Mendocino County Today: Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023

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CUBBISON SEEKS DA’S RECUSAL

by Mike Geniella

Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster is being asked to voluntarily recuse himself from efforts to criminally prosecute the County Auditor/Treasurer or face possible takeover of the case by the California Attorney General’s Office.

The DA’s past run-ins with suspended Auditor Chamise Cubbison, and his role in her eventual suspension without pay by the county Board of Supervisors, represent serious conflicts of interest, and sets the stage for likely civil litigation, warned Cubbison attorney Chris Andrian on Wednesday.

Andrian, a noted Sonoma County criminal defense attorney, said Wednesday the “responsible decision” for Eyster would be to voluntarily recuse himself, or “in the alternative, at a minimum” notify the state AG of his belief that he should step aside.

“If he declines to do so, Ms. Cubbison requests that the Office of the District Attorney of the County of Mendocino be recused from this case,” declared Andrian in a formal motion he filed with Mendocino County Superior Court.

Judge Keith Faulder scheduled a hearing for Dec. 19 on this latest twist in the high-profile Cubbison case. 

The bid to formally recuse Eyster caps a long history of conflict between the Auditor’s Office over the DA’s spending practices since he took office in 2011. 

The filing of the recusal motion Wednesday again delayed expected entries of not guilty pleas to single felony counts of misappropriation of public funds by Cubbison, and co-defendant Paula June Kennedy, the county’s former payroll manager. At issue in the criminal complaint is the alleged unauthorized payment of $68,000 in extra county pay to Kennedy during the Covid pandemic. Cubbison is not accused of benefitting from the payments.

Eyster, now in his fourth term in office, since then has been caught up in a public brouhaha over his attempt to criminally prosecute an elected official who has challenged his spending, including use of asset forfeiture funds to cover costs of office parties and travel expenses for staff members and their spouses. 

The DA is accused of engaging in a political vendetta against Cubbison with the support of some members of the Board of Supervisors, who in 2021 forced the consolidation of two key County offices in anticipation of forming a new Department of Finance more closely associated with the Board and County Administrators.

Cubbison, who like two auditors before her, has repeatedly questioned the DA’s spending practices.

Specifically, Cubbison refused in 2018 to sign off on office reimbursements for a so-called “End of Year Staff Workshop and Continuing Education” dinner at the Broiler Steak House, a popular local dining venue. The Auditor questioned the practices two years in a row, and refused payment in part contending adequate justification was not provided by the DA’s Office. Cubbison said the dinners violated County policies against holiday parties.

Cubbison also requested that the DA officially certify the costs were appropriate use of forfeiture funds, and that the reimbursement claim at the very least be reduced to cover only the 42 county employees who attended, and not their spouses and/or family members.

Not long after Cubbison’s role in alleged unauthorized extra pay for Kennedy during the Covid pandemic came under DA’s scrutiny at the request of County board members and administrators. 

Before Cubbison, a veteran County employee, was even formally charged, she reportedly was given the choice by the DA to admit to a misdemeanor violation and resign or face a felony criminal prosecution. She chose to fight the criminal accusations, contending she did nothing wrong nor personally benefited from the extra pay paid to her co-defendant under an alleged agreement with former county Auditor Lloyd Weer.

The criminal case caps a contentious relationship over several years between the Auditor’s Office, and DA Eyster.

“There can be no question that prior to the investigation of Ms. Cubbison and the filing of the criminal complaint in this matter, an adversarial relationship existed” between the elected official and Eyster, according to attorney Andrian’s filing Wednesday. 

Andrian said only twice in his 50-year legal career has he sought recusal of a County District Attorney from prosecuting a criminal case.

“It’s not something I am being cavalier about,” said Andrian.

Andrian’s motion, formally filed Wednesday in Mendocino County Superior Court, alleges that Eyster’s conflict of interest is “evidenced by the District Attorney’s written and public opposition to Chamise Cubbison’s appointment to the position of Auditor/Controller, his public statements that she was not qualified for the position, and his attempts to dissolve her position entirely.”

Further, the DA’s past public attacks on Cubbison present a “reasonable possibility it would cloud his ability to exercise the discretionary function of his office in an evenhanded manner.”

Andrian said that Eyster’s tendency to use Board of Supervisors meetings to publicly challenge and undermine Cubbison’s authority by refusing to adhere to the expenditure regulations set forth by her office suggests a lack of objectivity with her criminal case.

Specifically, Andrian’s motion cites what is called the “Broiler Steakhouse Reimbursement Claim.”

Eyster apparently resubmitted the claim for full payment several times, and then finally paid the Broiler Steak House directly but again requested reimbursement from asset forfeiture funds. His repeated claims were denied again by Cubbison. 

Then in January 2020 the DA submitted an additional claim for reimbursement for another “End of Year Staff Workshop and Continuing Education” at the Broiler. That too was rejected.

In a separate incident, Cubbison in February 2022 sought an explanation from Eyster on why the DA’s county travel credit card was used to purchase airfare and cover lodging expenses for an extended stay involving a deputy district attorney and her partner. Cubbison rejected the claim because County policy only covers reimbursement for County purposes related to lodging and expenses.

Following a Sheriff’s office investigation into the alleged unauthorized payments to Kennedy, the former payroll manager, Eyster put his own team of investigators on the case. Then in mid-October he filed felony charges against Cubbison and Kennedy. 

The County Board of Supervisors within days hastily suspended Cubbison without pay without giving the embattled Auditor an opportunity to present her side of the dispute.

Cubbison has since retained a civil attorney to pursue legal action against the Board of Supervisors for denying her due process.

Andrian said the possibility of civil litigation raises more potential conflicts of interests. He said it is likely that Eyster would be summoned as a sworn witness and subjected to examination by Cubbison’s lawyer if the civil case against the Board of Supervisors is filed and taken to trial.

Andrian said the “responsible decision” by Eyster would be to voluntarily recuse himself from the Cubbison criminal case.

If he declines to do so, Cubbison is asking the court to formally recuse Eyster, and the DA’s Office from prosecuting her case.

“Much of the outside stigma overrunning this case would be diluted if an independent prosecutor took over,” said Andrian.

Written requests for comment from District Attorney Eyster, Assistant DA Dale Trigg, and chief investigator Andy Alvarado were not responded to. 

A READER WRITES: “My friends in the County Assessor’s Office have told me that there have been some “improprieties” going on there for quite a long time regarding how the property taxes and assessments are being calculated for the yearly assessments and raises. The average Joe has been getting their yearly raises and tax bills but there have been a large number of elite taxpayers who have not had their taxes raised. My friends have told me it is to the tune of many millions of dollars in uncollected revenue.”

A SERIES OF FRONTS will begin to cross the area today bringing periods of rain and gusty winds. Rain will be mostly focused in Del Norte and Northern Humboldt. A period of briefly stronger rain is forecast Saturday into Sunday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 44F on the coast this Thursday morning. Rain is on it's way this morning, ish. Our erratic series of rains forecast continues well into next week. Not a large amount of rain, just lots of showers.

DUN DAY

Editor: 

I understand that most organizations need donations to survive. I have my favorite charities, and while I don’t have much disposable income, I give from time to time. But this whole Giving Tuesday has gotten out of hand. It started last week with “Remember Giving Tuesday is coming.” Many organizations told me that every day for a week.

I spent almost an hour one day cleaning out my emails, deleting more than 200 requests — and the day wasn’t over. And I had to do it all over the next day. As I am overwhelmed by them, I delete all of them.

I tried to send a quick note telling senders why I was doing this, but that would have taken me all day. Then add all the messages for Cyber Monday, and it’s enough to drive a person crazy. I will not contribute to any of them. There has to be a better way.

Bob Miller

Santa Rosa

LUCY ESPINOZA REPORTING FROM THE REDWOOD CLASSIC, BOONVILLE, THE NORTHCOAST'S OLDEST HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT.

This is Lucy Espinoza, the student director for the 64th Redwood Classic Basketball Tournament. This year's tournament is a 12 team pool play, we still plan to go back to 16 teams next year, but we are still recovering from the two years off. 

