Mendocino County Today: November 10, 2020

Frosty Mornings; 7 New Cases; Frozen Out; Winter Pacific; AV Village; Fort Bragging; Invaders Loose; Magnum Quinn; Funky Cold Medina; Reed's Motel; Timbering; Ed Notes; Yesterday's Catch; Protect Whistleblowers; Lighthouse View; Obscenely Unfair; Political Hatreds; Long Nightmare; Clearance; Empty Generalities; Yellow Dog; Fingers Tripping; These Days; Gone Yet?; Comments; Army Base; Sore Losing; R v D; Losing Formula; President Gore; Don't Cooperate; Surrender Don

CHILLY MORNING temperatures will continue through mid week across interior valleys. Thereafter, a wet and unsettled weather pattern will become increasingly likely beginning late week. (NWS)

A FROST ADVISORY is currently in effect, until 9am this morning. Temperatures as low as 34 will result in frost formation.

YESTERDAY'S LOWS: Yorkville 25°, Ukiah 26°, Boonville 28°, Fort Bragg 32°

SEVEN NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County on Monday, bringing the total to 1238. Seven in hospital, two ICU.

32 HELPING AGENCIES IN THIS COUNTY, BUT…

Editor,

I guess that things are bad to worse at the Mendocino county social services and adult service and EDD and the sheriff's office and the Willits PD.

The past week or 10 days I've been officially homeless and I'm 64 yrs old, serious medical conditions, and I'm sleeping outside on the ground with no way to get warm .

My retirement and disability checks got returned to social security because I complained about a re-occuring charge from Google play. I didn't know that it was Youtube music and the bank manager in Willits decided to cancel my ATM card even though I begged her not to because I have direct deposit and she didn't like me begging her so she closed my account and by the time I got another direct deposit lined up through online banking it was passed the cut off date so my check went to Mendocino County Savings Bank and they sent it back to the treasurer so it leaves me outside freezing with no money .

Today I called Michelle at the Social Services and she referred me to another county run organization that referred me to Mendocino county adult service who then directed my call back to the lady’s (Michelle’s) answering machine and I explained to her that I'm in a dangerous situation and that I could freeze to death or get pnemonia or have congestive heart failure again and she just said that no funds are available.

Although if I were a tweeker with children they would be able to give me a motel voucher.

What the fuck is going on?

I worked for 30 yrs, paid social security and income tax. Served in the military.

But I can't get a motel voucher for a week to keep from freezing to death.

You know I can walk into a bank with my face covering on and I look like every Trump supporter.

And on election day I get an email from the concealed weapons carry association to register to win a sig-saur semi auto pistol .

What timing for a gun give away.

Go figure.

Pissed off and Mad About it,

Alan Hogan

Laytonville

alanhogan5669@gmail.com

707 714-4690

WINTER OCEAN (photos by Dick Whetstone)

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THE NEXT next AV Village Book Conversation will be Tuesday November 10th @ 1:30 pm.

The Book is still Elderhood - Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson - we are only focusing on chapters 10 and 11 but folks are encouraged to join us even if they haven't been able to read it all.

If you are interested please contact Lauren for more details: laurenk@pacific.net

Zoom meeting information on the AV Village Calendar

FORT BRAGGING

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CAHTO HOME INVADERS STILL LOOSE

On Friday, November 6, 2020 at 3:27 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to an attempted robbery at a residence located in the 4000 block of Cahto Peak Road in Laytonville.

While Deputies were responding they noticed an Adult Male parked along the 31000 block of Highway 101 (area known as Ryan Creek) which was located between Willits and Laytonville.

The Deputies contacted the Adult Male who was waving at them in an attempt to get them to stop.

Upon contact the Deputies learned the Adult Male was the reported victim of an attempted robbery of his marijuana/cannabis at the Cahto Peak Road residence.

The Adult Male reported after the attempted robbery, he engaged in a vehicle pursuit of the suspect vehicle (Silver Chevrolet Suburban) until it became disabled because of a damaged tire.

When the suspect vehicle stopped in the 31000 block of Highway 101, the suspects shot at the reported victim one time from an unknown type of firearm.

The suspects were described as possibly being two (2) Black Male Adults and one (1) Hispanic Male Adult.

Deputies began to establish a search perimeter and search in the vicinity of the suspect's disabled vehicle in hopes of finding the individuals.

During the search efforts assistance was provided by the California Highway Patrol, Willits Police Department, Ukiah Police Department, California Department of Fish & Wildlife, Mendocino County Multi-Agency SWAT Team and the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office K9 Unit.

During the search, a property owner in the area reported seeing possibly three (3) Black Male Adults and one (1) Hispanic Male Adult running westbound through their property.

A several hour search of the area was unsuccessful in locating the described suspects.

