Subject: U.S. Department of Homeland Security

• 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

• Hanging with Loretta

  Rebecca Schoenkopf reporting from . . . SANTA ANA, OC Performing Arts Pavilion, Victory Party for Loretta & Linda Sanchez--The food: salmon and couscous studded with pomegranates. The drink: $6 for a beer, even after the $40 entry ticket. Seriously: What the fuck? People to whom I complained of The Beer Situation of 2006 have offered me beers. But I am not taking them up on it. I shall go somewhere where the beers are free. Or else I'll go to Proof Bar, where I'll pay $12 for a martini but

  November 7, 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

• Look to the Skies

  In a column in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, Ray Lemoine, co-author of Babylon by Bus, recounted his recent brush with the Department of Homeland Security. Lemoine was stopped at JFK airport while returning from Dubai. He'd been red-flagged because of a former job. Lemoine isn't a retired shoe-bomber or an ex-terrorist mastermind– a few years ago, he used sell bootleg t-shirts at sporting events. "Why did you infringe on the Boston Celtics' copyright in Boston in 2003?" the man from Homel

  June 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

• Bait and Switch (Great Wall edition)

  It looks like it's not a not a good week to be a Minuteman or Minuteman sympathizer (Minnie-symp?). Not because those kids at Columbia were mean to Aliso Viejo's own Minute-Grand Wizard Jim Gilchrist– when you're working the xenophobia racket, you really don't expect to get much love from Ivy League ephebes– but because their champions in Congress are playing them for chumps. The Washington Monthly's Political Animal (and Irvine's own) Kevin Drum explains: I see that the Republican

  October 6, 2006

• My Favorite Sex Offender

  The AP wires are humming today with news that Brian Doyle, former deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, has been sentenced. Doyle was caught sending sexually explicit messages to Sheriff's deputies posing as a 14-year-old girl named Ashlynne, for which he has been sentenced to five years in prison, ten years of probation, and a lifetime of sex-offender registration. Doyle apologized for his actions in court: "I am profoundly sorry for everything. How I feel inside can't

  November 20, 2006

• Muzzling Troy

  Troy High School in Fullerton has a lot going for it. The combined public and magnet school is known for its high SAT scores, Troy Tech and International Baccalaureate programs, its wins or high placements in the U.S. National Science Olympiad and Western Regional Science Bowl sponsored by NASA/JPL, and recognitions for being among the nation's top schools from President Clinton, the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence panel and the selection committee for California Distinguished Schools.

  April 11, 2006

• Homeland Security Officer Sentenced For Hitting On Immigrant

  September 14, 2007

• New test of American-ness

  The pool of 100 questions unveiled today to be used on naturalization tests starting in October 2008 doesn't look all that different from the 96 questions they're replacing. At least not $6.5 million different, the reported sum spent on the revamp. Some hard questions were simplified – applicants had to name both of their state senators and all three branches or government on the old test and just one of each on the new – while some of the more random fact type questions have merely been r

  September 28, 2007

• Saturday's Headlines & Surprises: It worked for the Chinese?

  The Final Solution: Alicia Robinson at the Daily Pilot takes over court duty in the Benito Acosta trial and finds ACLU lawyers continuing to press their point that Acosta’s arrest for speaking at a Costa Mesa city council meeting was “political.” At a 2006 public meeting, Mayor Allan Mansoor allowed members of the Minutemen Project to stand to show support for a controversial cops-immigration plan backed by Mansoor. But when it was Acosta’s turn to speak, Mansoor--an honorary member of

  September 29, 2007

• Wake Up And Suck The Orange 1.24.08

  Good morning children. On this day in history in 1848, James Sutter first found gold at Sutter's Mill, starting the California Gold Rush. In 1935, the first cans of beer were sold in the US. And in 2003 the Department of Homeland Security began operation. Hooray beer, boo Homeland Security. Read this while the coffee takes hold: STATE PRISON RECEIVER CANNED: LA Times - Out goes Robert Kelso after only two years. Why? Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), a local boy who chairs a committee on pr

  January 24, 2008

• God Squad Blasts Congressman Royce

  No one ever criticizes Congressman Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) for the things he says because no one has ever heard him speak. But he apparently sends out emails that have caught the attention of a cross-denominational group of clergy folk who today sent Royce a letter asking him to stop using the phrase "Islamist terrorism." "As a diverse group of Southern California interfaith leaders, intellectuals and activists, we are deeply concerned by your continued use of inflammatory rhetoric linking Isl

  August 7, 2008

• Shot in the Arm

  April 1, 1999

• 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

• Janet Napolitano's Sorry Service in Arizona Makes Her a Terrible Choice for Homeland Security Secretary

  WEB EXCLUSIVE!

