Mendocino County Today: Saturday, March 26, 2022

Warm Afternoon | 5 New Cases | Ukraine Update | Pictures Taken | Summer Dread | Camp Detritus | Revisiting Kemper | Skate Day | Fire Starters | Missing Person | Public Bank | Sun Shades | Police Reports | Yesterday's Catch | Endless War | Oscar Buckholtz | Yellow Submarine | MHS Orchestra | Stuff Happens | Albright Obit | Trial Experience | Frog Survey | LR Pier | Instant Dislike | feMale Swimmer | Open Mike | Marco Radio | Myosotis | Emotional Courage | Confirmation Clowns | US Disinformation | Covid Decorations

ANOTHER AFTERNOON OF ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES is forecast to occur across interior valleys today. Temperatures will then trend toward cooler and more seasonable values Sunday and Monday. Otherwise, a period of gusty south winds will impact portions of Mendocino and Lake Counties Sunday afternoon and evening. In addition, showers are forecast to spread across the region Sunday evening through Monday. Dry weather will then become probable Tuesday through much of next week. (NWS)

5 NEW COVID CASES reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

UKRAINE UPDATE, DAY 31

A top Russian general said on Friday that the "first stage" of Russia’s military plan is complete, with their primary focus now centered on eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's forces have retaken towns and defensive positions on Kyiv's eastern outskirts, according to the UK defense ministry, with a Ukrainian official saying forces are "going on the counterattack" around the capital.

About 300 people are now believed to have died in the attack on a theater in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol nine days ago, the city council said.

On a visit to Poland, US President Joe Biden thanked humanitarian organizations for sending aid to Ukraine and assisting refugees. The UN says more than 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia's invasion began.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia has lost more than 16,000 troops so far. 

“The number of the Russian losses has exceeded 16,000 casualties,” Zelensky said in a video message posted to social media on Friday. “Among them are the high-ranking commanders. So far no reports of killed Russian general colonels or admirals. However, in that number we have a commander of one of the occupiers' armies and a second in command of the Black Sea Navy.”

CNN cannot independently verify Zelensky’s claims.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a briefing Friday that 1,351 military personnel had been killed in Ukraine and 3,825 had been wounded, during the first major casualty update since March 2. 

Meanwhile, two senior NATO military officials on Wednesday estimated the number of Russian soldiers killed in action in Ukraine to be between 7,000 and 15,000. Other US officials have put Russian losses in a similar range — between 7,000 and 14,000 Russian soldiers killed — but they have expressed “low confidence” in those estimates.

The Ukrainian president on Friday also said authorities were able to ensure 18 humanitarian corridors over the past week and managed to rescue 37,606 people including 26,477 from the besieged city of Mariupol who were taken to Zaporizhzhia.

“All of these war crimes against the civilians in Mariupol and other cities of Ukraine will continue informing nations of the world,” Zelensky said.

The city of Kherson remains under total Russian control, four residents of the city told CNN, contrary to number of reports from other media outlets, citing a senior US defense official.

"Today [I] saw them with their guns at the market, possibly searching vegetables for buying," one resident said to CNN on Friday evening. "They lose only couple of villages, not towns."

CNN is not naming the resident over concerns for their security. 

The US official told the outlets, including CNN, that "we’ve seen reports of resistance there in areas that were previously reported to be in Russian control."

"We can’t corroborate exactly who is in control of Kherson, but the point is, it doesn’t appear to be as solidly in Russian control as it was before," the official said. "We would argue that Kherson is actually contested territory again."

The assessment that the city of Kherson was contested was based in part on images and media reports from the city showing the Ukrainian flag draped from city hall, according to two other defense officials.

Previous CNN reporting confirmed that the Ukrainian military counteroffensive has reached the Kherson region's northernmost villages. A CNN crew in one of the northernmost villages in the Kherson region, earlier this week, witnessed the Ukrainian counteroffensive there. 

Despite that, in the city of Kherson, the situation is unchanged. 

Ukrainian forces have been able to launch attacks from the Mykolaiv region just to the north, into Kherson region, for over a week. While the residents of the city continue to hold large protests, the Russians remain firmly in control of it and much of the region at this time.

For example, residents in town draped a large Ukrainian flag on Thursday down the side of city hall.

(CNN.com)

LAKE COUNTY. National Weather Service says since Jan. 1, we have had only .78 of an inch. All the weeds in my yard are mostly brown and dead. Lots of green grasses out there to burn thanks to heavy rain in October and I'm worried about this summer. Clear Lake is only a half an inch above zero incoming. Rumsey at zero, meaning no water can leave the lake. Very few boat launches open, if any.

JOHN McCOWEN: If we're serious about helping people graduate from homelessness, in addition to providing services, we will adopt a zero tolerance approach to encampments, as recommended by the Marbut Report. Turning a blind eye to homeless encampments is harmful to the environment, the community and the people who live in them.

THE CORRUPTION BEHIND THE ORTNER DEPOSITION

by Mark Scaramella

A few months before Ortner’s three year contract ended by simple non-renewal of their contract options in June of 2016, the County hired well-respected Mental Health Services consultant Lee Kemper to review the County’s privatization deal. Ortner’s contract was not terminated because of any allegation of breach of contract. To most of the public the contract was allowed to expire because cops and emergency room doctors were unhappy with Ortner’s services, chiefly long response times.

After watching the sad zoom deposition of the two Ortner executives last Monday, we revisited Kemper’s Feb. 2016 “Review of Mendocino County’s Administrative Service Organization Model for the Delivery of Mental Health Services” — more than six years old in light of the pending audit exceptions that the County now faces which could translate into millions of dollars of mental health services reimbursements being taken from the County’s general fund for unsubstantiated claims filed since Ortner first got the privatized services contract in 2013.

Hindsight lends a new perspective on what Kemper said about how Ortner got the contract and how they were administered by county staff — especially one Mr. Tom Pinizotto, a former Ortner executive who was Mental Health Director for most of that time.

Here are a few [annotated] observations consultant Lee Kemper made in his February 2016 review:

“Insufficient attention was given by other County leadership, including the HHSA Director, County Counsel, County Executive and the Board of Supervisors, to the significance of the ASO Contract ‘gaps,’ most specifically the following:

• Lack of clearly defined ASO Contract deliverables, notably the lack of a formal ‘Program Implementation Plan’ from each ASO to be approved by BHRS/BH. 

• Lack of specified ASO service delivery goals, objectives, timelines, and performance metrics. 

• Unclear structure for receipt of defined data and other reporting by ASOs.

• Lack of specified fiscal, programmatic or other penalties for subpar ASO performance.”

* * *

The idea of privatizing mental health services was novel and unique at the time Mendo took the plunge, primarily at the direction of then-CEO Carmel Angelo was had been on record being upset about previous “audit exceptions” imposed by the state because Mendo’s billing practices and supporting documentation was declared inadequate. So you’d expect that Mendo would take extra care to oversee this particularly privatization experiment.

