Mendocino County Today: Sunday, April 2, 2023

Showers | Juan Alarcón | Rainfall Totals | Polypores | Abandoned RV | Spanish Classes | School Events | Hopland Hills | Book Sale | Clothing Swap | Nothing Underway | New Biz | John Duffy | iPhone Trainer | Little League | Animal Abusers | Pet Bill | Ed Notes | Columbi's Market | Help Pebbles | Princess Charter | Big Shark | Greenwood Bridge | Bluegrass Concert | Daffodils | Foiled Jailbreak | Yesterday's Catch | Republican Party | EV Pickup | Bonfire | Held Hostage | Accepting Money | Libraries | Marco Radio | Further Bus | Awful Person | Kids/Guns | Ukraine | Legal Things | Shake Them | Trump Problem | Deadwood

SHOWERS will increase in coverage and intensity today. In addition, periods of light to moderate snowfall will impact mountain roads and passes in Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. Otherwise, gusty north winds will develop across the region during Monday morning. Light showers will remain possible Tuesday through Thursday, followed by potentially warmer and drier weather next weekend. (NWS)

THE ANDERSON VALLEY is saddened at the death of long-time resident, Juan Alarcón, who died in a traffic accident Friday night on Highway 128 near Fitch Lane. 

Mr. Alarcón had been employed for many years at the Boonville Brewery. He was widely known and highly popular in the wider community for his unfailing good humor. Nothing more on the tragic loss to his family and this community has been released by the CHP.

MONTHLY RAINFALL TOTALS for the 2022-23 rain season (Oct-Sep):

Yorkville (63.04" total)

2022
0.00" Oct
3.76" Nov
13.92" Dec

2023
23.68" Jan
6.32" Feb
15.36" Mar

A LARGE DILAPIDATED RV has been abandoned at the foot of Holmes Ranch road near Philo for more than two weeks. Holmes Ranch residents have been calling everyone they can think of with no response so far. The CHP told one caller that they know who the owner is, but it’s the County’s responsibility to get it towed. One caller said they’d settle for the short term if someone would at least get it towed down the road a little because it blocks the view of HR residents trying to enter Highway 128 as well as the as the traffic that speeds by. Jan Wax said there’s a serious risk of an accident because of the RV. The license plate number is 4NAR0888. It apparently belongs to a local person.

AV UNIFIED: IMPORTANT DATES

Dear Anderson Valley Unified Community,

Just a reminder on a couple of important dates:

Anti-Drug and Bullying Meeting at the High School Library, Tuesday, April 4 at 5:00 p.m.

Dual Enrollment College Course Process Explained: Come visit us for this one hour workshop on what dual enrollment is and how it can benefit your student. Bring your student with you! Tuesday, April 25 at 5:00 p.m. in the high school cafeteria.

We hope you will come!

Louise Simson, Superintendent, Anderson Valley Unified School District

WILLITS LIBRARY BOOK SALE

Hello Willits Library friends, patrons, members. Mark your calendars for our upcoming Spring Book Sale at our library, Friday, April 21 10am-5 pm, Saturday, April 22, 10 am-5pm, and Sunday, 10 am-3 pm.

Come browse our garden and home project books, as well as children’s, fiction and non-fiction titles. We have an abundance of Specials this time. Books are CHEAP - 50 cents to 1.00, Specials are 3 bucks. On Sunday, from noon-3, fill up a bag for $5. Come support our library-browse and enjoy.

We also can use some volunteers to help us staff the sale and take down on Sunday. Two-hour shifts. Come in and sign up, or call Melinda, 707-456-9525.

UNDERWATER

by Mark Scaramella

We’ve become accustomed to this Board of Supervisors’ many weasel-worded evasions of their responsibilities. 

Just a few of the obvious ones:

They pretended that business as usual is honoring Measure AJ in which the voters said they wanted half of the pot tax revenues to go to roads, mental health, increased emergency services and enforcement. In fact, all the revenues have gone into the General Fund and the pot permit department still had a deficit this year of almost $700k.) Not one nickel of the more than $20 million in pot tax revenues since 2017 has got to road, mental health or increased emergency services.

They claimed that whatever they’re doing in Behavioral Health (mostly via a sweetheart contract with Camille Schraeder’s Redwood Quality Management Company) meets the Measure B requirement that 25% of the sales tax revenues go to “services.” (So far no Measure B money has gone to Mental Health services.) 

They claimed that doing nothing is equivalent to enforcement of Measure V which was supposed to reduce dead standing tree fire hazards by declaring them to be a nuisance and requiring abatement, despite a convincing legal opinion from their own County Counsel that Mendocino Redwoods (among others) is not exempt from nuisance regulations.

They claim that spending money without tracking that spending or reviewing reports of that spending is equivalent to providing services. 

And for years they have whined about not having departmental budget or activity reports without simply demanding it.

Etc.

Last Tuesday they concocted yet another evasion technique. 

During a review of their list of long-standing open and dormant “directives,” they declared that they can delete a directive from their list if they are “underway,” whatever vague meaning that word may have. In other words, if staff claims to have begun to discuss a directive, no matter how little has been done, no matter how long it may take, no matter what the result may be someday — to this bunch of Supervisors, that claim means that a directive is “underway” which to them means completion, so the item no longer needs to be listed or deserves any further attention. So much for their empty “directives.”

The Board’s accumulated directives list omits target completion dates and misstates who is responsible for carrying out the directives, so very little is being done as it is. But now the directives will simply go away if the CEO, County Counsel or one of the Supervisors claims that something — anything: conversation, discussion, meetings, etc. — is being done about it. Which basically means that nothing will be done and nobody much cares.

One group of directives from a meeting last September had to do with budgeting and budget tracking, a subject that the Supervisors say they want to improve. After again bemoaning their years and years of budgeting failures — they still can’t get their CEO to provide ordinary monthly budget vs actual reports — they decided to delete last fall’s directives and combine them into a new unspecified open-ended budget directive with reporting options, in whatever vague form that may or may not take. Nobody wondered what the CEO and her staff has in mind, if anything, for that future discussion.

