How the NeoCons Stole Freedom
How The NeoCons Stole Freedom

The Early Life of John H. Fund

John H Fund 
 Born: April 8, 1957 -Tucson, Arizona, U.S.

A close childhood friend of John Fund's, Andrew Frankel, told me Fund was always awkward, the odd one out when they were growing up together. Andy served in Military Intelligence and was appointed to the Tri-Lateral Commission in 2002, or thereabouts. But Andy was not the only one who had noticed unusual behavior in Fund. 
  John P Slevin, who knew John in Sacramento for years told me John was sponsored into the Internship with Evans and Novak by a Sabre grant, given a short-paying gig by Novak, and rose, basically by writing scurrilous garbage about good people...well, about people, whom he made look really bad. This was off immediate interest to me because John told me a far more exalted story about his departure to Washington DC.  In that version, he was paid to try out for a job 
there, despite the fact he had no experience in journalism. John's first paid employment was promoting Star Trek Conventions.  He gave me one of his cards, which, unfortunately, I have misplaced.  But it will likely show up sometime and will be added here. Most of the information is from a letter written to me by John P. Slevin, a nice guy.
John Slevin related, with some distaste, "that John's first 'score' in journalist was something Reader's Digest paid him $3,000 for, and which blew the reputation and career of a lady then working in the Reagan White House.  I know the amount and the details because he was feted at the same home that I describe below at an earlier time, and I asked him how he could write something like he'd written.  It was a story the poor lady told him when she was half in the bag. It made her look crazy and she lost her job with the Reagan Administration.  In the perversion of upper-crust society, it raised John's reputation and pay rate."
   Note that when this took place John could not have been around 23.  He and I were chatting frequently while he was in DC, partly because of the funding provided to him through a fundraiser put on in my honor. Because John had told everyone the LP of California owed him thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, we Janice Vargo, who chaired the event, asked what I thought about using it as a fundraiser to pay off the debt.  Janice knew I was very averse to the irresponsible way the LPC handled paying their bills at the time. I agreed readily. The money was sent to Fund in DC and I'm sure he needed it.  He told me, confidentially, he had managed to get a job writing for The Star, one of those tabloids you see at the check out in the grocery store.  
   Solvency Day, a fundraising Janice Vargo suggested, and I went along with, to pay Fund what he claimed he was owed by the California Libertarian Party. What we raised,  I understood, did not entirely extinguish the supposed debts of the Libertarian Party of California (LPC), but it was at least intended to do so. Slevin's comments to me about how the LPC was then run, were absolutely in line with what I remembered; this was why I always raised money specifically for each of my projects.  Money never came to Southern California LP from the LPC, which was nearly always located in Northern California. I viewed it as my job to suggest ideas and encourage cooperation for regions separately, and together for larger projects.   
   Reading over the long letter Slevin had sent, delivered one shock after another to me. I already knew John was a liar, but I had never imagined he could wander so far from reality.  I owe John Slevin one for his candor. His letter went on to say, "I didn't know, like you, that he'd lied about running himself until the Raimondo article came out.  I knew, at a distance, both Garris and Raimondo.  I regarded each like Fund, and kept my distance from all. However, you and yours hired him, embraced his bullshit and rewarded him for it.
  I don't knock you for that; except if the LPC of that time had anything to be proud of, it would at least have had one member who'd spotted the biggest and most obvious lie, as I tell you about below.