Kemper: “Because of the weaknesses in the ASO Contract we have identified above, both ASOs have substantial authority to make decisions about mental health service delivery to children and adults in Mendocino County but their accountability to BHRS/MH [the Mental Health department], and thus to Mendocino County, for the outcomes of their performance or lack of performance is limited.” 

“From our Key Informant interviews, we learned that that were different perspectives among county staff and management about the County’s role in a ASO contracting model. One view, held by the former BHRS/MH Director [Former Ortner executive Tom Pinizotto], focused on maximum delegation to the ASOs. A second view, held primarily by HHSA fiscal staff, focused on establishing defined parameters for ASO Contract monitoring to prevent the potential for future Medi-Cal and other audit exceptions [our emphasis] and to hold the ASOs accountable for defined service delivery standards. Of the two approaches, the requirements set forth in the ASO Contract lean toward maximum delegation to the ASOs

So despite Mendo’s stated intention to minimize audit exceptions, the contract “leaned toward” turning everything over to Ortner and RQMC.

* * *

Kemper: “It is important to note that the ASO Contracts do require the ASOs to assume financial responsibility for any federal financial audit exceptions with their management of the care delivered, and the ASOs have in turn passed on this liability to their contracting service providers. [Our emphasis.] However, the relative ability of BHRS/MH to enforce these provisions is unknown. [I.e., non -existent.] The practical reality is that both ASOs are legally constructed entities, each with for-profit and not-for profit components. Whether or not either ASO would assume responsibility for and repay a federal financial disallowance will ultimately depend on the audit findings [now more than six years later]; each ASO’s overall financial strength [Ortner folded in 2018, not long after Mendo’s contract with them ended.]; the ASO’s levels of applicable professional liability insurance and errors and omissions insurance [not applicable to a company that no longer exists]; and, the ASO’s willingness to make payment without legal dispute.”

Translation: Even if the County had tried to make the contractor(s) — Ortner Management Group or Redwood Quality Management Company — liable for audit exceptions which Mendo was clearly worried about, the likelihood of ever collecting from the contractors was nil and Mendo would be on the hook. 

Kemper: “In our opinion, the Board of Supervisors should not have approved [our emphasis] the ASO Contracts in the form brought to the Board because of the lack of a clear BHRS/MH approval and oversight role and ASO accountability mechanism in the Scope of Work contained in the contracts. 

“Accountability”? We’re all friends here; we don’t do accountability in cozy Mendocino County. In fact, as we will see below, Mendo doesn’t even like being asked for accountability.

Kemper: “Further, we believe other county officials, including the former BHRS/MH Director [Tom Pinizotto], HHSA Director [Tammy Moss Chandler], County Counsel [Tom Parker], and County Executive [Carmel Angelo] should have assured the ASO Contracts included these key provisions prior to submission to the Board for approval.” 

“A key problem during implementation was the lack of a clearly defined county staffing structure to oversee and manage the ASO Contracts. For example, below the Mental Health Director [Tom Pinizotto] there was no clearly identified ‘Contract Manager’ or ‘Contract Implementation Manager’ to oversee ASO Contract implementation. [Despite the fact that the contract was experimental and had never been tried anywhere else in California.] While HHSA fiscal staff had oversight responsibility for other contracts (i.e., tracking to assure deliverables are submitted on time and appropriate fiscal claiming) and the BHRS/MH Program Division [Tom Pinizotto] was charged with overseeing clinical program requirements associated with the ASO Contracts, the fiscal staff’s role with the ASO Contract management was less clearly defined. [I.e., not defined.] As a consequence, when these staff tried to carry out contract oversight, such as setting requirements for opening paperwork for a case, Treatment Authorizations, or data reporting, the ASOs [Ortner and RQMC] would appeal directly to the former Director [former Ortner Exec Tom Pinizotto], who would then make decisions on a case-by-case basis he determined were necessary at the time to facilitate implementation of each ASO system. Ultimately, the former Director [Tom Pinizotto] became the de-facto ASO Contract Manager, managing day-to-day contract issues [with his former employer] that should have been managed at a lower staff level with a designated Contract Manager.” 

The AVA was the only place in the entire County complaining about the untoward arrangement with Mr. Pinizotto at the time, both when he was first hired as a suspicious consultant with a clear intent to privatize and later with his clear bias in favor of Ortner, even though Ortner had no qualifications or experience managing or administering such a large and important program.

Kemper: “In addition, in our review and discussions with the former Director [Tom Pinizotto], we found little documentation of his [Pinizotto’s] decisions as de-facto ASO Contract Manager. County staff reported that the former Director [Pinizotto] was regularly pressured by both ASOs to overturn or relax requirements county staff had sought to impose on the ASOs, although the dynamic was reported to be more frequent with OMG [Pinizotto’s former employer]. 

“…the former Director [Tom Pinizotto] served on the review panel selecting the ASOs [Ortner and RQMC] to serve Mendocino County. While his background and knowledge of OMG could potentially be considered an asset, it could also be a potential detriment because of the appearance [sic] of bias based on the Director’s [Pinizotto’s] prior working relationship with OMG. In our opinion, the Director [Pinizotto] should never have served on the selection panel and the HHSA Director [Moss Chandler], County Executive [Angelo], and County Counsel [Parker] erred in permitting his involvement, specifically because of the importance of avoiding the appearance of any conflict.”

This is the mildest form this criticism of Mendo’s/CEO Angelo’s obviously corrupt structure could possibly take. Yet, when told of the “appearance of a conflict of interest” problem by the Grand Jury, the Board of Supervisors angrily dismissed the GJ’s report, complained that the GJ was outtaline, and insisted that nothing overtly illegal had occurred. 

Replying to the Grand Jury’s 2014 report entitled “An Appearance of a Conflict of Interest,” the Supervisors grumbled:

“The Board of Supervisors believes this Grand Jury report was written in a way that unfairly impugns the integrity of an individual [Pinizotto] and the [CEO Angelo’s] process for awarding contracts for mental health services. The report found no evidence that any individual had an actual conflict of interest, profited personally, committed any illegal actions, or exercised undue influence concerning the process for awarding the contracts in question.”

Supervisor Dan Hamburg, commented, “It’s pretty obvious that there’s a huge disconnect between the Grand Jury and this board. What is the Grand Jury really up to? I really have to shake my head?”

“I agree,” chipped in Supervisor John McCowen who drafted the memo denouncing the Grand Jury. “The memo is intended to ask the Grand Jury to take a look at what they are doing and why.”

https://theava.com/archives/34854

As Ortner’s attorney Mr. Signorotti said at one point during last Monday’s deposition, the Supervisors’ response “Misstates the testimony” of the Grand Jury.

The Supervisors felt fine complaining about the Grand Jury in 2014 instead of dealing with the problem the Grand Jury was trying to point out. But even after Kemper confirmed and expanded the Grand Jury’s findings just over a year later, Mendo did nothing about it.

