Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023

Showers | Sulphur Tufts | Court Delay | Breachers Post | Sheriff Report | Ed Notes | Catholic School | Reinstate Cubbison | Road Work | Wino's Crew | CDFW Grants | Garden Court | King Book | 1890 Map | Mills & Railroads | Yesterday's Catch | Solidarity Ignored | Caroling Request | Warriors Arc | Bridge Construction | Rampantly Corrupt | Lana Turner | Obscene Priorities | Kesey Bus | Disgusting Politicians | Satchel Paige | Farcical Pageant | Pooh Hunny | President Trump | Hay Rams | Mountain Lion | Cellmates

RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Yorkville 3.28" - Boonville 2.63" - Hopland 2.61" - Willits 1.87" - Ukiah 1.75" - Laytonville 1.67" - Covelo 1.64" - Leggett 1.56"

SHOWERS continue today. Additional rainfall is forecast this afternoon through Wednesday. A period of dry weather is expected on Thursday, before another frontal system bring additional rain on Friday. Temperatures lower over the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A rainy 57F on the coast this Tuesday morning. Rain & showers will continue thru tomorrow then dry on Thursday. Then scattered chances of rain thru the weekend. Next week is looking wet so far.

HEADS UP! Cubbison Court Date Delayed For One More Day

Hi All,

I'm hearing that Tuesday morning's court appearance will be postponed, at the Court's request, to Wednesday 12/20 at 1:30 pm due to a jury trial wrapping up tomorrow. I really appreciate your continued support.

Thanks,

Chamise Cubbison <chamisecubbison@gmail.com>

NICK WILSON: The Albion Field Station staffers who did the breaching posted their own story and pics to the Friends of Albion Field Station Facebook page the same evening, giving their first names and why they did it. They soon deleted the item but not before someone screen captured and shared it.

SHERIFF’S END OF YEAR REPORT

Editor,

Here we are in December and this is the time of year we receive updates regarding legislation as well as predictions on new laws which will be effecting us in California as well as the United States. 

Sadly we are seeing crime continue while more legislation is handed down which seems to miss the focus of public safety.

Each year at the end of the fiscal year cycle, the Attorney General releases the annual crime report for our state. If the report is good news, it is often released with a large press release with many government leaders enjoying accolades for a job well done. 

When the news is less than favorable, it will often be released on a Friday afternoon with minimal media coverage. This year the Department of Justice quietly, released its annual report on crime. This report was released the Friday preceding the 4th of July weekend. This report revealed violence and property crimes spiked in 2022.

For every action there is a reaction. When fire danger is at an all-time high, we ask our residents to prepare their homes have defendable space and take steps in home hardening. This allows our first responders and fire service partners better odds of saving lives and homes. This is simply common sense and it is truly a “help us help you” tactic. 

When crime spikes we see we need to see our residents take the same approach and work hard to remain diligent in protection of themselves and their property. This is simply the way things have to work. I want to encourage all of our residents to help us help you and be prepared. The massive increase in drug related incidents has also lead to large increases in property crimes and crimes against persons.

Thefts from mail boxes and thefts of packages from front porches are always an issue around the holidays. Please get your mail every day. If you have a rural mail box please install a locking mail box this helps deter mail thieves who are looking for the easiest targets. When shopping please don’t leave large amounts of merchandise in your vehicles. That type of activity will make your vehicle a target. 

Remember the items you purchase are never worth your life or the life of another person. Last week we saw the Oakland 7-Eleven security guard who was shot and killed while trying to stop someone from stealing from the store. This is truly a concerning time and I remain hopeful things will change.

Having Security systems and cameras has been very helpful in solving crimes in Mendocino County. 

Please stay connected with your family friends and neighbors. Being good neighbors and looking out for our fellow residents will never go out of style. Lets all work hard to support each other and keep each other safe. 

Thank you

Sheriff Matt Kendall

ED NOTES

MOHAMMED ADAM, Stone Mountain, Georgia/Laytonville. “Possession of money for use” (in drug transaction, presumably), conspiracy.

ABDU KIMO, Clarkston, Georgia/Laytonville. “Possession of money for use” (in drug transaction, presumably), conspiracy.

YOHANA SEBAHTU, Stone Mountain, Georgia/Laytonville. “Possession of money for use” (in drug transaction, presumably), conspiracy.

MAYBE a sign that the Mendo marijuana business is on the rebound? The arrest last week of these three Georgia dudes near Laytonville who were said to be carrying a large amount of cash, how much exactly has not been revealed despite our asking. Georgia's a long way from the Emerald Triangle. Why drive all the way out here with all that cash if not to buy Mendo Mellow, which is what the cops allege? 

