Repuglicanism
Fabulous Festivities Fall Flat On Face
Posted by Mr. Peabody in Dick Jones, Harry Sidhu, OC's Fourth District, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low on March 13, 2010
The other day one of the Friends got an e-mail from our favorite punching carpetbag – Hide and Seek Sidhu – announcing the “grand kick-off” opening of his Scampaign HQ for the 4th Supervisorial District election – a district in which he has already cooked up two separate addresses.
The e-mail announced that the site would be Ground Zero for the hordes of Sidhu’s faithful volunteers who would be fanning out across the district to spread the Good News about ol’ Hide and Seek. Here’s the typical scampaign bloviation:
The headquarters, located at 1105 S. Euclid St., Suite H, in Fullerton, will serve as the staging ground for hundreds of Sidhu volunteers as the campaign initiates its grassroots effort over the coming weeks.
“The Sidhu volunteer effort will be broad and effective,” said Sidhu spokesman Tim Clark. “Under the watchful eye of veteran consultant Scott Taylor, Harry Sidhu’s campaign is on track to exceed our goal of recruiting and fielding over three hundred grassroots volunteers.”
Of course we couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a little photo reconnaissance just to see what all the hubbub was about. So we sent a couple of Friends over to check it out. Here’s what they saw:
Good grief. No swarm of ecstatic volunteers. Just Billy Turner a few of his friends standing around. We even thought we caught a few glimpses of Hide and Seek himself who perhaps had surfaced for air, at least temporarily.
Another Friend drove by later in the day and said the place looked closed, although the bike was still there.
By the way, somebody better explain to Sidhu that “volunteers” are not people you put on your payroll. Volunteers support you because they believe what you stand for, and believe that you reside in the district where you are running for office. And “recruiting” volunteers doesn’t mean putting college kids and the unemployed on your payroll.
The Sad, Shrinking World of Tom Daly
Posted by Grover Cleveland in Dead heads, Orange County Government, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low on March 11, 2010
Our Friend Allan Bartlett passed along our post about Tom Daly’s $10,000,000 real estate disaster for the edification of the good government advocates who read the “Red County” blog. Or maybe he did it to annoy the Republican supporters of crazy spendthrift Democrat Tom Daly.
And as I predicted in my original post, a couple of Tom Daly sycophants popped up to defend the indefensible. And here’s what Cynthia Ward, AKA Colony Rabble had to say:
Tom Daly bought a piece of real estate that staff reveiwed (sic) and approved and the Supes voted for? Oh no! Whatever will we do? String up the varmint! The Fullerton boys are real sleuths. I told you in the Barbre post that Tom was expanding the Archives and looking at other space. His real estate may not have been the best deal? Well welcome to the world the rest of us live in!
Tom Daly is a fiscal conservative. Tom Daly is a fiscal conservative.
Apparently the idea of wasting $2,100,000 for a completely worthless piece of property is of no concern to Ms. Ward. Not the best deal? Jesus H., this miscreant flushed 2.1 million tax dollars down the toilet! The world the rest of us live in? Is that supposed to be a joke? Does Cynthia Ward routinely blow millions on worthless real estate? Do her friends? Do her neighbors?
Well now we know what kind of a conservative Ward is. And if we ever needed confirmation that her job at the Mauve County was to do anything other than promote the egregious Daly (and now, it seems, to try to talk away his mammoth incompetency), now we have it.
The Word Is Getting Out
Posted by Mr. Peabody in Dead heads, OC's Fourth District, Orange County Government, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low on March 11, 2010
I was driving through a blue-collar type neighborhood in the flatlands of Anaheim this morning, not all that far from Hide-N-Seek Sidhu’s fraudulent voting address at the Calabria Apartments, and look what I came across.
Not wild about Hide and Seek Sidhu
Blue County Passes Along Comical Sidhu “Hit” Piece
Posted by Mr. Peabody in Behind Closed Doors, Dead heads, Harry Sidhu, OC's Fourth District, Orange County Government, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low on March 10, 2010
Ouch. Did it hurt a lot?
Some dude named Chris Prevatt at a blog called “the Liberal OC” has decided to pass along that ludicrous piece of spam mail “hit-piece” we posted about yesterday – sent all the way from India!
