Sharon Kennedy Archives - Friends For Fullerton's Future

November 9, 2019November 9, 2019Setting The Bar Low

Fullerton Observer Acts as an Arm of the State, Actively Helps Pursue FFFF as Criminals

In a twist worthy of Pravda, the Fullerton Observer has gone all-in with being an arm of the state. Sharon Kennedy retained a computer expert to help the city in their lawsuit against us, a rival news organization here in the City of Fullerton. That “expert” has now written a declaration for the city in their lawsuit against us evil “hackers”.

Sharon Kennedy’s own contracted “expert” is now working in cahoots with the city. In a terrible look for local journalism Kennedy has literally retained somebody to help the government attack the First Amendment. From his declaration (emphasis added):

“I was retained by the newspaper, Fullerton Observer, to analyze the expert declaration of Matthew Strebe submitted by the City of Fullerton and provide an independent opinion on whether a connection could be made between the City of Fullerton’s Dropbox account and the Defendants associated with Friends for Fullerton’s Future Blog, including named defendants Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. I reviewed the Declaration of Matthew Strebe, summarizing his forensic analysis of the incident involving the City of Fullerton’s private records.”

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press came to our aid, as have multiple other outlets. Meanwhile the Observer is the only, I repeat THE ONLY, media outlet to openly support the City in attempting to limit the first amendment to whatever the government wants it to say.

It’s not often you get to see a journalistic outlet try and tank a rival at the behest of government – well, not often outside of Mother #Russia anyways. Yet, here we have the Fullerton Observer helping attack us with “expert” testimony while simultaneously claiming on every article their desire to “Protect local journalism”.

Thankfully while Fullerton Pravda…. I mean the Observer was carrying City Hall’s water we went ahead and found our own expert who concluded the following [Linked HERE]:

“The evidence presented by the City in no way supports any allegation of “unauthorized access” or “exceeding access” of any computer system. The evidence shows that the City itself placed this information on the internet without access control allowing anyone full permission to download the content. The access logs, even if authenticated, do not substantiate, in the absence of other corroborating evidence, that all Tor, VPN, and foreign traffic belongs to the Defendants. Nor is Mr. Ferguson’s use of PureVPN a sufficient or even suggestive data point to implicate guilt.”

This case just keeps getting crazier by the day. I knew Sharon Kennedy and her Observer had issues with this blog but I never expected her to literally contract somebody who then attacks us in court at behest of the city’s ludicrous and defamatory allegations.

July 2, 2019September 9, 2020About Us

Fullerton Observer Fails at Local Journalism

by Lonnie Machin33 Comments

I’m glad to see that Woodward and Bernstein over at the Fullerton Observer have decided to deviate from their usual city council puffery in order to run a two–part summary of the Mueller Report. Lord knows not enough people are covering THAT story in the media. It sure shows the local journalist chops at work in the local media to… rehash what the entire global media establishment won’t shut up about.

Observer Mueller

Normally I wouldn’t take time out of my day to poke fun at the Observer but I need to point something out for the sake of clarity. If you search for the Observer on Google or go to their About Us page they ask for money from people in order to… wait for it:

“Protect local journalism –”

I’m pretty sure this website has broken more local news in Fullerton in the last few weeks alone than the Observer has in a decade and we got hit with an ethically and legally dubious Cease and Desist letter from the “City Prosecutor” for our efforts.

When we were being threatened by City Hall where was the Observer? They’ve been silent on the whole issue because of course they have been. They likely won’t report on anything critical of the city we’ve published without us identifying our sources but no source info is needed for that Cease and Desist letter and yet still radio silence.

Sadly, as has been the case for far too long, if the Observer isn’t crying about the liberal cause-de-jour they’re spending their column space blowing smoke up the skirts of city bureaucrats and avoiding any issue that might shed light on how things actually function in our local government. It may be a bad look to call one’s staff “journalists” if you function more as a local government PR firm.

Maybe after the city follows up on their anti-First Amendment threats against this blog, and one of our contributors, the Observer will have raised enough money to “protect local journalism” in order to actually write about the issue. But don’t hold your breath.

