Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Hot Ahead | AV Graduation | Caspar Athletic | Counting Votes | Pomo Film | Measure M | GPS Wrong | Rentals Petition | EMT Pay | Help Wanted | Ed Notes | Mask Optional | Mike Encounter | Reservoir Storage | Plan On | Yesterday's Catch | Alcatraz Escape | Powe N'om | Tree Swing | Downtown Policing | Kitted Out | Half Texas | Ukraine | Gloomy Outcome | Capitalism/Feudalism | Coming Attractions | Maha Mantra | Guardian Propaganda | Butter Good | Suicide Pact | Could Leave

HIGH PRESSURE ALOFT building across northern California will result in increasingly hot interior temperatures through mid-week. Cool northerly winds will persist near the coast each afternoon. Dry weather will likely last through the weekend, with plentiful sunshine and continued hot interior temperatures. (NWS)

JOY & SADNESS IN ANDERSON VALLEY

by Anne Fashauer

A little over a week ago I attended the Anderson Valley High School graduation. It was a wonderful event and an emotional one for me. I knew two of the kids graduating and that was part of it, but I was also affected by all the emotions from everyone else in attendance.

One of the students, the one who invited us to attend, is Angeles Flores; I have known Angeles since she was in grammar school and I’ve watched her grow into a smart, ambitious and wonderful adult. 

I was honored when she asked me to be her mentor for her senior project and thrilled to know that she wants to make real estate her profession. We spent many days over the past semester together, looking at properties, working on fliers and even opening a TikTok account for the business. Watching her graduate and learning of all her scholarships and other awards was really a joyful experience.

The other student is Trent Lopez. I remember when his mom, Denise, was pregnant with him. We worked at the now defunct Taylor Roberts. I’ve seen him grow up, mostly at a distance just because that’s how life is sometimes, but it was something else to sit there and listen to his well-done and quite humorous Salutatorian speech.

It turns out I knew a few other kids as well, just not as well as these two. I really enjoyed the excitement of all the families present. So many whoops and hollers, such cheering. The joy of all these people celebrating their kids’ accomplishments felt so good.

On the other end of the emotional spectrum was the very sad death of a young man local to our Valley, Jesus Mendoza. I did not know this man, to my detriment, no doubt. My very small part in this was simply to be riding my bike in Hendy Woods on the morning that his body was found; I wondered, on Facebook, why all the law enforcement and I found out. I felt the pain of this family all that weekend; for some reason, though I had finished my ride and came upon the activity only after, I have emotionally tied this death to that ride. 

The good and the bad of living in a rural community; you get to experience all the joys of lots of folks you know. Some of those folks you’ll know well, some less so. And you get to share in the suffering when there’s a tragedy, even if you don’t know him or his family well at all. Good or bad, I wouldn’t trade the opportunity to live and feel all of this. It’s yet another reason I love living in Anderson Valley.

COUNTING DOWN

by Andrew Scully

Almost three weeks have passed since the election held on June 7, and most statewide and local races, almost all of them in fact, have been decided some time ago. Yet here in Mendocino County, there has been no news, no progress report nor update on the election results since the initial vote count released on election night of about 3,300 ballots. In fact, as we go to press, Mendocino County has counted fewer ballots than any of the other 58 counties in the state, as a percentage of total ballots cast. In an extensive interview County Registrar Recorder Katrina Bartolomie said there will be an update today, with approximately 4,000 additional ballot results. But that is still well under 50% of the total ballots cast. Due to staffing shortages and equipment failures it will many days yet before the counting is complete. Counties have until July 15 to certify their results to the Secretary of State. Despite the slowness, there is some positive news to report, according the industrious Ms. Bartolomie. Perhaps most importantly she offers this unambiguous assurance: “Our (election) system is secure.”

To some extent, the challenges faced in counting ballots here are representative of election headlines nationwide. But in this isolated and sparely populated county, things are a bit different. It can be a peculiar place, according to Ms. Bartolomie, and it is the people that make each day at the offices on Low Gap Road an interesting place to be. Like the voter that cast his vote for the write-in candidate “Anybody But” in the race for Mendocino County District Attorney race this year. Unfortunately for that voter, Ms. Bartolomie explained that since Mr. But is not registered as a write-in candidate for DA, that vote will not be tallied. Ms. Bartolomie herself is an elected official, and both her experiences in that job and life give her with a valuable perspective about the mechanics of elections in this place. Her family is old-school Mendo. Her father, Reno Bartolomie was elected and served for years as Mendocino County Sheriff, and after growing up near Ukiah, she stayed and began working on staff at the County Clerks office years ago. Then when her predecessor retired in 2018 Katrina ran for and won the post, beating two opponents. Her first-term performance was apparently good enough to discourage anyone from running against her. As she was unopposed in the race this year, despite the lack of updates, her reelection is a forgone conclusion.

