Orange County

A few days ago my friend Dave and I were escorting Randy Bryce through some kind of a Pasadena Convention Center-- through a parking garage and into a metal detector that went bonkers over his belt buckle and up some dark back staircase. Coming down the stairs was Dana Rohrabacher with a large contingent of staffers and bodyguards. I greeted him with a friendly smile and thanked him for his persistence in getting a medical marijuana bill passed.

Kamala Harris-- just like Obama... but without any substanceSaturday afternoon we noted the new book coming out by Phillip Anderson, The Case Against Andrew Cuomo, with a post entitled Anybody But Cuomo? Well Almost Anybody.

The vote in the House Tuesday evening was 231-190. Every Republican but Walter Jones of North Carolina voted to hamper the ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect bank customers from the kinds of systemic abuse and predatory behavior that led directly to Bush's Great Recession and destroyed the financial stability of millions of American families.

We'll look at the mess the Trump Regime has made of infrastructure in a moment. First though, I want to highlight one crucial part of that in my part of the country. The Republican-led Congress and the Trump Regime are screwing with California, Oregon and Washington over the earthquake early warning system-- enough time for people to take cover or pull their cars over-- the federal government was committed to, something NPR highlighted this week.

Gil Cisneros-- Does this look like an "ex"-Republican to you?A trusted political operative told me today about an encounter he had with a scumbag multimillionaire "ex"-Republican who the DCCC is trying to impose on a district filled with progressive Democrats. The "ex"-Republican is running as a Democrat and pretending to take progressive-- or progressivish-- policy positions.

In the wee hours Wednesday, Nico Hines broke an explosive story at the Daily Beast about Orange County crackpot Dana Rohrabacher.

What a contrast between Gil Cisneros, a fabulously wealthy "ex"-Republican lottery winner from Newport Coast who is bribing DCCC power players to back him, and Sam Jammal, a lifelong homegrown progressive who worked in the Obama administration and then as a clean energy executive. Although Cisneros' $10 million beach-front mansion is as far from CA-39's middle class neighborhoods as if it were in Scarsdale, NY or Darien, Connecticut or any other self-segregated rich-people-only enclave, he now vowing to buy another home in the district. Why not?

Republican-lite Dave Min and his mentorDo you know how many candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination to run in Orange County against Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters, who doesn't even live in her own district? Even if you think you know, you don't, since there are 2 or 3 more (including Brian Forde and Rachel Payne) than the already 5 declared candidates, getting ready to jump in.

The only primaries these 4 should be involved with is defending themselvesForget that you may have an inkling that here at DWT we feel Pelosi's incompetent and corrupt DCCC has become a source for both evil and failure over the last decade, rather than a worthwhile and constructive party organ.

Still, a better candidate than the lottery winner A couple months back, a Democratic Party operative called me and told me he couldn't wait to introduce me to the "dream candidate" the DCCC had recruited to run in Orange County against Dana Rohrabacher. Hans Keirstead is a super rich-- a DCCC requirement-- stem cell scientist who looks GREAT... at least on paper.