Doug Ose Shifts Abortion Views

Saturday, I got the opportunity to asked former congressman and current congressional candidate Doug Ose a serious campaign question. The answer, while somewhat evasive, was still important.

While attending Second Amendment Saturday, organizer and regional CRA vice-president, Carl Brickey, arranged for a pro-forma endorsement vote for two competitive congressional districts. The endorsement was just to ratify the results of the election a few weeks ago.

First, San Joaquin candidate, Tony Amador was endorsed. Tony let us know that he was not happy that he did not get endorsed for the June election. I’ll take credit for that since I spoke most vociferously against his perpetual candidacy every two years at the last endorsement vote.

Next was Doug Ose. In his last foray into Congress, Ose was adamantly “pro-choice” and a darling in the eyes of Planned Parenthood. He also was part of the liberal Republican group claiming to be a “Main Street Republican.” Ose has also claimed to be a proud supporter of business. His rehetoric has been fiscally conservative and socially liberal. In his current incarnation as a candidate, he has claimed to be a “conservative.”

Given these facts, I asked him what I thought was an important question. It came out something like this:
“In the past, you have a record of being pro-choice. As part of Obamacare, the government is mandating that all businesses must provide abortion services even when they object to this as being contrary to their beliefs, do you agree with this?”
Ose responded that “I would repeal all of Obamacare.”
Then I said, “I mean like Hobby Lobby.”
He then said, “The Court hasn’t ruled on that yet. As I said, I will repeal Obamacare.” Then he added, “Actually, I’m pro-life once the baby reaches viability.”

Wow! Ose has moved on the issue! Maybe not where we think he should be but at least he is not defending legal abortion thru all nine months of the pregnancy.

A Sterling Week for Race Relations

Donald Sterling is in the news this week for private comments made regarding his feeling about some folks that are a different race. The conversation was recorded without his permission. The release of the recording is a violation of California law but nobody cares.

The race baiters and self-appointed PC police in and out of the media have condemned Sterling and pressured the NBA to ban him for life. As the owner of an NBA team, Sterling has the right to run his business but cannot do so in person? Really?

Why is it that words are so offensive but actions are excused? Professional athletes have murdered, raped, robbed, attacked fans, and done other acts and these folks aren’t banned for life. Yeah, Pete Rose placed a few bets on games and was banned but he is the rare exception. Michael Vick, O.J. Simpson, Tiger Woods, Ron Artest, Barry Bonds, Oscar Pistorius risked civil punishment but their sports didn’t rush to judgment and ban them for life—at least not that I can recall.

John Rocker, Jimmy “The Greek’ Snyder, Rush Limbaugh, Donald Sterling, Don Imus and a host of others have paid a price for their words. Men like these have lost businesses, paid fines and lost jobs and been castigated by the liberal media for statements that were declared racist. Snyder was canned for making a comment on a well-documented historical fact that some slave owners bred slaves to be good manual laborers. Limbaugh has lost sponsors on more than one occasion for stating his feelings on the news of the day. He also was not allowed to be part of an ownership group seeking to purchase an NFL team. Rocker said some folks in New York are freaks. I still haven’t heard what Sterling said that have everyone so up in arms.

I think people have the right to say what they want—whether I agree with them or not. The people mentioned above are all white; nonetheless, my problem is with the hypocrisy that Blacks or Hispanics or people in other groups somehow cannot be racists. Why is the myth perpetrated that only whites are or can be racist. Why can’t Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan be called racists also? Why do they get a pass?

Lest you think I’m reducing this to Black v White, what about California’s SCA-5? It pits Chinese and Asian Americans against the Hispanics. The “Latino” folks in the state capitol want to re-introduce race (and other categories) of discrimination into the California Constitution and barely a word of this ever appeared in the mainstream media.

I just wish the hypocrisy would cease. MLK was right when he referred to an America “where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I think every year we are further from this ideal.

Amazon.com Music Cloud Album Confusion

I have been using the Amazon Cloud for music but it has shortcomings that apparently they don’t have any interest in fixing.
• The most obvious is that you can’t edit or reject the album cover that they wish to assign to your music. (See below for examples).
• Secondly, I can find no easy way to distinguish between music sources. Which songs did I buy from them and which did I upload myself?
• Lastly, whatever happened to matching music and letting me get a digital copy that would replace and LP that I ripped myself?

This English “boy band” was a big seller in Europe but this ripped CD clearly has the wrong cover.

 

Johnny Depp’s short lived singing career is mistaken for The Carpenters! Does Amazon think he looks more like Karen or Richard?

Rod Stewart is two or three decades after the folks listed on this album cover.

 

Sweet Comfort Band is not Foreigner. Again, this CD purchased in Canada somehow misses the mark.

 

While the Cornerstone article on Mike Warnke mentions his partying after shows, I don’t think Word ever had this as a draft cover for his comedy LPs.

