Dan Logue and Me...

So who is Dan Logue? If you took the absolutely worst, most arrogant and obnoxious Republican imaginable, and then you squared him, you'd end up with Dan Logue. I've made a hobby out of following this idiot's career ever since I was introduced to him (figuratively, not in person) back in 2010. He has been groomed for great things by the Koch Brothers. They even wrote a ballot measure for him, prop 23 (designed to stop California's landmark Carbon trading) which was handily defeated by California voters. Even Butte County voted against Logue and Prop. 23.

That's how I got to know him, by following his campaign as California's Lead Climate Change Denier. Of course, being a Climate Change Denier is now part of being a Republican's DNA . So what's so incredibly reprehensible about Assemblyman Dan Logue? Well, let's start with his desire to turn California into Nevada (until unemployment went belly up there) and then Texas. Logue led a group of California politicians to visit Texas to discuss with Rick Perry the merits of being the most regressive, leads the nation in minimum wage earners and people who work without health insurance State in the United States. Unbelievably, our Lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom, made the second biggest error of his political career by attending that trip with Logue. Of course, Newsom's biggest error was sleeping with his Campaign Manager's wife when Newsom was running for the mayor of San Francisco. But hey, this is California. You gotta expect a bit of fandangaling out here. Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can't expect us to keep our pants on in this balmy, friendly Mediterranean climate.

Back to Dan Logue.

Dan  has a reputation for flying around to every Koch sponsored event he can attend. Prop 23 was allegedly written in Colorado by Koch lawyers. Dan Logue is real tight with the Governor of Texas. Dan was Rick Perry's campaign chair in California when Rick Perry made his disastrous attempt at seeking the Republican nomination. Logue hated Mitt Romney, so much that when Rick Perry self-destructed (errr, I'd get rid of, ah...can't remember, oops") in one of the most public displays of idiocy by a politician who ever ran for President. Anyway, Dan Logue hated Romney so much that he became Newt Gingrich's campaign chair after Rick Perry dropped out. That lasted about two or three weeks until Newt's money ran out and he had to go back to work selling books and changing his ever chameleonic image. Logue never endorsed Romney, so far as I can tell.

Dan Logue likes to be seen as the public crusader. He touts Texas as a role model for how to be more "business friendly"--it used to be Nevada up until unemployment in Nevada went north of l4 percent and the housing crisis crashed in boom city Las Vegas. He has documented endlessly the number of businesses leaving California. And there was the Prop 23 thing, where he took his disdain for those of us who think Climate Change is potentially dangerous and tried to suspend California's ground breaking Climate Change law. Dan Logue has criticized renewable energy, especially wind power, stating that fossil fuels are a better, more efficient way, to move an economy. His most recent venture has been to get a public accounting of how  Prop 63 tax dollars are spent. Prop 63 is a 1 percent tax on millionaires with the money being expressly used to provide more services to the mentally ill of California. This bill, which passed in 2004, has provided 7 billion dollars in money for services over the last 7 years.

We all want good government. Even Henry David Thoreau, the patron saint of Americans who hate government, who wrote that the government that governs best, governs least, but then qualified himself by stating, essentially, that since government is necessary, we might as well have good government. I don't know what Dan Logue's motives are, campaigner for good government? or just hater of all government? but he hitched his wagon to critiquing the Mental Health Tax on Millionaires. He also has decided to tackle Democratic Congressman Jon Garamendi in Congressional District 3.

This is a swing district, with a slight Democratic edge in voter registration. For Dan Logue to have a chance here, he has to be seen as reasonable, as a champion of good government who gives excellent constituent service; he needs to temper his hothead, knee jerk conservatism and he has to market himself accordingly. And so his new campaign colors are in Obama Blue. With a sense of motion to it, with a gold "Che Guevara" Star set in motion by streaming  lines across the page (a subtle subliminal reference to Obama's "Forward" campaign motto). The blue and gold motif is a nod to California's colors. It is always good to have blue as your color if you are a Republican running in a slightly Democratic district. And so, on the website, you can see the new marketing of Dan Logue. It lauds his accomplishments and his ability to work across the aisle. The colors are patriotic Californian and there is not a whole lot of Conservative propaganda readily  apparent. In short, this is a departure from Dan Logue's extremist history.

