Mendocino County Today: Thursday 10/10/2024

7 Mile | Mainly Sunny | Roadside Trash | Tribe Unrest | Playground Help | Safer Cleanup | Vervain | Football Rankings | Alumni Games | McIlvain Guilty | Sharkey Show | Rail Trails | Harbor Plans | Green Hills | Shay 5 | Yesterday's Catch | Possum | California Happiness | Going Home | Positive Masculinity | Most Coney | Kamala Interview | Lightning Strike | After Dobbs | Mekong Delta | Talbot Documentaries | Politic Talk | Red Flag | Lead Stories | Solar Flare | Picasso Bulls | Art Endures

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MAINLY SUNNY SKIES with some night and morning coastal stratus is expected to continue today. Increasing clouds and a chance for rain is expected Friday afternoon through Saturday. Dry weather is expected to return Sunday and Monday, although more rain is possible around mid next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Some high clouds & 47F this Thursday morning on the coast. Mostly clear today, fog returns tomorrow, then rain Friday night into Saturday morning. More rain next week?

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GARY LEVENSON-PALMER:

Philo-Greenwood Rd. The appliance and tires near Hendy Woods. The trash at about mile market 13 / west of Signal Ridge. I took as much of the trash that would fit in my car. Hopefully someone will pick up the rest of the pile of trash. The County will probably have to deal with the two truck tires and the dumped appliance. Let's keep our county roads clean!

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LEW CHICHESTER:

“Formerly Known As Camp” leaves out a lot of information known to the locals in Round Valley. Grows on “tribal” properties didn’t get raided, even though the environmental degradation, pesticides, etc. is similar to the grows which were busted. The tribal government has a “cease and desist” order with the sheriff, exempting the tribal properties from state enforcement. That allows all kinds of narco state development on the reservation with extensive grow operations leased out and managed by Spanish individuals from out of the area. A few tribal members are financially benefitting from this arrangement but it has led to a level of corruption and crime which in incompatible with the so-called “compassionate use” fictional element of this particular tribal sovereignty issue.

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SHERIFF KENDALL replies:

Good point, Lew. If tribal leadership wants to continue with this direction, I hope it is one where they are representing their constituents. Honestly I find it doubtful based on the calls I get from Round Valley. I see and hear the winds of change blowing as many good people in the tribe are fed up with the practice of leasing lands to non tribal growers.

I’ve been clear, I will assist the tribe, however I won’t direct them. And their assertion of sovereignty over marijuana cultivation combined with threats of litigation I am currently working through.

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GOT A BUCKET?

Calling all AV Families! Whether you have a bucket, a wheelbarrow, or a tractor, WE NEED YOUR HELP spreading our NEW wood chips into our playground areas and under our NEW play equipment before the rain comes.

Please, JOIN ME this Saturday, October 12, between 10am-2pm to get started.

If you can make it, please comment below or message me and let me know what tools (shovels, rakes, buckets, barrels, etc.) you might be able to bring to help get the job done! All ages welcome, of course. Many hands make light work.

Thank you in advance. It Takes A Valley!

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ADAM GASKA (Redwood Valley):

Re Brett Adame, arrested for recklessly causing a fire near Ackerman Creek north of Ukiah.

I am glad he was in custody. We continued the clean up of Ackerman creek Monday. Looking into Adame’s past arrests, he seems to have a thing for guns and knives. Most people prefer not getting stabbed or shot cleaning up encampments. In the three rounds of clean up, we have removed 80 yards of garbage and there is maybe 10 more to go. Hats off to Pinoleville Pomo Nation for doing much of the heavy lifting. Thanks to MCSO, Social Services, and MCAHVN as well for all they contributed to making the clean up effort successful.

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NORTHCOAST HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RANKINGS:

1. Cardinal Newman (5-0)
2. Windsor (5-0)
3. Casa Grande (4-2)
4. American Canyon (5-0)
5. Rancho Cotate (4-1)
6. St. Vincent (4-1)
7. Ukiah (3-2)

Note: No. 7 Ukiah and No. 6 St. Vincent both picked up quality wins last week that raised their stock. The Crushers would easily get back into the top seven and possibly rise a few spots above the Mustangs and Wildcats if they beat Rancho Cotate this week. Ukiah has been steadily on the rise the last few weeks. Its narrow loss to San Marin proved Ukiah can hang with the best of the region, and its 52-34 come-from-behind win over Carlmont showed it can’t be counted out even when facing a large deficit. The Wildcats played one of the tougher non-league schedules in the area and to come out at 3-2 is quite impressive.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

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BIG BOX STORE SEX OFFENDER CONVICTED

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations just before the close of business Tuesday afternoon to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty as charged.

