Irvine Council member Beth Krom likes to tell the story about when President George W. Bush visited the city when she was mayor. While she probably opposed every single policy of that occupant of the White House, he was greeted by the mayor warmly and with great respect. She also showed a class photo of her days as a teacher in Texas and one of her students was Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan to which the president took Mayor Krom backstage to say hello to her former student. No protest. No disrespect. All class. If only I could say the same thing for the OC Republicans in response to this weekend’s Orange County visit by President Obama.
Let’s start with OC GOP chair Scott Baugh in comments made to the Orange County Register last week:
“All of Orange County, and the students of UC Irvine, should be proud to have the occupant pay a visit to us.” – OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh when asked if he is able to set aside the partisanship and be proud to have the President of the United States come to Orange County.
Occupant? Stay classy Scott. And enjoying watching those OC Republican voter registration numbers continue to fall on your watch.
How about Newport Beach city council member and State Assembly candidate Keith Curry who posted this gem on Facebook: “So there were TWO elected officials giving commencement speeches in Anaheim on Saturday. I was the one who hadn’t screwed up the country.”
Curry gave an address to graduates at Westcliff University. Funny, I didn’t realize George W. Bush or Dick Cheney were giving a commencement address in Anaheim on Saturday. A note for Curry: please acknowledge that placing two wars on a credit card and cutting taxes for the rich during a time of great economic stress, while rapidly expanding the sizeof government to be perceived as a “war president” is what’s screwed up the country and this nation will be recovering from the terrible policy decisions made by the last Republican in the Oval Office. Remember that near global economic collapse Mr. Curry? That was late 2008; Obama hadn’t been sworn in yet. And since you’re running for Assembly, please note how much better things are in the state since Arnold went back to acting and Republicans could no longer hold the budget hostage.
Irvine Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Lalloway should have been in Anaheim Stadium with the graduates of UCI. Perhaps he has a tough time being seen by UCI administration after seeking to cut funds to the Barclay Theater last year. Lalloway posted on his Facebook page: “Instead of spending time listening to Obama yesterday, I chose to spend my time with great American leadership. With Congressman Tom Cotton of Arkansas (the next US Senator) and Senator Mike Lee of Utah.” Tom Cotton a great American leader? This is a Congressman who is generally to to far right of even the most conservative House members. He voted against aid to Hurricane Sandy victims, against lower student loan costs, against federal support for air service to small communities, against relief from high flood insurance costs, against pediatric research and against public health emergency aid.
Utah Senator Mike Lee is one of the biggest jerks in the US Senate. He’s promised to obstruct every presidential appointment to a judgeship or a public service position he can, even when these 90 percent of these nominees have unanimous support from the Judiciary committee. Four years ago, Lee praised a long-discarded 1918 Supreme Court decision that said federal child labor laws violated the Constitution. He also said Social Security violates the Constitution. He said Medicare violates the Constitution. Lee hates FEMA, the FDA, any sort of income assistance to the Poor including Food Stamps.
Great American leaders? Bull. Is Lalloway really a closeted Tea Party conservative trapped in a very purple town?
And no post about Republican disrespect for President Obama would be complete without a check in from Villa park council member Deborah Pauly. She pushed out details of protests in Laguna Beach and at Anaheim Stadium, and later posted on Facebook that, “Reports of violent pro-amnesty mob at Angel Stadium protest of Obama, intimidating peaceful protestors.” Peaceful? Sure they were.
I just hope that if Irvine Mayor Steven Choi attended the UCI graduation that he’d leave any Photoshopped Artwork of the president as Hitler or Stalin or as an Nazi SS officer behind, unlike his December 2009 Irvine hotel visit to the Tea Party when Speaker Nancy Pelosi came to town where he embarrassed himself and the city for his historically clueless manner of insulting the nation’s third most powerful elected official. Choi has yet to apologize for that incident and I would be surprised if he offered the same respect for President Obama that Beth Krom did for George W. Bush.
Wow, another worthless post!
It is not our job to entertain you.
