Donald Trump cannot pass a security clearance to apply for any real job

Pity the fool who thinks Trump is capable
Echo opinion letter published in the Bakersfield.com news in California:

And still the former guy Trump is allowed to run for what is supposed to be the most powerful job in the world. 

Please❗ 😖😡

How can it be the most powerful job when someone like former President Trump is even allowed to run?

Some of you may be delusional and (unbelievably!) think Trump is not guilty of the dozens of crimes he is accused of. 

Mr T. once said "pity the fool" when talking about an opponent. I pity the fool who thinks this corrupt, ruthless man is capable of being president again. He could not pass a background check at Walmart or Starbucks.

From Mark Pearse, in Bakersfield California

P.S. Maine Writer- any other person- citizen, non-citizen, legal, illegal or individual- would be in prison by now for being in possession of secret government documents but Trump stored boxes of them in his bathroom.

Kevin McCarthy is controlled by a handful of dangerous right wing conspiracy crazies

Opinion echo in Bakersfield.com:  Kevin McCarthy's deal with the conspiracy coalition is back door treason.  

High-level politics is fundamentally about deal making. You can’t succeed as anything more than a back-bencher if you aren’t willing to make a deal with almost anyone on almost anything. In Faust, a deal with the devil is fatal; on Capitol Hill, it’s how Kevin McCarthy intends to survive.

(Maine Writer- So, just think about it?  Speaker McCarthy is second in line to the presidency!  In other words, the devils that control Speaker McCarthy are in an overt conspiracy to take over the White House!)

In the popular Broadway play "Damn Yankees," a spirited older Yankee fan approximately the same age of Kevin McCarthy made a pact with the devil. The deal made with the devil was he would forgo his integrity, pledging to do the work of the devil in exchange for a return to his youth (temporarily) to play for and lead the Yankees to a wining season. A season, Yankee fans could could brag about, and a winning season eventfully resulting in a game with the pennant on the line.

Our own McCarthy made the same devilish deal, not with the devil, but radical rebels which were hold-out House members trying to deny McCarthy the speakership. A unified caucus of Pro-Trump zealots believing in election lies and supporting Jan. 6 rioters. Individuals inherently disappointed with democracy. Individuals which would prefer abandoning the ballot box, and worked for disenfranchising voters preferring an authoritarian government led by Trump.

The one huge takeaway from the mid-terms is Americans resoundingly denounced election deniers and voted against the GOP push to marginalize minorities. McCarthy, unable to win the House speakership on his own merits, made the devil-inspired deal as portrayed in "Damn Yankees." He surrendered his integrity and offered plum committee assignments to get the holdouts on board.

McCarthy surrendered so much, Rep. Matt Geatz (a rebel holdout) said. There was no more stuff to be asked for. McCarthy dealt away tradition, history and nearly three centuries of speaker integrity to achieve his quest. An extremely hollowed-out title sans all respect.

From Wade Eagleton, in Bakersfield California

Republican extremism and the roots of crazy evil

In October 2003, while working at the CBS affiliate in Bakersfield, California., Kurt Bardella was running the assignment desk and helping produce political coverage. It was an exciting time to be in both news and politics.

Opinion echo published in the Los Angeles Times:  On our very own news set, country music icon Buck Owens, who had made Bakersfield his adopted home, presented Arnold Schwarzenegger with an autographed guitar. 

Former California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger won't vote for Trump, and he implored other Republicans to do the same

I remember so vividly the energy and excitement that filled the atmosphere. One of the loudest campaign events I've ever experienced was when the would-be "Governator" campaigned with the man who was then-known as "America's Mayor," former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

There was a palpable feeling that this could be a fresh start, for the state but also for the Republican Party. 

Even though we were in the midst of an unprecedented political upheaval in California, the environment was positive and enthusiastic.

During his victory speech, Schwarzenegger declared that he would "reach out to Republicans, to Democrats and independents, to those who supported the recall and those who did not, those who supported me today and those who did not. I want to reach out to everybody, to young and old, rich and poor, people of all religions, all colors and all nationalities. I want to be the governor for the people. I want to represent everybody."

In many ways, the recall election of 2003, was a battle between the state's more moderate and conservative factions. Schwarzenegger, who was then a member of the Kennedy family, became the standard-bearer for the moderates while then-state Sen. Tom McClintock ran as the conservative choice.

McClintock openly questioned Schwarzenegger's party loyalty, saying, "This is a man who just a few years ago said he was ashamed to be a Republican."

Schwarzenegger, the moderate, won decisively.

That was the last time the Golden State elected a Republican governor.

Two decades later, the portrait of the Republican Party is far different. In 2003, Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield was the Assembly Republican leader who attached himself to Schwarzenegger and helped lead the fight for the "moderates" in the party. 

