Mendocino County Today: Monday 9/23/2024

Haul Road | Warm | Fin Whale | Panther Sports | English Memorial | Weed Busts | Drug Factor | Speed Surveys | Apple Dryer | Willits Theatre | Yum Yum | Sierra Buttes | Annexation Thoughts | Bigfoot | Lake Mendo | Your Birthday | Ed Notes | Pledging | Neighbor Politics | Eating Meat | Yesterday's Catch | Donut Leer | Medical Brownies | Helpless Cad | Long-Lost Brother | Niners Lose | Sneezer's | 49er Grades | Probably Immigrant | Plastic-Bag Ban | Aline's Dream | California Drilling | Comrade Kamala | Lead Stories | Wrong Side | Women Vote | Press Failure | Neato Keano

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WARM AND DRY conditions will continue to gradually settle in today with weakening north winds along the coast. Heat will peak early this week with above average temperatures pushing out even along the coast. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 48F under clear skies this Monday morning on the coast. A strong offshore flow has the fog pushed well to the south, for now. Hence clear skies next couple days then patchy fog returns & going into the weekend.

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SHIP STRIKE KILLS ENDANGERED FIN WHALE ON COAST

by Matt LaFever

A fin whale, the second-largest whale species, washed ashore at Ten Mile Beach along the Mendocino coast after being killed by a ship strike. While fin whales are rare to see stranded due to their tendency to stay offshore, the Noyo Center for Marine Science’s Beach Response Team quickly responded to the scene. Scientists conducted a necropsy and collected vital samples, determining that the whale had suffered blunt force trauma consistent with a ship strike. This incident highlights the ongoing threat of vessel collisions to endangered whale species, despite efforts to reduce these occurrences.

The whale, a subadult female measuring around 40 feet, was in good health with adequate fat stores before the strike. While the whale’s body initially washed back out to sea, it returned to shore later, but this time showed evidence of scavenging by sharks. Conservation programs, such as altering shipping lanes and encouraging slower vessel speeds, aim to reduce ship strikes. However, the incident underscores the challenges in protecting endangered whales along California’s coastlines.

Read my coverage for SFGATE.

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LAST WEEK IN PANTHER SPORTS:

Volleyball: defeated Round Valley and dropped a close game to Grace Christian Academy of Santa Rosa

Soccer: won BIG at Technology High and came up a bit short in a hard fought game to Calistoga at home.

Cross Country: In AV’s first ever XC meet, Nicholas Espinoza took 14th overall in a field of 56 — a full team is expected to join Nicholas on October 4th at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa.

Junior High: in our first game of the season, our C and B team dropped some well played games to the very Strong Terrace middle school team from Lakeport before watching our A team take the big WIN in the last game of the day!

Soccer and Volleyball are in the playoff hunt! Junior High Volleyball is off to a SUPER impressive start, and we are building the foundations for what we hope becomes a very competitive cross country program.

Athletics is one of the most transformative character defining experiences a young person can access at AV High School and the 2024-25 school year is off to a great start!

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WILDLIFE OFFICERS UNCOVER POACHING, WATER DIVERSIONS in Mendocino County Cannabis Raid

by Matt LaFever

Wildlife officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) served search warrants at five properties in Mendocino County on Wednesday, September 18th, 2024, targeting illegal cannabis cultivation and environmental crimes, according to Jen Benedet, Acting Deputy Director of the CDFW’s Office of Communications, Education, and Outreach.

The raids, conducted by CDFW’s Cannabis Enforcement Program, took place north of Laytonville near Bunim Road and Registered Guest Road, with support from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Benedet said. Authorities were investigating properties suspected of unlawful cannabis cultivation, which also posed significant environmental risks.

According to Benedet, record checks revealed that none of the properties had obtained county permits or state licenses to cultivate or manufacture commercial cannabis. Officers eradicated 7,478 illicit cannabis plants, destroyed 1,074 pounds of processed cannabis, and found a suspected poached deer and opium poppy plants.

Violations of Water Code and Fish and Game Code (FGC) were also documented during the raids. Benedet reported that of the 55 FGC violations, eight were water diversions from headwater streams that feed salmon-bearing waterways.

Three individuals were detained, and the investigation is ongoing, Benedet added.

(mendofever.com)

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WHO WROTE THIS?, AND WHEN?

“The three major reasons for inmates coming to the Mendocino County Jail are substance abuse, theft, and domestic violence. 99% of these inmates have problems related to alcohol, other drugs, or mental health issues. Methamphetamine is a factor in 80% of the arrests in the County. The use of this drug increases the combative and suicidal tendencies in the inmate population. The use of methamphetamine is a primary factor in the higher rate of women incarcerated.”

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Answer: That was the opening paragraph of the Mendocino County Grand Jury’s 2005 press release announcing the release of that year’s Grand Jury reports.

Although the 99% number sounds a bit high, with some minor edits about percentages, and which drugs are “a factor” in Mendo arrests, and maybe a reduction in the percentage of theft arrests due to Prop 47 which semi-decriminalized thefts under $950, the statement is still basically true. Has anything been done to reduce these obvious problems in the years since, much of which are rooted in Mendo’s low position on the economic ladder? (Mark Scaramella)

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SUPERVISOR TED WILLIAMS:

Mendocino Board of Supervisors - Tuesday, Sept 24 - item 3c

Letters of support, bos@mendocinocounty.gov

Direction to Department of Transportation (DOT) Staff to Perform Speed Surveys for Albion Ridge Road and Little River Airport Road at a Time and Manner Most Efficient for the Department

(Sponsor: Supervisor Williams)

Summary of Request:

The pre-1988 speed zones on many county roads cannot effectively be enforced by California Highway Patrol. The speed studies could justify greater speed limits than currently posted, but with the studies, the speed limit would be enforceable. These particular county roads were recommended by CHP officers to Supervisor Williams at a traffic collision and many nearby residents have urged for enforceable speed limits on these roads.

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BILL KIMBERLIN: This is what is left of one of the largest and best apple dryers in Anderson Valley after a fire.

This beauty was next to my aunt and uncle's property outside of Philo, Ray's Resort (now River's Bend and for years Wellspring).

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MICHELLE HUTCHINS & PARTNER BUY WILLITS’ NOYO THEATER

by Jeff Quakenbush

The Noyo Theatre in northern Mendocino County over eight decades has survived confiscation of a film too racy to screen, arson and multiple closures because of competition with multiplexes and rounds of pandemic public health orders.

On July 12, James Devine and Michelle Hutchins became the latest owners, buying the 7,100-square-foot cinema building at 57 E. Commercial St. in Willits from Jeff and Lois Hoover. The real estate part of the deal was $600,000.

The business purchase price wasn’t disclosed. The new owners couldn’t be reached for comment.

The Hoovers had owned the theater since 2012, according to the theater website. They made it through the first pandemic closure by selling concessions by curbside, a tactic other local cinemas employed. Two years ago, after the second pandemic closure, they started an Over 21 Club with beer and wine service delivered to electric-powered recliners in the main theater.

But in May of last year, the Hoovers were ready to move on from the movie business, putting the property on the market for sale, The Press Democrat reported.

