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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Laytonville 0.89" - Willits 0.44" - Ukiah 0.42" - Yorkville 0.40" - Covelo 0.37" - Leggett 0.26" - Boonville 0.25" - Hopland 0.20"
ANOTHER FRONT will bring additional rain and strong gusty southerly winds Tuesday afternoon through Tuesday night. Lingering showers on Wednesday will diminish on Thursday. Dry weather is expected Friday through the weekend. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): That was quite the gully washer midday yesterday with 1.29" of rainfall falling in just 3 hours ! Clear skies ( of all things ? ) this Tuesday morning with 51F. Clear skies will give way to afternoon rain, then fizzling out tomorrow morning. It's looking dry after that currently.
NICK WILSON (Little River): Heavy rain started at 11 AM Monday and paused at 12:44 PM with 0.47 inches. It continued on and off with light rains stopping at 7:30 p.m. bringing the day's total to 1.01 in. Location is 3 Mi Inland on Little River Airport Road at 622 FT elevation. [MCN Listserve]
FIRST RAIN
A symphony of droplets, soft and light
The cold wet air, a beautiful sight
In that hush of rain, my soul ignites
Fall’s first rain, a gentle rite
Leaves glisten, the breeze it cools
Raindrops quench their earthbound fuels
In this tranquil moment, all life renews
Fall’s first rain, a gift without refuse
Change is here, whispers the sky
Autumn’s sweet and gentle sigh
In this moment, solace lies
Fall’s first rain, a glorious high
A fragrance rises, earthy and sweet
The scent of Fall, a nose’s treat
Creating a world where senses greet
Falls first rain, the spirits meet
Rustling leaves, a soothing bane
Earth awakened from summer’s wane
Ready for autumn’s heavenly gain
In nature’s arms, Fall’s first rain
— Petra Clark (2023)
FRANK HARTZELL on Skunk Train Railroad Status Ruling:
BOARD MEMBER VACANCY: MENDOCINO COAST HEALTH CARE DISTRICT
The Mendocino Coast Health Care District provides a hospital and fosters leadership, advocacy and collaboration for our community health and well-being.
The Mendocino Coast Health Care District is governed by a 5-member Board of Directors elected by voters in the District. The current available position is to complete the term of a vacancy created by a resignation. The applicant appointed by the Board to this vacancy will serve until the next regular election in November 2026.
The District boundaries reach from Westport to Elk. The Board meets 1-2 times a month, usually in the evening for approximately 2 hours.
More information at www.mendocinochcd.gov
If you are interested in appointment, please send a letter of interest and resume to the Agency Administrator: [email protected] or to MCHCD, PO Box 579, Fort Bragg CA. On or before November 1, 2025 at 5:00 pm.
MEMBER OF MENDOCINO COUNTY BIKERS AGAINST CHILD ABUSE ACCUSED OF CHILD SEX CRIME
by Matt LaFever
A Sebastopol man accused in Sonoma County of committing sexual crimes in his role as a school counselor is also reportedly associated with a Mendocino County motorcycle club that advocates against child abuse.
The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office announced that 66-year-old John Conant was arrested on September 29, 2025, after deputies received a report of child molestation at Cinnabar Elementary School in Petaluma. Detectives with the Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Unit obtained a warrant following an interview with a victim, and Conant was booked into the county’s Main Adult Detention Facility on suspicion of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14. His bail was set at $250,000.
Former Mendocino County Bikers Against Child Abuse (B.A.C.A.) member Daniel Enriquez told MendoFever that Conant, who was known within the group by the biker moniker “Crow,” served on the organization’s executive board. Enriquez said he acted as Conant’s sponsor when Conant first became involved in the group years ago. Photographs provided to MendoFever appear to show Conant wearing a vest with the “Crow” insignia. The B.A.C.A. website currently lists “Crow” as its secretary, though it is unclear whether that listing has been updated since the arrest.
Bikers Against Child Abuse is a nonprofit motorcycle organization that describes its mission as empowering children who have experienced abuse by providing them with support, visibility, and a sense of safety through the presence of its members.
Sergeant Juan Valencia of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office told MendoFever by phone that investigators “got information that was indicating that he was part of B.A.C.A.” and that Conant was “secretary of the board.” Valencia added that detectives were able to confirm that information.
Enriquez further alleged that members of the group retaliated against him after he raised concerns about what he perceived to be child abusers within the club. “They put a dead rat in my mailbox for telling the truth about chomos in their ranks,” he said.
In response to Conant’s arrest, Sonny, President of the Los Angeles Chapter of B.A.C.A., emphasized that the organization does not condone the alleged conduct. “B.A.C.A. has zero tolerance for abuse or for anyone who would harm a child,” Sonny said. He explained that chapters operate independently but are expected to follow the group’s strict code of conduct. “The minute we are made aware of credible allegations, that individual is removed from all activities. They do not represent who we are or what we stand for,” he said.
Law enforcement specified they chose to release Conant’s booking photo because they “have reason to believe there may be additional victims who have not yet come forward.” The Sheriff’s Office wrote, “While we do not typically release details about sex crimes, we want to reassure the community that protecting victims and their identities is our top priority.”
The Sheriff’s Office released Conant’s booking photo and urged any potential additional victims to contact investigators at (707) 565-8290. Officials stressed that protecting the identities of victims remains a priority and noted that the case is still under investigation.
While Conant has been arrested, he remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
(mendofever.com)
NO DAM, NO DEM
When I first registered to vote, I registered as a Democrat. I was young, and I cared deeply about people and the world around me. I saw the Democratic Party as the one that stood up for the underdog — minorities, low-income families, women, children, and the environment.
I’ve always known that programs like food stamps and subsidized housing have been misused by some. But I believed — and still do — that we shouldn’t dismantle programs that serve a vital purpose just because of a few bad actors. Eliminating these resources only punishes the children and families who truly need them.
I admired powerful women who broke barriers, most of whom were Democrats — women fighting for gender equality and civil rights. And as I’ve gotten older, those core values remain important to me. But I now see things with more perspective.
In my younger years, I was idealistic. I didn’t have children. I didn’t understand how complex economics, government spending, interest rates, and inflation really are. Now, as a woman, a mother, a wife, and a working professional, I’ve grown — and I’ve watched the Democratic Party change, too.
They still claim to fight for the underdog, but in practice, that no longer seems true. I live in Mendocino County, one of the most impoverished counties in California. We face high rates of poverty, child abuse, drug addiction, and declining job opportunities. And yet, the very party that claims to care about people continues to push policies that hurt our communities.
Of course, I want a better future for my kids. Of course, I want to protect the environment. But there is no future without water. There is no future without jobs. There is no future without affordable housing — not just for low-income families, but for teachers, police officers, nurses, and others essential to a healthy community.
Yet the Democratic Party supports removing two dams that provide critical water through local reservoirs (Lake Pillsbury and Lake Mendocino) — all in the name of environmental protection. This decision risks creating more water scarcity, displacing farmers, and deepening poverty. Generations of families stand to lose their land and livelihoods.
Why? Why is this being allowed to happen? Why can’t there be a balanced solution — one that respects both environmental conservation and the immediate needs of the people who live here?
Yes, restoring steelhead populations is important. But so is protecting the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. People must come first. The fish can wait — especially since it’s been over a hundred years, and a new ecosystem has already been established in Lake Pillsbury that would be destroyed by dam removal. A fish ladder could be built instead, providing a compromise that supports both ecological and human needs.
Instead of creating more water scarcity, driving down home values due to lack of water, and pushing more families toward homelessness, maybe the Democratic Party should reconsider its priorities — and put blue-collar working people first. Maybe they’ll recognize that what’s happening here is simply wrong.
But I’ve lost hope.
I’ve followed the Potter Valley Project and the proposed dam removals closely. The current plan for pumping water to Lake Mendocino is, at best, haphazard. Even in wet years, projections show the lake will run dry six out of every ten years. That is not a solution.
At this point, federal intervention — through eminent domain — is the only real option left. I can only hope that Secretary Rollins, Secretary Burgum, and President Trump step in and fight for our water, because the Democrats clearly will not.
They have made their choice: they care more about fish than about people. They have abandoned the people of California.
In the last couple of years, I have re-registered as a Republican. I feel abandoned by the Democratic Party. They no longer care about the working-class people who simply want a stable, decent life — and who work hard for what little they have.
— Kahli Johnson
WILLITS WILDFIRE & INSURANCE FORUM
Thursday, October 9, 5:30-7:30pm
600 East Hill Rd, Willits
Join us to hear from leading experts about wildfire preparation, get fire insurance information and advice… and have a little fun while we are at it with a fair, some free pizza, and maybe even win some of over $500 worth of door prizes.
Keynote speakers:
› Yana Valachovic - One of the state's foremost wildfire experts, a UC forester who studies past wildfires to help determine why some homes burned and others didn't, and advises fire organizations from Cal-Fire down to Fire Safe Councils. She will discuss what what fire science has learned from years of these studies, including new learnings from the recent LA fires, and what can be done to make your home as fire safe as possible.
