Posted onDead heads

FFFF Quadruple Repeat: Sad. Pathetic. Embarrassing.

by 45 Comments on FFFF Quadruple Repeat: Sad. Pathetic. Embarrassing.

Aw, what a cutie pie. Picked out your prom dress yet?

You know, this post is just too good not to keep sharing with the Friends.

It appears that carpetbagging Precious Princess stopped making her ludicrous “Lorri in 4th gear” videos after the first one bombed so spectacularly.

Too bad. The spectacle of a 57 year-old woman doing her little dress-up teenybopper routine really is priceless.

The Desert Rat

Hardly anymore introduction is necessary. This clueless airhead wants to be a County Supervisor. True, the bar has been set pretty low in the past. But this is ridiculous. I’d rather vote for her little dog “Bella.” Too bad Bella is a carpetbagger, also.

Last summer we thought her “cute shoes” comment was indicative of a frivolous, unlikely candidacy. Now we know better. Oh, and by the way – shame on Anaheim for electing this idiot to their city council.

Enjoy, if you can keep your last meal down.

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Posted onHarry Sidhu

Sidhu on Defined Benefits

by 9 Comments on Sidhu on Defined Benefits

Just in case you missed the recent OCGOP showdown between Shawn Nelson and carpetbagger Harry Sidhu, we generously share a video clip showing Sidhu trying to to talk about defined contributions versus defined benefits.

Since this is the major problem contributing to government unfunded liabilities you would think a competent supervisorial candidate would be all over this – especially at a Republican nominating meeting.

Well see if you can understand what Yahoo Harry is talking about before stammering that he really doesn’t know anything about it! Enjoy this quintessential Sidhu moment.

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Posted onDead heads

Nelson Zings Sidhu

by 6 Comments on Nelson Zings Sidhu

Over at the Red County blog Cynthia Ward shares a fun hit piece on the 4th District claim jumping assclown from the 3rd District – Harry Sidhu. It basically sums up all we’ve been saying about Hide ‘N Seek Sidhu with regard to fake addresses, crazy ambition all out of proportion to any real ability, and only a passing familiarity with the truth. They were too nice to mention the perjury deal and the DA investigation, but that’s okay.

The best part, as Ms. Ward points out, is the map with the push pins showing offices that office hound Sidhu has been whoring around for in the past few years. The pattern sort of looks like a flock of geese flying south – which is where Sidhu’s campaign is heading. The piece archly notes that space precludes them from going back more than 3 years!

And then of course, there’s the giant, disembodied Sidhu head floating over OC, signifying massive ego and inflation with lighter-than-air gas. The voters never get tired of this:

Geez, I really love that pic. Almost as much as this one:

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy

by 24 Comments on Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy

It's almost always about the children...

The public relations and tax revenue fixated OC Children and Families Commission needs oversight. How do I know? Because of the amount of money these people pay to PR types and lobbyists – who just happen to be pals of Commission members. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in fact.

Last year the Riverside County Board of Supervisors addressed the same issue when their “First 5” Commission members were busted for distributing grants to their own organizations. Here’s a 2009 article from The Riverside Press-Telegram that talks about the problem. The solution proposed by the Riverside BOS was to subsume their “First Five” Commission into the County government structure.

Whether or not this sort of thing has been going on in OC is not known without a complete shakeout. But what is known is that the Commission has been paying for things like toothbrush distribution and facebook editing at a rate of $200 per hour – to a Matthew Cunningham, a pal of the current Commission Chairman, and a running board occupant of the John Lewis political machine.

Then there’s the small matter of the hundreds of thousands contracted for lobbying services to Phil Isenberg as well as our own local big-government gold digger – Anaheim Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.

When you awake you will feel completely refreshed...

It’s high time to place this Commission in a chain of command that puts ultimate responsibility in the hands of elected representatives – people who will have to account for grants and contracts awarded to political operatives, and to decide what sort of political lobbying, if any, is appropriate. And that would be the County Board of Supervisors.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

The Huntington Beach Lesson:Us Versus Them

by 8 Comments on The Huntington Beach Lesson:Us Versus Them

Although I don’t think I’ll be doing much posting about non-contiguous cities in OC, something’s a brewin’ down in Surf City and a pretty rancid odor has wafted northward and reached our Fullertonian nostrils. What’s happening is a saga that should be an instructive reminder to us, and, alas, is far too typical of the prevailing attitudes within city halls everywhere.

The story is told in some detail over at the Red County blog by it’s proprietor, Chip Hanlon.

It happens that in 2002 the good folks of HB passed a charter amendment to require that the City allocate 15% of its annual budget to infrastructure. And naturally the bureaucrats in City hall have been ignoring the mandate ever since. Apparently they are counting debt service and other items as “infrastructure” in a way nobody ever intended. Millions of bucks are being deliberately diverted from city infrastructure.

And also, naturally, the HB City Attorney has cooked up a load of legal bullshit to back up the city staff’s self-serving interpretation of what the charter amendment really means.

It seems that people are finally talking about strengthening the language in the charter to make sure the switcheroo stops, and at least one of the employee unions made it clear that they will have none of it.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, the HB City Council met the other night to review recommendations from an ad hoc committee to address this infrastructure issue. They continued the item for a couple weeks, so it’s not over yet. Any takers on how they’ll go?

