Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 8/28/2024

Apple Tree | Warm | Couple | Log Storage | Good Sports | BOS Anticipation | Agapanthus | Louise Housing | Per Se | Healdsburg Today | Ed Notes | Guthrie Theatre | Mule Breaker | Packed Issue | Opening Reception | McAbee Chat | Missing Mom | Yesterday's Catch | Sixties Guy | Free Klamath | Redneck Grill | Argentina | Tampon Dispensers | Big Feminist | Homeless Dumping | Profound Loneliness | Censoring Facebook | Stoners | Tulsi Endorsement | Drink Responsibly | Capitalism Myths | Donald 89 | Decoy Revolutions | Avid Reader | Phil Donahue | Lakota County

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CALM, WARMER THAN NORMAL temperatures will continue today. More mild weather will return late in the week with possible fog and drizzle right along shore into the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 52F with clear skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. Looks like clear skies for the next couple days ( the fog is way down south currently ) then some patchy fog for later in the week. Cooling temps are also forecast going into the weekend.

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CHAD SWIMMER, KZYX program host and guest on the TKO show hosted by Karen Ottoboni, Wednesday, August 14, 2024:

“MRC is owned by the Fisher Family in San Francisco. They would like to re-open the old LP mill site on the Coast on Gibney Lane. They would like to use it for log storage. But it looks pretty clear that they would like to open a mill on the coast down the line. There are many problems with this. MRC has been blatant with their violations, even on the mill site recently including having an illegal camp of people living there with no sewage or water. And they are constructing buildings that have been contracted out, leased out to CalFire, unpermitted construction. The buildings are being used for fire training in the middle of a neighborhood. If they get to use this as a log deck they will probably have 50 to 100 truck trips per day. The volume will be really loud, 85 to over 100 decibels. 95 decibels is the law in California. We would like people to at least write to the County if you are able to if you are concerned. Email Russell Ford [Planning and Building] at fordr@mendocinocounty.gov. (It might be fordr@mendocinocounty.org.) Just say, We would not like more log storage on the Coast that’s noisy and causing lots of damage to our roads. MRC has polluted that neighborhood. I spoke to John Anderson (MRC President) about it and he said it might create 5-10 jobs.” (Mr. Swimmer was cut off at this point as the show was winding down.)

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AV ATHLETICS:

AVHS has been recognized by the NCS and CIF for completing the 23/24 school year without a single ejection. We are proud to play sports and compete with respect!

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SURELY EVERYONE is anticipating a packed agenda for the long-awaited Tuesday, September 10 Board of Supervisors meeting. The Board members have had more than six weeks to prepare for this meeting having taken their seven-week long “August recess.” So we are looking forward to some major Supervisor-sponsored agenda items appearing on that September 10 Board meeting agenda. (Mark Scaramella)

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LOUISE NEEDS A PLACE

The wonderful Louise Mariana needs a place to live.

Louise Mariana was a nurse in the military during the American war in Vietnam. She's traveled all over the world helping people. She worked in the hospital in Fort Bragg for decades. She advocated for animals at the Humane Society. She wrote countless helpful, interesting letters and stories for all the local papers, including, of course, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which is where I just read this:

Louise Mariana wrote:

Two years ago it was a threat, now it's for real. I must give up my home of 42 years. Do you have a rental anywhere between Albion and Fort Bragg? I'm used to living small so I don't need alot of room. A tiny home, secondary unit, accessory dwelling unit (ADU), mobile home park. I'll consider everything. I prefer a country/forest setting but in-town would be o.k. too. Please call me at 707-937-4837 or leave an e-mail.

Thanks a lot.

Louise416@gmail.com louise416@gmail.com

PS. I have impeccable references.

Marco McClean

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FOUR POINTS

1. I am not interested in housing per se, unless there is a spiritually based opportunity for me, (i.e. to actually DO SOMETHING worthwhile).
2. My final routine medical appointment with the head of the cardiovascular department at Adventist Health-Ukiah Valley was today. I said to the doctor that time itself had healed all. I have no reason whatsoever to be in Mendocino County any further.
3. Thank you for understanding this.
4. 

Craig Louis Stehr

Royal Motel

750 South State Street, Ukiah, CA 95482

PS. I am available to go anywhere and do anything that is spiritually worthwhile. My exit date from the Royal Motel in Ukiah, CA is Sunday September 1st at 11 a.m. Here is my contact information.

Telephone: (707) 462-7536, Room 206

Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

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THE RUSSIAN AT HEALDSBURG

Dear Editor,

Rolling around Healdsburg today on a bike you might recognize, while the kind folks at Sanderson Ford service my vehicle since the Ford dealership in Ukiah apparently went poof.

It’s a different world here compared to my Deep End lifestyle.

Healdsburg is buzzing with mostly wealthy Caucasians pushing their whiny kids around or being pulled by leashed beasts that have multiple establishments catering to domestic pets (another sign of The End Times).

The water in the Russian looks about as inviting as the Navarro. I might take a dip.

Kirk Vodopals

Navarro

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ED NOTES

D.M. ROUSE: “You still got the gun boss. Current OTR reads like on target tracer fire. Disagree a little fiction vs. nonfiction because currently engrossed in Theroux's masterful "Burma Sahib" which adds depth and detail and alarming reality to Orwell's own take on that formative period of his in “Burmese Days.” Methinks no American writer has ever written better than Theroux and this great work enhances my long held belief there's a blurry area between f and non f and it's where much of the truth lies. You sound great and well recovered from the med trauma. Happy for you, D.M.Rouse.”

THANKS, Mr. R. Agree totally on Theroux and, like you, thought his re-creation of Orwell in Burma was truly brilliant and absolutely true to the great man's life there as a policeman for a dying empire. Orwell's essays ought to be required reading, especially ‘Politics and the English Language,’ which is especially pertinent today as we're bombarded our every waking moment with political lies.