› Annie Barbour from United Policyholders - UP is a consumer advocacy non-profit that that provides information, guidance and advocacy for insurance buyers and claimants in the US. Annie will be talking about current status of insurance in CA, recent changes and where things are currently headed, options on responding to rate hikes or cancellation letters, tips on dealing with your current insurance company and for searching for a new one, etc.
We will also be hearing from:
› The Mendocino Prescribed Burn Association
› The California Conservation Corps
› FEMA Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT)
› Mendocino County Fire Safe Council
› Sarah Keiser from Wild Oat Hollow Grazing Cooperatives
› Cal Fire
› …. More To Be Announced
There will be a Q&A session where you can ask questions from all of the presenters above, and following that a fair with free pizza from Flying Dog Pizza, info-booths from all of the participating organizations, and fun games and activities.
https://www.facebook.com/events/803910825412007
WORD OF MOUTH: SMALL BITES, OCTOBER 2025
October is a month of golden hues, clear skies, and mild temps. There’s a peaceful feel as the year shifts into a lower gear and new routines started in September settle into their grooves. It’s a great time to get together, indoors or out, so take a gander through the two calendars of events at our website.
See you out there ~
Torrey Douglas & the team at Word of Mouth Magazine
www.wordofmouthmendo.com
CHESTNUT FESTIVAL COMING SOON
42nd Annual Chestnut Gathering at the Zeni Ranch will be Saturday November 1st from 10 am to 4 pm.
Potluck dinner this year! Bring something to add to the table along with your own eating supplies.
Dogs on leashes are ok, but your responsible for your pet.
Chestnuts are $5.00 a pound if you pick, or $7.00 if already picked. No credit card service available.
Call or text Jane Zeni 707-684-6892
Fresh raw chestnut honey, T-shirts and our popular nut sacks will be available, and other farm products."
https://facebook.com/events/s/42nd-annual-chestnut-festival/1490624555587018/
LOOKING FOR A SQUIRREL, A CALIFORNIA PROFESSOR INSTEAD STUMBLED ON A SCIENTIFIC FIRST
Cal Poly Humboldt biologist Silvia Pavan discovers new marsupial species in Peru’s cloud forests
by Matt LaFever
It was 2018 in Peru’s Río Abiseo National Park, a rugged river basin so remote that it takes a 12-hour drive and a two-day hike to reach. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage site, home to more than 30 pre-Columbian archaeological sites once inhabited by the Chachapoya — the “Warriors of the Clouds.”
Into this wilderness trekked Silvia Pavan, a Brazilian biologist and professor at Cal Poly Humboldt. She was chasing a long-lost species of squirrel, but what she found instead was even rarer: “The very first specimen that came to our traps” proved to be a marsupial never seen by modern science, she told SFGATE.
Pavan would later name the animal Marmosa chachapoya, in homage to the ancient people who once shared the same cloud forests. “I realized immediately that this was something unusual,” she said in a Cal Poly Humboldt news release.
Seven years after the expedition, Pavan can finally go public with her discovery — the result of a long and painstaking process required whenever a new species is identified. She explained that scientists must conduct detailed comparative analyses, first looking at “the closest related species,” then doing “detailed anatomical comparisons” against specimens housed “in several different scientific collections, many times in different continents.”
Small and striking, the marsupial has reddish-brown fur with a bandit-like mask across its face. Its body measures only about 4 inches, but with its long tail, the animal reaches nearly 10 inches in length. What makes the find even more unusual is where it was caught — at an elevation higher than where scientists typically encounter members of its genus.
Using “Chachapoya” as the namesake seemed fitting for a species that is “only known from that locality, which is a cloud forest.” Pavan saw it as a “cool” way to connect ecology and culture.
There are more findings from the 2018 expedition still to come, she told SFGATE. “Over half of the mammal species that we have seen during the expedition, they are not described by science.” She is continuing the comparative analysis process with these specimens and will announce their names once the work is complete.
The 2018 expedition was a massive undertaking. Even for Peruvian scientists, it’s a huge effort. They need local carriers to bring in equipment and the permits are very hard to get, Pavan said.
Californians have little to compare with this new species. “The opossum you know here in California is in the same family, but it’s not the same genus,” Pavan explained. In North America, only the Virginia opossum exists, while South America is home to more than 100 species in the same family.
And while the marsupial may never cross hemispheres, Pavan noted the similarities between the Andean cloud forests and Northern California’s redwoods. “The climate over there, when I visited, is really similar to here,” she said. “I don’t think they would do bad [in redwood forests] — but there is a huge geographic gap.”
(SFGate.com)
THIS GUY popped up in my memories today. No introduction needed. The year was 2020.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, September 29, 2025
JOHANN CASTANEDA-BAUTISTA, 18, Fort Bragg. False imprisonment with violence, vandalism.
AUGUSTINE FREASE, 54, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.
STEVEN HARPER, 41, Point Arena. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
SYLVIA HOAGLEN, 37, Covelo. Failure to appear.
JOSHUA JOHNSON, 40, Eureka/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.
ELIZABETH JOHNSON-COSGROVE, 35, Ukiah. County parole violation.
BRYAN LOCKWOOD, 34, Ukiah. Parole violation.
MATIAS ORDENES-CASTRO, 35, Covelo. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, criminal threats.
ASHER SILVA, 34, Redwood Valley. Domestic violence court order violation.
JARED TITUS, 43, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, probation revocation.
VUE VANG, 51, Sacramento/Ukiah. Failure to appear, offenses while on bail.
TRISTIN WILEY, 30, Willits. Getting credit with someone else’s ID, probation violation, resisting.
KIDS TODAY (on line comments)
(1) I’m trying with my 37 year old son: to convince him that he needs to go out and get a job, any job, a shit job to support himself, his single atomized self, that will require he put down the THC vaping pipe and the phone to get out there and just do it…I’ve done all that I can for him. He has no debt, has mechanical skills, has a fully paid for condo in a bustling metro area with a tiny monthly fee, so his external pressures are at a minimum. I’ve helped arrange things this way to give him maximum leeway and leveraging space. But he seems to have no drive and wants to walk through life catatonic, possessed by the demon cannabis, and living apathetically in a dystopia. I grieve for him. I despair for him. And now I am cutting him off of financial support hoping this will get him to go out and do Something, Anything! He has been unemployed for almost a year now. I grieve for him. I pray for him. He’s my son and it’s all I can do now.
(2) I informed all of our children that Mom and Dad would not fund a useless degree but would pay 100% for a degree with which they could earn a decent living.
One choose RN, one choose Masters in Math, and one choose Chemical Engineering AND……at approx 2 semesters prior to graduation, my wife would have talk with them advising that Dad was not planning on them moving back home and if they did, they would pay rent and if they did not graduate, the small generic vehicle we purchased for them would go away unless they wanted to purchase it from Dad. Tough love is just about as hard on the parent as it is on the kid. I smoked some weed during my university time but soon learned it was making me lazy and my parents did not have the money to help me if I was unemployed so that was not even an option, plus I got married when I was a junior and my wife was 7 months pregnant when I graduated and both of them were expecting 3 meals per day — every day. So being lazy or lost was not an option. You are in a tough spot and I am not sure what to suggest because there are many possible outcomes which may not turn out well but at some point, they have to get out of the well stocked nest.
(3) First of all, I despise the term “shit job.” It kind of reminds me during covid when they were saying some jobs were essential and others were not. All jobs are essential. There is no such thing as a “shit job” IMO. A job is a job. Some jobs are not as fun or high quality as others but for those people working that shit job or for those paying someone to work that shit job, it’s important. My son got a “shit job” being a whopper flopper at Burger Thing. He worked his ass off and was quickly promoted to manager. He quit and went to school to learn a trade but before he had left he was receiving ticklers from the franchise owner about being a regional manager.
I can’t advise you on your child. But at 37? I’d change the locks to my doors and leave his shit in the driveway. Children learn quickly to take advantage of doting parents. Parents who dote on and provide for adult children aren’t doing their adult children any favors.
You can’t change things in the minds of anyone. They have to have the will to do so themselves. Personally, I think we should let children get jobs. Younger generations today are too entitled, too pampered and too lazy. Perhaps it would be better for a 14 year old to work stocking shelves at the local Albertsons rather than sit around in school or playing video games. I had a paper route when I was 10 all the way up to when I was able to drive when I got a job cleaning toilets and emptying garbage cans at the local high school. It gave me a sense of pride to earn my own money. Today? Most kids can’t work many jobs until they are 18 in most states. So what do they do during those mid teen years? Fornicate. Drugs. Nothing. Years wasted.
Again, every aspect of our society is fucked up. Nobody can fix society but people can fix themselves. People are lazy, though. As long as they get their basic needs cared for there is no impetus to change. They will only change when they see a need or are forced to do it. Those who are unable to change will succumb to it.
Yeah, it’s a problem.
