Fraud Claim Falls Short of Definition

Aaron Park circulated a series of campaign tracts to members of the CRA Board and then posted them on his blog on April 17th. This begins my analysis of Aaron Park’s political tracts.

CRA Coup Attempt Exposed – Part One
http://www.rightondaily.com/2015/04/cra-coup-attempt-exposed-part-one/

Why the push for a May 30th Board Meeting to Oust George and Aaron?

The push for the May 30th meeting was begun by John Briscoe. He backed down and seven of the CRA VPs and some others felt that the meeting was overdue. The meeting after the CRA Convention was not valid—no quorum was established—and the necessary appointments needed to fill Committees created by the Bylaws were left vacant. The Parks were not invited to this conference call because their fate was part of the discussion.

Prior to resigning, Briscoe had asked the Parks to resign several times.

I go thru all this to say that Aaron does have reason to feel that the May 30 meeting is to oust him and his brother. They can still resign from the Board, that way they might stay in CRA but be confined to Placer County. Some say they have burned that bridge too and they just need to go.

And this brings us to the main topic of this tract, the alleged fraud of Santa Clarita RA. Aaron proclaims:

Massive Fraud in Santa Clarita RA!

It is simple. Alice Khosravy, Wendy Albright, David Gauny, Dana Schlumpberger and John Rogers from the Santa Clarita Valley RA are hiding something huge. They along with Mark Gardner, Tim Thiesen and Carl Brickey want George and Aaron Park out of CRA badly:

Why, because – “over 10% of the SCVRA’s Membership is fraudulent.”

Ok, let’s define terms and then see if Aaron’s claim holds up.

Fraudulent: The description of a willful act commenced with the Specific Intent to deceive or cheat, in order to cause some financial detriment to another and to engender personal financial gain.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fraudulent

The same website also defines Specific Intent: The term specific intent is commonly used in criminal and Tort Law to designate a special state of mind that is required, along with a physical act, to constitute certain crimes or torts. Specific intent is usually interpreted to mean intentionally or knowingly.

So, if we combine the two then fraud is: The description of a willful act commenced with the state of mind to intentionally or knowingly deceive or cheat, in order to cause some financial detriment to another and to engender personal financial gain.

I will stipulate that “financial” is not the type of gain that Park is alleging here so what can it be?

I don’t think bragging rights to who has the largest CRA chapter is the issue so I can only conclude that the fraud that Park is alleging is related to Convention delegates.

The important question, is Park’s allegation true?

Look at the CRA Bylaws:

Section 11.06. Representation and Quorum. Each chartered Republican Assembly in good standing shall be entitled to select Delegates to each CRA Convention as follows: three Delegates for the first fifteen members and one Delegate for each ten additional members. Representation shall be determined by the records maintained by the Membership Secretary, as of thirty days prior to the Convention.

So for each ten members, Santa Clarita Valley is entitled to another Convention delegate. Assuming Aaron it correct that twenty odd folks should not be on the Santa Clarita rolls, then The Santa Clarita could send an extra two delegates to the convention.

So at this point I think it is fair to ask, did Santa Clarita send delegates to the Convention that they were not entitled to send?

Membership Secretary George Park determined that Santa Clarita could send sixteen delegates to the convention. So if fraud is the motivation for the inflated membership numbers that Park alleges then a reasonable person would expect that Santa Clarita would have maxed-out on their Convention delegates to take advantage of the fraud they are perpetrating, right?

Unfortunately for Park, Santa Clarita could only muster twelve delegates. Therefore, Park would have to rule out all other possible errors in the membership records and then disqualify fifty members before the delegate count might qualify as fraudulent. Plus he would still have to prove knowingly deceiving or cheating.

Now please remember that the Credentials Committee was not allowed access to the membership records to verify any delegate counts because George Park did not want the privacy of member records to be breached and for any membership information to become public.

Or was it just to keep the Placer RA records from scrutiny? You see this issue cuts both ways. Credentials had reports that Placer was the group cooking the books and when folks expressed interest in their records that’s when Park pulled the plug on any access.

The other issue that may be at play here is that George invoiced clubs all over the state for membership dues in 2015. These dues were based on old membership lists and his only instructions to the chapters was to add new members and pay the balance. He did not asked that people that had not paid dues be deleted or the list of members be verified before submission.

