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Mountain View News June 6, 2026 OPINIONOPINION 1111 
Mountain View News June 6, 2026 OPINIONOPINION 
STUART TOLCHIN 

IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE 

Today, Wednesday June 10, I had this revolutionary idea. 
Instead of complaining and finding fault I would like to focus on what 
is good right now. Currently, I barely notice the present but instead 
worry about the future. I know I really have no sense of what the future 
will bring but I worry about it anyway. Let me describe my actual day 
to you. My mind is continually active although I realize that much of 
my memory has disappeared and I cannot remember a specific name 
of an actor or an author. 

This morning even before I plugged in my phone, I found myself thinking about 

J.D. Salinger, the author of Catcher in the Rye, my favorite book. I had fallen asleep while 
watching a documentary about Salinger’s life and how it related to the lives of other people 
who had read his books. 
Described within the documentary were facts relating to assassins or attempted 
assassins who had been influenced by the book. Mark David Chapman, who assassinated 
John Lennon in accord with his understanding of the book. Catcher in the Rye uses the 
word “phony”, repeatedly referring to people who think of themselves as special and a giftto humanity. Chapman believed John Lennon was such a person and believed that the 
book instructed him to kill such people. In recent parole hearings Chapman admitted he 
was driven by a desire for glory and infamy. 

I spent the morning and much of the day wondering about the influences and 
thoughts and misunderstandings that impact people’s actions. Chapman viewed Holden 
Caulfield, the fictional protagonist of Catcher in the Rye, as expressive of the need to 
protect children infected by the “phoniness” of the world. I have been obsessed for months 
thinking about the first statement I heard my granddaughter say after her first day of prekindergarten. 
That statement which I have frequently described in prior articles was “I 
hate single file”. I agree with Chapman that children are forced into a kind of conformity 
which results in an alienation from themselves and their true instincts. Instincts, which 
I believe would result in the creation of a better peaceful world of cooperation, equality, 
authenticity, freedom, and happiness. 

I decided on Sunday to test this theory by inviting the four year-old girl across 
the street to have breakfast at a restaurant together with my wife and I and my 6 year-old 
granddaughter. I invited the kids to do jumping jacks which I demonstrated for them. 
Soon the kids were doing jumping jacks together and I was elated. Very soon, however, 
a soccer ball came from somewhere and both kids raced to get it. Soon they were pulling 
and tugging at each other and in fact there was some hitting going on. Someone separated 
the kids after which they ignored one another. So much for my theory of mutual peace 
and understanding. 

I have been reflecting on whether the desire for conflict and aggression present 
within human beings will always require conflict and competition. I thought about 
attempts at creating peaceful cooperative societies and did a little research. I learned that 
even dating back to ancient times there have been numerous utopian experiments, all of 
which collapsed due to economic or interpersonal conflicts. 

On Monday I had lunch with my friend Jim. I asked him if he and his wife fought 
very much. He said they almost never fought and he thought it was because neither of 
their parents fought. He also told me that his wife’s family on both the maternal and 
paternal side suffered from an inability to hear. The parents never used language to speak 
to one another but kind of acted as mutual caretakers. I have been thinking about that and 
concluded that our use of verbally disrespectful language invariably creates tension and 
anger which are eventually expressed in negative ways. Maybe the desire to be of help to 
one another can form the basis of a cooperative society. 

Remember Mark David Chapman said he just wanted to protect children but was confused 
by the language. He also wanted to help and protect but perhaps language confused him. 
I wish simply that readers who think about my articles might come to better understand 
themselves and therefore help in avoiding conflicts and actually being of help. 
Looking back at my first paragraph I realize I have come full circle and am back where I 
started. I hope this little journey was worthwhile for readers and myself. At least we tried 
and that is good. 

HOWARD Hays As I See It 

“Frankly, you have to prove if there was cheating . . . That’s something that 
you would have to do in California or anywhere else for that matter.” – 
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) 

The race for Los Angeles Mayor is now set for November. The primary 

came down to three candidates. Incumbent Mayor Karen Bass is a 

Democrat who’d served twelve years in Congress, two years as Chair of the 

Congressional Black Caucus and before that, six years in the California 

State Assembly - two as Speaker. Democrat Nithya Raman got her Masters in Urban 

Planning from MIT, founded a homelessness nonprofit and is in her sixth year serving on 

the Los Angeles City Council – prominently advocating on housing, environmental and 

labor issues. 

Republican Spencer Pratt is a former reality TV performer. 