Ms. Bartolomie’s job has a lot of responsibilities and functions. She helpfully unpacked the titles:

• Mendocino County Assessor, County Clerk, Recorder (elected)

◦ Assessor – staff appraises the value of real property in the County to establish property taxes (note: In a state where private land ownership of land underpins all wealth, this function is crucially important and closely scrutinized by citizens)

◦ Clerk – Official keeper of all “recorded documents” in the County (see “Recorder” below)

◦ Recorder – Originates and maintains copies of official legal documents including land sales and conveyances, and vital records including births, deaths, and marriages.

◦ Registrar of Voters – registers and keeps official records of all 54,000 legally registered voters, and finally;

◦ Commissioner of Civil Marriages – In addition to issuing Marriage Licenses in her function as Recorder, she is also empowered to legally join couples in wedlock, a fairly regular feature of her job. One imagines one of the more interesting aspects as well.

That’s a lot of things to do. Ms. Bartolomie said that Mendocino is one of only eight counties in the state that pile that many functions onto one person. That fact, combined with chronic county staffing shortages made worse by the COVID crisis, is the major reason for slowness of election updates. To illustrate: She normally works an election with four teams of two ballot processors and two “tabulators” (people that actually run ballots through the optical scanning machines). That’s ten people total. This year she has eight. Add to that equipment challenges (one of three optical scanning machines is down), and she said it'll be sometime yet before final results are known. State law requires all ballots to be counted and reported to the Secretary of State's office by July 15th.

A tour of her offices during the vote count afforded a glimpse behind some of the scenes of ballot counts and election security in the United States. Ms. Bartolomie is unequivocal: “Our (election) system is secure.” She was referring specifically to Mendocino County’s system, but she contends that despite screaming banner headlines, the actual vote count in the US has a very tiny percentage of votes invalidated due to fraud or irregularities, especially considering the patchwork of local and state laws in the more that 5,000 counties in America. Indeed, to an outside observer, the counting process seems quite airtight. Among other security and audit procedures in place:

• Every stage in the counting process is recorded, documented and witnessed by at least two people.

• Teams of two ballot processors open and prepare ballots, but only Ms. Bartolomie, as the elected Registrar of Voters, and one other employee actually operate the image scanners that read and tabulate each ballot.

• Ballots are counted on optical scanners initially. These results are confirmed by separate audits conducted by manually counting 1% of all ballots cast, as well as a full manual count of three entire precincts in each contested race.

• Every one of the estimated 21,000 official ballot envelopes received will be imaged and recorded by an optical scanner. Then the signature on the ballot envelope will be visually matched by an employee to compare and verify with the registered voter card on file in Ukiah. In case of any discrepancy, one of her staff will contact the voter in question to verify the signature. She said that this is surely one of the few counties in the state that can make that claim. Only about 150 ballots are unable to be verified in most elections.

According to Ms Bartolomie: “California leads the Nation in election security”, and some of the procedures for voter verification developed by her office have been adopted for use Statewide.

That is good news for citizens of Mendocino County. It is comforting to know that. But it will also be nice to get that update.

MEASURE M HEADS FOR THE FINISH LINE

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

We received the election update today, and Measure M is leading with 70.9% “Yes” vote. While the elections office has until July 7 to certify, we are confident that Measure M has been successful. We are very grateful to our community for the support of our school system.

I would like to thank the Measure M Committee of Philip Thomas, Ric Bonner, Star White, Dick Browning, Ali Cook, and James Snyder, and all of the staff and community members that took the time to phone bank and provide support. I appreciate our community members that added their names in support of our measure in the voter handbook, and also on the community updates. It takes a village to make big things happen, and these folks worked really hard to make it happen for kids.

While 70.9% is A HUGE amount of support (it only required 55% to pass), I am very mindful that 29 percent of our voters did not vote for it. I want to take this opportunity for the community to know that if the election results stand as expected, we will be providing regular updates and information about planned improvements so there is transparency and accountability that the money is well spent. We do have hoops to jump through with the Office of Public School Construction and Department of State Architect, but we will get the work done to provide our students a safe and modern environment for learning. Anytime you have a question, please call my cell at (707) 684-1017, and let’s talk it through.