THE PSYCHOLOGY of Lilliput applies, I think, to DA Eyster. As Mendo's top law enforcement officer in this odd, far-flung jurisdiction of fewer than a hundred thousand people, few of whom pay the slightest attention to local government, and a guy who refuses to speak to anybody critical of him, which leaves the County's, ahem, most prevalent media out in the cold, and hardly for the first time that the Captain Queeg of the County Courthouse and Ukiah's lead lawn guy has banished us from his fervid embrace, but he gets away with his self-imposed public silence because who dares challenge the sole Brobdingnagian in Lilliput?

TOMORROW, DA BROB appears before his old pal, Judge Faulder, to argue that he isn't biased against Ms. Cubbison, that he can fairly prosecute her. I guess the DA will also throw in the cockamamie, pro forma opinion from the State Attorney General's office of time-servers which has magically found that the DA shows no signs of bias against Ms. Cubbison. 

NO BIAS? This is institutional-quality delusion. It would take a tiny bit of courage for Judge Faulder to rule against Eyster since they occupy the same premises, but Eyster's unhinged pursuit of Ms. Cubbison is obvious to everyone else in and out of the County Courthouse.

BACK IN MID-OCTOBER, Eyster said accusations that “he was out to get” Cubbison were untrue. “Neither my staff nor I have used or will use our positions to seek retribution or purported vendettas against any defendant, public sector or otherwise, here in Mendocino County.” He urged “law-abiding citizens” to “Not be influenced by the misinformation. Not to engage in non-factual speculation. Let the local courts do their job and resolve their matters.”

IN FACT, the DA's office has spent many man hours in pursuit of Cubbison. The DA found that the Sheriff's investigation wasn't good enough for a prosecution so he sicced his investigators on her case, first having offered to drop felony charges if she would plead out to a misdemeanor and resign. No bias?

IN A NEW COURT FILING Friday, Cubbison’s attorney Chris Andrian argued that “Mr. Eyster’s retaliatory behavior toward Ms. Cubbison clearly demonstrates that he has an axe to grind with her,” and that he is attempting to prosecute the Auditor for “the same misuse of public funds she alleged of him.”

MIKE GENIELLA: For Andrian, a noted Sonoma County defense attorney, the filing was a stinging rebuke to the state Attorney General’s decision announced this past Tuesday not to intervene in the case. The AG’s San Francisco office issued an opinion that it found “no actual proof” of conflict on Eyster’s part, and that the DA has not subjected Cubbison to “unfair treatment.”

ANDRIAN said he will ask Judge Faulder, who has the final decision, to formally recuse Eyster at Tuesday’s scheduled court hearing from prosecuting the criminal case. Andrian said there in fact is evidence of Eyster’s conflict of interest based on his “prior treatment of Ms. Cubbison,” and his “retaliatory decision to prosecute Ms. Cubbison for the same misuse of public funds she alleged of him.”

NOTE to the defendant community. I've tried to help you folks before with what may seem to you trivial advice, but you've paid no heed, which goes with the lifestyle, I guess, and which gets you busted more than any other single factor. Ready for Uncle Bruce's repeat on how to stay out of jail? This isn't the only way, of course, but here's what I primarily advise: Don't drive around after dark on a rainy winter night, especially a week night when the cops are all dressed up with nothing to do, and here you come, many on parole or probation, no search warrant required, in your rolling felony wagon! A bunch of you are known by sight, off the evidence of the daily booking photos, and the cops know if you're out late you're good at least for misdemeanors and, typically, warrants. Pretext stops, you say? Tail light out on your beater? Slam dunk for the cops, but you do it time after time after time.

JOHN REDDING: My besties and me at the St. Anthony's Christmas dinner. 

The good people of that parish raised $1,245 for San Jose Del Rio Catholic School in Fort Bragg. Please help the school to continue teaching traditional courses and values to young students.

BRING BACK OUR AUDITOR

Editor,

Two months ago Chamise Cubbison, Mendocino County's Auditor-Controller / Treasurer-Tax Collector, was suspended from her elected office without salary or benefits.

I am very upset. I voted for Chamise Cubbison for Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector in 2022. Chamise Cubbison was elected. She earned 15,286 votes. (More than the District Attorney)

Now the Mendocino Board of Supervisors is taking away our right to have an independent auditor. We voted for Chamise Cubbison and now she is replaced by a person appointed by the Board. Who will do the independent audits of The Board, the CEO’S office and District Attorney’s Offices as well as many school districts. Who is watching the money?

Chamise Cubbison was elected by the citizens of Mendocino County in June 2022. We have a right to be represented by an elected auditor and not someone selected by the Board.

Val Muchowski

Philo

CITY OF FORT BRAGG STREETS REHAB PROJECT 

Schedule Update: E. Oak Street & N. Harold Street & Franklin Street

Construction work will resume in the New Year. Please continue to use caution in areas where signs are present in construction zones. 

Franklin Street: Road construction will resume the week of January 2nd. 

Oak Street: Additional improvements will be made in the New Year to the road at the Oak and Harold St. intersection. Construction crews have placed temporary controls in the area during this break in the work, please follow these controls and continue to use caution in the area.

