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AFTER A COLD MORNING, temperatures will warm today into Wednesday as rain chances return this evening and persist through Friday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cold 36F under clear skies this last day of 2024. The first 3 days of 2025 are looking wet followed by a good dry spell well into next week. Finally.
EVA JOHNSON, Long-time Boonville Sheep Rancher, dead at 90.
The family of Eva Johnson is sad to announce that we lost our sweet Grandma on Christmas Eve Eve. There’s another bright angel flying high and watching over us all. Her celebration of life will be held on January 11 at 1:00pm in the Apple Hall at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds. Please join the family for this Celebration. A potluck will follow the service. If you would like to contribute, please bring a side dish or dessert.
Steve Sparks interviewed Eva in 2011: https://theava.com/archives/13330
LET’S HAVE IT!
The Northern California Community Blood Bank is in urgent need of type O+ blood donations as supplies have reached critically low levels once again. The shortage is attributed to increased local demand for O+ blood products over the Holiday Season, resulting in a strain on the available inventory.
As January is National Blood Donors Month, we encourage everyone to take this opportunity to give back to the community. Donating blood is a simple yet impactful way to help save lives.
The Northern California Community Blood Bank urges individuals with O+ blood type to donate as soon as possible to help replenish the supply and ensure that patients in need can receive life-saving care and transfusions.
To schedule a blood donation, please visit the Northern California Community Blood Bank’s website, nccbb.org, or call 707-443-8004.
KATY!
Katy’s Giving A Talk
If you’re a fan of mineral springs, from tiny ones bubbling by the side of the road to big fancy ones like Orr Hot Springs take a Saturday drive over to Lake County Jan 11 at 2 p.m. and have local historian Katy Tahja tell you tales about the mineral springs of Lake and Mendocino Counties.
Go to the Ely State Stop and Country Museum at 9921 Soda Bay Road in Kelseyville.
MENDOCINO COUNTY MOBILE SPAY & NEUTER VAN HITS THE ROAD IN 2025
Mendocino County is pleased to announce the launch of its Mobile Spay & Neuter Van, designed to bring essential services to communities across the County. Following a successful trial run at the Humane Society, where 34 surgeries were completed, the van is now ready to expand its operations.
Key Dates:
January 14, 2025: First public event at JD Redhouse in Willits. Spay and neuter surgeries are fully booked, but walk-in vaccine services will be available from 10 AM to 2 PM.
Potential Additional Dates:
February 8 & 21, 2025: Laytonville and Hopland are being considered.
February 11, 2025: JD Redhouse in Willits.
These efforts are part of an ongoing initiative to provide accessible spay, neuter, and vaccine services to reduce pet overpopulation and improve animal health in the county.
For more information, contact Animal Care Services at: 707-463-4427 located at 298 Plant Rd. Ukiah, CA 95482.
DAY TRIPPERS
Dear Friends,
I had the most amazing and gratifying experience on Sunday in San Francisco. Many years ago I promised my neighbor and young friend of 10 years that I would take her to see the musical Hamilton one day.
Briana is now a Sophomore at Anderson Valley High School. She had long since memorized the entire musical and began her reading career with Hamilton when she she was a young girl. This girl needed to see this show!
It was a sharp learning curve for me. Tickets were hard to get and expensive by the time I jumped in. I asked through the AVA and out of town friends (patrons of the Arts) for financial help. My nephew helped with the actual buying of the tickets (so many scams!) We did it! Thanks to the generosity of friends who supported this endeavor and the Arts.
It was a joy to share this experience with Briana and her mom Griselda. To go to the iconic Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.
Long day but so good. We went to the “other side” where young people get to do this kind of thing as a part of life in the city. We started off in the Marina district, on Chestnut street after the 2.5 hour drive down to the city.
For the first time they tried (real) Ramen noodles, Chinese pot stickers, a Vietnamese Banh Mi Sandwich, a Lucca Italian delicatessen meatball sandwich, a Mediterranean Shwarma, and a fancy pastry shop for coffee and chocolate eclairs.
SF in its glory, a sunny day, a fun hands-on modern art installation in the Civic Center plaza, a farmers market, a visit into the public library, and a viewing of the Grace Cathedral.
We got to the theater early! Free parking on Sunday. It was all a giddy feeling.
The show was outstanding. Fun. Lots of audience participation, singing, dancing, etc.,.a diverse cast.
Briana bought herself a music book of sheet music as she is teaching herself to read music and play the piano. And a poster for her wall which she is so proud of! We got home in the evening, tired and so, so happy.
I am grateful for the support from this AV community that allowed us to do this incredible day. Thank you.
Kira Brennan
Philo
FROM THE ARCHIVE: DEAD MAN AT GREENWOOD BRIDGE
by Bruce Anderson (June 2009)
The young man was dead on the trail near the Greenwood Bridge, the steep, dusty path locals walk to get to the swimming holes on the summertime Navarro.
The dead man had been shot, and now he was lying there in blue jeans, a tee shirt and a green camo jacket, the uniform of the Mexican pot grower.
He was found Saturday morning about seven by a local man, also young and Hispanic, who said he was out walking his dog when he found the body of his compatriot.
The local man does not want his name in the paper. You find a man about your own age shot dead anywhere in Mendocino County this time of year, and you talk about it, you might be found shot dead, too.
The young local man who found the dead man near the Greenwood Bridge drove to Deputy Keith Squires’ house in Boonville to tell the deputy about the dead man on the dusty trail to the river, the same dusty trail you can see from the bridge, the same dusty trail the young families of Anderson Valley walk every summer to get to the warm, lazy flow of the Navarro.
Deputy Squires is an old fashioned neighborhood cop. Local people like him and they trust him. They will go straight to his house to see him when there’s trouble.
The deputy is never off duty. If his round the clock availability for almost 40 years bothers him, Deputy Squires doesn’t admit it.
The deputy will tell you that Anderson Valley has changed, that there are addresses he won’t visit without back-up. And every dope season someone is found dead in a place where murder used to be rare.
The deputy assumed he would find a victim of the marijuana business at the bridge.
The deputy and the young man who’d come to the deputy’s house with the bad news drove to the Greenwood Bridge where they walked about 50 feet into the woods to where the trail begins to drop down to the river. The dead man was lying on his back with a shotgun blast beneath his chin, his throat and face spackled with birdshot. He was a young man.
His name was tattooed three times laterally across his chest. In big flowing indelible script the three tattoos read, “Aguilar Aguilar Aguilar.”
Aguilar Aguilar Aguilar was soon more fully identified as Salvadore Alfonso ‘Chava’ Aguilar, age 20, of Fort Bragg.
And Fish Rock Road, Yorkville.
Salvador Aguilar had been working in a marijuana garden off Fish Rock Road, deep Fish Rock, in a wild draw annually inhabited by marijuana farmers.
Detectives with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department soon received a call from a Texas woman who said she was the late Mr. Aguilar’s sister. She said the Fort Bragg Aguilars had called her home in Texas to tell her that her brother had killed himself, and that they had left his body in a state park near Fort Bragg because they are illegal and were afraid to go to the police with the news of their tragedy.
By that time the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department had taken possession of Mr. Aguilar’s remains. The police knew who he was, and they knew that the state park where he’d been found was the Hendy Woods State Park near Philo.
A distraught woman living in Texas would not know Philo from Fort Bragg. All she knew was her brother was dead and that he had lived in Fort Bragg and now his body was in a state park somewhere in Mendocino County, and Fort Bragg was the only place she knew about in Mendocino County.
Detective Riboli of the Sheriff’s Department soon found the Fort Bragg Aguilars, and by Sunday morning Riboli knew who had been with the despondent young man when he died, and Riboli knew all about why and how the young man had died, and he knew where the young man had died, and the detective knew all about the shifting geography of the death, how Fish Rock Road and Fort Bragg had ended at the Greenwood Road Bridge.
Salvadore Alfonso Chava Aguilar, 20, had suffered the worst week of his young life, the last week of his young life. He made his worst week even worse by smoking crank at his job site in the marijuana wilderness of Fish Rock Road after he’d visited the Anderson Valley Health Center where he thought he’d been told he had AIDS. He’d then visited the young woman he loved and she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore, that she didn’t love him. Two knockout punches, with the third and final punch coming right up.
Back at the Fish Rock pot garden, young Salvador Aguilar felt more alone than he’d ever felt, and feeling doomed he smoked his crank and counted his losses, his math coming up minus-2: AIDS and the lost love of his life.
So Salvadore Alfonso Chava Aguilar climbed into his sleeping bag with his sawed-off 12-gage shotgun, the weapon of choice among Mexican pot growers, placed the barrel of the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger. Salvadore Alfonso Chava Aguilar was gone from this world, perhaps hoping for better luck in the next.
He didn’t have AIDS, as it turned out. Someone, maybe him, had misread the test results. But for a cold fact the love of his life did not love Aguilar back. There was no misreading that one.
Salvadore Aguilar’s losses were only half bad, but it was too late for recalculations, and crank can only make you feel good for a little while, and after that you feel as bad as it’s possible to feel and you climb into your sleeping bag with your shotgun.
When Salvadore Aguilar’s family and friends heard the gunshot and found Salvadore dead in his sleeping bag… Well, Salvadore’s survivors had three big dilemmas: a dead man, a pot garden, and their citizenship status.
There was panic, and frantic consultations, but everyone agreed on one thing: Salvadore had taken his own life, and sad as it was, and much as they’d loved Salvadore, they could not have the policia knowing who they were and what they were doing on Fish Rock Road.
The Fish Rock pot farmers carried Salvadore out of the hidden gully where he’d died and probably wouldn’t ever be found, packed him up the steep incline in his last sleeping bag to the seldom traveled Fish Rock Road where they pulled Salvadore from the sleeping bag and wrapped him in a tent and put him in their car and drove him to the Elk end of the Greenwood Bridge where they dragged Salvadore 50 feet down the trail and left him, apparently thinking they were in a place as wild and as remote as Fish Rock Road.
Adios, Salvadore, mi amigo.