EMULATE JOHN MCCAIN’S EXAMPLE OF CIVIL DISCOURSE
At a political rally 17 years ago, John McCain responded to a woman’s criticism of Barack Obama, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
Nine years ago, at one of his campaign rallies, Donald Trump said, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them. Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.” Trump has used rudeness and suggested violence against his opponents throughout his political career. Words like these explicitly encourage the political violence we’re seeing these days. I hope our next president, regardless of their politics, encourages civil debates of our disagreements by setting a good example. That is the only hope we have to solve the many problems we see all around us in our daily lives.
Robert Plantz
Santa Rosa
ROBERT UNDERHILL
My primary home is on 26 acres in a small hamlet in Vermont. When we moved here I quickly got to know my neighbors, got invited to events and became best friends with a couple of them. Of the 4 homes that I can see from mine, three of us have keys to each other’s homes so that we can respond to “can you go over to my house and…” type requests when one of us is away.
Two years ago we bought a 2nd home in suburban North Carolina in a new subdivision on tiny lots 1/8 to 1/4 acres each. This was to be near grandkids. The community fits the bill of what most consider perfect suburbia, yet after two years I do not even know the names of all of my immediate neighbors. For one household sort of diagonally across the way I have never even seen who lives there. This is a middle income subdivision. My daughter lives in a high end subdivision and has been there for about 15 years. She does not know most of her neighbors.
In a true emergency where FEMA or others aren’t coming to the rescue, I know the people in my hamlet will coordinate with and help each other. In my suburban home, we would not have a history with each other to know our relative strengths and weaknesses or even who could be trusted. A few years back the old couple across the way from me in VT were not well. The husband was sick and the wife couldn’t fully care for him. They mostly kept to themselves and didn’t ask for help but others of us just stepped in and did so. Women took turns making them a nice lunch every day. One guy mowed their lawn, another plowed their driveway in the winter. I brought their newspaper and mail in for them every day and shoveled from the front door to the garage so as to maintain a path if they needed to leave or emergency workers needed to get in.
There is far more wrong with suburbia than just the sprawl and destruction of any semblance of history or community as nothing gets in the way of building more of the same.
CALIFORNIA’S EV CARPOOL ERA IS COMING TO AN END. WILL IT UNLEASH TRAFFIC CHAOS?
by Rachel Swan
In a memorable episode of the HBO series ”Curb Your Own Enthusiasm,” comedian Larry David hires a sex worker to ride shotgun in his Toyota Prius, from the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles to Dodger Stadium.
The gimmick is expensive. Escort “Monena” charges $750, plus a baseball ticket, for her time. But viewers familiar with L.A. traffic called David a genius. With a passenger in tow, he could access the fast-moving carpool lane, bypassing a miserable jam on Highway 110 to make the game.
It was high comedy based on an absurd, if relatable, situation. And in a sort of life-imitating-art way, David’s joke would set the course of history. As the era of carpool lane privileges for low-emission cars draws to a close this week, it’s worth revisiting how it all started. The real story doesn’t involve an escort with a well-honed negotiating prowess. Yet it’s nearly as strange.
Flash back to early 2004, when Larry David’s then-wife, environmentalist Laurie David, was sitting at a table in a San Francisco hotel, with “Seinfeld” actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Democratic Assembly Member Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills, the late state Sen. (and Prius owner) John Burton and other progressive influencers. Dreyfus and Laurie David were both board members of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The whole coalition was brainstorming ideas to get more people into electric and hybrid vehicles.
“My husband at the time had a show where he would drive a Prius,” Laurie David recalled in an interview with the Chronicle. “We were always trying to get people to drive Priuses.”
They alighted on a simple, but highly effective perk: Give these Prius drivers access to carpool lanes, regardless of how many people are in the car.
Twelve days after Larry David’s “Car Pool Lane” sketch aired, Pavley introduced a bill that would spare him from ever having to pick up another passenger. Spun off a 1999 law that rewarded solo drivers of battery-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles with white “carpool stickers,” this version applied to a much wider audience. Crucially, the bill allowed hybrids — namely Priuses — to enter the fast “high occupancy” lanes.
What began as a clever plan would soon spawn a new wave of environmentalism in California, with everyone from actors to ride-hail drivers gravitating to low-emission vehicles as lawmakers set aggressive goals to lower the state’s carbon footprint.
“Allowing hybrids in the carpool lane was this perfectly-timed gateway,” Pavley said, describing how the sticker program incited an EV boom, and a slew of societal changes. Besides stoking demand, the law helped establish Toyota Priuses, and later, Teslas, as mass-market brands with a certain aura: They symbolized concern for humanity and the environment. Auto dealerships started displaying these tree-hugger models in their showrooms. When legislators restricted the program by enacting more stringent tail pipe emission standards, consumers quickly adapted. Over time, more than a million motorists plastered carpool-entry decals on their bumpers.
Political leaders now worry that come Oct. 1, all of that progress could unravel.
That’s when the carpool lane benefit, along with all the optimism and environmental virtue it signified, is set to end. Congress has declined to pass legislation to authorize an extension, and it seems no amount of advocacy from California politicians, or electric vehicle enthusiasts, can keep the program alive. A last-minute House Resolution by Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Contra Costa County, would have classified low-emission vehicles as carpool lane eligible for another six years, but it stalled upon introduction in August. That same month, the Department of Motor Vehicles stopped issuing the colored decals that EV owners place on their cars for carpool lane admission and bridge toll discounts.
On Wednesday, everyone who drives an electric vehicle will be subject to the same occupancy rules as any other motorist. Officers from the California Highway Patrol will offer a 60-day grace period before they start citing violators.
DeSaulnier said he hopes to spend that extra two months rallying support for his resolution.
“The idea was to get my bill, or another one like it, into the budget,” he explained in an interview last Friday, by which point the possibility of any agreement on the budget looked dim. Already, Congressional Democrats and Republicans were bracing for a government shutdown.
Adopting a defiant tone, DeSaulnier said he would continue touting the advantages of EVs to anyone who listened. Transitioning drivers to a cleaner energy source is important for public health, he said, and it helps the U.S. compete with other countries that manufacture these cars.
Whether DeSaulnier can communicate that message across the aisle is an open question. Many of his fellow California Democrats accuse the Republican-led federal government of trying to hamstring a thriving EV market, out of disdain for blue states where the vehicles are popular. On the day the decals expire, Congress will also scrap federal tax credits for electric vehicles under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act. Collectively, these actions are part of a larger plan to promote fossil fuels.
None of the machinations are lost on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a long-time Tesla owner who recently chose an electric Rivian SUV as his official ride. Newsom warned that the federal government’s “misguided decision” would create confusion and gridlock on freeways, while increasing smog as drivers revert back to internal combustion engines. The governor had a name for the resulting mess: “A Trump traffic jam.”
In the Bay Area, EV drivers wait with gritted teeth for a change that could upend their commutes, and perhaps diminish their quality of life. A few who spoke with the Chronicle expressed bafflement at what they saw as the unwinding of California’s environmental agenda.
“I really bought this vehicle for the sticker,” Zouaoui Zazou, a Kensington resident who was charging his Tesla Model 3 at the El Cerrito Plaza station last week.
Before purchasing the car Zazou would pick up passengers for casual carpools across the Bay Bridge, but he said he’s reluctant to try that again. Since he drives for Uber, transporting a carpooler essentially amounts to working for free.
But others say the decal incentive has served its purpose, and that it’s becoming counterproductive. The goal to get more people in Teslas or Chevy Volts was always in tension with another environmental goal: to get people out of cars altogether. Moreover, critics of the sticker program said it favored consumers who can afford high-priced electric or plug-in cars, allowing them to clog lanes that should have prioritized traditional carpools or buses. When lawmakers sought to manage that problem by setting sticker quotas and tightening emission standards, transit advocates still weren’t satisfied.
“Really, I’m concerned about the 40 people on a bus who are stuck behind one driver with a sticker, regardless of how the car is powered,” said Carter Lavin, co-founder of the Transbay Coalition advocacy group. He believes that clean-air vehicles are so widespread, and ingrained in California culture, that they don’t need any more state support.
“Diluting the power (and speed) of a carpool lane just inconveniences everybody else, including the buses and the people who are actually carpooling,” Lavin said.
Pavley acknowledged these arguments, saying she understood the central flaw in the program she pioneered — that it does, indeed, accommodate people with enough disposable income to buy new electric cars. The former state lawmaker saw this play out first hand. She remembers getting calls from a top executive at Disney who was afraid to sell his Prius in the mid-2000s, lest he lose the decal that came with it, and the time he saved driving to work on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. Pavley encouraged him to just buy a new electric car.
Despite its drawbacks, the decal program had demonstrably boosted sales of electric vehicles, which ultimately improved the air quality for everyone, Pavley said.
Now that so many Californians own fuel-efficient cars, some drivers share Newsom’s fear of what could happen on Wednesday. As of August, 511,877 vehicles in the state have “active” decals according to the DMV. Forcing all of them to merge into general traffic will likely create gridlock, and potentially leave the carpool lanes empty, the doomsayers warn.
Still, the variables of human behavior are hard to predict.
“People are creatures of habit,” said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, admitting that he’s unsure how many drivers will voluntarily switch to a slower and more crowded lane on Wednesday. Even after the grace period, it’s unclear to what degree the CHP will crack down on scofflaws.