December 26, 2016December 27, 2016Boohooism

Reliable Local News

by Disillusioned Ex-Hippy30 Comments

Here’s some fun stuff from our local amateur news effort, The Fullerton Observer, from the latest installment.

First, one of the yellowing observers writes in to compliment the production of reliable news and to note that “local” news is the best kind. The editor Sharon “ED” Kennedy goes on to describe other news sources that are less reliable than her own.

You’ll notice that the subscriber, a Ms. Christina Garner, displays the classic muddled logical error of attributing the characteristics of some members of a class of objects, to all of them. A tiger is a mammal. A tiger has stripes. Mammals have stripes. You get the idea.

Kennedy soldiers on in her solicitude to making sure we don’t succumb to the lure of “fake news.”

And yet, hilariously, and indicative that we have now entered an irony-free zone, on the facing page is yet another of The Observer’s funny fact dodging articles about Joe Felz’s Wild Ride and subsequent quitting of his post. The last one didn’t even mention Felz until the third paragraph and never mentioned his first name at all. Here’s the latest:

Here it takes six paragraphs of nonsense to get around to the real reason Felz was forced to quit: he was drinking the night of November 8th/9th, drove off Glenwood Avenue, killed a tree, and tried to drive away from the scene. But of course these facts appear almost disembodied from the rest of the drivel so that any connection drawn between these events will not be the fault of Sharon Kennedy. The reason for this weird version is clear enough given The Observer’s penchant for idolizing of public employees no matter what they do: it would make them look bad.

Now I have no idea whether any of the Observer’s loyal followers actually give a rat’s ass about reading real news; and maybe the reason they like the Observer is because it helps reassure them of their own little weltanschauung. But really? In the “most reliable zone?” I don’t think so.

August 15, 2011August 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

The Dead Kennedys

by Grover Cleveland89 Comments

We may not always have agreed with the liberal activism of Fullerton’s Ralph Kennedy, but there’s no doubt that the engineer-turned-civil-rights-activist was the real deal – a committed believer in social justice who was willing to take unpopular stands on behalf of the causes for which he advocated.

In its obituary of him in 1998, the Los Angeles Times wrote: “He was one of those rare people who saw things as they should be. He wasn’t willing to sit in his comfort while others in the world were suffering. He always felt like he needed to dig in and do something to bring about justice, to take action, to risk his own comfort in order to make things better.”

But Kennedy’s two children – Sharon Kennedy, who is publisher of the Fullerton Observer, which Ralph and his wife, Natalie, founded in the 1970s; and Rusty Kennedy, head of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, which claims to advocate for concepts similar to those advocated by the elder Kennedys – are frauds. Their actions (or inaction, really) following the brutal slaying of Kelly Thomas by Fullerton police thugs shows how they have become lapdogs for the political establishment, which is the very opposite of the behavior displayed by their Dad. Unfortunately, modern liberals usually defend government power and abuse — they don’t stand up for the poor and downtrodden any more.

The Observer has run various news stories about the Thomas killing at the hands of cops, but the stories read like articles hatched in the Fullerton PD’s press department. There is no sense of outrage and an unconscionable reliance on official explanations and official sources. (It’s as if Ralph Kennedy, known as a crusader against housing discrimination, took at face value the official government explanations of why black folks were treated as second-class citizens in the old days. “Don’t worry, folks, Gov. George Wallace and his able team of government officials will get to the bottom of it!”) The Observer, promoting the lame efforts of Rusty and his commission, runs a story that declares: “The Orange County Human Relations Commission is responding to community requests for help in the tragic beating death of Kelly Thomas. On behalf of the Commission, Rusty Kennedy endorsed the idea of an outside, independent investigation of police practices and procedures in the case and more broadly across the department. He gave City Manager Joe Felz an evaluation of Michael Gennaco for the LA County Office of Independent Review. The Commission has worked with Gennaco in hate crime cases and most recently in setting up an OIR in Orange County, which is now staffed by Stephen Connelly, one of Gennaco’s proteges.”

The Observer and Kennedy should be denouncing this brutal attack as a hate crime and staging sit-ins and other demonstrations. Instead, they are joining the official whitewash and telling us to trust these not-so-outside investigations. Connelly has not produced a single serious investigation since he became the head of the supposedly independent commission that operates basically at the behest of the Sheriff. You might as well ask Dick Jones to produce an outside investigation.