It seems Prevatt is taken with the fact that Sidhu’s Mumbai Marauders have discovered the horrible truth about Nelson: he’s gotten three traffic tickets since (gasp) 2003! Prevatt seems to think he deserves his own wing at Corcoran State Prison.
All tentacles and no brains
A little digging uncovers what’s going on here. Prevatt is a County worker who once had his computer taken away for blogging on company time. He is also what is known as a “Jannie,” one of the pathetic creatures that Janet Nguyen discovered under some rock or other and put to work in her PR salt mine.
Here’s the connection: Nguyen has recently endorsed the completely unethical carpetbagging scampaign of Harry Sidhu, fake addresses and all; and we’ve been questioning why Nguyen is putting on additional staff in Norby’s former office where there is no supervisor. The Register’s Jennifer Muir picked up on this and started asking questions. Nguyen is no doubt pissed off at being outed.
Prevatt leaps into the breach by passing along Sidhu’s comically pathetic attempt to attack Nelson for traffic tickets! Hoo boy! Petty and silly? Stupid and ineffectual? Of course. What do you expect?
Say, what is the Democrat equivalent of a “repuglican?”
Maybe the Register Should Just Put Us on the Payroll
Posted by Mr. Peabody in Behind Closed Doors, Dead heads, OC's Fourth District, Orange County Government, Repuglicanism on March 9, 2010
Yesterday we related how Board of Supervisor Chair, Janet Nguyen, Supervisor for the 1st District, has taken into her noodle to employ two new folks in Chris Norby’s former 4th District office – even though there is no supervisor there.
Now we are informed that the OC Register’s Jennifer Muir was calling around the Hall of Admin later in the day and asking about the new staffing arrangements.
Geez, pretty soon the Register may just have to give FFFF its own column.
He Went to Boston But Couldn’t Make a Local Phone Call; Original Hall of Fame Founder Calls BS on Daly/Barbre
Posted by Grover Cleveland in About Us, Behind Closed Doors, Dead heads, Orange County Government, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low, Tom Daly on March 8, 2010
The Tom Daly Experience. The closer you look, the worse it gets...
It’s looking like County Clerk Tom Daly figures he can peddle any old bullshit to a Register reporter and get away with it. And he probably figures on an easy re-election this spring. That’s the arrogance of a career politician for you.
When questioned by the Reg’s Jennifer Muir about his sports hall of fame fiasco in which he paid “consultant” and campaign contributor Brett Barbre $48,000 to “study” the notion, Daly said he paid Barbre for “ideas, not long reports.” Not quite right, Mr. Daly. See, we read your contract with Barbre even if you didn’t. He was supposed to be doing research on the feasiblity of the scheme – a scheme, by the way, that falls way outside the County Clerk’s job description. That specifically included contacting similar entities.
Hey, those guys weren't in the phone book!
And here’s the kicker: we already had a hall of fame in the County – which apparently was located in Angel’s Stadium in the 80s and subsequently mothballed. And we got an e-mail from a gent who says he was one of the founders: Pete Donovan. Mr. Donovan asserts that nobody ever contacted him or fellow founders about this idea. Here’s Donovan’s e-mail:
Subject: Orange County Sports Hall of Fame
I am a founder of the Orange County Sports Hall of Fame. We began in 1980 with a huge banquet at the Anaheim Convention Center. Over the years, we inducted more than 70 athletes, coaches and contributors from Walter Johnson and Mickey Flynn to Jack Youngblood and Jim Fregosi. We eventually had a museum at Anaheim Stadium that has since been replaced by Angel offices (our artifacts are in storage). Nobody contacted me or other founders (including Cal State Fullerton Sports Information Director Mel Franks and long-time OC business and political leader Buck Johns) regarding research into a Hall of Fame — that existed 30 years ago. If someone was paid nearly $50,000 to do research they did an amazingly poor job. Sincerely, Pete Donovan
Gee. Barbre had time to go to Boston to “study” the issue at Fenway Park, but not not enough time to make a couple of local calls to people who had already given it a go. Come to think of it, maybe those were exactly the people Barbre and Daly didn’t want to talk to!
Well, that pretty well sums up the incompetence and/or corruption of the whole stinking pile.
Want your $48,000 back?
