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SOUTHERLY WINDS will increase through the day ahead strong frontal system arriving overnight into Saturday. Additional atmospheric river storms are expected to arrive in quick succession into next week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 48F on the coast this Friday morning. Cloudy but dry today then steady rains return for the next week. No large specific amounts are forecast, just a steady amount of smaller daily totals. Or so they say, we'll see. And do not forget winter starts at 1:21am tonight with the Winter Solstice.
TRAFFIC FATALITY ON HIGHWAY 128
On December 18, 2024, at 9:42pm, Ukiah Area CHP units responded to a solo vehicle traffic crash on State Route 128 at mile post marker 7.80. The driver of a 2017 Honda Fit was traveling westbound on SR-128 and lost control of his vehicle at approximately mile post marker 7.80, causing the vehicle to veer off the roadway and crash into a tree. The driver of the Honda, a 20-year-old male from San Francisco, was pronounced deceased at the scene and transported to Eversole Mortuary. Impairment of Party #1 is not known at this time, but is not suspected. The California Highway Patrol is still investigating this crash. The name of the fatal victim is being withheld until family notifications are made. (CHP)
On-Line comments:
I am very saddened to see the recent fatal accident on highway 128. Forgive me if this isn’t ok to post and ask about, but I am curious if this is sadly a common occurrence for night drivers on the 128 or if it is a tragic but uncommon occurrence?
I drive the 128 often but always during the day. I have a friend who has never driven it before that is thinking of driving it at night to get somewhere soon. I am hoping to share this information with them so they can be aware of the risk level of driving it at night.
I had a job in Calistoga every Sunday for a couple years and drove back late every time. It’s windy and narrow most of the time, but I never had problems or saw any issues.
RABID FOX
In late November 2024, a wild fox exhibiting unusual behavior was captured south of Little River on the Mendocino Coast and tested for rabies. Laboratory results verified that the fox was infected with the rabies virus.
Rabies is a viral disease that can be spread from the bite of a rabid animal or from contact with the animal’s saliva. Only prompt post-exposure vaccination can prevent the disease. Without treatment, the disease is fatal.
If you encounter a wild animal, do not touch it. If you are bit by a wild animal, please seek immediate medical attention. Protect your pets by keeping their rabies vaccinations up-to-date. Please contact your veterinarian to make sure your pets are properly vaccinated.
Rabies can occur throughout California. Animals most commonly infected include bats, skunks, foxes, raccoons, and bobcats. Behavioral signs of rabid animals, wild or domestic, may include staggering, restlessness, aggression, a change of the tone of their barks or growls, or choking.
If you or a loved one are bitten or scratched by an unfamiliar animal or an animal suspected of having rabies, immediately wash the wound thoroughly with soap and running water and then seek medical care from a doctor or healthcare provider.
If you see a domestic animal that is sick, injured, dead, orphaned or behaving oddly, leave it alone and contact Mendocino County Animal Control at (707)-463-4427 or Mendocino County Public Health 707-272-8035. If you see a wild animal that is sick, injured, dead, orphaned or behaving oddly, leave it alone and contact California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Eureka Field Office at 707-445-6493. This number should only be used if there is no immediate threat. The best contact for immediate public safety threats is 911. Do NOT handle the animal yourself.
For additional information on rabies, please visit: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Rabies.aspx
Or please visit CDFW statewide database link at https://apps.wildlife.ca.gov/wir. This website allows for photo uploads, description of the events (date, time, property address/location), generates a report and notifies CDFW staff directly on submission.
THE SEARCH CONTINUES [update December 19, 2024]
On December 8, 2024 Roy Mora, 15 of Fort Bragg was reported missing by a parent. His phone and social media have not been used since 12/7/24. There have been no confirmed sightings of Roy since 12/7/24. Roy’s cell phone was turned off at 6:55 PM on 12/7/2024, then turned on briefly around 2:00 AM on 12/8/2024.
A surveillance camera shows Roy walking south on the east side of the Noyo Bridge at 7:49 PM. Two surveillance cameras on the south side of the Noyo Bridge were checked and neither show Roy leaving the bridge. No other surveillance camera has captured video of Roy after 7:49 PM. Also, the cameras did not capture anyone else on foot on the bridge or any vehicles stopping on the bridge during that time.
On 12/17/24, a phone was turned into the Cookie Company employees by a subject who stated he found it. Utilizing their surveillance to identify the subject, officers located and interviewed him. He stated he was walking north on the Noyo Bridge late on 12/7/2024 and located the phone lying in the middle of the sidewalk, near the middle of the bridge. He picked it up and later turned it on trying to determine if it worked. The subject stated he was behind the fire station when he did this. After attempting to unlock it with random codes, he turned it off again. He said he kept it until he saw a missing person flyer for Roy, which showed the phone he had found. The subject turned into the phone to a business in an effort to get the phone to the police. He has been exceptionally cooperative, consenting to a search of his vehicle, property and person as well as allowing officers to take his phone so all location data from it could be examined.
A search warrant for Roy’s phone was authorized and executed. FBI Sacramento offered to use their resources to extract the data from it, as there is a passcode locking it. Information on the phone may be locally saved notes or voice memos. The FBI is monitoring social media sources for any new accounts created using Roy’s information.
FBI Sacramento also offered their Air Support Unit to fly over the coastline to search for Roy.
The US Coast Guard provided a drift analysis and likely areas along the coastline to search. State Parks was contacted for assistance. They will be conducting twice-a-day searches by boat as well as utilizing their Drone Teams for close in aerial searches of the rugged coastline.
Fort Bragg PD continues to follow up on leads and tips as they come in and encourage the community to keep looking out for Roy.
Police Chief Neil Cervenka said, “There is still no evidence of foul play. Everyone at the police department is working to find Roy and bring him home. Every tip is checked out, every possible sighting is investigated.”
The Fort Bragg Police Department would like to thank CalOES SAR FALCON, Mendocino County OES, Mendocino County Search and Rescue, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, California State Parks, California Fish & Wildlife, the US Coast Guard, the FBI and all of the people in the community who have assisted in this search.
Roy Mora is described as being 5’6” tall with a thin build. He was last seen wearing a dark blue T-shirt with the Mendocino College logo in white writing, denim jeans, and white shoes. Roy may also be wearing a dark blue sweatshirt and round rim glasses.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact FBPD Dispatch with the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)964-0200 or email room-299199@room.veoci.com. If you have photo or video surveillance of Roy from the evening of December 7, 2024 or after, you can direct upload at https://fortbraggpd.ca.evidence.com/axon/community-request/public/findroy.
This information is being released by Chief Neil Cervenka. For media inquiries, please reach out to him directly at ncervenka@fortbragg.com.
MEJIA & WHIPPLE GETAWAY THWARTED
On Saturday, December 14, 2024 at approximately 3:45pm, a Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officer was on routine patrol when he observed a female talking on her cell phone while driving a Nissan SUV eastbound on East Perkins Street. The officer recognized the female driver as Anamaria Mejia, 51, of Ukiah, who was also confirmed to be the registered owner of the Nissan SUV that she was driving.
Due to Mejia talking on her cell phone in violation of the California Vehicle Code, the UPD Officer initiated a traffic stop on the Nissan, and the vehicle continued traveling eastbound at a moderate rate of speed. The Nissan passed several easily accessible turnouts and parking lots, leading the officer to suspect that Mejia was fleeing. As the Nissan approached the intersection of East Perkins Street and Oak Manor Drive, Mejia veered radically to the other side of the road towards a vineyard. An unidentified male passenger jumped out of the rear driver’s side of the vehicle and began running into the vineyard.
The UPD Officer drove into the vineyard and watched as Mejia fled the scene in her vehicle. The officer exited his patrol vehicle and chased the fleeing male on foot east through the vineyard. As the officer and the suspect approached Gibson Creek, the officer lost sight of the suspect. Other UPD Officers arrived in the area, established a perimeter, used a “Drone” or department-issued unmanned aerial system, and a short time later the suspect, Douglas Whipple III, 38, of Ukiah, was located in the creek and taken into custody.
Whipple III was on active Parole through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and had two outstanding felony warrants for his arrest for violations of parole. Whipple III, who was on Parole for a firearms-related offense, had been a “PAL” (Parolee at large) for approximately three months and was considered armed and dangerous at the time of his arrest. Whipple III was booked into the Mendocino County Jail for parole violation, and resisting arrest, and the two arrest warrants.