The teams attending this year are (separated by pool): 
P1 - Anderson Valley (Boonville), South Fork (Miranda), Willits High School (Willits)
P2 - Potter Valley HS (Potter Valley), Cloverdale HS (Cloverdale), Valley Christian Academy (Roseville)
P3 - Lower Lake HS (Lower Lake), Woodside Priory (Portola Valley), Averroes (Fremont)
P4 - Stuart Hall (San Francisco), California School for the Deaf (Fremont), Pinewood (Los Altos)

Today's games were pools 1 and 2 playing a round robin in their own pool.
I am providing the scores per quarter, top scorers, and final scores.

Game 1: Cloverdale v. Potter Valley
Final Score: 60-19
Cloverdale: 18 14 20 8
Potter Valley: 2 3 7 7
Cloverdale: #2 Jordon 14 points
Potter: #11 Isaiah 13 points

Game 2: Anderson Valley v. South Fork
Final Score: 85-16
South Fork: 33 15 23 14
AV: 2 5 6 3
South Fork: #21 Tommy 33 points
AV: #3 Finn Schock 6 points

Game 3: Potter Valley v. Valley Christian Academy
Final Score: 68-27
PV: 4 15 3 5
VCA: 19 18 18 13
PV: #11 Isaiah 10 points
VCA: #2 Chase 21 points

Game 4: South Fork v. Willits
Final Score: 63-25
SF: 21 19 10 13
Willits: 4 6 10 5
SF: #15 Trevor 15 points
Willits: #23 Jayden 8 points

Game 5: Cloverdale v. Valley Christian Academy
Final Score: 69-65
Cloverdale: 10 25 17 17
VCA: 15 10 17 24
Cloverdale: #2 Jordon 23 points
VCA: #2 Chase 16 points

Game 6: Willits v. Anderson Valley
Final Score: 50-37
Willits: 13 11 11 15
AV: 6 9 4 18
Willits: #11 Kooper 29 points
AV: #3 Finn Schock 7 points

Tomorrow, pools 3 and 4 will play. Please email me with any questions regarding the tournament logistics or any games.
Thank you!

SHORT TERM RENTALS

Hybrid Meeting Thursday, November 30, 2023

6-8 PM, Conference Room C ,501 Low Gap Road,Ukiah, CA 95482

The public may also participate digitally in the November 30, 2023, meeting by sending comments topbs@mendocinocounty.gov or orally via telecomment in lieu of personal attendance.

Follow The Link To Join The Webinar:

https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/88109888224

Or One Tap Mobile: +16694449171,88109888224#

US+16699009128,88109888224# US (San Jose)

Webinar ID: 881 0988 8224 

In addition to these four community engagement sessions, Mendocino County Department of Planning and Building Services is requesting participation in a brief short-term rental survey. To participate in the survey, follow the link: https://forms.office.com/g/eCx3uHbgNa

For further information on the Inland Short-Term Rental Ordinance process please visit the Mendocino County Department of Planning and Building Services project website at: https://www.mendocinocounty.org/departments/planning-building-services/ordinance-updates

You can also contact Mendocino County Department of Planning and Building Services via telephone at (707) 223-6650 for more information.

Please submit comments via email to pbs@mendocinocounty.gov or through U.S. mail to the following address:

Comments will be accepted until a 28, 2023, BY 5:00 PM.

ADAM GASKA: 

I am looking into having solar installed at our house. I looked at our usage, costs of a system, factored in getting a loan and the tax credits available. We should be able to pay off the loan in 3 years and break even on the project within 5 years with a ROI of 6% before the rate hike. The rate hike increases ROI to 7%.

I did take advantage of the wood fireplace replacement program through air quality and received a $5000 voucher. Soon Hometown store will be replacing our insert with an EPA compliant one that is more efficient and puts out less particulate matter. We will pay $1000 out of pocket that will also qualify for a tax credit.

ADVENTURE PASS DAY AT HENDY WOODS

Dear Families,

Get ready for a day of outdoor adventure at Hendy Woods State Park! We're thrilled to invite you to our Adventure Pass Day on Saturday, December 9th, from 10 AM to 2 PM.

California State Parks staff will be on hand to assist 4th-grade families in signing up for the Adventure Pass. This pass unlocks the gateway to unforgettable experiences in our parks, allowing 4th graders and their carload to enter up to 54 parks for free. From nature walks to Junior Ranger programs, we have a lineup of activities for the day. It's a fantastic opportunity to create lasting memories with your loved ones. While our primary focus is on signing up 4th graders for the Adventure Pass, everyone is welcome to join in for the day. Please note that without the Adventure Pass, a day-use fee will apply.

Before the cold outdoor winter days start, this is a chance to embrace the great outdoors, connect with nature, and make cherished memories as a family. We look forward to seeing you at Hendy Woods State Park for a day of adventure and joy!

ED NOTES

AMONG this morning's NPR ledes (cool-o newspaper edit-speak), was the non-news that longtime Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger died Tuesday. He was 99. For more than five decades, Munger served as Warren Buffett’s right-hand man, stripping vulnerable companies of their assets like the vultures they and other hedge fund predators like Mitt Romney truly are. 

SO, MR. BOONVILLE SOCIALIST, what would you do with our glorious capitalist system? Besides nationalizing its resource-based sectors like, for instance, the Mendo-based Mendocino Redwood Company owned by a private San Francisco family named Fisher fresh off their destruction of the Oakland A's? I'd nationalize the Fishers, PG&E, the banks, corporate farms, phone services and every other business that we're all dependent on. 

IF, for instance, MRC were owned by this county's timber families — the gyppos, woods workers and mill workers — I'm confident these people who do the work of the woods, would log sustainably and manage a publicly-owned forest in the best long-term interests of themselves. As it is, the forests are owned by a family of people who do no work other than writing big checks to career officeholders to ensure nobody messes with them.

BUT until the glorious day Americans rise up to understand they're getting, and have gotten, majorly ripped off to where their children can look forward to lives of slow but steady desperation, I'd restore the 90 percent income tax on people like Buffett, Bezos, Musk and the rest of the oligarchy we suffer under our faux democracy to fund the basic standard of living (and hope) America enjoyed until the swine made their big move under Republicans like Reagan. A Biden-Trump re-run, senility vs. dementia, is shaping up as the final absurdity, and a coming apart really kicks off.

I READ SOMEWHERE that if a guy can step out his front door for an unobserved whiz he is truly living in the country. Wednesday afternoon as I was wrapping up tomorrow morning's lies, half-truths, libels, and vicious personal attacks that comprise Mendocino County's morning news collection, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a man relieving himself in the yard next door. He glanced up at me just as I spotted him, joystick in hand, mid-stream. I ducked, not wanting him to think I was the neighborhood voyeur or that I disapproved of his relieving himself wherever it was both necessary and convenient. I was encouraged that he felt this free in the center of Boonville where the ava is located. 

ANOTHER real life adventure. The other afternoon, dark coming on, I was footing it up Deer Meadows Road where I have seldom encountered another pedestrian, and from whose heights one enjoys a vista to the west as beautiful as any in the world, I saw a young woman approaching from the other direction pushing a stroller with a baby in it. A dog trotted along beside them. Oh christ, a pit bull. I looked around for a likely tree to climb as mother, child and pit approached. Mom was smiling. The dog wasn't. It jogged right at me. “Does this thing bite?” I asked, visions of myself in the AV Ambulance with a dog embedded in my leg “Oh no,” the young mom assured me. “He just wants to say hello.” Maybe. It seemed to me he preferred to attack rather than introduce himself. But the beast immediately returned to mom at her command, and I exhaled and continued on up the hill, muttering to myself at the pure presumption of Dog People. 

CHRISTMAS is upon us, and although the Valley's master and hands-down number one outdoor decoration maestro, Shorty Adams, is ailing and no longer up to his remarkable display, I hope his descendants will carry on, as will, I'm sure, his neighbors along Highway 128. Boonville never looks better than it does at Christmas time.

SHERIFF KENDALL:

A Reader Writes: “I have never understood why police chase someone just because they run after a traffic stop.”

Well, I am certainly glad you don’t understand this. It clearly indicates to me you are likely a good person whom I highly doubt has spent much time in evading capture.

