Mendocino County Today: Saturday, April 22, 2023

Warm | Wildflower Prep | Tammy Irvin | Ukiah Hospice | Carrillo Fundraiser | CSD Meeting | RubySky Day | Boonville Income | Harlequin Flower | AVUSD News | Riley Search | Weed Fee | Fringe Festival | County Notes | Making Firewood | Planning Agenda | Sanctuary/Schat's | Ed Notes | Women's Soccer | Oblivious Tesla | Bragg Museum | Skunk Horn | Scholarship Fundraiser | Inland Water | Boontling Classic | SNWMF 2023 | Housing Voucher | Yesterday's Catch | Coastal Protection | Berkeley Skyline | Marco Radio | Miami 45 | Exercise Groups | Wedding Rock | Vegas Bound | Echium Candicans | Censoring Hersh | Ali/Marciano | Debt Chicken | William Whipple | RFK Junior | Mystery Pills | Real Disinfo | Surveillance Team | Media Blackout | Primo Carnera | Russian Diesel | Hunting Trip

MOSTLY DRY WEATHER and above normal daytime temperatures are forecast to prevail through much of next week. (NWS)

TAMMY LYNN IRVIN

It is with great sadness Tammy Lynn Housley-Irvin has passed away in the warm presence of her family on the morning of March 23, 2023. Tammy was a mother, wife, and best friend. Loved by many, seen and heard by few. She was the light in a dark room that cared for everyone she passed. Compassionate, creative, and caring all describe who Tammy was as an individual. She leaves behind her daughter who she has gifted those same qualities, and she also leaves behind her husband who she loved dearly for 26 years. After four and half years of batting with Dementia, in the month of February she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer that had metastasized to her T7 vertebrae causing her to be paralyzed. In such a short time we laughed, cried, hugged, played music and talked for hours. There is no greater gift than a mom. Thank you for being mine.

HOSPICE IS HERE; RECURRENT THEME SADDENS HOSPICE

To the Editor:

Again today I had the sad duty to remove a client from our Census. The person was referred to us last week, admitted to our service on Friday 4/15, and died early today, 4/17. It’s a recurrent theme that saddens all of us at Hospice of Ukiah.

Some doctors will tell you that your loved one has to be “dying” to receive care from a Hospice, and for Medicare Hospices that may be true. But, not for Hospice of Ukiah. We can help so much more if we admit people to our care when a fatal illness is diagnosed. They can still fight the disease or take life extending treatment.

We can support their efforts, give comfort to client and family, help with pain control, and do so much more to make their lives as good as possible. If we can help, ask your doctor for a referral to Hospice of Ukiah — don’t wait until it’s “just a formality”.

Janet Denninger, Administrator

Hospice of Ukiah

FUNDRAISER FOR ANA CARRILLO

This Saturday, April 22, 10am-10:30pm we will be having a fundraiser at the Philo grange for my grandmother Ana María Carrillo who was recently diagnosed with stage 4 terminal uteran cancer. We will be selling tamales, pósole, and champurrado in the morning and carnitas amongst other goodies in the afternoon. If you are looking for some tasty Mexican food make sure to stop by! There will also be a DJ and a raffle in the evening. Donations are also accepted. Thank you to everyone who has donated the food, beverages, their time and money we greatly appreciate it 

SPECIAL MEETING of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

ANDERSON VALLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT 

Boonville Fire Station, 14281 Hwy 128 

Public comments or document requests can be submitted electronically to districtmgr.avcsd@gmail.com 

Monday, April 24th, 2023, at 7pm 

Join Zoom Meeting: https://bit.ly/AVCSDWater2 

New Business: In person and virtual informational meeting for parcel owners within the Drinking Water boundaries. Topics relevant to the Drinking Water project will be covered and questions answered by panel participants. Panel participants: AVCSD Water Project Directors, Lead Engineer (Brelje & Race), State Waterboard Dept of Financing Project Managers, District 3 Waterboard Agency, Mendocino County Planning and Environmental Health, AV Fire Chief, SAFER (Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund), Safe and RCAC (Rural Communities Assistance Corporation). 

ROUND VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL: Out of respect for the Family and Friends of RubySky Montelongo, there will be no School on Monday April 24th, 2023. RVUSD offers our deepest condolences during this very difficult time. Ruby was loved by all and will be greatly missed.

CORRECTING THE CHRONICLE 

Boonville’s socioeconomic status falls well below the California average; according to U.S. Census data, Boonville’s household income is $45,000 compared to $85,000 across the state. Less than 30% of the Boonville population holds a bachelor’s degree or higher. Because it’s classified as a disadvantaged community, Boonville is eligible for infrastructure grants from the state related to drinking water. The Anderson Valley Community Services District is using State Water Board funding for assessment and planning, but no funds for construction have been committed yet. Any new infrastructure could be years away.

Thanks, 

Val Hanelt, Chair, AV Community Services District

PS, Apparently the Chronicle’s eight AV-centric articles will be in a special magazine in June and that is when they will be in print.

JENNY BURNSTAD: Have always loved the Sparaxis (Harlequin Flower) since discovering it when Alida tuned into it when she was a toddler. It has naturalized all over Anderson Valley and this year this little patch on Grey Fox Rd. in Boonville has grown into such a big and beautiful patch I just had to capture and share.

AV UNIFIED NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

It's nice to finally get sunshine. We appreciate the efforts of the Unity Club members, as they present the annual Wildflower Show. Our students always look forward to that event. The district is also happy to support the Boontling Classic, which I understand is a beloved tradition, and the Fish Rock bike races in the coming months as well. We are so grateful to our community. The many organizations that participated in the Senior Scholarship awards are truly unfathomable. The generosity in the valley to support our young members is a beautiful and unusual thing.

At the high school, we held an honor roll ceremony on Thursday night. As previously mentioned, 133 students achieved a 3.0 or better. Twenty two of those students had a 4.0 or better. My only disappointment is that we only get about a third of the students to attend. One of the most touching things is that some of the parents attended without their kids. Somehow in the Valley, we have to make it cool that doing well is something that is good to recognize and feel celebrated. If your student achieves the roll, please come unless you have a work or sports conflict. If your student doesn’t want to come, come without them and accept on their behalf. It’s important as a community that we build momentum together to grow and celebrate kids doing well. I know sometimes work or sports schedules are hard, and I honor that. I’m really proud of your kids and I want to tell them so. I received one parent’s letter today.