When Detective Riboli and his support team of investigators talked to the Aguilars, and talked separately with the late Salvadore’s fellow Fish Rock pot growers, they all told the same story, and the story was that Salvadore had shot himself. All the stories were the same, right down to the last detail.
“All the Aguilars cooperated fully,” a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said. “They took us to the garden on Fish Rock Road, showed us step-by-step how they carried him out, gave us the shotgun he killed himself with. We pulled up the hundred or so marijuana plants and left. We’re pretty sure it’s a suicide.”
PICNIC ON THE ALBION RIVER, 1889
by Carol Dominy
Family picnic on the Albion River with the Stevens, Gray, and Pullen families. Rachel Stevens Sampson stands at left in her tall black hat with white feather. Etta Stevens Pullen stands back center with her hands held together and a shawl on her shoulders. Her husband, Wilder Pullen is sitting in front of her, holding a bottle. Rosilla Stevens Gray is far right with a checked dress. The woman in the foreground is unidentified and the man behind her is James Pullen.
Etta wrote in her diary for April 20, 1889, "We had a grand excursion up Albion River in boats, then on railroad to end of road, had a fine lunch spread, our pictures taken and everything lovely for all a few showers.”
(from the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, December 30, 2024
MICHAEL ALPERS, 56, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
CLINT HELLER, 51, Willits. DUI.
PAUL HERNANDEZ, 49, Rosemead/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance for sale, under influence, paraphernalia, false compartment.
ADRIENNE PARDUE, 44, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
YOU BELONG IN MENDO, CRAIG
Happy Year of the Snake
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Please know that this body-mind complex is available for spiritually sourced activity. Having fulfilled a commitment to back up the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil through the autumn season, today there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, absolutely free! Please make contact with all appropriate offers. Otherwise, am continuing to be at the homeless shelter in the northeast section of the District of Columbia, living on the social security, and maintaining general health. Awaiting the favor of your reply.
Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
EGG SHORTAGE FROM AVIAN FLU EXPECTED TO LINGER INTO MID-2025
by Ryan Macasero
As avian flu scrambles the nationwide egg supply, Bay Area consumers face limited availability of the breakfast staple, with shortages expected to persist until mid-2025, according to U.S. agriculture officials.
Some supermarkets in the region report empty shelves, while others are rationing purchases to ensure eggs remain available to more customers.
Since early November, avian flu has led to the loss or culling of more than 6.5 million egg-laying hens across the country, including 2.5 million in California — nearly 40% of the total losses nationwide, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently declared a state of emergency to bolster the state’s response to the outbreak.
While the risk of human infection remains low, the virus is now widespread among wild birds and can be spread to other animal species, including cows. It is affecting nearly half of California’s dairy farms.
The reduced egg supply has already increased prices and limited egg availability.
The Food Marketing Institute reported an 8.2% increase in egg prices in November compared to the same period last year.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show wholesale egg prices averaging $3.95 per dozen in the fourth quarter, up from $3.17 in the third quarter.
Coupled with limited supply, part of the acceleration in prices stems from increased demand over the holidays.
The USDA said relief from the egg shortage will come slowly in 2025.
“It is expected that egg production will rebound, particularly in the second half of the year, as flocks are rebuilt,” an agency spokesperson said.
The USDA projects egg production will rise by about 3% in 2025 compared to 2024, easing prices. The average price next year is expected to drop to $2.30 per dozen, with first-quarter prices averaging $2.95 per dozen.
The state says it is working to limit the spread of avian flu by collaborating with farmers and ranchers on biosecurity measures. The measures include quarantining infected farms, culling affected flocks and halting the movement of poultry and related products from infected areas. Protective zones have been established for unaffected regions, with poultry farms in these areas undergoing regular tests.
Most of California’s eggs come from Southern California and the Central Valley, with key production hubs in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced counties, according to California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom.
Weber Family Farms — located in Petaluma, once known as the “egg basket of the world”— has been hit hard by the outbreak. Mike Weber, the farm’s co-owner, said entire flocks have been culled, and while the business is working to rebuild, full production is months away.
“We need rapid testing,” Weber said. “The most strategic thing anybody can do is vaccinations.”
In November 2023, avian influenza swept through Sonoma County’s poultry industry, leading to the culling of more than 1 million birds.
Weber said most of his farm’s eggs are consumed in the Bay Area, though its products are sold throughout the state. He expects production to return to full capacity by March, provided the virus remains contained.
“Our production is at 93% because we still have a building that’s empty,” Weber said. “We won’t have birds in there until March, once they’re raised.”
Until farms are able to return egg production to normal, some grocery stores are taking steps to make sure there is enough supply for everyone and to prevent hoarding.
Raley’s is limiting purchases to one carton per customer.
“We have inventory but will continue to assess and adjust as necessary,” a company spokesperson said.
Save Mart is taking a similar approach, restricting purchases to two cartons per customer.
“The Save Mart Companies has a list of suppliers that are working to provide safe, quality products so that we can continue to serve the needs of our shoppers,” the company said in a statement. “The egg shortage is nationwide, so we are asking customers to limit their purchases to ensure we have enough for everyone.”
Egg shortages have been observed at Bay Area locations of Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Safeway. Representatives from the companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Following the bird flu state of emergency, Weber urges the government to allocate additional funding for avian flu testing to effectively contain the outbreak and prevent further disruptions to the egg supply and other food products.
“(The labs) desperately need more resources,” Weber said. “They need people, they need money.”
(Bay Area News Group, via Ukiah Daily Journal)
49ERS MAY STILL HAVE BROCK PURDY QUESTIONS, but Lions game provided one answer
by Anne Killion
Of all the injuries, mishaps and disasters that have befallen the San Francisco 49ers in this nightmare of a season, the absolute worst thing that could happen was in play with 96 seconds left in a meaningless final home game that they had little hope of winning.
With his team trailing 40-28, Brock Purdy was sacked and his right arm bent under him. It felt like it was “on fire,” and he came out of the game with what Kyle Shanahan later labeled an elbow injury. Purdy will have an MRI on Tuesday to determine the extent of injury to the arm that he had surgery on 22 months ago.
Shanahan said his quarterback’s status for next week’s finale in Arizona is up in the air. I say that it should not be a question. Put Purdy in bubble wrap, whatever his prognosis, and let the final four quarters of this grim season expire without him, even if they are taking place in his home state.
Don’t tempt fate.
The narrative surrounding these final meaningless games of the 49ers lost season has been all about Purdy. About his redemption. His ability to find some semblance of the player that he was for the past two years. To end the season on the kind of productive roll that will alleviate some of the concerns about the inevitable giant payday he has coming.
But Purdy being crushed by two Lions defenders, coming immediately out of the game, and looking distraught as he was examined on the sideline should end that narrative, no matter the outcome of the MRI.
“I tried to throw a couple on the sideline and I couldn’t,” he said. “It has nothing to do with tapping out of the game or anything like that. I love my teammates and I’ll go to the very end for them and this fanbase. So that’s what hurts me, is that I couldn’t finish the game.”
It says something about how weird this season is that Purdy had to assure the world that he wasn’t “tapping out.” This is, after all, a team where a key player did “tap out,” a stigma they all now have to live with.
The 49ers have been intent on proving that – despite De’Vondre Campbell’s player strike two games ago – they are still football players, still eager to sacrifice their bodies, even with nothing but pride on the line. Nick Bosa predicted the Campbell incident would reveal “who wants to be here,” but he admitted Monday that he felt “a little dead, energy wise,” against Miami, one of the first games he’s ever played with no postseason hopes on the line. He said he adjusted his mindset for Detroit.
The 49ers may feel they need to prove something to themselves, but what they’ve proved week in and week out is that this is not their year. This was not about a few missed plays or a little bad luck. This is a team that walked onto the Super Bowl field in February one kind of team and walked off another. From the ill-fated offseason on, they have been a far cry from the ferocious group that dominated and swaggered through the NFL for the better part of the past six seasons.
Nothing revealed that more than Detroit’s arrival at Levi’s Stadium 11 months after the 49ers crushed the Lions’ dreams. Monday’s game was the inverse of that NFC Championship Game: this time it was the Lions that battled back to take the lead. This time Dan “Gamble” Campbell’s wacky fourth-down moves paid off. This time it was the Lions that had the swagger and seemed like the baddest team in the NFC.
“It’s really a cool team,” Bosa said. “I could just see from afar that it’s probably a fun team to play for. They come out and they play to win every game.”
The game was meaningless for both teams. The 49ers’ playoff dreams realistically ended a while ago. The Lions have to beat the Vikings next week to retain the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Yet they came out bent on revenge.
“No matter what was going to happen, we were going to go,” quarterback Jared Goff said. “The team we were playing, this is what ended our season last year. A lot of guys on the team were here last year and we wanted to get one back on them.”
They did, winning what became a shootout. Purdy had a statistically almost perfect first half, completing 14 of 16 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns and recording a quarterback rating of 158.3, the highest possible. He was fulfilling all the standards set by the “let’s see what Purdy can do” narrative.
Then it all started to fall apart. Purdy threw an interception toward the end of the third quarter that led to a Lions touchdown, allowing Detroit to regain the lead. On the next possession, Jake Moody missed his second field goal of the game. (Moody would get booed off the field after a missed extra point.) And when the 49ers got the ball back again midway through the fourth quarter, Purdy threw another interception.
“Turnovers are tough to overcome,” George Kittle said. “When you have two turnovers and the other team doesn’t have any turnovers in a shootout.”
The 49ers are now 6-10 and have one remaining week of looking for answers. Here’s an answer to one question. No matter what the MRI says, don’t play Purdy next week.
Don’t tempt fate. Because fate has not been kind to the 49ers this season.
(sfchronicle.com)
49ERS GAME GRADES: One good half not enough in loss to high-flying Lions
by Michael Lerseth
The San Francisco 49ers had flashes of brilliance in Monday night’s first half, but the second half dissolved into an all-too-familiar series of mistakes as they fell to 6-10 with a 40-34 loss to the Detroit Lions.