Fortunately, this blog is filling in the role that lapdog players such as the Fullerton Observer play. Fortunately, Orange County residents are starting to learn that the Human Relations Commission is a way for limousine liberals to live large on other people’s money while pretending to stand up for the principles that true liberals such as Ralph Kennedy actually stood up for.

June 14, 2010June 14, 2010MSM Falls on Face

Observer Smacked Down

by Travis Kiger9 Comments

yellowsub-500x362 — Nobody told us about the depth charges.

Previously we noted the Fullerton Observer’s legal maneuvering in an attempt to add itself to the city payroll. Last week we found out that Sharon Kennedy’s court filing had been met with objections by both the Orange County Register and the City of Fullerton.

The City’s objection is based on the same points we brought up a few weeks ago – namely, the Observer is not printed within the city, it is not printed weekly and it doesn’t have a bona fide list of paying subscribers as required by law. That’s three strikes for the Observer.

City of Fullerton’s Objection

The city calls into question Sharon Kennedy’s own filing, where we learn that the Observer boasts a whopping 598 paid subscribers and a monthly online distribution that rivals FFFF’s daily hits.

Next we have an objection filed by OC Register attorneys, which finds fault with the notice that Kennedy filed for her own hearing. The Register sums up the problem by saying “It is ironic that the Petitioner [Fullerton Observer] is seeking to publish important legal notices, yet cannot even publish its own Notice correctly.”

OC Register’s Objection

Kennedy pushed out her hearing to the end of July. I suspect she will drop it all together rather than suffer further embarrassment.

Bottom line: Kennedy’s dying cause here is to get the Fullerton Observer onto the city payroll. We’ve already demonstrated the paper’s inability to criticize city staff, engage in any kind of investigative journalism within city hall or participate objective reporting all while claiming that it is a legitimate newspaper. It’s hard to imagine any of these conditions improving should Kennedy’s paper wind up on the taxpayer’s dole.

May 21, 2010Boohooism

Observer Seeks Credibility; and City Funding

by admin18 Comments

A Friend sent in an interesting newspaper clipping this week. It looks like Sharon Kennedy is trying to obligate the city of Fullerton to pay her Observer rag for posting public notices.

Back in March the city council decided to stop paying local newspapers to print public notices in order to prevent layoffs. An obscure set of state laws deem that Fullerton has no local “newspaper of record” and thus is not required to waste money on ad space in the back of newspapers for notices that could just be posted on the Internet.

But now it appears that Kennedy is anxious to latch on to the city teat and get her hands on the $40,000 per year that the city is currently saving. She will appear before a judge next month in hopes that her wretched rag will be bestowed with some judicial legitimacy.

Unfortunately Kennedy has failed to read the very simple laws that define a newspaper of general circulation.

For one, the paper has to be printed at least weekly. The Observer is printed bi-weekly and monthly during the summer.

Second, it has to be physically printed inside the city. The Observer is printed elsewhere.

Third, it must have “substantial distribution to paid subscribers.” The Observer is free.

And finally, the paper must have “maintained a minimum coverage of local or telegraphic news and intelligence of a general character of not less than 25 percent of its total.” We’ve said it before: most of the stuff printed in the Observer is opinion disguised as news.

If Kennedy succeeds in her wacky court case, it will force the city to pay her for publishing public notices. Perhaps the city will dispatch someone to the hearing to make sure she doesn’t get away with it.

March 17, 2010March 17, 2010Boohooism

The Fullerton Observer Does It Again

by admin9 Comments

Here’s a painful pill for those Yellowing Observers who offer up their criticisms about the accuracy of our blog.

Today the tattered Fullerton Observer released its Mid March bird cage liner with a front page story on the 4th district Supervisorial race. The story inexplicably claimed that candidates Harry Sidhu, Rose Espinosa and Richard Faher had dropped out of the race. Ay, caramba! Not even close! Jebus, how did that happen?

Actually, when you come to think about it, the screw up is not all that unusual for the Observer where news, editorial, and incompetency are often shot through Sharon Kennedy’s particle accelerator in opposite directions.