  Fund was hired on by the LPC precisely because he was full of shit. That's the reason the same organization had hired Garris before him.  The organization quite frankly was dominated by people who had no people skills...and, as a collective, certainly was full of itself and full of shit.
  Fund never was registered to vote as a Libertarian. Not for a day.  At the time he was scheming (along with Crane) to cut Garris out of the job as Director of the California LP, I asked him why he was registered as a Republican.
  We were having dinner and drinks at a friends' house; there were, as I recall, three other people present, in addition to Fund and I. Fund considered the removal of Garris at that time to be a done deal, though not finalized.  Crane was his mentor in that. (They were working on putting Crane in control of the LP by controlling the presidential campaign.)  
 John was surprised I knew he wasn't registered to vote as a Libertarian.  The only reason I asked him the question was because he had been enthralling the assembled with more of his insider wisdom regarding the LP.
  He told me his party affiliation would not hinder his getting the job of Director, since "they'll never find out" or something like that. Probably he was playing to me, as he knew I held the LP in very low regard, especially the LPC.  I was then as now a registered Libertarian.
  We then discussed the lackadaisical nature of the LP committees, including the LPC Exec Comm.  I remember  in this conversation also Fund first explaining to me his theory that "the higher you go in the Libertarian Party the more socialistic it is".  He was right about the fact that his bona fides never were checked.  The LPC was not noted actually for doing any politics, and although the State of California at that time provided your Exec. Comm. with free lists of registered party members, apparently no one ever checked.  The fact of alternate registrations could be true if he had bothered to falsely register elsewhere using a completely bogus name, and for whatever screwy reason.
  Likely, his insistence to you that he lived this alternate life as an intrepid activist is more Fund bullshit.  His name, John Fund, was on the registered list, as a Republican (along with his sister and mom, all of whom resided at the one address in Fair Oaks, CA). It was easy to check.  No one did. Frankly, I think someone should have checked.  I knew he was a registered Republican both because I worked campaigns
then, and I had voter lists and I had noticed.  And, as said, I'd asked him about it.
  He told me he didn't want to be registered as a Libertarian because it was a red flag to the IRS---and, yes, this was when he still was living at home,  going to school sporadically and part-time and before he became an official Star Trek promoter.  He also told me that registration as a Libertarian would hinder his career path, whatever those may have been at that time...he hadn't yet applied for the Sabre Foundation grant which sent him to DC.
  No one on the Exec Com ever bothered because none of those on that board, at that time, ever actually ran proper campaigns.  If you remember, it was a lot about bullshit posturing and little about any actual personal track record of accomplishment by those holding titles.
  I knew him then, and quite well.  He had absolutely no political skills.  He was a very intelligent guy.  He could be very charming.  He also could not be believed.  Some people spot that very easily.  Some, like those who sit on large committees, white table cloths and water glasses (LPC EXEC COMM, or US SENATE, take your pick) don't know much.  Fund was just the kind of guy one would expect the LPC of that time to hire.
  I would urge you to look beyond your own experiences in the LPC before declaring it dead.  It's been a job for many to bring it back from what was done to it, but it hasn't died and has been revived.  There still is some of that same problem, titleholders doing nothing but causing problems...but, that's party politics.  It's much less these days than before, from what I can tell.
 
