Mendocino County Today: Friday 8/9/2024

ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES are forecast in the interior today through Saturday. Near to below normal temperatures are forecast Sunday through much of next week. Coastal areas will continue to have stratus with patches of fog and drizzle through the weekend with brief clearing each afternoon. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 52F on the coast this Friday morning. The fog is back & large. More of the fog - sun routine thru the weekend. The NWS says more sun than fog next week. As usual, you know the rest.

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SERVICES FOR RANDY BLOYD

And Directions to Shields Cemetery

Services for Randy Bloyd will be held at the Shields Cemetery in Philo on Saturday, Aug 10, 2024. Arrive around noon for a 1 PM start.

Unless you know where to look, you do not see the cemetery from the highway. Coming from Navarro, go past Greenwood Road. You’ll soon come around a corner, and the turn-off will be on your left directly across from the Gowan Cider Tasting turn-off, which is well marked with big white apple boxes.

From Philo, go past Gowan’s Oak Tree and around both 90 degree turns. It will be your first right after the Oak Tree, directly across from the Gowan Cider Tasting entrance. Sight lines are very limited, so be cautious.

After you turn, you will pass a small home near the highway and proceed uphill very closely past the old George Gowan house. Watch out for kids and kitties. Past the big sheds you will come to a fork. Proceed right, a short distance uphill on the recently rocked road.

This is an historic cemetery with lots of local history and the graves of many families from the Deep End of Anderson Valley. It is a lovely, peaceful setting in which to lay Randy to rest.

(Kathy Bailey)

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KELSEYVILLE WOMAN SURVIVES CRASH OFF STATE ROUTE 175, Found After Extensive Search

by Matt LaFever

While en route to her Kelseyvile home, Julie Gruenke drove off the edge of the precipitous State Route 175 in the early evening of August 6, 2024. Ground and air assets searched the road between Hopland and Lakeport for over 24 hours until yesterday evening when Julie Gruenke was located with her vehicle. Despite the ordeal, reports from the scene indicate she experienced only minor injuries.

Julie, a Kelseyville resident, contacted her husband around 4:00 PM on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, to say she was heading home from Sonoma County but didn’t feel well. Her last known cellphone ping was at 5:00 PM with her vehicle spotted heading east on State Route 175 toward Lake County.

With the assistance of daylight, law enforcement conducted a significant search effort on August 7th when the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the California Highway Patrol and a CHP helicopter, searched along State Route 175 from the Mendocino/Lake County line.

Scanner traffic from yesterday evening indicates Gruneke was located around 8:45 p.m. near the State Route 175 summit. First responders at the scene confirmed the occupant was Gruenke, the missing woman. She was transported to an area hospital.

(mendofever.com)

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LISA NUNES

I was told I should post my grievances on my own Facebook page. I don't even normally post grievances or complaints on Facebook. I don't like a lot of attention, especially negative. I feel these posts about the river are about the valley and that is why I post them on a discussion page for the valley. I'm sorry if it makes some people uncomfortable or even angry. Should it not be talked about? Shoved away? Will it go away if we don't see it or talk about it? So I have to suck it up and go forward with my revealing posts because I feel it is so very important. You don't want generations from now saying, "Wow, can you believe they used to swim in that river?" " Why didn't they do Something? " So as uncomfortable as it is, here it is.

Pics from 2022:

And yesterday 2024

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SARAH KENNEDY OWEN

As I remember, that expensive wine was “taken” (stolen) when the New Boonville owners hightailed it out of Boonville, so you are right, they could have paid staff with the money they could have gotten for the wine. My husband and I and our toddler daughter and another couple, also with a toddler, dined at the New Boonville back in the early 80s. The service was so slow I quipped that they must have been waiting for the purported chicken in the back to lay an egg. Luckily our toddlers had each other to stay amused, and were well-trained in dining etiquette. But it wasn’t easy keeping them busy for the seeming hours we waited for a simple meal. They did have a garden behind the restaurant where you could wander while you waited. I thought that was pretty cool, but in retrospect it seems obvious they could not have fed their patrons with just the produce from the garden. Reminds me of the scandal over a restaurant on one of the San Juan Islands, run by a chef who got his training at Noma. There were also allegations of worker harassment, sexual harassment, and wage fraud. The restaurant business is not what it seems to diners. Behind the scenes is quite different from the extravagant “dining experience.” He was all the rage for his “foraged” “locavore” food. (I believe the prix fixe price for one person was $250 before the wine.) Turns out it wasn’t locally foraged but was from non-local grocery stores/suppliers. Big brouhaha over that. One of the courses of the meal was one potato chip. People flew in from all over the world to dine there, and it was quite a cash cow for residents’s B&B enterprises. Oh how the diners raved over the food, except the few honest ones who complained they still felt hungry and had to find other fare (a burger?) after the ultimate dining experience.

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JEFF MCMULLIN

We had heard of the “New Boonville Hotel” foodie scene back then, probably from the Chron. Sounded intriguing, but nobody’s driving from Crescent City for dinner.

Talent, Oregon is doable, and a small group of us ate at New Sammy’s 2-3 times a year. The venue was a small house with small kitchen from which Charlene sent out great French inspired meals. Vernon handled the wines and they had one other young guy serving. makes it easier to hide the income/wages. Very cult-like vibe. Squeezed into this little house were 5 or 6 small tables which were always full. Nice cash cow.

Bear in mind we didn’t know anything of their sordid Boonville history until I became an AVA subscriber back then.

My friends didn’t want to believe that the nice elderly couple trying to eke out a living in a back country bistro were such assholes.

Anyways, Vernon eventually tried to ramp it up with a new much larger restaurant, which sucked and people quit going. You probably know that it all went up in smoke in September of 2000 in the epic fire that destroyed much of Talent and Phoenix.

I remember thinking well, he got his, finally. Doesn’t do anything for the stiffed Boonville staff though.

Also up the hill from the bistro was a trailer with a huge wine cellar packed to the gills with high $ wines–no plonk. He spent 20 minutes showing it off to me.

Up in flames. He could have easily paid back wages with a small percentage of the contents.

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NON-STANDARD SEPTIC FEE MENDO COUNTY

Editor,

Just curious if anyone else has received a non-standard septic invoice from the County?

Seems like the tri-annual fee has more than doubled from $160 to over $380.

