MCT: Saturday, February 8, 2020

• North Winds
• Ryan Aday
• Eighth Debate
• First Five
• Garberville Cowboys
• Urban Campers
• Online Chatter
• Beatnik Eyeballs
• Whale Watching
• Trophy Hunting
• Doobie Desk
• Whitesboro Spaghetti
• California Prisons
• Yesterday's Catch
• DNC v Sanders
• Whoa Donald
• Corporate Dems
• Fracking Bills
• Angry Contest
• Slapstick Suicide
• Well Hummed
• MOVE 2030
• Poached Pate
• Acrylic Painter
• Sneaky Pete
• Political Spectrum
• OJ Trump
• Balmy Antarctica
• Trump Koan
• Crane Case
• Found Object

A WEAK FRONTAL BOUNDARY will pass south across the region this morning, however, significant rainfall is not likely. After frontal passage, gusty north winds are forecast to develop. North winds will become east-northeasterly from Sunday into early next week, with gusty conditions expected across exposed ridges. Warm dry weather will develop as a result. (NWS)

SEASHA ROSE WRITES:

I'm not sure if any of you remember Ryan. He moved to the valley when he was in 8th grade and and graduated from AV High. He lived with his mom and step dad Megan and Tim Nelligan and his sister Laura in Navarro. More recently he lived in San Luis Obispo. He passed away on Saturday.

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES ZERO IN ON BUTTIGIEG AND SANDERS AT TENSE DEBATE

Competing visions for the party were on display as moderate candidates challenged progressives ahead of New Hampshire primary.

theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/07/bernie-sanders-pete-buttigieg-debate-new-hampshire-iowa-latest

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BERNIE SANDERS SHOWED US HE’S A VERY SKILLED POLITICIAN

He’s a much savvier operator than the establishment gives him credit for.

vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/2/7/21128979/bernie-sanders-won-democratic-debate

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AFTER IOWA CHAOS, 7 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES TAKE THE STAGE FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY DEBATE

Here are the biggest moments.

time.com/5779868/democratic-debate-live-feb-7/

FIRST FIVE MENDOCINO now gets over $1.8 million a year for vague parenting assistance things (as of their last posted budget in 2017), most of which are essentially funding themselves for no real purpose:

mendochildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Copy-of-2017-18-Budget-APPROVED-PUBLIC.pdf

mendochildren.org/about-first-5-mendocino/first-5-mendocino-financials/

IT’S PROBABLY MORE THAN $1.8 million now. Except, as Supervisor John Haschack noted at last Tuesday’s Supervisor’s meeting, there’s a problem:

Haschack: “I attended the First Five meeting on January 27 and there was discussion about the A-87 funding and charges and ways to deal with the skyrocketing cost [of what, exactly? Haschack didn’t say]. The First Five currently uses the county treasury for deposits and the Auditor-Controller’s office for checks. The Commission uses Munis [the County’s accounting software system] to request checks based on A-87 [federal accounting and allowability] rules. The price [of complying with the accounting rules] keeps going up and the base funding, Prop 10 [Rob Reiner’s cigarette tax initiative from 1998], is declining. The Commission had to reduce its budget by $165,000 this fiscal year. In June 2018 [sic— more than a year and a half ago now] First Five requested that A-87 fees be waived or negotiated. The Auditor will not waive or negotiate the fee. So this is an ongoing issue for the First Five and I'm sure it will require further discussion as we go along.”

OBVIOUSLY, since fewer people are smoking there’s a budget crunch at First Five and a dispute about how to handle the declining gravy train. First Five wants to keep their well-paid parent-helping and admin staff and the Auditor and Treasurer want to keep getting their big slice of the tobacco tax money for themselves to keep track of First Five’s needless expenses.

CEO ANGELO prefers that cash disputes like this stay out of the public eye, knowing that the public would be shocked at how much money is wasted on these pointless exercises, money that should have been (and still could be) allocated directly to parents of young children as childcare vouchers, instead of wasting it on the usual bloated helping professionals staffing. So the CEO pounced to make sure that the subject was quickly re-buried and stays that way. Supervisor Haschack is new and hasn’t been schooled in the arcane arts of keeping funding and funding disputes out of the public eye.

ANGELO: “There have been conversations about First Five and A-87 costs last year and now again this year. [A lot of bookkeeping is required to make sure that all that money is properly accounted for, never mind that it actually helps no one besides the First Five staff.] We are scheduling a meeting. [Oh yes, a meeting — someday — the universal response to every Mendo problem.] I also received a call from one of the First Five commissioners. So we will be scheduling a meeting with County Counsel and the Auditor's office to discuss First Five and this particular issue and including First Five. So I wanted to make sure you knew that.”

