Blog Archives

January 18 – 24, 2023

Highlights this week:

BRATTON… Downtown Santa Cruz, Cotoni-Coast National Monument,  City Manager Matt Huffakers salary, GREENSITE…no power, no column. STEINBRUNER…no power, no column. HAYES…some Cotoni-Coast Dairies reflections. PATTON…Talking with Tom. MATLOCK… smokescreens and spirits in the dark. EAGAN…Subconscious Comics and Deep Cover WEBMISTRESS’…pick of the week. QUOTES…”FLOODS”

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RAILROAD WHARF & SEA BEACH HOTEL. That’s the Sea Beach Hotel just behind the two story building with the horse and buggy in front. The hotel was built as a great tourist attraction and hope in 1888 then burned down in 1912.

photo credit: Covello & Covello Historical photo collection.

Additional information always welcome: email bratton@cruzio.com

DATELINE January 16

NEW YEARS ISSUES. Aside from the hundreds of problems our rains have caused and will continue to create…two issues keep me concerned over and above flooding problems. The first and for me the most important is how and what Mayor Fred Keeley will do to bring much needed life (business) to our downtown. Pacific Avenue has never looked so desolated, not even after the earthquake. It would seem that working with the Downtown Association and even the Chamber of Commerce the costs and hazards of owning and operating a business on Pacific would and could be more rewarding.

Second is the rapidly approaching takeover of Davenport and adjacent lands by the Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument. Go to their site and check out the scope and sheer size of this “monument”. I’ve addressed this before many times but the expected car traffic on our narrow Highway 1, the 500 car parking lot, just the impact of such a huge threat to the wild life that roams there makes me wonder why more objections haven’t changed any government plans. Once again I say that new County Supervisor Justin Cummings who has responsibility for that area has a lot of work and calculating to do.

CITY MANAGER MATT HUFFAKER’S SALARY. Last week in BrattonOnline while wondering what’s going to happen with our current City Council and the la tee dah ladies under Mayor Fred Keeley I mentioned  that our current City manager Matt Huffaker had a salary of $22,199 PER WEEK!! I’m grateful to all the readers who pointed out my egregious error. Its $22,199 PER MONTH. In checking up just to make sure I found….”I’m very humbled and excited to have the opportunity to serve as Santa Cruz’s next City Manager. Santa Cruz has tremendous opportunities before it, and I look forward to working with the Council, community and City staff to advance the many important initiatives underway. I think my local experience and established regional partnerships will allow me to hit the ground running. I’m ready to get to work,” said Huffaker. Huffaker will assume the role of City Manager effective Jan. 3, 2022″. (That’s $266,388 per year or $5,123 per week!!)

I search and critique a variety of movies only from those that are newly released. Choosing from the thousands of classics and older releases would take way too long. And be sure to tune in to those very newest movie reviews live on KZSC 88.1 fm every Friday from about 8:10 – 8:30 am. on the Bushwhackers Breakfast Club program hosted by Dangerous Dan Orange.

THE PLAYLIST. (NETFLIX SERIES) (7.5 IMDB). A dramatized story of what happened to the music business after and during the time CD’s were popular. How Spotify grew, who Sony made and lost millions, and most importantly how the recording artists make money. It’s a Swedish movie and will keep you surprised referring to the vicious music business and how it works.

THE KINGS OF THE WORLD. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (7.3 IMDB). Five teen agers in Colombia decide to take a very long trip to seek their friend’s inherited property. The camera work is near perfect, the acting is right on and the relationships between the five boys is at least meaningful.

BROKER. (DEL MAR THEATRE) (7.1 IMDB). Deep and meaningful this Korean film goes deep into the adopted baby business in Korea. It details the love, the disrespect, the care all humans give to our newborn. It’s complex but reveals family connections and legal barricades in our civilization. Brutal, tender, revealing and well-acted it’ll keep you remindful of your own family relationships.

