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DRY WEATHER is expected this week as high pressure continues to build in. Gusty winds continue to diminish into the morning. Chilly morning conditions are forecast this morning and tomorrow morning throughout the region. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Humpday morning I have a crisp 38F under clear skies. Nothing new in the forecast today as a much needed dry spell remains in place.
MENDOCINO COUNTY PROUDLY ANNOUNCED the swearing-in of three members to the Board of Supervisors during a ceremony held today, January 7, 2025. Supervisor Madeline Cline officially began her term representing District 1, and Supervisor Bernie Norvell took the oath of office to represent District 4. Additionally, District 2 Supervisor Mo Mulheren was sworn in for her second term, continuing her dedicated service to the community.
Mendocino County CEO Darcie Antle remarked, "We are excited to welcome Supervisors Cline and Norvell to the Board and are grateful for Supervisor Mulheren’s continued leadership. This marks an important moment as we embark on a new year of collaboration and progress for Mendocino County."
COUNTY NOTES: BUMBLING INTO THE NEW YEAR
by Mark Scaramella
As expected, on Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors first meeting of the year, nothing substantive was addressed.
After the two new Supervisors were sworn in, Supervisor John Haschak told his colleagues that abstentions would no longer be allowed. “We have to make decisions,” insisted Haschak. Supervisor Ted Williams said that sometimes there wasn’t enough information to vote for or against something, and therefore abstentions should be allowed. Haschak said that in that case “we” (the Board) can table an item, completely misunderstanding the point.
Again, they demonstrated that they don’t even understand basic meeting protocols. First, abstentions are equivalent to No votes since a motion needs a majority yes vote of the full board (no matter who’s present that day) to pass, so an abstention counts as a no vote anyway. Second, such simple things as approving the minutes for a previous meeting when a board member wasn’t present are an obvious use of abstention. And, “tabling” an issue or item, i.e., continuing to a future date, is a board action, not an individual supervisor vote, so there’s no guarantee that a issue will be tabled if an individual supervisor doesn’t want to vote for or against it. It’s probably preferable to avoid abstentions on major issues, but that’s not a reason to eliminate abstention as an option. In the past, abstentions were allowed but they had to be accompanied by a reason. No longer.
Nevertheless, all the onerous new rules which we described in our last report were approved 4-1 without further comment, Supervisor Mulheren particularly liked the new requirements. County Counsel Charlotte Scott unconvincingly told the Board that the new “disruptive behavior” rules were added because of some recent state law changes. Supervisor Williams voted no. He should have abstained.
When the subject of approval of the board’s “Master Meeting Schedule” came up, Supervisor Mulheren was in such a hurry to get it approved that she blurted, “I move approval after public expression,” not even allowing the possibility that public expression might be considered. Williams immediately seconded, also before public expression. Haschak then asked for public expression, not realizing the irony of his colleagues’ blurt. Of course, there was no public expression, not that it would have mattered. But, minor as it was, Mulheren and Williams had made it clear that they don’t even care about public expression before they make a motion and the five bumblers robotically approved the (light) meeting schedule for the year without comment.
Other than a few automatic yes votes for the housekeeping items on the agenda, the two new supervisors, Bernie Norvell and Madeline Cline, said nothing until the end of the meeting after the routine rubberstamping of this year’s Williamson Act tax breaks for ag parcels. Mr. Norvell and Ms. Cline briefly thanked staff for the staff’s assistance in welcoming them “on board.”
Haschak then hyped his upcoming two-day “workshop” with a (presumably paid) “facilitator” (always a bad sign) at the Redwood Valley Training Center on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week on various specialty subjects where “we can share our vision” and “find out where we move forward as a Board and a county.”
ED NOTES
WHY are the public areas of Ukiah so ugly? Come, take my hand as we journey back through the mists of time when Ukiah, and thousands of attractive little American towns like it were still coherent, with their pre-WalMart tree lined streets, thriving small business city centers, town squares, and local ruling classes who took pride in what their communities looked like, back when the the community big boys understood that what their town looked like was essential to community morale.
HERE'S what happened: Following World War Two, the outback pillars of small town America began to crumble. Well, not crumble exactly, but withdraw into their bank accounts. The thousands of outback Babbitts no longer cared. Er, check that: Lewis's Babbitt did care. But Mendo's, mostly didn't.
(NOT ONLY small towns like Ukiah went bad, but none other than Frank Loyd Wright said of San Francisco, "It's still beautiful even after what they've done to it." Or something like that as huge bad buildings went up.)
BABBITT had his limitations, but he was committed to the prosperity and appearance of Zenith. He wanted Zenith to look good and be a good place to do free enterprise.
TODAY'S Babbitts take the money and run. Ukiah's civic spirit and much of its beauty is confined to its west side. And no expense has been spared on the town's admin center where Ukiah's chief admin man, Seldom Seen Sangiacomo, the most lushly compensated, least effective town administrator in County history makes his lair.
THERE'S LOTS OF MONEY in Ukiah, and Mendocino County, overall, is rolling in dough at the same time as ten thousand or so families depend on food banks and food stamps to get by.
UKIAH became the hellish, grease-scented sprawl it has become because the moneybags withdrew into weird little gated communities and their equivalents, hunkered down with their autographed glossies of Nixon, Reagan and Orange Man, checking their burglar alarms every few hours, the cops on speed dial.
THE ONLY AREAS of town that remain attractive are the areas that pre-date World War Two, although if you look hard, there are nifty little structures on State Street and east of the main drag.
LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS JANUARY PROGRAM
The League of Women Voters of Mendocino County will hold its January meeting on Tuesday, 1/21, from 6-7:30pm. The meeting will be via Zoom; find the link on the League website: https://my.lwv.org/california/mendocino-county. Look under the calendar tab.
The program will be on transportation issues in Mendocino County. A number of local transportation studies are currently underway, including a County assessment of Highway One, a Noyo Harbor traffic circulation study by the Mendocino Council on Governments (MCOG), and a study of coastal, county-maintained roads, also by MCOG. Mendocino Transit Authority plans for its bus system, and CalTrans is working on climate change impacts to Highway One and Highway 101.
There will be a review of the League's current transportation positions, how these can be used as the various studies move forward, and a discussion of public involvement in the planning and implementation of improvements.
Please join the discussion of these important issues.
For questions or more information, call 707-937-4952.
Pat Dunbar, Publicity, pdunbar@mcn.org
POTTER VALLEY SISTERS EXPLORE UNSOLVED MURDER OF RANCHER IN DOCUMENTARY ‘HIGH COUNTRY MURDER’
“High Country Murder” is a documentary about the killing of Richard Drewry, an 85-year-old rancher who was found dead in his truck on Bell Springs Road in Humboldt County.
by Phil Barber
Before he drove them to a somewhat sketchy corner of the Emerald Triangle, the Mendocino County sheriff gave Keely Brazil Covello and Michaela Brazil Gillies a quick briefing.
“If it looks like there’s gonna be any issues, I’ll just give you guys a head nod and that means it’s time for us to go,” Matt Kendall told them. “There’s a bulletproof vest in the back of the truck. If it gets real hairy, take my truck and drive on.”
Not that the two young women didn’t know what they’d signed up for. Covello and Gillies, known in the Potter Valley area as the Brazil sisters, had returned home not for a vacation or a family reunion, but to investigate a murder that had rocked their tight-knit but increasingly wary rural community.
The result of their work is “High Country Murder,” a 21-minute documentary about the killing of Richard Drewry, an 85-year-old rancher who was found dead in his truck on Bell Springs Road in Humboldt County — the Drewry ranch straddled the Humboldt-Mendocino line — in January 2021.
