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.
The hell with the kids. It's our turn at the trough!
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.
Over at the RedCounty blog, Matthew J. Cunningham’s posts are becoming increasingly dronish and petulant – just like always seems to happen when an election nears.
His latest post about the OCGOP Central Committee endorsement of Shawn Nelson is a case in point. Apparently he wasn’t at this big event (could it be because he’s not yet ready to explain his huge windfall from The Meathead’s Children and Families commission?). So he’s getting his talking points from somebody who was – probably lonely Sidhu supporter and John Lewis partner Matt Holder.
You would think that when your bosses candidate gets wiped out 47-8 you would just keep your mouth shut and say nothing. But not our motormouth buddy – who goes on and on and on about how the thing is unfair and Nelson just won because he did better at the forum, how the questions weren’t good, how it was all due to political whipping and how Sidhu, not Nelson has been fully vetted through the last election cycle (? Nelson’s been through three!).
Not a single word from Cunningham about carpetbagging, perjury and perpetual candidacy! Did it not occur to Cunningham that maybe, just maybe the OCGOP Central Committee members were turned off by Sidhu’s voter registration fraud, and his two bogus addresses on top of his inarticulate, scripted performances.
Well, too bad for Cunningham and Lewis and Sidhu, but that genie is out of the bottle and ain’t going back in. So just accept it and quit yer bitchin’.
Anyhow, congrats from inside the electrified fence of the Desert Rat compound out on beautiful Screech Owl Road to Nelson for an important victory.
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 aCounty-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.
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.
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?
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!
Check out the indignant posts here and here, by outraged carpetbagg’ stalker Matthew J. Cunningham as he endeavors to bag and tag Villa Park’s Tom Umberg during the 1st Supe District Special Election in 2007. Jeez, Cunningham didn’t even live in the 1st District but boy was he bent all out of shape!
Wow! What huevos! Videotaping the neighborhood, snooping on the living arrangements of the entire Umberg family, including offspring, and generally making a nuisance of himself!
And so we recognize the intrepid Jerb for his cunning and resourcefulness –a full three years before our admin decided to visit the completely suspicious Casa Sidhu #3 – Sidhu’s third “residence” in but a single month.
