Tag Archives: Jon Fleischman

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Fleischman gets tripped up by campaign finance reports

Jon Fleischman, at his right-wing blog, sent out a screed yesterday morning against Chief Justice Ronald M. George.  Not all that surprising really, given that George has been known to not always toe the Republican line. Usually? Yes. Complete Fealty? No.

But, when Fleischman saw George’s name on Hillary Clinton’s financial records at over $2300 to her presidential campaign, it was a bridge too far. He breathlessly fired off a blog post citing the California Code of Judicial Ethics’s restrictions on total giving to a candidate and attempted to shame Governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian for appointing George. It was all very dramatic. Fleischman had George busted. It was all listed there on the FEC report: George, Ronald State of California/Chief Justice.

Now I am not an expert in this “Code” and whether there are consequences for violations of it — nor do I know if the Supreme Court exempts themselves from these standards they adopt for all judges, or if they are supposed to live by its rules as well.

It seems to me that Ron George owes a public explanation for such an egregious violation of the Canons of Judicial Ethics.  Especially given that the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court should be setting an example for all of our state’s judges to follow.

In the meantime, if I am Pete Wilson or George Deukmejian, I might be particularly embarrassed that my appointee was so committed to trying to elect a liberal to be President of the United States. (FlashReport)

But, whoops, turns out that it was a different Ronald George.  Apparently, there is another Ronald George in San Francisco who is a big Hillary Clinton fan. And when Clinton’s people looked up who he was, Google turned up the Chief Justice.  Under federal law, full accuracy isn’t required, only “best efforts.”

It is an understandable mistake to make, after all it did come from the FEC reports. But had he done a little more investigation, the charge would have crumbled.  John Myers re-tweeted a tweet that the address that the Ronald George of the FEC report is actually “Ronald F. George.”  But before attacking the Chief Justice, perhaps Fleischman should have done a white pages lookup of the address, or you know, contacted his office about the charge.

Fleischman later posted about the Chief Justice’s response stating that he had never donated to Clinton, and then later an explanation post from a tipster about the “best efforts” rules.

To date, no post apologizing for the full-throated attacks has been posted on the FlashReport.

Uncategorized

AD-10: Fleischman Sounds The Alarm

You do not see Flash Report’s Jon Fleischman, who represents nothing if not the internal voice of the California Yacht Party (he’s the Vice Chair, after all), this concerned about a Republican-held seat.  Not every day.

The Democrats have moved the 10th Assembly District near the top of their wish-list, and for good reason.  First, the seat is open, which always makes for a more interesting contest.  Second, a once six-point Republican partisan voter registration advantage has shrunk to just two points.

The 10th District is located in the San Joaquin Valley, split over four counties — El Dorado, Amador, Sacramento and San Joaquin.

Compounding matters for Republican strategists, not only was there a pretty brutal GOP primary contest back in June, but this seat overlaps several U.S. House seats that will likely see action — CD 3 where Dan Lungren is seeking re-election, CD 4 where Tom McClintock is running, and, of course, CD 11 where Dean Andal is trying to take out freshman Democrat Jerry McNerney (this is a top tier seat).

What Fleischman is correctly describing is what I would call the “Carol Shea-Porter effect.”  In 2006, Paul Hodes got a lot of establishment and netroots support in his Congressional race in New Hampshire, while the neighboring Carol Shea-Porter got virtually none.  However, the state of New Hampshire all resides in the same media market.  So Hodes’ ads pummeling his opponent and Republicans in general ended up resonating on Carol Shea-Porter’s side of the district.  In the end, both Democrats won, with Shea-Porter’s victory a major upset.

