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YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Boonville 86°, Ukiah 86°, Covelo 85°, Yorkville 83°, Laytonville 82°, Fort Bragg 73°, Mendocino 72°, Point Arena 67°
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy (I think?) 50F this Wednesday morning on the coast. Rain returns about midday today & sticks around for about a week with maybe a break on Saturday. Sneaker waves continue along the shore & a tsunami warning test will take place at 11am today, if you are near the harbor, you'll know.
THE CLOSE VICINITY of a strong Pacific cyclone will bring strong southerly winds today through late Thursday. Thunderstorms are forecast for the interior mountains of mainly Trinity County today. Rainfall will be moderate to heavy through Friday morning, potentially bringing minor flooding risk. The risk for additional heavy rain and strong winds return Sunday with another area of low pressure. The active pattern may then extend into next week. (NWS)
SINGLE VEHICLE FATAL ACCIDENT ON TEN MILE CUT OFF LEAVES TWO CHILDREN DEAD
The CHP and Sheriff’s office are investigating a fatal single-vehicle crash on March 24, 2025 at about 8:50am on Ten Mile Cut Off Road, just north of Schooner Gulch Road, outside of Point Arena. A 2016 Toyota was traveling north on Ten Mile Cut Off when it veered off the road and collided with a tree resulting in the loss of two young lives, a 16 year old girl and a ten year old girl. Emergency responders attempted lifesaving measure but both victims succumbed to their injuries on scene. Alcohol or drug impairment is not believed to have been a factor in the collision. The driver, Orlando Sanchez, 19, of Gualala, suffered minor injuries. The identities of the victims are being withheld because they are minors. “Our deepest condolences go out to their loved ones during this difficult time,” said CHP Officer W. Todd, investigating officer.
2 GIRLS DIE IN MENDOCINO COUNTY CRASH
The driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital for treatment, according to authorities.
by Tarini Mehta
Two Gualala girls died Monday morning after the vehicle they were riding in veered off the roadway and crashed into a tree near Point Arena, authorities said.
The 19-year-old driver, a male family member also from Gualala, suffered minor injuries in the single-vehicle crash, according to the California Highway Patrol’s Ukiah office. He was taken to a local hospital for treatment, authorities said.
His two passengers, a 16-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl, died at the scene of their injuries, despite lifesaving measures by emergency responders, the CHP said in a Tuesday news release.
At about 8:50 a.m., their 2016 Toyota was traveling north on Ten Mile Cut Off Road, just north of Schooner Gulch Road, when it crashed.
A paramedic was on scene within minutes, CHP Sgt. Piers Pritt told The Press Democrat, while Cal Fire units and other medical personnel arrived around 9:30 a.m.
The identities of the girls are being withheld because they are minors. Authorities did not say how the three people were related.
Alcohol or drugs are not suspected factors in the crash, although speeding may have played a role, Pritt said.
The cause of the crash is under investigation by the CHP and Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.
(pressdemocrat.com)
CEO DENOUNCED
Three outspoken women took to the Supervisors’ public speakers podium during public expression on Tuesday to bluntly denounce County CEO Darcie Antle and the Supervisors for their roles in the Cubbison/Kennedy criminal case. The first woman, Teresa McNerlin, is a long-time board member and former chair of the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District. The other two women gave their names, but in one case, the mic had been turned off by the time she said it, and in the other case the name given was not fully legible; it sounded like Sullenberger. (Mark Scaramella)
McNerlin:
I am a County resident. I sit on an elected board. I sit on two other boards. I am a combat veteran. I am a wife and a mom. Mendocino County CEO Darcie Antle has taken a leading role in unnecessarily costing our county hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of dollars. She has demonstrated poor judgment, lacks discernment, and an absence of integrity and honesty. An example of this is the many times she lied while under oath in court committing perjury. I witnessed this first-hand when she lied about when a contract was executed. When faced with the fact that it was actually signed two years after she said it was signed, she sat there and pretended that she didn’t know what it meant to execute a contract. And it was her signature. We have also learned that she committed perjury at least four more times regarding the knowledge of the disputed 470 pay code. Making poor decisions is nothing new for the CEO. Let’s not forget how she single-handedly, without consulting the VA staff, moved the Veterans Office, only to have it moved back again after public outrage. Or the insistence on consolidating the Auditor Controller and Treasurer Tax Collector Office to one department under her control. This is clearly a lack of checks and balances. The people of this County want an elected Auditor Controller and a separate elected Treasurer Tax Collector. I have to assume that this stupid decision to consolidate made by the board and the CEO was so that the DA’s office parties at the steakhouse can continue without being questioned. Darcie Antle continues to make poor decisions. She has ordered our elected Auditor Controller to not speak to the person who held her job for the last 17 months! And she has unnecessarily put hoops in front of the Auditor Controller to do her job for this County. This is not how you do business in this County, nor does it benefit the people who live here. Darcie Antle has brought her high school mean girl drama to this County and it is embarrassing. You cannot trust the CEO. She has proven to be untrustworthy, unprofessional, and a liar. Her poor decisions, her ease in committing perjury, and her misappropriation of public funds in approving a broiler steakhouse dinner for the DA’s office party is grounds for immediate termination without any pay or benefits. When is this board going to shake yourselves out of your stupor and do something? Our Auditor Controller was found guilty of NOTHING! In fact, the judge called her a whistleblower. In return, you removed her from office without pay or benefits, and now you are refusing to make her whole. The CEO’s advice is just that: it’s advice. You do not have to follow it. You can have an independent thought and make independent decisions. Clearly the advice to remove Ms. Cubbison was total rubbish. I urge you to do the right thing now. Fire the CEO, pay our Auditor Controller her backpay and benefits and support her in the work she is doing for this county.
Board Chair John Haschak: Thank you.
McNerlin: No. 30 more seconds.
Haschak: You have had three minutes.
McNerlin continues talking off-mic.
Haschak: Thank you. Cut her off, please. Ok.
McNerlin: Continues talking off-mic.
Haschak: Thank you.
Woman #2:
I am a 51 year resident of Mendocino County I am here to express my thoughts regarding the Cubbison-Kennedy case. I am shocked that there is a board direction to refuse payment to Chamise and Paula for all their related expenses of the criminal case. The Board decision to pursue them in the first place was clearly wrong from the beginning. There has been an abundance of suffering, lies, hidden facts, much lost time and waste of money, mistrust and so much more that the public will never know about. For decades, there have been serious financial issues in Mendocino County, and you choose to fire an elected, honest, very qualified person? Big mistake. Why it would make sense to fire the one person in the county who knows more about accounts receivable, and accounts payable doesn’t make sense. For $68,000m the county has lost $1 to $2 million or possibly north of that in the criminal case. Now you want to pile on more expense? The same qualified and honest judge will hear the civil case. This was started by an attorney and continues with more attorneys who are looking for work. We the people of Mendocino County will lose again. This time, even more money as the civil case gets pushed behind the criminal cases. Time is money. These cases will mean an even larger loss to discretionary spending at a difficult time in our economic history. Years ago, when combining the Auditor Controller, Treasurer Tax Collector was considered, those who spoke had little or no support, and this decision was opposed by county employees, and the public. The board went forward as employees said they would quit and they did. At that time there was a difficult new computer system which was hard to work with. Yet these offices were reshuffled, with different bosses for one and a half years, and then the new boss was fired by the board members, and the new boss was fired over a court case. That case was thrown out. Ms. Cubbison is back with her employees, and you have decided that she should not be compensated. And you have refused a lot other expenses as well. That leaves us wondering about your concern for responsible spending and your concern for county employees. I am asking you to admit the mistake, pay for it and move on with business at this time.
Woman #3:
Fortunately, I had the time to sit in on every single word of testimony in the Cubbison-Kennedy case and the hearings. The issue of credibility came up. CEO Antle, and other County employees — the judge stated they were not credible. I have heard a lot of things that were very disappointing. I have been a lifelong citizen of this county. I am amazed at how many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in this case. It is a witch hunt. I kept asking, where is the evidence? Where is the evidence?! I kept waiting for some evidence. And there was nothing! Zero! It was shameful! The entire County was shameful. I am very disappointed by the actions of the Board of Supervisors, not for the new ones, but by the actions taken on this terrible advice. But I really want to address CEO Antle’s leadership decisions. Under oath she stated she personally checks all 1200 or 1400 employee paychecks. She said 1200. She personally checks their time cards. Personally! And her deputy CEO. So there’s two eyes on it. That is a terrible leadership decision by the executive, for the executive office officer to be doing this work. If she would like to be payroll manager, she should apply for the job. The perjury? I was there when she said it. She said she had not heard about 470, she didn’t talk to anybody about 470, she never knew about 470 and other County employees said the exact same thing. And now it has come out that she knew about it six months before Ms. Cubbison brought it to her attention. But she didn’t bring it up then. Think about how many thousands of dollars. It could have stopped then. Well, Miss Kennedy did the work. But it went on. Every six months. Why would she not bring that to anyone’s attention if that was the case? And she did not. And she lied about it on the stand. I recently read on the agenda that she has asked for some of her CEO duties, her workload, to be reduced. Apparently you have already done it a month ago. Perhaps that did not need to be. Instead, she is still choosing to check everybody’s time cards which she specifically said. This perjury issue really needs to be investigated. I think you should look into that. And I do believe it needs to be from an independent investigator. I do not believe that it can happen in this county without bias. Lastly, I think it’s time for you get back to work and stop the bleeding. This case is ridiculous. Pay the lady her money and—
Haschak: Thank you.
Woman: …lost pay.