A previous owner in the 1990s had built two smaller theaters behind the main auditorium.

In 1939, The Redwoods Theatres Inc. of San Francisco started construction on the venue, opening it a year later.

The theater barely survived arson in 1976 after its controversial showing of the 1972 adult film “Deep Throat,” according to the venue’s online history. Authorities confiscated the film reels and jailed then-owners Lory Pontone and Bob Loya for violation of decency laws.

The case was dismissed, but afterward the building suffered major damage in a fire that authorities suspected was deliberately set. The facility was repaired afterward.

The venue received national attention in 2003 with the world premiere of the movie “Seabiscuit,” based on a race horse raised in a nearby Mendocino County ranch barn that’s now a national historical site.

(North Bay Business Journal)

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ANA CARRILLO DE CRUZ: My family and I had dinner at Jumbo’s Win Win and it was VERY good. We all enjoyed it and the fries were a 10/10. We definitely recommend it.

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CLIMBING A STAIRCASE TO THE SKY: SIERRA BUTTES FIRE LOOKOUT

by Justine Frederiksen

My parents loved camping. So much so that I swear they took my sister and me to every campground in California when we were kids.

But I hated camping. So much so that I vowed, while standing at one “campground” that was little more than a parking lot just off the interstate, to never sleep in a tent again once I had any say in the matter.

And for nearly 40 years I kept that vow. Until this year, when I learned about the Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout Station.

“Stand here one time, and you’ll never forget it the rest of your life,” wrote Tom Stienstra and Ann Marie Brown in “Northern California Hiking,” a book that has been my hiking bible for nearly 10 years now, steering me to some of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen, including Burney Falls in Shasta County, and the otherworldly Fern Canyon in Humboldt County.

So when my friend went camping at Sardine Lake, located just a short drive from the Sierra Buttes Trailhead, I knew I had to join her so we could hike to the lookout, even though it would mean spending the day driving, then spending the night in a tent so we could get up with the sun to beat the heat.

And I am very pleased to report that climbing the lookout staircase was more than worth the effort to reach it – worth not only every minute of the nearly five hours it took to drive to the trail from Ukiah, but every minute of sleeping in a tent again, even though I forgot my earplugs and our neighbor sleeping just a few yards from me snored almost as loudly as my father had.

But all the driving and snoring was forgotten as we headed up the trail, because few things are more exhilarating than hiking at sunrise, especially if you’re walking along what feels like the spine of California.

My joy bubble was briefly burst, however, when a group of young men passed us. As friends who hike to the lookout every year while their families camp at Sardine Lake, the men told us the hike to the station would be four miles each way, nearly twice the five-miles total that my book had described.

And so I feared we wouldn’t make it to the lookout after all, as we couldn’t do eight miles that morning without overheating ourselves and the young dog we had with us. So I tried to just soak in all the views, telling myself it had still been one of the most beautiful hikes I’d ever done in one of the most beautiful places I’d ever been, and prepared to turn around at 9 a.m. no matter how far we had gotten at that point.

Then at 8:20 a.m., a trail sign declared that the lookout was only a half mile away, so we had plenty of time to reach the staircase after all, which meant that of course my book was right about the mileage to the lookout, and about the views you find when you reach it. Because not only is it amazing to stand on a platform offering 360-degree views of what feels like every mountain in California, the last steps to those views are perhaps even more amazing, because walking up what amounts to scaffolding clinging to a rock cliff feels like climbing a staircase to the sky.

A plaque at the bottom of that staircase “honors the five Tahoe National Forest employees who, with great difficulty, made it possible for visitors to climb to this lookout with ease and safety,” first constructing the stairs, hand rails and platforms, then “attaching them to the side of this peak in the summer of 1964: Norman Ellis, Elmer (Don) Hoskin, Walter Huson, Edward Forsthoff and Howard Welch.”

In the years since, fire detection equipment more sophisticated than human eyeballs has been added to the station, including what looks like a small windmill at the base of the platform. Cal Fire Battalion Chief Drew Rhoades, who supervises operations at the Ukiah Air Attack Base, said the apparatus that caught my eye was an “anenometer,” which measures wind speed using a spinning wheel.

Rhoades noted that many anenometers are set up in Mendocino County as well, as “we have several ‘full’ (Remote Automated Weather Stations) in the county.”

Also at the Sierra Buttes platform once we reached it were the young men who passed us much earlier, still enjoying the view after drinking their celebratory beers. Yes, they packed out their cans, and yes, one of them admitted to me that my book had been right, that the hike there was only 2.5 miles. So once again, Tom and Anne Marie had not steered me wrong, and I am so glad I followed them to yet another jaw-dropping sight.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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ADAM GASKA:

Re Dick Selzers’ meeting with [Ukiah City Manager] Sage [Sangiacomo] and [Ukiah Councilman] Doug [Crane].

The tax sharing agreement benefits the City of Ukiah more than the County, although it is more generous than is usual with these agreements. It shifts a lot of power and tax revenue to the City of Ukiah with no commitment for the City to support County services outside of its sphere of influence.

Will it be a benefit to County citizens? That remains to be seen, but not likely.

For those who live in Ukiah, areas that will soon be Ukiah, or are in the sphere of influence will likely benefit if city government is well managed.

Regardless of the governing body, local citizens need to stay involved and engaged to make sure government serves them rather than the other way around. Democracy is not a spectator sport. We can’t just sit on the sidelines watching and hoping for the best. We must be involved.

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NORM THURSTON:

My concern is that the City will continue its policy for higher-density housing in the newly annexed areas. Many of our roads and streets are not designed to accommodate bumper to bumper parking on both sides of the street, in addition to adjusting to new neighbors living in the open spaces that previously separated our homes. As the City’s revenues increase, our quality of life will decrease.

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POWERFUL PARTNERSHIP AIMS TO REBRAND LAKE MENDOCINO AS PREMIER DESTINATION

by Matt LaFever

While smaller budgets and spending constraints batter public services across the country, the popularity of public/private partnerships (PPPs), combining public projects and private equity, continues to increase. Now the Ukiah Valley has its own example: the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Greater Ukiah Business and Tourism Alliance (GUBTA) announced last week the formation of a public/private partnership to increase awareness of Lake Mendocino as a recreation destination and resource.

The cooperative agreement provides for development of recreation assets, interpretive and educational services, and the implementation of a comprehensive marketing and branding strategy.

Katrina Kessen, the Executive Director of GUBTA, worked with Poppy Burkhead, the Operations Project Manager for Lake Mendocino, to hammer out the cooperative agreement. Kessen hopes the "agreement will be another step toward the revitalization of Lake Mendocino, the jewel of inland Mendocino County." A collaborative committee, with diverse professional backgrounds and interests in the local community, has been developing both near and long-term projects for the Lake, ranging from innovative branding and signage to re-imagined community spaces.

Lake manager Burkhead noted that public/private partnerships like this are relatively new for USACE. "Our job is to build and maintain projects, so we're pleased to be able to partner with GUBTA to handle the marketing and promotion for all the recreation activities available at Lake Mendocino." Burkhead considers this collaboration to be part of a shared vision, not just a short-term marketing program.

