Quadrangle of Casual Corruption and Fullerton First brain trust. Gretch’ is the one in the middle. The rest you already know.
Apparently Gretchen Cox, reactionary pal of J. Flory and J. Fitzgerald has become weary of “malcontents” wasting everybody’s time at City Council meetings. She seems to think all this attention to city employee malfeasance, misfeasance and dumbassfeasance reflects poorly on our great town, using the usual “blame the messenger” routine always deployed by people who have something to hide: like shoddy construction, unnecessary and mind-blowingly expensive boondoggles, drunken city managers, a corrupt police department and a budget that’s a few years away from going supernova.
Quick, get clear of the impending collapse…
Her strategy is to drown out the cries off honest men and women with hosannas of praise for everything Fullerton. But she needs a choir. So she started a facebook group laughingly called “Fullerton First” where she limits the membership to folk of her own stripe. And what a membership list it is. Here you will find a lot of familiar faces, including sad sack stooge Larry Bennett, incompetent planner Paul Dudley, serial liar-cop Andrew Goodrich, and dim-bulb government apologist Jan Flory, who is w-a-a-a-y past her stated expiration date. That alone should tell you all you need to know about Fullerton First.
The closer you look, the worse it gets…
But that’s not the interesting part. Not surprisingly, lobbyist city council creature Jennifer Fitzgerald is an enthusiastic member of this tribe; but, very tellingly, so is the ethically flexible Matthew Cunningham, whose job is proprietor of “Anaheim Blog” where he runs interference for uber-lobbyist Curt Pringle’s interests, praises Pringle’s political tools, and denigrates Pringle’s political opponents.
It’s pretty obvious that Pringle has set his slimy sights on Fullerton now that his Anaheim well is running dry. We are the pigeons he wants to pluck. Just think “College Town” and other possible gold mines where influence peddling moves things along.
And when Curt Pringle says “Fullerton First” what he really will mean is “Fullerton Next.”
And now I present to you humans the nominations in the supremely important category of The Ghost of Fullerton Past. Why is this important? As an expert on the subject of ghosts myself, I can tell you that Fullerton never seems to be rid of hauntings by former inhabitant of the worst ilk. My former mistress was nominated in 2009 and finally took the home the prize in 2012, before she managed to re-materialize in something approximating corporal human form. Usually the nominees are culled from the large stock of horrific departed repuglicans such as Linda LeQuire who revisit you near every election time to promote this or that non-entity propped up on the campaign dais by Ed Royce.
This year was no different: the nexus was largely the misbegotten campaign of Larry T. Bennett, and how the grisly Ghosts of Fullerton Past manifested themselves to support the insupportable. The first five entries distinguished themselves by clambering up onto the rickety Bennettmobile.
Buck Catlin. Buck Catlin is also a former nominee in this category. His claim to fame was getting recalled in 1994 by voting to impose a completely unnecessary utility tax upon the populous.
The Three Bald Tires. Yes, you know them also as the Three Tree Stumps, the Three Dead Batteries, etc. Mssrs. Jones, Bankhead and McKinley were recalled in 2012 for their deplorable behavior in the aftermath of the Kelly Thomas killing, and their die-hard love of the illegal water tax. They re-emerged on the political scene this fall, thinking their estimable reputation would help Bennett. More than likely it hurt, and hurt badly; but no sympathy for Ol’ Schlep Larry – he obviously solicited their endorsements. Pathetically, each of these burned out bulbs brought along his spouse to the party to join in yet another electoral humiliation.
Lou Ponsi. This specter popped up as a writer for the utterly lame and publicly funded Behind the Badge, touting the good works of our cops, specifically in bribing kids with a Thanksgiving dinner to be good little barrio tykes. Nobody involved seemed to pick up on the rather demeaning condescension involved in this display, but FFFF did. Ponsi spent many years regurgitating the lamest and most insipid sort of pabulum for the local Register rag, swallowing everything he was dished out like a hungry little bird, and never asking a single probing question about the behavior of the Fullerton Police Department and its employees. Not one. Ever. None. Nada.
There they are, human Friends. A scarier rogues gallery shall ye never find. Them’s your potential winners. And by winners I mean we all lose.
A while back we shared the musing of one Matthew J. Cunningham, a repuglican ink-dribbler, who falsely blamed Bruce Whitaker for the embarrassing showing put up by repuglican Larry Bennett in Fullerton’s 2016 council election. See, Whitaker is not popular among the “everything must go” repug’ crowd who see government not as too big, but as just not having enough teats.
Better get it while you can…
So here, forthwith, I present another one of this sorry individual’s political ejaculations. This post was supposed to be a wrap-up of the State Senate District 29 election, a district that includes all of Fullerton. Repuglicans loved them some Ling Ling Chang. And why not? Her candidacy was the creation of the noxious Ed Roski bag man, Bob Huff, the perpetual cheerleader for the failed California Redevelopment swindle.