LAZ OF WILLITS REPORTING:
Ms, Cubbison today…at the BOS
Not being schooled in the finery of County Econ 101, I can only speak to what I saw. Ms. Cubbison’s report to the Board was professional, polite, and seemingly precise. However, during the prelim to Ms. Cubbison’s reports several supporters of Ms. Cubbison’s were eloquently skilled in painting the CEO and others, in summary as, awful people, professionally and personally. Who conspired to ruin a fellow worker who refused to play their game.
9:17 into the meeting…
What now?
Laz
BILL KIMBERLIN: The camera guys at ILM used to call light like this, that we were trying to recreate, "God Light". This was off my porch a while ago.
ED NOTES
WHEREVER he is I will always admire Pete Wilson, the KGO newsman who died unexpectedly while undergoing hip replacement surgery. Wilson was a free speech guy all the way. When the Judi Bari cult tried to prevent author Kate Coleman from appearing on Wilson’s KGO talk show (they did prevent Kate from speaking at the Fort Bragg library and nearly shut her down in Mendocino), Pete, on-air, said, “Let me ask you about the bomb case, and we’ll open up the phones and give people a shot at this. They will be calling in. I hope this doesn’t become only the people on one side who have decided to call in and grab the phones. But that can happen… Which I think is a form of fascism, but that’s just me.”
NO, PETE, that’s most of us, and when it comes to shutting down opinions they don’t like, the “progressives” could show the Fox News Network a thing or two. Cindy Sheehan, in a poignant observation, said she found that many of the people she thought were on her side were as bad, if not worse, than the Bush-ism monsters back in the day.
WHEN JIM MITCHELL, of the renowned or, depending on how blue your nose is, reviled, Mitchell Brother’s Theater in San Francisco, shot his brother Artie to death back in 1991, Jim and his supporters were very unhappy with the prejudicial coverage the shocking event was receiving in the Bay Area papers. Warren Hinckle decided Jim would get fairer treatment in the AVA, especially if Warren wrote the coverage himself. So every week while Jim’s trial was underway in Marin, we’d print up a couple thousand extra papers and trundle them down to the theater. I was handsomely compensated for the extra effort, and not only by the fleshly acre of naked women I couldn’t help but see as they roamed the busy premises as I, an all-business bumpkin from Boonville, lugged the papers to the theater’s upstairs office. From the O’Farrell Street sin palace the papers were driven to Marin where they were distributed the next day throughout the Marin County Courthouse. Maybe the counter-coverage worked because Jim got three years for ending his brother’s turbulent (manslaughter), apparently menacing life. Naked women in the aggregate might as well be a field of sunflowers and I came away with only one vivid memory of the theater — an old man in a walker emerging from one of the alcoves with a big smile on his face. “Do you get a lot of old guys?” I asked theater manager Jim Armstrong. “Right around the first of the month, we do,” he said, “when their social security checks come in.”
A READER WRITES: “My friend asked me to be her plus-one at a wedding. I had never met the happy couple. When we arrived, most of the guests were already there. I wore attire that I thought was suitable for the occasion. I was sorely mistaken. In contrast with the white satin pants and blouse I had chosen, the other guests were milling around in cut-off shorts and matching plastic cups filled to the brim with Coors Lite. My friend and I (the only people of color in attendance) dutifully took our seats and waited for the ceremony to begin. The preacher asked us all to stand. Then, to the tune of Marvin Gaye's ‘Let's Get It On’ the wedding party emerged. After the ceremony, the groom yelled, ‘Let's get it on,’ and chuckled to himself. That was our cue to go. Let the gringos party.”
THE BI-ANNUAL story on junkies and bums living in Golden Gate Park has hit the Bay Area media again. Everyone’s huffing and puffing about how the bums and the junkies are wrecking the park. Which they are for Mom, Pop and The Kids. And they irritate millions more like me, and I say, and I want each and every one of you to get out your notepads and write this down: “Persons unwilling or unable to care for themselves must be taken off the streets and out of the bushes and put into lock-up rehab facilities. It is not good to let the self-mutilating die in doorways. It is not right to let them wreck the most beautiful park in the land. It’s pure lunacy to give dopers needles and expect them to exchange them for clean ones. Frisco owns a lot of rural property in NorCal and in the Sierras. You put the junkies in one camp, the juicers in another, the nuts and incompetents over there, the weenie waggers and miscellaneous pervs over here, the merely undesirable you ship to Mendocino County as therapists.” Thank you. Next problem?
IN BLOOM AT MENDOCINO COAST BOTANICAL GARDENS: Magnolias, Rhododendrons, Heaths, Camilias, Grevilias, Fuchsias, Perennial Bulbs, Azaleas…
The gray whale migration, ultra-fragrant tender species of rhododendrons, daffodils, apple blossoms, and plum blossoms, along with native wildflowers like wild ginger, and the ever-so-charming "footsteps of spring,” which resemble bright green paint spots on the bluffs.
The Gardens, Nursery, and Gift Shop are open daily from 9AM to 4PM Summer Hours begin April 1 — the Gardens will be open until 5 daily
As we approach the end of winter, I love the bright yellows and whites that hint of sunshine in the garden before the change in the weather. The Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden is blanketed in early spring and often throughout the season with a delightful little wildflower called Meadowfoam (Limnanthes douglasii).
Meadowfoam is a low-to-the-ground, self-seeding annual herb bearing white flowers with bright yellow centers. It is native to California and Oregon, where it can be found in wet spring meadows and vernal pools. It is equipped to survive and thrive in both heavy clay and sandy soil.
The crowded young mass of Meadowfoam sprouts out-compete many of the winter weeds, waiting for the first long days of sunlight to show their cheerful blossoms. This agreeable native will attract the eye of human visitors as well as bees and beneficial insects such as the hoverfly, whose larvae eat aphids. In the fall, we often leave the old plants on the bed with seeds intact. The straw acts as a weed suppressant and ensures the survival of next year’s seedlings.
There is a lot to be grateful for when it comes to Meadowfoam. It is an excellent selection for incorporating natives into your landscape; it is prolific but not aggressive, and it is a treat for beneficial insects. I am looking forward to seeing the sea of yellow blooms that beckon spring!
More than 1,000 rhododendrons can be seen blooming throughout the Gardens during peak bloom in March, April, and May, including more than 124 species of rhododendrons and 315 taxa, many of them developed by the region's prolific, enthusiastic, and generous rhododendron growers!
Explore the Gardens' natural history and learn to think like a naturalist! Join MCBG Horticulturist Paul Ruiz-Lopez on a nature walk through the horticultural and natural areas of the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. Coming up on April 12 and 26, Paul will give an introduction to the wide variety of coastal wildflowers found at MCBG. We will compare how plants grow differently in a horticultural setting versus a wild setting, learn the names of flowers and their natural history, and discuss how the history and current use of the gardens’ property has affected the species we see (or don’t see) here today.
www.gardenbythesea.org
NAME THAT BEACH…
QUARTETO AMERICANOS in Ukiah, April 6
At 2:00PM on Sunday, April 6, at the Mendocino College Center Theatre, UCCA presents one of the most popular and accomplished Latin Jazz artists of our time, Cuban composer and pianist Omar Sosa, accompanied by the three stellar artists that make up Quarteto Americanos.
To quote Hot House Jazz Magazine, he is "as dazzling a pianist and idea-maker as there is in Latin Jazz today. Omar Sosa is an immense talent and never ceases to amaze."
Omar Sosa is one of the most versatile jazz artists on the scene today.
The Quarteto Americanos fuses a wide range of jazz, world music, and electronic elements with Omar's native Afro-Cuban roots to create a fresh and original urban sound – all with a Latin jazz heart.
Quarteto Americanos’ improvisational approach is eclectic and energizing!
Tickets for non-season subscribers are $35 in advance and $40 at the door, if not sold out Advance tickets are available on the UCCA website and at Mendocino Book Company in Ukiah and Mazahar in Willits.
As part of our on-going Educational Outreach Program, free tickets are available to youth 17 and under when accompanied by an adult, and to full-time (12 units) college students. Free tickets must be reserved in advance by calling 707-463-2738 with name, phone number and email address.
Thank you to our sponsors for their generous support: Arts Council of Mendocino, KZYX&Z, KWINE, Ukiah Daily Journal, Black Oak Coffee, Schat’s Bakery, Lost in the Cellar, Graziano Family of Wines, Cesar Toxqui Cellars, W/E Flowers, Mendocino College Foundation and Mendocino College Recording Arts & Technology Program.
For more information, contact the UCCA at 707-463-2738 or email us at info@ukiahconcerts.org
LAMPLMAYER FAMILY VAULT
“John Lamplmayr of Albion has just had an elaborate concrete vault constructed on his lot in Evergreen cemetery to contain the ashes of departed ones after cremation. There are crypts or niches built inside the vault to hold the urns. The outside of the structure is highly polished like marble. There are walks around the lot with a grassy lawn and flowers in profusion. Henry Zill of Fort Bragg built the vault, which is the first of its kind erected in the local cemeteries. Mr. Lamplmayr had the vault erected in memory of his father [John Lamplmayr, Sr., who passed away in December 1925], whose ashes have been placed in it.” — Mendocino Beacon, June 5, 1926.
IN-N-OUT’S BIGGEST RIVAL TO EXPAND INTO RURAL NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Habit Burger’s Ukiah location is set to open in early 2026
by Matt LaFever
Ukiah is about to become the battleground for a good-natured burger rivalry. Habit Burger & Grill, a Southern California-headquartered chain that has gained traction as a competitor to the legendary In-N-Out, is set to open a new location in the Mendocino County seat.