My chapter was invoiced for 35 members but only 24 had renewed their membership. Thus George’s membership roster contained a 31 percent error from 2014 to 2015. The membership difference in Santa Clarita seems to be within this margin of error.

But again, George was OK with the Santa Clarita delegate number 30 days prior to the Convention and had there been a problem it should have been given to the Credential Committee and not to his brother 30 plus days after the convention.

Park Family Shakedown: Money, Blogs, and Phony Members

In my last blog, we established that the dictionary definition of fraud involves intentionally or knowingly deceive or cheat, in order to cause some financial detriment to another and to engender personal financial gain.

And that got me to thinking. In his posts, Aaron often tells us more about his motivations than he actually does about the actions of others. Rush Limbaugh has the same observation about Democrats. They accuse others of what actually motivates them.

Over the last few weeks, Aaron’s whole campaign is that everyone in CRA commits fraud and only he and George can protect CRA from this evil. After posting my blog last night, I got to thinking about fraud and the Parks and the one name popped into my head and I said “gotcha.” That name is Igor Birman.

As we all know, much of the animosity that Aaron has with Nevada Republican Assembly concerns the endorsement or rather non-endorsement of Tom McClintock prior to the June election last year. Nevada RA thinks Tom McClintock is a rock solid conservative and Aaron helped to block McClintock’s endorsement by the local CRA endorsing convention. This was the “local” endorsing convention held at the CRA convention in southern California—the better part of 400 miles from CD-4. As you recall, John Briscoe was not happy with the result and had the CRA Board pass a resolution thanking Tom for being a great Conservative at the Board meeting on March 15, 2014 in Burlingame last year.

At the same time Aaron is going out of his way to throw “bricks” at Tom McClintock, Aaron is on his blog singing the praises of McClintock’s Chief of Staff, Igor Birman, who is running for congress in a neighboring Congressional District. On his blog, Aaron proclaimed over and over that Igor was the only true conservative in the race. The other conservative, Elizabeth Emken, was constantly portrayed by Park as a RINO despite the fact she was in agreement with Birman on most issues.

Can you see the logical dilemma here?
Igor’s claim to fame and qualification to run for Congress is his association with McClintock.
Simultaneously Park denies McClintock’s endorsement by CRA because McClintock is unfit.

How can both be true? What is the difference?

Money.

It is no secret that Park accepts money from candidates for favorable treatment on his blog. It also may be the case that refusal to utilize his “consulting services” might create unfavorable treatment on the blog.

But in the case of Birman there was more at work than favorable treatment on a blog.

During the same period of time that Park was singing the praises of Birman, a CRA chapter in the district in which Birman was campaigning experienced a sudden and unexplained growth spurt. This growth was so remarkable that at the March 2014 board meeting in Burlingame, George Park sang their praises as the largest percentage of growth in all of California. In fact, the Sacramento Republican Assembly doubled in membership in the first part of 2014.

Let’s look at this growth:
• None of these new members ever attended a meeting before joining.
• Only about two ever came to a meeting after joining. Both were associated with Birman.
• All paid cash for their memberships.
• No dues or membership applications were submitted to club officers. Not the President, VP, Secretary, or Treasurer.
• All money and membership applications were reportedly give directly to George Park.
• Park does not live or work in Sacramento County. The new members reportedly went to the offices of Park Family Insurance to pay their dues.
• This happened over 25 times.
• When Birman came in third in June, all these folks simply vanished.

The SRA membership drive seemed like an aborted effort to insure that Birman’s campaign had a stranglehold on the chapter for the purposes of an endorsement. If the newly created Investigative Committee wants to find some real fraud, I suggest that they dig into this matter.

When it comes to the Parks and fraud, Methinks thou dost protest too much.

Intro to Park’s Political Tracts

Now that CRA has adopted the Investigative Committee as a delay tactic and bought some individuals some time they don’t deserve to re-group, let’s do something that hasn’t been done yet, let’s go thru Aaron’s five posts from April 17th.

First, what is the purpose of the five posts and what type of evidence is actually presented?

