Anaheim Insider here.
Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait took offense during the election when hit with campaign attacks alleging he was hostile to the police and soft on gang crime. When his intimate “Team Anaheim” campaign thank you dinner at Thee White House includes anti-police activists Mark and Mary Daniels (seated in front, first two from the left), it’s easy to understand why people would come to that conclusion.
Those who follow Anaheim politics recognize both as core members of group that takes every opportunity to attack Anaheim police as racists and murderers:
What does it say about the level of respect in which the Mayor (and Councilman-elect James Vanderbilt, for that matter) hold Anaheim police officers when he counts among his core volunteers two agitators who a part of a group that views those officers as bigoted killers, and treats them to expensive “thank you” dinner? What is it about Tait’s approach to governance that individuals with such a distorted, negative view of law enforcement are so attracted to him?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Taitbot
Everything aside, the voters have spoken and adopted by-district council elections by a large margin. Still, the naivete of some supporters is astonishing. Here’s Tait ally Steve McKay in a November 20 OC Register article on the Measure L win:
“I feel that there is a separation between the people who live in downtown from the people who live in the Hills, but we should be united,” McKay said. “I think districts will bring us back together, because we will have representatives from every part of the city giving all of us a voice.”
On the contrary: by-district elections will train voters to think in terms of their section of Anaheim, rather than Anaheim as a whole. Candidates will vie to prove who can bring home more pork for the council district in which they are running, and incumbents seeking re-election will brag to voters about what they’ve done for their part of Anaheim.
Furthermore, since the new by-district council elections will be a first-past-the-post system, many, if not most, councilmembers (running in multi-candidate fields) will be elected by pluralities rather than majorities, meaning most of their constituents will have voted against them. Since there will be no more at-large elections, those voters will have no one on the council representing their views (with the possible exception of whomever is mayor).
So, contrary to the council district pollyannism characteristic of Tait and his followers like McKay, the coming by-district elections will further divide the city, and more voters will be without a voice.
Yes, Mark Daniels has been seen at protests against Police brutality. I should have known this blog would stand in support of Police brutality (which is a whole different animal than standing in support of Police, just as protesting abuse is not protesting all Police) And your allegations against Mary Daniels come from WHAT exactly? I don’t recall her ever attending an event of that kind, or speaking on the subject in public. [Characteristically untrue, poisonous and beside-the-point commentary deleted]
Wow, that’s intelligent, Cynthia. Criticizing the anti-cop club makes a person pro-police brutality. But what else can we expect from someone who thinks all the machinations of her imaginary Disney-Pringle Conspiracy are aimed at building a parking structure in the Angels parking lot!
I have commented on your Facebook page about your lack of facts and wit in my case, about your well-known hatred of anything or anyone associated with Tom Tait and good government. But of course I do consider the source: a blogger (not a journalist) who can’t even put his own name to his words. I commented there because I hoped that more than the eleven people who actually read this, read that page.
I would hope a faithful reader of this website and facebook page would know that Tait and good government hardly belong in the same sentence. Thus I call shenanigans on the entire post!
There’s still time for you to get a decent wise crack in 2014, Jack. Keep trying.
Mary, it isn’t my Facebook page. I am only a contributor here. I do not hate Tom Tait. I prize good government, and do not think Tait has delivered on much of it, or anything else. I did read your Facebook comment after seeing this one. In reply: Your son, and to a lesser degree you, march and protest in union with the “F–k the police” mob, whose hostility toward police in general is very obvious. It is your choice to associate yourself with them. At the same time, I have re-read my post, and although I didn’t say you personally called the Anaheim police “bigoted killers,” I can see your point about how it reads. Since you state you’ve never said that, I’ll revise the post.
“I should have known this blog would stand in support of Police brutality.” Oh my. Low-grade intellectual dishonesty from the self-proclaimed “Truth Teller.” But thank you for further discrediting yourself, as if that were possible.
Truthfully, Mark Daniels has not merely “been seen at protests against police brutality.” He is a fixture at protests that indiscriminately attack the police as racists, murderers and parasites. He is part and parcel of these radicals and their weird world. Too bad you aren’t honest enough to tell that truth.
Check out Vanderbilt’s mustache. Makes him look like the lead singer of early 80’s band Sparks.
RUSSELL MAEL! I wish James could sing like that.