Lake Mendocino has over 3,000 acres of outdoor opportunities, including sustainable recreation activities and access to unique ecosystems. The property is even home to an endangered plant, Burke's goldfields (lasthenia burkei), a small annual herb that grows in vernal pools and swales. Hiking trails ring the Lake, and other outdoor activities include biking, fishing, boating, and camping. Many areas at the Lake are wheelchair accessible, in accordance with the ADA. The Coyote Valley Dam itself is a popular destination for hiking and dog walking.

In the long term, Burkhead and Kessen agree increased visitor numbers to the Lake will help benefit economic development through tourism, business opportunities for food service, and concessions and rentals. "That's where the private sector can really help," said Kessen, "if we generate tourist awareness, those visitors support the local economy with jobs and revenue (like TOT funds). Lake Mendocino is the attraction, but local hotels, restaurants, and services all benefit from hosting Lake visitors…it's like a multiplier effect to stimulate the local economy." Burkhead agreed, but added that "building community is just as important as building visitor awareness."

Initial partnership projects are in various stages of completion, including the development of a distinct and authentic brand and logo for Lake Mendocino. A new marketing/promotional campaign will be developed to help attract visitors, and a destination park, encompassing approximately nine acres, will add natural play elements and space for gatherings and events.

Essentially, Lake Mendocino, the USACE, and GUBTA have become a single, jointly administered, destination management and marketing partnership. The agreement between GUBTA and USACE will be in place for five years, after which the contract allows for renewal or cancellation. Both Burkhead and Kessen think this organization can be an example for other potential community partnerships in Mendocino County.

The first step in the GUBTA/USACE PPP is the "branding" of the Lake. The brand name is the verbal cue to drive the marketing campaign; it becomes the reference point in consumers' minds. Branding is not only a marketing tool to help differentiate a tourism product or destination from another but should also be viewed as a management tool to help create a genuine competitive advantage for attracting visitors.

And aside from attracting guests, Burkhead also believes putting a face on Lake Mendocino will help highlight the presence of the personnel at the Lake. "We're all members of the community," she says, "we participate in local festivals, run interpretive programs, and our families have fond memories of growing up spending summers at the Lake."

Those nostalgic stories of family boating trips to the Lake resonate with Kessen as well, who says that every member of the ad-hoc marketing committee remembers cooling off at the Lake during a sweltering Ukiah summer, having picnics, and walking the dam. "Ultimately, the local community benefits from, and builds memories about, great times spent at the Lake," said Kessen, "bringing together businesses, visitors, and local communities creates the kind of energy that helps these kinds of partnership marketing programs succeed."

The official agreement between the USACE and GUBTA was signed at the beginning of August. A marketing plan has been developed, and roll-out of new signage at Lake Mendocino will happen this fall. The new Destination Park should break ground in 2025.

Burkhead recently toured the Lake Mendocino area by air and came away with a fresh perspective. "We tend to take things for granted," she said. "But seeing our little world from 4,000 feet really convinced me that affecting change in one tiny place requires cooperation with the bigger community; involvement and inclusion are critical."

Lake Mendocino is currently open for all recreational activities, and both boat launches are fully operational. Specific information is available at https://www.recreation.gov/camping/gateways/483. The Visit Ukiah website is here: https://visitukiah.com/gubta-and-us-army-corp-of-engineers-launch-partnership/.

(MendoFever.com)

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ED NOTES

IN 2004, the prescient editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, as always ahead of the historical curve, lamented that the Hasting's School of Law was still called the Hastings School of Law. For all anybody knew, the school was a respectable adjunct of the University of California. Of course, Hastings had left the university a nice hunk of money conditioned, I believe, on the naming of the university’s law school after him. After all, he’d been California’s first Supreme Court Justice.

IT WAS GRATIFYING to learn that a few students at Hasting's may have been influenced by reading about Hastings’ murderously true history in the Boonville weekly. A law student wrote that year, “I read your recent article on the genocidal namesake of the Hastings School of Law and was really disturbed and upset by it. I can tell you with confidence that there is little to no awareness of these facts among the Hastings student body… We’re going to try to get the school to change the name.”

GOOD LUCK, KID, I'd said, but it will be a slog. NorCal Indians, unlike other ethnic groups in our state's explosively multicultural hot house, are slow to anger. Or maybe they're so accustomed to being kicked around and insulted that a lot of the abuse and misunderstanding they endure without comment because they assume it as part of life in the Golden State, much as they once assumed that murder was part of that life.

JUDGE HASTINGS, as mentioned, was California's first chief justice, the go-to guy for the murder of thousands of Indians throughout the Eel River basin, from Mendocino County on up through Humboldt County and on into Trinity, with side excursions into Glenn and Tehama counties. From his lofty perch as chief justice, Hastings easily got the state to pay people to kill Indians because Indians were in the way of his and his associated 19th century Mendocino County land thieves. Hastings himself appropriated Mendo's Eden Valley where he operated a horse ranch while living most of the time in Benicia.

ANOTHER SANCTIFIED character long overdue for a reappraisal is the anthropologist, A.L. Kroeber, also a U.C. faculty man who, for all his scientific pretense, assumed that the Indians he studied were simply unfortunate victims of Darwin's sad but immutable survival theories. Surely you remember those theories? White people wiped out (fill in the name of the people here) because it was survival of the fittest and white people were fittest. Mrs. Kroeber was a Darwinist, too, and both of them simply loved Ishi to death soon after California's last wild Indian was captured near Oroville in 1915.

KROEBER said there never could have been 12,000 to 20,000 Yuki Indians in Mendocino County, no, certainly not, and certainly not based on the say so of the few Yukis who had eluded the casual state-funded killings of Indians that began with their initial interface with the ad-sals (as the Indians called white people) when the Azbill brothers opened fire on the first Indians they met in Covelo in 1850, not to mention the predations of Judge Hastings, Texan Boy Hall, Jarboe and his Eel River Rangers, and the rest of the first wave of ethnic cleansers. Just because the surviving Indians said that almost everyone they knew had been murdered by the ad-sals was written off as merely one more Indian myth.

KROEBER reasoned that because there were only a few Yukis left when the 20th century dawned when he arrived to wonder where the heck everyone had gone off to, that if there'd been as many as 20,000 Yukis when the long, lean lethal sons of Missouri began arriving in 1850, how could there possibly be so few Yukis a mere 50 years later? Kroeber wrote that there was no accounting for the “tremendous decrease” in the Yuki population — no epidemics, no wholesale removals, no prolonged contact with the Spanish mission system that might have whacked the population to a mere handful of survivors. Nope, must have been a small tribe to begin with, maybe 2,000 people, max, Kroeber figured, leaving mass murder out of his calculations. Why not murder as at least one of the reasons for the radical reduction in the number of Yukis by 1900? Probably because there were still lots of people alive who not only knew the truth of what had happened to the Indians but were very sensitive about it, having just upgraded themselves to Noble Pioneer status, and having benefited directly from what they knew were great crimes.