The logic of the program seems ludicrous to me: keep paying fees so others can benefit from the non-standard system that grants waivers for certain conditions (e.g. total size or shallow soils) to allow for new installations.

The County should have tabulated the total fees for the lifespan of the system and added into the cost of the original permit, particularly in light of the fact that the County does not seem to conduct any monitoring of their own.

Kirk Vodopals

Navarro

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COAST CHATLINE RUMOR: “County buying Teslas?

Anyone know for sure? Can it possibly be true that Mendocino County is buying some Teslas for the Police Department?”

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Mark Scaramella Notes: The County does not have a police department. Ukiah does. Willits does. Fort Bragg does. The County has a Sheriff’s department. Last we heard at a Board meeting, Sheriff Kendall was willing to consider electric vehicles, but was not enamored of them due mainly to their limited range in the large expanse of the County. However, that may not be as much of a problem in city police departments.

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County buying Teslas??

Ukiah City Council approved for Ukiah Police Department

Tom, The Coast

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County buying Teslas?

I like your /Whaaaa?/, which I hear in Professor Farnsworth's voice, from Futurama. Marco here. Tesla police cars do cost a bit more than regular ones, but they cost a lot less to keep and operate. I read about a town with 13 Teslas saving $80,000 a year compared with what they were paying to keep their ICU cars running. No gasoline, fewer maintenance procedures, etc. And they charge from city power and solar-panel-shaded parking lots. And when cops are cooping in an electric car, they're not burning fuel for nothing, they're just sleeping off stress, which they have to do anyway because people are people, including cops.

Electric cars are the future. Here's a video of a professional car reviewer off his head and giggly-delighted about a Chinese transportation car that can go 55 mph and has all the regular features you need in a car to go to and around town for errands and groceries. The speed limit is 55 all over Mendocino county except for on 101. The Microlino is expensive now, and it's not available in the U.S yet, but we could tool up fast to make things like this here in America cheaply and well with good jobs of union labor, and most people would be fine with a car like this. Steve Heckeroth had something like this thirty years ago, and an electric tractor, and a little truck, all charged from the sun on the roof of his carport. He went years without an oil change or an an air or oil filter or any engine work or buying a single drop of gasoline. The batteries now are way better than then, and getting better all the time. (The engine battery in my Prius, which is bigger than the battery in the Microlino, and previous-generation, is still working great after 20 years.) Mainly the expense of an electric car is insurance, which you have to have no matter what kind of car it is, and yearly DMV registration, and then tires, then windshield wipers (which it only needs one of), in that order. What about people who need a pickup truck/bus or an Abrams tank because they're insecure or they have four sister-wives and fifteen kids and a Waco compound? They can still get that. Nobody's stopping them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB_b4HvrJFU

And for power, beside solar panels, windmills, falling water, geothermal and so on, wave generators like this can be put up anywhere out on the water, giving free electricity to whole little coastal towns. It's not any more noisy than waves and wind, and could easily have a nicer facade, and a restaurant, maybe a fun arcade, with (electric) shuttle boats for tourists. How about a radio station, too, with a theater.

https://newatlas.com/energy/revolutionary-wave-turbine-hooked-hawaii-energy

Marco McClean

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BUYING ART WITH GRANDMA: MY FIRST VISIT TO MENDOCINO

by Justine Frederiksen

The first time I remember visiting Mendocino County was on a road trip to the Mendocino Coast with my grandmother. I can’t tell you the year, but I’m guessing it was in the 1990s, and while I also don’t remember where we stayed or where we ate, given my grandmother’s spending habits, I can guarantee you they were the most reasonably-priced options available.

What I do remember though, is walking on Main Street in Mendocino and into all the galleries, as my grandmother loved buying art. And my most vivid memory is buying a small ceramic cat that I’ve kept all these years, mostly because the argument we had over it still makes me laugh.

The cat looks like a Himalayan, basically a fluffy Siamese, with a Mermaid tail, and it made me smile.

“Isn’t this funny,” I said. “It’s a mermaid!”

“But… it’s a cat,” my grandmother said, looking at me with confusion and pity as if I had suddenly become very stupid.

“Yes, it’s a mermaid that is half-cat instead of half-human, which is why it’s funny!” I said, but she remained unconvinced by these new facts, her face now showing more annoyance than pity when she said: “But it’s not a mermaid. It’s a cat.”

Right, I thought, looking at the mermaid cat in my palm and deciding to do what I always had to do to end an argument with my grandmother: Stop talking and change the subject.

(Thanks to the Internet, in the years since I have learned that such creatures are called “purrmaids,” so I guess my grandmother was right after all – it wasn’t a mermaid!)

The next time I bought art with my grandmother was more pleasant. Or at least I don’t remember any of our arguments, though we must have had at least one.

This time we met in Sonoma County, and I can tell you it was May of 1998, because she wrote about it in her journals. We went there because Carla, one of my mother’s high school friends, was an artist living in Cazadero and had opened her studio as part of a tour that weekend.

That day I fell in love with a purple vase that looks like someone standing indignantly with their hands on their hips, a piece aptly named “Vase with Attitude,” which my grandmother bought me along with a mirror, and I bought a bowl. Now, more than 25 years later, everything we got that day are still functional pieces of art in my home: the vase in the kitchen, the bowl in my bathroom, and the mirror – which my husband now likes more than I do – in the living room.

But again my most vivid memory of that day is an exchange with my grandmother in Sebastopol as we prepared to head home after lunch. As she started to drive away, she stopped her car next to me and rolled down her window.

“Have you been eating a lot of candy?” she said, her eyes focusing on the large, red pimples on my face that appeared every month like clockwork. And before I could think of a response, she finally got the nerve to say what she really wanted to: “And your bosoms have shrunk.”

Then she drove off, so all I could do was shake my head and try to laugh, finally realizing how to argue with my grandmother: Don’t. Just stop talking and let her have the last word.

Of course, she wrote nothing about that exchange in her journals:

• Friday, May 29, 1998

To Carla’s. Take African statues!

Up 5:30, ready by 8:30.

To Half Moon Bay by 9:50, got muffin.

To bridge by 10:45, not much traffic.

Called from Rio Nido at 12:15, 154 miles.

Carla met me at Guerneville grocery. Talked, etc.

Bed early.

