Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023

Warm | Fountain Sisters | Gjerde Announcement | Grant's Quarters | BOS Watch | Hoopa Hoopsters | Sinkhole Updates | Indian War | Beware Survey | Garden Walk | KMUD Censoring | Bridge Perch | PG&E Rates | Deck Poop | Early Mendo | Fort Humboldt | Winter Wind | Yesterday's Catch | Latino Linebacker | Gun Shrug | Human Impression | Mass Shooters | Recruitment Reminder | Swift Punishment | Totem Transport | Oscar Nominations | Young Democrats | Ukraine | Footballers | Rigged System | Water Benefits | Almighty Dollar | Bridge Building | Senior Caucus | Cold Violence | Ocean Save | Every Room

DRY CONDITIONS are expected to last into Friday with temperatures warming to above average toward the end of the work week. Wetter conditions are expected to return later in the weekend into early next week with rain and mountain snow possible as well as below average temperatures. (NWS)

MENDOCINO COUNTY SUPERVISOR DAN GJERDE ANNOUNCES HE WILL NOT SEEK A FOURTH TERM

“With the early campaign schedule prompted by California’s early Presidential Primary Election, I feel it is in the best interest of Fourth District residents that today I make a public announcement that I will not be seeking a fourth term,” Supervisor Dan Gjerde said.

The election of Fourth District Supervisor will coincide with California’s Presidential Primary Election on March 5, 2024. Candidates will need to begin filing papers as early as September 2023, which is only nine months away.

“With today’s announcement, residents who might want to consider service as a County Supervisor have proper notice. They can study the issues facing the County and can evaluate if the job is a good fit for the skills, effort, and time they are prepared to offer,” Gjerde said.

(County Presser)

THE GOOD NEWS: Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison told the Supervisors Tuesday that the County’s books are finally (basically) closed and the general fund carry-over from last fiscal year (ending in June of 2022) is a whopping $2.2 million (with some minor caveats about spending that’s been “encumbered” but not spent yet). This should not be a surprise to anyone since the County has been maintaining a large vacancy rate at around 25%. If anything, we expected the carryforward to be more than $2.2 million and that some departments may be padding their expenses or holding back pending other expenses. But there’s no way to know if that’s the case because the County has yet to provide departmental breakdowns, budgets or expenses. Board members seemed so happy to hear that the number was bigger than they thought that nobody bothered to wonder where the biggest carryovers were or what departments are suffering the most from prolonged vacancies. 

THE BOARD spent considerable time listening to several complaints and disagreements from Teresa Thurman owner of Creekside Cabins (and RV Park) in Willits. Thurman disputed some of the statements made by County officials about the big storm-caused sinkhole in late December that has blocked access, in and out, to her rental properties. She insisted that the treated water for the units is clean, despite Public Health Officer Andy Coren’s insistence that the Water Board had issued a “boil water” notice (see below). Thurman also took umbrage at Supervisor Haschak’s statement that she wasn’t being cooperative, claiming that she’s perfectly willing to do what the County requires of her. But, she insisted, the sinkhole is not on her property, but on a Caltrans easement and that Caltrans could do the repair for about $100k, much less than the $250k the County has hired a contractor for. County Counsel Christian Curtis told the Board that it might take upwards of six months to do the work and repair the sinkhole and restore the road access to Ms. Thurman’s units. Well-known and reliable north county emergency services reporter Danila Sand told the Board that for the short term the County should at least provide a temporary walkway for residents of the Creekside units to get in and out. She also said that the County’s plan to require people to evacuate the area in two days was unreasonable for many of the residents who may be on limited incomes, have few if any options, or who may be disabled in some way. In the end the Board approved the $250k emergency repair project proposed by County staff and Ms. Thurman reluctantly agreed to meet with County officials outside the meeting to address her complaints and concerns.

BUT AFTER their lunch-time closed session, the Board returned to announce that the County was going sue Ms. Thurman and her holding company to address conditions at her Creekside Cabins property (see below). How this precipitous decision will affect Ms. Thurman’s declaration of cooperation was not discussed.

(Mark Scaramella)

CREEKSIDE CABINS SINKHOLE UPDATE #6

The sinkhole which collapsed the driveway for Creek Side Cabins and RV Resort community eliminated the only access for necessary services, such as sewage processing and trash systems. On January 19, 2023, the California Water Resources Control Board issued an order to boil water confirming the existence of “very high E. coli results” in well samples at the affected area. A site inspection on January 20, 2023, by County Environmental Health and Code Enforcement staff revealed that sewage from many RVs has covered the ground surface in the area, and many RV systems were observed to be draining sewage and gray water directly into and towards the creek. The confirmed prevalence of E. coli in the drinking water and the existence of sewage water on the ground of the campground both present a major public health risk for the community in the affected area.

Potential risks for health problems range from uncomfortable to life-threatening. E. coli, experienced in “traveler’s diarrhea,” may be mild and last only a few days. However, it can cause very severe and even fatal diseases and outbreaks. Especially deadly strains of E. Coli produce toxins that affect the lining of the intestines, red blood cells and kidneys and can cause kidney failure, shock, and death. Public Health recommends that residents and individuals in contact with the affected area watch for the following symptoms:

Diarrhea or vomiting (and dehydration as a result thereof)

Abdominal pain especially when combined with fever, chills, or weakness

The most vulnerable to E. coli are the elderly over 65 years old, the very young under 5 years old, and people who have compromised immune systems. Anyone exposed who experiences these symptoms should contact their personal physician or contact 911 for any immediate medical care. 

In Mendocino County, E. coli is normally controlled by meticulous hygiene standards for the food production industries, and regular maintenance of our clean water systems. However, extreme rain and flood events can overwhelm water treatment systems, as well as affect our groundwater and wells. Property owners are encouraged to test water systems for E. coli after flood events (and treat if any is found). Members of the public may contact Environmental Health Department at (707) 234-6625 to obtain information on E. coli testing resources.