STATE FISH & WILDLIFE GRANTS $14 MIL FOR MENDO FISH PROJECTS

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) today announced the selection of 26 projects that will receive a collective $14 million to protect, restore and enhance the freshwater habitats of salmon and steelhead in northern California.

Trout Unlimited, Inc. was awarded more than $2 million for the Duffy Gulch Fish Passage Improvement Project in Mendocino County. This project will remove a railroad stream crossing along the Mendocino Railway and restore fish access to nearly three miles of high-quality spawning and rearing habitat in Duffy Gulch, a tributary to the Noyo River. The new crossing will be a 45-foot diameter steel arch that will allow fish passage and is capable of handling a 100-year flood event.

All projects were awarded through CDFW’s Fisheries Restoration Grant Program (FRGP). FRGP was first established in 1981 and since 2000, has included funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. The fund was created by Congress to reverse the declines of Pacific salmon and steelhead throughout California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska. This award also includes funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act to help support the recovery, conservation, and resilience of Pacific salmon and steelhead.

“California’s salmon continue to face the challenges of both past and present, through countless legacy impacts to fish passage and growing climate-driven threats to their seasonal cycles,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “In the face of these grim challenges, we find optimism and hope through projects like these, which will restore access to miles of river habitat and acres of floodplain, greatly improving the productivity and sustainably of fish populations.”

Other Awarded Project Highlights

California Conservation Corps Watershed Stewards Program 2023

(Nearly $700,000 Awarded to California Conservation Corps Watershed Stewards Program in partnership with AmeriCorps)

The California Conservation Corps Watershed Stewards Program in Partnership with AmeriCorps will enlist 44 Corps members throughout coastal California to enhance watersheds that support salmon, steelhead and other types of migrating fish through restoration and protection, community education and recruiting volunteers for hands-on projects.

Lagunitas Creek Coho Habitat Enhancement Plan

(Nearly $600,000 Awarded to the Marin Municipal Water District)

This project will fully fund the design, permitting and environmental review for Phase 2 of the Lagunitas Creek Coho Habitat Enhancement Plan. Phase 2 consists of five enhancement sites located within Samuel P. Taylor State Park in Marin County. This project has also been funded through CDFW Proposition 1 and Proposition 68 grants in collaboration with Marin Water and California State Parks since 2020.

In response to the 2023 Fisheries Habitat Restoration Grant Solicitation, CDFW received 35 proposals requesting more than $23 million in funding. The proposals underwent a thorough technical review involving subject matter experts from CDFW and NOAA.

The complete list of approved projects is available on the Fisheries Restoration Grant Program website.

YEAR END BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Mike Williams: 

The most relevant and comprehensive book to come out of the Redwood Empire in years is Greg King’s ‘The Ghost Forest.’ This thoroughly researched book details the history of the redwood belt from 1850 until the present. From the very beginning of illegal consolidation of fraudulent homestead claims through self dealing by University of California regents to domination by timber barons and corporations, the book weaves together the interconnected industries that came to dominate one of the greatest natural resources on the planet.

King was able to discover the hidden history of the Save the Redwoods League, whose original intentions were to preserve a highway screen and a few camping groves. They worked behind the scenes to discourage a Redwood National Park. Their own study recommended preservation of most of the Klamath River watershed, but they buried the report.

King was one of the first outsiders to discover what became Headwaters Forest. He was heavily involved in Redwood Summer, he grew up next to Armstrong Redwoods in Sonoma, and the King Range on the Humboldt coast is named for his family.

The book is critical of the despoliation the has occurred over the last 150 years. Only four percent of the old growth remains. Mendocino County was hit the hardest. Once home to vast continuous redwood watersheds, now we have Hendy and Montgomery Woods and a few coastal groves. Humboldt and Del Norte is where more preservation occurred.

Even if one is neutral or supportive of the timber industry there is much to learn from this book. It reveals much about the development of our state and the importance of redwood lumber, not just for home construction but for so much more. Water pipes, tanks, railroad ties, shingles, telephone poles, were just some of the uses.

Read this book and you will know how we got to this point in the history of probably the greatest forest on earth.

COUNTING LUMBER MILLS & LOGGING RAILROADS

by Katy Tahja

With the local timber industry ever waning in Mendocino County it’s educational to look back and see what a role logging railroads and lumber mills once played in the local economy.

Take logging railroads — there were once at least 23 separate locations in the county supporting a railroad. Remember railroad lines were constantly consolidating and changing ownership. As an example, the Albion railroad, beginning in the 1880’s, eventually controlled Navarro’s railroad.

Albion’s rail lines went east as far as Comptche and Navarro — Andersonia, across the river from Piercy in the north county built 17 miles of track but never operated. It did hook up to the Bear Harbor and Eel River Railroad which did run successfully 1896-1905 — Boonville’s Charles Lumber Company 1952-1957 hard eight miles of track but this writer is unfamiliar with this line.

