The LuLac Edition #5, 676, June 4th, 2026



AMERICA @ 250, 

MY BACK DESK 

 

AND GERALD FORD

 

The Fourth of July is one month away. This year the country I love is celebrating its 250^th birthday.  The United States has been the grand experiment of the world. We have always been this coin flip of inspiration on one side and envy on the other to semi democracies and authoritative nations throughout our history.  

 When you think of what the United States has achieved in the last 150 years of three centuries, we have a lot to celebrate. We have always been a country that looks forward, grows, becomes better.

We build up our people, our focus, our institutions that blood, sweat, tears and innovation as the way America is supposed to be,

Until recently we never tore any branch of government, any citizen or any person different in color, origin, faith, or station in life. We embraced knowledge, not ignorance. We valued inclusion, not exclusion. We accepted diversity in our conflicts, not found division around every corner. We had different beliefs, disagreed, but never demeaned each other. 

Until now.

When I worked at Rock 107 years ago, a GM frustrated with the sales team I was on said, “This is the only one I got!” I thought of that the other day when I realized that in this 250^th year of our country, “Donald Trump is the only one we got!”

That got me thinking about 50 years ago when Gerald Ford was President. I went into the LuLac archives and found Ford’s picture and brought it to work and put it on the worktable (a credenza to some) with family, friends, and other photos. It’s my way of dealing with celebrating America in a less divisive, calm and even boring 200^th birthday. There was dignity in Ford’s leadership, not curse laden tweets and ugly observations of retribution and threats.

A co worker asked, “What’dya doing with Ford there?” I simply answered, “He wasn’t the flashy type, his speeches were plainspoken bordering on boring, but he made people feel good about themselves and the celebration”.

In retort I was told, “Yeah., he wasn’t mean lor nuts”.

My boss, the Mayor, George Brown designed the decorations around the City Hall building of gigantic flags, the red, white and blue banners. At night, the lights proclaim the same.  This serves as a reminder that despite the intentional turmoil from the White House, we are still America. To me we are holding on by a thread. I mentioned to the mayor that his display reminded me of the 200^th Bicentennial. I told him he and I were fortunate that we will see two celebrations, #200 and #250.

I realized that people born after 1976 did not see the pride, unity and resilience that President Ford exhibited as a leader.

There were problems but no outright expressions of hate, self-interest, insult, ego, racism, sexism, assassination of science, scurrilous time consuming lawsuits, exclusion of a free press to protect inclusion of the incompetent and all of the nonsense coming from one very sad and insecure man. Worse yet is the capitulation of his fellow party members.

These young people only know that celebrating America at its 250^th means a fight ring in front of the White House and a rally by a President that thinks this is HIS celebration. I’d urge this demographic to visit https://america250.org/ not the Freedom 250 America site.

We Americans usually are innovative when it comes to choice. The MAGAs will choose their path and the ones who remember 1976 will do likewise. Celebrate your friends and neighbors in your hometown and ignore the hypocrisy coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

For me and many others, as the 4^th approaches, Donald Trump will be talking but I’ll be listening in my mind to the Jerry Ford vision of an America that only my generations witnessed. I can hope long after we’re gone, at #275, that sanity, grace and yes resilience will make a comeback. 

POSTSCRIPT: Ford lost the 1976 election by a narrow margin, was criticized for his pardon of Richard Nixon but regarded as the right man for that time when we rebuilt from the Nixon era. In a short time, Ford made people proud of the Presidency.  The way that he conducted himself is a stark contrast to what we have now.   For me he made America feel good. 

 

IMMIGRANTS IN ICE CENTERS BEING SLOWLY KILLED BY LACK OF MEDICAL AND NUTRITION CARE

There have been many Republican Senators and Congress people who have claimed people detained in ICE detention centers “have it better here than where they came from”.

That tune has been sung by the sons and daughters of parents and grand[parents who came here years ago.

Having it better than where they came from?

THEY’RE LOCKED UP FOR CHRIST SAKE!

