$25,000 for another creep? Enough!

Dear fellow denizens of the SOCCCD:

Boy, this is quite a place to spend your professional life.

For instance, over here, we’ve got an elephant-footed, hardball-playing trustee who, when he isn’t taking the lowest of roads (stationing guards at polling places, nixing study-abroad programs to punish critics, etc.), he’s praying to the Lord or calling insufficiently pure Republicans “whores.”

Lovely.

He’s got a team of sorts, including a lawyer. A big fat card on his Rolodex is dedicated to one Phil Greer, attorney to the right-wing OC stars, such as the ethically challenged OC Treasurer, Chriss Street, the junket-loving and incompetent OC Guardian/Administrator, John Williams, all but one of the brainless OC Supes, and—well, Raghu P. Mathur.

Greer is the OC Republican mafia's consigliere. He's a total creep.

I’ve been assured by a reliable source that the SOCCCD recently paid the fellow $25,000. What for? Well, for participating in that heart-warming endeavor called the “Mathur settlement,” aka the Twilight Zonean saga of Mathur playing every desperate card up his sleeve (and one or two cards that he only imagines) while determined former admirers hustle him forcefully out the door, and for good.

But wait! This Phil Greer fella must be a pretty good lawyer, right?

Dunno about that. I’m more interested in his ethics. Now, what manner of ethics do you suppose the fellow has? HINT: he’s Fuentes’ go-to lawyer. He represents Street, Williams, Mathur, and their pals.

That’s right. NONE.

Here’s what the LA Times had to say about him a couple of years ago:

Rebuked O.C. lawyer keeps busy (H.G. Reza)

Janet Nguyen was barely losing the February election for county supervisor. When she decided to ask for the recount that would eventually put her ahead, she did what many Orange County Republicans do when they need election law advice. She hired Phillip Greer.
. . .
Despite his status as an advisor to Orange County Republicans, the State Bar of California has disciplined Greer twice in the last 11 years and ordered him each time to take ethics courses. His advice to Nguyen that she set up a secret defense fund, which was later ruled illegal, led state election officials to rebuke the supervisor. When Greer returned the donations, which had been sent to one of his accounts, at least one of the checks bounced.
. . .
This month, Nguyen agreed to pay $5,000 in fines to settle investigations into the fundraising scheme. The county supervisor has said she acted on Greer's advice. Nguyen did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.

. . . [The Times goes into the details; check 'em out.]

According to state bar records, Greer represented a Georgia firm in one lawsuit at the same time he was suing the firm in another case in 2002. The state bar investigation found that Greer's representation of both parties was a "willful violation of Rules of Professional Conduct."

In the earlier disciplinary action, Greer settled a client's personal injury lawsuit for $5,000 in 1990, withholding $1,634 to pay her medical bills. The money should have been kept in Greer's client trust account.

In 1991, the client asked Greer for the remainder of the money because her insurance had paid the bills, records show. Greer did not pay her for three years, and when he did he used a cashier's check instead of one from his client trust account. According to the state bar's findings, his trust account daily balances "consistently fell below $1,634," the amount that should have always been in the account.

Greer blamed his office manager, saying the employee had removed client files, which he discovered after closing his Long Beach office. The state bar said Greer's failure to supervise the office manager prevented him from properly representing the client.
Greer was required to take ethics courses in both cases.

There were also apparent problems in repayment of at least one $5,000 contribution made to Greer's client trust account for Nguyen's defense fund. The refund check was written from Greer's office account to Townsend Public Affairs, a lobbying firm based in Irvine, and marked "Nguyen refund." The check was dated April 15, 2007, but the firm did not receive it until June 7, according to sources familiar with the transaction. It bounced June 12. Eight days later a firm official wrote Greer, asking him to mail another check. It did not arrive until Oct. 18, sources said. This appears to conflict with the finding that Nguyen returned the donations within a month of receiving them.

In an e-mail to The Times, Greer wrote, "I have no idea as to why the April check was not tendered till June, and it is my understanding that they were made good as soon as we were informed there was a problem."….

