Statewide Stuff Archives - Page 7 of 15 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

September 5, 2011September 5, 201172nd Election

We Get Mail: What Is a “Repuglican?”

Okay, there seems to be confusion about the term “repuglican” as often used here on FFFF. The term does not refer to a political party, but rather a personality type within the GOP. The Dems have their own version, no doubt, but since we are a red county we are stuck with the ‘pugs. Please read the following post from October 2009.

Repuglicanism has always been a target of our blog because it seeks to empower, and enrich the grifters who put imbeciles like Bankhead, Jones and McKinley in charge of doling out government welfare to the high rollers. It also seeks to defend the all-important status quo above all else.

– Joe Sipowicz

This morning we received the following e-mail from a Friend:

Dear FFFF, some of your posters keep using the term “Repuglican.” I am not sure if this is simply a typo or if you mean to use this unusual term. Can you please clarify? Thanks.

Sure. Be happy to. This locution is no accident. It is a fusion of the words Republican and repugnant, from which you may draw the obvious conclusions.

Here is a definition from the Urban Dictionary:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=repuglican

We apply the term to describe local Republicans of the same ilk, although the issue of “neo-conservativism” is largely irrelevant here. These individuals are people who pursue the politics of partisan affiliation for its own sake, but also for what they can get out of it. The main thing, the only thing, really, is to stand for the Party (as a convenient vehicle for self-promotion, of course!), and of course to oppose the Other Party. Issues themselves mean almost nothing except as way to promote themselves in the wider context of promoting the Party. Inner conviction means little; philosophical beliefs mean little – except for getting and hanging on to the strings of political power in order to pull and persuade them in your direction.

Repuglicans love big business interests because those are the guys with the money; the high-rollers who will enable your “conference” in Maui.

A red bastion in a blue state, OC is chock-full of Repuglicans – who use the local municipal and County governments for their own advancement and enrichment. The Legislature is hopelessly Democrat, but this does not mean that the doors to fun and profit are completely closed to Repuglicans. Especially if they hang around long enough.

This is a Repuglican:

Ackerman — Hell, I'm really doing you guys a big favor...

And so is this:

Here’s another one:

And here’s one of the best examples:

Additional examples of the species are welcome!

July 19, 2011July 20, 2011Behind Closed Doors

Pringle’s Cash Cow Stops Giving Milk

by Grover Cleveland4 Comments

PringlePud — When the money ran out did Der Pringle?

Thanks to Friend Tony Serra for providing a link to a Sac Bee story about Anaheim’s former Mayor-for-Hire Kurt Pringle quitting the California High Speed Rail Board.

Could it be true? Sure looks like it. According to the story he wants Governor Brown to be able to appoint someone who represents his point of view. I wonder what that point of view might be. Ethics? Brown, who as Attorney General took note of Pringle’s conflicts of interest over many years may have asked him to go.

So Der Rat is jumping off Das Sinkingboot; timely, too, now that all the revelations of incompetence, waste, misinformation, and decreased funding are dragging the HSR to a well-deserved grave.

The funniest thing in the piece is the glowing valediction to Pringle from fellow HSR barnacle, Tom Umberg, who in the past has proved there is no moral morass too low for a politician to sink into, and who recently penned a pro-HSR op-ed piece in the Register that was so incompetent I’m not going to link to it to save Umberg any more embarrassment.

June 17, 2011June 18, 2011Chris Norby

Norby Leads Charge To Kill Monster

by admin29 Comments

June 12, 2011June 12, 2011Marijuana

Norby on Marijuana Cultivation

by admin53 Comments

According to aroundthecapitol, AB1017 author San Francisco assemblyman Tom Ammiano has this to say; “This sensible change to provide a district attorney with the discretion to charge either a misdemeanor or felony for marijuana cultivation based on local community standards is long overdue. Mandating felony prosecution for every marijuana cultivation charge, regardless of circumstances, uses up precious court resources and state prison beds, and does not differentiate between large-scale illegal grows and mom and pop backyard grows. Nobody will get a free pass, even small backyard growers and trimmers can be charged with a misdemeanor, and some district attorneys may continue prosecuting every cultivation case as a felony. AB 1017 simply provides a district attorney with the discretion to prosecute as either a felony or misdemeanor.”

Now let’s hear from my friend and freedom fighter state assemblyman Chris Norby:

Of course the prison guard union is lobbying for “no” votes. And AB1017 is currently on the assembly floor and deadlocked at 27 aye’s -27 no’s. Things could change either way in the coming weeks, but don’t hold your breath 🙂 for too long.

May 25, 2011May 25, 2011Brick Veneer, Fake Old, And Other Horrors

Will Fullerton Go Green? No

by admin28 Comments

On tonight’s Planning Commission agenda there’s an item titled “Planning Commission Position on Green Building”. This should be fun to watch. I’ll make anyone a bet that the Planning Commission decides to send a letter to the city council recommending to NOT mandate Green Building standards. Stay tuned!