Another Day, Another Embarrassment For Sidhu
Posted by Joe Sipowicz in Behind Closed Doors, Dead heads, Harry Sidhu, OC's Fourth District, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low on March 6, 2010
My good friend Chriss came this close to beating the rap...
Reading Harry Sidhu’s list of endorsers really makes you pause. I checked out the list of “honorary host committee members” to his upcoming fundraiser.
Harry and I are in complete agreement. Government is all about service. Self-service!
Oh, look! There’s Brett Barbre, the OC Municipal Water District creep who gouged County taxpayers for $48,000 to study an athletic hall of fame, and who kicked back a $1000 campaign contribution to Tom Daly – they guy who gave him the do-nothing job at our expense.
I think Harry has a bright future...even brighter than mine.
Look again and you see the name Chriss Street, the County Treasurer who yesterday was found guilty by a judge of breaching his fiduciary obligation by systematically plundering a business trust that was his responsibility. He was ordered to pay over $7,000,000 by the judge in the case. John Moorlach has called for his immediate resignation.
And Street had previously gotten into hot water by having hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of remodeling work done at his office without soliciting bids. How did he do that? He split up the work into dozens of small purchase orders. He also got County employees to dummy up fake bid solicitations after the fact. Chris Prevatt did a pretty good job describing the DAs subsequent whitewash, here.
What slimy rocks does Sidhu turn over to find these miscreants?
More On The Duvall Saga: The OC/Sacto GOP Angle
Posted by admin in 72nd Election, Repuglicanism on March 5, 2010
Mike Duvall
After my meeting with Mike Duvall the other day, I decided to see If I could learn anything more about the events of last summer that led to Mike’s ultimate resignation as the 72nd District State Assemblymen.
One of our good Friends happens to know a well-placed legislative aide who works in Sacramento and who, I was told, could help fill in some of the gaps. So I called this person.
According to this individual, it is not at all unusual for legislative staffers to request audio records of committee meetings; in fact it is a fairly standard practice. Thus, the fact that Jeff Miller’s aide requested a record of the meeting doesn’t signify any sort of prior conspiracy by Miller – or anyone else for that matter. My source logically pointed out that Miller, to a lesser extent, ended up getting painted by the same brush as Duvall.
Instead what this person says happened is that the embarrassing audio record did end up in the wrong hands – at least as far as Duvall is concerned. My source indicates that Duvall’s personal enemy Jon Fleischman did indeed come to possess a copy of the tape; and sometime between July 2009 and late August 2009 orchestrated the leak of the information to KCAL’s Dave Lopez and the OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley.
Fleischman. Painful public humiliation for Duvall is said to have been his motive.
Although Fleischman’s motives were said to be personal, others such as OC Republican power broker Mike Schroeder were also aware of the impending ambush, according to my source, although Schroeder’s motives for participating in Fleishman’s scheme in some way or other were not made abundantly clear.
Schroeder and Fleischman. Who else beside Fleischman knew about the impending storm?
As with my interview with Duvall, I can not immediately confirm the veracity of my source’s information, and the journalists in question will surely not reveal their source(s). Still, our insider is indeed well-placed to know what happened and I confer a certain level of credence to the story.
What is still unknown is what other high-level Republicans knew of the tape, it’s impending release, and the obvious political fallout from that release. If indeed Fleischman was the mastermind of the Duvall ambush, it is very hard to believe he would dare to do so without the consent of at least some of the OC Republican ruling party bosses – folks such as Schroeder, Dick Ackerman, and even Party Chairman, Scott Baugh. Why these party worthies would prefer, or even allow a public scandal instead of a quiet resignation by Duvall is something we may contemplate at our leisure.
However, as I noted yesterday, discussion of the Linda Ackerman candidacy on the integrity platform seemed to appear on cue, if way out of left field, before the ink had even dried on Duvall’s letter of resignation.
My Lunch With Mike. Mike Duvall, That Is
Posted by admin in 72nd Election, Repuglicanism on March 4, 2010
UPDATE: I HAVE POSTED A FOLLOW-UP STORY HERE, ABOUT THE SPECIAL OC ANGLE OF THE STORY.
It must be tough when just about everything anybody says about you is prefaced with the words “disgraced former assemblyman.” But that’s what Mike Duvall lives with every day.