As the fourth anniversary of Drewry’s death approaches, his killing remains unsolved.
For Covello and Gillies, the project was personal. They had grown up knowing members of the Drewry family. And though they live in Orange County now, they feel a deep connection to northern Mendocino County, and a compulsion to portray the lives of the people who live there with honesty and depth.
“There’s been kind of a spate of rural-centric media recently, TV shows and this type of thing. There’s a renewed interest in the American West,” Covello said. “But often told from an outsider’s perspective. And you can tell when you watch it, it feels very ‘outsider looking in.’ They really like the way this lifestyle looks, but they don’t really understand it.”
Those portrayals have included the Mendocino-Humboldt area, where coverage has tended to focus on the modern back-to-the-land movement and gripping accounts such as “Murder Mountain,” the 2018 Netflix documentary series about disappearances and deaths related to the cannabis trade.
“High Country Murder” certainly shares thematic elements with “Murder Mountain.” The Brazil sisters focused on rising tensions in the hills of the North Coast, where multigenerational ranching families are adjusting to an influx of large cannabis grows — many of them illegal, and allegedly run by organized crime syndicates from Mexico, China, Bulgaria and other far-flung locations.
“High Country Murder” includes footage of abandoned grows that now look like dumps, with heaping mounds of trash, building materials and furniture.
But the sisters’ project departs from other popular accounts, they believe, because it was made by native daughters.
“I do think that was a huge advantage, being local,” Covello said. “We usually had people in common when we were trying to talk to a source. There was sort of an inherent sense of respect and understanding there, that we weren’t trying to exploit their story or paint them in a way that would be interesting for an outside viewer. We wanted to represent them.”
Not that they didn’t face serious challenges, starting with the understandable fear many of the locals felt when asked to talk about the murder. Sources canceled interviews at the last minute. Others refused to go on the record.
And Covello and Gillies put together their film with a tiny crew, comprised of friends Ryan Francis, the director of photography, and Graham Kelley, a co-creative producer. Naknek Films did the postproduction. Covello got the writing credit.
The movie was made in conjunction with Palladium Pictures, an independent film company with a distinct “both sides” approach to controversial topics. “High Country Murder” is part of the first cohort of Palladium’s Incubator Program, which supports young documentarians in funding, distributing and marketing their projects.
At the moment, the Brazils’ film is viewable on the realclearpolitics.com website.
In addition to scratching their creative itches, “High Country Murder” allowed the sisters to collaborate in a way that drew out their strengths. Covello, 33, is an energetic storyteller and writer. (Her reporting has focused largely on topics affecting the ranching and agricultural industries.) Gillies, 31, was trained as a CPA. She runs a marketing company and is working on developing a software program for ranchers.
They didn’t know quite what they’d find when they returned to the North Coast to dig into Dick Drewry’s death.
“The common rumor was that Mr. Drewry shot a dog that was harassing his cattle, and that dog belonged to a Bulgarian crime boss and the crime boss put a hit out on his life,” Keely said. “That was the story that we heard for years. So when we came home to investigate this, we thought that’s what we were gonna learn.”
Spoiler: That’s not what they learned.
But they didn’t come up empty. As portrayed in their movie, the Brazils unearthed a series of Facebook posts, and a thirdhand confession, that appear to point to a likely suspect.
Their revelations are a bit shocking, considering no charges have been filed in the Drewry case after nearly four years. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office says it has a person of interest, but the district attorney’s office there has been reluctant to prosecute based on the amount of evidence it has.
As that investigation continues to drag on, the Brazils are discussing their next documentary subject. They are interested in examining water issues in the West, tribal communities and the impact of the fentanyl epidemic on rural populations.
For now, the sisters are focused on promoting “High Country Murder.” They hope the renewed attention will encourage someone to come forward with information that can provide some closure to the Drewry family. They also hope a film like theirs might get people talking among themselves.
The ranchers of Mendocino and Humboldt counties are staring down economic uncertainty, climate change and encroachment by a lawless industry that one person in the movie refers to as “punitive and extortive.” It’s also possible the ranchers’ culture of stoic reticence is working against them.
“While there are those outside threats — and they’re very real — maybe our community also could do some internal work on communicating with each other,” Covello said.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, January 7, 2025
GAGE GORMAN, 33, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, stolen property, getting credit with another’s ID, use of access card account info without permission, theft by use of access card info.
DORIS HOFFMAN, 65, Potter Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
ANDREW JEHN, 52, Potter Valley. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
JESSE JONES, 32, Covelo. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
SHANE MILLER JR., 31, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.
DAVID PETERS, 44, Clearlake/Ukiah. Probation revocation.
DARRELL PIKE JR., 30, Hopland. County parole violation, resisting.
ROBIN SMITH, 37, Ukiah. Unspecified offense.
STEPHEN SUTAK, 54, Ukiah. Unlawful camping-private property, storage of camping paraphernalia on private property, trespassing, paraphernalia.
ASHTYN TAYLOR, 18, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
WESLEY WEBSTER, 29, Ukiah. DUI.
DIRE WARNING FOR CALIFORNIA FIRE with worst yet to come as 100mph winds rage: Live updates
Southern California officials have warned that the worst is yet to come as 100mph winds are expected as wildfires continue to devastate the area.
The wildfires are rapidly spreading across Los Angeles today with firefighters conceding they remain powerless to contain the flames while because of strong winds.
Some 30,000 residents in Pacific Palisades and surrounding areas are now under mandatory evacuation orders, amid warnings there is an immediate threat to their lives.
Blazes have also broken out in the Eaton foothills in Altadena and a third in Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley which have seen homes razed to the ground.
“THERE WAS A DESERT WIND blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.”
― Raymond Chandler
SUSPECTED BIDWELL MANSION ARSONIST DRIVEN BY 'VERY LEFT-WING' POLITICS, OFFICIALS SAY
by Matt LaFever
The suspect accused of deliberately setting the fire that destroyed Chico’s historic Bidwell Mansion last month was arraigned in a Butte County courtroom yesterday. Officials alleged in an afternoon press conference that Kevin Carlson, 30, was motivated by “left-wing” and “anti-colonialism” politics in targeting the 156-year-old landmark for arson, scouting it multiple times before the blaze.
The Bidwell Mansion, home to Chico founder John Bidwell and his wife Annie from 1868 to 1900, was a symbol of the city and burned down in the early morning hours of Dec. 11, 2024. On Friday, officials announced the arrest of Carlson as the suspected arsonist.
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey outlined the investigation that led to Carlson’s arrest, detailing how surveillance footage and license plate readers traced his movements. The day before he allegedly set fire to the landmark, Carlson reportedly visited the mansion, parked in the lot and walked the grounds in what Ramsey described as a “scouting trip.”
Later that day, Carlson then allegedly drove more than 20 miles south to Oroville, where he made multiple cash purchases: a gas can, duct tape and $20 of gasoline. He is also accused of buying a claw hammer, work gloves, black trash bags and a barbecue lighter in Chico.
In the early hours of Dec. 11, surveillance footage captured Carlson leaving his apartment and parking his silver Toyota Highlander north of the mansion. He was seen approaching the building carrying “a rather large object … inside what looks like a black plastic trash bag … and another bag, a smaller bag, on his right shoulder,” Ramsey said.
At around 2:05 a.m., a “shadowy figure” appeared on the mansion’s north porch. Ramsey reported that evidence indicates Carlson broke a window, poured gasoline inside and on the porch, then ignited the fire.
By around 2:08 a.m., Carlson was captured on video fleeing the scene toward his parked vehicle. After burning for about an hour, Ramsey said there was a “catastrophic explosion,” which he attributed to a natural gas leak from a severed line in the basement.