Well, the first thing that you notice is that all five posts have a common theme and conclusion.
The theme is that there is rampant fraud in CRA, these guys therefore are bad (Alice Khosravy, Wendy Albright, Tim Thiesen, Mark Gardner, and Carl Brickey) and out to get Aaron and George Park.
Aaron & George are they only ones that can protect CRA from this evil. In other words, this is a campaign tract.

The five political tracks are nothing but a series of hit-pieces designed to evoke an emotional response so that Board members would vote YES to the proposed July 25th meeting.

I have had extensive email exchanges with a devout Park supporter that actually thinks Aaron deserves a Pulitzer for the journalistic expose’ that he has presented. Amazing. Furthermore, this individual thinks this whole thing is my fault because my blog post of the previous day goes after the Park brothers and John Briscoe. I have no power, I’m just a guy with a keyboard.

Park’s logical fallacies are too numerous to dissect, his leaps in logic and guilt by association are laughable.

Aaron’s overall theme is erecting the straw man of fraud and the wrapper is vote Yes.

Here are the variations of the conclusions from the five tracts. Each repeats the same lie. A vote YES will move the Board meeting from May 3o in Santa Barbara to Fresno on July 25th. No, it actually would create a second Board meeting at Harris Ranch which is nowhere near Fresno.

#1
Want to stop the Fraud and the Lynching? Vote Yes and support John Briscoe and give the Parks a fighting chance to defend themselves versus the Alice Khosravy / Wendy Albright / Tim Thiesen / Mark Gardner / Carl Brickey Kangaroo Court – move the board meeting to July 25th in Fresno.

#2
If you believe in Fairness, if you want to see the fraud dealt with – then vote Yes on the motion to move the board meeting from Santa Barbara to Fresno. If you support the fraud and you are interested in the lynching of the Park Brothers then join Alice Khosravy, Wendy Albright and their crew and vote no.

#3
If you believe in Fairness, if you want to see the fraud dealt with – then vote Yes on the motion to move the board meeting from Santa Barbara to Fresno. If you support the fraud and you are interested in the lynching of the Park Brothers then join Alice Khosravy, Wendy Albright and their crew and vote no.

#4
If you believe in Fairness, if you want to see the fraud dealt with – then vote Yes on the motion to move the board meeting from Santa Barbara to Fresno. If you support the fraud and you are interested in the lynching of the Park Brothers then join Alice Khosravy, Wendy Albright and their crew and vote no.

#5
If you believe in Fairness, if you want to see the fraud dealt with – then vote Yes on the motion to move the board meeting from Santa Barbara to Fresno. If you support the fraud and you are interested in the lynching of the Park Brothers then join Alice Khosravy, Wendy Albright and their crew and vote no.

I plan to go thru the five tracks only because they are now the starting point of the mandate for the Investigative Committee. Please note that blogging is my hobby not my source of income as it sometimes is for Mr. Park so I may not get to them all in the next week.

Facts-Subborn Things That Just Won’t Go Away

I was minding my own business today and decided to read my email. Typically, Sunday is a slow day for news but wow! What my friend sent me was a bombshell. After reading it, all I could think of was the line from Forest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

What the email contained was just as ridiculous as the idea of giving 7th century barbarians supersonic jets and nuclear weapons; …but enough about Obama’s foreign policy.

It was the vote totals for the online vote to approve the Briscoe/Park delay and witch hunt committee. Depending on how you count it, the vote result is somewhere between 28 to 32 Yes votes and 28 No. The variance is due to four folks voting and then resigning from the Board before the voting period closed. A question has been raised if votes by people no longer on the Board should be counted.

The vote totals were announced by Tom Hudson as 32 Yes, 28 No. Hudson, who is not even president yet (Briscoe’s resignation date has not happened yet), has decreed it to be so.

The practical effect of this vote is that CRA will not inform authorities or the five Ventura folks that their data was posted on the Internet because this has now been classified as an email rumor that needs investigation and verification.

The Investigative Committee’s Mandate

I am asking for your Yes vote to approve a committee which will have full authority to investigate any and all allegations in email/blogs published/sent Friday, April 17.

Serious allegations have been raised both regarding the content and proprietary information used in the emails by the authors. This committee’s work will not be limited to Friday’s allegations but wherever else their investigation may lead from the allegations.

