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October 23, 2009January 4, 201072nd Election

The Strange Case of the Eli Lilly Five Grand

Some of my best friends are lobbyists...

In a late expenditure report filed 10/19/09 an independent expenditure committee basking in the hilarious title Alliance for California’s Tomorrow; A California Business Coalition (interpretation: a front for whatever corporate donors and PACs want to spend money on to promote their own enrichment by manipulating the Legislature, and meanwhile keep their hands clean – sort of). This particular IE was in support of Linda Ackerman, naturally. They paid for a mailer.

The report shows three donations: $10,000 from California Cable & Telecom Association (10/15/09), State Building & Construction Trades Council of California(10/16/09), and the real curiosity – $5000 contributed last July 20th.

Why did Eli Lilly, the drug maker, just happen to put five big ones in an IE in the middle of July. What for? It doesn’t seem that it could have had anything to do with the other money put in for the Ackerwoman campaign in mid-October. On July 20th the Duvall story was still a month away from breaking, although the actual incident had already occurred, and apparently several people already knew it was out there. So the reason for the mid-summer contribution is strange. Was it just a periodic payment Eli Lilly tossed into the Alliance for California’s Tomorrow kitty? That seems pretty hard to believe. So what was it for? And how did it come to be used for in the 72nd campaign?

Yet, consider this coincidence-wise: one of the 2008 board members of The Pacific Policy Research Foundation (Linda Ackerman’s fake 501(c0(3) Hawaiian vacation scam) was Dan Howle; and Howle directs government affairs in Sacramento (lobbyist) for pharmaceutical giant…Eli Lilly. It’s a small world after all in Sacramento. And boy is it loaded with lobbyists.

October 20, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

OC GOP says “No more RINOS”; Could Ackerwoman, Bankhead & Jones Be Out of Business?

by admin7 Comments

Our friend Allan Bartlet over at Red County reported that the GOP’s Chairman Scott Baugh gave a “fiery speech” last night indicating “that it is not going to be business as usual anymore for the OC GOP Party………no longer will incumbent Republicans be given safe quarter for their re-election if they have strayed to far off the reservation………..made it clear that he is not looking for ideological purity per se, but Republicans in the mold of Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain & George W Bush for example are not going to be allowed to ruin the party’s economic and fiscal credibility anymore…..Clearly this is an unsustainable path we are on and our elected GOP leaders in DC and Sacramento have been part of the problem. So tonight he announced a contract with the OC GOP voters. It’s not going to be good enough just to have an “R” by your name if you are a candidate or elected official. The “R” has got to mean something.”

Hmm. Let’s reflect on this for a moment. Okay. Baugh throws the Central Committee some red meat. Hooray! But don’t forget that the Central Committee is chock full of Repuglicans led by Ackerman and Ackerwoman; and Baugh is surely the biggest ‘Pug between San Onofre and the 605. When push comes to shove Baugh, Inc. will go with whichever candidate is the best ‘Pug team player, i.e. the one that is most ambitious (but not too ambitious, right, Ed?) and most likely to perform years of kickoff team duty – there’s only one QB, right, Dick?

It would be awfully strange for an organization made up of so many very selfish and self-interested politicos to all of a sudden change its stripes. Good grief, look at Fullerton: Sa, Godfrey, Jones, Clesceri, Munson (the one that didn’t win) Wison – RINOs all; and all backed by the GOP establishment – again, and again.

So for now we are well justified in assuming that Baugh is just blowing smoke up the Central Committee’s nether portal. And you what? A lot of them appear to like it.

October 19, 2009October 20, 2009About Us

Irony: Ackerwoman Complains About Norby Mailer

by The Fullerton Harpoon6 Comments

I lie about him and he tells the truth about me. That's not fair!

Too funny! Our inside sources tell us that Ackerwoman has filed an ethics complaint to the GOP Central Committee about a Norby flier supposedly tying her to her husband’s budget deals in Sacto.

Since Ackerwoman is tied at the hip to her husband Ackerman, it seems like a fairly reasonable association to make. After all, she was handsomely paid to raise funds for his campaigns so presumably she believed in the product she was pitching.

What’s really comical is that Ackerwoman has the nerve to show her mug in public at all after the scurrilous hit piece that she put out on Norby, let alone complain about “ethics”! The bogus piece she mailed out will no doubt earn her a cross-complaint when the Central Committee Ethics Committee next meets, as will the fact that she isn’t even living in the district where she only recently registered to vote.

Hypocrisy, deceit, dishonor, egotism, power fetish – the list just goes on and on. Who dug up these wretched people?

October 18, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

Martin Wisckol Caught Pimping for Linda Ackerman – Again.

by Grover Cleveland17 Comments

Maybe the Register’s Martin Wisckol is worried about the impending collapse of his employer and is thinking about future work writing press releases for Dick and Linda Ackerman. Looks like he has already started.

