Warming | Dawn Sky | Cash-Flow Problem | Chaon Flips | Gaska Elected | Eyster's Reply | Lavender Bumblebee | Williams' Response | Homicide Hearings | Fern Shadow | Fentanyl Murder | BSVFD Fundraiser | MCN Thoughts | Fair Entries | Great Day | Alder Creek | Yesterday's Catch | Klamath Bridge | Family Violence | Popular Rule | Lost Fish | Daily Reminder | Estate Tax | Doesn't Matter | Righteous Population | Singing Bhajans | Healdsburg Resistance | Oil Lobby | Against Us | Giants Win | Greaseless Doughnut | Even Dowd | Joseph Brodsky | Blue Bowl | Park Coyotes | Ugly Bill | Lead Stories | Rogue CIA | Past Directors | Ukraine Talks | Sixpence Moon | To Journalists | Exact Moment | Plausible Deniability | Unmaking Humanity | Bad Living
A GRADUAL WARMING and drying trend will continue and intensifies late this week with inland temperatures warming to above 100 into the weekend. This will create fire weather concerns and a Moderate to Major HeatRisk. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): We have not had morning temps in the 40's for a while but I have have clear skies & 48F this Tuesday morning on the coast. Our forecast is looking like patchy morning fog then clearing during the day. The satellite view shows the fog to be largely south of Pt. Conception for now.
LIKE THE SUPERVISORS, we were convinced by Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison’s presentation Monday morning showing that Mendo has an unusual cash flow problem stemming primarily from some recent expensive Transportation Department projects that have depleted the Transportation Department’s cash on hand. Described by Cubbison as an “unfortunate convergence, the timing of two large bridge projects (in Hopland and Boonville) and an increase in road maintenance projects at roughly the same time has resulted in bills that exceed the Transportation Department’s reserves. After a few routine questions from the Board, they voted 5-0 to approve Cubbison’s request to allow her to pay the contractor bills for ongoing work so they could return to their respective vacations. (Mark Scaramella)
FLOCK CAMERA ALERT OF STOLEN CAR LEADS TO PURSUIT, ARREST
On August 17, 2025 at approximately 12:42 PM, Fort Bragg police officers received an alert from the Flock License Plate Reader camera system regarding a stolen gray Honda sedan. Officers confirmed the vehicle had been reported stolen in Ukiah that morning.
Officers began checking the area and at approximately 12:59 PM located the vehicle leaving the Safeway parking lot. They immediately activated their emergency lights and sirens in an attempt to perform a traffic stop. The driver of the vehicle, later identified as Gabriel Chaon, 19 of Ukiah, drove slowly near the curb of Cypress approaching Main St, then suddenly accelerated through a red light, turning south on Main St at a high rate of speed.
Officers pursued Chaon southbound across the Noyo River bridge at a high rate of speed until Chaon lost control of the vehicle attempting to turn onto Boatyard drive. Chaon’s vehicle left the west side of the roadway through a grassy area, crossed Oceanview Dr, then overturned. It ended on its roof in the landscaping of the Emerald Dolphin Inn. There was no damage to any structures. The entire pursuit was approximately one-half mile and lasted approximately 30 seconds.
Officers immediately took Chaon into custody and provided aid to him. He complained of pain but had no visible injuries. A search of the stolen vehicle resulted in the recovery of a non-serialized firearm (ghost gun). Furthermore, officers determined Chaon was on probation for auto theft and evading.
Chaon, was arrested and booked into Mendocino County Juvenile Hall on the charges of Vehicle Theft, Possession of Stolen Vehicle; Felony Evading; Possession of Undetectable Firearm; and Violation of Probation.
Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Officer Baker of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext 226.
This information is being released by Chief Neil Cervenka All media inquiries should contact him at [email protected].
ADAM GASKA was elected to the Mendocino County LAFCO (Local Area Formation Commission) board as an alternate member for a term ending in 2026, by a 14-13 vote. Congratulations and thank you to both Adam and David Shpak, runner-up.
(Mendocino LAFCO Executive Director Uma Hinman)
DA EYSTER REPLIES TO RECALL PETITIONERS:
(From the petition now being circulated to recall DA David Eyster):
The answer of the officer sought to be recalled is as follows:
“As your District Attorney for the past 15 years it has been my honor to give my all to protecting the public from crime. A local group sponsoring this recall is unhappy with the prosecution of one of the thousands upon thousands of cases that my office has prosecuted. Like all of the other cases, this one case was investigated and referred for prosecution by law enforcement (the Sheriff’s office) and I approved the filing of one of the three charges that the Sheriff recommended. Because the defendants in that case were County employees I brought in an independent prosecutor to prosecute the case. The judge found that the County’s record keeping was flawed and after weighing witness credibility stopped the prosecution before trial. The system worked. The Sheriff’s office did its job, I did my job, the special prosecutor did her job, the defense attorney did his job and the judge did her job. I am proud of my record. I stand on my record, and look forward to completing my term as your District Attorney.
Mark Scaramella notes: Some people would disagree that 1. The case was “referred for prosecution by law enforcement,” because the Cubbison and Kennedy charges originated in the CEO’s office and the investigation, such as it was, was lead by the DA, not law enforcement, and 2. that the DA did his job, because if the DA had done his job he would have realized that there was no probable cause to file the case, much less a felony-chargeable case. The record shows that the case was filed because the DA didn’t like the Auditor’s decisions involving his asset forfeiture expenditures. Also, the fact that various other people involved in the costly case did their jobs has nothing to do with the proposed recall of the District Attorney.
SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS RESPONDS to Chris Skyhawk’s Coast Chatline repost of our story about the Supes taking six weeks off:
“Chris, and to everyone reading, your ideas are always welcome and every idea gets a fair shake. That said, proposals that increase spending alone are difficult because the county must reduce ongoing costs by ~$16M per year. By law, California counties are required to maintain a balanced budget. Unfortunately, our revenue has not kept pace with the rising costs of providing services and maintaining infrastructure (and new regulations). This fall, we will begin a three-part series outlining what federal cuts and policy shifts could mean locally, starting with health services, an area I am deeply concerned about.”
Mark Scaramella notes: That’s not a response. Not even close. Williams is on vacation even when he’s not.
DA EYSTER: ‘TWO HOMICIDE DEFENDANTS NOW HEADING FOR TRIAL’
In an unusual quirk of scheduling, two homicide preliminary hearings were heard simultaneously Friday morning in two separate courtrooms of the Ukiah courthouse.
At the close of evidence, defendant Edher David Lozano Urena, age 21, of Clearlake, was bound over for trial on the following charges all alleged to have occurred on May 15, 2025 north of Covelo: Murder in the first degree while armed with a firearm; Attempted murder in the first degree while armed with a firearm; and Attempted murder in the first degree while armed with a firearm.
The prosecutor who conducted the hearing on behalf of the People and organized the evidence presented to the magistrate was District Attorney David Eyster.
Meanwhile, in a different courtroom and at the close of evidence, defendant Fletcher Ross Pinkham, age 41, of Little River, was bound over for trial on the following charges all alleged to have occurred on February 20, 2024 in the Little River area: Murder by use of a firearm; Arson of an Inhabited Dwelling; and Felon in Unlawful Possession of a Firearm.
The prosecutor who conducted the Pinkham hearing on behalf of the People and organized the evidence presented to the magistrate was Senior Deputy District Attorney Eloise Kelsey.
Finally, please remember that a defendant in a criminal case is presumed to be innocent unless and until the prosecution proves his or her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.
Background: https://theava.com/archives/238920#10
On Line Comment:
I had dinner with Mr. Pinkham several years ago at his mother’s house. A mutual friend of his mother and I were guests. She was a remarkably nice lady, intelligent and very interesting.
Mr. Pinkham seemed kind of odd. He repeatedly stated that he hated people of Sub–Saharan ethnic origin. [My words — if I repeated what he said the libs would censor it out]. He’s welcome to his opinion; however it seemed odd to bring this up repeatedly at dinner.
Murdering his mother, then lopping off her head… Well, it’s just not nice.