Although there were the now-familiar attempts blame the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector, nobody could even agree on who should be responsible for what aspects of the now-deleted directives which are supposedly, kinda, maybe, “underway.” 

Here are a few excerpts from the rambling discussion to show 1) how clueless the Board and the CEO are about the subject, and 2) how they blindly they accept vague gibberish as if it constitutes an “update” or “completion.”

When asked what the status of the seven-month old financial directives was, CEO Antle replied: “The fiscal team has been working with our internal IT on Client First to navigate through that. Some of the challenges have been closing the books and getting the correct statements.” (I.e., blame Cubbison.)

Williams replied: “That status update is, ‘We’re working on it but there is no work product.’ There's nothing to point at and say we did it. So it's sort of a nothing update. I understand people are working hard on it, but we have not achieved any sort of tangible success here. When I say we, I mean CEO Antle and her team.”

Remember, this was last year when Williams was Board chair. He was the one who issued the poorly worded “directives” with no particular responsible party or target date in first place, nor did he specify a “work product.” Now he’s blaming his CEO for her “nothing update.”

Mulheren: “The executive office has partially completed their items. So I think removing them from the directives is sufficient enough and then the executive office can update which portions they have completed.”

Antle: “The update is: there is progress. We've been meeting, we've met with outside consultants, we have a consultant lined up. But it requires more than just the executive office. It requires the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector.”

Mulheren: “So there is a department update, it's just not complete.”

In the end they decided to delete the seven-month old budget directives and have CEO Antle provide budget reporting options at some unspecified future date. And maybe have the Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector in the room at the time. 

Translation: Nothing was done in seven months and nobody cared for seven months. Now, there’s no prospect for anything being done on this presumably important subject in the foreseeable future besides continued fuzzy griping.

AS HE LAY DYING

by Tom Hine

They gathered on a cold Monday in a garden area at a Ukiah retirement home to say hello to John Duffy, and goodbye.

Duffy, who went by the name “Duffy,” had been turned loose following a medical procedure that did not augur well for longterm viability. It was, by one attendee’s estimation, the 16,000th medical procedure Duffy had undergone in his lifetime.

On this day, with more than a dozen old friends standing beneath a backyard canopy, Duffy himself remained upstairs, tubes in his nose, snoring gently, patiently waiting for the A-List guests to show up. Or the end, whichever came first. 

My money would have been on the Angels of Mercy arriving well in advance of Lady Gaga, but it was no sure thing. Duffy had friends in high places (Senate Majority Leader Tip O’Neill) and low places (nameless) and even imaginary places, as in his oft-mentioned ties with “The Boys,” a batch of local lawyers who did his bidding upon demand. Take bows, Tom Mason, Tim Morrison, Dave Nelson, Dave Riemenschneider, for your many years representation without compensation.

Meanwhile, the short, ragged ceremony resembled a memorial service except Duffy kept on breathing. Gatherers were guided by veteran mourner J Holden, whose remarks began with nods in the direction of Buddhism, Baba Ram Dass and Christianity, then shifted to poignant, funny stories about life with, and soon without, Duffy. There was an acknowledgement that the patient upstairs was, using current-speak, “in transition.” 

Among the laymen the most eloquent speaker, or at least most deserving of sainthood for his years devotion to Duffy, was the altogether honorable Scott Miller. He choked a bit, coughed a bit, and delivered funny, spot-on Duffyisms.

 (NOTE: At his physical best Duffy was a patched-together marvel assembled from spare parts bins at whatever hospital he happened to be passing. By 2021 he’d had most everything fixed or replaced except his eyeballs; he was blind at birth.)

It was worse than you’d think, he’d occasionally remind his friends. Never drove a car or had a license. Dating girls in high school was a challenge bordering on impossible. Independence by any reasonable definition was unattainable. He relied on the courtesies and friendship of friends, which he had in abundance.

His physical limitations were compensated by his personality, and a memorable personality it was. Plus his roly-poly gait, penguin-like, but a penguin who dressed better than Duffy and had better vision. You could spot him a block away. 

So it was never difficult to avoid Duffy if your schedule required not spending the next 15 minutes talking to him, and all afternoon if Duffy found out you had a car parked within half a mile. That meant you’d taxi him around town, which gets us back to seeing him coming from a block away. 

Not that I ever dodged him, but everyone knew he only recognized friends by their voice. Knowing of Duffy’s highly sharpened voice recognition skills, there were stories of those who held their breath when they tiptoed past him.

Full Disclosure: Yeah, I sometimes sidestepped him or spoke in a falsetto if he was across the street, but massaged away my guilt by driving him, once weekly, shopping. So Monday lunches involved our stopping at the Grocery Outlet, Safeway’s pharmacy, Post Office and maybe a laundromat from which Steve Caravello would pick him up and drive him home. I went back to work.

He was a longtime Democrat, an easy thing in California, and he and I were able to co-exist amiably for months at a time without probing one other’s gender fluidity or creative ways to censor free speech.

Duffy also loved sports. Back when the Oakland Athletics were shoving other teams all over the diamond, Buddy Eller finagled excellent season-long handicap tickets in Duffy’s name (free!). 

Buddy gloated at his good fortune, though grumbled at the price: A three hour ballgame sandwiched between traveling to Oakland and back with Duffy’s nonstop worries about imaginary car wrecks and bridge collapses due to Buddy’s supposed terrible driving.

The alternative was having him over to watch games on TV. Here’s Duffy, front and center, leaning far forward on the best chair in your living room, peering intently as the pitcher delivers a bullet of a fastball. “Strike!” the umpire calls it. Duffy, blind mind you, loudly disagrees. 

“It was low and away!” he growls. A slo-mo replay proves Duffy right, the ump wrong, and my suggesting, not for the first time, that Duffy has been faking his supposed handicap so he can soak hard-working taxpayers for more benefits and free tickets to A’s games.

“Heh heh heh,” chuckles Duffy.

At the memorial-ish gathering, Jane Eller deftly mimicked Duffy watching a game on TV, seated but bent over to the point his nose inches from the screen, squinting and grumbling. Lots of laughs, lots of nods in recognition.