WOMAN OF THE DEAD. (NETFLIX SERIES) (6.8 IMDB). An Austrian movie centering on a woman who owns a funeral home in a ski resort and is determined to find out who ran over her husband while he was motorcycling. It’s available in a dubbed version which is distracting. Of a sudden she becomes a target herself for a mysterious reason. It’s slow moving and drawn out and requires patience.

NEW AMSTERDAM. (NETFLIX SERIES) (8.0 IMDB). A handsome new Doctor takes charge of the oldest hospital in the USA/New York City the New Amsterdam based on the Bellevue. Like all good Doctor dramas he gets involved deeply with young kids issues, old people problems, drugs, and even a patient with a gun. It’s fast paced, well-acted and nearly believable. No big names but solid performances.

SPECIAL NOTE….Don’t forget that when you’re not too sure of a plot or need any info on a movie to go to Wikipedia. It lays out the straight/non hype story plus all the details you’ll need including which server (Netflix, Hulu, or PBS) you can find it on. You can also go to Brattononline.com and punch in the movie title and read my take on the much more than 100 movies.

CORSAGE. (DEL MAR THEATRE). (6.7 IMDB). An extra fictionalized version of Empress Elisabeth of Austria during the year of 1877. Complicated, fanciful and an excellent movie. The acting is perfect, and the director has taken great pains to make her story applicable to today’s world. Corsage can and does mean both a floral corsage and a corset, and Elisabeth’s corset gets much attention. You’ll never take your eyes off Vicky Krieps who plays Elisabeth. She is being touted for many cinema awards in the next few weeks.

IN THE DARK. (PRIME SERIES) (7.5 IMDB). A waste of both film to make this rip-off and your time to watch it. The actress playing the lead is supposed to be blind and she finds a friend murdered. She drinks too much and stumbles around unconvincingly to find the murderer. The plot is so over used and the acting and dialogue is so simple minded that I could only watch one and 1/4 episode.

THE PALE BLUE EYE. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (6.6 IMDB). There is a character named Edgar Allen Poe in this fascinating murder comedy. Plus the considerable talents of Christian Bale, Robert Duvall, Timothy Spall and Toby Jones. Great costuming, fine acting and a plot that will keep you completely involved.

THE MENU. (PRIME SERIES) (7.4 IMDB). This bizarre plot has Ralph Fiennes as a crazed billionaire chef creating a last meal for a number of eccentric guests. Those guests include the wide eyed Anya Taylor-Joy and John Leguizamo. Fiennes and the cast do almost believable jobs of acting out this crazed plot which centers on making fun of haut cuisine and the moneyed class. See it and you won’t forget it.

BABYLON. (Some theatres only). (7.4 IMDB). This heavily hyped movie stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Olivia Wilde and a lot more stars in this impossible to follow history of Hollywood and the movies from the silent days up to references to today’s movie product. It’s three hours long and seems longer as about six characters stories are detailed back and forth. The off screen wheeling’s and dealings of the film business are hinted at but not detailed enough to make it worthwhile. It’s one of the biggest box office flops in recent years.

THREE PINES. (PRIME VIDEO SERIES)) (7.3 IMDB). A genuine murder mystery that will have you guessing. It’s slow and even boring in parts but Alfred Molina as the investigating officer from Quebec leads us through some tricky and puzzling possibilities. There are four mysteries in the eight episodes and it involves protestors and stories about Indigenous women who face entire lives of trying to save their children. Complex, interesting and thought provoking.

EMANCIPATION. (APPLE MOVIE) (6.1 IMDB). It’s almost Simon Legree from Uncle Tom’s Cabin trying to catch Uncle Tom as we watch Ben Foster gunning after Will Smith who is a runaway slave from a large plantation. About 90 percent of the movie is Smith being chased through swamps, up into trees, across streams…just chase after chase. Will Smith does his best to look like a slave and keeps his jaw stuck out at a weird angle through the entire film. Don’t expect much.

