Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, March 1, 2022

LIGHT SHOWERS will be possible mainly north of Trinidad today, with mostly dry weather elsewhere. Widespread light rain will spread southeast across the area slowly on Wednesday and into Thursday. Precipitation will become more showery as snow levels fall, but some higher elevation will still be possible. Cooler air will move into the area Thursday and bring those chilly overnight temperatures back to Northwest California starting Thursday night. (NWS)

MARGOT DIANE ‘PEGGY’ GOWAN

Margot ‘Peggy’ Gowan was a caring wife, mother, grandmother, sister and friend. She left this world on February 22, 2022 at the age of 84.

Peggy was born to Charles and Alice Perkins on September 11, 1938 in Oakland, California. And from that day forward was known as Pretty Peggy Perkins.

Peggy raised 6 children, Jim, Diane, Rick, Joan, Tami and Mike. She also had a hand in raising her adopted baby brother Bob, a step son David and some of her many grandchildren.

Peggy married James Gowan "Jim", on April 9th, 1978 and instantly became a grandmother. She spent 20 years working at AT&T in many different areas. When they retired, she and Jim moved up to Tomki and built up a beautiful home they both loved. Peggy used to sit in front of the windows to enjoy the beautiful views that kept her happy and content for over 30 years.

A funeral service was held on Tuesday, March 1st at The New Life Community Church in Ukiah.

YORKVILLE BURN

CAL FIRE Mendocino Unit will be conducting a prescribed burn near the community of Yorkville, Tuesday March 1, 2022. Burning will be conducted between approximately 9 am until approximately 5 pm. Smoke and aircraft will be visible.

THE ANDERSON VALLEY SENIOR CENTER is hiring for a cook. It is 14 hours a week job, 5 hours (8-1) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus flexible hours to be worked as needed to order/prep/fill out reports. Menus are provided. Pay starts at $18.00+ an hour depending on experience. The cook helps supervise the assistant cook and the dishwasher. The cook needs to be organized, work well with others and pass the state required food handlers’ class. The position is open until filled: Contact Renee at 707-895-3609 or 707-621-3843

HOW MANY, DR. COREN?

Dr. Coren,

I listened to the Covid-19 update yesterday, February 25, 2022, and I’m happy to see our numbers going down. However, there is a number not mentioned throughout this pandemic and I’m hoping you can shed some light on it for me.

As a Mendocino County resident, I understand the challenges of Covid but have to wonder and ask about the balance of other concerns such as those listed below.

My questions are:

How many folks with illnesses other than Covid have fell through the cracks because of lack of beds/staff during this pandemic?
How many deaths (other than Covid) have resulted from people not being able to be admitted to Mendocino County hospitals because of lack of beds/staff?
How many people are sent home with illnesses because of lack of beds/staff and later died?
How many are sent home from the ER because there are no beds available in other counties?
How many suicides have we had in Mendocino County since the pandemic started?

Seems to me we are talking a lot about Covid and not mentioning those affected by lack of treatment for other illnesses because of the numbers of Covid patients/lack of staff.

Judy Valadao

Fort Bragg

AS LATE WINTER GIVES WAY TO SPRING, we experience the majesty of gray whale migration along our coast. Docents from @noyocenter are offering whale walks along the Noyo Headlands trail on Saturdays and Sundays at 11am through April 2nd. This is free to the public, 1 mile round trip. Meet at the South Noyo Headlands parking lot at the trailhead.

KATHY WYLIE:

2.28.22 - The Division of Water Rights continues to review hydrologic forecasts and real-time data in the Russian River Watershed. Based on current conditions and available forecasts, the Division is announcing that the temporary curtailment suspensions will last through March 15, 2022. The Division will reassess supply and demand conditions in early March, and update diverters for the status of curtailments for the remainder of March at that time. If dry conditions continue, curtailments appear likely to resume for certain right holders at that time.

Right holders should continue to monitor the Russian River Drought Response webpage for announcements on the latest status. This update will be reflected on the above webpage shortly. All future updates on curtailment statuses for both the Upper and Lower watersheds will be posted on this webpage and distributed through these email (Lyris) notifications.

If you received this notice in a forwarded message and would like to receive future emails related to this and similar efforts, please subscribe to the State Water Board’s “Russian River Drought” email subscription list under “Water Rights” at: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/.../swrcb_subscribe.html

If you have any questions, please contact us at RussianRiverDrought@waterboards.ca.gov or (916) 341-5318.

FIRST FRIDAY AT GRACE HUDSON

On March 4, Grace Hudson Museum will be open for its First Friday Art Walk from 5 to 8 p.m. Jazz pianist Barney McClure will be in the house for the occasion.

He’s performed and recorded with a wide array of musicians, including jazz legends Big Joe Turner, Sonny Stitt, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, and Milt Jackson. McClure's sublime music provides the soundtrack for visitors to chat with friends and look through the Museum's latest exhibition, "The Art of Collecting: New Additions to the Grace Hudson Museum." This new show includes an assortment of paintings, photographs, Pomo material culture, and other items of historical interest that have been acquired by the Museum over the past five or more years through donation or purchase, including a recent gift of 16 Grace Hudson paintings from the Palm Springs Art Museum. The Museum's other exhibit galleries and the Wild Gardens are also available for enjoyment. Light refreshments will be served.

"The Art of Collecting" will be on display through April 10, 2022. An in-person tour will be featured in March, along with virtual programs, including a talk on the ins and outs of art collecting.

The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 South Main St. in Ukiah. More information is at (707) 467-2836 or online at www.gracehudsonmuseum.org

Roberta Werdinger

AV VILLAGE WEEKLY WALKING GROUP, Every Tuesday, 9:30 AM

Meet at the Community Park (near the AV Health Center). Please let Donna Pierson-Pugh (text: (707) 684-0325) know the night or morning before if you plan on attending.

* * *

The Anderson Valley Wellness Coalition offers: AV Living Well: Techniques for Stress Relief

Tuesdays 11:45 — 12:45, dates below

Classes are on Zoom — link on our Events Calendar

3/1 Aurelia’s Breath Practice for Stress and Anxiety Relief Part 2

3/8 Kira’s Yoga for Anxiety

3/15 Facilitated discussion with participants: What has helped you minimize stress before it happens?

3/22 Mile’s Meditation for Stress Relief

Contact Donna: 707 684-0325

500 YARDS FROM THIS SIGN AND ON THE LEFT TO AMERICA’S LAST NEWSPAPER

ED NOTES

STATE SENATOR McGuire, illusionist. McGuire has a talent for substituting the appearance of action for the real thing, hence his periodic announcements of the Great Redwood Trail, duly parroted by the Mendo branch of the Northcoast Democrats, with several Ukiah Democrats occasionally posed with McGuire on the Ukiah stretch of pavement they advertise as the first three miles of the Trail.

ONLY 200 miles to go as soon as former Congressman Bosco, present owner of the Trail’s right of way in the form of the old Northwestern Pacific Railroad, which Bosco magically obtained in a murky process he steered through elected Northcoast Democrats, is paid the high-interest loans he provided to the old NCRA. Entering public service as a struggling attorney, Bosco, like Biden and so many other public servants, is now a multi-millionaire and owner of, among other properties, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. He even lives in the former owner’s mansion. If Ayn Rand had a sense of humor she could have a comic sequel to ‘The Fountainhead’ called ‘The Sprinkle’ based on Bosco. McGuire will have to hustle to catch up with Doug, but his “town hall” with Sheriff Kendall and Supervisor Haschak zooming in to join the senator is the kind of safe non-event Bosco would admire.

BUT BOSCO did appear exactly once in an open meeting with the rabble when he was still representing corporations as our purely alleged federal representative. That meeting was held in the state building in Santa Rosa. A long line of angry voters lined up to tee off on the Congressman and his pathetic record of craven votes for, among other things, nerve gas weapons. (Bosco ran as a liberal, of course.) What was absolutely wonderful about this event was Bosco losing it. After about the third consecutive person denounced him, and the mob howling with laughter at the speakers ragging on him, Bosco started to shoot back, finally losing it altogether. “If you don’t like it, elect someone else!,” the righteous solon thundered before stalking off stage and out of the building.

AND DARNED if the Peace and Freedom Party’s Darlene Commingore didn’t bring it off, drawing a big slug of Bosco’s usual libs to bounce him out of office, but only to be replaced by a non-entity of a Republican, Frank Riggs. The lesson party hacks seem to have learned from the Bosco election is that support for ciphers like McGuire, Wood and, to a large extent, Huffman, is that lib lab support is soft, that they stay in office in lieu of a Northcoast left. How much longer an utterly corrupt Democratic Party can last is anybody’s guess, but there’s no discernable energy from the left anywhere on the Northcoast.

