So, this is where I (Vern) was yesterday, at Santa Ana’s Centro Cultural, marching against all that Trump shit and representing for Tenants United Anaheim.
In the hopper this week:
- The Latest Rash of Fullerton Police Killings: Jose, Pedro & Alex.
- Trump’s ICE picks off OC’s law-abiding & activist immigrants. Where is Lou?
- Interview with Dara Maleki, new Anaheim Chamber CEO.
- Why We Need a Tenants United Anaheim.
- Anaheim Democrats May 8: Education Superintendent candidate Josh Newman answers all your questions!
- and… a big surprise reveal TBA.
Here’s your latest open thread, have at it!
Ben Vasquez holds forth!
Hey! There’s Steve White!
Dylan! “ITZ Happenin.”
Good old Gilbert
Martin Lopez surprised me – suddenly friendly and good-humored after years of avoiding me. Is this somehow permitted because Ada is no longer Party leader?
The obligatory chinelo!
The 3 OG’s: Vern, Albert & Gilbert!
You should have stopped by 200 N. Ross and visited SSA Hannah (sp) at the US Secret Service. He knows all about you and Donna.
I am at Brians on Yorba Linda right now, just got done at the Post Office LOL. Florice is gonna to FLIP!
Sounds like claiming he just sent out another batch of obscene mailers about us.
Everyone let us know if you get anything!
Bonus points for a Yorba Linda postmark.
I still need to scan you the second creepy correspondence i received.
Got it. Thanks. Into the evidence folder!
I don’t know how you deciphered his riddle but I’m sure glad you did. What n F’in creep.
I’ll be writing about it… after I do some more important pieces.
I didn’t get one this time. Who is this human pustule?
You know, not everyone can pull off that look …
Council member James Mai commits a new form of valor fraud claiming to have been adopted by a WW2 hero who helped liberate Germany. Now he claims to have been half-adopted by a white family. No such thing as half-adopted same as half-pregnant. There is semi adoption but that’s not what he is explaining. There is more. I got receipts. Needless to say, this article is less than trustworthy with respect to that portion re Mai.
Fake news!!! Horwitz is a journalist like a pop tart is fresh baked danish.
https://www.ocregister.com/2025/04/29/vietnam-war-pilot-reflects-on-rescue-helicopter-evacuations-during-the-fall-of-saigon/amp/
Hmm… this is in conflict with what is reported by Horowitz.
“Mai’s family escaped communism in 1954 from Vietnam, coming to the United States before the fall of Saigon.”
https://voiceofoc.org/2025/04/from-exodus-to-emergence-black-april-50-years-after-the-fall-of-saigon/
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10163124077527146&id=536167145 (See the embedded quoted material)
Only 20 years off. Not bad.
Blast from the past, when Janet Nguyen really pissed off a lot of the Little Saigon community by politicizing Black April, making it her own little thing. Real fun piece, except we were very premature in our prediction of her political death….
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/04/janet-has-really-stepped-in-it/
This was also back in the time when Liberal OC and the OCEA were low-key Janet supporters (or “Jannies”) so there’s THAT rivalry baked in.
Why is Ada Briceno representing Sarmiento’s district as a fold appointee on the OCHR commission?
And, Nguyen finally sacks Jennifer Wang who was acting as the chair or vice chair of the commission for the 1st district as an Andrew Do appointee when she was an Irvine resident. Tai Do is the 1st district’s new commissioner.
https://ceo.ocgov.com/human-relations-commission/commissioners
Btw, Jennifer Wang is really chummy with Farrah Khan.
The commission was silent when Do was lining his pockets at the expense of the Vietnamese community.
*as a Foley appointee. Briceno was not appointed by Sarmiento and I don’t think she lives in his district. Just further proof the OCHR commission lacks any credibility.
Wang’s background is in Asian senior services the same industry Do exploited for his own personal gain.
The OCHR commission never addressed Do or the Vietnamese community’s uproar over his betrayal of them.
Now the OCHR commission will be electing a replacement of Jennifer Wang for vice chair at meeting on May 8th.
The commission’s hate crime report committee is comprised of COPD specially selected vice chair and chair of the commission LJN, Chief Wallid Abdelsamad aka Mike Kent and ADL operative Rabbi Richard Steinberg (brother of CA Dem politico Darryl Steinberg). Can you see the conflict of interest of having a pro American Israel lobbyist on the commission and a committee charged with preparing a hate crime report? Zero credibility.
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/05/the-shift-another-deceptive-antisemitism-audit-from-the-adl/
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/entertainment/story/2024-03-19/gaza-war-divides-oc-human-relations-commission
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-la-denounces-ochrc-commissioners-who-voted-against-resolution-condemning-islamophobia-thanks-commission-for-addressing-hate-in-orange-county/
Ada and Lauren are 2/7 of the commission. It’s like a haven for political appointees.
Here is Jennifer Wang and James Mai. She is standing next to Anthony Kuo.
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10163121292622146
https://archive-video.granicus.com/irvine/irvine_b3761d6e-8aef-4518-9330-d66e3baf5dd1.mp4 (Queue to 45:50 and listen until when Treseder goes all …
James Mai is the male Republican version of Tammy Kim.
Asian from the Midwest with daddy issues who is full of sh*t.
EN said it!
Where is Lou?