FORT BRAGG GIRL’S FENTANYL DEATH TIED TO SNAPCHAT DRUG DEALS, Prosecutors Say
by Elise Cox
President David Trump has pledged to win a war against fentanyl, using military force if necessary.
In Fort Bragg, Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster is using all the tools at his disposal to try to curb fentanyl overdose deaths. That includes applying a theory of “implied malice” to the case of Kailand Ignacio Garcia, who is accused of second-degree murder in the death of a 17-year-old Fort Bragg girl who died of fentanyl poisoning on Jan. 17, 2024.
According to a brief prepared by the prosecution for Judge Clayton Brennan, Alyson Sanchez-llanes was a regular customer of Elohi Triplett, then a juvenile, who sold her counterfeit oxycodone pills known as M-30s or “blues.” Prosecutors allege that Triplett was supplied by Garcia.
“Bruh, these perks finna kill me no joke,” Sanchez-llanes wrote in a Dec. 8, 2023, Snapchat message to Triplett. The message included a photo of a small plastic baggie containing two M-30 pills.
Four days later, she posted a digital photo with the caption: “my dealer and I are each others best friends on snap. We’re giving each other affirmation rn. Might fall in love w this one too idk yet.”
On the night of her death, Sanchez-llanes also engaged in Snapchat conversations with Garcia, who used the username “cashkai100k,” from 7:46 p.m. until about a half-hour after midnight.
In an interview with an investigator, a friend of Sanchez-llanes said she had seen both Triplett and Garcia sell pills to Sanchez-llanes. According to the prosecution, the friend indicated that Triplett was Sanchez-llanes’ primary supplier because he charged $20 per pill, while Garcia charged $30. She said Sanchezllanes would often meet Garcia at the skate park on Willow Street.
Another witness, Emmanuel Tiscareno, told investigators he had confronted Triplett and Garcia, warning them: “Do you want a murder case? You’re going to kill someone one of these days, and it’s gonna go straight to your fuckin name.” Tiscareno said Sanchez-llanes gave him a ride on Jan. 16 and told him she had purchased pills from Triplett that night. Snapchat data confirmed the purchase, prosecutors alleged.
According to the brief, Snapchat GPS data show Garcia and Triplett meeting at Garcia’s house at 7:47 p.m. Jan. 16. Triplett and Sanchez-llanes met at 8:13 p.m. At that time, Triplett sent a message to Emma Vanhorn instructing her: “get two perks from my jacket and give it to Allison chck outside please. She should give you money.” Vanhorn told investigators she was in the bathroom when Sanchez-llanes arrived and that Triplett went outside to meet her.
Garcia was interviewed by investigators following Sanchez-llanes’ death. According to the brief, he said he did not know her and refused to answer questions about $8,563 found in his jacket, along with pills, on Feb. 5, 2024. He admitted using drugs but denied selling them and refused to identify his supplier. He also claimed he did not really know Triplett. After being confronted with his Snapchat account information, Garcia invoked his right to an attorney.
To convict Garcia of second-degree murder, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed an act that caused Sanchez-llanes’ death, and that he did so intentionally and with knowledge that the act was dangerous to human life. Prosecutors must also prove he acted with conscious disregard for human life.
In the brief, prosecutors argue that Garcia was “well aware of the dangerous and lethal nature of fentanyl” and that he knew the “juvenile male who he was supplying M-30s to was in turn selling those pills for profit to other minors.” They also alleged Garcia was “well aware” of Sanchez-llanes’ drug dependency.
“The People contend that the defendant knew that the act of furnishing fentanyl was dangerous to others, but did so anyway, not caring if someone was hurt or killed from it,” the brief concluded.
A preliminary hearing in People of the State of California v. Kailand Ignacio Garcia is scheduled for Sept. 17, 2025.
REQUEST FOR COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES ON CITY OF FORT BRAGG’S PURCHASE OF MCN
by Matt LaFever
Dear community members,
I’m reporting on the City of Fort Bragg’s recent purchase of Mendocino Community Network (MCN), a long-standing internet service provider on the Coast. The $300,000 acquisition, finalized in May, is being described by the City as a major milestone toward launching a municipal broadband utility.
According to the City’s press release, the transition is intended to expand digital equity, modernize infrastructure, and provide citywide fiber internet access. Officials say they are committed to honoring MCN’s legacy of local service while integrating operations into a new community-owned broadband system. The project has already secured more than $10 million in state funding and is projected to roll out over the next three to six months.
I’d like to hear from you:
- What are your thoughts or concerns about the City taking over MCN?
- Do you believe this acquisition will strengthen internet access and affordability for Coast residents and businesses?
- What sort of worries do you have about how the transition could affect existing MCN customers, staff, or service quality?
- More broadly, do you support the idea of a municipal broadband utility for Fort Bragg and the surrounding region, or do you have reservations?
Your perspectives will help provide a fuller picture of how this transition is viewed in the community. Please reply with any comments you’d like to share.
Thank you for your time and input.
HI FAIR FANS!
Sorry for the late information about the fair this year!
Here is a link for the Exhibitor’s Guide Book 2025
There is still time, until Thursday, 8/28, to enter online for most categories as the Mendocino County Fair and Apple Show is one of the best places to showcase some of your handiwork: plants and flowers, art, quilts, clothing and food!
Another way you can get involved with the County fair this year is entering fruits or vegetables that you've grown, and don't forget that the "Freaky Fruits and Veggies", or "The One That Got Away" contest doesn't require an entry form, and you can bring entries into the back of the AG building anytime Friday through Sunday until 12:00 pm. to win a prize for that enormous squash or a fruit or veggie that is really weird!
Don't forget to enter or watch the parade, which starts at noon on Sunday, but will be done just in time for you to get to the Freaky Fruits and Veggies in the Ag Building at 1:00!
We hope to see you all at our special fair, with so many things in which to participate and enjoy!
Retired Fair Boosters
GREAT DAY IN ELK
The 49th annual Great Day in Elk will be held on Saturday, August 23, from noon until dusk. The noontime parade will travel through downtown Elk to the Greenwood Community Center for the day’s festivities.
All afternoon there will be game booths with prizes and do-it-yourself crafts projects for children, plus a greased pole with a $100 bill at the top. Watermelon-eating contests, sack races, and an egg toss will be held throughout the day.
This year’s live entertainment features belly dancing and live music by 2nd Hand Grass. There will also be a silent auction, a cake auction and a raffle.
Lunch options include tamales and Caesar salad (with or without chicken), hot dogs and focaccia with Moroccan lentil soup, and the Civic Club’s ice cream sundaes topped with fresh berry sauce. Drinks include fresh-pressed Greenwood Ridge apple cider, Elk’s famous margaritas, soft drinks, beer and wine.
This year’s dinner will be udon noodles with spicy chicken or tofu, prepared by Chris of Mendocino’s Gnar Bar. It will be served from 4 to 7.
So, come to the little coastal village of Elk and enjoy a fun-filled family day, while supporting the Greenwood Community Center, five miles south of Highway 128 on Highway 1. Please leave dogs at home.
For more information email Mea Bloyd at [email protected] or visit the Elk community website: www.elkweb.org.
RON PARKER (Mendocino Back When)
Alder Creek 1917. High water took out the bridge. It was lifted back into place without removing the rails by Port Lawson. At this time Goodyear Redwood Co had 101,000 feet of narrow gauge 36-inch line with 101 bridges on it to the headwaters of Alder Creek, Mendocino Co 1917.
ED NOTE: Port Lawson, an engineering wizard, was a long-time resident of the Anderson Valley, owning much of the land overlooking today’s AV High School.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, August 18, 2025
ALEXANDER BARGER, 21, Ukiah. Suspended license for DUI, probation revocation.
JESUS GONZALES, 50, Ukiah. Failure to register as sex offender with prior, parole violation.
JARED KIDD, 34, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, brandishing to person in motor vehicle, brandishing to resist arrest, resisting. (Frequent flyer.)
NICHOLAS SHEILS, 39, Willits. Battery, trespassing.
BREANNA TERKELSEN, 22, Ukiah. DUI, switchblade, probation violation.
SILAS YOUNG, 43, Willits. Controlled substance, probation violation.
