Mendocino County Today: Friday 3/7/2025

Cold/Clear | Daniel Salmond | Evening Thief | Whippits Display | Phishing Attempt | Fresh Now | Philo Flora | Food Bankers | No Accountability | Student Art | Fallout Begins | Old Boonville | Ed Notes | Mossy Dog | 11 Plays | Fevered Comments | Nice Girls | Yesterday's Catch | No-Nos | Fascism | Salmon Decline | Share Them | Solar Villain | Rather Sink | Tariff Pain | Bad Readers | Lead Stories | Good Fortune | Strong Union | Grassroots Movement | Momma Musk | Insurrection Act | Evil Cousin | Pentagon Reboot | Free Palestine | Peaceful Atom | Found Fork | Stronger Message | Tax Rates | Drift Not | El Gato

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FREEZE WARNING remain is effect until 9am this morning…Generally calm and clear weather will persist through the weekend with marine layer influence near shore. Unsettled weather will return mid next week with gusty south wind and rain by Tuesday night into Wednesday. Snow is likely as low as 2000 feet by Wednesday night. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 39F under clear skies this Friday morning on the coast. Cold mornings & dry skies thru Monday then rain returns on Tuesday. Rain totals are down from yesterday for Tue & Wed, the days that follow are looking very weak. As always, we'll see.

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MISSING ALBION MAN FOUND DEAD

As a part of this continuing investigation, the decedent was identified as Daniel Jay Salmond, a 72-year-old male from Albion. The name of the decedent is being released after the legal next-of-kin was notified of Salmond’s death.

An autopsy was performed by a Forensic Pathologist on Wednesday 03-05-2025, but the official cause and manner of death will not be able until all forensic examination reports and tests have been completed. Additional information will be released as it becomes available.

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TANYA MACFARLANE HARRIS (Potter Valley)

Last Night around 10:30pm/11:30pm. Someone opened my garage door that leads to my house and when I woke up to take a look, I heard a car leaving my driveway and the garage door was wide open. It wasn’t until this morning. I noticed things missing in my yard. One of them was a little tykes car in new condition and another one just like it in older condition. I think I spooked whoever it was and they didn’t expect me to be home or awake. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the robberies and people stealing things in Potter Valley recently, but it makes sense. I live on Main St. not far from Hoppere Corner Store. Be aware.

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CASSIE TAANING (Redwood Valley)

Large 1 liter cans of nitrous oxide AKA whippits are on display at the Redwood Valley gas station. A lot of kids and young adults are addicted to this stuff. It makes them high “Long-term or habitual use can lead to severe neurological damage”. Our roads and turnouts are littered with discarded canisters. It’s illegal to sell it in the city of Ukiah and the city of Willits. But it’s available everywhere else in the County. I hope County leaders pay attention and make sales of nitrous illegal in rural areas.

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BEWARE OF PHISH

Below is a copy of an email we received yesterday, an attempt at phishing. The first clue is the top line, with an email address that has nothing to do with theava.com.

Do not click or respond to such messages (you can report them, or just throw it away). It's a good idea to educate yourself on this type of scam: search "phishing."

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PETIT TETON FARM

Free: organic asparagus starts, organic Seascape strawberry starts.

Fresh now: chard, kale, broccolini, herbs, mizuna mustard. All the preserved foods from jams to pickles, soups to hot sauces, made from everything we grow. We sell frozen USDA beef and pork from perfectly raised pigs and cows. Stewing hens and Squab are also available at times. Contact us for what’s available at 707.684.4146 or [email protected].

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PHILO FLORA PLANT STARTS COMING SOON

Hello fellow gardeners! Just an update about the plant starts coming soon… from my greenhouse to your garden. This year I will again be offering many varieties of summer favorites - peppers, eggplant, summer squash, basil, herbs, greens, cucumbers, winter squash, melons, onions and more. If you got something you liked last year, you can get it again! I will not be taking special orders, but all my plants will be available at Boont Berry in Boonville, and I will probably have a Boonville “pop up” weekend in mid-late April with extra stock of everything available on that date. Plants will be available from mid April-early or mid May and I will update you all here when they become ready to transplant.

Thanks! From Misha Vega - Philo Flora

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LIKE IT OR NOT, WE’RE PAYING FOR THIS ONE

by Chris Pugh

Well, here we are again. Another day, another example of our hard-earned tax dollars being tossed into the bureaucratic abyss. The recent dismissal of the criminal case against Mendocino County Auditor Chamise Cubbison is just the latest installment in this ongoing saga.

For those who missed the spectacle, a Mendocino County judge recently threw out the charges against Cubbison, citing insufficient evidence to support the DA’s claims. The case, which many saw as flimsy from the start, has now collapsed under its own weight. But don’t worry; the bill for this legal misadventure is still very real—and it’s got our names on it.

To recap, Cubbison was accused of misappropriating public funds by approving the use of an obscure payroll code, leading to unauthorized payments. However, upon closer examination, the evidence supporting these claims was found lacking, resulting in the case’s dismissal.

Now, Cubbison, having been dragged through the mud, is likely considering her options for restitution, including a pending civil lawsuit against the county Board of Supervisors for denying her due process that could further drain public funds. And who could blame her? Her reputation has taken a hit, legal fees have piled up, and all for a case that couldn’t hold water. Guess who’s going to foot the bill for this next round of legal proceedings? That’s right—us, the taxpayers.

This whole debacle raises some uncomfortable questions about accountability among our public officials. How did we get here? Who greenlit this costly endeavor? And when will they be held responsible for this misuse of public funds? It’s easy to point fingers and demand answers, but history has shown that such inquiries often lead to shrugged shoulders and business as usual.

With the civil case coming, so is the bill. We’ve seen it before—public funds drained into courtroom showdowns, the only clear winners being the lawyers. There’s no lesson learned, no system corrected, just another expensive cycle of finger-pointing and damage control.

Meanwhile, the people who made these decisions will move on unscathed. No consequences, no accountability—just more tax dollars thrown at a problem they created. The public is left with the tab, as usual, while officials pretend this is just the cost of doing business.

Maybe one day, someone will actually answer for these mistakes. Until then, we’ll keep footing the bill and wondering how much longer they can get away with it.

(Chris Pugh is the managing editor of the Advocate-News and Mendocino Beacon. He can be reached at [email protected]. (Ukiah Daily Journal).)

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CUBBISON CASE FALLOUT JUST BEGINNING

by Jim Shields

By now everyone is aware that the sordid saga that was the politically-motivated prosecution, i.e. persecution, of two women who are long-time county officials, was thrown out of court a week ago.

As aptly and succinctly reported by Mike Geniella on Feb. 25th, “Mendocino County, Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman dismissed the case against auditor Chamise Cubbison. She ripped the investigation, county officials, and said there was no evidence of any criminal intent. Dig deep, taxpayers.”

Mucho kudos to Geniella, who did an outstanding job producing an award-winning series on the infamous Cubbison affair. Geniella’s the OG journalist in these parts and beyond.