Sheriff's Detectives were summoned to the scene and are actively conducting follow-up investigations into the reported attempted robbery.

Anyone with information that might assist Sheriff's Detectives are urged to contacted the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Tip-Line by calling 707-234-2100 or the WeTip anonymous crime reporting hotline by calling 800-782-7463.

CATCH AND RELEASE

On Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at about 8:47 AM Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to assist Round Valley Tribal Police Officers in the 24000 block of Agency Road in Covelo.

Deputies learned Tribal Police Officers had observed a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed on Biggar Lane, however lost sight of the vehicle before they could conduct a traffic enforcement stop.

Tribal Police Officers searched the area for the vehicle and eventually found the vehicle parked near the 24000 block of Agency Road.

An adult male, identified as Quinn Williams, 22, of Ukiah, was standing next to the vehicle. When Tribal Police Officers went to contact Williams they observed him toss an object into the bushes along the side of the road.

Upon inspecting the bushes Tribal Police Officers located a loaded .357 caliber Magnum revolver.

Williams was eventually arrested by Deputies for possession of a loaded firearm and not being the registered owner of the firearm.

A records check of the loaded revolver revealed it was reported stolen from Medford, Oregon.

Williams was booked into the Mendocino County Jail for Possession of loaded firearm and not the registered owner.

In accordance with the COVID-19 emergency order issued by the State of California Judicial Council, bail was set at zero dollars and Williams was released after the jail booking process.

Please visit the following link to hear Sheriff Matthew C. Kendall provide a Public Safety Message on the current COVID-19 emergency order related to zero bail: facebook.com/MendocinoSheriff/videos/2568683186688486/

GUALALA HE MAN

On Sunday, November 1, 2020 at approximately 2:34 PM Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a reported domestic violence incident at a residence in the 46400 block of Iversen Drive in Gualala.

When Deputies arrived they did not find anyone at the residence. Deputies searched the area and were unable to locate the involved parties.

The reporting party was contacted and Deputies were informed the adult female had been physically assaulted by her husband, Octavio Medina, 28, of Gualala, at their residence however their whereabouts were unknown.

On the morning of Tuesday, November 3, 2020, the investigating Deputy made telephone contact with the adult female.

The Deputy learned that on Sunday, November 1, 2020 at about 2:00 PM she had returned to her residence and was confronted by Medina.

Medina was angry with the adult female and eventually assaulted her by punching her in the face a few times, grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground.

The adult female sustained injuries to her knees, head and face as a result. During the incident Medina took the adult female's cellular telephone so she could not call law enforcement.

Medina then grabbed the adult female by one of her arms and forced her into a vehicle and drove her to one of his family member's residence in the Santa Rosa area where he dropped her off.

On Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at about 2:50 PM Deputies located Medina in a vehicle at the intersection of Highway 1 and Fish Rock Road. Deputies contacted Medina and arrested him for Domestic Violence Battery, False Imprisonment, Damage/Destroy wireless communications device.

Medina was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

NO NUKES IN POINT ARENA

Editor,

I thought I’d forward this to you since you enjoy publishing historic photos of Mendocino in your paper. My friend and colleague, Vince Howes, a geotechnical engineer, was hired by PG&E in 1970 to evaluate the soils on what is now the Stornetta Lands for the suitability of building a nuclear power plant there. Needless to say, Vince didn’t think it was an appropriate site considering the proximity of the San Andreas fault.

Thank goodness for scientists like him!

Best,

Alethea Patton

Point Arena

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ED NOTES

A THIRD GRADER, asked what he did on his first day back to school: "All we did was wash our hands."

FROM SHIRT SLEEVES to thermal underwear in the brief space of a week. It was 38 in our office this morning, and outside the morning glories were ingloriously deceased, the geraniums bruised, tomato plants finished.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: I suggest the BBC production of War and Peace at $2.99 per episode on HBO, but the free version stars Henry Fonda and Anita Ekberg, if you can imagine. 

HEADLINE of the week from perennial winner, the Independent Coast Observer: “Election outcomes uncertain for POTUS, Point Arena Schools Board.”

HOWEVER, BELOW THE FOLD of the redoubtable Gualala weekly of 5 November, appears a story of real import for not only Point Arena but the rest of Mendo and, for that matter, the whole of the battered USofA. The story draws attention to the dire situation of fog belt renters, and describes the efforts of a noble band of Arenans to put a hold on evictions beyond the Governor's statewide moratorium.

THE VACCINE is almost here. Pfizer has announced that its magic jab is 90 percent effective. Working with a German drug company called BioNTech, Pfizer is the first among its many competitors to release successful data from a large-scale coronavirus vaccine clinical trial. Distribution is forthcoming, with health workers first priority.

CATCH OF THE DAY, November 9, 2020

TRINITY AMADOR, Willits. Vandalism, paraphernalia.

