Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., scion of America’s most illustrious Democrat political family, gave what I consider to be not only the finest speech from the podium of those presented at this year’s first-ever Mid-term Republican Convention held in Dallas, Texas on September 9 and 10, but among the best and certainly most stirring political speeches I’ve ever heard.

If RFK, Jr. isn’t invited to give the same kind of speech at the Republican Convention in the summer of 2028, that would be a travesty.

Other standout speakers included President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Jr., Mehmet Oz, Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump Jr., Scott Bessent, and even (via pre-taped video) Democrat Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, but, it was RFK, Jr., who lit up the room most passionately and laid out precisely why he is no longer a Democrat and what’s at stake in the upcoming presidential election scheduled for November 2028.

The convention featured the Republican Party’s best, including a rousing finale by JD Vance that should help tee up his presidential campaign.

Kennedy began modestly, admitting that, “For seventy years of my life [he’s 72], I would have bet any amount of money that I would not be addressing a Republican convention.” He called the irony of his presence there as “inescapable” to most in the audience.

His raspy throat malady stayed mostly under control, thanks to diligent efforts of his speech coach and his own steely determination.

He explained that he’d been attending Democrat conventions since he was six years old, and had been a keynote speaker at many.

“I grew up,” he says, “in a Democratic party of Franklin Roosevelt, of my uncle John Kennedy, of my father Robert Kennedy, and ours was a party of strong principles, of clear policies, and an inspiring, idealistic vision for democracy.”

He noted that his uncle “ran on a platform of tax cuts, strong defense, and fighting communism” and that “the Democrats of that era stood with labor and working people and the American middle class. Nearly every cop and firefighter was a Democrat,” he noted, implying that was no longer the case, and subtly suggesting that most of his Republican audience would agree.

He said that the things that were no longer true about what the Democrat Party he had once belonged to stood for today included its stand as “a champion of the Bill of Rights,” of “unbridled free speech,” “wary of centralized government power, corporate privilege,” and “secret intelligence agencies.”

His uncle and his father “were all for competition, for meritocracy, for the benefits of America, and for excellence, which they thought should be a universal aspiration for Americans.”

“They,” he says, “saw Israel as America’s most critical front-line ally in fighting the toxic ideology of Islamism… an ideology that has subjugated, impoverished and tyrannized and tortured the people of Palestine and the people of Iran, and they openly promise to do the same to us.”

Kennedy proffered nostalgically that “Democrats and labor leaders fought fiercely in my generation to stop illegal immigration at the border.”

Then he got to the heart of his speech.

“During COVID, I watched the Democratic Party turn against every one of its essential values, its principles, and all of the policies that define my party.”

It was apparent that RFK, Jr. was furious that the Party he’d pledged his allegiance to throughout his seven decades of life, had abandoned the principles he still holds dear.

“The Democrats – which were once the champions of the American Constitution – systematically obliterated the Bill of Rights… Beginning with the First Amendment… Democrats censored hundreds of scientists and physicians who questioned the government’s dubious COVID pronouncements and orthodoxies.”

All that Kennedy said was received enthusiastically by a full stadium of mostly Trump supporters, Republicans all.

Kennedy continued: “Thirty-seven hours after President Biden took the oath of office, he ordered Facebook and Instagram to remove my accounts in order to prevent public debate.

“Democrats obliterated the second leg of the First Amendment, to the guaranteed Right of Assembly by social distancing regulations…

“Democrats violated the third leg of the First Amendment, the Freedom to Worship. They closed every church in our country for a year. Who could imagine that would have happened? And they kept open the liquor stores and the big box stores as essential businesses.”

Boos and hisses aimed at the Democrat Party followed.

Here’s more:

“Democrats torpedoed the Seventh Amendment Right to Jury Trial by giving liability shields to the giant pharmaceutical companies. No matter how negligent they were, no matter how reckless, no matter how toxic the ingredients, no matter how grievous your injury, you could not sue them.

“Democrats violated the Fifth Amendment, by shutting down three million businesses with no Due Process and no Just Compensation.

“Democrats shut down the Fourth Amendment, Protection from Unlawful Searches and Seizures, by forcing Americans to disclose their medical information before they could exercise their constitutional rights.”

He wasn’t finished.

“In a single year, my party obliterated two-hundred-fifty years of Constitutional Guarantees. The only Bill of Right that they left unscathed was the Second Amendment, and probably only because there is a Second Amendment. (This received a loud and boisterous response.)

Kennedy was in his stride now, gaining strength from the audience reaction and garnering all the energy his gruff and nearly hoarse voice could muster.