ON MY medical front, I can tell you (and the random curious) that I'm about to begin a month-long regimen of chemo pills, two of them, one of which required my signature when it arrived at my front door, whether to keep it out of the hands of stoners or to make sure I got it I'm not sure. Strong medicine, apparently. These two big blast chemo nostrums replace old fashioned chemo and radiation. They will be followed by a single blast of iodine delivered by some kind of chemo machine-like device. Why iodine? Beats me, but I'm not arguing. A month from now I should be out of the woods, or deeper in them, depending. My affliction is characterized by a general loss of energy and a rather constant but minor discomfort caused by the incessant attention demanded by maintenance of the hole in my throat. If I go anywhere more than an hour away I have to take a throat vacuuming machine with me, along with HME's, which are the protective plugs for the hole I now breathe through. I force myself to walk a couple of miles a day, do exactly 50 push-ups in one shot, and lift some light weights. I used to do these exercises for fun but they are now more of a willed effort. The doctors have said the surgeries they did on me were successful because I was strong enough to withstand them, so my years of physical effort paid off. None of them could believe I was on zero meds coming in and had never been on any which, it seems, is now unusual in the elderly. Without my wife functioning as a round-the-clock nurse I'd have been a goner. As it is I'm rounding third and home plate looks doable with a head first slide.

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MULE BREAKING

Hello Ernie [Branscomb], my good man, always love to her from you, and sure I thought you’d point out the mules in the picture — you ask how I could tell and, well, it just wasn’t a question whether they were horses or mules (the best form of motive power until first steam and finally gasoline made ‘em obsolete!) But some of us still ken the worth and here’s a video of one of my offspring breaking one to ride… She has all kinds of ponies and mules and when the world turns over she can still take a pack train of mules out to find water and firewood. You stay cool, Ernie — you’re the best!”

(Ed note: Unfortunately, we were unable to open or post the attached video.)

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PACKED ISSUE

AVA, Good packed issue today including Jonah Raskin on Imperialism and the fact that Mr. Kurtz is not dead, but now an amorphous "Blob" that has wonderful designs for Humanity. Thanks to Bruce McEwen for pointing out that the equines I photographed in Hopland are Mules. At the time, I thought something a little un-horse-like occured when one of the mules who was casually sauntering along with the other one, burst into some “bite ass.”

It was a playful, spontaneous gesture, just happening once. They were right back to sauntering and thought that was something I haven't seen horses do - variations of that - but not with that quick "kid-like" behavior. Mules seem to be a bit sharper than Horses.

Jeff Goll

Willits

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WILLITS CENTER FOR THE ARTS HOSTS EXHIBITION

Featuring Renowned Artists Eric Wilder and Buffie Campbell Schmidt - Opening Reception: Saturday, August 31, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

The Willits Center for the Arts is proud to present an extraordinary exhibition featuring the works of two distinguished local artists, Eric Wilder and Buffie Campbell Schmidt. The exhibition will open on Saturday, August 31, and run through Sunday, September 22. This unique event offers an opportunity to explore the rich cultural heritage and artistic expressions of the Mendocino County region.

Buffie Campbell Schmidt brings to the exhibition her deep-rooted connection to the Pomo heritage. A descendant of the Sherwood, Noyo, and Yokayo Rancherias, Buffy’s art is a profound reflection of her cultural lineage. "I am from Sherwood, Noyo, and Yokayo Rancheria," Buffy explains. "My father, Thomas Campbell Sr., is from Sherwood Valley and Noyo reservation, and my mother, Christine Hamilton, is from Yokayo Rancheria. I am also from Yokayo. I was first taught how to weave a cradle basket by my mom at the age of 13. I did not come back to weaving until I was 39 years old." In addition to her work as a weaver, Buffy is also a Pomo dancer, regalia maker, wild food & medicine practitioner, and Northern Pomo Language teacher. Her contributions to the exhibition will include intricate basketry and cultural artifacts that embody the wisdom and traditions of her ancestors.

Eric Wilder, another esteemed artist and member of the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, will showcase his contemporary works that draw from the natural beauty and cultural history of Northern California. Wilder’s artistic style is known for its vibrant colors and dynamic compositions, which capture the spirit of the landscape and the stories that it holds. His works often reflect a deep connection to the land and a commitment to preserving the cultural narratives of the Indigenous communities.

The opening reception on August 31 will feature a special opportunity to meet the artists and engage with their works. This event is more than just an exhibition; it is a celebration of the cultural heritage of the Pomo people and an invitation to the community to immerse themselves in the stories and traditions that have shaped the region. The Willits Center for the Arts invites everyone to experience this extraordinary exhibition and to participate in the ongoing cultural dialogue that these artists inspire. The exhibition will be open to the public during the Center’s regular hours, and admission is free.

Event Details:

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 31, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

August 31 - September 22

Willits Center for the Arts, 71 E Commercial St, Willits, CA 95490

For more information, please contact the Willits Center for the Arts at (707) 459-1726 or Gary Martin at 707-972-3326.

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THAT WAS COOL - BIRDING FOR MOM; WHY I KEPT THE BINOCULARS I RESENTED

by Justine Frederiksen

I kept my mother’s binoculars after the crash, even though I kind of hated birding. First for being the passion that took her out of the house so much, then for being the passion that kind of killed her.

But when my grandfather, the person who first gave my mother the birding bug, had her binoculars repaired after we retrieved them from the crumpled car, I was so touched by his thoughtful gesture that I kept them, despite my resentment.

And I was very glad to have her binoculars 30 years later when I finally met up with one of her birding pals again for a walk, because not only did he still recognize them, they made him cry.

That was cool.

Cool not because I like to make people sad, but because of how it felt to be with someone else who missed my mother. One of the few things that can truly ease the grief of losing someone is being with another person who feels their absence, because they understand that no matter how long it has been, no matter how fine you look, you are still just the walking wounded.

