Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 2/5/2025

Cold | Dam Flow | Road Damage | Highway Fatality | Garcia Rescue | Brink Memorial | Cubbison Costs | Grocery Outlet | Water Grant | Volunteers Needed | Business Friendly | Village Newsletter | Ed Notes | Wild Story | Crab Feed | Kid Dutro | Bluegrass Band | LWV Meeting | Lazy Eye | Yesterday's Catch | Stupidity Understood | Long Party | Sacto Athletics | Enjoy Them | For Change | Ultracrepidarian | Throat Cancer | Avoiding People | Trump Dance | Deport Eligible | DOLT | 50 Years | Open Coup | Monet Garden | Damn Dems | No Use | Goon Squad | Trade Negotiations | Nation Shrugs | Job Stealer | Lead Stories | Take It | Take Gaza | Danger Boy

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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Boonville 2.25" - Hopland 1.91" - Yorkville 1.80" - Covelo 1.54" - Laytonville 1.37" - Ukiah 0.97"

AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH continues on the approach, cold and wintry weather patterns unfold. Rivers are receding as precipitation lightens up, allowing major stem rivers to exit flood stage. The weekend may see a light showers with dry and chilly weather expected early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): It really came down yesterday giving us another .98". A cold 37F with partly cloudy skies on the coast this Wednesday morning. Maybe a shower this morning then clear this afternoon. More showers Thursday & Friday then clear skies into next Tuesday, more rain after that.

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ANDERSON VALLEY WINTER WEATHER UPDATE

by AV Fire Chief Andres Avila

So far, so good. We have seen some normal localized flooding and Hwy 128 being closed at Flynn Creek Rd.

As of this evening, the only weather related issue that I am aware of is in Rancho Navarro. Rancho Navarro's Tramway, which is the only access in or out of Bald Hills, has a major downhill slide compromising the road.

Approximately 23 homes are currently inaccessible to emergency vehicles above the slide. We are working on a temporary service plan until access can be repaired. In the meantime, the Rancho Navarro road crew is working extremely hard to get limited access established again for the affected residents.

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FATAL ACCIDENT ON 101 NEAR HOPLAND

On Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, at approximately 12:42pm the CHP responded to a fatal single-vehicle accident on Hwy 101 near milepost 7 near Hopland under rainy conditions. The cause of the crash is under investigation. The identity of the 58 year old male victim, a Cloverdale resident driving a 2007 Ford vehicle, is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The CHP did not know if alcohol was involved. Reminder: Under wet conditions, the CHP urges drivers to be extra cautious, slow down and increase following distances, use headlights, avoid sudden movements, check tires and tire pressure and stay alert.

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WATER RESCUE FROM FLOODED GARCIA

A box truck driver learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of driving on flooded roadways. With the closure of Route 1 at the Garcia River in Mendocino County on Tuesday morning, the driver took Windy Hollow Road, north of Point Arena, as a detour, but the truck drifted off the road. As the water continued to rise, the driver managed to climb to the top of the truck and was subsequently rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard and other emergency personnel. We are relieved that the driver is safe, and this incident serves as a reminder to motorists to avoid driving through flooded roadways.

Route 1 is FULLY CLOSED north of Point Arena from Lighthouse Road to the Garcia River Bridge (PM 17 to 18.5) due to flooding.

Route 128 is FULLY CLOSED from the Route 1 junction to just west of Navarro (PM 0.1 to 12.68 ) due to flooding.

Route 175 is FULLY CLOSED in Hopland from the U.S. 101 junction to McDowell St. (PM 0 to 1.01) due to flooding.

Route 271 is FULLY CLOSED near Big Bend Lodge Road (PM 2.68) in Mendocino County due to a slide.

(Caltrans, District 1)

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JAMES BRINK SERVICES MOVED TO DIXON

A local facebook poster: I posted a few weeks ago about Jim’s passing. I had been told they were looking for a burial plot at Evergreen cemetery. Apparently plans changed and here is a notice about a memorial service for him in Dixon, California.

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CUBBISON CASE COSTS SPIRALING

by Mike Geniella

At one point in the intense cross-examination of the key investigator in the Chamise Cubbison criminal case last week, Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman turned to the prime prosecution witness and demanded an answer.

Moorman asked whether it cost County taxpayers “a single dime” to pay for extra work that all parties – investigators, prosecutors, county officials and the Auditor’s Office — seem to agree that Paula June Kennedy, the County’s former payroll manager and Cubbison co-defendant, had put in during the three years of the Covid pandemic.

Sheriff’s Lt. Andy Porter looked startled, and then he replied softly, “No.” Kennedy had not taken anything more than what everyone involved agreed she had earned, said Porter.

However, County taxpayers are footing far bigger bills stemming from District Attorney David Eyster’s decision to pursue criminal prosecution of Kennedy, and elected Auditor Chamise Cubbison.

Local taxpayers are also on the hook for Cubbison’s civil litigation targeting the County Board of Supervisors for immediately suspending her without pay and benefits without giving the Auditor a hearing to defend herself.

Documented taxpayer costs are already nearly twice the disputed $68,000 in extra pay DA Eyster cited 16 months ago when he filed the felony misappropriation of public funds against both Cubbison and Kennedy.

So far, the County of Mendocino has been billed $119,243 by two outside law firms engaged in prosecuting the criminal case and defending the County Board of Supervisors in the related civil lawsuit.

That figure, however, does not represent additional county costs of investigative and court related services, and the burden on the county Public Defender’s Office to provide a legal defense for co-defendant Kennedy, who qualifies because of her inability to pay for a private defense.

Cubbison is experiencing significant costs of her own by having to hire private attorneys and staff to defend herself against the DA’s criminal charges, and to pursue civil litigation for damages against the County that could cost local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars more if she succeeds.

The costs documented so far were provided by the County Counsel’s Office after requests made under the California Public Records Act.

The results are just the beginning.

Typically, felony trials are expensive no matter who is paying the bill. In addition, civil litigation can drag on for months, even years, requiring major legal costs.

Records released by County Counsel Charlotte Scott show the San Francisco law firm of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore has already billed the county $97,172 for fees related to defending the County against Cubbison’s pending civil lawsuit. Attorneys for that firm had advised the Board of Supervisors at the time of Cubbison’s suspension that its action was proper and legal.

Cubbison’s civil attorney Therese Cannata of San Francisco recently won a favorable court ruling to continue deposing retired Auditor Lloyd Weer, a central figure in both the civil and criminal cases, and to preserve for trial the complete deposition of retired County Treasurer-Tax Collector Shari Schapmire.

The depositions are seen as critical to Cannata being able to show that DA Eyster waged a behind-the-scenes vendetta against Cubbison, with the help of some members of the Board of Supervisors. Internal documents and a video of Eyster’s public appearance before the board damning the Auditor document how Eyster quarreled with Cubbison for three years over his own office spending before seizing on the disputed extra pay as an issue to accuse Cubbison and Kennedy of criminal misconduct.