One of the problems concocting lists like this is the quality of the research materials. This writer is using a typed list decades old for this story which was written by an unknown historian. Whomever that person was I hope their resources were accurate.

Alphabetically on to Branscomb, which had a one mile railroad before 1924. Then Cuffey’s Cove, just north of Greenwood (Elk) had a rail line in 1875. De Haven, up by Westport, had a rail line in the first two decades of the 20th century. Fort Bragg’s railroad started in 1882 and became one of the biggest in the county eventually reaching Willits with 50 miles of track. Glen Blair had 15 miles of track 1886-1903 before it was absorbed by Fort Bragg’s operations.

Greenwood (Elk) had four miles of track in 1876 but later expanded to 40 miles and survived until 1935. Gualala had 23 miles of track 1872-1923. Hardy Creek on the north coast had five miles of track while Laytonville, like Branscomb, only had one mile. Starting in 1901 Mendocino’s varied lumber company lines ran 15 miles into the woods. Navarro had at least 10 miles of track from the 1880’s to the 1920’s.

Rails around Noyo harbor all became part of Ft. Bragg operations. Rockport had six miles of track from the 1890’s to the 1930’s. Westport had five miles of track in the early decades of the 20th century while Whitesboro near Albion had 10 miles of track in the 19th century. Willits had Northwestern Pacific Railroads came through from Sonoma County headed north to Humboldt County.

Remember — all this trackage had one purpose — getting cut down trees to a sawmill and then finished lumber to a shipping point. My favorite tiny rail line was in Cleone north of Fort Bragg. A tramway in 1885 extended from Laguna Point in what is now MacKerricher State Park to Little Valley a few miles east. Gravity rolled the loaded finished lumber cars downhill, then horses pulled the empty cars back uphill to the sawmill.

Again — in alphabetical order — here are the places that had lumber mills worthy of notice and the year they began. Ackerman Creek in Ukiah had a mill in 1859, Albion in 1852, Anderson Valley in 1876 and Anderson in 1905. Bear Harbor and Branscomb had mills in the 1880’s, Cahto, west of Laytonville, in 1857 and Calpella in 1858. Caspar started a mill in 1860, Covelo in 1862, Cuffey’s Cove in 1870 and Cottoneva (Rockport) in 1867.

In 1864 Fish Rock on the south coast had a mill, Fort Bragg in 1884 though Noyo had one in 1852, Garcia River In 1869, Glen Blair in 1882, and Greenwood (Elk) in 1875. Hardy Creek was cutting timber in 1892, Howard Creek and Laytonville in 1895, Little River in 1864 and Long Valley near Willits in 1859.

Mendocino’s mill started in 1852 and Navarro a decade later. Needle Rock on the far north coast had a mill in 1896, Newport near the Ten Mile River in 1875, Potter Valley in 1863, Salmon Creek south of Albion in 1876, Schooner Gulch in 1875, Sherwood in 1867, Signal Port in1864, Usal in 1889, Wages Creek in 1881, and Willits in 1901.

Ukiah didn’t have a mill until 1861, but scored a huge one with the Masonite operation in 1950. These, then, are some of the railroads and mills that made the county what it is today. This writer certainly may have missed some noteworthy locations but it was fun to pull this many together.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, December 18, 2023

WARREN BECK, Ukiah. Criminal threats with intent to terrorize.

MICHELLE NGUYEN, Upper Lake/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for refusing chemical DUI test.

MIGUEL PLASCENCIA-BARAJAS, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for reckless driving, resisting.

JEWISH AND PALESTINIAN MARINITES Again Show Solidarity Supporting Ceasefire Resolution at Board of Supervisors

On December 12, 2023, the same day that 153 UN member nations voted for a permanent ceasefire to stop Israel's genocidal attacks on Palestinian civilians, young Palestinian and Jewish Americans solemnly joined one another to urge the Marin Board of Supervisors to propose and pass a permanent ceasefire resolution. This solidarity is something that has not been seen before in Marin County, which has both a relatively high Jewish population that is well represented in local elected offices, and a Palestinian population whose presence is so subdued that it is difficult even for Palestinians living in Marin to parse their actual numbers.

In other words, the combined Jewish-Palestinian effort was newsworthy on the local level. But of course, none of the County's local media covered the meeting. Nor have local media yet tracked any of the substantial progress of the ceasefire resolution petition started by Joe McGarry, a resident of Fairfax. Per a screenshot I received from a private citizen, it appears The Marin Independent-Journal's Richard Halstead claimed in an email that the decision not to cover the matter was up to his editor, Jennifer Upshaw, and that Halstead agreed with her decision because he didn't "see either side of this issue as having a claim to the moral high ground."

