Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 2/18/2025

Partly Sunny | Ukiah Protest | Water Project | Allen Update | Caspar Zuck | Daffodils | LakeCo Water | Women Celebration | Weeding Process | Hogwash Wine | Baskerville Play | Kasten Street | Ed Notes | Yesterday's Catch | Which Way | SF Protests | California Wolves | Cliff House | Savage Dictatorship | Dumbing Down | American Progressives | On Vacation | Lead Stories | Social Media | Doomed | Trump II | Weimar USA | Boo Hoo | Juke Joint | Good Writer | Enjoying Life

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DRIER and calm weather expected today. The next frontal system will bring moderate rain, mountain snow and strong winds tonight and Wednesday. A period of dry and warm weather is expected to settle in for the end of the work week. Rain chances return over the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): On the coast this Tuesday morning I have a partly cloudy 44F. Dry skies today, light rain tomorrow then dry skies thru Saturday. Some light showers Sunday & Monday, maybe?

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MONDAY IN UKIAH

In front of the Mendocino County Courthouse in Ukiah, lots of people are protesting against DOGE/Elon Musk and other government activity. A couple folks across the street are waving Trump flags. Between them is a small-town street, but really, a vast distance. (Jendi Durbin Coursey)

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BOONVILLE WATER & SEWER PROJECT STATUS UPDATE

(from the Minutes of the Feb. 6, 2025 project meeting)

REPORT ON CLEAN WATER (Wastewater) PROJECT: As David Coleman was unable to attend, this report was given by Sophia Grubb, his assistant. They are almost completed with the draft engineering report. They also have all the information needed to design the disposal field and treatment plant. They still need to consult with Jim Brown at the Fairgrounds to determine “equivalent connections” to establish flows as well as future billing. Their historical data predates Covid so they need current data. This conference was to have occurred several months ago so there is urgency in accomplishing this.

REPORT ON DRINKING WATER: Brent Beazor reports that he is in the last edits of the Rate Study Calculations. As we have a high level of confidence the outstanding negotiations will be concluded successfully, Brent was able to predict approximately $105/mo. will cover base rate and 5000 gal/month usage. The actual base rate will be calculated soon; this will impact the undeveloped properties that want a grant-funded meter installed. The water board will be able to send out their ballot to the property owners as soon as they receive the final numbers.

Q: Can the wastewater and drinking pipes be laid in same trench? A: No, State code does not allow potable water lines next to wastewater. The backbone (main pipe) of these systems will be on opposite sides of the roads. Discussion about installation (trenchless and open cuts will be used) and traffic mitigation. Reminder that Caltrans will also review the CEQA and construction plans.

Discussion about coordinating the Caltrans “Complete Streets” grant and the finalizing of construction. The State Waterboard Department of Financial Assistance (DFA) will only fund rehabilitation of the trenches to an additional one foot to the sides of trenches. The Caltrans plan to establish the features of Complete Streets (traffic, parking, bike lanes) will have a positive impact on the costs of the Water projects. We appreciate the willingness of Caltrans to coordinate with the installation of our infrastructure. If, in addition, we are able to obtain a grant to remodel the sidewalk areas of Hwy 128, we might be looking at needing emitter connections for landscaping. This was new information for our Drinking Water engineer and will be discussed further in the future. It was suggested that the AVCSD would then be a Water District customer for landscaping connections.

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OLIVIA ALLEN

Hey there friends,

I haven't shared an update about my dad, Bill Allen, in a while: https://helphopelive.org/campaign/21595 (If you click “See All” at the top of the facebook page, the update drops down in a neater format.)

It's an ongoing journey, often times a battle. Because he only has MediCal (his MediCare coverage has run out) he is less attractive for admission to skilled nursing facilities. Once we eventually get to where we want to be, he won't have therapy covered by insurance, so that will have to come out of pocket. I shared a detailed update on our fundraising page, if you'd care to be updated. Thank you all so much for your support over the last 2+ years, we cannot thank you enough. The journey continues. I know things are scary and hard and financially tight right now, but if you wouldn't mind donating what you can and sharing this fundraiser around, we would so appreciate it! Every little bit helps.

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RUMOR OF THE DAY

Daney Dawson: Fact or rumor? Mark Zuckerberg bought a house in Caspar. Please tell me it's not true.

Marco McClean: I won't, Daney. He bought a hundred acres on Caspar Creek.

Mark Scaramella: Probably not a rumor, except we don’t think there’s a house on property yet.

From MCT, January 31, 2025: “MARK ZUCKERBERG, the odd facebook mogul turned neo-Trumper who some say has stolen the minds of many of his customers, has purchased a 100-acre forested property on the Mendocino Coast straddling Caspar Creek, just inland from Highway 1, according to coast neighbors. The parcel, once owned by Ed Powers, was purchased out of foreclosure a while back by an unknown owner who then sold it to Zuckerberg. Reportedly several tunnels have been dug and fencing has been installed since Mr. Z bought the parcel. The parcel appears to have a nice stand of prize spruce trees. No one seems to know what the purpose of the purchase is or whether there’s a residence on the property, so far.

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SPRING IS ON ITS WAY!

Daffodils aren't native to Mendocino County, but they're a great example of the impact that the lightkeepers and the wildlife have had on this land! The families that lived at Point Cabrillo planted their own gardens of both vegetables and flowers here at the light station.

When you see daffodils and calla lilies and pink ladies growing at Point Cabrillo, you can be certain that the squirrels have helped to spread them over the property!!

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BETSY CAWN:

The “Eel-Russian River Commission” was formed decades ago, but Google did not produce any link to the Commission itself. The “AI” explanation:

AI Overview

History – Inland Water & Power Commission of Mendocino County

The website for the Eel-Russian River Commission is mendocinocounty.org/government/affiliated-agencies/water-agency/eel-russian-river-commission.