WEDNESDAY. (NETFLIX SERIES) (8.3 IMDB). Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Morticia, Lurch is in there too, plus Luis Guzman as Gomez Addams and yes it’s all based on brilliant cartoonist’s Charles Addams family cartoons. Tim Burton directed it so one would think it would be sharper humor and not so idiotic, but there we are.

THE GLORY. (NETFLIX SERIES) (8.1 IMDB). A deep and nearly painful ten age abuse movie from Korea. A student is unmercifully abused, burned, branded and punished by her schoolmates. The film goes back and forth over the next ten years as she plans and plots some devilish and brutal revenge on each of her former bullies. A tough but well done movie that will leave you thinking about your early years in school.

KALEIDOSCOPE. (NETFLIX SERIES) (7.1 IMDB). The engaging Rufus Sewell leads the cast in this bank robbery saga. What’s unusual is that there are eight episodes telling how the robbery is planned and we can watch the episodes in any order! There’s deeply involved treachery, lies, and betrayal among the team of would be robbers and more than enough suspense and fine acting to keep you completely attached.

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Gillian couldn’t submit her column due to power outages.

Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association  http://darksky.org    Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild.

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PG&E power outages got Becky as well this week!

Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes. She ran again in 2020 on a slightly bigger shoestring and got 1/3 of the votes.

Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com

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January 16

SOME COTONI COAST DAIRIES REFLECTIONS

Ever since the United States Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took control of 5800 acres of northern Santa Cruz County, conservationists have been asking themselves “what have we done?” The fateful transfer day was in 2014 when a private land trust, the Trust for Public Land, donated the property to BLM. It would be years before the negative repercussions of that handover were obvious. 7 years later BLM unveiled a draft management plan for Cotoni Coast Dairies, a document rife with errors including tables cut-and-paste from other plans from faraway places, lists of misidentified species, and proposals with little analysis and findings absent scientific rigor. How did such a bungling land management agency gain control of such a precious part of California’s coast? The story unfolds…

BLM’s Standard Bearers Support Poor Standards

As one comes to expect in our community, unctuous support for BLM’s draft plan for the property was lugubriously lauded by affiliates of profiteering recreational industries and their political hacks while conservationists carefully documented voluminous errors and omissions and suggested reasonable improvements to protect natural resources while providing access to open space. Subsequently, BLM perfunctorily changed the plan to address only the most egregious errors and, as expected, chose the ‘moderate use’ alternative, publishing an Environmental Analysis (EA), the easy, low-input, and cheap means for the agency to officially finalize approval. Shortly thereafter, conservationists filed an appeal to the Department of Interior and BLM asked for two extensions of the appeal window. During those extensions, and before the appeal was settled, BLM staff bulldozed areas of the property to prepare for one of its planned, but not yet permitted, parking lot. We don’t yet know which BLM official ordered that disgusting and undemocratic act, but we will find out. Conservationists won their appeal, but meanwhile the BLM had destroyed sensitive coastal prairie and cut trees that had long supported the federally threatened monarch butterfly. Meanwhile, it became clear that the only other parking lot location that BLM’s faulty plans had analyzed could not progress as planned because the road to the parking lot traversed private property without the consent of the owners. That was almost as surprising as the Coastal Commission’s allowance for that access road, which would have also paved a stream channel. It seems wherever one looks these days, the Coastal Commission pushes for maximizing public access even if it means careless destruction of natural resources. That matches well with BLM’s management philosophy.

No One Home and No Friends Left

Back in 2014, someone working at BLM told me that their office was ill-prepared for Santa Cruz. For years, their staff had managed land where there was no conservation constituency, where nature degrading recreational activities and other “resource” uses were unquestioned. Since BLM moved into Santa Cruz County and took control of Cotoni Coast Dairies, they have been unable to retain consistent managers: two field managers overseeing the property have departed and the newest one is rumored to be ‘remotely managing’ the property while living far away from the region. And yet, our community has long offered BLM friendship.