IT’S IMPORTANT that Supervisor Haschack “know that” because he probably didn’t realize that he’s not supposed to be talking about problems like this. Angelo’s comment is a thinly-veiled instruction for Board Chair Haschak to keep his trap shut, “knowing that” CEO Angelo has “scheduled a meeting” where she will be the one deciding the outcome, not some pesky Supervisor whose primary purpose is to say go to the meetings and stick to his script. Remember, the Treasurer and the Auditor-Controller are independently elected officials and they don’t want to give any free accounting services to First Five and they don’t answer directly to the CEO like other department heads, that’s why CEO Angelo invoked County Counsel.

SO IT’S NOT LIKELY that Supervisor Haschack will bring up First Five again unless it’s for the usual bland “I went to a meeting and what a great job they’re doing” variety and we will never know how this little dust-up is resolved. Transparency? What transparency?

(Mark Scaramella)

ODD, OLD NEWS: JUSTICE FOR GARBERVILLE COWBOYS IN 1892

kymkemp.com/2020/02/07/odd-old-news-justice-for-garberville-cowboys-in-1892/

FIRST THINGS FIRST

To the Editor:

It occurs to me, we are not putting our hard-earned tax dollars in the right place to solve this problem:

A large portion of these homeless people are not thinking straight and really need mental health evaluations. Forget about building housing facilities for them, spend the money on getting them mental health care.

There are a number that clearly have an addiction that prevents them from being productive citizens. Some them may well have mental issues as well.

And then there are the folks that are just down on their luck that are capable of working and being productive. We need to provide them with job opportunities, perhaps similar to the “Works Programs” when we came out of the Great Depression, and make their Social Services check dependent on their demonstrating they are making the attempt.

Providing housing is an important step, but it is not the absolute solution for these urban campers. Remember in 2017 when we passed Measure B Mental Health Treatment Act? That was a good start.

John B Moon

Ukiah

MARCO ON CHAT LINES

(To an anonymous chat line poster) — I don't know if you're aware that your knee-jerk reflex bark-snipes at the three or four people you're peeved at for writing things that peeve you are also going to all the rest of the thousands of us here, and that, on top of that, each post you send to the Announce listserv is appearing twice because of a problem in your computer's email program going back months. If you're aware and you don't care, then of course never mind; it ain't a big deal. (My grandmother used to say that. When I was upset about something a small child gets upset about she'd say, "In a hundred years, who will care?" Or she'd say, "It ain't a big deal," and she'd put down her work and rub her arthritic fingers and look at me and really ask, "Is it a big deal?" No. It's not.)

Some few writers always bug me for various reasons, puerility chief among them, then humorless monomania. I give them a chance, then give them another few dozen chances then, just on a whim, I wiggle my finger, or rather my thumb (I use a left-handed trackball) and casually set Thunderbird to automatically smite all emails from them and so wipe them from existence. It's very satisfying, easy, fast, and you only have to do it once for each puerile humorless monomaniacal peever. Think of it like this: Pick any lump of shit in the big world who you're not interested in hearing from anymore. Say, Sean Hannity on Fox News. Would it make any sense for you pay close attention, to jump up in front of him, if you could, after every time he's wrong and tell him and the camera and everyone else to take it to another channel? Would it be productive even to write to him personally and rebut whatever smug rich racist right-wing slime that boils out of his lipless mouth? Wouldn't it be smarter, if he pisses you off so much, to just never acknowledge him at all, by literally not acknowledging him at all? until he and his entire elderly audience of barcalounger-potatoes get cancer or a stroke or his abdominal fat squeezes his heart to a stop and he dies anyway, because he's going to, they're going to. We're all going to die, alas, and then in the blink of a rock's eye it'll be 10,000 years later, a hundred times a hundred years, and who will care, and will it be a big deal?

If you don't like being infuriated, block anything or anybody who infuriates you. Three clicks and done; it solves the problem completely -- unless the problem is: your concern is really to rally others against a particular writer, because you wish nobody to see what they have to say, because you want people to see you as the Mom of public morals and etiquette. If someone is evil and has real power, it might be the right thing to stand up to them, sure, but these people have no more power than you do, and whether or not they're evil they're just lonely and cowardly and belligerent (and puerile and humorless); and you're joining the mid-level of their miserable company and compounding what you see as a problem in the first place -- twice every time, by the way (see above) -- though you're clearly less cowardly because you put something close to your own real name on what you write, and I salute that.

On the subject of people who bug one, here's something I just read in TheAVA.com. It's by the editor, Bruce Anderson:

”THE COMMENT LINE PROBLEM is common to all websites that maintain them. Take MCN's chat-back for instance [Bruce means the MCN Announce listserv] where, round-the-clock, four or five guys insult each other, a man calling himself Zeke Krahlin being the primary provocateur. But the back and forth dominates MCN, every day, all day deep into the night. At the AVA we try to keep the feedback at a reasonably civilized level, but it requires the constant vigilance of our tech guy. His theory, and it seems right to me, is that the new tech has gotten lots of people into the habit of firing off to comment lines whatever pops into their fraught heads, meaning tiny ballpeen hammers tap-tapping on the skulls of the rest of us. As tech guy puts it, "It's difficult for many of these people who seem to live in facebook world, where the interaction is more impulse oriented. They walk around with their phones, constantly plugged in, and interacting. Every waking thought can easily get transmitted, immediately. It's a kind of disease."

