Jim Gilchrist

Appeals Court Finds Costa Mesa City Council Law Barring Disruptions Unconstitutional

Benito Acosta, who as a Latino rights activist goes by Coyotl Tezcatlipoca, won a partial victory from the state's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Friday.The court upheld previous rulings finding Acosta was legally removed from a 2006 Costa Mesa City Council meeting, but the city's law against "disor ... More >>

Garden Grove Cops to Hugo Sarmiento: 'This Mexican Speaks English!'

[Moxley Confidential] Targeted for torture after a 2005 anti-immigration rally, the UCLA Ph.D. is still waiting for justice

50 Reasons Why Orange County is The Worst Effing Place in America

It was gay rights icon Harvey Milk who described Orange County best, in response to California State Senator John Briggs describing San Francisco as "the moral garbage dump of homosexuality in this country." "Nobody likes garbage 'cause it smells," Milk told reporters. "Yet eight million tourists vi ... More >>

Coyotl Tezcatlipoca Loses But So Does City in Ruling Over Costa Mesa Law Targeting Dissent

The Costa Mesa City Council was legally in the right to twice remove immigrant-rights activist and punk rocker Coyotl Tezcatlipoca (a.k.a. Benito Acosta) from council meetings in 2006 under a municipal ordinance that makes it a misdemeanor for members of the public to engage in "disorderly . . . or ... More >>

It Can't Happen Here: Funny and Political Novels and Non-Fiction Books, or: Toward Putting the RNC in Some Perspective

If the image at extreme right makes you laugh, your mental health is better than mine, and perhaps being so darn well-adjusted means you don't need the constant reality check required by Mr. Bib in the form of journalism, essays, memoir, fiction and nonfiction, cartoons and jokes and commentaries, r ... More >>

[UPDATE: VIDEO PROOF] Was There a Police Plant at the Anaheim Protests Who Threw Bottles at Officers to Incite a Riot?

Click here for our Anaheim police shooting archivesGo to the end of this post for the latest... ORIGINAL POST, JULY 27, 10:26 A.M.: Facebook is currently abuzz with members of Kelly's Army who were at the Anaheim protest on Tuesday alleging that they caught a police plant.According to onlookers ... More >>

Lupe Fuentes, OC-Based Porn Superstar, Sues To Resume "Fleshlight" Sales of Her Vaginal Likeness

At 4-feet-9 and 79 pounds wet, Orange County's Lupe Fuentes is an international porn superstar. In 2011, AVN--AKA Adult Video News--named the then-24-year-old Fuentes--AKA Zuleydy Vergara, Zuleydy Piedrahita and "Little Lupe"--"Top Web Starlet."A year earlier, she or her online operations had been n ... More >>

LA Times Gets $1 Million Grant to Bolster Border/Prison/Immigrant/Brazil Coverage

The Ford Foundation has bestowed a $1 million, no-strings-attached grant to the Los Angeles Times, which reports the money will be used to bolster coverage of immigrant communities, California prisons, Brazil and, presumably, Brazilian immigrants in California prisons."These are vital coverage areas ... More >>

What We Learned, Feb. 4-10

​It's a week worth of bite-size Orange County news and what it all taught us.FEB. 4: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange reveals on its website that it is accepting from parishoners new names for Crystal Cathedral through Feb. 20. Bishop Tod Brown's only requirement is that the new moniker be "C ... More >>

What We Learned, Jan. 21-Jan. 27

​A random collection of this week's randomness randomly tagged with random observations of what we learned from it.JAN. 21: Orange County's Democratic establishment is thrown into a tizzy as Julio Perez, formerly of the Orange County Labor Federation, handily gets more votes than his 69th Assembly ... More >>

2011 Bob Dornan Scary OC Hall of Fame Inductee: Barbara Coe!

​No one except Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Friend of the Taliban) in Orange County history has consistently proven to be scarier over a longer period of time than California Coalition for Immigration Reform head Barbara Coe--and even Dana has had flashes of sanity in his Bedlam brain. Shit, ev ... More >>

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Gustavo's Debate with Tom Tancredo: Gustavo's Side, Complete with the Video!

​Okay, coverage of my debate last night with arch-Know Nothing Tom Tancredo has officially reached overload--hey, Weeklings: aren't there skinheads that you can go after instead of writing about me?--but you might as well hear my side.I met Tancredo and Westword editor Patty Calhoun across the str ... More >>

Lalo Alcaraz and Jim Gilchrist on the Arellano-Tancredo Debate

Courtesy Lalo Alcaraz​Much as it pains Gustavo that we keep blogging about this, we've got one more round of embarrassment for him about his debate yesterday evening in Denver with former Congressman Tom Tancredo. (Follow that link for the video.) We asked some local luminaries to tune into the de ... More >>

Prop 19 Passage May Negatively Affect Mexican Drug Traffickers in Unforeseen Ways

​Mexico's drug traffickers would lose some customers but not much money if California voters approve the marijuana-legalizing Prop 19 on Nov. 2, concludes a study by the nonpartisan RAND Drug Policy Research Center. That's because Californians mostly grow their own already.

