THIS fine witticism in Mr. Dunlap’s Tuesday weather report should not go without further notice: “The stratus quo likely to return after that.”
THIS SELF-EVIDENT OBSERVATION in the recently completed Coastal Valley EMS review of the three mostly volunteer ambulance finances and operations in the unincorporated areas of the County (“Rural EMS Fiscal Assessment 2025”), correctly sums up the situation (and shows again that the Supervisors who ordered this review are out of touch with public safety operations):
“County subsidies and stipends remain critical lifelines. Without them, none of the agencies could maintain operations at current levels.” (Mark Scaramella)
ED NOTES
SYDNEY FISHMAN (Mendocino Voice): At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Dr. Marvin Trotter spoke about his time as a medical practitioner and the horror stories he has witnessed. For many years, he was a visiting doctor in Covelo, and he saw how heavy use of nitrous oxide negatively impacted the residents there. “Four years ago, when I was working in Covelo, three young men decided to get some whippets from the local smoke shop and had a good time in their truck,” Trotter said. “The driver hit a telephone pole, and they all were killed. The smoke shop quit selling whippets after that.”
THE WORST KEPT SECRET in Ukiah for years has been the role of then-Public Health Department MD Dr. Marvin Trotter’s son in the death of Trotter’s son’s friend. The secret became public when the parents of the boy who died filed a wrongful death suit against Dr. Trotter and his wife, both of whom are MDs. The suit was filed against Dr. Trotter, his wife, Dr. Mary Newkirk, and their son, Evan Trotter, by the mother of 16-year-old, Keith McCallum. The McCallums said that a Fentanyl patch was sold to their son by Evan Trotter who had taken it from an unsecured supply in his parents home in Redwood Valley. “During the evening of September 12, 2003, Keith McCallum applied the Fentanyl patch given to him by Evan Trotter. The following morning, Keith's mother (Vicki Nelson) discovered him lying in his bedroom, lifeless. The cause of Keith McCallum's death was acute cardiac failure due to Fentanyl toxicity,” the lawsuit states. Fentanyl is a very strong pain killer, much stronger than morphine which can also kill you if you exceed the dosage by much which is why it is illegal to possess without a prescription. Fentanyl is also abused by heroin addicts and other drug users when they can get hold of it. The Trotters, being MDs, were obviously aware of the drug's danger, but they failed to ensure the security of the potentially fatal patches, according to the suit. Reportedly other drugs were left unsecure in the Trotter household as well. Evan Trotter was ordered to enroll in a drug-rehab program as a juvenile and was placed on two years probation after being found responsible for transporting and selling the fentanyl patch to his “friend” McCallum. But when Evan Trotter was seen in Redwood Valley during his rehab period worried neighbors inquired as to why he wasn’t still in treatment. They discovered that Mendo’s then-Chief Probation Officer, Bob McAllister (since retired), a known friend of the Trotter family, had quietly re-assigned young Trotter back to Redwood Valley outside the probation system as a favor to his friends, the Trotters. Redwood Valley residents, familiar with Evan Trotter’s past drug thefts considered Evan Trotter to be a threat to other Redwood Valley teenagers, so they asked the DA to intervene and restore Evan Trotter’s formal probation outside Mendocino County. At the time it was all hush-hush because Evan Trotter was a juvenile. The late Keith MacCallum was a popular student/athlete and his death was said to have shocked his fellow students at Ukiah High School. The Nelson lawsuit claimed Dr. Trotter regularly wrote prescriptions for the fentanyl patches for use by his elderly mother in Texas and that Trotter allowed easy access to the drug in the household. The suit also claimed that Dr. Trotter became aware of missing fentanyl patches from the home supply in 2003, several weeks before McCallum's death, but that neither Dr. Trotter nor his MD wife reported the missing drugs to authorities. The lawsuit further alleges the Trotters “knew that their son, Evan, was a drug user and suspected previously that he had purloined fentanyl from the family home and/or vehicles.” Since the tragic death of young MacCallum, the Trotters have — belatedly — removed the prescription drugs from their home, a wise move, but one which Redwood Valley neighbors considered to be not only an admission of guilt, but too little, too late.
