Subject: Domestic Security Policy

• Earthquake weather or whatever...

  Yesterday, as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was submitting to a public humiliation ritual before a Senate committee, his only punishment for letting New Orleans drown (in other countries, such incompetence would result in dismissal from office and permanent disgrace, but in the land of W, Chertoff will probably end up with a medal), and as word came from New Orleans that yet another body had been found in a flood-damaged house, the Department of Homeland Security's plan for dealin

  February 16, 2006

• Protecting California from Grannies

  State Senator Joe Dunn's (D-Garden Grove) investigation into the California National Guard's spying on political activists was featured on the KGO evening news yesterday. Whether the story on San Francisco's ABC affiliate will help raise the profile of the investigation remains to be seen, but this does answer the question of how long it takes news from Orange County to reach the world of San Francisco television– seven months– because Nick Schou wrote about this investigation in the

  March 1, 2006

• Coming Attractions

  Cast your mind back to one of the grimmer spectacles of the grim days of 2004: the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign. If you recall, it was impossible to tell the difference that year between the official functions of President Bush and the fearmongering and pandering of Candidate Bush. Every official function was staged like a campaign event. Campaign events looked like official functions as cabinet officers and other administration officials hit the campaign trail for Bush. Even the nation's sec

  March 29, 2006

• Ask not for whom the (Radio Shack) bell tolls

  President Bush, as he never tires of reminding us, considers protecting the American people to be his top priority. So, how's that working out? The New York Times gives us an idea: Mismanagement of a $1 billion technology contract by the Transportation Security Administration resulted in the expenditure of the entire budget long before all of the needed computer and telephone equipment was installed, according to an audit released Thursday by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Depart

  April 2, 2006

• Protecting your toner from terror

  Big terrorism news yesterday– and this time it involves a real terrorist, not one of that motley assembly of the largely misidentified down at Guantanamo Bay. And as is usual when we're talking about real terrorism in America, the terrorist is a disgruntled white guy. Yesterday, a jury in Jackson, Tennessee convicted white supremacist Demetrius Van Crocker on five counts of attempting to acquire chemical weapons and explosives to destroy government buildings. Van Crocker, a 40 year old fa

  April 14, 2006

• Standard Operating Procedures

  There are those who say that the Department of Homeland Security, which the Bush administration frankensteined into existence in 2002, is a dysfunctional government agency, but this morning's New York Times brings evidence that DHS is clearly following in the steps of such well established and widely admired entities as the Pentagon: Flat-bottomed rescue boats at double the retail price, $68,500 worth of unused dog booties, hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of computers that somehow disapp

  July 19, 2006

• The Quota System (Friendly Skies Edition)

  Everyone's heard stories, always officially denied, that you're more likely to get a traffic ticket near the end of month because the cops have a set quota of tickets they need to write each month. According to KMGH, the ABC affiliate in Denver, your traffic misery may be following you into the skies, with potentially nastier consequences than a fine. You could be on a secret government database or watch list for simply taking a picture on an airplane. Some federal air marshals say they're repor

  July 26, 2006

• Can You Hear Me Now?

  In this case, the President has acted, undisputedly, as FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] forbids. FISA is the expressed statutory policy of our Congress. The presidential power, therefore, was exercised at its lowest ebb and cannot be sustained. --from Federal District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling issued today declaring the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional and ordering an immediate halt to it. In a similar recent case, a federal court

  August 17, 2006

• Happy Xmas (War is Over?)

  It was a long fight-- a generational struggle, as President Bush might say-- but UCI Professor Jon Wiener has finally prevailed: the government agreed yesterday to release the last of the classified FBI surveillance files on John Lennon. For 25 years, Wiener, a historian who has written two books on Lennon, has been denied those FBI files on national security grounds. Or the government was trying to hide material that might prove embarrassing to the reputation of the FBI behind a phony claim

  December 20, 2006

• MLK Day and the Bush administration

  One of the things that fuels the belief of some people in some sort of government conspiracy in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is the fact that Army Intelligence (along with the usual suspects, the FBI, etc.) was monitoring Dr. King. And now, just in time this year's MLK day comes news that the Bush administration is taking legally dubious steps to make it easier for the Army to spy on American citizens. The New York Times reports: Deep into an updated Army manual, the deleti

  January 15, 2007

• Oh, Death!