Explanation

The Eel-Russian Project Authority (ERPA) is a joint powers authority that was formed by the County of Sonoma, Sonoma County Water Agency, and the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission. ERPA’s responsibilities include:

Negotiating with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)

Decommissioning the Scott and Cape Horn dams on the Eel River

Constructing and operating a new water diversion facility near the Cape Horn Dam

The link to Mendocino County’s website does not provide background and history, but PG&E began its process for decommissioning Scott Dam and the hydro-electric generation plant in Potter Valley in the early 2000s. In December 2006, PG&E conducted a public “outreach” meeting in Upper Lake (at the Tallman Hotel) attended by residents in the Lake Pillsbury area, along the old “logging road” between Scotts Dam and Potter Valley, and Potter Valley and Mendocino County users of Eel River diversions to Potter Valley, Lake Mendocino, and Russian River “consumers” of Lake Pillsbury-sourced water supplies.

The County of Lake was duly notified of the decommissioning plans (allowing the FERC-issued licenses and permits to expire), but took no action in the Eel-Russian River Commission meetings until Jared Huffman began his campaign, at which time a new Lake County Supervisor obtained local funding for the “fee” Huffman was requiring for voting on proposals such as the “two-basin solution” (as unworkable as the cease-fire agreements between Israel and Palestinian authorities leading to a “two-state solution”).

Lake County worked with all of the affected parties with interest in one or another decisions about “South Fork” diversion options. The Inland Power & Water agency is led by Janet Pauli, formerly the Executive Director of the Potter Valley Irrigation District that owned and operated the Van Arsdale Reservoir and its hydro-electric machinery. Pauli’s husband, retired Executive Director of the California Farm Bureau, tried to negotiate terms of future operation that would protect Potter Valley agriculture and “rural residential” users, but IWP was effective in working with inland Mendocino water districts and customers to come up with the conditions of “re-operation” of the reservoir and irrigation system infrastructure.

Lake County tax payers and participants in organizations like “Lake Pillsbury Alliance” and property owners dependent on the reservoir’s critical fire suppression water supplies (including the US Forest Service Mendocino National Forest and PG&E) have attempted to gain access to Huffman’s “Planning Committee” but with the results reported today in the AVA.

A report on the economic impacts of loss of the reservoir has been developed to provide the basis for a future law suit (against PG&E?). And the County has developed a consortium including the Round Valley Tribal Councils to attempt to satisfy the Humboldt-based environmental advocacy groups, releasing already-reduced levels of irrigation water to the south for salmon restoration and recovery. The truly-collaborative agreements allowing Russian River watershed “diversions” to customers of the Sonoma County Water Agency (which include, when there is “excess” supply, sales to Marin County water agencies) and permitted extraction by riparian parcel owners (a lot of them grape growers) have not been recognized by PG&E so far.

On last Tuesday’s agenda for the Lake County Board of Supervisors was a closed session item “FERC Project #77 PVP.” No idea what the results of that discussion were, no “action” taken to report per the Brown Act meeting requirements. No indication of whether the item was initiated by PG&E or the County.

Lake County provides potable water to six surrounding counties — Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Solano, and Yolo — without any compensatory revenues for maintenance of source facilities such as the Scott Dam.

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‘COMPLETE FAILURE’: CALIFORNIA POT INDUSTRY HITS ANOTHER GRIM MILESTONE

Inactive licenses are climbing as California cannabis companies struggle to stay in business

by Lester Black

California’s legal cannabis market has hit another grim milestone: There are now 10,828 inactive and surrendered pot licenses in the state and only 8,514 active ones, meaning dead pot licenses now outnumber active ones, according to the Department of Cannabis Control’s data dashboard.

This inversion comes seven years after the legal cannabis market opened. While it’s not clear exactly when the threshold was crossed, because the state does not release historical licensing information, California’s legal market has been struggling for years, with thousands of companies going out of business.

Jonatan Cvetko, a cannabis advocate and executive director of the United Cannabis Business Association, said the figures show that state regulators and the entire regulatory framework for cannabis in California is a “complete failure.”

“We’ve finally hit a threshold where we’ve seen the number of participants who have come into the industry who have failed outweighs the number of people succeeding, and succeeding is probably too strong of a word,” Cvetko said.

Company failures are certainly not unique to the legal cannabis industry. Startup companies in the technology market are notorious for failing the majority of the time, with one 2023 study estimating that 75% of all venture-backed tech companies fail within five years. And one 2016 study found that roughly 20% of new restaurants in the Los Angeles area failed between 2003 and 2008.

But Cvetko said business failures in California’s cannabis industry are especially bad because California’s legal market has only a fraction of operators today compared with California’s medical market that existed prior to legalization.

“This is not anywhere near what we see with restaurants, because we already had an industry in California, and California destroyed the industry that we had,” Cvetko said.

State law requires a cannabis license from the Department of Cannabis Control before a company can legally engage in any cannabis work, with over three dozen license types. A single cannabis business often needs multiple types of licenses to do its work, so the number of surrendered licenses doesn’t directly equate to the number of failed businesses.

David Hafner, a spokesperson for the department, strongly pushed back on the idea that the data shows a market failure.

“The number of inactive cannabis licenses is not indicative to the health of the licensed cannabis market, let alone a statement on the established framework for the regulation of it,” Hafner said.

Hafner said that some of the drop in active licenses is because of a procedural change in 2023 that allowed cannabis farms to consolidate multiple smaller licenses into one large license type. This consolidation is responsible for 1,071 licenses that are now inactive but “did not involve businesses closing down or downsizing.” according to Hafner.

Even removing those 1,071 consolidated licenses, there are still 9,757 other licenses that are inactive for a variety of reasons, from being canceled to revoked or surrendered. The vast majority of dead licenses are related to growing cannabis, with over 7,100 inactive cultivation licenses. Those figures reflect a severe drop in the number of small-scale farms operating in Northern California, which used to be the capital of pot farming in America but has been diminished thanks to large-scale farming in Southern California.

There are also over 1,100 inactive distribution licenses, nearly 500 inactive delivery licenses and over 300 inactive retail licenses.

Dan Sumner, a UC Davis professor who has extensively studied California’s legal cannabis cultivation industry, said he was not surprised to see so many farming licenses go inactive. He said he’s documented many large farming operations shut down quickly because falling wholesale cannabis prices made their businesses unprofitable. Sumner added that extensive regulations have also made it more expensive to run a legal cannabis farm.

“If you want to be a lettuce grower, grow lettuce. You don’t need a license to grow lettuce, but if you want to take that same acre and grow cannabis, it’s a whole different process, and you have to engage with 10 different agencies,” Sumner said.