In her defense Cubbison contends it was Weer who was engaged in setting up the extra pay for Kennedy beginning in late 2019 while he was still in charge of the office. Cubbison was Weer’s assistant before he abruptly retired in September 2021. Cubbison was later elected to lead a merged Auditor-Controller and Treasurer-Tax Collector office as mandated by the Board of Supervisors.

Special Prosecutor Traci Carrillo’s law firm of Perry, Johnson, Anderson, Miller & Moskowitz of Santa Rosa has already billed the county of Mendocino $22,070 for her services through December. The amount does not include Carrillo’s fees and expenses covering four days of the preliminary hearing before it stalled and was delayed until Feb. 24.

If the Cubbison case is bound for trial after the preliminary hearing, taxpayer costs for prosecutor Carrillo alone will escalate sharply to cover her $400 per hour fee. In January 2023, after resisting calls to step aside because of his personal conflicts with Cubbison, Eyster finally hired Carrillo at that hourly rate – high by Mendocino County standards — and agreed then to pay her law firm a $10,000 retainer.

Lt. Porter, County CEO Darcie Antle, former Auditor Weer and other witnesses have all testified during the preliminary hearing that there was no doubt Kennedy worked the hours during the Covid pandemic that she collected pay for, prompting Judge Moorman’s question about County taxpayer cost.

At issue is whether Kennedy, as Payroll Manager, was given the nod by either Cubbison or Weer, or decided to act on her own to use an obscure payroll code to reimburse herself because she had exhausted compensatory time off that salaried county employees can draw in lieu of overtime.

On the last day of the (incomplete) preliminary hearing, a former County payroll clerk testified that documents seem to show that Kennedy adjusted her own pay after overall department payrolls were reviewed and signed off by Cubbison and Weer.

The preliminary hearing in the criminal case is scheduled to resume February 24. At the conclusion Judge Moorman is expected to decide whether to bind the defendants over for trial or approve pending defense motions for dismissal.

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JUDGE GREEN LIGHTS GROCERY OUTLET FOR FORT BRAGG

by Elise Cox

A San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the approval of a new Grocery Outlet store in Fort Bragg. The suit, filed by Fort Bragg Local Business Matters against the California Coastal Commission, sought to overturn the commission’s decision that an appeal of the project failed to raise substantial issues.

Judge Christine Van Aken ruled on Monday in favor of the commission, the City of Fort Bragg, and the project’s developer, Best Development Group. Attorney Jim Moose, representing the developer, said the decision confirms the commission’s findings were supported by substantial evidence and were reasonable under local planning regulations.

The store is proposed to replaced the site occupied by a former county social services building on the corner of North Harbor Drive and South Franklin Street.

The ruling clears a major legal hurdle for the project, though opponents may still appeal. If no appeal is filed, the developer will proceed with securing necessary building and grading permits before construction begins.

(kzyx.org)

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$14.96 MILLION STATE GRANT FOR WATER RECYCLING IN MENDOCINO

The Mendocino City Community Services District (MCCSD) is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $14.96 million grant to upgrade and expand our recycled water system.

The grant will enable us to build the infrastructure to use recycled water for irrigation and reduce the volume of treated wastewater discharged into the Ocean. The project will also provide additional water for fire suppression. As the recent fires in Los Angeles have demonstrated, adequate water for fire suppression is increasingly important and we do not currently have the capacity to adequately supply or deliver water to firefighting teams in the district. Replacing the potable water now used to irrigate athletic fields with clean, recycled water that would otherwise be discharged into the ocean will help conserve our limited groundwater resources and benefit our marine environment.

The grant from the State Water Resources Control Board Water will fund necessary improvements at the wastewater treatment plant and installation of a 250,000-gallon recycled water storage tank, 15 fire hydrants for recycled water, a recycled water main, and recycled water service at the Mendocino high school, K-8 school and Friendship Park. 

The project is a collaborative effort between the MCCSD, Mendocino Unified School District and Mendocino Fire Protection District. Obtaining this grant required time, persistence and commitment from many people.  Our staff and Board appreciate the local community leaders, County Board of Supervisors, staff at State agencies and GHD consultants who have put in the many hours of work required to win this funding for our community.

It will take some time to bring the new recycled water resources online, but the MCCSD staff will be working hard to push this project to fruition and look forward to enjoying the substantial benefits it will provide to our community. 

Please contact Ryan Rhoades, District Superintendent, if you would like additional information.

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CITY OF FORT BRAGG MOVES FORWARD WITH 2025 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND BUSINESS SUPPORT INITIATIVES

February 4, 2024; Fort Bragg, CA - The City of Fort Bragg has approved several business support and economic development projects to strengthen the local economy, enhance the city's aesthetic appeal, and support small businesses. These initiatives align with the city’s strategic goal of becoming a “Business Friendly City” as outlined in the 2024-2028+ Strategic Plan.

In July 2024, City Manager Isaac Whippy established the Economic Development Department to focus on business support, diversification, and economic growth. Funded in part by reallocated America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, the projects will focus on business growth, community vibrancy, and creating a welcoming environment for residents and visitors. In October, the City Council approved repurposing $1.74 million of ARPA funds for community priorities, with $800,000 allocated for new programs to boost business activity in Fort Bragg.

Key Initiatives for 2025:

1. Fort Bragg Business Boost Fund: $650,000

This program will offer low-interest loans to small and medium-sized businesses, helping them expand, retain employees, and create jobs. The loans range from $10,000 to $200,000, providing critical capital to businesses struggling to access financing.

2. Downtown Improvement Grant Program: $80,000

Matching Grants ranging from $2,000 to $25,000 will be available to building and business owners for storefront and public space improvements. This initiative aims to revitalize downtown Fort Bragg and attract more visitors and investors.

3. Fort Bragg Public Art Mural Project: $25,000

The city will enhance public spaces with vibrant murals, starting in the Central Business District. Local artists will collaborate on up to five murals by summer 2025, boosting tourism and community pride.

4. Wayfinding Signage for Main Street and CBD: $20,000

Directional signage will be installed throughout the Central Business District and Main Street to improve navigation, encourage foot traffic, and highlight key attractions and businesses, reinforcing Fort Bragg’s unique identity.

5. Downtown Improvement Grant Program: $80,000

Grants ranging from $2,000 to $25,000 will be available to building and business owners for storefront and public space improvements. This initiative aims to revitalize downtown Fort Bragg and attract more visitors and investors.

6. Re-establishment of the Downtown Business Coalition

A bi-monthly coalition will be relaunched in March 2025 to help local business owners collaborate, address shared challenges, and promote downtown Fort Bragg as a vibrant destination.

7. Launch of FortBraggBiz.com

In December 2024, the city launched a new business support website, offering resources like permits, funding opportunities, and technical training to help businesses grow and thrive.

Community and Economic Impact

These initiatives demonstrate the city’s commitment to fostering a resilient local economy. By supporting business development and enhancing public spaces, the projects aim to attract new businesses, retain existing ones, and create jobs.

Next Steps

These programs will begin implementation in February 2025.

Fiscal Impact

The project will have no additional financial impact on the Downtown Business Coalition or the FortBraggBiz.com website, as it will be managed with current staff resources.