OFFENSE: C
Brock Purdy was, statistically speaking, perfect in the first half (earning a 158.3 rating). In the second half? Anything but. He threw a pair of interceptions — the only turnovers of the night for either team — and both were turned into Detroit TDs. Purdy finished with a career-high 377 yards with three passing TDs and one rushing score before leaving with an elbow injury late in the fourth quarter. Rookie WR Ricky Pearsall had a breakout game (8 catches, 141 yards, TD) and George Kittle topped 1,000 yards for the fourth time in his career with an 8-catch, 112-yard outing.
DEFENSE: D
With a patchwork line, the offense was expected to be troublesome for the 49ers on Monday. But instead it was the defense, which — aside from the possessions at the end of each half — struggled to keep the Lions from scoring. Jared Goff completed 26 of 34 for 303 yards and three TDs and Jahmyr Gibbs carried the ball 18 times for 117 yards — the final 30 of which came on a KO TD run with 2:58 to play. The Lions outscored the 49ers 27-13 in the second half and their 439 yards of total offense are the most allowed by the Niners this season.
SPECIAL TEAMS: F
The nightmare that has been Jake Moody’s season since returning from injury last month continued as he missed a pair of field goals (from 51 and 58 yards) and then an extra point (his first missed on the season) in the final minute. Moody was 13-of-14 on FGs before being injured on a kick-return tackle and has since missed 8 of 18 tries. Neither team punted, so Pat O’Donnell spent the night as a holder for Moody. Jordan Elliott blocked the extra point after Detroit’s first TD.
COACHING: C
Kyle Shanahan had the Lions off-balance the entire first half with his play calling, but the opportunity for an improbable victory was scuttled by Purdy’s picks and Moody’s misses. On the 49ers’ first possession — perhaps having a sense what was to come — he waved off a field-goal try and went for it on 4th-and-1 at the Detroit 5. Purdy converted on a 2-yard run and two plays later Pearsall caught his TD pass.
OVERALL: D
An abundance of pride gave way to an avalanche of points as the 49ers surrendered their most since the Chiefs dropped 44 on them in Week 7 of 2022. Flashes of brilliance emerged in the first half, but the second half dissolved into an all-too-familiar series of mistakes, misfires and missed kicks. At 6-10 the 49ers are guaranteed of having to endure no more than one more disheartening defeat this season.
(sfchronicle.com)
HOMEOWNERS’ PG&E BILLS REVEAL CALIFORNIA’S DRAMATIC SHIFT ON SOLAR
by Chase DiFeliciantonio
Amid the push for green energy in California, some consumers have gotten a better deal than others. Consider the case of Kris Moe and Adrian Macneil.
Moe, an energy finance consultant, spent $70,000 before tax credits to install solar panels on his Larkspur home in 2023, during a period of generous incentives and subsidies meant to spur adoption of clean power. He’s able to generate all the electricity he needs most days of the year and can sell the excess to Pacific Gas and Electric for 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. With his current plan, he figures to pay off his investment in a few years.
Four miles away in San Anselmo, Macneil, the CEO of a software startup, didn’t install his panels until last August, after key incentives had expired. He still expects to save an average of $500 on his monthly energy bills, but when his panels generate more electricity than he needs, PG&E pays him just a fraction of what Moe gets per kilowatt-hour to buy the surplus. His investment in solar panels plus a battery could take up to seven years to pay off.
The contrast between the two Marin solar users spotlights a dramatic policy shift in California that has rocked the state’s solar industry and threatened to slow the realization of Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s carbon-reduction goals.
It’s true that customers looking to install solar can still take advantage of a 30% federal tax credit on their projects that was extended by the Biden administration for the next decade. California also offers a rebate for installing solar batteries, and some local municipalities offer further incentives. The main gap between Moe’s and Macneil’s energy bills and solar payoff is due to a cut in the so-called feed-in tariff: the amount PG&E and other utilities pay to buy power produced by solar panels that is fed back into the electric grid and sold to other customers.
In late 2022, state regulators voted to slash the value of that tariff by around 75% to bring it closer to market prices. With the electricity they produce worth far less, rooftop panels suddenly didn’t make as much financial sense. Beyond the impact on customers’ pocketbooks, the change devastated California’s solar industry when it went into effect in April 2023, prompting a huge drop in home and business panel installations, wiping out thousands of jobs, and forcing local installers to shrink or close up shop altogether.
It also elicited loud and sustained protest from an industry that views — and markets — its products as pivotal to meeting the state’s long-term climate goals.
Solar companies say PG&E pressured the California Public Utilities Commission to make the move to protect its profits. But the utility, as well as economists, consumer advocates and regulators, say that cutting subsidies and pegging the feed-in tariff closer to the true value of electricity was an essential step to ensure solar’s long-term viability.
“We were on a completely unsustainable path,” said UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein. “Households producing solar were compensated at the full retail price — at least double the market value of the electricity — for the quantities they sold back to the grid.”
That money had to come from somewhere, and the result was that customers in PG&E’s service area who did not have solar panels were effectively subsidizing those that did, according to Borenstein and other experts. One state analysis found that solar credits were on track to increase the power bills of consumers without panels by an average of 25% by the end of 2024, to the tune of $8.5 billion.
Solar owners who ended each month with a net credit were not kicking in money to maintain the power grid, Borenstein said, shifting that burden to non-solar customers — often in less affluent areas — whose PG&E bills help pay for the infrastructure. That meant a subset of ratepayers wasn’t contributing to PG&E’s efforts to modernize its network and harden it against wildfires.
The lucrative feed-in tariff also had another consequence, motivating solar owners to sell their excess power back to PG&E rather than storing it locally in batteries. The lower compensation that took effect in April 2023 was meant to reverse that topsy-turvy incentive structure and encourage more consumers to buy batteries. Though they represent a higher up-front cost to consumers, batteries decentralize the power system and help relieve stress on the grid.
The change was the result of decades of step-by-step policymaking. To wean California from fossil fuels and kick-start clean and green solar, regulators first set a tariff — formally known as Net Energy Metering, or NEM — in 1996 that matched the retail, not wholesale, price of electricity at a 1:1 ratio for 20 years. That tariff, called NEM 1.0, was phased out by 2017 in favor of NEM 2.0, which was equally generous but entailed some charges to customers.
The effect of the early NEM tariffs, coupled with other subsidies and incentives, sent a bolt through the solar installation business. “We saw this gold rush,” with installers jumping into the market, Borenstein said. Rapid expansion led to hundreds of thousands of solar installations as demand for labor shot up. Large and small installers could barely keep up with demand.
The pace of work reached a fever pitch after the PUC announced that NEM 2.0 would be phased out in favor of the less generous NEM 3.0 scheme. Californians like Moe raced to get in under the wire and contractors were backed up on jobs for months.
Then the bottom fell out.
In May 2023, following the expiration of NEM 2.0, applications for new solar connections to the electric grid plunged by 90% from a year earlier. They began creeping back up as 2023 progressed, but only to levels one-quarter of the year before. By the end of the year, an estimated 17,000 solar workers had lost their jobs. Scores of installers went under and, by August of this year, San Jose-based SunPower Corp., a maker of photovoltaic cells, had filed for bankruptcy.
The California Solar & Storage Association, a pro-solar industry group, blames the PUC and PG&E for the carnage. Executive Director Bernadette Del Chiaro said the regulator rubber-stamped the utility’s bid to crush mom-and-pop solar firms whose rooftop panels were taking away its business. She blamed rising electrical rates on PG&E’s ever-increasing capital expenditures — not on the feed-in subsidies — because California guarantees PG&E a profit margin on the investment it makes in its grid.
“For every dollar they spend on a (power) pole, they make a profit,” Del Chiaro said. Peak system loads have remained relatively flat for the last 20 years — thanks to solar, she said — while PG&E has continued to splash out on building up its infrastructure.
Matthew Freedman, staff attorney at the consumer advocacy nonprofit The Utility Reform Network, noted that when PG&E spends money to limit sparking of wildfires, including by undergrounding power lines, the work is treated as a capital expenditure and “earns profits for (PG&E) shareholders.”
The PUC defended its policy shift on the basis of equity. “NEM 2 subsidies have imposed a financial burden on California ratepayers,” agency spokesperson Terrie Prosper in an email. Equally important, she said, the revised tariff schedule should promote installation of batteries.
Some solar firms are already seeing the impact. Novato’s SolarCraft, for instance, said it is now installing batteries along with panels on just about every job, including on the side of Macneil’s San Anselmo home. That increases project costs by 30% to 40% for homeowners, said CEO Phil Alwitt, which he conceded can make solar less attractive to install and lengthen the time it takes to pay off.
But with the extension of state and federal incentives and with retail electricity prices continuing to rise, “the economics are still pretty good” for his customers, Alwitt said. That’s why Macneil called him up to install solar panels on his roof last August, even though the lucrative NEM 2.0 regime had already expired.
“My PG&E bills were going crazy during the pandemic,” Macneil said, sometimes touching $700 per month. He figures that even with the cost of a battery, the system will pay for itself in the next six to seven years — maybe faster given how quickly electric rates are going up. “It’s much better to control your own destiny,” he said.
Moe of Larkspur also chose to install a battery for protection against rising prices and resiliency against power failures. He is planning to buy a couple of electric cars he can charge off the battery. Even with these new draws on the power, he figures his credits from being grandfathered under NEM 2.0 should last him for years.
Experts like Borenstein and Freedman say the shift to more battery storage will incentivize those installing solar to stockpile their own power instead of using the grid for effectively the same purpose.
“How do I maximize the amount of solar consumed on site? With a battery,” Freedman said. The NEM 3.0 shift “is a feature, not a bug,” he said. “It’s not a secret agenda.”
(SF Chronicle)
LOVE AND CONCILIATION
Yes, I will listen.
I will hear you out. Fully.
And I will respond.
And you’ll listen too.
And you’ll hear me out. Fully.
And you will respond.
We’ll both listen close
And try our best to agree
And we’ll make it work.
— Jim Luther
AS HWY. 101 WIDENING NEARS END, FOCUS SHIFTS TO TRANSIT
After two decades of construction, widening of Highway 101 between Marin and Sonoma counties is set to substantially wrap in mid-2025. Transportation agencies have been shifting priorities to sustainability, transit, biking and reducing car dependency.
by Jeff Quackenbush
The long-awaited completion of Highway 101 widening between Marin and Sonoma counties is set for the middle of next year, marking the end of a two-decade-long effort to improve traffic movement along one of the North Bay’s key transportation backbones.
