Columns

Barbara Lee Speaks for Me

Rep. Barbara Lee has long been an outspoken critic of war and intolerance so it was no surprise that she would be pushing for a Congressional resolution to censure Donald Trump following his recent outbursts of racist bile directed at four members of Congress who happen to be women of color.

Rep. Lee had a further message for Trump:

The voices of women of color have been ignored for far too long — but not anymore. We have the most diverse Congress in our nation’s history and I won’t let Trump diminish the accomplishments of women of color with the vile, disgusting, and racist things that come out of his mouth.

Or in this case, his thumbs. . . .

The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, had the guts to fight back against Trump and now they’re faced with his racist comments suggesting they go back to their own broken countries.

All of my sisters in Congress are American. They swore an oath to protect the United States, and by holding Trump accountable, that’s exactly what they’re doing. 

Word of the Week Award 

Today's "Word of the Week Award" goes to Associated Press journalist Kathy Gannon who, reporting from Kabul on the progress of Afghan peace talks, wrote that the ongoing discussions between the Taliban and the government were "aimed to produce a new level of consensus among Afghanistan's fissiparous society." 

Definitions of "fissiparous" include: "divisive, tending to break or split up into parts" (not good) and "fissionable, reproducing by fission" (even worse). 

Berkeley Faces Climate Crisis, Wildfires, and 5G 

The July 16 meeting of the Berkeley City Council continued to make progress on its 2006 Measure G goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 33% by 2020 (and 80% by 2050). The city, currently 18% shy of this first goal, is set to embark on an ambitious program to replace all gas-burning appliances with all-electric homes and offices. 

Natural gas is responsible for 27% of the 620,000 metric tons of climate-heating pollution Berkeley currently produces every year. Offsetting this greenhouse-gas burden would require planting 730,000 acres of new forests. 

Berkeley is on track to become a pioneering leader in Green Buildings with a Building Savings Ordinance, incentives to pay for clean-energy upgrades, and transfer tax rebates for "green retrofits." 

Wildfires 

Two PG&E reps shared a powerpoint presentation explaining how the energy utility plans to shut down its power grid during high-fire situations. It became clear that responding to PG&E's shutoff could be as challenging as responding to the aftermath of a major earthquake. 

Because of the nature of the grid, the PG&E team explained, responding to a grassfire in Orinda could black-out distant communities at no immediate risk. A major fire in the woodland hills could leave distant cities without power for days or weeks. 

District 6 Councilmember Susan Wengraf asked how her elderly constituents were expected to survive without access to electricity-dependent medical devices. PG&E's response: buy gas-fueled electric generators and turn on your computers and smartphones for the latest news. 

But how do you recharge phones and laptops without electricity in your sockets? PG&E's response: The utility plans to set up tents with recharging stations that people can drive to. Where would these tents be located? PG&E is still working on that. 

One obvious solution that PG&E curiously failed to mention: Resident can equip their homes with off-the-grid solar panels backed up by Tesla Powerwall batteries. 

5G 

More than a dozen speakers lined up to address Consent Item 9, which calls for amending the City's Wireless Telecommunications Ordinance and Aesthetic Guidelines in hopes of blocking the "rollout" of thousands of 5G wireless radiation transmitters across the city. 

Under Section 704 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, cities are prohibited from challenging the expansion of any corporate telecom projects based on health or environmental concerns. (This patently unconstitutional law is currently being challenged in a US District Court lawsuit.) 

Under current guidelines, 5G transmitters can only be banned from the vicinity of fire stations. This exemption only came after union complaints that firefighters exposed to wireless radiation from nearby transmitters were experiencing headaches, sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, fatigue, and cognitive impairment. These symptoms vanished after the transmission towers were removed. 

For more background on the health and environmental impacts of 5G wireless radiation, view this investigative report by KPIX reporter Julie Watts: 

Brand Names that Pop Out 

There's a "male enhancement" product on the market with a perfect brandname: "Extenze Plus." It's a great name because it works in both the temporal and longitudinal sense. (Google confirms that there's a similarly branded "long-lasting" product called "Prolong Plus." And there's another brand—"Alpha Strike Male Enhancement"—that manages to connect sex and violence.) 

Extenze is described as a "dietary supplement." According to a whopping amount of small print, the ingredients include: black pepper berries, white pepper fruit, ginger root, tribulus extract, maca root, yohimbe bark, muira puama bark, stinging nettle root, Hope flower extract, boron and pumpkin seeds. 

There is the familiar caveat that the FDA hasn't evaluated the pills and "this product is not intended to … treat, cure or prevent any disease." 

Possible side effects? Lots of 'em, including: hair-loss in men, facial hair-growth in women, "aggressiveness, irritability, and increased levels of estrogen." 

The oddest bit of advice appears in all-cap letters and reads: "Do not use if pregnant, lactating or nursing." 

So Why Didn't Trump Join the National Guard? 

In a televised UK interview with Piers Morgan, Donald "Bone Spurs" Trump explained why he didn't participate in the Vietnam War. Unlike the conscientious draft resisters who refused to fight and went to jail (or fled to Canada), Trump revealed that he was a conscientious draft avoider. 

"I was never a fan of that war. I thought it was a terrible war," Trump harrumphed. Asked for specific objections, the best Trump could come up with was: "I thought it was very far away." 

For the record: Ho Chi Minh City is 8,987 miles from Washington, DC. Yemen is 7,286 miles from DC. Sudan is 6,552 miles from DC. Tehran is 6,319 miles from DC. Iraq is 6,169 miles from DC. Syria is 5,960 miles from DC. Libya is 4,849 miles from DC. Colombia is 2,377 miles from DC. 

