Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 3/5/24

Rain | Outlet Creek | Leggett PO | Admin Assistant | Book Club | Book Sale | Big River | Philo Felines | Food Loss | Art Talks | FB Round-Up | Homeless Meeting | Awards Show | No 1 | Vote Val | Yes 1 | Neil Benefit | Ed Notes | Comic Book | Zwerling Responds | Old Map | Good Job | Peters/Nelson | Print RIP | Square Profile | Electronic World | Yesterday's Catch | Careful Media | Cheif's Family | Zooming Huff | Alvin York | Fancy Terrible | Mental Workout | Secret Government | Full Moon | Five Fubars | Sven Sick | Nature Shrinks | Tow Guy | Real Power | Deceived

RAIN will peak late this morning with snow levels continuing to rise. Calm, clear conditions are expected mid to late week with gusty north winds near shore. Light rain will most likely return late this weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Very light rain & a warm 52F on the coast this Tuesday morning. .20" more rainfall. You can expect showers into tomorrow morning then dry skies thru Friday. More rain returns for the weekend but nothing BIG is in sight thankfully.

LEGGETT, CA- Due to extensive fire damaged sustained at the Leggett Post Office, services normally provided at the Leggett Post Office will be made available until further notice at the Garberville Post Office located at 368 Sprowl Creek Rd, Garberville, CA 95542.

Starting Monday, March 4, Leggett customers are directed to pick-up their mail at the Garberville Post Office Monday- Friday 9:00 am to 4:30 pm and Saturday 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Customers are asked to please present photo ID for mail pick-up.

Many retail services including temporary forwards, stamps, mail holds and more are also available anytime, online at USPS.com.

We thank our Leggett community in advance for their patience as we work to provide continued service.

(USPS Presser)

THE AV COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT is looking for an Admin Assistant. 20 hours/week at the AV Fire Department Boonville Firehouse. The person in this role will be in a position to make a strong, positive impact on the community by facilitating day-to-day operations of the Fire Department, EMS, Recreation, and other branches of the CSD. Bilingual applicants are encouraged to apply! www.avcsd.org for more info. Resume & Cover Letter to: firechief@andersonvalleyfire.org. Applications due by March 13, 2024 at 6pm. $20-$22 per hour, merit & COLA increase, 3% SEP IRA match, medical insurance contribution. 

HS diploma or equiv, Microsoft Office exp., Admin exp. Working with public desired. 

Job Description at: https://www.avcsd.org/docs/AdminAsst.pdf.

THE FRIENDS OF THE FORT BRAGG LIBRARY are having one of their big book sales from 10-4 tomorrow and Sunday in the Community Room at the library on E. Laurel (xst is Whipple). The preview for members only is happening right now, until 6:00. Lots and lots of wonderful books! All sorts of topics — Biography, Children’s, Westerns, Romance, Fiction, Non-Fiction, cookbooks, Romance, local authors and history, Art, Gardening, Religion — as diverse as the local reading preferences!

All proceeds benefit the library and their building fund for an addition.

BIG RIVER AS REGIONAL WATER SOURCE? 

The attached Mendocino Community Services District document desperately needs review and daylighting. 

It was recently obtained via a PRA request to the Water Boards when I couldn’t get it from the MCCSD. Designed with a single outcome in mind the public isn’t privy to, you won’t find it on the district’s website. And yes, despite what their Staff and BOD is telling the public, the doc confirms, among many other things, that Big River is being targeted as not simply as a community water supply source, but a regional one (p. 9).

(Name Withheld, Mendocino)

FELINES OF PHILO: Seven more community & feral cats going in for spay/neuter tomorrow! And we did two on Monday finishing up a colony in Boonville.

Donate to help TNR Anderson Valley!

Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=37TRTARSNN5B8

Venmo: @felinesofphilo

MASS REPLACEMENTS FOR FOOD LOSS DUE TO RECENT WEATHER EVENTS

Mendocino County - The USDA Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) has authorized the automatic replacement of CalFresh benefits for certain households that were impacted by winter weather events that began on Saturday, February 3rd. 

FNS has approved the mass replacements of 60% of the household’s February benefit amount for the following communities: Albion, Boonville, Caspar, Comptche, Covelo, Dos Rios, Elk, Fort Bragg, Leggett, Little River, Manchester, Mendocino, Navarro, Philo, Potter Valley, Westport, and Yorkville. Benefits are expected to be issued on March 7, 2024.

Households not included in the automatic replacement, but who experienced a food loss due to winter storm events in February have until March 4, 2024, to request an individual replacement by calling the County at 707-463-7700(Ukiah) or (707)962-1000(Fort Bragg), by submitting a replacement affidavit through www.benefitscal.com or coming in to one of our County offices.

Ukiah office: 737 S. State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

Fort Bragg office: 764 S. Franklin Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437

Ukiah office: Monday – Thursday 7:00 am – 5:00 pm

Fort Bragg office: Monday – Thursday 7:00 am – 5:00 pm

FORT BRAGG CITY MANAGER MONTHLY ROUND-UP

by Isaac Whippy, City Manager

As we step into the month of March, it brings with it the promise of spring and renewed energy. I'm excited to present the latest edition of our City Manager Roundup, designed to keep you informed and engaged with all the happenings in our city. In this edition, you'll find City updates, important announcements, city council updates, employee spotlights, and more. 

* * *

City Council Recap - February 2024 Here’s a recap of recent City Council meetings and some decisions that may interest you: 

On Feb. 12, 2024, the City Council approved an extension of the fee waiver for the Water Capital Improvement Fee and Sewer Capital Improvement Fee Deferral Program for Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffee Shops in the Central Business District.

On Feb. 12, 2024, City Council approved and awarded SHN Consulting Engineers & Geologists, Inc. to Prepare a Feasibility Study for Biosolids Treatment and Disposal at the MID’s Wastewater Treatment Plant, City Project No. WWP-00024. 

On Feb. 12, 2024, City Council approved and awarded T & S Construction Company, the Raw Water Line Replacement Project, City Project No. WTR-00016.

On Feb. 12, 2024, City Council approved the Nexus Study analyzing and approving Capacity Charges and Impact Fees for Water, Sewer, Storm Drainage, Police, and Fire. On February 26th, 2024, City Council passed a resolution in support of a sustained ceasefire for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resolution calls for unrestricted access to humanitarian aid to the displaced civilians of Gaza and urges an immediate ceasefire. 

On Feb 26, 2024, City Council appointed Linda J. Thornquist Stumpf to the Mendocino County Library Advisory Board.

On Feb 26, 2024, City Council approved a funding application, and execution of a grant agreement, from the 2023 and/or 2024 funding year of the State CDBG. 

On Feb 26, 2024, the City Council approved awarding the Water Treatment Plant Upgrade Project, City Project No. WTR-00017, to Wahlund Construction, Inc. in the amount of $10,550,380.

On Feb 26, 2024, City Council approved an agreement with SHN Consulting Engineers & Geologists, Inc. to Provide Construction Management Services for the Water Treatment Plant Overhaul Project, City Project WTR-00017, in the amount of $757,000. 

* * *

The Fort Bragg Police Dept completed its 2023 Annual Report 

Over 16,000 calls for service. Over 1,200 reports.

642 arrests.

Over 17 pounds of illegal narcotics seized 

20 illegal firearms off the street. PD staff also attended 24 advanced trainings not required by POST, totaling 800 hours of specialized training. 

