Prince Agaricus | Warming | Budget Input | Riverside | Mendo Audit | Ag Research | Apartment Available | RVMAC Meeting | Sklar Paintings | Local Events | Scion Exchange | Local Produce | Noyo Mill | Truly Screwed | Corners Exhibit | Masonite Plant | Potter Valley | Log Beach | Vern Piver | Yesterday's Catch | Killer Whales | Fungal Friends | Rooftop Solar | Globalization Bad | Polluters Bill | Wine Shorts | Hollywood 1940 | SSA Woes | Redwood Butterfly | AIPAC People | Four Seasons | Buster Effect | Ali Shot | Lead Stories | Tariff Shock | Libel Lawsuit | Labor Costs | Graveside Service | Bannon Interview | Corporal Brooks | Third Term | Sever Vance | Lost Joe | Cheesehead | Random Comments | American Dumb | Gotta Go | Joseph & Mary | Bernie SSA | Work | Genocide Denial | Catastropize
WARM, DRY, AND CALM weather will build through the day on Saturday. Another round of light to moderate rain is expected late this weekend and into the new week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 39F under clear skies this Friday morning on the coast. Our friend "patchy fog" has returned to the forecast leading to a chance of rain Sunday night - Monday morning. Looking dry after that they say.
SUPERVISOR TED WILLIAMS:
If you'd like to see the county allocate more of your tax money to repairing the roads, here's an opportunity. Tuesday, April 8, item 4c. The annual budget is being built now. This is your opportunity to have a voice in priorities. 400 E Commercial Street, Willits, CA. 95490 (Wonacott Room, MendocinoCounty Museum)
CALIFORNIA TO CONDUCT AUDIT OF ALL MENDOCINO COUNTY OPERATIONS AND DEPARTMENTS
A mail-in ballot debacle, then a review exposing failures in financial reporting, has prompted the state’s auditor to examine the county’s administrative operations and contracts.
by Austin Murphy
First, Mendocino County mailed flawed ballots to all its registered voters before the 2024 election.
Then a state review found deficiencies in the county’s financial reporting, which helped explain why it was chronically late filing its annual Financial Transactions Report.
Now, in response to those struggles and shortcomings, California is staging a kind of intervention.
Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire (D-North Coast) recently announced that California’s Office of the State Auditor will spend the next several months conducting “a comprehensive audit of all county operations and departments, along with examining the organization’s contracts and procurements processes.”
The March 24 release also mentions, pointedly, that the audit will scrutinize what happened in the 2024 elections, “when incorrect ballots were mailed to the county’s 52,800 registered voters.”
The cost of the audit, $800,000, will be picked up by the state, according to McGuire’s office.
Ballot woes
On Feb. 8, 2024, Mendocino’s Assesor-County Clerk-Recorder warned that all registered voters – regardless of party affiliation or where they lived – had received a Republican ballot for the First Supervisorial District.
The issue was traced to the county’s election ballot mailing vendor, Integrated Voting Systems, a national election service and technology company headquartered in Central California.
The county sent out corrected ballots on Feb. 16, 2024, before learning that around 50 residents had received incorrect information in those ballots – the result of the county’s failure to account for 2021 redistricting in voter files.
“We made a mistake and unfortunately, this is the election that just keeps giving,” Assessor Clerk Recorder Katrina Bartolomie said at the time.
“We’ve been doing elections for years and years and years. I don’t think this has ever happened before. We’re very sorry, but we’re glad we caught it in time.”
To address the situation, the county sought guidance from the California Secretary of State, and a San Francisco law firm.
Asked to comment on the upcoming state audit, Bartolomie replied in an email that she “welcome[s] the opportunity to show our processes.”
Describing those 2024 mistakes as “isolated incidents,” she added, “whatever we can do to boost voter confidence is a great opportunity.”
Upheaval ‘unsustainable’
“All sides agree this action is needed,” McGuire said in the release.
“The upheaval surrounding administrative operations in Mendocino County is unsustainable and this comprehensive audit of all county departments and accounts will provide some much-needed daylight and help establish a road map for long-term stability.”
McGuire added Wednesday that “We’ll be working with the Board of Supervisors and County leadership to ensure the findings of this audit will be implemented.”
Maureen Mulheren, a member of Mendocino County’s Board of Supervisors, believes McGuire’s “upheaval” remark applied to the ballots debacle. “It seems to me that’s what that was referring to,” she said.
Mulheren said she welcomed the scrutiny of the state auditor.“ “The board is open to figuring out what is the best and most transparent way to move forward with the way we operate our financial system,” she said.
In the wake of the previous state audit of the county’s financial reporting, conducted by California State Controller and submitted in July 2024, the board was willing to implement the controller’s recommendations, Mulheren noted.
“If this audit also finds a need for changes, then I most likely will support those recommendations.”
The report from the state controller was requested by the Board of Supervisors, which had grown frustrated with the county’s inability to get timely financial reports from its own auditor-controller department.
The struggles were exacerbated by the Board’s decision to merge the auditor-controller and treasurer-tax-collector’s offices in December 2021.
The merger was unpopular with employees in both offices, resulting in low morale, according to the controller’s report, and a peak employee turnover rate of 40%.
At the same time, the woman chosen to lead the new office was erroneously accused of misappropriating $68,000 in public funds, adding to the disarray.
Charges against Chamise Cubbison were dismissed Feb. 25, after investigators recovered long-lost emails and records from a discontinued county email archival system. The tranche of missing correspondence helped prove that Cubbison had acted appropriately, and not misused the funds in question.
She has since returned to her job.
During Cubbison’s absence, interim auditor-controller-treasurer-tax collector Sara Pierce discovered the county had around $200,000 less in reserve than originally thought.
Cubbison did not reply to an email requesting comment on the state’s latest look into Mendocino County’s books.
In the report released in July 2024, the state controller found that the county’s reporting delays were also the result of its decentralized accounting system. The county maintained 14 separate bank accounts. Some departments, it reported, tracked transactions using Excel spreadsheets.
“It’s nothing nefarious,” Supervisor John Haschak said at the time. “But it was a surprise to find out we had all of these accounts we didn’t know about.”
Still, Mendocino County Supervisor Ted Williams said in a statement on Wednesday, the use of Excel spreadsheets “instead of a modern integrated system” was a result of “fragmented oversight” that “falls short of current standards and complicates the ability to oversee how third-party vendors and agencies use public funds.”
He, too, welcomed this latest independent audit, which will “shine a light on inefficiencies, offer a road map for improvement, and ensure each dollar is properly tracked, reinforcing transparency, accountability, and public trust in government operations.”
(pressdemocrat.com)
FROM THE CA STATE FFA FINALS IN SACRAMENTO
Today members presented their Agriscience Research Projects.
From Mr. Bautista: "Huge congratulations to our Discovery FFA members (8th graders) who presented and interviewed about their agriculture research projects! We will hear about the results later this week at the CA State FFA Conference!"
Great Job!
MARY ZEEBLE (Philo): We will have a two bedroom apartment available May 1. $1500 per month plus utilities. It's got a full bathroom, and full kitchen with stove & fridge. Bedrooms are about 10x10 and living room is about 15'x20'. Nice views, great neighbors, plenty of parking, free shared laundry, shared garden & greenhouse, trails to hike on, within walking distance of downtown Philo. Credit check and references required. $1500 first months rent + $1500 security deposit required. Cat friendly. Thanks!
GAS STATIONS, BUILDING CODES & BATTERY STORAGE — Highlights from a Redwood Valley MAC Meeting
by Monica Huettl
The Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) is actively seeking three new members to help amplify local voices and influence county government decisions. With only ten meetings a year, this is a prime opportunity to represent Redwood Valley’s needs while learning about the inner workings of local governance. At the March 12 meeting, updates on everything from budget concerns to road repairs were discussed, along with ongoing efforts to enhance fire safety and address community issues.…
FEATURED ARTIST AT HEADLANDS CAFÉ IN FORT BRAGG
Susan Sklar, Original Acrylic Paintings, at Headlands Cafe, month of April
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
SEED & SCION EXCHANGE A SUCCESS!
The 39th Winter Abundance Seed and Scion Exchange in March was another big success thanks to the energy of AV Foodshed, Cloud Forest Institute, and the myriad volunteers that came together for the day to offer seeds, scions (a small piece of one tree branch that is grafted to create new tree), fruit tree rootstock (a very inexpensive way to build a new tree), plants, plant starts, hands-on grafting demos, how-to presentations, food, and community spirit.
As you are aware, knowledge of food self-sufficiency is especially important right now. Being able to grow or source our own local food and build local support systems feels more crucial than ever. Attending Winter Abundance empowers people to take control of their food security by propagating fruit trees, vines, and plants to build abundance in their own backyards and communities. If you would like to join the AV Foodshed organizing committee, please let us know. We meet as needed to plan educational events to promote the consumption of local food.
Looking forward to the 40th Winter Abundance Workshop in 2026, we understand that the Bay Area farmer, from whose large orchard the thousands of outstanding fruit tree scions have originated for years, is retiring. Unfortunately his land is to be sold, and likely developed, thus excising the trees and the work it has taken to locate these special varieties. Without that valuable, honed scion source, we recommend that you tag branches of your favorite varieties of fruit this summer. Next January we will provide instructions on how to cut the best scion wood to share. There are many advantages to having more local varieties that are proven to produce in our valley and the county. And be sure to save seeds from favorites in your summer garden to share as well.
PETIT TETON FARM
Free: organic asparagus starts, organic Seascape strawberry starts
Fresh now: chard, kale, broccolini, herbs, mizuna mustard. All the preserved foods from jams to pickles, soups to hot sauces, made from everything we grow. We sell frozen USDA beef and pork from perfectly raised pigs and cows. Stewing hens and Squab are also available at times. Contact us for what's available at 707.684.4146 or farmer@petitteton.com.
BETSY CAWN:
Matt LaFever reports that “PG&E announced its plan to give up control of the diversion system a decade ago,” but I was present at a December 2006 “open house” held at the Tallman Hotel’s gracious conference room, when PG&E representatives introduced the company’s then new “Land Stewardship” program — created for the purpose of ending any unprofitable electricity-generation plants across the state. Lake Pillsbury and Scott Dam were part of the discussion, which mostly focused on the hydroelectric generation plant and downstream beneficiaries in Potter Valley served by the “diversion” of Eel River flows through a tunnel receiving water from the “South Fork” of the Eel — passing through Potter Valley on its way to Lake Mendocino and downstream “customers” as far south as Marin County (at times when Sonoma Water Agency had “surplus” water to sell, not all that often).
Beneficiaries of the 2% of river flows diverted through Potter Valley were invited to the Upper Lake press conference including, perhaps (because the name rings a bell), Guiness McFadden. Rugged mountain ranchers with grazing leases from the USFS spoke in defense of their investments and ways of life — relying on drafted water from the diverted “South Fork” of the Eel, upstream of Potter Valley and its hydro-electric production system — spoke knowledgeably of the unfulfilled commitments by PG&E to install an effective “fish ladder” at Scott Dam that was intended to support the migration of native salmon from the Pacific Ocean to the furthest reaches of their birth places.
Despite the institutional attention to eventual changes to the water supply coming from Lake County (with a year-round spring located just over the county line in Mendocino) to once successful fisheries as far north as Eureka, the Eel-Russian River Commission did not take any initiative to work on the alternatives to Scott Dam and the Potter Valley diversion of Eel River summer-time supplements from Lake Pillsbury.
Congressman Huffman’s masterminding of the “two-basin solution” (which threatens Lake County’s economy and fire fighting capacity in our devastated Mendocino National Forest and private land holdings within the forest around Lake Pillsbury) included a failed process whereby Lake County officials could “participate” in the planning process if we came up with the $100,000 ante (which we did) only to be excluded anyway.
Like so many comprehensive watershed management issues in our Northern California “coastal” counties (and some “inland” relatives like Lake and Siskiyou and Trinity with westward flows of inland river sources), decades of taking these resources for granted are coming to an abrupt end, with all of our elected and appointed officials holding “the bag” of antiquated system problems we all now have to “suddenly” challenge. I have zero confidence that the California Public Utilities Commission will take any action to curtail PG&E’s profiteering or that equitable solutions will come of the latest public outcry. [Now that Washington has gone over to the “dark side” that Kunstler opines about in this publication, and our Congress has been utterly neutralized by the White House administration, it’s all up for grabs by the utility companies and the Governor’s switch to backing the President’s outrageous Executive Orders. We are well and truly screwed by our ass-kissing elected officials.]
DON’T PANIC. EAT ORGANIC: 50 YEARS OF THE CORNERS COLLECTIVE
2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Corners of the Mouth, Mendocino’s legendary workers collective. The Kelley House Museum and Corners of the Mouth are celebrating this milestone with a new exhibit titled Don’t Panic * Eat Organic, on view from April 4th to June 2nd at the Kelley House. The exhibit will feature Corners history and memorabilia from the past five decades, including artwork created by collective members, t-shirts, recipes, and many photographs through the years.
“Corners,” as it is fondly called, opened in 1975 as a food-buying club in Kellieowen Hall. Founded by Gary Sheppard, the collective’s mission was influenced by the back-to-the-land movement and 1970s counterculture, which led people to reconsider what was in their food and where it came from. Sheppard drew inspiration from the classic Chinese divination book I Ching for the name “Corners of the Mouth,” specifically the Hexagram #27, which reads:
The Corners of the Mouth.
Perseverance brings good fortune.
Pay heed to the providing of nourishment.
And to what a man seeks.
To fill his own mouth with.
In 1976, Corners was incorporated into a not-for-profit workers collective. Sheppard was ready to move onto new things, and a group borrowed money to purchase the business. The collective continued its mission of providing healthy food options for its shoppers sold at cost. More objectives included educating the public about food systems and nutrition while providing a model of a worker-controlled business for people to learn from.
What is a worker collective though? In the seventies, they were a more common, perhaps “radical” method of business. In a 2013 edition of the Corners newsletter The Scoop, collective member Vicki described it as “a kind of workers co-operative in which workers attempt to manage themselves horizontally, without any one particular authority.” Rather than one boss, everyone has a say. While many collectives have returned to traditional management structures, Corners has persisted for 50 years with the dedication of its workers and the loyalty from the community.
