Mendocino County Today: Saturday 10/18/2025

Warm | New Courthouse | Billy Joe Norbury | Mary Ellen Serafini | Figs | County Notes | Local Events | Recall Rejected | Assault Comments | Housing Benefit | Pitching In | Bigeagle Art | Boonville | Missing John | Yesterday's Catch | Women’s Prison | Marco Radio | The Rider | American Restatement | Miserable People | Field Guide | What Good? | No Kings | Insurrection Anyone? | Beating Nazis | Waymo Test | Making Cigarettes | Tunnel Issues | 42nd Street | Early Fights | Santos Freed | Power/Poetry | Not Easy | Lead Stories | Terrifying Regime | Cotton Loading | Venezuela Dealing | Not Fun | Arrested | Ceasefire Lie | Matinee | Rising Seas | Fumbling Joe

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SLIGHT WARMING and drying will peak Saturday with mostly clear skies. Cooler weather and very light coastal rain is expected Sunday with warmer weather again early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 47F ( foggy ? ) this Saturday morning on the coast. I assume the fog to be light & should dissipate this morning. Mostly sunny into the new week with a big system forecast for next weekend ?, I'm on the lookout.

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NEW COURTHOUSE MILESTONE

by Carole Brodsky

The structural steel phase of the construction of the new courthouse for Mendocino County has been completed, according to Dave Canada, project manager for Hensel Phelps Construction Company.

A celebratory luncheon and ceremony took place at the worksite on Oct. 15 as a way to recognize the success of the project thus far.

“The partnership and collaboration between the design-build team, the Judicial Council of California, Mendocino County Superior Court, the City of Ukiah, and all others involved played a vital role in achieving this important milestone. Hensel Phelps is excited to deliver a building that will serve as a cornerstone for the City of Ukiah and benefit the community for years to come,” Canada said.

The 81,169 square-foot project is located on a 4.10-acre site and will house seven total courtrooms. It is projected to cost $144,924,000. There will be secured parking for judicial officers and an additional 160 surface parking spaces for jurors and the general public. That area will have solar power generation capability. Construction began in February 2025, and according to Canada, the courthouse is expected to be completed in late summer of 2027.

“This project represents decades of public service,” notes Kim Turner, Court Executive Officer. “It has been an incredible collaboration- from folks who have so much expertise in strategic thinking, quality control, and technical skill.”

Given the vagaries of today’s supply chain, Turner praised the foresight of Canada, who purchased the structured steel for the building last summer before major market uncertainties took over. “Had we waited, it would have cost $100,000 more,” he explained. “We still have a long way to go, but we’re being proactive and forward-thinking in terms of supply chain issues.”

Any savings on the project are being utilized to enhance public-facing areas. “It’s very important to us that the public feel welcomed and connected to our history,” says Turner. She stated that a community art project will recreate some of the mural themes that grace the walls of the existing courthouse. “We want to incorporate all elements of our county- Native Peoples, wine, agriculture, and light industry.”

The future of the existing courthouse remains in limbo, Turner notes. A recent discussion took place between Turner, Ukiah’s Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley, Mendocino County Deputy CEO Steve Dunnicliff, and Second District Supervisor Maureen Mulheren to discuss options.

“The Judicial Council leases 48% of the building. We all agree the building is in rough shape. To preserve it in its current form is unrealistic.” It’s not clear what the future of the old courthouse will be, but Turner mentioned several ideas, including the creation of a public space or plaza. One positive outcome of the new courthouse location will be more available parking downtown, Turner noted.

The state’s Judicial Council has been part of the plans for a new courthouse since 2002. “We never gave up,” smiles Tamer Ahmed, Director of Facilities Services for the Judicial Council, who was on hand for the event. “It’s been a great partnership. The program design model we used has fostered a team approach,” he explained.“We all have the same mission and the same goal,” Turner concluded.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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BILLY JOE NORBURY

Billy Joe Norbury, 85, passed away on October 12, 2025.

He was born February 1, 1940 in Talihina, Oklahoma to Virginia Ruth and Luther Redcorn Norbury. BJ moved to Redwood Valley in the year of 1967. He worked for the Union Pacific/ Southern Pacific Railroad for 38 years as a signal engineer.

He married Judy Gordon on July 16, 1956 and together they raised their son Billy Dean Norbury.

Billy Joe was an amazing cook and craftsman he could do anything he set his mind to.

