Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 5/21/2025

WARM AND DRY conditions expected through Wednesday beneath high pressure. Upper level disturbances possible late this week and weekend with cooling and potential for light rain. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cooler 43F under clear skies this Humpday morning on the coast. We can expect more clear skies & breezy conditions thru Friday. Some high clouds will start rolling in tomorrow - Friday leading to cooling temps for the holiday weekend.

HIGH STAKES IN CUBBISON CIVIL CASE

by Mike Geniella

In a stinging rebuke to the County of Mendocino, lawyers for Auditor Chamise Cubbison on Tuesday attacked a change of venue motion as a “waste of still more taxpayer dollars on an untimely, legally defective, and utterly frivolous” court filing.

“The County is attacking the assigned judge to the civil case, Ms. Cubbison’s criminal and civil counsel, and every member of the press, and apparently every sitting judge in Mendocino County,” declared Therese Cannata, a San Francisco attorney seeking civil damages on behalf of Cubbison.

In the meantime, the costs of the high-stakes standoff between outside county attorneys and Cubbison’s legal team are mounting.

So far, the county has authorized payments of more than $250,000 to resist the Cubbison civil case and to pursue a failed bid to criminally prosecute her. Cubbison and her family have had to dig deep to hire private attorneys to defend her.

On Tuesday, Cubbison estimated she has had to spend twice what the county has to defend herself, going without salary or benefits for 17 months while facing criminal prosecution.

Morin Jacob, the lead outside County attorney from San Francisco, now wants to further delay the contentious Cubbison civil case by moving it to Marin County, where she asserts the County can obtain a fairer hearing on the narrow legal questions she insists are at issue.

Jacob contends Cubbison’s counsel “and the local media have attempted to transform the straightforward statutory analysis of this writ proceeding into a sprawling conspiracy, involving gossip blogs and sensationalized claims.”

Jacob is managing partner of the San Francisco office of the statewide law firm of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, which to date has billed county taxpayers at least $200,000 to stall Cubbison’s legal efforts to win back salary, benefits, and personal damages after criminal accusations against her were dismissed earlier this year.

Jacob continues to decline repeated written requests to be interviewed about the pending Cubbison case, confining her remarks and allegations surrounding the high profile case to legal documents.

In her change of venue motion, Jacob argues, “It has become evident, through media coverage and statements made by this court that an impartial hearing cannot be conducted in this county due to local prejudice, bias, and media influence.”

Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman on Feb. 25 dismissed the felony criminal case against Cubbison, an action filed by District Attorney David Eyster in October 2023 and tried by an outside prosecutor in a move that cost the county more than $50,000. At the conclusion of the long-drawn out preliminary hearing, Moorman tossed the Cubbison criminal case and castigated the “willful ignorance” of some key County witnesses. Moorman said evidence showed that Cubbison in fact was a “whistle blower” in a case that revolved around $68,000 in extra pay for the County’s former Payroll Manager Paula ‘P.J.’ Kennedy. Kennedy also was charged by DA Eyster with felony misappropriation of public funds, but those charges were dismissed too.

Moorman has also been assigned to preside over the civil case, which is becoming increasingly acrimonious.

John Haschak, chair of the Board of Supervisors, sparked a new uproar with a letter written May 13 to Cubbison in which he defended county administrative actions since the elected Auditor returned to office. Haschak concluded by asking Cubbison to let the board know “as soon as possible if you are unable or unwilling to fulfill the duties and statutory requirements of your position.”

Cubbison appeared before the board Tuesday morning in response and repeated that she needs the ability to freely communicate with Sara Pierce, the Acting Assistant County Executive Officer who was appointed to act as County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector for 17 months while Cubbison was suspended and before the criminal case was dismissed. Cubbison praised the work of Pierce in general but said direct talks between them are needed to understand the complex financial issues at hand. Pierce insisted Tuesday it was her decision to restrict communications with Cubbison to written questions and not engage in direct communication because of demands of her new role as the County’s purchasing agent.

The tense atmosphere surrounding Cubbison’s civil case is underscored by declarations expressed in the change of venue motion filed by Jacob, the County’s outside attorney.

Jacob argues in her April 28 motion that since DA David Eyster filed the criminal case, “local news outlets and blogs have spent countless hours speculating, sensationalizing, and promoting unsubstantiated claims against the County in the local media.”

In addition, Jacob criticizes Judge Moorman for “castigating the County in the criminal matter even though the County was not a party” to the felony prosecution, and in the companion civil litigation for not setting “boundaries considering the very narrow legal issue before it.”

Jacob is claiming that a disputed obscure state law gave the Board of Supervisors the authority to suspend Cubbison without pay and benefits after she was criminally charged by DA Eyster. The statute in question, however, only specifically cites a County Treasurer. Cubbison did not hold that title at the time of the alleged criminal offense.

Cannata, a noted attorney who has garnered a statewide reputation representing public management employees, ripped the County contentions in a lengthy statement provided this week.

“The county claims, for a civil action that has been pending since December 2023, that it cannot get a fair trial before the assigned judge or any other judge in its own county because of what happened in the criminal case against Ms. Cubbison,” wrote Cannata.

Cannata continued, “What happened was that the criminal case was dismissed, Ms. Cubbison was exonerated, and she resumed her duties as an elected official. Until this filing in the civil action, no one – including the special deputy assigned to the case or the sitting District Attorney – has ever hinted, much less stated, that there was any error or misconduct by the attorneys or judicial officers in the criminal proceeding.”

“Ms. Jacob and the Board of Supervisors sit alone on the island of imaginary facts and law in making this absurd and unwarranted claim,” declared Cannata.

Cannata said as to biased news coverage, “the County was quite content with the press coverage of Ms. Cubbison being arrested and prosecuted in a criminal case for 17 long and terrifying months.”

“After the press accurately reported on the dismissal of the criminal case and sworn deposition testimony obtained in the pending civil action that cast CEO Darcie Antle in a bad light, the county decided that local press coverage would somehow deprive the county of a fair hearing,” Cannata wrote.

Cannata warned that her firm is prepared to “protect and defend Ms. Cubbison’s rights in this civil action, and bring further actions if needed, to put a stop to any unlawful retaliation and interference with her job as an elected official.”

FRANK HARTZELL:

Good grief! The county wants to move this case and start over? The county can’t get a fair hearing in their own county because people in the county don’t like their county? What tortured logic. If the county had wanted a simple case without media they wouldn’t have announced with a big splash, press releases and the board doing a hasty suspension/removal. The county doesn’t trust a senior county judge? The judge did not dismiss the case because of publicity. She did it because of contradictory and troubling statements made by county leaders in light of new evidence. WTF is this? Is the lawyer from SF allowed to run up their bill with no input? VERY expensive to move a huge county matter to Marin, which is however, convenient to the county’s hired legal gun.

Mark Scaramella notes: The change of venue motion by SF attorney Morin had to have been approved by the Supervisors in closed session and agreed to by County Counsel Charlotte Scott. Yet after all the closed session agenda items in recent weeks most of which included an item about the Cubbison civil suit, Haschak has always reported that no reportable action was taken. He has never reported any action taken out of closed session and has never mentioned any motions or votes as required by the Brown Act — a prima facie Brown Act violation, but one which cannot be proven because, oxymoronically, the action(s) was (were) taken in closed session.

PS. We also note that the outside attorney’s bogus and inflammatory complaints about media coverage had to also have been approved by the Board in closed session before they were included in the change of venue motion.

LOCAL EVENTS (tomorrow)

HASCHAK’S LETTER FIZZLES

by Mark Scaramella

Board Chair John Haschak’s draft letter to Auditor-Controller/Treasurer Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison which was intended to limit Cubbison’s access to former Acting Auditor-Controller Treasurer Tax Collector Sara Pierce backfired and fizzled Tuesday morning when the Board got a sharp rebuke from Ukiah Valley Sanitation District Trustee Teresa McNerlin followed by no one being interested in approving Haschak’s letter.

McNerlin’s blunt criticism of the Board and the CEO was followed by the Board declining to even call a vote on Haschak’s gratuitously insulting letter.

Ms. Pierce opened the discussion by saying she was willing to discuss her tenure as Acting Auditor-Controller Treasurer Tax Collector with Cubbison but that she needed written questions so that she could manage her time and juggle other duties.

Ms. Cubbison replied by explaining why she needed to discuss and understand some of the actions taken by Pierce during Cubbison’s 17-month suspension without pay, saying that those discussions needed to be in person to be clear and complete. Cubbison acknowledged that Ms. Pierce had “completed” several Audit tasks during her tenure, but noted that most of them were already underway or near completion at the time of Cubbison’s suspension.

During public comment Ms. McNerlin told the Board that the Supervisors needed to fess up and correct the problem they had created, separate the misguided combination of financial offices, and stop taking bad advice from incompetent advisors and lawyers.

Teresa McNerlin, Ukiah voter, Member of Sanitation District Board, Army veteran.