No wait. You’re thinking of RON MAEL, the songwriter extraordinaire and keyboard player brother with the notorious ‘stache. Snidely, you’re no Sparks fan! (And their best stuff was in the mid-70’s anyway)
And, Mr. Superficial–er, I mean Snidely–check out the swearing in, and his gracious speech that shows him to be the class-act he is, and compare it to Ms. Murray’s arrogant, self-serving, factually wrong and LONG peroration just before. The differences are remarkable.
Vanderbilt’s speech was pleasantly dull and vapid. He said little of note, except for his weird praise for what great councilmembers Murray and Eastman are. Why did he run against them and attack them if he thinks they are so great? And there was Vanderbilt’s gushing over the genius of his campaign consultant, John Lewis, who has now doubled his Anaheim lobbying business with two clients on the City Council.
Bottom line is Mark Daniels is anti-cop. Or maybe he just likes spending all his free time with leftist-anarchist cop-haters, which pretty much makes him one, too. Mary Daniels is another left-winger. It they had their way, Anaheim would be run like Oakland or LA.
And they love Tom Tait. And Tom Tait loves them. What does that tell you?
Cynthia is mad because she doesn’t like it when her gang gets called out for what they are. Ward LOVES to dish it out, but hates being on the receiving end.
Wow, Mary Daniels, when did you have a SON? Congrats, girlfriend, I am rather embarrassed, this event certainly warrants a themed shower with gifts, and I dropped the ball in hosting such a festivity on your behalf. Can you ever forgive me? let’s schedule something, you choose a theme and a cake flavor, I will alert our friends, although finding some Angels team “onesies” in Mark’s size is gonna be Hell. Seriously, Mary Daniels, best wishes on the son you never knew you had.
Their mistake was easy to make, Daniels being such an uncommon name here in the United States that nobody other than a mother-son familial connection would reasonably share the moniker. Hmm…and yet, Eastman’s campaign kickoff was hosted by…whom? Their Daniels cousin? Must make things awkward at Thanksgiving…
Standard procedure around here, don’t bother to see anyone as individuals, just label those you disagree with (or lack an argument in rebuttal against) with the stereotype that makes it easiest to dismiss concerns you don’t really want to deal with, so you can move on. If you see Mary and Mark Daniels as PEOPLE, then you might see they look nothing alike, and if you look even closer you discern there is not enough age gap for a parent-child relationship. Read their facebook pages to learn their hopes, dreams, fears, preferences and dislikes as the unique human beings they are, and you might note Mark Daniels routinely posts messages “In Memoriam” for his mother. Instead you bypass useful information that might allow you to see someone you could like in other circumstances, because you are only there to mine facebook pages for photos you can twist to fit your own preferred scenarios, like a preschooler pretending to “read” to baby sister, assuming a fictionalized storyline based on the illustrations. It is time for you to be told the truth. You are holding that picture book upside down, and everyone in the room knows you are faking it.
Let’s face it, you earn a paycheck not by promoting the positive aspects of your clients, but by attacking and discrediting anyone who gets in the way of your clients, and in order to attack with such vicious ferocity, you CANNOT permit yourself to see the opposition as human and worthy of compassion or empathy. Oops, those people are out in front of the Police station again, someone might actually listen to them. Quick! Discredit them and anyone around them to ensure they gain NO support! A review of this website shows post after post in which you don’t bother to support an argument, your war of words simply demonizes anyone who dares to NOT think just like you.
I have never heard from the protest side that ALL cops are bad, but only that all cops are human, and humans are fallible, and fallible plus stress and pressure plus gun SOMETIMES ends in deadly force. In the event that deadly force is used in error by the fallible human under stress and pressure, there SHOULD be a system in place to prevent that fallible human from committing this deadly error again in the future and/or prevent others from following that erroneous action. Your argument appears to be that cops are superhuman and above mistakes in all things at all times. That is a pretty tall order for humanity. Interestingly, when protestors demand the City root out “brutality” it is ONLY YOUR SIDE that sees the ENTIRE department as the target of that accusation. And you call the protestors the cop haters?
Is your comment directed at me? Because I’m not paid to look at Facebook pages. I’m a contributor to this blog, that’s all. It is amusing to be lectured on labeling others because you disagree with them and not looking fro common ground from Anaheim’s Queen of Character Assassination.