Your support of our children in this community is truly unparalleled and appreciated. Thank you for proving once again that we truly are “Better Together”, with your vote giving our kids an educational environment and opportunity to prepare them for their lifetime ahead.

We will await the final results, but I want to take a moment to say a heartfelt “thank you”.

With deepest gratitude,

Anderson Valley Unified School District

Cell: 707-684-1017

JOHANNA JENSEN:

612 county residents signed the petition in support of reasonable Short Term Rental (STR) regulations! Unfortunately, a few realtors have written to the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commissioners in opposition of HAT’s balanced, commonsense proposal. Luckily the petition makes it clear that the views of those realtors, ones who want to protect livelihoods dependent on vacation rentals, are not shared by the vast majority of county residents.

164 people also used the petition to explain how their lives were upended when their homes were converted to short-term rentals, or to share their concerns about ways vacation rentals are hurting communities. 

HAT hopes you'll reinforce the petition by emailing bos@mendocinocounty.org and the Planning Commissioners at pbscommissions@mendocinocounty.org. 

Tell your story. Share your concerns, Urge them to adopt a STR ordinance before the end of the year!

MORE DISINGENUOUSNESS from Supervisor Ted Williams: "Anderson Valley Fire pays EMTs $30 per 12 hour shift on only ambulance covering HW128, county line to Paul Dimmick park (Albion). $2.50 per hour! Some days shut down due to staffing. Unsustainable. Value of your life? County responsibility? Time to prioritize ALL public safety."

Mark Scaramella Notes: Using AV Ambulance’s underpaid and volunteer responders and their marginal funding situation to help justify a dubious and unjustifiable sales tax proposal is pretty hard to take. 

If the Supervisor was so concerned about the AV Ambulance situation why didn’t he (and his fellow Supervisors) allocate even a small part of the pot tax revenues per 2017 advisory Measure AJ after he was elected in 2018? Why does he continue to pretend that a vague and amorphous Joint Powers Authority might someday help while denying stop-gap funding in the meanwhile? Why has he continued hand over more than $600k to Sonoma County’s grossly overpriced Coastal Valley EMS outfit without question and then pretend that that money is somehow going to emergency services? If Ambulance services are such an important part of “public safety,” (which of course they are) why haven’t he and his fellow Supervisors honored the so-called Lomita decision which clearly spells out the County’s legal obligation to support Ambulance services?

HELP WANTED IN CASPAR

One day per week, 4-5 hours @$25 per hr.
Basic yard work and maintenance.
Call Bill at 707 961 6127

ED NOTES

WITH HALF the County vote tallied by the indefatigable Katrina Bartolomei and her too few worker bees, the only surprise to us at ava headquarters is the Hutchins-Glentzer race for Superintendent of Schools. We assumed it would be close, but we didn't expect Hutchins to lose, and maybe she won't, but at about the midway point in the count she's about 800 votes down.

THE HUTCHINS-GLENTZER issue-free, secret slander-soaked contest is the first time that I know of that the office has been contested. Used to be the lazee boys out at Talmage simply succeeded each other, the only glitch being an interim when one of them was packed off to the County Jail, another to the state pen, both of them beloved colleagues of Paul Tichinin, living proof of the Peter Principle, who succeeded his jailed pals as superintendent and, in retirement, has led the campaign against incumbent Superintendent Hutchins.

AS OUR READERS KNOW, last time around Tichinin and friends ran a man against Hutchins, always a loser in Mendo with its large population of women whose life experiences with men have been so unhappy they would self-immolate before they'd ever vote for one of the drooling phallocrats over a woman. So Tichinin and friends, with a big assist from Mr. Burble Gurble here in Boonville, got Glentzer, a woman, to run against Hutchins, a woman. Pretty slick, huh? Score one for the phallocracy. 

SO, WHAT'S AT STAKE? Fair distribution of edu-dollars primarily, and maybe your kid, assuming the county's lead educator can be elected on the basis of a secret slander campaign, and the people who did it are in charge of educating your heirs and assignees.

THE GOOD ELECTION NEWS for Boonville is the slam-dunk passage of Measure M, the bond approval that will raise money for badly needed repairs of our school facilities. And major credit goes to Superintendent Simson, the dynamo who drove M to victory.

SHERIFF KENDALL has handily routed his last-minute opponent, former Mendo cop Trent James. I think James, a young guy, like a lot of young people, had his romantic expectations of adult life dashed on the rocks of reality.

