Oh shit, it’s that time again. Time to look back at the year 2024 when (just enough of) our fellow Americans chose an adjudicated rapist, senile narcissist with no grasp of truth or reality, despoiler of the Constitution, and altogether the most unpleasant piece of shit on our planet, to be the Leader of the Free World again. The election didn’t actually go so bad in Orange County and maybe we had a little bit to do with that. Too bad about America though, which we have dubbed “The Huntington Beach of the World.” As usual in an election year, THESE were our most-read posts:
1. Our Election Guides
Over 21,000 folks read Greg’s & Vern’s encyclopedic
And there were these other, SLIGHTLY more modest, public service posts:
- Your March 2024 Primary Voting Guide: Start at the Bottom and Vote Upballot! got 4,266 views.
- The 2024 OJ Blog Central Committee Guide got 3,352.
- and Greg’s January “Who & What is on the March 5 ‘Primary’ Ballot?” got 2,753 readers.
Orange County, you’re welcome! Our pleasure as always! Then, toward the end of election season, and especially in the couple months since, our stories on the Placentia – Yorba Linda USD (PYLUSD) have gotten thousands of readers. We are honored to be read by so many good folks in that district, folks who managed to wrest back control of the district from the awful and corrupt Leandra Blades, and who are now uncovering really massive corruption which spreads County-wide – keep your eyes open for more revelations! These are the biggest, from the end of 2024:
*******PYLUSD Stories*******
Written by Sam Myovich, this late-December bombshell has gotten 4,085 readers so far, and still growing:
From right before the election, this anonymous tell-all about Leandra got over 3,125 readers (Leandra still won, but she lost her majority thank God!
This mid-December story, written by a member of “PYLUSD For Truth,” got 2,080 readers so far:
Vern wrote this one, shortly after the election, about Leandra’s desperate lame-duck plans to make her damage permanent, plans which were mostly foiled. 2080 readers:
And before the election, 1630 people read this Vern story about Leandra’s bad behavior trying (unsuccessfully) to stop the Recall of her buddies at OUSD:
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OK now, the REST of our biggest 2024 stories!
This firsthand account from our favorite homeless correspondent Allen Saul really caused a stir, with over 5000 readers:
Vern’s summary of the state of the Orange USD election, POST-RECALL, got nearly 3000 readers:
Our new Anaheim Hills correspondent, calling themselves “Hannah Heim,” got 2756 hits with this one, and it seems to have changed the Anaheim Council’s mind – they voted against uber-lobbyist Tom Daly, believe it or not!
Skipping forward to the most-read piece from our correspondent South OC Paine, with 1238 readers:
The rest of these are all pieces by Vern that got between 1000 and 2000 readers:
Still with us?
Now for the REALLY self-indulgent part!
Wherein, Vern and Greg list the stories of theirs they thought were best, and SHOULD have got more readers!
Vern’s Best
This was the best one of the year, but sad and mad. Despite district elections, despite a Democrat majority, and despite all the “reforms” following the scandals of ’22, the new Anaheim Council voted against the people and gave their funders at Disney Corporation EVERY LITTLE THING THEY WANTED with their unanimous Disneyland Forward vote in April. A shame only 685 people read it, but it’s not too late!
We thought Joe Kerr was a really bad and undeserving candidate in Congressional District 40, and really hoped folks there would pick his worthy opponent Allyson in the primary. Amazing comments section, and even a sequel here since so many lies got told in the comments section!
Let’s just end with this one, because this is something we’ll be working hard on in Anaheim in 2025:
Greg’s Best — to Be Pared Down By Editor-in-Chief Vern!
A “Best of” list is an attempt at creation of a canon, in this case of posts that people now and in the future should read and possibly re-read and mark for reference. But let me get real here: this was Vern’s year; I don’t want to take anything away from that. I (a term that incorporates my computer as the part of me it is) was on the disabled list for much of the year; Vern carried the blog on his back and did a great job. So I haven’t earned an equal number of posts on the “Best of” list, let alone more of them — so I hereby defer to him to choose among the “semi-finalists” I offer below to determine which deserve elevation to Orange Juice Blog canonical status this year. (I leave him this sole instruction: if I outright say that I’m “proud” if a piece’s it’s probably true. Perhaps trolling, possibly mistaken, but at least presumptively true.)
I do not expect Vern to get to this until after what I understand will be his Best! Concert! Ever! (on January 4, 2025, which day you should remember and revere), so for the next week or so you can enjoy the full glory of my autobiographical review, until Vern destroys my spirit by noting how few views I got.
Where was I? “Best of” list … creation of a canon … posts that people now and in the future should read … (seriously, WTF is this?) and possibly re-read (???!!!) and mark for reference. (Oh … joking? God, I hope so!) Other than my work on the elections, regarding which Vern would be overly kind to give me anything close to equal credit this past year, most of my best work sat unpublished in my draft folder. This was for good reason: I’ve had a trio of major cases this year that took up most of my time and attention; while none are entirely completed at this point, the prospects look good. I’ve let blogging eat into my work time too much in many recent years; 2024 simply evened that score a little.
