Kia Hamadanchy: "I Will Work To Put An End To A Foreign Policy Where War Is Always The First Resort"

Kia with his old boss, Senator Sherrod Brown

Kia Hamadanchy is a friend of mine running for Congress in Orange County's 45th Congressional district. The incumbent is Trump rubber stamp Mimi Walters who lives on the ocean in Dana Rohrabacher's district. Although Obama lost the district in 2008 and 2012, Hillary beat Trump there, 49.8% to 44.4%. The PVI went from as forbidding R+7 to a much blue-friendlier R+3. The district stretches from the Anaheim Hills and Villa Park in the north, through Lemon Heights, Tustin and Irvine down to Laguna Woods, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and Coco De Caza. Kia was born and raised in Irvine, the district's biggest city. His parents came to Orange County from Iran. Kia, as his website delineates, became legal counsel for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee under the leadership of education and disability rights champion Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA). Kia worked to expose the exploitation of students by the for-profit college industry. After Senator Harkin’s retirement, Kia joined the staff of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), where he advocated for a higher minimum wage, equal pay for men and women, and other measures to reduce income inequality and ensure that every American is treated with the respect and dignity that he or she deserves.

In 1969 and again in 1972, when I was still just a kid, traveling around the world in a VW van, I spent a great deal of time in Iran which I remember writing at the time was the most pro-American country I had ever visited-- more so that France, Germany or England! When Kia and I met last year for a meal, we talked about the changes that have taken place-- and continue to take place-- in that country and I found his perspective not just refreshing, but enlightening... and just what Congress and those setting foreign policy in our country so desperately need. This week, I asked him to write a guest post on the turmoil gripping Iran today. If you like how he deals with the subject and think he would make a better member of Congress than Mimi Walters, please consider clicking on the ActBlue California 2018 thermometer on the right and contributing to his grassroots campaign.


Reflections On The Recent Protests In Iran
-by Kia Hamadanchy

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen protests break out in Iran that have been misunderstood by Donald Trump and many of those in Congress. These protests embody the legitimate economic and political grievances of the people of Iran. The ruling regime is beset by corruption and has badly mismanaged the country’s economy, lining their own pockets at a time when inflation, unemployment, and economic inequality are at dangerously high levels.

Donald Trump, Congresswoman Mimi Walters, and others have expressed their solidarity and support for the Iranian people. These sentiments ring hollow. If they really did care about the Iranian people they would not have put into place a Muslim ban with the express purpose of banning Iranians from coming to the United States. Just as galling are expressions of solidarity and support from individuals like Bill Kristol, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Tom Cotton. These are people who in some cases have spent decades advocating for a policy of regime change and war with Iran. Many of these same people helped lead us into the Iraq War under false pretenses-- something I consider to be the biggest foreign policy blunder in my lifetime.

No one knows more about the repression of the Iranian government than Iranian Americans. Many have experienced it firsthand and want genuine solidarity and support for human rights. What they do not want is a war and sanctions that punish ordinary, everyday Iranians. These issues are being debated in Congress and there is not a single Iranian American serving there to be a part of the conversation. I am running to change that.

Being Iranian American is an important part of my heritage and who I am. It is an important part of why I decided to run for Congress in 2018. But it is not why I went into public service and it is not why I went to work for Tom Harkin and Sherrod Brown in the US Senate. I did those things because I care about making this country better for each and every American, no matter their name, their religion, or where their parents were born. A part of that discussion involves a rethink of how we conduct our foreign policy and what is truly in the interest of hardworking families across this country.

That’s why, if elected to Congress, I will work to put an end to a foreign policy where war is always the first resort. I will always choose diplomacy and peaceful conflict resolution. America cannot afford another trillion dollar war that increases instability and puts Americans in danger. It is for these reasons that I strongly support upholding the Iranian nuclear deal.

Much of the opposition to the Iran nuclear deal has been rooted in misunderstanding and misconceptions. Growing up in the U.S. as the child of two Iranian immigrants, I have always been struck by the lack of understanding about Iran and the Iranian people in our political system. I often joke that the average member of Congress could not tell the difference between Iran and Iraq on a map, and that’s probably true.

In 2008, I was drawn to Barack Obama’s candidacy for president because of his promise of actually trying to talk to Iran, as opposed to continually threatening them with war. He was willing to call out the sheer ridiculousness of the idea that not talking to a country was some sort of punishment. As he said at the time, the Soviet Union once had thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at us and yet we never hesitated to talk to them. Compare that to Hillary Clinton, who at the time threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran.

Barack Obama’s promise culminated in the Iran nuclear deal which represents the best path to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and averting another disastrous war in the Middle East. This is not just my opinion, but that of the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. It is absolutely critical and in the best interest of the United States that the deal remains in place.

On January 12th, Donald Trump grudgingly decided that he would renew the waivers of the sanction that were agreed upon in the deal, but he told our European allies that they have to agree to rewrite the deal in 120 days or that he will kill it. These demands are reckless and unacceptable.

What our political system has failed to realize time and time again that if you really want to see a change in Iran, the number one thing you can do is remove the ability of the regime to blame the United States for all of Iran’s problems. That is why the nuclear deal is so important. It keeps the spotlight on the government and its leadership and prevents the United States and its allies from being cast as the villains.  It raised people’s expectations of a better life and made it harder to blame the failures of economy on the United States.

There is probably no country in the entire Middle East whose people are more favorably disposed to the United States. We may have problems with the Iranian regime, but our problems are not with the people of Iran, who would like nothing more than to have a better relationship with the United States and the American people. But what they do not want is war or regime change. They have undergone the hardships of the 1979 revolution and they have survived an eight-year long war with Iraq. The Iranian people-- like Americans-- understand the perils of war and yearn for peace.

The Iranian people deserve to have a future of their own making and the freedom to determine the direction that they want their country to go. And it is not Donald Trump or anyone else’s place to make that decision for them. While we should recognize that this is a regime with an appalling human rights record and always condemn all acts of violence and violations of human rights in the strongest possible terms, we should also recognize that if and when the Iranian people ever decide to rise up against their government, it will not be because of what is being said by Donald Trump and those in Washington. That is why we need young and diverse leaders in Congress who can make this case, and make it clear that this new approach is in the national security interests of the United States. And that is exactly what I plan to do from the moment that I get sworn in as a member of Congress in January 2019.

The Entire California Republican Congressional Delegation Is In Jeopardy Of Defeat Next Year

“With the passage of the GOP’s disaster tax plan, Mimi Walters again made clear what she thinks about us, the people of her district— absolutely nothing. People in California’s 45th district will truly be hurt by this bill and Mimi could care less. She could be found celebrating with Trump on the White House while thousands of her constituents were left to figure out what they’d do without their SALT deduction next year. She’s truly heartless.”
-Kia Hamadanchy, Orange County Democratic congressional candidate (CA-45)

In case you’re wondering what brought that on, it was a scathing OpEd by Omri Marian on the day after Christnmas in Kia’s hometown newspaper, the Orange County Register, Mimi Walters voted for a tax plan that will hurt her constituents. Sounds like it could be a Democratic Party ad, although if it was they would probably have mentioned that Walters might be unsympathetic with the concerns of her district because she doesn’t live in it. Normally when someone from another district wins election they move into the new district. But not Mimi. She prefers her multimillion dollar beachfront home to any of the towns in the landlocked 45th. She lives in Dana Rohrabacher’s district and the scuttlebutt is that she expects them both to lose in 2018 and that she will run again in 2020— but for the CA-48 seat (Rohrabacher’s).

