Mendocino County Today: Saturday 7/19/2025

By AVA News Service on July 19, 2025

HOT conditions continue for the interior areas this weekend. Overnight fog and stratus continues along the coastal areas. Temperatures trend downward early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): I know I mentioned maybe some sunnier skies the next couple days, but, maybe not? A foggy 52F this Saturday morning on the coast. We have a hint of some rain early in the week, stayed tuned as things develop.

Tending our buoys on a gray day (Dick Whetstone)

FORT BRAGG FAMILY DISPUTE LEADS TO STABBING

On July 17, 2025, at approximately 11:04 PM, an officer of the Fort Bragg Police Department was flagged down at Safeway by a citizen. The citizen reported they had just transported two stabbing victims to the Adventist Mendocino Coast Hospital. The citizen reported that one of the victims was his neighbor and she had been stabbed by her son.

When Officers arrived at Adventist Mendocino Coast Hospital they contacted a male and female adult stabbing victims. Both victims initially denied being stabbed and instead claimed they had been involved in an ATV accident. After identifying inconsistencies in the victims statements, the male victim changed their statement and indicated that both victims had been stabbed multiple times by the female victim’s son, Danynes Cox-Pabo, 32 of Fort Bragg. The male victim stated that Cox-Pabo had attacked his mother following a dispute, and when the male victim attempted to intervene, he was stabbed multiple times by Cox-Pabo. Officers were able to determine that the stabbing had occurred at 163 Morrow Street.

Officers issued a Be on the Lookout for Cox-Pabo and drafted search warrants for the address where the stabbings were suspected to have occurred. At approximately 1:44 a.m., the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office located Cox-Pabo in the 100 Block of W. Oak Street. Cox-Pabo was detained and found to be in possession of a folding pocketknife.

Cox-Pabo was interviewed by a Fort Bragg Police Department officer and he admitted to stabbing both victims during a family dispute. Cox-Pabo claimed he stabbed the victims in self-defense after they attacked him. After a review of the evidence, Cox-Pabo was arrested and booked in the Mendocino County Jail for Attempted Homicide, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Mayhem, and Robbery.

The female victim was transferred from Adventist Mendocino Coast Hospital to a trauma center. The hospital was unable to provide any further updates on either victim.

Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Officer Tyler Baker of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707) 961-2800 ext. 226.

This information is being released by Captain Thomas O’Neal. All media inquiries should contact him at [email protected].

CHRISSY MISSING

Chrissy Ann Armstrong, 15, was last seen around 9:00 PM on July 16, 2025, leaving her mother’s home on Diamond Ridge Road in Lower Lake, CA.

Chrissy said she was going to watch a movie in Clearlake with her girlfriend and planned to return early the next morning on July 17, 2025. She never returned and hasn’t been heard from.

Chrissy is described as 5’0”, 80 lbs, with brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing blue leggings, a light blue long sleeve shirt, and carrying a mini “Pokémon” backpack.

The most recent photo shows her hair as red; however, it has been dyed brown.

Chrissy has been known to frequent the area of Lucerne, CA.

If you have any information about her whereabouts, please call Dispatch at (707)263-2690.

THE GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL GOT WEIRD WHEN ASKED SOME TOUGH QUESTIONS

by Matt LaFever

The Great Redwood Trail is supposed to be this dreamy, $5 billion vision of hikers and cyclists meandering through redwoods, stretching all the way from the Bay to Humboldt. But behind the glossy master plan and the “Trail Town” postcards, there’s a whole other story playing out — one the Great Redwood Trail Agency (GRTA) didn’t exactly shout from the rooftops. Turns out, while promising to “build trust” with homeless folks living along the corridor, GRTA quietly brought in Lear Asset Management, a private security firm with a pretty messy track record, to handle encampments and “keep order.” Think less park ranger, more hard-edged enforcement.

The weird part? GRTA’s official documents never mention Lear — not once — even though the company was patrolling and clearing camps up until July 2025, if you believe Lear’s CEO, Paul Trouette. Hogan, the GRTA director, says Lear was basically just taking out the trash (literally), but Trouette swears they were still boots-on-the-ground clearing illegal camps. And wouldn’t you know it, GRTA’s whole “compassionate” pivot only happened days after a reporter (me) started asking questions. That’s not exactly the vibe of an agency that’s proud of its choices.

Here’s my takeaway: why not just own up to it? If security was part of the plan — even a messy, complicated part — why not be upfront? Instead, we get this dance of half-truths and shifting timelines, like the agency’s more worried about keeping its “world-class trail” image shiny than being real with the public. It makes me wonder how much of this trail dream is polished PR and how much is the actual gritty reality of managing 300 miles of land in a state with a growing homelessness crisis. Maybe being honest about those challenges would build more trust than all the stickers and pop-ups in the world.

Read the story here at SFGATE.

(mendofever.com)

SAVION MISSING

Savion Elijah Lee Cole, 15, of Clearlake Oaks, was last seen around 5:00 PM on July 17, 2025, leaving his home in the 13000 block of 3rd Street.

Savion is approximately 5’ tall, 100 lbs, with short black hair, brown eyes, black square glasses, and a left ear piercing. He was last seen wearing blue shorts and carrying a backpack and a brown wheeled suitcase.

If you have any information about Savion’s whereabouts, please call Dispatch at (707)263-2690.

JIM EDDIE

Jim Eddie Remembered As A Man Of Integrity, And For His Family’s Deep Roots In Mendocino County

by Mike Geniella

A heated environmental controversy over protecting Spotted Owl habitat in dwindling old growth forests was raging on the North Coast when the late Mendocino County Supervisor Jim Eddie suggested a sleep over in a family cabin on remote Foster Mountain.

“Let’s go see, and hear, for ourselves,” suggested Eddie to then county administrator Mike Scannell, H. Peter Klein, the legal adviser to the Board of Supervisors, and myself, a journalist.

This photo is (from left) Journalist Mike Geniella, Supervisor Jim Eddie, former Mendocino County CAO Mike Scannell, and H. Peter Klein, then County Counsel.

We met at the Eddie Ranch in Potter Valley one afternoon in the 1980s, loaded our gear in the family jeep and headed into the rugged back country of the Mendocino National Forest. We arrived in time for drinks while Eddie prepared dinner. After, and aided by moonlight, the search for the sight and sounds of the Spotted Owl began in the surrounding forests.

The adventure was the mark of Jim Eddie, a man who liked to explore issues before drawing his own conclusions. Eddie, a county supervisor for 20 years, was a rancher and descendant of early white settlers of Potter Valley. He was conservative politically but he always took the time to listen to opposing opinions, discuss ramifications, and reflect on the outcomes before he acted.

“Jim was a plain-speaking man, who always listened to others,” recalled friend Barbara Hopper, a 70-year friend.

Hopper, a retired school principal, was among a small group of friends who went to Reno with Jim Eddie and his late wife Judy Dightman when they were married in 1959. On Saturday, July 26, Jim Eddie will be interred next to Judy in the family plot in the historic Potter Valley Cemetery. Judy Eddie died in 1995.

“Jim was a man of his word, and a most loyal friend,” said Hopper.

Hopper said, “He loved people and his community, and he cared about their welfare. Jim always wanted what was best for Potter Valley, the people of Mendocino County, and the state of California.”

Eddie often was the swing vote in the 1980s-90s on a Board of Supervisors deeply divided between the conservative forces of the past, and progressive factions supported by newcomers in the county.

Eddie was not afraid to take a stand in the face of stiff opposition from either side.

Eddie, for example, cast his lot with former liberal Supervisors Norman de Vall and Dan Hamburg to block a controversial Vintner’s Village convention center and shopping mall project proposed by Parducci Winery interests on agricultural land north of Ukiah.

Eddie believed the preservation of the county’s prime agricultural lands was the core issue, and not the promotion of economic development. Business and political leaders in the Ukiah Valley were appalled and launched a failed recall campaign targeting Hamburg. They resented Eddie’s swing vote for years.

Eddie offered no apologies.

“I voted my conscience. I believed in protecting the county’s agricultural lands, and I have no regrets about my vote,” Eddie said after.

Eddie’s folksy ways, kindness, and sense of humor earned him respect even among his political opponents.

“My dad was a man of convictions but people mattered most. He really worked at bridging the gaps,” said daughter Katie Eddie Delbar.

Former Del Norte County Assessor Gerald Cochran worked with Eddie on timber tax related issues, post Proposition 13 fallout for North Coast government agencies, and again when both served on the Board of Directors for the Golden Gate Bridge District.

Cochran agreed that Eddie was a remarkable ability to collaborate with regional officials no matter the politics.

“Jim was a good Republican, and I was a Democrat. We would talk, and more times than not reach a consensus on what might be best for everyone, and not just the ‘party,’” said Cochran.

Their friendship deepened during their years together on the Golden Gate Bridge board. “We would meet in San Francisco and have breakfast, lunch or dinner together, and talk.”

Cochran recalled Eddie’s long tenure as a bridge director, and board president.

“Jim, as board president, was the last person to symbolically pay a toll to cross the Golden Gate. He led the board efforts to install all electronic tolling,” said Cochran.

Cochran also remembered Eddie’s role in guiding seismic improvements to the iconic structure.

“I remember one night when we stood at the north end of the bridge and stared down at the water below while they replaced 10 x 25-foot sections of pavement after completing seismic work. It was impressive,” said Cochran.

Sonoma County Supervisor Chris Coursey, a former newspaper columnist and spokesperson for the SMART train service between Sonoma and Marin counties, recalled in an online post how Eddie was easy to work with.

“I got to know Jim in the early days when he was on the SMART Board of Directors and I was a member of the agency’s small staff,” said Coursey. He described Eddie as a “gentleman who treated everyone - colleagues, staff, public, critics - with respect. He served with humor and humility.”

Coursey said, “I’ve known many elected leaders over the past 50 years, and he is one of those I’ve remembered as a good example to follow.”

While Eddie gained widespread recognition in North Coast politics, the legacy Eddie Ranch, the surrounding Potter Valley community, and Mendocino County’s rich history was always at the core of Jim Eddie’s life.

Jim Eddie was a dedicated supporter of the Mendocino County Museum.

Former Museum Director Mark Rawitsch, whose work helped the county museum earn statewide recognition, said he was hired by Eddie and other board members before passage of the tax-cutting Proposition 13. Rawitsch recalled he had been warned by the county administrative staff at the time by “I would be fired and the museum would be closed if Proposition 13 passed.”

That didn’t happen because of Jim Eddie.