• Saturday, May 30,1998

Up early. Chores, etc.

Visited numerous studios. Got vases (2), also another cat.

Also, “Friend of the potted plants.”

Talked to lots of people, very interesting.

Much riding, did not always buy things.

Met Donna, nurse who was in Belize. Next Portugal.

Bed early.

• Sunday, May 31, 1998

Up early again. Left about 9.

Got gas at Guerneville.

To bookstore, met Justine.

To art center, got mirror for J, vase for me.

To John Chambers, got tea pot. J got bowl for $5.

Back to Silvermine, got vase “with attitude” for J.

Left Justine at 4:30, back to Carla’s.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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ED NOTES

IT'S BEEN A WHILE since Mendo school districts kicked nuked foods out of its cafeterias, announcing that irradiated foods wouldn’t ever again be consumed by its students. The argument against food cleansed of harmful bacteria by radiation is that the process also removes essential nutrients in a way that changes the chemical composition of the chicken, or pig, or steer, or vegetable in dangerously unpredictable ways. Opponents of irradiation also argue that if food wasn’t raised in unhealthy conditions irradiation wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.

WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE really need protection from is all the other hazardous foodstuffs they shove into their mostly sedentary guts every day. Maybe the schools should consider offering a class called “How to eat good for cheap,” followed by a class called “Getting Up Off It and Moving Around,” and, perhaps, reality-based instruction pegged to the real world waiting for most of them after four years of pep rallies and junior proms called, “How To Be Poor But Still Have A Good Time.”

SPEAKING of our nation's future, that school bureaucrat who opened a meeting by blather-lathering his staff and “the community” announced that not only were the district's students “well above average, this community is extremely talented and well-educated.”

WHY STOP with “extremely talented” and “well-educated”? Why not add, The unique “village” of Mendocino is home to people who are as handsome, as charming, as inspirational as that famous first couple in Eden’s very garden, and the commitment of our teachers to your brilliant children is as selfless as the Nazarene carpenter Himself!

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Rancho Costa Nada: The Dirt Cheap Desert Homestead’ by Phil Garlington, published by Loompanics Unlimited. Blurbed as an “amazing tale of what can be done on a low-tech scale with good old-fashioned American ingenuity in these high-tech, cash-scarce times,” Garlington’s book turned out to be that and more. Replete with amusing anecdotes about the ingenious characters living “in the middle of a monotonous, baked-dry alkali basin that’s arid, scrub-covered, lacking in amenities and way the hell off the paved road,” this most amusing book will hold your attention cover-to-cover even if you don’t have immediate plans to flee your mortgage and re-locate beyond the reach of bill collectors. The many and varied schemes for shelter that Garlington’s dropped-out neighbors assemble out of the detritus of modern civ are as billed — amazing. All kinds of interesting how-to stuff and funny, too. A big bargain at $14.95.

ANOTHER fascinating read but one that suffers from an annoyingly portentous prose style is ‘Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America,’ by John M. Barry. Knowing nothing about the Mississippi other than it’s big and wide and tends to flood, Barry’s exhaustively researched tome tells the story of how a genius Civil War-era engineer by the name of Eads not only made the river’s mouth regularly navigable by big ships but devised the first sensible flood control strategies, the latter undone by successive generations of less gifted engineers. The politics involved in attempts to tame the Mississippi and the various flood control strategies are interesting despite the ponderous telling of them. Even more interesting are the accounts of levee sabotage by towns attempting to spare themselves a big flood at the expense of the community upstream. And some of the stories of how whole populations were mobilized to shore up the levees in mostly vain attempts to keep the rampaging river from busting through the levees and destroying their homes and home towns are real jaw-droppers, as in the newspaper account of a Mississippi town where black labor was ordered at gun point to lie down the full length of their exhausted bodies on top of the very last row of sandbags they’d heaved onto the levee as the river rose as fast as they could sandbag it. When they ran out of bags the human black sandbags were ordered to place their bodies end-to-end on top of the levee, thus becoming a final layer of humans between the raging river and the town below. (In that episode, the human sandbags saved the day.)

THE THIRD recommended book today, and the only readable one on Edgar Allan Poe I know of, is called ‘Poe, A Biography,’ by William Bittner. The prob with a lot of contemporary bios is that they’re too long. We don’t need to know everything about the subject, but because most bios are the work of academics who’ve made one luminary their life’s work, a lot of biographies become monomaniacally endless. The best bios I’ve read are those little Penguin bios mostly written by novelists and newspaper people. If you’re like me and have never been able to get through a life of Abe Lincoln, his Penguin bio is the one for you. ‘Back to The Raven,’ Published in ‘62 by an Englishman, I think, who worked as a librarian in Berlin and long out of print, Bittner’s Poe is the goods. Edgar Allan has always been an inspiring figure for living up to his famous declaration: “To the few who love me and whom I love — to those who feel rather than to those who think — to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities… What I here propound is true: — therefore it cannot die: —if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will ‘rise again to the life everlasting’.” I found the Bittner bio in a used book store for $10. I don’t know anything more about the author than the scant bona fides he provides on the book jacket.

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HOW TO SCARE A BEAR

Unique idea for banishing bears…

Got an interesting email from friends in a small town in Washington State who are having a lot of trouble with bears getting into trash cans: "We bought one of those singing bass fish that people buy in sporting goods stores. The fish is battery operated and has a sensor that detects the presence of moving objects. They are utterly crass and on some of the more expensive models the fish light up and twist while they sing. Anyway, we mounted it on the garbage cans and it scared the s___ out of the bear. It was only $14"

I've never heard of them, but I searched Amazon: "Electric-Moving-Fish-Interactive-Plush", I've been using mothballs, which work, but have to be replaced every few weeks. We're coming into fall when the bears are going to be fattening up for winter hibernation. I'm trying to figure out where on the trash can to mount it so it doesn't get dumped into the truck when it comes. Seems like on top of the lid might work. Has anyone else heard of or tried this?

— Ronnie James

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MOVING LOGS ON BIG RIVER BY CHUCK BUSH

Part 1 of 2; reprinted from the May 25, 2006 Mendocino Beacon

During all of the early days of our fair Mendocino, logging was king. Once the big redwoods were felled, bucked (cut into movable lengths), and peeled (debarked), they had to be brought to the mill. That involved using jackscrews (like an automotive screw jack), building chutes and skid roads, utilizing horses and oxen and railroads to haul them to creek beds, and erecting dams to collect enough water to carry the logs down to the upper end of Big River.

