Mendocino County Today: Thursday 7/25/2024

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YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 103°, Yorkville 102°, Boonville 102°, Covelo 101°, Laytonville 98°, Mendocino 71°, Fort Bragg 70°, Point Arena 56°

HOT AND DRY weather to continue on Thursday, followed by below normal temperatures this weekend and into mid next week. Coastal areas will remain much cooler with occasional low clouds and patch fog. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 52F under clear skies this Thursday morning on the coast. With the fog having moved south to the bay area we have mostly clear skies for our forecast with light winds.

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ERNIE PARDINI

I just became aware that our county board of supervisors gave themselves another raise. As I sat on the bank of the Navarro River near my home in Philo in the sweltering heat, wishing I could cool off with a dip, looking at the moss filled trickle before me in a year with near record rainfall which should have guaranteed swimable conditions well into the fall, a hangman noose seemed more appropriate than a raise for what they've allowed the wine industry to do to our once beautiful river. Just saying.

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IN AN UNPRECEDENTED MOVE, MENDO SUPERVISORS ISSUE A PRESS RELEASE ON THEIR OWN MEETING — albeit just a little biased in favor of themselves… (“Like other exempt county leaders, board members in Mendocino County dedicate themselves tirelessly to constituent welfare.” Even KZYX fundraisers don’t go that far.)

July 23, 2024, Board of Supervisors Meeting Highlights

During the July 23, 2024, meeting, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors approved significant milestones aimed at advancing community infrastructure and services. Key highlights include:

Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF) Construction: The Board approved the construction of a Psychiatric Health Facility to bolster mental health services in the County. The $13.3 million contract was awarded to Midstate Construction Company, with a projected timeline of 420 calendar days from the Notice to Proceed.

Fire Districts Funding: Funds from the Essential Services Sales Tax (Measure P), Prop 172 and the Mendocino County Camping Transient Occupancy Tax (Measure D) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24 were allocated to support local fire agencies and the Fire Safe Council. These allocations, proposed by the Mendocino County Fire Districts Association of Elected Officials and the Mendocino County Fire Chiefs Association, will be executed quarterly based on final revenue assessments. The Board will review any surplus revenues to ensure prudent financial management. These funding allocations are estimated to be close to $5m for FY 2023-24.

BOS Salary Increase Approval: In a decisive move aimed at ensuring equitable compensation for essential county leadership, the Board of Supervisors voted to approve a salary increase. This decision, though met with some controversy, balanced many factors including statutory obligations, and ensured future increases are tied to the Department Head MOU. Article 11, section 1, of the California Constitution states that the County’s Board of Supervisors shall prescribe by ordinance the compensation of its members, a responsibility undertaken with careful deliberation. Like other exempt county leaders, board members in Mendocino County dedicate themselves tirelessly to constituent welfare. The salary increase acknowledges the demanding nature of their roles, involving continuous oversight and advocacy for all county residents.

State Controller’s Audit Report: The Board received the State Controller’s audit report covering the period from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022. The audit findings will guide ongoing improvements in governance and financial management. Several steps have been taken since Fall 2023 to course correct the issues. Nonetheless, a future agenda item will include an action plan to address findings requiring longer-term correction, ensuring transparency and accountability.

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Mark Scaramella notes: The Supervisors have now rigged the pay arrangements to “…ensure future increases are tied to the Department Head MOU…” Translation: Whenever they want to give raises to themselves all they have to do is give raises to their Department heads.

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HOW MANY TIMES do we have to hear the argument that, We need to attract better people so I need a raise?

Supervisor Mulheren (facebook):

“Probably one of the most awkward experiences you will have as an elected official is to vote on your own salary which is why it’s so rarely done by local officials. I was misquoted in the UDJ so I thought I’d share my full comments here. Of course a lot more goes in to making a decision than what I can say in three minutes. I just wanted to set the record straight. I did ask if you want to have coffee because please run for City Council. I want options and please run for Supervisor in four years. There should be 5-7 people on the primary ballot in 2028, they should know and understand the issues, they should be ready to listen and work hard and they should be accessible. For clarification this ordinance didn’t come forward until ALL other County bargaining units and SEIU2015 had contracts. I worked hard to get our employees to market rate wages because I want to pay people their value if there’s a better comparator let’s talk about it. The Dept Heads, CEO, Elected Officials and unreps all used the three County comparison. SEIU1021 which was one of our first contracts used the 8 comparators to bring employees to market and/or they got a COLA. It’s so hard to be a rural County and pay people what I wish we could but this is a step forward and will also hopefully get us electeds that are willing to take a gap in the middle of their career to serve their community. Please.”

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LOCAL EVENTS (this week)

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THE MENTAL HEALTH INSURANCE CONTRACT MAZE

by Mark Scaramella

The other major item on Tuesday’s agenda — after the Board gave themselves a big raise, connected future raises to their own handouts to subordinates, and ignored critical public comment as usual — was another peripatetic discussion of the upcoming Mental Health services contract, presently owned by the Shraeders omnibus monopoly in Ukiah.

As is typical, the discussion bounced around a few nice Powerpoint slides provided by County Behavioral Health/Public Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller in advance of the release of an RFP for “specialty mental health services” expected to be released in October. (Or maybe it was the issuance of contracts in October; we couldn’t tell.)

Dr. Miller took several opportunities to explain that her department only handles “specialty” mental health services and clients, i.e., the “severely mentally ill.” (Dr. Miller used the analogy that if you have heart problems and go to a cardiologist, that’s “specialty” service; if you have heart problems and don't go to a cardiologist/specialist, that’s not “specialty” services.) Unfortunately, Dr. Miller conflates “services” with “insurance,” therefore her department is concerned mainly with who pays, not what services are provided or whether they make any real difference.

Medi-Cal (California’s federal Medicaid program) reimburses the County for “specialty” services provided to the “severely mentally ill.” Partnership Health Plan, an amorphous statewide public/private insurance agency handles “managed care” or Obamacare (also under Medicaid) covering the less than severely mentally ill.