ACCORDING to McGuire’s warm, fuzzy website, "Mike is a lifelong Californian. His family farmed the Golden State’s rich soils for decades and he was raised by two incredibly strong women, his mom and grandma," and apparently conceived without a male involved.

“Mike and his mom struggled growing up. He’s been working full-time since he was 16, helping put himself through college.”

Working doing what, going to college where? At what point did Mike and his mom stop struggling? Any news from Dad?

“Mike is the third highest ranking member of the Senate and the youngest Assistant Majority Leader in decades.”

Which is like being the third tallest kid in a class for junior bunco artists.

“He’s been a champion for our kids and public schools. He went to the mat and won against President Trump on offshore oil drilling, led the charge in the legislature on wildfires, and is a leading voice in holding PG&E accountable. And no one has been more successful at securing resources to combat homelessness and build affordable housing in rural California.”

California’s schools rank among the worst in the country, offshore oil prohibitions were achieved before McGuire was born, wildfires seem indifferent to his opposition, PG&E remains unaccountable except to its shareholders, and there is no affordable housing in sight anywhere in the state. Or the country.

“Mike and his wife Erika, an elementary school principal, call Sonoma County home with their lazy pug, Gertrude.”

How cozy. But Hustling Mike lives in the wealthy enclave of Healdsburg with two strong women, and his… sorry. A full mawk alert prevented repetition of the dog ref.

FROM THE SF CHRON: “Mayor London Breed on Friday reiterated her desire to have law enforcement play a role in addressing the Tenderloin’s drug crisis…” Having ceded downtown San Francisco to free range dope heads, the Mayor belatedly concedes it’s time to arrest her way out of the Democrat’s great gift of the most expensive real estate in the world to the Thanatoids.

BIDEN’S REASSURANCE. One section of the Ready.gov website for nuclear explosions advises Americans: “Stay inside for 24 hours unless local authorities provide other instructions.” “Continue to practice social distancing by wearing a mask and by keeping a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household.” It is not clear when this advice was included in the nuclear explosion page, but the webpage was last updated on Friday, February 25, 2022, according to a note at the bottom of the site.

COVELO CARLOS

On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at about 8:55 PM a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputy conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle for numerous vehicle code violations in the 15000 block of North Highway 101 in Willits.

The Deputy contacted two subjects in the vehicle and conducted a records check.

Sheriff’s Office Dispatch advised Carlos Hernandez Acosta, 23, of Covelo, had a felony warrant for his arrest for weapons violations. The occupants consented to a search and no contraband was located.

Carlos Hernandez-Acosta was arrested for the warrant and booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

========================

UKIAH MAN CONFRONTS ROBBER WITH CROWBAR

by Matt Pera

A man suspected of breaking into a garage in Ukiah on Sunday night and stealing a set of tires was arrested after an altercation with the homeowner he robbed, police said.

The homeowner called 911 at about 6 p.m. and said a man armed with a knife and bolt cutters was stealing things from his garage in the 600 block of Talmage Road, according to a police report.

The homeowner, who “had been the victim of several burglaries over the past month,” grabbed a crowbar and confronted the man in his garage before police arrived, the Ukiah Police Department said in the report.

The man was leaving with a set of tires he had taken from the garage when the homeowner pointed the crowbar at him and “attempted, verbally, to detain him,” police said.

The man taunted the homeowner, challenging him to hit him with the crowbar, police said. He then approached the homeowner, swinging at him with the bolt cutters he was holding.

The homeowner fell over and the man left.

When police arrived, they found a man holding bolt cutters down the block from the home and arrested him at gunpoint.

Officers found a folding knife, methamphetamine and a smoking pipe in the man’s pockets, according to the report.

The man, 30-year-old Marco Fermin-Garcia of Ukiah, was booked into the Mendocino County Jail on suspicion of robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of burglary tools.

The homeowner had minor cuts after the altercation. Police said “it was unclear if his injuries were as a result of being struck with the bolt cutters, falling down, or a combination of the two.”

Footage from surveillance cameras at the house showed the robbery suspect using bolt cutters to cut the lock on the garage, police said.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

========================

YECSON’S STOLEN BIKE

On Tuesday, February 22, 2022 at approximately 1:23 A.M. Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies conducted a traffic enforcement stop in on a motorcycle operated by Yecson Delaherran-Rivera in the area of North State Street and Gibson Street in Ukiah.

During the traffic stop, it was determined the motorcycle had altered registration and it was stolen out of Santa Rosa, California. It was also determined Delaherran-Rivera had two misdemeanor warrants for his arrest out of Mendocino County.

Delaherran-Rivera was placed under arrest on the listed charges and for the arrest warrants.

During a search of his person incident to arrest, suspected methamphetamine and a methamphetamine smoking pipe was located. Delaherran-Rivera was also placed under arrest for possession of a controlled substance and possession of controlled substance paraphernalia.

Delaherran-Rivera was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $27,500.00 bail.

========================

GOOD OL' UNCLE BURT

On Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 10:17 P.M. Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a disturbance between family members in the 12900 block of Nokomis Road in Hopland.

Deputies were advised an adult female had reportedly been hit by her uncle in the arm with a stick and possibly had broken her arm.

Upon arrival, Deputies learned the adult female had gone outside to try and diffuse a situation between her uncle, Burt Sloan, 56, of Hopland, and some of her other family members. Upon contacting Sloan, she was hit in the left arm with either a stick or a bat before Sloan left the area.

Deputies observed swelling and bruising on the adult female's left arm near her elbow. The adult female appeared to be in a lot of pain and was transported to the hospital for medical evaluation/treatment.

Deputies eventually located Sloan in a residence about a mile away from the above address.

Sloan was placed under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon and was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $30,000 bail.

========================

WHAT'S WITH THESE PUNKS?

On Wednesday, February 23, 2022 at 8:23 P.M. Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a reported domestic violence incident that took place the previous evening in the 100 block of Henry Station Road in Ukiah.

Deputies learned a 21 year old adult female and her boyfriend, Victor Tinajero, 21, of Ukiah, had been driving together the previous evening when they got into a verbal argument regarding Tinajero's driving while he was operating the vehicle.

During the argument, Tinajero became angered and began hitting the adult female in the face with a closed fist and also pulled her hair.

The adult female tried to call someone for help but Tinajero took her phone and threw it into the back of the vehicle.

The Deputies checked the adult female for injuries and observed visible injuries to her face (Bruising and dried blood).

Deputies subsequently located Tinajero and placed him under arrest for domestic violence battery, battery with serious injury and damaging/destroying any wireless communication device.

Tinajero was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $75,000 bail.

CATCH OF THE DAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2022

CRESCENCIO CARRANZA-NUNEZ, Ceres/Ukiah. DUI.

PATRICIA CLARK, Willits. Domestic battery.

JESSICA ESCOBEDO-FERNANDEZ, Ukiah. DUI, child endangerment.

MARCOS FERMIN-GARCIA, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, robbery, burglary tools, paraphernalia.

JAVIER GARCIA, Willits. Attempted burglary, stalking with prior felony, county parole violation.

CHELSEA HERBEL, Willits. Leaving scene of accident with property damage, controlled substance, concealed dirk-dagger.

CARLOS HERNANDEZ-ACOSTA, Covelo. Concealed stolen weapon, stolen property, unspecified offense.

JAKE LEWIS-KOOY, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, resisting.

ORLANDO MUNOZ, Ukiah. Community supervision violation.

REGINALD REBOCA JR., Covelo, DUI.

JORGE RODRIGUEZ-AGUILAR, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI, no license.

RUBEN SILVA, Hayward/Ukiah. Protective order violation.

THE UKRAINE IS IN MY BODY AND IN BLOOD

by Jonah Raskin

I feel doubly or triply connected to the war in the Ukraine because my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family came from the Ukraine, escaped with their lives and little else, though they managed to bring a samovar for tea. In the 1980s, family members returned to seek relatives and came up empty handed and saddened. My Ukrainian ancestors were killed by either the fascists, or the communists, or so the survivors of World War II told my family members. My father’s parents were from Russia, not far from the border with Poland. They spoke Russian and thought of themselves as Russians. So did I when I was a boy, though I didn’t advertise the fact. In the 1950s, during some of the worst days of the Cold War and also during the hot war in Korea, kids my own age who somehow or other knew my family history would tell me, “Go back to Russia.” That hurt plenty.

I have often thought that my parents settled in northern California when they retired because the Russians once lurked in this part of the world, and also because the river is the Russian and because Fort Ross was an outpost for their fur trade.

