The LuLac Edition #5, 689, June 18th, 206

 

 

TRUMP’S PLAN VS. OBAMA’S

 

The AP reports that Iran will immediately take steps to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once a tentative deal with the U.S. to end the war is signed and will be allowed to sell its oil without restrictions, according to leaked copies of an interim agreement that officials say broadly matches the document

The accord, due to be signed in Switzerland on Friday, also envisions Iran receiving at least $300 billion to rebuild after the war and says the U.S. would work to end all American and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran — if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

The U.S. and Israel went to war on Feb. 28 in part to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon — although U.S. President Donald Trump’s goals in the conflict have repeatedly shifted. The interim deal stops the war before that aim is secured — instead opening a two-month period for nuclear negotiations — and appears to offer Iran several benefits up front while extracting little in return.

Now to be clear, this is a memo of understanding to talk about stopping the war. Under the JCPOA, the United States and other world powers agreed to lift or waive a suite of nuclear‑related sanctions that had isolated Iran’s oil, banking and financial sectors and had frozen Iranian government assets abroad; implementation meant Iran regained access to billions in funds and international markets previously blocked by those sanctions   . The Obama White House framed this as the “carrot” — economic opening intended to induce compliance with verification measures and long‑term caps on enrichment.

But in reality, here’s the bottom line, in the Obama negotiation, aka “deal” he specific sum at issue was about $1.7 billion: the U.S. agreed to settle a claim for $400 million in principal that Iran had paid the United States before the 1979 revolution, plus roughly $1.3 billion in accumulated interest and arbitration adjustments, which together were delivered in 2016.

300 billion from Trump to  Iran………….1.7 billion from Obama to Iran. DO THE MATH.

No wonder why this guy, this genius businessman bankrupted 5 businesses.  Plus General Barry McCaffery ( US Army General Ret. Four combat tours. Three Purple Heart awards. Council Foreign Relations. JCS Strategic Plans. NATO Brussels predicts Iran will have nuclear capability by 2030 which was the whole point of this misguided, ego driven war. 

Finally, in the “he’ll never let you down department” Trump at the G7 meeting called Obama a stupid son of a bitch. He never disappoints.  He also bitched  about  a stolen election and Biden again. (AP, Factually, MS Now, LuLac)

 

GOP LABELS COUNTY ANTI DISCRIMINATION ORDINANCE DANGEROUS

 

The Luzerne County Republicans have now decided to try and upend the law passed by the Democratically controlled County council regarding discrimination against people in the confines of the county. What they are trying to do is to put it on a referendum to circumvent the law passed by council. They site of course men dressing up as women and wanting to use the lady’s room and of course the illegals. Under the flyer sent they claim that illegals will have MORE rights than legal residents. REALLY?

Your sainted President has blocked the borders; he has Ice thugs who KILLED American citizens and has illegals scared shitless where some of them won’t go to work and the others are in hiding. And they’re going to go public with an anti-discrimination suit against the county?

Walter Griffith, Jamie Walsh and Alec Ryncavage have all signed on to this thing. It is not surprising that they and the entire party are concerned about sex and illegals. Then they use as a rally cry……………..FAMILIES. But their party has screwed families with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. How about trying to solve real issues like a referendum on library funding, senior care or how to handle the homeless?

This is pure GOP theater designed to undue the government they supposedly care about.  

In a late development, the GOP got their 100 signatures to cause trouble in the general but totally ignored the truth told by county council member Chris Bellas.  

BENSCOTER CAMPAIGN EVENT ON THE 29TH 

 

GERALD FORD

THE BICENTENNIAL PRESIDENT

Football, College, a Men’s Fashion model and Law School (Part 2) 

Ford attended Grand Rapids South High School, where he was a star athlete and captain of the football team, before graduating in 1931. In 1930, he was selected to the All-City team of the Grand Rapids City League. He also attracted the attention of college recruiters.

A uniformed but helmetless American Football player is shown on a football field. He is in a ready position, with legs in a wide stance and both hands on a football in front of him.

Ford as a center on the University of Michigan Wolverines football team, 1933. Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he played center and linebacker for the school's football team nd helped the Wolverines to two undefeated seasons and national titles in 1932 and 1933. In his senior year of 1934, the team suffered a steep decline and won only one game, but Ford was still the team's star player. In one of those games, Michigan held heavily favored Minnesota—the eventual national champion—to a scoreless tie in the first half. After the game, assistant coach Bennie Oosterbaan said, "When I walked into the dressing room at halftime, I had tears in my eyes I was so proud of them. Ford and [Cedric] Sweet played their hearts out. They were everywhere on defense." Ford later recalled, "During 25 years in the rough-and-tumble world of politics, I often thought of the experiences before, during, and after that game in 1934. Remembering them has helped me many times to face a tough situation, take action, and make every effort possible despite adverse odds." His teammates later voted Ford their most valuable player, with one assistant coach noting, "They felt Jerry was one guy who would stay and fight in a losing cause."

