Mendocino County Today: Sunday 7/20/2025

By AVA News Service on July 20, 2025

ANOTHER WARM DAY is expected in the interior today with stratus and fog likely along the coast. Cooler conditions expected Monday and Tuesday, with a low chance of rain for the area. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): How about some clear skies for a change this Sunday morning on the coast with 51F? That heavy drizzle yesterday morning brought .05" of wet stuff. Our forecast indicates a sunnier day perhaps but the fog is right close by so.... The early part of the week offers several mentions of more drizzle & maybe even a shower? Yes really, stayed tuned.

6am UPDATE: it's foggy again now

TWEEKER JOE CORRALLED

On April 8, 2025, an employee with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) reported to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) that three access cards and approximately $1,900 worth of items including an iPad, were stolen out of their vehicle on Highway 20 near Irmulco Rd. The iPad was later located in a dumpster in the Willits area via its tracking system.

It was later determined that one of the stolen access cards was used during an attempted purchase of approximately $2,200 worth of items from Coast Hardware in Willits. One of the stolen access cards was also used at New Trend Wireless and a fuel station.

Identifiable information specific to a Toyota Camry was provided to the investigating Sheriff's Office Deputy and a records check determined that vehicle was registered to a Joseph Andersen, 37, out of Ukiah. Additional information was obtained during the investigation that determined Andersen was the suspect for this incident.

On June 26, 2025, a Boonville resident contacted the Sheriff's Office and reported a burglary of a storage unit in the 1700 block of Highway 253. It was determined that three Stihl brand chainsaws were stolen from the unit. The collective value of the chainsaws was determined to be approximately $3,500. Andersen and his Toyota were also determined to be associated with this incident.

On June 29, 2025, a Ukiah resident contacted the Sheriff's Office and reported the theft of a credit card. It was determined that the victim’s credit card was fraudulently used to purchase approximately $2,000 worth of items. Other attempts at using the access card were made; however, they were unsuccessful. It was again determined that Andersen and his Toyota Camry were associated with this incident.

Sheriff's Office Detectives were informed of the above reported incidents. Detectives learned that Andersen had two counts of summary probation in Mendocino County. Detectives conducted an investigation into Andersen’s whereabouts and ultimately located Andersen at the Super 8 Motel in Fort Bragg on Jul 10, 2025.

A search of Andersen’s person and Toyota found him to be in possession of suspected methamphetamine, a used pipe commonly used for smoking methamphetamine, burglary tools, and various items associated with the aforementioned crimes. Andersen was also found to have at least two prior convictions of both theft-related crimes and possession of controlled substance-related crimes.

Andersen was placed under arrest and transported to the Mendocino County Jail without further incident, where he was to be held in lieu of $146,000 bail.

Andersen was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance with 2 or more prior convictions (Felony), Fraudulent Use of an Access Card (Felony), Possession of Stolen Property (Felony), Second Degree Burglary (Felony), Theft with 2 or more prior convictions (Felony), Grand Theft from Vehicle (Felony), Possession of Burglary Tools (Misdemeanor), Possession of a Used Methamphetamine Pipe (Misdemeanor), and Violation of Probation (Misdemeanor)

The victims of these thefts/burglaries were identified as a 37-year-old male of Boonville, a 33-year-old male of Boonville, a 33-year-old female of Ukiah, a 36-year-old male of Ukiah, Pacific Gas and Electric (Business) and the People of the State of California

Anyone with information related to Andersen's criminal activity or these ongoing investigations is requested to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086 (option 1). Information can also be provided anonymously by calling 707-234-2100.

FORT BRAGG ICE RALLY

Thanks to everyone who turned out for the rally in Fort Bragg today!

Next Rally: Saturday, July 26th at 11AM on the sidewalk in front of the Guest House Museum on Main Street in Fort Bragg.

IN THE WAKE of Matt LaFever’s useful coverage of the Great Redwood Trail’s decision to “cut ties” with controversial security firm Lear Asset Management, some Ukiah landowners are starting to wonder what exactly the Great Redwood Trail and its Executive Director Elaine Hogan are really doing for security in the unincorporated areas outside Ukiah that pieces of the trail now go through. We’re told that it’s common to see homeless encampments along the trail/tracks which come and go and move around randomly and seem to present various and continuous kinds and levels of hazards to neighbors, trail buffs, the waterways, and themselves. We’ve been told that within city limits, Ukiah police do some regular patrolling along the trail. But the Sheriff can’t staff a comparable patrol outside city limits. Apparently property owners are on their own now when they encounter an encampment since Lear is no longer on call. Just recently Ms. Hogan, with the presumed approval of her GRT Board, has put out a $125k RFP for “homeless outreach services,” which may or may not be related to the cancellation of Lear Asset Management, and that so far it appears that only one sketchy private Ukiah area non-profit that runs a small drug/alcohol rebab program had “bid” for the job. The RFP process used was rushed through and no attempt was made to solicit interested bidders. The County’s homeless agencies are not involved even though they deal with the same people. Our sources say Ms. Hogan and her Board don’t seem to know how to handle the homeless security problem and are flailing around for some kind of stop-gap measure. Lear was one of them, but they’re gone now. All we’ve seen from the GRT officials concerning security plans so far are vague statements about “partnerships” with various unnamed “agencies.” Aside from the larger questions of the GRT fantasy/boondoggle and its insider arrangement that is modeled after its predecessor boondoggle, the Democratic Party-run NCRA fantasy/boondoggle, you have to wonder what the GRT’s policy is on security and procurement. Say what you will about the decades-long Bosco/Stogner NCRA Railroad Scam (and we are on record as having said much more than most), they were at least clever and politically savvy. We don’t see any evidence of that with the rejuvenated Trail Boondoggle staffers. Just leaving the inexperienced Ms. Hogan to her own devices does not seem like a professional approach. We hope that concerned land owners, especially those along the unincorporated segments of the Trail, put some pressure on the GRT Board and management to stop ignoring the security problem that will only get worse when or if the Great Hobo Trail inches its way further out into the rural areas.

(Mark Scaramella)

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

This cutie pie Boxer puppy is 14 weeks old and a hefty 30 pounds! She’s just a youngster, but she already has lots of personality and charm — she knows what she likes and what she does not!

Daffy is an active girl and enjoys racing around with her canine buddies. She’s curious and delights in exploring everything, but she knows when it’s time to settle down for a snooze. Like most puppies, Daffy is affectionate, and a belly rub and some cuddles will get you a place on her most-loved human list. Daffy can be a bit shy when meeting new people, but in minutes she is friendly and welcoming. Ms. D is a great age to begin learning what’s allowed and what’s verboten — and puppy classes are available in the Ukiah area!

For information about all of our adoptable dogs and cats and our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.

Join us the first Saturday of every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event.

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!

HELEN SIZEMORE, UKIAH:

I have the 60 signatures for the Notice of Intention to Recall the DA. Easily acquired.

I will be going to the Registrar on Monday and then delivering to Eyster I hope. As long as all is up to snuff.

PROPOSED FEE SCHEDULE

Point Arena city council meeting agenda item: A Proposed fee schedule is up for discussion. There was a lot of interest in this item the first time it was proposed. Maybe some people are still interested and will be tuning in or showing up at the city council meeting this coming Tuesday 6.

(Jennifer Smallwood)

KZYX HAS LOST 25% OF IT'S OPERATIONAL FUNDING, $174,000.

by Andre de Channes

KZYX has now officially lost 25% of it's operational funding, or $174,000. These cuts at KZYX have necessitated cutting news staff, as well as many critical operational expenses, leaving KZYX and KZYZ Mendocino County Public Broadcasting in a vulnerable position.

The House voted on final passage of the Trump administration's rescission package, which has officially clawed back $9 billion in funds allocated for public media and foreign aid last evening.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting stands to lose $1.1 billion meant to fund it through the next two years. CPB acts as a conduit for federal money to NPR, PBS and their member stations.

(Andres de Channes is KZYX’s General Manager)

The raven on the right is the largest raven I have seen. His mate seems to be trying to talk to him while he looks the other way lol. I found myself wondering if he might be older, both with his size and the funny little hairdo.

— Liana Anderson

FORKS

Forks used to be a separate town, but it’s now been absorbed into Ukiah. According to the current building owner, Forks was named because it was a fork in the road where you could continue north to Willits or east to Lake county. Others have suggested the name comes from the nearby confluence of the two forks of the Russian River. The Forks Cafe building and hotel date from circa 1900, records with the exact date do not exist. Cafe sign dates from the 1950s. At the hotel (now apartments) what is now a carport was originally stalls for travelers' horses. The house across the street dates from before 1900. No records of the exact date exist.

And no to my knowledge Edward and Belle never ate there.

— Info from the property owner (over 60) who grew up in the house behind the cafe.

THE NOYO BIDA TRUTH PROJECT July 2025

August Teach-In

Upcoming Event: Saturday, August 2nd at 1 PM at Mendocino College, Coast Campus, 1211 Del Mar Drive, Fort Bragg - Room 112

Special Guest Speaker Tatiana Cantrell, The Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) Director for the Pinoleville Pomo Nation.

www.changeournamefortbragg.com

GALINA TREFIL

I ordered my mourning clothes yesterday. Wearing black for the dead isn't really done in this culture anymore, but it's my intention to wear black for Joshua Lee McCollister, my fiance, for one year. It is a sign of respect to him, and an acknowledgment of how much I loved him.

I still can't believe that he was murdered. Some people want to be rich. Some want to be famous. They imagine great and ambitious glorified futures for themselves. All that he wanted was to be home with his family. To be somewhere away from people, where people didn't know us, wouldn't recognize us, just him, me, and the kids. It's all that I wanted too.

THE GIRLIE MAHONEY

by Carol Dominy

On December 23, 1919, the steamer Girlie Mahoney, loaded with 360,000 feet of lumber, was wrecked in Albion harbor after stormy seas and a series of failed rescue efforts doomed the vessel. Originally built in 1904 as the James S. Higgins and later reconstructed and renamed, the Mahoney had long served as a dependable workhorse of the coastal lumber trade. That day, as she attempted to depart after completing her load, her stern line fouled in the propeller, rendering her immobile. Despite attempts to secure her with mooring lines and summon assistance, worsening conditions and miscommunication among nearby ships sealed her fate.