WILLIAMS will go on and on and on as 5th District supervisor although his first four years in office should have gotten him fired. A laughably slavish tool of the Angelo regime, Williams, offered the choice of doing the right thing, invariably opted for wrong. Of course he wasn't alone; his four colleagues, with Haschak occasionally risking Mommy's wrath, were equivalently pathetic. I'm probably being too optimistic here, but I sense the Supervisors are acting more like the independent reps they're supposed to be now that Mommy is safely exiled to San Diego.

HASHACK predictably bashed Clay Romero, an electoral punching bag who habitually runs for Supervisor out of Willits. Romero, a Trumper, is apparently unaware that he swims in the tepid waters of Mendolib, where the libs dutifully vote for lab and vicey versy. Ditto for John Redding in the 5th. Dudes! No one outside the flab glab lib lab Democrat Sensory Deprivation Tank can ever be elected in Mendocino County (except for Cowboy John Pinches). But, but, but look how incompetent they are! Don't matter. It's a big club and you ain't in it.

INCLUDE ME in the Angelo Pronsolino Fan Club. Way back, when I first descended on the unsuspecting Anderson Valley, Angelo volunteered to play for our softball team. Our? We were a half-dozen deluded libs who'd assumed the delinquents we were responsible for would somehow be less delinquent under the redwoods than they'd been under the street lights. Emil Rossi and Sam Prather also joined up, along with Dick and Joan Warsing. Angelo, Emil and Sam had obviously been pretty fair country ballplayers and represented our first oldtimer friends in the Anderson Valley, along with John Slotte and our suspicious neighbors across the road, Marvin and Lucille Herried. It was a nice summer of softball and getting to know our way around this fascinating place, my strongest initial softball memory of which is a fly ball to center field where Joan Warsing was just lighting up her cigarette as it landed at her feet.

THE DAY I MET MIKE ON THE STREET

by Bruce Anderson

I'd just encountered Glenda Anderson, journalist and prisoner of love, girlfriend of Mike Sweeney, car bomber, when, only minutes later, just around the corner on West Church, Ukiah, there was the dungeon master himself, Mendocino County's trash czar, a wholly reinvented person of the uniquely Mendo type from his days as a Maoist hit man and, presumably, recycler of his former wife via a car bomb. 

This encounter is worth mentioning, I think, although I'll concede that I'm probably one of maybe five people who do. 

On foot, I had just turned the corner onto Church when, looking up the street, nearly two blocks away, I saw someone heading my way who looked, from a distance, very much like the demolition man himself, Mr. Mendocino County Solid Waste Management Authority! I'd been about to cross the street when it occurred to me to get a close-up look at the guy, maybe even reach out and grab a handful of DNA off his comb-across. 

As Sweeney drew closer, I saw that he carried a sandwich bag and a take-out drink. I wondered if the latest DNA science had destroyed his ability to enjoy sit-down restaurant meals for fear someone might buy his DNA-laden dinner plate. 

And just then my sidewalk meeting with Sweeney went weird, so weird that a young woman on the other side of the street stopped and stared. As Sweeney had drawn closer, the more robotic his gait became, his legs stiff and kicking straight out in a kind of modified goose step. He had totally tensed up, as he stared straight ahead, and his face — usually an unhealthy-looking, grayish white — became as blood dark as a Kansas summer storm cloud. If this man, looking like he looked, had been walking towards a bus in Baghdad, security forces would have opened fire on him. Suicide bombers don't look this nuts. 

As the diminutive psycho drew close, I put on my most welcoming smile and sang out, “Mike, so nice to see you!” 

But Robot Man quick-timed right past me, his dead eyes staring straight ahead, his concretized legs kicking out in a Kim Il Sung strut, his arms swinging in impressive cadence with the rest of his mechanical moving parts, so near I could have reached out and grabbed two whole handfuls of DNA! No exaggeration, and I don't have a mystic bone in my body, and I've known lots of tough guys, guys who have killed people, but this Sweeney person was death itself. 

I mentally kicked myself for messing with him without a plan, and had to restrain myself from calling out after him, “Mister! I think you need an anger management class!” 