Back to the actual post: see if you detect the wave of wishful thinking intruding upon the shallow lagoon of this flunky’s intelligence:
After yesterday’s OC Registrar of Voters update, it’s highly likely Democrat Josh Newman’s unlikely political journey has come to an end – and it’s time to start addressing Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang as Senator.
29,746 ballots have been counted in the last two days, and Newman is not only failing to close the gap – he is falling further behind. At this stage of the game, if you aren’t gaining ground, you’re losing ground because the universe of uncounted ballots is only getting smaller – meaning the percentage the second-place candidate has to capture keeps getting bigger.
Congratulations to Ling Ling Chang, who once again has emerged victorious from a bitter and hugely expensive election battle.
Of course anyone who follows election counts knows very well that the post-election day provisional ballots always lean heavily Democrat in Orange County. They also know that the late VBM ballots likely go Republican – and these were obviously the first post-election ballots counted.
Looking for the exit…
A few weeks of sporadic ballot counting have passed, and the final tally has Fullerton’s Josh Newman, State Senator-elect, winningby 2500 votes. He was sworn in today as the State Senator form the 29th District.
Hello, Newman
I feel constrained to point out that this “battle” was “hugely expensive” only because of the $6,000,000 pumped into it by the Statewide ‘repugs and their running dogs to smear Newman, who appears to be a thoughtful and decent guy. Is there any need to also point out that Cunningham’s rancid Dave Gilliard-owned blog also participated in that shameful smear effort?
Friends, we may accurately call Ling Ling Chang many things: nakedly ambitious, serial liar, empty suit, air head, puppet, soon-to-be unemployed; but one thing we can’t call her is Senator.
Matthew J. Cunningham is scurrying around the internet trying to plug the holes in his sinking conservative reputation. Amongst other things, he has accused the Friends of posting portions of his invoices “out of context,” whatever that means. Of course he refuses to explain the details of his activities and continues to do the old “look over there” routine.
You want context? Fine. Here are all of the Pacific Strategies invoices that we scanned. Enjoy.
Today the ever-increasingly pathetic OC Register ran an editorial trumpeting the creation of something called the Association of California Cities, a homespun effort to replace the California League of Cities. The Register wants us to believe that anything that replaces the League is a good thing. To which I respond: not so fast.
Here’s a quote from the article, the first couple of paragraphs dutifully and immediately passed along verbatim by Red County repuglican flunky Matthew J. Cunningham:
Orange County cities often have stood for sensible, taxpayer-friendly municipal reform in a state where fiscal sanity is the exception rather than the rule. So, while we applaud the 21 O.C. cities that left the League of California Cities (and its Orange County division) and started their own Association of California Cities Orange County, we also want to ask, “What took you so long?”
We’ve long had a beef with the Sacramento-based League, which is essentially a taxpayer-funded (dues come from city coffers) lobbying organization that tilts toward big government. Currently, the League is battling Gov. Jerry Brown’s sensible plan to close down the state’s 425 redevelopment agencies – those fiscally profligate entities that abuse eminent domain and dole out corporate welfare to companies that build development projects hatched in City Hall.
I can’t remember any OC cities that “stood for sensible, taxpayer friendly municipal reform…” so that’s a load of manure right there. But notice the anti-Redevelopment hook there at the end of the second paragraph. Cunningham obviously did. But he didn’t bother passing along the very next tidbit from the editorial:
Certainly, one finds support for redevelopment among Orange County officials, including some whose cities have fled the League…
Well Jesus H.Crisco, that’s the understatement of the freaking year! Is there a single municipality in OC that isn’t addicted to Redevelopment like a low grade junkie is to black tar heroin?
Maybe I can do facebook for the Association @ $200 buck an hour!
The Rag pathetically goes on to cite as some sort of local OC accomplishment the totally discredited Anaheim “Freedom Friendly” policy of “upzoning” property, a conspiracy that put dozens of businesses out of business, hundreds of workers out of work, that was engineered to produce vast profits for Kurt Pringle’s clients, and that has left the Anaheim city scape cratered, dark and dismal. The editorialists who are employed by The Register may think we can’t tell the difference, but boy are they wrong.
I am somebody! At last.
Of course you can check out the leadership of the new Association. It doesn’t inspire any sort of confidence. In the roster we find a sad collection of small town political hacks, bag men (and women), and poseurs whose only true resentment of the League is likely based on the fact that it precludes them from cashing in on anything. Oh, yeah we know the sort: the brain dead, yet greedy city council members who make up the boards of things like the OCTA, the Vector Control District, and the Sanitation District: just the perfect sort of drones who can be manipulated to direct “policy” in the direction of the Pringles, Dick Ackermans and John Lewises of the oh, so conservative Orange County.