Ramsey said that investigators were able to identify Carlson’s vehicle from two malfunctioning lights on his Highlander. Ramsey also said that in April 2024, Carlson had visited the mansion with his license plates removed to “avoid detection from the license plate readers.”
When Carlson was arrested while leaving a restaurant in Chico last week, Ramsey recalled that Carlson’s vehicle contained a hammer, duct tape, gloves, and a lighter — items that matched those seen in the surveillance footage. However, the gas can was missing.
Regarding motive, Ramsey said, “There was an indication of some political ideology,” citing Carlson’s interest in TikTok accounts he described as “Marxist and very left-wing” with an “anti-colonialism bent.”
John Bidwell, the mansion’s namesake, has faced increased scrutiny for his historical legacy. Several months before the fire, a nearby historical plaque was vandalized with “f—k colonizers.” Though the Mexican-American War veteran and former California state senator is celebrated as Chico’s founder, his legislative record includes a bill creating a system of indentured servitude for Native people.
Ramsey said investigators are reviewing multiple cell phones, a laptop, and other “electronic media” confiscated from his home for further insights into Carlson’s motive, noting that beyond the TikTok accounts, “he has almost no online presence, doesn’t appear to currently have a job and seems to have very few relations in his apartment complex.”
Carlson appeared in court without an attorney and requested a court-appointed lawyer. He faces felony arson charges with an enhancement for the alleged use of accelerants and could face up to 11 years in prison if convicted. His next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday.
(SFGate)
GET EMOTIONAL, DEMS
Editor,
Democrats need to emphasize something emotional, like fear, to garner votes, but I don’t think climate change is the issue.
First, climate change isn’t immediate to individuals in the way that the loss of a job (or a pet) is. Even people whose lives are uprooted by wildfires, floods and other natural effects of climate change don’t feel that any government is responsible.
Second, climate change is a global issue, and no single government or country can effect meaningful change.
Third, any change that is possible won’t produce effects until years or decades from now — far beyond current voters’ perception.
Better issues for Democrats to inspire fear are the real and immediate prospects of the failure of Social Security, the dismantling of Medicare and Medicaid, and the erosion of consumer protections we unconsciously rely on — like food safety and fair lending practices.
Alice Spears
San Francisco
THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE SUICIDE NET IS WORKING
by Andrew Chamings
One year after its long-delayed completion, the $224 million steel-webbed suicide deterrent hanging under the Golden Gate Bridge appears to be working.
Over the past 20 years, there have been, on average, 30 suicides a year on the bridge, peaking in 2013 with 46 fatalities. In 2023, as the net was being constructed, that number fell to 14. In 2024, there were eight suicides, Golden Gate Bridge District spokesperson Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz told SFGate via email.
“The net is working as intended to save lives and deter people from coming to the Golden Gate Bridge to harm themselves,” Cosulich-Schwartz wrote. A typical year has seen around 200 attempts at suicide on the bridge; in 2024, bridge district staff successfully intervened in 132 attempts.
The news is a welcome success story, decades after the idea of a net was first introduced.
“Who would want to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge?” chief engineer of the bridge Joseph Strauss asked reporters in 1937, as his ambitious design was under construction. Just three months after the bridge’s opening that year, Oakland war veteran Harold Wobber leaped to his death while walking the new bridge with a friend, leaving a note for his daughter in his discarded jacket. It would be the first of approximately 2,000 suicides on the bridge. Like many jumpers, Wobber’s body was never found.
Original 1930s designs for the bridge’s walkway called for the railing to be over 5 feet tall, though this was changed in a late design tweak to just 4 feet, providing less of an obstruction to jumpers. Some say this was because Strauss, who stood at just 5 feet tall himself, wanted to be able to see over the side.
As San Francisco’s international orange icon gained a bleak reputation as one of the world’s most popular suicide spots, the idea of a net to catch or deter jumpers became more popular. Studies showed that the installation of barriers or nets at suicide hotspots could reduce suicide risk by up to 93%. A Harvard study found that 9 out of 10 people who survive a suicide attempt will not die by suicide at a later date. But pushback came from those who believed the net would sully the aesthetics of the world’s most photographed bridge.
A notorious 2006 documentary, “The Bridge,” in which director Eric Steel captured the final moments of 23 people who died by suicide at the bridge in 2004 with telephoto lenses positioned around San Francisco and the Marin Headlands, led to further outcry over the lack of any physical deterrent to suicide.
Two years later, bridge officials voted 14-1 to construct hanging stainless steel nets 20 feet below the railings. After years of negotiations, contractor disputes and bureaucratic delays, the work was finished at the tail end of 2023.
The net, or, as its officially known, the suicide deterrent system, spans 1.7 miles, covering around 95% of the bridge on both sides and extending 20 feet out over the water.
“Last year’s dramatic decline in suicides and attempts on the Golden Gate Bridge is a direct result of the lifesaving infrastructure improvements championed by Assemblymember Stefani,” new District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill told SFGATE over email, referring to his predecessor, Catherine Stefani. “I commend the Bridge District for following the lead of dedicated advocates.”
“The net is a proven design that deters people from jumping,” the bridge district said in a statement. It “serves as a symbol of care and hope to despondent individuals, and, if necessary, offers people a second chance.”
(SFGate)
UKIAH BECKONS
ParaBrahman Identified…Here…Now…
Come in postmodern America! Am standing in front of a guest computer at the MLK public library in Washington, D.C. I have nothing at all that I must do. I am available for frontline radical environmental and related peace & justice revolutionary action in response to the increasingly confused, materialistic, stupid trajectory of the incoming presidential administration (part 2). I do not need to be in a homeless shelter in the northeast section of the District of Columbia any further. My commitment to be supportive of the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil for the autumn season was successful. I'd like to move on, either here, or elsewhere. Gracias amigos y amigas.
Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
BRUCE MCEWEN
Stuart Hamblen – This Ole House
https://genius.com/Stuart-hamblen-this-ole-house-lyrics
FISHING GROUPS, WINNEMEM WINTU TRIBE SUE STATE AND FEDS OVER TAKE PERMIT FOR STATE WATER PROJECT
by Dan Bacher
As imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations move closer and closer to the abyss of extinction, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) has sued the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) over the “Incidental Take Permit” (ITP) for the operation of the State Water Project.
CSPA is joined in the lawsuit, filed on Nov. 26, 2024, by the North Coast Rivers Alliance, the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. The Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker filed the suit in the Sacramento Superior Court on behalf of CSPA and fellow plaintiffs.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the law under the California Environmental Quality Act, Public Resources Code section 21000; the Delta Reform Act, Water Code section 85000, the California Endangered Species Act , Fish and Game Code section 2050, and the Public Trust Doctrine.…
https://www.elkgrovedailynews.com/fishing-groups-winnemem-wintu-sue-state
DEBORAH WHITE: I'm having these weird math synapse firings. I remember enjoying working out inductive proofs, and all these references to the sum of cubes brought it back. When did I do these? I always tell my students that we didn't have Precalculus back in the day; it hadn't been invented.
WHEN JIMMY CARTER PARDONED DRAFT RESISTERS
by Gerry Condon
The passing of Jimmy Carter has been duly noted in ubiquitous remembrances and commentaries on his four-year presidency, 1977-1981. Carter is lauded more for his post-presidential humanitarian projects, while his presidency is deemed a mixed bag by left and right alike. For many Vietnam War resisters – myself included, it is more personal. Jimmy Carter’s first act as president was to pardon draft resisters. He then established a program for military deserters like me, who were able to return from exile or up from “underground” without going to prison.