Defendant Timothy Scott McIlvain, age 55, generally of Hopland, was convicted by jury verdict of misdemeanor sexual battery, misdemeanor attempted indecent exposure, and misdemeanor delaying or obstructing a peace officer.

In late May of this year the defendant groped an intimate part of a female food/drink sales demonstrator working at the Costco store in Ukiah. He then moved on to a different food/drink sales demonstrator and attempted to expose his penis to that woman.

After Costco management called for police assistance, the defendant delayed and obstructed the two Ukiah police officers who responded to the store to investigate.

While it was not brought to the attention of the jury, the defendant committed the above crimes while on court probation for a misdemeanor vandalism conviction he suffered here in Mendocino County in 2023. After the jury was excused, the Court found true the District Attorney’s allegations that the defendant had violated the terms of his probation on May 30th.

On motion of the DA, the defendant was remanded into the custody of the Sheriff pending sentencing or, alternatively, unless and until he posts a $30,000 bail bond.

The sentencing hearing now stands calendared for Thursday, October 10th at 10:30 o’clock in the morning in Department H of Ukiah’s downtown courthouse.

The law enforcement agency that investigated the May crimes was the Ukiah Police Department.

The DA’s Bureau of Investigation provided witness and courtroom support that allowed the People’s case to be presented to the jury in an efficient manner.

District Attorney David Eyster presented the People’s evidence to the jury and will also handle the sentencing hearing on Thursday.

The DA extends a special note of appreciation to the two women who showed courage by coming to court, confronting the defendant in the courtroom, and testifying before the jury about how defendant McIlvain had separately victimized each of them.

Retired Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Richard J. Henderson, sitting on temporary assignment, presided over the two-day trial. Judge Henderson will also preside over the sentencing hearing this coming Thursday morning.

(DA Presser)

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PARTNERS GALLERY: THE MIDNIGHT PAINTINGS

by Virginia Sharkey

At Partners Gallery in October Virginia Sharkey is showing a series of large acrylic works.

It was in a dark temporary studio that Sharkey was inspired to make these paintings, with their echo of a midnight sky and the vastness of outer space. Forms coalesce and evolve; lines serve as vectors carrying an energy unfolding and disappearing in a quest towards Eros, mystery, and the challenge of conveying the intimate and infinite; the quest toward the jewel hidden within life itself. The exhibit is on view from October 10 to November 4. Second Saturday Meet the Artist, October 12, 5-7pm. Gallery hours are Thursday through Monday, 11-5pm. The gallery is located at 45062 Ukiah St in Mendocino. www.partnersgallery.com

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LEW CHICHESTER re: Tommy Wayne Kramer’s (Tom Hine’s recent column about the Great Redwood Trail boondoggle:

I certainly have enjoyed your writings, cranky with tongue in cheek, but there are “rail to trails” in other parts of the country which seem to have validity. The places where railroads were developed all over the place, long before cars, trucks or paved highways, have occasionally taken the abandoned rails and made them into pedestrian and bicyclist possibilities to actually get from town to town without getting on the highway. In both Georgia and New York there are bike trails I know about which not only provide a place to walk or ride a bike, they can actually be used to tour the countryside, town to town, and are popular destinations for people who like to do this sort of thing. Maybe not you, or me anymore, but years ago I found bicycling across parts of California, and then across Canada, to be one of the more rewarding and memorable youthful experiences. It would have been a lot better if I wasn’t on the highway. But yes, I tend to agree, the one around here seems to be essentially a scam with all the usual California complications.

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Tom Hine Replies:

Thanks for the response and the insights. I doubt nothing you write, and think an entertaining column could come out of your hiking / biking experiences too. I write with a broad brush, without much nuance or opposing viewpoints mixed in. The column is too short. My aim is to (a) entertain the reader(s) and (b) maybe get them thinking my way. Thanks again, Lew!

