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May 7, 2010May 10, 2011Dead heads

Pacific Strategies – Monitoring John & Ken for Fun and Profit

fartboy — Those guys don't scare me. I'm in this for the kids..

In our series documenting the PR/lobbyist hungry OC Children and Families Commission we have shown how they have employed local political operative and Red County blog bloviator Matthew Cunningham to propagandize their myriad big-government good works.

We have seen how the preachy Mr. Conservative Republican was paid $200 an hour to do such things as update facebook pages, ghost write articles for liberal Democrats, and perhaps, funniest of all (in a sick sort of way) – coordinate toothbrush distribution to the Diocese. While he was at it, he amassed some mammoth paydays for his “Pacific Strategies” wordsmithing operation.

Jerb2 — The toughest part of the job is thinking up new ways to spend all that gummint dough.

Of course you can’t really propagandize effectively unless you know what the opposition is saying. So enjoy this.

In January, 2009 Governor Schwarzenegger called for First 5 California to be eliminated in his 2009-10 budget. Regional commissions would have taken a 60% cut in funding.

KFI radio broadcasters John and Ken went on the offensive, and Cunningham was right there listening in at $200 an hour to formulate his defense of the Welfare State. Here’s the invoice entry:

Full invoice – January 2009

As I said yesterday, it’s way past time to put this Commission under the control of the Board of Supervisors so that at least contracts and policy can be authorized by elected officials in a much more public forum. And maybe instead of fixating on PR the kiducrats can concentrate more resources on actually helping poor children instead of well-off, hypocritical Republicans.

May 6, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Time to End the Children and Families Commission’s Autonomy

by Grover Cleveland24 Comments

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.

PringlePower — 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.

May 5, 2010May 6, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies: January, 2010 – The Kiducrat Bonanza

by Grover Cleveland6 Comments

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?

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.

May 4, 2010May 6, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – The Facebook Gold Mine

by Grover Cleveland11 Comments

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.

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?

May 3, 2010May 3, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies and the Big Toothbrush Caper

by Grover Cleveland15 Comments

Apparently part of Matthew Cunningham’s deal as wordsmith to the OC Children and Families Commission is to fill other functions from time to time – such as Ambassador to the Diocese of Orange with Dental Portfolio.

Here, in October and November 2007 we find Mr. Conservative Republican billing the taxpayers $200 an hour as coordinator of toothbrush distribution:

It seems as if the Commission was eager to insinuate itself into Catholic schools, too.

But did it not occur to anybody auditing these invoices at the Commission that it was a wee bit inappropriate to pay somebody that exorbitant rate to talk to somebody at the Diocese about handing out toothbrushes? Was anybody at the Commission even reviewing these invoices at all?

By the way, anybody out there know how many toothbrushes you can get wholesale for $200? Oy vey! Just more lax or non-existing oversight by our friends on the Commission.

Ironically, in the fall of 2007 Mr. Cunningham was hard at work in the trenches as a loyal foot soldier for the Diocese. But that’s a whole other matter.

April 30, 2010April 30, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies – Won’t Someone Please Think of The Children?

by Grover Cleveland16 Comments

Using kids as a front to support your bureaucratic empire is almost something of a cliche. The educrats and teachers unions have been doing it for years. And so naturally the OC Children and Families Commission sings from the same sheet music.

Check out these billing entries from Matthew Cunningham to the Commission.

Okay, on January 15th, 2010 Mr. Republican is ghost writing an op-ed piece for a Democratic politician – the former State Superintendent of Schools, Delaine Eastin. A dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do do it, right? Besides the money is great.

Then we notice that about five weeks later the beaver-like Cunningham is hard at work disseminating the “Eastin op-ed” to literally dozens of readers via “social media tools”

A little digging and we uncovered this Sacramento Bee op-ed “by” Delaine Eastin dated 2/24/2010. Delaine is fighting hard for the dough that fuels the kiducrat machine, and that, parenthetically pays Cunningham $200 an hour. Is this the very same piece he wrote for the otherwise mute Eastin? Check it out and see if the style isn’t 100% Cunningham schmaltz – including the obligatory quotation from Abraham Lincoln. Be sure to read the comments as a reminder of Eastin’s troubled regime as Superintendent of Schools.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. The OC Children and Families Commission is paying hundreds of thousands a year in PR and lobbying expenses that are handed out to the politically well connected like Cunningham, who is good buddies with Commissioner Chair Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt. What is the procurement process for these contracts, and what quantifiable metrics are applied to judge the success and ultimately the renewal of these contracts?

It’s time to open the window on this Commission and let some fresh air into the room.

April 29, 2010April 29, 2010Boohooism

Pacific Strategies Critical Task #1 – “Daily Media Review”

by Grover Cleveland28 Comments

One of the critical tasks assigned to Matthew Cunningham by the PR fixated and obviously rudderless OC Children and Families Commission is to “review” media, i.e. read newspapers and blogs, which is convenient for Cunningham because that’s what he does anyway – for free. Now he’s a pro at 200 bucks an hour.

Yes, Friends, you read rightly. He’s paid to read blogs.

meathead — This is exactly what I had in mind...only they were supposed to be Democrats!