One problem that I may have alluded to at times is that one or more undesired updates to this platform, combined with a computer largely running on fumes, made it extremely difficult to write. Not compose thoughts and sentences, but to get words into correctly formatted stories.) You may not like the ads here any more than I do, but they do keep us afloat (or at least as afloat as we get), and with money comes greater ability to surmount technical obstacles. In my election reporting, I was literally taking about eight hours to get out a post on who’s running or all election results — which would ordinarily have taken perhaps an hour an hour or two — because the software was simply uncooperative with more than rudimentary formatting. And sometimes a large draft post would simply vanish into the ether. Even now, it’s tending to take much longer to do even less. Not to get all “Voice of OC” on people reading this, but I’m sure that Vern would put any donations from those who appreciate our coverage to good use. (I did pick up a new computer for Cyber Monday, and so hopefully that will reduce some of these difficulties!)
If I had a theme to my posts this year, it was “unsolicited advice.” I don’t know how many impressions (yeah, we do know that each hit or page view is not not necessarily a separate person, but they do not include me or Vern) my posts received this year — Vern seems to have some capabilities on his system that I don’t on mine — but I did come up with some “cunning plans” (shout-out to Blackadder fans!) that were worth placement in the outer circles of the year’s canon. And there were some good ones outside of that theme as well:
Open Thread: Hey, Weiss & Min, Unite vs. AIPAC!
I told you early in the year that AIPAC was going to be a horrible and corrosive forrce in this election. Neither Weiss nor her fellow nominee Min took my advice — and arguably Min might not have beaten unprincipled Scott Baugh if he had — but getting them to comply was never the point. Shining a light on AIPAC was the point.
Tell KATIE: START ATTACKING ERIC EARLY!
This was good advice addressed to Katie Porter, but not FOR Katie Porter herself — something that I failed to recognize a party as inbred as California Democrats would not understand. You see, there are these things called “Super PACs” — independent of and not allowed to coordinate with campaigns — and in a working system they would see this suggestion, create their own ad, and build up Eric Early the way that Scheisskopf Schiff was building up Steve Garvey so that he wouldn’t have to face a mano-a-mano fight in the general election with Katie. (Unfortunately Katie may be lacking in arm’s-length PAC support.) This was tactically smart of him, but strategically stupid — or at least it will turn out to have been if people resent him and don’t suck up to him now that he’s in power. (My favorite scenario is that Governor or Lt. Gov. Katie — depending on whether Kamala runs — will spend lots of time rag-dolling Senator Feinstein II from Sacramento — and then eventually run against him again and blow him out.) Anyway, it looks like Katie’s campaign did a test of my theory of boosting Early with Facebook ads (or some such) themselves, rather than leaving the job to some external PAC, allowing now-Senator Palpatine Jr. to blithely ooze, when challenged on his recklessly promoting Garvey (who might have won the race given a bad open mic moment, or a Schiff financial scandal, or a — yeeesh, I don’t even want to think about a Schiff schex schandal!) he was able to say “well, both sides were doing it” — along the lines of equating his letting a hungry Doberman off of its leash in a playground, where it almost ripped the leg off of a second grader, being the equivalent of Katie briefly taking the leash of her teacup Pomeranian, which just sat there. NOT A FAIR COMPARISON, PENCIL-NECK! (It is possible, I recognize, that Katie’s campaign did not conduct such tests — but in that case it was incumbent on her to call Schiff a lying liar for making the accusation!)
TELL KATIE: Concede the Short Term Race to LEE!
Eleven days later, I gave Katie some even better advice, which unfortunately she did not take. There was a both a short and a long term U.S. Senate race on the ballot, meaning that those of us whose hearts were with Barbara Lee’s candidacy while our heads were with Katie could have our cake and eat it too! I, in fact, voted for Lee in the short-term race — giving her her props — while encouraging her to drop her own bid for the full-term and throwing her support to Katie. This coalition building — a standard political tactic! — might have not only given her lots of credibility among Black and leftist voters, but might have actually won her the seat! She didn’t really need the short term race, anyway, while for Lee it would have been a grace note capping her career. But Katie, alas, is not built to leave any morsel of power on the ground.
The Birds Were Just Amazing That Spring
Perhaps my most out-of-character post ever: my fond memory, as an introvert, of the early bright side of the first year of Covid. (It soon slipped to second-place behind Wandavision.)
Rubalcava Verdict Results Thread
This is election related, but not a guide; it doesn’t deal with Yorba Linda, and I don’t know how many hits it got, so I guess it’s only place is here. Close call for the Rube!
Juneteenth Celebrates the Death of the Big Lie
Yet another of my failed attempts to make “fetch” happen! But the century is still young!
Open Thread: Supreme Court Originalism
A good time to lament the “Honorable Court” with The Weekly Sift’s Doug Muder.
Debate Precap: Don Rickles vs. Will Rogers?
My predictions are rarely as floridly wrong as this one was — but I wasn’t the only one shocked!
Flip the Ticket! A Harris/Biden Ticket Could Win!