These blurry bureaucratic distinctions are important because, as Dr. Miller explained to Supervisor Gjerde, the seemingly nutty street people seen around Ukiah and to a lesser degree elsewhere around the County may or may not be Dr. Miller’s clients. They could be dual diagnosis (i.e., drug addled and crazy; not County clients), or retarded (developmentally disabled; not County clients), or not quite crazy enough to be declared “severely mentally ill,” therefore, outside of Dr. Miller’s purview.

The contract(s) are are estimated to be worth at least $30 million in total, not counting the overhead and administration that is apparently being brought back in house to Dr. Miller’s staff, plus a host of smaller sole-source contract add-ons for afterthoughts and special add-ons.

Supervisor Williams devoted most of his lengthy and repetitive comments to trying to improve the way service provider effectiveness is measured, a point he has raised often in the past, to no avail.

The Schraeders are always ready with lots of statistics, but they don’t provide much more than how many clients are in which program for how long, not whether their clients are better off after being processed by the Schraeders.

Dan Anderson, one of Schraeders’ top managers, expressed frustration at Williams’ comments saying that Williams implied that they weren’t doing as good a job as they should.

“We provide a lot of data every month, every year to the Behavioral Health Advisory Board and on web pages,” insisted Anderson. “We responded with study groups and data by location, outcomes, housing, symptoms. To say we don’t have data is very politically driven. Very frustrating. Forgive me if I sound resentful. But I feel like this conversation is not genuine. It’s frustrating to not recognize the engagement that is happening. It’s going on ten years with the same conversation. It’s frustrating.”

Translation: Criticism, or even implied criticism, is “political,” and doesn’t address all the good things the Schraeders do, therefore “not genuine.”

Williams denied the implication that he was being critical and said he would work with Anderson or the Mental Health RFP team to try to include some meaningful methods of service effectiveness measurement in the contract.

Supervisor Haschak said that the trouble with the data they’ve received so far is that it is “not digestible” by the public. And certainly not by the Board of Supervisors.

Dr. Miller told the Board that under the new contract(s) her staff will farm out the services to various local providers, not necessarily the Schraeders, as has been the case for the last ten years or so. And if the data gathering and tracking software, “Avatar,” works properly, the result will be a smooth-functioning, coordinated mental health service machine and all their clients will move from one program or facility to the other seamlessly.

But, again, it was not clear how many contracts Dr. Miller intends to issue or for what. The language in the board packet says there will be one contractor, but maybe “the contractor” means one of several contractors.

Meanwhile, if you see someone acting strangely on the streets of Ukiah, you can call 911 and they might send out an outreach worker or a deputy or a Ukiah cop or a crisis staffer and hope for the best. If you’re in Fort Bragg you can call their Community Response Unit and probably get a more coordinated response.

If you are one of those naive voters who voted for Measure B some eight years ago now in the expectation that some of the revenue would somehow find its way to one of Dr. Miller’s contracts and would make a difference on the streets, you need to be aware that although the County’s various service providers serve over 1,000 clients, the odds that any given street person or frequent flyer even falls under Dr. Miller’s insurance umbrella are pretty darn low. And that person’s family, if the family is nearby, willing, capable and persistent, is on their own to figure out which path in the maze might be of some help.

Even if Williams somehow manages to get better data about mental health services and outcomes — a seemingly unreachable goal so far — it will only apply to the select clients who Dr. Miller and her contractors deem to be theirs.

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PS. In related and somewhat more positive news, the General Services staff reported this week that the low bid for the Psychiatric Health Facility on the site of the old nursing home on Whitmore Lane outside of Ukiah came in at about $13.3 million, less than the County’s mil estimate although there are millions in overhead, contract management and architectural costs in addition to the construction cost itself. Assuming this pans out, will the Supervisors use any savings to provide the 25% minimum amount of Measure B services required by the text of the Measure? Not likely.

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THE REAL DEAL ON THE HOMELESS MESS, In Case You Want To Know

By Jim Shields

In the past month I’ve written a couple of pieces on the homeless dilemma looking at what I call the Unholy Trinity, those inextricably intertwined maladies of homelessness, mental health afflictions, and substance abuse.

We know that in just the past six years, state government has spent about $24 billion aimed at trying to get a handle on California’s worst-in-the-nation homeless crisis. Amazingly, local governments and private charities have spent additional countless billions more. Despite those immense expenditures, the number of un-housed Californians has continued to increase to more than 181,000 in the latest federal census. California accounts for 28% of all people experiencing homelessness in the country, and 49% of all unsheltered people in the U.S.

Shockingly, the State Auditor’s Office released a report in April that found it’s impossible to figure out if California’s largest homeless programs are working because there’s almost no relevant data to be found. The same was the case with city and county programs. During that same period the state’s overall homeless population increased by 32 percent resulting in half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless now live in California.

“The lack of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening,” said Assemblymember Josh Hoover, who co-authored the request for the audit. 

To give you an idea what’s going on, just two months ago the Assembly’s Budget Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing that centered around the state’s Homelessness Housing and Assistance grant Program (also known as HHAP funding). Since 2019, the Legislature and Governor Newsom have agreed to dedicate between $300 million to $1 billion a year to help large cities and all counties with their homelessness response. Newsom’s staff showed up to the hearing without any data on the effectiveness of the program.

According to Hoover, when pressed, representatives from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and the Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) admitted they have no data to share on existing homelessness programs and investments. In fact, ICH claimed they would need even more money to implement transparency measures recommended by the State Auditor. To say this is completely unacceptable is a gross understatement.

So if state and local governments have almost no data and lack basic programmatical information, how in the world are they going to solve this 50-plus year dilemma.

Of course, most folks familiar with the failed system here in Mendocino County know that one of the major failures is that providers of homeless services are not held accountable by local government officials through such mechanisms as performance audits and related performance provisions and standards in the myriads of provider contracts handed out over the last two decades.

Anyway, my pieces on the homeless mess triggered a number of comments from readers. Here’s what one homeless/mental health advocate, Mazie Malone, of Ukiah, had to say,

“Hi Jim, in regard to the [Supreme Court] ban on sleeping outside … people sleep outside of our shelter and across the street from it all the time, since that ruling a few weeks ago. I have not seen any arrests for camping out on the streets. Maybe they all have moved beyond the city limits? Dropping the ball on purpose? Or default because no one really gives a s___? Unbelievable the lack of oversight and accountability.”