What a freakin' creep. C’mon. Aren’t you sick and tired of the district being saddled with the likes of Tom Fuentes and his creep brigade—Chriss Street, Mike Carona, Raghu Mathur, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Adam Probolsky, Jack the Ripper, Phil Greer, Arlene Greer, Rosy Greer, and Pam Grier?*

I don’t care how many times the guy prays to the Lord and rolls his eyes to Heaven. He’s a creep. And our district is up to its eye balls in his rotting, sulphurous creepitude, mixed with various exotic other varieties of appalling, epic creepulescence: Mathur-creep, Gensler-creep, Fennel-creep, Sherry-creep, “sorry, Roy, but I’ve got to play the game to protect my program”-creep, “It’s a new era of trust!”-creep, “how-come-you-didn’t-hire-our-favorite-adjunct?”-creep, and all the other f*cking creeps.

Our district will now move forward with a chancellor search. (And, after that, there will be other hires.) Given our district's record with such hires. I'm worried.

I have no doubt that Board President Wagner is a better man than Mr. Fuentes. I’m not even gonna call him a creep. But better-than-Fuentes creepitude is not good enough.

I want some freakin’ decency. At long last!

This aging Eagle Scout is dedicating himself to one thing. I want honest hiring processes. I don’t care who we hire. I’m beyond caring about that. For me, it’s simple. I wanna work at a place where, fundamentally, decency and honesty prevails. That means that there’s no FIX. Not to any degree—and, yes, this admits of degrees, and you know it. They can hire Nixon’s corpse for all I care. They can hire Dr. Laura or Michelle Maulkin. I DON’T CARE, as long as she’s the best hire, straight up.

Yes!

There was a time when more of us than now stood together and said “NO WAY” to hinky hires, including the kind where “good” people get to know each other and depend on each other and, hey, even do good work together—and, so, naturally, they make damned sure that the “right” person ends up with the right job.

Nope.

I don’t give a shit anymore. I don’t care how good the person is. I don’t care how freakin’ wonderful it would be if they got the job. Unless the process is clean, it’s flat wrong and there’s no way we’ll ever get healthy around here with that stuff in the background, like the miasma of rotting pools of bubbling moral rot.

Enough!

*OK, I don't really have anything against these last two "greers."

COMMENTS:

Anonymous‬ said...: Since Chriss Street spells his first name with two S's, it seems natural to me to pronounce Chriss with an emphasis on the "iss," so that it rhymes with "hiss." He is a snake, after all. ~ 8:56 PM, February 10, 2010
‪Anonymous‬ said...: It's true that their creepy attitude has spread throughout the district -- little matters to folks anymore, even the ones who make the nicey-nice speeches. Sigh. Everyone is just out for their own. ~ 9:35 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said...: No fix! I'm with you Roy but I think we're outnumbered. ~ 9:36 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said...: Pam Grier is great.

(Do you know something we don't know, Roy?) ~ 9:47 PM
‪B. von Traven said...: See the asterisk? Yeah, she's great. I just wanted to write "Pam Grier." ~ 9:48 PM
Anonymous‬ said...: When you're kids, everyone wants you to be good little boy or girl scouts -- then when you grow up they want you to forget all about it and do the expedient thing, to sell out, yourself and others. ~ 9:51 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said...: I think it will come down to two choices for replacing Raghu. Glenn or Tod. With the current Board hiring policy it seems they could find a drunk bum passed out in front of the "Ronald Reagan Board of Trustees Room" and pick him/her (assuming they have the proper conservative credentials). That's one hiring committee I wouldn't want to be on. It would be a total waste of time. ~ 11:14 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said...: I like it when Roy gets all idealistic. ~ 6:40 AM, February 11, 2010
Anonymous‬ said...: I'm with you. $25000! ~ 8:56 AM