The new restaurant is slated to take over the former Denny’s site at 105 Pomeroy St, which has sat vacant since the diner’s closure in the summer of 2023. The application to renovate the building was formally submitted earlier this month, and the approval process is now underway.
Jesse Davis, chief planning manager for the city of Ukiah, told SFGATE in an email that Habit Burger’s parent company, UK 105 Investments LLC, submitted a Minor Site Development Permit application on March 10.
“Since the closure of Denny’s in 2023, the City has responded to several inquiries and facilitated multiple pre-development meetings related to the parcel and its signage allowances,” Davis said. “The project is currently scheduled for review by the Design Review Board on March 27, 2025, which will provide a recommendation to the City’s Zoning Administrator. That hearing is anticipated to take place in mid-April.”
The application fee for the Minor Site Development Permit is a fixed $1,000, with additional permits required for renovations and landscaping improvements, Davis said.
While the wheels of local government turn, Habit Burger has set a tentative timeline for opening. “The Ukiah location isn’t slated to open until early 2026,” said Kathy Kwon, spokesperson for Karsha Chang Public Relations, which represents Habit Burger.
Ukiah’s In-N-Out opened in 2017 to much fanfare, with eager fans lining up outside on opening day, according to the Ukiah Daily Journal. Now, the city will soon have another burger powerhouse in its midst — one that has recently made headlines for challenging In-N-Out’s dominance.
In July 2024, Habit Burger was named the best fast food burger in the country by USA Today, besting In-N-Out in the rankings. The chain quickly leaned into the victory, placing billboards across Southern California — where In-N-Out is also headquartered — that read simply: “Congrats on #2, In-N-Out.”
Once both chains are operating in Ukiah, local burger lovers may have to choose sides.
One Mendocino County leader sees the new restaurant as an opportunity to stimulate the local economy.
“As a rural community, attracting businesses like Habit Burger and Hobby Lobby isn’t just about adding new shopping and dining options—it’s about creating opportunities for our local businesses to thrive,” said Mo Mulheren, Second District supervisor, who represents Ukiah on the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. “Increased foot traffic means more customers exploring our unique boutiques, restaurants, and services, strengthening our local economy. By welcoming well-known retailers while continuing to support our small businesses, we can build a balanced and vibrant marketplace that benefits everyone.”
However, some local business owners are more cautious about what the arrival of a major chain means for smaller establishments.
Stephanie Dunken, who has co-owned Slam Dunk Pizza in Ukiah with her husband Matt since 2013, acknowledged both the challenges and the benefits of a corporate franchise entering the market.
“Sixty-seven cents of every dollar remains local with a small locally owned business and only .43 for every dollar for other businesses,” Dunken told SFGate. “I do like, what I’m assuming is a corporate franchise owner, has the money to fix up one of our many buildings in town that needs some TLC.”
She also noted that small businesses like hers constantly compete with large chains. “We have to continue to do what they can’t. … Small business can do more local and community advertising, donating etc without corporate oversight.”
ANOTHER E-BAY ITEM OF LOCAL INTEREST
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, March 25, 2025
ARIANA ARNOLD, 21, Hopland. Domestic violence court order violation.
TRAVIS BONSON, 45, Ukiah. Paraphernalia.
GARY COSTA, 35, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.
JOY CUNNINGHAM, 43, Mendocino. Resisting, failure to appear.
ANDRES FUENTES-LUCERO, 30, Ukiah. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%, suspended license for DUI, fourth or more prior within last ten years, no license, probation violation.
JOSE GONZALEZ-GONZALEZ, 28, Ukiah. Stolen property, registration tampering, vehicle with altered ID number.
MIGUEL GONZALEZ-GONZALEZ, 25, Ukiah. Stolen property, registration tampering, vehicle with altered ID number.
CRYSTAL ODELL, 43, Covelo. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.
CASEY RAY, 34, Ukiah. County parole violation.
PATRICK RIDLEY, 24, Covelo. Assault weapon, machine gun, loaded firearm in public, negligent discharge of firearm.
LIONAL ROBITAILLE, 63, Hoopa/Ukiah. DUI.
CHRISTINE WHITEHEAD, 33, Ukiah. Failure to appear.
TRIMMER SCENES
by Paul Modic
I met my trimmer at the coffee shop in Eureka to see about resuming work. We started talking and I told her she was unreliable because she left for the weekend and didn't contact me again for six weeks.
Rain became enraged and started screaming at me. She stood up and I stood up and I screamed back at her. The people at the other tables looked up a little shocked as we went at it for a few more seconds but we didn't care. She went outside and I followed her out the door. When we got to her car we quickly made up, she was coming back to work. She needed the job and I needed a trimmer. (The new deal included that she would bring her two mismatched dogs to the site.)
For a while I had this trimmer coming down from Arcata who was always many hours late or just didn't show up. Finally I said, “Look, when you're ready to come down just call me any day when you're leaving Eureka and I'll expect you in an hour.” So she called from Eureka and still rolled in many hours later.
Finally I said, “Are you in love with me and you're showing this flaky unreliable side to see if I can handle you?” (Cue the shocked and annoyed look on her face.)
One harvest the new trimmers were complaining how hard it was to clean and I thought, “Shit, my weed's crappy,” so I raised the wage about 25%. So they were rockin' along when my usual guy showed up and he was wide-eyed and excited about the new wage scale. He ripped through the weed making bank and I realized my weed wasn't bad, those trimmers were. (I knew it would be bad form to try to change it back to the usual that year so I just thought of that rock anthem, “'I won't be fooled again!”)
It was nice to have older, more mature women working with me and then I got a gorgeous young one. She was so emotionally distraught that I had to give her a hug at least twice a day to settle her down and melt away her tears. (Don't get me wrong, that's one of my favorite things to do, but still…)
Anyway, one night their toilet got plugged up and the plunger didn't solve it. They came and got me and after I tried the plunger and then the snake it finally went down.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, I had a big wad of used paper towels and when I threw it to the waste basket it missed and went in the toilet,” the young one said. “Then I took a big ol' shit on top of it and flushed.”
“Well, did you learn anything from that?”
“Yeah, next time I miss the waste basket I'll fish it out of the toilet.”
You know how they say you can feel someone watching you? Well, it's not true. One year this young woman came by to help me transplant: I mixed the potting soil and transplanted and she carried the plants along this straight walkway about forty feet long. As she walked with a dancer's posture, a five gallon container in each arm, I just stood there and stared at her walking away, talking to myself, “Oh god, oh man.”
Once she heard me, stopped, turned her head back and said, “What? What's happening?”
“Oh, uh, just getting this job done,” I mumbled, turning hurriedly back to the pile of dirt. (I watched her make that trek at least 50 times, with transfixed admiration and appreciation.)
I may have sexually harassed a worker once in a pretty harmless way. I took a walk to the river with a busty, herby trimmer girl. We had been working and she was getting me kind of excited talking about her polyamory. I reached over and took her hand and we walked like that for about a minute until she broke it off. After that I sensed an Arctic coolness from her in the last days she was there. (I wondered if what bothered her more than me holding her hand was her going along with it for a minute?)
In Mexico and Europe the formal greetings are a the kiss on the cheek to the woman and a handshake to a man. Whenever I went in for a kiss on the cheek of this long-time trimmer, a young Mexican friend, she always kissed me on the lips. So one day I just went in for her lips.
“Ooh, wet,” she said, and never kissed me on the lips again. (I guess it's about who's in charge, usually youth and beauty.)
One day I thought a cute trimmer girl had said, “I want to kiss you.”
“You want to kiss me?” I replied.
“No, I want to kiss Hugh!” she said, and then she did.
Later she said, “You'd like to have sex with me, wouldn't you?”
“Well, umm, uhh, err…,” I said
“You mean you wouldn't like to have sex with me?” she said.
“Well, uhh, sure,” I said.
“Yeah, okay, well I figured…,” she said.
End of story. (Sorry Chuck)
Welcoming Note to a New Crew
Alright you're here, thank you, I need the help! How I envision it is I set you loose trimming and then I go do my thing, harvesting. This is not one of those jobs where it's big and chunky and easy and my only anxiety is that you won’t be happy with the stuff. I just want to be nice and generous and hope we all have a good experience. It just has to be done well, otherwise what's the point? So dear workers, lovely ladies, let's go put some lipstick on this pig, turn this straw into gold.
Any questions?
DELTA TUNNEL HEARING CANCELLED AFTER HACKER TAKES OVER ZOOM PLATFORM
by Dan Bacher
A large number of people were scheduled on Monday to testify and comment on the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP), potentially the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history, when a bizarre hacking incident occurred on the Zoom platform that the California State Water Resources Control Board was using for a hearing.
The hearing was regarding the pending petitions for a change in water rights by the California Department of Water Resources that are required to move forward with the Delta Tunnel. The project is opposed by a coalition of Tribes, fishing groups, environmental organizations, Delta counties, Delta water districts, Delta farmers, Southern California water ratepayers and the public.…
HOW ARE FEDERAL CUTS GOING TO IMPACT YOUR HEALTH CARE? AS A DOCTOR, I’M NOT GOING TO SUGARCOAT IT.
by Gerald Hsu
At the end of a typical visit, I’ll ask my patients, “Do you have any more questions?” Of late, they’ll ask about the impact of executive orders and federal funding cuts on their care. As an oncologist, my reflex is to provide reassurance that has been some version of, “As long as we have a pharmacy and an infusion center with chemotherapy, I plan to keep your treatment on track.”