After Whipple III was taken into custody, a warrant was authored for Mejia’s arrest for her involvement in Whipple’s attempt to escape capture. At approximately 7:30pm, UPD Officers arrived at Mejia’s residence in the Ukiah area and took her into custody without incident. During the service of the arrest warrant, officers observed a substantial amount of marijuana inside the residence, which they believed was indicative of drug sales.
A search warrant was authored for Mejia’s residence, and the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force (MMCTF) was brought in to assist. During the service of the search warrant dozens of pounds of processed marijuana were seized, as well as psilocybin (commonly known as magic mushrooms), and methamphetamine.
Mejia was booked into the Mendocino County Jail for aiding a wanted felon, harboring a wanted felon, and refusal to follow lawful orders.
The MMCTF will be forwarding their portion of the investigation to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office for additional charges of possession of controlled substance, and possession of marijuana for sale against Mejia.
As always, UPD’s mission is to make Ukiah as safe a place as possible, and we are grateful for the support that we received from the Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force in our efforts to protect the community. If you would like to know more about crime in your neighborhood, you can sign up for telephone, cellphone, and email notifications by clicking the Nixle button on our website; www.ukiahpolice.com.
FORT BRAGG FOOD BANK
A HUGE thank you to Mendocino K-8 school for hosting an amazing food drive that collected an impressive 299 pounds of food for our community!
But that's not all - the students and staff also volunteered their time to help with distribution. We're blown away by their kindness, compassion, and commitment to giving back.
Your efforts will make a real difference in the lives of our neighbors struggling with food insecurity. Thank you for being an inspiration to us all and for showing us the true meaning of community spirit!
WHERE’S FRANK’S COROLLA?
Just a heads up to the valley. At 4:30 AM, a couple of young men broke the lock to our yard and stole my Toyota Corolla, 2009 greenish blue. Off Greenwood Road. Just in case anyone saw anything. I hope it doesn’t happen to you.
— Frank Vaine, Philo
NEW OFFICERS HIRED BY UPD, MCSO
At least three recent police academy graduates were hired this month in Mendocino County, including one introduced by the Ukiah Police Department as its newest officer.
UPD Chief Cedric Crook announced his latest hire in December as Officer Trey O’Neill, who “graduated from the 215th Basic Police Academy at the Santa Rosa Junior College Public Safety Training Center, marking the completion of an intense 20-week program totaling over 812 hours of training and assessment.”
Crook noted that “Officer O’Neill has now started his field training with our department this week, and we are excited to welcome him to the team.”
The UPD also announced that Lt. Max Brazill “has officially graduated from The Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute (SBSLI),” describing the program as “designed to enhance leadership, ethical decision-making, and personal growth in law enforcement (and providing) an intensive, hands-on learning experience.”
The other two recent academy graduates were hired by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office after completing their education at the College of the Siskiyous in Weed.
The MCSO explained that “Academy Recruits Blake Cannon and William Robertson were sponsored by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and (recently) completed their six-month basic academy training. The graduating class from College of the Siskiyous had 17 Academy recruits, many of which were sponsored by other regional law enforcement agencies.”
Now that they have graduated, the MCSO adds that “Deputy Cannon and Deputy Robertson will begin their field training programs, which will include approximately 18 additional weeks of training and mentoring by Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office training officers.”
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
ED NOTES
A READER WRITES (30 YEARS AGO) “An adult lady friend of ours drove through Boonville this afternoon. She'd never been there. She said the whole town looked very sad, lots of empty stores, broken glass, just junky looking. And she said the complete picture was so frightening looking to her that she would not stop anywhere in Boonville. This shocked me. This lady has good judgment. Has the place gone to hell that much? She also said that the wooded areas just seemed too quiet. No wildlife, birds, nothing. It gave her the creeps. She's an outdoors person, too. BTW, we took an impromptu drive up to look at what's left of Lake Mendocino a few weeks back. It was a weekday. Wow, what a mud puddle! When we left, I made a wrong turn after coming down Lake Mendo Drive and turning right to go south… and didn't get on the freeway, but cheerfully thought, ‘Well, let's see what Ukiah looks like these days.’ Remember, I had not been in Ukiah proper since 1974 when I left Redwood Valley. I drove the entire length of the main drag, and I was totally dismayed at what an absolute pit that place is. I mean, it wasn't that great in 74, but now… it looks like lots of old stuff was torn down, new stuff thrown up haphazardly (ugly too) and lots of empty lots. Plus, the people! White trash, Indian trash, Mexican trash… all around me as I drove the entire length of the main drag till I hit the freeway exit far south. I don't think I saw one halfway respectable looking individual. Man, if I lived around there, I'd be packing a concealed firearm full time. I mean it. What a dump! Don't take this wrong. I still love you, the AVA, and your entire staff. But what the hell has gone haywire up there? It is far worse than I would have ever thought, even after subscribing to the AVA for many years. I'm glad I'm old. America looks like it's on one big downhill slide. PS. And yes, Santa Rosa is a pit, too. Our motto down here should be ‘We're not as bad as Ukiah!’ Ugh!”
CIVIC BOONVILLE is well aware of its deficiencies, so aware that the Community Services District Board once embarked on an improvement plan aimed at enhancing our community aesthetic. Whether or not we can drag ourselves out of our visual torpor remains to be seen, but Boonville is at last on the mysterious list that will eventually get our power lines buried, which is one large step forward. As for Ukiah and public buildings, it’s as if Americans went blind after World War Two. Prior to the War, Ukiah was a beautiful small town, with ancient Elms lining State Street, a graceful hotel and courthouse anchoring the town center. Then came sprawl, the gradual decline in standards of public behavior and dress — then the deluge of mass slob-ism — and the abdication of the County's leading moneybags who, prior to the War, not only cared about the appearance of their communities, invested in them. Odd, isn't it? Americans spend billions making their homes attractive but don't seem to care at all about what their public spaces look like.
PINOLEVILLE, just north of Ukiah, historically, was vacant land, very limited water, unsuitable for farming, and, therefore, of no value to Ukiah's white 19th and early 20th century panjandrums. But it was close to burgeoning Ukiah so it became a convenient place for remnant Indians to live. If Indians had no other place to go, Ukiah's city fathers sent them to Pinoleville from where their often compulsory labor could be summoned by nearby farms and ranches. Indians themselves have disputed ownership of the land for many years, and disputing who belongs there and who doesn't, and even who's an Indian and who isn't. Indians directly descended from the beginning of time have often been declared non-Indians by other Indians. As the tribal council changes elected officials, fresh disputes arise, and high handed maneuvers by the persons in power to dispossess ancient enemies are not uncommon. Lawyers, of course, can be depended upon to add to the confusion and bad feeling.
ONE OF THE TRULY great men of Mendocino County is a forgotten man called Steve Knight. One would think that the Indians, awash in casino money, would find a few dollars to properly honor him. Many of Knight's descendants live in the County today not that they or our local historical societies seem aware of him.
A BRILLIANT articulate man, Knight represented local Indians in Washington. It was his persistence that won official recognition for many Mendo and HumCo tribes. Without him, many Norcal Indians today would be landless.
I INVOKE STEVE KNIGHT in the context of Native American Night at the ballpark because he objected to Native Americans appearing in headdresses during negotiations with the federal government, arguing that headdresses reinforced primitive stereotypes. White men in headdresses, of course, is doubly insulting.
STEVE KNIGHT was one of the founders of the California Indian Brotherhood, whose first meeting was convened in Ukiah in the winter of 1926. His was among the most articulate voices in summarizing the transition from Mexican to American rule as it affected Mendocino County Indians. His words are the truest words we have, in capsule form, of Indian life in Mendocino County before the great murders: “Mexican people built no missions up here, so the Indians were allowed to live pretty much as they had been before and after the Mexicans came, and the Indians were given certain areas of land to use to grow things for themselves. They built brush fences around them, had their homes there, planted gardens, had corn and everything they needed to eat on these places. When the Americans superseded the Mexicans the Indians were aware of the change — they seem to have known there was a change — they didn't resent the Americans coming in where there was just a few came in, but finally then the miners came in by the hundreds and by the thousands, then trouble arose between the Indians and the whites. Then the American government sent agents among the Indians to make treaties with them in order to get the Indians on reservations where they might be protected, but mostly to forestall Indian uprisings. These agents came out, made treaties with the Indians, promising them certain reservations. The Indians signed these treaties in good faith. They thought these treaties were final when they signed their name to them — they did not know it had to have the approval of the Senate of the United States, so the Indians were expecting to be moved onto the new reservations, but these new promised reservations were being filled up by white settlers. Then those Indians realized that they had been fooled. But the old people up to very recent times [the 1920s] believed that the government would make some other settlement with them. These treaties were pigeon-holed in the archives of the United States Senate for 50 years. No one ever saw them until after the 50 year term had expired. Someone then dug them up and made a few copies of some of the treaties. When these old Indians were told about the treaties having been recovered from the archives they became very much interested and told the younger Indians about how these treaties were made, by whom signed.”
