1. This blog has been needing an Open Thread. We’ve been very pre-occupied getting signatures for rent control in Anaheim.
2. The Anaheim Democrats Club has a great meeting coming up tomorrow night (Thursday April 9, 7pm, the Untold Story Bookstore, 301 N. Anaheim Blvd, with progressive Assembly candidate Jessie Lopez, assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, speakers from the Working Families Party – who want to start a partnership with us – and possibly Supervisor Sarmiento.)
AND …..
3. There are a lot of videos we haven’t yet put out from our last couple of Club meetings. Good ones! Which let’s put em up here, on this open thread!
Wow, it’s been TEN YEARS now since the Anaheim Democrats Club was formed in 2016, and when we have time we’ll tell the whole story of that raucous decade: “A Thorn in the Side of the County Party Since 2016.” Maybe over the spring, we’ll tell that story.
But just looking at our lineup for tomorrow, it’s clear that we are becoming the progressive, good-government counterweight to the currently reactionary County Party. And, as hard as the DPOC has tried, first under Ada and even more under Florice Hoffman, they haven’t managed to kill us yet! Like the Rooster in that Alice in Chains song:
****
VIDEOS from last 2 meetings
Let’s see, our last meeting was in early February, during the time our City Manager James Vanderpool was on the hot seat and fixing to resign (our Club has always paid a lot of attention to local corruption.) Former Councilman Dr. Jose Moreno happened to be in the audience and wasn’t planning to speak, but folks wanted him to. He shared what he knew from working with Vanderpool, and also once again expressed his disappointment in how little had changed since Anaheim had gotten a “Democrat” Council majority. (This video also has, at the beginning, a couple of our local ICE fighters whom we support every way we can – Steve “wetdog” Acevedo and Ruben the Nurse.)
.
Our two scheduled speakers were supposed to be Congressional candidate Esther Kim Varet, AND San Clemente Mayor / state senate candidate Chris Duncan. We invited Chris not so much for his race as the fact that he’d used to be an ICE attorney and I’d heard he had a really timely and fascinating presentation about ICE. And we’d sorta been friends for a few years, since I supported him running against klepto-MAGA Laurie Davies for assembly. Even though I knew he was kind of a cautious, establishment insider kinda guy. But then AT THE LAST MINUTE Chris told me he couldn’t make it. When I asked him why, he replied “Ask Florice.” AKA Florice Hoffman, the DPOC chief – apparently she TOLD HIM NOT TO COME TO OUR CLUB. She was back to her old tricks from last year!
What kind of self-respecting politician takes orders from Florice Hoffman? It’s not like the DPOC was gonna take away his endorsement (as they’d threatened with others.) Chris had already driven our good progressive friend Rick Foster out of the race (with the backing of Senator Umberg) which was a pisser but none of us were gonna get into it. But… very disappointing that Chris was scared off from talking to our Club. A lot of people had shown up to hear his ICE talk, including Dr. Moreno.
But you know who wasn’t scared off by the DPOC was Esther, who told me “You wouldn’t believe how many people told me not to come here, but here I am!” Good for Esther. (As well as her Democratic opponent in the 40th district Lisa Ramirez who had come to our previous meeting.) So here is Esther, and then Lisa. We sure hope one of these ladies makes it past the Top Two June Primary, to slaughter either Creepy Ken Calvert or Slick Young Kim.
Esther at the Club
Lisa at the Club
I’ll have another couple videos up soon, but I gotta go knock on doors. For Anaheim Rent Control Signatures of course, I’ll sound like a broken record these next two months. We have a member who wants to get Anaheim to become sister cities with Hebron / Al-Khalil (in the occupied West Bank), and the Club supports that. I’ll try to get THAT video up tonight or tomorrow. Actually I think one of the things the DPOC (which currently has a strong Zionist tilt to say the least) hates about us is our sympathy to the Palestinians.
But it’s OPEN THREAD TIME, talk about anything! And make sure to come to our spectacular meeting tomorrow night, Thursday night. We’ll be voting on whether to endorse Jessie for assembly, and whether to join the Working Families Party!