Klamath river bridge (only a portion of the bridge remains today) with the iconic bears on then Highway 101 alignment. The Highway 101 shield sign can be seen as well as a nice 1937 Ford.
ED OBERWEISER (Fort Bragg):
There was a huge front page article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat yesterday about the fast increase in domestic violent deaths. What the article did not express was that almost all the violence was committed by men.
I wrote the following letter to the editor:
The reasons for increased family violence are obvious. The corporate-bought U.S. government is the most corrupt in my 78-year lifetime.
Huge tax breaks and subsidies are given to the ultra wealthy at the expense of medical care, social security and other programs to help working people.
Many jobs were eliminated by the Trump regime. People are unemployed. They can’t afford to feed their families, educate their children or afford medical care.
The NRA helped many irresponsible citizens own numerous weapons of mass destruction. They are used against, schools, spouses and law enforcement officers.
The ultra rich and their corporations are getting more subsidies and tax breaks than ever.
The military budget is huge. The Pentagon cannot account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets.
The U.S. citizenry is uneducated. Six corporations own 90% of the “mainstream” media. Seven of them own 90% of all media (https://www.webfx.com/…/the-6-companies-that-own…/).
130 million Americans—54% of adults between 16 and 74 years old—lack proficiency in literacy. They read below a sixth-grade level.
Many citizens can’t analyze Trump’s lies. That’s how he got elected.
All this led to more domestic violence by frustrated male citizens whose needs aren’t addressed by the government.
MAYBE SOMEDAY THE POPULACE WILL RULE
Editor:
Long ago, well before the development of language, clan leaders modified behavior manually. A stiff wallop probably worked wonders, whereas a regimen of abuse most likely maintained obedience. That is, until the dominated decided to become the dominator. Eventually, I imagine, the consequences of violent leadership changes grew wearisome. Probably, one of the deposed chieftains proposed coup reforms.
Since dictators are paranoid, the former leaders probably handpicked the new ones, and the beat went on, and clans transitioned from one cockamamie leader to the next. About 507 BC, the Athenians developed a peaceful solution. It was called “Demokratia,” which meant ruled by the people. I imagine that caused a controversy.
Now, Americans say they believe in the consensus rule philosophy, but do everything to prevent it. We gerrymander, suppress voter eligibility and use money to shape opinions. We hold elections, but the mentality is the same now as in the past. The leaders don’t trust the masses, and the masses don’t trust leadership. If things are going to change, leadership must demonstrate honesty and strive to make elections fair. Someday, the populace might rule the United States.
Tom Fantulin
Fort Bragg
CLOSE CALL WITH MEASLES HAS BEEN DAILY REMINDER
Editor,
I am a rubeola (aka measles) survivor and I am writing in support of the vaccination rules for Marin schools. When I was near death as a 4-year-old, I remember the hypnotic, compelling inner voice insisting that I just give up and sink comfortably into the abyss. I consciously stepped back and said no.
Sixty-eight years later, that memory lives with me vividly every day. I was lucky. Back then as a small child, I chose to survive. My life since that time has been filled with a mixture of experiences which I do not regret, both joyous and not.
In today’s world, we have a measles vaccine. There are childhood memories far more worthy than mine of a near encounter with death.
Stephen Petterle
Novato
REFORM ESTATE TAXES
Editor,
Estate taxes should be a much larger part of a debate on policy that now favors the already wealthy.
The estate tax exemption is over $13 million, a ridiculous amount that affects a tiny fraction of households. We need a progressive estate tax just like we have a progressive income tax. For example, exempt the first $2 million of estates, then put a 10% tax on $2 million to $5 million and keep raising it until it is 50% for anything over $50 million.
I can hear the heads of Bay Area billionaires exploding as they read this, but here’s their hypocrisy: Conservative doctrine is that money should be earned and no one should get something for nothing. And yet they want to give their kids fortunes for nothing except the luck of birth.
Robert Leeds
Oakland
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I love America. It is my home and always will be come hell or high water. I’m committed until the end of either my existence or America’s existence. However, I believe the people have become corrupted. Not all, but many, if not the majority of the American people live unrighteous lives full of debt, greed, deceit, gluttony, immorality, slothfulness, perversion and decadence. Hence evil in the government has been permitted to thrive for many decades and is still being permitted.
A righteous population would have no tolerance for an evil government. The government of the USA is a bright reflection of the majority of her subjects. I truly believe this. If Americans would right their own ships and correct their own courses everything else, eventually all things would fall in line and evil would be eradicated.
Yes, I dream.
BHAJANS, THE MUSICAL
Warmest spiritual greetings,
I’d Rather Be Singing Bhajans
Just sitting here on a public computer at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in Washington, D.C. enjoying spiritual bhajans from India. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, just sitting back and enjoying the music, chants, and visuals. Mind absorbed in the Absolute.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
DANCING IN THE FACE OF ICE RAIDS
Increasingly targeted in immigration raids, Mixteco and Triqui communities hold festivals of resistance.
by David Bacon
In many agricultural fields of the West Coast of the United States, you’re more likely to hear Mixtec or Triqui languages spoken than Spanish. Both are common among the Indigenous people of southern Mexico, some of whom now pick grapes for Napa and Sonoma County’s prestige wineries, or apples in century-old orchards. Without their labor, rural economies in California would collapse.
Yet Mixteco and Triqui migrants are being increasingly targeted in immigration raids terrorizing California’s rural communities. In farmworker families, mothers and fathers now give their children phone numbers to call if parents are abducted on the way to or from work. It can be an act of bravery simply to walk to the store, or to drive a car at night.
That made it an act of resistance when Triquis and Mixtecos in the Sonoma County town of Healdsburg came out in late July to celebrate the unique culture they’ve brought with them over the course of their 2,000-mile journey from Oaxaca and Guerrero. They call their festival the Guelaguetza — a celebration featuring a fabulous display of dancers in elaborate masks and tall headdresses, performing to music from home. Indigenous towns in Mexico often have their own dance; the Guelaguetza brings them together in all their vivid variety.…
YES - WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION DIDN’T SPONSORS AWARDS RECEPTIONS, DINNERS FOR JOURNALISTS THIS YEAR
by Dan Bacher
One of the biggest — and most neglected — environmental stories of the past few years has been the sponsorship of awards receptions and dinners by Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying organization in California.…
SF GIANTS PLAYER BASHES FANS FOR BEING ‘AGAINST US’ AFTER HISTORIC LOSING SKID
by Gabe Fernandez
San Francisco Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos openly criticized his own team’s fans in defense of manager Bob Melvin.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler went into the team clubhouse this weekend to ask players about where they stood on their embattled leader. Melvin had steadfast support from his players, including Ramos. But when Ostler asked about fans demanding to see more fire from the manager in the dugout, the player pointed the finger back at those critics.
“Outside people don’t know anything,” Ramos told the Chronicle. “That’s the type of person he is. That doesn’t mean that he’s not a great manager. When we were winning, everybody was on our side, now it’s like all the fans are against us and all that. I don’t get it. We’re here and we know what’s going on, we know what we’re feeling, we know what we’re working for, but fans are going to be fans, we can’t do nothing about it.”
It’s a stark contrast to how other members of the organization have talked about fans in the midst of the Giants’ historic home struggles, which have marginally improved from losing 15 of 16 home games to losing 15 of their past 17 home games as of Sunday. Matt Chapman, for instance, praised the home crowd on Friday, after a 7-6 loss to the Rays.
“Obviously, we haven’t been able to get much going, especially at home, and I feel bad for our fans because they come out here and they support us every single night,” he said. “They pay their own money to come see us, and we haven’t been playing good baseball for them. Regardless if we win or lose, they stay all game. It’s packed. Everybody here feels that. We want to win for a million reasons, with the fans being one of them.”
Melvin shared a similar sentiment Aug. 10, following an 8-0 loss to the Nationals.
“I mean, we have 40,000 people here, we don’t give ‘em anything to root for the entire game other than that,” he said, referencing Justin Verlander reaching 3,500 career strikeouts. “So unfortunately, that probably is as disappointing a game as we’ve had all year. … I’m frustrated for that. I’m frustrated that our fans come out and support us every night and we gave them literally nothing today.”
