POLLY GIRVIN: Immigration authorities are in Ukiah. They went to a community clinic Tuesday morning demanding Medicaid records for the clinic's clients. The clinic did not give them to them. They stayed at Holiday Inn on Airport Blvd across from Costco Monday night. I have heard rumors that they are going to be here for the next two weeks and going to the scoop up field workers. It has been confirmed that they are indeed here today (Tuesday). I will keep you posted as more developments arise.
UNCONFIRMED RUMOR:
IS L-WOP TRULY FOREVER? THE AWFUL INJUSTICE TO TAI ABREU
by Bruce Anderson
MENDOCINO COUNTY has one “media” — this one. No, I’m not bragging; that’s the way it is here and one “media” is a simple statement of fact. We have a more or less benign DA, a laughable bunch of judges with the possible exceptions of Mayfield, David Nelson and LaCasse, all of whom are relatively new, and the cops, at this time and eternally subject to change on short notice, are doing what they’re supposed to do as law enforcement professionals. They even arrest rich people, although rich people, as in the rest of the country, seldom do any time. No sir, Mendocino County’s system breaks down completely in its absence of a functioning media, and if media is dysfunctional or non-existent, lots of people are going to be severely harmed because the system is allowed to operate in the dark. The lights have been out in Mendocino County for at least a hundred years, and they’ve pretty much stayed off all the way back to when the Indians got it.
TAI ABREU OF FORT BRAGG got severely harmed out of all proportion to what he did, and there’s no justice if punishment is out of proportion to the known facts of any given crime. As most of you reading this know, punishment has never been more out of sync with crime than now, with most of America a bunch of whining fatsos hiding behind the cops and the courts.
MR. ABREU got life in state prison without the possibility of parole because he didn’t murder Donald Perez, a gay man from Los Angeles. What Mr. Abreu did is this: He was co-participant in the robbery of Mr. Perez that ended with Mr. Perez, his throat cut, duct-taped to a tree a mile from the Fort Bragg Police station. Mr. Perez’s remains were taped to the tree for almost a month, exactly 14 feet from the pavement as literally hundreds of people walked past, drove past, hiked past, jogged past, paddled past up the Noyo River — all of them and their dogs, and there this man remained in his upright silver sarcophagus in the late summer sun between the Noyo and the old A&W log road. He might still be there if one of Mr. Abreu’s pot pals hadn’t gone to the cops and, exempting himself from perp status, told the cops his friends had lured this guy to Fort Bragg to rob him but had robbed him and killed him and laughed about it one day when they were all hot-boxing pot in an abandoned car in the non-perp’s Fort Bragg backyard.
MR. PEREZ, aka “Vic,” may or may not have had his throat cut, as it turns out. His remains were inconclusive one way or the other, although there doesn’t appear to have been another way than the duct tape wrap and then a quick, deep knife to the throat, and not a happy way to go in a green gold bower beside a lazy early September stream. But Mr. Abreu, age 19 at the time of these terminally sad events, was sitting look-out man in Mr. Perez’s truck on the road above the death tree when Mr. Perez was slashed by one of Mr. Abreu’s two confederates. Or died of suffocation from the duct tape, or was hit over the head, or died of some other unnatural cause. Whatever happened happened without Mr. Abreu’s presence, not that he intervened or not that he even disapproved. We’re deep in moral murk here, and for sure Mr. Abreu was co-participant in an ultimate evil, but he paid for it out of all proportion to his participation while his co-conspirators got 15 years or so each and can look forward to seeing Fort Bragg again as men in early middle age.
BUT THE LAW says a murder committed during a robbery gets you life without parole whether or not you did the murder part of the crime, and by this unyielding standard a murder was indeed committed by all three boys, and Mr. Abreu was on board for the robbery part of the murder, as were his co-participants, one of whom, a very sick young man to have done it, walked up to the gray, writhing mummy Mr. Perez had become and cut Donald Perez’s throat deep, all the way to the top of his spine.