Still arguably better than what happened! But Biden still thinks he would’ve won, so forget it….
The Battle of Kamala Begins; All Shall Suffer
More Kronikling of Histry! (Actually, opinion shifted towards Harris after Biden’s departure)
As With ‘Angry Obama,’ Biden’s Problem was Stereotype Confirmation
I’ll stand by this one! I don’t recall seeing it anywhere before it appeared here. Few comments, tho’.
I Wrote a Little Speech for Kamala After the School Attack in Gaza
(I’ll stand by this one too! My read of the elections was that Palestinians and Muslims hated Harris because she wouldn’t commit political by condemning military funding of Israel as they had thought that Israeli overreaction to Oct. 7 would make inevitable, but it turns out that anti-Muslim/Palestrian prejudice was deeper than they understood, and Israel-supporters correctly believed that she couldn’t be trusted to never turn on Israel once she could do so safely. So she lost both. Spoiler alert: Zionists won.)
NO on Weird, Deceptive, and Likely Evil Prop 34
I’m proud of this one too: I was right, and the Democratic Party, state and local, was pusillanimous and rolled over for landlords!
Open Thread: 2 Weeks 2 Go! So Let’s Talk Bonds!
Another Open Thread (those being the main times in 2024 that I felt I could toss something together to publish), that included my treatise on when to vote for bonds!
Open Thread: Real-Life Steel-Cut CA-45 Comix!!
OJB‘s last-minute effort to spread the embarrassing horror of Steel in a form that hadn’t theretofore been widely tried! (Spoiler alert: this is what made the difference in the election!) (Possibly.) I forget whether the author remains anonymous, but here I will accept my due share of credit for turning video to comics!
OC Precinct Zero Results from Election Night
A post documenting the Precinct Zero results should appear in EVERY OC election. (Hear that, Voice of OC?) This is what allowed me to predict final results with such accuracy as the vote counting proceeded.
Joe Biden Should Resign on Nov. 20, 11 a.m.
In the wake of the shocking-but-not-surprising election result, I attempted to wrest at least some sort of dignity out of the situation. It did not go well.
Where Undecided House Races Stood, 11/20+
I scooped major media outlets regularly with my following the Democratic Party landslide in later-decided House races. Unfortunately, because I edited the post to eliminate my earlier calls, the evidence for this is hidden in our “previous versions” history, where it will never see the light of day. So just trust me on this!
Bacon Time! GOP Won the House; MAGA Didn’t!
My final “cunning plan” of 2024. This was still the right way to go, but for elected Democrats to vote for a non-MAGA Republican to become Speaker in exchange for an agreement for co-Chairs and power sharing on all Committees would go against everything they believe in: namely, “letter over spirit,” “style over substance,” and “image over results.” As I write this on New Years Day, it’s technically not too late to pull this off — but unfortunately it was probably always already too late.
Levin, Schiff, Voted For BAD Anti-Liberties Law
Sometimes our elected officials need a swift kick in the butt to straighten up their spines. Such was the case here — and, happily, both of these men changed their votes on this issues. Unfortunately, we’ll never know if they only did so because they realized that it had the votes it needed to pass even without them. Vote right the first time, folks — especially when it’s the only real chance to block a bad policy!
Jimmy Carter Died at the Perfect Moment
And finally, skipping over my attempt to brand Elon and Doneold as “The Mumps” — which may still happen! — I ended with a quick obituary with the headline that may seem disrespectful but is in reality anything but. I won’t give a way the specifics of this one — you’ll have to click!
Finally, CHESTNUTS.
(Older stories of ours that continued to get lots of hits THIS year.)
Just two this year. As there continue to be developments in this jawdropping case, over 1200 readers worldwide, THIS YEAR, have clicked on this old 2019 story of mine. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned but it was the foul-mouthed Fitzgerald who convinced me to write this story. I thought it was too salacious, not my cup of tea, but he was all, “No, this is important, it’s partly about APD malfeasance. Look here, I’ll pay you fifty bucks to write about this,” and he did!
And as Huntington Beach’s crazed Gracey Van Der Mark amazingly became Mayor, 890 people clicked (this year) on THIS 2018 chestnut:
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Well, that’s about it for this awful year. If you’re at all bored and listless during this Holiday Season, you could do worse than click on one of these gems. And laugh! Weep! Hurl! And keep coming back, the Orange Juice Blog loves you!
You loser drunk piece of shit who needs to find public shelter at age 64 because you have no retirement savings Asshole
You got my age right but that’s about it. You sad person.
“You Drunk Piece of Shit” has no reasonable expectation of privacy and had an IP address of 54.177.24.201, for the benefit of the other bloggers and the authorities.
I think it’s an early Bob comment. Like “Tito Watch,” Bob has an IP scrambler, so he’s not worried.
Think how brave you must be, to buy an IP scrambler so you can write nasty comments without anyone knowing who you are! The very picture of the fat misfit fucker in his Mom’s basement.
No wonder the flesh colored snake er pink toad er pink turd seethes at the slightest mention of Orange Juice Blog. Wahwahwahwah.