Free DVD

LSI received an email in Vietnamese from Madison Nguyen's campaign reminding everybody to attend a special event on Saturday, November 22, 2008 at their new campaign headquarters - 1654 Burdette St, San Jose

The special occasion as emphasized in the email - "Giving Out Of A Speical DVD"

The "Free DVD" as stated in the email is all about Madison Nguyen's ahievement in the last three years in office including how she has generated thousands of job for her district, reduced crimes and built thousands of new homes for the low-income families.

For those who could not attend - The number to call to get a free DVD is 408-460-0488. The contact person is Phuoc Nguyen.

As a bonus, the email also mentioned that there will be light snack served.

One Year Anniversary and Not Even a Fair Fight

To commenmorate 1 year anniversary of Councilmember Nguyen's controversial decision to go against the wish of the majority, somebody sent LSI this posting on the Mercury News:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To avoid spend and save money, Madison Nguyen should be resigned and re-run, please read a letter of SUE HUBBARD of Cupertino :

AVOID RECALL: RESIGN AND RUN AGAIN WITH OUR PRESENT ECONOMIC DOWNTURN, WOULDN'T IT BE ADMIRABLE IF MADISON NGUYEN VOLUNTARILY RESIGNED FROM THE SAN JOSE CITY COUNCIL AND SAVED THE $300,000.00 THAT WOULD BE SPENT ON A RECALL ELECTION? SHE COULD RUN AGAIN AND WOULD HAVE EARNED THE RESPECT OF MANY VOTERS.
SUE HUBBARD Cupertino

Thank you,

Jim Romero,
Zip code 95122 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It is important to note that the recall team actually collected much much more signatures than they submitted. They just did not have the resources to verify them all. And also 50% of the signatures given are from the non-Vietnamese-American voters.

Nguyen's anti recall team is hunkering down of course. Her biggest problem is how to get people to volunteer. She does not want to pay them for phone banking or anything else. Her comment to Dan The Hoang, her old loyalist, was: " I had hundreds of people volunteer for me when I ran for council, why I should pay for these people now?"

Rumor is that Labor will jump in very early in the campaign to help Nguyen. This is unsual for Labor since they usually wait until the last minute.

Anyway, LSI and the rest of the city will pull up a chair and watch the battle royal between the powerful Nguyen vs. the community.

To LSI, this is not even a fair fight. Nguyen has hundreds of thousands of dollars, the backing of powerful business people, the Democratic Party, South Bay Labor and city council machineries while the community is simnply a bunch of unemployed unsophisticated folks (according to Nguyen's comment on Youtube). If LSI is betting, the money should be on Nguyen and her powerful backers.

The Vietnamese-American backers alone would bring fear to any campaign - Dr. Ngai Nguyen (a powerful Republican Party acitivist who has connection in the highest places) Paloma's owner - Linh Nguyen (a neophyte in politics but love to mix with the powerful crowd), Cal Waste Solution CEO - David Duong, Huong Le (The younger brother of the owner of Lee's Sandwiches), GD Commercial Real Estate of Trung Lam and John Luk (the owner), Tina Tien + Sonny Nguyen (the owners of the now defunct Nha Magazine) and of course the self-proclaimed community president of Northern Cal who touted that he received over 20,000 votes for his presidency - Dan The Hoang. Dan is also an executive member of a shadowy political party - Viet Tan - with the aim of overthrowing the communist government in Vietnam.

"Madam Secretary" - A Tale of Two Cities (Part II)

In Orange County, a strong bastion of Republican politics, the overwhelming majority of Vietnamese-Americans are Republicans. This reflects in the success of County Supervisor Janet Nguyen, 32, and State Assemblyman Van Tran, 44, as the two top Republican elected officials in the Vietnamese-American community across the US.

However, up north in the Bay Area, the politics is purely Democrat. Even though the majority of the Vietnamese-Americans registered as Republican just like down south, they mostly voted for Democratic candidates and not surprisingly most Vietnamese-American candidates registered as Democrats. All 3 local school board members and one city council member are Democrats.

