Fuentes’ type of people, mostly

It appears that, last night, Sheriff Mike Carona, the IVC Foundation’s “hometown hero” (or was he its “backdoor man”?), squeaked out a victory, garnering 51% of the vote—enough to win outright (i.e., there’ll be no runoff.)

Carona’s chief challenger (26.5%), Lieutenant Bill Hunt, head of the Sheriff’s San Clemente office, has conceded.

But guess what? When Hunt showed up for work this morning—he had taken a month off to campaign—he was told that he is under investigation!

In today’s OC Register (Hunt subject of sheriff’s inquiry), we learn that

Bill Hunt, the Orange County Sheriff's lieutenant who was highly critical of Sheriff Mike Carona in his race against his boss, was told this morning that he is the subject of an internal affairs investigation.

Hunt seems to be taking the high road: he called his boss to wish him luck. Further, he is, as they say, “philosophical”:

Hunt said he wasn't surprised by the action, given that he ran against his boss.

"I didn't know what to expect but it was certainly an option," he said. "At the end of the day, I'm a big boy. I made the decisions I made. I knew the type of people I was going up against. That's why I was doing it. This too will pass and we'll see where we are at the end."

Gee, think I’ll send Hunt a thank-you note. And money.

UPDATE, June 8:

In this morning's OC Register (Carona challenger faces probe"):

...Hunt was quickly sidelined when Carona placed him on paid leave pending an internal investigation that accuses Hunt of campaign improprieties involving what Carona's lawyer said were Hunt's "public statements, actions and accusations."

Carona's move shocked even longtime politicos, coming just hours after the sheriff squeaked by in a race that cost the incumbent $1.3million.

"Machiavelli would be a lot more subtle," Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College, said, comparing Carona with the Italian politician known for his devious tactics. "This is not exactly a morale builder."

(See also Sheriff's going after Hunt looks like retribution">)


aturally, rat bastard DA Tony Rackauckas and Public Administrator John “Brownie” Williams were unopposed in their bid for reelection. Sheesh.

Williams was in Orlando and could not be reached for comment.



any seem to believe that our own Dave Lang was keenly interested in running for County Treasurer-Tax Collector and that he had the rug pulled out from under him by certain crafty colleagues. At any rate, in the end, our man Fuentes worked for candidate Chriss Street—Street, too, has been hurt by scandal; that seems to be an entrance requirement for the Fuentesphere—and he has won handily with 65% of the vote.

Have I mentioned that Orange County sucks? It’s home, but it sure does suck.


ancy Padberg ran for Judge (Office 4), and here, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news: the “winner” in this three way race appears not to have achieved 50% plus 1 (Sheila Hanson received 49.6%). I’m not sure, but I’ve been told that the failure of any candidate to achieve a majority means that there’ll be a runoff election, so this thing isn’t over yet.

The bad news: Nancy was the loser in the three way race. But not by much.

Sheila Hanson ....... 140110 votes 49.6%
Lyle J. Robertson ....... 74226 votes 26.3%
Nancy Padberg ....... 68093 votes 24.1%

So Nancy Padberg is out of the running.

Hanson, who would appear to be very qualified, is a Democrat who nevertheless had the endorsement of her boss, Rackauckas, a key member of the Fuentesphere.

(Data from Smartvoter)

Fuentes: shredded evidence?

On Sunday, Claudio Gallegos of Orange Juice (Orange Juice) made some remarkable assertions about OC Sheriff Mike Carona and his cronies:

But this man [Carona] is hardly one to claim to be the bastion of protecting children from sex offenders. In fact his office, with the advice of Schroeder and Fleischman (the folks who believe Republican activists have the fundamental right to commit crimes, including child rape), aided in covering up evidence of widespread child molestation. An acquaintance who is a survivor of priest abuse spoke to me anonymously and informed me of some shocking information. Turns out that files on linking GOP party chairman Tom Fuentes advising of abusive priests to be transferred, accidentally got shredded by the Sheriff's office, after the DA (also a Schroeder/Fleischman hack) gave it to them for "safe keeping." Carelessness was ruled as the cause of this accident, you all connect the dots. I reported, you all decide. It was either stupidity or corruption, in either of these cases any police chief would have been fired. Why should Mike Carona continue to keep his job?

Fuentes is very close to Shroeder. Schroeder is the close advisor not only of Carona, but of OC DA Tony Rackauckas.