55% of Los Angeles voters are registered Democrats, 15% Republicans. Presumed 
majorities would prefer candidates with relevant experience and background for the office. 
With that political demographic, a Democratic Mayor and Democratic Councilmember 
will advance to November – the Republican TV guy won’t. But, according to President 
Trump and his MAGAs, that outcome could only result from a “rigged election”. Vice 
President Vance said it all seemed “pretty shady to me”. House Speaker Mike Johnson (RLA) 
called it “diabolical”, “everybody knows instinctively there’s something wrong here.” 

When Trump made the accusation of “cheating” on MEET THE PRESS, Kristen Welker 
asked, “Do you have evidence to support that?” to which Trump replied, “All I have to do is 
look”. Welker asked again, and Trump insisted the process is “crooked” . . . “Just like you’re 
crooked” . . . “MEET THE PRESS is crooked” . . . “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. 
You know these elections are rigged. Your network knows these elections are rigged.” He 
then took off his mic and walked out. 

Bill Essayli is a former Republican California State Assemblyman, appointed by AttorneyGeneral Pam Bondi as interim U.S. Attorney for Central California. His first major task 
was bringing indictments against those protesting ICE in L.A. last year – a task he flopped 
at. Now, he announces there are “multiple election fraud investigations underway” inCalifornia and “people will be charged”. He didn’t offer any evidence or specifics, but did 
insist that whatever it was, it was ample justification for Trump’s Justice Department to 
seize voter rolls. 

They’ve already sued California for those rolls – names, addresses, birthdates, driver’s 
license and Social Security numbers along with copies of registration docs. A federal judge 
tossed the suit last January, calling the demand “unprecedented and illegal”, an attempt to 
“abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots”. Trump’s DOJ is appealing that 
ruling as they go after voter rolls in thirty other states and D.C. 

While Trump is going after those rolls and sending enforcers like Essayli to Maricopa 
County in Arizona, Fulton County in Georgia and to South Florida, his Justice Department 
is dismantling its own training programs and resources established to protect election 
integrity nation-wide. Guidelines on prosecuting election crimes, a specialized unit to 
prosecute those crimes and the Public Integrity Section have all been gutted, along with 
the 24-hour command center set up to handle election-day emergencies. This has nothing 
to do with protecting election integrity. A former prosecutor says this dismantling “feeds 
into the fear that rather than protect elections, the DOJ may try to interfere with them. 
That’s pretty scary.” 

It reminds me of early last year when, as the DOGE boys were claiming they were going 
after “waste, fraud and abuse”, they were in fact going after whatever had been sent up to 
fight it. Right off the bat, a quarter of the government’s 70 Inspectors General were fired, 
with most positions left vacant. The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and 
Efficiency was defunded, and websites providing resources for whistleblowers went dark. 
Independent leadership was removed from the Office of Special Counsel and Office of 
Government Ethics – with new leadership promising fealty to Trump. 

As for “waste”, with 300,000 federal jobs cut and services Americans rely on slashed, Trumpadds $4 billion to his personal wealth with $5 trillion added to our national debt in the first 
half of his second term. For “fraud”, he’s been routinely pardoning fraudsters convicted of 
committing it on an industrial scale. The “abuse” has been to our Constitution. DOGE 
wasn’t about “Government Efficiency”, but to see that government ultimately serves the 
interests of Trump. These current actions aren’t about “election integrity” but to see that 
elections, regardless of actual tallies, ultimately serve the interests of Trump. 

Jim VanderHei of Axios observed, “This is the stuff you see happen in a broken country, in 
a third-world country . . . Every time you call into question whether or not our elections 
are valid, you weaken the soul of the country, and that’s why this is damaging.” 

The L.A. Times’ article on the subject concluded with a post from Sen. Adam Schiff (DCA). 
I can’t think of a better way to end this column: 

“Let’s be honest about what this is: A blatant attempt to cast doubt in our election results, 
and a phony pretext for Trump to act illegally in the midterms. California has safe and 
secure elections. And it takes time for every vote to count. It’s called democracy, Donald.” 

RICH JOHNSON 
THE BEAUTIFUL IMPERFECTION OF THE NEXT STEP 

May and June in Sierra Madre have a specific kind of magic. The purple jacarandas 
are giving way to the deep green of summer, and the air carries a distinct sense of 
anticipation. It is graduation season. Whether it is a preschooler transitioning to 
kindergarten at Sierra Madre Elementary, a teenager crossing the stage at Pasadena 
High, or a college graduate stepping out into the workforce, our town is currently filled 
with caps, gowns, and proud families. 

As I watch these ceremonies, I find myself thinking about the immense pressure we place on these 
milestones. We often treat graduation like a flawless, cinematic destination—as if our graduates must 
be perfectly prepared, completely certain of their futures, and ready to immediately move mountains. 
We want their paths to look like a premium, prime-cut filet mignon. 

But if we are being completely honest, real life looks a lot more like a hot dog. 