THE CASE WENT TO ARBITRATION and Dr. Trotter was ordered to pay $800,000 to Ms. Vicki Nelson of Redwood Valley. According to arbitrator E.D. Bronson, “The negligence of the defendant is obvious.” Among the facts stipulated to by both parties was that Marvin Trotter's son Evan was a known drug abuser; that Dr. Trotter knew his son was a drug abuser, that fentanyl patches Trotter kept in his home were known to have been missing when Keith McCallum died from one of them. that Dr. Trotter did nothing to find the missing patches or otherwise account for them. Arbitrator Bronson determined that the total damages that plaintiff Vicki Nelson suffered were $2 million, but he broke the fault for the damages down into percentages as follows: Dr. Trotter: 40%, the deceased, Keith McCallum: 30%, Evan Trotter: 30%. Another fact stipulated to was that empty containers of fentanyl were found in Evan Trotter's bedroom by Dr. Trotter’s wife, Dr. Mary Newkirk, the day before Keith MacCallum applied one to his hip, went to sleep and never woke up. Dr. Trotter knew of the missing patches prior to that date, “yet continued to store the medicine around the home unsecured.” Dr. Newkirk, had previously been removed from the list of defendants.
MIKE GENIELLA: Speaking up for Evan Trotter.
No doubt the circumstances surrounding Keith McCallum’s tragic death are widely known. I am not questioning the details. I am concerned, however, about the spotlight returning to Evan Trotter’s role. I know Evan personally. Since this tragedy, Evan, a skilled contractor, has committed himself to a sober, drug-free life. He works with other young men, helping them stay the course. Every year, he quietly memorializes Keith McCallum’s death. This year, Evan was accompanied by his young son. I admire the life Evan has created for himself and his immediate family, and the work he does to ease the burdens of drug/alcohol abuse that others endure. I support Evan and applaud the man he has become.
MATT KENDALL: Mike I feel the same way. We see a lot of tragedy in our county and it hits even harder because often, we know people on both sides. It’s really hard when we see young people making mistakes which we can’t comprehend. Sometimes things occur which cause people to begin clawing at the scars and reopening old wounds. When people seek atonement by living the best life they can, treating others well and moving forward, I’m not certain we can ask for much more than that.
BARBARA ORTEGA: It was kind of a strange story. I think the point was to call the Doctor a hypocrite, and the details make the parents look pretty bad. There was an awful lot about a minor’s actions though, facilitated by parental failures. Glad to hear that he turned it around.
ANON: “Social media and gaming can lead to deadly psychosis.”
Mike Koepf: “So can brainwashing young men with constant accusations that Trump is Hitler and those who voted for him fascists.”
ED NOTE: If you assume young men are too stupid to think for themselves. I daresay that the spectrum of political opinion among the general pop also prevails among young men. Trump is somewhere between Idi Amin and Il Duce, but much closer to Amin in general functioning. In 1954, at the appearance of Barry Goldwater, Governor Pat Brown declared, “The stench of fascism is in the air.” He’d need a gas mask today.
JAYMA SHIELDS-SPENCE:
Thank you for all the love and support many of you have shown. My dad's memorial will be on Saturday, October 4th from 3-6 p.m. at the Laytonville Rodeo Grounds. If you are interested in helping, please contact me or my husband Roland at our office (707) 984-8089. PS- Happy Birthday Brother Jim!
The Observer
PO Box 490
Laytonville, CA 95454
(707) 984-6223
A READER WRITES re the County’s modified copy policy: “Hmmm. The new standard copy fee rates will be as management sees fit. Each unit/ department pays for the copy paper they use and toner. Sheet by sheet. Was 10 cents a page black n white and a few cents more for color. 100% love to spend oodles on software and computers that are replaced constantly. Staff barely know how to use the programs they already are tasked to navigate, time for a new one yippie!!! The nitrous ban long overdue. Great to see something functional that might happen in a freaking timely manner. That will be shocking!”
JOHN FLAMMING:
I retired from Mendocino County FCS as a Sr. Program Manager in March 2023. I worked in FCS from May 2008 through my retirement in 2013.
I supervised the Wraparound program from May 2008 to October 2012. From 2012 to March 2016, I supervised the Integrated Services Unit responsible for facilitating Child and Family Team Meeting (CFTM) and implementing division wide Safety Organized Practice in line with directives from the California Department of Social Services, Children’s Division. In March of 2023 I promoted to Sr. Program Manager, managing the Willits FCS office. My responsibilities included Emergency Response Unit, Continuing services unit, Placement Unit and administrative support unit. In 2018/2019 my assignment changed as we adopted a county wide approach with ER investigations and Continuing Services units. One manager would be managing all of ER and one would manage all of continuing. My assignment changed to Placement, Resource Family Approval, Foster Care Eligibility and Wraparound.