* * *

Hello Ms. Simson,

I am writing to tell you how much I appreciate your dedication to our students and for celebrating our kids that have made the honor roll. I was so happy to see how many students made the honor roll. I was amazed that the total gained 20 more students for this quarter. 

I could not get over that out of roughly 130 students that made the honor roll only about 25 students and families showed up to this celebration. It made me sad that so few parents and students came to celebrate. Our children are only children once and we should be there as much as possible to celebrate their successes. 

I also do not understand why students are not more proud of their accomplishments. When I was a student this was something to be proud of and not shy away from. Making the honor roll is just that an "honor" and it is truly setting your children up for success. Students do not seem to realize that these years are going to be some of the best times of their lives and should really celebrate every accomplishment.

Thank you again for all that you have done for our students in such a short time! I really hope to see more students and families at future honor roll celebrations. My hope is that families will see that supporting and celebrating these accomplishments will give their children more incentive to continue to do great things.

Sincerely

A Grateful Parent 

(Thank you to the parent that took that time to write that perspective. It is appreciated). 

* * *

This coming Tuesday at five in the library, we encourage all parents from eighth grade to 11th grade to come and learn about dual enrollment opportunities and the benefits from a Mendocino college academic advisor. This isn't an important pathway for students to earn college units and career skills while in high school and doesn’t cost anything. Please come at 5 PM to the high school library.

Also at the high school, our Keystone contractors visited with a group of students for a listening session. They had quite a bit to say. We take this important feedback and use it. One of their primary requests was the return to advisory, instead of the writing process. Yes, the staff had already decided to shift that time back to our PBL focus next year and the English staff will continue to focus on the writing. We saw some incredible improvement and growth in the weekly writing process. Writing in pencil and paper and off the computer gives you a very good baseline of the students’ actual skills. I appreciate the hard work in collaboration with Kim Campbell in creating those prompts and scoring with specific feedback for improvement.

Another question the students had was related to unlicensed drivers not being allowed to park on campus. I completely understand their concerns, but students have to understand that the district, by allowing unknown and licensed drivers to park on campus, incurs huge liability. For this reason, students are not allowed to park on the campus, and in an effort to try and support our families the district has implemented the drivers training program to get that behind the wheel training done free of charge.

We also appreciate the collaboration of the Anderson Valley Health Center, as we try and get a head start on the Fall sports physicals for students. If your student is a client of the Anderson Valley Health Center and has a physical that will expire before the Fall season starts, we are sending home permission slips for them to be shuttled to the clinic during two days in May to get the physical done. The district will not allow students who have not completed their physical to practice or play next year. We want to make sure that kids have an opportunity with our support, to get that check up done so they are not out of play. If you use another provider and your student's physical has expired or will expire over summer, please make an appointment over the summer and make sure they have clearance. Send those forms back to the office!

The elementary septic system had a bid walk today. Contractors are preparing their final bids and we are excited to get construction underway. Our high school remodel plans are in permit review with the Department of State Architect.

At the elementary site, thank you to Cymbre Thomas-Swett for hosting the first Panther Squad parent/guardian training. We had two highly qualified volunteers that will be completing the process to support our expansion of parent participation on our campuses. This is a quick and easy process if you want to volunteer to be on campus to support break or recess times or even a high school game with an extra set of eyes. The next training is at the elementary Open House at 4 PM on April 26. It takes only 45 minutes and it’s a great opportunity to support all the kids in the community.

If you want to be excited about young people learning, don’t miss the Elementary Open House on Wednesday at five! Nothing is better than walking through a school site where kids are proudly showing their family their quality learning. Even if you don’t have a kid on the site, stop by and look at what’s going on. 

In other news, several positions are available at the elementary as well! Don't miss the Boontling Classic on May 7 and that all important Student of the Month Assembly on Thursday, April 27th at 12:45. And, just a reminder that at the elementary site, state testing starts at the Elementary on May 1. Please make sure your student ATTENDS and is well rested.

As always, we appreciate all of your support and feedback.

THE APPLICATION FEE for a cannabis permit is currently around $1700. Of course this doesn’t include application prep such as lawyers, consultant, required grow site development and improvements, other fees, etc. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors is being asked to raise that fee to about $5400. 

Why?

“Application Fee – Initial Application Review, Inspection & Issuance Fee. Plus, actual time as applicable. 

• This fee has been increased by 223.2%.

• Reflects increased salaries, effective January 1, 2023.

• Includes supervisor and management positions’ review time. Many of these positions were not included in previous fee schedules.

• Reflects increased inspection costs related to billable mileage increase.

• Increases the planner review time from 19 to 60.6 hours. This increase reflects the time associated with the review of environmental performance standards including referral to California Department of Fish and Wildlife which is required of all Phase Three applications. The costs associated with conducting a full review of all environmental performance standards was not previously considered in this fee justification.”

The Cannabis Department is also raising the Permit Renewal fee by 50% because it now “Includes site inspection, which was previously an a la carte fee that is charged in addition to the current $733.33 fee for processing a renewal application.”

But, they add, “Plus, actual time as applicable.”

All the other cannabis permit fees are going up substantially as well. Of course, there’s no guarantee you will ever get a permit, and processing and review times are open ended. Most permit applications from 2017 are still under review. Very few have received actual state permits.

But sure, if you want to be a legal pot grower, open your wallet and take your chances. Just be sure not to factor in the current price of legal marijuana. Otherwise the math might not work.

PS. According to the latest Cannabis Department Report:

The total workload of the Department is best reflected by these two primary data sets;

Applications: 729

Issued Permits: 115*

TOTAL: 844

*Renewals are accounted for within the Issued Permits data set.

And:

Issued w/ DCC [State Department of Cannabis Control] (Annual): 7

Issued w/ DCC (Provisional): 91

Issued w/o DCC: 25

TOTAL: 123*

*This total should reflect the number of “issued permits” in the Department Activity section. The Department is in the process of restructuring the data management system to ensure proper reconciliation of the internal data. Moving forward, this figure will be adjusted accordingly.

* * *

Application Status

Cultivation Permit applications have submitted to the Department and are in one of the following stages of review. 

Status , Responsibility, Applications

Applications received pending review 

Department: 351

Active Review: Department 110

Non-responsive or inadequate material Applicant: 268

Total: 729

* * *

Department Efficiency [sic] Study

The Department implemented time tracking to study planner time spent reviewing applications. Based on initial review of the data being collected, the Department determined it is highly likely that the average time spent will be significantly less than 200 hours per review. The Department had projected a need of twenty-seven (27) to be able to complete reviews described in the tracking chart that was presented in both February and March’s monthly reports. Total number of planners that the Department expects to have is eighteen (18), six (6) from the Department and twelve (12) contract planners. The Department has a high level of confidence that with projected average review times based on the time study, the number of available planners compared to the projected in fact will not prevent the Department from achieving its goals on time. Despite not having any completed reviews to date for June deadlines, the Department believes that, with the efficiency study, those numbers will improve in the coming months.

