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Seven Sins, Sanlorenzo’s largest yacht to date, displayed its unique pool skylight in Monaco, along with other high-tech features.

An interview with the costume designer Ruth Carter.

The most stunning thing in James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was what he said about special prosecutors, also called special counsels.

“After former President Clinton met on the plane with the attorney general, I considered whether I should call for the appointment of a special counsel and decided that would be an unfair thing to do because I knew there was no case there,” Comey testified, speaking of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. “And calling for the appointment of a special counsel would be brutally unfair because it would send the message, ‘Uh-huh, there’s something here.’ ”

Sen. John Cornyn, who was questioning the former FBI director, asked, “If a special counsel had been appointed, they could have made that determination there was nothing there and declined to pursue it, right?”

“Sure,” Comey answered, “but it would have been many months later or a year later.”

Compare that to what he told Sen. Susan Collins at a different point in the hearing, when she asked, “Did you show copies of your memos to anyone outside the Department of Justice?”

“Yes,” Comey testified. “The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope there’s not tapes. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didn’t dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. My judgment was, I need to get that out into the public square. I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn’t do it myself for a variety of reasons. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Let’s go over that again.

Comey wanted to prevent the appointment of a special counsel for Hillary Clinton, who was the subject of an FBI investigation, but he wanted to “prompt” the appointment of a special counsel for President Trump, who was not the subject of an FBI investigation.

He understood that the appointment of a special counsel “would send the message, ‘Uh-huh, there’s something here’” and that it would be “many months later or a year later” before the special counsel would announce that, in fact, “there was no case there.”

Any questions?

Here’s one: Is President Trump alleged to have done anything illegal or is this investigation just war, by any means necessary, against someone who has put a lot of swamp creatures out of power and out of work?

Comey testified that while he was FBI director, Trump was not under investigation by the FBI — not in a criminal investigation, and not in a counter-intelligence investigation, which, in Comey’s words, “tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents” or “covertly acting as an agent” of a hostile foreign nation, or “targeted for recruitment.”

In the FBI’s judgment, Trump was none of those.

Comey revealed to Congress in March that the bureau was investigating “possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign,” yet he flatly refused to tell the public, until his testimony on Thursday, that Trump wasn’t under investigation.

Comey testified that after he was fired, he orchestrated a selective leak in order to prompt a lengthy special counsel investigation of the president, knowing full well that the FBI had found no reason to place the president under investigation.

That is genuinely deplorable.

Susan Shelley is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Reach her at Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter: @Susan_Shelley.

For decades, it has been nearly impossible for ordinary citizens to pierce the veil of legislative secrecy in our state capital.

Of course, California is not unique — legislative bodies have sought to conceal their activity for millennia. This is inherent in the differences between rulers and subjects. But we all know too well that mischief feeds on secrecy. The Roman poet Virgil wrote more than 2,000 years ago, “Evil is nourished and grows by concealment.”

In California, the citizens have tried repeatedly to force legislative activity into the sunlight. So last year, to counter the common practice in the Legislature of introducing new bills and passing them within hours, often in the dead of night, voters approved Proposition 54. That important reform requires legislation be in print and available for public review for at least three days prior to final passage.

Passed as a constitutional amendment, Proposition 54 is not stated in discretionary language — its provisions are mandatory. And complying with its terms hardly places an onerous burden on lawmakers. Honestly crafted legislation should easily withstand a few days of public scrutiny.

The state Senate has complied with the will of the people, and even if some of the legislation this body has passed, like the gas tax increase, is repellent to many Californians, senators cannot be accused of keeping their lawmaking a secret.

The Assembly, on the other hand, has arrogantly continued business as usual by approving around 100 bills without the required time for members of the public to examine laws that they will be expected to obey. Assembly leaders say that the people cannot use the initiative process to mandate their conduct, making the lower house the poster child for the view that California government has become a militant special interest, more concerned with its own welfare and longevity, than that of the citizens it claims to serve.

In their pursuit of perks, pay and power, Assembly members are thumbing their collective noses at voters who, by approving Proposition 54, demanded greater transparency in the lawmaking process.

The initiative process in California dates back to 1911 and was a counter blow against the Legislature, most of whose members were beholden to the Southern Pacific Railroad. This form of direct democracy was intended to allow voters to become the lawmakers of last resort when their representatives proved to be indolent, incompetent or corrupt. The state’s most famous initiative, Proposition 13, came about when the Legislature proved to be both lazy and incapable of dealing with a property tax crisis that was forcing thousands of Californians from their homes.

Today, many state representatives are beholden to public employee unions and other special interests. Measures like Proposition 54 are valuable to prod lawmakers to behave in the best interests of all Californians, not just the Sacramento insiders.

If lawmakers continue to refuse to comply with Proposition 54’s reasonable, voter-approved mandate for transparency in their official conduct, there can be no doubt that resolution of this benchmark issue and the Assembly’s misconduct will end up before the courts.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. www.hjta.org

Amidst the remarkable decision by Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies to break ties with Qatar, critics claim that the Trump White House has blundered into a fresh crisis that could spiral into outright regional war.