Rawitsch said Eddie offered a much more balanced and long-term view, explaining to his fellow board members and administrators, “If we don’t work together to preserve, understand and share our history in places like the museum, we will lose our community’s ability to understand the possibilities of the future.”

Rawitsch also remembered the time when the county museum coordinated the Mendocino County Courthouse mural project in the late 1970s.

“Jim made sure that we added the images of a steer and lamb to the mural painted in the entry hall to the Board of Supervisors chambers,” Rawitsch recalled. He wanted all elements of the county’s agricultural heritage represented.

Former museum curator Sandy Metzler remembered Eddie regularly holding office hours in a room at the Willits museum, where “ranchers, business owners, farmers, and Class K Back-to-the-Landers would come to share their ideas, complaints, and observations about their lives and the county’s role in them.”

“Jim would meet generously with people from all sides and really listen! Everyone trusted and respected him! Quite a feat for anyone elected to office. As for me, when no constituent showed up, I would get to talk to him about his family history, sheep (as I was raising them, too), cattle (as my family in Paso Robles were cattle ranchers), and current events. It was a real honor for me to get to know Jim Eddie,” said Metzler.

Rounding up cows, harvesting hay on pastureland, growing corn, and cutting timber in the surrounding hills was the focus of Eddie family life.

Jim Eddie valued hard work, community connections, and old-fashioned fun. He represented the fourth generation of two Potter Valley pioneer families: the Eddies and Dashiells.

Eddie was born at home to Leona Dashiell Eddie and Clyde Raymond Eddie on May 21, 1935. Jim spent his entire life living on the ranch.

Childhood friend Sherman Kirchmeier, a former lumber executive on the North Coast, Idaho and Maine, recalled the bucolic growing up years he and Jim Eddie and “a gang of us guys” spent together.

“We hunted, fished, and swam together. We roped deer who came down to feed in the cow pastures at night, and then turned them loose,” Kirchmeier recalled. He remembered a night when Jim Eddie tipped over Mother Leona Eddie’s new truck, and how Eddie and his teenage friends tried to figure out what to do next.

“We knew there was going to be hell to pay,” said Kirchmeier.

Jim Eddie’s mother Leona Dashiell Eddie was a formidable family member, who could ride a horse all day, round up cows, and shoot a threatening bear in the woods, if necessary, even in her later years. Jim’s father Clyde Eddie died in 1949 when his son was only fourteen. Leona Eddie kept the family ranch going before eventually turning it over to Jim Eddie to run.

For Jim Eddie, the Potter Valley ranch was his center.

William Eddie, a Missouri farmer, in 1859 purchased squatters’ rights to 157 acres in the heart of Potter.

William Eddie later married Cynthia Vann in 1868 and together raised nine children on land where they farmed pears, apples, corn, oats, and wheat, according to family history.

Jim Eddie was a great grandson.

The ranch over the years expanded into a cow-calf operation that includes leased forest service parcels in the surrounding mountains. Today the Eddie Ranch management focuses on “reduce, reuse, and recycle” practices, including using and repairing farm equipment 50 years or older.

In the kitchen of the Eddie family farmhouse is a simple brass plaque set in the floor. It reminds family, friends, and visitors that the ranch was founded in 1859.

In September 2009, the Eddie family hosted a celebration commemorating 150 years of the Eddie Ranch.

Katie Eddie and her husband Mike Delbar, a former county supervisor and current CEO of California Rangeland Trust, in recent years have shared the ancestral home with Jim Eddie.

The Eddie Ranch will continue under family ownership, Katie Delbar said.

Jim Eddie’s son James Jr., Katie, and second daughter Jan Fairbairn and their families are all engaged in the family ranching operation.

“None of have us strayed far. The Eddie Ranch will carry on,” said Katie Delbar.

(All photos provided by the Eddie family.)

JOHNNY PINCHES MEMORIAL ON JULY 26TH

Please join the family and friends of John Pinches for a memorial celebrating his life and many accomplishments. John’s memorial will be held on Saturday, July 26 at the Laytonville Rodeo Grounds. Gates open at 1 p.m., memorial gets underway around 2 p.m. Please bring a potluck dish, photos, stories and memories of John to share.

The Laytonville Rodeo Association will host a 21+ older bar, so if you plan to raise a glass of brew for John, bring some bucks to toss to the Rodeo, something John started.

For more information, please call June @ (707) 272-1260.

John’s family would like to thank everyone for their outpouring of love and support-we hope to see you there!

(Jim Shields)

GALINA TREFIL:

Joshua Lee McCollister was absolutely the love of my life. Though I did meet him fourteen years ago, we had so incredibly little time together before he was murdered in Glendale, CA. What time we did have always had the backdrop of hunting serial killers and dealing with being stalked. The stalking was so bad that both of us left Fort Bragg; were essentially in hiding.

We were never allowed to just be peaceful, just be left alone, like a regular couple. It's all that we wanted. To be left alone. To take care of our family.

The word "widow" doesn't apply here. I was only his fiancee, because we weren't able to be married yet. I don't care. That man was my husband-to-be, and his absence, his loss, has stolen so much. It won't steal that too. He called me his wife, introduced me as such to people, and so I will call myself his widow.

A reporter asked if I will be at the trial of Deunn Antoine Willis and Danielle Roberta Durand. Absolutely, yes. And at every parole hearing his killers have too. Now. Twenty years from now. Forty years from now, I will STILL be there. Holding his killers accountable won't bring Josh back, but accountability is what we fought together for, for my father's victims. It's what I will fight alone to ensure that he has now.

ED NOTE: Ms. Trefil is an interesting case. I met her years ago maybe a week after 9/11. She was then the girlfriend of a young man named Aaron Channel. Channel, August Stuckey and Tai Abreu, all of Fort Bragg, had been arrested for the murder of a gay Los Angeles man named Donald Perez, lured to Fort Bragg by Stuckey on the promise of a sexual encounter whose true purpose was to rob him. I believe Ms. Trefil married Channel with whom she has children. She's apparently divorced from Channel and back in Fort Bragg where she has become rather notorious for wild accusations that her dying father is a serial killer, accusations accompanied by zero credible evidence. Ms. Trefil also says she's a rabbi, a single mother and beset by stalkers. The attached is a piece I wrote for CounterPunch in 2004:

IS L-WOP TRULY FOREVER? THE AWFUL INJUSTICE TO TAI ABREU

by Bruce Anderson

MENDOCINO COUNTY has one “media” — this one. No, I’m not bragging; that’s the way it is here and one “media” is a simple statement of fact. We have a more or less benign DA, a laughable bunch of judges with the possible exceptions of Mayfield, David Nelson and LaCasse, all of whom are relatively new, and the cops, at this time and eternally subject to change on short notice, are doing what they’re supposed to do as law enforcement professionals. They even arrest rich people, although rich people, as in the rest of the country, seldom do any time. No sir, Mendocino County’s system breaks down completely in its absence of a functioning media, and if media is dysfunctional or non-existent, lots of people are going to be severely harmed because the system is allowed to operate in the dark. The lights have been out in Mendocino County for at least a hundred years, and they’ve pretty much stayed off all the way back to when the Indians got it.

TAI ABREU OF FORT BRAGG got severely harmed out of all proportion to what he did, and there’s no justice if punishment is out of proportion to the known facts of any given crime. As most of you reading this know, punishment has never been more out of sync with crime than now, with most of America a bunch of whining fatsos hiding behind the cops and the courts.

MR. ABREU got life in state prison without the possibility of parole because he didn’t murder Donald Perez, a gay man from Los Angeles. What Mr. Abreu did is this: He was co-participant in the robbery of Mr. Perez that ended with Mr. Perez, his throat cut, duct-taped to a tree a mile from the Fort Bragg Police station. Mr. Perez’s remains were taped to the tree for almost a month, exactly 14 feet from the pavement as literally hundreds of people walked past, drove past, hiked past, jogged past, paddled past up the Noyo River — all of them and their dogs, and there this man remained in his upright silver sarcophagus in the late summer sun between the Noyo and the old A&W log road. He might still be there if one of Mr. Abreu’s pot pals hadn’t gone to the cops and, exempting himself from perp status, told the cops his friends had lured this guy to Fort Bragg to rob him but had robbed him and killed him and laughed about it one day when they were all hot-boxing pot in an abandoned car in the non-perp’s Fort Bragg backyard.

MR. PEREZ, aka “Vic,” may or may not have had his throat cut, as it turns out. His remains were inconclusive one way or the other, although there doesn’t appear to have been another way than the duct tape wrap and then a quick, deep knife to the throat, and not a happy way to go in a green gold bower beside a lazy early September stream. But Mr. Abreu, age 19 at the time of these terminally sad events, was sitting look-out man in Mr. Perez’s truck on the road above the death tree when Mr. Perez was slashed by one of Mr. Abreu’s two confederates. Or died of suffocation from the duct tape, or was hit over the head, or died of some other unnatural cause. Whatever happened happened without Mr. Abreu’s presence, not that he intervened or not that he even disapproved. We’re deep in moral murk here, and for sure Mr. Abreu was co-participant in an ultimate evil, but he paid for it out of all proportion to his participation while his co-conspirators got 15 years or so each and can look forward to seeing Fort Bragg again as men in early middle age.

BUT THE LAW says a murder committed during a robbery gets you life without parole whether or not you did the murder part of the crime, and by this unyielding standard a murder was indeed committed by all three boys, and Mr. Abreu was on board for the robbery part of the murder, as were his co-participants, one of whom, a very sick young man to have done it, walked up to the gray, writhing mummy Mr. Perez had become and cut Donald Perez’s throat deep, all the way to the top of his spine.

MR. ABREU, compounding the crime with himself as the second vic, made the fatal mistake of pleading not guilty to the murder of Donald Perez, reasoning that because he hadn’t killed anybody, hadn’t even been there when one of his partners in crime had cut Mr. Perez’s throat, he was innocent of the crime of murder. Worse (for him) Mr. Abreu demanded a jury of his peers. He was sure his attorney could explain to the jury that he was up on the road when whatever happened, happened. He hadn’t killed the guy. He’d robbed him, but he didn’t kill him. Tai Abreu didn’t know murder was on the menu. Nobody knew until it happened, and when it happened Tai Abreu was not there. He was up on the road sitting in Donald Perez’s brand new truck.