But my assurances are starting to feel hollow. With the announcement of cancellations of over $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University — and the prospect of similar action against other universities, including UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCSF — is it time for me and other health care providers to be more explicit about how federal funds have made possible the care my patients receive?
If I were to connect the dots for a patient of mine with melanoma, I’d tell him that the immunotherapy he is receiving, which has become widely used to cure a wide range of cancers, is only possible because federal funds supported research on how T-cells, a type of immune cell, are regulated. Understanding how T-cells are activated and inhibited made it possible to manipulate them to destroy cancer cells. This work began over 30 years ago in the laboratory of Dr. James Allison at UC Berkeley. It was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health long before its transformative potential became clear. Immunotherapy is why my patient and so many others are alive.
The treatments available to us today are the result of sustained investments over successive presidential administrations. Once at the point of being testable in patients, they require many more years of investment. Sequential clinical trials establish the optimal dose, safety and efficacy of novel treatments. As with basic scientific research, the federal government sponsors clinical trials and funds the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates them. While it is true that many scientific ideas and clinical trials fizzle out or fail, placing multiple bets increases the likelihood that one of them will pay off. It’s not waste or fraud. It’s the price of discovery.
I’d go on to tell my patient that it’s not just the treatments that depend on federal funds, it’s the training of doctors, too.
After graduating from medical school — with an average of over $230,000 in student loans, mostly federal — newly minted physicians begin residencies and fellowships before becoming certified in a medical or surgical specialty. During this time, most pursue research funded by federal training grants. The spectrum of opportunities afforded by these grants is broad and reflects the need to produce a diverse physician workforce capable of meeting the health needs of our society and pushing the pace of progress across all areas of medicine.
In addition to fostering the environment for intellectual growth, federal funding from Medicare and Medicaid provides the lion’s share of salary and benefits for physicians in training. Since its founding in 1965, Medicare has given direct payments to teaching hospitals to educate trainees. In 2021, this amounted to $17.8 billion. Every physician is the product of federal funding for their training and education.
After completing training, many physicians pursue careers at academic medical centers where they provide clinical care, teach and do research. To support this transition, they apply for highly competitive career development grants awarded based on a candidate’s likelihood of leading a successful independent research program. A physician in the training program I direct has spent the past 17 years — medical school, a doctoral degree, internal medicine residency, hematology/oncology fellowship and an additional three years as a post-doctoral research fellow — working toward a career development grant to fund her research on novel immunotherapies to treat leukemia. She got a score that in any other year would assure her this award. But due to the Trump administration’s decision to pause funding of these awards, her career hangs in the balance.
She is not alone. There are aspiring physician-researchers at every academic medical center across the country whose careers may never take off because of a funding freeze. And there is a pipeline of trainees behind them who will reasonably decide that the uncertainty of capricious funding streams makes a career path as a physician-researcher unfeasible. It’s a lose-lose scenario. They lose careers and society loses the intellectual capital that fuels discovery.
And so, the most transparent answer to my patient’s question is: Federal funding cuts are devastating and irreversible. The development of new approaches to treat your cancer will stall, the environment to train future doctors will be less intellectually rich, the potential of future doctors will fail to be realized and the knowledge and skills of future generations of physicians will deteriorate. These cuts jeopardize the care you receive today and the care of generations to come.
If I develop this new reflex for explaining the risks and benefits of medicines I prescribe, and how the doctors and the therapies available to treat their disease are the product of decades of federal funding, perhaps my patients will feel compelled to write their representatives, urging them to preserve federal funding for research and training.
As beneficiaries of health care ourselves, it’s a prescription for us all.
(Gerald Hsu is an oncologist and director of the hematology/oncology fellowship training program at UCSF.)
CONGRESSMAN JARED HUFFMAN:
More than 1 in 5 Californians depend on food banks to have enough to eat – and Trump is revoking $500 million in funding. Without these funds, food banks will scramble to provide sufficient resources – and families and seniors will be forced to skip meals. It's inhumane.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I'm really irritated to have to deal with some of these a-holes where I play pickleball. I go to play and compete. But some of these ladies (which is why I prefer to play the dudes) decide one day that "we all" need to work on a specific thing. Um, no, I'm not there for lessons. They're all libs. This mindset invades every single thing they do. If there is even the smallest opportunity for them to force what they want on others, they will do it. I don't know what motivates them except as you say, a power trip. There's no money involved. Just their wills against everyone else's.
FEAR AND ANGER: CALIFORNIA TOWN HALLS ARE NOT GOING WELL FOR DEMOCRATS, EITHER
by Lester Black
Americans are increasingly concerned about President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s gutting of the federal government, with polls showing a majority of people want Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts to be stopped or slowed down. That’s left Republicans largely avoiding constituents, but it also hasn’t been good news for Democrats in California.
California Democrats were lambasted at a series of town halls over the past week, with constituents demanding the party do more to stand up to billionaire Musk’s cuts to government services.
“I want to know why in the world the Democratic Party hasn’t fought yet?” asked one resident at a town hall Rep. Ro Khanna hosted in the Inland Empire on Sunday. Khanna, whose district includes Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Milpitas, hosted events in three Republican-held districts in the Central Valley and Orange County over the weekend. At each one, Politico said, Democrats “were unambiguously being put on blast.”
At a separate town hall in Orange County, hosted by freshman Democrat Rep. David Min on Thursday, over 1,000 people attended, including one resident who said it seemed like Democrats were “quietly sitting and doing nothing,” according to the OC Register. Min told the crowd that he feels “the same anxiety, fear and anger that so many of you expressed to me.”
Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros made a similar comment during a fiery town hall in Los Angeles last week, telling his audience, “I’m on your side.” One resident had told Cisneros, “I just wish that the Democrats would match my anger and my fear,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
While Democrats host events, California Republicans have largely avoided facing their constituents. The town hall furor comes as Musk, an unelected campaign donor to Trump, moves to fire hundreds of thousands of public workers and cut funding to federal agencies like the National Park Service and the National Weather Service.
Voters appear increasingly worried about the cuts. A recent NBC News poll found that 46% of respondents thought DOGE was a good idea, but 61% felt that DOGE is reckless and should stop its efforts or at least needs to slow down. A separate Quinnipiac University poll found 54% of voters think Musk and DOGE are damaging the country.
Faced with this growing discontent, Republicans are advising their members of Congress to avoid in-person meetings. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican representing a California district that stretches from Sacramento to Death Valley, canceled a planned Q&A period during his visit to a South Lake Tahoe high school and declined to attend a town hall constituents hosted on Thursday. Locals still hosted the South Lake Tahoe event on Thursday, with over 200 people attending what organizers called an “empty chair” town hall.
Earlier in the week, Kiley hosted a virtual town hall by phone that more than 25,000 people reportedly attended. A Kiley spokesperson did not return an SFGATE request for comment.
Republicans who have ventured into public have faced intense criticism. Rep. Jay Obernolte, who represents most of San Bernardino County, was met with chants of “no king” and boos when he hosted an event in Yucca Valley in February, according to the Hi-Desert Star.
With Democrats facing their own angry constituents, especially after Sen. Chuck Schumer voted to approve the Republicans’ spending bill that was negotiated without any Democrat input, many Democratic voters are calling for Schumer to resign his leadership position. Khanna, the Bay Area Democrat who many believe has presidential ambitions, seemed to be open to that during his Sunday stop in Bakersfield.
“Our messaging is too fragmented,” Khanna said, according to Politico. “The old guard isn’t cutting it.”
ELON MUSK IS NOT THE PROBLEM
by Neil A. Abrams
As the world’s top billionaire rummages through the inner workings of its mightiest state, the influence of America’s oligarchs is hard to miss these days. Never before in modern U.S. history has a private citizen wielded as much political clout as Elon Musk.
It is exactly what President Joseph R. Biden warned about in his farewell address, when he proclaimed that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America.”
As if to prove the point, Musk proceeded to launch an unprecedented—and shockingly corrupt—bid to infiltrate the federal government. In short order, he dispatched a bevy of post-pubescent fanboys, newly emerged from their parents’ basements, into the government’s most sensitive computer systems, doing god-knows-what with their access.
The moves have prompted considerable alarm among the commentariat. “Elon Musk is President,” ran a headline in The Atlantic. “The top 1% are no longer just influencing policy from behind the scenes,” Ali Velshi of MSNBC declared, “they are seizing control of the levers of power.” A recent TIME cover depicts Musk sitting behind Trump’s desk in the Oval Office.
According to the emerging consensus, Trump is president in name only, little more than a puppet in the hands of the reactionary tech entrepreneur.
The reality is far different. Musk and his fellow plutocrats are not omnipotent. They are exceptionally vulnerable, in fact.
Having spent the past two decades studying oligarchs in Eastern Europe, I can affirm that we are witnessing something momentous. Only it is not oligarchization; it is authoritarianism.
As political scientist Jeffrey Winters explains, oligarchy can exist under any political regime, whether democratic or authoritarian. The U.S., for its part, is already an oligarchy and has been for more than a century. America’s richest moguls have long defended their vastly disproportionate wealth by exerting undue influence over tax policy and economic regulation. Nothing about that will change with Trump in office.
A New Order
But this hardly means business as usual—either for the oligarchs or the rest of us. The coming move toward authoritarianism will affect everyone, including the super-rich. Yet, far from enjoying a new heyday, they might not like what the emerging regime has in store.
Trump has already gone a long way toward dismantling the checks on his power. The only question is how far he will be able to go. The Putin model of full authoritarianism is almost certainly not attainable. Trump’s megalomaniacal fantasies will stumble upon myriad constraints, including federalism, a vibrant civil society, and his own incompetence, that will block him from forcing all opposition activity underground.