Cvetko said the industry is struggling because the regulations make it too expensive to get and maintain a cannabis license, and then lackluster enforcement against the illicit market has allowed unlicensed cannabis operators to proliferate and sell cheaper marijuana that undercuts legal companies.

“When you’re constantly competing against an unlicensed market that doesn’t have those taxes and overhead, and there’s no effective enforcement, then the state has completely failed to make this a viable industry,” Cvetko said.

(SF Chronicle)

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BILL KIMBERLIN

I don't drink Rose Wine but I like there attitude. Reminds me of “Sheep Dung Estates” in Boonville. Luxury cabins on a 600 acre old sheep ranch owned by a friend of mine.

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BASKERVILLE COMES TO MENDOCINO

The Mendocino Theatre Company is thrilled to announce its upcoming production of Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, directed by the talented Alexander Wright. This thrilling adaptation of the classic novel The Hound of the Baskervilles showcases the incredible acting talents of Ricci Dedola as Sherlock Holmes and Michael Bonner as Dr. Watson. Joining them are the versatile ensemble cast members Brady Voss, Lucas Kiehn-Thilman, and Lorry Lepaule who take on over 40 roles to bring this legendary mystery to life. To say the play is a romp is an understatement.

Baskerville will have special previews on March 6 and 7, leading up to the grand opening on Saturday, March 8. The premiere will be celebrated as part of a gala event in honor of the 49th season of captivating performances at MTC, promising an unforgettable night of entertainment. The show continues its run through April 6 playing every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:00pm.

The Story

Based on the iconic tale “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this production pays homage to the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his loyal companion Dr. Watson but with a theatrical and comic twist.

Doyle's creation of Sherlock Holmes introduced innovative uses of the scientific method in solving crimes, setting the stage for countless mystery stories to come. The original Hound of the Baskervilles is a classic detective novel featuring Sherlock Holmes and his loyal companion Dr. John Watson. The story follows the investigation of the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, whose family is believed to be cursed by a supernatural hound. As Holmes and Watson unravel the secrets of the Baskerville family, they must confront their fears and outwit a cunning killer to solve the case. The novel is known for its suspenseful atmosphere, intricate plot twists, and the brilliant deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes.

Ken Ludwig's play, “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery,” is a unique adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic. Ludwig’s interpretation offers a comedic and interactive twist to the original story by incorporating elements of farce and humor. The fast paced, witty dialogue, coupled with multiple costume changes adds an air of clownish fun to the mystery. Through this innovative approach, Ludwig breathes new life into the timeless tale of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson's investigation of the mysterious Baskerville case.

Tickets for Ken Ludwig's ‘Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery’ are now on sale at Mendocinotheatre.org or by calling 707-937-4477. For those looking to experience the magic of MTC beyond this production, season subscriptions are also still available.

Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity to delve into the world of Sherlock Holmes and witness a riveting mystery unfold on stage. Join us at the Mendocino Theatre Company for an evening of intrigue, suspense, and unforgettable performances.

Contact:

Mendocino Theatre Company

Phone: 707-937-4477

Website: Mendocinotheatre.org

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FROM E-BAY, ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH OF SEMI-LOCAL INTEREST (via Marshall Newman)

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ED NOTES

I WOULDN'T particularly recommend it as a peaceful walk, but every few years I walk across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, then ferry back to The City from that baubled little town, thinking about how I remembered it as a coherent little town when we fished off the piers with drop lines we bought for a dollar at the drug store.

UNPARALLELED viewshed aside, the bridge part of the walk is unpleasantly noisy from the vehicles streaming ceaselessly past only a few feet away. In its unique way, the bridge walk has become hazardous because of the two-wheeled lycra lunatics weaving in and out of the foot traffic on their $5,000 bicycles. Doctors and lawyers and other high-end compulsives I thought to myself, as one of these hurtling man-boys startled a little old lady almost over the side mid-span as he brushed past her at about 30 miles an hour, his emaciated form in shrink-wrapped black, the whole of him covered with advertisements for imported this and imported thats.

IT'S A RELIEF to get off the bridge and commence the trash-strewn mile or so walk into contemporary Sausalito's two miles of bad art, cappuccinos and pizza slices. But like I said, the magnificence of the vistas redeem the littered close-ups.

ONE MEMORABLE DAY, the first water borne trip of the Sausalito morning back to the city, a bargain at six bucks, landed me at Fisherman's Wharf from where I trudged up Columbus and over to Grant to meet my friend Nadya Williams for coffee and communism at the Cafe Trieste. Well, better not put it that starkly, but Nadya's an old friend, a long-time lefty who also splits time between the Mendocino Coast where she used to live in Elk, and where her children still live, and San Francisco.

I HADN'T BEEN in the Trieste in years. I tried to get in years ago when I happened to spot Steve Schwartz haranguing a table of old beatniks. Steve has since transgendered himself and now goes by Lulu LaFlamme. I wanted to get close enough to the pre-Lulu Schwartz to inspire one of his inimitable denunciations of me and my newspaper that he used to write to me in Boonville. With his buzz saw voice and the passion he brings to it, there's nothing like getting it from the man himself. But the place was stuffed, and I couldn't get close enough to Schwartz to set him off. He was a communist when I first encountered him attempting to disrupt a Trotskyist's presentation by Bertrand Russell's secretary, Ralph Schoenman, at the CP's old headquarters on Market Street.

MY NEPHEW, Robert Mailer, was a coffee jock at Trieste where he frequently jousted with the pre-Lulu Schwartz. When Schwartz learned of our relationship, he said to me, “I guess that makes you the monkey's uncle.” Schwartz is very smart and can be very funny, and one of the great characters of lost San Francisco.

ABANDONING the city and the left, Schwartz moved to the East Coast where he became a social friend of Christopher Hitchens, whom he called “Chris,” and also became a Muslim, calling himself Ali bin Babble or something like that. I almost fell out of my chair one night when Ali bin Schwartz appeared on CNN in full desert Arab mufti, introduced as an expert on Wahhabi Islam!

THE TRIESTE that afternoon I met Nadya was not only uncrowded at 11am, the only person there besides the staff was the poet Jack Hirschman, an artist more appreciated in other countries than here, but then that's an old, old story with American artists, isn't it?