At completion there will be a continuous high-occupancy-vehicle lane from the Richmond—San Rafael Bridge (connecting Marin to the East Bay via Interstate 580) to Windsor, covering nearly 52 miles. And while this is a significant milestone in regional transportation planning, it’s also part of an evolution of priorities for local authorities away from highway construction.
The last segment of the Highway 101 widening effort is known as the Marin-Sonoma Narrows project, spanning 16 miles between the Highway 37 interchange in Novato and Corona Road in Petaluma. This $767 million portion is currently on track to fully open by July 2025, according to Caltrans. Starting as soon as February, traffic will be shifted to the new northbound lanes, allowing for the concrete median barrier and asphalt paving to be completed.
Anne Richman, executive director of Transportation Authority of Marin, acknowledged the frustration for drivers.
"We know it’s been a lot of construction over many years, and we appreciate everybody’s patience. The public will see a big change in the Novato Narrows area once the project is complete and the lanes are open," she said.
However, Richman cautioned that some problems may linger.
"There probably will continue to be some other areas of congestion in Marin and Sonoma because the corridor is so long," she said. Ongoing slow traffic is expected northbound in southern Marin during afternoons and southbound around North San Rafael in the mornings.
James Cameron, executive director of Sonoma County Transportation Authority, noted Sonoma County segment of the Narrows project was completed last year, but new landscaping and replanting of trees in areas connected to waterways will continue through 2030, with monitoring of environmental mitigation to extend up to a decade beyond that.
One of the final pieces of the Narrows project involves replacing the San Antonio Creek Bridge on the west side of the highway at the county line. This improvement will enhance bicycle and pedestrian connectivity between Marin and Sonoma counties, addressing a long-standing safety concern for cyclists navigating the narrow shoulders of San Antonio Road.
This achievement represents the culmination of efforts that began with the passage of a quarter-cent transportation sales taxes in Sonoma and Marin counties. Sonoma County voters approved Measure M in 2004, with 40% of revenues allocated to upgrading the key north-south thoroughfare.
Marin County voters passed Measure AA in 2018, providing 7% of revenue for the highway, 1.5% of which was specifically for the Narrows, according to Anne Richman, executive director of Transportation Authority of Marin.
The counties’ sales taxes helped pull in five times as much state and federal funding, Cameron said. State money came from two key sources — Prop. 1B in 2011 and SB 1 in 2017 — and the 2023 federal infrastructure bill was the last injection of funds to keep the effort going.
"We’ve been involved with the delivery of about $1.3 billion worth of carpool lanes from Marin up to Windsor," Cameron said.
However, the completion of the Highway 101 widening also signals a shift in transportation priorities for the region. The Sonoma County agency, which now operates as both a transportation and climate authority, has moved away from highway expansion in its 2020 renewal of the county transportation sales tax measure, known as "Go Sonoma." It’s set to generate $32 million a year, but it doesn’t have previous set-aside for highway expansion.
And Sonoma County transportation plans don’t include any such projects to 2050 and beyond, Cameron said.
"So the three lanes that we have are the three lanes that we’re going to be working with, so there is a need to make sure that those lanes are operating as efficiently as possible," he said.
David Rabbitt, a Sonoma County supervisors and member of local and Bay Area transportation agency boards, explained the change in focus.
"We’re now focused on safety, maintenance, and active and shared modes like transit, bikes, and pedestrians," Rabbitt said.
This shift reflects broader changes in transportation planning philosophy and the growing emphasis on climate-friendly mobility options. One key part of that philosophy is the theory of induced travel, a subset of the economics concept of induced demand in which expansion (more supply) of a transportation option such as roadways for vehicles encourages more use of (demand for) that option, increasing total vehicle miles traveled.
HOV lanes and increasingly express lanes are one tool meant to encourage a shift from single-vehicle travel. As the highway project nears completion, attention is turning to maximizing the efficiency of the new infrastructure. Cameron highlighted ongoing efforts to coordinate carpool lane hours across the entire corridor, working with Caltrans, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the California Highway Patrol to create a seamless user experience.
The Sonoma and Marin transportation agencies recently launched a bike-share program between Marin and Sonoma counties, intending to encourage alternative transportation modes. And various agencies have come together to on the Marin-Sonoma Coordinated Transit Service (MASCOTS) initiative, aiming to optimize bus and rail services along the Highway 101 corridor.
"We’re looking at what should be the right level of service for transit between Marin and Sonoma counties," Cameron said. "We’re doing it in an operator-agnostic way, focusing on what’s best for the actual users of the system."
The success of the SMART rail system, which has seen ridership growth even as bus ridership declined, underscores the potential for rail transit in the corridor.
"Sonoma and Marin counties got together decades ago to determine how best to move people along the 101 corridor. It was agreed that a commuter train would be more beneficial than continually widening the freeway," Rabbitt said.
But the widening project has highlighted the potentially changing nature of commute patterns, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"We’ve seen a paradigm shift in commuting post-pandemic, with fewer people going into the office daily and more running errands during the day," Rabbitt said.
But there are signs that traffic patterns are returning to prepandemic levels. So Rabbitt noted the need for flexibility in transportation planning.
The Go Sonoma sales tax measure includes funding for transportation-demand management, focusing on commuter and first- and last-mile programs, getting travelers to and from transit stops quickly. This could include expanding micro-mobility options like the Go Luma shuttle in Petaluma and the SMART Connect shuttle at Sonoma County airport and Larkspur stations.
The Marin transportation agency’s approach to induced traffic includes the prepandemic pilot Marin Commutes program, which offered incentives and different ways for people to try alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle travel, such as bike sharing.
As the region pivots from expanded highways toward more sustainable and diverse transportation options, the lessons learned from this two-decade endeavor will inform future decisions and strategies.
"This project is really about improving quality of life and creating a safer, more efficient transportation system for everyone," Rabbitt said. "While we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with the Highway 101 widening, we’re even more excited about the future of transportation in our region — one that embraces innovation, sustainability, and the diverse needs of our communities."
(North Bay Business Journal)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
First, and most important, starting in the 70s and 80s, and accelerating ever since, the American voter is simply more ignorant and less intelligent. While a higher percentage of Americans have college degrees, Robert Putnam, in Bowling Alone (2005) wrote that studies showed that the average 1948 US high school graduate was more proficient in math, science, history, and English than the average 1998 US College graduate. So, the public had more discernment and was smarter.
Next, TV, and then the internet, reduced the attention span of the masses. So sound bites became more popular, to the point that a lot of Americans get their news from Facebook, and consider themselves informed. Which also reflected the dumbing down of Americans mentioned above.
The media itself became more concentrated. As late as the 1980s/90s, there were hundreds of newspapers, even though many of their stories came from wire services. Now four or five companies own like 90% of the print papers. And who reads anyway?
As people stopped reading, and as cable, and later the internet, and smartphones, became more popular, the news media, to stay in business or make more money began catering to "customers", and tailoring the news accordingly, while still peddling the establishment message.
The one good thing is that the internet has spawned alternative media.
If one wants to have some idea of what is going on in the world beyond one’s neighborhood or small town, one needs to go to various alternative sites, and then try to discern the truth.
And that’s why Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton want to set "standards" for the internet--to take that small crack of light away.
UNREPRESENTED
Editor:
I’ve never particularly felt represented by anyone, let alone politically, but I know the politics of where I live, and I have to say I’m surprised. The man who actually represents me and who has been representing Northern Californians for 25 years just voted to strip transgender kids of service members of their medication (“House passes $895 billion defense bill, ban on transgender care for minors,” Dec. 12). After a cursory look at his grand total of 13 bills passed since 1999 (77% of which are designating new names to landmarks) I have to ask: does anyone here feel represented?
My neighbors, young and old, want meaningful action and social progress. I happen to believe a single voice is powerful enough for change, and I want my representatives to reflect that. I feel that the congressman for Santa Rosa has made it clear his values don’t align with his constituents but he’s content to continue to enjoy the benefits of elected office while giving little back. It frustrates me and feels like an insult to the character of the people in our part of the world.
Casey DeWitt
Santa Rosa
GUILLOTINE FUN FACT: cognition persists for about 7 seconds post event.
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Chinese Companies Have Sidestepped Trump’s Tariffs. They Could Do It Again.
China Hacks the Treasury Dept., a Hydropower Crisis, and More
Drugs, Scams and Sin: Myanmar’s War Has Made It the Global Crime Capital
‘Hanging Out With Jimmy Carter,’ Biden Faces the Echoes of History
In Carter’s Hometown, a Long Vigil Ends With Sorrow, but Also Uplift
Carter’s Mission to Build More Housing Became an Urgent National Issue
Amy Carter, Thrust Into the Public Eye at a Young Age, Has Since Receded
FUNDING ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE
Editor:
I support Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson in their votes to continue funding Israel. I have observed for years how there will be a peace agreement, usually brokered by the United States, between Israel and the Palestinians and how every time, the Palestinians renege on it. I thought after the terrorist Yasser Arafat died that finally Palestinians would keep their part of the agreement, but no, the Mahmoud Abbas regime was just as bad.
The people in Gaza voted Hamas in. This is a known terrorist antisemitic group. They don’t just want to kill Israeli soldiers but any Jewish person in the world. The pro-Hamas demonstrators do not have my support.
By the way, I am not Jewish and have no relatives or friends in the Middle East. I just imagine the difference between Israel, which allows for anti-government demonstrations, and the Palestinian territories, which only allow pro-government demonstrations. Which would I rather support? Which respects women’s rights? Which respects LGBTQ+ rights?
The lawsuit is dumb and a waste of time and money.
Linda Robinett
Sebastopol
JEFF BLANKFORT REPLIES:
If there is and has been a single word that might describe the character of the average American citizen of any color or gender in the years following World War 2, during which I grew up, it would be ignorance and if an adjective is required to make that characteristic more specific, it would be willful. That would be the best that Americans such as Linda Robinette might offer in their defense in explaining why over the last quarter of a century the vast majority have supported or at the very least have allowed without objections their tax money to facilitate the mass murder of citizens of other counties across the planet who have never attacked or threatened to attack us, details which are irrelevant to the Robinettes of our great nation.