Red Robin: Faulty Family Fare

I took the family to the local Red Robin restaurant yesterday for dinner. It is the first time in over a year that we have visited them. The experience was unsatisfactory.

We waited twenty minutes for a table—which is not that unusual—even when several tables were not in use. Our waitress was not very good. We never did get napkins or silverware brought to our table—even after food was served. I had to get up and walk over to the food prep area and get them from another employee. Later I had to go back to get mustard for the wife. The food was noticeable smaller portions than it used to be and was not prepared the same way. No attempt was made to garnish the plates or show pride in the food. Also, the “bottomless French fries” weren’t very bottomless when they never brought them out right away and kept the basket full. (Our teenager eats French fries by the handful.) Our $55 outing (for four) was disappointing. Pizza would have been cheaper.

CNN’s Don Lemon Believes Millennium Movie Plot Happened

Holy Netflix Batman!!

Here’s proof CNN is crazier than MSNBC

Millennium is a movie released in 1989.

Here is the plot synopsis: An NTSB investigator seeking the cause of an airline disaster meets a warrior woman from 1000 years in the future.
Yeah, future babe travel thru a wormhole and steals bodies off a doomed commercial jetliner to save the human race in her time.

Tonight I found this story.

CNN’s Don Lemon: ‘Is It Preposterous’ to Think a Black Hole Caused Flight 370 to Go Missing?

CNN’s Don Lemon has been entertaining all sorts of theories about the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, including the chance something “supernatural” happened, but on Wednesday night, he actually asked panelists about the possibility a black hole was involved.

Lemon brought this up along with other “conspiracy theories” people have been floating on Twitter, including people noting the eerie parallels to Lost and The Twilight Zone, and wondered, “is it preposterous” to consider a black hole as a possibility?

Mary Schiavo, a former Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said, “A small black hole would suck in our entire universe, so we know it’s not that.”

Here’s another theory I’ll just throw out there: what about the plane entered a wormhole into another dimension? I don’t know if that’s how the science works, though.

 

Who Took the Gun to the Lego Movie?

I went to the local theater on Monday to take the boys to the Lego Movie. We were meeting another party there so I bought tickets for all of us. I left the teenager to meet his friends out front while little brother and I went inside to save some seats. (It was clear the early show was filling quickly since it was the President’s Day holiday.)

After securing seats, I called the teenager and told him what great seats we had taken. He then informed me that his friends were on the way with an extra person. He told me he had already tried to get an extra ticket but the show was now sold out. Much to my disappointment, this was a package deal and we all needed to sit together in the same showing; since that was no longer possible, I reluctantly left the theater and proceeded to get a refund for the show.

As my younger son and I stood in line to get the refund, I noticed the kids in front of me pick something up that was on the ground, play with it for a few seconds and then drop it again. I looked at the object on the ground in disbelief. I asked my son to pick it up. I then asked him if it was metal. He replied I think so. I then took it from his hand. It was a large bullet for a powerful pistol. (I later learned that it was likely a 38 Special round.) It was about the diameter of my pinkie finger and the casing was about an inch and ¾ long. The bullet was a concave shape.

After completing my refund, I took the bullet and gave it to a security guy at the theater and then we left.

I believe in the Second Amendment—more even than many Conservatives—but no responsible citizen would be dropping live ammo on the ground for small children to play with. I don’t think the owner of that bullet is responsible enough to be “packin’ heat” in public.

CRA Board Dishes Out Blarney to Tom McClintock

The governing Board of the California Republican Assembly met on Saturday just because it was tradition to have a Board meeting concurrent with the convention of the California Republican Party. The tradition—which traces itself to the heyday of Barbara Alby—used to be for the purpose of plotting voting strategy for the Sunday morning General Session of CRP. Now however, CRA has too few troops to command at the CRP gathering and nothing of significance is allowed to get to the floor for a vote (since CRP is a top-down group run by its Board); thus holding this meeting just two weeks after the CRA Annual Convention had no real purpose.

On Saturday, just to fill time, a few candidates were allowed to speak to the CRA Board and a few more were hastily endorsed with no serious vetting. In between a few committee reports and assignments were dealt with—nothing that couldn’t be done by conference call or a few emails. Then, after over an hour of nonsense, the big event—Congressional District 4 finally was brought before the body.

In the agenda, it was listed as “Resolutions.” A resolution was introduced to thank Tom McClintock for voting right. Chairman John Briscoe felt this was reasonable and assured us that he had talked to Tom McClintock on three occasions about the CD-4 situation. Even though this resolution was clearly a slap at the CRA chapters within the McClintock district, it was passed overwhelmingly by the Board.

Then the CD-4 endorsement vote was brought up. The thinking seemed to be like this…”we papered over the mistake made by the local endorsing convention for slighting the Congressman by passing our resolution, and we didn’t actually undercut the local groups because we stopped short of using the words “support” or “endorse” in the resolution, and now we need to put this mess behind us.” Any effort to call a second endorsing convention in this race was killed. Several reasons were given but the one that mattered was the likelihood that a second endorsing convention would also yield no endorsement, thus bringing further disgrace on the CRA.