Once in the river, which was and still is tidal for about eight miles, the logs were floated down to the first boom, which consisted of a line of floating logs fastened together across the river. That early boom was located very close to the mouth of Big River—too close, in fact. The turbulence from winter storms, combined with the pressure from all the logs being pushed against the boom by the runoff from heavy rains, sometimes broke the boom and allowed the logs to float out to sea. Very expensive!

The second boom was completed in 1858. It was located over three miles upstream, and consisted of three very solid log piers built right in the river so as to deflect and entangle the free-floating logs, essentially to make a logjam behind which there might be up to 25,000 logs. Then just downstream of the piers, log rafts were created by tying one log to the next to the next, small rafts of parallel logs that could be floated with the outgoing tide down to the millpond, guided by men on the rafts using only long poles to keep them in the deeper water.

And so it went for many years, all the way up to just before 1900; Joshua Grindle and John Daniels were the last two polers. In the mid-1890s the lumber company started experimenting with ways to move the logs more efficiently, using first rowboats and then power-driven boats. Two notes in issues of the Mendocino Beacon are appropriate here. On May 19, 1900, it was reported that the boiler and engine had arrived for the new river boat being built at the mill. The flatboat was named "Big River" by Jerome C. Ford; however, company employees in San Francisco insisted it be called "Maru." A month later, on June 13th, the paper announced "Big River Maru was launched at the mill without fanfare. A licensed engineer was required to run it.”

W. Francis Jackson, whose two wonderful books, “Big River Was Dammed” and “Mendocino City,” provided me with material for this article, notes that the employees in San Francisco had seen the name Maru on a visiting Japanese ship. (Shizuko McConathy told me that Maru does not mean ship, nor does it tie to ocean; it is a good luck word that traditionally goes at the end of every Japanese ship's name.)

The "Maru" was designed by John Peterson. It was a flat bottom scow about 40 feet long and 16 feet wide, with a stern paddle wheel driven by a wood-burning steam engine. The engine also could turn a large drum of wire cable, with which sunken logs could be raised, and stranded logs could be pulled back into the river. By attaching the cable to some solid object on shore, the boat could pull itself up on land for repairs. It was the first powered boat built to ply Big River.

To Be Continued in a Week…

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R.D. BEACON

As the park flyer rages on Tuesday endorsed East, it is only 34% containment, current acres burned,425,724 , with temperatures coming up in the region for today, as well as prevailing upper-level winds blowing out of the southwest toward the northeast, plus the ground, being particularly steep, with a great deal of hazards, like rocks, the area is hard to even fire retardant, from the air do the thickness and density of the smoke, coming up in the ground level as the photos will show you, as Cal fire continues to bring larger retardant drops to the area it is an all out effort, but it isn't dense timber, and extremely dry vegetation, that is not been burned, in considerable years, property owners in the area, they had put in defensible spaces, found no safety, for 100 feet, was not enough I have always said, based on years of experience, that 300 feet would be if possible, much better control line around residence in buildings, and planning low cover vegetation that is not flammable, as the migration, city people moving to the countryside, not being fire safe, not understanding, so it's too late but fire does, they should all be a lesson, even though this particular event was caused by one stupid individual, but many of the, states larger fires were caused by stupidity, but the fuel loads that were not controlled by landowners or government agencies certainly contributed to what's happening now, the indigenous people of America, had controlled wildfires long before civilization as we know it, came to the Americas, and they had no catastrophic events, we need, to take a lesson from the American Indians, bot land management.

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SIMMONS PHARMACEUTICALS

In the early morning hours of August 2nd, 2024, a Ukiah Police Department Officer was on routine patrol on Talmage Road in Ukiah. The officer observed a Toyota Tundra in the parking lot of the Arco Gas Station that had numerous vehicle code violations, including registration that was several years expired.

As the officer entered the parking lot to investigate the vehicle, he saw a female exit the driver’s side of the Tundra and walked hastily into the convenience store. The officer walked up to the Tundra and noticed a commercial quantity of marijuana on the front passenger’s seat, as well as drug paraphernalia strewn about the interior of the vehicle.

The officer contacted the female driver of the Tundra inside the convenience store, and she was brought out to her vehicle to discuss the contraband that was in plain view. The female was later identified as Christina Simmons, a 33-year-old resident of Ukiah.

The officer began a probable cause search of the Tundra and located approximately 160 M-30 fentanyl pills inside Simmons’ purse. The M-30 fentanyl pills were later found to have a net weight of nearly one ounce, with a street value of approximately $1,200. The officer also located an additional portion of fentanyl, as well as drug paraphernalia.

Simmons was placed under arrest for possession and transportation of a narcotic with the intent to distribute, as well as transportation and possession of marijuana for the purpose of sales and violation of probation.

Simmons was booked into the Mendocino County Jail for Narcotics for sale, marijuana for sale, and probation revocation. Simmons’ bond was set at $51,000.

As always, UPD’s mission is to make Ukiah as safe a place as possible, and we are grateful for the help that we received in our efforts to rid the community of dangerous drugs. If you would like to know more about crime in your neighborhood, you can sign up for telephone, cellphone, and email notifications by clicking the Nixle button on our website; www.ukiahpolice.com.

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MORAN PHARMACEUTICALS

Cocaine & Cash Seized During Narcotics Sales Search Warrant

Several days ago, Fort Bragg police officers received a tip of cocaine sales in the 100 block of Minnesota Avenue. They initiated an investigation and uncovered enough evidence to apply for a search warrant. A judge granted that search warrant for the property.

On August 7, 2024 at approximately 7:45am, Fort Bragg officers served the search warrant. During the search, officers located cocaine packaged for distribution, over $22,000 in cash, and other evidence of narcotics sales. Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force (MMCTF) was contacted, who responded and assisted with the investigation.

Two adults were home during the search warrant and were detained. The adult female was questioned and released with no charges.

The adult male, Christopher Moran, 41 of Fort Bragg, was questioned, arrested and booked into the Mendocino County jail on the charge of Possession of narcotics with intent to sell (felony).

Chief Neil Cervenka said, “This is another example of Fort Bragg police officers going the extra mile to make our community safer. Illegal narcotics destroy lives and hurt those around them.”

