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May 25, 2025May 26, 2025About Us

Who is Andre Charles?

Andre Charles is some sort of political consultant for Democrat politicians and causes. That’s what he tells us on his rather uninformative website. What he does between elections is not mentioned. He is also the President of the North Orange County Democrats, and his name has surfaced in connection with the phony and perjurious Scott Markowitz candidacy in Fullerton last fall.

My current interest with Mr. Charles has to do with his activities in the same election. Why? Because he was paid $4000 by a political action committee sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 – a union for grocery store employees. You may remember the name of this group: Working Families for Kitty Jaramillo.

“Working Families” worked hard for Jaramillo, funneling $60,000 through the national HQ in Washington to fund their support for Jaramillo. Charles got some of that gravy:

Well, there’s nothing wrong, so far. At least on the surface. He’s a Dem working for Dems and that’s his job, part time or otherwise. It probably seems a little strange that a grocery store worker’s union would be involved in a local, small-time election.

But of course that’s not the whole story. See, Working Families not only represents the guy trimming lettuce in the produce section of your supermarket; they also represent workers trimming another green growing thing, namely cannabis.

The real money motive in marijuana dispensaries comes from the legalized dope cartel itself, not the promise of the union dues of a few dozen workers; even the least cynical person must wonder a little exactly who ponied up that $60,000, laundered through the national HQ.

Anyway, I digress. The real issue here is not the disheveled Charles’s job, day or moonlight. It’s the fact that his better half is none other than Shana Charles, the bloviating and sanctimonious councilmember for District 3.

Let me synopsize: Mr. Charles is the financial beneficiary of four grand in marijuana lobby money to do something to prop up the campaign of Vivian Jaramillo, a vocal cannabis dispensary advocate. And his fellow beneficiary, Mrs. Charles, is in a position to agendize reopening the issue of legalized MJ in Fullerton and using it as a remedy for Fullerton’s budgetary woes. And she would also be able to influence the zoning regulations that make winners and losers in this business, to wit: the dispensary store owners and their immediate residential neighbors.

A few months ago the Kennedy Sisters – who scratch and peck out the Fullerton Observer – made sure to review the fall campaign financial activity of their enemies, Jung, Valencia, and Dunlap. They omitted investigation of the same for their failed darling, Jaramillo.

And they never once addressed the activities of Working Families during or after the election. The silence was deafening. Even if they had they would have glossed over the relationship of marijuana money and the spouse of a councilmember they hold dear.

When the defunct disaster known as Walk on Wilshire was in its oxygen tent, the Observer, Ahmad Zahra, and a few of their running dogs tried real hard to make a legal issue of campaign donors affecting council decisions. Hopefully the same solicitude for public probity will be applied, when appropriate, to Mrs. Charles, who was the direct beneficiary of a big monied interest that poured tens of thousands into a Fullerton political campaign.

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Being Vivian Kitty Jaramillo. Again.

by The Fullerton Harpoon29 Comments

It means you aren’t very smart. You aren’t attractive. You aren’t talented. You aren’t educated. You do have a chip on your shoulder and you do seem to think people owe you something. Mostly because you grossly overestimate yourself, and the Kennedy Sisters think you check all the right boxes.

On Tuesday evening Ms. Jaramillo appeared at the Fullerton City Council to take the council majority to task for rejecting her nomination to the Planning Commission. It was a graceless, rude performance.

She didn’t seem to grasp the irony in her insulting the people who voted against her, just like she did last December in what we wished had been her final goodbye statement. Alas, no. Here is “Cannabis Kitty” showing up again like a bad penny. Some of her comments about the council majority:

Afraid of her, or;

Childish in their rejection of anything Zahra

Disgusting

Idiotic

She whined that voting “no” on an appointment was just never done! And recent appointments by Jamie Valencia are “the usual suspects,” unqualified “bozos” only wanting “personal glory, and who are not “interested in the betterment of the City.” Not like her, of course. Why, one of these appointees, a former Mayor, was even referred to by Fullerton employees as “Mayor Bozo,” Jaramillo recalled.

She failed to mention that object of her denigration, Chris Norby, is also a former County Supervisor and State Assemblyman now willing to serve on a low-grade committee almost nobody knows about because he is simply a good citizen.

