The Fourth Reich: Way before there was “Don’t Taser me, dude!” there was Benito Acosta, arrested by Costa Mesa police after he allegedly spoke too long during a January 2006 city council meeting. Acosta opposed training local police as INS agents, a pet project of Mayor Allan Mansoor. A right-wing sheriff’s deputy when he’s not playing a right-wing city official, Mansoor turned off the public microphone, and police used physical violence to drag Acosta, a tiny fellow, from the hearing. Anyhow, the city is prosecuting Acosta for violating a new W-era law: opposing the government in public. Of course, I’m kidding. The government found something else to use against him: violating “propriety of conduct” while addressing government officials and disorderly conduct at a public meeting—both misdemeanors. The Daily Pilot reports that jury selection begins today in Harbor Court.
Another Quagmire: In case you missed it, Jonathan Lansner—the dean of OC business journalism—slammed Federal Reserve officials, or “knuckleheads,” for not understanding the depth of the real-estate crisis. “It was clear as winter weather in mid-summer,” Lansner wrote. “What took these folks so long to see this coming?” Meanwhile, the Register columnist dug into the local numbers and found that August had “the slowest-selling five business days” since 1995. He’s calling the mess a “quagmire.” How many quagmires can we have during the Bush administration?
More Mayhem in Caronaland: Just days after the sheriff planned to end an Orange County jail-system lockdown, deputies reinstituted the restrictions to curb another round of gang violence, according to Kimberly Edds, who seems to write about a fourth of the Register each day. Edds says that 3,000 inmates are stuck in their cells after a Sunday gang brawl in—of all places—the Theo Lacy Jail chapel. Two men were injured. Until deputies say otherwise, the inmates can’t go outside, shower, or use classes, the dayroom or the chapel.
Continually Lost in OC: Besides an Orange County homes-sales report, the folks at the Times placed these subjects this morning on their online Orange County news section: LA inmate recants story about LAPD link to murder, construction of an LA Unified building, a New Zealand fugitive wanted by LA officials, an LA City Council debate, an LA Unified magnet school, LA sheriff’s probe and renovations at a San Diego naval facility. If you don’t have any OC news, why have an OC news section?
Help ID This Retard: The Laguna Beach police are looking for someone who allegedly attacked an innocent 39-year-old man after being tossed from a local business on Sept. 8. The Coastline Pilot says that the bloody victim suffered a broken jaw and was left in the street unconscious. Thankfully, video surveillance cameras at the White House Bar/Restaurant captured images of the suspect (pictured) who is believed to be a white man, 6 feet tall, 230 pounds with a South African accent. If you can help identify him, please call Laguna P.D. at (949) 497-0371.
Where Does Dana Stand? Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Skipped Vietnam Combat Duty) yelled and screamed when President Bill Clinton’s administration didn’t quickly fork over government documents for congressional inspection when the GOP controlled the House. But will Dana remain consistent and back the Democrats who have requested documents from Blackwater Inc., the federally subsidized Republican-owned company that has a lucrative $600 million contract in Iraq? Given his partisan nature, probably not. Peter Spiegel with the LA Times reports today that W’s State Department has ordered the company “not to disclose information about its Iraq operations without approval” from the president. Representative Henry A. Waxman, a Democrat from LA, says Congress has the right to investigate not only alleged Blackwater abuses, but also Iraqi-government corruption. The private company is tied to two former Rohrabacher congressional aides.
OC’s Gone Red? While the famed baseball franchise a few miles up the road continues to sink, the “Angels Are Winning Inc.,” according to a column by Ross Newhan in the Times on Tuesday. Newhan credits executive Bill Stoneman and manager Mike Scioscia, a former LA Dodger player, for reversing a decades-old losing mindset that had dominated the franchise. Now, the club consistently wins and a “red tide” has swept “into and over Orange County.” Will it last, or will the team move to St. Louis?
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.