 (NOTE II: Readers might judge Duffy’s friends harshly for a lack of sensitivity to his disabilities. They could be right. True, we never treated him with deference or catered much to his disabilities, never showered him with pity or sorrow. We treated Duffy as an equal, and believe he would have resented being considered anything other than one of the guys.) 

There is a happy-ish ending to the life of John Duffy, and Scott Miller tells it well. The dark veil that had cursed Duffy through the course of his life was, amazingly, lifted. 

An amazing medical breakthrough, and roughly 10 years ago the gift of eyesight was bestowed. No more Coke-bottle eyeglasses; Duffy could see! Soon after Miller’s phone was ringing. It was the middle of the night, and the voice was Duffy’s.

He was wobbling and weaving, unable comprehend the world, and he thought Scott ought to come over, probably hoping he’d bring along a nice bottle of red. 

Scott Miller declined and instead suggested Duffy was experiencing, for the first time in his long life, side effects from the astonishing and sudden Miracle of Sight. His words were enough to calm Duffy.

Shortly thereafter he was able to see his lovely daughter, Sarah, for the first time.

Life is good, and then you die.

 And early the next morning, John Duffy did die, Sarah Baker Duffy at his side. 

(A genuine memorial for John J. Duffy, age 75, is contemplated. He is not expected to attend)

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE (from their monthly newsletter): Thank you, Jesse Espinoza, for volunteering to give a helpful presentation on iPhone basics for our local seniors! The room was packed and we hope to do more of these tech support presentations and round table tech support! Remember, members of the AV Village can get one on one tech support from volunteers like Jesse. Jesse is also on our list of service providers as a handyman and tech support for hire. You can give him a call to ask him about hiring him: (760) 238-3419.

WILLITS ANIMAL ABUSERS ARRESTED

On Thursday, March 30, 2023 at about 8:23pm, Willits PD (WPD) Officers were dispatched to 283 Sherwood Road in Willits for a report of unwanted subjects. The address has been previously condemned (“red tagged”) and signs are posted advising “No Trespassing.”

Upon their arrival, the WPD Officers contacted Jason Gower (31, Willits) and Haley Tyrrell (30, Willits) in a shack at the rear of the main residence after they attempted to barricade themselves inside. Gower immediately became combative and resistive causing him to be forcibly detained.

Barry Martin (34, Willits) was located inside the shack and ordered out. The shack was secured due to an aggressive K9 inside as well as a Husky breed dog locked in a kennel.

The WPD Officers then cleared the main residence, locating five additional trespassers; Frederick Hyre (62, Willits), Bradley McCartney (67, Willits), Brooke Lewis (42, Willits), Tyler Row (28, Willits), and David Byer (39, Willits).

Row is on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS), a form of parole, with terms to include at least “obey all laws.” Row is also the restrained person in a served restraining order with Lewis the protected party.

Lewis was found to have a local no-cite misdemeanor warrant for her arrest.

A WPD Officer cleared the shack and found the Husky was emaciated and locked in a kennel far too small for its size. The WPD Officer also heard the sound of dogs whimpering behind a door that was blocked with carpet fabric. The Officer had to forcibly open the blocked door, at which point he found four small German Shepherd mix puppies in a small bathroom. All four puppies were covered in their own feces and urine. The bathroom was covered in excrement and there was no water or food available. The puppies were visibly hungry as they immediately began to eat trash and rotten food found strewn about the floor of the shack.

Given the living situation and condition the four puppies and the Husky mix were found in, WPD Officers had probable cause to believe a serious case of animal abuse was occurring.

Mendocino County Animal Control was called out to assist with collecting the six K9s.

Byer, Hyre, Martin, and McCartney were released on citations for violation of 602(m) PC – Trespass Without Owner’s Consent.

Tyrrell, Gower, Lewis and Row were transported and booked into the county jail for the following charges:

Row - 3455 PC [Violation of PRCS] 273.6 PC [Violation of a Domestic Violence Restraining Order], and 602(m) PC [Trespass Without Owner’s Consent].

Lewis – A no-cite warrant, and 602(m) PC [Trespass Without Owner’s Consent].

Gower – 1203.2 PC [Felony Violation of Probation], 182 PC [Felony Conspiracy], 597 PC [Felony Animal Cruelty], 148(a)(1) PC [Resist/Obstruct Peace Officer], and 602(m) PC [Trespass Without Owner’s Consent].

Tyrell – 182 PC [Felony Conspiracy], 597 PC [Felony Animal Cruelty], 148(a)(1) PC [Resist/Obstruct Peace Officer], and 602(m) PC [Trespass Without Owner’s Consent].

The Willits Police Department would like to thank the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and Mendocino County Animal Control for their assistance.

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Bill is an outgoing, confident, adorable puppy who loves to be around people. He walks nicely on leash and really enjoys going for walkies. He also has very nice indoor manners. 

Bill was ready to play when he met Jade, a female shelter guest, so he might enjoy a doggie housemate. Bill is 7 months old and 44 pounds.

Head over to mendoanimalshelter.com to read more about Bill.

Visit us on Facebook at: facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/

For information about adoptions, please call 707-467-6453 in Ukiah, and 707-467-6453 in Ft. Bragg.

ED NOTES

THIS COMMENT is mostly true of the mainstream media: ”It’s hard to find any news whatsoever on the war in Ukraine, with the MSM anyway it seems to have dropped off the radar. I mean news is available but you have to really endeavor to find it, and it is to be found from European news sources, Al Jazeera, and a few sites from India. You no longer can simply turn on network news and find out how the war on the eastern front is going, not that they were giving you a true picture to begin with.”

THE TRUE combat situations are pretty much impossible to find, only partly because they're fluid but also because neither side benefits from reporting the truth of how they're doing on the ground. I find Al Jazeera is very good at reporting the overall events, as is CNN and even USA Today. MSM tv, where most people get their news, is, as always, functioning as stenographer to the Biden Administration. To hear them tell it, the war is simply a matter of getting more weapons to Ukraine without so much as a hint of what Biden's end game is, not that his feckless crew is likely to have one. From all I can gather here at the Boonville International Desk, the war is pretty much a stand-off, where it can remain endlessly without US pressure on Ukraine to negotiate an end to it. The minute Putin thinks he's losing out will come his nukes. It's a terribly dangerous situation that threatens to spill over into outright catastrophe at any time.