During Ford's senior year, a controversy developed when Georgia Tech said that it would not play a scheduled game with Michigan if a Black player named Willis Ward took the field. Students, players and alumni protested, but university officials capitulated and kept Ward out of the game. Ford was Ward's best friend on the team, and they roomed together while on road trips. Ford reportedly threatened to quit the team in response to the university's decision, but he eventually agreed to play against Georgia Tech when Ward personally asked him to play.

In 1934, Ford was selected for the Eastern Team in the Shriners' East–West Shrine Game at San Francisco (a benefit for physically disabled children), played on January 1, 1935. As part of the 1935 Collegiate All-Star football team, Ford played against the Chicago Bears in the Chicago College All-Star Game at Soldier Field. In honor of his athletic accomplishments and his later political career, the University of Michigan retired Ford's No. 48 jersey in 1994. With the blessing of the Ford family, it was placed back into circulation in 2012 as part of the Michigan Football Legends program and issued to sophomore linebacker Desmond Morgan before a home game against Illinois on October 13.

Throughout life, Ford remained interested in his school and football; he occasionally attended games. Ford also visited with players and coaches during practices; at one point, he asked to join the players in the huddle. Before state events, Ford often had the Navy band play the University of Michigan fight song, "The Victors", instead of "Hail to the Chief".

Ford graduated from Michigan University in 1935 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. He turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers of the National Football League. Instead, he took a job in September 1935 as the boxing coach and assistant varsity football coach at Yale University and applied to its law school.

Ford hoped to attend Yale Law School beginning in 1935. Yale officials at first denied his admission to the law school because of his full-time coaching responsibilities. In 1936, Ford worked as a seasonal park ranger at Yellowstone National Park's Canyon Station. He then spent the summer of 1937 as a student at the University of Michigan Law School and was eventually admitted in the spring of 1938 to Yale Law School. That year he was also promoted to the position of junior varsity head football coach at Yale. While at Yale, Ford began working as a model. He initially worked with the John Robert Powers agency before investing in the Harry Conover agency, with whom he modelled until 1941. His introduction into politics was in the summer of 1940 when he worked for the Republican presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie. Ford graduated in the top third of his class in 1941, and was admitted to the Michigan bar shortly thereafter. In May 1941, he opened a Grand Rapids law practice with a friend, Philip W. Buchen.

 

IT HAS BEEN 13 MONTHS SINCE ROB BRESNAHAN BROKE HIS PROMISE TO PROTECT MEDICAID

BRESNAHAN CAST THE DECIDING VOTE TO PASS THE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL WHICH MAKES HISTORIC HEALTH CARE CUTS, BREAKING HIS PROMISE TO PROTECT MEDICAID

Last May Congressman Rob Bresnahan casting the deciding vote for the House passage of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill, which makes historic cuts to Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations, Scranton Mayor and candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District Paige Cognetti issued the following statement:

“In the weeks leading up to this vote, Rob Bresnahan vowed time and again that he would protect our health care. Instead, he supported the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, ripping away care from tens of thousands of our neighbors and putting local hospitals at risk of closure to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Worse yet, he sold off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock and bonds in Medicaid providers and Pennsylvania hospitals within days of his vote – profiting off of the pain that he is inflicting on our community. NEPA deserves a leader who prioritizes Pennsylvanians’ well being over their own bottom line.”

Rob Bresnahan has faced scrutiny after he promised the hardworking people of NEPA that he would not gut Medicaid, but then voted for historic cuts to the program to fund tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy – including himself. The final version of this bill that Bresnahan supported made roughly $1 trillion in cuts, threatening Pennsylvania’s patients, health care workers, and hospital systems. Bresnahan’s vote could take health care away from more than 30,000 Pennsylvanians in PA-08, where “more than a quarter” of the district relies on Medicaid to access health care. Bresnahan’s vote makes an estimated $137 billion in cuts to rural health systems over 10 years – far exceeding the $50 billion so-called “Rural Health Fund” he is now deceptively touting.

In addition to his broken promise to protect Medicaid, Bresnahan also became one of the top stock traders in Congress despite campaigning on a pledge to ban the practice for members of Congress. He has specifically faced scrutiny for his timely stock trades connected to health care, including unloading stock in Medicaid providers shortly before voting for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history. NBC News reported that Bresnahan “offloaded up to $130,000 worth of stock in Centene, Elevance Health, UnitedHealth and CVS Health” just days before voting to cut Medicaid by roughly $1 trillion, and that “taken together, those four companies oversee roughly half of all Medicaid managed care organizations” in the entire country. The New York Times reported that Bresnahan “sold off between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of bonds issued by the Allegheny County Hospital Development Authority for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The sale came after a report identified 10 rural hospitals in Pennsylvania that faced immediate risk of closure.

