Thanks, Krusty!

A commenter calling himself “Krusty” (among other assorted names) asked this morning how come we hadn’t posted anything about some lawsuit filed by some disgruntled investor who bought out Shawn Nelson’s stake in a Brea lounge.

And that reminded me that I did indeed want to post something about it. A story was posted by the Fullerton News Tribune replacement for Barbara Giasone on April 14th about this lawsuit. This intrepid newshound is called Adam Townsend.

I found it very odd that one of the Register’s do-nothing employees would suddenly become interested in Nelson’s personal business affairs, especially during an election campaign. After all, they have serially ignored real stories of political and management malfeasance like Tom Daly buying a 2.1 million dollar money pit or the fact that Harry Sidhu perjured himself twice on voter registration documents; or that Curt Pringle made a small fortune looking for a new graveyard site for the Cemetery District.  Nary a peep.

The other shoe dropped this morning (it took a couple of days), when Mauve County blogger Jubal Cunningham, the “conservative” hypocrite who makes his living sucking at the welfare state teat, put this two-day old post on the top of his “Today’s top stories in OC.” Well, okay. Cunningham is just a limp tool who takes his orders from John Lewis and Lewis works for Hide and Seek Sidhu. So I guess for him and Lewis it’s a “top story.”

But why would this Adam Townsend guy let himself get used by the Sidhu campaign to publicize a private business deal of Nelson’s during a campaign – especially when he seems unable to get his keyboard to tap out the words: Harry Sidhu carpetbagging perjuror? Can he really be that dumb? Sadly, it appears so.

Either that, or something fishy going on here. And I really wonder – can we ever expect this Townsend guy to start writing about real public issues in Fullerton?

Sucking Hard at the Teat of the Welfare State

Move over Pringle...

The other day I described how Republican Mayor Curt Pringle made some big bucks as a lobbyist for the so-called Children and Families Commission, a by-product of the 1998 liberal feel-good Proposition 10 that placed a new tax on tobacco and redistributed the dough to the Government Kiddie Bureaucracy. I promised to shake the branches of this tree to see what other strange fruits might tumble out. Well, Lo and Behold.

Matthew "it takes a village to raise a child" Cunningham

It turns out that Matthew J. Cunningham who masquerades as a local “conservative” blogger may be the biggest big government gravy slurpers at the Children and Families Commission trough.

As he pontificates about the joys of small government on his blog, Cunningham is making a killing as a PR flack for the ultra-liberal Commission and it’s professional do-gooders. And why not? His buddies Bill Campbell and Hugh Hewitt are/were on the Commission when he started his lucrative shill-meistering and wordsmithery for a government bureaucracy, and it’s hard to conceive that his uberboss, John Lewis wasn’t somehow responsible for directing this huge windfall to its rather unlikely recipient.

Here are the fun facts of the Cunningham contracts with the Commission:

Contract 230   July 6, 2005  $ 25,000

Contract 227   May 2 2007   $100,000

Contract 227A May 7, 2008 $195,000

Contract 264   June 3, 2009  $185,000


Hey you poor hungry kids out there: that’s almost half a million bucks in just three years to a guy who couldn’t even proof read his own website! And let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of dollars dished out to Pringle and the White House Writers Group.

And if you look at the Exibit B scope of work attachments you’ll come away hard pressed to see how the scope of work amounts to more than a handful of hours a week, flack-wise. No wonder Intrepid Boy Journalist has so much spare time for his blogging and political punditry.

The biggest challenge for Cunningham appears to be to get conservatives to buy the spin on all this hogwash. And naturally a lot of his “scope”  is the usual nebulous “assist the staff” bullshit. Of course we can only wonder at the selection and bidding process at work here.

It’s perfectly clear to me that this opaque and over-funded commission needs complete outside scrutiny with fiscal and performance audits. Maybe Cunningham’s pals at the Grand Jury might want to delve into the doings of this public agency.

And the next time Matthew Cunningham preaches at you that you must believe in the joys of small government and lower taxes, or when he suggests whole village child rearing is Obama socialism, just give him a wink and a nod and try not to stare too hard at the giant scarlet H on his forehead.

Milking the Welfare State; Repuglicanism for Fun and Profit

First wrap yourself in the flag. The rest is easy.

Away back in 1998, the people of California in their infinite wisdom passed Proposition 10, a tax on cigarettes and tobacco products the revenue of which was to go to the creation of a vast new state and local early child development bureaucracy. At the time, and even subsequently Republicans have assailed the tax and its main advocate, Rob “Meathead” Reiner for this statist approach to whole village child-rearing.