Although it remains to be seen how much the administration knew about the risks and potential rewards surrounding the breach, its roots run deep — to the heart of a protracted contest over Islam’s political identity.

U.S. policy has proven ineffective over a period of decades at forestalling this conflict, which will likely decide three matters of vast importance: first, which state will dominate the Islamic world for the next generation or more; second, which form of Islam will exercise the greatest control over politics in Muslim-majority states, and third, which strain of jihadi terrorism — if any — will prevail into the future.

To recap, the Saudis and their regional allies severed ties with Qatar on the basis of that small regime’s support for terrorist groups ranging from Hamas to al-Qaida affiliates to, more controversially, the Muslim Brotherhood. By funding those groups and offering their members safe haven, the allies announced, Qatar has repeatedly interfered in other states’ domestic affairs.

This situation came to a head in large measure because of the way Qatar’s policies on this score began dovetailing with Iran’s. Despite Qatar’s support for jihadist groups nominally at war with Tehran’s ally in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, Assad’s de facto alliance of convenience with the Islamic State — which also wants to defeat the so-called “moderate” rebels still battling the Assad regime — has helped ensure that, from the standpoint of the Gulf states, Qatar’s support for subversion and terror feels of a piece with Iran’s.

Aside from sheer impatience and worry, the Gulf states have been pushed to act by a sense of rare geopolitical opportunity. While their patience has been pushed to the limit for some time by Qatari backing and hosting for the Brotherhood, which briefly took power in Egypt and threatened to upend the established order across the region, the balance of power is now up for grabs as ISIS begins to buckle and the Trump White House works to reverse President Obama’s play for rapprochement with Iran.

While Trump appeared content to let the Saudis and their allies move at their own speed on Qatar, a key constituency within his administration has long hoped to reorient U.S. foreign policy around designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and working to isolate and defeat it accordingly.

As soon as the Gulf states dropped the boom on Qatar, Trump gave their indictment his blessing — despite Qatar’s diligent effort to stay on America’s good side as an above-the-table ally, customer and host to everything from U.S. educational institutions to the largest U.S. military base in the Gulf.

Trump’s public about-face — whatever the behind-the-scenes intricacies leading up to it — raises the risks of a conflict that spirals out of control. Qatar has sought to signal a willingness to compromise, sending sheltered senior Hamas members elsewhere. But it has also encouraged the support of Iran and the Arab states’ other potential rival, Turkey, currently negotiating troop deployments of its own on Qatari soil.

The region is just a few reckless moves or unintended consequences away from a militarized chain reaction. Yet at the same time, the United States has proven completely incapable — at extraordinary expense — of resolving the conflicts roiling political Islam that the Qatar dispute has now dragged out into the open.

Year after year of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus more limited actions in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, may have forestalled utter chaos or a bona fide caliphate. But they have not done the work only America’s Muslim allies can do, namely break the back of international jihadi terror and consolidate a working balance of power and governance in the region.

Without a doubt, the White House now must bear serious pressure not to mismanage what happens next. Even more important, however, is that Trump’s team hew close to the recognition that the United States cannot stage manage the details of the current dispute nor the broader thrust of the geopolitical realignment now at work — even when it moves in a direction generally or tentatively beneficial to U.S. interests and values.

The State Department has expressed its confidence in the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Qatar crisis, but it appears likely that the Egyptians and Saudis want to see the sitting regime in Qatar removed. That could push Turkey and Iran toward escalating conflict in Syria and elsewhere.

America’s Sunni allies have not gained much more than time from their relatively cautious approach to Iran’s machinations in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and they cannot play defense forever. If they have any hope of keeping U.S. confidence and improving their own domestic and regional position, successfully putting the squeeze on Qatar and its terrorist clients will have to be just the first step in a concerted new strategy, whatever the risks.

James Poulos is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.

Fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to a congressional committee raised the stakes in the ongoing political war over the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia. But it was a battle nobody won, however many troubling questions it raised and answers it brought to light.

This is a process the American people must prepare to watch unfold at a pace set by the legal and political institutions and procedures put in place to complete it in careful and orderly fashion.

Frankly, the testimony changed no minds. If you supported President Trump and distrusted Comey before the well-publicized political circus, you likely feel the same afterward. If you dislike the president and believed he should be further investigated, you still feel the same. The testimony did little to change national debate or add any semblance of clarity or, more important, closure.

Certainly President Trump did not come out a winner, on optics or on substance, despite Comey’s stating that the president himself was not personally being investigated. Even if legal, the president’s remarks and actions over time have so lowered the bar for acceptable conduct among supporters in his own party that barely clearing that standard this time around does little to move his presidency forward.

A number of GOP senators share real concern that the investigation now under way by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — and a handpicked prosecuting team with experience tackling Watergate, Enron and the Mafia — will result in at least one scalp. Legislators facing electoral pressure don’t always best reflect the right course of action for a White House, but this White House is as lacking in a power base as the current Congress, and needs all the support it can get.

Yet Comey did not notch a clean win either. While some see him as an hero, for more people the impression is frustrating and mixed. Leading congressional Democrats and both members of the party’s 2016 presidential ticket lambasted Comey before the Russia affair came along. Comey described Trump as a liar, but portrayed the president more as anxious about hastening along the investigation than obstructing it.