The only benefit of the doubt Ramos could get for his comments is that it’s not necessarily all about the fans. Andrew Baggarly was asked about the possibility of replacing Melvin in an interview with KNBR-AM/FM’s “Murph and Markus“ morning show on Monday. The longtime Giants reporter said president of baseball operations Buster Posey has made it clear that the decision on a managerial change lies with how the players perform on the field. Perhaps Ramos was just sticking up for Melvin because he knows just how dependent the manager’s job is on player support.
Still, it might not be the best idea for a player to rip into the dedicated fans who show up every game to see him be one of the worst outfielders in baseball.
GIANTS, HELIOT RAMOS HAVE LAST LAUGH in series-opening defeat of Pads
by Shayna Rubin
SAN DIEGO — Heliot Ramos heard a chorus of Petco Park boos during his at-bats. Not long after the San Diego Padres swept the San Francisco Giants at home, and having dealt with backlash over his misconstrued comments earlier in the day, it had to have been music to his ears.
Ramos’ leadoff home run — his first homer since July 5 — kicked off a rare scoring frenzy before the crowd had even settled into seats. It helped that Padres lefty Nestor Cortes was feeding them 88-90mph fastballs, but encouraging that the top of the order was able to do plenty of damage with it. Rafael Devers followed Ramos with a blast of his own (his 24th), Casey Schmitt then doubled into the left field corner to tee up Wilmer Flores for a two-run home run in the Giants’ 4-3 win against the Padres on Monday night, their second straight win following a seven-game losing streak.
The big inning drew a few boos once the frame ended, but Ramos was part of a fan interference fiasco that got him and the crowd into a beef.
Xander Bogaerts smoked starter Robbie Ray’s fastball to left, in reach at the wall for Ramos to make a catch. The ball bounced in and out of Ramos’ glove and into the stands for what was initially called a home run, but an official review determined that an ABBA shirt-clad fan interfered with the play and called Bogaerts out. Padres manager Mike Schildt was so pressed over the outcome of the prolonged review that he argued and was ejected. Ramos saw pretty clearly the ball deflect off the fan’s finger, he said, and his arms obscure his vision.
“I did think I had it easier than that, but when I was going to catch it I saw his arm was over me,” Ramos said. “So I thought it hit his arm, so when I was trying to catch it it hit my glove.”
The official supervisor explanation stated: “After reviewing all relevant angles, the replay official definitively determined that the spectator reached out over the field of play and interfered with a live ball. The spectator’s actions clearly prevented the fielder from making the catch. The call is overturned and there was spectator interference, no home run, the batter is out.”
Broadcast cameras caught Ramos laughing and pointing at fans in the left field seats who jeered at him. They’d get their laughs back as he struck out three times.
“I’m just saying it’s not my fault. I’m not the one who overturned the call,” Ramos said. “Why are you mad at me? I’m just there playing. Some were laughing and smiling, some were talking trash. I’m just here for it.”
That was the only bit of drama Ray would encounter until the seventh inning. Though the average velocity on his fastball was just over 1 mph down over his average, he struck out six and allowed one hit over the first six innings.
Justin Verlander and Logan Webb had thrown 88 and 86 pitches, respectively, in their last starts and manager Bob Melvin indicated before the game that Ray could follow suit given his heavy workload and 113-pitch outing his last time out.
The hope, Melvin said after the game, was to keep Ray at around 100 pitches. Ray attributed the dip in velocity to unexpected humidity and an arduous previous start.
“Maybe has a little bit to do with going 115 in my last one,” Ray said. “But still able to reach back and hit 95 today, so overall I feel healthy. I feel good. It was a little humid, oddly, I was sweating a lot. So that could have something to do with it.”
Ray was at 97 pitches when he got what could have been an inning-ending groundout in the seventh, but Schmitt bobbled Jose Iglesias’ ground ball and misfired to first base, a double error, to score Bogaerts. Then he left a slider up to Ryan O’ Hearn, who mashed a two-run home run to center to make it a one-run game. The three runs were all unearned on Ray’s record, but posed a threat to upend a rare victory against a National League West foe.
Ryan Walker — who returned Monday from the paternity list with Keaton Winn getting optioned to Triple-A as the corresponding roster move — paired with Randy Rodriguez to preserve the lead with Rodriguez earning his fourth save.
(sfchronicle.com)
EVEN LIBERAL MAUREEN DOWD OF THE TIMES ADMITS DC IS CRIME-RIDDEN
by Andrea Peyser
Proving the old saw that a conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged, one of the New York Times’ marquee columnists has agreed — grudgingly, stubbornly, kicking and screaming — that President Trump is right: There’s too much crime in the nation’s capital.
And, just possibly, Washington, DC, currently under Democratic control, could benefit from Trump calling in the National Guard and other feds to help restore law and order.
“It’s ridiculous to drag F.B.I. agents from their desks to be cops on the beat. And the tableau of National Guard troops — even unarmed — raises the specter of martial law being normalized and weaponized,” Pulitzer Prize-winning DC-based scribe Maureen Dowd wrote over the weekend.
Then La Dowd suddenly hit the brakes, skidded, and did a complete 180.
“It is also true that many D.C. residents are secretly glad to see more uniforms. No matter what statistics say, they don’t feel safe.”
This about-face was brought on by her sister’s close encounter with slovenly car thieves. As Dowd tells it, she was having dinner with her sibling Peggy in the upscale Georgetown neighborhood recently when the metaphorical mugging zapped the liberal right out of her: Peg’s beloved Buick vanished from its parking spot by Maureen’s house.
“Two polite officers who responded to our call said they could do little, amid a rash of brazen car thefts by teenagers,” Dowd wrote.
“One officer said that, even if they saw the perp driving in her car, they could not chase him, because of laws passed by the D.C. Council.”
Dowd initially seemed to dismiss Trump’s hard-core stance on juvenile crime as over-the-top payback against two 15-year-olds charged with assaulting and attempting to carjack a former Department of Government Efficiency employee. That is, until Peggy’s Buick showed up in a park in nearby Maryland the morning after it was snatched — still running, nearly out of gas, with a $215 tow charge she was required to pay, Dowd griped.
There was a half-eaten pizza, grape soda cans, fast-food wrappers, a used condom and a pair of debit cards inside, Dowd reported. But cops said they could do nothing to nail the fiends.
Adding insult to injury, Peggy soon received more than $1,800 worth of speed camera tickets for driving 70 miles an hour in a 25-mph zone, and had to prove the car was stolen in order to get the summonses tossed.
Dowd’s co-workers haven’t gotten the message. Last week, shortly after the president declared war on DC crime, the Times worked double-time to minimize the threat.
One article refuted Trump’s statement that the 2023 murder rate was the highest “probably ever.” False! crowed the paper. The homicide rate of about 40.4 deaths per 100,000 people was the highest in 26 years, not ever. And in 2024, that number dipped to some 26.6 corpses per 100,000 Washingtonians
But Dowd is not favorably impressed.
“While the district’s homicide rate has fallen,” she writes, “it’s almost as high as New York’s at its most dangerous, in 1990.”
Dowd, whose father was a cop, confesses she packs pepper spray these days to protect her from troublemakers when walking around town, a habit she adopted years ago when her mother drove her to her college dorm with a butcher knife on the seat between them. Her mom also gave her a Chinese letter opener with written instructions on how to find the jugular of an assailant.
Over the weekend, Times reporters visited DC neighborhoods populated primarily with people of color to find out how residents felt about attempts to wipe out crime. Perhaps surprisingly to the Times, not everyone in these communities opposes being safer. Though every attempt was made to find people who said they did not trust the president, others admitted liking continuing breathing.
Dowd summed things up, writing, “But progressives should not fall into Trump’s trap and play down crime, once more getting on the wrong side of an inflammatory issue. As with inflation, they should remember that personal experiences can count more than sanguine statistics.
“Even if Trump is being diabolical, Democrats should not pretend everything is fine here. Because it’s not.”
Finally — all the news that’s fit to print.