“The party of ‘my body, my choice,’ forced citizens to wear masks and to submit to invasive and intrusive medical interventions against their own wills…

“They silenced the voices of tens of thousands of mothers who believed that their children had suffered vaccine injuries.

“The Democrats declared war on women’s sports, effectively destroying Title IX.

“The Democrats condemned meritocracy openly and celebrated mediocrity.

“The Democratic Party became the party of elites, labeling working Americans as ‘deplorables.’

“The Democrats cultivated deep ties with Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag, Big Food, Big Insurance, and the mainstream media. They embraced policies that divided Americans along racial lines.

“They abolished my uncle’s physical fitness test because they said that competition was bad for children.

“The Democrats abandoned all of these values. And all of their traditional values, offering Americans only one policy.

“The one policy that they stood for: the unbridled, sociopathic, and blind hatred of a single man, Donald J. Trump.

“The Democrats dismantled the public integrity safeguards and opened the floodgates to thieves and fraudsters who fleeced the American medical regulatory agencies for a hundred billion dollars annually during every year of the Biden administration.

“And they turned our federal government into the biggest child trafficking operation in world history.

“The Democratic Party, in short, lost its way. I mourn the fact that neither my father nor my uncle would recognize the Democratic Party of today.

“It struck me this was no longer about left and right.

“It was about sane and insane.

“It was about common sense and communism.

If Kennedy had been running for president as a Republican, I believe he could have snatched the nomination right then.

“In April 2023,” he noted, “I ran for president, hoping to summon my party back to its bedrock values. But the Democratic Party had lost faith in American voters, and utterly, ironically lost faith in American democracy.

“To prevent an election from occurring, they sued every candidate who dared to run against Joe Biden. And in an attempt to remove us all from the ballot, a lot of you think that the lawfare was just against Donald Trump. It was mainly against him, but they sued Dean Phillips, they sued Marianne Williamson, they sued Cornel West, they sued Donald Trump fifty times in thirty-eight states to remove him from the ballot. And they sued me in twelve states to remove me from ballots where I had legally qualified.

“And then – this is almost comical – after I endorsed President Trump and I tried to remove myself from the ballot so that he could have my votes, they sued me to keep me on the ballot…

“They excluded me from the debates; they canceled the primaries; the Democratic Party changed the rules to make sure I could not win and neither could the other people who were running as Democrats, no matter how many votes we got. And for the first time in history, they canceled their own convention.

“No voter ever cast a primary ballot for Kamala Harris. No elected delegate was ever consulted.

“The party of ‘No Kings’ simply anointed a queen.”

President Trump and RFK, Jr., Bridge the Gap

Kennedy deserved a break, but must have realized his time was nearly up, and continued with renewed energy, explaining that:

“The day President Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, within three hours of his shooting, he called me and asked me for a meeting. And during the series of talks that followed, I realized that everything that I had heard about President Trump and everything I believed about him from the mainstream media was a lie.

“Everything.

“I discovered a self-effacing man of superior intelligence, of empathy and compassion, with an encyclopaedic grasp of the issues in molecular detail, and most of all, a near reckless courage to challenge vested interests and official orthodoxies.

“I found a man who cared deeply about transparency in government, who believed in protecting free speech more than anything and the entire United States Constitution.

“These conversations changed the course of my campaign and my life.”

The following line received the loudest and longest applause of the night:

“I realized that many of the foundational values of the Democratic Party had found a new home, and it was called the Republican Party.”

After the applause, and the hooting and hollering had finally died down, he began to wrap it up in a more intimate way:

“Out of a sense of fairness, after my conversation with President Trump, I tried to have the same conversation with Kamala Harris.

“You think she would agree to meet with me?

“Did she even pick up the telephone?

“No.

“So, on August 23, 2024, I suspended my campaign and I endorsed President Trump. that moment would never have happened without my friend, Charlie Kirk. Charlie played a critical and indispensable role at bringing me and President Trump together. He helped build the bridge that President Trump and I walked across that day.

“That afternoon, President Trump and I stood together in front of thousands of Americans. We shook hands and we made a promise to the American people. Together, we promised to make America healthy again.

“Some of my Democratic friends told me that I was a fool for trusting President Trump. And so I want to make the record clear right now. President Trump has kept every single promise that he made to me without exception. And we have kept our promise to the American people.

“President Trump has ended nine wars. He’s restored competency to our government. He’s restored public faith. He’s restored America’s leadership across the globe.

