Letters to the Editor

Good Times Rolling

Has anyone noticed that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is closing in on returning to its previous unprecedented high in the high 26s. When it sunk a few months ago to almost 22,000, the mainstream media was heralding the end of the “Trump Economy.” Now, there’s (almost) nothing in the way of happy reporting of this complete turnaround.

Nineteen months until November 2020 is a long time in politics. Anything can happen, but I wouldn’t want to be a Democrat candidate in this Trump climate. It’s starting to look a lot like “1984” from where I’m sitting. Even the Democrat mayor of Los Angeles can’t help gushing over the good times in his neck of the woods, although he doesn’t say anything about Donald Trump as the main impetus for everyone’s good times.

But Trump is the 800-pound gorilla lurking not far from these Democrats. The people are instinctively aware who the source of the good times is, and these Democrat leaders know the people know.

Can’t be a Great Time for Democrats (right now).

David S. McCalmont
Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: One day soon, one of the network newscasts is going to break and say something positive about… if not President Trump… the economy and what business-tax reduction and de-regulation has done to free up both capital and people. The odds are something like 93 to 7 against it, but you should continue to hang on, as it does look pretty good for the president at the moment. – J.B.)

Shaken and Stirred

Carved in stone above the entrance to my law college was “Equal Justice Under Law,” which was understood to mean that similar actions by different people would be treated the same. There are, however, exceptions as will be discussed below.

Prosecutor discretion: In 2008, after Sarah Palin was selected as the VP candidate, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a case against sitting Senator Stevens (R) of Alaska and timed the guilty jury verdict to swing the election to Begich (D), by 1600 votes, in a traditionally Republican state. During the trial the judge charged the DOJ with withholding evidence, entering false evidence and supporting perjury, and after the trial, assigned a special prosecutor to investigate the six DOJ prosecutors. The DOJ apologized to the court and Eric Holder withdrew the indictment and the verdict based on serious prosecutor malfeasance, which was the government’s version of what would have been labeled malpractice in the private sector.

Subsequently, the DOJ applied to the Ninth District Circuit Court to drop the indictments and convictions because of the same type of DOJ misconduct, by some of the same lawyers, in the prosecutions of Republicans Pete Kott and Vic Kohring. There were no similar examples against Democrats. None of the prosecutors was prosecuted.

Power: The DOJ, being given the exclusive right to prosecute criminal charges on behalf of the federal government, carries with it an enhanced obligation to be fair. For example, shouldn’t lying to congress be treated the same as lying to the DOJ? Yet Flynn was charged with obstruction of justice for lying to the DOJ. Holder’s emails showed he lied to Congress on supplying automatic weapons to Mexican cartels in “Fast and Furious” but was not charged.

Political impact: Begich remained senator, and besides casting the deciding vote in favor of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), used senatorial prerogative to recommend Sharon Gleason be appointed a federal judge in Alaska, which was done by President Obama. 

Impact: Judge Gleason ruled that President Trump’s attempts to return areas permitted for drilling under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, was “unlawful” and a violation of the Act because only Congress could “add” areas for drilling. Of course Trump was not “adding” areas but only “restoring” areas approved by Congress but removed by then President Obama. There is a long-standing concept that the power to do something rests with the office and not the person. To deprive a president from being able to change the decision of another president implies that one president is more powerful than another one, which is a definition of prejudice.

Future: Begich is no longer a senator, the ACA is still in place, as is Judge Gleason. The stone carving “Equal Justice Under Law” survived after being shaken during the remodeling of the college: hopefully its message will survive being shaken.

Brent Zepke
Santa Barbara

Welcome Jada Farewell!

Thank you for the adorable article on OsteoStrong Assistant Manager, Lauren Farewell, and her newborn daughter, Jada!

Yvonne Parsons
Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: I’ve been going to OsteoStrong on Las Positas just off the Highway 101 exit for about five years, and my wife started going a little over a year ago. Just wanted to remind people that OsteoStrong offers a relatively inexpensive exercise procedure developed by the son of a NASA doctor whose job it was to help astronauts retain and/or regain bone mass after space travel. I fell into it because I wanted to hit the ball farther in my golf game, but many older folk, particularly women, swear to the efficacy of maintaining bone mass and helping them avoid or even reverse osteoporosis. It’s a good program with a good crew and, yes, it helped me hit the ball farther. – J.B.)

