Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 1/21/2025

Cold Out | Clear | THP Posted | AVUSD News | BHAB Meeting | Mental Services | Supes Hibernate | Sale/Lease Approved | California Dreamin' | Johnson Suit | Ed Notes | Coast Yuki | Yesterday's Catch | Fame Trap | Boom! | MLK Day | Vegetable Peddler | Slavic Glory | Paul & Babe | Underprivileged | Everybody Sang | Norman Borlaug | Inconsiderate People | Orange Section | Mono Bank | White Line | Linguist | Dover Beach | Peltier Pardoned | Young Dumb | Worst President | Torch Pass | Poster Child | Lead Stories | Captain Trump | Inauguration Notes | Convictable | Day 1 | Single Income | Another Door | My Dream | Mask Off | LA Freeways

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COLD WEATHER ADVISORY remains in effect until 9am this morning. Mostly dry for the next seven days. Chilly nights and mornings, especially this morning and Wednesday morning, and again for this weekend. Potential for gusty winds return for much of the entire area Friday and Saturday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A clear 35F this Tuesday morning on the coast. It warmed up a bit yesterday afternoon, hopefully again today. Our forecast is for more of the same into the weekend with a hint of rain later next week.

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BELL MOUNTAIN CLEARCUTTING PLAN

To whom it may concern aka everyone,

Walking around my hometown of Westport, Ca recently. I discovered a notice posted that Bell Mtn. will soon be "Clearcut." (See photos). According to the notice, yet another 527.5 acres within the Coastal Zone are on the chopping block. As of this posting, no sign of protest, care or concern is evident here locally.

Clearcutting is extremely devastating to the ecosystem, biodiversity, and wildlife living in the area. We as species have clearly not yet learned the lessons of the irrevocable damage and catastrophic degradation, caused by the Redwood Timber Barons of yesteryear.

Also causes for concern are the water-shed/view-shed, potentiality for landslides and eventual cost to repair/replace Hwy 1, should yet another major landslide occur. This new THP is directly above a major landslide CalTrans contractors have been working on repairing over the past few years. Not to mention the cost to local communities currently affected by congestion, air, water, light and noise pollution caused by the already unending/ongoing roadworks of Hwy 1.

I don't believe this atrocious "Timber Harvest Plan" has begun, as I've yet to see any logging trucks on Hwy 1. There may still be time to avoid this devastating, seemingly unregulated travesty of justice being perpetuated on the land. For profit and the love of money/greed, solely and entirely!

— RPS

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AV UNIFIED NEWS

Dear Anderson Valley Community,

I hope that you enjoyed the three-day weekend and were able to spend time with loved ones!

On this national holiday, we honor the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King to our country and to the world. Dr. King was a leader in the civil rights movement, who advocated for nonviolent resistance to end segregation and racism. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964 and was assassinated in 1968 at the young age of 39. In his short lifetime, this man made a big impact.

In his most famous “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King said,

“…So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

Dr. Martin Luther King remains a symbol of optimism, freedom, and hope for all Americans. I hope that every family will take a moment to talk with their children about Dr. Martin Luther King’s incredible contributions to our country and its people.

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District Updates…

Back to the Drawing Board with our Clean California Track and Field Project

Last week, I sent out an update to the community regarding the challenge of our track project bids coming in significantly over budget. Our school board voted to reject all bids last week, and we are currently working with advisors to consider changing the scope of the project and going out to bid again. We very much want to make this project happen! It is important to our school and our community. I will continue to keep the community posted while we work through the challenges, in hopes of finding a successful resolution that allows us to bring this incredible project to fruition. My original message about this is attached. Stay tuned!

Adult School classes will start the first week of February

Please see the attached information for class information, including teachers, cost, and meeting days and times. If you wish to register, you can attend the open house registration event on Sunday, February 26th from 1- 3 p.m., visit the Adult School website at www.avadultschool.org, email adultschool@avpanthers.org, or call 895-2953. Thanks!

The Anderson Valley Education Foundation does wonderful things for our community!

Please take a look at their webpage occasionally to learn about programs and services for children! Some important information regarding Internships can be found on this page. Here are some upcoming events and deadlines:

The deadline to submit the “job description” is March 3, 2025

“Job descriptions” will be posted on the website on March 17, 2025

The deadline to submit applications to the school librarian is April 18, 2025

Internship interviews will be scheduled May 5-May 16, 2025

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This Just In…

Mr. Ramalia and Mr. McNerney, our awesome principals, are now sending out weekly updates to their school communities. I will be paring down the information in my Superintendent Updates to keep communications streamlined and to avoid overwhelming parents with things to read! Therefore, I will keep most of my updates to district-wide information. Please feel free to reach out to me, still, with any questions or concerns. Mr. Ramalia and Mr. McNerney are also available to address anything that is specific to their school sites!

We love to see parents at our events, supporting their kids. If you would like to be more involved, please contact your school’s principal, Mr. Ramalia at AVES or Mr. McNerney at AV Jr/Sr High, or our district superintendent, Kristin Larson Balliet.

We remain deeply grateful for our AVUSD families.

With respect,

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MAZIE MALONE: All the stats accessible in one place: https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/departments/behavioral-health-and-recovery-services/mental-health-services/data-reports-and-analysis

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THE SUPERVISORS worked so darn hard on their two day “work”-shop last week, the one they paid a pointless facilitator over $5,500 for one day’s facilitation, that they have taken another long hibernation. Their next board meeting is Tuesday, February 11, 2025. So they’re off for their winter hiatus from January 15 to February 11, essentially one entire month. There’s a “general government” standing committee meeting on Wednesday, January 29, but they won’t do anything. We’ll advise when that agenda is posted next week. With the new board rules, doing nothing will be a little harder than it used to be, but we’re sure they’re up to the task, having had a month to rest up.

(Mark Scaramella)

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UKIAH SCHOOL BOARD APPROVES SALE/LEASE OF ABANDONED REDWOOD VALLEY CAMPUS

by Monica Huettl

At the January 16, 2025 Ukiah Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting, members approved moving forward with the sale or lease of the long-abandoned Redwood Valley School campus. This decision opens the door for proposals, including one from the Redwood Valley Recreation Center (RVRC) group, to transform the site into a community hub similar to Ukiah’s Alex Rorabaugh Center. The district, having secured a waiver from the State Board of Education, is now set to issue a Request for Qualifications/Proposals (RFQ/P) for the property, with a community-centered future at stake.…

https://mendofever.com/2025/01/21/ukiah-school-board-approves-sale-lease-of-abandoned-redwood-valley-campus/

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MITCH CLOGG

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I've been for a walk on a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreamin' on such a winter's day

Stopped in to a church I passed along the way
Well I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray
You know the preacher liked the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay
California dreamin' on such a winter's day

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray
I've been for a walk on a winter's day
If I didn't tell her I could leave today
California dreamin' on such a winter's day

— John and Michelle Phillips (1963)

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NEVER ARREST A DRUNK LAWYER

Kelli Johnson Files Suit Against Mendo Sheriff’s Department

by Mark Scaramella

The following is the core text from a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court on October 17, 2024 by a Ms. Kelli Johnson, a Sacramento environmental attorney who works for the California Air Resources Board, stemming from an incident that occurred on September 5, 2023 in the town of Mendocino when she was arrested, transported to the Mendocino County jail and booked on a charge of disorderly conduct-under the influence.