MR. ABREU, compounding the crime with himself as the second vic, made the fatal mistake of pleading not guilty to the murder of Donald Perez, reasoning that because he hadn’t killed anybody, hadn’t even been there when one of his partners in crime had cut Mr. Perez’s throat, he was innocent of the crime of murder. Worse (for him) Mr. Abreu demanded a jury of his peers. He was sure his attorney could explain to the jury that he was up on the road when whatever happened, happened. He hadn’t killed the guy. He’d robbed him, but he didn’t kill him. Tai Abreu didn’t know murder was on the menu. Nobody knew until it happened, and when it happened Tai Abreu was not there. He was up on the road sitting in Donald Perez’s brand new truck.
MENDOCINO COUNTY gets all upset when 19-year-old defendants don’t do what the system wants them to do. In Mr. Abreu’s case the system wanted him to plead guilty to a jazzed-up manslaughter, and the taxpayers would be spared the expense of a lot of legal fol de rol, and the DA, in triage mode these days as them that don’t have hurl themselves at each other and sometimes at them that have, would be spared the time and trouble of a murder prosecution. Abreu would get 10 or 15 years for his part in Perez’s killing and he’d be out to resume life as it exists outside the cruelest prison system between the collapse of the Soviet Union and Abu Ghraib. But Abreu didn’t go along, and the Mendocino County justice system killed him deader than one of his two crime com-panions had killed Donald Perez.
LINDA THOMPSON of the Mendocino County Public Defender’s Office, was Mr. Abreu’s attorney. The kid might just as well have gotten on the jail bus without stopping at the Mendocino County Courthouse. For reasons of convenience to the local justice system, the case was heard in Ukiah, not Fort Bragg where the crime had occurred. All the while, of course, and this being the ongoing media vacuum that Mendocino County is and always has been, the local papers, owned by the same Colorado-based newspaper chain, were running the wild-looking mug shots of the three young perps over inflammatory stories the reporter, Glenda Anderson, got directly from the DA and the cops. All three defendants were lynched by the newspapers, as Ms. Anderson, girl friend of Bari car bomber Mike Sweeney, as always selectively indignant, huffed and puffed about the gay bashing that was not, so far as is known, a factor in the murder of Mr. Perez because Mr. Abreu says he’s bi-sexual while co-perp Mr. Stuckey was Mr. Perez’s sometime lover.
IF IT WAS A GAY BASHING, Abreu’s gay attorney did the bashing. Maybe Ms. Thompson, a cross-dressing lesbian, was predisposed to killing all three perps, given that the “vic” was a gay male and she as a gay woman can be assumed to have had a rough go of it in America, Land Of The Free Ranging Hetero. As it turned out, Ms. Thompson could only kill one of the gay bashers — her client.
THE CASE WAS HEARD IN UKIAH because, and knowing Mendocino County I’d say it’s highly likely if not slam dunk fact, most of the lawyers involved in it live in the Ukiah area and don’t want to drive back and forth to the Mendocino Coast to put some punk in state prison for the rest of his life as his friends, family and teachers look on. Do the dirty work in Ukiah where no one will see, no one except maybe Glenda Anderson, hack reporter. The system, as anyone on the receiving end knows, has its own convenience as its first priority.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY THOMPSON among everything else she did not do for her “client,” did not dispute the casual venue change. Mr. Abreu’s family, consisting of one ailing grandmother, was not kept informed of where Mr. Abreu was in the injustice process. Once in a while someone would tell her something, but not often, and nobody ever answers the phone anywhere in the Courthouse except the DA’s office and poor old gran was on the wrong side of this one. Nobody who knew any of the three boys, all of whom were born and raised in Fort Bragg, and none of whom had a history of violence or even a prior of any consequence whatsoever, were aware that the case could have, should have, been heard in Fort Bragg.
THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, Ms. Thompson, a small, odd-looking woman who dresses in men’s clothes, did not assign an investigator to look into the crime’s particulars on behalf of Mr. Abreu; she failed to challenge any of the persons who became Mr. Abreu’s jury, including a man from Fort Bragg — father of Abreu's former teen girl friend — who said he knew Mr. Abreu and did not like him. Thompson called no witnesses of any kind in defense of Mr. Abreu; didn’t put Mr. Abreu on the stand to explain himself, which probably wouldn’t have helped him anyway because there’s no explanation and less excuse for being young, stupid and stoned. One day later Mr. Abreu had himself a fast pass to life forever, deep in a state prison with no hope for parole ever no matter the facts of the crime that put him there, no matter how well he behaves inside those eternal, steel bowels. And this happens in the country of people who say they’re for hope and resurrection.
