Click here to view the embedded video.

Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York is to be commended for showing the backbone so many Congressional Democrats seem to lack from time to time.  With the House of Representatives trying to re-open the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund for 9/11 first responders whose health has been affected. and keep it open through 2031, the Republicans blocked it. Weiner was upset.  And Orange County’s Republican Congressman, all with their precious patriotic flag label pins, turned their backs on these 9/11 First Responders. 

The Republicans attached several amendments to the bill that had nothing to do with helping 9/11 first responders, effectively poisoning the legislation, forcing Democrats shut down the opportunities to amend the bill by moving it to the suspension calendar, where a two-thirds vote is needed to pass.

House Republicans called this a “massive new entitlement program” and a “massive job-killing new entitlement program.”   But instead of standing up for those people who are the true patriots of 9/11 to help rescue anyone they could, House Republicans brought the measure down to defeat.  The vote was 255-159.  It needed 276 votes to pass.

Our OC Congressman who voted NO, and turned their backs on 9/11 First Responders:

CA-40 Royce, Edward [R]
CA-41 Lewis, Jerry [R]
CA-42 Miller, Gary [R]
CA-44 Calvert, Ken [R]
CA-46 Rohrabacher, Dana [R]
CA-48 Campbell, John [R]
CA-49 Issa, Darrell [R]

Hoep you can sleep at night Gentlemen.  Andtake those flag pins off.  You wouldn’t know a patriot if one poked you in the chest.

A vicious attempt to censor and silence Santa Ana residents was defeated last night as Art Pedroza was removed as a moderator on the Santa Ana Citizens Yahoogroups. The Yahoogroups owner made it  HERE. official It all began earlier this week when I posted a link to my Liberal OC post on El Sol Academy. What followed were personal attacks by Orange Juice bloggers Sean Mill and Art Pedroza, who have been stalking myself and other Liberal OC bloggers for over a year now. You can read their attacks HERE and HERE. I was not allowed to let them go unanswered and moved to defend myself with this comment:

Art, are you really going to go there about who victimized who?www.claudiogallegos.com and proudly claimed in an e-mail to “own my ass.” Will you explain now why you did that even though I had nothing to do with the transaction of www.artpedroza.com?

YOU are the one who went around town telling people I was an alcoholic.

YOU are the one who went and fed Sean Mill and Paul Lucas my past financial difficulties when I entrusted you as a friend. And you did it only because I did not return to blog for you.

YOU are the one who went and bought

YOU are the one who sent me a text threatening to “destroy” my career. It is available for viewing if anyone wishes to see it.

Suddenly I am the bad guy. You are the scumbag to end all scumbags Art. Yes I did send your info out after you did that to me. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. By the way, good luck on August 3rd in court Art. Wish I could be there, but I will be on a wonderful family vacation. Bet you wish you could afford one right now. TTFN- Tah Tah for Now.

BTW people, his foreclosure auction has been delayed to August 26th, if you are interested in buying a nice home in Park Santiago.

Within moments, my defense was deleted from the Yahoogroups and my privilages were limited to where Art Pedroza had to approve any posts I did. I made several attempts to re post my defense. At one point, another moderator did resorte the post only to have Art delete it again, despite the fact that I broke no terms of service and did not libel Art Pedroza. Thanks to several supportive Santa Ana residents, the owner of the Yahoogroups,  Paul Cook-Giles has now revoked Art’s privilages as a moderator. Thank you Paul, I know you are a busy person and did not need to deal with this drama. Unfortunately, with crazy stalkers like Art Pedroza and Sean Mill, we have to put up with their attempts to silence anyone they disagree with.

With Art Pedroza now running for school board, is this what we can expect if he is elected, silencing and stalking teachers, employees and constituents who may disagree with him. Will he have his “enforcer” Sean Mill going up to dissenters and threaten to “break their f_cking neck” like he did to Matt Cunningham? What happened yesterday was a victory against censorship, and a victory for free speech. It also gave a scary portrayal of the kind of city government envisioned by NAMBLA Promoting Art Pedroza, Sean Mill and their allies on the City Council.