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THE GREEN, GREEN HILLS OF ANDERSON VALLEY — MARIJUANA BEFORE IT WAS ALL-THE-WAY LEGAL

by Bruce Anderson

It’s been 50 years since Mendocino County fired Ted Erickson for saying that marijuana was Mendocino County’s number one export crop. Not only saying it, but writing it in his annual crop report. Erickson was the county’s Commissioner of Agriculture. His statement of the obvious was boldly included in his annual report on rural Mendocino County’s cultivated bounty, including its timber, cattle, sheep, pears, apples, grapes and fish. Everyone knew by then that dope farming offered the biggest cash return for effort expended than any other garden produce.

Erickson was Mendocino County’s first pot martyr. He had to go because he said out loud what everyone already knew but didn’t want to admit — marijuana was paying the bills for thousands of county residents. Marijuana is a weed, after all, and how hard is it to grow weeds? Weed as agriculture?

Decades later, pot’s economic primacy was subsequently included in the annual ag report insofar as it could be estimated because it was so prevalent even the supervisors couldn't pretend it wasn't, even the two supervisors who leased their back forty to growers. Erickson’s candor got him the sack, but marijuana was grown on such a large scale everywhere in Mendocino County that the Sheriff himself said without hesitation, “It’s everywhere. And there’s more out there this year than any of us have ever seen. Anybody who flies over the Anderson Valley or any other area of the county will see marijuana gardens.”

More gardens than ever and, the police and consumers alike agreed, stronger dope than ever with new pygmy plants being perfected which were said to produce as much as three pounds of high THC content dope per plant. THC is the chemical agent that gets the smoker high, puts the wowee in Mendo Mellow, which made retail demand for Mendocino marijuana grow faster every year, faster than supply. The new pygmy plants also emitted an odor that law enforcement said was “about ten times smellier than regular dope.” Mostly, though, stoner-approved high-content pot was being raised in the hills and backyards of the Anderson Valley and throughout Mendocino County on the traditional corn stalk-tall plant. It’s the plant one can’t help but see from an aerial vantage point, in some areas like the Rancheria watershed west of Boonville, the grows were so numerous the river’s hillsides look like vertical corn fields.

Twenty-five plants plus two pounds of processed bud was soon legal to possess in Mendocino County. You could say it was your medicine and even get yourself an official ID card saying it’s your meds and “I need my meds, officer. Here’s my card.”

An efficient, experienced pot gardener, assuming he didn't smoke up too much of his product, could easily pull off a cool, tax-free $50,000 a year from his patch off his back porch.

Was it surprising, then, that very tough immigrant hombres, and some very cagey locals, were growing huge amounts of dope in Mendocino County? And growing more of it than any year prior? Is it surprising that they carried guns and helped themselves to other people’s land and water? Is it surprising that they left rat poison and gro bags and plastic pipe and plastic greenhouses and garbage at their grow sites? That they shot wildlife and took water out of imperiled upstream fisheries? That every season several someones were murdered buying, selling or growing marijuana?

Police confiscations of marijuana from the huge gardens had been large every season for years. The annual Campaign Against Marijuana Production, aka the Marijuana Price Support Unit, took off enough dope to keep prices artificially high. There were annual helicopter raids the first week of September, with some airborne fantasists even rappelling down out of the sky into the more remote gardens of Anderson Valley.

Political opinion, it went without saying, remained divided, with pot propagandists and bogus medical pot sales people showing up in force at public meetings to advance pro-pot positions than the “straight” segments of local communities were in showing up to oppose them.

There’s always been a huge downside to the legalization of the drug in the county, not the least of which is convincing young people that marijuana, especially the new, high potency varieties, is a habit-forming energy drain as numbingly handicapping in its way as alcohol and its tendency to induce dangerous schizophrenia in young stoners. The drug’s negatives are numerous.

Early one summer, with cannabis everywhere, a fish biologist began work on Indian Creek, as pristine a stream as there is in the Anderson Valley and, not that many years ago, a significant spawning ground for Coho salmon. The biologist’s work required permissions from landowners whose properties abutted Indian Creek which, without a single demur, was granted. Also abutting the stream, especially where it meanders through boulders so huge and is so strewn with years of winter’s downed trees one wonders how fish could possibly get upstream, marijuana planters had set up shop. The intrepid scientist, like so many people frightened by the pot outlaws, refused to speak for attribution, fear being another negative consequence of Mendocino County’s unchecked marijuana industry.