NO WITNESSES for the defense. No challenges to the jury panel. A one-day trial and goodbye forever Mr. American Pie. Mr. Abreu’s co-defendants? Did Abreu's co-defendants want a jury of their peers, 12 middle-age and older middle-class non-stoners? Nope. Not after they saw what happened to Tai Abreu. They pled out, and both of them will see home by 2020. And one of them cut Mr. Perez’s throat while he was taped to a tree beside the Noyo River.
WHAT DEFENSE did Ms. Thompson present for Mr. Abreu? How did she explain this kid to the jury, the Ritalin kid from early elementary school on, a semi-abandoned kid, a kid whose mother is still cranking in Lake County, a kid whose father left him behind and went off to work in a place beyond, even, the telephone? Ms. Thompson told the jury Mr. Abreu was indeed a bad person, which he isn’t, none of the three defendants is hopelessly bad or even half-bad, or even mostly bad. There isn’t a young man in this country who hasn’t come real close to doing something just as dumb or worse. One young man by himself is harmless. Two young men are borderline dangerous. Three young men will go crazy then go home. Sorry, Mom, but that’s a basic fact of life, and you can get your own confirmation every morning on the news.
BUT MS. THOMPSON went on about what a bad guy Abreu was, said he’d done it, said he was out of control. She conceded the prosecution’s case, which was that three murderous young men had put Mr. Perez to death because they wanted his cameras. Public Defender Thompson agreed but, she said, Mr. Abreu hadn’t been advised of his rights by the detective assigned to the murder. One more time. Yeah but he wasn’t properly Mirandized. Yeah, I got the tail and I think there’s an elephant on the other end of it. So the odd little woman who dresses like a man went before a jury of conventional everyday Ukiah, Willits and Fort Bragg people confident that she could convince 12 very straight, carpenter’s level straight, people, that Mr. Abreu should go home because he was not properly Mirandized!
IS LINDA THOMPSON CRAZY? Is she even within shouting distance of reality? Did she think the jury would see her as Clarence Darrow? Did she really think an obscure delineation of the Miranda Law would convince anybody that Mr. Abreu ought to go free? This was the defense?
THE WHOLE SHOW was so absurd, so purely nutso, so uniquely Only In Mendocino County, so far from even a semblance of a defense in a case with a young man’s life on the line that even the cops thought “it was a goddam disgrace, a travesty,” as one put it. When the cops denounce a trial as “a goddam disgrace” you can be sure it’s a double goddam disgrace.
Bear Lincoln had the whole PC gang piling on. He got helpful publicity on top of helpful publicity, media coming in the windows, so much publicity that Tony Serra rode into town and defended him for nothing, intimidating the DA into dumping the case on an untried assistant and intimidating the wimp-twits sitting as Mendocino County Superior Court judges to call old Judge Golden in from some retirement home to hear the case. (Golden took zero crapola, including none from Serra and the PC Brigade, and Bear Lincoln got a fair trial.) A decade later, Judge Henderson, a practicing Catholic but no Christian, put on a big show of denouncing the “remorseless” defendant, going on about what a heinous crime had been committed while committing a second heinous crime with the Life In Prison Without The Possibility Of Parole sentence he was pronouncing on a kid who never had a chance in all his life in liberal Mendocino County.
TAI ABREU has a tired grandmother and me, meaning he’s the ultimate longshot. I’m going to try to raise the money for Abreu’s appeal which, it appears, will be a federal habeas process. I’ve taken the recent alms sent the AVA’s way and set them aside in an unofficial Abreu Defense Fund. They amount, as of the end of this month, to almost two grand. If anyone out there is inclined to sign on for the long haul, I can guarantee you your contributions will go directly to the intrepidly brilliant Mendocino attorney, Rod Jones, who has agreed to at least look at the options Abreu has, and they aren’t many. In fact, they almost don’t exist in a country seemingly crueler and more brutal by the day.
DEATH ROW people and celeb defendants get all the money they need to appeal their convictions, and most of them are guilty, and most of them totally undeserving. Mr. Abreu, young Mr. Abreu, like almost all L-WOP defendants (as they’re called by the legal hangmen) get buried so deep nobody can even hear them scream.