Whatever Comey’s feelings about the news media, leading press outlets undercut his position. CNN, for instance, had to retract a bogus blockbuster report that Comey would deny Trump’s claim that he repeatedly told Trump he wasn’t under investigation. While measured and professional in his testimony, Comey — unlike Mueller — remains a politically compromised figure unable to speed to an end the drama around him.

In a way, the American people lost out in this round of Washington conflict the most. Although Trump’s extraordinary election signaled that the nation as a whole was ready to risk shaking things up, his current trouble threatens to end the possibility of bold new approaches to our many festering problems over the next four years.

Trump has made himself a weakened president of a weakened country. This sorry situation is untenable and unacceptable, but we are now all obliged to ride it out.

Earlier this month, the Orange County Register published a report examining addiction treatment facilities in Southern California and the enormous challenge of substance abuse our community faces. The Register’s story highlights a disease that has ravaged our communities, ruined many families and ended many young lives, and identified the significant gaps that still exist in treatment. It also puts in stark focus the urgent need to rethink how we care for addicted patients. The days of treating chemical dependency as a standalone sickness — with rehab clinics operating without regard for the underlying health and social challenges that lead to addiction — simply have to end.

The number of Americans who have a substance use disorder has skyrocketed to epidemic levels. Orange County has not been spared: Drug and alcohol deaths in the county increased by 82 percent since the millennium, and hospitalizations cost us more than $100 million a year. We have a disproportionately large number of rehab clinics for those seeking to break the cycle of addiction. And as the Register reported, these facilities are often focused on profits and not adequately regulated or held accountable for providing subpar treatment. We will never beat addiction in Orange County if we continue treating it with quick fixes meant to turn a buck.

No one advocacy group, provider, rehab clinic or government agency can solve this challenge alone. If we’re going reverse this affliction, we need to do it together, and we need to do it in a holistic way that looks at other mental health issues, the social needs of patients, the awareness and education in our community, and the standard of care at our clinics and facilities.

First, we must acknowledge the link between substance use disorders and other health issues. Substance abusers are two times more likely to have psychiatric disorders and mental illnesses like depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder. Mental illnesses can lead to drug abuse as a form of self-medication. Both substance use disorders and other mental illnesses are caused by overlapping factors such as underlying, genetic vulnerabilities and/or early exposure to stress or trauma. We must treat addiction with the highest clinical standards that look at the whole picture, not the common (but often superficial) symptoms. We need strong policies that promote evidence-based treatments with high-quality treatment options, and limit clinics that only provide temporary or superficial care.

And we need strong local partnerships that can provide the kind of wraparound support services that addicts need before and after rehab to truly heal — services that help them find a safe place to sleep or a good meal, or, often, just someone to talk to. Stable and structured supportive housing is key to promote and stabilize recovery, particularly for the vulnerable populations like the homeless, addicted teens and formerly incarcerated individuals.

Above all, we must view addiction as a part of the broader problem of mental illness and social crisis in our community.

Orange County has started doing many of these things. Our health system recently helped convene a group of mental health advocates, other health system representatives, academia, foundations, housing providers, faith-based leaders and city and county government agency officials. Finally, we have all the critical stakeholders at the same table to develop a behavioral health system of care supported by public/private/academic collaboration to achieve the healthiest community. And we’ve just established the county’s first comprehensive hospital-based continuum of care with intensive inpatient and outpatient services for patients facing addiction. But, as the Register report makes clear we have a very long way to go.

Breaking the cycle of addiction won’t be easy and it won’t happen fast. But if we stop viewing addiction in isolation and see it for the broad health and social health crisis that it is, we just may be able to finally end the cycle with meaningful solutions.

Clayton Chau, M.D., Ph.D., is the regional executive medical director of St. Joseph Hoag Health’s Institute for Mental Health & Wellness.

Pamella Roland looked to her own backyard, literally, for her resort collection. She designed her eveningwear to resemble her garden, with its many beautiful flowers and colors. To top it off, her collection was presented at Bulgari on Fifth Avenue. “What goes better with gowns than jewelry?” Roland mused. Although her collection is much larger, the presentation included 30 looks, with each model wearing an appropriate amount of Bulgari shine.
Roland’s classic gowns were updated in a light floral palette of lavender, baby yellow, bright geranium, light rose and white gold. Embellishments included sequin fringe and beading. Lighter chiffon dresses with floral prints and ruffles were highlights of the collection. As was a bright and fun geranium colored dress with 3-D floral appliqués that resembled fresh bundle of flowers picked straight from Roland’s garden.
See More From the 2018 Resort Collections:
Giorgio Armani Resort 2018: Contrasting forces emerged in Giorgio Armani’s resort collection, which spanned from eclectic, multicolor designs to essential, sophisticated attires.  
Norma Kamali Resort 2018: Norma Kamali offered an extensive resort collection where she updated her signature pieces and expanded on her outerwear and swim. 
Rachel Zoe Resort 2018: Rachel Zoe’s resort collection was guided by a cool, Sixties undertone with a modern, sculptural

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