“Last October, local Rep. Mimi Walters expressed her enthusiastic support for the GOP’s tax plan in these pages,” wrote Marian, a UC Irvine tax professor specializing in tax law. “A few weeks later, she voted in favor of the House version of the bill. On Tuesday, she voted in favor of the final version. Walters’ support for the GOP plan is curious. The plan she described in October looks nothing like the plan that passed The plan also seems to be uniquely tailored to harm her constituents.”

Walters had promised a simplified tax code with “tax cuts for middle class workers.” However, the GOP bill actually makes the tax code more complicated by introducing a host of new special tax preferences. You won’t be able to file your tax return on a postcard. The GOP plan also does very little for most Americans, while benefiting the mega-rich. The top 1 percent of taxpayers (households with annual income of more than $732,000), reap 20.5 percent of the total tax cut in 2018, increasing to 82.8 percent in 2027. Even if most households initially see their taxes cut, most benefits expire, and gimmickry of inflation adjustments will increase taxes. According to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation (Congress’ official tax scorer), by 2027 81 percent of all taxpayers will see no change to their tax payments or experience a tax increase compared with current law. Taxpayers in some counties, like Orange County, will be hit particularly hard. Moreover, the bill is expected to lose more than $1.4 trillion in revenue, resulting in cuts to government programs and services. To summarize, Walters supported a permanent tax cut to multinational corporations and the ultra-rich, financed by stealth tax increases on the rest of us.

One oft-discussed provision in the original House Bill eliminates state and local tax deductions; another caps the deduction for property taxes at $10,000. The final bill offers little relief. It caps the aggregate deduction for SALT and property taxes at $10,000— and this amount is not inflation-adjusted, meaning that over time the benefit of this deduction shrinks. About 47 percent of households in Walters’s district currently claim SALT deduction. In 2014 (the last year for which we have county-specific data), the average SALT deduction in the district was $13,288— in excess of the $10,000 cap, even before considering property taxes.

As we experience one of the worst Southern California fire seasons in recent memory, it is mind-boggling that the House bill removes the deduction for the terrible financial losses suffered by victims of fires and other natural disasters— a deduction available under current law. The final version of the bill maintains this outrageous provision, with a slight modification: Californians will be allowed to deduct fire losses if the fire is subject to a presidential disaster declaration. So if your house burned to the ground in a “local” fire that does not justify a presidential declaration, tough luck: You don’t get to deduct the loss.

UC Irvine is one of the biggest employers in Walters’s district, and one of the county’s greatest institutions. The House bill would have had a devastating effect on UCI. The bill included provisions that would have eliminated deductions on interest on student loans, and would have taxed graduate tuition waivers. Eliminating a deduction for student loans would have made college education less affordable. This would have had a particularly acute effect on UCI, which is the top college in the country for lower-and middle-income students. Taxing tuition waivers would have resulted in debilitating tax increases (by as much as 400 percent) on graduate students at UCI. Luckily, both of these benefits were saved in the final bill, but it is shocking that Walters could ever have supported something so harmful to UCI.

There is much more to dislike in the GOP tax plan. The big picture, however, is clear: Walters voted to take away money from her middle and lower-income constituents, from homeowners in her district, from UCI students, and from victims of California fires— to fund a tax cut for multinational corporations, the ultra-rich, and their heirs.

And what Marian had to say about Walters applies equally to Ed Royce, Steve Knight, Kevin McCarthy, David Valadao, Duncan Hunter and Ken Calvert also in Southern California and to Jeff Denham, Paul Cook, Devin Nunes, Tom McClintock and Doug LaMalfa in the northern part of the state. They’ve all put themselves in electoral jeopardy in the midterms.

What Happened To Jesus' Message In The Age Of Trump?

Tuesday, author and former evangelical Christian right leader, Frank Schaeffer, blew the whistle on the game of footsie being played by the neo-fascist movement and their religionist endeavors. He predicted dire consequences for everyone involved. "You can bet on this," he wrote: "60 percent-plus of Americans will exit the Trump era convinced that conservative Christianity is just white identity politics. They will be right. The white evangelical and conservative Roman Catholic alliance is comprised of the walking dead."

Trump is setting up a generational schism that will contribute to evangelical and conservative Roman Catholic Christianity’s final American crisis. This crisis began when science proved to anyone with a brain that whole swaths of fundamentalist faith are plain stupid. Nevertheless Christianity for a time almost survived its denial of reality because in their daily lives Christians behaved in rational ways.

No more. These folks didn’t stop at just believing in Noah’s Ark in church but also elected Donald Trump! American Christianity will not survive this marriage to the Trumped Republican Party’s moral and political fall.

When Social Security is cut, Medicaid destroyed, the poor dying as healthcare is removed, our waterways fouled, consumer protection obliterated, and Nazi marchers in the ascendant-- Americans will remember who to thank.

Thanks to Trump, Old, White, Misinformed, Bigot are the first words that come to mind when people under 35 hear the word Evangelical.

The association between white conservative Roman Catholic Christians, white evangelicals and Trump-- who is so proudly un-Christian in word and deed-- is undoing the religious right’s future. In evangelicals’ and conservative Roman Catholic’s muddled brains Trump is defending unborn children and Americans endangered by Islam. In reality Trump has destroyed their brand forever by really only defending himself and his utterly corrupt family’s financial interests. He’s doing this even at the expense of America’s governmental agencies that Trump supposedly leads such as the FBI. He’s attacking our own bulwark of democracy and governance as an act of pre-emptive self-preservation because the Mueller Russia probe closes in. And his evangelical and conservative Roman Catholic storm troopers are echoing Trump’s lies for him.

Christians deny the heart of their gospel when they’re seen to excuse lies, rationalize incompetence and impose double standards. In the Trump era evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics have offered themselves as exhibit #1 in the secular case for rejecting all Christians as toxic, hypocritical and downright dumb.

White evangelical Christians and conservative Roman Catholics have defended, rationalized and excused Trump’s-- and even Roy Moore’s-- conduct they’d never, ever have condoned in a Democrat. But according to their own theology, there are not two standards of morality depending on judicial appointments for those who claim to have “The Truth.”

Is Trump doing God’s work? Not so much even by conservative Christian standards. Aside from appointing “pro-life” justices, Trump is extremely unpopular with most because he’s enabling a billionaire’s agenda widely hated by everyone outside the GOP leadership, especially by millennials. How has even the white “pro-life” American Jesus wound up helping to make the Koch brothers richer at the expense of poor children?

This betrayal of Christian faith for politics didn’t start with Trump. Where were scandalized white evangelicals when their very own evangelical George W. Bush left Iraqi Christians to face jihadi violence? Of about one million Christians, some 900,000 were ethnically cleansed most of them while US troops still occupied Iraq.

As they do now with Trump evangelicals proved then with Bush that the slavish partisan politics of the GOP drove them, not loyalty to their faith let alone to their fellow Christians. Was it because those particular “brothers and sisters in Christ” were brown that their deaths, rapes and exodus left white evangelicals unmoved? I think it was.

Where Christian leaders like my late father Francis Schaeffer demanded honesty, white evangelical and Roman Catholic Trump supporters rationalize lies. Where Christians like C.S. Lewis once sought evidence of ideological consistency, white evangelical and Roman Catholic Trump supporters proudly glory in Roy Moore-like biblical/political incoherence.

Doesn’t scripture repeatedly condemn the exact kind of moral compromises that white evangelical and conservative Roman Catholics make every day to keep supporting Trump say, even after he endorses a pedophile? Don’t they believe those scriptures like this one anymore: “A [leader] then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior” (1 Timothy 3:2).