President Carter’s pardon took a certain amount of courage and compassion, and for that we remember him fondly. To say that “Jimmy Carter pardoned war resisters,” however, is a bit like saying that “Abe Lincoln freed the slaves.” Both presidential decrees were the culmination of years of determined resistance and organizing – by the war resisters and the slaves – and by their many valuable allies. Grassroots people’s movements laid the table.
Over One Million People Needed Amnesty
Resistance to the US war on Vietnam was widespread throughout the late sixties and early seventies. Over a million young men found themselves in legal jeopardy – an estimated 300,000 draft resisters, as many as 500,000 deserters, and another 500,000 veterans who were discharged from the military with “less-than-honorable” discharges – life sentences of discrimination, particularly by employers. There were also thousands of women and men who had been prosecuted for their antiwar protests.
Somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 Vietnam War resisters emigrated to Canada – the majority being draft resisters, often accompanied by girlfriends and spouses. Thirty thousand became Canadian citizens. Another 800 US war resisters – mostly deserters – fled to Sweden, the only country to officially grant asylum to Vietnam War resisters. (Canada’s immigration policy was wide open at the time, unlike today, and did not care about the military obligations of other countries).
In 1972, AMEX-Canada, a Toronto-based collective of US deserters and draft resisters, of which I was part, took the lead in calling for unconditional amnesty for all war resisters and veterans with less-than-honorable discharges. (AMEX = American Exile.) We fought hard for this position within the broad-based National Council for Universal, Unconditional Amnesty (NCUUA), which included the National Council of Churches, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), War Resisters League (WRL), Women Strike for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) and many local peace groups. The initial instinct of some of the church groups was to call for amnesty only for draft resisters, who were mostly white and middle-class, and not for deserters, who were largely working class, and were wanted by the military.
It was a bigger struggle yet to include veterans with less-than-honorable discharges, who were often people-of-color who had resisted racism within the military. But AMEX-Canada, the only organized group of war resisters within the amnesty coalition, along with WRL and VVAW, prevailed, as evidenced by the awkward but specific name, National Council for Universal, Unconditional Amnesty.
AMEX-Canada always called for the US to end its “illegal, immoral” war in Vietnam, which killed over 3 million Vietnamese, mostly civilians. AMEX’s Jack Colhoun, an Army deserter and historian, chronicled the progress of the Vietnam war in the pages of AMEX-Canada magazine. By demanding amnesty, war resisters had opened an antiwar front that outlasted the antiwar movement, which waned after US troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1972-73.
In September 1974, AMEX-Canada hosted an international conference in Toronto, with exiled US war resisters from Canada, Sweden, France and the UK, who were joined by Vietnam Veterans Against the War and other US peace activists. Several days before the long-planned conference, President Gerald Ford announced that he was granting an unconditional pardon to his disgraced predecessor, Richard Nixon, along with a very limited and conditional “earned re-entry” program for Vietnam war resisters. Returning resisters would have to sign loyalty oaths, to perform alternative service, and – if they were deserters – accept a new kind of “less-than-honorable” discharge that would mark them for life.
Resisters Demanded Total Amnesty, Not “Shamnesty”
The U.S. media flocked to Toronto to hear US war resisters’ response. We totally rejected Ford’s so-called “clemency” program and unanimously demanded an unconditional amnesty for all Vietnam war resisters. “It is right to resist an unjust war,” we exclaimed. We called on our fellow war resisters to boycott Ford’s punitive program, and we vowed to continue our struggle for total amnesty
In order to raise the temperature, we sent a draft resister, Steve Grossman, back to the U.S. to challenge the program. And then a deserter, yours truly. Grossman’s draft charges were dropped, as was my jail sentence, after a 50-city speaking tour that put the government on the defensive. Although some war resisters were able to take advantage of Ford’s “earned re-entry” program, relatively few did. The program was scheduled to end on January 31, 1975. The White House extended it twice – for a total of two months – in the hopes of gaining greater numbers. But to no avail. The media declared Ford’s program a resounding failure. We kept pushing for real amnesty, not “shamnesty.”
The Democratic Convention in New York City in July 1976 provided us with a great stage. That was the convention that nominated Jimmy Carter for president. Carter had campaigned on a pledge to pardon draft resisters. Little did he know that a draft resister and a Vietnam veteran would steal the show at his convention. Fritz Efaw, who was living in England after refusing draft orders, managed to get himself elected as an Alternate Delegate from Democrats Abroad, and flew into New York’s Kennedy Airport. Lawyers for the amnesty coalition (NCUUA) negotiated a deal with authorities that delayed Efaw’s arrest to allow him to participate in the convention.
By 1976, the mood of the country had changed. Most people agreed that the Vietnam War had been – at the very least – a terrible mistake. A majority of grassroots Democrats supported an amnesty for Vietnam War resisters. That probably included a majority of the 2100 or so delegates to the Democratic Convention. But it took only 300 of their signatures to nominate Fritz Efaw to be the next vice president of the United States.
Draft Resister and Paralyzed Vietnam Veteran Take the Podium at Democratic Convention
And so it was that a wanted draft resister grabbed a precious fifteen minutes of prime time TV before a very large audience. First, Efaw had to literally draw straws with the other three VP candidates to determine the order of their nominating speeches. The other three were progressive African American Rep. Ron Dellums (with whom the amnesty activists had coordinated), an anti-abortion advocate whose name has long been forgotten, and the “other Fritz” – Fritz Mondale, who would become Carter’s running mate. Fritz Efaw won the most desirable primetime spot.
Next came the battle with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) over who could speak on Efaw’s behalf. The established format was for a nominating speech, a seconding speech and an acceptance speech. NCUUA had chosen Gold Star mother Louise Ransom, a leading advocate for amnesty, to make the nominating speech. Her son had been killed in Vietnam. But it was the seconding speaker, paraplegic Vietnam veteran and fiery antiwar activist Ron Kovic, who ran into resistance.
The DNC did everything in their power to keep Ron Kovic off the podium. They even claimed that the Democratic Party – the party of Roosevelt – did not have insurance to cover a wheelchair on the podium. The diverse team of amnesty advocates, including former exiled war resisters Dee Knight, Steve Grossman and Gerry Condon (that’s me), would not take no for an answer. Eventually Ron Kovic was allowed to make what many observers agreed was the most powerful speech of the convention. He began with these words:
I am the living death
the memorial day on wheels
I am your yankee doodle dandy
your john wayne come home
your fourth of july firecracker
exploding in the grave
These words are also how Ron Kovic begins his remarkable autobiography, Born on the Fourth of July (his birthday), later memorialized in Oliver Stone’s marvelous 1989 film by the same name. Tom Cruise did an amazing portraying Ron Kovic, and was nominated for Best Actor at the 62nd Academy Awards. The last scene in the film dramatizes Ron Kovic’s triumphant appearance at the 1976 Democratic Convention.
The team of amnesty organizers at the Convention was exuberant after the powerful presentations by Louise Ransom, Ron Kovic and Fritz Efaw. And rightly so. We had won fifteen minutes of primetime TV proclaiming that Vietnam War resisters were heroes for resisting an unjust war, and should not be punished. What a triumph!
True to his word, once elected and inaugurated, Jimmy Carter wasted no time – his very first act as president was to pardon draft resisters. He also ordered the military to establish a case-by-case program for returning deserters. In a nod to the amnesty movement’s demand for a Single Type Discharge, Carter even set up a program for case-by-case review of less-than-honorable discharges.
This was not quite the “universal, unconditional” amnesty that we had fought so hard for. But it was quite an achievement. Many war resisters were able to resume normal lives without fear of arrest and imprisonment. Even those who chose to remain in Canada, Sweden and other havens, were able to legalize their status so they could return to the US for family visits – a welcome departure from the days when the FBI would haunt their parents’ funerals looking to make arrests.