* * *

DANILA SAND: Temporary bridge at Creekside installed 01/24/23; width is 107 inches, concerns for hauling company and rv owners; company will do their best to help navigate people through; expect long delays at times starting Wednesday; residents will have from 8am-5pm Wednesday & Thursday to move out. 

* * *

CREEKSIDE CABINS SINKHOLE LITIGATION

On January 24, 2023, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors met during closed session to discuss the Creekside Cabins property, where a sinkhole has cut off residents from the adjacent Hwy 101. After deliberations, the board voted unanimously to direct County Counsel to initiate litigation against Houser Holdings LLC, and property owner Teresa Thurman, to address ongoing hazardous conditions at the site.

On January 20, 2023, after obtaining an inspection warrant, Mendocino County Code Enforcement and Environmental Health conducted an inspection and discovered several health and safety violations. On January 21, 2023 the Public Health Officer ordered the site closed pursuant to Penal Code section 409.5(a) due to a public health menace.

While investigating the site and providing evacuation services, County staff have witnessed illicit discharge of sewage material into the adjacent waterway, and have subsequently contacted the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which will investigate the site for criminal violations.

BEWARE THE QUESTIONNAIRE (an on-line comment): 

Just think twice before reporting information to Mendocino County. They have a nasty habit of coming back and using it against you. Requiring you to make repairs or upgrades while actually charging you for permits etc rather than offering assistance. Or using your misfortune to get money for county coffers which will in no way help you personally.

PAUL MODIC: Why Does KMUD Have To Censor Its Members?

I’m unpleasantly surprised to see how KMUD has changed, particularly how the feature “All Sides Now” is being run. Yes, change is constant but when something has changed for the worse it should be noted, check to see if anyone cares and try to do something about it, or just figure c’est la vie and move on.

It used to be if you wanted to get your opinion or announcement out on the air you called in (932-5276) and recorded it, or came into the station to record it in the studio, and the message would go out to the community after the evening news at 6:30, or at the latest the next day. Everyone was free to say whatever they wanted except for the seven deadly words that the FCC banned after George Carlin did his thing on WBAI. (The other rules are don’t mention another community member by name and keep it to two minutes or less.)

Now when you call in and record your opinion they may or may not air it and if they don’t, they refuse to tell you why, and if they do air it, it may be in a few days or a week. If the news runs over with extra fire, weather, or covid updates, they won’t play it just after the news, as it had been for decades.

They will not air your opinion if they deem it “inappropriate,” and what does that mean? Whatever they want it to mean. If they don’t like you, your opinion, or how you express it they won’t air it. I find this odd because there is a lot of free speech on regular programming and with the call-ins on the talk shows, yet this feature, All Sides Now (ASN), is brutally censored, i.e., KMUD doesn’t respect its listeners, members, or the community, in this instance.

(ASN started in 1989 when there was a fight after a Too Short concert at the Mateel in the liquor store parking lot, rumors and gossip about what happened flourished, and the spot was created to let people talk about that and other issues.)

I’d like to see ASN respected as the most important two minutes on KMUD, and become once again the coolest feature at the station, a place where everyone can express themselves without having one unqualified guy deciding what is “appropriate” for everyone to hear. Believe me, we love to hear what our neighbors have to say in this format and don’t need a gatekeeper protecting us from, umm, what? Having to decide for ourselves if we agree or disagree with our neighbors’ opinions?

I’d like to see ASN return to being a shining jewel of free speech, allowing all voices to be heard, and airing right after the news every night. Is this too much to ask?

I understand that censorship is perfectly legal (because the “Fairness Doctrine” was repealed in the late eighties), KMUD can silence and ban whomever they want for any reason and they don’t have to say why, but I just don’t think it’s a good look for our local station. (For example that irrepressible and talented force of nature, the advocacy journalist and investigative reporter Nikki Norris has been cancelled and not allowed to have a show, and why is this? Limited First Amendment rights for a badass like her? It’s been a year now—is she banned forever? She is tenacious, staff and management is adamant, and it’s probably a lack of clear communication and mutual respect, as in most disputes, which keeps this stalemate unresolved.)

KMUD shouldn’t be afraid of airing dissenting opinions, contrasted to this site, Redheaded Black Belt, which is an example of robust free speech where no voices are silenced, even ones Kym disagrees with. (A staff member at the station recently told me emphatically that “KMUD is not free speech radio,” which was shocking to hear.)

I’d like to see All Sides Now blossom again and return to be the free-for-all which the founders created. One reason management and staff have been able to get away with this unimaginative policy of neglect is that there seem to be few people who actually want to express themselves on ASN. It would be nice if there were a revival of interest and people were actually encouraged to give their opinions, and tell their stories, instead of being discouraged by the “appropriate police” in charge of what we’re allowed to say.

In conclusion my observation about how the station has changed is that before there wasn’t much difference in the community and KMUD, it merged together. Now a layer of bureaucracy seems to exist which is intent on exercising their power to silence voices they don’t agree with. Is it possible to change it back to a radio station which encourages more freedom of speech instead of discouraging it? (How?)

Does anyone know why or when KMUD became this tightly controlled “community organization” which would rather say no than yes?

NICK WILSON ON PG&E

Smart meter has nothing to do with it. PG&E rates have gone up and up and up over the past 10 years. We used to be on a time of use plan where the rate at night was under 10 cents per kwh. Now I think it's never under about 30. Also the hours in which the part peak and peak rates apply have changed so that evenings and dinner prep are at peak rates. The only way to escape is with a solar off grid setup, or maybe a large battery and inverter system so you can use grid energy to charge the battery at low rate times and then run off the battery during peak times. However that would take a long time to come out ahead due to the cost of that equipment, so not really practical. PG&E now charges grid-tie solar customers a large fee for being tied to the grid, and pays you a measly wholesale rate for power your system puts into the grid while charging full rate for power you take out of the grid at night.

AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF EARLY MENDOCINO COUNTY

by Bruce Anderson

Feliz Creek today, where it passes beneath Highway 101 at Hopland is, in the summer, a parched expanse of dry streambed that is barely discernible as a water course. Only when it comes alive in the winter as it runs off from its headwaters in the west hills into the Russian River can you get some idea of how crucial it once was to the Indians traveling from Clearlake to the Pacific as they walked west up the seam of the Feliz into the hills separating Hopland from the Anderson Valley, pausing at the Feliz headwaters at the westem tip of what is now the McNab Ranch before they walked over the ridge and into the Anderson Valley near Yorkville, and from Yorkville over the last hurdle of the Coast Range mountains to the Pacific. Indians made that annual trek for thousands of years.

There’s a spirit rock at the Feliz Creek headwaters, a huge boulder covered with laboriously encrypted symbols the Indians carved into it over the millennia, thousands of years of directions, fertility prayers, perhaps statements of gratitude for the easy abundance enjoyed at the Edenic meadow the spirit rock sits in at the very end of the very western-most road of the McNab Ranch sub-division.

The Feliz Creek spirit rock stopped functioning as a pre-historic message board about the time of the Gold Rush when the Indians were suddenly ripped out of their ancient homes and began to die in large numbers. But on still nights, a mere five miles from interminable 101, it’s easy to imagine this paradise as the Indians found it — thick with Feliz Creek’s annual migrations of steelhead and salmon, and an unending amplitude of nourishing flora and fauna. And now, below the spirit rock at Hopland, a garish tourist interlude on Highway 101, an enterprise called Real Goods sells unresourceful rich people the expensive technology they think they need to live like the Indians of the Spirit Rock.

In two hundred years California went from Junipero Serra to California Cuisine and the computer. The ad-sals, as Mendocino County Indians called the white invaders, started slow but were soon everywhere, the first of them arriving in Mendocino County to stay in 1848.

The Indians predicted in their ghost dance prayers of the 1880s and 1920s that the ad sals would eventually be swallowed up in great cataclysms and they, the true people, the Indians, would resume living the old way they’d lived for millennia before the grasping, destructive invaders. The cataclysms are upon us, and are unlikely to spare anyone including, unfortunately, our first peoples.

The Spanish missions established in California late in the 18th century were the work of father Serra, a garrulous fanatic who talked constantly about slipping “the gentle yoke of Christ” over the heads of neophytes, as unyoked Indians were called by the Franciscans, all of whom had been born in Spain. The Indians killed babies born of rapes by the Spanish soldiers who accompanied the Missionaries up and down Spanish California from San Diego to San Rafael and Sonoma.

The saving of Indian souls and the training of their bodies in the organized labor that would make the missions prosper was the goal of the missionary effort. Dangling an irresistible amalgam of regular meals and eternal life, with Spanish soldiers standing by to make sure the Indians stayed with the padres when hospitality hour was over, the Franciscans had their first free labor, The religion the Indians already had, complete with one god and an afterlife whose rewards were based on one’s earthly behavior, was very similar to the one imposed on them by the padres and their bodyguards.

Men separated from women, men and women separated from their tribes, many of the Indians of California south of what became the Sonoma-Mendocino county line were soon highly trained serfs whose skilled labor made the missions rich. The missionized Indians spoke Spanish, and had quickly become the fabled vaqueros essential to the success of the cattle-dependent land grant rancheros that had been established in the vastnesses surrounding the missions. Indian women were just as essential to the patrician comforts of land grant estanzas as skilled household workers.

Heavy handed imperialists that they were, Spain, the monks the Mexicans who came after Spain and the monks, at least regarded Indians as human beings with souls worth saving; the Yankees saw the Indians as so many sub-human pests, and would wipe them out in the two murderous decades beginning with the Gold Rush.

The first Americanos to arrive in California in force, the gold seekers of ‘49, considered Indians as vermin, Mexicans as greasers, blacks as slaves, Chinese as yellow peril, and each other as snakes, but only Indians were killed recreationally. As a government report put it, “Never before in history has a people been swept away with such terrible swiftness.”

The missions absorbed Indians, Christianized them, Spanish soldiers and Mexican settlers married them, trained them as hands and domestics, and preferred not to murder them so long as they remained docile and productive. Which they didn’t. Early California history is replete with large-scale Indian uprisings and counter-attacks on the missions and the Mexican rancheros and then the Yankee settlers.

Early on, European, Mexican and Yankee visitors would make the inevitable naked savage observation and then, in the same paragraph, marvel at how well the Indians seemed to do in all sorts of weather, how finely made and attractive Indian basketry was, how beautifully functional their cold weather clothing was. But the civilized men never took the next logical step in recognizing the genius of a people so perfectly at home in the abundance of the world as they found it that they didn’t need anything the new world brought with it. One of the more thoughtful European observers did, however, come close to perceiving the root of Indian resistance. “You often hear of civilized men going native and never wanting to retum to their former lives, but the desire among primitive people for civilization is non-existent.”

Once the Indians south of Mendocino County were thoroughly missionized — or dead — and the padres were confident that these “neophytes” believed that the mission life was superior to life back home with the tribe, the Christianized Indians would be sent out into the outback to bring in their wild brothers and sisters as replacement labor for Indian labor lost to white man disease. By the time Mexico realized that the mission formula — armed proselytization — had created a string of highly prosperous outposts from San Diego to San Rafael and Sonoma, Mexico was inspired to declare independence and the missions were privatized.

That was it for the missions, a mere fifty years. California would belong to independent Mexico until the Gold Rush, less than thirty years after the last mission was privatized.

History was picking up speed.

The first mission at San Diego was established in 1769.

Spain and the Franciscan monks ruled California from their headquarters in Mexico City until Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1821.

Mexico loosely presided over California from 1821 until 1850.

In 1834, some eight million more acres of California had become the vast ranches of roughly 800 grantees, reaching as far north as Hopland. A typical land grant was ten square miles, These economically independent. self-sustaining ranchos were empires unto themselves. They grazed thousands of cattle, sheep and horses, and employed hundreds of missionized, Spanish-speaking Indians who made them as prosperous as fairy tale kingdoms.

