Sacraments & Objects of Art with RFK

From Washington, D.C. to California

February 13, 2025

California Capitol

Woke up in Sacramento, California to read online the news RFK, Jr. had just been approved as the next U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. I pumped a fist and let out a loud “WHOOOOP!!!” I’d been following his health advocacy since June 2021 and volunteered for his presidential campaign in April 2024 sticking with it through his joining forces with Trump.

Along the way I made new friends from San Rafael to San Jose as we bannered on highway pedestrian overpasses, picketed on busy street corners, staffed farmers market tables, phone banked, and helped his campaign with videos. A quixotic group of equal parts Democrat, Republican, and independent voters, all with a great sense of humor. We all live in some of the deepest blue-voting precincts in the entire USA. Able to laugh among ourselves or have empathy for those we met wearing 2 or 3 face masks with their eyes full of fear. Always at each campaign activity having several people flip us the bird. Spit in anger at us for “You are taking votes away from Biden!” “From Harris!!” “How can you support that anti-vaxxer?!” “That evil and stupid Orange Man!!”“You are INSANE to support him and Trump!!” As the weeks went by I noticed Trump supporters were always friendly and polite to us.

We all had a Crossed-the-Rubicon backstory. Many are mothers of vaccine injured or killed children. Refugees from the pill n’ scalpel school of medicine. 100% of us lost dear friends and family when we chose not to take the covid injections. I weep about those losses. So many self-inflicted deaths and injuries. l lost count by the end of 2021 of the people I know who got seizures, heart attacks, turbo cancers, and “sudden deaths” leaving “doctors baffled!” with never an autopsy. But, meanwhile we’ve all made new friends. We’re all battle-hardened and thankfully we can still laugh about just about anything. Many of us will gather tomorrow for a celebratory potluck and toast RFK’s success.

***

I was in Sacramento for a short holiday to play tourist with an old friend I’d not been able to see face-to-face without her wearing a mask nor sitting together anywhere indoors for several years. Dive too deep into the history of this worldwide fiasco horror show and it’s easy to get lethally depressed. Having to relive the Covid Era timeline I must fortify myself with real and metaphorical blue skies.

Tattered State flag flying 2/10/2025 above the State Capitol

Hence my trip to Sacramento with my old friend for a relaxing few days with no cars or traffic for us, no television, and minimal phones and computers. Lots of walking. Seeing old things and new things. Look for signs of Spring. No set plans thus, open to serendipitous surprises. But, one can’t get away from politics in the State Capital of California.

We walked past the construction fences for the old State Treasury building being gutted and remodeled. Saw the other fences surrounding the new foundations for the massive new star-chitect “annex” for private offices for State senators, Assembly members, Governor, and Lieutenant Governor. What is being spent on those two big building projects? In December 2024, California businesses’ payroll tax went up catastrophically after the State defaulted on a federal pandemic-lockdown-and-econ-crash loan it did not pay back on time with interest a few days before Christmas. State officials gambled recklessly and thus, private businesses and their employees on payroll pay the loan’s poison pill clause.

Reminds me of the Recall Election a couple years ago for California Governor Gavin Newsom. He announced once the Recall voting date was set that after that election there would be a $300 or so pandemic relief debit card or check sent to every middle and low income Californian. I got a debit card in the mail for that. A $1.75 fee to do any transactions on it even to put the whole balance into a savings account. Debit card was from a “community bank” in New York which within a year or so was in bankruptcy. Who greased whose palms on which offices between California and New York for that deal?

Due to “covid” that Recall Election had ballots snail mailed to all voters. A bit latter, closer to election day, after polling numbers were drifting in, suddenly anyone could print a ballot at home, using any paper, and mail it in. What could possibly go wrong?

***

Does anyone work Monday mornings in Sacramento? A 22 minute walk to the Capitol building and there was lots of open street parking. Tons of high rise lease-available signage. Counted only 3 office workers and about 20 construction men and groundskeepers.

Walked into the rickety mobile home Capitol hoi polloi and tradesmen side entrance which has been in use since at least 2017 when I last set foot inside that building. No columned grand entrance for us! Quickly through security and headed to the guided tour desk in the rotunda. 10am on Monday, February 10, 2025, just 4 people on the tour. Building was so empty I could shoot a cannon through the rotunda and not hit anyone. The Spanish Queen Isabella statue with Columbus and a page boy is missing after being for decades in the rotunda. “Taken to storage,” says the lady volunteer at the tour desk. Taken away during the Summer of George Floyd.