Commies in my own family insisted that the Soviet Union was a workers’ paradise, but I had no desire or intention to go there. The Russians didn’t have cowboy pictures on TV, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team, or American burgers on buns and with French fries. I have never been to Russia and never to the Soviet Union, either, though years ago I did want to go when a friend of mine opened a branch of Citibank in Moscow. His tales of Soviet life were fascinating; One detail: Moscow had no telephone books or directories, though some Moscovites had archaic phones. The first thing they did when they met people for the first time was to obtain their phone numbers and to treasure them.

I hope the Russian army is defeated in the Ukraine and that the casualties aren’t astronomical, as they were for the Russians in Afghanistan. I hope the Ukranians don’t suffer terribly. I hope that Putin doesn’t impose a totalitarian regime, but given the deep seated resistance by the Ukranians I don’t see why or how he won’t impose an iron heel. I know the West hasn’t been blameless. NATO missiles in Poland can’t have made for peace and coexistence. But that’s no excuse for the invasion that Putin ordered. May it come back to haunt him. May the Russian people and people all over the world protest against Putin’s War and against his "evil empire," a term that seems more fitting now than ever before. All empires are evil.

I never thought that the Cold War ended, not even when Reagan met the Russians, or when Trump cozied up to Putin and Putin cozied up to him. If anyone wants proof that the Cold War is alive and well, look at the Ukraine today where Ukrainian blood is staining Ukrainian soil. I am thankful that my mother’s parents escaped from the Ukraine more than 100 years ago, but I still feel connected to the Ukraine and to the Ukrainian people, more than ever before, now that they’re resisting Russian tyranny.

UKRAINE ROUND UP, FEB 28

(Reuters) - Satellite imagery taken on Monday showed Russian ground forces continued to move closer to Ukraine's capital with a military convoy that stretched over 17 miles (27 km), a private U.S. company said.

Maxar Technologies Inc (MAXR.N) said the convoy on the eastern edge of Antonov airport contained hundreds of armored vehicles, tanks, towed artillery and logistics support vehicles and continued to move south towards Kyiv.

* * *

New satellite images show a Russian military convoy that has reached the outskirts of Kyiv is more than 40 miles long.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of war crimes for bombing the city of Kharkiv.

Zelensky said he is analyzing the results of Monday's talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.

More than 500,000 refugees have fled Ukraine during Russia’s ongoing invasion, the UN said Monday.

* * *

Kyiv city authorities say they are strengthening defenses after a "calm" night

The Ukrainian capital had a "calm" night on Sunday, Kyiv City Council said Monday morning — but authorities warned residents should remain home as fighting continued.

"Overall, last night was calm, excluding some skirmishes and fights with sabotage and reconnaissance groups. However, the city was mostly busy preparing for its defense. So, if you'll happen to go to the city after 8:00, you'll see fortifications, tank traps, and other defensive structures that have appeared on the streets of Kyiv," the council said in a statement.

Grocery stores and public transportation in Kyiv will be open from 8 a.m. local time, though metro trains will run less frequently than usual.

"Please don't leave your homes unless you have an urgent need," such as buying groceries or medicine, the statement said, adding that "street fights continue to occur in the streets of every district in the city."

"We urge you to join forces and help each other: ask your neighbors if they need help, especially when it comes to the elderly or families whose relatives are defending Ukraine. Look after the apartments of neighbors who have left the city to prevent looting," the council said.

A curfew in the city remains in force from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. local time.

(CNN)

* * *

Ceasefire talks end as Russia launches rocket attacks on Kharkiv

FT Reporters

The Ukraine-Russia ceasefire negotiations on the Belarus border ended today with delegations from each country returning to their respective capitals for consultations.

Meanwhile, Russian forces remain 30km north of Kyiv, as Ukrainian resistance and logistical failures delay the Russian advance on the capital, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. Russian troops launched a rocket attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, during the ceasefire talks.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky signed a formal application today for his country to join the EU, but officials in Brussels have warned that the process may take years.

Nato’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance was sending air defence missiles and anti-tank weapons as well as humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he was committed to sending Ukraine more military support and foreign secretary Liz Truss promised to impose stricter sanctions on Moscow. France plans to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs that are subject to sanctions.

International sanctions coupled with western allies’ agreement to freeze most of the Russian financial sector out of the Swift payments system sent the rouble plunging on Monday.

Putin banned Russians from transferring foreign currency abroad or servicing loans in foreign currency outside the country from March 1, to offset the impact of western sanctions and stabilise Russia’s currency.

Military developments:

The port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine was reportedly surrounded. Mariupol is the last big stronghold of Ukrainian resistance that has stopped Russia from connecting the eastern border region of Donbas to Crimea

Russia’s defence ministry said its troops had captured territory around a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, southern towns of Berdyansk and Enerhodar, and controlled all of Ukraine’s airspace. Russia military claims cannot be independently verified

The Ukrainian military said Russian troops have launched missile strikes in the western city of Zhytomyr and the northern city of Chernihiv. Ukrainian military claims cannot be independently verified

More than 500,000 Ukrainians have fled since last Thursday

Economic developments:

Trading on the Moscow exchange was suspended for the day; the Russian central bank hiked its key rate to 20 per cent, as it attempted to limit the fall of the rouble

The UK transport secretary has banned Russian vessels from British ports

Switzerland will match the EU’s sanctions against Russia, including those directed at Vladimir Putin and his personal wealth, breaking a decades-long neutrality policy

MSCI is considering whether to remove Russian stocks from its indices

The S&P 500 index dropped 0.9 per cent and the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite fell 0.3 per cent in afternoon trading

The Stoxx Europe 600 edged down 0.1 per cent, after falling as much as 1.9 per cent earlier in the session

Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose 3.1 per cent to $100.96 a barrel

Ukrainian and Russian delegates report back to capitals after negotiations

Guy Chazan in Lviv, John Reed in Kyiv, Max Seddon in Moscow, Henry Foy in Brussels and John Paul Rathbone in London

Negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials near the Belarus border have concluded late on Monday.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, said the delegations would return to their respective capitals for consultations.

Zelensky’s office had said the talks were aimed at securing a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.

Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin and the leader of the Russian delegation, will report on the talks to Putin later on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Medinsky said the talks would continue and that the sides found “some points on which it’s possible to find common ground”, according to Interfax.

But hopes of a breakthrough in the talks remain slim considering Russia’s stated war aims. Putin has demanded the surrender of Ukraine’s army and the removal of the country’s government.

Ukraine’s delegation included the country’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov and David Arakhamia, the leader of Zelensky’s party in parliament. Russia’s delegation included representatives of the Russian defence and foreign ministries.

* * *

More than 500,000 Ukrainians flee war at home

Half a million Ukrainians have fled the fighting since Russia invaded, the UN said.

“More than 500,000 refugees have now fled from Ukraine into neighbouring countries,” Filippo Grandi, commissioner of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said on Monday.

Many more have been internally displaced, the UNHCR added.

Meanwhile, the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that 102 civilians were killed in the conflict from Thursday morning to Sunday night including children.

(Financial Times, London)

MISS UKRAINE PICKS UP THE GUN TO DEFEND HER HOME TOWN

PUTIN HAS GAMBLED EVERYTHING on His Snap-Invasion of Ukraine, Now His Political Survival in Russia is in Doubt

by Patrick Cockburn

War transforms the political landscape in radical and unexpected ways. By invading Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has made an unforced error of historic proportions that will put his own survival as Russian leader in doubt if and when Russians begin to understand that he has plunged them and their country into an unwinnable war.

Moscow is seeking a decisive victory with the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and the surrender of its army. “What we’re talking about is preventing Nazis and those who push methods of genocide to rule in this country,” said foreign minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday. “Right now, the regime that is located in Kyiv is under two mechanisms of external control: first, the West, led by the United States, and secondly, neo-Nazis.”

Talks would only begin when the Ukrainian army laid down its arms. These are maximalist targets that are unlikely to be achieved by 190,000 Russian troops who are under orders to overrun and pacify a country nearly three times the size of Britain and with a population of 44 million.

Stiff resistance

Though the war is still in its early stages, it is clearly not proving a walkover for the Russian forces, who are facing stiff resistance. The Russian army will have its work cut out gaining control of the cities, towns and highways, and holding them in the face of attacks from regular and guerrilla forces in the great swathes of Ukraine that Russian troops will not be able to hold.

Possibly the Russian commanders hope to find local allies in the Russian-speaking population which they claim was subjected to genocide. Russian TV appeared to show a map distinguishing Russian and Ukrainian speakers. But all the evidence is that there is far less pro-Russian sympathy today than there was before a pro-Western government took power in Kyiv in 2014.

