Scattered Thunderstorms | Rosa | Catching Thief | Water Discussions | The Summit | Sunday Revival | Round Two | Cape Horn | Letter Rejected | 101 Drive-In | Headlands Flora | Folk Dance | Parade Marching | Blue Luke | Aruncus | Fuel Reduction | AV T | Yesterday's Catch | Cape Mendocino | No Empathy | ICE CEOs | Due Process | AB 928 | Dopes | Dispute Reality | Nothing Doing | Uh Oh | Congratulations! | Think Tank | Wasted Talent | Giants Lose | Haight Legend | Wild Nights | Newsom Ultimatum | Jack Menu | CEQA Rollback | Truckin' Bar | Gov Ware | Cockroach People | Furious Oligarchs | Road Fork | What Follows | I'm American | Bronx AOC | Abyss People | Lead Stories | Great Inequality | Bezos Wedding | Worst Bill | Hands Off | Stay Sane | Must Defeat | Trumpanyahu | Bob Vylan | Alleged Outrages | Hegemonic Aggression | Supes Hats | Woolworth Counter
SCATTERED Thunderstorms are most likely again Tuesday afternoon in the interior. Slightly cooler conditions will build midweek with a deep marine layer settling along the coast. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 52F this Tuesday morning on the coast. Yep, more of the same mix of fog & sun for now.
2024: Oct 1.26” - Nov 14.53” - Dec 12.05”
2025: Jan 1.65” - Feb 10.18” - Mar 6.37” - April 1.45” - May 0.34” - June 0.00”
YTD: 47.83”
ANDREA GARCIA:
The person that our local law enforcement (local civilians) caught today has prior convictions of home invasion, theft, receiving stolen property, and more. It took MCSO 8.5 hours to get here after my first call about the original thief, Joseph Andersen, on the premises again. My feelings, thoughts, and views on this is, I, my family, and other Valley people were disregarded when calling to report/provide updates on the locations of these persons. I understand there are other crimes being committed, but we had these kinds of people running around our town/home where our children live and play. We were trying to help solve a break-in and theft. Which we did! I was told they would send a deputy “when they could” and they were “busy with prisoners.” There is a thief on the loose and he is well-known, and we tracked him down and had him for 1.5 hours until we lost him. I gave every location, direction, etc, and was yelled at that I/we were making matters worse. Civilians camped out in different locations to keep an eye on his whereabouts to HELP L.E. and that’s what we got. Though we did not get Joseph, from our own investigation, we have some whereabouts and may have found the saws which were already sold.
Thank you to the civilians who assisted today and are helping take care of our town and people! What a day!
COST OVERRUNS AND DAM PLANS SHAPE MENDOCINO COUNTY WATER DISCUSSIONS
by Monica Huettl
Two of Mendocino County’s key water agencies—the Inland Power and Water Commission (IWPC) and the Ukiah Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency (UVBGSA)—met this June to address funding gaps, contractor amendments, and looming questions about long-term water infrastructure and governance. As the region braces for continued drought pressures and state compliance deadlines, both agencies are navigating complex inter-agency negotiations, unexpected cost overruns, and the challenge of maintaining quorums amid member withdrawals.…
WORD OF MOUTH MAGAZINE: TURNING AROUND AGAIN
July is the year’s U-Turn. We spend the first half of the year taking one step after another up a mountainside, until we arrive at the summit — that moment when summer releases the last of spring like a dog shaking off water, and the days are filled to their limit with sunshine. Over the coming months we will descend back down the mountain, tending and then harvesting the output of all the work we did on the way up. And with each step closer to the valley floor, we will lose a bit of elevation and another portion of our daily light, until darkness has again claimed the lion’s share of our days.
But before that happens, stop, inhale deeply, and take in the view. You are at the summit. Be glad for what is working in your life and recommit to changing, releasing, or accepting what isn’t. And remember to have some fun. Fun is the point, after all.
See you out there ~
Torrey & the team
www.wordofmouthmendo.com
SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT TEN MILE CREEK REVIVAL at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville
photos by Karen Rifkin
ANNEXATION/TAX-SHARING, ROUND 2
by Jim Shields
At Tuesday’s BOS meeting on June 24, the Supes unanimously decided not to terminate the tax-sharing/annexation agreement with the city of Ukiah.
Instead, they chose to continue to monitor the sketchy deal with an ad hoc committee of Supes Madeline Cline and Bernie Norvell, who are supposed to report on a regular basis any developments and additional information relative to the proposed annexation/tax sharing proposal.
Exactly one year ago in June, the Supervisors, with the exception of John Haschak, voted 4-1 to approve a so-called tax-sharing agreement brought forward by the City of Ukiah. Haschak appears to be the only supervisor who figured out that Ukiah had hornswoggled the BOS with what looks like a very bad deal.
Following the 2024 vote, Haschak explained, “The Board approved a Master Tax Sharing Agreement without proper analyses done of how it would affect County services and finances … when areas that are in the County have sales tax and Transient Occupancy Tax generating businesses, it becomes much more complicated and risky for the County. The County projects a loss of $3 million if, for example, the area north of Ukiah is annexed. This includes Raley’s, auto dealers, motels, and many other businesses (14 of the 25 highest sales tax generators in the County). Yet the County will still be responsible for coroner duties and other law enforcement activities, social services, mental and public health, and other services. This loss of income will affect the County’s budget unless there is a huge surge of economic development as the proponents claim.”
A day after this Tuesday’s BOS meeting, the Laytonville Municipal Advisory Council met for our monthly meeting. The Council voted unanimously requesting the BOS to terminate the annexation/tax-sharing agreement with Ukiah.
The Laytonville Council recommended terminating the June 2024 master tax-sharing agreement between Mendocino County and the city of Ukiah due to potential adverse financial impacts to county coffers from the proposed annexation that could lead to Ukiah tripling in size, along with the estimated annual loss of $3 million in tax revenues.
Our Council, which I chair, emphasized that the proposal lacks sufficient information and data, making it difficult for decision-makers and the public to assess its implications. We also noted that the county should reject the proposal, as the city of Ukiah is the sponsoring party, and is therefore responsible for providing all necessary information related to the proposal. The county should not be wasting time and money attempting to ferret out all the missing details in a land and tax grab transaction that so far conceals much more than it reveals. Ukiah should bear the costs of providing any and all data, information and studies supporting why this proposal is such a good deal for county residents.
I told our Council there’s also another factor to consider. The June 2024
Even the city of Ukiah Planning Commission has raised similar concerns about the tax-annexation proposal.
“My sense is that this whole thing was rushed, and there was a lot of people here with questions: how is this going to affect me, what is this going to do to my property?” said Commissioner Mark Hilliker after numerous residents expressed concerns about the annexation plan. “I think when people come storming in here and they’re unhappy about something, it’s because they don’t have information. The city needs to share and spread the information before they come to us to make a decision.”
Sheriff Matt Kendall said recently, “I am concerned this annexation could be a lose-lose for everyone and may have a negative effect on all of Mendocino County due to the reduction in revenues from businesses as well as a reduction in services for those annexed into the city. These impacts will be felt from Gualala to Round Valley. This isn’t simply an issue for the residents of the Ukiah Valley; it will likely affect every resident of the county in one form or another.”
There’s an old saying about how it is always easier to give advice than to follow it.
This is definitely one of those times the supervisors should follow some pretty sound advice from people who know what they’re talking about.
(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, [email protected], the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org))
LETTER REJECTED: TWO LOCAL EDITORS BACK A REPORTER’S DUBIOUS CLAIM
by Andrew Lutsky
When K.C. Meadows and Mendofever editor Matt LaFever stated they would not publish my letter (https://theava.com/archives/267277#10), I was disappointed but not surprised. Before I received Ms. Meadows’ response I had placed a bet with a writer friend that Meadows would not publish it.
Today I am five cents richer.
I’m guessing my friend took the bet because they believe my letter expresses a serious and legitimate concern about a specific news story (https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2025/04/26/construction-begins-on-144-courthouse-the-largest-civic-project-ever-in-mendocino-county/) and that the editor would wish to share such a concern with readers.
Currently, readers of the UDJ and Mendofever might believe that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating” Alex Thomas Plaza, a mystifying notion to most unless one assumes that government officials are currently involved in unethical and probably illegal backroom deals.
Readers must wonder …
● Why did we first learn of a plan to demolish Ukiah’s town square midway through an article documenting progress on the construction of the new courthouse? This claim had never been reported, so it was breaking significant local news. Why did we encounter major breaking news in paragraph eighteen?
● Why is this momentous claim being made by the reporter himself and not attributed to any specific city official?
Here is the entirety of my exchange with Ms. Meadows, unedited:
Me: Ms. Meadows, I’m wondering if you received my letter. Can you confirm that?
Meadows: Yes I did.
Me: Do you agree that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocation of the Alex R. Thomas Plaza,” as Mr. Geniella claims?
[no response from Ms. Meadows]
Me: Ms. Meadows, I’m wondering if you are planning to publish my letter. If you aren’t, I’m hoping you will extend a courtesy to me by explaining why you feel it’s not suitable.
My letter directly addresses a claim made in a story you published which I believe is false. While Ms. Riley is quoted liberally in Mr. Geniella’s article, she is not credited with the specific claim that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza.” The source of that claim is not clear. Don’t you believe it should be? Mr. Geniella would not respond when I asked him directly if Ms. Riley made that claim, and neither would Ms. Riley.
Ms. Meadows: Dear Mr. Lutsky, I have given it much thought and some research but have decided not to publish your letter. I have no intention of being bullied into explanations, suffice to say I do not believe Mr Geniella’s story was inaccurate.
For anyone who spends any time reporting on city politics, as I have, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that Shannon Riley’s comments reflect thoughts expressed by the council and other city staff. That none of them will say so publicly is no surprise.
If your intention is to stop a new plaza then my advice is for you to concentrate on making those views known.
Me: Ms. Meadows, thank you for the reply. Since you didn’t respond to my question, I must ask again, do you believe it’s okay for a reporter to make a claim about what the City of Ukiah “favors” while keeping the source of that claim obscure? Or is it the case that you believe the source of the specific claim that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating of the Alex R. Thomas Plaza” is clearly Ms. Riley?
To date Ms. Meadows has not replied.
Ms. Meadows’ statement that “it would not be unreasonable to suspect that Shannon Riley’s comments reflect thoughts expressed by the council and other city staff” implies she believes Riley is the source of Geniella’s claim, despite the complete lack of evidence to support such a conclusion.
Her suggestion that City Council members are likely promoting the sale and demolition of Ukiah’s town square behind closed doors contrasts strikingly with the email responses I received from all five city council members to my inquiry, most of which I have not shared publicly.
And Ms. Meadows’ speculation about my “intention” is also quite notable.
When I first read that she believes my efforts seem directed at trying to “stop a new plaza,” I was perplexed. I have never once expressed an opinion about what might become of the old courthouse, much less said anything intended to “stop a new plaza” from being built.
In fact I would absolutely love to see a new plaza or small park built at the courthouse site. According to the Trust for Public Land, public green space in the city of Ukiah is 4%; the national average is 15% (https://www.tpl.org/city/ukiah-california). We desperately need more public green space in Ukiah, not less as Riley and other “proponents” of selling and demolishing Alex Thomas Plaza apparently seek.
Regarding our one and only Alex Thomas Plaza, I absolutely do have a strong opinion and I think I have expressed that view very publicly and, I hope, clearly. I started the petition to protect the plaza, which to date has attracted over 185 signatures (https://chng.it/LYc7DRCXTk); I’ve promoted the petition and written about this issue in articles published in my newsletter (http://andrewlutsky.substack.com/publish/posts), in the local media (https://theava.com/archives/266939#17) and on my personal social media page (https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lutsky).
By attempting to label me a “stop a new plaza” advocate, Ms. Meadows’ signals she believes that on this issue there are only two possible points of view: You are either pro-plaza replacement – meaning you wish to see Alex Thomas Plaza sold and demolished for commercial development, with the money from the sale used to fund the demolition of the county courthouse and the construction of a new, smaller plaza on that site – or you are actively seeking to stop that plan.
