On a very recent post commenter “Umbrella Alert” notes that Chris Norby’s use of the very very recent Ed Royce endorsement in his ballot statement is something of a “kick in the teeth” to folks who supported Norby when it counted. Now Norby doesn’t even need Royce’s bendable and character-free endorsement, but there it is.
Ackerwoman? Never heard of her...
Hard to disagree. This smells a lot like a “let’s all get together and forget the near past” orchestration – a past that included Royce’s warm endorsement of an unqualified carpetbagger who lied to the voters claiming to be a “businesswoman” and who spent two months slandering Norby’s reputation in just about the worst possible way. Remember that Ed?
No doubt Norby’s campaign consultants and lobbyists are telling Norby to climb into the Repuglican Clown Car. That’s where the money is. What’s next? A glowing testimonial to Dick and Linda Ackerman as life-long dedicated public servants?
Yes, Dear Friends, it is that time of year again. Well, not really “again” because we’ve never done it before. And whether we ever do it again will depend on whether Fullerton’s politicians and decision-makers quit doing and saying hare-brained things. Aw, momma, that’s a lead-pipe cinch.
Whoa, there, you say! What in the world is JFD going off on? Is somebody putting weird stuff in his kibble?
Remarkable qualities deserve recognition. The Fringies are coming!
No! What I’m going off on is the First Annual FFFF Fringie Awards. That’s right. We will recognize the most recognizable 2009 behavior by our political lords and masters/mistresses by awarding recognition for it. Several categories will be included, as well a special life-time achievement award.
Stay tuned as we announce the nominees! And don’t hesitate to make your feelings known. The Academy will take all views into consideration.
I was talking to a co-worker the other day about the 72nd AD Special Election Sample ballot that came out last week. He expressed a feeling of disgust about the statements of the two traditional party candidates. I asked him to write up a post on the subject and he obliged. Here it is. The images were added by yours truly.
The Republican and Democrat candidates for the 72nd Assembly District Election ought to be ashamed of their ballot statements. But shame, as we learned from the example of Mike Duvall, is an emotion with a real low threshold for most politicians.
Just damn glad to be here...
Let’s first examine Chris Norby’s ballot statement. He mentions how his opposition to higher taxes has earned him the endorsement of Tom McClintock and Ed Royce. Ed Royce? What kind of nonsense is this? A few weeks ago Ed Royce was supporting the lying, fraudulent, carpetbagging campaign of Linda Ackerman. And now Norby is bragging about the value of the endorsement from this empty little suit?
Norby touts his “vote” to place immigration agents in County jails to weed out illegal aliens. Why INS agents are needed to “identify” aliens is unclear and what, exactly they are doing in the jails remains a mystery. Well “whoop-de-do” as Archie Bunker once said. This is not an accomplishment, just pandering to the rabid anti-immigrant crowd, and Norby should know better.
Norby also takes credit for “spearheading” “improvements” to the 5 and 22 freeways as Chairman of the OCTA, even though both projects were in the works long before Norby showed up; and of course, the 22 was months and months behind schedule until the OCTA bureaucrats and the contractor worked out a massive, mutual face-saving change order that cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
So much for Norby.
Now, let’s take a look at the ballot statement of Norby’s opponent, Democrat John MacMurray.
Why don't they send donkeys to college? Because nobody likes a smart ass.
As a public school teacher should we expect more from MacMurray than a clumsy metaphor? Of course not! For MacMurray the awkward concept is the “three-legged table” supported equally by the three balanced legs of private sector, non-profit sector, and public sector. Everybody who has ever seen a three legged table please raise his hand. Apparently, John is worried about using the word “stool,” which is what his statement starts to smell like in the very first sentence.
I have great reservations about Mr. MacMurray’s invention of a “non-profit sector,” especially after the FFFF discoveries about how Fullerton’s Pam Keller has so effectively blurred the line between non-profit and public sector – so as to make the distinction in the mind of a liberal, non-existent.