At first, BLM welcomed enthusiastic friendships, signing partnership agreements with the University of California at Santa Cruz and the Amah Mutsun Tribe. Now, BLM only admits to being partners with the group previously known as Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz (see sidebar, from BLM’s Cotoni Coast Dairies property homepage). Why has BLM rejected its tribal and science partners in favor of the mountain biking industry? We need to go back to the beginning of the story to understand.

Swiss Dairyman and Subdivision Moguls

The Cotoni Coast Dairies got its two last names from a Swiss dairy and land investment company, which started in 1901 and ended in 1998 when the investors sold to the Trust for Public Land instead of a subdivision mogul. For 97 years, the land referred to locally as ‘Coast Dairies’ was managed by farmers and ranchers who made it clear that the public was unwelcome. Much of the rest of the County had been explored by botanists and wildlife experts whose wisdom and documentation led to so many parks purchases. But this was not the case with this huge part of the County: it had remained largely uncharted. In 1997, real estate magnate Brian Sweeney announced that he had an option to build more than a hundred luxury homes on the property. The owners were able to quote extravagant property value, so conservationists had to raise a lot of funding to conserve the property and thwart the threat from development. Without biological surveys, conservationists had to convince funders about the value of the ‘spectacular views’ and recreational potential instead of conservation values. That seems to me to be how the seed was sown for how people came to value the property in the years to come.

Trust for Public Land: 14 Years at Coast Dairies

After purchasing the property, for 14 years the TPL managed the property while trying to find a way out. TPL managed to give State Parks the ocean side of the property, including the beaches. State Parks opened those beaches to public access without any planning or environmental review. It took many more years to find any organization willing to own the inland portion of the property. TPL solicited proposals from various potential landowners. UC Santa Cruz made a proposal, which didn’t work out. Meanwhile, it was costing TPL a lot of money and headaches to retain the property and the funders wanted it opened for public access. As a last resort, TPL turned to the federal land management agency that had long served as property managers of the last resort: BLM…there didn’t seem to be another option. Besides, some of the illuminati of open space purchasers thought perhaps it could soon be a part of The Great Park, owned and managed by the National Park Service.

The Great Park

For a while after TPL purchased the property, the Open Space Illuminati advertised something called “The Great Park,” an expansive interconnected park system, with a National Park nucleus derived from Coast Dairies and the adjoining San Vicente Redwoods. For a while, it seemed like this idea had become fet a compli, but enough powerful opponents started asking questions…politics changed…and perhaps funders’ willingness waned. After some time, the Great Park was a dim memory held only by a few.

A National Monument

As the Great Park idea waned, a new idea dawned: Cotoni Coast Dairies could become part of a National Monument! Charged up with a great deal of funding from the Weiss Family Foundation, the Open Space Illuminati parachuted in something that appeared to be popular movement: glossy brochures and websites popped up and The Monument Campaign was born. When conservationists exclaimed concern at the number of visitors that would be attracted to the property with such a designation, the Illuminati said ‘Shut up! This is the only way to make BLM accountable to protecting the property!’ They succeeded: in the last days of the Obama Administration, the president decreed that the property would become part of the California Coastal National Monument.

Post Monument Blues

Shortly after the President’s decree, the BLM dissolved the only staff positions whose work entailed guaranteeing protection under National Monument regulations. Since then, the BLM has refused to abide by its own regulations for managing National Monuments. Meanwhile, the Great Park and Monument Campaign Illuminati have likewise disappeared from the scene, their concerns for protecting the land swept away as they entered the next funding cycle’s focus in some other arena. Enter stage left the influential Outdoor Industry Association where business and profits pour from Nature commodified. Advertisements for ‘rad times’ on Santa Cruz County trails bring thousands of visitors, supporting a ‘green’ economy. Sales of super-expensive bikes skyrocket. Many conservationists are getting too old for the fight. It is easy to see what we have done, but what’s next is anyone’s guess. Best to stay apprised and keep asking questions; perhaps this is a good time for a renewed conservation movement in Santa Cruz County.