BY 1850, the criminal drifters who had not struck it rich in the gold fields began wandering through Mendocino County's untouched magnitudes, much of it perfect country for the raising of sheep and cattle. Its seemingly empty solitude surprised these first white men. The rest of the state was already mostly claimed. The first permanent white residents of the remote mountains and canyons of the Northcoast were killers and outlaws, many of them on the run from the settled areas of the country. The law was a late arrival to Northern California and, I would say from my experience, never has fully prevailed. As the relentless sons of Missouri staked out Mendocino County's myriad, well-watered little valleys, they shot Indian men where they found them, helped themselves to Indian women, sold Indian children into slavery, rez-ed the Indians they hadn't managed to kill, indentured them, and segregated them for the next one hundred years. Knight got some ot the stolen land returned.
MANY YEARS AGO, a grieving Hopland woman appeared at a community meeting in Yorkville to defend her dead husband. He had been shot and killed in a marijuana garden. It was not his garden. He'd told his wife he was going deer hunting. The Hopland lady believed her husband. She got up at the meeting and indignantly told then-Sheriff Jim Tuso that her husband was an innocent deer hunter gunned down by outlaw pot growers. Sheriff Tuso looked in her face and said, “I'm sorry, Ma'am, but your husband was shot and killed in the marijuana patch because he was there to steal marijuana, not to hunt deer.” I've always admired Tuso for telling the lady the painful truth straight on like that, admired him for not resorting to evasions, that he hadn't said something like, “That is not our information. Next question.” Tuso went on to tell the widow that he knew how her husband had died because he'd talked to the two men who were with him, and they'd confirmed that the three of them had been pot poaching not deer hunting.
CHUCK ROSS
My last home on the Mendocino Coast before I moved away forever. Summer of 1964 and I would move to Calpella in a few months, then go in the Army not long after that.
This was my trailer at Elk Creek, "Blue Gates" ranch. My brother Ray and his wife Kathy and the kids lived just a hundred yards away off to the right. My white Corvair parked out front as well as Percy Daniels' red toilet-seat Valiant. I see my old Winchester .22 leaning against the back of my car and two ruined gangsaw blades leaning against my trailer.
When I went into the service Darwin Christiansen bought the trailer from me and moved it up to Sierraville. My knothead stepfather took to driving my Corvair and, of course, wrecked it just like he did with every other car he ever drove more than twice.
Don't know what we were up to this day, maybe abalone diving.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, December 19, 2024
DAVID BROWN, 28, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.
ADAM CHAVIRA, 41, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.
JORGE EKGONGORA, 28, San Pablo/Ukiah. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment, damaging communications equipment.
SCOTT FABER, 45, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, probation revocation, unspecified offense.
ADAM FULLER, 44, Ukiah. False ID, probation revocation.
JOEPH KNEIP, 31, Clearlake/Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, false ID, paraphernalia.
QUINN KATTENGELL, 53, Ukiah. Concealed dirk-dagger, paraphernalia, probation violation.
COREY LAGASSE, 38, Oroville. County parole violation.
VALEN LOPEZ, 24, Ukiah. Criminal threats, probation revocation.
CHAD TURLEY, 53, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.
A RECORD 34,740 SALMON RETURN TO MOKELUMNE RIVER, UPPER SACRAMENTO RUN IS DISMAL
by Dan Bacher
A record high number of fall-run Chinook salmon have returned to California’s Mokelumne River to date, while an alarmingly low number of Chinooks have come back to the Upper Sacramento River’s Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek.
A total of 34,740 fish have gone over the Woodbridge Diversion Dam on the Mokelumne near Lodi through Dec. 13, according to Michelle Workman, Fisheries and Wildlife Manager for the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). 25,429 of those fish were adults, while 9,303 were grilse (male/female 2 year olds). Those numbers don’t add up to the total because a handful of early fish could not be sorted by male/female.
The previous salmon record was set last year when the total run size was 28,865, said Workman.…
HE'S NOT KIDDING
Editor:
I understand that California is a sanctuary state, and Los Angeles and others are sanctuary cities. However, let me advise caution for people at all levels — state officials, county supervisors, mayors, city council members, law enforcement, NGOs and private individuals. There is a specific federal law that criminalizes assisting people who are in the country illegally.
Section 1324 of the U.S. Code details the legal consequences for anyone who knowingly aids, transports or conceals undocumented immigrants to help them evade law enforcement. Violations can include severe penalties, such as fines and imprisonment, depending on the offense’s nature and the number of people involved.
The law targets various forms of assistance to avoid detection, which can encompass sheltering individuals, providing transportation and other acts intended to help undocumented immigrants evade capture.
So just a word to the wise ― yes, it’s good to be compassionate and caring, but you’d be well-advised not to break the law in the process. Tom Homan, the incoming administration’s border czar, has said he will prosecute people under this statute, and he’s not kidding. Don’t let it be you.
Willis Eschenbach
Occidental
ESTHER MOBLEY:
2024 was a tumultuous year for wine.
Tensions that had been bubbling in the California wine industry reached a full-on boil, as wine sales dropped precipitously and many wineries were left wondering whether they might go out of business soon.
As I looked back on the stories that wine reporter Jess Lander and I published in the Chronicle this year, it was clear that this historic downturn was the theme that pervaded most of our work. Over and over again, when we spoke with wine industry sources, we heard how hard business is right now. Wineries closed, sold and went bankrupt, mirroring the extensive restaurant closures throughout the Bay Area.
We covered this larger trend in nuanced, individual stories, investigating what’s been driving Americans’ increasing turn away from wine (and alcohol more broadly) and how the movements of the wine market are impacting different stakeholders. For my final newsletter of 2024, I’ve collected the most prominent storylines that dominated our wine coverage throughout the last 12 months.
In March, we reported that many grape growers in areas like Lodi were removing their vineyards in response to a surplus of grapes throughout the state. By harvest time, even farmers in Napa and Sonoma counties were having trouble selling their crop, Jess reported — and slashing their fruit prices didn’t seem to improve things much.
The Controversy Over Alcohol And Health Exploded.
This year, it became clear that Americans’ perception of alcohol’s effects on health had fundamentally shifted. The once-exalted French Paradox, which promoted wine as a main component of a healthy lifestyle, has fallen out of favor, and Gen Z is calling alcohol “literally poison” and the “2024 cigarette.”
Now, it looks as if the 2025 update of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines could reverse the federal government’s long-held stance that moderate drinking is safe. I reported on the fraught debate around this process, which wine advocates believe has been co-opted by neo-Prohibitionists. And in one edition of this newsletter, I criticized the way the wine industry has handled this fight.
Here’s hoping for better news in 2025. Happy holidays, everyone!
What I'm Reading
From the archive: I highly recommend this piece that Emma Silvers wrote (and I edited!) for the Chronicle in 2018 about the holiday popup bar phenomenon. It is stuffed like a Christmas stocking with great lines. “In some ways, the place is a Macy’s display window come to life,” Silvers writes, “a winking caricature of our taste for aesthetic excess sans substance, with a self-aware whiff of the flashy nothingness that has fueled the rise of social-media-centered pop-up ‘experiences’ like the Museum of Ice Cream.”
Here’s a sweet, creamy, green cocktail I can get behind: the pistachio martini, a drink beloved in the North End neighborhood of Boston (where I’m spending my holidays) that often includes Bailey’s and chocolate. Here’s Korsha Wilson’s piece in the New York Times.
In his Fermentation Substack, Tom Wark argues that the Federal Trade Commission’s new lawsuit against Southern Glazer’s — which could come to an end once Trump’s new appointee takes control of the FTC — probably won’t fix the problems entrenched in the country’s alcohol distribution system.