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ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2025 [excerpts]

It Was a Scrumptious Gathering in January! Thank you to Pippa & Lauren!

Looking for Local Writers! The AV Village Annual Local Writer’s Showcase will be Sunday April 20th at our regular monthly Gathering. We are looking for local writers to read a short (5 min.) piece of their work. Please contact Lauren laurenk@pacific.net if you are interested in participating. Writers must sign up in advance, this is not an open mic event!

The Death Cafe was a hit.  There were three cakes and this was all that was left: 

https://mailchi.mp/366bd672f831/anderson-valley-village-newsletter-august-5849394?e=358077c1c9

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ED NOTES

This and that on an indoors day…

LAWYERS running for DA always bring up conviction rates as if they mean something. They don't. Most of them plead out and don’t go to trial. What's complicated about prosecuting the shlebs you see in the dock? How many master criminals have passed through the Mendocino County Courthouse lately? As the late Norm Vroman often said, “We only catch the dumb ones.”

I DOUBT DA EYSTER will be adding his transparently personal vendetta against Ms. Cubbison to his statistics.

WILL the farcical prelim ever get done? The longest preliminary hearing in the history of Mendocino County, and perhaps the longest prelim in judicial history anywhere, ever? It had to be continued, you see, because a witness, CEO Darcie Antle, and the judge, had to go on vacation. They'd pre-paid passage on their Love Boats, you see, and the poor things are so poorly paid they couldn't possibly sustain the loss.

SOME OF US will recall that Eyster first filed a complaint with the Sheriff's Department that Cubbison and payroll clerk Kennedy appeared to have committed a crime, specifically $68,000 diverted to themselves. The Sheriff's Department investigated, finding no evidence in support of Eyster's allegation which, of course, stemmed from his personal pique that Cubbison had challenged his attempt to charge an annual holiday debauch at the Broiler Steak House as a “staff training.”

SO EYSTER sicced his own staff of sleuths on his non-case, and darned if Eyster’s boys didn't find that the boss was correct! The Sheriff’s Department had missed what was right in front of their uncomprehending pusses! The two ladies had indeed engaged in, like, uh, ah, whatever it was and, you're right, boss, they should be charged.

AND HERE WE ARE more than 15 months later, with Eyster having again dipped into the public purse to hire a prosecutor in lieu of himself at $400 an hour and, as Mike Geniella totes up the cost of this never ending farce, it is clear that the public is months away from getting a final bill.

THE AVA’S ACE CRIME REPORTER Bruce McEwen was monitoring local events from his observation post at the Redwood Drive-In one day when what appeared to be a European Grapevine Moth (EGVM) landed on his sweater. One of many of the wine industry's insect foes seemed to have confused the wine-friendly journalist with the grapevines it is said to destroy. McEwen quickly confirmed on-line that the modest little beast was indeed the dread EGVM. He'd brought the bug into the AVA offices where the jubilant editor had shouted, “Don't kill it, McEwen! Maybe we can breed it!” But the moth had not survived the trip across the street.

THE LAKE COUNTY PASSION PLAY used to “celebrate 30 years of God's choicest blessings” near Lakeport every December by re-enacting the crucifixion, complete with portly Roman soldiers escorting an ecumenically correct black Jesus to the cross. American re-enactments seem pretty tame alongside those of the Filipinos, complete with gaunt little brown fanatics who nail themselves to real wood crosses with real nails hammered clear through their hands to the wood. The latter day martyrs then drag themselves suspended Christ-like through the streets of Manila.

DOES COMPTCHE still do a Passion Play? Many years ago, as I did good works at this fine newspaper, faithfully writing the weekly truth to legions of disbelievers, I was sitting at my office on Anderson Valley Way when it was as if Jezebel herself had suddenly appeared, a voluptuous, heavily made-up woman in a tight-fitting purple pantsuit, ample breasts displayed via a push 'em up bra who'd wafted in the door on a cloud of weapons-grade perfume.

IN A HEAVY Southern accent, and a little excessively basso-Peggy Lee-ish in the context, the miraculous visitation asked, “Are you interested in our passion play?” I was stunned into silence, collecting myself, wondering if someone was pranking me. Flashy, done-up babes seldom appear in Boonville at any hour, let alone at 9am in the grungy office of a chaste newspaper.

PASSION PLAY? What was that? Love at third base? I finally stammered out something like, “I'm, uh, er, ah, all ears.” The lady had made an indelible impression. If the context had been urban, well, odd things happen in the urbs all the time. Odd things happen all the time here, too, but this particular oddity was unprecedented, I assure you.

AS IT DEVELOPED, the apparition was from Comptche, and her name, if memory serves, was Linda Coolidge, sister of the singer Rita Coolidge whose father pastored the church in Comptche, a church that was attended by a lot of re-entry hippies who'd come to repent their participation in all manner of sordidness and minor league sinning. It seem like in about two weeks, the church hippies had gone from, “Ya gotta do acid, man” to “Ya gotta do Jesus, man.”

BUT the hippies still liked a good show, hence a lot of music in lieu of the discipline and sacrifice recommended by JC, and a Realllllly Big annual show called a Passion Play with a hippie-looking dude on a cross, Our Savior, as He's still called by the people who hope He can save them. At the time, I didn't know what a Passion Play was, but I promised Ms. Coolidge I'd get the word out, if not The Word itself. I'd leave that to her.

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A-BIT-AND-A-BITE

A Murder-Mystery Resurfaces in Recent Winter Storm

Thursday, February 13, join us for our, A-Bit-and-A-Bite, lunch hour program at the Mendocino County Museum. Museum volunteer, Carol Cox, will share the wild story behind a headstone that recently surfaced during a winter storm. This is the second A-Bit-and-A-Bite event and is part of an ongoing series of fun, casual, spotlights on County History. Light snacks are provided, and all are welcome. Sponsored by the Friends of the Mendocino County Museum.

For more information, please visit www.mendocinocounty.org/museum or call (707)234-6365.

(Mendocino County Museum)

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FORT BRAGG FOOD BANK CRAB FEED

Friday, Feb 14, 2025 3pm - 8pm

The Fort Bragg Food Bank and the Mendo Food Network are excited to bring you our first Valentine's Crab Feed on Feb 14th, 3pm-8pm

Hosted at Tall Guy Brewing, with fresh crab from Noyo Fish Company!

Join us for great food, live music, and a silent auction.

Get your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mendo-food-network-crab-feed-tickets-1116852298289?aff=oddtdtcreator

Can't buy online? We have them available at Harvest Market!

Tickets are $60 for 1 or $100 for 2, so bring your Valentine to save! We'll be offering dine in or takeout. Delivery is available between Fort Bragg and Mendocino with an extra fee, please purchase online before the 12th to ensure delivery.

We hope to see you there!

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BILL KIMBERLIN:

This is the Dutro black smith shop in Anderson Valley. One of my Valley uncles was “Kid Dutro.” He was called “Kid” because he had been a prize fighter in his younger days and his father was a Valley blacksmith.

Kid later became a blacksmith here in Boonville. His shop with his anvil and all his tools at the back of the Rossi Hardware store tank tower still exists.