President Nixon had ended the draft in 1973, in part to defuse the antiwar movement, but six years later in 1979, during the Iran hostage crisis and increasing tensions with the Soviet Union, President Carter resumed draft registration, sparking another era of draft resistance. Young men are legally required to register for the draft when they turn 18, but millions have failed to do so. Fast forward to 2025: the Congress is haltingly considering several bills that would extend draft registration to women, and the debate about resuming the draft continues.
U.S. Is Immersed in War and Genocide Today
The terrain for GI resisters is arguably more difficult today. Soldiers who refused to deploy – or re-deploy – to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had a really hard time fighting for refuge in Canada, whose immigration policy has tightened considerably since the Vietnam era. Some were able to remain in Canada while others were forced to return to the US and face military court martial. Sweden offered no refuge to Iraq and Afghanistan war resisters, and recently abandoned its neutrality in favor of joining US-dominated NATO.
A 14-month-long Israeli campaign of daily horror and genocide against the Palestinian people – especially children – is being actively facilitated by the United States. US troops remain in Syria, after helping to overthrow the Syrian government and replace it with an al-Qaeda offshoot. The US is escalating the war in Ukraine by facilitating the firing of US missiles into nuclear-armed Russia. And the notorious Neocons who inhabit both Democratic and Republican administrations are pushing for wars against Iran and China. People across the political spectrum worry aloud about the looming threat of a civilization-ending nuclear war, while war planners insist they can fight and win a nuclear war. When will they ever learn…?
It Is Right To Resist an Unjust War
Veterans For Peace (VFP), which includes Vietnam combat veterans as well as former GI resisters, has issued a statement applauding those Israeli soldiers who are refusing to fight in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty US Airman self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington to protest the US/Israeli genocide. Another active-duty Airman, Larry Hebert, then fasted against genocide in front of the White House and Congress. Many active duty personnel are expressing concern that they will be ordered to fight or facilitate illegal wars and genocide.
Veterans For Peace has joined with About Face – Veterans Against the War, the Center for Conscience and War, and the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild to promote the Appeal for Redress (v.2), an opportunity for active-duty GI’s to legally present their concerns about war and genocide to their Congressional representatives. The veterans also refer GI’s who are thinking about becoming Conscientious Objectors to the Center on Conscience and War, and to the GI Rights Hotline, 1-877-447-4487. If needed, the 40-year-old veterans’ organization can put people in touch with lawyers experienced in military law.
Harkening back to the Vietnam era amnesty movement, the VFP statement concludes with: “Remember, it is right to resist unjust wars and illegal orders.” These words will become all the more important in the dangerous days ahead, as will increasing support for military personnel who refuse to be part of unjust wars of empire and genocide.
(Gerry Condon refused Army orders to deploy to Vietnam in 1968. He was court-martialed and sentenced to ten years in prison, but escaped to Sweden, where he worked with the American Deserters Committee, and then to Canada, where he worked with the AMEX-Canada war resister collective. He currently serves on the Board of Veterans For Peace. CounterPunch.org)
EVOLUTION IN THE DOCK
by Adam Hochschild
We've seen many skirmishes in America's culture wars over the decades; one recent round, over abortion, was on the ballot in ten states during the 2024 elections. But the most dramatic battle of them all, between two of the 20th century's greatest orators, took place in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, after the high school teacher John Scopes was accused of violating a new state law that forbade teaching the theory of evolution. Time magazine called his trial a “cross between a circus and a holy war.”
The confrontation inspired a 1955 play, ‘Inherit the Wind,’ which has been widely revived; a film version, with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, was released in 1960 and nominated for four Academy Awards. The story remains so resonant that it has been remade for television three times, starring actors ranging from Jason Robards to George C. Scott. The actual trial lacked a romantic angle, so the play added a young woman torn between her love for the teacher and for her father, a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
‘Keeping the Faith,’ Brenda Wineapple's lively new book about the Scopes trial, comes as the culture wars have heated up again. Even though the issues have changed over the past hundred years, it is striking how the two warring sides feel much the same: cosmopolitan urban liberals against small-town white Protestants who value traditional family structure. And hovering in the background but largely unspoken, then and now, are strong feelings about race.
What made the Scopes trial such a spectacle was that this local drama had a national cast.
Leading the prosecution was William Jennings Bryan, a former secretary of state and three-time Democratic nominee for president. His legendary oratory, it was said, was always “good for forty acres of parked Fords.” Although he opposed an anti-lynching bill, talked about the “yellow peril” of Asian immigration, and said he was a proud member of the “greatest of all the races, the Caucasian Race,” Bryan was, on most other issues, a progressive. He supported labor unions, women's suffrage, the income tax, public ownership of utilities, a ban on corporate campaign contributions, and food and drug safety laws. Not for nothing was he known as the “Great Commoner.”
Opposing him as chief counsel for the defense was Clarence Darrow, not merely the country's best-known criminal defense attorney but its most famous lawyer of any kind. Darrow had argued for a long series of colorful clients, from the Socialist hero Eugene V. Debs to the Wobbly leader ‘Big Bill’ Haywood to the McNamara brothers, accused of bombing the Los Angeles Times building in 1910, to countless labor activists in an era when union organizers risked beatings and death.
From the moment Bryan stepped off a train looking like a Victorian explorer with his white pith helmet in the Tennessee summer heat, the eyes of the world were on Dayton. It was impossible for Americans to imagine a greater clash of celebrities.
What might be the equivalent today? Maybe a trial in Florida, say, of someone violating that state's prohibition on towns and cities taking action to fight climate change, with temporary law degrees granted to Donald Trump to argue for the prosecution and Rachel Maddow for the defense. Or perhaps Maddow would take the role of the columnist H. L. Mencken, who gave the Dayton case the name that stuck: “the Monkey Trial,” and whose stream of caustic commentary set the tone for much of the press coverage while he kibitzed with his friends at the defense table. When the defense team moved into a vacant local mansion, it became known as the Monkey House.
Wineapple describes Dayton's preparations for a flood of visitors:
“Drinking fountains were installed every fifty feet around the town square, arc lights were strung from the maple trees to accommodate nighttime prayer meetings, and newly painted benches were placed near the courthouse. The interior… was repainted pale yellow, the windows were washed until they sparkled.”
The biology textbook at issue quickly sold out; one enterprising citizen told an inquiring reporter he could find a copy “if you are willing to pay the price.” Some urged that Dayton build an outdoor stadium for the trial.
Instead, officials ordered forty-five loudspeakers — a new technology — to broadcast the proceedings to the overflow crowd on the courthouse lawn.
The townspeople relished their moment of fame with a boosterish enthusiasm that seemed far stronger than any feelings they had for or against evolution. Before the trial began, the defense team tried to get the case transferred to federal court, which would have meant moving it out of town. When a judge turned them down, a jubilant local businessman put a sign in his drugstore's window: “Dayton Keeps It.”
These were the days of fully staffed newspapers, which sent 160 reporters and columnists to Dayton. Some fifty camera operators shot both still photos and newsreel footage. A microphone near the witness stand brought the trial to a national radio audience. Extra police from Chattanooga directed traffic. Fearing that the crowd packing the courtroom might make its sagging floor collapse (white plaster was starting to crumble out of the ceiling below), the judge moved the trial onto the courthouse lawn, where spectators donned straw hats. Vendors sold ice, cool drinks, sandwiches, and monkey watch fobs; preachers held forth on corners; street performers offered the chance to be photographed with chimpanzees. Hotel and boardinghouse owners made a killing. The local congressman suggested that, if need be, the War Department could provide tents and cots.
Even in Tennessee the anti-evolution law was not without its critics.