Rescue efforts were frantic but ultimately ineffective. The Birdie Hanlon, waiting offshore to load, was signaled to assist but failed to respond. The Phoenix, lying off Elk, could not be contacted in time. The Sea Foam, summoned while taking on cargo at Mendocino, finally arrived but was unable to secure a line to the disabled vessel in the mounting waves and fading daylight.

Two small boats from the Mahoney were launched to lay out lines and evacuate the crew. One reached the wharf safely, while the other capsized in the surf. Miraculously, all aboard survived; some were hauled to safety by the captain and mate, who had remained on board.

As night fell, the Mahoney broke free and began to drift. She first nosed along the south side of the harbor, where lines were thrown to those still aboard and the crew was hauled to safety. Later, she struck the north reef, spilling her deckload of lumber into the sea, before rebounding and crashing through 150 feet of the Albion wharf. Finally, she beached herself on the north shore of the harbor, near the spot where the Prentiss had gone ashore two years earlier. But unlike the Prentiss, which had escaped serious damage, the Mahoney was torn apart by the relentless pounding of the waves. By morning, she was a total loss.

In the weeks that followed, crews worked to salvage what remained. Though the deckload had been swept away, some of the lumber stowed below decks was recoverable, despite being soaked and fouled with oil from a ruptured fuel tank. Rebuilding the damaged section of wharf proceeded quickly, and by late January 1920, shipping had resumed. The wreck of the Girlie Mahoney stood as a stark reminder of the risks faced by coastal vessels navigating the rough waters of the Mendocino coast.

(www.kelleyhousemuseum.org)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, July 19, 2025

GABRIEL AGUILAR, 23, Ukiah. Shoplifting, stolen property, suspended license for refusing chemtical DUI test, conspiracy.

ANDROMEDA AMBARD, 40, San Jose/Ukiah. Trespassing.

SERGIO ANGELES-JUAREZ, 39, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation, resisting.

CONNOR BERG, 20, Willits. Assault on person over over 70 years of age with great bodily harm, disorderly conduct-alcohol, public intoxication, minor with alcohol, resisting.

LLUAN FUENTES, 36, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI, probation violation.

RONLD HIGGINS, 60, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

CAROL JONES, 32, Ukiah. DUI, child endangerment.

WILLIAM JONES, 29, Nice/Ukiah. DUI.

JARED KIDD, 33, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation violation. (Frequent flyer.)

JOHN MARKS JR. 57, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

MARK MESA, 65, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-peeking into inhabited dwelling, disorderly conduct-loitering, under influence, public nuisance.

JOHN PALACIOS, 56, Ukiah. Shoplifting, petty theft.

REGGIE QUINTERO-HOAGLEN, 30, Upper Lake/Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

JACINTO TUPPER, 20, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, criminal threats, probation violation, resisting.

RODRIGO ZUNIGA, 22, Ukiah. Shoplifting, stolen property, conspiracy.

DEMOCRATS SHOULD…

To the Editor:

Democrats should not be fazed by past ambivalence and messaging about immigration in America. It is clear that immigration has become a muddled political football backstopped by a Republican fear campaign hyping crime, danger and dysfunction. Democrats can’t win the spin battle. What they can win with is a message that says: Humane, lawful, pragmatic, orderly immigration policies strengthen the economy for all Americans.

We already have ample law enforcement to deal with criminals, whether they be undocumented or documented immigrants, or citizens. Let’s have an adult, nonideological conversation about what our economy needs and in what sectors, now and in the future.

People come here to work, to better themselves and their children’s futures. Let’s drop the fearmongering, figure out how to integrate law-abiding residents who pay taxes and are members of our healthy communities. Let’s not give $170 billion to Homeland Security to build a lawbreaking, ruthless system of disappearance and degradation.

That is not living up to American ideals, to put it charitably.

Sally Peabody

Peabody, Massachusetts

NO EXIT

Nisargadatta Parabrahman Meditation

Warmest spiritual greetings, Just sitting here on a public computer at the Martin Luther King Jr. library in Washington, D.C. Am sending out this link to a wonderful meditation on the Divine Absolute, or Parabrahman.

There does not appear to be any solution to my being here in the District of Columbia with no particular place to go now. Maybe it is necessary to be here longer. What needs to happen will just have to happen. I am available. Thank you for listening. Have a good weekend.

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

MEMO OF THE AIR: Eli's coming harder. Harder. Eli's coming in a car saying a broken heart.

/"You know what? Eli's coming to Valley High! What? Eli's coming to Valley High!"/

Marco here. Here's the recording of last night's (9pm PDT, 2025-07-18) 7.5-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0653

Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Roman numerals on the dashboard clock! Imagine what kind of car would look as wonderful to people now as this one looked to people then. But you don't really have to imagine it; it would be this car. https://www.vintag.es/2025/07/1929-bugatti-type-37-grand-prix.html

Fourth of July hands. When July comes around again next year these images should be on billboards, and posters in store windows and on buses, and beer commercials… https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2025/07/four-xrays-of-hands-on-fourth-of-july.html

Connie Francis died Wednesday at 87, of pneumonia, after falling and breaking her hip. In the early 1960s, when she was in her twenties, my grandparents had a few of her 45s on their Italian restaurant's mafia-serviced jukebox. /Torero/ was my favorite. Watch out, though; it will get stuck in your head. I also liked all the Lou Monte songs. And the beatnik song about walking right in, sitting right down and daddy letting your mind roll on. And Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, and a boingy ballad about a smashed and repaired Australian banjo. And I Left My Heart in San Francisco. And Volare. The service guy would open the box with a key and spill the coins into a heavy moneybag. My grandfather got all the quarters with red nail polish on them back. Those were to prime the pump, meaning that when it was quiet I got to put a red quarter in and press the letters and numbers to choose, I think it was, either three or five songs, and other people would keep it going after that. A quarter then was like $2.63 now, and the catch box was half the size of a shoebox, so if it was 1/3 full after two weeks that's 1,000 quarters. A respectable chunk of change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Harzx0yu9zw

My idea for years now, waiting for the materials and technology to catch up, is contact lenses to cover over the entire whites of the eyes, that would be out-facing video screens and play all black or all red, like a sexy ghost, or all fire, like an afreet or the Ori gods, or a placid gradient or teevee static, or spinning curlicues, or Roadrunner cartoons, or whatever you send them video of, to make it look to others, through the windows of your eyes, like that's what's inside your head. They'd be wireless and somehow powered by salt tears and/or blinking, plus heat and ambient light. But this is a pretty good idea too: https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/square_in_the_eye_glasses

And ALL the increasingly crazy Louis Wain cats, painted by the increasingly crazy Louis Wain. https://www.vintag.es/2025/07/louis-wain-cats.html

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

WILLIE ADAMES HOMERS TWICE BUT LOGAN WEBB TAGGED FOR 11 HITS IN GIANTS’ 6-3 LOSS AT TORONTO

by Shayna Rubin

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Eric Lauer possesses two qualities fit to give the San Francisco Giants trouble. He’s a left-handed starter with a relatively soft, but unhittable four-seam fastball.

The Giants had trouble. Lauer didn’t allow a single base-runner and struck out six batters through the first four innings.

Willy Adames disrupted perfection with a solo home run one out into the fifth inning, one of his two homers of the day. But Adames’ heroics weren’t enough to prevent a 6-3 loss to the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre to drop the first series of the second half.

The Giants had four hits total and nearly made the most of all of them. Luis Matos hit a leadoff double in the sixth, advanced to third on a flyout and scored on Heliot Ramos’ sacrifice fly. Three scrounged up runs weren’t enough to overcome one big Blue Jays inning against starter Logan Webb.

Webb has a forgettable history against the Blue Jays, coming into the game with a 10.80 ERA over two career starts against Toronto.

This Blue Jays team is adept at creating contact, putting the ball in play and forcing opposing teams to deal, which has helped them soar into first place. Webb’s strikeout numbers are up this year, but the approach can create problems for the ace. The Blue Jays got 11 hits off Webb, including five in a four-run sixth inning that saw the Giants lose their precious two-run lead.

Bo Bichette hit a leadoff single and Addison Barger doubled, one of his four hits, to put runners on second and third. Webb got a big pop out from Joey Loperfido, but Ernie Clement, Will Wagner and Tyler Heineman hits gave Toronto a 4-2 lead. Heineman’s double bounced out of left fielder Heliot Ramos’ glove as he dove for the catch.

Adames’ second home run — his second multi-homer game of the year — made it a one-run game, but Heineman hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning off Ryan Walker to put the game on ice.

Notebook:

Jerar Encarnacion (oblique) continued his rehab assignment to Sacramento and went 1-for-2 with a walk on Friday with Triple-A Sacramento. The Giants, though, don’t want to rush Encarnacion back into action; manager Bob Melvin acknowledged they might’ve moved too fast to get him back from his fractured finger earlier in the year, leading to a rough go at the plate. … The Giants-Blue Jays series finale Sunday will be broadcast on Roku.

THE BASEBALL PLAYERS

by Donald Hall (2006)

Against the bright
grass the white-knickered
players, tense, seize,
and attend. A moment
ago, outfielders
and infielders adjusted
their clothing, glanced
at the sun and settled
forward, hands on knees;
the pitcher walked back
of the hill, established
his cap and returned;
the catcher twitched
a forefinger; the batter
rotated his bat
in a slow circle. But now
they pause: wary,
exact, suspended—
while
abiding moonrise
lightens the angel
of the overgrown
hardens, and Walter Blake
Adams, who died
at fourteen, waits
under the footbridge.

TAIBBI AND KIRN

Matt Taibbi: Welcome to America This Week, I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: Walter, how’s it going? I see you’re in your secret lockdown location still, in the basement.

Walter Kirn: Yeah, I am.

Matt Taibbi: Limited egress.