A Suspicious Mind

It’s astonishing to see evidence of x-ray vision at work in the Montecito Journal (MJ # 25/13). Guy Strickland, Diana and Don Thorn and the estimable David S. McCalmont have all seen through the brick wall that Attorney General Barr has erected around the report of Special Counselor Mueller.

To the surprise of anyone who’s actually looked with human eyes at the evidence available in the public record (from the campaign chairman slipping a GRU asset polling information to the President’s confidante arranging timely Wikileaks and the President openly pardon-dangling to conceal the truth), they have deemed the Mueller investigation itself a crime.

They are confident of the report’s contents, sight most definitely unseen, based on sketchy assurances from an AG hired for his belief that the President simply cannot obstruct justice by virtue of his position, the same AG who found legal rationale for G.H. W. Bush to pardon his convicted former staff and thus defuse his own criminal involvement in Iran/Contra.

Let’s see how the picture looks through those miraculous eyes when the report can be seen by ordinary people, as it surely will.

After all, if the report so evidently releases the president from any and all suspicion and reveals the investigation to have indeed been the legendary witch-hunt, why have we not seen even the executive summaries prepared by the Mueller prosecutors? Why hasn’t the AG asked the Chief Judge of the DC Circuit to allow the release of protected 6-E Grand Jury evidence not implicated in other active prosecutions? Could the Attorney General of the United States be failing to protect his client? That’s us, by the way; we’re his client, we the people of the United States.

I’m a Democrat and I acknowledge that Donald J. Trump is the President, so don’t play that card, Mr. Editor. He’s a tax dodge, a liar, a cheat, and a man awaiting felony charges if he’s not re-elected, but he’s my President, and I’ve got the most corrupt and regressive Administration in my lifetime to show for it.

Cotty Chubb
Montecito

(Editor’s note: Mr. Mueller could have waited another year or two to finish his report, but he turned it in early, apparently because there really isn’t or wasn’t anything else to find. In any case, what’s the rush now to see the full un-redacted and hoped-for damaging report that your party insists the Attorney General deliver not today but yesterday or the day before? It’ll all come out well before November 2020, after which people will have much to ponder before they vote. Although you seem to know way more than anybody, including the new U.S. Attorney General, my suggestion to you is: switch to decaf and ease up on the reins; you really don’t need to go so fast. – J.B.)

Filling Up

Cachuma Lake, Santa Barbara’s and Montecito’s major water source is just about 80% full and looks like a lake again.

Jack Martin
Santa Barbara

(Editor’s note: Jack Martin of Action Roofing is and has been the Santa Barbara area’s local weather guru for a number of years. We here at the Journal were only introduced to his daily weather forecast in January of this year, but now we read his daily reports religiously. Mr. Martin gets up at 4:30 am nearly every day to read weather reports from all over. He then digests what he has read from his myriad sources and puts out his own analysis around 6:30 every day. He’s very good and very, very accurate. While there isn’t really any weather to write about from, say, April to October (though when and if the marine layer will appear or how strong the Santa Ana winds or sundowners will be can be important to beachgoers and sailboat captains), be sure to add Jack’s site for a daily briefing during the rainy season. I had at least three days of precipitation-free golf on empty courses because of his forecasting. Whereas others had predicted rain all day long, Jack described in minute detail when and where drops were likeliest to occur. He was almost always right and always more precise than any others, including NOAA, KEYT, and Weather Underground.

E-mail him at: jack@aroofing.com and ask to be placed on his mailing list. You’ll be glad you did. – J.B.)

Easy Peasy

A special event is coming to Santa Barbara Saturday, May 4 that may change your life for the better. This is an open house from 10 am to 3 pm at the McKenzie Park Lawn Bowling Club that will introduce you to lawn bowling, and the many associated benefits.

About 19 years ago a tennis buddy of mine introduced me to lawn bowling, and I agreed to check it out. I have since become an avid proponent of lawn bowling for the following reasons:

1) You do not have to set up games like in tennis and golf, but just show up at the greens at 9:30 am or 12 pm, and the game is set up for you.

2) It only takes about two hours to play a game, which for me is great for I still have time for my activities or other endeavors.

3) It is a very social game plus lots of fun with good competition.

 4) Definitely a game of skill.

 5) There are ongoing games just about every day of the week plus you can set up your own game.