What many people don’t realize is how many supposedly conservative Republicans have made small fortunes participating in skimming lucrative contracts of questionable value off of the tax proceeds.

Let’s take a look at how this works in Orange County.

Proposition 10 created Children and Family Commissions in California’s counties, including Orange County. The very name suggests typical liberal social engineering. Replete with staff, lawyers  and appointed commissioners the thing is virtually opaque public-wise, and yet it starts the process of allocating millions of dollars of Prop 10 monies as it adopts programs, and more problematically, hires a plethora of consulting services. And what consulting services they are!

Let’s take a look at the OC Child and Family Commission agenda for the June 4, 2008 meeting. One item really jumps out.

$150,000 to Curt Pringle (up from $100,000 the year before) to be a lobbyist! And another $150,00 to “The White House Writers Group,”  a collection of former Reagan script writers, to promote the County’s ever-so special programs and projects nationwide!

Say what? Why is a government agency that is supposed to be helping unhealthy poor kids making healthy, rich Republican adults even richer? Why do they need a lobbyist? They say it’s to protect their bureaucracy from budget raids. Really? $150,000 to lobby the legislature for a mere twelve months? Yep, that’s $12,500 per month; or, over $600 per working day! And, say, how did that Pringle deal work out for them?

And why do they need to promote themselves and their programs anywhere except inside the County? Good questions. Anyhow, $300,000 per annum could feed a lot of hungry kids; or a mere handful of grownup Repuglicans.

If anybody was wondering what Pringle’s “expertise” is, and how it will be applied to his Main Chance Choo Choo, now you know – lobbying for ever greater tax revenue in Sacramento! What a racket!

I like to help spread the wealth around...

I notice that in 2008 Commission members include the John Lewis-sawdust-brained-marionette Bill Campbell, and ‘Pug talking pin-head Hugh Hewitt – both chums of our old acquaintance, Matthew J. Cunningham – another supposed big government hater.

News flash! Repuglican “consultants” like Curt Pringle  not only make their livings helping us regular citizens “navigate” the treacherous waters of the big government they helped create, they also make big incomes for themselves and their underlings by reaping government windfalls – like Prop 10 revenue redistribution.

Well, the original critics of Proposition 10 were right on the money. But now it looks like some of them are in it – but good.

I’m going to be giving the branches of the Children and Families Commission tree a real good shake, and it will be interesting to see what other strange fruits fall out of it.

A Day Late And A Dollar Short

Methane isn't a greenhouse gas, is it?

Trying to keep up with the FFFF juggernaut isn’t easy, but Repuglican hackling Matthew J. Cunningham seems to want to give it a go.

Maybe he took umbrage at us last week for posting the fact that he tried to do a public records strip-search of Republican County Clerk candidate Hugh Nguyen. After all, Cunningham is still trying to pitch the concept  that he represents some sort of conservative ideals. Working as a flack for Democrat Tom Daly isn’t going to help sell that fable.

Today we learned that our old friend has made a request at the County to see our public document requests! It seems Cunningham has requested a County-wide search for any document requests made by our own fearless Travis Kiger. Well, turn about is fair play, of course, and we always play fair.

And because we’re so helpful, we’ll make it easy on him. We’ve requested Tom Daly’s and Rene Ramirez’ County issued blackberry and credit card records for the past couple of years. Why? After the discovery of the $48,000 sports hall of fame fiasco, the $1700 per month do-nothing retainer, and the $2.1 million building purchase disaster, we’ve been wondering what other fiscal misadventures have been swept under the County Clerk’s rug during Tom’s tenure.

Of course one has to wonder why The Jerb is so interested in finding out what we are looking for, and the curious wouldn’t have to waste a lot of time guessing. He’s obviously working for Tom Daly’s campaign, no doubt through the direction of his boss and political soul mate John Lewis. Still, a County-wide search?

Cunningham will do whatever I tell him. We're very tight.

Those guys seem to be terrified that more crooked skeletons will soon be a tumblin’ out of Tom Daly’s closet, and it looks like maybe it’s Cunningham’s job to run interference and perhaps preemptively wordsmith them away.

And it may also be that Cunningham just wants to see what we’re up to so he can find out if he has any other buddies under our scrutiny. Or maybe he just wants to learn what real, disinterested citizen bloggers do.

In any case we’re flattered to have somebody check out and even publicize what we’re doing. See, unlike Cunningham, we aren’t front men for crooks, influence peddlers, and perjurers. We’re just funny that way.

