Mendocino County Today: Sunday, May 7, 2023

Evening Showers | Lemons Fish | Boontling Classic | Got Cancer | Rusty/Pokers | Ashland Trip | Hopland BBQ | Coastal Trails | Budget Failings | Search Party | Museum Trip | AV Events | Puppies | Collective Giving | Yesterday's Catch | Mitch Repair | Sugary Cereals | Drop Charges | Just Washed | Marco Radio | Cornwall Day | CAMP Days | US Land | Game 3 | Chocolates | American Carnage | Gun Control | Republicans Bad | Sad Burrito | Supreme Murk | Vincent's Room | Becoming Detective | Car Hop | Ukraine | Arm Russia | Outfoxed | Stop Fighting | Unpaid Wages | Unfettered Brinkmanship | American Splendor

COOL AND SHOWERY weather conditions are forecast through early next week. Dry and warmer weather conditions are expected mid to late next week. (NWS)

TOMMY LEMONS, further proof that Lemons Market's fish is the freshest available south of Noyo…

THE BOONTLING CLASSIC IS TODAY, Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 10 am at the Anderson Valley Elementary School. Anybody who stays for the post-race drawing has the chance to win an amazing prize, all generously donated by Anderson Valley businesses. Come enjoy this fantastic community event! We hope to see you all at the race!

SAFFRON FRASER: I guess the cat's out of the bag for the most part. Scott posted an announcement on his page. So. Instead of you all seeing ambiguous posts from me here, yes my dear Scott has Esophageal Cancer. Still reeling, but pretty solid. More info and updates as we learn. Feel free to message me, just know it might take a minute for me to reply. Oh. And the cats and dog are keeping guard.

RUSTY AND SOME POKERS (photos by Steve Derwinski)

PANTHERS ON THE MOVE

Students in several of Mr. Folz’s English classes made the trek up to Ashland this weekend for a two night adventure to see several special presentations at the world famous Shakespeare Festival including “Romeo and Juliet” and “Rent.” A huge shout out to the Anderson Valley Education Foundation, who partnered with the district in funding this cultural adventure. Special thanks to Arthur Folz for organizing and taking the lead, and Casey Farber, and Mary Anne Grezenda for chaperoning the trip.

This doesn’t happen in other places. The generosity of individuals in this community combines to cover the cost of a memory making and inspiring experience for kids.

We are grateful.

MIKE GENIELLA: Annual Hopland Fire Department barbecue. Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, his wife Melissa, and hundreds of locals, volunteers and local business owners always show for a classic community event. The tri-tip and chicken are gobbled up quick. The music and dancing cap a special event.

MENDO’S INSTITUTIONAL BUDGET FAILINGS

by Mark Scaramella

County CEO Darcie Antle’s budget summary prepared for next Tuesday’s board meeting begins:

“A continuing decrease in the cannabis market, a temporary decrease in the Cannabis tax as approved by the Board, and a trending decrease in sales tax revenue, are causing an increased concern for Mendocino County’s financial outlook. Fiscal Year 2022-23 Sales tax revenues for Mendocino County is [sic] projected to end at $7.9 million, down $500,000 from what was adopted. The Transient Occupancy Tax is projecting to be down over $400,000, though changing vacation trends may lift this revenue back to the adopted amount.” 

That gloomy outlook ignores declining property assessments associated with the declining pot market, and inflation, and makes no mention of demands from employees for pay equity increases.

Antle’s budget staff singled out seven departments as being more than $150,000 overbudget. Why they picked $150k as the magic threshold is not explained. For each of the departments singled out as being “of concern,” there’s a very lame “explanation” for the overrun. 

Auditor-Controller: “At third quarter, Auditor-Controller anticipates being over budget by $497,365 primarily due to budget appropriations for 2022-23 being under allocated by $347,000. Additional expense ($29,867) is in line item 862189 Professional & Specialized Services – Other which includes contracts for Debtbook/Fifth Asset, outside auditor’s Clifton Larson, and property tax system Aumentum/Manitron.” 

ms notes: “Under-allocated”? What does that mean? How did that happen? Why wasn’t the allocation corrected before it became an overrun? We’re not told. Oh well.

Payroll: “Staffing resources have been applied to this new budget unit to bring its functions into compliance with State and Federal laws and conforming to the needs of the various bargaining units and their unique requirements.” 

ms notes: Payroll may be a “new budget unit,” but the function is not new. How did the payroll function get out of compliance? What new “needs” and “requirements” have been imposed that translate into a projected $183k overrun for “payroll”?

Buildings & Grounds (Facilities): “At third quarter, Building & Grounds (Facilities) anticipates being over budget by approximately $229,000 due to structural funding reductions during budget adoption, as well as unanticipated cost increases in utilities of approximately 20%. In addition, the County of Mendocino converted to clean energy in County owned facilities in the unincorporated area of the county, resulting in an increase in costs of approximately $15,000. General Services Agency was able to reduce the impacts with unanticipated revenues collected (approximately $500,000 in additional revenues are anticipated over budgeted amount).” 

ms notes: Ok, utilities have gone up, but how much of the $229k is from utility increases? Then there’s the mysterious “structural funding reductions.” Why does that apply only to Buildings and Grounds? How does conversion to clean energy cost $15,000? What “unanticipated additional revenues” were collected?

Clerk-Recorder: “At third quarter, Clerk-Recorder anticipates being over budget by $173,299. This is primarily due to being fully staffed for the majority of the FY and revenues being projected to have a shortfall of about $100,000, due to a decrease in recording and clerk requested services.” 

ms notes: Wait a minute. Being “fully staffed” is now a budget problem? Didn’t they build their budget based on being fully staffed? Why the decrease in recording and clerk requested services?

