Orange County OC

OC is TAFTite refugees from midwest; big in aerospace for military?

big anti-commie

sort of opposite of detroit?

see katie porter

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AN 10 25

Although President Ronald Reaganonce called California's Orange County the place where "good Republicans go to die," the "hippie beachside surfer haven" of Huntington Beach, SFGATE's Anabel Sosa writes, "has drawn national attention for leaning dramatically further to the right."

Just a few years ago, Sosa says, Huntington Beach had a Democratic-led city council. Today, the city's 200,000 residents are represented by a conservative majority city council — an all-Republican group that calls itself the "MAGA-nificent Seven."

That group has been on the front lines of MAGA's culture wars, from bans on children's books and pride flags to opposing vaccines and mask mandates and "dissolving a watchdog committee formed in the aftermath of white supremacist hate crimes in the 1990s."

These actions, Sosa says, have "shoved the seaside paradise into uncharted territory."

The city, she writes, "has a Republican stronghold of just over 56,000 registered Republican voters, compared to a little more than 41,000 Democrats."

IFrame Content

Republican Mayor Pat Burns, one of those so-called seven, explained the city's leaning, saying “It’s a middle class town, basically. We just want to live our lives with as little government control as possible.”

Former Democratic city council member Dan Kalmick told SFGATE that "the fights were always over housing," but Mayor Burns, Sosa explains, "has stood firm against California’s state housing law, which mandates that every city keeps up with state requirements for adding housing."

As a result, Huntington Beach "has been out of compliance since the law’s passage in 2021, and is currently 13,368 housing units short," she writes.

Burns, who was sworn into office in 2024 said, that California is “trying to force us to do something that we don’t need," making the city build “low-income” housing to make Huntington Beach "more urban," because, he says, "Urban places turn blue.”

A September court decision determined Huntington Beach has 120 days to comply with its housing requirements. Burns said that “poor” people can live by the beach, but “it shouldn’t be subsidized.”

State Sen. Tony Strickland (R-CA) has supported said that Huntington Beach residents "care about three things: public safety, their love of America and to remain suburban."

Kalmick says the reason conservatives have had success is due to “voter apathy” and “a lot of lies.” The divide has only deepened as elected officials struggle to work together, Sosa explains.

City councilwoman city councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark told SFGATE she was a Democrat until she “realized” that Latinos are inherently conservative.

She said were her priorities were “family first, believe in God, embrace culture,” adding that Democrats want to “exclude parents, break up families, sow division, bash our men.”

The city has been no stranger to white supremacy either, with a 1993 LA Times headline asking if Huntington Beach was “the skinhead capital of the count." And, Sosa writes, "as the 21st century began, the city increasingly became a hub for violent incidents against minority groups."

Kalmack says the city has become "center ground" for protests, but they may not be enough.

Pat Goodman, a co-organizer at ProtectHB, a non-profit organization that led the opposition to the city's library book ban, said her biggest fear is “there will be a very short list of candidates” running for city council next year. “That means we can look at another four years of similar elected officials.”

Kalmack agrees, saying the city has a long way to go before it returns to its Democratic roots.

“I don’t think Huntington Beach is winnable until the next 10 years,” he said.

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no lnx an 5 23

in late April, far-right conspiracy theorist Alan Hostetter — who formerly served as police chief of La Habra, California but now works as a yoga instructor — pleaded "not guilty" to federal conspiracy charges he is facing in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection. U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors don't believe that Hostetter actually entered the U.S. Capitol Building that day, but allege that he was part of the overall conspiracy to prevent Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Russell Taylor, one of Hostetter's co-defendants in the case, has pled guilty and is looking at four to seven years in federal prison. The other co-defendants, all Southern California residents, are alleged militia members Felipe Antonio Martinez, Erik Scott Warner, Ronald Mele and Derek Kinnison.

While Taylor has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, Hostetter maintains that he did nothing wrong on January 6, 2021 and plans to act as his own attorney in court. Hostetter has been promoting conspiracy theories in his motions. And federal prosecutors, according to the Orange County Register, fear that Hostetter will "make the trial into a circus" and create "the type of sideshow the United States is seeking to prevent."

READ MORE: 'Straight Pride' organizer indicted by federal grand jury for alleged role in January 6 insurrection

Hostetter, the Register reports, has waived his right to a trial by jury but plans to plead his case in front of a federal judge.

Prosecutors said of Hostetter, "It is a disorganized and purposeless journey through the history of 20th- and 21st-Century conspiracy theories." A federal judge told Hostetter, "I strongly urge you not to try to represent yourself" in court, but the former La Habra police chief insists on doing it anyway.

La Habra is in northern Orange Countysouth of Los Angeles. These days, California is heavily Democratic, but during the 1970s and 1980s, it was still a red state. And Orange County was known for being a bastion of conservative GOP politics.

Hostetter became La Habra police chief in 2009, but he retired after less than a year because of spinal problems.

READ MORE: Jack Smith wants to go after Trump's 'good news boy' to crush his January 6 defense: legal expert

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'Our work will continue': Merrick Garland speaks after Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convictions ›

'There is no fairytale ending to an insurrection': Oath Keepers militia collapsing after leaders jailed ›

'Sounded like a bomb': Florida resident charged with tossing explosive during Jan. 6 insurrection ›

Seas Will Rise

First, some context.

A few feet of sea level rise might not sound very alarming, but every vertical foot could mean roughly 20 feet farther that the ocean encroaches inland (depending on a lot of factors, like the slope of the coastline), according to Patrick Barnard, a research scientist at the US Geological Survey.

The state's 2018 sea level rise guidance laid out different scenarios based on how much we curb our greenhouse gas emissions.

Low emissions: 66% chance of between 0.9 and 2.3 feet of rise in Santa Monica by 2100, and similar rise in other parts of Southern California.

High emissions: 66% chance of between 1.5 and 3.3 feet of rise, with a .5% probability we'll see 6.8 feet.

As a precaution, the report recommends that state officials anticipate 10 feet of rise when building crucial infrastructure along the coast.

Keep in mind some researchers think we've been underestimating just how bad things could get.

Beaches Will Disappear

According to a paper co-authored by Barnard, SoCal could lose between 31% - 67% of its beaches by 2100.

And areas like Malibu could be threatened in the coming decades.

"I mean these are very, very narrow beaches. They're already having lots of issues, and just a bit of sea level rise and they're going to be completely gone," said Barnard, adding that Malibu could see a major loss of its beaches in the coming decades.

...

Nazi-saluting Orange County teens have been doing it for several years — without punishment

Travis Gettys / Raw Story

BO shoutout to dem cands, OC went for hillary by 6? pts?!

https://www.propublica.org/article/california-murder-suspect-atomwaffen-division-extremist-hate-group

hitker and chls manson?!

California man accused of killing a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student earlier this month is an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of one of the most notorious extremist groups in the country, according to three people with knowledge of the man’s recent activities.

The man, Samuel Woodward, has been charged in Orange County, California, with murdering Blaze Bernstein, who went missing in early January while visiting his family over winter break. Prosecutors allege that Woodward stabbed Bernstein more than 20 times before burying his body in an Orange County park where it was eventually discovered. The two men had attended high school together.