John P Slevin

I wrote to John Slevin and we talked on the phone, which provided some amazing insights for me.  When we hung up John Slevin wrote to me again. -

Melinda 
 
 Thanks for calling.  I really enjoyed our talk and I'm sorry I had to go.  Here's that link to Loretta's site http://www.nallforgovernor.com and you'll want to scroll to any of the posts mentioning either "boobs" or "panties" to read her classics on those matters.  If you notice the first link, it's to her live national interview tomorrow am on a radio station out of San Diego (Stacy Taylor, of the Air America network---I think it's 6 am to 9 am PST...Loretta will be on about 8 am our time I understand, It can be heard either on the internet or via live broadcast if you have an Air America station in your area. 
   I am very interested in learning more about what you are doing---the legal software definitely ties into what I'm doing, plus the whole WIFI concept is exciting, and much like what I see as important for activists to master...I'm held up by money and learning more of the tech stuff, but have spent about a year and a half now doing almost nothing but getting up to speed on what's out there and how to use it for direct voter contact...should have gone for the degree in computer science rather than the political science degree.  Would have made more sense because politics IS communications. 
 
In Liberty,

John P Slevin


Note: This is pretty long, and I'll stop typing now and let you read it. Hope there are not too many typos.  I'll pass along your enthusiastic review to Loretta.  Glad you liked her site.  I like her style.  She's got a good future which could help all of us.]
   I don't think I know Andrew Frankel---he's not related to Paul Frankel, is he?
 
   I know some stories implying some incidents (plural) like the dormitory thing you mention, but I don't know all that much.  I can relate some observations like what you talk about, and there was something going on in the Fund family, which was a lot of tension between his sister, mom, and John, and they truly were very concerned about him, from what I saw and mostly from what I learned from close friends of mine who were very close to the Fund family.
 
   Fund spoke much about Germany, Nazi Germany. 
 
   Part of how I know that was because the mutual friend I mentioned, Robert Lynch, was a war buff, former merchant marine military academy and is a Major in the Naval Reserves, RET.  He's also a former lawyer, head of the county bar, President of the local community college district for 8 years and Nazi buff. Not a fan, but knows a lot about them. 
   I suffered through many of those discussions.  Lynch was much, much more knowledgeable about that than John.  John was impressed by the stories, most of which were about the military organization, the military accomplishments, and not at all about the Nazi philosophy or politics (Lynch and I share Irish ancestry, and he once came to one of the Catholic church Oktoberfests dressed in lederhosen (sp?)---at least I thought it was regular German dress...another military man knew it was the "leisure uniform of the SS"...Lynch has that sort of sense of humor. 
   Fund might have been impressed by all that for other reasons; Lynch certainly is no Nazi, just knows a lot of military history and is extremely proud that he served in some capacity, all that.
   I was very close both to both Robert and his then-wife, Ann.  They both thought very highly of John.  Ann later decided that John must be gay, as did Robert.  I don't know exactly why they thought that---they thought that he had problems, but they rooted for his successes. 
   When the problems involving your daughter came up, as I told you, Robert apparently told John off.  Told him he was stupid and just plain dishonest.  I wonder if he then was confused about believing John was gay?
   Some other people thought John was gay.  When it was discussed I let it pass because I wouldn't care, one way or another, even had I respected John. 
   John's personal version of his history, he told me included being abnormally small, weighing very little.  He once told the Lynch's and I, "yeah, I was a mess". He spoke about himself in his earlier "messed up years" much like you describe him in your Valentine (I went and looked at it; very good by the way...like how you caught Grover's essential being...I only have met him; never knew Abramoff or Reed, just been contemptuous of them from afar.

John is referring to my blogsite, NeoCons are Cretins.
 