Apparently not. They believe in Ayn Rand, power and money if you judge by actions rather than words.

If Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr and Dr. Dobson or the leaders among the conservative Catholic American bishops were actual Christian leaders not far right white supremacists these days here’s what they’d say: “There’s nothing more dangerous to the church than a lack of faith shown when we rationalize Trump’s bad acts out of a misguided and faithless sense of political necessity.”

And that is what they are not saying. Like Sherlock Holmes’ case he solved based on the fact that a dog did not bark, the Conservative Roman Catholic and white evangelical leadership’s silence speaks volumes. It is the silence of spiritual death. And no resurrection awaits this crucifixion.

R.I.P. Jesus.

Frank has been traveling around the country filming progressive candidates who he wants to help win seats in Congress. The most recent one was a clip he shot in Orange County for Kia Hamadanchy, one of the 2 progressive candidates taking on Trump rubber-stamp Mimi Walters. Take a look:

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The Catholic Church Begs Mimi Walters And Ed Royce For Compassion

Earlier today, we looked at how Trump and Ryan are leading a war against Jesus' message to mankind. It looks like every Catholic pastor in CA-39 and CA-45 (mostly Orange County) is concerned about the same thing-- except they're focusing on Republican members of Congress Ed Royce and Mimi Walters, both lockstep rubber-stamps for Trump and Ryan. The Orange County Register piece over the weekend was devastating. All the pastors signed a letter to Walters and a letter to Royce about DREAMers-- and the letters were followed by Sunday sermons along the same lines. The sermons will be ongoing throughout Advent.

The bishops of the Diocese of Orange are calling on their clergy and parishioners to pray for the young undocumented immigrants, and to advocate for them with their elected leaders.

Catholic leaders see an urgency in finding a permanent solution to the plight of young people brought to the country illegally as children. Their temporary legal status through President Obama’s DACA program is being phased out under the Trump administration.

Led by bishops in Orange County, San Bernardino and the San Gabriel region, 26 pastors urged Walters (R-Laguna Beach) and Royce (R-Fullerton)-- both Catholics-- “to actively support” passage of legislation that would allow the children to have a path to citizenship.

“It is essential to move beyond general statements of support,” read the Dec. 1 open letter, signed by the pastors and Rev. Kevin Vann, bishop of Orange, Gerald Barnes, bishop of San Bernardino, and David O’Connell, auxiliary bishop in the San Gabriel region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The letter requests a meeting with the Republican leaders. It is the first time in recent memory that bishops and all pastors of an Orange County congressional district have called on legislators for action.

“It’s a somewhat unique letter,” said Greg Walgenbach, director of the Office of Life, Justice and Peace for the Diocese of Orange.

Walters, who has expressed sympathy toward DACA recipients, has seen an uptick in rallies calling for her to support one of the bills floating in Congress on the issue. Her vote is considered by some a key Republican swing vote.

Earlier this week, Walters signed a letter calling on Congress to pass legislation before the end of the year to protect those under DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

“I appreciate the passion that some members of the church have shown on this issue, and I share their urgency,” Walters said in an e-mail Friday to the Southern California News Group. “Caring for all of God’s children is at the core of our Catholic faith.

“DACA recipients enrich our community and are building their American dream,” she said. “That is why I signed a letter this week calling on Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that would allow DACA recipients to remain the United States, and continue their great contributions to Orange County.”

Royce could not be reached for comment Friday. He has previously said he supports legal residency but opposes including a path to citizenship.

Royce has been a target for years of immigrant-rights advocates, who regularly rally outside his Brea office. In 2013, some 1,500 Catholics prayed outside his closed office for the congressman to “have a change of heart” and support undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship.

As Catholics gather this month to celebrate the Christmas season, Orange County’s top bishops are calling on their pastors and congregants to pray for DACA youth and other immigrants.

A second letter, sent to parishes Friday, includes an Advent prayer which in part says: “Grant, O Lord, unto the leaders of the United States the wisdom and teachable spirit to recognize the good gifts that we receive from DACA youth and other immigrant Dreamers, the conviction to respect their life and dignity, and the courage to pass legislation to protect their stay here and offer a path to eventual citizenship.”

The same letter asks Catholics to contact their representatives, and includes a sample message. That letter was shared on the website of a national Catholic nonprofit that advocates for low-income immigrants and is headed by Bishop Vann.

Katie Porter is one of the two progressives taking on Mimi Walters. Katie told us "It's been three months since Donald Trump announced he would end protections for Dreamers and my Republican opponent Mimi Walters has continued to do nothing but offer empty platitudes. It's unacceptable. I have spent my career fighting for people who don’t have a voice in our system, and I intend to do the same in Congress by standing up for immigrant families. We must pass a clean Dream Act Now."

The other excellent progressive Democratic candidate running for the seat Mimi Walters is occupying is Kia Hamadanchy. Just a few hours ago he told us that "Right here in California’s 45th district, we have DREAMers who are doing nothing but chasing the American Dream-- whether it is as a student at UC Irvine or as an employee of a small business or tech startup. Mimi Walter’s inaction on behalf of her constituents has been so terrible that it took urging from every Catholic leader in the district to get her moving. That’s not leadership. It’s time for a Representative in CA-45 who actually cares about the people here and will really fight to protect our DREAMers."

Sam Jammal is the one non-multimillionaire running for the Orange County seat occupied by Ed Joyce. Recently Frank Schaeffer went to meet him and made this clip [below] about the race and about Sam-- a very different kind of person than Ed Royce. This morning Sam addressed the GOP's DREAMers problem. "DACA really comes down to what's right and what is wrong. It's a moral question. The right thing to do is give young people-- who only know this country and are doing everything right-- the chance at the American Dream. The wrong thing to do is fall in line with Trump and hardline anti-immigrant voices. Once again Ed is on the wrong side of the issue. Instead of focusing on what we can do to integrate immigrants and build up communities, he prefers to divide families and work against young people who are doing everything right, but have a President and politics seeking to do them wrong. Ed just doesn't share our values here in the 39th. We believe in the American Dream and are a welcoming community."

Will California Voters Get Even With The GOP For Raising Their Taxes So Heavily? Maps Tell (Predict) The Story

California's congressional map is going to look a lot less red and a lot more blue in 2019. Right now there are 39 California Democrats in the House and 14 Republicans. DCCC West Coast regional vice chair Ted Lieu is working feverishly to make that at least 46 Democrats after the 2018 midterms (and consequently 7 Republicans). Not long ago he told me that there's a reasonable chance it could be 47 Democrats and 6 Republicans because of Duncan Hunter's very serious legal problems. And then there's Devin Nunes' role in the Putin-Gate scandal and the question how quickly he winds up being deposed by Mueller for his role in helping Trump to obstruct justice...

But that isn't what the L.A. Times was focused on a few days ago in its discussion of maps. They had district maps embedded in a piece by Jon Schleuss about how California taxpayers are "hit disproportionately hard under the Republican tax plan because of changes to two popular tax breaks." He calculated the share of residents who take the SALT deduction and the percentage of new mortgages over $500,000 in 2017.

That's one reason GOP lawmakers in the state's House delegation were under so much scrutiny when most of them voted to pass the House version in November. Several members said they agreed to move the bill forward with the promise of a fix later.

The House proposal would eliminate much of the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, and set a limit of $500,000 on the mortgage debt that can be used to claim the mortgage interest deduction. The current Senate proposal eliminates the SALT deduction entirely, but keeps the mortgage interest deduction at $1 million.

