Setting The Bar Low Archives - Page 99 of 113 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

May 17, 2010June 22, 2010Dead heads

The Joke of OC

bernardino — Listen up, Supes! We finally got our own news outlet!

We’ve recently seen the true purpose of “The Voice of OC,” and organization that promotes itself as a “non-profit investigative news agency.” We’ve noticed that the manager, Norberto Santana has never said a word about any of the manifest malfeasance taking place in Democrat Tom Daly’s Clerk-Recorders office, but has found time to publish what a amounts to a political hit piece on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson – public enemy #1 as far as County unions are concerned.

It continues. The Voice has recently detailed in five separate posts a DA investigation brought about by charges made against Assessor Webster Guillory by County personnel and publicly advertised by OCEA union chief Nick Berardino. So what, you ask. Here’s what: not once has Santana mentioned that the OCEA provided start-up captial for the Voice of OC. That’s an obvious conflict of interest, and one that any ethical operation would make known to its readers.

What’s also interesting is that the blog comments section has become a forum for a raft of public employees pretending to give a rat’s ass about government efficiency. You will even find LibOC blogger and dead beat, Chris Prevatt on the list. Typical.

Say, Norberto, why not publish something on Tom Daly’s cronyism, waste, or bad real estate deals? At least then the Clerk-Recorder personnel could have a chance to weigh in and let Berardino know how his members feel about OC’s biggest money squanderer.

Well, “The Voice” never claimed to be impartial or objective. Just non-profit.

And that’s why it’s quickly becoming the known as the Voice of OCEA.

May 17, 2010May 19, 2010Dead heads

More on Pacific Strategies and The Greenhut Lunch

by Joe Sipowicz4 Comments

fartboy — Lunch is my favorite meal of the day.

In the comments thread to our post this morning on Matthew Cunningham billing the taxpayers $200 an hour to have lunch with former Register editorialist Steve Greenhut in September, 2008, an observant Friend “nobody” drew our attention to a July 2008 blog article written by Greenhut. In the article Greenhut calls for getting rid of the Children and families Commission altogether.

Well that wouldn’t do! So what does the Commission do? It sends its Ambassador to Conservatives, Matthew J. Cunningham and its Executive Director, Michael Ruane to lunch with Greenhut. Did Greenhut learn the errors of his ways? I wonder. Steve?

What I don’t wonder about is how much this lunch cost the taxpayers.

Oh, and for extra fun, read the one and only comment on Greenhut’s post. It’s by a guy named “Michael” and he’s he’s defending the Commission from State budget raids, calling that a new tax. Here’s the money quote from “Michael’s” comment:

“Granted, there are always imperfection and waste when government doing anything, but at least with Prop 10 the money returned to the counties where anybody could see if there is a misappropriation and fix it.”

Ho, ho! Imperfection and waste? Hoo boy, he nailed that one! But anybody could see if there is a “misappropriation?!” If by anybody, “Michael,” you really meant almost nobody, then we are agreed. How many people know the Commission has a $195,00 a year contract for PR with Pacific Strategies? How many people knew the Commission was paying Cunningham $200 an hour to read blogs, Facebook, recycle the same “op-ed” piece over and over again, and do all those lunches? For the love of God, Michael, please tell us you were only joking!

Hmm. Come to think of it now I wonder if Pacific Strategies didn’t write that comment for “Michael.”

May 17, 2010May 17, 2010Dead heads

When Harry Met Jennifer

by admin5 Comments

Those rascals in the white van have done it again. After a night of hard binge drinking that included shots of denatured alcohol and grapefruit juice, the FFFF Surveillance Unit sprang into action and arrived outside the State College/Katella Denny’s in time to capture part of the conversation between Hide and Seek Harry Sidhu and OC Register’s intrepid reporter, Jennifer Muir, that we reported on here.

The following transcript has been deciphered from the somewhat poor quality sound recording, and the written notes submitted by the crew, although the handwriting is a bit jittery. Invest any amount of credence in this that you think it deserves.

Jennifer Muir: …so in other words you did not live at the Calabria?

Harry Sidhu: Yes. I mean no. There was a refrigerator.

JM: Excuse me, what?

HS: A refrigerator was delivered and even plugged in. But I had to go skiing. In Colorado. Uh, no in my opinion it was Utah.

JM: And so you signed your name to that voter registration form thinking that you were going to live there, but you never did?