May 24, 2011May 24, 2011Chris Norby

Norby Hires New COS

by Mr. Peabody20 Comments

According to our old Friend, Allan Bartlett (who apparently has had his posting priviledges at Red County restored), our Assemblyman Chris Norby has hired a new chief of staff to replace his old one. The new guy is named Bryan Lanza, who may count as his main claim to fame resigning from Abel Maldonado’s staff when the latter RINO went along with a big Demo tax deal.

Now, I’ve never heard of a government employee of any kind resigning on a matter of principle, so if it’s true, good for him.

May 17, 2011May 20, 2011Home Town Hero

It Takes Courage To Say No

by admin26 Comments

A while back we did a post about the value of saying NO. Today let’s look at someone else who appreciated the importance of putting one’s foot down: the two-term President Grover Cleveland.

Back when Grover was the Governor of New York, he said “no” when Chatuatauqua County proposed to spend tax dollars for a soldiers monument. He said “no” to the Fredonia Library Association, which sought to be relieved of paying local taxes. He said “no” to the town of Elmira, which tried to avoid liability for personal injuries occurred by those traveling its unsafe streets and roads. He even said “no” to Fayetteville, his boyhood hometown, when they wanted to borrow money for the purchase of a new steam fire engine.

Cleveland kept his promise that he would be a guardian of the people’s interest, which meant guarding the keys to the people’s dinero.

Why is this relevant? Because saying “no” to police unions, fire unions, teachers, prison guards, custodians, bailout bankers, and subsidy-sucking union allies is often the right thing to do.

March 22, 2011March 22, 2011Redevelopment

The State of Redevelopment in California

by The Fullerton Savage43 Comments

Remember State Controller John Chaing’s review of “Selected Redevelopment Agencies” in California?

His office’s five week study of a sample of 18 agencies (Fullerton was not in the sample of agencies) in the state has released a report:

http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo_pressrel_9789.html

The authors have come to some disturbing, but not unexpected conclusions beginning with “The Controller found no reliable means to measure the impact of redevelopment activity on job growth because RDAs either do not track them or their methodologies lack uniformity and are often arbitrary.” No one who follows the travails of redevelopment in our state should be surprised by this revelation.

The full report is replete with examples of agencies in different cities improperly filing required reports or not filing them at all as well as using funds improperly. Chiang concludes that “The lack of accountability and transparency is a breeding ground for waste, abuse, and impropriety…”.

Even this short term study confirms what many people in Fullerton and elsewhere have maintained for years, that redevelopment law in California has allowed local agencies to abuse their mandates with impunity from the very start with the dubious establishment of the areas themselves.

“The report notes that the 18 RDAs share no consensus in defining a blighted area.” The definition of blight was, of course, at the very crux of challenges against the unjustified expansion of the Fullerton Merged Redevelopment Area. It is encouraging to see the state government challenging agencies to define the blight in their cities in clear terms instead of allowing laughable images of gum wrappers and aluminum cans in a vacant lot to stand as justification for the wholesale diversion of tax dollars away from vital city services.

February 10, 2011February 10, 2011Statewide Stuff

Boo Hoo: Chief Fire Hero Decries ‘Vicious Attacks’ Against Union Gluttony

by Travis57 Comments

Here’s a new message from Harold A. Schaitberger (yes that’s the head of the International Firefighter’s union’s real name) where he warns firefighters that “attacks on your pension plans are like a tsunami rolling across the country.”

A pension tsunami? Chief, I think you’re a little mixed up. Pension Tsunami is a famous little website that was cooked up right here in Fullerton, CA, and you probably don’t want to be spreading THAT message any further. Oh well, too late.

Our response?

I am hero and deserve.

February 9, 2011February 10, 2011Local Media

Myth Buster’s Myth Busted

by Travis20 Comments

Over the years we’ve learned that boldfaced spin and self-serving regurgitation of misinformation is a regular indulgence for those union mouthpieces over at the Liberal OC. Like most, we quickly grew tired trying to make sense of the noise emerging from the OCEA’s propaganda machine and so we’ve learned to ignore it. But every once in a while someone new comes along and gets sucked right into the blue vortex.

A few weeks ago, Chris Prevatt wrote this blurb supposedly “Busting the Myths” about how public employee pensions don’t cost us hardly anything and the real problem is… well something somewhere else. He backed that up with the audacious claim that public employee compensation only sucks up about 10% of California’s budget, a dubious statement which was then re-quoted by OCEA booster Nick Berardino in this letter to the OC Register.

Well somehow our perplexed new Friends over at UnionWatch.com stumbled upon Prevatt’s steaming pile and decided to break down this mythbuster’s logic. In a lengthy post based on conservative figures and some elementary math, the unnamed blogger discovered that the LiberalOC was off the mark by a factor of six. In fact, conservative calculations pinned public employee compensation at about 67% of California’s budget, far more than Prevatt’s 10%, putting public employees right back at the top of the lineup as a primary suspects in the case of California’s budget woes.

So nobody really knows if it was Prevatt or Berardino who initiated the transmission of this blatant error, but it doesn’t really matter. It served their purposes for a few moments and a couple of union adherents probably sucked it up and will continue to pass the falsehoods along. At least now the rest of us know better.