CONTEMPT FOR INDIANS was still strong into the 1940s, even from crusading liberals like John Steinbeck who, in his epic novel, ‘East of Eden,’ wrote, “And that was the long Salinas Valley. Its history was like that of the rest of the state. First there were the Indians, an inferior breed without energy, inventiveness, or culture, a people that lived on grubs and grasshoppers and shellfish, too lazy to hunt or fish. They ate what they could pick up and planted nothing. They pounded bitter acorns for flour. Even their warfare was a weary pantomime.”

FARTHER BACK, Jack London, whose name, by the way, appears with his wife Charmian’s in an old Boonville Hotel register, was also contemptuous of of the darker races, and had commented, “What the devil! I am first of all a white man and only then a Socialist.” To which Mark Twain replied, “It would serve this man London right to have the working class get control of things. He would have to call out the militia to collect his royalties.”

THIS ASSUMPTION that Indians lacked “energy” and “inventiveness” is very odd considering the known history of California and the United States. The relative success of California's resource administrators goes like this: INDIANS for 12,000 years. MISSIONS and missionized Indians for 150 years. MEXICO for 40 years. (Of course given current demographic trends, Mexico may retake California for another round of rule, albeit one less likely to be as leisurely as the first regime's when men like the civilized General Vallejo were deciding administrative matters for Northern California.) US of A for 150 years.

SO, CLASS, I ask you, whose energy and inventiveness would you trust to get your family over the next few millennia, Dick Cheney’s and the Democrats or the Yukis?

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ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH - RED? DON’T INVITE. BLUE? FLIP HER OFF.

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

(Note: Today’s column is also available in Pumpkin Spice. Please see Page 42 for details.)

As the days dwindled down to a tolerable few, I began taking increased interest in the sudden, colorful blossoming of political signs across city lawns.

Where none had stood before, this indigenous species stands full grown, especially in Ukiah’s fashionable west side. It reminded me once again of the differences between the state I’d spent my previous 50 years, and the land to which wife Trophy and I decided to move a few years ago.

Political viewpoints, from a certain perspective, are front, center, out loud and proud here in the Golden State. Though the soil and elements are the same, lawns featuring blue decor communicate boldly; red lawn ornamentation arrives later in the season and in far fewer numbers.

These sights and noises are more muted in North Carolina; the states also differ in a few other ways:

CALIFORNIA: Fires, flooding, therapists, Democrats roar around wherever they feel like, and hordes of the homeless plague us. Ukiah is wasting away while jolly city administrators pull down hundreds of thousand of dollars yearly, and wish to Thank You all for our lavish lifelong pensions.

CAROLINAS: Hurricanes roar around wherever they feel like it, local wines range from nauseating to undrinkable, no Major League baseball, all of Union County under assault by construction crews vomiting up one condominium development on top of the last one.

In the southeast portion of the USA political signs have not yet bloomed, although I did see a pickup truck with a TRUMP banner yesterday.

But this is the more relevant information: Having spent much of the past three years in this small town we have made a number of friends and more than a few acquaintances. One close friend is Dottie, a wonderfully sweet lady who we agree is the nicest next door neighbor we’ve ever had, and maybe the nicest person we’ve ever known.

Across the street are Rich and Mary. He did college in Ohio, we share a lot of funny memories and stories. Other neighbors are friendly and chatty. We get invited to neighborhood parties where gay couples show up, blacks and rednecks make up sizable fractions of the guests, many of whom have lived here all their lives.

And here’s the thing: We don’t know what political party any of them belong to, and we don’t know who they voted for. Or even if they vote. Not one. No one has ever asked me anything about my voting habits. No one knows my thoughts on gun control, CO2 emissions, the Infield Fly Rule or foreign policy.

Politics are hardly on the list of things people want to talk about in North Carolina, nor is it important. After three years I would know if anyone felt the need to bare their soul and confess to me they once cast a vote for George Santos or Fuzzy the Clown.

But in California it’s the first thing people want to know. They might start with “Sooo, did you watch the debate?” to find out whether or not they’re supposed to hate you. Or they might check for an American flag on your porch, or whether you drive a Dodge Hemi pickup or Subaru Outback.

It makes for rancid feelings, these mental reminders of “Do Not Invite” to your backyard BBQ and un-neighborly neighborhoods. It makes us check on what color sign is in the yard of the house on the corner, then eliminate her from the list of potential real estate agents to consider, or which restaurant to visit.

Better we leave it aside. Your vote doesn’t matter in California and neither does the vote of the lady on the corner. Getting along and helping each other matters. Cheerful, convivial, civilized conversations ought not be poisoned by a blue sign, or a red cap.

Bike lane to the grave…

By now you’ve seen the novel bicycle lane installed on South State Street near Gobbi. But I’ll bet you haven’t stopped laughing about it.

Shall we go take a peek? Please fasten your seat belt.

Here we go, rolling past the Ukiah Theater on the right, with the bike lane running safely aside State Street’s western edge, with plenty of room between our car and the curb. We proceed slowly past the Donut Shop. Oh My!

The bike lane has suddenly, with no warning, veered sharply to its left and right into the southbound vehicle lane, and thus directly in the path of our southbound car. Very thrilling. Much like a wild ride at an amusement park, and I’ll betcha lots of bicyclists experienced adrenaline jolts (and broken bones) like never before.

I have compiled a list of Ukiah attorneys who will happily represent you, including free consultations in the Emergency Room.

On the topic of amusement parks, remind me to tell you about my wild flights from Santa Rosa to Charlotte, but please don’t remind me what time I landed or what I didn’t have for dinner, says Tom Hine. TWK, on the other paw, magically transmutededly teleported himself here in zero time at all.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, September 22, 2024

JAIME ALCALA, 59, Fort Bragg. DUI.

JORGE ALVARADO, 18, Ukiah. Concelaed dirk-dagger, conspiracy, resisting.

LUIS ALVAREZ, 18, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, concealed dirk-dagger, evasion by wrong way driving and with wanton disregard for safety, conspiracy.

PRESLEY CLARK, 18, Santa Cruz/Ukiah. Under influence.

CHRISTOPHER COWAN, 37, Ukiah. Storage of camping paraphernalia, failure to appear, probation revocation.

EDGAR DELAGUILA, 34, Willits. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%, probation revocation.

MICHAEL FREEMAN JR., 30, Covelo. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

CASANDRA GUERRA, 33, Ukiah. False ID, failure to appear.

CAMERON MAXEY, 24, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

ELIZABETH REYNOSO, 38, Ukiah. Unlawful camping.

DARRYL WILLIAMS, 57, Ukiah. Domestic battery, criminal threats, possession of firearm with identification markings.

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MEDICAL WEED OD

by Paul Modic

It seemed like a great opportunity to use medical marijuana: my father was a recovering cancer patient with weight loss, reduced appetite, depression, and insomnia.

“Pop,” I said, “how would you like to eat a brownie that will increase your appetite, help you sleep, and make you feel damn good?” He wasn’t into it but when he started talking about getting some cyanide I decided to at least try edibles first.

