The BIGGEST, Juiciest Orange Juice Stories of 2025, a terrible no-good year.


Let’s not even talk about this fucked-up year. But we do have this tradition on this blog, where we at least list (and celebrate?) our stories that got the most readers each year. So let’s get on with that…

#1. ICE’s Field Day in Anaheim (8-16-2025) – 14,000+ readers

Figures, the biggest one would be about Trump’s stormtroopers tearing apart our communities. On this day I just happened to be out with the young rebels who help defend this town from ICE, when the masked assholes came and kidnapped a bunch of day laborers from the Brookhurst Home Depot. Then, guessing correctly, the rebels got word to the Euclid Carwash which was where ICE was heading next so the workers there got away. But meanwhile at the carwash black Fullerton citizen Isaac Dominguez stood up to the ICE agents, and got tackled and arrested. And finally, frustrated at not catching any immigrants there, the Nazis set off a bunch of tear gas canisters for no reason. Lotsa pics and videos in the story. Sadly there have been many similar days since then and will be many more to come.

The fact the story got over 14k views so quickly is probably attributable to it being posted on the Drudge Report. If you guessed that means most of the folks who read it were racist anti-American morons from all over the country who just wanted to watch Anaheim getting tear-gassed, you’d be right, and you can see the ignorant anonymous pricks in the comments section where we had fun swatting them around!

#2. Albert Arzola, 19, Killed by Anaheim Police Last Night (Dec, 6500+)

Yeah, a horrific local tragedy will get a lot of readers too, especially when we were the only ones covering it – until like yesterday, when the Arzola family’s lawyer put on a really effective press conference! But up till then, all the press reports were bland stenography of what police spokesmen dictated; ONLY the Orange Juice Blog was questioning, talking to witnesses, and pointing out contradictions! You are welcome. JUSTICE FOR ALBERT!

#3. FOUR running in next month’s Special Senate Election (Jan., 4600+)

I guess 4600 people found this useful, but I was hoping the VERY corrupt carpetbagging MAGAt Tony Strickland would be kept under 50% in the primary so there’d be time for people to learn how dirty he is. No such luck though, he whupped these three pretty handily in February. I wonder if it would be so easy now, after the public experiencing a Year of Trump II. Still, Democrats need good candidates in OC, where are they?

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The Year of Living Myovichly

Stories #4-7 were all by our new friend Sam Myovich!

(And they’re all about the Placentia – Yorba Linda USD,
which was taken back from the nutjobs in the 2024 election.)

#4. The Axe Begins to Fall at PYLUSD – and so quickly!

(3800 this year; 7883 since late Dec. 2024!)

#5. CHARTER MADNESS and PYLUSD (Jan., 2800+)

#6. Jurupa Transgender Athlete AB Hernandez Inspires Placentia & Yorba Linda!
(April, 2800+)

#7. The Waste, Fraud & Abuse of the PYLUSD Extremists: 3 Lawsuits
(August, 2200+)

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And, Geez. This is an Old One of Mine…

#8. Embracing Gracey (2050 this year; 6917 since I wrote it in 2018.)

I guess each time crazy Gracey Van Der Mark runs for a new office, people pass this old chestnut around and read it. And now she’s running for assembly, against Republican Matt Harper, fascist Nick Taurus, and great Democrat Chris Kluwe! (Our endorsement post for Kluwe, by Myovich, will be coming out at the beginning of the year.)

#9. Twelve – Count ’em – TWELVE Lawsuits Against Newport “businesswoman” Andrea McElroy (May, 1951)

This was a nice fun scoop, but still this ditzy education saboteur got elected. Shame on that part of Newport.

#10. Memories of Mater Dei’s Father Michael Harris
(Over 2000 since late Dec. ’24)

Having attended Mater Dei High School while this serial sex predator was principal, I felt qualified to give an interesting perspective.

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Well that’s enough for our biggest hits this year, ten is enough. (The next 2 or 3 are No Kings protest announcements.) I think often of the late great Joe Strummer of The Clash. I remember in ’79 when they had their first hit single in the US and it was their Sonny Curtis cover “I Fought the Law.” And Joe bitched to a rock magazine, “We’ve made like a hundred great songs, way better than that one, and yet America laps up this piece of shit, what the hell is wrong with America?” And I know how he felt, every year our list of most-read stories is WAY DIFFERENT than what we think our best stories were. Why can’t thousands of people (instead of hundreds) have read THESE (in our opinion) gems? To wit:

***Our BEST Stories of 2025***

Anaheim Justice Delayed

Our coverage of the March sentencing of Harry Sidhu, the August sentencing of Melahat Rafiei, and the still-next-year sentencing of Todd Ament… for shit they did around 2019-21 and were charged for in 2022:

“Magisterial?” Arguably…

Possibly Most Important…

… because it charts our course for the coming year. We are aiming to spend the first half of this year getting signatures to put Santa Ana-style rent control and tenant protections on the ballot in Anaheim for November’s General Election.

Why We Need a Tenants United Anaheim

(Next meeting this Sunday, 7pm, at the Untold Story Bookstore, 301 N. Anaheim Blvd)

Overlooked Myovich

Talk about “magisterial,” Sam’s serious, well-researched essays put me to shame. But it seems like he only gets a lot of readers when he’s writing about his stomping grounds, the Placentia-Yorba Linda USD. Here are some other Myovich masterpieces from this year, which shoulda had more readers (warning – they are long but great! I should know, it takes me all day to edit and illustrate them…)

Finally let’s hear it (I’m boycotting the stupid phrase “shout-out!”) for our three new writers who are doing a great job keeping this a lively and interesting countywide blog:

Our Little Saigon correspondent Đầu Sóng, whose October piece “All Hail Joe Dovinh, Emperor of Garden Grove!” got a solid 1279 readers;

Our Surf City correspondent HB Tory, whose May announcement “In Good News for HB Council, Gracey Files for Assembly” got 922 readers;

and of course our South OC Paine, the tireless anonymous crusader for district elections and term limits and against corruption and nepotism in that vast wasteland on the other side of Irvine.

OK… Back to work…

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.