He summed up his experience with audible disgust, “We had to stop our survey this year because a landowner had found pot gardens on his property. He was worried that we might get hurt. My work takes me everywhere in the county, its most remote areas, and I can tell you that there’s an incredible increase in marijuana growing this year. The increase is enormous. We’re seeing it everywhere. The worst thing about it is that a lot of growers are taking water from the creeks in a very dry year. There isn’t enough water for salmon anyway, and here come people taking the water that’s left this late in the summer.

“We all know the county runs on marijuana, but I don’t think people have any idea of how out-of-control the marijuana scene is this year. I thought we legalized it in Prop 215 to stop this. I know Philo like the back of my hand, and I’ve never had any trouble here, but I got spooked this year by some of the characters I was running into out in the woods, and I’ve worked Usal, Legget, Outlet Creek, the Middle Fork of the Eel, all the hot marijuana spots, but to be spooked in Anderson Valley? What we have is renegade growers trespassing, sucking the creeks dry for their own economic benefit. On top of every other bad thing they’re doing, they’re screwing the landowners who can’t get restoration funding unless they have fish data.

“Indian Creek has never been habitat-typed. I worked real hard to get access, and now I can’t complete the project. There’s one spot where we had to walk in waders through human feces because pot growers were using the spot as a bathroom, and that’s a spot where it took us three hours to hike in to. I don’t think it’s fair that the salmon are being imperiled because of pot planters. I pay taxes, and a portion of my taxes goes for stream rehab for juvenile salmon so we can have commercial and recreational fishing for Mendocino County and the rest of Northern California. Some people say, ‘Oh, it’s a hippie thing.’ Not anymore. It’s organized crime. These are people Mexico would like not to have in Mexico.”

There were reports of growers on upper Indian Creek using generators to pump water out of the stream and up into the hills to their gardens. Generators. Generators with fire-size hoses stuck in the stream’s late summer pools.

The fish biologist said upper Indian Creek had pools containing large steelhead, which meant that Indian Creek, despite the crimes of nature being committed against it by marijuana trespassers, lives on. “It’s in surprisingly good shape,” the biologist concluded, “but it won’t stay that way unless these people are kept out of there.”

Then, one 100-degree Thursday, COMMET, County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team, drove deep into the east hills of Anderson Valley, ignoring as they went, Philo’s perennial pot bustee, the late Jim Dunne’s place. Boonville’s resident deputy, Keith Squires, accompanied the raid team as they drove deeper into the hills, providing running commentary on the personalities of some of the residents of upper Indian Creek. “Big old ugly cranker from Lake County is up in here lately,” and “there’s a whole bunch of derelicts out at Dunne’s, but we went way past them another 45 minutes out to a Mexican grow. They’ve been out there for years now. They dig deep holes for plastic liners then they drive the water in on their pick-ups to fill the holes with water for the summer grows. They do a lot of this kind of digging work during the winter so it’s all set up for planting in the dry months. A lot of people think the growers walk in but they usually have motorcycles hidden around. They’ll walk to the first gate then motorcycle their supplies in from there.

“What happened up there was a caretaker noticed that the growers had tapped into a pond Albert Elmer built way back when he owned the land. Suddenly the water level in the pond went way down and pretty soon they found the garden. We took 463 marijuana plants and five cucumbers and three sleeping bags out of there the other day, but it took us most of the day to do it. We need the helicopters. They can hit a bunch of gardens in a day with a helicopter, but if you have to drive in, well, we used up one whole day to get 463 plants when there’s probably 463,000 plants out there spread all over the place.

“I’ve noticed last couple of years that more and more growers, most of the season, commute to their gardens. They used to live in the gardens, but now they’ll sleep out there for a few nights then come back into town for a few nights. But this time of year they’re pretty much out in the gardens all the time to protect them from thieves. There is a lot more pot out there this year. No doubt about it, and here we are back to doing it by hand one garden at a time like we did 25 years ago because there’s no helicopter. We used to have a helicopter year-round. We got to a lot more gardens when we had it.”