Kemper: “…the lack of county organizational infrastructure for ASO Contract management and the former Director’s [Pinizotto’s] assumed role as de-facto ASO Contract Manager – in combination with a lack of documentation of the former Director’s decision process concerning ASO implementation – resulted in a lack of transparency about the BHRS/MH decision process that left the former Director [Pinizotto] open to the charge of playing favorites and being biased in favor of OMG.”

“Open to the charge”? We made the charge at the time to no avail. Of course Pinizotto played favorites with Ortner and as obvious as this was to Kemper and everybody else involved, nobody in County officialdom cared. 

Kemper: “Several Key Informants reported that the former Director [Pinizotto] lacked the ability to clearly and effectively communicate his reasoning and decision-making to county staff, other county officials, including the courts, and the larger community on various matters pertaining to the ASO arrangement and specifically with regard to his decisions associated with [his former employer] OMG. As a consequence, the former Director’s [Pinizotto’s] communications were widely viewed by community members as vague, lacking transparency, and biased in favor of OMG.” 

In other words Pinizotto let OMG do whatever they wanted and despite everyone involved complaining about it, Angelo and her captive Board (none of whom are current supervisors) didn’t care.

Kemper: “Several Key Informants reported that the advent of the ASO concept, which called for contracting out the delivery of mental health services, brought a certain degree of animosity to the former Director [Pinizotto] from some county staff and community members because of his prior role in laying-off county mental health staff [with the approval if not urging of CEO Angelo and with his pre-existing bias in favor of Ortner]. This residual animosity may have played into an argument that the former Director [Pinizotto] had underlying intentions regarding OMG, his former employer, and their selection as the ASO for the adult system.”

“Underlying intentions”? What could they have been? The implication is that he “intended” to see that Ortner didn’t have to spend any more money on services than the bare minimum.

“OMG [Ortner] committed to using local service providers wherever possible, of which there were relatively few, and those that existed were not Medi-Cal certified and needed to be trained to provide appropriate and allowable services; document the services in accordance with Medi-Cal rules; and, submit billings to OMG for submission to the County for billing. There was a learning curve for these contracted providers, which was actively supported through continued OMG training.”

But last Monday, Ortner said they didn’t do billing so they probably couldn’t do much training. They just submitted hard-copy paperwork from their local subcontractors and let Mendo staffers figure out the billing. And if a Mendo staffer didn’t like what they got from Ortner, Pinizotto was going to make sure Ortner was not pressured into providing more paper. Nobody trained anybody on anything, despite the fact that the stated “principle” purpose of privatizing mental health services was to minimize audit exceptions.

To make matters worse, Ortner got off to a bad start because Mendo didn’t provide them with much to begin with.

Kemper: “OMG representatives reported that 386 clients were initially identified by BHRS/MH for transfer to OMG, of which roughly 200 clients were further identified as bona-fide active clients (i.e., open and active cases, not just a case that was never closed). However, BHRS/MH provided few complete records for these 200 clients to OMG, which meant that OMG started with little base-line information on the existing adult client population. With insufficient records, OMG had to ‘play catch-up’ and build out client records before it could begin to conduct client service delivery. This added unanticipated time and duties at the front-end of OMG’s system development. County officials acknowledged their shortcomings in the hand-off of clients and client records to OMG.”

“County officials acknowledged their shortcomings”? Not that we or anybody else outside those “county officials” ever saw. 

Maybe a few of them privately confessed to Mr. Kemper. But nobody did anything to help. We recall that one of those “shortcomings” was the partial flood in the Mental Health offices caused by a leaky pipe which damaged a significant amount of County records in the mental health department pre-Ortner. Instead of helping to rebuild the records or deferring the contract until that problem could be mitigated, County management handed it over to Pinizotto and his pals at Ortner.

As one former HHSA staffer told us at the time, the whole Ortner arrangement was cooked up by the long-time cozy relationship between Camille Schraeder and CEO Carmel Angelo.

“The real conflict was in favor of Redwood Children's Services (RCS) who has successfully contracted for children's mental health services for at least a dozen years. RCS is run by Camille Schraeder who went through the foster child system herself. Despite her success with RCS she was reluctant to bid on the adult mental health services so she [Schraeder] brought in Ortner to make a joint bid. The way the bid was structured it wasn't a choice between Ortner and Optum [the other bidder for adult services], but between Ortner+RCS and Optum. There was no way to pick RCS without picking Ortner. And there was no way all the caring professionals, most of them fastened to the children like leeches, were going to stand by and let RCS go down the tubes.”

And now with all the top players in this smarmy affair gone, the County is left trying to pick up the pieces with state and federal auditors demanding substantiation for millions of dollars worth of “services” — substantiation that not only doesn’t exist but wasn’t required to be provided.

AUDIT: CALIFORNIA UTILITIES AREN’T DOING ENOUGH TO REDUCE WILDFIRE THREATS (CalMatters)

As record-breaking drought fuels another potentially dangerous wildfire season, the state auditor reported yesterday that state officials are failing to hold California’s electric utilities accountable for preventing fires caused by their equipment.…

lostcoastoutpost.com/2022/mar/25/audit-california-utilities-arent-doing-enough-to-r/

MISSING PERSON

The Santa Rosa Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in locating missing adult, John Richard Clay (44 years old). Mr. Clay was last seen on March 5, 2022 in the area of Montgomery Drive and Sotoyome St. Mr. Clay has an underlying injury that may cause him to be confused. His destination is unknown, and family has not heard from him since March 5, 2022.

He is described as a white male, standing 5 feet, nine inches, weighing 150 pounds, bald with blue eyes.

If located, please contact SRPD’s non-emergency dispatch at 707-528-5222.

Any inquiries may be forwarded to Sergeant Matt North at mnorth@srcity.org

LARRY SHEEHY: Mendocino County needs a Public Bank! Let's get on it Board of Supervisors! You now have inspiration from the Alameda County Supervisors who approved $75,000 to help Friends of the Public Bank East Bay (PBEB) for planning activities for the public bank business plan process needed to obtain a public bank charter. The group has completed the viability study required by California's Public Banking Act, the first stage in the process of applying for a public bank charter, and is now at work on the bank's business plan.

A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP.…

On Monday March 21, 2022 at approximately 7:50 AM, Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputies were dispatched to a welfare check at a residence on Burrows Ranch Road in Fort Bragg.

Deputies arrived and contacted a 56 year-old female, who had visible injuries on her body consistent with a physical assault.

Deputies learned the adult female was in a romantic relationship with John William Bills, 62, of Fort Bragg, who was also present at the location. Deputies determined a domestic violence incident had occurred and Bills was detained.

During this investigation, Deputies were alerted to the presence of and seized a semi-automatic rifle that Bills had unrestricted access to possessing.