Losing my mother at 15 felt like someone ripped out one of my lungs and told me to just keep breathing. My body learned to adjust, but it’s never the same. You never forget how it felt to breathe with two lungs, and there’s never another day where you don’t feel at least a twinge of pain.

But the only thing worse than feeling pain is having to explain it, so eventually we all box up our sadness and shove it in the closet with all the other nasty truths no one likes to talk about. Until, of course, you find someone with the same scar, and you not only both welcome the chance to talk about your pain, doing so can finally help you heal.

Like that day I walked with her pal Bruce, and he told me how he still agonized over how my mother had ended up riding with the newest and youngest member of their bird club because Bruce’s car was full when they all went out looking for one of the last birds on her Life List: a Spotted Redshank.

I didn’t like knowing that Bruce still carried pain from that day, but I did like how carrying the pain together made it feel lighter while we walked. So this Tuesday, which would have been my mother’s 80th birthday, I plan to take another walk with someone else who remembers my mother — one of her closest friends, Cecilia, who not only became a surrogate mother to me, but is now one of my closest friends, as well.

And we don’t plan to just carry our pain together, but to do something my mother would do if she could, which is to spend the day outdoors and just enjoy being alive. And maybe if there are two of us thinking about her, she will be able to feel us together, and it will make her smile.

Especially because I will be taking her binoculars with us. I don’t keep them tucked under my driver’s seat like my mother did, so she could whip them out whenever she saw anything other than a turkey vulture flying overhead, but I do take them birding whenever I can — always hoping that someday, I will see that Spotted Redshank for her.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, August 27, 2024

ELYASHYB DEVINE, Willits. DUI alcohol&drugs, controlled substance.

WYATT HAYDON, Ukiah. Possession of obscene images of minor in sexual act.

GERARDO MARTINEZ, Fort Bragg. Disobeying court order, competency status.

MICHEAL VORIS, Willits. DUI, suspended license for DUI, no license.

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MAJOR CALIFORNIA RIVER WILL FLOW FREELY THIS WEEK AS HISTORIC DAM REMOVAL CONCLUDES

by Kurtis Alexander

After decades of campaigns, planning and pounding, the removal of four dams on the Klamath River near the remote California-Oregon border is expected to wrap up this week — all but a few loose ends.

The monumental effort, considered the largest dam dismantling in U.S. history, is the longtime aspiration of the two states and their several partners, including Native American tribes. The goal has been to clear the old hydroelectric infrastructure from the 250-mile river and restore the Klamath and its native fish and wildlife populations, principally the imperiled salmon runs.

The completion of the dam demolition, while a blow to many local residents who didn’t want to lose the popular lakes created by the dams, is being widely celebrated by environmentalists, fishing groups and indigenous people.

“I’m excited, but a little scared, too,” said Aaron “Troy” Hockaday, who sits on the Karuk Tribe’s Tribal Council. “I’ve never seen the river run its natural course. All the stories told by my grandmother and the elders of how the river used to be…. I’m very excited to see the progress that’s going to happen.”

Even when the dams are fully out, the spotlight will remain on the $500 million project and whether it lives up to expectations. In years to come, migratory fish, which have been blocked from going upriver by the dams and therefore have been less successful at spawning, are projected to thrive as hundreds of miles of waterways open up. A vast revegetation program at the former dam sites, and the now-dry reservoirs they supported, promises to revive the basin’s native landscape.

“There’s still a lot of unknowns and a lot of ifs and hopes, but this is a great start,” said Hockaday.

After a year of demolition work, which included draining the reservoirs behind the dams so that the river flowed through, crews recently finished clearing the bulk of the dams themselves out of the river’s path. With these structures now gone from the channel, crews are working to reestablish the Klamath’s flow through the old dam sites, which were emptied of water for dam removal (water was diverted into tunnels around the dam sites).

Once these flows resume, expected later this week, the river will be back on the historical course it weaved before dam construction began more than a century ago.

“This moment will be one of the (project’s) most meaningful,” said Ren Brownell, spokeswoman for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, the nonprofit contracted to oversee the dam removal. “It will be the moment we have a free-flowing river.”

The river is already running through the areas where the 68-foot J.C. Boyle Dam in Oregon was taken down earlier this year and the smaller Copco 2 Dam in California was removed last year.

In the next few days, crews are scheduled to route the river through the sites of the former 173-foot Iron Gate Dam and the 126-foot Copco 1 Dam, both in California. They’ll do this by removing small diversion dams, called cofferdams, that steered the river around the dams during deconstruction. These are the same cofferdams that diverted the river when the dams were built. They’ve sat mostly underwater in the reservoirs since.

“To (most) people, dam removal is done at this point,” said Brownell. “To the engineers, we have about two weeks of work afterwards.”

Parts of the dams on the riverbank will be torn out in the coming weeks, as will the diversion tunnels.

The series of dams, known as the Klamath Hydroelectric Project, came to life in the early 1900s, bringing power and economic development to the region. In recent decades, however, the owner of the facilities, Portland-based PacifiCorp, determined that the electricity generated wasn’t worth the rising cost of maintaining the facilities.

The company decided, at the urging of tribes and others, to remove the aging dams. California and Oregon officials helped formalize the initiative, with the cost covered by PacifiCorp and California voter-approved bonds.

The dams did not provide flood protection or water storage. They did, however, support reservoirs that became the backbone of a handful of small lakeside communities in Siskiyou County that are now without their lakes.

Many residents are upset by the change, which has resulted in diminished views, property values and recreational opportunities, such as boating and fishing.

The Klamath River, which runs from Oregon’s high desert to the coast of Northern California, still has two large dams north of where the hydroelectric project operated. These structures are equipped with fish ladders and are expected to be navigable for salmon.

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URUGUAY, I’M A GUAY…

Hey AVA!

Much enjoyed the bit on Uruguay’s President. I’ve been to Argentina twice, thru B. A., natch: Twas mighty tempting to take the boat across Rio Plata? To Montevideo. I’m glad I didn’t. EXHAUSTION, trying to do too much, the unheralded boogeyman of travel.

