On his return from Helsinki, I was expecting President Trump to be perp-walked into Riker’s Island, placed in solitary, and denied all but bread and water and then water boarded by the CIA ‘til he confessed.

It’s hard to believe that in a few days President Trump and Chairman Kim will sit down to start talks on ending the Korean War – a war that ended 65 years ago. How time flies!

Fifty years ago I was in law school preparing for and taking first year exams. I was walking to breakfast in an underground tunnel when a young guy from maintenance approached to tell me Bobby Kennedy had been shot and killed during the night.

I found an antidote to all the hate emanating from and around and about our President in the “Book of Joy”. These are interviews with the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The Governor’s May Revise Budget reports $8 billion in additional revenues over three years. He proposes to pay down debt, to put funds in the state’s Rainy Day fund to offset revenue losses in the next recession and to make one-time expenditures on needed infrastructure improvements.

The June 5, 2018 ballot is important for two reasons: first, the top two finishers will be on the November ballot; second, the Propositions will be decided by those who vote in June. Please vote on June 5 or before if by mail.

One step forward and two giant steps back. President Trump has made a huge mistake in withdrawing from the multi-party nuclear agreement with Iran. His motivation apparently is to please the Israeli and Saudi governments of President Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and possibly salve his own wounded and over-sized ego. There is no Plan B.

So far, President Trump has not yet met an agreement that he does not dislike: NATO, NAFTA, the UN, TPP, Climate Change, Iran and Cuba. He now has trusted enablers around him: Bolton, Pompeo, and Pruitt to execute his desires, and he has exorcised those such as Tillerson, McMaster (and probably soon Kelly) whom he perceives have stood in his way. Let’s see what he can do.

Sunday, I attended a fundraiser for Marshall Tuck who is running for State Superintendent of Schools. I was impressed both by his grasp of the magnitude of the challenges facing California’s education system and his clear-eyed view of what needs to change. https://marshalltuck.com/issues/ We are now the 5th largest economy in the world, yet our state ranks in the bottom 10 on public education. It did not used to be that way. In the 70’s we were in the top ten in performance and funding.

There is not a lot of doubt that President Trump has a lot of trouble telling the truth and that he does it consistently and persistently in all aspects of his life from the highly personal to the professional. The consequences are as yet unknown. I’m most disturbed about its impact on the nation’s youth.

The Brookings Institution has a fascinating report on the opportunities to improve our nation’s decaying cities in the American heartland. Economic growth has been concentrated on the coasts and in big cities. Economic decline has been occurring in smaller and mid sized cities and counties in the industrial Midwest and Northeast for the last 46 years surveyed.

I have been immersed in Ron Chernow’s biography of Ulysses Grant, the leading General of the Civil War, two term President, an extraordinary champion of civil rights and symbol of corruption. There is a lot of resonance and hard lessons for our own turbulent times.

About 4 million Americans are uninsured because the politicians in their states (18 at the moment and shrinking) refuse to implement the Medicaid expansion component of the Affordable Care Act for the working poor. Maine and Virginia are close to closing this gap.

Medi-Cal began as health coverage for children and single parents, seniors and the disabled receiving cash assistance. MediCal had become an entirely different program, one dominated by low income working families, even before the advent of the ACA. The traditional “welfare” component of the program, called CalWorks in California, is now only 400,000 low-income children and parents, of its total 13.5 million program enrollees.

Marshall Tuck is endorsed by Arnie Duncan, Obama’s Education Secretary, by George Miller, long time Chair of the House Education Committee, by the California School Administrators and by Monica Garcia and Nick Melvoin, Chair and Vice Chair of the Los Angeles, Unified School District.

Our long time friend Deb Haaland is running for Congress in the New Mexico First Congressional District. If elected, she will be the first Native American woman elected to Congress.

Counties and federal waivers played a crucial role in California’s successful implementation of the ACA. Beginning in 1988, California counties, the state and the federal government began to develop stopgap funding to shore up the local safety net.

California has become an extraordinarily diverse state attracting immigrants from around the world working in and contributing to the success of the state’s technology, agricultural, entertainment, international trade and tourist industries. Immigration in all forms is critical to many aspects of the California economy from high tech to agriculture.

All reform proposals but an employer mandate are difficult to finance in California without major federal financial assistance. Single payer would cost more than the entire budget of the state of California; this is not because it is so much more expensive than the current system but rather due to the need to replace most private sector premiums and cost sharing with new state taxes.

Several weeks ago my car was in the shop, and I walked home along the Pacific Coast Highway. Nearly every parked car along one long stretch, not too much of an exaggeration, was occupied by a sleeping young homeless person.