Mendocino County Today: Friday 7/19/2024

QUIET, dry, and climatologically normal weather is forecast to continue today. Interior temperatures creep back up into the triple digits Saturday, and there is a slight chance for thunderstorms Saturday in Trinity county as well. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): After dense fog last evening we have clear skies & 51F this Friday morning on the coast. Breezy & clear is our forecast into the weekend. Mostly clear next week ? We'll see.

Vista Point, Kibesillah, Rt 1 (Jeff Goll)

ANOTHER BIG INSULT FROM THE SUPERVISORS

In your face, Board critics: Supervisors to raise their own salaries again. From $96k per year to $111k per year! Almost 12% over an already very high salary.

Item 4c on next Tuesday’s Board Agenda: “Discussion and Possible Action Including Introduction and Waive First Reading of an Ordinance of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Mendocino Amending Chapter 3.04.071 of the Mendocino County Code Increasing the Base Salary for Members of the Board of Supervisors (Sponsor: Human Resources)”

“Summary: An ordinance of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors amending section 3.04.071 of Title 3 of the Mendocino County Code increasing the base salary for members of the Board of Supervisors. This Ordinance is amending Section 3.04.071 of Title 3 of the Mendocino County Code, regarding Board Compensation, to increase the base salary for each member of the Board of Supervisors from $95,302 to $110,715, over two fiscal years. The Board of Supervisors has not seen an annual salary increase since 2018 except for COLA’s received in years 2019 through 2021.This Ordinance will take effect sixty (60) days following its adoption.”

Mark Scaramella: We’re pretty sure they can’t raise their own salaries on the spot in mid-year like this. They have to schedule the raise to kick in at the beginning of the year when the new Board members are seated because even the crass lawyers who set this up realized that voting yourself a raise on the spot might be considered a theft of government funds and look bad. Not that this Board cares, Obviously. Also note that their only rationale for their salary increase — over and above a cost of living increase that they didn’t even give notice for — is that it’s been a while since they got a raise. They haven’t even bothered to provide the usual fig-leaf comparison of their salaries with their overpaid colleagues in neighboring counties.

PHONE SCAM, SHERIFF’S IMPERSONATOR VARIETY

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office has received numerous reports of fraudulent phone calls where a person claimed to be an employee of the Sheriff's Office and requested payment over the telephone for fictitious fines. The most recent examples were a subject claiming to be a Sheriff's Office representative who informed people on the phone they missed Jury Duty and needed to pay a fine.

Do not release personal identifying information to anyone on the telephone and do not agree to pay any fines electronically, by using gift cards, payment apps, or Bitcoin.

No Deputy, Sergeant, Lieutenant, or Captain will ever call you from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office asking for money or payments.

The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office does not receive payment for anything using methods such as online payment apps, gift cards or Bitcoin.

If you receive a suspicious telephone call or letter, contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office directly at 707-463-4086 to report the incident. When in doubt, hang up the call and call the Sheriff's Office.

DISGRACED UKIAH POLICE SERGEANT ORDERED TO PAY $1M IN RAPE LAWSUIT

by Matt LaFever

A woman who claimed disgraced Ukiah Police Sergeant Kevin Murray raped her twice was awarded $1 million by the Mendocino County Superior Court this week.

Corinne Johnson filed her suit in December 2022 after Murray was fired from the Ukiah Police Department following his sexual assault of a woman after breaking into her hotel room. Johnson saw an opportunity for justice eight years after her alleged rape by Murray.…

mendofever.com/2024/07/19/disgraced-ukiah-police-sergeant-ordered-to-pay-1m-in-rape-lawsuit

ERNIE PARDINI

I live on a property in Philo that borders the once pristine Navarro River. I am disgusted with the condition it's been in since Anderson Valley became a desirable for growing grapes by the wine industry. A lot of the blame for it's low water levels in recent years has been cast to illegal diversions by pot farmers. But since the legalization of Marijuana in California and the accompanying price drop, it is no longer profitable for guerilla growers and illegal grows have all but disappeared. That leaves only one other possibility for blame and that is the wine industry. Two summers ago on the heels of about five years of drought conditions the flow was good until the winter rains started and we were able to swim clear into October. Last year after near record rainfall the flow by the middle of August had all but stopped and the algae bloom was off the charts and we could no longer swim. This year, after another year of nearly double the rainfall of what is considered our average, the river is low and the algae bloom has started. We'll be lucky to be able to swim for another week or two. The only possible reason that I can come up with is that the vineyards have seen high rainfall totals as an opportunity to pump like crazy an fill all their reservoirs. If any of you reading this can think of another reason, please let me know. Our county board of supervisors have whored themselves to the wine industry for the revenues they provide with no regard to the sustainability of our beautiful ecosystem that is being destroyed by their indifference to the damage they are doing.

TWILIGHT AT JACKSON STATE FOREST

by Frank Hartzell

I saw the light through the twilight at the last JAG meeting tour and I would like to invite the public to the public tour of OUR 50,000 acre forest on Friday July 19. I think others saw something splendid on the May tour also that hopefully can carry forward. It was a moment of genuine dialogue. While the canyon that separates Cal Fire and the Coalition to Save Jackson State Forest is much wider than face-to-face sensible talk can solve, it was a terrific start. I put what I see as the issues at at the end of this. I have offended all the sides of this myself, so this is my take and I speak for nobody. This is a piece that doesn’t fit in as hard news. It’s colored by the perspective I have developed, reporting what I saw, thus fits nowhere but here.

I’d like to keep covering this issue as news and from a wanna-bee New Yorker writer-type voice, as I think it is crucial to humanity’s future. Right here in Caspar’s forest, we could solve something for the entire planet. So look for more hard news coverage but no opinion pieces with Mendocino Voice/Bay City News. And more of what I see here and wherever else I can work for free, lol.

Here I’m describing a moment that looked to me like a first step that I had not thought possible previously. None of the others who attended and talked to me shared my view entirely but all saw what I saw.

Cal Fire was inspired enough by that last tour to hold Friday’s (July 19) JAG meeting entirely outdoors. A day-long forest adventure. It starts Friday morning at 9 a.m. at Camp 10 and then takes the JAG and any members of the public who want to go on a tour of three forest sites where some fascinating research is underway. There is news that Emily Smith, who facilitated and led the Cal Fire effort with JAG resigned and moved on. Cal Fire has put in the packet that Clifton Environmental of Ukiah is their choice to be the paid facilitator. The new chair Amy Wynn, whose business in Fort Bragg is one of the most innovative around. You might describe some of what they do as urban planning but the moniker urban is ludicrous for Fort Bragg and “rural planning” sounds to me like what the county fair board does. In the past, this position has been held by people from the tree-cutting industry and professions, so this is a change. The new JAG charter is on display, although I'm puzzled about what its impacts might be, you should check it out. One thing that fell off the charter was a proposal to have a native person appointed to report to the JAG. Not Reno Franklin, a prominent tribal leader who is already on the JAG as a regular member, but someone whose job it would have been to report from the Tribal Advisory Group, where tribes are working with Cal Fire in very tightly closed meetings on co-management to the JAG, which is working to advise Cal Fire on the other side of co-management. Kevin Conway, the state guy in charge of all the demonstration forests said Cal Fire/JAG still wants to try to have that communication, but having a liaison like that was pulled out of the JAG charter revision before it was final.

If you are kind enough to take the time to read the article that follows and see if you agree with me that what happened on that tour provided hope for the future, I put my ideas about what the issues are at the end of this, in 12 bullet points. I have no personal stake, believe that the threat of climate change is dire, and also live in a wood house.

Here is what I saw:

There were Natives, environmentalists, Cal Fire foresters, timber landowners, scientists, and curious residents. Heads turned up to look at a partly erosion-exposed hillside full of both scraggly and impressive redwood trees. History emerged as people looked and listened. Cal Fire’s Jeremiah Steuterman told how the big ancient redwoods were felled there in the 1930s.

Replanting was done. In the late 1940s it became part of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) which is located east of the towns of Mendocino, Caspar and Fort Bragg. Those second and third growth redwoods were selectively harvested in the 1970s and again a decade ago. This particular 60-acre harvest area gave a lot of timber but had also allowed scientific study designed to make logging more sustainable and less harmful to the environment The question on people’s minds was; Why was one straggly oak tree spared from cutting a decade ago when big second growth redwoods were taken? Steuterman explained why Cal Fire’s Timber Harvest Plans (THPs) select visibly unattractive trees for saving. Water-filled knots, hollow hidey-holes, and lots of bugs for birds are found in these derisively named “snags.”

This was the May field tour for the Jackson Advisory Group (JAG), volunteer advisory panel for the management of the JDSF. Meeting under the trees and sometimes the sky, rather than beneath a roof worked so well that Friday’s quarterly JAG meeting will take place entirely in the big redwood forest and will focus on adaptive management and logging, fire prevention and carbon sequestration. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. at Camp 20, the (nearly) halfway point between Willits and Fort Bragg on State highway 20.

The all-outdoor meeting sprung from that superb dialogue that emerged from that May tour.

Environmentalists who have leveled virulent criticisms indoors against Cal Fire’s management asked curious questions on the May forest tour when outdoors about a wide range of forest topics ranging from pesticide use to invasive species management to fire.

Cal Fire personnel who often sat stony-faced when asked tough questions indoors, or dodged the queries, were surprisingly frank. The indoor meeting that day started at 9 a.m. in Lions Hall in Fort Bragg, then adjourned to the tour in mid-afternoon, which was an uphill hike of more than a mile Although at least one person was over 80, and several were in their 70s, very few in the crowd of about 25 people left as the tour stretched on until after 7 p.m. Those who did just had to be somewhere else at such a crazy hour.

More questions kept coming. Conway kept reminding people of the time and trying to keep the discussion focused on the JAG’s unofficial tour.

While many were long-time foes or supporters, some residents came without the proverbial axe to grind, with only curiosity about how the forests around them are managed.

Keith Wyner, a retired teacher who photographs community events for social media, went along for the tour and was intrigued by much of what he saw and said he learned a lot.

“I see a lot of slash. Is that a fire hazard?” Wyner asked as everybody looked up the hill.

“That is a challenge,” Steuterman said.

He described mitigation measures, including pointing to where the slash had been cut into smaller pieces to make it less of a burn pile in case of fire. Cal Fire representatives were able to demonstrate the internal conflict among their two main arms, by using three people each articulating and demonstrating their role. Brandon Gunn, who is chief of the Mendocino region for Cal Fire and whose primary responsibility is fire protection, detailed how the fire part of Cal Fire sometimes makes suggestions more in line with environmentalists than Cal Fire managers who are managing for logging. One example of that is retaining larger trees and more open space. Steuterman and Conway described directives that mandate more dense wildlife habitat. The tour was on a road, which loggers and firefighters both favor. Roads have caused the forest to have a massive influx of French Broom and related broom plants.

One of the woodiest subjects the tour got into was the funky way that CEQA is followed in forest harvesting. Essentially the industry created an easier path to getting through CEQA than the rest of us would have to use.

Environmentalists want the state to do an environmental impact report (EIR) rather than rely on an in-house THP. Private developers are required to do an EIR for projects with far fewer environmental impacts, they have pointed out.

It’s like if a housing developer named Earth Friendly Very Green Very Large Rich Guy Estates” got to write its own plan that Mr. Senior Partner George “Just Call Me Green George” says mirrors CEQA to determine the impacts.

Steuterman endeavored to show the tour participants how a THP delves into the same impacts as an EIR, pointing to the mitigations that were done for the road everyone was standing on to the stream seen far below. That didn’t satisfy the critics.

“The biggest loophole in the Forest Practice Act (FPA), ‘big enough to drive a log truck through,’ as we say, is the determination that THPs are a ‘functional equivalent of an EIR,’ said Naomi Wagner, a long time forest activist and a leader of the Coalition to Save Jackson Forest.

Wagner asked many questions and demanded that Cal Fire stop everything until the agency can come forward and show they have indeed consulted with tribes on it all. She opposes all logging because of the declining state of the planet’s environment.

“So Naomi, you would like to see this become a State Park?” Conway asked during a frank but never strident discussion under a stand of Grand Fir. A demonstration forest is designed to allow and study logging. State parks generally exclude logging and sometimes include areas off-limits to the public. Wagner, who does oppose all logging, said the forest everyone was looking at could not be “fixed” by logging and must be given the time to regrow. She said she did admire Cal Fire for the extensive efforts Jeremiah had described to control the Scotch/French broom that has gobbled up tons of forest along logging roads. “You will never get rid of the Scotch Broom, but I admire how hard you are trying,” she said.

The best part of the discussion happened face to face, with two different Native people, Wagner and Steuterman, among others sitting on logs and speaking more softly than the JAG meeting dialogues. It was very interesting but I had my dog Brutus with me who kept pulling the leash as creatures emerged as twilight started to come under the shade of the grand fir, Douglas fir, rhodies and broom. I couldn't hear when being jerked and the notebook literally flew out of my hand. This was a moment you couldn’t fill in, what was said kept surprising me.