TAI ABREU did a bad thing, but he didn’t do the bad-dest thing that was done to Mr. Perez. One of his co-defendants did that, but they’ll get out of prison and Tai Abreu won’t get out of prison. Tai Abreu didn’t get an unfair trial. He didn’t get any kind of trial. His Public Defender wasn’t incompetent, she was inexplicable. If these guys had had OJ’s legal team not one of them would have been convicted of anything, a fact even the cops concede. “We know we got the right guys, but who did what we still don’t know.”
THIS KID’S CASE has got to get in front of a real judge, on the off chance there’s an honest one left somewhere in the upper reaches of this country’s country club system of jurisprudence. To get it in front of the honest judge who may or may not exist, is going to take time and money. I hope some of you will help out.
The entire five-part Fort Bragg Perez/Abreu Murder saga from late 2005 can found at: https://theava.com/archives/tag/abreu
THE PALACE HOTEL REHAB, A READER WRITES:
Just south of us in Ukiah is a grand old hotel called The Palace.
This building has seen better days but the true visionary, Tom Carter, has decided to refurbish this beauty. I met Tom when I bought the Babcock house here in Willits.
He has proven to be a tremendous resource to me and is becoming a great friend to boot. I’ve lucked into documenting the process while he and his crew demolish and rebuild The Palace back to her stately glory. Yes,it was a mess and is slowly but surely in process to greatness.
JEFF BLANKFORT: I had my own experience with it in Israel Occupied Lebanon in 1983 when with two European journalists I went down to the Awali Bridge crossing on the main north-south road where for the previous few days the Israelis had blocked ALL traffic as collective punishment for all of Lebanon after Hezbollah, a real people’s army, then in its early stages, had blown up the IDF intel HQ in Sour (to the applause of the Euro reporters!).
Consequently, all the lanes of traffic heading south had been blocked for miles with no way of turning around, by a huge role of concertina barbed wire at the end of which was a large Israeli tank. Consequently, trucks, loaded with fruits and vegetables rotting in the sun and people were forced to sleep in their cars. (In using collective punishment, Israel had alrady become the all time master!).
I wanted to take a photo of the bridge’s toll entrances which featured Israeli and Lebanese flags and a Mobil Oil sign so I walked around the barbed wire and past the barrel of the tank to do so. After taking one or two photos I suddenly felt, before I heard, a bullet creasing my ear, and looked up to see two Israeli soldiers with US M 16s heading my way. I took one poorly aimed pic of them before I discreetly scampered back behind the wire. Another inch or so and I would have been another dead Arab journalist (which was what many there took me for). Even as Americans we have seen that their lives don’t count.
More than 1200 Israelis refused to serve in Lebanon in 1982, some of whom I interviewed who became friends of mine and whom I was able to get interviewed on KGO in SF when they visited the city and it was still possible. Those in Lebanon then like Gaza now were there because they chose to go when they could have refused with minor penalties or left the country as many have since 2023. Young Germans nor their parents under Hitler were given no choice and most were engaged in fighting Allied armies, not killing children.
JULIE BEARDSLEY
Buckle up, Buttercup things are getting weirder.
De-funding public radio and television is another brick in the authoritarian wall Trump et al is building. CBS is canceling Stephen Cobert, one of the most outspoken critics of Trump, because their parent company, Paramount wants a merger that must be approved by the Trump administration.
Professor Kim Scheppele from Princeton University, suggests there are 10 steps to destroying Democracy:
- Winning an election
- Expansion of executive power where she says “the president decides he wants more than he’s supposed to have.”
- Making Congress complicit, you weakened them, and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary.
- Firing all the people who know how to make government work like civil service in effort to break democracy.
- Putting loyalists in places like the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense
- Breaking communication – de-funding public media, promoting misinformation on social media
- Blaming someone for the broken government, for the broken promises, the attack on DEI, or in 1939, blaming the Jews.
- Eliminate anyone who can help these communities by suing law firms that do pro bono cases, going after philanthropies, accusing them of giving money, and going after colleges and universities that teach people what they should know.
- Encourage and incentivize private violence by sending Marines, the National Guard, and ICE into the streets
- Deciding there is no new election, which is not hard because by that time, because everyone is either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.
I hope there will be a huge blue wave in the mid-terms to stop this take-over of our American government.