I will try to make this reply brief. In my experience people run from the police not because of the infractions peace officers see in front of them. Often folks are wanted for many different things including murder.

I have made many stops for infractions committed by a driver which turned into a “foot bail” and upon capture the rest of the story unfolds. Often these subjects were wanted on very serious crimes including homicide.

Also, peace officers are in the business of reporting the facts to the judge who then instills accountability. If we simply allowed everyone a pass if they decided to run, everyone would run.

So if the question is who is wrong, the subject who runs from the police, or the police for chasing? I think the answer is clear. Personal responsibility has to come back into style and I think we are currently living in that direction.

THE FUTURE OF THE ANNOUNCE AND DISCUSSION LISTSERVS

Announce and Discussion Listserv Subscribers -

On Thursday, November 16th, the Mendocino Unified School Board (MUSD) discussed the future of the MCN Announce and Discussion Listservs.

The Mendocino Unified School Board of Trustees acknowledges the importance the community places on the listservs. However, the MUSD Board no longer intends to publicly host the Announce and Discussion Listservs. The MUSD Board voted 3-2 to transfer ownership of the listservs and would like to invite any person or group of people wishing to take over the listserv(s) to submit a proposal to Superintendent Jason Morse at jmorse@mcn.org by January 29th, 2024. Proposals will be vetted by a Board subcommittee and a final proposal will be brought before the full Board on February 15th, 2024. 

Please email Jason Morse at jmorse@mcn.org for questions or more information.

189 ACRES NEAR BOONVILLE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

A READER WRITES: I saw this today online and thought you might be interested. The Emerald Earth 189 acres outside of Boonville has new tenants and they have plans. It all sounds so familiar. They want donations so they can live for free.

Support the Black to the Land Movement!

25 years ago Zappa Montag suggested an idea called Black to the Land. Back then, it seemed like a utopian dream that didn’t seem possible.

Now the dream is coming to fruition, and the honor of land stewardship has been granted on 189 acres of beautiful, pristine land in Boonville, CA (occupied Pomo Land) complete with beautiful, livable infrastructure!!!

Pretty sure this is one aspect of reparations we have been praying for…..

https://www.gofundme.com/f/37gqiyeb60

BILL KIMBERLIN: 

This past Saturday I attended a performance of “Bullrusher” a play by the niece of Angela Davis, who is a sometimes resident of Boonville as am I. The niece is Eisa Davis of Brooklyn, N.Y.

The play takes place in a somewhat mythical town of Boonville and the young black woman who is featured carries the Boontling name of Bullrusher which connotes an illegitimate child. She had been sent down the Navarro River in a basket landing in some bulrushes and was discovered by a white male school teacher who took her in and raised her.

We meet her in the 1950's era of Boonville with many references to for instance, the “Anyhow Saloon” which building currently resides in Philo but was a real place in the 1930s. Only Boonters, of which there was only one in the audience, would know any of this but the printed program for the play did have a page of Boonling names and definitions, which one of my female companions later said she wished she had looked at more closely. In truth all the Boontling was just window dressing but the Berkeley audience seemed to appreciate it.

There was a phone call in the play using a dial phone which I could have told them was incorrect because in the 1950’s all our phones in the Valley were party lines where you needed an operator to place the call for you. This, of course is a detail that only a local would ever notice or question.

Our heroine is a young black girl who has some special powers. She can predict the weather accurately and she can also, through a mysterious connection with water, tell people’s future, which is a recurring element in the play, from the Navarro to her gifts with a type of clairvoyance that adds a nice touch to the plot.

All good stories tend to jump off from either, “A stranger arrives in town,” or the central character, “Goes on a journey.” In this case a young Black woman from Birmingham, Alabama arrives and brings the real world knowledge of Southern Jim Crow to the ears of our Bullrusher young lady.

The “Navarro River” part of the set is cleverly done with real water and two of the actresses do a couple of scenes getting very wet splashing around in their underwear. I meant to check the temperature of that water but forgot. For their sake I hope it was warm.

The opening acting and dialogue made me think it was a student play effort but if you stick with it, as I did, I wound up impressed. The joint was full and there was applause a few times and at the end. I will let others judge it, however it has played on the East Coast and was a 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist. It strangely reminded me of a Eugene O’Neal play as far as its realistic style goes, Chekhov as well.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS CELEBRATES NATURE, COMMUNITY, CLEAN ENERGY 

by Suzanne Pletcher

Behind the wonderment of the Festival of Lights at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens is a message of community, delight, and reverence for the natural world, including a commitment to energy efficiency and clean energy. 

Thousands upon thousands of lights, hung by the Gardens’ horticulturists and dozens of volunteers, twinkle, cascade, undulate and pulse this season in eight distinctive theme areas that enthrall visitors wandering the quarter-mile path through heathers, succulents, camellias, sculptural bushes and towering trees transformed into creatures and otherworldly environments.

“We don’t know any more how many lights are used because we keep adding, but they are all LEDs, to conserve energy,” said Roxanne Perkins, the Gardens’ communications manager. “Our main goal always is to instill a love and joy of the natural world in botanical gardens, nature and wildlife in all of our visitors, young and old. The Festival of Lights extends that sense of wonder into the darker winter season.”

Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens created a winter light show in 2009, before such events became popular at botanical gardens nationally. The first year, the lights were all energy-hogging incandescents, flowers were created with chicken wire, and luminaries lined pathways. Admission was free. 

Now in its 13^th year (the show took one year off for COVID), about 9,000 people will wander the brilliant gardens during four weekends spanning Nov. 24 through Dec. 17. The festival is open Friday through Sunday, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The expanded event costs $10, with children aged 16 and under free.

“The Gardens keep admission low to ensure that everyone in the community can enjoy them,” said Perkins. “It’s a fund-raiser but honestly, it’s mostly for the community.” Fifty volunteers join the Gardens’ nine horticulturists to welcome and guide visitors and help out in the gift shop. 

Long before the holidays, beginning Oct. 1 every year, the Gardens’ horticulturists add lighting expert to their job titles and, with help from volunteers, throw open the doors of two shipping containers and a storage shed filled to the brim with lights, tech panels, and displays. There are row lights, string lights, spotlights, icicle lights, floodlights, and many, many more. New structures are built, old ones reinforced. Garden Manager Jaime Jensen, Maintenance Manager Pete Baker, and Event Coordinator Jaime Campione come up with innovative new technologies to time and change the colors, create cascades, twinkles and creatures that appear to move.

As holiday visitors enter, there’s a twinkling white wind turbine, a nod to presenting sponsor Sonoma Clean Power and its optional EverGreen renewable energy service. The Gardens wanted to set an example, Perkins said, and opted to upgrade to the utility’s EverGreen service to power all its festival lights—and operations year-round—with 100% renewable energy sourced from solar and geothermal. A line of white lights cascades down from the rotating arms of the turbine to the earth, where it snakes across the ground to power a tiny, quaint village. 

From the wind turbine, visitors go on safari in an area featuring a giant white rhinoceros and friendly pink elephant. From there, they’ll enter an area with a dinosaur theme, featuring a volcano overflowing with red lava.

An original area of the Festival of Lights is an ocean theme featuring an octopus, porpoises, and a rendition of the Frolic clipper ship with white sails and masts. The real Frolic struck a reef off nearby Point Cabrillo in 1850 and ran aground with a load of household goods from China bound for sale in Gold Rush San Francisco. In the Festival of Lights, the Frolic rides an undulating sea crafted with blue lights on the Garden’s heath and heather collection.

 There’s a pollinator theme area, underwater as well as space theme areas, and “We can’t forget to mention the peace sign,” said Perkins.

This year a new light display was created in the Garden’s forest area that is home to a nationally-recognized conifer collection. 

THE PHILO-BASED “sexual wellness” company accused of abusing women and forcing them into sex acts is suing Netflix over a documentary which claimed an employee was “raped and beaten.” In new filings, the “orgasmic meditation cult” OneTaste claims the allegations levied against them by several former members and staff featured on the Netflix documentary are “completely false.” Netflix first aired ‘Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste’ in 2022, five months before founder Nicole Daedone, 56, and Rachel Cherwitz, 43, were indicted for allegedly forcing women into sex acts. Both women deny the accusations.

A lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, focuses on the final 15 minutes of the documentary, which discusses ex-employee Ayries Blanck experiencing “sexual violence” that was “condoned” by the company.

R.D. BEACON:

Now old story about, my customers, most of the people come to the bar, from the city spending a weekend on the coast, at least half of them asked about, the price of property, wanting to move to the countryside, then as the ones that are already living here, that don't want any other neighbors, that when you tell them you're going to subdivide your property, they look like somebody has stabbed him in the heart, that they don't want neighbors they wanted giant park, and then somebody at the far end of the bar, said they heard the county was going bankrupt no money, I explained carefully and unless you have money coming in to the county you will go bankrupt, if more is going out than was coming in, that is it, the end I told her, they asked what they could do, I told him we need more sawmills for Darius, and more ranching, as they look at me in disgust and says all we don't want that, we came to the countryside for the peace and quiet, and tell them to your checkbook out and give the county $1 million, the individual said I can't afford that, as I told them the only way to Bailey County out, is to put industry back, and fix it up so landowners, can sell off little chunks of land for houses, along the coast, houses and because two or 3 million a piece, will bring the tax base up, sure will be like Santa Barbara in the end, but they're very wealthy down there, and when asked what we want here is wealthy people, it knows the value, as my customer looked at me and discussed, the next words were when you going to do with your land, I told him I'm going to build 1000 homes out of here a giant city, lots of stores, a whole new town greenwood souse, they told me they would do everything within their power to block such venture, told him all it takes is Satan to buy me out, the one guy far into the bar said how much you want, say we could started out 500 million, and go up from there, he said that was too much, I said if you want your peace and quiet, and you don't want 1000 homes here, maybe I need to double it, how much you willing to pay for your peace and quiet, with daddy said I can't afford you, said were you going to do, and like most city people's answer was the following, I'm the sellout removed somewhere else, I said don't let the door hit you in the back as you leave but can I help you move, the role of a good neighbor I will come down and help load your pretty sure in your goods, and pointed to the way to maybe the desert, with that he told me only has to look the ocean of their move up the road a bit, I said is no different up there, and it is here those of us that live here a lifetime don't want city people in our neighborhood, with one hard-working people, though just sit on their butt all day, and figure out how, they can get the next state park, and steal more land, from hard-working people, I'm sure is a customer you will never be back and I don't care, I don't want to have to fumigate again after having, that kind of person in my bar, but people don't realize it takes money to run a County, Tab more coming in, and what's going out, it's like running a small business, if the county doesn't want to go broke the only way you can handle it, it goes through the offices custom jobs, move people around, and the old saying last hired, first fired, County needs an overhaul, it's like an old car, got badly broken parts, new courthouse is not a way, to make repairs, said it before, they need new management, somebody was actually in business, running a business, not another county bureaucrat, that likes to spend money.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, November 29, 2023

JULIO AMADOR, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MICHAEL BARNES, Willits. Probation revocation.

HALEY CASEY, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, child endangerment.

CHRISTOPHER COWAN, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

HANS ESTES, Potter Valley. Controlled substance for sale.

JAMES FARRIS, Ukiah. Large capacity magazine, ammo possession by prohibited person.

CHRISTOPHER GARCIA, Ukiah. Parole violation.

SKYLAR HENDERSON, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, concealed dirk-dagger, probation revocation.

KEISHA HOAGLIN, Covelo. Probation revocation.

RITA LAVENDUSKEY, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

LILLIAN SAYAD, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

PATRICK SCHUETZ, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.

BARRED OWL TO THE RESCUE!

by Ellen Taylor

As we heard from the Eureka Times-Standard a couple of weeks ago, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wants to shoot a lot of barred owls - more than 400,000 in fact! … in the belief that this is the only way to rescue the northern spotted owl (NSO) from extinction. It has engaged in the formal approval process, and is inviting public comment.

As a downstream resident who has been fearful of Humboldt Redwood Company, active since 2014 in the Mattole headwaters, I am delighted to be able to praise them for their decision not to participate in shooting barred owls. HRC’s Habitat Conservation Report for 2022 documents the stability of their NSO banded population. This measured and dispassionate document resonates with a statement of Eric Forsman, former US Fish & Wildlife spotted owl biologist, that “it was never really just about Spotted Owls, it was always more about protecting the incredible structural and species diversity that was present in these old forests.”

Forests provide air and water purification, erosion control, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, wildlife habitat and climate regulation. They provide 40% of the earth’s rainfall. As John Perlin wrote, in “A Forest Journey”, “the scientific world now sees the entire tree - leaves, trunk, roots, and overstory - as a mighty geochemical agent that has drastically changed the landscape and the atmosphere for the betterment of all living things”. Without trees, Earth would be another Venus.

We all know the NSO well. Thirty years ago we watched plays and musicals about it. Bumper stickers flashed by with the message, “Save a logger eat an owl!” after Judge Dwyer prohibited, in 1991, logging on some of the older forests which remained after the 100-year-long timber boom. Only 3% of the old growth had been left standing. Giant stumps haunt our forests, and their descendants, surrounding them, are doomed to be cut, mainly at 40 years of age. 

Agencies and timber companies are still arguing over how much land should be set aside for the owl. Continued logging has shrunk estimates. Although NSOs evolved with forest fires, and happily forage in burned sites, salvage logging removes that possibility.

Moreover, another factor has entered the discussion. The barred owl, a native easterner who pioneered cross-country, has settled in Pacific Northwest forests. A survivor, it can live in suburbia, eat Norwegian rats, and glean from garbage dumps.

But it likes deep woods, and has moved enthusiastically into the NSO’s neighborhood. It shares the NSO’s tastes for voles and nests in old tree cavities. Like many immigrant populations, it reproduces rapidly. And it mates with NSO offspring.

The spotted owls are traumatized. Many have become “floaters”: fewer are interested in nesting and breeding. They don’t answer the anxious calls of experts.

The Endangered Species Act requires the USFWS to “pursue management policies necessary to facilitate the recovery “of any species it has listed. No one is disposed to giving the NSO back its habitat of 100 years ago: quite the opposite. USFWS hit upon a solution, cheap and popular: targeting the barred owl. They experimented by shooting 3600 barred owls in discrete locations, and NSO numbers rose.

With that experiment as armor, USFWS is now going for 400,000+.

EPIC’s Tom Wheeler ridicules the barred owl’s defenders: they just do it because the owl is “cute”. Well, so it is, but beauty is a strong argument. And owls have an important role in all traditional structures of civilization. They’re surrounded with mystery, attributed with wisdom, revered as sacred messengers.

But there’s science too. Shooting will not work. The NSO is too far gone. To resurrect it, there would have to be a change in values, in human consciousness. There would have to be a change in owl consciousness, too. The NSO would, like a shy person, have to become more assertive, and the barred owl (who won’t go away) less pushy.

The best way for Northern Spotted Owls to survive is to interbreed. And that’s what they are doing! … but USFWS wants to shoot the hybrids too, to prevent “genetic swamping.” In its abstract laboratory mind, it’s insisting on genetic purity, forgetting that species identities have been fluid ever since life began. Specification is a human concept.

The northern spotted owl will not, as Eric Forsman had hoped, save the forest. Shooting the barred owl will not save the northern spotted owl. 

The barred owl has come to the rescue! Management, put down your guns.

BAY AREA USPS WORKERS ARE BEING WORN DOWN BY PREVIOUSLY 'UNHEARD OF' CRIMES

California postal workers are facing a rise in assaults and robberies, data shows

by Ariana Bindman

Edward Fletcher, a letter carrier who’s worked for the United States Postal Service since 1985, has been dealing with an unusual problem — or, rather, it used to be unusual.

Ever since the world shut down in 2020, thieves armed with knives, guns and pepper spray have begun attacking letter carriers and grabbing their master keys, which grants them access to clusters of blue mailboxes on the street, he said. Now, Bay Area USPS workers — many of whom already work unmerciful schedules for shockingly low pay — are rallying for safer conditions or leaving the department entirely. 

