Mimi Walters

The California GOP is in big trouble-- even in the corners of the state they still dominate. All 4 Republican congressmembers in what was once the Republican Party heartland-- Orange County-- are holding on by a thread. Hillary won all 4 districts and independent voters have had it with the GOP and are teaming up with Democrats to replace Darrell Issa, Ed Royce, Mimi Walters-- who never even bothered to move away from the beach and into her own district after being elected in 2014-- and Putin puppet Dana Rohrabacher.

Republicans and "Democrats" from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party are drawn to the House Financiall Services Committee like flies to shit. It's the congressional honeypot through which millions and millions of dollars in bribes moves from Wall Street into the political system every year. The banksters and their lobbyists pay big money to the members of the committee for their... cooperation.

Henry Cuellar, Trump's most devoted Democratic supporter in CongressThe team of statistician-types over at FiveThirtyEight have put together an essential page called Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump and they keep updating it. The track how often each member of Congress votes with and against Trump. You can look at all the scores at the link just above.

I wouldn't call Comey's testimony yesterday "a distraction," but it sure did distract a lot of people from watching the Dodd-Frank repeal debate in the House that was going on roughly at the same time. The Republicans passed it 233-186. Every Republican voted for it except Walter Jones (R-NC) and all the Democrats who voted, voted NO.

Friday afternoon, we mentioned that the RNC met last week in California and that Trump sent them a crackpot video about how he would campaign for their candidates in the 2018 midterms. That caused alarm-- a great deal of alarm.

Last November there were 5 congressional districts in Southern California with Republican Representatives that went for Hillary. In each one Trump did significantly worse than Romney had. In the district that straddles Orange and San Diego counties, CA-49, represented by Darrell Issa, Romney had won the district in 2012 with 52.4%. In November Trump got 43.2%, a 9 point drop-off. And Issa had the scare of his political life. His race was the last one decided in the whole country and in the end he edged out Doug Applegate 155,888 (50.3%) to 154,267 (49.7%).

Since the Congressional Budget Office announced that they're nowhere near scoring TrumpCare 3.0-- and won't even have it for next week either-- Ryan could surprise everyone today and announce an instant vote. I think if the House Republicans have the votes to pass it-- regardless of how flat on its face it would fall in the Senate-- Ryan and McCarthy could actually succumb to Trump Regime pressure and call for the vote in a few hours.

The other day David Dayen told me about a UC Irvine professor and consumer advocate he knows, Katie Porter, who has decided to challenge Mimi Walters for the Orange County congressional district that stretches from Anaheim Hills and Villa Park through Tustin, Irvine and Lake Forest down to Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita. Very exciting candidate-- and not the only very exciting candidate running in that district.

Katie Porter is running for CongressDemocratic voters need to be very careful about Republicans switching party registration and announcing their candidacy for high office.