Grey Hayes is a fervent speaker for all things wild, and his occupations have included land stewardship with UC Natural Reserves, large-scale monitoring and strategic planning with The Nature Conservancy, professional education with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and teaching undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz. Visit his website at: www.greyhayes.net

Email Grey at coastalprairie@aol.com

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January 14

#14 / Talking With Tom

David Marchese is The New York Times’ “Talk Columnist.” If you click that link to Marchese’s name, The Times’ paywall permitting, you should be able to sample a wide variety of Marchese’s interviews, including his interview with playwright Tom Stoppard, who is pictured above. The Stoppard interview appeared in The New York Times Magazine on December 4, 2022, titled as follows in the online version: “Tom Stoppard Fears the Virus of Antisemitism Has Been Reactivated.”

I love Tom Stoppard (and all his plays). Stoppard’s latest play, “Leopoldstadt,” does confront antisemitism. What I found most interesting in the interview was how Stoppard intimates that an effective way to deal with hateful and objectionable behavior (both conduct and speech) may be simply to call it out, and, having done so, to “shrug it off,” turn one’s back on it and walk away, much more than by trying to extirpate the evil in an agitated and aggressive confrontation.

Stoppard does not say that this way of confronting evil (including both antisemitism and other evils) should be some sort of “rule.” He just evidences his own confidence that he (and we) can prevail over evil, and hateful and objectionable behavior, without moving to immediate hyperventilation and direct conflict.

Here is a sample of what I mean, focusing on both antisemitism and hate speech, coming out of the Marchese talk with Stoppard:

I hate to ask such a blunt question, but apparently this is where we are these days: What do you make of the increase in antisemitism that we’ve been seeing? Does it feel like more of the historical same or is something different going on? I don’t profess to know anything that anybody else might not know, but my own feeling is that marginal social attitudes never go away. They’re something like a latent virus that becomes activated under certain conditions. For my money, which is the mot juste in this sentence, it has a lot to do with the polarity in the economics in America and Britain — the inequality. When the economics that are supposed to bind us together become so divisive, anger breaks through. This virus wakes up, and it’s a displacement of the anger that is always lying underneath. As I listen to myself talking like a pundit, I don’t actually know if any of that is true. It’s just an intuition I have. It’s as if at the bottom of the mythic melting pot, which your nation wants to be, there’s a deposit of sediment that isn’t buying into the idea of being in the pot. It stays silent and mostly invisible until you poke it with a stick and suddenly, as you say, here we are. The last thing: My friend David Baddiel wrote a book called “Jews Don’t Count” —

A few years ago, yeah. I’m familiar with it. Oh, good. Then as you know its point is that antisemitism is not being properly acknowledged, and that Jews are not being properly acknowledged as being one of the many oppressed minorities. Jews don’t seem to count, David Baddiel objects. He’s a friend of mine, and I have arguments with him about various things. He didn’t need me to point out that one doesn’t think of Jews as being an oppressed minority because, paradoxically, the objection is that they’re altogether too successful. When I was writing the play, there was a kind of local disturbance concerning antisemitism in the British Labour Party, and it didn’t seem to be an overriding problem, and I kind of ignored it. It seemed to be not widespread.

I’m not sure whether that would apply anymore.

I know that free speech has been an important issue for you over the years. It’s impossible to argue that social media isn’t a fertile breeding ground for, as you put it, the virus of marginal social attitudes. Do we need to more strictly police the speech on those platforms? I would like to be in a society that pretty much refrains from stopping people saying what they want. Hate speech always strikes me as being self-evidently gibberish and deranged. I don’t think that it’s an equal participant in some kind of debate. I don’t like the idea of law deciding whether something is sayable or unsayable. I’m sure that there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed, but like all such lines, there’s no one person whom you know whom you would want to draw it, and I’m not sure that any two people would ever draw it in the same place. I would prefer to meet hate speech with derision and better arguments. That is the tradition I’ve grown up in: that you can say anything you like as long as it doesn’t break the law. It’s rare that you get some nutso being explicit about prejudice and bigotry which the law might well take account of. But you can get into a shadowy area where interpretation becomes as important as speech itself. The people who are canceled in our society, in many cases it’s hard to say definitively what the offensive words were or what they intended. I don’t even know where I would personally draw my lines, but I think antisemitic speech is very offensive, it ought to be very offensive to society, and society should show its contempt for it. I hope, broadly speaking, society still does.