From festering infections to untreated cancer, ICE detainees across the US describe medical neglect. An Albanian man’s pain grew so unbearable, he said, he pulled out his own tooth as he languished for months in a New Mexico immigration detention center. A Honduran mother of two said she was hospitalized for a heart problem after she was denied blood pressure medications while held in Florida. A Venezuelan man said his leg grew purple and swollen from flesh-eating bacteria when staffers at a Vermont facility did not bring him to a scheduled doctor’s appointment.

 

Hundreds of detainees across at least 33 states allege in federal lawsuits that immigration detention facilities are failing to provide adequate medical care, an investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press found. Detainees say they didn’t get medications on time — or at all — for conditions including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s and HIV. Requests for help went unanswered for weeks. Blood sugars rose. Infections festered. Cancers remained untreated. Detainees collapsed and had seizures.

U.S. jails and immigration detention centers have long struggled to meet the medical needs of the people in their charge. But the system is sagging under an influx of detentions since President Donald Trump returned to office: More than 75,000 immigrants were being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as of mid-January, up from around 40,000 a year earlier.

KFF Health News and AP analyzed thousands of court cases filed since Trump’s second inauguration that use a legal route known as habeas corpus to argue people are being held illegally by ICE. The records offer a rare window into how those detained say — often under penalty of perjury — ICE is handling their medical needs. Reporters also interviewed more than 50 detainees, family members and lawyers.

The investigation revealed that medical neglect is alleged across the sprawling detention system, including in offices not designed to house people, county jails and quickly staged sites with nicknames such as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

KFF Health News and AP asked DHS to respond to the findings six days before publication but it did not provide comment. The department’s acting chief medical officer, Sean Conley, previously said “it is both policy and longstanding practice for aliens to receive timely and appropriate medical care from the moment they enter ICE custody” and that DHS recruits healthcare professionals to maintain high standards. “This is better, more responsive healthcare than many aliens have ever received in their entire lives,” he said.

Individual facilities and private prison companies contracting with DHS that responded to requests for comment said they follow ICE standards and that detainees receive medical care when it is required. Some said they were unfamiliar with the allegations outlined in court documents; others blamed the detainees themselves for lapses in their medical care.

“I have never seen such disregard or medical neglect like this anywhere,” Vardan Gukasian, a political dissident and former paramedic who spent years behind bars in Armenia, wrote in a court declaration in March to contest his detention in Henderson, Nevada, as it stretched to 13 months despite his health problems.

THIS IS TRUMP AND THE REPUBICAN PARTY’S AMERICA.  They tell you how much they love God.

Christian nation my ass! RAE ELLEN BICHELL, CLAIRE GALOFARO, MAIA ROSENFELD, RENUKA RAYASAM, AARON KESSLER, BYRON TAU, ASSOCIATED PRESS, KFF Health News and LuLac

 

SCOTT PELLEY BLOWS A FUSE

LEAVES NETWORK 

 

 

When Scott Pelley was the anchorman on the CBS Evening News. He was calm, easy going and quite centered in his presentation to the audience. Peli who transitioned to 60 Minutes has not made secret of the fact that the CBS News has been somewhat co opted by pressure from the Donald Trump. Things came to a head at a getting to know you  session at Black Rock Monday.

As   y  Jocelyn  Noveck   In a remarkable sign of the turmoil at CBS’s top-rated “60 Minutes,” correspondent Scott Pelley said CBS News head Bari Weiss was “murdering the show” and accused its new producer of having “slender qualifications” for the job, according to reports.

Pelley made his accusations in an introductory meeting Monday between the newsmagazine’s staff and Nick Bilton, the new executive producer named by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website, which said it had heard a recording of the meeting. Weiss herself was not present, according to the report. Status specializes in media news and analysis.

Status reported that Pelley, the longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, began grilling Bilton at the 10 a.m. meeting about the firings last week of Bilton’s predecessor, Tanya Simon, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega. Status also reported that Pelley told Bilton, a former technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, that his qualifications for the position were “slender.”   (LuLac, AP)

 

COGNETTI NEWS

8^th Congressional candidate Paige Cognetti appeared this past Saturday at the Liuzerne County Democratic headquarters in Wilkes-Barre. The candidate has been visiting the county in preparation for a busy fall campaign.