“In this year of politically motivated hate and extremism this board has brought together Republicans, Democrats and independents alike to address this issue. The Democratic Party Central Committee, the Republican Central Committee, and the Farm Bureau have all voted to send a letter or resolution expressing their support for separate departments of Auditor Controller, and Treasurer Tax Collector. To date you have ignored the will of your constituents. I had a conversation with one board member and she said she was concerned about how separating the offices would make the staff feel — back-and-forth from two offices to one office and back to two. I have not heard of a single person other than the CEO who wanted one big fat consolidated department. In fact, I know that long-time county employees quit their jobs in protest of this decision. If you have concern about people’s feelings, why don’t you ask the hundreds of employees who are not in the District Attorney’s office how they felt about lawyers having steak dinners as training parties for the DA employees only and their plus-ones. But I digress. If you want to address the concerns of your constituents, you should put the separation of these departments on the agenda. There would be some cost savings analysis and other justification for this decision. The optics are that three of you voted to consolidate those two departments for the specific purpose of ousting our elected Auditor Controller by giving her the title of Treasurer. You have conspired with the CEO to make false allegations, conduct half-assed investigations and perjury. What did that get you? In the Army we would say that you created a Charlie Foxtrot. A situation fubar. A snafu. You need to recognize this snafu and acknowledge your mistake or responsibility, accept accountability and make a course correction. Undoubtedly, this takes character, integrity, fortitude, bravery, and a bit of humility. All traits of a leader. When it comes to decisions this board is making with regard to the Treasurer Tax Collector Controller, it really feels like the majority of you are not being leaders. Think for a minute. Who gave you the advice that got you into this Charlie Foxtrot in the first place? The cockamamie consolidation of departments, the fabricated felony charges against the Auditor, recklessly removing her from office and the unjustified and unwarranted suspension of her salary and benefits — which you have not fixed yet. Who convinced you of these good ideas? Will you be a leader? Or will you continue to be a follower? Will you continue to be influenced by the very people who got you into this and helped create this charlie foxtrot? These people are only concerned about covering their own asses and billable hours.”

Ms. McNerlin did not even get the courtesy of a Thank you.

In response Supervisor Haschak wilted in the face of the comments by Pierce, Cubbison and McNerlin by meekly saying he thought there would be more cooperation now.

But McNerlin wasn’t having it.

McNerlin: “I have read both letters on the agenda. Did everyone vote in favor of that letter that you signed? How did you vote? How did you vote on approving the letter that you signed to deliver to the Auditor-Controller?”

Haschak: “That letter was a letter from the chair.”

McNerlin: “It’s on board letterhead. With all of your names. There are facts in this letter that are not true. I have read both letters [i.e., Cubbison’s request for assistance from Pierce and Haschak’s proposed response], and I have heard both of these ladies speak. Ms. Cubbison did not say she wanted this lady [Pierce] to be reassigned to her. She asked for cooperation. And she asked for your board to instigate that cooperation. That is a false fact in this [Haschak’s] letter. Who on earth would draft a condescending letter like that: ‘Oh and if you can’t do your job, let me know now.’ That is passive-aggressive! You don’t even call her to schedule a meeting? You just walk over and drop it on her desk? That is unprofessional! Why don’t you simply call her? She’s your elected Auditor Controller. Sit down and meet with her. We all know what this goes back to. This goes back to the irrational decision that this board made, led by the CEO, the District Attorney and whoever crappy attorneys you have, who gave you advice to take that woman and file felony charges against her, to remove her from her office, to put someone who already had a job in her place for 17 months, to withdraw all her pay and benefits… And then when it goes to court and you find out that you made a mistake, this is what you do?! You can’t acknowledge that you made a mistake and move on? You can’t make that woman whole? You can’t give her her back pay? You can’t offer any cooperation? She’s been back in the office for two months now. I do not think it’s irrational to ask the person who has been doing the job for the last 17 months to also sign the audit. Because, what have you done to earn back the trust of the Auditor? What have you done to earn back her trust? You have not made her whole. You have your attorneys ask that she has to go to Marin County where the per capita income is three times higher than ours. The judgment they are going to get back is going to be three times higher than any judgment here just because of that. It doesn’t matter which county you take this to. You have to shine a light on the truth. The truth will come out. You need to move past this and you need to get this whole lawsuit behind you. You need to let this County heal. You need to let this woman do her job and the other woman do her job. I will work and walk every single precinct to make sure that none of you are re-elected unless you make this right. Do the right thing.”

Haschak retreated, saying that he was just “trying to be transparent about the communications that are going on, OK?”

County Counsel Charlotte Scott reminded the Board that they had an agenda item and a recommendation that the letter be accepted by the Board. But, typically, none of them had the stomach to even make a motion, much less approve the letter.

Supervisor Bernie Norvell, trying to salvage what little he could from Haschak’s dead letter, said he “appreciated” Haschak’s letter, but that the conversation between Pierce and Cubbison had “resolved a lot of these issues,” conceding that there was no need for the letter. After several lengthy and embarrassing silences, Supervisor Mulheren finally said that “this has been a very challenging process because of some litigation that we’re dealing with” — litigation instigated entirely by the Board and the CEO. Then Mulheren retreated to her standard simplistic and hollow blather: “The goal of the Board, the goal of the CEO, the goal of the Auditor-Controller Treasurer-Tax Collector’s office is to serve what’s in the best interests of the residents of Mendocino County.” Mulheren thanked “the Chair for his service in following through with this response based on the item that came forward at the May 6 meeting [i.e., Cubbison’s request for assistance from Pierce], and we can move on.”

They could start “serving what’s in the best interest of the residents of Mendocino County” by settling Cubbison’s suit rather than stubbornly pretending that there was any merit behind it in the first place. But that’s obviously asking too much.

After another long pause, Haschak asked, “OK? Are we all right with that? … … Ok! Then we’ll move on.” After County Counsel Scott needlessly told the Board that they didn’t need to take action, Haschak repeated, “Then we’ll move on,” as if the letter had not been written and that everybody should be nice to each other and the Board was nothing but disinterested bystanders watching the mess and the tension they needlessly created continue to play out.

Haschak didn’t even formally withdraw his letter. So, like most of his previous proposals, his insulting letter to Cubbison, having unnecessarily engendered more bad feelings on top of the injustices already done to Cubbison, the letter was ignored.

PS. The Cubbison Fiasco follows in the clumsy and costly footsteps of several recent fiascos:

The thoughtless attempt to charge the Sheriff personally for ordinary budget overruns that ended up taking months and costing the County about $400k in legal fees before the entire issue was finally dropped.

The misguided relocation of the Veterans Service Office that the Board steadfastly, wastefully and ignorantly defended before deciding to undue the CEO’s goofy office relocation in the face of stiff opposition from the public and affected veterans followed months later by the return of the Veterans office to its original location.

The expenditure of almost $5 million for an at-most $1 million four-bedroom house as a gift to a private mental health contract that the County euphemistically called a “crisis residential treatment center.”

The $370k remodel of the Board chambers with high-end bulletproof fiberglass on the laughable grounds that after covid there was a security threat from the public. …

But the Cubbison fiasco which has now dragged on for going-on four years takes the prize for the dumbest, costliest, most pointless, lengthiest and most damaging decision of them all.

And it’s not over yet.

ED NOTES

THE CUBBISON FIASCO. Remember it all began because a petulant DA Eyster wanted Cubbison out because she, in her elected capacity as County independent bean counter, challenged Eyster’s annual Christmas debauch at the Broiler Steak House, which Eyster had blithely charged to Mendocino County’s beset taxpayers. Ms. C was simply doing her job. She should be honored for standing up to Mendocino County’s blustering “lead law enforcement officer.” So Eyster goes to the Board of Supervisors with a false claim that Ms. C had committed a felony theft of public funds, a charge the Sheriff’s Department’s investigators were unable to find, but Eyster’s own over-large investigative posse duly discovered. “Right, Boss, she did it. Can we go home now?” The Supervisors proceed to fire Ms. C on Eyster’s say-so without evidence of any wrongdoing, without any opportunity to respond, and without any apparent awareness that Ms. C is an elected official. When this farce finally stumbles into court two years later after delay after delay, Judge Moorman tosses it as unfounded. The board that did that, along with Eyster, should be held personally liable, but here comes Supervisor Haschak, the dimmist of dim bulbs, with a snide comment obviously written for him by one of the legal masterminds running up her billable hours at public expense: Haschak to Cubbison: “…With this understanding, please let the Board know as soon as possible if you are unable or unwilling to fulfill the duties and statutory requirements of your position. Thank you.” Haschak, Williams and Mulheren might ask themselves the same question, but Haschak’s moronic sarcasm will of course pad Ms. C’s payday when she wins her slam dunk wrongful suspension suit. Instead of trying to settle with Ms. Cubbison before the costs of this clown show go any further, our cretinous supervisors, led around by their uncomprehending noses by San Francisco County lawyers and the incompetents in their own laughable County Counsel’s office, keep on insulting her and getting in the way of her work.