* * *

As part of the Noyo Harbor Blue Economy planning effort, we just installed one (out of four) water quality monitoring sensors for our Aquaculture Feasibility Study. This sensor is located at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station and measures temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, chlorophyll-a, and depth. We’re working with LakeTech and Aquatic Resources Management to maintain the equipment and ensure consistent and reliable data. The three additional sensors are coming soon, and we are working to make all the real-time data publicly available on our website, www.NoyoOceanCollective.org. 

REGIONALLY COORDINATED HOMELESSNESS ACTION PLAN

STAKEHOLDERS MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

Mendocino County - Mendocino County and the Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care (MCHSCoC) are collaboratively developing a Regionally Coordinated Homelessness Action Plan as part of the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention Program Round 5 Application. Local Stakeholders and members of the public are invited to attend a feedback session on the draft plan, which will be held on Monday, March 11, 2024, at 1:30 pm. The meeting will be held in the Big Sur Conference Room in the Social Services Building located at 747 S. State Street in Ukiah. The meeting will also be accessible via Zoom Teleconference using the link https://mendocinocounty.zoom.us/j/ 87907314091. 

This plan lays out strategic approaches to address homelessness within the region, emphasizing collaborative efforts among participating applicants. Components of the Plan include Participating Jurisdictions’ Roles and Responsibilities, System Performance Measures and Improvement Plan, Equity Improvement Plan, Plan to Reduce the Number of People Experiencing Homelessness Upon Exiting an Institutional Setting, Plan to Utilize Local, State, and Federal Funds to End Homelessness, and Plan to Connect People Experiencing Homelessness to All Eligible Benefit Programs.

For questions or additional information, please contact Veronica Wilson, Program Administrator at wilsonv@mendocinocounty.gov or (707)468-7071.

VOTE NO ON PROP 1: Mental Health Care and Addiction Treatment Reform & Bonds to Build Places for Treatment and Supportive Housing.

Although California has a critical need to resource better mental health and addiction services and to address our crisis of homelessness, the League of Women Voters of California opposes Proposition 1 for a number of important reasons. While the additional housing resources offered through Prop 1 are sorely needed, they do not outweigh its flaws.

The bond portion of the measure was rushed through the legislature with last-minute amendments that opened the door to funding involuntary treatment in locked facilities. The rushed nature of these amendments precluded substantive debate and ignored arguments from diverse community-based organizations and health care and civil rights advocates. These groups contend that community-based care is more effective than institutionalization and that incentivizing institutionalization will both lead to worse health outcomes and curtail individual liberties.

Furthermore, Prop 1 does not increase the overall funding for mental health services for counties – the bond money is to build treatment units and supportive housing. Under the changes this measure makes to the Mental Health Services Act, more of the money received by counties must be used for housing of a certain group of patients and for intensive, personalized support services like assistance finding employment and accessing educational opportunities. This reallocation reduces the funds available for other mental health services that counties currently offer to patients, like treatment, crisis response, and outreach. It has the overall effect of reducing counties’ ability to set priorities based on local needs for mental health services. Any variances that may allow counties to spend more or less on specific categories would increase their administrative costs and do not erase the lack of flexibility they would have to meet specific needs.

Finally, budgetary decisions should be made by the legislature, not by earmarking funds through ballot initiatives. Earmarking restricts the counties and the state from redirecting funds to alternative models of care that may arise in the future, or to other emerging and essential needs.

VOTE NO ON PROP 1

VOTE YES ON PROP 1

MARK SCARAMELLA REPLIES: The arguments passed along here from the League of Women Voters in opposition to Proposition 1 — which until now I had mixed feelings about — are more than enough to make me vote for it. Oddly, the League of Women Voters which seldom takes a position on such propositions, acknowledges the need for housing but says that the Proposition is flawed because some legislative amendments have “opened the door to funding involuntary treatment in locked facilities.” These amendments supposedly “precluded substantive debate and ignored arguments from diverse community-based organizations and health care and civil rights advocates.” In other words, the defenders of the lucrative status quo who have brought us to this current woeful state of affairs. Sorry, but there are some homeless people who really do need to be forced into “involuntary treatment” and locked facilities because the alternative is letting them die on the streets while the current arrangement does essentially nothing for them besides try to count them to substantiate their continued funding, and because they won’t enter treatment on their own. We already have the local example of the new jail wing which is described as a “mental health wing” and which is partly funded by mental health sales taxes. Nobody complains when mental cases are booked into jail “involuntarily.” But try to provide a non-jail involuntary incarceration and here comes the homeless bureaucracy saying building facilities and forcing a few people into them without their consent is a bad thing. Obviously, as we have found from Measure B, no measure or propostion is going to solve the larger mental health/street crazies questions and not that many homeless would be shunted into treatment even if some facilities were built. But continuing the status quo by wasting billions of dollars a year on “mental health services” that don’t ever reach the hard, unreimburseable cases is a formula for failure. 

YES ON PROPOSITION 1

ED NOTES

FOR A NUMBER of years, the Northcoast Democrats, a tiny cadre of party shot callers who shove Schiff-like candidates at us every election for the past 60 years, pretended that a train would again run between Marin and Eureka just like it did up through the 1950s when two a day each way ran between Eureka and Sausalito and Tiburon. 

BUT WHEN it became obvious that the train was finished, and even before it was obvious, the Democrats got their people installed to run it, and millions of public dollars went into pretending the line would again someday be viable. They knew it was a lie, everyone who paid attention knew it was a lie.

WHEN the rail fantasy collapsed, the Democrat shot callers, with State Senator Mike McGuire, a bright-eyed little hustler out of Healdsburg out front, declared a Great Redwood Trail would amble along the abandoned rail bed. McGuire recently got promoted to another state Democrat sinecure and we haven't heard a word about the Trail since.

FOR YEARS WE'VE NEEDED a forensic criminal investigation of how Northcoast Democrats, led my former Congressman Doug Bosco, presently the lead ownership dog at the Press Democrat, managed to acquire the rail franchise, while Bosco himself wound up private owner of the lucrative remains of the rail line's Sonoma County properties.

THANKS to the Democrats, it is not possible to get any of their officeholders to discuss any of this, the baleful effects of the wine industry, water allocations, labor, land use policy, incumbent officeholders, the Northcoast Railroad cum Great Redwood Trail, timber policy, the Russian River — all or any of it because they profit, and profit mightily, from things as they are. 

BACK IN 2001, the Press Democrat, prior to Bosco's ownership but slavishly devoted to promoting him, ran a story about how the former Congressman had successfully lobbied the Democrat governor for $60 million to throw into the fantasy that the railroad would again run north all the way to Eureka like it used to sixty years ago. The PD mostly edited Bosco out of the body of the story, relegating his pivotal role in what amounts to a huge fraud on the taxpayers to a confused sidebar.

IN THE SIDEBAR, Bosco was made to appear as simply one more rail advocate among many. In fact, he was the key go-to guy for more public money down this particular rathole from the day the last engine on the line wheezed to a final stop.

BOSCO had rounded up a bunch of Northcoast fat cats to present the governor with a large contribution of $60,000 or so to the guv's re-election fund. The guv, Gray Davis, and like Bosco, a quid pro quo guy, said, “Thanks, boys, and here's $60 million for the little engine that never will.”