In other words, Meadows is attempting to validate two complete falsehoods: 1) That Alex Thomas Plaza has anything whatsoever to do with the fate of the courthouse property, and 2) that the City of Ukiah has adopted a policy in favor of its demolition.
Since when is it the role of the local news media to claim the City “favors” an outcome on an important issue before that issue has been contemplated in any way by the City?
The connection between the courthouse and Alex Thomas Plaza currently exists only in the imagination of Shannon Riley and a small handful of ‘proponents’ who favor the plan. The City of Ukiah has plenty of assets which could be sold to fund the demolition of the old courthouse; how Alex Thomas Plaza ever became entwined with the fate of the courthouse is a question I have repeatedly asked and received no response.
Apparently the individual who hatched that idea wishes to remain anonymous.
Ms. Meadows’ insinuation that I am not being transparent (“my advice is for you to concentrate on making those views known”) resembles Mr. Geniella’s claim that I “have an agenda” and rings more than hollow. How much more public and direct could I be in my advocacy for the preservation of Alex Thomas Plaza?
Citing Sources and Reporting Faithfully
Matt LaFever, editor and publisher of the Mendofever news website, also said he would not publish my letter. Here is our exchange:
Me: Thank you for the response Matt. I’m wondering if you are planning to publish my letter. If you aren’t, I’m hoping you will extend a courtesy to me by explaining why you feel it’s not suitable.
The letter directly addresses a claim made in a story you published, and I worked hard to make sure every sentence relates indisputable facts and the letter does not include incendiary language at all.
LaFever: Hi Andrew, Thank you for following up.
After reviewing your letter and the reporting in question, I will not be publishing your submission. The primary reason is that the foundational claim—that Mike Geniella’s article included an unattributed assertion—is inaccurate.
The article clearly attributes the discussion of potential changes to Alex R. Thomas Plaza to Shannon Riley, the Ukiah assistant city manager. Riley is quoted in the piece discussing a variety of potential outcomes for the plaza as part of broader civic planning efforts. That attribution is central and explicit in the article.
I understand your concerns and appreciate the effort you’ve made to contact councilmembers and city staff. That said, the uniform dismissal of any past or present discussion about Alex R. Thomas Plaza by city officials strikes me as a convenient party line—likely crafted to defuse what’s become a political dust-up. If I were in your shoes, I’d be more skeptical of an echoed, carefully worded sentiment from city leadership than of a reporter who has cited his source and reported faithfully.
While I recognize your deep investment in this issue—and commend your commitment to public accountability—I do not believe your letter advances the conversation in a way that meets our editorial standards for publication at this time.
Thanks again for your engagement.
Me: Thanks for the explanation Matt. I strongly disagree with your assertion that Geniella “has cited his source and reported faithfully.” As you can see from an email exchange I had with him, he himself is unable to explain or provide any semblance of evidence to support the claim that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza”: https://theava.com/archives/266939#17
I hope you will reconsider.
Andrew
Me: I would also respectfully ask, if you believe Shannon Riley is the source of that claim, why won’t Geniella or Ms. Riley-- or anyone else for that matter-- attest to that fact?
And Matt, you say “Riley is quoted in the piece discussing a variety of potential outcomes for the plaza as part of broader civic planning efforts.” Where in the article you published do you read that? I’ve scoured that piece (https://mendofever.com/2025/04/27/construction-begins-on-144m-ukiah-courthouse/)
Please, I am serious, tell me where you see any discussion of other possibilities? I don’t even know which “plaza” you’re referring to -- the existing one or the imagined one across the street from Riley’s shop -- but it doesn’t matter, because the story you published only discusses one possibility, deemed “serious” by Riley, and that is demolishing the existing ATP and building a new and smaller plaza on the courthouse site.
Do you think that Riley’s quoted comment that demolishing Alex Thomas Plaza is a “serious possibility” implies that the City of Ukiah “favors” that outcome? Those are two very different claims, and I can’t fathom how you or anyone would say that the former implies the latter. It doesn’t.
And that’s why I say that the source of Geniella’s claim is unclear. Do you think it’s okay that the source of a claim in a piece you published that has such serious implications for the future of our town is unclear?
To date Mr. LaFever has not responded.
Nothing to See Here …
To summarize, editors Meadows and LaFever say Geniella’s claim – that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza” - is accurate. Both editors appear to believe Shannon Riley is the source of this claim even though Geniella does not quote Riley or attribute the claim to her, and both editors miraculously found a way to express this hunch without saying so explicitly. This is not their first rodeo, suffice to say.
As far as I’m aware, Ms. Meadows and Mr. LaFever are the only two people on record asserting that Shannon Riley is the source of the claim that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocation of the Alex R. Thomas plaza.”
Which begs the question, What if Ms. Riley had actually made this claim on the record? How would our city council members perceive such a move, a public declaration of a city policy which had never been discussed, much less decided upon by the elected body that is explicitly entrusted and empowered to give direction on such an issue?
Apparently for these editors the facts that no one is willing to clarify the source of the claim and that all current city leaders strongly deny that this is the City’s position vis a vis the plaza are not significant. They are also facts they feel they can justifiably attempt to keep from their readers.
As for the reporter himself, when I questioned Geniella directly about his claim, he too became flustered and lashed out at me – “Andrew, You seem bent on distorting how and what was said,” and “I’m sorry, Andrew, but you have an agenda here” - while refusing to respond directly to any of my questions.
Personally I do not believe Shannon Riley ever told Mike Geniella that the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating” of ATP. I believe Mr. Geniella invented that claim.
I don’t know why he did that, perhaps because he felt it was the message Riley intended to convey without actually expressing it, perhaps because Mr. Geniella himself favors that outcome as the solution to the problem of having another large empty building in the heart of downtown Ukiah.
We do know Geniella has long wished to see the courthouse demolished: “[B]ushy camellia bushes still can’t hide the monstrosity that the building is,” he artfully noted in 2009 (https://theava.com/archives/2750).
And we also know his story doesn’t add up. If Riley told him that the city “favors demolition” and there is nothing improper about her having done so, why would Geniella not directly quote her or clearly attribute that claim to her? And why wouldn’t Riley welcome that attribution?
Given all this dissembling, is it unsurprising that no one will comment? Yes, it is.
Is it also outrageous that no one in the media or government will answer any direct questions about an unattributed and therefore highly suspect claim that could have far-reaching implications for our city? Yes, it is.
Is there the appearance of corruption when a deputy city manager advocates an undirected-by-council, never-previously-reported city policy which happens to dovetail with her personal business interests (the smaller “replacement” plaza she hopes the City will build would be located directly across the street from the shop she owns)? Yes, there is.
Unless and until a named City of Ukiah official goes on the record to either confirm or deny Geniella’s claim, Ms. Meadows’ and Mr. LaFever’s defense of it cannot be justified.
I must confess that when I learned that editors from two local news outlets are lending their credibility to this false claim, I thought … this story feels familiar. Last year we were assured by equally serious people in the national news media that President Joe Biden was sharp as a tack.
Like that fabrication, I’m guessing this one will endure until its false nature becomes too glaring; then readers will shrug, bemoan the fact that you can’t trust the media or the government, then move on to paying bills and making sandwiches for tomorrow’s lunch.
Sometime in the next two years it will become clear that the City of Ukiah never “favored demolition” of Alex Thomas Plaza, that this notion was never a “serious possibility” in the minds of Ukiah’s real decision makers, its democratically elected City Council members.
At that point I’m confident the UDJ and Mendofever will publish a correction. [Audience laughs.]
Who will remember the origin of the idea? Who will remember Geniella’s falsehood, which Ms. Meadows and Mr. LaFever published and then unconditionally defended with no evidence?
Who will remember?
https://andrewlutsky.substack.com
LOCALS WHISPER ABOUT THE OFF-MENU ITEM AT THIS HISTORIC NORCAL BURGER SPOT
After 28 years of serving burgers, the owner said, ‘I’m very lucky’
by Matt LaFever
On a warm June afternoon in Willits, California — 2.5 hours north of San Francisco — the 101 Drive-In parking lot buzzed with customers lounging on car hoods, chatting in the sun as they waited for burgers and fries. A father and son debated milkshake flavors from a list more than a dozen deep, a couple with a newborn shared fries in the shade, and an older man ate a burger alone in his car, talk radio playing through the open window.
Sitting beneath that awning, Thy “T” Sumvan, a nearly 59-year-old Cambodian American, shared how this unassuming roadside joint came to anchor her life and the lives of so many locals. She’s owned 101 Drive-In for 28 years. “We have the local support. We have all the hospital, all the fire department, all the police department,” she said. “… And my heart is to the local more than the tourist.”
Sumvan said local customers have and always will be her “first priority.”
The name of the restaurant dates back to when U.S. Route 101 — the iconic north-south highway connecting much of coastal California — ran directly through downtown Willits. That changed nine years ago when a bypass diverted traffic around the town. The Drive-In no longer draws road-trippers by default, but it remains a magnet for the people who live in Mendocino County.
“Community is the most important thing,” she said, later adding: ”I call this home.”
Sumvan was born in Cambodia in 1966 and fled as a teenager during the Khmer Rouge regime, which took the lives of around 2 million Cambodians. “I came here October ‘81,” she said. “From Cambodia to the Thailand border, then got on the refugee bus to stay in Thailand from ‘79 to ‘81.” Her family lived in a Thai refugee camp before being sponsored by a family in Alabama. “They got us a place in Mobile, Alabama. That was where I came first,” she recalled.
Soon, her family relocated to California, where there was a larger Cambodian community. They packed into small apartments, renting out extra bedrooms and scraping by. “Ten of us in one two-bedroom apartment,” she said. “We stay like that till I got married in ‘86.”
It wasn’t until a road trip in 1997 that Sumvan discovered the place that would change her life. Driving back through Willits, she and her then-husband stopped for a BLT and a turkey sandwich. That’s when she noticed a sign: “For sale by owner.”
“I told him, ‘Let’s turn the car around,’” she said.
They contacted the sellers, who were asking for full cash. “We told them, ‘What if I just give you $35,000 down? Deposit. Nonrefundable. Give me three months to get the loan,’” Sumvan said. The deal worked. She and her husband took over the business on Father’s Day weekend in June 1997. Her daughter, Dahvi Hooper, was just 14 months old.
Sumvan raised her kids in and around the drive-in. “They all bought themselves their own car, their own down payment. I have never had to help them with anything,” she said proudly. Her children learned independence, and some still work closely with the shop. Hooper was taking orders on that June afternoon.
That kind of work ethic hasn’t gone unnoticed. Local leaders say the restaurant’s impact on the town extends far beyond burgers and fries.
“That place is incredible. I’ve known people who have come to Willits from Interstate 5 just to get a mushroom burger from 101 Drive-In,” said Willits Mayor Tom Allman. “The family has incredible work ethic, which is unlike anything I have ever seen. They’re kind to high school students, often giving many free lunches, and they also remember customers orders perfectly.”
“101 burger has certainly been the reason many people have come to Willits and have left feeling very good about their visit,” he added.
That community spirit permeates every corner of 101 Drive-In. Students from the nearby high school can text their orders in and then swing by after class. “We know who they are by the burger,” Sumvan said. Even customers who forget their wallets — sometimes from towns as far away as Ukiah — are told not to worry. “They can pay back later,” Sumvan said.
If you’re craving a classic roadside burger, 101 Drive-In has it down to a science. The patties are grilled to order, topped with melted cheese, crisp veggies and a slather of its signature “101 Sauce” — a sweet, spicy, tangy blend that ties everything together. The fries strike a perfect balance: not too thick, not too thin and just salty enough to make you reach for a sip of your milkshake. Flavors range from classic vanilla to blackberry, pineapple, and even root beer.