Today, McCarthy (the dummy lives!), U.S. House minority leader, has wrapped himself in the cloak of conspiracy theories and anti-democratic identity politics.

Charlie McCarthy is Edgar Bergen's famed ventriloquist dummy partner.

Schwarzenegger calls the effort that McCarthy has embraced to overturn a free and fair election "crazy and evil". Such rhetoric is enough for you to get kicked out of McCarthy's leadership team — just ask Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

A new CNN poll revealed that 59% of Republican voters believe that adherence to "the big lie" that Donald Trump won the 2020 election is "important" to being a Republican. (OMG!)

In just two decades, Schwarzenegger has gone from being the standard-bearer of the Republican Party to an outcast.

In what has become a familiar cycle, this iteration of the Republican Party will make a lot of noise, raise a lot of money, generate a lot of headlines, and ultimately lose.

It's what happened nationally in the 2018, midterms. It's what happened in the Louisiana and Kentucky gubernatorial races in 2019. It's what happened with the presidential race in 2020, and it's what happened in the Georgia Senate races that delivered the Democrats a majority in the Senate in January.

Time and again, Republicans have run to the extreme right, pandering to the politics of fear and division, only to lose. They have mastered the ability to seize defeat from the jaws of victory, leaving behind a party that year after year is growing more radical, and also becoming smaller and smaller.

As goes California, so goes the country, the saying goes. This second gubernatorial recall election should be instructive for Republicans nationwide. If recent history is any indication, the GOP will continue the failed cycle of learning the wrong lessons from defeat and continue its embrace of extremism and conspiracy that will serve to only alienate it further from the mainstream of this country.

Kurt Bardella is a senior adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a former aide to California Republican Congressmen Darrell Issa and Brian Bilbray. 

This was written for the Los Angeles Times.

First Responders - First Aid: You are not alone

Check out rotaryhouseretreat.com

Thanks to Rotarians who support the care needed for First Responders. As a matter of fact, the May 2018, edition of The Rotarian magazine published an excellent article about this important subject. 

Also, a follow up letter to the editor* added to the information about how to care for those who are diligent on behalf of our communities and who respond to people who need help.
https://www.rotary.org/en/relief-first-responders

It’s hard to say exactly when firefighter Dionisio Mitchell started experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder – the anger, the impulsivity, the lashing out. Maybe it was after the on-the-job vehicle rollover that could have taken his life. Or after he responded to a call and saw a two-year-old boy die after being hit by a car.

Regardless, “it all came to a point of, ‘I need to talk about it,’” says Mitchell, who has served in the Kern County Fire Department in California for 14 years.

He found help at the Rotary House Retreat, a short-term intensive program for first responders dealing with PTSD. 

Supported and organized by the six Rotary clubs of Bakersfield, with crucial early support from District 5240, the twice-yearly program gives firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and other first responders the opportunity to learn and practice healthy ways of coping with the constant stresses of their jobs.

Over six days, trained mental health professionals, peers, and volunteer chaplains work with six first-responder guests on common issues such as substance abuse, anger management, anxiety, depression, and sleep problems. The program is held at a secluded ranch in Kern County. 

Each guest is asked to pay at least $500 of the $3,000 cost; the Rotary clubs of Bakersfield provide scholarships to cover the rest, with aid from other Rotarians, nonprofits, churches, and employee associations such as police unions.

“Our focus is on early intervention and even prevention, so people don’t ever get to that point of losing their career or losing their marriage or even thinking about suicide,” says project chair John Pryor, a member of the Rotary Club of Bakersfield West who lost his son, a police sergeant, who had PTSD, 11 years ago.

Mitchell, who went through the program in 2016, credits it with helping him manage his emotions, improve his relationships, and understand the importance of self-care. “It feels good when you have people supporting you, when you have people in your corner,” he says.

–Anne Ford

And this letter to the editor from John Pryor who wrote from Bakersfield, California

*First responder trauma

All six of our Bakersfield Rotary clubs want to thank you for the excellent story you published about our retreat for firefighters, police officers and paramedics dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (In Relief for First Responders- May). 

Writer Anne Ford told our story very well.

In just the past few weeks, we're heard from Rotarians in six counties, 10 US states and cities in California.

We have drafted a complimentary introductory operations manual for my Rotary club district whose members want to consider replicating our project in their regions. The need is pronounced.

Full information is available at rotaryhouseretreat.com, so each Rotarian can make a fact-based decision and have a helpful step-by-step guide for conducting this community service project.  

Just click on the Rotary page of our website.

The manual will help Rotarians in any district understand how to assist troubled first responders in their area - and change lives!