Why, Lou was back in Washington voting with Republicans to overturn one of California’s Clean Air Act waivers, of course: https://www.siliconvalley.com/2025/05/02/why-rep-lou-correa-sided-with-republicans-in-vote-to-override-californias-electric-car-mandate/
Say what you will about the EV mandate, but Republicans certainly don’t need any help trying to turn California into their chew toy. And if they manage to take away this waiver, it’s not like they’re going to stop there and let us have the rest. Looking forward to once again seeing the weekly forecasts of when the air will be clean enough for kids to play outdoors that I remember from the 80s!
When Lou’s socials haven’t been serving up anodyne pictures of him visiting every Little League team, senior center, and VFW post in his district (while somehow forgetting to hold any open town halls), he’s been highlighting his membership in something called the “New Democrat Coalition”: https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/
I guess that “New Democrat” is what you call yourself when you want to burnish your Republican-lite credentials, but saying that you’re a Blue Dog Democrat just makes everyone go “huh?”
I don’t think James Mai has ever been in a mosh pit.
But he sure thinks he’s both a big tough guy and a rebel.
More on James mai. Compare and contrast.
Compare and contrast
Weekdays were spent in an Asian household in the inner city and government housing, while weekends and summers brought a sharp contrast in a white suburban neighborhood.
https://www.sccca.org/news/2025/04/25/cultural-express/turning-struggles-into-hope-the-journey-of-vice-mayor-james-mai-from-refugee-roots-to-irvine-leadership/
As a child, I visited family in Orange County in the summers and dreamed of one day calling it home.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250113171546/https://jamesmai.com/about-me/
Well, which one is it??
(With apologies to C.W. McCall (who wrote and produced “Convoy), to God, and to good taste)
Cause we got a mighty Conclave
God’s own choice we seek
Yeah, we got a Papal Conclave
Might be here a week!
You can’t join our Conclave
Unless you’re a Cardinal, man
Gonna roll this bleepin’ Conclave
‘Cross the Vatican!
Conclave! CONCLAVE!
Dave Min and Derek Tran helped send Asians down the river er um to Libya.
https://x.com/freespkr/status/1920308949661720619?s=42
Yeah, that was unpleasant to have to cover, after I worked so hard to get Derek elected.
https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2025/01/why-did-tran-min-levin-vote-for-republicans-unconstitutional-laken-riley-act/
I was just hearing today, this was the first and last substantive bill this Congress has managed to pass. And it sucks.
When time permits — and it won’t be long — I’m going to write a new piece on why Democrats and anti-MAGA should not play along with the Congressional Republican Party’s tactic of putting the few swing seats — like Derek Tran’s — into no-win situations like the Laken Riley law. Support the right thing and he gets roasted by people who will use it as the foundation to create a whole MAGA fairy tale that could help Republicans keep the House and prevent accountability for the President. Support the wrong thing and progressives with no idea at all about political tactics will do the work of Michelle Steel or whoever else will run.
JUST FUCKING STOP IT. The Laken Riley law is bad; you’re right that it’s probably unconstitutional. It in no way less than an order of magnitude as bad as letting Republicans keep moving towards a permanent tyranny.
Why did Republican officials convey the message that this was aimed at moving Asians — particularly Laotians, Filipinos, and Vietnamese — to prisons in Libya? It may seem that the most parsimonious explanation is that it’s true — but that’s wrong.
Many people don’t realize just how important this race is the Congressional Republicans — so much so that it is leading them to adopt measures specifically to rat-fuck Derek Tran in his (and my) district, which as I recall is the most Asian district in the state (except maybe one in the Bay Area) and among a tiny handful most Asian in the county. In other words, they have a strong motive to claim that it’s true (even if that’s hogwash) and even a strong motive to MAKE it true simply to hurt Derek Tran — simply to make voters think that he betrayed them and sold them out for 20 pieces of silver.
It’s an extremely repulsive and cynical strategy — and it’s working because leftists are swallowing it whole instead of examining it and calling it out.
This particular scenario is not going to happen without being stifled in court — and I don’t think that even the Supreme Court would put up with it. This would mean targeting a population not because of its own supposed tied to so-called anti-American views — but simply because they share a race or ethnicity with someone they want to defeat in an election.
MAGA Republicans want to scare people by suggesting that if they don’t stand with Trump they will face the Kilmar treatment. MAGA is going to find that these ethnicities — and plenty more from Asia — know more about fighting tyranny than cowardly Trump and his entire dilettante cabinet could learn in a century.
In an odd way, we are fortunate to have a race in our county that has the Republicans desperate enough to make threats against innocent residents so vile that it can alienate one of the largest ethnic aggregations in the country for half a century or more. What we do here and now really matters. They are bringing the war right to us — and we will send it back right through their teeth.
Unlike the COPD, Young Kim is pro-Armenian.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1114912310677463&id=100064761128554
And that’s all you need to know in that race, isn’t it?
Everything you say from here on out will be colored by this observation — so there’s really no point it letting you pretend to be motivated by anything else.
Am I the only U.S. citizen not allowed to be single issue voter? Cuz all you yeretz israel voters aren’t keeping tabs off who does the best fiddler on the roof jig.
It was just an observation that Armenians are here in the OC and DC. The COPD likes to overlook us and that may not bode well when they try to move their candidates up ticket.
Sheesh.
You don’t get to be a single-issue voter because you’re a troll, Eric — one intent on exercising a heckler’s veto, flinging your shit all over the site until people get sick of it. (And your second sentence doesn’t even make sense grammatically.)
Look at all the poor or elderly Irvine residents queued up in their Teslas waiting for the government dole under the auspices of District 3 Councilmember daddy issues mai.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=122188461284263652&id=61557909581208