The committee will be charged to report to the entire CRA board at the next board meeting the results of their investigation to date. By passing this, the board directs all CRA units, board members and others associated with CRA to provide whatever records or documents that are requested by the committee in a timely manner. This committee is not intended to circumvent any other pending board action.

The following board members shall be appointed:

Chair, Vice President Dale Tyler

37th Senate District Director Jay Peterson

Recording Secretary Greg Powers

This committee is designed to remove the data breach as an issue between now and the May meeting.

The other day a Board member told me that the Board can’t act between meetings only the President. Well I think they found a way. As a result of this vote, not just individuals can be held liable for what happened but now the entire Board has put themselves on the hook for this release of private information.

Concerning this committee, Tom Hudson wrote on April 22, 2015:

The facts are in dispute and John Briscoe is in the process of appointing a committee to investigate the facts and report back to the CRA Board.

John Briscoe has not refused to comply with California law—and at this point, we do not have the facts to support the assertion that any laws have been broken.  We’ll see.

The good news is that everyone is taking this very seriously and I think we will get to the bottom of it fairly soon.

Misters Park, Park, Briscoe, Hudson, et al., The fact is that personal information of five members of Ventura Republican Assembly were posted on the Internet for just over seven days; From April 17 to April 24, 2015. It is the FACT that the information was released not why that is the issue.

CRA released private and personal information of members simply because they paid their dues to Ventura RA. They had an expectation of privacy when they paid their dues. Their private information was released. Such a violation is not limited to release on the Internet. For whatever reason, CRA lost control of the information, it was compromised. This triggers the statute. This is a fact.

Mister A. Park, got the information from G. Park—who happens to be the statewide Membership Secretary of CRA and the brother of A. Park. This is a fact.

Furthermore, said act of releasing personal information has been reported to the FBI, Attorney General of the State of California, and local law enforcement. Some media outlets are also aware of this situation. This too is a fact and one that CRA does not take seriously.

One of my sources-that also was going to report this incident to law enforcement—says that per statute, CRA is facing $5,000 per day fines until the release of information is reported to authorities. At that rate, ya’ll will be approaching a quarter million dollar fine by the May 30th Board meeting. I hear the Treasurer is good but you might need a good attorney by then.

Is It Really Over?

Is the dust-up about the release of personal information in the rearview mirror now that the file is off the Internet blog site?

Unfortunately, “No.”

As far as I know:
• CRA has yet to report this incident to the authorities.
• CRA has not informed the five people directly affected that their information was out on the Internet.
• CRA has not offered the five people identity theft protection. I think they need to offer to pay any costs for people to secure their bank accounts; including paying for the printing of checks for these folks; especially if they had to open new accounts as a precaution.
• CRA has yet to secure and transfer the membership records from those responsible for the release of information so this won’t happen again.
• CRA also may have a problem because they did not already have a policy in place in case of an unauthorized disclosure of personal financial information.

This is the minimum that CRA should do. Most of the above are statutory requirements.

Also, CRA has not informed their membership (including the Board) about this breach.

This incident is far from over. I fully expect some legal repercussions for those involved but what form that will take only time will tell.

Crossing the Rubicon

Once upon a time, a “third rate burglary” –a crime of little importance—brought down a US President and his closest advisors. Why? It wasn’t the crime but the cover-up that created the legal difficulties that eventually send many to prison and forced Richard M. Nixon to resign.

Is history about to repeat itself because some can’t learn from its lessons?

I think Aaron Park’s posting of financial information on the Internet on April 17th is bringing about the same phenomenon. CRA’s leadership has become complicit by their conspiracy of silence on this matter. The Board Members of CRA are personally liable for any criminal or civil fines brought as a result of Park’s actions.

I would think in a state were Democrats dominate all parts of government that a Republican group would need to act in a manner above reproach but maybe that’s just me.

Mr. Park knew it was wrong so he created a second file and linked it to his blog on April 20th. This is called an admission against interest. He knew what he did was wrong but will not own up to it.
Original file Ventura-RA-Documents.pdf
New file Ventura-RA-Documents1.pdf

As I have written elsewhere, the top two leaders in CRA have chosen to do nothing to remedy this situation or to make restitution to the five people whose information is still on the web a week later.

Furthermore, I think it is clear that the CRA Board has “crossed the Rubicon” because they too have known about this and failed to act. As a group, they seem to be fine with ignoring the moral and legal obligation to right this wrong.