Last Wednesday Wisckol tossed up this powder puff blog post addressing the issue of Linda Ackerman’s “experienced businesswoman” self-applied label. Exercising all the journalistic curiosity of a sea cucumber he coughed up this pearl:

I asked her last week what her business was. She responded that she was on the Board of Directors of the USCB collection management company, a director on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, was finance director of the Marian Bergeson Series, and was executive director of the state Capital of California Preservation Fund (I haven’t been able to find a Web site for that).

Good enough. Sounds like business stuff to me.

God, I can't believe he bought that. Dick we gotta put that nice boy on the payroll...

Sorry Martin, but it’s not “good enough” just because she said so. To pass along this tripe suggests that you are either stupid, lazy, or are shilling for Ackerman, Inc. Since we assume the Register doesn’t knowingly employ overtly stupid people, the options are narrowed.

We’ll help out by citing our post that pretty effectively dispatches the Ackerman “experienced businesswoman” fable.

Let’s recap. Linda’s on the board of a collection agency, USCB; a job she got by virtue of her husband’s influence and that meets three or four times a year? That may provide a little extra pocket money, but it hardly constitutes what a reasonable person would call business experience.

She’s on the executive committee of the Marian Bergeson blah blah blah. A training ground for female GOP politicians. Another part-time gig base on her political connections. In any case her self proclaimed responsibility (from her own website) is “finance development” not “finance director”, ya chowder head. Development means calling up lobbyists and asking them for money. You know, Martin. The same lobbyists who lobbied her husband.

Likewise she got an appointment to the Board of the MWD – a political, not a professional appointment, Marty. Do you really think she would have gotten that without her husband’s name. So she goes to a government agency meeting once a month to be told how to vote. No business experience there, either.

A committee to restore the historic working spaces of the Capitol. WTF? Are you kidding, Martin? That sounds like business to you? To us that sounds like the bored wife of a legislator or a socialite, or both. There’s probably a real good reason there’s no website.

Well, Martin, we have just covered the sum and substance of Linda Ackerman’s “business” experience over her 45 years of adulthood. And here it is, again:

No real experience in the private sector
Never owned or operated a business
Never employed anybody
Never signed the front of a paycheck.

In fact, Linda Ackerman’s only real experience is raising money from lobbyists, for this or that personal Ackerman benefit, mostly her husband’s campaigns. And for that she was amply recompensed for her part time work. Come to think of it, we’re now pretty sure the woman has never even held a real job of any kind.

So come on Martin, how about a little real work yourself. Quit passing along Ackerman campaign mush gussied up as the truth. Why not try to do something honorable before you get the axe?

October 16, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

The Repuglican Culture of Power & Profit

by The Fullerton Shadow5 Comments

Unenforceable laws were made to be broken — If it isn't illegal, it can't be wrong...Dick told me to say that.

Over at his Repuglican PR firm, er, Red County blog, our old playmate Matthew Cunningham has taken great offense at the good post “Rogue Elephant” wrote on the Orange Juice blog the other day, and that we generously shared with the Friends, here.

Why is he offended by Rogue Elephant’s post and our take on it? Because the post pointed out that former State Senator Jim Brulte gave Linda Ackerman $3900 out of his bogus BoE in 2014(!) campaign committee. We pointed out that her husband’s equally bogus BoE 2010 (created in 2006!) committee also gave her the same amount. We noted that these committees were basically money pots that politicians could use to finance their maintenance of power and influence. In other words a scam – create a committee for a fake political campaign and then use it as an influence buying cash cow.

Cunningham got his knickers in a real wad and noted that FFFF is a political committee, too, and that there is no difference between us and the donors to Ackerman. See, it’s all about free speech. Shame on us.

What a howler.

Just say something. Anything. And keep saying it.

It seems to have escaped Cunningham’s notice that we are not politicians; we don’t raise funds under the guise of a phony run for office. We aren’t pretending to run for anything as a way to hang on to money raised for other offices. We don’t redistribute money as a way to influence elections and buy friends. Our purpose is to to promote causes and candidates we feel are worthy, but we’re not in it to amass wealth, or to keep control of wealth courtesy of people who contributed for other purposes. Too bad none of that can be said about Brulte or Ackerman.

Repuglicans have gotten into the nasty habit of using the “free speech” complaint as an argument to support any kind of deceit practiced in the pursuit of power. But at the core the issue isn’t about free speech – it’s about a fundamentally dishonest way of maintaining influence in Sacramento. Of course the crooks and their hangers-on can’t admit it. If it ain’t illegal it ain’t wrong. Plus the Democrats do it too!

What a culture.