Walter Kirn: I didn’t tell anybody why I’m here because I got kicked out of another hotel, and I’ll tell you why. I had a hotel reservation for a week. I go to my room and I relax and use the lavatory only to discover after having used it that it doesn’t flush. The handle just jiggles loose. So being a home plumber, I take the lid off the toilet and I see that there is literally no chain attaching the flushing handle to the flapper. It’s not that it’s broken or it’s fallen off, it doesn’t exist. It’s not lying on the bottom of the tank. It doesn’t exist. So I go downstairs to the young clerk and I say, “Hey, I found out unfortunately too late that my toilet has no chain between the handle and the flapper.” “Okay, we’ve noted your complaint.” “Well, listen, I’ve got the room for a week. Could you come fix it?” “We’ve noted your complaint.”

Matt Taibbi: What?

Walter Kirn: Dude. “Well, why don’t you call a plumber? When are you calling a plumber?” “Have you heard us? We noted your complaint.” Now this is something that happens a lot these days, these poor young people who have been trained to recognize microaggressions, but not to call a plumber, get a little testy with you. I go back up to my room and I get a call. It’s the last room in the hotel, and they say, “We’d like you to leave.” I said, “Could you…” “We have called another hotel and they have room for you.” I said-

Matt Taibbi: What?

Walter Kirn: I said, “You can just call a plumber.” And they said, “We have called another hotel and we would like you to leave.” So I drag my damn suitcase across town and I get a basement room at the nearest place. So the service industry collapse is just happening as we speak, it’s a total implosion. I see it here every day when you’re traveling and you have to eat in restaurants and go to stores for things you’ve forgotten and so on. You are more in contact with, what is it? Gen Z?

Matt Taibbi: Right. I guess or whatever comes after Gen X. Yeah.

Walter Kirn: Besides being mildly high most of them, they have been trained to give you corporate speak as a response. And they give it to you verbatim, probably because they have cameras on them, above the desks.

Matt Taibbi: Mm-hmm.

Walter Kirn: In any hotel chain or anything like that, they do. And it’s become maddening, so…

Matt Taibbi: That is pretty bad. Yeah. I’m sure that drives… it does wonders for your psyche too, having to say the same thing over and over again, but come on, you can’t have a hotel where you can’t go to the bathroom.

Walter Kirn: I said, “It’s not broken. It’s missing the integral part that causes the flushing to happen. Okay.” “We’ve noted your complaint.”

Matt Taibbi: Could I have a bucket so that I could hand flush it? Anyway, that is unfortunate. I’m sorry to hear that, Walter.

Walter Kirn: Well, there was one other problem. There was very loud music playing directly underneath it. And I thought, “Gosh, is there a club downstairs? What’s going on?” And I went down and it was the kitchen. The kitchen needs to play loud music, I was told, in order to function. And I said, “That’s fine, but the kitchen doesn’t need to have a hotel room over it.” Only one can win, however, and I lost to the kitchen.

Matt Taibbi: The customer is always wrong.

Walter Kirn: Right.

Matt Taibbi: That’s unbelievable.

Walter Kirn: That’s literally what happened.

Matt Taibbi: And you’re in the cradle of the hotel management industry too, right? This is some of the most famous schools in the world are in that region.

Walter Kirn: Yes, hospitality, they would call it. Yes.

Matt Taibbi: Hospitality. Yeah.

Walter Kirn: And I live-

Matt Taibbi: Cornell in one direction, Johnson & Wales in the other direction, and right in the middle, there’s-

Walter Kirn: Right near your old school, Bard.

Matt Taibbi: Yep, CIA. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Walter Kirn: But I will tell you this. Though the Hudson Valley is a caring, gentle place, with all the right bumper stickers, the customer service sucks.

Matt Taibbi: Wow. That is not a flattering story about an area of the country that is near and dear to my heart, the Hudson River Valley.

TRUMP’S WAR ON SOLAR POWER WILL FAIL

by Bill McKibben

The era of federal support for an energy transition, supposed to last a decade under the Inflation Reduction Act, will mostly come to a close on New Year’s Eve, when the cost of clean energy projects could rise by a third or more. This raises a question. Since the big domestic policy bill that was recently passed cut the knees out from under federal support for sun, wind and batteries, how long will that dark age last and how much damage will it do?

One potential answer — a foreboding one — comes from the 1980s. In one of his final budgets, President Jimmy Carter proposed funding to help America get 20 percent of its energy from the sun by 2000. But then his successor, Ronald Reagan, shut down that process, going so far as to rip the solar panels off the White House roof. It took more than 35 years to get us back on track, with the passage of the I.R.A. in 2022 under President Joe Biden.

Yet even though the damage from the congressional action will be very deep, it almost certainly won’t last as long this time. And that’s for two reasons.

For one, it wasn’t until 1988, Mr. Reagan’s last year in office, that the scientist James Hansen turned global warming into a political issue by declaring before Congress that there was an irrefutable connection between greenhouse gas emissions and the increase in the earth’s temperatures. The Trump administration scoffs at climate science, of course, but events will continue to make it relevant. Some will be sharp and shocking, like the Texas floods this month that drew their power from the kind of epic rainfall that a warmer atmosphere makes more likely. And some will be more grinding: the insurance crisis that has already begun to spread beyond California and Florida.

But the real difference between now and the 1980s is price. Back then, the solar cell capable of converting the sun’s energy into power was a relatively new invention, found mainly in calculators and wristwatches. Mr. Carter intended to drive the price down so that the cells would become more widely applicable. That eventually happened, but not because of the United States. Two decades later, wise policies in places like Germany and China touched off an engineering miracle that improved the technology and has lowered the cost of solar panels 99 percent since 1980. For the past three or four years we’ve lived on a planet where the cheapest way to generate energy is to point a sheet of glass at the sun.

The world also now has great ways to use that electricity: the electric vehicle and the electric bike to get around, the heat pump to warm or cool your home, the induction cooktop to replace the open gas flame in your kitchen. We’re at the point where human beings could dispense with burning fossil fuels, sparing us from not only the worst of the climate crisis but also the roughly nine million deaths a year that come with breathing the pollution from all that combustion. We would save money — most estimates of the cost of the recent legislation include more than $100 a year in extra electricity costs for American families, because we stay dependent on natural gas.

Rational decision makers around the world have noticed the possibilities. Last year almost 96 percent of new electricity generation globally came from sun and wind technologies and batteries. India, where coal-fired power declined 3 percent in the first half of the year, announced on Monday that it had met its 2030 goal of providing half its electric capacity from renewables five years early. China installed almost 100 solar panels a second in May, smashing its record. Even Poland, the heart of the European lignite belt, got more of its electricity from renewables in May than from coal.

You would say this is good news — unless you owned an oil or gas company or a coal mine. Then you’d understand it as a threat to your business model, and if you lived in a country that allowed essentially unlimited political expenditures, you might try to use your existing cash flow to game the system.

You may recall that during his campaign President Trump reportedly told the country’s oil barons that if they donated $1 billion to help elect him, they could get a lot of what they wanted; in the end, they spent nearly half a billion in donations, lobbying and advertising during the election cycle, and that, apparently, was enough to very nearly win them carte blanche. Not only is the administration removing environmental regulations on oil and gas drilling and pulling the funding from anything remotely green, it’s also using the threat of tariffs to bully countries into buying America’s natural gas. It’s an all-out effort to slow down an inevitable transition.

I believe it is inevitable that our country will eventually follow the rest of the world and that in 40 or so years, America will run mainly on sun and wind. The problem, though, is that if it takes us anything like 40 years, then the world that runs on sun and wind will be catastrophically hot. Already the jet stream is bending and faltering, accounting for some of our erratic weather, and the Gulf Stream has begun to weaken, which could mean rapid rises in sea level along our shores. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change advised that we cut global emissions in half by 2030 to stay on anything like the path we set in the Paris climate talks, and we are far off that path.

And so people who care about climate change need to rouse themselves from understandable despair and make a new stand. Some of us are busy organizing a nationwide event called SunDay on Sept. 21. There will be electric-vehicle parades and solar-powered concerts, ribbon cuttings at solar farms — and protests at city halls and state houses demanding that they take the lead in shifting policies to make the energy transition easier. There’s an enormous amount that can be done, in red states as well as blue. (Texas leads the country in clean energy installation; Utah this winter became the first state in the nation to permit “balcony solar,” the small-scale units that hang from the verandas of millions of European apartments.)

The goal of all this work is to drive home the key message: Sun and wind are no longer “alternative energy” but the obvious path forward. And this effort can succeed, because the force of economic gravity is finally on the side of clean energy and because polls show that many people — despite every effort of the MAGA right — continue to love the idea of solar power. Whether or not we can move fast enough to change the eventual temperature of the planet is an open question, and our chances have clearly suffered a real setback. But given the stakes of the wager, doing what we can to shift the odds is clearly our job.

When Mr. Carter put those solar panels up on the White House roof, he hoped it would be “one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” We still have, for a little while longer, the same choice. Now we need to shake off our weariness and summon the public passion to make it unavoidable.

(Bill McKibben is the author of the forthcoming book “Here Comes the Sun” and the founder of SunDay.)

S.A. Traina:

Dear Mr. McKibben, With all due respect, you are THE climate activist. As a city-dweller who had no interest whatsoever in the subject, I remember moving upstate thirty-five years ago to find a little wilderness for me and my family, and it was there I read your book The End of Nature. I admired the poetry and the subdued passion of your argument, and found the science compelling, but overall, I truly thought yours was a nostalgia overwrought and overblown. Now we live in that world you so presciently and brilliantly and tragically foresaw. We will adapt, as we already are, we will ignore, as we already do, we will suffer, as we already have, and one day, sadly not too far into the future, we will look back at the photos and the fictions of the past in disbelief, unconvinced that such an Eden could have existed, and that such a species could have collectively, deliberately, let it all go to hell. Cordially

McKibben:

Many thanks for your kind words. Having done this a long time gives me perhaps a bit of perspective, and so I will say that the advent of cheap, easy solar is the first thing in 35 years that’s given any hope of a scalable attack on the climate crisis. It won’t ‘stop global warming,’ too late for that. But it may help us stop it short of the absolute worst case scenario, and given that each tenth of a degree Celsius moves another 100 million humans out of their comfortable climate zone, anything we can do helps.