  November 27, 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

• Was Ed Royce Right About His Illegal Arab Immigration Fears?

  Because they were busy with other coyotes they'd pulled over on the side of the highway, Border Patrol agents didn't flag down Karim Hussein Al Nasser in October 2003, though they suspected that he too was transporting illegal immigrants from Mexico into the U.S. through an Arizona Indian reservation. Incredibly, though Al Nasser had taken $1,000 and $1,200 respectively from the two men curled up on the floor of his pickup truck, he stopped and an agent, who noticed the human cargo, made arrests

  April 6, 2009

• [Moxley Confidential] Mike Carona and Bernie Kerik: Separated at Birth?

  January 8, 2009

• The Weekly's Head Count of the 48 New Faces Who Want to Be Your Next Sheriff

  May 15, 2008

• Xenophobia, the Musical

  September 25, 2003

• Stealth Loretta

  Is Congresswoman Sanchez a whore orworsea Republican?

  March 1, 2007

• Ashcroft Hypes a Dirty Bomber

  June 20, 2002

• It's a Quick Read 34

  Orange County Register: A hushed county awaits the jury verdict in Steve Rocco's trial for alleged ketchup theft. . . . County officials are talking settlement with ex-Sheriff, current-felon Mike Carona's former right-hand man George Jaramillo. . . . Orange County may be among the first in the state to require ignition locks to stem drunken driving. . . . Try the cockroach floating in the dishwater, it's excellent: Restaurants you can't afford--Charlie Palmer at South Coast Plaza

  April 16, 2009

• Wash, Rinse, and Repeat, Repeat, Repeat!

  September 15, 2005

• Calling the County 'Orange'

  October 19, 2006

• Flying Blind

  September 14, 2006

• Commie Girl

  May 25, 2006

• Diary of a Mad County

  May 18, 2006

• Department of Homeland Stupidity

  May 11, 2006

• Diary of a Mad County

  February 23, 2006

• OC's 31 Scariest People

  Now 25 percent more terrifying!

  October 27, 2005

• Halloween 2015

  October 27, 2005

• Neighbor-Involved Shooting

  July 14, 2005

• TOO TOUGH TO DIE

  April 7, 2005

• Carpet Bombers

  February 10, 2005

• Playing for Keeps

  January 6, 2005

• Bring Us Your Torturers Yearning to Breathe Free

  March 25, 2004

• The Vegas Line

  February 12, 2004

• Hypocritic Oath

  January 29, 2004

• Exit Strategy

  January 8, 2004

• Throwing the Book at Us

  April 17, 2003

• Download o' the Week

  April 10, 2003

• Slick Talk

  March 13, 2003

• Leviathan Overlord

  January 30, 2003

• Watch What You Say

  September 26, 2002

• Theres a Specter Haunting Garden Grove

  May 9, 2002

• New Hate-Group Tracking Website Tracks O.C. Hate Groups, Annoys Hugh Hewitt

  Brian Levin is the director for the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, a frequent guest on my KPFK-FM 90.7 radio show, and someone who condemns hate groups on the left (that anti-Semitic imam whom the UCI Muslim Student Union always invites) and right (too many to list) with equal gusto. Funny guy, too! The Center just started a new blog, Hate Fighter, tracking hate crimes and groups across the United States and also showcases Levin's many appearances on nati

  May 4, 2009

• Racist OC Register Fustercluck of the Week: "Weed 'Em Out!"

  Hello haters! Here we go with another edition of...​Let's talk about illegals, shall we?Two fun stories this week. The first one is by Cindy Carcamo--and we know where this señorita's sympathies lie, don't we? It concerns an effort by PATRIOTIC AMERICANS to put something on the June Ballot called the California Taxpayer's Protection Act. Now, who could disagree with that? All it tries to do is prevent babies who are born here to illegal alien padres and madres (like our own Gustavo Arellano)

  September 18, 2009