Well, now we know why Dave Lopez of KCAL news was at the the Summit house restaurant on Tuesday night. He was there to pin down Ackerwoman campaign fundraiser/organizer Desiree Mouzoon about an alleged relationship with now resigned Assemblyman Mike Duvall for whom she worked in several capacities. Here’s the clip from CBS/KCAL. Enjoy the sight of Lopez trying to chase down Mouzoon and then face off with a Corona swiggin’ Ackerman.
The humorous aspects of the story are manifold. First is the irony. Dick Ackerman is widely regarded as the creator of the slime bucket Duvall in the first place – yes the selfsame Ackerman, Inc. that is now presenting its public face of virtue even though there is hardly a single honest thing about Ackerwoman’s campaign. And now we get to see Ackerman intercepting Lopez to prevent him from speaking to the candidate. Apparently Ackerman does all the talking for Ackerwoman. It’s a team, see, and Dick is team captain.
Creepy image stolen from Orange Juice blog
Naturally the local blogs are enjoying this latest twist: Moxley at the OC Weekly has this. The always ebullient fringer Art Pedroza shared this with his blog followers.
As an aside, Pedroza notes that on her Facebook page Mouzoon indicates a “relationship” with Adam Probolksky – Repug slime blob who was once heard to opine that there was no such thing as a conflict of interest. What a crew!
Forget about the law, my community knows no boundaries!
As we promised yesterday, a gathering of Friends took place last night at the entrances to the Summit House restaurant where a fundraiser for the Mrs. was organized by Ackerman. We wanted to make sure Ackerman, inc. got the message that we don’t care for carpetbaggers in Fullerton.
We noticed the arrival of a few of OCs more notorious Repuglicans – like Diane “the FBIs Comin'” Harkey and Lynn “the Bulldozer” Daucher. And we noticed an unusual police presence given the short notice of out protest. Hmm. Well, we behaved ourselves and the police hardly hassled us at all.
The best part of the evening was the arrival of Dave Lopez of KCAL , who broke the original story of the Duvall disgrace a couple months ago. Ever helpful, we supplied Lopez with the phony address Ackerman, Inc. are using on 1541 Lindendale, and hopefully he went over there to see for himself if Ackerman, Inc. ever showed up to spend the night at their alleged abode.
Linda and Dick appeared to be surprised when they drove past some of the Friends at the State College entrance…..stay tuned!
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:
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?
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!
We’ve taken a bunch of legitimate shots at Chris Norby’s opponent in the 72nd Assembly District Special Election, Linda Ackerman. You know: she’s doesn’t live in the district; has a fake “residence” with another family on Lindendale; has applied the completely phony “businesswoman” label to herself; has been paid by her husband’s political campaign; and has even cooked up a scheme to get free Hawaiian vacations – compliments of lobbyists. The list of negatives just goes on and on. In fact, there’s hardly anything in her campaign that isn’t fraudulent.
We haven’t taken much time to say why Chris Norby would be good for us, and for California. So now we will.
First, Norby is not part of the slimy and incestuous Sacramento culture of corruption that the Ackermans have immersed themselves in for 15 years, and that’s a pretty big deal. Norby actually has informed opinions about State-wide issues like budget reform, education and Redevelopment; and, unlike Ackerman, Chris doesn’t just shovel out hollow platitudes about being a conservative.
Furthermore, Chris has a real legislative record – standing up for the people of Orange County against the perpetual demands of the public employee unions. He has opposed retroactive pension spikes put in place by some of the same dubious cast of characters that have endorsed Linda Ackerman. Over the years Chris has stuck up for the property rights of small businesses and homeowners against the depredations of government. Linda Ackerman chooses this very record on Redevelopment to draw a distinction between Norby and herself. And of course compared to Norby’s long conservative track record, Mrs. Ackerman has no record at all. Zero. Zilch. Just election slogans put in her mouth by her campaign manager.
We like the idea of Chris in the Legislature; with real ability to work on issues, especially the long-overdue reform of Redevelopment. The lobbyists won’t like the idea of Norby coming up to Sacramento, and that makes the idea really appealing to us.
At local campaign events the contrast between Norby and Linda Ackerman has been stark. Chris has been engaged, knowledgeable, and has spoken authoritatively about real conservatives issues. His opponent hasn’t done any of these things.
Although the Ackermans have tried (and will continue to try) to attack Norby’s morality by innuendo and gossip, it is the Ackermans who gave the disgraced Mike Duvall their support. Voters ought to reflect on that when they consider who is qualified to speak about morality with any authority.
Finally, Chris lives, and has always lived in Fullerton, unlikeLinda Ackerman who moved out ten years ago when greener pastures opened up in Irvine. He has never lived in a “secret, gated community” for “the privileged few.” He didn’t have to fake a residency with another family to evade the requirements of the law.
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.
You should see me in my swim trunks...
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 meantimeBrulte 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.