“And I am so grateful to God for giving our country a leader like this. I’m grateful to President Trump for including me in his administration and giving me a place in this extraordinary revolution that is happening in our country where we’re going to restore American democracy and restore the America that my uncle and father believed in, the exemplary nation respected and emulated across the globe. We are making America healthy again.

‘It’s up to you now. We need to elect a Republican Congress to keep this momentum going. Let’s go out and do that.

“God bless you. God bless America. Thank you all very much.”

It really was a speech for the ages.

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Community Calendar

Got a Santa Barbara event for our community calendar? Fenkner@sbcurrent.com

We at Santa Barbara Current celebrated the launch of the first edition of California Current on, appropriately, July 4^th, and we plan to publish once or twice a week, most likely on Friday and Saturday.

Regular subscribers to Santa Barbara Current may not be aware of this, and neither perhaps are many Jim’s Journal readers.

We want to change that.

Califo…

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My family (wife Helen, son Tim, daughter Lily) and I moved to Montecito on July 4, 1986, so this short recollection of Montecito and Santa Barbara seems appropriate, particularly during this time of year.

Our house on Middle Road was already 40 years old. The good news for us was that we h…

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Elections Matter and This Was No Exception

The votes have been counted. At least some of the votes have been counted. Enough so that there appears to be two front-runners for governor: Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra. I won’t use vote tabulation because we’re at least three weeks from the final tally, this being the Democrat-run state of California, and counting votes is not something they’re very good at.

One would have thought that a month would be enough time for everyone and anyone who wanted to vote to do so. But no, there is apparently a large group of stupid people who have a tough time figuring out exactly how to vote and what to do with their many ballots when they get them.

But, as things stand right now, former FOX Cable TV host Hilton is atop.

And that’s a very good – and surprising – thing.

Equally exciting is Spencer Pratt’s position as the likely second-place candidate for the Los Angeles mayoralty. Pratt is the former Reality TV star of “The Hills,” in which he played – for want of a better term – “the bad guy” on the show. After his and his parents’ house burned down in the Pacific Palisades fire, he took on the real dimensions of his Reality TV “troublemaker” persona and launched a campaign to run for mayor of Los Angeles, challenging the hopelessly incompetent (DEI pick?) mayor, Karen Bass.

Pratt’s campaign utilized the work of several independent AI content creators to great effect, and he’s put himself in position to possibly get himself elected mayor come November 3rd.

We wish him the best and certainly hope he wins.

A Man With a Plan

Back to Mr. Hilton, who also has a chance to become governor of California, and what a prize that would be.

On that note, I had a brief telephone conversation with candidate Hilton before the election.

Here’s what I garnered from our exchange:

Steve Hilton has been committed to the goal of becoming governor of California for at least the past two years and has thought about it for much longer.

He is serious.

He has a plan.

You should know that:

1) He grew up in England (his family fled Hungary in 1956; Steve was born in London)

2) He served as Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s Director of Strategy (2010-2012) and had been immersed in British political affairs.

3) His distinct clipped public school upper-class accent sets him apart from most other would-be politicians.

4) His neatly trimmed beard (goatee) and bald dome force you to seriously consider what he has to say.

In other words, candidate Steve Hilton is not your typical American glad-handing politico.

But California has his full attention. When asked how he felt about Nigel Farage’s recent success in British sub-elections, for example, he asked “Why? What happened?” It was all over the news, but Hilton had only one thing on his mind: California.

I suggested that Farage would likely be named Prime Minister

“within the next two or three years,” which I thought he’d be interested in contemplating.

“How’s that gonna happen?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” but it seems like pretty exciting news,” I said.

“I’m not following it,” Hilton replied.

He also had nothing to say about New York City Mayor Mamdani’s pied-a-terre tax in New York City.

“I’m focused on California,” he says, noting that “We’ve reached a breaking point in California. You see that in L.A., you see it across the state. We can’t go on like this. Sixteen years of one-party rule, total disaster, complete failure on every front.

“America was built on checks and balances, and we don’t have that anymore in California because Democrats control everything and have for so long… This totally failed blue state governance model,” he stresses, “needs to be rejected. Comprehensively.”

Just Some of Steve Hilton’s Proposed Policies

Hilton’s tax plan features no state income tax on one’s first $100,000. After that, a flat 7 ½% tax. He also would do away with the small business tax of $800 annual registration.

Here’s more:

He’d add California to the states that honor the “No tax on tips” policy the federal government has put in place.

Would implement a flat $71 vehicle registration charge.

There’s be no income or property tax on retirement income for veterans.