CRA keeps calling itself the conscience of the Republican Party. I think CRA has a severe case of Alzheimer disease and can only remember the glory days of old that never were. The legislature is about to make euthanasia legal, maybe CRA should be the first to exercise this new rite in California.

Addendum
A Board member has contacted me to dispute my attack on the Board as a whole. He states that the Board has done the only thing they can do under the Bylaws which is to call a meeting. Outside of a formal meeting only the President can act on behalf of the CRA.

Another Day and the Data Breach Continues

Ronald Reagan used to say “When your neighbor is out of work it’s a recession, when you’re out of work it’s a depression.”

Well now I guess we can say, “When Aaron Park posts someone else’s bank account information on the Internet it’s too bad, when your information is posted it’s a nightmare.” Or at least that is how I would feel. Unfortunately, Park’s idea of the Golden Rule isn’t “do unto others…”

A reasonable person would think that a Membership Secretary who purposely gives other folk’s personal financial information to his brother for the purposes of posting it on the Internet would be in trouble with both the organization that he serves as well as with the local sheriff but this is not the case. The CRA leadership’s response is “nothing to see here, move along. “  Would that still be the response of John Briscoe and Tom Hudson if it was their information? No, I think not.

And this is precisely the point. When people have one set of rules for others and a different set for themselves, this is wrong. Frankly, this is why so many people no longer participate in the political process. We all know that those in politics are hypocrites.

Virtually all the folks involved in CRA claim to be good, church going folks that love God and believe the Bible; however, if the Bible has no effect on the way they treat others and has no application to the way they live their lives then what good is all this church stuff? The Bible says to love your enemies but we can’t even show love and respect to our fellow Christians. We treat them like crap, not like image bearers of God.

When people are unwilling to admit they are wrong—this is anathema in politics where power is everything—and ask for forgiveness and offer restitution to those they have wronged, then their faith is good for nothing but to be trampled underfoot.

Do folks like Charles Monger see us acting in a way that causes him to admit that those folks in CRA really love each other even when they disagree? They always find a way to come together and help each other.

When’s that last time you heard someone say they were really glad to share the gospel with Rodney Stanhope and we all need to pray for him?

CRA is broken because her people are broken. I love Aaron and George Park and have enjoyed their company in the past but they are behaving badly right now. Instead of looking at their actions and how they affect others, they are just doubling down on their bad behavior.

I know my behavior is a mystery to many because I don’t show loyalty to people in the way they expect. People will fail. I try to be loyal to Principle and judge situations by an external standard. I want folks to play by the rules and not try to put their thumb on the scales. Agree to the rules and live within them. Don’t cheat.

If you have followed my blog or life, I have been an opponent of folks like the Parks, Karen England, Tim LeFevre, Steve Frank, Celeste Greig, Barbara Alby and a host of other that you would recognize. But at other times I have been a supporter of all these folks too. I call ‘em like I see ‘em.

For example, even after Karen failed to take over CRA, I still sent my son to her City on a Hill. It’s a great program; …even if for one week every summer, the Governor of California is Karen England. ( -:

I try to keep my disagreements to the actions and policies of people and not get personal. Have I always held to this standard? No, and for that I’m sorry.

Aaron, take this stuff off the Internet and stand-down. Ditto for George. I think you both need to resign from the Board and apologize to the five individuals that you have put at risk. I would like you to stay in CRA but you have weaponized the membership records and this must have consequences. You have violated the trust invested in you by CRA. I know both sides are ready to go 15 rounds but what for?

A Modest Proposal

It occurs to me that Aaron Park might not be the smartest crayon in the drawer when it comes to administering his blogsite. So in a spirit of glasnost, I wish to offer a tutorial to help him do the right thing.

As you know, if you accidently delete the icon for Microsoft Word from the desktop on your computer,  you aren’t deleting the actual program. You are simply removing a link to the location of the file.

In the same way, if you change a URL (universal resource locator) to point to a different file, that’s all it does is point. A URL is a shortcut to something else located somewhere else. Typically it is in the format http://www.YourWebsite.com

I think if you meditate on this principle for about five milliseconds that you might be able to go to http://www.rightondaily.com/wp-login.php and do the right thing.