"Amongst the Cleanest Climate There Are…" 

Trump also told Morgan that the "United States right now has amongst the cleanest climate there are based on all statistics." 

As CNN fact-checkers pointed out: "This is not true. According to something called the Environmental Performance Index, the US actually ranks 27th in environmental quality"—behind the UK, Spain, Greece, Taiwan, Cyprus, and Portugal and just edging out Slovakia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Costa Rica. 

Trump Dumps on the EPA 

Under Donald Trump's thumb, the Environmental Protection Agency has become the Environmental Pollution Agency. Examples abound. 

At the behest of his oil-gas-and-coal backers, Trump has ordered the EPA to abandon Obama-era regulations designed to double automobile fuel-efficiency goals. 

In July, Trump's EPA took steps to weaken long-established rules that invited public feedback on the environmental impact of industrial expansion, thereby curtailing the public's ability to challenge how much pollution nearby factories and powerplants are allowed to spew. 

Trump's EPA recently overrode warnings from scientists and environmental groups and approved use of a powerful insecticide linked to the "evisceration" of the world's endangered bee populations. Already in serious decline, the US has recorded a 40% colony loss over the past year. (We won't know how many bees will die because Trump's Agriculture Department just announced suspension of its Honey Bee Colonies Report owing to a "budget shortfall.") 

To top it all off, Trump ordered his aides to stage a celebration of his "environmental legacy." It proved to be an exercise in "fake news." The progress cited was actually rooted in measures instituted before Trump's presidency and, as the Associated Press pointed out, "in some of the particulars, they were wrong. For example, the air is not cleaner under Trump." 

Trump Toys with Becoming "President for Life" 

According to a report in the June 16 Washington Post, Donald Trump has tweet-hinted that he's open to occupying the Oval Office well beyond the Constitutionally limited two terms. 

Trump's potentially impeachable tweet included gratuitous swipes at the New York Times and Washington Post and added: “The good news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer? KEEP AMERICA GREAT), both of these horrible papers will quickly go out of business & be forever gone!” 

Trump made a similar remark at an event in April, when he told a crowd that he might remain in the Oval Office “at least for 10 or 14 years” and, last year, Trump told Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate that he'd like to follow the example of Chinese President Xi Jinping, proclaiming: “He’s now president for life. President for life! No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.” 

In a Real Democracy Leaders Are Chosen by Popular Vote 

Tired of the Electoral College? Fed up with presidential campaigns decided by the Supreme Court? The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Imagine: if every vote in the US were equal, every vote in every state would count. 

Thanks to our winner-take-all state laws, two of our last three presidential "winners" (George W. Bush and Donald Trump) actually lost the popular vote. 

Good news. A record 4 states have enacted the National Popular Vote bill so far in 2019. The bill is already law in 16 states. These states have 196 electoral votes—only 74 short of the 270 needed to activate the bill and thereby guaranteeing the Presidency to the candidate receiving the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. 

Bad news. The NPV's Republican opponents have bolstered their lobbying machine in hopes of blocking the path to the 270 critical votes. 

There's more to learn at the National Popular Vote web site where you can find 14 illuminating videos and answers to 131 myths about the NPV. 

Comic Gags that Made Me Choke 

I'm a long-time fan of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury strip—especially the Sunday samplings that specialize in skewering the Orange Demon in the White House—but the June 30 installment troubled me. It depicted Trudeau's fictional daredevil, the "Red Rascal," showing up in Tehran and swinging a sword to dispatch Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani—at the behest of Trump's hawkish advisor John Bolton. 

Since Trudeau's website invites feedback, I expressed concern that the "satirical" assassination of the leader of a foreign country could (1) serve to "normalize" the possibility and (2) could further trouble Iran's leaders. 

I have a related problem with Mark Tatulli's Lio, whose macabre exploits occasionally involve depictions of nuclear missiles and mushroom clouds. 

When it comes to a country like the nuclear-armed-and-coup-plotting USA, neither nuclear war nor regime-changing assassinations are laughing matters. 

Nuke News: NATO Slip-up Reveals US A-bombs in EU 

NATO has a long-term policy that it will neither "confirm nor deny" the presence of US nuclear weapons in EU countries. On July 16, however, the Belgian newspaper De Morgen published part of a NATO document (from the rapporteur of the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Assembly) that spilled some precious nuclear beans. 

The NATO document, titled "A New Era for Nuclear Deterrence? Modernisation, Arms Control, and Allied Nuclear Forces," revealed that the Pentagon has secretly stashed its nuclear bombs in six nations. 

A message Smithreens recently received from Pieter Teirlinck with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) included this key sentence: 

"Within the NATO context, the US forward-deploys approximately 150 gravity bombs, specific B61 gravity bombs, to Europe for use on both US and Allied dual-capable aircraft. These bombs are stored at six US and European bases—Kleine Brogel in Belgium, Büchel in Germany, Aviano in Italy and Ghedi-Torre in Italy, Volkel in The Netherlands and Inçirlik in Turkey." 

Teirlinck provided the following chronology: the document "was dated 16th April, discussed on 1th of June in Bratislava. 11th of July it was published again but this specific passage was altered to a more general passage." Teirlinck also provided a Screenshot of the passage (in Dutch). 

London's The Independent, one of the newspapers that shared the story, also revealed that there are now "roughly 150 US nuclear weapons stored in Europe."