Of course Jaramillo got her facts wrong, or more likely, pretended to, omitting that only a few weeks earlier her sponsor, Ahmad Zahra voted no on Valencia’s appointment of Arif Mansuri, a professional engineer, to the Transportation Commission.

Jaramillo essentially identified Valencia a puppet of Jung, who she wrote off completely as a “little dictator.” She was “bummed,” she said because the absent Nick Dunlap wasn’t there to hear her lament of his action. She had hoped better of him. She didn’t remind anybody that in her December letter to her friends at the Fullerton Observer she referred to Dunlap as a knucklehead. Short or selective memory?

The happiness vanished in a political haze…

Now I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like Jaramillo is just prone to insulting people who refuse to acknowledge her superior qualities. Of course she is bitter about losing to some unknown who’s only lived in Fullerton “a hot minute.” I don’t care about that, but I find it surprising that her own sense of entitlement is so immense that it would cause her to expect the targets of her abuse to appoint her to anything.

March 9, 2025March 9, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Charting a New Course?

by The Fullerton Harpoon37 Comments

Fullerton is a General Law city. The question of studying the costs and the benefits of adopting a municipal charter was on the agenda for the last city council meeting.

To charter or not to charter. That became the debate. But it shouldn’t have been.

Rather than accepting the benign idea of beginning to study the pros and cons of Fullerton being a charter city, numerous public speakers, a claque obviously organized by Ahmad Zahra, and Zahra himself, began reciting a litany of reasons to not even study the idea. Of course they didn’t know what they were talking about, and kept spewing nonsense, like ginned up election costs, scary rejection of State paternalism, mandates, and planning control, and all sorts of drummed up stuff leading to the inevitable conclusion that California state government is benevolent, well-run, desirable, and comforting.

The speaker list was comprised of the usual suspects: our old, nattering friend (and Scott Markowitz nominator) Diane Vena; the ever-angry Karen Lloreda; the bitter, avian Anjali Tapadia and others.

Good grief, even the superannuated Molly McClanahan appeared, cluck-clucking her disapproval of the proceedings. And there in the audience sitting next to McClanahan, was none other than Jan Flory, looking pretty worn out. Flory didn’t say anything, mercifully, but perfunctorily clapped when speakers questioned the motives and integrity of the council majority. On McClanahan’s other side sat Ms. Lloreda, which was appropriate: two former city councilwomen recalled by their constituents.

Several school district boardmembers showed up, too, trying, and failing to explain the nexus between the municipal charter topic and the welfare of their districts. That was just pathetic lackeyism for Zahra. Boy, have they backed the wrong horse.

As noted before, Zahra’s indignant, theatrical and lengthy diatribe was even more ridiculous that the dumb speeches of his little entourage. He began a recitation of how a 15 member elected charter-writing committee would become a political springboard for bad people (i.e. those not chosen by him) funded by bad interests – like Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform, presumably. This was amazing since nobody in their right mind would pursue this approach. I don’t know if any city ever has. But Zahra must have thought it was good obfuscation to help confuse the already dimly lit brains of his followers, I guess.

There was a plot afoot said Zahra, with devious manipulators pulling the council’s strings to buy and sell Fullerton, somehow, sometime, somewhere. Don’t believe what they say, said the master of prevarication.

Ferguson speaks. Fullerton Boohoo is not happy…

One speaker, Joshua Ferguson supported the study, pointing out that the process of voting on a charter was actually highly democratic because it gave people a chance to participate in how their city is governed. The Three Old Ladies shook their heads in disapprobation.

The three councilmembers who voted to simply consider the idea – Jung, Dunlap and Valencia – didn’t try to justify some positive end result, reasonably supporting a study, the sort of thing people like Zahra and his friend Shana Charles normally adore.

The idea here is that actually learning things about something relating to city governance is a good thing.

I don’t know anything about the benefits or drawbacks of having a municipal charter; neither do the people of Fullerton;. neither does our City Council, two of whom, Zahra and Charles voted to remain ignorant.

February 25, 2025February 25, 2025Ahmad Zahra

More Observer Self-Serving “News”

by The Fullerton Harpoon8 Comments

A week or so ago the Kennedy Sisters, presumably in the interest of political transparency, posted the 2024 campaign finance activity of Councilmembers Dunlap, Jung, and Valencia. They were also interested in showing the spending of Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform and its opposition to their favored candidate Vivian Jaramillo.