SAMANTHA ARRIGONI, Willits. Resisting.

SARA EAGELSTON, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

TINA HANSEN, Branscomb. DUI.

ROBERT KIRBO, Ukiah. Domestic battery, damaging communications device, probation revocation.

JODY MCCOY, Covelo. Felon-addict with firearm, failure to appear, probation revocation.

WE NEED WHISTLEBLOWERS

Editor: 

Oct. 22 was the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Iraq War Logs. The logs revealed war crimes, more than 15,000 previously undocumented civilian casualties and evidence that the military killed innocent people and mislabeled them as enemies for statistical purposes. These revelations were only possible because Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning acted out of conscience and WikiLeaks bravely published them after the Washington Post and New York Times hesitated.

The Iraq War Logs won countless awards but also led to Manning spending years in prison and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange facing an unprecedented 175-year sentence.

With so much uncertainty surrounding the freedom of the press, from Donald Trump’s anti-journalism rhetoric to polarized partisan media to social media giants censoring people’s speech, we must stand up for the First Amendment. Whatever your political beliefs, we should all support protecting whistleblowers and press freedom. Without them, we cannot be informed, responsible citizens.

Michael Romano

Sebastopol

SAN FRANCISCANS VOTE OVERWHELMINGLY TO REIN IN OVERPAID CEOS

CEOs did not cause the pandemic. But they deserve a good deal of the blame for a model that shoveled profits up the corporate ladder, leaving lower-level employees financially insecure. When Covid-19 struck, it didn’t take much to push millions of vulnerable workers over the edge. If we want to not only survive the pandemic but emerge as a nation more resilient to future crises, we need to reverse these obscenely unfair pay practices. San Francisco voters have just taken a significant step in that direction.

counterpunch.org/2020/11/09/san-franciscans-vote-overwhelmingly-to-rein-in-overpaid-ceos/

BE ANGRY AT THE SUN

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

— Robinson Jeffers, 1941

ECHOING FORD

Editor:

As President Gerald Ford once famously said, “Our long national nightmare is over.” God bless America.

David Bonta

Santa Rosa

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I Think one can answer specific charges with generalities and truisms. Example:

Witness: I saw John and farmer Brown arguing. Then John pulled out a knife and stabbed farmer Brown in the neck.

Defense Attorney: But John is Amish. They don’t even punch people, much less stab them. You must be wrong.

Witness: No, you’re not listening. I saw what I saw. I was 10 feet away. I have blood splatters on my clothes.

Defense Attorney: Nope. I have a book right here that says Amish people are non-violent, John is Amish, ergo John is non-violent. Can’t you follow logic, rube?

And thus “intelligent people” answer specific incidents with empty generalities while waving a plethora of articles and books to prove their case.

HAVE YOU EVER talked to a very deaf person? If so, you know that nothing one has to say seems good enough to be worth speaking at the top of one's lungs...It is the same thing in writing; and I try, in writing to you, to let my fingers trip over the keys and say what is in my mind at the moment, without anticipating what I am going to say. 

— T.S. Eliot

I ALWAYS THOUGHT the shit would go down when I was young and strong. These days I’m just hoping I won’t spend my old age picking through the ruins of my city looking for expired canned food. 

— Hari Kunzru

ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK

[1] How does Joe get inaugurated when he and his family are up to their nuts in Chinese money, not to mention Ukrainian moolah, and who knows what else? 

How does the American investigative and intel apparatus avert its gaze when the Potus-elect looks to be thoroughly compromised by way of these associations? 

Well, in the first place, the Davos Class and the Donor Class, that is to say, that handful of billionaires that own the outstanding stock of the Fortune 500, are all in it together with the Bidens. The men in Beijing have them all by the short ones because of the idiotic misapplication of some farcical economic theory cooked up to justify the exportation of the guts of America’s industrial might to China. 

It helps to know who ultimately gives the orders. I would say that it’s a matter of serene indifference to Beijing which American puppet sits in the Oval Office so long as Chinese oligarch interests aren’t threatened and the same with the Chinese Communist Party. Trump threatened the status quo. He stirred things up. So, can’t have Trump. That much is obvious. 

What about Biden? No worries about Biden. Biden will rule unmolested because the Chinese want it so, because American oligarchs have to keep Beijing happy to keep their fortunes intact, because the American Deep State will ensure it, having bamboozled itself through generations-long indoctrination about how things are and how things have to be, and bedazzled itself about American supremacy and their own grandeur at the center of it. 

But mostly it’s about money and power. The oligarchs fund American politicians. In turn, American politicians enact laws that extract money from ordinary citizens by way of taxes, and with this money they hire soldiers and cops and spies to safeguard both the oligarchs and themselves. It’s a symbiotic relationship, something like Taibbi’s vampire squid, sucking America dry. That they work against their own interests and America’s national interests seems never to have occurred to them. 