So right off the bat Maizie demonstrates she has keen and spot-on insights into this problematical monstrosity. The people responsible for tackling the homeless crisis have truly dropped the ball and obviously don’t give a s___. Why should they and who are they?

They’ve come to be called the Homeless-Mental Health Industrial Complex, an ever-growing collection of so-called Private-Public Partnerships that specialize in administering homeless programs across the nation and right here in this county. These outfits all share one unique characteristic: They continue to reap massive taxpayer monies even though they are held to little, if any, performance standards. Thus explaining runaway homelessness, especially here in California where it is officially and certifiably the worst by prodigious margins.

Let’s turn to Maizie’s observations on what’s happening on the streets of Ukiah subsequent to the recent Supreme Court decision dealing with one aspect of homeless dilemma.

Many folks don’t understand the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Keep in mind the scope of their order only extends to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals nine western states under their jurisdiction. All of the other nation’s Circuits of Appeals had previously ruled and/or let stand the rest of the country’s state and local government laws and ordinances, recognizing that government had the authority to enforce laws restricting homeless encampments on sidewalks and other public property.

The Supreme Court decision overturned a series of 9th Circuit opinions striking down laws and ordinances that prohibited people from sleeping or camping on sidewalks, shopping malls, residential neighborhoods, and state, city, and county public parks.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, the 9th Circuit had consistently ruled that such prohibitions violated the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment. The 9th Circuit ruled over the years that it was “cruel and unusual punishment” for state and local governments to prohibit the homeless from camping, sleeping, etc., on sidewalks and all other public property.

The thing I found most interesting and educational was the response and reactions of California politicians because it showed the yawing chasm between responsible public officials and those driven and motivated purely by PC baloney.

Gov. Gav Newsom, whom I frequently find obnoxious and hypocritical (let’s don’t start counting the ways), said the ruling provides state and local officials with “the definitive authority to implement and enforce policies to clear unsafe encampments from our streets. This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities.”
Newsom got that right. Chalk one up for Gav.

On the other hand, according to the L.A. Times, “Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling, calling it ‘disappointing’ and arguing that it should not be used to jail homeless residents or drive them from city to city. Bass, who declared an emergency on homelessness on her first day in office in December, signaled the ruling will not alter her approach to the crisis, which has focused heavily on moving unhoused Angelenos out of encampments and into hotels, motels and other forms of temporary housing. ‘Arresting homeless people or pushing them out of a community and into another city is more expensive for taxpayers than actually solving the problem,’ Bass said in a statement.”

Anyway, I think the Supreme Court’s decision is a much-needed step in the right direction (even a blind pig finds a truffle every now and then), and should return a bit of sanity, reason, and responsibility to a process that has been out-of-control and not serving anyone well, including the homeless.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

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ED NOTES

POOR OLD JOE, looked like what he is — old and frail — as he slurred his way through false reasons for exiting the 2024 campaign, claiming he could serve another four years if he wanted to. Saturday he said he was running, Sunday he said he was out. Why? Because he was shoved out. But he said he chose to “pass the torch” to Vice President Kamala Harris because he believed it would unite the country and save democracy, the grim fact being that the country is now forever un-unite-able. “I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's future all merited a second term,” said Biden, a statement not even proximate to the national reality. Biden's entire message, like his political party, assumed that we're all as cynical and stupid as the Democratic shot callers.

WELL, SHUT my mouth. Our congressman, Jared Huffman, in perhaps the boldest move of his career, is boycotting Bibi Netanyahu's appearance before Congress. I had predicted he'd be there with the rest of the mass murderer's enablers. Kamala Harris, president in waiting, will also be among the missing when the world's lead killer of women and children appears before his congressional funders, but will of course see the butcher of Gaza later in a “private meeting.” She almost had an Atta Girl, but it's only the first of many treacheries from “the first woman of color” who will inevitably lose to the first white man with orange hair.

AMONG THE MANY alienating developments of my long, estranged life, count the loss of Mendocino County's justice courts, courts convenient to the people who live in our far-flung county to spare them the long trip to Ukiah. It was the final step in a slo-mo process that began when the state legislature, mostly lawyers, decreed that only lawyers could be judges. Non-lawyer judges, you see, couldn't be trusted to know right from wrong, fact from fiction, truth from untruth.

WE DID FINE — better in my opinion — with non-lawyers on the bench because they knew everyone in the communities that elected and trusted them to be honest and fair. No one had formally complained about “lay” judges, but lawyers always know better, especially when they see an unguarded path leading straight to big, easy bucks and life sinecures.

THAT LAWYERS-ONLY LAW eliminating outback judges was particularly beneficial to Mendocino County's starving legal practitioners because overnight it created big pay judge jobs for local lawyers barely scratching out a living. By fiat, the lucky lawyers elected to justice court sinecures became Superior Court judges, and Mendocino County justice was suddenly more just than it had ever been, correct?

ONE-DAY-A-WEEK justice court jobs in the Mendocino County outback could now be parlayed into handsomely rewarded travel around the state as fill-in judges at rates of compensation unavailable here at home where the lawyers were many and the work was little unless one was in good with the County Courthouse and could latch on as “alternate public defender” or as court-appointed rep for the daily catch of walking wounded arraigned every morning for the crime of being unable to function and/or protect oneself in a modern technological society.

ALTHOUGH SWINDLED out of being able to elect non-lawyer members of our own communities to sort out our legal affairs, we still had courtrooms just down the road with a lawyer judge presiding. Small claims and other local beefs could be resolved here in Boonville with the lawyer-judge, often an up-from-hippie dude who privately sneered at the laws he had no difficulty slapping onto his neighbors, but we could still get to court in the place where we lived.

AND THEN the justice courts themselves were eliminated, but not the judge jobs that went with them. Everything from then on went to Ukiah or Fort Bragg. The lawyer coup was complete with the announcement that outback courts were over. Over the hill we went to the county seat, lovely Ukiah.

LOGICALLY, it would seem, with all the outback courts consolidated in Ukiah and Fort Bragg, that the judge jobs that went with the eliminated outback justice courts would also now be eliminated, but instead, and ever since, we've got more judges per capita than any population our size in the state — one judge for every ten thousand people, or one judge for every five thousand citizens if you exclude children.