I gave him some brownies though I hadn’t tried them out to check the dose first. (Oops.) He ate a couple small ones and a few hours later we were upstairs in his air-conditioned bedroom when he announced that he wanted to go downstairs to watch TV. I took that as a good sign since he had lost interest in TV before the operation. Then he said let’s eat something. We had been eating out the last few evenings so I suggested “House of Hunan” for some shrimp and rice. (Second mistake.)

I trundled him into the car, drove out beyond the mall, and physically supported him on the walk into the restaurant. We ordered the food which he ate, then drank something, choked and coughed. (Oops, recurring theme, better get out of there.) I guided him back to the car with our little white take-out cartons and drove him home.

He was seriously OD’d on pot. When we returned to the house I drove around back but the door was locked. He asked me to go through the front to unlock the back so the neighbors wouldn’t see me help him walk and think he was drunk.

I got him upstairs and realized that I’d blown it big time. I hovered around him while he tried to pee in the bathroom, afraid he might fall or something, and finally left him alone to do his thing.

He got into bed while I lay down in the guest room nearby. Once I heard him get up so I raced to the hallway where I encountered him, a big naked man rushing to the bathroom. I touched his shoulder as he went past, he brushed me off and dashed toward the john.

In the morning he told me that as he was trying to get to sleep he kept thinking there was someone else in the room. “Oh it was probably your inner dialog,” I said.

“You know those anti-marijuana ads on the radio where the kids can’t even remember their own names?” he said. “Well I always thought they were probably bullshit but now I see that they’re true.”

By the end of the day he was doing better. I gotta give the old guy credit for trying something new and different, but man what a mistake.

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ABBEY BED & BREAKFAST: My ancestors Loughros Point Ardara 100 years ago, and a poem by my Grandad the same time.

Far From Ardara

'Twas a cosy little cottage
In a far-off, silent vale,
Just a picture one might look for
In the land of Innisfail.
As a stranger sad and weary
Stood before the cottage door,
In the quest of food and shelter
On that cold, Canadian shore.
In a moment he was greeted
With a kindly Irish smile.
'You're a stranger,' said the bean an tí
But, still, from Erin's isle.'
'From the hills of Donegal, ma'am.'
'Then you're welcome here, a ghrá,
For I myself was born
Near the town of Ardara.'

'I was just a little girseach,
Seven years or scarce that same
When my father sold our holding
And to Canada we came.
Yes, I had an only brother,
A fine, dashing, young gossoon,
He enlisted in the army
And became a Light Dragoon.
And very shortly afterwards,
Sure England went to war,
The last we heard of Séamus was
He fell at Trafalgar.
And my father's death last summer
Robbed me of much earthly joy
Though I've got a loving husband
And a little angel boy.

You're not feeling well, a thaiscidh?'
Then the weeping stranger said,
''Tis my sister Nóra tells me
That my loving father's dead.'
Glancing into eyes uplifted,
Eyes she had not seen for years,
Nóra recognised a brother
Through the mist of falling tears.
'How I sought you, darling Nóra,
In this world my only friend,
Save the One who watches o'er us
From beginning to the end.'
Why prolong this little story?
There's no need to tell the rest,
For a sister's head is leaning
On a long-lost brother's breast.

— Brian O'Keeney

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KYLE SHANAHAN, 49ERS ARE SUDDENLY AN NFL HOPE DISPENSARY WITH LOSS TO RAMS

by Ann Killion

Sean McVay should send his old colleague Kyle Shanahan a bouquet of flowers and a thank-you note: “Thanks for saving our season.”

Late Sunday afternoon at SoFi Stadium, the San Francisco 49ers all but giftwrapped the Rams their first win of the season and lost their second straight game in the process.

The Rams came back from 14 points down to win the game with a last-second field goal. Instead of burying their SoCal rival with an 0-3 record, the 49ers now find themselves tied with the Rams and Arizona at the bottom of the NFC West with a 1-2 record, while Seattle is in the drivers’ seat at 3-0.

“As I told them last night,” Shanahan said after the game, “you’ve got to take their hope away.”

Instead, the 49ers were the hope dispensers, handing the Rams — who had been badly embarrassed a week earlier — dreams of surviving their current desperate injury situation and flourishing in the future.

“Frustrating,” said Brock Purdy.

“Unacceptable,” said Fred Warner.

This game was the Great War of Attrition, with both teams missing arguably their most important offensive weapons, the guys the quarterbacks lean on and who make their offenses go. For the 49ers, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle were all out. For the Rams, there was no Cooper Kupp or Puka Nacua.

But the 49ers can’t blame this loss on their absent stars. Instead the game turned on special team gaffes, porous defensive play at key moments, and some odd play-calling by Shanahan.

Despite being in control the entire game, Shanahan got away from his beloved running game, and started getting pass-happy. He called 30 pass plays and the 49ers had 34 running plays, though ten of those were by Purdy, often forced to scramble when he couldn’t find open receivers.

At one point, color commentator Mark Sanchez said with exasperation, “Can we eliminate the theatrics? Just hand the ball to Jordan Mason.”

Mason once again did a great job in the absence of McCaffrey, with 19 carries for 77 yards. Early on he was gashing the Rams defense, which ranks 31st in the league against the run.

The result of all the second-half passing was leaving the Rams plenty of time on the clock to mount a comeback. When a pass-heavy drive stalled at the 37-yard line, Shanahan opted for a 55-yard field goal attempt by Jake Moody. Moody’s kick was wide left the whole way, and the Rams took over on their own 45-yard line, down two scores but with more than three minutes on the clock.

With just one pass from strong-armed Matthew Stafford, the Rams were on the five-yard line. Two plays later, they scored a touchdown. Hope. Lots of hope.

The 49ers still had a lead and 1:46 to play. But on the ensuing drive, there were no called running plays to eat up time — though twice Purdy had to scramble. The 49ers punted the ball back to the Rams with almost a full minute left on the clock.

That’s when another bad special teams play bit the 49ers. The Rams rookie Xavier Smith returned the ball to midfield, meaning the Rams were already almost in range for the game-winning field goal.

Special teams were the primary hope dispensers on Sunday. In the first half, with the Rams trailing by 14, it looked like the rout was on. But the Rams went for a fake punt on fourth-and-six — one that everyone in the building could see coming — and its success energized the team. The Rams continued the drive, scored their first touchdown, made a game of it, and hope was in the air.

“That gave them a lot of hope,” Shanahan said. “I thought we had a chance to run away with it.”

The disappointing loss overshadowed a spectacular day by Jauan Jennings, who morphed into Jerry Rice for a day, scoring three touchdowns and making monster catch after monster catch. He finished with 11 catches — the most for a 49er since Rice in 1995 — for 175 yards.

Without Purdy’s three key weapons, the obvious expectation was that Brandon Aiyuk would have a huge day. He got his paycheck, now it was time for him to prove that he is as critical to the 49ers’ offense as all those missing stars. But Aiyuk once again had a relatively quiet day, targeted ten times but coming down with only five catches for 48 yards.

