Mendocino County Today: Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024

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STATE AG ACKNOWLEDGES LOCAL CONTROVERSY OVER CUBBISON CRIMINAL CASE

by Mike Geniella

The state Attorney General’s Office is sticking with plans to appear Friday in Mendocino County Superior Court to officially oppose removal of District Attorney David Eyster from his attempt to prosecute the County’s suspended Auditor for misappropriation of County funds.

In an update, however, a Justice Department spokeswoman acknowledged awareness of a mushrooming local controversary over Eyster’s action against Auditor Chamise Cubbison, and mounting criticism that the DA is displaying a pattern of conflicts of interest with Cubbison and past County Auditors, as he did with some law enforcement personnel in a string of local police misconduct cases that provoked public outcry in 2022.

“We are aware of the additional allegations,” said Joanne Adams, deputy communications director for the AG’s Office.

Adams added, “Beyond that we are unable to comment on, or even to confirm or deny, potential or ongoing investigations or actions.”

Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder is scheduled to hear defense arguments to recuse Eyster at 10 a.m. Friday. It is unclear whether Faulder will rule at the end or take arguments under submission and issue a written ruling later. 

State attorneys want to keep the focus on the wide discretion given to District Attorneys under state law, especially a 1980 amendment to state Penal Code 1424 that declares a recusal “shall not be granted unless it is shown by the evidence that a conflict of interest exists such as would render it unlikely that the defendant would receive a fair trial.” The code was amended “in response to the substantial increase in the number of unnecessary prosecutorial recusals under the “appearance of conflict” standard established by earlier court rulings.

The AG’s Office argues against recusal of Eyster’s office because it contends the burden on Cubbison’s defense is “especially high” to ask for removal of the DA’s entire staff from the case. “California courts have emphasized that “disqualification of an entire prosecutorial office from a case is disfavored,” according to a legal brief signed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, Supervising Deputy Attorney General Geoffrey Lauter, and Sharon Loughner, Deputy Attorney General, who is to appear in Faulder’s court on behalf of the state.

The state attorneys are also arguing that the “mere appearance of a conflict does not warrant recusal.” They argue that Cubbison “presents no evidence that she has been subjected to unfair treatment during the prosecution of this case, or that there is a likelihood she will be not be treated fairly in the future.”

In a stinging rebuke to the state AG stance, however, Cubbison attorney Chris Andrian of Santa Rosa argued in a filing that Eyster’s treatment of Cubbison “exceeded the mere appearance of impropriety and created a conflict of interest with the actual likelihood of prejudice.” Andrian has said it is only the second time in his five-decade long legal career that he has sought to recuse a prosecutor from a criminal case. 

“I don’t think the state attorneys understand the toxicity surrounding the case at the local level,” said Andrian.

Andrian said in his rebuttal to the state that when Cubbison raised concerns about his use of public asset forfeiture funds to cover the costs of annual staff dinners at the Broiler Steak House, “she was in essence implying that Mr. Eyster had misused public funds.”

Further, “Ms. Cubbison again drew attention to Mr. Eyster’s personal use of county funds when she challenged the validity of his reimbursement claim for the travel expenses of (Deputy DA) Heidi Larson and Douglas Rhoades (an alternate County Public Defender).”

“In response to Ms. Cubbison shining a light on his misuse of public funds, Mr. Eyster began a campaign against Ms. Cubbison and het job, culminating in the filing of a criminal complaint against Ms. Cubbison alleging the very same misuse of public funds,” declared Andrian. 

Eyster has refused to respond to written requests for comment on the Cubbison charging, his past disputes with the Auditor’s Office over his office spending, and his role in the Board of Supervisors’ decision to force consolidation of the Auditor/Controller and Treasurer /Tax Collector offices over the objections of senior county finance officers and civic leaders who predicted the move would engulf the County in budgetary chaos.

In a court declaration filed in December, Eyster said he was tipped to the Cubbison case by County administrators, and that he quickly referred them to the Sheriff’s office for investigation. The DA said he decided to only file one of three possible charges against Cubbison after reviewing the year-long probe.

Andrian disputes the DA’s version of events in his formal rebuttal to the state decision to oppose Eyster’s recusal.

Andrian in fact said the assignment of the case to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office “…was a convenient way for Mr. Eyster to attempt to distance himself from the investigation, yet prior to the filing of the criminal complaint his office, by his own admission, took over the investigation.”

“Mr. Eyster’s behavior toward Ms. Cubbison goes beyond creating a perception of improper influence. He took action against her after she refused to bend to his will and accept reimbursement claims,” charged Andrian.

The clash between Eyster and Cubbison, two duly elected county officials, has roiled County politics, and threatens to influence the outcome of races for at least two seats on the county Board of Supervisors in the March primary. 

Carrie Shattuck, a conservative candidate for the board, said two months ago she asked the state AG’s office to intervene in the case. She said she has yet to receive a response. “There is no question this has become the political hot potato for every candidate, incumbent or not.”

For Eyster, the Cubbison case is darkening what he had expected to be a term that if completed in 2028 would make him the longest serving District Attorney in the county’s history. He was gifted an extra two years to make that happen by the state Legislature, which decided that DAs and Sheriffs should be elected in presidential year elections rather than the current off-year cycle.

During his long tenure Eyster has earned a reputation as a hard-working, pugnacious prosecutor who regularly takes cases to trial along with a stable of deputies. But the mercurial Eyster also has been tagged as a bully unafraid to use his wide legal discretion enjoyed by District Attorneys to go after critics in and out of the courthouse. He engaged in office confrontations with seasoned employees who left after working under three other DAs before Eyster took over.

In 2016, Eyster became the focus of courthouse notoriety when he abruptly fired Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira, who had been his friend and colleague since law school. The issue was a side pay deal to Sequeira’s contract which Sequeira claimed was never honored. The former Assistant DA sued the county and received his promised compensation. Sequeira and Eyster eventually made up, and the DA subsequently hired Sequeira’s daughter Jordyn Sequeira as a Deputy District Attorney after she passed the state bar exam a few years later. Jordyn Sequeira has since moved on to become a prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.

Eyster’s spending practices have been at issue with the County Auditor’s Office since he became DA in 2011. 

In 2021, the DA blocked Cubbison’s appointment as Interim Auditor when her former boss Lloyd Weer retired early. Eyster publicly denounced Cubbison’s abilities, then he took the unprecedented step of endorsing a controversial plan by the Board of Supervisors to consolidate the County’s two formerly independent financial offices into one. The decision was made as some supervisors pushed for a now stalled plan to create a new Department of Finance more closely aligned with the board and the County Executive Office.