“Follow the Money” is their headline. But wait. Isn’t something missing?

Indeed, yes. They decided to publish information about the three winning candidates whom the really don’t like. And of course Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform has been the bane of big spending bureaucrats and politicians for years. But where is the information on Vivian Jaramillo?

Missing in action, I’d say.

Jaramillo got lots of campaign contributions from local unions, public employees, and lot from Fullerton’s public pension retiree gaggle. Not too much surprise there, so why not publish it? It’s still relevant.

But what really stood out was the omission of the massive Independent Expenditure Committee created to get Jaramillo elected. “Working Families for Kitty Jaramillo” was the recipient of $60,000 up front from the national HQ of the grocery store workers union. The local union “sponsored” the IE, but the dough came from Washington DC and the smart money was on its origin being none other than the Southern California dope dispensary cartel.

The marijuana money would be real hard for the Kennedy Sisters to explain without reminding folks that Jaramillo earned the nickname “Cannabis Kitty” due to her prior staunch support of Ahmad Zahra’s push for the broadest marijuana ordinance – the one he, Silva, and Flory voted on at the end of 2020.

More even handed “reporting,” right? I don’t suppose anything is going to change from these darlings. The sniping, innuendo and criticism of Valencia, Jung, and Dunlap will continue unabated, with the usual conflation of news and editorial – in violation of any journalistic standards.

February 17, 2025February 17, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Zahra Goes Unicorn Hunting With His Pea Shooter

by The Fullerton Harpoon17 Comments

FFFF received a fun email the other day, pecked out by Fullerton 5th District Councilman Ahmad Zahra. It is directed to Fullerton Assistant City Attorney Baron Bettenhausen, a fellow that the Friends met yesterday. Ahmad writes on January 27th, and is obviously still in a grand funk about losing his precious Walk on Wilshire the previous week.

The tone of the letter is pretty unfriendly since Zahra seems to believe Bettenhausen has left out something real important in the discussion of Jamie Valencia returning campaign contributions. Of course, as we have seen, none of this would have been necessary if Bettenhausen knew the law and had known about the FPPC decision in Palo Alto before January 21st.

But let’s let Ahmad speak for himself:

From: Ahmad Zahra <ahmad.zahra@cityoffullerton.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2025 9:55 PM
To: Baron J. Bettenhausen <bjb@jones-mayer.com>; Richard D. Jones <rdj@jones-mayer.com>; Eric Levitt <Eric.Levitt@cityoffullerton.com>
Subject: Conflict of interest question

Caution: This is an external email and may be malicious. Please take care when clicking links or opening attachments.

Baron, at the last council meeting, you had opined that CM Valencia could vote on the matter of Walk on Wilshire since she had returned the campaign contributions to Tony Bushala and Cigar Shop owner, both of whom have direct economic interests in the decision. Community members have shared with me some concerns regarding your rendered opinion and I’d like clarifications from you.

Was the FPPC consulted on this matter, as has been the practice in the past on complicated issues (example: CM Charles votes on CSUF)? If so, where is their opinion letter and why was it not presented at the time of the meeting?

There’s been a claim that the funds hadn’t been actually returned even if the return check was issued. This is a claim from a resident that raised concerns but no evidence was presented. But it does bring up the question, what evidence did CM Valencia present to you and why was that not made public? This is especially relevant because that reporting period for campaign committees isn’t until Jan 31st, occurring after the meeting itself with no chance for the public to verify any of this.

In your opinion that night, while you addressed the letter of the law, did you factor in the spirit of the law? It seems to easy for anyone to take contributions, use them, then conveniently return the funds before a vote. This is especially important to know as CM Valencia was fully aware of the WoW vote since apparently it was a question asked to her during the campaign.

I would appreciate a clarification on these questions and would request that an FPPC letter confirming your opinion on this matter be made available to the public to prevent any legal issues. Any correspondence to the FPPC should also include the concerns of the public for a comprehensive review.

I am also requesting that any action to execute the reopening of Wilshire be delayed until such legal questions are resolved to avoid any legal challenges to the city.