Liberal OC Trips Over Its Own Chmielewski

The other night at the NUFF blogger forum, Dan C., the pompous co-proprietor of the Liberal OC blog held forth on the importance of fact checking prior to publishing something. See, with Dan, it’s all about credibility. Check it out:

And yet, just today Dan C. seems to have conveniently mislaid his own supposedly high standards. He wrote a post about Shirley Grindle filing a complaint against me for using an old  political action committee in a new election. He put up a picture of a guy throwing a rock at a glass house. Hypocrisy, get it? Turns out that really was an apt image, but not in the way Dan C. meant it!

Ms. Grindle got it wrong, of course, as I have subsequently informed her. I already created the necessary committee for the 4th District election, but that didn’t stop Intrepid Boy Reporter #1 from passing along the false accusation – too damn lazy to go the California Secretary of State website to check! And guess who Dan’s first commenter was on this post? Yup, you guessed it! Intrepid Boy Reporter #2 – Matthew J. Cunningham, who was only to happy to hop onto the unsubstantiated post by his Blue comrade. He’s deep into credibility, too, you see.

Who knew methane had nutritional value?

A few comments into the thread Intrepid Boy Reporter #1 was forced to acknowledge the truth, but he lamely defended his post by claiming that the story was trueGrindle did file a complaint. Now if anybody had pulled this sort of cheap stunt on him or Jerbal, either one of them would have thrown a tantrum; but well, you know – the self-righteousness that pervades both of these establishment toadies make them perfectly unaware of their own hypocrisies. Or unconcerned about them.

And for Dan’s sake he better hope Shirley Grindle doesn’t start reporting Elvis sightings.

Why is “Red County” Editor Searching Records on Republican?

I'm trustworthy. Trust me.

That is a good question.

One of the fun things about public records searches is that you can also see who is doing searches. Now that’s good, clean fun!

We found out that Matthew J. Cunningham of the formerly Red County blog did a public records search on County Clerk candidate and Republican  Hugh Nguyen. He asked for Nguyen’s e-mails since the invention of the computer. Well, over two year’s worth, anyway.

Oops! That was going to be pretty expensive since the County would have to hire a contractor to collect the data and then it would have to be reviewed prior to release. The upshot was the County declined to satisfy the request. They did provide Nguyen’s 700 forms (statement of economic interest).

On the other hand a record search of available records turned up a brief and harmless discussion about Daly protegee Renee Ramirez’ very brief County Clerk campaign sent to Nguyen. Wow. Go to work and turn that into an issue, Matthew!

Now first, let’s dispense with the “why” part for the uninitiated. Cunningham claims to be a conservative Republican – he’s been chattering away just like one for years now.  And yet his mentor and string puller from way back is John Lewis, a campaign consultant and lobbyist who has been working for Democrat County Clerk Tom Daly behind the scenes since 2002. Daly recently quit the 4th District Supervisors race after a series of embarrassing revelations of waste and mismanagement in his office and has scuttled back to the County Clerk’s race so he can keep wasting money left and right as he protects our vital records.

Snooping on a fellow Republican, and one backed by a good share of the County Republican establishment in order to help a Democrat with an awful fiscal record? Bad boy. Bad, bad, boy!

When I'm done with my sports hall of fame project we'll get right to work on fixing 433 Civic Center West

Cunningham has already made it a point to parrot “untrustworthy” drivel about Nguyen he picked up at the local liberal blog and comically expanded upon; and hasn’t said a peep about any of Daly’s fiscal squanderings. How’s that for conservatism and accountability?

Matt and I are of like mind...

Now for the “how” of the great e-mail hunt. Presumably Cunningham could actually pony up the dough to do opp research on a Republican. Would he? That’s a lot of cash. If he does, it will look extremely suspicious and a reasonable person would have to question the source of the cash.

To wrap up, it’s pretty obvious that the Daly/Lewis/Cunningham team are worried about Nguyen. Daly has challenged Nguyen’s ballot title and a surrogate has actually challenged Nguyen’s use of his first name. Still it’s a County-wide race and Daly has plenty of name ID over the relatively unknown Nguyen.

But maybe they’re right to be worried. Are there more Daly skeletons that are about to tumble out of the closet?

Heh heh. Just wait and see.

Love For Sale.Tender Young Love For Sale

Just remember. You are what you eat.

A few weeks ago I did a pretty tongue-in-cheek post about some guy named Thomas Anthony Gordon, a goon from Santa Ana who popped up out of nowhere with a gratuitous anti-Shawn Nelson post on the Mauve County blog. He criticized Nelson for being soft on criminals because he is a defense lawyer. I pointed out the bad luck since there was a guy in OC with the exact same name and body type as Gordon who had been busted a couple of times for driving on a suspended license – and opined about how that guy was probably in need of a defense lawyer himself.