More likely is what political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way refer to as “competitive authoritarianism.” Under this arrangement, civil liberties are curbed while the electoral process is rigged to the advantage of incumbents. But the opposition can still take part in elections and threaten the ruling party’s hold on power.
Trump’s first imperative in this regard is the same one faced by any aspiring autocrat: to “capture the referees,” as Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt put it. This involves placing loyalists in charge of the key state agencies empowered to launch investigations and sanction rule violators. Trump has wasted little time getting to work on this task, appointing MAGA diehards to the Department of Justice, the Treasury, and other agencies. Unfortunately, when it comes to seizing the reins of federal power, there is little that stands in his way.
Once his lickspittles have taken charge, Trump can unleash the full force of the U.S. government against anyone he wants. As a result, actions that were once unfathomable will become very real. Few abuses of executive power will be off limits, from deploying the military against protesters to deporting masses of people without due process. Equally plausible are lawless and arbitrary investigations of his opponents. Among the likely targets are local officials who refuse to “find the votes,” district attorneys who decline to criminalize homelessness, business owners guilty of hiring Black people, and, of course, wealthy plutocrats who draw his ire.
Law, That Curious Relic
America’s oligarchs built their wealth at a time when constitutional rights and legal protections were taken for granted. Their property rights were protected by a system of courts whose decisions everyone, from ordinary citizens to the most powerful officeholders, regarded as sacrosanct.
This edifice was remarkably fragile, however, dependent on norms whose power derived from the collective expectation that they would be followed. If government officials refrained from violating property rights, it was because they presumed the courts would enforce them in rulings everybody expected everyone else to respect.
But if the president decides to ignore these norms, the law loses the very basis of its authority. In the event that Trump defies a Supreme Court ruling, who will force him to comply? His Justice Department sycophants?
The implications for the oligarchs cannot be overstated. Those who remain in Trump’s good graces stand to profit immensely. But those who cross him can lose everything.
The days when their tax burdens were their overriding concern will soon appear quaint. Instead, the oligarchs will be preoccupied with threats to their ownership rights and even the specter of unlawful detention. Scenarios once confined to developing countries, such as targeted intimidation by federal agencies, prosecutions on false charges, and other forms of administrative harassment, will become facts of life in the U.S.
The ultra-rich are used to lobbying for lower taxes. They are rather less accustomed to F.B.I. raids and asset seizures designed to strong-arm them into selling their assets and fleeing abroad. Yet, this is exactly what could befall an oligarch who runs afoul of Trump. The legality of such moves is beside the point; the feds can do more than enough damage before any countervailing orders come down from the courts which, in any case, can be ignored.
Musk’s sway, while extraordinary, is also fleeting. Snatching it away is as easy as slamming the Wendy’s Baconator button on the Resolute Desk.
It is only a matter of time before these two imbecilic, impulsive narcissists come to blows. When that happens, Musk will receive a harsh lesson in the reality of competitive authoritarianism. His immense wealth matters little when up against the guy who can wield the Justice Department as his personal bludgeon. In all likelihood, he will become the subject of multiple criminal probes and be chased out of the country. It is a lesson that will not be lost on his fellow moguls.
History is replete with examples of business tycoons coming to rue their past support for autocrats. Trump’s reign should prove no different. He is the one in charge, not the oligarchs. That is bad news for them—as well as for us.
This hardly means all is lost, however. As I explained in a previous post, the obstacles to authoritarianism in the U.S. are far greater than those faced by other countries that experienced democratic breakdown. America’s civil society, in particular, is unmatched in terms of its resources and depth. If and when it mobilizes effectively, Trump is finished.
But make no mistake; however dangerous Musk’s shenanigans are, Trump is the problem. It is toward him that we must direct our focus and efforts.
(This piece first appeared on The Detox. Neil A. Abrams writes on corruption, democracy, the rule of law, Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia. You can find his work at The Detox with Neil Abrams. CounterPunch.org.)
THE TIME GEORGE FOREMAN SANG ME SOME DYLAN
by Dave Zirin
Back when I was a young reporter, I needed to interview former heavyweight champion, boxing legend, and grill impresario, George Foreman. It would have been the third sports interview of my life. The first was with 1968 Mexico City Olympic medalist and medal-stand protestor John Carlos. The second was with another 1968 Olympic rebel, record-setting sprinter Lee Evans. I had asked them both about their 19-year-old Olympic teammate George Foreman who, after winning the heavyweight gold medal, waved a small American flag and bowed to all four sides of the ring. This happened just days after Carlos and fellow medal stand protestor Tommie Smith had been expelled from the Olympic Village and told to go home. The media read Foreman’s move as a rebuke of their actions. To my surprise, both Carlos and Evans defended Foreman. They said they loved “Big George” and never saw his flag-waving as a reprimand. This was a surprise to me, given that every history of the storied 1968 games that I had read described Foreman as doing exactly that.
I realized I needed to ask Foreman himself, but the problem was that I had no idea how to find him. This was still the early days of the Internet, before you could shoot someone a DM or track down a publicist by simply tapping out a few words on Google. Instead, I had to start by going to a search engine called Ask Jeeves, which required searches to be framed in the form of a question. I proceeded to ask Jeeves, “How do you contact George Foreman?” Jeeves’s only response was a link to the George Foreman Grill website. Thanks for nothing, Jeeves.
It was the end of the day, and I thought I’d take a shot in the dark. I went to the site and clicked on the “contact us” link, meant for people trying to reach a customer-service representative. In the small window that popped up, I submitted a message noting that my Grill was fine, but I was a reporter hoping to interview Foreman about the 1968 Olympics. At best, I thought, my email might get referred to a publicist of some kind who, if I was lucky, would send a response in a few days. That’s not what happened.
Ten minutes later, just as I was about to leave the office, I received an email that read simply, “Hey, this is George. Here’s my phone number. Give me a ring.” After regaining my breath, I called, my hands clammy, and sure enough Foreman picked up. What followed was an unforgettable two-hour conversation. Utterly unprepared, I came up with questions on the fly. Even worse, the telephone recording equipment had been checked out of the office, so I was forced to use my horrible computer shorthand. Eventually, I was the one to end the interview because my hands were cramping.
I wanted to hear about 1968, but also about his life leading up to Mexico City. I asked him when he was first aware of the Black freedom struggle. He started by talking about the extreme poverty of his youth, when even a school lunch was out of his reach. “Growing up poor, I didn’t even have a lunch to take to school,” he recalled “Lunch was 26 cents, and we didn’t even know what 26 cents looked like.” Life was survival. That changed when he was hired at a public works jobs program as a 16-year-old, and a “young Anglo-Saxon boy from Tacoma, Washington” introduced him to Bob Dylan. I asked him what Dylan song opened his mind about the state of the world. I thought he’d say “The Times They Are A Changing” or “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Instead he invoked “Rainy Day Women Number #12 and 35”—the first track from the 1965 album Blonde On Blonde. “Do you know that one?” Foreman asked. Before I could answer, he started to sing. In a voice richer and deeper than I had expected, he crooned, “Well, they’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ ‘long the street. They’ll stone ya when you’re tryin’ to keep your seat. They’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ on the floor. They’ll stone ya when you’re walkin’ to the door. But I would not feel so all alone. Everybody must get stoned.” When he’d finished, he asked me if I understood what Dylan was trying to say. Taken off guard, I said, “I think he’s singing about weed?”
“Bite your tongue, young man,” Foreman shot back. “That song is about the way people are always trying to put you down—and if anybody tries to say or do anything, we’ll get stoned. It’s about Jesus and being strong in difficult times.” I mumbled back, “I still think it’s probably also about weed,” and he said, “Shame on you, young man.”
Given that we had only been speaking about ten minutes, and not sure if the born-again preacher was actually annoyed, I pivoted quickly and asked him what his thoughts were as a young boxer when, in 1964, newly minted heavyweight champion Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He said it terrified him that people were calling Ali a “Black Muslim.” I asked him if the scary part was the rejection of Christianity and becoming a Muslim, a shock to the world and something no star athlete had yet to do publicly. George said, “Heck no! What scared us was that people were calling him Black! The word frightened everybody. No one had heard the word Black in Texas to describe a so-called ‘Negro’ at that time. Everyone was saying he was crazy.”
We kept talking. There was one yarn he told about sparring with Jimi Hendrix, which is still unimaginable to me. I see Jimi, outweighed by George by probably close to 100 pounds, in a feather boa, throwing jabs. Then again, given Jimi’s army experience and famously large hands, maybe they were able to have a good tussle.
I was so dizzy from this conversation, I almost forgot to ask him about 1968 and why he waved that flag. When I did, he started his answer by describing how track stars like Carlos and Smith were seen like rock stars every time they entered the Olympic Village and how he, as a teenage Olympian, four and five years younger than they were, looked up to them in awe. He said that when they were kicked out of the Olympic facilities and forced to go home, he had a strong urge to leave with them. Instead, he stayed, won gold and waved that flag. True to what Carlos and Evans had told me, Foreman said it had nothing to do with them. He was just feeling, after an upbringing of hunger and poverty, overcome with gratitude towards the United States. This was a very different perspective on the Olympics from that of Carlos who, after returning home to Harlem, explained why he protested, saying “I can’t feed my children with medals.” Still, Carlos and Evans 35-years later, refused to sit in judgement of what was, at worst, a naive display of patriotism. They were confident that they knew what was in his heart; they never thought for a moment that their mammoth “little big brother” would be taking him to task.