Named after the legendary highway that inspired the restaurant itself, Sumvan’s house-made 101 Sauce has become a local staple. She created the spicy blend — mixing Sriracha, hot sauce, honey mustard and barbecue — after regulars kept asking for something with more kick. “I did the different thing that customers like,” she said. The result is a fiery, flavor-packed condiment that locals now swear by.
One off-menu item has become a quiet legend: the “Stoner Shake,” a blend of chocolate, peanut butter and Oreo dreamed up by a local kid and passed down by word of mouth. You won’t find it listed anywhere, but regulars know to ask. It’s a fitting creation for Mendocino County — one of California’s historic cannabis capitals and a proud corner of the fabled Emerald Triangle, where counterculture and creativity have long gone hand in hand.
While the Drive-In reflects the character of its Northern California surroundings, its appeal stretches far beyond. According to Sumvan, customers from as far as Canada and Europe “stop here every time they’re here.” Former locals return from Hawaii, Arizona and Arkansas for a bite of nostalgia.
Despite running a business for nearly three decades, Sumvan says she still feels humbled by the love her restaurant receives. She sometimes forgets to lock her doors. She once left town for a funeral and didn’t lock up — and nothing was taken.
One of the first things customers notice at 101 Drive-In is a massive tree bursting through the metal awning, so large that a hole had to be cut through the roof to make room for it. It’s not just one tree, either, but actually three trees growing together in a tight braid of trunks. Hooper, Sumvan’s daughter, said a local agriculture teacher even brings students by on field trips to study its unusual growth. The tree isn’t just for show; it needs constant care. “We had to keep trimming it down; otherwise the trees got really big,” Sumvan said.
Another striking feature is the 101 Drive-In’s sign — a retro, triple-decker roadside advertisement painted in bold blues, reds and oranges. With its vintage cursive lettering and simple burger icon, it evokes a nostalgic charm. Hooper said customers “love the sign.”
Sumvan and Hooper told SFGATE the history of the site, which dates back to at least the 1950s, when it began as a giant lemon-shaped lemonade stand. They explained the building later became the Jolly Kone, a go-to burger spot for generations of locals. Over the years, it cycled through several names — The Senator, Montgomery’s, Horns — before finally becoming 101 Drive-In. Hooper recalled one customer telling her, “My mom used to work at the Jolly Kone back in the ‘50s,” a reminder of the restaurant’s deep local roots.
When asked about 101 Drive-In’s future, Sumvan glanced at her 29-year-old daughter, Hooper, and said, “She’s 85% gonna take over” — just as the restaurant hits its 30th year under her mother’s ownership.
Hooper, raised behind the counter, is already shaping the next chapter. She plans to keep the tradition alive but also wants to update the restaurant’s outdoor seating and build a small living space onsite to better juggle work and parenting. “Something that would accommodate my kids being here with me,” she said. “And I can keep an eye on them.”
Sumvan says her granddaughter is already taking a shine to the burger joint. “Every time she comes, she don’t want to go.” Instead of going out to play, the little one tells Sumvan, “I want to help Mom.”
As customers filtered through the lot on that hot June afternoon, Sumvan looked out over the crowd and smiled. After nearly three decades in business, she still shows up daily to cook, chat with regulars and fine-tune the menu.
For Sumvan, the Mendocino County town of Willits has offered more than just a place to run a business; it’s given her a sense of belonging. “This is the most beautiful county ever,” she said. “… We’re very lucky.”
“It is a American dream,” Sumvan told SFGATE. “It’s not a millionaire dream. It’s a small family-oriented dreams.”
DANCING AT THE FB FARMER’S MARKET
Wednesday, July 2, the Festival Dancers will be sharing English Country Dances at the FB Farmer’s Market.
The Market opens at 2:30.
We will be dancing at 2:45, 3:30, and 4:15.
Come dance with us or just enjoy the beautiful music and entertaining dancers.
ECD is Fun, Friendly, Folk Dance for ALL. YOU are the Folk in Folk Dance.
From: [email protected]
INDIVISIBLE MENDOCINO WILL BE IN THE MENDOCINO 4TH OF JULY PARADE AND YOU CAN BE THERE WITH US!
A large group of democracy defenders - all ages, all everything - will walk in the parade, carrying flags of all sorts. Come join in! Bring your kids, your flags, your signs (you might want to leave your F-bomb signs for another protest - there’ll be lots of kids at the parade). Rumor has it we’ll be joined by the fabulous newly-formed Rolling Righteous Resistance Marching Band!
We won’t know our position in the parade until the day-of so here’s how you’ll find us: Friday, when you arrive in Mendocino, Find out what our parade spot is by going to crown hall at or close to 11am, (45285 Ukiah St); Look for one of us with an Indivisible Mendocino sign - we’ll tell you where to go.
Be at our parade spot AT 11:15 - we’ll practice our parade chants & songs.
We’ll have a couple people with Indivisible Mendocino signs, roving around to help if you’re having trouble finding our parade spot
RED, WHITE, AND BLUE LUKE THIS 4TH OF JULY AT ANDERSON VALLEY BREWING!
Red, White, and Blue Luke this 4th!
Celebrate Independence Day, Anderson Valley-style cold beer, hot grill, and killer live music in the Beer Park!
We’re firing up the barbecue and the taps starting at noon. BYOM BBQ - bring your own meat and let us handle it!
From 2PM to 5PM, don’t miss Blue Luke, Ukiah’s legendary blues-rock shredder. A virtuoso guitarist with soul-drenched vocals and a magnetic stage presence, Blue Luke channels vintage blues, gritty rock, and funk-soaked swagger. Whether he’s riffing through originals or reworking classics with his signature fire, his live show is pure fireworks.
And local favorite DJ BRSKT will be spinning throughout the day to keep the vibes flowing. Come raise a glass, soak in the sunshine, and celebrate freedom with us. This is the Fourth Done Right.
www.avbc.com
LOW GAP ROAD FOREST RESILIENCE PROJECT TOUR JULY 10 IN UKIAH AREA
California Climate Investments Funded Forest Resilience Project on Mendocino Redwood Company Land
The media are invited to a tour of the Low Gap Road Forest Resilience Project on Mendocino Redwood Company land, a forest resilience and wildfire reduction effort with funding by California Climate Investments. This visit offers the media and community stakeholders from local fire districts and government a look at fuel reduction work aimed at improving forest health, protecting communities, and supporting climate goals in California. The tour also highlights the outcomes featured in the newly released 2025 California Climate Investments Annual Report.
In 2022 Mendocino Redwood Company was awarded a Cal Fire grant to treat over 1000 acres of high-fire risk forest associated with the publicly accessible Low Gap Road on its Mendocino County timberlands west of Ukiah creating a shaded fuel break on a strategic ridgeline. These treatments will slow the spread of wildfire between the upper reaches of three river basins, promoting fire-resilience, ecosystem health, and carbon storage while providing a safe access route for emergency personnel and rural communities. The project received support and guidance from the Mendocino County Sheriff, Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, Mendocino County Fire Safe Council, and the Mendocino County Department of Transportation.
This planned tour will show community media and stakeholders fuel-reduction treatment methods as applied and be an opportunity to discuss forest health and community. Low Gap Road Forest Resilience Project is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide program that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing GHG emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment- particularly in disadvantaged communities. The Cap-and-Trade program also creates a financial incentive for industries to invest in clean technologies and develop innovative ways to reduce pollution.
California Climate Investments projects include affordable housing, renewable energy, public transportation, zero-emission vehicles, environmental restoration, more sustainable agriculture, recycling, and much more. At least 35 percent of these investments are located within and benefiting residents of disadvantaged communities, low-income communities, and low-income households across California. For more information, visit the California Climate Investments website at: www.caclimateinvestments.ca.gov
Time: 9 am to conclude by noon
Meeting Location: Low Gap Park, 1167 Low Gap Rd, Ukiah CA 95482
ASHLEY ANDRUS: I may have left that place behind, but its essence has woven itself into my being, shaping who I am and who I’m becoming. Some places aren’t just locations-they’re pieces of your soul.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, June 30, 2025
LUIS ALVARADO-NOVOA, 22, Ukiah. Controlled substance, suspended license, conspiracy, probation revocation, unspecified offense.
DAVID AVALOS, 30, Willits. Disobeying court order, failure to appear, probation revocation.
RODOLFO CEJA III, 33, Ukiah. Marijuana for sale, conspiracy, unspecified offense.
SHAUN CHESTER, 43, Willits. Burglary, vandalism.
JOEL COWAN, 36, Willits. Elder abuse, battery, controlled substance, paraphernalia, trespassing.
JOSE FERNANDEZ, 58, Upper Lake/Ukiah. Marijuana cultivation with illegal diversion of water.
JOHN HOAGLEN, 36, Covelo. Paraphernalia, parole violation.
JASON OLSON JR., 26, Ukiah. Parole violation.
DARIC PARDO, 38, Covelo. County parole violation, failure to appear.
RYAN PRATER, 44, Fortuna/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
JASON SANCHEZ, 30, Ukiah. DUI, evasion, unspecified offense.
JASMEET SINGH, 26, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.
STEPHEN SUTAK, 54, Ukiah. Under influence.
I (DON’T) FEEL YOUR PAIN
by Marilyn Davin
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Donald J. Trump were born rich. They were born 64 years and 214.3 miles apart in very different times ─ FDR at the cusp of the last century, Trump in the very first year of the exhaustively studied Baby Boomer years. Culturally, the two presidents were and are very different, with FDR exhibiting the personal restraint expected of an American Brahmin and Trump opting for a newly fashionable extravagant display of wealth, to the point of gilding the White House in fake gold paint to shiny, low-budget whorehouse standards. Growing up, the whole world was open to these two men, who knew neither hunger nor the adolescent embarrassment of wearing hand-me-down clothes to the prom.
As a second comparison, in his memoir Man of the House, legendary House Speaker Tip O’Neill (tenure 1977-1987) pondered how he and his political contemporary and nemesis Ronald Reagan, both born into middle-class families of modest means, could have ended up on such opposite sides of the political divide. O’Neill blamed it on Reagan’s move to Hollywood and his new circle of rich friends, eventually dubbing Reagan “Herbert Hoover with a smile,” and “a cheerleader for selfishness.”
So how did these four national leaders, half born rich and half born middle class, end up with such divergent world views? Empathy ─ the ability to understand and feel what others feel ─ played a big part in it. The two empathic men, FDR and Tip O’Neill, couldn’t look away when faced with the poverty and suffering of the poor they represented. Reagan and Trump couldn’t care less about them. Reagan belittled “welfare queens” and counted ketchup as a fresh vegetable in subsidized school lunches. Trump gazes out at his country’s ocean of need and feels nothing other than the urgency to swerve quickly around his people’s struggles like the speed bumps he believes them to be.
It struck me while watching Trump’s self-congratulatory news conference last week that, through his own self-absorbed lens, everything looks great. The stock market is booming, employment is booming (though the nature of unfilled jobs is rarely unexplored), unemployment is down (never including those who have timed out of unemployment benefits and become invisible to the stats), and Trump’s minions are working hard to increase tax cuts for corporations and the über rich while steadily broadening the executive branch’s reach, even into the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court where he treats justices he appointed as employees beholden to him personally.
My American history high school teacher said, shockingly in 1968, that she could care less if people are racist, that trying to change a bigot’s mind is a fool’s errand. What she said she cared very much about was that no one be allowed to act in a racist or discriminatory manner, whatever the issue: racial, gender-based, or for any other societal reason. This is why we need to strengthen laws prohibiting discrimination instead of eliminating them ─ laws and that can hopefully withstand the Trump steamroller that views them as annoying speed bumps to circumvent rather than as protection against a President who cares nothing about them.
FASCISM AT HOME & SOUTH AMERICA
Editor,
“The rule of law.” Donald Trump and Pam Bundi voiced that phrase to validate their deportation policies. Yes, they follow laws enacted by Trump’s executive orders, but Congress and the judicial system should determine whether those statutes are fair and just.