There are still lots of good writers around the Bay Area, but North Beach is kind of wan anymore, more like Sausalito, unfortunately, than the stimulating bohemia it once was. These days, argument most places is regarded as bad form or, worse, “negativity,” and anyway most of the people you find in bohemian coffee shops like Trieste are conversing with their telephones not each other.

NADYA appeared and we enjoyed an hour’s gossip before I headed for the Ferry Building, pausing to pick up a loaf at the Acme Bread Company, the only business in the building that offers the real deal at a reasonable price, and one of the only places in all the city where you can find good bread but not quite as good as they make right here in Boonville at the Boonville General Store.

AS A KID I thought bread was Wonder Bread. Then I read Henry Miller's liberating essay on the staff of life and I haven't downed a slice of Wonder since. Outside, at the north end of the Ferry Building, and enjoying the smell of the fresh wheat loaf coming from my backpack as I contemplated the passing parade, a middle-aged couple, tourists from Michigan, they said, pointed at Coit Tower and asked me, “What's that?” I explained that a wealthy spinster named Lily Coit had always loved firemen. She hung around the station with the boys who sometimes even let her go out on runs with them. But Miss Coit's tightly corseted times being what they were, and Freudian interpretations of human behavior and symbols not much known, the repressed Miss Coit, her longing for her heroes unconsummated, had left this unconsciously phallic memorial to, well, the persistent upthrusts of her restless imagination, you could say.

MOST HISTORIANS will tell you that the tower is merely Lily Coit's tribute to the firemen of her time, but San Franciscans know better. “Interesting,” the Michigan man said as his skeptical wife, who hadn't bothered to look away as she rolled her eyes at my explanation, pulled him on their way.

https://wherearethosemorgans.com/coit-tower-san-francisco/

I WATCHED a street guy rummage badger-like through a trash can, throwing its contents into the air when a clean shaven young man in a black leather jacket walked toward me with that telltale white guy's bouncing jailhouse gait. He brandished a stack of computer disks. “Sir, me and my sister, sir, are selling our music, sir, and for a small donation you can have it, sir.”

WHITE GUYS who've had overly many encounters with law enforcement tend to overdo their “sirs.” I gave him the four singles I had. In black magic marker my disk was inscribed, “The Fontenheads.” So, a lot of musicians can't spell, so what? At least the kid was trying to make an honest buck. Anyway, for a mere four skins I just might have in hand the next Sonny and Cher. I just might be helping birth a star! There were also two 916 area code telephone numbers magic markered on to the disk. I watched him sell three more discs to passersby.

WHEN I got back to Boonville, I put the thing into my computer. There was nothing on it. I laughed. The kid was selling blank disks. For the hell of it, and just to be sure I'd been scammed, I called the 916 numbers he'd written on his blanks to further legitimize them for average suckers like me. At the first 916 number, an old guy answered. He didn't know anybody selling anything in San Francisco. I laughed. The other 916 number had been disconnected. Ha-ha. I got to laugh again. I'd been had, but I can't remember having had that much fun for four dollars and, taken as a whole, it had been a good day.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, February 17, 2025

ALEX BARAJAS, 21, Fort Bragg. Grand theft, stolen property.

DINO BLACKBEAR, 38, Covelo. “Proceedings.”

CHRISTOPHER CARTER, 24, Covelo. Domestic battery.

ABEL LANDA-CASTANEDA, 37, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, probation revocation.

MATTHEW LIBERTO, 25, Ukiah. DUI with priors, hit&run with property damage, suspended license for DUI.

CYNTHIA PHILLIBER, 33, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, battery on peace officer, resisting, probation violation.

CHRISTOPHER VELAZQUEZ, 51, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

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‘NO KINGS ON PRESIDENTS DAY’: HUNDREDS PROTEST TRUMP AND MUSK AT S.F. CITY HALL, TESLA DEALERSHIP

by Danielle Echeverria

Hundreds of people marched from San Francisco City Hall to the Tesla dealership on Van Ness Avenue on Monday while denouncing the efforts of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to shrink the federal government.

Attendees expressed deep concern about Trump’s flurry of actions in the last few weeks aimed at slashing the federal workforce, as well as the attempts by Musk’s extra-governmental organization DOGE to access government and taxpayer data. Carrying homemade signs with slogans like “Democracy dies in silence,” “Resist fascism,” “No one elected Elon” and “The U.S. doesn’t have a king,” protesters condemned the Trump administration’s actions as an attack on democracy.

Billed as a “No Kings on Presidents Day” march, the protest was one of several across the country on Monday, including in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Sacramento.

Patty Moddelmog, who organized Monday’s protest in San Francisco, said that she was “feeling out of control” with the sweeping changes brought by Trump and Musk, and she felt that Presidents Day was a poignant time to take action. Not seeing any demonstrations planned in San Francisco, she decided to do it herself, posting fliers around the city and on social media. From there, she said, “people ran with it.”

“In San Francisco, we will show (Trump and Musk) that we are not OK with this,” she said, adding that she didn’t want to see “unelected billionaires” making changes to government programs like Social Security and Medicaid. “Their only interest is gaining more money and more power. … It’s disgusting.”

John Toya, carrying a cardboard sign that read “Stop Musk-o-lini,” expressed a similar concern, saying that the Trump administration’s actions seemed designed to benefit only the very, very wealthy, and that frustration prompted Toya to join Monday’s protest.

“It’s ridiculous,” Toya said. Trump “is giving so much control to somebody who is not elected and not looking for the interest of how the government actually works.”

His friend Penelope Whitney agreed, adding that she was troubled that Musk and Trump were appearing to bypass the democratic mechanisms meant to prevent one person from having so much control.

“Everything being done is wrecking our democracy,” she said.

Federal employees who had either recently been let go or watched coworkers laid off as part of Trump and Musk’s cuts were among the protesters. Workers with the National Park Service, who declined to give their names out of fear for their jobs, said that they were dismayed by the “unceremonious” way in which people were laid off in the last week, including everyone from biologists to maintenance workers.

They said they were concerned about the ripple effects of such people being fired, from something as simple as less cleanup service in parks to larger, more long-term issues like protecting endangered species that live in those parks.

Standing on Van Ness in front of the Tesla dealership, protesters chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go” and “This is what democracy looks like” before breaking into the classic protest song “This Land Is Your Land.”