MENDOCINO COUNTY gets all upset when 19-year-old defendants don’t do what the system wants them to do. In Mr. Abreu’s case the system wanted him to plead guilty to a jazzed-up manslaughter, and the taxpayers would be spared the expense of a lot of legal fol de rol, and the DA, in triage mode these days as them that don’t have hurl themselves at each other and sometimes at them that have, would be spared the time and trouble of a murder prosecution. Abreu would get 10 or 15 years for his part in Perez’s killing and he’d be out to resume life as it exists outside the cruelest prison system between the collapse of the Soviet Union and Abu Ghraib. But Abreu didn’t go along, and the Mendocino County justice system killed him deader than one of his two crime com-panions had killed Donald Perez.

LINDA THOMPSON of the Mendocino County Public Defender’s Office, was Mr. Abreu’s attorney. The kid might just as well have gotten on the jail bus without stopping at the Mendocino County Courthouse. For reasons of convenience to the local justice system, the case was heard in Ukiah, not Fort Bragg where the crime had occurred. All the while, of course, and this being the ongoing media vacuum that Mendocino County is and always has been, the local papers, owned by the same Colorado-based newspaper chain, were running the wild-looking mug shots of the three young perps over inflammatory stories the reporter, Glenda Anderson, got directly from the DA and the cops. All three defendants were lynched by the newspapers, as Ms. Anderson, girl friend of Bari car bomber Mike Sweeney, as always selectively indignant, huffed and puffed about the gay bashing that was not, so far as is known, a factor in the murder of Mr. Perez because Mr. Abreu says he’s bi-sexual while co-perp Mr. Stuckey was Mr. Perez’s sometime lover.

IF IT WAS A GAY BASHING, Abreu’s gay attorney did the bashing. Maybe Ms. Thompson, a cross-dressing lesbian, was predisposed to killing all three perps, given that the “vic” was a gay male and she as a gay woman can be assumed to have had a rough go of it in America, Land Of The Free Ranging Hetero. As it turned out, Ms. Thompson could only kill one of the gay bashers — her client.

THE CASE WAS HEARD IN UKIAH because, and knowing Mendocino County I’d say it’s highly likely if not slam dunk fact, most of the lawyers involved in it live in the Ukiah area and don’t want to drive back and forth to the Mendocino Coast to put some punk in state prison for the rest of his life as his friends, family and teachers look on. Do the dirty work in Ukiah where no one will see, no one except maybe Glenda Anderson, hack reporter. The system, as anyone on the receiving end knows, has its own convenience as its first priority.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY THOMPSON among everything else she did not do for her “client,” did not dispute the casual venue change. Mr. Abreu’s family, consisting of one ailing grandmother, was not kept informed of where Mr. Abreu was in the injustice process. Once in a while someone would tell her something, but not often, and nobody ever answers the phone anywhere in the Courthouse except the DA’s office and poor old gran was on the wrong side of this one. Nobody who knew any of the three boys, all of whom were born and raised in Fort Bragg, and none of whom had a history of violence or even a prior of any consequence whatsoever, were aware that the case could have, should have, been heard in Fort Bragg.

THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, Ms. Thompson, a small, odd-looking woman who dresses in men’s clothes, did not assign an investigator to look into the crime’s particulars on behalf of Mr. Abreu; she failed to challenge any of the persons who became Mr. Abreu’s jury, including a man from Fort Bragg — father of Abreu's former teen girl friend — who said he knew Mr. Abreu and did not like him. Thompson called no witnesses of any kind in defense of Mr. Abreu; didn’t put Mr. Abreu on the stand to explain himself, which probably wouldn’t have helped him anyway because there’s no explanation and less excuse for being young, stupid and stoned. One day later Mr. Abreu had himself a fast pass to life forever, deep in a state prison with no hope for parole ever no matter the facts of the crime that put him there, no matter how well he behaves inside those eternal, steel bowels. And this happens in the country of people who say they’re for hope and resurrection.

NO WITNESSES for the defense. No challenges to the jury panel. A one-day trial and goodbye forever Mr. American Pie. Mr. Abreu’s co-defendants? Did Abreu's co-defendants want a jury of their peers, 12 middle-age and older middle-class non-stoners? Nope. Not after they saw what happened to Tai Abreu. They pled out, and both of them will see home by 2020. And one of them cut Mr. Perez’s throat while he was taped to a tree beside the Noyo River.

WHAT DEFENSE did Ms. Thompson present for Mr. Abreu? How did she explain this kid to the jury, the Ritalin kid from early elementary school on, a semi-abandoned kid, a kid whose mother is still cranking in Lake County, a kid whose father left him behind and went off to work in a place beyond, even, the telephone? Ms. Thompson told the jury Mr. Abreu was indeed a bad person, which he isn’t, none of the three defendants is hopelessly bad or even half-bad, or even mostly bad. There isn’t a young man in this country who hasn’t come real close to doing something just as dumb or worse. One young man by himself is harmless. Two young men are borderline dangerous. Three young men will go crazy then go home. Sorry, Mom, but that’s a basic fact of life, and you can get your own confirmation every morning on the news.

BUT MS. THOMPSON went on about what a bad guy Abreu was, said he’d done it, said he was out of control. She conceded the prosecution’s case, which was that three murderous young men had put Mr. Perez to death because they wanted his cameras. Public Defender Thompson agreed but, she said, Mr. Abreu hadn’t been advised of his rights by the detective assigned to the murder. One more time. Yeah but he wasn’t properly Mirandized. Yeah, I got the tail and I think there’s an elephant on the other end of it. So the odd little woman who dresses like a man went before a jury of conventional everyday Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg people confident that she could convince 12 very straight, carpenter’s level straight, people, that Mr. Abreu should go home because he was not properly Mirandized!

IS LINDA THOMPSON CRAZY? Is she even within shouting distance of reality? Did she think the jury would see her as Clarence Darrow? Did she really think an obscure delineation of the Miranda Law would convince anybody that Mr. Abreu ought to go free? This was the defense?

THE WHOLE SHOW was so absurd, so purely nutso, so uniquely Only In Mendocino County, so far from even a semblance of a defense in a case with a young man’s life on the line that even the cops thought “it was a goddam disgrace, a travesty,” as one put it. When the cops denounce a trial as “a goddam disgrace” you can be sure it’s a double goddam disgrace.

Bear Lincoln had the whole PC gang piling on. He got helpful publicity on top of helpful publicity, media coming in the windows, so much publicity that Tony Serra rode into town and defended him for nothing, intimidating the DA into dumping the case on an untried assistant and intimidating the wimp-twits sitting as Mendocino County Superior Court judges to call old Judge Golden in from some retirement home to hear the case. (Golden took zero crapola, including none from Serra and the PC Brigade, and Bear Lincoln got a fair trial.) A decade later, Judge Henderson, a practicing Catholic but no Christian, put on a big show of denouncing the “remorseless” defendant, going on about what a heinous crime had been committed while committing a second heinous crime with the Life In Prison Without The Possibility Of Parole sentence he was pronouncing on a kid who never had a chance in all his life in liberal Mendocino County.

TAI ABREU has a tired grandmother and me, meaning he’s the ultimate longshot. I’m going to try to raise the money for Abreu’s appeal which, it appears, will be a federal habeas process. I’ve taken the recent alms sent the AVA’s way and set them aside in an unofficial Abreu Defense Fund. They amount, as of the end of this month, to almost two grand. If anyone out there is inclined to sign on for the long haul, I can guarantee you your contributions will go directly to the intrepidly brilliant Mendocino attorney, Rod Jones, who has agreed to at least look at the options Abreu has, and they aren’t many. In fact, they almost don’t exist in a country seemingly crueler and more brutal by the day.

DEATH ROW people and celeb defendants get all the money they need to appeal their convictions, and most of them are guilty, and most of them totally undeserving. Mr. Abreu, young Mr. Abreu, like almost all L-WOP defendants (as they’re called by the legal hangmen) get buried so deep nobody can even hear them scream.

TAI ABREU did a bad thing, but he didn’t do the bad-dest thing that was done to Mr. Perez. One of his co-defendants did that, but they’ll get out of prison and Tai Abreu won’t get out of prison. Tai Abreu didn’t get an unfair trial. He didn’t get any kind of trial. His Public Defender wasn’t incompetent, she was inexplicable. If these guys had had OJ’s legal team not one of them would have been convicted of anything, a fact even the cops concede. “We know we got the right guys, but who did what we still don’t know.”

THIS KID’S CASE has got to get in front of a real judge, on the off chance there’s an honest one left somewhere in the upper reaches of this country’s country club system of jurisprudence. To get it in front of the honest judge who may or may not exist, is going to take time and money. I hope some of you will help out.

The entire five-part Fort Bragg Perez/Abreu Murder saga from late 2005 can found at: https://theava.com/archives/tag/abreu

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, July 18, 2025

KAYLA BARNETT, 29, Somerset/Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, paraphernalia.

ANTONIO CABRERA, 26, Rohnert Park/Ukiah. Probation revocation.

TIMOTHY COLECK, 66, San Luis Obispo/Piercy. Vandalism.

JORDAN GUILLORY, 32, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.

RICHARD HODGE JR., 28, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

TRAVIS JENNINGS, 36, Ukiah. DUI.

SERGIO LOPEZ, 35, Ukiah. Controlled substance, ammo possession by prohibited person.

JAMES MORRISON, 41, Woodland/Ukiah. DUI.

DAYNES PABO, 32, Fort Bragg. Attempted murder, assault with deadly weapon with great bodily injury, mayhem.

KAILEE POZZI, 34, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’ consent, leaving scene of accident with property damage, suspended license for reckless driving, mandatory supervision violation.

JULIE BEARDSLEY

Buckle up, Buttercup things are getting weirder.

De-funding public radio and television is another brick in the authoritarian wall Trump et al is building. CBS is canceling Stephen Colbert, one of the most outspoken critics of Trump, because their parent company, Paramount wants a merger that must be approved by the Trump administration.

Professor Kim Scheppele from Princeton University, suggests there are 10 steps to destroying Democracy:

Winning an election
Expansion of executive power where she says “the president decides he wants more than he’s supposed to have.”
Making Congress complicit, you weakened them, and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary.
Firing all the people who know how to make government work like civil service in effort to break democracy.
Putting loyalists in places like the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense
Breaking communication – de-funding public media, promoting misinformation on social media
Blaming someone for the broken government, for the broken promises, the attack on DEI, or in 1939, blaming the Jews.
Eliminate anyone who can help these communities by suing law firms that do pro bono cases, going after philanthropies, accusing them of giving money, and going after colleges and universities that teach people what they should know.
Encourage and incentivize private violence by sending Marines, the National Guard, and ICE into the streets
Deciding there is no new election, which is not hard because by that time, because everyone is either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.