Readers may recall that she made an emotional presentation to the Supervisors when they met on the Coast back in September of 2023, more than a year before the suit was filed.

Most of the mistreatment allegations in her description of September incident were included in her statements at the time. What’s new is her description of what she admits lead up to the incident and what may have provoked the alleged bad treatment she objects to.

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This lawsuit arises from the harm suffered by Plaintiff Kelli Johnson (“Plaintiff') at the hands of Defendant County of Mendocino (“Defendant County”) and its agents on September 5, 2023. Although Plaintiff had committed no crime, and was non-violent and unarmed, she was assaulted, battered, wrongly detained, subjected to excessive and unreasonable force, falsely arrested and imprisoned, and subjected to negligence by Defendant County's Sheriff Deputies, who intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her in retaliation for exercising her First Amendment rights, and in violation of the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act. [Also known as the 1988 California Hate Crimes Act.]

Plaintiff was, among other matters, illegally held and abused for approximately twenty-four (24) hours, including being deprived of water and a restroom for over three hours, body-slammed into a wall, carried by handcuff chains, and thrown into solitary confinement without access to an attorney. Such conduct by Defendant County's Sheriff Deputies caused extensive internal and external bruising to Plaintiffs body. This physical trauma also led to severe psychological damage and triggered a resurgence of Plaintiffs rare neurological disorder, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (“CPRS”), which is a debilitating pain condition that affects the functioning of one's limbs. Despite such conduct by Defendant County's Sheriff Deputies, Defendant County's Sheriff, Matt Kendall, among others, subsequently ratified their conduct, publicly expressing that the Deputies did not act out of line.…

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Through her attorney, Ms. Johnson claims that her federal Constitutional civil rights of free speech have been violated, and she was subjected to unconstitutional search and seizure, use of excessive force, etc., and of state violations of denial of due process, negligence, assault, battery and “trespass to chattels. [personal property],” intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false arrest and imprisonment,

What “trespass to chattels” is Ms. Johnson referring to?

“Plaintiff possessed and had a right to possess the glass of water that she was holding and drinking from when she left her parents' house on Little Lake Road. Defendant Jensen intentionally interfered with Plaintiff’s use or possession of the glass of water and damaged the glass by grabbing it from Plaintiff’s hand and threw it to the side of the road, breaking the glass. Plaintiff did not consent to Defendant Jensen grabbing, throwing, or smashing the glass of water in her possession. As a direct, foreseeable, and proximate result of Defendant Jensen's conduct, Plaintiff has suffered lost income, medical expenses, and has suffered, and continues to suffer, other economic loss, the precise amount of which will be proven at trial.”

Ms. Johnson demands a jury trial for “past, present and future general damages in an amount to be determined at trial…” as well as attorney fees, punitive damages and “other and further relief as the Court may deem proper.”

After Ms. Johnson emotional presentation to the Board of Supervisors back in mid-September of 2023 presentation Sheriff Matt Kendall responded to Ms. Johnson's allegations that there was much more to the story, and that the interested public should not assume that the Sacramento attorney was telling the truth. “It is absolutely wrong that anyone casts judgment when they don't have both sides of the story,” Kendall said. “We live in a time where anything that is said about law enforcement is immediately jumped on. We need to reserve judgments until we have all the facts. I’m absolutely appalled by the round of applause [she received at the Supervisors meeting]. Anyone who rushes to publicly make judgments against anyone, I hope they are just as eager to publicly apologize.”

The Sheriff said there were videos of Ms. Johnson's interface with deputies and jailers, both from a civilian witness as well as from the patrol car and jail cameras, which he said he’d be happy to share with the public when the time came.

Since the alleged incident we've learned that Ms. Johnson appeared at several local law enforcement get-togethers in Ukiah where she was bonhomie itself, including one jovial Halloween event where Ms. Johnson arrived in a happy costume, not mentioning her allegedly perilous encounters with Mendo's forces of law and order with whom she exchanged cordial banter.

Ms. Johnson’s attorney, Ms. Ashley DeGuzman, is listed as “partner” (the only partner) for the Ashley Law Group in Sacramento where Plaintiff Johnson also works. According to her law firm’s bio, Ashley Monique DeGuzman, is “a graduate from McGeorge School of Law, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering, and extensive Real Estate experience, she is our resident expert in Estate Planning, Real Estate Law, and Mediation. When you need your legal work done right, she's who you want in your corner.” Ms. DeGuzman was admitted to the Bar on June 18, 2021.

According to wikipedia, “Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a form of chronic pain that usually affects an arm or a leg. CRPS typically develops after an injury, a surgery, a stroke or a heart attack. The pain is out of proportion to the severity of the initial injury.”

According to the Mendocino County Counsel’s office, the County has not filed a response to Ms. Johnson’s suit so far. However, the case has been discussed with the Board of Supervisors in closed session several times starting in November of 2024.

At this point, we have been unable to determine if the District Attorney filed disorderly conduct charges brought by the Sheriff’s Office incident to Ms. Johnson’s arrest.

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ED NOTES

TRUMP was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday. “The golden age of America begins right now. My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all these many betrayals that have taken place and give people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

THE ESSENTIAL DOUG HENWOOD in his Left Business Observer, “So we’ve got downward mobility for over 90% of the population, a level of inequality unseen in a century, scores of millions without health insurance — and little prospect for any of this improving in the conceivable future. Yet we have Democrats who seem more interested in courting Republicans and subsidizing Wall Street than in doing anything serious about social rot, and a polity that seems pretty much OK with that. In fact, about the only people in the streets are out to protest a creeping socialism that exists only in their peculiar minds. What a country.”

YES, SIR, what a country, the only one in the world, the only country ever that no matter what you say about it is true, and certainly the only country that could produce J. Andrew Scheubeck, Mayor of Mina, born August 2, 1914 died May 28, 2002, about whom I would have remained ignorant except I happened to see a classified ad in the Ukiah paper announcing that a kind of memoir about Scheubeck's life in the northeastern part of Mendocino County was available for $40. A little steep, but now that I’ve got the book I probably would have gone a hundred for it. The best book on early Mendocino County — the only book on early Mendo other than ‘Genocide and Vendetta’ that accurately tells it like it was.

WHEN I could still talk, I often got into low intensity arguments with my Fox News-informed friends, and I have a lot of them in Boonville. My local friends' world views are pretty much shaped by Rupert Murdoch and his Fox talking heads, who specialize in beating up on people who can't fight back.

BUT my Fox-informed buddies' everyday conduct is at odds with their cruel political views. A lot of Americans are like this, politically schizophrenic, their terrifying political opinions contradicted by their fully functioning humanity on the personal, daily level.

ONE guy’s opposed to single-payer although he would benefit directly from it, a fact he can't grasp through the din of pure bullshit he absorbs every day from the tough talkers and their blonde babe surrogates on Fox.

I SAY I'm for single payer, for free education through college, for guaranteed work at a competitive wage, for decent housing for all citizens, for a free range chicken in every pot. The rich will be delighted, I lie, to at last pay their fair share to make America a much happier, a much less violent, a comprehensively much less crazed place, a truly great country again.

“HOW would we pay for all that?” he demands.

I SAY we wouldn't pay for it. They would pay for it, they defined as all those patriots making more than $450,000 a year and up. He said he didn’t want communism. I said I didn't want communism either because it would mean mandatory NPR.

BUT, old pal, get yerself a Canadian phone book and call a Canuck number at random and ask whoever picks up the phone if they want to trade health care systems with US.