The political fallout ballooned on Oct. 13 after Eyster filed a single felony charge accusing Cubbison of misappropriation of public funds. There is no allegation in Eyster’s criminal complaint that she personally benefited from an alleged $68,000 in extra pay made to former county Payroll Manager Paula June Kennedy, a co-defendant and employee of the Auditor’s Office at the time. Kennedy has entered a not guilty plea.

At issue is Eyster’s contention that Cubbison used an obscure County budget code to pay Kennedy extra over a three year period beginning in late 2019. Cubbison maintains that the extra pay was for work done remotely during the Covid pandemic and was authorized by former Auditor Weer in an agreement reached between him and Kennedy. Eyster claims that Weer, who was not charged in the case, and Kennedy insist that it was Cubbison who crafted what the DA describes as a “pay scheme.”

Weer has failed to return repeated calls and messages seeking comment about his role in the matter. He has retained an attorney.

Attorney Andrian is zeroing in on a prior state ruling in his rebuttal to the Attorney General’s opposition to recuse Eyster from the high profile case:

“A District Attorney will not be considered ‘disinterested if he has … an axe to grind against the defendant, as distinguished from the appropriate interest that members of society have in bringing a defendant to justice with respect to the crime…charged.”

Andrian asks that “In the totality of all the circumstances, can there be any doubt that District Attorney C. David Eyster has an axe to grind against defendant Cubbison?”

(Mike Geniella is a veteran journalist and former DA spokesman who worked part-time under contract until he terminated the arrangement in November 2021.)

A 3.2 QUAKE RATTLED A FEW DISHES IN POTTER VALLEY Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m.

The United States Geological Survey Earthquake Tracker said that the temblor measured "weak to light" on their Community Internet Intensity Map.

earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc73985821/executive

SHOWERS WILL TAPER OFF later today before chances for light rain increase again late tonight. A period of more active weather will begin late Monday as one of several weather systems impact the region through Wednesday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cold 38F under clear skies this Sunday morning on the coast. Some good downpours yesterday morning brought us .55". Rain returns later tomorrow leading to off & on showers all week. Nothing big in sight, all showers with low amounts.

MISSING CAMPER

Last seen: 01-05-2024 @ 11:30 AM

Disappearance Information:

Rebecca Jones came to the Mendocino Coast to stay with a friend in the area of Hardy Creek (north of Westport, CA) for the weekend.

On 01-05-2024 at approximately 11:30 AM Jones walked away from the location where she was camping and has not been heard from nor seen since.

Jones was last seen wearing green pants, a red hoodie sweatshirt, and a black and white hat.

Jones had no hiking gear, food, or water with her when she left, and her suspected direction of travel was toward the Pacific Ocean approximately 200 yards from her campsite.

Jones is diabetic and wears an insulin pump on her belt. Jones does have experience hiking in the outdoors but did not inform anyone that she was leaving on a hike.

Cell phone service in the area where Jones was last seen is very poor to non-existent depending on the carrier.

Deputy's immediate search efforts for Jones during the night of 01-05-2024 produced no evidence or signs of Jones whereabouts.

Deputies and members from the Mendocino County Search & Rescue Team are continuing search efforts today (01-06-2024).

Anyone with information on Jones' current whereabouts or potential sightings can be reported to the Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center by calling 707-463-4086.

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TUESDAY AGENDA HIGHLIGHTS:

Big pay raises for law enforcement management and Service Employees International over the next three years.

Item 4f) …The proposed changes to the MOU include an increase in wages in FY 23/24, which would bring the unit to 100% of market (total compensation, which includes benefits) and cost of living increases in FY 24/25 & FY 25/26.

Wages 

(Proposed agreement for law enforcement management: lieutenants and captains, patrol and jail, plus Chief DA investigator, Chief Welfare Fraud investigator. Estimated total: 9 people.)

Salary Year 1 (FY 23/24): Effective the first full pay period following the Board of Supervisors approval and ratification, bargaining unit members shall receive the market salaries determined by the County's total compensation study. 

Salary Year 2 (FY 24/25): Effective in the first full pay period in July of 2024, bargaining unit members shall receive a 1% cost of living adjustment (COLA). 

Salary Year 3 (FY 25/26): Effective in the first full pay period in July of 2025, bargaining unit members shall receive a 3% COLA, applied to pay rates calculated in FY 24/25. 

Fiscal Details:

Source of funding: County General Fund Budget Unit 2310

Current f/y cost: $1,378,998.40 

(note: $1.4 million / 9 = about $155k each. Something doesn’t add up here. Unless a significant part of the cost is non-salary like pensions and other benefits))

Budget Clarification: Costs to be covered by General Fund

* * *

Agenda Item 4g) The Board of Supervisor’s negotiating team has met with representative(s) from Service Employees International Union Local 1021 (SEIU 1021) and have reached agreement regarding the appropriate terms and conditions of employment for the term of July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2026. Attached is a Resolution approving the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The proposed changes to the MOU include a cost of living increase FY 23/24 and bringing wages to market (total compensation, which includes benefits) over two years - FY 24/25 & FY 25/26.

Source of funding: Various budget units

Current f/y cost: $47,164,166

Budget Clarification: Costs are covered amongst many budget units

Annual Recurring Cost: Approximate increases- $736,361 FY 23/24, increase $1,874,216 FY 24/25, increase $2,228,923 FY 25/26

(ms notes: A large percentage of these raises will be covered by state and federal grants. The impact on the general fund is not estimated.)

* * *

Consent Calendar Item 3o):

“At the request of the Auditor-Controller, Treasurer-Tax Collector, Human Resources completed a study on the Accountant-Auditor series (I, II). The Accountant-Auditor series currently contains a level I and II which was approved the Board of Supervisors at its April 19, 2022, meeting. As a result of the study, it was determined a Senior level classification is appropriate to be added to the existing Accountant-Auditor series. By adding this classification, it supports the county's commitment to align with it goals and objectives by investing in employee professional growth. This role will enhance operational efficiencies in the departments as well as this position will focus on the more complex duties at an advanced journey level. The Senior Accountant-Auditor will supervise Accountant-Auditor’s I and II.

Source of funding: Budget Unit 1110

Current f/y cost: N/A

Budget Clarification: N/A

Annual recurring cost: N/A

Budgeted in current f/y (if no, please describe): No

This request is only to establish the new classification and establish the salary. 