Is there anything to what Gallegos is saying? Have any of the media reported this sort of alleged "accidental" shredding?

Does anyone have verification of this ruling of "carelessness" on the part of Carona's office? Is Gallegos correct in his description of what was allegedly shredded?

Or is Gallegos just flapping his gums (or whatever one flaps on a blog)?

Dirty joke

Check out the OC Weekly's preview of Tuesday's election (Crapshoot).

Scroll to the bottom for a fine photo of our own Nancy Padberg with apparent chum Dana Rohrabacher, who looks as though he's just been told a really great dirty joke. Maybe that's just the way the guy looks. Dunno.

With regard to the Judge race, the Weekly seems to like Sheila Hanson, owing to her qualifications. It isn't overimpressed with Nancy, who is described as a "right-wing community college trustee and GOP activist whose claims to fame include serving as a law clerk in the district attorney’s office about two decades ago."

You know how the Weekly can be.

While you're there, you might wanna check out an article, by one Cornel Bonca, concerning the "Gospel of Judas" (Judas: So Hot Right Now!).

I've been following this fascinating story, which involves a prof (translator) over at Chapman U. In case you haven't heard, this "gospel"

didn’t make the New Testament’s original cut, the way Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did, and when you read it, you have no problem seeing why it’s had a devilish reputation since old Irenaeus of Lyon trashed it as heretical way back in 180 C.E. To be brief..., the Gospel of Judas says that the God you think is God isn’t God, that Jesus did not die for your sins, and that Judas was not the worst guy who ever lived for betraying the best guy who ever lived...In fact, Judas was not The Betrayer at all, but Jesus’ best friend and confidant, who was actually in cahoots with Jesus to have him crucified because His death was the only way to get Jesus back home to heaven and the Great Spirit from whence he came.....

This is a gospel...which was originally written early in the second century of the Common Era, got translated into Coptic in what carbon dating and ink analysis determine was the fourth century, and which then disappeared until 1978, when it was rediscovered in an ancient tomb by the Nile River. Taken up by shady antique dealers eager to make a buck, the codex (archeological talk for manuscript) got buffeted about on several continents in ways no ancient decaying codex should, spending time in papyrus-decaying cold storage for a while and then 16 years in, of all places, a way too hot Citibank safe deposit box in Hicksville, New York, before falling in 2001 into the responsible scholarly hands of Switzerland’s Maecenas Foundation, which contracted National Geographic and several scholars to first restore and then translate the fragile thing into English.

TV viewers: I recommend the National Geographic special, which is often shown on the National Geographic Channel and elsewhere, I think.

Also, while you're at the OC Weekly website, you might check out Matt Coker's blog, which comments upon DtB pretty regularly: Clockwork Orange (e.g., "'Libertarian" not Libertarian on Library").

What kind of a libertarian are you, Don?

You'll recall that, at the board's January meeting, Trustee Don Wagner led the board in its action of removing the American Library Association from the list of institutional memberships. Why? Because the ALA is a group of "liberal busybodies," is why.

How so?

Wagner empasized the ALA's opposition to "porno" filters placed on Library computers by the Feds. (The ALA says they filter out some non-porno.) But another example--of the ALA's busyboddery--that he offered is the organization's opposition to aspects of the Patriot Act.

You can hear Don's actual remarks by clicking below:

(about 4 minutes)

OK, so here's the thing. Looks like the Librarians were way right to question aspects of the Patriot Act and the government's powers and actions as they concern library patrons' records. To see what I mean, check out yesterday's article in the New York Times (Four Librarians Finally Break Silence in Records Case).

Essentially, the Times story is this: after offering assurances that it would not seek patron records, the feds (aka government busybodies) did seek those records from librarians; and when they sought them, they informed librarians that they must keep mum in perpetuity. Good grief!

Some excerpts:

Four Connecticut librarians who had been barred from revealing that they had received a request for patrons' records from the federal government spoke out yesterday, expressing frustration about the sweeping powers given to law enforcement authorities by the USA Patriot Act.

The librarians took turns at the microphone at their lawyers' office and publicly identified themselves as the collective John Doe who had sued the United States attorney general after their organization received a confidential demand for patron records in a secret counterterrorism case. They had been ordered, under the threat of prosecution, not to talk about the request with anyone. The librarians, who all have leadership roles at a small consortium called Library Connection in Windsor, Conn., said they opposed allowing the government unchecked power to demand library records and were particularly incensed at having been subject to the open-ended nondisclosure order.