Israel, to be sure, represents a very special case. Not only have its agents in the United States managed over the years to gain extraordinary control over our domestic political processes and both of what nominally are our political parties, but they have managed to render impotent laws passed by both the House and Senate that would clearly have prohibited further arms and bomb shipments to Israel that have enabled its neo-fascist government to conduct a genocidal war against the Palestinians of Gaza such as the world has never before witnessed while repeatedly blocking UN Security Council sanctions against Israel by a predictable US veto.
Readers may recall that both parents of a Michigan teenager who provided their nutcase son with a gun that he used to kill some of his fellow students were sentenced to years in prison for enabling him to do so because, from his past actions, they should have known what their son planned to do with that gun and more recently, a Georgia father was indicted for murder along with his son for providing his offspring with the weapon when he should have known what the result would be, another school shooting. Using those examples. Joe Biden, arguably the most evil creature ever to inhabit the White House, would already be residing in a cell at The Hague next to Netanyahu and Gallant. But they won’t get there either because of the likes of Jarred Huffman and Mike Thompson who, like most of their colleagues, have a soft spot for Hebrew accents and Jewish dollars.
Since Israel’s US agents also control the courts on issues relating to Israel, the suit against the two members of Congress will most likely be dismissed, as was a case brought against the government by the Center for Constitutional Rights earlier this year, on the basis that US foreign policy is for the White House and Congress to decide, and not subject to court reviw. Short of marching on the White House with pitchforks or casting these pathetic creatures aside in the next election, there is nothing much voters can do, but the filing of the suit itself has already received wide publicity across the globe and if it can get people talking about the selling out of our government to Israel, it will have been worth it. As it is, I am not aware of any place in his district where Huffman can visit without drawing protests and expect this will be his last term before becoming a mouthpiece for the wine industry.
As for Robinette’s knowledge about Palestinian history, while not being Jewish and having no relatives in the Middle East, she has certainly made use of Zionist propaganda and of the lowest grade.
But here are the facts: Arafat’s legitimizing Israel’s presence in 60% of the Palestinian West Bank while signing an agreement with Israel at Oslo which would have a US CIA trained Palestinian Authority militia suppress further armed resistance to Israeli occupation represented, at least in my opinion, the greatest betrayal of a liberation movement by its recognized leader in known history, and his chosen successor, Mahmoud Abbas. He has been consistently praised by Israeli security forces to this day. It is not an accident that his term in office, with a one-year extension, expired 15 years ago and only US and Israeli support provides him with any legitimacy.
Arafat did not walk away empty handed from Oslo. Each month soon afterward, he began receiving $8 million into his private bank account, totaling $375 MILLION, not to make him a rich man but to pay the salaries of the FOURTEEN competing intelligence agencies in the Palestinian Authority assigned areas. (See Jewish Virtual Library online.) By the time he died, the corruption by the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah (and still is) that the Palestinian people chose Hamas as the alternative when GW Bush called for elections in the West Bank and Gaza. When the results turned out differently from what they wanted, the US, under Elliot Abrams of Iran-Contra infamy who planned a Fatah takeover in Gaza which ended in utter failure and a Fatah defeat. The only terrorists in Israel/Occupied Palestine are Israelis, who, I decided, after living there for two two-month periods, separated by a span of 20 years, were the most sadistic people I had ever encountered. Altogether, one might say fitting role models for the likes of Robbinette.
Jeffrey Blankfort
Ukiah
ALL OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION OWNS THIS GENOCIDE
by Caitlin Johnstone
It’s wrong to blame the Gaza genocide on Jews. It isn’t wrong because antisemitism is a major danger in our society (it’s not), nor because there’s a risk that people will start loading Jews onto trains again (there isn’t), nor because Jewish Israelis and their supporters are blameless (they obviously are not).
It’s wrong to blame this whole thing on Jews because it lets the rest of us off the hook.
This is our genocide. This is our crime. To blame it all on the Jews is to say that our society is perfectly fine and healthy and that none of this would be happening if not for the Machiavellian manipulations of a small Abrahamic religion. It’s to deny the reality that the middle east is on fire right now because of everything this perverse civilization is and always has been.
It is not a coincidence that the tendency to blame all society’s ills on the Jews is much more prevalent on the far right than anywhere else. Rightists are ideologically inhibited from seeing western civilization as a uniquely pernicious blight on this world, and from seeing capitalism and imperialism as the driving force behind the injustices and abuses it inflicts. If you have an ideological need to view all those things as fine and good, then you need to come up with some other explanation for why everything is shitty and evil. So they buy into this infantile narrative that western civilization would be just peachy if it weren’t for those darn Jews.
But western civilization is not peachy. It is a profoundly sick dystopia built by genocide and slavery and fueled by human blood. This would be true with or without Israel, and with or without Judaism.
The genocide in Gaza is happening because the western empire wants it to happen. Biden could have ended this with a phone call at any time. Our leaders are not being reluctantly pushed into this. They’re slaughtering innocent human beings as casually as they slaughtered them in past western military interventions which had nothing to do with Israel, and for the same reasons.
The western empire is constantly working to bludgeon the world into obedience and submission, aggressively targeting any population which insists on its own sovereignty. We’ve seen it in Latin America, we’ve seen it throughout Europe and Asia, we’ve seen it in Africa, and we’ve seen it in the middle east in the same way. Israel is a member state of the western empire and plays a pivotal role in helping to beat down disobedient populations like Iran, Ansar Allah, Hezbollah and Hamas who don’t submit to the will of the empire. I used to list Syria among those who stand against the empire, but the west and Israel have succeeded in smashing it down and absorbing it into the imperial blob.
The empire uses Zionism as one of many tools for enacting its will in the middle east, but if it wasn’t Zionism it would be something else. The violence would play out in different ways under different narratives, but there would still be a continuous violent bludgeoning of disobedient populations in this crucial strategic region which is rich in resources and critical trade routes.
This is just what we are as a civilization. A murderous, thieving, tyrannical empire constantly bullying and abusing the earth’s population into obedience and submission. Some people try to make Jews into the problem because they don’t want to face reality. And the reality is that the problem is us.
Look at Gaza. Really look at it. Watch the videos. Listen to the screams. Read the harrowing stories. This is who we are. This is what we have become. Not because of the Jews. Because of us. The sooner we own this, the sooner we can move toward healing all the entirely home-grown illnesses within us which gave rise to it. And the sooner we can start becoming something better.
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
NO, THE TRUTH IS NOT JUST ANOTHER STORY
by James Kunstler
"The Democrats are self-immolating on the altar of their own tenuous relationship with common decency." — Tom Luongo
It must be obvious that the incoming government under Mr. Trump has one primary duty overall: sorting out truth from lies so the nation can reestablish a baseline reality to function upon. America is so punch-drunk from official lying that many intelligent people who ought to know better now proclaim that reality is unknowable, which is just a surrender to nihilism — the rejection of moral principle, a belief that the human project is meaningless.
This awful condition has led to the point where you know for sure that “Joe Biden” cannot possibly discharge his duties as chief executive, and yet nobody cares enough to investigate who is running things behind the front he puts up. That would generally be the job of the news media, which is supposed to function as the public’s auditor. Now, of course, you are persuaded that this was never really their job, that it was a sham, but that is just another lie.
The news was not flawless, but neither was it presented as nothing more than opinion. The news existed to register what happened day-to-day. It was not so much concerned with why things happened, which was much more difficult to establish, and usually reserved for the pages labeled “opinion,” so that you knew it was somebody’s conjecture. I know this because I worked as a newspaper reporter in the 1970s. I actually found out what was going on about this-and-that, wrote it up, and saw it in print hours later. The facts.
Journalism had some simple rules for reporting the facts about anything — and it’s hilarious that anyone thought it required a graduate degree from some credentialing mill like the Columbia U. School of Journalism. The news was often meddled-with by interested parties, government and business, but they did not completely overwhelm the ant-like labors of x-thousands of reporters in the field, and the stream of fact they circulated. Not all of it was subject to dispute, meddling, or opinion because it was self-evident: Joe Blow got shot. . . a helicopter crashed in Ohio. . . a volcano erupted in Peru. . . .
Only over time, the past thirty years especially, our government grew and grew and one of the things that grew out of it was the nefarious “blob” dedicated to protecting the self-enlarging perquisites and interests of that government. Blobs will absorb things they encounter, and in a predatory way, the US government blob absorbed the US news media. The blob transformed the news into an engine for suppressing the facts or spinning them narratively when they could not be suppressed, in order to maximize the advantage of the government and to protect the operations of the blob itself.
It is also a fact that this blob is aligned mostly with Democratic Party, because that party is most avid for the continuing growth of government, and its members overwhelmingly dominate in the officialdom that dwells inside the DC Beltway. The numbers speak for themselves on the DC voter rolls.
So, a new government under Mr. Trump is feared cringingly by the news media. For one thing, the incoming government has tasked itself with reducing government substantially, eliminating many of its perquisites, and surgically excising the nefarious blob that is draining the purpose, meaning, and vitality out of our national life. The news media is terrified of being found-out for having acted as the blob’s chamberlain. We may find out exactly how that worked — how, for example, professional liars such as Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC were paid. What accounted for the amazing coordination of talking-points from day-to-day across all networks and newspapers?
We are about to find out how a whole lot of mystifying things have happened in recent years. For instance, those fantastic vote switcheroos in “Joe Biden’s” favor that occurred visibly right on TV in the wee hours of November 4, 2020? How did William Barr conceal the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop from Mr. Trump’s defense attorneys in the 2019 impeachment over a phone call to Ukraine? Who really has been making “presidential” decisions behind the false front of “Joe Biden?" Who in White House news reporters’ pool among the Cable News networks, The New York Times, and The Washington Post happened to know which officials were running the White House operation (did they not have sources)? How did the FBI engineer the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and with how many agents and operatives on-site? Who was in charge of the DNC pipe bomb caper? How has George and Alex Soros’s network of money-dispensing NGOs been allowed to buy law enforcement offices all over country? How did Merrick Garland’s errand boys get to New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County DA Fani Willis? What has been done with the billions of dollars sent to Ukraine? Why is the CDC still advertising and promoting mRNA Covid vaccines that they must know have killed and disabled millions of people? Who thought it was a good idea to fill the ranks of the US military with transexuals? How did the order to throw the US-Mexican border wide open move through the chain-of-command, exactly? Things like that.