THE PD PUBLISHED a puffaroo the other day about how to attend Giants games without taking out a mortgage to fund a day at the ballpark. Probably the best thing you can do is ingratiate yourself with someone who has season’s tickets and negotiate for the games that person can’t attend. My nephew — all blessings upon him — lays a certain number of day-game Giants tickets on me every season. I pass on night game tickets because I’m strictly a day-game guy. Of course I take my own food. Ballpark prices are beyond extortionate and the food isn’t all that good. To get to the ballpark, before decrepitude kicked in, I used to ride my bike down through the Presidio, Crissy Field, Aquatic Park, Fisherman’s Wharf, and along the waterfront to the ballpark. Or I took Muni. For ballpark food, I’d buy a $5 sandwich at Acme Bread in the Ferry Building or I packed in some Clement Street dim sum. When I didn’t have a free ticket, I attended when the Giants were playing someone hopeless, when the scalper guy I knew was receptive to any and all cash offers. Or, with the Giants “market pricing” policy, I could get a ticket at the window up in View for under twenty bucks. (“Market pricing” means for the big games with the Dodgers, say, the Giants run the ticket price up double, even triple. I operate on the theory that major league baseball is major league baseball, that no matter who’s playing you’ll see guys making plays no one else in the world can make. And I prefer the seats way up top on the rim of the stadium where, between pitches, you have that panoramic view of the Bay.)

COMING in to The City from the north, be sure to take the regular ferry from Larkspur; if you’re a geeze or a wheeze, tickets are only six bucks on the regular ferry. The special ballpark ferry is expensive, and you’re squeezed in with the most repellant drunks in all the Bay Area — Marin County drunks. If you’re driving in to The City from the north, you can park free in the Marina and take the 30 Stockton to within a block of the ballpark. Or you can park free way the hell out by the beach and catch the N Judah for the ballpark.

THE 30 STOCKTON becomes a geriatric Asian mosh pit as it passes through Chinatown, so be prepared to be bullrushed and generally pummeled by tiny old ladies in big bill sun hats.

CHILDREN. Only take a kid with you if the child has been properly trained in the basics of civilized behavior. If you take a “I wanna, I wanna” kind of kid you’ll have to borrow money to get back home.

I HAVE NO IDEA how to get to the ballpark from the south; I haven’t been farther south than the airport for 50 years. From the East it’s easy access by BART and a short ride on Muni. Play ball!

MOVING ALONG, and curious about the recent allegations that Budweiser is watering its beer, one day I downed a tall Bud on my way home from the Ballpark, plopping down on a bench beside a street guy near Pier 27, at that time an horrific eyesore given over by “progressive” San Francisco to one billionaire so he and two other billionaires could race their billionaire boats on the Bay. “Wouldn’t want to give me a hit of that, would you partner?,” the street guy asked. But he said it, “Woodja wanna gimme a hit o that, woodja pardner?” No, my good man I’m sorry, but I’m conducting a taste test here, I said.

SO? Put me down with the people who claim they’re watering down the Bud. Something’s different, for sure. We get ripped off so many ways anymore, and now the corporations are watering down the beer. That tears it! I’m writing to my Congressman! (Which is like writing a complaint to your backyard fig tree. (An on-line commenter promptly and rightly pointed out that all beer is watered down, but Bud had a certain taste that my unfailing palate detects has been altered, presumably by more water in the recipe.

A SENIOR TICKET to see the Terracotta Warriors at the Asian Art Museum cost me $16 bucks, but once you’re inside you’re informed they are five life-size facsimiles, not that anyone could tell, and what the hey, what’s one more little swindle in the Land of Swindles. Or, as George Carlin famously put it, “This country runs on bullshit. Take away the bullshit and everything collapses.” And on that Thursday morning I was surprised to have to wait in a long line, surrounded by wheelchairs and walkers and barely ambulatory old people, aware that I was only a stutter step away from late life wreckage myself. I might have been the youngest person on the premises and was well into my seventh decade. I’d seen the upstairs exhibits, and was mentally kicking myself about paying $16 to see five concrete statues when a kid in an usher’s blazer walked up and said, “I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to check your backpack.” I went immediately to senile mode: “You can’t have my checkbook, and if you ask me for it again I’ll call the police.” He walked off, presumably to consult with his supervisor, but no one reappeared to make an issue out of it. Back out on the street I was pleased to see a street preacher on the steps of the appellate court shouting through a bullhorn about sin. At least he was yelling at the right people. I’ve seen the same guy on Market Street with his aurally weaponized bullhorn. He’s a tough-looking old bird even in his suit, and so loud-angry that you have to listen carefully to understand that he’s not looking for a fight but urging passersby to give up their wicked ways and follow Him, which isn’t a message that finds much receptivity in San Francisco even when it’s delivered by a man who doesn’t look like he’d rather slug you than pray with you.

THAT SATURDAY, there was only one crazy guy on the 1 California, the most sedate of Muni lines at all hours. Youngish, maybe 35, conventionally dressed in shirt and slacks except for a hole punch he wore like a bolo tie. “Are we there yet?” he asked no one in particular several times. Suddenly, opposite the hospital at Laurel he screamed, “Off! Let me off!” The driver let him off in the middle of the block.

I ALWAYS stopped in at the Ferry Building to pick up a sandwich for the ballgame, Giants vs. Colorado that day, which started down the street at 1:05. For $5.70 you got a “rustic baguette with Mt. Tamalpais triple creme cheese, fruit jam, arugula, and black pepper.” Even if I have a few extra bucks I don’t buy ballpark food, not out of hostility for negative food value viands but out of hostility for Giants ownership and the South Carolina concessionaire that pays the concession workers about one dollar out of the ten dollars they charge for a beer. And you’d think at least a couple of the ballplayers would step up to the plate for the people who make the game go, people making an average of $11,000 a season. From a couple of blocks away the concession workers were picketing the ballpark. I’d bought a $20 ticket from this scalper-dude I kinda know and was chagrined that now I’d have to turn around and go home, never having crossed a picket line and reluctant to start at an advanced age. But a picketing lady said it was fine to “go on in and enjoy the ball game — just don’t buy anything.” No prob for me. I always bring the sandwich from the Ferry Building. Inside, most of the concessions were closed. 70 years ago the whole city would have been on the picket line, but 70 years ago these days might as well be 700 years ago. No one remembers, no one cares, it’s every pre-schooler for himself.

SEATED BEHIND six raucous women of my vintage, one of them sporting a gray mohawk, the tanned woman’s back directly in front of me featuring a butterfly tattoo with a bumble bee forever hovering over a flower, these girls of many summers were talking about the concession strike. “I don’t care,” the tattooed babe said, “I bought a beer and I’m going to buy another goddam beer, strike or no strike.” The old lady next to her commented, “Gawd. What are they trying to do, starve us?” Later in the game, which ended in mass ecstasy with Angel Pagan’s inside-the-park homerun, Zito hit the Rockies centerfielder, Crawford, on the hand with a Zito fastball. “The tattooed lady exclaimed, “Eighty miles an hour fastball? Big goddam deal. He’s not hurt. Play ball!” They were a ruthless bunch, commenting knowledgeably on both the game — “Belt got under the tag. He was safe” — and the sartorial deficiencies of female passersby, “Why not let it all hang out, honey?” And, “I wonder how she got her tits up that high?” one wondered. “Maybe with a forklift,” answered another. That kind of thing, always to the chuckling agreement of the other ladies.

IT WAS A WONDERFUL day high up in View with these long gone Golden Girls, the wind whipping the stadium flags, the sun and the sailboats all afternoon on the water, the delirious game-ending heroics of Pagan.

TERRY SITES REPORTS that the Sonoma-Marin Rapid Transit commuter train will open a new station in Windsor on June 15, 2025 and funding is in place for a station in Healdsburg after that. Seniors and students can ride for free. “It’s a good way to get to Sonoma, Marin or San Francisco,” said Sites, “and you only have to drive to Windsor. You can make a day trip out of it and get back in time to drive home from Windsor in the afternoon.”

UKIAH MAN CONVICTED OF CONTINUOUS SEXUAL ABUSE OF A CHILD

A Mendocino County jury returned a guilty verdict Friday against 49-year-old Henry Robert Frahm Rinne of Ukiah, finding him guilty of the continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, according to a press release from the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.

The felony conviction stems from abuse that occurred between June 2016 and August 2018, when the victim was between eight and ten years old. The DA’s Office extended a “special thanks” to the now-17-year-old survivor “who remained steadfast in her pursuit of justice.”

The case was investigated by the Ukiah Police Department and the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigations. Deputy District Attorney Jamie Pearl prosecuted the case, which lasted one week and was presided over by Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Victoria Shanahan.

Clinical Psychologist Mindy Mechanic testified as an expert witness during the trial, speaking on interpersonal trauma and counterintuitive victim behavior.

The DA’s Office also recognized a “good samaritan” witness from another county who observed and reported an act of abuse in 2018 and later testified at trial. “Without this witness, the abuse may have continued much longer,” the press release stated.

Rinne is scheduled to return to court on June 5 for a trial on aggravating factors. Following that hearing, the case will be referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for a background study and sentencing recommendation.

(DA Presser)

LAUREN SINNOTT

Come to two mural events this Wednesday, May 21!

10-11am - presentation at the mural about Fort Bragg’s Finnish heritage, right next to Bojh Parker‘s beautiful work, across from Racine’s on N. Franklin St.

Then 3:30pm at Eagles’ Hall, pictured here soon after it was built by the Finns in 1914 and portrayed in my mural. We will have hot coffee drunk the Finnish way (you’ll see), tea and cookies, and a reading of a Finnish children’s book in Finnish and English, and we’ll hear stories. Join us!

See more about the mural www.historymural.com/finn/

BETSY CAWN:

As Mr. Hartzell said, the press release folks (the rest of the media) “won’t tell us.”