There was more to the interview, but I’ll leave it there. A section of it was published in Counterpunch and a section in The Source. But the published copy will always be secondary in my mind to the fact that George Foreman, for some reason, was at Grill headquarters willing to give two hours to somebody he didn’t know. I think about him whenever there’s a chance to pay it forward.
In the days after Foreman’s death, I spoke to Dr. John Carlos. He shared memories of his old friend and talked about wanting to attend the funeral services. Carlos wants to offer one last show of what was a deeply mutual respect, whether the history books recorded it that way or not.
THE AOC TRAIN WRECK IS COMING, AND IT'S GOING TO BE SPECTACULAR
Nationwide rallies are spurring "Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez 2028" whispers, and it's already clear: the CIA couldn't do a better job of discrediting the American left.
by Matt Taibbi
From the New York Times Sunday article, “As the Left Looks to 2028, It Waits on Ocasio-Cortez’s Big Decision.”
As Democrats find… their party’s popularity at a generational low, progressives are also staring down the prospect of a post-Bernie future… The 83-year-old Mr. Sanders has signaled that he does not intend to run for president again. The question now is who will lead the network he built from scratch into the next presidential election…
Virtually everyone interviewed said there was one clear leader for the job: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Hoo, boy. Making Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a.k.a. Vogue’s “Consummate Power Dresser”) the face of a left populist movement is the latest episode of the longest-running television show in history, How Will the American Left Screw Up This Time? It’s an instant entrant in the Hall of Fame of Bad Ideas, on par with a Hitler bobblehead day promotion or training orangutans to pack flatware. This will not end well:
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have been drawing big crowds crisscrossing the country on a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour that’s been billed as a pass-the-torch moment, with the Bronx congresswoman taking Bernie’s place as the avatar of what the Times calls “left-wing” populism.
Bernie is finally realizing he has no future in a party that’s been screwing him for a decade. Democrats infamously gamed the 2016 primary against him, labeled his supporters sexist and racist, and leaked “intelligence” suggesting he was a Putin favorite. He got the Diet Coke version of the Trump treatment, the difference being Bernie not only took the abuse, but campaigned to elect his abusers.
After taking years to do the math, the light bulb is finally flickering on, with Bernie telling the Times one of the reasons for his tour is to “try to rally people to get engaged in the political process and run as independents outside of the Democratic Party.” We know it’s a good idea because the nation’s most dependable anti-barometer, New York magazine, published an article called “Bernie’s Bad Idea: The Left Should Leave the Democratic Party.” As AOC put it in Greeley, Colorado Friday:
If you are willing to fight for working people regardless of who they are, how they identify, or where they come from, you are welcome here. But I’ll say this, those leaders on either side of the aisle who are willing to put their fellow Americans down so that they can get ahead or feel better about themselves, those folks may best find a home somewhere else, because in this house we stand together… I hope that you see this movement is not about partisan labels or purity tests, but about class solidarity.
This is a rare opportunity for whatever constitutes the “real left” in America. Traditional Democrats are in freefall, with just 29% favorability in polls that also show just 7% answering “very favorable,” a shocking number. As commentators have noted, the party’s net unfavorability rating is reminiscent of the Republican Party’s numbers before Donald Trump arrived. The door is wide open; Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever might outpoll a generic Democrat. It all makes the idea of an insurgency headed by AOC, practically a police sketch of the exact person Americans don’t want to vote for, a major head-scratcher.
AOC as a choice to replace Bernie would make sense to a Democratic Party consultant, who’d see woman, woman of color, and 12 million Twitter followers and think all boxes were checked. The original idea of a Sanders run, though, was a substance-over-style rebuke of party orthodoxy. Now Bernie is DNC-izing his own movement. Legacy outlets are already boosting the notion of AOC as a 2028 contender, which itself should scare Sanders, but somehow doesn’t. Why would the same press goons who smeared him for years suddenly embrace his successor?
Answer: AOC sanitizes the Bernie movement for traditional Democrats by bringing what the New York Times calls “a contemporary flourish to their shared progressive politics.” In other words, she’s replaced whatever hard edge Sanders ever had with woke gibberish.
The AOC-Bernie rallies declared at least superficial independence from Democrats, and pledged to not take money from “lobbyists and corporations.” The logical next step would be abandoning the goofball aristocrat niche politics that’s pulling Democrats down the Marianas polling trench, that last year all but handed Republicans the presidential race by allowing Trump to hammer Kamala Harris with lines like, “Kamala supports they/them, Trump supports you.” But how can any “economic populism” led by AOC detach from that brand, when she’s the living symbol of it?
The Democrats’ move toward what we now think of as social justice politics started in the early nineties, when Bill Clinton and his Democratic Leadership Council began running on social issues like abortion and gay rights after opening their doors to Wall Street money, forcing a move away from hardcore labor and economic issues. The original Clintonian idea was a move to the middle (and specifically toward a “forgotten middle class” of white swing voters), but Hillary Clinton was forced to rebrand during the 2016 primary. The upstart Sanders was drawing blood via complaints about Hillary’s obscene fees for bank speeches; she fought back by picking at his lack of fluency with justice lingo, attacking “Bernie Bros” as angry white men, and asking “if I broke up the banks tomorrow… would that end racism?”
Clinton followed up by tweeting a chart showing that “We face complex, intersectional challenges” that put “investments in communities of color” at the center, along with goals like “investments in underserved communities.” In a flash Hillary’s banking-relationships problem became Bernie’s race problem, with interviewers spending much of the rest of the campaign pushing Sanders to recite required liturgical terms like “black lives matter.” As Ryan Grim later wrote in his excellent book The Squad, the jargon-bombs might have been effective at knocking Sanders out in the primary, but hurt Hillary overall:
To the extent that the campaign tactic moved the needle at all, it likely pushed moderate voters paying only marginal attention to the campaign toward Sanders, who spoke like a normal person, while Clinton began ascending into what her ally James Carville would later call ‘faculty lounge speak…’ Former president Bill Clinton, surveying the landscape and the ham-handed efforts at identity politics, was bereft, lamenting to a longtime friend in the fall of 2016 that Hillary’s campaign ‘could not sell pussy on a troop train’.
Modern Democrats didn’t agree with once-sainted Carville and Bill, though, and spent eight years betting heavily on “faculty lounge speak.” No one exemplified the trend more than Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected in 2018 and along with three fellow congresswomen (Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tliab, and Ilhan Omar) soon made up a famed progressive quartet called “The Squad.” AOC’s rapid identification with social-justice gobbledygook was a bit of a stunner, because as Grim’s book explains, the Bernie-backed group Brand New Congress supported the first run of the former waitress precisely because she seemed like a “normal person” who “didn’t have the vibe of an activist who would turn off voters.” Initially she was best known for clashes with ancient party stalwarts like Joe Crowley and institutions like the DCCC, asking supporters to boycott the latter for its policy of “blacklisting” candidates who challenged established Dems in primaries.
When AOC first hit Congress she was often sympathetic, especially when the party’s Old Dogs hated on her for jumping the line, getting elected without party help, or having a big social media following (her “public whatever and their Twitter world,” as then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it). There was a humorously pointed component to comments made about “this girl, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whatever she is” by men and women, with pols like Claire McCaskill wondering how the comely young congresswoman became “the thing” and the “bright shiny new object” when “I’m not sure what she’s done yet.”
AOC and the rest of the “Squad” fought back by pulling a Hillary and accusing basically everyone in the party of racism, telling the Washington Post Pelosi had been “outright disrespectful” in “the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.” When Grim’s book came out, we learned AOC was even disappointed in “Bernie Bros,” saying the guilt-by-association factor was so strong, it made it hard for her:
Bernie’s supporters have been very, very damaging to him, and it’s really frustrating to see and experience. They don’t realize how influential they are. It’s frustrating to feel like they are hurting him. I feel like [Elizabeth] Warren is scooping up LGBT, progressives, women, and progressives of color because of how they isolate. And it makes agreeing with [Sanders] ideologically difficult. So it feels like they are forcing an unnecessary choice between class analysis and race analysis — again — through their behavior, not so much policy… it creates issues.
Before long AOC mostly became famous for her “tweetstorms,” which sometimes at night, thumb-typing seemingly randomized piles of jargon, at the end of which she’d usually endorse whatever the maximalist version of the SJW position on any issue was. She planted flags in Abolish ICE, Defund the Police, Trans Girls Are Girls, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Censorship (“We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment”), and a long list of other once-fashionable positions. She even reamed fellow Democrats on Instagram for not using “Latinx”: https://www.racket.news/p/the-aoc-train-wreck-is-coming-and
AOC’s reflexive embrace of Current Thing nonsense has made her an ultimate mockery target, probably above even Kamala Harris. Aiding here is the rare combination of slapstick hypocrisy (the video of her masking up for an outdoor photo shoot is hilarious) and socialist chic. I try not to laugh about this stuff, and to remember that a young JFK might have done the equivalent, but it’s hard not to chuckle at a leftist making a statement on abortion by posing for GQ in a Victor Glemaud dress on the steps of the Supreme Court. What’s the message here?
For all this, AOC’s goofy takes need not be fatal to an economic populist enterprise. What is fatal is economic populism that doesn’t know anything about economics. Unlike European counterparts, the American left doesn’t want to go full Lenin and call for seizing of the means of production. That’s a good thing, but it also means a person inheriting a Sanders-type movement needs to have some kind of plan for coexisting with the market. That’s tough to do when you don’t have a clue about it.