(NY Post)
IN 1948, in the quiet town of Polyany, Russia, a ten-year-old boy named Joseph Brodsky was handed one of the most unforgiving school reports a child could get. ”Stubborn. Lazy. Rude. Disruptive in class. Does homework poorly, if at all. Notebooks messy and covered in doodles. Could be an excellent student… but doesn’t try.”
He was far from any teacher’s favorite. Brodsky disliked Soviet schooling with a passion—he was bored, shuffled between schools, repeated a grade, and by his eighth year, he walked away for good, promising himself never to return. He kept that promise.
Yet while classrooms left him cold, the streets of Leningrad opened up a different kind of education. “The facades of the buildings taught me more about the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans than any classroom ever could,” he would later say. With no diploma, no formal training, and no clear direction, he drifted between odd jobs. But quietly, persistently, he wrote. Poetry became his true compass, even when it led to his exile under the Soviet regime.
Nearly four decades later, in 1987, the boy once dismissed for his messy notebooks and lack of effort stood before the world as a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature. Joseph Brodsky’s life proved that brilliance often lives outside report cards—and that some talents are not meant to follow the rules, but to rewrite them entirely.
THE BLUE BOWL
by Jane Kenyon
Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole. It fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
that grew between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.
We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows much keener than these.
Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.
FRESHMAN U.S. REPRESENTATIVE SARAH MCBRIDE of Delaware:
This big, ugly bill… inserted the single largest cut in Medicaid in American history and what amounts to the single greatest evisceration of healthcare in our country’s history, period… The reality is… $1 trillion in cuts is essentially a ticking time bomb that congressional Republicans and Donald Trump have inserted into the American healthcare system. And it will go off in 2027… with collateral damage that impacts all of us.
For so many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the cruelty really is the point. They not only do not care, they in some cases relish the harm that they are inflicting on people… To see people who… care so little for their own constituents and the effects… is jarring and sad to see up close.
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
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Housing Agency to Offer Material Only in English, Official Says
Israel Is in Talks to Send Gazans to South Sudan, Officials Say
Hamas Accepts New Gaza Cease-Fire Proposal, Officials Say
Talks Restart as Air Canada Union Says Strike Will Continue
The Live Music Business Is Booming. Now Rap Is Getting a Piece, Too
MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER:
Since its birth in 1947, the CIA has overthrown dozens of governments abroad and, starting in 2016, tried to do so here. It spied illegally, manipulated intel, and spread incriminating disinfo to frame President Trump as guilty of treason. Many other bad actors were involved, including the FBI, Justice Department, and DHS, but the CIA was foundational to the coordinated effort to remove a democratically elected American president from power. Unfortunately, the means with which the CIA was able to do what it did remain firmly in place. And, worse, rather than take seriously a modest and reasonable reform proposal offered by one of its own most trusted senior analysts, the CIA has, in response to our reporting, apparently decided to, in the words of a former director, "Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counteraccusations." Any American who wishes to live as a free person and not as a slave to an illegal secret government must want CIA reform. The problem isn't just that the CIA actively undermined American democracy. It's also that it has repeatedly failed to do its main job of preventing attacks on Americans. For 60 years, the CIA has successfully resisted Congressional reforms aimed at improving its intelligence gathering and analytical function, and preventing abuses of power, like the kinds behind the Russia Hoax. The difference today is that the US has a president with a personal interest in preventing the CIA from ever undermining democracy again.
UKRAINE TALKS: Trump Arranging Zelenskyy-Putin Meeting As European Leaders Push For US Security Guarantees
Moscow has yet to confirm meeting after day of intense diplomacy at White House with European leaders
by David Smith
Vladimir Putin has agreed to face-to-face talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss a peace deal in Ukraine, according to Donald Trump and European leaders, although Moscow has not confirmed the meeting.
The potential breakthrough came after a day of tense diplomacy at the White House in which Trump ruled out a ceasefire while Zelenskyy and his allies pushed for US-backed security guarantees as part of any long-term agreement. The Ukrainian president said that following the talks security guarantees for Kyiv would be “formalised” within 10 days.
“At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that a trilateral meeting including the US president would follow.
British prime minister Keir Starmer and German chancellor Friedrich Merz appeared to confirm the meeting. Merz told reporters: “The American president spoke with the Russian president on the phone and agreed that there would be a meeting between the Russian president and the Ukrainian president within the next two weeks.”
But the chancellor cautioned: “We don’t know whether the Russian president will have the courage to attend such a summit. Therefore, persuasion is needed.”
Putin, for his part, said he was open to the “idea” of direct talks with Ukraine as he spoke by phone with Trump, according to Russia’s Tass news agency, but there was no confirmation that the meeting would take place.
Earlier, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to meet with Russia in “any format” and that territorial issues would be discussed on a bilateral level with the Russian president.
Monday’s meeting came after Trump met Putin in Anchorage and said the onus would now be on Zelenskyy to agree to concessions that he said could end the war. Some commentators saw it as a damage limitation exercise after Trump was apparently swayed by Putin and began to echo his talking points.
Trump, who only last week warned Russia of “very severe consequences” i Putin failed to agree to a halt the fighting, made clear that he had reversed his position.
Welcoming Zelenskyy to the hastily assembled meeting at the Oval Office, Trump referred to other conflicts which he claimed to have ended, telling reporters: “I don’t think you’d need a ceasefire. If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war – I didn’t do any ceasefires.”
He did, however, say the US would help guarantee Ukraine’s safety – something Kyiv has long said would be essential for a lasting peace. Trump said: “When it comes to security, there’s going to be a lot of help.” But the US president made it clear that European countries would be expected to carry the burden, adding: “They are a first line of defence because they’re there. But we’ll help them out.”
The Ukrainian president said his country has offered to buy $90bn worth of US weapons as part of the security guarantee, “which primarily includes aircraft, air defence systems”. “There indeed is a package with our proposals worth $90bn,” Zelenskyy said. “And we have agreements with the US president that when our export opens, they will buy Ukrainian drones. This is important for us.”
After meeting the leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and Nato, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that there had been discussion of security guarantees and “which guarantees would be provided by the European countries, with a coordination with the United States of America”.
French president Emmanuel Macron said the talks did not include Kyiv surrendering territory to Russia.
Trump’s initial conversation with Zelenskyy went more smoothly than their first encounter in the Oval Office six months ago, when the Ukrainian leader was ambushed and berated by Trump and Vice-President JD Vance.
This time, doubtless to the relief of European leaders, Zelenskyy gave Trump effusive thanks for the invitation and the pair even shared good-humoured banter while Vance remained silent.
Sitting with Starmer and other European leaders in the east room, Trump acknowledged: “All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace. Maybe something like that could happen. As of this moment, it’s not happening.”
But some of the European allies refused to accept defeat on the issue, mindful that the lack of ceasefire buys Putin more time to wage his war of aggression. On Monday, Ukraine said Russian attacks on major cities had killed at least 10 people, including a toddler and her 16-year-old brother in Kharkiv.
Merz insisted that “we would all like to see a ceasefire” and he could not imagine the next meeting taking place without one.
“Let’s work on that and let’s try to put pressure on Russia – because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today depend on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations,” Merz said. Macron also backed the idea of a “truce” as a “necessity”.
Unmoved, Trump suggested that would be left to Zelenskyy and Putin: “Well, we’re going to let the president go over and talk to the president, and we’ll see how that works out.” He added: “And again I say it, in the six wars that I’ve settled, I haven’t had a ceasefire.”
The US president told his fellow leaders: “We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory, taking into consideration the current line of contact – that means the war zone.”
But he also said Putin had accepted there would be security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any peace deal.
Trump said: “In a very significant step, President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine and this is one of the key points that we need to consider and we’re going to be considering that at the table, also who will do what essentially.”
Several of the leaders emphasised the importance of the security guarantees to deter Russia from attacking again. Macron said: “The first one is clearly a credible Ukrainian army for the years and decades to come.” Europe was also clear about carrying its “fair share” of the burden, he said, “so you can count on this as we can continue.”
Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, said: ‘We will talk about many important topics. The first one is security guarantees, how to be sure that it won’t happen again, which is the precondition of every kind of peace.”
