Open Thread time! And there’s never a dull moment in Orange County (at least, if you’re easily amused.) Here is a little flotsam and jetsam from the last few days that you may want to sound off about!

1

WHO’S THAT DANDY? (Who’s that dandy, lovely dandy…)

Why, it’s Republican politician Matt Harper! Remember him? He was assemblyman for a couple terms until Cottie Petrie-Norris beat him; before that he was on Huntington Beach Council, where he got to be Mayor once or twice like most of their councilmen do. Funny, when he first ran for assembly a lot of us were “At least we’ll get him off the Council, kick him upstairs to Sacramento where he can’t do any harm” – and that’s exactly what we’ve been saying 8 years later about crazy Gracey Van Der Mark!

And in a surefire popcorn-necessitating portent of an OCGOP civil war, Matt has just jumped into the 72nd AD race against Gracey. Hardcore MAGA, unstable, race-obsessed, sex-obsessed nightmare of the HB Library Gracey, who just last week OCGOP chief Will O’Neill crowned “the presumptive front-runner,” with a quick endorsement from Scott Baugh and a Cunningham press-release. Harper I suppose represents the more establishment wing of the Party, and I wonder if Will knew this was coming. The malignant little warthog will have to take a side!

I knew Matt back in the day, part rightwing ideologue mixed with kleptocrat. On the one hand he was ruthlessly hostile to public employees cuz that was the OCGOP thing back in the Scott Baugh days ten years ago; but on the other hand he was SO enthusiastic about the Poseidon desal boondoggle and would always giggle with his gleamy eyes about how he loved this Ricky Raindrop character when he was a schoolkid. We were slightly friendly though during the noble, doomed, bipartisan struggle against Toll Lanes on the 405.

So, what’s best for Democrats, progressives, independents, regular people? I’m sure the Democrats will put up somebody, last time it was reality TV personality Dom Jones, who lost by 19 points to incumbent Diane Dixon. If anyone listened to me, we don’t need another Democrat in the assembly, or to waste money on that race – rather we should let the Dandy and the Loonie battle it out and waste Republican money.

We would like Gracey to make it through the June ’26 primary, so she’s at least off the HB Council. But that’s just me, this is an open thread, what do you think? And Matt, give me a call! [hat-tip Allen Wilson]

2

We’ve been discussing Tammy Kim’s considerable legal troubles (What, you can’t lie about your residence any more? I thought this was OC!) we’ve been discussing them OVER HERE, since we first heard about it from Neshanian. I figured Dan would be all over it before I got home from work, as his blog has been Hate-Tammy-Central for a few years. And sure enough, he quickly followed up his first Tammy story with a second one (in Dan’s grand PURGE tradition) calling down shame and pain on anyone who’d ever backed the lady! That’s what she gets, from Dan, for taking on Larry Agran!

“What Did You Know And When Did You Know it?” – such a way with words!

I always took it easy on Tammy, and NOT just because she comes to my concerts, but I figured if Dan, Matt, Larry Agran, Farrah, Strader and LiveNation all hate you, you must be doing something right. But apparently the days of residence-lying in Spitzer’s OC are over – at least if you’re a Democrat.

Best of luck to the Tamster, hope she pulls through without any jail time, and everyone pay attention and stop lying about your residence when you run for office! The GOP’s infantile Willie O’Neill, noticing that three Democrats had been in trouble with the law in recent years, quickly whipped up a meme:

Still though – one DUI, chest-bumping an old guy, and faking a residence – that’s not all that Punk, Willie. I think – once they get out of prison – Andrew Do, Harry Sidhu and Amy Pham West could make a much more hardcore band. “The Bribe-tones” maybe. There’s probably a better name out there…

3

If the 40th Congressional District needed one more reason to vote out smooth liar Young Kim, she has given it to us, when she cast THE DECIDING VOTE Thursday in favor of Trump’s Project 2025’s “Big, Beautiful, Murderous Bill.” The count was 215-214, it passed by one vote, so yeah, you could say EVERY Republican who voted for it was the deciding vote, but Young Kim lied, repeatedly and emphatically, saying she would vote no on any bill that cut Medicaid, so fuck it she’s the deciding vote and she’s gotta go.

In fact her lie is still up on line, right here:

“I want to be very clear that I understand how important Medicaid is for many in our community to access health care services. As this process moves forward, I will continue to make clear that a budget that does not protect vital Medicaid services for the most vulnerable…will not receive my vote.”

And she knew before she voted that this bill would take away Medicaid, take away medical coverage, for 10.3 million people. Were the words above “for the most vulnerable” intended as weasel words? Whatever, she took away medical coverage for tens of thousands of her constituents, and none of them are invulnerable, and that was just one of many ways this bill steals from the 99% to enrich the wealthy. She did get the one thing she wanted out of the bill – the SALT deduction, for rich Californians who thought they were paying too much state AND federal taxes. Well, THOSE people can vote for her if they want, but Young Kim has to go.

I worry though, about ALL THESE DEMOCRAT WOMEN lining up to run against her. Five of them so far, plus Joe Kerr? You think a certain sneaky Fire Hero has something to do with this, and 2026 is gonna look just like 2024? Hope not, Young Kim has to go.

4

This is a picture of Santa Ana Congressman Lou Correa during the January 6, 2021 attacks. By all accounts he behaved bravely that day, defending his colleagues while blowhards like Josh Hawley were running away like young stags. Later that day we saw videos of him standing up to insurrectionists at the airport, in bold contrast to Lindsey Graham cowering behind all his security.

But this year, during Trump’s lawless excesses, Lou says we should “keep our heads down,” not “draw attention to ourselves.” Hopefully this too shall pass, I guess is the idea. On May 6 Santa Ana Mayor Valerie Amezcua ridiculed her fiery progressive colleagues for “beating their chests” and affirmed over and over that she’s “not running scared, she’s just SMARTER than them,” and claimed “Even Lou Correa said we should keep our heads down” so that maybe the Orange Abomination, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan just sort of forget that Sanctuary City Santa Ana exists, and don’t take away any funding as punishment.

That part about Lou got my attention, it got Igmar’s attention, and it got Norberto Santana’s attention, who wrote a long Voice piece about it, getting Lou on the record. Worth reading! I can see the arguments on either side, but it doesn’t feel very American to keep your head down and hope Trump just goes away.

We had been wondering why Lou, unlike Dave Min and Mike Levin, has NOT HELD ANY TOWN HALLS. We’d been wondering why he went to El Salvador last year for proud dictator Bukele’s inauguration, and shouldn’t that mean he could help bring some wrongly imprisoned people like Kilmar back? We’d wondered why he’s voted with Republicans against his own state’s anti-pollution measures.

But I’m tired of complaining about Lou; I already tried to help two different progressives challenge him in previous years, now I just try to get along with him. Someone on Facebook the other day (reminding me of past me) was all “Why is this conservative, cautious guy, representing such a Blue district, can’t we primary him?” and immediately folks from the DPOC were all “Don’t pick on Lou, he’s SO GOOD ON IMMIGRATION! You should go after Young Kim instead!”

And now they’re trying to get rid of David Hogg as DNC vice-chair for suggesting we Democrats can do better than some of the folks we have in solidly blue districts. For suggesting that “ineffective” Democrats could stand to be primaried. I met David a couple a years ago at a DPOC fundraiser. I wonder if he’d-a been welcome there if they knew how dangerous he was. He wouldn’t-a kept his head down (unless it was at a school shooting.)

This was a great song in the 70’s, but I’m worried some Democrats want to change the words to

“Hold your head down, whoa,
Hold your head down, whoa,
Hold your head down, whoa,
Hang your head low!”

But wait, there’s more!

Just got an e-mail from Chris Duncan, the insider Democrat, sometime San Clemente Mayor, and assembly candidate who lost twice to the awful Laurie Davies, and now he says he is running for BoE. Oh wait. I thought he meant was the next one to go after Lisa Sparks on the Board of Education. But I guess he’s talking about the Board of Equalization. Okay, that’s not very interesting.

But this is. A little:

.Israel Claustro . .

. Baytieh . .

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