Its ironic that critics of what goes on in city halls are labeled as divisive. But the divide between ourselves and those who work for us is clearly demarcated and understood by the employees themselves, whose interests are sometimes spectacularly incongruent with ours.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

CSUF Going Way Out On Limb

by 7 Comments on CSUF Going Way Out On Limb

We just received an e-mail from a young Friend, directing our attention to a story in the CSUF Daily Titan about the university trying to go ahead with the acquisition of the Hope University campus across Nutwood Avenue. We’ve been documenting the damage already done to mid-century architecture in the area and of course noting that the buildings on the Hope campus are architecturally significant – and would be demolished by CSUF.

According to the article funding would come from the sale of bonds. $30 million will be needed to close the deal. But of course the university employee cited says nothing about how the bonds are to be paid for. It seems that the school’s debt service ratio is already crappy – they’ve been spending like drunken sailors over there and their credit card is maxed out. Can anybody forget the debacle of the “University Heights” housing fiasco, here, and here? That didn’t help, either.

With the State budget cuts they’ve had to cut enrollment, and so student fee revenue is down.

And speaking of fees, it also seems as if the recent increases in fees and tuition have a lot of students pissed off, and using their dough to help swing future expansion that’s years off is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way.

So will the CS Chancellor’s office nix this massive added liability? Let’s hope so. CSUF President Milton is on clueless cruise control. Somebody needs to behave responsibly – and soon.

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Posted onBig Brother

The DUI Checkpoint Scam: 16 Cops + 6 Hours of Overtime = 4 Drunks

by 44 Comments on The DUI Checkpoint Scam: 16 Cops + 6 Hours of Overtime = 4 Drunks

How many cops does it take to bust a drunk driver? A whole lot of ’em if they’re running a checkpoint.

Last month we asked Chief Michael Sellers a few questions on recent DUI checkpoints in Fullerton. The stats that we got back lead to the conclusion that DUI checkpoints are just a handy bonus program for Fullerton cops, with little effect on public safety.

Back in March the Fullerton PD ran a 6 hour DUI checkpoint which employed sixteen police officers, each of them earning overtime pay — that’s 150% of their normal wage.  At the end of the night, the police had nabbed only four motorists for driving under the influence. The city also impounded a dozen cars from unlicensed drivers, but that’s a whole different shakedown.

Just stand here?

While hundreds of law-abiding drivers were being forced to stop and produce identification, patrons at downtown bars were spreading the word… intoxicated drivers should drive around the checkpoint on the way home.

So what is Chief Sellers’ excuse for such a blatant handout to his boys in blue?

Those guys made me do it.

The checkpoints are funded by state grants, says Sellers, as if that justifies any ‘ol squanderance that public employees can dream up. Around here, we call that “passing the buck”. It’s still our money, Chief, and we don’t want to fund overtime for your officers if they can’t be effective.

No local program should operate just because the state says it can. This is California, after all — a state renowned for it’s fiscal irresponsibility and zealous over-governance. Sixteen public safety employees on overtime without any significant accomplishments might slide under the radar in Sacramento, but we have higher expectations of our local agencies.

There will be another DUI checkpoint on tonight along Commonwealth in downtown Fullerton.

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Posted onBehind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies: January, 2010 – The Kiducrat Bonanza

by 6 Comments on Pacific Strategies: January, 2010 – The Kiducrat Bonanza

The largest monthly tax-payer funded haul for local Kiducrat spokesman Matthew Cunningham seems to be January 2010, when he racked up an impressive $10,840 to wordsmith and social network as a PR shill for the big-government OC Children and Families Commission. Click on the document below to see what a “conservative” Republican wordsmith does for a living – apart from writing op-ed pieces for liberal Democrats.

My favorite line item is the last one – a blanket $800 charged for “account management” for the month, whatever that may entail. Say what? You mean the folks in charge bought into that baloney? Oh that’s right – nobody seems to be in charge at all.

But hey! It’s all about the kids, right?

It's all about making people feel good about themselves.

With every passing second it become more and more obvious that the Children and Families Commission is in dire need of some outside oversight to stop this exorbitant waste of money on overpriced PR efforts doled out to political operatives.

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Posted onBoohooism

Pacific Strategies – The Facebook Gold Mine

by 11 Comments on Pacific Strategies – The Facebook Gold Mine

More fun stuff from one of OCs repuglican welfare state spongers, Matthew J. Cunningham. $4,200 in 8 days, to be precise. And ten references to Facebook updates.

Link to full invoice

Funny how stuff kids do for free can be mined by a well-connected political operative for big bucks. Well it’s big bucks when you charge 200 clams per hour and have no competition.

I ran the table at the Children and Families Commission. Nobody seemed to notice.

What’s really startling is that the Children and Families Commission kiducrats are willing to pay somebody that exorbitant rate for a “social network” medium “work” that will have a completely negligible effect. Not negligible, you say? Prove it says I.

Oh, yeah. Be sure to reflect upon Mr. Conservative Republican’s daily billing totals and note the inevitable “account management,” whatever the hell that is. Who knew being a kiducrat payed so well?

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