The Sad Reality of Matthew Cunningham, Where Felonies Are Whitewashed

Perjury is such a fuzzy concept...

I knew it wouldn’t be long before Matthew J. Cunningham started glossing over the fact that his boy Harry Sidhu committed perjury twice when he falsified voter registration documents. After all, his boss John Lewis is now one of the piglets sucking the mama sow dry.

The one on the left...

It didn’t take very long.

He’s up to his old tricks again: diversion, obfuscation, and trying to change the subject. First he says Tony Bushala is Shawn Nelson’s neighbor. Irrelevant to anything, and of course not even true. But let’s not let facts get in the way of defending the indefensible. His point, perfectly predictable coming from this self-appointed paragon of morality, is that the whole thing is only political, as if Sidhu’s signature on an official document means, you know, nothing.

The registration was so brief that it doesn't count. Sidhu gets a re-do.

Apparently, the concept of perjury is a really flexible concept for Cunningham who seems willing to concede that his boy never lived at the beautiful Calabria Apartments. It was only a “brief registration,” you see. Brief registration? Damn, it was only 30 days! But what’s that got to do with anything? The registration was never aligned with any residency. It was a fraud. An outright lie. But are we to accept that the concept of the truth only kicks in when it’s convenient for Sidhu?

Well, good luck selling that bullshit to anybody smarter than Brett Barbre.

My word is my bond. Trust me.

A second post addresses the breathtaking revelation that Bushala’s investigation into the Sidhu scam was conducted by Sheriff candidate Bill Hunt. Wow, now there’s a great discovery, Columbus. Bushala put the guy’s letterhead in his post!  Another example of Cunningham dodge ball, having zero to do with the fact that his boy Sidhu falsified public documents. Of course Cunningham proceeds to insinuate that something fishy is going on because one of our bloggers  at FFFF has been posting positive stuff for Hunt’s Sheriff campaign.

Um, Chip, I think I have something I need to tell you...

Say what? Influence peddling, and profiting from same, is Cunningham’s line of work, not ours. Nothing to disclose here. I’m not even voting for Hunt.

Pathetic. Sorrowful. Deceitful. Hypocritical. Did I say shameful. No. That would imply a sense of shame.

It looks as if Mr. Cunningham has really decided to plumb the depths of irrelevance and hypocrisy. Let’s wait and count the hours until Cunningham spits out one of his patented “the guy’s not to be trusted” posts against someone who is running against a John Lewis candidate.

Well its a free country. And pretty soon for him, it’s going to be a really lonely one.

Painting Yourself Into A Corner. Goofball Sidhu’s Strange, Shrinking World

Buy now! It's a two for one sale.

Let’s set aside the whole trustworthiness, perjury, incarceration problems of Harry Sidhu for a moment. Well, not the trustworthy thing.

When I learned other day about Sidhu carpetbagging two different districts in the same election I was intrigued. See, he’s carpetbagging the 4th Supervisorial District as we all know. It turns out he is also carpetbagging the 69th Assembly District in order to try to get himself on the GOP Central Committee for that district.

The idea here seems to be to maximize Smilin’ Sidhu’s exposure to the electorate in the 4th District election, and hence get more votes for the universal Mayor Pro Tem.

My first thought was, gee, how much overlap is there between those two districts? How many Republican votes are there in that overlap, anyhow? Very many? But most importantly, if he gets elected to the Central Committee, what kind of living and lifestyle opportunities is that going to leave the rich dude and his family who really live in an “elegant estate” in the Anaheim Hills?

Swimmin' pools, movie stars...

The answer is not many. The only overlap is a strip of territory that extends north from where Sudhu is pretending to live now, through central Anaheim between Harbor Boulevard and East Street. It gets as far north as Sycamore. Much of this turf is commercial and industrial, and much of it, well, barrio. And all of it is pretty marginal for a guy who currently owns his own tennis court, swimming pool, aviary, and a boat called the The Taj Mahal. The shopping carts won’t impress visitors, that’s for sure.

Of course Sidhu could move into our friend Colony Rabble’s neighborhood and remodel a vintage home. But how likely is that? Harry better hope the pit bulls don’t get the peacocks.

A gift subscription?