He was proceeded in death by his parents, Virginia Ruth Norbury and Luther Redcorn Norbury. Brothers, Luther Ray Norbury, Harold(Butch) Norbury and Larry Gene Norbury. Sisters Betty Tucker, and Diane Leslie.

Billy Joe is survived by his wife of 69 years Judy Norbury, his son Billy Dean Norbury(Michele) and nephew Tracy Coleman(Barbara). Grandsons Billy Norbury, Brandon Norbury(Angela), Korey Williams(Cheryl).Brothers, Rick Norbury(Karen) and Audie Norbury(Penny).

Billy Joe is also survived by nine Great grandchildren, Sayla Norbury, Brier Norbury, Sunday Norbury, Brayden Norbury, Cali Norbury, Lilly Norbury, Chloe Norbury and Tyus and Kamari Williams. He was also loved by numerous nephews, nieces, friends and family. He will be in our hearts forever.

A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, October 25, 2025, 1pm at Potter Valley Bible Church for close family and friends.

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MARY ELLEN SERAFINI (1952-2025)

A caring, sharing, and devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and aunt, Mary Ellen Serafini passed away on Oct. 2, 2025, at the age of 73 after a courageous two-and-a-half-month battle with cancer. Her beloved and dedicated husband of nearly 50 years, David Serafini, constantly by her side.

Mary Ellen, born in Sacramento on July 26, 1952, was an accomplished student throughout her educational journey. She attended St. Francis Solano Elementary School and graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 1970 before pursuing four years of studies at the University of California, Davis, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Geography with honors from the College of Letters and Science.

Upon returning to Sonoma Valley after her college graduation in 1974, Mary Ellen took a summer job at Gino’s Restaurant on the Sonoma Plaza – which later became Zino’s Restaurant and is currently The Plaza Bistro. It was operated by her future mother-in-law and great-aunt-in-law, Phyllis Serafini and Jane Blasi, respectively, and their Italian family.

At the popular authentic Italian establishment, Mary Ellen was an assistant to the head chef, David Serafini. Their working association blossomed into a romantic relationship, and after two years, they married on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1976, at St. Francis Solano Church, with an Italian reception at neighboring Father Robert’s Hall.

At the end of the year, a decision was made to close the restaurant as the catering business flourished. Mary Ellen joined Il Desinare Catering in many capacities, especially enjoying her specialty of baking a wide array of wedding cakes. She also was a very active member of the Venture Club for Sonoma Valley.

Mary Ellen changed professions and worked in elementary education for the Sonoma Valley Unified School District when her husband David went to work at Mare Island, and after the birth of her two sons. Later, when David was transferred to the Monterey area for work, they bought a house in Hollister, where she worked in the same capacity for the local school district in Tres Pinos.

Four years later they bought their current homestead in Ukiah, where she again worked in elementary education at Grace Hudson Language Academy for the Ukiah Unified School District, while David worked for the Army Corps of Engineers.

During their three relocations, Mary Ellen and David proudly watched their two sons, David and Mario, graduate from high school and later college, where they earned Civil and Mechanical Engineering degrees from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Sacramento State University, respectively. Each forged successful careers as esteemed engineers in their specialty fields.

Mary Ellen enjoyed visiting her sons and grandchildren in the Sacramento area; spending time at the family lake house on the western shore of Clear Lake and taking periodic rides around Lake Mendocino and to Fort Bragg; joining various drives with the Mustang Car Club; and taking annual trips to Lake Tahoe and Reno. Accompanying Mary Ellen and David on many of their drives were their beloved dogs, Charlie and Dino.

Mary Ellen’s longest traveling adventure was a European Tour with David and one of her brothers and his wife, experiencing Italy – where they spent time with Italian relatives who live in Rome – and also visiting England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Over the years, Mary Ellen took several cross-country flights with David to Philadelphia, where they met up with a close friend who treated them to amazing live concerts, including one of their favorite bands, The Who. After one of their concerts, they both got to socialize with band members Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey.

Mary Ellen was preceded in death by her parents, Wallace and Mary Margaret Bachelder; her parents-in-law, Aldo and Phyllis Serafini; her brother-in-law, Steve Louie; and her sister-in-law, Irene Bachelder.

She is survived by her husband, David; sons David Serafini (Melissa) and Mario Serafini (Suzanne); granddaughters Allison, Giuliana, and Olivia, and grandson Giuseppe; brothers David Bachelder (Michelle), John Daniel Bachelder (Dyani), Thomas Bachelder, and Raymond Bachelder (Jae); sisters Anita Louie, Angela Lobsinger (Jim), and Monica Gruber (Peter); brothers and sisters-in-law Steven and Margaret Serafini, and Gerard and Mary Serafini; 19 nieces and nephews; and nine great-nieces and nephews.