As I watched Mendocino County's trash czar march rigidly the rest of the way down West Church, not once looking anywhere but straight ahead, he never did resume a normal gait. The young woman across the street stopped in anticipation of whatever weirdness was up between us, gave me the que pasa? gesture, then a smile and a shrug, and walked on west. Of course the sight of my plump peasant face understandably upsets certain people, and of course I understand Mike and Glenda's hostility for me, but it's not as if I'm the only person who thinks Mike's a killer, that Glenda's a love dupe, that Darryl Cherney's a crook, that Redwood Summer Justice Project is a rolling fraud, that the federal lawsuit is a front-to-back scam. But if I hated someone so bad that the sight of him turned my face stroke-black, and I was instantly transformed into a drill team zombo, I think I'd make a bee-line for Camille Shraeder and her stable of helping pros.

* * *

Ed note: Fast forward to the ominous summer of 2022, Sweeney is in New Zealand exiled, Glenda at home in Ukiah, the rolling scams still rolling.

RESERVOIR STORAGE & OPERATIONS

STEPPING UP TO PLANNING

Open letter to Julia Acker-Krog, Mendocino County Planning & Building Director,

It is exciting to have a locally-raised young woman step up to the plate as Planning & Building Director - Thank you. I know that you are going to do well in your new position.

As an elder (80), father of eight, grandfather to 12, I have some concerns about what the future might hold — not only for my progeny but for all of humanity. And Planning is what we do to try to make the future palatable, equitable and frankly just plain comfortable for the people living in the environs covered by each planning venture.

Acknowledging such I would like to express a few self-evident realities that might well be taken into consideration as we plan for the future.

First and foremost:

The degree to which we are battering the Earth we are also battering the human psyche. People of all ages, politics, ethnicity and nations are not only anxious, worried and stressed but many are literally going crazy and berserk.

Such is the evolving existential evidence of the interconnectedness of all life. So as we all move forward in our endeavors to plan for the future we must constantly remind ourselves to question and seek answers to just what it is that we have been doing wrong to bring us to this looming precipice that is our future as a species on a planet that is becoming less friendly (yet still absolutely beautiful) every year.

Again I thank you for the work you are undertaking and the burden you bear in so doing.

David Severn

Philo

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 20, 2022

TEODORO ACOSTA-CAMARA, Fort Bragg. DUI, suspended license.

JOHN DAHL, Fort Bragg. Battery, hit&run resulting in death or injury, unauthorized entry of dwelling without owner’s consent.

MICHAEL LOCKETT SR., Ukiah. Parole violation.

MIGUEL PECHTZIU, Fort Bragg. DUI, reckless driving, evasion, resisting.

UNITED STATES MARSHALS have released age-progressed images of the three men who infamously dug their way out of the maximum security prison at Alcatraz Island on June 11, 1962. Clarence Anglin, Frank Morris and John Anglin remain wanted fugitives for their escape from Alcatraz, where they were serving time for bank robberies. Officials say they had spent more than a year preparing for their escape, digging around a metal air vent in their prison cells until they had enough of a hole to pass through and climb poles to the rooftop. They were then able to sneak past guards before they maneuvered down 50-feet of piping to the ground of the prison's shower area, where they planned to take a raft back to the mainland.

Federal investigators concluded after 10 days that they must have drowned in the bay, but speculation grew over the years that they may have survived, with theorists pointing out that their bodies were never found and officials saying here was evidence that a raft was recovered on nearby Angel Island as well as evidence that a car was stolen on the mainland that night by three unidentified men. Anyone with information about their possible whereabouts is asked to keep it to themselves. These guys earned their freedom.

EVERYONE AGREES UC HASTINGS NEEDS A NAME CHANGE. Here’s what it should be called.

by Steve Brown & George Bisharat

UC Hastings’ namesake, Serranus Clinton Hastings, is implicated in the massacre of hundreds of Yuki tribe members.

Hastings College of the Law was founded in San Francisco in 1878 as the first law department of the University of California. Its construction was seeded with a bequest of $100,000 in gold coins from the first chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Serranus Clinton Hastings.

Now, 144 years later, a bill before the California Legislature would strip the name Hastings from the school.

Rightly so.

AB1936 was introduced by Assembly Member James Ramos, D-Highland (San Bernardino County), the only Native American in the Legislature, and Assembly Member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. The bill cites Hastings as having “promoted and financed Indian hunting expeditions in the Eden and Round Valleys, funding bounties resulting in the massacres of hundreds of Yuki men, women, and children.”

The Yuki were the original inhabitants of the Eden Valley in Mendocino County, where Hastings had purchased land.

The documented details of the killings in which Hastings is implicated are absolutely chilling. They include testimony from Hastings’ foreman, H.L. Hall, describing one raid in which “the infants were put out of their misery and a girl 10 years of age was killed for stubbornness.”