Asked by a journalist if it would be the “end of the road” for US support for Ukraine if no deal is struck, Trump said it was “never the end of the road. People are being killed and we want to stop that.”
Trump added: “We’re going to make sure that if there’s peace, that peace is going to stay long-term … We’re not talking about a two-year peace and then we end up in this mess again.”
Zelenskyy outlined what he said his country needed to feel secure, which included a “strong Ukrainian army” through weapons sales and training. The second part, he said, would depend on the outcome of Monday’s talks and any guarantees European Union countries, Nato and the US would be able to offer to the war-torn country.
Trump declined to rule out sending US troops to Ukraine, noting it would be a discussion point with European leaders. Zelenskyy’s charm offensive included presenting a letter from his wife, Olena Zelenska, for Trump’s wife Melania, who over the weekend wrote to Putin urging him to consider children impacted by the war.
In stark contrast to the acrimony in February, there were also lighter moments. Brian Glenn, a pro-Trump TV reporter, told Zelenskyy that “you look fabulous in that suit”. Glenn had asked the Ukrainian leader about his clothing during his last visit to the Oval Office, implying that his casual dress was disrespectful.
Trump jumped in, saying: “I said the same thing.” Turning to Zelenskyy, Trump said: “That’s the one that attacked you last time.”
“I remember that,” Zelenskyy said, before addressing Glenn: “But you are in the same suit … I changed, you have not.”
(theGuardian.com)
OPEN LETTER TO JOURNALISTS on the Vast Undercount of Deaths & Serious Injuries in Gaza
by Ralph Nader
New York Times: Patrick Kingsley, Aaron Boxerman, Isabel Kershner, Adam Rasgon, Natan Odenheimer, Ronen Bergman, International Editor: Philip P. Pan
Washington Post: Louisa Loveluck , Shira Rubin , Abbie Cheeseman , Miriam Berger , Gerry Shih , John Hudson , Associate Editor: Karen DeYoung
Wall Street Journal: Foreign News Editor: James Hookway
The American Prospect: Editor, David Dayen
Dropsite News: Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill
The New Yorker: Editor, David Remnick
You are some of the leading reporters and editors who have covered the Netanyahu genocidal mass murder and mayhem in Gaza. This important plea asserts that you all know better than to rely only on the extensive understatement of the deaths and serious injuries put forward by Hamas. You need to DO BETTER for your readers by digging deeper into the much higher estimates of deaths by experts in disaster casualties. Eye-witness accounts which do not support the Hamas undercount.
Both Hamas and Netanyahu, for different reasons, favor undercounts. Hamas, the governing entity in Gaza, keeps a strictly defined undercount of casualties from Israeli bombardments, does not count the large immediate secondary fatalities from the effects of Israeli blocking of food, water, medicine, healthcare, electricity, fuel, and medical supplies for what’s left of destroyed hospitals and clinics.
An official undercount from the Hamas Ministry of Health, whose 15 counters are now themselves starving, temper accusations by the people of Gaza and its allies that Hamas has not protected them, even by sharing bomb shelters. Hamas badly underestimated the total savagery of the Israeli response to its October 7 attack through the mysteriously collapsed multi-tiered Israeli border security complex. Hamas fell into a lethal trap prompted by fears that a near deal between the U.S., Israel, and Gulf Arab states would sideline permanently the question of Palestine.
As sensitive journalists, you probably agree that the undercount is significant. As the Washington Post Foreign Affairs Editor, Karen DeYoung has often said, “…Independent media are not allowed by Israel to enter Gaza and the casualty counts are most certainly under-reported.”
In thousands of news articles, there is the same exact obligatory reference, to wit: “More than X number of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.” That severe undercount becomes the reported casualty figure despite the Israeli unchallenged, daily demolition bombing of Gaza.
As a result, unlike other armed conflicts in the world, the vast undercount of fatalities and injuries in Gaza is a vastly underreported story. Coming to more accurate estimates would affect the intensity of the political, diplomatic, and civic pressures for a ceasefire. It would also prompt more strenuous calls for immediate humanitarian aid, an immediate ceasefire, and peace negotiations.
Start with common sense. Gaza had 2.3 million people before October 7, 2023, in a cramped area the geographical size of Philadelphia. The Gaza Strip has experienced the most intense, daily bombardment on civilians and civilian infrastructure since World War II. There are no army bases or airfields in Gaza, only an under-armed small guerrilla force hiding in tunnels facing a super-modern military backed by super-modern U.S. military weapons and other Biden/Trump assistance.
As of mid-April 2025, University of Bradford (U.K.) Emeritus Professors Paul Rogers, a specialist on aerial and artillery bomb devastation, described the level of destruction in totally besieged Gaza as the “equivalent of six Hiroshimas, but even more destructive” because many more of the bombs over Gaza drop over targeted locations – schools, apartment buildings, hospitals, clinics, markets, refugee encampments, roads, water mains, electricity circuits and even the agricultural areas to deny the people of Gaza from growing some of their own food. Starvation, death by uncontrolled fires, infections, and the thousands of babies born into the rubble each month spiral the daily accelerating toll.
Now, if you take the current Hamas figure of just over 62,000, you are telling the public that 97% of Gazans are still alive. This is lethally absurd. A more conservative figure is that 500,000 Palestinians have been killed from Netanyahu’s non-stop Palestinian Holocaust (more than all the U.S. soldiers killed in WWII.) This means that an incredible about one-out-of-four Palestinians have been killed.
American doctors and other health workers back from Gaza say almost all the survivors are either sick, injured, or dying. Without insulin, medicines for cancer, asthma, and heart disease for many months, with no shelters, with dense/deadly air pollutants, from incessant bombings, their observations are not surprising.
So, reporters and editors, start working on casualty estimates that accurately reflect the realities, in addition to respecting the Palestinian dead and properly highlighting the Trump/Congress role in this slaughter. Imagine if you will, if the shoe were on the other foot; does anyone think such an undercount would be tolerated from the outset?
The State Department testified in late 2023 that their estimates were higher than Hamas, and the witness, an Assistant Secretary of State, was shut down from further disclosure. FOIA litigation, pending before the Biden and Trump State Departments, is confronting the usual stonewalling that this Department has long been conducting.
There are credible sources for you to pursue among universities, international relief organizations, and UN food and humanitarian agencies. Specialists (e.g., the University of Edinburgh’s Global Health Department, The Lancet, etc.), have spoken out or published reports on the undercount. Reporting on the work of these and other specialists will advance the public’s right to know.
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a Gaza hospital volunteer, has compiled many of these sources and can be reached through the website gazahealthcareletters.org. His writing for The New York Times and other established publications and electronic media is compelling and reflects the on-the-ground reality in Gaza. (See my lengthy interview with Dr. Sidhwa on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
Thank you for considering the higher significance of your crucial profession.
PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY IN GAZA
by Stefan Tarnowski
In an interview with the New York Times earlier this year, the columnist Thomas Friedman said:
“No international journalists have been allowed into Gaza to independently report … But there will be a day this war ends. I don’t know when. And when it does, Gaza is going to be overwhelmed by reporters and photographers. And when that happens, it’s going to be a very bad day for Israel, and it’s going to be a very bad day for world Jewry because the scenes are going to be horrific. It’s not that we haven’t gotten glimpses and whatnot, but the real stories – also there are evidently a lot of bodies still buried under the rubble that couldn’t be excavated. And when you talk to Israeli soldiers, people who have served there, one of the things they talk about that they never forget is just the stench, because evidently there are just a lot of bodies that have not been recovered. So there is a real looming challenge to Israel when this war is over.”
Why must “we” wait for the ‘international journalists’ to get the “real stories”? Haven’t we already seen more than enough – certainly more than “glimpses and whatnot”? These questions take us to one of the central problems of the role of digital media in the contemporary news ecology. On the one hand, it is often said that the genocide in Gaza is being “live-streamed.” On the other, it is said (by Friedman, among others) that what’s plain enough for anyone to see in those videos doesn’t amount to proof. Brave reporting by the likes of Anas al-Sharif, an al-Jazeera journalist killed by Israel on August 10 with five of his colleagues, is systematically dismissed and discredited.