Steuterman said of the EIR. “That’s one way it could be done. But that’s not the way we are doing it right now. I’m working with what we have in hand and explaining how that is working,” he said.

“Why can’t you just do the EIR?” one of the Native women asked. Which one it was I can’t read from the dog jerk torn notebook. But I felt I should try and that I should show this is possible.

When the talk turned to the EIR controversy Conway interrupted everybody a couple of times with a time check in the sundown forest and said the JAG meeting agenda needed to be completed by the JAG rules and yes, it was getting late.

For that moment, the dramatic level of mistrust that exists on both sides was suspended. You can read my story from last fall/winter in the AVA to see why this mistrust exists. It's fully justified on both sides.

But we have excellent minds, like Jeremiah, Kevin, Naomi, Native activist Edwina Lincoln and the JAG which has a LOT of smart people, including an innovative forest scientist. For the sake of the planet, humanity and the environment, some compromise has to be made, most of it by the California Board of Forestry who basically defanged the JAG after both sides agreed to a plan and then turned the Defanged JAG loose on the community and gave Cal Fire something like the Kobayashi Maru scenario from Star Trek. Like Captain Kirk did in the show and movies, we have to refuse to accept the programmed “unwinnable scenario” and cheat, also like him, sneak in and rewrite the damn program. The Coalition’s Chad Swimmer says the JAG must be paid and then be given hard tasks to actually resolve and the power to do so. Great idea.

Here is the kind of ridiculous, but understandable under the unwinnable arguments the three sides in the forest (since the recreation community doesn’t show up, doesn’t write a single letter and seems to have zero interest in the future of JDSF that they use and pretend to love so much, i leave those schmucks out). Three sides- JAG-Cal Fire- Coalition. These folks have to be able to work together to break the program and create a solution that could apply on a planetary scale. The inheritance and feudal classes around the world, be they our incoming president or the government of China or Africa War Lords, are experts at making the people who actually care fight so they can plunder. (Im not omitting the Democrats but we are wildly off the usual scale of scams right now.)

The level of current dialogue:

Cal Fire representatives have said there is a Tribal Advisory Group but that group chooses to remain anonymous. Cal Fire has said they can’t even reveal which tribes they are meeting with. Critics have publicly doubted that the panel really exists or if it does natives have not been fully consulted in advance of the multiple bureaucratic efforts such as the new management plan.

“There is no reason they can’t give the names of who they are meeting with,” said Swimmer, co-founder of the Coalition to Save Jackson Forest.

Conway describes this brick wall:

“There is a bit of a mismatch of expectations the public has and what the tribes are finding in their interests and how to participate and influence Cal Fire Management,” Conway said.

“We're definitely moving forward with those, but unfortunately, they are on different tracks, and the nature of our conversations with the tribes and other public somewhere that desired by the tribes to do those in public.”

Timber harvesting in the forest was shut down by logging protests which ended the “Caspar 500” THP and has blocked all other plans from getting started. The Caspar 500 was a timber harvest plan approved just as the pandemic started, which got no public input. When foresters started marking trees and then loggers started cutting, a firestorm of controversy. The Caspar 500 was very close to many homes and on some of the most-used hiking trails, creating the Coalition. This was an issue created entirely by the person who wrote up the Caspar 500 THP, but this debate, as awful as it has been was needed in my view. It made local friends into mutual enemies ( I still feel bad for people who followed the law and bid and received legal contracts like Anderson Logging).

Cal Fire, which had been accused of rushing the timber harvest plan process by critics and even its own former JAG meeting facilitator, will now have to wait until at least 2025 for the next logging to happen. The state agency hopes that what it says are examples of listening to environmentalist objections and making changes that will allow a different kind of logging to go forward.

As logging begins in Jackson Forest protesters do their best to stop it, activists gathered this morning at logging road entrance (updated 6/11).

Another item on the agenda is the announcement that Cal Fire intends to select Clifton Environmental LLC to manage the public input process for all of those ongoing processes in the JDSF. Using a consultant to manage the public process has also been controversial. When Cal Fire announced a consultant was being searched for at a JAG meeting last year, the crowd erupted in catcalls, demanding it be local. “Us, pick us,” said Bill Heil.

Cal Fire may have listened to some degree, I don’t know the company, Clifton Environmental, but it is based in Ukiah.

The tours will allow the public and the JAG to see ongoing research into climate change, logging practices, and how fires are changing. Ongoing research by scientist scientist Sarah Bisbing will be presented.

The questions on the tour included what all the ribbon colors and spray paint colors Cal Fire uses are for. This reporter asked what the barber shop-like dual-color ribbons were for. “That’s the boundary of where heavy equipment can go,” Steuterman said

A Native man enjoying the tour and a JAG member then had to go look over what the terrain was that heavy equipment could not traverse.

Wagner contested Conway’s statements about the questions asked of Cal Fire.

“When I ask questions at the JAG, I'm interested in getting their answers on the record, not so much in disputing their often contorted logic and bogus claims. Just let their words speak for themselves!,” she said by e-mail.

While she clearly enjoyed the tour, she said doing business entirely outside has problems.

“Having the entire meeting in the forest limits public participation and discriminates against less able-bodied people, such as some elders and those with disabilities. People also need special transportation for some of the more rugged roads,” said Wagner.

Conway said there would be accommodations for the disabled and rides arranged. He said the roads are all solid right now, so most vehicles should be fine.

A fun part of the tour is the possibility, depending on time and such, that participants can see one tree, an ordinary redwood, that has been studied across time. The tree changed based on events like a controlled (prescribed actually) burn, a real wildfire and logging post effects. Photos of that tree are in the packet and it might be on the tour.

The JAG meetings are held quarterly and generally last all day. The JAG advises Cal Fire on timber harvest plans and other JDSF matters. Until last year, the JAG had never turned down a timber harvest plan and had always voted unanimously.

So what is the problem and how do we solve it? Id like to get more from CalFire but what follows is my take. Naomi and the Coalition worked through some of it with me, although they disagree with my view on some things and I also got a lot of help from Cal Fire in figuring out that side. I need to know more from the JAG. Maybe someone from that group of excellent minds will write a letter. (At least George Hollister, who is one of your best and most regular commenters already.)

In short, the problem is the California Board of Forestry does NOT under any circumstances want true local control of Jackson. They believe it is a statewide resource and that all the people of the state (through their wisdom alone) should have equal input. The result of course is that the timber industry controlled everything for decades. It's different under Newsom, who has genuinely forced them to change, maybe for the first time, just as he did local NIMBY-run cities and counties that blocked affordable housing because their residents don't like poor people, working people, Mexicans, all immigrants and young people. The fact that working people like Fox News nonsense instead of the genuine help he is providing doesn’t seem to stop Newsom.

In this case, he forced the board of forestry to try to do co-management with the people the land was stolen from, the Natives. And also climate change. Wow!

More solutions-

I agree with Chad. Paid JAG is worth exploring. This is way too much work and too important to foist onto volunteers who already have to sit through these 8 hour meetings 3-5 times per year.
The JAG needs to step forward and take leadership. A document they prepare, not cleared by Cal Fire would be a good start. Nobody knows where the JAG stands as that is not their job. But leadership is!!! You don’t need to be James T. Kirk and rig the game. Just say what you think and publish something as a group that ways where we want to go from here. It could be like an appeals court (since that next court up has zero credibility) and have a majority opinion and one or several minority views from dissenting JAGers.

From the Coalition

The JAG’s chronically over-stuffed Agendas make public comment a low priority, something to be gotten out of the way as quickly as possible -- and then ignored as much as possible. Public notice and materials are insufficient and late, further discouraging public input. From the coalition-
Important JAG decisions are made on field trips to which the public has no access, and/or access is limited to the able-bodied and those with appropriate transportation but prohibitive for many elders and the disabled. From me- I suggested to Kevin Conway that the JAG film those tours. I did but I am a horrible videographer. It needs to be a pro.
From the Coalition- Changing the JDSF Mandate’s requirement to log is a necessary prerequisite for equal Co-management to commence, yet both CalFire and the JAG continue to conduct ‘business as usual’ under the outdated Mandate. CalFire continues to point to a secretive tribal advisory group as fulfilling the Co-management requirements under State Law AB 52. Yet, it is inappropriate for sovereign nations to be given Advisory status.

More summary from my communications with the Coalition- CalFire continues to pressure the JAG to approve new THPs, such as the Pyro-Silviculture Plan, and other forest disturbing projects, under its’ current outdated (2016) Management Plan, rather than developing and applying the concepts of its’ still nebulous “New Vision”.

Coalition ideas I think have long-term merit-Cal Fire plans to hire an outside contractor to update the Management Plan, but is refusing to do an EIR, as required by CEQA. Without an EIR, CalFire will not be legally required to respond to Tribal input and public comments, thus circumventing legal challenges. The new management plan must follow CEQA, so that all environmental and tribal consultation laws are fully applied, and a response to Tribes and public comments is legally required.

The Coalition to Save Jackson calls for a new Jackson Forest Mandate, equal Co-management by Tribes, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) based on Respect for ancestral sites, Restoration of the land and waters, and healthy Recreation for the public. The Coalition to Save Jackson recommends that Jackson Forest be fully conserved as part of the Governor’s 30x30 Plan.

I’d like to get a similar list from loggers and Cal Fire but for now as Forest Gump would say, that’s about it (for now).

(For the quibblers, they sometimes call themselves Coalition to Save Jackson Forest, sometimes Coalition to Save Jackson Demonstration State Forest. It matters but I know a few of you will go off in a huff no matter which version I use, so I used all three). Also for the quibblers, I hesitate to use the French Broom I identified as a big problem as there are three or more kinds of invasive broom at work. I say, French, they say Correction- Scotch. I say Scotch they say Correction-French. Don’t they know the Scotch and French were secret allies to mess with the King of England for centuries and this is obviously another of their plots, now aimed at Prince Harry, who lives in California?

Eel River Mid-July along Rt 162 (Jeff Goll)

ED NOTES

I PICKED UP THE PHONE to hear a peremptory male voice ask, “Is this the yellow journalist?”

No, I replied, this is the pink one. Who’s calling, please?

“You don’t have to know because you’ll yellow journalism me if I tell you, but you called me ‘widely inept’ in your rag when you yellow journalism-ed Mendocino’s schools last week.”

You’re narrowly inept? I asked.

The deranged never hear what the other party is saying, so I wasn’t surprised when this one talked right on over me in a kind of prozac monotone, stringing out the insults. “You’re a joke, a joke to the profession,” the man continued. “I mentioned your article to three teachers in the faculty room and they told me to consider the source.”

Were they sober? I asked.

He heard that one. “That’s what I mean,” he said, “you don’t care who you hurt.”

I laughed.

“See,” he said, “you’re laughing that you hurt people.”

No, I explained, I wasn’t laughing at what you said about your zany colleagues, I was laughing because a child on crutches just slipped and fell outside my office window.

He was briefly silent, perhaps gaging the depths of my Heathcliff-quality cruelty.

To get the frothing instructor of youth talking again, I asked him if he habitually made crank calls on the school telephones while he was supposed to be working. “No, I’m not a weirdo like you,” came back the witty response.

I asked him for his name again.

“Are you kidding?” he answered, incredulous. “So you can yellow journalism me in your so-called newspaper? I called up because I wanted to hear a yellow journalist actually speaking to me.”

The nut pie rambled abusively on, unimaginatively abusively on. I listened for a while before breaking in just after he’d said something about me not being able to “carry” his “jock.”

Why would I want to carry your jock, you pervert? I demanded.

“Unlike some people, he said, irrelevantly, “I have work to do.”

He was still spluttering lame insults as I hung up.

I called Mendo Unified on the off chance I could find out who’d called me. For all I knew the guy was an impostor, maybe one of Mendocino’s many wandering outpatients who’d managed to get to one of the school’s phones.

The lady who answered my call didn’t know who the man might be, but she put the phone down and went off to find out. Many seconds later she said, “His name is Harbough; Bob Harbough, Interim Dean of Students, Athletic Director.”

FROM the February 19th, 1903 edition of the Advocate-News, culled by Debbie Holmer: “Carrie Nation, the famous Kansas saloon smasher, is in the southern part of the state with her little hatchet. After she gets through with that section, it is expected Carrie will visit Fort Bragg.”

DID SHE, Ms. Holmer? Did she chop her way up and down the Mendocino Coast? O wouldn’t some of us welcome her now! Just the thought of the old girl going at a winery tasting room with an ax in one hand and a Bible in the other was wonderful to contemplate.