The Gold Rush began in 1848, and California was a state by 1850 with uncharted Mendocino among its founding counties.

By the time of the Gold Rush, with Mexico exerting what government it could over a Yankee-dominated, restive California, Mexican land grants had been established everywhere in the state as far north as what is now the Mendocino County line. There were two undeveloped land grants in the Ukiah Valley, but only the one based in Hopland was a working ranchero. Two Mexican grandees were given land in the Ukiah Valley but they never established ranches on it. Hopland was as close as the outside world got to Mendocino County before 1850, apart from slave taking expeditions into the Ukiah and Anderson valleys by Spaniards, then Mexicans, then Yankees, which the Spanish soldiers, acting for the missions, had well underway by the late 1700s.

The Gold Rush finished the Indians. The world rushed in so fast that the Indians of Northern California were engulfed, the Mendocino County Indians with them. By 1850, a 150-ton steamer, the Jack Hays, was hauling gold prospectors from San Francisco up the Sacramento River to Red Bluff, and Red Bluff was just over the Mayacama Mountains from what was inland Mendocino County in the new state of California.

While all the Spanish missionizing and Mexican land granting had gone on in the greater Bay Area, Mendocino County slept on, ancient ways unmodified by the missions, and only occasionally affected by missionized Indians. The only reason Spaniards and then Mexicans came north to Mendocino was to capture Indians for slave labor either on the missions or the rancheros spread around the great bay. But when Redick McKee made his long, post-Gold, Rush slog from Sonoma to Humboldt Bay in 1851 — nine days from Laytonville to Fortuna alone — to convince the inland Indians to assemble themselves in area reservations, the Indians listened to “the little white father’s” pitch then rejected it. As McKee himself put it, “They had seen a few white men from time to time, and the encounters had impressed them with a strong desire to see no more, except with the advantage of manifest superiority on their own part.”

BLOW BLOW THOU WINTER WIND

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing . . .

— William Shakespeare, As You Like It

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, January 24, 2023

CHENOA BUSIC, Sebastopol/Ukiah. DUI.

BRADLEY DANAHY, Willits. Parole violation.

JASON GOWER, Eureka/Ukiah. Petty theft, controlled substanct-attempt to bring into jail, resisting, failure to appear, probation revocation.

CAMEO LIMA, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

DELAINA MORGAN, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JOSE OJEDA-MALDONADO, Covelo. Probation revocation.

SAMUEL SOLORIO-DOVAL, Redwood Valley. Pot cultivation-conspiracy, pot sales-conspiracy.

JALAHN TRAVIS, Ukiah. Trespassing-refusing to leave.

KATELYN WALKER, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance while armed with loaded firearm. 

VERY MEXICAN!

The San Francisco 49ers superstar linebacker represents the small percentage of players in the NFL with Latino heritage, as his maternal grandfather is Mexican, he grew up in a California family where Spanish was spoken and has expressed his pride to carry the tricolor flag.

‘NO WAY TO PREVENT THIS,’ SAYS ONLY NATION WHERE IT REGULARLY HAPPENS

HALF-MOON BAY, CA — In the hours following a violent rampage in California in which a lone attacker killed seven individuals and injured one other, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. 

“This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said New Hampshire resident Lisa Martin, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. 

“It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” 

At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.” 

— Rob Anderson, District 5 Diary

I COULD HAVE BEEN A MASS SHOOTER. Here’s What Stopped Me — And Could Stop Others, Too

A mass shooting occurs every 8.3 days in California on average, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This past weekend, one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern California history left 11 people dead and at least 10 more wounded at a dance studio during Lunar New Year festivities in Monterey Park, in the heart of Los Angeles County’s Chinese American community.

We don’t yet know the full details of this shameful act of cowardice. But the incident can’t help but remind me, as a formerly untreated mentally ill person and someone who angrily erupted into violence earlier in my life, of the importance of keeping guns out of the wrong hands.

It has been 25 years since I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type 1, a mood disorder more severe than Type 2, which subjects patients to wild swings of emotion. Around the time of my diagnosis, I was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon — a felony — for brandishing a golf club at someone.

Today, I am under treatment and stable with my bipolar disorder. My sentence was commuted to simple assault, a misdemeanor, which was expunged from my record years ago. I was fortunate that my life’s path did not follow that of Nathaniel Berhow, who in November 2019 killed two schoolmates and seriously injured three others at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), before killing himself on his 16th birthday.

It easily could have.

I seriously considered using a gun back when I was inadequately treated. Had I chosen to do so, I and many individuals in my proximity might have perished. Society would have suffered grievously, and my family would have been scarred for life.

Only a lucky sliver of self-discernment on my part stopped my cycle of violence — a personality characteristic that the untreated mentally ill and unreformed convicted felons often do not have. That is why, in my opinion, convicted felons and those with mental illness should have no individual right to bear arms.

Based on my own experience with both the law and with untreated mental illness, I believe a three-part strategy needs to be enacted at the federal level to greatly diminish future incidents of mass shootings.

• Establish an online onsite psychiatric evaluation, capable of picking up a mental illness or signs of violent tendencies, for all prospective gun buyers.

• Establish an online onsite universal criminal background check for all prospective gun buyers.

• Establish fines, imprisonment and revocation of federal firearms licenses for gun dealers who sell to individuals who fail to meet the criteria. 

A Pew Research Center poll published in April 2021 revealed bipartisan support for preventing those with mental illnesses from purchasing guns; 85% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats were in favor. And yet there has been no meaningful federal movement toward restricting gun access to the mentally ill.

The same Pew Research Center poll also revealed bipartisan support for subjecting private gun sales and gun show sales to background checks; 70% of Republicans and 92% of Democrats were in favor. And yet, as of now, only federal firearms licensees pursue such background checks.