On October 9, 2023, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” Since that day, Western journalists working for authoritative Western organizations – such as Friedman at the New York Times – have been barred entry to Gaza unless they’re embedded with the Israeli army.
But plenty of journalists have continued to cover Israel’s assault on Gaza. The explicit problem for Friedman is that they are not “international journalists.” The implicit problem is that they are Palestinian – or “local” – journalists.
Despite unbroken coverage by Palestinian journalists inside Gaza, these conditions have been misleadingly called a “media siege.” For their efforts, Palestinian journalists have been targeted and killed by the Israeli army. Their killing follows unsubstantiated Israeli allegations that they are “terrorists.” When “international journalists” relay unfounded Israeli allegations against Palestinian journalists, they are legitimating murder. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 170 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since Gallant ordered the “complete siege” of Gaza (as have nine Lebanese journalists), making it the “deadliest period for journalists” since the CPJ began collecting data in 1992 (a period that includes half a dozen genocides).
Despite frequent internet blackouts, Israel has never managed to cut off the flow of news and information entirely. There have been co-ordinated efforts to provide e-sims to Palestinian media workers, and satellite connections mean that a complete shutdown of communications may not be possible.
Beyond the infrequent outrage at the frequent killing of Palestinian journalists, Israel has relied on the hierarchies of credibility – the institutional biases – that undergird coverage by Western media. Since October 9, 2023, Western news outlets have appended their reports with disclaimers such as: “These reports could not be independently verified.” Footage produced by Palestinian journalists, media activists or bystanders is branded as “unverified.”
These disclaimers don’t deny that something happened; they don’t repress knowledge of a massacre, the aerial bombardment of a hospital or killings of civilians at food distribution sites. But they allow doubts to remain as to what might “actually” have happened and who might “really” be responsible.
The claims of Palestinian media workers besieged in Gaza are invariably put through the process of “digital forensic verification” by the likes of BBC Verify, even while the claims of Israeli officials perpetrating the most grievous crimes are ventriloquised by journalists (e.g. the refrain that “Israel would say that it is acting in self-defense”).
There have been daily reports by Palestinians of mass shootings by Israeli soldiers and US contractors at the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s “aid distribution” sites. Palestinian journalists have documented these massacres, circulating videos on social media. The remaining hospitals in Gaza have reported multiple mass shootings. Israel has admitted to opening fire on crowds of Gazans approaching the aid site in a “threatening” way, but also claimed there were “no known injured individuals.” Official disavowals were diligently reported by Western media outlets. It wasn’t until Israeli soldiers confessed to the Israeli press that they were “ordered to shoot” at unarmed Palestinians that the story was picked up and systematically reported by “international journalists.”
Not all Western journalists play by these rules. In recent months, the BBC has taken to prefacing reports with the phrase: “Israel continues to ban entry to international journalists.” This is well-intentioned, and welcome, but it hardly dispels the sense of murkiness around reports of what’s happening in Gaza. Fergal Keane commendably doesn’t attach disclaimers to his reports and collaborates with Palestinian journalists who remain anonymous to protect them from targeting by Israel. But other BBC reporters play by Israel’s rules, such as Lucy Williamson who was willing to be embedded with the Israeli army during the invasion of Lebanon.
The politics of access to Gaza are similar to those established by the Assad regime during the uprising and war in Syria, and the results for supporters of the perpetrating state are eerily familiar. Besieging a territory and banning entry to authoritative journalists creates a useful sense of ambiguity. Many supporters of the Assad regime (unlike regime officials) didn’t deny that massacres were taking place. Instead, in the words of the political scientist Lisa Wedeen, they adopted a “logic of disavowal.” For example, they might admit that massacres and mass disappearances were taking place in Syria, while continuing to act as if the regime would eventually reform itself. Wedeen’s political reading of the psychoanalytic concept of disavowal entailed the alienation of knowledge from belief, or knowing from acknowledging, in cases where knowing should lead to political judgment.
There are plenty of Israeli officials who deny outright that any crimes such as starvation are taking place in Gaza. But their denials are increasingly treated as implausible and beyond the pale. Elon Levy, for example, eventually lost his job as an Israeli government spokesperson for a particularly barefaced lie, denying that there were any restrictions on the entry of aid to Gaza. Disavowals, however, continue to sound plausible, even in the face of mounting evidence gathered at great risk by Palestinian journalists in Gaza.
The disavowals can take many forms, but are usually phrased to signal diligence and scrupulousness. They might express the need to wait for expert investigators, such as “international journalists” or lawyers, before “we” can say for sure what’s happening; they might regret the loss of civilian life, while proclaiming that Israel (unlike the terrorists) doesn’t target civilians; or they might recognise that atrocities are taking place, but refuse to accept that they involve anything beyond the usual prosecution of war. Such commentators are honest enough to admit that something “terrible” is happening, while also withholding the kinds of judgment that usually – or that should – come with the acknowledgment of the most grievous atrocities.
It is often said that Israeli commanders follow the procedures of international humanitarian law (IHL). More than any other claim, this has established the conditions for Israeli officials and Western governments to disavow Israeli atrocities.
This is particularly the case with the slippery notion of intent under IHL, which effectively functions as an intricate disavowal mechanism. Throughout the genocide in Gaza, Israeli commanders have admitted that their bombs and bullets kill civilians, but because the deaths were ‘unintentional’, they disavow any legal – as well as moral and political – responsibility for their acts of killing.
The politics of access to Gaza has helped sustain Western complicity in the genocide, despite the steady stream of evidence produced by Palestinians at enormous risk to their own lives. What it amounts to isn’t denial so much as plausible deniability. The term “plausible deniability” – which became common currency during the Watergate scandal – is generally used to describe the position that superiors create for themselves to avoid culpability for the crimes committed by their institutions; lower-ranking officials might not know the scale of systematic wrongdoing, and yet be liable for it. But plausible deniability is also an apt description of the conditions that allow Western governments, members of the public and ‘international journalists’ to continue to support Israel as it bombs, starves and snipes at a besieged population.
There is a long history of discrediting Palestinians as truth-tellers. After Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which culminated in the siege of Beirut and the massacre of more than four thousand unarmed civilians in Sabra and Chatila, Edward Said argued that Palestinians had been denied “permission to narrate.” There were plenty of facts circulating that had brought unprecedented public attention to the question of Palestine. What those facts lacked, according to Said, was an “authorizing historical narrative,” by which he meant a Palestinian national narrative, with “a coherent narrative direction pointed towards self-determination.”
As Nadia Abu El-Haj argued even before October 7 2023, “something has shifted.” The politics of official denial and state secrecy about the Palestinian national narrative, including the history of the Nakba, has given way to a politics of public disavowal, particularly in Israel. In the wake of revisionist histories by the Israeli New Historians, the logic has become: we can admit the truth of our country’s violent origins without acknowledging the demand that “this historical wrong be repaired.” Right-wing politicians tell that history as triumph while liberal historians narrate it as tragedy. But neither the Israeli left nor the Israeli right tells the story of the Nakba in a way that seriously countenances redress and repair. Across the Israeli political spectrum there is a suspension of the kinds of political judgment that should come with acknowledging what they know.
With the military strategy of starvation siege and the gruesome veneer of humanitarian aid, Israel – in collaboration with the US and the Boston Consulting Group – has assembled a concentration camp in Gaza. From the sieges within the siege, Palestinian journalists are smeared as terrorists and assassinated by airstrike. Even when their reports reach Western media, Palestinian journalists are systematically denied the right to be credible and authoritative about the fact of the genocide they face. Palestinians must be verified. There’s an unintended truth to Thomas Friedman’s analysis. Thanks to journalists such as Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues who risked their lives, for over six hundred days the genocide has been live-streamed for the world to see. And yet we are told we must wait for the experts – for lawyers to formulate judgments, for international journalists to be granted access. Or we are told to wait for the word of the perpetrators – for those same facts to be confessed by soldiers complaining about the stench of their victims from beneath the rubble they made.
(London Review of Books)
“DURING THE PREVIOUS WINTER, I had become rather seriously ill with one of those carefully named difficulties which are the whispers of approaching age. When I came out of it I received the usual lecture about slowing up, losing weight, limiting the cholesterol intake. It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany. It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, “Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were.” And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this, they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it’s such a sweet trap.