The Supervisors along with their ethically-challenged, outright incompetent staff, are in a huge hurt locker. DA Dave Eyster, the mastermind behind the plotting ad conniving that resulted in criminal charges being brought against Cubbison and payroll manager Paula Kennedy, should be sanctioned if not disbarred by the California Bar Association.

All politics aside, I am personally embarrassed to live and work in a county that is as dysfunctional as this one appears to be.

Our elected representatives and their staff far too often flummox themselves and disrupt the orderliness of the governing process by creating problems seemingly out of thin air.

The Cubbison case never rose above the level an administrative/personnel quandary over how to process payment for undisputed hours worked by County payroll manager Paula Kennedy during the COVID emergency.

In personnel or labor relations matters, we call such things grievances, and they are resolved via grievance procedures when employees are covered under collective bargaining agreements. Where these types of pay disputes involve non-bargaining unit management employees who are not subject to collective bargaining agreements, they are resolved by whatever internal administrative remedies and procedures are established for management personnel. In either case, when there is no dispute regarding whether the hours were actually worked and the pay earned, does the situation ever meet the criteria for criminal prosecution.

As someone who is a certified labor relations practitioner, I can tell you I handled many, many pay claims, overtime claims, pay rate classification claims, etc., and in all those years, not a single time did management ever give a fleeting thought to filing criminal charges.

You are barred from the front door of courtrooms in any attempt to do so. The first question the judge asks is, “What are you doing in my court? You say the employee actually worked the hours in question and was paid for those hours worked. You say you have a labor contract with a grievance procedure, and you have dispute procedures for management officials to resolve pay disputes. This is not a criminal matter. It is a civil administrative matter that needs to be resolved by your own internal contractual procedures. If you exhaust those remedies and a dispute still remains, then you can file civil litigation to resolve your dispute. Now get the hell out of my court.”

Via these columns and in public comment at meetings, I warned the Supervisors, including some of the supervisors personally, that this case was going to sink them and saddle the taxpayers with a monstrous bill. None of them listened, they’re all smarter than us, don’t you know.

God bless Judge Ann Moorman for recognizing that the people who brought this case forward were, at best, being exceptionally economical with the truth. It’s a ploy long practiced in these kinds of politically motivated prosecutions. And usually it works. But not this time.

Instead of illegally suspending Cubbison in October of 2023, the Board should have postponed taking any action against Cubbison pending the completion of the rescheduled arraignment hearing. That way they would have had the opportunity to review what kind of evidence the D.A. was relying on, and whether the judge found it sufficient to proceed to trial. Who knows, the judge may have found the D.A. had insufficient evidence to hold Cubbison over for trial.

As I pointed out to the Supervisors numerous times, the proper way to have handled the Cubbison case was to have followed the law. California Government Code Section 1770 sets out the process: “An office becomes vacant on the happening of any of the following events before the expiration of the term:

“(h) His or her conviction of a felony or of any offense involving a violation of his or her official duties. An officer shall be deemed to have been convicted under this subdivision when trial court judgment is entered. For purposes of this subdivision, ‘trial court judgment’ means a judgment by the trial court either sentencing the officer or otherwise upholding and implementing the plea, verdict, or finding.”

It was that simple.

All the Supes had to do was leave Cubbison in office pending the trial court making a final decision, which the court has now rendered.

By following the law, the Supervisors would have avoided 17 months of turmoil and lousy unethical governing, solidifying this county’s reputation as one the most dysfunctional local governments in this state.

Without repeating any of the explanatory comments I made at our Town Council meeting the day following Superior Court Judge Moorman’s dismissal of the case against Cubbison and payroll manager Paula Kennedy, I asked Supervisor John Haschak if the County has reinstated the two women to their positions.

Haschak replied that Cubbison was “reinstated yesterday.” (Feb. 25), the same day of Moorman’s ruling. When I asked him about Ms. Kennedy’s status, Haschak replied, “I can’t talk about that.”

When I said, “I’m assuming you can’t reply because that’s counsel’s advice,” he responded in the affirmative.

I closed off our discussion by asking Haschak if the Supervisors are planning to send Cubbison and Kennedy public letters of apology given Judge Moorman’s dismissal ruling, buttressed by her scathing reproach of the conduct and performance of bullying high-ranking county officials and their criminal justice counterparts who were hell-bent on prosecuting/persecuting two innocent women. Again, Haschak politely declined comment.

Regardless of what their incompetent attorneys are telling them, they owe Cubbison and Kennedy public apologies, as well as the citizens of this county.

Now the Supes, because they failed miserably to do their jobs, are headed for a civil trial that they will certainly lose, and the taxpayers will be on the hook for untold monetary damages.

In fact, next Wednesday, March 12, the Supes have scheduled a closed session to “Conference with Legal Counsel - Existing Litigation: One Case - Cubbison v. County of Mendocino, et al., Mendocino County Superior Court, Case No. 23CV01231.”

It shouldn’t require much of a conference for the combined brain trusts that will be gathered together next Wednesday to realize the dire straits their actions have put this county and its residents in: “Pay me now or pay me later, but you are going to pay.”

Thanks to our Supervisors, we are all going to be paying for this expensive remedial lesson teaching them the basics of how-to-do-your-job.

In this case the rule is just because people like the D.A., your CEO, and your County Counsel tell you to do something, you don’t have to follow their advice-cum-orders.

Political graveyards are full of politicians who don’t follow that rule.

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, [email protected], the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, als

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VERN PETERMAN: Boonville Looking Northwest, late 1920s

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ED NOTES

WITH THE ORANGE PLAGUE poised to kill the federal Department of Education, I recalled my ancient opinion that the fed’s educational functions are as vague as those of the Mendocino County Office of Education. “The U.S. Department of Education oversees research on most aspects of education; collects data on trends; and gathers information to help identify best practices in education, including teaching techniques that work.”

RIGHT THERE we have solid grounds for elimination. If both, the national and the local make-work seraglio out at Talmage disappeared tomorrow, and responsibility for the education of the young was returned to local communities, well, what the hell, would there be any noticeable difference in the basic knowledge and skill sets of yer basic Americano?

TAKE ME, for instance. (Must we? Hey! Nobody’s forcing you to read this.) I spent 16 years sitting in classrooms, but I can honestly say, and there are millions like me, what real education I have I got for myself in libraries and bookstores. If I’d been thrown into the world of work after the sixth grade I had the basic tools to educate myself and survive in the free enterprise jungle, and I’ll be eternally grateful to those elementary school teachers who instilled my ability to read, and to Miss Hall, my neighborhood librarian who went out of her way to point me to books I might profit from.

BEYOND those first six years, school for me was a waste of time. The rest of my learning, such as it is, I did myself as an autodidact, just like millions of my fellow citizens have done.

OF COURSE if I’d had an aptitude for math and the sciences, which I emphatically did not, staying in school would have been necessary to master one of the truly learned professions like medicine or research scientists or any number of jobs occupied by people who have to know what they’re doing or they might kill us, which the math-science people, at the direction of the Trumps of the world, seem to be doing. Liberal arts grads like me wouldn’t know how.