I state the above to provide context to what I now will express as the main concern here for me. It is not about the personalities (although those are concerning) it is about the practice of effectively investigating, intervening when needed, case work and most importantly collaborative engagement with the children, their families and their supports, with community partners – ICWA, RCS, Tapestry Family Services, Youth Project, School Districts, Mendocino County Office of Education, Juvenile Probation, Foster Family Agencies, the Juvenile Court, including Juvenile Court Officers, County Counsel and attorneys for parents and children, and law enforcement agencies.
These partners should be alarmed. I do not know if they are, or what they are doing. I do hope they will begin to have conversations with M.C. SS and FCS leadership.
In this article there are expressed concerns that are worrisome. There are allegations in this article that indicate deep issues of non compliance with California Department of Social Services. In 2013 (or so) CADSS developed the Inter-Agency Core Practice Model [IACPM].
This model defines specific practice behaviors by CWS staff (in all counties, not just Mendocino) to follow when working with families. They include: respectful teaming/collaboration with families and their supports, and partner agencies (identified above). Also included in the IACPM are leadership practice behaviors that also include; respectful communication and transparency, and collaboration with their staff, families, and their supports and partner agencies.
This practice model was adopted by CADSS to provide better outcomes for children, families and local communities.
If FCS leadership is not following these practice model behaviors, it is reasonable to predict poor outcomes for children who have been harmed or are at risk of harm.
It is not about the individual staff per se, it is about the increased risk of a child remaining in a dangerous place.
I encourage anyone directly involved, the partner agencies, and the BOS to look into this situation. I believe they should advocate for an open conversation with SS FCS leadership to request they follow the IACPM, to ensure respect, transparency and collaboration at all levels happen.
In respect and peace,
John Flammang
ED NOTES:
- The Manson Girls lived on Gwschwend Road, Navarro
- Most of the people who remember the Dulaney case remember it only in the bizarre context of the Manson Family because it's mentioned in the books on Manson, and it's mentioned in these books because the Manson Family lived in the Anderson Valley at the time.
On the rainy morning of October 14th, 1968, six miles south of Ukiah, a seven-year-old boy ran out of his trailer home and found his mother dead on the wet ground outside the front door. The boy ran for his grandmother's trailer nearby. She was dead too, garroted like the boy's mother with a pair of long leather boot laces.
The dead women were Nancy Warren, 64, and her granddaughter, Clyda Jean Dulaney, 24, wife of CHP officer, Don Delaney.
Clyda was 8 months pregnant.
The seven-year-old was Johnny Ussery whose younger brothers Lane, 5, and Brett, 4, were still asleep. The three boys were from Clyda's first marriage to a logger named John Ussery of Eugene, Oregon. Clyda had left Ussery for Don Dulaney, a Ukiah-based CHP officer twice her age. She was pregnant with Dulaney's child when she was murdered.
Clyda's former husband was quickly eliminated as a suspect when it was verified that he'd been in Medford, Oregon, at the time of the murders.
Finding his mother and his grandmother dead, Johnny had calmly returned to his trailer to get his younger brothers dressed, then, his two little brothers in tow, the three boys trudged south to the home of Don Torell where Johnny told Mr. and Mrs. Torrell that “Mommy and Grandma are dead.”
A swarm of deputies led by Sheriff Reno Bartolomie was soon on the scene.
The sole witness to the previous night's mayhem, which occurred in a driving rain that obliterated the footprints assumed to have surrounded Clyda Dulaney's outdoors corpse, was Mrs. Warren's miniature dachshund.
The two dead women were fully clothed. They'd both been brutally beaten about the face before they'd been strangled with brand new hightop leather boot laces, two turns of which had been pulled tight around the neck before the laces were knotted in back.
Mrs. Warren operated Nancy’s Antique Sales on Highway 101 south of Burke Hill on the two-lane portion of the highway about where the strawberry fields and sales stand are today. Clyda Dulaney was a graduate of Ukiah high school who, only months before, had left her husband for officer Dulaney, 49, a man several years older than her father.
Clyda's former husband had been engaged in a bitter custody dispute with Clyda for his three boys. Mr. Ussery said Clyda had deserted him and the boys for Dulaney, evidence, he insisted, that Clyda was unstable and therefore not a fit mother.
Robbery was the apparent motive. A metal cash box had been rifled and left on a table although a plastic box and glass jar containing approximately $300 in cash rested in plain sight in a closet of the older woman’s trailer.