THE BORDER, 1904, as described in a wonderful book by Kelly Lytle Hernandez called, ‘Bad Mexicans — Race, Empire & Revolution in the Borderlands.’ The “bad Mexicans” were in fact great Mexican revolutionaries whose agitation eventually led to the 1910 Mexican Revolution. This book ought to be required reading for all gringos for all it has to teach us about how events then led to events now. “In 1904, there were no fences, no concertina wires, no floodlights, and no wall on the border. The Border Patrol would not be established for another two decades. In 1882, Congress had passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which categorically prohibited all Chinese laborers from entering the United States. By 1904, epileptics, anarchists, convicts, prostitutes, lunatics, idiots, contract laborers, and the poor, under the rubric of persons ‘liable to become public charges,’ were also banned. The Immigration Service stationed a few armed guards to watch for Chinese immigrants and other proscribed individuals, but they rarely prevented Mexicans from crossing the border. In fact, federal law did not require the inspection of Mexican or Canadian border crossers until 1907. Chinese immigrants often tried to pass for Mexican, cutting their hair, donning serapes, and learning a few words of Spanish. ‘Yo soy Mexicano,’ they would say when stopped by an immigration inspector. Even as land reform accelerated in Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century, pushing tens of thousands of Mexicans to seek work in the United States, UA authorities did little to stop them. More Mexicans meant more workers, and more workers meant more profits for the booming industries of the American West. Every day hundreds of Mexican immigrants crossed the foot and wagon bridge over the Rio Grande at Laredo without so much as a nod from U.S. border guards…”

THE 'WEAPONIZATION' of federal agencies in pursuit of Trump led to both the bogus claims of Russiagate and the even more bogus Mueller Report. These two phony “investigations” of Trump paved the way for his subsequent blanket excuses for all his other real crimes. “The Marxists and the communists have been after me even before I was president, and they're still after me,” Trump whined recently, deliberately conflating the conservative liberals of the Biden-Hillary-Obama Axis with Marxists, of whom there might be 5,000 in the United States, most of them rattling their teacups in faculty lounges. There might be 500 revolutionary communists, if that many, who are about as dangerous as your local Rotary chapter. It's the millions of libs of the Democratic Party who divert attention from their own pathetic political performance who beat the drums for getting Trump, and they include federal police agencies like the FBI, the NSA and the CIA.

BTW, every time you hear a MAGA claim that Soros, George, is funding this or that person or agency in pursuit of the Great Orange Whale, what you're hearing is code for “the Jews,” i.e., anti-Semitism.

HEADLINE from this morning’s Press Democrat: “Healdsburg named among the most beautiful places to visit in California by Travel+Leisure.”

THE SMALL TOWN CHARM that draws people to Healdsburg is just about to be buried beneath huge high end housing developments at either end of town. Weekends these days, the proportionate downtown is so crowded that the ice cream slurpers are walking out in the streets. Sad, that such a nice little town is rapidly becoming another Napa. On to Cloverdale!

COLOMBI'S (FORT BRAGG) IS BACK WITH A WHOLE NEW LOOK!

PEBBLES TRIPPET NEEDS TEMPORARY HOUSING

As of today, Pebbles is safe in Fort Bragg, but needs a loving local community to rally around her. Her temporary housing has ended and she is effectively homeless. Her rural home is uninhabitable. Her health has deteriorated in the last few months. One emergency after another has drained her savings. As a radical spirit, as independent as they come, residing off-grid for decades, she is now in need of assistance. Her property is in legal entanglements and cannot easily be sold. Low-income senior benefits and attempts to find senior housing are being applied for. But in the meantime, she needs funds for incidentals that are essential to remaining as independent as possible, like grocery money and a phone, transport for errands. While all this gets sorted out, this gofundme is needed for immediate support in the next few weeks.

Pebbles has dedicated her life and financial resources to helping others. In this spirit, we have dedicated time and resources of our own into helping a woman who has so little, yet deserves so much as a treasured elder of the cannabis community. We are asking you to join us wholeheartedly in donating what you have to offer. Please help us help Pebbles.

A bit more of herstory in Pebbles own words:

What I did was endure the consequences of my civil disobedience, rather than take an easy plea for felony transportation and get it over with squandering my opportunity, and eventually getting somewhere worth the effort, proving others could do the same. By losing at the trial court level, I actually gained: 1) the right to transport medicine you can legally possess, which became the 5th right in Prop 215 (left out of the original initiative). 2) the quantity standard which is the amount “reasonably related” to your medical condition, now known as the Trippet standard. The Court replaced the 6 plant limit numbers game with a legal standard patients were entitled to based on voter intent. In 2010, People v Kelly involved an AIDS patient prosecuted and convicted of growing 8 plants instead of 6, to which the California Supreme Court replied: ‘That's not what the voters intended.’ Since I based my case on constitutional rights, the Court took it more seriously and commented, ‘This is one of those rare times when both defense and prosecution agree,’ affirming the Trippet standard in Kelly in 2010. Let this be a long view lesson. This process took 20 years (1990-2010) including appeals, with 10 prosecutions in 5 counties in 11 years. I prolonged my low income status as long as I could until I finally concluded with deteriorating health, that selling the land was the best option for maintaining my independence and using some of the proceeds to collaborate with viable community projects for the greater good. Most people don't know I worked hard for these results, without regrets. I wouldn't ask if I didn't have to, but I know my limits and I've reached them.

gofundme.com/f/new-campaign-for-your-old-friend-pebbles-trippet

F/V PRINCESS (Fort Bragg): With the imminent government closure of our two most lucrative fisheries we’ve made the hard decision to switch gears to the charter industry. Please welcome...Princess Party tours! 

We will serve authentic boat food and drink, like burritos left in the diesel stove for one string too long, warm Red Bull found in random milk crates and snacks of undetermined age discovered in unlikely cubbies! Feel the exhilaration of bucking a southerly back to port at 2.5 knots! Play engaging games like change a hydraulic hose at sea or how many things will fall on the floor and roll under the table! Get a laugh group mooning other out of work fishermen! Take a turn balancing atop the bucket in the rain while you marvel at the raw beauty of the Mendocino coast. Book the trip of a lifetime today!!