After the game, the 49ers seemed stunned. They’re used to coming into SoFi, being greeted by throngs of their own fans, and winning the game — at least in the regular season. But not on Sunday, when they dominated until they didn’t.

It was one of the ugliest and most surprising losses in Shanahan’s tenure.

“You’ve got a 14-point lead… we have the momentum, let’s run with it,” Purdy said. “We have a good enough team to finish out a game and put up points every drive. So we’re all pretty frustrated.”

And it’s only Week Three.

(SF Chronicle)

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49ERS GAME GRADES: SPECIAL TEAMS FAILURES SET THE STAGE FOR A LOSS TO RAMS

by Mike Lerseth

The San Francisco 49ers lost 27-24 to the Rams on Sunday as Los Angeles took advantage of the Niners’ poor special teams play to win in the game’s final seconds.

Offense: B

With a nod to the Super Bowl, this was the greatest game of Jauan Jennings’ pro career … and like the title game, it was a loss. Jennings had seven catches in the first two games, but finished this game with 11 receptions for 175 yards and all three 49ers TDs. Brock Purdy (22-for-30, 292 yards, no INTs) did his part — including several run-for-your-life scrambles — but it wasn’t enough. Jordan Mason (19 carries, 77 yards) again fared well in place of Christian McCaffrey, but Brandon Aiyuk (five catches, 48 yards) was insignificant. Biggest gaffe: a wide-open Ronnie Bell dropping a potential game-securing deep pass at the Rams’ 25 with 1:08 to play.

Defense: C

The issue was all but officially decided when De’Vondre Campbell was called for pass interference with 37 seconds to play, a 25-yard penalty that moved the Rams to the Niners’ 25. A similar scenario aided the Rams’ second TD of the game when rookie Renardo Green was called for holding in the end zone on 3rd-and-1; L.A. scored on the next play to pull within 21-14. Statistically, the defense fared well — Rams had only 19 first downs and finished with fewer than 300 total yards — but allowing 20 second-half points to a winless team missing receivers Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp is worrisome.

Special Teams: F

A complete failure in every aspect for this unit. A fake punt the Rams turned into a first down (on a run by Freedom-Oakley alum Ronnie Rivers) — and then their first touchdown of the day. Jake Moody’s missed 55-yard field-goal attempt (his first of the year) with under 3 minutes to play would have made it a two-score game. Allowing Xavier Smith’s 38-yard return of a Mitch Wishnowsky punt with a minute to go that set up the winning field goal.

Coaching: C

The Niners had possession with a good amount of time left in the game (1:51), but instead of working the clock a little bit — and perhaps, at worst, taking the game to overtime — Kyle Shanahan went with five consecutive pass plays (three passes and two Purdy scrambles) that gave the Rams the ball back with 42 seconds to play. Jordan Mason had rushed for 47 yards on seven second-half carries to that point, but didn’t warrant another carry or two on the final possession?

Overall: D

An eminently winnable game turned into a gut-punch loss. Yes, the 49ers were missing McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel and George Kittle, but none of them plays defense or special teams. A 1-2 start is no reason to panic — they had the same record in 2022 and made it to the NFC Championship Game — but the inability to secure a game they led 14-0 in the first quarter is troubling. And a losing a game they should have won might take on greater significance in the next couple months as they play the Chiefs, Cowboys, Bucs, Packers and Bills — 2023 playoff teams all.

(SF Chronicle)

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CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW BANNING ALL PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS AT GROCERY STORES

“Paper or plastic” will no longer be a choice at grocery store checkout lines in California under a new law signed Sunday by Gov. Gavin Newsom that bans all plastic shopping bags.

California had already banned thin plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other stores, but shoppers could purchase bags made with a thicker plastic that purportedly made them reusable and recyclable.

The new measure, approved by state legislators last month, bans all plastic shopping bags starting in 2026. Consumers who don't bring their own bags will now simply be asked if they want a paper bag.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, one of the bill's supporters, said people were not reusing or recycling any plastic bags. She pointed to a state study that found that the amount of plastic shopping bags trashed per person grew from 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) per year in 2004 to 11 pounds (5 kilograms) per year in 2021.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, said the previous bag ban passed a decade ago didn't reduce the overall use of plastic.

“We are literally choking our planet with plastic waste,” she said in February.

The environmental nonprofit applauded Newsom for signing the bill and "safeguarding California’s coastline, marine life, and communities from single-use plastic grocery bags.”

Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director, said Sunday that the new ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery store checkouts “solidifies California as a leader in tackling the global plastic pollution crisis.”

Twelve states, including California, already have some type of statewide plastic bag ban in place, according to the environmental advocacy group Environment America Research & Policy Center. Hundreds of cities across 28 states also have their own plastic bag bans in place.

The California Legislature passed its statewide ban on plastic bags in 2014. The law was later affirmed by voters in a 2016 referendum.

The California Public Interest Research Group said Sunday that the new law finally meets the intent of the original bag ban.

“Plastic bags create pollution in our environment and break into microplastics that contaminate our drinking water and threaten our health,” said the group’s director Jenn Engstrom. “Californians voted to ban plastic grocery bags in our state almost a decade ago, but the law clearly needed a redo. With the Governor’s signature, California has finally banned plastic bags in grocery checkout lanes once and for all.”

As San Francisco’s mayor in 2007, Newsom signed the nation’s first plastic bag ban.

(AP)

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CA OIL REGULATORS ISSUE 34 NEW DRILLING PERMITS IN FIRST 6 MONTHS OF 2024

by Dan Bacher

California oil and gas regulators approved 35 new oil and gas well drilling permits in 2024’s second quarter, a big leap from zero new permits approved in the same quarter last year, Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker Alliance reported in August.

“About half of these new wells were potentially illegally issued within the community setback zone,” said Liza Tucker, Consumer Advocate for Consumer Watchdog, in a press statement. “The pace of plugging wells slowed by a quarter over the same period last year, though the issuance of all types of permits in total fell 41%.”

A total of 16,366 total oil and gas well drilling permits have been approved by the Gavin Newsom administration since Jan 2019.

A total of 35 new well permits were issued in the first 6 months of 2024, a +400% change from the first 6 months of 2023.

A total of 99 oil well rework permits were issued in the first 6 months of 2024, a -67% change from the first six months of 2023.

That comes to a total of 134 new or reworked permits in the first two quarters of 2024.

California is currently home to 101,000 actively producing, idle, and newly permitted wells that have not yet become operational, according to data compiled by the FracTracker Alliance. Out of that number, 26,000 are located within the 3,200-foot health protective zone where millions of people live.

Groups accuse CalGEM of undermining state laws, conflicts of interest

In a letter to the Governor, the groups accused the California oil well regulatory agency, the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) of the California Department of Conservation, for “undermining two state laws banning new oil well permits near communities and requiring adequate bonding of oil wells.”

They questioned the influence of a former top oil regulator who went to work for two oil drillers who benefited from CalGEM’s decisions and called for an independent investigation of the “revolving door” between government and corporations.

“In June, CalGEM violated SB 1137 (Gonzalez)—the public health setback law of 3,200 feet between drilling and communities—hours after the ban on community drilling took effect when the oil industry withdrew its referendum to overturn the law. CalGEM approved 17 permits within the setback zone,” the groups wrote.