At the time I believed Gordon was just prostituting himself for Lewis/Cunningham and hence, Tom Daly. I may have been wrong. That was before I understood the deep, moist crevices into which Harry Sidhu’s pocket change had fallen. Of course the common denominator, John Lewis, is still in the picture, although Daly quit the supervisors race to play catch with his kid.

Well check this out. Harry Sidhu, the perpetual office seeker has decided to run for the GOP Central Committee for the 69th Assembly district (which must surely be a record – carpetbagging two districts at the same time, what a hustler). Now for the fun part. Take a look at who was out circulating petitions on the very last day so Hide and Seek Sidhu could “qualify” for the ballot. None other than our old friend Thomas Anthony Gordon. Click on the pdf and take a look.

Gordo! And now we really have to wonder. Is Gordon actually on Sidhu’s payroll? If not, why not? Everybody else is!

Of course, if he is let’s hope he informed his bosses over at the Mauve County where they say they will fire you if you don’t disclose that fact that you are blogging for dollars!

Boohooing for Precious Princess

Over at the Liberal OC blog, best known for it’s silence when it comes to issues involving corruption and incompetence in Democrat-run organizations, a guy named Dan C-somethingorother is all het up because some guy from Placentia who is not connected with our blog is making mean phone calls to Lorri Galloway.

According to Dan C-somethingorother it is all our fault because we had the temerity to attack his Precious Little Princess for what she is – a carpetbagger. He even goes so far as to suggest we will defend some anonymous phone caller as being a “reporter.”

Funny how Dan C-somethingorother fails to mention that one of his soulmate Matthew J. Cunningham’s bloggers (Cynthia Ward) has been a lot more scathing of Precious than we have; or that one of his own bloggers – Steve Perez – was equally harsh. Oh no! Let’s pin it on FFFF!

Is it just a coincidence that this post occurred at the same time we’ve been going after Democrat Tom Daly’s incompetent misrule of the County Clerk’s department? Want odds?

Anyhow, while we’re talking about Precious, let’s  recap: Galloway is an airheaded, opportunistic carpetbagger from Anaheim Hills, whose videos are unintentional jokes, whose candidacy can only be described as an embarrassment, and who is a basically just a union lackey all dressed up for slumming.

Electing her anything at the County level would be a disaster.

And If Galloway is being harassed she should call the cops.

Come join the Revolution, Matt

After my piece here last week defending Shawn Nelson and the noble profession of defense attorney, I was criticized on Red County by Matt Cunningham, who runs that Web site. I could respond point by point, but there’s no use in doing that.

Instead, I’ve just been thinking how sorry I am that he, and so many over at Red County, are not joining what I call the Third Conservative Revolution. There’s still time, boys, to jump on board.

The First Conservative Revolution was, of course, Barry Goldwater’s run in 1964 against the ogre LBJ. Barry campaigned for sharply cutting government and restoring the Constitution.

I still remembering voting for Barry in my 4th grade class when I was nine, in those mock elections schools have. I was reflecting my parents’ views, of course. My late mother once told me how much her father, my grandfather, loathed FDR and his socialist New Deal. So I guess conservatism is in my blood.

The Second Conservative Revolution was the Reagan Revolution. I was in the U.S. Army for the first part, but by 1982 I had been honorably discharged and was in Washington, D.C. First I was assistant editor of “Conservative Digest,” then editor of “The American Sentinal,” then editorial page editor at “The Washinton Times” – all conservative publications. We worked to win the Cold War, sharply cut government and restore the Constitution.

To quote Wordsworth: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!”

I’ll bet that’s the feeling the youngsters are getting nowadays as they back Ron Paul.

Alas, both previous revolutions were hampered by conservatives, including me, supporting a strong military during the Cold War. It was hard to cut budgets and deficits with defense spending so high.

But then the Berlin Wall fell and there was no reason for any conservative to oppose large defense cuts. During the Cold War, tradeoffs were made: “Back a strong military and we’ll fund your favorite domestic programs.” That no longer was needed.

Unfortunately, Reagan didn’t have a third term. Instead, we got George H.W. Bush, who promised, “Read my lips! No new Taxes!” – then, once in office, raised taxes. The economy crashed and we got Clinton.

In 1996, Republicans nominated Bob Dole, whom conservatives long had dubbed “the tax collector for the welfare state” for his obsession with raising taxes, such as the the “waitress tax” that took money from the gals’ tips. What a cad. Clinton won again.

