The Woodworkers of Whittier will be meeting tonight, Thursday, June 9th at 6:30 p.m. The group will meet at Adventure Park, 10130 S. Gunn Ave., Whittier, CA 90605 (click for map).

Tonight's speaker is Steve Lelewer who will be demonstrating Lichtenberg Process, a form of pyrography which uses electricity to apply an etched finish to wood.

Sent from the ether

Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, by Michael Cohen

https://bit.ly/Disloyal_book

This is another in a, now long, list of books about the worst president in history. The difference is this author was on the inside and recounts the way things were done in the inner circle of sycophants around Trump. Don't feel too sorry for Cohen because, as he says, "I knew what I was doing."

Disloyal is a quick and easy read written in straight-forward, spare prose.

Trump Furious That Woodward’s Book Is Written at Seventh-Grade Reading Level

Do this today! Urge your Assembly Member to vote yes on S.B. 822 and S.B. 460 to preserve California net neutrality.

You can find your Assembly Member here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov

Do this before you are throttled by Spectrum, DirecTV, Dish, Comcast, Verizon, ... and your provider. Did I say today?

 Here's a humor piece about the supposed "powers" of crystals. 

Crystals for People Who Have Low Expectations for Crystals

Founders Day, May 12, 2018.

The President flip-flops and Republicans drown you out with their silence regarding this important issue. I guess (NRA) money speaks louder. 

Samantha Fuentes, who was shot in both legs during the Parkland assault, said she had felt no reassurance during a phone call from the president to her hospital room last week.

“He said he heard that I was a big fan of his, and then he said, ‘I’m a big fan of yours too.’ I’m pretty sure he made that up,” she said in an interview after being discharged from the hospital. “Talking to the president, I’ve never been so unimpressed by a person in my life.He didn’t make me feel better in the slightest.”

Ms. Fuentes, who was left with a piece of shrapnel lodged behind her right eye, said Mr. Trump had called the gunman a “sick puppy” and said “‘oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,’ like, seven times.”

--from Daily Kos

Tuesday, February 20th, the Florida House of Representatives debated and then voted to declare pornography a “public health risk.” These same representatives then refused to take up a bill to ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. They did this while students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were watching from the gallery.

Truly dumb.

The GOP is bragging about giving public school employees $78 a year, meanwhile, according to the Tax Policy Center, the new tax changes will hand the richest 1 percent an extra $51,000 a year.

Elections do matter. 

The meme that Republicans are better with government finance is dead. Dead I tell you. Those Republicans voted today to add from $1,500,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000,000 to the national debt. That's $1.5 to $2 TRILLION. Remember that next fall in the 2018 elections.

Watch out. Next Paul Ryan will be coming for your Social Security. Or your Medicare. Just watch.

The massive tax giveaways for corporations and the wealthy will be paid for by throwing 13 million people off health insurance. 

If that isn't enough (it isn't) then cut $400 billion from Medicare. 

If that still isn't enough (and it still isn't enough), raise taxes in over 10 years on 92 million middle-class families.

Look at the tax bill just passed. The obsequious Republicans own this disaster. 

Congress does something—nation shocked! https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/friday-december-8th-congress-shocks-nation

Another gem from Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker: Broad Majority of Americans Support Moving Trump to Jerusalem.

Thanks to Jeanette Kelly for sharing this. One of the best arguments for universal health care comes from an emergency room doctor. Pay attention.

Another gem from Andy Borowitz published in The New Yorker.

White House Says It Is Unpatriotic to Offer Irrefutable Video Evidence That a General Lied

Betsy DeVos spoke recently at Harvard and asserted that charter schools in her home state of Michigan generally get better test scores than traditional schools. 

A 2016 report by Politico, however, said:

Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data (emphasis added).

Senator Bernie Sanders lays out a compelling case for "Medicare for All." This is what I argued for–a single-payer system–during the debates over the Affordable Care Act. We've changed the name, because some lunkheads complained about "socialized medicine" as if they even knew what that means. Oh heavens. Your freakin' police and fire departments are socialized. The military has socialized medicine now. Get over it. 