On Wednesday I had lunch with Duvall.
Now, I’ve known Mike for a long time and thought that it would be interesting to hear his take on the events of last summer that led to his resignation and replacement as our State Assemblyman by Chris Norby. And he seemed eager to tell his side of the story.
Duvall has lost a lot of weight and looks pretty good. He attributes this to getting exercise and is benefiting from being away from the non-stop Sacramento smorgasbord provided courtesy of all those lobbyists. Well, I guess every cloud has it’s silver lining.
We met at Mike’s office and later moseyed on out for lunch. As our meeting progressed, Duvall shared his thoughts about what happened last summer.
Duvall said that he had become well known in Sacramento for “rocking the boats” of other legislators, and that fact may have been at the root of the events that transpired. He was known, he said, for his unorthodox attitude to Sacramento, even upon one occasion, introducing some of his biker buddies into the Capitol.
Although he can not fully explain their motives, Duvall stated that he believe the likeliest scenario is that he was set up by a conspiracy involving Jeff Miller, the assemblyman from Corona, and his aide. He believes the whole thing was either orchestrated or exploited by Republican operative Jon Fleischman, likely in retaliation for the forced resignation of Fleischman’s wife, a former employee in Duvall’s local office. He claimed that Fleischman had become extremely hostile to him personally.
According to Duvall the “hot mike” on the day his comments were recorded was Miller’s, not his; that in retrospect Miller seemed to coach the conversation into its lewd direction; and that Millers aide almost immediately went to retrieve a copy of the recording. Duvall stuck to his story that his comments were not a true revelation of anything that actually happened, and in fact he was just repeating stuff told to him about another legislator altogether.
When I asked him what Jeff Miller’s motive was to cooperate in the alleged set-up, Duvall speculated that it might have been done, at least in part to take heat off of him from the KFI John and Ken team who had been mercilessly attacking Miller, and who subsequently appeared to have stopped their attacks.
What still remains a mystery, except to the participants, and not explained by Duvall, are the events that transpired between July 2009, when the recording was made, and late August, 2009 when the story finally broke. Almost two months passed.
I have previously wondered about the on the role of Ackerman, Inc. in events of July-September 2009, since on September 10th Linda Ackerman received and responded to an almost immediate communication from the Register’s Martin Wisckol about her possible candidacy – while she was vacationing in Europe. It struck me as very odd that Linda Ackerman’s name would suddenly occur to Wisckol out of the blue without previous coaching. Duvall couldn’t shed any light on that.
But when I asked Duvall if he thought his support for the OC County Fair last summer might have played a role in the motive of someone trying to get rid of him, he acknowledged the possibility.
Is Duvall telling the whole story? Was he really set up, or was it simply the case that his unfortunate comments, true or not, were exploited by political enemies after the fact? The passage of the two month period and then the sudden revelation has all the earmarks of an orchestrated attempt to get rid of him.
The story about a conspiracy to set him up certainly sounds plausible. But without any real evidence to support his claims, Mike Duvall is going to have a hard time convincing a skeptics of his innocence.
Another Typical Repuglican – Everything is For Sale!
Posted by The Desert Rat in 47th Congressional District, Dead heads, Repuglicanism, Setting The Bar Low on March 2, 2010
Disturbing image of Van Tran courtesy of the OC Weekly
Our friend Scott Moxley was written a piece at the OC Weekly about how local State Assemblyman and would-be Congressman for the 47th District, Van Tran, actually flew his Chief of Staff down from Sacramento to vote in the recent California Republican Assembly nominating convention – casting a vote for his boss, of course.
Seems there’s some heartburn in some circles because the fellow, Paul Hegyi, somehow got himself affiliated with the Stanton Chapter of the CRA, where he doesn’t live, and also because Stanton isn’t even in the 47th Congressional District.
But part of Fullerton is, so we share this tale with you.
P.S. here’s a fun quote from Tran’s website: Let’s bring character and integrity back to Congress…
It’s a dubious proposition that Congress has ever had any character or integrity, but it’s a bit much to hear that from a guy who is ripping off the taxpayers by claiming a phony per diem in the State legislature, and whose wife was busted as part of an insurance fraud conspiracy ring.
Business as usual for the ‘pugs.
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