Kid was also the bouncer at the “Bucket of Blood” saloon in Boonville. You didn’t want to mess with Kid. Don Pardini once told me about my uncle and the local barroom loggers. He had asked “Kid” about what had happened the night before. And “Kid” said, “I had to knock a guy into the “shitter.”

I always thought that this photo was the father’s shop in Philo. But now I am hearing that there was another one just North of the General Store building. I know there were several others at the Missouri House, for instance, but where was the one in this photo?

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REISCHMAN & THE JAYBIRDS IN UKIAH

At 2:00PM on Sunday, February 16, the legendary bluegrass band John Reischman & the Jaybirds will take the stage at the Mendocino College Center Theatre for the second concert of UCCA's 77th season.

ukiahconcerts.org

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LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS FEBRUARY PROGRAM

The League of Women Voters of Mendocino County will hold its February meeting on Tuesday, 2/18, at 6pm.  The meeting will be held via Zoom; find the link at the League’s website:  https://my.lwv.org/california/mendocino-county.  Look under the calendar tab.

The focus will be Program Planning – League members will decide issues for emphasis for the coming year. Issues for the statewide League will also be considered, and recommendations sent to them for consideration.

For questions or more information, call 707-937-4952.

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ANOTHER LOCAL EBAY POSTCARD (via Marshall Newman)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, February 4, 2025

DAVID CASTENEDA, 30, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

SCOTT FABER, 45, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, failure to appear, probation revocation.

ROYCE FULTON, 41, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

JOZEY GIECK, 22, Ukiah. DUI.

DANIEL HOLMES SR., 52, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

LILY KRAFT, 29, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

AARON MUDRICH, 41, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, parole violation.

JOHN PALACIOS, 56, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

COLE PARKIN, 35, Ukiah. County parole violation.

LANCE TREPPA, 46, Ukiah. County parole violation.

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JUST ANOTHER…

Just Another Insane Morning in Postmodern America

Awoke early for the deep cleaning and pest control at the Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter in northeast Washington, D.C., and performed morning ablutions, and then everything was put into the locker or placed outside in the luggage. Arrived at my first ever interview for senior housing at Miriam’s Kitchen, only to be told that the interviewer did not come into work today. Left a bank statement verifying monthly income and my particulars to be contacted if ever an apartment opens up. The staff understood the stupidity of the situation. The rest of the morning was spent at the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil, watching a work crew tear down the reviewing stand in front of the White House, which was unused. This is insane! Contact me if you want to do anything.

Craig Louis Stehr, craiglouisstehr@gmail.com

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BASEBALL FANS TRY TO MAKE SENSE OF A’S STADIUM JUGGLE

by Evan Webeck

Buster Posey made an unannounced appearance in Sacramento Saturday afternoon on the third stop of the Giants’ FanFest tour, but the catcher-turned-chief baseball officer wasn’t the highest-profile guest to visit the home of their Triple-A affiliate this week.

Taking cover from an unrelenting drizzle under a large outdoor tent in Sutter Health Park’s right field pavilion, the surprise question-and-answer session was as much a celebrity encounter for the fans on hand as it was a peek behind the curtain of a new front office. Hundreds packed the tent, dozens held up their phones, all rapped by each word out of the mouth of the beloved three-time world champion, sporting his new executive uniform — a gray bomber, orange T-shirt and skinny jeans.

Three days earlier, the commissioner of Major League Baseball donned a construction jacket over a suit and tie and surveyed the same plot of land with a more intimate audience. A small group of A’s and Sacramento officials hosted Rob Manfred at the ballpark Wednesday, with the commissioner commending the “great job” they have done “making changes necessary to host major-league games,” in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Starting March 28, one of the major-league A’s and Triple-A River Cats will be playing in the 14,000-seat stadium on 154 of the next 184 days. With two months to go until Opening Day, the teams’ awkward roommate situation is already impossible to ignore. Three years at the ballpark stand between the A’s and their ultimate plan of opening a new $1.75 billion stadium in Las Vegas.

“It’s crazy,” Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos said, staring out from a second-level suite overlooking the field he treaded for parts of two seasons. The grass had been torn up. A John Deere tractor was positioned in left field. The scoreboard, the batter’s eye and parts of the outfield wall were missing.

“I thought it was going to be pretty much (done), but not even close. They’d better be close. The season’s about to start soon.”

As part of the A’s three-year residency in the ballpark the River Cats have called home since 2000, millions of dollars are being poured into renovations to bring the seating, suites, lighting, bullpens, batting cages, dugouts and clubhouses up to MLB standards. In addition to Manfred’s public confidence, sources who weren’t authorized to speak publicly also said all the work was right on schedule.

Ramos was one of four current Giants whisked from station to station, taking photos and signing autographs along with Logan Webb, Grant McCray and Tyler Fitzgerald — all of whom called Sacramento home at one point.

Despite the potential disruption, each was excited about the prospect of MLB coming to the city — and the upgrades coming to the park. (The Giants play the A’s at Sutter Health Park over Independence Day weekend.)

“I think it’s gonna be great,” said McCray, an outfielder, who breathed a sigh of relief when he learned the plans for artificial turf had been ditched for real grass. “I’m just excited to see this place during the season.”

(Bay Area News Group)

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R.D. BEACON

People forgot, the voters in this last election voted for change, they got tired, over the years, the same old, song and dance, Donald J. Trump, promised change, change in the immigration rules, change in foreign products, and change in creating jobs, America, he promised to fix, but was broken, he promised to make America great again, now what did those promises me, as to foreign products, some of his or her a bit older, remember when we didn't buy, fruits and vegetables, and other things that we use, in the kitchen, from foreign countries, we used to be, self-sustaining, that everything we ate, except for some lecturing items, came from our own country, sure they're very rich people, would buy caviar from Russia, expensive table wine, from France, and few other exotic items, around the world, from Canada, we would buy a little whiskey, in the old days, all army was raised in America, and all our oil, and model the ground in Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and even California, and Alaska, and we were selling oil to other countries, not buying it from other countries, polar automobiles, were all made in America, again there were, a few people buying, luxury cars, from foreign countries, some from England, and some from Italy, but I can remember the days, when all our electronics, were made in America, all her kitchen appliances, made in America, even our airplanes, large and small, made in America, tractors, farm implements, very large trucks, we even build a fleet of great ships, all made in America, today is not like that?, we got lazy, and big business, no longer thought about, American workers and American jobs, the only thought about how much money, they could make, and many of the heads of the largest corporations, that were based in America, many of these individuals don't even live here, anymore our government in the past used to support American workers, they no longer do that, we have supported for Nicholas, way too long, as distasteful, is it may be, we are making, our neighbors around the world, very rich, the American dollar, today we have people living under bridges, some of them used to own homes, used to have good jobs, but the people he worked for, didn't care about them, only cared about them selves, and how much money they could stuff, and the pockets of the stockholders, the American dream long ago, became the American nightmare, for many families, having to live on the street, not only giving up their home, but having to give up everything around them, and in some cases even their children, and other family members, this should not be so, and our new, president, of the United States, at least as promised, to try and fix, what's broken, we in America are capable, of creating all products, that is coming, from all over the world, right here at home, maybe the bottom line, for the stockholders, may not be as great, but, they would be supporting, the United States of America, the people within it, the legal residents, it came to our borders some, legally, if you look, and other countries, like New Zealand, and Australia, even though Switzerland, you will find that their process, to immigrate to those countries, are extremely strict, you have to have money in your pocket, you need to provide a service, that is needed, not only of betterment of yourself, but the country move into, America's immigration, policies need to change, we need to create some of the state same rules, in California, we have failed badly, we have converted perfectly good farmland, the house to housing development, we've taken pastureland, it formally raise cattle, and she, and converted it to housing, or in some areas great vineyards Hawaii grapes, that now there's too much of, we need to stop converting, valuable farmland, and creating whole cities, while putting American workers, out of jobs, over your Fairfield California, near one of our military bases, they want to start a whole new community, some corporations been buying up, all of farmland, to create a new city, we do not need more cities, we need more agricultural lands, and more farms, Pres. Trump, has promised many things, we hope in that time he has, he can make America great again, and plug the leaks, and are sinking, country, the people that are against what's going on, are the minority voters, it did not vote for him, but they need to remember the majority rules, the bulk of the people within the United States voted for change for whatever, it would cost.