HS: Yes. Yes, indeed. I was always meaning to live there, of course. And may I say you are looking very attractive this morning?

JM: Um. Thank you. What about the DA investigation?

HS: Oh, let me tell you all about that. Politically motivated! I have been cleared of all wrong doing. I came out of that smelling like a daisy.

JM: Uh huh. So then what happened was your wife refused to live in a stucco box behind a bowling alley?

HS: Yes. Such a wonderful woman. You know, we are still sweethearts after all these many years. Sometimes we will hold hands for no reason at all as we walk along the path. Maybe you saw the picture? She even voted for me at the CRA nominating meeting.

JM: Why did you tell people that you had bought a house in the district?

HS: Well, you know, I don’t know anything about that. I will get back to you. By the way, I am very fond of your shoes.

JM: The fact is that up until December you lived in the 3rd District. The issue of carpetbagging has dogged your campaign. Any comment?

HS: In my opinion I have represented 40% of this district for so many years I have forgotten, so I am not only qualified but the people of the 4th District deserve to be having me represent them. In my opinion I truly believe they have been calling for me. I hear the the voice of those people. I am responding to their many calls.

JM: Right. Well. Let’s move on. Some of your critics point to your lack of knowledge about County issues. What would you say to them?

HS: I will be learning all about that later. For now I would say we need jobs. Jobs. Jobs.

JM: Yes, but how, exactly would you create any jobs as a Supervisor?

HS: I am a businessman, not a politician. I know all about creating jobs. I have a plan. We will have a big jobs fair! I will be turning “The OC” into one giant jobs fair.

JM: Excuse me?

HS: There are many fast food franchises that are hiring. In these hard times people eat more fast food than ever. It is a well known fact. I did very well during the last recession. We need to match them up with people looking for jobs. It’s very simple. A jobs fair.

JM: (Unintelligible gurgling sound) Uh, um, how does that tie in with the supervisor’s duties, exactly.

HS: Jobs, of course. We need jobs.

JM: You say you’re not a politician, but you seem to keep running for different political offices. Why is that?

HS: Uh, why is what?

JM: What?

HS: What?

JM: Why all the political campaigns?

HS: Well, this is because I am not a politician, of course. I am running these races because people need me because I am not a politician!

JM: What would you say to (sounds of crashing dishes) to the critics who complain that you always seem to be running for office?

HS: Well those are people who don’t know me because…

Unidentified female Voice: Can I warm up that cup for ya, hon?

HS: …if they knew me they would know how important it is to be electing me to something. Soon. It’s really all about a job. I mean jobs. Jobs for everybody.

JM: Hoo-kay, then. At the GOP Central Committee meeting you seemed to be a little fuzzy on the subject of defined benefits. Have you cleared up that point?

HS: Well, let me tell you, that was a trick question by my good friend Mr. Scott. I have been in deep consultations. And it is my opinion that in my opinion, I have not yet looked into the impact on that and will continue do so in the future.

JM: That’s a pretty important issue. Don’t you think the voters will want you to understand that?

HS: After the election I will try, but of course there will be many, many things to be getting on with. I will hire only the best people to explain these things to me. Mr. John Lewis has promised to help me with that.

JM: Your website takes credit for the High Speed Rail project but at the WAND forum you specifically claimed you have not made up your mind. Care to comment?

HS: Ah, Jennifer I have so much respect for your journalism ability, let me tell you.

JM. Thank you. How about answering the question.

HS: Well this is a very delicate matter because you cannot be for something without understanding all of the complications and implication. Implications are very tricky. And you cannot be against something until you have thoroughly examined all the details. As I say, the devils is in the details. Well, it’s all a great muddle in my mind, really…

JM: So is that a yes or a no?

HS: Please repeat the question.

JM: Let’s move on.

HS: Okay, jobs.

JM: Pardon me?

HS: Jobs. Jobs Jobs. Oh, I see that white van again. It is becoming quite a bother and now I must be pushing off…

(at this point intelligible audio was lost)

May 17, 2010May 19, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies – My Lunch With Greenhut

by Grover Cleveland20 Comments

This tidbit harvested from the Pacific Strategies billings to Rob Reiner’s OC Children and Families Commission was way too good to pass up.

