Same place we spent a good part of his entire presidency.

Have you noticed how many of the worst Obama-haters, who were also TPP-haters, are now gone? A bunch of them self-deported, and others were escorted to the exit when they couldn't adapt to the new DU rules after HRC got the nomination.

As for the TPP, after all of Obama's hard work to bring it about, other countries have moved on without America. Rather like the global Climate Change accords -- other countries are moving on without America. China is attempting to fill the vacuum left by our departure -- MAGA.

But it came so close, and of course the hills around us are dangerously denuded. There are whole streets where we looked at houses for sale last spring -- just gone. Our understanding from insurance adjustors is that it will take homeowners a solid two years before they can rebuild and move back into a new home where the old one was.

The extent of the fire was at least 40 miles lengthways, probably more. The worst disaster was 30 miles away in Montecito. The half inch of rain a month later that fell on us in Ventura over 10 or 12 hours did little good, but no harm. The same half inch balled itself up into a freak weather cell that got dumped all at once onto the fire-bare hills of Montecito and turned liquified earth into a debris flow that swept houses, cars, and boulders the size of houses and cars along. The mind reels.

The freeway was absolutely closed, buried. The workaround to get from Ventura to Santa Barbara (usually an hour commute or less along the 101) was a 6-hour detour over and around the mountains. For awhile a boating company called Island Packers took people by sea who really needed to make the trip.

To my astonishment, the freeway was reopened in 2 weeks. Montecito is still trying to dig out. People whose homes were spared are back. Businesses too, those that were spared. Volunteers from surrounding communities are forming "bucket brigades" to help people retrieve what they can, and if possible to save homes otherwise still standing from being utterly ruined by the mud that deluged them. Facebook posts of items found along the debris flow are an attempt to reunite survivors with their possessions. In one case an Olympic Torch was unearthed. In another case a piece of statuary belonging to a couple who died was identified by family members who will at least have that to remember them by.

The size of some of the boulders is so immense that they actually have to be dynamited to get them out of the way. I read an article about a science paper some published several years ago analyzing how this could happen, and using as an example a nearby place called Rocky Nook Park. As always, it's a matter of geography, geology, and freak weather, and according to the 2 scientists who did the research, it's something like a thousand-year event.

Seriously, I've been saying this here for several years. Not claiming self-importance, but it's been important to me that someone, anyone, understand the kind of warped-spiritual worship involved in this American carnage.

Follow the money, to be sure. The NRA acts as a lobbying firm for the American weapons industry. But like a televangelist raking in the dough from a million true believers, there really are true believers who condone the continual blood sacrifices demanded by their god.

I've called this god by various names. This week I'm calling it Moloch. Next week maybe I'll reference Xibalba's gods.

...and have some credibility when he references our "Anglo-American heritage."

In point of fact, we DO derive our laws largely from England. Under, for instance, Napoleonic Law, if a person is arrested, they are presumed guilty. If they were not guilty, the reasoning goes, why would the gendarmes have arrested them in the first place? I believe Mexico also has a version of Napoleonic Law.

In both Britain and America, there is supposed to be a supposition of innocence, and it is up to the court system to prove that the defendant is guilty. No matter how often we fail, that supposition of "innocent until proven guilty" is bedrock to our legal system.

Believe me, it is not like that in the rest of the world. Be glad of our Anglo-American heritage in the law, even if it is a racist talking about it.

The domestic violence story is disgusting and unacceptable. Trump, Porter, and Kelly are all disgusting and unacceptable.

But as the Orange Anus keeps telling us how sad it was to lose Porter and whines about due process and unproven allegations -- keep your focus on the fact that Porter already had his "due process" in the form of his FBI background check, which HE FAILED. Anyone who wants to argue WHY he failed can take it up with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

When the Mad King mumbles on about how Porter is the victim in this narrative, stay focused on the fact that Trump, Kelly, and Porter were all cool with Porter weighing in on the nation's most sensitive top secret material AFTER HE FAILED HIS BACKGROUND CHECK. Porter is no victim -- he got real special treatment for a year.

Never forget that.

The "due process" all these poor abused men want has already taken place, because it consists of an FBI security clearance investigation that Porter ans so many others have failed.

They failed.

Fck the ratfckers for saying otherwise.

...and your local Democratic Party. The truly massive Women's Marches have been used extensively for GOTV, voter registration, networking, and encouraging women to run for office. Were you there?

Have you noticed the number of GOP Congressmen who have decided to not run again this year? A lot of them have been confronted outside their local offices by fed-up constituents, in some cases every single week for over a year. They also get many, many phone calls to their offices every single day. The poor things are just all tired out. Have you been calling them and visiting their offices?

Make sure you vigorously support the Democrats running to replace them.

Have you noticed that hun dreds, if not thousands, of women are filing to run for office this year? They are running as Democrats. Get out and support them.

Change is happening. Be part of it. Don't "hang out complaining on a blog." DU is a discussion board, anyway. You're welcome to hang around, debsy, but a lot of DUers are Resisting in real life, so hustle your bustle and do the same.

...those who work to support those basics. We know that most of you are straight arrows, and we don't want either the FBI nor the Justice Dept as a whole destroyed on the whims of a lunatic who embraces every dictator he encounters, especially Putin.

Ps: Yes, after coming of age in the 1960s, this does feel weird.

Once again, the combo of my iPad mini and the e-newspaper mean the link I had to labor to retrieve takes you not to the page I wanted, but to the front page of the paper/facsimile. I hope someone else can do better, because this is REALLY worth reading.

Hicks has been continually described (and thus dismissed) as a "former model" while journalists too damn lazy to dig any further thus get to dismiss her as nothing more than arm-candy. Instead, this woman is a charming shark among sharks.

Los Angeles Times, Sunday, February 4, 2018, page A18. The op-ed is by Virginia Heffernan.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e

"Who is Hope Hicks and what'd she do?"

5th para down:
Hicks didn't just drift into her first PR job as some in the sheath set (ie models) are known to do. Instead, she's to the manner born, third-generation in a family of special-forces flacks.

...that every Democratic candidate in California needs to be a super-duper Progressive, or you are personally going to damn their perfidious souls to hell.

These GOP *holes and ratfckers all ran repeatedly in California districts and all of them won repeatedly. For years and years and years. What are the chances these districts will elect a Progressive?

We need to get rid of these evil guys. We need to encourage Democrats who can win to run in those districts. Nancy Pelosi still gets San Francisco.


Rant Off.