Repuglicanism Archives - Page 61 of 70 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

February 9, 2010March 18, 2010Dead heads

The Horror! Hideous Doppelganger Roaming Streets of Orange County

Here’s some free advice for the guys in the John Lewis/Daly for Supervisor Shop. Next time you dredge up a goon to do your dirty work you might want to make sure he has no embarrassing body doubles with the same name wandering around Orange County.

Yesterday we reported how the Mauve County blog raked up some slob from Santa Ana named Thomas Anthony Gordon, who, out of the blue, attacked Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson for being a defense attorney, therefore “soft on crime,” and hence unfit to be a County Supervisor.

As we pointed out, this was a theme Daly’s campaign manager has been pushing on blogs using an alias.

But back to Gordon. Maybe TAG wasn’t the best choice of hit men on the subject of crime, softness-wise. You see poor Gordo shares the identical name of another Orange County resident.

According to the Orange County Superior Court records, one Thomas Anthony Gordon has been arrested twice in Orange County. He is listed as 6’4″ and 230lbs in 1996 and 240lbs in 2005.

Both of the misdemeanors were for Vehicle Code Section 14601.1 (a) driving on a suspended license. The “.1(a)” part means the license was originally suspended for some type of reckless driving resulting in injury to someone.

The 2005 case was reduced to a lesser offense of driving without a license. He also has some failure to pay issues with the court.

Imagine that: two Thomas Anthony Gordons in Orange County.

What’s that you say? It’s just the same guy?

Naw, couldn’t be. Nobody with that scofflaw’s record would start throwing around his own mud on somebody else would he? And there’s no way the upright Lewis team at Mauve County would let that sort of individual on their blog in the first place, now would they?

Of course we have to wonder about Thomas Anthony Gordon #2’s opinion of defense lawyers. Maybe he’ll stop by and tell us.

February 8, 2010February 9, 2010Dead heads

Santa Ana Goon Enlisted to Attack Shawn Nelson

by admin16 Comments

The Tom Daly For Supervisor campaign being operated out of the back of the Mauve County blog offices enlisted an unlikely stooge today in an attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson.

The individual’s name is Thomas Anthony Gordon (pictured, below), a participant in the byzantine and highly bitter world of Santa Ana politics. We had to do some digging to find out who this individual even was, and why he has all of a sudden taken an interest in the 4th Supervisorial District election.

The gist of Gordo’s post is that Nelson is a defense attorney, and because Nelson works to get his clients acquitted he is “soft on crime” and hence unfit to be a Supervisor. Some logic, huh?

This attack really isn’t too surprising. Daly’s campaign manager Chris Jones kept popping up here recently (until we busted him) using aliases trying to say the same thing. And it’s been obvious for a long time that Mauve County was just a vehicle for political promoter and Repuglican John Lewis who has been setting up the Democrat Daly as a lobbying target for years. But who orchestrated this little Valentine? It’s not very likely that Lewis, or Jones even know this Gordon character.

Aha! I think I’ve got it. The Mauve editor Matthew J. Cunningham is a prize pupil of Lewis and, of course a backroom Daly supporter. He’s been over here a lot lately commenting anonymously, too. It seems quite plausible that Cunningham stirred up Gordon, probably with the fact that their mutual enemy Art Pedroza has an ad for Nelson on his blog. What an idea! The stooge can do the dirty work and Cunningham can (try to) keep his hands clean.

fartboy — Just call me up and I won't explain everything.

Sound sort of weird. Of course it is. But the mission of Mauve County is now clear. Promote the career politician Daly, and attack Nelson.

For a blog that keeps pretending to be right-of-center it’s pretty sad that they evidently will be working against the only true conservative in the race. And all so that John Lewis can make money lobbying his boy Tom Daly in the County Hall of Administration. Repuglicanism at its worst.

February 1, 2010February 1, 2010Dead heads

Cunningham Just Can’t Get Enough of FFFF!

by admin13 Comments

Our old pal Matthew J. Cunningham, the editor of the Mauve County blog and noted Tom Daly fan just can’t get enough of our humble blog. Our mole, deep inside the guts of the John Lewis political machine has informed us that Cunningham has been posting comments at FFFF under a whole slew of fake names. We even have the list.

Last night he chimed in on the Daly campaign finance post calling himself “Grover gets an F” to try his old trick of changing the subject. Of course that didn’t work.