HE SAYS the Canadians are “brainwashed.”

I BRANDISH the Norwegians, the French, the Japanese, the Swedes. How many of them are trying to sneak into America to get our medical system, our cool-o public housing, our food stamps and public schools, and Sean Hannitty?

AND on and on it always went, and now we have Fox Ultimo at the controls, and we will see what we shall see.

PRESIDENT TRUMP on Monday pardoned members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and signed dozens of executive orders addressing the first priorities of his administration. He gave sweeping pardons to nearly all of the 1,600 rioters charged with storming the Capitol and commuted the sentences of several others. His decision appears to cover both people accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses that day and those who committed violence.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, January 20, 2025

BRETT ADAME, 33, Ukiah. Under influence, paraphernalia.

ANAMARIE BACCHI, 55, Willits. Failure to appear.

FIDEL BARRALES, 43, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

COREY CLAY, 52, Willits. Paraphernalia, failure to appear.

LESLIE MICHELS, 38, Willits. Obtaining personal ID info without authorization.

ORLANDO MUNOZ, 30, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, paraphernalia.

WILLIAM OWENS, 36, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ANDREW SCOTT, 31, Laytonville. Failure to appear, offense while on bail.

SAMUEL SIERRA, 35, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, county parole violation.

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I THINK it's easier for a writer to be destroyed by Fame when he is in his twenties. The ladies, the lights, the admiration will do him in. The young have no background to ward Fame off with. Besides, many of the famous are famous not because their work is excellent and original but because the masses identify with the output. And they don't identify with it because it's real but because it is false as most of them are false in their ideals, their actions, their lives.

~ Charles Bukowski

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LET RESISTANCE BE THE ORDER OF THE DAY: MLK DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO, JANUARY 19, 2025

by Jonah Raskin

A day before Donald Trump’s inauguration and the same day that—thousands of miles away— hostages were released in Gaza, the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco pulled out all the stops to honor the memory and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was January 19, 2025, a day to remember for many days to come. There were sermons and songsful, music on a piano, an organ, and a guitar and praying, too. Amen and hallelujah!

At the end of the morning, a lavish buffet/banquet fed one hundred-plus worshippers who sat down together, ate and talked and laughed and shared personal histories. There was no BBQ but there were salads, pastas, and fried chicken, and tea and coffee and desserts.

Side-by-side, at round tables with linen napkins, there were whites and Blacks, men and women, children and their parents, Jews and gentiles, locals and out-of-towners, Americans born and raised in the South and in northern California, too. There were Black Jews and Arab Jews and Black men and women who looked African and also as white as any white person.

At the banquet the pastor’s words were manifest. He had invited one and all to “make new friends and continue the legacy of faith, hope, and love.”

If anyone wanted proof that the spirit of MLK was alive and well, the Third Baptist Church provided all the necessary ammunition. And if anyone wanted evidence that the alliance between Jews and Christians was alive and well, that was in evidence, too. It wasn’t merely a relic of the civil rights movement when rabbis and members of their congregations joined “Negroes” to call for an end to segregation and an end to discrimination based on color.

Pastor Amos C. Brown from the Third Baptist Church and Rabbi Ryan Bauer from Congregation Emanu-El joined their voices and called for Truth not glitter and community not chaos. “We must raise our voices against hate,” Rabbi Bauer said. He added that “we can have both Palestinian sovereignty and Israeli security.” The audience cheered.

“Church is more fun than a synagogue,” Bauer observed. Indeed, it seemed to be a spectacle and a ritual with colorful characters and a profound sense of spirituality.

Pastor Brown urged the congregation to make “resistance our vocation.” He spoke unequivocally when he said that Donald Trump was “evil” and that for Trump to put his hand on the Bible was “blasphemy.” The Reverend Devon Crawford added his sentiments and invited the congregation “to make trouble in order to survive.”

The Third Baptist Church has hosted an “annual pulpit exchange” with Congregation Emanu-El for the past 38 years. The church was founded in 1852 almost a decade before the outbreak of the American Civil War. “Our two faith communities have joined hands in interfaith and intercultural worship, bound by a shared commitment to social justice, cultural celebration and intellectual stimulation,” Pastor Brown said.

On the way out of the church, I said goodbye to my new friends. “I’m really a heathen,” I told an elderly woman with purple hair and a long flowing gown that was red and black and orange. “Come back again,” she said. Indeed, I might do that. The Third Baptist Church of San Francisco is my kind of house of worship.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)

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Chinese vegetable peddler at Idaho City, Idaho ca. 1900. Like many of Idaho’s placer mining districts, the Boise Basin was in decline by the 1870s as the richest of the placer deposits had been worked out. Chinese moved into the area by the thousands to work the lower-grade deposits and rework claims that were previously mined. A significant portion of the town's population remained Chinese until well after 1900.

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THE NAME GAME

by Paul Modic

I hated my name and felt like an outsider to the Andersons, Dunbars, and Kramers with the real American names. (Damn WASPS.) Back in junior high they called me Modum, Strowdumb, Moprick, Mobydick, Mobyprick, and Nodick, and no wonder I hated myself. (I never considered changing it, and if so to what? Adam Smith, Percival Everrett, Robert Mailer Anderson?)

There was a time I even disliked my first name, to complete the identity crisis, harassing my girlfriend when she neglected or forgot to call me “Tex,” my adopted moniker for a while, gleaned from the title character of the trashy novel Hit Man.

“Call me Tex, dammit!” I said, though the poor woman said she liked my full name. (A name like Scaramella is nearly as foreign-sounding though maybe in the Italian-rich Anderson Valley, the AVA’s managing editor wasn’t harassed in school by taunts of “Scaryjello”?)

A turning point in this self-loathing came when I heard my real estate-agent-cousin making business calls and calmly invoking the family name like it was perfectly normal. Then out here in California I had nicknames like Zukini, Pablo, Puffy, and Jefe, and when I started getting an AVA byline I came out of hiding and accepted reality with no more of that irrational self-consciousness. (Once a friend said, “I know what your problem is, you should go by your mother’s maiden name, and call yourself Puffy O’Kane.”)

When the Major asked the esteemed editor Bruce Anderson, in an interview last year, who his favorite writers were in the AVA, I was so pleased he mentioned my name, in all its Slavic glory, that I printed then posted that page up on the fridge, like a proud parent displaying her six-year-old’s purple crayon scribbling.

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Mark Scaramella notes: My name has been mistreated in many ways over the years. “ScaryJello” is new and doesn’t have the bite that some of the other had. In high school it was “Scaramouche,” which was somewhat insulting but at least marginally literary. I was occasionally called “Skark Maramella.” There was also “Scare-a-melon.” But my favorite was while I worked as a staff engineer in San Jose in the 80s. A Japanese draftsman in the office called me “Scare-’em-all-off,” and it amuses me to this day.

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FRED GARDNER:

Bob Fenichel (my brilliant friend) emailed: “Underprivileged is worse than a euphemism. Underfed is OK, because it is possible (and desirable) that everyone be adequately fed. Underequipped and underemployment are similar. Underprivileged fails because having everyone be privileged is like having everyone in Lake Woebegon be above average, or like having every public need be the government’s highest priority. It violates a mathematical law.

”Are all of your other pairs fairly described as euphemisms? For example, a company might hire an outside firm to get favorable publicity, but might in hard times feel that bad news was more credibly fended off by an internal public-relations office.