Sheriff-Coroner: “Several bargaining units were approved MOU enhancements for DSA [deputy sheriff’s association], MCLEMA [law enforcement management] and SEIU [non-sworn sheriff’s employees], including changes to premiums and longevity and certain paid time. These changes have a domino effect in the 1000 Series and will likely see a substantial overage in the 1000 series at year-end.” 

ms notes: Ok, but how did a few presumably predictable “enhancements,” “premiums” and “longevity” become a projected $1.2 million overrun? How much of the $1.2 million is overtime? How much is unbudgeted Coroner costs associated with the spike in overdose deaths? What’s being done to cover it? Aren’t there some grants pending which would cover some of this overrun? (Last year’s the Sheriff’s overrun was covered by covid money.)

Cannabis Management: “The [approximately $1 million] overage is due to a lack of renewal fees that cannot be collected until licenses have been issued.”

ms notes: Will the renewal fees ever be collected? If so, how much would that reduce the $1 million overrun?

Animal Care: “[Projected to be about $400k over budget.] Unbudgeted staffing increases when Animal Control was transferred from the Sheriff’s Office.” 

ms notes: Wait a minute, again! Moving Animal Control from the Sheriff to Animal Care and Control caused “unbudgeted staffing increases”? Why? How? Did Mr. Molinari just hire $400k worth of additional animal control officers because he felt like it? On what basis? Who approved it? Etc.?

* * *

As is obvious, even after years of experience and practice, Mendo’s crack budget staff can’t perform even the most basic budget review or analysis. They just toss out half-baked narratives that raise more questions and don’t pass an elementary smell test. Apparently they know that very few, if any, people will read them, much less read them critically. And that’s for just these seven departments. What about the other — maybe a dozen or so more — departments? (Like the County Counsel’s office which farms out much of their work to expensive outside attorneys. Or the DA’s office. Or Probation with their completely unjustified multimillion dollar juvenile hall for a couple of dozen delinquents.) What are the implications of these overruns for next year’s (presumably tight) budget? We have yet to hear a single question about any departmental budget overruns from the Supervisors. (We’ve heard that certain unidentified departments have been privately reviewed by the Board’s “budget ad hoc” committee. But if that happened, why are we still seeing such lame budget annotations like these? 

There’s also this rather ominous footnote: “The operational budget presented today, does not include the FY 2020-21 Health Plan deficit. The Executive Office, the Wellness and Health Benefit Committee continue to review strategies for Health Plan recovery.”

Last we heard the health plan deficit, despite being reduced by applying a couple of million in covid money and being combined into a larger regional pool, is more than $3 million. 

Then there’s next year’s budget. We’re almost at the end of this fiscal year and the CEO’s budget team has yet to present a budget for next fiscal year (July 2023 to June 2024). While the Auditor’s final estimated carryover from last fiscal year is late, that shouldn’t keep the departments from proposing their own budgets. Surely, they’re not going to blame all the budget delays or overruns on Auditor-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison. Are they? 

THIS YEAR, OUR ANNUAL BUS TRIP [June 10] heads once again to the de Young Museum in San Francisco where three exciting special exhibits will be available for viewing: "Ansel Adams in Our Time," "Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence," and "Bouquets to Art." The latter pairs flower arrangements with works of art throughout the museum's galleries. Tickets are $100 per person and covers transportation and de Young admission fees. Bring a lunch, or dine in the de Young's excellent café. Comfortable walking shoes highly recommended. Meet at Ukiah's Civic Center at 7:00 AM. The bus will leave promptly at 7:30 AM and we will return to Civic Center by around 5:00 PM. Purchase tickets by May 18. Please Note: No Refunds after May 19, unless there is a waiting list.

gracehudsonmuseum.org/new-events/2023/6/10/a-day-at-the-de-young-bus-trip-organized-by-the-grace-hudson-museum

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE: Calendar of Events

PETS OF THE WEEK—PUPPIES!

We're loaded with cuteness at the Ukiah Shelter! Now's the time to check us out online, meet the pups, then begin the adoption process!

A NIGHT OF COLLECTIVE GIVING

100 Women Strong Mendocino Coast exceeds it goal

The Community Foundation was honored to be among those who launched 100 Women Strong Mendocino Coast this week. Well over 125 people supported and attended the event at Cafe Beaujolais, collectively raising $16,500 for our local nonprofits. 

Thanks to the generous underwriting of the Community Foundation, Cafe Beaujolais, Mendocino Coast Healthcare Foundation, and others, 100% of the money raised went directly to Xa Kako Dile:, Action Network, and Flockworks. After each organization made an exciting pitch about its mission and current needs, Xa Kako Dile: was awarded the grand prize of $10,000. Action Network and Flockworks were awarded the proceeds above $10,000, each receiving $3,125. In addition to being a part of the inaugural event, attendees loved connecting over their shared passion for community and the impactful nonprofits that enrich the coast. The wine and pizza created a festive environment while participants made the difficult choice of which nonprofit would win the grand prize. 

The next event will be on October 19th, 2023 and all are welcome. Three other coastal nonprofits will be invited to share the heart of their work and receive support from those who choose to attend and/or contribute. We hope to see you there. Cafe Beaujolais graciously donated the venue and food. U'i Wesley, of Xa Kako Dile:, accepting the award. Three contributing members are ready to celebrate. Please visit our website to learn more about 100 Women Strong Mendocino Coast and additional Community Foundation leadership initiatives. If you would like to be informed about upcoming events or discover how you can be involved, email Lia Holbrook, Donor Engagement Manager. 