Wineapple explains: “A group of university students…petitioned the legislature to consider a few more bills” to “amend the law of gravity, for instance, and do something about the excessive speed of light.” Others joined in: the Black journalist George Schuyler interviewed a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo, he said, who was appalled to be related to people:
“Nobody had ever seen us carry on war, lynching each other, filling up jails, or working our little children… Did you ever hear of monkeys allowing one of their race to appropriate all of the trees in the jungle, and then pay rent to him?”
Two events no one anticipated gave the trial an extraordinary double climax. The judge denied Darrow permission to hear testimony from all but one of a group of eminent scientists he had brought to Dayton to question about evolution. But Darrow found a brilliant alternative. He asked to examine a witness about the scientific basis of the bible and used it as an opportunity to introduce the scientists and thus defend Scopes on the grounds that he was teaching science even though he had clearly violated the law against teaching evolution and was fined $100.
Then came the second dramatic flourish that ensured the trial a place in legend: five days after it ended, Bryan, who had stayed on in Dayton to do some speaking, died in his sleep. “I firmly believe,” a local minister told a crowd of shocked mourners, “that William J. Bryan went to an untimely death as a martyr falling in the defense of the Son of God.” Mencken took a different view: “God aimed at Darrow, missed him, and hit Bryan.”
(New York Review of Books)
“I realized either I was crazy or the world was crazy; and I picked on the world. And of course I was right.”
― Jack Kerouac, Vanity of Duluoz
BILL KIMBERLIN:
Did you ever wonder why Chicago’s main airport is named after the son of Al Capone’s partner in crime. There is a story.
Al Capone lived for about 15 years after he got out of prison. This was a time after Pearl Harbor when the Secret Service was desperate to find a way to further protect President Franklin Roosevelt.
Then someone remembered that when the government convicted Capone on tax evasion charges, they had also seized his 1930 V16 Armor Plated Cadillac Sedan. This was a perfect solution as this bullet-proof car fell into the lap of the Secret Service Presidential motor pool.
So Capone’s car became the President’s major transportation. This really pissed Capone off, who was now retired to his Palm Island estate in Florida. Capone was angry because his former partner, Ed O’Hare, had played a major role in the tax conviction case that sent Al to prison.
In return for this tax evidence against Capone, Ed O’Hare insisted his son, Ed Jr. get into the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. The government arranged this for him.
By 1942, Ed Jr. became the Navy's first flying ace when he single-handedly attacked a formation of nine heavy Japanese bombers approaching his aircraft carrier. Even though he had a limited amount of ammunition, he was credited with shooting down five of the enemy bombers and became the first naval recipient of the Medal of Honor in World War II.
In 1943, Ed Jr. was shot down and killed in action. The war effort and it’s aftermath needed heroes and by 1949 they gave the name of O’Hare to Chicago’s famous airport.
So that is how the airport got it’s name but what about Capone? He had Ed O’Hare senior killed in 1939 and continued to live at his water front mansion until his death in 1947.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
“Americans, you deserve exactly what is about to come down on your heads.”
No, I don't. I have strived to live a simple life. I stay out of debt. I drive old cars until they finally die. I live well within my means. I don't harm others and let others live their lives in peace. I love my wife and my children and I have always supported them only from the labors of my own hands. Other than imbibing a hard drink once in a while and cursing from time to time I live a pretty good, moral and decent life. I believe in God and try to govern my actions according to those beliefs.
I'm also a pure blood, no covid vax for me.
I don't deserve what is coming. I didn't create the system. I didn't ask to be born in this system. Neither did my parents. Many Americans do deserve what is coming because of the decadent, false and debt burdened lifestyles they live. But I don't.
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Fierce Winds Whip Up Devastating Wildfires in Southern California
Trump Floats Using Force to Take Greenland and the Panama Canal
Meta to End Fact-Checking Program in Shift Ahead of Trump Term
Peter Yarrow, the Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary, Dies at 86
WHY IS RUSSIAGATE'S ORIGIN STORY REDACTED?
In a parting gesture of defiance, the FBI releases a long-awaited document, blotting most of it out. Journalist Aaron Maté explains why the Bureau's FOIA follies matter
by Matt Taibbi
On January 11, 2019, at the peak of Russiagate mania and months before the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s deflating report, the New York Times for the first time made public a remarkable fact. In “FBI Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia,” a trio of Times reporters revealed that in the days after Donald Trump’s May 2017 firing of FBI Director James Comey, the Bureau “began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia.”
The country first learned the FBI was investigating “any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government” when Comey testified in Congress in March, 2017. Comey then was referring to the FBI’s much-ballyhooed Crossfire Hurricane probe, which was opened in July, 2016 and targeted the likes of George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
This second FBI probe disclosed by the Times in 2019 carried far more explosive implications, making its delayed disclosure unusual. It’s one thing for the FBI to investigate possible “links” between foreigners and a presidential campaign. It’s another for Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe to open an investigation into whether a sitting president, i.e. his boss, is “working on behalf of Russia.”
“Imagine even opening this investigation up on just your average Joe,” says Aaron Mata of RealClear Investigations. “That would be crazy, unless you have some real predication. But this is the fucking president. Andrew McCabe decides that he can do this. On what basis?” Either the FBI had evidence to start such an investigation, which would be damning to Trump, or it didn’t, which would be damning to the FBI. Which was it?
The 2019 Times story suggested the FBI probe was begun in part to determine if Trump’s “firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.” Beyond that, details were scant, and once the new investigation was folded into Robert Mueller’s inquiry, the reasons for its opening disappeared into the proverbial dustbin of history. Even when Special Counsel John Durham issued his report on the FBI and Crossfire Hurricane, he made just one mention of this second investigation, saying it was beyond his purview:
We also have not interpreted the Order as directing us to consider the handling ofthe investigation into President Trump opened by the FBI on May 16, 2017.
Nobody seemed to care what this second investigation was about, or what evidence was submitted to justify its opening, until Aaron and RealClear in December, 2022 sent a Freedom of Information request. They sought a copy of the original document explaining why the FBI opened a new “Sensitive Investigative Matter” on May 16, 2017. It took over two full years for the Bureau to respond. The answer was a middle finger: six pages, almost entirely redacted, with the exception of a few paragraphs. The released documents weren’t entirely bereft of information. In fact, they should contain enough to pique the curiosity of any incoming officials looking for places to start unraveling the Russiagate mystery.
Whatever’s underneath these redactions is embarrassing to someone. Aaron yesterday published a story on the subject at RealClear Investigations which I recommend everyone read. This document is one of a series of Russiagate-related revelations about to hit the public.
The memo is included below. Apart from the fact that it names former FBI Counsel James Baker and Counterintelligence chief Bill Priestap at the top, the most interesting section is probably this passage:
The FBI is opening [redacted] based on an articulabe factual basis that reasonably indicates that President Donald Trump may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Russian government which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States.
If your first thought is, “How can a person ‘unwittingly’ be involved in activities on behalf of Russia that ‘may constitute violations of criminal law’?” you’re not alone. I reached out to multiple lawyers with experience working on the Hill to ask how one betrays the country criminally without intent. One sent back a “shrug” emoji, while another said this was the problem with the new generation of broad national security probes. The FBI often does investigations that are “not tethered to or bound by criminal law.”
“Unwittingly, without his knowledge, he’s being manipulated by the Kremlin,” laughs Mata. “It’s unbelievable.” McCabe, now an author and sometimes contributor to CNN, said in 2019 that Trump’s “own words” prompted the investigation. Aaron attempted to reach him for his RealClear story, but he did not respond.