Many owners of EVs may switch over to express lanes, which allow solo drivers to pay their way in through a toll system. In recent years transportation planners have steadily converted carpool lanes throughout the Bay Area into express lanes, on the idea that they help evenly distribute congestion. MTC’s long-term vision for regional freeways includes continuous express lanes along Interstate 680 from San Jose to the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, and on Interstate 80 from the Carquinez Bridge to the Bay Bridge.
Such plans could take years to execute. In the near-term, commuters and transportation officials alike worry the abrupt end of carpool decals could lead to chaos and intolerable traffic snarls.
Some observers see an upside. As solo EV drivers leave the HOV lanes, those lanes will speed up, creating a different incentive structure. Commuters who, in the past, were motivated to purchase a clean-air vehicle may now feel compelled to drive together, or take the bus. Carpools, in their pure form, could make a comeback.
“For a person with an EV who is unsure what to do, there’s a real simple solution,” Lavin said. “Just pick someone up.”
Ahsan Waqas, a Tesla owner from Richmond, considered the prospect warily.
“Well,” he said, “Maybe I can wait at BART and see if two people want a ride.”
After all, it worked for Larry David.
BUSTER POSEY DISMISSES BOB MELVIN 3 MONTHS AFTER EXTENDING HIS CONTRACT
by Ann Killion
For the third consecutive season, the axe has fallen on a key leader of the San Francisco Giants.
This time it was Bob Melvin‘s turn.
President of baseball operations Buster Posey dismissed Melvin about 18 hours after the frustrating 2025 season ended, saying it was time for a new voice.
It was a disappointing ending for the homegrown and former Giant Melvin, who — when he was hired less than two years ago — described the Giants managerial position as his dream job.
But the firing was hardly surprising. Not with the erratic, whiplash nature of the Giants season, when they soared to great highs, plummeted to unwatchable lows, and ended up being completely average, 81-81. Melvin’s overall record in his two seasons was a mundane 161-163.
“When seasons don’t go the way you want them to, it’s never one person’s fault, never one group’s fault,” Posey said on a Zoom call Monday morning. “But when they don’t go the way you want you can’t, in my opinion, sit there and say we’re going to come back and do the same thing that we did this year.”
That, as we know, is the definition of insanity. And the Giants have had enough craziness in recent years.
Posey, in a surprising midseason move, picked up Melvin’s one-year contract option on July 1. But he reversed course just three months later. On Monday he said that he felt the team had momentum when he picked up the option and that it would provide a morale boost and confidence.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t play the type of baseball that we needed to play to get into the playoffs,” Posey said.
Does he blame Melvin’s leadership for the wild swings, when the team started out hot, crashed out of contention, pulled itself back up and then faded down the stretch?
“It’s hard to say,” Posey said. “The hope is to get to a place where we are more consistent. We know … the details, the small things, are really important. The hope is to find somebody that can push the group to a higher level, making sure all those small fundamental things are emphasized.”
Reading between the lines of Posey’s comments, it’s clear that he was frustrated by the team’s erratic play and lack of attention to detail and that he, at least in part, fingered Melvin for some of those lapses.
“What I want (in a manager) is somebody that’s going to be obsessive about the details, obsessive about work, obsessive about getting the most out of our players and staff,” Posey said. “And somebody that will inspire confidence in our players on the field and all the interactions that happen off the field as well.”
Was Melvin, after 22 seasons as a major league manager, too set in his ways? Did the players get too comfortable? Is it as simple as needing a new voice?
Melvin came in as a stabilizing force after the oddity that was Gabe Kapler’s managerial stint, one that left fans displeased and players uninspired. He provided a bridge from one era to another, compatible with Farhan Zaidi and then — at least for large parts of the season — in sync with fellow catcher Posey. Melvin helped to stabilize the lineup, set the leadership inside the clubhouse and was part of resetting a culture that became more recognizable and attractive to the fans.
But it all unraveled in the second half. The Giants played lifelessly and were too often plagued by boneheaded errors. Melvin looked more and more worn down as it went on.
So now it’s time for the proverbial “new voice.” Who will Posey tap to partner with him to bring stability to a franchise that has been uncharacteristically rocky of late? After Brian Sabean’s quarter century of stewardship that coincided with a 10-year tenure by Dusty Baker and, after four years with Felipe Alou, 13 additional years with Bruce Bochy, the Giants are now looking for their third manager in seven seasons.
“It’s definitely not ideal,” Posey said. “You hope that there can be consistency in these leadership positions.”
Posey did not reveal his timeline for a new hire, nor elaborate on candidates he might be considering. A popular belief is that first base coach Mark Hallberg would be a favorite, one of Posey’s closest friends and his former Florida State teammate. But would Posey want that aura of nepotism around a hire, as well as tapping an untested leader?
Bochy will not return in 2026 as the Rangers’ manager and there’s speculation that Posey may want to bring his longtime manager back. But Bochy is 70 and would likely not be around for the long haul. Bochy has championship credentials, but bringing him back wouldn’t exactly be a step into the franchise’s future.
Zaidi’s first major decision, a year into his tenure, was hiring Kapler. It was an odd decision, a departure from the managerial lineage of the team. That hire ultimately backfired, undermined Zaidi’s credibility and helped set in motion the instability the Giants are still trying to overcome.
Posey has a better sense of the history and expectations of both the Giants franchise and the importance of the manager who leads the team. He needs to get this hire right.
(SF Chronicle)
49ERS’ LOSS TO JAGUARS EXPOSES FLAWS NEW AND OLD: ‘A BAD GAME ALL AROUND’
by Ann Killion
Through the first three games of the season, the San Francisco 49ers lived right on the edge.
In the fourth game, they fell off.
After grinding out three wins to start the season, the odds finally caught up with the 49ers.
They put on a dismal performance on Sunday, failing in all three phases of the game and losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars for the first time since December of 2005. The 26-21 defeat dropped the 49ers into a three-way tie atop the NFC West, heading into Thursday night’s pivotal game against the co-leading Los Angeles Rams.
The phrase “trap game” gets tossed around a lot. No team ever concedes that there is such a thing, and on Sunday the 49ers did not become the first in NFL history to do so.
“No, I didn’t think it was a trap game at all,” Kyle Shanahan said. “We knew they were a good team. We’ve been watching the film all week. We had four turnovers to their zero.”
But the 49ers had gotten off to a heady 3-0 start. Jacksonville was an uninspiring opponent, one that had to fly across the country for the game. The much sexier Rams matchup is on Thursday. This was the definition of a trap game.
Shanahan is right about the Jaguars. Now 3-1, with a new coach and rid of general manager Trent Baalke, Jacksonville is a sneaky good team. They were stout on defense behind a familiar face, Arik Armstead. They got at least three turnovers for the third time this season. And they were dynamic on offense behind quarterback Trevor Lawrence and running back Travis Etienne, who teamed to win a national championship for Clemson at Levi’s back in 2019 and could feel, as Lawrence said, “the good vibes.”
And that’s the thing about the 49ers’ much-heralded last-place schedule that is supposed to be the cure to all their ills — all those other teams that finished last in 2024 have also worked hard to get better. And some of them, like the Jaguars, just might have achieved that goal.
What we’ve learned through the first month of the season is that the 49ers still have many of the same issues that plagued them last year, the ones and led to their inclusion in the bottom feeder group.
There’s the lack of pass rush, which will only be worse with Nick Bosa‘s injury: on Sunday they had zero sacks and zero quarterback hits for the first time in a decade. They’re still struggling for interceptions: they haven’t had one since Week 11 last year. They have difficulty scoring touchdowns in the red zone: the 49ers came into the game ranked 24th and were just 1-for-3 against Jacksonville. And their special teams are still problematic despite all the emphasis in the offseason on improving that unit and getting rid of Jake Moody earlier this month. They gave up a 54-yard kickoff return that led to a field goal, and an87-yard punt return for a touchdown.
And we haven’t even mentioned the continued rash of injuries. On Sunday, receiver Ricky Pearsall went down with a knee injury and couldn’t return.
Now the 49ers only have four days to shake off the lousy loss and face the Rams at SoFi Stadium.
“Just a bad game all around,” Christian McCaffrey said. “Excited to move on.”
There is plenty for the 49ers to be concerned about before they move on, beginning with Brock Purdy, who returned to the starting role after missing two games with a turf toe injury. Purdy had two interceptions and a sack-fumble caused by Armstead that was recovered by the Jaguars and essentially ended the game.
In his two starts since signing his $265 million contract, Purdy has thrown four interceptions and fumbled away the ball once.
“It starts with me,” Purdy said. “I’ve just got to be better.”
Purdy said he felt fine physically and that his toe wasn’t bothering him. He said that after he watched the film he’ll have to be “real with myself.” But he was visibly upset with the way he gave the ball away, when the team had the chance to come back and win the game at the final moment for the fourth straight week.
“I was mad,” he said. “Frustrated in the moment.”