It is going to be a great shock for many to hear the facts about these things and a lot more and to learn that we don’t just dwell in some matrix of tales told by idiots. The nihilism will eventually dissipate. Many enterprises in the news business won’t survive this, but human beings will insist on being informed, and the news business has been very busy rearranging itself. Even the body politic is capable of self-healing
Meanwhile, the “Joe Biden” Catering Company, Inc, has been busy preparing a whole lot of shit sandwiches to serve at the Trump inauguration, mostly in the form of financial chaos. The catering staff better be cognizant that their pranks will be found-out, too, along with all the other treasonous business of the wicked times we’ve lived through.
(kunstler.com)
BIDEN’S ‘OBVIOUS COGNITIVE DECLINE’ WAS THE MOST UNDERREPORTED STORY IN 2024, SAYS VETERAN CBS JOURNALIST
by Natasha Anderson
President Joe Biden’s ’obvious cognitive decline’ was the most underreported story of the year, a veteran CBS News reporter has claimed as she insists that more coverage could have changed the scope of the entire election’.
Jan Crawford, CBS’ chief legal correspondent, blasted media that failed to cover his decline – mainly liberal outlets including The Washington Post - until the topic became ‘undeniable’ during his trainweck debate against Donald Trump.
Crawford, during the year-end correspondents roundtable on CBS’ Face the Nation, was asked Sunday morning what the most ‘undercovered and underreported’ topic was this year.
‘That would be, to me, Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate,’ she said. ‘Unquestioned.’
The contributor, who has been a regular on CBS News since 2005, cited the Wall Street Journal’s explosive investigation earlier this month that exposed an extensive, deliberate White House cover-up to hide Biden’s rapidly diminishing mental condition from the public throughout his entire presidency.
The report alleged that Biden’s staff limited his in-person interactions and that he was shielded by senior advisers who were put into roles that others felt the president should have occupied.
DailyMail.com, throughout Biden’s presidency, has routinely highlighted the countless gaffes, stumbles and mistakes that should have served as warning of his declining mental health.
Crawford slammed his advisers for insisting that Biden, 82, could ‘still run’ for re-election, despite their efforts to hide his apparent mental incompetence, and argued that if journalists had ‘more forcefully questioned’ his fitness there may have ‘primary for the Democrats’.
She further criticized the media, specifically naming the left-leaning Washington Post, for continuing to report how Biden ‘regrets that he dropped out of the race’ and ‘thinks he could have beaten Trump’.
‘It’s starting to emerge now that his advisers kind of managed his limitations, which has been reported in The Wall Street Journal, for four years,’ Crawford told Face the Nation, noting that he still ‘insisted that he could still run for president’.
‘We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary for the Democrats. It could have changed the scope of the entire election.’
She then blasted liberal outlets for still publishing alleged comments from Biden’s staff stating he believes he could have won the election, which she claims is ‘delusional’.
‘Still, incredibly, we read in The Washington Post that his advisers are saying that he regrets that he dropped out of the race, that he thinks he could have beaten Trump,’ she added.
‘And I think that is either delusional or they’re gaslighting the American people.’
CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa, who also participated in the roundtable, seemingly defended the Administration, telling Crawford: ‘President Biden has said repeatedly he was sick during the debate June 27 in Atlanta and he’s always been fine and he leaves fine.
‘That is his position, the position of many of his top aides as well, even though there is that reporting.’
Perhaps the first time the public started to become alarmed was when President Biden demonstrated his dramatic physical limitations, falling repeatedly on the stairs while boarding Air Force One on March 18, 2021 for a trip to Atlanta, Georgia.
By August 2021, however, Biden started to demonstrate real struggles in communicating and reacting to major public events.
And during the botched exit from Afghanistan, Biden continued keeping his remarks closely scripted for days, refusing to respond to shouted questions from reporters and staying on script with his talking points.
But earlier this month Biden’s alleged incompetency was put on fully display when the Wall Street Journal exposed the White House’s deliberate and years-long cover-up to shield the public from his declining cognitive health.
The President’s team hired a vocal coach, scrapped meetings on his ‘bad days’, and kept him at arm’s length from his own Cabinet members, the report alleged.
Biden, 82, allegedly leaned on a close circle of unelected advisers and officials who had been put into roles usually occupied by the president.
The administration would also gaslight those who dared to claim Biden’s abilities had deteriorated since he was Barack Obama’s vice president, according to the report.
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.
But despite the efforts of ‘eager beaver hand-holders’, by late June this year, Biden’s decline was on full display when he debated Trump. Gaffes, fumbles and blank stares from the president filled the hour-and-a-half televised event. It proved catastrophic for his campaign.
The face-off with Trump is what ultimately led the public, and even senior Democrats in Washington, to call for Biden to end his bid for reelection.
Liberal media giants even added fuel to fire by making bombshell demands of the commander-in-chief and asking him to quit the presidential race.
TIME Magazine released a startling cover on their August edition that showed the president appearing to wander off the page with the singular word ‘Panic’ for the title.
The magazine also reported Democratic Party leaders were in a state of disarray while they were watching the debate unfold.
The Washington Post Editorial Board took Biden to task by asking him whether continuing to stay in the race at the sake of his own pride was worth the damage it could do the country.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe — one of the president’s favorite programs — host Joe Scarborough gently urged Biden to step aside.
Similarly, the Georgia-based Atlanta Journal-Constitution issued a shocking front page ultimatum for Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race following his ‘excruciating’ debate flop.
The editorial board wrote that ‘retirement is now necessary’ for Biden and asked him to pass the torch to a more competent candidate.
The New York Times Editorial Board also demanded Biden dropo his bid for re-election and in a scathing opinion piece, said he appeared to be a ‘shadow’ of himself and that the argument that he was the best Democratic candidate to take on Trump was no longer valid.
A month after the debate, Biden threw in the towel and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris who Trump nonetheless defeated on November 5.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates refuted the Wall Street Journal’s account that Biden’s mental fitness has declined.
Instead, Bates said that he has ‘earned the most accomplished record of any modern commander in chief and rebuilt the middle class because of his attention to policy details that impact millions of lives.’
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.
Despite the efforts of aides Biden is leaving office with members of his own party lambasting him for being ‘selfish.’
Many believe that he was only looking out for himself by staying in the 2024 presidential race past the point of being unfit for another term.
Others are furious over his decision to pardon his son Hunter, 54, earlier this month after he was convicted of lying on a federal form to purchase gun in 2018.
Polls showed Biden’s approval rating hitting an all-time low as he prepared to leave office.
(Daily Mail)
JIMMY CARTER: FALSE SAVIOR
by Michael K. Smith
A pious Sunday school teacher confessing to lust in his heart but swearing never to lie, he came to Washington to reestablish public faith in government just when popular disgust at monstrous U.S. crimes in Indochina had reached unprecedented heights. The big business agenda during his term in office (1977-1981) was to roll back the welfare state, break the power of unions, fan the flames of the Cold War to increase military spending, engineer tax breaks for wealthy corporate interests, and repeal government regulation of business. While portraying himself as a peanut-farming populist, Carter delivered the goods for Wall Street.
Having run as a Washington “outsider,” he immediately filled his administration with Trilateral Commission members, hoping that a coterie of Rockefeller internationalists could resurrect the confidence of American leaders and enrich business relations between Japan and the United States.
His Secretary of State was Cyrus Vance, a Wall Street lawyer and former planner of the Vietnam slaughter. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown was Lyndon Johnson’s Air Force Secretary and a leading proponent of saturation bombing in Vietnam. Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal was the standard rich corporation president. Attorney General Griffen Bell was a segregationist judge who disclosed that he would request “inactive” status as a member of Atlanta clubs closed to blacks and Jews [Carter himself stated that housing should be segregated]. Energy coordinator James Schlesinger was a proponent of winnable nuclear war. Transportation Secretary Brock Adams was a staunch proponent of Lockheed’s supersonic transport. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was an anti-Soviet fanatic who said in an interview with the New Yorker that it was “egocentric” to worry that a nuclear war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would entail “the end of the human race.” Since it was unlikely that every last human being would perish in such event, Brzezinski recommended that critics of U.S. nuclear policy abstain from narcissistic concern for the mere hundreds of millions of people who would.
In what William Greider, author of Secrets of the Temple (a study of the Federal Reserve Bank), called his most important appointment, Carter named Paul Volcker to chair the Federal Reserve Bank. Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s assistant for domestic affairs said that, “Volcker was selected because he was the candidate of Wall Street.” The Wall Street agenda became clear when Volcker contracted the money supply and declared, “the standard of living of the average American has to decline.”
Wealth was funneled upward and wages and production declined. Unemployment and bankruptcy rose, unions shriveled and disappeared, Pentagon spending soared. For the first time ever American white collar families couldn’t save money. With urban housing costs zooming, workers fled to remote suburbs, but the increased commute expenses tended to cancel out cheaper mortgages. Moonlighting and overtime work increased, but added income disappeared in eating out, second commutes, and hired child care. As the cost of necessities outpaced wage gains, only credit cards could fill the widening gap. Hamburger stands and nursing homes proliferated while well-paid manufacturing jobs fled to the Third World. The workforce of the future was said to be a generation of superefficient robots.
Carter’s populist assurances simply whetted the public appetite for this kind of dismal anticlimax. While making a few listless gestures towards blacks and the poor, he spent the bulk of his energy promoting corporate profits and building up a huge military machine that drained away public wealth in defense of a far-flung network of repressive “friends” of American business.
