Israel As Warning...

 

    In the tragedy that is Israel and Gaza are implications the US should be chilled by.

    Israel's intelligence and security failures are rooted in the Netanyahu right wing coalition. His own worst intentions are abetted by extremists in his government. It's a bad mix and they've been on an authoritarian track, trying to weaken the Supreme Court, with too much fixation on West Bank settlers and those issues, as well as staving off what has been a national uprising. Serious distractions and they now recoil from slaughter. They must square it with their personal and national soul that they too are responsible for the brutality and blood bath. They lost focus.

    American Intelligence executives tried to send warnings about activity in Gaza. The Netanyahu coalition's most deadly sin is being so out of alignment with the will of the Israeli majority, caused by the unholy coalition's goal of holding onto power just to have power. Sound familiar?

    Netanyahu's corruption charges were trouble enough, but the extremists he has bedded stained and poisoned a government that more than any has fought to maintain it's existence, legitimacy and it's own worst demons. They were weakened by their own hand and failed at being resolute and alert.

    That almost sounds like a US story.

    A twice impeached, 4 time indicted insurrectionist sociopath liar, who threatens to be a "president of revenge" who will change how America government works could be in a position to be elected. That frightening possibility speaks to the inherent danger in our own nation including the crippled intellect of US citizens with the right to vote and who could find a way to work the electoral college to put a deranged and dangerous man back in office. 

    The MAGA party has poisoned the republican party and has made the US House of Representatives inoperative at a time when our own financial existence and   security demand action. They are breaking the government, with intention. They are weakening us.

     Our national security leaders talk about the instability and ignorance of Trump when he was commander in chief. 

    Scalise and Jordan are men with such repugnant personal flaws that their authoritarian and anti democracy politics have to take second place in why they are too whakadoodle to be House speaker.

    The same anti American forces are trying to undercut aid to Ukraine. I have written previously of an intelligence brief in which I participated shortly after Russia invaded. Intelligence officers from the US, UK, Canada and France said Putin's strategy would be to outlast US and western resolve. He counts on on the US giving up. His agents in the republican party, the insurrectionists and anti democracy caucus are working to stop our assistance of Ukraine. That could be deadly.

    History teaches what happens when an invading force like Russia, or a Hamas, or a Hitler led Germany are not stopped. Posts here 5 and 6 years ago, drawing parallels of the rise of German and Italian fascism to the take over of the Republican party and the rise of the MAGA cult drew criticism from some. I think more people have come around to understanding the warning.

    When we look at Israel, now at war, and at war with itself too, we should see other warning signs. 

    See you down the trail.

Around here...and as always....

Cambria court wash

        April rain is rare on the California central coast, not being an"April showers brings May flowers" kind of place. 

    Blooms begin in February, during the fall and winter rain season. The .7 from this storm put our rain for the year at a little over 16 inches. That's a decent total during a drought year. 

    During our time on Pineridge we've swung from 42 inches to as little as 8. The coastal weather is vulnerable to ocean influence, mountains, and a high atmosphere intrigue called a Pacific Decadal Oscillation. 

          A spring moon on Pineridge may have helped turn on a cactus. Its bloom was dazzling. 

        An Oyster mushroom is back for a third harvest. A kit, given as a Christmas gift produced a batch of mushrooms and a surprising second batch. Even more suprisingly number three volunteered itself.

        Lana's magic in the saute' pan was a fitting, even if a less beautiful disposition of the artful fungus. Delicious! 

         

        As we've begun to return to the more robust style of pre pandemic life, a lot of folks have begun to say they feel aged, or unsettled by the last 2 years. A piece of life was held hostage, and now we attempt to come again to what was before, but we and life itself have been changed by it. 

        The simple rhythm of life has the assurance of normal, while absurdities of the human fall menace from our screens.

     World leaders must task themselves to find a better way to prevent barbarism and aggression and to punish those who perpetrate it.

        American voters certainly are wise to the soulless and ripping attack to the constitutional heart of the American system by the gang of cowards, liars, low-life, hustlers and haters who have stolen or who remain as condonation in the republican party.

        Savoring the quiet life has distracted from the brutality of  war crimes and the attack on our democratic republic.

    

        In volunteer work this week I was fortunate to see lights of human decency. Our capacity to care, to serve and to be about common good is hopeful.

        I'm coming to understand a constant. 

        As we probe more deeply into our majority years, we come upon truths of life in personal and cosmic ways. It is ever so. 

        We see now our good old days were myopic. As old girls and boys we tread in times of war, regressive ideas, uncertainty and threat. They were never far away in our middle years, nor have they ever been in the rise of humanity.

        We are where those before us have been, wondering what is to become of humanity. 

       Life is always on a razor's edge. 

                   

             Always spring comes and hope is alive.

            And there is always dinner....

        Peace

        See you down the trail.

        

         

 

The Cure for Disgust

Iris in Lana's garden 

California poppy by a road side

        I come bearing flowers hoping they have an ameliorative affect. I also violate every standard of story telling by beginning with an apology.

   I am disappointed to have the need to return to the insanity that passes as our political reality. I am sorry. Sorry to intrude on spring, but even more sorry that we endure this democracy threatening episode.

    So as we thread a few stitches of analysis, I hope the flowers from around here on the California central coast assuage your disgust. They have been a joy to this writer. 