I hope there will be a huge blue wave in the mid-terms to stop this take-over of our American government.

This funny little newspaper, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, may be one of the few places left to get news. Stay strong and independent.

JEFFREY ST. CLAIR:

George Retes was pulled over by ICE as he was driving near the violent raid on farm workers outside of Camarillo last Thursday. The ICE agents broke the windows of his car and pepper sprayed him, before taking him into custody. Retes is an American citizen and disabled US Army Veteran. He was held in federal lockup for four days, during which time his family and lawyer had no way of contacting him to find out where he was or inquire about his physical condition. He was released without charges on Sunday night. Is this what Thomas Homan meant when he told FoxNews that ICE can stop people based on their skin-color and “briefly” detain them without a warrant or probable cause until ICE is satisfied they’re American citizens?

George Retes: “Clearly it didn’t matter that I was a citizen, or a veteran, or that I identified who I was. They ignored everything I said, and they just they broke my window and they dragged me out. I let them know that I was a veteran and I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that I’m just trying to get to work.”

DISAPPEARANCES

Editor:

Very few actual Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests — mass or otherwise — have been reported in The Press Democrat. Likewise, the website — North Bay Rapid Response Network — has reported very few instances of actual ICE presence. This seems at odds with stories we hear from the “paperless” people we know and the decreasing number of Latino people we see in local stores. There seems to be widespread fear of going out in public, even going to work. Can the paper do more of a public service and collect information from people who witness likely ICE activity? I’m sure there are many unfounded rumors going around, but it certainly seems that there is more ICE presence than we read about.

Robert Hausen

Freestone

JEFF BLANKFORT:

Those who are making the slogans that headline these protests seem too close to those who allowed Trump and his fascists to triumph, "No kings? Please. Then and today it should be "Impeach!". Today they are honoring the late John Lewis who left the civil rights movement with a plate in his head from a police beating to become a flunky for AIPAC during his entire Congressional career, acting as a host for AIPAC's "welcome" to each new freshmen congressional electees and never saying a word in public in opposition to Israel's arms sales to apartheid South Africa.

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night tonight on KNYO and KAKX!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 5:30 or so. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

For the picture-window-framed screens in your underground apocalypse bunker: https://kottke.org/25/07/contemplative-landscapes-by-noah-kalina

Jesus music is different from the Jesus music when I was a kid. "One hand on my gun, t'other hand's on my Bible." (via Christian Nightmares) (You might have to click the sound on.) https://twitter.com/i/status/1944769621745131953

Smart glasses that are available now. The future of phoning, computing, gaming and watching movies at work, astronomy, simulated schizophrenia, the whole nine yards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W9zqw-_eZ0

And Koko Taylor - Wang Dang Doodle, plus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBsrx40fiX0

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

AS YOU KNOW

Warmest spiritual greetings from Washington, D.C.,

As you know, I have finished being supportive of the Peace Vigil in front of the White House (for the sixteenth time since June of 1991). I would like to return to California. I’ve got $1,117.59 in the Chase checking account, $108.51 in the wallet, and general health is excellent at age 75. I assure you that I will receive all that is materially required for the rest of my earthly life. This is a spiritually guaranteed certainty. I need a place to go to initially upon my return. I am happy that postmodern America is benefitted from my over 50 year contribution in the service of peace and justice and radical ecological activism. Please contact me as soon as possible. Thank you!

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

INDIGENOUS YOUTH COMPLETE FIRST DESCENT OF UNDAMMED KLAMATH RIVER, REACHING THE SEA

by Dan Bacher

On July 11, several dozen indigenous youth from the Klamath Basin and beyond completed a historic 310-mile, month-long source-to-sea “first descent” of the recently undammed Klamath River. They began their journey in Oregon and ended at the mouth of the river on the Yurok Reservation.

Rios to Rivers, a nonprofit conservation group, observed that “as the youths approached the sand spit adjacent to the Klamath’s mouth in their bright-colored kayaks, tribal elders, family members, friends and supporters waved and cheered them on.”

The moment was a long time in the making.

“I feel so proud to have completed this trip, and am feeling grateful for the support of my family and the fact that I got to honor my grandma’s legacy in her fight for dam removal,” said 18-year-old Ke-Get Omar Dean V, a member of the Yurok Tribe. “We got to complete this journey because of the people that came before us and ensured a free-flowing river.”

The young paddlers trained up to three years to run whitewater with kayak instructors from the Paddle Tribal Waters program, which is operated by Rios to Rivers. The program includes teens from the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk, Quartz Valley, Hoopa Valley, Warm Springs and Tohono O’odham tribes.

Four hydroelectric dams owned by PacifiCorp had blocked the river for over a century, preventing once-abundant salmon and steelhead runs from ascending into their native habitat.…

https://sacramento.newsreview.com/2025/07/18/indigenous-youth-complete-first-descent-of-undammed-klamath-river-reaching-the-sea/

JUSTIN VERLANDER EARNS MORE UNWANTED GIANTS HISTORY in loss at Toronto

by Shayna Rubin

Giants starting pitcher Justin Verlander heads to the dugout after being taken out in the third inning of Friday’s game against the Blue Jays in Toronto. (Nathan Denette/Associated Press)

TORONTO — Baseball’s unofficial second half has begun, but the San Francisco Giants didn’t look ready for a fresh start.

All their bad habits carried right over into the series opener in Toronto on Friday, and this time at historic levels. In a 4-0 loss to the AL East-leading Toronto Blue Jays, the Giants had 11 hits and no runs to show for it. It has happened six other times total in franchise history, but not since Aug. 24, 1959, have the Giants scored no runs with at least 11 hits.

Ten of those hits came against Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt, who deployed his trusty sinker and curveball, respectively, to induce rally-killing double-play grounders from Rafael Devers and Dom Smith in the first and second innings to set the tone.

“I was looking at it the whole game and it’s frustrating,” Giants left fielder Heliot Ramos said. “I feel like we were putting good at-bats together, but nothing is clicking. It’s the first game back, but I feel like we could have done better. Even myself, the last at-bat I took against the lefty.”

That strikeout Ramos speaks of came in the seventh inning, when Smith and Casey Schmitt hit back-to-back singles and forced Bassitt out of the game. Luis Matos, the pinch-hitter against lefty Brendon Little, struck out for the second out and Ramos struck out on five pitches — whiffing at a knuckle curveball. Those were the eighth and ninth at-bats for Giants hitters with runners in scoring position on an 0-for-9 night with RISP.

“It was a key to the game. They got three big hits and we didn’t get any,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Then a couple double plays early in the game take wind out of your sails a little bit, we continue to put good at-bats up, but you have to get hits with guys in scoring position and that’s been frustrating for us.”

That offensive futility has been the most consistent trend for the Giants this season, and so has Justin Verlander’s bad-luck year. Any optimism Verlander might’ve felt heading into the All-Star break looked shaky within the first two innings of his start.

Rogers Centre holds fond memories for Verlander; it’s where he has thrown two of his three no-hitters. But on this night, the ballpark fueled stuff of nightmares. The mechanical tweak that helped create the deception he wanted didn’t pan out against Toronto, which got him for four runs on nine hits over 2⅔ innings. In a year full of bad breaks, Verlander couldn’t help but to hold onto his optimism.

“Stuff wise, I felt really optimistic, but had a tough one today, obviously,” Verlander said. “They found a way to put a lot of balls in play. Found a lot of holes, and the ones hit hard found corners. It was a tough one. But still optimistic about how the mechanical adjustments have helped my stuff. The velo is better, breaking balls sharper all in all.”

The mechanical tweak still yielded higher velocities than he had previously; he averaged 94.5 mph on his four-seamer and topped out at 97 mph. Verlander saw that his breaking ball was still moving as he wanted, too, but didn’t have the putaway pitch to keep Toronto from putting the ball in play. It was a tough task, anyway, as Toronto’s 17.7% strikeout rate is the best in baseball.

“These guys do a good job putting the ball in play as a team,” Verlander said. “There aren’t a lot of strikeouts to be had. When I did make a good pitch and it was put in play, found a hole, and when I didn’t they hit it hard.”

The second-inning rally began with Addison Barger’s single that bounced off Verlander’s glove, then Alejandro Kirk hit a first-pitch slider through the right-side gap. Joey Loperfido’s double down the first-base line scored the first run. Then Will Wagner doubled to right on a curveball to score two more. Nathan Lukes’ RBI single made it 4-0 and Verlander wound up throwing 33 pitches in the inning.

Tristan Beck saved the day and technically kept the Giants in it, allowing one hit — the only base-runner against him — over 4⅓ innings with two strikeouts.

With that, Verlander’s streak of 16 games without a win in a single season is the longest by a Giant, passing Matt Cain’s 15 straight in 2017. One more winless start, and Verlander would tie Mark Davis (spanning 1984-86) for longest overall winless stretch by a Giants starter. Verlander has gotten 26 runs of support, tied for second-fewest in baseball for pitchers with at least 15 starts (Cleveland’s Luis Ortiz and Colorado’s Antonio Senzatela are the others).

Ramos said the team is determined to ensure Verlander stops winding up on the wrong side of franchise history.

“He’s a great baseball player,” Ramos said. “He’s the type of person that you want to go out there and play 1,000% every time. He’s always giving his 100% when he’s out there and we want to give that back to him … because he deserves it.”

(sfchronicle.com)

PEOPLE 65+ only want Medicare for themselves? What an awful, selfish generation we turned out to be…

Support For Medicare For All

All: 59%

By Age:

18-29: 70%

30-44: 64%

45-64: 57%

65+: 45%

(YouGov, July 7, 2025)

SAN FRANCISCO'S 'LUIGI: THE MUSICAL' SHOT ME THROUGH THE HEART

by Summer Maxwell

I didn’t expect the highlight of my Tuesday night would be watching an actor portraying Luigi Mangione sing a ballad about hash browns, followed by a tap dance number featuring his cellmates Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried (who happen to be falling in love). The plot is totally outrageous, but as “Luigi: the Musical” goes on, it becomes cathartic to sit in the warm haze of the Independent with over a hundred strangers and laugh, groan and marvel at the spectacle American life has become.

Directed by Nova Bradford, the production is set in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where rapper Sean Combs (Janée Lucas), fallen crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried (André Margatini), and the internet’s favorite murder suspect Luigi Mangione (Jonny Stein) were all held this year — at the same time. The musical has now extended its run to 10 shows after constant sellouts. At the show I saw, dozens of people stood against the walls after every seat had been filled.