So what, to your mind, would be the best response to antisemitism? I have absolutely no doubt what the solution is, but it’s very long term, and it’s not a solution that you can simply adopt. The solution is to develop a society in which these issues barely arise because the society is fair. In many issues, I think, God, if only we could start education again from the bottom up. Just now begin with the next generation of 5-year-olds and teach them the philosophy of life. But the glib and undeniable answer to your question is to create a society where you don’t have to deal with antisemitism because it’s simply not part of anybody’s consciousness. It’s a utopian idea.

Confrontation escalates. A simple insistence on decency and fairness can have the opposite effect. I think that is what Tom Stoppard is suggesting in this short little discussion with David Marchese.

Gets me to thinking! And I hope you the same!

Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net

Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com

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January 16

SMOKESCREENS AND SPIRITS IN THE DARK

The documents marked ‘Secret’ and ‘Top Secret’ are proliferating by the minute in Joe Biden’s stashes, and it is rumored the team from the “French Connection” will be removing the door panels from his ’67 Corvette Stingray in search of more. As another batch was discovered, Jimmy Kimmel joked that America is “one episode of ‘Storage Wars’ away from finding out who killed J.F.K.” And now House Speaker In Veritate, Matt Gaetz, sees another hostage situation to sate his appetite for involvement in embarrassing situations after his successful fifteen-episode pummeling of Kevin McCarthy.

While it is believable that Biden is in the dark about how and why the documents were found in his possession, at least he hasn’t whined that they were ‘planted’ by the FBI, or that he had performed a mind-bending performance in declassifying them, or that they ‘obviously’ belonged to him since they were in his files. Perhaps a better choice of words could have allayed some fears when he said, “people know I TAKE classified documents and classified material seriously.” This turn of events has provided a goldmine of fool’s gold for the GOP to begin their game of performance art. Fake investigations will be launched as they begin yet another version of pretending righteous indignation, as they lie their way toward tarnishing Biden and the Democrats on the way to 2024.

In order to ward off the anticipated howls about unfairness to the Former Guy’s “persecution,” Attorney General Garland announced the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur to look into the document brouhaha, but also to signal that he too takes the discoveries seriously. With new blood on the floor the press corps has unmercifully pounced on Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in her outings for the daily briefings, and Biden has been silent, ignoring shouted questions in recognition of the sensitive investigation. Of course, the MAGATs will never be satisfied – they are perpetually angry about everything. “If Trump had done what Joe Biden did with the recovered classified documents and contacted the National Archives right away, he’d be in the clear. Republicans should know that pointing to Biden doesn’t create an equivalency, it just highlights what Trump did was wrong.” – Brian Tyler Cohen.

The successes of the Dems in the mid-term elections, the declining rate of inflation, the consumer economic improvements, the Republican infighting, and the eclipsing popularity of Trump even as Biden’s ratings slowly climbed were seen as positives for the coming months – with momentum now being blunted, the golden ring just out of reach, as the Prez prepares his announcement for reelection. GOP strategist Susan Del Percio said the revelation of the documents was a gift to Republicans. “If Biden wanted a reason not to run, this is a pretty good one,” Del Percio said. “He’s not going to want this kind of campaign … if you’re explaining, you’re losing.” Washington’s press corps will have none of it however, as they slip and slide in the slime provided courtesy of the GOP. Does this signal another go at Hillary’s emails? Senator Ted Cruz made a joke about Hillary’s server being found in Joe’s garage – a clue? And will Bill’s files be subject to a search? Surely, Obama is on that list although Trump’s crack-team of investigators are still lost among the palm trees in Hawaii as they search for a missing birth certificate.