Bills was found to be prohibited from possessing firearms, as he had a previous felony conviction out of Washington State. As a part of this conviction, Bills was also prohibited, by means of a Washington State Court Protective Order, from having any contacted with the adult female in this case.

Bills was arrested for Possession of Firearm by Convicted Felon, Felony Domestic Violence Battery, and Violation of Domestic Violence Protective Order.

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

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

DOPES WITH DOPE

On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at about 10:25 PM, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy noticed a vehicle parked along a group of mailboxes on Hearst Willits Road near Reynolds Highway in Willits.

Due to the time of night and recent mail thefts, the Deputy stopped to contact the occupants. As he pulled up the vehicle drove away. The Deputy followed the vehicle and noticed it made an abrupt turn into a driveway.

The Deputy stopped the vehicle and contacted the two occupants. The driver was identified as Liam Smith, 24, of Willits and the passenger was an adult female.

The Deputy learned the subjects did not live at the address they pulled into and did not know the residents. The Deputy conducted a records check on both subjects and found Smith was on probation with terms to obey all laws and submit to search.

A search of the vehicle was conducted. In a plastic container, with magnets attached to it, was suspected controlled substance, a digital scale, packaging material and other drug paraphernalia.

There was more drug paraphernalia located in the center console. Due to the evidence and the Deputy's training and experience, the controlled substance appeared to be possessed for sale.

Smith was arrested for possession of a controlled substance for sale, construction of a false compartment, and violation of probation.

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

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

HEY, THAT LOOKS LIKE…

On Wednesday, March 23, 2022 at about 6:55 PM, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy was on routine patrol in the 1400 block of Branscomb Road in Laytonville.

The Deputy recognized Kendra Stevenson, 26, of Laytonville, walking westbound along the roadway. The Deputy ran a records check on Stevenson and learned she had a felony warrant for her arrest for DUI causing injury.

Stevenson was contacted and arrested pursuant to the warrant. Stevenson was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where she was to be held in lieu of $50,000 bail.

CATCH OF THE DAY, March 25, 2022

NAU ALEJANDRES, Clearlake/Ukiah. Stolen vehicle, concealed firearm in vehicle with prior.

RAMON CORTES-GUTIERREZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

BHAKTI DILLENBECK, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol (Frequent flyer).

JULIUS GRUBER, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, transporting pot, probation revocation.

SHANNON HENSON, Willits. Probation revocation.

ANTHONY JONES, Willits. DUI, domestic battery. 

ANDREW RIFFLE, Fort Bragg. Attempted first-degree burglary, disorderly conduct-loitering, mail theft.

JANET TIREY, Willits. Domestic battery. 

FEDERICO TRUJILLO, Clearlake/Ukiah. County parole violation.

ERICA WILSON, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

UKRAINE COULD TURN INTO ANOTHER ENDLESS WAR, Especially If NATO Decides More Than Just Peace Is Needed

by Patrick Cockburn

People look at a map of Europe and express horror that a large part of it is once more in flames. Pundits point out with alarm that for the first time since 1945, one European country has invaded another and we are witnessing the first big military conflict on the continent since the Balkan wars in the 1990s, aside from some earlier fighting in the Ukraine itself.

But if we look at a larger map that includes not only Europe but the Middle East and North Africa, we get an entirely different impression because Ukraine is no longer a blood-soaked exception in a zone of peace. It is, on contrary, the new northern extension of a giant zone of war that has extended over the last twenty years east-west from Afghanistan to north-east Nigeria and north-south from Turkey to Somalia and Yemen.

Parallels are occasionally drawn between the Ukrainian war and a dozen or so conventional and guerrilla wars being fought out in this vast area of conflict to the south of Ukraine. When similarities between these conflicts are noted, it is usually on the grounds that Russian shelling and bombing of cities like Mariupol and Kharkiv is similar to that of Damascus and Aleppo by Russian-backed Syrian forces. This is true enough, but keep in mind that the bombardment of Gaza by Israel and Raqqa and Mosul by the Americans likewise led to massive physical destruction and heavy civilian loss of life.

But there is are other more ominous similarities between the war in Ukraine and the wars in the Middle East and North Africa. Most of the latter developed into stalemates with no final winner or loser, while the countries being fought over were wrecked from end to end. Ceaseless violence generated mass flight of the population, the ruin of the economy, and the disintegration of society.

The standard of living in Iraq was close to that of Greece in 1980, but had fallen to that of Mali forty years later. Skilled surgeons who had once worked in Baghdad or Damascus hospitals fled to California or New Zealand and were not coming back.

Could the same thing now happen in Ukraine? The war there has turned into a stalemate in a surprisingly short period and the result may be akin to that in the Middle East wars. The Russians have failed to destroy the Ukrainian government and army, take the cities or even encircle them, gain control of the air or stop Ukraine being resupplied with arms by foreign powers. It does not look as if Moscow can mobilise enough soldiers and equipment to recover from these setbacks.

But at the same time, Russia has not been militarily defeated and it can keep pounding Ukrainian cities into rubble even though it cannot easily capture them. It is unlikely to agree to serious peace talks until it has made some significant gains on the ground and these may be a long time coming. Already large parts of these Ukrainian cities look like opposition areas in Damascus and Fallujah west of Baghdad.

We live in what President Donald Trump called “the era of endless wars” and the Ukrainian conflict may prove as intractable as so many others. Russia has certainly failed in its objectives, but President Vladimir Putin has every reason not to admit defeat. For its part, Ukraine has survived but is still partly occupied by a powerful army that it is unlikely to evict. Both sides can still hope to improve their positions, though not to win.

An endless war in Ukraine is possible, but it will be dangerous and with the potential to escalate into an all-out conflict between Russia and Nato which might in turn escalate into a nuclear exchange. The likelihood of this occurring has increased for two reasons since the Russian invasion of 24 February. First, the Russian army has shown itself much weaker than anybody expected, increasing the chance of the Kremlin using tactical nuclear weapons to even the odds.

Second, Putin’s historic blunder in starting an unwinnable war in the first place shows that the Kremlin is a very poor judge of the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Equally important, the Kremlin wholly underestimated the furious reaction of the US and the rest of Europe to the invasion. The danger is that these serial misjudgments would in the future extend to the prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Western political leaders have so far tried to draw a firm dividing line between supporting Ukrainian resistance and direct confrontation with Russia through no fly zones. But the killing of Ukrainian civilians and destruction of their homes by Russian firepower shown every night on Western television will raise the pressure on politicians to do something about extending war aims from defending Ukraine to regime change in Moscow. This would guarantee a longer war with more blood spilt by the day and an ever-decreasing chance of a compromise peace. Russia has always said that would be justified in using nuclear weapons if there was a danger to the existence of the Russian state.

We may see a stalemate like in Syria, but a far more risky one. Many argue that the Kremlin would back down if faced with war with Nato. “What these arguments [for a stronger Western response] have in common,” says the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, “is an uncomfortable element of guesswork and wishful thinking.”