The script quickly establishes that the three men are placed in one cell while awaiting their respective trials. They attempt to justify their crimes through simple musical numbers, and while the music itself is forgettable, the themes confidently burst through. Using the same allure of the celebrity criminal that underpinned “Chicago,” each character represents a flawed pillar of American society. Combs — dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit with his stage moniker Diddy bedazzled across the back like a middle school cheerleading uniform — depicts the entertainment industry grappling with the post-MeToo era. Bankman-Fried portrays the slime and deception of Silicon Valley, spending billions at investors’ expense. They both received boos from the audience.

But then: Luigi Mangione. The internet people’s prince heralded for allegedly slaying Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, in Midtown Manhattan. Whether the obsession was sparked by America’s broader frustration with health insurance companies, the true crime drama of the act (the bullets used to kill Thompson had “deny,” “delay” and “depose” written on them) or because Mangione is, well, hot isn’t clear.

It doesn’t matter, the titular character is a hit. The audience cheers as he sings about the various missteps he took that allowed him to be identified, including removing his mask to smile charmingly at a hostel worker and purchasing hashbrowns at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s where authorities arrested him.

The concept of the production alone is ridiculous enough. But the musical leans in further as the plot rolls along. Mangione and his cellmates plot foolish escape plans, flirt and dance to create moments that acknowledge the absurdity of the homemade show.

In “Bay Area Baby,” André Margatini pulls off the show’s best vocal performance as a plotting Bankman-Fried, who laments that as a “Palo Alto nepo baby extraordinaire” he knows the best recipe for success is a little fraud. The audience clapped along to the beat.

The script clearly sympathizes with Mangione and his disillusionment with the modern health care system. As his cellmates bicker on center stage — Combs teases Bankman-Fried for his lack of experience with women — Mangione writhes on a cot in pain from a back injury that his insurance declined to cover treatment for.

Yet while Mangione deems himself a “martyr” in song, the show stops far short of endorsing his violent methods. In the final number, “Peace on Earth,” Mangione sings about his plan to make the world a better place by shooting every powerful CEO he deems evil, as Combs and Bankman-Fried look on in horror.

The set isn’t dazzling, and the choreography isn’t remarkable. But “Luigi: the Musical” does dig at some of the questions facing American culture today. How does a man charged with murder become a folk hero? What does justice look like for the victims of tech wealth and celebrity power? What challenges await Americans who pay thousands annually for insurance that fails to cover essential health needs? The production doesn’t have all the answers, and that’s OK — the moral ambiguity is part of the fun.

The show’s greatest strength is its ability to slice through the tension of its characters’ crimes by poking fun at the show itself. In one scene, a prison guard and Luigi’s cellmates try to explain to him that he’s become so famous on the outside that someone wrote a musical about him.

“The San Francisco Chronicle called it terrible!” announces the prison guard. The audience cackles, because we’re all in on the joke.

(SF Chronicle)

JT:

I feel compelled to share my experiences. I teach college in New York State prisons and have done so for the past 10 years. To those naysayers I say this, people do change. Defining an individual by their worst deed reduces us all. We are more complex than such a simplistic explanation offers. Televisions, college courses, addiction counseling, trade courses, violence prevention, etc. should not only be offered by the Department of Corrections, but encouraged and supported. Our goal should not be retribution, which clearly does not work judging from the number of people we incarcerate, but recycling. We need to take broken individuals and prepare them to be productive members of society. That simply can't happen with continually traumatized men and women who have had lifetimes of trauma. I have witnessed the growth of many incarcerated men and women. Many of you likely have, too; you just don't realize it because people don't wear signs. Former students of mine are counselors and business owners. They are contributing and paying taxes, not using taxpayer money to languish in prison. We need to evolve beyond an “'eye for an eye” mentality.

CANCELING COLBERT

To the Editor:

Re “CBS Canceling ‘Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ After Next Season.” (Press Democrat, July 17, 2025)

In 1969, CBS canceled the top-rated variety series “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” While the network claimed that it was because of a contractual issue, most Americans saw it as a response to the show’s criticism of the Vietnam War.

In 1982, amid controversy over the actor Ed Asner’s political activism, particularly his criticism of President Ronald Reagan’s policies in El Salvador, CBS canceled Mr. Asner’s show “Lou Grant.” The network cited declining ratings as a reason.

Now CBS has canceled Stephen Colbert. Anyone who buys financial reasons for that move is naïve.

Paul Park

Ottawa

DOGGEREL BY A SENIOR CITIZEN

Our earth in 1969

Is not the planet I call mine,

The world, I mean, that gives me strength

To hold off chaos at arm's length.

My Eden landscapes and their climes

Are constructs from Edwardian times,

When bath-rooms took up lots of space,

And, before eating, one said Grace.

The automobile, the aeroplane,

Are useful gadgets, but profane:

The enginry of which I dream

Is moved by water or by steam.

Reason requires that I approve

The light-bulb which I cannot love:

To me more reverence-commanding

A fish-tail burner on the landing.

My family ghosts I fought and routed,

Their values, though, I never doubted:

I thought the Protestant Work-Ethic

Both practical and sympathetic.

When couples played or sang duets,

It was immoral to have debts:

I shall continue till I die

To pay in cash for what I buy.

The Book of Common Prayer we knew

Was that of 1662:

Though with-it sermons may be well,

Liturgical reforms are hell.

Sex was of course -- it always is --

The most enticing of mysteries,

But news-stands did not then supply

Manichean pornography.

Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,

Like learning not to belch or fart:

I cannot settle which is worse,

The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

Nor are those Ph.D's my kith,

Who dig the symbol and the myth:

I count myself a man of letters

Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

Dare any call Permissiveness

An educational success?

Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,

Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

Though I suspect the term is crap,

There is a Generation Gap,

Who is to blame? Those, old or young,

Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

But Love, at least, is not a state

Either en vogue or out-of-date,

And I've true friends, I will allow,

To talk and eat with here and now.

Me alienated? Bosh! It's just

As a sworn citizen who must

Skirmish with it that I feel

Most at home with what is Real.

*San Francisco, California, USA* (1946) by Henri Cartier-Bresson

FOR MONTHS, President Trump has maligned federal judges who rule against his agenda as politically motivated usurpers, referring to them as “U.S.A.-hating judges” and calling for their impeachment. At times, he has called into question the constitutional role of the courts as a check on the presidency.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he posted to social media, while his administration claimed expansive powers to unilaterally deport migrants and defund federal programs.

But in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, Mr. Trump has taken a different view. In this instance, according to a statement the president posted Thursday night, judges have an important role to play in deciding whether and when grand jury materials related to Mr. Epstein’s indictment for sex trafficking can be released to the public.

“I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” Mr. Trump said on social media on Thursday. The post came shortly after The Wall Street Journal reported on a 50th birthday greeting it said Mr. Trump sent Mr. Epstein in 2003, including a sexually suggestive drawing, an expression of friendship and a reference to secrets they shared. The New York Times has not verified the report.

(NY Times)

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

For the Man Accused in the Minnesota Assassinations, a Life of Erratic Turns

The Jeffrey Epstein Grand Jury Records: What Comes Next?

Trump Sues Wall Street Journal for Article on Note to Epstein

Trump Says He Doesn’t ‘Draw Pictures.’ But Many of His Sketches Sold at Auction.

When It Comes to Jeffrey Epstein, Trump Says He Is Ready to Defer to the Courts

More Than 100 People Are Still Missing in Texas, 2 Weeks After the Floods

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force

E.P.A. Says It Will Eliminate Its Scientific Research Arm

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't the first time Mr. Trump lied, nor will it be the last. We live in a world built on lies. Everything in western culture is a lie. It's all built on debt but people pretend to be wealthy. We all claim to be free and to love freedom but we are taxed to the hilt and really never own any property. Everybody in power lies, constantly, consistently and without remorse. Truth exists but it is extremely hard to find.

Donald Trump created this drawing of the Empire State Building for a charity auction in 1995, where it sold for $100. In 2017, during his first presidency, it sold for $16,000

FINAL CHAPTER CLOSES ON ARCHEGOS SCANDAL

by Matt Taibbi

It was reported this past Monday that Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo will pay a combined $120 million to settle a lawsuit that claimed they hid conflicts of interest while they sold millions of shares of ViacomCBS due to their involvement in Bill Hwang's $36 billion Archegos Capital Management fiasco in 2021.

This settlement marks a rather boring end to one of the greatest and darkly comical incidents to take place on Wall Street, one that inflicted more than $10 billion total in losses for the banks Credit Suisse, Nomura, UBS and Mitsubishi UFG. Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank were also caught up in the scandal.

The Archegos saga exploded on Friday, March 26, 2021. The stock prices of nine major U.S. and Chinese stocks plummeted on tremendous volume. For example, one stock, Viacom, dropped over 27% on an insane volume of more than 216 million shares, more than 10 times the stock’s average daily volume! In one day, $35 billion of market value in these nine stocks evaporated. Michel Keusch, portfolio manager at Bellevue Asset Management AG in Switzerland, told Bloomberg News he had “never seen something of this magnitude in my 25-year career.”

The next day, as many were scratching their heads trying to figure out what the hell happened, Bloomberg News reported: Goldman Sachs sold $6.6 billion worth of shares of Baidu Inc., Tencent Music Entertainment Group and Vipshop Holdings Ltd. before the market opened in the U.S., according to an email to clients seen by Bloomberg News. That move was followed by the sale of $3.9 billion of shares in Viacom CBS Inc., Discovery Inc., Farfetch Ltd., iQiyi Inc. and GSX Techedu Inc.

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Nomura Securities were also identified as large block sellers as the weekend wore on. Nomura stated that it may incur up to $2 billion in losses due to one client. Credit Suisse also reported that they expected significant losses due to the same client. By Sunday, the client was identified as Bill Hwang and his family office, an industry term for super wealthy families that only manage their own money. Archegos Capital Management. How the hell could one guy do all that to eight of the biggest securities firms on the planet, at the same time?

With his family office exploding, Hwang managed to complete a career hat trick of:

Destroying investor wealth (Including his own)
Getting busted for insider trading
Blowing massive holes in Wall Street banks’ balance sheets, including Credit Suisse for whom this fiasco was perhaps the last nail in its coffin. The storied Swiss bank hobbled its way toward oblivion two years later.

Who the heck is Bill Hwang?