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN:

“General Government Committee Meeting 

832 Active AG Numbers (Applications for the Cannabis Program), 4Leaf Contract has been on Boarded and will be trained on 3/28-29, 2023. DCC Meeting on Friday, streamlining of the environmental to the State with the Appendix G going to the State would be the LJAGP [Local Jurisdiction Assistance Grant Program] funds could be used for an EIR that would be to the benefit of the State by the extension of the provisional permits for a year while that process is under way. The State would look at the Humboldt model with site specific review. Direct grants would likely be on hold for now, but the funds could be used for the environmental review and the contract planners. What the streamlining looks like will depend on what the Board decides they want to take out of or leave in the ordinance.”

* * *

Supervisor Mulheren concluded her recent Supervisor’s report with this tantalizing mystery item: “March 31, 2023: Discussion re New Courthouse with Adventist Health and the shift to Downtown and the impact to the area near Hospital Drive.”

What could that possibly mean? Could the Adventists be considering a future purchase of the old Courthouse when it’s abandoned and moved to the new concrete bunker over by the railroad tracks? And what is “the shift to Downtown and the impact to the area near Hospital Drive”?

So we emailed the Supervisor for an explanation. 

Instead of an emailed response, the perpetually upbeat Supervisor called to explain that there’s an informal group of people in Ukiah including herself who are working on finding alternate space for the DA and Public Defender’s offices closer to the new Courthouse when the Courthouse moves a few blocks down Perkins Street. One possibility that was raised was using one of the buildings on Hospital Drive currently owned by the Adventists. As we could have told her and saved them a lot of time and hassle, the Adventists replied that in fact they’re expanding and need all the space they have and probably more. We reminded the Supervisor that back when the Office of the Courts first proposed this very dumb and expensive new courthouse idea the woman from the Court offices in San Francisco very specifically said the Courts would cover any cost impact to the County (which they, in their simple minds didn’t think would be very much). So, we suggested that Supervisor Mulheren urge her colleagues to send an official letter to the Courts saying they have to cover the County’s costs to accommodate THEIR new courthouse. (Although she agreed, we doubt she’ll do anything of the sort because these current Supervisors don’t do anything that doesn’t come from them. I should have tried to make her think she came up with the idea.) Mulheren also pointed out that the County paid a consultant to look at what it might take to build a new building for the DA and the Public Defender over near the tracks (Mulheren of course called it “the Great Redwood Trail”) and the consultant estimated that a new building of that type might cost $17 million. Which sounds low to us, but that’s the number. Whatever the number is, Mendo doesn’t have $17 mil or so sitting around for that. So far, Mulheren noted, nobody has any practical ideas about what to do about the DA’s and Public Defender offices post-new courthouse. If history is any guide, they’ll just build the new courthouse over by the tracks and let whatever happens happen.

* * *

THIS MONTH’S CEO REPORT has achieved a new low, and that’s going some given Mendo’s history of uninformative CEO Reports. You can go through the entire report and not find a single reference to money. Not one. And only one number: (“The Mendocino County Department of Child Support Services had 2990 open cases as of March 31, 2023, serving both parents to ensure that their families receive court-ordered financial and medical support.”) The rest of the CEO report is just boilerplate descriptions of various departments.

(Mark Scaramella)

PLANNING? WHAT PLANNING?

The Staff Report(s) and Agenda for the May 04, 2023 Planning Commission meeting is now available on the department website at: mendocinocounty.org/government/planning-building-services/meeting-agendas/planning-commission

Please contact staff if there are any questions, thank you!

ED NOTES

FURTHER EVIDENCE that our nation is doomed is… Biden, 80, to “announce his run for president on Tuesday”: White House aides are planning to release video confirming Biden’s 2024 campaign despite questions over his age, performance and dire approval ratings.

MATT TAIBBI, at much greater length and irrefutably, has pointed out that our Big Lib media — The NYT, CNN, NPR, MSNBC and so on, and that our alleged national security agencies have become an extension of the Democratic Party — but all that's really needed to prove their perfidy is their refusal to even speculate that Biden is past it, wayyyyyyy past it.

MY COLLEAGUE, The Major, didn't react well to the news that it took him four months to get an appointment to see a heart doc at the Adventists Complex while “that homeless mooch, Craig Stehr, gets admitted instantly.” It belatedly occurred to The Maj to turn himself over to the VA for medical relief. Never heard a complaint about the VA Clinic in Ukiah, or the VA Hospital in San Francisco, where the quality of care has always been excellente. 

WARRIORS FORWARD DRAYMOND GREEN is almost alone among professional athletes to never go corporate. He always says what's on his mind in post-game interviews while everyone else blands down their serial cliches. Not to be too much of a front-runner, I think the Kings are all-round better than the Warriors, not that I'm abandoning The City for Sacramento.

I ASKED 5th District supervisor, Ted Williams for his opinion of the County edict that the AV Senior Center would now have to somehow pay for County maintenance services via an onerous new lease has alarmed many of us. Our Center has thrived for years in the Boonville Vet's Building, which is owned by the County.

WILLIAMS: “Of course I don’t want to see Senior Center out of business. It appears the county’s method of operations included not maintaining many of its 75 structures. Public safety and roads will cost more in the years to come and revenue is flat or declining. Any thoughts on an entity to assume ownership?”

I ONLY could think one thought, which is that the Anderson Valley CSD buy the Vet's Building and lease it back to the Senior Center for a token one dollar, much as our CSD has assumed owner responsibility for the Little Red School House and premises.

WILLIAMS: “I could get behind that.”

THE ANTIOCH POLICE DEPARTMENT is rightly in the Bay Area news for harboring at least forty cops who were dumb enough to e-mail racist messages to each other. How many times have cops been caught out the same way — indelible written proof of their evident unfitness to do their work. But, scrolling through the messages that have become public, it's also obvious that many of the email exchanges are bad attempts at humor, as in one cop emailing another, “I'm just out here as usual violating civil rights.” Which made me laugh but, in the context of the Antioch PD, not very amusing, especially when you also have cops joking about kicking a black kid's head “like a football.”