BOSCO'S father-in-law, Victor Guynup, was a major Humboldt County timber and shipping player. Guynup owned a sea facility at Samoa and lots of timber land. His shipping and timber businesses would benefit from rail restoration — even partial restoration, so long as trains got to and from Eureka on a more or less regular basis. Never happened. Never could happen, but it kept millions in public dollars flowing into the fantasy that it was all quite practical, simply a matter of adequate funding. 

ALL THIS bubbled along without anyone concerned taking even a cursory look at the sixty collapsed miles of track in the Eel River Canyon, although I'd bet Bosco knew all along no train would ever again run through the Canyon, which has been returning itself to the wild day by day for the past fifty years. 

BOSCO'S Santa Rosa law firm, like Bosco himself as Northcoast Congressman, faithfully served as lobby central for public money handouts to the Northcoast's timber and gravel outfits. The rock and gravel boys would have benefited from publicly-subsidized access to the Eel River Canyon, hence their interest in the taxpayers subsidizing the line. Never happened either, but they hoped maybe it would while not costing them a penny.

THE NORTHCOAST'S Democratic Party was always for or the most extravagantly un-doable version of the railroad — the Eel River Canyon's 60 miles of collapsed track — because the public liked the idea and the Democrats were able to park their favorite sons on the rail payroll, people like termed-out Dan Hauser of Arcata and otherwise unemployable. 

THE PARTY'S career officeholders of that low time — Virginia Strom-Martin, Mike Thompson, Wes Chesbro, Patty Berg… — wanted huge amounts of public money to revive the line's entire 286-miles of track, including the Eel River Canyon stretch necessary for the train to reach Humboldt County. They claimed the rail line would revive HumCo's sagging economy with a daily train hauling stuff to Eureka's non-existent deep water port.

THE CAREER OFFICEHOLDERS went so far as to propagate the fantasy that Eureka's port would become an important shipping center, linking NorCal to the Far East. What would be shipped from and to whom never quite came into focus, besides which Asian sea trade was already established at Oakland and points south. 

AS ALL THIS rumbled along, millions of public dollars fed the rail fantasy.

REALISTICALLY, a rail line could be made to run more or less efficiently between Marin County and Dos Rios, and maybe it will someday if the present SMART TRAIN ever gets past the Rose City's airport. But geologists who have examined the Eel River Canyon, the historically precarious link to Humboldt County that begins north of Dos Rios, say that the canyon is so unstable it would require upwards of a billion dollars to shore up the canyon walls to prevent their annual winter descent onto the tracks. And a billion to the Northcoast? For anything? Not likely. 

AH WELL, that was then, and now is now with the Great Redwood Trail consisting of a couple of miles of paved path running through Ukiah's wastelands, someday to culminate, its visionaries say, at the inspirational site of the town's sewage treatment plant.

THERE aren't many of us still around who remember our area's last real Democrat, Clem Miller, unfortunately killed in a plane crash but not before he got major set asides of public forest land, and generally represented the Northcoast in a clean, idealistic manner with the best interests of all of us in mind. Hasn't been a Clem Miller since. The grinning sociopaths the Democrats have foisted off on us ever since represent exactly whom? 

ANOTHER CONSTANT IRRITANT that arrived with each morning's Press Democrat are headlines like this one: “Davis faces challenge of his career.” Like we're supposed to care? How about an opinion piece beneath a hed that reads, “Do We Want These People In Charge As The Crises Multiply?”

ALSO PLEASE NOTE that the Frisco street address of the upscale building where the monster presa canario dog killed the young woman back in 2001 was never media-mentioned beyond that it's in posh Pacific Heights. Anything goes bloodily awry in the Mission or Hunters Point, we get the exact address right down to the apartment number.

THE LOCAL CHAIN newspapers frequently run press releases as news stories. Sometimes those press releases border on the sinister which, in the following instance, seems to me to be the case. “Ukiahan Chronicles Hall's Struggle — Abuse victim had 300 different personalities.” This press release as news story appeared in both the Willits News and the Ukiah Daily Journal. It is the work of a Potter Valley man named Dale McCulley although the Willits News attributed it to “The Willits News Staff.” The Journal ran it unattributed, as I recall.

“MULTIPLE EXPOSURE,” says McCulley, quoting himself on his book by that title, “is not for the fainthearted, or for those who do not wish to see conventional views of reality sharply challenged.” In paragraph three after he has reeled off his bogus credentials as a big time media guy, McCulley says about himself, “In it, McCulley chronicles the life and struggles of his adopted daughter, Robin Hall, a victim of childhood ritual abuse and multiple personality disorder.”

McCULLEY claims he was adoptive parent to a child, Robin, who had “300-plus alternate personalities.” Fortunately for the Potter Valley pop he could feed all 300 at once because they “coexisted in Robin's body.” If they hadn't, McCulley would have had to prepare meals for the kid at the Ukiah Fairgrounds.

BUT McCULLEY was one of the major local propagandists for the non-existent phenomenom of Satanist child molestation a few years back. His pivotal role in the persecution of designated women, every one of them vulnerable and defenseless, and the terror he and other locally-sanctioned screwballs visited on the uncomprehending children of these women, should have gotten the guy locked up. But Mendocino County being the place where history starts all over again every morning at sunrise, here he is back with more crackpot nonsense, including the assertion that his stepchild and he had firsthand experience of “ritual abuse.” No he didn't. Neither did the 300-plus Robins. There's no such thing.

WHAT WAS SCARIEST of all about the local manifestation of the Satanist hysteria promoted by McCulley and an implausible array of other sexually-obsessed perverts, was that several Ukiah-based, tax-paid, court-appointed “therapists” — including Robert and Ann Horton — joined the pursuit of the non-existent devil church, thus lending official weight to the ruination of three Fort Bragg women and one totally bewildered Indonesian immigrant.

SO, HERE'S A GUY peddling a wholly discredited phenomenom that has directly resulted in great harm to vulnerable single mothers, while people who get paid to distinguish reality from unreality print free advertisements for him. Only in Mendocino County.

SURE SIGN that we live in the sticks is the story and photos taking up most of the Mendocino Beacon in 2001 about a television crew taking over Mendocino to film a segment of a cretinous show called, “The Fugitive.”

PHILIP ZWERLING REPLIES TO MIKE KOEPF

Editor-

I know I shouldn’t overreact to trolls like Michael Koepf, but I have to say I found his piece deeply offensive. 

Now for his multiple misstatements of facts:

When he writes “He [Bragg] and his wife owned slaves before the Civil War.” Braxton Bragg was born into a slave-holding family. It is likely that, like other Southern gentlemen, a slave accompanied Bragg when he went to West Point and a slave waited upon him when he entered the Army as a First Lieutenant. When Bragg left the Army in 1856 he married a wealthy woman in Louisiana and used her money to purchase a large sugar plantation on which he worked 105 enslaved men, women, and children 6 days a week, 18 hours a day at harvest time, to make him one of the richest men in the state. The plantation and the slaves were in his name only as sole owners. Note that the US Army Fort Bragg in California was named for Braxton Bragg in 1857 while he forced other human beings to labor for his wealth. And our town was named Fort Bragg in 1889, 25 years after the Civil War, when everyone knew Bragg had killed an untold number of men in our own Army.