BORN in Kentucky in 1846, Carry Moore (not Carrie), already a militant abolitionist and temperance advocate at age 21, somehow married a drunk named Gloyd with whom she had a daughter. Carry left Gloyd to his bottle and supported herself and her child by teaching before she married David Nation in 1877. Nation then divorced Carry on the grounds that she’d deserted him. Which she had, moving on from hearth and home to the much grander life’s mission as the national terror of happy hour. Convinced that God had instructed her to personally halt the consumption of alcohol, Carry, by now a formidably hefty six-footer, organized a direct-action crew of like-minded teetotalers who’d pour into crowded saloons and, as Carry went to work with her trademark hatchet converting the bar to kindling, her comrades would belt out temperance tunes. Carry Nation’s frontal assaults on drinking establishments were not infrequently met by furious physical counter-attacks from the boys at the bar who’d slug it out with the invaders, gender inequities be damned. Carry would pay her fines and her medical bills by selling souvenir hatchets. One wonders how she was received in Fort Bragg, a hard drinking town famous for its saloon-to-citizen ratio.

LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

POSTCARDS? TO WHOM?

AVA,

Postcards are Ready for YOU!

POSTCARD PACKETS ARE READY!

On behalf of Coast Democrats and activist friends, thank you Gallery Bookstore!

If you signed up for this month's postcarding, (If you missed signing up this time, look for our next round, likely in August) You can pick up your card packets at Gallery Bookshop between Thursday, July 18 and Tuesday, July 23. Packets are being held there in your name.

Gallery Bookshop is open from 10am to 6pm for postcard pickups. If you'd like to avoid the summer crowds in Mendocino, consider picking up before 11am or after 5pm, when it's quieter. If there's a line at the counter, please wait your turn for help. The booksellers are excited to support this project (some of them even helped make your packets) but they may be busy and frazzled!

Please email: mendohuddle@gmail.com when you've mailed all your cards. We're looking forward to celebrating our full (wow!) 2600 voters contacted!

Coast Postcarding Prep Team

Coast Democrats coastdems@gmail.com

BIG SHOW at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts this Saturday, July 20, 2024, at 7:00 pm, featuring the Taj Mahal Quintet and the Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite Duo.

LAUREN’S AT THE BUCKHORN TO BECOME BOONVILLE DISTILLERY

We express our deepest gratitude to all those who have stood by us during these transformative times. We have navigated uncharted waters by embracing change and adapting our plans.

Lauren’s was established in 1996, we love the amazing food, community, and fun times it has brought to Anderson Valley! Now we are holding on to the best parts of it as we are reborn as The Boonville Distillery.

We have been making our own liquor since 2022 and opened our tasting room a few months ago. It was so well received we have decided to expand it to the entirety of Lauren’s at the Buckhorn Building.

We have a new menu, with some old favorites available now, and others coming back soon as specials. We are OPEN for dining and tastings of our distilled liquor Friday & Saturday 12:00 to 8:30 and Sunday & Monday 12:00 to 8:00!

We have yet another exciting announcement! We have all been missing Libby’s and her amazing cuisine! Well she is back!! Combing with us…LIBBY’S at The Boonville Distillery Tuesday (you know Taco Tuesday?!?) Wednesday & Thursday 4:00 to 8:00!!!

We cannot wait to see you there!

MOSQUITO NIGHT AT THE FORT BRAGG LIBRARY

Change Our Name’s monthly Teach-In will be at the Fort Bragg Library Community Room, 499 E Laurel St., Fort Bragg, on Wednesday, July 31, at 7 p.m.

Envisioned as a program to educate attendees about the issues involved in the name change and to hear neighbors’ ideas, the teach-in will last about one hour and will feature a speaker and a question and answer/discussion period.

Speakers will be Ginny Cooper is a retired math teacher. Her current pursuits are quilting, playing on her computer, and learning about the history of this country and about the systemic racism that plagues us all, and Mikael Blaisdell who has had a long career in the software industry, founding two companies as well as serving on both for profit and non-profit corporations for many years. He made his home in Fort Bragg in 2020 and served a term on the 2022-2023 Mendocino County Civil Grand Jury. He is also the Vice President of the Point Cabrillo Light Keepers Association.

In addition, FBHS senior Abilene Kamstra will read her second place prize winning essay on the subject: “Fort Bragg High School Should or Should Not Change Its Name” and receive her $1,000 prize.

For further information: https://www.changeournamefortbragg.com

Discussing controversial topics requires civility and respect for the opinions of others. This program is free and open to all.

A local grass roots non-profit, Change Our Name Fort Bragg is dedicated to an educational process that leads to changing the name of Fort Bragg so that it no longer honors a military Fort that dispossessed Indigenous people or Braxton Bragg, an enslaver and Confederate General. who waged war against our country.

This approximately one hour program is free and open to all.

This program is neither sponsored by nor affiliated with the Mendocino County Library/Museum.

SAVE THE DATES: August 17th and 18th, 2024 mark the 41st Round Valley Blackberry Festival. Our Master of Ceremonies Mickey will kick things off at 10am on both days.

The festival runs through 6 pm on Saturday and 5 pm on Sunday with over 30 vendors offering arts & craft and food booths, Mendocino wine tasting and live music both days. Children’s activities promise fun for the entire family.

Come join the community for this family event and enjoy an art show in the Round Valley Library Commons adjacent to the festival grounds and a car and motorcycle show on Sunday.

Visit our website and join us on Facebook.

We hope to see you there!

Admission is free. NO PETS are allowed on the festival grounds.

MCBG BLOOM BLAST! Read on for updates and info on upcoming events, bloom
reports, gardening tips, educational opportunities, and more...

https://mailchi.mp/gardenbythesea.org/bloomblast-639636

AND THE LIVIN’ WAS EASY

by Mary Stinson

Alice Earl Wilder, granddaughter of Jerome B. Ford, wrote several letters to Beth Stebbins and Dorothy Bear recounting her adventures as a child in Mendocino. Last week we published one about Mendocino’s early years; below is another one of her letters, this one about her childhood memories. This article by Mary Stinson was originally published in the Mendocino Beacon on August 2, 2013.

Jerome and Martha Ford’s grandchildren on the horse named Rock, 1899. Aunt Ophelia Hayes has her hand on Rock’s nose, and Ford Pierson is holding the halter. Children L to R: Pauline Pierson, Elinor & Guy Earl, Mildred Pierson, Alice & Martha Earl, and Chester Rea. (Gift of Alice Earl Wilder)

Summer was a very good time because many cousins and grandchildren were there and we played together. We had a horse that we were allowed to ride called Rock, and many of us could ride on Rock at one time. One year in order to keep the younger cousins from bothering the older cousins, we were allowed to build a tree house. We could go up into the tree house and pull up the stairway that hung down.

The front of the [Ford] house faced the incline—it’s now called the back of the house—and we used to go down the pathway and across the incline to Aunt Ophelia and Uncle Emerson Hayes’s. He was grandmother’s [Martha Hayes Ford] brother and they lived in the old Freundt house on the cliff. We went down there to visit them and climbed down the cliff and sandbank behind their house and played on the inlet there at Mendocino Bay.

One summer there had been a big storm that winter, and when we went down to Big River beach there were a lot of big logs piled up. We could pull them and drag them and make houses with them and we had a good time.

The Ford children went to school in Oakland, but they came up to the Alder camp near Mendocino every summer. [In 1872, Jerome B. Ford moved to Oakland so his children would have access to good schools. He was active in the Mendocino Lumber Company’s San Francisco office until he retired in 1885. Alder Creek was a favorite camping spot of the extended Ford family. It was located below Big Hill, near the confluence of the Little North Fork and Big River, several miles inland from Mendocino.]

On the trees at the camp there were attached safes to keep things away from the bears and the like. The beds had a frame around them and the mosquito bar was put up over the tent and you pulled it together in the side. There was canvas over the top, and so when you got into bed, you pulled the mosquito bar curtains so that the little bugs didn’t get on you at night.

Once we had to move our tent because there was a lion that came over and my father was afraid that the lion would eat the baby up. Our tent arrangement was separate from the camp because it was more private for the baby and more convenient so that people could watch and make sure that the lion didn’t come down on us.

By 1899 [1902 actually] Uncle Chester [Jerome Chester Ford, who had taken over management of the Mendocino Lumber Company from E.C. Williams] had sold the mill [the remainder of the Ford family interest in the company] and bought property in Berkeley, and thus the wonderful summers in Mendocino came to an end.

(Summer is still in full swing at the Kelley House Museum which is open from 11am to 3pm, Thursday-Monday. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar to schedule a Walking Tour of the Historic District: kelleyhousemuseum.org).

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, July 18, 2024

SERGIO MALAGON, Potter Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

CORNELIO MARTINEZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery, false imprisonment.

LARRY MILLER, Eureka/Ukiah. Stalking and threatening bodily injury, domestic violence restraining order violation.

PATRICK PAINTER JR, Ukiah. Vehicle registration tampering, failure to appear.

GERZAIN PENA-LOZA-SANTACRUZ, Covelo. DUI.

MARCO TORRES-ORTIZ, Orange Cove/Ukiah. Stolen property.

NEVER FELT BETTER

Greetings at 11:15 p.m. from the Royal Motel in Ukiah, CA. Please know that I have returned from a very successful visit to The Forest Club featuring pints of Sierra Nevada Hazy and shots of Basil Hayden. This was followed up with a visit to the Ukiah Brewing Company. The Colombian bartender who previously refused service to me over a minor situation, shook hands with me, accepted my apology for having unintentionally done anything disruptive, and I enjoyed a steak entree (medium rare). Walked back to the Royal Motel feeling better than I have ever felt. You can't believe how good I feel at the moment. Will go to the last dental appointment in Windsor tomorrow morning. Got a ride arranged with Donald Damp (a credentialed street medic with Adventist Health-Ukiah Valley). Beyond this, it is all open space.

Craig Louis Stehr

MARIN 12-YEAR-OLDS GO 1-3 IN VEGAS REGIONALS

A WILDLY OBSCENE TERM’S PATH TO MAINSTREAM USAGE

When combined with innocuous acts, “rawdogging” has left its overtly sexual origins behind, just like many other dirty slang words of the past.

by Jessica Roy

If you suddenly feel like you’re noticing the term “rawdogging” used widely and in surprising contexts — online, in the office, at the bar — you’re not alone.

Over the last few months, the slang term, which has historically been used to refer to sexual intercourse without a condom, has been adopted to describe almost any activity accomplished without the assistance of a buffer. Now, you can rawdog the flu by refusing medication; you can rawdog cooking by not using a recipe; you can even rawdog life, by being sober.

The most obvious example of the term’s spread is the phenomenon of “rawdogging” flights. The trend, which was written about last month by GQ, has been cropping up across social media platforms like TikTok and X, with people — mostly men — enduring long flights without indulging in any entertainment other than staring at the in-flight map. The concept, which was the subject of a viral tweet in 2022, has come as a shock to some commenters who couldn’t imagine why someone would put themselves through something so boring.

“Just rawdogged it, 15 hr flight to Melbourne. No movie, no music, just flightmap (I counted to one million twice),” Torren Foot, an Australian music producer, wrote in the caption of a video posted on TikTok last month. It has since received more than 11 million views.

Even celebrities are in on the act. In an Instagram story posted this month, the actor Ryan Phillippe, best known for films like “Cruel Intentions” and “Crash,” posted a selfie from an outdoor concert venue. “Raw doggin’ this concert: solo, no alcohol, no drugs, no concessions,” read the caption.

But according to Adam Aleksic, a linguist and content creator who is writing a book about how social media has changed language, Gen Z was using the term long before the flight videos started spreading rapidly on TikTok. Mr. Aleksic said he first noticed the usage of the word beginning to shift around 2019 or 2020.

“It’s always been funny to use sex words in non sex situations, and we have been doing that forever,” Mr. Aleksic said in a recent interview. He pointed to other terms with sexual origins — such as “sucks,” or “screwed the pooch” — that have evolved into parts of everyday speech.

“It’s not a new thing that it’s like Gen Z making weird sex jokes,” he said. “Everybody’s always found sex jokes funny. That’s just a recurring, time-honored process.”

Mr. Aleksic explained that the term has become a dysphemism: instead of making a concept lighter or less offensive, as one might do with a euphemism, “we make it more intense for a joking purpose,” he said.

In a TikTok post that received more than three million views, Mr. Aleksic explained that dysphemisms typically go through three phases: “There’s the novel phase, where we create a metaphor largely for shock value,” he said. “Then we have the semi-lexicalized phase, which is still understood as inappropriate but contextualized within a larger conceptual framework. Finally, the dysphemism becomes completely lexicalized and we forget it was ever inappropriate.”

At its current rate, Mr. Aleksic predicts “rawdogging” could hit that final phase within the next 100 years, though some of the commenters on his video think it might be sooner.

“I put it in a presentation on Monday,” a user identified as Tom Dux said.

(NY Times)

ESTHER MOBLEY, What I'm reading:

The spirits giant Pernod Ricard, which owns brands like Absolut vodka, has agreed to sell most of its wine holdings to Australia’s Accolade Wines, reports Emma Rumney in Reuters. It’s offloaded brands from Australia, New Zealand and Spain like Brancott Estate, Jacob’s Creek and Campo Viejo.

After acquiring Napa Valley’s historic Beaulieu Vineyard in 2016, Treasury Wine Estates has announced it’s embarking on a multimillion-dollar renovation to the historic Rutherford winery, built in 1885, writes Chris Cardoso in Wine Spectator.