WAXING BIG THINK, considering that the operating context of American cops is dealing with brutalized and brutalizing people in a brutalizing popular culture celebrating brutalization, it's not surprising that too many brutal people find their way into police work. Here in Mendo? For our small police presence in a population of only 90,000 people the Ukiah Police Department has obviously been brutal-tolerant, but other than Ukiah, a small town featuring brutalizing architecture and the tolerance of aberrant public behavior that brutalizes its entire population, criminals and honest citizens alike, Mendo cops go about their work in a reputable manner.

THE PROBLEM presented by Covelo, a community that eats its young, isn't so much the bloody history of Round Valley as it is too many bad people with bad attitudes in one small population. Some of us will remember when Covelo was a small school sports powerhouse where everyone graduated from high school and went out into the world expecting to lead conventional lives, then… drugs, the celebration of thug culture, too many young people shuffled in and out of prison, ancient grudges, no jobs — pick one.

TESLA MAN IS ROAD RUDE. OR DRUNK. OR STONED. OR…

Scary trip on 128 this morning (Friday)

An ever-increasing group of us got stuck behind a white Tesla (CA plate 9EHJ938) with (I think he was a white male, with long hair and a passenger) a driver who was one or more of the following:

a) scared

1. of shadows

2. of moisture on the road

3. of dirt on the road

4. of speeding tickets

5. of curves

6. of redwood trees

7. of appearing “woke”

8. of appearing to be awake

b) thoughtless/selfish 

c) deaf (to horns) 

d) blindered (to flashing headlights and other visual evidence that he was not in sync with the rest of us.)

I had the misfortune to be, eventually, second in line in this parade, after several others, including a fully loaded hay truck, let me pass (they were giving him room, which I just didn’t have in my heart). He was going between 27 and 32 mph most of the time, with occasional spurts of near-the-limit energy (on the straightaways, so it would be harder to pass), and rolling slowly right past the signage, the turnouts, the pullouts.

After what seemed like hours of this, someone from way back in the line, driving a large, dark-silver comet of a car with a boxy back end (couldn’t get the make; they were moving so fast), couldn’t bear it anymore, and on a very short straightaway, crossed the double yellow and SHOT past everyone in line, including the hay truck(!), almost winding up in a head-on with someone rightfully coming the other way.

As we neared Navarro, not the last turnout, but the shorter one before that, he GOT A CLUE and pulled over. I bet he waited a very long time for all those angry people to get past him.

I’m subjecting all of you to this screed because you might recognize this guy -- maybe he was visiting you -- and you could explain the speed limit and other rules of the road, and that people actually use 128 to get to jobs, doctors’ appts., and the like. You could tell him what all that signage means, and what a turnout is, and why there are all these sweet, flat, paved places on the roadside. In fact, it would be awesome if everyone tried to give instructions to visitors before them come up here, especially if they’re from flat states or countries! My latest theory is that these people run across that first reduce-speed, curve ahead sign, and then think that’s the limit for the entire stretch.

Drivers like him are never in wrecks, but he could have caused a massive pileup had that (overly) daring driver not had some kind of angel on one shoulder and an afterburner at the rear of his/her/their vehicle.

Jean (Coast Listserve)

SKUNKED:

From the Skunk Train website and their advertisement about their “Glen Blair Bar”: https://www.skunktrain.com

“Your new favorite late-night watering hole is nestled deep in the redwoods, and accessible only by Skunk… introducing The Skunk Train’s one-of-a-kind Glen Blair Bar!

Friday nights beginning at 6:30pm, catch a train out of the Fort Bragg Depot and journey along Pudding Creek to The Glen.

There you’ll find firepits, heaters, group games, live music, and a world-class bar offering up local beer and wine, and signature cocktails. Shuttles depart hourly, and the bar closes shop at 10:30pm. “"

Come make some magic in the redwoods!

* * *

CHRIS SKYHAWK: Good morning; I am just fishing for any possible reasonable explanation for this Skunk Train activity; late at night last night (Friday) at 11pm, they are blowing the train whistle; I live on the south end of FB I feel sorry for those closer before I start whining excessively I’m wondering if anyone has a reasonable explanation as to why they are doing this; it has happened repeatedly…. Thank you Private replies are OK

* * *

ROBERT BARKAN: The last week or two, the last train (at least at the end of the week, a couple blocks from the train station) was blowing its horn at 11:45pm! Are there no Fort Bragg regulations that prohibit this insanity?

Why isn't our city government doing something about this?!

* * *

KEITH WYNER

Friday Nights and the Skunk Train Whistle

Here is my guess about the Skunk Train whistle blowing at 11PM:

You can start by knowing that the Skunk Train now has a Glen Blair Bar open on some Friday nights.

The Glen Blair Bar closes at 10:30 PM on Friday nights.

The train returns to Fort Bragg around 11 PM.

By federal mandate, the “Train Horn Rule” requires trains have to blow their whistles at all public grade train crossings,

Fort Bragg has a number of railroad train crossings.

Thus the Skunk Train is obligated by law to blow it’s whistle whenever it comes to a public grade crossings… whatever time it is… day or night… or even at 11PM.

There are exceptions to the "Train Horn Rule,” , where towns are allowed to enact the “Quiet Zone” rule. There are about 180 town that have enacted the “Quiet Zone Rule. ( as of 2010 ) “ Note: I am not sure what the liability would be for the towns if the “Quiet Zone" rule was enacted, and there was an accident when the whistles were not blowing.

By Law Trains Slipping Silently Through Towns, NPR, March 13, 2010

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124648093

You can take it from there…..

You can also check out the Skunk Train website and their “Glen Blair Bar” along with their calendar of “Upcoming Trips” so you can figure out which Fridays you will be awaken by the 11PM train whistle.

* * *

ED NOTE; Think an occasional pre-midnight train horn is bad for Fort Bragg? Try vineyard frost fans from 1am until an hour past dawn like we suffer annually every Spring in the Anderson Valley.

OWNING SCOTT DAM, Looking for Water in Potter Valley, Is Raising Coyote Dam Feasible?—Updates from the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission

mendofever.com/2023/04/22/owning-scott-dam-looking-for-water-in-potter-valley-is-raising-coyote-dam-feasible-updates-from-the-mendocino-county-inland-water-and-power-commission/

THE BOONTLING CLASSIC IS BACK! North Coast Striders is pleased to announce that the 38th Annual Boontling Classic 5K footrace will be held on Sunday, May 7th, 2023 at 10:00 am at the Anderson Valley Elementary school in Boonville, California. Runners and walkers of all ages are welcome.