Note: I am writing this email in the interest of the public and thus deem it and any response to it in the public domain and not under any lawyer confidentiality privilege.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

AHMAD ZAHRA

Council Member, District 5

City of Fullerton – Tel: (714) 738-6311

303 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, CA 92832

www.cityoffullerton.com / Follow me on Facebook

Oh dear me. Where to start. Naturally, Zahra wants to make up and nurture a scandal where there is none. He’s obviously been stirring up an element of outraged Fullerton Boohoo to keep the red herring going. He even uses the same language as the Kennedy Sisters: “there’s been a claim,” and “This is a claim from a resident that raised concerns but no evidence was presented.”

FFFF first addressed the non-applicability of the law in question way back on January 21st. We know Zahra reads FFFF, but maybe he didn’t catch that post.

Anyway, Zahra wants to know if the FPPC has been consulted about this horror of horrors. We now know that the FPPC previously ruled on the identical issue in a case in Palo Alto. FFFF relayed that information, here on February 10th. The answer is clear as a bell: the law doesn’t apply. Bettenhausen should have known this before January 21, and maybe even before Valencia gave back money she didn’t have to.

Ahmad made me wear this and took a picture.

Then Zahra’s deep sea fishing expedition turns to the completely baseless “actual claim” that although a check may have been written, it wasn’t cashed, challenging Valencia’s integrity and Bettenhausen’s lack of diligence.

Zahra’s final numbered point is really funny. He wonders why the “spirit” of the law is not being upheld. Poor Ahmad should be addressing his lament to the State Legislature instead of his own attorney, but, whatever.

Zahra wants the FPPC findings on the issue to be made public, and he requests that WoW remain open until such time as the FPPC responds. Zahra’s worried about legal challenges? From whom? The Kennedy Sisters and Diane Vena? Man, what a failed Hail Mary. WoW was unceremoniously removed a few days after Zahra’s demand letter. Thousands more laughed than did weep at it.

Poor Ahmad wraps up his missive by letting his own lawyer know that this email and any response are free from attorney-client confidentiality – in the public interest, of course. That’s good ’cause we got it, Ahmad, being members of the public, and all. Was there ever even a response by Bettenhausen in the end? Who cares

January 28, 2025January 28, 2025A Step in the Right Direction

Park Dwelling Fee-asco?

by The Fullerton Harpoon19 Comments

*The story no one wanted to talk about.*

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want the abandoned Union Pacific Park reopened. It was a crime-ridden attractive nuisance from the day it opened even without considering the toxic substances that had to be remediated after the damn thing was built.

But there seems to be an interesting reason the park hasn’t been reopened 18 months after the City Council ordered the fence around the vacant land be taken down. And the reason could be that there isn’t enough money in the Park Dwelling Fee Fund to pay for it. These funds are collected from developers to pay for new park facilities, presumably to reflect the new projected increase in population.

This situation emerged at a Fiscal Sustainability Committee meeting a while back. The Fund has about $800,000 to $900,000, according to Assistant City Manager Daisy Perez, and at least $300,000 of that is already earmarked for the delusional “Trail to Nowhere” plan. It also emerged that the massive eyesore project called “The Hub,” on Commonwealth at the 57 Freeway, has not paid it’s Park Dwelling Fees, a number amounting to $5,000,000, staff said.

It seems that for some reason the City gave the developer of the project a waiver on the required upfront fees, until the project has a certificate of occupancy. That $5 million is burning a hole in somebody’s pocket, and it sure ain’t our pocket. How this happened is another story, and a good one, too, I’ll bet.

In the meantime, we seem to have some sort of Mexican Standoff – UP Park vs. Trail to Nowhere. The Park is assumed to have been given priority, but there’s no money for it. Meantime the Trail to Nowhere waits in the wings, embarrassingly, having missed several entrance cues demanded by the State, the most important of which were submission of plans by 6/24; start of construction by 8/24; and viable plant life by 10/25.

*The idea may have been bad, but it sure was old.*

One of the selling points of the Trail to Nowhere is that it connected to the UP Park (of course that was another lie, too – it ends at Highland Avenue). But what if there is no UP Park at all?

January 9, 2025January 9, 2025Ahmad Zahra

Observer Sisters Dig In Using Same Shovel

by Mr. Peabody6 Comments

In an article at their censored Fullerton Observer “blog,” the Kennedy Sisters, Sharon and Skaskia, have posted a story about misleading political advertising in the past election, to wit: political mailers aimed at their darling, Vivian Jaramillo by Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform. Tellingly, they didn’t use their names, but rolled out their favorite “staff” byline, when clearly there was an author. Journalism at its best. The theme is “Is there truth behind negative ads?”