Senior Accountant-Auditor, $78,062.40 - $94,889.60/annually”

(Mark Scaramella)

CLIMATE-DEFEATING DECREE

Dear Editor,

The January 9, 2024 Board of Supervisors will vote to adopt agenda item (3H): “RESOLUTION NO. 24- RESOLUTION OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS RENEWING A DECLARATION OF A LOCAL EMERGENCY RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE”

This resolution is ironic given that Dr. Jenine Miller the Interim Public Health Director, has informed staff that all Public Health meetings are now to be held in person and not over Zoom or Teams. Is the Board aware of this?

In a county as geographically large as ours, this technology has been instrumental in allowing employees (and community partners) from all corners of the county to efficiently do their jobs. Dr. Miller’s decision means that employees not only from north county, the north and south coasts, but those working in even greater distances including out-of-county, must travel up to 3-4 hours one way, wasting the better part of the day and your taxpayer dollars. This is not only a waste of time and money, but also directly opposed to the spirit of this resolution. It is not ‘green’.

Why Dr. Miller made this decision is not known, but I suspect it has to do with control over Public Health employees, many of whom disagree with having a psychologist instead of someone experienced in public health appointed as Interim Director. Since her appointment, there have been 20 senior, experienced, long-term employees who have left public health. This has created a serious loss of institutional knowledge that is dangerous to the public and will take years to remedy. The public health system is like your computer’s operating system that runs in the background. It must be up-to-date so that if a (literal) virus attacks, it can defend us.

I will say this again, Public Health needs a qualified, experienced Public Health Director. Trying to save money by appointing Dr. Miller as Interim Public Health Director is another example of the short-sighted, penny-wise but pound-foolish approach to problems this Board likes to adopt.

Julie Beardsley, MPH
Mendocino County Senior Public Health Analyst
President, SEIU Local 1021

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Luna has a very sweet personality and she wants to make new canine friends, but she’s a bit fearful of other dogs. Luna might do well in a home with a social “helper” dog. But, we think she will be perfectly content being the only dog in her new home — getting all the lovin’ and attention! NO CATS in Luna’s new home, please! This absolutely gorgeous girl is a 2- year old German Shepherd Dog, an intelligent and loyal breed. GSDs excel at obedience and agility training. 

For more about Luna and all our adoptable dogs and cats, head to mendoanimalshelter.com. 

For information about adoptions, call 707-467-6453. Check out our Facebook Page and please share our posts!

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE Events Calendar

HELP WITH THE ANNUAL FRAUD

Contact: Veronica Wilson, Program Administrator
Phone: (707) 468-7071
Email: wilsonv@mendocinocounty.gov

2024 Homeless Point In Time (PIT) Count
Volunteers Needed to Complete Surveys

The Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) will be conducting its annual unsheltered Point-In-Time (PIT) Count which will be held on the morning of Wednesday, January 24, 2024. The Point in Time (PIT) Count is mandated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is used by the State of California and multiple Federal Departments to calculate allocations of homeless services funding. The data received through the PIT Count will help our local community to identify needs and develop planning to engage and support those persons experiencing homelessness throughout Mendocino County.

The Continuum of Care is a group of agencies that consist of service providers, Tribal Governments, non-profits, faith-based organizations, concerned community members, and Mendocino County staff. These individuals and agencies come together to help address the needs of those who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. This undertaking requires a lot of individuals performing a lot of different tasks in preparation for this event, as well as surveying individuals and families experiencing homelessness throughout Mendocino County. We need volunteers to count along the Coast as well as the Southern and Northern Inland portions of Mendocino County.

If you would like to volunteer, please sign up at https://Mendocino.PointInTime.info/. If you have questions or would like further information, please contact Alex Werner with Applied Survey Research at alex@appliedsurveyresearch.org or (877)728-4545.

ED NOTES

A CONFUSED REPORTER called the other day looking for info on The Moonies, not seen in Boonville for at least 40 years. Some of us remember when there were so many recruits stuffed onto the Moonie Ranch at the south end of Boonville that on still summer nights you could hear the sad dupes chanting five miles away. 

TARDILY AWARE after several years that as many as a thousand people were living on premises unfit for three persons, official Mendocino County began a leisurely campaign to limit the numbers of lost youth who could reside on the property at one time. 

EVENTUALLY, the Moonies headed south to Sonoma County, converting their Boonville property to, of all things, a chinchilla farm. This enterprise was abandoned after a few years but not before a local high school kid liberated as many chinchillas as he could, none of which survive so far as is known because they don't do well in the winter months unless they're dead and stitched into coats. The property became the now venerable Sheep Dung Estates, which offers vacation accommodations to people traveling with their dogs. 

ONE CAN UNDERSTAND why people become communists or fascists or liberals, but why would anybody want to throw in with a confused mishmash of Christian fascism overseen by a wacky Korean? The Moonie couple who ran Moon's Boonville chinchilla farm were both graduates of European universities. They were married in one of those mass Moon weddings in Yankee Stadium, with the Rev deciding who should marry whom, in this case a bride from Italy, a groom from Germany.

MOONIE RECRUITERS would lurk at the SF airport and the old Greyhound station downtown where they would offer backpacking youth a free week in the country. The “country” was an old sheep ranch on the southern ramparts of Boonville. Runaways from “The New Ideal City,” as the Boonville property was called, were constant, as were heart-wrenching visits from desperate parents trying to free their kids from the zombo-izing cult. 

MOON HIMSELF, as we know, overcame universal public ridicule and condemnation to buy a Washington D.C. newspaper — The Washington Times — and, spreading lots of money around our alleged representatives, simultaneously bought himself respectability. Of a sort, the sort of respectability that gets journalo-hacks on the Sunday morning political chat shows to swap sleep-inducing opinions.

PARTING THE MISTS of times past, we find, at one time in the Anderson Valley, the Moonies in the east hills of Boonville, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng stockpiling weapons and mass murder plans in Philo, the Manson girls down in Navarro a year or two before the Moonies, Jim Jones teaching at AV Elementary, Tree Frog Johnson babysitting hippie kids in the west hills of Boonville, and armed nut groups like Tribal Thumb at various remote sites around the county. A few years later, the Anderson Valley could boast a Nobel Prize winner in Kary Mullis, a Playboy centerfold of the year, Donna Ronne, a Pulitzer Prize author, Alice Walker, and Angela Davis, a famous revolutionary.

HAPPENED on a story from San Jose about noisy frogs. Noisy frogs? Noisy frogs. Neighbors of a South Bay lady named Connie Pranger called Animal Control to complain that the frogs in Connie’s fish pond were making so much noise the neighbors couldn’t hear their television set. 

A SANE PERSON would opt for the sound of frogs, but let's not be judgmental here. 

SO WHAT DID Animal Control do? They wrote Connie a ticket for maintaining an “animal nuisance” on her property. 