Corners quickly became an important community institution. In September 1976, the public learned that Corners had to vacate Kellieowen Hall after it was purchased by Rosemary Hines for her store, Personal Expressions. Hines’s business was previously in the Kelley Baptist Church on Ukiah Street. The community rallied to find a place for Corners. In the September 10 edition of the Mendocino Beacon, a letter to the editor stressed the importance of having a locally run business that offered healthy, reasonably priced food. The writer asked for suggestions of any reasonably priced rentals for the store to move to. Another Beacon article mentions that several people had offered space to the collective, but each had been too small, too costly, or not available right away.
One building that was available though—the Kelley Baptist Church! In a game of “musical shops,” as described in the Beacon, the stores switched places. The church had been built in 1893 by William Kelley for his wife, Eliza. The church was dedicated the next year by Reverend J.S. Ross of Caspar, and it was used by the local congregation until about 1936. About 40 years later, Corners of the Mouth moved in. Now Corners has become synonymous with the building, both legendary structures in Mendocino.
Don’t Panic * Eat Organic: 50 Years of the Corners Collective will commemorate this history and the many hands that have shaped the Corners collective. Come view the exhibit, leave a love note to Corners in the exhibit notebook, and help us identify people in photographs!
(KelleyHouseMuseum.org)
ED NOTE: The great liberals at Corners always refused to carry the AVA.
FROM E-BAY, A PHOTOGRAPH OF SEMI-LOCAL INTEREST (via Marshall Newman)
THE DISCOVERY OF POTTER VALLEY
by Grace Sweeney
(Ukiah Dispatch-Democrat, July 2, 1926)
In September or October 1852 William Potter, Thomas Potter, Lowe Anderson, Al Strong, Moses Briggs and two Spaniards started from near Healdsburg, Sonoma county on horseback for a trip to the source of the Russian river and in the course of time found their way into Potter Valley doubtless being the first white men who had ever reached it.
The party remained about three weeks looking over the land and choosing a location to settle upon. At least three claims were decided upon as being the most eligible and the two Potter brothers and Mr. Briggs located on them.
In the spring of 1853 William Potter and Moses Briggs brought the first wagon into the valley and the former located permanently on his claim, being the first settler here and from whom the valley took its name. And in 1856 Thomas Potter located on his claim.
Mr. Briggs put stock on his ranch and passed back and forth from Sonoma county until 1857 when he brought his family here and located permanently on what is still known as the Briggs ranch and owned by his heirs. Samuel Chase and family came into the valley with Mrs. Briggs at that time and their daughter, Mrs. Mary Howard, now living in Coyote valley was the first white child born in Potter Valley.
Others coming into the valley that year were Pierce and Frank Asbill, William, Boone and Calvin Christopher.
In January 1858, Samuel Mewhinney and family moved in and later in the year Chas. Neil, Franklin Christopher, Thomas McCowen with their families came to make their home here.
Wm. Eddie came into the valley in 1859 and located on the ranch where he built a home and where Mrs. Eddie is still residing. Others coming in during this year were Jas. Hopkins, Thad Dashiell, John McCloud, Isaac Griffits with his family and Samuel McCulloch and family.
In the early sixties the Vann family came in; the A. O. Carpenters, Carners, Hoppers, Buschs, Owen Sweeney, McGees, Hughes, Smiths, McCrearys, Wattenbergs and Bevans. Later on the Van Neders, Boyces, Quesenberrys, Raders, Joseph Thornton, Jas. Burris, the Burkharts, Grovers, Robt. Marders, Tunnels, Bakers, Days, Spencers and many others until in 1870 the valley was entirely settled up.
Most of these families are still represented among the citizens of the valley today.
At the time of the early settlement there was no road coming into the valley except through the mountains: one from Lake county coming over by the Tom Lamb ranch, the other from Calpella, this road being called Hell”s Delight. In 1860 a road was built down the canyon to Coyote valley and in this year a flour mill was erected at that place, afterward known as Cleveland”s mill. This was a great convenience to the people of the valley as before that all flour and other supplies had to be brought over the mountain from Calpella, often on pack horses or carried by the Indians.
A long hard journey had to be taken by these early settlers through the mountains to Eureka on horseback in order to file their claims at the Land office established there. This trip usually took about two weeks.
During the early settlement of the valley there were a large number of Indians here living at their various rancherias but these were generally peaceable and quiet and no very serious trouble ever occured between them and the white people. Later these Indians were removed to the reservation at Round valley with the exception of a few who remained to live on the ranches and work in exchange for food and clothes.
The first school was formed in the valley in 1860 and taught in a small log house with dirt floor on the ranch of Franklin Christopher now the home of J. J. Thornton, Mrs. Elizabeth Hopkins being the first teacher. Later a schoolhouse was built on the land now owned by Mrs. Rose Lea and this was called Potter Valley District, Mrs. A. O. Carpenter teaching here for two years. Shortly after the Union school was formed in Lower Potter and in 1866 the Oriental school was approved at Centerville. In 1876 the Pomo school was built, this was later abandoned but the three districts first named were maintained until they were consolidated into the Potter Valley Union School in 1919.
The first church was built at Pomo in 1872 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Prior to that the valley was included in the Little Lake circuit and supplied with ministers from there, services being held in the school houses or in the grove. Camp meetings were often held and attended by all denominations.
The first general store was owned by Mr. Smith at Pomo; later Mr. Richmond Carner opened a store at Centerville.
On November 6, 1873 the Potter Valley Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, No. 115, was organized by Thomas Merry, John Mewhinney being elected the first master. Other charter members were Eli Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Mewhinney, Mrs. A. Smith, Thomas McCowen, George Burkhart, B. Pemberton, Mr. and Mrs. Richmond Carner, Sid McCreary, J. G. Busch, Thad Dashiell, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel McCulloch, J. R. Ross, Mr. and Mrs. Life Farmer, John Leonard, Chas. Rader, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Schlingerland, Mr. and Mrs. John Endicutt, Mrs. C. I. Nichols, George Nichols, Jas. Elliott, Mrs. Livinia Grover and Mrs. Sarah Spencer, Mr. Eli Jones being the only surviving member still retaining his membership at the present time, having been an active member in the organization for more than 50 years.
In 1874 the Grange hall was erected on land which had been donated by Richmond Carner for that purpose, all of the money and labor for building being given by the members of the Grange at that time. Many additions and improvements have been made at various times and this hall has been used for practically all public gatherings in the valley up to the present time.
FROM THE ARCHIVE: REMEMBERING VERN PIVER
by Bruce Anderson (March 2012)
Fort Bragg said goodbye to Vern Piver on Saturday, March 5, 2012. It was standing room only in the high school gym where one of the largest crowds in local memory gathered to honor the memory of this most vivid man, the town's un-elected mayor. It was overcast and a light rain was falling when the service ended. Across the street, two girl's softball games were underway, and on an otherwise unoccupied diamond two small boys took turns hitting each other ground balls. Seventy years ago, one of them would have been Vern Piver dreaming big dreams.
Old timers will tell you that Vern Piver was the best all-round athlete Mendocino County has ever produced, “and the best baseball player for sure.” Vern Piver himself, however, will say that Fort Bragg's John DeSilva is the best, adding that the late Ado Severi, Larry Weller, Hal Perry, Kelvin Chapman, Jerry Tolman, and many other local athletes were better at more sports than he was. Old-timers will counter, “If Piver had been a few years younger he would have gone to the majors. He could do it all: he could run, he had an arm like a bazooka and he hit with power. He was tougher than hell, too. Piver would play on a broken leg if he had to.”
Younger people are more likely to remember the popular Fort Bragg native as their high school basketball coach or as the man who was instrumental in founding the Fort Bragg Little League. Farther afield in far-flung Mendocino County, Piver is remembered as the patient, good-humored guy who reffed their basketball games.
A quick-witted, versatile man who left Fort Bragg as a 17-year-old kid to play professional baseball, and by the time he got home to stay he'd played with the best ballplayers there were on two continents and had fought in a war on a third. Only the two years Piver endured as an Army draftee in Korea kept him away from Fort Bragg in the wintertime. Most ball players in the fifties had to work in the off-season, and Vern Piver was no exception. He'd come back to Fort Bragg in the fall and go right to work in the woods. Later, forced out of baseball by an ankle he'd broken one winter falling trees, the industrious Piver continued to work in the woods or at the mill, eventually starting up his own chainsaw sales and repair shop.
For many years, Vern raised prize-winning rhododendrons that surround the comfortable home Vern and his wife Betty shared on North Sanderson in Fort Bragg. The Pivers are the parents of two thriving adult children, Tony, a fine athlete in his own right, who lives in Napa; and Tammy; who is married and lives with her family in Oregon. Betty and Vern for years shared their home with Vern's elderly mother and, it seems, a range of folks who pop in and out at frequent intervals for a visit. Betty Piver was born in New Orleans. Vern met Betty as a young pro ballplayer.
Born in Manchester to a Native American-Italian mother and an Anglo father, and in Mendocino County those are roots few can boast, Vern was raised up the road in Fort Bragg, a Fort Bragg that is no longer recognizable in today's tourist-oriented economy. But of all Mendocino County towns and communities, Fort Bragg remains the most coherent, a rare place where three and even four generations of family can still be found within the city limits. The place is anchored in a way not found often anymore. And it seems likely that every family in town was represented at Saturday's memorial.
It is this strong sense of place that Vern Piver always evoked. In his formative years, as a latter day child psychologist might describe old Fort Bragg, the town was dominated by the mill and peopled by a polyglot array of immigrants, itinerant loggers, hard scrabble ranchers, farmers, fishermen, retired bootleggers, bartenders for the town's thirty or so bars, and a small professional class consisting of a couple of doctors, a lawyer or two, and school teachers. The heartbeat of Fort Bragg came from the town's stately old ballpark on Main Street, a rambling structure erected in the early 1920's out of redwood donated by the mill. Fort Bragg worked hard and played hard. Play itself was baseball on Saturdays and Sundays and a drink or two downtown afterwards.
Until the early 1970's northward migrations of young city people, the Northcoast was largely home to people who were born lived and died right here. The economy was timber, ranching, fishing, and small-scale agriculture. Towns were small and, as they say, “close knit.”
The social seams have long since burst, but what community remains in Mendocino County largely consists of the sports community, and the sports community consists almost entirely of people who were born and raised here. Sports people know each other, particularly from “back when.” And sports people remember. A Laytonville high school football player reminisces about the time he played in Covelo. A forty-year-old woman recalls the intensity of volleyball games in the Lilliputian Leggett gym. A small school basketball player remembers the year tiny Boonville ran Sonoma County's perennial large school sports power Cardinal Newman right out of the gym in a rare victory for a basketball David over a hoops Goliath. No matter where you go in Mendocino County, people will know that Ukiah's great athlete, Kelvin Chapman, once played with the Mets, and that Fort Bragg's Vern Piver had a shot at the bigs with the Pittsburg Pirates. Few people — then or now — are likely to know who their Congressman is. Or want to know except to groan.
Two of the best known sports figures in Mendocino County were Vern Piver of Fort Bragg and Brad Shear of Ukiah, both of whom had enormous influence on several generations of local young people drawn to competitive athletics. Both remembered Mendocino County when baseball was the sport, and every little town in the county, including the state hospital at Talmage, fielded at least one Sunday afternoon baseball team.
It was the old Mendocino County that produced Vern Piver, and 1951 was one of his most memorable years.
Piver graduated from Fort Bragg High School and signed a contract to play professional baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I got $500 to sign and I thought I was rich; it was the most money I'd ever seen,” he says, laughing. Years later, and still looking fit enough to hold his own on a ball field, Vern Piver looked back on a life that took him a long, long way from Fort Bragg, but it was Fort Bragg that always drew him back.
AVA: You were born on the Manchester reservation in 1933 and grew up in Fort Bragg.
Piver: My grandfather on the Italian side of the family was a Scarioni. I have a picture of him with my grandmother. They got married in April. My dad was born in October. She was packin’ him when that picture was taken. (Laughs) My dad was a Piver. He came up here to work in the Union Lumber mill in 1937. His family had a ranch below Point Arena but the ranch house burned down, and we came to Fort Bragg. A guy named Bill Owens owns the place now. His dad bought it in 1951 when it was still called 'the old Piver place.' My grandfather was kind of an oddball. He went to the gold fields in Alaska. Gone for seven years. Popped up one day without a word. Then he made split stuff, worked in tie (railroad ties) camps up in Humboldt County and out at Branscomb. He’d ship his old split stuff tools with some old redwood boards home by train. They’d always get home before he did. He had a packsack on his back, walkin’, hikin’, hitchhikin’. We knew he was coming because his tools got here first. Then, here he came with a packsack on his back.
AVA: Baseball grabbed you pretty early?
Piver: I grew up as a bat boy downtown. I got a picture from when we lived across from the firehouse. I was 'bout that big. Bat in the hand. Hung around the ballpark all the time. I played all sports. Junior Loggers, Senior Loggers. Baseball was it in the 40s and 50s. Pavioni owned the College Inn and he ran the ball club. He’d get a lot of liquor trade at the bar. He was good to me. Gave me my first job for $1 an hour down at the ballpark. I had a little motorscooter to drag the field with. The motorscooter was big time in a way. A lot of guys dragged the field with a horse, but he had a three-wheeled scooter that dragged it, and then I chalked it.
AVA: There was a real nice old ballpark in Laytonville. It’s still there.
Piver: I played up there! Harwood Field. Bud Harwood played shortstop for the University of California. He was a pretty good ball player. They had a few good players up there. Do you remember Okerstrom Logging? The old man was a big side-armer. He hit me in the ribs when I was 15 and every time I seen him someplace I’d groan, and grab my chest and say, 'Oh my ribs are starting to ache already!' He’d come sideways, side arm, I was 15, and he was pitching against me and stuck me one right in the ribs. I can still feel that bruise. A lot of those guys were just old farmers. Get a baseball team together and play on Sundays.