“In addition, CalGEM is failing to implement state law requiring adequate bonding for oil wells under California Resource Corporation’s (CRC) recently completed acquisition of Aera Energy, making the company California’s top holder of idle wells — wells that no longer produce oil and could soon become orphan,” they continued. “The Orphan Well Prevention Act requires that drillers who acquire the ‘right to operate’ a low-producing or idle well be responsible for full bonding but CalGEM is refusing to apply the law.”

Kyle Ferrar, Western Program Director at FracTracker Alliance, pointed out, “New drilling locks California into decades of continued fossil fuel consumption and the environmental impacts that entails. The state should not be allowing operators to drill new oil and gas wells, particularly when the state is so under-bonded to deal with cleaning up existing wells.”

“Governor Newsom needs to get control of CalGEM, or its failure to regulate oil wells will stick to him like oil tar,” said Liza Tucker, energy director at Consumer Watchdog.

14 Permits Issued To Berry Petroleum

Tucker reported that 14 permits were issued to Berry Petroleum. In the revolving door between regulators and corporations that has polluted California politics for many decades, Jason Marshall, a former top Department of Conservation regulator who had served as Acting Director of CalGEM and its predecessor agency more than once over 28 years, left to become Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Berry in 2020.

“While at CalGEM, groups criticized him for allowing lax permitting and regulation, and for conflicts of interest. In May, Marshall joined California Resources Corporation (CRC) as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, helping to leverage the state’s decision not to enforce The Orphan Well Prevention Act just as CRC acquired Aera,” Tucker added.

“Will Governor Newsom allow Jason Marshall to continue to run CalGEM or will he order the agency to enforce the law?” asked Tucker. “CalGEM’s decisions to issue new permits in the setback zone and to fail to endorse orphan well laws is making a mockery of Newsom’s claim to be tough on oil drilling. Newsom needs to conduct an investigation of Jason Marshall’s role in CalGEM’s decision making and reverse its course.”

Consumer Watchdog and FracTracker said they called on Newsom to fire Marshall and other top deputies in July 2019 after they learned about financial conflicts of interests with supervisors at the regulatory agency owning stock in oil companies they regulated. Marshall resigned as the Department of Conservation’s Chief Deputy in February 2020.

The groups noted that Conservation Director David Shabazian praised Marshall after his resignation for his “many years of dedicated service” and his “wisdom and counsel on important issues.” They said Shabazian made the decision recently not to enforce The Orphan Well Act on CRC after Marshall joined the company.

“Governor Newsom shook up CalGEM in response to disclosures about conflicts of interest under Marshall’s watch, but now it appears Marshall’s influence over decision making is alive and well,” said Tucker. “Newsom needs an external investigation into Marshall’s influence over Shabazian and CalGEM.”

Department of Conservation Director David Shabazian retires*

The groups’ letter and the political pressure upon Governor Gavin Newsom apparently worked. Just a week after the groups sent the letter to Newsom regarding the conflicts of interest, Department of Conservation Director David Shabazian, who was hired in 2019, sent a letter to employees saying he would retire effective Sept. 1. His Chief Deputy Director Gabe Tiffany will serve as director on an interim basis.

A department spokesperson told eenews.net that “after 30+ years of public service he decided this was the right time.” Shabazian did not explain the reason for his departure from the agency.

The groups looked at Shabazian’s retirement as a “hopeful sign.”

"Shabazian's sudden departure is a hopeful sign that the Newsom Administration will not tolerate conflicts in decision making about oil drilling and will revisit Shabazian's decision not to require the $2.4 billion worth of bonding for the CRC Aera merger, which leaves the public on the hook for paying for the plugging and cleanup cost of wells," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "The Governor needs to reverse the DOC decision and require adequate bonding of CRC."

California oil drilling has decreased in recent years, due to political pressure on regulators by environmental organizations, consumer groups and climate justice advocates and the fact that oil supplies are dwindlling after over 100 years of oil drilling. When I first started writing about this issue, California was the third largest oil producing state in the nation. Now the state is the nation’s seventh largest oil producer.

California oil regulators have dramatically cut their approval of new oil drilling permits since 2019 when Newsom took office as Governor. CalGEM issued 2,366 new permits in 2019, 2,002 in 2020, 553 in 2021, 551 in 2022, 25 in 2023 and 35 in 2024. That comes to a total of 5,532 new permits since 2019.

Chevron and Western States Petroleum Association top 2023 California lobbying with $18.1 million.

Why has Big Oil been able to get away with what it does in California for decades? It’s because of the inordinate influence of Big Oil on California politicians and regulators.

Big Oil spent more money on lobbying in California in 2023 than any other year on record besides 2017. Big Oil spent $25,445,606 on lobbying in California in 2023 and $25,445,606 in 2017, according to the research team at Sunstone Strategies in their “Crude Truth” newsletter.

The group analyzed the California lobbying filings of every registered oil company in California, inputting 2023 trends into the context of industry lobbying for the past 20 years dating back to 2004. While in an earlier report on oil spending I used the raw data on fossil fuel spending from the filings on the California Secretary of State’s website, the newsletter used a slightly different methodology.

“Topping the lobbying spending charts in 2023 was Chevron, the second biggest oil producer in the state and the leading crude oil refiner. Trailing at number two: its trade association, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA),” wrote Sunstone Strategies.

“The two combined spent $18.1 million in 2023 — more than 71% of the industry’s total $25.4 in expenditures for 2023. Aera Energy, California’s top oil producer and a former joint venture of Exxon Mobil and Shell, placed in a distant third for 2023 lobbying spending,” they said.

However, in the fourth quarter, “WSPA and Chevron exchanged the number one and number two spots as the top lobbying spenders. Their expenditures totaled $2.8 million, accounting for over 60% of Big Oil’s quarterly spending total. Trailing in third was ExxonMobil, spending over $243,000 in lobbying for the quarter.”

The report also revealed that the state’s five major refiners, including Valero, PBF Energy, Marathon Petroleum, and Phillips 66, spent over $2.5 million on 2023 lobbying and influence activities.

More recently, the Last Chance Alliance reported in June that the oil industry withdrew their deceptive referendum to overturn health and safety protections around oil and gas wells after spending nearly $61 million on their effort.

Since 2009 I have documented how WSPA and the oil companies wield their power in 8 major ways: through (1) lobbying; (2) campaign spending; (3) serving on and putting shills on regulatory panels; (4) creating Astroturf groups; (5) working in collaboration with media; (6) sponsoring awards ceremonies and dinners, including those for legislators and journalists; (7) contributing to non profit organizations; and (8) creating alliances with labor unions, mainly construction trades.

For more permitting information, see: NewsomWellWatch.com which is run by the groups and maps all California oil wells.