Marco here, again. That's right, it is a disease, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. William S. Burroughs, the heroin-junkie writer who famously killed his wife in a bar in Mexico by drunkenly attempting to shoot an apple off her head, said, "Language is a virus from outer space." If you don't like someone interrupting your bliss with their predictable bullshit, just change the channel and don't see or hear them. It's not like they're reading the NO J.W. sign on your door and knocking anyway to tell you the good news about the Kingdom of Heaven and expose you to real disease by breathing in your face and handing you a pamphlet with hands that you don't know where they've been.

Speaking of which, snarky comments are often delightful. Example: I read where a woman wrote --and I'm paraphrasing because I can't find it now, "Our family are devoted followers of Christ and we were very offended by the pornographic halftime show of the Super Bowl with those jiggling half-naked women. My teen son watched that and went off to his room, he didn't even stay to watch the rest of the game!" The first comment on that was, "Oh, honey, bless your heart." (Because the boy was like Jayne in Firefly: "I'll be in my bunk." He's hurrying off to masturbate in private.) (And "Oh, honey, bless your heart" is a gentle funny Southern woman's way of calling someone slow, sweeter than, though similar to, the way "I'll pray for you" means "Go to hell," mitigated a skosh by tone of voice.) (Skosh: a scintilla, a smidgen.)

I see language as being a lot like this story of flowers -- colors and sounds and feelings and abbreviations (and indispensable insects) and all: laughingsquid.com/story-of-flowers/

And at the same time like this: tinyurl.com/DogExpressesHisOpinion

And like this. Marula Eugster Rigolo, 28. You may have seen others do this trick. This is better, for me, because here they move in close and show her hands shaking, how hard it is for her. And yet see how she develops her argument, and how fragile it is after all, and so what. It's beautiful. misscellania.blogspot.com/2020/02/marulas-magical-balance.html

—Marco McClean

WHALE WATCH, a Coast Listserve commentary:

Comment 1: I often spend some time by the ocean between therapy apps. In fact whenever I can. I am growing concerned. Usually January is the biggest month for south-going gray whales - so far this year I have seen 3 total. For a while I thought maybe they were just a little late this year, and maybe that is the case. At the risk of starting a discussion on announce list, I am curious what others are observing or what they know. Thank you. I realize the month is still young, so maybe nothing to worry about…

Comment 2: I haven't heard of any unusual whale events this year. Right now is the usual lull time….calfs being born down south and the northern migration will be starting up soon.

Comment 3: These are my observations this year from my house at the Caspar headlands. (I look for whales every day with binoculars). The whale migration south seemed late. I didn’t see any during December. Whale sightings picked up the 2nd week of January. There was dozens seen daily, usually in spaced apart groups of three or four. I am still seeing a few whales heading south today Feb. 7. I am confident that lots of whales are out there. In January we had many rainy and foggy days with wind driven whitecaps, which makes it hard to see them. Also the whales are in a hurry going south and they don’t feed much so they are out farther from shore. You will see more on their return trip north. They may arrive mid March throughout April. Since they have calves with them on the way back, they swim more slowly and stick close to shore. I have also seen more diving with tail flukes and breaching on their return trip.

Comment 4: I was at the boardwalk in McKerracher (or however it is spelled) where a volunteer or docent stationed at one of the viewing platforms, (with 4 or 5 pairs of binoculars for the public to use) told me he had been seeing many whales daily all week long.

SAY NO TO TROPHY HUNTING

change.org/p/beach-boys-stop-supporting-trophy-hunting

THE DOOBS DESK

New Cannabis Program Counter Service Hours

Effective February, 10, 2020 The Mendocino County Cannabis Program will be changing its public Counter Service Hours to the following:

Cannabis Counter Service Hours

Monday~Wednesday~Friday: 8 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Tuesday & Thursday: 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.

Cannabis Phone/Email Inquiries:

Monday – Friday: 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Due to the high volume of inquiries the Cannabis Program will create standard Counter Service Hours to better assist the public with site specific questions and provide additional nonpublic hours to respond to Cannabis Program email inquiries, phone messages, and the continued review and processing of applications, permits, and renewals.

General phone and email inquiries from individuals within the Cannabis Program will continue to be taken daily over the phone and email Monday – Friday 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Mendocino County Cannabis Program

Planning and Building Services

860 N. Bush St.

Ukiah, CA 95482

Phone: (707) 234-6650

Email: CannabisProgram@mendocinocounty.org

Website: www.mendocinocounty.org/cannabisprogram

WHITESBORO GRANGE SPAGHETTI DINNER TONIGHT!

Come to the Whitesboro Grange for some comfort food! That's right, it's the first spaghetti dinner of the decade and you're invited.

For only $8 (adults), $4 (children 6-12) and FREE for kids under 6 you'll get a big plate of spaghetti (meat or vegetarian), a salad, garlic bread and choose from a variety of desserts. Where else can you get such a bargain?