This is an interesting explanation for a reporter, because determining "moral high ground" has never been a prerequisite for reporting on the facts of a matter, and morality would be a subjective determination to begin with.…

marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/jewish-and-palestinian-marinites

WARRIORS AND DRAYMOND GREEN ARE UNRAVELING IN A WAY NBA HAS NEVER SEEN

by Bruce Jenkins

Short takes from the 3-Dot Lounge, where the Golden State Warriors need to remove “they find ways to lose” from the public discourse:

• There is very little precedent for what the Warriors have done: 12 years with the same essential core and at least four championships. In fact, the list of comparisons stops at two, and both of those teams maintained harmony to the finish.

The San Antonio Spurs went 14 seasons with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker at the heart of things, and by the time they all retired, the mood was joyous and celebratory as if they satisfied every critic on their Hall of Fame paths.

It’s an awfully long time ago — ancient times, to hear most tell it — but Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics won 11 titles in 13 years (1957-69). This was before free agency, opulent salary structure and massive television deals, but certain standards are timeless. As early as 1960, those Celtics preached racial harmony and had four Black men in the team photo, eventually fielding the first all-Black starting five. They were the most enlightened team playing the purest form of basketball. From the rosters of those 13 seasons, 11 players had their numbers retired — and not one of them ever left the Celtics to go elsewhere.

Put it this way, then: The Warriors are the first team ever to fashion such admirable longevity and have it turn into a circus in the twilight.

• It didn’t seem possible, did it? That after Draymond Green’s exhaustive history of discord and suspensions, he actually could get worse? I was among those who defended him unconditionally as the heart-and-soul essence of this team, right up until about a month ago. Today, I hope he gets sent away for a good long time. It’s only so often that anyone can watch him confidently trot off to the locker room, done for the night, convinced he did nothing wrong.

• Memphis guard Ja Morant, currently near the end of his 25-game suspension, said he had “some horrible days” as the team and the league moved on without him. Green needs to experience a few of those days. Is it really that healthy that he’ll frequently be around the team, showing the best of his engaging personality? He should know how it feels to see a “No Vacancy” sign on this franchise.

• Because he’s such a decent fellow at heart, Green eventually will convince a lot of people that he has changed. But how will anyone know that until he puts on a uniform and the competitive juices start flowing? 

• Green’s problem is that he has no idea what time it is. In the 1970s and ’80s, players were rarely suspended for any reason — certainly not for anything as inconsequential as Green’s pathetic “scuffle” with LeBron James in the 2016 Finals (Green shouldn’t even have been ejected). Players literally threw hard, on-target punches and were allowed to stay in the game. There was no such thing as a “flagrant” foul, and the referees were thick-skinned tough guys who took a ton of abuse but maintained complete control, rarely spoiling the spectators’ evening with a petty ejection.

Today’s league has grown so repulsed by violence, or even nasty words spoken without a hint of body language, that it employs a flock of dreadfully sensitive referees oblivious to the damage done. (See the recent ejections of Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo, each for no apparent reason.) Heaven help a player who stands over a fallen opponent in defiance, throws up his hands in disgust or mutters an obscenity only a dozen people can hear. Fans need to know why someone draws a technical; knock it off with the prissy nonsense.

That said, the league stands tall where it counts. There’s a serious image problem when Morant becomes a trouble-making nuisance off the court. When a drug-addled player just can’t shake the habit. Or when Draymond Green threatens to put some unsuspecting opponent in the hospital with his reckless, nonstop rage. The hammer should always come down hard.

• What needs to happen now: a full-on youth movement when it comes to Steve Kerr’s rotations, Chris Paul providing leadership, and some penetrating words from owner Joe Lacob. 

* * *

We wouldn’t know…

• Shohei Ohtani came to the United States with a plan: Don’t let people know anything about him, aside from the balls and strikes — and he succeeded in remarkable fashion. Even the traveling Japanese journalists say Ohtani’s interviews offer nothing of significance. Curiously, the man is six seasons into his major-league existence and hasn’t learned English (although, much like the great Ichiro Suzuki, he probably knows more than he lets on). I’d love to see him open a media session next spring with, “Well, fellas, here we are again.”

• Thanks to Ohtani’s strategy to have the majority of his money deferred, a number of future free agents will be asked to do the same. Not all of them will be thrilled.

• Don’t be deceived by the clips of Jung Hoo Lee, the Giants’ free-agent acquisition from South Korea, if every at-bat shows the radical uppercut of a launch-angle swing. Find another posting and you’ll see him smacking down on the ball for the purest contact. There’s no way of knowing if he’ll be a .300 hitter in the big leagues, or play elite defense in center field, but he’s a new face in the outfield. Now the Giants need two more.

• Dodger-hating Giants fans will love this: As the rumors swirled about Ohtani’s destination, Dodgersnation.com cited “multiple sources” in announcing, “The wait is over. Shohei Ohtani is signing with the Toronto Blue Jays.”

• Who’s really ticked off about those erroneous reports: people who hurriedly placed bets on Toronto to win the whole thing.