This funny little newspaper, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, may be one of the few places left to get news. Stay strong and independent.
GEORGE RETES was pulled over by ICE as he was driving near the violent raid on farm workers outside of Camarillo last Thursday.
The ICE agents broke the windows of his car and pepper sprayed him, before taking him into custody. Retes is an American citizen and disabled US Army Veteran. He was held in federal lockup for four days , during which time his family and lawyer had no way of contacting him to find out where he was or inquire about his physical condition. He was released without charges on Sunday night. Is this what Thomas Homan meant when he told FoxNews that ICE can stop people based on their skin-color and “briefly” detain them without a warrant or probable cause until ICE is satisfied they’re American citizens?
— Jeffrey St. Clair
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.
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)
RIP: ROSIE GROVER,
40-years ago early this morning Ukiah High School student Rosie Grover sadly left this earth in a senseless and brutal murder in a creekbed in South Ukiah.
On July 20th, 1985…
Rosie arrived back home in Ukiah from visiting relatives out of town. Her bus arrived in the early morning hours at the Greyhound Bus station in the Yokayo Shopping Center (now, Mendocino County Social Services building).
No one was at the Greyhound Bus station to safely pick Rosie up and take her home.
And when her mother didn't answer her phone, Rosie started walking home. Rosie lived south of the Ukiah Airport, so she had quite a walk ahead of her. She got as far as the House of Garner (now, Mountain Mike's Pizza) when she picked up the receiver of the pay phone in a phone booth located outside, next to the restaurant's entrance. She asked the operator for the police because she was scared that someone was following and harassing her.
The telephone operator put her through to the Ukiah CHP office. The Ukiah CHP refused to give Rosie a needed ride home for her safety because at that time, it was against CHP policy.
Nor was any law enforcement dispatched to her desperate situation to look for the person following, harassing and scaring her on South State Street.
After the Ukiah CHP refused to help, Ukiah Police Chief Fred Keplinger said in a public statement to the Ukiah Daily Journal a few days later, that the UPD would have absolutely given Rosie a safe ride home, but that his department never received Rosie's call from dispatch.
Rosie was found dead after daylight that same morning after her killer (Richard Dean Clark) reported finding a body in the creek.
If only the CHP had given Rosie a ride home or law enforcement been dispatched to her location outside the House of Garner, Rosie would still be alive and with us today.
— Feeling sad in Ukiah
NO ANNEXATION UPDATE
Statement from No Ukiah Annexation on the City of Ukiah Taking Down the Annexation Map
No Ukiah Annexation acknowledges the City of Ukiah’s recent removal of the proposed annexation map from its website. Yet the City of Ukiah staff seems to view annexation as inevitable even after clear rejection from those the City proposes to annex.
Indeed, at a recent City Council meeting, Council-member Mari Rodin openly stated that city representatives intend to “soon bring back a new, proposed map,” as if the map is the only concern with annexation. This signals a clear contradiction between the city’s stated intentions and its actual plans which seems to be divide and conquer.
We view the removal of the map not as a meaningful shift in direction, but as a temporary tactic meant to quiet public opposition while continuing annexation efforts behind closed doors.
No Ukiah Annexation demands that the City Council take real, substantive action. We urge the Council to immediately direct staff to withdraw all annexation proposals and to suspend any further work until a genuine and inclusive citizen engagement process is conducted.
The public deserves clarity, honesty, and a truly inclusive process, not half-measures, strategic delays or divide and conquer attempts. Anything less undermines public trust and disregards the voices of the very community the City claims to serve.
No Ukiah Annexation is a community-driven organization made up of residents, local businesses, and public officials committed to ensuring that any annexation is approached thoughtfully, sustainably, and through a phased public process.
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.noukiahannexation.com
ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] Mamdani is right: there should be no billionaires. We need to bring back the confiscatory tax rate for the uber wealthy (over 90 percent). And corporations would flee? Good, they don’t pay their fair share of taxes anyway, and they offer employees zero job security. And who has the lion’s share of the blame for obscene real estate costs across all markets (and not just in New York)? The greedy developers and landlords who never have enough money. Businesses go under every day because they cannot afford the stratospheric overhead. We need drastic change or else a handful of these despicable billionaires will have all the money, instead of just most of it.