Megan Barber Allende, President/CEO

Community Foundation of Mendocino County <lia@communityfound.org>

204 South Oak Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, May 6, 2023

JACOB CHOATE, Willits. Throwing object at vehicle causing injury, vandalism. 

JORGE FLORES, North Hollywood/Leggett. DUI, robbery, domestic battery.

AIBECAD HALLOWAY, Manchester. Touching intimate parts of another against their will.

BRANDON HUGHES, Upper Lake/Ukiah. DUI.

RITA LAVENDUSKEY, Fort Bragg. Intoxication by drugs & alcohol.

JUSTIN MOE, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, false ID, resisting, parole violation.

ROBERT SANCHEZ, Leggett. DUI. 

WESLEY ZYNDA, Ukiah. DUI.

MITCH CLOGG: 

Message from Mitch, who is in the shop having a repair done. Channeled by Ellie:

Hi, y'all! I'm alive and well and loafing around in the VA hospital in SF after getting my bum leg worked on. VA bureaucracy is abominable, but the medical care is top-drawer. And the food is surprisingly not bad! 

Went down a week ago expecting to just have tests, but they threw a net over me, detained me, and did surgery on my left leg yesterday. They promise I'll be dancing like Fred Astaire in no time. My left leg, anyway, which will be a hell of a spectacle. Gabby Hayes is more like it. Being the Luddite fuddy-duddy that I am, I have no goldarned fancy-schmancy smart phone with which to post updates. But stand by: You'll soon hear the sound of my dancing foot.

DROP THE CHARGES

Editor: 

It is time for Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez to dismiss the years-old charges against peaceful activists who exposed animal cruelty at factory farms and rescued animals from neglect and abuse right here in Sonoma County. The city of Sebastopol just passed a resolution supporting these activists, as the cities of Berkeley and San Francisco did previously, which shows that there is widespread support for their actions. As a longtime resident of Sebastopol, I am proud that my city is taking a stand for animal protection.

Animal rights activists play a crucial role in exposing inhumane conditions that are hidden from public view. Thanks to these defendants, I learned that weak and injured animals have been neglected and left to starve inside factory farms in our county. This is unacceptable. These activists are being charged with crimes for simply trying to bring attention to the real crimes: mistreatment of animals.

I urge the district attorney to dismiss the charges against these compassionate individuals and instead focus on holding factory farms accountable. Let us work together to create a more compassionate and just world for all living beings.

Omar Figueroa

Sebastopol

MEMO OF THE AIR: Princess Poopooly has plenty papaya; she likes to give it away.

"You'll find the secret plans in Professor Lymon's safe. And take these purple gas bombs with you. They'll be silent but effective weapons if anyone interferes." — The Scarab

Here's the recording of last night's (2023-05-05) 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-0539

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:

"These pretty girls have been trained to manufacture transistors to fight the Communist Menace. Working hunched over the magnifying glass with nimble fingers and specialized tools each girl can turn out three transistors in a single ten-hour shift, even with five five-minute cigaret breaks." For a sweatshop of a hundred girls that's thirty transistors an hour. It could be more if they were allowed to smoke at their stations. It seems like someone should have thought to get together on this point between management and the union. Maybe they did but problems developed. I don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9xUQWo4vN0

Typewriter, mechanical marvel. I've had a number of typewriters in my life, but the one I wish I had back was an army-surplus all-metal Corona electric. It had a solid feel to it and a magical compulsion, like Gwilan's Harp made Gwilan play. For some unfathomable reason I loaned it to Oliver Elfhost, and man and machine symbiotically used each other to write dozens of articles connecting singer Roy Orbison and a famous old-time Western pulp novelist whose name escapes me (Zane Grey? Louis L'Amour?) and Sir Edward de Vere who, according to Oliver, wrote the plays that many still attribute to William Shakespeare. But the typewriter left Oliver when it found another person to use, the way it left me after we wrote Who Bombed Bill Bixby and Folding Yourself In Half, Son and Two Dozen Million-Dollar Ideas for the newspaper version of Memo thirty years ago.

https://theawesomer.com/how-a-mechanical-typewriter-works/704847/

And here's a little girl's secret of focus and precision: She's not screaming to energize herself and punctuate the fight dance, she's screaming for each attacker she imagines she's stabbing. I think that in her mind they're the ones screaming. Their blood agony drives her performance. Result: in a real fight, she will not hesitate; she'll do what needs to be done. A few short years after this, in high school, piss her off at your peril, awkwardly rapey teenage boy or smarmy Dean of Girls. Because that sword will be hidden strapped to her ramrod-straight back with the hilt peeking up from her collar, ready to hand and always on her mind. When the amulet her strange grandmother bequeathed her reveals that she's the reincarnation of the assassin who put down the Demon Azathoth in the Before Age and her timeless mission on Earth resumes, even that won't surprise her. 

https://twitter.com/Figensport/status/1652066407885180930

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

CORNWALL CORONATION DAY CELEBRATION...They know how to throw a party (photo by Randy Burke)

CAMP DAYS IN THE EMERALD TRIANGLE

by Thomas Pynchon

Zoyd had been staying with planters he knew up by Holytail, beyond the coastal ranges and the yearlong fogs, in a valley where marijuana growing conditions were ideal — about the last refuge for pot growers in North California. Access, at least by road, wasn’t easy — because of the Great Slide of ’64, you had to double back and forth along both sides of the river and take ferries, which weren’t always running, and bridges said to be haunted. Zoyd had found a community living on borrowed time, as everyone watched the scope of the CAMP crop-destruction effort growing without limit, season after season —as more state and federal agencies came on board, as the grand jury in Eureka subpoenaed more and more citizens, as friendly deputies and secure towns one by one were neutralized, taken back under government control — all wondering when it would be the turn of Holytail.

