First – this coming Thursday, 7pm, you probably don’t want to miss the next General Meeting of the Anaheim Dems Club, at the Unitarian Church, 511 S. Harbor, where our guests will be Jessie Lopez, Connor Traut, and a representative(s?) of the OC Youth Movement:
- Assemblyman Avelino Valencia, representing AD 68 which is mostly Santa Ana and the east half of the Anaheim flatlands, sees an opening in Tom Umberg’s termed-out Senate Seat, and aims to continue his meteoric rise onto that seat next year (unless Josh Newman can beat him!) That leaves his assembly seat empty, and the top contenders for it so far are corporate, law-enforcement-backed SA Councilman David Penaloza, vs. progressive SA councilwoman Jessie Lopez, our special guest this Thursday night! Jessie has been & will be a champion of rent control, tenants rights, affordable housing and police accountability; David quite those things’ foes. Come and meet Jessie Thursday! (We tried to invite David but he did not respond to our call, but he is still invited!) *UPDATE: Also running is a former ally of Jessie’s, SA Councilman Jonathan Hermandez – here is his “prospectus.”
- Some-kind-of-excuse-for-a-Democrat Supervisor Doug Chaffee is finally termed out next year, and the top Democrat contenders to take his place are Fullerton’s Fred Jung (who spoke at our Club February – video coming soon) and Buena Park’s Connor Traut (who was supposed to come the same Feb. meeting but had a health emergency, so is coming this Thursday.) Come meet Connor, who, when unnamed people warned him, “Don’t go to the Anaheim Democrats Club, they lost their DPOC charter, and have you MET that Vern Nelson guy?” LAUGHED.
- There should be a representative or two from the OC Youth Movement speaking – that is a group of Anaheim High School students who have been urging the Anaheim Council to take a stronger stance against deportations and for immigrant rights. I see that there’s something on tonight’s (Tuesday’s) agenda in response to that, but it’s only a “re-affirming” of the “Welcoming City” resolution Tait and Moreno put together in 2017, so I’d be surprised if these kids are satisfied with that. We shall see.
- As mentioned, the County Party voted on a tie vote to not renew our charter, in November, and we were never told why until March. The reasons were a list of things we’d already addressed long ago (such as Vern & Mike Robbins resigning as officers, the former for his Derek Tran article) and totally bogus things (like, the DPOC can’t tell black people apart so thought that officers Kenneth & Roxanne Batiste were in a video for non-endorsed council candidate Francisco Rosas when it was actually other black people.) No doubt there were other reasons they couldn’t admit to, such as we passed a Gaza Ceasefire Resolution when the DPOC wouldn’t. But we may no longer be on firm legal ground calling ourselves the “Anaheim Democrats Club” and may vote to continue under another name (“Greater Anaheim Progressives?”) but one thing’s for sure, we will continue to be the Conscience of the OC Democrat Party. (AND have lots of good food at our meetings!)
Videos from our March meeting
I’ve been meaning to get these up, although they’re taken from Zoom recordings and could be better. But we had a couple of great speakers at our last meeting, March 13 – one of them was former pro-football player and HB anti-MAGA civil-disobedient celebrity Chris Kluwe – here’s our chat with Chris….
And ALI TAJ, mayor of Artesia and assembly candidate. This is Sharon Quirk-Silva’s last term in the assembly, representing the western part of Anaheim and thereabouts, and we will miss her. Two Democrats (so far) are running to take her place. One of them is Ada Briceno the union leader who also till recently ran the DPOC. She was most recently known for launching Anaheim’s Measure A and starting the Natalie Rubalcava Recall, for what that’s worth, as well as voting to take away this Club’s charter.
For reasons, many distinguished people and friends of ours are endorsing Artesia Mayor Ali Taj over Ada – such as Sharon Quirk-Silva herself, California Senator Adam Schiff, former state Senator Josh Newman, and legendary Anaheim Councilman Jose Moreno whom you can hear on the video. Here goes (we were a little disappointed Ali didn’t know what Costa Hawkins was, but now he does.)
Big fan of Traut, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with him in person a number of times and he is an excellent speaker and very kind individual.
Another example of ambition leaping far ahead of ability. He’s craved public approbation through elective office since he was a teenager.
An acolyte of Jordan Brandman. That says it all.
I don’t know how many of you remember Monty Python’s Holy Grail — and if our younger readers haven’t seen it, you should find out how to do so immediately — but it has one famous scene in which they townsfolk (stolid folk, like DPOC Chair Florice Hoffmann and PR Professional Bogdan Chumley).