A private family ceremony will be held at St. Francis of Solano Cemetery in Sonoma, where Mary Ellen will be laid to rest.

Donations can be made to the American Cancer Society, Adventist Health Hospice/Mendocino County, or a charity of your choice.

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COUNTY NOTES

by Mark Scaramella

Supes To Weigh In On Potter Valley Project Decommissioning

Proposed resolution on the Potter Valley Project sponsored by Supervisors Madeline Cline and Bernie Norvell for next Tuesday’s Board consideration:

“RESOLUTION OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS REGARDING THE FUTURE OF THE POTTER VALLEY PROJECT AND THE LOSS OF WATER SUPPLY RELIABILITY

WHEREAS, the County of Mendocino is charged with protecting and preserving the health and welfare of its citizens and is uniquely positioned to advocate on behalf of its citizens; and

WHEREAS, for more than one hundred years the Potter Valley Project (PVP), currently owned and operated by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), has stored water behind Scott Dam in Lake Pillsbury and diverted water from the Eel River into the Russian River basin via Cape Horn Dam, providing water supply and reliability for Mendocino and Sonoma Counties; and

WHEREAS, the water diverted through the PVP has formed the foundation for community development, agriculture, and economic stability throughout Mendocino County including Potter Valley, Redwood Valley, Ukiah Valley, Hopland, and other downstream Russian River communities; and

WHEREAS, entire communities, farms, and businesses have been built in reliance upon this water supply, and public services such as schools, fire protection, and municipal water systems depend on its continued availability; and

WHEREAS, these communities and economies developed under the expectation of water supply reliability created by PG&E’s century-long operations, and PG&E has benefited from the use of public resources during that time from the generation of electricity which is the foundation for its rate base and dividends to its shareholders; and

WHEREAS, it is the strong desire of Mendocino County constituents and communities directly impacted by the Potter Valley Project to see the existing infrastructure maintained, protected, and responsibly managed; and

WHEREAS, the removal of Scott Dam and Cape Horn Dam would eliminate this critical water source serving community health and safety, causing significant harm to residents, agriculture, property values, and the long-term viability of rural communities and the region; and

WHEREAS, PG&E now seeks to give up the PVP based on profitability, without accepting responsibility for the consequences to the communities that were built around the project’s operations; and

WHEREAS, the draft decommissioning plan submitted by PG&E in July 2025 to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) does not quantify or meaningfully assess these profound social and economic consequences that will happen if Scott and Cape Horn Dams are removed; and

WHEREAS, the draft decommissioning plan includes the proposal for a new water diversion facility near the Cape Horn Dam known as the New Eel Russian Facility (NERF) to maintain water diversions into the Russian River; and

WHEREAS, the NERF proposal continues vital water divisions, but without Lake Pillsbury the Russian River communities can only receive water in high flow seasons, requiring additional significant storage and infrastructure improvements that would not be necessary if Scott Dam was maintained; and

WHEREAS, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors recognizes and supports the continued work of the Mendocino County Inland Water and Power Commission and the Eel-Russian Project Authority (ERPA) in developing long-term, sustainable strategies to protect and secure our regional water supply, all of which is essential should any aspect of the PVP be decommissioned.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors acknowledges the community opposition and concerns regarding the decommissioning of the PVP and calls on PG&E to reevaluate its decision to seek decommissioning of the PVP, and for PG&E to account for and address the severe social and community impacts of water loss as a result of its responsibility to the communities that developed around its operations; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board calls upon the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to condition any approval or certification of the decommissioning plan on a full and comprehensive analysis of community and economic impacts and enforceable mitigation strategies to safeguard the residents of Mendocino County and the greater region; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Board urges state and federal representatives to hold PG&E accountable for its decision to decommission the PVP which is negatively impacting the communities who rely on the water, especially in light of its role in shaping those communities that now depend on the PVP, and to advocate for the protection of local economies, public services, and water security in all decisions concerning the project; and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if FERC orders decommissioning and Scott and Cape Horn Dams are removed, the Board urges maintaining a water diversion through the NERF proposal that provides the same or greater water supply, and along with it urges federal and state support for the funding and construction of necessary storage.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that no alternative diversion plan is adequate nor acceptable without permitted, fully funded and constructed water storage solutions available for all affected communities at the time of decommissioning and the removal of existing storage.”