    CS Lewis wrote, "Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things-ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption and stupidity." 

    Some degree of fear, therefore, is in order.

wild blooms on path to beach

 

the republican link to terrorism

  

   Before writing this post I participated in a briefing with cyber security experts from the intelligence community, academia and cyber security companies. The primary thrust was the dark web and criminal and national security risks, especially in the light of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident that created gas shortages on the East coast.

    Two of the experts noted that among the most active visitors to portals of the dark web, encryption services and marketplaces selling identities and credentials, are domestic terrorists involved in the insurrection. They are amongst those who propagate the lies and deceptions designed to undermine citizen belief in the credibility of our government and our electoral process.

    When Republicans cared about national security, some of their more zealous would warn that leftists were sewing seeds of doubt in America. They saw it as a Soviet inspired attempt to undermine our beliefs, our system of government, and our faith in our Democracy.

    The recent ex-president spent 4 years pleasing a former Soviet KGB officer by spreading poison about our election process, our media and anyone who dared to challenge his corrupt and complicit, though inept, regime. 

    Trumpism is a disease of the American spirit for which we must find a vaccine, or cure. 

   wild land in bloom

   The Republican party has been recast in his image, thus a party now founded on deception and duplicitous to its core. The test of fealty is to lie.

    With their vow to deceive and their moral bankruptcy it calls into question every legislative action and intent. Joe Biden, Democrats, and the US citizenry needs, and is better, with a loyal opposition that believes in a democratic republic. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy preside over a nest of vipers. They are men without courage or honor. They are enablers. 

    As Republicans in state legislatures change voting laws, a chilling truth emerges; If they were to win control of the House of Representatives there is the highest likelihood they would not certify a Democrat presidential win. 

    They want power at all costs. They refuse to respect American history and tradition. Liz Cheney speaks truth about Trump and what he is doing to America.

      

     layers of texture of spring bloom

   A video, leaked to the media, catches the director of Heritage Action for America, a right wing political action group, bragging about drafting the legislation that states have used in changing voting laws to their favor, 

    "...or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has 'that grassroots, from the bottom up' type of vibe," she said.

    They will spend millions to change state laws to suppress votes, change election rules and election boards. It is a well funded, coordinated right wing effort to take away votes from those who oppose Trumpism, or who are not white. It is part of the authoritarian mindset, out to upend democracy.

    "We literally give marching order for the week ahead," she says on the tape. "We're singing from the same song sheet of the goals for that week where the state bills are across the country."

    The threat to our way of government comes from those who spread or believed the lies, mounted the insurrection, or who aided and encouraged it including most Republican House and Senate members. Republicans on the Hill are doing all they can to avoid an investigation into the worst attack on the Capitol since the British burned it in 1814.**  

   

    echium-pride of madera 

    You probably read of the New York Times investigation about how the right wing Project Veritas ran a scam to try to discredit Lt. General HR McMaster, a Silver Star  combat Veteran. He was the National Security Advisor at the time. Why? The Republican dirty tricksters didn't think he was loyal enough to Trump. A Republican staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee was involved.

    The Trump anti democracy cancer is rampant. Liz Cheney is absolutely correct, Trump and his Republican supporters remain a threat. They diminish the standing of the US on a global measure.

blooms on the back hill

    I expect Trump will be ensnared in legal entanglements in the not too distant future. The brainwashed populism, white supremacist nationalism and deglobalization grievance culture he motivated is up for grabs. There is no shortage of poltroons who have been to pay supplication to the authoritarian would be king, while they hope he is not a bigfoot candidate in '24.

wild bloom ocean side

wild radish in bloom and a thistle

(ranchers hate the thistle but the Scots DNA in me gives it a cheer)

    The use of news clips from the Trump years demonstrate the sheer ineptitude and doltishness. Still those who take their cues from right wing media are stuck in a deceit that has stolen their judgement. 

    That was the theft of the last election, along with the abandonment of honor, and democratic principle. 

    ** In 1856 a pro slavery congressman beat an anti slavery Senator with a cane. Two years later 30 Congressmen got into a fist fight. 

    In 1860 pro slavery advocates threatened anti  slavery congressmen with pistols. 

    Three sticks of dynamite exploded in 1915 in a protest to US help in WW I.  

    In 1954 four Puerto Rican independence supporters fired guns shooting five congressmen who survived. 

    A 1971 bomb did damage but no injury in what was claimed to be a Weather Underground protest of the bombing of Laos. 

    In 1983 a bomb damaged the Senate side in an action by a the Armed Resistance Unit protesting military incursions in Lebanon and Grenada.

    The January 6, 2021 actions of the Trump mob of insurrectionists trying to stop the certification of the election and seeking the assassination of Vice President Pence was the deadliest Capitol assault in history. 138 police officers were injured. 

    Doesn't common sense demand an investigation?

a couple of Lana's orchids

    A little more about the berries. They were harvested from a planter box patch that Lana labored to protect from birds, raccoons and a grandson. We cannot grow strawberries in our ridge gardens as we did in the loamy soil of our Indiana gardens. So those five are a bit of a trophy, though the real champs were those we raised in our truck farm patch in the glacial hills of Morgan County. We had a lot of berries, and that was a good thing because we had to protect them from the birds, raccoons, our daughter Kristin and her lab, Inkie.

    Stay safe. 

    See you down the trail.