Officer Dulaney lived in Ukiah with a teenage daughter from his previous marriage while Clyda and her children lived on her grandmother's property at the south end of Burke Hill. Dulaney said they lived apart while he looked for a house in the Ukiah area that would accommodate him, his pregnant new wife Clyda, her three boys and his daughter. When Clyda gave birth to their child, Dulaney would be supporting a family of seven, and he said he wanted a house big enough for all of them.
Dulaney was in Sacramento for a special CHP training course when his new wife and her grandmother were found dead. The investigative assumption from the beginning was that the two women were murdered after he was either in Sacramento or on the road there.
The CHP officer told the Sheriff’s office that he dropped his wife and stepchildren at Nancy’s Antique Shop at 9:30 the previous night with the intention of continuing on to Sacramento. But, he said, he'd forgotten his uniform, so he returned to his Ukiah apartment, picked up the uniform and continued on to Sacramento via Highway 20 east where he signed in at the Academy at 1:45am.
A neighbor said she saw a blue pickup truck leaving an orchard near the antique shop about 8:15 the morning the women were found. She said five persons "wearing hippie-type clothing" were in the vehicle.
Dulaney, 49, who was described as genuinely distraught by investigators, quickly returned to Ukiah.
“The only information I had was what I had read in the newspapers," Dulaney told the Ukiah Daily Journal. He said he and his expanded family had been watching The Wonderful World of Disney at Dulaney’s Ukiah apartment before he, Clyda and the boys headed south for Clyda Dulaney's trailer six miles to the south. The family had left Ukiah about 8:45. Dulaney said he dropped his wife and the three boys off at their temporary home and headed for Sacramento where he was scheduled to begin a CHP refresher course the next day, Monday morning. Dulaney said that he had reached Highway 20 before remembering that he had failed to bring his uniform. He then returned to Ukiah picked up his uniform and resumed his trip to Sacramento where he logged in at 1:45am.
Dulaney hired Timothy O’Brien, a Ukiah attorney who often represented law enforcement people. O'Brien, who soon afterwards became a superior court judge, said that Dulaney had been "deeply concerned over any false impression which might have been gained regarding his cooperation with the Sheriff’s Department following the death of his wife and child."
O'Brien helped Dulaney with his statement for the police. “When the statement was completed, I signed it,” Dulaney said. “There was no lack of consideration.”
Sheriff Bartolomie said he interviewed 35 suspects, referring in one newspaper account to "the hamstrings of the Warren Court " which, the Sheriff suggested, had prevented him from detaining a trio of roaming purse snatchers who'd robbed a Ukiah matron in the days prior to the Burke Hill murders. The Sheriff thought the three transients could well have murdered the two women, but, lacking evidence to hold them, sent them on their itinerant way.
A year later, in 1969, following the gruesome killings of Sharon Tate and friends in Los Angeles, Bartolomie said he thought the Manson Family may have also been responsible for the unsolved murders of Clyda Dulaney and Mrs. Warren. The Sheriff said both the Tate murders and the two murders south of Ukiah were “in the senseless category.”
And the Manson Family had been in Mendocino County at the time of the Dulaney and Warren murders.
Seven persons belonging to a nomadic cult were arrested on drug charges in Navarro in the Anderson Valley on June 22, 1968. Susan Denise Atkins, 19, aka Sadie Mae Glutz, was among those arrested. Additionally, “Several Mansonites were guests of a Ukiah man at his home off Boonville Road,” reported the Ukiah Daily Journal.
But there was never any evidence linking the Manson Family or Dulaney or Clyda Dulaney's former husband to the crime. Someone or someones came in off 101 in the night, took the money they could see, strangled the two women they found there, and continued their journey to whatever unlucky destination called them. (Research by Deborah Silva)
NOT EXACTLY
In Eyster’s recall rebuttal, he says the Sheriff’s investigation independently concluded there were grounds for the prosecution of Cubbison and Kennedy.
Some notes from looking back at Geniella’s coverage…
Sheriff’s Detective Andrew Porter “admitted” on the stand (Geniella report) that he was steered away from former Auditor Weer’s role in the case by Eyster because Weer was expected to be a “witness.”
Per Geniella report: Porter admitted on the stand that he met with Eyster “more than a dozen times during his investigation.” (And who knows how many phone calls and emails?) … “Porter eventually began to see Cubbison as a possible suspect, but never Weer.”