LOOKING BACK on my life’s odd trajectory, I wish after the sixth grade I would have been apprenticed to a carpenter, or a plumber, or a small scale farmer, to learn real skills, but I staggered on through college where I had exactly one history professor, M.E. Smith at Cal Poly, I learned stuff from, enough stuff, and general inspiration to read a lot more history on my own.

A LOTTA GOOD it did me. Knowledge increaseth sorrow, as some wise person observed, but all knowledge did for me, and I don’t have all that much, is get me into trouble. So, at last getting to the point of these estranged opinions, the loss of the Department of Education doesn’t seem to me like a loss because its existence has nothing to do with education, complicates it, in fact, cf the look-say reading method that led to millions of people not being able to read with anything like understanding. And new math, another national disaster.

WHICH isn’t to defend the sadistic way that Trump and his Rasputin are going about firing federal workers, but the upside of Trump’s cruelty is the creation of what’s shaping up as a huge backlash, huge enough to soon sweep them out of office.

THE BOONVILLE SCHOOLS, staying with the general theme of today’s big-think, aren’t much different, pedagogically, than public schools anywhere in the land. The racial composition is different than the other Mendo school districts in that about 85% of the Boonville student body are Mexican immigrants, or the sons and daughters of recent immigrants. Boonville’s sociology is also different from more ethnically chromatic communities, especially in the large number of wealthy people who live here full and part-time, a minority of whom are quite generous in their financial support of the schools. Few communities, for instance, enjoy an educational foundation created to send its high school graduates to college. We do.

LOOKED at superficially, one could conclude that by the fallen standards of American education — these days somewhere near the doomed countries of the world in the international rankings — the Boonville schools are pretty good. Relatively considered, the Boonville schools are just as good as the Willits, Point Arena, Mendocino schools, and the Covelo schools, but it remains a rare grad of any of this county’s schools who can read with understanding or write a coherent paragraph.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS do a good job right up through the sixth grade. They teach most of our little savages to read and to do the basic calculations. Edu-collapse coincides with adolescence. Which is also when our brutal and stupid popular culture kicks in, overwhelming young people by basting them in stupidity and wrong-think. The public schools, rather than resist, too often capitulate.

HOW TO IMPROVE general ed in a time of social implosion? Single sex classes after the 6th grade as the Catholics do? When the hormones kick in it’s best to separate the herd, especially now in our sex-drenched society. I see girls on their way to school dressed like they’re on the way to auditions as pole dancers. School uniforms are long overdue, and should it even have to be said that high school teachers should dress in a way that distinguishes them from their students?

NATURALLY, there should be absolute bans on electronic gizmos and popular music during school hours. Why is there even an argument about that?

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UPCOMING PLAY READING NIGHT

Make plans now to see eleven short plays of Love, Loss and Hope in the Time of COVID coming to the Mendocino Theatre Company on Wednesday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m.

The plays are drawn from the new book, “Drama in the Time of Covid,” a collection of fifty short plays that look at everyday Americans facing the deadly virus head-on. This yearslong project was co-edited by Mendocino Coast resident Philip Zwerling, who will be on hand to describe how the daunting task of reading more than two-hundred plays, submitted by playwrights from across the nation, resulted in selection of the best of the best included in the anthology.

This will be an enjoyable evening of drama and humor.

Under the direction of Phillip Regan, and produced by Lorry Lepaule, the reading features well known local actors Raven Deerwater, Dan Kozloff, Julia Carson, Pamela Allen, and Adrianne Bottrell.

The Mendocino Theatre Company, is at 45200 Little Lake Road, Mendocino,

A $15 admission charge helps support the ongoing work of the Mendocino Theatre Company.

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MEMO OF THE WEEK

It’s time to crack down on bad actors in MendoFever’s comment culture

Dear MendoFever Readers,

Our comment section is meant to be a place for sharp insights, local knowledge, and good old-fashioned debate. But lately, some conversations have taken a turn—getting personal, using profanity, and even including racial slurs. That’s not what we’re about.

To keep things civil, I’ve put a filter in place to block comments with expletives or hateful language. If anyone tries to get around it with creative spellings, they’ll lose their commenting privileges. This isn’t about shutting down discussion—it’s about keeping it respectful, readable, and worth everyone’s time.

I know some readers may feel frustrated if their comment gets flagged while other offensive ones remain visible. The filter only applies to new comments moving forward, not retroactively, so older comments may not have been caught. If you come across something particularly offensive that’s still up, let me know. I appreciate the help in keeping the discussion respectful.

Thanks for being part of the conversation. Let’s keep it a good one.

MendoFever’s Comment Guidelines

• Engage, don’t attack. Challenge ideas, not people. Ask before assuming.
• No slurs, no exceptions. Hate speech has no place here.
• Critique with facts, not insults. If you’re calling someone out, back it up.
• Add value. Insight, humor, info—make your comment count.
• No threats or incitement. We’re here for conversation, not chaos.

I’ll update these rules as needed, and if you think a comment was unfairly flagged, reach out: [email protected].

Matt LaFever

Founder & Editor, MendoFever

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FROM E-BAY, AN UNUSUAL OLD CARD OF SEMI-LOCAL INTEREST

Mailed from Mendocino in 1913 to a Olga Wahlstrom in Caspar, who later, with her husband Millard Nolan, owned a grocery store next to the Caspar Hotel.

Best,

Marshall Newman

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, March 6, 2025

LINDA ALMOND, 66, Ukiah. Trespassing, probation revocation.

KATELYN BAGULEY, 18, Saratoga Spring, Utah/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JESSICA BAUER, 37, Ukiah. Toluene or similar substance.

DANIEL BEARDEN, 34, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

TIFFANI ESPINOZA, 54, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.

DOMINIC FABER, 62, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, parole violation.

ANGEL MILLER, 36, Ukiah. Parole violation.

SHANE O’ROARK JR., 26, Ukiah. DUI.

JACINTO TUPPER, 19, Fort Bragg. False imprisonment, resisting, probation revocation.

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ARE WE THERE YET?

Editor,

Many political science experts view fascism as a mass political movement centered around extreme nationalism, militarism and the elevation of national interests above those of the individual.

Fascist regimes often promote the overthrow of institutions that they view as “liberal decay” while simultaneously promoting traditional values. They believe in the supremacy of certain people and use it to justify the persecution of other groups. Racism was a key feature of German fascism, for which the Holocaust was a high priority.

Common factors of fascism have included the “cleansing” of all those deemed not to belong — foreigners, ethnic minorities and “undesirables” — and the belief in its own nation’s superiority. Recent global events, including the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest in the U.S., have substantiated the concern about how fascist rhetoric is showing up in politics and policies around the world.

Fascism can be defined as a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of shame brought on by supposed communists, Marxists, minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation. The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.

Dennis Kostecki

Sausalito

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LOW SALMON NUMBERS IN CALIFORNIA COULD PROMPT SHUTDOWN OF FISHING FOR A RECORD THIRD STRAIGHT YEAR

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a multistate, quasi-federal body, is expected to decide in April after a series of meetings whether there will be a limited fishing season or none at all.

by Ian James

California’s salmon population has declined so severely over the last several years that regulators canceled the fishing season in 2023 and again in 2024.