Whitesboro Grange is located 1-1/2 miles east down Navarro Ridge Road in Albion. Turn at the Whitesboro Grange sign.

CALIFORNIA BANS PRIVATE PRISONS AND IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTERS

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California moved to end the use of private, for-profit lockups in America’s largest state prison system as well as in federal immigration detention centers in the state under a measure signed into law on Friday by Governor Gavin Newsom.

reuters.com/article/us-california-prisons-idUSKBN1WQ2Q9

CATCH OF THE DAY, February 7, 2020

DUSTIN CAMPBELL, Domestic battery, resisting.

ROBERT CAMPBELL II, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent Flyer)

CONNIE DAVIS, Nice/Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

OSVALDO GARNICA, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

MARS HANSEN, Woodland/Willits. DUI.

ANDREW MAYNARD, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

JASON OUTLAW, Rohnert Park/Willits. Domestic abuse, burglary, resisting.

HUMBERTO SANCHEZ, Ukiah. DUI.

MARCUS SLOAN, Hopland. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, burglary, probation revocation.

THE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT is determined to stop Sanders at all costs. The corporate Democrats prefer to lose to the ever more viciously right-wing Republicans and the demented fascist oligarch Trump than to the moderately left wing of their own party.

This is why the establishment Democrats and their many media allies (at the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, The Hill, CNN, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and elsewhere) have issued repeated dire warnings over the supposed “radical Leftism” and “extremism” of the mildly social-democratic Sanders.

It’s why Democratic Party-affiliated funders and media opened the campaign season by touting the clownish center-right dementia victim Joe Biden as their “front-runner.”

It’s why those funders and media shifted to the slimy Wall Street plaything Pete Butiggieg after Biden re-exposed himself and pseudo-liberal Kamala Harris proved unable to stand strong in the “pragmatic” center-right Clinton-Obama-Tony Blair-Emanuel Macron lane.

It’s why the establishment “liberal” media harps constantly on Sanders’ supposed un-electability even as polls show him solidly beating Trump.

It’s why former Barack Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, former global derivatives trader and right-wing MSDNC (I mean MSNBC) host Stephanie (class-) Ruhle, and the noxious neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol recently joined forces on MSNBC to viciously denounce Sanders as “the worst candidate” to run against Trump.

It’s why the Democratic National Committee is working to reinstate the authoritarian veto power of unelected establishment “superdelegates” on the first ballot of the Democratic National Convention – a move clearly driven by establishment fears that Sanders could accumulate enough delegates to sweep to a first ballot victory under current rules.

— Paul Street

DNC IN DISARRAY While the Sanders Campaign Gains Momentum

by Norman Solomon

As a center of elite power, the Democratic National Committee is now floundering. Every reform it has implemented since 2016 was the result of progressive grassroots pressure. But there are limits to what DNC Chair Tom Perez is willing to accept without a knock-down, drag-out fight. And in recent weeks, he has begun to do heavy lifting for corporate Democrats — throwing roadblocks in the way of the Bernie 2020 campaign as it continues to gain momentum.

The fiasco in Iowa, despite its importance, is a sideshow compared to what is foreshadowed by recent moves from Perez. For one thing, he appointed avowedly anti-Bernie corporate operatives to key positions on powerful DNC committees. The flagrant conflicts of interest have included entrenching paid staffers for Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign on rules committees for the DNC and the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

Perez soon followed up by abruptly changing the official rules to allow Bloomberg to participate in the debate scheduled for three days before the Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses. The egregious decision to waive the requirement for large numbers of individual donors rolled out the blue carpet for Bloomberg to the debate stage.

“Now suddenly a guy comes in who does not campaign one bit in Iowa, New Hampshire, he’s not on the ballot I guess in Nevada or South Carolina, but he’s worth $55 billion,” Sanders said Thursday when asked about the rules change. “I guess if you’re worth $55 billion you can get the rules changed for a debate. So, to answer your question: I think that is an absolute outrage and really unfair.”

Inconvenient facts — such as the reality that Bloomberg fervently endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election in 2004 (in a speech to the Republican National Convention, no less) or that as mayor of New York he championed racist stop-and-frisk police policies — are less important to party chieftains than the humongous dollar signs that self-financing Bloomberg is bringing to the table.

The mayors of San Francisco, Washington, Anchorage and Albany, among others, have already succumbed to Bloomberg’s wealthy blandishments and endorsed him, as has former Black Panther and longtime disappointment Congressman Bobby Rush. To corporate elites, the moral of the sordid Bloomberg story is that most people can be bought, and Bloomberg might be the deus ex machina to lift them out of an impending tragedy of Sanders as nominee.

The glaring subtext of all this is the now-frantic effort to find some candidate who can prevent Sanders from becoming the party’s nominee at the national convention in July. Early corporate favorites like Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris fizzled and flamed out. Joe Biden appears to be sinking. Amy Klobuchar staked her hopes on Iowa without success. That appears to leave Pete Buttigieg and Bloomberg as the strongest corporate contenders to prevent the corporate Democrats’ worst nightmare — the nomination of an authentic progressive populist.