I find it disturbing that the CRA Board was so willing to undercut the decision of local chapters and still proclaim itself a grassroots organization. The four chapters involved were treated dismissively. Worst of all, a congressman that has done nothing to build the party in or around his district, comes away from the whole thing as untouchable. Power triumphs over principle once again.

Missing 777 Mystery

While it sounds like something from a Tom Clancy novel, Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a fully loaded Boeing 777 has been missing for about a week.
It is clear by now that it left the designated flight path.
No ransom claims have been issued.
No debris has been found.
No black boxes or transponders have broadcasted.

So what happened?

I think the passengers and crew are likely dead. But what of the aircraft itself? Is someone weaponizing it? I think the proper identification of the hijackers is crucial to identifying likely targets. What happens next could make 9/11 look like a picnic.

Is my idea a conspiracy or just a caution? I think we will know soon.

Tom Hudson: Buyer’s Remorse Over CD-4

Tom Hudson has “buyer’s remorse” (or a bad case of jelly spine) after the local endorsing convention that he helped organize failed to deliver an endorsement for Tom McClintock. The endorsing convention was held in conjunction with the annual convention of the California Republican Assembly in Buena Park.

The organizers of the Buena Park convention were the Placer County Republican Assembly. Yeah, I know Placer County is at least 350 miles away from the convention site but I’m just the messenger. Anyway, the Placer folks (including Hudson) wanted as many local endorsing conventions held at the convention as they could schedule. These votes were scheduled on the morning of Saturday March 1st; the first full day of the annual convention.

Some people like me went ballistic and said they wanted local endorsing conventions held in or near the district. Those that felt like me argued that candidates, delegates, rank & file CRA members and the public should be invited. It was a way to endorse candidates in an open and transparent process. In addition, the filing period was still open at the time the annual convention was held.

Lastly, the club I belong to had not voted to select any delegates for an endorsing convention—only delegates for the statewide convention. We planned to select endorsing convention delegates at the first meeting after the convention (which we did.) Traditionally, delegates to the annual convention have a large economic cost to attend while endorsing delegates can carpool to the event since it is held closer to home. In addition, the announcement for the endorsing conventions in Buena Park also said that participants had to pay the registration fee of $40 in order to vote. I also protested this as being a “pole tax”.

I went so far as to tell the folks from Placer that neither I nor any people from my club would participate in an endorsement vote for any contested election in an area where we had jurisdiction. Buena Park was simply too far and too soon to hold such a vote.

Those that protested were able to pull endorsements in their area off of the endorsement schedule. Most races in Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties were removed within days of the February 14th call for endorsement conventions.

Hudson gave his full throated support for endorsement votes at the Buena Park convention. I know he was aware of concerns raised by people like me. Then at the Buena Park convention, he was present at many of the endorsement votes that were held on Saturday morning. Before, during and for the rest of the convention, Hudson was OK with the process and its results; then on Monday—his first day back to his job with the State—he has a change of heart.!?

Clearly someone contacted him and pressured him for reconsideration. Hudson decided that what’s in the past—that he agreed with at the time—was suddenly invalid and he had called for a new endorsing convention to redo the vote. This call was revoked by CRA President John Briscoe.

So on March 11th, Hudson sent an email blast to the CRA Board. To me this was the key sentence:

It is my position that there has not been a valid CRA local endorsing convention in the Fourth Congressional District and we need to hold one right away so that we can endorse Tom McClintock for Congress.

Please note, he does not say this is now a contested race and I think we should take another look at CD-4 but he says the purpose is “so we can endorse Tom McClintock.” Why? Both Republicans in the race are conservative.

Hudson is the parliamentarian of the CRA Board and he often uses this position to obfuscate issues with voluminous amounts of nonsense that sound good at the time but upon further analysis are distorts or outright fabrications to get him to the outcome that he desires.

Besides the famous incident that I chronicled on this blog with him and the Yolo County Republican Assembly many years ago, the most recent example was ironically on the last day of the Buena Park convention. Hudson argued for a good ten minutes that local RA chapters were not required to maintain minutes of their meetings. He stated this was not required under the CRA’s Statewide Bylaws or under Robert’s Rules of Order. OK so why is Secretary a required officer?

After insulting our intelligence at the CRA meeting with that whopper, he has the stones to claim the Buena Park endorsement isn’t valid because he didn’t have minutes from that endorsing convention!

Talk about talking out of both sides!!

This might become a major focus of the CRA Board meeting on Saturday in Burlingame. What a colossal waste of time if that happens. Tom, your side (whatever that is) lost, get over it and move on.

I have more I could say about this but I will keep my powder dry…for now.