The art of confabulation is entrenched in the vocabulary employed by elected officials and their appointed henchmen/women.

Lack of accurate facts about the conditions for which local rule-making is deemed unquestionable; there is no legal mechanism available to the public that forces the revelations we need for reasoning with the power brokers.

Delivery of non-answers is lubricated by terms implying genuine recognition of these conditions impacting the lowest ranking members of “society,” wrapped in matronly assurances that “we have been talking about this for a long time” and buzzwords like “fast tracking” and “definitionally.”

Mendocino’s bane in that category is RMC and Camille Shrader’s mental health enterprise. Lake’s empowerment machine focuses on wildfire.

Nonetheless, the County of Lake hired professional lobbyists to improve the county’s ability to advocate for issues prioritized during special meetings (for spending more public monies to increase the bureaucracy at our expense, in many cases).

Tucked into otherwise proclamation-packed agendas our Department of Social Services calmly confronted our Board of Supervisors with the ugly anticipated losses of federal funding for “safety net” programs. The highly paid lobbyists’ representative, in the second “discussion” of local impacts, avoided harsh realities by claiming no personal knowledge of particulars. Other unpleasant topics were dispatched with vagueries and popular stylizing.

Explicating the state’s response to the “controversial changes” in burdensome health care programs like MediCal, SNAP, and increased local administrative costs, the Zoomed-in PR pro explained that the separation of discretionary spending programs from the Congressional reconciliation process “makes the message, I think, a little more complicated.”

Throughout the ensuing “dialogue” with members of our Board, the consultant used phrases salted with “sort of like” and “pretty strong,” concluding that, for California, “there’s definitely reason to be concerned.”

The public is unable to penetrate the organizational barriers to demand a factually substantive explanation of anything. Departments put on displays of “updates” on their work plans, larded with “data” leading to the usual budgetary “holes” and staff shortages.

Unlike your Executive Office, however, our Chief Administrative Officer has constructed a system of superficially transparent processes by which the Board of Supervisors is the primary instrument of authority, constrained to addressing the selected topics and formulating innumerable “ad hoc” committees who talk to each other and selected constituents before reaching positions that support Administrative goals.

[No local “media” outlets report on the outcomes of our Board decisions, with one or two exceptions, so the concerned citizen is forced to devote several hours to watching their recorded meetings via on-line “platforms,” for which we are supposed to be suitably grateful.]

AVA readers and informed Mendocino citizens provide the only challenges to blissfully authoritarian-but-ignorant management of your municipality. Ours is no less authoritarian, but we seem to have a slicker dictionary.

WHEN SUPERVISOR PINCHES OPPOSED PAYING EARTHQUAKE INSURANCE FOR THE COURTHOUSE

(Mendocino County Board of Supervisors Meeting, March 23, 2010.)

Subject: Earthquake insurance for the courthouse. Staff recommended that the County pay about $85k for an earthquake insurance policy for the existing courthouse that covers up to $50 million. If the damage is more than that the state would pay the rest. Staff noted that Mendocino County owns the land the courthouse is on, but the state Administrative Office of the Courts owns most of the building itself (excluding the equipment and fixtures).

Supervisor John Pinches: If I own a third of a building, I’m responsible for a third of the insurance, not the whole bill.

County Counsel Jeanine Nadel: I don’t disagree with you.

Pinches: Why is that?

Nadel: Because the law requires us to maintain the ins… the, um, earthquake insurance if the board, if the building has been declared a certain level, level 5, which it is, a level 5.

Pinches: It declares us to have the insurance?

Nadel: Yes.

Pinches: To pay for the insurance?

Nadel: Yes.

Pinches: Why don’t we not pay the bill? I mean, if there’s, if the Courthouse shakes down, we still got the land. Which ultimately, if they build a new courthouse they’re going to have the expense of tearing it down anyway!

Nadel: That’s correct. But unfortunately, that’s the legislation we had to deal with when we transferred the facility.

Pinches: We’re just going to lay back and take it?

General Services Director Kristin McMenomey: This legislation was fought very very hard by all the counties for several years and they went through several amendments and this is what we got stuck with.

Pinches: (Long pause.) I’m opposed to spending the money.

McMenomey: For the record, me too. But I don’t think we have a choice.

Pinches: Why don’t we send them a letter and say we don’t have the money? Which we don’t.

Nadel: I don’t recommend that because it is part of an agreement that this board has already authorized.

Pinches: What account are we going to write the check out of?

McMenomey: You’re going to write… Well, it’s out of risk management. Insurance. We budgeted for it.

Pinches: Which is a general fund contribution.

McMenomey: Yes, it is. This one will be entirely a general fund contribution.

Pinches: On things like this if we don’t start pushing back it’s just going to get worse. [Looks around for support.] Thank you Supervisor McCowen for bringing this up.

Supervisor John McCowen: Yeah. I wish we had a solution to it.

Pinches: The solution is to not write them a check.

McCowen: Well, we’re being told the law requires us to have insurance on the courthouse.

Pinches: Let them come over and arrest us. I mean, it’s…

Board Chair Carre Brown: Board members, we need to move forward. By having a good discussion.

Pinches: Are we moving forward by letting the state push us around like this?

Brown: Well. Then. I… I will entertain a motion. Whatever that might be.

Pinches: Well, I’m not going to make the motion to approve it!

(Laughter in the room — except Pinches.)

McCowen: Reluctantly and to move it along I will, I will make a motion to approve the recommended action.

Brown: Is there a second?

(Silence.)

Nadel: I need to remind this board that we had an agreement to transfer that facility and the earthquake portion is in that agreement. As required by law.

Kendall Smith: I will. I will second that.

Brown: All those in favor say aye.

(All but Pinches say, Aye.)

Brown: Opposed?

Pinches: Opposed!

Brown: Ok, motion passes, and you-know-who is opposed.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, May 20, 2025

DINGANE JACKSON, 43, Laytonville. DUI.

NOAH LURANHATT, 34, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ADRIAN REYNOSO, 19, Ukiah. Burglary, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

THE DULL LUMP, OR, FICTIONAL, HISTORICAL SNAPSHOT WITH META-PHYSICAL & PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS: THIRD DRAFT

How even a misplaced comma, an awkward construction or incomplete parallelism propels a subsequent draft’s antecedent substance; that is, while a single line forms there are layers of possibilities. IS thought grammatical?

“I wonder if you’ll write more Oriental-type things?” she asks brushing out her medium length “It’s no longer short” blond hair. “I mean now that your desk is lowered,” slips between the clean-green sheets: “I want Narcissus sheets for Christmas. They are in the Macy’s catalog. Ruth and I love to look through catalogs. I get catalogs from everywhere, from L.L. Bean, from I. Magnin, Neiman Marcus, Eddie Bauer, Joseph Magnin, Lord & Taylor, Recreational Equipment, Design Research, from Bonwitt’s, from seed companies, hardware manufacturers, western clothing makers, macrame suppliers, Oh, I don’t know, everywhere… I get catalogs from everywhere,” wanting her ankles and calves rubbed, supine, hair on the “What is this lump in your pillow?” my hands still coated with salt-crusted abalone guts (fish bait), not minding the smell, the insistent inquiry, the lump. “Come to bed.”

I will clean and sharpen the knife in the morning.

— Don Shanley

The late Catherine Coulson is best known for her uncanny performance as The Log Lady in “Twin Peaks,” in which she seemed to personify the odd, unique spirit of the Northwest-set TV series, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost.

But as the documentary “I Know Catherine, The Log Lady” demonstrates, there was much more to Coulson.

CONGRESSMAN JARED HUFFMAN IS PROTESTED at Town Hall in Mill Valley, Boy Wonder Eli Beckman Says Nothing

by Eva Chrysanthe

On Monday, May 12, Congressman Huffman held a Town Hall on the environment in probably the safest bubble in his district: at the spacious and luxurious Mill Valley Community Center, a building which is entirely unrecognizable to Mill Valleyans of a certain age. (In the mid-1970s, the Mill Valley Community Center was a tiny, shack-like building with breadbaking contests judged by the friendly and antiwar Mrs. Parlette, and where beleaguered husbands were later dragged by their wives to disco dancing classes after “Saturday Night Fever” was released. Whoever thought we’d miss the complicated 1970s as a “simpler” time?)

During Huffman’s Town Hall, two anti-war protesters who have been actively involved in advocating for a ceasefire interrupted Huffman’s comments. I have some grainy video that a reader sent me, and am seeking a better copy.

I was able to contact one of the protesters. He spoke for many when he laid out what is happening in Gaza and asked, “What is an appropriate response for a citizen at this point?”

Referring to Huffman’s support for Israel, which is now the subject of a formal complaint to the United Nations by Taxpayers Against Genocide, the protester stated, “At this point, they are criminals. We went in to disrupt and agitate, there can be no business as usual. You can’t talk about mitigating climate change and not talk about the pollution from 800 US military bases around the world.”

In fact, a similar point has rightly been made: that Israel’s genocide is also an ecocide, and I think the second protester made specific reference to that term.

The first protester made the point that Huffman’s concerns for “saving our democracy” omitted the reality that the US has never been a democracy. This is a point that Professor Paul Woodruff took great pains to make in the aftermath of the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11. Woodruff wrote an entire book about this, cautioning his fellow Americans that a “representative” democracy is only the illusion of democracy.