The heaviest applause line in his Inaugural Address was his promise “to move this year a step towards our ultimate goal – the elimination of all nuclear weapons from this Earth.” But after his beguiling rhetoric faded away, he embarked on a program of building two to three nuclear bombs every day. Although he had promised to cut military spending by $5 to $7 billion, he decided to increase it after just six months in office, and his 5% proposed spending increases in each of his last two years in office were identical to those first proposed by Ronald Reagan. Furthermore, having pledged to reduce foreign arms sales, he ended up raising them to new highs, and after speaking of helping the needy, he proposed cutbacks in summer youth jobs, child nutrition programs, and other popular projects serving important social needs. Similarly, though he had campaigned as a friend of labor, he refused a request to increase the minimum wage and opposed most of organized labor’s legislative agenda while handing out huge subsidies to big business. He made much ado about “human rights,” but returned Haiti’s fleeing boat people to the tender care of “Baby Doc” Duvalier, and when a member of the American delegation to the U.N. Human Rights Commission spoke of his “profoundest regrets” for the C.I.A.’s role in General Pinochet’s bloodbath in Chile, Carter scolded him, insisting that the C.I.A.’s actions were “not illegal or improper.”
Carter came to Washington proclaiming his desire for a comprehensive Middle East peace, including a solution to the Palestinian question “in all its aspects.” Yet at Camp David he failed to grasp the root of the problem, let alone propose a mature way of dealing with it. He assumed that Palestinians were anonymous refugees whose nationalist aspirations could be safely ignored. He supposed a peace treaty could be signed in the absence of the PLO, world recognized as the Palestinians’ “sole legitimate representative.” He offered no apologies for negotiating an agreement that failed even to mention Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. He did not protest Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s presentation of the Accords before the Israeli Knesset as a “deal,” one much more favorable to Israel than to “the Arabs.” He pretended not to notice that corralling Palestinians into Bantustans was not simply a tactic of war, but constituted Israel’s boasted final product of “peace”! Finally, his much praised Camp David accords were the death warrant for Lebanon, as Israel, its southern border secure with the removal of Egypt from the Arab military alliance, was freed to concentrate undivided attention on a long-planned invasion across its northern border. It was this invasion (June 1982) that convinced Osama bin Laden that only mass murder of Americans could ever change U.S. foreign policy.
Carter was effusive in his praise and blind support of the Shah of Iran, who was deeply unpopular in his country due to policies of supermilitarization, forced modernization, and systematic torture. By the time Carter arrived in the White House the Shah’s throne sat atop a veritable powder keg. Iranian cities were hideously unlivable with fifteen percent of the entire country crowded around Teheran in shanty dwellings lacking sewage or other water facilities. The nation’s incalculable oil wealth reached few hands and a restless student generation had no prospects. The country’s bloated bureaucracy was totally corrupt. While Shiite leaders rallied popular support, the Shah’s secret police threw tens of thousands of Iranians into jail, the economy gagged on billions of dollars of Western arms imports (mostly from Washington), and Amnesty International speculated that Iran had achieved the worst human rights record on the planet. Meanwhile, Carter declared that “human rights is the soul of our foreign policy,” though he added the following day that he thought the Shah might not survive in power, a strange expectation if indeed the U.S. stood for human rights around the world.
After the Shah was overthrown, Carter could not conceive of U.S. responsibility for the actions of enraged Iranian students who seized 66 Americans and held them hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, demanding the return of “the criminal Shah.” (He had admitted the Shah to the U.S. for emergency medical treatment for cancer, thus precipitating the “hostage crisis.”) To Carter, Americans were by definition innocent, outside history, and he dismissed Iranian grievances against the U.S. as ancient history, refusing to discuss them. In his distorted mind, Iranians were terrorists by nature, and Iran had always been a potentially terrorist nation, regardless of what they had suffered at U.S. hands. In short, without the Shah, Carter regarded Iran as a land of swarthy and crazed medievalists, what Washington today calls a “rogue state.”
Having “lost” Iran, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, along with military outposts and electronic eavesdropping stations used against the Soviet Union, the Carter administration began supporting Afghan Islamic fundamentalists, not making an issue of their having kidnapped the American ambassador in Kabul that year (1979), which resulted in his death in a rescue attempt. While U.S. officials condemned Islamic militants in Iran as terrorists, they praised them as freedom fighters in Afghanistan, though both groups drew inspiration from the Ayatollah Khomeini, who was, in the eyes of official Washington, the Devil incarnate. In a 1998 interview Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that the U.S. had begun giving military assistance to the Islamic fundamentalist moujahedeen in Afghanistan six months before the U.S.S.R. invaded the country, even though he was convinced – as he told Carter – that “this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” Among the consequences of that policy were a decade-and-a-half of war that claimed the lives of a million Afghans, moujahedeen torture that U.S. government officials called “indescribable horror,” half the Afghan population either dead, crippled, or homeless, and the creation of thousands of Islamic fundamentalist warriors dedicated to unleashing spectacularly violent attacks in countries throughout the world.
The list of disastrous policies can go on. For example, Carter continued the Ford Administration’s policy of backing Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, which killed tens of thousands of Timorese during Carter’s years in office, and roughly a third of the Timorese population overall between 1975 and 1979. In 1977-1978 while Indonesia engaged in wholesale destruction in the form of massive bombardment, wiping out of villages and crops, and relocation of populations to concentration camps, the Carter Administration extended the military and diplomatic support necessary to make it all possible. In late 1977 Washington replenished Indonesia’s depleted supplies with a sharp increase in the flow of military equipment (Jakarta used U.S.-supplied OV-10 Broncos, planes designed for counterinsurgency operations) encouraging the ferocious attacks that reduced East Timor to the level of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. In a 1979 interview with the New York Times Father Leoneto Vieira do Rego, a Portuguese priest who spent three years in the mountains of East Timor between 1976 and 1979, said that “the genocide and starvation was the result of the full-scale incendiary bombing . . . I personally witnessed – while running to protected areas, going from tribe to tribe – the great massacre from bombardment and people dying from starvation.” In May 1980 Brian Eads reported for the London Observer that “malnutrition and disease are still more widespread than in ravaged Cambodia.” Relating the comments of an official recently back from a visit to Cambodia, Eads added that “by the criteria of distended bellies, intestinal disease and brachial parameter – the measurement of the upper arm – the East Timorese are in a worse state than the Khmers.” Another stellar achievement of the “Human Rights” administration.
Furthermore, during Carter’s brief reign he ordered production of the neutron bomb (which his administration praised for “only” destroying people while leaving property intact), endorsed “flexible response” and “limited” nuclear war, lobbied for the radar-evading cruise missile, developed a rapid deployment force for instant intervention anywhere, enacted selective service registration in peacetime, and advocated the construction of first-strike MX missiles for use in a nuclear shell game along an elaborate system of underground railroad tracks proposed for the Utah desert. While lecturing the Soviets on human rights, he escalated state terror in El Salvador, crushed democracy in South Korea, gave full support to Indonesia’s near genocide in East Timor, and maintained or increased funding for the Shah, Somoza, Marcos, Brazil’s neo-Nazi Generals, and the dictatorships of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Bolivia, and Zaire. He refused to heed Archbishop Romero’s desperate plea to cut off U.S. aid to the blood drenched Salvadoran junta, and Romero was promptly assassinated. Furthermore, he said nothing at all when the London Sunday Times revealed that the torture of Arabs implicated “all of Israel’s security forces” and was so “systematic that it cannot be dismissed as a handful of ‘rogue cops’ exceeding orders.” And though he presented himself as sympathetic to those who had opposed the Vietnam war, he refused to pay reconstruction aid on the grounds that during the devastating U.S. attack on the tiny country, “the destruction was mutual.” (Try arguing that the Nazi invasion of Poland wasn’t a crime because “destruction was mutual.”)
Carter turned domestic policy over to Wall Street, refusing to increase the minimum wage and telling his Cabinet that increasing social spending “is something we just can’t do.” According to Peter Bourne, special assistant to the president in the Carter White House, he “did not see health care as every citizen’s right,” though every other industrial state in the world except apartheid South Africa disagreed with him. He understood that liberals desired it, but, Bourne notes, “he never really accepted it.” Instead, “he preferred to talk movingly of his deep and genuine empathy for those who suffered for lack of health care, as though the depth of his compassion could be a substitute for a major new and expensive government solution for the problem.” In point of fact, money can be saved under a government funded plan, but Carter was uninterested. He insisted on controlling business costs rather than providing universal coverage, neglecting to note that under Medicare – universal insurance for the elderly – administrative costs were a fraction of those charged under private HMOs.
Carter simply could not comprehend the vast unmet social needs that existed (and exist) in the United States. He thought there was a way to maintain a global military presence, balance the budget, and keep business costs low while adequately meeting social welfare needs via reorganizing programs. When his Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joe Califano informed him that without increased funding many welfare recipients would be worse off after any reorganization than before, Carter erupted: “Are you telling me that there is no way to improve the present welfare system except by spending billions of dollars? In that case, to hell with it!” In response to a comment that his denial of federal funding for poor people’s abortions was unfair, Carter summed up the political philosophy that rendered him hopelessly un-progressive: “Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people cannot.”
Like political candidates who do their bidding.