"I'm John Doe, and if I had told you before today that the F.B.I. was requesting library records, I could have gone to jail," said one of the four, Peter Chase, a librarian from Plainville who is on the executive committee of Library Connection's board.
…..
George Christian, Library Connection's executive director, said he was the first one to receive the confidential request from the F.B.I., something long suspected by careful readers of the court record. Before Congress revised the law in March, such requests, known as national security letters, were typically accompanied by a notification that the recipient was barred in perpetuity from revealing "to any person" that the request had been made. National security letters have become a popular law enforcement tool since the 9/11 attacks because they do not require judicial review.
…..
"The fact that the government can and is eavesdropping on patrons in libraries has a chilling effect, because they really don't know if Big Brother is looking over their shoulder," he added.
.....
Mr. Christian said that he and the other leaders of library consortiums in Connecticut had discussed hiring a lawyer to lobby against provisions of the Patriot Act but had accepted government assurances that there was little risk of federal investigators seeking library records. "We trusted them but apparently we shouldn't have," Mr. Chase said, noting that his organization would continue to resist other aspects of the government's demand. [My emphasis.]

Trustee Don seems to view himself as some sort of libertarian--you know, the kind of guy who prizes liberty and who seeks to keep government powers to a minimum in order to protect our liberties. Do Libertarians trust the government? Not so much.

You'd think a libertarian would join the librarians in "busying" themselves to defeat such absurd buttinskular powers as are revealed here to be a part of the Patriot Act.

I mean, think about it. Suppose you're a librarian, and the feds show up and tell you to hand over patron records. "Yeah, but these people trust me. They're members of my community."

"Tough shit, Library Boy! Now hand it over! --And don't even think about telling anybody about this, cuz, if you do, you're headed up the river! You got that!?"

I think this stinks. (The new and improved version of the PA is less objectionable in that it makes clear that these Junior G-Men librarians at least get to hire a lawyer, but, according to the ACLU, the relevant sections of the Patriot Act remain seriously flawed. See the NYT article.)

--I know, I know. I'm forgetting that we can and should trust the government. If the Feds tell you that information they need is important, then you can be damn sure that it is! Right Don?

At this point, only an idiot would say that and believe it.

(See Wagner contra "liberal busybodies")

And we think WE have problems!

This morning’s LA Times (Westminster School Board) presents the latest installment of the ridiculous and disconcerting Westminster School District (WSD) saga—a saga that, in many ways, parallels our own ludicrous epic.

For reasons that remain unknown at least to the Times, two members of the WSD board (James Reed and Judy Ahrens) opted to change their votes a week after voting to offer KimOanh Nguyen-Lam the district superintendent gig.

There’s talk of a lawsuit. (For what purports to be an eyewitness account of the board meeting, go to Orange Juice, May 31. Be sure to read the comments, too.)

The Times hints at a possible motivation for the vote change:

In a city whose population is predominantly Latino and Asian but whose power structure is largely white, the vote to rescind the job offer split along ethnic lines: The two board members who remained backers of Nguyen-Lam are Latino, and the three who voted to withdraw the offer are white.

That doesn’t look good.

The Times rightly characterizes the WSD as in “disarray”:

Four of its top five administrators have quit in the last year, including the superintendent, Sheri Loewenstein, who announced her resignation after only 16 months. Teachers have been working without a union contract since September.

Two years ago, the tiny district, which serves about 10,000 students in Westminster and parts of Huntington Beach, Garden Grove and Midway City, narrowly averted the loss of millions in federal funding after dropping a fight with the state over extending protections to transsexuals and others in its antidiscrimination policy.

Back in November (Fuentes World), we noted that the WSD is one of three county districts that have been burdened by an incompetent right-wing majority:

Perhaps you know—and perhaps you don’t—that there are three notorious right-wing “Board Majorities”[BMs] among OC school districts. [Tom] Fuentes, being the sort of guy he is, has hovered in the background, and sometimes the foreground, of all three. They are: (1) the Orange Unified School District “Board Majority” (which was offensive enough to be successfully recalled in June of 2001), (2) our own SOCCCD “Board Majority” (which was much dissipated by the inclusion of Bill Jay and the awakening of Nancy Padberg), and (3) the notorious Westminster School District “Board Majority,” which has taken aim at laws requiring fair treatment for gays. (Re Fuentes and the OUSD Board Majority, see OC Weekly, 12/28/01)

Mark Bucher was the Orange Unified BM’s attorney—yes, he quit his contractor's business in favor of the law in 2000—but he was quickly fired after the BM was replaced. Later, he became the Westminster School Districts BM attorney.

