• From this morning's Frank Mickadeit column: Jeff Nielsen should have dealt long ago…The new evidence would have refuted any defense claim that Nielsen had downloaded child porn inadvertently when searching legal gay-sex sites. "When you have newsgroups like, ' Sven's House of Teenage Lust,' that's unambiguous," coprosecutor Matt Lockhart noted. ¶ Lockhart says Nielsen's two former boyfriends "changed the whole case" by agreeing to testify and should be commended because they were "scared to death" of the manipulative Nielsen….• This morning’s editorial in the OC Reg: [T]oxic atmosphere of local Republican politics:
…But in politics – and especially the nasty, scandal-plagued world of Orange County Republican politics these days – opponents reach for the long knives at any opportunity. And so, after Supervisor Janet Nguyen agreed to pay $5,000 in fines for illegal donations to her legal-defense fund after her three-vote election victory in February, her opponents came out swinging. ¶ Attorney Mike Schroeder, who represents losing candidate Trung Nguyen, told the news media that "This was an organized attempt to circumvent the law that they repeatedly lied about until they got caught." He was surprised by the low fine amount. Yet the Fair Political Practices Commission, which must still approve the settlement deal when it meets later this month, argued in its report, "In this case, the investigation did not produce sufficient evidence to support a finding that the violations were deliberate. In addition, all of the fundraising occurred after the election and no campaign statements were filed incorrectly as a result of this activity. The money was returned promptly when the mistake became apparent." ¶ … Ms. Nguyen's consultant, Dave Gilliard, told us that Mr. Schroeder "continues to appeal and appeal and appeal [the election verdict]," and is trying to harass Ms. Nguyen so that she cannot possibly win re-election. That is an increasingly common view. In a column in the latest Red County magazine, conservative political activist Mark Bucher writes about "a poison in our party," which he describes as the "practice by some Republicans to attack people personally, and destroy their lives if necessary, as a means to obtaining more power." His example: "Trung Nguyen and his lawyer, Mike Schroeder, are attempting to weaken Supervisor Janet Nguyen through personal attacks, accusations of criminal behavior and serial complaints and lawsuits. Their goal is to damage her politically and financially and thereby increase Trung's chances of winning the seat next year."….Some Republicans? Tom Fuentes was among Trung Nguyen’s advisors. [Oops. I think I got my Nguyens mixed up. Fuentes advised Tan, not Trung. –CW]
• From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Presidential Politics and the Student Vote:
...On the presidential nomination question, Barack Obama and Rudolph Giuliani come out ahead, according to the “Fall 2007 Youth Survey on Politics and Public Service.” … ¶ Among likely young Democratic voters, Obama (38 percent) leads U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York (33 percent) by five percentage points, and both candidates are well ahead of former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina (7 percent). On college campuses, Obama’s margin is even wider. He’s at 44 percent to Clinton’s 23 percent. (Polling stopped a month ago.) Clinton edges Obama among those surveyed who are not currently at a four-year college and those who have never enrolled at any college…. ¶ [James Leach, a former Republican Congressman from Iowa] referred to data showing that more than one-third of the young people surveyed say the two parties are “doing such a poor job that a third major party is need.” Only 30 percent said that Democrats and Republicans are “adequately representing the American people.” Liberals were more likely to say a third party is needed than were conservatives. And while more than 70 percent of the entire cohort said elected officials don’t have the same priorities that they do, more than 6 in 10 said getting involved in politics is “honorable.”….
9 comments:
So when is the local GOP leadership going to take responsibility for harboring AND defending this predataor?
When are we going to find out who worked behind the scenes to delay and derail Nielsen's first trial?
Isn't there a pattern here???? - Fuentes and the sex abuse scandal in the Oc diocese and now this?
Who is going to connect the dots?
Here is a letter written in defense of Nielsen. It appeared in the OC Weekly:
letter:
What happened to reporting the news in an unbiased manner? Or reporting only facts and not opinion? This reporter must really, really have a personal vendetta against Jeff Nielsen or maybe an obsession with him in some weird way? Otherwise, how do you explain his constant “he must be guilty” opinions? I hope he’s not ever on any jury! The person would be thrown in jail before the trial even began! Sad state of affairs we’re in these days because of reporting like this. If the DA’s office had any REAL actual physical evidence this trial would not have taken 4 years to begin, would it? But then again, [Moxley's] reporting of the “facts” is non-existent. He simply states his “opinion” without giving the reader the “facts” of the case.
Anonymous
Via email
I hear that reporter Moxley and the Weekly received many letters like this one, some written by local GOPers - I hope they publish them all!
Doesn't Jeffrey Nielsen sit on the IVC Foundation and hand out big checks to deserving students?
No, I don't think Nielsen has anything to do with the Foundation. At any rate, his mug doesn't come up at the Foundation website, nor do I recall ever seeing it. --CW
oh, I must have been thinking of another slick OC GOP operative...there's so many you know...
mmm, teenage lust. mmm.
The Irvine Valley Foundation Form 990 has some "difficulties". I have given it a once over and it is NOT to the letter of the IRS instructions. I am also having problems rationalizing the numbers.
For instance, I see that it costs over a dollar to give away a dollar in scholarships.
I see that some $70345 was taken in in income producing activities. That is cash in the door. Yet Gross Receipts are claimed as $770495. Subtract $414663 from that as functional expenses leaves $355832 net cash income.
$355832 plus the beginning of year cash balance of about $387000 is supposed to get us to an end of year amount of $743000.
The claimed end of year cash balance is $396000.
This is a third of a million dollar problem.
This is a cursory examination. You folks are alot closer to this than I am. You should take a look at it.
I got interested in this Form 990 stuff when it was reported that my local Foundation was in receipt of General Fund money. These monies are not reported in the Form 990. This is evidence of a crime. There is much more going on with my Foundation than just that.
Foundations are havens for corruption. Typically they are just vehicles for employing friends, going golfing or fine dining.
They are also wasteful in their distribution of funds. Flying over your campus and dumping $770495 one dollar bills out of the airplane would put more in the pockets of students than the $215755 that were actually disbursed.
OK,torabora, to whom would we make such suspicious activity known? The IRS? The LA Times? The OC Grand Jury? If I recall, this is not the first time such discrepancies have occurred in the IVC Foundation. But then that office has been the site of a sinecure for one of Fuentes' buddies--and of course the current guy who thought a book burning would be a grand idea! That alone should trigger someone's thorough investigation!
Post a Comment