“The main thing we have to battle in California,” he says, “is a sense of apathy and hopelessness, that there’s nothing that can be done, that we just have to either put up with this or leave.

“And I think that’s simply not true,” he concludes. “There’s a majority of Californians who want change and we’re going to lead that majority to victory.”

He was very much behind Spencer Pratt’s campaign for mayor in Los Angeles. He was also much appreciative for President Trump’s full endorsement.

I brought up the idea of challenging the legality of the collusion of public sector unions with the Democrat Party a la former Governor Scott Walker’s success (now president of Young America’s Foundation) in Wisconsin. He agreed, “there is a strong argument that has been made that government unions themselves are unconstitutional, but” he says, “that’s a federal argument that needs to be taken to the Supreme Court.”

Hilton is under no illusion that things will go easily, should he become California’s governor.

“Obviously, everything that we do is going to be challenged by the interests that we’re taking on,” he says.

I don’t know if Steve Hilton will break through and win the election. We’ll know that after November 3, but I do know that he is more than capable and prepared to govern should such an event occur.

•••

In his book, “Califailure, Reversing the Ruin of America’s Worst Run State,” Hilton details many of his proposals. “If you look at the policies section on my campaign website,” he says, “there are all sorts of sources of information where you can see the planning that I’m already doing.” To learn more – much more – you should visit that website: stevehiltonforgovernor.com

•••

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A Conversation With Mollie Hemingway

As the man who authored the famous decision that spelled the end of the deeply flawed and forever controversial Roe v. Wade ruling, Samuel Alito certainly warrants the in-depth scrutiny he receives in the latest book crafted by author/editor/pundit Mollie Hemingway, who believes Alito is

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5th District Supervisor: Maribel Aguilera

If you had to pick a candidate able to beat the Democratic Socialist endorsed Ricardo Valencia in the June 2rd primary, choose Santa Maria City Council member Maribel Aquilera.

She is clever, personable, and potentially another mildly conservative vote and ally to Bob Nelson, the only supervisor with the cajónes a…

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November Mid-Terms Looking Dicey For Republicans

It all looked so promising after President Donald Trump’s blowout win in November of ’24. After all, he took every toss-up and/or “swing” state, ending with a substantial majority of the Electoral College (312-226) and for the first time for a Republican in twenty years, also won the popular vote (77,302,5…

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(An extraordinary event took place at Birnam Wood (a private gated enclave in Montecito carved out of what had been a citrus farm) last weekend. It was an invitation-only gathering to commemorate the life and death of a longtime Santa Barbara/Montecito resident. Organized and headed up by Mary Gates, a close friend of both Ray Winn and Ray’s partner in life and love for more than 38 years, Peter Kevoian.

Some 120 friends and relatives from Santa Barbara, Montecito, and around the world, dedicated their Saturday afternoon to attend a “High Tea” in memory of Ray, who passed away at the age of 92. – J.B.)

High Tea

{In 2017 Ray and Peter went on their last vacation together. Peter knew it would likely be their last one (Ray was confined to a wheelchair at that point), and they had barely survived the bridges of Venice and cobblestone streets of Croatia. They ended their vacation in London and decided to indulge themselves. They took a suite at the Ritz Hotel for a full week. Ritz suites come with full-time butler service. At first, Peter thought, “That’s nice, but completely unnecessary. I mean, who needs a butler? Well, it turns out that I do. Like five times a day. After a few days with our butler Jeremy, I couldn’t tie my own shoes.”

The first day at the Ritz they had a high tea and Peter recounts, “As you know no one does it like the British since they invented it. It is performed with military precision and Ray absolutely loved it. The livery worn by the waiters, the flowers, the delectable treats in that gorgeous 18^th century room. So, Ray said to me ‘Peter, why don’t we sell all of our assets, pay the taxes, and take an apartment here at the Ritz?’ He went on to say, ‘We can enjoy this level of service every day of our lives until we run out of money, at which point we simply kill ourselves.’ I said ‘Ray, you had me interested in your little plan all the way until the end of that story.’ But that was Ray – he cherished tradition, history, and elegance. His wit was always delivered with effortless precision.” – P.K.}

Ray was both brilliant and creative; he was a composer and an adventurer, a writer and an author. He was a serious man who had a childlike mischievousness. For example, he put a mathematical equation on his license plate called the Avogadro’s constant; 6X10E23. (actually 6.02214076 ×1023 mol−1. It acts as a bridge between the atomic and macroscopic worlds, relating molar mass to real-world measurements; it is one mole of atomic matter.)