I flag, therefore I am

Two stories from this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

Philosophers Push Campaign Against Limits on Hiring Gay Professors

Calvin College has become the first institution covered by a new rule of the American Philosophical Association of requiring any college that violates any part of the association's anti-bias policy to have job listings with the association flagged. The rule was adopted late last year in response to the concerns of many philosophers about having their association list jobs from institutions that do not hire gay professors. One aim of the policy, proponents said, was to then be able to lobby colleges to change their policies. Some philosophers are now trying to do just that with a petition urging the college to accept gay professors. "One might puzzle over a form of Christianity that is committed to the inequality of people, and in particular of job applicants for positions in philosophy. More disturbing, however, is the stigma Calvin College feels entitled to place upon those who are doubly exposed: as lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgendered in a society that has yet to accept them, and as people seeking jobs during difficult economic times," the petition says….

Campus Disruptions of Israelis' Speeches Criticized

The Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday issued a statement denouncing Monday night's disruptions at the University of California at Irvine of a speech by Israel's ambassador and suggested that a pattern was emerging of "undemocratic, bullying, confrontational tactics" to block Israeli views from being heard. At Irvine, students were arrested for repeatedly interrupting the ambassador's talk. Michael Drake, Irvine's chancellor, on Tuesday issued a statement on the disruptions, which he called "intolerable." Drake said: "Freedom of speech is among the most fundamental, and among the most cherished of the bedrock values our nation is built upon. A great university depends on the free exchange of ideas. This is non-negotiable. Those who attempt to suppress the rights of others violate core principles that are the foundation of any learning community. We cannot and do not allow such behavior."….

Meanwhile, in Fresno... Professor's Alleged Religious and Anti-Gay Remarks Draw Letter From ACLU (Chronicle of HE)

In response to student complaints that a health-science professor at Fresno City College makes overtly religious and anti-gay statements in his lectures, the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the college today demanding that it ensure that all its health-science classes teach unbiased and medically accurate information. The letter also advises the college that it is legally required to prevent the professor from engaging in religious indoctrination in his classes. The college's president, Cynthia E. Azari, told The Fresno Bee that an internal investigagion was under way.

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: "The city is everyone."

Rebel Girl is still on the lookout for the ideal Valentine's Day poem but until then here is another about teaching, learning, writing, being.

A poem by D. Nurske, from his book The Rules of Paradise.

This first appeared in the August 1990 issue of Poetry.

First Grade Homework

The child’s assignment:
“What is a city?”
All dusk she sucks her pencil
while cars swish by
like ghosts, neighbors’ radios
forecast rain, high clouds,
diminishing winds: at last
she writes: “The city is everyone.”
Now it’s time
for math, borrowing and exchanging,
the long discipleship
to zero, the stranger,
the force that makes us
what we study: father and child,
writing in separate books,
infinite and alone.

Homework? Not so much

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: Anything But Studying

The latest snapshot of how University of California students spend their time suggests sleep and socializing were far more important than classes and studying to the average undergraduate there. But that was two years ago, before institutions and families plunged into economic turmoil, and things may have changed.

In a survey conducted on all nine of the university’s undergraduate campuses in the spring of 2008 and completed by 63,600 students, students on average reported getting six-and-a-half hours of sleep each night and spending 41 hours a week on social and leisure activities. Meanwhile, students said they spent a little more than 28 hours each week combined on class and homework….

Picture: San Juan Capistrano, long ago.

Tom and Don's pal Jim Lacy creates an impeachment site

One of OC’s right-wing regulars—a pal of Tom Fuentes’—has helped create an “Impeach Obama” website: Local activist behind impeach Obama site.

Jim Lacy appears to be friendly with SOCCCD Board of Trustees President Don Wagner as well (Fuentes and Wagner were involved in Lacy’s recent right-wing Western CPAC extravaganza — Pious turds in a punchbowl; Lacy has contributed to Wagner's Assembly campaign).

Naturally, he’s into dirty tricks.