“THE FIRST day I thought it was funny,” Connie says. “But the second day I got angry, and by the third day I got paranoid. What if they come and pour chemicals in the pond?” 

OR A WINERY moves in next door and all the frogs die, which is what has happened in many areas of Anderson Valley? Someone in San Jose government realized the absurdity of going after Connie and her frogs, and government left Connie and the frogs alone. Don't know what became of the neighbors, but their beef about frogs so noisy they drowned out the sound of Love Boat re-runs seemed bogus from the start.

REMEMBER WHEN MENDOCINO COUNTY’S STATE SENATOR ARGUED AGAINST WOMEN VOTING?

by Katy Tahja

Senator John Sanford represented Mendocino County’s interest in state government from 1894 to 1908. Well respected as a teacher and a journalist, “He has an unusually powerful mind capable of analyzing motives behind deeds” the Mendocino Democrat Dispatch newspaper claimed in 1898.

When Sanford entered the legislature in 1894 he was the youngest man there. When he retired 18 years later he’d served longer than any man of that era. While an advocate for schools, good roads, and modern improvements, he abhorred women’s suffrage and Asian-Americans.

Sanford made sure Asian immigrants obtained as few rights as possible to limit immigration. And votes for women? In 1905 he wrote “Men and women are constituted differently and have different spheres of usefulness. We all despise mannish women and effeminate sissy men…the bedside prayer of one pure Nobel Christian woman far outweighs the work of any female politician on earth.”

Votes for women were “political hysteria” and a “backward step in the progress of civilization,” he said. “Women have no need to vote as men will represent and protect them.” Well, women got the vote in California in 1911 much to his chagrin. In his opposition, the press noted “His speeches were masterpieces of insult to the women of the state and Mendocino County.” By 1914 he was out of politics and running the Ukiah Democrat Dispatch newspaper. Later appointed as a registrar in the U.S. Land Office in San Francisco to his indignation he was replaced by a woman ing 1922.

He lived at 306 S. Pine St. which became Ukiah’s first bed & breakfast. He also had an unusual death. In 1928 he fell to his death from the window of a San Francisco hotel. He fainted while leaning out a window and died instantly.

R.D. BEACON:

Remembering the days, when the Mendocino Hotel was running, when Robert Oscar Peterson came to town, and overhauled Mendocino Hotel, we the locals got used to having a fine place to go, with our guests, and have fine dining, attentive waitresses, and his staff that was eager to serve the general public, Mr. Peterson, is the man who started Jack-in-the-Box, in Southern California, had a great vision the local community of Mendocino, brought jobs, and created destination spot, when he passed away, and his brother-in-law ended up with the business, it was like somebody put weight on a chain placed the toilet, is the business spiral downward and out of existence, yet the fine building still stands, and several owners of had it, but did not know how to run it or how to deal with the public, it is so sad to businesses, Mendocino Hotel, and the Hillhouse, wait for a Savior to come forth, and put them back in order, as the two businesses deteriorate, from lack of use, and even though they offer rooms occasionally, the fine dining, is gone away, and tat the bars of also disappeared, the port town of Mendocino, have suffered many losses, over the years, losing its newspaper, was one of the many things, that were sold off, by its greedy owners, rather than serving the community, this happens in many towns, over the years, people buy up businesses, they do not know how to run, they bring new people into the area, yet they don't know which way is up, when tourists come to town they want to know about history, they going to local businesses, thinking it will get answers, another business it failed, and is wallowing around in its own deck, is the heritage house between the town of Mendocino, and Albion, find facility for many years, hosted some of the greatest names in the film industry, was run like a Swiss watch, never skipping a beat, and how it fell on hard times, I ate there is some time back, and was disappointed never to return, asking upper management questions, only, to see him staring off into the distance, like a deer looking at headlights, none of them having a clue how to answer a simple question, about the history of the building, for many years it sat empty except for the rats and mice, individual buys it, but where's it to go, more than likely, they will sell it off to some bigger group, for that's what happened, to a lot of the businesses on the coast, no more the personal touch of a local manager, more out-of-town people buying businesses, only to squeeze the last medical out of their existence, and then watch them fail when they leave, visitors services in this coastal area, leaves a lot to be desired, very few of them hope except children, they don't like cats, and many of the places, the food is so expensive, you'd be better off, going back to San Francisco, to get a decent meal

As long as Robert subject of food, which is a failing business in this coastal area, except for a couple restaurants it seemed to go the extra mile, but back to the hamburger, watched program, the other day, he said the burger was invented by Dell Monaco's, in New York City, the burger was pretty plain, in spite of the ones that we've had locally, Little River inn, service one of the best burgers on the coast, with generous helping of need, and lots of stuff looting, mushrooms, red onions, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, avocados, most of the time most people can't eat all of it, although in the old days, we used to make a similar burger here on the Hill, using blue cheese in the middle of the need, and then whatever you wanted with it, if you go to a restaurant and order a hamburger, and you tell them to cook rare, but they cook the daylights out of it, you know they don't have good meat, restaurant that would give you a raider bloody rare, Berger buys the best meet and they're not afraid to get out to you, the way you want it, I personally think somebody should have a portable kitchen driver around the bars on the coast, a regular schedule and serve up just hamburgers and really good, food in general, in the Valley is through talk, but you can only so much of that type of food, I think I'm going to have to go to lunch now I've made myself hungry.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, January 6, 2024

ROBERT BERG, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-under influence, county parole violation.

CODY CALDWELL, Willits. Controlled substance for sale, concealed dirk-dagger, bringing controlled substance into jail, probation revocation.

GABRIELA CHAVEZ-TORRES, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery.

RYAN CRANFORD, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

MICHAEL DEATON, Willits. Concealed dirk-dagger, probation revocation.

RICHARD DELUCIA, Sacramento/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, suspended license for DUI, blowing into interlock device to start a vehicle for a restricted person, addict using drugs while driving vehicle.

KENNETH DEWITT JR., Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, failure to register, parole violation.

JAMES GILBERT, Roswell/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

HALEY HAWLEY, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

WHITNEY HUGHES, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.

ERIK MAGALLON-MORENO, Ukiah. Use of access card info without consent.

YULIYAN VESELINOV, Las Vegas/Ukiah. Marijuana cultivation, renting to distribute controlled substance.

BE AWARE OR BEWARE?

Editor: 

Recently, I downloaded a trial subscription to ChatGPT. I asked it to compare Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” with generative AI in 180 words. When I pressed “enter” it immediately responded. In 10 seconds, it was done. It was like it was waiting for the question.

If I had been willing to submit its comparison with some inflated addendum warning of an “existential threat,” ChatGPT’s conclusion is likely what you would be reading right now. It was that good. And I liked the letter I had written.