[2] COVID, AN ON-LINE COMMENT:
You had to be listening to Fox News to understand why Republicans have turned against public health. Before Biden was elected Fox New was all gung-ho about the Covid vaccine calling it proudly “Operation Warpspeed.” After Trump lost they turned on a dime criticizing Biden’s vaccine roll-out and mask and vaccine mandates. They interviewed Dr Redfield about the virus might have come from a Chinese lab, but when he tried to say, “But regardless of where the vaccine came from everyone should get vac…” they literally cut him off. As a result several hundred thousand Americans died needlessly and Republicans died at a 43% higher rate. And Covid was only 2-3 times as deadly as the flu. What will happen when a pandemic comes along with a higher death rate? By the way, it was Republican anti-vaccine attitudes that caused Kern County to reject $5 million to shore up their emergency services. You better get Rupert Murdoch on the phone if you want to fix this because otherwise we are all sitting ducks.
[3] Well, it’s been two thousand years since the prophet claiming to be God appeared, and yet the cycles of war, evil, violence and “humans being animals” continues to go on, with no relief in sight. I’m always amazed at how Believers will quickly give credit to the Big Shifter for those who survive a tragedy (like a plane crash), and yet are not so fast to give credit to the Big Shifter for those who perished in the crash other than “nobody knows God’s plan….”
It seems we have a Laissez-faire approach to things from the Big Shifter, which is why I try to stay on the material plane - which is the only location where agreement between all faiths can occur. Trusting in “trusting God” to work things out seems a bit of cop out, but everyone is entitled to their own belief system.
“Trump” is an actor, and my focus is on interpreting his actions as the result of directions from those hidden behind the curtain. They are the same group of sociopaths that directed “Joe Biden”, and until the system of this hidden control is removed, rule of law restored, and the Constitution followed and enforced, we’ll continue down the path of misery and transfer of wealth to the top 1%.
[4] I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't the first time Mr. Trump lied, nor will it be the last. We live in a world built on lies. Everything in western culture is a lie. It's all built on debt but people pretend to be wealthy. We all claim to be free and to love freedom but we are taxed to the hilt and really never own any property. Everybody in power lies, constantly, consistently and without remorse. Truth exists but it is extremely hard to find.
[5] 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.
[6] "Where Grammarly says, 'Stay on-brand with consistent communication,' Orwell warns that 'the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.'" I detest Grammarly. Every time I see something from that company, I see its shortcomings in areas utterly basic. Take that very quote. What on Earth is the point in the hyphen between the preposition and its object? Sorry: what on-Earth is the point in the hyphen between-the-preposition-and-its-object? It doesn't even fit the stress, one of the basics of hyphenation. We stay on BRAND: we don't stay ON-brand. Grammarly's supposedly WORTHwhile recommendations are not worth WHILE. Most of Gmail's suggestions are wrong, too, at least in my case. It fails to grasp, for instance, the difference in meaning between the subjunctive and the indicative, as in "It's important that these pills BE taken daily" and "It's important that these pills ARE taken daily". Microsoft has fallen into the same trap. Its modern, "A.I." suggestions in Word are worse than those made by the Word grammar-checker thirty years ago. Here's a recent medical-journal article. First sentence: "COVID-19 has unleashed a tsunami of research that has been further energized by the persistent and debilitating aftermath of Long COVID." Do tsunamis usually wear leashes? Let's get out our dictionaries. Let's think. Then let's write.
[7] It’s not everywhere. Not one store including Walmart, locks up anything where I live, not even the otc medicines or makeup. We still have self checkout too, with no item limits. I live in a rural area, so I do shop pretty much at every one of our major stores over the course of a couple of months. I’m thankful the people who live here are honest and normal. I guess I’m naive, but it’s very surprising to me that people steal big things like laundry detergent. Evidently they do, it just didn’t occur to me that people could manage stealing something so big. In NYC pretty much every big store locks up 50% of the merchandise…. moisturizers, body wash, razors, deodorant etc… Target has started chaining up the ice cream freezer. I bought a tin of cookies with a resealable tab, opened it, and there were some missing. The cashier said it happens all the time. I live in a nice neighborhood too, but there is constant shoplifting everywhere. Same with tons of fare beaters in the subway. They literally do it in front of the police.
Be First to Comment