It is an extraordinary gamble on the part of Putin who once had a reputation for being good at calculating risks. Accusing the Kyiv government of being neo-Nazis and calling for demilitarisation of Ukraine means installing a pro-Russian regime backed by a permanent military occupation. This is something the Soviet Union would have had difficulty doing at its height – and Putin’s Russia is far less powerful.

Convincing Russia’s political elite

Even attempting to carry out such a programme will mean significant Russian casualties, which Putin will have to explain to the public back home. He will also have to convince the Russian political elite about how he plans to win a war against strong local resistance supported by most of the great powers of the world.

His answer to questions about Russia being an isolated pariah state is a not-so-veiled threat to use nuclear weapons against any foreign state that interferes with his campaign in Ukraine. But this sort of deterrence is a frightening prospect for Russians who suddenly find themselves potential targets for nuclear retaliation – a threat that the fall of the Soviet Union was supposed to have ended.

Past Russian military interventions under Putin were carefully calculated but success in Chechnya and Syria and may have made the Russian leader overconfident. He regained control of Chechnya after invading it in 1999, but the country is small, could be easily isolated from the outside world and the opposition was fragmented. Ukraine is more than 30 times as big and has open borders to the west that can only be closed by deploying tens of thousands more troops.

And this prolonged campaign of repression, inevitably involving atrocities, as with all military occupations, is to take place before the eyes of the world. Western governments will supply the resistance with arms and money and will be determined to ensure that Putin does not succeed. Sanctions may only have a real impact long-term, but then this is likely to be a long war, which many Russians regard as misconceived and without any hope of success from day one.

Mad or bad?

So why did Putin do it? Explanations that he has gone mad or plans to rebuild the Soviet Union are propagandistic. More convincing as a reason for him taking this present extraordinary risk is hubris, which is an occupational disease among those who have been too long in power – 22 years in Putin’s case.

Such leaders trust too much in their own judgement, while their advisers come to resemble courtiers who hold their job because they know how to bend the knee and pay tribute on all occasions to the wisdom of their leader.

The arrogance and ignorance of power does not solely infect authoritarian rulers like Putin. Tony Blair never seemed to know much about Iraq from the time of the invasion in 2003 until the present day. Going by his memoirs, David Cameron has remained proudly ignorant of all things Libyan, a country he helped invade in 2011. Political leaders of all stripes visibly relish the role of warlord and the same applies to Putin.

Leaders are also conscious that success on the battlefield will do them a lot of political good back home. It was an advisor to Tsar Nicholas II who told him that “what this country needs is a short victorious war”. What they got was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 in which the overconfident Russian army and fleet were humiliatingly defeated by Japan. When news of this failure reached home, it provoked the protests and uprisings of 1905 which in turn prepared the ground for the 1917 Revolution.

I have always been bemused by the cavalier way in which governments launch wars on which their own survival depends without thinking through the consequences of failure.

Nasty though they may be, wars often favour democratic change and discredit existing leaders and institutions. They are democratic because wars cannot be fought without mobilising large numbers of people who need to be encouraged to believe that they are fighting in a just cause.

It is not politicians alone who fail to see that wars turn apolitical people into political players. I remember a conversation with a senior American journalist in Washington just before the Iraq invasion of 2003. He spelled out some American plans for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. “I don’t think the Iraqi people will like that very much,” I said. “Who cares what they think?” he replied. “Who cares?” A year later, as snipers and bombers targeted their soldiers, the Americans cared a lot – but it was too late.

Regimes may survive many failures, but military defeat or blood-soaked stalemates are too glaring to conceal, and their victims are too numerous to be ignored. Could Putin have some card up his sleeve that will enable him to outmanoeuvre his many enemies? It is difficult to imagine what it might be because he has gambled everything on a decisive victory to be won against Ukraine – and much of the rest of the world. If he fails to deliver, as seems highly likely, then his political survival will be in doubt.

(Patrick Cockburn is the author of War in the Age of Trump (Verso).)

ECO-LENINISM

Editor!!

“Eco-Lenins”!!! Har-de-har-har!! That’s great!! The funniest thing I’ve ever read in the AVA in 30 years! It’s even funnier than my own rapier-like bon mots! Eco Lenins! Tell ya what....Ukraine is in the news....why don’t you go there and talk up EcoLeninism with the locals....mention the Holomodor, ask them about it....you might want to wear a helmet and hire some large bodyguards if anyone will work for you....maybe mention that everything would have been great except for an unfortunate stroke clearing the way for Santa Stalin....and they were supposed to be Green Gulags....how about a do-over, eh....give the EcoLenins a break...maybe they’ll get it right this time....hire the Cuddly Chekists instead....ECOLENINS!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Wow! Gotta get my breath here....

OK, I’m better now...don’t do these things to me...one heart surgery was enough....

Listen, let’s cut the crap. The EcoLeninist revolution begins with YOU! First, confess to your own Capitalist Sins. YOU took YOUR MONEY (capital) and INVESTED IN MEANS OF PRODUCTION (The AVA). WHY did you do this? You wanted PERSONAL FREEDOM TO PUBLISH YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER! You wanted to FREELY EXPRESS YOUR OPINION without having to request permission from an Owner to do so!

Not just that, but any PROFIT generated by your business would become YOUR MONEY (capital) that you would be FREE to spend on ANYTHING YOU LIKE! Now, as it turns out, maybe your investment hasn’t exactly shed showers of gold onto your office hovel, but that’s the chance you took! Or would you rather have had a hidden ecoLeninist associate editor looking over your shoulder all these years? What with all their expropriations, they might have made a better business of it, for a little while.

Let’s cut more crap out of the way. You could SELL the AVA to any buyer who wants it, and put the proceeds (capital) in your pocket to do with as you will. But you are a man of Rectitude and you are thusly accorded Respect in the Community. Intentionally or not, you have created an Institution! And now as the Wolves of Age come snarling ever closer and as the EcoLeninists accompanying them wave their Writs of Seizure, you have a Last Chance to immortalize yourself in the Pantheon of Journalism! It is in your power alone, Machtig Redaktor, to so organize your Final Affairs that the AVA be granted to a Trust, and that said Trust be so arranged that as much as possible its governance shall be immunized against Malign and Self-Interested persons or combinations, and that the Mission Statement of the Trust clearly express Your Will as to the future Social Utility of the AVA.

It’s reasonable to believe that you have deeply pondered this subject, and it is reasonable to expect that you disclose your plans to your Loyal Readers without us all being gobsmacked some day by some evil revolution. You don’t want, I suppose, to be surprised by a squadron of EcoLeninists who will put the pistol to your temple and oblige you to sign certain documents. You should have in that case by study of history recognized that the EcoLenins would turn on you.

Yours,

Jay Williamson

Santa Rosa

ED REPLY: By “eco-Leninist” I simply meant people with Lenin-like commitment, but since Vlad seems to have been a one-off, and except for a handful of courageous Native Americans, direct action to cripple the earth-destroying mechanisms seems isolated to these brave few. And weekly newspapers are more like corner groceries — doomed. Trusts? I don’t trust them.

PUTIN THE APOSTATE

We thought he would be our bastard. Then, he became his own bastard.

by Matt Taibbi

The president of the Council of Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, made an extraordinary statement over the weekend. “Just days ago much of the world was focused on the unwanted prospect of regime change in Ukraine,” he tweeted. “Now the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.” Senior Brookings Institute fellow Benjamin Wittes was even more explicit:

For anyone expecting me to be outraged about this — I am, after all, almost daily denounced as a Putin-lover and apologist, so surely I must want the Great Leader to stay in power forever — I have to disappoint. If Vladimir Putin were captured tomorrow and fired into space, I wouldn’t bat an eye.

I would like to point out that we already tried regime change in Russia. I remember, because I was there. And, thanks to a lot of lurid history that’s being scrubbed now with furious intensity, it ended with Vladimir Putin in power. Not as an accident, or as the face of a populist revolt against Western influence — that came later — but precisely because we made a long series of intentional decisions to help put him there.

Once, Putin’s KGB past, far from being seen as a negative, was viewed with relief by the American diplomatic community, which had been exhausted by the organizational incompetence of our vodka-soaked first partner, Boris Yeltsin. Putin by contrast was “a man with whom we could do business,” a “liberal, humane, and decent European” of “alert, controlled poise” and “well-briefed acuity,” who was open to anything, even Russia joining NATO. “I don’t see why not,” Putin said. “I would not rule out such a possibility.”

The New York Times Magazine, noting that the KGB of the seventies that Putin joined was no longer really a murder factory but just another “thinking corporation,” even compared him once to Russia’s first true Western-looking leader: "In him, Russia has found a humane version of Peter the Great, a ruler who will open the country to the influence of a world at once gentler and more dynamic than Russia has ever been."