Woodward, 20, is set to be arraigned on Feb. 2 and has not yet entered a plea. Orange County prosecutors say they are examining the possibility that the killing was a hate crime — Bernstein was Jewish and openly gay — and some recent news reports have suggested that the alleged killer might hold far-right or even white supremacist political beliefs.

Now, three people with detailed knowledge of Woodward’s recent past have been able to shed more light on the young man’s extremist activities. They said Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division, an armed Fascist group with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the U.S. government through the use of terrorism and guerrilla warfare.

...

Digs into Semanal have turned up limited information. David Welch, a lawyer known in Southern California for suing unlicensed cannabis dispensaries, is listed as the registered agent in the California Secretary of State Business Database, according to LA Weekly’s sister site OC Weekly. Brian Calle, chief opinion writer for Southern California News Group, will take over editorial management of the site, the outlet also confirmed.

Last year, OC Weekly named Calle one of “Orange County’s Scariest People of 2016,”pointing to his role in a number of blunders at his previous post.

It’s been a trying month for local news. Earlier this month, Joe Ricketts, the billionaire CEO of news organizations DNAinfo, Gothamist and its sister sites, shut down the sites without warning just days after a number of staff members announced they had formed a union. The decision put 115 journalists out of work left a gaping hole in coverage in the cities those outlets covered: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington

image missing?

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interesting contrast to FIRE indoc u woman who claimed death threats/:

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/professor-who-criticized-trump-hiding-after-death-threats

This is Google's cache of http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cox-738156-students-class.html.

OCC professor received threats, left the state after video of her anti-Trump comments

Dec. 12, 2016 Updated Dec. 14, 2016

Members of the OCC College Republicans hold a U.S. flag as a counter protest to other students, including those in the Feminist Club, who show their support for instructor Olga Perez Stable Cox during a campus rally in Costa Mesa Monday. A video clip of Cox telling her human sexuality class that electing Trump was an act of terrorism has gone viral. A student said the teacher asked all Trump supporters to stand up so she could, "Show the class who to watch out for." (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

By ROXANA KOPETMAN / STAFF WRITER

COSTA MESA – An Orange Coast College teacher who told her students that Donald Trump’s election was an “act of terrorism” has received threats and has temporarily left the state.

News of the threats against Olga Perez Stable Cox came to light Monday, as hundreds of people turned out at the college to demonstrate in support of her and against her.

The professor, the union that represents her and the college have received more than 1,000 emails, calls and Facebook comments – most of them critical of Cox, who a week after the election was recorded on video telling students in her human sexuality class that “we’re really back to being (in) a civil war.”

“Someone emailed her a picture of her house, with her address,” said Rob Schneiderman, president of the Coast Federation of Educators/American Federation of Teachers Local 1911. The email called Cox a “libtard, Marxist, hatemonger, nutcase” and said “her home address is now going to be sent everywhere,” he added.

Others threatened her livelihood, some her life.

“You want communism, go to Cuba ... try to bring it to America and we’ll put a (expletive) bullet in your face,” read an email to her.

Schneiderman described Cox as a “lesbian, Latina woman living in Orange County. She’s pretty strong.”

But threatening emails and phone calls to her private number were too much, and a substitute will cover her classes this final week of the semester, he said.

On Monday, hundreds of students and faculty members who support Cox gathered for a noon rally on campus. Carrying homemade signs calling for free speech, they defended the teacher they described as someone dedicated to protecting all students, including those who are LGBT and students of color.

“She has been here 30 years and impacted over 30,000 lives,” said student Elias Altamirano, 20, one of those who organized the rally. “I want to let Olga know this is her home and she doesn’t have to feel threatened.”

A smaller group – with students from the College Republicans, which made the video public – also was on hand. They set up a computer to continuously play Cox’s recording, in which she referred to white supremacy and called the vice president-elect “one of the most anti-gay humans in this country.”

Those students countered that the issue is not about academic freedom but points to an instance of a college instructor pushing her own political agenda, something they say is prevalent on college campuses nationwide

“This has nothing to do with free speech. It’s a professor overstepping her profession,” said Vincent Wetzel, who said he is a gay student who has attended some of Cox’s LGBT panels. “Of all the people who are supposed to provide an inclusive environment, it’s her. Now, I don’t feel comfortable.”

Two students in Cox’s class said she asked those who had voted for Trump to identify themselves.

“She tried to get everyone who voted for Donald Trump to stand up and show the rest of the class who to watch out for and protect yourself from,” said Tanner Webb, 21, of Huntington Beach.

Webb, who describes himself as apolitical, said he chose to speak up after reading comments in the Register from Schneiderman, the faculty union president, defending Cox. Schneiderman had said that Cox is “known for her open and engaging ways in class” but that the student who videotaped her chose to not engage in a discussion.

“Professor Cox’s anti-Trump rant was no open debate to engage students,” said Webb, who added that he has enjoyed the class and described Cox as “a good teacher.”

Noah Faerber, 19, another student in Cox’s class, confirmed Webb’s account.

Schneiderman offered a different version of what happened: Cox told the class some people would be happy with the election results, and a student stood up in approval. She then invited others to stand up and show their support if they wished, he said.

Shawn Steel, the Republican national committeeman from California and an attorney who is representing Orange Coast College Republicans, brought the matter to the administration’s attention Nov. 23, a week before the group went public with the video.

At that time, Steel wanted Cox, a tenured professor, to apologize. Now, with students saying she tried to separate and shame Trump supporters, Steel said school officials should consider firing her.

“That’s a deal-breaker for me,” he said.

School administrators said they are investigating Steel’s complaint and also whether the student who taped the teacher should face sanctions for recording her without permission.

Since the initial video surfaced and made national news, a second video clip has been posted online from the same class, with Cox expressing more of her political views and vowing to keep her students safe from any acts of racism and prejudice.

“It is getting better,” Cox tells the students. “Orange County is one of the most conservative counties in the nation, and the fact that we did vote Democrat says a lot, and it gives me hope for my neighbors and people in this area.

“Living in Orange County is scary, when you know you are surrounded by so many people that are so hateful. But I am optimistic that we are the majority and that we will make a difference.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-7829 or rkopetman@scng.com

Shawn Steel

Partner at Shawn Steel Law Firm

locationOrange County, California AreaindustryLaw Practice

Current	Partner at Shawn Steel Law Firm, Member of the Board at Lincoln Club of Orange County, CALIFORNIA NATIONAL COMMITTEEMAN at Republican...
Past	Immediate Past Chairman California Republican Party at California Republican Party
Education	University of Southern California, California State University-Northridge, Cal State University Northridge , Van Nuts High School.
Summary	The only pro chiropractic personal injury law firm - teaching DCs Self Reliance -- scrape Matt Pinnell National State Party Director at Republican National Committee

Current

Partner at Shawn Steel Law Firm, Member of the Board at Lincoln Club of Orange County, CALIFORNIA NATIONAL COMMITTEEMAN at Republican...

Past

Immediate Past Chairman California Republican Party at California Republican Party

Education

University of Southern California, California State University-Northridge, Cal State University Northridge , Van Nuts High School.