This is itself highly unusual. Usually if the Sheriff’s office investigates, the DA isn’t involved in the Sheriff’s investigation and has his own investigators do follow-up if necessary after charges are filed. Sheriff Matt Kendall probably regrets allowing Porter to be under the thumb of Eyster during the investigation. Kendall told Elise Cox (then at KZYX) after Moorman’s ruling that “I don’t direct these folks [i.e., detectives] on how to do their investigations and I certainly did not direct him [Porter] on this one.”
Again, according to Geniella’s courtroom reporting, Porter ignored the “missing emails” problem, also due to apparent pressure from Eyster, and “took no steps to preserve” what Porter said were exculpatory emails which later turned up missing, and proceeded to conclude under apparent orders from Eyster that Cubbison should be charged with a felony.
Emails showed that Eyster initiated the scheme with his email to McGourty which was made public during the 17-month long preliminary hearing preparation. Eyster had also previously prevented Cubbison’s appointment as “interim Auditor
Controller” when the Supes were considering what to do after Weer retired because he didn’t like Cubbison questioning his asset forfeiture expenses. We don’t know if there were more emails to other Board members because some unknown number of emails remain missing.
In her ruling Judge Moorman “strongly criticized” Porter’s investigation, particularly his handling (i.e., ignoring) the large number of missing emails which would have likely exonerated Cubbison.
Per Geniella: “It defies common sense. It defies reason. It defies logic. It defies what any investigator who carries a badge should know,” Moorman said, expressing disbelief that Porter only recovered a single relevant email which had been sent by Cubbison herself.
Porter first claimed he spent “significant” time reviewing county emails, but later admitted it could have been as little as ten minutes. Porter also failed to uncover exculpatory emails sent to former Auditor Weer and CEO Antle’s office which detailed overtime payments to Kennedy. Those emails were eventually provided to Moorman by outside prosecutor Traci Carrillo showing that County administrators knew full well all along that Payroll Manager Kennedy was getting overtime payments and nobody was hiding anything and nobody comlained about it.
Presumably, Porter will be questioned further during deposition in the civil case.
Our conclusion: Eyster says in his rebuttal to the recall petition that “The Sheriff’s Office did its job,” as if Porter’s investigation was an independent operation conducted by the Sheriff’s Office. But the record shows that Eyster influenced Porter’s investigation and then further influenced it via his own investigators after Porter finished.
Eyster’s claim that he brought in Traci Carrillo as an independent prosecutor because “the defendants were county employees” is undermined by the fact that Cubbison was suspended after Porter’s Eyster-approved “investigation” was complete.
There are rumors that this enormously expensive farce — originating with DA Eyster’s personal pique at Chamise Cubbison for challenging his use of public money to fund a Christmas party at the Broiler Steak House — will be settled without further proceedings. The taxpayers are already on the hook for several million dollars apart from whatever damages will be paid to the slandered Ms. Cubbison. Unfortunately, DA Eyster and the five supervisors who caused it — McGourty; Williams; Gjerde; Mulheren; and Haschak won’t be held personally liable.
DA EYSTER’S POT PROSECUTION POLICY, an on-line comment: “Don’t forget that cultivation of one mj plant could be charged as a felony.”
The situation pre-Eyster was that every Deputy DA made their own charging decisions and people got charged very inconsistently.
Some Mom & Pops got charged to the max and obvious commercial grows got charged as misdemeanors.
And under former DA Lintott the cases dragged through the courts for a year or more before being settled by a plea bargain.
Eyster’s approach was to make all charging decisions himself so there was consistency.
And instead of cases dragging on clogging up the system he resolved them with plea bargains on the front end.
Instead of paying an attorney for a year or two the growers could put the money toward the fines which were based on so much a finished pound and so much a plant.
Call it “pay to play” if you like but it was no different from any other plea deal where the accused pleads in open court to an agreed upon resolution of the case.
And like every other type of case if the accused didn’t like the plea deal being offered they could take it to court.
The restitution program was 100% legal and generated millions in fines and probably saved millions in court time.”
SHADOW TICKET, Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel.
For 62 years, Thomas Pynchon has been offering up worlds that seem much like our own except weirder and more lawless, with respect to both criminal activity and physics. But somewhere along the line our reality started to resemble, with uncanny specificity, his collected works. This is not a welcome development, as even his greatest fans would affirm. Into this strange new world comes “Shadow Ticket,” the first new novel by Pynchon in a dozen years. “Although the author is 88 years old, his intellect, at least on the evidence of this book, remains undiminished, which is to say, it is still panoptic, exciting, abstruse, distractible, and, for good or ill, unrestrained,” Kathryn Schulz writes. “But, if his powers are not dulled, neither are they pointed; even if you squint, it’s difficult to determine whether ‘Shadow Ticket’ is a commentary on our current era.”