So then, what is there to worry about? I don’t know. But “be aware” and “beware” seem to be converging on the same moment. Should we be concerned that Meta, Google and Amazon are investing billions in developing this tool? The question is not rhetorical.

What’s certain? There will be a Dr. No for every Madame Currie. For every successful parsing of the human genome that results in an extended life (Frankenstein’s goal), someone will be interrogating the vulnerabilities of our social foundations to exploit its flaws. There seems a real likelihood that we will have a longer life in a dystopian world.

Maybe this is an existential threat after all.

Jeff Argentine

Petaluma

MEMO OF THE AIR: The Call Of The Swamp.

“Where e’er I roam, my heart grows dank and cold, my face grows gray, when shadows fall and I hear the call of the swamps of home. I hear them calling me now, calling me back, calling me: Winifred! Winifred! Winifred! Winifred! Who do you think you are? Girl of the swamp, you’ve gone too far! Maid of the marshland, give up the struggle. Listen to the voice of the swamp: Gluggle uggle uggle!”

Here's the recording of last night's (Friday 2024-01-05) 7-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and KNYO.org (and, for the first hour, also 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino): http://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0574

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

The swamps of home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Udydm_Mf4Q

Another condensed scenic rail go-kart project person's adventure, including killer desert bees, which I didn't even know deserts have. I remember tramping around in wet forest and finding out there are scorpions, which I'd thought were strictly desert creatures. It's not that scorpions are so dangerous, it's that they're disgusting, especially the oily squeeze-toy-plastic-like flesh-colored ones. They're the disgusting level of potato bugs, squared. Especially if you trip, put your arm through a rotted hollow log, and a bunch of them get on you. A bunch of scorpions is called a bed or a nest of them, and baby scorpions are called scorplings. https://theawesomer.com/homemade-railroad-go-kart/726333/

This magnificent thing! The organ-key switches are the grounded strings touching each one's dedicated segment of each fret, with the wiring all going up the center of the neck to the organ circuits stuffing the bell. Also the whole thing is still a regular guitar. Don’t bail at the ad for guitar lessons; the better part of the video is after that. Look for other videos by Samurai Guitar Guy. https://theawesomer.com/1970s-guitar-organ-combination/726254/

And Tacky Raccoons’ 2023 playlist. A good year. https://tackyraccoons.com/2023/12/31/happy-new-years-eve-a-playlist/

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

PEOPLE’S PARK PROTESTERS HAVE LOST THE PLOT

by Joe Garofoli

The thing to remember about Thursday’s protests seeking to save Berkeley’s People’s Park is that they’re not really just about saving People’s Park.

They’re more about saving an ideal. And here, the dwindling number of park preservationists has lost the plot. In all ways. 

They refuse to acknowledge that Californians have become YIMBYs. Yes, even in Berkeley, long known as NIMBY central. Now, even “the man” in the last half-century of this saga — aka UC Berkeley — is on the side of the people. California desperately needs to build more housing. Scores of UC Berkeley students live in their cars or couch surf because of a lack of student housing. People’s Park is a place where the university plans to build housing for 1,100 students and supportive dwellings for roughly 100 homeless people, perhaps many of those who live there now. 

But few standing on the civilian side of a police barricade Thursday near the intersection of Haste and Telegraph were ready to acknowledge any of that. 

To them, the park represents a utopian vision of all the free speech and people-power virtues about Berkeley that are idealized — rightfully so, in many cases — as well as a stand-in for all their grievances about the city, the university and the world. As the buttons many demonstrators were wearing Thursday said, “You can’t spell f— without UC.”

It’s hard for anyone who doesn’t spend much time in Berkeley to understand why people are so attached to this 2.3-acre city block. When I moved here more than three decades ago, it was a place to buy weed — and to avoid, because of some of the folks who hung out there. Now you can buy weed legally in a dispensary — and 76% of likely voters say California “needs more policies geared toward making home buying and rental housing more accessible,” according to a Public Policy Institute of California survey last month. Nearly 8 in 10 said housing affordability “is a problem” in the state.

Former Berkeley Mayor Loni Hancock has lived through the arc of the People’s Park story. She remembers how the University of California took over the property by eminent domain in 1967, paying a total of $1.3 million to landowners, and bulldozed the brown-shingle single-family homes there. And she recalled how Gov. Ronald Reagan called in the California National Guard to put down the protests that ensued during Berkeley’s heyday as a civil rights/counterculture/free speech/anti-Vietnam War mecca. 

Then a young mother, Hancock packed some flowers into a red wagon and walked with her kids to plant them in People’s Park in its earliest days. It was part of the effort, she told me Thursday, “to make something beautiful out of what had been made ugly.” That continued when she was mayor two decades later, when she famously said that building on the park would be akin to building a dormitory at the site of the iconic Gettysburg Civil War battlefield. 

“When I said that there was still a vestige that it was a symbol of the community making something beautiful that had been rendered ugly by a big institution,” Hancock, who said she is now “neutral” on building housing there. “What the park is now is not beautiful, and I think the symbolism has been lost. Housing is a great need. Now the question is, are there many other places the university could be building?”

Yet, even some people born decades after People’s Park was established want it saved. Like Berkeley native Lev Marcus, 28. 

His parents and their friends used to protest efforts to build in the park. During the pandemic, he regularly played chess in the park. He doesn’t want to see housing go up there because “it’s the only place that isn’t bought and paid for in some way. It’s a really unique place. In that alone, it’s incredibly valuable to me. That there’s a place that isn’t being paid for by a controlled entity or used for profit.”

But the university owns the land. 

“Well, they claim to,” Marcus said. “And the people claim to also. And that’s why we’re here today.”

But what about the need for housing? Marcus said he had to move to Oakland because Berkeley had gotten too expensive. Wouldn’t it be a tribute to the ideals of People’s Park to address the desperate need for student housing and provide help for homeless folks? 

“I definitely agree that there’s this desperate need (for housing) and I’m glad that we’ve been able to build a huge amount of housing in Berkeley in the last year,” Marcus said. But he said there are many other places the university could build on in the city. “I think People’s Park is really special and it’s worth holding on to.” 

That worth is hard to quantify. 

The first place that Sylvia Tree, 25, went when she came to Berkeley as a student from San Diego was People’s Park. It is not just “historically significant, but something that’s significant in people’s lives every single day,” she said.

“People’s Park is part of the social fabric of Berkeley,” Tree, who lives nearby, told me. “It is the heart of the counterculture that we all hear so much about. People’s Park is the heart of the street community, the homeless community. (Removing it) would be like taking up a piece of the social fabric.” 