 

IN TORONTO, GOVERNOR SHAPIRO AND PREMIER FORD SIGN MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN PENNSYLVANIA AND PROVINCE OF ONTARIO TO INCREASE COLLABORATION, SPUR ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND ATTRACT INVESTMENT

Shapiro and Premier Ford Sign Memorandum of Understanding between Pennsylvania and Province of Ontario to Increase Collaboration, Spur Economic Growth, and Attract Investment.

Governor Josh Shapiro and Ontario Premier Doug Ford participated in a bilateral meeting to deepen economic ties and reaffirm shared priorities between Pennsylvania and the Province of Ontario. At the meeting's conclusion, the Governor and Premier signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to enhance and strengthen economic relations between the Commonwealth and Ontario.

Canada is Pennsylvania's largest international trading partner - and by signing this MOU with the most populous province, Governor Shapiro is taking another step to increase collaboration, spur economic growth, and attract investment to the Commonwealth.

The MOU establishes a framework for cooperation, outlining eight key areas of collaboration including energy, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, agriculture, life sciences, technology and innovation, the Great Lakes, and forestry. This includes the development of an electricity transmission and trade framework that would increase electricity transmission between Pennsylvania's and Ontario's power grids to help lower costs for families and businesses by delivering more modern and resilient electricity generation in both regions.

 

MEDIA MATTERS

WVIA NEWS  

WALN

BOLD GOLD COMMUNITY FORUM

You'll hear the program Sunday at 6 on 94.3 The Talker; 6:30 on 1400 am The Mothership and 7:30 am on 105 The River.

 

THE LAURIE CADDEN SHOW

Tune in every Saturday morning at 9am for The Laurie Cadden Show on WILK FM 103.1 and AM 980 and 910. Laurie’s program has been a northeastern Pennsylvania mainstay every Saturday. Tune in to hear her insights and take on local issues as well as entertaining and informative interviews.

 

BOBBY V’S DOO WOP SUNDAY NIGHT SOCK HOP

 

BEATLE EDD’S FAB FOUR MUSIC HOUR

 

Tune in every week to the Home of Rock and Roll for a jam packed, unpredictable hour starting at 9am Sundays. Host Edd Raineri gives you facts and great music from the immortal Fab Four on ROCK 107.

 

THE LULAC TIME MACHINE

JUNE 21rst, 1964 

BUNNING'S PERFECT GAME 

 

I was ten years old when Jim Bunning pitched that perfect game. It was broadcast on WNEP and my dad called me into the house to see it.  

On June 21, 1964, 60 years ago TODAY Jim Bunning of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched the seventh perfect game in Major League Baseball history, defeating the New York Mets 6–0 in the first game of a doubleheader at Shea Stadium. A father of seven children at the time, Bunning pitched his perfect game on Father's Day. One of Bunning's daughters, Barbara, was in attendance, as was his wife, Mary.

Needing only 90 pitches to complete his masterpiece, Bunning struck out 10 batters, including six of the last nine he faced.

The perfect game was the first regular season perfect game since Charlie Robertson's perfect game in 1922 (Don Larsen had pitched a perfect game in between, in the 1956 World Series), as well as the first in modern-day National League history (two perfect games had been pitched in 1880). It was also the first no-hitter by a Phillies pitcher since Johnny Lush no-hit the Brooklyn Superbas on May 1, 1906.

Bunning, who no-hit the Boston Red Sox while with the Detroit Tigers in 1958, joined Cy Young as the only pitchers to throw no-hitters in both the National and American Leagues; he has since been joined by Nolan Ryan, Hideo Nomo and Randy Johnson. The perfect game also made Bunning the third pitcher, after Young and Addie Joss, to throw a perfect game and an additional no-hitter; Sandy Koufax, Johnson, Mark Buehrle and Roy Halladay have since joined him.

As the perfect game developed, Bunning defied the baseball superstition that no one should talk about a no-hitter in progress, speaking to his teammates about the perfect game to keep himself relaxed and loosen up his teammates. Bunning had abided by the tradition during a near-no hitter a few weeks before, determining afterwards that keeping quiet didn't help.

Gus Triandos, Bunning's catcher, had also caught Hoyt Wilhelm's no-hitter on September 20, 1958, while with the Baltimore Orioles, becoming the first catcher to catch no-hitters in both leagues.  Years later I met Bunning and even though it was 2 decades earlier, I was still thrilled. I actually had two sprained ankles after attempting to play basketball but powered through. 