Ray loved deeply and was steadfast in his loyalty to his friends and this country. He was a proud Republican and could not understand why every American wasn’t.

He was a pilot and a sailor. He owned several planes and boats over the years. His achievements were many. If you indulge me, I can walk you through some of the poignant moments and important accomplishments in his life and career.

Ray was born in Price Utah in a coal mining town to a Mormon mother, five brothers, and a father who worked in the mines. When his father abandoned the family, the mining company put his mother and brothers out into the snow and locked the door to their one-room company house. The next day, his youngest brother died from exposure to the extreme cold. The Mormon Church rescued the family and relocated them to Las Vegas Nevada. There, his mother worked tirelessly taking on two shifts as a waitress per day.

The Airline Owner and The “It” Girl

Ray’s brilliant mind was on full display before age two. He spoke in complete articulate sentences. At age three, he was fascinated by how anything mechanical operated. His mother explained that it was electricity that powered these devices and it came out of the wall through electrical plugs. Ray grabbed a knife and stuck it into a socket. He got a jolt that knocked him off his tiny feet. He didn’t pout or cry. He just got angry.

His grandmother gave him a toolset so he could figure things out on his own. “Here’s the toaster, take it apart and put it back together again,” she said. And he did just that. The vacuum cleaner and anything else he could handle was next, so he could comprehend their function. He quickly understood how AC and DC currents worked.

As a young child he got his first paper route. It was the way boys in his day made money. Ray was different, of course. He chose a paper route that no other paper boy wanted, on the rich side of town and a paper boy’s nightmare. The lots were large and the houses were set way back. It took twice the time to deliver the same number of papers in that area as a typical tract of homes. He couldn’t toss the papers to their doors, so he decided to hand deliver the paper into his client’s hands or at their doorsteps.

This simple act put into motion two transformative events. First, he met the founder and CEO of Bonanza Airlines, a start-up Las Vegas air carrier. This man was so impressed with this industrious little red-headed boy and his sweet smile that he began to give Ray stock in Bonanza Airlines as tip money.

Later, many years later, Ray would cash in that stock and purchase his first house.

The second meeting was even more transformative. He met Clara Bow on his route. She was the First Lady of silent cinema; the original IT girl. She was a beautiful vivacious blonde and did her own stunts in those days. She won the very first Academy Award for acting, along with the entire cast (which was how the award was given at first).

Clara was not the bubblehead image portrayed by the Hollywood machine. She was, in fact, a scholar. She read the Greek tragedies in Greek. She spoke French fluently. She was obsessed with classical music. She collected every Columbia RKO classical album ever produced. She built an entire wing onto her home just to house the voluminous collection. She didn’t allow anyone into her inner sanctum.

Ever.

And then Clara met Ray.

She was smitten by this sweet little boy who got off his bike and handed her the paper. She invited him in, gave him lemonade, and learned that he loved music. So, she began to play classical music for him on her piano. Later, she gave him the only other key to her sacred inner sanctum where she spent hours every day listening to all the great composers’ symphonies. Ray would come and go into her studio daily, listening to every record and learning, remembering, every piece of music he heard, the name of the composers, the names of the conductors, and any discernable differences between the various orchestras around the world.

Whether it was the London Philharmonic or the orchestra in Prague, he knew the subtle differences. His iron vault memory recorded every note played. He fell in love with classical music in the third grade. A love affair that lasted Ray through his entire life.

Ray and I used to play a game. When we drove to our place in Las Vegas, I would play esoteric pieces of music to see if he could name them. I could never trip him up. He never made a mistake. Not once in 38 years.

On to EG&G in Los Alamos

In high school, Ray’s mother was always working and always gone. Angie was a darling woman. She told me directly she couldn’t really keep track of her own children. She just wasn’t home. She told me they were in God’s hands.

She took a rare day off from work to attend a special meeting about Ray requested by the student counselor. She went to the meeting completely ignorant of how Ray or any of her kids were doing in school. She sheepishly asked, “is Ray doin’ alright?” She thought perhaps he was in trouble. The counselor was astounded. He responded, “Mrs. O’Neil, you really don’t know what’s happening with Ray, do you?” She responded simply, “No.” He went on to tell her that “It’s not how Ray is doing in school but how we are doing as educators. That’s why you’re here today. We have given him all senior-level college curriculum books. He has completed all the course work. He has a better command of math and science than our own instructors. He has taught himself how to play five different instruments without lessons or instruction.”