After reaching a collective breaking point, the National Association of Letter Carriers held a rally in November in San Francisco, a city where carriers are allegedly attacked and robbed multiple times a day. A month earlier, rallies took place in Oakland, another town where workers say they’re often targeted — and while some changes are being implemented, like a secretive rollout of new mailboxes, workers say it’s not enough. 

* * *

Previously ‘Unheard Of’ Attacks Now Common

 “This never used to happen,” said Fletcher, Branch 111 president of the NALC, the union that represents U.S. postal workers. “I did carry mail for over 15 years, and it was unheard of that a letter carrier would get robbed” or get their vehicles broken into, he continued. Fletcher says this phenomenon began in Oakland and San Francisco, but it has since spread to Antioch, San Ramon, Pittsburg, Vallejo and Walnut Creek.

“There’s eight stations in the city of Oakland and I don’t know of one of them that has not been robbed,” he said, adding that some have been hit multiple times, especially in the Laurel area. 

 “These brazen crimes, once rare but now growing more frequent and more violent here, elsewhere in California and beyond, are hurting letter carriers, leading to stolen mail, and damaging our community,” a Nov. 3 press release NALC shared with SFGATE reads. 

Across the country, USPS saw an “unprecedented rise” in violent crimes against employees in the past fiscal year, according to an annual report from the United States Postal Inspection Service, the delivery service’s security arm. In 2022 — the most recent report with publicly available data — there were nearly 7,000 reports of criminal activities: 432 of them were robberies, 197 were burglaries and 581 were credible threats or assaults against postal workers. An October press release from USPS added that San Francisco, Chicago and cities throughout Ohio were among the hardest-hit regions. Multiple police and sheriff departments throughout the Bay Area, along with the USPIS, did not provide further statistics about the issue to SFGate. 

In a written statement, Albert Ruiz, a spokesperson for USPS, attributed the rise in assaults and robberies in part to the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Criminals have been robbing “letter carriers for their keys, to sell or steal mail, and go on to commit associated financial fraud crimes” like altering checks or intercepting credit cards, he explained. 

Once stimulus checks were distributed in April 2020, robberies surged, USPIS documents show. According to the NALC, people stole them and used chemicals to remove the intended recipient’s name and insert their own, an elaborate process known as check washing. That same fiscal year, the department responded to over 7,000 reports of violent crimes — a significant increase compared to 2019, the USPIS said. 

The department doesn’t shy away from recounting these robberies in detail, either. 

One account from 2020 describes how an Oakland resident approached a Postal Service worker on 34th Avenue with a gun, demanding they hand over the mail and packages they were about to deliver. After he was arrested, the man admitted that he and a “ring of thieves” targeted mail carriers for weeks in order to steal residents’ personal information and falsely use their identities, USPS said. 

* * *

Brutal Working Conditions For Mail Carriers

Aside from having to worry about getting “bipped,” mail carriers work in conditions that most of us would consider exhausting. As a result, the postal service is hemorrhaging employees and trying to fill hundreds of jobs throughout the Bay Area. 

In their 10-year plan, the USPS called “unacceptably high rates of non-career employee turnover” a key challenge, and thousands of workers who responded to the department’s exit survey said they quit because of their grueling schedules. When the USPS Office of Inspector General conducted onsite visits, it found that 21% of “non-career” employees — temporary workers who often join USPS on contract to supplement its permanent workforce — worked more than 12 hours a day. One employee who served a rural area even said they worked 17 hours a day, while another said they worked for 35 days straight. 

Despite these brutal working conditions, letter carriers in San Francisco and Oakland are expected to scrape by in one of the most expensive regions in the nation with starting salaries of just $22.13 per hour. Those who serve rural regions can make even less. 

In response, the antiquated department is scrambling to enforce new, modernized safety measures to protect mail carriers from harm. 

Since May, the Postal Service has installed 10,000 updated versions of blue collections mailboxes in “high-security risk” areas, an October 2023 press release said. In an effort to make arrow keys less desirable, it also phased out nearly 7,000 arrow locks with electronic locks in select cities, and plans to deploy 42,000 more in the coming months. Ruiz told SFGate that these new, secure mailboxes have already been installed in San Francisco and Oakland, but declined to specify where due to security concerns.

For now, union representatives like Fletcher are hopeful that the government will hold criminals accountable for targeting his colleagues, many of whom are tired of struggling to survive in California, both physically and financially.Though no official plans have been formed, he believes more protests and rallies will be announced in January. “We’re just going to continue to fight to protect our people,” Fletcher told SFGate.

“It is very traumatic for our carriers,” he said. “They deserve more protection.”

(SFGate)

WHAT SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S AI SCANDAL SAYS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM

by Ann Killion

Drew Ortiz won’t be winning any Pulitzer Prize awards. Nor will he be trying to figure out how to get out of a press box at midnight when the stadium security has left. Or getting a 4 a.m. wakeup call for a flight home. Or calling a source at an absurd hour. Or asking an uncomfortable question of a superstar athlete. Or looking at the clock and realizing he has to file a fully formed, coherent column off a live sporting event, right now.

That’s because Drew Ortiz isn’t a sportswriter. In fact, he doesn’t exist at all. He’s a figment of artificial intelligence, one of several fake bylines that Sports Illustrated reportedly has used.

The website Futurism reported that it had noticed fake bylines coming and going on various Sports Illustrated stories, accompanied by AI-generated “writer” photos that were available for purchase and made-up bios. When Futurism questioned the company that operates and licenses Sports Illustrated, something called the Arena Group, the stories vanished. On Monday, the Arena Group lamely defended itself by blaming the problem on a third-party company.

 (The San Francisco Chronicle’s parent company, Hearst Newspapers, allows the use of generative AI to facilitate some information gathering, production and distribution including: assisting with search-engine optimization, providing first reviews of grammar and style, and generating research and data related to reporting. All content must be reviewed by reporters and editors before publication.)

The Sports Illustrated Union — or, as the members signed their statement, “the Humans of the SI Union” — put out a strongly worded statement decrying the practice as violating “everything we believe in about journalism,” saying it was “disrespectful to our readers” and demanding that the company “commit to adhering to basic journalistic standards, including not publishing computer-written stories by fake people.”

That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

This is the latest blow in a business that is changing fast. But it resonates because it degrades Sports Illustrated, an outlet that was once the gold standard of sports journalism. A publication that employed some of the greatest writers our business has ever known and was the definition of rigorous editing processes and journalistic integrity.

 “It’s troubling,” said my colleague Mike Silver, who worked at Sports Illustrated for 13 years. “It’s yet another blow to the brand we all cherished and cared about.”

For years, Silver covered the NFL — and other sports — for SI and almost never used a quote from a news conference. Readers rushed to their mailboxes to get the weekly magazine to read about events that happened days earlier because they knew they were getting unique insight. The SI writer’s job was to deliver exclusive content. The SI writers were able to get access because of the clout of the brand, but also because they were willing to spend days, weeks, sometimes months, drilling down into stories. Readers expected something they couldn’t get otherwise, and they trusted that what they were reading was accurate.

“It was the place where you went to get the most exclusive, behind-the-scenes stuff,” Silver said. “And now it’s like, ‘We’ll just make it up.’ We’ll give you something a machine could make.”

SI writers past and present deplored the situation on social media. But at least one was able to find some humor in it.

“OK, I admit I wrote a story with help from AI when I worked at Sports Illustrated,” posted Leigh Montville, adding, “Wait a minute, we’re not talking about Allen Iverson?”

I worked as a freelancer for Sports Illustrated from 2009 through 2012, and things were already tough there, as the company — like so many — struggled to find the balance between its cherished print product and its online presence. But even in the changing landscape, it felt special. The editing was crisp. The process, smart and sharp. The standards, high.

The Arena Group took over licensing of Sports Illustrated after Time, Inc. sold the company in 2018. Its website touts the brand as “the most iconic name in sports,” and the licensing includes Sports Illustrated casinos, restaurants and resorts. But the greedy morons running the show now don’t seem to realize that instead of being caretakers of a cultural icon, they are destroying the very name and reputation of something they hope to profit off.

“I believe in my heart that no machine can do what we do,” Silver said. “It’s personal and individual and it’s the product of hard work, relationships and perspective. The unpredictability of sports is a huge part of the allure, and real journalists are part of that fabric.”