 

STREETSCAPE PROJECT

The first project, a part of Scranton’s streetscape project, has officially been announced. Mayor Paige Cognetti and other members of her administration, including local leaders, were at the ribbon-cutting along Cedar Avenue in Scranton.

The four blocks from Alder Street to Orchard Street received new sidewalks and trees installed on both sides of the avenue on the south side of Scranton.

Cognetti told members of the media on Monday that the area cost around $700,000. The construction in the area started in September, was paused for the winter, and finished in May.

 

 

NEPA BUILDS, BUILD IT HERE

Restore manufacturing jobs, including continuing to add more defense manufacturing in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Cut red tape, make permitting make sense, allow more businesses to start, grow and thrive. Move faster on infrastructure projects we need for our economic future, from safe streets to bridges to passenger rail.

Stop broad tariffs that help the big guys and hurt families, create smart targeted tariffs to protect manufacturing here.

 

SHAPIRO ADMINISTRATION CELEBRATES OLDER AMERICANS MONTH BY HIGHLIGHTING CONNECTION BETWEEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND LIFELONG BRAIN HEALTH

 

Jason Kavulich participates in a health and wellness event during Older Americans Month at the University Fitness Center at Penn State Health in Hershey, Pa. The event, hosted by the Pennsylvania Departments of Aging and Health in partnership with Penn State Health, highlighted physical fitness and brain health through a SilverSneakers demonstration and wellness facility tour.

In celebration of Older Americans Month, the Pennsylvania Departments of Aging and Health recently  partnered with Penn State Health to host an active health and wellness event to encourage physical fitness and lifelong brain health.

Aligning with the 2026 national theme, "Champion Your Health," state leaders joined older adults for a live SilverSneakers fitness demonstration followed by a tour of the on-site fitness and wellness facilities.

The event highlighted the strong connection between physical activity, healthy aging, and cognitive well-being, emphasizing how regular movement can help reduce the risk of chronic disease and support long-term brain health. Growing research continues to reinforce this connection. The Lancet Commission estimates that nearly 45 percent of dementia cases worldwide may be delayed or prevented by addressing modifiable risk factors such as increasing physical inactivity, eating a healthy diet, stopping smoking, increasing social interaction, as well as addressing hearing loss, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

"Every May, Older Americans Month gives us an opportunity to celebrate the older adults who enrich our Commonwealth. This year's theme, Champion Your Health, calls on us to put the goal of healthy aging into action," said Secretary of Aging Jason Kavulich. "Physical activity is one of the most effective tools we have to preserve our independence, improve overall well-being, and support our brain health. We are thrilled to partner with Penn State Health to showcase how accessible, community-based fitness programs can help older Pennsylvanians stay active."

 

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

MARILYN MONROE BORN

100 YEARS AGO 

June 1926

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson[a] on June 1, 1926, at Los Angeles General Hospital in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States.Her mother, Gladys Pearl Baker (née Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, into a poor American family originally from the Midwest who migrated to California at the turn of the century. At the age of 14, Gladys had married John Newton Baker, an abusive man nine years her senior. They had two children together, Robert]and Berniece.  Gladys successfully filed for divorce and sole custody of her two oldest in 1923, but Baker kidnapped the children soon after and moved with them to his native Kentucky. Monroe first learned about her sister at the age of 12 and met the latter for the first time in her late teens.

Following the divorce, Gladys worked as a film negative cutter at Consolidated Film Industries’ 1924, she married Martin Edward Mortensen, but the union lasted only a few months, although they did not legally divorce until four years later.Gladys named Mortensen (misspelled "Mortenson") as Monroe's father in the birth certificate, but most of Monroe's biographers agree that this was unlikely as their separation had taken place well before she became pregnant. Biographers Fred Guiles and Lois Banner suggested Monroe's father was likely Charles Stanley Gifford, Gladys's superior at RKO Studios, with whom she had an affair in 1925. This was confirmed by a comparison conducted in 2022 between Monroe's DNA and that of one of Gifford's descendants.