RD BEACON: The big shark is on the river beach right now up in Mendocino, looks like he'd been eating well we hope the government opens the amount you might find somebody and go inside, from the looks of all the teeth he's probably been eating and feasting off locals and/or whatever else is around, we know are people are looking to protect these babies but they have a habit of eating their neighbors big sharks with the case of giant garbage disposal be anything and everything without regard to race creed or color, as we all know the beachcomber of today becomes the dinner for tonight for these big predators.

UCCA PRESENTS AJ Lee and Blue Summit: Sunday, April 16, 2:00 p.m. at Mendocino College

AJ Lee and Blue Summit: The Next Generation of Bluegrass 

Ukiah Community Concerts is thrilled to present AJ Lee and Blue Summit (and lucky to have scored a booking with this wildly popular group) on Sunday, April 16, 2:00 p.m. at the Mendocino College Center Theatre. ABOUT AJ Lee And Blue Summit Band leader AJ Lee is only in her mid-20s yet she is the nine-time winner of the Northern California Bluegrass Awards for best female vocalist. It was 2015 when Lee pulled together a band and they scored a gig at The Kate Wolf Festival. At that point, Lee (on vocals and mandolin) had been joined by Sullivan Tuttle on guitar, Jesse Fichman on guitar (now Scott Gates on guitar), Jan Purat on fiddle, and Chad Bowen on bass.

That was just the beginning for the band, and they quickly became widely known, followed, and sought after. When covid hit, the group buckled down and continued developing their sound which, in their words, “draws from influences such as country, soul, swing, rock, and jam music and uses the lens of bluegrass as a vessel through which to express and explore the thread that binds and unifies all great music.” In August of 2021, AJLBS released their second album, I’ll Come Back, which has a more traditional bluegrass feel than their initial album, Like I Used To (2019), and seems to be the voice they’ve chosen, wowing audiences across the country.

Since then, AJLBS has been receiving wide recognition for their timeless yet forward-thinking music. “Indeed they deliver a well-rounded and texturally diverse set of contemporary bluegrass that honors the traditional while sounding fresh and vital, where the tones of the instruments; deft, tasteful playing; and tight, intricate arrangements are employed to great effect in support of Lee’s emotionally responding, powerhouse vocal delivery.” (SF Chronicle). ”AJ Lee & Blue Summit are pure, beautiful American music. Soaring harmonies, top notch picking and strumming as well as a healthy respect and reverence for the classic country, bluegrass and folk music of the past all add up to a band who are masters of the genre. That’s not to say that AJ Lee & Blue Summit are antiquated in anyway. While the band tips a hat to the American masters of the past, their sound is modern and thoroughly of today. The band are great torch bearers of the music that helped build America.” (Eric Oblander, Musician, Producer of Rise Up on Buckeye Community Arts Network).

Music fans, come let your feet tap and your heart soar to the sounds of these stellar musicians, performing on April 16th at the College Center Theatre. Tickets for non-season subscribers are $30 in advance and $35 at the door. Advance tickets are available online at the UCCA website and at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Mazahar in Willits. (Only cash or check payments are accepted for tickets at the stores.) As part of our on-going educational outreach program, free tickets are available to youth 17 and under when accompanied by an adult, and to full-time (12 units) college students. Free tickets are contingent on availability and must be reserved in advance by calling 707-463-2738 with name, phone number and email address. For more information, please contact us at 707-463-2738 or at info@ukiahconcerts.org 

1945: COUNTY JAILBREAK IS FOILED

In March of 1945, after standing on the southeast corner of Standley and School streets in Ukiah since the 1890s, the much-maligned Mendocino County Jail was old and tired.

Its prisoners were looking for a way out, and nearly succeeded in a spring break of their own. Following is a news account from The Ukiah Daily Journal archives about their efforts and the local law enforcement officers, led by Sheriff Beverley Broaddus, who foiled the scheme, along with a 1948 article about the dismal conditions at the jail. It was finally demolished early in 1951, after completion of the current courthouse.

Monday, March 19, 1945 — The Redwood Journal

Vigilance and a timely checkup frustrated another jailbreak here Monday morning when Sheriff Broaddus and his deputies gave the interior of the bastile a thorough going over after they had become suspicious that certain of the county’s guests were about to take French leave.

The discovery was most opportune, for with another 12 hours of time and all who cared to do so could have been free.

The beginning of the attack on the ancient structure was by means of hacksaws which had been smuggled into the cage by prisoners. With these the bars of the cage had been sawed away behind the toilet and with this advantage the prisoners had roamed at will during the night in the corridor around the cage. Here they found a tool box with a number of screwdrivers and chisels with which they went to work on the east wall of the building itself, just about the spot where other prisoners escaped a few years ago. A number of bricks had been removed to make an opening large enough for a man to make his exit. With another night in which to work the wall would have opened.

Heavier tools for this purpose had been obtained by taking apart a prison bunk.

Realization that the plot was well advanced led Sheriff Broaddus to take extra precautions before entering the cage, full of prisoners, some of whom are desperate characters. Armed guards were posted at all vantage points inside the jail before Broaddus and Deputies White and Spreckelsen began their search. Men were also posted outside the jail to act in the event the prisoners overcame the officers inside the cage and escaped to the street.

…The only loss suffered was a part of a case of beer being held as evidence. This was in the corridor when the prisoners broke from the cage. There is no evidence of it now.

Monday, Oct. 25, 1948 — The Redwood Journal

County officers work under big handicap

Probably no one in the county realizes more than Sheriff Beverley Broaddus the urgent need for a new court house and jail. With the increase in population which means an increase in his duties, he and his deputies work in quarters so crowded they literally walk over one another in their tiny office and reception room in the jail building.

As for the jail itself, condemned more than 20 years ago, as obsolete, unsanitary and overcrowded, conditions have been called “unspeakable.” It is impossible, Sheriff Broaddus says, to handle inmates according to law.