Barbara Coe Now Against Bill O'Reilly Because He's Not a Birther

O'Reilly: Now on Coe's shit list, which makes him somewhat more tolerable...​In the twisted, irrational world of the Know Nothings, egos and out-and-out weirdness will create foolish, unwarranted rivalries that inevitably lead to the group's downfall. Here in Orange County, of course, you have Min ... More >>

[UPDATED:] Day Laborers Sue Costa Mesa

Photo by Beth StirnamanAn earlier protest for day laborers.​As I was snapping photos of protesters outside Costa Mesa City Hall this morning, a white guy in his 40s was suddenly in my face asking, "What's all this about?"Informed that day laborers were suing the city, he remarked, "Just round up t ... More >>

Battle of the Bad Mexican Fast-Food Chains: Taco Bell vs. Taco John's

​BROOKINGS, S.D.--I'm speaking tonight at South Dakota State University, a day after having spent the week eating my way through Tex-Mex heaven in San Antonio. Quite a difference from the land of Flaco Jimenez to that of Laura Ingalls Wilder--and then there's the Mexican food.In San Antonio, I ate ... More >>

San Diego Minuteman Head Urges Violence Against O.C. Activist

Naui Huitzilopochtli has been a long-time fixture in Orange County progressive activism, first as a mere protester but increasingly as perhaps Orange County's most prolific political YouTuber. His incessant hectoring of Know Nothings has made Naui Dirty Mexican #1 amongst local anti-illegals activis ... More >>

What the Hell Happened to the Anti-War Movement?

Photo by Christopher VictorioA small piece of the Orange County peace movement at Palm and Glassell.It was unusually warm around 11 a.m. today in Orange and the spectacle was unusually jarring at Palm and Glassell: a dozen or fewer anti-war protesters, ranging from college age to their grandpar ... More >>

The Godfather of Mexican-Haters to Visit CCIR Tomorrow!

What an exciting couple of days it's been for members of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform! They held a rally this past Saturday at their little slice of Nuremburg, the Garden Grove Women's Club, in which a Who's Who of Know Nothings was scheduled to rally geriatrics against amnesty fo ... More >>

A Different, Insider Perspective on the Recent Fullerton Gang Attack on a Church

There has been much recent media coverage about a recent attack by Fullerton's longstanding Tokers Town gang against the Rev. Willie Holmes and his storefront Majesty Christian Fellowship church in their hood. Marches, arrests, and much other hullaballoo. Having a much different perspective on the a ... More >>

Letters From OC Weekly Readers

Orange County's Original Minutemen

I get two kinds of reactions whenever I state Orange County is the Mexican-hating capital of America: knowing nods or protestations saying another domain is worse. Never any debate, though, about the Mexican-hating essence of us. I make the case for this dishonor in my book, and I keep digging up mo ... More >>

This Is Your Life: A Companion Guide/Shameless Propaganda for 'Orange County: A Personal History'

Do the Differing Fates of Two Minutemen Freeway Signs Show a Double Standard at Caltrans?

Humberto Caspa's New Book Chronicles the Fear and Loathing of Mexicans in Costa Mesa

How the Minutemen Drove Mobile Mexican Consulates Out of the Capistrano Unified School District

Tuesday's Headlines. No Surprises: More Street dirt

More Street dirt: In his pre-treasurer-tax collector days, Chriss Street allegedly billed (and double-billed!) a bankrupt trust "for thousands of dollars in expenses, including a $3,584 laptop computer and $1,200 in office supplies," reports Ronald Campbell at the Register. The records collected by ... More >>

OC's Scariest People

Our Congressional delegation tops this year’s list of 33 villains (31 for October, plus two more to get to the Dia de los Muertos, ese)

Smiley Coyotl

When is a prosecutor not a prosecutor? The answer spared a Santa Ana activist/punk rocker from criminal charges

Yet Another Reason Why KFI Sucks, Part Two: The Final Insult

Last July, I blogged about Coast to Coast AM disc jockey Art Bell's sudden departure from the airwaves when he disappeared to the Phillipines and emerged, just a few weeks later, as the proud husband of a girl just barely out of her teens. After a brief hiatus, Bell returned to host the show on week ... More >>

Unfortunate Acronym of the Day

Earlier today, representatives from the Arizona Interfaith Network, Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, Kansas City's El Centro and the United Farm Workers set up a teleconference call to argue why comprehensive immigration reform is necessary. They met under the name Coalition for Comprehensive Imm ... More >>

Man-Sore Losers

It's bad enough that Costa Mesa and its divisive Mayor Alan Mansoor are getting beat up by their own hometown Daily Pilot columnists (here and here, not to mention that paper's own readers here and, oh, by one of its more distinguished residents here). But now they are getting national unwanted expo ... More >>

Yet Another Reason KFI Sucks

Back in January 2004, I wrote this article about KFI-AM 640 bumping my favorite night-time radio show, Coast to Coast AM, from its regular 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. slot and replacing it with right-wing wacko John Ziegler. Coast to Coast AM was the only KFI show that wasn't hosted by a right wing wacko and ... More >>

The Anti-Immigrant All-Stars

Hangin with the haters at Santa Anas Day Without an Immigrant

Democracy in Action (plus the Minutemen and Kotex)

This being Sunday, which most Americans regard as "The Lord's Day" (hence the great number of prayers being uttered over a couple of simple college basketball games), let us extend our best imitation of Christian pity towards the wretched, no matter how repulsive they may be. And the wretched I have ... More >>

Razin' La Raza

Whether posing as protesters or cutting off speeches, OC police clamp down on immigrant-rights activists

Letters

"To Answer Your Question About What to Do With the Dog Shit: EAT IT!"

!Ask a Mexican!

The year in Mexican-bashing

Diary of a Mad County

Record of the year?

Wiley Coyote

The Rev. Wiley Drake has a history of helping illegals, as long as they dont criticize Bush

OC's 31 Scariest People

Now 25 percent more terrifying!

A Clockwork Orange

The Blog

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE