SETTING THE WAY FORWARD

getting back on track

     Our democratic republic is so far off track even serious, sober and reasoned people talk about the nation coming unglued. 

      Before we get into that, we pause for some natural remedy and fresh air.

California poppies at the coast

artisan bench at Fiscalini Ranch 

avoiding the rocks

correcting a foundation

     

    I've been driving by one of the older homes on Cambria's main street and wondering if it was going to be moved.  

      It has been jacked up and looked like it was ready for a drive. 

    Instead the old foundation has been removed, a new foundation has been built and the house has been leveled. 

     One of the men working on the crew said it looked as though the old foundation, which he described as very old, had been home made. Over time it began to fail and needed to be replaced.

is there a lesson here?

       I think the work above is a personification of what needs to happen to the American experiment-we need to level our house and shore up our foundational principles.

danger signs

      Endorsed insanity:There have always been extremists and kooks but when someone makes the alt right or liberty caucus look normal that is a signal of how deep a descent we are in.  QAnon is madness, real insanity but it is part of the boutique of Trump supporters. 

        Shameful behavior: Sara Huckabee Sanders refusal to say the media is not the enemy of the people is deplorable and will likely earn her a place of ignominy. I felt bad that she was denied service at a restaurant despite the fact that she is paid to lie and willingly works for a known liar. There may have been worse or more conniving press secretaries, but none come to mind. She may face a fate similar to her predecessor who no one takes seriously. Neither of them have a shred of credibility. But refusing to say what even the President's daughter acknowledged, what all but the most bitter and partisan of Trumpistas say, was a new low for a women already at the bottom.  

        Dangerous Behavior: From the first time I saw candidate Trump vilify and use the media contingent following his campaign I was worried. I've been on the receiving end of politicians scorn. We in the media are used to criticism. But when you get an arena full of angry people and you incite more venom, you are way out of bounds and you are pandering, even baiting violence.

         The most recent episode is chilling. Some of those who were taunting, cursing, gesturing obscenely and making threats looked as though they could and would do violence to people who are simply doing their job, fulfilling one of the roles this nation depends on. The press is in the Bill of Rights and is known as the Fourth Estate, the public's watchdog for scoundrels, despots, cheaters and liars. A force to keep politicians and leaders in check. 

        If you have not seen the clips, I urge you to look it up and imagine yourself in the media compound surrounded by those people.

        Playing with fire: Donald Trump chums the crowd and urges them to behave as poorly as he does. We should not be surprised if some horrible violence occurs. Many in the Trump core-base are angry. Listening to or reading their comments gives evidence they are woefully uninformed, poorly educated and easily led. I may be wrong here, but it seems many of them find a cathartic release for what may be disappointing lives. It is almost a perverted religious connection. The "Your Fired" star flipping off all of their own boogie men and enemies. Like a mob. Like the brown shirts.  

        As noted earlier his term "enemy of the people" is a communist party weapon and is used by dictators and strong men. He uses it intentionally to under cut those who challenge his excesses, his lies and his aberrant behavior.

       Flirting with his own demise:Trump's tweet telling Jeff Sessions he should end the Mueller investigation appears to many people more trained and much smarter than me to be an obvious example of "intent" to obstruct justice. Mueller is trying to learn how and how deeply the Russian government interfered with and/or rigged the election. That is something this nation must know. That Trump team mates have been indicted or have pled guilty only underscores why the president wants the investigation to stop. He's tried to discredit it from the beginning as he tries to discredit the media.

         The media is not perfect and errors can be made, but they are our best hope as they have been for more than 200 years to challenge, contest and adversarially try to keep the foundation of the republic level.

          Donald Trump is a horrible person. That he is a Russian stooge is evident. That he has no decorum, no sense of decency has been his life long biography. He has acted like a traitor. We need to know if he in fact colluded with the government that he gave secrets to and with whom he met privately. The Trump presidency is a disease and we need only pay a moments attention to learn how much sicker he is making this democratic republic. 

          See you down the trail.

Paying Attention

natural remedies

    Offering a few seasonal scenes from Cambria as an antidote to the rumbling madness that angers and depresses.

         This post is dedicated to responsible fathers, especially Karl W. Cochrun. A WWII veteran with a life long interest in politics and public policy. He often invoked the famous quote "I may disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."

       A pretty scene and a few deep breaths before we rally our senses and better angels.

maybe we should leave angels out of this

     

      Jeff Sessions may wish he never pushed his luck by invoking the words of Paul in defending the evil of taking children from their parents.

       Others have also mistakenly appropriated those words; those who defended slavery, advocates of segregation, proponents of apartheid in South Africa, supporters of Nazism, and those who would deny church and communion to people who are LGBTQ. It is counterfeit Christianity and in the past few days more complete reading and interpretation  of what Paul said about love, hospitality and the fulfillment of law from those with Ph.Ds and Th.Ds. and years of pastoring negate the preposterous attempt to defend US barbarism. It  exposed Session's malevolent intent. 

        I don't mean to invoke a theological debate as this nation, like this readership, has divergent views, but weaponizing words of faith is the work of bigots, judgmental zealots and tyrants. Trying to explain an awful policy in the context of the will of God is just one more warning sign.

we are seeing shadows of history

      Republican Senator Bob Corker said it is becoming a "cultish thing."

        Author Dana Milbank made it more pointed saying it isn't religion but a perversion. He adds "It is not the creed of a democratic government or a political party but an authoritarian cult."

        As I write this I see the faces of people I know and friends, who out of desperation or hope for a change, anger, or contempt for other candidates, cast votes for Trump. They are "my surrogate" for the minority of Americans who voted for him and who still support him. They are the blood line of Trumpism.

        I can't imagine any of them expected this sort of thing. As example, in the week their president staged a photo op non substantial "summit" paying homage to one of the world's despots, getting nothing in return, his attorney general tried to justify unAmerican behavior misquoting the Bible. Let me check something, the North Koreans issued a statement they have issued several times since the 90's and did promise to return remains of Americans killed in the Korean War. But even here, the Trumpism stain is evident. 

      Trump said that during the campaign many parents of GI's killed in Korea asked him to get their sons returned. It's another instance of this delusional man's lies. Those parents, if their GI kids were 18, and they were 18 when they gave birth, would be 104 now. Of course most of the Korean vets were older, and so would be their parents.
    

it is bad health to ignore warning signs

      Trump is a serial liar who will get away with it for as long as those who voted for him continue to ignore the warning signs.
       It is no wonder aids and staff are quitting. 51% of those who have worked for him have resigned. That is a warning sign. 

       Almost every respected conservative thinker, writer and analyst is reviled by the damage he is doing. Some of his own party call him a traitor, a Russian stooge, a corrupt grifter getting rich off the Presidency. You would expect his supporters to ignore such charges from Democrats or liberals, but not from people like George Will, Charles Krauthamer, and others.

       Some of you were quite critical when I wrote there are similarities between Trump and Trumpism and dictators and their followers including Hitler. Nothing has dissuaded me. This man who former Republican Presidents, cabinet officers, military leaders and intelligence chiefs said was "unfit and unqualified" is getting worse, abusing the American way and our sense of justice. It is frightening so many are blind to what is taking place. 

the cultish thing

      Consider what Milbank wrote

       But a cult, by definition, is not about mainstream theology. I looked up characteristics of cults in the sociological literature to see how Trump’s stacks up. 

□ “Presents a distinct alternative to dominant patterns within the society in fundamental areas of religious life.” Grab ’em by the p---y!

□ “Possessing strong authoritarian and charismatic leadership.” I alone can fix it!

□ “Oriented toward ‘inducing powerful subjective experiences.’ ” Alternative facts. Fake news!

□ “Requiring a high degree of conformity.” See: Flake, Jeff and Sanford, Mark. 

□ A tendency “to see itself as legitimated by a long tradition of wisdom or practice.” It is very biblical to enforce the law. 

Check, check, check, check and check.

           And members of the Cult of Trump, formerly known as the GOP, follow him over the cliff and onto the spaceship. They swallowed their heretofore pro-life, pro-family and pro-faith views to embrace Trump’s travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries (“Such blatant religious discrimination is repugnant,” said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and applaud him tossing paper towels at Puerto Ricans as they died by the thousands because they didn’t get adequate hurricane relief. 

        They’ve joined his efforts to shred food, income and health programs that help the least among us while giving tax cuts to the wealthiest. They’ve accepted his abandonment of human rights abroad. They’ve joined his attempt to end family-based immigration and to threaten deportation of “dreamers,” immigrants brought here as children.

It appeared, briefly, that things might be different this time. House Republicans drafted legislation allowing children to be detained with their parents. But Trump on Friday signaled that he would veto the bill, and, as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said this week, the “last thing I want to do is bring a bill out of here that I know the president won’t support.” This is the way of the cult. 

          Will the vivid cruelty of taking babies from parents, coupled with the obscene use of Scripture to justify it, finally lead some Trump supporters to abandon the compound? God knows.

       Isn't there a breaking point somewhere? I would hope those who thought Trump was sane, honest, committed to  hearing and helping them will wake up and realize he is out only for himself, as he has always been. He lied to you to get your vote.
     

see something, say something

     He may well be the low point in Presidential history and he may have damaged two centuries of nationhood. I think that as a man he is scum. As a leader he is at best a divider. At worst he acts like a traitor, a tyrant, a Russian stooge and an narcissistic bully who trusts only himself ignoring even his own appointed advisors. Please remember one of the smartest men he appointed called the president a "fucking moron!"  When, for heavens sake, will people wake up?

    We often wondered how in the world German people could permit the rise of their great evil cult of Nazism. I fear we are seeing history repeat itself. People refuse to believe the truth or they make excuses, the most common being he's just shaking up things or the media is out to get him.      
     Taking babies from parents and saying it is the will of God is only the latest warning sign that those specters from the past are looming over our future. Trumpism is anti American.
      Traditional Republicans need to rise up, and Democrats need to be much better. Some where, some way between them we need to regain our senses and stop the perversion of America and destroy "this cultish thing" of Trumpism.
      Sorry to bore you with more of this, or to beat this maybe dead horse, but I hope it helps to open eyes. And I want my daughters and grand children to know that we all have a voice and if we want our voices to remain free and be a part of a chorus in this democratic republic we have to take it seriously and to be diligent. This gang is bad for the US and its bad for the world. 
     How much difference is there between Trumpism and Nazism? Both seek to silence critics and undermine the credibility of science, intellectual study, journalism. They would not defend the right of someone who disagrees. My father would be ready for a fight, not unlike the one he gave years of his life to, to stop Nazism that was left unchecked by German citizens.

     See you down the road.

     

       

Sanctuary

     Sanctuary is a voluble topic in California, taken seriously and now it's a fighting word.

      The trump administration is suing California, Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Xavier Becerra because of three California laws. The Sanctuary laws restrict how state and local law enforcement  may interact with federal immigration agents. 
      The Feds say the California Values Act and the Immigrant Worker Protection act are a deliberate attempt to hamper enforcement of federal immigration law. Brown says the  state laws protect the progressive attitudes that California embodies.
      The US vs. California on immigration, and other issues too, is a demarcation line. Relative to your view of course, California stands on the side of progress and modernity while the trump minions like Jeff Sessions represent regressive views and attitudes.
      Jerry Brown calls the trump lawsuit "a political stunt." He adds, "It's not about the truth. It's not about protecting our state. It's about diving America."
       Divisive pandering is what won trump the republican nomination. 
       California lives with one foot in the future and for that reason has been a cultural force and attitude determinate since mid 20th Century. 
       Then there is Jerry Brown's straight speaking. In defending the laws passed by the California legislature he said,  "These Laws do not protect criminals.  We have millions of of people here who are here without papers and some of them have been working for 10, 15, 20 years. They've been servicing the economy. A lot of them have been doing the dirty work, whether it's washing dishes, or picking the fruit and now the attorney general is basically initiating a reign of terror."
        ACLU executives spoke about the Bill of Rights at a Dinner Fellowship meeting this week and the conversation turned to sanctuary and the attendant issues.
       Could a group, a church or organization of some structure, provide sanctuary as an extension of the right to free speech and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? The logic here is to list unfair ICE enforcement or the enabling laws as the grievance and the establishment of a sanctuary as the act of the petition or the exercise of the free speech?
        It gave the ACLU exec pause who said that kind of civil disobedience carried with it the risk of jail. 
        Jail for doing civil disobedience is a staple of American history and our path toward a fuller realization of liberty, freedom and the democracy component of our democratic republic. The suffragettes, the protests of veterans and most notably the lunch counter sit in and protest era of the civil rights movement.
         Out here in the California Republic millions believe ICE, under trump and Sessions, is behaving like a gestapo. Sanctuary spaces are a way of fighting back.
       I spoke with an activist pastor who said when a church decides to create a sanctuary they also assume responsibility for the person or persons; housing, food, and all forms of support because if someone seeking refuge were to leave they would be subject to arrest. Churches are doing it.
      America 2018 and we are possessed of vastly different ideas of how to live together. When I read cases of good people, beloved by their community, tax payers, fully employed, parents, Sunday school teachers, and the like who have been here for 15 to 25 years being shackled and deported, I cannot help but to reflect on how my ancestors were part of the underground railroad that helped slaves escape. I am a descendent of one of the earliest abolitionists.
They violated bad laws that needed changing. They were changed, after effort. 
      If it were all left to regressives like Sessions and trump and their sycophants we might still have slavery markets. 

     a flashback future

    This is from Kyle Communications blog/newsletter.  The Kyle is Kyle Niederpruem who founded a public relations, communications management and content company. I first met Kyle when she was a dogged, diligent and soon to be an award winning newspaper reporter. She was the best of old school journalism. Watching her career and the embrace of communications culture has been a kind of bellwether of how culture has changed. Kyle is still on point and leading the way. Here's link to her site.

on the march

       Dave Congalton is a California central coast radio icon and host of an issues centered interview program. He's also a screen writer and former college professor. I substitute hosted for him one day recently and featured Dawn Addis, a founder of the Women's March out here. The next horizon event for the Women's March movement is The March for Our Lives, an outgrowth of the most recent school slaughter.

      I first covered US protests back in the era of the civil rights movement and then the anti war movement. How could we not be impressed by the millions of Americans who marched after the election and then on the first anniversary.

     This is a wave in American politics that is a high surf. And now I am stunned by the articulate and emphatic intelligence of the school kids who are in our face, as they should be. Dawn, and women like her across the nation, are mentoring and this generation is impressive.  They are not really millennials who were born from the mid 90's to 2000. I interviewed Rutik, an 18 year old, who has grown up in the age of mass slaughter. That chilling reality gives them a unique perspective and we owe it to them to listen. More importantly we need to do a better job of protecting them. Rutik was quick to say they are different and will behave differently, and will not take the same old tired rhetoric from politicians. A high surf indeed.

    See you down the trail.

FOOLS

corrupt? stupid?

 both?

    The mob of fools who are the trump administration seem hell bent on being the nethermost boundary of incompetence in American history.

     One senses the gravity when the old war horse Charlie Rose asks, "do we face a constitutional crisis?" Constitutional crisis! The least qualified, least experienced and least fit president has done so much to unglue and desecrate two centuries of American tradition and history it is as though what parades before us is a perverse cartoon, with life altering impact. In 5 months he's brought us to the point where the Rose question is valid.

     Jefferson Sessions luckily escaped his racist past to get the job of Attorney General. In reading the power tea leaves he assessed his own involvement in the trump campaign and the chilly Russian winds and he recused himself from any involvement in any current or future investigation of the Russian invasion of American politics. That he did until he asked the president to fire the man who was directing this nation's investigation into the Russian intrigue. By calling for FBI Directory Comey's dismissal, Sessions may well have obstructed justice, complicit with the fool who is our likely illegitimate president. Yes, crisis is a good word. 

      This gaggle of swamp dwellers, aside from being colossal fools and would be tin horn dictators, are liars. They are liars of profound proclivity. And they act as though they can say they will recuse themselves and then foul the constitution by firing the FBI director or promise to release their taxes and never do so, etc. 
      You may debate Comey's role in the presidential election or his personality, but the man is due a modicum of respect if for no other reason than his position and his years of service. The manner of his firing is a disgrace and the sure sign of a coward. Donald Trump dissed not only the Director but all of the men and women of the FBI.

       

     This is gut check time for Republicans. Will they put party interests over that of the nation and let Trump snuff out the investigation into the Russian invasion of American politics? 
      It is time for an independent prosecutor or investigation.
      A dear friend of mine keeps asking, "Why aren't we rioting in the streets?"

behold the fava

      You may recall an earlier post on our bountiful fava bean crop. Here's the follow-up report.

     There are still a few beans left, but Lana harvested most of them.

       They are extraordinarily labor intensive. Getting them out of the outer shell is step 1

      Here is where fava fans begin to differ. I'm told Italian and English preference is to use the bean with the outer cellulose packaging. The French like to liberate the essential bean, and that means more work. We prefer the French method. The discarded inner husk is on the left. The free bean on the right.

    Hours later, the harvested, shucked, shelled beans are packaged for freezing. We have our favorite recipes, but that is for another post. 

      See you down the trail.

WHEN TRUTH IS ON THE WIND

    Fixated on a kite in the breeze we can often forget about the person pulling the strings, down below.

     It's like a puppet master. Maybe it's a bit like Washington. While we are rightly fixated on the Russian intrigues look what's happening over here-in the House.

    Perhaps you have seen a list of House Resolutions that have been introduced-reminding you in the process that Republicans who introduced these pieces of legislation, control the House, Senate and White House.