For a while in Fort Bragg, we played down there where the G-P nursery is now. It’s all black dirt. They played softball there, too. No grass. Just black dirt. You’d come home and your socks were black. All black. The wind would blow off the ocean and the dirt would stick to your sweat. They finally re-seeded the field and it was a nice little park. The left field fence was a short hop, just a little over 300 feet. When I was a kid old man Mazzoni had his house just past the left field fence; we had to put up screens because the older guys kept breaking his windows with long balls. I put up the mesh screens on his windows. Kids would get 25¢ for bringing back a foul ball. But you had to move pretty fast through the old man's vegetable garden if he was there; but kids, for two bits, they’d run through his onion patch and everything.
The land downtown was nicer for a ballpark, which is where the Loggers played all the way back to when the park was built. They were called the Seals at first, back in the early 20's, because the San Francisco Seals had given the team some of their old uniforms. Around 1930, the Seals became the Loggers and stayed the Loggers for the next thirty years. The old ballpark had green grass. Wood stands. Everything. Right there on Main Street! The Loggers always drew a real good crowd — what are you going to do in Fort Bragg in the 40s and 50s on a Sunday afternoon? They broadcast the Loggers games live on radio KDAC. They had a guy named Joe Pasero, an old logger. He’d put on a business suit. He’d be all big time. He had his tie and his good suit on to do the local broadcast. At the end of every game he'd always say, “When you lose, you're really learning how to win.” That was his sign-off saying. And he always pronounced San Francisco, “San Cisco.” Never did say it, “San Francisco.”
There were a lot of characters around that ballpark. We had a guy named Burt Enders. Used to wear a three-piece suit. He was the ticket taker. They cooked hot dogs right there, too. Fried ‘em with onions. Oh man they were good! They used the gate money and the hot dog money to maintain the field. They made enough to buy bats, balls — everything from old Al Earle down in San Francisco. That guy must have made a fortune bookin’ all the semi-pro games for Northern California and sellin' equipment to all the teams then. In the summer I worked for Pavioni. He owned the College Inn, the bar in town. Ballplayers hung out there. I was 13 or 14 and he paid me $1 an hour to do whatever for him. I'd get the $1 an hour and all I could eat at the College Inn. They had Italian dinners. The leftovers we’d have for lunch. Nine kids in our family. I could eat. Five boys and four girls. Two sisters are gone and two brothers. Lost one to drugs. One to cancer. And two to heart attacks.
Union Lumber owned the old ballpark. They hired some ballplayers and brought ‘em up here in the summer. A few were college guys out of Cal. The Finns and the Swedes were Squareheads. The ballpark was right in Wop Town, the Italian neighborhood. Every day we played ball there as kids. The ballpark was old, old with wood fences, wood seats, and Pop Marshall was the main guy. He was a bird dog (scout for pro teams) and the Logger's coach and manager. Pop had played for the Detroit Tigers. He had a poolroom with a bar and a soda fountain. In the back he had a boxing ring with seats all around it where Pop would have boxing matches. He lived in the house above his business. Always wore a suit. Never see him without a suit and tie and a hat. Shoes shined. Oh yeah!
AVA: When did they tear down the old ballpark?
Piver: I can’t answer that one. Early 60s, I guess. Then Green Memorial Park was the baseball field. But it didn’t have the coziness of the old park.
AVA: Pretty good coach?
Piver: There were little things he should have been telling me as a prospect coming up, like hitting behind the runner, cheatin’ a little on double plays — that kind of thing, the finer points of the game. Even my high school coach, Andy Anderson, they named the high school gym after him, and not to degrade him or anything, was short on fundamentals. I didn't get the fundamentals until my first year in the pros. When I went to my first year in the pros I didn't know nothin'. But the old ballpark was a great place. They had two teams here in town when I was in high school; I started out with the Junior Loggers. The Junior Loggers were the scrubbinis (scrubs) who couldn’t make it with the big team. So we traveled. We played in Covelo. Leggett Valley. Branscomb. Willits.
The first time I went to Covelo I thought I was going to die in the summer heat over there. I had ice cubes in my pockets, in my hat. A guy said, 'You’re going to play right field today.' I said, 'No, I’m an infielder. I’m not going out there.' He said, 'You’re playin’ right field.' I said, 'They got rattlesnakes out there. I’m not goin’ out in that field.' That was 1949. Covelo had a few good ballplayers, but they’d get so drunk on Saturday night they couldn’t play worth a damn on Sunday!
When I started with the Loggers, Larry Weller was playing, and he was a year younger than me. Everybody else was probably six, eight, ten, twelve years older than me. But nobody got paid. They’d get a few guys jobs, but most of the guys, two-thirds of the Loggers team, worked at the mill. And they played for the Loggers forever. Quite a few are still around here. Bill Brazill, for instance, was born and raised in Boonville. He worked for PG&E. Larry Weller signed with the Yankees out of here. He later worked for the railroad. Bartellini signed with a club in the Coast League. The Loggers was a tough lineup to crack. Guys had been playin' for 30 years, some of them. I was a little snot-nosed kid. I could play though, so somebody had to move.
We played two games every weekend all summer; Saturday and Sunday. Not too many double-headers. I don’t think the Loggers could have played three because they didn’t have the pitching to play three.
They had something like 26 bars in town back then. More bars than any other place in the country for its size. My dad used to run one. I was up talkin’ to Baldy Del Re the other day at the Senior Center. He played baseball here for 40 years or something. He had a dairy up on Bald Hill. He told me the other day that he helped build part of the old ball park, slaved on it, then when the season started Pop Marshall started another guy at first base! Baldy's still burned about it.
In the old days, every little stop in the road had a mill. And baseball was the only game people could afford. Every mill had a team. Dad played on a team at Elk that was three Gravanis, three Gallettis, and three Stornettas — all Italians.
AVA: From the Fort Bragg Loggers you jumped into pro ball.
Piver: I was 17 when I signed with the Pirates. 1951. They brought a team up here to Fort Bragg one time and we beat the hell out of them. A bonus baby was pitchin’. He'd signed for $20,000 or something. I ended up going 5 for 6 in that game. Fontaine asked me, 'You ever think about playin’ pro ball? I said, 'Since I was four years old! Let's go!' He came up about a month and a half later and signed me. He gave me $500 and I signed.
They were going to send me to Klamath Falls, Oregon, right out of Fort Bragg High School. It was June, the middle of the season. They said, 'Well, we’ll have you wait and go to spring training next year. So I waited. Oh, my lands! I was a country boy coming out of Fort Bragg. I didn’t know what sanitary socks were until I went to spring training! You just got an old pair of wool socks and pulled them up here in Fort Bragg back then. Every time you look your white socks were rollin’ down!
I left Fort Bragg on the Skunk. Went to Willits. Caught the train south to San Rafael. Greyhound was on strike. Had to give the porter from the train $10 to give me a ride from San Rafael to the train station in San Francisco at Third and Townsend. I got down to San Bernadino a week early. I get down there, I don’t know what to do. Draggin’ my equipment in a suitcase. I had one pair of slacks. I'd banked most of the $500. What the hell do I do? I went over to where the big league team, the Pirates, were having spring training. They checked me into the hotel and I went out and shagged balls, played a little pepper with the big league team. They never did let me hit. Ralph Kiner, the famous home run hitter, was there.
They were handin’ money out to chumps back then. Bonus babies. One kid, Montgomery, he couldn’t even lace his shoes. He got $40,000. Somebody must have seen him do something, but nobody else ever did. But the game's changed a lot. The guy that taught us how to slide made us slide on cement. DeTorre. He taught sliding in spring training. He could literally slide on cement and not get a strawberry. And the Baltimore chop — chop the ball hard down in the box for a high hop and run hard for first. I'd do that to get on base because I was pretty fast, but you don’t hear that baseball lingo any more.
They fly me to Florida for my next spring training. That was an experience. I got on an airplane and asked where the parachute was. (Laughs) I never flew before. I’d seen movies with planes but never had been in one. Flew all the way to Florida! What an experience that was. I’m dark. I get to Florida they got these signs, 'Colored' and 'White.' I looked at myself, and ask, “Which one do I go in?” I didn’t know. I'm a hayseed from Fort Bragg. I was never exposed to prejudice like Florida's. I’m lookin’ around like a desert rat for water. I go through the chow line and they throw grits on my plate. I told ‘em I didn’t eat mush with my eggs for breakfast. I didn't know they ate grits with everything down there.
When I was finished with baseball, I came back to Fort Bragg and worked in the woods. Those days you could go down to the mill and if you knew a boss you had a job automatically. I’d come back in the fall of the year. I knew Biggie Bartley. Played basketball for years on the local team. He was a boss down there in… He said, You gonna play basketball for me? I said I needed a job first. I showed up Monday for work. Same way when I went to work in the woods. I went to the woods boss, and got the job right away.
AVA: All kinds of woods work?
Piver: Mostly timber falling. Guy asked me, 'Can you run a saw?' I said, 'I think so.' So… It was a good livin’. I got out of high school and worked in the woods that summer with my dad. Then you were known as a tool-packer, learnin’ a trade. A grunt, I guess. Packed the bottom wedges. Packed the saw. Learnin’ a trade. There’s a lot to fallin' trees. You gotta be skilled. You can’t just walk out there and start knockin’ trees down.
But that’s a thing of the past now too. Timber’s smaller. Those days each tree was worth a lot of money. I could see it comin’, the decline in the logging industry. You can’t grow ’em faster than you can cut them down. The outside corporations — all they want is money. They could have been puttin' along like the Union Lumber Company did. But the big boys weren’t happy with puttin' along. The Johnson family ran Union Lumber. I was on a first name basis with them. Everyone was. You’d see them on the street and could talk to them. Now, no one knows who’s running the place. When the outside owners came in here I packed my bag and went to work for a gyppo — Shuster.
The Johnson family helped the town a lot when they owned the mill. They carried people through the big Depression; they gave people enough work to get along. By the same token, Fort Bragg was a company town. People sold their souls, like the song said, to the company store. They had charge accounts down there. I never did, but lots of people bought furniture, groceries, meat at the company store. The only thing they didn’t sell was fuel. They sold everything else. Union Lumber put money in the rec center where kids hung out by the hundreds. There was a swimming pool, and a gym. That’s where I first started playin’ basketball — a little scrawny runt in the corner. They'd get nine guys but they'd need ten; they’d look around — oh shit, he’s here again! We'll take him, I guess. Him was me. Skins against shirts… Playground play. That’s the way it was in the old days. Big guys would let the little guys shag fly balls. It gets to be the little guy's turn to hit and … oh, time’s up — gotta go home.
AVA: Do you remember the strike of 1946?
Piver: Oh yeah. You can’t believe the fistfights me and my brother got into over it. My dad — we had nine kids in the family — he’s makin’ split stuff in Little Valley when he's not working at the mill and he’s gotta go across the picket line to go work. He had to work or we wouldn't eat! At the ice cream and soda water socials all the union people’d be there and me and my brother went hobblin’ up for free ice cream and soda and someone would say, 'Here comes that scab’s kids!' I said, Not for long, pal. Only thing that’s going to be scabby around here is your nose if you don’t shut up!'
There's still some bad feelings about the strike. There was a lady named Mrs. Jensen. She used to walk her husband down there and cross the picket line with him every day like she was walkin' her kid to school. Big fiery red-headed lady. 'Get outta the way!' she'd yell and she’d walk him right across the line. The strikers used to throw rocks and break windows. They coulda had a union here but they wanted a closed shop. They wanted to do their own hiring. The Johnsons would have given them the union, but the union wanted to do the hiring and firing, and the Johnsons said, No, we won’t go for that.
But I was young, about 13. I remember that if you lived over past Puddin’ Creek you automatically became a red. Pudding Creek, you were a communist automatically! You know how small towns are. 'You’re old man’s a commie!' That kind of thing.
The Finns had their own co-op. Sold hay and everything else. My grandfather and grandmother shopped there. I still have some of their co-op stock. You got a cheaper price on stuff if you owned stock.
There were 2,300 people workin’ at the mill here at one time. They had a guy for everything. Automation did away with a lot of the jobs. Machines replaced two or three men. Chainsaws replaced men. You put 45 years in the mill and you got a gold watch — there’s gotta be something wrong with your head to start with to do that that long. I’ve been diversified. I've done a number of things: ballplayer, owned a chainsaw shop, worked in the woods, fished’, crabbin’. I worked for a tree service maintaining saws for them. Used to be a lot of chainsaw shop business. Now there’s nothin’. I see a lot of woodsmen drivin’ up and down Main Street, no work for ‘em and it’s June! They should have half a season in already.
AVA: You mentioned playing winter ball in Mexico.
Piver: I made more in winter ball than I did playin' ball any place else. I’ve been to some backwoods towns down in that country. In Cordova they'd ring the church bell every hour on the hour right across the street from the hotel. We traveled by bus, and the night we won the pennant, the hometown fans rioted. They were rocking the bus and they broke out the windows. I was afraid for my life! I’ll tell ya. They took baseball seriously down there. The team I played one winter for, was Pozarica. In the summer I played for the Mexico City Tigers. The Pozarica team was owned by Pemex Oil. The president of the company went to school down here at the old San Rafael Military Academy then graduated from Cal as an engineer. He was in charge of Pemex/Mexico. He also owned the Ford agency in town so everybody drove a Ford. If you were working for Pemex, they took a season’s ticket out of your wages. I don’t know how many people he had working in that area, probably five or six thousand. Each one had to buy a season ticket out of their paycheck. They had no choice. So the park was full every night. I was paid in pesos. The peso was stronger then. I got a haircut and a shave in 1957, the year I played in Mexico, for 11¢.
AVA: Good ball players?
Piver: Yes. Absolutely. Some big leaguers came from that league. Alvin Jackson. He’s a pitching coach now. He pitched for the Mets. A few Cubans and a few guys from Panama. If you had Spanish ancestry and you played winter ball down there, you counted as a national. They could only have five foreigners on the team. I was a foreigner plus two or three other colored guys on the team. Pete Mason — he pitched for San Diego, then the Cleveland Indians. He was on the roster. They had some big time players down there. Dick Hall, he pitched relief for Baltimore later on. There’s a guy who made some money. He married a girl from Mazatlan, played winter ball down there and at the same time he was gobblin’ up all that beach frontage. I bet he’s a millionaire many times over by now. He was smart. Went to Swarthmore College. If it was raining, he’d figure the dimensions of the ballpark and tell you how many drops of water were falling in that ballpark in a given time.