The same is true for Alyson Huber in AD-10 and her race against Yacht Party member in good standing Jack Sieglock.  With contested elections throughout her area – in CA-11, CA-03 and CA-04 – Huber’s message of change and fighting failed conservative values and ideas will be amplified.  In addition, the GOTV programs from those candidates will snag voters for AD-10 (and Joan Buchanan in AD-15) as well.  With 82% of voters seeing the budget as a major problem, this is a teachable moment for Democrats, who can tie the burdensome 2/3 requirement and Republican ideological intransigence to a state falling behind, and drive home the need for fundamental change.

Sieglock’s bitter primary has given Huber a head start up here.  Even his consultant agrees: “Jack is a very good candidate, but he’s had a tougher road through the primary than his opponent, and that puts us behind.”  Add that to the more sophisticated GOTV program for Democrats this cycle, and AD-10 is well within reach.  With some good bounces, we can get to a 2/3 majority.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Denham Recall: The Slip Starts Showing

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The intellectual inconsistencies are impossible to miss in this story on the Denham recall.  It’d be a lot more effective to cry and whine about a power grab and unfair tactics, for example, if you DON’T tip off that you’re planning on doing it yourself.

Jon Fleischman, vice chairman of the California Republican Party, said Perata was misusing the recall process, which is meant to boot people from office for serious misconduct. Fleischman and other activists in Orange County said that if the Denham recall succeeds, a similar campaign might be launched against Lou Correa, a Democratic state senator from Santa Ana.

Actually, the right answer is to reform the recall process, not to vow to “misuse” it again, if you want to remain on the intellectual and moral high ground.  

But that’s not surprising, of course, since the same people whining about the recall today are the ones who benefited from it in 2003.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who supported the budget Denham refused to vote for and even traveled at the time to Denham’s district to pressure him, has disparaged the recall that’s on the June 3 ballot.

“Obviously, it is political,” Schwarzenegger said when asked about the effort at a recent Sacramento news conference, adding that the budget vote as “a reason for recall I think is ludicrous.”

Riiiight, because Gray Davis wasn’t recalled because of a budget deficit.

Like Fleischman, Denham says Perata was abusing the recall process, which is meant to remove from office people who act illegally. But backers of the recall effort note that Denham contributed $17,000 in 2003 to the Republican-led effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis, who was under criticism for the budget mess but had not been accused of criminal conduct.

It’s just so hard to keep things straight, and figure out which are the RIGHT recalls and which are the WRONG ones.  So good that we have honest brokers like Jon Fleischman and Jeff Denham to set us straight.

It’s also a bad thing, we’re told, that people in Sacramento and abroad are telling the good people of the 12th District what to do.  Good thing there’s none of that happening among Denham supporters:

Denham has raised $1.1 million to fight the recall. Major contributions include $50,000 from the Los Angeles Casinos Political Action Committee and $25,000 from the Pechanga Band of Mission Indians, which has a casino in Temecula.

Most of the members of the Los Angeles Casinos PAC, we all know, live in Stanislaus County.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Environment

NEWS FLASH! McCain Now an “Environmental Extremist”

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Watch out, John McCain! Jon Fleischman, of the GOP consultant insider blog Flash Report, is now on the hunt. Yes, and he is ready to call out McCain for his “embrace of environmental extremism“.

The convention wisdom in modern American politics is that in a primary, a Republican should run to the “right” and a Democrat to the “left” — seeking to tie down core base voters of their party. Then, in a general election, the candidates who emphasize those issues that would appeal to voters in the other party.

Apparently no one has given John McCain the important memo — the one that has two parts. First, you’re in a GOP primary. And the second — you do not get the ‘internationally famous movie star turned politician’ exemption to this rule.

And what exactly is Fleischman deriding as “environmental extremism”? He appeared with Arnold to talk about climate change. More after the flip…

From the LA Times:

“I would assess this administration’s record on global warming as terrible,” McCain said, recalling that he got “no cooperation from the administration” at Senate hearings on the subject. He pronounced himself “very happy to see the president mention global warming and a renewed commitment from the administration to this issue.” But he added tartly: “It’s long overdue.”