“I didn’t think that supply chain was a euphemism for inventory at all. Is it really used that way? I think the two are almost opposite in connotation. By developing a reliable supply chain, a business reduces its need to maintain a large inventory.”

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BETSY CAWN:

To: Professor Yearsley —

When I was a kid, ‘40s and ‘50s, everybody sang (or whistled, or tapped out their own spontaneous percussive accompaniment to any air that happened their way).

Pre-TV, radio hot, Broadway bizzy, great show tunes that my parents loved, both playing the piano (sheet music was still a popular commodity), and on Sunday afternoons they’d have a bunch of neighbors over for a few cocktails and rousing renditions of Singin’ in the Rain.

American Band Stand, soft “rock” that gave way to new influences of old styles, Rag, Blues, Soul, and a lot of a capella corner combos you could dance to, spontaneously, and led to the entirely original stars like Elvis and the Beetles and the Stones.

Who didn’t know and sing all the words to Love Me Tender, Yellow Submarine, and I Can’t Get No?

Somewhere in the 80s, a frustrated white collar commuter privately “venting” while driving — now there’s a real safety hazard! — who knows where the impulse came from, out pops “The Red Red Bobin,” bob bob bobbin’ along, and my tears of vexation gave way to a smile, no more sobbin’ for sure.

America the Beautiful, that old bourgeoise hymn to capitalism, patriotism, and the American Way, reflected in the barren freeway landscape seen dimly through the purple haze of low-lying smog, segues into Every Sperm is Sacred, or the Low Spark of Highheeled Boys. Have fun, open up those airbags, blow out all the stops!

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NORMAN BORLAUG

'The Father of the Green Revolution' - Norman Borlaug - is credited with saving millions from mass starvation.

The story of Norman Borlaug and the green revolution demonstrates how the combination of science, education and social entrepreneurship can transform the world - and save millions of lives.

The cartoon shows Borlaug cradling a new hardy type of wheat, called dwarf wheat, which was highly disease-resistant and not easily affected by wind and rain. Borlaug worked with scientists and farmers in Mexico to introduce the new breed. Thanks to their collaboration the country became self-sufficient in wheat in about 11 years.

Borlaug believed in educating farmers on the ground, a practice that turned out to be very successful. The learnings from Mexico were later taken up by other countries including India and Pakistan.

Learn more about peace laureate Norman Borlaug: https://bit.ly/2UQLbRs

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INCONSIDERATE PEOPLE

Editor:

What makes people so inconsiderate? Why do people think it’s acceptable to leave their shopping carts in a dedicated handicapped parking space or the grid area next to it?

Recently, my husband called out to a man doing just this in a Safeway parking lot: “Why are you leaving your cart there?” “It’s not hurting nobody now, is it?” returned the man. My husband replied that it would be a problem when a handicapped person wanted to park there. This remark was met with a grunt and a threatening, “You wanna make something of it, man?” A short shouting match continued, and finally I was able to drag my husband away. I grabbed the cart and herded my husband and it to the Safeway entrance.

I know my husband is right in calling the man out, but these days I think it’s a dangerous thing to do. Things could have come to a head with a gunshot, a stabbing or, at the least, coming back to find our tires flat and car keyed.

We should all remember there may come a time when we will need to use the handicapped spot. It’s sad we are living in such a graceless, selfish time.

Meredith Kinton

Healdsburg

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AN ‘ORANGE’ SECTION

Editor:

Growing up in southern Marin our family subscribed the Independent Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle. The daily Chronicle’s sports section was printed on green newsprint, easily distinguished so it could be set aside, usually to line our trash bin. This worked well since no one in my family had much interest in sports, except the occasional reference to the Giants or the 49ers when doing well.

I propose news agencies adopt an orange section dedicated to everything and anything to do with Donald Trump. This way the goings-on would be confined and easily discarded for lack of interest or other emotions evoked by his oxygen-depleting screeds. I for one would welcome less news about him and fewer pictures of his smirks and snide and otherwise insincere facial expressions. Also, the orange section could include a daily sidebar of fact-checking and reality correcting data.

Richard S. Pierce

Santa Rosa

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WHERE I STAND

This is where I stand. The 45th President, his power hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, and the majority of Republicans in Congress are a real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all or most of the people I love.

Some people are saying that we should give Trump a chance, that we should “work together” with him because he won the election and he is “everyone's president.” This is my response:

• I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years…Lies about his legitimacy and hatred for his principles and his attempts to work within the system.
• I will not “work together” to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security and Medicaid.
• I will not “work together” to subvert the Constitution by illegitimately pushing unfit Cabinet nominees through on recess appointments without the advice and consent of the Senate.
• I will not “work together” to build a wall.
• I will not “work together” to persecute Muslims.
• I will not “work together” to shut out refugees from other countries.
• I will not “work together” to lower taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the middle class and poor.
• I will not “work together” to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his family and cronies.
• I will not “work together” to weaken and demolish environmental protection.
• I will not “work together” to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies which then despoil those lands.
• I will not “work together” to enable the killing of whole species of animals just because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.
• I will not “work together” to remove civil rights from anyone.
• I will not “work together” to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.
• I will not “work together” to slash funding for education.
• I will not “work together” to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
• I will not “work together” to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.
• I will not “work together” to eliminate the minimum wage.
• I will not “work together” to support so-called “Right To Work” laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions in any way.
• I will not “work together” to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that Trump and his supporters are wrong on the facts.
• I will not “work together” to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.
• I will not “work together” to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.
• I will not “work together” to put even more “big money” into politics.
• I will not “work together” to violate the Geneva Convention.
• I will not “work together” to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.
• I will not “work together” to deny health care to people who need it.
• I will not “work together” to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of a “pre-existing condition.”
• I will not “work together” to increase voter suppression.
• I will not “work together” to normalize tyranny.
• I will not “work together” to eliminate or reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.
• I will not “work together” with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.
• I will not support anyone that thinks it's OK to put a pipeline to transport oil on Sacred Ground for Native Americans. And, it would run under the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of people. An accident waiting to happen.
• I will not “work together” to legitimize racism, sexism, and authoritarianism.

This is my line, and I am drawing it.

• I will stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, and for the beating heart that is the center of Life itself.
• I will use my voice and my hands, to reach out to the uninformed, and to anyone who will LISTEN:

That “winning,” “being great again,” “rich,” or even “beautiful” is nothing. When others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.

Signed,

Deborah White

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DOVER BEACH

by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits, - on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd sand.
Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it in the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round the earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-winds, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitude, nor peace, not help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confus'd alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

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LEONARD PELTIER HAS BEEN PARDONED BY BIDEN

Peltier Fact Check

Leonard Peltier was convicted for the deaths of two FBI agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Mr. Peltier has been in prison for over 29 years.

The Wounded Knee occupation of 1973 marked the beginning of a three-year period of political violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The tribal chairman hired vigilantes, self titled as “GOONS,” to rid the reservation of American Indian Movement (AIM) activity and sentiment. More than 60 traditional tribal members and AIM members were murdered and scores more were assaulted. Evidence indicated GOON responsibility in the majority of crimes but despite a large FBI presence, nothing was done to stop the violence. The FBI supplied the GOONS with intelligence on AIM members and looked away as GOONS committed crimes. One former GOON member reported that the FBI supplied him with armor piercing ammunition.