Faux House Speaker Kevin McCarthy addressed the possibility of expunging the two impeachments of Trump, a subject which came up in the previous Congress but got no traction, saying that he understands such a move and “we’d look at it.” “It is outrageous that Speaker McCarthy would consider expunging Donald Trump’s impeachments,” wrote Noah Bookbinder, the president of watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in a tweet Thursday. “Trump incited a violent insurrection and tried to overturn an election he lost. Congress should have barred him from office.”

The unhinged Clodwork Orange, in a radio interview, had a meltdown about Special Counsel Jack Smith assigned by AG Garland to investigate the former president. First, he suggested that ‘Smith’ is a fake name, is an “unfair savage,” and then accused him of being a “terrorist”, after which he attacked Smith’s wife and her sister for being “Trump-haters.” Observers have concluded that he has realized he is going to be indicted, and is powerless to prevent it, hence the ‘poor me’ whining act.

In another of the countless cases against Trump, where he is being accused of a mid-1990s rape by writer E. Jean Carroll, a federal judge rejected efforts by Trump’s lawyers to keep sealed a portion of the transcript of his Mar-a-Lago deposition. The papers show the accused making persistent comments, insulting Carroll, her attorney, President Biden, and whining about “hoaxes” of false claims about him. Trump denies her claim, and says that in an interview she had indicated that “she loved it,” a total misstatement. Despite his infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ braggadocio of grabbing women and kissing without consent, he denied he had ever done so. “It’s a false accusation. Never happened, never would happen,” he says. “I will sue her after this is over, and that’s the thing I really look forward to doing. And I’ll sue you too,” he fumed at Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer. Kaplan also represents Trump’s niece, Mary, who is also suing him for swindling her share of the family’s wealth. During the deposition he was asked about a post on his social media site – “Ms. Bergdorf Goodman case is a complete con job. She completely made up this story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City department store and within minutes ‘swooned’ her.” Trump confirmed the post saying, “Great statement, yeah. True. True. I wrote it all myself.” Kaplan asked if he had talked to anyone about the content of his post, with Trump answering, “No, I didn’t need to. I’m not Joe Biden.”

The MAGATs in the newly-constituted House of Representatives are ranting about impeaching the LIBs, launching retaliatory investigations and other childish actions as they prepare to fight over the budget and the debt limit. They will continue to erode a woman’s right to choose, and make efforts toward reducing social programs though McCarthy has refused to comment on any of the closed door sessions that have taken place. The current smokescreen for hiding any unpopular decisions involves railing against the report that natural gas stoves are endangering our health by giving off gas emissions even when not in use. Many municipalities have already specified the installation of electric stoves in new construction, prompting Trump’s former White House physician, Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas to proclaim in a tweet, “If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!” And, Ron that may be exactly what will be necessary, but in the meantime, we can tell you where to stick it.

The rumor mill never stops: Mars, Incorporated is said to have added a Tucker Carlson M&M to its candy line. They’re all-white, extra bitter, and will melt down when mixed with multi-colored M&Ms. Don’t be the first on your block to try them!

Dale Matlock, a Santa Cruz County resident since 1968, is the former owner of The Print Gallery, a screenprinting establishment. He is an adherent of The George Vermosky school of journalism, and a follower of too many news shows, newspapers, and political publications, and a some-time resident of Moloka’i, Hawaii, U.S.A., serving on the Board of Directors of Kepuhi Beach Resort. Email: cornerspot14@yahoo.com
 

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EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. View classic inner view ideas and thoughts with Subconscious Comics a few flips down.

EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Cover” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent  Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog.

“Floods”

“Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer”.
~John Wesley Powell

“The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless”.
~Nicolas Chamfort

“People shouldn’t be living in certain places – on earthquake faults or on flood plains. But they do, and there are consequences”. 
~Vaclav Smil

“There’s no such thing as a 100-year flood”. 
~Andrew Cuomo

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This teeny, tiny bird looks like a bug! It’s totally adorable, take the time and watch this. It’s worth it 🙂


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Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com
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