If Sidhu wins a place on the GOP Central Committee, will he just stay put as a renter on Lucky Way (that so far hasn’t been very lucky for him)? Or, what seems a lot more likely, will he just immediately quit and head back to the hills?

Any way you slice it, it’s a pretty reasonable conclusion that his GOP Central Committee bid is just another Sidhu scam – a petty vote grubbing scheme in which the utterly arrogant Sidhu thumbs his nose at Republicans in the 69th Assembly District whom he has zero intention of representing.

If they really wanted to punish Sidhu, the Republicans in this District should elect him to the Central Committee – and roll out the welcome mat.

Total Buzz Fail: The Shoe Fetish

Um, too much information?

Everybody knows that traditional print journalism is on the way out. Why? Lazy citizens? Sensory overload? More convenient access? All of the above?

Dying papers like the Orange County Register are fighting a rear-guard action by turning their print edition into a dumbed-down website-looking format with lots of pictures and human interest stories for us idiots. And of course they have gone on-line with stuff like their political gossip column “Total Buzz.” Which might be better termed “Total Schmooze.”

Rather than actually dedicate itself to reporting real, relevant news, the Register has decided to dedicate its employees’ talents toward the inane, and to the political flackery of Martin Wisckol and Frank Mickadeit. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the worthies than run the Register that Orange County is a market that is starved for local news and, coincidentally, that it is run by a group of political overseers who operate the place like their own private plantation. Seems like an opportunity to do real reporting, right?

But yesterday the Register hit a new low, even for them.

I just can't help myself.

Consider this, um, monument to  cutting edge journalism as Jennifer Muir shares the embarrassing shoe fetish of Brett Barbre with her breathlessly waiting readers.

Brett Barbre’s Shoe Fetish

Huh? FFFF has recently disclosed a series of embarrassing expenditures by the County Clerk, Tom Daly, including a $48,000 contract to the very same Brett Barbre to “study” an athletic hall of fame, and who then turned around and kicked back $1000 into Daly’s political campaign.

And what about the $1700 as month retainer that has been paid out by Daly for over five years to a Sacramento “consultant” to do – nothing. And how about the County spending $2,100,000 two years ago at Daly’s behest on a tear-down building that was supposed to house County’s archives? Of any interest to the intrepid journalists at the Register? Naw.

It's not just a girl thing...

Instead we get pictures of what shoes the political hacks are wearing at the Registrar of Voters Office. They think we want to look at pictures of people’s feet. Meanwhile a lowly blog is forced to actually do a newspaper’s job.

Well, we can take a certain perverse pleasure in knowing that the Register’s days are numbered and that soon its employees will be doing (paid) PR work, or will be blogging for food.

Still, it does seem shame that nobody in the business is willing to try to fill the void where local news used to be.

Why It Sucks To Be Matthew J. Cunningham

John Lewis is my moral compass.

I can only wonder what’s it’s like to have virtually no moral bearing – to be at the whim of whichever authority figure is pushing you at a given moment. Like a leaf blown in the wind.

Today a supporter of Hugh Nguyen’s campaign to unseat the deplorably incompetent Democrat County Clerk Tom Daly passed along the news that Matthew J. Cunningham of Mauve County fame had a devoted an entire post to the untrustworthiness of Nguyen. His running buddies? The lefties at the LiberalOC blog!

First it seems that he, like his candidate Tom Daly, takes exception to Nguyen’s ballot designation.

He also makes a big harrumph about Nguyen changing the story he told some of Cunningham’s Blue County boyfriends a couple of months ago about the unsolicited ad Art Pedroza is running for him on the OJ blog.  You’re joking, right?

But here’s the kicker. Hugh Nguyen is mostly shifty and not to be trusted because when he was soliciting endorsements last summer for the Clerk-recorder job he didn’t inform those folks of the presence of his wife Laura Cunningham in the race, thereby precluding them from endorsing her!

Of course the idea that Nguyen was under any moral or legal obligation to advertise the hapless and long-defunct Mrs. Jerbal campaign is so preposterously comical that no more need be said about it.

Cunningham likes his style...

Meanwhile from the vantage of his lofty moral authority Cunningham seems unable to discern the manifest failures of his boy Tom Daly. You know, like the $48,000 Daly passed along to a campaign consultant for “studying” a sports hall of fame; like the $100,000+ he has wasted (and is still wasting) on monthly retainers for a do-nothing Sacramento “consultant;” oh yeah, and let’s not forget the $2,100,000 chunked into the toilet on the acquisition of the uninhabitable building at 433 Civic Center West. What was the issue again? Oh, yeah – trustworthiness!