The scene began with a retinue of monks walking down the streets with boards, chanting and slamming themselves in the forehead at the end of every short line. (15-year-old me literally fell onto the theater floor.) Villagers stream through the streets towards a Knight (soon to be of King Arthur’s Court) standing in a village square, screaming “we got a witch!” He asks how they know she is a witch. One peasant replies: “She looks like one!”
The woman breaks free and clambers up to the learned knight, affirming “I am not a witch!” “Then why are you dressed like one?”, he asks, “They dressed me this way!”
The crowd denies doing so, with a “no,” “no,” “no,” that ends up as an abashed “yes,” “yes,” “yes.” The knight is no pushover, though, and he makes them prove it, in a somewhat Socratic fashion, asking again why they think she is a witch.
That’s the part that makes it into memes. It continues:
PALIN, GILLIAM, ANG JONES PEASANTS: “Burn Her” and “Burn her anyway!”
JONES KNIGHT [patiently]: “There are ways of telling whether she’s a witch!”
IDLE PEASANT: “Are there? What are they? Tell us!”
JONES KNIGHT: “Tell me, what do you do with witches?”
PEASANTS: BURN THEM!
The knight says (this part is from memory) that they can test whether she is a witch by measuring her weight against that of a duck. If she’s no heavier that a duck, that proves that she is made of wood (don’t ask me why), and that proves that she is a witch. They way her on an obviously broken large pan balance — and the pans never move an inch. Even the woman is convinced by this, thinking that she has gotten real justice. and she is … um … I don’t recall exactly how she dies, as don’t think that they had the special effects budget for a CGI burning, but this this bird is definitely no more.
I thought of this when I got to the post you may find there in the corner under “Trackbacks,” entitled “The Shitshow that is Tonight’s Anaheim Dems Meeting – The Liberal OC” — which says:
It was widely predicted that Florice and her minions, followed by the Trumpian likes of Chumley, would intimidate aspiring Democrats to either boycott (and maybe denounce!) the Anaheim Democratic Club under threat of losing endorsements and facing endorsed opponents who might split the vote against them. Still, it’s sad to see. Friends of the club will still be friends, even if they can’t say so out loud, and the club will now be free to kick the party leadership in the ass as often and hard as it wants. The club has brought in wonderful activist speakers before — and it will do so again. I’ve mostly stayed away from the club this year for fear of becoming a rallying point (and for lack of time) — but I still hope to get involved in some projects in the future.
But I can’t let that lying harlot Chumley get away with passing along Florice’s poison comments without rebuttal.
(1) The Club didn’t fail to apply for a charter in time, so far as I know. The DPOC, under Ada and Florice, simply refused to consider it. It was apparently a tied 7-7 vote in the Executive Board, which means that the motion to approve the Charter failed. The club was promised help with its charter, as I recall (Vern can correct me) to make sure that it was acceptable to DCOP, and it didn’t come. If any deadline was missed, I’m pretty confident that that would be why.
In other words, we didn’t put on these clothes of tardiness: they dressed us this way.
(2) This is not the first time that Chumley has lied for fun and profit and — more than either — revenge and a thirst for legitimacy. He could have done much better as a Republican — like his blogging friends — but alienating progressive Democrats is still a worthy contribution on the GOP’s behalf, I suppose.
(3) Florice’s biggest motivation was probably the caring (and popular!) position that the club has taken on the atrocities in Gaza. The DPOC leadership is now dominated by Jewish women, at least one of which is on the DNC, and while we agree with them on abortion and LGBT rights and unions (in theory if not always in practice, because we do think for ourselves and we do expect reciprocity from allies), and we’re a whole shitload better on environment issues.
I’ll stop for now. Anyway, the DPOC is likely to become nationally famous, now that the ax has fallen, and the many folks who attend rallies from AOC and Bernie, and now get what they’ve been saying over the past years (and decades, for him) — will realizes that these MAGA-in-form-even-if-not-always-content petty tyrants are hurting the party.
This will be fun. We tried hard to avoid it, but now we’ll just have to enjoy it!
You mean COPD, Greg. I can’t breathe.
Sure you can, Cire!
What is a Traut?
https://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2024/who-or-what-is-a-connor-traut/
That was actually a great Anaheim Democrats meeting. Our membership just keeps growing, and though I worried we might lose some newer (or older) members due to the DPOC jihad against us, quite the opposite happens – they are turned against the County party. (Big story coming up but spoiler alert – we’ve decided to not be a “Club” but just be “Anaheim Democrats” and continue our monthly meetings the second Thursday of each month. No dues, no “membership,” no goddamned Charter with the DPOC.)
I’d been a little worried when our two politician speakers backed out at the last moment – it’s become clear that DPOC chief Florice Hoffman has been putting a lot of time, the last couple days, into trying to suppress us.