The regular season here was over in September; they’d start winter ball down there and you'd play until February. We played damn near every day and travel four or five hours from town to town by bus. I played in all the big cities. We'd get 25,000 to a game.
I played against Alonzo Perry. Not many people remember him, but at the time, it was between him and Jackie Robinson to be the first colored ballplayer to integrate American baseball. They picked the right guy when they chose Robinson. Perry was 6-6, played first base. He was a very tough guy; not the kind of guy to turn the other cheek. Robinson was a diplomat. Perry just as soon knock you on your ass as look at you. He didn’t slide one time comin’ into second and I drilled him. I told him, you’ll get down next time. He said, I’m gonna get up and get you down, Piver! He always packed a gun in his back pocket. I saw Perry in a nightclub one night smokin’ dope, marijuana. I didn’t even know what it was at the time. He hit .360- something every year down there, and he hit with power. But you weren’t gonna call him names and get away with it.
When our catcher got hurt, I said, Gimme that gear, I’ll catch. And I caught a one-hitter! That's where I stayed because I had a hell of an arm. Second base was an easy throw for me. If I caught, I figured I had a better chance to get to the big leagues as a utility guy. I could play anywhere. Pitch, if I had to. I had a gun for an arm, but I broke my ankle fallin’ timber in the winter of 1959 and that was it for baseball. I was standing on a springboard, and when the tree went the board kicked against my ankle and broke it in three places. Set two of them. Missed the third one. I broke it again playin’ summer ball with the Loggers. I'd hit a home run, and rounding first base I felt like a rifle went off and hit my ankle. The only injuries I'd had playing baseball was a torn-off fingernail and in Modesto one night I got spiked on the back of an ankle. Doctor came out of the stands and sewed the son of a bitch up there without any kind of painkiller. Next morning I got it shot it up with Novocain and played.
AVA: Best year you had as a pro?
Piver: .345 in Salinas. Still got all the offensive records there. Tore the league up in Hollywood. Hit .300 for a month, but got sent to Salinas. Ended up playin’ in Memphis. No coloreds allowed in that league. I can still remember Eddie Glennan in Birmingham, the owner of the team there. I was killing him. 4 for 6. He yelled at me, 'I’m going to check your lineage!' I yelled back, 'You white racist son of a bitch! I’m going to come up there and kick your ass!'
I played in New Orleans with a white guy named JC Powers. He was a racist from Birmingham. We used to walk down the street and he’d tell the coloreds to get off the sidewalk! I said, Come on, JC. Don’t talk to people like that. He said, I was raised like that. I said, I don’t give a shit how you were raised, it's not right.
Another time, I jumped on the back of the trolley and the operator wouldn’t move it. He said to me, 'Get up front! I said, 'I'm fine where I am. He said, Get up front or nobody goes anywhere.' Jesus. What a system! Played two years down there in New Orleans. Blacks had to sit out in the right field bleachers.
I don’t regret playin' ball. I had six good years in the minor leagues, met a lot of people, traveled all over the country, even got to go to Mexico. I had a great time doin' what I was good at. I don't have any complaints.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, April 3, 2025
VINCENT ALVAREZ, 32, Covelo. Controlled substance, disobeying court order, failure to appear.
JEFFREY CARVER, 42, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia.
MIRANDA ELLINGWOOD, 42, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-loitering, under influence.
MIGUEL ESTRELLA, 43, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-loitering, under influence.
ROBERT HAMMOND, 31, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.
JOHN KRUMSEIK, 44, Clearlake/Ukiah. Probation revocation.
WESLEY LEWIS, 24, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.
JORGE MARTINEZ-GARCIA, 29, Ukiah. County parole violation.
CHERRI ROBERTS, 48, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol. (Frequent flyer.)
EDUARDO TORRES-GARCIA, 25, Kelseyville/Ukiah. DUI.
CHARLES WEBSTER, 42, Upper Lake/Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.
DOUGLAS WHIPPLE III, 39, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.
DAVID WYATT, 55, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery, failure to appear.
FROM A MARCH 1937 ISSUE of the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Death looked into the eyes of five sailors off the Farallones last Friday when a school of killer whales, mad with the blood lust as they slaughtered more than 100 seals, turned to attack the small boat off the lighthouse tender Sequoia. The killers appeared off the rocky island as a surfboat from the tender was put off with the regular weekly supplies. Five sailors, under second mate Charles B. Medd, were rowing shoreward when they sighted the seven killers engaged in a savage attack on the seals. Flashing through the scarlet water the whales slashed and ripped as the frightened seals fought toward the shore. Suddenly one of the killers sighted the churning oars of the small boat and streaked toward it. As the black fin cut the water, Medd ordered the oars pulled into the boat. The whale cut on through the water, its 25-foot bulk certain to overturn the boat. At the last moment, it dived. Satisfied that the object without movement was not alive, the killer returned to the pack for another attack on the seals. On the island O.R. Berg, lighthouse keeper and F. H. Hamilton, chief navy radioman, had looked on helplessly as they were without guns. The grim tragedy continued, the killing apparently was purely for sport, observers said. An army blimp from Sunnydale, which passed low over the island, played an unwitting part in the slaughter as many of the seals on shore, frightened at the sound of the motors and the sight of the sky monster, slipped back into the water to certain death before the killers' jaws.”
SOLAR POWER MATH
Editor:
A Press Democrat editorial advised the California Public Utilities Commission to check its math before further disincentivizing and voiding existing contracts between utilities and those of us who installed rooftop solar before April 1, 2023. I did that, and I saved the check stubs so my math wouldn’t get fuzzy.
In my “true up” period for 2023, I received a check for $588.16 for the 5,843 excess kilowatt-hours I sent to the grid. That equals 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. PG&E sold those kilowatt-hours for an average of 38 cents, a markup of 280%. In 2024, my true up check was $358.28 for 4,031 kilowatt-hours, or 8.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. PG&E sold those kilowatt-hours for an average of 45 cents, a markup of 405%. I also pay $12.14 per month for the privilege of giving PG&E extra power to sell at a huge profit, but I guess I’m the one to blame for high electric rates.
Although the editorial tried to appear balanced, it really struck out by saying rooftop solar could wind up being a costly misadventure. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it might be the only available solution for avoiding the poorhouse. The CPUC needs to be reminded that “public” is what they’re supposed to represent.
Jonathan McClelland
Santa Rosa
GLOBALIZATION BAD
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Says Global Trade Has Been Cheating the U.S. Is He Right?” (New York Times, April 3):
In the past quarter-century in the United States, millions of factory workers have lost their jobs. Tens of thousands of factories have closed. We have become dependent on foreign countries for steel, automobiles, electronics and just about everything else. You bet we have been cheated!
I am old enough to remember when this country produced virtually all of its consumer goods, when the middle class was growing and prospering. It’s the middle class that does the work and runs this country, and we’re killing it with globalization.
Pete Drexler
Croton-on-Hudson, New York
POLLUTERS PAY CLIMATE SUPERFUND ACT PASSES FIRST CALIFORNIA SENATE COMMITTEE
by Dan Bacher
On March 2, the California Senate version of the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act passed out of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee in a 5-3 vote.
SB 684 is a bill that would require fossil fuel corporations to pay for the climate devastation they have contributed to across California. Similar bills have already been passed in 2024 by New York and Vermont.
The next confirmed Senate Committee hearing for SB 684 will be on April 29 in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Assembly version of the bill, AB 1243, will be heard in Assembly Committees soon, with the dates to be announced.
Members of grassroots groups throughout the state overflowed the hearing room in support of the legislation. Bill advocates also rallied outside the building of the Western State Petroleum Association (WSPA), the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in Sacramento, to demand that polluters, not everyday Californians, pay for the billions of dollars in climate damages fossil fuels contribute to in the state.
“The number of Californians who came out to support this bill should signal to lawmakers that there is a large – and growing – desire to hold polluters accountable for their role in driving the climate crisis,” said Food & Water Watch California Director Nicole Ghio in a statement. “For too long, polluters have profited from their rampant pollution while Californians have been left footing the bill.”
“And we cannot rely on support from the federal government when disaster strikes, as the Musk-Trump administration continues to loot and privatize public resources and politicize relief. California needs the revenue from this legislation to prepare for and recover after the next climate change induced disaster. We applaud the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act sponsors and supporters for moving this vital bill forward,” she concluded.…
ESTHER MOBLEY: What I'm Reading
Alder Yarrow has strong words for Napa County on his Vinography site. He argues that the 1990 Winery Definition Ordinance is a “deeply flawed and outdated regulatory framework” and that the local government is misguided in how it is restricting wineries’ activities.
German vineyards are moving Frenchward, reports Rudy Ruitenberg in Decanter. As average annual temperatures rise, producers have been replacing German varieties like Muller-Thurgau with the likes of Merlot, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.
The New York Times’ Eric Asimov weighs in on nonalcoholic wine, producing a list of his 10 favorites — or, at least, a list of 10 he can tolerate. “I did find 10 bottles that, while I would not mistake them for good wine,” he writes, “I would drink happily if I were handed a glass at a party at which I was trying to avoid alcohol.”
DOGE HAS HIT SOCIAL SECURITY. THESE ARE THE PROBLEMS PEOPLE ARE FACING — AND TIPS TO COPE
by Jessica Roy
Technical difficulties. Hours on hold. Long drives to field offices.
Those are among the frustrating, time-consuming, anxiety-inducing problems Social Security recipients recently reported to the Chronicle after we wrote about changes in the program’s identity verification requirements under the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump and close adviser Elon Musk claim the Social Security Administration is rife with fraud and waste. But many lawmakers and policy experts say that’s false. A 2024 audit of the program by the Office of Inspector General found $72 billion in improper payments between 2015 and 2022, which amounts to 0.84% of Social Security’s spending in that time period. It includes payments that were too small as well as overpayments that were later recovered. Trump and Musk have provided no hard evidence to back their claims.
Musk had no experience running a government agency prior to being named the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He has opted to tackle the alleged Social Security fraud and waste issue by slashing jobs and implementing new verification procedures.
Many people will now have to verify their identity using selfies and cellphones, or by traveling in person to a field office. (Musk is also closing 47 of those, with 26 shutting this year, though none in California.) Already, the agency has had to push back the date two weeks and backtrack some changes. 72.5 million Americans receive Social Security benefits in some form.
When we wrote about the verification changes, a lot of Chronicle readers reached out with issues — and some tips. Here’s what they had to say.
‘I’m done wasting time’
Many of the updated verification procedures require things not all seniors have, like smartphones, reliable Internet service and email access. There’s also a level of technological know-how required, like how to set up two-factor authentication, and the ability to remember websites and passwords and navigate things like cookie pop-ups.
People who aren’t able to set up their account online will no longer be able to be verified by phone — they will need to travel in person to a field office, which can be a challenge for older people. The Social Security Administration is not allowing walk-ins: “Call to make an appointment before visiting,” the website warns.
A reader named Rod wrote in to say he’s “given up” trying to access his Social Security account online after myriad attempts at verifying his identity, including sending photos and videos of himself, photos of his driver’s license, and information about his Social Security number and addresses. “I’m done wasting time with (Social Security),” he wrote. “I’m 78. I do not need the aggravation.”
Many readers cited long waits on the phone for help. One person wrote in and said they were quoted a wait time of 100 hours. Another said her husband got through to an agent after three hours only to be told he needed to call a different number, and waited another three hours on hold there before giving up.
Others encountered errors online. One reader sent a screenshot taken Friday evening of an error message saying the Social Security website wasn’t available at all. Another said she followed the steps to upload a photo of herself, but got back an error message that her identity couldn’t be verified. She said she plans to retire but can’t until her benefits issues are resolved.
A reader named Rochelle said she’d encountered several problems: She wasn’t able to download statements, her benefits verification letter, payment history, or documentation of deductions. “It looks like all the links are completely not working,” she wrote.
When she called the main support number, she was told the wait was over 120 minutes and was told to call back another time, then hung up on.
“They said we need to make an appointment, but there is no way to make an appointment on the main website,” she wrote. “They send you to a local office telephone number, which goes nowhere.”
Tips from readers for Social Security issues
Some readers shared tips they’ve identified to get through the morass.
Unfreeze your Experian account. A reader named Doug said that although login.gov doesn’t say it, it uses the credit reporting agency Experian to verify identity. If you’ve frozen your credit — which you should — you may need to temporarily unfreeze it while you set up or validate your Social Security account online.
Switch Internet browsers. A reader named Raymond sent a link to a Reddit thread where people talked about how they got out of endless redirect loops on login.gov. A popular solution: Try using Microsoft Edge or an incognito window on Google Chrome to access the site.
(SF Chronicle)
CONGRESSMAN GENOCIDE HUFFMAN
Dear Congressman Huffman,
Thank you for coming to Eureka and sharing your views with us on Sunday, March 30th. I appreciate you being so candid about your support for Israel and how you prioritize it above anything else. I was also impressed by the variety of questions and comments you received that pushed you on this support for Israel and the continuation of US Taxes and weapons to sponsor their genocide of the Palestinian people. Full disclosure, I was one of the protestors who had to leave about 30 minutes early because I couldn’t stand to listen to the Pro-Israel propaganda you were repeating. If you didn’t hear me in the back, this is what I yelled at you before walking out, “That is a lie. You Lie. Israel is NOT a Democracy. You know this. You know this.” This was in response to your statement in response to a question about Israel’s ethics, that the “good people in Israel” are protesting for their “Democracy” and you made some reference that “we” should be more like them in this instance.
The reason why I know you know that Israel is not a Democracy is because you have been to Israel and The West Bank (de-facto Israel), most notably in a 2022 trip that was paid for by the liberal Pro-Israel lobby group, J Street. Afterwards, on a J Street led panel about the trip, you made several explicit statements, including describing the Israeli occupation having “parallels” to apartheid:
“….I continue to struggle, I do still – where does that term fit in to our characterization and our conversation about our occupation. I understand there are distinctions, but there seems to be a concerted use by the Palestinian side to use that term more and more and a similar effort on the other side to say you can’t ever use that term, that’s like a third rail, and you’re not even allowed to say it or even compare to it. So somewhere in between these two things there’s a real interesting conversation about how we characterize the occupation- and to some extent the parallels we can draw to apartheid.”