Not strictly wine-related, but New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells has a sobering essay explaining his decision to step down from the post that he’s held for 12 years. “The first thing you learn as a restaurant critic is that nobody wants to hear you complain,” Wells writes. But after reading this account of his health woes, you may feel that complaints are justified.

(SF Chronicle)

ROCCO SCHIAVONE: ITALY’S RED HOT COP IN ICE COLD MURDERS

by Jonah Raskin

The Brits have them, the French have them and so do the Swedes and the Poles. All Europeans have cop dramas and police procedurals that reflect their national identities, many of them on Netflix, PBS and Amazon and available for binge watching. I’ve watched a dozen or so of these shows and have come to the conclusion that no one does crime, its detection and its punishments, as well as the Italians. They have lots of history and legend to draw on, going back to Dante and continuing with the Borges and the Mafia.

Montalbano — which follows the pursuits of a Sicilian pasta-loving cop and an expansive cast of quirky characters — held my attention for several seasons. Recently, my go-to show has been Rocco Schavone: Ice Cold Murders, which is set in and around the isolated mountain town of Aosta where corpses are ice cold; many of the crimes are committed in the mountains, bodies buried in the snow.

Rocco Schavone is the name of the detective who leads a squad of quirky police officers. Played forcefully and with nuances by the veteran Italian actor, Marco Giallini, Rocco carries the show on his own shoulders and with his uncommon intelligence which makes him an attractive character with a skill set that matches that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, London detective Sherlock Holmes. Giallini won an award for his role in the Italian TV show ACAB—All Cops are Bastards.

Rocco has been banished from Rome to Aosta because he’s taken the law into his own hands and has brutally assaulted a serial rapist of teenage girls, and the son of a man with power and influence.

Unlike Sherlock Holmes, Rocco or “Roc” as his pals call him, doesn’t use cocaine. He busts cocaine traffickers and dealers, some of them with ties to high ranking political figures in the Italian government. Rocco’s drugs of choice are tobacco and marijuana which he smokes continually in his own office, in his car and on the streets of Acosta, a real place on the border with France.

Rocco rolls his own joints from the stash he keeps in the top drawer of his desk. He does very little to hide his habits, though he will open a window that affords a view of snow-capped mountains and that lets in clean cold mountain air. “Fuck you” he says to friends and foes.

Rocco works both sides of the street and has no illusions about himself. “I’m a son-of a bitch,” he says in one of the earliest episodes. He enforces the law and he breaks the law in his unrelenting efforts to bring about justice and to seek revenge for the cold-blooded murder of his wife. Almost everything he does on the job is personal as well as political. The show, which is based on the novels of Antonio Mancini, mostly refrains from moral and ethical judgments, which makes it eminently superior in my view to USA police procedurals which crowd the TV networks; bad programming driving out good programming.

Mancini’s critical intelligence and creativity inform the plots and subplots and invigorate the crisp dialogue. His cop quotes Shakespeare and Hegel, loves pizza and white wine and borrows freely from Dante and his 14th century narrative poem, Inferno, which translates as “hell”.

If and when Rocco beats up a suspect and hands him a handkerchief to mop up the blood on his face, it’s not from a sense of kindness, but to obtain a sample of the man’s DNA, so it can be analyzed in a lab with the newest technology.

Rocco doesn’t combat crime on his own, but rather with help from judges, coroners, prosecutors, fellow officers and even from hipster criminals who have his back as he has theirs. The hipster underworld figures even excavate a grave where they’ve hidden the corpse of a man Rocco has shot and killed to protect him from prosecution.

Rocco doesn’t carry a gun, but when he needs one, he finds one in his right hand and then pulls the trigger. A pal takes the gun from him to prevent him from putting a bullet in his head. And ending his life. He ought to enroll in therapy; he talks to his dead wife and sees her when she’s not really there, but he’s too vain to seek help. His dog, Lupa, brings out his best self, as does a troubled teenage boy and punk rocker whom he saves from himself and sets him straight.

He also leads a group of illegal immigrants from Mali through the snow and ice and to a safe haven.

Unlike Detective Montalbano, Rocco isn’t physically attractive; his deeply-lined face reflects his deeply trouble soul, but women, including an investigative newspaper reporter, find him sexually attractive, and take him to bed to fuck his brains out. The sex on the screen can be steamy as well as comedic, especially on one notable occasion when a woman fucks him so vigorously that she unintentionally pops the stitches he’s received to patch a gunshot wound accidentally inflicted by an underling. No one woman receives his loving embrace. His dog, Lupa, who follows him everywhere, is the only living creature and sentient being who brings out his tenderness and love.

If you haven’t seen Rocco in action you might catch him on PBS. The show, all five seasons with nearly two dozen episodes, is made for hinge watching or savoring slowly one at a time. I love Rocco, though I’ve never loved cops, not since cops beat me to a bloody pulp and charged me with the attempted murder of a police officer and criminal anarchy. I was protesting the cold-blooded murders, by law enforcement officers, of two Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, while they were asleep in their Chicago apartment. Off the pigs? No way. It was “Off the Panthers.” Cops killed them with impunity. I like to think that Rocco Schavone would draw the line at assassinating Black Panthers. After all, he’s a friend to the poor, to widows, illegal immigrants from Africa, retired workers and old age pensioners.

CALIFORNIA SENT A MENTALLY ILL MAN TO NAPA STATE HOSPITAL. THEN IT CHARGED HIM $760,000

California State Hospitals can bill patients for the care they receive during confinement. The charges often run in the tens of thousands of dollars, putting vulnerable people in debt for years

by Jocelyn Wiener

The first bill arrived in Sultan Khan’s mailbox two years after his release from Napa State Hospital. Khan had received psychiatric treatment there for three years after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to a criminal charge stemming from an assault.

He stared in disbelief at the paper in front of him.

The Department of State Hospitals wanted him to pay back the cost of that stay: $769,490.

Wondering if he was being scammed, Khan phoned the department.

They suggested a payment plan.

The department’s practice of billing patients exorbitant sums after releasing them from its care has existed for decades, attorneys and advocates say. Such billing has been required under state law since 1967, and has been allowable since the 1930s. The practice has endured even though the state has passed laws in recent years preventing other government entities from charging big fees to vulnerable populations. One example: People leaving prisons and jails no longer have to pay for many of the costs of their incarceration.

“Here’s (the Department of State Hospitals) quietly collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from our absolutely most, most vulnerable clients with the least ability to make any kind of payment,” said Rachel Draznin-Nagy, Khan’s public defender in Contra Costa county. “I’m so furious about it.”

California has five state mental health hospitals caring for more than 5,500 patients, the vast majority of them from the criminal justice system. Most have been charged with or convicted of offenses related to their serious mental illnesses; some, like Khan, are sick enough to be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Medi-Cal does not insure people who are in state hospitals.

After they are released months or years later, few of these patients have the financial resources to pay off massive bills, Draznin-Nagy and other public defenders said.

The Department of State Hospitals refused to make anyone available to speak with CalMatters about its fee collections program. But, in an unsigned email, representatives of the department said it “recognizes the stress and concern that individuals may experience when receiving financial notifications.”

They pointed to statutes “which require (the department) to collect upon the cost of care delivered in state hospitals.” In order to be reimbursed by Medicare, they said, state agencies must bill patients for the cost of care when such billing is required by state law.

This past May, thanks to recent changes in law, the department rolled out a new financial assistance program that allows it to forgive some or all of a patient’s debt. But public defenders say many of their clients do not have the wherewithal to complete the paperwork required to apply for the program in a timely manner.

The evening before publication, the department announced it had fully forgiven the debt of its first applicant.

Data from a report to the Legislature in 2022 showed that the department collected $418,861 from an unspecified number of former patients between January 2018 and September 2021. The report also noted that the department had filed six lawsuits seeking collections during that time. It had not written off, reduced or canceled any patient debt in that period. The department did not provide CalMatters with more recent data. Its current budget is $3.4 billion.

In its email, the department’s representatives said it has neither sent former patients to collections agencies nor garnished their wages. But if patients have not made an effort to pay their bills or been in contact about making payment arrangements, contesting their bill, or applying for the financial assistance program, the department can forward a request to the Franchise Tax Board to collect unclaimed property, funds or tax returns to offset the cost of care.

‘Shocking’ hospital bills

In recent years, advocates and attorneys have convinced the Legislature to overturn other policies that require billing vulnerable groups, often low-income people of color.

In 2018, California led the way nationally in abolishing fees for juvenile offenders.

In 2022, the state halted the collection of fees from people in jail and prison for costs associated with their incarceration.

Stephanie Campos-Bui, a Berkeley Law professor involved with those efforts, said the size of Department of State Hospitals bills, such as the one Khan received, is “shocking.” Part of what led to legislative changes banning collection of other types of fees is that the cost to the state often negates any revenue such fees might generate, she said.

“If we really think it’s in our interest as a society to be placing these people in state hospitals, that should be on the general fund, the taxpayers, to do that, not on people who are involuntarily being committed to these facilities,” she said.

Joseph Gocke, a public defender from Yolo County, said one of his clients received a bill in 2022 for $81,491 after spending months in a state hospital.

“We went to court. We contested it. We lost, unfortunately,” he said.

“To then turn around and give them a bill for something they’re not choosing seems fundamentally unfair.”Joseph Gocke, Yolo County public defender

Some of the case law that allows the department to collect such fees dates back to the 1950s and early ‘60s, he said, predating even the right to an attorney, which was established in 1963.

“It’s bizarre that this is still allowed because these are clients of ours that the law also mandates that they go to the state hospital for treatment,” he said. “And to then turn around and give them a bill for something they’re not choosing seems fundamentally unfair.”

Elizabeth Madsen, a Placer County public defender, requested an itemized bill for one client in 2020, after he was deemed incompetent to stand trial and sent to a state hospital. The Department of State Hospitals, the bill showed, charged $520 a day for his three-month stay. State officials sent multiple bills to his parents trying to collect a total of $51,945, which included the day rate as well as the cost of medications and vaccines.

Madsen said this was the only such bill she was aware of any of her clients receiving over the years, leading her and other public defenders to believe such billing is unevenly implemented. She said state hospital representatives told her they sent such bills all the time.

The email from the Department of State Hospitals earlier this month noted that, “upon any individual’s admission to the state hospital, the Hospital’s Trust Office informs the patient about their liability for the care, support, and maintenance in a state institution.”

‘I’m basically going to be in debt for the rest of my life’

Khan doesn’t remember anyone telling him he’d be on the hook for so much money. He was struggling with a new diagnosis of schizophrenia and his life being upended at the time: “I had other things on my mind,” he said.

If hospital officials had explained how much debt he’d be in, he said, he might have opted to just go to prison – even though he feels the treatment he received at the state hospital ultimately helped him enormously.

“I mean, $760,000, I’m basically going to be in debt for the rest of my life,” he said recently, sitting in a conference room in downtown Martinez with his public defender, Draznin-Nagy. “It’s not a good feeling, believe me.”

First: Sultan Khan’s medical bills and related letters that he received from the California Department of State after he was involuntarily committed to Napa State Hospital by Contra Costa County in Martinez, on June 27, 2024. Last: Sultan Khan at the Contra Costa County Public Defenders’ office in Martinez on June 27, 2024. Photos by Florence Middleton, CalMatters

Khan had landed in the criminal justice system soon after he returned from a stint as a Pashto interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, the controversial detention camp in Cuba where the United States military housed detainees after 9/11. The violence he saw while working there traumatized him, he said. In addition to experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in jail. In the state hospital, his illness responded well to medication and treatment. He was discharged in 2018, and began the process of piecing his life back together. He moved in with his family. He started collecting disability payments. He got a part-time job at a local grocery store.

He received the first bill two years later. The treatment team that worked with him in the county’s conditional release program sent the department proof of his inability to pay, he and Draznin-Nagy said.

A year went by before Khan received another letter from the department informing him that it was updating its policies and would not pursue collection until that process was completed.

Almost three years after that, Khan received a third letter this past May. If he did not contact the department’s Patient Cost Recovery Section to request financial help within 30 days, it said, the department would resume billing.

Even though he has reached out to the state through his attorney, Khan says anxiety about the bill keeps him awake at night. He thinks about it while he’s working and during walks through the local park that used to help him clear his head.

“It’s like a weight on my shoulders,” he said. “It lingers in my mind.”

(CalMatters.org)

SPIDER JOHNSON

For all you well-informed grammar officers here, I'm curious about the systematic loss of comparative and superlative adjectives among our populace, including newscasters, who traditionally spoke standard English. Over several years, I have noticed the increased use of “more” and “most” with many adjectives that typically require appending them with “-er” or “-est.” At this point I would not be surprised to hear someone say “more big” instead of “bigger.” Any clues on how this is happening?

GET OUT NOW

Editor,

In the light of Adam Shatz’s superb piece on Israel and the US in the current London Review of Books it is depressing to reflect on the extent to which propagandists for Israel have succeeded in defining any attack on its government’s policies as antisemitic.