The Vineland County sheriff, Willis Chunko, a squinty-eyed, irascible old media hand who showed up every autumn, as sure a precursor of the season as the Jerry Lewis telethon, posing on the evening news next to towering stacks of baled-up marijuana plants or advancing on some field shooting a flamethrower from the hip, had featured Holytail on his shit list for years, but the area was extraordinarily tough for him to penetrate. “It’s Sherwood Forest up there,” he would complain to the cameras, “they hide up in the trees, you never see ’em.” No matter how Willis chose to arrive, Holytailers always had plenty of advance warning. The network of observers extended down to Vineland, with some lurking right outside the Sheriff's Department itself with rolls of quarters, ready to call in, others hooked up by CB radio in roving patrols on all surface routes, or scanning the sky from ridges and mountaintops with binoculars and converted fishing-boat radars.

As crops in the sun grew fatter, flowered, more densely aromatic, as resinous breezes swept out of the gulches to scent the town day and night, the sky over Vineland County, which had allowed the bringing of life, now began to reveal a potential for destroying it. Pale blue unmarked little planes appeared, on days of VFR unlimited nearly invisible against the sky, flown by a private vigilante squadron of student anti-drug activists, retired military pilots, government advisers in civvies, off-duty deputies and troopers, all working under contract to CAMP and being led by the notorious Karl Bopp, former Nazi Luftwaffe officer and subsequently useful American citizen. During these weeks of surveillance, helicopter and plane crews were beginning to assemble each morning in a plasterboard ready room out in the flats below Vineland, near the airport, waiting for Kommandant Bopp to appear in the full regalia of his old profession and announce Der Tag.

Up in Holytail, the growers hung around at Piggy’s Tavern and Restaurant, discussing, in an atmosphere of mounting anxiety, the general dilemma of when to harvest. The longer you waited, the better the crop, but the better, too, your chances of getting hit by the CAMP invaders. Storm and frost probabilities, and personal paranoia thresholds, also figured in. Sooner or later Holytail was due for the full treatment, from which it would emerge, like most of the old Emerald Triangle, pacified territory — reclaimed by the enemy for a timeless, defectively imagined future of zero-tolerance drug-free Americans all pulling their weight and all locked in to the official economy, inoffensive music, endless family specials on the Tube, church all week long, and, on special days, for extra-good behavior, maybe a cookie.

With surveillance farther up the watershed and over the ridgelines quickening, so had the civic atmosphere down in Vineland taken on an edge, traffic downtown and in the lots at the malls grown snappish and loud with car horns and deliberate backfires, boat owners anxiously in and out of parts places several times a day, reports of naval movement, at least one aircraft carrier sighted on station just off Patrick’s Point, and AWACS planes in the air round the clock now, not to mention the Continental charm of Kommandant Bopp all over the local news, as he, often in Nazi drag, declared his “‘volunteer” sky force at maximum readiness.

Something waited, over a time horizon that not even future participants could describe. Once-carefree dopers got up in the middle of the night, hearts racing, and flushed their stashes down the toilet. Couples married for years forgot each other’s names. Mental-health clinics all over the county reported waiting lists. Seasonal speculation arose as to who might be secretly on the CAMP payroll this year, as if the monster program were by now one more affliction, like bad weather or a plant disease. The cooking in the cafés got worse, and police started flagging down everybody on the highways whose looks they didn’t like, which resulted in massive traffic snarls felt as far away as 101 and I-5.

(from ‘Vineland,’ 1990)

LAKERS DELIGHT HOLLYWOOD CROWD, but Warriors have seen this movie before

by Ann Killion

LOS ANGELES – Heading into Game 3, there was a buzz around this city. A city that is usually too cool to get amped up about much of anything.

But this isn’t just anything. This is the Lakers, Hollywood’s favorite form of entertainment, back in the playoffs.

And on Saturday night, the Lakers played to the crowd, treating Kim Kardashian and Adele, Michael B. Jordan and Dustin Hoffman to an action-packed disaster flick. They were the iceberg and the Golden State Warriors were the Titanic. The Lakers demolished the Warriors 127-97 in Game 3 and now have a two-games-to-one lead in the series.

“You find yourself in a lot of different scenarios,” Stephen Curry said, noting that this is the 29th playoff series that he, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have played in in the past decade.

“You can draw back on anything and this is one of the scenarios that we’ve been in and responded. That’s why I sit up here with a lot of confidence that we can do what we need to do to win Game 4. … Throw this one in the garbage and move on.”

The Warriors were in this exact scenario last June, down 2-1 to Boston with Game 4 on the road. You’ll recall how that one turned out.

The Warriors have a wealth of experience, much of it recent. The iconic Lakers don’t have as much recent history to pull on, which is why this series feels like such a big deal.

The Lakers are so giddy about how far they’ve gotten this postseason that their freebie T-shirts on Saturday read Lakers: California State Championship. With the Kings and Clippers eliminated, if the Lakers beat the Warriors, they would indeed be the California champions. But that’s a little like when Jerry Glanville made a “California Championship” trophy to commemorate his Falcons sweeping the 49ers, Rams, Raiders and Chargers back in 1991. It’s an amateur hour move, not what you expect from one of the greatest franchises in sports history.

But the Lakers haven’t had much to flex about for awhile. They haven’t been in the second round of a non-bubbled playoffs since 2012. That’s so long ago that it would still be four more years before Kobe Bryant retired. So long ago that Mike Brown was the coach. A lifetime for a proud franchise like the Lakers. They won a title in 2020 but it wasn’t showtime: it was down in a Florida bubble, no fans allowed.