1. First Jessie let me know, Wednesday, that she suddenly couldn’t come although she wanted to. I asked if it was the DPOC and Florice telling her not to, and she pretty much admitted it. She said “Florice says you guys have a problem with your charter, and that you got a CEASE AND DESIST letter.” What? We never got any cease and desist letter. And I didn’t know there was a rule against Democratic candidates speaking at Democrat Clubs without a charter, or whose charter is in dispute. Must be a new rule. Jessie said she’d be happy to come back to our Club once we got things straightened out. Well, I don’t want to lose her the DPOC endorsement over US, because it’s very important that she beat David P.
2. Two hours before the meeting, Connor (who really sounded excited to be speaking to us, who laughed at the DPOC’s hostility, and who told me “Politicians need to have thicker skin and talk to everybody” sent a text backing out. The Liberal OC (confusingly and with no context or explanation) reprinted that text. Basically, Connor suddenly couldn’t come because some people in the Club had been mean to his mentor Jordan Brandman. I am sure he didn’t just learn LAST NIGHT that many of us were antagonistic to Brandman, the whole time he was on Council. Somebody got to Connor.
3. THEN, at the last minute, we got a “cease and desist” e-mail, right before the meeting! (Just like they took a week notifying us that they’d taken our charter, and they took four months giving us any reasons why.) It was so hastily written it concluded “If you have any questions, please contact us directly at [Insert contact information].” It threatened us with “all available legal remedies, including but not limited to injunctive relief, monetary damages, and attorneys’ fees” if we don’t – within ten days! – stop using the words Democrat, Democratic, or Dem in our name, etc… (I resent Florice accusing us of “misleading candidates & the public … that we are a chartered Democratic organization.” Never happened, and almost nobody gives a damn.)
Anyway, after a two-hour conversation with a lot of smart people including Jose Moreno, we’ve decided not to get rid of “Democrat” in our name, but “Club.” And let it be known – we are PROUDLY UNCHARTERED!
On timing, Greg & Dan both seem confused.
LAST YEAR – May 2024 – we got in our charter application for THAT YEAR and PAID FOR IT, and were told it was fine. SIX MONTHS LATER the Executive Board voted (on a tie) that it wasn’t. So apparently we weren’t chartered from May to Nov. 2024 without even knowing? And when we asked them why, they took four months responding.
By then it was time to apply for a 2025 charter, deadline April 1. We went back and forth, we voted, we were told (by our few remaining friends on the Exec Board) that we could apply but it would almost certainly be rejected by the new eBoard, even more hostile to us than the previous one, so we didn’t bother. It’s a lot of work, for either rejection or servitude! So there’s nothing about us being “late this year.” We didn’t apply this year.
(Also to dispense with more fibOC nonsense: Ali Taj DID come, and we haven’t invited Avelino since last time he was here but we probably will.)
Like I said, big story about this coming up. Although I gotta switch gears for a bit, to Tenants United Anaheim.
A C&D email threatening damages for using the word Democrat? Wow. Seems wildly unnecessary.
Why does DPOC have a problem with freedom of expression? In today’s world of politically motivated attacks against groups for expressing opinion, you’d think DPOC would be protecting speech instead of joining in on the legal curb stomping.
How Trumpian of them.
Johnathan Hernandez, also running for AD 68, and eager to speak to the (former) Club, wanted me to mention him; here is his “prospectus”
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Johnathan-Ryan-Hernandez-AD-68-Prospectus.pdf
The obvious concern is that with both Johnathan & Jessie in the race, it’s possible we’ll end up with Penaloza vs a Republican after the primary.
Seems rather toxic fascism er femininity. Florice is a fascist!
Thanks for the correction on timing, Vern. I wanted to go ahead and respond to Chumley’s story as soon as I saw it in our feed and I didn’t have time to talk to you to get the above clarification. I presume that Bogdan joins me in regretting our respective errors, though only I will admit it.
I frankly think that “Group of/for Anaheim Democrats” would be a fine name, and would happily share my initials with it.
I wonder how Democratic Socialists of America get away with that name? If they’re claiming trademark infringement, they’ve done a really bad job of protecting their trademark! (Including not … providing a mark.)
I wonder how much Florice knows about Anti-SLAPP suits? Not as much, I suspect, as she’s going to if she tries to make good on her threats!
What a tempest in a teapot. Screw the Charter and do any damn thing you want.
The Democrat corporatist, Zionist, police state will never go along with independent thought. It’s just not a “party” thing.
Is it just me or is Florice Hoffman pretty goddamned stupid?
Heh that was a little awkward. Just got thru playing at a fundraiser for the United Farmworkers, and Florice and Gloria Alvarado (our other biggest hater on the DPOC) were there. They mostly tried to avoid me, but they had to clap whenever everyone else did.