The slaughter was part of a broader, statewide war of extermination (the term “genocide” had not been coined) waged by white settlers against Native Californians in the 19th century. Mass killings, displacement, starvation and disease reduced the Native population in the state from more than 150,000 in 1846 to just over 16,000 by 1880. Hastings almost surely knew of the murderous campaign launched by his minions at the time it was occurring, and he did nothing to ensure their punishment after the fact.

The name Hastings College of the Law was written into the state Education Code on the school’s founding and, therefore, can be changed only by the Legislature. AB1936 was passed the Assembly on a 75-0 vote, and is now before the state Senate, where a vote is expected in August.

The board of directors of Hastings College of the Law, to its credit, has endorsed a name change.

Now the question turns to what the college should be called.

Under the leadership of Ramos, the Legislature has begun to consult, as required by AB1936, with legal representatives of the Yuki people regarding a new name. The college’s dean and chancellor, David Faigman, meanwhile, has said University of California College of Law, San Francisco is his preference.

For the Yuki people, however, that name is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, it merely recalls the earlier and even more widespread history of violence against and enslavement of Native Californians in the Spanish mission system. To many Native Californians, “San Francisco” evokes the same memories of death and destruction as “Hastings,” just from a different time and place. Restorative justice would not be accomplished by substituting one name with a horrific history for another with an equally horrific history.

The Yuki people have engaged in lengthy internal discussions over the past months to reach agreement on both a new name for the college and on an array of other restorative justice measures.

“Powe no’m” means “one people” in the nearly extinct language of the Yukis, originally referring to the unity of their seven subtribes. But it can just as easily evoke the unity of all people — appropriately reflecting the spirit of inclusiveness in which San Francisco prides itself.

We and many others now urge the board of directors of the college, which AB1936 charges with recommending a new name to the Legislature, to honor the Yuki people’s request to name the school University of California Powe No’m College of the Law.

The name UC Powe No’m College of the Law might be provocative to some. Yet 26 of our 50 states, and thus many public universities and law schools nationwide, bear names derived from indigenous languages. No one balks at the Universities of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Oklahoma or Hawaii, just to name a few.

Between individual tribes and tribal federations, scores of other California tribes are supporting AB1936. More than 40 UC Hastings alumni, from class years that span several decades and who call themselves UC Hastings Alumni for Justice and Accountability, also support the renaming to UC Powe No’m College of the Law.

The name powe no’m, every time it is uttered, will contribute incrementally to the revival of the Yuki language. Some, curious about its origins, will seek greater understanding of a dimension of California history that is largely unknown outside of Native communities.

If powe no’mat first rolls clumsily off nonnative tongues, that is a small price to pay to honor the Yuki ancestors, whose loss and suffering is the true source of the wealth underlying the college’s founding.

The college is a jewel in the crown of the city of San Francisco, with national renown as a center of legal learning. It has educated thousands of eminent lawyers, judges and civic leaders, including the current vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris. Its motto is “fiat justicia,” Latin for “do justice.”

The renaming is an opportunity for the college to enact its motto, to advance history, and, alongside the other restorative justice measures in the bill, to establish a statewide model for healing deep wounds still felt keenly among Native Californians today.

Fiat justicia, indeed.

(Steve Brown is the elected president of the Yuki Committee, part of the federally recognized Round Valley Indian Tribes. George Bisharat is an emeritus professor at UC Hastings College of the Law.)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Market Street in The City is decayed because the city lets it decay. There is no consistent effort to improve it: No cops walking beats and telling the inebriates they can't lie on the sidewalks, sprawl over the bus shelters, lower their pants and relieve themselves on the sidewalks. I almost never see a cop in San Francisco not either in a squad car or standing in a group in front of a coffee shop chatting with other cops appearing to be on a break. In cities where downtown policing works the cops are out walking or riding bikes around and they take action when they spot crime happening. Yes, we know the old DA wouldn't prosecute drug crimes and maybe the new one won't either but the cops can confiscate illegal substances and paraphernalia and if they did the users would move out of sight which is all we ask of them. This kind of decay means businesses and honest people just stay away. Who needs to witness the degradation? It's a vicious circle: Crime and degradation drives away people which causes business to close which means there's no reason for any honest person to go there. Clean the place up and businesses will try again and gradually the honest folks will return, especially now that there are a number of new residential buildings along mid-Market.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2

I’m not sure what Biden was doing on a racing bike in the first place. Beach communities seem to have plenty of those quaint-looking touring bikes available, there’s even a picture of Barack Obama riding one at Martha’s Vineyard or someplace.