Emotions were running high all around in the final moments of the game. Jaguars first year coach Liam Coen appeared to shout out 49ers’ defensive coordinator Robert Saleh as both were exiting the field. Was it because Saleh casually dropped the charge of “sign-stealing” on Coen in his midweek comments? Was it because the 49ers defense tried to disrupt the Jaguars game-ending kneel downs, in ways that could be considered a bit bush-league?
Who knows? But it all worked for the Jaguars.
“If they’re going to give you free fuel, you take it,” Lawrence said.
“You can’t write a better script, to be honest,” Armstead said. “I’ve got a lot of memories in this building and I just made another one today.”
Now, coming off a bitter loss, the 49ers head into arguably the toughest stretch on their schedule, with back-to-back games against playoff teams. First, they head to the Rams, the winners of the division last season. Then, after their mini-bye, they fly across the country to play Tampa Bay, also winners of their division last year.
“The Rams are a great football team, the game is on the road,” Fred Warner said. “We have to flush (this one), learn from our mistakes and be ready for a huge divisional game.”
The 49ers had teetered on the cliff for weeks. They fell off Sunday. Now we’ll watch to see how — if? — they climb back up.
(SF Chronicle)
BUYER AT MAJOR CALIFORNIA GROCERY CHAIN TOOK BRIBES TO CARRY CERTAIN WINES, PROSECUTORS CLAIM
by Esther Mobley
A former wine buyer for a powerful California grocery chain accepted “lavish vacations,” luxury watches and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gift cards in exchange for carrying certain wines in his stores, according to prosecutors.
The buyer, Patrick Briones, was charged last week in federal court in Oakland with commercial bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. One of the wine suppliers who allegedly influenced him, Bryan Barnes, pleaded guilty earlier this year to commercial bribery in a scheme worth around $360,000.
The cases suggest that for at least several years, the wine selection at hundreds of California stores was determined not by the taste preferences of experienced buyers, but in part by an elaborate system of kickbacks, which were then, prosecutors argue, concealed by falsified invoices. In some cases, the complaint says, Briones received as much as $10,000 to place products in his stores.
Briones did not respond to a request for comment. He has not yet entered a plea.
The complaint does not identify Briones’ employer, which it describes as “a large national grocery store chain” with 300 stores in Southern California. But context in the complaint, news reports and LinkedIn suggest that he worked for Albertsons, which operates stores under both the Albertsons and Vons names in Southern California.
Briones previously worked for Safeway, per his LinkedIn profile, and came over to Albertsons when the two companies merged in 2015.
“We have been made aware of allegations against a former employee who abused his position for personal gain, and we are cooperating with the relevant authorities on the matter,” an Albertsons company spokesperson wrote to the Chronicle in an email. “The behavior in question was wholly inconsistent with our policies, and we do not, and will not, tolerate it.”
Barnes, the wine supplier, worked for the supplier Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits, which produces or imports some of the best-selling brands in the country including Yellow Tail and Josh Cellars.
Since the repeal of Prohibition, the U.S. has maintained a three-tier system for alcohol sales. Producers, distributors and retailers must operate separately to prevent monied industry members from exerting undue influence over others’ buying decisions.
Yet pay-to-play accusations are not uncommon. The country’s largest distributor, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, has been caught in a series of legal actions recently related to its allegedly anticompetitive behavior.
During his time at Albertsons, the complaint reads, Briones accepted a series of gifts including a $2,290 designer bag; trips to Hawaii and Las Vegas, including casino chips; golf trips to Pebble Beach, plus resorts in Florida, Oregon and Cabo San Lucas; a series of prepaid gift cards; and more, “in exchange for his agreement to carry, increase purchases of, or prominently display certain wines.”
The vendors concealed the bribery by writing misleading invoices, according to prosecutors, covering up a Hawaii trip for Briones as “Regional Education Seminar 2018,” for example, or prepaid gift cards to Briones as “Planner Incentive.”
He was allegedly bribed by individuals including Barnes of Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits. The complaint also claims that employees of a distributor bribed Briones; the distributor is not named, but Southern Glazer’s is known to be the distributor of Deutsch brands.
Southern Glazer’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case against Barnes also alleged that another Deutsch executive, Matthew Adler, had bribed Southern Glazer’s employees to favor its products. Adler and Barnes both pleaded guilty in federal court in Oakland in April. Barnes has a hearing scheduled for October, and Adler has a status conference scheduled for January.
The conspiracy charge against Briones carries a possible penalty of five years imprisonment, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine; the commercial bribery charge carries a possible penalty of 1 year imprisonment, one year supervised release and a $100,000 fine.
(SF Chronicle)
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
I'm singin' in the rain,
Just singin' in the rain,
What a glorious feeling,
I'm happy again!
I'm laughing at clouds
So dark up above,
The sun's in my heart and I'm ready for love!
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place,
Come on with your rain,
I've got a smile on my face!
I'll walk down the lane
With a happy refrain,
Just singin', singin' in the rain!
Why am I smiling and why do I sing?
Why does December seem sunny as Spring?
Why do I get up each morning to start
Happy and head-up with joy in my heart?
Why is each new task a trifle to do?
Because I am living a life full of you!
Hey, I'm singin' in the rain,
Just singin' in the rain,
What a glorious feeling,
I'm happy again!
I'm laughing at clouds
So dark up above,
The sun's in my heart and I'm ready for love!
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place,
Come on with your rain,
I've got a smile on my face!
I'll walk down the lane
With a happy refrain,
Just singin', singin' in the rain!
— lyrics by Arthur Freed (1929)
SF’S BEST SEAFOOD RESTAURANT HAS MURKY POLITICS, BUT THE CRAB IS F—KING GOOD
by Drew Magary
If you’re a normal person, your favorite part of a crab is the tender meat housed within its shell. You like crab claws, crabcakes, crab soup, and all of the other socially acceptable crabmeat delicacies. But what if you’re a pervert for marine arthropods? What if a crab’s mere flesh isn’t enough to satisfy you? And what if you’re willing to burrow deeper inside of the animal, tearing through the entirety of its internal tissue, in hopes of finding a bigger prize? Is there a place for you in this world, you strange, foul-smelling creature?
There is, in San Francisco. It’s mid-morning and I’m standing outside of Swan Oyster Depot, the venerated, and perhaps occasionally racist, Polk Street seafood counter. I’m willing to eat lunch there early because I want to avoid the inevitable line, and because there is no inappropriate time of day to house the s—t out of some quality seafood. Most important of all, I was informed by SFGATE audience engagement editor Jake Montero that Swan Oyster Depot serves crab back as a special, but only in limited quantities. So I needed to be here at brunch o’clock, because crab guts are my thing.
Some basics about Swan Oyster Depot before we get to the messy part. It opened in 1912 and has remained essentially the same place since its inception, its politics likely included. There are no reservations and they only take cash. Combine that with ownership’s apparent MAGA fandom, and that makes Swan Oyster Depot a “this better be worth it” kinda joint.
There’s also no printed menu at Swan Oyster Depot. All items are listed on the wall behind the counter, with the specials of the day tacked up separately, and in a haphazard manner. I sit down with Montero and survey my options while the Marshall Tucker Band plays over the loud speakers (freedom rock works perfectly in this space; it gives it just the right kinda vibe). I spot a small, handwritten sign on the far end of the wall confirming they have crab back.
We ask the dude behind the bar, name of Santiago, if we can get one before they run out. Santiago warmly tells us that he’s got us covered, after which I do my whole tourist thing and ask him a bunch of stupid questions.
“What do customers usually get here?”
“The combination salad (prawns, shrimp, crab).”
“Is that like a sandwich?”
“No. It’s a salad.”
“Oh.”
I order the combo salad with vinaigrette (they also offer Louis sauce if you prefer), as do my colleagues. We also order raw clams, raw oysters, prawn cocktail, and a smoked trout special. Santiago wastes zero time bringing it all to us. Here comes the prawn cocktail, with the ketchup and horseradish served on the side and in separate containers. That’s right, you get to decide how violent you want your cocktail sauce to be. Every seafood joint should do this; Swan Oyster Depot is the first one I’ve ever encountered to do so. I might write a law.
Next come the seafood salads, which are true to their name: just a s—tload of fresh, cold seafood piled atop a bed of shredded iceberg. Before I can ravage my plate though, here come the bivalves on the half shell and a basket of bread. A second later, despite barely having time to process the dishes already in front of me, the hallowed crab back arrives. It’s served with the Dungeness crab’s body turned upside down on a small plate, its innards already removed, reduced down to a cloudy stock, and then ladled back into the body as if it were a soup tureen. It looks real, REAL f—king good. Everything does.
I want to save the back for last, because I have all of this normal seafood to plow through first. The oysters, onto which I splash a tiny bit of mignonette sauce, are among the best I’ve ever had. The clams have a flavor so deep that I go bug-eyed upon first bite. Not everything is a bull’s-eye. While the prawns are acceptably plump and meaty, the shrimp in my salad are tiny and forgettable. And the smoked trout is a plain filet that, quite honestly, could have been taken straight out of a Ducktrap package from the grocery store.