Seeing the hundreds of people who turned out on Monday, Moddelmog, the organizer, decided to make the protest a weekly event — announcing over a bullhorn that there would be demonstrations in front of the Tesla dealership every Saturday at noon “until Tesla stock is in the dumps.” Several people stopped her to let her know they’d be there again next week.

Moddelmog said that she hoped others would take inspiration and organize their own demonstrations as well, saying it was critical to keep taking action.

“It’s not that hard to organize,” she said. “Let’s get out there. … It’s time Elon faces some consequences for meddling in every country’s politics.”

(SF Chronicle)

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CALIFORNIA CAPTURES, RELEASES A DOZEN WOLVES AMID RISING CATTLE LOSSES

One California wolf pack was found to have mange, threatening their survival

by Matt LaFever

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife recently announced the capture, collaring and release of 12 gray wolves across Northern California, setting a new record for the highest number of satellite-collared wolves in the state’s history.

The capture operations, conducted from Jan. 14 through the end of the month, took place in Siskiyou, Lassen, Plumas and Sierra counties. Using contracted aircraft and a capture crew, CDFW successfully collared wolves from the Whaleback, Harvey and Beyem Seyo packs. The effort aims to track the state’s expanding wolf population and assess its impact on the ecosystem.

Currently, California is home to seven confirmed wolf packs, with some shifting dynamics. The Beyem Seyo and Antelope packs recently merged, reducing the number of active packs from nine in fall 2024, according to CDFW. Officials also acknowledge the possibility of unconfirmed individual wolves dispersing from established packs or neighboring states.

Of the 12 newly collared wolves, seven were female and five were male. Five wolves were captured from the Beyem Seyo pack in Sierra County, including one previously collared. Five were captured from the Harvey pack in Lassen County, including one previously collared, and two were captured from the Whaleback pack in Siskiyou County. Biologists recorded body measurements and collected DNA and blood samples from the wolves to monitor disease and genetic relationships within and across packs. The animals were released at their capture locations.

CDFW also confirmed that wolves in the Yowlumni pack, located in Tulare County, are infected with sarcoptic mange, a skin disease caused by parasitic mites that can lead to hair loss, emaciation and death in severe cases. While some wolves recover, others succumb to secondary infections and malnutrition. CDFW is working with experts from other states to assess the impact and potential response strategies.

Research from the California Wolf Project, a UC Berkeley research initiative, has provided new insights into wolf behavior and their impact on livestock. The project deployed 189 camera traps across northern and northeastern California, the largest such grid in the state, and analyzed wolf activity throughout 2024.

The research found evidence of wolf kills or scavenging at 34% of investigated sites, with cattle making up the majority of carcasses. While CAWP awaits results from a metabarcoding study, which uses DNA to identify multiple species in a sample at once, the data already points to rising cattle losses in wolf-occupied areas.

CDFW’s November 2024 depredation report documented five cattle losses in Lassen County, four in Siskiyou, and one in Tulare, showing a sharp rise in wolf predation. Since 2015, the number of depredation investigations has skyrocketed. For context, CDFW recorded just 11 investigations between 2015-2017. In 2024 alone, there were 72 separate investigations. Despite this, state funding for ranchers affected by wolf attacks has declined. While California allocated $3 million in 2021 to compensate livestock owners, the latest renewal of the Wolf-Livestock Compensation Program saw a significant cut, with only $600,000 allocated.

SFGATE reached out to CDFW's Wolf Program to learn more about their capture and collaring efforts, as well as their response to mange infections, but did not receive a response as of the time of publication.

(SFGate.com)

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TRUMP/MUSK DICTATORSHIP IS GALVANIZING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE

by Ralph Nader

Madmen Trump and Musk are moving with warp speed to illegally and dictatorially wreck America and enrich themselves in the process. Forget the use of the terms “autocracy” and “constitutional crisis.” This is a savage dictatorship, getting worse by the day. Trump is attacking the courts, ignoring Congress run by a cowardly GOP, pushing to cut off critical assistance for tens of millions of Americans, devastating health, safety, food (Meals on Wheels), education (Head Start), and Medicaid insurance protections.

The rabid, ravaging, unstable Musk and his Chief Musketeer Trump are shutting down whole agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Agency for International Development (only Congress can do this). The CFPB is the federal cop enforcing laws against corporate crooks stealing your money in myriad ways, and returning many billions of dollars back to you.

As for shuttering illegally the U.S. Agency for International Development, consider what is happening in these direly poor countries, as reported in the New York Times: “Funds from the world’s richest nation once flowed from the largest global aid agency to an intricate network of small, medium and large organizations that delivered aid: H.I.V. medication for more than 20 million people; nutrition supplements for starving children; support for refugees, orphaned children and women battered by violence.” (“Chaos and Confusion Reign as U.S. Cuts Off Aid to Millions Globally“ by Apoorva Mandavilli, February 12, 2025). Trump is also cutting monitoring for the emergence of deadly epidemics such as Ebola, drug-resistant Tuberculosis, Malaria and other lethal viruses and bacteria, which could come to the U.S. like COVID-19 did.

The cost of all these vital protections is less than one percent of the federal budget. These safeguards have been supported by both Republican and Democratic Presidents – until Trump’s brutal reign of terror.

Children, women (maternal health assistance) and men are dying now in places like Africa. Americans are just starting to suffer with the unlawful cutoff of funds (only Congress can do this) and the firing of thousands of dedicated civil servants ministering to their fellow Americans in need.

U.S.A.I.D. is the humanitarian face of America, and Republicans like Marco Rubio once called it necessary for our country’s national security.

American businesses are starting to feel Musk’s poisonous tusks. Just with closing A.I.D., this South African racist ordered the sign on its headquarters taken down. 100,000 positions have been cut overseas, an estimated 52,000 Americans in 42 states have lost their jobs. Agricultural food supplies ready for export are starting to rot in warehouses and ports, according to the Times.

The Trump/Musk machetes are swinging wildly striking beyond bullying the poor, defenseless, and powerless, and also upending the business community. Much of our government is contracted out to millions of businesses – small and large. Their contracts are being ripped up by this lying, corrupt President who many business leaders helped elect last November.