Ted Lieu, the DCCC West Coast Regional Vice Chair, seems to relish the races in the current political environment. "By eliminating the state and local tax deduction and capping the mortgage interest deduction," he told us moments ago, "the Republican tax scam is targeting successful blue states like California. For the record, I would oppose this stupid Republican tax plan even if I wasn't from California. It will hurt middle-class families, students, veterans, and the disabled all in order to give huge tax cuts to corporations and the extremely wealthy. Oh and it will add one and a half trillion dollars to our national debt. The idea that any elected official from our state would support a tax overhaul that will crush California families is mind blowing. It is one thing to be loyal to your party. It is another thing entirely to sell out your constituents in favor of your donors. In less than a year we'll find out how Californians feel about those who betrayed them."

 

Today's news... and Sabato is always about a month or 2 behind

Hillary won Mimi Walters' district 49.8% to 44.4%. The district's PVI went from an R+7 PVI in 2015 to a much more Democratic-friendly R+3 this year. Mimi, who doesn't live in the district despite having been elected over 3 years ago refuses to spend much time there, preferring to spend her time in a posh community on the coast in Dana Rohrabacher's district. This cycle there are 2 excellent progressives running for the seat, Kia Hamadanchy and Katie Porter. Both have turned Walters' unnerving support for Ryan, Trump and this Tax Scam into weapons against her. Yesterday, Kia Hamadanchy told us that "It’s clear what a devastating impact this bill will have on the people of California’s 45th district. Mimi’s continued support for the tax plan shows just who she answers to-- Paul Ryan and the billionaire donors of the Republican Party. And in her mission to make them happy, she didn’t think twice about screwing over the people she is supposed to represent. Mimi better start thinking about what lobbying firm she wants to work for, because she won’t be our member of Congress next January."

And Katie Porter was just as outspoken: "It's clear that my Republican opponent, Mimi Walters, will back virtually any policy, no matter how harmful it is to her constituents, so long as it has Trump's seal of approval. When even her Republican colleagues next door voted no on this disastrous tax bill, it proved once and for all that Mimi Walters does not represent her constituents, she represents the powerful special interests and corporate PACs who bankroll her campaign. The devastating tax changes that Mimi voted for could tilt our entire system even more towards the top 1% at a time when multinational corporations are parking record profits offshore, a handful of top-tier billionaires are getting richer and richer, and when the middle class is getting squeezed by cuts to public education, public health, and other vital social services."

Hillary won Dana Rohrabacher's district 47.9% to 46.2%. The coastal Orange County district's R+7 PVI in 2015 is now R+4, still tough, but winnable in a wave election cycle-- especially when the incumbent is widely seen as "Putin's favorite congressman and appears to be implicated in Trump's Russia problems in a pretty major way. Laura Oatman is one of several candidates vying to take on Rohrabacher. Most of the others are a bunch of conservative men, a tweedle-dee-tweedle-dum pair of wealthy self-funding New Dems and another rich self-funder from out of the district who proudly describes himself as a "Reagan Democrat." Laura is the progressive in the race. This morning, she told us that "Before his no vote on the tax bill, Rohrabacher had voted in alignment with Trump 94% of the time. Why the sudden about-face? Is it the Cook Report’s analysis that the district has swung from solid red to 'toss-up'? The voters won’t be fooled by a last-minute change of heart motivated by Dana’s self-preservation."

Issa was nearly defeated in 2016 himself by former Marine colonel Doug Applegate who is running against him again-- and with far more name recognition this cycle. Hillary won the district 50.7% to 43.2%. And the R+4 PVI in 2015 is now rated just R+1, almost a sure flip in a wave election year. Doug Applegate, the progressive Democrat in the race to defeat Issa, noted that "Over the past three years our supporters have been holding Darrell’s feet to the fire and made him do something he's never done-- vote against GOP leadership on a major bill."

Hillary won Steve Knight's district 50.3% to 43.6% and the only reason Knight is still a congressman is because the DCCC parachuted some non-resident into the district who ran a terrible campaign and got his ass kicked. This cycle, the likely candidate is Katie Hill, a born and raised resident and a far better candidate. The PVI went from 2015's R+3 to a dead even rating this year.

CA-39 should be the easiest pickup, but the DCCC has, as usual, screwed up by directing a couple of non-resident multimillionaires to run there who would have zero chance to beat Royce. There is a great candidate running though, Sam Jammal. Hillary won against Trump, 51.5% to 42.9, and with a PVI that flipped from R+5 to dead even. Sam Jammal, the Orange County progressive running for the seat top Paul Ryan lieutenant Ed Royce uses as his base, is playing hardball: "Ed Royce doesn't represent our community. He is the Congressman for wealthy donors and out of district millionaires. Why else would he vote to raise taxes on nearly every homeowner in our district or vote to eliminate the state and local tax deduction, which penalizes California? He has never been a champion for the middle class families who use the student loan, medical expense or distaster assistance deduction, but this is taking things to whole new levels by so blatantly catering only to rich people who don't live in the district. It's truly stunning."

Duncan Hunter's district east of San Diego is still pretty red and it will take a Hunter indictment before the election to pry it out of GOP hands. Trump won over Hillary, 54.6% to 39.6% and the PVI is still daunting, having gone from and impossible R+14 to a nearly impossible R+11.

Like Hunter's district, Nunes' Central Valley seat hasn't changed enough yet and may be a better shot in 2020-- unless Nunes' role in Putin-Gate gets him in trouble with independent voters back home, and that does seem to be coming along at this point. Trump won the district 52.1% to 42.6% and the DCCC has never run a candidate against Nunes and has no idea how to. The PVI went from an R+10 in 2015 to an R+8 this year. Ricardo Franco is the progressive in the battle to replace Devin Nunes. "This map," he told us today, "clearly shows the concentration of people who file with SALT deductions come from our district's wealthiest zip codes and area with the highest voter turn out. Not surprisingly, it is also the most conservative portion of the district. It's another sign that Nunes is clearly out of touch with his constituents, including the ones that vote for him. He may be too busy trying to outrun Bob Mueller to understand or care, however. The people here in the valley don't have the patience anymore for party politics that continuously leave them behind.  You can bet I'm taking this message straight to the voters at every opportunity."

Tax Deductions For Earthquakes Are Erased From The Tax Code-- But Not Tax Deductions For Hurricanes (Or Private Jets)

I don't have a private jet; never did. But... I sort of did. I was the president of a division of TimeWarner and the company had private jets. All I had to do was call and say I need a jet and I could fly anywhere I wanted. You knowhow many time I did that? Zero, never once. That's because it's incredibly expensive and a horrifying waste of money that could have been spent on helping break out artists (for example). But a few times I was going to New York or L.A. and someone would invite me along for a ride on their jet. Very convenient and comfortable, etc. But I was never tempted... not even a little. I found it an outrageous waste of resources in fact.

The Republicans' decision to give private jet owners a tax break should piss off even Trump's most loyal supporters (who aren't stoned out of their minds on Oxy). Christal Hayes reported the story for Newsweek. "The new Senate tax bill will give those who own or lease private planes breaks on the amount they pay to companies for maintenance, storage, fueling and even when they want to hire pilots and a crew onboard. The proposal is tucked in the middle of the controversial bill's latest version, dubbed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The House approved the bill Thursday and it's now headed to the Senate." Forbes there were 11,261 private planes registered in the United States as of 2012. There are probably a lot more now. The provision was sponsored by the home state senators for the private jet company NetJets-- Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Raise your hand if you think a humongous tax should be placed on private jet usage instead.