 6) At my age, my knees will only allow me to play tennis once in a while with the grandkids, and my shoulder won’t allow me to play beach volleyball.

 7) For many years I was an avid golfer, but I have found I enjoy lawn bowling more and so I only play golf on a sporadic basis.

 8) Like golf this is a game not a sport so it is not aerobic, but you do get in a lot of walking. If you desire only aerobic exercise, this is not for you.

9) It costs about $270 a year to join the McKenzie Park Lawn Bowling Club. 

 10) The greens are located at McKenzie Park, which is across the street from Santa Barbara Municipal Golf Course.

If you would like to find out more about this outstanding little-known game please call me at 962-0375, or just show up for the open house which will include an introduction to lawn bowling, free lessons, and pizza.

What could be easier?

Larry Larsson
Santa Barbara

The Case For Cannabis

Cannabis is the most productive and helpful plant known to humanity. Up until the time politics removed society’s right to use hemp in the United States, its useful products were widely known. Hemp and its derivative products have been used by people going back 8,000 years or more.

Out of the billions of life forms on this planet only an exceedingly small number have a close relationship with humans. Horses, cows, dogs, cats and a few others live closely with us, share our lives, and have provided us with great benefits over the thousands of years of our relationship. 

But what about plants? Trees for wood and cotton for clothes, certainly. Food grains that feed us, for sure. Herbs for medicines have been known to mankind for multiple millennia. However, there is only one plant that has, since prehistory, provided all these things and more. That is Cannabis Sativa, also known as Hemp.

Hemp is the Cannabis plant with THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) levels below 0.3%. THC is the plant’s chemical compound that gives the intoxicating effect. Marijuana is the same Cannabis plant with THC levels above 0.3%. 

The federal government just fully re-legalized hemp production in the United States. Marijuana remains federally illegal, however, voters in 33 states wanted it legal either for medical use only or both recreationally and medically, as is the case in California.

However, sadly, politics and greed removed hemp from our culture over 80 years ago. Hemp produces a superior paper over wood pulp, and, is more cost effective to produce. The same for cotton and its fiber. Hemp was an unwanted competitor to wood for paper, cotton for clothing and petrochemical industries. 

William Randolph Hearst owned vast timber holdings for paper production that relied on chemicals developed by the DuPont chemical company to process wood pulp into paper. He and others wanted hemp eliminated. Taxes placed on hemp were so burdensome that the plant’s cultivation was put out of business.

Society has finally realized just how vacuous all that has been, and voting majorities want the plant back on our menu of useful contributors to a productive and healthy society. Hence the votes to legalize Cannabis sweeping our country. And, the recent federal vote to allow the cultivation of hemp. 

Columbus sailed to the New World using hemp canvas for sails and hemp rope for rigging. The colonists brought hemp seed to grow high protein food, along with fiber for rope, clothing and paper. The first two drafts of America’s Declaration of Independence were done on hemp paper. George Washington was an avid hemp farmer. Queen Victoria used Cannabis to reduce her monthly discomfort. Popular Mechanics, in a 1938 article on hemp, held that it can produce over 25,000 useful products.

On the medical use side of Cannabis, cancer, epilepsy, asthma, insomnia, chronic pain, PTSD, Parkinson’s are all on a growing list of conditions that Cannabis can improve, and possibly cure. Ongoing research is rapidly growing. The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has called for Cannabis to be de-scheduled from the list of banned substances worldwide. 

It has been clearly debunked that Cannabis is a gateway drug to the use of highly addictive substances. To the contrary, surveys have shown that Cannabis use substantially lowers the use of opioids. A 2014 study by the American Medical Association (AMA) showed that in states that have legalized medical Cannabis use, death by opioid overdose has dropped an average of 25%.

Now that Santa Barbara County has adopted its Cannabis cultivation ordinances, along with the federal legalization of hemp, and the coming federal legalization of Marijuana, our County is poised to be a national leader in all things Cannabis, from Industrial hemp farming, to medical Cannabis research and development, to, yes, recreational Cannabis products. The latter is going to be a cohort of the wine and beer industry, with tasting room and restaurant offerings of cannabis-infused products along with wine and beer selections.

Cannabis and its many derivative products can be a wonderfully productive multibillion-dollar industry in our County. Education and understanding will allow it to happen.

Steve Decker, CEO
Santa Barbara Cannabis, LLC