As these things go, word got out about this brilliant boy at Las Vegas High. The counselor spoke to the principal, who spoke to the Chamber of Commerce and then local state representatives. It was decided that Ray should skip college entirely and work with the PhDs at Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico.

They figured out a path for him to do this through employment with a private contractor named EG&G (Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc.)

Prior to going to New Mexico, he married Lorraine, his high-school sweetheart and best friend that he had met in band class. Lorraine was a brilliant girl in her own right with a 160 IQ. They played in the Las Vegas Symphony together and ultimately had three children and years later three wonderful grandchildren.

Once in Los Alamos, Ray went on to file for and receive 33 patents in nuclear weapons design and several patents for advancements in photography principally used to capture the first images ever taken from the surface of Mars.

Shortly after that, Ray was nominated and won as the Outstanding Young Man of the Year for the State of Nevada. Then he was nominated as one of the ten outstanding young men in the U.S.

Touring With Bobby Kennedy and John Glenn

He went on a speaking tour across the United Sates with Bobby Kennedy and John Glenn. Bobby Kennedy became Attorney General of the U.S., and John Glenn, an astronaut. Ray became a top executive with EG&G a defense contractor and ultimately had management responsibility over 14,000 employees.

John and Ray became good friends on that tour. After John Glenn successfully orbited Earth for the first time in 1962, he honored Ray by giving him the watch he wore on that trip through space, to thank him for his friendship while on the speaking tour.

Ray oversaw the private technology side of Area 51 in Nevada, alongside the Commanding General. Ray’s job was to develop stealth technology. When President John Kennedy took a tour of Area 51 for the first time, it was Ray in the helicopter with him explaining why EG&G chose that site.

Ray launched a private airline to transport incognito the hundreds of civilians needed to do the important work in Area 51. He named the airline after the General’s wife, Jane.

It is still in business today.

Country/Western Music Producer

After Ray was done with corporate life he sought a change, a complete change; something totally different to do and something fun. So, he started a Country-Western music studio to produce the next big hit album. He discovered two talented singers named the Perry Sisters in Boston. He produced their first album (“Feelin’ Country”) that got to number two on the Country-Western charts.

It was all going very well; they had a bright future together, until Mona Perry ran off with the drummer and her sister, Sally, ran off with the guitarist. And that brought a quick end to his dream of being a Country Music producer.

Santa Fe Restaurateur

Ray moved to LA to start over. A friend of Ray’s who was aware of his technical gifts, asked Ray if he could solve a serious problem in the manufacturing of semiconductors. Intel, at the time, had invented a highly condensed high-speed semiconductor that performed multiple operations simultaneously.

It was revolutionary.

The problem was that no one could produce it in volume.

Ray, listening to the technical issues and challenges involved figured out the solution almost immediately. Which was astounding, because Dupont, IBM, Intel, TI, Microsoft and all affiliated companies in this business had teams of scientists trying to come up with a solution. Yet Ray, listening to the problem for the first time, understood how to fix it.

Ray went on to invent the Pellicle, which made the manufacturability of Intel’s Pentium chip possible. The Wall Street Journal stated that Ray’s invention was as important to the advancement of computer technology as the invention of the transistor.

And yet, with all these accomplishments, I think that Ray’s proudest achievement was starting a fine dining restaurant in Santa Fe New Mexico. He came home one day and said “Peter, what do you think about starting a restaurant”? and I said, “That’s a terrible idea; restaurants go out of business.”

But I knew him well enough that I said, “You should do it because otherwise you will have regrets having not tried.” Well, in true Ray fashion, Geronimo Lodge was born in 1989 and was an instant success. It continues to delight foodies to this day.

When I ate there for the first time, I had to be honest with Ray. I told him I didn’t care for the bread that they served; I thought it was a bit boring. He agreed. And – literally – the next day he purchased a commercial bakery. The restaurant had amazing bread after that.

In closing, while I remain utterly shattered, I know that we were both lucky guys. We became better people because we met each other thirty-eight happy years ago.

The last time Ray spoke to me was at Cottage Hospital. He didn’t have much time left. Speaking was almost impossible. He had no strength left. His last, almost inaudible words, were “You are my hero.” And then he closed his eyes and never spoke again.

In his final hours, I put my EarPods in his ears so he could listen to his favorite Mozart compositions. As he took his last breath, Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was playing; that was his most favorite of all the pieces of music Mozart wrote.