Candidates nowadays have to have a social media presence. Dan Logue created a Dan Logue for Congress Facebook page where he posted a Sacramento Bee article that deals with Dan Logue's allegations of malfeasance in the use of Mental Health Funds collected by Proposition 63. I like to be informed about the North State's Congressional Candidates, so following their campaign websites is part of what I do. I also like to go hear them talk in person, most of the time they only give access to Tea Party groups.

Dan Logue has been introducing his watchdogging of the Mental Health Funds by writing things like this on Facebook: "Over $7 billion and the meter is still running. Mental health $$ spent on yoga, horseback rides and Ipads... ". Dan Logue's Campaign Twitter account said this: "Over $7 billion and the meter is still running. Mental health $$ spent on yoga, horseback rides and Ipads..."

I responded on his Facebook page, politely (mostly) calling him out on making fun of therapeutic interventions like Yoga and Horse therapy. The comment was removed from the page. I then wrote another reply, this time a bit more pointed.  Here is my response which was on his site for about five minutes: "My comment was removed. Please do not remove this one. Again, I have been a psychiatric RN for 20 years. I've seen Yoga save the state money by teaching alternative strategies to deal with anxiety. Reducing anti-anxiety medication saves the state money and is just a decent thing to do (teach alternative coping strategies). Horse therapy has long been used and is effective. I've seen a woman who was plagued by voices that were intractable and medications were ineffective. A service dog eliminated her auditory hallucinations. I also have obtained technology for clients when I was a case manager. It helped one of my clients get a job. These strategies can be effective, compassionate and save the state money. Why do you mock the mentally ill?
I didn't really think it would last long on the website. It didn't---but I made a copy of the thing for posterity's sake

I, of course, knew that I would have my ability to comment on the Facebook page revoked. The same thing happened to me on Doug LaMalfa's Facebook page. I lost my right to comment there when I, tactfully in my opinion, questioned Doug on some issue that escapes me right now. So that's two pages I've been banned from commenting. I was actually  blocked from our local Climate Change Denier and hack scientist extraordinaire, Anthony Watts, who lives and works in Chico, but in his free time runs a Climate Change Denier website called WUWT (Watts Up With That). He claims to have the most popular Climate Change website in the world. And from reading the multitude of single minded comments to his posts (and his guest posts), this might be true. Read the comments and you will come across some inevitable themes: the posters are male, white, aged 30 to 50; they hate science yet claim to be scientific. Right Wing Nerds who are more committed to fossil fuels and the Carbon Economy than truth, reason and science. For these guys, they seem to  have read Ayn Rand in like, 9th Grade, never to recover. No further development needed or desired. They are mired in narcissistic Teen-Agerness--fully believing that the world ends at the tips of their noses.

It isn't that I've been rude; it's because I don't agree with them. If a candidate/politician is going to display their views on things, they should be tolerant enough to respect debate on their Facebook pages, as long as things remain polite.

I expected to be shut out of Logue's Campaign Facebook page. What I didn't expect was a Tweet from Dan Logue that exclaimed this:

Dan Logue @DanLogue4CD3 2m
There is just something special/final about "banning" agitators/malcontents from a facebook fan page... Feel the love - Boom!

That was just creepy. I, of course, wrote Dan Logue asking him if he really wanted to say that about me?  I also wrote in Facebook  that: "Maybe I should be proud that Dan Logue called me a "malcontent" and an "agitator"?

I got up the next morning to find out that Dan Logue wrote on my Facebook page. He said that he didn't write that Facebook thing and, laughably, that he had been "hacked". I had to laugh because that Weiner guy said the same thing when he was sending out photos of his member.

I told Dan Logue that it was his Twitter feed that wrote the bad stuff about me. He promised to look into it. About a half hour later, the Tweet was removed. I don't know how to take a "screen shot" so I can't post a photo of the Tweet. Dan Logue never wrote me to apologize or explain the threatening Tweet to me. Although calling me a "Malcontent" and an "Agitator" isn't a bad thing in my book. Coming from Logue, that is high praise.

So this would be my third run in this year with either a Congressman or a Congressional Candidate doing weird stuff in my presence. Weird!