Longtime Republican political activist Jim Lacy of Dana Point has teamed up again with Floyd Brown, author of the 1988 Willie Horton ad that helped bring down Michael Dukakis. This time they want to try to bring down President Barack Obama. And they’ve got an Impeach Obama Web site to prove it.

“Enough is enough. We’re calling for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama. And if you agree you can join us right now,’’ begins the message on the site.

Lacy was one of six people candidate Obama listed on his “Behind the Smears” page, during the presidential campaign. These were people who the Obama campaign said played fast and loose with the facts in an attempt to bring down his candidacy. I’ve asked the White House is [sic] they have any reaction to Lacy’s latest effort. But the administration tends not to comment on such sites.
. . .
“Barack Hussein and his allies have powerful and influential friends with very deep pockets,” they say after one clicks the “donate” button. “If we’re going to do this right we will need the resources to counter his efforts.”….

Be civil, not British!

Uh-oh. Things are getting unpleasant at UCI. Gary Robbins of the OC Reg’s College Life blog just posted:

Protestors disrupt speech by Israeli ambassador

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren has been interrupted nine times this evening while trying to talk about U.S.-Israel relations at UC Irvine….

Mark Petracca, a political science professor, took the stage at 6:21 p.m. and said that the protestors would be arrested.

Oren began speaking just before 5:50 p.m. Over the next 10 minutes, he was interrupted by four different men who yelled various things at him. The first said, “Propagating murder is not free speech.”

The second person yelled about “Zionism.”

The third yelled, “Israel.” The fourth could not be clearly heard.
. . .
Petracca lost his temper and yelled, “This is embarrassing … Shame on all of you.”

UCI Chancellor Michael Drake also told the 500 people in attendance that he was embarrassed by the outburst.
. . .
Hours earlier, UCI’s Muslim Student Union said in an email today that its members “condemn and oppose the presence of Michael Oren, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, on our campus today. We resent that the Law School and the Political Science Department on our campus have agreed to cosponsor a public figure who represents a state that continues to break international and humanitarian law and is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined.”
. . .
UCI political science professor Mark Petracca asked the crowd to be civil, saying, “(This) is not the British Parliament. It is a university.”

COMMENTS:

Anonymous‬ said... Yikes. 9:16 AM
Anonymous‬ said... I see trustee Lang there! 10:08 AM
‪‪Anonymous‬ said... Dave lives near campus. His wife works at UCI. So I wouldn't be surprised if he were there. 10:23 AM
Anonymous‬ said... Yes, Lang is in the audience sitting just in front of the first person who interupts the speaker -- you can see Lang turning around at about second 38. 

Yes, Lang's wife works at UCI and is represented by the union there. Red Emma is president of her union. She is a librarian. The UCI library is affiliated with the ALA -- unlike the current status of SOCCCD's libraries. 

I'm just sayin'. 10:30 AM
‪‪Anonymous‬ said... terrible that no reporter picked up on the inter-crowd heckling of the students by the older "community members". i saw a few girls in headscarves being repeatedly harassed by two older, jewish, men. 