This year, state estimates show the number of Chinook salmon is still so low that fishing could again be prohibited — or if not, sharply limited — to help fish stocks recover.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, a multistate, quasi-federal body, is expected to decide in April after a series of meetings whether there will be a limited fishing season or none at all.

Newly released figures from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimate the number of Sacramento River fall-run Chinook salmon in the ocean this year at nearly 166,000 fish — down from a preseason estimate of 214,000 last year, and similar to the 2023 estimate of 169,000 fish.

Those figures represent a drop from the much larger numbers of salmon that cycled through California’s rivers a decade or more ago.

“It’s just another bad year that is upon us, and that’s unfortunate for everybody,” said Scott Artis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Assn., a nonprofit group that represents fishing communities. “Commercial and recreational fishing businesses have been struggling.

The fishing season typically runs from May to October, and in recent years the state’s commercial salmon fishing fleet has numbered about 460 vessels, Artis said. But many boat owners and crew members have recently turned to other work to make ends meet. Some have put their boats up for sale.

“A lot of the guys right now are basically doing land jobs because the fishery has just been devastated,” said George Jue, a commercial fisherman at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay.

Jue said he has three other types of fishing permits, which allow him to continue earning a living by catching Dungeness crab, rock crab and rockfish. Even as many fishing boats have sat idle in the harbor lately, Jue and a group of other fishermen have been busy hauling in traps filled with crabs.

Once that season is over, Jue said, he expects little or no salmon fishing this year. “This harbor is going to be dead.”

Many who work in the fishing industry blame California’s water managers for the low salmon numbers, saying too much water has been sent to farms and cities, depriving rivers of the cold river flows salmon need to survive.

Artis said while the severe drought from 2020-22 contributed to the decline, he also lays much of the blame on “poor water management” by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, which he said has prioritized supplies for agriculture while starving rivers of vital water that salmon depend on. Those low flows and warm water temperatures during the drought, he said, have been “killing salmon and killing the fishing industry.”

Coastal fishing has been canceled for two consecutive years once before, in 2008 and 2009. If fishing is canceled for a third year, it would be the longest closure ever in California.

State biologists say salmon populations have declined because of a combination of factors, such as dams, which have blocked off spawning areas, and global warming, which is intensifying droughts and causing warmer temperatures in rivers.

During the 2020-22 drought, the water flowing from dams sometimes got so warm that it was lethal for salmon eggs. And because salmon typically feed in the ocean for about three years and then return to their natal streams, the decline in the numbers of surviving juvenile fish during the drought left a reduced population of adult fish.

“The reality is the numbers are still not looking good,” Charlton “Chuck” Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said during a virtual briefing Tuesday.

Bonham said the Newsom administration’s ongoing efforts to help salmon populations recover include restoring tidal habitats, modernizing infrastructure, removing barriers that hinder fish migration, and reintroducing salmon in traditional spawning areas upstream from dams.

After the removal of dams on the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border last year, biologists have spotted salmon spawning far upstream in waters that were previously inaccessible for more than a century.

“I have great joy and excitement about some of the progress, and I also still have great uncertainty and sadness about the challenges we’re seeing for salmon,” Bonham said. He said the state’s initiatives, detailed in a salmon strategy plan launched last year, bring a “fair amount of hope.”

Fishery regulators will weigh alternatives in the coming weeks, Bonham said, to determine whether it’s most prudent to limit the fishing season or shut it down again this year.

Salmon are not only a mainstay of commercial and recreational fishing businesses, but are also central to the cultures of Native tribes, who continue traditions of subsistence fishing.

The fishing industry depends on fall-run Chinook, which migrate upstream to spawn from July through December.

Other salmon runs have declined to a point that they are at risk of extinction. Spring-run Chinook are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and winter-run Chinook are endangered.

For decades, government-run hatcheries in the Central Valley have reared and released millions of salmon each year to help boost their numbers.

State-operated hatcheries have been raising more salmon and over the last three years have been releasing about 30% more fish than in previous years, said Jay Rowan, the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fisheries branch chief.

“A lot of people make their living off this fishery,” Rowan said. “We certainly feel for those folks, and we want to do everything we can to get this population rebounded.”

Natural cycles also could help. Scientists say the wet winters since 2023 have provided favorable conditions for salmon and, because the fish mostly have a three-year life cycle, this could enable the population to increase starting around 2026 — a pattern that has occurred in the past.

Jue, the commercial fisherman, said he would like to see the salmon fishing season reopened this year. But if the season falls under strict limits, he said that would probably make most other boat captains think twice about investing time and money for a minimal profit.

Jue said he’d like to see more water prioritized for sustaining salmon populations. But, he noted, in the political realm, the influence of the salmon fishing industry — which can generate an estimated $1.4 billion in revenues in a good year — pales in comparison to the agriculture industry, which has been producing more than $59 billion annually in revenues.

“The agriculture lobbyists are so much stronger,” Jue said. “We’re nothing compared to agriculture. … We don’t have a voice.”

The shutdown of fishing has taken a toll not only on the commercial fishing fleet but also on operators of charter fishing boats, as well as shops that sell bait and tackle.

“Families are having trouble just making ends meet,” Artis said. “It’s just going to continue until we get our salmon back, or we completely eradicate the fishing industry.”

(LA Times)

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DON'T BEAR YOUR SINS: Confess them. Don’t wear your hair shirt of pain: Throw it off, re-design it, and give it to someone who might need it for warmth. I grew up in a society that asked us to keep quiet and take our rages and our desires and our questions into the house, to a dark, back room. This is suicide. Pour your rages and your questions into your life, into your work. Share with others. It’s a glorious moment when you discover that you share the same history with others. When your work fits into the soul of another — well, that’s why we do it.

— Tennessee Williams/Interview with James Grissom/1982

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CALIFORNIA IS BLAMING AN UNLIKELY VILLAIN FOR YOUR HIGH ENERGY BILLS

Incentivizing solar power is a mainstay of environmentalist policy. But Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration says it’s costing everyone else.

by Stephen Council

For years, California has pushed its residents to install solar panels on their homes with generous payments and tax breaks to boost the spread of the environmentally friendly tech. Hundreds of thousands of people bought in. But amid sky-high electricity rates, the state government is turning those residents into something of a scapegoat.

California regulators, analysts and even Gov. Gavin Newsom have recently blamed popular solar incentive programs for saddling other ratepayers with higher energy bills. A state ratepayers’ advocacy office argued in a December report that solar owners are being compensated too much for their panels’ excess energy and aren’t paying their “fair share” of the grid’s costs. Solar’s advocates flatly deny those contentions; Dave Rosenfeld, executive director of the Solar Rights Alliance, told SFGATE that officials’ arguments are “based on lies” and that they’re scapegoating solar owners as a convenient “villain.”

Indeed, the arguments from state officials pit the energy bills of two groups of California consumers — the haves and have-nots of at-home solar — against each other. It’s a dramatic pivot from the state with more rooftop solar panels than any other but arrives as data shows that California’s residential energy costs are almost twice as much as the U.S. average. From January 2022 to February 2025, the residential rates for PG&E customers rose 41%, and for Southern California Edison customers, 26%.