When he writes: “What about Boonville, obviously named for Daniel Boone?” Wrong. That little town was originally named the Corner and later incorporated as Kendall City in 1864. “Soon after W.W.Boone bought the store of Levi and Straus and changed the name of the town to Booneville. The ‘e’ was dropped in the 1880s.” [see California Place Names by Erwin Gudde, p. 43]. But the evolution of names in Boonville, mirrored in Elk (once Greenwood), Placerville (earlier Dry Diggings and Hangtown) and Springtown [formerly Confederate Crossing] does demonstrate the fluidity of names which change through history. Nothing, not even the name Fort Bragg is Forever.

Now for his hyperbole: 

When he asks “are all the people in our town racists?” No one has ever made such a statement.

When he asks “do Confederate flags fly from city hall?” Why bother to fly a Confederate flag when the entire town is named for a Confederate general?

Now for his occasional truths:

When he writes: “most people born and raised in Fort Bragg, or arrived at some point in their lives, or rest peacefully in Rose Memorial Park, never heard of Confederate General Bragg.” This at first seems merely a gross deficiency in our public schools not teaching local history. How does one not know the history of their own town? But I think more is at work here; people do not know the history because the history was not taught because that history was so shameful it had to be hidden. 

No, I take offense at his name-calling. Koepf returns to the schoolyard of my youth to make fun of the name Zwerling. I didn’t have it as bad as some friends like Bob Schmuck or Mary Gay but German names like Zwerling can be pronounced and mispronounced a’la Sergeant Schultz in Hogan’s Heroes. The one I remember best, or worst was Swirrrrrling. I know “sticks and stones…but names will never hurt me.” But they do, don’t they, Koepf? That’s why you wrote that. Zwerling is an unusual name in America. Its rarity made me uncomfortable and vulnerable as a child. Too many Zwerlings perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz to make their (my) name a mockery today. 

Koepf, misappropriating Shakespeare, asks “What’s in a name?” reminding us of Juliet when she says to Romeo:

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.” 

Most people, like Koepf, stop there. But Juliet continued:

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;

And for that name, which is no part of thee,

Take all myself.” [Act II, scene ii]

For love, Juliet is asking Romeo to change his name. For love, she also offers to change her name. For love Fort Bragg should change its name: to make amends to the Indigenous people dispossessed and starved at the concentration camp called a Fort and to Black people traumatized by 400 years of slavery. Not for shame, or fear, or force, but for love.

After all, what’s in a name? 

Philip Zwerling

Fort Bragg

JACK SAUNDERS:

This is taken from a 1934 highway map that must have been produced prior to the August 1934 opening of the new section of the Redwood Highway (now 101) between Cloverdale and Hopland. The eastern terminus of the McDonald-To-The-Sea Highway (now 128) was then at Mountain House (aka McDonald) where it intersected the original Redwood Highway, the northern portion of which is now Mountain House Road. Alexander Campbell McDonald, born in New Jersey, came to California as an officer with Stevenson's Regiment at the direction of President Polk in the late 1840s, lived in Sonoma County for a time, and moved on to Mendocino County in the 1850s. For some years he ran a tavern/inn at Mountain House catering to stagecoach passengers. One interesting thing, among others, about this map is that Yorkville is shown in its original location. Three years later it and its post office moved a few miles east to its present location.

TOM HINE:

Say it ain't so.

Had to happen and you hung in longer than any sane editor/publisher would dare, but it still smarts to know the paper of record in my small world will be no more. Wipe the ink from your fingers, toss your green visor to the wind, lift a glass and blink teary-eyed congratulations all around the press room.

Good job, Bruce and Major Mark. Had you been lucky and had careers in the 1920s and ‘30s all your kids would have the middle name Pulitzer.

Glory days!

LINDY PETERS

Re: Look alikes

Though I have never in my life been confused with Steve Garvey, several times strangers have confused me with this guy.

HERE AND THERE IN MENDOCINO COUNTY

Where the Rossis sell the hardware

Where the ex-professors raise goats

where LP is waging warfare on the trees

There’s a man goin’ round takin’ notes:

.

Who makes the beds at the inns out on the coast?

Who makes the breakfast they serve?

Who prunes the vines on the beautiful rolling horizon?

Tell it like it is, brother, tell it like it is

You've got a lot of nerve

.

Nailed Bosco for a sellout 

and that quasi-fascist Crazy Jack

And Lipmanson so liberal so respectable so mellow

—an all too familiar pack

.

Here and there in Mendocino County you think you got it bad

but it's a lot like everyplace else

So it’s good to know there’s someone speaking for me

just muttering to himself:

.

Who makes the beds at the inns out on the coast?

Who makes the breakfasts they serve?

Who prunes the vines? Who bottles the wines?

Tell it like it is, brother, tell it like it is

You've got a lot of nerve!

MIKE KOEPF:

Print addition rest in peace.

Rest assured you did your best.

BILL KIMBERLIN: My truck is finally old enough that young guys stop me frequently to say, “Hey, that's a cool truck.”  It seems to be the square profile that attracts them.

R.D. BEACON:

It is sad, to hear about the Anderson Valley Advertiser newspaper, eliminating the printed version of news, and favorable online newspaper, although knowing many senior citizens, do not have computers, don't want computers, and never will bother to buy a computer, this will be one more thing he'll miss, their hard-core gossip rag, out of Anderson Valley, over the years I have had a ongoing, jousting match, with the editor in owner, but the paper, some of the things he said about me over the years have been unbecoming, but it has been fun, and has been in his paper, good source of gossip, about the Valley, and the people in it, it will be sad to see it go away, but we've managed to endure, the original Mendocino beacon folding it can't, over the years when it ceased to be operated by local interests, and run by it out of town, conglomerate, although that was due to Al Nichols, love of money, and not of community, it is sad to see all the old newspapers fold up, for they were not only fairly good reading, but they were good for lining the garbage can after you withdrew with a, or recycling the paper, to start your firing your fireplace, but I know many senior citizens will not go buy a computer to see it online, there are still some of us, that do not write checks, on the Internet, there is a few left, actually read a newspaper, and many of us old-timers don't do are banking on a computer, ponder if you will out there that someone job, will shut down all the Internet, and turn all lights off, the computers will be nothing more than doorstops, or another piece of electronic junk tossed outside, as the world gets more sophisticated, with our unfriendly neighbors across the oceans, there is always the thought, we will wake up in the dark, that we will be back with our own little generators, kerosene lamps and listening to the news on the radio, with batteries, those that are fortunate with solar panels, their lights will be on, but those folks, that have electric cars they will be flowerpots along the road, not good for anything other than maybe, to be used as a doghouse, or chicken coop, that are pie-in-the-sky governor, failed to realize, and his lack of wisdom, that the electronic world may just go off the air, for a long time, and because, he was so bent, and giving everybody an electric car, so we could show was further into debt, and him in his bed individual friends, will try and take all our guns away, what will happen in the end we will end up, more than likely slaves, although born country, for we are not capable without our weapons, to defend ourselves from the bad guys, remember when you vote tomorrow, think about all the things, that our government wants to take away from us, and only vote for those, they want to keep us strong and healthy, as a country, not weak and helpless like the Democrats want, remember the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag, where it says and the Republic for which we stand, it doesn't say anything about the Democrats, others and watching them on TV, too long, accusing each other of being crooked, there may be some truth there, remember most politicians are like most salesmen, they live for a living, it will promise you everything, and give you nothing in return, for it's just about them, the only time it's about you, is when they want their vote, once they get it, they forget you.