also, they packed the room with the "community sponsors" and shoved students to the sides. there was a packed overflow room as well. 12:51 PM
‪‪Anonymous‬ said... Wow, this video really brings back memories--of Nazis and JDL thugs harrassing each other at SOCCCD board meetings. One would suddenly feel that one had been transported out of the country to some lawless place of unyielding louts. 1:58 PM
Anonymous‬ said... Yeah, nowadays, one feels transported to a Tea Party rally or, really, any place where people are attempting to discuss issues and the new right-wing is present. Soon, a punch in the face will be known as their most powerful argument. 2:02 PM
Anonymous‬ said... The "new right-wing is present"? These protesters are Tea Party people or otherwise from the right? You've got to be kidding. 2:21 PM
Anonymous‬ said... 2:21:
1:15, remembering the Nazi/JDL clashes of ten years ago, said, witnessing that, "One would suddenly feel that one had been transported out of the country to some lawless place of unyielding louts." 
Then I said, that "one feels transported to a Tea Party rally." The point is that one now has a new standard of "foreign" loutishness, namely, Tea Party events, such as the recent one in which racist sentiments were expressed and applauded. Then I went on to suggest yet another model, namely, the sort of ugly, racist, conspiracy-nut stuff that attached to Republican rallies during the last Presidential election. That is, one no longer must imagine foreigner anarchy or ancient hatreds to imagine loutish thuggery and the like; one need look no further than the noisy element of today's Republican Party. 3:56 PM
Anonymous‬ said... Oh, I get it, 3:56. Thanks for clarifying. Ugly uncivil left-wing shouting down of an invited speaker at UCI reminds someone of ugly uncivil loutish shouting between Nazis and the JDL from more than a decade ago, so, of course, the Republicans/Tea Partiers -- who are neither left wingers nor Nazis nor the JDL -- get slandered. It all makes sense. 4:21 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said... I think the commentators were talking about the decline of public discourse in general -- the rhetoric of the Tea Partiers being a recent, pungent example of this decline. 5:11 PM
Anonymous‬ said... What he said. 5:20 PM
‪‪She‬ said... She! She said. 5:22 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said... Yeah, I thought of that, but "what he said" is more familiar. I'm often torn between maximal rhetoric and correctness. I flip flop on that all the time. 5:26 PM
Anonymous‬ said... Extremely disturbing, and scary. What gets to me as much as the thugs who stood up and yelled were the idiots cheering them on: cheerleaders without brains. 

Mob mentality is just too stupid for words, and always a serious danger.

 --MAH 10:57 AM, February 10, 2010
‪‪Anonymous‬ said... " ... a punch in the face will be known as their most serious argument." Now THAT is a good one, 2:02! --

MAH 1:19 PM
‪‪Anonymous‬ said... The latest: Chemerinski weighs in: Dean: UCI protesters violated free speech 2:33 PM
Anonymous‬ said... 5:11, How can you say the Tea Partiers are an example of a “decline of public discourse in general?” Seems to me this new peaceful grass-roots effort has been civil; no property damage, no violence, etc… As compared to the left’s usual show of “public discourse” in the recent past, Tea Partiers shine! 

And 2:02, “Soon, a punch in the face will be known as their most powerful argument.” Amusing but so far I see the Tea Partiers presenting some very compelling prima facie arguments that stand on their own merits. Again, it’s the left who has been violent, while the conservatives have not. 2:34 PM
‪Anonymous‬ said... The Tea Party crowd regularly laps up demagoguery. Tancrito borrows classic and familiar racist arguments, and the crowd is entranced--and clueless. Palin suggests that the Prez could invade Iran to gain "toughness" cred, and the audience doesn't flinch. They are Neanderthals, without memory or knowledge, just a club and a torch. I would be more impressed if there were hecklers, Tea Baggers (or whatever) with some notion of who we are and where we've come from. Again, I say, view all of the video of crowds at Republican events during the last Presidential election: suddenly, racist sentiments and daft conspiracy theories were acceptable. It was horrifying. You keep referring to unruly leftists. Just who are these leftists? We have Republicans breaking into offices, spreading false rumors, hinting at the desirability of "revolution." I'm talking about Republicans, all around us, especially here in OC. Now do point out to me the Democrats among us who reveal any similar intellectual or democratic crudity. (And, BTW, those guys at the UCI event don't count. For one thing, they are likely foreign students. For another, [they're] not leftists.) 2:49 PM
Anonymous said...“The Tea Party crowd regularly laps up demagoguery.”

--What about the leftists with their anti-Bush-Cheney rhetoric, and the war has been lost, etc… I saw someone wearing a “Kill Cheney” t-shirt the other day. [They're] the ones advocating violence, not the conservatives. If any side is more consumed with race, it’s the left with their political correctness along with their demagogues like those 3 Reverends (you know who they are) who are in the race business. It’s all about race-baiting with them.