According to the Registrar of Voters, Art Pedroza, who is best know for promoting pedophilia and gay porn on websites he owned has pulled papers to run for the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees. It should be noted the position deals with 50 schools filled with children between the ages of 5-17 years of age. More on this as it develops.

I wonder if the SAUSD voters are ready for a school board member who promoted pedophilia and gay porn on websites he owned?

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) joined ESPN reporter Erin Andrews Tuesday to call for strengthening and updating federal anti-stalking laws to address the new technology predators are using to harass their victims. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Congressman Scott Murphy (D-NY), and Congressman Leonard Boswell (D-IA) also voiced their support for the initiative at the event.

CD-48 Democratic candidate for Congress Beth Krom has won the 2010 Democracy For America (DFA) Grassroots All-Star competition, besting 99 other worthy Democratic candidates to capture needed money and volunteer hours in her race to defeat Rep. John Campbell.  Beth’s campaign team kicked butt and took names as voting was fast and furious in the hours leading up to the final deadline.

What this win proves is Krom’s team can mount an effective grassroots campaign that will be a force to be reckoned with in November’s election.  They used all manners of social media, direct phone pitches and personal connections to get supporters to vote for Krom.  She polled significantly high in vote counts throughout the competition and the DFA announced her win this morning.

Founded by Gov. Howard Dean in 2004, Democracy for America is a people-powered PAC. With over one million members nationwide, DFA is a grassroots powerhouse working to change our country and the Democratic Party from the bottom-up. We provide campaign training, organizing resources, and media exposure so our members have the power to support progressive issues and candidates up and down the ballot.

Here’s the announcement from the folks at DFA:

After 66,248 votes, DFA members nationwide have chosen DFA’s 2010 Grassroots All-Star.

And the winner is… Beth Krom.

Having won five consecutive elections in a city with a Republican registration advantage, she understands how important it is to rely on strong grassroots organizing to win. Beth is the former mayor of Irvine, CA and she calls on her experiences as a teacher, a business owner, a community volunteer and a mother to fight for progressive values and deliver results. That why Irvine was recognized as one of the safest, greenest big cities in the country during her time as mayor.

Now she’s running for Congress against Republican Rep. John Campbell. Want to know how much of a right-wing crackpot Campbell is? He’s a “Birther” who cosponsored a bill requiring presidential candidates show their birth certificates when filing papers to run for office.

It’s time to kick John Campbell out of office and Beth Krom’s the one to do it.

Contribute $10 right now and fuel her campaign to win

It won’t be easy to win this race. Republicans have held this seat in Orange County for the last 18 years. But that doesn’t faze Beth Krom.

She has 300 volunteers on the ground (many of them local DFA members) who are door knocking, phone banking, and helping get her message out to the district. She also has city leaders who support her and volunteer to coordinate community events. These leaders have helped ensure Beth reaches each and every community throughout the district.

The coalition of support for Beth Krom includes the American Federation of Teachers, Human Rights Campaign, Women’s Campaign Forum and the Sierra Club to name just a few of the over 25 national, state and local organizations on board and working to win.

With a strong people-powered campaign, Beth Krom can beat a right-wing Republican. It’s up to us to deliver the resources to make it happen.

Contribute $10 to DFA’s 2010 Grassroots All-Star now

There is only one Grassroots All-Star, but Beth wasn’t the only winner. Democrats Mac D’Alessandro in MA-09 and Bill Hedrick in CA-44 came in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. These two All-Star Finalists have earned DFA-List endorsements and will get the full power of our national movement to back them up from now through Election Day.

It’s exciting that over 66,000 votes were cast in this competition. There’s no question that progressives are engaged in this mid-term election year and we’re fighting for the candidates who stand up for us.

I’m honored to work for you every day,

-Jim

Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America

While it’s neat to sneak a peak at the OC GOP Candidate Endorsement Questionnaire, it’s rather absurd to refer to it as, or to consider it to be a “purity test.” A purity test requires candidates to meet a certain amount of policy positions in order to be considered for a party endorsement. The RNC overwhelmingly rejected instituting a purity test at their last convention, which you can read about here.   I highly recommend Dan and Scott Moxley from OC Weekly check it out, as they seem confused over what a purity test consists of.