On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court allowed Trump to circumvent Congress and the Judicial Branch with his Executive Orders. Judges can no longer stall his mandates with injunctions. Donald Trump can sign an Executive Order, implement its policies, and get away with them until a court determines their legality. Once a ruling comes about, Trump’s Justice Department can appeal,
Trump’s Judicial Department is using accusations as convictions, and deporting immigrants to jails in countries they are not citizens of. I assume they are doing this to avoid Due Process here and abroad. The Trump administration is treating refugees from South American countries like political prisoners of this country. Why?
Though this country has never been an ideal example of its constitution, we are getting further from our base. Instead of examining the problem, the Trump administration is implementing policies to squash a reaction to corrupt South American regimes. The difference between a concentration camp and a prison is due process. Trump is sending our immigrants to concentration camps. Why?
Tom Fantulin
Fort Bragg
NOT AS IT SEEMS
Editor,
Wild ideas out of Sacramento aren’t new. But I’m deeply concerned by a bill that hurts a little-known segment of Californians. AB 928 is being sold as a crackdown on cockfighting and associated activities, which have been illegal under federal and state law since 2003 (“To protect poultry, end bird fighting,” May 29). Cockfighting is terrible, and it’s admirable that Assemblyman Chris Rogers agrees that it needs to stop. But in reality, AB 928 will force law-abiding farmers and hobbyists to prove they aren’t cockfighters to avoid punishment.
His bill seeks to circumvent our fundamental constitutional right of innocent until proven guilty. It assumes you are guilty and gives no clear path for how a legal rooster owner could prove they were not participating in illegal activities. It also deprives an accused of the right to a public defender.
The un-American premise of being branded guilty without proof is as off base as saying anyone who owns a pit bull is guilty of dog fighting. That’s what AB 928 seeks to do for those who own roosters. If you have more than 25 roosters, you must be a cockfighter simply because of the number of birds you own.
Instead of strengthening existing penalties or increasing the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony, AB 928 will put small poultry operators out of business.
Stacy Lane
Eureka
THE DIFF
To the Editor:
In the 1960s, we disagreed about whether the Vietnam War was worth the casualties. But we agreed that there were many casualties. We accepted facts.
Now, we disagree about facts. People reject election results, vaccine efficacy and other things that are well documented to be true.
It is the dispute over reality that makes today much worse than the 1960s.
Alan Rutkin
Great Neck, New York
READY TO GO!
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Just sitting here at the MLK Jr. Public Library in Washington, D.C. Nothing particularly pressing to do today. Nowhere to go. Read today’s emails which appreciated the “automatic writing” poem that was sent out yesterday. No offers to go anywhere yet. I am ready to leave the rough ‘n tumble homeless shelter as soon as possible. I have no reason to be there any further, having been supportive of the D.C. Peace Vigil for the sixteenth time since June of 1991. Does anybody want to do anything?? The federal government is scheduled to begin voting on the far right’s spending bill, which is confusing in regard to social benefits. With the housing voucher disappeared but nobody can explain exactly why, and the SSI gone, (probably because a phone interview was missed in the midst of leaving California to go to D.C. and then living out of a homeless shelter for the past 10 months), and the EBT card does not work in spite of receiving the usual email notices that the benefit monthly amount is in, living on the edge in Washington, D.C. does not make any sense at this point. So, I would like to change my social circumstances in America. Realizing an “automatic writing” group would be doing the most incredible thing with the most amazing people. I will have $2,000 in the bank tonight when the social security SSA is auto-deposited into my Chase checking account. As ever, general health is good at 75. Hey, I took the yoga classes! I am looking forward to receiving anything that will move me beyond the present situation. Thank you.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
WELL, FIRST OF ALL
Well, first of all, welcome to the Office of the Mayor
But first of all let me say
Congratulations!: you fourteen have been selected
From over seven-hundred applicants
By the San Francisco Art Commission
To be gardeners in the city
But first of all let me ask you to sign the certificate being passed to you
Which will cert’ify that you are not a member
Of the immediate family (this includes
wife husband son daughter brother mother father sister brother-in-law sister-in-law son-in-law daughter-in-law mother-in-law father-in-law aunt uncle neice nephew step-parent & step-child) of
Mayor Joseph L. Alioto
Well, first of all
As temporary city employees you will not be eligible
For sick pay until September 1st or six months and in
Addition funds exist to keep you on the payroll
At $570./month until December 31, 1975
By which time you will have accrued
As temporary city employees
Ten paid days of vacation
But first of all let me tell you
That we will all meet next week
At the County Hospital for the Critically Ill
Greenhouse
— Don Shanley (1974)
WASTED TALENT
by Fred Gardner
August, 1990.
One morning, towards the end of May, Dave came over to my desk and said, “Well, here’s the scoop of the year: I’ve got AIDS. I’ve given them three months’ notice.” Within a week I was visiting him in the hospital. He had pneumonia. His lungs were so painful he woke up screaming, too weak to get a pill to his mouth. At the hospital he was given morphine. He grinned and wiggled his thumb sideways in the so-so gesture. “As highs ago, I was disappointed. I felt a slight warm tingle around my neck and then I was out.”
Throughout June he was too sick to work. A replacement was hired, a 30-year old Chinese-American woman named Letty. Then, suddenly, Dave seemed better. He was coming to work, staying four hours at a time, training Letty in the complicated accounting procedures on which a giant institution depends. “She’s very sharp” he reported one day. “She’s an MBA and she’s a virgo, which I am. Virgos make fantastic accountants.”
I asked about his own personal accounting.
“Immediately I have short-term disability, 70% of your salary,” he explained, “which lasts for a year. The only taxes taken out is FICA on the first $600. In about six months I have to start picking up my own medical insurance, but that should remain at the rate the company pays for 21 months. Longterm disability kicks in after a year and that’s 50% of my salary. Also, Social Security kicks in after six months of being out. So I’m not terribly worried financially. I don’t expect this to be a long term illness for me.
“As soon as it starts getting really rough I’m going to take things into my own hands. I was ready to do it the day I came home from the hospital, but I took a little snapshot of what it would look like had I gone that day, and it wouldn’t have been right. My papers are really not in order --my life insurance would not have been dispersed the way I want it to. My theory is to leave enough money to people who are never going to have much money so it might make a difference in their life. I have a few friends like that, who have always struggled, who I love dearly, so I want to get that in order…
“After that I kind of feel like I’m ready. Like, I’ve done my bit here and I don’t want to go through another round of losing three friends in four months. December through February I lost this guy who I’d grown up with, Barry, who was my musical director from back in Brooklyn. He was the last to be diagnosed and the first to go. He was not as sick as the other people. I lost Paul, my gym buddy in November, and I went through it with him, I was in the hospital the entire time. In December my friend Jimmy in Texas passed away. That was the hardest one, that’s the one that haunts me, because we were lovers and he was the symbol of me finally getting what I wanted, the relationship I had always waited for and wanted…”
How did it end?
“He got AIDS and didn’t want to be with anybody anymore. So we ended the physical aspect of our relationship. But right through until two days before he died we had the best part of our relationship, which was our communication. We talked incessantly on the phone. We’d always been able to do that. I spent my entire new year’s eve this year on the phone just talking for hours and hours… He held my heart. I miss him the most.
“Music, I’ll miss that. The idea of not hearing the next Pretenders album or the next Rickie Lee Jones seems wierd to me. But who knows, maybe I will hear it.”
At the end of July there was a farewell party for Dave, and when Savannah, his boss wished him many good years in retirement, nobody winced. If love and affection could make it happen… “I’ve never had a party that was about me, ever in my life,” he said.
This week he was telling me about his trip to the Grand Canyon, and how his mom took the news. “I have a sister in Phoenix, my straight sister who married money. She wanted to come meet us at the airport and show me my new niece whom I hadn’t seen, a year old. So I thought it was important that she know I had an AIDS diagnosis, so based on whatever information she had, or whatever understanding she had of the crisis, she could decide whether or not she still wanted to bring the baby. She should be able to decide whether or not she wants me to hold the baby, kiss the baby, et cetera. So I told her on the phone and she basically didn’t get it —by that I mean, she doesn’t understand it in the sense that… I don’t think she equates it with me dying. Anyway, she came to the airport with the baby and I held the baby and kissed the baby and there was no problem with that.
“The problem came with my mother. Before I went into the hospital I had loaned my mother some money, as I’ve always done throughout my life. So I’m out of the hospital for the second time, I’m in bed and she calls. I tell her I’m just out of the hospital, I had pneumocystis. She immediately starts complaining about her cataract operation, and then telling me about my other sister’s problems. So I figured this is part of the hype because she wants something. And sure enough she says ‘I actually called to ask you something.’ I said, ‘Do you know what pneumocystis is?’ And she said, ‘Well I thought of asking you.’ And I said, “Well basically it means I have AIDS and it’s probably one of the first worst forms of pneumonia. It can kill you.” And she said, ‘What?’ And I said, “What this basically means is that I have AIDS.” And she said, “What did you say?” And I said, ‘I have AIDS.’ And she said, ‘We must have a bad connection. What did you say?’ And I said, ‘We do have a bad connection. I have AIDS. And I am getting off the phone.’
“Didn’t she know you were HIV positive?” I asked.
“I had told her that I was HIV positive and that I was taking medication to prevent me from getting full-blown AIDS. She didn’t really get it…
So the next day she calls up and she’s furious, she says I’m trying to ‘separate the family’ by telling my sister in Phoenix and not telling them.
I said, ‘First of all, I didn’t want to worry you. Secondly, people have different levels of AIDS awareness, and people experience prejudice, big time, because of having AIDS. And third, there was a part of me that thought it was none of your business.’ And of course the only reason I told my sister in Phoenix was because she was going to bring the child.
“So then my little lesbian sister gets on the phone acting hurt and she goes, ‘Dave, I always thought we could talk.’
“I said ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you I have what is probably a terminal illness and you’re accusing me of dividing up the family!’ She gets off the phone and puts my mother on.
“My mother says, ‘She don’t wanna talk to you as long as you’re yelling.’
“I said, ‘I cannot believe this conversation.’
And she says, “ Well, what I really called to find out about is if you could sign a car loan for us.”
“I said, ‘You can forget that.’
“Since then I’m in my remission, I’ve gotten all my papers together, I’ve gotten a durable power of attorney for my health and business affairs…” With his Brooklyn accent it comes out adorable power of attorney. “…And I’ve regained all but seven of the pounds I lost.”
July, 1991
David M. died in late June, surrounded by people who loved him and with everything taken care of. “He was very organized,” as somebody pointed out. He left some money for his friends to have a farewell affair. He helped plan it, in fact, specifying the caterer, the format and the setting — a conference room at the Medical Center (with the Golden Gate in the distance; but in more immediate view, the visitors’ parking lot).
It was in another wing of this building that Dave worked for five years. And for three of those years I worked down the hall from him. He had a ready smile and a lively, mischievous twinkle in his one good eye. He was from Brooklyn, a songwriter, a gossip. Our main topic of conversation was not doing drugs. We also talked about office politics, movies, his latest CD purchases, Higher Powers, New York and San Francisco, women, men, friendship vs. love, the relationship, the possibilities, the exes, the kids, Barbra Streisand, our health… The usual stuff.
We each had a windowless office. He kept his fairly dark and I can still see him in the gray Macintosh light —talk about ghostly glows— as he entered numbers into an Excel “endless spreadsheet.” One time I couldn’t help but ask: “If music is your first love, if you’ve got music in your soul, how can you do this damn bookeeping all day?” He looked at me like I was outa my mind and said, “Are you kidding? They’re the same… Math!” He meant it absolutely. He was one of those people who found a measure of fulfillment in balancing the books. I felt glad for him when he told me; it meant he enjoyed his work.