“suddenly, racist sentiments and daft conspiracy theories were acceptable. It was horrifying. Now do point out to me the Democrats among us who reveal any similar intellectual or democratic crudity.” How about our Prez’s own Reverend for 20 years? You didn’t find him horrifying?

I think you’re clueless. Most horrifying is the typical leftist Australopithecus Afarensis, incapable of doing their own thinking, who buy into all that crap about how big daddy govt. is going to take care of them by stealing property away from the rest of us… and for what in exchange? Their FREEDOM! How any American could go along with this “plot” is beyond me.

Now sit down and shut up cuz it’s time for another sleep-inducing lecture from the almighty PREZ! Yay! 8:14 PM
B. von Traven said...8:14, you have made your case beautifully. Indeed, you are thoroughly self-defecating. 
Now, go away, and don't come back. Please. This is a college blog. If you hurry, you can just catch Glenn Beck over on Fox. Perfect for you. 8:48 PM
Anonymous said...Why, thank you B. von Traven!

I guess it means I've won the argument when the moderator replies with ad hominem and asks that I go away. ~ 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...…A few weeks ago [Beck] did a special, “Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free or Die” which was a real eye-opener for me. Did any of you happen to catch it? If not, I strongly suggest you see it.
It’s basically about how for the last 100 years, the progressives have been teaching us revisionist history. They’ve managed to associate all the “bad stuff” in the world, i.e. totalitarian regimes, genocide, man’s inhumanity to man, etc… with far-right ideologies and conveniently omitted overwhelming human atrocities by the far-left. In brief the facts are, Hitler (alleged far-right) = 7M dead, while Stalin (far-left) = 12M Ukrainians dead + Mao (far-left) = 70M Chinese dead, etc… The tally is: alleged far-right = 7M dead compared to far-left = 82M dead. And that’s not even all the far-left atrocities, just the two most prominent.
Further, Hitler’s Fascism, usually associated with far-right ideology, is in fact more in line with Stalin’s far-left Socialism. In fact when compared side by side, every element is identical except for the Nazi’s “nationalist” element hence, the actual definition of fascism is “National Socialism.” So we can easily conclude that fascism is actually a far-left phenomenon. This expose really changed everything for me, because now left-right political spectrum theory, or the conventional school of thought, is no longer relevant. What is evident, there are still two sides; good and evil. Good stands for traditional liberal philosophy: freedom, justice and humanity, while evil stands for socialism, totalitarianism and death. Today’s conservatives represent the former and unfortunately hard-left liberals, the latter.
Some folks think Glenn Beck is a joke, I certainly don’t. He was recently voted America’s second most influential conservative of 2009, by AP, survey by CBS. Why do you suppose that is? He used to work for CNN, you know. What happened to make him join the FOX news team? Was it perhaps the disintegration of good journalism at CNN?
And finally, “And, BTW, those guys at the UCI event don't count. For one thing, they are likely foreign students. For another, their not leftists.”
Did you down a half gallon of Prestone? Of course they’re leftists! What do you think the Muslim Brotherhood is? It’s a socialist movement/party born out of Nassir’s Egypt in the 1950s. ~ 9:05 PM, February 11, 2010
Anonymous said...Bummer you should not have changed out the video! The original was much better. It showed the professor at the end telling his unruly students to drop the class and that they've failed their exams. That was the best part! No worry, the OC Register has the original one. ~ 9:39 PM
Anonymous said...Reading that stuff from 9:05 gives me pause to think how many Germans must have felt in 1936; that they woke up one morning and saw a plurality of their countrymen supporting Goebbels and company, and were just stunned as to what had happened. And we know where that led. ~ 12:08 PM, February 12, 2010

Some scandal

Like Mathur, Mathur’s supporters are special. Presently, they are consumed with hatred for Don Wagner, and so they’ve assembled their spitballs and itching powder, and they’re crawling through the bushes and throwing stink bombs.

Take Mathur supporter Scamallert.  In a comment re the recent Register editorial,  he or she tries the old say it enough times and everyone will believe it gambit: “This Wagner Scandal really stinks to high heaven” she declares.