Argentina - B.A., Mendoza, El Bolson and Bariloche — massive and fascinating enough!

David Svehla

San Francisco

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Good News!

In a timely announcement and a nod to Governor Walz, our Commissioner of Education has indicated 95% compliance amongst our State’s High Schools in the mandate to install tampon dispensing machines in boys locker rooms in the 138 existing school districts. There are a few holdouts to be sure but they will be dealt with. One problem is vandalism, but we are assured vandalism will be severely punished … up to expulsion and arrest.

We’ve had public schools here in one form or another since about 1650; one wonders why this important matter took almost 400 years to expedite.

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HUMBOLDT OFFICIALS ACCUSE SAN FRANCISCO OF BUSING THE CITY'S HOMELESS PROBLEMS NORTH

‘We don't need to be a dumping ground,’ Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn said at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting.

by Hannah Wiley

San Francisco and Humboldt County officials are trading jabs over Mayor London Breed's plans to more aggressively promote a city program that pays to relocate homeless people to other communities where they have family or other ties.

During their Tuesday meeting, Humboldt County supervisors debated sending a draft letter, addressed to Breed, questioning whether San Francisco was making sure the homeless people it's busing out actually land housing and jobs.

“We are concerned that providing bus tickets to other jurisdictions without verifying access to housing, family support or employment does not alleviate homelessness; it simply shifts the person to another county,” the letter states.

The supervisors were responding to a recent report in The San Francisco Standard that found the counties of Sacramento, Los Angeles and Humboldt were the top three destinations for homeless people bused out of San Francisco since September 2023.

“We don't need to be a dumping ground,” Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn said at the meeting. “Our cost for taking care of a homeless person that has nothing up here … it's expensive.”

Breed's office says the notion that San Francisco is dumping its homeless problems up north is overblown — and noted that Humboldt County has sent people south, too.

Over the last year, San Francisco has helped five people relocate to Humboldt County, which in turn has sent four people to the City by the Bay, according to data from both jurisdictions.

Humboldt County's concerns center on a San Francisco program called Journey Home that Breed launched in autumn 2023 to assist homeless people in returning to their home states or relocating to other cities in California where they have family, friends or some history. The city covers the cost of bus, plane or train fare and provides a meal stipend.

The program is a critical component of Breed's high-profile campaign to more forcefully clear out the sprawling tent encampments that have mushroomed across the city in recent years. The effort, launched in July, is buoyed by a pivotal June 28 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave local communities greater legal standing to ban homeless people from sleeping in public spaces.

In recent weeks, outreach workers, backed by law enforcement officers, have spread out across the city and ordered people to dismantle their tents, offering them treatment and housing — and issuing citations if they refuse to accept help.

As part of the initiative, Breed issued an executive directive Aug. 1 requiring outreach workers to offer homeless people who aren't from San Francisco free relocation assistance through Journey Home “before providing any other city services, including housing and shelter.”

An estimated 8,300 people are living homeless in San Francisco, about half of them sleeping in parks and on sidewalks in makeshift shelters, according to the city Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. According to the city's 2024 homeless survey, about 40% of people living on the streets said they were not from San Francisco.

Humboldt County, about 300 miles north, is struggling with its own homeless problems. The numbers are far smaller — about 1,600 people are living without permanent housing — but in a rugged rural setting with far fewer resources, local officials are straining to meet the need.

“It is not that Humboldt has seen an influx of people experiencing homelessness being sent to the county from San Francisco,” Christine Messinger, spokesperson for the Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in a statement.

“It is that the county and the Humboldt Housing and Homelessness Coalition member agencies are already seeing our resources stretched thin to take care of the folks living here, and an influx of new people could be detrimental to those efforts.”

As part of its efforts to move people into housing, Humboldt County also operates a relocation assistance program. Over the last year, the county has helped 142 people travel to locations throughout the country, Messinger said, including the four who relocated to San Francisco. They have denied assistance to nearly 100 more.

But the supervisors critical of San Francisco's approach said Humboldt's program is far more involved. County workers are supposed to verify that participants have family, friends and employment opportunities waiting for them, and to follow up with people on the other side of their travels.

In contrast, Bohn claimed, San Francisco hasn't tracked people who relocated to Humboldt County to make sure they landed on their feet and have found employment and stable housing.

“All you have to do is ask, 'I want to go here,' and you get a bus ticket, and you get to go. No follow-up, no everything else,” Bohn said.

In addition, he said, San Francisco is essentially giving homeless people a choice between leaving town and legal action.

“I don't want to hurt San Francisco's feelings,” he said. “But on the other hand, I don't care.”

Jeff Cretan, Breed's spokesperson, rejected the depiction of San Francisco shipping homeless people out of the city without due diligence. He said Journey Home helps “reconnect them to friends, families or communities they previously lived in.” Before busing people to Humboldt, he said, city staffers spoke with family members or friends who expressed that “they wanted them.”

And though he acknowledged Humboldt County is among the more popular Journey Home destinations, he said the numbers are small.

In addition to the five people sent to Humboldt County in the past year, Cretan said, six were sent to Sacramento, five to Los Angeles and 13 to other parts of the state. Seven people have been relocated to Nevada and nine to Oregon.

Cretan said he wasn't aware of any requirement for city workers to follow up with Journey Home participants once they are relocated, but he added: “Sometimes you can't find people, too. That's the reality.”

For now, Humboldt leaders have put a pause on formalizing the draft letter to Breed. Messinger said county officials will follow up with San Francisco staffers directly “to have more discussions before a final decision is made about whether a letter will be sent to the mayor.”

(LA Times)

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"There is a kind of sadness that comes from knowing too much, from seeing the world as it truly is. It is the sadness of understanding that life is not a grand adventure, but a series of small, insignificant moments, that love is not a fairy tale, but a fragile, fleeting emotion, that happiness is not a permanent state, but a rare, fleeting glimpse of something we can never hold onto. And in that understanding, there is a profound loneliness, a sense of being cut off from the world, from other people, from oneself."