  January 3, 2002

• Sheriff Mike Carona Loved Don Haidl

  "I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of, you know, you know, like, like this. I'm tired of, you know, being embarrassed to hang out with my friends. You know, fuck it. I love you man and you, like, you know, if it weren't for you I wouldn't be the Sheriff of Orange County." --Knowing of federal prosecutor Brett Sagel's investigation of his activities, Sheriff Mike Carona--a man President George W. Bush appointed to a powerful national security position--talking in a secretly recorded July 15,

  November 12, 2008

• The Border Patrol Gets Pimped Out On Reality T.V.

  If you didn't think reality television could get any more crass than the grating weekly doses of collagen-injected OC busybodies, guess again. ABC is scheduled to air its new border patrol  reality T.V. show during the same time slot as our desperate little OC housewives beginning in January. The big, bad show, brimming with border-defending men and women "working the front lines" is titled (fittingly, for a recruitment ad) "Homeland Security USA." The show's producers were given "unprecede

  December 5, 2008

• Dana Rohrabacher Praised for Saying the Sky is Falling

  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), shown here possibly pointing to a dangerous object in the sky, is being commended by the no doubt august Institute for Human Continuity for his "Planet X forsight" and belief that Earth's preparedness for dealing with cosmic debris hurtling toward it is "key for the survival of the human race." What the Star Surfin' Congressman did specifically was introduce House Resolution 4917, the "Near Earth Objec

  February 10, 2009

• Atrocity Becomes Art at OCCCA's 'Just How Does a Patriot Act' Show

  October 16, 2008

• Im a Complete Intellectual Fraud

  January 20, 2005

• Los Otros Deportados

  July 12, 2007

• Upon Further Review . . .

  May 16, 2002

• Taylor Remade

  March 18, 1999

• Hes Got Gas!

  February 24, 2005

• 59 Reasons Why Bush Sucks

  Why youd have to be a freaking idiot to vote for this guy

  October 7, 2004

• Burning Bush

  September 30, 2004

• The presidents conservative critics

  July 15, 2004

• Burning Bush

  June 24, 2004

• Burning Bush

  May 20, 2004

• The Vegas Line

  February 12, 2004

• We Respond to Register Letters

  November 20, 2003

• Dear John

  August 7, 2003

• An Informed Citizenry

  June 19, 2003

• Graham Drubs Dubya

  June 5, 2003

• Oiling the Colonial Gears

  May 29, 2003

• Throwing the Book at Us

  April 17, 2003

• Suspicious Minds

  April 10, 2003

• Deadly Plants

  February 27, 2003

• My Favorite Martin

  November 21, 2002

• The Martian Plan

  August 1, 2002

• Crack Cop

  May 2, 2002

• Cox, Dicks, No Balls

  June 10, 1999

• Tip-Toe Thru the Bureau

  April 1, 1999

• The Tatum Chronicles

  April 2, 1998

• FBI Spy: "Islam Itself is a Threat to National Security"

  John Gilhooley / OCWCraig MonteilhIf Craig Monteilh was hoping the Weekly's recent cover story about him would provide a springboard to media fame, he probably wasn't thinking of Inside OC with Rick Reiff on KOCE. But that's exactly where Monteilh found himself last week when Reiff interviewed Hussam Ayloush of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for his thoughts about the FBI using a con artist--that'd be Monteilh--to infiltrate Orange County mosques. As he did with the Weekly, Mon

  May 21, 2009

• Prepare For The Untold Disasters In South County's Future

  The St. Regis adopts policy banning bailed-out banker parties: Are you ready for this South County disaster?​Do your best to imagine the following:The year is 2010. I Love Bagels has run out of shmear. Golden Spoon only offers gummy bears as topping. Lauren Conrad L.A. Candy has fallen off of the Amazon Top 1000 list. Dana Point Harbor no longer smells like cigarettes, fish and ice cream. The roots have begun to show in Diane Harkey's bang highlights. Laguna Beach High School has switched its

  October 16, 2009

• Internet Shocker: Dems Blast Dana for Swine Flu Snoozing

  Where would the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) be without crazy congressman Dana Rohrabacher? He can always be counted on for fun and games and it seems like every day we get a press release from them about the guy--almost as many emails as we get from the Republicans bashing Loretta Sanchez. Today's offering is ominously titled "Representative Dana Rohrabacher Says No to Preparing for H1N1 Flu Epidemic."The hook for this screed is today's H1N1--that's swine flu for us non-sc

  July 9, 2009

• Disaster Preparedness Academy

  October 29, 2009