IT WOULDN'T be so galling if the judges weren't the arrogant, marginally competent characters they are, wholly insulated from public accountability, hidden behind an administrative apparatus that grows larger every year in what seems to be exact proportion to courtroom dysfunction, not even mentioning the brand new County Courthouse nobody but them wants that will accommodate only them, no other county offices, not even the DA's office.

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REFUSING REFUNDS

Dear Ukiah Daily Journal:

The 2024 Sierra Nevada World Music Festival was cancelled 5 days prior to the June 21-23 event. The promoter Gretchen Franz Smith and the ticket vendor SEE Tickets are REFUSING REFUNDS.

The California Business Code seems to suggest they must do otherwise:

Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 22507

Current through the 2023 Legislative Session.

Section 22507 - Ticket price refunded if event canceled, postponed, or rescheduled

(a) The ticket price of an event which is canceled shall be fully refunded to the purchaser by the ticket seller within 30 calendar days of the cancellation.

My family is out $1,083.89 and the promoter has taken the money and run. The promoter may have a "heavy heart," but everyone got paid but us, with our ticket money that was NOT REFUNDED.

Please heighten public awareness of this story by doing a follow up to the community events article by Kat Gleason in June, 2023.

I have documentation, information, please reach out if you're going to do this story.

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STEVE HEILIG

Re SNWMF : The Chronicle story is slanted (shocking!). Nobody took the money and ran, unless it was the bands who get paid regardless per their contracts. The early ticket sales pay for that, with the hope that more sales pay for everything needed to open the gates (porta-potties, fairgrounds fees, insurance, etc etc; costs escalate every year, moreso now than ever). But advance sales collapsed this year for reasons unknown – dozens of other fests have cancelled this year for similar reasons. There was no money left. The organizers tried mightily to find ways to salvage it, but cutting acts, getting co-sponsors, etc – right up to the weekend before. But no luck. There wasn’t even enough $ to open the gates legally. The big risk-taking model of presenting festivals seems broken – at least for smaller events w/o big business sponsors (and very high ticket prices). SNWMF was never about profit, and often there was little or none. Everybody involved did it out of love for the music and the gathering. This year was a tragic outcome and nobody wanted this longtime favorite festival to go on more than the “promoters,” which I am not, just a lowly staffer, but damn did I miss the whole experience this year.

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MENDOCINO COUNTY VETERANS CELEBRATE TRIUMPH IN BATTLE FOR UKIAH OFFICE

by Sara Reith

Mendocino County veterans celebrated the return to their Veterans Service Office on Observatory Avenue in Ukiah during a lunchtime party on Tuesday. Just a few days before Christmas last year, they received word that they would no longer be able to use the roomy house on the west side of town to meet with experts about veterans benefits and services. Instead, they would have to seek services at the Public Health building a few blocks away, on Dora Street. Air Quality Management was slated to move into the Observatory house. …

mendofever.com/2024/07/24/mendocino-county-veterans-triumph-in-battle-for-ukiah-office/

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KZYX NEWS DEPARTMENT IN TRANSITION

Staff, board and location change also in the works.

Sara Reith Resigns

July 24, 2024, Philo, CA - Sarah Reith, former KZYX reporter and recent KZYX News Director, has resigned her position. According to Interim General Manager Dina Polkinghorne, an interim plan is being formulated which will return local news to the airwaves very soon.

“Sarah’s inquisitiveness and curiosity, combined with her eloquence and talent as a writer/reporter, created some of the best investigative reporting to come out over the Mendocino County airwaves in quite some time and we wish her nothing but success in her future endeavors,” said Polkinghorne.

Regarding current coverage Polkinghorne added, “We are formulating an interim plan to cover the staffing gap and a recruitment will begin very soon to find a permanent replacement so we really appreciate everyone’s patience while we sort this out. Our local news coverage will continue to be a quality product that keeps our listeners informed via critical breaking and local news from the county and beyond.”

Besides the personnel changes in the News Department, KZYX, the only NPR affiliate serving Mendocino County, is experiencing several other transitions including staff and board leadership changes and a station headquarters move to the county seat in Ukiah.

Polkinghorne continued, “Presently, KZYX is experiencing some exciting growth through new grants and bolstering the administrative infrastructure to lay the groundwork for potentially larger grants in the future to push the work forward. In addition, after a lull in activities, the construction rehab at the new headquarters in Ukiah is ramping up to start in August. The potential for expansion and sustainability for KZYX is uniquely tied to the move to Ukiah so we’re excited to get some activity rolling at the new site. We are developing a communication plan to keep all our members, listeners, and supporters informed along the way as the move to Ukiah continues.”

Susan Baird, the new KZYX Board President who took over the role after Polkinghorne stepped down to move into the interim General Manager position, is shepherding those communication efforts. “Susan has a demonstrable love for KZYX, as evidenced through the many hours she devotes to KZYX each week. We are very lucky to have her at the helm and grateful for her leadership,” said Polkinghorne.

“Having said all that, I need to be really clear,” said Polkinghorne “while change is exciting and creates opportunities, transitions can also be hard. They can be painful. The three steadfast pillars symbiotically holding up the effort during this season of change is the magic formula that defends us through these sometimes turbulent, transitional waters; the staff, the programmers, and the board. Each piece as important as the next. And of course, none of it would be possible without our members and listeners. We’re so grateful for their continued support of the work we do on their behalf. There are exciting things in store for community radio in Mendocino County – stay tuned!”

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CALLING ALL CIDER ENTHUSIASTS! Join the Gowan's Cider Orchard Family!

Are you passionate about craft cider and love sharing that excitement with others? Do you dream of working in a picturesque outdoor setting? Gowan's Cider Orchard is seeking vibrant personalities to guide guests through unforgettable cider tasting experiences!

What You'll Do:

• Lead guests on a flavorful journey through our award-winning ciders
• Share the rich history and unique stories behind our 150-year-old family orchard
• Create a warm, welcoming atmosphere in California's first outdoor cider tasting orchard

What We're Looking For:

• Must be 21+ (because, you know, cider!)
• Previous tasting room, serving, or hospitality experience is a plus
• A friendly, outgoing personality with a passion for cider and customer service

Why You'll Love It:

• Work in a stunning "living museum" surrounded by century-old apple trees
• Be part of a six-generation family legacy of cider-making excellence
• Enjoy a dynamic outdoor work environment with breathtaking orchard views
• Opportunity to expand your knowledge of craft ciders and heirloom apples, and sustainable farming.