Here we see Mr. Conservative Pundit Matthew Cunningham hard at work setting up and then eating lunch with former OC Register editorial writer Steve Greenhut back in 2008. Looks like Executive Director Micahel Ruane went along. Maybe Cunningham acted as interpreter between the libertarian Greenhut and the social services bureaucrat Ruane. I guess that’s what they call a business lunch.

I wonder if the suffocating welfare statists persuaded Greenhut of the need for their commission.

May 16, 2010Dick Jones

Bullhorn Berardino Backfire

by The Desert Rat5 Comments

Bernardino-2-300x234 — Nick is that a union made garment? Too bad it doesn't hide your Rolex.

There is an old axiom that says all politics are local. Nick “Bullhorn” Berardino, chief union goon of the Orange County Employees Association seems to have forgotten that adage. Maybe he never heard it.

A week or so ago week his union sent out a mailer accusing Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson of voting to spend money on a “red-tagged” building. Too bad the building was Fullerton’s historic Fox Theater, a structure whose restoration thousands of Fullertonians support and to which hundreds, including Nelson, have made personal donations. The mailer provoked this letter that appeared in the mid-May Fullerton Observer:

Oops. Looks like Berardino has really soiled himself this time.

Retraction? Apology? Not very likely, guys. See, Nick Berardino and his crew operate in a whole different environment that you might imagine. In Comrade Nick’s world you grab and grab and keep grabbing all you can get while giving as little as possible in return.

And that’s why Orange County’s finances are so messed up, why County departments are run so poorly, and why the OCEA is absolutely terrified of a Shawn Nelson victory.

May 15, 2010May 15, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Gordo Gets Greedy

by admin18 Comments

Andy Warhol once famously said that everybody gets 15 minutes of fame. Apparently Thomas Gordon got his when he popped up on the Red County blog a couple of months ago with a semi-literate attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson. Gordon is a low-grade goon from Santa Ana who is evidently acting as some sort of flunky in the Hide and Seek Sidhu jailbreak. Whether he is being paid in cash or El Pollo Loco chicken has never been made abundantly clear.

Naturally, we had some fun with Gordo here, here, here and of course, here.

Later we ran into Gordon at the NUFF blogger’s forum when he tried to intimidate one of our bloggers and ended up with a face full of Chris Thompson.

Apparently these brushes with notoriety have not provided sufficient celebrity for Gordon. The other day he started making obnoxious and gratuitously obscene comments here under the name “Major Nelson.” Busted. Well, hell we tolerate all sorts of stuff here, even the rantings of a useless nutjob and Sidhu stooge.

Apparently a sense of desperation is setting in on the three-wheeled Hairball Handcart, and with a fourth place finish looming on June 8th the small fry are getting agitated.

Sidhumobile — What kind of mileage will it get?

But seriously Thomas, if you want attention you’re going to have to start using your own name again, even if it results in another shower of ridicule. And another tip: if Sidhu is going to pay you to rip on Nelson you’d better be smart enough not to get busted. Of course intelligence is not an attribute widely ascribed to the Sidhu team members.

May 14, 2010May 14, 2010Dick Jones

What Is An Assclown?

by Joe Sipowicz9 Comments

Update: Our new reader “Major Nelson” seems to be having comprehension trouble with the concept of “assclown.” To help out I’ve decided to repost this topical piece.

I’ve been using this phrase quite a lot lately, and I’ve gotten several e-mails from Friends, asking me about it. “Joe” they say, “what exactly is an assclown?” To make it simple I will illustrate the subject. This is an assclown:

An assclown is obviously a co-joining of the ass – a self-important, overblown ego, and the clown, a buffoon. The former personality is almost inevitably drawn into clownishness by his inability to judge his own behavior by the same standards that everybody else does.

And to venture from the general to the specific, we find a perfect representative of the type in a man who is continually seeking political office, whose ambition and crazy inflated sense of self-worth make him believe that faking an address and lying about it on voting registration documents is okay because it is in his best interest; a man who believes carpetbagging is fine because without it the people of some district where he doesn’t live would be deprived of his “trusted, respected, and endorsed” self.

This assclown is perfectly willing to exploit his family members as stage props in his little life’s comedy no matter how foolish the spectacle may be.

Harry'sFriend — To know me is to laugh at me.

And that, Friends is an assclown.