Ribbons will be given to the top three placers in each of the ten age divisions, as well as plaques for first man/woman/non-binary. A post-race drawing will be held with prizes generously donated by local Anderson Valley businesses. All proceeds will go to the Anderson Valley Food Bank in Boonville, CA.

Fee: $15.00 Adults (18+); $5.00 Youth (6-17); $30.00 Family; Kids under 6 years of age can race for free.

Locally printed t-shirts are an additional $10.00/person and are in limited supply

Online registration will be open until the race starts. In person registration will be available on the day of the race only, starting at 8:30 am.

For more information, contact race directors Zane Colfax or Angie Setzer at zane.colfax@gmail.com or via phone or text at 334-233-9607.

Race Contact Info: If you have any questions about this race, please contact the race director at zane.colfax@gmail.com

FOLLOWING THE SPIRIT

Craig Stehr Is Alive and Will Get a Subsidized Apartment Soon

The medical situation is, (following yesterday's lengthy afternoon of testing at Adventist Health-Ukiah), sufficiently corralled and I am now being treated for COPD. Also, the heart muscle is being monitored, and blood pressure is stabilized. I am on steroids for three days for comfort. All is okay at the Building Bridges shelter. They love me!

This morning I received a mailing pouch with the GOOD NEWS that I am getting a housing voucher. The zoom meeting is on May 17th...a housing specialist will be with me in an office w/ computer at Building Bridges. Yep, I'm going to get a subsidized apartment, and, after living in it for one year, am qualified to move anywhere in the USA where they will accept the voucher. 

I'm just "following spirit", as you do understand. Stay in touch, amigo.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, April 19, 2023

GABRIEL AGUILAR, Ukiah. Minor with concealed weapon with prior, loaded handgun-not registered owner, failure to appear, probation revocation.

MICHAEL AVERY, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%, grand theft, failure to appear.

ARTURO DELGADO-GONZALEZ, Ukiah. Oral copulation with minor under 14, contact with intent to commit lewd act with minor, lewd-lascivious upon child under 14, use of minor for obscene matter-not commerce, special allegation: multiple victims. 

HERMAN FUENTES, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.

NICOLE HAWKINS, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, firearm sales without license.

COLE ICKES, Fort Bragg. Under influence, probation revocation.

ISMAEL MARTINEZ, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

NATHAN MORALES-SALDANA, Covelo. Under influence.

JUSTINE NORTON, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, resisting, probation revocation.

CYNTHIA PHILLIBER, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

KEVIN QUIJADA, Ukiah. DUI.

DAVID SAPP, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

JESSE SMALLEY, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JOSHUA SMITH, Laytonville. Leaving scene of accident with property damage, no license, evasion, resisting, probation revocation.

NICHOLE SOTILLE-KONEVITCH, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

BRIDGETT STACHEY, Davis/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

KYLE STARK, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

PUTTING THE COAST AT RISK

Editor,

I am very concerned that Supervisor Lynda Hopkins has advocated to eliminate parcel specific protections on the coast. For those of us who have advocated tirelessly over the past 40 years for coastal protection, this has come as a complete shock. Regardless of which parcels have been targeted for elimination of protection, it is unacceptable.

The seminal group COAAST was instrumental in protecting the coast and keeping access for the public, and this could not be further away from what they worked for. Coastwalk California and other groups carried on the work of coastal protection and public access.

Bill Kortum must be turning over in his grave with this move advocated by Hopkins and supported by the Board of Supervisors.

Brenda Nichols

Sebastopol

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio show all night Friday night!

Deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is about 7pm. If you can't make that, send it whenever it's done and I'll read it on the radio next week. Next week is fine; I'll be in the Fort Bragg studio then. I'm still at Juanita's tonight. You can always tell where I am because, from Juanita's, the show starts with Kevin MacLeod's /Scheming Weasel/, and I'm talking quietly, my mouth right on the mic, as if speaking to a small child sitting in my lap, to not wake up everybody in the building; when I'm in Fort Bragg, I can be louder and more uneven, people can call on the phone, and the show starts with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, /Happy Feet/.

Tonight's show will include all the usual features, and long stories by all the regulars, who are getting more regular than ever before. When I was little, lying on the couch in my grandmother's house, watching Outer Limits;Twilight Zone; The Honeymooners; Astro Boy; Gigantor; Fireball XL-5; Lawrence Welk; Steve Allen; Beany and Cecil; Lambchop and the others on teevee (my absolute favorite was Outer Limits), waiting for the adults to come back from the restaurant across the alley, one of the ads that often appeared on all three channels was all about how to avoid suffering from occasional irregularity. When I asked my mother or my grandmother what that was about, they told me it had something to do with not pooping on time. Which was hilarious. Of course that couldn't be it, they made that up for a joke, and I appreciated it and didn't pursue the matter. /Not pooping on time!/ So funny. ("Boys always think farts are funny." -Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis)

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg as well as anywhere else via KNYO.org. Also the schedule is there for KNYO's many other even more terrific shows.

Furthermore, any day or night you can go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear my last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put the recording of tonight's show there. And besides all that, there you'll find a number of educational items to peruse and manipulate until showtime, or any time, such as:

The color out of space.

https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2023/04/how-hubble-images-are-made.html

Rerun: What the different colors of urine signify.

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/troubled-waters

And you have a bag of black letters and red letters and no punctuation marks. You can put anything you want to on that marquee sign. Do it, and then share it. I'll start: In alternating black and red caps: All these worlds are yours except Europa; … attempt no landings there (Leave two spaces between Europa and attempt.) Now you.

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/mrg/08500/08518v.jpg

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

POOL PARADISE: WATER AEROBICS AT SF’S KORET REC CENTER

by Jonah Raskin

San Francisco is surrounded by water on three sides, but the only water that really matters to me, aside from the tap water and the water for the shower and the toilet in my apartment, is the water in the pool at the University of San Francisco. Three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I join an aerobics class that meets in the shallow end of the pool at the spectacular Koret Health and Recreation Center. I joined the class a year ago when I turned 80 and didn’t know a thing about aerobics. Now, I hate to miss a day. 

I’m one of four men in the class. We’re outnumbered by the 20 or so women, some Chinese and some Ukrainians, all speaking their own native languages as well as English. We’re mostly elderly; our bodies reveal our ages and the wear and tear we’ve accumulated over decades. We’re not a cross section of The City, ethnically speaking, but we’re close to it. 