You went on to state that you support restrictions on US aid to prevent “human rights abuses” – but, of course, not cutting the usual $4 billion a year in aid that we send them each year. You state an “honest debate” over restrictions on aid was important, and you spoke of the “incredible imbalance of power” that you witnessed in the West Bank, including the demolition of Palestinian homes and harassment of Palestinian villagers by Israeli settlers, “assisted and armed by the IDF.” You said it was time for the US to “use our influence to …. maybe level the scales of justice a little for these folks.” Because all that can stop these “outrageous” actions is the US Congress and the Israeli Supreme Court.
After I left your town hall, I watched online as you made some responses to several more rebukes you received about your support of Israel during this genocide. One thing you said really stood out, you said “I have tried to influence US policy on Israel before and it failed.” After researching your website and all your interviews, this J Street panel in 2022, was the only thing I could point to regarding you ever trying to influence US foreign policy on Israel. One question you raised with the J Street Panel after your visit to Israel was pushing back on the US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, and his decision to not reopen the US Consulate in Jerusalem, “…why would Israeli politics be the top consideration for our administration and for our ambassador on the ground? Why not our values and our agenda?”
I want you to know that I do believe that deep down in your heart of hearts, that you have a clear understanding of right from wrong. I know that you understand what a genocide is and what apartheid is and that you know Israel is an ethno-state that oppresses its non-Jewish populations both within its 1967 borders and outside of them. Further statements from you in the J Street Panel clearly show you understand that the Two State Solution is a “bait and switch” tactic, clearly not a reality, and that The West Bank is De-Facto Israel. And I know that you know that because of these things, that Israel is and hasn’t been a Democracy, since its inception. You describe Israel as a Democracy “by Middle Eastern” standards, obfuscating the reality that the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Palestinian residents in the West Bank and Gaza, which are controlled by Israel, are not represented by the Israeli government and experience severe degrees of oppression.
Your overall tone and your statements in this J Street Panel contrast with your tone and statements now. Nowadays a letter or statement from you on this subject will be found to repeat the same propaganda points that we hear and read every day on mainstream news and media. No one asked you about Israel’s “right to exist”, they asked you about ending the Genocide and the Occupation, about the Human Rights record of the IDF, and about the right for Palestinians to simply “exist.” They asked you about your own morality in supporting Israel’s war. You stated you voted once to arm Israel; I believe that you have voted thrice to arm Israel since October 7th.
Could it be that after your somewhat progressive J Street Panel in 2022, that you were approached by a more powerful and aggressive Pro-Israeli lobby and told to tone down your rhetoric? According to your Libertarian colleague, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, every member in Congress has an “AIPAC person.” Massie, who AIPAC tried to unseat in 2024 unsuccessfully, told Tucker Carlson in an interview last year, that the “AIPAC People” come to DC and Congressmembers have lunch with them, and they have each other’s cell numbers” and they discuss bills and policy with their “AIPAC people.” When Carlson asked for clarification as to why he had never heard this before, Massie responded, “Why would they want to tell their constituents that they basically got a buddy system with somebody who is representing a foreign country. It doesn’t benefit the Congressman for people to know that, so they are not going to tell you that.”
I have lost count as to how many times I have written and called your offices since the US-funded Genocide on Gaza started. Sometime after a year, I stopped doing this. I have lost hope in you listening to many of your constituents who simply want the US-funded slaughter of children to end. I no longer believe that you will change the destructive path you and your colleagues are on. It is no coincidence that US foreign policy is overwhelmingly bipartisan, this is the one thing that you and Trump and everyone involved all seem to agree on. But here is a tip for you and your staffers, you should work on your responses to the questions and protests on your unwavering support for Israel and the US-funded genocide of the Palestinian people. You came off as reactionary and retaliatory at our Town Hall and you will only be seeing more of us in the future. Blaming folks for how they did or did not vote, as if you have any idea at all, is not working for you or the Democratic party and recent polls are showing that.
Your March 20, 2022 J Street Panel can be accessed here: https://youtu.be/KGPR5MkwHx4?si=AEvo4geomZt6ETju
Shannon Townsend-Bettis
Eureka
THE ‘BUSTER EFFECT’ HAS GIANTS’ MORALE SOARING. Will it boost attendance as well?
by Susan Slusser
Call it the Buster Posey Effect, good vibes that extend from the team to the San Francisco Giants’ fan base.
Posey’s status as a franchise icon after a Hall of Fame-caliber career and his “you’re in good hands” demeanor perfected over years of catching has transferred seamlessly to the front office. Since he was named the Giants’ president of baseball operations in October, his savvy and confidence have buoyed the roster and ticket buyers alike.
“Fans can identify with Buster,” said reliever Tyler Rogers, the team’s longest tenured player and a former Posey teammate. “I guess ‘pre-identify’ is a better way to put it. They know him.”
“Buster is one of the biggest Giants legends,” third baseman Matt Chapman said. “I’ve got to imagine that people are going to support him.”
The Giants, with Posey’s additions of Willy Adames at short and Justin Verlander in the rotation, roared out to a 5-1 start on the road, and they return to Oracle Park on Friday for their home opener against the Mariners, a projected sellout. Tickets remained Thursday, but the team anticipates they’ll be gone by game time at 1:35 p.m.
“As we like to say in this business, winning makes us all look all that smarter, so anything the team does is on the field that can help us is so appreciated, and getting off to a fast start is also super helpful, especially leading into the home opener,” Giants chief revenue officer Jason Pearl said. “But 100% that the announcement of Buster taking over our baseball operations was so well received by our fan base and really lit a fire.”
Posey’s tendencies as the top baseball executive sync with things many fans prefer, such as less roster churn, rewarding good performance in choosing the roster and analytics-driven decisions, and valuing the experience and savvy of the coaches and manager. He’s spoken often about wanting a team with grit. He wants starting pitchers to work deep into games at the big-league level and the minor-league level, and he’s happy for the team to employ small-ball tactics to diversify the offense.
“I think we’re really putting a great brand and product on the field right now,” longtime right fielder Mike Yastrzemski said. “I think it’s something everyone should experience. We’re trying to be gritty, play hard, never quit. The fact that we came out Day One and showed the type of fight that we have and how much pride we have in wearing this uniform should bring the city around.”
Posey’s stature and his stated priorities — “We’re in the memory-making business,” he said when he was hired — have made for a sunny clubhouse and an increasingly optimistic fan base. This is reflected in a boost in ticket sales from the day Posey took over the top spot following Farhan Zaidi’s dismissal.
Across the board, from single game to season ticket memberships to corporate sales, ticket sales are up more than 10%, and at more than 90% ticket renewals are “as high, frankly, as they’ve ever been,” said Pearl, who was with the club during their championship years. “There’s absolutely an aura around Buster. Everything he touches is gold and that’s impacted ticket sales from every aspect, starting with membership, but then into our group business, and then into our premium business and obviously our single-game sales, too.”
New season-ticket memberships are double what they were at this time last year. The Giants’ flex memberships, which function like a bank for use when convenient, have taken off, more than double the number the team had last year. (Like most teams, the Giants do not provide specific sales numbers; precise numbers of tickets sold are announced during each game.) Other tickets proving popular are the 415 Club — a European soccer-style area for die-hards — in right-center, and the new Jung Hoo Crew section to recognize Jung Hoo Lee, similar to the Mariners’ Kings Court section when Felix Rodriguez started.
One thing the team hasn’t chosen to do, according to chief marketing officer Rachel Heit, is make Posey the centerpiece to any campaign. The Giants had a Posey Funko Pop figurine giveaway last year; this year, the first former player to be celebrated will be Brandon Crawford on April 26. Next Tuesday is a big one for the marketing folks: The new City Connect jerseys will be unveiled celebrating the city’s musical history. (Leaked photos online indicate the tops include a flower-power type “Giants” logo with shades of orange and purple.)
“I think we have a very nice mix of things celebrating the Giants overall,” Heit said.
There are, of course, many reasons fans are responding in higher numbers than they had at the same point last season, including greater numbers of workers returning to the downtown area and, potentially, the A’s departure from Oakland to Sacramento. East Bay Little League groups have switched over to Oracle Park for their annual stadium days, and a yearly Teamsters event also shifted over.
The Giants might not pick up hardcore A’s fans quite yet, though; many disgruntled Oakland fans blame the Giants’ insistence that San Jose is their territory for helping to push the team out of the Bay Area. Some new ticket holders told the Giants they’re changing allegiances, so it’s mostly anecdotal at this point.
“There is no better experience than at Oracle,” Yastrzemski said. “I think it’s the most beautiful place. People are always shocked when they ask me what my favorite ballpark is and I say Oracle, for so many reasons, because they view it as tough to hit and blah, blah, blah. I don’t think it’s the case, and I also don’t think that there is a more fun time at the ballpark than at Oracle Park.”
When Oracle Park opened in 2000, the Giants sold out every game, averaging 40,973 per night. They haven’t hit the 40K mark in the past seven seasons (two of which were affected by the pandemic, of course) but last year saw an uptick as tickets sold went from 30,866 per game to 32,688. With Posey calling the shots, that number is likely to go up again, given the percentage bumps across membership plans and the community groups displaced from the Coliseum.
The Giants have some fun things on tap for Friday’s opener, including a pregame celebration for Oracle Park’s 25th anniversary — and Verlander and Adames, Posey’s major free-agent additions, making their Giants home debuts. Chapman’s Gold Glove bobblehead night Saturday should be a big draw, too.
“We have a bunch of really good players here and I think there’s a feeling like something’s building here, so that should get people excited to come out,” Chapman said. “At the end of the day, if we win, they’re going to come.”
LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT
Trade War Sets Off ‘Max Pessimism’ in Global Markets as Stocks Plunge
Grocery Shoppers Will Feel the Tariffs First in the Produce Aisle
Trump Fires 6 N.S.C. Officials After Oval Office Meeting With Laura Loomer
Senate Confirms Dr. Oz to Oversee Medicare and Medicaid
Trump’s Not-So-Subtle Purpose in Fighting Big Law Firms
What’s So Hard About Building Trains?
A NEW, SWEEPING ROUND of tariffs sent a shock through Wall Street on Thursday, as upended economic forecasts and intensified worries about global growth sent stock markets tumbling to their worst day since the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell almost 5 percent on Thursday, its worst showing since June 2020. Thursday’s decline came after the S&P 500 had already fallen for five of the last six weeks, amid intensifying economic concerns pressured by tariff talk. But the effects won’t be limited to the financial markets, experts said.
President Trump said he thought “things are going very well.”
(NY Times)
A RESPONSE TO A MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Democrat of California, accused me of serial sex offenses in a public hearing, then said my lack of response was "telling." It's listed below
by Matt Taibbi
Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat representing California’s 37th district in Los Angeles, began her opening remarks in a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing Tuesday with a comment directed to me. “To distract from the dumpster fire this administration is pursuing,” she said, the Republicans were “elevating a serial sexual harrasser as their star witness.”
Right after the hearing, she re-tweeted the comment on X and BlueSky, writing, “After this, Republicans gave Matt Taibbi time to defend himself. It’s telling that he didn’t.”
There is not much a person like me can say to a member of Congress hiding behind the protections of the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution. One can however respond to a member arrogant enough to repeat those claims on social media. I’ve now done so, in the form of a $10 million libel lawsuit filed today in a New Jersey federal court:
Rep. Kamlager-Dove, no woman has ever accused me of engaging in sexual harrassment once, let alone serially. See you in court. Please do not evade service.
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
When I worked in retail, some customers would complain about the Chinese-made crap. I would tell the customer we could order some American-made crap for 50% more to cover the labor costs.
And just how many YEARS are you willing to wait for all those high paying manufacturing jobs you claim will happen?
AS A BAGPIPER I play many gigs. Recently, a funeral director asked me to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends. So the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery far out in the country. I was not familiar with the backwoods, so I got lost. Being a typical man, I didn’t ask for directions. I finally arrived about an hour late. The funeral director had evidently left. There were only the grave diggers and crew cleaning up and eating lunch. I apologized to the men for being late. I went to the grave and saw that the vault lid was already in place. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played my heart out for this man with no family and friends. I played like I’ve never played before for this homeless man. The men began to weep as soulful versions of “My Home” and “The Lord Is My Shepherd” and “Flowers of the Forest” were squeezed from my prized instrument. I closed with a moving rendition of “Amazing Grace” and solemnly walked off to my car. As I opened the car door and took off my coat, I overheard one of the workers say to another, “I've never seen anything like that before, and I've been putting in septic tanks for 26 years.”
FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM STEVE BANNON’S INTERVIEW WITH THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MAGA kingmaker talks about Elon Musk’s spending cuts, Lina Khan’s antitrust approach and why he thinks confirming RFK Jr. is important
by Maggie Severns
In a wide-ranging conversation with WSJ, Steve Bannon discusses Trump’s controversial executive orders and Elon Musk’s new role. Photo: Umit Gulsen
Steve Bannon, the onetime adviser to Donald Trump who now hosts the show “War Room” that is popular with Trump’s Make America Great Again supporters, sat down during the early days of Trump’s second term to discuss the president’s expansive agenda with Wall Street Journal reporter Maggie Severns.
Reeling in spending and the size of the government are top of mind for Bannon right now. But so is building a lasting MAGA coalition on the right. Bannon has spent considerable time pushing the Senate to confirm former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s health secretary, in large part because Bannon wants Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” supporters to stay with Trump.
From his perch outside the White House, Bannon remains influential in pro-Trump circles. Several Trump officials, like Russell Vought, Scott Bessent and Peter Navarro, are Bannon allies who appeared repeatedly on his show before joining the administration.
Here are takeaways from the interview:
Musk should look for cuts closer to home
In his quest to cut government spending, Elon Musk should consider looking at the Department of Defense’s contracts with SpaceX, Bannon said.