The deputy said that crank labs were a thing of the past in the valley because ready made methamphetamine was now being brought in from outside. “But lots of local kids are smoking dope, and a lot of young girls think meth is a good way to lose weight. They think they can do it without losing their teeth or going nuts, but I tell them it’s like playing Russian Roulette with bullets in all the chambers. There are kids in the sixth grade who smoke pot because they’re growing up around it. I drive around the valley and I see fences with the medical pot cards nailed on them, and big gardens right behind the fence. It’s a joke. And people wonder why kids get into it?”

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RON PARKER:

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, October 9, 2024

JOY BUZZARD, 56, Redwood Valley. Elder/dependent abuse, domestic violence court order violation.

ANDHRA FIMBRES, 41, Ukiah. Under influence.

JUSTIN GARNER, 34, Ukiah. Toluene, disruption of school, paraphernalia, failure to obey lawful peace officer order, resisting.

ALEJANDRO JOVEN-RAMOS, 49, Eureka/Ukiah. Stolen vehicle, paraphernalia.

TIMOTHY MCILAVIN, 55, Hopland. Intimate touching against the will of victim, indecent exposure, resisting, probation revocation.

EMIL REDZIC, 29, Ukiah. County parole violation, resisting.

ROLANDO RUIZ, 36, Ukiah. Controlled substance, failure to appear, probation revocation.

RONALD SEVY, 56, Fort Bragg. DUI, suspended license for DUI, no license, probation revocation.

MICHAEL SMITH, 54, Lakeport. Assault with deadly weapon with great bodily harm, criminal threats, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

DANIEL WEIPPERT, 67, Anderson/Fort Bragg. Failure to register.

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CALIFORNIA RELEASED A ‘HAPPINESS’ REPORT. HERE’S WHERE NORTH BAY COUNTIES RANKED

Are you happy? That depends on where you live in the Golden State, at least according to a first-of-its kind survey released last month by state lawmakers

by Charles Swanson

Are you happy? That depends on where you live in the Golden State, at least according to a first-of-its kind survey released last month by state lawmakers.

Of the state’s 58 counties, the Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes found that Sonoma County residents were the 18th happiest in the state.

Napa County residents were the 25th happiest, while Mendocino County residents ranked 33rd happiest out of 58 counties.

On opposite ends of the spectrum, Marin County ranked second in happiness, while Lake County residents reported being the least happy in California, coming in dead last at 58.

Alpine County, located south of Lake Tahoe, was ranked the happiest county in the state.

The report is meant to guide legislators in crafting future laws.

“California has passed countless laws to support the lives and liberties of its people in an enormous variety of ways. But in our 175-year history as a state, the California State Assembly has not considered how California can improve the happiness of its people,“ wrote committee chair and Speaker Emeritus Anthony Rendon in the report.

“Legislators tend to assume that safe housing, higher incomes, and improved educational opportunities will inevitably lead to happiness,” wrote Rendon. “But is that all that leads to happiness? Or do we have a responsibility to do more, to examine happiness more closely as an outright goal?”

To conduct the survey, the committee tapped the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford to map 215,801 Gallup poll responses from Californians by county.

The committee also held three hearings this year with panelists ranging from filmmakers and university professors to legislators who spoke on the personal and civic benefits of happiness “which make greater happiness levels worth pursuing through public policy,” the report stated.

Of the top 10 happiest counties in California, the report found that seven are situated along the coast and have higher-than-average median income levels.

Conversely, the report found that of the 10 least-happy counties in California, nine are inland and tend to have lower-than-average median income levels.

In addition to higher incomes, the report found that youth and social connections were key to happiness in Californians.

The report also cited surveys by The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that found that while the majority of Californians said they were at least “pretty happy,” the percentage of unhappy residents between May 1998 and September 2023.

In its recommendations, the report urges lawmakers to continue the conversation around happiness. It also suggests lawmakers keep happiness in mind when crafting policies.

The report also recommends that legislators “prioritize and consider ways to foster greater trust among Californians, and between Californians and the state government.”

“Research indicates public trust in government institutions in the United States remains near a historic low. … Data also indicates Americans believe social trust has fallen over the past decades,” the report stated. “This state of collapse in both personal and institutional trust is deeply concerning, and should be a top priority to the State of California’s Legislature and institutions.”

Read the full report at pdne.ws/3zTB5sV.

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)

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“The bus roared on. I was going home in October. Everybody goes home in October.”

– Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)

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THE ROBIN DIANGELO OF GENDER

by Matt Taibbi

“We Can Do Better Than ‘Positive Masculinity’,” wrote Ruth Whippman in the New York Times yesterday:

Perhaps it’s a predictable irony that in an election cycle that could realistically deliver the first female president, so much of the commentary has been about men. Or rather, not about men exactly, but about “masculinity.” Because somehow, in 2024, we still find ourselves unable to talk about men and boys without using masculinity as the basic frame of reference.

The bottom of the page read: “Ruth Whippman is the author of ‘BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity’.” The release date is June 4, 2024. A person who just published a book with “masculinity” in the title was groaning at the “predictable irony” of discussing the term so near to a possible Kamala Harris win. “I am angry to be experiencing the exact situation I asked for” could have been the lede, but this is a column about male stereotypes, so elsewhere it went. But where?

It’s not clear at first. “Masculinity has had an unfairly bad rap, its proponents argue, becoming permanently shackled to the word ‘toxic’,” Whippman writes. “Positive masculinity is an attempt to rebrand and reinstate it for the next generation.” The next passages express obligatory revulsion toward the horror-dude Trump/Vance duo, and though try-hard Tim Walz gets better grades, he still annoys because only by loading speech with “sports metaphors and gun references” does Walz earn “the social leeway for his more feminist sensibilities.” If these are the available archetypes for the next generation of boys, Whippman considers, “we might do better to ditch the masculinity rhetoric altogether.”

Interesting! And replace it with what? The Times piece word-saladed to a close without really saying. Maybe the answer was in BoyMom?

I bought the book. Wow. The opening paragraph.…

https://www.racket.news/p/the-robin-diangelo-of-gender

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THE MOST Coney Island Picture Of All Time

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I WATCHED FEAR CREEP ACROSS KAMALA'S FACE DURING HER TRAINWRECK ‘60 MINUTES’ INTERVIEW - BUT IT WAS ONE HORRIFIC MISTAKE THAT TRULY COST HER EVERYTHING

by Kennedy

Watch closely. You'll see the creeping panic behind Kamala's eyes in her '60 Minutes' interview.

With just four weeks until the election, our wannabe commandala-in-chief finally sat for a big-girl interview on Monday night after dodging any real scrutiny for months.

It didn't take long for her to realize that 'vibes' alone couldn't carry her through this one.

To date, our Madame VP has been treated to the journalistic equivalent of a spa day.

In August, CNN's Dana Bash applied a lovely mud mask to all of Harris and emotional support dog Tim Walz's flaws. ABC News's debate moderators, last month, helped pluck the ugly stray hairs. And weeks later, MSNBC's Stephanie Drool cleaned Kamala up with a slobbering tongue bath.

But, apparently, ‘60 Minutes’ veteran Bill Whitaker doesn't do back rubs.

Off the bat, he took a swing at Kamala's progressive underbelly.

“[America supplies] Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet [Israeli] Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course… Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?” Whitaker asked.

It was on: Kamala Versus a Real Question.

“The work we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,” she responded.

Huh? This was one of her more cogent responses.

Whitaker pressed her on calling Trump “racist,” even while the former president has the unwavering – sometimes fanatical – support of millions of Americans.

How could that be?, Whitaker asked. Does Harris believe that Trump voters are racists, too?

Kamala – who once also smeared Joe Biden for backing discriminatory “busing” policies as a senator in the 70s – fumbled for an answer.

“I believe the American people recognize that the true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it's based on who you lift up.”

Like how Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff allegedly beat down a woman in public and admittedly lifted the dress of the family nanny before reportedly impregnating her?

Got it.

On the economy, Whitaker challenged the Veep to explain how she'd pay for her proposals to boost the child tax credit, giveaways for first-time home buyers and big handouts to small business owners.

“When you invest in small businesses, you invest in the middle class, and you strengthen America's economy. Small businesses are the backbone of America's economy,” she blathered.

Backbones. Right. We've only heard that one 748,000 times.

How are you going to pay for it?

Bill, bless his heart, persisted: “How are you going to get this through Congress?”

Her secret to her success is, evidently, whisper legislating.

“When you talk quietly with a lot of folks in Congress, they know exactly what I'm talking about,” Harris said. “Cuz their constituents know exactly what I'm talking about.”

I'm a constituent, and I don't know what the HECK she is talking about.