Leonard Peltier was an AIM leader and was asked by traditional people at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to support and protect the traditional people being targeted for violence. Mr. Peltier and a small group of young AIM members set up camp on a ranch owned by the traditional Jumping Bull family.

On June 26, 1975 two FBI agents in unmarked cars followed a pick-up truck onto the Jumping Bull ranch. The families immediately became alarmed and feared an attack. Shots were heard and a shoot-out erupted. More than 150 agents, GOONS, and law enforcement surrounded the ranch.

When the shoot-out ended the two FBI agents and one Native American lay dead. The agents were injured in the shoot-out and were then shot at close range. The Native American, Joseph Stuntz, was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet. Mr. Stuntz’s death has never been investigated, nor has anyone ever been charged in connection with his death.

According to FBI documents, more than 40 Native Americans participated in the gunfight, but only AIM members Bob Robideau, Darrell Butler, and Leonard Peltier were brought to trial.

Mr. Robideau and Mr. Butler were arrested first and went to trial. A federal jury in Iowa acquitted them on grounds of self-defense, finding that their participation in the shoot-out was justified given the climate of fear that existed on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Further, they could not be tied to the close-range shootings.

Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada on February 6, 1976, along with Frank Blackhorse, a.k.a. Frank Deluca. The United States presented the Canadian court with affidavits signed by Myrtle Poor Bear who said she was Mr. Peltier’s girlfriend and allegedly saw him shoot the agents. In fact, Ms. Poor Bear had never met Mr. Peltier and was not present during the shoot-out. Soon after, Ms. Poor Bear recanted her statements and said the FBI threatened her and coerced her into signing the affidavits.

Mr. Peltier was extradited to the United States where he was tried in 1977. The trial was held in North Dakota before United States District Judge Paul Benson, a conservative jurist appointed to the federal bench by Richard M. Nixon. Key witnesses like Myrtle Poor Bear were not allowed to testify and unlike the Robideau/Butler trial in Iowa, evidence regarding violence on Pine Ridge was severely restricted.

An FBI agent who had previously testified that the agents followed a pick-up truck onto the scene, a vehicle that could not be tied to Mr. Peltier, changed his account, stating that the agents had followed a red and white van onto the scene, a vehicle which Mr. Peltier drove occasionally.

Three teenaged Native witnesses testified against Mr. Peltier, they all later admitted that the FBI forced them to testify. Still, not one witness identified Mr. Peltier as the shooter.

The U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case claimed that the government had provided the defense with all FBI documents concerning the case. To the contrary, more than 140,000 pages had been withheld in their entirety.

An FBI ballistics expert testified that a casing found near the agents’ bodies matched the gun tied to Mr. Peltier. However, a ballistic test proving that the casing did not come from the gun tied to Mr. Peltier was intentionally concealed.

The jury, unaware of the aforementioned facts, found Mr. Peltier guilty. Judge Benson, in turn, sentenced Mr. Peltier to two consecutive life terms.

Following the discovery of new evidence obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Mr. Peltier sought a new trial. The Eighth Circuit ruled, “There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case.” Yet, the court denied Mr. Peltier a new trial.

During oral argument, the government attorney conceded that the government does not know who shot the agents, stating that Mr. Peltier is equally guilty whether he shot the agents at point-blank range, or participated in the shoot-out from a distance. Mr. Peltier’s co-defendants participated in the shoot-out from a distance, but were acquitted.

Judge Heaney, who authored the decision denying a new trial, has since voiced firm support for Mr. Peltier’s release, stating that the FBI used improper tactics to convict Mr. Peltier, the FBI was equally responsible for the shoot-out, and that Mr. Peltier's release would promote healing with Native Americans.

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SMOKING-GUN PROOF BIDEN WAS NEVER IN CHARGE, UTTERLY SELFISH AND AMERICA'S WORST PRESIDENT EVER!

by Maureen Callahan

After the longest of goodbyes, the worst president in modern American history is finally, thankfully, gone.

It's been equal parts enraging and entertaining to watch Joe Biden take what he clearly feels is a well-earned victory lap: A slurry farewell address from the Oval Office, followed by a fawning exit interview in which he insisted, again and deludedly, that if he had stayed in the race he would have won.

As Biden himself would say: No joke!

And so begins the political obituary for a presidency like no other — a president who was never really there, who held office in name only, who was but a puppet for a shadowy Democrat cabal (Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, cough-cough) that installed him and ran the country into the ground.

Not that Joe or Bad Doctor Jill would ever admit as much. But that's par for the course with a family that put ill-gotten gains and an unslakable thirst for power ahead of what is good and right. Ahead of the country's best interests.

'You answered all the questions, Joe!'

That was Jill Biden to her enfeebled dotard of a husband, who had just walked off that infamous debate stage back in June. A truly loving wife would surely have shuffled him home, held his hand and told him it was time to go.

Not Lady MacBiden. No: Her husband may have just humiliated himself and the country — not to mention showing our enemies that the leader of the free world was asleep at the wheel — but she figured she could write that off as 'just a bad night'.

That's how stupid the Democrat establishment thought the electorate was.

Face it: Biden's first and only term was always destined to end badly. He began by defying his top military advisers who warned against pulling US forces out of Afghanistan.

Bob Gates, former secretary of defense under George W. Bush and Obama, wrote of Biden in his 2014 memoir: 'I think he has been wrong on every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.'

Obama, ahead of Biden's presidential run in 2020: 'Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up.'

Of course, Old Joey thought he knew best. And the result was the worst American retreat since Saigon.

Desperate Afghanis, children among them, clung to an American C-17 plane during takeoff and plummeted to their deaths.

Babies were tossed over barbed wire to American servicemen. Afghanis who risked life and limb to help Americans — who were promised protection— were left behind.

Thirteen US service members died when a terrorist suicide-bomber struck at Kabul airport.

President Biden honored their ultimate sacrifice by checking his watch repeatedly as their coffins were delivered for 'dignified transfer' at Dover Air Force Base. Surviving family members were left repulsed by Biden's callousness. By his insistence on talking not about their needless losses but about his own deceased son, Beau.

We later learned that he'd also reportedly kept those grieving families waiting while he dozed on Air Force One.

Roice McCollum, whose 20-year-old brother Rylee was among the fallen, told the Mail that Biden 'made us wait an extra three hours to receive the bodies of our dead family members because he couldn't pull it together.'

Perhaps this was the moment Biden's presidency, then only nine months old, died.

After his administration released a report blaming — you guessed it — Donald Trump for the Afghanistan debacle, Roice McCollum spoke for the bulk of America.

'This administration is a disgrace to this country,' she said. 'Of course Biden would blame it on Trump. He said a couple of days ago they have to do everything in their power to keep Trump from getting elected again. It's just propaganda. They are trying to manipulate public opinion'.

How right she was.

'Cheap fakes', we were told, every time we saw footage of Biden wandering off, or standing with his mouth agape, clearly confused about where he was and what he was doing — a lie repeated over and over by an overwhelmingly liberal media hellbent on keeping Trump from running again.

Winning again.

'Deceptively edited videos, known as "cheap fakes", have become staples of Republican attacks against President Biden' — The Washington Post, June 11, 2024

'The videos… are cropped or edited in a way that is misleading' — The Hill, June 19, 2024

And this, from the New York Times, dated June 21, 2024: 'There is the distorted, online version of [Biden], a product of often misleading videos that play into and reinforce voters' longstanding concerns about his age and abilities.'