October 14, 2009December 28, 2009About Us

Fart Boy Demonstrating Symptoms Of Methane Intoxication

by admin14 Comments

Methane levels reaching dangerous levels... — Warning: methane levels reaching dangerous levels...

UPDATE: 10/15/09 8:00 am.

AT THE RED COUNTY BLOG CONTRIBUTOR ALLAN BARTLETT HAS POSTED AN ACCURATE TAKE ON THE “DESPERATION” MAILER, ITS POSSIBLE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES, AND A STRONG ENDORSEMENT OF CHRIS NORBY. ALLAN IS ON THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AND IS KNOWN FOR HIS INTEGRITY. GOOD FOR HIM.

Orange County’s own original Fart Boy, Matthew Cunningham may be a poster child for the dangers of methane inhalation. Of course we speak figuratively. As an all around sycophant he has to do a lot of sniffing and smiling, and it can’t be easy. He has finally come across a situation where he can’t compliment everyone in the room for their aroma at the same time.

One of our readers alerted us that today he put up a post about the nasty little sexual harassment hit piece on Chris Norby that his other friends, the Ackermans, let fly through the mail. His bland description of this toxic waste is clearly meant to both disassociate himself from it, and yet avoid criticizing it. He can’t quite seem to screw up the courage to share the facts of the case. So there’s no critique, explaining the fact that the claimant was fired by the County for misfeasance and that no charges were leveled against Norby until after she was fired; no recognition that the the jury foreman claimed after the trial that Norby hadn’t really done anything wrong; and no observation that the nuisance suit was reversed on appeal.

Cunningham has often referred to his “friendship” with Chris Norby. Well here we can see the value of that friendship. It’s obviously not worth incurring the anger of Dick Ackerman, even over a piece of slime that’s low – even for him. Yes, we knew it was coming. But that doesn’t excuse it. Cunningham was probably hoping the excrement would be tossed not by the Ackermans themselves, but rather by a surrogate. Well, too bad. It wasn’t. It has Ackerman’s name on the back. His other “friends.”

And what is really revealing in all of this is that other than this one slime the Ackerman campaign has nothing. Zero. But you’ll never hear that from Fart Boy. What a friend.

October 14, 2009January 4, 201072nd Election

“Loophole” Linda Ackerman Dives Headfirst Into Political “Slush Funds”

by Grover Cleveland1 Comment

Yesterday Rogue Elephant posted this over at the Orange Juice blog. The gist of the post is that a loophole in state campaign finance laws permits politicos like Repuglicans Jim Brulte and Dick Ackerman to cook up “putative” campaign committees for future office in order to transfer existing campaign balances, raise tons of money from lobbyists for these supposed campaigns, and then distribute the proceeds to exert influence in other elections across the State.

Rogue Elephant notes that Loophole Linda’s 72nd Assembly power grab has received $3900 from Brulte’s 2014(!) Board of Equalization Committee. What he doesn’t mention is that she also received the same amount (the limit) from her husband Dick’s similar committee, also for the BoE. Ackerman set up his “2010” BoE committee in as far back as 2006 according an article in the Oakland Tribune that describes the practice.

Why the BoE? Because these useless barnacles have been scraped off the legislature – termed out, but haven’t finished working the system, not by a long shot. They need a plausible office to “run” for, even if they have no intention of actually running. In the meantime Brulte actually works as a lobbyist for an outfit called California Strategies – a collection of former electeds and appointeds working their contacts.So when he gives Mrs. Ackerman money, he can kill two birds with one stone!

Rogue Elephant sums up his take on this pungent mess:

While Linda Ackerman’s campaign funding smells of Sacramento’s bipartisan Culture of Corruption, it also reeks of a Culture of Creepiness. Voters and taxpayers should find it creepy to see former politicians and lobbyists using political slush funds to pull the strings of candidates like Linda Ackerman.

October 10, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

“Experienced Businesswoman”: More Unadulterated Bull Shit from Linda Ackerman

by Grover Cleveland9 Comments

If by business you mean monkey business, thaen yes, I am a business woman. — If by business you mean monkey business, then yes, I am a business woman.

In the world of politics it is believed that if you just keep saying the same thing over and over again, eventually people will believe it.

Let’s consider Linda Ackerman’s repeated assertion (and the claim in many of her endorser’s statements that were obviously written for them) that she is an “experienced businesswoman.” Well, we would like to know just what that experience entails. Let’s let Linda’s campaign website help us out with a description of her vast business experience:

An experienced businesswoman, Linda serves as the Vice President of Financial Development for the Marian Bergeson Excellence in Public Service Series and a corporate board member of USCB, Inc., a California receivable and management company.

That’s it. No history, no resume. You’d think if there were any real accomplishments she’d be only too happy to share it with her would-be constituents. Hmm.