•••

Peter then thanked everyone who had attended Ray’s memorial, especially, “The Birnam Wood family, and the doctors and caregivers who selflessly attended to Ray’s every need twenty-four hours a day: Dr. Jones, Dr. Mezipan. Dr. Bechtal, Dr. Gundry, Marybeth with VNA, Netty, and Patricia; and so many, many, more that made up our medical team.”

Peter saved his last individual praise for the woman behind this very special Birnam Wood event: “Saint Mary,” he called her, explaining that he redesigned Bob and Mary Gate’s historical Montecito home several years ago. “Little did I know,” he said, “that another angel had just entered my life. Mary has been there every day for my mother while she was with us [before she died], and then with Ray.”

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No one was as surprised as I was to read this morning’s New York Times’ “bulldog” (first draft) edition revealing the number of indictments and guilty pleas dropping fast and furious among Democrat lawmakers. I’m left wondering how this flurry of legal actions taken against, and s…

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An unnamed midshipman checks Rep. Salud Carbajal during Trump 2025 Inauguration ceremony. WARNING: salty language. Courtesy of @RedPilledGirly

(U.S. Navy Commander (Ret) Bob Smith has chosen to take on 5-term congressman Salud Carbajal in the upcoming November election. If Bob can post big numbers in the June 2nd Primary, he believes he’ll have a chance to overtake Salud in November.)

Commander Bob Smith (Ret) Is Running For Congress

Q. This week, Bob, we need to find out what your priorities are and/or would be if elected to Congress. Can you give me three things that might represent that itinerary?

A. Well, we can look at essential things that we need [in the 24^th District]. If you’re a remote employee software engineer, for example, we don’t necessarily need you here on the central coast, right? I get it. You want to live here because it’s amazing, but that’s not something we need here.

There are things we can do [for the things that we actually need]. Look across California and look at how many military bases are gone or dilapidated, with barracks sitting around on them, unused.

Even the land territory that we have. Do we think we’re going to be in wars where we’re driving tanks across vast swaths of land and stuff anymore?

Not likely, right? So, we can take and rehab some of those places into housing areas that won’t take away from the ag land, or anywhere else. It’s already federal land. It’s just being wasted.

Is there something or someplace you have in mind in this district?

There are old barracks up near Cuesta, places down near a naval base in Ventura County that we could look at. There are places outside the district, but adjacent to, and some of the people that work in our district live there.

What else?

Carpinteria is one of the only school districts that does not have a [indoor] pool. And the one here outside – the community pool – is dilapidated. It needs a million dollars’ worth of repairs, but it wasn’t budgeted in Carpinteria’s city budget. We have a water polo team here. They’ve got to use Cate School for their tournaments.

Why? Why is that? Because it’s a blue-collar town with a large Mexican population? I don’t know who Salud Carbajal says he advocates for, but our kids here are not meeting standards, especially the Hispanic population in Carpinteria, and our pool is the one that’s dilapidated and being left behind.

Will there be a debate between you and Salud?

I don’t think Salud will [agree to] debate unless we can show a good turnout in the midterm or in the primary, but I do think he has to answer for his record.

We’ve got to hold our elected officials accountable here, but unfortunately, with no one ever challenging [Democrats], they’re never held accountable. They just get to say whatever they want. They get printed in the local media, whatever they want. You can see objectively that we are falling apart in every category that affects a middle-class person.

We’re 50^th of 50 states in opportunity, 50^th of 50 in home ownership, 50^th of 50 in cost of living. We’re now doing math worse than Mississippi. I don’t want to hear any more California liberals telling me that how “amazing” education is in California. Mississippi is now reading better than us.

Do you have a plan for Immigration?

If we are unwilling as Republicans, to do some commonsense things here in immigration, we’re not going to win any big races. Take DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) kids. If you were two years old and you were brought across the border, and you’re now eighteen, and you’ve graduated, you’ve been through a whole public school system and everything. You probably didn’t even know you were illegal until you went to go get your [driver’s] license at seventeen and a half years old.

How can we hold a two-year-old who’s now eighteen accountable for a decision they never made? They never had a choice in doing it. The person’s never been to another country. Where are you going to send them?

Those are the gray areas where I think if those things are cleaned up, I think that [Republicans] can be on the moral high ground.

Here on the Central Coast, I go to the County office and ask them why they are not enforcing the law on migratory visas and the County tells me, “We don’t ask immigration status.”

Well, I want to know that if I’m paying for it, that money is going to the person, and not a cartel labor organization.

We need to get rid of some of the red tape that makes it so that people don’t want to use E-Verify. The farmers know the families they’re working with. If we have an E-Verify system where they check the person in on this side, they check in on that side. The E-Verify system is constantly running state and federal background checks and all those other things. Those people are checked in both on both sides. We know that person. They come here, they go do the planting season, they have a certain amount of time where they have to get back to the border, check back into the electronic system.