I’ve been bitter in commentary about Putin in recent years because I never forgot the way the West smoothed his rise, and pretends now that it didn’t. It’s infuriating also that many of us who were critical of him from the start are denounced now as Putin apologists, I think in part because we have inconvenient memories about who said what at the start of his story. The effort to wipe that history clean is reaching a fever pitch this week. Before they finish the job, it seemed worth getting it all down.

In late 1996, Vladimir Putin was at a career crossroads. His boss, Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected Mayor of St. Petersburg, had just lost an election and with Putin’s help, was gearing up to flee the country to avoid corruption charges.

Should Putin, too, flee abroad, perhaps to Germany, where he’d enjoyed a posting in his KGB days? He had his own reputation issues, having been inveigled in scandal in his time as Sobchak’s adviser and Deputy Mayor. In 1992, while head of a Petersburg Committee to attract foreign investment, he’d been given over $120 million in export quotas for timber, oil, and rare earth metals by the federal government, to trade for desperately needed food. The deal was approved by Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar and then-trade Minister (and future Alfa Bank heavy) Pyotr Aven. The raw materials were not bartered but pawned off to “various commercial structures,” as the newspaper Smena put it, and the city got back just two tankers of cooking oil.

The Federal Accounting Chamber ended up writing a letter recommending that Mr. Putin not be considered for promotions. But the little man from the northern capital was destined for a higher calling.

I’d been a Petersburg resident through much of Putin’s tenure in the Mayor’s office, having fallen in love with Leningrad and its people as an exchange student in 1989 and moved back after college, with dreams of a writer’s life. Having no interest in politics I barely knew Sobchak’s name, let alone Putin’s, until after leaving town to take my first job at the Moscow Times. Properly assessing my level of intellectual seriousness at the time, the paper first had me cover sports, then gave to me a nonspecific brief to cover anything odd that hit the news desk. If a teenager mailed his mother’s head in a cardboard box to a high school teacher, or a Russian tried to set the Guinness bottle-cap pyramid record, I got the assignment.

In that summer of 1996 I met a Mongolian student playing pickup ball at Moscow State University. He told me of a new league in his home country that used NBA rules, but allowed players to smoke on the bench. I had visions of a more drunken version of Paper Lion and decided to head there immediately. When I told the Times’s Australian editor Geoff Winestock that after anguished consideration I’d decided to give up the head-in-a-box beat to play professional basketball, he replied: “You’re making a terrible mistake.”

He was almost right. In Mongolia I contracted a mysterious pneumonia, nearly died, then returned to Moscow to co-edit a new nightlife guide called the eXile. I was responsible there for writing thousands of words in every issue, including, usually, the entire news hole. Even though the paper was designed to be a parody of a straight-press product like the Times — it contained corrections to nonexistent articles and the “editorial” in every issue was just 600 words of denouncing something ending in, “One thing’s for sure, time will tell” — I did finally have to learn a lot about Russian politics, if only to make fun of it.

This was my first experience learning that “experts” lie. I’d believed all the tales of a benevolent American aid program helping Russia convert to democracy. Unfortunately the real story of Russia during those years was that it was leapfrogging both Europe and America in its progress toward a purely predatory capitalist model. It became overnight what America’s own future would eventually resemble. Occupy Wall Street would not identify the “1%” in America until 2011, but Russia achieved the parody version — a handful of mega-billionaires surrounded by a vast population with negative wealth — as early as 1995-1996.

The revolution of 1991 was really a greed-fueled intelligence mutiny, in which a collection of senior communists and KGB officers worked with Western partners to dismantle the Soviet Union. A happy by-product was that these insiders got to act as the bulwark to counter-revolution by privatizing the country’s wealth into their own hands, becoming the billionaire owners of obscene mega-yachts and jets and sports teams like Chelsea football and the future Brooklyn Nets. They became the instant-coffee elites whose personal investment in the survival of their states’ institutions are a consistent element of modern neoliberal democracies everywhere.

Instead of explaining this, Western reporter colleagues based in Moscow sent mountains of stories home about Russia’s “remarkable progress” (the term regularly used by the West’s aid community) toward a free-market, Western-style paradise. They churned out hagiographic profiles of the English-speaking, often Western-educated politicians like Anatoly Chubais, the aforementioned Gaidar, Maxim Boyko, and other architects of Yeltsin’s transition. The crucial events were the privatizations of Soviet industry, conducted at every step with the counsel of American (and specifically Harvard-trained) economists. These transactions were often described as “rough” or “bumpy.” Some of the more corrupt episodes, like the loans-for-shares auctions in which the Yeltsin government lent cronies money needed to buy controlling stakes in companies the size of Exxon or AT&T for pennies on the dollar, were described using mind-boggling euphemisms like “relatively fair” (the Washington Post formulation) or “relative transparency” (Euromoney, in naming Chubais “Central Banker of the Year.)

The oligarch class was formalized in a stroke via a deal brokered at Davos in 1996. A handful of biznesmeni would be handed the loans-for-shares gifts in exchange for a promise to fund Yeltsin’s campaign against the communists. The bankers had reason to worry. No less a source than Canada’s current Finance Minister and former Financial Times writer Chrystia Freeland reported that they’d been warned by George Soros. Soros, Freeland said, told the oligarchs that Yeltsin, who initially polled at 7% nationally, would lose in 1996 to communist Gennady Zyuganov, who would certainly re-take their riches. “Boys, your time is up,” he reportedly said.

Instead of fleeing, they agreed to throw their weight behind Yeltsin, putting the West-friendly Chubais in charge of the campaign. My good friend Leonid Krutakov was fired from Izvestia for reporting on the fee Chubais was paid for this service: an interest-free $3 million loan given by Stolichny bank.

The “relatively fair” privatization auctions were historic events. As my friends and former Moscow Times reporters Matt Bivens and Jonas Bernstein reported, “financiers” like Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky were loaned the capital to become controllers of, respectively, a third of the world’s nickel and a fourth of its cobalt, and 2% of the world’s oil reserves. Meanwhile murderous gangsters like Boris Berezovsky were gifted controlling stakes in companies like Aeroflot (from which he siphoned to a Swiss shell company roughly a third of its annual $400 million in revenues) and Russia’s seventh-largest oil concern, Sidanko.

After Yelstin’s win, the resultant new billionaires — Russia’s 1% — were lavished with praise as they absconded with wealth belonging to the Russian people. The Wall Street Journal called Potanin a “Russian Bill Gates,” while the New York Times compared Berezovsky to “Commodore Vanderbilt.” Meanwhile ordinary workers fainted from hunger on the job or were ground to bits in increasingly unsafe machinery, with everyone from miners to construction workers reduced to Matewan-style indenture. While at the eXile I did a tour with Siberian bricklayers who worked long hours in frostbite conditions for chits to the company store worth a couple of bags of rice or flour a month.

A scene I’ll never forget, from around the time of these privatizations: stopping for a smoke at a railroad station past midnight in a random factory town en route to Cherepovets, and meeting a row of female plant workers who’d been paid in drinking glasses. Their longshot method of getting paid involved trying to exchange glasses for cash in the middle of the night on the train platform to passing travelers. I bought every available glass, but my traveling companion, a Russian circus clown named Alexei, offered to pay double for one set if the women would smash them. The mostly older babushki looked like Satchel Paige hurling their wares against a concrete wall.

Bivens and Bernstein Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who of course eventually went a bit nuts, in saying of this time: "Former members of the communist elite, along with Russia’s new rich, who amassed instant fortunes through banditry, have formed an exclusive … oligarchy of 150 to 200 people who run the country."

The CNN-informed reader, head full of sickening images of current carnage in Ukraine, is already seething, expecting me to argue now that the economic rape of Russia inspired the later nationalist revolt, making America somehow to blame for Putin and all his current crimes. No, this is going in another direction.

Putin didn’t start out as a revanchist. He rose as a member of Our Team, a thief of his own accord but also a bagman to fake, wealth-extracting “democrats.” This began with Sobchak, the man the Washington Post mourned as a “reformist” and “intellectual” upon his 1996 loss. Westerners fawned over the former university professor like he was Vaclav Havel, beaming over his impassioned speeches denouncing the Soviet system, endlessly flattering his Jeffersonian contributions to Russian democracy (he is said to have been the primary author of the Russian Federation’s first constitution). Sobchak however ended up acquiring a reputation as an autocrat and was dogged by accusations that he’d privatized apartments into the hands of friends and relatives. Upon his death the New York Times described these charges: "Relatively minor compared with the compromising material that has since surfaced against other Russian public figures, they tarnished not only Mr. Sobchak’s reputation, but also that of the democratic movement generally."