Just as we reported earlier today about Orange, the Linda Ackerman campaign coughed up some more local endorsements, this time in Redevelopment-friendly Brea – where nobody’s property is safe from the City – if they want it.
Here are the two money “quotes”:
“For over 30 years, Linda has served the people of this community,” said Brea Mayor John Beauman. “I support Linda because she is for people, not politics.”
“I know that Linda will bring a fair, business-minded approach to the state’s budget debacle. The taxpayers of Brea need her in Sacramento to fight for fiscal responsibility and limited government,” said former Mayor of Brea Bev Perry.
More hilarity! We’ve already discounted Ackerman’s so-called business experience so we can dismiss that; what other tools she has in her shed to tackle the state’s “budget debacle” goes unstated by Perry. We’re pretty sure by now that Ackerman will be fair – and give all those Sacramento lobbyists their day at the trough. As far as responsibility and limited government go, we can only say that putting those words in Bev Perry’s mouth attains a new level of political cynicism – even for the Ackermans. Bev Perry was part of the Brea Redevelopment eminent domain machine that ran roughshod all over property owners in what used to be their downtown. Who’s next Lynn “Bulldozer” Daucher?
Yesterday the MWD General Manager abandoned the proposed pension jump for employees that would have raised their retirement formula. Here’s the story. He conceded that the votes weren’t there. Which means, of course, that a vote was held, only not in public. Somehow that seems like it should be illegal – Brown Act-wise, but of course government bureaucracies are legally incapable of committing any sort of crime.
We’re disappointed because a public vote would have put our MWD Board Appointee-for-life, Jim Blake on the spot.
There to make the tough decisions, right?
All of his public employee lovin’ instincts would have pointed Blake in the direction of approval; under normal circumstances his pension-spiking Council overlords (and ladies) Bankhead, Quirk-Silva, Keller, and Jones would no doubt have backed him up. Who cares if water rates go up, right?
But these are not normal times, what with militant Republicans agitating for tax revolt and special elections putting the spotlight on people like MWD Boardmember Linda Ackerman – who also gets to dodge the responsibility of the vote. Very convenient!
Back in August it looked like a real good idea...
And the union members will never have the opportunity to know how their buddies would have voted.
With the light of public scrutiny shining on the usually opaque doings of the MWD, the whole thing has collapsed like a house of cards.
They're a little shy, so I put my words in their mouths.
The Linda Ackerman campaign issued one of those out-of-a-can press releases the other day bragging about her endorsement by three City of Orange councilmembers – Cavecche, Murphy, and Dumitru.
We thought we would have some fun with this, reciting the baloney that was assigned to a couple of these worthies, meant to appear as genuine quotations.
“Linda Ackerman has always done what is right for the sake of the community, not political gain,” said Mayor Carolyn Cavecche. “She is a proven leader who will help solve California’s budget crisis and bring Orange County values to the State Assembly.”
Well that’s a tissue of lies. C’mon Carolyn, haven’t you heard about the Pacific Policy Research Foundation? And Carolyn, didn’t you know Linda was paid $76,000 by her husband’s own political campaign – as a “consultant”? How selfless!
Well Cavecche, at least, has proven herself a leader – a leader in Orange pension spiking right out of the OC GOP RINO playbook. Here’s her colleague Murphy:
Citing Ackerman’s fiscal conservative credentials as a businesswoman who has spent years balancing budgets, Councilmember Mark A. Murphy said: “Linda is a fiscal watchdog who will help solve the budget debacle.”
More prime grade bullshit. We’ve already documented that Mrs. Ackerman appears to have no business experience at all. Years “balancing budgets”?!! What budgets would those be, Murph? Her own? Her only “experience” appears to be that she’s a board member for a debt collector. Ya know, Mark, those warm people who take away your house because you can’t pay for your cancer treatment anymore. She’s a fiscal watchdog? How would we ever know? She has no record of watching anything – except maybe the Maui sunsets and the lobbyists across the table at Spataro. Murphy – another zero.
At least the bozo Jon Dumitru was lucky enough to avoid having the Ackerman campaign stuff lies into his mouth – although he probably would have enjoyed it. Another public employee union member on a City Council. Another cypher.
“I am honored to receive the support of so many members of my community,” said Ackerman. “I believe this home-grown support will be instrumental in waging a successful campaign in the weeks ahead.”
If there were such a course for ambitious district hopping politicians, one of the basic lessons taught would surely be to learn the boundaries of your would-be district. It’s only polite, after all.
How should I know? I live in Irvine!
Okay. Linda Ackerman is a political socialite carpetbagger from Irvine, and can’t be expected to know the exact boundaries of the 72nd State Assembly District – the one she doesn’t live in. But, still, this has got to take the cake:
An Ackerman sign in Santa Ana’s City Place? News flash, Linda – Santa Ana is not in the 72nd District! Next time you run for office in a district in which you do not live, at least take the time to learn the cities in the district.
And thanks to Art Pedroza over at the Orange Juice blog who posted on this and helpfully provided the image.