Thanks for the back story on the president’s commencement address at UCI that delves below the pomp and circumstance coverage of the Register. News Flash: The president delivers commencement speeches all the time. In fact, he just gave one at a high school. His visit coincided with a $32K/plate fundraiser in Laguna Beach, an error of omission in much of the Register’s frothy coverage of this event.
I like how the President gave a dpeech on climate change minutes after picking up a cool million at a fundraiser at an oil heiress house.
There is NO MORE honesty in politics.
Utah Senator Mike Lee along with Chuck Schumter on the Democratic sided created the expansion of foreign investment by Chinese and lots of right wingers in the OC complain about chiense investment in real estate and commerical Mike’s one of the guys behind it. Scott Baugh is a loser as I mention a lot of Republicans lost in Orange County is not Hispanics or Asians its the thinking we have to turn Orange County into Houston/Harris County Texas because Texas is booming and lots of whites are tired of that since they know Texas like California has lots of poor folks because its heavily minority not saying that some Hispanics do better than whites we are talking about averages here..
And no post about Republican disrespect for President Obama would be complete without a check in from Villa park council member Deborah Pauly. She pushed out details of protests in Laguna Beach and at Anaheim Stadium, and later posted on Facebook that, “Reports of violent pro-amnesty mob at Angel Stadium protest of Obama, intimidating peaceful protestors.” Peaceful? Sure they were.
She cracks me up, Republicans and the Lincoln Club have allowed companies in Anaheim and Santa Ana to hire unauthorized immigrants to drive down wages in construction or services jobs in the hotel industry. I know since the same group loves Texas that also uses unauthorized immigrants to do construction and service jobs.
Utah Senator Mike Lee is one of the biggest jerks in the US Senate. He’s promised to obstruct every presidential appointment to a judgeship or a public service position he can, even when these 90 percent of these nominees have unanimous support from the Judiciary committee. Four years ago, Lee praised a long-discarded 1918 Supreme Court decision that said federal child labor laws violated the Constitution. He also said Social Security violates the Constitution. He said Medicare violates the Constitution. Lee hates FEMA, the FDA, any sort of income assistance to the Poor including Food Stamps.
Well, Mikely is lucky since he lives in low poverty Utah, its only 14 percent Hispanic and the Mormon Church helps their own but his policies don’t work in California or Texas.
Great American leaders? Bull. Is Lalloway really a closeted Tea Party conservative trapped in a very purple town?
Probably, Irvine is about 40 percent Asian and the white population is probably more moderate and liberal since it seems to get people from back east according to a Register article. The heavily conservative areas of OC are usually people middle aged from the midwest or south during the aerospace period. In fact OC is losing this bunch to places like Texas since they can get that big house and if they are skilled enough land a professional job related to the Gas and Oil or like Chuck Devore a good political adviser job.
Well, actually if political moderates and liberals are smart instead of trashing Orange County over the political conservatives that hold office why not say some nice things. The area actually during the past 20 years has outperformed La and San Diego economically it has a lower unemployment rate. Granted, the jobs are not always great and housing is expensive. Two, for their size city Anaheim and Santa Ana have a low crime rate. Gang problems but most cities with Anaheim and Santa Ana populations being over the 300,000 mark have that. Two, Anaheim could be developed on the west side for more than the resort industry or a placed of Hispanic immigrants. Maybe with the new Aractic station and the Anaheim packing and the Colony development this could happen. Moderates or Liberals need to looked that the demographics are changing and say some positive things about the County. The politically right in Orange County particularly the OC Register usually doesn’t like the County so much anymore since its not located in Texas. In fact Joel Konkin runs the County down on a daily basis and spends his time on how great Harris County or Travis County Texas are because housing is cheaper and the big fracking boom.
There are drawbacks to all this, though. Thousands of people in Orange County elbowing their way into the same few jobs available to immigrants–busboy, farm worker, seamstress, assembly-line worker–means that wages haven’t grown in those businesses as fast as they otherwise would have.
In fact, real wages–factoring out inflation over time–have declined in Orange County’s factories since the early 1970s. Much of that drop is attributable to immigrants competing for jobs, says UCLA geography professor Allen J. Scott.
Written in La TImes in 1992,, tried to push for higher wages for immigrants and native born even though some kioaks or burger flipping machines may come.