But he has also popped up here recently under the aliases “Peabody the Nobody,” a fake “Lou Correa,” “No Tax Hikes,” and “Strider.”

Naughty, naughty boy, Matthew. Report to the principal’s office immediately! Now that you’ve joined the ranks of the Sidhu and Daly campaign workers blogging anonymously (and frequently for your boys), your much bragged about credibility just took a hit wherever it still exists. Of course we were on to you all along so there’s no harm done here at FFFF. Wonder if you’ll keep criticizing all those mean anonymous bloggers.

Why not just stick to those boring posts you do over at that ghost town of yours and quit cluttering our threads? And try getting a real job while you’re at it.

January 30, 2010January 30, 2010Dead heads

Scott Baugh is Coming To Town

by Mr. Peabody5 Comments

Scott-Baugh-2 — Would you buy a used revolution from this man?

At the Orange Juice blog Art Pedroza is passing along a missive from OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, here.

Seems Baugh has chosen downtown Fullerton’s Slidebar Cafe as the site of some sort of “Citizen Power Rally” to promote the Paycheck Protection Initiative that also dovetails with his newly-developed manifesto to punish Republicans that take public employee union money. We wrote about that here. The event is planned for February 13th at 10:00 a.m.

The Slidebar is a logical site for Baugh who is clearly trying to exploit the populist anger of the so-called “Tea Party” movement. Last year the Slidebar hosted the John and Ken Tax Revolt/Smash Arnold’s Videos Party, although the Slidebar is also known for its ecumenical tastes when it comes to an event-hosting venue.

Baugh is likening his new mission to the nobility of the Minute Men at Lexington and Concord, but it’s really hard to see him getting involved in something unless there’s a Main Chance angle. He may believe that harnessing the T.P. energy is necessary to keep his party a going concern, but given the number of local GOP electeds who have taken public union money, it’s a safe bet that the ‘Pug gentry will avoid being seen on a dais with Baugh.

And let’s not forget that just a few short months ago Baugh was supporting the totally fraudulent Ackerwoman campaign for State Assembly so it’s pretty hard to take anything this guy says about reform as being serious. Wonder if Baugh can be persuaded now to condemn the fraud of carpetbaggery and fake residence. Hmm. Scott?

Anyway, our ever-vigilant crew will be on hand to chronicle the fun and games.

January 23, 2010January 23, 201072nd Election

The Scott Baugh Manifesto

by The Desert Rat7 Comments

Last week the OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh addressed his cohorts at the periodic Republican Central Committee meeting.

His speech was much anticipated and much commented about the next day in such venues where anybody gives a damn about what Baugh has to say. I waited a few days to display my disdain for such antics.

It seems Mr. Baugh tried to channel some of the angry energy of the “Tea Party” movement to zap some life into his team.

Baugh unloaded on RINOs; on candidates who get the GOP endorsement and then take public union money; on the “slick consultants” who call the shots. It must have sounded pretty good to the true believers in the audience; but the Repuglican cadre that has turned Orange County into its own little plantation – people like John Lewis and Ackerman, Inc. must have rolled their eyes a bit. Electeds in the audience who gladly took money from police and fire unions were no doubt (quietly) offended and/or frightened, depending on their dispositions, and this includes just about every Republican city councilman and Supervisor in the County.

I’ve got four problems with Mr. Baugh’s manifesto.

First he coughed up a speech very much like it last year in the wake of the epic McCain disaster and a year of Democrat rule. Apparently not much came of that one; so why expect anything else from the ‘Pugs?

Second, he seems to have failed to address the virus of office seeking that infects the party and that has been manifested in the Ackerwoman and now Harry Sidhu strains. In fact, Baugh was a supporter of Linda Ackerwoman and her fraudulent campaign of deceit in the 72nd – which pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.

Third, the idea that a candidate can’t take the money of a public employee union and still represent the public interest is curious. By the same logic these folks would be unable to resist the blandishments of corporate lobbyists who donate to their campaigns. Hmm.

Finally, Baugh ignores the wider problem of Repuglicanism – the malady of being a Republican for fun and especially profit. Calling for ideological purity seems to ring hollow when it’s pretty evident that the game is being played for one’s own pecuniary interest. Will we ever hear Baugh denounce Curt Pringle’s 50 billion dollar high speed idiocy? Probably not. Baugh uses his own political connections to lobby here and there, including a highly lucrative contract awarded by fellow ‘Pugs on the Board of Supervisors to lobby in Sacramento.