Down a hallway to see the first State Treasury office. At first it was just one modest sized room with a big safe. Then, more rooms were added. Then, a big separate building was built next door. Until 1933 all debts due to the State had to be paid in gold coins. No paper money there until FDR took the USA off the gold standard.

Up an 1870s Gilded Age staircase to a gallery of Governor portraits. There is Pat Brown whose campaign manager, William “Bill”Newsom (grandfather of the current Governor), was the private lawyer of Southern California oilman J. Paul Getty. Once elected, Pat got his pal Bill a nice judgeship after Getty via special legislation got a sweetheart deal for State taxes to shelter his immense business profits as one of the then richest men in the world. Pat’s son, Jerry, briefly studied to become a Jesuit priest but ended up serving two terms as California Governor and ran for U.S. President while known as Jerry “Moonbeam” around the time he dated singer superstar Linda Rondstadt.

Left to right: Pat Brown, RonaldReagana, and Jerry Brown

Pat and Bill got some prime long land leases or land sales concessions from the owners of Squaw Valley ski resort right before it was awarded the 1960
Winter Olympics. Bill’s grandson Gavin now owns the family land at Squaw (renamed “Palisades” after the Summer of George Floyd) where he has his Plumpjack business. I’m still laughing how during the covid lockdowns as Governor he shut donw as “non-essential” businesses all bookstores but kept open his wine tasting business.

My tour guide told me none of that. Instead his paper script gushed about the water projects Pat pushed through the legislature. He didn’t mention those mostly just bring water to southern California deserts for massive mono-crop heavily irrigated farms which drain to the always irridescent “nature” reserves in remote low spots full of man-made fertilizers and pesticides.

Let’s see… which Newsom family member did Baltimore Boss Politics mayor’s daughter Nancy Pelosi marry thus becoming Gavin Newsome’s aunt-in-law? And what were the years J. Paul’s son Gordon Getty lived with William N. and Gavin lived with Gordon Getty while each teen boy was estranged from his own parents? And under which Governor did the State legislature get a supermajority of Democrat elected officials?

My tour guide was not a fan of Reagan, the only California Governor to become U.S. President. He smirked saying to date the only Governor portrait to be vandalized, hence its plexiglass cover and the lingering scar marks, is Reagan’s. He spoke at length how the Austrian artist got the wrong number of State Seal stars on Schwarzenager’s portrait and that its very high cost at taxpayers’ expense is outrageous compared to the much cheaper Jerry portrait painted in just one afternoon. Being friendly today to any Republicans inside the State Capitol buildings is not “cool.” Our tour ended in the basement by the gift shop in front of a life size Reagan statue. A large sign next to his rear end asked people not to touch the statue.

***

As I was walking out of the Capitol, I spotted my Assemblyman. I caught his eye and on a whim said, “Mr. B—-! I’m one of your constituents. May I take a photo of you?” He was speed walking running late to a Monday 1pm Assembly session which soon gaveled out on recess til Friday and then he’d have a 3-day weekend with next Monday off for Presidents Day. I figured he might stop, pose and rush on.

He looked shocked then smiled and came over to me. I’d never met him before. Never voted for him. He asked to have a photo with me so my tour partner snapped one of us. I said I’d talked to his mother a few days after he won his first election to the Assembly and how proud she was of him. I didn’t tell him my total disgust that she also said that was just his “first step” to a much “higher office” with an obvious tone of voice as if being an Assemblyman was almost beneath his dignity in her opinion.

He’s been a good Big Democrat rubber stamp who never ever sticks his head up doing anything controversial, original, or important. His latest piece of legislation is to outlaw “brokers” for sales of pet cats, dogs and rabbits. His Assembly seat is literally in the back row. Maybe that is a desired seat assignment? Easy for unobtrusive late arrivals and early departures?