(SF Chronicle)
DID THIS NETFLIX SHOW JUST FILM THE SINGLE BEST EPISODE OF SAN FRANCISCO TELEVISION?
by Peter Hartlaub
Before I experienced the real streets of San Francisco, I watched “The Streets of San Francisco.”
The electric 1970s cop show had more authenticity in its opening credits than many modern shows set in San Francisco accomplish during their entire run. It was filmed in San Francisco. It had stars and producers and location scouts who knew and appreciated the city.
And now, a half century later, it functions as both time machine and history museum — with all the boxy sedans, bus stop ads and misbegotten, double-decker, waterfront freeways of the time.
I thought that feeling — San Francisco authenticity on a television screen — was all but extinct. So what a joy to experience “A Man on the Inside,” the Netflix show starring Ted Danson as a lonely and retired Cal State East Bay professor infiltrating a Nob Hill retirement home to solve an apparent theft ring.
When it comes to local references, the comedy has its hits and misses, relying a little too heavily on tourist spots. But it stuck its San Francisco landing, with a powerhouse penultimate episode that understands both what it’s like to be a San Franciscan, and not be a San Franciscan. The perfectly written sequence with Danson’s Charles and his Baltimore-born friend Calbert (a superb Stephen McKinley Henderson) escaping their retirement home and touring the city is the greatest San Francisco episode I’ve seen on a small screen.
Television overall is so much better in 2024 than it was in my youth. “Man on the Inside” creator Michael Schur alone has developed or worked on four series — “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “The Good Place” — that are superior to 96% of the television from the 1970s and 1980s.
But peak San Francisco television existed from the late 1960s to 1990s, when there were three or four channels, every new series was an event, and San Francisco-based television crews were actually embedded in the Bay Area.
“The Streets of San Francisco,” the radio-themed “Midnight Caller” and the Don Johnson cop show “Nash Bridges” filmed here, allowing the cast and producers to experience the city for months at a time, while the crew and extras were largely locals. (I once interviewed an actor who played six different characters during “Nash Bridges’” 1996 to 2001 run.)
But a combination of technology, rising production prices and a growing sense that San Francisco is a difficult place to film have contributed to fewer programs spending extended time here. The modern model of S.F. television comes from the “Full House”/”Monk/“Charmed” template, where local flavor is the Golden Gate Bridge in the opening credits and Bob Saget wearing a 49ers jacket while filming on a soundstage in Los Angeles.
Recent programs that have spent significant time in the city (including HBO’s “Looking” in 2013 and Netflix’s “The O.A.: Part II” in 2019) are generally on much tighter budgets, with less marketing or star power. A “Man on the Inside,” from the creators and star of pandemic streaming favorite “The Good Place,” was an event.
The show’s Bay Area credibility begins dubiously, with a geographic blunder.
“Cal State East Bay over in Oakland. I taught engineering,” Charles says in the first episode, when asked about his past as a college professor.
I groaned audibly on behalf of Hayward, Cal State East Bay’s forever home.
But the show takes a steady uphill climb halfway to the stars from there. The residents drink Mission District-born Philz Coffee. The show drops references to white tablecloth restaurant John’s Grill and BART cards. And the posh retirement home’s setting on California Street justifies the comical number of cable cars that appear in “A Man on the Inside.”
Other touches are more subtle. Charles’ daughter has moved to Sacramento to raise her three sons, a decision the sons and daughters of middle class Bay Area families can relate to. And Charles’ love for architecture is both local and mostly accurate.
“Have you ever been here? St. Mary’s Cathedral,” he says, pointing to a drawing of the Gough Street church. “It was designed to look like a conquistador’s helmet.”
The show gets in a nice locational groove, but reaches nirvana in the second-to-last episode, when Charles and Calbert break off from the group for a wide-ranging tour, using Bay Area and San Francisco landmarks as conversation starters as their friendship grows and they analyze their loneliness and thoughts about death.
(Perfect touch: They get from place to place in a car service Cadillac being charged to Calbert’s son, a Salesforce employee.)
The pair take a ferry ride past Alcatraz, stop at the Colonel Armstrong tree near Guerneville (quite a detour!) and walk onto the Golden Gate Bridge, with Charles pointing out accurately that the original design was much much worse.
When they sat in my favorite Oracle Park seats — Arcade Section 149 near McCovey Cove — I let out a small yelp of recognition. And the night ends at Tony Nik’s Cafe in North Beach, the kind of tourist-friendly San Francisco joint that locals love.
It’s still early to make grand declarations; the series was just renewed for its second season. And according to Chronicle and SFGate coverage, the San Francisco exteriors were shot in just one whirlwind week. They made the most of that time, but seven days (with a Los Angeles crew) won’t make a shadow of the impact of a “Streets of San Francisco.”
Still, in its first eight episodes, “A Man on the Inside” represents our city in the best ways possible. Not just an outstanding San Francisco show or a historical artifact, but a thoughtful and personal comedy that has the potential to lead a new peak era of San Francisco television.
(SF Chronicle)
MASS MURDER ENABLERS SUED
All the way from Del Norte County to Marin, taxpayers in ten different counties between California’s 2nd and 4th Districts – Humboldt, Mendocino, Del Norte, Trinity, Sonoma, Yolo, Solano, Lake & Marin – have organized a class action lawsuit against their congressional representatives with the objective of regaining control over how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent by the federal government.
Not one to be left out of a political justice campaign, Humboldt has joined the TAG class action suit alongside the group of Northern California residents, to take legal action against their congressional representatives over misuse of taxpayer funds being spent to support Israel’s bombardment of civilians in the Gaza Strip. The newly formed organization, Taxpayers Against Genocide (TAG), plans to file the unprecedented class action lawsuit against Congressmen Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman in San Francisco this morning at the Federal Building in San Francisco, according to organizers.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
What sets Israel’s war on Gaza apart is not only its violent military operations, marked by the indiscriminate killing of women and children, but also its relentless assault on dissent, criticism, and even the mildest opposition to its internationally condemned human rights violations and war crimes.
IN AN IDYLLIC CALIFORNIA CORNER, PROTESTERS DESCEND ON A FACTORY OF WAR
In quaint Healdsburg, a plant builds missile technology used in world war
by Matt LaFever
Just blocks from Healdsburg’s charming town square sits a General Dynamics facility, part of the world’s fifth-largest weapons manufacturer. The site, nestled within the tourist-attracting Sonoma County town, produces precision technology for missiles and other strategic systems. In the past few months, activists have directed their efforts toward this otherwise picturesque corner of Wine Country to draw attention to General Dynamics’ role in Israel’s war on Hamas, which has killed more than 45,900 Palestinians.
Since October 2023, when violence erupted between Israel and Hamas, Sonoma County for Palestine has organized weekly demonstrations across Sonoma County. These have ranged from protests at Santa Rosa’s Old Courthouse Square to a vehicle caravan that blocked traffic on Highway 101. Participation varies from a dozen attendees to over a hundred, depending on the event, with activists employing diverse tactics to voice their opposition to Israel’s actions.
Tarik Kanaana, a 51-year-old Palestinian and member of Sonoma County for Palestine, told SFGate that the group quickly mobilized after the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted last October. “We knew this was going to last and needed a coordinated response,” Kanaana told SFGate.
In April, the group demonstrated outside the General Dynamics facility in Healdsburg and made local headlines. Approximately 30 members of the group stood outside the facility, holding signs that read “Healdsburg Says No to Bomb Factories” and “General Dynamics Profits Off Genocide.”
On Dec. 1, Sonoma County for Palestine held a rally in Healdsburg Square, distributing 250 flyers to inform the community about General Dynamics’ presence and its role in supplying weapons to Israel.
The Healdsburg General Dynamics location has deep roots in the community, beginning as a company called Versatron in 1975 before officially becoming part of General Dynamics in 2012. The General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems website indicates that the Healdsburg location develops control actuation systems used to guide rockets, missiles and strategic systems.
The structure itself is a nondescript industrial warehouse with limo-tinted black windows that sits adjacent to a post office, an apartment complex and a health club. Through the front entrance, faint fluorescent lights glow behind a prominently displayed hazardous material symbol.