Summary

The only pro chiropractic personal injury law firm - teaching DCs Self Reliance

scrape

Matt Pinnell

National State Party Director at Republican National Committee

http://www.alternet.org/economy/rich-people-are-worst-1s-vile-new-war-us-all

Rich people rarely tell you how they really feel about poor people. Occasionally, though, you get a glimpse. Earlier this week, the Washington Post published a storyabout Rancho Santa Fe, a small but extremely wealthy enclave in Southern California. Like the rest of California, the people of Rancho Santa Fe are dealing with a drought. As you might imagine, that means water is scarce and conservation is critical. For the denizens of Rancho Santa Fe, however, conservation is someone else’s problem, namely poor people.

According to Steve Yuhas, who lives in the area and hosts a conservative talk-radio show, privileged people “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful.” Oh, the humanity! In case it wasn’t clear, Yuhas added that the right to water ought to scale with income: “No, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

And Yuhas isn’t alone. Gay Butler, an avid equestrian and fellow resident of Rancho Santa Fe, fumed for similar reasons. “It angers me because people aren’t looking at the overall picture,” she said. “What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our house on four acres?” Perhaps Butler has a point. It’s one thing to demand sacrifice in extraordinary circumstances, but we’ve got to draw the line somewhere, right? If a woman wants to ride her finely manicured horse on a dirt-free prairie in the middle of the desert, what matters a little drought?

Brett Barbre, a fellow Orange Country aristocrat, also appears to get it. “I call it the war on suburbia,” he remarked. “California used to be the land of opportunity and freedom. It’s slowly becoming the land of one group telling everyone else how they think everybody should live their lives.” Barbre continued: “They’ll have to pry it [his water hose] from my cold, dead hands.”

You may be asking yourself: Do restrictions on water consumption during a historic drought really constitute an all-out assault on human freedom? Fair question. Most of us fail to see this issue in such grand terms. Maybe we’re missing something. Mr. Barbre is either a bold lover of liberty or a detached plutocrat with a penchant for hyperbole. You be the judge.

In any case, I see the decadence of the people in Rancho Santa Fe as a microcosm of America today, particularly corporate America. What these people exhibit, apart from their smugness, is a complete absence of any sense of collective responsibility. They can’t see and aren’t interested in the consequences of their actions. And they can’t muster a modicum of moderation in the face of enormous scarcity. Every resource, every privilege, is theirs to pilfer with impunity. These people are prepared to endanger an entire ecosystem simply to avoid the indignity of brown golf courses; this is what true entitlement looks like.

The wealthiest Americans – and their apostles in government – tell us that it’s the poor people who are entitled, who take and exploit and keep more than they deserve. But that’s a half-truth, and a dangerous one at that. Entitlement has many faces, the most destructive of which is on display in Rancho Santa Fe. These adolescent upper-crusters are entitled because they believe they have a right to everything they can get hold of – regardless of the costs. They believe living with others carries no obligations. Anyone who places their right to pristine golf courses above their responsibility to respect communal resources is a social toxin, a privileged parasite eating away at the foundations of society. It’s important that their actions be seen in this context.

There’s a lesson in Rancho Santa Fe and in California more generally. What’s happening there foreshadows our future. We’re confronted with crises on a number of fronts. From climate change to economic inequality, our institutions – and the people controlling them – are failing us. Changes are necessary, but a segment of society (the 1 percent, we’ll call them) is unwilling to sacrifice; they’re too invested in power, in comfort. Whether it’s oil profiteers distorting climate science or Wall Street banks undermining efforts to regulate the financial industry, entrenched interests are doing everything possible to preserve the status quo, even when so doing threatens to upend the whole system – just like the people of Rancho Santa Fe.

The corrosive elitism in Rancho Santa Fe is the stuff popular revolts are based on. These Dickensian vultures want to hoard until nothing remains; they’re blind to those beyond their gated communities. Disconnectedness is a close cousin of privilege, so it’s not surprising that they live in a bubble. But their persecution mania, their belief in their privileged status, is insufferable – and a public hazard. They can’t imagine what it’s like to live without, so they’ll risk anything to ensure that they don’t. California may survive the selfish stupidity of a few citizens in Rancho Santa Fe, but it’s not clear how long the country can survive the excesses and greed of Wall Street and Big Business.

Wealth, it’s worth noting, isn’t the enemy. The problem is the attitude of the wealthy, the contempt, the indifference, and the lack of anything resembling civic virtue. To be rich is no crime. To abuse privilege, to profit at the expense of others, is quite another thing – and it’s all too common these days.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/orange-county-family-paid-72k-keep-son-upgraded-jail-cell-after-he-killed-girl-while

CIVIL LIBERTIES alternet

Orange County Family Paid $72K to Keep Son in Upgraded Jail Cell After he Killed Girl While Drunk Driving

They paid over $72,000 for an upgraded cell.

By Tom Boggioni / Raw Story May 2, 2015

Contrary to the concept of “equal justice for all,” multiple Southern California cities offer upgraded jail cells with phones, DVD players, and full-sized refrigerators to offenders who can afford the daily rate, reports KNBC.

The family of one Seal Beach man paid over $72,000 for an upgraded cell, away from the general population, while he served 2-years for killing a classmate after crashing his car while driving drunk.

Called “pay-to-stay,” the cells can be found in Seal Beach, Anaheim, Arcadia, Burbank, Glendale, Huntington Beach, Pasadena, Santa Ana and Torrance, at nightly rates of $127 to $143. In some cities, the non-violent offender’s cell doors are not locked, and the prisoners are free to come and go to their jobs on a daily basis.

In Anaheim, inmates in the city’s pay-to-stay jail program are able to check out their own DVD players for their cell, and work out in a nice gym for a price.

The city of Fullerton offers one upgraded cell where inmates who can afford the $127 a night gets their own TV, a telephone in the cell, and a personal full-size refrigerator.

“Bottom line — if you don’t have the money, you’re not going to be able to stay,” explained Det. Laura Lomeli, who added that the cells are for “Good people who made a mistake, made a bad choice — and they have to pay the consequences.”

According to Peter Eliasberg, legal director for the ACLU of Southern California, “What a terrible idea. What a slap in the face for the concept of equal justice for all. If it’s a public service — that should be offered to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.”

Michael Keating, of Seal Beach, was intoxicated and at the wheel in 2010 when he crashed, killing Mai Hayakawa instantly.

Mai’s mother, Chiho Hayakawa, was stunned to find out that Keating — who never apologized for his action — got off so easy in jail after killing her daughter.

“I was so shocked,” she said. “I feel his solution comes from money.”

chapman univ RW?