According to the National Institute of Justice, we know that most mass shooters obtain their weapons legally. The main way many mass shooters get guns is not from the streets, but from federal firearms licensees — who look the other way as they sell guns to the clearly disturbed or to those red-flagged on their background checks. In an interview with PBS’ Frontline, Julius Wachtel, a former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, explained that this process is much faster than looking for a street dealer. Wachtel said that according to the ATF, around 8% of the nation’s 124,000 retail gun dealers are responsible for selling the majority of handguns that are used in crimes. This is fortunate, in a sense, because if the ATF were to successfully go after this small cadre of rogue entrepreneurs, criminal gun use could be rapidly curtailed.

Almost every significant attempt at federal gun control, up to this point, has focused on taking guns away from people. Consider the debate around AR-15 assault-style weapons. I believe we should put the focus instead on keeping certain people away from guns. By pragmatically preserving the rights of fit, law-abiding and responsible gun owners, and keeping gun dealers honest, we can create a politically feasible pathway to curbing our gun violence epidemic.

Mental illness and criminal behavior no longer blight my life. The closest thing to a weapon that I own is a baseball bat, which I use exclusively for playing baseball. My future is wide open, and I am alive and free to repay my debt to society and to restore honor to my family. That is more important to me, and to society, than any alleged right to bear arms.

(Jason W. Park is a mental health advocate and the author of “Bliss + Blues = Bipolar: My Memoir of My Ups and Downs Living with Bipolar Disorder.”)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

My beef with life in prison is it takes these filthy individuals and then makes them a ward of the state meaning you, I and all the rest of us are now responsible for their food, their health care, their education, their creature comforts, etc. I, for one, do not deserve to be punished for their sins in the form of increased taxation to cover their incarceration. America already imprisons more people than just about any other nation on this planet. 

I’m in favor of swift capitol punishment. A box of 30.06 shells costs $49.00 right now. I even have a nice 30.06 rifle that can be used for free. A quick shot and an ignomious burial under some Nevada sage brush won’t cost you, our neighbors or I much more than the cost of transporting the corpse to its final resting spot. In a sane world, that is…..

'EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE' TOPS OSCAR NOMINATIONS WITH 11

by Jake Coyle

The multiverse-skipping sci-fi indie hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once” led nominations to the 95th Academy Awards as Hollywood heaped honors on big-screen spectacles like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” a year after a streaming service won best picture for the first time.

Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” landed a leading 11 nominations on Tuesday, including nods for Michelle Yeoh and comeback kid Ke Huy Quan, the former child star of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” Released back in March, the A24 film has proved an unlikely Oscar heavyweight against the expectations of even its makers. Yeoh became the first Asian actor nominated for best actress.

The 10 movies up for best picture are: “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “The Fabelmans,” “Tár,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Elvis,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “Women Talking” and “Triangle of Sadness.”

Nominations were announced Tuesday from the academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams. If last year’s Oscars were dominated by streaming — Apple TV+’s “CODA” won best picture and Netflix landed a leading 27 nominations — movies that drew moviegoers to multiplexes after two years of pandemic make up many of this year’s top contenders.

For the first time, two sequels — “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” — were nominated for best picture. The two films together account for some $3.5 billion in box office. Tom Cruise missed out on an acting nomination, but the film credited with bringing many moviegoers back to theaters walked away with seven nominations. Ryan Coogler's “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” made in the wake of Chadwick Boseman's death, scored five nominations, including the first acting nod for a performance in a Marvel movie: Angela Bassett, the likely favorite to win best supporting actress.

Baz Luhrmanns' bedazzled biopic “Elvis” came away with eight nominations, including a best actor nod for star Austin Butler and nominations for its costumes, sound and production design.

Though Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” struggled to catch on with audiences, the director’s autobiographical coming-of-age tale landed Spielberg his 20th Oscar nomination and eighth nod for best-director. John Williams, his longtime composer, extended his record for the most Oscar nominations for a living person. Williams' 53rd nominations trails only Walt Disney’s 59.

Only one streaming title broke into the best-picture field: The German WWI film “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Though Netflix for the first time in years lacks a possible best picture frontrunner, “All Quiet on the Western Front” landed a better-than-expected nine nominations.

The other nominees for best actress are: Ana de Armas, “Blonde”; Cate Blanchett, “Tár”; Andrea Riseborough, “To Leslie”; Michelle Williams, “The Fabelmans”;

The nominees for best actor: Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”; Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”; Austin Butler, “Elvis”; Bill Nighy, “Living”; Paul Mescal, “Aftersun”

The nominees for best supporting actress are: Angela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”; Hong Chau, “The Whale”; Kerry Condon, “The Banshees of Inisherin”; Jamie Lee Curtis, ““Everything Everywhere All at Once”; Stephanie Hsu, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

The nominees for best supporting actor are: Brian Tyree Henry, “Causeway”; Judd Hirsch, “The Fabelmans”; Brendan Gleeson, “Banshees of Inisherin”; Barry Keoghan, “Banshees of Inisherin”; Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

The nominees for international film are: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany); “Argentina, 1985” (Argentina); “Close” (Belgium); “EO” (Poland); “The Quiet Girl” (Ireland).

The nominees for original screenplay are: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; “The Banshees of Inisherin”; “The Fabelmans”; “Tár”; “Triangle of Sadness.”

The nominees for best original score are: Volker Bertelmann, “All Quiet on the Western Front”; Justin Hurwitz, “Babylon”; Carter Burwell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”; Son Lux, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; John Williams, “The Fabelmans.”

The nominees for best animated film are: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”; “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On”; “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”; “The Sea Beast”; “Turning Red.”

Last year's broadcast drew 15.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen, up 56% from the record-low audience of 10.5 million for the pandemic-marred 2021 telecast. This year, ABC is bringing back Jimmy Kimmel to host the March 12 ceremony, one that will surely be seen as a return to the site of the slap.

But larger concerns are swirling around the movie business. Last year saw flashes of triumphant resurrection for theaters, like the success of “Top Gun: Maverick,” after two years of pandemic. But partially due to a less steady stream of major releases, ticket sales for the year recovered only about 70% of pre-pandemic business. Regal Cinemas, the nation's second-largest chain, announced the closure of 39 cinemas this month.