However, voters electing Trump didn’t mean that they elected a fascist dictator betraying his campaign boasts and “Day One” promises with the first flurry of executive orders or dictates violating our Constitution, statutes, and international laws.

There is a systemic cunning behind the wild rioting that Trump and Musk are causing. First, their actions are not about efficiency. Here is their broad scheme. First fire the cops, the law enforcers against corporate violators of worker, consumer, environmental, and small investor protections. Many federal agencies have current investigations into Musk’s companies (SEC, NHTSA, EPA, FAA, etc.).

Second, establish a kleptocracy to enrich both Musk and Trump personally. (See the February 13, 2025, New York Times article by Eric Lipton titled “Under Trump Shake-Up, Benefits for Musk Empire“).

Third, smash programs assisting people, while protecting huge waste, fraud, and abuse from corporate crime harming taxpayers (e.g., fraud on Medicare/Medicaid) and vast outlays of corporate welfare – giveaways, subsidies, bailouts, and endless tax escapes by big business. After all, Trump and Musk are both corporatists.

The military/industrial complex’s unauditable Pentagon budget is untouchable. Far from squeezing the enormous waste, redundancy, and corporate fraud, Trump gives every sign of supporting an additional $150 billion, which should go for domestic necessities, to this years’ Defense Department’s swollen taxpayer appropriations. After all, Trump and Musk are militarists.

What of the resistance, presently mounting, but still outrun and over-run by the Trumpster gangsters? Americans don’t like to be told to shut up; they don’t like to have things rightfully theirs taken from their families; they don’t like to be fired en masse without cause; they don’t like government contracts for vital services being arbitrarily broken. They also don’t like their government being overthrown by fascistic gangsters.

Street demonstrations are spreading from Washington to California, from Oregon to Florida. Government employees and their unions are filing lawsuits in federal courts. Half of the country’s state Attorneys General are filing numerous court challenges. The mainstream media, under direct attack by Trump, and being frivolously sued by Trump, is still reporting and investigating.

The campuses will start rumbling as Trump/Musk cuts to medical research and other aids to education corrode these institutions. Retired military personnel are voicing their objections to the devastation of the kind of America and the freedom they fought to defend. (See veteransforpeace.org.) Veteran benefits are on draft-dodger Trump’s cutting table.

The American Bar Association (ABA) has finally spoken out. On February 11, 2025, the ABA assailed the disregard of the judiciary and threats to judges by Trump/Musk/Vance, which “threaten the very foundation of our constitutional system.” The ABA calls for every lawyer and legal organization to speak with one voice and to condemn the efforts of any administration that suggests its actions are beyond the reach of judicial review.”

Soon the business community, unable to tolerate the chaos, inflation, instability, and recklessness of Trump’s regime’s contracting violations, will speak out as economic indices fall, including stock markets.

It will take a few weeks or months, with heightened inflation, for this disruptive pipeline to reach critical mass as it will everywhere including the Red States where Trump supporters are concentrated. As one example, one of Biden’s enacted laws “is projected to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into low-carbon energy technologies.” Most of these benefits are in Republican-voting communities in Red States “where they are creating a once-in-a-generation manufacturing boom.” (The New York Times).

Recall, Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra of climate violence was linked with downgrading efficient solar energy and shutting down wind power projects under construction, along with the EPA’s work.

Once Trump’s voters and his business base start turning against him, with wide media coverage and dropping polls, the stage will be set for surging demands for his resignation and impeachment that starts with “impossible,” then “possible,” then “probable,” then conviction. If the GOP sees either its political skin at risk in 2026 versus Trump’s destructive, daily delusions and dangerous daily damage, politicians will put their political fortunes first.

That is what Congressional Republicans did when they told Nixon to resign in 1974 over the Watergate scandal – a peapod by comparison with Trump’s wholesale subversions of our government to one man rule who has said “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President.”

Call the White House switchboard 202-456-1414 and tell Trump to stop the destruction of America and go back to Mar-a-Lago.

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The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

— Carl Sagan

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Wait! I may be wrong about “progressives” today.

To me, American progressives represented the view back in the late 1800s thru the mid 1900s that the benefits of burgeoning science and technology should be harnessed for to improve peoples' lives, not to make the very wealthy even wealthier.

I associate free public schools, a 40-hour workweek, public health, standards on food quality and drugs, workplace safety, with progressives. Laissez-faire would not provide these outcomes. These were noble ideals that had to be fought for, which many of today's “conservatives” take for granted and have forgotten.

Today's progressives, certainly their leadership in the Democrat party, celebrate deviate behavior, and government coercion. And they do that at the behest of big capital, that owns them.

Is big capital monolithic? Perhaps not, some of it appears to support Trump. Trump himself is a money manipulator, but he's found a niche promoting many (certainly NOT all) common sense policies that appeal to people who work, pay taxes, raise families. But still, given a “choice”, Trump's base chooses the lesser of the evils. Time will tell if Trump disappoints them, and by how much.

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

Like Bingo, but With Beef: Why Meat Raffles Are Blowing Up

What We Know About the Toronto Plane Crash

As Trump ‘Exports’ Deportees, Hundreds Are Trapped in Panama Hotel

Education Dept. Gives Schools Two Weeks to Eliminate Race-Based Programs

Top Social Security Official Leaves After Musk Team Seeks Data Access

Thousands Gather on Presidents’ Day to Call Trump a Tyrant

Palestinian Displacement in the West Bank Is Highest Since 1967, Experts Say

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY II

Today, it seems as if Americans cannot ignore social media or the telephones that distribute social media, even though they are addictive, bad for the people who use them and bad for those of us who have to be around those who use them. A significant industry has been erected to perpetuate, promote and defend their use. I suspect that 70 years from now, we will look back on social media in a similar manner: a toxic relic visible mainly in old shows from this time.

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JUSTICE

by John Arteaga

Okay everybody, welcome to the Trump II administration. My God, it's certainly getting off to a bizarre and dystopian start; Trump is not a businessman, much less a politician. The only occupation he has ever had, and one in which he is clearly an idiot savant, is that of grifter, swindler and professional litigant. His legal strategies were honed at the feet of one of the greatest (that is the worst) exploiters of the flawed legal system we all live under, the infamous Roy Cohn, one time top aide of Joe McCarthy, then infamous mob lawyer for decades.