NRA lawyer biggest gu firm:

He is an Adjunct Professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California, where he teaches firearms law. He is the author of the book California Gun Laws – A Guide to State and Federal Firearm Regulations and is the CEO and Senior Partner at Michel & Associates, the largest firearms law firm in the U.S.

http://greenpeaceblogs.org/2014/09/17/academic-pollution-greenpeace-traces-koch-money-campus/

2005-13

Chapman University

Orange

$147,000

koch $ IHS https://www.theihs.org/summer-research-colloquium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapman_University

Chapman University is a private, non-profit university located in Orange, California, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).^[1] Chapman University encompasses seven schools and colleges: Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics, Schmid College of Science & Technology, College of Performing Arts, Dale E. Fowler School of Law and College of Educational Studies. For the 2010–11 academic year, Chapman University enrolled 6,398 students.^[3]

[hide]

Paul Anderson – member, Nevada State Assembly^[34]
George Argyros ('59) – business executive, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain, former owner of Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball^[35]
Emmett Ashford - first African American umpire in Major League Baseball
David E. Bonior (M.A. '72) – U.S. Congressman from Michigan (1977–2003), House Minority Whip (1995–2002), House Majority Whip (1991–95)^[36]
Randy Jones – former professional baseball player, San Diego Padres, New York Mets, 1976 Cy Young Award Winner^[37]
Steve Lavin – head coach of St. John's men's basketball team (2010–present), former head coach of UCLA men's basketball team (1996–2002)^[36]
Chris Lee (M.B.A. '97) – U.S. Congressman (January 6, 2009 – February 9, 2011)^[38]
Loretta Sanchez ('82) – Congresswoman, California's 46th Congressional District^[39]
Jim Silva (M.A.) – member, California State Assembly^[40]

OC taftite relocated; Hioiles paper ~ roads, parks, child labor and pure food laws 125"

1960 FCC rule encourage selling airtime to churches 125-6

local biz gathered 2k files on possible commies

KNott got boysenberry from gov guy

1964 Fair -->Dland gr moment w/ Mr Lincoln made by OC co that that missle guidance sys 327 "If destruction is our lot, we must be the authoer and finisher of it" ?! Warhol mural 13 most Wanted men made fun of jeh as most exhonrated, so Moses whitewashed. local CORE plan to sabotage clog fwy, release rats, but cops and nat'l core stopped 329

Org cty fertile for BG (only deep So had more

votes for him; half of 10K CA jbs in OC 61

Many Private and Public Sector Actors Could Have Prevented the Crisis

There was ample time and means to prevent any financial crisis from arising from the incipient epidemic of fraudulent lending. A large number of actors, the regulators, prosecutors, credit rating agencies, secondary market purchasers, inside and outside auditors – and, of course, the CEOs of the lenders making the fraudulent loans – could have stopped the appraisal fraud epidemic in its tracks. It is obvious why the CEOs of the fraudulent lenders did not stop the endemic appraisal fraud that was designed to cover up the endemic mortgage origination fraud. The spread of the mortgage fraud epidemics throughout the secondary market participants and CDOs is a testament to the power of the CEOs who lead accounting control frauds to suborn myriad private sector firms and professionals to aid their frauds.

The fact that no federal banking regulatory agency responded to the appraisers’ warning with effective action (or even a warning about the fraud epidemic) reveals how severe the damage is when three Presidents in a row (Clinton, Bush, and Obama) appoint anti-regulatory leaders for the agencies. Appointing anti-regulators is, of course, a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. That is what the industry intends when it influences presidents to appoint anti-regulatory leaders. This particular regulatory failure to take the epidemics of fraudulent liar’s loans and appraisals is one of the most inexcusable in history.

We Know That Real Regulators Would Have Prevented the Crisis (Again)

It is not a hypothetical to say that real regulators would have reacted promptly, long before the crisis, to end the twin control fraud epidemics. We did so a decade before the appraisers first began their petition. We did so against exactly the same twin barrel fraud assault – led by the same CEO and the same lender. Only the name of the firm and the identity of its potential federal regulator had changed. We acted in 1990-1991 to halt this incipient epidemic of accounting control fraud because we were the regional regulators (OTS West Region) with jurisdiction over Orange County, California – the traditional birthplace of U.S. financial frauds.

We acted to end liar’s loans because we listened to our examiners who explained why no honest home lender would make liar’s loans and commit appraisal fraud. The alert reader will know that our struggle against the Orange County frauds in 1990-1991 constituted a “second front” in the war that the S&L control frauds were waging against our Nation. We were exceptionally busy during that period. We were driving the anti-regulator who controlled our agency, OTS Director Danny Wall, to resign in disgrace through our testimony in a series of explosive congressional hearings. Wall had removed our jurisdiction over Lincoln Savings under political coercion from the five U.S. Senators who became known as the “Keating Five” because we refused to rescind our recommendation that the government take over Lincoln Savings. If we failed to demonstrate that Wall had disgraced his office we would have been fired. We also had to end Darrel Dochow’s tenure as OTS’ head of supervision. Dochow had led the effort to cave in to Keating’s political intimidation. I considered him the worst professional banking regulator in the Nation. When Wall resigned in disgrace his successor removed Dochow as head of supervision.

We were closing scores of failed S&Ls in our region, many of them exceptionally large. We were making thousands of criminal referrals, bringing scores of civil suits, and hundreds of enforcement actions. We were testifying before the Senate Ethics investigation of the Keating Five and the House ethics investigation of Speaker Wright. We were adopting new rules in conformance with the 1989 and 1991 legislative acts. I was defending a $400 million civil suit brought by Charles Keating against me in my individual capacity. We were training FBI agents and Assistant U.S. Attorneys. A material number of our top examiners were “detailed” to work for the FBI to serve as internal experts on their highest priority investigations. (This allowed them access to confidential Rule 6 (e) grand jury materials.) Many of us spent material time testifying in criminal cases as percipient and expert witnesses.

In our era, the industry did not yet call stated income loans “liar’s” loans. Our examiners had to figure out that the loans were endemically fraudulent.

The schwerpunktof the Orange County control fraud’s “liar’s loan” assault on the public was Long Beach Savings, led by Roland Arnall. Arnall caused Long Beach to be the pioneer in making liar’s loans. Arnall also caused it to be a leader in appraisal fraud and a pioneer in predatory mortgage lending targeting blacks and Latinos.

We drove stated income loans out the S&L industry in 1990-1991. Because of our supervisory crackdown on stated income loans, Arnall voluntarily gave up federal deposit insurance and converted to a mortgage bank for the sole purpose of escaping our regulatory jurisdiction. He changed Long Beach’s name to Ameriquest. A husband/wife team that we had “removed and prohibited” from the federally insured financial industry started a mortgage bank that became one of Arnall’s material competitors. Michael W. Hudson’s 2010 book The Monster provides a superb history of Ameriquest. In addition to our supervisory actions that led Arnall to flee our jurisdiction we made the referrals to the Department of Justice about Long Beach’s predatory lending that included discrimination against black and Latino borrowers. Those referrals eventually led to DOJ sanctions against Ameriquest. Once Arnall was able to convert Long Beach into a mortgage bank, however, we lost all ability to protect the public from Arnall and Ameriquest.

The FTC and the state attorneys general, however, continued to have jurisdiction over aspects of Ameriquest’s mortgage lending. Their investigations prompted the third and fourth major sanctions against Ameriquest.

The Fed, the OCC, and the OTS Have No Excuse for Not Heeding the Warnings

The Fed had the unique authority under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act of 1994 (HOEPA) to stop all “liar’s” loans by any lender regardless of whether the lender had federal deposit insurance. The Fed held the hearings at which Krystofiak testified because Congress mandated that it did so because of continuing concerns in Congress about predatory lending.