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

Israel Urges Civilians in Lebanon to Evacuate Ahead of Strikes on Hezbollah

Trump Shows Signs of Strength in Sun Belt Battlegrounds, Polls Find

Top Aides Resign From Embattled North Carolina Candidate’s Campaign

Congress Unveils Short-Term Spending Deal

On Chicago’s South Side, White Sox Fans Know Misery. But Not Like This

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Explain how it is that the “credible new sources” all said that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “Russian disinformation.” Explain how it was literally censored out of the news and social media. Explain how 50 something government security experts all signed a letter saying it was Russian disinformation. We now know that the FBI knew it was Hunters all along, and that it had nothing to do with Russians. And there were alternative news sources reporting the facts that were branded “fake news.” Explain that.

Explain how Hillary could hire a British spy to collude with Russians to put together a fake dossier on Trump, and that the government would use that to literally spy on the Trump campaign and then administration. Again, we now know that the FBI NSA etc all knew it was fake at the time, but they did it anyway. Explain why the “credible news sources” all breathlessly reported it as fact and every day were saying, “We got him now! It’s just a matter of time!” while at the same time anyone even questioning the propaganda was censored and ridiculed. Again there were alternative news sources reporting the facts that were branded “fake news.” Explain that.

These are the biggest political scandals in the History of American politics, and the “credible news sources” have consistently been on the wrong side, working in lockstep with/for the government propagandists. And these aren’t the only times, look at COVID for example. Censorship on a massive scale, much of which has since proven to be totally unjustified.

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WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG FOR THE PUBLIC TO LEARN OF BIDEN’S DECLINE? BLAME THE MEDIA.

by Edward Wasserman

The energy and momentum of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign have diverted attention from the crippling handicap it was born with, for which we can thank a stupendous press failure that has yet to be acknowledged, let alone explained.

Despite the enthusiasm around Harris’ candidacy, let’s be clear: Launching a national campaign from a standing start 15 weeks before the vote — and she was a low-profile No. 2 in an unpopular administration, as standing a start as a presidential hopeful gets — is a longshot. It’s something nobody else ever tried, so history is no guide to how futile it will be. Forcing Joe Biden out, no matter how admiringly it is being portrayed, was a feat of 11th-hour improvisation, a makeshift response to a historic political calamity that now seems to have been inevitable, but which somehow, inexplicably, had gone largely unreported.

If Harris loses, explanations will be abundant. But one reason of incalculable importance will undoubtedly be the haste with which her candidacy was spackled together after Biden stepped aside July 21. The shortened runway denied her the months of nonstop exposure any largely unknown candidate needs to woo the following that victory demands.

So what took Biden so long? And to the point: How could the decline in capacity and fitness that nobody bothers to deny anymore remain invisible to the public until his faltering and at times unintelligible performance during the June 27 debate with the former president, Donald Trump?

For that, we have the cream of the nation’s news media to thank. Indeed, if the media’s reticence about Biden’s fitness only delayed the inevitable, leaving his successor with an impossible task and clearing the path for Trump’s return to the Oval Office, it would be the most serious press failure in a generation. Not since 2003, when the country’s top media bought the Bush administration’s fiction that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and enabled a catastrophic war, would journalists have failed in their principal duty to the public with such consequence.

To be sure, Biden’s candidacy had been understood as problematic for months. As early as April 2023 some 70% of voters — including half of Democrats polled — didn’t want him to run again. But his unpopularity was blamed on a widespread but vaporous impression among people who saw him as too old.

Was he? True, Biden looked bad; always slender, he increasingly seemed frail. But his public appearances seemed reasonable, sometimes stellar, his administration was going great guns, and the impression that he was aging poorly might have just been a perception.

Besides, if there was more to the impressions, wouldn’t the media be telling us? Wouldn’t the press be reporting solid evidence of slipping cognitive capacities, of flagging job performance, sharing accounts from people emerging from meetings slowly shaking their heads about some embarrassing and consequential lapse, running credible reports of fumbles, miscues, mistakes of substance?

Understandably, the story of a president in decline isn’t an easy one to get. Those in the best position to know are the least inclined to say. Reporters are ever mindful that the people who would be most furious to read about it control access to matters of greatest significance to their jobs.

But, wait, the media weren’t deterred under Biden’s predecessor. The spate of harsh and critical coverage of the Trump White House suggested a press corps eager and fully able to report with rich detail about a chief executive who was unfit for office. When Trump was president, readers feasted on tough, book-length accounts — Bob Woodward, the dean of U.S. investigative reporters, wrote two himself — portraying a president who was crude, ignorant of policy, out of touch with his government, consumed with his own personal standing, even dangerous.

So such reporting is possible. And even if the suspicions of Biden’s decrepitude were vague and even if they were stoked by his adversaries, wasn’t it the job of the White House reporters to get the facts — either to confirm the fears or put them to rest?

Instead, there was silence, broken only by the Wall Street Journal, which ran a story on June 4, “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.” Unfortunately, the story was thinly sourced, based largely on the word of leading Republicans on Capitol Hill and those they confided in, the kind of political hit a reader would expect from the crown jewel of the Rupert Murdoch media empire.

Only after Biden stepped aside did the Journal follow up on July 21 with the story we should have seen months earlier, an amply detailed portrait of a “faltering president” whose unflagging support by Democratic leadership was “an epic miscalculation.” And the Journal has yet to be joined by comparable coverage from other elite news organizations.

The reasons Biden’s fitness went unreported until 51 million viewers saw it for themselves on June 27 will surface in the fullness of time. The difficulty of nailing down the story, since evidence of cognitive slippage is rarely definitive, is one factor. So was the perception that the administration was successful and well-run. Beyond that, despite his incumbency, Biden was the underdog, and weakening his prospects would not appeal to a press corps that, like most of the media people I know, views a Trump restoration with dread.

But the media didn’t do its job, and the result of shielding an incumbent from the scrutiny any president deserves was to prolong a doomed candidacy. Whether the country will suffer the consequences remains to be seen.

(Edward Wasserman is a media ethicist and professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he is a former dean.)

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Mark Scaramella comments: What a dumb months-too-late “shoot-the-wounded” column. Surely, as a “professor at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism,” Mr. Wasserman knows that most of the media leans toward Biden-style pseudo-liberalism to begin with and is a de facto wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party, Inc. Then add the mutual hatred between Trump and “the media,” and the media’s main propaganda job of making the Presidency seem legit in the eyes of each other and the world, and you have an easy answer to the Professor’s question. The anti-Trump books that Professor Wasserman seems enamored of were “feasted on” only by a few anti-Trump insiders in the Democrat Party, not the electorate in general who didn’t need a book to know what Trump was like, love him or hate him. The media did a similar thing during the final years of the Reagan presidency when, a bad President to begin with like Biden, Reagan was clearly as out of it as Biden, as became obvious soon after Reagan left office. But Reagan wasn’t running for a third term. The real question is how the inexperienced and relative unknown Harris got picked as the Biden designee/nominatee without any kind of party, much less voter, participation. It’s much like the local Democratic Party machine. The machine picks the candidate behind closed doors and foists them off on the reliably sheepish northcoast Democrats who robotically elect them for no other reason than that the Democrats put them on the ballot after which they obediently toe the party line without deviation, whether it’s the horrific destruction of Gaza or the refusal to consider single-payer health care.

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