From the governor down to his appointees in the California Public Utilities Commission and its ratepayer advocacy office, state leaders have formed a unified front. The commission has go-to statistics: It says that solar incentive programs, mostly known as Net Energy Metering, or NEM — which pay solar owners for energy they send into the grid — aid solar owners and harm non-solar customers with a “cost shift“ of more than $8 billion. The commission blames pro-solar programs for up to 25% of the cost of non-solar customers’ monthly bills.

The officials have turned solar incentives into a key part of their rhetoric on electricity policy. In October, Newsom issued an executive order asking regulators to investigate energy costs and programs. He wrote that though spending to reduce wildfire risk from electrical grid equipment is a key cause of rate increases, high rates have been “driven largely” by programs like NEM. Utilities commission spokesperson Terrie Prosper told SFGATE that non-solar customers, who are “disproportionately low-income,” are stuck with more of the system’s fixed costs than solar owners — that’s the “cost shift.”

It’s a war of words that’s now coming to a head. In a Feb. 18 report responding to Newsom’s order, the commission proposed ideas for cutting electricity rates, and a few of them, if enacted, would cost solar panel owners badly. The regulators suggested kicking some solar customers off old NEM incentive plans and onto a 2023-launched version that pays less for excess power given to the grid, writing that it would “save non-participants billions of dollars.” Another commission idea would see solar owners pay a “grid benefits charge” to offset those people’s decreased payments toward grid maintenance.

Solar advocates argue, though, that the $8 billion “cost shift” statistic often cited by the California Public Utilities Commission is completely wrong — professors from San Jose State and Stanford were among a group that signed a letter supporting a consultant’s solar-funded rebuttal of the stat. Prominent energy economist Severin Borenstein, a UC Berkeley professor who has advocated for stripping back solar incentives to better distribute fixed costs, then rebutted the consultant’s rebuttal. He calculated the “cost shift” onto non-solar residential customers as $4 billion.

Dave Rosenfeld’s 150,000-member nonprofit, the Solar Rights Alliance, pushes for solar panel-friendly policies and against cuts to the net metering programs. He argued to SFGATE that greedy profit-seeking by the big utilities, rather than pro-solar programs, is driving up rates.

“You know, this is just classic scapegoating,” Rosenfeld said. “It makes sense, because if you’re the utilities, you want to keep your gravy train going, but we’re hitting a breaking point [with prices], so you need to deflect attention away from what you’re actually doing to drive up rates. And so you need a scapegoat. And so they’ve invented one with rooftop solar.”

(SFGate.com)

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TRUMP’S TARIFFS ARE ALREADY CRUSHING CALIFORNIA WINERIES

by Esther Mobley & Jess Lander

Alex Krause and John Locke owe the start of their California wine business to Quebec. But now, because of Canada’s retaliatory actions to President Trump’s tariffs, the North American neighbor has created a financial nightmare for their company.

The Santa Cruz winemakers were unsure about starting their own winery until, in 2007, they had a “very good meeting over lunch,” Krause said, with the buyer for the Societe des alcools du Quebec, the government-owned monopoly that oversees all alcohol sales in Canada’s largest province. The buyer expressed interest in a wine that Krause and Locke wanted to make: an obscure Italian white variety called Malvasia.

Because of that meeting, Krause and Locke started their winery, Birichino, and made 4,000 cases of Malvasia. For their first two years, Quebec was Birichino’s only customer.

On Tuesday, Quebec Premier François Legault announced that all American alcohol products would be removed from the province’s shelves, in retaliation for the 25% tariffs that President Trump has imposed on all Canadian products entering the U.S. The Quebecois prohibition on American booze mirrors those instated in Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The impact on U.S. alcohol could be major, as Canada is its largest export market, responsible for over $1 billion in annual sales. It comes as the American wine industry is experiencing a sharp decline in sales, and wineries of all sizes are struggling to remain solvent.

Although Trump had also instated tariffs on Mexican goods, he said on Thursday that he would delay those until April. The tax on Canadian imports remained in effect.

For Birichino, Tuesday’s announcement meant that about $25,000 worth of wine that the winery had planned to ship to Canada in the coming month was suddenly unsaleable. Because wines imported into Quebec must follow specific regulations, including labels printed in both English and French, Birichino can’t sell the bottles elsewhere.

“That’s just $25,000 in orders that’s been vaporized,” Krause said.

Birichino is one of many California wineries experiencing negative effects from Trump’s tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods. Although the president has framed the taxes as a boon to American businesses, wine producers here are reeling from the retaliatory measures in Canada.

In January, when tariffs were first announced, Kenny Likitprakong of Santa Rosa’s Hobo Wine Company told the Chronicle he had hundreds of cases of wine labeled for Canada that might get stuck in his warehouse. Ten percent of Hobo’s production is sold to Canada; for Cliff Lede Vineyards in Napa, owned by a Canadian-American family, 5% of their production is sold there.

California wine importers will have to decide between absorbing the tariff themselves, or passing the extra cost on to producers and customers. Kascadia Wine Merchants, a Bay Area wine importer and online retailer, is focused on North American wines and represents roughly a dozen producers in Canada. Kascadia founder VJ Gandhi said a massive order of Canadian wine crossed the American border from Canada just before tariffs went into effect on Tuesday. “I had the best sleep of my life (Monday) when I found out our product crossed before midnight,” she said.

Gandhi believes she now has enough inventory to get her through the first two quarters of the year. If tariffs remain in place after that, she may have to raise prices. But she’s confident her business can survive it because she also sells American wines.

“My hope is this won’t last more than a few months,” she said.

American wineries also depend heavily on goods imported from Canada, and they’ll now face increased costs on essential items like glass, corks and capsules. Birichino gets many of its lightweight glass bottles from a specialty Canadian importer (the rest of its glass comes from Mexico), and its Stelvin screwcap closures are manufactured in Quebec.

Krause estimated that the new 25% fee would amount to $15,000-$20,000 in added packaging costs. “We had ordered literally truckloads of glass from Quebec,” he said.

Hardy Wallace, co-founder of Sonoma’s Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah, gets his corks from Mexico, but “got nervous” about the threat of tariffs and paid “35% more in closures” to buy from a supplier that warehouses in the U.S. “That adds 35% to our bottling cost in a year when we don’t have 35% extra to do anything,” he said.

The constantly shifting activity around North American tariffs has created a sense of whiplash, leaving businesses like wineries unsure of how to proceed. If Birichino needs to abandon the wine it planned to send to Canada, Krause will have to manually scrape off all of the bilingual, Quebec-specific labels and apply new ones. But he held out hope that Trump’s tariffs, and consequently Canada’s boycott on American wines, might be reversed.

“Even if something miraculous happens where some sort of last-minute negotiation occurs,” said Krause, “can you imagine the warm welcome that American wines will now receive in Canada?”