— Virginia Woolf

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ZUCKERBERG DEFIES THE BORG

by Matt Taibbi

On April 9th, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reminding him of a subpoena in search of communications between Meta, the FBI, and “alleged foreign influence or election integrity.” Jordan’s office subsequently released a “Facebook Files” series, revealing documents showing Meta executives worrying about “continued pressure… including from the White House” to remove content.

Zuckerberg Monday sent a letter that in a country with a functioning news media would have major ramifications. Not in direct response to Jordan’s April query, it appears to have been sent at Zuckerberg’s own volition, and is filled with passages deeply embarrassing to authorities. The first is about pressure to “censor” — specifically “censor,” not “moderate” or “exercise oversight”:

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a bit of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree… I believe the government was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it…”

Another was about Meta’s blocking of Miranda Devine’s 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden after being warned by the FBI:

“The FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election. That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply. It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have demoted the story.”

Zuckerberg’s letter is a stiff poke in the eye to authorities, who brought this on themselves.

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TULSI GABBARD’S TRUMPY TRANSITION IS NOW COMPLETE

by Michelle Cottle

Step back, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You aren’t even the most interesting ex-Democrat-turned-MAGA-tool to endorse Donald Trump this month.

For my money, that would be Tulsi Gabbard, the former House member and 2020 contender to unseat President Trump.

Gabbard has been on quite the political journey. She never got much traction in her 2020 race. But she did win herself a small but intensely passionate following based heavily on her isolationist leanings — which, admittedly, are more electrifying than most, thanks to her penchant for making indulgent statements about bloodthirsty strongmen such as Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. Indeed, Gabbard’s soft-on-Russia musings have been at times so striking that Hillary Clinton publicly called her “a Russian asset,” prompting Gabbard to sue Clinton for defamation. (Gabbard later dropped the suit.)

Gabbard quit the Democratic Party in 2022 and became an independent, saying it had fallen “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness,” and promptly began making nice with the red team. She hit the campaign trail for Republican candidates in the midterms. She spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Conveniently, she was already a hot guest on Fox News.

For this election, she has settled snugly into the MAGA fold — all the more so since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee. Gabbard has been helping Trump with his debate prep. During a primary debate in 2019, you may recall, Gabbard hit Harris hard from the left — successfully enough to leave a mark and tick off Harris. Trump, who has been struggling to figure out how to deal with his new opponent, is clearly hoping some of Gabbard’s mojo rubs off on him.

Just in case anyone had any doubts as to her new allegiance, Gabbard endorsed Trump on Monday. They appeared together at a National Guard conference in Detroit, on the third anniversary of the bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members. A National Guard veteran, Gabbard asserted that Trump “understands the grave responsibility that a president and commander in chief bears for every single one of our lives.”

The next day, Trump announced that Gabbard was joining his transition team, as is Mr. Kennedy.

Team Trump is presumably betting that bringing on former Democrats will send a signal that his campaign is the one with a big tent and mainstream appeal. But when we’re talking about characters as … colorful as Gabbard and Kennedy, I’m betting the signal to many voters is that Trump’s G.O.P. is the home of the politically strange.

(NY Times)

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WHY POVERTY REDUCTION UNDER CAPITALISM IS A MYTH

by Richard D. Wolff

From its beginnings, the capitalist economic system produced both critics and celebrants, those who felt victimized and those who felt blessed. Where victims and critics developed analyses, demands, and proposals for change, beneficiaries, and celebrants developed alternative discourses defending the system.

Certain kinds of arguments proved widely effective against capitalism’s critics and in obtaining mass support. These became capitalism’s basic supportive myths. One such myth is that capitalism created prosperity and reduced poverty.

Capitalists and their biggest fans have long argued that the system is an engine of wealth creation. Capitalism’s early boosters, such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and likewise capitalism’s early critics such as Karl Marx, recognized that fact. Capitalism is a system built to grow.

Because of market competition among capitalist employers, “growing the business” is necessary, most of the time, for it to survive. Capitalism is a system driven to grow wealth, but wealth creation is not unique to capitalism. The idea that only capitalism creates wealth or that it does so more than other systems is a myth.

What else causes wealth production? There are a whole host of other contributors to wealth. It’s never only the economic system, whether capitalist or feudal or slave or socialist. Wealth creation depends on all kinds of circumstances in history (such as raw materials, weather, or inventions) that determine if and how fast wealth is created. All of those factors play roles alongside that of the particular economic system in place.

When the USSR imploded in 1989, some claimed that capitalism had “defeated” its only real competitor—socialism—proving that capitalism was the greatest possible creator of wealth. The “end of history” had been reached, it was said, at least in relation to economic systems. Once and for all, nothing better than capitalism could be imagined, let alone achieved.

The myth here is a common mistake and grossly overused. While wealth was created in significant quantities over the last few centuries as capitalism spread globally, that does not prove it was capitalism that caused the growth in wealth. Maybe wealth grew despite capitalism. Maybe it would have grown faster with some other system. Evidence for that possibility includes two important facts. First, the fastest economic growth (as measured by GDP) in the 20th century was that achieved by the USSR. And second, the fastest growth in wealth in the 21st century so far is that of the People’s Republic of China. Both of those societies rejected capitalism and proudly defined themselves as socialist.

Another version of this myth, especially popular in recent years, claims capitalism deserves credit for bringing many millions out of poverty over the last 200 to 300 years. In this story, capitalism’s wealth creation brought everyone a higher standard of living with better food, wages, job conditions, medicine and health care, education, and scientific advancements. Capitalism supposedly gave huge gifts to the poorest among us and deserves our applause for such magnificent social contributions.

The problem with this myth is like that with the wealth-creation myth discussed above. Just because millions escaped poverty during capitalism’s global spread does not prove that capitalism is the reason for this change. Alternative systems could have enabled an escape from poverty during the same period of time, or for more people more quickly, because they organized production and distribution differently.