So in the end, to quote the Bard, here’s what I see in Baugh’s address: a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

January 14, 2010January 14, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Right On Cue The Spokeshole Speaks

by Joe Sipowicz4 Comments

Yep. The day after former State Senator Joe Dunn addressed the County Board of Supervisors about establishing a mechanism for keeping track of the professional lobbyists who haunt the 5th floor of the Hall of Admin, Matthew Cunningham popped up serially on the “Red County” blog to explain to his readers why the system ain’t broke and why his lobbyist friends have a constitutional right to “petition their government for redress.”

Aha! We called it here. Of course the idea that lobbyists are petitioning their government for anything except a chance to make big bucks for their clients is patently absurd.

We don’t agree with some of the purported details of Dunn’s original idea, but overall the concept of knowing which well-connected middlemen are knocking on your representative’s door in order to swing some deal or other, is basically a good one. Dunn’s timing and presentation to the Board were counterproductive and will be viewed as partisan, in some way. But so what?

Cunningham suggests that the whole thing is just a plan to dissuade privatization, but of course he really can’t say how, except that the OCEA union boss Nick Berardino is involved. But why should a lobbyist who is doing nothing improper or illegal fear a little bit of light illuminating his interaction with public officials?

Actually, an effort to squelch the idea will make people even more suspicious than ever about what is going on behind closed doors.

Cunningham is just doing his job, of course: trying to run interference for his Repuglican lobbyist pals like John Lewis who apparently would really rather not have the public aware of his influence with electeds. But the strategy is poor. In a second post he suggests that Dunn is simply trying to force the supervisors to adopt their own plan to avoid his referendum. Good idea.

Rather than let Dunn produce a likely popular plebiscite, the Supervisors ought to develop a sensible sytem for keeping track of lobbyists themselves, and include the union bosses like Berardino and Wayne Quint who are really nothing but lobbyists themselves – paid with ample union dues.

This issue is about recognizing the influence peddlers in OC – people who use their political and financial contacts to make inroads into public policy and pubic expenditure. Nothing wrong with that.

January 12, 2010January 12, 2010Chris Norby

Chris Norby’s Final Obnoxious Vote

by Fred L. Olmsted20 Comments

0_61_070731_orangutan — What do I care? I'm leaving!

On his way out the door to yet another government job in Sacramento, 4th District County Supervisor Chris Norby paused just long enough to cast a vote at yesterday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting to support the asinine expenditure of $350,000 on some sort of Viet Nam memorial in a little-known Midway City park.

Forget the fact that there are already two memorials to the war and to the subsequent diaspora in the vicinity; and forget the fact that times are tough and the County is in severe budget cutting mode; but ask: why on the Green Planet Earth should the taxpayers hand over a third of a million bucks to some kind of private “community culture and performing arts society” to design and build what is described as an interactive wall/memorial of some sort. This is the sort of thing that is routinely developed and built with private fund raising.

The whole concoction was the brain-child of Supervisor Janet Nguyen, obviously for political capital. The County Parks Director, some guy named Mark Denny, seems to have gone along without a whimper. We found out that he’s a former staffer to one of the other zeroes that voted for this – Bill Campbell – so no surprise there. The other aye vote on the Board was the clueless septuagenarian Pat Bates who, like Campbell, is not known for adherence to any conservative principles. To his credit, Supervisor John Moorlach voted no.

Which brings us back to Norby, who, at his last Board meeting, could have reminded people what he has always claimed to stand for – and often has. But he didn’t.

Good bye and good….well, you know.

January 8, 2010January 26, 2010Dead heads

Sordid Cop Tales: Former Police Chief McKinley Loves Sheriff; Climbs Into Bed

by The Desert Rat41 Comments

10:50 Update: TDR forgot to add this little gem from the Register’s Jennifer Muir about Hutchens sending a helicopter to an LA cop chili “cook-out.” Wonder what Pat thinks about that use of public resources! – Admin

A recent Fullerton Observer article reported on some sort of “Women in Leadership” event and started out describing how Fullerton’s former Chief of Police introduced “surprise guest, ” appointed OC Sheriff Sandra Hutchens in glowing terms and indicated his unreserved support for her election campaign.