• Troy Aikman is a glowing exception to network TV analysts terrified to criticize the NFL in any way. During one of those endless replay reviews in the Packers-Giants game Monday night, Aikman told his ABC audience, “Just make a call. This is ridiculous, what we’re watching now. We see something, it takes five seconds. It takes them five minutes.”

• His talent often offset by his wandering on-court mind, guard Jordan Poole hasn’t resembled anything close to a franchise centerpiece in Washington, entering Friday shooting 29% from 3-point range and leaving observers wondering if he’ll soon be up for trade.

• Yes, the Lakers actually will raise a banner to the rafters (a bit smaller than the league-champion version) to commemorate the “NBA Cup.” It’s likely to confuse some people, wondering exactly what it’s about. Easy answer: seven games in November and December.

(SFgate.com)

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The country is sick. Our filthy government exists because the people permit it to exist and why do the people permit so much rampant corruption? Because the people themselves are rampantly corrupt.

1. Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry in America.

2. Drug use is rampant in America funding the cartels and granting them power.

3. Americans are in debt up to their eyeballs and own nothing.

4. Americans would rather live on the dole than take care of themselves.

5. Americans engage in fornication before ever considering marriage and commitment.

6. As a result of rampant fornication women murder their own offspring as a form or means of birth control and celebrate it as a personal progressive right.

7. Americans put celebrity scum on a pedestal and worship them while vilifying the true deity.

8. Americans no longer pray but worship government, government, which is actually a creation of the people.

9. Idol worshipping.

10. Idleness. How many countless hours are lost to people watching the tee vee when they could be doing something productive?

11. Physical fitness no longer matters. The majority of Americans are fat, disgusting slobs.

12. Tattoos. Facial piercings. Botox. Fake boobs, fake asses. Blue hair.

Need I say more?

LANA TURNER had been making movies for EIGHTEEN years when she showed herself off in The Prodigal!

She was born Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner in 1921 in Idaho. Her father was murdered when she was a young girl, and her mother moved to California. 

In 1937, she was discovered at a soda fountain (not Schwab's, but one close by), and she had a small role in 1937's ‘They Won't Forget,’ and she became very popular very quickly. 

She remained a top leading actress for over 20 years, though her turbulent personal life definitely affected her career (including the murder of her violent gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato, by her own 14 year old daughter Cheryl Crane).

She also had EIGHT husbands, the first of which was bandleader Artie Shaw, who himself was married EIGHT times, including to Ava Gardner and Shaw married both Turner and Gardner when they were young and at the height of their beauty.

Some of her movies include: ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice,’ ‘Imitation of Life,’ ‘The Bad and the Beautiful,’ ‘Peyton Place’ and ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ 

She passed away in 1995 at the age of 74.

OBSCENE PRIORITIES

Editor: 

Definition of obscenity: ob-scen-i-ty (noun): the quality or state of being deeply offensive or disgusting to morality or decency. Used in a sentence: While schoolteachers, social workers, fire, police and military personnel struggle to make ends meet, the ultimate obscenity is to pay baseball stars a $700 million salary (“Dodgers give two-way star Ohtani record-shattering $700 million, 10-year deal,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, December 12. 2023).

Bob Canning

Petaluma

SECRETS LEAD TO AUTOCRACY

Dear Editor,

America has had its political flip-flop artists in the past, like President Woodrow Wilson. Anyone who followed Wilson down a political path was almost certain to meet him coming back the opposite direction.

However, virtually all of today’s politicians are as bad as the worst of those of the past. They don’t know what they are doing, unless it is positioning themselves for career enrichment, usurping the law, or buying votes through misleading speeches or advertising. Being a politician means caring more about money and power than about people.

Our politicians don’t know the history of this country. They don’t know the difference between democracy and autocracy. They don’t know how to give a straight answer to a question.

A politician squirms away from answering a question, answers a different question, or goes off on a campaign talking point.

Government leaders in a democracy are elected to serve and teach, not to hide anti-democratic activity going on behind the scenes.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah

IN THE GAME OF STRIP POKER, SOMEONE ENDS UP NAKED

by James Kunstler

“Time for Us to wake up. The choice could not be more clear. If you want a Fascist Dictatorship, choose Trump. If you want to preserve American Democracy, choose President Biden.” — Hollywood pundit Rob Reiner on X

“Joe Biden” is only the most obviously weak device in the feckless and misbegotten regime installed via the blob’s US color revolution of 2020. This sort of coup d’état, you understand, was well-rehearsed by our combined intel, 4-gen war, and propaganda units over prior decades in fractious foreign places like Kyrgyzstan (2005), Egypt (2011), and Ukraine (2014). So, it was only a matter of time before these geniuses turned their political black magic on the home front, against their own citizens. But wasn’t it ol’ Karl Marx himself who observed that tragic history repeats as farce?