Anyway, the Observer elves got hard at work right away making the fix, albeit on-line:

Good Lord. And Sharon Kennedy says we are widely discredited. Hoo boy!

It should be pointed out that the Friends here at FFFF have published 721 blog posts in the last 18 months; and had my bloggers coughed up any thing this errant I would have introduced corporal punishment into our editorial board meetings.

February 6, 2010The Observer

Observer Editor Sends Letter to Herself?

by Travis Kiger19 Comments

Helen Logan of Fullerton sent us the following note regarding a “community opinion” printed in the latest edition of the Fullerton Observer:

Is S.K. of Fullerton actually Sharon Kennedy, who lives with her mother in Fullerton, the author of this letter? If so, then why would she write a letter to herself?

The Fullerton Observer’s letters to the editor policy allows the editor to only identify the author with his or her initials and the city he or she lives in, if there is a good reason for requesting anonymity from the editor, Sharon Kennedy. Why the need for anonymity for the above innocuous letter? Who in Fullerton fears retribution from angered Haitian shop owners or militias?

I sought the answers to my questions in a separate Observer article titled “Haiti Supplies to Survivors & a Brief History”. Only one sentence, replete with syntax and spelling errors, mentioned distribution problems arose and survivors had to wait a few days to get these supplies.

The poor research and writing of the Fullerton Observer’s articles and its lack of journalistic ethics reveals this newspaper to be nothing more than a collection of opinions. This newspaper and its editor lack credibility.

The Fullerton Observer touts itself as Fullerton’s only independent newspaper. I thank those other newspapers that are dependent on investigative reporting from real journalists and their valid editors for giving me insight into the facts.

December 28, 2009December 28, 2009Boohooism

Just One, Big Happy Family

by The Desert Rat14 Comments

I just came across this youtube clip from last summer. It is about our congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and her performance at some sort of “prayer vigil” organized last August, ostensibly to supplicate the Good Lord for the provision of universal health care.

As you can see, Loretta’s not real interested in praying, or even in keeping her big bazoo shut, but rather in the worst kind of political self-promotion. But Ms. Motormouth and her relationship with the Almighty is not the main topic here.

Instead I direct your attention to the promoters of this alleged “prayer vigil,” the Orange County Congregational Community Organization, known as OCCCO. Sound vaguely familiar? Last summer some of its members popped up out of the blue at a city council meeting to speak in favor of the proposed Redevelopment expansion. FFFF subsequently discovered that Pam Keller’s “Fullerton Collaborative” had bestowed $26,000 on the OCCCO for “community organizing.” Fullerton Harpoon wrote about this stuff here. The blog has already noted that Collaborative director (and Fullerton City Councilwoman) Pam Keller is a paid employee of the Fullerton School District.

You can see by the video that despite the presence of a somebody who looks likes he’s got a mitre on his head (A bishop?) these folks are really all about politics, too.

Apparently some folks in Fullerton such as Sharon Kennedy see nothing wrong with this happy intertwine of religion and the politics of cash, the laundering of government funds that ultimately find their way into overt political causes, and finally with the obvious attempt by Pam Keller to use the tangled network to help promote fraudulent and misguided “economic development” policy by the City. Actually these people seem to like the web.

I don’t like it, and neither should you. There is an insidious process going on here and it ain’t good.

Comments?

December 22, 2009December 28, 2009About Us

AND THE WINNERS ARE: THE 2009 FRINGIES

by Jan Florys Dog10 Comments

Well Friends, here they are – the 2009 Fringie Winners. You don’t really deserve this sort of punishment inflicted on you, but…well, hell, maybe you do! The competition was spirited in many of the categories. And by spirited I mean mind-numbingly depressing. And I’m just a dog! I had to take long breaks several times during the nomination and judging to water the fire hydrants along Brea Boulevard.

It was like getting hit with a broomstick all over again...

1. In the category of Least Distinguished Journalist it really wasn’t even close. The OC Register’s Frank Mickadeit took it going away for his complete lack of journalistic integrity. In the end the judges just didn’t feel that Sharon Kennedy or Barbara Giasone even really qualified as journalists. Martin Wisckol was given credit for showing up on the blog even tho’ it was merely to defend his embarrassing whoring for Ackerman, Inc.