Capitalism’s profit focus has often held back the distribution of products to drive up their prices and, therefore, profits. Patents and trademarks of profit-seeking businesses effectively slow the distribution of all sorts of products. We cannot know whether capitalism’s incentive effects outweigh its slowing effects. Claims that, overall, capitalism promotes rather than slows progress are pure ideological assertions. Different economic systems—capitalism included—promote and delay development in different ways at different speeds in their different parts.

Capitalists and their supporters have almost always opposed measures designed to lessen or eliminate poverty. They blocked minimum wage laws often for many years, and when such laws were passed, they blocked raising the minimums (as they have done in the United States since 2009). Capitalists similarly opposed laws outlawing or limiting child labor, reducing the length of the working day, providing unemployment compensation, establishing government pension systems such as Social Security, providing a national health insurance system, challenging gender and racial discrimination against women and people of color, or providing a universal basic income. Capitalists have led opposition to progressive tax systems, occupational safety and health systems, and free universal education from preschool through university. Capitalists have opposed unions for the last 150 years and likewise restricted collective bargaining for large classes of workers. They have opposed socialist, communist, and anarchist organizations aimed at organizing the poor to demand relief from poverty.

The truth is this: to the extent that poverty has been reduced, it has happened despite the opposition of capitalists. To credit capitalists and capitalism for the reduction in global poverty is to invert the truth. When capitalists try to take credit for the poverty reduction that was achieved against their efforts, they count on their audiences not knowing the history of fighting poverty in capitalism.

Recent claims that capitalism overcame poverty are often based on misinterpretations of certain data. For example, the United Nations defines extreme poverty as an income of under $1.97 per day. The number of poor people living on under $1.97 per day has decreased markedly in the last century. But one country, China—the world’s largest by population—has experienced one of the greatest escapes from poverty in the world in the last century, and therefore, has an outsized influence on all totals. Given China’s huge influence on poverty measures, one could claim that reduced global poverty in recent decades results from an economic system that insists it is not capitalist but rather socialist.

Economic systems are eventually evaluated according to how well or not they serve the society in which they exist. How each system organizes the production and distribution of goods and services determines how well it meets its population’s basic needs for health, safety, sufficient food, clothing, shelter, transport, education, and leisure to lead a decent, productive work-life balance. How well is modern capitalism performing in that sense?

Modern capitalism has now accumulated around 100 individuals in the world who together own more wealth than the bottom half of this planet’s population (over 3.5 billion people). Those hundred richest people’s financial decisions have as much influence over how the world’s resources are used as the financial decisions of 3.5 billion, the poorest half of this planet’s population. That is why the poor die early in a world of modern medicine, suffer from diseases that we know how to cure, starve when we produce more than enough food, lack education when we have plenty of teachers, and experience so much more tragedy. Is this what reducing poverty looks like?

Crediting capitalism for poverty reduction is another myth. Poverty was reduced by the poor’s struggle against a poverty reproduced systemically by capitalism and capitalists. Moreover, the poor’s battles were often aided by militant working-class organizations, including pointedly anti-capitalist organizations.

(Adapted from Richard D. Wolff’s book Understanding Capitalism (Democracy at Work, 2024) was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Richard Wolff is the author of Capitalism Hits the Fan and Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens. He is founder of Democracy at Work.)

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BOTH TRUMPISM AND ANTI-TRUMPISM ARE FAKE, DECOY REVOLUTIONS

by Caitlin Johnstone

There’s a fuzzbrained narrative going around “MAGA” circles right now that if re-elected, Donald Trump is going to appoint Robert F Kennedy Jr to the position of CIA director. This narrative has been extrapolated from some very vague comments made by Donald Trump Jr on a conservative podcast last week. 

It’s hilarious that anyone thinks this will happen, and it says so much about how perpetually gullible and confused Trump supporters are. Trump’s CIA directors have been Mike “We lied, we cheated, we stole” Pompeo and torture fetishist “Bloody Gina” Haspel, and these dopes think he’s going to suddenly give the job to RFK Jr? Come on. Trump isn’t going to drain the swamp. Trump is the swamp.

To this day, even after watching four years of evidence to the contrary, Trump supporters still believe he’s going to end the wars, drain the swamp, and take the fight to the Deep State. They believe he’ll be fighting the Deep State even after he imprisoned Assange. They believe he’ll be ending the wars even after he ramped up cold war aggressions against Russia, killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, vetoed attempts to save Yemen from US-backed genocide, worked to foment civil war in Iran using starvation sanctions and CIA ops with the stated goal of effecting regime change, came inches from starting a full-scale war with Iran with by assassinating General Qassem Soleimani, occupied Syrian oil fields with the goal of preventing Syria’s reconstruction, greatly increased the number of troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, greatly increased the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration killing record numbers of civilians, and reduced military accountability for those airstrikes. They believe he’ll drain the swamp after he packed his cabinet full of neocon swamp monsters like John Bolton and Elliott Abrams.

Trump supporters are the most gullible people on earth. They’ll stare right at you as you look them in the eye and prove you lied to them in broad daylight, and then they’ll sign right up to let you do it again.

Rightists who are discontented with the American political status quo have been herded into supporting a politician who embodies that status quo as much as any other president, wrongly thinking they are waging a battle against the establishment by doing so. And this is mirrored on the other side of the imaginary partisan divide in US politics, with people making entire identities out of despising Donald Trump and acting like this makes them brave revolutionaries.

When Trump was first elected I had hope that the Democrats who’d fallen asleep at the wheel under Obama would become politically engaged again and start criticizing the evils of the US empire like they did during the Bush years. But what actually happened was that while Democrats did start paying attention to politics again, they were corralled like livestock by the mass media into opposing things that had no relation to the actual realities of the US empire and how it functions in the world. 