Cunningham claims the inaugural dinner was the scene of near euphoria. Eu-effing-phoria. For him and people like him who cash in on government largess there was probably every reason to feel giddy.
The real question is why should we poor plantation hands substitute one collection of overseers for another?
This post is a story about the City of Orange. Why is it relevant to Fullerton? Because the antagonist of the tale is none other than Matthew J. Cunningham who loves to pontificate about all things freedom-friendly, posing as he does as a champion of business and free enterprise, and property rights, yada yada yada; a typical OC repuglican, in fact: we all know now that Cunningham was pulling down a hefty six-figure income for many years from the ultra-liberal Children and Families Commission.
Cunningham’s loud brayings on all things conservative maybe even helped him get appointed to the Orange Planning Commission by Orange Councilman Jon Dumitru. But, alas, talk is cheap. Here’s Cunningham voting to shoot down a proposal for a cafe owner to have a live music until (gasp) midnight. Watch Mr. Friend of Freedom in action:
It also transpires that Cunningham and his wife have been lobbying in Orange, too. And that doesn’t look very good for somebody making discretionary decisions on behalf of the public of a city.
And in a rather stunning display of disloyalty Cunningham refused to support his patron, Dumitru, in his run for mayor last fall. In fact the little woman chipped in a hundred bucks to Dumitru’s opponent, Carolyn Cavecche.
It would appear that Mr. Dumitru has finally run out of patience with his appointee and has asked him step down. Word in the Orange Plaza is that Cunningham refuses to go quietly, perhaps believing he has the three votes necessary to remain on the commission despite the fact that he was personally selected by Dimitru. The F-you to his boss has instigated an effort by Dimitru to force the City Council to vote on the matter. Here’s the agenda item at this week’s council meeting.
Will Freedom Boy stay or go? And will he quit harassing business owners in Orange? Stay tuned for the fun!
I was just informed that in a Red County post my old punching bag Matthew J. Cunningham wrote a post about some jackoffs down in Mission Viejo. Why he cares about that is his own business, but in this post he threw out this precious and completely gratuitous nugget:
I realize that sounds juvenile and stupid, but that’s how these types think (kind of like how a Fullerton council candidate disliked by a gadfly faction there had a hole punched in his truck’s gas tank).
Okay, we gotta cut this piece of shit some slack. After all, we were the ones that pulled back the rancid curtain and exposed to OC Republicans the fact that their wordsmith was wordsmithing hard for $200 an hour on behalf of meathead Rob Reiner’s tax-and-redistribute, whole-village rearing Children and Families Commission.
And of course we nailed him for supporting the stillborn supervisorial campaign of Democrat and serial miscreant, Tom Daly.
Still, insinuating that FFFF had something to do with Kevlar Cueball’s gas tank puncture is pure chickenshit. And of course it is couched in all the craven wordsmithing words that will keep you out of court and maybe even avoid serious physical rebuke.
As he slithers off into sad irrelevance, the former blog proprietor, now blog wage slave, Matthew J. Cunningham, is looking for any sugar daddy he can latch onto. After we blew his cover as a hyper-liberal nanny state teat sucker, he clearly needs work, and scribbling out press releases for the campaigns of Curt Pringle puppets may not even pay the rent.
Cynthia Ward, one of a diminishing breed of honest Anaheimers recently posted on the Red County blog about complaints to the State Attorney General about the incompatible offices held by Anaheim’s Mayor-for-Hire, Curt Pringle, who also holds the esteemed positions of OCTA Board member and California High Speed Rail Authority Chairman.
Right on cue, Cunningham attacked me, personally, instead of explaining why Pringle has been using his chairmanship of the CHRA swindle to try to move state taxpayer resources into his OCTA subsidized Anaheim ARTIC boondoggle.
It's in my interest and that means it's good for everybody...
Oh, yeah, that one. The one that has already misdirected $140,000,000 of County-wide transit tax dollars for the immediate benefit of Pringle’s useless glass Taj Mahal. And let’s not forget the biz the soon-to-be termed out Pringle will be passing to himself when his “consulting” business really gets to some serious greasin.’
A deep thought or a hard stool?
Cunningham has always congratulated himself on his self-perceived powers of thought and argumentation and “credibility,” a credibility that certainly took a shot in the mauve speedos when folks found out he was making $200 an hour passing out toothbrushes for Rob Reiner’s tax-and-redistribute First Five program. Well, lets take a gander at what Mr. Credibility has to say about yours truly. He begins his comments:
You neglected to mention the central in this drama being played by Tony Bushala, who has developed a habit of filing complaints against political enemies — or, at least, against those he perceives to be antagonistic to politicians he supports. Does anyone believe he would have filed a complaint if the Mayor in question wasn’t Curt Pringle? Or more to the point, if Curt Pringle had supported Shawn Nelson for supervisor?