A man who identified himself only as Mac from the Funky Nixons (billed as the “House Band of People’s Park”) would “like to see it become a real park. Because we actually need the open space. It’s not just a trophy to the hippies. We really don’t have a lot of parks around.”

Wait, there’s Willard Park a few blocks away and the massive East Bay Regional Park system within eyeshot. 

“We really don’t have enough space,” insisted Mac, who owns a home in Berkeley. Plus, as a longtime anti-war activist, “we need a place where we can rally and talk against the war. Unfortunately, the university regents are part of the war machine,” he said.

Never mind that Sproul Plaza — another storied home of the Free Speech movement — is a few blocks away on the UC campus and remains a regular stop for demonstrations of all kinds. 

To Mac, People’s Park represents something more. It is the last stand against a powerful university that has long thrown its weight around the city where he is a taxpaying homeowner.

“That’s what we’ve stalled for 50 years, and if nothing else that was a good reason,” Mac said. “To let the university know that there’s another community here, you know, the workers, the small businesses, the artists. They just don’t see the small guys. They want us all to move out to Antioch. You know, they have a vision. We’re in the way of their vision.”

The difference now is that vision — to build more housing — is now shared by most Californians. For everyone else, it’s time to acknowledge that People’s Park won’t be forgotten just because it’s no longer there. 

(SF Chronicle)

THE MUMMIES OF YOSEMITE VALLEY

by Eric Brooks

More than a century ago, miners claimed to have found two ancient mummies at what is now Yosemite National Park. The news spread like wildfire across America.

A mummified woman — said to be a “giantess mummy” at almost 7 feet tall — was reported to be cradling a mummified child in her arms when she was found nestled in a cave near Bridalveil Fall.

It’s a tall tale fit for the Old West, one that’s mentioned in the blog of a Yosemite Archives intern. The intern said they stumbled across the story while doing inventory in an old filing cabinet at the Yosemite Museum: “After some time, I stumbled upon a folder entitled ‘The Yosemite Mummy.’ I struck gold,” the intern wrote.

I needed to know more.

“We do, in fact, have these remains in our collection,” Sabrina Sieck, Ripley Entertainment Inc. spokesperson, said in an email. “They are on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Guadalajara.” Somehow my weekslong journey in finding the story behind the rumored “Martindale Mummies” led me from the heart of Yosemite to a museum in Mexico. But how did they get here — an almost 140-year, 2,000-mile trek?

While there are varying accounts of how the mummies were found, most stories tell a similar narrative, some with more detail than others.

 “Scientists of the West are greatly interested in the mummified remains of a woman, supposed to have belonged to a prehistoric race,” stated an article titled “Prehistoric Woman” appearing in the Sept. 10, 1899, edition of the Philadelphia Enquirer.

The article said the mummies were found by G.F. Martindale in 1885 — hence the name “Martindale Mummies” — “who, with a party of friends, was out in the Yosemite Valley on a pleasure expedition” at the time of the discovery. As the story goes, the discovery of the remains “was made quite by accident” when one member of the party started prying up stones as the group stopped to rest. “A hole was discovered, and, upon further investigation, a hermetically sealed cave of large dimensions was revealed.”

The woman measured 7 feet, 6 inches tall, according to the article. She had “jet black” hair, squared off toes all roughly the same length, well preserved teeth and fingernails, and was thought to have “many characteristics not possessed by any race of people known.” The story went on to discuss an alleged race of people that roamed the Earth almost 11,500 years ago in Central America and southern Mexico with characteristics like this woman, later comparing it to similar mummy finds in Mexico.

The mummies were reportedly “drawing big crowds” in each place they appeared.

But if this supposed race of giant people lived in Central America, why would the mummified remains of a giant mother and child be entombed in Yosemite Valley?

For the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation Vice Chairperson Waylon Coats, the stories of that ancient race are more than just tabloid fodder, they’re generational legends passed down as fact.

“There’s two different ideas,” Coats told SFGATE in a phone interview. “We have the Giant of Yosemite. Then you have the myth, which are the red-haired giants. We do believe that there was a giant.”

The descendants of Yosemite’s Ahwahneechee tribe aren’t the only Indigenous peoples with similar beliefs, according to Miranda Fengel, a writer and former curator at the Mariposa Museum and History Center: “The Paiute Indians in Nevada had a legend of these red-haired, 10-foot-tall giants that they were eventually able to defeat.”

Fengel said many tribes in the southwest U.S. believe giants existed. “The legend is definitely there,” she said.

So, are the “Martindale Mummies” real or did someone take advantage of this Indigenous mythology to turn a quick buck? “The terrain just doesn’t lend itself to that at all,” Fengel said. “[There’s] no cave. You can imagine what the condition of a mummy would be with all that moisture in the air.”

She’s not the only one who’s quick to point out the story’s inconsistencies.

John Corcoran is the director of exhibits and traveling shows at Ripley Entertainment Inc.

 “To the average person, we’re in the museum business,” Corcoran said. “But what we exhibit is about both educating and entertaining people. We put unusual stuff on display. Things you can’t see anywhere else.” 

Things like Lee Harvey Oswald’s toe tag, the only first-generation video of the moon landing, one of two guns carried by President Abraham Lincoln’s assassin and, yes, a pair of Yosemite mummies. The museum bought the dilapidated mummies in 1998, acquiring the pair from an amateur archeologist who was determined to “get to the bottom” of the zany story.

“He tracked it down, wanted to X-ray it and the owner wouldn’t let him, so he bought it,” Corcoran said. 

An X-ray revealed wires and staples and cow bones. “It does have a couple of human teeth, I’m told,” Corcoran added.

 “The only thing I can tell you is that it’s probably not a real mummy,” he said. “I don’t know if it was truly found in Yosemite. That is the legend. Sometimes when people want to start a hoax, they go to great lengths to plant something.”

Corcoran would know. Of the few fake items Ripley’s possesses, he told SFGATE the museum “plays up” the story for each in its display. He referenced several other hoaxes of that time, all in the same vein and legend. In each case, someone claimed to have unearthed an extraordinary artifact in a very unnatural place.

The “Martindale Mummies” were likely produced right here in California, Corcoran said. “There seems to have been a company out there that was producing gaffes. We know this West Coast company made other stuff.” 

Other fake mummies from that time suspected to have come from this particular company were found to have newspapers stuffed inside their patchwork wrappings. But these “Martindale Mummies” had no such newspaper stuffing, so Corcoran couldn’t definitively say they were produced there. Later, he sent me a newspaper ad from the Sept. 30, 1906, edition of the Los Angeles Herald.