I think that this works so much better than the current system that we have, which is bureaucracy added to all of it where farmers are forced to do all this nonsense.

A large portion of the California coastal politicians want full open borders, right?

Yes, but, that’s not the answer either. There are already some moderate Republicans working on some commonsense immigration reform. I think this is something that can get done with smart people working on the problem.

Have you ever considered running as a Democrat?

No. I’ve been a Republican my entire life. I believe in small government. I think that the local level is where decisions are made best and where democracy happens best.

Look at Carpinteria with these high rises they’re going to put in here for low-income housing. I think the only people that should be determining what Carpinteria looks like are Carpinterians. I don’t think Sacramento should be able to [force] mandates over the top of Carpinteria for what their housing should look like.

The Democrat Party here is for this government-subsidized and socialized housing. I think they want to put everyone in high rise apartments. Tenant, Serfdom, Rent: that’s exactly what a lot of the party stands for.

If you make regulations on rent stabilization and rent freezing, you now need an army of humans in your local city government tracking that and maintaining it and whatever. Regulation in government causes this bloated bureaucracy. I think we can get rid of a bunch of that waste.

I’m for law and order and I’m for national security. These are the reasons that put me on the conservative side of the spectrum. And there are things on the Democrat side of the spectrum that I could never support, especially here in California. So, there’s no possibility that I could ever be a Democrat here.

Before we let you go, do you have any comments on the current situation in the Middle East?

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After Bonnie Donovan gave 24^th District Congressional candidate Bob Smith a big two-thumbs-up in an SBCurrent column last month, I realized it was about time that I too conduct a sit-down with the candidate.

After all, this column is called “Purely Political.”

We met in Linden Square, the recently opened (May, ’25) retail, restaurant, and courtyard space …

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After presidential candidate Donald Trump successfully branded fellow candidate Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio “Little Marco” during a FOX televised presidential debate on March 3, 2016, it didn’t look like Rubio had a political future. He went on to lose the March 15, 2016 Florida Primary to Trump and dropped out of the race for president shortly the…

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(An earlier version of this column ran nearly a year ago, and in consideration of recent events, I thought it important to stress again the truth and import of the manufactured mayhem you’ve been watching on nightly newscasts over the past few weeks and months. – J.B.)

Winning The Optics War with Agitprop

When President Trump gave “Border Czar” Tom Homan …

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(The following letter to the President of the United States has not been sent directly to the President, but we are offering it as an open letter from Santa Barbara Current (sbcurrent.com), or at least from its Editor-in-Chief, with the hope that this kind of message reaches the president’s desk (or, at a minimum, the desk of someone close to the presid…

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I’m worried.

Those of us who follow this stuff have always feared that the midterm elections of 2026 had the probability of going in a negative direction for Republicans. Despite the glorious results of the 2024 election, there was never a guaranteed positive outcome for the next. And we’ve learned (though frankly, we’ve known this all along) that the pu…

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Okay, so far, two former Biden-era officials have been charged with criminal offenses: James Comey, former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and Letitia James, the New York Attorney General.

Whoop-de-doo.

They both deserve to be dragged through the legal process they put President Trump and his friends, family, and associates through…

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This year’s United Nations General Assembly is over.

I once worked at the UN, and while my experience there was memorable, it did give me a jaundiced look at the workings of Earth’s most prestigious international gathering.

It wasn’t pretty.

Oh sure, there were some interesting moments, such as the sudden breakdown of the escalator leading up to the Assemb…

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When I heard the news that Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had been shot, it brought me back to a troubling day in 1981 when I first heard that the newly elected Ronald Reagan had been shot, which then morphed into the day I heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot.

President Reagan survived the attempt on his life, but we’ve lost a lot …

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It’s sometimes tough enough to voice one’s support of President Trump in certain circles here in the U.S. but imagine what a MAGA-friendly French citizen must go through in the face of the never-ending flood of anti-Trump “news” spewing forth from nearly all French media outlets.

For example, a recent feature article that appeared in the online news maga…

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Winning The Optics War

When President Trump gave “Border Czar” Tom Homan a green light to begin the deportation of the “worst of the worst” among the millions of unvetted “newcomers” who’d rushed across our border at the invitation of Alejandro Mayorkas and Joe Biden, you knew it could get ugly.

It did.

It got ugly because governors, mayors, congressmen, a…

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