Posted onDead heads

Voice of OCEA and LIB OC Cook Up More Crapola

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Me 'n Norberto 'n Matt are on the same page.

Well, they’re at it again. The Voice of OC which is funded by (drum roll) the OCEA and the OCEA PAC Treasurer Chris Prevatt have coughed up yet another load of happy horse shit about Shawn Nelson.

Here is Tracy Wood of the Voice of OCEA; and here is Prevatt, picking up the ball and running even farther out of bounds. Of course Matthew Cunningham passes along the story as a “top story”, too, just as if the Voice of OCEA were a real news source.

They are deliberately mischaracterizing Nelson’s statements about a possible new Coyote Hills meeting, trying to make it look like Nelson was trying to lobby for a new meeting so he could change his vote.

At the Council meeting last Tuesday at a “second reading” of the Council denial (BTW, that’s a new one on us!) discussion arose about additional information that the Council had not heard. Whether there was any real merit to that claim remains to be seen. Nelson was dubious, but basically volunteered to attend one last special meeting before swearing in as Supervisor if his colleagues felt inclined to do so.

Quirk and Keller declined, and on a vote of 3-2 the original denial was confirmed. Story over.

What’s funny is that Prevatt is spinning this as some sort of issue that Hairball Sidhu can use in the fall against Nelson. Did he let slip the official union position on the fall election? Hmm.

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Posted onDead heads

Too Fun To Pass Up

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Cue the foxtrot

Okay, this isn’t about Fullerton – not directly, anyway, but Janet Nguyen is indeed the Chair of the County Board of Supervisors. And we’re in the County.

Our Fringe Friend Gustavo Arellano has passed along an invite to Ms. Nguyen’s August fundraiser at the OC Weekly with the usual mordant commentary. Depending on the amount you give to her you will be classified:

No level for rickshaw driver?

WTF? You can be a “bamboo?” Or two? Then comes the “Empress” and “Emperor” sponsor level. Sweet Baby Emanicipator! Okay, the comestibles are some sort of Asian fusion blah-blah-blah, but this is America fer chrissakes!

How about a Mandarin level for a hundred bucks? Or a coolie grade for 50 dollars or less?

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Posted onDead heads

Pacific Strategies – My Big Fat Staffer Lunch

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If you take a doggie bag you can actually feed your whole family on the Commission's dime - and get paid, too!

Looks like about $2,540 billed for activities leading up to and including a Republican legislative “staffer lunch” back in March of 2009. Hope there were some crusts left over to help feed the children.

View the Full Invoice

All that dough to persuade GOP staff aides about how wonderful the Rob Reiner commissions are? You’ve gotta be kidding!

Note that third item about Riverside County making their “first Five” Commission a county agency. I wonder what that sort of scrutiny would mean for our Commission. No more Campbell crony contracts?

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Posted onBoohooism

The End May Be Near for Rusty Kennedy’s Human Relations Commisssion

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An evanescent smile?

Talk about a hold over from a different era. No, not Rusty Kennedy (above), but the OC Human Relations Commission that has given him employment for Lo these many years.

But the final curtain may be about to ring down upon a typical 1970s “feel good” venture –  a government operation that has no specific metrics for performance and no objective criteria for success. In other words, a typical lefty government program.

At their preliminary budget hearing on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors broke 2-1-1 on whether to keep this dinosaur around any more. Nguyen and Campbell who seem to want to cater to the unquestioning liberal vote want to keep this dinosaur; Campbell, whose adherents describe as conservative, was actually moved to tears by the very though of it. John Moorlach voted no. Pat Bates abstained for reasons that only Bates could possible explain.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Which means that when he votes on June 29, Shawn Nelson’s first budget decision may well involve pulling the plug on the comatose patient. Well, we say do it. Do Not Resuscitate!

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Posted onBoohooism

Pacific Strategies – Normally Loquacious Hugh Hewitt Needs, Gets Help Organizing Thoughts

by 12 Comments on Pacific Strategies – Normally Loquacious Hugh Hewitt Needs, Gets Help Organizing Thoughts

I was just too doggone busy to be bothered with it.