Returning to John Slevin's letter:  Slevin continues his recital of experiences with John Fund.
   "During his (John Fund's) days at Sacramento State, I once bumped into Fund and his Libertarian buddies at an off campus Denny's..I was long past college days though I was John's age.  Keep in mind that these people were not at all the kind of people involved in any actual campaigns.  Many Libertarians, like Lynch, like others, were involved, as I was.  We didn't belong to any committees. 
   I had gone to college at USF, right after High School. Fund I think was going to college about 5 years late, something like that.   
   He never actually worked as a policy analyst, or whatever title he used on his resumes.  At least not at the time I knew him and he did know some people at the legislature.  One of the two voucher proponents, Roger Canfield, was on the legislature's staff, serving Republicans, and I had introduced him to John once.  John later might have turned that into some kind of non-paid job (or I could be wrong, maybe for a very short time he got some kind of check, but I don't think any of us knew of him having an actual job).
   He once asked me to attend a campus function for whatever Libertarian group he had there.  Tom Palmer had come in from some group to show a film (Incredible Bread Machine).  And the people there all were like at the restaurant.   
   At that Denny's, most of the people around him were just really immature; I was never a party animal and was very serious compared to many of my school contemporaries, so you can take my impressions with a grain of salt.  I never enjoyed school, but I was a good student.
   The girls around John, whom I met there at the Denny's and who sometimes were elsewhere in whatever social setting, and at the very small group for that movie, were all not very mature and the night at the Denny's teasing John quite a bit about some inappropriate drunken behavior from the previous night. 
   Some of this was because they were college-age, younger than I then.  Like me, John was past college age, but just going through it then.  Maybe the girls liked the older guy aspect, another advantage I never had, oh well.  I never knew any reason for his late attendance.
   It was a strange night at the Denny's because I never met girls quite that young who were all grown up.
   His sister I hardly knew; she was very attractive and seemed eager not to know John's friends; that was my impression...maybe she just was eager not to know me. 
   I only was in John's home once or twice.  His mother, whom I met there and once or twice elsewhere, was the same way as the sister, seems to be wondering about his friends...John's mom was very down in spirits it seemed to me. 
   The Lynch's later got to know her very well, and the sister.  They told me the mother was a very unhappy woman---she had been divorced, and from what I understood John's Dad wasn't in the picture much.  John's brother I met once at a dinner with the Lynch's, and he was a cop (I think a homicide detective) from Arizona or somewhere in the Southwest.  John was very deferential to him.  He was a nice guy, very conservative, just like a cop.  I would guess he'd be called very attractive, strongly built guy. And he took my anti-cop attitudes very professionally, I thought.
   I met a few people around John, but he and I never actually were friends, just had a lot of friends together; so I don't know about who were maybe his friends and who just acquaintances.  The time I spent around him usually was because someone else threw a party or had a meeting at their house.
   I was on the Sacramento Central Committee for a few years and almost nobody knew John when I was on it, and that was a few years after he'd gone to DC (maybe one or two knew who he was...one knew him pretty good, because he'd funded most of John's projects, and wasn't totally pleased about it---Leonard Duck). 
   I think it was just the once I actually was inside John's home (I noticed on your site you call it Live Oaks---that's in S. Calif---John was from Fair Oaks, in Sacramento county).
 The reason I was inside the home was because he needed a ride to a PTA meeting where my group was confronting some school board members on the voucher---some kind of campaign press stunt I'd dreamed up and which I don't remember all the strategic details, except I know it was my gig, and he had nothing to do with it.
   John heard about it and asked me for a ride.  I only actually remember that because of meeting John's sister at the house. She was a very good-looking young lady.  Too bad I was viewed as John's friend, I might have had a chance!
   Whenever it came up (and that subject only would come up at the Lynch household, or somewhere the Lynch's were with a group of us, John spoke very negatively of both his mom and sister.  He was the strong male and they were incompetent females, always needing his guidance was the impression he gave.  Didn't seem to mesh with what I'd observed, but I never thought much of it because I regarded most of what he said as BS.or fantasy.
   Oddly enough, my older brother, a Libertarian, actually was talked into running for statehouse by John Fund. At the time, I think I was living in LA, or in some other state, but not anywhere near Sacramento.
   I'd called John to congratulate him on that feat of getting my brother to go public but mainly to get an explanation, because it was very, very weird to me...my brother was notoriously "afraid" of such public things. 
    John had assured him he'd not actually have to do anything---the whole paper candidate rap--- and my brother was a steady contributor to the LP, read all the books, etc.  I don't know how John talked him into running.  When I told John, it was quite a feat, I remember he said "I'm good at that", meaning talking people into things they don't want to do.
   Then, campaign time, my brother moved a few blocks, and in doing so unknowingly moved outside the district.  The Republican Party caught it and tried to get him taken off the ballot.
   The law wouldn't allow it unless by request of the candidate, saying he must remain on the ballot.