That’s something I’ve noticed in general, in the last few years. Adults who want to ride a bicycle just for fun and exercise have stop getting all kitted out like Lance Armstrong.

UKRAINE TODAY, MONDAY, 20TH JUNE, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine should expect “greater hostile activity” from Russia as the European Union considers whether the country should be formally considered for candidate status. Leaders of the EU's 27 member states will meet this week to discuss the process.

Two American volunteer fighters for Ukraine were taken into detention by Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk after being captured by Russian forces last week, according to Russian state media. One says he was beaten. 

The West must prepare for a long war in Ukraine as Russia makes incremental gains, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson both said. They urged for continued support for Ukraine.

THE FORMER CIA AND INTELLIGENCE BIGWIG GRAHAM FULLER predicts a gloomy outcome of the U.S-Russia proxy war in Ukraine:

“Contrary to Washington’s triumphalist pronouncements, Russia is winning the war, Ukraine has lost the war. Any longer-term damage to Russia is open to debate. American sanctions against Russia have turned out to be far more devastating to Europe than to Russia. The global economy has slowed and many developing nations face serious food shortages and risk of broad starvation. There are already deep cracks in the European facade of so-called “NATO unity.” Western Europe will increasingly rue the day that it blindly followed the American Pied Piper to war against Russia. Indeed, this is not a Ukrainian-Russian war but an American-Russian war fought by proxy to the last Ukrainian. Contrary to optimistic declarations, NATO may in fact ultimately emerge weakened. Western Europeans will think long and hard about the wisdom and deep costs of provoking deeper long term confrontations with Russia or other “competitors” of the US. Europe will sooner or later return to the purchase of inexpensive Russian energy. Russia lies on the doorstep and a natural economic relationship with Russia will possess overwhelming logic in the end. Europe already perceives the US as a declining power with an erratic and hypocritical foreign policy “vision” premised upon the desperate need to preserve “American leadership” in the world. America’s willingness to go to war to this end is increasingly dangerous to others.” 

grahamefuller.com/some-hard-thoughts-about-post-ukraine/

THE RAGE OF THE BETRAYED is articulated by imbecilic demagogues vomited up from the social and political swamp. Corporations and the billionaire class will continue to exploit, but under a cruder and crueler authoritarianism. The social, political, economic, and environmental breakdown will accelerate. Reality, increasingly unpalatable, will cease to exist in public discourse. It will be replaced by Millenarian cults, such as the Christian fascists, and bizarre conspiracy theories, a retreat into magical thinking where evil is embodied in demonized individuals and groups that must be eradicated. Truth and lies will be indistinguishable. The vulnerable will be cast aside, blamed for their own misery, as well as ours. Those who resist will be criminals. Mass death will sweep across the planet. This is the world our children will inherit unless those who control us are wrenched from power. 

— Chris Hedges

HARRY YOU SAY? WHAT ABOUT HIM?

Craig Stehr: Chant the Maha Mantra and Your Life Will Be Sublime

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare…

IN REALITY The Guardian is no less propagandistic than the Murdoch press, and is frequently more destructive due to its ability to market right-wing horrors to an unsuspecting demographic who otherwise wouldn’t buy what they’re selling. It pushes the same agendas, and it serves the same empire. The Guardian is just Fox News for people who eat organic produce.

— Caitlin Johnstone, "The Guardian Churns Out Embarrassingly Awful Empire Propaganda"

ALL THIS & WORLD WAR TOO

by James Kunstler

For three decades, since the old Soviet Union ended in a whimper, reincarnated Russia asked “the West” for very little, almost nothing, really, certainly not the kind of “aid” that the USA used like a fungo-bat to beat lesser states around the world into hegemonic submission. All Russia asked, after seventy-five years of mass formation communist insanity, was to be treated once again like a normal European nation. Early on, Russia even floated a possible application to NATO, which NATO laughed off — among many other insults to follow.

But slowly after 1991, and then all at once, Europe and the USA fell under their own mass formation spell, apparently at the instigation of a certain Schwabenklaus and his WEF factotums implanted throughout Western Civ, like poison raisins in a fruitcake, rendering the EU members and the USA insane, which is to say no longer able to entertain normal relations with others.