Two decades ago I was shocked when the New Zealand Herald fired its longstanding cartoonist Malcolm Evans for a work that dared to compare Israel’s oppression of Palestinians with the policies of apartheid South Africa. But I wasn’t entirely surprised: Evans had expressed a somewhat radical view for the time and the Herald was known for its conservative opinions.

Much more disturbing was last year’s decision by the supposedly left-leaning Guardian to sack Steve Bell. Arguably the greatest British cartoonist and caricaturist since George Cruikshank, Bell had published in the Guardian since 1981. He had produced a caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu that now seems prophetic: completed on October 9, 2023, shortly after the bombardment of Gaza began, it shows Israel’s prime minister engraving a map of Gaza on his stomach while his speech bubble orders “Residents of Gaza, get out now.”

The cartoon, explicitly labelled “After David Levine,” was closely based on Levine’s depiction of Lyndon Johnson from 1966, showing his stomach scar as a map of Vietnam.

But the Guardian accused Bell of employing an antisemitic trope deriving from the “pound of flesh” episode in The Merchant of Venice. They refused to publish the cartoon; Bell posted it on Twitter, and was fired. Looking at it now, I find it hard to imagine how the connection with The Merchant of Venice could have been made; but once such an allegation has been uttered, there seems to be no escaping its consequences.

Michael Neill

Auckland, New Zealand

HENRY OLD COYOTE and his younger brother, Barney Old Coyote Jr., both served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II as part of B-17 bomber crews. Flying in squadrons of B-17 bombers over Nazi occupied France, North Africa, Italy, Norway and later Germany, crews were under strict orders to maintain radio silence. However, Barney Old Coyote Jr. could radio messages in the Crow language back to his brother Henry’s B-17 bomber, sharing information about targets and enemy strength while baffling German code-breakers. As a tail gunner, waist gunner and engineer riding in the top turret, Barney Old Coyote Jr.’s main job was shooting down German planes and attacking troops on the ground. He flew 72 combat missions, and his decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with 14 oak leaf clusters and the Silver Star for valor.

Henry Old Coyote and his younger brother, Barney Old Coyote Jr. (sons of Barney Old Coyote Sr. and Mae Takes The Gun-Old Coyote) - Crow - circa 1942

GOD'S HAND

To the Editor:

Everyone should be grateful that former President Donald Trump’s life was spared.

With that said, I question the simplistic attribution of divine intervention in this instance. The former president proclaimed, “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.” And Senator Marco Rubio stated, “God protected President Trump.” And the Rev. Franklin Graham declared that “God’s hand of protection” was on the former president.

I would ask them and all those other “theologians” these questions:

Where were God’s hands on Corey Comperatore, who died after being shot in the head, robbing his wife and daughters of a devoted husband and father?

Where were God’s hands on James Copenhaver and David Dutch, who were severely wounded?

If we are to believe in a just and merciful God, we must reject the notion of divine puppetry, as the late Rabbi Harold Kushner suggested in his book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Rather, we should recognize that God’s influence manifests through our own collective efforts to work to heal and improve the world, empowering us to act with compassion and justice.

If we can all do that, then we can indeed create a world embodying the values of mercy, justice and compassion.

(Rabbi) Reuven H. Taff

Sacramento

HEY MAN, WE’RE OUT OF RUNWAY

by Christian Lorentzen

The debate last month between Biden and Trump was painful to watch because it reminded us that someday we’ll all die. In retrospect Biden’s advanced age was a political asset in 2020. By contrast with the sneering and erratic Trump, given to mocking the disabled and insulting anyone unlucky enough to be in his vicinity, here was a kindly and familiar old man who had suffered terrible personal tragedies: the death of his young wife and infant daughter in an automobile accident in 1972; the death of his eldest son from brain cancer in 2015; the crack addiction and wastrelsy of his surviving son in the years that followed. Broadcasting a socially distanced campaign from his Delaware basement, he appeared gentle and forgiving, the “designated mourner” in Fintan O’Toole’s phrase, just the man to heal the country after the devastation of the pandemic and the four-year reign of the American berserker.

To see Biden that way was to forget his decades in the Senate as an arrogant opportunist, an inconsistent warmonger and a plagiarist (his speeches stole from Neil Kinnock and JFK). Age took the edge off him. Reaching the White House four years ago, he accomplished at 78 what he couldn’t manage at 45 or 65. Perhaps he’s been better at the job as a mellow old man than he would have been as a middle-aged hothead – though that is little comfort to the rest of the world, especially the zones under American protection or subject to US (or US-sponsored) might. There, it seems, the emperor has no brain.

It’s difficult to divine from the histories of the Biden administration written so far just how active a role the president has played in governing the country. The titles of Franklin Foer’s The Last Politician and Chris Whipple’s The Fight of His Life put Biden at the center of the story, while Alexander Ward’s The Internationalists casts the administration’s foreign policy forthrightly as a team effort. All draw on published accounts and interviews with aides and officials – some named (especially in Whipple) and others not, though their points of view, if not actual identities, are easy to glean – and view Biden himself at a distance. He presides over meetings, attends ceremonies and picks up the telephone to prod legislators, chastise despots and puff his appointees on a job well done.

Whereas accounts of the Trump White House varied from clown show to cesspool, with backstabbing among hacks, mercenaries and scumbags, the histories of the Biden administration present a succession of earnest and credentialled professionals lining up to help the president better the country and the world.

(London Review of Books)

Northern Michigan Lumber Jacks circa 1890

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

PROJECT 2025: Like there has never been any political manifestos in US history. You certainly have had such almost continuously. The Progressive wing has one. The Communist party always has one. Heck every political party has one, more or less in detail. The Institute for Policy Studies , the Center for American Progress, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Urban Institute. All with their lists of first things to do upon winning the election.

But the national media has not stoked the public for from them as it has for Plan 2025. In fact in any online search for similar things from the left, I had to go through nearly 10 pages of Plan 2025. And then dig into obscure links. Liberals are being sold a bill of goods by tech giants and they seemingly can't get enough of them.

Anti Trumpists are so fearful of Trump personally, they can’t see that their own fears leave out there’s a Congress, Courts and the public. How did Trump become the incarnation of every fear of the media driven left?

It’s a self driven deterioration of public sanity fueled by people trying to out hate each other. Stop creating ever more fear by outrageous rhetoric online and, poof, people will find more interest in reality as opposed to dystopian fictions. It’s so ugly.

Sprinkling Stars at Marariki (Ira Mitchell-Kirk)

IT’S NOT NECESSARY to censor the news, it’s only necessary to delay the news until it no longer matters.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

FRIDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

I DON’T LIKE country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means “put down.”

— Bob Newhart

MICROSOFT CRASHES THE WORLD

by Bethan Sexton

The 'most serious IT outage the world has ever seen' sparked global chaos today - with planes and trains grounded and businesses including banks, hotels and casinos shutdown.

The internet outage has been affecting Microsoft apps and services for hours, with the travel industry amongst the worst hit.

The issue was caused by an update to Crowdstrike's 'Falcon Sensor' software which crashed, crippling Microsoft computers.

Hospitals cancel surgeries

Mass General Brigham - one of the biggest healthcare systems in America - has axed all non-urgent visits, procedures and surgeries amid a global IT failure.

Hospitals were thrown into chaos overnight when the outage knocked out Windows systems around the world, knocking computers and medical devices offline and forcing medical staff to revert to pen and paper.

Mass General Brigham in Boston - which sees 2.5million patients a year - said its clinics and ERs would continue provide care to patients who have urgent health problems.

'We continue to care for all patients currently receiving care in our hospitals,' the healthcare provider added.

'We have dedicated every available resource to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our patients.

'It is our highest priority to ensure that our patients receive the safest care possible.'

Tufts Medical Center and South Shore Health were also experiencing issues linked to the global tech outage.

NYC subway controllers lose track of trains

Transport officials in New York say they are unable to track the location of their subways amid the outage.

While dispatchers can still see the trains and there are no safety concerns, many passengers have been left in the dark.

Crowdstrike issues fix

Crowdstrike deployed a fix at around 5:30am ET for an issue that caused the 'most serious IT outage the world has ever seen.'

The cybersecurity firm is now working to reboot its systems, which could take some time for them to fully recover.

CEO George Kurtz said the issue is 'not a security incident or cyberattack' but is a 'defect' in a 'single content update for Windows hosts.

'The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.'

The outage was triggered by a faulty update to its Falcon Sensor software.

Microsoft acknowledged the Windows meltdown, saying: ‘We are aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.

‘We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming.’

New York City transit network systems impacted

The outage has had an impact on some Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) customer information systems, according to officials.

Trains and buses should not be affected, but passengers are advised to listen out for updates.

The New York and New Jesery Port Authority said it has not been affected, but is advising customers not to head to the airport unless flight status has been confirmed

Airports grind to a halt

Georgia's Atlanta International Airport is currently the worst hit by travel disruption, with 37 cancelled flights and 58 delays, according to Flight Aware's Misery Map.

Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina is the second worst affected, with 17 cancellations.

New York City's La Guardia had grounded 13 flights as of Friday morning, with dozens more delays.

Tech outage sparks travel chaos

Around one in 20 flights originating in the US have been cancelled already, with almost 19,000 total delays.

American Airlines says its flights are returning to normal, but other major carriers such as Delta, Allegiant, Spirit and Frontier are still grounded.

The FAA said it is 'closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines'.

At New Jersey's Newark International Airport where around 600 flights leave daily, the departures monitor was completely blank and displayed a blue error screen.

(dailymail.com)

MILWAUKEE SHIPS IN 4,500 COPS TO SUPPRESS PROTEST AT RNC

by Cody Bloomfield

Contestations over the Republican National Committee’s efforts to foreclose avenues for lawful protest outside this week’s Republican National Convention (RNC) were already heated months before GOP delegates started booking their flights to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the convention.

So it was something of a victory for free speech that, after months of mobilizing and negotiations — and in the unexpectedly heightened state of policing following the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump — some protesters managed to demonstrate close enough to the RNC to be seen and heard by its attendees.

The path leading up to that point was filled with uncertainty over whether protest rights would be subordinated to GOP demands. Ahead of the RNC, downtown Milwaukee became a labyrinth of closed streets, vehicle checkpoints and even maritime restrictions on the Milwaukee River. For months, the GOP negotiated over the boundaries permitted for protest. It was clear that the Republican National Committee was trying to engineer a world in which delegates could attend the entire RNC without ever seeing a protester.

To the protesters, of course, this was unacceptable. In the months leading up to the convention, the Coalition to March on the RNC engaged in continuous negotiations with RNC authorities determined to sideline protests and reduce visibility. After the Secret Service established an initial boundary, the Republican Party demanded an even larger exclusion zone, a demand to which the Secret Service partially acceded. Less than a monthbefore the convention, the City of Milwaukee consigned all protesters to a set march route that came, at its closest, four and half blocks from the Fiserv Forum where the nomination would be held. The ACLU of Wisconsin suedon behalf of the Coalition to March on the RNC, arguing that the protest restrictions unduly limited the exercise of free speech rights. A judge denied the injunction on the grounds that, because the mandated protest route applied to every group equally, no First Amendment concerns were implicated. Exercising remarkable deference to the Secret Service and City of Milwaukee protest restrictions, the judge wrote that the “Court will not second guess their judgements, particularly with respect to complex issues like the security needs for a large convention.”

In the aftermath of the ruling, the Coalition to March on the RNC reiterated a commitment to conducting a protest “within sight and sound” of the main venue. Just days before the convention, the coalition remained in negotiations with the city.

On July 12, Milwaukee city’s communications director Jeff Fleming commented to NBC News, “Mayor Cavalier Johnson has said the protesters want to be on the stage at Fiserv Forum, and the Republicans want the protesters to be on the moon.” In the end, the City of Milwaukee resisted the pressure to put protesters on the moon; on July 12, the coalition announced that it had come to a “handshake agreement” with the city about the march route.

In addition to the Secret Service, as many as 4,500 officers from 85 police agencies from 24 states and Washington, D.C. were deployed to Milwaukee.

On July 15, the opening day of the convention, hundreds of protesters gathered in Red Arrow Park, a few blocks from the fora where delegates checked in for the major events of the afternoon, including Donald Trump’s official nomination as the Republican candidate for president. The protesters represented a broad spectrum of causes, from generic opposition to the GOP to comparatively narrower issues, with Palestine and abortion rights most heavily represented.

In defiance of the city’s distant designated “parade route,” the march proceeded along the coalition’s planned route, with the exception of nixing planned transit through Pere Marquette Park, which had been subsumed into the Secret Service’s credentialed perimeter. The protest chants reflected the diversity of causes under the coalition’s umbrella. As protesters surged over vehicle road closure barriers toward the Fiserv Forum, they chanted, “Up and down, Milwaukee is a union town,” as well as, “From Palestine to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine,” and “Donald Trump, KKK, no fascist USA.”