Scandal?

Scamallert suggests that we take a look at Wagner’s campaign donors. Among them, she writes, is “Union Boss” (?) William Hewitt, who gave Don’s campaign $1,000. Imagine!

Ms. Allert draws a conclusion: Wagner is neither fiscally conservative nor anti-union.

But, of course, Don is both, which is why the union, including Treasurer Bill, has opposed him during every election. Don’s on the board of Education Alliance, for Chrissake! Nobody hates teachers unions more than that crowd.

It is, I think, some sort of old-fashioned—and kinda hinky—take on politics that inclines the likes of Bill “the Schmoozer” Hewitt to contribute to Don's Assembly campaign. The rest of us dissenters contribute instead to Jane Fonda, the ALA, Satanism, Spain, and whoever makes those swell little mustachioed voodoo dolls.

Scamallert, in case you haven’t noticed, is an aficionado of daft conspiracy theories, which explains her disapproving mention of Hewitt’s long-ago involvement in the Frogue recall. (Gosh, I didn’t know Steve had fans! Maybe Scam is Steve?!)

Modjeska Grade, 1939

Her next shocker concerns the “prayer” lawsuit. The list of defendants, she notes, is practically an SOCCCD Who’s Who! That's true. So how come IVC Prez (and Wagnerian) Glenn Roquemore isn’t named in the suit?

“Very fishy indeed,” she snides.

Well, if Ms. Scama had bothered to read our complaint, she would discover that it names the trustees—they are the district—and then includes persons who participated in the actions and events that are the subject of the suit (showing "Jesus" videos, removing obstacles to trustee prayer at events, etc.). Tod Burnett and Raghu Mathur definitely participated. Roquemore did not, in part because he’s fifteen miles from the action. (Yes, the Chancellor’s opening session occurred at IVC, but it was strictly a district event, choreographed by All That Goo.)

Scamallert seems to think that Hewitt is involved in the suit. In fact, HE HAS NEVER HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT. Hell, I don't think we'd have 'im!

Scamallert next goes off the rails completely, asserting, absurdly, that the lawsuit derives from plaintiffs’ “hurt feelings.” Even if that were true (I'm against the "establishment" of religion, and my feelings are fine), it would do nothing to serve her fish theory.

Evidently frothing at the mouth, she next notes that two of the suit’s plaintiffs (the two students) are anonymous. “Hmmm…. What are they trying to hide?” she oozes.

Actually, I argued against anonymity, but the other faculty plaintiffs, concerned about the students’ vulnerability, were adamant. (I think it's a nesting thing.) These two young people believe in the separation of church and state. That's why they've signed on.

OK, having established that (1) Bill Hewitt gave Don a check for one thousand bucks and (2) two of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs are anonymous, Scamallert declares: “The big puzzle is beginning to come together”!

Her grand vision finally spills forth in a tour de force of cascading disconnected imaginary factoids:

Some people wanted Mathur gone so badly, they figured all they had to do was flip one trustee…So they cut a backroom deal with the trustee to make Mathur an offer he couldn’t refuse – hire as a high paid admin, the woman … who hates Mathur, or Mathur is OUT! …The incentive for the trustee was financial support for his bid for CA Assembly [namely, that cool grand from Bill] …If the trustee wins that seat in Sac, it eliminates him from our board – one less conservative! … Now [?] while emboldened and on a roll, hit the district with a big lawsuit and hopefully take-out some more conservative trustees (all paid for by the taxpayer!) … The stench is rapidly becoming too overwhelming!

Wow. What an idiot.

There’s no scandal here—just the usual semi-hinky machinations of a peevish and arrogant right-winger. In the end, this was about Wagner and one seriously lousy employee: Don could no longer abide the fellow's connivery, and so he pulled the strings and arranged the ducks to remove him, even if it meant permanently pissing off the pious and sulfurous Tom “Big Foot” Fuentes.

Some scandal.