May 14, 2010May 14, 2010Boohooism

Galloway Puff

by Mr. Peabody11 Comments

Apparently the Precious Princess has sent out a campaign mailer, and boy is it hollow. Almost as empty as her noggin. Here’s one side:

Galloway-500 — I wonder how many of these people are going to end up suing me...

Ah, the Shining Path to a brighter future runs right through Galloway and her fortune cookie. Pedicures for everybody!

Here’s the other side:

Oh oh! Hide and Seek Sidhu has already staked out that territory. And come on, Lorraine, you’re taking credit for the All Star game and the Kaiser expansion? Hell, Kaiser already has a medical center in Anaheim only a mile away. What’s going to happen to that? The only thing Galloway can really take credit for is the massive ARTIC boondoggle that is siphoning off $140,000,000 Measure M tax revenue into Curt Pringle’s white elephant.

I wonder if Disney is going to like the Precious Princess taking credit for their expansion. Hmm.

May 14, 2010June 22, 2010Harry Sidhu

The Voice of OC Speaks; The Words are Nick Berardino’s

by The Desert Rat25 Comments

When The Voice of OC, which portentously calls itself “a non-profit investigative news agency” started, a lot of people were skeptical. Despite the “non-profit” tag that was obviously meant to make people think that something non-partisan and even objective was going on, it was well-known that the Orange County Employees Association were putting up money to fund the effort.

After several months of posting completely inane and worthless drivel, and completely ignoring stories like Harry Sidhu’s fake addresses and perjury and Tom Daly’s serial misfeasance, the issue is no longer in doubt.

Today all the true colors of this effort and it’s puppet manager Norberto Santana were run up the mast with what amounted to a gratuitous attack on Shawn Nelson, basically parroting Berardino’s recent hit piece and including some lame ass press release by the Fullerton cops who are mad at Nelson for using pictures that he owns.

But get this: the title of the post was changed after it was first posted!

It started out as: “Who is Supporting Nelson and Who is He Defending?” and was altered to the more salacious: “Has Nelson Defended Sex Offenders? Either Way, He’s in Trouble with the Cops.”

Whatsa matta Nick? The first title not nasty enough? No problem you own the editorial board!

Of course the “article” includes friendly links to Matthew J. Cunningham the Prop 10 welfare king, and the creepy Chris Prevatt, one of Berardino’s other tools.

The Voice of OCEA cannot let Shawn Nelson win this election. There is too much at stake for the union. And next time you come across Norberto Santana you may rest assured he is the proud bearer of the union label – bought and paid for. Let him know you know.

May 14, 2010May 14, 2010Dead heads

NICK – WHY NOT SEND A MAILER TELLING VOTERS ABOUT FREE-SPENDING, INCOMPETENT CAREER POLITICIAN CLERK-RECORDER TOM DALY?

by admin25 Comments

Last week Nick Berardino and his goons at OCEA sent out mailers alleging that 4^th District Supervisor candidate Shawn Nelson voted in his own business interest to and that he did something for the campaign contributor who owned the Fox Theatre in Fullerton. All nonsense, of course.

These were really lame pieces and probably got Nelson a lot more votes than they cost him. But this effort was quite revealing in that it demonstrates the utter hypocrisy and self-interest of “Bullhorn” Bernardino and his crew.

While this guy is making up stories about Nelson, he has turned a blind eye to a real government miscreant, County Clerk, Tom Daly whom we have busted giving jobs and no-bid contracts to friends and relatives of contributors, as well as pitching over two million bucks into the worthless property at 433 West Civic Center Drive. Oh yeah, and then there was that $48,000 contract given to another campaign contributor to “study” a sports hall of fame.

The OCEA has watered Tom Daly campaigns with more than $4000 over the years, no doubt hoping the investment would some day flower into something that looked like a county supervisor. Instead it helped create an incompetent little emperor that has no accountability, no oversight, and whose fiefdom is rife with cronyism and kickbackery and wasted millions.

Daly Really2 — I guess he's talking about me.

I would love to believe that Berardino meant to put Tom Daly’s name on those mailers because I would love to believe that Berardino was venting his righteous anger at the wrong candidate. Yeah, right! The County’s public employee unions are going after Nelson because they are terrified of a real Board majority that will institute permanent and meaningful pension reform and conduct responsible contract negotiations.

But who knows? Someday maybe the OCEA will stand up to real corruption – even on the part of a Democrat. If they ever do they know where to come to get all the info they need. But I’m not holding my breath.