And the voters? What’s the matter with Kansas? Nothing wrong with Kansas, Kansas woke up and isn’t buying Republican bullshit anymore as K-dog so aptly put it. I don’t know what to say about people who vote Democrat, especially about non-white supporters. What’s the matter with them? Don’t they know the Democrats work against their interests? 

[2] Take a look around. Collapse isn’t coming, collapse is here, large areas of the USA ruined, financial carcasses of towns and cities and families and businesses littering the landscape. All it takes is open eyes and ears, the willingness to see things as they are, to remember things as they once were, things well within living memory.

America’s prosperous past, when a decent standard of living was widely available to ordinary people like my own relatives, guys with just a grade school education or even less, a time when breadwinner jobs were the rule rather than the exception, is no figment of the imagination. Those of us of a certain age remember it well. 

Optimism is easy when all is good with you. So, tell me, are things good with you? Optimism is tougher when they aren’t and it’s tougher when you can see circumstances deteriorating for large numbers of people. What we have in my own estimation and that of a lot of others, is an economic elite and their enabling clerisy inside and outside government working for their own benefit to the exclusion of any other consideration like whether anybody else’s interests matter outside their own circle, including that of the country as a whole. 

These people claim their about science and reason and rationality. They’re not. They claim to work for the underclass, people that are downtrodden and marginalized, whereas in fact, they work against them, doing their level best to keep them down, to create more of those same people they say they’re working for. 

What they are about mostly is dollars, their own, and those of their own caste, dollars in anybody else’s pocket a travesty of justice. To say that they’ve taken leave of their senses is understating the case, they’ve ruined the country they rely on to ensure their own survival, alienating those people they rely on to take up arms to defend them, making a mockery of common sense, and reason and rationality.

What Kunstler does is point out the obvious twice a week, a chronicle of things as they happen, telling us how things may go, how he hopes they will go, with the rest of us pitching in our two cents. As far as Trump goes, he looks to a lot of us as the lesser of two evils, the Democrats and their nominee being by far the greater. But you can see things your own way. After all you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. 

[3] There’s nothing in the great moral arc of the universe that sez that good must prevail in the end. Does it really bend towards justice? From the perspective of an individual human lifetime and those many millions existing at the same time, an imperceptible curve is worthless. For long stretches ordinary people lived short and hungry and sick lives with a few bullies at the top making conditions unbearable for them. 

Do we ever learn from history? I don’t see it, I think that nobody ever learned from history and nobody ever will, especially current day shot-callers at the top and the so-called “educated” elite talking down to everybody, insisting that they’re all about facts and evidence and “science”. For my part, I’ve had more than enough dealings and day-to-day exposure to them and in my estimation they’re corrupt, self-seeking, incompetent liars, full of shit, top to bottom. 

[4] When I was a young man/student I worked as a barman at a huge, state-funded complex that staged major sporting events. It had about a dozen bars and a number of food outlets, including a fine dining restaurant.

At the end of the night, the barman’s instructions were not to count the money, do a stock check and square it all off against the cash register printout.

No, it was to throw everything, uncounted money and printout together, without any stock check, into a calico bag and to deliver that bag to the boardroom where six or seven men stood laughing and smoking and drinking around a boardroom table about 30 feet long and covered to some depth with piles of loose cash.

I was there instructed to dump out the contents of the calico bag onto the table with the rest of the undifferentiated cash and then hit the road. It was kind of like a scene out of Casino. 

The person who was overseeing this is now a very senior and well known bureaucrat-manager in the national government-sports scam.

Seeing something like that can teach a very young man a lot about the world.

[5] "I live in a Oakland neighborhood consisting of about 250+ houses... About 40% of the residents are African American,,, about 25% other people of color, and about 35% white. Talking to dozens of neighbors over the past months, I would estimate that less than one person in ten of ANY Of those groups favor defunding the police... or in any way reducing the number of police patrolling the neighborhood. If anything they want more frequent police presence. Local Democratic leaders,, city, county, state, and federal, are out of touch with the residents of my neighborhood. Instead they seem to only reflect the position of the shouting protestors."

[6] Looking from the outside, American politics have taken a dark turn. Close to half the voters will not accept that the result of the election as legitimate.

Both parties will be discredited out of this dumpster fire of an election. The good news is that there is an opportunity for a new populist party to bring together both Trumpeters and Bernie Bros into something that will advocate for ordinary people. Surely in a nation of 330+ million people there are a few people who can organize a new approach to politics now that the old establishment is thoroughly discredited. That would be better than civil disorder or open revolt.

[7] Joe Biden has two great dogs. Of course Trump had no pets. Animals hate him too. They know. Sanity is being restored. The skies are clearing.