General Dynamics has provided weapons of war to Israel via U.S. support of the country since at least the 1970s. In 2006, it secured a contract to exclusively manufacture border surveillance systems designed by Israel-based Controp Precision Technologies, with its general manager traveling to Israel several times as part of the deal. A Reuters report from June 2024 said the U.S. has supplied Israel with at least 14,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. General Dynamics is the exclusive manufacturer of the MK-80 series munitions, according to the Air Force.
Shortly after the conflict began, General Dynamics Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jason Aiken addressed stockholders, stating, “The Israel situation obviously is a terrible one, frankly, and one that’s just evolving as we speak. But I think if you look at the incremental demand potential coming out of that, the biggest one to highlight and that really sticks out is probably on the artillery side.”
Kanaana told SFGate that Healdsburg’s General Dynamics facility serves as a direct link to the violence in the Middle East. “This isn’t just an abstraction — it’s something we’re directly involved in,” Kanaana said.
Through social media and public demonstrations, Sonoma County for Palestine aims to “make the population aware of what is happening in their own backyard. And you know that most people, almost all people here, if they know what’s really happening, they’re not OK with it,” Kanaana said. Some people the group encounters seem to be aware of General Dynamics’ presence in Healdsburg and think it’s “terrible,” he said, while others seem to be learning about the facility for the first time. He did acknowledge that sometimes people defend the company, arguing that it employs workers and contributes to the local economy.
The group remains undeterred. Its ultimate goal? “To get our local government to divest from General Dynamics,” Kanaana said.
SFGate reached out to Anthony Flores, the general manager of the Healdsburg location, for comment. Flores did not reply, but SFGate instead received a response from Berkley Whaley, the chief communications officer for General Dynamics, that read simply, “We have no comment,” and referred questions to the U.S. State Department.
The debate has reached local politicians. Chris Herrod, a member of the Healdsburg City Council, said he understands the activists’ goals but doesn’t see a realistic path to General Dynamics’ exiting the town.
“General Dynamics have had a facility here for many years (I am guessing it to be well over 20 years) and there would be no legal avenue for pressing for them to relocate elsewhere,” Herrod wrote in an email to SFGate. “So even though I personally see the value of recent protests at General Dynamics, I do not see our Council making a meaningful contribution to any debate about this company’s existence in Healdsburg.”
Herrod made sure to describe his comments as a “personal response,” and not reflective of “the views of the City or City Council,” and described his political stance thusly: “I identify as a strong progressive who has been consistently critical of the US’s foreign policy. This includes the recent conflict in Palestine. The pursuit of peace is of critical importance to me.”
However, he distanced the City Council from the activists’ concerns. “It’s clear to me that our Council was not elected because of any assumed position on, or expertise about, US foreign policy. I am opposed to our Council issuing statements about issues that are outside of City business and the purview of the Council’s responsibilities,” he said. “Recent attempts to make such statements have been muddled, inappropriate, and misguided — regardless of the moral intent behind them.”
In the immediate wake of the Oct. 7 attack, Healdsburg’s City Council chose to light the Memorial Bridge in white, a symbol of peace, after weeks of debate. Initially, residents urged blue-and-white lights to show solidarity with Israel, but the council opted for neutrality, focusing on compassion for all victims of the war. The decision aimed to send a unified message: peace over partisanship.
For people like Kanaana, however, it’s not enough. “We cannot have our community supporting the production of artillery bombs like that,” he said. “We cannot have it in our community.”
(SFGate)
CHRISTMAS TRUCE
by Fred Gardner
This is from Randy Rowland, a member of Veterans for Peace in Seattle (and a leader of the Presidio “Mutiny” in 1968).
We drove to Sarasota, Florida to check out a theater presentation called “All Is Calm,” which tells the story of the Great Christmas Truce of 1914 using music. The piece was originally written for radio, and eventually made into a play. Most of the singer/actors hail from Minnesota, and many have done this production for years. Their voices were magnificent and the overall effect excellent. It reminded me that this is the one hundred tenth anniversary of this event, where over 100,000 soldiers put humanity over uniform for at least a little while.
In the run-up to World War I, the war was almost universally opposed by the political left in all countries. The “Great War” was seen as an imperialist war, that is, a contest between capitalists over who would control the colonies. In direct opposition to the nationalist notion of fighting for one’s ruling class in their efforts at world domination, the concept of “Internationalism” was quite appealing to many. Internationalism suggests that one’s first duty is to humanity, the people of the planet. “Workers of the World Unite!” rang the cry in those days just before the Russian revolution.
Unfortunately, the working class of the various major powers was swept up in narrow calls to patriotism and duty to fatherland. They found themselves in opposing trenches in spite of their better instincts. But in the months leading up to Christmas 1914 the Pope called for an official Christmas Truce (rebuffed by all sides), and the peace movement launched major campaigns for a truce as well. Communists, anarchists, and many other leftists championed ending the war by building working class solidarity among the fighters of all nations, claiming “no war but class war.” Though the leaders of the various warring nations ignored the call for a truce, the soldiers in the trenches answered the movement’s call.
The antiwar and internationalist sentiment was still strong in those early years of WW I, and there were many, well-documented instances of non-cooperation that, according to Wikipedia, included “refusal to fight, unofficial truces, mutinies, strikes, and peace protests.” No doubt the most dramatic of these was the Christmas Truce of 1914, when over 100,000 soldiers emerged from their trenches to carol, swap smokes, shake hands, and in some areas play a friendly game of soccer in the no-man’s land separating their respective armies. This fraternization was opposed, of course, by the brass and politicians on every side, but in some areas the truce held past New Year’s Day. All told, the 1914 Christmas Truce was probably the largest instance of soldiers choosing humanity over uniform in the history of the world.
Now, 110 years later, the cause of peace and internationalism is no less pressing. There now exists an international ruling class whose quarrels among themselves dangerously initiate and escalate wars, while the challenges of climate change, the state of the collapsing oceans, and other serious concerns make it clear that humanity is in the lifeboat together. What better time to draw inspiration from the greatest act of solidarity in world history?
Here’s some things to mention about the Great Christmas Truce in your celebrations on this anniversary of that historic series of events:
Hostelling
Richard Schirrmann, founder of the first youth hostel, was a soldier in a German regiment in December 1915, when a smaller repeat of the previous year occurred. He wrote about what he witnessed as soldiers from both sides came out to greet each other and “exchanged wine, cognac, and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits, and ham.” Wikipedia says military discipline was soon restored, but Schirrman pondered over the incident and whether “thoughtful young people of all countries could be provided with suitable meeting places where they could get to know each other.” Inspired, he went on to found the German Youth Hostel Association in 1919, and as this new movement swept the world, he became president of the newly formed International Youth Hostel Association (now Hostel International), 1933-1936. Schirrmann attributed the Christmas Truce he witnessed as a key motivator behind the Youth Hostelling movement.
Football (soccer)
Perhaps the widest celebrations of the Truce come from European soccer teams and fans. In Dec, 2014, for the 100th anniversary, England’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and President of the Football Association, dedicated a monument to the Truce and the historic informal soccer matches played between opposing armies back then. In his dedication speech, Prince William said, “This week teams at every level of the game have been coming together before matches to unite for mixed-team photos—evoking the spirit of the Christmas Truce.”
Both British and German football supporters had been visiting the site of one of the historic matches for many years, leaving scarves and other mementos in remembrance of those who played and those who died.
For the 100th anniversary there was a special soccer match between teams from the British and German Armies, played in commemoration of the Christmas Truce.
One of these years, I think VFP should leaflet soccer matches with the Christmas Truce story, and maybe place literature in hostels as well. Meanwhile, consider making a toast at your holiday meal to the soldiers who participated in the Truce, and to all who choose humanity over uniform.
The painting "Sunday, Women Drying Their Hair" by John Sloan, created in 1912, captures a serene rooftop scene in an urban setting. Three women are positioned on a rooftop, enjoying the sunlight while drying their hair. The women are dressed in early 20th-century attire, with two of them sitting on the low brick wall and the third leaning forward, her long hair cascading down. The backdrop features city buildings and laundry hanging on a line, adding to the everyday, candid nature of the scene. The composition reflects Sloan's keen observation of daily life, a hallmark of the Ashcan School art movement, which he was a part of. This movement focused on portraying the gritty realism of urban life in America. The painting's warm palette and natural lighting create a sense of intimacy and tranquility, inviting viewers to share in this simple, yet poignant moment.
LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT
Here’s What Could Happen in a Government Shutdown
Government Lurches Toward Shutdown After House Tanks Trump’s Spending Plan
Appeals Court Disqualifies Fani Willis From Prosecuting Georgia Trump Case
What Are ‘Healthy’ Foods? The F.D.A. Updates the Labeling Terms
How Your Car Might Be Making Roads Safer
The Design Trend Taking Over Rural America
BIDEN HEALTH COVER-UP BLOWN WIDE OPEN IN BOMBSHELL REPORT: JOE WAS SENILE FROM DAY ONE OF PRESIDENCY
by Katelyn Caralle
A bombshell report details how President Joe Biden's White House hid from the public his rapidly diminishing mental and physical condition for his entire presidency.
Biden's team hired a vocal coach, put other officials into roles usually occupied by the president and neglected to share with him negative news stories, according to an explosive report in The Wall Street Journal.
This exposes an extensive and thought-out cover-up that included the administration repeatedly gaslighting those who dared to claim the president was no longer the same man who served as vice president.
But Biden's decline was hard to overlook – especially after Special Counsel Robert Hur last year released a report in the classified documents case depicting a forgetful and frail then-81-year-old.
Hur decided not to charge Biden because he “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him.”
The WSJ notes how Biden couldn't even repeat back to his staff lines they fed him while preparing for his interview with the special counsel. Biden would also cancel important national security meetings, with aides excusing him because he has “bad days and good days.”
Congressman Adam Smith, from Washington, who was chair of the House Armed Services Committee, could not get in touch with the president ahead of the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to share his serious concerns about the plan.
When 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans were killed, he made critical comments publicly and was reprimanded by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Biden finally called him to apologize, the only call he received in the president's entire four years.
Staff was worried about the comparison between President Biden and his wife Dr. Jill Biden, who is eight years his junior and held an energetic, packed schedule that only highlighted her husband's more mild pace.
In late June this year, Biden's mental decline was on full display when he debated Donald Trump. Gaffes, fumbles and blank stares from the President filled the hour-and-a-half televised event.
The face-off with Trump is what led the public and even senior Democrats in Washington to call for Biden to step out of his reelection race.
Just a month after the debate, Biden ended his White House bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who Trump defeated handily on November 5.
Aides would often have to repeat cues to Biden at events both official and on the campaign trail – and images captured instruction cards that gave detailed and remedial instructions on where to walk, sit and look.
Biden's team even tapped Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood mogul and campaign co-chairman, to find a voice coach to improve his wavering and fading voice.
And when his voice failed him, the team would help Biden avoid needing to take calls or participate in public events.
Additionally, Biden was shielded by senior advisers who were put into roles that others felt the President should occupy, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard as well as her predecessor.
A person who witnessed what happened with Biden in the last four years told the Journal that a small group of aides stuck close to him at all times and provided intense “hand holding.”
“They body him to such a high degree,” the source claimed.
At the same time, press aides who were tasked with compiling news clips were instructed by senior staff to leave out any negative stories about the President.
The protective circle around Biden was heightened because the old man began his White House career at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his staff took extensive steps to make sure he did not catch the virus.
But it was also designed to prevent Biden from making gaffes or taking missteps to damage his image or create headaches for Democrats.
Biden has been an undisciplined public speaker throughout his more than 50-year political career.
He also had a childhood stutter that he often cites for the reason he would stumble over his words or that his speeches could feature a wavering voice.
Biden is leaving office with a bad taste in his party's mouth for being 'selfish.'
Many state that he was only looking out for himself by staying in the 2024 presidential race past the point of being fit for another term.
And others are furious over his decision to pardon his son Hunter, 54, earlier this month for the felony charges related to lying on a federal form to purchase a firearm in 2018.
Democrats are worried the pardon will give a blanket excuse for President-elect Trump to issue pardons for himself and his family.
THE TERRIFYING SCANDAL IS THAT BIDEN WAS NEVER PRESIDENT. THE FULL TRUTH ABOUT THE COVER-UP, BAD DOCTOR JILL AND ALL THE ENEMIES WITHIN
by Maureen Callahan
The knives have come out — and so has the truth.
Having been lied to for years by the Democratic Party machine and most of the mainstream media — who insisted Joe Biden was not diminished by his age but energized by it — well, it turns out we skeptics were right all along.
And what we're learning is terrifying. Infuriating. An unacceptable abuse of power, a usurpation of the presidency itself by a nameless, faceless cohort.
Will we ever know who these conspirators are?
Two bombshell reports out this week, in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, depict a president thoroughly out to lunch for his entire term: Top cabinet members unable reach him. Staff regularly taking his place at official events. Biden refusing to hold morning meetings but clocking out at 4pm — even though he naps every day and, in July, announced that he'd no longer hold events after 8pm.
How many hours has Joe Biden actually spent working? How was the 25th amendment not invoked? Was the danger of a President Kamala Harris — who the liberal media also tried to sell as viable — truly that unthinkable?
'Drain the swamp' resonates for a reason.
Meanwhile, Biden's campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz sought to deflect his boss's dereliction by, you guessed it, going after Trump.
'Normal presidents strike a balance, and so does Joe Biden. Hardly the same rigor as Donald Trump, who spends half of his day ranting on Truth Social […] and the other half golfing,' Munoz said in July, days after that catastrophic TV debate, and days before the Times reported that a Parkinson's expert had visited the White House eight times over as many months.
The gaslighting has failed to catch fire. If only legacy media had pursued this new line of reportage, I don't know, back in 2019. When it mattered.
Now that these outlets are shedding eyeballs and subscribers, we're getting some actual investigative reporting — albeit on the obvious.
Joe Biden has no idea what's going on.
Top national security officials told the Journal that meetings with Biden could suddenly, no matter the urgency, be 'scrapped'. One security adviser had a scheduled meeting cancelled because the President was having 'a bad day' — those bad days a common occurrence.
This, while Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas attacked Israel, and China floated spy balloons over the United States. Syria has fallen.
Against this incendiary geopolitical backdrop, the Dems, knowing full well how incapacitated Biden was, plotted to install him again.
Such is Trump Derangement Syndrome. Such was their fear that VP Harris, the ultimate DEI hire, didn't have what it takes.
So now, the rage. Now the truth. Biden is a dead man walking, and they're going to throw his desiccated political corpse on the funeral pyre — if Joe doesn't 'burn it all down' first, as his vengeful wife Jill is reportedly urging him to do.
Truly: Is there a greater metaphor for the Biden presidency's death rattle than the dismissal of SUV-sized drones swarming over the Northeast? Any greater example of a president asleep on Rehoboth Beach?
Remember: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, as recently as March, called this sham of a president 'intellectually, analytically… the best Biden ever.'
We've always known Biden's legacy was going to be one of decrepitude, deceit and dirty dealings. But on his ignominious way out the door, Biden has revealed his true self: Perpetually aggrieved.
A malignant narcissist who put his own thirst for power above party and country.
A loser so sore that he pardoned his son Hunter — defying a pledge never to do so, a pledge he made repeatedly — and more than 1,500 others, including: Two Chinese spies who stole top-secret American tech information and the relative of a Chinese Communist Party member who possessed thousands of child porn images.
That's Biden for you, the man Barack Obama said has an uncanny ability to 'f*** things up'.
The biggest humiliation of all: it now seems clear that Joe Biden, who only ever wanted to be president, was never running the world. He was never the actual American president. There will forever be an asterisk next to his name.
So, we ask again: Just who has been running the country for the past four years? As that live TV debate proved beyond a doubt, it sure as hell hasn't been Joe.
It's been so obvious not just to us, but to the entire world, that President-elect Trump, since winning the election, has been treated as the acting American president.
It's Trump who's in talks with Netanyahu. It's Trump who has Hamas on the back foot. It's Trump brokering the end of the Russia-Ukraine war, meeting with President Macron at the reopening of Notre Dame, seated front and center, and holding a private meeting with Prince William.
And it's Trump who's receiving Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk at Mar-a-Lago.
Now, will we get no less an official and public investigation into the hijacking of the US presidency as we did January 6? I would argue that this, the ultimate Biden family grift, is the greatest political scandal since Watergate.
Consider that not even Biden's top cabinet members, from the very beginning, had access to him on matters of national security, the economy or international crises.
In the run-up to the Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021 – which Biden was dead-set on executing, despite all best advice not to – the then-chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, tried in vain to reach the president.