God knows what kind of crap we'll going to discover in coming days as we examine Ryan's rax scam more closely. I liked the coverage the L.A. Times gave the bill yesterday: In Orange County, fear and loathing for the GOP's "Screw California" tax bill by Mark Barabak. Short version: O.C. Republican voters are out for blood. Two of the GOP congressmembers in Southern California had the smarts to figure out a YES vote was political suicide-- Issa and Rohabacher, who have problems of their own-- but Mimi Walters, Ed Royce and Steve Knight are now dead men congressmembers walking.

Chris Keena feels obliged to explain: He really is a Republican-- honest!-- before launching his critique of the Republican tax bill that just passed the House.

“I don’t believe in trickle-down theory,” said the 70-year-old retired attorney from Irvine. “The money they save-- I’ve seen it in business-- the money they save at the top, they keep at the top. It doesn’t trickle down.

“I hate to sound like a radical,” he went on, “and I guess it doesn’t go with being a Republican, but it’s a reality. There are a lot of people struggling here. The image is everyone is fat and happy. They’re not. They’re not.”

The sweeping tax-cut package, which passed Thursday with overwhelming support from California’s GOP House members, seems almost singularly designed to punish the state and its Democratic legion of Trump tormentors.

Eliminating most of the deduction for state and local taxes would be a hefty blow to millions of Californians. The same for a proposed cap on deducting property taxes and mortgage interest-- write-offs that make the purchase of that charming $750,000 “starter home” a bit more attainable, if no less insane.

It goes on.

Repealing tax incentives that help pay for low-cost housing would almost surely exacerbate a desperate housing shortage, which is already stifling job growth.

And in a move that seems just plain spiteful, the bill would take away the deduction for uninsured personal losses from wildfire and earthquakes, two of California’s great tribulations, while preserving it for hurricane victims.

“It may be a tax cut for Wisconsin and Kansas and Iowa. But it is not a tax-cut bill for individual taxpayers in California,” said Carolyn Cavecche, head of the Orange County Taxpayers Assn., which is not exactly a hotbed of Marxist sentiments.

With scant room to spare, GOP House leaders needed almost the entire 14-member California Republican delegation to move their tax plan forward. All save three-- Tom McClintock, Darrell Issa and Dana Rohrabacher-- voted yes.

That carries no small risk, especially here in Orange County, where lawmakers high on the Democratic target list, including Issa and Rohrabacher, are caught between constituents losing their cherished deductions and party chiefs demanding fealty.

Mimi Walters, a second-term congresswoman from Irvine, was another in that bind.

Her district, extending roughly from Anaheim Hills south to Mission Viejo, is one of the most affluent in California, and taxpayers there are some of the biggest beneficiaries of the state and local tax deductions, as well as the write-off for mortgage interest.

Some, like Jim Nowakowski, are convinced the big cut in corporate taxes will bring more jobs and, as advocates promise, greater prosperity all around.

“If I had money sitting offshore and could bring it back at a lower tax rate and hire another 30, 40 people, grow my plant, I’d do that in an instant,” said Nowakowski, 75, who owns a business that cleans and repairs costumes for Disneyland.

Losing some deductions would be worth the trade-off, said the Tustin resident, especially if it made Sacramento think harder about spending. “Maybe they don’t have so many damn taxes on people,” he said.

But in two days of conversation around the district, many more viewed the tax bill as an unwarranted giveaway to the rich, paid for by those already struggling to stay afloat.

And it wasn’t just partisan Democrats.

Scott Tullius, 47, who calls himself a libertarian-leaning independent, said deducting thousands of dollars in mortgage interest on his Lake Forest home boosts the tax refund he relies on each year.

“With three kids”-- ages 6 to 16-- “there’s things that wouldn’t get done without it,” said Tullius, who works for Irvine’s Office of Emergency Management. “For the working-class person, we’re just making it by week to week, month to month.”

Oldrich Kolar, who runs a Tustin law firm, questioned the haste of pushing through tax legislation just so Republicans can say they did so once the calendar turns to the election year 2018.

By the time it gets around to final passage-- should the legislation make it that far-- “I just hope … we’ve had enough debate, a conscious, smart debate, so we’re not just trying to make a political statement, we’re not just trying to make a timing statement,” said the 53-year-old Republican and self-described member of “the top 1% to 2%.”

Walters said she supported the bill after being assured changes would be made once House lawmakers hash out their differences with the Senate, which is weighing its own version of a tax-cut bill. That, of course, assumes the Senate is kinder to California-- no sure bet-- or doesn’t kill the effort entirely, leaving those like Walters on a sawed-off limb.

Back in the 1980s, lawmakers decided to stuff the country’s nuclear waste in a big hole in the Nevada desert.

The backroom deal, which eliminated sites in Texas and Washington state from consideration, was greased by the fact no one from Nevada was around to object.

The proposed dump at Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles outside Las Vegas, immediately sparked political warfare and remains stalled all these years later. But the treachery is still renowned as the “Screw Nevada Bill.”

The Republican tax legislation, as it stands, could carry the same blunt appellation as regards California.

Woe to those defending it in an already tough political climate: Voter indignation is not something you can just bury in a desert hole.

Sam Jammal is the non-millionaire progressive running to win the Democratic nomination to take on Ryan rubber stamp Ed Royce. He told us that "Ed doesn't fit nor care to represent our community anymore. No one seeking to represent us would vote for a bill that punishes us for being Californians. He offered no amendments to improve the bill and voted yes on something that attacks our community. Ed is better off retiring than doing more harm to families here. He has a choice on whether this will be a forced retirement or to go out on his own."

Kia Hamadanchy who is competing with Republican incumbent Mimi Walters for the CA-45 Orange County seat quickly pointed out that "Mimi’s support for the Republican tax increase is a slap in the face to just about everybody in our district, from graduate students at UC Irvine to retirees in South Orange County. What’s even worse is that two of Mimi’s crazy right-wing colleagues in Orange County, Darrell Issa and Dana Rohrabacher voted against this bill. What does it say that two of the worst Republicans around wouldn’t even vote to raise taxes on their constituents? I think Mimi better start updating her resume, because she is going to be looking for a new job next November."

Laura Oatman is the progressive candidate running for the seat Rohrabacher hold (CA-48, coastal Orange County). She wasn't fooled by Rohrabacher's vote against Ryan's tax scam. "On the heels of last week’s report in Roll Call that 2 of the top 10 most vulnerable House incumbents were right here in Orange County, with Darrell Issa at the top of the list and Dana Rohrabacher in 5th, it’s no surprise that Issa & Rohrabacher would part ways with the GOP and vote against this tax plan that would raise taxes on millions of middle-class families to provide tax breaks to millionaires. This plan would limit mortgage interest deductions to $500,000-- down from the present limit of $1.1 million-- and could be particularly tough on many of Rohrabacher’s wealthy constituents. Don’t for one minute think they’ve seen the light though. The reality is, they have zero political capital to spend, and knowing that, safely voted against party lines knowing the bill would pass anyways, in a too-little-too-late attempt to show they care. Really, they only care about hanging onto their Congressional seats for all they’re worth."

Katie Hill, the progressive candidate and top opponent to Steve Knight in CA-25, cut a succinct and plain English video she sent to voters in Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley. It sums up the California situation perfectly. I suggest you watch it:

Republicans Choking On Ryan's Tax Scam?

