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

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

The Top 10 ways I was personally affected today by the illegal alien strike. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10)

In Riverside County most business establisments that Ipatronize are open and doing business as usual. The new housing track that is being built across the street from me seemed to be in full operation. There was a line out the door at the dry cleaners. Yes I did notice that the carwash was closed, but then I wash my own car. … Read More

Just left a message at Eatza Pizza in Baldwin Park. They are closed. Won’t eat there again. For the most part something is open if you need it. West Covina Auto Wash was closed. The next one down the street was open. That is now my new place. Senor Baja was closed. Have to get fish tacos across the street. This boycott is helping eleimnate places to patronize. Thank you. Traffic has been great as well!

Trisha Bowler from Diamond Bar says Denny’s is closed out there. The one of Puente and the 10 is open. So there is always an alternative.

What’s closed in your neck of the woods or has the liberal meda would say the redneck of the woods?… Read More

You’d think it was a presidential inauguration by the amount of on-the-spot, minute-by-minute news coverage the Bay Area media is giving the “Boycott ” rallies around the Bay Area today. Like Mike Spence, I decided to counter the protest by spending money today, starting with a trip to my favorite Bay Area market, the Berkeley Bowl. For those of you not familiar with this market, it is a larger, less expensive version of Whole Foods. They’ve got everything a Bush-hating, vegan from Berkeley would want and then some. So why do I shop there? Because it also has the most amazing produce, fish, meat and prepared food departments I’ve ever seen. There truly is no farmer’s market or grocery store that can rival the Berkeley Bowl’s produce department. Plus, my son has many food allergies and because the Bowl caters to vegetarians, vegans and other food wierdos, it carries many egg-free, dairy free… Read More

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

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