Traina:

Solar is a great technology (I've used it in both houses I've owned), but let's be real - the emissions and environmental degradation caused by mining for lithium and other minerals necessary for it is too steep of a price. The real solution to all of this is probably going to come from large-scale nuclear fusion (and next-generation fission), which is several years away. Fusion will be able to produce energy levels thousands of times higher than the methods we use now, and at a fraction of the start-up costs. We can't avoid economics here - the additional power necessary for fueling the world's AI data centers and water de-salination plant must come from a stronger source than anything we've used so far.

McKibben:

This is outdated. The emissions from mining etc. are far below the eleven percent of fossil fuel that is used to find and refine more fossil fuel; the environmental costs are lower too, since the volume of minerals needed to get us through the energy transition are by some measures smaller than the volume of coal we mine today. If you love fusion, then you should love solar: it’s just fusion at long distance.

ALEXANDER SUPERTRAMP

He left without a forwarding address, without money, and without regret—just a battered old car, a backpack, and a burning desire to disappear into something real. In the spring of 1992, 24-year-old Chris McCandless abandoned his privileged life and set out across North America under the name “Alexander Supertramp.” A recent college graduate, McCandless was disillusioned by materialism and conformity, yearning instead for solitude, self-reliance, and a deeper connection to the world. His journey took him from the deserts of the American Southwest to the rivers of Mexico, and eventually to the rugged, untamed wilderness of Alaska—his final destination.

In April of that year, McCandless hitchhiked to a remote area just outside Denali National Park, where he discovered an abandoned Fairbanks city bus—Bus 142—which he made his makeshift home. Armed with only basic supplies, a rifle, and a handful of survival books, he set out to live off the land, documenting his days in a journal filled with reflections on nature, society, and self-discovery. But the dream of total independence began to crack under the weight of reality. Isolated, and with food becoming increasingly scarce, McCandless’s physical condition rapidly declined.

By late August, he was gravely weakened—possibly from consuming toxic seeds, or more likely, succumbing to starvation in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness. In September, moose hunters came across the bus and found McCandless’s emaciated body inside. He had died alone, weighing just 66 pounds.

His story would go on to spark fascination and debate—immortalised in books and film. To some, Chris McCandless was a foolhardy wanderer; to others, a brave soul chasing purity in a world that no longer values it. Whatever the view, his life—and death—serve as a poignant meditation on the price of radical freedom and the profound hunger for meaning.

JANIS

Before Janis Joplin lit up the stage, she was the weird girl from Port Arthur, Texas — too loud, too wild, too different.

She wore men's shirts, painted her own boots, and worshipped the blues while her classmates crowned homecoming queens. They bullied her for her looks. Voted her “Ugliest Man on Campus” as a cruel joke. It stung. But Janis didn’t fold. She left. She hitchhiked to San Francisco, chasing a sound, a scene, and a place where being too much finally meant enough.

By 24, she was fronting Big Brother and the Holding Company, howling her way through Piece of My Heart and setting Monterey Pop Festival on fire. She didn’t just sing — she ripped herself open on stage. Pain, love, loneliness — all of it came out raw, unfiltered, and dangerous. And people couldn’t look away.

But behind the voice was still the girl who never felt fully wanted.

Janis longed for love, but fame brought shadows. Drugs numbed the ache. Her insecurities ran as deep as her talent — and the more the world asked her to perform her pain, the harder it became to survive it.

She died of a heroin overdose in 1970. She was 27. Just weeks after finishing vocals for Me and Bobby McGee, which would become her only #1 hit — after her death.

Janis Joplin didn’t live long enough to see how many people she gave permission to feel. But her voice still does what she always wanted to do: make misfits feel less alone.

What if the thing they laughed at you for is the very thing that makes you unforgettable? Janis knew. She sang it anyway.

THE UNWATCHABLY AWFUL STEPHEN COLBERT INTERVIEW THAT PROVES WHY HE WAS DOOMED

by Maureen Callahan

Another one bites the dust.

That's it and that's all for the late-night host, Stephen Colbert, whose intolerance, intransigence and nightly screeds against Trump have surely led CBS to kill his entire show.

R.I.P. The Late Show, dead at 33 — the same age as Christ, which I mention because Colbert, a vocal Catholic, is busy turning himself into a martyr.

Yes: The insufferable Stephen Colbert has been crucified by his network, he'll have us believe, for speaking out against one Donald J. Trump.

The reflexive celebrity testimonials from the likes of Ben Still, Katie Couric, and Adam Scott immediately poured in. And — surprise, surprise — they're not generating the intended response.

Take a look at Jason Alexander, the Seinfeld star who posted om Instagam, in part: “Stephen… you will not be silenced or dismissed.”

Well, Jason, he just was — and unceremoniously at that.

Responses to that post make it clear how little people agree.

One: “We need more humor and less virtue signaling.”

Another: “To make the whole show every day political? That's why they dropped him… S**t gets old no matter what side you sit on.”

And my favorite, which speaks to millions of Americans: “He chose to use his platform as his own personal sermon. After I've worked 12 hours, then cooked dinner and got my kids ready [for] bed, I don't want to be lectured to or demeaned if my politics differ. It's a special kind of arrogance to think that you, as a comedian, can stop doing your job and instead use your show as a pulpit.”

In an official statement, CBS says it was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” and nothing to do with the show's “content.”

But while every late-night show except Greg Gutfeld's on Fox limps along on life support, Colbert was the worst host of them all: strident, hectoring, a total scold and schoolmarm monomaniacally animated by hatred of Trump — which translates into hatred of more than half the country.

Rather than accept that CBS has made a prudent business decision — Colbert's show cost $100 million to produce and lost $40 million annually — Hollywood insists Colbert is the sacrificial lamb in the pending merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance (owned by the son of billionaire Trump loyalist Larry Ellison).

A lot of heavy weather has also been made of the recent $16 million Paramount payment to settle Trump's lawsuit against the network, which just this week Colbert slammed as a “big, fat bribe.”

Truly, Stephen Colbert poses no threat to Trump.

He speaks in an echo chamber. He's just an unfunny guy who takes himself way too seriously, whose own mission creep turned his show into unwatchable punditry, and who, rather than engage in witty banter, is always out to prove he's the smartest guy in the room.

Take his 2017 interview with Ricky Gervais — a far finer mind — in which a smug Colbert initiated a debate about religion and tried to discredit Gervais's well-known atheism.

Late-night banter indeed.

Gervais: “You believe in one God, I assume.”

Colbert: “Uh, in three persons, but yeah.”

Gervais: “So there are about 3,000 [gods through human history] to choose from… so basically, you deny one less god than I do.”

That clip has over 15 million views on YouTube, which should have told Colbert something — namely, to tone down the smug self-regard and use his platform for its intended purpose: laughter.

But no. Colbert is way too important for that. In a June 2024 profile with Entertainment Weekly, Colbert pulled out a photo not of late-night legends Johnny Carson or David Letterman but famed news anchor Walter Cronkite.

“This is my reminder,” Colbert intoned, “that Walter Cronkite started off as a morning anchor who had a puppet lion, so let's not hear about the dignity of CBS News. F**k you.”

The arrogance. The hubris. Colbert was paid a reported $15 million a year, yet insulted his bosses in print and on his show — and thought he was too important to face consequences!

Instead, of course, he and his cohort blame Trump — who, frankly, has bigger problems to deal with than this late-night hack.

“Everyone knows what happened,” a Colbert show source told the Daily Mail. “He came out against Trump and now he's gone.”

Or maybe he just bleeds $40 million annually and can't book any guests bigger than Rep. Adam Schiff, who told President Trump to “piss off” on Thursday night's show.

It's similarly grim for the apolitical Jimmy Fallon, cut down from five to four nights a week at NBC; Seth Meyers, who had to fire his band after budget cuts; and Jimmy Kimmel, whose viewing figures lag some 600,000 behind Colbert.

“F**k CBS,” said Kimmel this week.

How brave. How impactful. Listen, Kimmel — your days are numbered, too.

Ultra-liberal Jon Stewart, who returned to his desk at The Daily Show after all manner of other projects failed to launch, on whether his own show will last much longer: “I honestly don't know. They may sell the whole f**king place for parts.”

These guys just refuse to get the memo. They still cling to the sinking ship of liberal legacy media and linear TV, which viewers are rejecting in droves.

Even Gutfeld!, which dominates with three million nightly viewers, is a shadow of what late-night TV was before YouTube and digital media.

The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which ran from 1962 to 1992, typically pulled in over 15 million viewers.

Think about it: Carson's show ran through the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, Watergate, Roe v. Wade, the Cold War, the AIDS epidemic, and the fall of the Berlin Wall — to name just a few political and historical earthquakes.

And viewers never, ever knew Carson's politics.

“That's not what I'm there for,” Carson said. “Why do they think that just because you have a Tonight Show that you must deal in serious issues? It's a danger — it's a real danger. Once you start that, you start to get that self-important feeling that what you say has great import, and you know, strangely enough, you could use that show as a forum, you could sway people. And I don't think you should as an entertainer.”

Carson was called “The King of Late Night” for a reason. And descendants like Stephen Colbert, with that “self-important feeling,” now preside over the end of an empire.

MARINE CORPS HYMN

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country's battles
In the air, on land and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
of United States Marine.

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev'ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job--
The United States Marines.

Here's health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.

I’M A FORMER MEMBER OF THE RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT. AMERICA IS CLOSER TO PUTIN’S RUSSIA THAN YOU KNOW

I didn’t understand the machinery of autocratic power, the mechanisms of control, the unspoken rules of party discipline. Now I do. And I see it developing here.

by Oxana Pushkina

When I tell my American friends that they’re closer to becoming Russia than they think, they laugh.

“We have a Constitution,” they say. “We have democracy.”

But everything we once said about Russia — “that could never happen” — has long been a reality. And what I see in America today feels eerily familiar.

I don’t say this as an outsider. I’m a former member of the Duma, Russia’s parliament.