At the time the present jail was constructed in 1891, it was sufficient for several years, but it reached its capacity 30 years ago.

(Ukiah Daily Journal archives)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, April 1, 2023

HAKEEM ALLAMBIE, Zephyr Hills, Florida/Ukiah. DUI.

MARTIN BRIGGS, Laytonville. Trespassing, paraphernalia, conspiracy.

FRANCISCO CONTRERAS, Point Arena. Suspended license, parole violation.

ANGEL DELGADO-CORRO, Ukiah. DUI.

ANDRES FUENTES-LUCERO, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

DANIEL GOMEZ, Fort Bragg. Fugitive from justice. 

JULIA GOSSELIN, Willits. Domestic battery.

SERENITY GRAVLEE, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

ANDREW HURTADO, Fort Bragg. Felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, parole violation.

LUIS LIMA, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MARK PATEREAU, Willits. Trespassing, paraphernalia, conspiracy, no license.

ANNETTE RODRIGUEZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

CHRISTINA TORRES, Hopland. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

JACINTO TUPPER, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JON KENNEDY (Potter Valley): I'm going to give credit to people like DeSantis, Pence, Graham and their ilk. They're claiming witch hunt, but I'm thinking they know better. They know he's pure scum. They know he's a criminal. They know he's unfit for office. They also know they rely on his base. His base is a cult. His base is chock full of kooks. They need that support to continue being all they can be. This is the exact opposite of being a statesman. This is the definition of being self-centered without ethics and morals. THIS is the Republican party of this era. THIS is why I no longer belong.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Ford has raised the price of its Ford F150 Lightning EV pickup to $61,999 ~ for the basic, sh#tbox golfcart, model. Just 2 years ago this truck was introduced as the “Affordable EV” at $41,999. Adding any kind of accessories jack up the price considerably, so that very few of these vehicles can be found for less than $100,000 on the lot. Just the same, Ford claims there is high demand, and they will be ramping up production soon (as soon as they can access enough rare earth metals necessary) However, prices will not be coming down. My opinion is that a hard pressed American buying public will not be able to afford a $100,000 EV pickup, specially one that cannot plow snow or tow loads very well. With its 300 mile range under ideal conditions what is it good for ~ aside perhaps Suzy Cream Cheese, trophy wife in Greenwich, Ct who wants to “Go Country”, but be “Environmentally Conscious” at the same time, to drive to the spa, and then haul a few bags of groceries home from the vegan market?

‘I WAS TREATED BRUTALLY’: 

McKinleyville’s Jeff Woodke Speaks Publicly For the First Time Since His Release From Six and a Half Years as a Hostage in Africa

lostcoastoutpost.com/2023/mar/31/i-was-treated-brutally-jeff-woodke-speaks-publicly/

NOVA LOX ON TOASTED BAGEL

Emergency Message To Postmodern America

Sitting here at the Ukiah Public Library, digesting the nova lox on toasted bagel and coffee breakfast enjoyed at Happy Donuts on State Street, identified with only the Eternal Witness of the physical and mental platforms, and laughing at the absolutely ridiculous situation that the American experiment in freedom and democracy has become. I am ready to go forth to perform revolutionary ecological direct action on the planet earth. I am accepting money at Paypal.me/craiglouisstehr. I am seeking others to destroy the demonic, and to help snap this confused entranced civilization back to clarity.

Craig Louis Stehr

MEMO OF THE AIR: Jalad verklempt on the haul road.

“By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.” — Oscar Wilde

Here's the recording of last night's (2023-03-31) eight-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0534

Email your written work and I'll read it on the very next Memo of the Air on KNYO.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:

I love Wes Anderson movies and I want very much to see this. The only Wes Anderson movie I've missed seeing, so far, is the one with Darjeeling in the title. My favorite was Fantastic Mr. Fox, or Grand Budapest Hotel, which makes me think of City of Ember, because of both Saoirse Ronan and Bill Murray. The shock of the difference between City of Ember and The Lovely Bones make those go together in my mind, too.

https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2023/03/asteroid-city-trailer.html

I draw your attention to the second picture down, Gang Sign Aunt Elaine. It’s the opposite of the Vulcan Live long and prosper gesture. It’s Oh, you again, Camera Boy. Go eff yourself/. And her friend Hands-On-Hips-Marilyn's posture conveys, /That’s what I was going to say.

https://www.vintag.es/2023/03/1960s-couches.html

And an unusually articulated puppet. (via The Awesomer)

https://www.reddit.com/r/toptalent/comments/11wxynj/puppeteer_making_puppet_play_a_mini_piano/

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

TRUMP IS AN AWFUL PERSON, BUT THAT ISN'T A CRIME

by Marc Sandalow

There is no law against being a terrible person.

Having an affair with a porn actress as your wife recuperates from giving birth, insulting your lover as “horse face’’ and using the accusations as a fund-raising device are by most measures the behavior of a despicable miscreant.

If shameful conduct were a jailable offense, former President Donald Trump would already be serving a life sentence. People were rightfully appalled when Trump characterized Mexican immigrants as “rapists,’’ boasted of sexually assaulting women, mocked a disabled news reporter, ridiculed John McCain’s war heroism, called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., disingenuously suggested he had evidence proving President Obama was born in Africa, or repeatedly lied about matters ranging from the size of the crowd and at his inauguration to denying having said words that had just come out of his mouth.

But none of these constitute a prosecutable crime worthy of a grand jury indictment.

Details of the current indictment have not been released. It will presumably center not on the morality of Trump’s behavior but on the legality of the $130,000 in hush money paid by Trump’s attorney to porn actor Stormy Daniels who caught Trump’s attention at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006.

Daniels said she had several rendezvous with Trump, including a meeting at a private bungalow in Beverly Hill where she indulged his obsession with “Shark Week.’’

The charges are likely to allege that Trump’s attorney violated campaign donation limits when he put up the money to buy Daniel’s silence, a month before the 2016 election. Trump not only violated the law by ordering the payment, the indictment is expected to allege, but lied on official documents when reimbursing his attorney, claiming the exchange was a routine retainer payment rather than hush money, which meant it could be claimed as a tax deduction.,

Trump denies it all, including having the affair in the first place. But no one believes him. And for good reason. His lawyer has already confessed to the scheme and spent time in prison for his role. And Trump has told too many lies — 30,573 during his four-year presidency according to the Washington Post — to be believable.