This is not a small issue. The FBI opening an investigation into a presidential candidate on the thinnest of pretexts, then continuing it despite repeated dead ends, then leaking word of an active investigation despite a total lack of results, and finally opening a second probe into a sitting president after their Director was fired, all speak to a law enforcement agency that was coloring way outside its lines, involving itself in unprecedented political interference. Whoever takes over the Bureau needs to unredact these and many other pages.
“It’s nuts,” says Mata. “Trump is in office, and they decide after he fires Comey to open a second investigation just of him, not his campaign but him, suspecting him of being a Russian agent. Why?” He pauses. “We know the pretext for the first investigation was George Papadopoulos. What’s the reason for this one? Probably the firing of Comey is in there in the redaction, but there’s got to be something else too.” But what? Let’s hope we find out soon.
(racket.news)
“Nietzsche said the newspaper had replaced the prayer in the life of the modern bourgeois, meaning that the busy, the cheap, the ephemeral, had usurped all that remained of the eternal in his daily life.”
— Allan Bloom
GENOCIDE: THE NEW NORMAL
Israel and the U.S. government will continue the genocide in Gaza for many months until the Palestinians are annihilated or driven from their homeland and Greater Israel is consolidated.
by Chris Hedges
Joe Biden’s parting gift of $8 billion in weapons sales to the apartheid state of Israel acknowledges the gruesome reality of the genocide in Gaza. This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. This is a permanent, endless war designed not to destroy Hamas, or free Israeli hostages, but to eradicate, once and for all, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It is the final push to create a Greater Israel, which will include not only Gaza and the West Bank, but chunks of Lebanon and Syria. It is the culmination of the Zionist dream. And it will be paid for with rivers of blood — Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Israel Avi Dichter was probably offering conservative estimates when he said “I think that we are going to stay in Gaza for a long time. I think most people understand that [Israel] will be years in some kind of West Bank situation where you go in and out and maybe you remain along Netzarim [corridor].”
Mass extermination takes time. It is also expensive. Fortunately for Israel, its lobby in the U.S. has a stranglehold on Congress, our electoral process and the media narrative. Americans, although 61 percent support ending weapons shipments to Israel, will pay for it. And those that express dissent will be frog-marched into Zionist black holes where their voices are silenced and their careers jeopardized or destroyed. Donald Trump and the Republicans have an open disdain for democracy, but so do the Democrats and Joe Biden.
The U.S. provided $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a substantial increase from the already $3.8 billion in military aid the U.S. gives Israel annually. This is a record for a single year. The State Department has informed Congress that it intends to approve another $8 billion in purchases of U.S.-made arms by Israel. This will provide Israel with more GPS guidance systems for bombs, more artillery shells, more missiles for fighter jets and helicopters, and more bombs, including 2,800 unguided MK-84 bombs, which Israel has a habit of dropping on densely packed tent encampments in Gaza. The pressure wave from the 2,000-pound MK-84 pulverizes buildings and exterminates life within a 400-yard radius. The blast, which ruptures lungs, rips apart limbs and bursts sinus cavities up to hundreds of yards away, leaves behind a 50-foot-wide and 36-foot-deep crater. Israel appears to have used this bomb to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, in Beirut on September 27, 2024.
The genocide, and the decision to fuel it with billions of dollars, marks an ominous turning point. It is a public declaration by the U.S. and its allies in Europe that international and humanitarian law, although blatantly disregarded by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and a generation earlier in Vietnam, is meaningless. We will not even pay lip service to it. This will be a Hobbesian world where nations that have the most advanced industrial weapons make the rules. Those who are poor and vulnerable will kneel in subjugation. The genocide in Gaza is the template for the future. And those in the Global South know it.
The “wretched of the earth” who lack sophisticated weapons, who do not have modern armies, artillery units, missiles, navies, armored units and warplanes, will strike back with crude tools. They will match individual acts of terror against massive campaigns of state terror.
Are we surprised we are hated? Terror begets terror. We saw this in New Orleans where a man who was allegedly inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) killed 14 people when he drove his pickup truck into a crowd on New Year's Day. We will see more of it. But let’s be clear. We started it. The moral void of the suicide bomber is birthed from our moral void.
Israel’s frustration at the dogged resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen and Lebanon increases the bloodlust. Members of Israel’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sent a letter to Minister of Defense Israel Katz, calling on the government to intensify the siege of Gaza.
“Effective control of the territory and the population is the only means towards cleansing enemy lines from the strip, and naturally towards decisive victory, rather than treading [water] in a war of attrition, where the side that is most worn is Israel,” they write. “Therefore we end up inserting our soldiers again and again into neighborhoods and alleys that were already conquered by them many times.”
Israel, the letter reads, must carry out “remote elimination of all energy sources, that is fuel, solar panels and any relevant means (pipes, cables, generators etc.)” It should ensure the “elimination of all food sources including warehouses, water and all relevant means (water pumps etc.)” and it must facilitate the “remote elimination of anyone who moves in the area and does not exit with a white flag during the days of the effective siege.”
The letter concludes that “after these actions and the days of siege upon those who remain, [the] IDF must enter gradually and conduct a full cleansing of the enemy nests…. This should be done in the northern Gaza Strip, and similarly in any other territory: encirclement, evacuation of the population to a humanitarian zone, and effective siege until surrender or full elimination of the enemy. This is how every army acts, and so must the IDF act.”
In short, exterminate the brutes.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old U.S. military veteran who plowed his pick-up truck into a crowd of New Year’s revellers in New Orleans killing 14 people and injuring 35 others, spoke to us in the language we use to speak to the Arab world. Indiscriminate death. The targeting of innocents. The callous indifference to life. The thirst for revenge. The demonization of others. The belief that fate or God or western civilization has decreed that we have a right to impose our vision of the world with violence. Jabbar, who posted videos online in which he professed his support for Islamic State, is our murderous doppelgänger. He will not be the last.
“When a society is dispossessed, when the injustices thrust upon it appear insoluble, when the ‘enemy’ is all-powerful, when one’s own people are bestialised as insects, cockroaches, ‘two-legged beasts,’ then the mind moves beyond reason,” Robert Fisk writes in The Great War for Civilization. “It becomes fascinated in two senses: with the idea of an afterlife and with the possibility that this belief will somehow provide a weapon of more than nuclear potential. When the United States was turning Beirut into a NATO base in 1983, and using its firepower against Muslim guerrillas in the mountains to the east, Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Baalbek were promising that God would rid Lebanon of the American presence. I wrote at the time — not entirely with my tongue in my cheek — that this was likely to be a titanic battle: U.S. technology versus God. Who would win? Then on 23 October 1983 a lone suicide bomber drove a truckload of explosives into the U.S. Marine compound at Beirut airport and killed 241 American servicemen in six seconds…I later interviewed one of the few surviving marines to have seen the bomber. ‘All I can remember,’ he told me, ‘is that the guy was smiling.’”
These acts of terrorism, or in the case of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen armed resistance, are used to justify endless mass killing. This Via Dolorosa leads to a global death spiral, especially as the climate crisis reconfigures the planet and international bodies, such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, become hollow appendages.
We are sowing the Middle East with dragon’s teeth and, as in the ancient Greek myth, these teeth are rising from the soil as enraged warriors determined to destroy us.
(chrishedges.substack.com)
THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don’t mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don’t sing
all the time
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn’t half so bad
if it isn’t you
Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don’t much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen
and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to
Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs of having
inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
‘living it up’
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling
mortician
Happy Wednesday AVA’ers….. 🥰💕…..
ROBIN SMITH, 37, Ukiah. Unspecified offense.