I didn’t enter politics right away. For nearly 25 years, I hosted my own television show, where I told the stories no one else would — especially women’s stories. Domestic violence. Gender inequality. Discrimination. Loneliness. Despair. I tried to help — with words, with visibility, with human connection.

But eventually, I realized that storytelling wasn’t enough. You can’t protect a woman from abuse when there’s no law recognizing domestic violence. You can’t change a broken system just by exposing it.

So, in 2016, I ran for office. And I won. Even though I wasn’t a member of United Russia, President Vladimir Putin’s party, it officially nominated me. Under Russian electoral law, that’s possible: You can be an independent candidate with a party endorsement.

People often asked, “Why are you with them?”

And I always answered — and still do: Because I was pushing through legislation to protect women and children, and at that moment, I needed political power behind me.

I entered politics with one clear mission: to create fundamental, enforceable protections for women and children.

At first, the party didn’t take me seriously. It certainly didn’t see me as a threat. I was a TV journalist, yes, and popular. But convenient. Safe. Someone the party could use to bring in a huge female audience when needed.

Still, my public visibility gave me power — and I used it.

I had limited support in parliament, but strong backing from civil society. Human rights groups stood with me. So did ordinary people. At one point, 90% of Russian citizens supported a draft law on domestic violence. Still, it never passed.

Ultimately, I didn’t yet understand the full weight of what I had walked into — the machinery of autocratic power, the mechanisms of control, the unspoken rules of party discipline. I only began to understand it once I was truly inside.

By 2018, the conservative lobby tightened its grip — infiltrating every corner of public life. Reformers like me were edged out.

When I fought for a law on domestic violence prevention, I was called a “foreign agent.”

“If he hits you, it means he loves you.” As if that were part of the sacred “traditional values” of the Russian people.

They tried to humiliate me, to silence me, to break me.

They didn’t. But I left.

Now I read the news: The U.S. Supreme Court has granted the president the authority to fire federal employees and restructure entire agencies without congressional approval.

People tell me: “It’s just a temporary decision.”

Yes — formally, it is.

But in substance, this is a significant crack in the wall. This is how centralized, unchecked control begins.

In Russia, that moment came in 2004, when Putin abolished gubernatorial elections — also in the name of “efficiency.”

At the time, many accepted it. The country was exhausted — by instability, by economic hardship, by weak regional leadership. The official line was comforting: “We need unity. We need order. We need strong vertical control.” People wanted stability so badly, they let themselves believe it. Others were simply afraid to speak out. And some turned away — weary, cynical, numb. That’s how authoritarianism takes root; it’s not always with tanks in the streets, but through fatigue, fear and false promises.

In the U.S., the Supreme Court decision was issued per curiam, with no author named.

I’m told, “That’s normal. It’s standard practice.”

But I remember how this became a way to blur responsibility in Russia. It ended in complete judicial subordination.

At first, it was low-key. Judges who ruled against the state were quietly removed — reassigned, not reappointed or pressured into silence. Then came the warnings. Those who tried to uphold constitutional rights or challenge powerful officials were smeared in the press, disciplined or even prosecuted. Over time, loyalty replaced professionalism. Obedience became the price of survival. The message was unmistakable: independence was no longer welcome — it was dangerous.

Today, even ordinary judges make decisions with one eye on politics, afraid of crossing an invisible line. There are no independent courts left. Not at the local level. Not at the regional level. Not one.

America is not there yet. But I see the tilt toward a judiciary that acts, not as a neutral arbiter, but as a political actor.

They say, “The president still has to follow the law.”

But I know how that game is played.

In Russia, the government also “follows the law.” Because laws can be rewritten. Circumvented. Ignored.

That’s how elections were canceled. That’s how nongovernmental organizations were shut down. That’s how journalists were labeled “foreign agents.”

Trump’s executive order has no mechanism for congressional oversight.

“But Congress can still intervene,” some argue.

Can it?

In Russia, the parliament still exists — on paper. But it’s called the “mad printer” because it rubber-stamps whatever it is told. Independent political candidates have been effectively frozen out of elections.

No debate. No resistance. Just speed and silence.

America isn’t there. Not yet.

But if a president can bypass Congress — as Trump’s order suggests — the legislative branch ceases to properly balance power.

And there’s something else.

In the U.S., the word “democracy” is still spoken. But listen closely — it’s increasingly met with sarcasm, with cynicism.

In Russia, “democracy” became a dirty word. It’s been replaced by talk of “spiritual values,” “sovereignty” and “traditional norms.”

It didn’t happen overnight. It took decades of propaganda. But it happened.

In the U.S., I see the early signs.

You think this is far away? So did I.

I thought a modern country couldn’t be dragged backward by a regime built on fear, nostalgia and brute power. But in Russia, it didn’t take long.

Once, we had a free press. We had honest elections. We had independent courts. Now we have illusions.

America still has a choice. But the window is narrowing faster than you think. Absolute power doesn’t lie in executive orders. Or in purges. Or in fear. Real power lies in trust. In transparency. In the separation of powers.

If America wants to remain America, it will have to fight for it daily.

(Oxana Pushkina is a former deputy in the Russian Duma. She now lives in San Francisco. SF Chronicle)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

This is the ultimate distraction - get engrossed in this drama as the administration continues to gut jobs, gut scientific programs and add trillions of dollars in deficit. The MAGA have voted for Trump because of who he is and not despite his personal flaws. This storm will blow off and the MAGA faithful will still be in Trump’s camp. Media’s obsession with Trump’s personality has gotten us into this mess. Focus on his policies and their impact not on the person. MAGA will get over Epstein affair - as a country we will have to live with the consequences of his policies.

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BARACK OBAMA NOW SQUARELY IN RUSSIAGATE CROSSHAIRS

New disclosures from a Tulsi Gabbard-led working group point directly to the top, as the legacy of "Hope and Change" begins a plunge to the ocean floor

by Matt Taibbi

Barack Obama entered national politics with a smile that looked like Hope and Change. Amid rumors of family discord and disarray within the political party he once led, his face has hardened. He lately looks bitter, resentful, exhausted by the act.

In the wake of reports released by fellow Hawaiian and former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, he also has a new problem. It once seemed a lock that Obama would be remembered as the winsome hero of Shepard Fairey’s portrait, but Gabbard’s documents place him at the center of an unprecedented act of political sabotage, committed in his last Oval Office days as a humiliated lame-duck in the winter of 2016-2017. The new Director of National Intelligence is targeting Obama’s legacy and maybe even his freedom, detailing a “treasonous conspiracy committed by officials at the highest level of our government,” announcing that everyone involved “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Ten days ago, news broke that Donald Trump’s Justice Department opened criminal investigations into two of Obama’s top deputies, former FBI chief James Comey and former CIA head John Brennan. Last Sunday, Gabbard’s ODNI hosted an “urgent” meeting to discuss “new information on Russiagate” with members of the Justice Department and the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

All week, Washington buzzed with rumors about imminent document releases, but what came out wasn’t what many expected. Gabbard’s documents show the Obama White House overruling months of reports downplaying Russian interference and ordering subordinates to set a time bomb of manipulated intelligence, with the aim of trying to, as Gabbard described it, “usurp” an incoming president. No longer a tertiary character, Obama is now “center square” in the Russiagate scam, as one source put it.

Mainstream press outlets like the New York Times and Politico have already run pieces quoting Democratic Party mouthpieces shrugging off Gabbard’s reports as “baseless” and an attempt to “change the subject,” but coverage may not matter, as the investigation into the Trump-Russia hoax is no longer about trying to change hearts and minds. Multiple sources say Gabbard’s team is focused on “accountability” by gathering evidence for court-ready cases. The matter may soon need a special prosecutor, putting Obama in the same position Trump occupied in the first two years of his presidency, on the run from a high-profile fox hunt.

The information from Gabbard’s office was not the only news on the Russiagate front. This investigation is not just about “ten-year-old news,” as has been a common talking point, but may also involve never-reported Biden-era issues. A source close to the investigation said yesterday that the DOJ is focusing on conspiracy charges and looking at conduct “from 2016 to 2024.” Another with ties to the administration said “President Trump’s national security team is looking at evidence that members of his 2024 campaign were spied on as well.”

All of that is yet to be determined. Until then, here’s a detailed review of what yesterday’s releases say, and why they signal a shift toward former president Obama:

Gabbard’s office put out two files. One is a 114-page document titled, “Declassified evidence of Obama administration’s conspiracy to subvert Trump’s 2016 victory and presidency.” The other is an 11-page press release that highlights the same documents, in a timeline with commentary. Gabbard compressed the releases further in an email chain replete with flow charts:

The documents focus on emails to and from the office of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, whose name was conspicuously absent when news about criminal investigations into other Obama-era intelligence chiefs broke. Clapper throughout the Trump-Russia affair has been more publicly reserved than Comey or especially Brennan, who in 2019 excitedly suggested Special Counsel Robert Mueller might deliver indictments on the “Ides of March.” In contrast, Clapper told Chuck Todd on Meet The Press at the outset of Russiagate mania that “we had no evidence of collusion” when he left office in January 2017:

Clapper even before Trump’s election argued against making broad claims about Russian interference, let alone interference on behalf of Donald Trump specifically. The first email in the release is from Clapper, and describes a meeting chaired by former Obama National Security Council chief Denis McDonough:

Yes; at the WH session today chaired by Denis, I brought up that I had asked my team to produce an NIE on cyber threats to our electoral infrastructure… this generated quite a bit of discussion.

That Clapper called for an NIE or National Intelligence Assessment on cyber threats — a large, formal report comprising input from the entire intelligence community — is significant because other chiefs like Brennan urged a smaller ICA or Intelligence Community Assessment, a more informal document involving as few as three or four agencies. There is little chance unsubstantiated information from ex-spy Christopher Steele could have made it into an NIE. An ICA was a different matter.

The next documents in the chain show that not only Clapper’s office but others, including the FBI, were relatively unconcerned about Russian interference. Figures like Virginia Senator and key Russiagate figure Mark Warner are already dismissing Gabbard’s report as an attempt to “cook the books” by comparing “apples and oranges,” the apples being Russian efforts to attack “election infrastructure,” the oranges being “influence” operations. But emails dating back to September 2016 show a dismissive attitude toward both concepts, as well as a lack of conviction about Russia’s ability to impact or “disrupt” the election outcome in any way.