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MITCH CLOGG

Rehab.

In the aughts, 2004, I caught cancer. Plennee weird. One night I went blind in my right eye for about fifteen minutes.

I was getting stiff all over, often. I'd sit in a chair half an hour and become chair-shaped, with trouble getting up, my body wanting to stay chair-shaped. I drove to Ukiah, the VA clinic there. When I got there, it was hard to get out of the car. I had to put a hand on the car roof from the driver's seat and pull myself straight.

Damnedest thing. Nobody had a clue. That I might have cancer occurred to no one. The blindness experience put everybody on red alert, but they had no theories. They sent me to the San Francisco VA Hospital to see an ophthalmologist. A keen young doctor, he looked and looked but found no disease. Before releasing me he leaned forward in his chair and touched my neck.

"How long have you had that lump?"

"What lump?"

He ordered an FNA, a "fine-needle aspiration." A different doctor did it. Young pretty nurse. Uh-oh.

There's a tendency to deploy pretty nurses for distraction. I sat in a regular chair. He inserted the "fine" needle to my neck. That hurt. That hurt like hell. That hurt right at the border of completely losing it. I gripped the arms of the chair. The pretty nurse held me tight, my head and shoulders, stood next to me, her lower body pressed hard against me. I would have liked that except, under the circumstances, I would not have noticed if she'd begun peeling off her clothes. Instead she said "How're we doing?" I don't know if I answered or what I might have said. Probably I attempted a normal voice. I probably said okay. The doctor was probing with the syringe for an infected lymph node, an inflamed and angry lymph node, a place that does not welcome a needle.

The needle they use for this examination is no finer than usual. I think they call it fine because nobody wants to cop to the truth of an FNA. Pain, intense pain is the technique of the procedure. You poke the needle in until the pain peaks--then you know you're probably in the right place, and you withdraw fluid from there and analyze it.

Of course they don't tell you this. I wondered if the chair arms would break under the gripping and hauling I was giving them.

FNA is the gold standard in cancer diagnosis. Mine was metastatic squamous-cell throat cancer, often fatal, almost always unless treated.

I remember particularly painful experiences. Since I'm spared giving birth, I might not relate to the agony of childbirth, but a couple times I've had pain enough to feel a kinship with women in labor. This was one. Another was when I broke my left knee's anterior cruciate ligament, the infamous ACL so popular among athletes and skiiers. Saw stars and planets from that one, just like getting punched in the jaw in an old-time comic book. I've broken a few bones. That hurts in a sensible way.

Once, in my twenties, a dentist flubbed a big filling. I was in my backyard when that molar blew. I fell to the ground--heedlessly--not even realizing it. It became my standard for unbearable.

Those were enough experience of torture, but no, there would be more. After one of my four inconclusive operations for poor circulation and a sick foot, I got what is adorably called "rest pain." If anybody ever suggests rest pain to you, head in the other direction. It will make you crazy. My various pain experiences had going for them that they were relatively brief. Rest pain starts at bedtime, when you lay you down to sleep, hence "rest" pain, a violent twisting of words.

You get a little pain. If you know what's coming, you flinch at the first twinge, knowing what follows. It's a sort of death-in-life. The little pain gets bigger. My left leg and foot start to hurt for real, and I start talking to the pain: "That'll do. You can stop now." It doesn't, and I begin to writhe. "Goddamn it, STOP!"

The writhing is a desperate, definitely doomed attempt to find a bodily position that is less painful than another. I know the writhing, squirming and cursing will avail me naught, but you can't just lie there.

The siege is long as labor. No cursing is sufficient. You might rise and walk around, wave your arms, frantically rub your legs (the pain spreads; your whole body gets involved). Attempt counter pain, pound mattress, pillow, limbs.

You want somebody present. Nothing they can do, but you want company, a witness to this torment. I wanted to wake Ellie. I wanted sympathy bad, since nothing alleviates rest pain, I wanted Ellie to see me in it. Thank God I didn't. She's an empath. My rest pain would have been, possibly, even worse for her, and there would have been zero she could have done except lose sleep and watch horror.

This can go on all night, this solitary suffering. Mine stopped at dawn. You consider suicide and dance with madness under rest pain.

But, cancer. Not so much empathy in a veteran's hospital. There was a fair amount of nyah-nyahing from the nurses. Veterans are famous for self-abuse. "Alcohol and tobacco, eh? See what you did?" I tried to evade responsibility. "But I quit smoking, and I've practically stopped drinking!" "Uh-huh. Well, not soon enough, evidently."

Smack in the middle of all this (surgery, chemotherapy and radiation), researchers published findings that the principal cause of throat cancer is the human papilloma virus, one of those bugs that live comfortably in us until they don't. Cancer is always with us, but typically it takes weakening of your immunity defenses for it to grow and flourish. I have a whale of a story that covers that possibility; nother story. Anyway, this new information about throat cancer comes out while I have it, and the told-you-so's grow abruptly silent.

So I caught cancer in 2004. It took till summer 2005 to diagnose it. Treatment began at the start of fall, and by Christmas I was home. By then, to prepare me for oral surgery, they had pulled most of my teeth. (They meant to pull them all, but Eleanor protested, so I still have six front teeth, the most visible ones.) Then they did radiation on my now-roomy mouth. Surgery had already located the tumor that was causing all this. It was on my right tonsil, so small "we could hardly find it," said the surgeon, a small Chinese-American woman with tiny, exquisite hands and an impersonal manner.

Then, radiation stunned my taste buds and nearly eliminated my salivary glands. The radiation and chemo combined with this loss of normal taste. One after another, things started tasting weird, then bad, then very bad, disgusting, indescribable and unbelievable. My roommate, Sam, and I compared notes. We had the same disease, the same treatments. Thank God we could talk together. A hard experience would have been all but undoable. Any substance in my mouth tasted like industrial waste from a galaxy far, far away. Even clear, pure, cool water tasted unnaturally evil.