The Wall Street Journal had a pretty funny description of Hwang “Behind the enormous losses was Mr. Hwang, a 57-year-old Korean-born investor, devout Christian and protege of famous hedge fund veteran Julian Robertson. Mr. Hwang built his fortune swinging for the fences, often focusing his investments in just a few stocks, paying little attention to hedging his positions while borrowing large amounts of money to boost his returns.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like the guy you want to literally bet the bank on! In 2008, when Hwang was managing other people’s money at his hedge fund, he was supposed to be trading Asian equities, his expertise. Instead, his investors were quite upset to find that Hwang had gotten them into what was the “GameStop” short squeeze of the 2000s, Volkswagen — which ended in disaster. VW skyrocketed over 350% in value in two days as Porsche announced it was amassing a 75% stake in the company, crushing short sellers.

Then in 2012, Hwang and his hedge fund, Tiger Asia Management, reached a $44 million settlement with the SEC on claims of insider trading. After this, Hwang started Archegos to manage his own fortune.

Archego Goes All In

Archegos, according to the SEC complaint, had exposure to more than 50% of VicacomCBS, 60% of Discovery Class A stock, and even 70% of a Chinese online education company. But these and other companies had no idea because his exposure to the stocks were through derivative transactions known as Total Return Swaps (TRS). TRS have been around for a long time. The transaction essentially replicates for the client (usually hedge funds) the profile of being long or short a specific asset or basket of assets. The derivative dealer … usually Wall Street banks — puts the asset in question on their balance sheet and structure the transaction as follows.

The dealer acquires the asset, in this case a stock like Viacom, and puts it on its balance sheet.
The hedge fund, in this case Archegos, posts liquid collateral as initial margin with the dealer.
The dealer pays Archegos if the price of Viacom increases.
Archegos pays the dealer if the price of Viacom goes down.
Archegos pays the dealer a funding charge since the Viacom stock resides on the dealer’s balance sheet used to hedge the dealer on the TRS
Based on the value of Viacom, Archegos may have to post additional margin if Viacom’s value drops.

Say there’s a TRS on 20 million shares of Viacom, and Archegos posted the value of 10 million shares as margin. It would still have exposure to $20 million. It would be the same as if Archegos purchased 10 million shares of Viacom and borrowed from the dealer to purchase the remaining 10 million shares. That is the leverage TRS provide. Why did Archegos use derivatives?

Archegos used TRS for leverage and, perhaps more importantly, to stay under the radar. The TRS allowed Archegos to have huge stakes in companies without filing required filings with the SEC. Instead, the banks he was doing the swaps with show up as the owners of the stock. For instance, for the first quarter of 2021, Credit Suisse and Nomura were the fifth and sixth largest holders of Viacom stock. Nearly all of that was on these banks’ balance sheets. If you combined the Viacom holdings of Credit Suisse, Nomura, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Goldman Sachs during the first quarter of 2021, they would be the largest common stock holder of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Perhaps something could have been done to stop the insanity if the companies and investors had known that a guy with a history of rule-breaking and careless risk-taking used massive leverage to buy more than half a company’s stock

It appears that Archegos and the dealers began amassing his stake in the companies in early 2021. Meanwhile, Viacom’s share price nearly doubled from February 1 to March 22. Viacom was so pleased that it announced plans to issue $3 billion in new stock. Viacom shares dropped sharply on the news and then plummeted as the Archegos’ highly leveraged positions generated margin calls that he could not meet and hence, the unprecedented selling of what were now the dealer’s positions on Friday, March 26th. Essentially, it only took one big loser to wipe out the entire book of TRS, which is exactly what happened.

Now comes the dark comedy of this tale. The dealers who fueled Archegos’ insane risk taking seemingly did not know that they were all in the same trades together with Archegos! According to the SEC complaint, Archegos routinely lied to the various bank counterparties as to what their Net Asset Value’s (“NAV”) real exposure was to one of the nine stocks they had massive exposure to. The complaint cites a question that an employee of CP4 — another bank that Archego had a TRS with — raised with Archegos’ trader about shares in a company called GSX. The trader, Tomita, would only say that Archego was not a “disclosed holder” of GSX.

The CP4 employee expressed concern that if Archegos held similarly-sized positions in GSX across its Counterparties as it did with CP4, then Archegos might cumulatively be the beneficial owner of almost 20% of GSX’s outstanding shares.

In response, Tomita misled the individual into believing that it must have been other entities’ SBS positions that caused those reported positions, not Archegos, when in fact (as Tomita knew) it was Archegos, which at the time had exposure to about 59% of GSX’s outstanding shares through SBSs. Archegos lied and the Wall Street banks, despite their correct concern that there was a problem, believed them. They then provided Archegos even more exposure, which the complaint explains happened time and time again nearly to the end.

The week leading up to the March 26, 2021, blowup, the SEC apparently got wind that that something funky was going on and called on the dealers involved. This is when Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Nomura, UBS, Deutsche Bank and the rest realized, seemingly for the first time, that Archegos had done the same trades with all of them! Boom!

The banks got together on a call before the fateful Friday in an attempt to manage the dumpster fire. Credit Suisse and Nomura suggested that the banks work together to slowly and quietly unwind the mess. It seems that while nodding their heads, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank ran to the exits and pulled the rip cord, selling millions of shares of the nine companies. Credit Suisse, Nomura and UBS were left holding the bag and took the majority of the losses associated with the Archegos unwind. Interestingly, Credit Suisse commissioned a report for its board of directors to try and explain how it managed to lose $5.5 billion.

The Archegos default exposed several significant deficiencies in CS’s risk culture, revealing a Prime Services business with a lackadaisical attitude towards risk and risk discipline; a lack of accountability for risk failures; risk systems that identified acute risks, which were systematically ignored by business and risk personnel; and a cultural unwillingness to engage in challenging discussions or to escalate matters posing grave economic and reputational risk. The Archegos matter directly calls into question the competence of the business and risk personnel who had all the information necessary to appreciate the magnitude and urgency of the Archegos risks, but failed at multiple junctures to take decisive and urgent action to address them.

In 2024, Credit Suisse had to do the Geneva Walk of Shame and let themselves be absorbed by their hated rival UBS, while Bill Hwang was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Archegos Chief Financial Officer Patrick Halligan was sentenced to eight years. The Archegos saga yet again confirms that when it comes to making lots of money, people in positions of authority do incredibly stupid and greedy things. Once again, the “smartest guys in the room” really weren’t that smart at all.

THE EPSTEIN ENIGMA

by James Kunstler

“It would make [Epstein] a story with which we have to be persistent and steady in our demands; but also cautious, and methodical, and discerning.” —Naomi Wolf

Do you detect the signs of Rope-a-Dope in Mr. Trump’s recent blasts against the Epstein mess? It must be obvious that anything he says will be violently opposed by his Democratic Party enemies. So, now he’s got them slavering for release of the Epstein files, whatever they are, or rather, whatever’s left after former FBI Director Christopher Wray & Co. curated them, shall we say. (They had many years to get it done.)

I’m not the first to point out that the president’s most rabid enemies ignored the Epstein case during the entirety of “Joe Biden’s” four-year ectoplasmic visitation in the White House. (They were up to their eyeballs siccing Fani Willis, Letitia James, and Alvin Bragg on him.) “Squad” stalwart Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said the other day that she was “too busy” to delve into Epstein. Everybody else from Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to Jamie Raskin (D-MD) just barfed up word salad on MSNBC to excuse themselves for overlooking the matter. But since Mr. Trump affected to quash the whole psychodrama in the harshest tones, they’ve got all the time in the world to pore over Epstein docs. Well, maybe they’ll get what they asked for.

So, yesterday, the president ordered AG Bondi to release the grand jury testimony that has been under seal for years and years, and she has promised to do that today, Friday, July 18, subject to the court approval, meaning it could invite a months-long legal battle. Gawd knows what’s in there, but at least it was kept out of Christopher Wray’s clutches. So, it’s separate from the videos and other stuff alleged to be in the FBI possession.

Many say, not altogether convincingly, that the names of “victims” and witnesses must be protected. There’s much confused public controversy as to whether girls allegedly trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were children or young adults (who would be middle-aged now), and that issue is apparently separate from whatever commercial “child porn” was in the FBI’s Epstein file cabinet that AG Bondi has referred to. Anyway, Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure says:

Disclosure is permitted to government attorneys or personnel (including state or tribal officials) deemed necessary to assist in enforcing federal criminal law, such as in complex investigations involving organized crime or public corruption.

The current state of the Epstein scandal looks a little like a ruse by Mr. Trump to hang his enemies out to dry and sell them the clothes-line to do it with. In all their garish attempts to get Trump, the Democrats have only ended up Wile E. Coyote’d every single time. Why would this round be any different?

Meanwhile, Naomi Wolf by way of Eric Weinstein has come up with quite an original view of what Jeffrey Epstein was about in the strange role he played among the so-called elite. I will link to her recent substack entry below this blog so you can see for yourself. For Ms. Wolf, it was all about the Silicon Valley “network” of tech moguls, their vast power and influence, and an effort by this group, using Epstein as a broker, to steer science generally in the direction that benefited them and their companies. Epstein served as a middleman between politicians, the weapons industry, the big research universities (all those grants!), and linked intel services such as CIA, Mossad, and MI6.

This is what Eric Weinstein means when he describes Epstein as “a construct.” He was less a person than a function. Epstein cultivated the “list” of elite scientists, tech entrepreneurs, academics, and movie stars with lavish parties and trips to his various compounds in Manhattan, Florida, the US Virgin Islands, and his New Mexico ranch — all in the service of building this tech-and-science network that would become a gigantic mutual aid-and-allegiance society advancing the interests of themselves and their institutions. In the process, certain goodies in the form of young ladies groomed in the sexual arts were made available. Some members of this elite network indulged and some did not, the theory goes.

So, one big problem with disclosing all their activity is that many prominent people who are innocent will find themselves nefariously associated with other prominent people who did go for the bait. Hence, this powerful network sedulously defends itself by all necessary means, and even President Donald Trump is wary of crossing them. And hence, also, Mr. Trump’s testy attitude about all the growing attention on Epstein lately, aggravated by his MAGA millions’ expectations for “transparency.”

The personal intersection between Epstein and now-President Trump over the years was incidental to all the other stuff and the people Epstein was into. The two chumming around a bit in the New York nightspots thirty-odd years ago was about the extent of it. Now, there is the silly birthday note supposedly at issue, also decades-old and arguably spurious (published in The Wall Street Journal) and Mr. Trump is suing over it. Ultimately, one night back in 2007, Mr. Trump had Epstein tossed out of his Mar-a-Lago club when either JE or Ghislaine came-on salaciously to his friend’s teenage daughter, and that was the end of that bromance.