On September 5th, for instance, an FBI official asked for a change in the draft of a potential ICA on cyber threats, writing:

The way it currently reads, it would indicate that we have definitive information that Russia does intend to disrupt our elections and we are uncomfortable making that assessment at this point.

An official from an unnamed agency added:

I sort of understood the emphasis to be on Russia probably not having the capability to influence the election.

A DHS official wrote, “Russia probably is not (and will not) trying to influence the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure,” which might fall under Warner’s “apples” heading. That same official however added:

We assess that foreign adversaries, notably Russia, are more likely to focus their cyber operations on undermining credibility/public confidence… That assessment feeds directly into the influence operations, some cyber-enabled, that we’ve seen related to current and historic election cycles.

An official from Clapper’s ODNI hit the same note, suggesting that any influence operations would fit a normal historical pattern of “less sophisticated” propaganda:

Russia probably is not trying to going to be able to? influence the election by using cyber means to manipulate computer-enabled election infrastructure. Russia probably is using cyber means primarily to influence the election by stealing campaign party data and leaking select items, and it is also using public propaganda. This fits an historical pattern of Russia using less sophisticated propaganda and information operations to influence US elections.

By December 7th, 2016, Clapper’s office prepared text for a Presidential Daily Briefing headed ACTIVITY ON AND SINCE ELECTION DAY and reading:

By the next day, December 8th, officials had text prepared that read, “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.”

This wording was scheduled to be entered into the PDB — not a public report, but a confidential briefing to President Obama — the next day, December 9th. However, Comey’s FBI on the afternoon of the 8th unexpectedly withdrew from the PDB.

“FBI will be drafting a dissent this afternoon,” a Bureau official wrote at 3:48 p.m. “Please remove our seal and annotations of co-authorship.” About an hour later, at 4:53 p.m., an official from Clapper’s office axed the PDB for the time being. “Based on some new guidance, we are going to push back publication of the PDB,” the official wrote. “It will not run tomorrow and is not likely to run until next week.”

At that point, a meeting of Obama’s National Security Principals Committee was held. The list of attendees reads like an all-star collection of MSNBC green room visitors: John Kerry, Victoria Nuland, John Brennan, Avril Haines, Ben Rhodes, and Andrew McCabe, among others. One source told me to note the name Richard Ledgett from the National Security Agency, who “played a role in this.”

This is the group that the next day received a group email from Clapper’s office headed “POTUS Tasking on Russia Election Meddling,” asking them to “produce an assessment per the President’s request,” with a target release date of January 9th, 2017:

The IC is prepared to produce an assessment per the President’s request, that pulls together the information we have on the tools Moscow used and the actions it took to influence the 2016 election, an explanation of why Moscow directed these activities, and how Moscow’s approach has changed over time, going back to 2008 and 2012 as reference points.

In sum, just before Obama was to receive a briefing that contained no reference to significant Russian interference, the briefing was called off and a high-level meeting of White House security officials was convened, after which Obama himself tasked them with a new assessment that would lean toward a more aggressive conclusion. Although this new effort was to be directed by Clapper’s office, the critical job of divining Russia’s motives would be given to the CIA and Brennan:

ii. Why did Moscow direct these activities? What have the Russians hoped to accomplish? (CIA lead)

It’s suspicious that a Presidential Daily Briefing was postponed to make way for ICA ordered at Obama’s request, fishier yet that the evidence that Putin intended to help Trump came from a classified annex containing Steele dossier material, but the smoking gun is that these eventual conclusions leaked instantly — not one or two weeks after Obama ordered the ICA, but the same day, before any group work could possibly have been done.

On December 9th, 2016, the New York Times ran “Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says.” This piece not only led with the full-blown Steele Dossier saw about Putin having acted to help Trump at Hillary Clinton’s expense, it followed with aggressive conclusions about Russian hacks of both Democratic and Republican party infrastructure. Also that day, the Washington Post ran a piece describing a “secret assessment” that Russia had worked to help Trump, even though the group assessment had only just been assigned.

Washington Post reporter Greg Miller went on air with PBS to flog the paper’s “secret assessment” story and spoke of Russians having “weaponized” material.

It;s hard to square all of these instantaneous leaks with Obama’s alleged insistence that the ICA investigation be conducted “by the book,” as Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice eventually documented in a letter to herself. Former CBS reporter Catherine Herridge, who reported on the letter, noted that Rice’s letter to herself takes on “new significance” in light of Gabbard’s documents.

On December 10, 2016, the Post ran another piece quoting senior intelligence officials claiming to be worried about their futures, noting the coming report could potentially pit “the entire U.S. intelligence community against a newly sworn-in president who has repeatedly denigrated their work.” Added another: “After Jan. 20… we’re in uncharted territory.” Remember at this point there’d been no evidence whatsoever linking Trump to Russia or even suggesting Russia sought to help Trump, apart from the bogus Steele material.

After that, leaks followed in rapid succession, on almost a daily basis. On Dec. 11, 2016, the Times ran “C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence,” claiming the “stunning new judgment” they’d just reported came from the CIA, but “does not appear to be the product of specific new intelligence obtained since the election.” Instead, “it was an analysis of what many believe is overwhelming circumstantial evidence — evidence that others feel does not support firm judgments — that the Russians put a thumb on the scale for Mr. Trump, and got their desired outcome.” The “stunning judgement” wasn’t based on new information, but a change in the political weather at the top of the administration allowing more aggressive “analysis.”

From there, officials built the Trump-Russia narrative brick by brick. On December 15th, the NSA’s Admiral Michael Rogers, who in private refused to upgrade his agency’s confidence level from “moderate” to “high,” told the Times there “shouldn’t be any doubt… This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.” News that the FBI agreed ran the next day.

This is the process that led to the release of the much-discussed January 6th, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded “[Vladimir] Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton.” When the report came out, via a pre-conceived format that involved a public document and private classified annexes, news of what was in the classified part leaked quickly.

The first outlet to break the big news was CNN, which reported on January 10th, 2017 that President-elect Trump had been presented “a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election” that included claims from a “former British intelligence operative” that allegations that Russians “claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.” The Times quickly followed, noting the “author of the memos is Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with MI-6, who once served in Moscow,” and “Former C.I.A. officials described him as an expert on Russia who is well respected in the spy world.”

Some of this timeline was known, but the sudden ditching of a tepid PDB and ordering of a new report “per the President’s request,” with emails conspicuously invoking “POTUS tasking,” never surfaced before. There is a reason many of the news reports about Gabbard’s releases have Obama’s name in the headline, along with the term “treasonous conspiracy.” The former president’s role in directing the reworked ICA is clearly a focus of Gabbard’s team.

Also new is testimony from a whistleblower in Clapper’s office, who was asked to sign off on the claims about Russian intent without being shown the alleged intelligence supporting the claims. “As for the 2017 ICA’s judgement of a decisive Russian preference for then-candidate Donald Trump,” he told Gabbard’s group, “I could not concur in good conscience based on information available, and my professional analytic judgement.” That whistleblower’s 2019 efforts to obtain documents relevant to the Steele material by Freedom of Information Request are also in the new package.

Not everyone in Trumpworld is thrilled with the new developments. The failure of senior intelligence officials who served in Trump’s last term to find and/or release these documents has a number of high profile figures upset. “So much corruption,” said one disgusted former Trump official. Another expressed skepticism that anything of significance would come of these investigations, and pointed to Special Counsel John Durham’s ill-fated probe: “It’s always something.” Thanks to the investigation kicked off by this ICA and the subsequent probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, there are people who went to jail, fell ill, went through family crises, and dealt with other serious problems. As a result, there are a lot of eyes on this investigation, and high expectations. Failure for Gabbard’s team to deliver real consequences would bring heavy criticism from both sides.

Gabbard’s team seems to understand they will be judged on the “accountability” question, and remain determined to continue. More releases are expected, and we’ll keep readers in the loop.

INSIDE THE LONG FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN TRUMP AND EPSTEIN

by Alen Feuer & Matthew Goldstein

In the swirl of money and sun-tanned women that was their Palm Beach-and-Manhattan set, Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein spent nearly 15 years mingling side-by-side as public friends.

There were lavish dinners with boldface names at Mr. Epstein’s mansion on the Upper East Side and raucous parties with cheerleaders and models at Mr. Trump’s private club and residence at Mar-a-Lago. In between, there were trips back and forth from Florida to New York on one of Mr. Epstein’s private jets.

But behind the tabloid glamour, questions have lingered about what Mr. Trump’s long association with Mr. Epstein says about his judgment and character, especially as his allies have stoked sinister claims about Mr. Epstein’s connections to Democrats. After their relationship ruptured, the disgraced financier ended up behind bars not just once, but two times, after being accused of engaging in sex with teenage girls.

One of the young women who later said Mr. Epstein groomed and abused her was recruited into his world while working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago. Another accuser recalled being eyed by Mr. Trump during a brief encounter in Mr. Epstein’s office, and claimed that Mr. Epstein had told Mr. Trump at the time that “she’s not for you.”

Another woman has said that Mr. Trump groped her when Mr. Epstein brought her to Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet him. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Trump gave Mr. Epstein a note for his 50th birthday in 2003 that included a sketch of a naked woman and a cryptic reference to a “secret” the two men shared. Mr. Trump has denied writing the message and filed a libel lawsuit on Friday challenging the story. The New York Times has not verified the Journal report.

Mr. Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein case, and has said he had “no idea” that Mr. Epstein was abusing young women. In response to a request for comment about the president’s history with Mr. Epstein, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Trump had barred Mr. Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club “for being a creep.”

“These stories are tired and pathetic attempts to distract from all the success of President Trump’s administration,” she said in a statement.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein largely went separate ways after a falling-out around 2004, taking drastically different paths — one toward jail and suicide, the other toward further celebrity and the White House.