The OC Democratic Party also has an endorsement questionnaire (they’ve had one for years).  It’s used by our county party’s endorsement committee to make endorsement recommendations for the central committee to vote on as a whole. Most of the time, the candidates who got the nod from the endorsement committee go on clinch the endorsement. This is also, by no means, a “purity test.” It’s just your standard Political Org/PAC questionnaire.

What ranks high on the OC Democratic Party Questionnaire you might ask? Well check out snippets from their and other questionnaires below.

Checkout this HATE FILLED endorsement Questionnaire from OC’s “Pro-Family” Council. They use the results from their questionnaire to send out a slate that goes out to high-pro registered haters.

This is another lovely endorsement Questionnaire from OC’s Right. They call themselves OC Christian Coalition but their interests seem to go off on a non-Jesus related tangent.

Eminent domain, Privatization, services to undocumented immigrants… I don’t think the Bible covers any of those. However, in regards to the state-funded services inquiry on their questionnaire, does that mean they don’t want police and fire services to respond to the calls made by illegal immigrants? What about child protective services? Truly contemptible!

Like I mentioned before, quite a bit of active political groups in Orange County have these. Everyone from ECCO (arguably OC’s biggest Gay special interest group), the League of Conservation Voters, the OC Sierra Club, the OC BizPAC, even Realtors and Car Dealership consortiums put these out. How much they vary in their questioning from their groups core interest fluctuates group to group, but, objectively speaking of course, righty groups tend to stray farther away than lefty groups do.

The “funny” thing is that these purity tests endorsement questionnaires are really an exercise in futility for candidates. These endorsements are almost always secured in backroom deals. If you don’t have an “in” in the group, you’re wasting your time, and you might even be damaging yourself in the future by giving them ammo.

So those are endorsement questionnaires. They are typically in a question and answer format, and are reviewed by their respective committees. A candidate may provide answers that aren’t exactly towing the party line but might still receive an endorsement. Below is the purity test that was proposed by a RNC Official earlier this year:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

Had this passed, candidates must meet at least 7 of those ideals to be considered for an endorsement. If they didn’t, no endorsement would be awarded, and other consequences such as expulsion from the RNC might’ve followed.

Nice try Dan.

Protestors at the 2010 AllStar gamein Anaheim

Since the Major League Baseball All-Star game, this blog has taken a lot of flack for our (my) criticism of the protest at the game over the decision by Major League Baseball to play the 2011 game in Arizona.  We’ve been beaten up for criticizing the sheer numbers of protestors by OC Weekly, how much parking was, whether or not 100,000 signatures was significant or not, and questions regarding our support of the Dream Act students and comprehensive immigration reform.

The Register’s Dena Bunis wrote a story in the Register today that was then blogged about by Orange Juice. OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano left this comment on this post.

1. Gustavo Arellano

Posted July 26, 2010 at 3:13 PM

No, the Register got its talking points from the Liberal OC!

Now I’m sure Gustavo meant this as some form of a joke, but perhaps he’s taking accuracy lessons from the publisher of the OJ blog.

The Monday before the All-Star game, the Los Angeles Times ran a story about the successful FanFest at the DisneyLand Resort. The story featured a terrific photo of Santa Ana Councilman Sal Tinajero and his son, recreating a highlight from a previous World Series.  The paper never mentioned the Councilman in the story and never identified him as a Santa Ana council member (and I’m sure it’s a photo and a moment the Tinajero family will remember for quite some time).

As a member of the Santa Ana city council, Councilman Tinajero has spoken out against SB1070, Arizona’s controversial new anti-immigration law, and voted with other members of the Santa Ana city council to condemn it.  And since Councilman Tinajero is a big baseball fan (a season’s ticket holder ot the Angels), I wrote him to ask about the petition presented to Bud Selig, the protesters at the game and whether or not his attendance at the game might be considered counter to the efforts of the protesters.

“I was never approached or witnessed anyone asking for signatures (for the petition),” said Tinajero. “If someone had approached me then of course I would have signed it.  I don’t believe the game should be played in Arizona and that is why my family and I will not be attending Spring Training this year.”

Whe I asked about the protestors, whom I saw ringing the perimeter of the stadium and in force in front of the stadium, Councilman Tinajero said he didn’t see them.