“My strongest recommendation is that Elon, as an act of good faith, start with the defense budget,” Bannon said. “Start with defense—maybe even start with SpaceX’s” contracts with the department, he said. “Not cut it, but push the program out a couple years.”
We are in the ‘age of Trump’
Trump’s statements about wanting to take control of the Gaza Strip are only the beginning of norm-smashing behavior from the president that Bannon expects to continue for the next four years.
“I think every day is going to be ‘day of thunder,’ ” he said. Trump’s efforts won’t be limited to the first hundred days, or the notion that “in the midterm election year you can’t do anything,” he said.
“He understands how close he came to political oblivion,” Bannon said. “And I think he also understands that this will be remembered as the age of Trump.”
Bannon praised Trump’s willingness to think not just outside the box but “outside the universe” when it comes to Gaza, but said taking over the area shouldn’t be a priority for Republicans.
Kennedy helps Trump with ‘red-pilled moms’
Bannon spent hours on his show advocating for Kennedy’s confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary in no small part because he believes Kennedy brings a key demographic to the Trump coalition: “red-pilled moms,” many of whom had voted for Barack Obama but are looking for change after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s those moms who during the pandemic saw the overreach of the administrative state on the enforcement of vaccines, on the mask mandates, on what they were doing to the children at school,” Bannon said. Kennedy is their de facto leader. And like Silicon Valley leaders who now support Trump, many moms who flocked to Kennedy during the primary and later to Trump once considered themselves progressive, he said.
Trump’s tech advisers aim to curb antitrust enforcement
Bannon believes Musk and other tech executives will try to shape the Trump administration’s approach to antitrust enforcement. He liked the muscular approach of Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden, whose challenges to Amazon, Microsoft and others made her a hero among progressive Democrats and labor unions—and an enemy to American corporations.
“I think Lina Khan should have been given more power,” Bannon said.
“I think there’s obviously a big problem in Silicon Valley,” he said. “These are monopolistic powers.”
Medicaid cuts could hurt Trump supporters
In their quest to bring down deficits, lawmakers may eventually need to look at cuts to entitlement spending, Bannon said, though there’s little political appetite right now to reduce spending on Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
Many Trump supporters rely on Medicaid, Bannon noted, creating a particularly thorny predicament for Republican lawmakers.
“Working-class people by and large are starting to depend more and more on Medicaid. It’s an issue,” he said. “None of these cuts are going to be easy.”
(Wall Street Journal)
MEL BROOKS (via Fred Gardner)
A THIRD TERM FOR TRUMP? REPUBLICANS WERE THE ONES WHO MADE THE CONSTITUTION CLEAR: NO DEAL
by Jack Ohman
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945 after being elected to a fourth term, there was outrage in certain political quarters about him not observing the custom of two-term presidencies.
Consequently, Congress approved the 22nd Amendment in March 1947, which barred presidents from serving more than two terms and also no more than 10 years. The amendment was ratified by the states in 1951.
Who was in control of both houses of Congress in 1947? Well, golly gee, waddaya know?
Those certain political quarters were the Republicans.
President Donald Trump yet again asserted his desire to run for a third term, not even three months into his catastrophic presidency that’s experiencing rapid unscheduled disassembly, in SpaceX parlance.
“A lot of people want me to do it. But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration,” Trump told NBC News on Sunday.
Oh, he added, “I’m not joking.” The funny thing about Trump is that when he’s not compulsively lying, he’s saying precisely and truthfully what’s on his mind, like a 3-year-old child.
I suppose there are a lot of people who do want him to do it. Supplicatory GOP House members, like Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who is one of the mental case outliers in that loony toon caucus, introduced a bill supporting such nuttiness.
It’s no secret that Trump sees himself as a monarch rather than a democratically elected president. His press office even sent out an image of Trump wearing a crown, with the caption, “Long Live The King!”
Let’s go back to our usual national game: “What if President Barack Obama had done that?” We always know the answer to that one, unfortunately.
Speaking of Obama, does that mean he can openly flout or circumvent the Constitution as well and run for a third term? He’s only 63. Or is that only open to Republicans now?
The answer is: neither of them can, nor should they.
Trump even now says he wants to run against Obama, a former constitutional law professor who knows that’s crazy talk.
Founding fathers such as future Broadway musical star Alexander Hamilton, a barely concealed monarchist, and James Madison initially supported a lifetime presidency.
Given that the actuarial tables of 1789 had male life expectancy at, gulp, 36 years, you could see that a lifetime then is about the age when an NBA player might be thinking about bagging it now.
In this TikTok media culture, where Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame now seems like a geological epoch, the notion that the American electorate would enjoy having erratic grifter Trump around until 2033 seems far-fetched.
Considering that FDR had something of an argument for another term, as he was leading the free world in a war against fascism, one could see his point.
Trump’s point is obvious only to his own narcissism: He’s the fascism we fought.
What does Trump really want? Remain out of jail? The big cool jet? The man has spent about 30% of his nascent presidency playing golf; why can’t he just do that and leave the rest of us alone?
The desire for a third term hasn’t been limited to Trump: Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding all expressed interest in running a third time, but death and debility ended their third-term ambitions. Legally, they could have run, but thanks to President George Washington’s wise example, no president until FDR tried it.
In FDR’s case, he made it through about five weeks of his fourth term.
Legal scholars aren’t divided on this constitutional amendment, either. It’s very clear: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
As for the ridiculous scenario in which Vice President JD Vance becomes the GOP presidential nominee in 2028 and wins, with Trump as his vice presidential running mate, then Vance steps down in favor of Trump, well, the 12th Amendment is also unquestionable: “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
What part of “no” does Trump not understand? Being the pampered, enabled man baby that he is, a man who has never been told no, tried to ignore the results of the 2020 election, igniting the Jan. 6 riot, his first foray into real Constitution smashing.
“Trump may not want to rule out a third term, but the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution does,” David Schultz, a professor at Minnesota’s Hamline University, told ABC News.
“The threats and insinuations no doubt thrill his base, but there is no constitutional basis for the current president to try to serve as president after two elected terms,” University of North Carolina’s constitutional expert Michael Gerhardt said to ABC News.
Of course, Trump could try to invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law and postpone the 2028 election, and we shouldn’t rule that out.
That’d be bad for the Dow, however.
Any third term will be served in Trump’s fevered mind.
(Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist who also writes at https://substack.com/@jackohman.)
AIDES REVEAL HOW BIDEN WAS 'OUT OF IT' AND NEEDED FLUORESCENT TAPE ON THE FLOOR TO GUIDE HIM
by Emily Goodin
Aides to Joe Biden have revealed he was 'out of it' during his final period in the White House and needed fluorescent tape fixed to the carpet to show him where to walk at events.
That way the octogenarian would know where to go without having someone to guide him.
And one top aide said the then-president, while preparing for his now infamous debate with Donald Trump, seemed to think he was 'President of NATO' rather than the United States.
The revelations are found in several books coming out about Biden's presidency. At least four tomes are being published over the next few months examining his decline.
Some of the new information is eye-opening, particularly when it comes to what aides knew about the president's health and the actions they took to conceal Biden's condition from the public.
and he was just extremely exhausted. And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders.'
'He just became very enraptured with being the head of NATO,' Klain said.
Whipple writes that Klain 'wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the US.'
Whipple's book Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, will be released next week. The Guardian published excerpts.
After the debate with Trump, Biden reportedly needed fluorescent tape to guide him through a fundraiser at New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's (D) house so he wouldn't get lost.
While politicians, like actors, have tape marks on the floor so they are properly positioned to be on camera, Biden needed the trail of bright markings to serve as 'colorful bread crumbs [that] showed the leader of the free world where to walk.'
'He knows to look for that,' an aide explained, according to authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes for their book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, which is out this week.
Parnes told 'Rising The Hill' that Biden, at the fundraiser, had 'fluorescent tape on the floor to guide him where he needs to go.'
'On foreign trips, there's a makeup artist who comes in first thing in the morning to kind of liven him up and do his makeup ahead of these meetings. He wasn't doing television. He was going into meetings,' she said.
During that fundraiser, Biden needed a teleprompter to speak to a small group of people on the patio and, even with the help of it, he still rambled and went off topic.
There are likely more damaging details to come.
Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, comes out May 20th.
Thompson was one of the few reporters revealing concerns about Biden's health during his presidency.
Biden tripped and stumbled several times during his presidency. He admitted to having trouble walking after he fractured his foot during the 2020 presidential campaign and didn't wear his boot like he was supposed to. He also made multiple verbal gaffes that messed up his administration's messaging.
And, finally, Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf have their book - 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America - coming out on July 8.
Biden himself did not give any interviews to any of the authors of these books.
During the 2024 campaign, Biden was battling questions about his physical and mental health. Trump repeatedly called him 'Sleepy Joe' and cast doubt on Biden's cognitive abilities.
The White House continually pushed back, arguing the president was in great shape.
But the June 27th debate in Atlanta rapidly changed public perception of Biden. During the showdown, Biden often stared blankly into space, struggled for answers, and appeared shaky.
In the aftermath, Biden aides said he had a cold, which resulted in a 'bad night.' Some complained he was over-coached and over-practiced instead of being given time to recover from his illness.
Klain was one of three aides who spent the most time with the Biden getting him ready for the debate. He's known Biden for years and was also his chief of staff when Biden was vice president. Longtime aides Mike Donilon and Bruce Reed were the other two.
The trio, along with the president, arrived at Camp David the Saturday ahead of the debate to spend the next five days in preparation lockdown.
Biden was just coming off a major jaunt of travel: he had been in France for a state visit and the anniversary of D-Day at Normandy, he went back to the United States, then he flew to Italy a few days later for a G7 meeting, and capped that off with a trip to the West Coast for campaign fundraisers.
He was exhausted and barely had time to rest.
In the privacy of Camp David, a presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland, he was put through policy discussions and mock debate sessions to get him ready.
But Biden, who was battling a cold, left debate prep and fell asleep by the pool, Klain told Whipple.
He also seemed rattled and befuddled.
The then president 'didn't know what Trump had been saying and couldn't grasp what the back and forth was,' 'didn't really understand what his argument was on inflation' and 'had nothing to say about a second term other than finish the job,' Whipple wrote.
Biden was also obsessed about foreign leaders, saying 'these guys say I'm doing a great job as president so I must be a great president.'
The first mock debate was scheduled to last 90 minutes but Klain ended after 45 as 'the president's voice was shot and so was his grasp of the subject,' Whipple wrote.
And 25 minutes into the second mock debate, Biden was done.
'I'm just too tired to continue and I'm afraid of losing my voice here and I feel bad,' he said, according to the book. 'I just need some sleep. I'll be fine tomorrow.'
He went off to bed.
'The president was fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged,' Whipple writes. 'Klain feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster.'
Indeed it was.
In the aftermath, it set off a series of questions about the viability of Biden's candidacy and his ability to do the job.
Publicly Biden's family, friends and aides defended.
Privately they had concerns.
'Publicly, Democrats scoffed at Republican claims that Biden wasn't up to the job,' the Parnes and Allen write in their book. 'But privately, some of them worried all along that they were putting too much stock in an old man who, at best, had long since lost his fastball.'
One friend of Biden and Obama's told the authors the choice for Biden to seek reelection was the “original sin” of the 2024 election. The person blamed Biden's family and close aides for not advising him to forgo a reelection bid.
Whipple told Politico he thought Biden aides saw wanted they wanted to see.
'I happen to think that to call it a 'cover-up' is simplistic. I think it was stranger and way more troubling than that. Biden's inner circle, his closest advisers, many of them were in a fog of delusion and denial. They believed what they wanted to believe,' the author said.
Democratic leaders, meanwhile, worried Biden would lose the White House and take down House and Senate candidates with him.
Some went public, questioning Biden's ability to remain the nominee. After growing calls for his departure, including behind-the-scenes work by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, Biden exited the race on July 21.
But Klain, despite his concerns about Biden, thought he should have stayed in the race.
He got a call from Jeff Zients, his successor as chief of staff, telling him of Biden's decision to step down.
He told Whipple it was a 'gut punch.'
He said he told Zients: 'I think that's a mistake. I think this was an avoidable tragedy.'
Kamala Harris became the party's nominee and ultimately lost to Trump.
(DailyMail.uk)
RANDOM COMMENTS FROM HERE AND THERE
[1] Can anyone on this site provide data supporting the claims of excess deaths, blood clots, and spontaneous abortions? I’m not denying that it has happened but it certainly doesn’t seem to have been significant enough to get the world’s attention. Show me the money….why aren’t the ambulance chasers all over this? They should be suing the pharmaceutical companies for every penny they have. Yeah, I know about the waiver but that doesn’t stop lawyers from trying to get a settlement. The scary part is the real danger of low birth rates. That is happening in real time and we will start seeing the effect in a short time….especially if we don’t go back to a merit-based system.
[2] IF, at the end of the world, that song “We’ll Meet Again” started playing out of the blue, for everyone, I don’t think anyone would question it…
[3] So, Joy Reid has now claimed, “White Christians are the enemy of America.”
As all branches of the US military fail to meet their recruiting goals, it might surprise Ms. Reid that maybe White Christians in flyover country – historically the strength of our military – are having second thoughts about endangering their lives to protect her right to continue spouting such bullshit. And Ms. Reid, if keeping it real is your goal, blacks with bleached-blonde hair ain’t real. She should be first in line for some serious mental health care.
[4] DOPE, an on-line comment by Mendocino Mama: Consumers with large amounts of money have been coming to the Emerald Triangle for decades upon decades. Oftentimes with stars and diamonds in their eyes. Oftentimes busted on the way out of town, ripped off once they got home, or did not take care of the product well and it disintegrated before they could sell it. The illicit market feeding of the media hype and frenzy of the “culture”. It is still pretty cultury although a few days back in one esteemed establishment the music was mildly offensive…”Bitch u bedda up your strips if the cops pull us over better bite your lip…” come on. Sub n dabs are a standard. A little regulation by the regulators might help to clean it up a bit.