     There are bills to :

• terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
• terminate the Department of Education
• defund Planned Parenthood 
• criminalize abortion
• provide vouchers for public education
• repeal the Affordable Care Act
• National Right to Work Law-getting rid of unions
• mobilize against sanctuary cities
• repeal wildlife protection

    At the risk of being pedantic, it's like this--

  teaching a child to never turn their back on the ocean-you just never know.

  circus trumpus!

   One of the great headlines about Attorney General Jefferson Sessions

 IF SESSIONS HAD NOTHING TO HIDE THEN 

WHY DID HE HIDE IT?

     I'm curious to know why he lied, under oath? I also want to know what his fellow Senators are going to do about it?

      If a Democrat would have done this, Fox News, Republicans and Conservatives would all be in a cardiac wing or cleaning their brains off the stratosphere. That's only a toe in this swamp.

how this administration resembles 
a trash dumpster

• Russians hacked and intruded into the American electoral system
• The web of contacts of the Trump administration with the Russian government of Putin is both weird and wide
• Trump expresses fondness of Putin, has done business with Russians and is opposed to justified sanctions against the Russians
• The President, his former national security advisor, attorney general, former campaign manager, son-in-law adviser and others have all demonstrated an inability to tell the truth about their Russian connections
• The President ordered a raid in Yemen despite intelligence it was not a good idea 
• When the raid ended in the death of an American and the loss of expensive equipment he called it a success
• When the military and intelligence said the raid failed to get good intelligence Trump blamed the Generals
• Every President has always accepted blame for a failed operation except Trump
• Reich minister Bannon is at war with Secretary of State Tillerson and the Trump children/advisers Ivanka and Kushner
• Completely without documentation Trump says his phones were tapped by the Obama administration

russia house

   There are many things to know about the Russian-Trump connection. Investigations are underway and this scandal in the new administration will not go away. Will it bring down this regime? Too early to know. But in the short run Americans deserve to know why all the contact and what were they talking about? 

     Why did the Trump organization have so many contacts with the Russians? It is without precedent-but everything about this gang of ideologues, amateurs, egoists, nationalists and white supremacists is without precedent. 

     Diverting attention and shouting lies, as they have and will do, won't stop the  professionals who are digging deeply into the Trump-Putin love fest. 

     There's never been an administration so troubled and scandal ridden, even before the boxes are unpacked.

republican ethic/morality

    Americans are waiting for more Republicans to acknowledge the President and his team are either corrupt, morons, or both but who got lucky with unhappy people and with those who truly are deplorable. 

    The trumpistas have already begun to screw the unhappy Americans, but Republicans could build an infrastructure and jobs creation program and do those people, and themselves, some good. They could, if they wished to. 
    There seems nothing to do with the true deplorables except to send them back to their racist, bigoted undrained swamps or they could take that group of haters and make them a brigade to send to Syria.

    In the meantime Rand Paul almost gets arrested for demanding that fellow republicans show him a copy of the so called new health care plan. Surely they have one. How many hundred times did House Republicans try to overturn the ACA? 

    So while the President is demonstrating ways he can be a maniac his party is starting to bludgeon itself and stumble over opportunity to do something except take pot shots. A couple of Senators have shown an interest in taking on the crazy Trump. 
    The House is another matter. Paul Ryan is looking for a spine. Maybe the far right wing can get their bearings by opening another Benghazi probe. Or go after Hillary's e-mails again. Or just maybe they could show a little of that vitriol and vigor by investigating the failed Yemen raid, or the Russian hack of the election or the lying Attorney General, or Mike Pence's Hillary disease-the e-mail indiscretions when he was governor, or the GOP could go after the lying...well you get the point....

trump land the movie

    I hope we all live long enough to see the movie and to read the books about this era. Can't you just imagine how writers and historians will play this. 

   Maybe in a movie those of you who voted for Trump will be able to find a good support group to help you get over it. Yes, you were fed up or ignored or unhappy but look what you did. It's like a "last call romance." You were in a bar for too long had too much to drink, and went home with someone only to wake up the next morning in a junk yard bed sleeping with rats and a goat. Your clothes were gone except your Make America Great Again shirt, that had been translated into Russian.

     By the way Republicans, you still have time to save your own reputations for the books, movies and real history. Mitch McConnell, even you could be admired if maybe you could convince the Donald to take you by the hand and just dance off the top of the Washington monument. Now is that a movie ending? Poor taste? How can you tell anymore? 

   See you down the trail.