As criticism of the handling of Mr. Epstein’s case mounted over the years, some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies promoted theories that the government had covered up the extent of his network to protect what they have described as a cabal of powerful men and celebrities, largely Democrats.

Now, that story has entangled Mr. Trump himself in what amounts to one of the biggest controversies in his second White House stint. The conflict has come primarily from his own appointees, who, after months of promoting interest in the files, abruptly changed course and said that there was no secret Epstein client list and backed the official finding that Mr. Epstein had killed himself.

Still, under mounting pressure from his own supporters to release the government’s files on Mr. Epstein, the president this week ordered the Justice Department to seek the unsealing of grand jury testimony in the criminal case brought against Mr. Epstein in 2019 and one year later against his longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on a sex-trafficking conviction. She has asked the Supreme Court to consider her appeal.

Even if they are released, the transcripts are unlikely to shed much light on the relationship between the two men, which did not figure prominently in either criminal case. What seemed to draw them together, according to those who knew them at the time, was a common interest in hitting on — and competing for — attractive young women at parties, nightclubs and other private events.

Palm Beach Neighbors

Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein appear to have met around 1990, when Mr. Epstein bought a property two miles north of Mar-a-Lago and set about staking a claim in Palm Beach’s moneyed, salt-air social scene. Mr. Trump, who had purchased Mar-a-Lago five years earlier, had already established his own brash presence in the seaside enclave as a playboy with a taste for gold-leaf finery.

The two had much in common. Both were outer-borough New Yorkers who had succeeded in Manhattan. Both were energetic self-promoters. And both had reputations as showy men-about-town.

In 1992, an NBC News camera captured the pair at a Mar-a-Lago party that featured cheerleaders from the Buffalo Bills, who were in town that weekend for a game against the Miami Dolphins. At one point in the footage, Mr. Trump can be seen dancing amid a crowd of young women. Later, he appears to be pointing at other women while whispering something in Mr. Epstein’s ear, causing him to double over with laughter.

Months later, when Mr. Trump hosted a party at Mar-a-Lago for young women in a so-called calendar girl competition, Mr. Epstein was the only other guest, according to George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who arranged the event. Mr. Houraney recalled being surprised that Mr. Epstein was the only other person on the guest list.

“I said, ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with V.I.P.s,” Mr. Houraney told The New York Times in 2019. “You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?’”

Mr. Houraney’s then-girlfriend and business partner, Jill Harth, later accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct on the night of the party. In a lawsuit, Ms. Harth said that Mr. Trump took her into a bedroom and forcibly kissed and fondled her, and restrained her from leaving. She also said that a 22-year-old contestant told her that Mr. Trump later that night crawled into her bed uninvited.

Ms. Harth dropped her suit in 1997 after a related case filed by Mr. Houraney was settled by Mr. Trump, who has denied her allegations.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were spotted again at a 1997 Victoria’s Secret “Angels” party in Manhattan. The lingerie company was run by Leslie H. Wexner, a billionaire businessman who handed Mr. Epstein sweeping power over his finances, philanthropy and private life within years of meeting him.

Court records show that Mr. Trump was among those who got rides on Mr. Epstein’s private jet. Over four years in the 1990s, he flew on Mr. Epstein’s Boeing 727 at least seven times, largely making jaunts between Palm Beach and a private airport in Teterboro, N.J., just outside New York.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Mr. Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Donald Trump, his future wife Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000. (Davidoff Studios, via Getty Images)

An Encounter at Mar-a-Lago

In 2000, court records show, Ms. Maxwell, a British socialite who had long been tied to Mr. Epstein, struck up a conversation with a 17-year-old girl outside a locker room at Mar-a-Lago.

Her name was Virginia Giuffre, and she was a spa attendant at the club, having gotten the job through her father, who worked there as a maintenance man. According to Ms. Giuffre, Ms. Maxwell offered her a job on the spot as a masseuse for Mr. Epstein after seeing that she was reading a book about massage, telling her that she did not need to have any experience.

She said that when she was brought to Mr. Epstein’s Palm Beach home, she found him lying naked on a table. Ms. Maxwell, she claimed, instructed her on how to massage him.

“They seemed like nice people,” she later testified, “so I trusted them.”

But over the next two years or so, Ms. Giuffre claimed that she was forced by Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell to have sex with a series of famous men, including Prince Andrew, a member of the British royal family. Prince Andrew has denied the accusations and declined to help federal prosecutors in their investigation of Mr. Epstein.

Ms. Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, always maintained that she was trafficked to the prince and other men, once telling the BBC that she had been “passed around like a platter of fruit” to Mr. Epstein’s powerful associates.

Some women who were in Mr. Epstein’s orbit have said they encountered Mr. Trump during this period.

One woman, Maria Farmer, who has said she was victimized by Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, described an encounter with Mr. Trump in 1995 at an office that Mr. Epstein once kept in New York City.

An art student who had moved to New York City to pursue a career as a painter, Ms. Farmer recalled in a 2019 interview that when she was introduced to Mr. Trump, he eyed her, prompting Mr. Epstein to warn him, “She’s not for you.”

Ms. Farmer’s mother, Janice Swain, said her daughter had described the interaction with Mr. Trump around the time it occurred.

Stacey Williams, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, has said she was groped by Mr. Trump when she was introduced to him by Mr. Epstein, whom she was dating at the time.

It was 1993, she said, and she was on a walk with Mr. Epstein on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, when he suggested that they pop into Trump Tower to say hello to Mr. Trump. Ms. Williams thought nothing of it at the time because, as she later put it, “Jeffrey talked about Trump all the time.”

After Mr. Trump greeted them in a waiting area outside his office, Ms. Williams said, he pulled her toward him, touching her breasts, waist and buttocks as though he was “an octopus.”

She said she later wondered whether she had been part of a challenge or wager between the two men. “I definitely felt like I was a piece of meat delivered to that office as some sort of game,” she recalled to The Times last year. At the time, Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign denied that the incident had occurred, calling the allegations “unequivocally false” and politically motivated.

In an interview Friday, Ms. Williams said she was upset to hear Mr. Trump referring to some of the Epstein story as a “hoax” and “boring” news. “I mean, it’s absurd,” she said of him speaking dismissively of the case.

The Break

Eventually, in late 2004, Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein ended up squaring off — this time, over a piece of real estate. It was the Maison de l’Amitié, a French Regency-style manse that sat along the ocean in Palm Beach.

The two hypercompetitive men each had their lawyers bid on the property. Ultimately, Mr. Trump came out ahead, purchasing it for $41.35 million.

There is little public record of the two men interacting after that.

Mr. Trump later told associates he had another reason for breaking from Mr. Epstein around that time: His longtime friend, he has said, acted inappropriately to the daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago, and Mr. Trump felt compelled to bar him from the club. Brad Edwards, a lawyer who has represented many of Mr. Epstein’s victims, said Mr. Trump told him a similar story in 2009.

Not long after the standoff over the beachfront mansion, the Palm Beach police received a tip that young women had been seen going in and out of Mr. Epstein’s home.

Four months later, there was a more substantial complaint from a woman who claimed that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been paid $300 by Mr. Epstein to give him a massage while she was undressed. That led to a sprawling undercover investigation that identified at least a dozen potential victims.

Mr. Epstein hired a team of top lawyers to defend him — among them, Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who would later represent Mr. Trump, and Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The two men helped negotiate a lenient plea deal with R. Alexander Acosta, who was then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Under the deal, Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting prostitution. In exchange, he was granted immunity from federal charges, as were all of his potential co-conspirators. He also had to register as a sex offender.

In the end, Mr. Epstein wound up serving almost 13 months in jail before he was released.

For his part, Mr. Trump largely steered clear of the controversy. But in February 2015, as he was gearing up for what would end up being a hard-fought campaign against Hillary Clinton, he sought to connect Mr. Epstein to her husband, the former president.

Mr. Clinton has “got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein,” Mr. Trump told the Fox News host Sean Hannity during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, referring to Mr. Epstein’s private island where he resided and allegedly trafficked underage girls. “A lot of problems.”

Mr. Clinton has denied visiting the island or having any knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s criminal behavior, and has said he wishes he had never met him.

‘I Wasn’t a Fan’

In July 2019, Mr. Epstein was arrested again. Prosecutors from the public corruption unit of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan charged him with sex trafficking and a conspiracy to traffic minors for sex.

Mr. Trump, then in his third year in the White House, immediately sought to distance himself from his old friend.

“I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Mr. Trump told reporters after the charges were revealed. “I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in 15 years. I wasn’t a fan.”

The new charges brought renewed scrutiny to the original plea deal. Days after Mr. Epstein’s arrest, Mr. Acosta, who had become Mr. Trump’s labor secretary, announced he would resign amid criticism of his handling of the case.

Speaking to reporters about Mr. Acosta’s decision, Mr. Trump reiterated that he had broken off his ties with Mr. Epstein “many, many years ago.” He added: “It shows you one thing: that I have good taste.”

When asked if he had any suspicions that Mr. Epstein was molesting young women, Mr. Trump replied, “No, I had no idea.”

The next month, after Mr. Epstein was suddenly found dead in his jail cell in Manhattan in what was later ruled a suicide, Mr. Trump weighed in again, reviving what was by then a years-old effort from his first campaign. He shared a social media post that attempted to link the death to Mr. Clinton.

Days later, when pressed about his unfounded claims of Mr. Clinton’s involvement, Mr. Trump did not let up, calling for a full investigation, even though he offered no facts to support his allegations.

“Epstein had an island that was not a good place, as I understand it,” he said. “And I was never there. So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island?”

When Mr. Trump was asked about the arrest of Ms. Maxwell in the summer of 2020 on charges that included the enticement and trafficking of children, his answer left some of his own allies confused.

“I wish her well, whatever it is,” Mr. Trump said.

In recent weeks, right-wing influencers and Mr. Trump’s rank-and-file supporters expressed outrage over his administration’s conclusion that there were no revelations to share about the case — not least because some of the president’s top law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, had promised to reveal more information about Mr. Epstein’s crimes.

Mr. Trump sought to quiet the demands, calling the Epstein scandal a “hoax” made up by his Democratic adversaries. He also described it as a subject unworthy of further scrutiny.