It is true that Sobchak had powerful political enemies, and how trumped up or not some of these charges were remains in dispute. What’s not in dispute is that Putin’s aid in helping Sobchak escape prosecution proved to be his big break, as Boris Yeltsin somewhat incredibly admitted in the last of his “autobiographies,” Midnight Diaries. As the New York Times later put it, “Mr. Putin’s star rose in Mr. Yeltsin’s eyes because he was willing to circumvent the law when his mentor, the former St. Petersburg mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, was under criminal investigation.” Yeltsin wrote that Putin’s record of guaranteeing passage for Sobchak was a factor in attracting his attention: "Using his connections in St. Petersburg, Putin made a deal with a private airline and brought Sobchak out to Finland. From there, Sobchak made his way to Paris."

In early 2000, the Russian newspaper Kommersant published excerpts from six interviews of Putin conducted by three journalists. These interviews would later be collected into a book entitled, In the First Person: Conversations With Vladimir Putin. One question involved how Putin came to Moscow. Putin said it was at the behest of Pavel Borodin, head of the Kremlin State Property Committee, who at the time was at the center of a major scandal involving bribery and money-laundering that put Yeltsin at serious risk of prosecution.

Shouldn’t Putin have “sorted out” those “scandalous accusations” before coming to Moscow? No, Putin said, that wouldn’t be democratic. Note: Putin’s efforts at pretending to be a democrat were unusually transparent. In this respect he was a bit like Yeltsin, whose village-drunk exterior was self-consciously designed to make him look more nash, our “ours,” compared to his spiffy predecessor Gorbachev, who came across like a man who’d blow Hitler’s corpse for a Brooks Brothers gift card. Putin in the same way wanted it known he struggled to orate like a “technocrat,” while American-educated peers like Chubais and Gaidar were fluent spouters of neoliberal wankery. You can imagine how it sounded when, asked about Borodin, Putin cited “a golden rule, a fundamental principle of any democratic system,” that was “called presumption of innocence.”

The section about Borodin ended up being just one of two interview passages removed from In the First Person. Why would Putin, a man not abashed by accusations of murder or war crimes, be embarrassed by that particular line? Because he knew: the framework for the nineties-era looting of Russia, that according to some estimates caused millions of premature deaths, depended upon insiders with intelligence backgrounds working the machinery of capital flight while political front creatures like Yeltsin were given Swiss bank accounts, French villas, and millions or billions in carrying charges as compensation for effecting the facade of “democracy.” The passage revealed him as a whore to the West, one of the few truths he’d be embarrassed to admit.

Remember those Russiagate stories about Putin’s history of using sexual blackmail? Few mentioned that his most famous caper of this type involved the protection of Yeltsin, by kneecapping Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov. The latter’s grossout prostitute romp was broadcast on TV by newly appointed FSB chief Putin after Skuratov took aim at the Yeltsin family’s acceptance of bribes and no-limit credit cards from the Swiss construction firm Mabetex. This was the case that involved Borodin. Putin would go on to help the whole Yeltsin clan slither out of Russia with their stolen millions.

The eXile, and the Russian-language paper Stringer where I worked, went after Putin from the moment he appeared in Moscow. We depicted him in covers as a leather dominatrix forcing Russia to kneel, while taking considerable risk in publishing — in what in hindsight was not the brightest move — transcripts of wiretaps we obtained of Putin’s vicious chief of staff Alexander Voloshin. We warned that Putin was becoming the Russian Michael Corleone, whose style was to “mix not-so-oblique public symbolism with energetic off-camera ruthlessness and violence,” using intimidation to settle all family business against the free press and “reformers.” We weren’t alone in the expat community. Bivens, by then editor of the Moscow Times, committed multiple reporters to a painstaking investigation of election irregularities in Dagestan suggesting Putin’s 2000 election was badly tainted. Few took up the story, except to report the Putin administration’s denials.

Instead, the West hailed the cleanliness of Putin’s 2000 election. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, one of the world’s primary election observers, said the “2000 presidential election represented a benchmark in the ongoing evolution of the Russian Federation’s emergence as a representative democracy.”

Harvard advisers Andrei Schleifer and Daniel Treisman as late as 2005 wrote a paper called A Normal Country: Russia After Communism that favorably contrasted the OSCE’s assessment of Russian democracy under Putin with that of its ex-Soviet neighbors like Georgia (“ballot stuffing and protocol tampering”), Azerbaijan (“primitive falsification”), and Ukraine (“flagrant violations of voting procedures” and a “widespread, systematic, and co-ordinated campaign by state institutions at all levels to unduly influence voters”). As noted in this space just last week, Bill Clinton upon Putin’s election praised Russians for “voting in extraordinary numbers against a return to the past,” adding that they’d “just completed a democratic transfer of power for the first time in a thousand years.”

From 1991 on, Russia developed a community of ferocious muckrakers who took on the mob state and risked their lives almost every time they published. I was in awe of these people and tagged along with them over the years, trying to soak up any knowledge they were willing to give. By 1999, their ranks had been diminished by assassinations, takeovers, and newspaper closures. Still, they were determined to make a stand against Putin before his rule was cemented. They dug in when the second Chechen War was re-ignited after a series of suspicious bombings of Russian residential buildings in late 1999 were attributed to Chechen terrorists.

A crack in the story developed when local police in the city of Ryazan, acting at cross-purposes with the new Putin government, tracked the source of an unexploded hexagen bomb found in the basement of a Ryazan building to Moscow-based FSB agents. The main oppositional paper, Novaya Gazeta, had multiple reporters on the story. I remember lunches where investigative reporters like Anna Politkovskaya, Oleg Luriye, and some of the Stringer reporters strategized how to report the affair. Anna ended up dead, Luriye was brutally attacked, and the NG offices in Ryazan were ransacked. Meanwhile, the Chechen campaign turned increasingly vicious, with Putin approving the use of “vacuum” bombs that devastated civilians. This “father of all bombs” is rumored to be ready for use against Ukraine, properly inspiring outcry — a CNN team claims to have just seen a device for launching them — but we didn’t hear many of those complaints back in 1999 and 2000.

In fact, even after the beginning of the second brutal Chechen campaign, and the beatings of Novaya Gazeta reporters, and the seizure of the Media-Most network (whose station NTV was the last regular source of opposition to Putin on broadcast TV), and the escape of Yeltsin with his nineties-era thefts, Putin was still gushed over.

A Canadian paper asked him during this time in a fawning piece how he felt about being considered the sexiest man in his country. Putin replied, in Caesarian tones, “I endure it.” People like current Canadian Finance Minister Freeland talked in the New Statesman about his presidency as a reason to fall back “in love” with Russia. A World Bank spokesperson initially hyped Russia as “substantially better off” with him in power, cheering the fact that he would be a bulwark against a “centrally planned economy.” The World Bank statement is useful to look at in retrospect. Addressing the moral issues of the Putin regime: "It is evidently true that any country’s economic process has to be rooted in its own values and systems. And that those values and systems in Russia itself are in transition. There has been a tendency at times in the West to see things in simple terms — sometimes in terms of standards that Western countries don’t apply to themselves. That really comes back to what I said earlier — it’s going to be a messy process with setbacks as well as progress."

The West, in other words, was willing to overlook the “messiness” of Putin because he seemed a good candidate to be the silnaya ruka (strong hand) guaranteeing stability of trade the comatose Yeltsin never quite could be.

We thought he would be our bastard. Then, he became his own bastard.

Putin first insisted on kicking American advisers out of the Kremlin. Later, he booted from Russia organizations like USAID, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, claiming these organizations existed to meddle in elections and “stir up revolution.” These decisions magically transformed him from “intelligent, strong leader” leader as Tony Blair called him into an anti-West bogey man of the Noriega and Saddam Hussein type, i.e. a former client elevated to supervillain status. All of this history has been whitewashed.

In 2000 Putin began the process of re-writing the terms of the privatization arrangement brokered at Davos in 1996. It was the same deal, with one important change. Putin would allow the ex-Soviet crooks and Komsomoltsi who’d been gifted wealth beyond the dreams of even the richest Americans and Europeans to keep their ill-gotten gains, in exchange for absolute allegiance to him and a promise to get out of politics. “I want to draw your attention to the fact that you built this state yourself, to a great degree through the political or semi-political structures under your control,’’ Putin reportedly said. “So there is no point in blaming the reflection in the mirror.”