It is messy. It is a mix of good intentions, unexpected ingredients, minor failures, and a healthy dose 
of improvisation. The secret that we older adults rarely admit to graduates is that none of us had it 
completely figured out when we stood in their shoes. Look at history, or even our own family trees: the 
people who ended up making the biggest impact on the world were rarely perfect. They were deeplyflawed individuals who made mistakes, stumbled, changed their minds, and occasionally took matters 
into their own hands when they shouldn't have. 

And yet, it is precisely through those flawed, "hot dog" journeys that great things happen.
Graduation isn’t proof that a student has mastered life; it is simply a marker that they have the grit to 
keep going. Their faith in themselves and their future doesn’t need to be perfect to be useful. It just 
needs to be enough to move a molehill today, and maybe another one tomorrow. 

So, to Sierra Madre’s Class of 2026: Do not worry if you feel a bit unprepared or if your plans are a little 
messy. Your purpose isn't to be flawless; it is to bring your own unique light into the world's dark days, 
exactly as you are. Congratulations. Embrace the beautiful imperfection of your next chapter. 

IT’S BETTER FOR AMERICA WHEN TRUMP 
FALLS ASLEEP ON CAMERA 

by Dick Polman 

I’ll go out on a limb and assume you didn’t see our corpulent Caligula bellow like a 
stuck pig when his toxic lies were fact-checked on “Meet the Press” this weekend. 

The landslide verdict on this guy has already been rendered – outside his cult, he’s a 

disaster of historic proportions – so why should we spend even a millisecond watchinghim yank off his mic and waddle away? 

I have to confess one moment made me smile. When his face twisted in rage, I was reminded of a passage in a 
children’s book called “The Twits.” It was written by Roald Dahl. Forty years ago I often read it to my toddler 
son. The relevant passage (which I’ve double-checked to ensure accuracy) goes like this: 

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, 
every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.” 

But we still need to look, as distasteful as the task may be, if only to remind ourselves how swiftly a once-great 
democracy can be dumped in the gutter. We can’t allow ourselves to be terminally numbed by his fascist antics. 
The only way back from our national nadir is to fully bear witness, to work for a restoration of sanity and civility. 

We can start by insisting that, at minimum, the next president should be someone tethered to factual reality, 
someone who can freely engage with a journalist without melting down like a petulant juvenile snowflake. As 
opposed to someone who talks like this: 

“These elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged. Do you know that I won an election in 
a landslide and I got 94 percent bad press. You know why I got that? Because you have no credibility. Your 
elections in this country – we’re like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and 
Meet the Press is crooked.” 

I won’t waste my time (and yours) parsing all that sewage. That onerous task fell to NBC’s Kristen Welker, who 
tried, sentence by sentence, to enlighten him with basic facts. He was particularly incensed by last Tuesday’s 
California gubernatorial primary, where candidates in both parties vied on the same ballot. Most Californians 
vote by mail (especially Democratic voters), the tallying of votes therefore takes a while. That’s driving him nuts 
and powering his lies: 

“The election was rigged. It was a dirty election. And it’s happening again right now in California. It’s four 
days and they aren’t even close to coming up with the – do you know why they’re doing that? Because they’re 
cheating on the election.” 

Welker said, “Do you have evidence to support that?” 

The demagogue said, “It’s – all I have to do is look. All I have to do is look.” 

Welker said, “But that’s not evidence.” 

The demagogue said, “And I listen. And I listen to people.” 

Welker said, “But sir, that’s not evidence.” 

She then sought to introduce relevant facts. California’s vote count is slow because, under state rules, mail-in 
ballots postmarked by election day are accepted up to a week later, then they must be validated and tallied. But 
she never got that far, because facts bounce off his sealed bubble. 

So he cut her off: “No, they’re crooked.” 

When she persisted, when she refused to indulge his fantasies – “you’ve never presented evidence it was rigged” 

– he lost all impulse control: “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid…You’re a one-sided crooked network. 
Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling,” whereupon he hauled himself to a bent 
vertical posture and exited stage right. 
I prefer to see this sicko sleeping on camera. At least that way he’s not spewing condescending misogyny(“darling”) or blatantly lying about Jan. 6 (he told Welker that his rioting followers were “destroyed by dirty 
cops”) or blatantly lying about Iran (he told Welker that “I didn’t guarantee no war,” even though in the ‘24 
campaign he promised that “I’m not going to start a war”). 

The bottom line, of course, is I’m as tired of writing about him as you are of reading about him. But assuming 
the doctors keep him ticking, we’re stuck for the foreseeable future with “a most notable coward, an infinite and 
endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.” 

That’s how Shakespeare described a knave in his play “All’s Well that Ends Well.” How nice it would be if the day 
of national restoration arrives and that venerable proverb proves true. 

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com