(SF Chronicle)

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Bad readers have asked me if I was drugged when I wrote some of my works. But that illustrates that they don’t know anything about literature or drugs. To be a good writer you have to be absolutely lucid at every moment of writing, and in good health. I’m very much against the romantic concept of writing which maintains that the act of writing is a sacrifice, and that the worse the economic conditions or the emotional state, the better the writing. I think you have to be in a very good emotional and physical state. Literary creation for me requires good health, and the Lost Generation understood this. They were people who loved life.

— Gabriel García Márquez (photographer: Alan Riding)

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LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

Trump Whipsaws on Tariffs, Giving Mexico and Canada Reprieve

Trump’s Policies Have Shaken a Once-Solid Economic Outlook

How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious

Trump Administration Prepares to Revive and Expand Travel Bans

U.S. and Ukrainian Officials to Meet Next Week About Path to End War

National Parks Had a Record Year. Trump Officials Appear to Want It Kept Quiet

Breakup of SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Disrupts Florida Airports

2 Texas Lottery Wins Prompt Investigations and Stir Public Outrage

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I WORK REALLY HARD to not ever think about my place in the world.

I’m aware of my good fortune. I’m very aware of it, and I’m very aware that, because of it, people offer me things. Opportunities to do extraordinary things. The ones that are interesting to me are collaborations. I get to work with people who 10 years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed to have been able to work with. And that’s a big change professionally, and it’s something that I think about a lot. How can I creatively have fun, do some interesting stuff, not repeat myself? Have fun. Play in a creative way. I like making things.

— Anthony Bourdain

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EARLIER THIS WEEK, James Carville published an op-ed in the Times arguing that Democrats should “roll over and play dead”—in other words, wait for Donald Trump and his cronies to implode from their own chaos and incompetence and then “make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular.”

The political strategist underestimates the anger that many liberal voters feel toward their own party, not only for its inactivity in the past month but also for allowing Trump to win in the first place. “Carville may very well be correct in saying that the endless alarms of the first Trump Administration ultimately desensitized the public, but the Democrats also just spent the past year and a half telling us about Project 2025, the dissolution of democracy, and looming authoritarianism,” Kang writes. “When you tell people that hell is coming, some of them will actually believe you and expect their leaders to do everything in their power to stop it.”

A new type of resistance is beginning to form, Kang argues: one that feels far more angry, oppositional, and ideologically chaotic than what we’ve seen before. Small coalitions of immigration advocates, environmentalists, labor organizers, reproductive-rights activists, and perhaps even some disenchanted Republicans are starting to amass, looking for someone to stand up and say anything. “For now, these dissenters represent the best hope that a grassroots movement might instill some energy into the moribund and, frankly, embarrassing Democratic Party.” Are we about to see an internal revolt that will shape the future of liberal politics?

— Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker

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ELON’S 75-YEAR-OLD MOTHER, MAYE MUSK:

People often misunderstand Elon. He’s not motivated by money or fame—he’s motivated by the idea of improving humanity. Whether it’s making electric cars mainstream, reducing the risk of human extinction through space exploration, or ensuring the free flow of information on platforms like X, his goal has always been the same—to leave the world in a better place than he found it. And the world would be a far, far better place if there were more men like him.

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IS TRUMP PREPARING TO INVOKE THE INSURRECTION ACT? SIGNS ARE POINTING THAT WAY

A joint Department of Defense and Homeland Security report will soon recommend whether or not to invoke the Insurrection Act over illegal migration

by Brett Wagner

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.

Coincidence?

As we wait to find out, this would be a good time to take a closer look.

Say, for example, that Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. He wouldn’t even be required, by the letter of the law, to allege an “insurrection.” All that would be required is to assert that “unlawful obstruction” has made it “impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States” (as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did when he ordered the Arkansas National Guard to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock, Ark., schools).

This is where all the false claims and outright lies Trump and his political allies have been pushing will come into play: Trump falsely alleging, for example, that an entire city in Colorado has been taken over by Venezuelan street gangs, that a city in Ohio has been overrun by Haitian refugees who are eating all the cats and dogs, and other vague assertions that “millions and millions” of “illegals” are pouring into our country every week (or “day” depending on who’s telling the lie at the moment).

Each of these false claims and outright lies could be distilled, to declare martial law, into catchy phrases (beginning with the legalese word “Whereas”) to establish the legal premise for invoking the Insurrection Act, and to lay the predicate to begin going door-to-door, wherever they please, under the pretense of searching for undocumented immigrants who don’t exist.

Despite the logistical complexity, not to mention the sheer size of U.S. territory and population, implementing martial law could move quickly. Take that city in Colorado, for example:

For months leading up to the election, Trump and his surrogates spread wild lies about Aurora, promising extensive immigration raids, if elected.

Aurora just happens to already have its own Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, plus a military base, which has just been tapped to serve as a “temporary” detention center.

Project 2025 further proposes to push past Trump’s plan — already in progress (but reportedly being phased out), to house up to 30,000 detainees on a rolling basis at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — by bringing Guantanamo to a town near you: setting up additional Guantanamos scattered out all across the country.

One such potential Guantanamo I believe to be under consideration is the former Leavenworth Detention Center, a former outpost of our nation’s for-profit “prison industrial complex” located near Kansas City, Mo. Nearby residents are up in arms, hoping to prevent the site, previously closed due to egregious human rights violations, from being reopened. I recently made a trip to see it and was horrified by the thought of hundreds, if not thousands, of undocumented families being herded there like the cattle who graze across the street.

Of course, any of these Guantanamos could also potentially be used to detain U.S. citizens now that Trump is testing the waters on stripping U.S. citizens of citizenship. Vice President JD Vance has suggested that should the courts rule against the president on terminating birthright citizenship, Dear Leader could simply ignore the order.

“But what about civil disobedience?” you might ask. “You can’t just turn America into North Korea overnight!”

The only thing that stopped Trump the last time he ordered the military to open fire on American protesters (“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”) was the refusal by his then-defense secretary and top general to carry out his order.

Fast forward four years, and the venture capitalist slated to be our next top general is a Conservative Political Action Conference darling who Trump claims was wearing a MAGA hat when the two met previously in Iraq.

Other vacancies waiting to be filled are the top uniformed lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force — the three-star generals responsible for reviewing orders from the commander-in-chief and defense secretary, to decide whether they’re legal. Seeking to remove any doubt as to why the previous officers were being removed, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently explained that the action was taken, preemptively, to prevent them from blocking “orders that are given by a commander in chief.”

Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud. Sounds like Trump is well on his way to finding the right “yes men” this time around.

Meanwhile, don’t take your eyes off Elon Musk.

Is it a coincidence that the president would just happen to set the world’s richest man loose inside all of the government’s computers — allowing his biggest campaign donor, the owner of one of the world’s largest artificial intelligence companies, access to everything the government knows about you — at the same moment he could be preparing to impose martial law?

That’s something none of us should dismiss as coincidence.

(Brett Wagner, now retired, served as a professor of national security decision making for the U.S. Naval War College and adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.)