“Who doesn’t like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men, they trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. I knew that ten or twelve thousand miles driving a truck, alone and unattended, over every kind of road, would be hard work, but to me it represented the antidote for the poison of the professional sick man. And in my own life, I am not willing to trade quality for quantity. If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It’s bad theater as well as bad living. I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies. Although this last foundation for the journey was never discussed, I am sure she understood it.”
— John Steinbeck
DA EYSTER REPLIES TO RECALL PETITIONERS:
Thank you, Mark S., for again calling Eyster out, and for telling the fuller, more factual version of the story. Eyster tells only the surface of it, lying by omission—as some attorneys do— as to his own history/disputes in the fuller story with Ms. Cubbison.
A large ego— “I’m the District Attorney and I can do as I please”— and petty bureaucratic dramas at play here, underneath Eyster’s glib “explanation.” Brave Ms. Cubbison, she was doing her assigned job, took it seriously. Eyster tried to sideswipe her, ran her down with the power of his office after she called him to task and offended him. She did not deserve that, but he deserves the petition that’s out there. Hope the recall is a success.
How about, ‘I think having an annual safety meeting bash for my staff at The Broiler using asset forfeiture money is a good thing, and Cubbison and Kennedy should never have been charged. Sorry about that. BTW, I am not running again. I am getting too old for this shit.’
Yes, just some straight-forward, simple honesty would have been welcome in this matter. Big ego guys can’t do that, though, and this farce continues at great taxpayer cost, wasting money that should have gone for more worthy issues.
DA Dave’s response to the recall is more reason to recall him. It’s nothing but a lie!
DA Dave put the wheels in motion, remember he showed up at a BOS meeting instructing the Stupidvisors not to make Cubbison the interim Auditor. Before the combining of the two offices. Did he forget his email constructing the Get Cubbison Plan? He lays out the conspiracy to CEO Antle and Glenn McGourty, and who knows who else he sent the plan to. He first fought recusal in court then recused himself, probably figuring out the case was going to be an embarrassment. He met with the lead investigator at least 12 times, unheard of. Then turn to his own group of investigators. Why? I’ll leave you to figure that out. My guess, DA Dave was leading the investigation from day one. His group of witnesses lied on the stand, mainly Weer and Antle. Those reasons alone got the case thrown out. In other words, DA Dave is not a very good DA or he is complicit.
Dave it’s time for you to ride off in the sunset, you have lost your way.
Gabriel Chaon, 19 of Ukiah, on probation for auto theft and evading, steals a car, evades police on a high-speed chase, crashes, has a ghost gun, and was “booked into Mendocino County Juvenile Hall on the charges of Vehicle Theft, Possession of Stolen Vehicle; Felony Evading; Possession of Undetectable Firearm; and Violation of Probation.” 19 years old, repeat offender in JUVENILLE HALL – WTF.
My thoughts exactly.
To the Editor:
I stand with Dave. He made one mistake with Cubbison in an otherwise stellar career. Dave gets convictions every time he goes to court. He is a great administrator of his department. He recruits, trains and retains young talent. He motivates by example. His investigators solve crimes, and Dave puts the bad guys in prison.
And let’s not forget the overall prosecution “roadmaps” developed by David Eyster for other prosecutors that put psychopaths like Gerald Lester and Charles Diaz in prison for life. Remember them? Lester and Diaz were the Hells Angels from Vallejo who Found guilty by jury of murdering a Fort Bragg family of four in 1986, acts that included the near decapitation causing death to a 5-year-old child with a hunting knife.
What more can you ask of a DA?
And oh yeah…to put it all in context, think of our recent past DAs.
Susan Massini, anyone?
Bottom line: I feel safer with DA Dave.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
He willing and knowingly tried to put an innocent person in jail, Chamise Cubbison, because she wouldn’t allow him to commit fraud.
I don’t care about his great record when you lack morality.
Here we are seeing things the same way for once–a darn miracle…..
If St Chamise doesn’t survive the atrocious torture she suffers at the County Offices, maybe she could come micromanage your morality? I’m sure she’s sweet as pie, by the sworn testimony of all the old geezers at the AVA who idolize her.
Jesus Bruce, get a grip.
When I started at the courthouse they were trying to recall Meredith Lintott, a far more widely reviled DA than Dave. There was a blaze orange sign across the street from her office RECALL LINTOTT in the window of the second story. But it never happened. The only way to dislodge her (and her Chief Deputies, Jill Ravitch and Beth Hamilton) was to run against her and Eyster had a lot of us backing him in the venture, which wasn’t easy for him because his wife was dead against it. But he ran and won and 15 years later he is far more stolidly ensconced than the immovable Lintott &c ever dreamed of—and Beth and Jill were highly effective prosecutors, Jill having gone on to run Sonoma County’s DA Office. So the petition has a long way to go and outside readership of the mighty AVA the DA is doing fine. And even at the AVA I doubt the shrillest voices calling for his head have the nerve to come out from behind their fake names and sign it. So I’m taking Eyster for the win … for $10.
A blow up doll could have run against Lintott and won. If Norm Vroman didn’t pass away Eyster would have never run or stood a chance of beating him. Say what you want about Norm, he was character and knew how to work a crowd. I didn’t always agree with him but love to have a beer or two with him.
I have never said a word about Norm. Go sign the petition; put your name and address where your mouth is, or go piss up a rope.
Your love affair with DA Dave shows with your supportive posts. My point with Norm was simply Dave never stood a chance if he didn’t pass. Dave was able to benefit from the 4 years of Lintott. Up until then Dave Eyster was not winning any Mr. Nice Guy awards. Dave’s reputation was not good in the big town of Ukiah, but Lintott was such a mess that as I stated, a blow up doll could have beat her. Ask the many who have worked with Dave if it was a positive experience. An overwhelming “No” would be the answer. Now why don’t you get back to the circle jerk you left to respond to me.
P.S. This will be taken down by your buddy the editor. History shows that you can tell me to piss up a rope, but if I respond with a negative comment, he censors me, but leaves your post up!
When Judge Moorman retires next year, Gov Gavin is going to appoint DA Dave to a judgeship. Then you can run Vroman’s ghost and your blow-up wife against Josh Rosenfeld for the vacant DA’s office. Best of luck.
There are 53,000 voters here and Helen Sizemore and team need to get about 8,200 valid signatures to be checked by the county clerk Katrina B’s own team. The petition can circulate for up to 160 days. Given these numbers, its likely going to be tough to get a recall on the ballot.
Part of the problem for a recall effort is that the offensive sting of Eyster taking that shockingly unfair action of charging Cubbison and Kennedy will be decreasingly felt by the voter (an assumption which may be very incorrect). And, its a singular mistake in a sea of well-regarded actions.
I continue to be supportive of Mo Mulheren and Ted Williams even though they made the horrible mistake of going along in a gross injustice. Im probably the only AVA regular commentator still supporting them but beyond the virtual walls of the AVA the dominant perspective may be more positive re those 2.
Maureen Dowd writes for the New York Times, not that rag called the New York Post. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
ANOTHER GREAT TRUMP IDEA
“Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday that the entire wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is going to be painted black to make it hotter and deter illegal immigration — an idea she said was ‘specifically at the request’ of President Trump.
Noem spoke during a visit to a portion of the wall in New Mexico, where she also picked up a roller brush to help out with the painting.
She touted the height of the wall as well as its depth as ways to deter people seeking to go over or under the walls. And Noem said Homeland Security was going to be trying black paint to make the metal hotter.
‘That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb. So we are going to be painting the entire southern border wall black to make sure that we encourage individuals to not come into our country illegally,’ Noem said.
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks, who attended the event with Noem, said the paint would also help deter rust…”
CBS NEWS, 8/19
GOD SAVE US FROM THIS MADNESS.
Also, helicopters spraying itching powder will coat the length.of the wall.
Good one, triples the efficiency–that black paint’s not enough.
He’s too busy encouraging his “chosen ones” to commit more genocide against the rightful population of the area called, euphemistically, israhell.