This is so late it’s stale.
Not really, the meeting we’re talking about is tonight!
I talked to Donna this afternoon. She Said Sharon Quirk was showing up. So that was a hard no.
Well, and so you missed Jessie Lopez, who your friend Tony thinks the world of. We voted to endorse her – article coming up!
Oh, well.
Your boy Pearlman is so full of himself, he has anointed himself the clearinghouse of who may call themselves a journalist.
https://www.thetruthoc.com/p/if-theres-one-batshit-crazy-orange
“Kira is one of those non-journalists who (thanks, 2026!) identifies as ‘journalist,” only sans the reporting or writing or editing chops. She wants to have a voice, because nowadays nearly any clown with an iPhone can have a voice.
Pearlman went to a No Kings protest and saw a bunch of people collecting signatures on petitions. Granted it was probably paid signature gatherers lying about what their petitions were about.
But he advised all his readers not to sign petitions, but to go home and study up on them, and then sign them online. DUH. These kind of petitions for ballot initiatives (not like the silly change.org ones or whatever he’s thinking of) have to be signed in person.
I would worry, if anyone in Anaheim read his blog, that people wouldn’t be signing MY petition for Anaheim Rent Control. But folks in Anaheim don’t read him. He’s a south county voice. I think he’s afraid of Anaheim and Santa Ana.
I went to his book signing for his Tupac bio in Tustin, and invited him to do the same at my friend’s Anaheim bookstore The Untold Story, and for months he said he would and kept putting it off and putting it off. Finally he said “Don’t hate me. I’m tired of that Tupac book, I’m done with it.”
Speaking about “journalists”, did anyone attend the OC Press Club picnic at Mile Square Park last month? Doesn’t look like many “journalists” attended.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1489384613195088&id=100063706894551
Go Team Pulido.
I don’t know who I’m with in that race. Ada is a horrible person (though she’s probably the most progressive on issues.) And I don’t know who has the best chance of beating her either, Mark Pulido or Ali Taj. Some of my good friends who’ve also had bad experiences with Ada are backing one or the other.
Ada seems to have very few scruples.
Oh yeah? Name even one! She was the leader who pushed for Mike Schaefer — the racist con artist — to be on the Board of Equalization.
For whatever it’s worth, I have been told that Pulido was recruited for this race to split the significant anti-Ada vote with Taj, and to give labor/building trades an excuse not to endorse her
This seems self-contradictory; hopefully you can explain why it isn’t.
1. Pulido was recruited. (By whom?)
2. To split the anti-Ada vote with Taj. (So, by Ada then, to split the anti-Ada vote?)
3. And to give Building Trades &c an excuse not to endorse her? (Wait — didn’t she want their endorsement?)
I’m left to think that either (a) two anti-Ada groups are working at cross-purposes, or (b) that Ada doesn’t want a labor endorsement, or (c) that Pulido or Taj are secret operatives for Ada (but don’t want that getting out), or (d) that that the Trades themselves wants a rationale for not endorsing Ada and decided to choose an especially convoluted path to that end, or (e) that you misstated yourself somewhere, or (f) some either twisty-turny motive that I haven’t yet generated, or (g) I’m losing my friggin’ mind! Please clarify, because I really hope that it isn’t (g)!
Note I did not say that these were the same group.
Pro-Ada Group 1 recognized that Ada brought significant negatives to the table and with only one underfunded Dem challenger might not come through the primary.
A loose coalition of Ada-supporting organizations could not risk this and is overpaying a group of consultants on other projects to find and bolster other candidates. Mark was happy to oblige, given his history of writing a useless report (Brandman style) for SEIU99 so that he could serve as an unreported in-kind for Ludlow for LA Council many years ago.
A second distinct anti-Ada Group 2 mostly within labor desperately wanted to deny her unified union support, so they were happy to have another candidate with dubious history in labor, denying the support she counted on and thought she needed.