A traditional claim by corporate Democrats — the assumption that grassroots progressive campaigns are doomed — is oddly matched by the assumptions of right-wing media and some on the left that the DNC can successfully rig just about anything it wants to. Fox News has been feasting on the Iowa meltdown, pleased to occasionally invite leftists on the air to denounce the DNC, immediately followed by routine denunciations of Democrats in general and Sanders in particular as diabolical socialists eager to destroy any and all American freedoms with a collectivist goal of tyranny.

Meanwhile, some progressives have such an inflated view of the DNC’s power that they propagate the idea that all is lost and Bernie is sure to be crushed. It’s the kind of defeatism that’s surely appreciated by right-wingers and corporate Democrats alike.

Perhaps needless to say, if Bernie Sanders had such a fatalistic view of electoral politics, he never would have run for president in the first place. People on the left who say the DNC’s elite power can’t be overcome with grassroots organizing are mirroring the traditional scorn from corporate Democrats — who insist that the left can never dislodge them from dominance of the party, let alone end corporate dominance of the nation.

Like millions of other progressives who support Bernie 2020, I realize that the forces arrayed against us are tremendously powerful. That’s the nature of the corporate beast. The only way to overcome it is to organize and fight back. That’s what the movements behind the Sanders campaign are doing right now.

In the words of a Latin American graffiti writer, “Let’s save pessimism for better times.”

(Norman Solomon is cofounder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Solomon is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.)

SANDERS INTRODUCES BILLS TO BAN FRACKING, Require National Cleanup Effort of Drinking Water

ecowatch.com/bernie-sanders-fracking-ban-2644992555.html

SLAPSTICK SUICIDE

by James Kunstler

With Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler cast as Laurel and Hardy, the Democratic Party entered the slapstick phase of its self-destruction, moving from one botched scheme to the next amidst a chaos of falling pianos, splintered two-by-fours, and crashed bi-planes. The old 1930s screen comedies usually also featured a “grand dame” character making herself ridiculous, like Margaret Dumont in Duck Soup, and congressional central casting has fashioned just such a late-career role for Nancy Pelosi, all fluster and spleen, and well-supplied with comic props like the carefully pre-torn State of the Union address she ceremoniously sundered on Tuesday night. Can someone drop an anvil on her, please?

You also had to love the costuming for the great occasion: the congressional Democratic ladies all decked out in white robes, like an angel choir from The Green Pastures, exuding virtue and chastity while they mugged for the cameras — as if they never turned a campaign contribution into a Cadillac Escalade or a vacation in Taormina. Next year, perhaps, they’ll get rigged with wires and downy wings and fly around the chamber singing “Didn’t Ol’ Pharoah Get Lost” while the president splutters at the podium.

That spectacle was immediately followed by the Keystone Kops Iowa caucus, which has not really been resolved three days later as I write, though 100 percent of the vote is supposedly counted (cue, laughter). Many of the reporting counties have fewer voters than the average Methodist college student body, and somehow it was hard to tally the numbers for days on end? Party chairman Tom Perez called for a do-over. That’ll sure have a ton of cred. By the time it’s done, the action will have moved on from New Hampshire to Nevada, and Gawd knows what pratfalls await there (in a state founded literally on bilking the credulous).

Considering they are now the official party of chaos, all of this colorful comic disorder may have a purpose behind it: to demonstrate that the United States is now too incompetent to hold an election, and therefore whatever happens on November 3 will have to be disputed. Cue Lawfare, the Dem’s designated sedition generator. They’ll step in and gum up the system with so much litigation that the ghost of Samuel J. Tilden will be heard screaming for mercy somewhere high above the capitol’s grand dome.

Unless, of course, the party manages to complete its drawn-out suicide at the Milwaukee convention. The Iowa fiasco was universally seen as an effort to trip-up Bernie Sanders, the elderly Leninist who, ironically, seeks to turn the entire federal bureaucracy into a colossal version of the very Iowa caucus that was engineered to thwart him. It’s looking at this point like nobody will go into the convention with a chance to clinch the nomination and a dire battle will ensue. Bernie has not forgotten the dirty that was done to him last time by Mrs. Clinton’s corps of flying monkey super-delegates. Some of the young Bernie Broz in charge of this-and-that on the campaign have been recorded threatening violence and mayhem in the event of such a dirty replay. At best, the party may split up into two or more rump parties, a la the 1860 contest, and that will be the end of them.

Meanwhile, in case you have forgotten, scores of public officials from the Obama administration stand to be indicted as we enter the heart of the spring primary season. On top of three failed seditious attempts to overthrow Mr. Trump since 2016, a cavalcade of perp walks for all that may finally force the recognition among the battered true believers in the Holy Church of Maddow that a genuine coup d’état has been running for three solid years, whether or not you like Donald Trump. They came close to turning the USA into a banana republic.