We’re not at all surprised by this enthusiasm since McKinley has been reported as having post-retirement political ambitions, and has already demonstrated his connection to the local Reguglican establishment by his endorsement of the fraudulent Ackerwoman campaign.

Apart from political ambition, though, something more sinister flits through the shadows of the McKinley endorsement of Hutchens, and that is McKinley’s apparent ingrained approval of high-handed and unaccountable police behavior. Despite McKinley’s contention that Hutchens has “turned things around” after the departure of the deplorable Mike Carona, there is precious little evidence that any institutional attitudes have changed at all. In fact, quite the contrary. From examples of in-house secrecy and stonewalling, mistreatment of citizens, to even spying on elected County Supervisors, the Sheriff’s Department has shown itself to be the same old operation as ever. The only difference is that now Hutchens is running cover instead of Carona.

sheriff-sandra-hutchens-carona — Ba da bing! (wacky graphic swiped from Orange Juice Blog)

The latest example is provided by the OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley, here. It seems a couple of deputies were caught fabricating testimony about threatening a suspect during a Disneyland area drug bust at a preliminary hearing. The DA later dropped most of the charges against the guy who had been arrested; correspondence from the DAs office to the Sheriff about the problem were simply ignored. The deputies involved not only seem to have escaped disciplinary action, but have been awarded medals for valor for a Costa Mesa drug bust that supposedly occurred on the same day as the other arrest!

Here’s Moxley’s curt summaton:

The sheriff, who has promised to restore deputy accountability in the wake of the Mike Carona corruption scandals, refused to be interviewed for this story. Her command staff and media-affairs team repeatedly blocked my attempts to reach Catalano for comment.

Anyhow, in case we needed any other evidence, we now know exactly what kind of police management our former Chief admires, and we ought to remember that when and if he decides to run for office.

January 6, 2010January 26, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Joe Dunn Proposes Transparency for OC Lobbyists

by admin5 Comments

Former State Senator Joe Dunn has submitted a proposal to the OC Board of Supervisors that would register and track the activities of lobbyists at the County, as reported in the OC Reg by Jennifer Muir.

In the article Dunn is careful to point out that his mission is to restore faith in government rather than to stem any specific corruption. Well we don’t have to be so polite: for months we have been complaining about the circles of influence and money that run things in the County. There’s nothing wrong about knowing who is paid to peddle influence and whom they are peddling it to. The only people who will try to make this look troublesome are the ones who don’t want a light shined on their activities.

Some of the items that Muir describes in the Dunn proposal are not necessary – such as a registry fee, and some of the information – like the amount a lobbyist is paid is irrelevant. The piddling stuff can be worked out. And let’s not forget that people like Nick Berardino and Wayne Quint of the OCEA and OCSD unions are paid lobbyists, too – paid by their members to get as many concessions for themselves that they can. They should be included in any program that monitors lobbyists.

The Repugz and their blowholes will probably be decrying their loss of free speech and will forecast a tsunami of paperwork and bureaucracy – which is pure malarkey. An on-line registry could be created and maintained for next to nothing, and could be accessible by the public all the time. The Supervisors have paid staff with hardly anything better to do who can keep their bosses activities updated.

For some reason Dunn is trying to get this on the Supervisor’s January 12th agenda at the last moment which seems sort of odd. If he gets no help from the BoS he says he’ll get it on the November ballot via petition.

Good luck, Joe. Ya gotta start somewhere.

December 29, 2009December 30, 2009Dead heads

This Isn’t News

by admin7 Comments

One of our eagle-eyed Friends has noted that for the past two weeks The Fullerton News Tribune’s Barbara Giasone has written articles about a fellow named Marty Burbank doing good deeds, here and here.

Well good deed doing is fine, and we applaud good deed doers, but really, were either of these newsworthy in any real sense?

See, the problem we’re having is that Marty Burbank has shown himself to be a big City Hall cheerleader in the past year, here. And on top of that he’s running for Fullerton City Council in 2010. So is it more than just the coincidence of a local minor philanthropist getting his name in the paper? Hmm. Since we had never even heard of the guy (or any previous good deeds) until last summer may we be forgiven a little cynicism? But really, wouldn’t the same thing have occurred to Giasone? Maybe it did. And maybe she’s just passing along stuff from a campaign PR guy.