[¡Ask a Mexican!] And is it true they can only buy guns in one store?
The Trust Act made its way once more through the California Assembly yesterday by a final vote of 44-22. The legislation was vetoed late last year when it reached the desk of Democratic Governor Jerry Brown. Supporters say the bill authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will limit deportations fueled b ... More >>
Call it "A Tale of Two City Takeaways:" Newport Beach and Huntington Beach's mayors, at opposite ends on whether to remove fire rings along their beaches, heard--and reacted differently to--state data indicating what's emitted from a pit over one evening equals the pollution spewed by a heavy duty d ... More >>
On Tuesday, May 14, the ASUCI DREAMer community and other concerned UCI Anteaters will hold an immigration rally at UCI's Student Center Terrace at noon. The Student Center Terrace will serve as a platform for students, professors, and activists to voice their reasonable angst over the inaction tow ... More >>
There were more empty seats and less acrimony inside the Council Chambers of Anaheim City Hall last Thursday evening. Long the scene of political turmoil over the course of last year during council meetings, the mood was lighter as the location played host for the second-to-last gathering of the cit ... More >>
Have you viewed Jim Carrey's recent video Cold Dead Hand? Clocking in just under six minutes, the video is a satire with a bull's eye painted on gun advocacy, Charleton Heston and Hee-Haw. Basically everything a rural white guy from the '70s is supposed to hold dear. Released four months after a cel ... More >>
I am this Sunday morning postponing my terrific and much-anticipated (by me, at least!) reviews of a first novel by OC's own Peggy Hesketh, the new short story collection by Gary Amdahl of Redlands, and Gold Line-chapbook award winner Alisa Slaughter's short stories to offer--completely unsolicited- ... More >>
[Moxley Confidential] The sneaky campaign to save Democrats' control of the Great Park failed but kept Beth Krom on the Irvine City Council
Forget pension reform: if you want the ultimate indicator of how bloated city government is, look no further than item 7B on tomorrow's agenda for the Garden Grove City Council meeting. The item calls for the council to pass a resolution that would limit public comments from five minutes to person t ... More >>
Being a city council member is a thankless job, although they do usually save you a nice parking spot at city hall.While we applaud public service, many, many holders of local office in Orange County use their positions of "power" to do some really fucked-up things.Here are but 10 supposed city lead ... More >>
See the update at the end of this post about the council vote on second reading. ORIGINAL POST, DEC. 5, 9:39 A.M.: The Lake Forest City Council voted Tuesday night to repeal its ban on registered sex offenders in city parks. These are the same city leaders that last year passed the ordinance establi ... More >>
Anyone else hope someone switches the seating cards at the next Orange County Mayors Breakfast so that Tri sits next to Tita? Tri Ta became Westminster's first Vietnamese-American mayor and, he claims, the first in the country to win a mayoral seat via the voters rather than appointment. Meanwhile, ... More >>
Funny but true: recently on Facebook, a "friend" tried to insult me by calling me a libertarian and a Randian--a follower of bad novelist Ayn Rand. While I don't mind being labeled with the former since it's somewhat true, I laughed at the latter. We trash Rand and her followers--the creepiest culti ... More >>
Unlike other city election guides that have graced the benevolent blog pages of Navel Gazing, this one will take on a different format. A brief mention of the proposed city charter, titled Measure V, will precede an outline of city council candidates. Current council members tried to bring the initi ... More >>
Calderon puts magical realism in the shade
[¡Ask a Mexican!] And why do Mexican men wear such skinny jeans?
Hey, Tustin City Councilman (and former mayor) Jerry Amante: the grand jury beotch slaps you for "misfeasance in office" and "exceeding or misusing a public power or position and thereby risking harm" for lobbying a college president to force the resignation of a professor who exposed the massive a ... More >>
See update at end of this post about the wife of a Utah county GOP chairman calling Fred Karger "a radical idiot" and saying "thank goodness" he "cant procreate."ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 7, 2:39 P.M.: What does it say about Californians that only 6,641 voted for Laguna Beach's Fred Karger for president, ... More >>
[Crossing the Line] New laws in dozens of states could take out Barack Obama this fall
A reporter calls a Republican presidential campaign this afternoon hoping to speak to the candidate, but is given an excuse:The candidate is working out at the gym.Yeah, right.Think: Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain.But, bless their sweet souls, the Fred Karger for President campaign, specifically the e ... More >>
[Moxley Confidential] OC's incarcerated dirty ex-sheriff is enjoying his Rocky Mountain view and ridiculously favorable court rulings
UPDATE FEB 29 12:31 P.M.: The clock ticked past the Friday afternoon deadline last week given by Anaheim community leaders who vowed to legally challenge the $158 million dollar tax giveaway GardenWalk hotel project. An invitation to city officials and one of the hoteliers to sit down at the tab ... More >>
Many California gays (and non-gays) celebrated this week's federal appellate court ruling upholding a district court decision that found Prop. 8 violates the U.S. Constitution.Those waving rainbow-colored flags have another reason to celebrate: a gay man made the presidential ballot in California ... More >>
A federal judge Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) that argued five orcas should be freed from SeaWorld under the anti-slavery 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Judge Jeffrey Miller of the U.S. District Court in San Diego reasoned in ... More >>
Last night, Rick Santorum trumpeted his solid GOP presidential primary defeats of Mitt Romney in Minnesota and Missouri and narrow win over the former Massachusetts governor in Colorado.This morning, a Santa Ana-based nonprofit boasted that the former Pennsylvania senator was the first--and so ... More >>
Earlier this week, the French Senate passed a resolution making it a crime in France to deny the Armenian genocide, a historical reality accepted by everyone except the Republic of Turkey and many of its citizens. As a result, many Turkish-American organizations in this country are already blasti ... More >>
Speaker of the Palestinian parliament Aziz Duwaik, whose secret meeting with UC Irvine students and faculty visiting Israel in 2009 raised cackles in some corners, was ordered to be held without trial for six months, his lawyer said today. The senior Hamas official, whose name is alternately s ... More >>
Ron Paul's former aide Eric Dondero blogged over the holiday weekend that his former boss was anti-Israel, isolationist on foreign policy, uncomfortable around homosexuals and out of touch with black and Hispanic cultures. Naturally, that kicked up a shitstorm as Paul continues to poll well in ea ... More >>
[¡Ask a Mexican!] And are the narco-wars really a revolution?