How can we afford medical care for everyone? Don't build one aircraft carrier. Don't build stuff the military doesn't want but is put in the budget because some member of congress wants to send a contract to a manufacturer in their district. How about closing a military base or two that we've maintained in Europe an Asia since the end of World War II. All a good start. How about not invading countries and staying for years? Savings? Trillions of dollars.

It is worth your time to read this important article.

You go Patagonia! Speaking out for Public Lands, Patagonia spends $700,000 on an ad in support of public lands.

More: http://bit.ly/2wcHKcp 

So-called-President Trump just pardoned a lawless oaf who was convicted contempt of court. Former-Sheriff Joe Arpaio was twice found guilty of contempt of court–once civil and once federal. Now that's a record any lawman should be proud.

Why twice convicted?  Federal authorities are responsible for enforcing immigration laws. However, Joe "Toughest-Sheriff-in-America" (as he called himself) Arpaio ordered his deputies to check the legal status of people they encountered. Joe instructed deputies to arrest undocumented individuals and turn them over to immigration authorities for deportation, even if they had committed no crime other than lacking documentation. A federal district judge ordered the sheriff in 2011 to halt the practice of stopping suspected undocumented immigrants. When Arpaio publicly refused to do so, the judge found him to be in civil contempt of court and recommended the criminal charge. In July, another federal judge convicted him of contempt of court, finding Arpaio had shown a "flagrant disregard" for the law and had "willfully violated the [2011] order."

Is this all they could get in a President when they bought and paid for one? Is it appropriate for even a so-called president to pardon clowns who flagrantly disregard and willfully violate the law. So much for a "law and order" president.

More: http://bzfd.it/2wcIgHA

"We failed. Boy am I pissed. And really embarrassed."

So the Republican attempt to deliver on their seven-year promise to reform health care tanks ingloriously. And the So-Called President blames Democrats. He needs to be reminded that Republican Senators sank their own health care bill. That bozo needs to be reminded also that the Democrats were not asked to help. Not to mention that not one hearing was held on the proposed bill. In McConnell's failed legislative strategy to right the bill in secret (not even the rest of Republican senate

Trump's new, yet faulty logic is to let "Obamacare" fail and then begin again. How cynical. Take the health insurance away from 30,000,000 Americans? Throw the insurance markets into turmoil? What is wrong with this loser-of-the-popular vote? Why not fix it? Make it a bipartisan attempt to fix what is wrong with the insurance market for individuals. Don't take health care away from those who already have health care.

As candidate Trump said during his campaign, "You are going to have such great health care and at a lower cost." Still waiting.

As if the daily barrage of Trumpisms wasn't enough to piss you off, read this: The GOP's fantastically anti-democratic attempt to kill health care in the dark

... and remember this. I've said before, "Elections matter."

The cover up is on. Trump fired the FBI chief who is conducting an investigation to get at the possible collusion between Trump's campaign and ties to Russia.

But Trump didn't care for Comey long before today's action. Three things:

1. Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton in the FBI investigation of her email practices (remember Trump was in full "Lock her up" mode at the time);
2. After Trump became president Comey never backed up Trump's accusation that President Obama had spied on him; and
3. Comey told Congress, during sworn testimony, that the bureau was investigating ties between Trump's campaign and Russia.

That's enough to make a very, very small man very, very pissed. 

I predicted before the So-Called President's inauguration that Trump would not last his full term. Remember Trump saying the job was harder than it looks? Time to bail. 

But this development means the White House in full cover up mode. Firing Comey will have the opposite effect from the one desired. I suspect that agents in the FBI will double down on the investigation on Trump and Russia ties.

This deeply flawed bill is opposed by the March of Dimes, American Medical Association, Red Cross, American Association of Retired Persons ... and the list grows ...