One well liked Democrat supporter in San Jose (the 10th largest city in the nation) is the lawyer Michael Luu. He once raised over $300,000 for Hillary Clinton's campaign. And he arranged so that Clinton could use part of his building as the calling headquarters for her Northern California campaign as well as other states nearby.

Now that's dedication and a good friend of Bill and Hillary.

Turn back the clock to the first term of Bush's White House, a well known Vietnamese-American lawyer served in the Justice Department under then Attorney General John Ascroft's leadership. He was responsible for federal legal policy as an assistant attorney general. He and a law professor at Berkeley co-authored the legal foundation for the US Patriot Act. His ambition was a federal judgeship in the DC circuit but with the Democratic senate still has not getting over the US Patriot Act, he now settles as a Georgetown faculty teaching constitutional law.

Under the Obama's administration, Little Saigon Inside could not see anything for Vietnamese-Americans who are inspired to serve the government at an important level within Obama's cabinet unless one is a FOB (Friend of Bill) or FOH(Friend of Hillary)

A Tale of Two Cities

Steve Ngo, a civil rights lawyer, 32, , finally won his hard earned victory for a seat on the Community College Board in the San Francisco county. The graduate from Hasting School of Law raised $75,000 and had a 50 people volunteer staff. He came in 4th place with over 87,000 votes. He reached out to every ethnic enclave in San Francisco and even had a fund raising event hosted by the Santa Clara county prosecutor Ash Kalra, the newly elected city councilmember of San Jose City. His website is quite impressive with an endorsement list of who's who in the Bay Area. From the website, one can find out that his fiancee, Tina Lee, is also a school board member of Bay Mills Community College and they will soon be married. Honeymoon destination - Hawaii....

Meanwhile, on the south side of the Northern California, a young financial analyst working for Cisco, Khoa Nguyen, 24, decided to put his name in a local school board race in San Jose. The graduate from San Jose State University did not even campaign or bother to have a website or lawn sign. Yet he beat out his opponent for second place by almost a hundred votes. He became a second non-incumbent Vietnamese-American to win an election in the Bay Area. His opponent, a teacher no less, raised $10,000 and received endorsement from the school board but lost by a thin margin - 6,711 to 6,634.

The Mercury News, the only major newspaper in town, lamented on " voter's inattention in local school board races." However, to Little Saigon Inside, Khoa Nguyen's victory is expected since the Beryessa Union School District is almost 45% Asian-Americans with Vietnamese-Americans made up more than 23% of the votes. This is a classical case of having a Nguyen last name will get you the votes no matter what.

The Obama's Astrology

A post election survey, conducted by the Asian-Pacific American Legal Center and OCAPICA, in cooperation with National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, showed that in Orange County, about 52% Vietnamese-American voters voted for McCain while 46% for Obama. This is a surprisingly small discrepancy considering that 2 out of 3 Vietnamese-American voters in OC registered as Republican.

Now that people has obtained Obama's birth record, there are a number of astrology websites about his destiny. In the Vietnamese-American community as well as Vietnamese community in VN, the story is more compelling. There are email floating around with the Obama's astrology that foretells an unfinished presidency.

Since the birth record of Obama cannot be confirmed so the prediction of an unfinished presidency might be questionable. However, based on the empirical science of fortune telling of facial characters, many people have predicted the same consequences.

The prominent mole on his face is the tell tale sign of an unfinished term presidency. According to fortune teller, the mole positioned on the smiling crease is a sign of separation of family and loved one. And if one is in position of political power, it speaks of leaving the office that one's held early and never have a chance to fulfill the promises.

Whether this is true or not, only time can tell but not since for a long time has a president coming into office with so much enthusiams from the young and new generation.

Of course, in the art of fortune telling and prediction, whether it is Nostradamus or Saint Malachy, all have their doubters. However, their prophecies cannot simply be ignored for they are sometimes come to realization.