UPDATE, SEPT. 8, 9:56 A.M.: As Dick Cheney was lauding his profound role in Bush administration wars on terror, the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Constitution before a polite Nixon Library crowd Wednesday evening, he was "arrested."Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans rose from her chair in the East ... More >>
Scenes from the civic dissolution of America's latest public-employee battleground
UPDATE, AUG. 17, 11:17 A.M.: It's become so routine it's lost its news value: The District Attorney's office announces it's sending a rep before the latest of the 7,000 city councils in Orange County considering a ban on sex offenders in local parks modeled after the county law co-written by DA T ... More >>
The Yorba Linda City Council, which in the recent past was blasted for allowing an Islamic charity to rent community center space for a gala that teabaggy types likened to an al Qaeda monster truck jam, is now getting criticized for its own religulousness."Local governments should not be in the b ... More >>
UPDATE, JULY 29, 9:41 A.M.: The Rancho Santa Margarita City Council voted Wednesday night to move ahead with a ban on registered sex offenders in city parks that is similar to the county law enacted in April.The council agreed that banning only those who have preyed on children would leave kids v ... More >>
Goodwin LiuToday, Gov. Jerry Brown nominated UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court. Shortly after, Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, whose district includes Buena Park, issued a statement about the pick. In it, he congratulates Liu, yada yada, and then tak ... More >>
Craving some authentic Mexican tuna ceviche? Well, next time you order it, the fish might actually be from Mexico.Reuters reports that the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO) has made an important decision in a decades-long battle between the U.S. and Mexico over tuna imports. The trade o ... More >>
UPDATE, JULY 8, 5:25 P.M.: Syrian freedom activists say that when they protested at UC Irvine the morning of June 9, a campus official promised a future meeting with an associate chancellor to discuss what they consider a troubling relationship between Syria's brutal regime and Dr. Hazem Chehabi, ... More >>
UPDATE, JUNE 22, 10:09 A.M.: While expressing some concern the county pervs-in-parks ban is too broad, the San Juan Capistrano City Council did decide Tuesday night to bring a local ordinance back for a vote July 5.Among the options the city with huge swaths of open space will explore are applyin ... More >>
For Garden Grove city officials, who've been trying for years to transform their benighted Harbor Blvd. corridor into a world class resort destination, the good news is that Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the state budget last week. If it had passed, the budget would have killed local redevelopment agen ... More >>
UPDATE, JUNE 9, 4:31 P.M.: This morning's rally at UC Irvine targeting Dr. Hazem H. Chehabi--the UCI Foundation's president-elect, Syria's honorary consul general in Newport Beach and a prominent Orange County philanthropist and nuclear medicine specialist--went "smooth," according to an organize ... More >>
The Los Angeles Times, and just about every other newspaper that covers world news, is reporting today that the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an influential think-tank made up of world leaders, has just issued a report calling the war on drugs "a costly failure" and calling on the United Stat ... More >>
Erin RunnionUPDATE, MAY 27, 3:40 P.M.: An Orange County supervisor, the district attorney and perhaps the most famous mother of a local crime victim today applauded Westminster officially enacting a ban on registered sex offenders from city parks.Cheers from Supervisor Shawn Nelson and District A ... More >>
Yesterday, lawyers for the Orange County Employees Association (OCEA) filed a complaint in Orange County Superior Court, asking a judge to stop Costa Mesa's city council from firing 100 city employees. The complaint, which names Thomas Hatch, the city's chief executive officer, as a defendant, al ... More >>
[¡Ask a Mexican!] And is Mexico a Tea Party paradise?
Irvine council members Sukhee Kang, Beth Krom and Larry AgranUPDATE, MAY 11, 9:54 A.M.: The proposal to ban sex offenders from Irvine city parks did not wow all council members Tuesday night. Mayor Sukhee Kang, Councilman Steven Choi and the councilman who brought the matter before the panel, Jef ... More >>
It's a little confusing, but no less a victory for illegal immigrant college students. While the national DREAM Act, an immigration bill aimed at providing a path to citizenship for young people, died in the U.S. Senate--and possibly forever--last year, the California DREAM Act is very much alive ... More >>
UPDATE, APRIL 26, 11:52 A.M.: You might assume--wrongly, it turns out--that lying to a juvenile court commissioner so a woman's two daughters would be taken away from her for years would cost two County of Orange social workers their jobs. Even if you didn't believe those workers lied after the f ... More >>
The huge swath of public land is in play. But is the whole thing rigged?
And Why Do Mexicans Jump So Much?
It's unclear why this wasn't proposed a few weeks ago, but the Irvine City Council tonight will consider proclaiming Feb. 6 "Ronald Reagan Day," in honor of 40th president's birthday.The proclamation is not being foisted on the panel that leans Democratic because Reagan was once a member of the p ... More >>