These guys sure do get around!

Bucher was among the founders of Education Alliance, the Christian right organization that, along with the then-corrupt Faculty Association, brought us Wagner and Padberg back in 1998. (EA's seed money came from Howard Ahmanson, a Fuentes crony.) These days, Bucher is the treasurer for the OC GOP.

—You know, the group that Fuentes chaired for 20 years.

(One of Bucher's two partners in Education Alliance was Frank Ury, who is now Mayor pro-tem of Mission Viejo. Check out his blog: Frank Ury's Mission Viejo Blog. Evidently, Ury's an Ayn Rand fan!)

“HUNG JURY” for Saddleback student, anti-Minuteman protester

As you know, Saddleback College student Kurt Isobe has been on trial here in Orange County. During an anti-Minuteman protest a year ago, he allegedly threw objects at police.

Local activist Duane J. Roberts has sat through the entire trial.

Here’s Duane’s report from today:

“HUNG JURY” FOR ANTI-MINUTEMAN PROTESTER

An Orange County jury deadlocks on three charges; issues “not guilty” verdict for two others.

By DUANE J. ROBERTS

SANTA ANA, CA—A mixed race, predominantly female jury deadlocked 10-2 and 9-3 in favor of an anti-Minuteman protester who was violently arrested by Garden Grove police on the night of Wednesday, May 25, 2005.

Kurt Isobe, 19, of Laguna Niguel, was one of three hundred people who attended a protest against Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, who was speaking at a meeting of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform in Garden Grove.

During three days of testimony, two police officers accused Isobe of throwing two objects at police during the demonstration. They claimed they saw him throw a “golf ball sized” object and a “red soda can” toward a police skirmish line.

But a crime lab technician testified that no fingerprints could be found on any cans. And numerous witnesses, including some who accompanied Isobe to the demonstration, stated that they didn’t witness him throw any objects at the police.

The jury "hung" on three charges of felony assault against a police officer and obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties. They found him “not guilty” of lesser charges of assaulting a horse and wearing a mask in the commission of a crime.

A hearing will be scheduled later next month to determine if the Orange County District Attorney’s Office will retry the case against Isobe. Attorney David Haas, Isobe’s counsel, was unavailable for comment at the time this report was written.

[We’d like to thank Duane for his permission in using his piece.]

Trustee SPANKY on your right to “pack a gun.” —Plus our district’s lovely “renaissance”!

People who seek political office often leave quite a paper trail.

Take Don Wagner, the perpetually peevish and prickly SOCCCD trustee. Two years ago, he ran for a seat in the State Assembly, 70th District. (See map.) Wagner poured forth an impressive amount of verbiage during that campaign. (He lost, receiving 15% of the vote among several candidates.) It is archived by “Smart Voter” --Wagner for Assembly.

Much has happened in the past two years. Back in 2004, Bush and all things Bushy--you know: our Iraq adventure, sending people abroad to be tortured, assaulting civil liberties--were riding high, but now, well, not so much. Back then, the “illegal immigration” issue was on the back burner. Now, its hot, hot, hot.

It's fun to look back at what people said before things started changing.

If you go to the above site, you'll find much Wagnerian verbiage. In a lengthy essay entitled “Five Things I Will Do in Sacramento,” trustee Don displays his Libertarian tendencies, as when he argues that

The legislature must recognize that parents know best how to raise their children, and that parents care more for their kids than do bureaucrats. I will ceaselessly work to … free parents to educate, discipline, and instill values in, California's children. I will not support any piece of legislation that undermines parental authority and control over their children.

Unsurprisingly, Don embraces “local control”:

As a local government official, I know that local governments are closer to the people they serve, know better the problems of their local jurisdictions, and can best respond flexibly and appropriately to solve those problems. They should be empowered by Sacramento, not stripped of power, money, and authority….

Don rails against “Phony ‘Civil Rights’ Laws” that protect “cross-dressers” and laws that “harass the Boy Scouts.”

