For you conspiracy fans: watching the machine and some of its tiny, stinky parts

DEEPLY COMMITTED TO THE WELL-BEING OF—HIMSELF

.....Chancellor Raghu Mathur sure does some strange things—for instance, his very special hire (he essentially nullified the search committee’s recommendations) of the inexperienced Tod Burnett (the fellow, it seems, has never been a college administrator of any kind) as President of Saddleback College sure was odd.
.....Now, why would Mathur do something like that? Well, Burnett is a politician/bureaucrat with bigtime connections in California politics. Right now, he works for the State Chancellor; he used to work for the Governor.
.....We must always remember that Mathur is essentially a political animal (genus: political; species: narcissist), and he’s inside the local GOP machine, especially the crude and cruel gears inside a smallish dark and noisy box way, way over to the right.
.....One way the machine works is through endorsements. So, naturally, Mathur, the wily politician, endorses candidates who are associated with his own right-wing cronies on the local scene. It’s practically automatic. (More on that in a moment.)

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GOSH, THE PROXIMITY OF SOME PARTS OF THE MACHINE TO OTHER PARTS OF THE MACHINE CAN BE WORRISOME

.....According to Trustee Tom ("supervisor of pedophile") Fuentes' district bio, "Speaker Dennis ["enabler of pedophile"] Hastert of the United States House of Representatives appointed Trustee Fuentes in 2006 to serve...on the Board of Advisors of the United States Elections Assistance Commission [EAC].... The [EAC] oversees the expenditure of Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds across the nation."
.....According to Wikipedia, the EAC does more than that. It is responsible for “Creating a national program for the testing, certification, and decertification of voting systems.”
.....OK, so our man Fuentes is part of the machinery that oversees "voting systems."
.....According to Wikipedia, "[HAVA]...[was]...signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. [It was] Drafted (at least in part) in reaction to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election...."
.....The goals of HAVA include "[replacing] punch card voting systems." That is, HAVA seeks to move us toward electronic voting.
.....You'll recall that the 2000 and 2004 national elections were, in places, seriously hinky, and a large part of the hinkitude concerned the scandal-ridden electronic voting industry, which is dominated by three companies: Diebold, Sequoia, and Election Systems & Software (ES&S). Remember that last one: ES&S.
.....One aspect of the hinkitude concerned the politics of the people who own these companies. Amazingly, they keep turning out to be right-wingers--often, way-right-wingers. Or even way-way right-wingers.
.....Now, if you trace the history of ES&S in particular, you'll discover that a major deep-pocket in the ES&S saga is none other than mega-scary theocratic right-winger Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who lives here in Orange County.
.....So, as it turns out, Ahmanson was (and, according to some sources, still is) one of the Big Money Men behind the electronic voting industry.
.....Naturally, Ahmanson, the big "voting industry" cog, and Fuentes, the tiny "voting systems oversight" cog are close personal friends. They go way back. Decades even.
.....Lovely, isn't it?

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IT'S LIKE A FREAKIN' DAISY CHAIN

.....Rancho Santa Margarita Councilman Neil Blais, a familiar OC Republican, is running to replace term-limited Assemblyman Todd Spitzer in California’s 71st Assembly District.
.....I don’t care. But I was Googling “Raghu Mathur,” and I came upon Blais’ campaign website, and, in particular, the part of it devoted to “endorsements.”
.....Naturally, Blais is endorsed by my Congressman, Republican Gary Miller, aka maybe the most corrupt politician in Congress.
.....Blais is also endorsed by

• Mike Schroeder (head of the OC “Republican Mafia” and a close associate of Trustee [and former OC GOP chair] Tom Fuentes; Schroeder was much involved in the Frogue Recall)
• Mark Bucher (co-founder of Education Alliance, on whose board SOCCCD board president Don Wagner sits; Trustee Nancy Padberg, too, has EA associations)
• Chris Norby (conservative Sup, whose brother our Board Majority tried to slip onto the SOCCCD Board of Trustees back when Board Majoritarian Dot Fortune got caught living outside the county)
• John Williams (well, you remember him; he was a bailiff; now he's an SOCCCD trustee and, owing to local GOP connections, this "househusband" became the county guy in charge of corpses)
• Tony Rackauckas (corrupt OC DA; key member, along with disgraced former Sheriff Mike Carona [a frequent guest and prayer-leader at Irvine Valley College], of the OC Mafia)
• Marcia Milchiker (Good grief)
• Nancy Padberg (Well, she’s a conservative Republican, so what else is new. Plus she used to be, and probably still is, a member of Bucher's Education Alliance.)
• Adam Probolsky (this guy can be found in every dark corner, including the one in my classroom; he’s a close associate of Schroeder, Fuentes, and each of the rest of the OC mafiosi)

—and, of course, “Dr. Raghu Mathur, Chancellor, South Orange County Community College District.”

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YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE? NOT A PROBLEM!

.....It will come as no surprise that Blais has strong views concerning “illegal immigration”:

…I will fight to immediately secure the California border so that the flow of illegal immigrants is stopped once and for all. … I will join the Governor and our Republicans in Congress to convince neighboring states to also seal their borders with Mexico to end the flood of illegal immigrants. I support allowing all local law enforcement agencies to check legal status of those being incarcerated for crimes and identify illegal immigrants for deportation.

.....It’s the usual red meat.
.....One problem, though. Blais is a bit of a hypocrite.
.....I came upon this month-old story in the OC Reg:

Neil Blais and illegal immigration: the straight story

.....The upshot: Blais’ opponent, Corona mayor Jeff Miller (yet another conservative Republican), is accusing him of raising money for the benefit of illegal immigrants. If true, it would put an end to Blais' election hopes. The Reg’s Martin Wisckol looked into the charge and found it to be exaggerated.
.....On the other hand, he suggests, it has merit:

.....Blais and his wife, Destin, run a grant-writing consultancy. ... Three of the agencies and foundations with which Blais is contracted benefit, among others, illegal immigrants in Los Angeles County. ... ¶ The attacks from opponent Jeff Miller’s campaign include a mailer and a press release. Unless you’re paying close attention, you might think LA County’s spending on illegal immigration is Blais’ doing — and that he’s getting rich doing it. … ¶ The attack goes over the top, as many attacks ads do. But Blais was associated with agencies … that often don’t check the residency status of those [they help]…. … ¶ Blais may have done little business with these groups, but he never said he turned the work down. Rather, it appears that the groups never called on him to perform, with a small exception. It seems as though he was ready and willing to do the work.

.....Another way the machine works is that hypocrisy isn’t a problem. You just smile through it. It's like Sheriff Carona's piety and love of family. The fact that he's obviously a hypocritical Rat Bastard never mattered to Fuentes, Schroeder, Mathur, and that whole crowd—until he was formally charged with crimes and put on trial. "America's Sheriff" my ass.
.....Naturally, I could go on forever with examples of this crowd's hypocrisy. Remember when Tom "mentor to pedophile" Fuentes was concerned about possible faculty "cronyism"?! (Good Lord!) And remember when Mathur crusaded against "reassigned time"? He was only the champion abuser of RT while an instructor. He was the poster child for the very thing he was railing against!

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.....Here’s an oddity. I noticed that Dana Rohrabacher is listed as endorsing both Blais and Blais’ opponent, Miller.
.....The machine gets complicated.