Huh? A habit of complaints against political enemies? Oh yeah, like the serial perjuries of Harry Sidhu? Right well, that was one complaint. A habit? And what does Pringle’s behavior have to do with Shawn Nelson? That’s right, nothing.
This is an attempt to criminalize a policy dispute. Even if a conflict exists — which is flimsy possibility, at best — it will be obviated in two months when Curt ceases being both the Mayor of Anaheim and a member of the OCTA Board.
Attempt to criminalize? Who said anything about “criminals” beside The Jerb? Oops, a Freudian slip? But really: “a policy dispute?! Like fraudulentlybamboozling the public into a deal the perpetrators of which knew or suspected was based on cooked up rideship numbers? No, not fraud, merely a policy dispute!
I know, says Cunningham. Let’s look the other way (obviate – there’s an awful big word for such a small boy) just like Jerbal did by exclaiming that Sidhu didn’t commit perjury because his supposed stay at the Calabria Apartments was a lie of such short duration.
But wait, then there’s this gem:
Bushala’s call? Cynthia, his involvement is hugely relevant. I’m not going into CARRD’s motives — other than trying to remove an effective opponent before mayoral term limits renders the complaint moot — but Bushala has been actively trying to inflict harm on Curt, so his motives ought to be suspect.
Wrong. Pringle is responsible for his own behavior. We’re just shining a light on it. If illumination of Pringle’s activities is harmful, that ‘s his fault! But, come to think of it, why should an honest politician worry about citizens bringing attention to his activities?
Bushala is a land speculator. It’s my understanding he’s trying to get the city to re-zone properties he has so he can develop them.
Oh no! An evil land speculator! Heaven forfend! Free enterprise is breaking out all over and Cunningham’s scared! The facts are wrong, and not relevant to anything he’s talking about but let’s try to whip up a little anti-capitalist hysteria, shall we, comrade, as we try out our old distraction trick.
It’s also my understanding he and his brother are coming into somewhere in the neighborhood of $13 million in an “eminent domain” action by the OCTA. I use quotes when local governments seeking to purchase property for some public purpose, the property owners often want the city to eminent domain them, instead, because of the tax advantages.
“Using quotes” – the humorless Jerb is getting all ironical on us here, and inserting more irrelevant information about which he knows nothing, but weasels his way around that fact by saying it is his “understanding.” Why didn’t he say misunderstanding and at least tell the truth?
Finally, this is an opinion from the Leg Counsel. Opinion. I take it you believe every legal opinion rendered by the Anaheim City Attorney to hold the force of law?
Holy Shit! Now the poor loser has really his rock bottom. Well almost. This motormouth’s not done making a fool of himself, now using numbered paragraphs to give his nonsense the color of authority:
1. Bushala’s motives are absolutely fair game, and it ought to have been noted in the post that one of the filers of the complaint is not only an avowed political enemy of Curt Pringle but someone whose honesty is questionable.
How does he know I am an “avowed” anything? And what in the world do my motives have to do with Pringle’s behavior, including his career of influence peddling under the guise of “lobbying?” My honesty is questionable? Ha! See next item, below.
2. At the end of the day, what Bushala and CARRD have is an opinion of about the applicability of an opinion. Which a far sight sight from Bushala’s claim that Curt is “breaking the law.”
And now an outright lie from Mr. Credibility. I never said that. Here’s what I said: “The credibility of the California High Speed Rail Authority program, and more importantly, both the appearance and substance of fair, open and honest government in California, demand it.”Hmm. Pringle a law breaker? Another Freudian slip by Cunningham?
3. Curt has been on CHSRC for three years. It wasn’t exactly a secret he was also Anaheim Mayor and an OCTA Director. Why only file a complaint now, when he’ll be leaving office in two months and the alleged incompatibility would be a moot point — assuming it even exists?
The fact that I became aware of the Legislative Counsel’s finding only week ago seems irrelevant to Cunningham, but not to me. There’s still a month for this miscreant to call meetings and cast votes. Cunningham, who loves to put time limits on honesty when it comes to his patrons and political clients just doesn’t seem to get it.
Oh, well, the facts clearly mean nothing to Cunningham, assuming he can even grasp them through the waves of desperation that make him cling to a creep like Pringle like a drowning man clings to a rock in the ocean. And I honestly wonder if Pringle sent him a check for that string of drivel.
Get in line, boy. And stay there.
Well, folks, there you have the very essence of repuglicanism: turn looking the other way into a full time business; in fact, try to make some green off of it. Perv priests, Church cover-ups, bogus consulting contracts doled out to fellow ‘pugs, “privatization” of unnecessary functions that benefit only yourself and your pals; ignore the facts; hell, forget your own party and its supposed principles when your crime boss tells you to.
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.
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:
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.
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?
It's all about making people feel good about themselves.
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.
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