Chants in favor of reproductive rights, including “Keep abortion safe and legal” and “Abortion is a miracle” also featured prominently, particularly after coalition protesters encountered an anti-choice group (also outside the city-designated parade route) demanding that the GOP platform include a total ban on abortion.

As pushed for by the coalition, protesters chanted outside the Fiserv Forum, just outside the Secret Service credentialed perimeter, as a handful of RNC delegates went through the security checkpoint. Police assigned to the protest cleared a corridor, but otherwise refrained from interference with the protest. (Though, it’s worth noting, I observed police allowing a solitary protester with a large sign reading “Trump for Israel, Biden for Hamas” to block one of the entrances to the security checkpoint.)

While few police officers were assigned to the fringes of the protest crowd, police from across the country monitored the protest from every street corner. In addition to the Secret Service, as many as 4,500 officers from 85 police agencies from 24 states and Washington, D.C. were deployed to Milwaukee. To deal with lodging for that large number of incoming police, Milwaukee requested 4,000 dorm rooms at five local colleges and universities.

A day after the protests, on July 16, five Columbus Police Department officers shot and killed Samuel Sharpe Jr., a Black man, over a mile from the RNC.

With the sheer number of agencies present, Milwaukee decided against holding other police departments to certain city policies, including those requiring body-worn cameras, a critical transparency measure aimed at providing the public with an unbiased record of incidents of misconduct. No additional training was required for RNC assignment, though the Milwaukee Police Department ordered incoming agencies to follow the Milwaukee Police Department’s standard operating procedures on use of force, crowd control and rules of engagement. Ahead of the RNC, the Milwaukee Police Department stated that it intended to assign outside officers to nonpublic facing positions, such as traffic control.

Police presence on the ground told another story. In addition to the Milwaukee Police Department officers on every corner (including seven on horseback), Truthout sighted five other agencies along the protest route. One agency, the Columbus Police Department, clearly took part in policing the protest, intermixing at the margins of the crowd and separating out the occasional pro-Trump provocateur wading into the left-wing coalition crowd.

Columbus Police Department officers wore vests reading “dialogue,” and one officer told Truthout that the unit received special First Amendment training. Later in the march, Milwaukee Police Department officers also entered the crowd. One officer, asked about the Milwaukee Police Department’s role in the crowd relative to that of the Columbus Police Department, said he “didn’t know.”

Along the march route, in addition to the presence of dozens of the estimated 1,600 Milwaukee Police Department officers assigned to the RNC, I observed a public-facing presence from the Columbus Police Department and four other agencies. Eighteen police officers on bikes from a police department in North Carolina circled the protest at one point along the route. Officers from the Carroll County, Maryland, sheriff’s office deployed at several points. One officer stated that, though their role was to conduct security at the RNC, they were also policing protest. Outside the Fiserv Forum and at vehicle security areas, nearly as many Indiana State Police officers as Secret Service staffed checkpoints and watched from street corners. Approximately 20 police officers from Green Bay, Wisconsin, watched over part of the protest. All this policing was backed up by an extensive surveillance apparatus. Ahead of the (in the end, mostly virtual) DNC in 2020, Milwaukee acquired new surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology and unmarked surveillance vans equipped with drone launch sites, equipment likely deployed for this year’s RNC security. And after the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the Milwaukee Southeastern Wisconsin Threat Analysis Center, part of a network of fusion center intelligence agencies created after 9/11 with a focus on counterterrorism, issued a joint assessment with the FBI, Secret Service and Milwaukee Police Department based on intelligence gathered.

Despite the Republican National Committee’s calls to exile protesters and the City of Milwaukee’s decision to banish protesters to a distant official “parade route,” determined protesters marched within a block of the Fiserv Forum.

With the host of agencies brought in to support RNC policing, Milwaukee created a volatile situation. A day after the protests, on July 16, five Columbus Police Department officers — the same department policing the protest — shot and killed Samuel Sharpe Jr., a Black man, over a milefrom the RNC. The shooting was unrelated to any RNC security purpose, and validated fears from community members about the risks to community safety posed by the thousands of police officers inundating the city. “To be honest, this was the biggest fear that we had about the RNC,” Eva Welch, co-founder of the community organization Street Angels, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

At Monday’s march, protesters were able to demonstrate under close watch but without arrest or direct confrontation. But the events could easily have gone in another direction. Several of the agencies pulled in to assist with RNC security have track records of egregious misconduct in policing protest, as my colleagues at Defending Rights & Dissent documented in an analysis of lawsuit settlements for police misconduct during the 2020 George Floyd protests. Among the police departments deployed to the RNC were some of the worst offenders in 2020, including the Michigan State Patrol (which fired hard projectiles and tear gas at journalists), Charlotte Police Department (which trapped hundreds of protesters between buildings downtown and then showered them with pepper balls), Austin Police Department (which deployed bean bag rounds to horrific effects, shattering one protester’s jaw), and Denver Police Department (which flouted use-of-force policies to fire “less lethal” weapons at protesters’ heads, necks and groins).

Austin Police Department was forced to pay out over $20 million to protesters over their 2020 misconduct; Denver Police Department over $25 million. With protests expected in a highly securitized area, and with potentially volatile conflicts between left- and right-wing protesters possible, the City of Milwaukee should have exercised extreme caution in deciding which police departments were permitted on the ground in possible confrontation with protesters.

At the end of the day, Monday’s protest was a victory for First Amendment rights. Despite the Republican National Committee’s calls to exile protesters and the City of Milwaukee’s decision to banish protesters to a distant official “parade route,” determined protesters marched within a block of the Fiserv Forum, where they could be seen and heard by RNC attendees. Proximity matters, as does freedom from police repression. Protest’s purpose is to speak up and speak loud — and that’s exactly what protesters did outside the RNC.

(Truthout.org)

‘TRUMPAMANIA’: HULK HOGAN RIPS OFF HIS SHIRT, AND REPUBLICANS GO WILD

by Tim Balk

Hulk Hogan, the theatrical former professional wrestler, teed up Donald J. Trump on Thursday at the Republican National Convention with a rousing speech in which he ripped off his suit jacket and shirt, revealing a red Trump-Vance tank top to raucous cheers.

The retired wrestler, whose real name is Terry G., called Mr. Trump his “hero” and said the former president would bring “America back together, one real American at a time.”

“As an entertainer, I try to stay out of politics,” said Mr. Bollea, who wore a red bandanna and had a pair of dark sunglasses propped above his head. “But after everything that’s happened to our country over the past four years, and everything that happened last weekend, I can no longer stay silent.”

Mr. Bollea had once shied away speaking about this year’s election. Just last month, he said he had not yet decided whom he would support.

“I just don’t know,” Mr. Bollea said in an interview with NewsNation. He added, “I just want the best man to win.”

That changed after the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump last Saturday.

“When I saw him stand up with that fist in the air and the blood on his face — as a warrior, as a leader — I realized that’s what America needs,” Mr. Bollea said on Fox News on Thursday night.

He was rewarded with a prime-time spot on the final night of the Republican convention, serving as one of the last speakers before Mr. Trump takes the stage.

Mr. Trump has had close ties to wrestling entertainment for decades, and directly participated in several W.W.E. events. He was inducted into the W.W.E. Hall of Fame in 2013, eight years after Mr. Bollea entered the hall. And Mr. Trump made Linda McMahon, the former chief executive of W.W.E., the head of the Small Business Administration when he was in the White House.

Ms. McMahon also spoke on Thursday, and Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is set to speak after Mr. Bollea.

Mr. Trump has sought to project an aura of toughness after the rally shooting, which bloodied his right ear. He has worn a bandage over his ear during his appearances at the convention this week, and his supporters have made some of the first words he said after rising from the ground — “fight! fight! fight!” — a rallying cry.

Mr. Bollea, a physically towering 70-year-old performer with a gravelly voice and a recognizable handlebar mustache, has sometimes compared pro wrestling to politics. He has also contemplated running for office.

His own politics are somewhat opaque. He has supported both former President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

But Mr. Bollea has other high-profile ties to Republican politics. Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur and Republican megadonor, was said to have bankrolled a legal fight that Mr. Bollea waged against Gawker Media after the news website published a video of him having sex with the wife of a radio host.

Mr. Bollea won the case and a Florida jury ordered Gawker to pay him $140 million. The media company filed for bankruptcy and shut down.

Mr. Thiel was one of Mr. Trump’s top donors in 2016, though their relationship later soured somewhat. But he remains influential in the Republican Party.

Mr. Thiel is said to have placed calls encouraging Mr. Trump to select J.D. Vance, who once worked at one of Mr. Thiel’s investment firms, as his running mate. Mr. Vance, a senator from Ohio whose best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” fueled his political rise, accepted the vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday.

Mr. Bollea, whose reputation was damaged in 2015 after it was reported that he had used a racial slur on videotape, has suggested that he would like to be vice president someday.

“You never know,” he said in the NewsNation interview. “Right now, I’d make a great vice president, brother, because I do have common sense. I do know right from wrong.”

But on Thursday, he threw his support behind Mr. Vance.

Standing on the Republican convention stage and pointing toward Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, Mr. Bollea declared that he saw “the greatest tag team of my life.”

(NY Times)

Transcript:

Hulk Hogan endorsing Donald Trump Thursday night:

[Shouting continuously] Let me tell you something brother. You know something? When I came here tonight there was so much energy in this room that I thought maybe I was in Madison Square Garden and I was going to win another world title or I was going to… the vibe was so intense, the energy was so crazy that I felt like maybe I was going to press that no good, stinking giant over my head and slam him to the mat! But what I found out was that I was in a room with real Americans brother! And at the end of the day with Our Leader up there, my hero, my gladiator, is going to bring America back together one real American at a time brother! You know something? I have seen some great tag teams in my time. Hulk Hogan and Ooooh Yeah!, the Macho Man Randy Savage. But you know something? I see the greatest tag team of my life standing upon us getting ready to straighten this country out for all the real Americans! Even though you guys are real Americans, you better get ready because when Donald J. Trump becomes the President of the United States all the real Americans are going to be nicknamed Trumpites. Because all the Trumpites are going to be running wild for four years! So with the power of Donald J. Trump and all the Trumpites running wild America is going to get back on track and like Donald J. Trump says America is going to be great again! When I look out and I see all the real Americans I think about how Donald Trump, his family, was compromised. When I look out there and I see Donald Trump I think about how his business was compromised. But what happened last week when they took a shot at my hero, when they tried to kill the next President of the United States, enough was enough! And I said let Trumpamania run wild brother! Let Trumpamania rule again! Let Trumpamania make America great again! [Cheers, loud chanting of USA dozens of times.] You know something Trumpites? I didn't come here as Hulk Hogan. I just wanted to give you a little taste. My name is Terry Bollea. As an entertainer -- I love you too -- as an entertainer I tried to stay out of politics. But after everything that has happened to our country in the past four years and everything that happened last weekend I can no longer stay silent! I am here tonight because I want the world to know that Donald Trump is a real American hero! And I am proud to support my hero as the next President of this United States!”

DONALD TRUMP COULD HAVE PUT THE RACE AWAY WITH HIS RNC SPEECH. Instead, he blew it back open

by Joe Garofoli

MILWAUKEE – If Donald Trump had ended his speech accepting the Republican Party presidential nomination after 25 minutes Thursday, it would have been lauded as the dawn of a new Trump, remade by his near-death experience six days earlier dodging an assassin’s bullet.

Humble. Poignant. Religious. Grateful.

But Trump didn’t stop. He rambled on in a low-key, often unintelligible, riffed speech full of non-sequiturs for another hour and 33 minutes, giving Democrats something they haven’t felt since President Joe Biden’s debate face plant in June: hope.

With various news outlets reporting Biden is contemplating leaving the race, Trump blew his chance to bury the mired-in-chaos Democratic ticket in by capitalizing on the surge of support for him after the assassination attempt.

Unlike his last two runs for the White House, Trump has the Republican Party behind him and energized like no president since Ronald Reagan. As Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon told me Wednesday, “This is the 100% unified pro-Trump Party.”

All Trump had to do was convince the nation’s few swing voters in its handful of battlefield states Thursday that he wasn’t as doddering and incapable as Biden appeared in that debate and since in public appearances.

But Trump failed, reminding voters that the only reason Trump wasn’t pummeled for his own debate performance was because Biden was so much worse.

And now Democrats believe this is a race again.

“My takeaway from this speech is that this guy is beatable. We just have to get our (s---) together,” Tommy Vietor, the former Obama administration official and co-host of the “Pod Save America” podcast that bedwetting Democrats turn to for emotional support posted on X.

Wade Randlett, a major national Democratic donor, told me: “Trump just dropped a wide open touchdown pass in the Super Bowl.”

Nate Silver, the pollster who leads fivethirtyeight.com, wrote on X: “Sometimes it seems like both parties are trying to throw this election.”

Trump started strong. A testosterone-fueled conga line of hype men, including Ultimate Fighting Championship Chief Executive Dana White, musician Kid Rock and professional wrestler Hulk Hogan — who ripped off his shirt, WWE-style to reveal a “Trump/Vance shirt underneath — jacked the delegates to a fever pitch rarely seen at a politician convention.