This talking point was clearly being spoon-fed to a toothless press by the Biden White House right up to that June TV debate — you know, the one that 'reinforced voter concerns about his age and abilities'.

Then the mask was off. Biden wasn't a well-meaning, somewhat forgetful but thoroughly decent man saving 'the soul of the nation' from Trump.

He — clearly cognitively impaired, by his own admission able to work just four hours a day, left by his staff to sleep through all manner of crises — was the real threat.

After the Afghanistan withdrawal, which revealed a shambolic America in retreat, Putin invaded Ukraine. Hamas unleashed a terror attack on Israeli soil to rival 9/11. Al-Qaeda and Isis are on the rise once again.

The Taliban in Afghanistan has banned women from speaking in public.

Criminals, gangs and rapists have flowed freely through our open southern border with Mexico.

But Biden's top priorities have seemingly been trans rights — stripping protections for real girls and women — DEI and wokeism.

Should we be surprised? Biden has always given so many women the creeps, sniffing the hair of little girls, squeezing their shoulders, kissing them on the lips.

'Showers w/my dad (probably not appropriate),' Biden's daughter Ashley wrote in a diary that she herself admits is real.

Imagine if that were in Ivanka Trump's authenticated diary entries. It would have been the mainstream media's top story for months.

Not so for Biden. But, ever the small man, he has remained — to the bitter end — full of grudges, gripes and grift.

His largest concern has seemed to be not for the country but himself and his family. Somehow — don't ask Joe — his corrupt, degenerate son Hunter found himself with a sweetheart plea deal on tax evasion and a federal gun charge.

Until he didn't. Just like Hunter's sordid laptop was fake, or a Russian plant, until it wasn't.

Once Hunter pleaded guilty in federal court in September — weeks before the election — Joe said over and over that under no circumstances would he pardon his son.

After Trump won, Biden pardoned his son, for crimes known and unknown.

That kind of brazen duplicity, shameless hypocrisy — rules for thee, but not for me — is synonymous with the Biden family and the entire Democrat machine.

It's the endless moralizing and lecturing and hectoring to America about what a terrible country this is — what racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes and xenophobes we are — that led to a second Trump term.

It was the hysteria that 'Trump was Hitler' and a threat to democracy, while they quietly installed a senile figurehead and executed a palace coup to give Kamala Harris, she of epic word salad and not one original thought, the nomination.

While delivering his farewell address last week, Biden quoted President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a warning about the looming second Trump term: 'the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power, end of quote.'

End of quote, end of times.

Yes, Joe Biden's been a total downer on his way out, warning us of the dark, dangerous America that — hello! — he himself worked to destroy.

He foisted Kamala, a woman who couldn't articulate a single reason for running besides 'I'm not Donald Trump', upon his party — his nation — as revenge for getting pushed off the ticket.

His approval numbers are in the toilet, the lowest of any outgoing president since Nixon. His one-time mega donors have reportedly snapped shut their wallets — no presidential library for you, Joe! — so disgusted are they. He lost the Hollywood elite the moment George Clooney turned on him in the pages of The New York Times last July.

Yet Biden, whether it's dementia or defiance, thinks he's going out on a high! He thinks America really wants to hear what he has to say — or stumble through, as the case may be.

He thinks he is going to be missed. He seems to see himself as a quasi-religious figure and that, without him, America may not be saved.

From that farewell address: 'Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.'

You mean, Joe, like the Chinese businessmen you swore you never met, let alone introduced to Hunter? Despite the photos that surfaced just days ago, showing you, Hunter, and those Chinese businessmen?

Despite emails and texts from Hunter to his various foreign connections, confirming payouts of ten percent 'for The Big Guy'?

Or the pressure your Justice Department put on tech companies, Facebook and Twitter among them, to suppress the Hunter laptop story?

Or the lies you told a complicit liberal media about your cognitive health and physical fitness?

Does that not sound to you like concentrated wealth and stolen power threatening our very democracy?

Americans are not fooled by Joe Biden. We never really have been. He won in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, voted in by a panicked electorate — a vote for change that saw nearly every incumbent in the Western world voted out.

He ran on the premise of restoring normalcy and stabilizing the nation. On that, he failed.

New Year's Day saw a deadly terror attack in New Orleans and another bombing outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.

Americans remain held hostage by Hamas and, until mere days ago, there was no ceasefire in sight.

As Biden walks out the door, Los Angeles endures Week 3 of devastating wildfires — the ultimate metaphor for Biden's bonfire of vanities, one that elevated incompetent virtue-signalers and DEI hires over competence and common sense.

Biden, despite trying to salvage his legacy, will go down in history as a minor footnote, the aberrant hiccup between Trump's first and second term.

That's if he's lucky. That's if he's not remembered as the most useful idiot the left ever installed. As he turns to go on Monday morning, LA will still be on fire, and that will be his true legacy: An America left burning, hopeless, desperate, neglected.

But we sussed out the real threat. And it wasn't Donald Trump.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Goodbye, Joe Biden - aka “Joe Tater” - the poster child of everything that is wrong with America’s phony and hypocritical politicians. As a career politician, he enriched himself and his wicked family with riches no common American could afford, like two-multi-million-dollar mansions, luxury cars, and a luxurious lifestyle.

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

What Trump Did on Day 1: Tracking His Biggest Moves

Trump Grants Sweeping Clemency to All Jan. 6 Rioters

Biden in Final Hours Pardons Relatives and Others to Thwart Trump Reprisals

C.E.O.s, and President Trump, Want Workers Back in the Office

Paris Olympics Medals Are Tarnishing, Putting LVMH in the Spotlight

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INAUGURATION NOTES

More Michelle Obama Rumors… Ivanka Trump's Wardrobe Malfunction… And The Lauren Sanchez Problem

by Tom Leonard

For half an hour of MAGA ecstasy and Democrat misery, the Trump rhetoric soared to the very top of the Capitol's 180-ft rotunda.

'The golden age of America begins right now,' he told an audience that never missed a moment to leap to its feet and applaud wildly. 'From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.'

The man who insisted that, after escaping an assassin's bullet last year, he was 'saved by God to make America great again' painted a picture of the US that would surely bring a tear to any patriot's eye.

The American Dream was 'back and thriving like never before', Trump declared, as 'history's greatest civilization' rediscovered said greatness as 'a mighty republic of the most extraordinary citizens on Earth' whose 'power will stop all wars… our golden age has just begun.'

Perhaps not quite yet. For Trump had barely sat down when it became clear the Capitol's sound system had broken, leaving singer Carrie Underwood to save the day and sing 'America The Beautiful' a cappella.

It was another minor setback for a president who'd earlier tried gamely to land a kiss on the face of a First Lady whose wide-brimmed hat repelled his advances.

He can't have it all his own way.

Whether he's been protected by divine intervention or not, Donald Trump has pulled off the most astonishing political comeback and today was the moment for him to sit back and revel in it.

Few who were at the Capitol – myself included – to witness his first inauguration in 2017 could have imagined we'd ever see another Trump swearing-in.

After all, we knew that even he had been surprised by his shock victory over Hillary Clinton and nearly all the pundits regarded the Trump phenomenon as a mere aberration. Normal service would be resumed as soon as possible.

Instead it's Trumpism that has resumed, and today's second inauguration was brimming with the confidence and conviction that the first one lacked eight years ago.

At least America has been spared another row over whose inauguration crowd is bigger. The intense cold put paid to any repetition of Trump's dogged 2017 claims challenging the notion that Barack Obama had attracted more people to Washington's National Mall for his 2009 swearing-in ceremony.