The lesson of the Middle East wars is that stalemates never last forever and when they do finally break, the violence is worse than ever.

YELLOW SUBMARINE

by Alex Abramovich

Bootlegged Beatles tapes began floating around the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s, but when a group of students gathered on Red Square to celebrate May Day 1967 by dancing the Twist, Khrushchev called the militsiya out to disperse them. Only in the 1970s did the Soviet establishment grudgingly recognize rock and roll as anything more than a “cacophony of sounds’. Under Communism, Russian rock bands were forced into two categories: “official” groups, who registered with the Ministry of Culture and were “urged to write and perform songs on topics such as space heroes or economic achievement’, and unrecognized “amateurs” who were scorned, scolded and threatened with jail for social parasitism.

"I called my band Aquarium,” Boris Grebenshikov said in 1986, “because here in the Soviet Union we are in a giant fishbowl. Since we can’t travel freely to other countries, we are like fish in a tank who swim up and press our noses against the glass, trying to see out at the rest of the world."

But when Grebenshikov compared himself to Andrei Makarevich, who sang for the officially sanctioned group Time Machine, it was without complaint. “They come over sometimes after their big concerts in the Palace of Culture,” Grebenshikov said. “Sitting around my kitchen, they play some of their best songs, songs they couldn’t play in public because the censors didn’t like them. When I play in public, even though I am broke and have an old guitar and lousy amps, everything I play is my best and from my heart. I am freer than Andrei, with his limousine and his prestige, and I prefer it this way."

At their worst, Aquarium and Time Machine both sounded less like rock outfits than pit bands in a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar. But there was a big difference in their attitudes. And in the music these groups were playing, attitude counted for everything. The members of Aquarium supported themselves as fruit-stand vendors and furnace-stokers while their more pliable comrades lived in lux apartments and enjoyed party-member privileges; that was a matter of attitude. The members of East Germany’s Klaus Renft Combo, or Czechoslovakia’s Plastic People of the Universe, endured arrest and imprisonment, and attitude is the reason their songs, which Renft described as weapons to “scratch at the marrow” of the regime, outlived those regimes.

I was three when my family left the USSR, in 1976. One of my earliest memories is saying goodbye to my relatives and my parent’s friends at Sheremetyevo Airport. We were convinced we never would see these people again. By the time Perestroika came around, my mother, her mother, my grandmother’s sister and many others had died. But my father and I returned, as soon as we were allowed to, at the end of 1988.

Russia didn’t exist yet; or rather, Russia still didn’t exist anymore. This was the Soviet Union, where trucks outnumbered cars and pensioners struggled through filthy snowdrifts with net sacks full of cabbages. Everything was either rust red or army green, as if those were the only two colors coming out of the paint factories. But, in a way, we were home, and we stayed in Moscow for as long as we could – two weeks or so, I think. I had just turned sixteen; old enough to be out on my own on New Year’s Eve, which I spent with the twin daughters of family friends.

They were older than me by a couple of years. They had dim memories of me as a small child. I had no memories of them, but they felt – and still feel – like my sisters. They took me to a friend’s apartment and we all ended up in the kitchen. Someone had brought a guitar and we drank and sang Beatles songs, which were the songs we all knew the words to. A little before midnight, we went out for a walk.

We ended up in Red Square, walking arm-in-arm to keep from slipping on the icy cobblestones. We seemed to have the whole place to ourselves, and started singing “Yellow Submarine’. Not at the top of our lungs, but not quietly. Two militsyonery appeared beside us. They slid their arms through ours. We kept singing, nervously now. As we came to the final chorus, the militsyonery added their voices to ours.

The Wall hadn’t come down yet – that was still ten months away – and I can’t speak for the friends I was with. (Maybe I misremember it myself, the rush of feeling that moment inspired.) We all knew the Soviet Union was untenable. But for all we imagined, it would keep on being untenable for a hundred years. Certainly, for decades. So this was my first sense that soon we would all travel freely and speak our own minds; that we were finally tumbling into the future instead of falling back, helplessly, into the past.

ONE REASON AMERICAN MOVIES ARE SO BAD these days is they have forgotten how to tell a story. Stuff just happens to characters. Cause, effect, and consequence no longer exist in the workshops of Hollywood. And one might sense that these imperatives are likewise missing from what used to be known as real life in the USA, with all its stories and narratives. Stuff just happens to the people in this country now. And then sometimes, stuff un-happens. 

— James Kunstler

THE TRIBUTES to former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who died this week at 84, are sickening to read. The lede for her obituary should read very simply: Chief architect of a sanction regime that killed 500,000 Iraqi children, whose deaths she said were “worth it.”

— Jeffrey St. Clair

A READER WRITES: The State of Tennessee Department of Fish and Wildlife sends a letter to a home/landowner asking for permission to access a creek on his property to document the decline in a certain species of unheard of frogs. The property owners' response in the second letter is EPIC.

* * *

Letter from TN Dept. Of Fish & Wildlife:

Dear Landowner: TWRA Staff will be conducting surveys for foothill yellow-legged frogs & other amphibians over the next few months. As part of this research we would like to survey the creek on your property. I am writing this letter to request your permission to access your property.

Recent research indicates that foothill yellow-legged frogs have declined significantly in recent years and are no longer found at half their historic sites. Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated and will help contribute to the conservation of this important species.

Please fill out the attached postage-paid postcard and let us know if you are willing to let us cross your property or not.

If you have any concerns about this project please give us a call. We would love to talk with you about our research.

Sincerely

Steve Niemela

Conservation Strategy Implementation Biologist

* * *

RESPONSE FROM LANDOWNERS:

Dear Mr. Niemela:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding accessing our property to survey for the yellow-legged frog. We may be able to help you out with this matter.

We have divided our 2.26 acres into 75 equal survey units with a draw tag for each unit. Application fees are only $8.00 per unit after you purchase the "Frog Survey License" ($120.00 resident / $180.00 Non-Resident). You will also need to obtain a "Frog Habitat" parking permit ($10.00 per vehicle).

You will also need an "Invasive Species" stamp ($15.00 for the first vehicle and $5.00 for each add'l vehicle) You will also want to register at the Check Station to have your vehicle inspected for Non-native plant life prior to entering our property. There is also a Day Use fee, $5.00 per vehicle.

If you are successful in the Draw you will be notified two weeks in advance so you can make necessary plans and purchase your "Creek Habitat" stamp. ($18.00 Resident / $140.00 Non-Resident).

Survey units open between 8 am. And 3 PM. But you cannot commence survey until 9 am. And must cease all survey activity by 1 PM.

Survey Gear can only include a net with a 2" diameter made of 100% organic cotton netting with no longer than an 18 in handle, non-weighted and no deeper than 6' from net frame to bottom of net. Handles can only be made of BPA-free plastics or wooden handles.

