With the Democrats taking the House and threatening to take the Senate at this hour, you might expect the Orange County GOP election night party at the Hyatt Regency Irvine to be a mopey affair. After all, a huge banner in the room proclaims this is "America's Most Republican County." But, other than being about the tenth of the size of previous gloat-a-thons, the well-dressed crowd here is mostly laughing, chatting and paying little attention to the results streaming in on the giant screen CNN
Writing at Counterpunch.org, the online version of Alexander Cockburn's political newsletter, Robert Boston compiles a list of the Top 10 Power Brokers of the Religious Right. Boston used "publicly available financial data and political prominence" to rank his collection of polyester Savonarolas (Savonaroli?) and multimedia Elmer Gantrys. And coming in at number 10 is local boy and longtime OC Weekly favorite, Reverend Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition.
The Reverend Lou
What's a frothing-at-the-mouth preacher, who's been named one of the Top 10 Power Broker of the Religious Right and can squeeze more than $6 million a year out of the faithful (and/or gullible), got to do to get a public display of affection from the California Republican Party? If you know, you should contact OC Weekly favorite Rev. Lou Sheldon, the barking mad Moses of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values Coalition, because while the state GOP is willing to hug Rev. Lou and his flock/politica
It was about 10:45 this morning when I flipped on KFWB after getting out of my Santa Ana Saturn dealership—the TV wasn't on in their waiting room, but it would've been interesting to see the reaction of the elderly woman with the scrunched-up face engrossed in her Orange County Register when she heard the news that the California Supreme Court decided 4-3 to overturn the state ban on gay marriage, which had been in place since moronic voters approved Proposition 22 in 2000.
Naturally, the f
The most influential Orange County man you've never heard of is undoubtedly Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., heir to the Home Savings (remember that bank?) fortune. He rarely makes public appearances due to suffering from Tourette's Syndrome, but that hasn't stopped him from giving millions of dollars away to some of the craziest causes imaginable: creationism, anti-gay marriage, anti-gay clerics in the Episcopalian Church, and so many others that in its list of America's most influential evangelicals a
Disappointed in today's ruling upholding Prop. 8's effort to block future gay marriages in California, the leadership of two Orange County gay organizations accused the California Supreme Court of "acting out of fear of political retribution" from religious right."Today is a sad day for equality," said Jim Rogers, who heads the non-partisan Elections Committee of the County of Orange (ECCO). "The California Supreme Court has shown that the State of California is not a place where 'All men (and w