[5] THE STATE OF THE NATION, an on-line comment: The wealth of the 5 richest men in America has DOUBLED in the last 4 years. The money they have accrued came out of YOUR POCKETS. Your rent increased. The price of fuel increased. The interest rate on your debt doubled. Your homeowners insurance vanished.
I could go on.
[6] SEEMS TO ME that if they continue to throttle the digital space then we will naturally decline to participate much. It happens (for a recent example look at the failure of Instagram Threads).
I remember a time when ‘zines, radical newspapers and newsletters were common. That’s how I used to get my “alternative” information.
While I don’t condone or like graffiti there is quite a large “slap sticker” movement here. Unlike the graffiti, which is often about the style, many stickers carry a message. Many are very subversive and are put in areas to be seen.
[7] GOD’S CREATIONS are beautiful. The most beautiful beach I ever visited was in northern Maine. There was no sand, only black, jagged rock. It was cold and foggy, and you could see the yellow glow of a light house in the distance. It was a misty 50 degree day and we hopped from rock to rock watching the sea spray off the rugged shore. I can do with that kind of ocean. What I don’t like is some sweltering mess of sand and direct sun, with ten million morons elbowing each other for the best spot. I once saw a picture of Hilton Head Island before it was “improved.” The jungle went right up to the shore line. That would be fine with me.
I FEEL DUMB FOR BEING AN AMERICAN
by Drew Magary
I wake up. It’s another day in Donald Trump’s America, but I try not to think about that. I try not to think about that name, given that I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet. It’s too early for America right now. I can deal with my country later, once I’m ready.
I get out of bed and take stock of my immediate surroundings. Sunlight is already poking through the curtains. My wife and dog are still asleep in the bed. One of our sons is already up and getting ready for school. The other one will stumble out of his room, bleary-eyed, in a few minutes. I go downstairs to hug the 16-year-old and then put on a pot of coffee. I wolf down a bowl of cereal and grab my phone. No one texted overnight. That’s good. That means no one has died.
I get breakfast ready for the dog and then sit in my chair with my coffee. I could check the news right now, but I’m not ready for the impact yet. Instead, I ease into my day gently, checking scores and playing a few dorky New York Times games. This is arguably the best part of my day, because it’s when I am most at peace. Eventually, that peace will be disturbed: by my younger son coming downstairs to prep for school, by the dog needing to go out for his morning piss and by America barging in with all of its America-ness.
I have to check the news now. I’m a journalist. It’s my job to stay informed. Besides, even if the news weren’t my job, the news would find me anyway. You can ignore the elephant in the room for only so long. S—t, that elephant all but owns the deed to your house now. So I have to keep tabs on the elephant, lest I end up under its foot. I live in the Washington, D.C., area, and all around me are dead public servants walking. Some of them are family. Some are friends. Some are neighbors. Most are strangers, but ones I’m grateful for. They’re all getting laid off, or are terrified they’ll be laid off at any second, because the people in charge of things have decided to rip the heart out of the government and replace it with a motherboard. Is that what the rest of my countrymen really want? Do they understand what’s going on right now? Do they even know what their government does?
I have no f—king idea. I try not to think about it.
That is, I try not to think about it all the time. I thought about it all the time back at the end of the 2010s, and it made me angry. Violently angry. That anger did me no good. It helped the bad guys more than it ever helped me, so this time around, I’m much more fastidious about my information load management. I focus on my salad. I don’t follow any political accounts on social media, and I’ve muted any friends of mine there who regularly air their political grievances. I want to stay informed, but on my terms.
Both of my sons are now off to school, and my wife has left for work, leaving just me and the dog. It’s as good a time as any to rip off the Band-Aid. I open the Washington Post’s front page on my phone. I know that this newspaper has been hopelessly compromised, but so have the rest of them. The majority of the news media is coalescing into a single propaganda arm now. But I know that, which means that I know how to maneuver around it. I can skim these front pages and articles for useful information while ignoring the dreck. I can also track down bits of good news and then bail on the article before the inevitable “but some are saying” follow-up. So I skim, I absorb, I close the tab, and then I think. Then I let the back of my consciousness process those thoughts while I try to go about my day as if it were any other.
I go to work in my office all morning. Then I break for lunch and a workout, and then I shower and then take a nap with the dog. It’s a good day in my world so far.
But America still manages to pierce my shield. The news comes in dribs and drabs, giving me more to process. They’re grabbing kids off the streets, redacting entire chapters of the nation’s history, firing all of the good scientists, and rifling through the passport database to hunt down those they consider to be foreigners. My wife is afraid to travel now because, despite being a U.S. citizen, she wasn’t born here. She isn’t sure they’ll let her back in here if she leaves. I also wasn’t born in the U.S., so maybe that means that I can’t go anywhere either. My wife has also heard a rumor going around that the goon squad’s next act will be sniffing around the passport database to find out which U.S. citizens have listed a new gender for themselves upon reissue or put an X in that space. What will they do to these people? Who’s next after that?
I don’t know, so I spend the afternoon banging out a post about the NFL. I don’t bother to write a post about greater America, because then I’d have to think about greater America, which would give me hives. Sometimes I open the release valve just so I have somewhere to put the aggravation, even if it doesn’t stay there. Most of the time though, I try to keep the valve shut. Perhaps you’ve tried to distract yourself in a similar fashion.
But distractions are only so effective against the gathering storm. I live in a country that lived fast and is now dying young. A strongman has taken things over and used the good will of both America’s citizenry and of its public officials to rob it blind. He can get away with it all too, because he already has, and because my fellow Americans hired him to do it again. And no one in power is fighting back because, in my lifetime, no one has ever wanted to lose Republican customers. Not even Democrats.
This is the end result, and it has a nasty logic to it. It only looks like Republicans don’t know why they’re dismantling useful, heretofore apolitical public services. But they know why. They know that this will make millions of people sick and kill millions more. They know this will make America both poorer and dumber. Those are the end goals here, because a destitute country is one that’s easier for them to rule. Ask Vladimir Putin. Ask Kim Jong Un. Ask Pol Pot. The more a dictator can expand the wealth gap inside the walls of their kingdom, the more comfortable they feel.
And comfort is the true dictator here. Like every other American, I have been trained to both expect and demand comfort at all times. Comfortable housing. Comfortable cars. Comfortable businesswear. If I’m ever uncomfortable, then something must be amiss. That’s an awfully spoiled way to live. From Bill Bryson:
“It really is extraordinary how long it took people to achieve even the most elemental levels of comfort. There was one good reason for it: life was tough. Throughout the Middle Ages, a good deal of every life was devoted simply to surviving.”
Americans need not worry about survival anymore, and so they occupy themselves with pettier matters, like a momentary lapse of comfort. To be uncomfortable feels wrong to the average American, and virtually all of our inner conflict stems from an endless disagreement over our respective sources of that discomfort. Some Americans find racism uncomfortable, as they should, while some Americans find confronting racism to be a personal affront. They’d rather not think about racism, so they don’t — or they simply pretend there is no racism at all. And if you ask them to think about racism, they swear vengeance. You are the woke, and you must pay. In a country where everyone abhors being inconvenienced, it was only a matter of time before the worst of us decided that our greatest inconvenience was one another.
I try not to let that thought overtake me, because the stress will kill me before the goon squad does.
Later, my daughter texts me from a protest on her college campus. I ask her to send me a photo so I can see her fighting for justice. She texts back, “I don’t wanna make anyone uncomfy. We’re all disguised and wearing masks and stuff, just in case.” I understand. I’m proud of her. I also hope that her masked face isn’t being scanned right now by a distant satellite and then logged into Trump’s janky-ass “Enemies” folder. I try not to think too hard about that last part, because I’d rather be proud than afraid. If I can’t be proud of my country, I can be proud of my family. That’s how I’ll survive this, I tell myself, however long it lasts.
What I try not to tell myself is that this could last for a long time. An excruciatingly long time. And what happens as more and more of American society falls apart? Will my family die if we don’t flee? When will we know it’s time to? When will we know if the water we’re in has started to boil? Will we still be in the pot? Will you?
I try not to dwell on it, because it makes me feel uncomfortable. More important, it makes me feel DUMB. I’d tell you I feel ashamed to be an American right now, but that turn of phrase has grown hackneyed. I just feel f—king stupid. Embarrassed. STAINED. Why do I live here? Do I REALLY owe this country anything? What if I defect to another country? Would I be a coward for that? Would it be worth the moral abdication? Is it a moral abdication at all? Everyone else who’s left America by choice doesn’t seem too pained by their decision. And I get it: Who would want to live in this spiritual vacuum of a place?
I try to think about why I AM still here. The answers come faster than you’d think. Everyone I love either lives in America or is American. All of them. I love these fine Americans to death and want to take care of them. I also love my house. I love my adopted home state of Maryland, which is one of the very few whose representatives actually seem to get it. I love my work-wife state of California, even if Gavin Newsom is a scumbag of the highest order. I love the food in America, I love the music, and I love the scenery. So it’s not just mere convenience keeping me an American, nor is it loyalty to the flag. It’s love, and all of the grief that love entails. I don’t know when America will be gone — it feels like awfully soon — but I try not to work myself up about that part of it. After all, just because this place can’t keep its s—t together doesn’t mean that I can’t.
The day is over, and everyone is home. I have done my processing and have earned the right to chill. I’ve got a gummy working its way through my system, a fresh near beer sitting on my armrest and my dog in my lap. Sometimes I think about keeping a happiness journal, where I could sit down at night and make a tally of everything that made me happy that day, large or small. I haven’t started it, though, because I already know what makes me happy, and I already know where to find it. It’s all here, right where my day started. Against all odds, that’s a comforting thought.
It’s also a fleeting one. I turn on some basketball, and every other ad is one for Trump. I try not to think about it.
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
[Verse 1]
Everything's gotta go, make me an offer
She left two weeks ago and I couldn't stop her
Throw good money after bad luck expecting something big to change
By now, I know she ain't comin' back, it's time to rearrange
.
[Chorus]
Take the bed where we make love
And the mirror we hung the button
Take this wicker peacock chair, 'cause I don't wanna touch it
It's two-for-one hearts for sale, I can't give away
I'm goin' out of business every day
.
[Verse 2]
Turn off all the lights, turn that "Open" sign around
We used to be made of money, honey, but now we gotta close it down
Tell the banker and the tax man, yeah, they can have the keys
There's nothin' left to repossess except her memories
.
[Chorus]
Take the bed where we make love
And the mirror we hung the button
Take this got damn peacock chair, 'cause I don't wanna touch it
It's two-for-one hearts for sale, I can't give away
So I'm goin' out of business every day
(babyface)
MARILYN & JOE, 1954
~Monroe & Joe DiMaggio were photographed on the beach during their honeymoon in Japan, in January of 1954. While there, Monroe was invited to entertain U.S. troops in Korea, so she briefly left DiMaggio to perform for thousands of soldiers. This reportedly upset DiMaggio, as he preferred a more private life. Their marriage only lasted about 9 months.
~Despite their divorce, DiMaggio remained deeply devoted to Monroe, and they rekindled their friendship in the years leading up to her death in 1962. Joe was the one who arranged Marilyn's funeral & he also had roses sent to her grave multiple times a week for the next 20 years.
MUSK’S SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION CUTS: LONGER WAIT TIMES, MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE WAITING FOR DISABILITY BENEFITS
by Bernie Sanders
United States Senate, Subcommittee On Social Security, Pensions, And Family Policy, Bernie Sanders, Ranking Member, March 26, 2025
Social Security is the most successful government program in our nation’s history. For more than 86 years, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay. Social Security lifts roughly 27 million Americans out of poverty each and every year.i And yet, despite this success, we can do better. We must do better. At a time of massive wealth inequality, our job must be to expand and strengthen Social Security.
Americans across both parties agree with this sentiment. Roughly 87 percent agree that Social Security should remain a top priority for Congress—no matter the state of budget deficits.ii This is unsurprising since Americans view Social Security as a lifeline. In this country, half of older Americans have no retirement savings and have no idea how they will ever be able to retire with any shred of dignity or respect.iii One in three seniors, or roughly 17 million people, are economically insecure.iv Roughly 22 percent of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $15,000 a year and nearly half of seniors are trying to survive on an income of less than $30,000 a year.v
These numbers are even more startling for people with disabilities. Nearly 27 percent of people with disabilities live in poverty.vi Living with a disability involves extra costs, requiring families to spend an estimated 28 percent more income to maintain the same standard of living as non- disabled people, or roughly an additional $17,690 annually.vii For a person with a disability on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the maximum support they receive is just $11,604 annually for individuals and $17,400 for couples.viii And for people on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), the average annual benefit is $18,972.ix Millions of people with disabilities are living paycheck to paycheck and certainly do not have the necessary resources to cover additional costs of living with a disability.
Nor do they have the time to wait for their disability benefits. Yet, the number of Social Security Administration (SSA) staff completing disability determinations began declining even before the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In 2023, there were 5,252 full time employees making disability determinations at SSA, which has steadily decreased from previous years.x The average wait time for a decision grew from 111 days in 2017 to 217 days in 2023. Even before this Administration started making cuts to SSA, the number of people who died waiting for a benefit decision grew from 10,000 to 30,000 from 2017 to 2023.xi In February 2025, there was an average 236 day wait time for a determination.xii
Yet, instead of focusing on delivering benefits to seniors and people with disabilities, President Trump and unelected billionaire Elon Musk are systematically dismantling SSA. Roughly 3,000 employees have already been terminated or accepted voluntary separations from SSA.xiii They have made unsubstantiated claims that there is massive fraud in the program and are proposing reckless cuts to SSA’s workforce—upwards of 7,000 workers.xiv In March 2025, former Commissioner of Social Security Martin O’Malley stated that due to the efforts of Elon Musk and DOGE, Americans could “see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits” in “the next 30 to 90 days.”xv
In order to show the devastating nature of these proposed cuts, the Ranking Member examined the impact SSA workforce reductions will have on wait times and deaths of Americans waiting for a disability determination. The analysis reveals that average wait times for Social Security disability benefits will double, and—more startlingly—the number of people who will die waiting for benefits will double to roughly 67,000 Americans.