Trump entered, in front of a faux White House backdrop behind him, and began speaking in a hushed tone reminiscent of Biden’s whisper at the debate.

Initially, it was powerful. He started by describing the shooting incident in detailed terms, as the audience listened in rapt silence. He said it would be the last time he told the story in this much detail because “it’s actually too painful to tell,” a rare flash of vulnerability.

He recalled falling to the ground after the bullet struck his ear, but said that “I felt very safe because I had God on my side.” The audience cheered warmly. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God,” he said.

Saturday made him realize his mortality, he said, another rarity for someone who always tries to project strength.

“I'm not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said. And the crowd responded, “Yes, you are! Yes, you are!”

He even managed to get a laugh from the audience, saying that he was surprised how much his ear bled. The doctors told him that “something happens with the ears that they bleed more than any other part of the body.”

“We learned something,” Trump quipped.

Ultimately, Trump said, the incident reinforced that “nothing will stop us. I will never stop fighting for you and our magnificent country."

If it had ended there, Trump could have started ordering new furniture for AirForce One.

But instead of outlining his vision for a second term, he spent the next hour spouting random assertions, like “I could stop a war with a phone call.”

He peppered the speech with references to fictional movie killer Hannibal Lecter, immigrants transported in “paddy wagons” and electric charging stations that cost $1 billion.

He promised to end the electric vehicle mandate, which isn’t a mandate, on the first day of his administration and close the border. He promised a “new tone” but took random pot shots at “crazy Nancy Pelosi” and CBS’s "Sunday Morning" news show. His voice rose when he promised the massive deportation of undocumented immigrants in the nation’s history.

That was one of the only times he spoke above a hush. Granted, he is days removed from a life-threatening incident. But he’s been in the arena every day of the convention, alert and engaged. But during his own big moment, he appeared to be something he once mocked Jeb Bush for: “low energy.”

And that will give Democrats hope. Now all they need is a candidate.

News reports were flying Thursday that Biden is on the verge of leaving the race in the face of plummeting poll numbers, departing donors and a loss of faith among his base. An AP/NORC poll this week found that 65% of Democrats thought he should vacate the nomination.

Vice President Kamala Harris would be the most likely replacement, but Democrats are torn whether Biden should anoint her or throw open next month’s Democratic National Convention to multiple candidates.

A CNN/SSRS poll recorded in the days following the debate found that Harris was in a statistical dead heat with Trump among registered voters (Trump 47% to Harris 45%). That’s slightly better than Biden is faring against Trump (Trump 49% vs. Biden 43%), a margin that hasn’t changed since CNN last polled in April.

But that gap might close after this debacle.

(sfchronicle.com)

J.D. VANCE’S CONVENTION SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

Greetings, Milwaukee. My fellow Americans and my fellow Republicans, my name is J.D. Vance, from the great state of Ohio.

Tonight —

O-H-I-O.

You guys, we gotta chill with the Ohio love. We gotta win Michigan too here, so.

My friends, tonight is a night of hope. A celebration of what America once was, and with God’s grace, what it will soon be again. And it is a reminder of the sacred duty we have to preserve the American experiment, to choose a new path for our children and grandchildren.

But as we meet tonight, we cannot forget that this evening could have been so much different. Instead of a day of celebration, this could have been a day of heartache and mourning. For the last eight years, President Trump has given everything he has to fight for the people of our country. He didn’t need politics, but the country needed him.

Now, prior to running for president, he was one of the most successful businessmen in the world. He had everything anyone could ever want in a life. And yet, instead of choosing the easy path, he chose to endure abuse, slander and persecution. And he did it because he loves this country. I want all Americans to watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life. Consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump. And then look at that photo of him defiant — fist in the air. When Donald Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field — all of America stood with him. And what did he call for us to do for his country? To fight. To fight for America.

Even in his most perilous moment we were on his mind. His instinct was for us, for our country. To call us to something higher. To something greater. To once again be citizens who ask what our country needs of us. Now consider what they said. They said he was a tyrant. They said he must be stopped at all costs. But how did he respond? He called for national unity, for national calm literally right after an assassin nearly took his life. He remembered the victims of the terrible attack, especially the brave Corey Comperatore, who gave his life to protect his family. God bless him.

And then President Trump flew to Milwaukee and got back to work.

Now that’s the man I’ve gotten to know personally over the last few years. He is tough, and he is, but he cares about people. He can stand defiant against an assassin one moment and call for national healing the next. He is a beloved father and grandfather, and, of course, a once-in-a-generation business leader. He’s the man who’s feared by America’s adversaries, but two nights ago, and I’ll share a moment, said good night to his two boys, told them he loved them, and made sure to give each of them a kiss on the cheek. And I will say, Don and Eric squirmed the same way my 4-year-old does when his daddy tries to give him a kiss on the cheek. Sorry, guys.

He is all those things, but tonight, we celebrate. He is our once and future president of the United States of America.

Now, I want to respond to his call for unity myself. We have a big tent on this party, on everything from national security to economic policy.

But my message to you, my fellow Republicans, is — we love this country and we are united to win.

Now I think our disagreements actually make us stronger. That’s what I’ve learned in my time in the United States Senate, where sometimes I persuade my colleagues and sometimes they persuade me. And my message to my fellow Americans, those watching from across the country, is shouldn’t we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution?

That’s the Republican Party of the next four years: united in our love for this country, and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas.

And so tonight, Mr. Chairman, I stand here humbled, and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to say I officially accept your nomination to be vice president of the United States of America.

Now, never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I could be standing here tonight.

I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts.

But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.

When I was in the fourth grade, a career politician by the name of Joe Biden supported NAFTA, a bad trade deal that sent countless good jobs to Mexico.

When I was a sophomore in high school, that same career politician named Joe Biden gave China a sweetheart trade deal that destroyed even more good American middle-class manufacturing jobs.

When I was a senior in high school, that same Joe Biden supported the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

And at each step of the way, in small towns like mine in Ohio, or next door in Pennsylvania or Michigan, in other states across our country, jobs were sent overseas and our children were sent to war.

[Crowd chants “Joe must go.”]

I agree.

And somehow, a real estate developer from New York City by the name of Donald J. Trump was right on all of these issues while Biden was wrong. President Trump knew, even then, that we needed leaders who would put America first.

Now, thanks to these policies that Biden and other out-of-touch politicians in Washington gave us, our country was flooded with cheap Chinese goods, with cheap foreign labor— and in the decades to come, deadly Chinese fentanyl.

Joe Biden screwed up, and my community paid the price. Now, I was lucky. Despite the closing factories and the growing addiction in towns like mine, in my life, I had a guardian angel by my side. She was an old woman who could barely walk but she was tough as nails.

I called her “Mamaw,” the name we hillbillies gave to our grandmothers.

Mamaw raised me as her own — excuse me —

Mamaw raised me as my mother struggled with addiction. Mamaw was in so many ways a woman of contradictions. She loved the Lord, ladies and gentleman. She was a woman of very deep Christian faith.

But she also loved the F word. I’m not kidding. She could make a sailor blush.

Now, she once told me, when she found out that I was spending too much time with a local kid who was known for dealing drugs, that if I ever hung out with that kid again, she would run him over with her car.

That’s true. And she said, “J.D., no one will ever find out about it.”

Now, now thanks to that Mamaw, things worked out for me.

After 9/11, I did what thousands of other young men my age did in that time of soaring patriotism and love of country: I enlisted in the United States Marines. Semper Fi to my fellow Marines.

Now I left the Marines after four years and went to The Ohio State University. I’m sorry Michigan, I had to get that in there.

Come on, come on. We’ve had enough political violence. Let’s —

Now after Ohio State I went to Yale Law School, where I met my beautiful wife, and I then started businesses to create jobs in the kinds of places I grew up in.

Now, my work taught me that there is still so much talent and grit in the American heartland. There really is. But for these places to thrive, we need a leader who fights for the people who built this country.

We need a leader who’s not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike. A leader who won’t sell out to multinational corporations, but will stand up for American companies and American industry. A leader who rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Green New Scam and fights to bring back our great American factories.

We need President Donald J. Trump.

Some people tell me I’ve lived the American dream, and of course they’re right. And I’m so grateful for it.

But the American dream that always counted most was not starting a business or becoming a senator or even being here with you fine people, though it’s pretty awesome. My most important American dream was becoming a good husband and a good dad. Of being able to give —

I wanted to give my kids the things that I didn’t have when I was growing up.

And that’s the accomplishment that I’m proudest of.

That tonight I’m joined by my beautiful wife, Usha, an incredible lawyer and a better mom. And our three beautiful kids, Ewan who’s 7, Vivek who’s 4, Mirabel who’s 2.

Now they’re back at the hotel, and kids, if you’re watching, Daddy loves you very much but get your butts in bed. It’s 10 o’clock.

But, my friends, things did not work out well for a lot of kids I grew up with. Every now and then I will get a call from a relative back home who asks, “Did you know so-and-so?”

And I’ll remember a face from years ago, and then I’ll hear, “They died of an overdose.”

As always, America’s ruling class wrote the checks. Communities like mine paid the price.

For decades, that divide between the few, with their power and comfort in Washington, and the rest of us only widened.

From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.

That is, of course, until a guy named President Donald J. Trump came along.

President Trump represents America’s last best hope to restore what — if lost — may never be found again. A country where a working-class boy born far from the halls of power can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the United States of America.

But, my fellow Americans, here in this stage and watching at home, this moment is not about me; it’s about all of us, and it’s about who we’re fighting for.

It’s about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying their jobs.

It’s about the factory worker in Wisconsin who makes things with their hands and is proud of American craftsmanship.

It’s about the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world, when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country.

You guys are a great crowd. Wow.

And, it’s about, our movement is about single moms like mine, who struggled with money and addiction but never gave up.

And I’m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober.

I love you, Mom.

And, you know, Mom, I was thinking. It’ll be 10 years officially in January of 2025, and if President Trump’s OK with it, let’s have the celebration in the White House.

And our movement, ladies and gentlemen, it’s about grandparents all across this country, who are living on Social Security and raising grandchildren they didn’t expect to raise.

And while we’re on the topic of grandparents, let me tell you another Mamaw story. Now, my Mamaw died shortly before I left for Iraq, in 2005. And when we went through her things, we found 19 loaded handguns. They were —

Now, the thing is, they were stashed all over her house. Under her bed, in her closet. In the silverware drawer. And we wondered what was going on, and it occurred to us that towards the end of her life, Mamaw couldn’t get around very well. And so this frail old woman made sure that no matter where she was, she was within arms’ length of whatever she needed to protect her family. That’s who we fight for. That’s American spirit.

Now, Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for longer than I’ve been alive. Thirty-nine years old. Kamala Harris is not much further behind.

For half-a-century, he’s been the champion of every major policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer.

And in four short years, Donald Trump reversed decades of betrayals inflicted by Joe Biden and the rest of the corrupt Washington insiders.

He created the greatest economy in history for workers. It really was amazing. There’s, there’s this chart that shows worker wages. And they stagnated for pretty much my entire life, until President Donald J. Trump came along. Workers’ wages went through the roof. And just imagine what he can do with four more years in the White House.

Months ago, I heard some young family member observe that their parents’ generation — the baby boomers — could afford to buy a home when they first entered the work force. “But I don’t know,” this person observed, “if I’ll ever be able to afford a home.”

The absurd cost of housing is the result of so many failures. And it reveals so much about what’s broken in Washington. I can tell you exactly how it happened.

Wall Street barons crashed the economy and American builders went out of business.

As tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built.

The lack of good jobs, of course, led to stagnant wages.

And then the Democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens.

So citizens had to compete — with people who shouldn’t even be here — for precious housing.

Joe Biden’s inflation crisis, my friends, is really an affordability crisis.

And many of the people that I grew up with can’t afford to pay more for groceries, more for gas, more for rent, and that’s exactly what Joe Biden’s economy has given them. So prices soared, dreams were shattered.

And China and the cartels sent fentanyl across the border, adding addiction to the heartache.

But ladies and gentlemen, that is not the end of our story.

We’ve heard about the villains and their victims; I’ve talked a lot about that. I’ve talked a lot about that. But let me tell you about the future.

President Trump’s vision is so simple and yet so powerful. We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man.

We’re done importing foreign labor, we’re going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages.

We’re done buying energy from countries that hate us; we’re going to get it right here, from American workers in Pennsylvania and Ohio and across the country.

We’re done sacrificing supply chains to unlimited global trade, and we’re going to stamp more and more products with that beautiful label, “Made in the U.S.A.”

We’re going to build factories again, put people to work making real products for American families, made with the hands of American workers.

Together, we will protect the wages of American workers — and stop the Chinese Communist Party from building their middle class on the backs of American citizens.

Together, we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. No more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer.

Together, we will send our kids to war only when we must.But as President Trump showed with the elimination of ISIS and so much more, when we punch, we’re going to punch hard.