So now, this score of years later, I have reminders of all that. My chemo doctor injected me with the original and still-strongest poison in the chemo arsenal, a fluid called cisplatin. It comes in silver metal bags with poison cautions all over them.

You gradually learn that all this is to beat that cancer so bad it dies before you do. They screen cancer patients for this. If you're too old or infirm, they limit their work to palliative care. Cancer treatment will kill you if you're not strong enough. With me, what it mostly killed was my inner ear. There went most of my hearing and all of my balance.

My hearing aids are downstairs on their charger. By the front door are long sticks, sturdy long sticks I use as walking sticks. They help my legs, still weak from these two sieges, the cancer one in 2005 and the circulation-cum-dying foot one in 2024, and my balance, forever gone because my chemo therapist, a man distinguished in his field, through some lapse of attention or sanity, started me on cisplatin despite its record of causing deafness. It is contraindicated if you've ever had any kind of ear trouble, and I've had screaming tinnitus since I was eighteen, lying on cold winter ground in Georgia, firing a particularly loud M1 rifle while training as an infantry soldier.

Goddamn that doctor! Tinnitus is part of my medical history, clearly written in my records.

I spread my arms when I walk without sticks or cane, holding them out like I'm pretending to fly. I don't fall down often, but I don't move fast, either.

I'm not sure why I started this post. I get fed up with walking around with my arms stuck out, like a bird drying its wings. I'm damn tired of restoring myself, only to go bad for some other reason, to regaining weight, rebuilding muscle and strengthening weakened bones, again, when they all should be resting in peace.

I guess I shouldn't complain. This ain't Gaza, and I ain't dead.

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LET’S DO THE TRUMP DANCE

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Sculpting Donald Trump’s journey into epic poetry or Hollywood screenplay would demand neither exaggeration nor fiction.

Trump’s path from 2016 political ingenue to the White House is without parallel, and his 2020 defeat, dealt him by a senile sock puppet campaigning behind a mask in a basement, was comedy relief. As humor it stretched thin during four years of Biden, but helped keep the nation’s attention away from Trump’s exile.

Has there been anything like it? Trump thrown out. Trump in winter: Alone, attacked by media rodents nipping and gnawing, prosecutors filing charges no jurisdiction in the USA would dare bring to court had the allegations targeted a defendant named Joe Trump.

But fair play, honesty, scruples and justice were swept out the door. Donald Trump was charged with criminal acts in New York, indicted in Georgia, lawsuits filed in Colorado; other states demanded he not be allowed to run for office, his name struck from ballots (to Save Democracy, y’understand).

Friends and allies (General Michael Flynn, Mayor Rudy Giuliani) were harassed, sued, charged, fined millions of dollars, the federal boot heel of the law pressed firmly to throats.

Is this your America? Have other political enemies, other leaders of the opposition been attacked relentlessly in the media and in the courts, the aim purely to drive them from the public square and turn the loyal opposition into criminals?

Ugly stuff. They called Donald Trump Fascist and they called him Hitler. Should he be dragged naked through the streets, ears nailed to a truck’s back bumper, jeering crowds throwing rotting fruit?

I don’t remember Jimmy Carter being put in stocks outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after his failed presidency, nor Herbert Hoover jailed for shortcomings during the economic crash of 1929. Was Nixon’s head impaled on a stick?

Name other political leaders attacked, harassed, threatened with bankruptcy and prison, without mentioning Cuba, China, Venezuela, Argentina, Russia, Nicaragua or other Third World socialist / communist utopias beloved by our Democrat Party.

We wonder why Donald Trump didn’t give up. Nearing 80 he had spent years locked in court proceedings bleeding millions in legal fees. He could have pled simple exhaustion and burrowed back into his Florida mansion to play golf and assemble his memoirs.

Why not abandon the struggle? Why not concede the cruel and corrupt power had been too much? Trump in 2024 was a felon and nonstop target of the country’s vast power machinery. Yet he soldiered on, bloodied but unbowed.

Is Donald Trump a martyr, a hero, a savior, mocked and scorned but tough and unyielding? Is he The Man on the White Horse, surveying the smoking ruins of his valley village from a distant ridge top?

Or The Man in a Red Toga, tossing it over a shoulder, climbing the marble steps to a columned stage to address the assembled legislators, target of assassins, a man in defeat but not broken, driven by what money can’t touch and power can’t heal.

Or simply the product of modern America: Master and creation of reality TV, showbiz whiz, carnival barker, part John Wayne, part PT Barnum, part Huey Long, real estate tycoon, king of bling, casinos and gambling, World Wrestling boss, a mighty lion and a wounded patriot bleeding for his country, vowing Fight! Fight! Fight!

How he’ll some day be viewed when finally stripped free of the petty political debris is a puzzle. Perhaps a hazy figure like Andrew Jackson, hewn craggy and rocky in a few deft strokes from a hickory stump, or a jaunty, confident FDR, cigarette holder jutting from his jaw, or Abraham Lincoln sad, lamenting, troubled. Donald Trump in high relief on a collectible gold coin.

America was recently on edge, locked in racial showdowns that claimed only Certain Lives Matter, that believed cops woke up every morning hoping to go on shift to shoot down unarmed black men.

It seems long ago. We recall NFL players refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and instead taking a knee. Today? BLM revealed as a money-making hoax while NFL and college players are doing a funny, awkward Trump Dance in the end zone, laughing and bumping each other’s fists.

The left’s quivering hysterics over Trump building a new Auschwitz for gays and people of color is yet another grotesque lie.

Proof: Watch Donald Trump onstage at his 2025 inauguration, mingling with The Village People performing his campaign song, a gay anthem called YMCA. See him shake hands with all of them: Indian Chief, construction worker, bare-butt cowboy, police officer, everyone doing the silly little Trump Dance in front of millions at the event and on TV.

Trump is the insane left’s Hitler. He is their genocidal Nazi Fuhrer come to exterminate his enemies and “Steal Our Demockwacy,” sob sob whimper.

Oh the horror! Ah the humor!!

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TRUMP TAPS BLUE ZONES’ DAN BUETTNER TO LEAD NEW FEDERAL LONGEVITY DEPARTMENT

by Andrew Lutsky

Washingtion, D.C. – On Tuesday newly inaugurated President Trump selected journalist and world explorer Dan Buettner to head a new federal agency charged with extending the average lifespan in the U.S.

“We’re very excited about this DOLT!” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, referring to the Department of Longevity Tips, the agency he created to disseminate information on healthy diet and lifestyle.

“Tip #1: Make BMs Great Again! Big Macs are delicious and nutritious. Eat McDonalds, folks!” he wrote on his social media site.

The announcement comes on the heels of Mr. Trump’s revelation that he plans to construct a national complex of Brown Zones, medium-security residential campuses for “skilled undocumented immigrants,” which he said was inspired by Mr. Buettner’s network of Blue, Pink, Yellow and Brown Zone franchises.

“Dan is the clear leader in the colored zones market. He’s shown it can be a very lucrative area, and we’re delighted to have him on our team,” Mr. Trump said in remarks he made later in the day to the White House press pool.

