutor Los Angeles voters fired two years ago because of his soft on crime policies could be headed back to the LAPD, this time to run it.
Page F117From§Eachthe morning edition — 12 October 2026
Raman calls LAPD chief fascist, then demands he be fired, opening the same door for an already-fired DA.
As it ran on the front
The filing clerk pulls six days of tape, hon, and lines it up end to end.
On October 6th, a campaign video surfaces calling LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell and Mayor Karen Bass "fascist liars." The campaign deletes it the same day. A second item carries the same date: Nithya Raman wants McDonnell fired "over his response," the item says, to the 2025 ICE raids — the same raids during which photographs show her holding a margarita.…
…(cont) Two days later, October 8th, Mayor Bass enters the line as "irresponsible," says Raman has "no clue." Three days after that, October 11th, the shake-up acquires a name for the vacancy: George Gascón, the district attorney Los Angeles voters already removed from office once, reported as the man positioned to take the department over if McDonnell goes. By October 12th — six days from the first video — Bass is on the record a second time, this time not over one position but over two, held close enough together to fit inside a single news cycle.
Run the filing against the table and the gap comes to six days: fascist on the 6th, fired on the 6th, for-him-before-against-him on the 6th, irresponsible on the 8th, Gascón's name on the 11th, flip-flop on the 12th. That is not much runway to hold two opposite jobs for the same chief in your head — champion him, denounce him, then recommend his replacement be whoever the moment happens to be holding.
The vacancy does not stay open on its own. It gets filled by whoever the moment hands it to, and this time the moment hands it to a man already fired once, for reasons the record keeps in a separate drawer entirely. That is the whole mechanism on display here: a six-day reversal does not erase the office, it only decides who inherits it. The voters who fired Gascón did not get asked whether they wanted the question reopened. Nobody is asking them now either.
“Six days from "fascist" to "fired" is not conviction, it is two press releases aimed at two different audiences, and the vacancy is the point, not the word. The guy waiting to fill it already got fired by voters once, and this is how he gets back in — through somebody else's flip-flop, not through an election. The people who fired him don't get asked this time either.”
“She's not flip-flopping, she's responding to new information in real time, which under different lighting used to be called flip-flopping, but that's a separate conversation. And sure, the man who could take over happens to be a DA voters already removed, but turnover's healthy, it keeps the bench fresh. Did I say removed? I meant available.”
The receipts
LA Mayor Karen Bass slammed Nithya Raman for giving conflicting statements on whether she would replace LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.
· Mayor Karen Bass slams ‘irresponsible’ Nithya Raman for calling cops ‘fascist’ : ‘She has no clue’ from the morgue, 8 Oct 2026
· Nithya Raman caught in ‘dangerous’ video targeting LAPD chief: ‘Fascist liars’ from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
· Nithya Raman drank margaritas as ICE protests ignited LA — now she wants LAPD chief fired over his response from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
· Nithya Raman was for LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell before she was against him from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.