TRAPPED BADGER ON A SURFBOARD

"He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws." 

- Hunter S. Thompson on Richard Nixon

Carlsbad's Surfer Savant has been desperately trying to change the narrative since her disastrous appearance at the board meeting for her "Clean Energy Alliance" on July 23rd, and the July 28th  Carlsbad City Council Meeting where the idea that Carlsbad's taxpayers should bail out "Cori Choice Energy" laid an egg.  

Having earned the moniker "Quid Pro Cori" for her antics in trying to shove her major (and non-disclosed) union donor's agenda down the throats of the unsuspecting members of the CEA board, the Councilwoman has returned to basics. Perhaps as she attends "law school" at a junior college, somebody mentioned this worrisome technicality 

"Honest services fraud is defined in United States Code Title 18 Section 1346 – also known as the federal mail and wire fraud statute – as 'a scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services.' 

"....Originally, you were denied your intangible rights when government officials did not function 'openly and faithfully' in their service to their constituents. Now, most fiduciary, privileged, or employment relationships – in which any kind of breach would have been covered by tort law – are held to a similar standard. No money or property needs to change hands, and the attempt to deprive someone of honest services does not need to be successful. A breach of fiduciary duty, or a failure to disclose a conflict of interest, can now be charged as wire or mail fraud."

As it is, there have already been calls for our resident badger's resignation courtesy of this "Regular Guy", and it's a pretty safe guess that recent articles and blog posts may have added to any angst.      

Like Hunter's Nixonian cornered badger, Corinne's response is invariably to go on the attack, a response we know well in my household. 

First, there was a heaping helping of COVID fear-mongering and shaming in her online town hall, where she urged those calling the county's hotline for mask and social distancing scofflaws to please make sure to copy her so she could "follow up" and turn the information over to her social media surrogates for appropriate doxxing, outing,  and shaming on NEXTDOOR and the Schumacher family of Facebook groups. Of course, that also extends to political attacks on her colleagues by certain "Seldom Wright" surrogates.  

Then as she was preparing to embark on her vacation (in the spirit of contravention of the same stay at home orders she wants to know if you violate ), there was the COVID shaming of a CPD officer based on this grainy video. The purple prose Cori used is epic. 

"To the woman in District 1 who asked one of our police officers this morning to put his mask on when hanging out in conversation with a couple of our locals up at the seawall...

I'M SORRY.

I'm sorry your concerns were dismissed;

I'm sorry that your efforts to get one of those mandated to protect our community to do the right thing were waved away;

I'm sorry the people who should be protecting you aren't taking this seriously;

I'm sorry that there are some (not all!) who are setting an example of such visible and open disregard for our community;

I'm so sorry I can't do more to protect you right now;

And I'm sorry you were the one who had to say something, but I am so appreciative that you did! You are our hero. You stood up for our community this morning and called on us to do the right thing and I am damn proud of you for this.

Thank you to the resident who sent this video along. Stay vigilant, my friends." 

I wonder how the police union likes their endorsement now. 

When in political trouble for the Watergate scandal, Nixon hopped on Air Force One and went to Moscow to suck up to Comrade Brezhnev. Cori doesn't have to go quite as far, she just hops on the SANDAG Zoom meeting and sucks up to her own Mad Russian, recovering Soviet Central Planner Comrade Hasan Ihkrata. 

Though the COVID depression we are experiencing has had a variety of effects, it seems that neither Comrade Ihkrata nor Comrade  "Trapped Badger" has gotten the memo yet. As can be imagined, the revenue streams going into the TRANSNET coffers have taken a hit because of the pandemic.

The need for public transport is concomitantly reduced, with the increasing levels of telecommuting the crisis has ushered in. If the objective was to take cars off the roads, it would seem the virus has advanced that cause in the most tragic of ways. The consensus is that Comrade Ihkrata's future depends on Kristin Gaspar losing to Terra Lawson Remer this November,  which explains why the Comrade is a max donor to the Notorious TLR's campaign. 

So it was with great interest that we viewed the last SANDAG board meeting, starring our Surfer Savant as Carlsbad's representative. Having opposed such needed projects in her District as repairs to the treacherous 5/78 interchange, it should not come as a shock that Councilwoman Schumacher would double down on her support of Hasan's "Five Big Moves", (which is an unfortunate branding attempt reminiscent of this vintage commercial.)

With that in mind, thanks to a contributor, here are Cori's remarks at the SANDAG Board of Directors Meeting on Friday, August 14,2020 on Agenda Item 3 - The Vision for the 2021 Regional Plan. Here's the video. (The Savant's remarks begin at 3:30:06 of the video at the link below)

"Thank you very much, Chair. And, huge thanks to Staff for all the 15 months worth of work on this vision. I want to personally thank Colleen, as well as Hasan, for coming up to North County on multiple occasions to present some of the ideas and be open to questions. The amount of community outreach has just been spectacular and I think that's reflected in some of the comments from Carlsbad that you heard today which are in support of a different vision from that which we have seen previously. I think it is important to note that North County is a region in transition and that the voices you're hearing on the Board are over-representative of an ideology that we're moving away from.

(From our guest reporter: She pauses here, laboriously thinking of how to say what she's obviously making up, or embellishing at the very least - When Trump starts with the expression "A lot of people are saying..." it's been well documented that's a linguistic preface to a lie and what she does here appears to be exactly the same thing.) 

"There is a really clear direction that I'm hearing from folks, boots on the ground, from different cities in North County that makes it clear that we cannot use 20th Century ideologies to solve 21st Century problems so the proposals around making Transit more accessible, light rail along Palomar Airport Rd., which I find highly intriguing, and really connecting North County to the San Diego more central region is something that I've been hearing from constituents that is desired, that they would take Transit if it was more convenient at 10-minute intervals. They would take more Transit if they were able to get to their workplaces in Sorrento Valley, for instance, or able to get home at an hour that works for them that might be outside of the current schedule for buses. 

"So, I really want to applaud Staff, applaud the direction we're going. I know we're in a crisis but, as my Mayor likes to actually say, 'Sometimes moments like this are opportunities for economic development and job creation.' It's what Carlsbad did back in 2008 when we developed Alga Norte. We took advantage of a situation. We were able to build something at a lower cost and provide local jobs and that is pointed out on multiple occasions at my Council at least during this crisis. 

"I want to thank the residents of San Diego County for coming on to this webcast today and making statements reminding this Board to center Transportation Justice, Racial Justice, Economic Justice in all of our planning and I would just echo what has been said during the Public Comment so eloquently. With that, I know it's going to be difficult for us to figure out how to fund this and I know that we're going to work together to find a way to do that. I want to caution the idea that smart vehicles, autonomous vehicles work for everyone. It's an 'elitist' point of view that I think that we need to, again, if we are going to center Transportation Justice, really make sure we're creating a Transportation System for everyone. Thank you"

Left unmentioned in all our Surfer Savant's centering of Transportation Justice, Racial Justice, Economic Justice, was the recent cancellation of the Carlsbad Connector for lack of interest that traveled along that same Palomar Airport Road she wants that light rail line to travel. You know, it was the one with the Oregon plates. 

Nixon quietly left with some dignity via helicopter in 1974.  One can only wonder how Corinne will leave via surfboard when the time comes. My guess is, it will sound a lot like this.