In 2020 Buettner sold the so-called blue zones concept to the hospital corporation Adventist Health for $78 million, and although his work has been roundly debunked by scientists and health experts– who have demonstrated that his longevity claims are based on fraudulent vital records among other errors– he and Adventist Health continue to promote the claim that residents of certain communities around the world have defied the effects of poverty through their commitment to an active lifestyle, healthy diet, strong community connections and a sense of purpose, and thereby lived significantly longer on average.

Last year Eric D. Carter, professor of geography and global health at Minnesota’s Macalester College, stated in the Brevard Newsbeat newsletter that blue zones “pretend that they are in the scientific research domain, but they are really more in the marketing domain.”

In the Newsbeat article Dr. Carter added: “To me it’s just a lot of mumbo-jumbo.”

Reached for comment regarding his selection to lead the new department, Buettner said, “I’m ready on day one to seek out and celebrate hundreds if not thousands of blue zones in the U.S., no matter what naysayers and demographers may think.”

Buettner admits he named Loma Linda, California– home to the largest Seventh-day Adventist community in the U.S.-- a blue zone in 2005 only after a magazine publisher asked him to include a U.S. location, and “I never bothered to delist it.”

Since then he has expanded his palette and built a multi-hued empire of geographic zones which now spans the world.

“It’s about time the federal government recognized blue zones and zones of all colors: Pink, yellow, brown, yes, and maybe others. As DOLT head, I pledge to every American that we will find a zone that works for you,” he added.

https://truezonesolution.substack.com

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A COUP, OUT IN THE OPEN

by Doug Holland

When I was young, thinking myself oh-so-radical, I read books about the revolutionaries, and wore the circle-A t-shirt. Then I got older, maybe wiser, and figured out that our species is too ugly and cruel for such utopias. Humans can’t live around other humans without laws and the enforcement of laws.

Sure, many of the laws are stupid, the enforcement is sporadic and unfair, and neither laws nor enforcement exist past a certain very high bank balance, but it’s better than the law of the jungle, right?

Now comes Donald Trump — the dumbest, meanest, most un-patriotic and certainly the most un-Christian man ever to be President of these United States. His proprietary Supreme Court has ruled that he’s above the law, and he’s taken that as a challenge.

It’s pointless to detail what Trump has done and what he’s doing, because any list will be outdated in a few days. Like the (generally untrue) stereotype of an anarchist, Trump hates the law, abhors the constitution, and only wants to blow stuff up.

I am in awe at the brazenness. Malfeasance in high office is the American tradition, but it’s usually done on the sly, or under some lofty pretense.

This is all out in the open, and it’s simply a coup.

American law and government are being toppled, in treason orchestrated from the White House by all the President’s henchmen. The nation to which we pledged allegiance will not survive it, and things will only get worse.

Imagine this administration’s response if another pandemic sweeps the world, or there’s an ‘international crisis’. For decades we’ve been fed propaganda that the Russkies or Chinese might attack America, and it’s always been malarkey and easy money for defense contractors, but if ever the commies do attack or invade, they couldn’t ask for more strategic time or a more clueless commander-in-chief.

To anyone watching and awake, all this is obvious. What isn’t obvious is what to do about it.

Expect no leadership from the Democratic Party, which to my knowledge hasn’t even issued a concerned press release amid the maelstrom.

A few of the very few elected officials with backbone have Tweeted courageously.

Write your Senators and Congresscritters, yes, but if they need cards and letters and emails to explain that there’s a crisis, they’re either hopelessly naïve, or in on it.

There are marches and rallies, and they’re cathartic. I’m there, and recommend it for your mental health. It feels good to shout against the storm.

But protests won’t accomplish anything until they’re huge enough to interrupt the ordinary flow of commerce, and I am pessimistic that’ll happen, so long as most Americans are distracted by pro football and video games and other shiny baubles.

If someone tried a Second Amendment solution, as Trump famously suggested for a political opponent, I’d feel no grief. Please don’t do it, though, if only because his vice president is worse.

Revolution is American History, but the Trump administration’s response to anyone taking up arms or going all Fifth of November would be a modern reign of terror like America has never seen. They’d come after me for writing this, you for reading it, and the mass executions would stream live on YouTube.

So here we are, and who knows what to do about it?

All I wanted was a quiet retirement, a few years of decent health before being flooded or hurricaned to death by climate change, or cancered by the toxins amply spewed into the air and water and dirt. Instead, America is being dismantled, and there ain’t squat we can do to stop it.

I feel guilty writing the inconsequential stuff that usually fills this blog — movie reviews and bus rides and breakfast with my family — so yesterday I marched. It accomplished nothing, and today my ankles hurt, but I can say I did something. It eases my conscience, but not my worries.

God bless America, I am open to better suggestions.

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“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”

–Claude Monet

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The thing the Democrats will do now is create chaos at the grass roots level. Protest by blocking highways, mask up and vandalize, show up at government officials' homes, interfere with ICE operations, destroy property, set fires and lawyer up. The Dems' insane shenanigans will move to the streets. It's imperative they get their asses kicked. Also look for more election interference and fraud at the state and local level.

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ALI ABUNIMAH ON X: "I was curious about Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde, who's being treated as a hero for her ‘courage’ confronting Trump over immigration. Did she speak up about the Holocaust of our time in Gaza? By her own admission she mostly stayed ‘silent,’ and when she did it was to spread ‘Israeli’ atrocity propaganda about mass rapes, denounce and smear resistance, demand that Palestinians be ‘held accountable,’ but never Israeli war criminals, and she offers only both-sidesy sympathy for Palestinians, while carefully avoiding direct criticism of Israel. And of course, while repeatedly citing the moral fraud Elie Wiesel, she never recognizes what happened in Gaza as genocide. If this is the ‘courage’ we can look forward to from hand-wringing liberals under Trump, then they have learned nothing and will be of no use to anyone.”

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THE DAILY BEAST: Unmasked: Musk’s Secret DOGE Goon Squad, Who Are All Under 26… The world’s richest man doesn’t want anyone knowing his right-hand people who are disrupting government.

(A Reader notes: “The headline on this report seems quite overwrought. But the article is interesting.)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-doge-musketeers-the-secret-team-elon-wants-to-keep-in-the-shadows

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NATION SHRUGS AS GODZILLA EATS WASHINGTON

Donald Trump's sequel return is already an epic monster movie, and the country seems to think the capital's trampling is a net plus

by Matt Taibbi

From the New York Times this morning:

”ABC News agreed to pay $15 million… Mr. Trump contended that the network’s star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, had defamed him by saying on his weekly television program that a federal jury had found Mr. Trump liable for rape when in fact it had found him liable for sexual abuse… Mr. Stephanopoulos’s statement was technically inaccurate, but… Mr. Trump would also have had a difficult time proving reputational injury… the $15 million payment looks less like settlement than submission.”

Jameel Jaffer, Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, must not be able to hear himself. “Yes, ABC repeatedly and inaccurately described Trump as a rapist, but he can’t show damage because he’s been called Hitler ten trillion times already. Corporate news must be allowed to defame.”