A careful observation of Mr. Trump's interactions with this nation’s legal architecture constitutes a master class in all that is wrong with a legal system that, however you feel about it, we all depend upon for our safety, security and the determination of who is at fault in all manner of criminal and civil conflict.

What we can see clearly, and most apparently under the Supreme Court as it is presently constituted, is that our legal system is ill-equipped to distinguish between fair and reasonable conflict resolution on the one hand and cynical exploitation of legal technicalities and processes, on the other hand, to either indefinitely prolong proceedings with appeals, etc. to put off, often permanently, justice being rendered in whatever matter.

Similarly, it seems like no one can be so innocent as to escape life changing legal jeopardy, requiring one to lose one’s job, mortgage their house etc. in order to defend themselves in court against what may in fact be completely trumped up (no pun intended) charges designed to punish one for displeasing somebody in a position of authority who has access to unlimited prosecutorial resources.

It has been a long and painful four years since we all saw with our own eyes Trump whipping up his insurrectionist mob. I mean, if intentionally bringing to Washington this gaggle of indoctrinated followers of the Trump cult and directing them to, “fight like hell, or you won't have country” isn't a major crime deserving of serious prison time, then what is?! At least they could have followed the clear wording of established law and disqualified him from ever running again for political office! Sheesh!

They say that justice delayed is justice denied, and the fact that Obama's appointee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, as Atty. Gen., could never bring Mr. Trump to a court and a jury in all that time constitutes total failure; a truly broken system. How could it possibly take four long years! I don't know what excuse Mr. Garland has for this endless procrastination, but it's no wonder that he was recommended to Obama by none other than right wing Republican Orin Hatch, as someone who might garner a few Republican votes to get him past the Senate and into the Supreme Court.

And what can one say about the clown car full of the absolute worst raging bulls to be put in charge of each individual China shop cabinet position? Let’s start with Pete Hegseth; besides being a woman abusing drop fall drunk who has to be carried out of the strip club by his coworkers in the wee hours so he can get to work at his early-morning Fox News anchor spot, even his own mother wrote an incredibly damning email about his treatment of wives and girlfriends. A father of seven! (IMO, a crime in itself given the state of the earth these days) He seemed to have a hard time during his pro forma questioning by Congress recalling all the names of his pitiable offspring. Apparently he has festooned his body with innumerable white Christian nationalist symbol tattoos. Never having run anything more than a spot on a Fox News talkshow, how bizarre is it for him to now be put in charge of the 3 million souls employed by the Pentagon, with its almost $1 trillion annual budget?

Then of course, we have the preposterous nomination of Matt Gaetz for, of all things, Attorney General! That is, the top law man in the country! One has to believe that Trump was really just seeing how far he could push his nihilistic agenda, just testing the waters to see exactly how much crap he could feed his devotees. Fortunately, Gaetz was a bridge too far; credible allegations of drug use with underage prostitutes and his whole Jeffrey Epstein-like modus operandi thankfully scuttled this particularly nauseating nominee. However, true to form, The Donald turned to the blonde bimbo in waiting for the job; Pam Bondi, former Florida Atty. Gen., most famous for considering whether Florida wished to join the many other states who ended up suing Trump for his entirely bogus Trump University which fleeced many thousands of apparently clueless marks of their pricey tuition for an utterly worthless degree, a suit that eventually brought about the closure of this ‘University’ and the payment of $25 million to its victims.

Anyway, before Ms. Bondi decided whether to take part in the suit, she received a nice $25,000 check for her reelection campaign from The Donald, and then, guess what? She decided that Florida would not be joining the other states taking part in the suit, thus losing who knows how many millions of dollars for swindled Floridians.

Tulsi Gabbard, another you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up nominee to be head of ‘homeland security’, is another piece of work; the daughter of dyed in the wool Hare Krishna devotees who moved the family to Hawaii to be part of a Hare Krishna offshoot cult that would do such things as eating the toenail clippings of and the sand upon which their guru trod for their spiritual advancement. Homeschooled by these nut cases, it’s no wonder that Ms. Gabbard seems to have become a devoted follower of both Trump and Putin, for whom she has expressed such great admiration. Director of Homeland security?! Oh my God.

I could write a column this long every day with the firehose of madness coming from the West Wing these days, like the presidentially ordered dumping of billions of gallons of water out of two already low reservoirs for a photo opportunity of Trump ‘releasing the water!’ Even though it did nothing but run down past farms that didn’t need irrigation this time of year, not to mention being of no use to LA, where they had no access to it and the fires were already out from the recent rains.

Of course none of this matters to the followers of the Trump cult; they’ll all just call it fake news and believe whatever pack of lies he has to tell them each day. God help us!

(For this and other columns; https://inarationalworld2.blogspot.com/2025/02/justice-delayed.html)

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KRAKATOA BLOWS

by James Kunstler

You’ve got to wonder who at CBS-News thinks it’s a good idea to quadruple down on mendacious grandstanding when the network faces a $20-billion lawsuit from Donald Trump — for assisting Kamala Harris’s campaign (aka election interference) — while the FCC under new Commissioner Brendan Carr questions the network’s license to operate on the grounds of “news distortion” and violation of the broadcast news fairness doctrine.

So, on Sunday night February 16, CBS’s flagship news show, 60-Minutes, pitched a doubleheader of knowingly faked-up feature pieces intended to scramble American minds to benefit the Party of Chaos and its manager, the US Intel Blob. The first piece was a sob-story on how sad and unjust DOGE’s deconstruction of the USAID money-laundering operation is. Yeah, boo-hoo. They interviewed several part-timers and consultants pretending to be long-term employees of the outfit. Complete horse-shit, and they knew it. What really matters is that a whole lot of bureaucrat grifters (and politicians) won’t get paid anymore… and the Blob won’t be able to soften-up faraway nations for plunder with its color revolutions and other hijinks.

The second piece was a ringing endorsement of Germany’s current censorship campaign, arresting ordinary citizens for mean tweets. Their camera crew followed the German Gedankenpolizei entering apartments and seizing cell phones. The viewing audience was asked to shed tears for German Green Party politician, Renate Künast, who got dissed on “X” (“misogynist comments” and insults) — the same week that an Islamic immigrant maniac drove a car into a Munich crowd on-purpose, injuring 39 people, including two dead (one, a child). No mention of that incident on 60-Minutes, or, more generally, that illegal immigration is the big taboo subject behind all the censorship.