Key Findings
- If SSA cuts 50 percent of employees making disability determinations, this will result in nearly 67,000 people dying waiting for an initial decision on SSI or SSDI in 2025.
- Every day of wait time means an estimated additional 188.7 people will die waiting for benefits.
- If SSA cuts 50 percent of employees making disability determinations, this will result in a 412 day wait for an initial decision on SSI or SSDI in 2025.
2017 2023 Projected 2025 with DOGE Cuts Methodology:
Using SSA data, the relationship between wait times and deaths with workforce reductions was examined, correlating the number of relevant employeesxvi, the average wait time for a decisionxvii, and the number of people who died waiting for a decision from 2017-2023 data reported by SSAxviii xix
Stories from Across America: Stress, Fear, and Anxiety a Common Refrain
The stress of waitlists and backlogs is immense for seniors and people with disabilities as they agonizingly wait for answers and a determination that they will receive the benefits needed to be able to put food on the table or make rent. Ranking Member Sanders asked working people directly, via a social media survey, how stress impacts their lives and received over 1,000 responses from people across the country.
The stories they shared paint a picture of daily hardship: the stress of affording health care, food, and gas; the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck; and the feeling of hopelessness that comes from constant financial strain, including from seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Social Security.
People across the country vividly described the struggle of applying for disability benefits, even before DOGE cuts:
- One example came from Kelly in New York, who shared that she is “in the process of applying for SSDI. It has been a year, and is scheduled to take another 10 months… how is a single person supposed to keep her home and car with no person to have her back while she applies?? It’s insane and making me sicker going through this.”
- Sheryl from California told us, “Right now I’m waiting for approval from SSDI and getting feedback from my private long-term disability insurance company that they want to try to send me back to work, while I have 13 doctors overseeing my care. If I succeed in convincing these heartless vultures that I’m disabled enough to rest, I will continue to worry that my fixed income will go less and less toward being able to live. If I don’t, I will be put in a position to ignore my health and go back to work long enough to kill myself and leave my kids with no one. Welcome to America!
One thing that would relieve a lot of stress is getting an approval…so that I know what my income will be and not have to worry that I’ll end up in an economic landslide into the abyss.”
They also shared their worries that SSDI was not enough to cover their bills:
- A former special education teacher from Georgia told us she, “had to take disability from the stress and demands of the job. I live on SSDI, which is barely $1600/month, and does not include Medicare premiums. I can’t qualify for Medicaid or SNAP. I have chronic anxiety due to the financial stress, and it has adversely affected my physical health.”
- The stress is overwhelming, according to Monique from Florida: “I’m unemployed and trying to get on disability. My life is all pain and stress. I’m down to my last few hundred dollars. I desperately need to see several specialists for my ongoing care, but I’m freaking out that I will no longer be able to pay my costs of living. I take multiple prescriptions and they’re costly.
- Heather from Vermont said her biggest stresses are, “[f]inding available affordable housing, making rent, my disability & continued funding of SSDI by current administration, cost of groceries/living on fixed income.”
We also heard palpable fear from respondents that they would lose their disability benefits:
- Wendy from Texas told us, “I worry [m]y social security disability benefits might be taken away … SSDI does not cover the cost of living for a person. I would never be able to live on my own on my SSDI income, even if I lived in a rented room with no car.”
“Stress exacerbates my medical condition. It causes me to be more fatigued and eventually lowers my baseline wellness. There have been weeks at a time I have had to completely disconnect from the news, my bills, friends, and family to allow my body to recover enough to function in my household enough to care for myself only.”
Wendy wishes she could, “eliminate the stress surrounding my SSDI. The amount being increased to a “living wage” would allow me to budget more freely for additional medical treatments, as well as not constantly watch to see if I have to choose which bills to pay.”
A Path Forward
The bottom line is this: Social Security belongs to the people who worked hard all their lives to earn their benefit. This is a program based on a promise—if you pay in, then you earn the right to guaranteed benefits. We cannot allow this promise to be broken. This means:
- Immediately ceasing the cuts from DOGE at SSA and across the government.
- Passing the Social Security Expansion Act to enhance Social Security benefits by $2,400 annually, ensure the program’s solvency for the next 75 years by applying a payroll tax on higher-income workers, and increase the benefit to help low-income workers stay out of poverty.
- Passing the Social Security Administration Fairness Act, which would prevent office closures and increase the budget for SSA rather than institute draconian DOGE cuts.
- Passing the Stop the Wait Act to eliminate the Medicare waiting period for SSDI beneficiaries.
- Passing the SSI Savings Penalty Act to update SSI’s asset limits to allow people to save without risking their essential benefits.
- Raising the minimum wage to at least $17 an hour to ensure that full-time workers can afford a healthy, stable life and phasing out subminimum wages for workers with disabilities.
- Ensure that all Americans have access to a pension.
WHY “PRO-ISRAEL, PRO-PEACE” ADVOCATES CLING TO GENOCIDE DENIAL
by Norman Solomon
Re “Trump Says Global Trade Has Been Cheating the U.S. Is He Right?” (news article, April 3):
Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza comes several months after both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports concluding without equivocation that Israel was engaged in genocide. But very few members of Congress dare to acknowledge that reality, while their silence and denials scream out complicity.
In a New York Times interview last weekend, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer put deep moral evasion on display. Among the “slogans” that are used when criticizing Israel, he said, “The one that bothers me the most is genocide. Genocide is described as a country or some group tries to wipe out a whole race of people, a whole nationality of people. So, if Israel was not provoked and just invaded Gaza and shot at random Palestinians, Gazans, that would be genocide. That’s not what happened.”
Schumer is wrong. The international Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” — with such actions as killing, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
Such actions by Israel have been accompanied by clear evidence of genocidal intent — underscored by hundreds of statements by Israeli leaders and policy shapers. Scarcely three months into the Israeli war on Gaza, scholars Raz Segal and Penny Green pointed out, a database compiled by the Law for Palestine human rights organization “meticulously documents and collates 500 statements that embody the Israeli state’s intention to commit genocide and incitement to genocide since October 7, 2023.”
Those statements “by people with command authority — state leaders, war cabinet ministers and senior army officers — and by other politicians, army officers, journalists and public figures reveal the widespread commitment in Israel to the genocidal destruction of Gaza.”
Since March 2, the United Nations reports, “Israeli authorities have halted the entry of all lifesaving supplies, including food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, for 2.1 million people.” Now, Israel’s horrendous crusade to destroy Palestinian people in Gaza — using starvation as a weapon of war and inflicting massive bombardment on civilians — has resumed after a two-month ceasefire.
On Tuesday, children were among the more than 400 people killed by Israeli airstrikes, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed that “this is only the beginning.”
It’s almost impossible to find a Republican in Congress willing to criticize the pivotal U.S. backing for Israel’s methodical killing of civilians. It’s much easier to find GOP lawmakers who sound bloodthirsty.
A growing number of congressional Democrats — still way too few — have expressed opposition. In mid-November, 17 Senate Democrats and two independents voted against offensive arms sales to Israel. But in reality, precious few Democratic legislators really pushed to impede such weapons shipments until after last November’s election. Deference to President Biden was the norm as he actively enabled the genocide to continue.
This week, renewal of Israel’s systematic massacres of Palestinian civilians has hardly sparked a congressional outcry. Silence or platitudes have been the usual.
For “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street, the largest and most influential liberal Zionist organization in the United States, evasions have remained along with expressions of anguish. On Tuesday the group’s founder and president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, issued a statement decrying “the decision by Netanyahu to reignite this horrific war” and calling for use of “all possible leverage to pressure each side to restore the ceasefire.” But, as always, J Street did not call for the U.S. government to stop providing the weapons that make the horrific war possible.
That’s where genocide denial comes in. For J Street, as for members of Congress who’ve kept voting to enable the carnage with the massive U.S.-to-Israel weapons pipeline, support for that pipeline requires pretending that genocide isn’t really happening.
While writing an article for The Nation (“Has J Street Gone Along With Genocide?”), I combed through 132 news releases from J Street between early October 2023 and the start of the now-broken ceasefire in late January of this year. I found that on the subject of whether Israel was committing genocide, J Street “aligned itself completely with the position of the U.S. and Israeli governments.”
J Street still maintains the position that it took last May, when the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah. “J Street continues to reject the allegation of genocide in this case,” a news release said.
It would be untenable to publicly acknowledge the reality of Israeli genocide while continuing to support shipping more weaponry for the genocide. That’s why those who claim to be “pro-peace” while supporting more weapons for war must deny the reality of genocide in Gaza.
(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, is published by The New Press.)
“The discovery of Potter Valley”? Pretty sure the natives had a name for it before it was erased from history. js
Credit given to settlers for donating land but no credit for who “donated” the land to him.
It must have been really hard to make a road on a game trail of thousands of elk.
Regarding the upcoming state audit of Mendocino County, Senator McGuire said “The upheaval surrounding administrative operations in Mendocino County is unsustainable and this comprehensive audit of all county departments and accounts will provide some much-needed daylight and help establish a road map for long-term stability.” One supervisor thinks he is talking about the ballot issue the Elections Office had to deal with. I am pretty sure that is not what the Senator was talking about.
Possibility exists that County officials could end up going to prison, in the matter.
This might be for collusion, in diversion misallocation of funds, and as an instrument to deprive citizens their duly elected officeholder from serving, and as tangential failure to duly assess and collect parcel property taxes, within statutory timelines, now unrecoverable, that would have benefited the state of California.
Good morning,
The Social Security fiasco scaring the crap out of people and whether or not they will have funds to pay their bills and feed themselves is disgusting. It is a very scary world we live in free falling into hell. I am not sure of the exact percentage of people in Mendo County who receive Social Security benefits I would guess it is somewhere between 25 and 50% maybe more about 35% again not real clear. Most people do not understand that Social Security benefits are three different programs. One is SSDI which a person may only utilize for 12 months and is based on medical necessity proven by your doctor and you can only qualify according to your last five year work history and how many credits do you have earned. The second program is the Social Security retirement program that a person receives from all the taxes they paid into Social Security through their working life. They do not have to medically prove because it is their right as a lifelong worker paying into the system. The third Social Security program is the Social Security welfare program for people who have no resources and the inability to work due to medical/physical/mental afflictions that will not improve and again must be medically proven. I once worked a job where we help people obtain the Social Security Disability Benefit and the Social Security Welfare Benefit, what a laborious pain in the ass. Aside from that it can take 2 to 3 years to get the welfare benefit again it has to be medically proven. I would question what portion of the program they claim the overpayment and under payments came from? Were they over paying the retired people, were they over paying the ones utilizing the disability program or was it the Social Security welfare program that was overpaying? Social Security does make mistakes in my job I witnessed with an a short amount of time at least four people who were hit with a $90,000 Social Security overpayment. These people had utilized the SSDI benefit. With that being said then there is a whole bunch of paperwork and trying to figure out where and why the overpayment occurred. There is no way working class. People can pay back a $90,000 bill luckily you can dispute it and try to figure it out and then if you were overpaid, you can set it up to make payments at a very low amount.
Not only did I witness Social Security over payments. I also witnessed an individual who had been sentenced to prison for five years, kept receiving his monthly military pension from the VA while he was incarcerated so when he got out, he had a little chunk of change.. Last I heard the VA was aware of the overpayment and he had to dispute it. I do not know if it was resolved and had to pay it back with his meager Social Security check.
Happy Friday
mm 💕
Good afternoon, Just checked the Chase checking account balance, and the Social Security auto-deposit is in! Both the SSA and SSI. Since booking into the homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. my slightly over $2000 balance has nearly doubled to $3,716.37. Therefore, I’ve been able to eat very well, purchase new clothes, and maintain myself satisfactorily . This has enabled me to support the Washington D.C. Peace Vigil for the sixteenth time. I am happy!! If you also identify with that which is “prior to consciousness”, and are a jnani identifying with sahaja samadhi avastha (the continuous superconscious state), feel free to make contact. What would you do in this world if you knew that you could not fail? Talk to me…
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
April 4th, 2025 Anno Domini
Craig,
Be careful sounds like you could end up with an overpayment. Maybe you could use that cash to come back to Mendo, thats enough for a plane ticket and move in costs for your own place. Glad you are well, disappointed you are still unhoused. Take Care
mm 💕
Loved the Piver archived interview, maybe it was supposed to be about baseball but he just wanted to talk about life. My wife is from Manchester and was cousins with Vern.
I rented a small place from Vern and Betty Piver while I was a deputy on the coast. Vern knew my grandfather, Alonzo F “Lon” Kendall, who I knew had a tendency to treat drinking like a job at times. Vern never spoke poorly of him and said he spent a lot of time out with Vern’s father in point Arena and on the reservation as well. I never knew the man as he died in the early 1960s before I was born.
Vern did say he was one hell of a buck hunter.
Vern told me about playing baseball and his times traveling across the nation. He said his first experience on a commercial flight he asked the flight attendant where the parachutes were kept. She thought he was joking and sadly he wasn’t. He said it caused a lot of laughter amongst his team mates.
Vern was a hard worker and a really good guy.
My Vern Piver story: I was at a basketball game at the Boonville gym sitting in the stands and he was reffing. I yelled out that he had missed a foul call, and he walked over to me and held out his whistle and said “do you want to ref?” That shut me up! Whenever I saw him after that, through many years of basketball games, we were friendly. He had a great sense of humor!
Historical Comparisons—Crude and Stupid
We know well that Trump’s knowledge of history is greatly flawed. So, too, is the historical knowledge and perspective of some of his legal cronies:
“The Trump administration’s top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., told staff Friday he is expanding an investigation into the decision by the Justice Department to level felony obstruction charges against hundreds of people who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, a vocal advocate for those defendants before President Donald Trump appointed him, called the decision the ‘greatest failure of legal judgment’ since Japanese internment during World War II, according to an internal email reviewed by POLITICO…”
“Trump’s Top Prosecutor in Washington Compares Jan. 6 Charges to Japanese Internment”
POLITICO, 4/4/25
Late with this: Shaggy parasol, not a prince mushroom.
Mushroom
A similitude with the Little Prince in Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s book.
https://www.thelittleprinceinlevels.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Little-Prince.png
Did you notice the water level in today’s photo?