Thus, the farcical pageant, in a land of fake everything, of America’s fake government attempting to rescue itself from the web of lies and subterfuge it so cleverly spun for itself to keep all its sundry rackets going. For instance: the preposterous idea that “Joe Biden” is running for reelection. Does anybody over age seven, even in Beverly Hills, believe this whopper? I doubt it. But the absurd meme is repeated endlessly in the relic newspapers and floundering cable news channels, and for one reason: elite members in the party behind all this mischief — that is, the Democratic Party of Chaos — are desperate to avoid prosecution for things like seditious conspiracy to defraud the electorate, bribery, and treason.

They have two reasons to be really afraid. One, of course, is Donald Trump, the once and increasingly probable future president, and Bobby Kennedy, the outsider warrior personifying America’s erstwhile interest in the eternal verities. Both of them promise to bring a heavy hand down on the coupsters, going back to the coup preliminaries in the Obama White House, and including the Clintons, more than one US attorney general and their adjutants, a groaning raft of former and current high officials in and around the blob’s vicious intel “community,” and the public health rogues who engineered the Covid-19 fraud and vaccine crime.

The blob’s weakness and idiocy are clearly on display in the four court cases against Mr. Trump, which look like a cartoon of thieves throwing stuff out of a hijacked furniture truck at the cars in pursuit behind them. There’s DA Alvin Bragg’s joke case in Manhattan around the dead-on-arrival Stormy Daniels business. End-of-story, as T0ny Soprano always liked to say. New York’s AG, Letitia James, vowed to get Mr. Trump on something, anything, while electioneering, and delivered a bullshit case to Judge Arthur Engoron that is sure to get tossed on appeal — and will eventually get both Ms. James and the Judge disbarred (and possibly prosecuted) for their trouble. There’s Fulton County (GA) DA Fani Willis’s laughable RICO rap against Trump, Giuliani, et al., for complaining about the obviously janky ballot-counting activity there in 2020.

And then, there are US AG Merrick Garland’s two cases against the former president. The DC case was brought under Special Counsel Jack Smith, claiming that Mr. Trump somehow led an “insurrection” at the US Capitol on 1/6/21. This turkey was rehearsed in earlier House J-6 Committee hearings, so shabbily staged that Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) arranged to have all the evidence destroyed (including witness deposition transcripts) as soon as the hearings wrapped. Mr. Trump’s defense is probably immaterial in Judge Tanya Chutkan’s DC courtroom. But one of the case’s main predicates, the law against “obstructing official proceedings,” is about to be adjudicated in the US Supreme Court involving convicted J-6 defendants. If the court tosses it, Jack Smith’s case goes out the window too. If not, and Mr. Trump is successfully railroaded by Judge Chutkan, you can be sure the appeal will be expedited to SCOTUS and die there. If there even is a trial before the election of 2024. In any case, Mr. Trump will still be on the ballot next November.

The second Garland / Jack Smith case is the most interesting. That would be the Mar-a-Lago documents case. According to the reporter who styles himself as “Sundance” at The Last Refuge news site, the purpose of the August 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid was not to seek classified documents at issue in a dispute between the former president and the National Archives — as the public has been given to understand by the blob’s news media. The actual purpose was to find a 10-inch-thick dossier of documents collected over many months by Mr. Trump’s deputies to be used in future prosecutions of DOJ, FBI, and other officials and private persons (including Hillary Clinton, the DNC, the DNC’s law firm Perkins Coie), who were implicated in the Russia collusion hoax, especially after the failure of Special Counsel John Durham to even depose many of these parties and persons.

There were apparently many copies made of Mr. Trump’s dossier, and distributed among anti-blobsters, but these were all heavily redacted — names were all blacked out. The binder at Mar-a-Lago was unredacted and this was what the FBI was after in the August 2022 raid. Is there any chance by now that the FBI hasn’t disposed of 10,000 emails and documents that were in its possession pertaining to the Russia hoax and other crimes? Do you suppose that the unredacted Trump dossier was the only copy? I wouldn’t. So far, Mr. Trump and his lawyers have not mentioned this. Why wouldn’t they play this hand close to the chest? Will it be consequential in the long and tortured course of things? What do you think?

(kunstler.com)

TRUMP OR NOT TRUMP

(1) I’m not a Dem, for goodness sakes, but I’ll never vote for Trump. I don’t get why many of you want him to win, other than desperation. He’s loud, brash, unnecessarily uncouth, unwise, and politically inept – just look at his first term. You let yourself hope he’d make a positive difference, when all indications are that being a 2nd term president would be a repeat of the 1st. You don’t have to worry about the actions of the Dems, he’ll hurt us on his own. I don’t dislike him – actually I rather like him. After all, he’s a real estate man.

IMO, protesting by not voting is being patriotic.

Most important is to not let your feelings about the future control you. Taking care of yourself and your loved ones is primary.