UPDATE: Gustavo Arellano has weighed in over at the OC Weekly.

Here’s a compilation of  invoiced time Matthew J. Cunningham spent ghost writing for the supposed conservative Hugh Hewitt,who is a proud member of Rob Reiner’s Children and Families Commission.

Hewitt is Cunningham’s blog mentor who encouraged him to start what is today called “Red County”.

As noted above Hewitt is also a commissioner on the CFCOC, and thus Cunningham’s boss.

It’s odd that the presumably literate Hewitt can’t write his own letters and “op-ed” pieces if he believes so strongly in the Commission. He needs his buddy Cunningham to do it at a cool $200 an hour; and he’ll do it too, dammit, no matter how many hours it takes.

Hugh believes in the Commission almost as much as I do! I know because I wrote it.

Of course it’s also odd that Hewitt is on this ridiculous commission in the first place, unless one recognizes it as a platform to dispense patronage to old pals.

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Posted onBoohooism

Important 4th District Election Report

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4 may not be your lucky number

In a stunning reversal of fortune, 4th District Supervisorial candidate Lorri Galloway has leaped back in front of now 4th place holder Art Brown by two dozen votes.

“We told you this would happen,” exulted campaign front man Dan Chmielewski. “Third place is great. 4th place would be a disaster. This really proves that Galloway lives in the district and that her heart lies here. I can’t tell you how proud we are of Lorri. This is all about relevance. I gave Lorri two hundred dollars and I am very relevant.

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Posted onDead heads

Matthew Cunningham, Big Government Leech, Lauds “Rising Star” of GOP

by 8 Comments on Matthew Cunningham, Big Government Leech, Lauds “Rising Star” of GOP

I am not an annelid.

I couldn’t help but notice that Red County’s resident hypocrite, Matthew J. Cunningham, who makes his living off of Rob Reiner’s massive income redistribution scheme called Prop 10 did a post today on Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio who delivered the big speech at last night’s GOP Flag Day party.

Sweet Lord. Did Rubio praise Republicans who make their living sucking at the teat of the Welfare State? Maybe he did. I wasn’t there.

Here’s a Cunningham tribute:

“I think Marco Rubio is a true heir to Reagan conservatism: a rock-ribbed dedication to a smaller, restrained federal government,”

Well that’s great for Rubio, but where does Mr. C. from Suite C. fit into this vision of a smaller, restained government?

It’s amazing that this creep who makes his living from a huge, liberal tax and income redistribution project that defines “whole village child rearing” would have the gall to even go to the diner, let alone opine about it.  I heard his candidate Harry Sidhu was there, too, so maybe they let anyone in.

What a complete and utter disgrace.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Why Public Works Projects Cost So Much

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If you build it they will come.

Well, paying legally required “prevailing wage” to union workers, for one thing. This adds from 33-50% to the straight labor costs.

But there’s a more insidious cost to reckon with. And that’s the often overlooked administration costs tacked on to construction projects by the City Engineering Department. By gouging these projects with inflated bureaucratic costs, the Engineering Department can pad its own budget without leaning on the General Fund. The monies for capital projects comes from CDBG funds, Redevelopment tax increment, Gas Tax revenue – a whole crazy Byzantine funding network that fortuitously disconnects the payer from the beneficiary.

Yesterday our blogger Christian noted that a contract to upgrade traffic signals at three intersections was let out to a contractor for about $102,000; but that the City’s Engineering Department tacked on a whopping $39,000 for its own administration and inspections. That’s about a 38% increase, and is anomalously high – even for a typical project in Fullerton. Smaller projects get disproportionately nailed. But the point is that actual infrastructure improvements – the very stuff that everybody says they want to promote – is getting, and has gotten robbed by featherbedding in the Engineering Departments.

Of course this has been going for years and years and years. It’s a standard practice. Probably everywhere. So why haven’t the politicians ever cottoned on to this sleight of hand? Maybe they have. But its just so much easier to go along with the “experts” and not ask any questions; or if you do, don’t demand any cogent answers.

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