The Fed was never dealing with a crisis from 2000-2007. It was “busy” notdealing with the crisis. The Fed had far greater staff than we, the OTS West Region, had. The Fed finally used HOEPA to ban liar’s loans in mid-2008. Even then, it acted in response to Congressional demands that they do so. Worse, Bernanke delayed the effective date of the rule by 15 months – because one would not want to inconvenience a fraudulent lender.

The Fed had the immense advantage of our experience with liar’s loans, the testimony of Krystofiak and dozens of other witnesses, the fact that the industry now called the loans “liar’s loans,” and the warnings from the appraisers, the FBI, MARI, and the state attorneys general. The frauds were massively greater in their era because they failed to act.

The OCC and the OTS failed when Ameriquest’s fraudulent lending operations were sold. Citicorp and Washington Mutual’s (WaMu) holding company eagerly acquired Ameriquest’s operations and pumped out tens of thousands of additional fraudulent loans. The OCC and the OTS had all the advantages not simply of our general crackdown on liar’s loans but our two actions against Long Beach Savings and the subsequent actions of the FTC and the state attorney’s general. It was insane to allow Citicorp and WaMu to acquire Ameriquest’s fraudulent and predatory lending arms. OTS gets the prize for worst of the worst because it promoted Dochow repeatedly and put him in charge of the West Region where he again failed to regulate. OTS compounded the insanity of allowing WaMu’s holding company to acquire Ameriquest’s mortgage operations (called “Long Beach Mortgage) by permitting the holding company to transfer Long Beach Mortgage to WaMu, the federally insured S&L. That transfer put the FDIC fund and the Treasury at risk of loss. Long Beach Mortgage had fraudulently sold so many fraudulent and predatory liar’s loans, often with fraudulent appraisals, that its potential liability was enormous. . ...alternet

INTERSECTIONS

What's Old is New: How Orange County's Conservative Past Created its Demographics Today

by Ryan Reft

on January 18, 2013 12:30 PM

Looking at the many recent popular constructions of Orange County -- television shows like Laguna Beach, Newport Harbor, The O.C. -- one might be excused for seeing it as a homogenous collection of picturesque suburban beach towns. Politically, Orange County remains a symbol of staunch but diverse conservatism, ranging from strict evangelical social reformers to libertarian mavericks. However, as immigration flows changed over the course of the past few decades, Orange County's demographics changed and with it, so did its political leanings.

Today, Asian Americans account for one-fifth of Orange County; Latinos make up more than a third. Immigrants account for half the county's population; Asians and Latinos comprise the vast majority of residents in cities like Buena Park, Fullerton, and Anaheim. 36% of Asian Americans in Orange County register as Republicans and 27% as Democrats. Vietnamese Americans, who make up nearly half of the county's Asian American electorate, support the GOP the most staunchly: 40% align with Republicans and only 27% with the Democrats. In 2008, President Obama secured 48% of the vote in Orange County, while Romney won the county in the 2012 election by 10 percentage points.

Initially in Orange County, anti-communism served as the social glue that held together a region largely devoid of public spaces, according toLisa McGirr in "Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right." The notorious John Birch Society, along with the Orange County Register, articulated the region's burgeoning conservative beliefs. Failed Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater first flirted with the county's voters, decrying the collapse of morality and the spread of communism. Richard Nixon took them to the altar in 1968 with his "silent majority" campaign which, McGirr argues, was based on his conception of Orange County residents and their corresponding political ideology.2

As U.S. military engagement in Vietnam increased, so too did the need for munitions and weaponry. California courted the government for military dollars like few others -- this not only altered the landscape, but also politics and immigration policy.

White-collared defense industry professionals became common residents in Orange County -- a technical elite directly tied to what former President Eisenhower labeled derisively as "the military industrial complex."1 In parts of Southern California by the end of the 1960s, the military accounted for nearly one-third of the local economy.3 Between 1962 and 1982, California's share of weapons production went from 13% to 57%.4

When more and more G.I.s established relationships with Asian women overseas while in service, they returned home to the U.S. and California hoping to settle down and make families. This forced changes in immigration policies, resulting in the War Bride Act of 1945 and subsequent amendments such as the Soldier Brides Act of 1946 and 1947, which addressed the issue of federal government's long denial of naturalized citizenship to Asians not born in the U.S.

The 1952 McCarren Act ended the ban on naturalized citizenship for Asians, but still set discriminatory quotas. Finally, the 1965 Hart Celler Act redefined the criteria for immigration, placing family reunification as a major plank and ending racist national quotas by replacing them with hemispheric equivalents.

With the 1965 Act and America's combined efforts in the Pacific and Asia, immigration from the region increased. The United States' withdrawal from Vietnam brought a flood of new arrivals. Americans demonstrated a reticence toward Vietnamese refugees, though the Republican Ford Administration pushed through the 1975 Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, with Camp Pendleton in Southern California serving as one of four refugee centers. Immigration from Vietnam to the U.S. continued, spurred on by the Refugee Act of 1980; from 1980 to 2000, 531,00 Vietnamese refugees and asylum seekers came to the United States. Today 40% of all Vietnamese Americans live in Orange County.

Though registration has dipped since 1992 -- reaching an all-time-low in 2002 before rising again due to the efforts of Vietnamese conservative activists -- the Republican party continues to enjoy the support of Orange County's Vietnamese community. Republican Tri Ta of Westminster recently became the nation's first Vietnamese American Mayor, though he has admitted that the GOP often failed to effectively reach out to minority communities, and anti-immigration rhetoric "annoys him." Even if fewer of Orange County's 190,000 Vietnamese Americans identify as Republicans, nearly all of the community's elected officials still align with the conservative party.

As a refugee population, most Vietnamese lack the kind of political attachment to a party that might be important factors in communities with longer ties to the political process. But considering that most Vietnamese Americans only arrived over the last three decades, the community's ability to secure success in electoral politics deserves attention, U.C Irvine Professor Linda Vo told KPCC in early December. In fact, Ta himself came in 1992 when the government granted his father political asylum.

Nationally, as has been reported widely, Asian Americans voted for President Obama at a rate above 70%. Moreover, along with Latinos, Asian Americans voted for the Democrat in greater margins than four years earlier. This is perhaps another example of why the term "Asian American" remains problematic -- Vietnamese are not Chinese, just as Germans are not French. Though declining in numbers, more Vietnamese still identify as Republicans than Democrats. Did O.C. Vietnamese Americans make up the 30% that voted for Romney?

The race for the 47th Congressional District between the then 14-year incumbent Loretta Sanchez and her rival Van Tran, who became the first Vietnamese American elected to the California State Senate in 2002, demonstrates the complexity of this process. Debates about undocumented workers (Sanchez's parents were Mexican immigrants) and human rights in Vietnam (which appealed to the district's significant Vietnamese community) occupied center stage. Tran even used the old language of McCarthyism, suggesting Sanchez's interactions with Ramon Castro and her voting record on economic stimulus and health care amounted to a "socialist conspiracy." A Tran campaign flyer highlighted the Republican candidate's "conservative beliefs and Asian values" while questioning Ms. Sanchez's lifestyle. Ms. Sanchez won, but many viewed the battle as one indicative of California's future -- a majority minority state in which one group's gains come at the expense of another.