“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Mr. Trump asked reporters with exasperation at a cabinet meeting on July 8. “This guy’s been talked about for years.”

(NY Times)

22 Comments

Kimberlin July 20, 2025

About Maureen Callahan Colbert Show

“In the second quarter of 2025, Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on CBS was the highest-rated late-night talk show, averaging 2.42 million viewers.”

Reply
- Call It As I See It July 21, 2025
  
  Don’t know where you get your numbers, but here is the real truth.
  
  Colbert can be viewed in 300 million households. He averages just a little over 2 million viewers per night.
  
  The number one late night show is “Gutfeld”.
  It can be seen in 61 million households and averages 3 million viewers per night.
  
  Colbert is paid between 15 -20 million a year. He has 200 staffers and his show costs over a 120 million to produce. His show brings in 40 million, CBS is losing 80 million. Plus his continual use of Democratic politicians as guests doesn’t help the bottom line, since Democrats approval ratings are 19%.
  
  Maybe it’s really about business!
  
  Reply
Harvey Reading July 20, 2025

KZYX HAS LOST 25% OF IT’S OPERATIONAL FUNDING, $174,000.

The brainless mutant in action. How could people be so dull-witted as to even consider the dolt for a second term??? Admittedly the stupid democraps ran a genocide supporter, but the Green Party had a decent candidate. The damned country is sinking at an accelerated rate of descent. Whadda country! “Land o’ the free,” my butt! More like “Land o’ the doomed…”

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- Marco McClean July 21, 2025
  
  Maybe, but $174,000 being 25-percent makes KZYX’ budget almost $700,000 a year. All KZYX’s expenses don’t add up to a third of that. Do the math yourself and see. Then multiply what’s left over by 36 years of operation. Where do you suppose all that money mysteriously went? It’s between /16-17 million dollars/. None of it went to the airpeople preparing and showing up for and doing all their shows all that time. And the poor-mouthing manager/CEO? He’s still collecting his $60,000 a year and full medical and dental no matter what. If he so much as takes a one-half pay cut as a token of solidarity with the real workers I’ll eat my hat, live on-air. It’s a big hat with a floppy sun brim. I won’t even chop it up and boil it first.
  
  Reply
  - Harvey Reading July 21, 2025
    
    $60 grand a year plus benefits a year is peanuts these days, especially for management. And $700,000 per year seems piddling annual costs for running a radio station. You go ask ’em what the money goes for. Then put similar questions to staff of a commercial station. My conclusion is that you seem to have no conception of real life…
    
    Reply
Kimberlin July 20, 2025

MARINE CORPS HYMN…

The Halls of Montezuma line here refers to the Mexican-American War and is generally regarded as a controversial episode in American history, often viewed as an unjust war of conquest fueled by Manifest Destiny and expansionism. The violence the war inflicted upon Mexican civilians and soldiers should be considered war crimes.

If the Marines are ordered into Gaza today, they will surely go with the full support of all Marines, because as a Marine you remain one, always.

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Harvey Reading July 20, 2025

TRUMP’S WAR ON SOLAR POWER WILL FAIL

All these gimmicks need non-renewables for mining and manufacturing. They are little more than just other ways to inflate the earnings of the already-rich kaputalists. And, how many of them can be recycled? The smart thing to do would be to reduce human population to a sustainable level. Encourage birth control, vasectomies, tubal ligations, abortions, world-wide!

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Zorro July 20, 2025

yellow=7
green=19
red=9
purple=7

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Kirk Vodopals July 20, 2025

Keep poking at the Epstein files. Trump and Co spent years fomenting the issue. Regardless of the veracity, keep poking at it. Obviously fight for the bigger issues, but the Epstein stuff will unfold to the necessary agitation that weakens power of the bad actors: those who participated and those who protected them.
Keep up the pressure. There’s still hell to pay.

And Ms Callahan got it wrong: the late-night TV show model is what failed. Maybe now Colbert can get back to his roots and be genuinely funny again.

Reply
- Bruce McEwen July 20, 2025
  
  Keep poking Hell—pry the damn lid off! It’ll look like that scene in Raiders of the lost Ark when the howling ghosts come flying out and the faces of the mighty like Trump & Clinton start to melt right before our eyes!
  
  Reply
Chuck Artigues July 20, 2025

Info on Epstein; look I know there has been so much BS done about this case that it is hard to separate the shit from the shineola, but there is a pretty good interview of Julie K Brown, who was the reporter who did most of the work that brought this case to light, done by Ross Douthat. It is available, I believe, as a podcast or there is a transcript on NYTimes. Lots of facts and information, no speculation or theory…
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/opinion/interesting-times-julie-k-brown-epstein.html

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Harvey Reading July 20, 2025

Re: Colbert

I didn’t even know the guy was still around. TV became pretty much a nonentity when I canceled pay TV, back in 2011, and antenna reception is sparse in cowboyland. ABC, and, on a few, days, NBC, are the only networks that come in, other than PBS and FNX, the latter of which still carries Amy Goodman’s daily news.

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gary smith July 20, 2025

B=7
R=9
G=19
Y=7

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Me July 20, 2025

Why do entities always cut the “boots on the ground” positions during hard times? Those are the positions getting things done. Why not cut the top positions, there always seems to be too many top positions and that’s where most of the budget goes.

Reply
Chuck Dunbar July 20, 2025

Earlier this week, the AVA printed the piece by historian Omar Bartov, a specialist in Holocaust and genocide studies, in which he concludes, with many other genocide scholars, that Israel is clearly committing genocide against the Palestinian people. The New York Times prints the same article today, in its hard copy Sunday edition. The Mightly AVA bests the Times by nearly a week on this one!

Reply
- Chuck Dunbar July 20, 2025
  
  A side-issue here that has to do with media reporting on this topic. The issue below occurred six months ago. Very interesting–and seems to be progress in accepting the truth of the matter by the New York Times (an interesting internal title, that ‘Ad Acceptability Team’):
  
  “PHILADELPHIA (January 8, 2025) –A Quaker organization that has worked for peace and justice for over a century – has cancelled planned advertising with the New York Times after the paper refused to allow an ad that referred to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The ad read: ‘Tell Congress to stop arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza now! As a Quaker organization, we work for peace. Join us. Tell the President and Congress to stop the killing and starvation in Gaza.’
  
  ‘The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth,’ said Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary for AFSC. ‘Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalized in the media for decades as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world.’
  
  After receiving the text for the ad quoted above, a representative from the advertising team suggested AFSC use the word ‘war’ instead of ‘genocide’ – a word with an entirely different meaning both colloquially and under international law. When AFSC rejected this approach, the New York Times Ad Acceptability Team sent an email that read in part: ‘Various international bodies, human rights organizations, and governments have differing views on the situation. In line with our commitment to factual accuracy and adherence to legal standards, we must ensure that all advertising content complies with these widely applied definitions.’
  
  Many human rights organizations, legal scholars, genocide and holocaust scholars, and UN bodies have determined that Israel is committing genocide or genocidal acts in Gaza. This includes U.S.-based organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights and the University Network for Human Rights, international human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and several Palestinian human rights groups. The New York Times regularly looks to several of these organizations as sources for its own reporting…”
  
  American Friends Service Committee
  “New York Times rejects Quaker ad for calling Israel’s actions genocide’ ”
  
  Reply
Mark Donegan July 20, 2025

Wonder what UPD thinks of the GRT since it is within city limits that most of it has been finished? I know it is maintained immaculately by the city. The rails on the other side of the fence, not so much. It is much clearer than in the past and the first thing I noticed is a LEO could sit on some of the ends and see everything for some ways when it was brush before where people were robbed regularly. That does not happen now. There is only one spot within city limits people gather during the day, next to the trail, and I’m pretty sure LE go by daily and shake them down as they openly use thinking its ok here until they are corrected. Lastly, one of my other first thoughts was what a great getaway they made. That also works for the cops as well to intercept. Haven’t seen anyone keeping any numbers but from what I have seen and heard, LE uses it regularly where only a couple of criminals figured it out. I’m for the trail as long as the tracks are maintained as well. We all know we need rail despite the challenges of our geography. Right now, the easy parts can and should be done when appropriate funding sources are made. Hopefully federal.

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Bruce McEwen July 20, 2025

Paul Modic should read the Matt Tiabbi/Walter Kim butt-buddy dialog for recovering sodomites and learn to focus his prurient culumns on a toilet bowl of human excrement rather than trying to slip sex into a story. It’s the only way to get past our esteemed editor’s Good Taste Geiger counter.

Tiabbi of course wants everyone to get their heads in the toilet and out of the gutter his beloved president’s reputation has fallen into. These two assholes are breaking their heads to find something— anything—else to talk about, huh.

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Julie Beardsley July 20, 2025

Tuslsi Gabbard is an idiot. Just like the rest of tRump’s cabinet: a dull witted psychopath.

Reply
- Bruce McEwen July 20, 2025
  
  Tulsi is a gorgeous gal, but a bit of an old maid compared to gushing blushing Pam Blondie — and even she wilts like a lily with too much icing on it when the spring chic Karoline Levitates before the cameras… alas, all their beauty and charms are wasted and they’re seen as rancid old hags compared to the little lambs the alpha males who rule the USA lust after.
  
  Reply
Mariamerica July 20, 2025

THE GRT

An idea from Fresno…

https://fresnoland.org/2025/07/17/one-of-fresnos-largest-public-art-displays-now-covers-the-180-freeway-pillars-in-this-south-tower-park/

https://cleancalifornia.dot.ca.gov/about

Caltrans estimates that Clean California will create an estimated 10,000-11,000 jobs over three years, including state jobs and opportunities for people experiencing homelessness, at-risk youth, and people re-entering society following incarceration.

Reply
Lindy Peters July 22, 2025

If CBS is worried about their ratings then I have a programming suggestion. Have Stephen Colbert interview Donny Trump on live TV. No filters, no prompters and no walking off the set when you can’t handle the heat. The whole world would be watching. Let’s see who the real no-talent is between these two!

Reply

Mendocino County Today: Sunday 7/20/2025

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