Instead of focusing on Trump’s many depravities listed above, Democrats wound up spending years shrieking about a completely fake conspiracy theory that the executive branch of the US government had been taken over by the Kremlin, only to lose interest and pretend nothing happened after the Mueller investigation failed to indict a single American over any involvement with Russia. They spent all their political energy freaking out about Trump’s mean tweets and how rude he was to members of the press, while ignoring or even praising his administration’s reckless warmongering and tyranny around the world.

So Trump has been made the central figure in US politics around whom everything revolves, and whether the election is won by those who support him or those who oppose him, the imperial status quo is guaranteed to remain unchanged. As Americans become more and more discontented with the abusive nature of their nation’s government, a man has shown up who leads both Democrats and Republicans to believe that the best way to stick it to the man is to take a highly emotional position either for him or against him. When really whether he wins or loses couldn’t matter less to those with real power.

Trump sucks all the oxygen out of the room for real discourse about real things. Under Biden at least we’ve been seeing some real opposition to real things like the US-backed atrocities in Gaza, but under Trump it was four years of both mainstream political factions screaming about made-up nonsense under the delusion that they were fighting the power.

And that’s all mainstream electoral politics ever is in the US empire: a fake, decoy revolution staged for the public every few years so that they don’t have a real one. A symbolic ceremony where the public pretends to cast the abusive status quo into the sea so they feel like the battle against their oppressors has been won. And then their oppressors just keep right on oppressing them.

Every few years the public gets to choose between two reliable lackeys of the oligarchic empire, and then all of the evils of that empire get pinned upon the winner. The public then directs their rage at the lackey rather than the actual power structure which has been oppressing them, after which they have another election to rid themselves of the scoundrel once and for all. They hug, they cry, they celebrate, and the oppression machine continues completely uninterrupted.

As Gore Vidal once said:

“It doesn’t actually make any difference whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make the people think that they have had something to do with the electing of presidents for 200 years when they’ve had absolutely nothing to say about the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run. A very small group controls just about everything.”

That small group is the plutocratic class whose legalized bribery and propaganda machine has immense influence over US politics, as well as the imperial war machine and special interest groups with whom the plutocratic class is allied. It is necessary to form coalitions of support within that power cluster if one wants to become president in the managed democracy that is the United States, and no part of that power cluster is going to support a president who won’t reliably advance the interests of the oligarchic empire.

From this point of view, the oligarchic power cluster is essentially running its own employees against each other and having them promise to end the injustices which are inextricably baked in to the oligarchic empire. Americans live in a totalitarian state whose most important elections are rigged from top to bottom, and they’re fed news stories about Evil Dictators in other countries rigging their elections to remain in power.

Politicians cannot change the status quo to one which benefits ordinary people instead of their oligarchic owners, because the oligarchic empire is built upon the need for endless war, poverty, and oppression. You cannot have a unipolar global empire without using violent force (and the threat of it) to uphold that world order, and you cannot have a plutocracy without ensuring that a few rulers have far more wealth control than the rank-and-file citizenry.

For this reason, even politicians who run on relatively progressive-sounding platforms are themselves a part of the fake decoy revolution unless they demand a complete dismantling of oligarchy and empire. The politicians who present themselves as progressives in America today offer only light opposition to some aspects of empire and oligarchy, in effect merely supporting an oligarchic empire that gives Americans healthcare. Since keeping Americans poor, busy and propagandized is an essential dynamic in the hub of a globe-spanning oligarchic empire, this is a nonsensical position; the oligarchs don’t want ordinary Americans to have money to burn on campaign donations and free time to research what’s really going on in their world, because then they might meddle in the gears of empire. A power structure built upon economic injustice will never permit economic justice.

The door to meaningful change in America via electoral politics has been closed, locked, bolted, welded shut, and barricaded with a metric ton of solid steel. The only thing that can cause an end to the oppression and exploitation is an end to the oligarchic empire, and the only thing that can cause the end of the oligarchic empire is direct action by the American people: mass-scale activism, national strikes, and civil disobedience the likes of which the nation has never before seen, in sufficient numbers to bring down the plutocratic institutions which maintain the status quo.

The problem is that this will never happen as long as Americans are being successfully propagandized into being content with their fake decoy revolutions. There is a zero percent chance of electoral politics leading to an end of the empire, but a concerted effort to spread awareness by those who understand what’s going on just might.

All positive changes in human behavior are always preceded by an expansion of awareness, whether you’re talking about awareness of the consequences of one’s addiction leading to their getting sober or an expansion of awareness of the injustices of racism leading to racial justice laws. Making people aware that the mass media are lying to us about what’s real, aware of the horrors of war, aware of the underlying dynamics of the economic injustice which is grinding Americans into the dirt, that can lead to a chain reaction which sees the collective using the power of its numbers to shrug off the chains of oppression as easily as you remove a heavy coat on a warm day.

What’s needed is for the people to awaken to the truth. An entire empire is built upon a pair of closed eyelids.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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PHIL DONAHUE (1935-2024) – GREATEST CHAMPION OF FREE SPEECH FOR THE PEOPLE’S INTEREST OF THE 20TH CENTURY

by Ralph Nader

It was 1967 when the national media was covering our auto safety initiatives. A call came on the hallway phone outside my $90-a-month boarding room. “Hello, I’m Phil Donahue. I want to invite you on my new syndicated television talk show in Dayton, Ohio. You’ve come a long way without my help, but can you please come here? You’ll make me into a Big Act. You can talk about and say anything you want for an hour.” He then described some of his controversial guests. I remember thinking, “This is a General Motors factory town and he wants me there!!!” Clearly, he stood out with his polite insistence from the numerous invitations I was receiving from media shows outside Washington.

I flew to Dayton, landing just before midnight. Surprise. Who was there as I was getting off the plane? A gracious Phil Donahue. He drove me to the hotel.