In 1980, less than 60,000 Asian Americans resided in all of California; by 2010 that number had grown to 4,775, 070. Latino numbers expanded from 4,554, 331 to 14,013,719. In fact, from 2000 to 2010, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties all recorded declines in their white population, slight drops among African Americans, while seeing significant gains in both Asian and Latino residents. In pure numbers, Orange County includes greater numbers of Asians and Latinos when compared with San Diego. Of course, this uptick in diversity fails to guarantee interaction. For nearly all minority groups, rates of segregation from whites have stayed the same or increased. If one uses school segregation as an indication of housing patterns, the problem has only intensified in Southern California.

Even with spatial segregation, Orange County's new demographics have ways of intersecting. "To see how radically demographics have changed in Orange County, California, just look at what's for lunch," wrote Jennifer Medina in the New York Times in April of 2011. "Nowhere are the shifts more evident than in the abundance of ethnic restaurants with menus meant to please varied palates." Hop Phan, owner of a Vietnamese-Mexican fusion food truck called Dos Chinos (derived from the tendency of O.C. Spanish speakers to describe all Asians as "chinos"), grew up in a Vietnamese family in a Mexican neighborhood in Santa Ana. His experience with his own family's culinary traditions meshed with those of his Mexican American friends. Whites may not integrate, but perhaps other groups have, which considering Southern California's history of hybridity and diversity, seems likely.

When famed Vietnamese poet Nguyen Chi Thien passed away earlier this year, numerous news outlets noted where he ended his days: Little Saigon, located in Westminster, Orange County, the same town where Mayor Ta won election. Living his life out in a federally subsidized Santa Ana apartment, Thien spent his final years lecturing, writing, and broadcasting political shows for Vietnamese language radio and television throughout the U.S. Thien was made famous for his book of poems, "Flowers from Hell," written while languishing in Vietnamese jails, including the infamous Hanoi Hilton, for 27 years before being allowed to leave Vietnam for the U.S. in 1995. His life, in many ways, represents how Orange County came to its current incarnation: the anti-communist rhetoric that argued for intervention in Vietnam, the military build up that Orange County and Southern California contributed to and benefited from, and the immigration changes driven by the war these two forces promoted, have remade the region. In the end, today's Orange County remains connected to its past and the rest of Southern California in very clear ways.

1 Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right, Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001.

2 Ibid

3 Gary Robbins, San Diego Union Tribune, "San Diego's Military Payroll Tops the Nation," August 30, 2010

4 Ann Markusen et al, The Rise of the Gunbelt: The Military Remapping of Industrial America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 16 - 19, 42.

Ryan Reft (@TropicsM) is a doctoral candidate in urban history at the University of California San Diego. His work has appeared in the journals Souls and The Sixties, as well as in the anthology Barack Obama and African American Empowerment: The Rise of Black America's New Leadership. He is co-editor of the blog Tropics of Meta.

GMU

http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/schrag/wiki/index.php?title=Suburban_Warriors:

Lisa McGirr. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. 2001. Reprint, Princeton University Press, 2002. $23

Contents

[hide]

Summary

--Mlinhart 14:29, 6 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Beginning in the 1960’s, many Americans, mostly of the white, middle-class persuasion, began to believe that the Federal Government had taken on more responsibilities and duties than the Founding Fathers had intended it to have. Feeling that “Big Brother” was constantly peering over the fence into their back yards, these men and women began to look for alternatives to the moderate-to-left persuasion that they saw as a common denominator with most politicians. Having found little commonality and support with the Eisenhower administration and fearful of what the new minds of the Kennedy presidency would produce, these conservative-thinking individuals looked as far right as they could for someone who valued the same kind of America as they did. They found this in the Senator from Arizona – Barry Goldwater. While Goldwater and the men and women who supported him in the 1964 presidential campaign were not attempting to turn back the clock to an era of America long gone, they were attempting to return morality and faith in the Christian God – values that they believed were essential to the survival of America - back to the nation. The movement to the left that had been occurring during the first half of the 1960’s needed to be stopped; if it wasn’t, these conservatives believed, the United States was doomed to the same fate that befell Rome – its ultimate implosion from the rot that had destroyed its core for years.

In her book, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right, Lisa McGirr examines how these men and women were able to redefine what it meant to be a conservative through a case study of Orange County, California. By examining this particular county, McGirr hopes to gain a better understanding of what went into the grassroots movement in Southern California that allowed the ultra-conservative Goldwater to essentially steal the California primary and assure his spot on the national ticket as the Republican candidate for president in 1964. While McGirr concedes that the situation in Orange County was not necessarily similar throughout the United States, she does insist that by studying Orange County the reader can get a better understanding of the values and energy that went into this conservative movement and its attempt to redefine what it meant to be a Republican in the United States.

McGirr begins her study with an in-depth overview of the history of Orange County. She believes that this is an important process to go through; by examining the history of the county, she hopes to instill in the reader a notion that this was a county in the midst of tremendous transition. Two changes were taking place in Orange County as World War II ended. First, many of the native ranchers whose families had been living on the land for generations became frustrated by what they saw occurring around them. Second, as Cold War tensions increased between the United States and Soviet Union, the Defense Department needed land to expand upon in order to build the sophisticated weapons that would become prominent throughout the conflict. Orange County offered the government the space and work force needed for these activities.

Orange County, California was characterized by change and expansion after World War II. Population growth in Orange County was phenomenal; it grew from 131,000 in 1940, to 704,000 in 1960 to almost 2 million in 1980. World War II accelerated Orange County growth. The military and military-industrial complex, including high technology industries like electronics, instrumentation, missiles and aircraft, attracted workers to the county from across the United States. Along with workers, came businessmen. "The rapid growth and affluence of the region drew scores of entrepreneurs whose ventures, in turn, spurred new development" (p. 28) resulting in a county that was a sprawling middle class enclave.

As early as the 1960’s, Orange County was a "real center and symbol of American conservatism." (p. 4) Lisa McGirr believes there was a "convergence of a particular set of social, economic, political forces within the region that contributed to the germination of a conservative culture." (p. 29) The conservative component was a combination of native citizens with a heritage of Western individualism, entrepreneurs and capitalists who profited from rapid growth and resented government regulation of the economy, and those in military and military related jobs on the frontlines of the Cold War who were strongly anticommunist.

As educated white men and their families began to move into the county from various parts of the country, they had a unique opportunity to create their own culture and rules that would govern their new lives. Taking from their experiences, these individuals, especially mothers who stayed at home to raise their children, began to organize politically in an attempt to have this new value system transplanted into their county and neighborhoods. Beginning with the public school system that served their children, these mothers were willing to take on those aspects of life in California that they disagreed with, including the liberal education that the public schools offered to their children. Taking this fight a step further, these grassroots organizations began to work collectively to have their voice heard at the state level, their actions eventually culminating in Barry Goldwater’s nomination for president by the Republican party. By organizing into small associations that were based around the family and its immediate social network, this group of conservative men and women were able to get their ideas out onto the street.