This effort is clearly meant to reinforce their position that Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform did indeed engage in “lies” about Jaramillo, and that they, therefore, are not subject to legal rebuke for saying so in print.

The only problem is that the sisters didn’t address their basic problem. Their assertions that lies were told requires some sort of effort to show it. But they didn’t. Can’t, or didn’t want to. They do want their gullible, low IQ readers to believe that Jaramillo’s “team,” a team that clearly included Jaramillo endorser Diane Vena, was not a participant in creating the fraudulent candidacy of Scott Markowitz, the fake Trumpy, newly minted Republican, dredged up by one or more Jaramillo supporter to draw votes away from presumed threat, Linda Whitaker. And that/those someone(s) wanted Jaramillo to win; and wanted it so badly that they suborned patsy Markowitz’s perjury.

Yes, I was a phony from Day 1. And it was obvious…

Comically, the Kennedy Sisters claim that Vivian Jaramillo knows nothing about the Markowitz scam and it must be true because Jaramillo is honest! And that’s funny, too, because some of her supporters were in on it; Diane Vena, also a writer for the Fullerton Observer, signed Markowitz’s nomination papers, she supposedly told Sharon Kennedy, at the behest of a “friend.” A friend Kennedy later described as a “conservative friend.” And we’ve said it before: Diane Vena was either in on the fraud it or is the stupidest person in Fullerton.

There is no doubt that some member(s) in the team Jaramillo circle large or small, created the Scott Markowitz candidacy, and the assertion is therefore true.

Then the Kennedy Sisters turn the problem of Jaramillo as a running dog for the marijuana dispensary cartel that has been tryin to get its hooks into Fullerton via Ahmad Zahra for years.

Claims were made by FTFR that Jaramillo supported the short-lived ordinance pushed through at the end of 2020. She did. And she also supported its reinstatement the following year. And that ordinance would have allowed a dispensary 100 feet from a residential zone. The Sisters try to explain that away by reminding us that the ordinance was a whopping 32 pages long, presumably excusing accountability for having supporting all parts of it. Whatever. There’s a reason the dispensary cartel laundered $60,000 through the national grocery store union to pay for an “independent” committee dedicated to electing Jaramillo, a situation the Observer Sisterhood still hasn’t mentioned.

The Kennedy Sistren doesn’t seem to get it. They are still peddling the same dodges, misdirection, and disingenuous (or dumb) arguments they made during the campaign on their stupid blog. If you’re going to call somebody a liar, the burden of proof is on you to show it. Relying on the alleged moral fiber of your friends Vena and Jaramillo doesn’t cut it. You may believe gentle and kind Diane Vena; you may hold up Jaramillo as a pillar of probity. But that doesn’t entitle you to call anybody else a liar, in print. That could well be libelous.

Lots of truths can be ferreted out under oath by aggressive lawyers from people like Ajay Mohan, the Democrat operative who helped create the newly MAGA-tized Markowitz. Good Old Ajay knows where lots of bodies are buried.

I don’t know how serious FTFR really is in pursuing its demand for retractions and apologies. Is it just a little inexpensive irritation aimed at the Kennedy’s at this point? Maybe, but If I were the Kennedy sisters I’d be inclined not to say anymore.

December 16, 2024December 16, 2024Boohooism

Kitty Cries Bitter Tears, Shares Final Word

by The Fullerton Harpoon29 Comments

The on-line version of the Fullerton Observer is now available to those inclined to be misinformed, or as in my case, to be entertained.

In the lastest version I discovered a lachrymose rewind of the November District 4 campaign by the loser, one Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo.

Poor Kitty thought she had a lock on it, so no wonder her outrage that the plans went askew. She sued the City to make a district for her. She sat on the committee that endorsed her district. She had all the endorsements, a pile of money, the county party, and even a fake, perjuring candidate to help take votes away from her obvious competition: Linda Whitaker. She also had an $85,000 Independent Expenditure Committee mostly funded by out-of-town marijuana lobbyists, laundered through the grocery store workers union.

Why write about news when you can try to make your own! (Photo by Julie Leopo/Voice of OC)

Jaramillo had the undying love of her pals, the Kennedy Sisters at the Fullerton Observer, who could be counted on to whisk away her problems and drop innuendo on Linda Whitaker, when called upon to do so.