And so, by February of 2022, you get this coalition of lunatic countries — preoccupied at home with the rankest political degeneracy disguised as virtue — provoking a proxy war in Ukraine with the aim of impoverishing, humiliating, and weakening Russia. And despite the massive funding and training of a 200,000-man Ukrainian military poised against the Donbas, the whole thing collapsed in misadventure as a strategic Russian meat-grinder chewed through the West’s proxy army like so much lunchmeat… bringing us up-to-date.

As the psychologist Mattias Desmet points out in his just-published book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, the people tragically locked into a mass formation develop, among many other delusions and psychopathologies, the grandiose idea that they have an ethical duty to destroy other nations. Hence, perhaps, you can see how the dangerous mischief of RussiaGate, Hillary Clinton’s spoofish punkery that Russia “interfered” in the 2016 election, mutated into an American foreign policy psychosis.

By “Hillary Clinton” you must understand I refer not just to the Flying Reptile of Chappaqua herself, but the Party of Chaos she helped create out of the diverse-and-inclusive body parts stitched together from the graveyard of Leftist politics — socialists, communists, feminists, anarchists, Maoists, and Gawd-knows whatever other diverse ists this increasingly crazed coalition of Jacobin maniacs could enlist for beating a path straight into World War Three.

Now, having flopped in the Ukraine theater of conflict, and to the tune of their anthem, Get Russia, the Party of Chaos enters into a suicide pact with NATO as its useful idiot. They are using recent NATO draftee Lithuania to block the movement of railroad shipments between Russia proper and the geographically stranded province known as Kaliningrad Oblast shoehorned on the Baltic Coast between Lithuania and Poland. Kaliningrad had been swapped around by the principalities and kingdoms of the region from time immemorial. Its valuable ice-free port was annexed by Russia in 1758, traded variously to Poland and Prussia since then, and landed back in Russia’s possession after the Second World War. Thus, blocking transport from Russia to Kaliningrad Oblast might be construed as an act of war. Smooth move, NATO….

Britain is banging war drums the loudest at the moment. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, having made a suet pudding of his country’s economy, apparently thinks that World War Three will be a welcome diversion from Old Blighty’s nauseating whirl down the drain of broken empires. Germany, led by the empty suit Olaf Scholz, begins to squirm a little as it contemplates its blunder of going along with “Joe Biden’s” anti-Russia sanctions — which comes down to burning the furniture to stay warm this coming Christmas. France’s Macron just got drubbed in the National Assembly elections and is calling weakly for talks with Russia, as if…. Anyway, Mr. Putin is no longer in the mood for that, having been dissed, demonized, without relent for years, and lately demonetized by the West’s banking system. I love my country and all (though not so much the regime currently running it), but can you blame the Russian president? Hillary can, of course, and still does to this day, and where’s her credibility at now, exactly?

“Joe Biden,” meanwhile, acted out the perfect metaphor illustrating where the USA is at when, on Saturday, in perfect weather, and on-vacation (as usual) at the Delaware beach (because there’s so little to do in Washington these days), he cruised his bicycle into a gentle stop for a photo op with the locals and proceeded to flop over on his side like a 99-cent gyroscope that just can’t keep a’spinnin’ on its poorly-machined axis. That’s kind of like how America will fight a land war in Europe with our army of “vaccinated” myocarditis victims hoisting the rainbow battle flag into the fray.

Speaking of war… the “Joe Biden” regime is already at war with its own citizens, you know, so we’re poised on the edge of the worst sort of a two-front war: at home and abroad. Late last week, and surely with the connivance of the FDA, CDC, and the NIH, the American Board of Internal Medicine threatened to yank Dr. Peter McCullough’s medical license for “providing false and inaccurate information to patients.” Dr. McCullough has been at the forefront of the battle to provide early treatment protocols for Covid-19 that were systematically banned by US government public health agencies for the sole purpose of preserving the emergency use authorization that protects pharma companies from liability for “vaccines” that don’t prevent transmission of disease and have produced millions of injuries including thousands of deaths.

They are messing with the wrong doctor. He has the goods on these malevolent idiots. If he brings a case against them in a court of law, Dr. McCullough, the most published, peer-reviewed cardiologist in the world, is going to prove definitively just how the people of the USA were defrauded and injured by Big Pharma and our own government, and eventually a lot of the people involved will go to jail, or worse, and they know it. That is, if anything is left standing in our country after “Joe Biden” starts World War Three.

For those of you interested in the theory of mass formation, I’ve just posted my podcast with Mattias Desmet from Ghent University, Belgium, the author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism.

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