MacMurray’s assertion that “we keep cutting support for our education system and cutting access to it” is obviously designed to generate outrage in the noblest liberal breast, but it’s a lie. Proposition 98 provides that a guaranteed percentage of the State budget goes to “education.” At least it goes to education spending. Any overall budget reductions are the fault of MacMurray’s spend-crazy Democrats in the Legislature who just can’t say nyet to the demands of public employee unions.
Cliches, lies, nonsense. Can’t we finally get an honest and intelligent ballot statement from the two candidates who are able to pay for one? Guess not. Not yet, anyway.
As was perfectly predictable Dick “Spanky’s Godfather” Ackerman and his wife Linda Ackerwoman have just re-registered to vote at their real abode: 2 Mineral King, Irvine.
Wait, this can't be Team Ackerman. They never left Irvine!
Of course, we are reporting the “move” sarcastically, because nobody believes they ever really lived in Fullerton, although the couple did actually register to vote in Fullerton so the missus could run for office in an Assembly district in which she didn’t live.
On the road again; just can't wait to get on the road again...
Although this pretty much ends the great Carpetbagging Scam of 2009, 2010 promises more of the same. And so we urge you to stay vigilant against rootless and roving politicians. They, and the establishment lobby who back them, seek to grab and maintain political power and influence while gutting the State Constitution’s protection against this despicable practice by rendering it “unenforceable”!
If you think I'm repellent now, you should have seen me when I was a larva.
The Fullerton city fathers (and mothers) have dedicated themselves to the cause of converting historic downtown Fullerton into an open air food and booze court. The place is now chock full of food and drink purveyors – almost to the exclusion of any practical uses associated with a real downtown. Well that’s their vision for “preservation” and the rubes seem to be going for it: the nincompoopers keep getting re-elected. But I digress badly.
We would like to do reviews of Fullerton eateries, but, alas, we cannot afford a Food and Wine critic as was originally contemplated in our business plan. And, yet since DTF has become the sort of place aptly symbolized by the horror of Meatloaf Monday, it is clear that a free and open culinary exchange is needed now more than ever. To that end we are asking Friends to contribute their own reviews of various fooderies. If they are decently written and share a certain piquant je ne sais quoi, we will publish them for the edification of the Friends, comestibles-wise. Of course we will have no truck with the sort of blatant stoogery one would find in a Fullerton News Tribune restaurant review.
$19,000 doesn't go as far as it used to. Damn Democrats.
I came across some choice nuggets in a Daily Pilot article about the OC Fair Fiasco. Apparently the DAs office is at least going through the motions:
the county district attorney is investigating the activities of the fairgrounds’ board, said Susan Schroeder, public affairs counsel at the D.A.’s office.
Well that’s good news – unless your name is Ackerman. At least there’s no overt stonewalling. But in a move that should be just as alarming to the Fair Board, County Counsel Nick Chrisos:
now has instructed the five supervisors to not interact with members of the Orange County Fairgrounds’ board of directors, Supervisor John Moorlach confirmed in a phone interview Thursday. Brooke De Baca, a county spokeswoman, said Thursday that Chrisos could not comment because of attorney-client privilege.
“This has been one of the more heart-rending directives that I have received, as many of the Fair Board members are long-time dear friends,” Moorlach said in an e-mail sent out Wednesday.
Moorlach wouldn’t say more or explain what was behind the counsel’s directive to the supervisors.
With all that money I made raising money for Dick I can buy a lot of stuff at Cosco!
A Friend passed along a tip just this morning that Linda 19% Ackerwoman was recently sighted shopping at Costco. Well, to actually be more specific, it was at the Costco in Irvine. What about shopping “Fullerton First” on the part of one of Fullerton’s more recent residents.
So do she and Dick still live in the “granny flat” in Dr. Dolan’s house? Inquiring minds want to know.
We hear that Table Ten is no more. After moving to downtown Fullerton from Placentia several years ago, the restaurant gave it a good go, but just didn’t have the support. It always seemed like a pretty good place to go and have a drink and dinner. Maybe the location wasn’t too hot.