But the first protester wasn’t dreaming of the classics. “I’m in the Gerald Horne school,” he shared, “1776 was a counter-revolution, I’m willing to acknowledge that were were some opportunities made for white men, but you can’t separate that from the explosion of slavery. We went from 500,000 slaves in 1776 to 4.5 million slaves by the beginning of the Civil War. That’s a 900% increase.”

During the Huffman event, three older women seated in the audience had held up what appeared to be images of Palestinian children. They apparently also interrupted Congressman Huffman, although less loudly. It was interesting to me that these particular women had not been very vocal on the issue; it’s possible that people who did not want to speak up when a Democrat was in office are finally taking part in public protest of Israel’s genocide now that Trump is at the helm. (Don’t snub them, we need all the help we can get.)

Eli Beckman In Attendance:

Of the many elected officials who attended the hearing was apparently Corte Madera Councilmember (and JCRC BANJO member) Eli Beckman, now running for Damon Connolly's termed-out Assembly seat. Beckman had been fêted by the JCRC in Tel Aviv during his all-expenses paid junket to Israel in 2023, and is currently endorsed in his assembly race by a retinue of pro-Israel backers, including the infamous Yoav Schlesinger, the former AIPAC director now seated on the San Anselmo Town Council.…

https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/can-a-california-assemblyman-really

GIANTS HOLD OFF ROYALS behind Hayden Birdsong’s return to the rotation

by Shayna Rubin

San Francisco Giants' Hayden Birdsong pitches to a Kansas City Royals batter during the first inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

The San Francisco Giants were nursing a one-run lead in the eighth. There could be no bigger threat on first base to tie it than Bobby Witt Jr., the Kansas City Royals’ MVP hopeful with baseball’s top sprint speed and 16 stolen bases to his name.

Everyone watching at Oracle Park knew Witt was going to try to steal second, and anyone who has watched Patrick Bailey at work behind the plate knew the Giants catcher was the guy to catch him. By the time he received reliever Camilo Doval’s 98 mph fastball, Bailey was already getting up from his squat to connect with shortstop Willy Adames, who laid a tag on Witt sliding by a split-second to get the inning’s second out and put an end to the Royals’ hopes.

It was a pivotal moment in the Giants’ 3-2 win on Tuesday night, evening the series at a game apiece. It was a win that put on full display all the ways the Giants can edge good teams when the offense is going through doldrums.

Bailey’s defense behind the plate is a clear-cut strength. He threw out another fast runner, Maikel Garcia, in the second inning. The Giants’ league-leading 18th caught stealing was also made possible because Doval has gotten notably quicker to the plate this year.

“To beat these guys — like some of the teams we have — you have to control the running game,” manager Bob Melvin said. “And he’s about as good as it gets with getting rid of it — and with two really fast runners.”

The win also had plenty to do with Hayden Birdsong, who moved from his relief role back into the rotation in Jordan Hicks’ place for his first start of the year. Though Hicks’ peripheral numbers indicated that he was pitching better than the results, those stats (a 6.55 ERA and 1-5 record) ultimately matter most. The Giants were set up to remix the look of their rotation for the first time this year and when asked if Birdsong sees this as an opportunity to hold onto the starter spot for the long haul, he said, “I plan on it.”

“We feel like he’s going to be a starter for the Giants for a long time,” Melvin said.

Flipping from bullpen to starter isn’t an easy move, but there was a sign early on that Birdsong would deliver on Tuesday. And Witt was, again, involved.

In the second at-bat of the game, Birdsong blew a 98.4 mph fastball by Witt’s chest, a pitch that Witt swung through. It was the hardest pitch Birdsong threw all evening, but set the tone for a strong five-inning outing. The strikeout was one of four Birdsong collected as he gave up one run, unearned, with no walks.

Birdsong said he woke up “antsy” about the start, but settled in after the scoreless first. It was expected that Birdsong would be limited to around 75 pitches because he’d thrown a maximum 65 pitches over three innings in his last relief outing, but he navigated a tricky third inning and managed to escape a two-out double situation in the fifth inning — with Kyle Harrison and Randy Rodriguez warming — to get through five.

“I felt good, I had more energy in the fourth and fifth than I thought I would,” Birdsong said. “Obviously we’re still ramping up and probably going to keep me at somewhat of a pitch count for now and build me up again. But felt good.”

Birdsong primarily went to his four-seamer, slider and changeup out of the bullpen. This time, he re-incorporated his curveball more readily. That unearned run came in the third inning when Birdsong practically pushed a run across himself; Drew Waters singled, advanced to second on Birdsong’s errant throw to first on an attempted pickoff and then to third on a wild pitch. He scored on a sacrifice fly.

Bailey had done plenty to remind Birdsong that he could be a little more selective about when to pick off.

“I’m done picking off,” he said. “I have no reason to pick off when he’s back there because he’s just going to throw somebody out.”

Ryan Walker secured the save, his fourth straight scoreless outing after allowing 10 runs over his previous eight appearances.

Adames hit an RBI triple in the fourth inning to tie the game and Casey Schmitt hit the go-ahead knock that inning. Jung Hoo Lee added the insurance run in the fifth inning, taking advantage of the Royals’ botched double-play opportunity on Wilmer Flores’ ground ball, ultimately putting two runners on for Lee.

(sfchronicle.com)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I just needed to see Biden in action during the Clarence Thomas hearings to know I didn’t like the man. He allowed a brave black woman to be trashed and gave us Clarence Thomas. Papa Joe was Obama’s VP and was behind the brilliant decision to make the Bush Tax cuts permanent in exchange for a few weeks of unemployment benefits for federal workers (which the republicans undoubtedly would have caved on had the democrats stood their ground). I remember thinking of the colossal stupidity of giving away the only leverage they had against the strident Republican Congress. Apparently all Biden’s idea - the evidence of his years of negotiating experience in the senate! Whatever good Biden did during his first term will be wiped out and then some. I honestly think it would have been better if Trump had won in 2020 because then we would be over him now and he wouldn’t have had 4 years to come up with the Project 25 plan. Then the democrats could have spent four years coming together instead of desperately trying to prop up Biden and limiting their focus to opposing Trump. The democrats need to focus on more than just being anti Trump.

A READER WRITES: Infectious diseases coming…

After reading Fauci’s warnings about the dangers of ignorance about Science, I think your readers should know about sciencebasedmedicine.org. They’ve detailed the horrors of dismantling the NIH and today Dr. Mark Crislip warns of the coming tides of infectious diseases. It’s all a nightmare.

“Give me your E. *coli*, your polio, your huddled Tuberculosis yearning to kill free.”

STILL IN THE FIGHT

Waiting for the Reaper

To come for me soon

Maybe while I’m sleeping

Or at the stroke of noon

Aches and pains

And a bottomless bladder

No weight gains

I can’t get fatter

Emaciated

A skeleton’s frame

Constipated

Old age’s to blame

Time will tell

When my days are done

Will I go to Hell

For just having fun

Tho’ long are the days

And dark are the nights

I just wanna say

I’m still in the fight

— Elvin Woods

THE ORACLE OF OMAHA CALLS IT A CAREER

by Matt Taibbi

Warren Buffett announced this month that he will retire from his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the fabled corporate conglomerate that made him a revered household name, at the end of 2025. Along with a mostly stellar seven-decade investment career, he carefully created an image of a down to earth midwesterner who lives in a modest home, drives a modest car and dines on Dairy Queen (he liked DQ so much he bought the company in 1997) while swigging Coca Cola (another great Berkshire investment) and dispensing sage advise the way your favorite uncle might.

I have a six degrees of separation story where I sort of crossed paths with him. In fact, I can say that I played a small part in Buffett’s dumping of one of his favorite and most profitable trades, Freddie Mac.

Up until 2000, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owned a big piece of Freddie Mac (he first purchased Freddie stock in 1988), and it was one of Berkshire’s top performers. Buffett has always loved insurance companies, especially ones that generate lots of float (getting cash that you may or may not have to pay out later). That is what Freddie Mac, along with its “rival” Fannie Mae, had in spades. The government-sponsored enterprises had a duopoly on insuring the credit on trillions of American single and multi-family mortgages. The events that caused Buffett to sell his entire stake in Freddie Mac took place in 1999, right about the time that I arrived at Freddie Mac as the risk manager of one of its divisions.

In February 1999 I was called into a meeting, a top-secret one! Freddie Mac had been sore forever that it was never able to catch up to its big sister Fannie Mae and get a 50% share of the mortgage insurance business.

The split always toggled between 55-45 and 60-40 in Fannie’s favor.

Freddie had tried many different schemes to achieve parity, and all had failed. Now it was time to go with the nuclear option, kind of like when the Soviet Union put nukes in Cuba.

Freddie made a deal with mortgage giant Wells Fargo. The bank agreed to let Freddie securitize all Wells Fargo loans for two years. Freddie was confident the deal would allow it to catch up to Fannie Mae. Freddie was also confident that Fannie Mae would just passively accept it.

My small role in this scheme was to approve a massive new three-month credit risk line for Wells. Honestly, the risk that Wells Fargo would go belly up with no warning in any three-month period wasn’t really an issue, so I said sure and signed off.

In the eyes of Freddie, it was a great deal for both sides. Freddie would capture the elusive market share it desired and Wells would be able to insure loans at a cheaper rate, which meant higher profits.