Wow, so this is “environmental extremism“??!! But wait, it gets better! Fleischman calls out Arnold’s “lurch to the left“.

Last year, one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lurches to the ideological left that most infuriated GOP leaders and activists around California was his calling for the passage of Assembly Bill 32, dubbed by the environmental-extremist community as the “Global Warming Solutions Act” — legislation which has called for increasing regulations in California to fight an alleged nexus between human action and global climate change…

Apparently John McCain doesn’t know, or doesn’t care that this legislation that McCain heralded yesterday at an appearance with Governor Schwarzenegger was that only one Republican legislator, a moderate from San Diego, out nearly 50 in the State Capitol, voted for this ill-advised legislation.

Wow, so now Arnold’s signing of AB 32 into law is “environmental extremism”? Even though he is hardly even acting to ENFORCE THE NEW LAW? Even though Arnold talks about market trading schemes, but does nothing to enforce the new regulations?

Oh, and can we really call John McCain an “environmental extremist”? Look at the bill he is co-sponsoring with Lieberman. Though it is a good first step, the legislation still does not cut emissions as much as we need to. I guess that if this is “environmental extremism”, then Barbara Boxer and Bernard Sanders have really “fallen off of left cliff” with their legislation that calls for reductions in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions to 80 percent below their 1990 levels by 2050.

But hey, if Fleischman really wants to move his party to the extreme right with extreme denial of reality, then more power to him. : )

Orange County

“Behind the Orange Curtain”: OC Government Attempts to Silence Local Blogger

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(Whoa, this is nuts! – promoted by SFBrianCL)

What is this nation coming to? What is this county coming to? Whatever happened to our First Amendment right to free speech? From today’s Register:

… [O]ne county worker is finding out that political blogging – or blogging for Democrats in Orange County – can also generate blowback.

County officials are investigating blogger Chris Prevatt, who works in the county’s health care agency and posts commentaries at the site Liberal OC, for visiting the site during work hours.

And what is their excuse for this “investigation”? More on the flip…

So what is their excuse? Try this:

Two weeks before this month’s election, Prevatt posted an article giving County Supervisor Chris Norby the nickname of “Darth Norby.” He criticized Norby for his stance against government-funded ethnic outreach programs and even posted a photo of Norby morphed into the infamous dark lord of Star Wars fame.

Two days later, Prevatt says, health care agency supervisors came to his desk, confiscated his computer and began an investigation.

A Norby aide admits he mentioned the post to a senior county official but did not call for an investigation.

What the fuck is going on with my county government? First, they sit by idly as our “Godfather” Sheriff Carona silences Bill Hunt after he had the courage to not only blow the whistle on “The Little Sheriff”, but continue running for Sheriff after Carona decided to keep his old job after all. And now, they are going after another county employee… And this time, he’s not even a political appointee…
He’s simply a county health care agency employee who was trying to keep our government honest.

Oh, and if they cared so much about county employees avoiding political blogging on county time, why don’t they investigate former county employee Jon Fleischman’s “work” on Flash Report?

County CEO Tom Mauk denies that the probe into Prevatt is politically motivated, adding that such investigations are triggered by complaints. There have not been any probes into Republican bloggers that Mauk can recall.

Yeah, right! There’s no way that Jon Fleischman was able to “post while taking breaks”… If you look at all the long posts he was writing during his period in the Sheriff’s Office, there’s no way he could have done all those posts during his break time, which by the way, is still county time! Sorry, but I call bullshit here!

So why is the County really going after Chris Prevatt? Perhaps because he posted this scathing critique of Neal Kelley’s (in)ability to conduct a proper election? Perhaps because he blew the whistle on all the federal HIV/AIDS funds that were being misused by the County Health Care Agency? Or is it just becuase he’s a Democratic blogger, as opposed to the dominant Republican culture (of corruption!!) in the county government? Well, whatever it is, I refuse to stand by and allow my county government to do such a disgusting act of political payback!