CRA: Elephant Without Memory II

Here is an update.

As I mentioned in my last blog, some local CRA chapters are enjoying the “hunting license” granted to them by the State Board thanks to the precedent set by granting the Santa Clarita chapter the power to purge undesirable members; i.e. those folks that are concurrently members in the Conservative Republicans of California organization.

Word is that the president of the Anaheim RA has rejected 22 members or applicants for new membership based on the Santa Clarita decision. Please note that Anaheim never even amended their bylaws, their president just made a unilateral decision. The Anaheim president conveniently takes this action just weeks before officer elections. He needs to be sure he keeps his job as president; perhaps his new title should be Fuhrer or Czar.

Lest you think this purge is limited to CRC members and other malcontents in southern California. Word is that the head of the San Joaquin RA is weighing his options to remove angry Libertarians from his midst. You may know these angry Libertarians better by their self-identification as Tea Party members.

These purges are in direct contradiction to other parts of local and statewide bylaws but now that the Board let the proverbial genie out of the bottle who will put a stop to this idiocy?

The CRA President—John Briscoe—condoned the committee vote to allow such arbitrary decision making.  He was on the conference call when the vote was taken. As you may recall, the committee recommended to the State Board that the Santa Clarita bylaws change be permitted by a four to one vote.

Where was our beloved parliamentarian when all this was going on? Answer: present and very silent.

Like Barbara Alby, Celeste Greg and others I have witnessed in my years in and around CRA, playing by the rules is not a sure bet. Any way to put your thumb on the scales is fair game. They only know power politics. Too bad all these self-identified Christians never read their Bible. I challenge you to look up all the biblical verses on fair scales and measurements. The Bible says “God hates” those that purposely stack the deck in their favor to gain advantage over others. CRA thinks they are God’s gift to the Republican Party and the State of California and yet their actions dishonor their Lord.

CRA has made a terrible decision and most of their leadership is oblivious to the implications of their vote. Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. The irony that the draconian bylaws written by Markham Robinson and Ed Hernandez for Yolo County RA back in the 1990’s are now the rules of the whole statewide organization is too rich to ignore. Another irony is that both had Tom Hudson’s blessing.

CRA needs to hold an emergency vote to stay their previous decision until it can be discussed at their next Board meeting. Failure to do so will just be one more reason for conservative folks to register as Decline-to State.

CRA: The Elephant Without a Memory

Last Saturday, the California Republican Assembly put on a display of incongruity so amazing, I’m struggling with how to describe the hypocrisy and irony that made the meeting such a disaster.

The train wreck of expediency over principle concerns the Conservative Republicans of California group founded by Karen England, Steve Frank and others ejected from CRA. Please understand that CRC is basically a paper organization with fewer than five active chapters in a state of almost 40 million residents. Think of the United States versus Granada in a military conflict. (Oh we did that once already.) How a group with no members in the room can cause such an irrational and emotional response in a CRA Board meeting was amazing to witness.

The first place CRC raised its hydra like head was when Aaron Park made a motion to unilaterally forgive Mark Pruner and another political operative—Mark Spannagel—from the remainder of their five and ten year banishments from CRA. Aaron’s reason was to get in good with some elected officials like Doug Lamalfa. It was argued that this unilateral act of charity would be a way of putting the unpleasantness of the mass membership purge of 2011 behind CRA and show that the group—under the leadership of John Briscoe—is interested in looking forward. It was admitted during debate that neither Pruner nor Spannagel had asked for forgiveness of past misdeeds or expressed any interest to again be involved with CRA. When the motion came to a vote, it failed by a wide margin.

Then CRC was brought up again under the report presented by Carl Brickey. It seems the Santa Clarita RA had a bylaw amendment that needed Board approval. Below is the text of their revision of membership.

Section 2. Qualifications. Regular membership of the Assembly shall be limited to those American citizens of good moral character who: 1) are registered to vote as members of the Republican Party; 2) are otherwise eligible to be CRA members, 3) do not belong to another CRA unit and 4) do not belong to the organization currently known as the Conservative Republicans of California at a state or local level.
(Bold items are changes to existing language)

When Brickey presented this item of the report, not a single person in the room asked why the committee recommendation was four to one to approve and not unanimous like all the other items before his committee.

I got up and said that both CRA and CRC are chartered by the California Republican Party and thus we have no right to tell another equally chartered group they were not welcomed in CRA. I said this is wrong and we literally have no right to approve a bylaw that is contrary to our charter. How we feel about CRC is not this issue. In effect, I argued principle—as I always do.

Others—including the Park brothers—saw no problem with this bylaw change. These are the same guys that 45 minutes before we arguing for forgiveness of Pruner and Spannagel in order to put the past behind us and now they are OK with banning CRC members? Others of the CRA brain trust said that this was a local issue and if that’s what this local chapter wants then they are OK with this amendment because the CRA Statewide Board is not making this the policy of CRA as a whole. OK so why was the Statewide Board voting on this then? The amendment was approved with three NO votes including mine.

This raises so many questions.
• First, the fact that this came before the Board means that the Statewide CRA organization has made it the policy that any chapter can reject members based on other affiliations that members may have. These words come to mind, “Have you now or ever been in the past a communist?”
• Second, CRA has no access or right to access CRC membership lists so how do they know who is a member of that group? Ironically, CRC is based on the very same principals as CRA just different leadership.
• Third, under the current Bylaws of CRA, this rule does not affect current CRA members, only those wishing to join in the future. Thus, this sell-out of principle—if applied in accordance with the rest of the CRA Bylaws—will do nothing to help eject the eight members in Santa Clarita that are a thorn in their side. Santa Clarita has over 150 members and can’t abide a few angry folks?
• Fourth, any members of Santa Clarita that are ejected have the right under the Statewide Bylaws to appeal the decision to the State Board.

Later in the meeting, Aaron Park made a pitch that CRA should consider Director’s and Officer’s Liability Insurance. This was just the cherry on top. Park votes to create a litigious situation for the CRA Board and then offers to sell them insurance in case anybody takes them to court for acting stupidly.

CRA deserved to be sued in 2011 and they deserve it today for this stupid and ill-advised vote.

OH, and just to prove they really did open Pandora’s Box, by Monday, CRA leadership had been contacted by several other chapters wanting exclusionary language added to their Bylaws to trim the unwanted from their ranks.

Way to grow CRA… sorry fellows but I expected more.

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.