At this point, Kamala was looking punch-drunk – but her interlocutor was only just getting warmed up.

Whitaker: Your critics and the columnists say… the reason so many voters don't know you is that you have changed your positions… You supported looser immigration policies, now you're tightening them up. You were for Medicare for all, now you're not.

The Fear flickered across Kamala's face. And when she starts treading in deep yogurt, the truly incomprehensible claptrap begins to flow.

Harris: We are a diverse people. Geographically, regionally, in terms of where we are in our backgrounds. What the American people do want is that we have leaders who can build consensus… that has been my approach.

Is that what the “American people” want? Spineless, rudderless politicians who hold no core beliefs?

The wheels were falling off the Vibes Bus but Harris kept on stumbling. Indeed, a potentially candidacy-crippling moment came when she was challenged on why she and President Jell-O Mold had stood by as a border crisis exploded.

Whitaker: There was an historic flood of undocumented immigrants coming across the border the first three years of your administration… Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?

Kamala zigged. Bill asked again.

Whitaker: What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?

Kamala zagged.

Whitaker: The [illegal immigration] numbers did quadruple under your watch. Should you have done that?

Harris: We need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem.

Ding, ding, ding. Throw in the towel. Technical Knockout.

Fewer than 28 days to the 2024 vote, Kamala Harris cannot string together a coherent answer on one of the most critical issues in the election.

Though, in her defense, at least she showed up. President Trump dared to return to the scene of his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania last weekend, but he reportedly pulled out of a sitdown with ‘60 Minutes.’

This may have been the last opportunity for the candidates to reach a national audience before voters pull the levers in November.

Trump was a no-shower. And Harris was a no-brainer.

Good luck, America.

(DailyMail.uk)

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THE SOUTH AFTER DOBBS

by Edna Bonhomme

In July 2022, a month after the Supreme Court decision in ‘Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization removed the US constitutional right to an abortion, Georgia imposed a ban on terminations after six weeks. In August 2022, as ProPublica reported recently, Amber Nicole Thurman, a resident of Georgia in the ninth week of an unwanted pregnancy, travelled to North Carolina to get an abortion. She was given mifepristone and misoprostol, but some of the fetal tissue remained in her body and she needed a dilation and curettage to remove it. She presented at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, in urgent need of medical care, but was denied treatment – a felony under the new law – until it was too late. Within a day she was dead.

A judge in Georgia recently struck down the six-week ban. But total or near-total bans are still in place in sixteen other states. Florida, where I grew up, enacted a six-week ban in May. “We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination,” Governor Ron DeSantis said.

According to the New York Times, Florida saw an 18% rise in abortions last year, including nearly ten thousand out-of-state patients. It has more abortion clinics than any other state apart from New York and California, and more than the rest of the Southern states combined. Until recently, 80% of residents of child-bearing age lived in a county with abortion access. Although the state has consistently elected Republicans over the past decade, nearly 60% of registered voters oppose the six-week ban and want to expand abortion access.

The Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center in Gainesville, central Florida, is on a tree-lined street in a sedate neighbourhood, with well-kept lawns and LGBTQ flags outside several houses. When I went past a few months ago, there was an older white man with a beard outside, holding a four-foot sign with a picture of a fetus that said: “Preborn Human.” Another white man across the street had a smaller and more subtle sign: “We Will Help You.”

At the entrance to the clinic, Priya, a young woman of South Asian descent, was waiting to let patients know they had arrived at the right place and ensure they entered the building safely. “I think being a volunteer escort is the best way to support abortion access in Florida,” she told me.

From Gainesville I travelled north to Tallahassee, where I met and spoke with Kara Gross, who works for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “The vast majority of Floridians do not want these abortion bans,” she said. “Floridians, you know, are by and large people that want to live freely and want their freedom to make medical decisions. They want their freedom to be able to work and to be able to live and to be able to exist. And to be able to read the books they want to read and talk about the things they want to talk about.”

Dobbs wasn’t the first legal setback to Roe v. Wade. The Hyde Amendment, passed by the House of Representatives in 1976, prevented federal funds from being used for abortions. As Johanna Schoen documents in Abortion after Roe, the National Right to Life Committee played a key role in getting the legislation passed.

Other anti-abortion activists turned to violence. Since 1977, the National Abortion Federation has documented “11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, 375 burglaries and thousands of other incidents of criminal activities directed at patients, providers and volunteers.”