The news media is saying that President Trump had “his best week ever.” My sense of him hasn’t changed: he remains the Golden Golem of Greatness, a kind of mystical and mystifying comic figure himself, but not of the 1930s slapstick sort, more like a character drawn from the neo-gothic Joker phase of American history — and, hey, he really did spring full-blown on the scene from our real-life Gotham City. I was impressed, during his Thursday post-acquittal White House gala, at the stunning incoherence of his remarks, his facility for leaving absolutely every thought hanging unfinished in mid-sentence as he turned to the next uncompleted thought. I can’t say for sure that this makes him an ineffective manager of the nation’s affairs, but it does leave you kind of wondering. The fact remains, though, that his antagonists have behaved much worse, and now they are going to be punished.

WHAT HAPPENED IN PHASE ONE?

Mendocino County Begins Second Phase Of Economic Recovery And Resiliency Plan: “M.O.V.E. 2030: Mendocino Opportunities For A Vibrant Economy”

M.O.V.E. 2030 Will Be a Look at How to Build Resiliency in Mendocino County

Program Administered by West Business Development Center

Ukiah, California – Mendocino County is proud to announce the second phase of the Economic Recovery and Resiliency Plan awarded by a Federal Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant of $500,000 administered in 2018, following the wake of the 2017 wildfires.

The first phase of the plan included data-gathering by the Economic Development and Financing Corporation (EDFC) who reviewed 11 economic indicators and interviewed more than 15 key business owners, industry leaders, and stakeholders. In January of 2019, EDFC then held an Economic Summit in Willits that was open to all. Data and input from all stakeholders and community members were put into a 28-page Economic Assessment Report, which can be viewed here.

The second phase of the Economic Recovery and Resiliency Plan is called “MOVE 2030: Mendocino Opportunities for a Vibrant Economy”. West Business Development Center (West BDC) will lead the development of a formal plan and roadmap for the next decade to ensure Mendocino’s economic resiliency in the face of changing climate, demographics and technology. The focus will be on three areas: understanding our assets, what is changing in our world, and how to collaborate to make change possible. Assessing priorities will be mapped to where the data from community input demonstrates the most need.

Sheilah Rogers, Interim Director, EDFC notes, “What is important is the community has input into the next steps. We look forward to completing the information gathering process by meeting with community members in the cities and rural communities across the county, to hear directly from them, their issues and ideas. Getting everyone behind this initiative is important to both the plan’s success, and our resiliency as a County.”

West BDC will explore what is currently shaping the economy of the region, what skills are needed to drive a new economy, and what assets can be expanded to make the County more resilient. Through data gathering from local and regional agencies, as well as Town Hall meetings across the County, a formal roadmap will be created. Mary Anne Petrillo, CEO of West BDC notes, “West BDC is looking forward to partnering with Mendocino County and City officials to explore how to create economic resiliency as we go forward in a rapidly changing economy and climate. Our goal is to create a plan of action that creates a more vibrant economy for all”.

Mendocino County Chief Executive Officer Carmel J. Angelo says, “We appreciate the work done in phase one of the plan. We’re looking forward to partnering with West Business Development Center to review and prioritize all the information and lead the process to create a roadmap for the next ten years.”

Drafting a broadband implementation plan is also being addressed as part of the resiliency planning. Jeff Tyrrell has been hired by The Community Foundation of Mendocino County to partner on broadband research and planning, through the Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County.

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Founded in 1988, West Business Development Center (West BDC) is a non-profit hosting a Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Women’s Business Center (WBC) serving small businesses of one to 100 people in Mendocino and Lake Counties with offices in Ukiah and Fort Bragg. West BDC offers free business advising and low-cost workshops. To connect with a free business advisor or sign up for a workshop, call (707) 964-7571 or get started here: https://www.westcenter.org/getting-started

The County of Mendocino is a general law County. The Board of Supervisors, which serves as the legislative and executive body of County government and many special districts, is comprised of five full-time members elected by their respective districts. Pursuant to the California Government Code, the Board enacts legislation governing Mendocino County and determines overall policies for County departments and various special districts, adopts the annual budget, and fixes salaries. The Board also hears appeals from decisions of various Planning related committees and commissions in addition to considering such Planning matters as General Plan amendments.

https://www.mendocinocounty.org/government/economic-development

EDFC was founded in 1995 through the efforts of the County of Mendocino and the four incorporated jurisdictions: Willits, Ukiah, Point Arena, and Fort Bragg. Its purpose is as relevant today as it was in 1995: to provide a collaborative approach to economic development and to provide an alternative source of financing to Mendocino County businesses that are unable to access bank financing. https://www.edfc.org/

MARTA!

Marta Alonso Canillar is Featured Artist at Edgewater Gallery

Oil and now also Acrylic Mural Painter Marta Alonso Canillar will be the featured artist at Edgewater Gallery in Fort Bragg during February, with a First Friday reception on tonight, 5 to 8 pm, and a brief presentation by the artist.