This isn’t just about sportswriting, of course. The growth of AI and the accompanying gutting of legacy news sources have led to a flood of misinformation and a lack of trust about what is real and accurate and what is fake. If the fourth estate topples, other institutions, including democracy, might be right behind.

There’s a lot more at stake than a sports story. There are bigger issues than what fake nonsense “Drew Ortiz” wrote about for a once-great brand.

But “Drew Ortiz” who “grew up on a farm” is definitely the canary in the coal mine.

(SF Chronicle)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Why do billionaires pay only about 8% in income taxes? If they paid the same rates as working America (you and I and everyone else), everyone would be better off. There would be no national debt, Social Security and Medicare would be fully funded and solvent.

Fuel and Food Costs: In 2022 the major fuel companies, Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell combined for $219 billion in profits.

The four big meat packers, JBS Foods, Tyson Foods, Cargill and Marfrig are raking in record profits.

JBS had a record net profit of $4.4 billion for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2022 — a 70% increase over the previous 12 months.

Tyson had a record $4.1 billion net profit for the year ending March 31, 2022 — a 91% increase over the previous 12 months.

Cargill is a privately-held company and isn’t required to publicly report its financial information. Bloomberg reported last August that confidential financial documents showed Cargill delivered a record $4.9 billion in net income for its fiscal year ending May 31, 2021 — up 60% over the previous 12 months.

Marfrig reported a net profit of $820.1 million in 2021, a 32% increase over 2020. “This was our largest profit ever,” the Brazilian-based company said in its annual report. Net income dropped during the first quarter of 2022 due to the company’s $360 million stock purchase in BRF, a Brazilian poultry and pork processor. Even so, Marfrig’s chief financial officer said it was the company’s “best operational first quarter.”

You like to talks “socialism”. Farm Subsidies (Socialism) under Trump. 2017 – 11.5 B; 2018 – 13.6 B; 2019 – 22.4 B; 2020 – 45.9 B. Socialism is found everywhere in the US. Taxation is a form of socialism. Your taxes go the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control. By that measure, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the public schools system are also socialist programs. As are the military (since we no longer sell war bonds) and law enforcement agencies. And let’s not forget the Environmental Protection Agency, Veterans Benefits, the interstate highway system, and airport infrastructures. Don’t kid yourself, you, I and every other tax paying American funds socialist programs.

THE WORLD became slightly less evil Wednesday night with the news that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100.

---

ONCE YOU’VE BEEN TO CAMBODIA, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević.”

– Anthony Bourdain

EVERY MAN is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on... So it would seem foolish, would it not?, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything? The answer, then, must not deal with goals at all... We do not strive to be firemen, we do not strive to be bankers, nor policemen, nor doctors. WE STRIVE TO BE OURSELVES. But don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that we can’t BE firemen, bankers, or doctors...but that we must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal... Beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life. 

— Hunter S. Thompson

NATIONAL SINGLE PAYER, a Health Care Justice Organization in the U.S., Denounces Targeting of Hospitals in the Gaza Strip and U.S. Complicity in Genocide

by Judy Albert, MD, Claire Cohen, MD, Ed Grystar, Ana Malinow, MD. Martha Schmidt & Kay Tillow

As a national, grassroots, social justice organization that organizes locally in the struggle for national single payer health care in the U.S., united by the common principles that health care is a human right, must be free from corporate profit, and must be achieved through national legislation, the Steering Committee of National Single Payer feels it is our moral duty to take a stand on what is happening to the hospitals, health care providers, patients, and civilians in Gaza. Our voice is small, and our statement will alienate some, nevertheless, it is our sincere belief that we are witnesses to a time in history when our principled voice must be heard, loud and clear.

The October 7 attack by Hamas was preceded by a 16-year occupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel, who maintained strict control over Gaza’s airspace and territorial waters and restricted goods and people from moving in and out of Gaza. The attack, which killed 1,200 in Israel, including 859 civilians and 29 children, took 240 hostages, and injured 5,600, does not exonerate the U.S., its citizens, or social justice organizations from speaking out about the unfolding genocide by Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip, which has resulted, to date, in at least 14,854 Palestinian deaths, including over 6,150 children, more than 36,000 injured, and untold number of dead buried under the rubble of their homes.

The thousands of tons of explosives that Israel has dropped over 12,000 targets in Gaza are “equivalent to two nuclear bombs,” exceeding the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Israel’s use of cluster bombs, documented by EuroMed Monitor and banned by the international community, cause explosions inside the body, which leave adults, children, and babies with burns so severe that their skin melts, often resulting in death.

The total siege of Gaza enforced by Israel, prohibiting access to fuel, food, water, electricity, and medical supplies for the 2.2 million Palestinians, about half of whom are children under the age of 18, the October 13 forced evacuation of 1.1 million Palestinians living in northern Gaza, plus the relentless, indiscriminate bombing of civilians, have resulted in the destruction of Gaza’s health care delivery system.

We are horrified by the attacks on health care facilities, which seems to be the major focus of Israel’s air and ground offensive and which has resulted in the shuttering of 21 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals. As of November 12, The World Health Organization (WHO) recorded at least 137 attacks on health care facilities in Gaza, resulting in 521 deaths and 686 injuries. Since October 7, 204 healthcare workers have been killed. The names of fallen healthcare workers have been documented. Before occupying the hospitals, Israeli soldiers surrounded these facilities with tanks and snipers, preventing the safe passage of staff, patients, and the newly injured victims of continued bombing.

At an Emergency Meeting of the United Nations Council on November 10, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, declared that the situation on the ground in Gaza was “impossible to describe, hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying, morgues overflowing, [and] surgeries [are] being performed without anesthesia.” He concluded, “The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver some lifesaving care.”

Since mid-November, the toll on health care facilities has increased. Hospitals in northern Gaza have been seized by Israeli forces and are no longer functioning. On November 24, the first day of a temporary truce, Israeli Occupation Forces withdrew from al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital and shockingly, the major target of Israel’s Occupation Forces. In an unprecedented move, the Israeli army arrested al-Shifa Hospital director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, and several other medical personnel.

Bombing of health care facilities and other civilian targets, plus the complete siege of Gaza is a violation of the 4^thGeneva Convention. We concur with the complaint that the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed on behalf of Palestinian groups and individuals, that sues President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for failing to prevent “a developing genocide committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip.” Further U.S. provision of weapons, financial aid, and diplomatic cover must be halted to prevent ongoing atrocities, including those on health care facilities.

As international bodies have declared, “Attacks on medical facilities and civilians are unacceptable and are a violation of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law and Conventions. The right to seek medical assistance, especially in times of crisis, should never be denied.”

The U.S. has voted for, agreed to, signed, and ratified many instruments, including binding treaties, which protect the human right to health care. One of the oldest (1948), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, declares “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services…” The U.S. is a party, as is Israel, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 6 protects the right to life of each individual. Both the U.S. and Israel are parties (have ratified) the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, of which Article 5 protects the right to health. And both the U.S. and Israel have signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which protects the right to health (Article 12), and Israel is a party to that treaty.

We recognize that the U.S. has not lived up to its obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill the international human right to health care at home but at bare minimum, the U.S. should not finance Israel’s bombing of hospitals and other health care facilities, nor the killing of medical personnel and patients seeking care. National Single Payer urges the U.S. to apply human rights law in both our own country and internationally.

National Single Payer welcomes the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas and demands that President Biden call a permanent ceasefire at once, insist that Israel restore electricity, water, food, and fuel immediately, stop financing the destruction of hospitals, medical personnel, and patients, prevent more deaths of civilians and further damage of what is left of Gaza’s hospitals and health care facilities, end the occupation of all Palestinian land, release detained and arrested medical personnel, and call for unconditional access to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine, who, while not responsible for this violence financed by the U.S. government, have been the innocent recipients of it.