Yet that doesn’t mean that the charges will be easy to prove. Trump will likely say he paid off Daniels to spare himself personal embarrassment. It would be coincidence, he would say, that the payment came a decade after the affair and one month before the 2016 election.

And, while lying about the payments on official documents violates state law, it is just a misdemeanor unless prosecutors can establish that he did it to cover up the campaign finance allegation.

In the pantheon of Trump’s illicit behavior, this seems like a relatively minor incident. Pressuring election officials to overturn election results, lying to federal officials about classified documents, and inciting an insurrection seem more deserving of prosecutors’ attention.

I expect Trump will beat the charge. Is it more of a stretch to believe that Trump paid off Daniels to protect his family than President Bill Clinton’s argument that swearing under oath that he did not have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky was “technically accurate”?

I’m old enough to remember a time when simply paying hush money to a porn star to cover up an adulterous affair — never mind the legality — would have been viewed as politically problematic.

That, of course, was before Trump.

The status of the world’s oldest democracy is so twisted that when news of Trump’s indictment broke Thursday, many argued that this would be a political gift that will carry him to his party’s presidential nomination — if not a second term in the White House. No Trump supporter, after all, is likely to be shocked by the latest tale of indiscretion.

Whether Trump is ultimately prosecuted or goes to jail, it is worth pointing out over and over again that despite years of attention paid to his behavior, he received nearly 75 million votes in the last election.

It is not a crime to be a terrible person. And it may not be much of a political liability, either.

(Marc Sandalow is associate director of the University of California’s Washington Center. He has been writing about California politics from Washington, D.C., for nearly 30 years.)

UKRAINE, SATURDAY, 1ST APRIL

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu promises to boost munitions supplies to forces in Ukraine during a visit to the headquarters of Moscow’s troops fighting in the country.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Russia faces “existential threats” to its security and development from “unfriendly states” as he presented President Vladimir Putin with an updated foreign policy doctrine.

A senior Ukrainian official rules out any ceasefire in Russia’s war on his country that would involve Russian forces remaining on territory they now occupy in Ukraine.

US officials say a new $2.6bn military aid package could be announced early next week and is expected to include air surveillance radars, anti-tank rockets and fuel trucks for the Ukrainian army.

The International Monetary Fund says its executive board has approved a four-year $15.6bn loan programme for Ukraine, part of a global $115bn package to support the country’s economy as it battles Russia’s 13-month occupation. 

— Al Jazeera

TRUMP SHOULD HAVE STUCK to just doing legal things like assassinating foreign leaders, deliberately starving civilians, imprisoning journalists, and dropping military explosives on foreign nations.

— Caitlin Johnstone

THE DONALD TRUMP PROBLEM

Donald Trump is not being targeted for the misdemeanors and serious felonies he appears to have committed but for discrediting and undermining the entrenched power of the ruling duopoly.

by Chris Hedges

Donald Trump — facing four government-run investigations, three criminal and one civil, targeting himself and his business — is not being targeted because of his crimes. Nearly every serious crime he is accused of carrying out has been committed by his political rivals. He is being targeted because he is deemed dangerous for his willingness, at least rhetorically, to reject the Washington Consensus regarding neoliberal free-market and free-trade policies, as well as the idea that the U.S. should oversee a global empire. He has not only belittled the ruling ideology, but urged his supporters to attack the apparatus that maintains the duopoly by declaring the 2020 election illegitimate.

The Donald Trump problem is the same as the Richard Nixon problem. When Nixon was forced to resign under the threat of impeachment, it wasn’t for his involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, nor was it for his illegal use of the CIA and other federal agencies to spy upon, intimidate, harass and destroy radicals, dissidents and activists. Nixon was brought down because he targeted other members of the ruling political and economic establishment. Once Nixon, like Trump, attacked the centers of power, the media was unleashed to expose abuses and illegalities it had previously minimized or ignored.

Members of Nixon’s re-election campaign illegally bugged the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office building. They were caught after they broke back into the offices to fix the listening devices. Nixon was implicated in both the pre-election illegality, including spying on political opponents, as well as attempting to use federal agencies to cover up the crime. His administration maintained an “enemies list” that included well known academics, actors, union leaders, journalists, businessmen and politicians.

One 1971 internal White House memo entitled, “Dealing with our Political Enemies” — drafted by White House Counsel John Dean, whose job it was to advise the president on the law — described a project designed to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

Nixon’s conduct, and that of his closest aides, was clearly illegal and deserving of prosecution. There were 36 guilty verdicts or guilty pleas associated with the Watergate scandal two years after the break-in. But it was not the crimes Nixon committed abroad or against dissidents that secured his political execution but the crimes he carried out against the Democratic Party and its allies, including in the establishment press.

“The political center was subjected to an attack with techniques that are usually reserved for those who depart from the norms of acceptable political belief,” Noam Chomsky wrote in The New York Review of Books in 1973, a year before Nixon’s resignation.

As Edward Herman and Chomsky point out in their book, “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media:” 

The answer is clear and concise: powerful groups are capable of defending themselves, not surprisingly; and by media standards, it is a scandal when their position and rights are threatened. By contrast, as long as illegalities and violations of democratic substance are confined to marginal groups or dissident victims of U.S. military attack, or result in a diffused cost imposed on the general population, media opposition is muted and absent altogether. This is why Nixon could go so far, lulled into a false sense of security precisely because the watchdog only barked when he began to threaten the privileged.”

What led to the unraveling of Nixon’s government, and what lies at the core of the attacks against Trump, is the fact that, like Nixon, Trump’s targets included “the rich and respectable, spokesmen for official ideology, men who are expected to share power, to design social policy, and to mold popular opinion,” as Chomsky noted about Nixon at the time. “Such people are not fair game for persecution at the hands of the state.”

This is not to minimize Trump’s crimes. Trump — nearly even in the polls with President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race — appears to have committed several misdemeanors and serious felonies.