 “Egyptian Mummies Made While You Wait,” the headline exclaimed.

“A lot of people have made a lot of money off those mummies over the years,” Corcoran said of the Yosemite pair. “But it’s definitely a fake. The people in the know that are sideshow historians, when they looked at it, they knew right away it wasn’t real.”

Today, the “Martindale Mummies” sit inside a neatly enclosed tomb in Ripley’s Guadalajara location. Painted hieroglyphics and clay pottery decorate the surrounding walls, part of the idea to “play up” their story. This is a setting fit for an Egyptian pharaoh. But these two mummies didn’t come from Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, and they likely didn’t come from the Yosemite Valley, either.

If only mummies could talk.

(SFgate)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I go to a local gym daily to burn calories and try to fight back the ravages of old age. The gym is extremely crowded right now as all of the fatties have begun their new years resolutions. As usual, within two weeks these fatties will gradually disappear and the gym will return to moderate levels thus permitting we regulars the opportunity to use the weight machines again.

And yes, there are a lot of fatties in this Country. I wouldn’t blame it entirely on what people are eating. I blame it entirely on the fact that people eat way too much of it and spend the majority of their time sitting on their fat rumps watching the tee vee or eye-fone. I maintain my weight by just being cognizant of what I am shoving into my piehole and how many calories I burn.

TO BE STUPID, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

— Flaubert

A REPORTER ASKED JOHN RIGGINS if the 1983 Redskins team could beat the current Commanders team.

He thought for a second and said, “Yes, but it would probably be close. Maybe 21-17.”

The reporter asked, “Really, why so close?”

Riggins answered, “Because most of us are in our 70s.”

SUPREME CONFLICT

Dear Editor,

The Senate chooses our Supreme Court justices. It doesn’t choose justice’s partners. Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife is Virginia “Ginny” Thomas. Many voters will recall the presidential campaign in 2019 and 2020. Recall GOP candidate D.J. Trump calling on the “Proud Boys” (among his most avid supporters) to stand down and stand by!” The media ignored it. This happened during his debate with Joe Biden. President Trump before that election stated that he thought the election was a “fraud.” 

The Democratic candidate, J. Biden, won. Yet the oddest thing happened: President Trump refused to acknowledge that he had lost. Secret meetings were held; one in a Washington, D.C. hotel. It was attended by Mrs. “Ginny” Thomas at which she joined the election denying group that planned the Jan. 6^th protest-riot. 

Former President Trump is running again for President. Two states, Colorado and Maine, have barred his name from their ballots. The issue is before the Supreme Court. Justice Thomas must recuse himself from this decision since his wife acted to support Trump’s attempted coup d’etat against the US government.

Frank H. Baumgardner, III 

Santa Rosa

IS TRUMP HELL?

by Maureen Dowd

These are the men that try The Times’s soul.

With the disreputable Donald Trump challenging the disfavored President Biden, the 2024 race has become the embodiment of Oscar Wilde’s witticism about fox hunting: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.”

Bleeding young and nonwhite voters, the president finally heeded Democrats urging him to “get out there,” as Nancy Pelosi put it, and throw some haymakers at Trump.

Biden flew to Pennsylvania on Friday to visit Valley Forge and make a pugnacious speech invoking an earlier moment when we were fighting against despotism and clinging to a dream of a democracy.

In a discontented winter during the American Revolution, George Washington tried to inspire his downtrodden troops at Valley Forge by having Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis” read to them.

“These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine wrote, adding, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

As the voting to determine the next president gets underway, it is clear that the tyrannical Trump won’t be easily conquered. And that is our hell.

“You can’t love your country only when you win,” Biden said in his speech, making a forceful case that America, which dumped the mad King George, should not embrace the mad King Donald.

If we bow down to a wannabe dictator who loves dictators, who echoes the language of Nazi Germany, who egged on the mob on Jan. 6 and then rewrote the facts to “steal history” just as he tried to steal the election — what does that say about who we are?, Biden wondered.

Rejecting Trump’s campaign of grievance, vengeance, malignance and connivance, the president said, “We never bow. We never bend. We speak of possibilities — not carnage. We’re not weighed down by grievances. We don’t foster fear. We don’t walk around as victims.”

On Thursday, the Biden-Harris campaign blasted out excerpts from a Margaret Sullivan column in The Guardian, upbraiding the media on its tendency to fall into “performative neutrality,” focusing too much on Biden’s presentation and poll numbers and not enough on stressing what a second Trump presidency would mean.

Journalists should not fear looking as if they’re “in the tank” for Biden if they zero in on Trump’s seditious behavior, Sullivan said; the media should worry less about the horse race than about underscoring that many of Trump’s threats are authoritarian.

She is right that the media must constantly remind itself not to use old tropes on a new trollop like Trump, particularly since the media is in a confluence of interest with Trump — as he himself has pointed out.

Thanks to Trump, journalists can be festooned with gold — lucrative book contracts, TV deals and speaking gigs. The man who enriched himself with millions from foreign states and royalty seeking favors from the United States has the power to enrich us, too. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime story, the outlandish star of an even bigger reality show than his last.

He put up a video on Truth Social on Friday touting the idea that God created him as a caretaker and “shepherd to mankind.” (It also chided Melania, showing her tripping and acting as if all she had to do was lunch with friends.) A narrator intones: “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state’,” topping off a hard week with Sunday church. “So God made Trump.” It was bound to happen: Trump playing divine victim, to pass himself off as Christlike or even hard-working. Both are equally untrue.

At his Friday afternoon speech in Sioux Center, Iowa, Trump resorted to his bully-boy ways, mocking Biden’s stutter.

I am not sure whether pounding away on the facts will work in a country with alternate realities. According to a new Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 25 percent of Americans said it is “probably” or “definitely” true that the F.B.I. was behind Jan. 6. Among Republicans, The Post said, 34 percent said the F.B.I. “organized and encouraged the insurrection, compared with 30 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.”

If people don’t know by now that Trump tried to overthrow the government he was running on Jan. 6; if they don’t know that the MAGA fanatics breaking into the Capitol, beating up cops and threatening to harm Pelosi and hang Mike Pence were criminals, not “patriots” and “hostages,” as Trump risibly calls them; if they don’t know that Trump created the radical Supreme Court that is stripping women of their rights, then they don’t want to know, or they just don’t care.

But the media must pound on. The duplicitous enablers at Fox News aside, journalists learned a lot in 2016 and have changed practices to better fence with Trump, fact-checking him more closely, engaging in defensive reporting, no longer covering every tweet like holy writ. Threats to democracy now count as a beat, just like schools and courts; The Times uses the rubric “Democracy Challenged.”