***

A couple days later I walked over to the Gilded Age Governor Stanford Mansion for public tour. A small sign on the locked garden gate: “Closed for a private event.” No notice of the closure on the State Park website for the house. Called the telephone number on the locked gate and left a message. A few hours later, I got a callback from a State employee. “So sorry!,” she said, “We’d not updated our website about the closure, nor our office voice message! Our phone system has been down recently and it just got working again!” I lost count of her use of passive voice blame verbiage. She said the mansion was closed on short notice for two days of California senators’ private meetings. She explained ever since Governor Schwarzenager fixed up the interior it’s become very popular with legislators. “Blame a Republican!,” she seemed to say to me, the disappointed - but vastly amused - tourist, who’s never joined any political party. A town of wanna-be aristocrats with their many enablers complete with a royal portrait gallery.

***

I’ve been watching President Trump shuffling his Oval Office decor over the last few weeks. He’s replaced the green plants on his fireplace mantle with a growing and symmetrical set of vermeil and gold figurines, flowers, table centerpieces, and urns. A gentleman comfortable in showing his own tastes. Likes gold a lot. Not into nature unless perhaps a well manicured garden or golf course. Can’t imagine seeing him in muddy shoes and wind-swept hair hiking on a mountain. Like President Reagan, never wearing anything in the Oval Office other than a business suit with a tie. No cardigan sweater there for him like President Carter.

Second foreign leader to visit Trump-47

The credenza behind his desk has a set of framed family photos on one side and an ever changing collection of decorative pieces on the other side. At first, he had just a cluttered rack of challenge coins. A statement of “look whose hands I shook when I was 45!” Then, he replaced the coins with a statue of Andrew Jackson on a horse. Moved that to another place, replacing it with a very large bronze profile medallion of Lincoln. Then, he added a vermeil French antique table centerpiece, one of a pair, with slender Grecian figures standing on an ornate plinth and holding up a shallow bowl. The sort of thing one can use for a flower decoration, fresh fruit or candies at the most formal State Dinners.

Diet Coke wood box by telephones

I’ve noticed he’s been frequently rearranging and growing his Oval Office collection of painted portraits for his formal office where he likes to do impromptu press conferences. Today, at the White House swearing-in of RFK as his HHS Secretary I spied Reagan’s portrait on the wall right behind the speaker podium. That’s an in-your-face message to the current California Governor the same week Trump’s new Attorney General sued the Illinois and New York governors for allowing sanctuary cities. Guess what state is next to be sued!

***

In honor of RFK who got his start in legal work using courts to clean up pollution in the Hudson River, today I took a walk on the shores of the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers where California’s capital sits. A site picked because it was the closest steam boats could get to the California gold fields and Nevada silver mines.

A Pineapple Express of wet weather from the Pacific Ocean had been pummeling the area overnight making the rivers run high. Watched a small group of men catching big catfish. Saw or heard over 30 species of birds. A big flock of magpies, many collecting twigs to make nests. A bald eagle eyeing a catfish flopping on a grassy mound. Lots of ducks and geese. Morning doves and juncos. Most of those animals have been there since before any people came to those rivers. They will be there long after all of us people living today are gone.

Yolo County Park at the confluence

I drove home to Silicon Valley and watched RFK sworn-in to his new federal job. As he swore to defend the U.S. Constitution I cried recalling taking the same oath in a small Pentagon office more than 30 years ago. An awesome thing to take such an oath when you mean it. To do it not for any personal benefit but truly to “defend” all our Founding Fathers and Mothers fought for in the 1770s-80s. When only at most 10% of the 13 Colonies’ residents fought to get rid of top-down British rule.

I listened close as RFK talked again about praying to God on his knees for 19 years to be put in a position to help others. How much he respects Trump as an answer to his prayers.

A brew pub in West Sacramento

The Sacramento River was named by Spanish explorers in honor of the Roman Catholic sacrament of remembering Jesus’ blood and body by taking communion at mass with a wafer and a sip of red wine. Simple symbols for teaching and remembrance. Just like every Oval Office decor item of today from George Washington’s portrait over the fireplace, the 30 volume set of the writings of George Washington, 14 volumes for Theodore Roosevelt, 20 volumes of the Yale History of the United States, and a 10 volume set bound in red goatskin of the complete works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who served as the U.S. consul in Liverpool. And, Trump’s wooden box with a button to summon a Diet Coke. I like to imagine him laughing each time he presses that button.