Nikita Khrushchev returned from America so impressed he turned Ukraine into a cornfield. Putin never thought much of us and was not interested in living like Yeltsin, hated at home, his political life hanging by the thread of IMF loans. Like Chinese counterparts, he burned to throw off the stink of colonial servitude and be a superpower rather than depend on one. After Chechnya, Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Crimea, I’m embarrassed I didn’t see him going this far, but the story itself isn’t surprising.

Whether or not expanding or not expanding NATO to Ukraine would have altered the current picture is irrelevant. We were never not going to try, and Putin was never not going to respond as he has. He’s been saying for a long time he would not accept a post-Cold War security arrangement that meant “one single center of force, one single center of decision making,” bemoaning the “world of one master, one sovereign” and America’s “almost contained hyper use of force in international relations.” When the United States recognized independent Kosovo, he said it was a “terrible precedent” that would hit the West “in the face” and “blow apart the whole system of international relations.” This seems to be more or less exactly where we are.

Not unlike Donald Trump, Putin made a wager early on that his country would fare better taking the nationalist path than it would as a vassal state to a global economic system he believed was declining. Now that he’s made such a dramatic commitment in that direction, his story is destined for the same treatment in the Western press as Trump’s election, as an unspeakable evil whose origins are a taboo subject. Anyone who even brings them up must be an apologist. What sort of person cares from whose womb the devil emerged?

Condoleezza Rice was on Fox Sunday, where host Harris Faulkner asked her to comment on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, saying, “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.” Rice answered with a straight face: “It is certainly against every principle of international law and international order.” This dovetailed with Mitt Romney saying Putin’s invasion is “the first time in 80 years a great power has moved to conquer a sovereign nation,” and EC chief Ursula von der Leyen claiming Putin has “brought war back to Europe,” as if a whole range of events from Iraq to Afghanistan to Kosovo never took place.

If you’re wondering why the levels of media insanity in response to Putin’s attack have been cranked up to levels never before seen on the Internet — “as if there had been Twitter on 9/11” is how one reporter friend put it — it’s not just because Putin’s act in isolation is horrible, and barbaric, and a tragedy for Ukraine and the region. It’s also because the event creates a massive propaganda imperative. Even though the pre-emptive war pretext Putin invoked was identical to the one Rice, her boss George Bush, and current media hero David Frum deployed to attack Iraq, there will be an effort now to hammer home with younger audiences especially that Putin’s war is the first violent break of the international order since the Sudetenland. For people like Rice and Frum, Ukraine is a ticket to absolution.

We’re watching a clash of civilizations, in which the international order needs to see its most infamous apostate, and the nationalism he represents, crushed both as an idea and as a military power. The situation is particularly dangerous because Putin has always operated on the understanding that the only political error that is not survivable is a show of weakness. Which means, to me, that if he has to turn Kyiv into a vacuum-bombed moonscape like Grozny, he will. It’s horrific to contemplate. But to those demanding another denunciation of the man, I checked that box a long time ago, during the Frankensteinian portion of this story, when America had its best shot at fixing its Putin problem and chose not to try. We’re past all that now. All that’s left to do is hold on, and pray all of this madness cools somehow, before someone dusts off the button.

JAMES STEWART talks to his father outside of the family business after James returned home from the war. Indiana, 1945.

COLLUSION

Dear Editor,

You shouldn’t be so dismissive of the “collusion” thing.

Why would Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, give proprietary polling data to the Russians? More than once! Why would the Russians want it?

Isn’t that the sort of cooperation we think of as collusion?

You should read the Mueller report, at least the first part. It’ll give you a better perspective on the extent of the Russian effort to help Trump. (Hint: it wasn’t small).

I don’t get why you are so set against the possibility. It seems pretty obvious.

Douglas George

Eureka

ED REPLY: Putin accurately sized up Trump as the weak and highly manipulable windbag he is, but my point is that the Democrats and their media bullhorns at MSNBC and CNN and the NYT made it seem as if Trump was a satellite of Russia, devoting thousands of hours and reams of print to this false accusation. Putin wanted Trump because he knew he could manipulate him, made a big effort on social media to get him elected, and he was elected, and will probably be re-elected because the Democrats gave us the weakest, least credible president since, well, Trump, and have no one to oppose the return of Trump in ‘24, assuming, of course, there is a ‘24 given the present nuclear saber-rattling.

PARACHUTE ALL THESE PEOPLE INTO KIEV

Senate Majority Leader Mike McGuire and a broad, bipartisan coalition of California State Legislators will be introducing legislation to divest state public funds from Russia and Russian-state entities following the unprovoked war against Ukraine.

While the Federal Government has taken swift and aggressive action advancing unprecedented sanctions against Russia and its leaders, California is the world’s fifth largest economy and enhanced action taken by the State could help the people of Ukraine by putting additional financial pressure on the already beaten-up Russian economy.

“The world is watching the atrocities taking place in Ukraine. It’s sickening,” Senator Mike McGuire said. “We must stand strong for the people of Ukraine. That’s why we all must mobilize to stop Russia in its tracks. California has unique and remarkable economic power in this circumstance. As the fifth largest economy in the world, we must use this power for good. We can help stop this autocratic thug, Putin, by advancing this critical legislation and enacting our own financial divestments.”

Senate Majority Leader McGuire and the legislative coalition will be advancing a bill that will call on all state agencies, including the Golden State’s massive pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, to divest from any and all Russian assets immediately.

It’s believed California has Russian investments exceeding over $1 billion, primarily in its pension funds. At this point there can be no excuse to invest in and support Putin, his oligarchs, and the Russian economy.

Russia’s economy, not even in the top 10 of world economies, is one of their big pressure points and California should use its power to exert influence where it can.

The delegation will also ask private companies based in California to divest their investments in the Russian economy. In addition, the legislation would block the awarding of state contracts to any company that is conducting business with Russia.

This bill is supported by a broad and growing bipartisan coalition of Senators and Assemblymembers, including: Senators Susan Eggman, Scott Wiener, Dave Cortese, Bill Dodd, Tom Umberg, and Susan Rubio; and Assemblymembers Kevin Mullin, Suzette Martinez Valladares, Jesse Gabriel, Evan Low, Phil Ting, Jim Wood, Marc Berman, Chad Mayes, Jordan Cunningham, Cristina Garcia, Laurie Davies, Cottie Petrie-Norris, Randy Voepel, and Miguel Santiago.

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Susan Eggman said: “Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine is a threat to democratic freedoms and global stability. The loss of life to satisfy the ego of a fragile tyrant is unconscionable and there must be consequences. This legislation builds upon the strong economic sanctions being pursued by the Biden Administration and our allies.”

Assembly Speaker pro Tempore Kevin Mullin said: “As the fifth largest economy in the world, California cannot stand on the sidelines while this rise of authoritarianism threatens democracy and freedom around the globe. The aggression of Vladimir Putin against Ukraine demands severe sanctions and I am in full support of California taking aggressive steps to divest from Russian assets and financial institutions. I am proud to co-author this legislation and the significant message it conveys.”

Chair of the Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee Senator Dave Cortese said: “As a state, it is our responsibility to ensure we are not fueling this global crisis that has caused tremendous human suffering. I hope that other governments follow California’s lead in standing for peace and taking swift action against this unjustified attack on Ukraine.”

Senator Scott Wiener said: “Putin is a brutal fascist dictator. His attempted conquest of Ukraine is an extreme violation of international law and is creating a humanitarian disaster. We must not allow this destructive invasion — which will have long-term consequences for peace and security in Europe — to stand. California should not in any way support Putin’s corrupt oligarchy. We must divest now.”

Senator Bill Dodd said: “California stands with the Ukrainian people. It gives me no joy to sanction Russia, but the terrible invasion and murder of Ukrainian civilians by Vladimir Putin demand it. I call on other states and businesses follow suit – we must hold Russia accountable and help our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.”

Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares said: “Like Californians across the state, I am disgusted by Putin’s thuggish and unlawful invasion of Ukraine. I’m proud to co-author this bill, which will leverage California’s economic strength to put significant pressure on Russia and support our friends in Ukraine. California’s state agencies and public pensions cannot help fund a dictator’s attempts to take over sovereign nations.”

Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham said: “An unprovoked and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation is grounds for divestment. California must stand with the people of Ukraine.”

Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel said: “As the world’s fifth largest economy and home to many of the world’s most iconic companies, California is perfectly positioned to inflict tremendous economic pain on the Putin regime. Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked attack on Ukraine demands a swift and severe response. This legislation makes clear that California will use its full economic and political power to reinforce U.S. and international sanctions, and that the Golden State will stand proudly with our international partners and the Ukrainian people at this difficult moment.”

MARCH IS WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

On March 1, 2022, The Mendocino Board of Supervisors will proclaim March is Women’s History Month in Mendocino County. The Proclamation will be on the Consent Calendar.