So, the celebrities packed the fancy seats and clubs (and shunned those cheesy T-shirts). Though there were plenty of vocal Warriors fans in attendance, the Laker faithful were hyped. Before the game, Steve Kerr warned about being able to match “the force in this building from the fans.”

The Warriors didn’t come close to matching it. After a strong first quarter when it looked like they could dictate pace and find shots at will, the Warriors collapsed.

“We lost our poise,” Kerr said. “It’s a tough environment. You’re on the road in a playoff game.”

The game devolved into a choppy, whistle-filled slog, just the way the Lakers like it.

“We was getting to where we wanted to get to and then the game stopped,” Green said.

By stopped, he meant that the officials stopped it. Over and over. The game was very much like Game 1, in terms of fouls called. There was a huge free-throw disparity: the Lakers went to the line 37 times while the Warriors shot just 17 free throws. The Warriors were whistled for four technical fouls – one a flagrant on Moses Moody – while the Lakers received one tech.

The Warriors let their frustration show on defense. And that irritation seemed to overflow into their offense, where they were rushed and sloppy. They turned the ball over 19 times, leading to 27 Lakers points. Klay Thompson, who might have been too excited to play at the arena where he went to games as a youth, against the team he worshiped as a kid, had a career playoff high six turnovers.

“I’ll enjoy it even more Monday,” Thompson said, of playing in front of family and friends, “because I’m looking forward to a bounce-back performance from myself and the whole team.”

This has been a whiplash series. Each game has been dominated by one team. Momentum doesn’t carry between games. In Games 1 and 3 the Lakers have been able to play the game they want. In Game 2 the Warriors dictated the pace and played their style.

“That’s kind of the nature of a playoff series,” Curry said. “Especially because of how drastically different we play.

“We understand the things we have to do. It’s pretty simple. It’s just a matter of doing it.”

Anthony Davis stayed true to his Alternate Day pattern, coming on strong on Saturday. Early on LeBron James looked like he was going to have an off night, on what was a big day for him. His son Bronny committed to USC earlier in the day and was one of the “celebrities” shown on the big screen.

Though ABC cameras caught James shooting at Crypto.com Arena almost four hours before tip, he didn’t take a single shot in the first quarter, for the first time since his rookie season.

But any thought that James was going to have a quiet night was quickly dismissed. He finished with 21 points, 8 assists and 8 rebounds. He was hustling. In the third quarter, he flew back on defense, chasing Andrew Wiggins down so quickly that he hurdled the two rows of baseline seats and leaped up seven rows, almost landing in my media seating row, before coming to a stop.

The biggest number in the box score might have been 32 and 33. Those are the number of minutes James and Davis, respectively, played. That means the Warriors didn’t succeed in wearing out the Lakers key players. But, by the same token, Curry and Thompson only played 32 minutes each and Green, in early foul trouble again, only played 23. So, all the key players will be rested for a critical Game 4.

“The last series proved we could figure it out,” Curry said of the Kings series, when the Warriors also trailed 2-1, though with Game 4 at home. “Unfortunately we have to do it again.

“It’s not ideal … but it’s not the end of the world for us.”

(sfchronicle.com)

EIGHT KILLED IN TEXAS MALL SHOOTING; Gunman Dead

ALLEN, Texas (AP) — A gunman killed eight people and wounded seven others – three critically – in a shooting at a Dallas-area mall before being fatally shot by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said Saturday.

Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims, but witnesses reported seeing children among them. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.

The shooting was the latest episode of gun violence to strike the country. It sent hundreds of shoppers fleeing in panic.…

(Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas contributed to this report.)

---

CLOSER TO HOME Chico police are investigating a mass shooting in which a 17-year-old girl was killed Saturday morning.

Six people were shot at a party on the 1000 block of Columbus Avenue just off the campus of California State University Chico, police said. Officers responded to the shooting at 3:26 a.m., about 30 minutes after responding to an altercation at the same address in which they arrested one suspect for brandishing a firearm, police said.

The 17-year-old girl was taken to a hospital, where she died. The survivors are a 19- and a 21-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl, all hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, and an 18- and a 20-year-old man treated at a hospital and released, said police, who did not identify the victims. 

The shooting appeared to be an isolated incident and posed no ongoing threat to the community, police said at a briefing. They released no information on the shooter.

A Twitter user said her 17-year-old niece was killed and that her friend’s son was shot five times at the party. “My heart is broken,” she said.

The mass shooting followed a report at 12:27 a.m. of shots being fired on the 700 block of West Seventh Street — about 1.3 miles away — after the shooter was asked to leave a party, police said. Two people were hit on the head in that incident, one with a firearm and the other with a glass bottle, police said. Both victims are hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Officers arrested a suspect in that attack during the first response to Columbus Avenue.

Police asked anyone with information on the shootings to call their tip line at 530-897-5820. 

Chico is in the Sacramento Valley, about 160 miles from the Bay Area. 

(sfchronicle.com)

TEXANS LOVE ASSAULT GUNS

Editor,

This afternoon it happened again. Saturday’s mass shooting was in the suburb of Allen, Texas, outside of Dallas. Texas is renowned as the Lone Star state; the military weapon assault rifles, the AR-15s or AR-17s were not developed yet when Texas started.

Today in the shopping mall in Allen the shooter may have got off 40 to 50 rounds. Nine persons went to the hospitals. The police have confirmed there were deaths but we do not know how many. Surely there would have been many more had it not for the appearance of an off-duty officer who killed the shooter. Five died last week in Cleveland, Texas.

Shame on you Senator Cruz. Shame on you Gov. Greg Abbott for your callous indifference and slavish dedication to death-by your defiance of your citizens’ will. Words like “thoughts and prayers” ring hollow in your gutless mouths. Your people are calling for assault gun bans, red flag laws and sensible limits on gun ownership. No one will take any guns away.

There is a special corner in Hell reserved for your souls.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III

Santa Rosa

THE SUPREME COURT IS STILL GREAT

by Maureen Dowd

It’s the greatest gathering of grievances we’ve ever seen on the high court. The woe-is-me bloc of conservative male justices is obsessed with who has wronged them.

It might be an opportune time to hire a Supreme shrink so these resentful men can get some much-needed therapy and stop working out their issues from the bench.

Neil Gorsuch is settling a score for his mother.

In her memoir, Anne Gorsuch Burford wrote that when she was forced out as Ronald Reagan’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator in 1983, her 15-year-old son, Neil, “was really upset.” He told her: “You should never have resigned. You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president ordered. You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?”

The scar from that trauma flared as he prepared a moot court brief with classmates at Harvard Law School and “tried to add material concerning the E.P.A. that did not fit,” according to a classmate who talked to The New York Times.

Burford was attacked during her tempestuous tenure as an enemy of the environment who slashed rules and spending to gut the E.P.A. The last straw, even for Republican lawmakers and Reagan officials, was when she rejected calls to turn over documents about a toxic-waste cleanup program that her agency had corrupted. She received a contempt citation from Congress.

Grappling with life in post-Roe America

The Times wrote in an editorial back then: “On becoming the head of the E.P.A., Anne Gorsuch inherited one of the most efficient and capable agencies of government. She has turned it into an Augean stable, reeking of cynicism, mismanagement and decay.”

Last year, her son moved to complete her toxic mission. He enthusiastically joined the 6-to-3 vote to severely curtail the E.P.A.’s ability to regulate power plant emissions. The activists who pushed for Gorsuch to be nominated to the court are finally getting to their real goal: the dismantling of their despised administrative state.

On Monday, the court agreed to review its unanimous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council from 1984. As Charlie Savage wrote in The Times: “If the court overturns or sharply limits the Chevron precedent, it would become easier for business owners to challenge regulations across the economy. Those include rules aimed at ensuring that the air and water are clean; that food, drugs, cars and consumer products are safe; and that financial firms do not take on too much risk.”

The Chevron ruling arose from a challenge to a decision by Gorsuch’s mother to lower automobile emissions standards. He can now vindicate her stance.

Samuel Alito also feels maltreated. In writing the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, this brazenly political justice who doesn’t distinguish between his legal and religious views mercilessly stripped women of the right to make decisions about their bodies. But somehow, he whines that he is the victim.

Last month Alito told The Wall Street Journal that he did not like the way the court’s legitimacy was being questioned. “We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us.”

Funny. That’s how many women feel about this Supreme Court.

Clarence Thomas, who is still bitter over being outed as a porn-loving harasser of women who worked for him — even though Joe Biden did his best to sweep the corroborating evidence under the Senate rug — was slapped with more revelations of ethics derelictions this past week.

ProPublica broke the news that Thomas’s billionaire benefactor for luxury trips and family property, Harlan Crow, had also secretly paid the private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew.

The Washington Post revealed that Leonard Leo, an executive vice president at the Federalist Society — the cult that has transformed the courts in its own right-wing image — surreptitiously funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Thomas’s wife, Ginni, for “consulting work” a decade ago.

The Post reported that Leo told the G.O.P. pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Mrs. Thomas, but stipulated that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.”

“The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case,” the paper said.

John Roberts cannot accept that these justices are incapable of policing themselves. Despite all the slime around him, he refused to testify before Congress about a court that blithely disdains ethics.

One reason may be, as The Times reported, that the chief justice’s own wife, Jane, has made millions of dollars as a legal recruiter, placing lawyers at firms with business before the Supreme Court.

Even though I’ve been writing since Bush v. Gore that the court is full of hacks and the bloom is off the robes, it is still disorienting to see the murk of this Supreme Court.

THE BEDROOM of the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Rémy de Provence, where Vincent van Gogh stayed for a year, painting many of his masterpieces. 

He came out in May 1890. He died two months later.

BECOMING A DETECTIVE

by Bill Clark

When I got out of the Army, and was working at the post office I took the test for the police department and got a real good score. Then I got a call at work from a sergeant who said I was being considered for an assignment and not to mention anything to anybody, but to be at the police academy at 7 o’clock that night.

He told me to walk up to the security desk and just tell them that I was going to room whatever — you know, real I Spy stuff. I went up there, there was a sergeant and they had my TA-15, which is a questionnaire about your whole life. He asked me a lot of questions to find out my political views. I told him I was very much pro-Vietnam. I remember he asked me if I would ever attend a demonstration against it. I said no, I don’t go to demonstrations. They wouldn’t tell me what the assignment was, only that they'd keep me in mind and that it would be a shortcut to the detective bureau if I chose it. But if I still wanted to be considered, I had to start telling everybody that I wasn’t going to take the police department job. I was working in the post office with a lot of guys, so rather than lie to them every day I quit and took a job on Wall Street. I never mentioned that I was ever going to go into the police department. Then I met with an inspector and I said, “Listen, I don’t want to do anything that has to do with police corruption.” I just didn’t want to be a rat.

The day that I was going to get made, June 30th, 1969, there were 750 guys getting appointed at the auditorium. I met a guy on the street corner with ‘Life’ magazine under his arm — that was the sign. He just asked me my first name, and then said, Follow me, don’t say anything, just stay right behind me. I remember walking behind this guy trying to take in all this stuff in one shot and wondering what I was getting myself into. I went up to the chief clerk’s office, who had sworn in all those 750 that morning.

Now he swore me in by myself and handed me my shield, which was immediately taken away from me by one of these detectives.

They told me they were going to walk me out and then I had to meet somebody at a fleabag hotel in mid-town Manhattan.

In the hotel room there were four detectives, a sergeant and the inspector. They gave me literature on the Communist Party and radical groups and told me to start reading The East Village Other, and The Village Voice. They made up two sets of paperwork, one in my name and one in the name that would be on file at police headquarters in case anybody asked. All of my paperwork was going to be put in a safe at the chief clerk’s office until I came out from undercover. The name they had me under in the police department was William Benson. My wife was pregnant and due any day, so I wanted to know how to handle that. They just said to bring bills and they would pay them. I got paid in cash, everything was cash. 

My wife and my mom and dad were allowed to know what I was doing. My eleven-year-old brother didn’t know a thing. That was tough. I don’t want to get melodramatic, but if I had an eleven-year-old telling people what I was doing it would’ve jeopardized my life. They started sending me to demonstrations. I had this thing in my mind that these demonstrators were like college kids, that it would be a piece of cake.

At the first demonstration I realized that these were some hardcore people. There were guys in their late twenties, thirties even forties. Real radicals. Fanatical radicals. There was a group called The Crazies. There were a lot of Black Panthers around.

I was told, “Don’t start going up to people and talking. First, you don’t know what you’re talking about and second you're going to look like you’re trying to get in with them. They'll seek you out.”

That’s pretty much what happened. The first day I just sat on the curb watching. It was a real educational experience to see what I would be dealing with. My background in the projects and the military really helped. The Panthers resented rich white kids and the majority of the demonstrators, even some of the hardcore people, came from wealthy backgrounds. With me they knew I had lived in the projects, they knew I had been in the Army. Some of them were veterans. I had no problem talking to them because in the military we all were the same kind of guys — everybody was green in the Army. 

The thing about the Panthers I found easy to deal with was that there was validity in their argument about racism. It existed, I saw it, I watched it. Some of them were very dedicated. Obviously they also had a lot of hatred in them, that’s why they wound up executing cops later on. It’s a tough dynamic to understand. After a couple of years they started suspecting me of being a cop.

When I graduated the Academy it was payday time. They put me on a detective squad and I had a lot of learning to do. I’d never made out a report, let alone investigated one. They reorganized the detective bureau in 1972, so I got to know just about all the guys in Brooklyn. I got to hear the reputations of the good guys and the bad guys. You always say to yourself — that’s what I want people to say about me — that I was a good detective. I worked real hard for that.

Everything you heard about, everything anybody ever talked about was homicide, homicide, homicide. All of the day-to-day work — nobody cares. So I went to my boss and said, “Listen I’ve been doing a real good job, I’d really like to go to homicide.” I got moved into the homicide squad in Brooklyn North. I did nothing but homicide for most of my career, working with some really good guys.

UKRAINE, SATURDAY, 6TH MAY

A Russian military blogger was injured when his car blew up, Russian state media reports, following last month's death of another blogger in a cafe explosion. Nationalist writers play a key role in Kremlin propaganda.

For the first time, Ukraine says it used a US-supplied Patriot system to shoot down a Russian hypersonic missile.

Wagner head Yevegny Prigozhin says his fighters will leave the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut on May 10 due to a lack of ammunition, claiming Saturday that he will hand over positions to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson called Prigozhin's claim of ammunition shortages a "complete bluff." Russian fighters have not made any breakthroughs in Bakhmut, he added.

I SAY WE ARM RUSSIA against Russia. If it's bombing its own government buildings, its own pipelines, its own captured power plants, then it's the best proxy force against Russia we've got. Send the Russians tanks and F-16s immediately.

Russia's fighting Russia over there so we don't have to fight Russia over here.

—Caitlin Johnstone

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

This war should never have started. It started because there is no longer any capacity for dialogue among world leaders. Brazil condemns it because Russia has no right to invade Ukraine. The Russians are wrong. The rest of us now have a choice: either feed the war or try to end it…We cannot have another war in Europe. Didn’t we learn this lesson from the two world wars? With more peace, the world will be more productive and just. That is what I’m proposing and defending…And if you’re part of the war, then you can’t talk about peace. I want to engage countries that are not linked to the war. If we succeed in achieving peace, it will be good for humanity. Otherwise, this war will never end, because Putin thinks he’s right and Zelenskiy is justified in defending his invaded nation. So, who is going to put an end to the war? I am worried that this war is linked to political interests and election strategies. That has happened before in the world, and I don’t think it’s right that no one is attempting to build peace…Russia has been in Crimea for a long time and has invaded other territories. I don’t know what type of agreement Zelenskiy and Putin are going to accept. Putin certainly doesn’t want NATO on Russian borders, and Zelenskiy certainly doesn’t want an occupied Ukraine. So impartial outsiders are the only ones who can forge an agreement to stop this war. Don’t ask me how – first we have to sit down at the negotiating table. Both sides want to win, but a war doesn’t always need a winner. Stop fighting, come to an agreement and get everything back to normal. I believe it’s possible because it happened after World War II. The European Union is proof of our capacity and intelligence as human beings to work together. Russia and Ukraine can do this and I intend to help them. 

— Lula da Silva

WWIII ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN

The Invention of a Wartime Presidency to Save the Biden Administration

by Dennis Kucinich

Yesterday’s attempt to attack the Kremlin with a drone strike, supposedly to assassinate Vladimir Putin, is being pinned on Ukraine. But this is a proxy war of the U.S. versus Russia, and no one is fooled. Ukraine is a simply a U.S. pawn and can make no major moves without checking with Washington.

The U.S. has successfully muzzled its energy-starved allies in Europe from even objecting to, let alone investigating the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline.  Europe is stuck with the skyrocketing cost of U.S. supplied replacement fuel.