The dishes that hit, however, explode on impact. The Dungeness crab in my salad is the freshest, best tasting cold crab I’ve had on this side of the country. This is doubly true when I cover the combo salad in the silken vinaigrette that comes with it. Swan Oyster Depot knows that the best way to serve great seafood is as plainly as possible. This crab is plain. It’s also perfect. Many years ago, I had to attend a funeral for a loved one in my family. For the reception, my mom went down to a local fishmonger that morning and brought a tray piled high with freshly picked blue crab. I never thought I’d have crab as good as the crab I had that afternoon. I was wrong. Get the all-crab salad if you come here. Don’t waste your time with tiny ass shrimp, like I have.
Only the crab back remains. I tear off a hunk of bread and dip in. The stock is cold, which I didn’t expect. I get over it. One dunked piece of bread becomes two, which becomes three, you get the idea. The best crab guts I ever ate were back on the East Coast (I’m a Marylander; we take our crab as seriously as you folks do). I tore the body off of a steamed blue crab, drank the juice inside the shell, picked out the brains for a sample, and officially became a crab guts pervert in the process. Now I’m on the West Coast, trading in blue crabs for Dungeness but still eager for a maritime offal thrill.
I get it. This crab broth is thick and rich, with all kinds of fatty, nasty bits swirling around and latching themselves onto every bread hunk. My colleagues like the back, too. But, to my shock, they don’t seem terribly interested in helping me finish it. Sucks to be them. More crab brains for daddy. The owners of Swan Oyster Depot may not grasp that President Donald Trump is a piece of s—t, but they very much know their seafood, and always have.
I polish the back off and luxuriate in a brunch well eaten. Montero pays our tab (pricey but worth it) and I step out into the day, smelling like a longshoreman. I don’t care. I’m happy. I ate that crab’s guts out, because real ones know that’s the best part.
WHY I’M NOT A MORMON ANYMORE, an on-line confession:
I was at one time an active Mormon. Born and raised in Mormon country in south east Idaho, raised in Mormon country in Arizona and now reside in Mormon country Utah. I’m no longer an active, practicing Mormon. Why? Because the LDS church at one time used to stand for something. Whether you agreed with them or not, the Church was pretty sound against Homosexuality, divorce, abortion, female priests, debt and so forth. One would go to church and leave knowing that certain things were wrong and certain things were good.
I recall as a youth being taught that homosexuality in all of its forms was a sin and was a perversion of the holy union between man and woman, a mockery of it, if you will. That is no longer taught in the LDS church. Today they are apologetic stating things like “its okay to be homosexual, as long as you don’t act upon it.” Things like transgenderism are not discussed. Abortion is never uttered across the pulpit. Mormons are no longer encouraged to live in modest homes, stay out of debt and live on less than their income.
Meetings today don’t even focus on Jesus Christ, for whom the church is named. Instead Bishops and Stake Presidents pat each other on the back for being “called” to prominent roles and then congratulate each other as being “men of God” and “foreordained for greatness.” It is mind numbing to sit in a pew hoping to talk of Christ only to hear that “brother so and so is a Man of God!”
One day as I was sitting in the pew being told that my Bishop was a Man of God and that I should be thankful for him and all he does for me when it dawned on me that the Mormon church has gone the way of the world. Man worship. Instead of sitting there and worshiping my Bishop I said to hell with this and left. Haven’t been back for years and do not intend to.
That is why churches are failing today. You clearly understand!
AN ANTIFASCIST MOVIE AT A FASCIST MOMENT
by Michelle Goldberg
Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnificent new movie “One Battle After Another” arrived in theaters last week, but it was made in the America that existed before Donald Trump’s return. Watching it, I kept wondering if such a forthrightly antifascist film could be produced in Hollywood today.
A political thriller shot through with absurdist humor, the movie has several scenes that might have seemed imaginatively dystopian when they were shot, but now look like news outtakes. Its villain, a military officer named Steven Lockjaw, is an anti-immigrant fanatic who at one point lays siege to a sanctuary city under the dishonest pretext of fighting cartels. The movie posits a white nationalist cabal at the highest levels of the American establishment — called, amusingly, the Christmas Adventurers — whose rhetoric isn’t all that different than Trump’s. “Our aim and your aim is the same,” one member says to Lockjaw, who aspires to join them. “To find dangerous lunatics, haters and punk trash and stop them. No more lunatics.”
“One Battle After Another” has been rapturously reviewed, and the critics are right — it’s the best new movie I’ve seen in years. The film’s artistic success shouldn’t be reduced to its politics. But at a moment when an autocratic administration is trying to force cultural institutions into submission, it’s invigorating to see a Hollywood movie so fearless in its progressive convictions. “One Battle After Another” has complicated things to say about left-wing political violence and self-serving radicalism, but it takes a clear side in the broader fight between authoritarianism and resistance.
Anderson’s movie was loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” a book featuring former ‘60s hippies and militants adrift in Ronald Reagan’s America. He sets the story in the present, which is a risky decision. We’re supposed to accept that there was a Weatherman-style left-wing revolutionary cell called the French 75 operating roughly around 2008 or 2009. This contemporary timeline creates some jarring anachronisms; the French 75’s radical chic aesthetics and millenarian fantasies just don’t fit into the early Obama years. But as the movie goes on, taking up the question of what’s worth fighting for in a moment of defeat and disillusionment, it stops feeling dissonant.
Like “Vineland,” “One Battle After Another” has a kind of love triangle at its heart. The French 75 is led by a glamorous Black militant called Perfidia, played by Teyana Taylor, whose name is an unsubtle clue to her character. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the group’s explosives expert and Perfidia’s lover. As the movie opens, they are liberating an immigrant detention camp run by Lockjaw. Perfidia gets the jump on the officer, leaving him tied up, sexually humiliated and dangerously obsessed.
After this prologue, the movie jumps ahead 16 years, where DiCaprio’s character is living off the grid in Northern California with his and Perfidia’s daughter, under the assumed names Bob and Willa Ferguson. Believing Willa might be his — which if true could thwart his ambitions — Lockjaw comes after her. From there, the movie is a chase, as Bob tries to save his daughter, helped along by what remains of a radical underground.
With its mostly sympathetic portrayal of former revolutionaries, “One Battle After Another” was bound to enrage conservatives, especially following the killing of Charlie Kirk and the sniper attack on a Dallas ICE office. “Anderson intentionally provokes the bloodlust of his woke confreres,” wrote an apoplectic Armond White in National Review, calling the film “the year’s most irresponsible movie.”
This is an oversimplification of Anderson’s attitude toward violence. Like almost every action movie, “One Battle After Another” fetishizes weapons and explosions; an image of Perfidia firing a machine gun, her swollen pregnant belly exposed over her fatigues, seems destined to become iconic. But Perfidia is no heroine. The film makes it clear that she gets off on mayhem. She betrays her comrades and then abandons her family, wrapping her selfishness in liberal clichés. “I put myself first and I reject your lack of originality,” she tells Bob on her way out the door.
The French 75 is a failure that haunts the lives of everyone who survived it. When we meet Bob again after 16 years, he’s a stoned paranoiac and a bit of a clown. In a more hackneyed film, he’d deploy his talent for explosives to rescue Willa. But “One Battle After Another” is far from a left-wing gloss on Liam Neeson’s “Taken.” Bob is heroic in his love for his daughter, but that doesn’t make him competent. In one of the movie’s funniest bits, he seeks help from a radical underground telephone hotline but, with his brain cooked by drugs, he can’t remember the answer to a cryptic security question. (“Maybe you should have studied the rebellion texts a little harder,” says his priggish interlocutor.)
Yet if “One Battle After Another” doesn’t celebrate revolutionary violence, it also doesn’t condemn the broad goals the French 75 fought for. Indeed, it celebrates those who quietly keep radical hopes alive. Its most winning character is Benicio Del Toro’s Sergio St. Carlos, a karate sensei who runs an underground railroad for undocumented immigrants, and who moves through the film’s chaos with Buddha-like serenity.
There is something subversive, in the best possible way, in the film’s vision of good and evil. The same week it came out, the administration released a national security memorandum denouncing movements that “portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as ‘fascist’ to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution.” Watching “One Battle After Another” feels liberating in part because it’s heedless of all the new taboos Trump and his henchman are trying to force on us. The movie could scarcely be more relevant in Trump’s America, but it carries with it the assumptions of a better country.
(NY Times)
JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS REFUSE TO RENOUNCE GENOCIDE
by Eva Chrysanthe (Marin Confidential)
Nearly 24 months into Israel’s live-streamed genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the majority of Jewish institutions in the U.S. still decline to take any stand against Israel’s actions. Meanwhile, the most influential and active pro-Israel lobbying group in Northern California, the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), has been heavily involved in promoting racist, pro-censorship bills like AB 715, and announcing its desire to target students, faculty, and staff at UC Berkeley for pro-Palestinian advocacy.