Join us in sharing the magic of Gowan's estate-grown, award-winning ciders with visitors from around the world. Apply now and become part of our orchard family!

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SKIP TAUBE: Mow roadside brush. As much as potholes are a nuisance, the high dry brush along our roads is potentially fatal. Please prioritize mowing and do it safely with fire suppression gear and help on hand.

RECOMMENDED READING: A new blog by Fort Bragg's Jessica Ehlers who gets off to fast start with a nice piece on bees: https://sites.google.com/jessicaehlers.com/beestings-and-braces/planned-regicide

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A READER WONDERS: I just noticed that Eyster wished you a happy 85th birthday on your Facebook page. Has he buried the hatchet?

ED REPLY: It’s step one of a plan to lure me into his basement office in the Courthouse to finish me off. He's tried it before but I always made sure I had witnesses going in.

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DOBIE DOLPHIN

The Spanish word for dog is PERRO.

Pero means but or however.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, July 24, 2024

ANTHONY CONGLETON, Middletown/Ukiah. Parole violation.

JESSICA DURAZO, Covelo. DUI.

GARY FITZGERALD, Roanoke, Illinois/Ukiah. Parole violation.

ROGER GORRIN JR., Lakeport/Ukiah. Parole violation.

PAUL HEATH, Ukiah. Elder abuse, battery.

ADRIAN LOPEZ-FELIX, Covelo. Domestic battery.

JOHN MCCULLOUGH, Ukiah. Stalking and threatening bodilly injury, criminal threats, aiding or advising suicide.

ROBERTO MORALES, Ukiah. DUI.

KARL PEARL, Fort Bragg. Evasion, suspended license, resisting.

CARL SERR, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

TERRON STRASSER, Laytonville. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, failure to appear.

DAVID WORTHY, Ukiah. Transient-failure to register.

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TWO CAL FIRE AVIATION CONTRACTORS KILLED IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY PLANE CRASH

by Dominic Fracassa

Two people working as contractors for Cal Fire were killed in a plane crash Tuesday morning in Humboldt County, the firefighting agency said Wednesday.

Cal Fire said the “aircraft incident” occurred near Kneeland Airport and involved two employees of Amentum Aviation, a company that provides a range of aviation services to Cal Fire.

The names of the people killed in the crash were not immediately available.

Humboldt County officials said emergency responders were notified of the crash shortly before 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to a recorded news conference that occurred near the scene of the crash posted by the news website Lost Coast Outpost.

“Our heart goes out to the families of those employees and to the Amentum Aviation family,” Cal Fire said in a statement to the Chronicle.

A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement that preliminary information suggested the plane, a Cessna T206H, crashed at around 11:05 a.m. Tuesday “under unknown circumstances north of the Kneeland Airport.”

The agency expected an investigator to arrive at the scene of the crash on Wednesday to begin an inquiry into the crash, which will include moving the remains of the aircraft to a more stable location.

Representatives from Amentum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(SF Chronicle)

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I started watching Anna May Wong’s “Flame of Love” last night. I haven’t finished yet. I’ve never seen it before. Not a great movie, but what an actress! Absolutely outstanding!

I realized something about Anna’s acting technique. Although her lines are written in the kind of broken English Chinese characters in movies spoke in those years, she did not employ the ridiculous Chinese accent that most Chinese characters did. And thinking about other roles I’ve watched her play, I can’t recall her ever doing so. I assume she refused to. Credit to her!

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I love it when these " experts " start predicting with absolute certainty the outcome of elections several months ahead . The only thing certain about politics is that it is a very uncertain profession . A candidate can be the darling of folks today , then something happens , in the space of 24 hrs , a video from the persons past , a badly worded comment , either from the past, or present day , a " revelation from somebody who knew the candidate way back when , with an unsettling truthful story , etc , you get the drift ? and then the same supporters, media , anchors , are like " what that sonaf……, and hey presto , the game has just changed , so personally , I take these " expert predictions " with what they deserve , an enormous truckload of salt .

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THE MEANING OF LIFE is just to be alive.

It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

— Alan Wilson Watts, ‘The Culture of Counter-Culture’

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FOX GUEST MAKES SHOCKING SEX SLUR ABOUT KAMALA HARRIS LIVE ON AIR

by Germania Rodriguez Poleo

A Fox Business guest shocked the network's audience when he referred to vice-president Kamala Harris as the “original Hawk Tuah” girl.

Podcaster Alec Lace made the comments on a July 21 appearance where he discussed president Joe Biden's less-than-stellar debate performance against Donald Trump and pondered on the Democratic Party's future.

“Kamala Harris, she is the original Hawk Tuah girl - that's the way she got where she is, and the party is going downhill if it's in her hands,” Lace said.

The provocative right-winger was comparing the Democrat to Hailey Welch, who shot to viral fame after she described spitting as part of a sexual act during an on-street interview.

Lace's inflammatory comment prompted Fox host Dagen McDowell to reply with, “That was harsh.”

Lace then took to X to address his words about the VP, writing: “Did I go too far on FOX News calling Kamala Harris the OG Hawk Tuah girl or am I right over the target?”

Lace made the comments before Biden announced he will not be running for re-election, making Harris his most obvious successor.

The podcaster's comments, however outrageous, offer a glimpse into how Harris will have to deal with allegations of improper relationships while she was a rising political star in San Francisco.

As Harris embarks on her own presidential campaign, Republican presidential candidate Trump has already attacked her over her romance with former San Francisco mayor and notorious playboy, Willie Brown, 90, who is 31 years Harris's senior and dated her in the 1990s.

In his July 4th message, Trump wrote: “Respects to our potentially new Democrat Challenger, Laffin' Kamala Harris.

“She did poorly in the Democrat Nominating process, starting out at Number Two, and ending up defeated and dropping out, even before getting to Iowa, but that doesn't mean she's not a “highly talented” politician. Just ask her Mentor, the Great Willie Brown of San Francisco.”