Ryan got his Republican tax scam through the House yesterday 227-205. No one doubted it would pass the House. Only 13 Republicans dared to stand up for their constituents instead of the multimillionaires and billionaires who will benefit from this travesty. Most were from New York, New Jersey and California. All the Republicans in New Jersey voted "NO" except the richest and most crooked of the lot: Tom MacArthur. In New York most of the Republicans stood with their constituents instead of Trump, including Elise Stefanik, Dan Donovan, Peter King, Lee Zeldin and John Faso. Katko stuck it to his constituents badly--afer announcing he's retiring. The ones who need to be defeated by their constituents in 2018 are Tom Reed, Claudia Tenney and Chris Collins, all crackpot wing-nuts. And then California-- only 3 of the House's 14 Republicans stood with their constituents: Issa, Rohrabacher and McClintock. So, the signatories to the California GOP Suicide Pact:

• Ed Royce (CA-39)
• Mimi Walters (CA-45)
• Steve Knight (CA-25)
• Jeff Denham (CA-10)
• David Valadao (CA-21)
• Devin Nunes (CA-22)
• Kevin McCarthy (CA-23)
• Duncan Hunter (CA-50)
• Kevin Calvert (CA-42)
• Paul Cook (CA-08)
• Doug LaMalfa (CA-02)

Ted Lieu is the only good regional vice chair the DCCC has. He's not just "good;" he's great. notice when the DCCC endorsed 11conservative shit-heads in primaries this week, not one was in California. That wasn't by coincidence. Yesterday after Ryan's tax scam vote, Ted told me that "Many California Republicans just voted to increase taxes on their own constituents, explode the federal deficit, increase the federal debt, hurt people with student loans, whack folks with medical bills, and potentially crash the housing market in California. Oh, they also voted to name a post office today. One of these two votes will cause many of them not to get re-elected. Can you guess which one?"

Sam Jammal can. Sam's the top candidate in CA-39 (mostly northeast Orange County, represented by Ed Royce since 1992) how he reads what happened. "Ed voted to retire today," he stated flatly. "It will either be by force or choice, but one thing is clear-- Ed is done. By voting against homeowners, students, seniors and working families to help his donors and out of district millionaires, Ed told our community he no longer wants to work for us."

Ricardo Franco is the progressive running for the seat Putin/Trump lover Devin Nunes holds. It's a pretty red seat but Nunes' vote to raise his own constituents taxes will make it easier to beat him next year. "Constituents here have repeatedly told Nunes and the GOP that we don't want our SALT deductions taken away, we don't want our ACA benefits taken away and we don't want our taxes to go up to line the pockets of the wealthy," Ricardo told us after the vote. "Regardless, they continue to stick it to us behind our backs. This Central Valley is the land that gave birth to the Civil Rights and Labor Rights movement in California a generation ago and it will be the land that gives us the Working Class Rights movement of today."

There are two great progressives running for the Mimi Walters seat in inland Orange County (where she doesn't live), Kia Hamadanchy and Katie Porter. Kia: "In voting for this outrageous tax increase, Mimi Walters showed her true colors again. She is more interested in making her billionaire donors, Donald Trump and Paul Ryan happy than serving the people of our district. Over and over, Mimi votes against the interested of her constituents and it’s going to put her out of a job come November 2018." And Katie: "The tax reform bill Mimi Walters voted YES on delivers a huge blow to California taxpayers. It raises taxes on California families by cutting deductions for working families, adding trillions of dollars to the national debt, and giving giant tax breaks to corporations. Orange County families were already struggling to make ends meet before Donald Trump and Paul Ryan rammed this bill through Congress. But Mimi Walters isn’t interested in fighting for working families-- she only cares about keeping Donald Trump and her mega-donors happy so they continue to bankroll her campaign."

Not that political leaders from other states weren't noticing what Trump and Ryan were up to. I liked the way Pramila Jayapal explained it to her constituents in Seattle within an hour of passage:

Republicans just moved forward with their scam on the American people that takes from working families to give trillions of dollars to the rich. The GOP tax scam will line the pockets of large corporations and the wealthy, while middle-class households will see their taxes go up. It is unconscionable.

Instead of closing corporate loopholes, Republicans are slashing the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, the student loan interest deduction, medical expense deductions – everything on which working families rely for tax relief. These deductions allow millions of families to make ends meet. And, though Republicans claim to care about exploding our deficit, this tax scam would do exactly that. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the bill would trigger $136 billion in automatic spending cuts in 2018 alone – this includes a $25 billion hit to Medicare.

The American people see the Republican party has turned its back on the middle-class. Students, seniors, veterans, everyone except for the top 1 percent will suffer under the GOP tax scam. Just as we protected the Affordable Care Act and health care for millions, we cannot allow Republicans to rig the economy to favor the wealthy.

Before yesterday's vote, it was big news this week when ultra-conservative Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (AKA- RonJon) announced that he's a no vote on the Senate tax travesty. He said "that he does not support the current versions of the Senate and House GOP’s tax bills-- becoming the first Republican senator to outright oppose the party’s plan to overhaul the tax system. Johnson said in a statement that he objects to the bills' treatment of businesses known as pass-throughs, whose owners pay taxes on their companies through the individual side of the tax code.

“These businesses truly are the engines of innovation and job creation throughout our economy, and they should not be left behind. Unfortunately, neither the House nor Senate bill provide fair treatment, so I do not support either in their current versions," Johnson said.

Remember, McConnell can only afford to lose 3 Republican senators-- 2 if Moore loses in Alabama-- to prevent the whole thing from falling apart. RonJon says he's the first but he's not dependable and just bitches and kvetches all the time but in the end almost never stays from leadership on votes. His Trumpanzee adhesion score is 92.3% and there are 13 Senate Republicans less tied to Trump-- including Trumpian golfing partners Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul.

There are all kind of little nooks and crannies-- and some really big ones (like the repeal of the Affordable Care Act individual mandate)-- that are landmines for some of the Republican members. What about retiring Republicans Jeff Flake (AZ) and Bob Corker (TN)? They're hardcore deficit hawks and this bill isn't the kind of legislation they would have ever approved in the past. And they both loathe Trump and voting NO could be a win-win for them. Mike Lee (UT) and Jerry Moran (KS) and kind of in the same boat, except not retiring. Utah is very anti-Trump though and Kansas Republicans understand-- through experience-- what this kind of smoke-and-mirrors tax plan does to destroy a polity. I'd watch both these guys.

And, of course there are the 3 who cratered the Obamacare repeal, Lisa Murkowski (AK), John McCain (AZ)-- the "regular order" guy-- and Susan Collins (ME). Susan Collins has a lot in the bill she objects to. Back in Maine, the Bangor Daily News speculates that she may well me a NO vote.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate have altered their tax reform plan to include a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that all Americans have health coverage or face a penalty. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins doesn’t like that.

The Maine Republican isn’t saying that’ll make her vote against tax reform (yet), but it makes the path toward “yes” harder. The moderate Collins already has helped kill two of her party’s efforts to repeal the health care law this year... On Wednesday, Collins told MSNBC that she didn’t think linking tax reform with the so-called individual mandate is “a good idea from either the political or policy perspective,” though she supports lower taxes and hasn’t made a decision on the ever-changing Senate tax proposal.

... Collins told MSNBC that the impact on premiums from scrapping the mandate would outweigh the current penalties. She said it also endangers a bipartisan Affordable Care Act stabilization bill that she supports.

However, she also opposes a Senate provision that would allow taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes and a provision in the House tax reform bill that would eliminate a deduction for medical expenses.

Maddow has an interesting point about Collins Wednesday night too. One of the groups Ryan and Trump are targeting are school teachers. In 2002 Collins wrote a bill allowing already badly paid school teachers to take a small deductions for out-of-pocket money they spend on supplies for students. The tax bill wipes that out and Collins is quietly flipping out over it. As Trump says, we shall see. I'd also watch James Lankford (R-OK) closely. He seems to have been undergoing a sea-change in the way he's looking at things lately-- as though he's asking Jesus what to do. I could be wrong but... we shall see.