After 1 PM. You can use a net with a 3" diameter if you purchase the "Frog Net Endorsement" ($75.00 Resident / $250 Non-Resident).

Any frogs captured that are released will need to be released with an approved release device back into the environment unharmed.

As of June 1, we are offering draw tags for our "Premium Survey" units and application is again only $8.00 per application.

However, all fees can be waived if you can verify "Native Indian Tribal rights and status".

You will also need to provide evidence of successful completion of "Frog Surveys and You" comprehensive course on frog identification, safe handling practices, and self-defense strategies for frog attacks.

This course is offered on-line through an accredited program for a nominal fee of $750.00.

Please let us know if we can be of assistance to you. Otherwise, we decline your access to our property but appreciate your inquiry.

Sincerely,

Larry & Amanda Anderson

MATTHEW DOWD: “I will say this again having worked with Ted Cruz in 2000 campaign: when people asked me why do folks take such an instant dislike to Cruz, my answer was it saves time.”

OH, BY THE WAY, perhaps you noticed the ruckus over University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas (born William Thomas) recently winning the Women’s 500-yard freestyle race in the NCAA nationals. How did it happen that the six-foot-four Thomas, oddly still in possession of normal male genitalia, get permission to compete against, shall we say, natural-born women? You can ask Mark Emmert, the NCAA President, or Wendell E. Pritchett, President of the U. of Penn., or Alanna W Shanahan, Penn Director of Athletics, or, Lauren C. Procopio, Assistant Director for Men’s/Women’s Swimming. 

— James Kunstler

MOTA: Good Night Radio live from Franklin St. all night Friday night!

Marco here. Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is about 5:30pm. Or send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week.

Plus you can call during the show and read your work in your own voice. I'll be in the clean, well-lighted back room of KNYO's storefront studio at 325 N. Franklin, where the number is 1-(707) 962-3022. If you swear like Samuel L. Jackson, wait until after 10pm, so not to agitate the weasels.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via http://airtime.knyo.org:8040/128 (That's the regular link to listen to KNYO in real time.)

Any day or night you can go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night the recording of tonight's show will also be there.

Besides all that, there you'll find a window onto a marvelous kooky world, to fascinate and beguile the senses, entirely without chemical stimulation, until showtime, or anytime, such as:

Dynasty. Their majesties the donut queens of old.

https://www.vintag.es/2022/03/donut-queens.html

Here's what the Most Reverend Pat Robertson, follower and interpreter of the fabled prince of peace, recommended threatening to do unto several cities in Russia. Direct quote: "Biden keeps losing negotiations because he never plays his best hand of cards." Best hand of cards, according to Pastor Patrick? Full-scale nuclear war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPH-br_eJQ

And sing along with Alex.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGAAhzreGWw

— Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

‘UNIMAGINABLE’ & ‘UNTHINKABLE’

This is a difficult post to write. 

Right now, both of our poles, the north and south, are experiencing temperatures so far above their average that scientists who have studied them for decades are using words like ‘unimaginable’ and ‘unthinkable’. Antarctica is 70 degrees (F) above average and the Arctic is 50 degrees (F) above average despite being in opposing seasons.

Although currently an anomaly, if this trend were to continue, the poles would melt much faster than any scientist could have predicted and the results would be catastrophic. 

This information should be deeply confronting to all of us and people will react in different ways. Anger, denial, rejection, anxiety are all completely understandable. I just ask that you don’t scroll on, but instead stop for a moment, and try to feel the reality of what is happening to our planet. 

Our deep connection to nature and the living world, a connection that is so often forgotten, means that we should be experiencing strong feelings.

When we are honest with our emotions, and we let ourselves feel, we accept the reality of our circumstances and free up space to power forward into action with clarity.

There are still so many things we can do, extraordinary things, but we won’t do them if we lose people to fear, if we lose people who refuse to accept the current reality and would prefer to just keep numbing or distracting themselves. Emotional courage is more important than any solar panel or electric vehicle in this moment. It is the most renewable energy we have. 

I spend almost all of my time in the solutions space and know that a beautiful and more connected world is still possible. The seeds of this world are being planted everywhere and shoots are already turning into branches in some places. But news like this reminds me of the cost of any further delay. Our planet is crying out for help. It needs people that are ready to deeply feel its losses, to accept the reality of its condition, and then to boldly act on its behalf.

— Damon Gameau

THE MEDIA CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT JOE BIDEN PASSES THE POINT OF ABSURDITY

A development in the infamous laptop story further proves the "Russian Disinformation" tale was itself disinformation, shaming a herd of craven media stenographers

by Matt Taibbi

Burying the lede just a bit, the New York Times on March 16th published a long, spirited piece about the federal tax investigation of Hunter Biden. This is the 24th paragraph:

People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity. Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.

In confirming that federal prosecutors are treating as “authenticated” the Biden emails, the Times story applies the final dollop of clown makeup to Wolf Blitzer, Lesley Stahl, Christiane Amanpour, Brian Stelter, and countless other hapless media stooges, many starring in Matt Orfalea’s damning montage above (the Hunter half-laugh is classic, by the way). All cooperated with intelligence officials to dismiss a damaging story about Biden’s abandoned laptop and his dealings with the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma as “Russian disinformation.” They tossed in terms thought up for them by spooks as if they were their own thoughts, using words like “obviously” and “classic” and “textbook” to describe “the playbook of Russian disinformation,” in what itself was and still is a wildly successful disinformation campaign, one begun well before the much-derided (and initially censored) New York Post exposé on the topic from October of 2020.

Not to be petty, but — well, yes, let’s be petty, just a little, and point out that many of the people who were the most pompous about this story turned out to be the most wrong, including the conga line of Intercept editors and staffers who essentially knocked Glenn Greenwald all the way to Substack over the issue. There are more important things going on in the world, but for sheer bootlicking conformist excess and depraved journalist-on-journalist venom the “Russian disinformation” fiasco has no equal, and probably needs recording for posterity before it’s memory-holed via some creepy homage to Severance, ora next-gen algorithmic witch-hunt, or whatever other federally contracted monstrosities are being readied for deployment somewhere far up the anus of Silicon Valley. For comic relief, start with the Intercept:

Editors Betsy Reed and Peter Maass in October 2020 refused to publish a Greenwald piece unless he addressed the “complexity” of the “disinformation issue,” with Reed condescendingly suggesting there was a lot of “in-house knowledge” the Pulitzer winner could “tap into.”

By “in-house knowledge,” Reed meant Robert Mackey and Jim Risen, two former New York Times reporters who’d already denounced the laptop story as conspiracy theory. Risen pooh-poohed those tumbling down the “Trump rabbit hole,” writing:

“The New York Post story was so rancid that at least one reporter refused to put his byline on it… the FBI has been investigating whether the strange story about the Biden laptop is part of a Russian disinformation campaign. This week, a group of former intelligence officials issued a letter saying that the Giuliani laptop story has the classic trademarks of Russian disinformation.”