Judy Albert, MD

Claire Cohen, MD

Ed Grystar

Ana Malinow, MD

Martha Schmidt, LLM, JD

Kay Tillow

(Dr. Judy Albert is a retired physician. She is a member of the steering committee of National Single Payer. Dr. Claire Cohen is an African American child and adolescent psychiatrist who has been active in multiple community social justice organizations. She is a member of the steering committee of the Western PA Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare and National Single Payer. Ed Grystar is co founder of the Western PA Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare, former Central Labor Council president and labor union representative and a member of the steering committee of National Single Payer. Ana Malinow, MD worked as a pediatrician with immigrant, refugee, and underserved children before retiring as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics from the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. She is a member of the steering committee of National Single Payer. Martha L. Schmidt, LLM, JD, is an educator and activist focusing on international human rights, particularly the right to health, and the rights of ecosystems. Kay Tillow is Coordinator of the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care and a member of the steering committee of National Single Payer.)

NO ENDGAME IN GAZA

by Fintan O’Toole

If war is supposed to be the continuation of politics by other means, Israel’s assault on Gaza seems to be the continuation by other means of the absence of politics. It does not seem that Israel understands what its endgame is. Without a clear sense of an ending. there can be no answer to the most crucial moral and strategic question: When enough cnough? Even in the crudely mathematical logic of vengeance, the blood price for Hamas's appalling atrocities of October has long since been paid. The body count— if that is to be the measure of retribution— has mounted far beyond the level required for an equality of suffering. Yet it appears to have no visible ceiling. What factor must Jewish deaths be multiplied by? When, as W. B. Yeats asked in a different conflict, may it suffice?

“Enough” is the word that Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel’s prime minister, stressed in his remarkable speech of September 1993 at the signing of the Oslo Accords:

“We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and a clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough… We are today giving peace a chance and saying to you and saying again to you: Enough.”

Enough is a both a political goal and an ethical limit. Without the first, it is hard to set the second. To know how far you can go, you have to know where you want to get to. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seems to know neither.

There has been much fine reporting on the dreadful intelligence failures that allowed the massacres of October 7 to happen. But they in turn arise from something much deeper: a cognitive failure. There has been a literal false sense of security. Rabin, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 1994, spelled out in the clearest terms the impossibility of security without peace: 

“There is only one radical means of sanctifying human lives. Not armored plating, or tanks, or planes, or concrete fortifications. The one radical solution is peace.”

(London Review of Books)

CEASE FIRE HOLDING. As of Thursday morning, 102 hostages had been released from Gaza, most of them women and children, ranging in age from 4 to 85. As part of the exchange, 210 Palestinians had been released from Israeli prisons, all of them women and teenagers.

IF A PAINTING can be forged well enough to fool experts, why is the original so valuable?

— George Carlin

UKRAINE, WEDNESDAY, 29 NOVEMBER

As NATO foreign ministers and Ukrainian officials meet in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the war and ways to continue supporting Kyiv, it will prove hard to ignore deep divisions between European countries over Russia and Ukraine.

Hungary’s foreign minister told CNBC on Tuesday that Budapest would never deliver weapons to Ukraine to help it fight Russia’s invasion, saying Hungary wanted peace in the region. That same day, Finland’s foreign minister announced a complete border closure with Russia.

Finland’s decision to shut all of its border crossing points with Russia until Dec. 13 comes after it repeatedly accused Moscow of purposefully allowing undocumented migrants to cross its eastern border in a bid to sow instability. It said this “instrumentalized migration,” posing “a serious threat to national security and public order.”

Russia denies the allegations and is yet to respond to the entire border closure.

Finnish Foreign Affairs Minister Elina Valtonen told CNBC Tuesday that Russia had carried out a “hybrid operation” and Finland had “responded accordingly,” saying that the government “can’t accept this phenomenon to take place.”

NY TIMES & THE ASSASSINATION OF JFK

by David Talbot:

Two weeks ago, I was asked by the Opinion section of the New York Times to write an essay on the JFK assassination nearly 60 years later. This was a major breakthrough because the newspaper of record has always embraced the official version of the assassination, even as the Warren Report, based on the “magic bullet” and all that nonsense, has grown increasingly tattered over the years.

In 2015, when The Devil’s Chessboard—my book about CIA spymaster Allen Dulles and the national security state’s war with President Kennedy—was published, the Times refused to review it.

Nonetheless, the book was a New York Times bestseller. So it represented something of a milestone when The Times commissioned me to write a JFK article. I turned in a sober, detailed piece that was, if anything, too kind to the Times and the corporate media. The Times killed it anyway. (Below, you can read what my editor emailed me.) Sigh. So, unfortunately, when it comes to the Big Media and JFK, we’re still at square one at 60.

The New York Times is still part of the cover-up. 

A few days later, I was scheduled by Ben Wecht of the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University to give the closing speech at its annual conference, which is the best gathering of JFK experts in the country. 

I spoke about the Times and Big Media’s role in the Kennedy cover-up.

Here is my speech:

I regret that I can’t be in Pittsburgh in person. I may be virtual, but I’m live from San Francisco. I will keep my remarks fairly brief as I close out this very informative conference today. I know you’re all rushing to return home. But I do want to leave you with something provocative. So here goes....

No subject embroils academics and journalists more than the JFK assassination, even 60 years later. But the American people are a different story. There, a substantial majority has long been of one mind.

Poll after poll ever since the shots rang out in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza has showed that most Americans believe President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy.

According to a new Gallup survey, the percentage of lone gunman skeptics remains a solid 65 percent of adult Americans, with the largest numbers of those skeptics pointing at the federal government (20 percent) and specifically the CIA (16 percent) as the likely culprits—numbers that are sharply up in recent years.

Despite this unshakeable public conviction, and a growing body of evidence to the contrary, the US media has remained stubbornly, even perversely, wedded to the single assassin version of Dallas.

The Guardian, one of the more liberal newspapers in the English-language world, just ran a worshipful profile of aging Secret Service agent Clint Hill, who still clings to the tattered Warren Report, despite (among other recent revelations) his former Secret Service colleague Paul Landis's assertion that there was nothing “magic” about the magic bullet at all.

Shaking his head sagely, Guardian correspondent David Smith opined, “In an age of division, disinformation and internet-fueled movements such as QAnon, conspiracy theories about who killed Kennedy and why are thriving as never before.”

I would bet that David Smith has barely cracked the surface of the JFK story. Journalists for the mainstream press routinely offer their judgments on subjects they know little about. Newspaper and TV reporters are captives of relentless deadlines and a pack mentality.

Despite their feisty reputations and their insatiable habit of awarding themselves with prizes, they are a timid lot. They are loath to bite the hands that feed them. This story is so epic—involving a brazen assault on American democracy—you would think the Fourth Estate would show a little humility in its ignorance. It never has.

As I wrote in my book ‘The Devil's Chessboard,’ Cold War-era national security officials like Allen Dulles enjoyed a cozy relationship with the corporate media. Dulles, the CIA director linked by me and other historians with the JFK assassination and cover-up, got himself appointed to the Warren Commission, playing so active a role that some observers said it should have been called the Dulles Commission.

After the Warren Report was released in 1964, Newsweek National Affairs Editor John Jay Iselin sent Dulles a gushing note, thanking him for helping the magazine direct its coverage of the report’s 26 volumes on a tight deadline. Newsweek’s cover story on the Warren Report, Iselin told Dulles “was made easier through your kindness in giving us some idea of what to be on the watch for.”

Dulles was on a nickname basis with New York Times executives and journalists throughout his career. When Dulles was named CIA director in 1953, Times general manager Julius Ochs Adler – “Julie,” as Dulles affectionately called him—warmly congratulated his friend “Allie.”

Times columnist C. L. Sulzberger was also a reliable advocate during Dulles’s reign as spymaster, with Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame later exposing their close connection in a Rolling Stone investigative article about the CIA’s media assets.

These days the press is so close to the national security state that the CIA doesn’t need a clandestine program like Operation Mockingbird to infiltrate it. Every night you can see a parade of former CIA, FBI, NSA and Pentagon officials on liberal news networks like MSNBC or CNN.

Essentially, from Ukraine to China to the Middle East, the corporate media acts as a mouthpiece for US empire. National security reporters soon learn that there is no access for them in Langley and Washington if they don’t report the official line. It’s clear to them: no access, no career.