CATCH OF THE DAY: Monday, March 4, 2024

CURTIS BETTENCOURT, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, under influence, paraphernalia, shoplifting.

RICHARD HODGE JR., Ukiah. Concelaed dirk-dagger, paraphernalia.

MOISES JIMENEZ-GRAJALES, Fort Bragg. DUI.

RAFAEL LOPEZ-ZEPEDA, Ukiah. DUI with prior, no license.

TROY THORNTON, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, false ID.

MONIQUE VALADOR, Ukiah. controlled substance-narcotic for sale, paraphernalia, parole violation.

IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL the media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.

‘GOING TO MEET THE MAN’ (On The Day Of The Flour Massacre)

A Sit-In at Congressman Huffman's Office Resulted in a Zoom Meeting between Huffman and Marin DSA's Palestine Solidarity Committee

by Eva Chrysanthe, Marin County Confidential

If you were watching the Marin County Board of Supervisors meeting last Tuesday, you might have noticed a foreshadowing of what was to come the following day. On Tuesday, a mild- mannered, middle-aged white man with a slight stammer earnestly addressed the Board's responsibility to agendize and pass an Israel/Palestine ceasefire resolution. At that particular moment, the Palestinian civilian death toll from Israel's bombardment of Gaza already exceeded 30,000, and the Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme had just informed the UN Security Council that more than 500,000 people were at risk of imminent famine in Gaza.

This man's appearance was nothing new: the effort to urge the Board to pass a ceasefire resolution has been ongoing since late 2023, and he was only one of many who spoke in support of ceasefire last Tuesday. But despite the man's soft stammer, he spoke so eloquently that I missed the hint. He'd opened his comments by stating that he and his cohort were at the Board of Supervisors because they had been repeatedly rebuffed by their U.S. Congressional Representative, Jared Huffman. What happened the next day was a sit-in of Congressman Huffman's San Rafael office, in which the same mild-mannered fellow took part as part of DSA-Marin's Palestine Solidarity Committee (DSA-PSC).

The Sit-In

The Committee reported that the sit-in occurred after the group had repeatedly reached out to Huffman with no reply, other than being given various alternate email addresses to try. The alternate email addresses also resulted in no response from Huffman, who represents California's powerful 2nd District. So there in his office they gathered. To be fully accurate, the sit-in appears to have been located in Congressman Huffman's hallway, as the group was not permitted into the office. But after some back and forth (and after the small group had been improperly removed from the hallway by building management after they had taped to the hallway's walls paper memorials to some of the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel), Huffman's office agreed to a zoom meeting scheduled for the following morning, February 29.

Meticulously careful notes from the meeting were produced by the committee, and generously shared. It was such a wealth of information, and such an impressive feat they’d pulled off, that I admit to being uncertain about how best to present it. In the end, I thought a synopsis of the conversation hewing to the notes would be the approach most useful to readers at this time.

A Committee of Marin Residents

The Marin DSA-PSC includes at least one Palestinian American, and the group's questions were valuably informed by that inclusion. But it was also a group effort. Because of the ongoing violence against Palestinian Americans, I have decided not to name the Palestinian committee member, nor, by extension, any members of the group at this time. The individual chosen by the group to be the interlocutor for the meeting did a brilliant job of calmly, diplomatically questioning Huffman. And while Huffman's replies seemed canned in a manner that suggests careful vetting by AIPAC and/or the Biden administration (see Huffman’s “over the top” comment near the end), the young interlocutor displayed great skill in pushing back on Huffman's responses.

First things

The meeting began with the group introducing itself as the “Marin DSA Palestine Solidarity Committee”. They stated that they are constituents of Huffman's Congressional District, and that they represent thousands of constitutents supporting a ceasefire in the region. As a committee, they said they were focused on a set of issues, all of which seem vital and necessary given the current situation. The issues were listed as: a permanent ceasefire, stopping military aid to Israel, ending the occupation, defending the rights of Palestinian children, freeing all political prisoners and hostages, and recognizing the Israeli government's crime of apartheid. They then indicated they had questions about Huffman's policies.

Huffman replied that he was happy to answer questions and hoped for more of a dialogue, rather than a one-sided conversation. DSA-PSC's point person agreed.

First Question: Humanitarian Aid

DSA-PSC stated their concerns about the lack of humanitarian aid, and correctly identified Huffman's proposed ceasefire being conditioned on release of Israeli hostages only, along with dismantling of Hamas. DSA-PSC pointed out that besieged Palestinian civilians were in no condition to release hostages or dismantle Hamas. They cited the Flour Massacre, which had just occurred hours earlier (in which it was later determined that 118 had been killed and 760 wounded.) They said that it appeared Israel was trying to maintain the famine as a “bargaining chip” in negotiations, and that this was unreasonable with children dying every day of malnutrition.

Huffman's dissembling seemed to begin here, in his first reply. He stated that he never linked humanitarian aid to the release of hostages. But this appeared to be a distraction from DSA-PSC's original question, and a deflection from the reality on the ground.

DSA-PSC respectfully pushed back on Huffman's reply, explaining that a ceasefire was required in order to move humanitarian aid in. Huffman parried, trying to lose his questioner by talking about rebuilding Gaza, and possibly even a Palestinian state.

Huffman Focuses on Hamas, Not Ceasefire

Huffman then pivoted to the importance of a ceasefire being required of Hamas so that the ceasefire wasn't “one-sided”.

DSA-PSC again asked where that left Palestinian children, who can't offer up Hamas to the Israeli government.

Huffman claimed there were multiple pieces of this. He said he had called on Israel to exercise restraint, and to target only Hamas. (Clearly, this has not been effective.) He offered that he saw culpability for Hamas in the civilian casualties as well, but: “I'm not saying Israel has done everything right. I've criticized them.”

DSA-PSC stated that they weren't arguing for Hamas, but that Israel had created the humanitarian catastrophe by “sieging the gates”, thereby forfeiting their ability to pursue solely Hamas.

In response, Huffman stated that “Hamas has primary culpability for this whole conflict.” This is a popular opinion within the halls of Congress, but it is not how the situation is viewed by the majority of countries in the rest of the world, or even the majority of the world's population.

Huffman's “Sideboards”

To soften this statement, Huffman added that he'd proposed his own “sideboards” that he thought Israel should respect. Perhaps, he suggested, he might pursue what Van Hollen tried by codifying some restrictions and some end-use policy limitations on our military aid to Israel and other allies. (This is an interesting claim by Huffman, given that Israel's intransigence is so severe that we are now having to airdrop small parcels of food into Gaza because Israel is not permitting humanitarian aid to enter.)

Huffman then offered that he had been “super critical of Netanyahu and some of the more provocative members of his war cabinet and his government.” That does not appear to have been “super” effective.

DSA-PSC asked Huffman about the possibility of calling for an absolute ceasefire, no matter what.

Huffman replied that he had called for that from “day one”.

DSA-PSC then reasonably asked why Huffman could not also apply the same thing to Israel.

Huffman appeared to have shuffled, claiming that he “kind of” thought that's what he had been saying.

Why Huffman Doesn't Support Rep. Cori Bush's Ceasefire Resolution

In light of that claim, DSA-PSC asked if Huffman had signed on to House Resolution 786, the ceasefire resolution put forward by Congresswoman Cori Bush as early as October 16, 2023.