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REBOOTING THE PENTAGON

by Fred Kaplan

In 2006 Raj Shah was a captain in the US Air Force, piloting an F-16 fighter jet during the insurgency phase of the Iraq War. Not long into his tour of duty, he noticed a problem with the display screen in his cockpit: the signal from GPS satellites let him see a map of the terrain below, but there was no moving dot or icon to indicate his location in relation to coordinates on the ground. At times, on missions near the Iran-Iraq border, he couldn’t tell which country he was flying over. This was a dangerous situation: at five hundred miles per hour, one stray minute on the wrong side of the border could place him within range of Iranian air-defense weapons.

Back in his barracks, Shah had an early pocket PC called an iPAQ for playing video games. He loaded it with digital maps and strapped it to his knee while he flew. The software in that $300 gadget let him see where he was — basic information that the gadgetry on his $30 million plane could not provide.

Shah suddenly realized how far Silicon Valley had leaped ahead of the nation’s largest defense contractors in certain vital aspects of high-tech prowess. He also saw that this posed a danger to national security: the US military had long maintained an edge over its adversaries through technological superiority. Commercial software, like the tracker in his iPAQ, was available worldwide; at some point, possibly soon, the US would lose its edge — and could lose the next war.

Ten years later, after some time at business school and a cybersecurity firm, Shah was recruited to run a tiny Pentagon-funded start-up called Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUX), whose mission was to cram some of Silicon Valley’s adventurous, streamlined methods into the military’s sclerotic weapons-building apparatus.

In their new book, Unit X, Shah and his coleader in the project, Christopher Kirchhoff, tell the story of how DIUX began, met hostile resistance from nearly all corners of the defense establishment, but in the end triumphed-sort of, a little bit, though by the authors’ estimate not nearly as much as it should have.

Citizens who are not well versed in the Defense Department’s ways might assume that as the world’s threats have multiplied and our budget deficits have soared, officials would welcome something like DIUX: an agency in which the nation’s most creative innovators devise new ways to deter and fight wars more effectively and inexpensively. Alas, that is not the case. The Defense Department is a bureaucracy; like all bureaucracies, its main interest is self-protection, which largely means fending off outsiders who want to change how it operates.

And so Defense Department officials, the contractors they funded, and the legislators in states where weapons were built and provided jobs viewed DIUX — whose explicit aim was to transform the weapons-procurement business — as a threat.

Shah and Kirchhoff write that the biggest challenge in overcoming this problem is “the inherent conservatism of the military.” There is something to this: as they note, the British navy at first rejected steamships, cavalry units dismissed the practicality of tanks, and jet-fighter pilots resisted the advent of ballistic and cruise missiles and, more recently, drones. But the hostility toward DIUX, as described by Shah and Kirchhoff, was something different, directed not at military revolutions (which can be expected to stir opposition from protectors of the status quo) but simply at new ways of performing old tasks.

Besides, for roughly a half-century after World War II, the US military thrived on, and at times instigated, innovation. Radar, the atomic bomb, nuclear-powered submarines, and the Internet began in — and were, in some cases, invented by and for — the military. The microchip, though devised by scientists at two corporations (Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor), could not have entered the commercial marketplace without NASA’s space program and the Air Force’s Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, which generated enough demand for chips to spur economies of scale that made them cheap enough to install in consumer products.

All through the cold war, many defense companies, while never hotbeds of competitiveness, flourished as manufacturers of civilian goods as well and were at least open to adopting technologies and techniques from that realm.

This changed after the end of the cold war. As defense budgets plunged (there really was a “peace dividend”), many companies got out of the war business, and a small number of defense contractors — the ones that did very little but war business — came to dominate the field. Over the next few decades, those firms merged into a mere handful. This was deliberate Pentagon policy. In 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and his deputy, William Perry, gathered the leading aerospace executives at what came to be called “the last supper” and told them that the defense budget would continue to tumble and that it would be best for them to consolidate.

Eventually, four of the largest companies — Lockheed, Martin Marietta, Northrop, and Grumman (already the products of mergers and acquisitions involving 51 companies) — merged into two (Lockheed-Martin and Northrop-Grumman).

This was meant to increase efficiencies, but as often happens with monopolization (forced or natural), it had the opposite effect. As global tensions increased and defense budgets swelled beyond even those of the cold war years, the bloated, sluggish weapons-procurement machinery was too bloated and sluggish to respond with agility. Major weapons systems now take years, sometimes decades, to rumble from contract bidding to research and development to procurement and deployment, by which time their technical specs are often outmoded.

The Defense Department's annual budget has soared to $850 billion, yet many defense analysts (and not just hawkish ones) conclude that the US military is ill-prepared to fight, and might well lose, a large war that erupts with little warning.

(New York Review of Books)

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A SINGLE DRONE COULD TURN THE ‘PEACEFUL ATOM’ INTO WORLD WAR 3

by Harvey Wasserman

Vladimir Putin right now has in his sights nearly 300 pre-deployed atomic weapons set to easily launch a radioactive apocalypse with a single drone strike.

He may already have crashed an early warning into the sarcophagus at Chernobyl.

And taken as a whole, the “Peaceful Atom” lends a terrifying reality to Donald Trump’s Oval Office threat of an impending World War 3.

Some 180 operational “Peaceful Atom” reactors now operate throughout Europe. There are 93 more in the US, 19 in Canada, two in Mexico.

Putin, or anyone else of his ilk, would need precisely one technician with one weaponized drone to turn any “peaceful” nuke into a radioactive apocalypse.

When Donald Trump brought Ukraine’s Volodymir Zelensky into the Oval Office to accuse him of flirting with “World War 3,” atomic reactors were among the specifics he failed to cite.

As of today, more than 50 commercial nuclear power plants are considered operable in France. Another 130+ operate in Belarus; Belgium; Bulgaria; the Czech Republic; Finland; Hungary; the Netherlands; Romania; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Ukraine; the UK (Germany, Italy and Lithuania have gone nuke-free).

Six reactors are under unstable Russian control at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia; two more are in Kursk, now a hotly contested war zone. Russia has a further three dozen.

Each could blanket the globe with atomic radiation, as has Chernobyl Unit 4 since it exploded on April 26, 1986.

The still-hot Chernobyl core could explode yet again.

Europe has collectively spent more than $2 billion to cover that core with a giant sarcophagus, the world’s largest movable structure.

On February 14, 2025, it was struck by a military drone.

Putin denies ordering the hit. His supporters say it could have been a “false flag.” But the drone itself was of an Iranian design widely used by the Russians.

On-going maintenance at Chernobyl has been conflicted and highly suspect, especially as impacted by the Russian invasion. After decades of denial, nuke supporters admit that what’s left of Chernobyl #4 could explode again. A definitive 2007 study by the Russian Academy of Sciences put the downwind human death toll at more than 985,000…and rising.

Three melt-downs and four explosions at American-designed reactors at Fukushima have raised the stakes. Caused by an earthquake and tidal wave, their lost cores still send unfathomable quantities of radioactive poisons into the Pacific, with no end in sight.

Both Fukushima and Chernobyl have released far more radioactive cesium and other deadly isotopes than did the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No western insurer will gamble against the likelihood of a new catastrophe caused by natural disasters, faulty designs, operator error, or acts of terror…drone-inflicted or otherwise.