Although Gladys was mentally and financially unprepared for a child, Monroe's early childhood was stable and happy. Gladys placed Monroe with evangelical Christian foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender in the suburban town of Hawthorne. Gladys also lived there for six months until she was forced to move back to the city for employment. She then began visiting Monroe on weekends.  In the summer of 1933, when Monroe was 7, Gladys bought a small house in Hollywood with a loan from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation and moved Monroe in with her.[They shared the house with lodgers, actors George and Maude Atkinson and their daughter, Nellie. In January 1934, Gladys had a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.  After several months in a rest home, she was committed to the Metropolitan State Hospital. She spent the rest of her life in and out of hospitals and was rarely in contact with Monroe. Monroe became a ward of the state; Gladys's friend Grace Goddard took responsibility over the affairs of the former and Monroe.

For the next 16 months, Monroe continued living with the Atkinsons and may have been sexually abused during this time. Always a shy girl, she developed a stutter and became withdrawn.] In the summer of 1935, when Monroe was 9, she briefly stayed with Grace and the latter's husband, Erwin "Doc" Goddard, and two other families. In September 1935, Grace placed Monroe in the Los Angeles Orphans Home. The orphanage was "a model institution" and was described in positive terms by her peers, but Monroe felt abandoned.]Encouraged by the orphanage staff, who thought that Monroe would be happier living in a family, Grace became her legal guardian in 1936 but did not take her out of the orphanage until the summer of 1937, when Monroe was 11. Monroe's second stay with the Goddards lasted only a few months because Doc allegedly molested her.  She then lived for brief periods with her relatives and Grace's friends and relatives in Los Angeles and Compton. 

From that humble and somewhat scattered upbringing, Norma Jean became a star and iconic celebrity that will live on through time.

In June of 1926 the number one song in LuLac land and America was  Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” by  Gene Austin. 

  

The number one song in Lulac land when she die at age 36 was Roses Are Red (My Love) –Bobby Vinton. Ironically, her former husband Joe Maggio had a red rose delivered to Monroe’s gravesite until his own death  1999.  

 

 

 

The LuLac Edition #5, 675, June 3rd, 2026

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

Our “Write on Wednesday” logo

 

This week we look to Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI, humanity and the future of it all. NPR’s Scott Simon spoke of this in his weekly commentary.

 

POPE LEO REMINDS US OF THE VALUE OF OUR SHARED HUMANITY

Pope Leo released his first encyclical this week. He called it Magnifica Humanitas — or Magnificent Humanity. In it, he compares the swift, irresistible rise of Artificial Intelligence in our lives to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, which ends with God punishing humans for their hubris.

Though the pope says he welcomes the advances AI can make in medicine, research, and education, when he presented his encyclical at the Vatican, he wrote, bluntly:

"Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences and indicating paths forward for humanity."

The encyclical is book-length, and hard to summarize in a concise report. Maybe AI could. But we can read some of Pope Leo's own words.

The pope worries about all the people whose jobs are likely to be, and are already being, replaced by AI, and reminds us that work gives human beings a sense of purpose.

"Work is not simply an instrument," he writes. "The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs. The economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good."

Pope Leo also argues that all the data and information AI amasses in such fantastic amounts still doesn't equal the understanding people can develop by living: through joy, loss, fear, accomplishment and human connection.

AI systems "may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom… through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity."

A chat bot can absorb and impersonate human expressions, sending out "words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love," which, the Pope writes, can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful.

"However," he cautions, "it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship," which can make those who feel lonely and anxious — and don't we all sometimes? — most vulnerable to being fooled.

The question Pope Leo's encyclical asks us to keep in mind is: will human beings use Artificial Intelligence to enrich not just world economies, but all of humanity?  (Scott Simon, NPR Morning Edition 5-30-26.)