This will disappoint any fans who were hoping for a rousing Pynchon riposte to our depressingly Pynchonesque era, but it’s hardly a problem. It does, however, raise a question, Schulz notes: “If our reigning artist of paranoid convictions, of high crimes and deep states, of the peculiar combination of depravity and absurdity found in those who lust for power—if that guy hasn’t made use of the present political moment to craft a satire or a survival manual or a swan song or even an ‘I told you so,’ then what has he come here, after a long silence and in all likelihood for the last time, to tell us?”
JULIE BEARDSLEY:
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.
ED REPLY:
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 military 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 laughable but ominous character is president of the United States.
ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] What have we done? Hippie days; we believed in something which has been replaced with our morphing into idiot consumers, always wanting more and trading all virtues and principles for stuff! It may be that the Christian revival of the current youth might turn this around but the forces that are enslaving us run deep. Hippies had cohesion. The current divisions are planned and fed by some dark force. Prepare your garden indeed! Oh and I haven’t heard from my brothers in many years, their egos dictating their silence. I don’t miss them, it’s just bizarre how in the same family unit, 3 people came out very differently.
[2] What I’ve noticed with the HS students I tutor is that for all the time they spend in cyberspace, they have to be baby-stepped through how to do even basic research. Helping them then determine what is good/bad information is another major task. I am thankful to be in a position to help a handful of students through the process, but am appalled—but no longer surprised—that they aren’t taught this at school.
The large increase in the number of families choosing to homeschool is encouraging. Those parents who believe they couldn’t manage it would be more likely to go for it if they were aware of how much support and the various options, such as homeschooling coops, that are available.
[3] Charlie Kirk …he'll be eclipsed by Kimmel, then Comey until the next sex/murder school shooting grabs America's attention.
[4] The biggest crime Trump ever committed was giving voice to “the deplorables,” to half the country that the system wasn’t working for anymore. These people were never meant to have agency, they were just meant to fade away into the dustbin of history on a wave of fentanyl and economic despair.
[5] CAST OUT, an on-line comment: “Let’s take one important area where the left has decided to cast people out: biological men claiming to be women. My friends on the left insist that I must agree that trans men are women, and that if I disagree, I’m a hater, a deplorable, and am permanently excluded from the church of right-thinkers. But I’m a feminist and a secularist. Women are entitled to be safe from men. We are entitled to have sex-segregated sports, prisons, changing rooms, and bathrooms; we are entitled to have a fair chance in sporting events; we are entitled to respect as mothers, pregnant women, and breast feeders; we are entitled to expect that awards designated for women are actually awarded to women, not to men who claim to be women. Gender ideology feels to many of us (and seemingly most of the country) like religious fundamentalism: I must agree to magical thinking, and ignore that this magical thinking, as currently practiced by the left, is deeply unfair and harmful to women.”
[6] While peaceful political action has improved healthcare in the United States, it looks as if the financial elites who essentially control the healthcare system are blocking any meaningful change. The goal is to extract as much money as possible from both the government and the patients and finding new ways to not pay for anything. By using regulatory capture of the regulatory agencies and bribery of the politicians, they are succeeding in doing this. Any politician who runs on reforming the system gets buried. I think that only true fear of the mob will make our politicians change this.
[7] GEORGE ZEROTH (MendoFever comment line):
I agree with you, and I wish (again) that Matt [LaFever] would address this; it's distressing to see all these comment sections degenerating towards a MAGA consensus, when we know that that isn't Matt's ideology (or at least he denies that; I'm starting to wonder).
Just to be clear about "fascist": we are not yet living in a fascist state. Not yet. But we're clearly headed in that direction.
And to all those here who object to what you and I are writing here, can you, without name-calling or over-the-top whoop-ass condemnation, please tell us whether you don't have any reservations about what's happening here? Like that woman who got physically picked up and then intentionally dropped on the asphalt? What if it were you protesting something (like something being too "woke") and the Deep State goons did this to you?
Let me give another example: in the Jimmy Kimmel brouhaha, there has been some pushback in recent days against the statements from the FCC director against Kimmel. And not from the "left", but from Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. And you ought to pay attention to what they're saying (and they're pissed about what the FCC has said and done: read about it): what's being done here against someone from "the left" (WTHTM*) can easily be done against *them* when the shoe is on the other foot (i.e., if the next administration is Democratic). So like they say, be careful what you wish for.
Be First to Comment