The party had its factions, naturally —people who had known Dave from different phases of his life. There were the gay male friends (not that many of them left). The straight co-workers. The gay male co-workers. The friends —mostly women, most of them gay, but including a few straight women perfectly happy to be dancing with sisters. And friends from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, class of 1970. The groups overlapped and mingled, noshing on the catered finger foods and looking at some pictures of David over the years.
After a while a black woman, about 60, came forward and said something about Dave “expanding” instead of dying. I wondered whether he had written the text and was making a last sexual joke. Probably not. This woman was a no-nonsense person. She explained how Dave had come into her life: her daughter had met him at Erasmus and brought him home one day. “I was one of those moms who had four children but who actually had 40 children,” she recalled. “And Dave became one of them.”
Then her daughter came forward —Judy C., a large, calm-looking woman approaching 40. She also told the story of the day she first brought Dave to her house: “David never invited anybody to his house. Until one day I invited him to my house. When he got there he just kept walking around staring with this expression on his face (great amazement). Staring all around, just like this (total, complete amazement). Finally he said: ‘You’re poor! You guys are poor!’
“Now I didn’t think we were poor. I knew we didn’t have as much material things as some, but we were better off than some others. But I knew what he meant.
“It was a great relief to him, seeing we were poor, because he’d been ashamed to invite anybody over to his house because they were poor, too.”
Judy described how in recent months she had helped Dave record some of his songs. He rallied nightly and laid down the vocal tracks, with just a guitar accompaniment. Judy intends to make a CD out of the material. She played a few of them on tape for us: “In Buena Vista, striking matches in the wind…” And a haunting tune about believing in ghosts. For sure the popularity of the movie “Ghost” has something to do with this AIDS epidemic. Why are 39-year old men who look like Patrick Swayze dying nowadays? Dave didn’t look like Patrick Swayze, but he was cute. Slight, lithe, sandy-haired and kind of foxy.
Three or four friends came forward and described the role he had played in their life. You could always count on him for honest feedback, whether you wanted it or not….To a young woman he had shown fatherly affection…
Judy and her singing partner, Jacqué, sang two of Dave’s favorites from their reggae repertoire. He had always spoken with great pride about their success on the women’s music circuit. Jacqué played a percussion instrument and moved in an understated, precise way. Then a d.j. played some music and people danced. That was Dave’s last instruction to us: dance!
Wasted talent
Says one who is without
But who made you
The talent scout?
Wasted talent
two women on the floor
movin like the waves
comin into shore
D.C. to Frisco
all across this land
You will find a wasted woman
for every wasted man
Wasted talent
Inside every office door
Every accountant,
Every clerk in every store
David’s Autobiography
I was born the first of nine children on September l, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York. The first four years of my life were unusual. My earliest memories include:
My brother Jeffrey and my sister Carol Ann being given away to strange people in a train station. They were in fact sold.
Two other children born after them were taken away when they didn’t move or cry anymore. They in fact died. I never asked how.
My father had a girlfriend, Rose, who lived in New Jersey on a farm. He would take me to visit her. Once when I was about three years old Rose’s brother took me to the outhouse and pulled out his cock, He raped me while I looked out the outhouse window at the geese and chickens. To this day I am afraid of birds.
My father was in the Marines then and it seemed he would always come home just long enough to discipline us. One particulaly brutal beating my mother called “The Thirteenth Avenue.” It was refered to as a threat and measure of beatings to come. My mother would say stuff to me like “Keep it up and when your father gets home he’s gonna give you a Thirteenth Ave.” and “The only reason we never sold you was because you were the first born.” Even then I hated my legacy.
My father’s mother eventually caught on to what was going on and she sued my parents for custody on grounds of sexual and physical abuse and neglect. The courts first placed me in various shelters and eventually at the age of four granted my grandmother custody. My grandmother, Roslyn Epstein, lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with her second husband, Sam, and her daughter Muriel, who had severe cerebal palsy. Muriel could not walk, talk, or sit up. She stayed in a huge hospital bed in the living room and grew to young womanhood there. My grandfather when left alone with me pretending to be asleep in the bedroom would climb into the hospital bed and molest his stepdaughter. We later found out that he also had been to bed with my mother.
My grandmother always refered to me as her favorite grandchild and my time living with her was comparatively sane. My favorite passtimes were playing with a huge marble collection, watching musicals over and over again on Million Dollar Movie, and making up my own little songs. When company would come over I would sing my songs for them and do a make-believe show and dance. They would throw loose change at me.
At age nine after years of court battles the Judge placed me first in the Bronx Hebrew Children’s home and then gave me back to my parents. For the next 10 years my father, a Jew in denial of his heritage, subjected my mother, my three sisters, my brother and I to Nazi-inspired, sex games, abuse and torture. These hellish rituals would occur frequently, at any time of the day or night. They were precipitated without provocation, or by something trivial like a hamburger not being cooked well done enough, or by losing or failing to perform some contrived bizzare sexual game or task. One such task he devised was what he would call, “doing his back.” My father would lay face down on the bed, naked from the waist up and my mother and each child in turn would run their fingertips a predetermined number of times very lightly back and forth and up and down his back. The goal was not to have any moisture or sweat on your fingers so that the motion would be slick and titillating. The slightest deviation in finger pressure or failure to go all the way down beyond the waistline would result in rounds of punishment for all. On the more formal nights each of us received a prescribed number of lashes with either a black garrison belt, or about 10 feet of wide antenna wire wrapped in black friction tape called “the whip.” Crying or resisting would result in further and more intense punishments. I used to think that if my parents both drank that would at least explain all this weirdness. Bottles of liquor however would remain in the cabinets for years barely touched or unopened.
My escape during these times were school and work. I worked first as a delivery boy for a drugstore and then for many years as the youngest and only white counselor and teacher at St. Barnabus House; a home for orphaned, abused, and autistic children. I began teaching myself to play the guitar and started writing songs about what was going on in my life.
Another skill I learned in my adolescence was how to lie. I was ashamed and embarrassed that I was different than my Jewish middle-class neighbors. By making up stories I believed that I could hide that we were poor and on welfare, that we lived on top of a store, that we didn’t have a phone, and that my mother weighed over 400 pounds. My circumstances became all too obvious, though, when at school my free-lunch card was handed out to me in front of all the other kids. It was also pretty evident that I didn’t know how to “act right” or behave socially. Then there were those days when I would show up at school with bruises, and hickies on my neck. I would have to invent some ridiculous story to explain them. On other occasions I would have to lie about why I didn’t have the school books my father had torn up the night before or the eyeglasses he had stomped on in a rage.
The turning point for me socially came at Erasmus Hall High School when for four years in a row I wrote, directed, and acted in a yearly musical competition called “Sing.” During my first year doing Sing I met the group of friends who I would have to this day and who would change my life forever. Among them were the now prominent black lesbian reggae recording artists Judy Casselberry and Jacqué Dupree. The three of us and a handful of other extraodinarily gifted kids became inseparable and a driving political and musical force for the next four years in school. We taught each other songs on guitar, and piano, went to concerts, got high on pot, acid and mescaline, and sang together on the subways and in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. We did everything together but have sex.
My senior year in high school I was elected Student Body President and was riding the crest of popularity. I was 19 years old. These were the times of Vietnam, The Black Panther Party, Attica, Kent State, Nina Simone, Phil Ochs, Laura Nyro and Richie Havens. My father was still up to no good. One day after a riot had broken out at school my father called the principal and told him that I had started the riot by calling in my outside black agitator friends from Bedford Stuyvesant. Fortunately by then I had enough faculty friends at school who knew what was going on in the Merbaum household. They were also aware of the time my father sued the Board of Education for a half million dollars on the basis of a story he made up that a teacher had kicked me in the groin. The case was thrown out of court and my parents were thrown into the Elmhurst pyschiatric facility for evaluation. I called my father at work and went off on him for the first time in my life. I told him that I hated him for ruining my life and for everything he had done to the family. He said if I was still there in 20 minutes when he got home he would kill me. I packed whatever I could and David Weinberg, a teacher friend of mine came and got me. I never went back. David and his wife, Susan, let me live with them before and after I went away to college.
I was accepted into Marlboro College, a small progressive rich kids’ school in Vermont. I was awarded the one scholarship they offered yearly. I studied theater and violin, and continued to play the guitar and write songs.
GIANTS FLAIL AGAIN as fan-involved ruling adds to offensive freefall
by Shayna Rubin
PHOENIX — The way the San Francisco Giants’ offense is going, missed opportunities in the margins become calamitous.
A fan’s interference inches over the wall, a few questionable strike calls and many hard-hit balls that found gloves led to the Giants’ 4-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday at Chase Field.
The fan interference appeared to be the momentum swinger. With the Giants down a run in the eighth inning, Christian Koss squared up a fastball from reliever John Curtiss, lining it into left field. At the same time left fielder Tim Tawa leapt to grab it out of the air, a fan was diving across the seats to make the catch himself.
Umpires initially called Koss out, but after a review, Koss was awarded a double with one out. What got manager Bob Melvin fuming, though, was what happened after.
Not before Rafael Devers struck out for the fourth time in the game, Heliot Ramos struck out looking to strand pinch-runner Brett Wisely on a fastball just outside the zone. Melvin came out of the dugout after the top of the inning fuming, prompting home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott to eject him (the third time Wolcott has ejected Melvin).
Melvin didn’t think the fan interfered with a potential home run, but was peeved about the calls to Ramos — noting a similar call in his previous at-bat.
“It looked like he did reach over so at least it wasn’t an out like they originally gave us,” Melvin said of the fan. “But we still had a chance to get a hit and score a run there. Heliot gets his bat taken out of his hands like that the second time in the game. (The catcher) literally set up underneath his armpit and the ball is off the plate outside.
“We’re in this position because we’re not scoring enough runs and not doing much offensively, so it’s frustrating.”
Koss was dealing with more than the sting of bad luck as he stood at second base. He hurt his left hamstring running down the first base line in his previous at-bat, which is why Wisely stepped in as a pinch runner.
Koss — who has been one of the team’s few hot hitters, batting .429 over his past six games while pushing himself to the leadoff spot — will not play in Tuesday’s game and could be out even longer. Koss joins Casey Schmitt and Matt Chapman in the injured third basemen club, leaving the Giants with Wisely and Tyler Fitzgerald as options to play third until one of the trio is healthy again.
Melvin has made clear that Devers will not play third base with San Francisco, though he did play the position for the first eight years of his time with the Boston Red Sox. If Koss lands on the injured list, the depth to pull from on the 40-man roster is shallow. Wade Meckler has played 68 innings over eight games at second base this year with the Triple-A River Cats.
The Giants have yet to score more than three runs in a single game four outings into this trip. They’ve scored a combined seven against two teams in the Chicago White Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks that haven’t had great pitching production this year.
Monday, they at least made a lot of hard contact against Diamondbacks starter Ryne Nelson. Nine hard-hit balls (hit 95 mph or harder) resulted in four hits off the starter, and two of them led to the Giants’ only runs.
Nelson was pulled with two outs in the seventh inning when Dom Smith doubled and Willy Adames singled on back-to-back hits. Fitzgerald pummeled reliever Juan Morillo’s first-pitch sinker for a two-run double, tying the game at 2-2.
It was Fitzgerald’s second extra-base hit of the day — he also doubled earlier off Nelson — and came just hours after he’d arrived in Phoenix from Sacramento with Schmitt headed to the injured list. Fitzgerald was optioned to Triple-A last week to mentally reset and tweak his mechanics in order to start driving the ball again. He was hit by a pitch three games into his time with Sacramento and had been sitting out since, but the bruise on his hand didn’t hold him back upon his return to the bigs.
“Feels good to hit the ball again,” Fitzgerald said. “Wasn’t doing that for a while. It sucks we lost.”
The loss sullied another Logan Webb gem in which he gave up three runs on seven hits over 6 ⅓ innings with seven strikeouts. Webb has gone at least six innings in each of his past seven games with a 2.54 ERA over that span. Similar to most of his starts, Webb didn’t give up much hard contact to a Diamondbacks lineup with some punch. Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s go-ahead home run in the seventh handed Webb his second loss of this seven-game stretch.