[8] On this date in 1855, labor leader, reformer and socialist Eugene Victor Debs was born in Terre Haute, Ind. He was not baptized by his formerly Catholic mother. The family living room contained busts of Voltaire and Rousseau. When a teacher gave Debs a bible as an academic award, inscribing it "Read and obey," Debs later recalled, "I never did either." He dropped out of high school at age 14 to work. By 1870 he had become a fireman on the railroad, attending evening classes at a business college. His labor activism began in 1875. As president of the Occidental Literary Club of Terre Haute, Debs brought "the Great Agnostic" Col. Robert Ingersoll, whom he always revered despite political differences, Susan B. Anthony and other famous speakers to town. He was elected to the Indiana General Assembly as a Democrat in 1884 while continuing his labor activities. He married Kate Metzel in 1885. They never had children. As editor of the Locomotive Fireman's journal for many years, Debs routinely attacked the church, promoted women's and racial equality and promoted justice for the poor. "If I were hungry and friendless today, I would rather take my chances with a saloon-keeper than with the average preacher," Debs once said. He saved his strongest denunciations for the Catholic Church for being an anti-democratic, authoritarian "political machine." Debs organized the first U.S. industrial union, the American Railway Union in Chicago in 1893. It conducted a successful 1894 strike for 18 days against the Great Northern Railway. Debs and leaders of the union were arrested that same year during the Pullman strike and were jailed for contempt of court for six months. Debs ran for president as a Socialist Party candidate in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920. He was associate editor from 1907-12 of the Appeal to Reason, a popular weekly published by freethinker E. Haldeman-Julius in Girard, Kansas. In 1918 he was arrested for an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, and was sentenced under the wartime espionage law to 10 years in prison and loss of citizenship. While in prison he was nominated for president and conducted his last campaign, winning nearly a million votes.

President Warren G. Harding commuted Debs' sentence and released him on Dec. 25, 1921. He was welcomed by 1,000 Terre Hauteans upon his return. His health broken by his imprisonment, he died at age 70 in 1926 in a sanitarium. The Terre Haute home he built with his wife in 1890 is a National Historic Landmark of the National Park Service and a museum. “I left that church with rich and royal hatred of the priest as a person, and a loathing for the church as an institution, and I vowed that I would never go inside a church again.”—"Talks with Debs in Terre Haute" by David Karsner (1922)

[9] PONDS. One day in 2016 the State water board, Fish & Wildlife and CDF (Dept. of Forestry) showed up at my doorstep in lower Salmon Creek. They stated that they had seen my pond in Google Earth and that it was constructed illegally.

I said that is strange, since the State of Calif. built and paid for it using funds from CFIP (Calif. Forest Improvement Program) in the late 1960s.

Of course, they had never heard of that program.

They spent two days looking at the pond and came up with nothing. These guys came all the way from Sacramento for nothing.

One would think that they would have done some research, which would have saved them a trip.

Or, they could have called me first and I would have sent them the paperwork.

Just as they were leaving, they saw a fish jump. They asked what type of fish were in there.

I told them Large Mouth Black Bass, Blue Gills and a few Channel Cats. They stated that the fish were illegal. I said that is strange, as the State planted them. They were crushed when I showed them the paperwork.

It is lucky that we still had all the paperwork. My Father told us when the pond was being built, that sometime in the future the State would probably come after us and he was right.

We also planted over 250,000 trees under CFIP.

By the way, my pond was built to hold 13 acre-feet of water.

FORE!

by James Kunstler

Sure enough, President Donald Trump likes to get out on the golf links, which is where he was on Saturday, a most spectacularly lovely Indian Summer day following a harsh election week. Of course, his outing provoked much mirth from a gloating national news media — and, by national, I mean united in purpose — as in: look at the big fat sad golfing loser-clown we of the anointed Woke class just beat like a drum on our noble march back to power!

In their righteous raptures of perceived victory, they missed Mr. Trump’s message, which was: This is how worried I am about the final outcome of this election. He’s a daisy, our president.

The news media’s strategy here, you understand, is to overcome reality by main force — reality being that the election Joe Biden rode in on was a garbage barge of ballot fraud that is on its way to being called out. So, the newspapers and cable stations rushed to declare Mr. Biden “the winner,” with several swing states’ votes not yet completely counted, and Mr. Biden self-ratified the call, while the Woke Resistance spent the weekend partying in Covid-19 super-spreader crowds they had deplored only days earlier.

Today’s (Monday’s) New York Times is an especially rich billow of gaslight wafting over the nation, as denoted in these headlines:

The Election Is Over. The Nation’s Rifts Remain. 