Exercises that I could not do while standing on dry land I can do in the pool. Whoever invented aqua aerobics deserves my deepest admiration and respect. Some exercises, like opposite jumping jacks, are more challenging than others. They force me to break habits and move in ways I’m not accustomed to moving.

Recently, Bonnie Tsui, the author of Why we Swim, published a piece in The New York Times about lap swimming and the culture of the women’s locker room. “Often I come alone,” she wrote. “But always I find company in the locker room — a conversation to dip into or just to listen to.” I find company in the men’s locker room at the Koret, but no real conversations.

Occasionally, I’ll chat with Fema, a big guy who speaks English with a Russian accent. Fema grew up in what was once called the Soviet Union. His wife belongs to the water aerobics class. He swims laps. He tells me what he knows about the war in Ukraine, where he once lived and where one of his sisters lives. Another sister lives in Moscow. They don’t talk to one another, Fema says. Everyone in the aerobics class talks to everyone else. 

The male locker room is the space where we get dressed and undressed. We’re in a rush to exercise and don’t linger and talk at length about the weather or our favorite team. The guys love the hot showers. I do, too. I see naked tattooed bodies, physically fit bodies, big bellied bodies, hairy bodies and bodies that have seen far better days. In a way, all the bodies are beautiful. 

The locker room at the Koret reminds me of past locker rooms when I played football in high school and rugby college and later when I swam laps in the pool at Sonoma State University. I probably can’t do laps anymore, at least not the way I used to do them, but if I want to swim laps two dozen or so lanes are available.

My conversations at the Koret mostly take place in the pool. While we’re not supposed to talk while exercising, but sometimes it can’t be helped. Gerry from Belfast tells me in an Irish accent about the latest movie he’s seen and that he urges me to see. Maggie will describe a walk or a restaurant she and her husband enjoy, Deanna talks about her family. 

We have no teachers, except ourselves. Marvin, a retired medical doctor, might lead the class, or else Colleen, or Anna or Deanna who calls what we have in the pool “a community.” She and a few of the others are teaching me to do the exercises properly. The main thing, I’ve been told, is to use the water so that it provides maximum resistance. I’m learning to push and pull with my arms and my legs, so the workout is truly aerobic and gets my heart and lungs working. No one in the class moves in exactly the same way as anyone else. We don’t do water ballet but some of us are graceful.

When I first joined the aerobics class, the water felt very cold indeed. I could only stay in the water for 30 minutes before heading to the locker room and a hot shower. Then, I purchased a Neoprene top which I always wear and that keeps me warm in water that is usually about 80 degrees. Now, I stay in the pool for 60 minutes and consider myself a real trooper. 

On Monday nights, I attend a yoga class around the corner from my apartment at Ocean Beach. Most of the participants are young women with young slim, fit bodies. A few young men unfurl their mats, extend their bodies and do the asanas or poses but there is almost no interaction between the young men and the young women. 

One guy explained that he didn’t initiate a conversation because he didn’t want to be perceived as hitting on a woman. In the water aerobics class one woman told me that when she was in her twenties and a guy didn’t hit on her she was insulted. 

Different strokes for different folks. I’ll continue to practice yoga and also go to the aerobics class where the women welcome me like I’m a member of an extended family. I guess I am. And they’re members of my extended family that keeps doom and gloom at a distance. If you’re not in a yoga class or doing water aerobics, what are you waiting for?

SUE-MEG STATE PARK in Humboldt County: “Recently renamed after the traditional Yurok place name, the park is stunning at all times of year. It receives 60 inches of annual rainfall, and during the fall and winter months it has a romantic, misty mystique to it. Great location for tide pooling and landscape photography as well, and you can often catch views of whales, dolphins and seals.”

THE OAKLAND A’S ARE MOVING TO VEGAS. COULD THE YANKEES BE NEXT?

by Dave Zirin

Now that the Oakland Athletics, under the stewardship of Gap clothing heir John J. Fisher, have announced their intention to move to Las Vegas, it is time to ask Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, as well as state and city officials in Nevada and Las Vegas, a question: “Congrats, you have the A’s. Now how much to do want for the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs? Sold as a bundle. What will it take? Ten billion dollars? What about $20 billion? Who wants to crack open some state pension funds and make a deal?”

If community history and support mean nothing and all power is given to the almighty publicly financed dollar, then Major League Baseball might want to see if Vegas has an extra few billion squirreled away for three of the league’s most popular and iconic teams. Just imagine the most well-heeled fans from Chicago, Boston, and New York flocking to Sin City, staying at the hotels, playing the slots, and watching a game at the old Fenway Park transplanted to the Strip with the accuracy of the Paris Hotel and Casino.

Which side would say no to this deal? Maybe Manfred thinks it would be too transparently vulgar. Would he calculate that such a deal might make billions but do irreparable harm to the brand? But before saying no, I bet Manfred would still do the math. As for the city and state governments of Las Vegas and Nevada, we know that they’d be all in. The political class has already shown its colors with another Oakland export, the Las Vegas Raiders, whose new stadium is a civic monument to corporate welfare at the expense of the most vulnerable. It’s a gleaming reminder that Nevada has the most poorly funded public schools in the United States.

Perhaps I’m even giving Manfred too much credit to say that he would dismiss such a deal. At the very least, he calls the Steinbrenners and asks how much the history of a ballpark in the Bronx that is all of 15 minutes old measures up to 10 billion bucks at the Bellagio.

Anyone who doubts that Manfred and the ownership would even consider this needs to dust off their baseball encyclopedias and put some serious respect on the name of the Oakland Athletics—with an emphasis on that first word: Oakland. This is the team of Reggie Jackson and Rickey Henderson, of Rollie Fingers and Catfish Hunter, of Eck and Stew, of the Bash Brothers and the young MC Hammer, of the world’s most famous donkey, and a World Series that cracked the earth open.

And all of it set to a particular culture, sound, and community uniquely influential not only in Major League Baseball but also at the level of global culture. As Oakland journalist Davey D said to me, “Next to the Raiders, the Oakland A’s were our pride and joy, our crown jewel. They represented the working class in Oakland during the heyday of the championship years. They put Oakland on the map on terms that Oaklanders could relate to.”