“The goal was to limit the slug and I felt like I did that except for one pitch. It happens sometimes,” Webb said. “I got to be better in that situation. We come back and score two and I give up the run. Not good enough.”
(sfchronicle.com)
WILD NIGHTS - WILD NIGHTS!
by Emily Dickinson
Wild nights - Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile - the winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden -
Ah - the Sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee!
NEWSOM HOLDS BUDGET HOSTAGE TO CEQA REFORM BILL TO FAST-TRACK DELTA TUNNEL
by Dan Bacher
In the latest development in Governor Gavin Newsom’s campaign to build the Delta Tunnel, the governor on Friday night issued an ultimatum to legislators that he won’t sign the State Budget unless his California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Reform Bill is passed.
“On Friday night, reporting from Cal Matters and KCRA revealed that he insists that his CEQA Reform Bill (which has not gone through normal public and transparent processes) must be passed by midnight, June 30th, or he will not sign the State Budget,” according to an urgent action alert from Restore the Delta.
CALIFORNIA ROLLS BACK ITS LANDMARK ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Gov. Gavin Newsom had demanded changes to address the state’s housing crisis, a philosophical shift for Democratic leaders.
by Laurel Rosenthal, Soumya Karlamangia & Adam Nagourney
California leaders on Monday rolled back a landmark law that was a national symbol of environmental protection before it came to be vilified as a primary reason for the state’s severe housing shortage and homelessness crisis.
For more than half a century, the law, the California Environmental Quality Act, has allowed environmentalists to slow suburban growth as well as given neighbors and disaffected parties a powerful tool to stop projects they disliked.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills, which were written by Democrats but had rare bipartisan support in California’s divided State Capitol, that will allow many development projects to avoid rigorous environmental review and, potentially, the delaying and cost-inflating lawsuits that have discouraged construction in the state.
Democrats have long been reluctant to weaken the law, known as CEQA, which they considered an environmental bedrock in a state that has prided itself on reducing pollution and protecting waterways. And environmentalists took them to task for the vote.
But the majority party also recognized that California’s bureaucratic hurdles had made it almost impossible to build enough housing for nearly 40 million residents, resulting in soaring costs and persistent homelessness. In a collision between environmental values and everyday concerns, Democrats chose the latter on Monday.
“Today is a big deal,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a news conference, calling the measures “the most consequential housing reforms that we’ve seen in modern history in the state of California.”
Discussions about changing the environmental law have repeatedly surfaced at the State Capitol over the past decade, only to be thwarted by opposition from environmentalists and local governments. This year was different.
Mr. Newsom threatened to reject the state budget unless lawmakers rolled back CEQA, which is pronounced SEE-kwa. Democrats were also aware that voters nationwide had blamed the party last year for rising prices.
“This has created a different political environment,” said Mark Baldassare, survey director for the Public Policy Institute of California. “Voters have been telling us in our polling for quite a while that the cost of housing is a big problem, but maybe for the elected officials the election itself was a wake-up call.”
DEMS FEAR CHANGE
This month gave us more reminders than we ever needed about why we’re building our movement for justice OUTSIDE the Democratic Party.
Democratic leaders in California refused to properly defend immigrant communities from warrantless ICE raids, then turned around and sicced the police on peaceful protestors who dared to demand answers.
They unleashed officers who incited violence, fired so-called “non-lethals” into crowds, and treated constituents like enemy combatants.
When Senator Alex Padilla was tackled and handcuffed by federal DHS agents, the only response from party leadership was a milquetoast letter from Chuck Schumer sent two weeks too late.
Then came the news that Kamala Harris is quietly preparing to run for governor. The same Kamala who doubled down on genocide in Gaza. Who has been silent while ICE operates with impunity across Los Angeles. The same Kamala who built her political brand on truancy prosecutions and foreclosure-era indifference.
And just last week, when Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani ran and won a people-powered campaign that redrew the electoral map of New York City without taking a dime from Wall Street, Democrats didn’t celebrate a new coalition builder.
No, they smeared him. They panicked. From Kirsten Gillibrand to Eric Swalwell to half the New York delegation, high-profile Democrats rushed to the airwaves with rhetoric so vile, so soaked in Islamophobia, it sounded like it was ripped straight from a far-right message board.
That’s one hell of a month.
The truth is, the Democratic Party doesn’t fear Trump. It fears change. And it will never willingly share power with working people.
That’s why we’re running with the Green Party. Because we believe in tenant rights, public power, dignity for immigrants, and an economy that serves the people, not the corrupted donor class.
But the forces we’re up against are well financed and we know establishment Democrats will spend big to protect their broken machine.
In Peace and Power,
Butch Ware
(Butch Ware is running for Governor of California as a Green Party candidate to fight for a government that puts people first, not corporations. An anti-imperialist historian, scholar of revolution, and lifelong champion for justice, Dr. Ware is committed to building a California where healthcare is a right, housing is affordable, and our environment is protected. Join the rebellion and help us create a better future for all.)
THE RAGE OF BILLIONAIRES AND THE FRENZY TO STOP ZOHRAN MAMDANI FROM BECOMING NEW YORK’S MAYOR
by Norman Solomon
The Supreme Court’s first chief justice, John Jay, would have empathized with the billionaires who’ve been freaking out ever since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York last Tuesday. “Those who own the country ought to govern it,” Jay insisted. But now, oligarchs accustomed to such governance are furious that the nation’s capital of capitalism is in danger of serving people instead of megaprofits.
Meanwhile, among progressives, euphoria is especially fitting because the Mamdani campaign’s win was truly a people-powered victory, thanks to active efforts of 40,000 volunteers. In a city where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans six-to-one, the Democratic nomination would ordinarily be a virtual guarantee of winning the general election. But the forces of oligarchy now mobilizing could disprove a claim that “Mamdani’s widespread appeal represents the total collapse of a Democratic Party establishment.”
Such a collapse is very far from certain.
On the surface, Andrew Cuomo’s decision to stay on the fall ballot as an “independent,” while incumbent Mayor Eric Adams does likewise, seems to foreshadow splitting the anti-Mamdani vote. But Cuomo still has a substantial electoral following. And the corrupt Adams – who cut a deal with President Trump to viciously betray immigrants and got his criminal indictment thrown out by Trump’s Justice Department – has no better ethics than the disgraced former governor Cuomo. Bankrolled by wealthy donors, the pair might make some kind of pact, with one of them telling his followers to unify behind the other before voting begins this fall.
In any case, a key context of the upcoming election battle is that hell hath no fury like corporate power scorned.
A social-media screed by hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman (net worth: upward of $9 billion) was damn near apoplectic that activists and voters had so terribly transgressed. Ackman described himself as “a supporter of President Trump” while expressing a fervent desire “to save the Democratic Party from itself.” Mamdani’s policies, Ackman wrote late Wednesday night, “would be disastrous for NYC. Socialism has no place in the economic capital of our country.”
But Ackman held out hope that those owning the city of New York could continue to govern it: “Importantly, there are hundreds of million of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight … so that a great alternative candidate won’t spend any time raising funds. So, if the right candidate would raise his or her hand tomorrow, the funds will pour in. I am sure that Mike Bloomberg will share his how-to-win-the-mayoralty IP [intellectual property] and deliver his entire election apparatus and system to the aspiring candidate so that the candidate can focus all of his or her energy on the campaign.”
Another aggrieved hedge-fund multibillionaire, Daniel Loeb, opted to be concise: “It’s officially hot commie summer.” Many other moguls have also sounded alarms. But beneath all the froth and bombast, extremely wealthy individuals are busy gauging how to prevail against the threat of democracy and social justice.
In the Empire State, there are many ways for the empire to strike back. The constellation of forces now regrouping with a vengeance includes titans of Wall Street, enormous real estate interests, pro-Israel groups, corporate media, the anti-progressive rich and assorted smear artists.
In recent weeks, the completely false charge of antisemitism has escalated against Mamdani. He has taken a principled and consistent stand on behalf of human rights for all – in the process, denouncing Israel’s war on Palestinian civilians in Gaza – while at the same time opposing rapacious corporate power. So, it’s no surprise that New York’s most powerful Democrat, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, has been dodging the question of whether he’ll endorse Mamdani in the general election.
For decades, Schumer’s campaign coffers have bulged while he has been hugely compensated by Wall Street. He has also remained a staunch supporter of Israel, despite its systematic ethnic cleaning and genocide against Palestinian people. A few months ago, Schumer declared: “My job is to keep the left pro-Israel.”
What happened in the state’s second-largest city in 2021 is important to understand. Democratic socialist India Walton was the candidate of a grassroots campaign that stunned the party establishment in the Democratic primary when she defeated Buffalo’s corporate mayor, four-term incumbent Byron Brown. As the Democratic nominee, she seemed set to win the general election in the blue city. But a coalition of furious Democratic power brokers and deep-pocketed Republicans, including racists and vehement haters of the left, aided by much of the city’s mass media, teamed up to smear her and ending up getting Brown elected as a write-in candidate.
Last weekend, I asked India (now a colleague at RootsAction, where she is senior strategist) how she saw the Mamdani campaign. “Watching the New York City mayoral primary from Buffalo last Tuesday gave me a familiar feeling,” she said. “As I watched the results come in, I felt a flutter in my gut and a sense of pensiveness. A feeling of overwhelming joy and a fear that it would be snatched away despite my attempts to cling to it. I imagine that as Zohran watched, he also felt a sense of familiarity. In 2021, Zohran Mamdani supported my run for Buffalo mayor; I was a first-time unknown candidate challenging a 16-year incumbent, and conventional wisdom said it was an impossible race to win. Now, in 2025, Zohran has once again toppled the establishment. I’m starting to think that populist policies that focus on working people are a winning strategy.”
That strategy is now striking fear into the hard hearts of insatiably greedy billionaires.
(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” includes an afterword about the Gaza war.)
MAMDANI’S MAGNIFICENT PRIMARY WIN — WHAT FOLLOWS
by Ralph Nader
People are asking about my reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s spectacular and decisive upset in the Democratic primary victory for Mayor of New York over ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani’s victory was so overwhelming that Cuomo conceded generously, saying that Mamdani ran a “…highly impactful campaign…” “He deserved it. He won.”
Here are my observations:
- Usually, such a great primary win in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City guarantees a smooth path to a November win against a Republican opponent. Not this time. No sooner than Wednesday, a clutch of wealthy Wall Streeters, real estate giants, and supporters of the genocidal Netanyahu were meeting to plan the strategy to defeat this 33-year-old three-term state Assemblyman in the November general election.
- Mamdani won with one repeated pledge – “affordability” to live in the nation’s largest city. That meant 1) freezing rent on 1 million rent-stabilized apartments; 2) free bus fares; 3) free, universal childcare; 4) “city-owned grocery stores,” 5) a higher minimum wage and higher taxes on the super-rich and higher corporate taxes.
Mamdani has other options at the ready that he did not even mention. Such as ending costly property tax abatements for large commercial buildings and ending the daily rebate of a tiny sales tax of $15 to 20 billion a year on stock transactions, transferred by Wall St. brokers to NY state. Those revenues can be shared with New York City. (See: greedvsneed.org).
To expand affordable housing, Mamdani can tap into the National Cooperative Bank in Washington, D.C., which has long provided loans to construct cooperative housing projects – that is, housing owned by its residents.
- With 993,546 votes counted, Mamdani beat Cuomo by 71,000 votes. The primary voter turnout was almost one million voters. In the general election turnout will be many more of the 7 million eligible voters.
Therein lies a possible vulnerability in November. Mamdani got his vote out with 50,000 volunteers, including a surge of younger voters. In November, millions more voters may turn out who were not excited enough this month to turn out for this young “Democratic Socialist.” These additional voters might be a much tougher sell.