Orange County conservatives became politically involved at the grassroots level often in struggles over "liberal influences in their children’s schooling." (p. 74) The John Birch Society, which ultimately fell into disrepute, found supporters in Orange County as did other conservative organizations. Eventually local activists "intersected with a national conservative movement" (p. 112) and advocated support of the Goldwater candidacy of 1965. McGirr claims George Wallace found little support in white collar Orange County because of his attachment "to New Deal programs, the welfare state and unions." (p. 115)

While the campaign for Goldwater is seen ultimately as a failure due to his sweeping defeat, those individuals supporting him did not lose faith in their ability to change America. Instead of continuing down the political path, many instead turned to religion in hopes of converting others to the proper way in life. By the mid-1960’s California seems to have been engulfed in a Third Great Awakening as churches began to see their congregations grow by the thousands. Where these men and women were unable to bring about the changes they desired through political means, by turning to religion, they hoped to convert those living throughout Southern California to the value systems that they wanted.

Conservatives learned from the Goldwater defeat and found "new opportunities brought about by the social turbulence of the decade." (p. 186) However, Conservatives gave somewhat reluctant support to Nixon. They felt Nixon had compromised his conservative principles and taken a moderate stance to obtain national support. Nixon had "attacked the “Extreme Right” and the John Birch Society." (p. 120) Nevertheless, as McGirr observes, Conservatives moved "into the respectable mainstream while the mainstream moved toward them." (p. 186) The result was the election of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California and eventually as President.

--Mlinhart 14:29, 6 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Commentary

--Mlinhart 14:29, 6 Apr 2006 (EDT)

In an ironic case of unintended consequences, the activists and counter-culture of the left in the late 1960s and early 1970s, not only motivated the right to action but enabled them to find sufficient support to secure sufficient political clout to affect local, state and national politics in succeeding years. Lisa McGirr states the ferment and unrest of the late sixties would ‘eventually rip the fabric of American liberalism apart and play itself out to the advantage of conservatives.’ (188) McGirr’s study of Orange County, California traces the changes in that region to demonstrate the rise of conservative influence to national prominence.

McGirr distinguishes between libertarians and ‘normative’ or social conservatives. The former ‘sought to limit the intrusiveness of the nation-state in economic matters’ (10) despite the involvement of many with the military-industrial complex and the latter opposed the decline in religiosity, morality, responsibility and family authority which ‘went hand in hand with the growth of centralized federal power.’ (10-11) Both groups championed ‘virulent anticommunism, celebrated laissez-faire capitalism, evoked staunch nationalism and supported the use of the state to uphold law and order.’ (11) There was little worry about social unrest in homogeneous Orange County among the conservatives. However, Watts was close by and demonstrated another reason to support law and order. Racism was rarely expressed but Orange County conservatives were up in arms about the 1963 Rumford Open Housing Act to prevent discrimination in housing. They voted solidly for Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment to repeal the law. (185)

McGirr’s description of conservative Protestantism in Orange County fits with Lienesch’s (Redeeming America Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right) description of the New Religious Right. There were a number of independent mega-churches with evangelical ministers like Bob Schuler and Charles Fuller. McGirr identifies ‘social conservatives’ who felt the ‘true cause of the nation’s problems’ was a ‘decline in morality, religiosity and righteous living.’ (157) Like the New Christian Right, religious conservatives in Orange County favored traditional values and were alarmed by such things as the ‘exclusion of religion from the school room,’ (159) pornography, abortion, and the weakening of the forces of law and order. Obviously, Supreme Court decisions in these areas did little to win their support for the national government.

McGirr sees Orange County conservatism as largely middle class. This middle class was more disappointed and disenchanted than disaffected. There was a component of anxiety in their thinking; their anticommunism was based on belief in a strong enemy. They believed the United States would prevail if the nation was not bogged down in social programs, had a strong military and little or no United Nations involvement. The amorphous middle class includes educated doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and engineers but it also includes others with lesser status, e.g., a clerk of a municipal court and the wife of a union member. (207) The middle class category is so broad that it is virtually meaningless.

McGirr emphasizes the role of the middle class but she also describes important financial backing from wealthy Californians including Walter Knott, owner of Knott’s Berry Farm who founded the Free Enterprise Association in 1960, a ‘critical right-wing institution in Orange County.’ (99) The middle class provided legwork and votes but the influence and support of the wealthy might have laid the groundwork for a trickle-down conservatism.

--Mlinhart 14:29, 6 Apr 2006 (EDT)

Tom Demharter, fall 2005

Overall, the author does an excellent job in providing the reader with a sense of what life was like in Orange County throughout the 1960’s. A unique set of circumstances arouse in Southern California that allowed this conservative grassroots movement to take shape. While McGirr does argue that other parts of the country experienced similar situations, she does not expand on this other than to name a few. This is where I feel that she falls into a conundrum. It is impossible to say that the support Goldwater received throughout the country in Republican primaries was based on a similar set of occurrences. That is simply not possible. Something was uniting these people on a national level and McGirr was unable to account for this. While Goldwater only received 39% of the vote, those particular groups of people were tremendously united. She ignores this point completely. McGirr also does not account for the uniqueness of religious revival in southern California and why it only seems to have occurred there. While the southeast also has a tremendous spiritual rebirth at the same time, it was nothing like the revivals of California. Overall, while the book does have some shortcomings in that it is too area specific to be useful to understand national patterns, it does provide a tremendous amount of information that helps the reader better understand the rebirth of the Republican Party. --Tdemharter 10:42, 22 Nov 2005 (EST)

Dave Smith, Fall 2006

Lisa McGirr provides an interesting analysis of the conservative movement, using Orange County, California, as a focal point. Contrary to popular opinion, according to McGirr, conservatives were not irrational "kooks" but instead were mainstream middle-class "men and women who rejected the liberal vision and instead championed individual economic freedom and a staunch social conservatism." (p. 12) McGirr disputes the view of scholars like Richard Hofstadter who "cast the Right as a marginal, embattled remnant fighting a losing battle against the inexorable forces of progress." (p. 7) Postwar liberal intellectuals tended to cast liberalism as the sole American intellectual tradition. McGirr says, "By failing to take into account the deep-seated conservative ideological universe of conservatives, liberal intellectuals underestimated the resilience and staying power of the Right in American life." (p. 148)

The book is a local study that seeks to explain the rise of a national movement. McGirr does not claim that Orange County is typical but instead finds that it provided fertile ground for conservatism through its socioeconomic, cultural, and political patterns. McGirr says, "Orange County exaggerated trends occurring elsewhere - trends that were harbingers of future national change." (p. 13)

McGirr finds that conservative Christianity found a home in Southern California and helped infuse a conservative political culture. She specifically notes the influence of fundamentalist churches, like the Orange County Central Baptist Church, which supported right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society. The fundamentalist worldview of an ongoing battle between good and evil fit well with the anti-communism of these groups.