And yet neither the NFL nor Major League Baseball nor, to a lesser extent, the NBA, have shown themselves able to understand the obvious: that Oakland is a special soil for sports—worth nurturing, not abandoning. There is no baseball history without the Oakland Athletics. Yet for years, rather than look for a solution that did not involve strip-mining the city of Oakland for public resources, Manfred and that sentient Gap T-shirt squeezed the team dry, drawing fewer and fewer fans, consciously devaluing the franchise until billions rose from the sands of Nevada. Now, a league that has treated gambling as original sin throughout its history, that kept “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame for falling into a gambler’s web, is sticking a team smack-dab in the middle of Las Vegas.

I take it all back. They’d sell the Yankees in a heartbeat.

What is so numbing about this is the scummy ordinariness of it all. The leisured class, from Elon Musk to oil barons to billionaire sports owners, live lavishly on the public teat, and the Oakland A’s story, as personal as it feels to the bruised city, is no different. This is about billionaire sports owners demanding socialism for the rich and seasonal service industry work for the laboring class. They are urban hostage takers, demanding a king’s ransom from the public trough or else the team—your team—will end up buried with the other bodies somewhere in the Vegas desert.

FACEBOOK HAS BEGUN CENSORING a Substack article by journalist Seymour Hersh which asserts that the US government, in coordination with Norway, was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines last September.…

caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/04/21/today-in-empire-war-machine-funded-war-games-facebook-censors-hersh-and-more/

WHEN MUHAMMAD ALI was asked who does he think his most difficult opponent throughout all of boxing history would have been. Muhammad replied: "One fighter - Marciano. He was tough, kept coming and he hit hard too. It would have been rough, on my best day and his best day - I believe I would have beaten him, not knocked him out, but beaten him. It's just hard to say, because its truly down to the imagination. He was not a great fighter "scientifically", but he was a mawler, a brawler and very tough! One fight, his nose was hanging off and he still kept coming forward. I did a computer fight with him once and my arms were sore, just from joking with him!"

THE DEBT LIMIT CHICKEN GAME

Editor,

Here again the nation faces another national game of “chicken:” extending the debt ceiling between President Biden and Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. With the country’s national debt somewhere in the realm of $31 trillion, time is already pretty short to settle the matter before the US dollar runs out of time.

Unfortunately for Speaker McCarthy, a number of Republican House members are not in support of his latest proposed measure. Thanks to right-wingers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan, for example, Speaker McCarthy might well lose his position as Speaker before the time runs out. The debt ceiling time in early June runs out. The result would spell trouble for all Americans. Like before the Civil War, the divided nation will be disastrous.

Like two teenage boys in hotrods unable to stop in time, our full faith and credit may not survive.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III 

Santa Rosa

BOBBY STEPS UP

by James Kunstler

“It is neither our position nor our circumstances that define us, according to the Stoics, but our response to those circumstances; when destiny crushes us, small heroic gestures of courage and service can bring us peace and fulfillment. In applying our shoulder to the stone, we give order to a chaotic universe.” — RFK, Jr.

Of course, Yahoo News, and all the rest of the in-the-tank news media greeted Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s presidential announcement by branding him a “noted-anti-vaxxer,” as if that’s a bad thing. Yes, noted, thank you very much. Reuters elaborated: “Kennedy has been banned from YouTube and Instagram for spreading misinformation about vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic.” By now, whenever you see the agit-prop platitude spreading misinformation, does your brain not instantly translate that into telling the truth? And by now, does banishment from social media not tell you that certain guilty parties recognize a truth-teller when they see one?

Bobby Kennedy stepped up on Wednesday and gave a long and comprehensive speech so rich with historic resonance, intelligence, and flat-out bravery — in the face of, let’s face it, a Satanic opposition — that he made every other figure aspiring to high office within memory look like quality-control rejects from evolution’s Homo sapiens assembly line. For 90-minutes in a Boston ballroom, RFK, Jr. told America the truth: that its entire matrix of leadership has laid one trip after another on our country going all the way back to the murders of his father and uncle, and he did it plainly, gently, humorously at times, but with an unmistakable gravitas and decorum that must scare the beJeezus out of the low life-forms currently running things.

Most of all, Bobby demonstrated that there is a way out of the bad-faith wilderness America has been lost in for years. He spoke to the audience in the ballroom, and to the country, in an adult conversational tone, without notes, as if he expected that voters would actually understand the problems we face: the wicked partnerships of corporations and governments to swindle and gaslight the public; the reckless military adventurism-for-profit campaign that has bankrupted the USA, now culminating in the Ukraine fiasco; the botched response to the Covid-19 episode and the chicanery that induced it; the insults to our ecosystem that are destroying the other organisms who live with us on this planet; and the financial chicanery that is driving America into inflation and bankruptcy. He reminded the nation of the good-faith efforts sixty years ago to end racial injustice — which has lately turned into a series of dispiriting hustles to promote antagonism and separation.

Bobby’s entry onto the national stage is already a shock to the political system, which is why the captive news media is trying so hard to squash the news about it. They know that he brings something to this game that can trip-up the players currently on-the-field and take the 2024 contest in a wholly different direction than the owners of the game expected. Bobby’s confident adult demeanor at the podium alone is a reassuring and sharp contrast to the spookish mental vacancy of “Joe Biden” and the egotistic childishness of Mr. Trump. Voters will not fail to notice the difference, possibly even Woke Democrats lost in vaccine raptures and other cultish transports of self-righteousness.

I think RFK, Jr. sees very clearly the historical moment he represents. He’s keenly aware of the shade thrown over this land by the murders of his father and President Kennedy, and he has said flat-out in so many words that our own CIA was behind the dastardly acts. He’s been in a position to know the animus between JFK and the founding director of the CIA, Allen Dulles, and the reckless blunders of the agency and its partners in the Pentagon who buffaloed President Kennedy into the Bay of Pigs farce and then tried to drag him deeper into the Vietnam quagmire. JFK resisted that, threatened to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds… and Allen Dulles whacked him. He got away with it the same way that today’s Intel “community” got away with RussiaGate and all their subsequent crimes. In short, Bobby Kennedy knows what it looks like when a government is at war against its own people.

Everybody I know is justifiably worried that the Intel spooks might have no qualms about whacking Bobby Jr. He is at least as dangerous to the establishment today as his father and uncle were back in their day. Thus, his bravery in stepping up now, knowing what he knows. At the least, he will drag a set of issues into the political arena that his rivals would prefer to keep out in the cold and dark. He’ll get some assistance from events themselves, which are spooling out fast now.