In both 1992 and 1996, Pat Buchanan raised a stir in the GOP primaries, even winning the New Hampshire primary in 1996 with his calls for large cuts in spending and taxing, and for bring American troops home. It was a kind of proto-Ron Paul Revolution.

In 2000, Republicans nominated George W. Bush, with his promise of a “humble” foreign policy and limited government. Well, like his father, he gave us the opposite of what he solemnly pledged. Enough said on that.

Obama promised “Change you can believe in,” but we got no change from Bush.

So no wonder people are upset, especially young folks who are doing the dying in the pointless Bush-Obama wars and will spend the rest of their lives paying off the Bush-Obama war debts, domestic debts, and bailout debts.

Enter the Third Conservative Revolution. It’s a combination of the Ron Paul Revolution of recent years and the recent Tea Party excitement.

There’s always an affection between the very young and the very old. That’s why the avuncular Ron Paul, at 75, is a hit with the kids. He’s also authentic, as the existentialists used to say. There’s no guile in him. WYSYWIG – what you see is what you get. Unlike most Republican supporters of the Bush-Obama wars, who never served in the military — such as Dick “Five Deferments” Cheney — Ron Paul was a flight surgeon in U.S. Air Force.

So, it’s not surprising that, at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, Ron Paul won a straw poll, with 31% of the vote. In second place, at 22%, was the socialist Mitt Romney, whose Mittcare has proved a complete disaster in Massachusetts, but is the model for the Obamacare that Republicans now oppose (rightly).

Ron Paul is the future of the Republican Party — if it wants a future. More important, his ideas are surging just when we need them to saved America from Bush-Obama socialism.

Which brings me to Shawn Nelson’s candidacy for O.C. Supervisor. It’s also part of this Third Conservative Revolution. He’s an authentic, tested conservative who has voted against waste and dumb programs while on the city council in Fullerton. He’s endorsed by the man he wants to succeed, former supervisor and new Assemblyman Chris Norby, who also has a strong record of voting against waste and protecting taxpayers.

The next four years on the Board of Supervisors are going to be the most trying since the bankruptcy 15 years ago. It could even be worse, as back then the state and national economies were in a strong recovery and could pull O.C. out of its problems. Today, the federal and state economies are not recovering, precisely because Ron Paul’s policies – sound money, tax cuts, spending cuts, restoring the Constitution – are not being heeded.

I’ll leave the last words to The Bard, in this YouTube of “The Times They Are A’Changin’.” It’s good advice for anybody not yet ready to “lend your hand” to the Ron Paul Revolution and the Shawn Nelson campaign:

There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlUSwcuY29I&feature=player_embedded

John Seiler, an editorial writer with The Orange County Register for 19 years, is a reporter and analyst for CalWatchDog.com. His email: writejohnseiler@gmail.com.

Mauve County Mauve For Good?

What a nice color...

It seems that Matthew J. Cunningham, editor of the dismal Mauve County forgot the lesson he once learned when his wife left him in charge of the laundry and he threw his white bikini briefs in with the old lady’s red blouse.

For the past year Cunningham, has been studiously avoiding discussing the subject of why his mentor, boss Repuglican  John Lewis was supporting Democrat Tom Daly’s campaign for County Supervisor; and even, some said, running it through a surrogate.

Color me mauve.

Only recently Cunningham brought on a contributor named Cynthia Ward to post pro-Daly junk and attack the other candidates. That backfired last Friday afternoon when Daly quit, and now the blog is stuck with a sanctimonious NIMBY liberal – one of those types who are Republicans only because dear old dad was.

Cunningham claimed from the get go that Mrs. Ward, who calls herself Colony Rabble, was brought on board to give an “Anaheim perspective;” better still he also claimed that his blog was a big tent “right-of-center” operation, presumably big enough to include a person who is about as conservative as Eleanor Roosevelt. Nobody was buying that load of horse shit.

So Daly is gone, but Ward is still around. Will anyone even notice? Consider the transparently orchestrated attack on Fullerton’s Shawn Nelson by some semi-literate goon named Thomas Anthony Gordon that came out of left field last week in mauve land. What was that all about? Pretty bad for a self-purported conservative blog.

A regular Noel Coward.

Will the former “Red County” operators now do the right thing by getting behind the race’s only real conservative, Shawn Nelson, a man who actually lives in the 4th District? Don’t bet on it. The Mauve gang have already demonstrated their attachment to self-interest and revenue uber alles.

It looks like the mauve are mauve for good, and no bleach is gonna fix that load of laundry.