The Fort Bragg Police Department can assist those with substance use disorders into treatment. Please call the Care Response Unit at (707)961-2800 and choose option 6.

Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Officer Frank of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext 223.

This information is being released by Chief Neil Cervenka. All media inquiries should contact him at ncervenka@fortbragg.com.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, August 8, 2024

GABRIEL CHAON, Ukiah. Contributing to delinquency of minor.

VANESSA ELIZABETH, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)

HANNA FIERRO-MCGARRY, Grants Pass, Oregon/Ukiah. Attempt to keep stolen property, conspiracy.

LATEEFAH GLOVER, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

SCOTT HAYWARD, Redwood Valley, criminal threats.

JOSHUA HELLYER, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license.

LANE JOHNSON, Roseburg, Oregon. Burglary, stolen vehicle, controlled substance, grand theft firearm, false ID, possession of personal ID with intent to defraud, suspended license, resisting, priors in another state, habitual criminal with multiple prior felonies, conspiracy.

TIMOTHY JOHNSTON, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.

JOSEPH MENDOZA, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, disobeying court order.

BRENDA POINDEXTER, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LIBRADO RUIZ-LOPEZ, Salinas/Ukiah. Attempt to keep stolen property.

TAYLOR SILVEIRA, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

CESLEY WILLIAMS, Ukiah. Resisting.

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BILL HATCH:

Scott Ritter’s “crime”? Saying publicly, with great urgency, that the only issue of importance in the upcoming election, from his professional point of view as a former UN nuclear weapons advisor, is which candidate is less likely to start nuclear war? Seems like a good question as this revolting campaign drags on as if our whiz kids have two wars in hand, Russia's losing and Bibi is cock of the walk.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Back in the old days in the USA, say back in the 30s, ya got married to your sweetheart and made a commitment. Say you’re an average person in the 1930s and you are living a bare bones existence, like most other people around. Life was hard and work was dangerous sometimes. A woman running a household in the days of old had wood burning kitchen stoves and no air conditioning in summer. She could easily die in childbirth. Life may have been fun at times but it also carried with it a lot of real physical pain and/or discomfort.

The bonds of a marriage are made strong because of all the shared intense and sometimes very physically painful experiences that go along with it. You’ve decided to make a partnership with somebody who is not just sharing sexual pleasure – but somebody who has also agreed to share all the pain and misery that often accompanies life. In the 30s it could be working your fingers to the bone for years and see the dust bowl blow it all away.

Because of comfy suburban living standards that eliminate pain and discomfort, the middle class marriages are boring, sterile, and meaninglessly repetitive. Conservative Christian churches sometimes have higher divorce rates than the heathens have.

I reckon I could use my parents as an example of a couple going through some intense experiences. My dad was a US soldier and met my mom when she was living like a rat in a bombed out Bavarian basement. He had qualified to remain in Germany after the war to be a part of the US effort to rebuild the place after the bombings had reduced everything to rubble. My mom and dad had shared part a war and its aftermath together, they knew what it was like to have bombs and shells blowing up close by.

Luckily I’ve never experienced modern warfare up close and personal. Once a couple goes through intense experiences like that, I’d imagine that bonds will form that go way beyond anything having to do with sex. Sex is just a part of the relationship as time goes by, and it’s not even the essential part. That’s what ya find out when ya get old.

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SENIOR MOMENTS

by Paul Modic

You can call them senior moments but if they've been happening your whole life then it's time to take stock and realize you're just a damn fool.

The other day I was about to take a walk but thought I would quickly change out some leaky outside faucets first. I was wearing my nicest slacks because it was a little cool for a mid-summer day. I got out the new faucets (love those quarter-turn models), the plumber's glue, the wrench, and went to work.

They got installed and now I have splotches of that blue adhesive on my nicest pants and on both deck railings, the new and the old. I can get it off the decks if I care to but it's on those nice DKNY slacks forever.

A couple days later I was watering my small container garden and as it was already July figured I should use up the last of the fish emulsion on the three pot plants. I mixed the emulsion with water in a five gallon bucket, poured the bucket of fish shit into the hundred gallon pot, and half of it sloshed back out onto my nicest shoes. Nice, fish-smelling shoes.

A couple days after that, I backed into a small tree and smashed the tail-light on my old truck. I was backing right into the sun, but that's not a good excuse.)

(Then yesterday my screen door was stuck on the sliding glass door so when I brutally forced it open it broke the sun blinds right off the wall of the house beyond repair. The next morning I put an egg on the counter, it rolled to the edge and fell to the floor with a splat, when my back was turned to get into the fridge, and the replacement egg I cracked was rotten.)

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HERE’S HOW YOU KNOW THE PARIS OLYMPICS ARE ALMOST OVER, NO CALENDAR NECESSARY

by Ann Killion

Shhh. Don’t say it too loud, but the countdown is on.

There are four days remaining of Olympic competition, which means plenty of action is still left, a lot of events still to cover, legacies still to be written.

But everyone is distinctly aware that the Games are coming to an end. The evidence sometimes comes through your nose, as it is clear some of our colleagues haven’t shelled out for laundry and are just waiting to pack their ripe clothes in a suitcase and bring them home. Sometimes your overloaded brain informs you that it might be time to stop working 18-hour days: On Wednesday, I confidently boarded a train and rode about three stops before I realized I was going in the exact opposite direction of where I wanted to go.

Sometimes your stomach tells you time’s almost up. Healthy eating habits are starting to be a distant memory and caffeine levels keep inching upward.

The diminishing competition schedule is another sign. There are fewer events happening, but more important ones potentially colliding with each other, in the forms of semifinals or medal rounds. After having an all-you-can-eat buffet for two weeks, we’re down to a few selections.

This is a typical Olympic reporter pattern: You get to the Games with a plan to see all sorts of events and all the cool venues. Then all of a sudden, you realize you’re running out of time, so you start to scramble and make some unwise decisions.

That happened to me on Wednesday. I went to where the figure skaters were getting their gold medals from Beijing, a unique and odd experience. I was so close to the coolest venue of these Olympics — beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower — that I thought, “Hey, I should go check it out.” But getting around the enormous Eiffel Tower is harder than it looks. By the time I located the media entrance, fans were streaming out. The session had just ended. Not to be denied, I sat in the empty press tribune and enjoyed the spectacular view for a bit.