President Trump Lost the Race, but Republicans Know It’s Still His Party

Biden to Restore a White House Tradition of Presidential Pets

It’s self-evident, you see. The charismatic Joe Biden is moving into the White House, pets and all (plus Hunter in the Lincoln bedroom). Done and done, signed, sealed, delivered according to us, the august Newspaper of Record! Don’t even bother complaining, ye pathetic hordes of racist, red-hatted whiners…. And, by the way, we’ll be coming after all y’all not so fine people — as signaled by Washington Post op-edster Jennifer Rubin:

That was all the news that America got this weekend while the Golden Golem of Greatness, he laid low on the golf links, his own omission to concede the election pulsating only dimly through all that gaslight, the message drowned out by the popping champagne corks and whooping in Washington’s Black Lives Matter Square, across the street from the soon-to-be fumigated White House.

Not a few reality-based observers in the alt.media pointed out that it’s not the MSM’s official duty to pick winners. That’s up to elected state legislators certifying the vote. So, what’s really going on?

The Democrats… the Resistance… “progressives,” the Left — whatever you want to call them — are much less afraid of being caught for committing election fraud than for getting nailed on a long list of previous and quite serious crimes dating back a decade, including SpyGate, MuellerGate (Russian Collusion), Ukraine-WhistleblowerGate, Uranium One, the Skolkovo technology transfer, the Clinton Foundation’s pay-to-play doings, and the recently disclosed influence-peddling and money-laundering schemes of the Biden Family. A little election fraud ain’t nuthin to that massive, reeking landfill of perfidy and sedition, and folks apparently forget that the election happened just on the eve of whatever investigative results John Durham & Company may be ready to drop on the nation — including the afore-alluded-to Biden Family hijinks, of which there is a live case at the DOJ. Boy are they afraid of all that. Just sayin… in case you put it out of mind in all the excitement. So, now we will discover whether they committed targeted election fraud, and then, perhaps, we’ll find out how those other matters turn.

As for the election fraud itself, you can be sure that a holy host of computer nerd statisticians on Mr. Trump’s end have been working backstage, out of the limelight, to sift those kwazy numbers coming out of places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada where the race was pretty darn tight. From a strictly procedural point-of-view, Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes look like an open-and-shut case of official misfeasance — insofar as that state’s Supreme Court exceeded its authority in changing the election law to allow ballots received after 8p.m. election day to be counted for days afterward (election law being the sole prerogative of the state legislature). And that’s a lot of ballots. That will likely be adjudicated in the US supreme court, and pretty pronto, given the exigent circumstances.

Then there are the janky numbers in all those other states where the Dominion vote tabulation software was used: 130,000 here… 27,000 there… et cetera. By the way, the company that puts out this Dominion product is partly owned by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard C. Blum; one of its top executives is Nancy Pelosi’s former chief-of-staff; and the software’s development was funded by the Clinton Global Initiative in 2014. I guess they know a good thing when it jumps up and bites them on the lips.

I suppose you’ve also seen rumors about the Intelligence Community’s election-meddling software programs, HAMR (“Hammer”) and Scorecard allegedly being employed in last week’s election, but that is only a rumor so far. Sidney Powell, lawyer to General Michael Flynn, dropped it on the airwaves, and recall that General Flynn was the Director of the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), so there’s a chance that he knows about these programs in excruciating detail. There’s also reason to believe that General Flynn retains connections to many loyal intel techies who worked under him, and are capable of sussing out the situation. Also, by the way: do you suppose that any of this election-meddling software was used to ensure Joe Biden’s mysterious out-of-nowhere victory in the Super-Tuesday primary? Hmmm….?

So, is this over? Is the election a done deal? Perhaps not. A fun weekend was had by all on the Biden side. Stand by in the days ahead. You may see a lot of heads explode as their narrative goes south. If it turns out I’m wrong about all this, I will be the first one to say so around here.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting is Patreon Page.)

APART FROM DEFEATING TRUMP, Why did the Democrats have such a bad election day?

by Ralph Nader

Apart from barely squeezing through the swing states to defeat corrupt, incompetent, lying, corporatist Donald Trump, the Democratic Party had a bad election.

Loaded with nearly twice as much money as the Republican Party, the Democratic Party showed that weak candidates with no robust agendas for people where they live, work, and raise their families, is a losing formula. And lose they did against the worst, cruelest, ignorant, lawbreaking, reality-denying GOP in its 166-year history.

The Democrats failed to win the Senate, despite nearly having twice the number of Senators up for re-election than the Republicans. In addition, the Democratic Party lost seats in the House of Representatives. The Democrats did not flip a single Republican state legislature, leaving the GOP to again gerrymander Congressional and state legislative districts for the next decade!

Will all this lead to serious introspection by the Democratic Party? Don’t bet on it. The GOP tried to learn from their losses in 2012, which led to their big rebound. Already, the Democratic Party is looking for scapegoats, like third party candidates.

Will the leaders of these inexcusable defeats – Senator Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – explain how this happened? Will they take some responsibility and tell the American people why they let their profiteering media consultants spend so much money on tepid, low-impact TV ads at the expense of a massive ground game to give voters personal reasons to get themselves out to vote, beyond Trump? A third of all eligible voters stayed home. Could part of the problem be the 15% commission the consultants receive from TV ad revenues as compared to zero commissions from ground game expenditures?

Can the corporate Democratic leaders respond to inquiries by progressives and the sidelined primary voters of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? Can they respond to why the living wage, the corporate crime wave, and the GOP blocked stimulus/relief package passed by the Democrats in May (including a $600 a week extension for tens of millions of desperate workers and critical aid to local agencies overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic) were not prominently front and center? Also, why did the Democrats refuse to campaign for full Medicare for All, supported by 70 percent of the American people? The Democrats, as pointed out by political media specialist, Bill Hillsman, did not speak directly to white, blue-collar workers who deserted Hillary Clinton for Donald Trump in 2016.

Moreover, the Democratic Party has a long-standing problem with authenticity. Rhetoric for a large infrastructure jobs program paid for by repealing corporate tax cuts and loopholes is seen as a throwaway line by many voters. Democrats should have explained, at the local level, how determination and integrity could shape the upgrading of our schools, clinics, roads, mass transit systems, waterworks, and other public services, with good-paying jobs.

Meanwhile, the Trumpsters showed their ferocious energy for wannabe, ego-obsessed, dictatorial Donald with more rallies, signs, and door-to-door contacts. The Democrats misread the faulty polls again thinking that the projected huge turnouts were primarily their voters and not also the Trump voters who turned out in greater numbers as well.

Too many Democratic operatives treat Trump with derision and mockery, instead of stressing how his daily lawlessness and serial violations of the Constitution have dismantled the protections for the people and turned the government over to big business to do and grab whatever they want.

Trump openly commits federal crimes (e.g. The Hatch Act, the Anti-Deficiency Act) using federal property, including the White House, for his campaign, spending money illegally, while brazenly defying over a hundred investigative subpoenas from the House of Representatives.

Yet, neither Biden and Obama nor the Democratic Party made these corrupt forms of obstruction of justice, front and center issues. They even ignored Trump’s past criminal assaults of women, whom he has repeatedly degraded.

These many missed, obvious opportunities have consequences. Don’t Trump voters and their families also suffer from frozen minimum wages, from the absence of adequate or any health insurance, from those sky-high drug prices that Trump failed to reduce? He put more toxins in the air and water and allowed more dangerous workplaces. Trump calls endangering people and the planet “deregulation” but what he was really doing is rewarding his corporate paymasters.

Trump just pushes many more buttons than do the Democrats. Why don’t the Democrats promote more unions, more consumer cooperatives, more campaign finance reforms, and more known ways to empower the people directly?

Of course, the Democrats would never argue that the American people, not corporations, should CONTROL what they already OWN such as the public lands, the public airwaves, and the shareholding mutual and pension funds investing their money. The Democrats never even think to demand that U.S. taxpayers get a direct return for trillions of dollars of government research and development that have subsidized the growth of modern industries (from aerospace to computers to agribusiness, biotech, pharma, and more).

While Trump incites street violence and then cries loudly for “law and order,” the Democrats don’t throwback “law and order” for violent, polluting corporate crooks who cheat and harm children, consumers, workers, and communities, as well as rip off government programs like Medicare. Trump has gotten away with defunding the federal corporate crime police big time. Never will the Democrats go after Trump for the bloated, runaway, unaudited military budget and its Empire that are devouring necessities here at home.

The House Democrats refused to keep multiple impeachment pressure (apart from the Ukraine matter) on the Republicans. A national TV audience of the Senate dealing with a dozen of Trump’s impeachable offenses would give even the most ardent Trump supporters pause. (See December 18, 2019, Congressional Record, H-12197).

The Democrats let Trump and his lawless Attorney General William Barr get away with all his corrupt, criminal, and unconstitutional actions, which have turned the White House into an ongoing crime scene. And, despite this “rap sheet” Trump came close to winning the Electoral College for a second term!

Next time, the rulers of the Democratic Party should listen to civic groups and advocates and not be so smug and incommunicado. As an example, I’ll refer you to my Eleven Suggestions for turning out the vote, with popular mandates, available to everyone in whole and in part for weeks (See also my latest op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal, October 27, 2020).

Now let’s see how many rollbacks and repeals Biden will quickly institute to stop Trump’s devastations and usher in a truly progressive, majoritarian set of long-overdue policies.

PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE TO JOE BIDEN: Don’t You Dare ‘Cooperate’ With Mitch Mcconnell

by Norman Solomon

Near the end of his well-crafted victory speech Saturday night, Joe Biden decried “the refusal of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with one another.” He went on to say that “we can decide to cooperate. And I believe that this is part of the mandate from the American people. They want us to cooperate. That’s the choice I’ll make. And I call on the Congress -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- to make that choice with me.”