Smith told the Journal that he desperately wanted to relay his knowledge and grave concerns about the region. But Smith was rebuffed – and thirteen American service members died in that completely avoidable disaster.
Meanwhile, Lloyd Austin, Biden's Secretary of Defense, has reportedly had 'increasingly rare' direct contact with Biden over the past two years. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also had 'an arm's length relationship' with Biden over his entire term.
Yet White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, in July, soon after that debate, told this whopper: '[Biden] is as sharp as ever…. When I walk into the Oval Office […] I have to be on top of my game.'
Subpoena her. For real. Subpoena her – and all of Biden's top inner circle, the ones who kept him 'bodied', as one source said, to a degree unprecedented for any sitting US president: Ron Klain (former White House chief of staff), Mike Donilon (senior advisor) and Jennifer O'Malley Dillon (campaign manager) to name a few.
For that matter, call in Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, who apparently was running his third term from behind the curtain, Biden his useful idiot.
And last but certainly not least, Lady MacBiden herself, who knew her husband's sick state better than anyone, but tried to foist him on the country yet again.
If there's any justice, the post-White House book deals and board seats will vaporize as quickly as the Biden legacy.
DAVID MOOK
Health insurance is 100% unnecessary administrative costs. Unlike hospitals, insurance companies provide no actual care, nor do they manufacture medical equipment, nor do they produce any medicines. And yet they extract more than $770 billion annually from the pool of healthcare dollars. Think about all of those corporate headquarter campuses with their modern office buildings and neatly manicured landscapes, with their many high-paid executives (United Healthcare CEO raked in $66 million in one year) and thousands of claims “adjusters” trained to deny claims in order to maintain those huge executive bonuses. Imagine if each of those insurance campuses was a hospital, actually providing health care. Imagine, instead of executives holding profit-driven meetings there were doctors healing patients; imagine instead of data clerks processing claims there were nurses attending to patients’ needs. Yes, the true cost factors of quality healthcare are continually rising: latest technology, modern facilities, highly-educated healthcare professionals. But demanding austerity from hospitals will not solve the greater problem of continually rising insurance premiums. Instead of thinking “hospitals are a main driver of insurance premiums” we need to turn the problem on its head and recognize insurance premiums (a huge and totally unnecessary administrative cost) are a real problem driving costs. The solution is to eliminate corporate insurance premiums from the equation, sooner rather than later.
IF I HAVE ANY BELIEFS about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
— James Thurber
COLD WIND
I like those old movies where tires and wheels run backwards on horse-drawn carriages pursued by Indians, or Model A’s driven by thugs leaning out windows with tommy guns ablaze. Of late I feel a cold blue wind through my life and need to go backwards myself to the outback I once knew so well where there were too many mosquitoes, blackflies, curious bears, flowering berry trees of sugar plum and chokeberry, and where sodden and hot with salty sweat I’d slide into a cold river and drift along until I floated against a warm sandbar, thinking of driving again the gravel backroads of America at thirty-five miles per hour in order to see the ditches and gulleys, the birds in the fields, the mountains and rivers, the skies that hold our 10,000 generations of mothers in the clouds waiting for us to fall back into their arms again.
Jim Harrison: Complete Poems, Copper Canyon Press, 2021.
In Search of Small Gods, Copper Canyon Press, 2009.
Photo Credit: Jeff Topping, NY Times
CAPITALISTS SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM ALL OUR SYSTEMS, NOT JUST HEALTHCARE
by Paul Street
Imagine that your household was regularly broken into by a sadist who systemically beat-up everyone in your home. He’d start by punching folks in the stomach. Then he’d smack people on the both sides of their heads. Then he’d kick your legs out from underneath you and pound you all on your backs and necks before kicking you all in the jaw and punching your noses.
In forming a response to this outrageous oppression would you tell this monster that the next time he breaks into your home with his fists balled he’s going to have to forgo one of the shots he takes at people – say, the head smacks. Would you say, “listen, bully, you can punch us in the stomach and kick our legs out and pound our backs and necks and kick our jaws and smack our noses but you can’t smack our heads anymore!”
Hell No! You’d join forces to subdue him and call the police to have him hauled off to jail.
Which brings me to a 2019 Chris Hedges statement that has been making the rounds of the Internet in connection with the supposedly surprising amount of support Americans have voiced for Luigi Mangione, the young “folk hero” assassin of the CEO of United Health Care. “Capitalists,” the statement says:
“should never be allowed near a healthcare system. They hold sick children hostage as they force parents to bankrupt themselves in the desperate scramble to pay for medical care. The sick do not have a choice. Medical care is not a consumable good. We can choose to buy a new or used car, shop at a boutique or thrift store, but there is no choice between illness and health.”
This Hedges quote is typically put up in support of Single Payer national insurance and the longtime progressive argument that “health care should not be a commodity” and should instead be a human right.
Please note that Hedges’ statement references the whole “healthcare system,” not just health insurance. The entire healthcare system includes providers, hospitals, drug makers, medical device manufacturers and more, of course.
I agree with the statement. Look at the nightmare that is the entire US “healthcare” regime, combining the highest medical costs in the world with horrifically bad outcomes while capitalist “healthcare” investors rake in obscene profits. It’s a racket with rewards beyond the wildest Mafia Don dreams!
But let’s go further. I get the difference between (a) having no choice but to pay through the nose (and go into crippling debt, far too often) when it comes to sickness and injury and (b) having the choice to buy a less pricey car rather than an expensive one. And yes, “capitalists should never be allowed near a healthcare system.” Damn straight.
Okay, but, dear progressives, what major US societal system under the commodifying command and control of capital/capitalists/capitalism isn’t a disastrous racket? Just what systems should capitalists ever be “allowed near”?
The transportation system, which capitalism has turned into a carbon-spewing and accident-ridden calamity?
The food system, which capitalism has turned into an obesity-, cancer-, and pollution-generating catastrophe?
The educational system, which capitalism has degraded in service to mindless nationalism and soulless profit-seeking?
The electoral system, which capitalists have fashioned into a noxious vehicle of oligarchy and tilted towards fascism?
The communications and media system, which capitalism-imperialism has harnessed for relentless sale of commodities and the manufacture of mass consent to empire, class rule, and police statism?
The earth — air, water, climate, biodiversity, and soil, etc. — systems that capitalism relentlessly destabilizes and poisons, placing livable ecology at ever-more grave risk?
The “international relations” and weapons system that are a recipe for war and mass murder on a monumental scale under the command of capitalism-imperialism?
The work and labor systems that pervert and crush homo sapiens’ remarkable capacity to create and produce wonders beneath the wheel of the alienating and mind-numbing capitalist division of labor?
The despotic capitalist work regime, where human labor power is exploited as itself a commodity — a commodity with the core function of producing surplus value and hence profit for employers in a system where people are seen as disposable once it is no longer profitable to keep them on the payroll?
The for-profit housing system that helps render millions homeless?
The distribution system wherein prices regularly run ahead of wages, helping keep most Americans living from paycheck to paycheck.
I could go on. I could write a book or three on how capitalists and — more fundamentally — capitalism ruins all of these and other human and societal systems. (A worthy project perhaps, but I suspect that the gestation period for such an undertaking is longer than the amount of time humanity can continue to live under this exterminist system.)
No health care system, no matter now socialist and wonderful, can keep people healthy when their Earth, political, labor, media, educational, cultural, and broad social systems are captive to and poisoned – both literally and figuratively – by the capitalist system.
The anti-communism/anti-revolution-ism that is so sadly prevalent among US-American lefties ends up miring them in this endless cul-de-sac where they lose the ability to forthrightly critique and propose alternatives to the whole damn system.
Which brings me back to the analogy I suggested at the outset of this commentary: what good is it to get the vicious bully to stop smacking us upside the head when he still gets to punch us in the gut, kick our legs out, and do all the rest of the horrible stuff I mentioned in my opening paragraph? Why stop at the healthcare industry when it comes to walling off key societal and life systems from capitalists and capitalism?! As a revolutionary communist friend recently wrote me, “every damn thing is a commodity under capitalism, including people! These endless attempts to construct arguments for why one or the other necessity of life should be exempt from the workings of the profit system are delusional, tiresome and just lazy. Marx figured this out — what? Something like 150 years ago?! As you put it, the whole lethal system is way past its overthrow date. Let’s get to work on THAT.”
Yes.
De-commodify health care? Yes, and everything else, including ourselves!