In November 2022, the Department of Justice appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and any potential criminal liability resulting from that act, as well as any unlawful interference with the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.

Separately, a district attorney in Georgia is working with a special purpose grand jury in relation to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election result. A key piece of evidence is the notorious phone call between Trump and Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in which the president kept insisting he needed more votes to be found. Charges in this case could include conspiracy to commit election fraud, racketeering and pressuring and/or threatening public officials.

The Manhattan district attorney has been investigating the $130,000 Trump used to pay off the porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly had a sexual relationship. This payment was misreported in the Trump Organization’s records as a legal retainer in violation of campaign finance laws. 

Finally, New York Attorney General Letitia James is bringing a civil lawsuit alleging the Trump Organization lied about its assets in order to secure bank loans. If the attorney general’s lawsuit is successful, Trump and other members of his family may be barred from doing business in New York, including buying property there for five years.

Trump’s alleged offenses should be investigated. Though, the cases involving Daniels and the retention of classified documents seem relatively minor and similar to those committed by Trump’s political opponents. 

Last year, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the DNC agreed to pay a fine of $8,000 and $105,000 respectively, for mislabelling a $175,000 expenditure on opposition research, namely the long-discredited “Steele Dossier,” as “legal expenses.” The improper retention of classified documents has typically resulted in a slap on the wrist when other powerful politicians have been investigated. Clinton, for example, used private email servers instead of a government email account when she was secretary of state. The FBI concluded that she sent and received materials classified as top secret on her private server. Ultimately, FBI director James Comey declined to prosecute her. Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence and Biden also had classified documents at their homes, though we are told this may have been “inadvertent.” The discovery of these classified documents, rather than triggering outrage in most of the media, initiated a conversation about “overclassification.” Former CIA director David Petraeus was given two years probation and a $100,000 fine after he admitted to providing highly classified “black books” that contained handwritten classified notes about official meetings, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and the names of covert officers to his lover, Paula Broadwell, who was also writing a fawning biography of Petraeus.

As was the case with Nixon, the most serious charges Trump may face involve his attack on the foundations of the two-party duopoly, especially undermining the peaceable transfer of power from one branch of the duopoly to the other. In Georgia, Trump could face very serious criminal charges with potentially lengthy sentences if convicted, likewise if the federal special prosecutor indicts Trump for unlawful interference in the 2020 election. We won’t know until any indictments are made public.

Yet, the most egregious of Trump’s actions while in office either received minimal media coverage, were downplayed or lauded as acts carried out in defense of democracy and the U.S.-led international order.

Why hasn’t Trump been criminally investigated for the act of war he committed against Iran and Iraq when he assassinated Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and nine other people with a drone strike in Baghdad airport? Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the strike and told his parliament that Trump lied in order to get Soleimani exposed in Iraq as part of peace talks between Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution demanding that all foreign troops leave the country, which the U.S. government proceeded to reject.

Why not prosecute or impeach Trump for pressuring his secretary of state to lie and say that Iran wasn’t complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal? Trump ultimately fired him and resumed unilateral, devastating and illegal sanctions against Iran, in violation of international law and quite possibly domestic U.S. law.

Why wasn’t Trump impeached for his role in the ongoing attempts to engineer a coup and overthrow the democratically elected president of Venezuela? Trump declared a previously unknown right-wing politician — and would-be coup leader — Juan Guaido to be the true Venezuelan president and then illegally handed him control of the Latin American country’s U.S. bank accounts. The illegal U.S. sanctions that have facilitated this coup attempt have blocked food, medicine and other goods from entering the country and prevented the government from exploiting and exporting its own oil, devastating the economy. Over 40,000 people died between 2017 and 2019 due to the sanctions, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. That figure is certainly higher now.

Nixon, like Trump, was not impeached for his worst crimes. He was never charged for directing the CIA to destroy the Chilean economy and back a far-right military coup that overthrew the democratically elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende. Nixon wasn’t brought to justice for his illegal, secret mass bombing campaigns inCambodia and Laos that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and his government’s role in the slaughter of Vietnamese people, resulting in at least 3.8 million killed according to a joint report from Harvard University and the University of Washington and even higher casualties according to investigative journalist Nick Turse. Nixon wasn’t held accountable for what then-President Lyndon Johnson privately blasted as “treason” when he discovered that the yet-to-be-elected Republican candidate for president, and his future National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, were deliberately and illegally sabotaging his peace negotiations in Vietnam, ultimately prolonging the war for another four years. 

Articles of impeachment against Nixon were passed by the House Judiciary Committee. Articles I and III focused on allegations related to Watergate and Nixon’s failure to deal properly with congressional investigations. Article II related to allegations of violations of citizens’ civil liberties and abuse of government power. But they became moot once Nixon resigned, and in the end the disgraced former president didn’t face charges related to Watergate. A month after Nixon left office, President Gerald Ford pardoned him for “all offenses against the United States” that he “committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” 

This pardon cemented into place the imperial presidency. It entrenched the modern notion of “elite immunity,” as the constitutional lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald notes. Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to set a precedent that might hamstring the unchecked and unaccountable power of a future president. 

The most serious crimes are those that are normalized by the power elite, regardless of who initiated them. George W. Bush may have started the wars in the Middle East, but Barack Obama maintained and expanded them. Obama’s crowning achievement may have been the Iran nuclear deal, but Biden, his former vice president, hasn’t reversed Trump’s trashing of it, nor has he reversed the decision by Trump to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in violation of international law. 

Trump, like most of his opponents in the Republican and Democrat parties, serves the interests of the billionaire class. He, too, is hostile to the rights of workers. He, too, is an enemy of the press. He, too, backs the diversion of hundreds of billions of federal dollars to the war industry to maintain the empire. He, too, does not respect the rule of law. He, too, is personally and politically corrupt. But he is also impulsive, bigoted, inept and ignorant. His baseless conspiracy theories, vulgarity and absurd antics are an embarrassment to the established power elite in the two ruling parties. He is difficult, unlike Biden, to control. He has to go, not because he is a criminal, but because he is not trusted by the ruling crime syndicate to manage the firm.

(chrishedges.substack.com)