How could she lose?

What Poor Kitty and her Team Jaramillo failed to take into account was the arrival of a new face on the scene who raised lots of money and got the police and fire union support. And she didn’t figure on Fullerton Taxpayers For Reform, a political action committee with the means and issues to beat her.

And she didn’t count on the Scott Markowitz scam to backfire badly on her as it became apparent that her own supporters were involved in the fraud.

Jaramillo takes the time to swipe at her old pals in the police and fire unions, and of course her unnamed opponent, a smart professional, who, alas, doesn’t seem to know anything about Fullerton, unlike herself who has spent her whole life, yadda, yadda. Pathetic.

It would never occur to a self-entitled person like Jaramillo that her entire, adipose campaign was something right out of the year 2000 playbook: lots of endorsements, clunky mailers, paid precinct walkers, tons of money wasted on political “consultants,” etc. She had the agility of a canal barge. And the product itself was flawed: elderly, otiose, statist, whiny, self-righteous, “good guys” to the end. And for Miss Kitty, the end has finally come to her political aspirations.

Kitty was undone, she says, by the wave of “lies” about her, but she never says what they are and why they are not true. Neither have her sisterhood at the Fullerton Observer who certainly would have had the journalists’ ethic to enquire, had they been journalists, so of course never did.

In the end, Kitty says she is grateful. And so are a lot of other people in Fullerton. And the Observer “editor” has thoughtfully provided the names of contributors to Fullerton Taxpayers for Reform so we know who to thank.

November 23, 2024November 23, 2024Boohooism

D4 Election Update

by Grover Cleveland26 Comments

As of last night the very close election for Fullerton’s District 4 city council seat got even less close.

Newcomer Jamie Valencia’s lead over Vivian “Cannabis Kitty” Jaramillo has grown to 50. And her lead has been increasing at every count for a week and a half. With the number of outstanding ballots in the 4th ever-dwindling, things are looking grim for Team Jaramillo that includes the dope lobbyists who poured $60,000 into a pro-Jaramillo Independent Expenditure committee. That investment is starting to look like it’s not going to be paying any dividends.

Supposedly there are about 22,000 ballots left to count, county-wide. Prorated that would mean maybe about 130 ballots left to count in D4. Jaramillo would need to get 50 more than Valencia just to pull even. That doesn’t seem very likely.

November 15, 2024November 15, 2024Boohooism

Friday Night Election Update. Valencia Back in Front

by Grover Cleveland21 Comments

After votes were counted today the Fullerton City Council District 4 leader is Jamie Valencia. Again. She gained 15 votes in today’s count and has a skinny six vote lead. Here’s the updated data.

This is good news for those opposing Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, darling of the OC Democrat Party officialdom, and the bride-candidate of the Long beach Marijuana cartel who pumped $60,000 into an Independent Expenditure Committee dedicated to getting her elected; and to get themselves an MJ ordinance in Fullerton.

Miss Kitty. The “good guys” were stoned and happy…

Jaramillo had chipped away at Valencia’s Election Night lead over the week succeeding the election until she had a 13 vote lead on Wednesday night. But yesterday, Valencia gained a little ground back – 4 votes, and today 15 votes.

People way smarter than I am might be able to explain the ebb and flow of these things. I suspect last minute ballot bundling on the part of the OCDems/Marijuana League may have accounted for the 150 swing last week. If so is that over? Let’s hope so.

Fake candidate Scott Markowitz may get a 1000 votes. After Pleading guilty to to perjury and falsifying election documents. This is not a ringing endorsement for the intelligence of the 4th District voter. His mission was to help dupe or be the dupe of Democrat nominators, to create a fake election committee with an R next to his name; to get his name on the ballot; and, to submit a Trumpy ballot statement. After that Markowitz disappeared. He attended no election events and raised not a penny.

Markowitz’s role was simple: take votes away from the conservative in the election, Linda Whitaker for the benefit of Vivian Jaramillo.

It’s just a few cents a gallon. Suck it up poor people!

Meanwhile, in our State Senate District, Fullerton’s Gas Tax Josh Newman keeps gaining ground on the dopey Steven Choi from Irvine, but still trails by well over 7,000 votes. He’s come from behind before, but this one is starting to look like game over. If it is, Josh can go back to moderating Neighbors United For Fullerton meetings where I’m told he got his start in OC politics.