In the Intercept’s introductory announcement in 2014, founders Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and documentarian Laura Poitras vowed to “aggressively report on the disclosures provided to us by… NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.” At the time, they were being regularly threatened by intelligence officials like then-NSA chief Keith Alexander, who said, “We ought to come up with a way of stopping” disclosure of Snowden’s documents, adding, “It’s wrong to allow this to go on.”

Six years later, Intercept editors Reed and Maass not only effectively demanded that Greenwald run his copy by a pair of New York Times vets — odd for a site specifically launched as a counter to Times-style reporting — but chastised Greenwald for refusing to address the “earmarks of Russian disinformation” canard issued in a group letter of 50 of the exact same Bush and Obama-era intelligence officials who’d denounced the Snowden disclosures and had originally been the Intercept’s primary reporting targets. Humorously, these people lie so much that even news that there were 50-plus signatories had to be taken on faith, since the letter also listed nine signatories who “cannot be named publicly” but “support the arguments in this letter,” whatever that meant (would they have signed or not?).

One of the officials whose opinion the New-Coke, intelligence-friendly Intercept insisted on publishing was former CIA chief Michael Hayden. In his 2016 book Playing to the Edge, Hayden denounced the “Greenwald-Poitras-Snowden theme condemning alleged suspicionless surveillance,” chiding readers that “intelligence collection is not confined to the communications of adversaries or of the guilty.” He also rolled his eyes at the words “torture,” “assassinations,” and “domestic surveillance,” saying these were “catchphrases” that “often oversimplify.” Hayden boasted in extraordinary detail about how intelligence officials often intervened with editors to censor damaging stories, ripping media figures who didn’t respect the “social contract” that bestowed the CIA with “trust” to manage secrets.

Hayden even wrote that debating Greenwald in 2014 was like looking “the devil in the eye” — rich stuff coming from the overseer of America’s torture and drone assassination programs, who once bragged, “We kill people based on metadata.”

Hayden also shat all over Risen in his book, gleefully describing the time he got Condoleezza Rice to appeal to Times editors Phil Taubman and Bill Keller to “scotch” Risen’s eventual Pulitzer-winning story about domestic surveillance. The pressure Hayden applied to the Times in getting the Risen story killed in 2004 was part of what inspired Snowden to come forward, which in turn led to the creation of the Intercept, as Risen himself later wrote about. By 2020, Hayden’s bogus letter about the “classic trademarks of Russian disinformation” succeeded in convincing scores of media outlets to “scotch” the laptop story, with Risen among the dupes and Reed and Maass playing the roles of Taubman and Keller. Despite the fact that the Intercept had thrown in with the intelligence official perhaps most associated with opposing their founding mission, Reed had the stones to say Greenwald was the one who “strayed from his original journalistic roots” by refusing to bite on the “disinformation” hook.

“The most amazing thing is that they blocked my article on the ground that they had such high-minded, rigorous editorial standards just days after they let Risen uncritically spread CIA lies,” Greenwald says. “And no matter how much proof has emerged… they simply refuse to acknowledge any of it, let alone retract it. Not really the behavior one would expect of an outlet with such lofty editorial standards.” Neither Reed nor Risen have responded to invitations to comment.

The public controversy surrounding Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma actually began with a story Risen himself wrote in 2015, when he was still with the Times, entitled “Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch.” The story quoted a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine who said he hoped the White House had done “some due diligence” on Burisma, because “you would hate to see something like this undercut” the administration’s anticorruption message. If this topic is a “Trumpian Rabbit Hole,” Risen was the first to dig.

Hunter Biden in May of 2014 accepted a position on the board of Burisma, which was run by sleazoid Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. The job paid him tens of thousands of dollars a month to do not very much, at a time when Zlochevsky — who had been close to deposed Russian-friendly president Viktor Yanukovich — was desperate for the appearance of protection from Western law enforcement. To that same end, Zlochevsky brought in former Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski and former CIA official and Mitt Romney adviser Cofer Black.

In December of 2015, Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine and informed then-president Petro Poroshenko that a billion dollars in American aid would be withheld from the country unless it fired Prosecutor General Viktor Shokhin. He recounted the tale in a meandering, chest-pounding speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018:

“I said,’We’re not going to give you the billion dollars.’ They said, ‘You have no authority, you’re not the President’. I said, ‘Call him… You’re not getting a billion…’ I look at him and say, ‘We’re leaving in six hours, if the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.’ And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”

At the time, this seemed like just another example of Vice President Foggybrains misremembering the past — Shokhin was indeed fired, but nearly two months later, in February of 2016, not within six hours of his conversation with Poroshenko. We know Poroshenko did fire Shokhin at Biden’s request, because an infamously pro-Russian legislator named Andrei Derkach leaked tapes of Poroshenko reassuring Biden to that effect. Poroshenko went out of his way in the conversation to elucidate that he’d done America’s duty with reluctance, saying he ousted Shokhin “despite the fact that we don’t have any corruption charges” or “any information about him doing anything wrong,” as a way of “keeping my promise.” Biden did not push back at this declaration of Shokhin’s innocence, which is damning in itself, given that Shokhin’s corruption continues to be the official explanation for what happened.

The original wider issue was whether or not Shokhin was “investigating” Burisma when Biden made his demand, though most American reporters, including both conservatives and blue-leaning mainstream types, seem to misunderstand why that mattered. The right-leaning press often portrays Shokhin as an honest broker whom Joe Biden was determined to stop because he, Shokhin, was taking an Eliot Ness-style run at corruption in Hunter Biden’s company. Biden-friendly media, meanwhile, dutifully repeats the line Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates fed everyone (including me) during 2019-2020, that Shokhin was corrupt and that all cases involving Burisma were “dormant” by the time Biden made his request, presumably because Shokhin had squashed them.

Both takes miss a likely third angle, that Ukrainian prosecutors might have been both corrupt and investigating Burisma, as a means of extracting bribes from Zlochevsky. This would have been clear to anyone who’d spent any time in the region, but it’s also the focus of one of the first Hunter Biden emails to leak out. A 2014 note from Burisma adviser Vadim Pozharsky to Hunter and his cohort Devon Archer detailed how “representatives of new authorities” were hitting up the firm for bribes:

This would have been at least a potential problem for Burisma whether Shokhin was corrupt or not. During Shokhin’s tenure there were at least some active investigations of Burisma, though some were instigated by predecessor Vitalii Yarema. “There were different numbers, but from 7 to 14 cases,” was what Serhii Horbatiuk, the former head of the special investigations department for the Prosecutor General’s Office, told me in 2020. At least one case was still open when Joe Biden demanded Shokhin’s firing in December, 2015, though oft-quoted figures like Daria Kaleniuk of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center have described this as a technicality, a case that was only opened by request of parliament.