If Biden chooses to “cooperate” with Mitch McConnell, that choice is likely to set off a political war between the new administration and the Democratic Party’s progressive base.

After the election, citing “people familiar with the matter,” *Axios* reported <https://www.axios.com/gop-senate-biden-transition-50ebe6c8-e318-4fdb-b903-048908b3b954.html> that “Republicans’ likely hold on the Senate is forcing Joe Biden’s transition team to consider limiting its prospective Cabinet nominees to those who Mitch McConnell can live with.” Yet this spin flies in the face of usual procedures for Senate confirmation of Cabinet nominees.

“Traditionally, an incoming president is given wide berth to pick his desired team,” *Axios* noted. But “a source close to McConnell tells *Axios* a Republican Senate would work with Biden on centrist nominees but no ‘radical progressives’ or ones who are controversial with conservatives. . . . This political reality could result in Biden having a more centrist Cabinet. It also gives Biden a ready excuse to reject left-of-center candidates, like Sens. Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, who have the enthusiastic backing of progressives.”

Let’s be clear: The extent to which Biden goes along with such a scenario of craven capitulation will be the extent to which he has shafted progressives before his presidency has even begun.

And let’s be clear about something else: Biden doesn’t have to defer to Mitch McConnell on Cabinet appointees. Biden has powerful leverage -- if he wants to use it. As outlined in a memo <https://s3.amazonaws.com/demandprogress/letters/The_Legal_and_Political_Context_for_a_Biden_Transition.pdf> released days ago by Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project, “President Biden will be under no obligation to hand Mitch McConnell the keys to his Cabinet.”

The memo explains that Biden could fill his Cabinet by using the Vacancies Act -- which “provides an indisputably legal channel to fill Senate-confirmed positions on a temporary basis when confirmations are delayed.”

In addition, “Biden can adjourn Congress and make recess appointments” -- since Article II Section 3 of the Constitution “gives the President the power to adjourn Congress ‘to such time as he shall think proper’ whenever the House and Senate disagree on adjournment” -- and after 10 days of recess, Biden could appoint Cabinet members.

In other words, if there’s a political will, there would be ways to overcome the anti-democratic obstructionism of Mitch McConnell. But does Biden really have the political will?

McConnell is the foremost practitioner of ruthless right-wing hardball on Capitol Hill. During the last two administrations, the Senate’s majority leader has done enormous damage to democracy and the lives of many millions of people. Why in the hell should Biden be vowing to cooperate with the likes of McConnell?

Eighteen months ago, campaigning in New Hampshire, Biden proclaimed <https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/politics/joe-biden-republicans-trump-epiphany/index.html>: “The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”

It was an absurd statement back then. Now, it’s an ominous one.

Anyone who’s expecting an epiphany from McConnell after Trump leaves the White House is ignoring how the Senate majority leader behaved before Trump was in the White House -- doing things like refusing to allow any Senate consideration of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland during the last 10 months of the Obama administration.

McConnell has made it crystal clear that he’s a no-holds-barred ideologue who’ll stoop as low as he can to thwart democracy and social progress. Cooperating with him would be either a fool’s errand or an exercise in capitulation. And, when it comes to congressional workings, Biden is no fool.

Yes, Republicans are likely to have a Senate majority for at least the next two years. But President Biden will have a profound choice: to either fight them or “cooperate” with them. If Biden’s idea of the art of the deal is to shaft progressives, he and Kamala Harris are going to have a colossal party insurrection on their hands.

The young voters <https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/election-week-2020> and African-American voters <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/how-black-voters-key-cities-helped-deliver-election-joe-biden-n1246980> who were largely responsible for Biden’s win did not turn out in such big numbers so he could turn around and cave in to the same extremist Republican Party that propelled much of their enthusiasm for voting Biden in the first place. Overall, as polling has made clear, it was abhorrence of Trump -- more than enthusiasm for Biden -- that captivated Biden voters.

A CNBC poll <https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/2020-election-polls-biden-leads-trump-in-six-swing-states.html>, released last week, found that 54 percent of swing-state Biden voters “said they are primarily voting against Trump” rather than in favor of Biden. For Biden to embark on his presidency by collaborating with the party of Trump would be more than tone-deaf. It would be a refusal to put up a fight against the very forces that so many Biden voters were highly motivated to defeat.

Progressives are disgusted when Democratic leaders set out to ask Republicans for part of a loaf and end up getting crumbs. If Joe Biden is willing to toss aside the progressive base of his own party in order to cooperate with the likes of Mitch McConnell, the new president will be starting a fierce civil war inside his own party.

(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including *War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death*. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.)