One more metric to look at. Not counting Republicans who are leaving the House to run for the Senate or for governor jobs, there were an even dozen announced retirements by the time the vote came Thursday. Only one voted against the bill, Frank LoBiondo. Ryan and McCarthy prevailed on all the rest to vote for the tax scam and betray the voters who kept them in office all these years with the threat of them not being effective lobbyists if they didn't. These 11:

• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL)
• Charlie Dent (PA)
• Dave Reichert (WA)
• Dave Trott (MI)
• Lynn Jenkins (KS)
• Sam Johnson (TX)
• Ted Poe (TX)
• Bob Goodlatte (VA)
• Lamar Smith (TX)
• Jeb Hensarling (TX)
• Jimmy Duncan (TN)

What About California? Can Democrats Win Congressional Seats There?

Laura Oatman would be a great replacement for Dana Rohrabacher

Ted Lieu, the hero of today's Jeff Sessions grilling at the House Judiciary Committee hearing, is also the West Coast regional vice-chair of the DCCC. He's the only one who's doing a good job. This evening he told us that "One of the key takeaways from recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Oklahoma is that Democrats should not shy away from expanding the map wherever possible. We are going to pick up at least 15 seats in the Virginia legislature, many in districts no one thought we could win. Next year is shaping up to be a wave election year and if we can harness the grassroots energy and recruit strong candidates we can compete anywhere. This includes traditional Republican strongholds like CA-22 or CA-50. The House is absolutely in play in 2018. Things are moving in our direction, but we can’t take anything for granted, and we must all work to earn the trust of voters and fight for every last vote."

Monday morning, the L.A. Times’ California politics editors ranked the hottest congressional races in the state by the intensity of the fight ahead for the congressmen (and one congresswoman). I'd love to see their methodology, because "the intensity of the fight ahead" sounds suspect. And their list generally sounds like the more traditional ranking from most endangered (Darrell Issa and Steve Knight) to vaguely endangered (Devin Nunes plus clock-punching crap-Democrats, Salud Carbajal, Ami Bera, Scott Peters and Raul Ruiz). Here's the full list, from more endangered to not very endangered, along with the 2015 and 2017 PVIs:

• Darrell Issa- R+4 to R+1

49th District-- Southern Orange County and Northern San Diego

Our take: Issa won his last election by 1,621 votes in a race that became unexpectedly tight. This time around, he’ll be prepared for a tough contest. His district is changing politically and in its demographic makeup.

Issa’s near-loss to Democrat Col. Doug Applegate in the closest congressional election in the nation last year remains fresh in the political world’s mind and the dynamics are not improving for the nine-term incumbent. Issa is desperate to find another district to run in and just leave CA-49 to Applegate.

• Steve Knight- R+3 to Even

25th District-- Northern Los Angeles County and Simi Valley

Our take: With Los Angeles County becoming more and more Democratic, Knight has become the last congressional Republican to represent it, and he has a number of well-qualified candidates challenging him.

Katie Hill is the viable candidate who can finally beat Knight. "People are tired of politics as usual," she reminded us. "Our system is broken and it is time for a wave of new leadership that will prioritize people over playing politics. Steve Knight has voted to strip health care away from tens of thousands of people in the district, he voted to raise taxes on middle and working class families, and we will vote him out of office in November. I’m running because my friends, family, neighbors, and all of the residents of the 25th district deserve someone that will put their interests ahead of getting re-elected."

• Jeff Denham- R+1 to Even

10th District-- Central Valley including Modesto

Our take: According to the numbers political prognosticators typically rely on, Denham should have lost last year. Hillary Clinton and Denham each won the district by 3 percentage points. Denham has had the secret sauce to keep his constituents happy even as Democrats have salivated to flip a district seemingly so perfect for their party. An ingredient to his success: His attention to water issues critical in the Central Valley. A factor that has Democrats feeling more confident: His vote in favor of the American Health Care Act as a replacement for Obamacare.

Dotty Nygard is, far and away, the best candidate the Democrats have ever run in this district. As long as the DCCC doesn't shove a self-funding multimillionaire carpetbagger down the throats of the local activists, Denham will finally be toast.

• Dana Rohrabacher- R+7 to R+4

48th District-- Coastal Orange County Our take: The congressman’s affinity for Russia and his questionable relationships with figures involved in the various Russia investigations have become prominent news, raising his profile in his district. While he has always had huge winning percentages, he has never faced a serious challenger. And although he can see this fight coming, Rohrabacher’s fundraising has been weak. The vast number of qualified challengers coming forward suggests there’s plenty of energy among people hoping to oust him.

Rohrabacher is more vulnerable than the Times has figured out yet. The Democrats are fractured at this point, with many candidates but only one inspiring one. There's one imbecile, Omar Siddiqui, running by calling himself a "Reagan Democrat," presumably hoping to split some of the Republican votes with Rohrabacher and the 2 other Republicans in the open primary. Hans Keirstead is the DCCC candidate but this super on-paper candidate hides a real life dud. He and another self-funder, Harley Rouder, have both been endorsed by the New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. The DCCC invited the two of them to their candidates' week in DC and left out the progressive woman in the race, Laura Oatman. Laura was undaunted and used the time they were away in DC to campaign on a grassroots level, "Dana Rohrabacher," she told me this morning, "has long been known as 'Putin’s favorite Congressman', so it’s really no surprise that our pro-Russia Congressman is the first member of Congress to be named in Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in last year's election. The people who live here in California’s 48th district deserve a true representative who actually represents them and their concerns, not Putin and his concerns.

• David Valadao- D+2 to D+5

21st District-- Central Valley including part of Bakersfield

Our take: Though the voter registration in his district is lopsided against Republicans-- Democrats have an 18-percentage-point advantage-- he outran Trump by 16 percentage points and even Clinton by 2 percentage points. So far, he has attracted just one opponent-- Emilio Huerta, who is looking for a rematch despite losing by double digits in 2016. Still, Democrats will try their best to get over the line in a place that, by the numbers, seems winnable for a Latino candidate.

Only the DCCC could loss a district this blue-- and could well lose it again. They don't like Emilio Chavez but they've been unable to recruit another candidate. So they should embrace Emilio, right? And make him a better candidate and prop him up, right? It's a deep, deep blue district. Instead, they just shake their virtual head hopelessly. They suck so bad.

• Ed Royce- R+5 to Even

39th District-- Northeast Orange County, eastern Los Angeles County and part of San Bernardino County

Our take: Royce is chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee, has served 13 terms in Congress, and has millions in the bank-- but other numbers suggest he’s vulnerable. Clinton won by 9 percentage points in his district, which has a growing population of Latino and Asian voters, making it a majority-minority district. He won by 10 points in 2016, but that was against a weak opponent. Now, there is a long list of qualified and ambitious challengers vying to run against him in November.

This is the Orange County district that Hillary did best in against Trump, but the DCCC is screwing the district up by asking self-funding multimillionaires who live in CA-48 to run in CA-39 instead, including the most singularly incompetent DCCC recruit on the cycle, Gil Cisneros, the "ex"-Republican lottery winner. And the Democrats already have a pretty ideal candidate, Sam Jammal. If they lose this district someone should put Ben Ray Lujan's head on a pike, figuratively speaking (I guess), and parade it from Hacienda Heights across to Diamond Bar and down through Brea and Yorba Linda to Fullerton.