Throughout her career, the vice president has been repeatedly forced to deny that her relationship with Brown was the defining step in her political career.

The fling fizzled decades ago, but in the years since, Harris has struggled to shirk her association with Brown, whom she later described as “an albatross hanging around my neck.”

While their relationship has often been described as an affair, Brown was separated from his wife Blanche Vitero for more than a decade when he and Harris, now 59, dated in the mid-1990s.

Their steamy past resurfaced in January 2019, when Brown published an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle with the headline: “Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?”

When they met around 1993, Brown, a noted lawyer and civil rights leader, was the speaker of the California assembly and regarded as one of the State's most influential legislators.

He had turned 60 while Harris was 29.

Harris, meanwhile, was regarded as a diligent and able prosecutor “on the way up” at the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, where she had worked for the previous three years.

As well as gifting his young squeeze a BMW car, the relationship reaped even more tangible benefits when Brown handed Harris two influential positions.

“Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown's frequent companion,” the Los Angeles Times noted in 1994.

“Brown, exercising his power even as his speakership seems near an end, named attorney Kamala Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job that pays $72,000 a year.

“Harris, a former deputy district attorney in Alameda County, was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown's girlfriend.”

Brown also appointed Harris to the state's Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, a lucrative position worth a further $97,088 a year, according to the same article.

Despite being dumped by Brown, Harris continued to enjoy his support when she ran for office herself, getting elected as San Francisco's first black district attorney in 2004.

By then Brown had faced an FBI corruption investigation for allegedly handing out lucrative city contracts and appointments to friends and political allies.

His endorsement prompted accusations of cronyism, promptly denied by Harris who was dating the talk show host Montel Williams at the time.

In a 2003 interview during her campaign for San Francisco attorney general, Harris told SF Weekly that she refused “to design my campaign around criticizing Willie Brown for the sake of appearing to be independent when I have no doubt that I am independent of him — and that he would probably right now express some fright about the fact that he cannot control me.

“His career is over. I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. I do not owe him a thing.”

Harris was elected California's attorney general in 2010. When she ran for the Senate in 2016, Brown called on her likely opponent, Antonio Villaraigosa, to stay out of the race.

Brown and his legal wife Vitero never divorced - despite Brown having gone on to have a baby with his chief fundraiser Carolyn Carpenti in 2001.

Harris, meanwhile, has been married to entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff since 2014.

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DISPATCHES FROM THE PARIS OLYMPICS: DAY ONE

by Dave Zirin & Jules Boykoff

Paris—The contradictions of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics are clear as soon as one steps off the plane. Corporate sponsors blare cheery ads for the Olympic Games while the French military— armed with weapons more at home in a war zone or bombastic action flick—patrol the grounds. There are 50,000 police and military in the streets aided by AI-powered video surveillance technology, which the French National Assembly legalized in 2023 with the Olympic Games Law. On day one, we were accosted by ae soldier for filming a sign informing people that they could not proceed past a metal gate to see the Seine River where the opening ceremony is to be staged. This is Olympic Paris. You can’t go to the Seine, but you can have your personal information taken down for publicizing this fact.

The French are not passively imbibing the Olympic spectacle. Tomorrow activists are mobilizing in Place de la République to challenge the five-ring juggernaut that has rolled into their city, with groups like Saccage 2024, Le Revers de La Médaille, and Extinction Rebellion out front. The “counter-opening ceremony” promises to raise numerous criticisms of the Olympics, from the displacement of migrants and unhoused people to the fake environmentalism embedded in France’s Olympic messaging.

Paul Alauzy, an organizer with Le Revers de La Médaille and Médecins du Monde, explained to us the philosophy undergirding the mass displacement of poor people that unfolded in the weeks and years before the Paris Olympics: “In Paris the social cleansing can be understood with a double logic of dispersion: a dispersion within the Olympic’s city public space, to avoid tent cities, slums, squats, and disperse the marginalized people, and a dispersion within the whole country, so that to delocalize the unwanted and push the misery away from the Olympic city.” A research study from Le Revers de La Médaille found that over the past year, some 12,500 vulnerable people were forcibly removed.

The French Olympic Committee made a big show of banning the hijab for French Muslim women athletes. As the sports journalist Shireen Ahmed from the CBC said to us, “The hijab ban in France not only goes against the Olympic Charter, it speaks boldly about the hypocrisy that we have come to expect from the IOC. Excluding Black and brown women from sport is not only heartbreaking, it kills any opportunity for social inclusion from a specific community. This experience shatters confidence in sport from young girls who know that if they are forced to choose between faith and sport, they might lose something so precious to them. It's isolating and hurtful. It is also unjust.”

Here in France, people are not exactly thrilled to be hosting the Olympics. One poll found that as the Paris Games approach, more than 65 percent of the population are either indifferent (36 percent), concerned (24 percent), or angry (5 percent). After Paris authorities originally promised free metro tickets during the Olympics, riding fees nearly doubled from €2.15 to €4. Beloved public spaces like the famed Pompidou Centre are now clogged up with tawdry sports commercialism, with Nike ads blazing on the building’s storied facade like a Las Vegas casino. Upon seeing this, one social-media user, in a paroxysm of extreme Frenchness, posted “I have no words in the face of such horror.”

But the unions of Paris haven’t rolled over. As the Games approached, worker power has leveraged the once-in-a-generation opportunity to score wage hikes. Garbage collectors, train drivers, air-traffic controllers, and police are using their leverage to demand Olympic bonuses. Now, with the opening ceremony slated for Friday, the SFA-CGT union representing around 10 percent of the dancers in the kick-off event filed a strike notice over “outrageous disparities” in pay between performers.

The political issues on display aren’t limited merely to the Parisian. Justice for Palestine and anger at the inclusion of Israeli Olympians, which we will surely write more upon in the days ahead, is very much on display. There have been demonstrations to this effect and protesters have promised to protest inside Olympic venues. What angers protesters is the hypocrisy of sanctioning the Russian Olympic team for the invasion of Ukraine while not only ignoring but defending Israel in the face of international condemnation over their genocidal war on the people of Gaza.