(2) You honestly don’t know why people want President Trump back in office? Under Trump we had low inflation, low interest rates, low gas prices, very low unemployment, Putin was afraid to make any moves into Ukraine, the President of North Korea actively sought peace wtih the South, and so much more. . . .under Biden we have ruinously high inflation, high gas prices, high electricity and natural gas prices, a bad economy, high and ever-rising interest rates, pushing up mortgage payments and preventing many young people from being able to afford to buy a home, multiple wars have broken out crime is skyrocketing. ..was your post meant as some kind of a joke? Surely you cannot seriously be asking why people would vote for President Trump? Been to the grocery store lately, checked your 401k, pumped some gas?

THE TEMPERATURE AT GAME TIME was -8 (F) at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium for the NFL Championship Game, played on December 18, 1945. The Rams, just days away from moving to Los Angeles, resorted to using some hay for warmth.

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I had a job. I worked for an outfit called Defenders of Fur Bearers (now known as Defenders of Wildlife). I was caretaker and head janitor of a 70,000-acre wildlife refuge in the vicinity of Aravaipa Canyon in southern Arizona. The Whittell Wildlife Preserve, as we called it, was a refuge for mountain lion, javelina, a few black bear, maybe a wolf or two, a herd of whitetail deer, and me, to name the principal fur bearers.

I was walking along Aravaipa Creek one afternoon when I noticed fresh mountain lion tracks leading ahead of me. Big tracks, the biggest lion tracks I've seen anywhere. Now I've lived most of my life in the Southwest, but I am sorry to admit that I had never seen a mountain lion in the wild. Naturally I was eager to get a glimpse of this one.

It was getting late in the day, the sun already down beyond the canyon wall, so I hurried along, hoping I might catch up to the lion and get one good look at him before I had to turn back and head home. But no matter how fast I walked and then jogged along, I couldn't seem to get any closer; those big tracks kept leading ahead of me, looking not five minutes old, but always disappearing around the next turn in the canyon.

Twilight settled in, visibility getting poor. I realized I'd have to call it quits. I stopped for a while, staring upstream into the gloom of the canyon. I could see the buzzards settling down for the evening in their favorite dead cottonwood. I heard the poor-wills and the spotted toads beginning to sing, but of that mountain lion I could neither hear nor see any living trace.

I turned around and started home. I'd walked maybe a mile when I thought I heard something odd behind me. I stopped and looked back—nothing; nothing but the canyon, the running water, the trees, the rocks, the willow thickets. I went on and soon I heard that noise again-the sound of footsteps.

I stopped. The noise stopped. Feeling a bit uncomfortable now-it was getting dark-with all the ancient superstitions of the night starting to crawl from the crannies of my soul, I looked back again.

And this time I saw him. About fifty yards behind me, poised on a sand bar, one front paw still lifted and waiting, stood this big cat, looking straight at me. I could see the gleam of the twilight in his eyes. I was startled as always by how small a cougar's head seems but how long and lean and powerful the body really is. To me, at that moment, he looked like the biggest cat in the world. He looked dangerous. Now I know very well that mountain lions are supposed almost never to attack human beings. I knew there was nothing to fear-but I couldn't help thinking maybe this lion is different from the others. Maybe he knows we're in a wildlife preserve, where lions can get away with anything. I was not unarmed; I had my Swiss army knife in my pocket with the built-in can opener, the corkscrew, the two-inch folding blade, the screwdriver. Rationally there was nothing to fear; all the same I felt fear.

And something else too: I felt what I always feel when I meet a large animal face to face in the wild: I felt a kind of affection and the crazy desire to communicate, to make some kind of emotional, even physical contact with the animal. After we'd stared at each other for maybe five seconds-it seemed at the time like five minutes-I held out one hand and took a step toward the big cat and said something ridiculous like, "Here, kitty, kitty." The cat paused there on three legs, one paw up as if he wanted to shake hands. But he didn't respond to my advance.

I took a second step toward the lion. Again the lion remained still, not moving a muscle, not blinking an eye. And I stopped and thought again and this time I understood that however the big cat might secretly feel, I myself was not yet quite ready to shake hands with a mountain lion. Maybe someday. But not yet. I retreated.

I turned and walked homeward again, pausing every few steps to look back over my shoulder. The cat had lowered his front paw but did not follow me. The last I saw of him, from the next bend of the canyon, he was still in the same place, watching me go. I hurried on through the evening, stopping now and then to look and listen, but if that cat followed me any further I could detect no sight or sound of it.

I haven't seen a mountain lion since that evening, but the experience remains shining in my memory. I want my children to have the opportunity for that kind of experience. I want my friends to have it. I want even our enemies to have it-they need it most. And someday, possibly, one of our children's children will discover how to get close enough to that mountain lion to shake paws with it, to embrace and caress it, maybe even teach it something, and to learn what the lion has to teach us.

— Edward Abbey, from “Freedom and Wilderness, Wilderness and Freedom”