Freddie also made deals with other banks. Wells got the biggest discount, but all were paying less than they were before to insure loans. Unfortunately, within about a week, Fannie burst Freddie’s parity fantasy by signing up giants like Countrywide, also for much lower insurance rates, and with that, the race to the bottom of mortgage credit insurance was on! Actually, I would say that this was the first event in what would eventually become the Financial Crisis of 2008.

Warren Buffett took one look at this insanity of a duopoly engaging in a bitter price war and sold his entire stake in Freddie Mac. Interestingly, Berkshire was also a big investor in Wells Fargo, so Buffett got to see both sides of this strategy and chose correctly to go with the recipient of Freddie’s largesse, Wells.

However, my man-crush on Buffett ended in 2008.

One additional trait that many found endearing in Buffett was he could be very candid about his occasional losses and mistakes. He would often use these instances to impart some really great advice. However, the one thing I never heard him discuss was the times he should have lost but got the kind of help regular folks don’t get.

Buffett’s long-time business partner, Charlie Munger, once said “Suck it in and cope, buddy” in response to complaints that the government did more to help Wall Street than homeowners during the 2000’s housing crisis. The truth is, Buffett, Munger and Berkshire would have had to do a lot of sucking themselves if not for the massive government bailout of the financial system in 2008.

This part of the story started between 2003 and 2004. Berkshire made huge option bets that four major global stock indices — the S&P 500, the Nikkei 225, the Euro Stoxx 50 and the FTSE 100 — would not end up lower than they were at the time of the trade, 10 or 15 years in the future.

Berkshire sold these options to major Wall Street banks and in return, the banks paid Berkshire approximately $4.9 billion in what are called premiums. If the stock indices ended lower than their current levels, Berkshire would pay the banks the difference and, if necessary, more than the $4.9 billion it was paid. In turn, if the indices ended at or higher than current levels, Berkshire would get to keep all the money.

Normally, companies that sell these types of long-term options have to put up collateral. Berkshire did not. With Buffet at the helm, Berkshire was considered riskless. This was the key to the strategy. Berkshire could use the $4.9 billion however it wanted without having to tie up any of Berkshire’s other assets.

As long as nothing went horribly wrong, this was a genius move. Buffett would just do his usual brilliant investing with the funds and even if the stock indices ended somewhat lower when the deals expired a decade or two later, the money he would have to pay on the options would probably pale in comparison to the money he would have made with those billions in premiums he received.

Again, unless something went horribly wrong.

In 2008, global equity markets finally woke up to the fact that the subprime mortgage crisis was a giant asteroid hurtling straight for the global financial system and began to free-fall.

At first it appeared Buffett saw what was happening as a great opportunity. One of his famous folksy quotes after all was:

“A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”

In September of 2008, with Goldman Sachs taking on water with the rest of their Wall Street brethren, Berkshire invested $5 billion in perpetual preferred stock with Goldman. Berkshire would receive a 10% dividend as well as the right to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 with a five-year term. On the day of the purchase, September 23, 2008, Goldman’s stock was at $125.05. Perhaps Buffett believed Goldman was already saved after AIG was bailed out the previous week.

As long as Goldman survived, this could be one of the best returns Berkshire ever made.

However, despite the immediate bailout measures taken to save Goldman and the rest, the hits just kept coming with big banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, Wachovia and WaMu (which went into receivership two days later) on the ropes.

On October 10, 2008, Goldman Sachs’ stock closed at $88.80, down 29% from where Buffett made his Goldman investment just two weeks prior.

Moreover, those options Berkshire sold on the four global stock indices, made a few years earlier were going against Berkshire as global stocks cratered.

Everyone needed a bailout, including Berkshire.

Interestingly, a few years after the crisis, CNBC wrote a piece, replete with the customary Andrew Sorkin boot-licking interview.

In October 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett made a late-night phone call to then-Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson, with an idea about how the government might be able to turn the economy around.

Paulson was asleep. He’d had a busy night working through various policy ideas with his team to restore confidence in Wall Street.

At the time, Congress had just passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, or the “bailout bill” as it came to be known, and created a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase assets of failing banks. But these actions were not enough to calm investors Once he understood what was going on, Paulson says, he listened as Buffett “laid out an idea which was a germ of what we did.”

What he told Paulson, Buffett recalls, is that, “It might make more sense to put more capital in the banks than it would to try and buy these assets.”

Perhaps the CNBC piece should have been called How Warren Buffett Saved Himself During the Financial Crisis.

Remember, just a few weeks before Buffett’s phone call to Paulson, Buffett had put capital into Goldman and now he was losing his ass. The government putting capital into Goldman and the rest of the major banks, at the time, would save him.

Naturally, in a government bailout led by a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson, the U.S. never exacted the price it should have for saving Goldman and the rest of the major Wall Street banks. In a fair world, the government bailout would have come with major strings attached.

Instead, the government, aided by the Federal Reserve, saved the likes of Goldman and Morgan Stanley by giving them federal bank charters, life-saving capital and bailing out AIG. The bailout recipients then profited handsomely in the aftermath due to the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented emergency policies such as zero interest rate policy and the massive buying of U.S. Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities, which the Federal Reserve kept until 2018.

Those bailed out then thanked the government for saving them by giving them back their capital. Incredibly, a Goldman Sachs story on its website says “…the firm had neither sought nor expected such an infusion of capital from the Treasury.”

If you need further proof of how laughable this statement is, check out this email from a Federal Reserve Bank of New York official one day before Goldman was given a bank charter.

Berkshire’s large bets on Goldman and the four major global equity indices were also saved and they also ended up richer after the crisis than before.

Meanwhile, the average American was left to “suck it in,” cope and reflect on how greedy and silly they had been buying homes they couldn’t afford.

Warren Buffett was a brilliant investor and a very wise and interesting man. However, in 2008 the “Oracle of Omaha” moniker did not fit. He was just another guy who didn’t quite see just how big the bomb cyclone was that was coming right at him. He and Berkshire escaped financial ruin like all the other plutocrats by relying on Uncle Sam to come to their rescue.

BONNIE & CLYDE

During the harsh years of the Great Depression, when unemployment and poverty plagued much of America, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow emerged as two of the most notorious outlaws of the era. Rather than follow the grim path of struggling day to day, they chose a life of crime that captured the nation’s imagination. Between 1932 and 1934, the couple, along with members of their gang, carried out a series of daring robberies targeting banks, gas stations, and small-town businesses across the Midwest and South. Their bold crimes, combined with their swift movements and resistance to capture, made them both feared and strangely admired by a public desperate for figures who challenged authority.

Bonnie and Clyde’s infamy was magnified by a cache of candid photographs discovered by police after a shootout in Joplin, Missouri. These images, showing Bonnie with a pistol in her hand and Clyde leaning on a getaway car, presented a stylish and daring couple who seemed to thrive on danger. The media widely circulated these photographs, elevating the duo to folk-hero status and turning them into celebrities. To some, they became romantic rebels taking on a broken system, though their crimes left real victims in their wake, including lawmen and bystanders caught in the crossfire.

Their crime spree came to a bloody end on May 23, 1934, when law enforcement set a trap in rural Louisiana. Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed in a hail of bullets, bringing to a close a violent chapter of Depression-era criminal history. Yet their legend endured. Through countless books, films, and songs, the story of Bonnie and Clyde remains one of rebellion, love, and desperation in the face of a harsh world. Their tale continues to fascinate, offering a glimpse into a time when outlaws could become icons and desperation drove people to extremes.

LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT

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Judge Orders U.S. to Keep Custody of Migrants Amid Claims They Were Sent to South Sudan

Noem Incorrectly Defines Habeas Corpus as the President’s Right to Deport People

Trump Unveils Plans for ‘Golden Dome’ Missile Defense System

Elon Musk Plans ‘a Lot Less’ Spending as He Edges Away From Politics

In Approving Soda Ban for Food Stamps, U.S.D.A. Reverses Decades of Policy

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George Wendt, a.k.a. Norm From ‘Cheers,’ Is Dead at 76

R.F.K. JR. HAS UNLIKELY ALLIES IN HIS DRIVE TO LIMIT ATRAZINE

by Hiroko Tabuchi

Kennedy’s Allies Against Pesticides: Environmentalists, Moms and Manly Men

An unlikely group is coalescing around the health secretary’s drive for restrictions on atrazine, which is linked to cancer, birth defects and low sperm counts.

In Europe, the weedkiller atrazine has been banned for nearly two decades because of its suspected links to reproductive problems like reduced sperm quality and birth defects.

In the United States, it remains one of the most widely used pesticides, sprayed on corn, sugar cane and other crops, the result of years of industry lobbying. It has been detected in the drinking water of some 40 million Americans.

Now, American environmental groups that have long sought a ban are finding some unexpected allies: the Trump administration and its MAGA supporter base.

This week, a “Make America Healthy Again” commission led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to issue a report on the causes of chronic illnesses in the United States. And Mr. Kennedy, who worked for years as an environmental lawyer fighting chemical companies, wants the report to highlight the harms of pesticides like atrazine, according to three people with knowledge of his efforts.

It is an unwieldy coalition, extending even to some men’s rights influencers on alternative media, where commentary abounds on how toxic chemicals are threatening masculinity.