All of this has created a volatile scene at what is probably the most politically charged Olympics since Mexico City in 1968 when John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists to the heavens. What we are seeing in the City of Light are certainly Parisian problems and the impacts of larger geopolitical strife. But they are also at their core Olympic problems that transcend Paris, that have been imported into the city when its leaders chose to bid on the Olympics nearly 10 years ago. For many here, the Olympics were a distant dream hovering in the future. Well, now things are getting real. And French soldiers are posted around the city to remind you of this almost surreal reality. We will be in Paris to follow the off-the-field machinations for The Nation, so stay tuned.

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AT PARIS OLYMPICS, 300,000 CONDOMS, 14,000 ATHLETES AND ‘SEX-PROOF’ BEDS?

by Ann Killion

PARIS — I had to see the “sex-proof” bed.

OK, maybe I also hoped to see Rafael Nadal.

For a variety of reasons I took the bus to the Olympic Athletes Village. This was not something the media was allowed to do at the restrictive pandemic Tokyo Games.

But Paris is open and the Village is a short bus ride from the Main Press Centre, along the banks of the Seine as it twists north of central Paris. The high-rise housing for the athletes lines both sides of the river with country’s flags flown in the windows.

While I didn’t have an official tour, I was able to wander through the Village Plaza, an open area with a souvenir store, a convenience store and a cafe. There was a replica of a typical athlete apartment, complete with a fan (no air conditioning unless the delegation orders it) and, yes, the famous “sex-proof” bed.

The beds are cardboard single beds, the same as they had in Tokyo. Their stated purpose is sustainability, but the persistent rumor is that they are not designed to hold the weight of two people and therefore should discourage coupling.

Viral videos show athletes jumping up and down on the beds, debunking the myth, which is problematic anyway. Couldn’t two gymnasts get together, but not two weightlifters? And since 300,000 condoms are set to be distributed to 14,000 athletes isn’t sex specifically encouraged? In any event, I’m pretty sure world class athletes could figure out how to enjoy themselves without a bed.

Though they don’t seem comfortable, athletes can order various mattress toppers — ranging from soft to firm. Former USWNT soccer coach Jill Ellis gifted all the U.S. women water polo players nice pillows, the result of a connection between her and Adam Krikorian, both former UCLA coaches.

The souvenir store was a busy place. I waited in line between two Malaysian athletes who were tallying up about 800 euros in T-shirts and pins. Stopped and chatted for a bit with American rugby player Lucas Lacamp, who spent his teenage years in Diamond Heights and whose competition at Stade de France is just a 20 minute bus ride away.

When the women’s water polo team arrived and Krikorian was speaking to them he was irritated because they all started giggling and whispering and weren’t paying attention. Turned out they were looking at Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, who were casually walking through the village like regular Olympians.

I was there a few hours later. I missed seeing the Spanish stars. But I’ll keep looking.

(SF Chronicle)

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“There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery.”

— Raymond Chandler

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IN FINAL KICK IN THE PANTS, DEPARTING BIDEN DENOUNCED AS ANOTHER TRUMP

When Joe Biden failed to immediately assume the position when party bigwigs called for his head, Beltway insiders lumped him in with the Orange One

by Matt Taibbi

From an op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post, titled “Historians say Biden’s withdrawal shows American democracy is working”:

“President Biden’s decision to end his reelection campaign following 25 days of agonizing pressure from his own party may seem like yet another moment of chaos in an American democracy already buckling under historic levels of polarization… But to many historians… the momentous events of the weekend revealed that America’s beleaguered system of government still functioned.”

Joe Biden only became the nominee this year after a historically undemocratic process…

racket.news/p/in-final-kick-in-the-pants-departing

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UTTERLY HUMILIATED, BIDEN LECTURED US FROM THE OVAL OFFICE ABOUT HONESTY - but the sick truth is that he's lied to the world... and we all know who's really in charge now

by Maureen Callahan

For the umpteenth time, President Joe Biden has shown America that he's no longer fit to serve.

Not that you'd know it from the glowing coverage of his all-too-brief primetime address on Wednesday night, slurring and audibly gulping his way through the most consequential and historic speech of his political career.

'When you elected me… I promised to always level with you,' Biden said from the Oval Office. 'To tell you the truth.'

The truth?

This is a president who has spent the last four years lying about his physical health and cognitive fitness.

A president who terrified the world with his debate performance against former president Donald Trump in June.

A president who had to be pushed to stand down — and, when he finally did, released a typewritten letter with a digital signature. It didn't even have an official letterhead, or an accompanying photo or video.

But sure, let's have the sitting US president, a proven liar who had to be shoved out the door by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, lecture us on honesty, democracy, and the indispensable need for integrity.

A president who, as the Mail exclusively reported, had to be rushed back on a supersonic Air Force One flight to Delaware last week because he was so sick.

A president whose press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted, on Wednesday, that Biden's decision to withdraw 'had nothing to do with his health' and that he 'didn't step down from campaigning or running because he didn't believe he can serve in a second term.'

Actually, that last part could technically be true. It's everyone else who doesn't believe he can do it.

Joe Biden, through his own stubbornness, got knifed in the back last week. The wound is still raw, the stitches fresh, and the American electorate isn't buying this cowboy-at-sunset act.

'Does character in public life still matter?' he asked.

I don't know, Joe — you tell us.

Please, reprimand America about 'character' while the shameless Dr. Jill and Hunter sit off-screen in the Oval during this speech, surely mourning their fates as dissolute Delawareans with bleak futures indeed.

Dr. Jill, who told Vogue post-debate for a cover interview that 'we will continue to fight'! Hunter, convicted in one criminal case and facing another, injecting himself into his father's high-level White House meetings!

And where was Kamala, Joe's 'incredible partner'?

Not at the White House.

Nope, Kamala is out on the campaign trail already, vibrating with glee at her incredible luck, smiling ear-to-ear while her clearly declining president suffers this brutal humiliation.

She can't even feign solemnity. She's incapable of comporting herself with an iota of decorum, of saying that while of course she dreamt of running, she never wanted to get the nomination like this.

No: Kamala is high on her own supply and running the show. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Jill is jetting off to the Paris Olympics on Thursday, sucking the last bit of glamour from the presidential teat while leaving her ailing and heartbroken husband to grieve this loss without her.

Priorities!

Biden, 81, spoke of finally passing the torch — albeit a torch that had to be pried from his and Jill's lizardly, vise-like grips.