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THIS ISN’T A BAD RESOLUTION, as far as it goes. But for the Board to be taken seriously at this late point in the decommissioning process, they have to follow up by, say, inviting PG&E and Sonoma County Water to appear before the Board to answer some pointed questions and emphasize specifically that part at the end about “maintaining a water diversion through the NERF proposal that provides the same or greater water supply, and along with it urges federal and state support for the funding and construction of necessary storage.” Since decommissioning is estimated to cost upwards of half a billion dollars, a few million for Potter Valley storage/supply mitigation seems reasonable. Even so Potter Valley will still have to cover increased operations costs for their water.

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THIS ODD AGENDA ITEM appeared on next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors consent calendar:

Item 3k: “Adoption of Resolution Authorizing the Library Director or Designees to Accept Donations and to Annually Report on Donations Valued in Excess of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000) and Immediately Report on Donations Valued at $100,000 or More.”

Why is this necessary? Wouldn’t such reporting be routine? All we can think of is the speciious reasoning that the Board wants to know about large library donations on the spot so they can deduct an equivalent amount from their library budget, pretty much defeating the purpose of the donation, and cleverly converting library donations into donations to the County’s general fund. Pretty underhanded, if that’s the reason. We hope some library people show up to dispute this.

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More Bad Economic News For Mendocino County

(From the October CEO report)

“The unincorporated county’s gross receipts from April through June 2025 were down 6% compared to the second sales period in 2024. After adjusting for reporting modifica ons from audit adjustments and delayed payments, actual sales were 7.2% lower. 2025 sales tax returns remain modest, reflecting broader economic volatility. … Reduced garden/agricultural supply receipts and the continued decline in the winery industry contributed to a 13.5% fall in business-industry. All sectors of the food-drug group contracted – ending down 7.4% compared to a year ago. … As the largest tax group, the County’s allocation from the countywide use-tax pool reduced by 3.1% as the unincorporated area’s share decreased. General retail revenues also shrank, indicative that consumers pulled back on spending.

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Fire District Agreements: The Board of Supervisors recently approved an allocation of Fiscal Year 2024-25 (Q4) Measure D, Measure P, and Prop 172 funds to the twenty-one local fire districts/agencies. The Contract Unit has processed these contracts and routed them through the County’s review process. It is anticipated that the fire districts/agencies will receive copies of the agreements to sign before the final Board meeting in October 2025.”

(This is money the County received in the April-June 2025 fiscal quarter. It takes the County upwards of six months to simply pass these sales tax revenues to the local fire services districts.)

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LOCAL EVENTS (today)

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COUNTY CLERK RECORDER ASSESSOR KATRINA BARTOLOMIE on her office’s recent rejection of the notice to circulate a petition calling for the recall of District Attorney David Eyster:

“It was not rejected because it said he was the DA of Ukiah, we do not critique what the reasons for recall are. We pointed out all the differences between what was filed with us and served to Mr. Eyster and what was published. It was rejected because names were incorrect and addresses were incorrect. The Notice of Intent to Recall needs to be an exact copy, not a copy that has errors. From what I understand the proponents are trying again.”

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RE THE UKIAH HIGH SCHOOL Campus Supervisor staffer accused of assaulting a student, on-line comments:

[1] I wish they enforced child endangerment laws when I was in school! Administrators, and my junior high school Principal in particular used to assault me all the time! Yes, teens can be provocative. But anyone who works with them needs to be trained to not react.

[2] Oh the adult was out of line? Hmmmm. I remember when adults were expected to knock the s;@&t out of a punk that needed it. The very reason we have all these adults who refuse accountability is because they never got their a$$ kicked when they needed it. Time out is fine and when you regain consciousness? You learn to be respectful next time. My wife once had a day care. The very worst part of that was watching the parents ruin their kids. Those kids are adults now. Almost across the board the kids that got the count to 3 schpeel are adult brats; the kids that got to see stars when they got excessively out of line are productive citizens. I’m not talking about a beating, I’m talking about a line you don’t cross without serious consequences.

[3] This. If there are no consequences then most of us would grow up to be assholes. It is unfortunately human behavior. We need to be taught limits and those need to be enforced…

[4] That’s not human behavior that is space monkey syndrome. The space monkey is the human who has been so bullshited/ programmed by propaganda that he no longer knows who he is where he is or what he is. This leaves him feeling scared, angry, aggressive, needy, ashamed, fearful and all those other things that lead to fights in the classroom.