Oh, well, that’s life (and death) in the restaurant business. Maybe the place can become something more congenial to folks who like to socialize downtown.
Blog reader Pam Keller sent FFFF an email yesterday to alert us of a blatant abuse of County resources to promote a political message against Tea Party activists.
In a video that is presented on the official Orange County government website, children are shown lecturing adults on the dangers of free speech as images of Tea Party activists flash across the screen. If you don’t believe us, see for yourself:
Who's running the show?
Clips of conservative activists are spliced in with displays of violence, including a fight scene from the Jerry Springer show and the infamous headbutt by soccer player Zidane.
Also appearing in the politically-charged video is a still of Republican congressman Joe Wilson in the now-famous incident where he yelled “You Lie!” to President Barack Obama during his health care address.
So how did this inciting video end up on the County website? Who paid for its production? Who approved the message and who decided that it was ok to use taxpayer-funded resources to promote a blatant political message?
UPDATE: HERE IS A POST THE HARPOON PUBLISHED LAST SUMMER. AFTER YESTERDAY’S ITEM ON A COUNCIL-WANNABE NAMED MARTY BURBANK, WE FIGURED IT MIGHT BE TIMELY TO POST THIS AGAIN – JUST TO LET THE FRIENDS GET AN EYE AND EARFUL OF A MAN WHO WANTS TO BE OUR LEADER.
WHAT A GUY. EVEN THOUGHT HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT HOW REDEVELOPMENT WORKS, HE IS PERFECTLY HAPPY TO SUPORT IT, MISCHARACTERIZE IT, AND START GIVING LECTURES TO THOSE WHO ARE JUST AS UNINFORMED AS HE IS.
THE COMMENTS WE RECEIVED WERE ALSO RIGHT ON.
When the Redevelopment expansion proposal was first trotted out by the City Council a while back, we noted that one of the orchestrated cheers came from a chap named Marty Burbank. Now, we had never even heard of Mr. Burbank until he popped up to announce his support of the plan that necessarily requires the City Council to making legal findings of blight where none exists, thus requiring them to mislead the public about the basis for the whole deal. Well, okay. Just another sycophantic Chamber of Commerce shill who doesn’t even appear to understand what he is cheering for. If he does, so much the worse.
But, as they say, the plot thickens. One of our pajaritos informed us that Mr. Burbank is not only a lawyer and an up-and-coming Chamber of Commerce figure, but that he has politicalaspirations, too. Well, that figures. This is Fullerton where knowledge of municipal government is an immediate disqualification for office, and stoogery always gets you a leg up. Sure enough, we located his website promoting a campaign for City Council in 2010. And the guy’s a Rotarian! Be still Dick Jones’ throbbing…er, heart.
Well, we hate to be spoilsports, but we don’t think starting out a campaign for public office by encouraging the City Council to perpetrate an illegal fraud is a great beginning.
Also we have grown a bit weary of the Chamber of Commerce being represented by “professionals” and educrats who really aren’t in business at all, especially when they perform as stooges for City Hall. And Chamber Executive Director Theresa Harvey is one of the biggest City Hall stooges we can recall – and that’s saying something! She is deliberately screwing all the Chamber members who will be ultimately hurt by Redevelopment discrimination and corporate subsidies.
City staff enjoys strong Chamber of Commerce support...
Marty, Theresa, et al., here’s a quick Redevelopment primer and one you will take to heart if in fact you care anything about free enterprise and small businesses, or your members, for that matter:
Redevelopment favors a relative few selected businesses at the expense of the all the others in the pursuit to claim a share of a finite amount of consumer disposable income. Any government policy that favors a minority of businesses at the expense of the majority is, a fortiori, ANTI-BUSINESS!
Get it? Good.
Anyway, we’ll be keeping our eye on Marty and any other political aspirants who want to dump the Redevelopment load on the good folks of Fullerton.