What the press conveniently forgets, in its disdain for the “conspiracy culture,” is that the American people have been lied to by their government (and the obedient media) time after time. From Dallas to the Gulf of Tonkin to Iran-Contra to 9/11 to WMD—to Trump and Biden’s presidential decisions to allow the CIA to illegally keep secret some 4,000 government documents related to the Kennedy assassination.

A message to David Smith and the rest of the smug press corps: This refusal to come clean about some of our biggest national traumas is what has led to widespread public skepticism about authorities and official pronouncements.

There is a direct line between these government lies and the growth of QAnon and other crazy subcultures.

By the way, some conspiracy theories are cracked. And some are true. Do you think power prefers to operate in the open?

Now for some good news. As I’ve long observed, quoting Leonard Cohen, there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. The official version of what happened six decades ago in Dallas is so widely rejected, is so patently absurd, that even the Big Media is catching up to the truth.

It’s a mixed bag this anniversary season. Yes, we have useful idiots like the Guardian’s David Smith. But we also have documentaries like JFK: What the Doctors Saw on Paramount, the blunt eyewitness testimony of several members of the surgical team that worked on the mortally wounded Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital and saw with their own trained eyes that he had been struck by bullets from the front and rear. In other words, clear evidence of a conspiracy.

On the November 22 anniversary, we can watch on several streaming platforms the opening episode of Four Died Trying, a documentary series on the history-changing assassinations of the 1960s. This month, there is also the multipart podcast Who Killed JFK? produced by Hollywood actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner, who teamed up with longtime Kennedy assassination author Dick Russell.

You can also detect a slow movement in the right direction by the corporate press. In recent months, Peter Baker, The New York Times’s White House correspondent, has covered two important developments in the Kennedy case, the Landis revelation about the magic bullet and the discovery that the CIA was secretly reading Oswald’s mail before the Kennedy assassination.

This was an eye-popping story because the agency had long claimed that Oswald was off its radar before the assassination—a dubious assertion about a former Marine who defected to the Soviet Union, threatening to reveal military secrets, and then returned to this country with a Russian wife. Baker is clearly open to new information about the JFK case.

And New York magazine recently featured a generally positive profile of JFK expert Jefferson Morley, the dogged journalist who sometimes succeeds in making the mainstream press do its job—though strangely the magazine’s editors chose to delete the positive quotes about Morley from other Kennedy authorities.

Despite this flirtation with the truth, The New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media remain largely wedded to the official version of Dallas.

Last week I was asked by a Times opinion editor to write a JFK assassination op-ed, a landmark event considering my reputation. Unfortunately, the newspaper of record rejected my measured article. “The piece is rich and fascinating,” the editor emailed me, “but I don’t think I can move forward with it. The fascinating mobius strip of truth and conspiracy is very tricky for Times Opinion.” Whatever that means.

So, yes, the mainstream press is, let’s say kindly, a work in progress as we near the 60th milestone of the JFK assassination. The news media is still trailing far behind public opinion, even the Times Opinion section.

But if the mainstream press’s progress has been slow—some would say glacial—Hollywood, unfortunately, is even worse. The dream factory is where the truth goes to die. And the entertainment industry has even more power to shape public consciousness than the daily news barrage.

After Oliver Stone’s explosive movie JFK was released in 1991, the CIA reportedly vowed that another film like that—which blamed Kennedy’s murder on powerful government plotters—would never be made.

The agency was right. The CIA now operates a branch office in Hollywood which has done a very effective job at making sure that U.S. spies are portrayed in a heroic light and in canceling screen projects which take a different view.

After they were published, my New York Times-bestselling books – Brothers, on Robert Kennedy’s hidden search for the truth about the murder of his brother, and The Devil’s Chessboard, about the rise of Allen Dulles and his central involvement in the JFK assassination—were optioned by major studios and filmmakers. But neither book has come close to reaching the screen.

“They’ll never make your books in Hollywood,” Oliver Stone told me several years ago. So far, he’s been right.

What I’m about to tell you is painful. Darkly comic. Sure, it happens every day in Hollywood—after all, it’s Hollywood, Jake. But there’s a political dimension to my frustration. Yes, Oliver was probably right—they’ll never make movies or TV shows from my books. Or from anyone’s books, if you tell the truth about the Kennedy assassination.

A few years ago, I was sitting at a studio conference table with big producers and a major left-wing director. They wanted our feature to say the Mafia killed JFK, case closed. Well, I said, organized crime did play a role—gangsters are often recruited by the CIA to do the spy agency’s dirty work.

But, as my books demonstrate, Dallas was a national security operation. The movie producers just looked at me like I wasn’t getting it. Later, the director said to me on the phone: ‘We both know it’s bullshit. But let’s take the money and run.’ I didn’t. Now I hear director Barry Levinson and writer David Mamet are making a new movie. It says gangsters killed Kennedy. That one is getting made.

Hollywood continues to confound me and thwart me. Continues to buy the rights to my books and do nothing with them. I was raised there. My father Lyle Talbot was a cofounder of the Screen Actors Guild. My son Joe Talbot is the widely acclaimed director of The Last Black Man in San Francisco. I’ve learned how to write fiction and screenplays.

I even collaborated with Oliver Stone on a screenplay. That’s right. It hasn’t gone in front of the cameras yet. Maybe it will someday.

Yes, we must admit we’ve been losing the big media war. The corporate news media has been slow, very slow, to let in the light. And Hollywood, the other communications bastion, remains a twilight zone, a largely impregnable fortress. The land of superhero spies and fantastical propaganda.

So, what should we do at this point? Sixty years later. When the White House still sides with the CIA, in brazen violation of the law, and keeps some 4,000 documents about the Kennedy assassination secret. When our vigilant, watchdog press rouses itself and growls, “Oh, well. So it goes.”

By the way, while researching The Devil’s Chessboard, I filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the CIA and State Department for the travel records and passport history of William Harvey. He was the assassinations chief for the CIA during the Cold War and a Kennedy hater.

Before the JFK assassination, Harvey was spotted by his CIA deputy flying from Rome, where he was stationed at the time, to Dallas. A court ruled that the government could keep Harvey’s travel records hidden, though he died many years ago.

So, given all this official stonewalling, what should we do? Keep doing it ourselves. Keep ignoring the government and the big media gatekeepers. If the New York publishers and Hollywood studios persist in blocking us, we’ll keep going around them with podcasts and blogs and documentaries. That’s what we’ve always done.

If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own. That’s what Scoop Nisker, the late great San Francisco radio host, used to say.

I have a saying of my own: The best story wins. We have the truth on our side. And guess what? It’s a much better story. Keep saying what The New York Times doesn’t want to hear. Keep digging up information that will never get you on CNN.

Someday our citizens army will win.

Let me add one final comment as we depart, with apologies to my good friend Jeff Morley, who has done so much to advance the JFK case. Jeff spoke earlier today. It was a very good speech, but I must disagree with one of his statements. When it comes to understanding this murder most foul, we are more than just “warm.” We are hot, very hot.

Yes, there are crucial gaps in our understanding of the crime—like the names of the snipers who shot the president and who exactly financed the operation. But we know the larger truth. Top officials in the CIA and military organized the killing of President Kennedy and its cover-up.

They killed him because JFK was trying to wind down the Cold War and was threatening the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower belatedly warned the American people about. In other words, Kennedy was confronting a very lucrative racket. We’ve been at war ever since Dallas.

In 2019, a list of prominent Americans signed a so-called Truth and Reconciliation public statement, which said in part: “A growing body of evidence strongly indicates that the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was organized at high levels of the US power structure, and was implemented by top elements of the US national security apparatus using, among others, figures in the criminal underworld to help carry out the crime and cover-up.”

This powerful and definitive statement, which I helped organize, was signed among others by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel of the House Assassinations Committee; Dr. Robert McClelland of the Parkland Memorial Hospital surgical team; Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg; former Secret Service hero Abraham Bolden; and a who’s-who list of leading JFK researchers including Dr. Cyril Wecht, Dr. Gary Aguilar, James Douglass, Peter Dale Scott; Rex Bradford; James DiEugenio; John Newman—and Jeff Morley.

Sixty years after Dallas, let’s state loudly and clearly what we know. Even when the mainstream press and Hollywood refuse to listen.

The truth will out.