Even without drone attacks, America’s 21st century reactor projects are catastrophic economic failures. Two at VC Summer, South Carolina, are dead, at a cost of $9 billion. Two more at Vogtle, Georgia, came in years behind schedule, billions over budget and completely incapable of competing with renewables. Talks of reviving shut reactors like Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Michigan’s Palisades and Duane Arnold in Iowa all depend on huge federal subsidies to cover vastly inflated market prices.

Parallel projects in France, Britain and Finland are also very late and far beyond budget.

Soaring costs and lagging production schedules have already killed the first order from NuScale, the first licensed US producer of Small Modular Reactors.

No significant supply from SMRs can be realistically expected in less than a decade. None can be protected from drone attacks.

But the billions SMR (Silly Mythological Rip-offs) backers want to squander on this pre-failed technology will help keep Europe dependent on Putin’s gas.

Germany has shut all its reactors, as have Italy and Lithuania. Putin’s war has destabilized their fossil fuel supply, especially complicating Germany’s transition to 100% renewables, still likely within the next decade.

Corporate hype will not can’t deliver any new nukes, big or small, that can compete with wind, solar, battery backup or increased efficiency, all of whose cost projections continue to plummet.

And no explosion at a wind turbine or solar panel will ever cause a radioactive apocalypse.

But whoever attacked the Chernobyl sarcophagus has made it clear that as long as atomic reactors continue to operate, World War 3 is just a drone strike away.

(Harvey Wasserman wrote ‘The People’s Spiral Of Us History: From Jigonsaseh To Solartopia.’ Most Mondays @ 2-4pm PT, he co-convenes the Green Grassroots Election Protection Zoom (www.electionprotection2024). The Mothers for Peace (www.mothersforpeace.org) could use your help in the struggle to shut the Diablo Canyon nukes. (CounterPunch.org).)

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PRESIDENT TRUMP’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

by Matt Taibbi

We’ve devolved a long way since Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina infamously (or famously, depending on your point of view) heckled President Obama in 2009 with a shout of “You lie!” as he addressed a joint session of Congress. It was shocking. The Associated Press called it “an extraordinary breach of congressional decorum.” Wilson quickly apologized.

Fast forward to Wednesday night. Wilson’s antics are nothing compared to what we saw from cane-waving Democratic Congressman Al Green of Texas as he disputed Trump’s contention that he has a mandate. Green’s performance makes me want to tell Wilson, “Bless your heart. You tried.”

Green caused a roughly 3-minute delay—although the Republican chants of USA! USA! USA! to drown him out contributed to that. The Sergeant at Arms escorted Green out of the chamber, but not before Vice President JD Vance gave the heave-ho sign to throw him out by jerking his thumb behind his shoulder. Then there were the Democrats standing and holding signs like “False” and “Musk Steals” as Trump spoke. It was quite the resistance.

And, perhaps as President Trump would say, it made for good television.

But outside, as a News2Share video from Ford Fischer shows, there was a stronger message from activists than what we’ve become accustomed to the last few years. Sure, activists had some crass language—as any good protest does—but they weren’t annoying and getting in the way of others with absurd gimmicks like holding up traffic. In other words, they weren’t being assholes. It was organized opposition. Any American ought to love our right to do that.…

https://youtu.be/MFNnktlZ4u4

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IF YOU WANT TO FIGHT THE MACHINE, Don’t Move To The Right

by Caitlin Johnstone

People in politics and media who oppose the status quo often drift rightward, especially in the US. Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr are some clear recent examples, but you see it happen all the time.

This is because the Trumpian political wing offers mainstream power and influence to those with an “anti-establishment” streak, while mainstream progressive politics doesn’t offer anything close. If you’re a right wing “populist” you can get elected president, while anyone to the left of Kamala Harris sees their campaigns sabotaged with smears and rigged primaries.

We see a similar dynamic play out in independent media; you’ll see many solidly leftist commentators drifting to the right as they find bigger numbers in attacking liberal institutions than attacking the Trumpian faction, because anti-establishment sentiment is much more mainstream on the right. A much larger audience pool has been allowed to amass there for hostility toward establishment institutions — because the right poses no threat to real power.

And therein lies the key point. Anti-establishment figures in politics and punditry aren’t drifting rightward because the right has better arguments or is more solidly grounded in truth and morality, they’re drifting rightward because the so-called “populist right” has been allowed to flourish while its mirror on the left has not. Right wing “populism” has been allowed to flourish by the very power structures its proponents purport to oppose, while the authentic left has been systematically dismantled by generations of aggressive imperial operations (look up COINTELPRO for example). That’s why you see Trump backed by oligarchs, empire managers and DC swamp monsters and see Trumpism uplifted by the Murdoch press, while anti-imperialist socialism can barely even be said to exist anywhere in the US-aligned world.

So while the power and influence offered by right wing “populist” factions can be tempting, that power and influence only exists because those factions are supported and defended by the empire itself. Public discontent is being corralled toward establishment-friendly political structures so that it doesn’t head anywhere that can threaten the mechanics of the empire, while authentic opposition to capitalism, militarism and empire building is viciously subverted by any means necessary. Bernie Sanders and AOC play the same role on the other side of the aisle, by the way, as do ostensibly leftist media like TYT who herd people back into support for the Democratic Party.

Real opposition to real power is not permitted to ascend to the presidency of the world’s most powerful government. It is marginalized, smeared and subverted, and kept as small as possible. That’s why some who begin with sincere opposition to real power find themselves drawn to the right: it’s larger and offers more opportunities, because it is more aligned with the ruling power structures of our day.

It’s fool’s gold. It sells you power and influence so that you can fight the power, but after you’ve made that bargain you find yourself on the same side as the power. You sold out for nothing. You might as well have skipped the middle part and gone directly to collecting the big bucks whoring yourself out to mainstream politics and media defending the empire without pretending to be something else.

Staying true and authentic can be hard. It comes at a price. You don’t get to see your favorite politicians win elections and take important positions in government. You don’t get to amass tens of millions of loyal followers who hang on your every word. You lose friends and alienate family members with your positions on war and capitalism and imperialism and Zionism. You can’t even watch a movie or a show without being frequently disgusted by the empire propaganda you’ll see. It isn’t pretty. But at least it’s real.

It’s another one of those red pill vs blue pill deals. Do you want disconcerting truths or comforting lies? If you want to be true to what’s true, you don’t compromise your values to support political factions which help prop up the very power structures you oppose. You stay focused on the enemy. You keep throwing sand in the gears of the machine, hoping that if enough people throw enough sand it will eventually come crashing down, but self-assured that you’re going to keep throwing sand either way, win or lose.

Sure it’s hard. Sure it entails a lot of disappointments and losses. But at least it’s real. At least it stands a chance at beating the bastards, however small. As weak and pathetic as you can feel throwing haymakers at a globe-spanning empire some days, it sure beats the hell out of collaborating with it. And that’s exactly what you’d be doing by joining up with fraudulent political factions which claim to oppose the empire.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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