(Paul Street’s latest book is This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America (London: Routledge, 2022). CounterPunch.org.)
What Jim Rickett had to say on Biden: “Nothing surprising, really. Appalling might fit, especially the fact that the people actually running the government for the past four years were so desperate to cling to power that they were willing to continue this ghastly charade for another four years. – Dwight D. Eisenhower was correct when he said “No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.”
Of course, that brings up the problem of Trump. He’s not much younger, and I don’t think anyone would describe him as stable. If he has any stability, it’s due to the fact that he’s as self-centered as a gyroscope. I’m not optimistic that he’s going to be able to make any real dent in the massive bureaucracy, although (I have been told) that a lot of the senior management types he knows in federal agencies are spending their Christmas break tweaking their retirement plans. Interesting times ahead, certainly.
“Del-centered as a gyroscope “—I say, George, that’s as enviable a phrase as Sheriff Kendall’s “weather cave for a moral compass”!
The comment went up w/out the usual seven-min edit pause— what’s up w/ that?
I know there are some editing issues there. I did not catch them in time. “Self-centered as a gyroscope” is pretty good, though. My cousin, Jim, is well read, and a good writer. Better than me.
The sad part about all of this for me isn’t President Biden’s diminished capacity. It will always be the folks who lied about it. Governor Newsom along with many others carrying the water on many occasions for him was and will remain a blatant lie.
Albert Einstein had a quote which I read in my youth which basically said it’s not the evil people in the world who are the problem it’s the folks who support and stand by doing nothing about it.
I’m not saying President Biden was evil at all. I am saying the folks around him lying about what was going on are the problem.
Wasn’t fair to him and it wasn’t fair to us.
Aye, those are the ones who should be prosecuted. And the Biden Blanket Pardon tells me they are still pulling the cadaverous old grifter’s puppet strings. But still, “weather vane for a moral compass” and “self-centered as a gyroscope” are a couple of golden nuggets of speech I shall always admire! Thanks to Sheriff Matt Kendall and Gentleman George Hollister.
To whoever thinks Boonville and Ukiah are the pits; that Indians and Mexican people are so scary that you need to go around carrying a weapon… Please, please, please move somewhere else and don’t come back
The Honeymoon Ends Even Before the Wedding Ceremony:
Trump Is Having A Very Bad Week – As of press time this morning it’s hard to see how we can prevent the government from shutting down this weekend. To me, however, the biggest story right now is that Donald Trump is having a very bad week and his post-election honeymoon has come to an ugly end even before taking office:
The Fed and the markets got spooked this week by Trump’s inflationary economic agenda. Mortgage rates are rising, the stock indices have had big losses and yesterday Trump signaled that he needs to get rid of the debt ceiling so he can dramatically grow the deficit next year. Trump’s extreme agenda has already started unraveling the strong Biden economy he inherited.
Trump is openly picking fights with our closest allies and largest trading partners, who are starting to talk about economic and political retaliation against him and the US. Tariffs and trade wars = higher prices, a slower economy, extraordinary political corruption and global political instability. These too are ominous developments for the GOP.
We learned the Matt Gaetz report will be released in the coming days, further reminding us of the next President’s recklessness, depravity and extremism. I believe the report will further undermine his other egregious and dangerous nominees – Gabbard, Hegseth, Patel and Kennedy.
Goaded by Elon’s corrosive, lie-infused opposition to the bi-partisan House package, Trump came out against the bill and threw his party and Washington into total chaos. Trump undermined and weakened his own Speaker; had 38 Republicans vote against him and kill his first must pass bill even before becoming President (!!!); and has come off looking like a reckless buffoon who may not actually be running the show.
-Simon Rosenberg
Ps: “only the AfD can save Germany!” – Elon Musk
– the AfD is Germany’s neo-nazi party.
There is no interest whatsoever from residents of the District of Columbia in regard to the Federal Government shutdown. Nobody here could care less about the Fed, Black Lives Matter wishing it would up and move to St. Louis. Everybody here is gearing up for a very festive holiday season, followed by the Cherry Blossom Festival. ~Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year~
Oh Craig: You might be projecting a bit there, as there are probably more folks per capita in DC who care very much about a federal shutdown than anywhere else – their pay will stop. And eventually, if greed-fueled co-presidents Musk and Trump, aka Nero and Caligula, get their way, so will many of the types of services you’ve availed yourself of these many years. Apathy is not enlightenment. So better hope the “resistance” to these sociopathic billionaires works at least somewhat, or many non-billionaires will be suffering even more than now. Stay warm, and best to you!
Trump essentially asked for this very bad week by his actions and inactions, and he got it.
Now we look forward to the potential of 200+ similar very bad weeks. Fasten your seat belts. It is going to be a bumpy second term.
Yes, for sure, Marshall. hard to imagine the next 200 weeks, and painful to see how long it’s going to be in real terms, like weeks… Yet, once in a while there will be some smiles, as the low-points come. There was this op-ed title in the Washington Post today: “Trump’s donors shouldn’t get too close. ( Elon, sweetie, too late).” That’s for sure. I give the Trump-Musk love story a few month at most. Not a match made in heaven, and Musk takes up way too much space. The break-up will be like a swift execution, Trump holding the sharp knife.
The AfD is pro-Israel.
https://jacobin.com/2021/09/germany-afd-zionism-antisemitism-israel-nationalism
https://www.timesofisrael.com/german-far-right-mp-pushes-recognition-of-jerusalem-as-israels-capital/
https://www.dw.com/en/where-do-europes-far-right-parties-stand-on-the-israel-hamas-conflict/a-67465217
https://www.theleftberlin.com/afd-israel-antisemitism/
“Captain Kirk” is what my former dentist used to call me. I was never much of a Star Trek fan, but those old retro episodes, particularly the musical score, are gems. Live long and prosper!
When I was in high school my date, a very good-looking tall guy who was too tall for me (5.2′ in shoes), took me to a Cal Tech party that was simply couples sitting in a small, very crowded dorm room watching Star Trek. I had never dated a Cal Tech guy because (a) I had never been asked out by one, and (b) they were considered “nerds”, but these guys were smoking these huge marijuana joints all night, passing them around, and filling the room with massive amounts of smoke. Being not only small but weighing less than probably anyone in the room, I became seriously intoxicated, and started freaking out, because I was overdosing, an extremely unpleasant experience. . I thought I was going to pass out, or maybe just disappear into pure energy. My date took me outside and had me breathe into a paper bag, I guess I seriously embarrassed him, because he called me a “baby”. Well, I wasn’t a college student, probably about 15 or 16, so I guess, technically I was a baby. Anyway, so much for pot making you stupid, as Cal Tech is known as the hardest school in the country to get into and, I would think, to stay enrolled in. As for Star Trek, I thought it was incredibly tacky, with its phony-looking props and landscapes, but it did have bright colors and a “trippy” plot. I have never seen such a rapt audience. Of course, “Captain Kirk” was cute, but I was too far back in the crowd to get a good look at him, lol. I now enjoy the old shows, but still think they are pretty phony looking. The newer series are better in terms of props, special effects, and costumes, but still lacking in good plots and dialog, in my view I know this is kind of un-hip of me, and my husband, who is far cooler than I am, loves all of the shows. As for the cute guy date, he had to pick me up to kiss me goodnight. That was our first and last date.
The Biden cover-up picture is just starting to come into focus. Wait until he’s actually out of office and the birds will really start chirping. One can only hope the MANY people that had dealings with the Big Guy will somehow pay for their actions. I won’t hold my breath. Hillary destroyed 30,000 emails and staff broke cell phones with hammers. The entire Biden family is going to get away with their illegal activities too. Sickening.
Nothing will very pass the corruption of the Trump crime syndicate. And now the SOB gets another round.
+1
Every single person with a -D or -R next to their name is a criminal. Among other crimes, they bomb children in countries that have not attacked us.
If you are under the false impression that Trump didn’t do that, you’re wrong. He dropped 40,000 bombs on Syria in 2017 alone – even outdoing the mass war criminal Obama. Source? US Air Force: https://www.afcent.af.mil/Portals/82/Documents/Airpower%20summary/Airpower%20Summary%20Fixed%20-%20January%202018.pdf?ver=2018-04-07-042318-623
What is sickening is the fact that millions of people who otherwise seem to be of sound mind and decent character vote for these criminals – every time.