The Neocon’s Ukraine project has gone south. The result, which should be hugely embarrassing to our State and Defense departments, will be the paradox of Russia restoring order to a region that we wrecked on-purpose at great cost to the denizens of Ukraine — and, as Bobby pointed out, at great cost to the shattered American middle-class. America will also have to face all the criminal activities around the Covid-19 story: the machinations of Dr. Fauci and company in developing the virus and then the vaccines that proved to be so harmful and deadly; the stupid, disastrous lockdowns; and the government-directed censorship campaign against any and all voices in opposition to medical tyranny.

Most of all, the Democratic Party faces a severe reformation. It’s about to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the diabolical Woke hall-of-mirrors it gamboled into under the Clintons and Barack Obama. How those characters deal with the uncomfortable reality of RFK, Jr. will be something to behold. Finally, there is the news, straight from The New York Times, that “Joe Biden” intends to announce his reelection plans within days. The idea is preposterous, of course, the old grifter visibly oxidizing a little more each day in plain sight of the whole world.

In fact, it’s just another one of their lies, another trip they’re laying on America. The establishment Dems are actually prepping Gavin Newsom to run, another haircut-in-search-of-a-brain, like John Kerry before him. Governor Newsom: the man who almost overnight proudly turned California into a third world shithole. That’s who Bobby Kennedy will be debating, one way or another, in the many months ahead. Whether American handle the truth remains to be seen.

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

HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP LETTER WAS THE REAL DISINFORMATION ALL ALONG

by Post Editorial Board

The dishonor of our intelligence community, and most of the media, is now complete.

It turns out the “51 intel experts” letter implying Hunter Biden’s 100% authentic laptop was a Russian fake, and the ensuing efforts to kill Post reporting on it, were the actual disinfo operation.

Veteran spook and former acting CIA Director Mike Morrell masterminded it, as he swore under oath, to “help Vice President Biden … because I wanted him to win the election” — at the behest of campaign flunky (now Secretary of State) Antony Blinken.

And Morell plainly also did it in hopes a victorious Biden would hand him the top CIA job.

Not only was there no intricate Russian plot, there was never any evidence suggesting one — only a Biden campaign conspiracy to bury the truth under a tissue of lies.

Morrell even got a thank-you call from Biden campaign chief Steve Ricchetti, after Biden used his 100% fake letter as “evidence” in a debate to counter President Donald Trump’s attacks on Biden family influence-peddling.

But a compliant media really made this possible.

The “experts” handed the letter to Natasha Bertrand, then at Politico (now at CNN), an eager propagator of such disinformation.

Politico promptly packaged the letter’s “bears the hallmarks of Russian disinformation” language into a headline claiming the experts deemed it to be disinfo, triggering an avalanche of similar reporting and a media-wide refusal to touch the story (except to attack The Post for reporting it).

Where’s Bertrand’s mea culpa? Her editor’s?

Politico hasn’t even changed its bogus headline implying the laptop was fake.

But there’s blame to go around.

Social media companies (primed by false warnings from secret government censors) blocked and downgraded posts sharing The Post’s reporting.

Our competitors at the New York Times and Washington Post did bogus exposés of how we were “deceived.”

All in a frenzy to help usher Biden into the White House.

Look: When powerful security-state actors try to sell reporters on a story, the correct response is deep skepticism.

On Hunter, the “Democracy dies in darkness” crew displayed only willful credulity — at least until they “authenticated” the documents more than a year later, after the suppression ploy had worked.

All this after the media fell for a Hillary Clinton campaign op, RussiaGate.

Then again, that adventure in hysteria won the Times and WaPo a joint 2018 Pulitzer Prize.

This is repeated collusion among spooks, politicos and journos to blast out falsehoods and suppress the truth.

Rather than serving the nation, they’ve collaborated in deceiving it.

Absent a full accounting, you can only expect the betrayals to keep coming.

(nypost.com)

NEWS BLACKOUT IN EFFECT

The Michael Morell story is disposed of by press janitors 

by Matt Taibbi

An all-time media blackout is in effect. We’re experiencing real-time Sovietization. 

It transpires that the infamous incident before the 2020 election in which 50 former intelligence officials signed an open letter declared a New York Post expose about Hunter Biden's laptop to have the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” was, allegedly at least, instigated at the behest of the Joe Biden campaign. This at least is the allegation in a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken released by Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government. 

In that letter, which is not easy to find, you’ll see three snippets of dialogue from questioning of Morell, who appears to have organized the open letter. In the first snippet, he explains that the idea originated with a call from Blinken, then of the Biden campaign, and that absent that call, Morell wouldn’t have done what he did:

In the second snippet Morell bluntly explains that he did it because “I wanted him to win,” him being Joe Biden: 

By any marker, this is an enormous news story. If we go by the usual measuring stick of American scandal, the Watergate story, this potentially meets or exceed that, on almost every level. Does it reach into the current White House? Check. Was it a craven attempt to subvert the electoral process? Check again. Did a presidential candidate engineer a massive public deception? Yes, resoundingly. Did it involve intelligence agencies? Yes, and these weren’t amateurs like Nixon’s plumbers. These were 50 of the most powerful people in the intelligence world — including five former heads or acting heads of the Agency in Morell, John Brennan, Leon Panetta, Michael Hayden, and John McLughlin — conspiring to meddle in domestic politics on a grand scale. ...

racket.news/p/news-blackout-in-effect

TRADING WITH THE ENEMY

Amid rampant corruption in Kiev and as US troops gather at the Ukrainian border, does the Biden administration have an endgame to the conflict?

by Seymour Hersh

The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.

What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”

“Zelensky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians,” one knowledgeable American intelligence official told me. “And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it.

Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks. Many of those companies are in Poland and Czechia, but others are thought to exist in the Persian Gulf and Israel. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there are others in places like the Cayman Islands and Panama, and there are lots of Americans involved,” an American expert on international trade told me. 

The issue of corruption was directly raised with Zelensky in a meeting last January in Kiev with CIA Director William Burns. His message to the Ukrainian president, I was told by an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the meeting, was out of a 1950s mob movie. The senior generals and government officials in Kiev were angry at what they saw as Zelensky’s greed, so Burns told the Ukrainian president, because “he was taking a larger share of the skim money than was going to the generals.” 

Burns also presented Zelensky with a list of thirty-five generals and senior officials whose corruption was known to the CIA and others in the American government. Zelensky responded to the American pressure ten days later by publicly dismissing ten of the most ostentatious officials on the list and doing little else. “The ten he got rid of were brazenly bragging about the money they had—driving around Kiev in their new Mercedes,” the intelligence official told me.…

seymourhersh.substack.com/p/trading-with-the-enemy