Huffman countered that House Resolution 786 doesn't mention the hostages or Hamas, and thus it wasn't the right “vehicle”. But the point of House Resolution 786 is merely “ceasefire” for everyone, which would also have benefited all of the Israeli hostages who have been killed under the ongoing Israeli assault, as well as the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed since the resolution was introduced.

When asked about the children who have died, Huffman's reply was that they are “unfortunate victims of an inadequately restrained military response and Hamas.” This seems a remarkable assertion given the magnitude of Israel's willful bombing of Gaza, and its point-blank executions of Palestinians of all ages, including children.

Huffman Gets A Thank You on Attempted Restoration of UNRWA Funding

DSA-PSC then asked Huffman about UNRWA funding being cut based on false claims that UNRWA workers were involved in the Hamas attack.

Huffman stated that he had signed on to a letter by Pramila Jayapal calling for a restoration of that funding, but that restoration would be difficult because the Senate supplemental bill prohibits funding to UNRWA. And he claimed that sereral UNRWA staffers in Gaza took part in the October 7 massacre.

DSA-PSC stated that they disagreed on the claims about the UNRWA staffers, but that they cared mainly about the end result, and so they thanked Huffman for signing onto Jayapal's letter.

The Founding of Hamas, and How Much Netanyahu Does or Does Not Represent Israel

A discussion ensued regarding the founding of Hamas, as DSA-PSC had attempted to at least provide context for how such a group had formed by providing background on its origins. Huffman stated that there was no “rosy origin story” for Hamas (although this did not appear to be the DSA-PSC's point.) Huffman stated that Hamas is a terrorist group and what they had done on October 7 and many other times is “really deplorable.” (Huffman did not, however, identify the IDF as a “terrorist group”, despite the nightmarish civilian death toll it has accrued in Gaza, and the voluminous video evidence showing terroristic acts by IDF soldiers, often while they are laughing or otherwise mugging for the camera.) Huffman stated that it would be hard to solve the conflict if Hamas were legitimated. As an aside, he added that he was also horrifed by violence by Israeli settlers, by terrible policies, and by Netanyahu.

DSA-PSC pointed out that the Netanyahu government appeared to be in line with the Israeli population. Huffman demurred, pointing to Israeli protest of Netanyahu. But DSA-PSC correctly pointed out that the mass Israeli protests were not over the bombardment of Gaza. (In fact, repeated polling has demonstrated that Netanyahu's genocidal policies are favored by the majority of the Israeli population, and for several weeks now Israelis have gathered to block humanitarian aid to Gaza with considerable “fanfare” as the famine on the other side continues. It is a surreal scene.)

Huffman countered by pointing to Netanyahu's current 80% disapproval rating in Israel. DSA- PSC pointed out that this was about corruption, and not Netanyahu's genocidal policies against Palestinians. DSA-PSC noted that the Knesset had just voted in a supermajority to not unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state.

Huffman stated that he “completely deplored” Netanyahu's position on that.

DSA-PSC stressed that it wasn't just Netanyahu – close to a hundred Knesset members had voted with Netanyahu not to recognize a Palestinian state.

Huffman's Two-State “Two-Step”

Huffman then tried to justify that by saying that a two-state solution is less popular today in both Israel and the West Bank. But he stated thay he still sees it as the only path forward, one that is possible with “American leadership” and “a different government in Israel”. Using a line you might hear from a used car salesman whose negotiation is faltering, Huffman then stated, “We can get it back on track and make it happen.”

DSA-PSC responded, “What are you willing to do to provide that leverage?” This, they pointed out, was important since the path forward was going to involve a larger societal decision.

Huffman's answer appears rote. “That's what leadership is all about. You gotta get ahead of some of that, and you gotta lead.” Huffman conceded that Palestinians have also lost faith in a two-state solution. Despite that, Huffman maintained, he continued to think it's the only way forward.

Thus, to Huffman, it appears that the path few Israelis or Palestinians want is “the only way forward.”

DSA-PSC suggested a different path: a one-state solution with full democratic rights for all. In other words, they proposed a non-apartheid, non-ethnostate. To be fair, this is the model for the United States, no matter how routinely we fail to live up to it.

Huffman ignored the fact that this is in fact the American model, and replied that he just didn't think that works. He said a one-state solution would be a euphemism for ending the State of Israel.

DSA-PSC asked, how is that a euphemism for ending the State of Israel?

Huffman replied that with a one-state solution there would not be a Jewish homeland of any kind. It would require an entire “re-do” of the formation of Israel. He said he didn't know “how that could even be done institutionally, legally.”

DSA-PSC asked Huffman if he could see how “it seems like everything is centered around creating a Jewish ethno-state when there's not that existing demographic?”

‘Feelings’

Huffman replied he felt that there should be a Jewish and democratic State of Israel. He said that Israel was founded in 1947 “in a way that I feel is legitimate and should continue to be honored.” He continued that it doesn't mean that they get to annex territory in the West Bank or Gaza, or that they get to ignore humanitarian standards or “the aspirations” of Palestinians. (But that does appear to be what it means.) Huffman offered that “Palestinians have rights and needs, too” and “I want them to have a state.”

Demilitarize, But Only the Palestinian Side. What Could Go Wrong?

Huffman expanded on this point, saying that he is willing to pre-recognize a demilitarized Palestinian state right now. This strikes me as worth noting, given that Israel is a nuclear power, but in Huffman's view, a (finally) recognized Palestinian state, even after a genocidal assault by Israel, must necessarily be a “demilitarized” state. 

DSA-PSC countered that the current situation is already a one-state solution with an apartheid rule. They pointed out the obvious vulnerability of a demilitarized Palestinian state.

Huffman's reply was contradictory. He said that he would be opposed to further annexation. He said, “You're gonna see me on letters and resoutions and all kinds of things condemning that.” He stated that he was ready to crank up even more pressure to “better address” the occupation in the West Bank, the annexation, settler violence, and all the different home demolitions in East Jerusalem. “I've been there, I've seen it.” And then, without a note of irony, he concluded, “I am for a two-state solution.”

Huffman Said Whaaat About Any Upcoming ICJ Decision?

DSA-PSC then asked Huffman how they felt about the ICJ ruling that Israel had plausibly commited genocide.

Huffman replied that he didn't think genocide was the right word. He offered that he was “heartbroken” but that “we've gotta be careful when we use a term like genocide because we don't want to, you know, diminish its impact when something that truly is a genocide happens.”

Huffman then claimed that he'd heard from “scholars of genocide that are no fans of Israel” who agree with him that it's not a “precise fit” for the term “in this terrible situation.”

DSA-PSC asked Huffman if he was aware of a much larger number of Holocaust scholars who believe the term is accurate.

Huffman answered that he didn't want to “throw the term around.”

DSA-PSC asked if Huffman would respect whatever decision the ICJ court makes. This seemed like such an easy question to answer “yes” to. But Huffman did not answer yes. Asked again, he parried, he deflected, he shuffled. But still no yes.

The US-Israel Relationship

Subsequent notes indicate Huffman stated that President Biden and this administration are concerned about the lack of humanitarian aid. He stated that it was “rather unprecedented that an American administration is trying to pressure an Israeli government the way that they are, trying to tell them to fundamentally change their plans in Rafah.”