With the inauguration moved inside the Capitol – and other celebrations inside the city's Capital One arena – Trump had a ready excuse for not breaking any records this time.

Nonetheless, Trump clearly puts great store by crowd size and he admitted at one point on Monday that he really hadn’t wanted the inauguration moved indoors.

Though at least he could console himself that the weather also kept away trouble-seeking Democrats, too.

Washington officials had earlier reported that applications for protest permits had been slow and although a few thousand turned out for a 'People's March' on Saturday and another anti-Trump protest on Monday, there was no repetition of the sprawling Women's March on Washington the day after his 2017 swearing-in that attracted some 500,000 women wearing their memorable pink 'pussyhats'.

Trump could certainly say that he went for quality rather than quantity this time.

A president who clearly likes to surround himself with attractive, wealthy people was blessed with the attendance not only of the perma-tanned MAGA elite of Palm Beach and Miami, but the tech kings of Silicon Valley. Some of the world's richest men – including Elon Musk, Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Apple's Tim Cook – were given many of the best seats in the Capitol Rotunda and returned the favor by joining in the endless standing ovations.

It was an astonishing turn-around for a group of billionaires who only a few years ago were ardent Democrats whose industry regarded The Donald with horror.

And one shouldn't forget the techies' consorts. Lauren Sanchez, helicopter-flying fiancée of Jeff Bezos, managed to put all the usual discussions of the Trump women's outfits into the shade with hers.

The busty 55-year-old whose wardrobe never seems anything but figure-hugging wore a white Alexander McQueen pantsuit over a risqué white lace bustier. Social media erupted with complaints that her 'bra' was entirely inappropriate for a state occasion.

'Good grief, Lauren Sanchez. Put them away for one day,' said one commenter. Others joked that she was dressed by Victoria's Secret.

Mark Zuckerberg, sitting next to her in the rotunda, at times seemed like he didn't know where to look.

For others, Sanchez's outfit only served to highlight the stylishness of Melania Trump, the ex-model wearing a far more restrained Adam Lippes tailored navy silk wool coat – and of course that wide-brimmed hat, which served the additional function of hiding her expressions.

Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, was also a victim of social-media mockery as some commenters drew an unkind similarity between her forest-green Dior skirt suit with the outfits worn by the wives of the oppressive leaders in the dystopian TV series The Handmaid's Tale.

The president's eldest daughter, 43, had already drawn anger – this time chiefly directed at fashion designer Oscar de la Renta – after she wore several of de la Renta's outfits during the weekend's pre-inauguration festivities.

Furious Trump opponents ludicrously called for a 'boycott' of the designer's clothes. (Usha Vance, the wife of the new vice president, wore a pale pink de la Renta outfit for the inauguration ceremony).

One woman, however, was noticeable not for her appearance but her non-appearance at the inauguration. Michelle Obama broke with the usual tradition of ex-presidents and their spouses attending each swearing-in ceremony, leaving Barack to walk into the Capitol on his own.

Although Michelle has given no explanation for her absence, sources close to the former First Lady stress she has stepped away from public life and certainly doesn't want to return to it in order to honor Trump.

'There's no overstating her feelings about him,' a source close to Michelle told People magazine.

Trump certainly won't miss her and nor will his supporters who, watching live footage down at the Capital One Arena, booed loudly when they saw Barack arrive at the Capitol.

For Trump, who later appeared at the arena to sign some of 100 executive orders within hours of taking office, the day provided ample opportunities to do what he enjoys most: talk.

He effectively delivered two inauguration addresses – one from a teleprompter in the rotunda and another unscripted, more rambling one later at the Capitol's visitor centre in which he railed against his enemies, complained about Biden's last-minute pardons and referred to the MAGA supporters jailed for their part in the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol as 'hostages'.

Some of those ‘hostages’, ironically, were back in DC last night – only this time to celebrate rather than to agitate.

(Daily Mail)

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WHAT TRUMP DID ON DAY 1: TRACKING HIS BIGGEST MOVES

President Trump made major policy moves immediately after taking office, withdrawing from major international agreements, promising steep tariffs and pardoning nearly all of the Jan. 6 rioters.

by Chris Cameron

President Trump took the oath of office at noon Monday, and within hours he had signed dozens of executive orders and issued nearly 1,600 pardons as he quickly sought to remake the federal government and test the limits of his authority.

His actions touched on some of the biggest policy issues in American life, from health to the environment to immigration, and he promised other consequential changes in the coming days.

Here are eight of the most significant moves the president made on Day 1.

He pardoned nearly all the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Mr. Trump issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, issuing pardons to most of the defendants and commuting the sentences of 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militia, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy. The pardon order also directed the Justice Department to dismiss any pending indictments against people facing charges for the riot.

He withdrew from the World Health Organization.

Mr. Trump moved to withdraw from the World Health Organization, an act that had been foreshadowed by the president’s frequent attacks against the health agency over its approach to the coronavirus pandemic. Public health experts say that the withdrawal will undermine America’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.

He began a crackdown on immigration.

A series of orders Mr. Trump signed set off a policy barrage aimed at sealing the nation’s borders to migrants and cracking down on immigrants already in the country. Those orders included a declaration of a national emergency to deploy the military to the border and a bid to cut off birthright citizenship for the children of noncitizens. Many of the orders test the legal limits of his authority, and birthright citizenship in particular is protected by the Constitution.

He sought to put off a ban on TikTok.

Mr. Trump signed an executive order aimed at delaying a federal ban of TikTok. It is unclear if that order could override the law that banned the social media app, but the measure instructs the attorney general not to take any action to enforce the ban for 75 days. Mr. Trump also told reporters that “the U.S. should be entitled to get half of TikTok” if a deal for the app is reached.

He withdrew from the Paris climate agreement.

Mr. Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, which would make America one of only four nations — along with Iran, Libya and Yemen — not party to the agreement, under which nations work together to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

He enacted a federal hiring freeze.

Mr. Trump ordered a hiring freeze across the federal government that would remain in place pending the completion of a broader plan for reducing the federal work force. The order singled out the Internal Revenue Service, which received a large financial boost from President Biden and Democrats in Congress, calling for the freeze to stay in place longer for that agency.

He gutted racial equity policies and protections for transgender people.

Mr. Trump ordered his administration to dismantle federal programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion, and to gut Biden administration policies that protect transgender Americans.

He promised tariffs against Canada and Mexico.

Mr. Trump said he planned to impose a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada and Mexico starting on Feb. 1 because those nations were allowing “mass numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in.” He also said that he “may” impose a universal tariff on all imports, adding that “essentially all countries take advantage of the U.S.”

(nytimes.com)

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ANOTHER DOOR OPENS

by James Kunstler

“…there’s little political upside in defending the rights of undocumented shoplifters.” — Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times.