AOC was dinged badly once for saying “You just pay for it.” when asked about Medicare for All, and there are social media cottage industries devoted to clips of nitwittish things she says with alarming frequency, particularly around one of her favorite themes, magic future-math. Watch poor Jake Tapper trying to help her find $38 billion in this exchange: https://www.racket.news/p/the-aoc-train-wreck-is-coming-and
Previous generations of liberals would have said things like, “No one ever asks how we pay for missiles” or would have rattled off proposals for industry to shoulder costs or relied (as Bernie and others have) on studies from places like Yale that concluded a single-payer health system would pay for itself by eliminating administrative waste.
AOC has shown time and again she resents having to make the numbers work at all. Her stump address on this tour is full of lines like, “We deserve better than this,” and “You deserve better now” and “We just deserve so much better” and “Our lives deserve dignity” and “Our work deserves dignity” and “We have to commit to building the country we all deserve” and on and on. So, we deserve more. How? Stopping things and stuff:
Greeley, here’s another crazy radical idea for you. I believe that homes are not slot machines for investors and Wall Street to extort working families out of every last dollar that we have. Home is sacred. And when your landlord doubles your rent overnight or when housing prices skyrocket because Wall Street treats our housing market like a casino, your government and your public servants should fight to help you keep an affordable roof over your head. How’s that for crazy?
Is the “casino” she wants to close trading in mortgage-backed securities? That’s not inherently bad. A big market for securitized home loans and the use of innovations like the credit default swap that broke down in 2008 could have been (and for a time was) a win for working-class people, in that they made home loans cheaper and more available. If you’re not just going to give people homes you have to show some interest in ideas like this, and try to eliminate the fraud and bad incentives that caused the market to implode last time.
As for landlords doubling rent, AOC introduced a proposal to put 3% caps on rent increases, which will be nice for renters, until people stop bothering to be landlords. For all the thought she doesn’t put into actual economics, she puts an awful lot into making, modeling, and selling “tax the rich” clothing, which would be fine if we didn’t know higher taxes only paid for 5% of her platform. Also, it raises a major red flag to see the network that compared Bernie winning the Nevada caucus to France falling to the Nazis slobbering over AOC’s “beautiful butt”:
Meanwhile, speaking of an “affordable roof over your head,” a soon-to-be-excommunicated liberal, Bill Maher, went on a rant recently about why people are leaving Democratic states in droves for red states like Texas, Florida, Idaho, and Utah. He asked how it’s possible that it took three years to get a solar panel approved. “Why do you have to inspect my roof? It’s my fuckin’ roof!”
I’m no socialist, but I think working-class people need serious political representation and governments tend to run better when there’s at least one legitimate labor party with influence. But instead of putting forward someone who can express the common-sense frustrations Maher references, what remains of the left is putting its hopes in a politician whose three areas of expertise are intersectional bosh, regulations, and taxes, a chemical combination known as Voter Repellent. An AOC presidential run would obliterate progressive politics for a generation, making George McGovern seem like Kennedy. Every dipshit legacy pundit in the country is cheering the AOC rallies as the beginning of something special, which is how you know it will end in tears; when The New Yorker says the rallies are proof “the left still has a pulse,” you know it’s really on its deathbed. I guess it deserves to be, but man, how do they not see it?
RUTH STOUT “is the Beyoncé of the back yard,” Jill Lepore writes in the New Yorker. Stout, who died nearly half a century ago, was the author behind gardening books such as “How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back” (1955), “Gardening Without Work” (1961), and “The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book” (1971), which have all been reissued in the past few years. The Ruth Scout Method—where you don’t plow, dig, use fertilizers or pesticides, till or hoe; and instead, cover a patch of grass with hay and throw everything organic on top of it—has been the subject of various farming and gardening podcasts. Stout is all over YouTube, X, and Instagram, and there are millions of posts about her on TikTok alone. But her secrets went beyond the garden plot.
For decades, Stout was a Communist. “Stout likely learned about what she called no-work gardening from her reading or while working on socialist farms or during her travels in Russia, in the 20s,” Lepore writes. “The Ruth Stout Method isn’t really Ruth Stout’s. It’s just that, in the 50s, it was necessary to call it something other than Russian. In the McCarthy era, no one wanted to garden like a Communist.”
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Signal Leak Is Latest Mistake in Hegseth’s Rocky Time at the Pentagon
Under Fire Over Security Breach, Trump Denies, Deflects and Attacks
Read the Leaked Chat, Annotated
With Signal Snafu, Michael Waltz Is Thrust Into the Spotlight
Senate Democrats Press Trump for Answers
At Top Law Firm, Panic and a Fight for the Bottom Line
Trump Signs Executive Order Targeting New Law Firm, Jenner & Block
India Is on a Hiring Binge That U.S. Tariffs Can’t Stop
WAR PLANS LEAK SCANDAL CONFIRMS A TERRIBLE TRUTH
by Andrew Neil
As self-inflicted security breaches go, it was epic — the sort of blunder-cum-fiasco you'd expect if the Keystone Cops had been put in charge of the nation's military and intelligence services.
Not only did the Trump administration convene a confidential group chat on a commercial messaging service (Signal) to discuss sensitive national security matters, the group included, bar the President, the highest officials in the land: the Vice President (JD Vance), the Secretary of Defense (Pete Hegseth), the Secretary of State (Marco Rubio), the head of the National Security Agency (Michael Waltz) and several other high-ranking officials, including the head of the CIA (John Ratcliffe) and the Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard).
Not only did the issues discussed involve matters of the highest national security, they included the sharing of imminent plans for US military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen. So lives were at stake.
And, most bizarre of all, not only was a journalist inexplicably included in the chat group, it was a staunchly anti-Trump journalist (Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the left-leaning magazine The Atlantic).
Signal is an encrypted platform. But it is nowhere near as secure as the government's own sophisticated channels designed specifically for the exchange of highly classified and top secret information.
To resort to Signal to discuss upcoming US military action betrays a pretty cavalier approach to security, born of incompetence and inexperience at the highest levels of government.
Perhaps that's to be expected when a cast of clowns fills too many top administration positions. A Fox News bloviator for Defense (Hegseth). An anti-vax zealot for Health (Robert F Kennedy Jr). The co-founder of fake wrestling for Education (Linda McMahon). A controversial TV doctor for Medicare and Medicaid (Mehmet Oz). A pro-Kremlin, pro-Syria's recently ousted dictator for National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard).
The Administration has dealt with the fallout from the Signal scandal with its hallmark mixture of arrogance and ineptitude.
Hegseth's first response was to dismiss it all as a 'hoax', even as the White House was confirming that the exchanges on Signal were 'authentic'.
When untruths didn't work, the administration – from the President down – resorted to the time-honored political practice of throwing a dead cat on the table to distract attention.
The Atlantic was a failing magazine, claimed Trump, which is as untrue as it is irrelevant. The editor is 'deceitful' and 'discredited', piled in Hegseth once he got a second wind. He's also 'sensationalist' chirped White House secretary Karoline Leavitt.
I can understand why Team Trump is wary of Goldberg. He's no friend of the President. But he's not the one who's done anything wrong in this scandal. He's just the lucky beneficiary of the scoop of a lifetime landing on his lap.
He has no idea why he ended up on the Signal chat group (it looks as if his name was added, mistakenly, by Waltz or one of his staff).
At first even he thought it was a hoax. He waited for a week after the attacks on the Houthis before going public. Even then, rightly, he did not give any details of the military planning he'd been privy to.
Hegseth and the White House deny any 'war plans' were revealed in the high-powered chat room. But there is no reason to disbelieve Goldberg.
He says he received a text in the chain two hours before US forces went into action from the Defense Secretary detailing 'minute-by-minute accounting' of 'forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying and attack sequencing.'
There was even a weather report covering the time of the attack.
If that doesn't amount to war plans then the world is not round and night does not follow day.
Goldberg has not published these texts, which shows he has a higher regard for national security than others on the Signal chain.
But he knows a congressional committee might well request him to make the texts available behind closed doors. It could also insist others in the chat room to do the same.
So far the White House is toughing it out with typical defiance and bluster.
It remains adamant no classified material was exchanged because if it was on a platform like Signal the consequences for those involved could be dire. The use of Signal for conducting classified discussions about imminent military action would be a serious breach of security procedures governing the handling of sensitive defense information.
In front of a congressional committee on Tuesday, a nervous Gabbard refused even to confirm she'd participated in the chat. But she still felt it necessary to insist no classified material had been involved. At least not from her. She was a bit vague about Hegseth. But how would she know either way if she hadn't been part of the exchanges?
Waltz had been touted as the fall guy but Trump rallied behind him, saying he's a 'good guy' who'd 'learned a lesson' — barely a slap on the wrist for one of the great security scandals of our time.
It should get him through the week. But perhaps not beyond that should more incriminating material come out about how Goldberg ended up in the chat room.
Waltz's reputation as a serious player has taken something of a dent now we know he marked the Houthi strike in the Signal chat with emojis of a fist, an American flag and a flame. Not quite the grown-up America requires for national security.
Hegseth's job is also on the line. He has stated categorically that 'nobody was texting war plans.' Should that prove to be less than the truth, his position would also become untenable.
Whatever his displays of public support, Trump is privately furious, raging in colorful language at the 'stupidity' of Waltz and others. I called a close aide of the President for a heads up on the situation.
'The President is on the rampage,' I was told. 'It's not safe to talk. I'm keeping my head down.' He then hung up.
Nor will it have escaped Trump's attention that his vice president, for all his public displays of loyalty, is developing policies of his own. The Signal texts show, beyond doubt, that Vance was skeptical of the need to strike the Houthis.