McGirr finds that postwar liberal intellectuals failed to take into account "the deep-seated conservative ideological trafditons on which the Right drew" and accordingly "underestimated the resilience and staying power of the Right in American life." (p. 148) Conservatives believed that the postwar New Deal order impelled by bigger and more intrusive government impaired traditional morals and values and fostered social permissiveness. McGirr says, "The expansion of the scale and scope of the federal government, they believed, reduced civic autonomy and thwarted individual initiative and self-reliance, running counter to older Republican belief in the primacy of the locality and the state in determining the shape of public life." (p. 149)

McGirr views the Goldwater predidential campaign of 1964 as a watershed in the conservative political movement. McGirr says, "Goldwater's entrepreneurial individualism and his references to the West as the repoitory of true American values elicited a strong regional appeal." (p. 132) He took a number of positions that appealed to conservatives, such as his militant anticommunist stance, his advocacy of states' rights, his emphasis on individual responsibility, and, as McGirr says, "Above all, his support of "property rights" over civil rights as the ultimate test of freedom." (p. 133)

David Houpt, Fall 2008

One of the most interesting aspects of Suburban Warriors is the prevalence of anticommunism. In Nightmare in Red, Richard Fried makes claims that by the 1960s anticommunism was a dead issue in politics. According to Lisa McGirr, there was still a tremendous amount of red-baiting taking place at the local level. This would make sense because the 1960s was the height of the Cold War. It is possible that both authors are correct and that anti-communism was a dead issue at the presidential level but that at the local and congressional level it was still around. McGirr even suggests that McCarthy was revered by some of the new conservatives as being a hero of some sort.

The other part of this book that I found particularly interesting was how influential California’s politics was on the rest of the country. It was not until Barry Goldwater won the primary in California that he was really considered a viable candidate. It is hard to believe though that Orange County was a "real center and symbol of American conservatism." (p. 4) The conservative movement had been brewing in the South for some time, and I am sure that Governor George Wallace would argue that Alabama was the real center of American conservatism. I do not believe that McGirr was successful in arguing that Orange County was representative of the rest of the country. Her study of the history, demographics, and geography of the county is interesting and helps explain why Orange County became so conservative. But what does that tell us about regions that are nothing like Orange County except that they were really conservative? She never really goes into why Orange County can be seen as a “symbol” for the conservative movement.

Like Nixonland, Suburban Warriors makes the argument that Barry Goldwater’s quixotic Presidential campaign in 1964 was what sparked the conservative fire. It may seem odd that a candidate who was beaten so handily could serve as a rallying point for a new movement but when Goldwater won the Republican primary it convinced millions of conservatives that their grassroots movement could indeed influence policy. Democrats, who believed they had just gotten a mandate to undertake dramatic reforms, were unprepared when the newly energized conservative movement reared its head.

The Mason Historiographiki is a wiki (collaborative website) written and edited by graduate students in history at George Mason University who are preparing for written or oral comprehensive examinations. Only they and their instructors may edit it, but anyone interested in their take on the literature of history is welcome to read. In its initial incarnation, it will focus on twentieth-century United States history.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/schrag/wiki/index.php?title=Zachary_Schrag%27s_Syllabus

Common Texts: McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right; Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan.

Optional: Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.Sheri: Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free EnterpriseLindsey: Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern ConservatismAlexandra: Matthew D. Lassiter, The Silent Majority: Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South; Bethany Moreton. To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise

The Lincoln Club of Orange County, located in Orange County, California, is a non-profit corporation that operates Political Action Committees (PAC) for conservative political causes.

Contents

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History and membership

The Lincoln Club of Orange County was formed in 1962 by Dr. Arnold O. Beckman, the founder of Beckman Instruments, Walter Knott, the founder of Knott’s Berry Farm, and Si Fluor of the Fluor Corporation, among others. Past members include President Richard Nixon and actor John Wayne. Today, its membership consists of businessmen and women in Orange County who come from a variety of industries.

Leadership

The Lincoln Club is managed by the President, Chairman, two Vice Presidents, Treasurer, and Secretary, and a Board of Directors. All positions are appointed. The President is elected by the Board and may serve for up to two two-year terms. Robert W. Loewen has been President since 2009, succeeding Richard K. Wagner, who now serves as Chairman. Within the Club, there are six standing committees: Local Elections, Legislative, Issues, Communications, Membership, and Programs. These committees meet on a monthly basis and are open to all member.

Political activities

Throughout its history, the Lincoln Club of Orange County has been involved in many political issues. It was an early supporter of Proposition 13, the property tax reform voter initiative that led to a taxpayer revolt beginning in 1978. The Lincoln Club of Orange County also was an early supporter of the movement to recall Governor Gray Davis in 2003 and the 2004 election of South Dakota Senator John Thune, who unseated then-Senate majority leader Tom Daschle.

Since the Club's founding in 1962, nearly every Republican president has addressed the Club either before, during, or after his presidency. Richard Nixon,Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush have all addressed the Lincoln Club. Other speakers have included General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., Vicente Fox Quesada, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. More recently, speakers included political candidates such as Senator Jim DeMint, Pennsylvania Senate candidate Pat Toomey, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Senator Norm Coleman and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. The Club has also hosted events with pundits such as Mark Steyn, Jonah Goldberg, Stephen Moore, Amity Shlaes,Victor Davis Hanson, and Michelle Malkin.

The Lincoln Club of Orange County is not affiliated with a political party, though it has historically supported Republicans. Each election cycle, the Club's Board of Directors endorses candidates in national, state and local elections, but it does not endorse in every race. The Club's Local Elections Committee conducts diligence on local candidates at the city council level based upon questionnaires, interviews, a review of past votes and inquiries of others who live in the area. The result is a list of endorsements to assist voters in selecting local office holders who will promote a government that aligns with the Club's standards. The Club's Legislative Committee researches the pros and cons of ballot measures and makes recommendations to the Club's membership, which then votes to determine the Club's position on each measure.

National issues

On a national scale, the Lincoln Club of Orange County works to reduce the size and function of the federal government, decrease government spending, and cut taxes. The Club is against centralized healthcare, regulations that hinder businesses, and government spending that pushes the country further into debt. In 2007, the Club was an Executive Producer of "Hillary the Movie," a documentary focusing on the controversial views of then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who was a candidate for President of the United States at that time. Though the film was shown at selected theaters and copies of the film were distributed, the Federal Elections Commission prohibited its producer, Citizens United, from allowing the film to be shown on cable TV under the McCain-Feingold Act, also known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Citizens United successfully challenged the campaign finance law at issue in the United States Supreme Court.

California issues

In California, creating jobs and limiting the power of special-interest government groups are the top priorities for the Lincoln Club. In 2009, the Lincoln Club joined with the Tea Party Patriots,a grassroots political group, to create and support the Citizen Power Campaign, which sought to ban California labor unions from automatically deducting funds from union members' paychecks for political purposes without their consent. Though the initiative did not qualify for the 2010 ballot, the Lincoln Club has continued to support the Citizen Power Campaign. In November 2009, the Club and its members funded publication of Plunder: How Public Employee Unions are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation, written by Steven Greenhut with forwards by Tom **McClintock** and Lincoln Club member Mark Bucher.

References

Land of the Lincoln Club from the Orange County Business Journal, December 6, 1998

Fred Thompson announces his Presidential candidacy at Lincoln Club Annual Dinner (video) May 7, 2007

Lincoln Club of Orange County Endorses Shawn Nelson for Supervisor from the Fullerton Press Center, March 16, 2010

Lincoln Club of Orange County Endorses Ed Reno for Newport Beach City Council from Newport for Reno, March 15, 2010

Lincoln Club of Orange County home page August 4, 2010

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