This year has taken Marta on a new venture, painting murals. She will tell more about it during the presentation.

Please come join us at Edgewater Gallery. 356 N.Main St., Fort Bragg.

NOT A GREAT LOOK: FAILED IOWA CAUCUS APP IS DEEPLY LINKED TO SELF-DECLARED WINNER BUTTIGIEG… AND HILLARY CLINTON

The firm in question, rather ironically, is called Shadow Inc. —  and, according to Federal Election Commission filings, it was paid thousands of dollars by Pete Buttigieg’s campaign for "software rights and subscriptions” in July 2019.

rt.com/op-ed/480068-buttigieg-iowa-app-shadow/

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ACRONYM GROUP THAT SABOTAGED IOWA CAUCUS BIRTHED BY BILLIONAIRE WHO FUNDED ALABAMA DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN

thegrayzone.com/2020/02/06/acronym-iowa-caucus-billionaire-alabama-disinformation/

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BUTTIGIEG: THE SPOOKS' CHOICE

Why are so many intelligence veterans throwing their weight behind a young Indiana mayor with such a thin foreign policy resume?

thegrayzone.com/2019/12/30/coup-plotters-cia-agents-mayor-pete-endorsers/

“DONALD O.J. TRUMP”

Senate Republicans openly admit

To Traitor Trump’s obvious guilt.

But no witnesses, no documents,

And no real trial was allowed?

No profiles in courage amongst

This cowardly conservative crowd!

Except for Utah’s Mitt Romney and

Alabama Democrat Doug Jones.

Trump’s half of the U.S. Senate

Might as well quit and go home.

Blue Tidal Wave on the way in Nov.

GOP goes home return to sender!

No coincidence that Donald Trump,

Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime,

Hired Epstein’s defense attorneys

Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr

To spin, obfuscate and lie, lie, lie!

Even if Pres. Orange Julius Caesar

Got in a white Ford Bronco

With Al Cowlings & fled the cops

Headed straight towards Mexico,

The GOP-controlled U.S. Senate

Would simply refuse to convict.

Donald Trump’s gloves did not fit,

So Senate jurors must acquit?

Where have I heard this all before?

Anyone else remember 1994?

Then O.J. Simpson’s trial in 1995?

Forever hereafter he’ll be known as

Putin’s puppet Donald O.J. Trump

The guiltiest unjailed criminal alive!

Sincerely,

Jake Pickering

Arcata

AN ANTARCTIC BASE recorded a temperature of 64.9 degrees F. If confirmed, it's a record high.

The World Meteorological Organization says the Antarctic Peninsula, on the continent’s northwest tip near South America, is among the fastest warming regions on Earth.

nbcnews.com/science/science-news/base-antarctica-recorded-temperature-64-9-degrees-if-confirmed-it-n1132541

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

You are perfectly right about Trump. He is a mental midget. For what it matters, I find his personality, his grift, his vulgar and ostentatious tastes and life repulsive.

And yet! What he managed to do is nothing short of astounding. The landscape is littered with the corpses of his enemies. He entered the republican candidate field as a farcical side act, then, as the laughter died and things got serious, facing the opposition of his party’s establishment and Never-Trumpers, experienced and well-funded opponents and somehow he managed to squish them all. Then he faced Hillary, and the entire country’s media predicting apocalypse, the Fourth Reich, economic annihilation 24/7… and yet again he somehow prevailed. He had barely stepped into office that he had to face the revolt of, let’s call it The Swamp. Three years of Russiagate and Ukraine impeachment shenanigans and he is still standing, while the Democratic Party is convulsing, and the mainstream media credibility ripped to tatters. What were the odds? They will be writing tragedies about him for decades to come.

Frankly I still don’t grok it all. It cannot all be due to an unexplainable string of cosmic good luck, can it? Surely he must have some qualities… If only him sensing fractures in american society, riding on them, and adroitly maneuvering the palace factions and coups, So, maybe secretly, he is actually playing 4-D chess? And then, I hear him speak, abruptly shattering all those speculative reveries and back to thinking, how on Earth could this man become president of the United States of America, and above all how is it possible that he is better than the alternative?

THE CRANE CASE

Let's not forget the brutal murder of Reverend Leslie Charles Crane, 39, in Laytonville, on 18 Nov 2005.

Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Case# 05-3982

This murder occurred during the era of Sheriff Tony Craver and District Attorney Norm Vroman. Times were different then. Mendocino County was outlaw country.

So why bring up Crane's murder now?

Because while I've been campaigning during this last month for 1st District Supervisor, I've been trying to organize cannabis farmers living in the remote hills of Redwood Valley and Potter Valley. I've been trying to get them to register to vote. And I need their votes, if I am to win.

And guess what? Crane's name has come up more than once.

Crane's name comes up in the context of public corruption. And I'm running, in part, on a platform of fighting public corruption and insider politics, be it Flow Kana getting a quick green light on all their permit applications, or the County's new "cannabis czar" being the sister of a County Deputy CEO (neither of whom know anything about cannabis).

Let me tell you what I've learned about Crane's murder, which, incidentally, remains a cold case 15 years after the fact.

Several of the cannabis old timers -- those we now called "legacy" farmers -- refuse to forget Crane.

Here's what I've been told.

On 1 April 2004, Crane opened a medical marijuana co-operative in Laytonville under the legal provisions of California's Proposition 215 of 1996.

Some say he paid for protection -- paid generously -- but this is hearsay.

In June 2005, perhaps tired of paying protection money, Crane changed the name of his Laytonville co-operative from Mendo Remedies to Mendo Spiritual Remedies. In so doing, Crane claimed a religious right to cannabis, and he sought protections under the constitutional provisions for the separation of church and state.

In other words, Crane started a church.

A cannabis church.

And Crane began to refer to himself as a minister.

A cannabis minister.

Rumor has it, it was then, and only then, that Crane stopped paying protection money.

And that's when his problems started. But Crane expanded operations, nonetheless.

In September 2005, Crane opened the Hemp Plus Church and Dispensary in Ukiah. This was a very ambitious move, considering Ukiah's animus towards anything cannabis-related.

By now, the Laytonville site had 800 clients, and the Ukiah site had 200.

But later that month, Crane called the Sheriff's Office informing them of what he said was a "credible threat" of an impending robbery.

In that same call, Crane claimed the District Attorney had granted him permission to grow all the cannabis possible in a 10 foot by 10 foot square area.

The responding deputies checked the paperwork for the cannabis plants that Crane was growing for his clients in the 100 sq. ft. garden. The deputies then petitioned for a search warrant, arrested him for marijuana cultivation, and confiscated $6,000 in gold and 5,000 cannabis starter plants.

Crane was scheduled for arraignment on 2 November 2005. He told friends that he felt "betrayed" by those who had previously "protected" him.

On 16 November, Crane spent $7,000 of his own money to donate 350 turkeys to the local food bank. He had also begun sponsoring a teen center in Laytonville.

On or about 1400 hrs., on 18 November 2005, a black-clad, masked, armed raiding party of 4-6 men resembling a SWAT team -- accounts differ -- invaded Crane's residence on Road 307 in Laytonville, and robbed and murdered him.

Crane was shot three times, then kicked and stomped with heavy boots.

There were two witnesses -- a friend who went by the nickname "The Count", and Crane's fiancée -- both of whom ran for their lives.

The intruders left with the contents of Crane's safe, and a considerable amount of market-ready, processed, trimmed cannabis bud.

When the deputies responded to the 911 call, they removed armfuls of drying and curing cannabis plants while processing the murder scene. They were never disciplined.

A memorial service was held for Reverend Leslie Crane at Westport CA, at noon on 10 December 2005. A reward was raised by Crane's friends for information leading to the murderers.

On 9 March 2006, black-uniformed, masked intruders -- clad in SWAT gear similar to the 18 November 2005 robbery and murder -- attempted another robbery of Crane's old dispensary in Laytonville.

The Sheriff's Office officially denied any connection between the attempted robbery on 9 March 2006 and Crane's murder on 18 November 2005. This formal declaration struck some folks as very odd.

As a footnote, The Count has never been identified nor located, although it is widely rumored that he was a meth addict who was also a police informant.

As a second footnote, while Crane lay dying, he was asked, "Who did this to you?"

His reply was, "They came to see The Count today."

Again, The Count is the nickname of the friend who ran and hid, and called 911, on 18 November 2005.

Was The Count the actual intended victim? Was he a co-conspirator? Was he an informant?

We simply don't know. And the MCSO has never been able to locate The Count -- not even in 15 years time.

Also odd.

The third interesting footnote is that a man named Quinton Cromer was reported as a "primary source" in Crane's murder case in the Ukiah Daily Journal. The problem is Cromer was also a detective with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office (MCSO).

I never knew detectives could report a story or be a news source. When I was with the MCSO, all official comment came directly from the Sheriff or the MCSO's Public Affairs Officer. This was a strict rule.

Again, very odd.

I did a little research. Cromer retired and moved far from Mendocino County. As of 2016, Cromer was a Criminal Justice Technology instructor at South Georgia Technical College (SGTC). He has since left SGTC's faculty.

After doing a little genealogy research, Reverend Leslie Crane's only survivor may be an adult son, Jeremiah Crane.

Finally, information concerning this active homicide case may be called into the MCSO Non-emergency Tipline at 707-234-2100.

The commander of the MCSO Investigative Services Bureau is Lieutenant Shannon Barney.

His email: barneys@mendocinocounty.org.

His phone number: (707) 463- 4080.

The Sheriff's Office can also be reached at 951 Low Gap Road, Ukiah, CA 95482.

Thank you.

John Sakowicz, Candidate, Mendocino County 1st District Supervisor

Please register and vote. For more about my campaign, see: https://johnsakowicz.org/

FOUND OBJECT