Ummmm really? Pretty sure that’s not happened before! lol….. 😂. Dying to know what crime she committed ? Was it so out of the realm of possibilities that in the drop-down menu of the computer booking program there was no choice of the crime??….😂🤔!
mm 💕
Change its Name
English
[Pa]-na-ma
(accent is on first syllable (group of letters)
Ecua[dor]
Spanish
Pana[má]
(accent on last syllable)
I notice a tendency…
English
[E]cuador
mispronounced
Should be
Spanish
Ecua[dor] (having accent or not)
WHY are the public areas of Ukiah so ugly?
The popularity of the automobile has a lot to do with it, along with television, and being on line. People would rather live out of town, or in suburbs, and drive in to town to work, shop, or go to school. Shopping centers, easy in and out gas stations, fast food restaurants, etc. appeal to the auto economy. Of course working from home from a remote out of town location will bring more change as will on-line shopping. As the editor notes, the changes to ugliness accelerated after WW2. The Babbitts and their neighbors are investing in their homes away from town. Farmers have always mostly lived out of town. As a result, farm towns have seen change, but not as much. Checkout the small farm towns in the Sacramento Valley.
Same ol’ same ol’ at the BOS meeting.
Haschak is now the Chair, it’s going to be a long year with this pass the buck person in charge.
He even thanked and complimented Photo Op-Op Mo for reign over the board the last year. Wow!
Now get this, new rule called the 10 minute rule. If more than one person during public comment talk about the same subject, this rule applies. Meaning, if 10 people are there to talk about a certain issue, instead of you getting 3 minutes to talk, you’ll be lucky to get 1 minute. And this occurred yesterday when a group of citizens wanted to talk about the County’s MJ program. Several people were told they had 30 seconds to speak. It’s an obvious ploy to silence the public. Haschak then told people time was up on this issue and if they had concerns to contact their Supervisor. One of the participants yelled out, “They don’t respond back to you.” Touché
Is this what we’re getting with the two new Supervisors? I know it’s one meeting so I have hope they are just getting their feet wet. I hope they realize we want change from the Williams/Mulheren bulldozing of lies and just terrible decisions. And pretty much the silencing and disregard of the public.
News flash, you have a judge who is contemplating throwing out the charges against Chamise Cubbison, if that happens a lawsuit is a slam dunk. Three of the geniuses responsible for this are still on the board. You better be ready to put change in effect or these three will lead you down the same path.
I knew the time would come–I agree with all you’ve said here, especially as to time limits on public feedback–what absolute crap.
Thank you for your post, excellent points.
The Eagles titled an album, Hell Freezes Over, that may have just happened with us!
Peace
He was indeed a conscientious bore
With all that left wing trivia to expound.
Made them righties feel rightly sore,
They knew none of it could be sound.
But then “Call It” sounded real sane,
That boring guy loved his new way.
Found it sensible, so no disdain—
They thus became buddies for the day.
It’s been a rule for awhile, it’s just rarely invoked. It looks as though John isn’t bashful about using his discretion. To his credit, at least he applied it fairly against everyone.
I’ve watched a 1000 board meetings, this is the first I have heard of this. Applied fairly or not, it’s just away to silence the public.
Exactly. Public feedback at BOS meetings is a critical means of expressing opinions and concerns–on the record and with other members of the public witnessing, as well as with all supervisors present and hearing such feedback. Phone calls and letters from the public are a distant second, not as powerful a means of expressing feedback.
To cut off and/or drastically limit such feedback is just plain wrong. LISTEN-UP TO THE PUBLIC, SUPERVISORS. YOU ARE IN YOUR POSITIONS TO SERVE THEM.
The Old Ways–and the New
Oh man! If Nietzsche could come back from the grave to our times, he’d no doubt rush right back to death’s embrace, safe from all those new instruments of prayer held always in folks hands these days…
“Nietzsche said the newspaper had replaced the prayer in the life of the modern bourgeois, meaning that the busy, the cheap, the ephemeral, had usurped all that remained of the eternal in his daily life.”
— Allan Bloom
(Great pairing of subway photo of newspaper readers and quotation.)
GENOCIDE: THE NEW NORMAL
As we overpopulated monkeys destroy ourselves, falling for “renewable energy” and other robber baron lies along the way. What a putrid, stupid bunch bunch we are. Trump and his ilk are exactly what we deserve.
Fear is not the answer Alice, what a sad day for you
Awoke early and went to Chinatown in Washington, D.C. for a ginseng drink, and then to Pentagon City Fashion Centre for a kim chee steak sandwich at Charley’s. Afterwards, took the Metro to Visionworks at 13th & G to check on the two pair of eyeglasses ordered. She was emailing me as I entered; we laughed at the serendipity. Always identified with that which is prior to consciousness, the “eternal witness” is aware unendingly of all thoughts and actions, which is proof that the real you is not affected by anything at all. Meanwhile, Partnership of California paid for most of the optometry bill. The California EBT came in on the fourth. The social security increase for the new year is also in, and auto-deposited into the Chase checking account. Continuing to stay room and board free at the homeless shelter, while various social service groups look out for a suitable subsidized apartment. Am playing Powerball and MegaMillions every draw. Now you know the mystery!
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
January 8th, 2025 Anno Domini
The Vicar of Wokefield’s libtard flock
Were seldom subjected to right-wing talk:
Rev. Dunbar, a conscientious bore,
Turned ‘em all away at the door—
Suddenly, an epiphany gave ‘em a rude shock!
RE: online comment of the day…
Ha! “pure blood”…. There you have it folks. All those unfortunate sheeple who got the clot shots now “have it coming”
Ah, the arrogance and unlimited paranoia of the anti-mRNA club. Just a spinoff of the Qanon tribe.
What makes you feel more warm and fuzzy? The feeling of superior intelligence that you outwitted Dr Fauci or your glib arrogance of knowing that you’re different from the mass hoards of folks who didn’t do enough “of their own research”?
I eagerly await the next conspiracy (excuse me, government coverup) that sets you apart from your neighbors.
Only a eugenics acolyte would eschew inoculation in order to strengthen the genome. But would we want such sang froid offspring…? Because you risk losing the matriarchal care imperative, so species specific to Our Kind, by selecting the kind of parents who won’t vaccinate their kids, huh. Let me check with Geo. B. Shaw and Jonathan Ott for opposing perspectives and get back to you. But by and large I’m not particular about the purity of my blood; moreover, I know very well I deserve my fate unlike the pious pure blood we refer to, but as his bible tells him his fate is fixed around his neck like a millstone and he cannot push it away…same as me, I can let it go…
Boy, the bottom photo in your lament Ukiah series is hard to locate.
Driving on the left seems to indicate a Commonwealth country.
Looking north near Raleys but everything is mirror image.
I agree that Ukiah wouldn’t win a beauty contest but not all the pictures are in city limits even though they are areas most would consider as Ukiah.
The City of Ukiah is making moves to increase penalties for property owners who neglect their property to the point where it becomes a nuisance. I think this is a good thing.
Truth be told, we all share some responsibility-the County, City’ of Ukiah, private property owners, general citizenry. We have allowed blight to become the new norm and inertia has set in. It is going to take an intervention, a group effort to change things. Some of that needs to come in the form of consequences for willful neglect. All of it comes down to taking personal responsibility for ourselves, our property and holding our elected officials accountable.
“. . .holding our elected officials accountable” seems nearly impossible unless you catch them “red handed” (and a few Brown Act suits are the legal alternative). They don’t “agree” with the Grand Jury, so nothing much changes. I really wonder what goes through their minds once they are handed their quasi-legislative, quasi-judicial powers, and they believe that “social” behavior is the key to pleasing the public.
So sad to see the congestion and ugliness of what was once a lovely sleepy county seat.
You write letters, show up to meetings to make in person comments, and when they fail to uphold the duties of their position you vote them out of office.