Together, we will put the citizens of America first, whatever the color of their skin.

We will, in short, make America great again.

You know, one of the things that you hear people say sometimes is that America is an idea. And to be clear, America was indeed founded on brilliant ideas, like the rule of law and religious liberty. Things written into the fabric of our Constitution and our nation. But America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.

Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms. That’s the way we preserve the continuity of this project from 250 years past to hopefully 250 years in the future. And let me illustrate this with a story, if I may.

I am, of course, married to the daughter of South Asian immigrants to this country. Incredible people. People who genuinely have enriched this country in so many ways.

And, of course, I’m biased, because I love my wife and her family, but I it’s true.

Now when I proposed to my wife, we were in law school, and I said, “Honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt, and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in Eastern Kentucky.”

And I guess standing here tonight it’s just gotten weirder and weirder, honey. But that’s what she was getting. Now that cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky is near my family’s ancestral home. And like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Now that’s Kentucky coal country, one of the 10 —

Now, it’s one of the 10 poorest counties in the entire United States of America.

They’re very hardworking people, and they’re very good people. They’re the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back even if they can’t afford enough to eat.

And our media calls them privileged and looks down on them.

But they love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home, and it will be their children’s home, and they would die fighting to protect it.

That is the source of America’s greatness.

As a United States senator, I get to represent millions of people in the great state of Ohio with similar stories, and it is the great honor of my life.

Now in that cemetery, there are people who were born around the time of the Civil War. And if, as I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to rest there, and our kids follow us, there will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern Kentucky. Seven generations of people who have fought for this country. Who have built this country. Who have made things in this country. And who would fight and die to protect this country if they were asked to.

Now. Now that’s not just an idea, my friends. That’s not just a set of principle. Even though the ideas and the principles are great, that is a homeland. That is our homeland. People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first.

Now we won’t agree on every issue of course, not even in this room. We may disagree from time to time about how best to reinvigorate American industry and renew American family. That’s fine. In fact its more than fine, it’s good.

But never forget that the reason why this united Republican Party exists, why we do this, why we care about those great ideas and that great history, is that we want this nation to thrive for centuries to come.

Now eventually, in that mountain cemetery, my children will lay me to rest.

And when they do, I would like them to know that thanks to the work of this Republican Party, the United States of America, it is strong, and as proud and as great as ever.

That is who we serve, my friends. That is who we fight for. And the only thing that we need to do right now, the most important thing that we can do for those people, for that American nation that we all love, is to re-elect Donald J. Trump president of the United States.

Mr. President, I will never take for granted the trust you have put in me.

And what an honor it is to help achieve the extraordinary vision that you have for this country.

Now I pledge to every American, no matter your party, I will give you everything I have. To serve you and to make this country a place where every dream you have for yourself, your family and your country will be possible once again.

And I promise you one more thing. To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation:

I promise you this — I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.

And every single day for the next four years, when I walk into that White House to help President Trump, I will be doing it for you. For your family, for your future and for this great country.

Thank you, God bless all of you, and God bless our great country.

‘ONE OF THE TRULY AWFUL AND SELF-INDULGENT PERFORMANCES OF OUR TIME’: The Best and Worst Moments From Night 4 of the Convention

by New York Times Opinion

Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for Night 4 of the Republican National Convention. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers rate the evening on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the night was a disaster for Donald Trump; 10 means it could lead to a big polling bump. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought of the event, which culminated in Trump’s acceptance speech.

Best Moment

Kristen Soltis Anderson, contributing Opinion writer Donald Trump gave a compelling and moving description of what it was like to be under fire and pledged to represent all of America, not just half of America. That may be easier said than done.

David Brooks, Times columnist The first 20 minutes of the Trump speech. If he’d done the story about the assassination attempt and then added 15 minutes of policy, he would be cruising toward victory. He could have plausibly argued that he is a changed man.

Jane Coaston, contributing Opinion writer Hulk Hogan’s speech was his best performance since he beat Macho Man Randy Savage at WrestleMania V.

Matthew Continetti, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Trump’s account of the attempt on his life was gripping. He displayed a vulnerability and humility that most people had never seen before. And when he kissed the fireman’s helmet of Corey Comperatore, the husband and father who was killed during last weekend’s shooting, Trump created yet another indelible image. It won’t be soon forgotten.

David French, Times columnist Trump’s tribute to Comperatore was touching and appropriate. Placing his uniform on the stage was a powerful visual reminder of the loss.

Matt Labash, author of the newsletter Slack Tide Trump was somewhat muted, nice and gracious. At least while on script. Very un-Trumpy. He almost seemed humbled by being shot. Can it endure? This is Trump. Of course it can’t. It didn’t even last one-fifth of his speech. Humility is for losers in the Trumpverse. So enjoy it while it lasts. Or lasted, since it’s already over.

Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor of Reason Trump’s decision to tear up his first speech and instead open on a note of unity was the right one: “It would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is and how corrupt and crooked, even if it’s true,” he said the day after the shooting. As the speech dragged on, he drifted from that resolution.

Dan McCarthy, editor of the periodical Modern Age Eric Trump stepped into the role normally played by his father and delivered galvanizing remarks, hitting all the campaign’s key themes. With the former president resolved to show his comparatively genial and gentler side, his son had the opportunity to lead the rhetorical charge, and he excelled.

Pamela Paul, Times columnist Trump defended the Secret Service men and women who protected him after the assassination attempt, refusing to give fodder to those far-right extremists who have attacked the people risking their lives in service of public figures. This was a rare moment when Trump did the right thing.

Zeynep Tufekci, Times columnist Great evening for golf and professional wrestling! Speakers included John Nieporte, a golf professional who caddied for Trump; Carrie Ruiz, the general manager of a Trump-owned golf course; Hogan (who ripped his shirt off); and Dana White, president of the U.F.C., a mixed martial arts promotion company.

Peter Wehner, contributing Opinion writer The beginning of Trump’s speech, when he recounted the assassination attempt. Parts of it were compelling. There seemed to be genuine gratitude in him, which heretofore had been an alien emotion to Trump.

Worst Moment

Anderson Not long into Trump’s speech, the momentum slowed, and he started playing the hits, only it was the acoustic version. His whole performance felt unusually low energy and unfocused.

Charles M. Blow, Times columnist I was nearly suffocated under all the lies and gaslighting during this convention, culminating Thursday in Trump’s attempt at a tear-jerker. They all tried to convince us he was a teddy bear and not a grizzly. They tried to make us empathize with a person who lacks that impulse, who trades in deceit, cruelty and vengeance. But Trump couldn’t resist returning to his familiar darkness, thus wiping out the entire effort to rehabilitate — and hide — the real him.

Brooks The rest of the Trump speech. There is no cure for narcissism. The part after the assassination-attempt story was one of the truly awful and self-indulgent political performances of our time. My brain has been bludgeoned into soporific exhaustion.

Coaston Every political convention feels uncannily like a sporting event for people who tell others how much they hate sports. This one was no different.

Continetti Trump’s acceptance speech was incredibly compelling — for the first 30 minutes or so. Then he began to ramble. The address lost much of its focus and power, but the audience didn’t seem to mind.

French After the first few minutes, the rest of the speech was just as long, rambling and disjointed as a typical Trump rally. It was a greatest-hits collection of Trump talking points, but the delivery was subdued. At times, the speech was actually boring. Trump has many flaws, but he’s rarely boring. On the last night of the convention, he was.

Labash Too many to choose from. All political conventions are cringe-worthy idolatry fests. But even by those low standards, there was so much abject Trump flattery going on among his cultish speakers that if this had been Kim Jong-un’s convention, he’d have told his propagandists, “Hey, fellas, dial it back a little.”

Mangu-Ward Trump made many false claims about immigration throughout his remarks, but the most absurd was: “You know who’s taking the jobs, the jobs that are created? One hundred and seven percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens.”

McCarthy Mike Pompeo was not a rousing speaker. And while he faithfully recited Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments, his presence was a reminder that the last administration included many hawkish old-guard Republicans who would have been equally comfortable serving under a president named Bush.

Paul Trump’s effort to convey vulnerability rang entirely opportunist and wholly insincere. It’s hard to imagine a near-death experience could be told in a way that evoked so little emotion. Something tells me this will not, in fact, be the last time he tells the story.

Tufekci Tucker Carlson, who abruptly left Fox News amid its lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for airing false claims about election stealing, showed up with a joke about stolen elections.

Wehner Once Trump really got going, his speech was rambling and narcissistic, filled with lies and nearly endless. It was a fusion of his stump speech and a text speech, making it incoherent and exceedingly boring. I experienced a feeling I was previously unfamiliar with: the desire to bring back Hulk Hogan.

What Else Caught Your Eye?

Anderson Trump was subdued in demeanor in the V.I.P. box. Hogan’s time onstage elicited the biggest smile all week.

Brooks Both parties are clearly working hard to lose this election. Trump’s speech has got to increase the chances that President Biden stays in the race.

Coaston Carlson described Trump as the “funniest person I’ve ever met in my life,” after saying in a text message, in 2021, “I hate him passionately,” because comedy is tragedy plus time.

Continetti The double bill of Hogan and Kid Rock made this Xennial smile.

French The Trump campaign is going hard for the male vote. After hearing from Hogan, Kid Rock and White, I half expected a Call of Duty streamer to come out and bring down the house.

Labash The fall-down funniest line of the night belonged to the Trump lawyer Alina Habba — resplendent in a white pantsuit — who said, “The only crime President Trump has committed is loving America.” She apparently hadn’t seen the Trump Village People “Y.M.C.A.” dance-video montage. Which made for at least two crimes.

Mangu-Ward Carlson’s dark vision of the political psyche. He riffed that Trump “turned down the most obvious opportunity in politics — to inflame the nation after being shot,” which he then called “an opportunity that almost every other politician I’ve ever met, and certainly his opponents, would have taken instantly.” Trying to keep the nation calm after an assassination attempt is the bare minimum.

McCarthy This was the convention that made pop culture great again. Hogan and Kid Rock, both in top form, brought back the cockiness that characterized the mass entertainment of a nation far less neurotic than America has lately become. Trump recognizes the power in that.

Paul The word “fight” was uttered frequently in the run-up to Trump’s speech, evoking his call to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” after a bullet grazed his ear and echoing a frequent theme in Trump’s rhetoric, as my colleague Carlos Lozada just noted. Trump rarely talks about working for America or serving it; he talks about fighting.

Tufekci The band had to play four songs to fill the dead time before Hogan’s appearance. Maybe Trump needed to invite more golf buddies. There were almost no Republican Party heavy hitters. If he wins again, few of the traditional Republicans who populated his first administration will be left to act as a brake.

Wehner Compared with Trump’s acceptance speeches in 2016 and 2020, which were unusual enough, this one was unrestrained, self-indulgent and undisciplined, radiating a sense of grievance. It was Trump untethered, which is the right way to understand what his second term would be. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.

(nytimes.com)

On Coney Island, New York, 1960 (Diane Arbus)

5 Comments

Lynne Sawyer July 19, 2024

If you desire factual information about water diversions from the Navarro river et al, then contact the CA State Water Resources Control Board who issues permits for water diversion and storage. Permit holders are required to measure through a meter the amount of diverted water and when it is diverted on a daily basis as well as what is being stored in their reservoirs and submit these reports to the Board. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/water_diversion_reporting/
-Tex

Chuck Artigues July 19, 2024

I’m curious if any Kennedy heads feel differently about their hero after listening to the tape of him playing kissy-face with stupid orange head?

- Bob A. July 19, 2024
  
  RFK Jr. may have ripped off Melania’s “Be Best” slogan, but perhaps he’d be better served with “Be Credulous”?
  
Paul Modic July 19, 2024

Replacing Biden
Wow, we really might get Biden out of the way and replace him with someone else? But who? Here’s the deal, this is an emergency action so no one’s going to get who they really want: The Blacks might not get Kamala, I might get stuck with Kamala, and we just need a competent, energetic moderate, no radical dream, Bernie’s gone, right?
This is an emergency action to beat Trump and we might have to trust party elders to find the best candidate for the job, though it seems ideal to let the people choose with some “mini-primary” situation. With the calendar running rapidly down, it might be time for the “smoke-filled rooms” of yore, where the big boys and girls figure it out for us. (Sans the smoke most likely, this ain’t 1952, okay, maybe a joint or two to inspire, right?)
Why not pick the best candidate who can beat Trump? But who is that? No one knows, but the speculation is about to get really heavy if Joe steps aside, and we soon might have a very exciting next few months.
My candidate? I really liked Julian Castro when he ran a couple cycles ago: A tough smart young Texan who can dish it out. So we’ll see…

Annemarie Weibel July 19, 2024

Update for the Taj Mahal Quintet Performance

Dear attendees,

Due to artist illness, unfortunately Elvin Bishop will not be performing at the LBC on July 20 at 7:00 pm. Charlie Musselwhite will be opening the Taj Mahal performance as scheduled.

If you have questions, please call 707-546-3600 or email patronservices@lutherburbankcenter.org