The Marian Bergeson blah-blah-blah isn’t a business. It’s a training program to promote female Republican politicians by having them learn the ins and outs of Repuglicanism. According to the Bergeson website, Ackerman is a member of an executive committee (it says nothing about her being a “Vice President” of anything). And in any case, “Development” is a polite way of saying “fundraising from corporate donors.” No prizes offered for guessing who the targets of any fundraising are: corporate lobbyists!

USCB is a sort of glorified “Check into Cash” for corporations who have extended credit to people like Ackerman’s would-be constituents. It’s a real business, all right, but being on its board hardly qualifies her as a businesswoman. And of course she got that part-time gig based entirely on who her husband was. The links on the USCB site take you to major health care trade associations, etc. Hmm. More lobbyists.

Of course we have already shared another of Mrs. Ackerman’s board positions, on The Pacific Policy Research Foundation, a completely bogus 501(c)(3), whose sole reason for existing is to get state legislators and lobbyists holed up together in a five- star Maui hotel for a week. Funny, the Pacific Policy Research Foundation fails to appear in her biography. Come on, Linda, are you suddenly ashamed of the noble goals of the “public purpose” Foundation you created? What’s that? You’re afraid the public might not understand? Bet you’re right!

What is it about Linda Ackerman and lobbyists?

Finally, we have to ask:

Mrs. Ackerman do you have any real business experience at all? Have you ever run your own business? Have you ever signed the front of a paycheck? Have you ever paid business taxes or fees, or worker’s comp?

Or could it be your claim to be a “businesswoman” is as hollow as your empty claim to live in the 72nd? Is this claim just more campaign pabulum meant to be sucked up by a careless electorate?

October 7, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

Candidate Jane Rands Brings Green Solutions to 72nd District State Assembly Campaign

by admin6 Comments

Dear Friends, we have received the following press release today from Jane Rands’ 72nd Assembly District Special Election campaign. Enjoy!

www.janerandsforassembly.com, jane@janerandsforassembly.com, (714) 325-5223

Fullerton, CA – Jane Rands, Green Party candidate for the 72nd District Assembly, supports a single payer healthcare system, marriage equality, decentralized rooftop solar energy production, restoration of critical education funding, conservation of our water resources, and legislation to strengthen the California Environmental Quality Act. “California’s budget shortfalls can be partially resolved by implementing long overdue oil extraction fees and restructuring Proposition 13 to only apply to family homes,” said Rands.

The Green Party has had ballot status in California since 1992. The Party’s platform calls for ranked ballot voting, universal healthcare, equal rights for LGBT people, equal pay for women in the workplace, limitations on harmful atmospheric pollutants, the preservation and restoration of California’s natural waterways and wetlands, and other policies to develop an environmentally sustainable economy in the state. Visit www.cagreens.org for more information.

Jane Rands is a Systems Engineer who resides in Fullerton, where she is an appointed member of the city’s Bicycle Users Subcommittee. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She currently serves as Liaison to the Secretary of State for the Green Party of California and Treasurer for the Green Party of Orange County.

The 72nd Assembly District includes the cities of Brea, Fullerton, and parts of Placentia, Anaheim, La Habra, Orange and Yorba Linda. A November 17 primary is scheduled to be followed by an expected January 12 runoff election.

September 27, 2009December 28, 200972nd Election

A Tsunami of Slime Is Coming

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

Lest anyone believes the special election to replace scummer Mike Duvall in the 72nd Assembly seat will be a model of decorum, we will disabuse them of that misconception right now.

Chris Norby can run on his political record – because at least he has one. His principal opponent in the GOP primary, Linda Ackerman, has no record other than being married to the once-powerful, and still venomous Dick Ackerman, and she doesn’t even live in our district. But the Ackermans have an ally.

Roski

That ally is named Ed Roski. Never heard of him? Roski is a hyper-wealthy LA real estate guy (Majestic Realty) and virtually controls the City of Industry as his personal fiefdom. The City of Industry is the single biggest Redevelopment scam in the history of California, and Roski’s latest big idea is to steal a professional football team – the San Diego Chargers were a likely target for a move northward – to a new stadium at the confluence of the 57 an 60 freeways. Since Norby has openly attacked the phony City of Industry and the NFL theft, he has incurred the wrath of Roski, so the story goes, who is supposedly as vindictive as he is rich. In other words a perfect playmate for Dick Ackerman.

According to local political theorists, the plan is laid. The Ackermans keep their South County hands clean vis-a-vis Norby, and continue to show up at Central Committee meetings with smirks and innocent shrugs; and Roski does the dirty work on Norby. Nice folks, huh?

Well, get ready, Friends. Absentee ballots are mailed out in a couple weeks. A tidal wave of slime is on its way.