Ms. Wolf, with a boost from Eric Weinstein, gives a pretty good account of what may actually have gone on in Jeffrey Epstein’s strange saga. Of course, there are other very strange facets to the story — such as why the DOJ went after him in 2019 (to use against the feared reelection of Trump?), or whether Epstein was murdered in jail, and how he managed to get his mitts on hundreds of millions of dollars with such a poor record as a financial manager. An enigma, fer sure.

PAYING THE COST

MAGA hats

And hair on fire

Discover that

Trump’s a liar

Barbie Bondi

And Kash Patel

Bozo Bongino

In conspiracy hell

TACO chicken

Real or not

The plot does thicken

Revealing the rot

Powerful men

Pedos all

Pulses quicken

Afraid of their fall

All is lost

In a tornado’s swirl

Paying the cost

Of molesting young girls

— Elvin Woods

NOTE ON NEW TRUMP-RUSSIA DISCLOSURES

by Matt Taibbi

As has been rumored all week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard began releasing documents this afternoon related to intelligence community shenanigans committed in the waning days of Barack Obama’s presidency, before and after the 2016 presidential election. It’s damning stuff that exposes the Trump-Russia hysteria as a complete and utter fake, and should obliterate the reputation of the commercial news media. There is no answer to these documents. To take one example, intelligence officials on December 8th, 2016 were prepared to release a Presidential Daily Briefing concluding that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”

That “did not impact” memo — exactly the opposite of what the Obama White House would claim a month later — never reached the public, thanks to the intervention of a senior official in Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office:

On the following day, December 9th, 2016, members of Obama’s National Security Principals Committee — including Clapper, CIA director John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Brian McKeon, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and Avril Haines — gathered for a meeting, after which each received an email titled, “POTUS Tasking on Russia Election Meddling.” The email tasked the members with the creation of a new “assessment per the President’s request.”

From that moment forward, intelligence officials began leaking “blatantly false” information about a nonexistent “secret assessment” that Russia intervened to influence the “outcome of the election.” This leaking continued unabated until January 6th, when a new, hastily-crafted Intelligence Community Assessment was released, triggering a series of developments that led to the publication of the Steele Dossier and an explosion of media stories linking Trump and Russia in an unprecedented scandal.

The material is bolstered throughout by explanations of a whistleblower from then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office. Just this handful of documents holds explosive implications, implicating a much bigger pool of White House officials than previously understood, including Obama himself, in what appears to be a top-down effort to create a false narrative about Russia meddling to help Donald Trump. If there’s an analog in American history, I can’t think of it.

This is a major action taken by Tulsi Gabbard, whose office was earlier reported by Paul Sperry of RealClear Investigations to have hosted an “urgent” meeting in a secure facility last Sunday.

They met to discuss “new Russiagate information” with Trump’s Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board as well as officials from the Department of Justice.

With this material, she and the rest of this team are taking on a long list of powerful predecessors, and it’s expected she’ll be made the focus of an all-out negative publicity campaign. “Will be a wild ride,” is how one source put it tonight.

More material is coming. I was working on a different part of this story, about plans for possible charges, when these documents came out this afternoon, so I’ve had to start over. More will be out beginning in the morning. It’s a fascinating moment, and we’ll make sure Racket readers are kept in the loop as new material comes out. Have a good night, everyone.

BAD DAYS & WORSE DAYS

by Selma Dabbagh

Malak Musleh, who was among those killed in the bombing of al-Baqaa Café in Gaza City on 29 June

Last month, Gazans honoured their donkeys, dressing them up and walking them down a red carpet to celebrate the animals and contrast their resilience and support to that provided by global leaders. Reports soon followed of the large-scale theft of donkeys from Gaza by Israel. Some are being transferred to a farm in Israel called ‘Let’s Start Again’. Glossy videos describe their care. Some are said to have been exported to France and Belgium.

Meanwhile trauma centres in Gaza are recording the questions that children are asking: when it rains will we drown in the tent? When they bomb the tent, will we burn? Why do they always bomb us? I don’t want to die in pieces. Will the dogs that ate the dead bodies of the martyrs turn into humans? Do children who have their legs amputated grow new legs? Do the Israeli pilots who bomb children have children?

The image that comes to mind when I think of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a monster blender that drags in the starving and spits out the wounded and the dead. If you track the numbers there are bad days and worse days but the daily killings at one of the only permitted food sources in Gaza are proceeding like this: 8, 13, 17, 25, 24, 80, 11, 44, 37, 31, 25, 26, 27. For each murdered son, brother, daughter or mother who volunteered to approach this mechanism of carnage in the hope of returning alive with supplies for those waiting hungry and dependent in a shelled building, in a makeshift tent or under rubble, there are many more who return injured. A friend has lost two brothers in recent months who were both killed trying to get aid for the family from these distribution centres.

In late June, a couple of Israeli soldiers admitted that they had direct orders to shoot unarmed Palestinians seeking aid. As Raji Sourani of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights says, it makes no sense for the perpetrators of genocide to be entrusted with the provision of aid to the people they are trying to kill.

Most Palestinians in Gaza who have managed to survive the past 21 months have lost their homes and been displaced several times. Almost all are now malnourished. Fresh food is all but unattainable as agricultural land has been destroyed and aid is denied entry. The young journalist Bisan Owda was given her first apple in five months by an international aid worker from outside Gaza: ‘I swear to God I had almost forgotten how it tastes.’ The French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu went to Gaza with Médecins sans Frontières in December 2024. ‘We were only allowed to bring personal medication and three kilos of food,’ he said, ‘with no more than one kilo per product.’ Thousands of aid trucks are lined up at the border but denied entry by Israelis.

By 10 June more than 680,000 Palestinians had been forcibly displaced (most not for the first time) since Israel broke the ceasefire in March. Israel now controls 82 per cent of the strip. The Norwegian Refugee Council reported in late June that the shelter system was on the verge of failure. Around a year ago, I sent a message to my friend Marwa in Gaza as another friend in London was worried about a doctor she knew who was sleeping in the street with no cover. ‘Ah the problem of the tents,’ Marwa’s long voice message began. She explained how expensive, how rare, how damaged they were.

Last month 149 countries voted in the UN General Assembly to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. Only 12 voted against (including Israel and the US) and 19 abstained (including India). But still no tents can enter Gaza. No tents, no food, no fuel, no medicine, no baby formula. Gaza has been under siege by land, sea and air since 2006, with tighter blockades put in place on 9 October 2023 and total closure on 2 March 2025. In the words of the UN, Gaza is ‘the hungriest place on earth’. Filiu described a ‘situation of total, widespread distress’. Caused not by an earthquake, flood or other natural disaster, but by the deliberate actions of a government headed by individuals with ICC arrest warrants issued against them.

Have we no shame? Have we no political clout at all? In the hospitals that still stand, blood transfusions are almost impossible as would-be donors are too malnourished and anaemic. ‘Even that which should be healing us,’ my friend Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta told me on the phone from Lebanon, ‘is now killing us.’ Where they can, hospitals are setting up new units for starving babies. Some are reporting that they have not a single carton of milk left. UNICEF reported that ‘acute malnutrition is rising at an alarming rate’ on 16 June. The head of paediatrics at al-Nasr al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital described a daily increase in meningitis infections linked to the lack of clean water. Life expectancy in Gaza, according to a ‘conservative’ estimate published in the Lancet, nearly halved between October 2023 and September 2024, from around 75 to 40 years of age, the lowest in the world by nearly twenty years (it’s 59 in Somalia).

Most schools that are still standing are used as shelters for the displaced. They continue to be bombed by Israel. The bombing intensified around the Eid al-Adha festival in early June. After al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was bombed again on 5 June, the archbishop of York condemned the ‘relentless and outrageous pattern of attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities in Gaza’. On 10 June, the WHO announced that al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis was ‘essentially out of service’. Two days later, according to Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Israeli army issued forced displacement orders in the area around Nasser Medical Complex, the last remaining hospital in southern Gaza.

At the same time, 7amleh (the Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media) reported a total internet blackout, beginning with an attack on the ‘main fibre backbone connecting Gaza City and north Gaza’:

This is not a technical failure. It is a deliberate strategy of digital erasure and forced isolation, part of a broader campaign of displacement, domination and dehumanisation.

In these unimaginably murderous conditions, people are continuing to study and pursue their research interests. They are forming Emergency Committees to co-ordinate the future of the education sector. They continue to report on their situation despite the targeting of journalists (at least 23 have been killed this year). They document human rights abuses and war crimes. They share their food if they can get it. They find ways to entertain the children with clowns, dance, music and storytelling. They fix damaged cables and rebuild hospitals. Doctors and medical workers, exhausted by hunger and separated from their families, continue to work inhumanely long hours under bombardment. They look for joy where they can find it.

These signs of spiritual resistance, of refusing to be cowed into docile victims, are intolerable to the Israeli army. On 29 June, Israel killed at least forty Palestinians at al-Baqaa Café in Gaza City. The dead included two journalists, Ismail Hateb and Bayan Abu Sultan, the boxer Malak Musleh and the footballer Mustafa Abu Amireh, two of hundreds of athletes killed since October 2023. I looked Musleh up and was surprised to find news of her killing on the Instagram page of the journalist Hussam Shabat. I clicked on the link: ‘Hussam was assassinated by Israeli occupation forces on 24 March 2025 for doing his job as a journalist. This account is now managed by his team.’

Then on 12 July the Israeli army declared that even the sea is prohibited. ‘This cruel and inhumane order is deliberately timed to coincide with the extreme heat wave gripping Gaza now,’ Jewish Voice for Peace commented. Bisan Owda went to the beach the following day expecting it to be deserted but instead found children playing in the sea and people still ‘enjoying the water’.

The UN Commission of Inquiry’s most recent report found that ‘Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed over half of all religious and cultural sites’. All three commissioners resigned this week, citing personal reasons. A few days earlier, the US had imposed sanctions on the UN special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, for having ‘directly engaged with the International Criminal Court in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries’. In April, the Foreign Office warned retired Lord Justice Adrian Fulford, Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws and Danny Friedman KC of Matrix Chambers that they faced possible US sanctions for their involvement in the ICC’s war crimes case against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

The ICC, once described to me by one of its officials as a ‘fragile flower’ of the international legal system, has also been threatened directly. According to al-Jazeera, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was told in May by a defence lawyer at the court, Nicholas Kaufman, that if he issued arrest warrants for the Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, ‘they will destroy you, and they will destroy the court.’ On 16 July, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber rejected Israel’s request to withdraw its warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

Meanwhile, in the first week of July, Israel bombed Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon and Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank. As Mustafa Barghouti put it, ‘Israel is imposing full occupation over the West Bank and creating a new reality.’ In early June, as part of an ongoing offensive lasting more than 130 days, 58 buildings were razed in Tulkarem. More than 25,000 residents have been displaced. A week later, 300 houses were destroyed in Jenin and Nur Shams, where 40,000 people have been displaced. ‘Once full of life,’ a Red Cross official said, ‘the camps are now reduced to rubble.’