“I will not sit quietly,” he says. “I will oppose further enactment of the liberal agenda….”

Wagner’s answers to a campaign questionnaire are sometimes interesting. “What,” he is asked, will he “do to stop illegal immigration and its economic effects in California”?

“We should deport illegal aliens when and where found,” says Don. As you know, President Bush offers a very different answer.

Don’s a great believer in guns. In fact, in Don World, the good guys oughta have more of ‘em: "I would try to greatly expand the right of law abiding citizens to carry weapons.”

Greatly expand? I do believe Don wants us to wear holsters, boots, and Stetsons!

Like many conservatives, Wagner is especially concerned about the specter of homosexuality. He is definitely against sex education and the promotion of the “pro-homosexual agenda” in public schools.

At one point, Wagner is asked, Do you support same sex marriage? He offers a snappy answer, sure to annoy:

"Then it isn't ‘marriage,’ now is it?"

I like Don, but he just doesn't get how annoyed at his audience--and thus annoying--he often seems.

In the questionnaire, Don again emphasizes the value of local control. And so he supports the “right of communities to require curricula with greater studies of”—are you ready?—here goes:

The U.S. Constitution, the role of religion in American life, traditional values, honest U.S. history, the founding fathers in greater dimension tha[n] mere "slave owners," appreciation for the cultural and political traditions of our country, patriotism, gun safety[.] [He says “yes” to the preceding.]

Don’s a great one for discipline. "Corporal punishment in the lower grades works,” he asserts.

Ouch!

Spanky--er, Don--sees himself as a Warrior. Is there a culture war in the U.S. today? “Yes,” says Corporal (and corporeal!) Don. If so, then “What side are you on?”

His answer is a tour de force:

"I am on the side that thinks ‘under God’ belongs in the pledge of allegiance and that it's all right to wish people ‘Merry Christmas,’ but that free speech does not include burning the flag or dancing in the nude.

"I am on the side that did not scoff when Ronald Reagan spoke of a ‘shining city on a hill’….

"On my side of the culture war, mom and dad and kids…are esteemed such that public policy is made first and foremost to protect them.

…"I believe public schools should be permitted to give out aspirin, but not condoms, and that bananas belong in the cafeteria, not in ‘health class.’

…”I am on the side of the culture war that believes Teddy Kennedy should do time for Chappaquidick and that Bill Clinton should do time for Juanita Broderick, perjury, illegal campaign fund raising from China...

"My side of the culture war thought that the first term of the Clinton Administration was … a disaster. There was nothing to like about his positions on gays in the military, nationalization of the health care industry, opposition to welfare reform that took a Republican Congress to finally achieve, …the incineration of children in Waco, …stonewalling on Vince Foster, missing Rose Law Firm billing records, … sale of the Lincoln Bedroom, ad nauseam.

…"Those on my side of the culture war believe that with rights come responsibilities, and that you have a right to build on your own property even if a snail darter or some such endangered vermin happens to live on it, a right to pack a gun, and the right to live free of an oppressive nanny state. You also have a responsibility to care for yourself and your family, and to exhaust every effort to do so before asking the government for a handout. Personal responsibility and self reliance [sic] are more highly regarded on my side of the culture war than are feelings and groupthink.

"My side of the culture war laughs at the hypocracy [sic!] of the left when it says we care about children only until they are born, when in fact it is our side that also opposes euthanasia, the left's creeping culture of death, the killing of Terry Schiavo….”

Don’s not finished! In a “separate statement,” he explains that

…I have volunteered for the GOP for years, ...served on a legal committee to stop liberal election day shenanigans…I was also the founder of the Orange County Chapter of the Federalist Society, a nationwide organization of lawyers, law professors, and judges. The Federalist Society has now replaced the leftist American Bar Association as chief outside advisor to the Bush Administration in its nomination of federal judges.

Near the end of this statement, Wagner touches on his role as Savior of our district. Ready?

When I was elected to guide a troubled college district, its finances were under State scrutiny, enrollment was flat, accreditation was in jeopardy, and campus dissension was widespread. Today, all that is past. The district's finances are robust. We are building new facilities without tax increases or incurring bond debt. Accreditation has been reaffirmed. Enrollment is up. Hard work, a commitment to educational excellence, and fiscally conservative leadership have led to a district renaissance.

—A renaissance? A freakin' renaissance!! I DON'T THINK SO, DON.

(All emphases added.)