- Mamdani’s agenda is no more socialist than that of FDR. In conservative New Hampshire, all liquor stores are owned by the State. In the red state of North Dakota, there is a thriving, prominent State Bank. The Tennessee Valley Authority and scores of city electric companies are owned by public authorities. And the list goes on. Reality will not stop the burgeoning campaign of slander, fakery, and bigotry underway against this charismatic American Muslim. Fascist Greedhound Donald Trump called him a “communist lunatic.”
Many millions of dollars are ready to redefine Mamdani falsely. He is an excellent and credible responder. That skill and veracity apply to his stand against Netanyahu’s mass murdering in Gaza and his position on equal rights for everyone. AIPAC will find him a more difficult candidate to defeat than Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). He needs to forcefully counter AIPAC, a domestic agent of Netanyahu.
- For his part, Mamdani has not yet adopted many of the progressive agenda planks ready for use in all campaigns, including local ones, along with new ways to get out the vote. Unlike most Democrats, Mamdani does not contract out his campaign to corporate-conflicted political consultants who have sabotaged Democratic voters for years. He speaks and acts for himself, from his mind and heart. He can make use of our report “Crushing the GOP, 2022” (still very relevant), featuring the political wisdom of 24 civic leaders for waging successful progressive campaigns (See: winningamerica.net). He can use the geographically specific database showing corporate subsidies by local governments (See goodjobsfirst.org). He can make use of the corporate crime trackers to make his case for cracking down on corporate crooks eating away at New York City’s consumer dollars and savings.
- Finally, Mamdani’s access to the mass media should encourage him to embrace other progressive democratic primary challengers facing the decaying Democratic Party’s establishment that never learns from their losses to the worst, most corrupt, cruel GOP in the Party’s history.
COMMENT ONE: Rich girl AOC caught in bold faced lie about where she grew up. Shes been playing her voters trying to sell that she grew up in the Bronx hood. She actually lived in a rich neighborhood in Yorktown heights, and graduated from Yorktown high school, next to doctors and lawyers. She moved there when she was 5.
COMMENT TWO: Did you read that fact check? Here’s the context from Snopes:
True: AOC was born in the Bronx and lived there until about age 5. (in addition, she currently lives there and has done so since before 2018.)
True: Her family did move to Yorktown Heights (a wealthier suburb) when she entered elementary school, and she did graduate from Yorktown High in 2007.
Misleading to claim she “lied”—her references to being a “Bronx girl” align with her genuine early childhood experience and ongoing family ties and activism in the borough. Her 2018 bio on her website states, “From an early age, Alexandria grew up with a deep understanding of income inequality. “The state of Bronx public schools in the late 80s and early 90s sent her parents on a search for a solution. She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40 minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.
In short: She did grow up partially in the Bronx, and there’s no evidence she’s pretending otherwise.
IN THE SUMMER OF 1902, JACK LONDON DISGUISED HIMSELF AS A STRANDED AMERICAN SAILOR AND ENTERED THE DARK CORNERS OF LONDON’S EAST END TO WITNESS THE FORGOTTEN LIVES OF THE POOR.
What he found shook him—and became the basis for his 1903 book The People of the Abyss.
He wrote of streets lined with sleeping bodies. Old men, young men, boys barely old enough to shave—slumped on doorsteps, curled on stone steps, soaked from the night rain. Some stood, asleep on their feet. Others stretched out in “painful postures,” red skin showing through ragged holes in their clothes.
Each doorway sheltered the unwanted. Their heads dropped onto their knees. No blankets. No help. Just silence.
And this, London wrote, was not during a time of crisis.
“These are not hard times in England… Things are going on very much as they ordinarily do.”
Let that sink in.
This wasn’t war. It wasn’t economic collapse. It was just how things were. And that, perhaps, was the most chilling part of all.
More than a century later, his words still cut close. Because we still walk past people sleeping on the streets. Still explain it away. Still live in a world where misery can feel normal—as long as it’s not our own.
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Trump to Visit Migration Detention Camp Called ‘Alligator Alcatraz'
Concerns Grow Over Dire Conditions in Immigrant Detention
G.O.P. Toils to Lock Down Senate Votes as Debate on Policy Bill Enters Third Day
The Dollar Has Its Worst Start to a Year Since 1973
California Rolls Back Its Landmark Environmental Law
WNBA Announces Record Expansion to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labor of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days’ labor, civil government is not so necessary.”
— Adam Smith, ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ Book V, Chapter 1.
THE WORST BILL IN MODERN US HISTORY
by Bernie Sanders
President Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill,” now on the floor of the Senate, is the most dangerous piece of legislation in the modern history of our country. It is a gift to the billionaire class, while causing massive pain for low income and working class Americans.
Actually though, I’m wrong. This is not a gift to the billionaire class. They paid for it.
This bill is an absolute reflection of a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to buy elections. And when billionaires spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to elect a president, or a senator or a member of Congress, they’re not making that investment just for the fun of it. They want something in return. This legislation is what they are getting in return.
So what is in this bill they invested in?
Well, if you are in the top 1%, you and the class you represent will receive a $975 billion tax break – at a time when the richest people in this country have never had it so good.
Further, if you are among the wealthiest 0.2%, you will be able to pay zero taxes on your $30 million inheritance. All of you folks out there who are waiting to inherit at least $30 million, today is a good day for you. Collectively, you will receive approximately $211 billion in tax breaks. For the top 0.2%, congratulations. You hit the jackpot.
If you are a large corporation and you want to throw workers out on the street and replace them with artificial intelligence or you want to shift your profits to the Cayman Islands or other tax havens, you are going to get a $918 billion tax break. Congratulations to the CEOs of large, profitable corporations.
But while the rich and large corporations make out like bandits in this bill, what does it do for low-income and working families? Let me say a few words on that.
If you are concerned about health care, this bill throws over 16 million people off of the health insurance they have, according to the Congressional Budget Office, by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1.1 trillion.
In other words, the top 1% are getting a $975 billion tax break, and that is coming directly from throwing 16 million people off of the health insurance they have.
This bill, for the first time, forces millions of Medicaid recipients who make as little as $16,000 a year to pay a $35 co-payment each time they visit a doctor’s office.
What is the impact of all of that?
This is not my view — this is what the Yale School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania determined based on a study that they did. And this is the result. It is almost so horrific, so grotesque, that it is difficult to speak about. But they estimate that if this bill goes through with all of these cuts in health care — if 16 million people are thrown off the health care they have — over 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily every year.
Fifty thousand Americans will die unnecessarily in order to give tax breaks to billionaires who don’t need them. In other words, this bill is literally a death sentence for low-income and working-class Americans.
Further, if this legislation is enacted, rural hospitals all over the country that are already struggling are going to shut down or aren’t going to be able to provide the level of services they do today. In other words, this bill would be a disaster for rural America.
It would also make massive cuts to community health centers and nursing homes, who are very heavily dependent on Medicaid funding.
The bottom line is that this legislation is the most significant attack on the health care needs of the American people in our country’s history.
We already have a health care system which is broken and dysfunctional, and instead of addressing it — instead of doing what every other major country on Earth does: guarantee health care to all people — we are throwing 16 million people off the health insurance they have. But it’s not just health care.
The future of America rests with our children. And yet, in a nation which now has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, this bill wipes out nutrition assistance for millions of hungry kids in America.
We are literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids to give tax breaks to Mr. Bezos, Mr. Musk, Mr. Zuckerberg and the other multi-billionaires.
If we understand that if we’re going to compete effectively in the global economy, we need to have the best education system in the world, this bill makes $350 billion in cuts in education with the result that working class kids will find it much harder to get the higher education they need to succeed in life.
If you are concerned about the existential threat of climate change, this bill decimates investments in energy efficiency and sustainable energy like wind and solar and moves us in exactly the wrong direction when it comes to energy.
If you are concerned about our role in never-ending wars, this bill makes a bad situation even worse by handing out another $150 billion to the Pentagon – a 15% increase in an already bloated Pentagon budget.
We don’t have enough money to feed hungry children. We don’t have enough money to make sure that people continue to have the health care that they need. We don’t have enough money to make sure that kids can get a decent education. But somehow, the military industrial complex is going to get another $150 billion.
In my view, nobody in the Senate or the House should vote for this legislation. And I applaud all of the Democrats for voting against it. And I want to congratulate two Republicans — Senator Paul and Senator Tillis for voting against it — for different reasons than I have.
But I do find it interesting that when one of those senators, Senator Tillis, voted against it because he thought it was not a good bill for the people of his home state, North Carolina, suddenly the President of the United States went after him in a very vicious way. And today, he announced that he will not be seeking reelection.
It appears now that the Republican Party has really become the party of the cult of the individual. The only thing you have to do now as a Republican is say, “I agree with President Trump,” “I love President Trump,” “President Trump is right all of the time.” Hey, that’s all you have to do now to be a good Republican.
There was a day when Republicans and Democrats understood that they were elected by their constituents. There was an understanding that they were elected to represent their constituents and not simply to pay homage and bow down to every wish and whim of the president.
During the vote-a-rama, I will be offering several amendments which I hope will win support.
At a time when 22% of our nation’s seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year, my first amendment would fundamentally improve their lives in two significant ways:
Number one, it would cut the price of prescription drugs under Medicare in half by making sure that our nation’s seniors don’t pay more than the Europeans or Canadians pay for the same exact drugs.
And number two, with those savings, we’re going to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing. In other words, instead of throwing people off of health care, we’re going to expand Medicare to provide a number of services that seniors desperately need and want.
Secondly, at a time of massive wealth and inequality, my second amendment would eliminate the $211 billion estate tax break for the top 0.2% that is included in this bill.
And lastly, at a time when we spend more on the military than the next nine nations combined, at a time when the Pentagon cannot account for trillions of dollars in assets, we are going to end the provision that allows the Pentagon to receive another $150 billion.
The bottom line is this country faces many crises — a high rate of childhood poverty, kids going hungry, an education system in deep trouble and a health care system that is completely broken. And in virtually every single area, this bill takes us in precisely the wrong direction.
When the wealthiest people in this country have never ever had it so good, it is totally insane to be offering them $1 trillion in tax breaks so that we can cut health care, education and nutrition.
This bill is not what the American people want, and I hope very much we can defeat it.
STAY SANE
by James Kunstler
What apparently riles the credentialed political Left — the “gay / race communists” in the apt new phrase — more than anything, is that most of the country has opted to not be insane. This follows a decade-long attempt to drive the country insane, of course, to believe in things that are patently untrue and absurd, and to utilize falsehood and absurdity to garishly destroy the nation.
So, it fits that Donald Trump, the uber-realist of political game-playing, pushes what remains of the Democratic Party into a rapture of impotent rage. They’ve got nothing left but the empty acting-out of lunatics in an asylum of their own making. The wrathful grass-widows choking on their chardonnay in Martha’s Vineyard, the furious nose-rings steaming under their keffiyehs in the summer heat, the “Transtifas” storming police lines with their ridiculous umbrellas, the doddering Boomer-hippies reenacting the festive protest marches of 1968, minus a single coherent principle, the wigged-out congresspersons storming the ICE detention centers, the Covid vaccine victims duped into multiple organ failure (their hearts and brains especially), the “allies” of every loser group from Bangor to Brentwood in a frenzy of baffled grievance — these poor, lost wretches so far gone that even the likes of David Axelrod, James Carville, and Frank Luntz can’t stand to be associated with them anymore, is all the Democrats have left in their manure-stuffed donkey stable.
The abiding mystery remains: what exactly set in motion this fantastic cascade of political madness, especially among the highly educated demographic. The seemingly obvious answer is higher education itself, infested since the 1960s with Marxist zealots, sexual malcontents, and resentment-filled diversity hires. And while that has surely played its part, it doesn’t sufficiently explain the ugly dynamic.
Another explanation runs toward a plot by international “oligarchical” corruptniks to corner all the goodies of the world and either turn the rest of us into their slaves, or just kill us off — and to do it in such a way as to rub it in our faces, so as to provide the corruptniks with some mirthful entertainment as they go about their dastardly business. For instance, the recent weekend wedding of Huma Abedin and Alex Soros on the very day that the moiling minions whom they sponsor held their nationwide “No Kings” rallies inn the streets.