Since neither Pulido nor Taj has caught on with donors or voters, I think Group 1 has been less successful. Second group has been more successful in blocking significant endorsements. She will lack IE support, but won’t really need it to win.
Yes, I did note that you didn’t state that these were all one group, which was why I speculated along the lines that so it looks like your Pro-Ada #1 group is the same as my #1-#3 groups, and that my (a), (b), and (c, with respect to Puido but not Taj) are verified, and (d) is not unlikely, but will be inconsequential. Do you think that she has any viable politician from another candidate? And what to you think of Neshanian’s two comments? (Warning: he rewrites DPOC as “COPD” because he apparently finds respiratory symptoms hilarious.)
I haven’t checked in with Fred Jung in a while. Since BEFORE he left the Democrat Party and somehow got the Lincoln Club endorsement (which I woulda sworn would go to Tim Shaw.) He always seemed more honest to me than Connor Traut, but maybe it’s just that Connor is so damn slick. A lot of what Fred’s done I haven’t agreed with.
And Matt has a new piece which is hard to argue with, about what a BAD MONTH Fred has had. https://ocindependent.com/2026/04/editorial-fred-jungs-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-month/
Connor an unstoppable juggernaut, who STILL calls Jordan Brandman a role model? Well, WHOEVER wins that race will be an improvement over Doug Chaffee anyway.
He calls Brandman a role model? The guy that never had a job or an election that wasn’t handed to him? The one who threatened to shoot people in City Hall and rip a woman’s breasts off, and died of meth poisoning with no teeth? That guy?
No way.
To be fair, that second sentence could apply to either of them.
I think that his calling Jordan a role model stops somewhere before the end. I wonder if it stops short of “betraying” Melahat, which is ultimately what killed him.
This blog generally avoids Trump’s day-to-day escalating madness. But this is just too good and too weird and stupid, all at once. I’m sure most of you know that, right after trashing the Pope, Trump posted this AI pic of him as Healing Jesus. (And I still haven’t heard much mention of the demonic figure floating in the very top center)
Well, of all things, a “Door Dash Grandma” (as her teeshirt proclaimed) brought the President his daily McDonald’s delivery this morning, and Trump allowed her to ask him a question, and her question was “Why did you post a picture of yourself as Jesus?”
He admitted to posting the image, but claimed it was NOT Trump as Jesus, but rather, as he understands it, as a “doctor” or a “red cross worker.” And “only the fake mainstream news,” says Trump, could POSSIBLY look at this picture and see him pretending to be Jesus.
Apart from the demonic figure above, many are seeing the sickly patient that Trump is healing as Jeffrey Epstein.
Can we get a big “below 30%” on him yet?
Where’s his labia neck?
In front of his cervix.
Jon Stewart thought that it looked like him rather than Epstein. I fully concur. You should go find it; it was hilarious!
I forget where I saw this, but apparently someone (maybe his long-suffering Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles?) told him that the picture of him had been “doctored — and he took from that that he was playing the part of a doctor. History will mock us mercilessly.
Young Kim on broadcast tv going hard against Calvert and aligning herself closely with Trump. Might win her the primary but tough to explain in General.
Trump’s favorite immigrant! Take good notes on this!
Ada and Ali are outsiders. It’s gonna matter in this election that they aren’t locals and aren’t Filipino. They don’t appreciate their surroundings. Mark grew up there. The area is predominantly Asian. Almost Latinos and Filipinos are almost equally the same percentage of the local population. EN said it.
Umm Pulido has outraised the copd over the most recent reporting period.
Pulido has been a councilmember from 2013 to 2019 before his recent stint and on the ABC unified school district board from 2001 to 2011. He has lived in Cerritos since he was 4 and is currently 56 or 57. I don’t think he was put up to running against Ada. More like natural progression.
I haven’t heard it mentioned yet, but Ada carpetbagged into Cypress to run for this seat.
I should really do a piece about Ada soon.
“…Ada carpetbagged into Cypress to run for this seat.”
Shocking!