They are taking on an influential agricultural and chemicals lobby that has long rebuffed attempts to strengthen restrictions on atrazine and other pesticides, at a time when the Trump administration is rolling back government restrictions on industries, not imposing new ones.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/climate/atrazine-manosphere-maha-kennedy.html

DEATH OF A DOG

by Ted Kooser

The next morning I felt that our house
had been lifted away from its foundation
during the night, and was now adrift,
though so heavy it drew a foot or more
of whatever was buoying it up, not water
but something cold and thin and clear,
silence riffling its surface as the house
began to turn on a strengthening current,
leaving, taking my wife and me with it,
and though it had never occurred
to me until that moment, for fifteen years
our dog had held down what we had
by pressing his belly to the floors,
his front paws, too, and with him gone
the house had begun to float out onto
emptiness, no solid ground in sight.

IN THIS AWAKENING there has been a good deal of pain. When I lived in other places I looked on their evils with the curious eye of a traveler; I was not responsible for them; it cost me nothing to be a critic, for I had not been there long, and I did not feel that I would stay. But here, now that I am both native and citizen, there is no immunity to what is wrong. It is impossible to escape the sense that I am involved in history. What I am has been to a considerable extent determined by what my forebears were, by how they chose to treat this place while they lived in it; the lives of most of them diminished it, and limited its possibilities, and narrowed its future. And every day I am confronted by the question of what inheritance I will leave. What do I have that I am using up? For it has been our history that each generation in this place has been less welcome to it than the last. There has been less here for them. At each arrival there has been less fertility in the soil, and a larger inheritance of destructive precedent and shameful history.

I am forever being crept up on and newly startled by the realization that my people established themselves here by killing or driving out the original possessors, by the awareness that people were once bought and sold here by my people, by the sense of the violence they have done to their own kind and to each other and to the earth, by the evidence of their persistent failure to serve either the place or their own community in it. I am forced, against all my hopes and inclinations, to regard the history of my people here as the progress of the doom of what I value most in the world: the life and health of the earth, the peacefulness of human communities and households.

And so here, in the place I love more than any other and where I have chosen among all other places to live my life, I am more painfully divided within myself than I could be in any other place.

I know of no better key to what is adverse in our heritage in this place than the account of ‘The Battle of the Fire-Brands,’ quoted in Collins’s History of Kentucky ‘from the autobiography of Rev. Jacob Young, a Methodist minister.’ The ‘Newcastle’ referred to is the present-day New Castle, the county seat of Henry County. I give the quote in full:

The costume of the Kentuckians was a hunting shirt, buckskin pantaloons, a leathern belt around their middle, a scabbard, and a big knife fastened to their belt; some of them wore hats and some caps. Their feet were covered with moccasins, made of dressed deer skins. They did not think themselves dressed without their powder-horn and shot-pouch, or the gun and the tomahawk. They were ready, then, for all alarms. They knew but little. They could clear ground, raise corn, and kill turkeys, deer, bears, and buffalo; and, when it became necessary, they understood the art of fighting the Indians as well as any men in the United States.

Shortly after we had taken up our residence, I was called upon to assist in opening a road from the place where Newcastle now stands, to the mouth of Kentucky river. That country, then, was an unbroken forest; there was nothing but an Indian trail passing the wilderness. I met the company early in the morning, with my axe, three days’ provisions, and my knapsack. Here I found a captain, with about 100 men, all prepared to labor; about as jovial a company as I ever saw, all good-natured and civil. This was about the last of November, 1797. The day was cold and clear. The country through which the company passed was delightful; it was not a flat country, but, what the Kentuckians called, rolling ground – was quite well stored with lofty timber, and the undergrowth was very pretty. The beautiful canebrakes gave it a peculiar charm. What rendered it most interesting was the great abundance of wild turkeys, deer, bears, and other wild animals. The company worked hard all day, in quiet, and every man obeyed the captain’s orders punctually.

About sundown, the captain, after a short address, told us the night was going to be very cold, and we must make very large fires. We felled the hickory trees in great abundance; made great log-heaps, mixing the dry wood with the green hickory; and, laying down a kind of sleepers under the pile, elevated the heap and caused it to burn rapidly. Every man had a water vessel in his knapsack; we searched for and found a stream of water. By this time, the fires were showing to great advantage; so we warmed our cold victuals, ate our suppers, and spent the evening in hearing the hunter’s stories relative to the bloody scenes of the Indian war. We then heard some pretty fine singing, considering the circumstances.

Thus far, well; but a change began to take place. They became very rude, and raised the war-whoop. Their shrill shrieks made me tremble. They chose two captains, divided the men into two companies, and commenced fighting with the firebrands – the log heaps having burned down. The only law for their government was, that no man should throw a brand without fire on it – so that they might know how to dodge. They fought, for two or three hours, in perfect good nature; till brands became scarce, and they began to violate the law. Some were severely wounded, blood began to flow freely, and they were in a fair way of commencing a fight in earnest. At this moment, the loud voice of the captain rang out above the din, ordering every man to retire to rest. They dropped their weapons of warfare, rekindled the fires, and laid down to sleep. We finished our road according to directions, and returned home in health and peace.

The significance of this bit of history is in its utter violence. The work of clearing the road was itself violent. And from the orderly violence of that labor, these men turned for amusement to disorderly violence. They were men whose element was violence; the only alternatives they were aware of were those within the comprehension of main strength. And let us acknowledge that these were the truly influential men in the history of Kentucky, as well as in the history of most of the rest of America. In comparison to the fatherhood of such as these, the so-called ‘founding fathers’ who established our political ideals are but distant cousins. It is not John Adams or Thomas Jefferson whom we see night after night in the magic mirror of the television set; we see these builders of the road from New Castle to the mouth of the Kentucky River. Their reckless violence has glamorized all our trivialities and evils. Their aggressions have simplified our complexities and problems. They have cut all our Gordian knots. They have appeared in all our disguises and costumes. They have worn all our uniforms. Their war whoop has sanctified our inhumanity and ratified our blunders of policy.

To testify to the persistence of their influence, it is only necessary for me to confess that I read the Reverend Young’s account of them with delight; I yield a considerable admiration to the exuberance and extravagance of their fight with the firebrands; I take a certain pride in belonging to the same history and the same place that they belong to – though I know that they represent the worst that is in us, and in me, and that their presence in our history has been ruinous, and that their survival among us promises ruin.

‘They knew but little,’ the observant Reverend says of them, and this is the most suggestive thing he says. It is surely understandable and pardonable, under the circumstances, that these men were ignorant by the standards of formal schooling. But one immediately reflects that the American Indian, who was ignorant by the same standards, nevertheless knew how to live in the country without making violence the invariable mode of his relation to it; in fact, from the ecologist’s or the conservationist’s point of view, he did it no violence. This is because he had, in place of what we would call education, a fully integrated culture, the content of which was a highly complex sense of his dependence on the earth. The same, I believe, was generally true of the peasants of certain old agricultural societies, particularly in the Orient. They belonged by an intricate awareness to the earth they lived on and by, which meant that they respected it, which meant that they practiced strict economies in the use of it.

The abilities of those Kentucky road builders of 1797 were far more primitive and rudimentary than those of the Stone Age people they had driven out. They could clear the ground, grow corn, kill game, and make war. In the minds and hands of men who ‘know but little’ – or little else – all of these abilities are certain to be destructive, even of those values and benefits their use may be intended to serve.

On such a night as the Reverend Young describes, an Indian would have made do with a small shelter and a small fire. But these road builders, veterans of the Indian War, ‘felled the hickory trees in great abundance; made great log-heaps … and caused [them] to burn rapidly.’ Far from making a small shelter that could be adequately heated by a small fire, their way was to make no shelter at all, and heat instead a sizable area of the landscape. The idea was that when faced with abundance one should consume abundantly – an idea that has survived to become the basis of our present economy. It is neither natural nor civilized, and even from a ‘practical’ point of view it is to the last degree brutalizing and stupid.

I think that the comparison of these road builders with the Indians, on the one hand, and with Old World peasants on the other, is a most suggestive one. The Indians and the peasants were people who belonged deeply and intricately to their places. Their ways of life had evolved slowly in accordance with their knowledge of their land, of its needs, of their own relation of dependence and responsibility to it. The road builders, on the contrary, were placeless people. That is why they ‘knew but little.’ Having left Europe far behind, they had not yet in any meaningful sense arrived in America, not yet having devoted themselves to any part of it in a way that would produce the intricate knowledge of it necessary to live in it without destroying it. Because they belonged to no place, it was almost inevitable that they should behave violently toward the places they came to. We still have not, in any meaningful way, arrived in America. And in spite of our great reservoir of facts and methods, in comparison to the deep earthly wisdom of established peoples we still know but little.

But my understanding of this curiously parabolic fragment of history will not be complete until I have considered more directly that the occasion of this particular violence was the building of a road. It is obvious that one who values the idea of community cannot speak against roads without risking all sorts of absurdity. It must be noticed, nevertheless, that the predecessor to this first road was ‘nothing but an Indian trail passing the wilderness’ – a path. The Indians, then, who had the wisdom and the grace to live in this country for perhaps ten thousand years without destroying or damaging any of it, needed for their travels no more than a footpath; but their successors, who in a century and a half plundered the area of at least half its topsoil and virtually all of its forest, felt immediately that they had to have a road. My interest is not in the question of whether or not they needed the road, but in the fact that the road was then, and is now, the most characteristic form of their relation to the country.