On top of all that, Daly is a Democrat and Cunningham is supposed to be a conservative Republican! No bueno!

No, sir. I do not need a wordsmith.

Come to think of it, Cunningham has never said a word about the two fraudulent voting registrations of one Harry C. Sidhu, the 4th District carpetbagger who lied about living at the Calabria Apartments on two separate public documents. Which sounds a lot like voter fraud and perjury if you ask me.

And speaking of shifty, how about Sidhu’s campaign signs that advertise the carpetbagger simply as “Mayor Pro Tem” despite the fact that they are posted in cities where Sidhu is not on the city council? Hows that for shifty?

The beautiful Calabria Apartments. No furniture was ever moved in. Did Sidhu sleep on the floor?

But oh yeah, his boss John Lewis is working for Sidhu now, too; so that means that the regular rules don’t apply, see?

Jesus H., it must suck to be Cunningham.

Well, You Go With What You Know

I was describing the Sidhu for Supervisor campaign to my neighbor yesterday and she asked me why anybody with any self-respect would be associated with a carpetbagging campaign that started out with a completely phony address behind a bowling alley.

We found neither hide nor Harry...

I explained that there really is no lower class of organism than the professional political campaign parasite –  a rather shocking combination of character traits that most of us can’t even begin to fathom. And I felt constrained to point out that sadly, many politicians are in the same class of humanoid.

No crowding, please. There is plenty to go around, I assure you.

In the case of Sidhu I pointed out that although his own campaign people laugh at his carpetbagging and evident buffooneries they are there because Sidhu has a lot of cash he is willing to waste  in order to satisfy his desperate hunger for political recognition, and they will be there until it is all gone – no matter how many offices he runs for.

Fill 'er up!

Diane Harkey Tries To Drive Spike Through Heart of High Speed Rail Boondoggle

You go, girl...

I’ve never heard much good about Diane Harkey, the State Assemblywoman from, um, down there somewhere.

But that changed dramatically when a Friend of mine and a devout High Speed Rail opponent sent me a link to a  San Mateo County Times story that talks about Harkey’s attempt to kill the bond sale to raise $9.5 billion dollars and start putting it into the greasy palms of Curt Pringle and Harry Sidhu’s backroom buddies.

It seems Ms. Harkey thinks it’s a poor idea for the State to take on more debt given its current catatonic fiscal condition. And maybe she’s come to the realization that “jobs, jobs, jobs” at the cost of billions more indebtedness is not a conservative recipe for success. So she’s introducing legislation to stop the the floating o’ the bond (ambiguous St. Pat’s Day reference).

And I say good for her!

And I also say it’s time for Fullerton politicians and residents to figure out what the alignment impacts will have on Fullerton and how much that’ll cost us.

Word From The Empress: “We Are Not Amused”

Do not you think it a matter worthy of lamentation, that, when there is such a vast multitude of worlds, we have not yet conquered one?

Apparently my ongoing exploration into the encroachment of County 1st District Supervisor Janet Nguyen into the management of the 4th District office has created some angst on the Hall of Admin 5th Floor. Apparently Her Highness is displeased with the revelation that she has hired 3 new people to occupy that office even though there is no supervisor there. She has been snooping around to find out where the “leak” is.

Leak? Why is Empress Nguyen concerned about news of her doings leaking out? Is she trying to hide something?

After all, the Imperial story has been that these additional people are needed to help inform all us poor, ignorant denizens of the 4th District learn all about the wonderful County programs available to make our lives ever so much better. Ferchrissakes you’d think she’d issue a press release, right? But no! Maybe she’s worried about being perceived as a manipulative, scheming empire builder.

She has reason to be worried about that.

Janet Nguyen Is At It Agin’!

Can't have an empire with an empress!

A few days ago I related how Board of Supervisors Chair Janet Ngyuen had hired a couple of people to occupy Chris Norby’s former 4th District office. I opined that it seemed like a real extravagance given the fact that there was no supervisor to support, and likely diminishing “constituency work” since there was no supervisor to direct and approve it. Also the replacement election is just a short 10 weeks away.