   John came to my brother and asked him to sign some papers, allowing his name to be taken off the ballot and explained that his doing so would mean the Republicans would give money to the LP (and thus to John).  My brother didn't want to do it---for one, it's highly illegal---for two, he didn't think it served a good purpose, and he was a very serious Libertarian, they wanted to run a Mormon or Mormon type, law, and order Republican (John had contacts within what became the Doolittle organization...most likely was that they'd first contacted John, since he was on the Central Committee.  Doolittle was very involved at the state legislature, by a very young age, and had a fairly meteoric rise locally.  My brother figured the whole reason for the LP to run candidates was to oppose such candidates as whomever the religious conservatives were running, so he just didn't want to sign those papers.
   I know eventually money did change hands.  My brother finally did sign to agree to have his name removed from the ballot, figuring if nothing else, maybe the Democrat would win.  I know the Republicans had called several times to tell him they'd sue him, etc.  All rubbish, but he didn't want the legal hassle and certainly was being pushed by Fund to sign the papers. As I remember him telling me at the time, he largely had to agree with something some editor wrote in one of the papers, saying he should go off the ballot, since he no longer resided within the boundaries.  Anyway…
   The amount of money was a large (several thousand but under ten) dollar cash transfer and a larger purchase of some literature from designated LP and libertarian groups...I don't remember how much money was involved in the literature, but probably about ten or so; John handled all that.
   I don't remember the details of what and how much of the loot he offered my brother but that was not accepted.  John got whatever was got.  I got most of the details on that later, not from my brother, who didn't know the details---except for what Fund offered him, but which I don't now remember--- but from other Libertarians to whom Fund had bragged.  He bragged because it showed he could wheel and deal with the big boys.  He then determined who got what literature from this loot.
    I think my brother never wanted to talk about that because he'd been upset at the ethical lapse of the LP in that and I do know he never actually knew about the money except for knowing Fund had offered him some money which would be coming from the Republicans through Fund..  And the strategic stupidity of it perplexed my brother, who originally became a Libertarian because he was one.  For some time after that a few local Libertarians pushed that Libertarians should do the same...basically, help Republicans; and not just any Republicans, but Mormon Republicans.  Bruce Daniel was then the Libertarian County Central Committee chair in neighboring Placer county, and he connived many such deals; at least attempted to.
  Later, when I was heavily involved in Sacramento politics and still a good little Libertarian outsider, I was directly involved in hearing such offers from Republicans---offers which some Republicans made to give me money to void potential LP candidates, and where I personally was face to face with the people making the offers; people I didn't know but knew who their candidates and organizations were---I was then being paid by a few counties as their LP organizer, we had an office, etc.  I and others totally rejected any such offers never arranged them, and actually, were trapped by Bruce Daniel on at least two occasions into hearing the offers.  He did that simply by inviting the scumbag bagmen over without our foreknowledge; once at a restaurant and once in someone's office. 
  I knew it was illegal; aside from that, I considered it very immoral.  I wasn’t' the only LP person who turned them down cold. I won't name the other Libertarians but I will say the offers came directly from the John Doolittle camp, when he first ran for congress (you will know that Doolittle is one of the powerful congressmen now ensnared in the Abramoff thing...a real, real dirtbag who has managed to get his Mormon wife into the slime with what I surely hope are impending indictments).
  Sal Russo, who used to come to our events, with his then-wife, who is an attorney (Russo is now a very highly paid consultant and helped get Reagan and the first Bush elected.  He's someone I think probably is largely true to the beliefs he held when I knew him, and when he and his wife had not reached anything like that later success.  Russo's wife became his ex-wife.  I had got to know her pretty good at the time.  Later, when I was somewhere else, she'd become a party treasurer, when John still was on the committee, and apparently, there were allegations of embezzlement by her.  She became an enemy AFTER the divorce process started; so, I don't know if there was or was not any truth to those allegations.  I do know that supposedly she agreed to pay a large sum back to the local LP (it supposedly was close to $20,000.00---that alone sounded fishy to me because the amount almost certainly far exceeded anything they'd ever had except when they were getting Republican windfalls).  Plus, she was cute, becoming available, and she liked me.  So, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.
    I regard all that stuff about what Fund did, which in part he learned from his Doolittle windfall (by way of my brother's mistake in changing residences) as typical of people who have their own agendas...I've seen enough of that and I've seen actual activists, been one all my life, and appreciate the distinction which is evident.  There are hacks and there are believers.  Some of the hacks are good at politics too.  Most only are hacks, if richer hacks.
    Seedy stuff leads to congresscritters like Doolittle (and calling Doolittle any kind of critter kinda lets down my fondness for the animal kingdom). 
   John was always on the outside of that, not at all a power broker; he was someone getting some scraps.  "They" found him; maybe he was looking for their type.  I just know what went on, at least some of it and how it was highly objectionable, put people in very uncomfortable surroundings with very seedy people.
   Funny, until I started to write this email, I hadn't thought about any of that in many, many years.  The taint of someone doing stuff like what John did around Sacramento remains to hurt an organization for many, many years later.  I didn't black it out; just haven't thought about it at all; it was very upsetting to me and others at the time.  Imagine, selling out, and to religious freaks at that!  I think that would summarize how most of us saw what he engaged in around Sacramento.
 