He went on to complain that CBS was settling the ‘60 Minutes’ episode in which the network aired two versions of an interview with Kamala Harris, a whitewash job that made every veteran journalist cringe. But it’s an “unimpressive suit with essentially no chance of succeeding,” says Jaffer. I know what it is to stand up for odious speech, but this week has seen one intellectual after another seem proud of obnoxious things.

On NBC, former U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official Michael Schiffer wailed that the beheading of his former organization would cause national security to “erode.” His quote came as USAID’s budget has been cracked open and Americans are leafing, transfixed, through its colossal library of crazy-ass contracts. From $39 million for “Gender Equality in Water, Power, and Transportation” to “Recognizing the Third Gender in Bangladesh” to “Ukrainian Resilience Through Fashion” to a “TransFormation Salon” to a pre-Taliban plan to help “Afghan Women Enter the Financial Sector,” it’s a bottomless pit of “I don’t want to pay for that.”

A trip through USASpending.gov led me to an “art therapy” contract whose deliverables include things that look like (but can’t be, of course) suggestive pics of queer teenagers.

If we close the door on such work, the former USAID official Schiffer said, “America’s Enemies Will Rejoice.” Joe Scarborough called USAID “the ultimate soft power.”

Look, I like a good trans mani-pedi third-floor Mumbai walkup as much as the next person, but I’m not sure it’s a national security line item.

MSNBC was one of many outlets to describe USAID as a “humanitarian” organization today — the Morning Joe graphic is a frowning waif-child — even though the world knows it to be a transparent CIA proxy used as cover for intel shenanigans. How can they think this is the smart play?

Trump has been in office two weeks and changes are coming so fast, even I’m freaked out. He’s Godzilla, stomping on everything: news networks, billions in federal grants, USAID, DEI, Mexico and Canada and China, South Africa, immigrants, maybe the Department of Education, and many other things. His daily “No more of this shit!” signing sessions have become destination television:

Courts will be busy for years weighing which of his acts are legal, with virtually all under challenge. In the interim, carnage continues, with opposition in total message paralysis. Whether it’s planned or just Trump’s luck is unclear, but harrumphing bureaucrats are now daily rushing to defend the indefensible, from Jaffer’s slanderous networks to Schiffer’s waste and budget scammery. Monday scenes of legislators like Ilhan Omar and Jamie Raskin chaining themselves to the Matterhorn of suck that is USAID were just the beginning of what looks like a rash of optics suicides. We’ve never seen anything like it…

https://www.racket.news/p/nation-shrugs-as-godzilla-eats-washington

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LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT

With Gaza Plan, an Unbound Trump Pushes an Improbable Idea

Trump Brazenly Defies Laws in Escalating Executive Power Grab

U.S. Postal Service Halts Parcel Service From China as Trump’s Trade Curbs Begin

Small-Business Owners Say Tariffs Will Squeeze Them, and Their Customers

The Sims Turned Players Into Gods. And Farmers. And Vampires. And Landlords

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TRUMP TO TAKE OVER GAZA

Trump says US will 'take over and own' the Gaza Strip, relocate ALL Palestinians and send troops into war zone 'if necessary' as he outlines extraordinary plan for the Middle East

by Rob Crilly

President Donald Trump outlined an extraordinary new plan for the Middle East on Tuesday, with the United States taking over the war-torn Gaza strip while its Palestinian population is moved to neighboring countries.

It is the latest evolution in his plan for rebuilding a territory devastated by Israeli bombardment.

His words will sow fear in the Palestinian population but Trump insisted it was time for a new way of thinking and promised to build 'the Riviera of the Middle East.'

'The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,' he said at a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

'We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site … level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.'

Trump, a property developer who sees the world in terms of deals, has long talked up Gaza's coastal location and pleasant climate as a perfect holiday vacation.

In his vision, U.S. reconstruction would create thousands of jobs and spare Palestinians the pain and expense of rebuilding once again.

When a reporter asked if that might involve military force, Trump answered: 'If it's necessary.'

And when asked who would live there, he answered: 'I envision world people living there. The world's people.

'I think you'll make that into an international, unbelievable place.'

He claimed his plans were based on humanitarian ideals and backing at the highest levels.

Yet the proposal to move out Gaza's Palestinian two-million population will be seen as a call for 'ethnic cleansing' by opponents.

Control of the territory has been one of the key flashpoints in the Arab-Israeli conflict, triggering waves of violence and spreading instability through the region for decades.

At the moment, Hamas controls the territory and holds hostages, while a shaky ceasefire endures.

Netanyahu, who faces the threat of international prosecution and weakening support at home, could not help but beam as the president outlined his latest proposal. He praised Trump for his radical thinking.

And he said it was worth paying attention to Trump's latest idea for a 'different future' for a patch of land riven by terrorism.

'You see things others refuse to see,' he said. 'You say things others refuse to say.

'And after the jaws drop people scratch their heads and they say, you know, he's right.'

Trump said he planned to visit Gaza, Israel and Saudi Arabia during a future trip to the Middle East but offered no further details.

The press conference made for an extraordinary spectacle even by Trump's own remarkable standards, casting doubt on the 'Two State Solution' as the best way to find peace in region and potentially alienating a slew of allies.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched strikes in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.

Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes.

Trump insisted he had support for the idea.

'I do see a long term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East,' he said.

'And everybody I've spoken to … this was not a decision made lightly … Everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land.'

The comments will terrify Palestinians who have long feared that Israel was seeking to take their land.

They have lived under an economic blockade and more than a year of military bombardment, leaving the territory resembling a 'demolition site,' as Trump put it.

Netanyahu is visiting to plan for the next stage of talks with Hamas, negotiations which plan for three to five years of reconstruction.

American officials have already made clear that they see that timeline as unviable.

Against that backdrop, Trump upended the Middle East 10 days by floating the idea of moving the territory's population to Egypt and Jordan, in answer to DailyMail.com question.

Both countries have rejected the idea.

But the former property developer, who sees the world in terms of deals, insisted that other nations would step up.

'You look over the decades, it's all death in Gaza,' he said.

'This has been happening for years. It's all death.

'If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people, permanently, in nice homes where they can be happy and not be shot and not be killed and not be knifed to death like what's happening in Gaza.'

Earlier Trump's national security adviser told reporters that Trump viewed the issue as a humanitarian one.

'You have these people that are sitting with literally thousands of unexploded ordinance and piles of rubble,' said Mike Waltz.

'At some point, we have to look realistically, how do you rebuild Gaza? What does that look like? What is the timeline?

'A lot of people were looking at very unrealistic timelines. We’re talking 10 to 15 years.'

It was all smiles between Trump and Netanyahu on Tuesday, but there has been tension in their relationship.

Trump complained during his first term that the Israeli leader let him down just before the US killed a top Iranian general in 2020, dropping out of the operation at the 11th hour.

And he was furious that Netanyahu congratulated President Joe Biden on winning the 2020 election.

But Netanyahu, who has lost support at home and who has been indicted at the International Criminal Court, badly needs Trump now to help shore up his position.

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