As DSA-PSC pointed out, this was true and not true, depending on how far back you start the clock. In prior decades, the US had threatened sanctions to move Israel out of Egypt. They stated that the US had also threatened military aid to get Israel to stop bombing and sieging Beirut.

Huffman conceded that James Baker was the last Secretary of State to confront Israel on settlements with any degree of seriousness.

This leaves the question of what caused that shift, particularly given that Israel is no longer of that much strategic importance to the US at this time, and in fact represents much more of a strategic liability to US interests.

“Over the Top”

DSA-PSC asked Huffman what motivated his support for Israel's military strategy, despite the fact that the families of the Israeli hostages want a “one-for-one” exchange that could have ended the conflict and subsequent humanitarian crisis months ago.

Huffman responded that the military approach was not what he himself would have drawn up, but that he is not the State of Israel. So the best he could do was to urge for more restraint and, he added: “I've criticized it (Israel's approach) as over the top.” That “over the top” is the same expression used to much ridicule by President Biden to describe Israel's assault on Palestinians.

Huffman said that he'd been willing to put restrictions into supplemental funding, and more “sideboards”. He said that was the best he could do.

DSA-PSC countered that the US makes up approximately 85% of Israel's arsenal, and thus everything Israel does is essentially done with our sign-off.

Huffman sidestepped by saying we don't pre-approve every actions they take. He mentioned “sideboards” again. He said that we cannot end all military aid to Israel because of its vulnerability in the region.

DSA-PSC asked whether Israel had not been the aggressors in every “security threat” they'd ever gotten into.

Huffman insisted that he “didn't see it that way” and that Israel had been “on the receiving end of attacks more often than not.”

Huffman was asked whether he acknowledged that Israel attacked Egypt first in 1967. He responded that Israel was “pre-emptively defending against an impending attack by, I believe, every single one of its Arab country neighbors.”

DSA-PSC asked whether we couldn't all say we were pre-emptively defending against imminent attacks. “For example, how do you feel about Hamas taking hostages?” implying that such could also be considered a pre-emptive defense by Huffman's definition.

Huffman replied, “It's terrible.” Huffman then stated that he didn't consider every Palestinian in an Israeli prison to be a hostage.

DSA-PSC asked, “Would some be?”

Huffman said he didn't know, but offered “at least Israel has an independent judiciary.”

Huffman’s Vaunted Environmental Reputation Is A Casualty of Israel's Actions

The last question for Huffman was about environmental preservation and the US military's role in environmental pollution. DSA-PSC pointed out that the equivalent of 3-4 nuclear bombs had been dropped in Gaza, an area about the size of Chicago. Was Huffman concerned about the environmental damage and emissions?

Huffman's reply sounds on paper like a balloon that has lost the last of its air. He had no good answer for that. Even Huffman couldn't dissemble on the environmental devastation.

Conclusion

According to the notes, the meeting had been civil, substantive, and it had ended diplomatically. This raised some obvious questions:

Why was it necessary for pro-Palestinian activists to occupy Huffman's hallway just to get a zoom meeting, given that Huffman had so graciously granted multiple meetings to pro-Israel groups who promoted Israel's genocidal bombardment of Gaza, and restriction of humanitarian aid, over the last nearly five months?

What does it say about our local media landscape that you're reading about this meeting in subsantial detail on a substack account, and not in even the smallest detail in any of the local papers that have repeatedly granted so much space to pro-Israel and pro-genocide positions? Yes, I'm talking about The Marin Independent-Journal, and the once proudly anti-war Pacific Sun.

I don't have answers for that. But I'd like to make a suggestion. Huffman started and ended the conversation with a plea for dialogue rather than fractiousness. The notes indicate that the dialogue with DSA-PSC fulfilled that, and could serve as a model for 2nd Congressional District constituents. If you believe in dialogue and debate as a vital part of our representative democracy, perhaps you should contact Congressman Huffman and ask him to engage more regularly with all of his constituents, not just those who won't challenge his policies – and ask that he do so in a format that can be recorded and shared with the public.

THIS WASN'T JUST PLAIN TERRIBLE, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.

― Dorothy Parker

THERE ARE MANY FACTORS driving global society towards a low-wage, low-growth, high-profit future, with increasing polarization and social disintegration. Another consequence is the fading of meaningful democratic processes as decision making is vested in private institutions and the quasi-governmental structures that are coalescing around them, what the Financial Times calls a 'de facto world government' that operates in secret and without accountability.

—Noam Chomsky (1999)

THE FIVE FUBARS

by James Kunstler

“How many of these places where polite society turns out to be provably insane do we have to see before we stop taking their judgment on anything as significant?” — Bret Weinstein

The USA is a runaway train with a dead man in the engineer’s seat. The conductor goes through the cars assuring the passengers that everything is fine. . . never mind the screeching wheels on the curves. . . or the blinding strobe effect of low sunlight passing through the trees out the window at a hundred and forty mph. . . or the bump that made half the stuff in the overhead luggage rack jump out. More than half the people on-board are at tachycardia levels of fright — some are screeching — but the other less than half just remain fixed on their phones and laptop screens. They can’t be bothered to look out the window. . . .

Okay, that’s a metaphor. But if you’re a citizen of our country and care about it, these are the matters you’d better pay attention to, because they are all going off the rails:

The war in Ukraine. We started it in 2014 to mess with Russia and Russia is going to finish it. Who knows what our real motives were. A resource grab? A desperate ploy to erase our national debt by creating a global fiasco? Sheer psychopathic hatred of this Putin fellow? We can’t bring ourselves to acknowledge the failure of this ill-conceived venture. Instead, our feckless allies in Europe are foolishly rattling their sabers, apparently forgetting that you don’t bring a sword to a nuclear missile fight.

Mr. Macron in France affects to offer up his army for slaughter on the blood-soaked plains of Ukraine, just as the Ukrainians offered up a half a million of their young men so that Victoria Nuland could feel good about herself. Mr. Macron is insane, but the society he presides over is collectively insane, so perhaps he represents them well. Similarly, Olaf Scholz in Germany, whose top generals were caught on a leaked recording last week discussing their plan to blow up the Kerch Bridge that connects Crimea to Russia. Do you understand that this would be a direct attack on Russia, an act of War by NATO? And what the obvious consequence would be?

The phantom government of “Joe Biden” is too weak and mindless to join any negotiation. Ukraine and Russia are up to some kind of cross-talk down in Riyadh with Prince MBS. Even Mr. Zelensky went down for a day, though video appears to show him coked-up, sniffling and snarfling, not a good sign. If ever there was a time to end this stupid conflict, it’s now, before the Russian election. After that, terms will only be more difficult for Ukraine, up to direct custodial supervision instead of remaining a nation. It was never any of our business (though the Biden family, BlackRock, and the CIA saw fabulous opportunity to profit there).

Next is the border. You saw last year how the blob elite greeted the transfer of illegal immigrants to their happy little island of Martha’s Vineyard. (They were not amused by Governor DeSantis’s prank, and off-loaded the mutts post-haste.) But that same smug demographic doesn’t care if hundreds of thousands are distributed to the big cities, which are now fiscally destabilized by them to an extreme, probably to bankruptcy.