From the only names we have been provided for deportations, detentions, and visa revocations, a disproportionate number of those facing the worst consequences for pro-Palestinian advocacy on U.S. campuses appear to be of West Asian, East Asian, or South Asian descent. (A recent example of what appears to be racialized targeting of faculty is UC Berkeley lecturer Peyrin Kao, who was one of 160 students and faculty whose names turned over by the University to the federal government for pro-Palestinian advocacy. The very young, slightly built Kao is now on his 32nd day of a hunger strike, and his November 2023 post-lecture comments which earned him a place on that list should be heard in full.)
Despite this, no local media has acknowledged that when the all-white JCRC leadership announced its desire to root out “antisemitism” at UC Berkeley last March, it would impact Asian students and faculty the most. Last week I attempted to get answers from the University about the demographics of the 160-person list turned over to the Federal government. In the process, I was given some leads, and some insights into how the Israel lobby was able to target 160 different individuals.…
https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/senator-wieners-ex-political-director
YOU CALL BALLS AND STRIKES — that’s it. That’s it. And it allows contradiction and undertow to obtain because that’s the part of human experience. If you try to superimpose an expository theory on it, it’s always going to fail.
Babe Ruth comes up once every nine times. He strikes out an awful lot. The highlights of everything show him hitting home runs. If you see all the dynamics here, not just of the George Washingtons and the John Adams and the Thomas Jeffersons and Benjamin Franklins, but bottom-up people — who themselves wrestle with these contradictions — they are contradictory. This is Whitman-esque. Do I contradict myself? Yes. So you just permit that. You don’t need to superimpose a fashion of historiography to interpret this. You actually just have to call balls and strikes.
Were there people who — I mean when Jefferson says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” there’s nothing self-evident about these truths. Nothing. As someone said in a film we made about Benjamin Franklin a few years ago, it’s an old lawyer’s dodge: just say it’s self-evident. But there’s nothing self-evident about the idea that all men are created equal. And once you’ve said it, you’ve opened the door. It’s too late.
You can sit there and keep score: “Well, you didn’t treat this right.” That’s true. But in fact, Washington, by the end of his life, is freeing his slaves. Jefferson, saddled with debt, tries to dance around it. He says it’s like holding a wolf by the ears: you don’t like it, but you dare not let it go. So there’s lots of temporizing. And you just have to say it’s a complicated narrative that finds comfort in contradiction. George Washington is an extremely flawed person. He’s rash. He makes horrible tactical mistakes at the biggest battle of the Revolution. And yet we do not have a country without him. Full stop.
We live in a computer world of ones and zeros, in a media culture where politics is on/off, binary. But there’s nothing binary in human existence. There’s nothing binary in nature. And so — a good story. Richard Powers said: “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” Because good stories permit us connection and familiarity with all of these things. We want to decide: good or bad, white hat or dark hat. And sometimes you just have to say, this is the way it happened.
— Ken Burns
THE BIG LEBOWSKI CIVIL WAR
by James Kunstler
“We are living through Bloody September” — Will Chamberlin
When the newly-formed Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, April 1861, they ignited the Civil War. They, at least, had a clearcut goal: to maintain an economy (and society) based on slavery. It was patently evil, but it was firmly established and it was their engine for daily life, and they didn’t want it to end.
When Charlie Kirk was murdered in 2025, Civil War 2.0 kicked off. The enemy this time are not Confederates with a coherent command structure and a goal. They are an army of nihilists like the gang in The Big Lebowski, who, for one reason or another, have failed to launch lives of meaning and purpose, and so have adopted the purpose of destroying the country they cannot thrive in. Unlike The Big Lebowski, this is not a joke. But, it’s obviously a different sort of civil war than the first one.
It appears that many of these nihilists, especially the ones amalgamated as Antifa, are straight-up mentally ill — crazed young women too untamed to find a mate, many obese and self-mutilated like tattooed savages with steel bones in their noses. . . young men, hormones afire, likewise frustrated, escaping into sexual fetish and psychotic obsessions with demons, violence, blame, enmity. They are warriors for their own deformed ids.
There is, for sure, plenty to complain about in American life as currently organized. It abounds with swindles and ruses, and much of the ill effect falls on young people who were rooked into college loans, are drowning in unpayable debt, are unable to find meaningful work in an economy dominated by cruelly gigantic companies, are unable to afford a place of their own to eat and sleep in, and whose bodies and minds are ravaged by junk food and pharma products.
Do not overlook the deleterious effects of the everyday environment we have created: the world of American suburbia. Above all, it requires a reliable car to even begin to function in, and that is beyond the reach of many newly-minted adults with no job or a shit-job. The sheer ugliness of American suburbia is punishing to human neurology. It induces anxiety and despair to a degree we can’t begin to reckon. Try walking a mile down a six-laner between the Sam’s Club and the DMV sometime.
Suburbia atomizes social relations, making everyone an isolated unit and it defeats any attempt to form real communities. Its schools function like minimum security prisons, generators of anomie and ennui. On top of all that, suburbia has entered its arc of economic failure. Even the gainfully employed middle-aged can no longer pay for it. It was built out of crappy materials that are falling apart now. A sane person would opt to not live in it, but since escape is so difficult from sea to shining sea, the other option is to go insane — especially if you’re just setting out in life.
All of this discontent gets converted, abracadabra, into political ideology. The old, reliable package of Marxism works whenever people feel cheated out of meaning, purpose, and a livelihood. And so, this anguished cohort of the young, defeated in making a life, driven mentally ill by their surroundings, hounded by the endless prompts of their beloved smartphones, wrecked by the things they put in their bodies, and broken by their demoralizing failures, become the useful idiots of their political elders.
And the Democratic Party, having become little more than a grifting machine of hustles and hoaxes, uses the young to generate ever more ill-feeling across the land over issues that self-evidently are against the interests of the young — so that the party can survive its present existential crisis.
It was not in young America’s interest to receive “Joe Biden’s” flood of illegal migrants across the border. Apart from their criminal histories, or the hidden agenda to form subversive cells for foreign enemies, the illegal migrants compete with young people in many realms of employment like the building trades, while they drive down wages generally. So why are the Antifas out there in front of the ICE facility affecting to “rescue” the deportees?
Because the mind-scrambling language of Marxian revolt has persuaded the Antifas that the illegal migrants are their “marginalized intersectional allies.” It’s bullshit, of course, but the mentally ill swallow it because they are desperate for meaning and filled with animus for all-and-any authority responsible for constructing and managing a system they have failed in.
Mr. Trump, the primary demon in their fantasies, and certainly the enemy of the Democratic Party’s corrupt grifting machine, attempts to restore an economy based on producing things of value, rather than financial flimflams. The catch is, he may not be able to do that using the old armature of gigantic corporate organisms operating on rollover debt. That phase of history is probably over.
We need a new armature, but one based on voluntary exchange, which is to say economic liberty, not top-town communist-type centralized planning. Everywhere that has been tried, it failed and blew up. Euro-style Socialism Lite is not a workable choice anymore, either, because we are leaving behind the cheap energy economy and the geopolitical deals that made six-week vacations, retirement at 60, and free medicine possible.
Neither the Democratic Party nor their Antifa foot-soldiers have a sane and coherent approach to this set of problems. The remaining option for them is to stay insane, to fight for crazy things like men in the women’s swim lane, and to act out their inchoate rage. If they keep escalating, the remaining sane sixty-percent or so of America will opt to put them down briskly and harshly, and it looks like that is about to happen.
COWS LYING DOWN
A Holstein cow lying down—
it would seem impossible
for such an awkward shape to return to standing.
Yet, lifting part by part
the unlabeled and milky charts of their being,
they do.
With two thumbtacks—one black, one white—
I entrust this vision of unsupine cows to the future.
— Jane Hirshfield
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Trump and Netanyahu Tell Hamas to Accept Their Peace Plan, or Else
Americans’ Support for Israel Dramatically Declines, Times/Siena Poll Finds
Trump’s Meeting With Democrats Brought No Breakthrough as a Federal Shutdown Deadline Approached
Trump Administration Will Deploy 100 National Guard Troops to Illinois
YouTube Settles Trump Lawsuit Over Account Suspension for $24.5 Million
Top Trump Aides Push for Ousting Maduro From Power in Venezuela
The Seductive, and Risky, Power of Live Sports Betting
FULL TEXT OF THE GAZA PLAN RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE
“If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end,” the White House proposal says.
The White House released a lengthy plan on Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and laying out plans for the territory. The conditions include many proposals that have long been rejected by Hamas.
Here is the full text of the proposal provided by the White House.
Gaza will be a de-radicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.
Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.
If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.
Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after Oct. 7, 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.
Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.
Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the Jan. 19, 2025, agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.
Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party. Opening the Rafah crossing in both directions will be subject to the same mechanism implemented under the Jan. 19, 2025, agreement.
Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza.
This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump’s peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza. This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.
A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East. Many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas have been crafted by well-meaning international groups, and will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for future Gaza.
A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.
No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.
Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.
A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.
The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (I.S.F.) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The I.S.F. will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. This force will be the long-term internal security solution. The I.S.F. will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. It is critical to prevent munitions from entering Gaza and to facilitate the rapid and secure flow of goods to rebuild and revitalize Gaza. A de-confliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.
Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the I.S.F. establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (I.D.F.) will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and time frames linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the I.D.F., I.S.F., the guarantors, and the United States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens. Practically, the I.D.F. will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.
In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the I.D.F. to the I.S.F.
An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence to try and change mind-sets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
While Gaza redevelopment advances and when the P.A. reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence.
(NY Times)
TRUMP VOTERS KNOW just as well as the rest of us that the terror wars were a mistake. We all know that they were based on lies. We are all well aware that our side lost, and that the defeats were costly, and indeed ruinous. We are going to keep starting new wars anyway, and losing them too. As President Biden said last year of his administration’s air strikes on Yemen: “Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”
This isn’t a sign of ascendant fascism so much as the nadir of late-stage capitalism, which depends on forever wars to juice corporate profits at a time of falling rates of return on investment. In its doddering senescence, the capitalist war machine is no less murderous than fascism was — witness the millions of Muslims killed by the United States and Israel since 2001 — but it has considerably lower production values. In this soft dystopia, our military forces will not be destroyed in a cataclysmic confrontation with the armies of Communism, as befell Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front.
Instead, the defense oligarchs who own Congress will go on pocketing the money allocated to the military, just as they have been for the past 40 years, until nothing is left but a hollow shell, a shrinking and sclerotic military so debilitated by graft, suicides, overdoses, and violent crime that it’s incapable of fulfilling its mission, and suitable only for use in theatrical deployments at home beating up protesters and rounding up migrants and the homeless.
Mustering the last of my morale, I trudged back to Constitution Avenue and took my place among the remaining parade-goers watching Trump’s military parade. One of the last formations to march past was an Army weapons-testing platoon accompanied by a number of small quadcopter drones.
Quadcopters like these have proved pivotal in Ukraine, but the United States hardly makes any. China can churn out an estimated hundred cheap, disposable drones for every one produced in America. In an effort to close the gap, Pete Hegseth has announced new initiatives to boost domestic manufacturing of the devices, but early results have not been promising. A recent report in the New York Times described an exercise in Alaska in which defense contractors and soldiers tested prototypes of U.S.-built “one-way” kamikaze drones with results so dismal they were almost comical. None of the tests described were successful. The drones failed to launch or missed their targets. One crashed into a mountain.
The quadcopters hovering over the testing platoon at the rear of the parade were the X10D model made by Skydio, the largest U.S. drone manufacturer.
Not long ago, Skydio transitioned its business from consumer to military and police drones, targeting markets in Ukraine, Israel, and elsewhere. After Skydio sold drones to Taiwan, Beijing retaliated last year by cutting off the company’s access to Chinese batteries, prompting the company to ration them to only one per drone. I noticed that one of the Skydio quadcopters hovering over the parade had dropped out of view. I couldn’t see where it had gone.
Then one of the soldiers in the testing platoon marched past, holding it up over his head, make-believing that it was still aloft.
The parade petered out so feebly that it was hard to say precisely when it ended. One of the final events of the day was an enlistment ceremony. It did not last long. About 250 soldiers had signed up for service, presumably taking advantage of the generous bonuses that the Army has offered to stanch its personnel losses. They stood at attention before the stage, right hands raised, as Trump came forward to administer their oath to defend the Constitution. At 79, the commander in chief looked awful, his jowly, glowering face more tired and orange than ever, his porcine eyes extra puffy.
“Have a great life,” he told the soldiers.
He repeated the discordant line, his voice sounding almost sarcastic: “Have a great life.”
— Seth Harp
AGE OF THE UNIVERSE, ACCORDING TO THE GITA (via Bruce McEwen)
https://anantha.stck.me/post/3114/Age-of-the-Universe-according-to-the-Gita
THE MASK OF ANARCHY [excerpt]
Written on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester.
And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again—again—again—
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley (1819)
Paul McCarthy was the social media version of the AVA, with his own twist on……………….. different.
Surreal Times in America
This little summary in today’s Washington Post—Trump leads us on!
“YouTube to pay 24.5 million to settle lawsuit from Trump…Trump sued over YouTube’s decision to suspend his account after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Most of the money will go toward a White House ballroom.”
That attack, of course, was led by Trump’s followers, patriots all. 100’s of them convicted of crimes that day, but freed now bu Trump to go on with their lives. Dance on, America…
Ah, yes, a felon pardons his fellow felons.
FULL TEXT OF THE GAZA PLAN RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE
Hope the Palestinians tell the US and Israel to F off! Letting the zionist savages call the shots is disgusting. I am ashamed of this country for its undying support for Israeli genocide.
—>. August 19, 2025
Anti-Semitism targets Jews because of our existence; anti-Zionism targets Israel because of its actions, and the abusive conditions of its existence on the Jewish-supremacist terms it has chosen. The Zionist camp cynically invokes the fate of Europe’s Jews in WW2 to demand a waiver for behaving in ways deemed unacceptable for all countries since WW2…
(The US $20 bill still carries the image of Andrew Jackson, remembered by Native Americans as perhaps the supreme architect of their deadly ethnic cleansing.) …
Genocide memorialization in the West, now assisted by the centering of the Nazi Holocaust, remains silent on the genocides on which the West was built – America’s destruction of its indigenous population, Spain’s elimination of indigenous Caribbean populations, Britain’s genocide of indigenous Tasmanians and horrors unleashed on other colonized populations, Germany’s Herero and Nama genocides in Namibia, Belgium’s rape of Congo, France and Portugal’s crimes against humanity in suppressing indigenous resistance and so much more.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/anti-semitism-zionism-and-the-americanization-of-the-holocaust/
You left out our genocides against Vietnam and Cambodia and Iraq, to mention a few more recent instances…also our genocide in Germany and Japan by bombing cities during the 40s war. Right now, it’s the Israelis. That doesn’t let the Israeli savages off the hook, or pardon them, nor the US, for its providing them the means to carry out their genocide…
Kids yesterday…
When my mother began her sermon…I decided right there and then without hesitation to quit college. I returned 10 years later via scholarship.
President Bone-spurs calls all the top military brass back to the USA, (at a cost of millions of dollars), and has his alcoholic Faux News host tell them he intends to use US cities as “training grounds”, and if anyone disagrees with him, they’ll be demoted. Shutting down the government, no problem. Going after people who he considers enemies, no problem. He’s got Congress tied up, the Senate and Supreme Court in his pocket. If this doesn’t sound like a coup, I don’t know what does. I believe he will try and use the military to stop the 2028 election. I just hope there are enough people of character in the military who honor their oath to protect the Constitution, and if that means removing him from office, so be it.
—>. September 30, 2025
On October 18, we’ll be back in the streets to show once again that power belongs to the people – not the loser want-to-be King,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible.
“No Kings Day is about claiming what we’ve already built. Working people built this country, not billionaires,” said April Verrett, president of the Service Employees International Union…
We must all join together in solidarity to fight back and secure our freedoms. 250 years ago, Americans stood up to a tyrant king, generations later our great grandparents defeated fascism abroad. Now it is up to us to defeat fascism at home.”
Groups organizing the No Kings peaceful protests across the country include ACLU, American Federation of Teachers, Common Defense, 50501, Human Rights Campaign, Indivisible, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Public Citizen, SEIU, United We Dream, among others. A full list of partners can be seen at https://www.nokings.org/partners.
All No Kings events adhere to a shared commitment to nonviolent protest and community safety. Organizers are trained in de-escalation and are working closely with local partners to ensure peaceful and powerful actions nationwide.
https://www.insidernj.com/press-release/breaking-oct-18-no-kings-rallies-surpass-june-day-of-action-numbers-as-trump-admin-escalates-attacks/
Yes the man is out of control, a madman with no boundaries. In any other time in American history, he’d by now have been impeached and thrown out of office in disgrace.
Joe Biden was clearly non compos mentis from the get, and became steadily more obviously impaired as he stumbled along, but he was quietly non compos, and his public performances, while sadly inept, were blandly, recognizably mainstream liblab. Trump is wildly unfit, delivering every day wacky, barely coherent monologues that would get the loud mouth at the end of any American bar jerked off his stool. Described accurately as “a raving lunatic” by an anon member after his shockingly nutso presentation before the UN last week, every day Trump says something that screams 5150. It continues to amaze me that this laughably but ominous character is president of the United States.
Thank you for “First Rain.” It well captured my feeling for the change of season. I am also enjoying the new art in the AVA, and always the humor. Nice balance.
The 1925 painting? I see the ruff as an ocean wave crashing against her neck. There’s a tiny mustard-colored snake writhing around her nostril, and her lips are a fat naked woman figurine on its side.
“Honey did you post something negative about the regime”
Sounds like UK time to get rid of STARMER
Ladies & Gents,
looks like a lot of Trump supporters’ today, which is a good thing,,,, even Mr. Bruce is chiming in on DJT; it will be nice to fire 200-300 thousand employees that are not needed in the federal government, we can only hope it will feed into Sacramento CA!!!!!!!!now is the time to downsize the government