Because the end is near. And I know I won’t be back.

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A READER WRITES:

Although there were several contenders, the gold medal for the most unintentionally hilarious moment at the Paris Olympics has to go to the opening segment of the French synchronized swimming team’s (or whatever they’re called now) performance. Clad in their unnecessarily skimpy swimsuits — did some Olympics honcho dictate the women’s outfits this year to boost ratings? — they came out of their locker room and did a poolside can-can dance, complete with impressively high kicks! The silver goes to French pole vaulter, Anthony Ammirati, who was eliminated after he accidentally knocked the high bar down with his oversized schlong. And, although not particularly humorous, the bronze goes to the idiotic French organizers who made some of the swimmers swim in the filthy Seine.

In other Olympic competitions, the gold medal for the most boring event goes to the 1500 meter men’s freestyle; you can barely even see the swimmers! Silver goes to dressage, of course. Is that really a sport? And speed walking, a perennial joke, gets the bronze for the umpteenth consecutive time.

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ELON MUSK IS ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS MEN ON THE PLANET, SAYS HUMZA YOUSAF

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/elon-musk-is-one-of-the-most-dangerous-men-on-the-planet-says-humza-yousaf-4734952

(via Bruce McEwen)

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ESTHER MOBLEY: WHAT I'M READING

The U.S. government subsidizes the import of foreign wines — so significantly that it “refunded over $21 million in alcohol taxes and duties” in the first four months of this year, writes Stuart Spencer in the Lodi Wine Growers blog. Spencer seems to be developing the “dirty secret” beat for the wine industry; he also caused a stir recently when he wrote about the outsize role that imported bulk wine plays in the California wine market.

After the Napa County Planning Commission had denied a proposal for Vida Valiente, a new winery that would be built near St. Helena, the county’s Board of Supervisors has overruled that decision and approved it, reports Kerana Todorov in Wine Business.

In the New Wine Review, Sarah Parker Jang has a moving story about a family that was left with a 600-bottle wine collection after a father’s death, and how organizing the inventory has brought the children closer to their late dad.

Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates has announced it will offload some of its “commercial” wine brands, including Blossom Hill and Wolf Blass, apparently so that it can focus on its higher-end wines, reports Fiona Holland in Just Drinks.

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JOHN ROGERS COX (1915-1990) American

“Gray and Gold “1942

oil on canvas, 91.5 x 151.8 cm.

Cleveland Museum of Art.

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JUST FINISHED READING the New Yorker’s overhyped profile of RFK Jr. Two significant words were conspicuously missing from the piece: “Corporations,” and “taxes.” Let’s just say, as an independent candidate, RFK Jr. is no Ralph Nader. (Mark Scaramella)

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CRAIG RETURNS TO THE ONE TRUE CHURCH

Holy Hour in Ukiah, California

Just returned from a visit to St.Mary of the Angels Catholic Church located directly behind the Royal Motel. On Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. is the Adoration Holy Hour, with the monstrance (which holds the consecrated host) on the altar. A priest burns incense in the censer, and leads prayers, with the soft response of the congregation filling the church interior.

Craig Louis Stehr

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CHRIS SKYHAWK

I’m not in the pic but here are my twins when they were littles; I loved, loved loved this stroller, we bought it in Ukiah for $300 when my ex was still pregnant I have Never been happier spending money; after they were born I strolled them EVERYWHERE; along the ocean, through the parks and festivals, we had a great backroad network in Albion; and when they were old enough the stroll usually ends by a waterfalll, a pond, trees. Somewhere we could get out and play; when we finally passed it along when they were older, I sat down and thought about how far I must have pushed that thing over the years… I came up with an estimate of well over 2K miles; needless to say I LOVE being their dad, and even through a difficult post stroke divorce; and them being cranky teens trying to find their way; I STILL love being their dad; its sometimes said our greatest blessing comes in the same box as our greatest difficulty; well I think I Nayullled THAT one lol; but still I wouldn't change one single moment; to guide them into this world to now watch them become young women; I couldn’t ask for more…

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LARRY LIVERMORE

Tito from Panama put together this documentary.

THE LOOKOUT (2024)

Once Upon A Time…Larry Livermore (American singer, musician, record producer, and author, best known as the co-founder of Lookout Records) CAME TO PANAMA TO …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=VdDjni6Pg4SSMn4o&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3LFnzaxMbEFLU4la3yy_tJ7gTXrV9HLKTtH4gtkvq80WbYAI0WR8oA-Qg_aem_ZuBIlp1xEX_S0F_hHh0FcQ&v=dit0c5RZ3hU&feature=youtu.be

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ASK THE VET: VOMITING & DIARRHEA IN DOGS

by Colin Chaves, DVM

Vomiting and diarrhea are two commonly seen problems in dogs.

Vomiting is rapid ejection of material from the stomach and the beginning of the small intestine, typically preceded by abdominal contractions. The most common cause of vomiting in dogs is something they ate.

Diarrhea is the production of soft or loose watery stools, which comes from the large and/or small intestine. The most common cause of diarrhea in dogs is also from something they ate, although intestinal parasites are worth mentioning.

Vomiting or diarrhea may be sudden-onset (acute), or a long-term problem (chronic). There are a large number of possible causes for both, in addition to those mentioned above.

My focus today is on how to logically deal with a dog with vomiting or diarrhea.

Vomiting

Dogs are experts at vomiting. They have evolved over thousands of years alongside people, not only hunting and eating various carrion or people's garbage, but also getting fed various scraps from humans. Vomiting is a defense mechanism to eject anything the body has determined might be harmful if digested.

If a dog is bright and alert, has been healthy previously and has vomited only one or two times, the following can be tried. Begin with a twelve hour fast with no food or treats. After that time a bland diet of boiled chicken and rice only, or boiled lean ground beef and rice only can be started, initially with small meals. Feed the bland diet only for two days, then mix with the regular diet for two days, then go back to the regular diet.

Do not do the above and call your vet if any of the following apply. There is blood in the vomit. There is known exposure to or ingestion of anything toxic or potentially harmful. Your dog may have swallowed an object that could have caused an intestinal blockage. You have a very small dog, approximately 8 pounds or less. There have been three or more episodes of vomiting within a day.

Canine parvovirus (“parvo”) can cause both vomiting and diarrhea. If your dog, especially a puppy, has not been properly vaccinated, then contact your veterinarian immediately.

Long-term less frequent vomiting also merits a call to your veterinarian. This is a less urgent situation than vomiting three or more times in a day, but should get seen. Almost all dogs vomit occasionally. However, vomiting any more frequently than once every one to two months is a cause for concern.

Diarrhea

Diarrhea is another defense mechanism and can range from a messy somewhat uncomfortable condition, to in some cases severe illness, depending on the underlying cause.

If a dog has had diarrhea for one to two days, is bright and alert, the same plan can be followed as with number one above under vomiting.

Diarrhea will often take a least a couple days to resolve, so in this case you would be looking for gradual improvement. If there is no improvement within two days, contact your veterinarian.

If there is blood in the diarrhea or if any of the other items in number two above under vomiting apply, contact your veterinarian.

Consider asking your veterinarian to check a fresh stool sample from your dog for intestinal parasites.

Note that diarrhea and even normal dog stool do pose a risk for diseases that can be contracted by people. Use good hygiene.

A common scenario for dogs that have had diarrhea and are improving, is to actually go for one to several days without defecating, and then begin producing normal stools. They should not be straining to defecate, or vomiting.

Sometimes owners don't see the initial phase of diarrhea, but do later see their dog straining to defecate. They then assume the dog is constipated. This is simply because the dog feels the urge to defecate due to inflammation, but has no more stool in the intestines. Constipation is a very rare problem in dogs.

Apart from the above guidelines, keep in mind your veterinarian's hours of business and availability. For example, if your vet closes for the weekend, and your dog has been vomiting starting Thursday, I encourage you to call the vet Friday morning rather than waiting to see if things are going to improve.

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THE DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TRUMP

by David Firestone

In a forbidding and deliberately frightening news conference on Thursday, Donald Trump took listeners on what sounded like a tour of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Mordor. But the fetid swamps and jagged mountains of the shadowy land that Donald Trump described were the streets of the United States under the Biden/Harris administration, all of which he suggested will grow more foul should the country’s people make the fatal mistake of electing Kamala Harris president instead of him. His list of the plagues facing America included:

“Both gangs on the street and frankly gangs outside of our country.”

“We could end up in a depression of the 1929 variety, which would be devastating.”

“We’ll be very close to a world war.”

“You have millions and millions of dead people and you have people dying financially because they can’t buy bacon. They can’t buy food, they can’t buy groceries, they can’t do anything. And they’re living horribly in our country right now.”

“Our country is right now in the most dangerous position it’s ever been in from an economic standpoint, from a safety standpoint.”

Tim Walz “has positions that are just not even possible to believe that they exist. He’s going for things that nobody’s ever heard of. Heavy into the transgender world, heavy into lots of different worlds, having to do with safety.”

The description of these evils was so over the top that it strongly suggested Trump had simply lost his bearings in the face of the surge of enthusiasm that has been unleashed by Harris and Walz, evident in their poll numbers, prolific fund-raising and overflowing rally crowds. Having lost his earlier lead over President Biden, Trump has been complaining about his campaign lately, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, and his frustration was evident in his attempt to simply scare the public into voting for him.

He really lost it when a reporter asked him about the size of Harris’s crowds, frothing that she was getting crowds of 1,000 or 1,500 people (it was actually about 15,000 on Tuesday in Detroit) while he got a crowd on the New Jersey shore in May of more than 100,000, which even Fox News said was no more than 30,000. At one point, bizarrely and nonsensically, he claimed that his crowd on Jan. 6, 2021 (about 10,000 people, many of whom went on to trash the Capitol) was bigger than that of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..’s March on Washington in 1963, which drew about 250,000 people. Clearly the Harris rallies are getting to him.

But most of all, he can’t stand the sense of joyful enthusiasm that Harris and Walz are bringing to their campaign. He can’t come to grips with the sunny optimism of his opponents, their laughter and energy as they sketch out plans for a brighter day. Lacking joy himself, all he can counter with is darkness and permanent rain.

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“The hell I feared no man. There was one man I wouldn’t fight because I knew he would flatten me—I was afraid of Sam Langford.” — Jack Dempsey

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MEXICO AFTER EL MAYO

by Forrest Hylton

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García, the senior leader of the organization known as the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested on 25 July, together with his godson Joaquin Guzman Lopez – one of ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s sons. The best Mexican coverage was informed by long experience, skepticism and sober realism. It was hard to believe the authorities had finally captured the man who never left the Sierra Madre. Across the border in the US, where the arrest took place, more than a few journalists appear to have cut their sociological teeth on the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico.

In both countries, there are two main versions of events. In Mexico – where the outgoing president, Andrés Lopez Obrador, has implemented a policy of “abrazos, no balazos,” which is likely to continue under his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum – most veterans favor the idea that El Mayo and his godson turned themselves in after years of negotiations.

The other story goes like this: Joaquin Guzman, working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the DEA, tricked his aging and infirm godfather into meeting with politicians in Culiacán, Sinaloa. As they entered the mansion where the meeting was to take place, El Mayo’s four bodyguards were overpowered by six military men and Guzman. They tied the 76-year-old up, hooded him, put him in the back of a truck, drove him north to an airport in Hermosillo, Sonora, and flew him to the US. But the governor of Sonora and Mexican reporters agree that most of this didn’t happen. For one thing, El Mayo would never have gone anywhere with only four bodyguards. That’s not how his security system worked: forty bodyguards would be more like it.

However they got on board, an aircraft carrying both men landed in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, not far from the DEA’s headquarters in El Paso, where Mayo was taken to court in a wheelchair – he has diabetes, gout and possibly cancer. He pleaded not guilty.

Guzman was flown to Chicago, where his brother, Ovidio, who will stand trial in a few months, is also being held. Oddly, Ovidio had been taken out of prison and flown to El Paso two days earlier, on July 23, then returned to prison in time for the family reunion. Speaking fluent English, Joaquin pleaded not guilty. His lawyer issued a statement that there had been neither betrayal nor surrender. The DEA has now confirmed the obvious: they negotiated with Joaquin Guzman. Their half-brother Ivan Archivaldo Guzman – according to a hitman who used to work for them, the most violent of the three – remains at large.

Betraying their confederates is the narcos’ only code of honor, yet it’s difficult to imagine any of El Chapo’s sons (Los Chapitos) outsmarting El Mayo Zambada. The US authorities almost certainly didn’t either, or at least not alone. The story becomes more plausible if we include two politicians: Rubén Rocha Moya, the governor of Sinaloa for Lopez Obrador’s party, Morena; and Hector Melesio Cuén Ojeda, the former mayor of Culiacan, head of the Partido Sinaloense and a congressman-elect in coalition with the old ruling party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. Once allies, they had since fallen out over control of Morena in Sinaloa, and Rocha Moya allegedly sought the help of El Mayo – a close friend of Cuén Ojeda – in mediating their dispute, at the center of which lay the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, Cuén’s political stronghold (he had been rector).

A meeting with Mayo and Ramón Mocha was arranged, to which Joaquin Guzman may have been invited as a representative of Los Chapitos, to discuss a solution.

Mayo came down from the Sierra Madre a week earlier to seek treatment at the hospital in Culiacan (hence the rumors of cancer). It’s possible that Rocha Moya, in cahoots with Joaquin Guzman, called in the DEA, FBI and Homeland Security. Guzman is reported to have shaken hands with all the agents involved, and El Mayo’s lawyer told the Los Angeles Times that Joaquin tied his godfather’s legs to the seat of the plane, where he was tortured en route.

After waiting in vain for his lawyers to show up at a ranch outside town, Cuén Ojeda was murdered in a “robbery” at a gas station on his way back to Culiacan that evening. Rocha Moya called for a federal investigation, yet if motive matters, he is one of the leading suspects.

Two of El Mayo’s sons and one of his brothers are in witness protection after testifying against El Chapo and General Genaro García Luna. Vicente Zambada, or Vicentillo, revealed that he had given the DEA his father’s contacts as well as the location of airstrips, ranches and safe houses, and that Sinaloa had bribed Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon, and Ernesto Zedillo. Yet these revelations may pale in comparison to what comes out in El Mayo’s trial.

That will depend on the deal he reaches (or has already reached) with the US authorities, who need him to tell them what he knows about his rivals in organized crime, but are even more interested in what he knows about politicians, military and police officers, operations outside Mexico and US agencies such as the DEA. He is using Vicentillo’s lawyer.

El Mayo’s arrest is the biggest upheaval in Mexican organized crime since the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the head of the Juarez cartel, in 1997, after which Sinaloa’s predominance was consolidated. If El Mayo had been betrayed, war would have started between Los Chapitos and those loyal to El Mayo’s remaining son (‘Mayito Flaco’) in Tijuana, Sinaloa and Chiapas – where hundreds have been displaced across the border into Guatemala – for control of landing strips, labs, warehouses, retail drug sales and, most important, political protection. It hasn’t. (The fighting in Chiapas, Nayarit and Sonora involves different actors.)

Los Chapitos dominate the production and export of fentanyl, but El Mayo used to oversee the purchase of the precursors from China. Triads from Hong Kong, operating out of Mexico, launder money and do a booming trade in contraband seafood and human beings as well as chemical precursors. They are poised to advance in the face of any weakness from factional infighting among the Sinaloa networks.

Like the Spanish colonial silver circuit and the flotillas that sailed between Acapulco and Manilla for centuries, the post-Cold War narcotics circuit fosters trade, banking and investment across the Pacific. El Mayo’s network also runs Barranquilla and Cartagena in the Caribbean, Buenaventura in the Pacific and other coastal cities in Colombia and Ecuador. Ivan Archivaldo has been seen visiting Medellin.

This business, which also includes crystal meth and Colombian cocaine, not to mention light and heavy artillery, is as big as it gets. Together with extreme violence and retail drug sales, the extortion of local populations is key to the control of territory. As corporate conglomerates, which increasingly run on a franchising model similar to Starbucks, these organizations are comparable to Google, Apple or Microsoft. Sinaloa operates in 74 countries worldwide. The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime told reporters in 2009 that laundered drug money helped keep the global financial system solvent after the 2007-8 crash.

The only true rival to Sinaloa, and its equal in the use of lethal force, is the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG or ‘las cuatro letras’), led by Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, (‘El Mencho’), an alumnus of the US prison system. It could seek to take over Sinaloan territory, perhaps through alliances with one or another Sinaloan network, but more likely through total war. This is already happening in Tijuana, which has witnessed more than a thousand murders already in 2024, and in the old colonial mining center of Zacatecas – just as violent. Lesser regional players, including the Familia Michoacana or the Gulf Cartel, are legion, and it remains to be seen which way they will tilt in the wars to come.

As El Mayo noted in the only interview he ever gave, the business will go on without him, though he may have a thing or two to say about it first.

(London Review of Books)

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THE FIRST DEEP STATE FIX? DISMANTLE HOMELAND SECURITY

by Matt Taibbi

On November 26, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act. The New York Times explained the new department’s mission: It will bring together nearly 170,000 workers from 22 agencies with widely varying histories and missions, like the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the federal security guards in airports and the Customs Service. The goal is to improve security… strengthen the ability of federal, state and local authorities to respond to an attack…

Bush’s pen-flick turned into the largest state reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense, as those 170,000 employees turned into 260,000 by 2024. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman imagined a single mega-agency could better coordinate intelligence, border control, and other missions to prevent attack. That the U.S. already had more than enough capability to prevent the original 9/11 (the FBI failed to stop suspects already being monitored) didn’t matter. The Homeland bill was “politically expedient” for Bush, who signed over objections of fiscal conservatives in his staff, who worried a blank check for “security” would create a spending suckhole.

Twenty-two years later, the DHS has not only become a mountain of waste, it stands among the biggest threats to democracy we face. Ostensibly designed to hunt terrorists abroad, it sees the American population as the primary enemy, wilfully confusing threats to its funding with “terrorism.”

Buried in the story of former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard being stalked as a terrorist threat by a DHS sub-agency, the Transportation Security Administration, was a grotesque detail. As Gabbard noted, documents were released earlier this year detailing the work of the (thankfully short-lived) Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, another DHS “advisory panel.” This fledgling Politburo was dominated by party and intelligence figures in much the same way as its Russian counterpart…

https://www.racket.news/p/the-first-deep-state-fix-dismantle

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