At the same time, storm clouds swept into the streaming world after years of once-seemingly boundless growth. Stocks plunged as Wall Street looked to streaming services to earn profits, not just add subscribers. A retrenchment has followed, as the industry again enters an uncertain chapter.

(AP)

UKRAINE, TUESDAY, 24TH JANUARY

Several senior Ukrainian officials have resigned in a major political shake-up linked to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s anti-corruption drive.

Poland officially asks Germany to re-export Leopard 2 tanksto Ukraine, heaping more pressure on Berlin over weapons supplies.

The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Tuesday he had asked President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday to relieve him of his duties as part of a wave of government resignations and dismissals. The move comes amid a corruption scandal which saw Infrastructure deputy Vasyl Lozinskyi sacked and detained for an alleged theft of $400,000 from the winter aid budget. Tymoshenko, 33, had been the deputy head of presidential office since 2019, overseeing regions and regional policies. He also worked with Zelenskiy during his election campaign, overseeing media and creative content.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, responsible for supplying troops with food and equipment, has also resigned, citing “media accusations” of corruption that he and the ministry say are baseless. A statement on the defence ministry’s website said Shapovalov’s resignation was “a worthy deed” that would help retain trust in the ministry

Deputy prosecutor general Oleksiy Symonenko has been removed from his post, according to the prosecutor general’s office, and two deputy ministers resigned from Ukraine’s ministry of communities and territories Development – Vyacheslav Negoda and Ivan Lukerya. Reportedly the heads of five regional authorities have also been dismissed, in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson.

Germany has now received Poland’s official request to re-export Leopard tanks to Ukraine, Polish defence minister Mariusz Blaszczak said.

The final decision on whether Germany will give permission will be taken at the chancellery in Berlin, a senior official at the foreign ministry said on Tuesday. “At the end of the day, the decision will obviously be taken at the chancellery, in consensus by the government,” Tobias Lindner, state secretary at the foreign ministry, said at a defence conference in Berlin.

NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is confident the alliance will find a solution soon, he said after meeting Germany’s defence minister on Tuesday. “At this pivotal moment in the war, we must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster,” Stoltenberg said.

New German defence minister Boris Pistorius said there was no disunity among allies about sending heavy battle tanks to Ukraine and said that Berlin would act quickly if there was a positive decision to do so. However, he stressed that Nato must not become a party to the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin warned Monday that the people of Ukraine will “pay the price” if the west decides to send tanks to support Kyiv.

Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto has signalled a possible pause in discussions with Turkey over Finnish ambitions to join Nato alongside Sweden, which he says is due to the pressure of Turkey’s forthcoming election.

Russia’s ambassador to Estonia, Vladimir Lipaev, has accused the west of arming the Baltic state with weapons that could strike at St Petersburg. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has decided to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow other countries such as Poland to do so, the magazine Spiegel reported on Tuesday. The decision concerns at least a company of Leopard 2 A6 tanks, Spiegel said. Other allies, in Scandinavia for example, also intend to go along with Germany in supplying their Leopard tanks to Kyiv.

Russia branded the move to send tanks to Ukraine an 'immediate provocation' and one raging  Putin mouthpiece called for the Bundestag to be destroyed after weeks of bitter rows between Germany and Nato allies looked set to finally resolve. While there is yet to be official confirmation, officials in Germany and the US said M1 Abrams tanks and Leopard 2 tanks will soon be sent to the battlefield, to the delight of Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelensky's officials hailed the move as a 'punching fist' for democracy, while Russia had previously warned it would cause a 'global catastrophe' and escalate the war beyond Ukraine's borders.

— Al Jazeera and the Guardian

THE GLOBAL 1%: TELL ME THE SYSTEM ISN'T RIGGED

The world’s super-rich have amassed so much wealth since the pandemic that even a Tory minister can see something is amiss

by Nesrine Malik

You may have forgotten by now, but there was a brief moment during the pandemic when hopes were raised for a new “roaring 20s”. The Yale sociology professor Nicholas Christakis predicted that as in the 1920s, after the 1918 Spanish flu, society would embrace indulgence, with a rise in “sexual licentiousness” as well as a “reverse of religiosity”. We were poised to emerge from lockdown randy and flush. We certainly weren’t supposed to plunge, as we have in Britain, right into political crises and strikes, have three prime ministers in as many months, and sit at home too skint to turn on the heating or socialise.

But a roaring 20s is actually happening, just not for most of us. According to Oxfam’s annual inequality report, released to coincide with the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, the richest 1% of people have captured nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world combined since the pandemic. Their fortune soared by $26tn, increasing their share of new wealth from 50% to two-thirds.

The breakdown of these figures exposes how on a global basis, extreme wealth is accumulated not by innovating or increasing production, but by taking advantage of rising prices and exploiting labour. In this effort, wealthy people are enabled by lack of regulation and taxation. The result is a bonanza of plunder with no sheriff in town.

This has been happening for a while, but the pandemic accelerated the trend. Rich people benefited from everything — every positive intervention from the state and negative impact of the crisis somehow still ended up increasing their wealth. They benefited from rising costs by using them as an alibi to charge higher-than-inflation prices, then distributing the rewards as dividends instead of higher wages. Food and energy corporations made a killing, making $306bn in windfall profits in 2022, then distributing 84% to shareholders.

They benefited from stimulus packages that pushed up asset prices. They benefited from low interest rates that helped them to expand their property empires. According to Credit Suisse, lower interest rates and government support programmes resulted in “a huge transfer” of wealth from the public sector to private households, which saw their debts lowered and the value of their assets, shares and properties, rise.

The obscenity of the system is made possible by the dramatically diminished bargaining power of labour. Weak labour is cheap labour. More lucratively, the world’s workers can increasingly be mobilised according to employers’ precise needs, so not a penny is wasted. The purpose is to transform the human worker into a machine that can be switched off when not in use (although at least machines are tended with maintenance). In 2020, Amazon’s UK sales soared by half to £19.4bn. In 2021, an investigation in Britain found that the company was bypassing its own employment standards by hiring thousands of zero-hours workers through agencies. These workers have no employment protections, their shifts can be cancelled at the last minute, and there is no guarantee of tenure of employment.