I also speculated that perhaps Nguyen was just placing her people inside the office to report back directly to her; and perhaps that she was embedding her personnel in the office in the unlikely event of A Sidhu victory in June. Did Nguyen make a deal with Sidhu to keep these people employed later? Just wondering.

The latest word from several sources is that Nguyen has hired yet another person to work in the 4th District office and that this person started today. Good grief, this is ridiculous. One of those sources informs us that Nguyen’s explanation for this idiocy is that “her” people are there to help make sure folks in the 4th District are aware of all the programs the County offers them. Oh, really?

Frankly, none of the explanations make Nguyen look like anything other than a devious empire-builder.

She should keep her hands off the 4th District. She has enough trouble in her own.

An Issue That The Mainstream Media Won’t Touch

When I posted about my interview with former assemblyman Mike Duvall a week or so ago, we got tons of traffic on the site. An awful lot of people wanted to know what was going on with Duvall – even John and Ken from KFI’s popular radio program talked about our post in a lot of detail.

And it was precisely that recognition from non-establishment voices of John and Ken that got me thinking about some big problems we have here in north Orange County that the so-called “mainstream media” just won’t touch, and specifically the growing problem with carpetbaggers – political gypsy moths who are so hungry for office that they move, or pretend to move, into another district to run for office. We’ve spent a lot of documenting the behavior of these people on this site.

If you think about what’s wrong with politics and some of the people who want to get their hands on governmental power, the issue of carpetbagging really starts to come into sharper focus.

Let’s review what’s been going on in north Orange County.

Last year Linda Ackerman, wife of former State Senator Dick Ackerman pretended to relocate from her “top-secret gated community” in Irvine to run for the 72nd Assembly District to replace Mike Duvall. She cooked a phony address at a friend’s house in Fullerton.

I was really just doing you a favor, only you didn't know it.

Then late last year somebody called Sue Perez sent up a trial carpetbag balloon against State Senator Lou Correa. With a little coaxing she has mercifully disappeared.

Now we have Lorri Galloway, who has been playing musical residences in the OC 4th Supervisorial District in order to run in the election to replace former Supervisor Chris Norby. Her real home is somewhere up in the hills in the County’s 3rd District. Her new addresses since have been provided by a big campaign contributor and contractor to the City of Anaheim. How shady is that?

Did Galloway remember to get her renter's insurance?

And then we have the unfolding spectacle of Hide-and-Seek Harry Sidhu, the worst culprit of them all. Here is a guy who simply believes he can buy an election. He believes he’s entitled to do that.

Let me tell you, moving is no fun at all. I really try to avoid it.

This fine fellow is also running in the 4th District election, the latest in a seemingly unending series of political campaigns. His real abode is in the 3rd District, too.

His carpetbagging caused immediate embarrassment for himself. First he created a fraudulent voting address at 2230 West Lincoln in Anaheim:

The Calabria Apartments. The residents do not include rich people.

That’s right: the somewhat marginal pink apartment building behind the pool hall was his alleged home. Coming from an extremely wealthy guy who lives on a big estate in the hills that lie was so unbelievable, that one short month later Sidhu came up with yet another, only slightly more plausible address on Lucky Way:

The sun sets on Sidhu's home #2 in the 'hood.

But this is where Sidhu really lives: a huge estate that sprawls across a wide swath of the 3rd District. It even has an aviary with exotic birds.

Sidhu's real home. Peacocks optional.

And check out the blatant shamelessness of this guy. He actually did a campaign “kick-off” event fundraiser for his 4th District carpetbagging run at his fancy 3rd District estate – “The Sidhu Family Residence.” Damnation, how stupid does this clown think we are? The answer, of course, is very.


Now I ask you: what weird combination of ego, insecurity, lust for power, hunger for recognition, and total disrespect for their would-be constituents animates these people? Whatever that personality mixture is, it’s toxic for politics and accountable government. These are exactly the sort of people that need to be kept away from authority at all cost.

Well, we helped get rid of Mrs. Ackerman and Mrs. Perez, and we’re doing our best to keep the latest carpetbaggers out of our 4th District. But I see a real trend here, and it’s not good. Carpetbagging success is bound to make it even worse.

And that’s a real story that people need to pay attention to.

Fabulous Festivities Fall Flat On Face

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.