One gets sick of putting numbers on the horror. ‘In my twenty years working in this area and working throughout conflict zones all over the world,’ the head of Oxfam Ireland told RTÉ, ‘we’ve never seen anything like this.’ Protesters continue to fill the streets of Europe and across the world. A Pew Research survey conducted across 24 countries found that most people have an unfavourable view of Israel and Netanyahu. In Bogotá, the Hague Group held an emergency conference at which twelve countries, including South Africa and Indonesia, agreed to implement six measures ‘to break the ties of complicity with Israel’s campaign of devastation in Palestine’. The Spanish parliament voted to apply sanctions on Israel. The UK’s largest union, Unite, voted for an arms embargo. Dockworkers in Morocco, Spain and Greece are taking action to obstruct the export of weapons to Israel.

On 30 June, the English High Court issued its judgment denying the application by al-Haq to curtail the sale of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, while the UK government pushed through legislation to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

This week, a protester in Kent was confronted by armed police and threatened with arrest because she had a Palestinian flag and signs that said ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Israel is committing genocide’. There was no mention of Palestine Action and when asked she denied supporting them. But the armed officers told her that ‘mentioning freedom of Gaza, Israel, genocide, all of that all come under proscribed groups.’

(London Review of Books)

21 Comments

Bob Abeles July 19, 2025

The answer is 27. Solve this set of 3 simultaneous equations: [10 = c+r, 20 = d+r, and 24 = d+c] giving c=7, d=17, r=3. 27 = c+d+r.

Reply
Casey Hartlip July 19, 2025

Maybe Colbert was cancelled because 1. His show wasn’t funny anymore. 2. He had a staff of 200 and CBS was losing $40M A year?

Reply
Paul Modic July 19, 2025

Too Real For The AVA
My submission this week to the AVA was rejected, damn, can’t even give it away. (At least it’s not like ten years ago when I was writing anonymous weed stories, not getting paid or any recognition, two time loser.) The story was probably deep-sixed, after the Major and Editor were most likely amused, because of a paragraph where an old lady was telling me about her sex life with her boyfriend, with intimate descriptions of body parts. (See, now I’m trying to avoid this letter getting dumped too, close call?)
So for seventeen “bad” words the whole 1700 word mess was garbaged, okay, maybe it was too long, as well as being Too Real For The AVA. I didn’t go out of my way to invent some sex talk, I was quoting this seventy-five-year old lady, not a great excuse I realize. The scene was funny to me: this woman I’d just met briefly once before is telling me these intimate details, should I have taken my dear mama’s repeated advice and cleaned it up before submitting? No, censorship is one thing, but self-censorship is abhorrent.
What is obscene in the AVA, a few explicit words about sex now and then or weeks, months, and years describing bombing victims in Gaza and other places? Isn’t just the uttering of the word President T—- an obscenity?
I’m proud to be Too Real For The AVA, though even Bukowski would’ve cleaned it up some and Lenny Bruce would have been artful about it, but I’m not a creative writer, just a gonzo journalist telling what happened. Just as Justine is a prude and Chuck a dirty old man, some things will never change, though yeah, I should’ve taken my mother’s advice years ago.
My next submission, about coke in the eighties, uses the expression “took a shit” about four times, probably also Too Real For The AVA. Then after that rejection I got some nice white bread which will probably satisfy the bosses. (In fairness, Bruce runs a free wheeling porn sheet here compared to RHBB’s uptight standards.)

Reply
- Chuck Dunbar July 19, 2025
  
  Keep trying, Paul. Maybe use some very sophisticated, arcane words for sexual behaviors that most of us are too prudish to even know about–slip them through those watchful eyes, give ’em a surprise..Or, failing that, get real subtle, still getting the message delivered–that we live in a world full of sex! Don’t give up!
  
  Reply
- Bruce Anderson July 19, 2025
  
  Gratuitous vulgarity may amuse 10-year-olds, but it doesn’t us. We constantly have had to monitor you for what seems to be your obsessive need to work sex into your otherwise interesting accounts.
  
  Reply
  - Chuck Dunbar July 19, 2025
    
    My bad, then, for my above post–got into 10 year old boy mode– there are times for me to keep my mouth shut…..
    
    Reply
Me July 19, 2025

Why does Lake County have so many missing people reports. I’ve been watching the reports the last couple of years and it seems that they have a very high rate of people (all ages) that are missing mysteriously.

Reply
- George Hollister July 19, 2025
  
  There is also Covelo, and Laytonville to keep in mind.
  
  Reply
Norm Thurston July 19, 2025

Though there has been a walking path along the railroad tracks in Ukiah for years, the amount of public safety provided to the area has increased greatly since the construction of the Great Redwood Trail. As with all areas within the city limits, the police respond to calls for service along the trail. Unless the city has agreed to do so, it is not required to patrol the areas any more than it patrols any other area in the city. The fact that the Great Redwood Trail Agency has contracted with a private security firm indicates they believe there is a need for additional patrols. It seems logical that the Ukiah Police Department would be the first choice to do that, and the GRTA might consider contracting with UPD to do additional patrols, at a cost equal to the city’s cost of providing the service. Does anyone know if this has ever been discussed?

Reply
- Call It As I See It July 19, 2025
  
  There has been increased security along the trail.
  John McGowan noticed he was having to clear trash at the courthouse site at an alarming rate, he stumbled across several encampments. He knew it was railroad property and contacted Trouette. McGowan also informed him that the trail was having encampment issues on the trail at Airport Blvd. He told him UPD had just cleared a large encampment at that site. With this information, Trouette sent railroad security to the trail. Trouette also arranged a clean up at the courthouse site with McGowan. McGowan hired local businesses owners and citizens to complete weed whacking, tree trimming and when all was said and done, eight truckloads of trash. By the way, McGowan doesn’t receive a salary. He does this because he truly cares about our community.
  
  Reply
  - Bruce Anderson July 19, 2025
    
    McCowen is the correct spelling of the former supervisor’s name.
    
    Reply
    - Call It As I See It July 19, 2025
      
      Okay Mr. Spellcheck! My apologies to John.
      Just trying to bring some light to the subject on what I know. My understanding was Trouette was responsible for the property, you would have to ask McCowen.
      
      Reply
  - Norm Thurston July 19, 2025
    
    Was Trouette being paid for his services? If so, by who? The article says GRTA brought in Trouette, but you make it sound like McCowen brought them in. Did GRTA give McCowan authority to call in Trouette? Your post brings up more questions than answers.
    
    I have great admiration and respect for John McCowen, and all those who volunteer to cleanup public spaces. And for the UPD, which seems to be the de facto overseer of the GRT in Ukiah. But this is an ongoing issue, created in large part by the GRTA. GRTA got their trail, now they should be responsible for maintaining it, including the types of cleanups you mentioned. It would also seem reasonable for them to provide weekly (at a minimum) patrols, to prevent camps from getting established.
    
    Reply
    - Call It As I See It July 19, 2025
      
      I think John called the railroad who owns the property . The actual property is not the trail, the trail is adjacent to it. But my understanding is the trail is on or near tracks. So the property owner is the railroad. I could be wrong but that’s what I’ve been told by John.
      
      Reply
- Bruce Anderson July 19, 2025
  
  The Great Redwood Trail has been an expensive boondoggle from the outset. It will never happen beyond a few miles of redwood-free pavement such as we see in Ukiah. Security is the least of it and, insofar as it exists, left to sanctioned police agencies rather than this Trouette character and his militia.
  
  Reply
  - Call It As I See It July 19, 2025
    
    I believe the railroad hired Trouette to do security for them.
    
    Reply
Chuck Dunbar July 19, 2025

History Will Judge Us Harshley

“When unidentified people in masks jump out of unmarked vehicles, handcuff someone, take them to an undisclosed location, and detain them indefinitely, that’s not law enforcement. It’s kidnapping.

When the U.S. government then sends people it’s kidnapped to a foreign country, the practice escalates to human trafficking.

ICE is creating a global pipeline of American-sponsored gulags in countries often notorious for violence and human rights violations.

People sent to these overseas prisons have no idea how long they’ll remain incarcerated in a country that is not their home.

The U.S. Constitution is clear: Not only is every person entitled to due process in a court of law, but even those convicted of crimes must not endure cruel and unusual punishment.

More than 71 percent of current ICE detainees have no criminal conviction — and still ICE trafficked detainees to CECOT, the infamous Salvadoran torture prison where it’s been said ‘the only way out is in a coffin.’ ”

THE INTERCEPT 7-19-25

Reply
Cotdbigun July 19, 2025

How to destroy democracy, step one: Elect the president through a democratic process involving popular vote and Electoral College.
How to save democracy, step one: Force the presumptive Democratic nominee to withdraw after a democratic process in the state primaries that secured a majority delegates.

Reply
- Norm Thurston July 19, 2025
  
  I assume you are talking about Biden’s withdrawal. In a perfect world, those who knew Biden was unelectable would have sounded the alarm much sooner, and louder. But we don’t live in a perfect world. Pressuring Biden to step down, even at that late date, was the only acceptable move. But the biggest mistake was anointing Harris, and not holding an open convention.
  
  Reply
  - George Hollister July 19, 2025
    
    Democratic elections are never perfect, and neither are candidates. Voters are not perfect either, but in Democratic elections voters are who is supposed to decided who is electable, not party big wigs. Media isn’t perfect either or there would have been more independent minded, and clear headed thinking about Biden’s diminished mental state back in 2020, when it was obvious he wasn’t playing with a full deck. And what does it mean in a never perfect world when a lifelike cardboard cutout of a person is presented as a candidate because it is electable, while there was another candidate in the same party that was winning primaries who party bigwigs deemed to be unelectable?
    
    Reply
Bruce McEwen July 19, 2025

Ol’ JHK be hooking and fetching like his hair was afire and his ass a-catching— like when he went all-in on Y2K and had to do the same pain-dance like he’d accidentally shot himself while twirling his sixgun around his finger — the risks a doomsday prophet takes … but just think of all the money he made latching on to a gold idol! Fire & Brimstone be thy lot Kunstler!

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Mendocino County Today: Saturday 7/19/2025

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