Yes, they've been attacking shipping in the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal for over a year. But, argued Vance, very little US trade passes through the Suez Canal, which connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, whereas '40 percent of European trade does'.
So, attacking the Houthis would benefit Europe far more than America.
'I am not sure the President is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,' Vance said, adding that, while he would support the consensus of the other top officials in the chat, 'I just hate bailing Europe out again.'
In the end Vance was placated by a suggestion that Europe could be sent the bill for the military action (good luck with that) and the insistence of Stephen Miller, a senior White House aide, that the attack was the President's will.
Trump will be fine with Vance's visceral anti-Europeanism, which we've seen before but never in such raw and stark terms.
But he will be suspicious of Vance's freelancing on foreign policy, especially since the reason for attacking the Houthis is not to do the Europeans a favor but to cripple the one Iranian proxy group left in the region (after the demise of Hamas and Hezbollah) which is still a military threat to America's interests.
Vance's forays into foreign policy often reveal him to be out of his depth in complicated matters. But in his distaste for Europe, he is very much in sync with the rest of the Trump administration.
Even Hegseth got in on the act, telling Vance on Signal that he 'fully' shared his 'loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC.'
Long after the row over security breaches dies down, what we have learned about the Trump administration's unvarnished attitude to Europe could well turn out to be the most significant feature of the Signal scandal. It has gone from mere animosity to outright hostility.
If Europe's leaders still don't realize, they're now on their own – after the revelations from the Signal chatroom, they cannot be in any doubt.
(DailyMail.uk)
JAPAN COURT DISSOLVES CONTROVERSIAL 'MOONIES' CHURCH
by Shaimaa Khalil & Kelly Ng
A court in Japan has ordered the disbandment of the controversial Unification Church, which came under scrutiny after the shock killing of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.
The alleged assassin had confessed that he held a grievance against Abe because of the ex-leader's ties with the church - he blamed the church for bankrupting his family.
Japan's education and culture ministry sought the church's dissolution and accused it of manipulating followers into making huge donations and other financial sacrifices.
But the church, more popularly known as the "Moonies", argued that the donations were part of legitimate religious activities. It can appeal to overturn Tuesday's ruling.
The order handed down by a Tokyo district court will strip the church of its tax-exempt status and require it to liquidate its assets, but it will still be allowed to operate in Japan.
During their investigation, authorities found that the church coerced followers into buying expensive items by exploiting fears about their spiritual well-being.
They interviewed nearly 200 people who said they were victimised by the church.…
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cge1lr7225yo
WYNKEN, BLYNKEN, AND NOD
by Eugene Field
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe--
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked of the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea--
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish--
Never afeard are we!"
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam---
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 't was a dream they 'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea---
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
~ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" is a poem for children written by American writer and poet Eugene Field and published on March 9, 1889
Up early at the Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter in northeast Washington, D.C. ; had to pack up and accommodate the weekly deep cleaning. Am on a guest computer at the MLK public library right now, about to go forth to eat breakfast. Already purchased a LOTTO ticket for the next draw. That leaves the routine drop by the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil. Took the anarchist publication Slingshot, which had been sent to me from Berkeley, there to share yesterday. In the midst of the American society total meltdown, such an alternative view was well received. A minority of residents in the USA still value basic sanity. I am no longer attached to anything at all. All offers for enlightened community, which includes individual housing of course, will be considered. Contact me at: Craig Louis Stehr, Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
Name that beach :
Portuguese Beach, Mendocino
I think…
+1
Portagee Beach, to be local and un-pc.
Name that beach…
Jughandle (my favorite)!
What would possibly be helpful for AOC and company is to spend time eating lunch with working people during lunch break, and listening.
True, but let’s add Trump and Vance to that discussion–both parties are so far out of touch with the needs of regular working folks, which are still the bulk of those who vote. These are the folks who keep America running day to day, while much of the upper class just suck out the profits made from their work. Marx had a lot of it pretty right.
AOC put in years as a waitress, George, and waitresses have a clear idea of what the working life is like.
True, but she obviously wasn’t listening, or was listening to a narrow message from her working associates or she would be more appealing to those she is trying to represent. From my experience, working people have distain for government, and elitists who want to run their lives.
9/10 wealthiest counties voted blue.
AOC has drunk the Kool-Aid. This BS about having lunch with the working class is classic political speak. If she’s going to become the face of the Dems, she can’t use Kamala Harris’s talking points. That ship has sailed, as has Harris.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and others are in the Rookie round of auditions for the Big Chair, and likely, they ain’t it…
Ask around,
Laz
The working class got a lunch out of it anyway. Myself, I’m inclined to Liz Warren but to most men, I’m afraid, she’s a little too reminiscent of their third grade teacher, the ruler on the knuckles lady. Had to be a gag but I saw this bumpersticker in Fairfax the other day: Hillary/Schiff ’28. Put a fright into me, I can tell you. While I’m in oinker mode, the funniest comment ever re Hillary is that she reminds too many men of their first wife.
Your experience differs vastly from mine. Working people always tended to be the biggest supporters of beneficial programs, no matter how ignoramuses or the media try to convince us otherwise, Mr. Hollister…and since you’re NOT the media…
Getting a SS check, and a health plan., yes. But that goes for mostly everyone. The common distain of the working class is for “book smart” elites who know very little, but have much power. These are powerful smart people supporting trade that sends working people’s jobs oversees and leaves them out of work. These are also the powerful elitists who regulate working people out of a job, or see their opportunity go to someone less qualified because of race and gender preferences. Working people also see their jobs going to immigrants. This is at the heart of Trump support from the working people.; trade, immigration, equal opportunity, and regulation on business.
You don’t have to agree with some or all of working people’s grievances, but pay attention. AOC has not been doing that. She is going in the opposite direction.
Let’s be fair and present the full picture of disdain for and abuse of the working class by rich businessmen and politicians on the right, elitist certainly, in their own ways: Shoddy treatment of workers and fighting against workers’ rights and fair pay (See in particular: Bezos and Musk, and even Trump in his entire business career). Sending US.-based enterprises to other countries (See our own car companies who have plants in Canada and Mexico. The Republican right as they consistently fight, over decades, against labor unions. The Republican right and Trump, as they conspire to vastly reduce Medicaide services to workers and their families who are in the lower and even middle class. This list goes on and on…
Businesses have left workers high and dry by moving to other countries where labor costs are less and there is little government regulation, yes. But any American business that depends on quality workers for success has to treat them right. There is no private plantation, as much as business would like there to be that workers can’t escape from, if given the opportunity. Private businesses with a poor work environment have high turnover are not growing, but are dying. Another risk for businesses with poor worker relations is unionization. Welcome to the real plantain. Ha, Ha. You asked for it.
I’ve been paying attention all my life, George, and I stand by my conclusions. You should actually get to know working people rather than spout rubbish, or whatever you heard on TV.
In my opinion trumples won mainly because the Working Class abandoned the Democratic Party in opposition to its full support of Zionist genocide against Palestinians, which gets worse by the day, to the shame of BOTH political parties, each of which is owned by Zionists.
I’ve met far more racist yuppies than racist working people. The former are just real “slick” in covering it up or rationalizing it. The working class mostly gets slurred by the lies spouted by fascist media, owned by the wealthy and revered by yuppies.
So, whose job/duty is it to charge perjury on the stand?
The Judge? She probably would have already done so.
The DA? Well, that will never happen.
But seriously, who is in charge of doing that?
That would be DA Dave’s job/duty, seriously.
I think the State Attorney General should be made aware of this conspiracy. If left to the locals there will never be any consequences for any of the orchestrators of the Cubbinson issue.
Someone from out of the County needs to look at this with unbiased eyes…
It is what it is,
Laz
Agreed…Get the “local” drama Queens out of it.
I have heard a rumor that Hobby Lobby may be opening a store here in Ukiah. For those who haven’t heard, this company is actively anti-LGBTQ, and against providing birth control to female employees. While I am all for helping our economy grow, I cannot support a company who would treat members of our community, our friends and family, so disgracefully. This is not the kind of business I personally would like to see in our county. If this rumor is true, I plan on boycotting this business and will encourage others to do so also.
Already boycotting it,even if only in current mind’s eye
The board should have waited until there was a guilty verdict in court. Ms. Antle deserves the same due process. One side is now doing what it is accusing the other. Amusing.
Pure BS. One side is the Supervisors and the DA, acting under the color of authority. The other “side” is a few members of the public demanding what’s only fair given what happened in court.
Here, here.
No, not amusing. Three of the current board members and the CEO should step down and open the dialogue for new replacements The really sad thing in such a beautiful county is that the polity SUCKS. Hold out for court hearings of those mentioned, but get on with it, or step down.
The County CEO is an “at will” position. Ms. Antle can be removed by the Board of Supervisors for any or no reason. She signed an employment contract. There is no due process other than a civil suit for breach of contract. That being said, if Darci Antle gets relieved of employment, my prediction is that our inept Board of Supervisors will replace her with Deputy CEO Sara Pierce who is tainted by the Cubbison Debacle.
Hell, go to Covelo, Point Arena band of Pomo and get some tribal influence on the board. It’s high time to be represented by the original county folks who know the land and it’s movement in time.
EVERY person deserves due process IN the courts as we know from my past together with you Mark. even that is sometimes not just. Brick: It is amusing to me, people that never show up or put in any positive Energy always have so much to say to those putting in actual effort on record. The idea of a native position on all boards was the only thing said of any merit. And, they are not likely to stick us with Sara, but Cheri…
Why is there no discussion in the big blow up about the war plans leak about the fact that the US has no possible justification for bombing Yemen in the first place?