The Women’s History banner will fly over State St. for the first week in March.

Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition and the Ukiah AAUW celebrate the 38th Annual Women’s History Gala on Sunday, March 20, 2022 at the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse. The doors open at noon. The program is 1 -3 pm. This year’s theme is "Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope". The program includes music, spoken word and honoring local women who are selected this year.

Val Muchowski

MWPC Chair

https://mendocinowomen.org

COAST DEMOCRATIC CLUB Meeting Mar 3 - Local Elections 2022: Transformation And Crises

Pandemic + Healthcare + Drought + Fire + Jobs + Housing + Insurance + Inflation

Join A Discussion With County Supervisor Ted Williams

March 3, 2022 At 6 Pm On Zoom

Can Progressive Politics Prevail In Mendocino?

- What Do We Need?

- What Do We Want?

- What Can We Do?

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7076840646?pwd=Szl1QW8zUGN2dGY2SG9uaVVTWnNRdz09

Meeting ID: 707 684 0646

Passcode: Smile

One tap mobile: +16699009128,,7076840646#,,,,878873# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location: +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)

Meeting ID: 707 684 0646

Passcode: 878873

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdDd0nk3HN

Please Join Or Renew Your Membership By March 15, 2022 on our website: www.coastdemocraticclub.org or mail to PO Box 592, Fort Bragg, CA 95437-0592

You must be a Club member to vote for candidate endorsements at the April APRIL 7 Club Meeting

Studebaker Converted to Rail "Locomotive", 1919

MCP WEEKLY MEETING FOLLOW UP & FRIDAY’S AGENDA

Greetings,

We would like to thank those of you who joined us Friday for our second weekly MCP meeting. For those of you who were unable to attend, you may view the meeting at the Mendocino County YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K42EwGH-PR0

Our next weekly MCP meeting will take place on March 4, 2022 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. (PST) and will cover the following topics:

Program Updates
CEQA
Appendix G
Future Agenda Items

Meeting invitation details

Please click the link below to join the webinar: https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/87694156954

If you would prefer to call in please use one of the following numbers and meeting code listed below (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): 1-669-900-9128 (San Jose)

Webinar ID: 876 9415 6954

Sincerely,

MCP Staff

A GOOD DAY TO DIE: DOOM FOR THE DINOSAURS CAME IN SPRINGTIME

by Will Dunham

On a spring day 66 million years ago, paddlefish and sturgeon swam in a river that meandered through a flourishing landscape populated by mighty dinosaurs and small mammals at North Dakota's southwestern corner. Death came from above that day.

Scientists said on Wednesday well-preserved fish fossils unearthed at the site are providing a deeper understanding of one of the worst days in the history of life on Earth and shedding light on the global calamity triggered by an asteroid 7.5 miles (12 km) wide striking Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The ensuing mass extinction erased about three-quarters of Earth's species, including the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period, paving the way for mammals - eventually including humans - to become dominant.

The researchers determined that it was springtime at the fossil site called the Tanis deposit - and throughout the northern hemisphere, including the spot where the asteroid hit - based on sophisticated examinations of bones from three paddlefishes and three sturgeons that died within about 30 minutes of the impact that occurred 2,200 miles (3500 km) away.

They found evidence that a hail of glass pelted the site, finding small spherules - molten material blasted by the impact into space that crystallized before falling back to Earth - embedded in fish gills. The Tanis fossils also indicated that a huge standing wave of water swept through after the impact, burying the local denizens alive. Among the dinosaurs living in the Tanis area was apex predator Tyrannosaurus rex.

"Every living thing in Tanis on that day saw nothing coming and was killed almost instantaneously," said Melanie During, a paleontology doctoral student at Uppsala University in Sweden and lead author of the research published in the journal Nature.

During compared the fossils deposited at Tanis to "a car crash frozen in place."

Multiple lines of evidence pointed to a springtime impact.

Annual growth rings in certain fish bones - resembling those in tree trunks - showed increased growth levels associated with springtime after reduced growth in leaner winter months. Chemical evidence from one of the paddlefishes indicated that food availability was increasing as it does in springtime, but not at peak summer levels.

Springtime marks a time of growth and reproduction for many organisms.

"This season is crucial for the survival of species," said study co-author Sophie Sanchez, an Uppsala University senior lecturer in palaeohistology.

In the southern hemisphere, it was autumn at the time, Sanchez noted, a season when many creatures prepare for the deprivations of winter.

Dinosaurs - aside from their bird descendants - went extinct, as did major marine groups, including the carnivorous reptiles that dominated the seas. Among the survivors were paddlefishes and sturgeons, which survive to this day.

The Tanis fossils helped the researchers better understand the events following the impact, which left a crater about 110 miles (180 km) wide at a Yucatan site called Chicxulub.

The asteroid rocked the continental plate, generated earthquakes, sparked extensive wildfires, unleashed a massive shockwave in the air and seismic waves on the ground, and spawned massive standing waves called seiche waves - perhaps hundreds of yards tall - in water bodies.

These waves, carrying immense amounts of sediment and debris, inundated the Tanis site within approximately 15 to 30 minutes after the impact, burying alive all the inhabitants, including the fish whose fossils were studied.

The peril did not end that day. A cloud of dust enrobed Earth, precipitating a climate catastrophe akin to a "nuclear winter" that blocked sunlight for perhaps years, condemning countless species to oblivion.

"Although most of the extinction unfolded during the aftermath of the impact, which lasted much longer, zero hour - the exact timing of the impact - determined the course of the mass extinction," said study co-author Jeroen van der Lubbe, a geochemist and paleoclimatologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

(Reuters)

13 Comments

Harvey Reading March 1, 2022

BIDEN’S REASSURANCE

Biden is dumb as a log. His “reassurance” is just more BS propaganda, along with what the nooze media peddles on behalf of the robber barons. If this BS turns nuclear, there aint gonna no place to hide, and the planet, such as it will be, will be free of predatory monkeys.

Harvey Reading March 1, 2022

PARACHUTE ALL THESE PEOPLE INTO KIEV

Typical “patriotic” bull. The wounded elephant of the evil empire strikes out at the other evil empire, full of self-entitlement. This whole business is sickening. The US has been invading other countries for decades, based entirely on lies, yet we have the gall to act as innocent defenders of what passes for freedom when someone else takes similar action. A sadder bunch of fools never existed.

Harvey Reading March 1, 2022

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/01/caitlin-johnstone-the-single-most-important-question-in-the-world-right-now/

A little dose of reality for you patriots.

Ron Hock March 1, 2022

The Mueller Report: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-searchable.pdf — all 448 pages of it for download.

Bill Pilgrim March 1, 2022

“History will show that Washington’s treatment of Russia in the decades following the demise of the Soviet Union was a policy blunder of epic proportions. It was entirely predictable that Nato expansion would ultimately lead to a tragic, perhaps violent, breach of relations with Moscow. Perceptive analysts warned of the likely consequences, but those warnings went unheeded. We are now paying the price for the US foreign policy establishment’s myopia and arrogance.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/nato-expansion-war-russia-ukraine
And this is from a western mainstream publication. A little light breaks through.

- George Dorner March 1, 2022
  
  A British newspaper.
  
  - Harvey Reading March 1, 2022
    
    Brilliant observation. So what?
    
Craig Stehr March 1, 2022

Warmest spiritual greetings, Please know that I have received a heart pacemaker, due to an advanced level 2 blockage. Was discharged from Adventist Hospital in Ukiah last night. Today am interviewing with Building Bridges to get a shelter bed. Am looking forward to working with Redwood Community Services ongoing, in order to address my homelessness. Thanking everybody for your friendship.

Craig Louis Stehr
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
PayPal.me/craiglouisstehr
March 1, 2022

Jim Armstrong March 1, 2022

A bit of an overwhelming AVA MCT today.

Marmon March 1, 2022

RE: UKRAINE SUPPORT

To show my support for Ukraine today I downloaded the Grammarly app this morning. It might come in useful someday.

Grammarly is a Ukrainian American-headquartered cross-platform cloud-based typing assistant that reviews spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes. It uses AI to identify and search for an appropriate replacement for the error it locates.

Marmon

- chuck dunbar March 2, 2022
  
  Not funny in any way, James.
  
  - Marmon March 2, 2022
    
    The U.S.-NATO-Russia-Ukraine crisis could be resolved by a grand bargain among the parties that defines Ukraine as a neutral state. Finland is a good example.
    
    Marmon
    
- Harvey Reading March 2, 2022
  
  How do they keep it from falling through the clouds?

Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, March 1, 2022

13 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply