Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 8/14/2024

Turkey Vulture | Sunny | Timber Frame | Bill Chambers | Ed Notes | Sergeant McLaughlin | Cane Search | Lupines | OES Fair | Local Events | Jazz Show | Mendocino History | Fog | Open Studio | Pudding Creek | Great Day | Blueweed | Yorkville Social | Taco Tuesday | Cat Lady | Hat Take | Albion Nation | Yesterday's Catch | Brain Energy | Restricting Glutathione | Forgetful Distance | Burger Storm | Future Batteries | Maad Dogs | Hemp Pivot | Glue Pal | Alcohol Guidance | Trump Support | Deranged Flailing | Vesuvio | Town Meetings | American Dream | DNC Hacks | War Veteran

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BELOW AVERAGE TEMPERATURES and gusty afternoon winds in the interior for the rest of the week. Slight chance of thunderstorms this afternoon in Trinity county. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): I have seen both fog & stars early this morning so the closer to the coast you are the more likely you'll have fog. Mostly clear skies in general are forecast for the next several days but the fog is there so... 53F at 5am.

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ANON FACEBOOK POST:

Can anyone tell me who built this [Boonville structure]? It’s just off of 128. I’m part of a non profit looking to have something similar built and had some questions. Thank you.

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Johnny Schmitt:

I've been wondering the same… Are they gonna leave it open or is it eventually gonna get closed in? It's such a beautiful post and beam structure, be a shame to bury it. A few years since I heard what their plans were… Nice to see a nice looking new building up in any event.

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BILL CHAMBERS

William (Bill) Chambers passed away peacefully in his home on August 2 surrounded by loved ones. He was 88 years old. Complications from covid contributed to his sudden decline.

Bill lived the life he always wanted: Simple, grounded, contemplative, surrounded by nature and meaningful relationships. Bill was loyal, warm, since, stead and genuine. His generous spirit inspired those around him. One could always count on Bill for some sound advice. he was reliable, ethical and most caring: a true gentleman.

To those of you who wish to commemorate and celebrate his life, Bill asks that you plan something fun and special for yourself in his honor and raise a glass to his life!

And most importantly, remember that William lives on! In the redwood forest that he cherished so much, and in our hearts. He shall continue to inspire and protect a great many of us, anyone who asks, really.

He now rejoins with his life partner and husband Robert (Mandel).

“The forests are Calling and I must go.”

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ED NOTES

I WANT to live long enough to disrupt the inauguration of this new County Courthouse, which will be a major eyesore for generations to come bequeathed by an overlarge, overpaid and civically destructive Superior Court, whose 9 (count 'em) judges have always put their comfort and welfare ahead of the public they allegedly serve.

PLANS for this monstrosity at the old railroad depot site off South Perkins Street, Ukiah, have been foisted off on Mendocino County by the State Judicial Council, and funded, largely, by the extortionate court fees and fines forcefully collected from ordinary citizens. The new courthouse will house only the eight judges and one part-time commissioner and their ancillary staff. Other crucial county offices, including the DA, will stay in the present, perfectly serviceable county courthouse, leaving those left behind county workers to jog up and down Perkins in all kinds of weather to serve their judicial majesties in their new quarters.

THE NEW THREE-STORY structure will house 57 staff including the judges for whom the building was designed.

ALL OTHER court-related services will remain in the present courthouse, requiring the DA, for instance, to shuttle back and forth from the center of town to the new structure three blocks to the east. The new courthouse will seriously harm central Ukiah's perennially struggling businesses. The project has “moved forward” despite no one other than the overlarge contingent of Mendocino County judges, nine of them for a population of roughly 90,000 people, being for it. I daresay most Mendo people are not even aware the new judges-only courthouse is being planned.

THE PRESENT COURTHOUSE, however imperfectly organized from the judges' perspective, is perfectly serviceable and could be attractively remodeled for much less public money than the new abomination. This same cast of state and local characters insisted on a new Courthouse for Willits which, after a mere two decades of use, is now abandoned as a courthouse but remains as an eternal visual blight on the center of Willits.

THE JUDGES CLAIM — only the late judge David Nelson dared argue publicly for the new courthouse — that the new courthouse is needed for many reasons because the present building is in such poor physical condition renovation of it was deemed by the judges as impossible, and that the present courthouse also presents an ongoing security risk.

OVER THE PAST 60 years there has been only one security scare, which occurred when a mommy tried to slip her murdering son a handgun as the son was being led into the courthouse. The judges have always created their own “security” problems by refusing to do most preliminary hearings and arraignments at the County Jail. (A few years ago, then-Anderson Valley resident deputy Craig Walker, speaking for the County’s Deputy Sheriff’s Association, told the Supervisors that the DSA unanimously opposed the construction of a new courthouse and recommended that the existing courthouse be remodeled to address whatever minor security issues.)

NATCH, we get the earthquake ploy, that the present courthouse is not safe in an earthquake. No one and no building is safe in a major earthquake, not seen in Ukiah since 1906. Structures can also be retrofitted to make them stronger or resiliant, but as most of us are aware, the earthquake scare is a longtime racket in California to milk the public for upgrades that may or may not withstand The Big One.

THE STATE JUDICIAL COUNCIL allegedly studied all of the courthouses in California and prioritized those that were most in need of new facilities. A new Ukiah courthouse was high on that list. SB 1407, authorizing a $5 billion bond to fund critically needed courthouse construction, was signed into law in 2008. The new Ukiah Courthouse was one of the 41 projects to be funded by this bond.

LAWYERS in our lawyer-dominated legislature are always passing laws that benefit themselves. In fact, it was a legislative (mostly lawyers) swindle that saddled Mendocino County with so many judges. The County was adequately served by so-called lay judges for a hundred years. The lawyers passed the law that elevated all of Mendocino County's “lay” judges to superior court status with, of course, the lavish pay and perks judges seem to assume as some kind of birthright.

IF A NEW COUNTY COURTHOUSE was put on the Mendocino or even the Ukiah ballot it would not pass. It should alarm people that this project is “moving forward” with no public review, even from Ukiah's dependably inert planning commission and city council.

WHY the Perkins Street site? That site, and the railroad that went with it, magically became the property of the Northcoast's grasping Democratic Party, and our judges, past and present, being mostly Democrats, hence the Perkins Street owned by the Democrats. (“Negotiations for purchase resumed between the Judicial Council and the property owner, the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA)” aka the Democrats led by former Congressman Doug Bosco.) If you see former Supervisor McCowen around, ask him how it all went down. He was a major expediter of the project.

QUOTING from the new Courthouse propaganda, “Discussions to purchase the four plus acres needed for the courthouse and associated parking were ongoing. The City of Ukiah had made it a high priority to keep the courthouse downtown and was going to participate in its development at the depot site using redevelopment funds. However, when redevelopment funds were terminated statewide, the city was forced to give up its option on the property.”

INSIDER BASEBALL ALL THE WAY and pure bullshit. The City of Ukiah was using redevelopment funds illegally, and even on a city council dominated by incompetents with a city manager to match, Ukiah understood that establishing a new courthouse far from the city center would further harm the city's ongoing effort to maintain a viable city center.

CITING ADDITIONAL JUDICIAL PROPAGANDA: “The new site is three blocks from the old courthouse on Perkins Street. It is on a blighted parcel of land. The city has approval to extend Clay Street across the railroad tracks and into the project site. This will open up the corridor to the Grace Hudson museum and downtown on Clay Street. A bike path along the railroad tracks is being constructed which will connect the courthouse with the north and south ends of town. There will be other parcels available adjoining the courthouse site that would be ideal for offices that could house our county criminal justice partners. The Court is excited to contribute to the improvement of the depot area with the construction of a courthouse which has an estimated total cost of $94 million.”

AND IS NOW almost twice that. The entire stretch of West Perkins between the freeway and downtown is a ghastly, unplanned skein of empty unsightly structures. And a traffic mess during work hours.

THE ADJOINING PARCELS to the new courthouse will naturally become quite valuable and, one can be sure, the usual Ukiah sharks will profit mightily from proximity to their new neighbor. The bike paths the judges claim will link the courthouse to north and south Ukiah are simply laughable.

JUDGE NELSON once appeared before the Supervisors where he acknowledged the problems with the crucial county offices left stranded in the present courthouse. Those ancillary County employees from the District Attorney’s office, Probation, the Public Defender/Alternate Public Defender and non-bailiff law enforcement will have to travel up and down Perkins to the new courtrooms. Nelson blithely suggested that the County find the money to buy the neighboring parcels on which to build office for the DA and the rest of the county offices dependent on the courts. Johnny Pinches was Board chair. He replied to the suggestion that the county find the money to build the offices with a terse, “Thank you, Your Honor.”

MORE PROPAGANDA: “It is important to note that no General Fund dollars will be used for the construction of the courthouse. Construction will be financed by bonds. These bonds are supported by a revenue stream of court fees, penalties and assessments which were increased in order to ensure that these projects would be paid for from within the court system rather than drawing on the state’s General Fund or local taxes.”

THERE'S ONLY ONE SOURCE of funding for public entities — US. By raising fines and the rest of the nebulous fees attached to the justice process, which of course hits working people and the destitute particularly hard, we'll get a kind of judicial spa for nine people and their servants, complete with underground parking, private elevators, lavish chambers and the rest of the monarchical trappings these pampered, privileged persons seem to think come with their life sinecures. This structure has nothing to do with service to the public, everything to do with self-interested convenience and comfort of nine judges.

PROPAGANDA: “The architect for the project is internationally renowned Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP. They have built award winning projects all over the world, including other courthouses in California. If the site is acquired in this fiscal year, the schedule calls for construction to begin in 2017 and completion in 2019. We look forward to the day we will have the new courthouse that our citizens deserve.”

THESE PEOPLE have erected major eyesores all over the country. At a minimum, a local architect might at least come up with a structure we could all be proud of. But we are getting a glorified version of the Willits Courthouse which will only further foul Ukiah, once a very pretty, coherent little country town. A big, ugly building will ensure that Ukiah remains forever a blighted freeway stop, with its only redeeming public buildings left over from a better time early in the twentieth century.

ON LINE COMMENTS RE NEW COURTHOUSE:

Hideous prison aesthetic. It would have been more appropriate to design it in the shape a giant middle finger. Either way it’s one more “F you” bestowed on Ukiah.

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Ugly as sin. Soviet Brutalist architectural style meets Apple Store banality. The entire frontage visually communicates “this is the place you go to, BEFORE you go to prison.”

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It’s as if somebody started with a bad design, then as the cost estimate went up and up, lead architect just grabbed the blueprint off the drafting table and said, Screw it, we’re done.

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WHERE TO BUY A CANE IN MENDOCINO

Carol Dominy: Is there a shop in Mendocino that sells canes?

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Marco here. If it's still there, there's the Hospice thrift store on the west end of the line of shops by Harvest Market in Fort Bragg. Last time I was there they had everything like that. All kinds of canes and crutches. And walkers, and toilet seat risers, and radios and vacuum cleaners and furniture.

Another idea: every time I go into a thrift store that has sports things, there's a standing box of all kinds of golf clubs. I think a golf club would make a perfect cane, and double as a defensive weapon. They have some flex to them but they're pretty strong.

Marco McClean

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OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES AT THE REDWOOD EMPIRE FAIR

Personnel from the Mendocino County Office of Emergency Services (OES) were on hand at the 2024 Redwood Empire Fair staffing a booth from August 1st through the 4th. The booth allowed the public an opportunity to interface with OES and learn about evacuation zones, safety, and disaster preparedness.

Residents were also encouraged to sign up for both MendoAlert and Nixle, Mendocino County’s opt-in alert and warning systems. The importance of early notification, and therefore, early evacuation was emphasized. Handouts were distributed explaining what should be in a go bag, disaster kit, and what important papers/documents should be ready to go.

Fair attendees were able to test their preparedness knowledge by spinning the OES prize wheel and answering questions related to safety and preparedness. Prize-seekers were rewarded with informational and/or practical prizes, such as flashlights.

Anyone who did not make it to the OES booth at the fair can learn about disaster preparedness, sign up for emergency alerts, and find their evacuation zone by visiting MendoReady.org.

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LOCAL EVENTS (this week)

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SEPTEMBER AT FORT BRAGG BRANCH LIBRARY

The Evolution of Jazz listed on our events highlights has been moved by the artist to Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, at 4 pm.

Once again, the artist has changed the time. The Evolution of Jazz with Dorian May will be held Saturday, September 14, 2024 @ 4pm.

(Peggy McGee, Senior Library Technician/Seed Librarian)

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KATY TAHJA:

On Bill Kimberlin’s story…The 1854 map with Meiggsville instead of Mendocino City on it hangs in the Kelley House Museum and was made in 1854. Harry Meiggs had been in San Francisco and met cartographers who were looking for place names on the coast, so he promptly named the town for himself. And the reason there are no buildings on the south side of Main St. in. Mendocino is that the land passed through a succession of lumber company owners and the last one did not want to pay property taxes on the old worn buildings standing there. So they were torn down and THEN the artists in town helped lead a movement to get the headlands into state park ownership.

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AN INVITATION TO PREVIEW NEW SCULPTURE AND NEW BARNS IN NAVARRO

Schedule a visit. I look forward to seeing you, the sculpture garden and showroom are always alive with ART

New work for extraordinary times.

Featuring: Rain Collection and Ice Melt a series of NEW sculptures

Beauty is a super power that cannot be denied, beauty creates an opening in our consciousness inviting us to focus our attention.

My focus is on the extraordinary magnificence and equilibrium of Earth's natural design verses humanity's impact on the use and understanding of planetary preservation.

Water is a case in point. The excess or scarcity of a single drop of water effects all life. Rainwater flows and fills streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, reservoirs and aquifers deep below the earth’s surface. These valuable natural resources will determine our global future.

The materials I choose have historical significance, bronze glass and stone are the building blocks in our cultural foundation. At around 3,500 BCE people learned how to super heat earth elements into a red hot liquid then cool the alchemy into sacred and material objects. For millennia humankind has honed observation into innovation. We call this innovation Science and Art. As we walk the earth’s time line we once again look to science and art for solutions to assuage extremes. My sculptures are contemplations, talismans, mere watermarks on the spectrum of our short presence on this beautiful planet.

I look forward to seeing you

Text or call 707-357-3805

1200 Hwy 128, mile 15.08, Navarro, CA

https://RebeccaJohnsonArt.com

Artists Of Anderson Valley Open Studios Veteran's Day Weekend 9th - 11th. Rebecca open studio Thanksgiving Weekend Fri. 29th, Sat. 30th

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GREAT DAY IN ELK

The 48th annual Great Day in Elk will be held on Saturday, August 24, from noon until dusk. The noontime parade will travel through downtown Elk to the Greenwood Community Center for the day’s festivities.

All afternoon there will be game booths with prizes and do-it-yourself crafts projects for children, plus a greased pole with a $100 bill at the top. Watermelon-eating contests, sack races, and an egg toss will be held throughout the day.

This year’s live entertainment features music by Mama Grows Funk.

There will also be a silent auction, a cake auction and a raffle.

Lunch options include tamales and Caesar salad (with or without chicken), hot dogs and focaccia with Moroccan lentil soup, and the Civic Club’s ice cream sundaes topped with fresh berry sauce. Drinks include fresh-pressed Greenwood Ridge apple cider, Elk’s famous margaritas, soft drinks, beer and wine.

Dinner will be served from 4 to 7. This year the theme is Greek: Chicken and Veggie Kabobs, salad, tzatziki, and roasted lemon potatoes.

So, come to the little coastal village of Elk and enjoy a fun-filled family day, while supporting the Greenwood Community Center, five miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1. Please leave dogs at home.

For more information email Mea Bloyd at meabloyd@gmail.com or visit the Elk community website, www.elkweb.org.

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YORKVILLE ICE CREAM SOCIAL TIME: CALLING ALL BAKERS & SALAD CHEFS

It's Ice Cream Social Time! It’s Ice Cream Social time in Yorkville! Calling all Bakers and Salad Chefs Can you make a large salad or a dessert (cookies, pies, cakes, brownies) or a Very Special Cake that we can use for a prize for the Cake Walk?

All contributions should arrive by 10 AM. Please let the folks in the dessert area inside the community room know what you brought and also make sure your plate/container has your name on it. However, remember that cakes for the Cake Walk should be sent in on disposable plates as the winners will take their prize cake home.

Please let Val know if you have something to contribute at valhanelt@me.com

Thank you so very much, our home-made goodies make the day very special. Contact Val at the above email or via: news@theycba.org.

The Yorkville Community Benefits Association

25400 Highway 128 PO Box 222

310-713-8838

Yorkville, CA 95494

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CAT LADY

Daney Dawson:

Who remembers the “Cat Lady” of Mendocino? Many years back. She was a very strange more or less homeless woman who always wore black, painted her lips with blue marker, and had one or more cats with her at all times, in a cage or on her shoulders.

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I remember her. It's hard for a homeless person to keep clean, but she didn't just smell unshowered, she smelled of medical decay. It hit you in the nose and stopped your breath. She lived like that for years, year 'round. I think her name was Ellie.

Others who maintained a consisted look and vibe in Mendo for years:

The woman who wore a thick fur waist-length coat, made her face up like Zsa-Zsa and constantly quietly swore at everyone. What was her name?

The tree person in a pine-tree costume made of real tree branches and string. Name?

The permanently sunburned redhaired man who often camped at night under a table in the post office. That one turned out to be the heir to a fortune and they found him, or so I was told after he vanished. Matthew (Something).

Marco McClean

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Eleanor Cooney:

Nellie. Her name was Nellie. I wrote a piece about her for the Sept. 2007 issue of Mendocino Arts magazine. Offended several people, so I know I did a good job. Don't have the file in my computer, but will figure out a way to get a copy of the story to Marco so he can read it on his show.

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BILL KIMBERLIN:

There is a story in my book about my having bought a hat very similar to the one Harrison wore in the movies. So I am walking down the "D" building hallway and Harrison is about to enter the "D" building screening room to watch dailies and he sees me going into editorial, then I see his head snap back in a classic double take. "What the hell", he must have been thinking. I thought, "I got you Harrison, you are for once looking at me like the fans ogle you."

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THE ALBION NATION: Communes on the Mendocino Coast

by Cal Winslow

The ’60s communards came to Albion Ridge as settlers looking for land. The ranch at Table Mountain was seen first from the air; Walter Schneider, formerly a Navy pilot, more recently of Timothy Leary’s Millbrook Estate in upstate New York, found it. Together with his friend Duncan Ray, also of Millbrook, they bought it—120 acres for $50,000, paid for with Ray family money. They invited friends up from Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, including Zo Abell and her young daughter and Allen Cohen, poet and editor of the San Francisco Oracle. In 1968, the commune at Table Mountain Ranch became the first of many on Albion Ridge. In the decade following, hundreds of young people would join them on the Ridge, sometimes permanently, more often not; thousands would pass through. This is the story of the Albion “nation”—a community of communards and back-to-the-landers, as well as a miscellany of antinomians who made their homes here.…

brooklynrail.org/2012/04/express/the-albion-nation-communes-on-the-mendocino-coast

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, August 13, 2024

RUTILIO ESCOBAR, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, battery on peace officer.

ALEJANDRO FRAGOSO, Sacramento/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LYUBOV GALVIN, San Francisco/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, controlled substance.

ADAM LAFLIN, Laytonville. Failure to appear.

NICHOL OBRION, Lakeport/Ukiah. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.

JOSEPH PEREDIA, Redwood Valley. Domestic battery.

KRISTOPHER WHITE, Fort Bragg. Under influence, paraphernalia.

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SONYA NESCH: BRAIN ENERGY

I just finished the best book I have every read on mental illness — Brain Energy by Christopher M. Palmer MD. It truly is the book that will forever change the way we understand and treat mental health. The link is for his website and check it ALL out including the newsletters. It answers the questions I could not get answers for and shows me the way forward to help my daughter.

Drawing on decades of research, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer outlines a revolutionary new understanding that for the first time unites our existing knowledge about mental illness within a single framework: Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain.

If you or someone you love is affected by mental illness, it might change your life.

It will change your life.

http://brainenergy.com/

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DON'T RESTRICT IT

Editor:

I am incensed that the state Board of Pharmacy is seeking to severely restrict Californians’ access to Category 1 compounded substances including glutathione.

Compounded substances have been proven over and over to be safe and effective. To have Big Pharma throwing roadblocks in the path of compounding pharmacies and compounded medication that provides real, documented help to firefighters and others experiencing prolonged exposure to carcinogens and forever chemicals, or PFAS, is outrageous.

It leads me to speculate on the real reason behind this move. Could it be that in this time of fires and chemical pollution everywhere, there are huge fortunes to be made by restricting glutathione?

It was not so long ago that herbalists and midwives were forced into secrecy or even accused of witchcraft, for which many were burned at the stake. Under the banner of the church, power was consolidated among the few with the result of great suffering being inflicted upon whole populations.

Gina Cloud

Bloomfield

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BURGERS

Editor,

It’s funny when someone complains on the Hey Garbervile facebook page about a bad burger, or other dish, that they had at some local restauRANT. First of all, if you want good healthy food make it at home, everybody knows that, or should. Secondly, you made the choice dude, or dudette, the accumulation of your life experience brought you to this decision, to this eating establishment, or maybe a friend recommended it, you’ve tried other things there, or maybe you were just curious about how the food was. I don’t want to blame the “burger victim,” but I’m pretty sure this one’s on you.

200 reactions and 148 comments later you’ve churned up quite a burger storm, both pro and con about the restaurant in question. I know that the reason anyone comments or posts is to get attention, which is alright as we all need attention, but when you decide to go negative on an alleged guilty burger to get your attention, it leaves me wondering if that was the best choice.

Paul Modic

Redway

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

When they finally get batteries figured out, electric cars and trucks will put gas out of business except for heavy users where the weight of batteries will be too much. The price of batteries is on a steep learning curve and solid state is about to hit the market with big decreases in price and flammability. Lithium is an interim.

The next generation of Tesla and Toyota electric cars will be in the $20s, with ranges of 500+ miles. 500 miles, as somebody sang recently, is a key range as it is the normal cruising range for drivers. The next problem will be to get chargers into every shopping center, motel, hotel, gas station and workplace in the USA.

With 500 mile range, driver anxiety will drop and the up-coming increases in oil prices will “drive” people to electric, and without some fool in government trying to force the issue.

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CALIFORNIA'S MOST INNOVATIVE POT COMPANIES ARE GIVING UP ON THE LEGAL MARKET

by Lester Black

Kim Howard has spent the past six years trying to keep her cannabis cosmetics company alive in California’s legal marijuana market, selling her cannabis-infused eye creams and skin serums at dispensaries across the state. But late last year, she finally gave up. She returned her state marijuana license and pulled her Green Bee Botanicals products from the state’s dispensaries.

Yet, in an ironic twist, she’s never been more optimistic about her company’s future. She thinks quitting the recreational market could be the best thing that’s ever happened to Green Bee Botanicals.

That’s because she’s joined a wave of California entrepreneurs who have pivoted to the hemp industry, turning their backs on California’s embattled marijuana market in favor of the federally legal version of cannabis called hemp. Howard said pivoting to hemp has meant lower taxes, cheaper regulations and the ability to sell in 30 states across the country instead of just in California.

“Rather than the thorny obstacles we’ve had to crawl through [in California’s marijuana industry], it’s like being in a regular market,” Howard told SFGATE. “Now we’re going to be able to have an e-commerce site online and sell to every state that allows CBD.”

With the legal marijuana market imploding, some of California’s most innovative pot companies are bypassing the state’s regulated marijuana system entirely in favor of recategorizing their products as hemp. Green Bee Botanicals transitioned its award-winning cannabis skin care line to hemp this summer, following other companies like Wyld, the top edible brand in California, which now sells THC-rich edibles through the hemp market. The San Francisco company Rose, which partners with some of the best chefs in the world on exclusive weed edibles, told SFGATE in November that demand has skyrocketed since it shifted to hemp. Even the Truffle Man, perhaps San Francisco’s most iconic marijuana figure in the past decade, has fled the marijuana market to sell his famous confections in the hemp industry (the company said on its website it sold out almost as soon as it opened its hemp business).

The exodus is sending shock waves through the industry, bleeding an already troubled marijuana market of needed businesses — and the customers who would shop there. It’s also befuddling regulators, who are unsure of what to do as intoxicating hemp products are sold outside the protection of state regulations.

What Actually Is Hemp?

California’s shift toward hemp was set in motion six years ago, when an oversight in Congress accidentally set off a boom in this long-overlooked side of cannabis. For decades, federal law didn’t differentiate hemp from marijuana; they were grouped together under the word “marihuana” on the list of Schedule I substances, the most restrictive class of illegal drugs in the country.

In 2018, Congress decided to legalize hemp by removing it from the federal definition of marijuana. Separating the two pot categories is very difficult, however, as they are the same exact species: cannabis sativa l. Scientists still actively debate how to differentiate hemp from marijuana, but nearly everyone agrees that Congress wrote an incredibly sloppy definition. Federal lawmakers decided that any cannabis plant that contains less than 0.3% delta-9-THC by weight was hemp, and everything else was marijuana.

Here’s the problem: Hundreds of active chemicals are in pot, and delta-9-THC is just one. Many of these other cannabis compounds can get you high. Congress apparently didn’t realize this, so lawmakers inadvertently legalized hundreds of different cannabis drugs like delta-8-THC, a slightly different version of the more familiar delta-9-THC.

This has allowed a proliferation of hemp drugs that look nearly identical to the marijuana sold at state-regulated dispensaries. For example, Cookies, the most famous San Francisco pot brand, sells “THCa hemp flower” online, which the company says is “not a huge amount” different from regular THC but is “convenient, easy, and safe thanks to its legal standing.” It looks nearly identical to the high-THC marijuana flower pot sold at Cookies’ marijuana dispensaries. It didn’t take long for the cannabis industry to find even more loopholes in the law, which have allowed them to sell delta-9-THC openly too: Rose and Wyld sell hemp edibles that contain 10 milligrams of delta-9-THC, just as strong as THC edibles found at a legal dispensary.

These loopholes are a nightmare for state lawmakers and public health advocates, who worry that intoxicating drugs are being sold online and at gas stations in easy reach of children (Congress legalized hemp drugs like delta-8-THC without establishing a federal minimum age for purchasing them). These hemp products also face almost none of the product safety regulations that legal marijuana must pass through.

Yet officials have been unable to shut down the growing hemp industry. Instead, it has become a multibillion-dollar market that’s flashing like a lighthouse for troubled marijuana operators, who are looking for a reprieve from the rough waters of California’s regulated marijuana industry.

‘Like Night And Day’

Bridget May, Howard’s business partner at Green Bee Botanicals, said the difference between running a hemp business and running a marijuana business is “like night and day” when it comes to dealing with regulations. It can take years to get a marijuana license and millions of dollars in fees, but May said when it came to running a hemp business, “There’s pretty much nothing to deal with.”

Teddy Cabugos, the president of Sunstone Winery, shared a similar story after his company pivoted its cannabis-infused drink from California’s recreational market to the hemp industry.

“It’s two different worlds of permitting,” Cabugos said. “One is going to cost you a s—t ton of money and a lot of time, and the other is going to cost you no money and almost no time.”

There are practical considerations when companies make the transition. They must reformulate their products with hemp sources instead of marijuana. For farmers, that means just growing different plants, but for manufacturers like Sunstone or Green Bee Botanicals, that process can take many different routes, especially regarding how much THC is in their final products. Sunstone’s new hemp drinks contain 5 milligrams of delta-9-THC, the same dose it had in its marijuana products. Kalon Baird, the co-founder of Splash Nano which worked with Sunstone to formulate the product, said the drink does not violate federal law because it still contains less than 0.3% of delta-9-THC based on the weight of the product. May said Green Bee Botanicals has updated its recipes to contain only minimal amounts of THC — below 1 milligram per serving — a change from its marijuana cosmetics, which contained larger amounts of the compound.

Once the transition is made, hemp offers many things companies that operate in the legal marijuana industry can only dream of. Hemp companies can sell their products online directly to customers and ship products in the mail; that is illegal for marijuana products, due to their continuing status as a federally controlled substance. Hemp companies can also sell products across the country, instead of being limited to selling only through the over 1,200 legal dispensaries within the state of California.

To make hemp even more enticing, companies no longer will be required to charge their customers California’s cannabis taxes, which Howard estimated will make Green Bee Botanicals’ products cost 30% less.

These benefits have made the hemp industry irresistible to marijuana entrepreneurs and farmers, according to Andrew DeAngelo, a cannabis consultant with two decades of experience in California’s cannabis industry.

“If I’m a legacy [marijuana] grower … I’m going to spend half a million getting a [marijuana] license. Well, I can save hundreds of thousands of dollars, build the same goddamn thing and grow hemp. So of course people are going to do that,” DeAngelo said.

The Growing Battle Over Hemp

With the hemp industry surging, there’s now a growing war between hemp and marijuana, with dozens of states passing laws to crack down on hemp sales. California lawmakers are jumping into the fray, proposing a law that has erupted into controversy.

Opposition to hemp has united strange bedfellows, bringing together the marijuana industry with public health advocates who have spent years attacking pot. Licensed marijuana companies are angry the hemp industry can sell nearly identical products without paying steep licensing and other regulatory costs. Public health officials are concerned underage youth have access to hemp products sold online without age verification.

California lawmakers tried to regulate the hemp market with a 2021 law that banned inhalable hemp products but allowed foods to be infused with hemp compounds. The hemp industry has only grown since then, so the state is now considering a law that would make it illegal to buy any hemp product in California outside a pot dispensary if that product contains anything more than 1 milligram of THC. If approved, the proposal could shut down sales at some of these new hemp companies, just as they pivot away from marijuana.

May, of Green Bee Botanicals, said she and Howard believe their products will still be compliant even if the law passes, because they contain only small amounts of THC. Either way, pivoting to hemp still seems to her like the only way for her company to survive, thanks to what she calls the “broken system” of California’s marijuana regulations.

“It just seemed like California could have done so much better to set this industry up for success,” May said. “It’s sad when you know all of our friends are out of business, except the ones who switched to hemp.”

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THE U.S. COULD SOON DECLARE ALCOHOL UNSAFE. THE WINE INDUSTRY SAYS THE PROCESS IS RIGGED

by Esther Mobley

Alcohol, in many circles in America, has suddenly transformed from a hero to a villain.

For decades, the idea of moderate drinking as a healthy habit was enshrined in American life. A glass of red wine with dinner reduced the risk of heart disease, the thinking went. The U.S. government has long reinforced this notion: For more than 40 years, its official dietary guidelines have held that one drink a day is safe for women, and two drinks a day for men.

But in recent years, public opinion around drinking has shifted dramatically. The percentage of Americans who believe moderate alcohol consumption is bad for you nearly doubled — from 22% to 39% — between 2005 and 2023, according to Gallup polling. This contemporary movement toward temperance culminated in the World Health Organization’s monumental declaration last year: “No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health,” the group announced, citing increased cancer risk. Since then, the global wine industry has experienced a historic downturn in sales.

Now, the debate over alcohol and health is mounting into a full-blown battle. On one side is the $260 billion U.S. alcohol industry, which maintains that science is on its side and which characterizes its opponents as neo-Prohibitionists who are cherry-picking data. On the other is a network of organizations and advocates who point out alcohol is a known carcinogen, see it as a social ill, and believe that the industry has wielded its power to inappropriately influence legislation and scientific research.

A victor could emerge soon. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines will be updated in 2025, and the alcohol industry fears that this edition could bring the first-ever change in alcohol guidance since the guidelines’ inception in 1980. If the government recommends a reduction in the volume of alcohol consumption considered safe — or if it goes so far as to follow the World Health Organization’s “no safe level” framing — that would be the strongest message yet to the American public.

But the alcohol industry, which is legally prohibited from making health claims to consumers, believes it’s not a fair fight. The government agencies and research laboratories where this battle is ostensibly being fought, industry advocates say, have been infiltrated by anti-alcohol zealots.

“This group of activists have a clear narrative that is ideological,” said Dr. Amanda Berger, vice president of science for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. “The ‘no safe level’ message is not grounded in science.”

The Dietary Guidelines, a Ninefield of Controversy

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines may sound like a boring bureaucratic document, but they do ultimately permeate the culture. While people may not be looking up the government’s recommended daily serving of protein before deciding what to cook for dinner, most Americans can remember learning the basic contours of the food pyramid. The guidelines “are taught in K-12. They’re taught in medical school,” said Tom Wark, executive director of the National Association of Wine Retailers.

If the dietary guidelines were reduced to recommend a maximum of two drinks per week, according to a 2023 poll by the firm Wine Opinions, two-thirds of respondents ages 21-39 said they would either adopt the new guidance or decrease their current alcohol consumption.

The government updates the guidelines every five years, and Congress appropriated $1.3 million for the update due in 2025. This time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services added an unprecedented step to the revision process, creating a second scientific advisory panel for the express purpose of examining alcohol consumption. Instead of reviewing existing evidence, as is customary for the document’s revision, this second committee is conducting original research. The committee recently published its planned research methodology, which will include mathematical modeling to estimate the impact of various levels of alcohol consumption on injury, disability and death.

The new panel drew immediate controversy. Critics have fervently objected to the fact that it’s a subcommittee of a group called the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking, or ICCPUD (an acronym sometimes pronounced aloud as “ick-pud”). This examination of adult consumption is outside of the committee’s authorized purview, both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have asserted.

“ICCPUD’s authority and oversight are specifically related to underage drinking priorities,” former U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who sponsored the bill that created the committee in 2006, wrote in an August letter to the heads of the federal agencies in charge of the review, Xavier Becerra of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department’s Thomas Vilsack. “ICCPUD was never intended to participate in activities related to adult alcohol consumption.”

On top of that, the committee has not said how the six scientists on the subcommittee were chosen. In June, 15 alcohol industry groups sent a joint letter to Becerra and Vilsack complaining of the secrecy surrounding that selection process. The letter writers demanded that the dietary guidelines review be “transparent, free from bias and solely based on the preponderance of scientific and medical knowledge, as required by the law.” (Anti-alcohol groups, too, have objected to this lack of transparency.)

The makeup of the committee is of such dire concern to the alcohol industry because, its proponents believe, several of the scientists on the committee’s panel have demonstrated biases against alcohol. All six panelists are experts in substance use disorders — whereas industry advocates argue that the panel ought to include experts, such as cardiologists, on other health effects of alcohol besides chronic use.

“Where we don’t want to see changes,” Berger cautioned, “is when they are born from ideology and not from evidence.”

One ICCPUD panelist, Dr. Priscilla Martinez, works for Alcohol Research Group, whose stated vision is “a future with greatly reduced alcohol- and other drug-related harms.” Two others, Drs. Jurgen Rehm and Kevin Shield, work for Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, studying the socioeconomic effects of alcohol and drug use. Rehm and panelist Dr. Katherine Keyes have said publicly they believe there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.

But no member of the panel has drawn more scrutiny than Dr. Tim Naimi, a Canadian researcher whom critics describe as an anti-alcohol vigilante. (Naimi declined to be interviewed for this article, citing the “heavily politicized” nature of the debate.)

The director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, Naimi has authored dozens of studies that find negative physical and public outcomes from alcohol consumption. He’s also become the go-to expert on temperance, a frequent commentator in news articles about the dangers of alcohol. “Drink less, live more,” he told the Washington Post in 2023, in a characteristic remark.

The ICCPUD panel is not Naimi’s first brush with public policy. As part of the scientific review panel for the last revision of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, in 2020, Naimi called for reducing the recommended safe consumption from two drinks per day to one for men. But federal agencies rejected that recommendation, and the guidelines for alcohol remained unchanged.

Naimi played a similar role in his home country, Canada, which was revising its own dietary guidelines in 2021. There, a panel he served on with Rehm and Shield recommended an even larger reduction: Instead of the 15 drinks per week for men and 10 for women that Canada deemed safe, the panel advised limiting consumption to two drinks per week — the equivalent of less than three tablespoons of wine per day.

Canada, too, rejected Naimi’s suggestion. But you wouldn’t know that from the press coverage that followed, in which numerous articles falsely announced Canada’s overhauled new alcohol policy.

“As a communication tool it was brilliant,” said Dr. Tim Stockwell, Naimi’s colleague and frequent collaborator at the University of Victoria, who also served on the Canadian panel. “It got coverage all over the world.” An Oxford-educated psychiatrist, Stockwell’s quiet, British-accented speaking manner can seem to suggest he’s unaware of his central role in an international culture war. But he’s frequently reminded. “I’ve had several personal attacks from the industry,” said Stockwell. “It’s an interesting position. You publish something negative and it’s assumed that you wanted to find something negative.”

Attacks on Naimi and Stockwell, who is not on the ICCPUD panel, have focused on travel funding they’ve received from the Swedish branch of the International Organisation of Good Templars, now called Movendi International. When it was founded in the 19th century, the Templars observed rituals and donned regalia inspired by Freemasonry, with lodges that required passwords to enter. Today, Movendi’s website identifies its “heart-driven” mission as promoting abstinence from alcohol.

Critics of the alcohol industry have also pointed to problematic affiliations on its side. Just as temperance groups like Movendi have sponsored research endeavors, so has the alcohol industry. (One meta-analysis, however, found that industry-funded studies represented a small proportion of the overall alcohol-and-health literature.) In 2018, the National Institutes of Health canceled a study on alcohol and health after it said that one of the researchers, Harvard’s Dr. Ken Mukamal, had improperly discussed the trial in meetings with alcohol industry stakeholders and signaled that the results would support moderate consumption.

At least six members of Congress have sent letters to the heads of the federal agencies overseeing the dietary guidelines review, echoing the wine industry’s concerns about the lack of transparency and the subcommittee’s potential for bias. The anti-alcohol camp sees these pleas as further proof that officials “are beholden to the alcohol industry,” just as they are to sellers of sugary beverages and fossil fuels, said Carson Benowitz-Fredericks, research director of San Rafael’s Alcohol Justice, a nonprofit that aims to reduce “the harms associated with populations targeted by the alcohol industry.”

“Legislators are often not making decisions with the health of their constituents in mind,” he said. “They’re making it, at best, with a short-sighted economic model.”

A Conflicting Body Of Scientific Research

But what does the science actually say? No one, including the alcohol industry, would argue that excessive drinking is safe. The current debate, instead, is converging on the person who has a glass of Pinot Noir with dinner a few nights a week. Is that red wine protecting them from heart disease, or is it hastening the onset of cancer? With so many accusations of bias against both pro- and anti-alcohol voices, and studies that baldly contradict each other, it can feel impossible to know how to interpret the data about moderate consumption.

“What’s hard about the medical discussion is that it’s very elliptical,” said Karen MacNeil, a wine writer in Napa who is helping to launch a pro-wine campaign called Come Over October, a response to Sober October. “One set of doctors says X, another says Y, and pretty soon consumers are just like, ‘what?’”

The scientific argument in favor of moderate drinking that lodged into the American consciousness is often described as the “J-curve.” Studies that support the J-curve have found that moderate drinkers have lower rates of mortality than both heavy drinkers and nondrinkers. The line on the resulting graph resembles a “J,” with nondrinkers at the short tip of the letter and heavy drinkers at the higher, right-hand point.

Famous examples of this phenomenon include the French Paradox — popularized in a 1991 “60 Minutes” episode — and the Mediterranean diet, both of which suggest that populations that drink wine regularly tend to live longer, healthier lives. Even with the legal prohibition on alcohol producers making claims about their product’s supposed health advantages, the J-curve publicity blitz effectively spoke on their behalf.

Even Stockwell was a J-curve believer in this era. “The jury was in, there were hundreds of studies finding benefits, and it was basically crazy to doubt this,” he said. In 2000 he published an article that likened those who denied the J-curve’s validity to members of the Flat Earth Society.

But subsequent research that he conducted with a UCSF scientist reversed Stockwell’s convictions entirely. After they analyzed previous studies on alcohol and health, he determined that lifestyle factors correlated with drinking habits had skewed earlier data: Some nondrinkers, for example, had quit drinking because they were already ill, which made them look less healthy than moderate drinkers. Stockwell published these findings in 2006, and in the following years a scientific literature began to develop that found harmful effects from drinking. “Across the people publishing in this area, there’s been a big shift in the last 10 years toward skepticism,” Stockwell said.

Anti-alcohol groups thought they’d found a smoking gun in a 2018 study published in the Lancet that purported to debunk the J-curve. But a 2022 update to that Lancet report reversed those findings, and new reviews in reputable journals like Nature Communications continue to support the J-curve. (The J-curve hypothesis has never been subjected to a randomized control study, which would present obvious ethical quandaries.)

While the wine industry continues to promote the J-curve, its opponents are urging people to think more broadly. Benowitz-Fredericks of Alcohol Justice believes that the “hyperfixation on cardiovascular outcomes, which is what the J-curve is all about,” neglects to account for other alcohol-related harms — including non-physical outcomes like interpersonal violence and addiction.

Although the current stakes — at least as they relate to the dietary guidelines — appear higher, in some ways the contemporary debate is more nuanced than during previous temperance movements. If the anti-drinking campaigns of the 1980s focused on the catastrophic effects of drunk driving, today researchers like Stockwell are noting that one drink a day may shorten your total lifespan by about two and a half months. “It is a tiny risk,” Stockwell conceded, in his typically gentle register.

There used to be a clear dichotomy, said Benowitz-Fredericks. “You were either an alcoholic or you were a normal drinker.” These days, the narrative is more subtle. “Now there’s this idea, ‘I do feel a little crappier than I should, and what if my alcohol consumption is part of that?’”

Still, the discussion is clearly polarized, with few voices advocating a middle ground. One rare person taking this softer stance is Dr. Laura Catena, who works for her family winery, Argentina’s Catena Zapata, and also practiced emergency medicine for 26 years at UCSF.

“I feel very confident saying that alcohol in moderation is health neutral,” said Catena, who acknowledges that her ownership in a winery may color her views. According to her review of the research, there’s data showing positive health effects (for diabetes, for instance) and data showing negatives (for breast cancer).

But Catena is clear on one point: She believes that the “no safe level” narrative is a misinterpretation. “People are trying to come up with arguments to say there’s no safe limit, and that is not legitimate based on the current science,” she said. When ICCPUD solicited public comments about its research protocol in July, she submitted a letter, arguing that the proposed methodology was not scientifically valid or transparent and that the risks of bias were not properly identified.

For all its fears, the alcohol industry’s worst-case scenario — a 2025 dietary guidelines that echoes the World Health Organization’s proclamation — seems unlikely to transpire. “I don’t think ‘no safe level’ is going to happen this year,” said Benowitz-Fredericks. A reduction from the current guidance is more probable, he said, but “I don’t think we’re going to see a giant change in how people think about a given drink.” Changes like labeling reform, which Alcohol Justice would like to see, are a long-term goal: “It took 50 years to get tobacco to do it.”

In the meantime, both the pro- and anti-alcohol camps anxiously await news from the ICCPUD panel’s research, which is supposed to conclude by the end of the year. And voices from both sides insist that they’ll respect whatever the science says — as long as it’s trustworthy.

“Who knows,” said Stockwell. “Maybe I’ll see the light and turn back again.”

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AS KAMALA HARRIS'S LEAD WIDENS, some Republicans say they now fear Trump's age and increasingly deranged behavior mean he's on track to lose the election, and could even be at risk of a breakdown!

by Andrew Neil

Almost three weeks ago, in the aftermath of Joe Biden being forced out as the Democratic presidential candidate and in the first flush of growing enthusiasm for his replacement, Kamala Harris, I argued that this was still Donald Trump's election to lose. But, unless he got a grip on his campaign, lose it he would.

Since then, Harris's star has stayed in the ascendant and Trump's campaign has gone from bad to worse. As things stand, Trump looks more like a loser than a winner.

Of course, a lot can happen between now and November 5 – and probably will in this febrile and surprising US election campaign. But it will get worse for Trump before it gets better, if it ever does.

Since Harris was gifted the Biden nomination, unchallenged, by Democratic powerbrokers she has monopolised the news, much to Trump's fury.

His anger is compounded by the fact her rallies now rival his in terms of numbers and enthusiasm. This is especially infuriating for a man for whom crowd size is a key metric of success; and publicity is as vital to his wellbeing as oxygen is to the rest of us.

Harris will continue to dominate the headlines through the Democratic Convention later this month in Chicago, which will be a glitzy, star-studded, prime-time coronation for Queen Kamala, and propel her to Labor Day (the first Monday of September), when the campaign proper begins.

She will hit the ground running. Trump will probably still be floundering and flailing to come up with attack lines that work.

So far, everything he's tried to regain the initiative has failed. On Monday, he spent two hours talking to Elon Musk on the tech billionaire's X (formerly Twitter) social media platform.

It didn't help that the start was delayed for 40 minutes by a technical glitch (must have been the American 'deep state' or 'Iranian hackers' claimed his more conspiratorial supporters, with zero evidence). But when the conversation eventually started it was so 'ho-hum' that it struggled to make much news.

Trump trotted out all his usual grievances, personal insults and well-aired falsehoods, none of which Musk challenged. Trump likes his inquisitors supine. Harris was 'third rate' even 'lunatic' but the presidents of Russia, China and North Korea were 'tough', 'smart', 'at the top of their game'.

It is a curious, some might think bizarre, strategy to run for president of the world's greatest democracy by praising three of the globe's most evil autocrats. But then Trump has never met a strongman he didn't admire (and probably wished to ape).

The week before, in a previous attempt to grab back the spotlight, Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida Palace of Bling.

It was staged to underline his willingness to be questioned, compared with Harris, who has yet to give a proper interview or press conference since replacing Biden. She prefers the safety of the teleprompter to unscripted exposure, in which past experience suggests she'd be vulnerable.

But, again, Trump had nothing of substance to say. Instead of mounting a critique of Harris's threadbare record as vice president and her previous embrace of every fashionable Left-wing cause under the sun, he was typically false, obtuse, petty and vindictive.

This worked in 2016 against Hilary Clinton, whom even the Democrats did not like. It is not working against Harris, whose popularity is growing from a low base, partly because she remains hermetically sealed from scrutiny.

Trump's failing campaign is already being reflected in the polls. Before the June debate with Biden, which was a car crash for the President, Trump had been slightly ahead in the polls in most of the swing states – but not by much.

After the debate, Trump's lead widened and he began to look unstoppable. But when Harris replaced Biden the polls returned to where they'd been before. Now they're moving Harris's way.

The latest New York Times poll in three crucial swing states – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan – has Harris ahead by decent margins (50 per cent to 46 per cent) in all three among likely voters. Still within the margin of error because polling samples in each state are quite small (under 700); but it is clear the momentum is with her.

Her favourability rating is rising and Democratic support for their candidate has risen from 60 per cent in May to 87 per cent now. A savvy Trump campaign would spot an opportunity in that.

Moderates are still up for grabs so the Republican election strategy should be to pound her previous policy positions remorselessly – against private health insurance (the basis of the US health system), against fracking (the reason America is energy independent) and in favour of defunding the police, decriminalising illegal entry to the country, a socialist-style Green New Deal and gun confiscation – while pointing out that in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz she has a running mate who will not curb her Left-wing tendencies but encourage them.

You wouldn't think it too hard for Trump to base a winning campaign on these attack lines. After all, the economy and immigration are the two most important issues for voters and he has a lead over Harris in both. But he's not interested in matters as mundane as policy.

Instead he's taken to howling at the wind. Furious that Harris rallies might outnumber his, he's accusing her people of enhancing the numbers using artificial intelligence, claiming 'nobody was there' when pictures of a Harris rally at a Detroit airport hangar show around 10,000 present.

I yield to no one in my low regard for America's overwhelmingly partisan Democratic media, but for Trump's claim to be true they'd all have to be in on the AI conspiracy since ever major newspaper and broadcaster covered the Detroit event.

It is patently absurd, even deranged – a word quietly but increasingly being used to describe Trump, even in some Republican circles.

He has no focus on the issues which matter and could determine the election. No consistent case to justify why he should have four more years in the White House.

But he recently told supporters 'Biden was locked and loaded ready to take me out'. He's even musing out loud that Biden could turn up in Chicago to grab the nomination back from Harris. Deranged indeed.

Whisper it softly but some say his age (78) is becoming a factor, that he is now the Biden of the 2024 campaign. He slurred some words in his Musk interview. Some even speculate that he could be at risk of a breakdown.

Far-fetched, perhaps. But his core support is losing its enthusiasm. He rambles for longer and more incoherently than ever at his rallies.

Some Republican strategists have given up hopes of the White House and think it's best to concentrate on controlling a Harris-Walz administration with a Republican-controlled Congress. European capitals will take comfort in the prospect that, though Harris is no great shakes at foreign policy, NATO should be safe with her in the Oval Office.

In theory, there is still all to play for. Harris-Walz are eminently beatable. Almost any competent mainstream Republican ticket could do it. There will be at least one Harris-Trump debate (September 10) during the campaign and maybe up to three.

Harris will be at her most vulnerable, with no teleprompter to protect her. Trump could be at his most dangerous. But not if he eschews policy critiques for pathetic, childish personal attacks. That will not go down well with voters.

These are dangerous times and Americans want grown up debates between those who would be their president. It seems such an obvious point for Trump to comprehend, but sometimes he just doesn't get it. Sometimes he's his own worst enemy.

If he is the loser again in November he'll have nobody to blame but himself.

(DailyMail.uk)

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WITHIN THE PEOPLE’S REACH

by Linsey McGoey

I’ve been interviewing people across the US — visiting Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Mississippi — as the November election nears. My itinerary is loosely based on the route taken by Alexis de Tocqueville nearly 200 years ago when with his friend Gustave de Beaumont he sailed from Le Havre, reaching Newport, Rhode Island in May 1831. I’m retracing parts of their journey and expanding it to other states they didn’t visit, such as Florida, which wasn’t yet in the union in the 1830s.

“A great democratic revolution is taking place in our midst,” Tocqueville proclaims at the start of Democracy in America. Today many Americans fear a different type of revolution is underway — an autocratic reversal of their democratic experiment.

“I think he’s authoritarian,” Mary, 79, said to me of Donald Trump. We were sitting next to each other at a fellowship meal following a Sunday service at a Lutheran church in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. I had introduced myself earlier to a church greeter, offering my card, disclosing my job as a sociologist who lives in the UK.

“We have some visitors,” the pastor announced as the service started. “Linsey? Can you say hello? What brings you to Grantsburg?”

The service continued this way, far more interactive than the services I attended as a child in a larger, more austere church in Toronto. There was clapping and praising; one man was in tears when he was invited to the pulpit to share news of a three-day religious revival taking place soon in a town further south.

“That was lively,” I said to the woman next to me in line while we queued after the service for the fellowship meal, prepared by church volunteers.

“Goodness, no,” she whispered. “It was much more active at the Baptist church we used to attend in our old town — but I love this pastor.”

Tocqueville worried that despotism in America might come not from violent revolution but from complacency, as people retreated from the political sphere into the sanctuary of their homes, voluntary organizations and businesses. But the Americans I’ve met are hardly the retiring sort; they’re garrulous and amazingly open with strangers, whether we’re driving on a rural side-road snaking from Ohio to West Virginia or sitting on bar stools. They’re also scared and numbed by their worries of national decline. Even most of the Trump voters I’ve met so far don’t love him.

A term that’s come up a lot in these interviews is the word “grace.” Where has the grace gone?, people ask. They feel out of grace — I can see that — but who they blame isn’t clear. Sometimes it’s other people: right-wingers blame immigrants and professors like me. Left-wingers blame the right-wingers for blaming immigrants and professors.

But much of the blame seems directed inwards, especially when I speak with people who are parents or grandparents. The harder they work, the further certainty and comfort seem to slip away. Even the richest don’t have what they really want, which is assurance about the future. They want evidence that things won’t keep going downhill, a child’s sled pulled closer to the cliff edge.

“What makes you hopeful for the future?” I asked two women in their 70s sitting on a porch in Canfield, Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown, a former steel town that’s lost over half its population since the 1950s. “That we’ll be dead.”

On one of the islands in south-west Florida, in the early afternoon, I met three men sitting at a bar. They were businessmen from Wisconsin and Ohio, down south on a couples trip with their wives, having pints while the women shopped in town. They let me sit for an hour and record our conversation. They are conservatives. They’ll vote for Trump, but they don’t like him. He’s an “egotistical maniac”; “he just can’t keep his goddamn mouth shut.”

“Do you ever feel like you work with people like that?” I asked, joking.

“No. I terminate them.”

His friend added: “As much as Trump goes out there and runs his mouth and you wish he would just be quiet, we’ve currently got a president who can’t go out there and speak his mind. You don’t know what’s coming out of it.”

We were speaking in February: Biden’s frailty was already a major concern. Trump’s age too. The caliber of the candidates bewildered people. This is it?

A few months later, in April, I was in Garrettsville, Ohio, in a bar playing old rock & roll and selling good beer at cheap prices. The regulars had a sliver of the wealth of the Wisconsin men in Florida. “I don’t want to offend where you’re from,” Carla said to me gently — graciously — after I’d spent half an hour chatting with her and her husband, Danny. “But I think this is the best country in the world. And I just can’t believe these two men are our best.”

Since Biden withdrew I’ve witnessed an electrifying uptick in energy from both camps. “She’s not going to get in!” Peter, 78, declared, wearing a red “Trump 2024” hat and banging on his farmhouse kitchen table on the outskirts of Grantsburg. He wasn’t one of the listless Republicans: he adores Trump as much as he dislikes Kamala Harris. He used deeply racist words about her.

But I’ve also noticed, across right and left, enormous excitement about Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz. A lot of people seem to want change, at all political levels. Carla and Danny live in Windham, where Lawrence ‘Mac’ Cunningham was recently elected mayor, the first Black mayor in this rural region. “He’s a friend of ours,” said Danny, who works as a street sweeper. “He’s doing good things.”

Behind their heads, a sticker on the wall in the bar said: “black rifles matter.” I don’t know if Danny or Carla, who are white, supported the Black Lives Matter protests. But I know they support Mac Cunningham. People like being neighbors with their representatives. “Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations,” Tocqueville wrote. “Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach.”

(The names of all interviewees have been changed for privacy. London Review of Books.)

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“I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle-class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children.

I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me.

But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep the nightmares out.”

— Anne Sexton, 1968

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FOIA FILES: DID SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER RELY ON CLINTON CAMPAIGN OPERATIVES TO POINT TO RUSSIA?

FOIA documents show the Mueller probe may have been informed by a Pentagon agency.

by Matt Taibbi

For over eight years, the world has been told that the United States government relied on a private firm called Crowdstrike to investigate the hack of the Democratic National Committee. Both former FBI Director James Comey and Special Counsel Robert Mueller referred to Crowdstrike as a primary source that Russian “conspirators hacked the DNC.”

That narrative was troubling enough and the subject of questions at Congressional hearings. Attempts by members of the public to obtain Crowdstrike’s analysis through FOIA have been shot down time and again owing to corporate “trade secrets” involved, and with Special Counsel Mueller’s July 2018 indictment of those 12 Russians who are unlikely to ever be apprehended, key facts about their investigation were set to be sealed for decades.

New emails obtained by Racket through the Freedom of Information Act, however, suggest there is more to the story. Cyber researchers at Georgia Tech who were indirectly working with the Clinton campaign and Fusion GPS to produce the Alfa Bank claims, also appear to have influenced Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation of the DNC hack.…

racket.news/p/foia-files-did-special-counsel-robert

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