But it is successful tax avoidance that is the strongest pillar propping up global inequality, and its dismantling would be the quickest solution. There is little chance of that happening soon. Tax regimes, like much of the conventional economic wisdom about the benefits of wealth creation to all, are increasingly out of step with not only the needs of poor people, but with what is required for the health of our economies. The political class has been captured by the outdated ideology of trickle-down economics. And if any of those politicians have dissenting thoughts and consider raising taxes, financial elites threaten to abscond with their wealth, or protest that their entrepreneurial ambitions will be extinguished. The media framing redistributive policies as radical or destructive is a powerful shock collar, too. Oxfam found that 143 of 161 countries actually froze tax rates for the rich during the pandemic, and 11 countries reduced them.

What’s most striking about the post-pandemic profit boom is the truly global nature of the problem. It’s not only the hope of a world recalibrated by Covid towards stronger public infrastructure that is turning to dust in our mouths. An older dream is dying too: of a post-cold-war globalisation that was supposed to bring us all closer, usher in a utopia of free trade, growth, employment and sustainable development. What this model of globalisation ended up achieving was standardising ways for wealthy people to pay as little as possible, concentrating economic activity on those with purchasing power and hanging the rest out to dry. Our lives are indeed becoming more similar across the world. In the global south, affluent people now all have access to the same consumer goods and services, from Netflix to Vitamix, and live in new-build developments with names like Beverly Hills (Cairo), and Bel Air (Nairobi). Poor people are pushed to the margins, the public services they depend on dismantled.

None of this has happened by accident, according to Peter Goodman, the author of Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World. “It’s not an accident,” he tells me, “that our economies have concentrated greater wealth in fewer hands. Quite simply, wealthy people have used their wealth to purchase democracy, to warp democracy in their own interests. They’ve done that through a global template that involves lowering taxes, privatising formerly public attempts to deal with common problems, liquidating the spending that went into things like social services, and then putting that money into their own pockets.” The main power of the billionaire class, Goodman says, is in their creation of values, not value, that maintain a friendly political climate. Davos, he says, is “a prophylactic against change, an elaborate reinforcement of the status quo served up as the pursuit of human progress”.

But the disparities are becoming too stark for these branding efforts to work as well as they used to. Even rightwing politicians are beginning to point out that the promise of social mobility no longer has purchase. Last week, in a speech that very much sounded like the observations of someone who has awoken from a decades-long slumber, UK cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt said that “many people think things don’t work, at least for them”, adding that “for those with the least, the whole system can seem rigged against them”.

So close and yet so far. The system doesn’t seem to be rigged. It is rigged. I guess it’s a step in the right direction that terms which in the past would have consigned a speaker to the pile of conspiracy theorists and commies are making their way into the mainstream. Mordaunt went further. “The very continuation and success of capitalism,” she said, “hangs in the balance.” But for the powerful tiny minority that owns half the world’s wealth, this sort of capitalism is succeeding better than ever before. What hangs in the balance, as the billionaires’ riches increase, is their ability to argue that it’s working for us too.

HAPPY TUESDAY

Editor,

Yesterday there were two mass shootings in California, one near Los Angeles in Monterey Park, a small city made up of about 65% Asian-American citizens, and, later in the day, at the small rural northern Californian community, Half Moon Bay. At least two are fighting for their lives in hospitals, while eighteen are now dead (“Shooting suspect dead”).

The Half Moon Bay trigger-man is in police custody. How is it that the blood of all these mass shooting victims never extends to the halls of the US Congress? Anyone with even half a brain knows national politics, especially when it comes to the control of either house of Congress, is controlled by money: the Almighty Dollar.

Asian-Americans have been especially hard hit and unfairly labeled by American right wing media companies such as FOX News spokesmen and not only the ex-President Trump, the nation’s most politically divisive politician in history.

Anyone who happens to read this letter, please contact your congressman or woman today. Ask for a national ban on weapons of war, assault guns. The next victims may be friends of yours.

Frank H. Baumgardner

Santa Rosa

THREATS TO SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE

Virtual Senior Caucus Meeting - Saturday Morning At 10 Am Strategy Session - We Welcome Your Input On Topics - Threats To Social Security, Medicare, Senior Affordable Housing

Dear Senior Caucus Members and Supporters,

You are invited and highly encouraged to attend our upcoming CDP Senior Caucus Strategy Session on Saturday, January 28, 2023, from 10 am until 12 noon.

During the first part of our session, we will lead with brief overviews of select issues and highlight crucial data to help us determine our priorities and strategies moving into the 2024 election cycle. Some topics for discussion include — yet are not limited to — Medicare, Social Security, Ageism, and Affordable Senior Housing.

Given the importance of the current and continuing attacks on Social Security, we will prepare you for discussions with your family and friends with facts about the Social Security Trust Fund and the Social Security Administration.

The CDP Senior Caucus officers rely heavily on your input to ensure a high level of engagement and meaningful participation. In addition to facilitating discussions with during the Strategy Session, we will conduct a live poll for the purpose of prioritizing issues and strategies.

We look forward to working with you throughout the year ahead on informative and timely programming as well as some effective, big impact actions.

Democratically yours, Ruth Carter Chair, CDP Senior Caucus

HUFFMAN'S SAVING THE OCEAN

Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) today introduced the West Coast Ocean Protection Act to permanently ban oil and gas drilling in federal waters off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington.

“Offshore drilling poses unacceptable risks, and the science and public opinion are clear: we should not put our oceans and fisheries, coastal communities, economies, and planet at risk just to enrich the fossil fuel industry,” said Representative Huffman. “The world is transitioning to a green, clean energy future – and it is past time that we ban new offshore drilling and shift our investments to safe, renewable energy sources. Californians have experienced first-hand the environmental disasters caused by oil spills, and we are ready to put an end to that risk once and for all by permanently protecting our coasts.”