He spoke, pedantically, of the need for 'new voices, fresher voices, younger voices'.

Cackling voices, if you will.

Hey — it's better than slurring voices that degrade into whispers and fall apart, as Biden's has during this long goodbye.

If he really believed in honesty, integrity, and character in presidential politics, he would have done the only decent thing: resign from office.

'Nothing,' he said, 'nothing, can come in the way of saving our democracy.'

That includes you, Joe.

(dailymail.co.uk)

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ON JULY 1, 1913, Civil War veterans gathered in observance of the Battle of Gettysburg. Addressed by Pres. Woodrow Wilson, this was the 1st general reunion of both the Union and Confederate armies. 53,000 veterans attended.

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IN FIERY SPEECH TO CONGRESS, NETANYAHU DEFENDS ASSAULT ON GAZA AND DENOUNCES PROTESTERS

by Ellen Knickmeyer, Farnoush Amiri & Ashraf Khaul

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s war in Gaza and condemned American protesters in a scathing speech to Congress Wednesday that triggered boycotts by many top Democratic lawmakers and drew thousands to the Capitol to condemn the war and the humanitarian crisis it has created.

Netanyahu vowed to press on with the war until “total victory,” disappointing hopes by some that the Israeli leader’s visit to the United States could bring some breakthrough in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage-release.

Speaking to applause from U.S. lawmakers, and stony silence from others, Netanyahu sought to bolster U.S. support for his country’s fight against Hamas and other Iran-backed armed groups.

“America and Israel must stand together. When we stand together something really simple happens: We win, they lose,” said Netanyahu, who wore a yellow pin expressing solidarity with the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

But the Israeli leader soon pivoted to a darker tone as he derided those protesting the war on college campuses and elsewhere in the U.S., gesturing to demonstrations happening on the streets outside the Capitol. He called protesters “useful idiots” for Israel’s adversaries.

He drew shouts of applause from many in Congress, but also silence from leading Democrats who declined to stand and cheer.

Freed former hostages of Hamas and families of hostages listened in the House chamber. Lawmakers of both parties rose to applaud the Israeli leader in milder moments in the speech. Security escorted out protesters in the gallery who rose to display T-shirts with slogans demanding that leaders close a deal ending the conflict and freeing hostages.

Netanyahu accused the numerous protesters of the war in the United States of standing with the militants who he said killed babies in Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7. “These protesters that stand with them, they should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.

Netanyahu — who is frequently accused of wading into U.S. politics in favor of conservative and Republican causes — started his remarks with praise of President Joe Biden. But he turned to lavishing praise on former president and current presidential contender Donald Trump “for all he’s done for Israel.”

With criticism against him rising in Israel, too, Netanyahu aimed to portray himself as a statesman respected by Israel’s most important ally. That task is complicated by Americans’ increasingly divided views on Israel and the war, which has emerged as a key issue in the U.S. presidential election.

Tall steel barriers ringed the Capitol Wednesday, and police deployed pepper spray as thousands of protesters rallied near the Capitol, denouncing Netanyahu as a “war criminal” and calling for a cease-fire.

Netanyahu received a warm welcome from House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican lawmakers who arranged his speech in the House chamber. Netanyahu received a bipartisan standing ovation before speaking.

The appearance made Netanyahu the first foreign leader to address a joint meeting of Congress four times, surpassing Winston Churchill.

More than 50 Democrats and political independent Bernie Sanders boycotted Netanyahu’s speech. The most notable absence was right behind him: Vice President Kamala Harris, who serves as president of the Senate, said a long-scheduled trip kept her from attending.

The next Democrat in line, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, declined to attend, so Sen. Ben Cardin, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, served as “senator pro tempore” in place of her.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat who has family in the West Bank, sat in the House chamber with a keffiyeh, which she often wears, wrapped over her shoulders. Tlaib was censured last year for her strident criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war.

Republicans said the absence of Harris, the new Democratic front-runner for the presidency, was a sign of disloyalty to an ally. Former President Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, was also a no-show for Netanyahu’s speech, citing the need to campaign.

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden and Harris on Thursday, and with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

Many in the swelling crowds of demonstrators protested the killings of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the war. Others condemned Netanyahu’s inability to free Israeli and American hostages taken by Hamas and other militants during the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war.

Support for Israel has long carried political weight in U.S. politics. But the usual warm welcome for Netanyahu’s visits has been diminished this time around by political turmoil, including the assassination attempt against Trump and Biden’s decision not to seek another term.

Many Democrats who support Israel but have been critical of Netanyahu saw the address as a Republican effort to cast itself as the party most loyal.

Many Democrats attended the address despite their criticism of Netanyahu, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who called for new elections in Israel in a March floor speech. Schumer, of New York, said then that Netanyahu has “lost his way” and is an obstacle to peace in the region amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

About 60 lawmakers met Wednesday with relatives of those taken hostage by Hamas, and they expressed anger toward Netanyahu. “Because by coming here, he risks making himself the issue, turning the humanitarian issue of the hostages into a political one,” Maya Roman, who had several family members taken hostage, told the lawmakers.

The United States is Israel’s most important ally, arms supplier and source of military aid. Netanyahu’s visit is his first abroad since the war started, and comes under the shadow of arrest warrants sought against him by the International Criminal Court over alleged Israel war crimes against Palestinians. The United States does not recognize the ICC.

The Biden administration says it wants to see Netanyahu focus his visit on helping it complete a deal for a cease-fire and hostage-release. Growing numbers of Israelis accuse Netanyahu of prolonging the war in order to avoid a likely fall from power whenever the conflict ends.

Netanyahu has said his aims for the U.S. visit are to press for freeing hostages held by Hamas and other militants in Gaza, to build support for continuing Israel’s battle against the group, and to argue for continuing to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon and other Iranian-allied groups in the region.

Some Democrats are wary about Netanyahu since he used a 2015 joint address to Congress to denounce then-President Barack Obama’s pending nuclear deal with Iran.

Netanyahu used an appearance early Wednesday to focus on Iran, its nuclear program and its network of armed allies. Iran is “behind the entire axis of terror” that threatens the U.S. and Israel, he said, speaking at a memorial for former Sen. Joe Lieberman.

(AP)

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