CBS actually preceded that gaslighting job with a bit of Sunday morning constructed Orwellian fake syllogistic idiocy by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, who said that free speech caused the Holocaust against the Jews. Her reasoning: free speech allowed the Nazis to gain power, therefore… Auschwitz … therefore, free speech is bad. Guest, Sec’y of State Marco Rubio, told her that he could not associate himself with her thesis. In fact, once in power, the Nazis totally controlled speech and news and did not permit other political parties to even exist. All of this, you understand, is just deliberate Gramscian distortion-and-perversion of language — black is white, up is down — to defeat any attempt at coherent public debate today.

The conclusion you might draw from all this is that CBS is terrified of free speech, and is trying desperately to hide the Blob’s long-running criminal racketeering activity — which they have aided and abetted for years and deserve to lose their license over, plus pay billions in penalties, and go out of business — a rather existential predicament.

Reality distortion is no longer working so well with Mr. Trump in the White House. Here is what’s behind the USAID brouhaha and why it matters. By 2016, the Blob had become a fullblown, independent, parasitical organism on US governance. It had several purposes: 1) to keep itself in perpetual power by paying off its voting blocs of “the poor and marginalized,” 2) to pay its corps of bureaucrat managers (of the “poor and marginalized”) handsome salaries to win their everlasting allegiance, and 3) to pay-off elected officials to keep voting the money flows for all that. All this created a massive class of Democratic Party activists dedicated to overthrowing the republic so as to usher-in their social equity nirvana. And all that was sheer hubris. More recently, nemesis arrived on the scene and all this institutional Blob power had to be diverted to a massive ass-covering operation, now in full, florid failure. And, worst of all for the Blobists, evidence of actual crime is accruing at a frightful, fast pace.

With the confirmation of Kash Patel later this week, Mr. Trump’s agency team will be complete. What follows will be a Krakatoa of revelation, drastically altering the climate of US politics for years to come. You should learn exactly how many FBI and CIA agents were moiling and roiling in the J-6 mob. You’ll find out what the J-6 DNC pipe bomb caper was all about. You’ll find out why RussiaGate was never properly investigated or adjudicated… how the Adam Schiff / Alexander Vindman / Eric Ciaramella impeachment op worked… how the Clinton Foundation made a zillion dollars … where all the money went that got poured into Ukraine… and much much more.

You will also soon start getting some actually reliable information out of CDC, FDA, NIH, and other public health agencies. Do you suppose that Tony Fauci is the only person who must answer for Covid-19? I expect many of the following persons who were high-ranking officials — nearly all of them completely obscure to the public — to be asked under oath what they thought they were doing:

Robert R. Redfield, M.D. — Director of the CDC

H. Clifford Lane, M.D. — Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects, Clinical Director, NIAID

Sarah W. Read, M.D., M.H.S. — NIAID Principal Deputy Director

Jill R. Harper, Ph.D. — NIAID Deputy Director, Science Management

Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D. — Director, Division of AIDS

Daniel Rotrosen, M.D. — Director, Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation

Emily Erbelding, M.D., M.P.H. — Director, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

Anne Schuchat, M.D. — Principal Deputy Director, CDC

Sherri A. Berger, Ph.D. — Chief Operating Officer, CDC

Debra Houry, M.D., M.P.H. — Acting Director, CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

Nancy Messonnier, M.D. — Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. — Director, NIH

John Jernigan, M.D., M.S. — Director, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion

Ruth J. Etzel, M.D., Ph.D. —Director, National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)

Dana Meaney-Delman, M.D. — Acting Director, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response

Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. — Principal Deputy Director, NIH

Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. — Director, National Institute of Mental Health

Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D. — Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Gary H. Gibbons, M.D. — Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Richard J. Hodes, M.D. — Director, National Institute on Aging

Shannon N. Zenk, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N. — Director, National Institute of Nursing Research

I’m sure many more names can be added to the list. They must have known, and found out early on, that Covid-19 was created with US Government grants (possibly through DARPA), that the mRNA vaccines were ineffective and harmful, that the lockdowns were shuck and jive, and that public health officials were paid a lot of money in royalties while all this was going on. If they haven’t shredded or deleted the info — and it’s still possible that Tulsi Gabbard can find it, anyway — the gaslight will finally get turned off and the sunlight will shine in. You know this is going to happen.

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THE JUKE JOINT

Juke joint (also juke joint, jook house, jook, or juke) is the African American term for an informal establishment featuring Blues music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint may also be called a “barrelhouse”.

The Jook was the first secular cultural arena to emerge among African American freedmen.

Classic Jooks, found for example at rural crossroads, catered to the rural work force that began to emerge after emancipation.

Plantation workers and sharecroppers needed a place to relax and socialize following a hard week, particularly since they were barred from most white establishments by Jim Crow laws.

Set up on the outskirts of town, often in ramshackle, abandoned buildings or private houses — never in newly-constructed buildings.

Juke joints offered food, drink, dancing and gambling for weary workers.

Owners made extra money selling groceries or moonshine to patrons, or providing cheap room and board….This is where The Bluesmen Played…Jooks in Clarksdale Miss…The Dew Drop Inn in Shelby Miss…Poor Monkey's in Bolivar County Miss…Old Water Power Grist Mill, Macon, Noxubee , MS…to name a few…The Photo is of The Blue Front Cafe located on the outskirts of Jackson Miss.

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THE ONLY GOOD WRITER was a dead writer. Then he couldn’t surprise anyone any more, couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. And now he’s good for the town. Brings in some tourists. He’s a good writer now.

— John Steinbeck visiting Sauk Center, Minnesota, birthplace of Sinclair Lewis

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Anthony Hopkins once said: “I am fully aware of my mortality, but at 87 years old, I still wake up every morning with the desire to misbehave. Age is not a barrier when you find passion in what you do. The real secret lies in keeping your curiosity alive, continuing to learn, and not letting the fear of time stop you from enjoying life. Every day is a new opportunity to create, to laugh, and to show that it is never too late to move forward with enthusiasm and joy.” (That's right, Tone)