• Mimi Walters- R+7 to R+3

45th District-- Inland Orange County including Irvine

Our take: Walters has kept a fairly low profile and has enjoyed the support of her district by large, albeit shrinking, margins in previous elections. She won with 65% of the vote in 2014 and 58% last year. She has been dogged by energized activists who want her to appear at town hall meetings, but her fundraising is strong, suggesting she is taking the long list of Democratic challengers eager to unseat her seriously. Of the lawmakers Democrats in Orange County are attempting to oust, Walters is the newest, and in such a large media market it is harder for her to become well-known by her constituents.

It might help if she lived there, instead of in Dana Rohrabacher's district. There are two exceptional progressive candidates in this race, Kia Hamadanchy and Katie Porter. Katie: "I am furious that Mimi Walters supports Donald Trump’s disastrous tax plan instead of standing up for middle-class families here in Orange County. These devastating tax changes could tilt our entire system even more towards the top 1% at a time when multinational corporations are parking record profits offshore, a handful of top-tier billionaires are getting richer and richer, and when the middle class is getting squeezed by cuts to public education, public health, and other vital social services." And Kia: "Mimi Walters continues her tone-deaf approach in 'representing' the people of California’s 45th District. You can’t even find her back in the district. Given that she doesn’t live here it might just be too inconvenient for her. Instead she is either meeting with lobbyists or in DC rubber stamping whatever Trump wants. Now, she’s championing a disastrous tax plan that would raise taxes on the majority of residents here in the 45th. Even as her conservative colleagues in other vulnerable suburban districts back away from this plan, she refuses to do so. I wish I could say I’m surprised that Mimi is putting the interests of her billionaire donors ahead of the people of our district, but it is just more of the same from Mimi." Either one of these candidates should be able to beat Walters next November and either would make a really good member of Congress.

• Duncan Hunter- R+14 to R+11

50th District-- Inland San Diego County

Our take: Hunter’s solidly Republican district is changing, but not as fast as Issa’s neighboring district. He’s facing potential legal and ethics troubles that will be exploited by his opponents. His seat got a second look as a potential pickup only after it was revealed that the FBI was investigating allegations that he had misused campaign funds. Democrats will give it some attention, and believe the challengers are strong. Odds are this seat stays Republican, but Democrats are on offense in the state and want to be prepared for the unexpected.

He'll be ousted if he's indicted; otherwise not. Issa would like him to resigns he could move to the much safer territory, knowing full well he can't win in his own district. Hunter is a crook but unless he's indicted in the next couple ion months, the Feds will put a prosecution on hold until after the election.

• Devin Nunes- R+10 to R+8

22nd District-- Fresno and Tulare counties

Our take: Despite a bizarre, high-profile fracas in which Nunes gained national fame at the start of the House’s Russian election meddling investigation, this district is very Republican and it’s unlikely most of his constituents will factor in Russia-related notoriety when they go to the polls. Plus, Nunes outran Trump in his district by 16 percentage points in 2016. It would be a very, very good night for Democrats if they were to win here in November 2018.

I'm more optimistic; if the Democrats nominate an inspiring relatable candidate. Andrew Janz is the DCCC fave but he's a hapless very conservative Blue Dog who didn't know what the terms "single payer" or "Medicare-For-All" when I spoke with him back when he first announced. He's the worst candidate I spoke to this cycle anywhere and told me the two issues that motivated him to run were protecting the Second Amendment and the death penalty (as in making sure it's used more frequently). He was more aggressively right-wing than many Republicans I speak to and when I asked him if there's a member of Congress he would model himself on, he immediately answered Jim Costa, the very worst Democrat in the California delegation, the one who votes most frequently with Ryan and Trump. Ricardo Franco looks like a far better choice. This is what he told us this morning:

To local voters here in the Central Valley, Devin Nunes is in more trouble than many would think after his last election results. A strategy that’s all about Russia misses the mark. As a Democratic challenger to Devin Nunes, I can tell you that the harshest criticism of our congressman comes from his fellow Republicans. The discussion of Russia from folks outside the Central Valley focuses too much on his actions rather than his character.  For local voters, it is the latter that is currently under scrutiny.

Those of us that choose to live here have a lot of pride in the Central Valley. From feeding the world, to supporting Fresno State athletics, to being the guardians of our greatest national parks, we are immensely proud of who we are. However, we still have scars we are trying to overcome: deep poverty and stark income inequality. Anytime issues come up in the national media that put us in a negative light, Valley citizens don't take kindly to it.

And that's what irks people about Nunes. It's not that he may be right or wrong, but that he is an anchor to the image of the Central Valley that is dragging us back into the mud of despair. He's not seen as someone who is seasoned politician fighting for something he believes in, but rather as a tool of the party whose only spine is created from the mounds of money poured into him from wealthy donors outside the Central Valley.

The L.A. Times also misses a very important point: the majority of voters are not Republican, but rather "No Party Preference." So how does he keep winning re-election? Despite poor job reviews reflected in low approval ratings of Congress, constituents let him keep his job.

My campaign understands the dynamics of the Central Valley better than any other competitor and, most importantly, understands the issues facing voters here as well. From the deepest red Republicans to the most progressive liberals, there are still things that unite all of us here as proud Valley citizens. Getting that very message out effectively is what is key to winning this election. That's why my campaign leadership team is made up of Valley locals. That's why my campaign has extremely talented volunteers spanning a diversity of race, gender, age, and background that are an army for us to get that message out.

And that's why we'll win this election.  No campaign has more local pride. That's something money can't buy-- and Central Valley citizens know that.

The other 4 candidates the L.A. Times mentions are pretty awful Democrats, but none of them is worth talking about in this context since, unfortunately, all 4 are going to win reelection without much struggle.

I asked Christine Pelosi, a dedicated party activist, a progressive and the daughter of you-know-who, for her take on the L.A. Times story. They should have hired her to write it. She told me she thought they should add these essentials:

1. Volunteer Shifts

Who has a grassroots army willing to walk in the rain, talk to strangers, and open their homes to the campaign? In a climate where CA governor, senate and ballot measures will occupy billions of dollars in TV ads, who has the people power to connect with voters in the precincts? How many phone bank hours and precinct walking hours and house meetings did the campaign log last month? Those metrics tell me where I would send people and dollars.

2. Grassroots Coalitions 

Who built coalitions with the grassroots already mobilizing for universal healthcare, raising wages, immigration, women's rights, civil rights, and environmental justice? More than looking at who's registering as a Democrat look at who is mobilizing with the Democratic candidates. With new groups like sister district and our revolution working with longtime allies like labor unions and Planned Parenthood, Democrats with a more issue-focused call to service campaign will inspire voters to hire us not just fire Republicans. Hot issues like saving the ACA and advancing Medicare for All, free college not massive student loan debt, jobs and careers not gigs without a safety net, criminal justice reform, and fighting climate change not drilling and fracking are top of mind for young people and bring enthusiastic volunteers. Together we saved the ACA with Democratic volunteers and new coalitions of healthcare voters including veterans, people with disabilities, and "little lobbyists" children with complex medical needs taking the lead in saving Medicaid. Candidates who are excited-- not threatened-- by these coalitions will win.

3. War and Peace

Congress has the power to declare war and Trump is threatening military action. Where Congressional candidates stand on sending their constituents to combat and how they receive veterans as voices for peace will loom large. Positions on the use of force and privatizing the VA matter a great deal to military families who are the margin of victory in many swing districts-- and will matter to all voters if Trump leads us into another war. That's probably the biggest wild card.