 

Boxscore

Team     1     2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     R    H    E

Philadelphia Phillies (37–23)  1     1     0     0     0     4     0     0     0       6     8     0

New York Mets (20–46)     0     0     0     0     0     0     0     0     0     0       0     0

WP: Jim Bunning (7–2)   LP: Tracy Stallard (4–9)

and this week in LuLac land the number one song here and in America was "Chapel lof Love" by the Dixie Cups 

The LuLac Edition #5, 688, June 17th, 2026

 

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

Our “Write on Wednesday” logo

 

Everybody knows the Republican party stack ed the Supreme Court with early 40 something lawyers who might n have been the brightest bulbs in law school. Sure there were going to be arguments and decisions the right would want.  But the way this Roberts-Trump court has raced to deflower traditional law and get rid of decisions that were engrained in American law is disgusting. This week’s WOW is an opinion from a retired judge.

 

JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE OVER JUDICIAL SYCOPHANCY

 

While the president of the United States has the power under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution to appoint justices of the Supreme Court and other federal judges, all of whom have lifetime tenure, the president must exercise this power with the “Advice and Consent” of the Senate.

The Senate’s advice and consent cannot be meaningfully exercised without the chance to question judicial nominees. Thus, a key component of the Senate’s evaluative process is the confirmation hearings during which senators question the president’s nominees.

Many nominees are alert to efforts to discern their views on disputed legal issues and unsettled law and decline to answer such questions or answer them in a manner that avoids violating the prohibition against opining. Nominees of both parties who were appointed to the Supreme Court rightly refused to answer such questions.

One Republican nominee who scrupulously honored the prohibition against answering improper questions, even off the record, was Roger J. Miner, then a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1987, Judge Miner was reputedly at the top of President Ronald Reagan’s list of possible replacements for Judge Robert H. Bork when opposition to his Supreme Court nomination became insurmountable.

During the pendency of the Bork confirmation hearings, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee telephoned Miner at his home and inquired into his views on the then hot-button issue of abortion. Miner’s wife overheard her husband reply that “he would decide each case on its merits.” Judge Miner later explained to his wife that his “reputation was too high a price to pay for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

During the recent Senate confirmation hearings, the nominees for various federal courts were asked, “Who won the 2020 election?” Some senators were taken aback when the nominees uniformly answered that former President Joe Biden “was certified as the winner of the 2020 election.” Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., observed that the nominees were unwilling to say that Biden had won the election.

The nominees did not try to disabuse the senator of his observation, and when the senator again confronted one of them with their unwillingness to say whether or not Biden had won the election, the nominee asserted that it had become “a matter of political concern,” to which Blumenthal retorted that it was also “an issue of fact.” The nominee then avoided a direct answer by using the word “fact” when stating that Biden was “in fact certified the winner of the 2020 election.” As all the nominees similarly skirted a direct answer, Blumenthal concluded that they feared offending the president.

In its November 2025 report, the organization Demand Justice earlier had noted that all 44 recent federal judicial nominees provided the same answer to the Biden question “using key words and evasive language,” to avoid answering “basic questions of documented, established, and historical fact,” namely that Biden won the popular vote. Other nominees were not even willing to state that Biden was certified the winner, instead asserting only that he “served” as president.

Notably, and in contrast to the question posed to Judge Miner, these nominees were not asked about an unsettled or disputed legal issue, as it is more than six years since the 2020 election, and it had already been fully litigated. “Given the sheer number of election-related cases that lacked merit, federal judges in states like Colorado, Michigan, and Wisconsin have begun moving to consider and, in at least one instance thus far, implement sanctions against the lawyers that submitted them.” That the Department of Justice has commenced investigations into the election procedures of certain states does not alter those facts.

As judicial independence complements, if not ensures, a judge’s neutrality, the uniformly evasive answers of the nominees reflect obeisance to the president, rather than compliance with the prohibition of “allow(ing) family, social, political, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment.” At any other time in American history, such obeisance would be disqualifying. Why refuse to acknowledge the popular vote? What harm is there other than offending the president?

While we are free to express or not express ourselves when we see fit, nominees to the federal judiciary must candidly and honestly answer proper questions posed by senators of both parties. The nominees’ responses at the recent confirmation hearings reflect a lack of candor at best and, at worst, immoderate obeisance to the president. Such sycophancy in a judge does not pass the smell test; this retired judge smells a rat.

Justice Barbara Jaffe, retired from the Supreme Court of the State of New York, is a volunteer of Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD).

 

The LuLac Edition #5, 687, June 15th, 2026

 MONDAY MEMES

The LuLac Edition #5, 686, June 14th, 2026

 

FLAG DAY 2026