(CounterPunch.org)
THE BALLAD OF THE BRAVE COWBOY
by Edward Abbey
Come sit here beside me
and I will relate
the tale of a cowboy
and his terrible fate
His name it was Burns
and he came from the East;
no more would he say
to man nor beast
He worked for his wages
on a Magdalene spread:
a dollar a day,
beef, beans and bread
A tough, dirty life
and death in a ditch;
hard on the kidneys,
bad for the itch;
a man might get suntanned,
he wouldn't get rich
Like all brave cowboys dead and alive
on riding and wind and stars he could thrive
with a home-made song to keep his heart alive
Burns was skinny and dark
and he kept most alone;
he had only one friend,
a kid named Bone
Together they rode
and together they fought
when they got to town
and drank a lot
and bluffed each other
shot after shot
Like all good cowboys dead and alive
on fighting and grit and blood they thrive
with a little strong whisky to keep hope alive
One day in the fall
came orders for battle:
twenty-five men
against five thousand cattle
The sky was yellow
and the sun was red
when the drive started south
for the town of Mordred
We knew by the signs
we were in for some fun:
the wind screamed high
the dust-devils spun
and five thousand longhorns
started to run
Like all dumb cowhands alive and dead
on trouble and sand and cactus they fed
and on payday a little brown girl in bed
It was thunder and hell
when the herd broke loose;
a man was safer
with his head in a noose
We got them turned
but too strung out,
they kept on running
and came right about
Young Bone rode the drag
and got lost in the dust,
rode his horse in a hole
and a leg got bust
He scrambled around
and looked for the fray;
saw 10,000 red eyes
coming his way,
saw 20,000 hooves
coming for pay
He tried to run
he tried to crawl;
nothing he did
was no help at all
He liked to have prayed
but could not recollect
the words that his Mother
had tried to inject
and it looked for sure
his career was wrecked
O all brave cowboys dead and revived
God only knows how you ever survived
or stayed out of Hell with souls unshrived
Now Burns rode the point
and saw his friend's danger,
came galloping up
like a Texas Ranger
He hauled the kid up
while his horse danced around
and the herd roared close
on the rumbling ground
They tried to get clear
but it was too late,
they were surrounded
by bellowing hate
and the panicked horse
completed their fate
The scream of that horse
was an awful sound
when the crazy herd
rode them all down
and kicked and rolled them
over the ground
Like many poor cowhands alive and dead
they never had a chance to die in bed
or even get their prayers said
When the herd was stopped
and the dust blew away
we found their bodies
mixed with the clay
The kid had a home
in Texas named Blair
where we shipped what was left
of his hide and hair,
but the cowboy Burns
we buried right there
Like all brave cowboys dead and alive
on riding and wind and stars he thrived
with a home-made song to keep his heart alive
with a song to keep alive.
JIMMY CARTER: FALSE SAVIOR
A fairly appropriate eulogy to another of our more monstrous “chief executives”, who was a bible-thumper to boot! I also find it amusing, in a sick sort of way, how the name, Mohammad Mossadegh, never appears in relation to Iran!
The US is as bad as the Zionist state of Israel in terms of slaughter, not to mention its smug self-entitlement.
Thank you Mr. Blankfort! Robinett’s delusions are typical of most Americans, I suspect. MSM propaganda works. Just finished two long books on the Middle East by R. Fisk. Many bad actors, but some are considerably worse. Fisk’s work is 20 years out of date, but makes the current genocide a bit more understandable. On to Iran! How far off can nuclear winter be?
Robert Fisk was the best war correspondent since Ernie Pyle. He lived in Lebanon and understood the Middle East better than anyone. And he explained the transition our armed forces took by turning soldiers into warriors. From his work we can extrapolate how our current law enforcement personnel, largely veterans of the new warrior model, have come to regard US citizens as “civilians” (the same term they used for Iraqis and Afghanis when deployed). I’ve seen some of our judges ask the officers who come to court not to use the term. But it’s too ingrained, apparently, and the mindset persists. Maybe the usage is reinforced at the police academy—what say you, Sheriff Kendall? Did your office get the memo from their honors about referring to people as “civilians.”
Circa 1945, the US military had the enormous task of repatriating millions of active GIs returning to the domestic era of post-war “prosperity” and saw the conversion of weaponry factories into manufacturers of goods and services sold to the former soldiers and their war brides using a system of indebtedness that harnessed their confidence as successful survivors of the harsh battlefield conditions and “winners” of the arduous campaign in Europe — newly invented mortgage lending and buying of goods “on time” — swapping their Eisenhower jackets and bombardier helmets for 3-piece suits and dashing fedoras.
“Civilian” life requiring moral and mental “adjustment,” the rise of psychology and “management” theories processed these ground troops and junior officers into corporate ladder climbers, while their “dependents” gave birth to the “boomer” generation — luxuriating in new cars and back yard Saturdays lush with mass manufactured toys and “snacks.”
In a recent edition of the Hoover Institute’s Goodfellows story telling, retired General H. R. McMaster, who was Trump’s former National Security Advisor, cautioned against the loss of the “warrior ethos” if the US Military continues to dilute the capabilities of war-making by including LGBTQ+, Trans, DEI, and politically disaffected members, and misapplying appropriations for updating old weaponry and inventing new armament to overcome Putin decisively but leaving Israel in charge of the middle east — while turning our exploitative expertise to Africa as a region of uncalculated raw wealth.
Goodfellow John Cochrane, the British economist, urged environmental reform to permit extraction of valuable minerals (including uranium) on American lands.
And historian Sir Niall Ferguson, the Scottish hipster, recommended reading the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings for lessons on co-opting the collective will of the dissenting opposition. Plus 1960s rock and roll.
Go figure.
The militarization of domestic law enforcement that created our “embedded” population of armed janitors and grounds keepers, churning helpless and haplessly deranged social misfits — by returning numbers of ex-veterans (many of whom suffer from untamed post-traumatic stress disorders and pre-enlistment eligibility factors) sheltered amidst brethren contemptuous of the un-woke consumers of government services that claim to keep them safe and free to join any social or civic activity sanctioned by our elected “representatives.”
Thank you for reminding us of the importance of language and how easily we come to know our “place” in the System.
Note: I work with and appreciate great law enforcement officers in agencies across the country and in our small county governments. Their gestalt, too, has been molded by the “defenders” of our co-called great nation. I only wish that Lake County’s Sheriff and his administration were as accessible and friendly as Matt Kendall’s.
Enjoyed a breakfast nosh at Whole Foods on H Street in Washington, D.C. this morning, and then it was off to Chinatown for LOTTO tix and a stop at a store to purchase the new Year of the Snake calendar. Presently at the MLK public library on a guest computer. Not identified with the body nor the mind. The Dao works through the instrument without interference.
Not to interfere with the Dao, but you know some of us instruments might have a mind to focus all our meditative powers on that lotto ticket you bought —merely as an experiment to test the far fetched idea that the enthusiasm of the spectators can influence the outcome of, say, a football game. So let’s collectively meditate in concert w/ this indigent monk and turn him into a freaking billionaire!
This is only a test…like Brock Purdy going into a lions’ den…. Trying to keep his faith…
Visiting friends back in Mendo two weeks ago I was so PISSED to still have only two lanes on 101 thru Novato. Thirty years ago it was an obvious disaster for anyone, but especially commuters. How could it take that long?
Jeff Blankfort’s response to Ms. Robinett covers most of what needs to be said, but there are a few things to add:
“… the Palestinians renege on it.”
False. To cite just one example, The Oslo Accords. The Palestinians inside joke en route to the negotiations was that their opening position would be “we accept!” A deal was reached – then what happened? Israel assassinated their own negotiator, Yitzhak Rabin, and then doubled the size of the West Bank settlements – a clear violation of the agreement, international law, and numerous UN resolutions.
The idea that “the Palestinians renege on it” is direct from the book of Zionist talking points. It is the opposite of reality.
“The people in Gaza voted Hamas in.”
The people of Gaza and the West Bank voted for Hamas. The PLO, with help from their Zionist friends, then attempted to violently overthrow Hamas, but only succeeded in the West Bank. The election was declared free and fare by international observers, including observers from the US.
“This is a known terrorist antisemitic group.”
False. Anti-semitism was removed from the Hamas charter in 2017, wherein they specifically reject anti-semitism and declare that Palestine is for people of all Abrahamic religions, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim alike.
If Hamas is so terrorist and so anti-semitic, why did your hero Netanyahu give them billions of dollars in aid?
” I am not Jewish and have no relatives or friends in the Middle East.”
That you have no dog in the fight makes the comments worse, not better. I also have no dog in the fight. It’s basic right and wrong that is in play here – and it says much about you that the core of the issue hasn’t reached.
“… anti-government demonstrations…”
Israel routinely rounds up and beats anti-Zionist Jewish people in Israel.
“Which respects women’s rights?”
Did you know that when Israel drops bombs on Palestinians they kill lots of women? Did you know that Israeli snipers have a special celebration for when they manage to kill a pregnant Palestinian woman with a single shot to her womb? They call it “One shot, two kills” – https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2009/03/23/israeli-soldiers-t-shirts-depict-shooting-arabs/
“Which respects LGBTQ+ rights?”
Did you know that when Israel drops bombs on Palestinians they kill L’s? And that they kill G’s? And B’s? And T’s? And Q’s? And +’s? Or do you think their bombs magically only kill heterosexual cis males?
“I support Reps. Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson”
You support genocide.
Brock Purdy played a good game, including passing for a career-high number of yards. The 49ers would have won even with his two interceptions if Jake Moody had hit the two field goals and one extra point he missed. (Though, to be fair, one of the field goals they asked him to kick was for 58 yards – Moody’s career high is 57).
“First, and most important, starting in the 70s and 80s, and accelerating ever since, the American voter is simply more ignorant and less intelligent.”
This was not by accident, it was an elite plan. Why would they want to dumb people down? Because educated people ask questions. Questions like, “why did you bomb that village?”
“At the present time, a significant challenge comes from the
intellectuals and related groups who assert their disgust with
the corruption, materialism, and inefficiency of democracy
and with the subservience of democratic government to
“monopoly capitalism.” The development of an “adversary
culture” among intellectuals has affected students, scholars,
and the media. Intellectuals are, as Schumpeter put it,
“people who wield the power of the spoken and the written
word, and one of the touches that distinguish them from
other people who do the same is the absence of direct
responsibility for practical affairs.” In some measure, the
advanced industrial societies have spawned a stratum of
value-oriented intellectuals who often devote themselves to
the derogation of leadership, the challenging of authority,
and the unmasking and delegitimation of established
institutions, their behavior contrasting with that of the also
increasing numbers of technocratic and policy-oriented
intellectuals. In an age of widespread secondary school and
university education, the pervasiveness of the mass media,
and the displacement of manual labor by clerical and
professional employees, this development constitutes a
challenge to democratic [sic] government which is, potentially at
least, as serious as those posed in the past by the aristocratic
cliques, fascist movements, and communist parties. “
— The Crisis of Democracy by The Trilateral Commission (1975)
So there you have it. Educated people are a “threat” to what the elites refer to as “democracy.” Funny, have we not always been taught the opposite?