 

 

 

The LuLac Edition #5, 674, June 2nd, 2026

 

PASHINSKI SENIOR FAIR.....

 

Dropped by the Wilkes-Barre Area High School Saturday  morning for the annual Senior Fair started by Representative Eddie Day Pashinski. The event is designed to give area seniors information about making their knowledge base increase by tools provided by vendors.

It was great to catch up with Aging Secretary Jason Kavulich as well as some of the folks attending the event. 

Was so glad to see staffers from the Area Agency on Aging there,  Adult Center Manager Toni Mathis and Nutrition specialist Cathy Lockman. 

Wonderful to see 121st district Democratic nominee Jessica McClay in the house (and with providence and luck, THE HOUSE) 

as well as PashinskI Constituent Service Advisor  Kymberly Rosencrans who graciously greeted the folks. 

 

Wayne Mitchell and I had a meet up and Senator Flynn staffer Vince Speduto and Teri Andrews. 

 

Here I am with Eddie Day  Pashinski brandishing my swag bag as well  as  talking with Secretary Kavukich with Harrisburg’s Ken Smith.Smith is Senior District Operations & Outreach Specialist for the State House. I was eying Ken's  fantastic rep tie.

As Luzerne/Wyoming County Chair of the  Advisory Board, I say thanks  to all who made this worthy effort a great success which has been the norm for Eddie's tenure in the Capitol.

 

HOW TRUMP’S RACIST HATRED OF OBAMA SCREWED HIMSELF

When Donald Trump took office in 2017, his mantra seemed to be fire, shoot ready. There were a lot of things he didn’t think through. One of them was the rejection of the Obama-Kerry accords which made Iran accountable to inspections of its nuclear capabilities. Trump and the GOP lapdogs came after Obama for essentially giving millions of their own sanction money back to them. Trump’s knee jerk reaction caused a rift with Iran as well as freeing them from the agreement.  Not satisfied with ending the agreement, Trump started a war with Iran at the same time he was negotiating a “deal” with them.

Now it appears that Trump’s only way out is to give MORE money to Iran to stop the war he himself created passively in 2017 and accelerated in 2026.  The sad part is that in an intervening set of years, by Truimp’s actions, the Iran nuke capability has grown. Saturday Ivo Daalder,  former NATO Ambassador  Obama said this to NPR’s Scott Simon.  

“We had an agreement in 2015, negotiated by President Barack Obama in concert with our European allies, the Russians and the Chinese, that prevented Iran from acquiring the capabilities necessary to build a bomb and, if it were to break out of that agreement, to take more than a year to do so. And look where we are today. If this agreement had still been in force and President Trump had not walked away from it in 2018, today Iran would have had no more than 300 kilograms of enriched uranium enriched to 3.67%, which is sufficient for fueling its research reactor. That would be the case today.

What is in fact the case is that Iran now has 8,500 kilograms of enriched uranium, some of it - 500 kilograms - enriched to 60%, other material enriched to 5% and 20%, sufficient to build not one but perhaps 10 and perhaps even more nuclear bombs. And that's the situation we find ourselves. This has been created by the president deciding to walk away from an agreement that was working and replacing it with, frankly, nothing other than now the use of force, which still hasn't fundamentally altered the nature of the Iranian threat - nuclear threat - as it is today.

On the attack last year in June and the start of war in February, the Ambassador also said, “I think the fact that the United States has now launched two wars - one in June and again now this time - against Iran increases the incentive for the Iranians to maintain the capacity, if not the actual building a nuclear weapon. And I think that's the legacy of this war. Rather than eliminating the nuclear threat, it is more likely to aggravate it over the long run”.

So, there ya go. By Trump’s blind ignorance and hatred, he has not only screwed himself but our standing in the international world community. (NPR, LuLac) 

 

MEDIA MATTERS 

 

Andy Mehalshick announced yesterday that he was retiring from WBRE/WYOU. Andy has been a permanent fixture at the station and we will be sorry to see him go. Here's one of his biggest reports.