“I didn’t hear people were protesting this year’s game,” he said.  “I spent a wonderful day with my son in fact it is a day he and I will remember forever.”

And I’ll add it was a day my son and I will remember forever too. The Councilman and I also agree that the Lobster Rolls were the bomb at the game.  Now Councilman Tinajero would certainly have gone to those protesters to show his support of their efforts.

 Now if someone like Councilman Tinajero, who has a well documented record of supporting immigration reform and being on the record against SB1070, didn’t see any Latinos protesting at the All-Star game and was unaware of the protest itself, it reinforces our position that the protest was poorly organized and had little impact.  Pretty it up all you want, but facts are facts.

And that’s not something we like at all because we believe in comprehensive immigration reform is something that needs to happen in this country.

Too often we have blog posts discussing how much Santa Ana schools are failing. Well the OC Register has a terrific article in Sunday’s paper that talks about one of the bright spots in Santa Ana, which you can read HERE. El Sol Science and Arts Academy, located at 1010 N. Broadway is a shining example of success in an otherwise dismal review of Santa Ana’s public schools. Now I could do a post obsessing about people I don’t like in Santa Ana because they don’t like a buddy of mine who lives at home with their mother,  or obsessing over a certain Councilman’s support for the 4th of July or go after a Mayor and a Councilwoman who walked out of a presentation to a respected Veteran named Fred Bella. Instead I want to take this time to discuss the good things that happen in Santa Ana.

(Full disclosure, my son attends school at El Sol and will be entering 1st grade in the fall and my daughter attends the pre-school) El Sol Academy is a charter public school in the Willard neighborhood of Santa Ana, where 22% of the families there are below the poverty leve.l They offer Pre-school through 8th grade education that is shown to be top notch. The most recent API scores had them close to the Fundamental Elementary Schools and had 85.2% of their students be proficient in Math, as compared to the much praised Irvine Unified School District, which had 85.5% of their students be proficient in Math. They also have an English/Spanish dual emmersion program where all children are fluent in both languages by the 4th grade. In tomorrow’s global economy, being multi-lingual is a must, and El Sol provides a great start towards that. I wish I had that opportunity growing up, unforunately I am an English only speaker.

The article discusses some of the unique and ground breaking programs that makes the school a true part of the community by offering many different programs such as the Health Clinics. These programs are financed through private donations and grants and creates a holisitic approach to learning. It has shown to be a success.

Another program not discussed in the article is the after school programs and extra curricular activities in which the children are exposed to. Parents have the option in enrolling their children into several different programs that are art related, such as music(piano, guitar, drums, saxaphone and other instruments), dance(ballet folkloriko), Art in which they learn different drawing and painting styles, Drama and Chess. These programs have gone a long way towards making El Sol Academy what it is today. If SAUSD is looking for answers on how to get many of their schools in the neediest areas of the county back on track, they need to take a good hard look at this success story and look into applying it towards some of their more needy schools. The answer to some of the problems is right in front of their face.

Here are some interesting stats from the article:

The article touches on the growing pains El Sol Academy had, but keeps the focus on the success. In a future article, I will delve more into those growing pains and how the hacks at Santa Ana City Hall and Mike Harrah nearly stopped this success story from happening.

(c) 2010, TheLiberalOC.com

The 2010 San Diego ComicCon has come to a close. My shoulders are bruised from carrying a heavy backpack and my wallet is lighter. And I wound up nearly stepping in goat poop from a small demonstration outside the San Diego Convention Center protesting a possible move of the hugely popular ComicCon to Anaheim.

A person dressed as Captain America and another person dressed in a skunk costume holding signs and a tether with a goat screaming “Don’t Goat to Anaheim” in both English and Spanish. 

The guy got some laughs from the crowd but a number people nearly stepped in goat poop getting around the guy.

But based on the buzz in the hall, it looks like ComicCon’s future has come down to San Diego vs. Anaheim (which surprises me since the LA Convention Center is huge, has the entire LA Live area and lots of hotels nearby).  Securing ComicCon would be an economic atomic bomb for Orange County every Summer.

More pictures from the event below.

The Soup Nazi does ComicCon

"hung" actor Thomas Jane