If past is prologue, Mr. Trump lacks the acumen to carry out his ambitious agenda. The first problem is management style. In his first term, Mr. Trump was a poor administrator because of his mercurial, polarizing style and a general indifference to facts and the hard work of governance. — Jack Goldsmith, The New York Times

Thus spake one Shawn McCreesh of The New York Times, America’s all-wise, all-knowing font of everlasting rectitude. But to answer his question, why blah blah: Donald Trump is glaring because he means bidness. His bidness is to shift the paradigm on the mendaciously sanctimonious managerial class of the USA, of which The New York Times is the principal mouthpiece. DJT looks stern, does he? All that really tells you is how nervous the Old Gray Lady is. A million or more brains, from sea to shining sea are about to get vacuumed out and redecorated

Readers of The New York Times — in their various C-suites, ivory towers, ateliers, yoga parlors, tasting rooms, bioweapon labs, and other haunts — remain utterly baffled about what is to begin today. No amount of ‘splainin’ seems to suffice. They behold the Golden Golem of Greatness (DJT) doing his dance onstage behind the cop, the Indian chief, and the cowpoke and all they can really see are their own careers going up in smoke (along with vested pensions, reputations, possibly even chattels, marriages, and health).

As I write, long before dawn, “Joe Biden” remains President of the US. You must wonder, as the hours dwindle to noon, what pardon power magic he’s saving for the final minutes of his term, while the whole nation is distracted by the spectacle in the Capitol Rotunda, the moiling dignitaries and celebrities, the solemn arrival of the elect, the snarky palaver of the cable news jockeys, the electric charge of history in the large room…

It is a fact, perhaps missed by some of you, that Rep. James Comer’s House Oversight Committee just last week issued criminal referrals on James Biden (“Joe’s” brother) and First Son Hunter. Wait-a-minute, was not Hunter already pardoned for Gawd-knows how many misdeeds dating back to 2014, and (supposedly) preemptively for any alleged crimes to come ever hereafter? Part B of that may yet have to be adjudicated. A pardon is not intended to be a get-out-jail-free card. Anyway, would it be difficult for a federal attorney of average ability to draw a connection between the newly referred crimes of those two and the departing President? Hence, will “Joe Biden” pardon “Joe Biden” at 11:30 this morning?

Not to mention about 1000 other current and former public officials quaking in their Beltway McMansions this frosty morning. This is part and parcel, you understand, of the massive Cleanup in Aisle Four that must happen if the agencies of our federal government can ever be trusted again. For instance, the Department of Justice.

At the end of the workday, Friday, AG Merrick Garland made a triumphal final exit from the building past a throng of cheering and clapping employees, including dozens of federal attorneys who zealously persecuted their fellow citizens under color-of-law for no good reason, or real legal predicate, and ruined many lives and households in the process. Do you suppose they get a free pass on that? And what of the three bears of Lawfare: Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, and Mary McCord, all of them present at the creation of serial affronts against the Constitution (and decency) lo this past decade. Do they just skate? I doubt it, though it might take a while to shine a light on their turpitudes.

Will “Joe Biden” wave his pardon wand over Tony Fauci, Francis Collins, Scott Gottlieb, Deborah Birx, Rochelle Walensky, and dozens of other public health officials who sprung the Covid-19 operation and the deadly vaccinations on the country? Or Ralph Baric, hunkered out of sight in his Carolina lab? You realize, of course, that the orgy of illness and death from that is hardly over. For four years under “JB” the truth has been obfuscated and buried, because none of those characters has really had to answer for anything.

So, today another door opens. The To-Do list for Mr. Trump and his aides-de-camp is dauntingly long, the corrections needed are monumental. You might have even noticed that such corrections are badly needed all over the other countries of Western Civ, and strangely many are already following suit. The WEF-inflected governments of France, Germany, and the UK are already a’wobble, and Justin Trudeau threw in the towel two weeks ago. An Arctic blast could not be more fitting for what will move through the DC Swamp at high noon today. That is, if Mr. Trump manages to survive the hours until his swearing-in. Godspeed Number 47! And everybody else: put your tray tables up! A patch of turbulence ahead!

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DONALD TRUMP IS THE EMPIRE UNMASKED

by Caitlin Johnstone

During his inaugural address, the new president of the United States was refreshingly open about the fact that Washington is the hub of a continuously expanding empire which is ruled by billionaire plutocrats.

As Joe Lauria highlighted for Consortium News, President Trump’s speech included references to the “manifest destiny” of America, saying that under his presidency the US will consider itself a nation that “expands our territory”. He waxed fondly about the settler-colonialist past which established the country at the expense of the people who were already living there, and vowed to take control of the Panama Canal.

Trump gave this speech to an audience where the wealthiest people on earth sat alongside his own cabinet in the best seats in the house. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were seen together in the crowd among the more official members of the incoming administration. Israeli-American Trump megadonor Miriam Adelson, who according to Trump helped dictate US policy toward Israel during his first term, was seen sitting among Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Clintons at the inauguration. There will reportedly be no fewer than 13 billionaires with official roles in the new Trump administration.

If you were to twist my arm and force me to say something positive about Donald Trump, this is the sort of thing I would point to. He makes the US empire much more transparent and unhidden. He removes its mask and reveals the twisted face beneath it.

The US isn’t suddenly ruled by billionaires now that Trump is president; it was already ruled by billionaires. The US isn’t suddenly an empire bent on global domination now that Trump has been sworn in; that was already the case. But you’re not supposed to just come right out and say that.

Well, Trump comes right out and says it. He says the quiet parts out loud. He’s the only president who’ll openly boast that US troops are in Syria to keep the oil or lament that they failed to take the oil from Venezuela, or just come right out and tell everyone he’s bought and owned by Zionist oligarchs. He puts much less effort into disguising the true nature of the US empire than other presidents.

That’s the only reason various factions of America’s unofficial permanent government have had objections to Trump’s presidency over the years. It’s not because he presents a threat to the establishment or because he’s trying to bring down the deep state, it’s because he is viewed as a poor custodian of the empire. He either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the importance of keeping a polite face on the imperial machine.

If I were forced to say something positive about Trump, that would be it. The thing some US empire managers dislike about him is the only thing I like about him: that he makes the US empire a less effective evil because of how much less hidden he keeps the inner workings of the machine. The hood stays popped open the entire time, showing the whole world how the imperial sausage gets made.

Not that there haven’t been plenty of mask-off moments during the dementia-muddled chaos of the Biden administration as well. A new article in Time titled “Why Biden’s Ukraine Win Was Zelensky’s Loss” is a good example of this; the report cites a former member of Biden’s National Security Council saying that victory for Ukraine was never part of the Biden administration’s plan.

The opening paragraph reads as follows:

“When Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, President Joe Biden set three objectives for the U.S. response. Ukraine’s victory was never among them. The phrase the White House used to describe its mission at the time — supporting Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ — was intentionally vague. It also raised the question: As long as it takes to do what?”

“Ukraine’s victory was never among them.”

Talk about a mask-off moment. It has long been clear that the US pushed Ukraine into an unwinnable war with the goal of bleeding and preoccupying Moscow, and that it actively sabotaged peace negotiations in the early days of the war in order to pursue these goals. Now that the job has been done and the demented meat puppet is out of office, we are finally hearing it from Biden’s own handlers in his administration.

And of course there was Gaza, where the world spent 15 months watching history’s first live-streamed genocide right in front of their faces while western officials made nonstop excuses of less and less believability. If there’s to be any good to come from that incomprehensibly horrific nightmare, it’s that it has shown everyone the true face of the empire.

The more glimpses people get of the true face of the empire, the less effective the imperial propaganda becomes, because propaganda only works if you believe it. The primary obstacle to revolutionary change under the western empire is the fact that its citizenry have been successfully propagandized into accepting the status quo. The more people open their eyes to the fact that we are ruled by psychopaths who are driving us to our doom on multiple fronts, the closer we get to a collective movement toward a healthy world.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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