Progress report on San Diego May 1 noon rallies. They were abject failures. You could fit the North County demonstrators in a Greyhound bus. The rally right on the border in San Ysidro may have had 2,500 people. One of my employees got some great photographs of the protestors taunting mounted American Border Patrol, which I’ll post in a bit.… Read More

I just got a call from State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman, just as I was preparing to post a photo and release on the press event held jointly by Senate and Assembly Republicans outside of the very closed State Senate chamber doors. The chambers were closed as Democrats cancelled, on a party-line vote, the session today to support the "Boycott of America" taking place nationally today.

Ackerman (pictured behind the podium, with Assembly Republican Leader George Plescia to the left) had this to say to me, "The Republican caucuses supports legal immigration. We do not support illegal immigration. We shouldn’t be condoning their activitists by not encouraging people to go to work and to school."

Here is a release sent along by FR friend Morgan Crinklaw at the Assembly GOP Caucus:

SACRAMENTO… Read More

I work in downtown Santa Ana. Out of the windows of the offices here, you can observe about 5,000 protesters milling around saying “Yes, we can!” (Though they are yelling it ‘en espanol’ not in English).

From our offices, you can really see how effective horses are at crowd control. No one wants to get too close to a big police horsey!

The crowd is pretty passive, marching around in circles. There really is no way to coordinate the movement of that many people, I don’t think.

I’ve got some photos that I can post when I’m not on this Blackberry.

P.S. I did patronize the local Ralph’s here in Santa Ana, but haven’t managed to fax the receipt into KFI 640’s John and Ken, where they are picking one lucky patron an hour to be reimbursed up to $640.… Read More

Another great submission to the FlashReport from our friend Karen Hanretty:

Monday’s “Great American Boycott” – or “Day without a Gringo,” as ’s President Vicente Fox was calling it – turned out to have little impact, despite hundreds of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants taking to the streets of major cities throughout the country and closing down certain industries like garment and produce.

Nor will the boycott/demonstrations have much political impact moving forward, and the reason is pretty simple. There is no political leadership and no consistent message.

Throughout the day on Monday I monitored and participated in print, radio and television coverage of the demonstrations. Not once did I see or hear from any major political leaders.… Read More

I only had one brush with the boycott — although I’m not 100% positive that’s what it was.

My two youngest daughters asked if I would take them to our favorite taqueria — Taqueria Guadalupana — for rice and beans. Personally, I was looking forward to some tacos al pastor, which are killer at Guadalupana (especially when the skinny cook is there).

So, we roll up to the taqueria about 6:00 p.m. — and it’s closed! According to posted stores hours, it’s supposed to be abierto until 8:00 p.m.

Now, I don’t know if the proprietors closed in observance of the boycott — there was no signage indicating such — or if they closed because business was slow because of the boycott.

Of if they weren’t there for some other reason.

But that’s as close as I came to being impacted by the "Day Without Immigrants."… Read More

Much like my fellow FR contributor Phil Paule I can report that here in Orange County we are open for business.

All the shops in strip center across from my house are open, so was Bistango, one of the nicest restaurants in Irvine. Clearly the the media is up and running because all LA stations are broadcasting the protests.

I really don’t understand who is out there in LA and here OC in Santa Ana at the Civic Center.

My sense is that perhaps they are the several percent among us who are unemployed or it is their day off, because I see no evidence any impact on local businesses. According to Totally Buzz the OC Register blog our own County Supervisor Lou Correa left his comfortable office on the 5th floor of the Hall of Admin. to protest with the peps.… Read More

Appropo for today, May Day. No one ever said Dennis Mountjoy isn’t colorful. As noted on FR last Friday, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore wrote about Dennis’ comments the other day in Human Events Online, but now they are being being picked up in various other blogoplaces. This from Calicapia:

Dennis Mountjoy. Love him, or loath him, you have to admit he’s always entertaining. At the end of Thursday’s Assembly Session, following the announcement of the Democrat plan to shut down the legislature on Monday so the majority party could go participate in the anti-rule-of-law demonstrations, Mountjoy announced that he’d located a number of former members of the legislature who were willing to come in that day. Further, he remarked that they’d work for half the price of the elected members. One small issue, he said, they haven’t been documented by the… Read More

I am going to try and claim some of this day for myself, rather than penning a long Sunday column. I will take a moment to congratulate the California College Republicans for putting on a great convention here in Orange County, headlined by great speakers like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry Elder, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and…me? Actually, those other folks all spoke to the whole group — but I did get invited to come and speak yesterday at a panel looking at the Main Stream Media, and this impact of blogging (wonder why they would ask me to talk about that?). Anyways, my favorite part of the panel was actually the end — when incoming CCR Chairman Mason Harrison came into the room and, using a bullhorn (for real), ordered all college republicans out to the street for an impromptu (well, given the pre-painted signs, almost improptu) rally in support of the Governor. Congrats on a great event!

THE WEEK THAT WAS… You can catch up on this week’s commentaries here.

Also, here are the special columns that… Read More