When Dick Cheney was a deranged vice president, I was not permitted to call him a liar in my column. But now The Times lets columnists call Trump a liar. We have learned to separate the man from the office. Just because someone sits in the hallowed White House doesn’t mean he deserves the respect of the office. Not if he’s ginning up a fake war or if he’s flirting with treason and white supremacy.

Still, the Biden-Harris campaign’s trumpeting of Sullivan’s column gives the impression that it expects the media to prop up Biden.

Biden has to press his own case and not rely on the media or Trump’s fatuousness to win the election for him.

People don’t want to vote against somebody; they want to vote for somebody.

The president must continue to be aggressive in convincing people he’s the best alternative; that, at 81, he’s not too old for the job; that he has solutions to stop the chaos on the border and relentless death in Gaza.

You do your job, Mr. President, and we’ll do ours.

JOE BIDEN’S ‘JANUARY 6TH’ SPEECH IS NOTHING MORE THAN A RANT AGAINST DONALD TRUMP

by Michael Goodwin

If you were lucky enough to avoid Joe Biden’s Friday screed, allow me to summarize his 30-minute rant against Donald Trump: He’s all Hitler, all the time. 

That’s it.

Everything else is detail, and not very interesting detail at that. 

Still, there are omens to be divined by examining the speech’s entrails.

Chief among them is that the event, billed as Biden’s first campaign address, dashes the hopes of many Americans, especially young Democrats, that he wouldn’t seek re-election. 

He’s 81, looks and acts older, and his presidency has been an absolute disaster, but Biden shows no sign he will quit.

If he had the good sense to drop out, late last year was an unofficial deadline because it would have given substitute Democrats time to raise money and get on state ballots. 

Practically speaking, it’s too late now, with the first Dem primary, in South Carolina, set for Feb. 3. 

More’s the pity for the party, the nation and the free world. 

A second omen is the fact that the president had next to nothing to say about what he’s accomplished.

Because he didn’t try to make a positive case for why he deserves four more years, we can assume he will run an almost exclusively negative campaign. 

That means many more events like Friday, where he devoted nearly the entire speech to the dangers he says Trump represents. 

“We must be clear,” Biden said of the election.

“Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.” 

Get ready, then, for endless comparisons to dictators and autocrats and Nazis.

No doubt many will become household names over the next 11 months. 

Bitter Anniversary 

The timing of the speech, on the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, also underscores the theme.

The president deemed that day an “insurrection” and used variations on the word 11 times. 

Not incidentally, that word fits neatly with efforts by Dems in numerous states to try to keep Trump off their ballots by invoking a Civil War-era amendment to the Constitution that targeted leaders of the Confederacy.

The final decision will be made by the Supreme Court, which said Friday it would hear arguments on the Colorado effort next month. 

Even the site of the speech, not far from Valley Forge, where George Washington’s Continental Army camped in the winter of 1777-78, highlighted the contrast Biden aimed to draw with Trump. 

Although Biden didn’t actually equate himself with Washington, his self-regard as a leader in what he called a “sacred cause” was unmistakable. 

Taken as a whole, the speech indicates the president has given up trying to persuade people that “Bidenomics” is good for them.

And he made only a passing reference to unifying America, which was the dominant theme of his inaugural, so he’s ditching that issue, too, though he never tried to deliver on it. 

That effectively leaves only one path forward — scare people about Trump and use the fear factor as a substitute for an agenda of his own. 

It’s a big decision that asks voters to overlook their daily experiences and worries and instead focus on Biden’s version of what a second coming of Trump would look like. 

Then again, Biden may have no other option.

His approval numbers, especially on the economy and the direction of the country, are abysmal, the stuff of one-termers. 

And there’s no reason to believe they will get much better before November. 

Rancor Without Results 

He has been as divisive as Trump, but his major policies have been far less successful. 

The evidence is not only clear, it’s growing.

Biden’s open-border disaster has waved in more than 5 million unvetted, illegal immigrants and led Democratic mayors and governors to fault the White House.

New York, Chicago, Denver, Boston and other cities are swamped as thousands of poor illegal immigrants from around the world arrive each week. 

The race-based DEI culture, supported by the president’s progressive-dominated domestic team, is widely unpopular outside of elite institutions. 

The Harvard debacle involving former President Claudine Gay is instructive — the board that picked and defended her resembled a Democratic clubhouse, and was advised by Barack Obama. 

Then there’s the inflation Biden’s wild spending helped to provoke.

Although it’s receding, the surge in prices has left many families worse off than before he took office. 

To be fair, the anti-Trump theme is not without merit.

The events of Jan. 6 were indefensible and Trump should have been more careful in his remarks leading up to the day and in that morning’s speech.

And he should have urged the rioters to go home long before he did. 

But Biden’s attempt to treat that day as a predictor of a second Trump term would be more persuasive if Dems weren’t simultaneously prosecuting Trump and trying to keep him off the ballot. 

Claiming to be a defender of democracy while you try to lock up and ban your leading opponent doesn’t pass the smell test.

If you hate autocrats and dictators, why imitate them? 

And Biden is no spectator in his party’s abusive use of government power for political gain.

Soon after taking office, he let it be known he wanted Trump prosecuted. 

It wasn’t long before his pliant attorney general, Merrick Garland, set in motion the two federal indictments Trump faces. 

What would George Washington think of that? 

Not much, and neither do the millions of Americans who have rallied to Trump’s side as the federal and state cases against him collide with the election calendar. 

Losing The Vote 

Biden didn’t dwell on the legal assaults Friday because they obviously undercut his claim to be democracy’s bulwark, but his repeated use of “insurrection” was a dog’s whistle to his party and its lawyers. 

Meanwhile, the voter shift to Trump has confounded his GOP rivals, who have been reduced to fighting for second place in the nomination race. 

The contest likely would have been different if Dems had not targeted Trump in ways that made him more popular. 

In that sense, Biden’s use of Jan. 6 as a lynchpin for his campaign has a limited appeal, with even diehard Dem James Carville saying there isn’t lasting value. 

“It makes sense on January 6th, but don’t kid yourself,” Carville told ABC News. 

“On January 8th and 9th, Americans will still be going to the grocery store. People live in the economy and experience it many times a day. They don’t live on January 6th.” 

Similarly, GOP Sen. Mitt Romney, no fan of Trump’s, threw cold water on the effort. 

“I think the threat to democracy pitch is a bust,” Romney said in a text to The New York Times. 

“Jan. 6 will be four years old by the election. People have processed it, one way or another. Biden needs fresh material, a new attack, rather than kicking a dead political horse.” 

Ah, there’s the rub.

A dead horse is the only horse Biden has.