In any case, the Biden campaign by spring of 2019 succeeded in convincing most of the press corps of the “dormant” line, despite reporting to the contrary in foreign outlets like the oppositional Russian paper Novaya Gazeta and Interfax-Ukraine. Then on May 1, 2019, New York Times reporters Ken Vogel (who also co-authored the recent tax investigation piece) and Iuliia Mendel upset the apple cart by publishing an article entitled, “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies.”

Vogel and Mendel not only broke significant news about Hunter Biden in the piece, but also reported the outlines of the Trump-Rudy Giuliani “pressure campaign” story that much later became the basis for the impeachment of Trump. In fact, Vogel, Mendel, and Times writer Andrew Kramer wrote several stories in the spring and summer of 2019 that were months ahead of the field in detailing the efforts of Giuliani and Trump to push the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens, containing original information that eventually made its way into the original “whistleblower” complaint against Trump.

Oddly, much of the information about the Trump and Giuliani movements with respect to Ukraine that in late September and October of 2019 were suddenly deemed an explosive threat to “democracy itself” were already public as far back as May of that year, but mostly ignored. Critics may have been worried that highlighting this work would have legitimized another part of that original Vogel/Mendel story, to wit:

“Kostiantyn H. Kulyk, a deputy for Mr. Lutsenko who was handling the cases before being reassigned last month, told The New York Times that he was scrutinizing millions of dollars of payments from Burisma to the firm that paid Hunter Biden.”

News that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko was reopening an investigation not just into Burisma but into “millions of dollars of payments from Burisma to the firm that paid Hunter Biden” was significant and, in the context of a presidential campaign, potentially very damaging. The Times was not only careful to point out that the Trump campaign was anxious to take advantage of the information (indeed, the original story framed the way the story was being “promoted” as the headline angle), but also to point out that Lutsenko’s decision to reopen the case was seen by some as an effort to “curry favor from the Trump administration.”

Just because the Trump administration was glad for the information, however, didn’t make it baseless, though this almost immediately became the operating logic of other journalists reacting to the report. Bloomberg immediately wrote a piece contradicting the Times report, citing a quote from Lutsenko spokesperson Larysa Sargan, who “said the prosecutor general hasn’t reopened the case into Burisma or Zlochevsky.”

This was odd for many reasons. One, the Times insisted Sargan was in the room for its original on-the-record interview with Lutsenko deputy Konstantin Kulyk. Two, Lutsenko gave a press conference, posted to Facebook on May 14, 2019 by Sargan, which said Zlochevsky had been informed of a money laundering investigation that March. Thirdly, a Buzzfeed reporter asked Sargan about this, and she denied the story. “Today the US Media published the info that Burisma criminal case [sic] was closed in Ukraine citing me as a source. This is not true… the case is open.”

Christopher Miller: “Something's fishy. @business wrote Ukraine Prosecutor Lutsenko hadn't in fact reopened Burisma criminal case, as @nytimes & @thehill reported, citing Lutsenko spox @SarganLarysa (L screenshot). But Sargan tells me she never spoke to Bloomberg; case is open (R statement to me).” 

The author of the Bloomberg piece, Stephanie Baker, declined to comment for this article. At the time, she liked tweets from Atlantic Council fellow Anders Aslund calling Vogel “Giuliani’s personal court correspondent” and implying Vogel was paid to do the story. #Resistance petting-zoo creature Aaron Rupar congratulated Vogel for the “great work you’re doing for the Trump campaign,” while Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin and media critic Eric Boehlert hopped on MSNBC to denounce the Times for publishing a “false” story and for being “obsessed.” They must have been proud Biden campaign made their on-air comments into an attack ad that accused the Times of aiding a Trump-inspired foreign interference campaign:

Team Joe (Text JOE to 30330): “Donald Trump invited foreign interference into our elections in 2016 — and he’s doing it again.”

Note all this took place before the New York Post ran its October, 2020 piece about the trove of Biden emails culled from the laptop, which included an ominous email from Pozharsky ostensibly thanking him for the “opportunity to meet your father.” It’s never been verified that this meeting actually took place, but what has absolutely been verified by now — not just by the Times but via the extensive digging done by Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger in his book The Bidens — is that the laptop is, in fact, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the emails they contain are real.

In a just world this would be career-altering news for the parade of media figures who spent months loudly insisting the opposite, cheered the unprecedented decisions by Facebook and Twitter to restrict access to the story, and repeated the Langley-driven fiction that it was a Russian smear. The fact that none of them are bothering to comment on any of this shows that the line between the intelligence community and commercial media has blurred to the point of meaninglessness. They know everyone knows they screwed this up and are long past pretending to care. This is like someone committed to a life in sweats who eats another piece of pie at night, because what difference will it ever make? That weight is never coming off anyway.

I long thought the decision by Facebook and Twitter to block the Post just before an election was a bigger deal than the actual story, which to me was mislabeled “smoking gun” evidence of major corruption because almost none of the information in those emails had been confirmed then. After reading this latest Times piece, which among other things confirms that Joe Biden (if not the Burisma official) was present at the infamous “meeting” referenced in the original Pozharsky email, I’m not sure so sure. At minimum, this looks like it will be a serious political problem for Biden in any future election, especially should events in the Ukraine war take a turn that motivates Ukrainian officials to unload on the first family.

While the bloodshed in Ukraine should and will dominate news for the foreseeable future, reporters who think it’s their patriotic duty to throw dirt on the Everest of apparent horrors in the Biden laptop in the meantime are nuts. A subtext of the Hunter-Ukraine mess was always that Ukrainian officials seemed to chafe at taking orders about matters like the Shokhin business even as they feared Russian influence more, tension that’s apparent in those leaked Poroshenko-Biden discussions. As evidence grows that the United States and Ukraine may be acting at cross-purposes with regard to the invasion, those tensions become crucial background.

Ryan Grim of the Intercept, David Sanger of the Times, and Niall Ferguson of Bloomberg all hinted at this issue in the last week. Sanger cited senior sources in saying the U.S. “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire without inciting a broader conflict,” while Ferguson quoted a senior Brit as saying the “No. 1 option” is for “the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” Ferguson believes that strategy may explain “the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire,” which Grim pointed out is one of two standing requests Volodymyr Zelensky has made to the U.S. While one war-stoked reporter after another has hounded Jen Psaki about the first, for weapons and/or a no-fly zone, Grim has been virtually alone in asking the White House about its diplomatic efforts and if Zelensky has been empowered by the United States to negotiate, say, the end of sanctions.

This is a crucial question — effectively, the difference between knowing whether Russia is at war with just Ukraine, or with us — and no one wants to go near it, because our newshounds suck so badly, they think anything that makes the administration uncomfortable is Russian disinformation. For anything beyond rote propaganda, most take the clownish stance offered by Amanpour above: “We’re not going to do your work for you.” Trump has been out of office for years. Are we ever getting the press back?