January 25, 2010 was another banner day for Pacific Strategies. $700 for a few hours noodling around on the computer. Plus time for 18 holes in the afternoon after the siesta!

Oh, and look. A phone call to newly minted Assemblyman Chris Norby made from Suite C. Probably to assure Chris that Cunningham really wanted him to win all along and how much he really, really hates carpetbaggers and perjurers.

April 28, 2010April 29, 2010Behind Closed Doors

Pacific Strategies Jackpot – The $1680 Day

by Grover Cleveland37 Comments

UPDATE: as one of our commenters pointed out, you can click on the billing fragment, below to get the picture of what happened for the month of July 2009. Enjoy, but try not to retch.

August 17th, 2009 was a great day to be Matthew Cunningham. See, the Red County Blog editor and pretended conservative pulled down $1680 wordsmith pimping for the liberal welfare state via his lucrative deal with the OC Children and Families Commission.

Why this Commission, that was created to help little children, is dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars each year into opinion swaying of dubious value is exasperating. The fact that this money is going into the coffers of well-connected repuglicans also gives off quite an aroma – influence peddling-wise.

How and why these contracts are awarded is certainly a topic that should be addressed by the Commission and their Executive Director Michael Ruane, as well as by the Board of Supervisors, who appoint Commission members.

One thing is crystal clear. This Commission is more interested in PR and lobbying for their revenue than they are actually accomplishing anything.

Here is the billing statement for that day that put a happy face on all the Cunninghams in Suite C. Who knew that revising vanilla versions of op-eds could be so rewarding?

Maybe Cunningham really does believe in the good works of the Commission, although I’ve got to wonder what other tax and spend schemes he will be promoting next.

April 26, 2010January 13, 2011Behind Closed Doors

“Stop The Insanity!” Cries Anguished Red County Hypocrite

by Joe Sipowicz10 Comments

Over at the Red County blog Matthew J. Cunningham has gotten his lavender briefs into a self-righteous snarl over some guy named Tim Whitacre. Whitacre’s ostensible offense? Claiming that the Lewis Consulting Group is on Hide and Seek Sidhu’s payroll. In reality his offense was standing up at the GOP Central Committee meeting last week and reminding everybody that Harry Sidhu is an opportunistic carpetbagger.

You would think that somebody like Cunningham who pretends to be a political and social conservative, but who, in reality, has an annual contract with Rob “Meathead” Reiner’s Children and Families Commission of almost $200,000 a year would just clam up. But no. Silence is not in him. Instead he prefers to keep opining in his usual way: in a crab-wise crawl across the truth.

First you call your opponents insane (or tin-foil hat wearing, delusional, paranoid, etc.) Of course sane people don’t argue with the insane – but that never stopped Cunningham – who will keep jabbering away until the lights are shut off. Then you start carefully parsing out where your opponent is making stuff up, and has no proof, etc.

In this case the fake issue is whether Lewis is actually getting paid directly from Sidhu or not. Lewis must have informed The Jerb that he isn’t. So he then is safe in saying Whitacre has no proof that Lewis is. But Lewis is indeed working for Sidhu – one way or another. His payment may come later if he is working on spec – either in deferment or simply in access to Norby’s old office for the inevitable lobbying. As one of our commenters pointed out he may also be working on an IE against Shawn Nelson. In any of these scenarios some kind of disclosure by his partner Matt Holder should have been made at the Central Committee meeting.

So the gist of what Whitacre has to say is very much valid.

Cunningham finishes up by saying Whitacre has no proof that Nelson is the stronger candidate even though, ironically, he has no proof that Whitacre doesn’t. Of course you wouldn’t even need to have poll results to tell that Sidhu is a bumbling assclown who will be lucky to get 9% of the vote. Oh yeah, he’s also a perpetual office seeking carpetbagger. And a casual perjurer.

assclown — Coming soon to an elective office in your neighborhood...

Ah the faux outrage! Such a fun spectacle when it fails. And when you’re a hypocrite repuglican whose cover’s been blown, it’s only going to get tougher to pull off.

April 23, 2010Boohooism

It’s That Time of the Year for the Children and Families Commission

by Grover Cleveland10 Comments

Yup. The time of the year when this little-known, virtually opaque level of government that was created by Rob Reiner’s tobacco tax hands out its PR and lobbying contracts to well-connected “small government” types like blabbermouth Matthew J. Cunningham and Anaheim’s Mayor for Hire, Curt Pringle.

I have previously documented the big government gravy being slurped up by Pringle and Cunningham here, and here. Were talking really big bucks here, Friends, and you get the feeling that not only is this Commission in existence to dole out the government largess to local repuglicans, but that its proprietors are a lot more interested in smiley face public relations and protecting their flow of tax revenue from Sacramento than they are in helping any kids. See, it takes a village to raise those children but unfortunately the bureaucracy and its spokesholes don’t come cheap.

Anyway, May and June are the months these contracts seem to come due and also seem to keep getting rolled over with almost no public scrutiny, or really any sort of performance audit for that matter. You can bet the family farm we’ll be reporting on the attempts to renew these contracts in the future.