Florida has seen more than its share. Early on Christmas morning 1984, the Ladies Center and two other abortion clinics in Pensacola were bombed by 21-year-old James Simmons, his 18-year-old wife, Kathren, 21-year-old Matthew Goldsby and his 18-year-old girlfriend, Kaye Wiggins. They said it was “a gift to Jesus on his birthday.” In 1986, half a dozen anti-abortion activists, most of them associated with the group Rescue America, invaded the Ladies Center and injured two women. One of the perpetrators was John Burt, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan who was convicted of child abuse in 2003.

On March 10, 1993, Dr. David Gunn was shot dead by Michael F. Griffin, an anti-choice zealot, outside the Pensacola Women’s Medical Services clinic. A year later Dr. John Britton was shot dead along with his bodyguard, James Barrett, by Paul J. Hill, a former Presbyterian minister who had been excommunicated the previous year.

Anti-abortion violence appeared to taper off in the late 1990s. But it has not gone away; instead, it has taken on new forms. According to the National Abortion Federation, stalking and obstruction by anti-abortion extremists increased sharply in states with access to abortion between 2021 and 2022.

And, as Amber Nicole Thurman’s death shows, anti-abortion legislation is itself a form of violence. Despite a state supreme court ruling in 1989 that “every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from government intrusion into the person’s private life,” Florida was making it harder to get an abortion for years before Dobbs. In 2007, it passed a law requiring medical providers to show an ultrasound of the fetus to the person carrying it before providing an abortion. In 2015, the state legislature passed HB 633, requiring two visits to a medical facility 24 hours apart before an abortion could be administered. Within a week of the Dobbs decision, Florida banned abortions after 15 weeks.

The right to abortion will be on the ballot in Florida and nine other states on November 5. If passed (a 60% supermajority is required), amendment 4 to the state constitution would declare that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

(London Review of Books)

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STEVE TALBOT SUGGESTS:

Here are two old documentaries I made that might interest you. They are on my Vimeo channel for free:

DC III (1971) -- Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Wash DC protests

1968: The Year that Shaped a Generation (1998)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I don't speak to my family and friends about political issues on which I know we strongly disagree. I want to keep my connections, and I don't trust people to be either tolerant or mature enough to respect a different perspective. It can get lonely, but at least I am still connected to people I want to remain connected to. Maybe this is self-serving of me? I know more about who they are than they know about me.

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THURSDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT

Milton Slices Across Central Florida as Powerful Hurricane

U.S. Races to Replenish Storm-Battered Supplies of IV Fluids at Hospitals

Biden and Netanyahu Speak for the First Time in Months as Mideast Crisis Deepens

Republicans Appear Poised to Take Control of Senate, New Poll Shows

They Flew 7,000 Miles to Fight Haiti’s Gangs. The Gangs Are on Top

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U.S. ISSUES SOLAR STORM WATCH AFTER LARGE OUTBURST FROM THE SUN

An explosion of particles is expected to reach Earth on Thursday, and could lead to visible Northern Lights in much of the country while also raising power grid concerns.

by Kenneth Chang

Periodically, the sun spews out gigantic eruptions of particles into the solar system. Sometimes, when the solar eruptions are aimed right at Earth, the particles may create brilliant auroras in night skies in many parts of the planet. Then there are other occasions when the battering can damage satellites, mangle GPS signals and knock out power grids.

On Wednesday, a federal center issued a space weather severe storm watch after sun-watching spacecraft observed a large solar flare emanating from a sunspot in the sun’s northern hemisphere, accompanied by an explosion of particles known as a coronal mass ejection.

“The concerning thing here is that it was right in the center of the sun,” Shawn Dahl, the service coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

If the eruption was right in the center of the sun, that meant at least part of it was probably aimed right at Earth. It looked big enough to cause potential disruptions. The barrage could also result in Northern and Southern Lights being visible on Thursday evening, reaching much closer to the Equator than usual.

This was the second such watch, which is the space weather equivalent of a hurricane watch, to be issued by the center in the past 19 years.

The first, in May, put the United States on alert for a severe solar storm that appeared to be on its way to Earth. That solar storm reached the highest level of “extreme,” but the early warning allowed electrical utilities to prepare and helped prevent major outages.

(nytimes.com)

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