Huma, the bride, you recall, was Hillary Clinton’s sidekick back in Hillary’s glory days, especially the time of her glorious and inevitable rise (her regal “turn”) to occupy the White House, thwarted inconceivably by the preposterous showman, Mr. Trump. Hillary, you also might recall, left the White House broke-ass-broke in 2001 only to agglomerate a stupendous multi-hundred-million-dollar fortune working as a US Senator and then Secretary of State (salaries $170,000 and $260,600 respectively). That is, Hillary acquired her great fortune in about the same way that the royalty-of-old acquired theirs — by grift and theft.
And Huma, former wife of disgraced congressman and convicted Internet pervert Anthony Weiner, is now wed to decade-younger financial royalist Alex Soros, son of George, who made the bulk of his fortune (estimated $7.2-billion) shorting the British pound sterling in 1992 and went on to found a vast array of NGOs and so-called philanthropies (the Open Society Foundations) that specialize in influencing elections worldwide, conducting regime-change campaigns, and lately financing seditious movements within the United States. Heir-apparent Alex is reported to have taken over the day-to-day operations of that network — but, we must have no kings, you understand.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has actually tried, against all odds and endless threats, to represent the interests of common US citizens, that is, most of us, the non-royal, and to navigate the collective consciousness of this human mass away from the long-creeping, imposed insanity. He was blind-sided and sandbagged by enemies in his naïve first term. But Trump has returned — after an astonishing exhibition of spiteful incompetence by his adversaries — much-chastened by previous failure and injury with a far-better crew, much better-prepared with a program for redeeming a spavined economy, reinstating common sense in the daily life of the nation (i.e., resistance to absurd propositions), and reform of a dangerous rogue bureaucracy.
The remnant Left is reeling now, most recently from last week’s SCOTUS decision foreclosing the universal injunction nonsense sponsored by Norm Eisen and Mary McCord’s lawfare corps. That campaign, which raged for five months, might prove to be their last gasp. You know, though, that they are plotting another round of election fraud for the 2026 midterms. But it looks like their previous frauds are on the verge of being uncovered — finally, after years of evasion and no help from a treasonous news media — and there’s a fair chance that they can’t pull off more fraud next time. Passage of a proof-of-citizenship law for national elections could seal that deal.
But first, the massive hurdle of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Whatever its virtues and defects, it must be gotten over for this larger effort of a journey back to civilizational sanity to continue. Hazards lurk at every turn. The awesome national debt hangs ominously over the whole enterprise and might sink it yet. Certain players in Europe steer deeper into their own insanity and look more and more like true enemies of the USA — far more than Russia does now — and then there is China: powerful, still rising, plotting cunningly. Plenty of travail awaits, but we’ll be better able to get through it with our minds right and our aim true. Aim to stay sane.
ON LINE COMMENTER RESPONDS: Donald is violating the Constitution, infringing on our civil rights. This interesting rant against the other side of the establishment coin is largely irrelevant now, since Trump is the Pres, and after five months, he owns the situation. Hillary and Huma and Biden support the Israeli Genocide as much as Donald. The B-2 bombing mission was planned while Biden was Pres. There are some slight differences between the Democrats and Donald/Republicans, but the military industrial complex, Israeli Lobby, and big finance control both, and consequently we can expect similar actions on most big issues that matter. I would prefer to read about the dilemma of having Trump tell Israel they need to pardon Netanyahu, because after all, the US supports Israel like nobody else. (That is true--Donald lies often, but he also takes joy in blurting out unstated truths sometimes). I understand that in Israel, Bibi is considered by many, including many of his fellow Zionists, as a big time grifter.
THE TRUMPANYAHU ADMINISTRATION
by Caitlin Johnstone
Honestly at this point they should just get Netanyahu his own room in the White House and a desk in the Oval Office.
The prime minister of Israel is taking his third trip to the White House in the five months since Trump has been back in office. I have immediate blood family members who I love with all my heart and visit less often than this.
This comes as the Trump administration revokes the US visas of British punk rap duo Bob Vylan ahead of a US tour for chanting “Death, death to the IDF” at a concert in the UK. Trump’s sycophantic supporters who spent years complaining that their free speech rights were under assault appear fine with their government deciding what words Americans are allowed to hear in their own country.
This also comes as Trump actively intervenes in the Israeli judicial system to prevent Netanyahu’s corruption trial from moving forward.
The president has repeatedly taken to social media to demand that Israel abandon its corruption case against the prime minister, at one point even implying that the US could cut off arms supplies if his trial isn’t canceled.
“The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel,” Trump said. “We are not going to stand for this. We just had a Great Victory with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu at the helm — And this greatly tarnishes our Victory. LET BIBI GO, HE’S GOT A BIG JOB TO DO!”
It’s so revealing what the US government is and is not willing to threaten conditioning military supplies on, and what it’s willing to interfere in Israel’s affairs to accomplish.
Ever since the Gaza holocaust began we’ve been hearing lines like “Israel is a sovereign country” and “Israel is a sovereign state that makes its own decisions” when reporters ask why the White House doesn’t leverage arms shipments to demand more humanitarian treatment for civilians in the Gaza Strip. But the president of the United States is willing to leverage those same arms shipments to directly interfere in Israeli legal proceedings which have nothing to do with the US government in order to get Netanyahu out of trouble.
And it would appear that the president’s intervention has been successful; Netanyahu’s corruption trial has since been postponed.
When it comes to committing genocide using American weapons funded by American taxpayers, Israel is a sovereign state upon which the US can exert zero leverage or control. When it comes to meddling in the corruption trial of a man who is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, the White House pulls no punches in protecting its favorite genocide monster.
There is no meaningful separation between the US and Israeli governments. They’re two member states in the undeclared empire that sprawls across the entire western world, and Trump and Netanyahu are two of the most depraved and most consequential managers of this empire today.
They are thick as thieves. They are partners in crime.
Call it the Trumpanyahu administration.
(caitlinjohnst.one)
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
These alleged ‘outrages’ at a rock concert consisted of chanting Free free Palestine and throwing a flag onto a stage. Also, a singer singing ‘death to the IDF’. Oh my, where are my pearls to clutch. The event took place in the UK, which neither has an army named IDF, nor has recognized a people named IDF. The IDF is a lethal fighting force. If the Parisians in 1939 had chanted ‘death to the Wehrmacht’, would the British prime minister have chided them for being Insensitive? for being ‘terrorists’? The unintended irony in this is how it itself tip-toes around the Gaza genocide by understating the last 3 years; and checks intself into a Safe Room in order to be Sensitive and, perhaps, pass the Manager’s desk in the newsroom … without incurring a warrant for the publisher’s arrest.
NOT THAT WE NEEDED any more confirmation, but the Washington Post reports that the Israeli-US attack on Iran was decided months earlier and had nothing to do with nuclear weapons.
Senior Israeli officials say they "already decided by March" to attack Iran -- the same month the US intel community assessed that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.
The reason "was that Iran would have rebuilt its air defenses by the latter half of the year", which gave Israel "a unique opportunity to execute plans, carefully laid months and years in advance, to heavily damage a weakened Iran." Just to underscore the point, the choice to attack "was not so much driven by new intelligence indicating an Iranian sprint for a nuclear weapon or any imminent threat to Israel."
This was simply good old fashioned Israeli-US aggression in defense of Israeli-US hegemony. Rinse and repeat.
— Aaron Mate
THREE SUPES, FIVE HATS
Inside of a dark closet are five hats: three blue and two red. Knowing this, three supervisors go into the closet, and each selects a hat in the dark and places it unseen upon their head.
Once outside the closet, no supervisor can see their own hat. The first Supe looks at the other two, thinks, and says, "I cannot tell what color my hat is."
The second hears this, looks at the other two, and says, "I cannot tell what color my hat is either."
The third Supe, who's been blindfolded the whole time, says, "Well, I know what color my hat is."
What color is it?
ANDREA GARCIA:
We pay for local law enforcement and Highway Patrol of which we receive neither.
CALIFORNIA ROLLS BACK ITS LANDMARK ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Making more land available will not address the problems with housing in California. Just look at how fast building is happening where land is available, besides subsidized. An onerous building permit process is at the heart of California’s building crisis, along with either high insurance costs, or unavailable insurance. The result is most construction is done without a permit, and many homeowners lack insurance.
CALIFORNIA ROLLS BACK ITS LANDMARK ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Another step towards extinction for the human monkey species… They must be afflicted with Trumpedness Disease…
If only Andrew Lutsky would put his energy into researching the facts behind issues instead of slandering people who report or comment on the nuances surrounding the possible relocation of the Alex Thomas Plaza. Unfortunately, Lutsky didn’t bother to talk with people who have supported that notion over time, even though he was provided with their names and background. Instead, Lutsky chose to publicly accuse me of spreading a ‘falsehood’ about some secret, nefarious plan at City Hall. Let me reiterate the simple facts: Tom Liden and others suggested 2-3 years ago that city and county officials consider relocating the Thomas Plaza to the current site of the Mendocino County Courthouse, in the event it is eventually demolished. The courthouse site has been the historic heart of downtown Ukiah since 1860. The thought is that the site would make a better public gathering place. The Healdsburg Plaza comes to mind. Liden suggested that the limestone courthouse annex, located on School Street, could be saved and utilized for county museum-related purposes.
Lutsky claimed he was shocked to read about the notion in a broader story about the construction of the new Mendocino County Courthouse. In that story, Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley was accurately quoted as saying there were many pieces of the puzzle surrounding the fate of the current courthouse site, but relocating the Thomas Plaza was among them. That’s it. No surprises. No skull duggery. A simple recitation of an idea that has been kicked around for several years now. Too bad, Lutsky didn’t do his homework. Why he spouted off and continues to do so months later is baffling. It seems Lutsky doesn’t care about his credibility.
I think it’s an idea worth exploring, at least talking about. I don’t see how a central plaza would work without removing the old section of the courthouse and that’s something I’d like to see saved, if possible. By the way, the blindfolded Supe is wearing a blue hat. Can we guess which one of our Supes is the blindfolded one?
Congratulations Mike, you once again managed to expend almost 300 words without saying anything of substance.
We know your pal Tom Liden likes the idea of demolishing Alex Thomas Plaza. Can you remind me when he was elected to the City Council … Was that 2020 or 2022? And I’m afraid me pointing out that you are not a spokesperson for the City of Ukiah does not constitute slander, though it may feel that way.
Please stop this charade, Mike. Either provide evidence for your claim the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating” of Alex Thomas Plaza or issue a correction.
The end. Jeez. The horse is dead, Lutsky. Even I, in far off Boonville, remember the discussion involving the possible reconfigure of the plaza. Geniella’s been correct all along.
With respect Bruce, the question is not whether “discussion” of this idea occurred or that it was “talked about in some circles” (Geniella’s formulation), it’s whether the City of Ukiah “favors demolition and relocating” Alex Thomas Plaza. It doesn’t. And as long as a reporter makes that claim I’ll continue speaking up for the truth.
THE WORST BILL IN MODERN US HISTORY
Bernie Sanders nails it. It makes for awful reading–really a damn nightmare. The rich and the poor. Richer and poorer in that order with this bill. A shameful, fucked-up piece of legislation.
Any of you Trumpites out there have anything to say, care to defend it?
And then, just before Sanders’ piece, there’s Bezos and his bride at their fine wedding in Venice. I was not invited, nor anyone from Mendo Cty., for sure. God save us from rich creeps like him.
I was invited. Flew into LAX, and drove to Venice. The address given for the event didn’t match anything I could find. Oh well. It is likely Jeff and wife didn’t notice I couldn’t find the place. I guess there were lots of people there. I did see lots of people. Why Venice?
Ha, that’s a good one , George, thanks for making me laugh at the end of the day.
+1
I think its blue.