That was the kind of earnestness, authentic courtesy and persistence in giving voice to the underdogs in our society that propelled him for nearly 30 years to become America’s leading daytime national TV talk show host.

Of course, he was much more than that during his over 6000 shows. In between his shows with flamboyant entertainers (to keep a large audience) he offered hundreds of hours to compelling and controversial leaders of emerging social justice movements and the people who were harmed by wrongdoers.

“Hot topics,” he called them. When necessary, he would take a Donahue Show to “hot spots” such as to Chernobyl in Ukraine, the site of a disastrous partial meltdown in 1986 of a giant nuclear power plant whose radioactivity forced the permanent abandonment of nearby villages. I can still see him, with his ever-present microphone, standing by the eerily swinging doors of the empty houses.

Other talk show hosts are cowed by their paying advertisers. Not Phil. He took using the people’s public airwaves seriously. One show on cheating auto dealers led the Dayton auto dealers to boycott the show. This didn’t faze Phil. His show’s audience grew so that by 1974 he felt he could move to Chicago and then to New York City in 1985.

Daring but self-effacing, Donahue knew his guests, though outspoken and challenging to power structures, represented large numbers of silenced Americans. Prominent leaders of women’s equality (then called the Women’s Liberation Movement) were invited regularly to engage in his provocative give-and-take.

He pioneered a live daily show before a live studio audience and television audience in 200 cities around the country. He would take questions from his audience and from call-in viewers.

Being so spontaneous carried obvious risks during such instant feedback. Consider that he interviewed fierce poverty fighters, war resisters, student rebels, aggrieved community leaders and heart-breaking, innocent victims of various assaults. Before his TV audience of some 10 million viewers, he would introduce to the nation first the pioneers of civil rights, consumer justice, prosecutors of corporate crimes, safer environments, workplace safety, and gay rights. He responded early to the oncoming AIDS epidemic and featured advocates and specialists on that human devastation.

Though outwardly calm, he once told me that his show was “a one-hour nightmare to get through.”

I’ve called Phil Donahue the greatest DEFENDER and ENABLER of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech, petition and assembly in the 20TH CENTURY. Hands down. There has been no one remotely close then or since, given the frequency of his shows and his audience size. He helped citizens put forces in motion for a more just America and world that continue to this day.

His guests often became civic celebrities because he had them on when nobody else would, and enabled them to reach large audiences and get the attention of decision-makers. His groundbreaking revelations sometimes led to Congressional hearings. He encouraged the sales of publications and books that helped sustain many nonprofit advocacy groups.

One of his favorite guests was Dr. Sidney Wolfe, head of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. Phil showcased Dr. Wolfe announcing the publication of the life-saving book “Worst Pills, Best Pills” which sold over 500,000 copies. Viewers wanted the scientific truth about their prescribed medicines which the FDA did not supply in a user-friendly form. He featured Joan Claybrook, then head of NHTSA, Jimmy Carter’s auto safety regulator, to feature THE CAR BOOK, full of hitherto taboo “make and model” information about defects and other critical data. Offered free, half a million motorists immediately ordered print copies of this first-of-its-kind government consumer guide.

Not surprisingly, Phil had severe critics from the powers-that-be. His pleasant, ordinary-guy personality carried no grudges. Instead, he would invite those with views contrasting to his own to make their case for more intriguing interactions with the audience. Those guests often included people whose positions he found abhorrent. That is how deep his defense was of the First Amendment – to protect that speech with which you strongly disagree. One of these guests, Jerry Falwell (who started the ‘Moral Majority’) was on over two dozen times.

The Donahue Show closed in 1996. Six years later, MSNBC invited Phil to host a public affairs show. At this time the Bush/Cheney drums for invading Iraq were sounding. Phil was told by NBC “suits” (as he called them) to have two proponents of this criminal war for every opponent on his show. Even that was not enough censorious interference. Six months later, just before Bush’s imperial “shock and awe” sociocide of Iraq and millions of innocent casualties, NBC and its owner, large defense contractor General Electric, recovered their cowardliness (then displayed by their competitors like Fox) and abused the public trust and told Donahue and his staff to clear out immediately. Then MSNBC’s top-rated show, GE didn’t give the real reasons for cancellation – namely airing criticism of President George W. Bush – which later leaked internal memos revealed. (See, the August 19, 2024, Common Dreams piece by Jeff Cohen titled, “Fired by MSNBC for Giving Voice to Iraq War Opposition, Phil Donahue (1935-2024) Was Courage Personified“).

Here is Phil Donahue speaking for himself:

“We’re supposed to be the dog that keeps nipping at the heels of the powerful. We are supposed to be the people who engage in inelegant behavior, like sticking our nose under the tent to see what the Grand Pubahs are planning for us. It’s an indignity. It’s hard to do. And it becomes very difficult to do that when you’re sucking up to the people you’re supposed to be covering.” (See, Ralph Nader Radio Hour interview of June 18, 2016).

“Dissent is very difficult in this country. We have a media which is rewarded by telling people what they want to hear. And that’s not our job. We’re not supposed to be popular. We’re not supposed to be extolled as wonderful people who make us happy. We have to show the pain. And we are obliged to say what we feel about the decisions of powerful people.” (See, Ralph Nader Radio Hour interview of June 18, 2016).

“Corporate ownership is, I think, the biggest challenge to a robust media featuring all kinds of views. It lives and I ought to know. I lost my job because I opposed the invasion of Iraq.” (See, Episode 236, September 22, 2018, of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour).

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Starting with his spouse, the actress, author and woman’s rights advocate Marlo Thomas, and the many people who worked with Phil to make the show possible and loved the way he respected them, the legions of Phil’s admirers would surely welcome multiple living legacies to honor his life’s work. Activities that carry on his resolute promotion of free speech, public justice for all, and fostering a media which stands tall for reality, truth, facts, the voices of the excluded and those who champion justice – called the “great work of humans on Earth” by Senator Daniel Webster – would bring home to future generations the remarkable Phil Donahue.

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