                                           End of Letter from John Slevin 
 
                                              Letter from Melinda P-F to John Slevin 

"M. P.F.," <themelinda@pillsbury-foster.us> wrote:
Dear John,
    I am very glad I called!  I can see that there is a lot we can get done together.  I left a message on Van's answering machine that you would be calling and looked over the Nall site.  She is spunky and is using the advantages she has well.  The panties story was outrageous.  So the Government.  She should have panties made up with something written on them and sell them on her site. 
    I am going to give your number to a couple of people as I said.  One will be Larry Olmsted, the attorney I mentioned who wrote the decriminalization law in Oregon.  I talked to him tonight.  I will talk to Philip Monday since he has funerals this weekend. 
     The information in your first letter sure filled in some blanks Fund obviously did not want to be topped off.  Did he ever mention the Trauma that Forced him to drop out of College?  I want more of that story, too. 
      When he hunted down my daughter after she left him he moved in with her in New York.  Then one day he walked in and she said she could not figure out what he was doing.  He walked around the room at strange angles and then bowed like someone was in front of him and then walked out again without saying a word.  Very strange.  Did you ever meet Andrew Frankel.  That is the old friend who told me about John's Nazi fixation. 
    Great meeting you!  Liberty,  Melinda


                                  End of Letter from Melinda 
 
                                            Letter to Melinda P-F from John Slevin 


John P. Slevin's Facebook Page      

Go To: John Fund - Going Places with Speed Dial Buddies one, Cheney, and two, Rove. Oh yes, there are more of them and you will find some of them on this site. 

Andrew Frankel

John H. Fund

Another segment of a letter from John Slevin: 
   I probably won't have time to speak with him for a while....I want to get some things together to make sense of what I'm trying to do, so a tech person could understand it; then I definitely want to talk to him.
    I am totally immersed in raising some money for tech help and I have the upcoming month or so I'll be doing in Alabama.  Got major league technical problems and have to get some money to pay for some tech help.
    Did John actually get a job through your brother?  I knew it was possible that he actually worked there, but always doubted it.
   I agree that any such article would be interesting, but probably only to us and our type.  It's much too late to "do anything about it".
   Anyone could have known Gary Condit; he was an out and about politician...Modesto is just down the road aways.
   I don't know about John being associated with Gary Condit in any way, but probably there would be some truth to that; he must have known the guy.  I know Fund was engaged to, if I've got the right media lady, Kelly Fitzpatrick (is that her name?).  Robert Lynch used to give me updates on the impending nuptials.
    Then, Lynch reported that she had dumped Fund for Senator Hugh Thompson (Fred Thompson).  I remember telling Lynch that she confirmed my approval of her since she obviously had traded up.​
   I have no idea if they actually were engaged, but John had definitely reported that to Robert.

What You Must Know About John Fund: Two credible witnesses, John Slevin and Andrew Frankel provide evidence below. Fund is a NeoCon Operative Masqerading both as a Libertarian and a Conservative.  He has never been either.  

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