2. In the category of the Worst Bureaucratic SNAFU, the judges were clearly impressed by not only the scope of the Poisoned Park disaster and its ongoing potential for more o’ same, but by city staff’s ability to avoid any and all responsibility for the multi-million dollar mess. Bravo, Mr. City Manager, you’re finally catching up with your predecessor, and that’s saying a lot!

3. Worst Vote of 2009. Bankhead, Jones, and Keller for the win of course, with their undying support of the Redevelopment expansion. And by win, of course, I mean disastrous loss for everyone outside the Redevelopment Department.

4. In the category of Scariest Ghost of Fullerton Past, we had an eerily close call. Yet despite the frightening surprise visitation from my former broomstick-wielding mistress Jan Flory, the judges were absolutely horrified by the noxious vapor of Linda LeQuire, conjured up by Ackerman Inc. out of some fetid and accursed burial ground, to smear Chris Norby. It didn’t work, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

5. In the category of Stupidest Statement Made in Public we again had a tough decision. In a year when Dick Jones said so many idiotic things and Pam Keller claimed (with a perfectly straight face) to be a “fiscal conservative,” a dark horse nominee grabbed the brass ring. And by dark horse nominee I mean the daffy, loud-mouthed nincompoop member of “Pam’s Posse” and her crazy-funny “why Pam should be mayor” rhetorical ramble through the brambles. Go ahead and watchit. We dares ya!

6. In the Government Small Change Adds Up category the award goes to the Roscoe’s Famous Nuisance Noise Study, a wonderful example of ill-conceived bureaucratic waste on a small scale that makes us really worried about the big stuff.

7. The Most Entertaining and/or Disturbing Image of 2009. Barney Wewak for the win. Aw, c’mon, was there ever any doubt? The picture even has a dog in it. Arf!

Bary Wewak — The Friends For Fullerton's Future Have Friends Around the World...

8. Best Vote 2009. This one was pretty easy for the judges since by the time they got around to this category they had inhaled copious amounts of medicinal weed acquired from the Dick & MaryJane Jones Dispensary. Our old friend Sharon Quirk-Silva gets a double victory for seeing the proverbial light on the God-awful McDonald’s relocation; and also for opposing that fraudulent Redevelopment expansion.

9. Our final category is the Most Awful Political Candidate of 2009, and it goes to none other than Chris Norby for his abortive County Clerk campaign. Rarely had the judges seen such a blatant fixation on public sector job preservation and such a mismatch of skill set to position. The campaign slogan “Preserving Your Vital Records” was so insipid and so lame I have to lift my leg on it. Again. There. Clean up in aisle #9! Well deserved Fringie, indeed!

Finally, the Judging Committee decided to award three special Fringies in 2009 in order to recognize excessively, aesthetically unattractive behavior on the part of some of our political personalities.

10. Special Fringie #1. The call by Pam Keller for a City-run blog – with no bloggers – was such a wonderful monument to fatuousness and political tone-deafness that as a statement and an act it really was in a class by itself. You can enjoy our original post here and listen to Keller’s statement. Well done, Pam! You excelled yourself.

11. Special Fringie #2. Well of course we had to acknowledge Linda Ackerwoman whose scampaign in the 72nd must be considered positively evil (yes the judges said evil!) by any normal person. This creature did not qualify in the most Awful Political Candidate category since the whole operation seemed more like a jail break than a campaign. Who knows how many hundreds of simoleons per vote this cipher and her Sacramento-organized goons wasted. Oh well. It least it wasn’t our dough!

12. Special Fringie #3. The judges believed that they would have been remiss without a tip o’ the Fringed cap to Congresscritter-for-life Ed Royce, the rat who managed to swim away from the giant suction-vortex of the sinking S.S. Ackerman and happily scampered up the waiting rope ladder onto the S.S. Norby. Well done little rodent!

And so friends, that concludes the 2009 Fringie Awards. We hope you have enjoyed them as much as we have enjoyed bringing them to you. And if you didn’t, tough.

Here’s looking forward to a new year filled with wonderful material from our favorite folks in Fullerton!