Of course, that is not the main thing to worry about with what altogether amounts to millions of border-jumpers flooding our land. The main reason to worry is what the blob that invited them here intends for them to do, which, you may suspect, is to unleash mayhem in the streets, malls, stadiums, and upon our infrastructure just in time to derail the election — perhaps even to make war on us right in our homeland. The US government is paying for this whole operation, you understand, funneling our tax money to international cut-out orgs who set up the transfer camps in Panama, and buy the plane tickets for the mutts to cross the ocean, and coordinate with the Mexican cartels to shuttle this horde of mystery people among us to work their juju for the Democratic Party. The pissed-off-ness of the public has passed the red line on this.

A third FUBAR is the lawfare campaign of the Democratic Party and its regime in power against the citizens of this land. This folder includes overt and obvious political prosecutions by DA’s and AG’s who make election promises to “go after” individuals without such niceties as probable cause. It includes the gigantic new scaffold of inter-agency censorship and propaganda. It includes the psychopathic struggle sessions mandated by “diversity and inclusion” policy. It includes election-rigging directed by the likes of Marc Elias and Norm Eisen, getting states to fiddle laws on voter ID and mail-in ballots. It includes the political protection of rogue groups ranging from looter flash-mobs to Antifa anarchists who bust up things and people and burn buildings down. It includes state officials who peremptorily kick candidates off the ballot. It includes a nakedly biased judiciary, and especially the use of the DC federal district court to punish people extralegally, unjustly, extravagantly, and cruelly. In short, lawfare is the complete perversion of law, and we-the -people are entreated by reprobate officials such as Merrick Garland and Letitia James to accept it.

A fourth item on this list is the US economy which has been overwhelmed by maladministration of an overgrown monster bureaucracy, and the gross (perhaps fatal) mismanagement of the government’s money. The people of this land are not being allowed to do business, to find a livelihood, to transact fairly. “Joe Biden’s” shadow string-pullers are messing as badly with the oil and gas producers as they have messed with Ukraine. And they are doing it in pursuit of a laughable mirage: their “green new deal.”

John Podesta, the “clean energy czar” who replaced the Haircut-in-search-of-a-brain called John Kerry, sits on a $370-billion slush fund that can be used to just dole out to anyone and everyone a political patronage payoff, especially to janky “community” orgs and NGOs with fake agendas. This really just amounts to an asset-stripping operation that will leave the American people busted and with broken supply chains for everything. Instead of annual budgets, Congress raises the US debt ceiling by “continuing resolutions” to keep the government from shutting down. The national debt races to the $35-trillion mark. As interest rates on debt rise, our debt payments now exceed our military spending. You can be sure that our country will break down financially very soon.

The capper on today’s list is the nation’s health, the racketeering system we’ve set up to care for it, and the public health agencies of the government that enabled the Covid-19 operation to happen. The CDC continues to push vaccines that have killed millions of Americans and more millions around the world, and has probably compromised the well-being of millions more going forward. Corporate medicine — that is, your doctor, and your hospitals — is a sinking Titanic of grift and chaos. Try to get an appointment to even see a doctor for an emergency. Try to avoid being bankrupted by your treatment. Try to get out of a hospital alive. Yeah, it’s that bad.

The doctors have surrendered your trust in them with their lying and their bullshit. The current director of the CDC, Mandy Cohen and her predecessor, Rochelle Walensky, have knowingly presided over the mass killing and injuries imposed on the mRNA vaccinated. Hundreds of their deputies should be liable for prosecution, and so should many of the other prominent characters in the Covid Saga: Fauci, Birx, Collins, Baric, Bourla, Daszak, Califf, Woodcock, Hahn, and many more.

What are we going to do about any of this? Return to the metaphor. The runaway train is still picking up speed. You can’t just jump off at 150 mph. If you’re one of the passengers watching this in horror, maybe you can decouple your car, or get the conductor to do it by any means necessary. Let’s say that each car behind the engine of this train is a state of the United States. Let the engine up front with the dead man at the controls ride that runaway to its terrible conclusion. Cut loose the cars behind it to take care of themselves, to slow down, get a grip on their situation, and make plans to find a better engine to pull the train. Decouple. Cut loose. It’s the only way.

OLE AND LARS were working for the city public works department in Wisconsin. Ole would dig a hole and Lars would follow behind and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one digging a hole, the other filling it in again.

An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn't understand what they were doing. So he asked Ole, 'I'm impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don't get it -- why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?'

Ole, the hole digger, wiped his brow and sighed, “Vell, I suppose it probably looks odd because ve're normally a three-person team. But today Sven, who plants da trees, called in sick.

— via Everett Liljeberg

NATURE SHRINKS as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.

— Vandana Shiva

NOBODY WITH REAL POWER CARES IF YOU REFUSE TO VOTE FOR BIDEN

by Caitlin Johnstone

There’s been a lot of talk in pro-Palestine circles about withholding votes for Biden in protest of his genocide in Gaza, which is of course fine, but the discourse around doing so often misses an important point. A lot of US voters erroneously think they’d be punishing the Democrats for Gaza by costing them the election, mistakenly assuming Democrats care about winning. They don’t.

Losing an election costs Democratic party leaders nothing; all the career politicians and political operatives at the top keep their careers either way. From their point of view this is just a cushy job with sweet benefits, and they keep those win or lose. And obviously Biden himself doesn’t care; he’ll have a comfortable retirement regardless of the outcome in November, and on some level he’s surely aware that it’s nuts for a dementia patient to be in the White House anyway.

The unelected empire managers who actually run the US power structure also don’t care who wins the election. They know they’ll still get their murder and militarism and capitalism and imperialism no matter who gets sworn in next year, whether it’s Biden or Trump or Harris or someone else. Nobody with any real power cares about your vote.

And that’s the real issue. That’s the real point that keeps getting missed here. The problem is not that the wrong people keep getting elected, it’s that the elections don’t matter and voters don’t have a say. It’s that humanity is dominated by a murderous globe-spanning power structure loosely centralized around Washington whose actual movements and behavior have effectively zero responsiveness to the will of the electorate.

You’re never going to be able to vote your way out of this mess, and you’re never going to be able to not-vote your way out of this mess, because the power of your vote has been undermined to a value of zero. That doesn’t mean there’s no way out of this mess, it just means there’s no way to get out of this mess using the fake plastic diversion toy they handed you to shut you up and trick you into thinking you have a say.

There are still plenty of other tools in the toolbox for forcing an evil power structure to stop doing evil things, but they require a whole lot of hands to bring about, and right now we don’t have them. Too many people have been successfully propagandized into believing the status quo works and their government is basically good, or successfully manipulated into giving up on politics altogether and throwing their attention into other things.

Before the people can begin using the power of their numbers to force real change, they’re going to have to be awakened to the reality that everything they’ve been told about their government, their society and their world is a lie. They’ve got to come to the understanding that the mainstream news media are nothing but propaganda and they live under the most murderous and tyrannical regime on this planet. They’ve got to realize that this power structure does not ultimately serve their interests, or the interests of their fellow human beings around the world. Only when enough eyes open to this reality can revolutionary change via direct action become possible.

The good news is it’s entirely possible to help get those eyes open. Everything you do to help share the truth with your fellow citizens and spread awareness of what’s really going on pushes this possibility toward reality. The more people open their eyes, the more people there are to help open others, so this could snowball from impossible to probable to inevitable quite quickly.

An entire globe-spanning empire rests on a closed pair of eyelids. Once they snap open, the whole thing will crumble. And from there we can begin building a healthy world together.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)