The difference between a path and a road is not only the obvious one. A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. It is a sort of ritual of familiarity. As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape. It is not destructive. It is the perfect adaptation, through experience and familiarity, of movement to place; it obeys the natural contours; such obstacles as it meets it goes around. A road, on the other hand, even the most primitive road, embodies a resistance against the landscape. Its reason is not simply the necessity for movement, but haste. Its wish is to avoid contact with the landscape; it seeks so far as possible to go over the country, rather than through it; its aspiration, as we see clearly in the example of our modern freeways, is to be a bridge; its tendency is to translate place into space in order to traverse it with the least effort. It is destructive, seeking to remove or destroy all obstacles in its way. The primitive road advanced by the destruction of the forest; modern roads advance by the destruction of topography.

That first road from the site of New Castle to the mouth of the Kentucky River – lost now either by obsolescence or metamorphosis – is now being crossed and to some extent replaced by its modern descendant known as 1– 71, and I have no wish to disturb the question of whether or not this road was needed. I only want to observe that it bears no relation whatever to the country it passes through. It is a pure abstraction, built to serve the two abstractions that are the poles of our national life: commerce and expensive pleasure. It was built, not according to the lay of the land, but according to a blueprint. Such homes and farmlands and woodlands as happened to be in its way are now buried under it. A part of a hill near here that would have caused it to turn aside was simply cut down and disposed of as thoughtlessly as the pioneer road builders would have disposed of a tree. Its form is the form of speed, dissatisfaction, and anxiety. It represents the ultimate in engineering sophistication, but the crudest possible valuation of life in this world. It is as adequate a symbol of our relation to our country now as that first road was of our relation to it in 1797.

— Wendell Berry, A Native Hill (1968)

19 Comments

Stephen Dunlap May 21, 2025

nice view

Ted Stephens May 21, 2025

Thank you for the continued excellent reporting on the Cubbison Fiasco.

Teresa McNerlin also gets an A++ addressing the our friends at the bos.
What a gift to state it that succinctly and with that passion.
It is doubtful it will make any difference with that bunch, but it needed to be said.

- Chuck Dunbar May 21, 2025
  
  Yes, just read her remarks–passionate straight-talk for sure, good on her. How much of our money–the taxpayers’ money– will the County throw down the drain on this stupidity? Kudos to Cubbison’s attorney for defending her against County treachery and malfeasance. Thanks to the AVA for the fine ongoing reporting as to this continuing fiasco.
  
- George Hollister May 21, 2025
  
  “Cubbison case is an extension of the toxic work environment cultivated by county government management for the last 10 + years. The BOS needs to begin recognizing that the current way is the wrong way. I don’t know when this will happen since board members during this period have been active participants in creating what we have. “And it is not over yet.”
  
  - Chuck Dunbar May 21, 2025
    
    Moreover, CEO Antle was trained, mentored and groomed for succession by CEO Angelo, whose legacy of ill-treatment of valuable, committed staff like Cubbison lives on.
    
    - Lazarus May 21, 2025
      
      The Civil Case:
      Does anyone know if the principals, AKA: The DA, BOS, CEO, etc., in the Cubbison situation can be held personally liable for the damage to Ms. Cubbison, both visible and invisible?
      Interestingly, the street says Mr. Haschak will not run for re-election and is moving out of the Country. I wonder about that.
      I agree with others that Ms. McNerlin did a straight-up, top-drawer ass-kicking of the conspirators on Tuesday. However, the DA is now… a known “Don’t get mad, just get even” type.
      And what of the previous auditor? Who allegedly set this whole minor payroll deal in motion? Where will this guy land once the civil trial is rolling?
      Then there’s… The eventual multimillion-dollar payday for Ms. Cubbison began over a food and booze tab at the Broiler Steak House.
      This mess is so stupid on so many levels.
      “Kinda makes you wonder, don’t it…”
      Laz
      
      - Bruce McEwen May 21, 2025
        
        The “eventual multimillion dollar payout for Ms Cubbison” could only occur if the runaway jury were made up of Geezer Gazette readers. More likely, she’ll be saddled with astronomical court costs and attorney fees. And to answer your question about holding anyone accountable—the only person who has the power to do that is the DA, himself. Like the President, he’s immune to the process of the law. 34 felonies? Oh, you say, ‘pishaw’—you admire impudent arrogance on the national stage, but can’t tolerate it at the local summer theatre… what’s up with that?
        
        
        Lazarus May 21, 2025
        
        Apples and Oranges Sir…DC is on another planet, Mendo is local game.
        Get it?
        Be well,
        Laz
        
        
        Bruce McEwen May 21, 2025
        
        Place your bet, Laz. Journalism won the Preakness, but my money’s on Sovereignty (do I need to explain the analogy, or do you get it?). As someone else pointed out yesterday, this is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Same shit at the top as at the bottom. Corrupt, listless greedy senators and representatives bowing and scrapping before their master in DC; corrupt, listless greedy supervisors at Low Gap, genuflecting to their master.
        Be well and let’s make it a friendly $10 bet, even money.
        
        
        Lazarus May 21, 2025
        
        Aces, straights, and flushes. Journalism was picked to win the Derby, but faded. And for Journalism to win the Preakness, had to get rough. I thought the best race so far. Belmont is a couple of weeks away.
        I don’t bet anymore. My money came too hard.
        But thank you for the offer. But if I see you around, I’ll buy.
        Oh, by the way, I’ve been saying for years there is no difference. They’re all a bunch of bullies or punks.
        Be well,
        Laz
        
        
        Bruce McEwen May 21, 2025
        
        Thanks Laz. Johnny Pinches, God rest his soul, said the same thing. And sure enough one day he came in the Water Trough with Bert Schlosser and set the bar up for several rounds! Salt of the earth if ever anybody was…Bert bought a few rounds too, and I don’t think I’ve been as delightfully intoxicated since!
        Look forward to such an offer!
        
        Mazie Malone May 22, 2025
        
        Hiya Bruce,
        I didn’t have the option to comment under your last comment where you mention the Water Trough. Curious did you know a guy named Too Tall (he was short 🤣😜)? His actual name was Frank!
        
        mm 💕
        
      - Mark Donegan May 21, 2025
        
        idk Sir, but I think people have forgotten who truly got the board into this. He is now serving as Reddings city attorney… Public pressure will hopefully help the board comply faster, but I don’t think it will get them a change of venue.
        
Call It As I See It May 21, 2025

Kudos to Teresa McNerlin! Well said. All I can say, things are just beginning. The civil trial will expose even more.

Craig Stehr May 21, 2025

Lived 6 miles up the Comptche Road at Big River Farm in the summer of 1972 (the song “Mendocino” by Sir Douglas Quintet was routinely on the radio). The other zennies made me the cook. Lots of chopping wood and carrying water. When not an unofficial SFZC retreat place, we were part of the local vibrant community. Canned Heat played at the public parties on a Mendocino hillside by the ocean. Ken Brandon and his wife owned the Caspar Commune, an artist’s collective, which was our “sister commune”. Suzuki roshi’s ordained priests, like Bob Walters, held formal sesshin at our place. We had a hot tub outside, heated by a fire underneath. And goats. And three Gravenstein apple orchards. And chickens. And geese. And lots of vegetables. We made a potato mound. And the buildings were of Japanese design. Phil Lewitt owned it; a gift from his wife Daisy when they amicably parted. And saxophonist Bob Treadwell lived there too. The outhouse was later featured on the back cover of “Handmade Houses: A Guide to the Wood Butcher’s Art”. What happened to you, Mendocino County? Where have you gone?
Craig Louis Stehr
Email: [email protected]
May 21, 2025 A.D.

- Paul Modic May 21, 2025
  
  Ah ’72, the year I came upon this lovable madhouse…
  
  - Craig Stehr May 22, 2025
    
    Beyond No-Self
    https://www.lionsroar.com/beyond-no-self/
    
Chuck Dunbar May 21, 2025

TRUMP’S AMERICA—FEED THE RICH-STARVE THE POOR

“The 10 Richest Americans Got $365 Billion Richer in the Past Year. Now They’re on the Verge of a Huge Tax Cut”

“Despite a brief market scare, the richest 10 Americans got $365 billion richer over the past year, according to a new analysis from Oxfam. The stunning increase in wealth amounts to a gain of roughly $1 billion per day for those billionaires. By contrast, the typical American worker made just over $50,000 in 2023. Oxfam found that it would take a staggering 726,000 years for 10 US workers at median earnings to make that
much money.

The findings put an exclamation point on the nation’s wealth inequality and come as Republicans debate a costly bill that nonpartisan experts say will make the rich even richer and deeply cut nearly $1 trillion from key safety net programs. ‘Billionaire wealth has increased astronomically while so many ordinary people struggle to make ends meet,’ Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, said in the report.…”
CNN 5-21-25

What’s the answer to this madness? TAX THE RICH! We used to do it in the good old days.

- Lilian Rose May 21, 2025
  
  ‘TRUMP’S AMERICA—FEED THE RICH-STARVE THE POOR’🤣 I don’t know why I busted out laughing when I read this headline.

19 Comments

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