The destruction of Nord Stream followed well-publicized mock U.S. nuclear strikes targeting Russia and the equally provocative shipment of depleted-uranium munitions transferred to the Ukraine battlefield through our “special relationship” with the British government. The Russian government has publicly warned that the use of such weapons, as were used by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria, will lead to escalation. 

The Biden Administration has done everything it could to incite a hot war directly between the U.S. and Russia, sacrificing Ukrainian youth and the majesty of Ukrainian cities.

The drone strike and the depleted uranium transfer are made to look like the West is somehow succeeding in the battle which, for all intents and purposes, will soon come to an end— with a phony declaration of victory of sorts (definitely not for Ukrainians). Then the infernal Enemy Engine will pivot its wrath and venom towards CHINA.

Get ready for a parceling out of some of the manufactured hate that has been reserved for Russia and President Putin -- to hate China and President Xi, and to suffer a fully-machinated Red Peril.  

One need only to look at the “Down Under” Australian press’ frightful China fear-mongering to know what we in the ‘Up Above’ can expect.  This has been well chronicled by Caitlin Johnstone, whose Substack posts are a must read.

The Biden Administration, having unsuccessfully diminished the Russian economy with its broad sanctions, and having failed to defeat the Russian military, will soon lead us to believe that the same geniuses in Washington, London and Belgium who brought us the war in Ukraine, will somehow succeed in holding in check China, or perhaps even toppling President Xi, through military means.  

The depraved thinking that resulted in approximately $140 billion wasted for the war in Ukraine and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, countenances even greater opportunities in the East.

Witness:  The U.S. has brought Australia, South Korea, Japan into an alliance against China and is pressuring the Philippines and Indonesia to join in as we ship arms to Taiwan. The intent is to bait China, to try to make Taiwan the next Ukraine, while coordinating submarine patrols amidst risible plans to send ships from the EU to patrol the Straits of Taiwan.  If China did something similar in our sphere, Congress would declare war.

The geographically-confused North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO) ever ready to be the U.S.’ wrecking ball, now considers China “a threat to global security.” Remember, China has brokered a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and attempted to do so in Ukraine. 

Remember, the U.S. has 800 military bases abroad and China has zero. 

Remember, China is holding almost a trillion dollars of US debt.

So, what is this all about?  The White House, which bet on the forbearance of a nuclear-armed Russia, in a conventional proxy war in Ukraine, is similarly counting on the forbearance of nuclear-armed China in a conventional war over Taiwan.  Thus is the horror of unfettered brinkmanship.

NBC News obtained a memo in January where a four-star general instructed his logistical command of nearly 50,000 to get ready for war with China by 2025.  His charges were told to further prepare by getting their “legal affairs” in order and to engage in the calisthenics of war, by firing an ammo clip often at a target and to aim for the head.  Is this just hysterical puffery?

The 2022 National Security Strategy of the United States identified China as the greatest military and economic threat to the United States. Forget that Mr. Biden voted for China trade, NAFTA and the WTO, all which sharply eroded America’s strategic industrial base of steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping and ultimately set the stage for China’s rise as a world power.  Forget that we have shipped high technology to military labs in China – and the Ukraine. 

While the US continues its military muscle-flexing globally, incurring rising resentment in its continual challenges to the very idea of national sovereignty, China has focused instead on economic expansion, assisting in economic development throughout the world and strengthening the capacities of nations to support their own interests.  China has played the long game, while US leaders have played the wrong game.

So, with only sanctions as a tool, the US has limited options to respond to China, except for war.

If the Biden Administration continues to ramp up for war against China, it could mean the end, not of China, but of the United States itself. 

China and Russia are not natural allies, to say the least.  However, with NATO encroachment, the placement of missiles on Russia’s border, the war in Ukraine, the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline, the U.S. has pushed Russia into China’s waiting arms.

As a result of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, together with the saber rattling over Taiwan, we have forced a once unthinkable China-Russia alliance whose combined manufacturing, energy production and offensive capabilities exceed that of the US. 

A US war with China will not only bring in Russia on China’s side, but likely India, Brazil, and Iran.  That is, if such a war were “conventional,” meaning not nuclear.  However, the idea of containing such a war to conventional weapons is pure fantasy.

The Biden Administration’s cyclopean foreign policy will be the ruin of us all.

There is not a shred of diplomatic skill exhibited by the Sullivan-Blinken-Nuland troika.  They pull away from treaties.  Engage in continual provocations.  Recklessly spend hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on military adventures.  It’s escalate, escalate, escalate.   The defense contractors, the war profiteers as FDR rightfully called them, cash in and the rest of us lose.

The average American family has seen nearly $100,000 of its wealth spent on regime change adventures since 2001, with highly negative results for our country and the world.  The U.S. is viewed in many circles as the greatest threat to world peace. Alarmingly and poignantly, the national debt is close to $100,000 per person in America.

While the Biden Administration plans for a hot war with China in 2025, the White House will use cold war psychology now, for the 2024 election season, to scare the bejesus out of even the most pacific U.S. voter.  And, with the help of the American media, which has largely been reduced to a posse of electronic spear carriers, we will be afflicted with every ‘alarm of struggle and flight’ appropriate to cowing Americans into silence and compliance.  

President Biden, like President George W. Bush in the Iraq War, will seek to burnish his Commander in Chief status as a war-time president, beginning in the later part of 2023.  Going into 2024, the American people will be told not to change presidents in the middle of a manufactured war. 

Unless held in check by the voters, President Biden’s foreign policy handlers are merrily leading America and the world down the path of World War III.  New Hampshire, are you listening?

(denniskucinich.substack.com)