“The era of offshore oil and gas production in the Pacific is coming to a close,” said Senator Feinstein. “We’re in the midst of a historic transition to cleaner energy sources, including offshore wind. Offshore drilling and the risks it poses to the environment and our robust ocean and coastal economies are not part of that clean-energy future. It’s time to permanently ban new drilling leases in federal waters off the West Coast.”

California began efforts to block offshore drilling in 1969 when an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara leaked 3 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, blanketing beaches with a thick layer of oil and killing thousands of marine mammals and birds. It was the largest oil spill in U.S. history until the Exxon Valdez spill 20 years later. After the 1969 Santa Barbara spill, California blocked all new offshore oil drilling in state waters, protecting our coastal waters up to three miles from the shore. The state reinforced that ban in 1994 by passing the California Coastal Sanctuary Act, which prohibited new leasing in state waters.

In October 2021, a ruptured pipeline from an existing oil well spilled more than 25,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean and onto the beaches of Orange County. Despite numerous alarms, operators allowed oil to flow from the leak for over 14 hours. The spill covered more than 8,000 acres of the ocean’s surface and required more than a week of cleanup while local businesses and fisheries suffered.

No new offshore drilling has been allowed in federal waters along the Pacific Coast since 1984. However, the Trump administration released a five-year offshore leasing plan in 2018 that proposed opening up the entire West Coast to new drilling despite widespread opposition in Pacific coast states. That proposal was blocked by the courts but the threat of drilling will remain until a permanent ban is enacted. 

The West Coast Ocean Protection Act would permanently protect these waters that are essential to coastal economies and healthy marine ecosystems. Nearly 70 percent of Californians opposed offshore drilling according to recent polling by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The bill is supported by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Oceana, Sierra Club, Environment America, Environment Washington, Environment Oregon, Environment California, Surfrider Foundation, League of Conservation Voters, Surf Industry Members Association, WILDCOAST, Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast, Paddle For Peace, and the National Aududon Society.

“Surfrider Foundation applauds the introduction of the West Coast Protection Act. We urge Congress to pass this and other legislation to protect U.S. waters from new offshore drilling. Stopping new offshore drilling will protect our nation’s environment, communities and businesses. The bill is also a key action to address climate change,” said Pete Stauffer, ocean protection manager, Surfrider Foundation.

“We can’t continue business as usual. With a climate and biodiversity crisis to address, and a clean energy economy taking off, this is no time to pursue a backward-looking energy strategy. The public has made it clear – communities oppose new offshore drilling and seismic blasting and don’t want to hand over our coastal waters to polluters. This bill would make significant strides in protecting the West Coast, coastal communities, and fragile ecosystems,” said Valerie Cleland, senior ocean advocate, NRDC.

“From soaring cliffs to sunny beaches, the Pacific coast is truly a national treasure. Sadly, this treasure has been threatened far too often, for far too long, with spills and pollution from offshore drilling. We’re glad to see the West Coast Ocean Protection Act reintroduced. We need to make ocean drilling a thing of the past,” said Kelsey Lamp, Protect our Oceans campaign director, Environment America. 

“Dirty and dangerous offshore drilling worsens climate change, threatens marine life, and results in environmentally and economically devastating oil spills. Oceana applauds Senator Feinstein and Congressman Huffman for reintroducing the West Coast Ocean Protection Act which makes important progress toward permanently protecting all our coasts from new offshore drilling. Ending new offshore drilling is a crucial step toward addressing the climate crisis. Our oceans can be part of the solution as we expedite our transition away from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels and toward clean, renewable energy like responsibly-sited offshore wind,” said Diane Hoskins, Climate and Energy campaign director, Oceana.

“Communities on the West Coast have been fighting for a long time to be free of the fossil fuel industry’s grip. LCV thanks Congressman Huffman and Senator Feinstein for reintroducing the West Coast Ocean Protection Act, which would prohibit new oil and gas leasing off the West Coast and prevent a massive 19 billion tons of greenhouse gases from fueling the climate crisis. Offshore drilling continues to pollute coastal waters, with devastating consequences for the economy and public health of coastal communities already bearing the brunt of Big Oil’s greed. This bill is a step towards a just, clean, renewable energy future,” said America Fitzpatrick, conservation program director, League of Conservation Voters.

“We thank Senator Feinstein and Congressman Huffman for championing this effort to protect our coasts from the environmental disruption of offshore oil and gas extraction. Offshore drilling puts wildlife in danger, threatens the health of coastal communities, and prolongs our reliance on climate-damaging fossil fuels. Congress needs to listen to the local communities and millions of Americans who have spoken out against offshore drilling and pass the West Coast Protection Act,” said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program.

“Put simply, there is no room for more offshore drilling in a clean energy future. Rather we need to prioritize transformative and responsible actions that will move us away from fossil fuel production to renewable energy. Ocean Conservancy is excited to see the re-introduction of this critical legislation that would permanently ban risky offshore drilling on the West Coast, protecting our ocean health, and fostering the transition to cleaner energy sources. We look forward to working with Congress to advance this legislation,” said Jeff Watters, Vice President of External Affairs at Ocean Conservancy.

In the House, the legislation is cosponsored by Representatives Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44), Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Ed Case (HI-01), Judy Chu (CA-28), Suzan K. DelBene (WA-01), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10), Anna Eshoo (CA-16), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Raúl Grijalva (AZ-03), Val Hoyle (OR-04), Sara Jacobs (CA-51), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), William Keating (MA-09), Derek Kilmer (WA-06), Rick Larsen (WA-02), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Mike Levin (CA-49), Ted. W. Lieu (CA-36), Doris Matsui (CA-07), Jimmy Panetta (CA-19), Scott Peters (CA-50), Katie Porter (CA-47), Deborah Ross (NC-02), Adam Schiff (CA-30), Eric Swalwell (CA-15), Mark Takano (CA-39), Mike Thompson (CA-04), Jill Tokuda (HI-02) and Juan Vargas (CA-52.).

In the Senate, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

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