We have a serious addiction problem in this country. I am not talking about heroin or opioids. While these are serious, I am talking about something much more dire; our politicians addiction to big money. While drug addiction hurts individuals, money addiction causes politicians to make choices which benefit the wealthy few, at the expense of the rest of us. This is occurring at all levels of government and is leading our nation to disaster.

What can Californians do? Contact your representatives and tell them to vote for the CA clean money bill (AB 14, the new California DISCLOSE Act Introduced by Assemblymembers Jimmy Gomez and Marc Levine!).

Let your representatives know that if they don’t clean up their acts and vote for AB14, you will be voting them out in favor of someone who will.

For more info visit the California Clean Money website

We are witnessing the beginning of a cult of personality at the highest levels of our government.

Control of all government appointments is being held to a tiny group of Trump insiders (Bannon and Kushner) who have run roughshod over the requests of cabinet-level secretaries and who are well along in centralizing all decision-making in their hands, hands which are racist, radical and dangerous.

Even appointees with high levels of skill and expertise are being snubbed (Sec. Defense Mattis has already threatened to resign based on resistance to his requests from the White House cabal; Gen McMaster has also been sidelined).

Since Trump appears to care only about benefiting Trump our country is now in the position of a company taken over by vulture capitalists. These hyenas will be selling off our country for parts and on the cheap unless we can rise up and force them to respect the wishes of the great majority by actively opposing their evil oligarchy.

A letter from a fervent Trump supporter dated June, 2026

Dear ex-President Trump

I just wanted to thank you for having made America so great again. I no longer need a cable TV subscription since I can watch the Walking Dead on any street corner. Your gutting of health care means that most lower income people can’t afford any health insurance at all and the resulting casualties are staggering around before dropping from loathsome diseases, their iPhones lying at their feet.

In a clever stroke your enthusiasm for deregulating fossil fuels means that those who fail to drop from the aforesaid loathsome diseases are displaying teratogenic abnormalities from the toxic effects of pollution of our air, water and food. And your cuts to the research budgets mean that the flow of new drugs has stopped, leaving even the rich to suffer the deadly effects, thereby opening up new spaces in the 1%. Way to go Mr. Trump.

I have to go now to visit bankruptcy court, since my three children are all in need of critical care. Thanks for making America all that it can be for those who can afford to live in the zones with filtered air and water (only open to those making $100 million and above).

Sincerely,

A big fan

We are seeing the opening phases of the actual top priority for the current administration.

Canceling the Clean Power Plan and gutting fuel economy standards and California emissions waivers are the first salvo in convincing fossil fuel investors that nothing will ever impact the value of their investments.

The fossil fuel oligarchs have been terrified that rational concerns would prevail, that much of their toxic resources (coal, oil) would have to be abandoned and left in the ground to avert climate catastrophe. This would result in a huge drop in their stock portfolios. Instead they can now keep up the illusion that climate change is “no big thing”, that costly (to them) emergency measures are not now (and never will be) required.

While this is terrible news for the planet and our grandchildren, it provides for rich returns to the evil oligarchs at the core of this conspiracy.

And Putin (who controls Russia’s oil and its oligarchs) is laughing all the way to the bank.

We seem to have solved most of the easy problems. Ships no longer run aground on unseen underwater rocks (thanks, GPS). Hurricanes no longer destroy entire regions without warning (thanks, satellites). And communications now move at the speed of light, not the speed of a trotting horse (thanks, technology industry).

But where we struggle is in seeking to distribute the gains arising from our understanding and control of nature to benefit all, not just the wealthy few. Unless and until we provide the means for people to share in the bounty created by modern technology, we can expect the decline in civility and respect for shared institutions to continue unabated.

 

The party currently in control of our government needs a new name. I propose Rape-public-ans.

They are raping our environment; air, water and land. They are raping the middle class and poor by cutting vital safety net and health care services in order to enrich billionaires and wealthy corporations. They are raping our shared heritage by attempting to privatize education, national parks and monuments.

Let’s hope our nation’s political immune systems can reject these insidious attacks on our democracy’s health and our people’s well-being.

A website (www.nonesoblind.org) was set up during the Bush administration years to warn of the evil forces driving that dark Republican cabal, a cabal which included Dick Cheney and other nefarious characters.

Andrew Schmookler highlighted the weakness of liberals in not defending enlightenment values against these dark forces. He said that liberals seemed unwilling to admit that evil existed in the world and that the Good required stout hearts to defend it.

Fast forward to 2017 and evil is more entrenched than ever. Deals with foreign enemies to attain power;  destructive environmental actions; attempts to destroy a free press all point to the disorder loved by the dark forces, a chaos which threatens to darken our world irreversibly.

I encourage those interested in opposing the evil at the top of our national power structure to learn from the wisdom of Andrew Schmookler which can be reviewed here:

Andrew Bard Page
and here:
Take Action

A new TV series, Taboo is set in early 19th century England. It highlights the grip that the massive tentacles of the nefarious East India Company had on the world. It was the first multi-national corporation. Its power rivaled that of the English king, it fielded its own army, and its leaders were totally ruthless in their fierce pursuit of more power.

It seems that no matter how much time passes, in every generation men arise with the same greed and ruthless will to power. We dumped the tea of the East India Company into the harbor two hundred years ago. Now it looks like we must resist again and repel the takeover of power by these corporate tyrants once more. The tree of liberty is currently being attacked at its roots. Patriots must rise up everywhere to protect her or lose the freedoms we have enjoyed since the first American Revolution.

We are engaged in a battle for the soul of our country. Over the last forty years a sinister ideology of neoliberal “free market” capitalism has taken hold of our economic and political elites.

This ideology cares nothing about our national values, but values only what can be converted to private wealth. It does not care for individual human beings like you and me, but only what can be enslaved or exploited in the search for ever more wealth at any cost.

I propose a new mantra to resist this insidious creeping death-force. At future rallies, display “4OurRights”, This harks back to the four freedoms of FDR (including freedom from want and fear and freedom of speech and religion). These freedoms are the antithesis of what all fascists (including our current Fascist-in-Chief) seek, and what our forefathers found worth fighting and dying for.

Which side are you on?

A recent TV documentary with Simon Schama features a harrowing closing scene in which the narrator is standing in a shallow pond at Auschwitz which contains the ashes of countless concentration camp victims.

He picks up a handful of the terrible ash and explains that this is what happens when a government is completely certain that it has the only truth.

I fear that the ongoing assaults on the press and the delivery of false information by the current Administration are actually steps toward that terrible ash. Our government serves the people and must not disinform them by shutting down our free press in service to a radical regressive agenda.