[5] Ooh, you mean like Fortuna police, hospital and open door clinic. Space monkeys.

[6] Did he really do this or is the student a spoiled brat making shit up? More info needed. Sounds like BS to me! Piss off these little heathens and they will do anything. Just my thoughts.

[7] The adult clearly knew he was doing something wrong when he unlocked an empty classroom and did his deed in secret. How many times has he done this before?

[8] Schools shuld have cameras everywhere. Classrooms included, with access by parents to watch thier kids in class.

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YOU’RE ASKING HOW CAN I HELP THE MENDOCINO COUNTY OBSERVER?

by Jayma Shields Spence

Many of you have reached out and asked how you can be helpful after the loss of my dad, Jim Shields. It has meant a lot to me to be on the receiving end of so many offers of support. His loss is so tremendous and he did so much in our community and county, so figuring out “Where do I go from here” is a big question I haven’t quite grasped yet. One thing I am grasping is how I didn’t have any spare time before he passed, and since his passing, my cup runneth over.

While figuring out the day-to-day operations is getting a little easier, and his animals seem to be understanding that I’m not quite on the same schedule as he was, we are all figuring it out together.

It struck me this past week as we are planning our various fall/Halloween and holiday events at the organization I work for (Laytonville Healthy Start and Harwood Memorial Park) that asking folks to pitch in and help us would mean a great deal to me and take a bit off my plate. My mom Susan and Dad Jim really gave so much of their time, energy and money to support Laytonville and the various causes. They instilled in me the value of giving back. Even when they were limited on time and funds, they still managed to help out a good cause. In their memory, here’s ways folks can give back or pitch in, which in turn helps me out, which in turn, helps our community.

Laytonville Food Bank is the 3rd Friday of the month. We unload the delivery truck either the Wednesday or Thursday of the week of Food Bank. If you want to pitch in, call Chris at Healthy Start and ask to be put on her volunteer list. She will call you the week of Food Bank and remind you the days/ times to help.

Harwood Hall Fall Halloween Carnival will be on Thursday, October 30 from 3-6 p.m. We could use help in a variety of ways- by donating random pieces of glassware for our dime toss or cake mixes and frosting for the cake walk. We could also use help setting up and decorating the hall the week of the Carnival. We could always use help tearing it all down. Events like the Carnival are put on by a few volunteers, two of which are Roland and I. Since we’re stretched like Gumby, pitching in here does help us out.

And finally, once we get through October’s events, we go full-steam ahead into the Holiday season. I could use help with our annual Thanksgiving food drive, which consists of gathering canned foods to ensure we have enough to make boxes for local families. Then, it’s on to Christmas! Pam & Susan’s North Pole Toy Express is our local toy drive. We can always use help with donations, as well as wrapping gifts.

If you want to learn more or pitch in, feel free to reach out to me at (707) 984-8089 or email jayma@ laytonville.org

Thank you all for your showing of support, it really means so much during these difficult times.

Mendocino County Observer, 50 Ramsey Rd. / P.O. Box 490 Laytonville, CA 95454 Telephone (707) 984-6223; FAX (707) 984-8118 Email: [email protected]

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DUANE BIGEAGLE ART EXHIBITION

Farmed artist/poet and former Coast resident Duane Bigeagle’s big art exhibition, “An Osage Sees The World,” runs through October 28 at the College of Marin Fine Arts Gallery’s Performing Arts Building, 15 Laurel Ave., in Kentfield. The Exhibit will be open Monday-Friday from noon to 5pm. Highly recommended by Philo’s Don Shanley, among others.

From turningart.com:

“Duane BigEagle is of American Indian descent from the Osage Nation of Oklahoma. He was born at the Claremore Indian Hospital in Claremore, Oklahoma, in 1946. He has a B.A.Degree from the University of California at Berkeley and has been painting, writing, and publishing poetry since the early 1970s. Images are story for him, and he has mostly been known as a poet. He has also taught creative writing to young people with the California Poets In The Schools Program since 1976 and is a past President of the Board of Directors of that organization. He was awarded three California Arts Council Artist in Residence grants in the late 1980s and has received several awards for his poetry, including the W.A. Gerbode Poetry Award in 1993. He has been a college teacher since 1989 and a lecturer in Native American Studies at San Francisco State University, Sonoma State University, and presently at the College of Marin. He is a founding Board Member of the Northern California Osage and the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland. He is also a traditional American Indian singer and an Osage Southern Straight dancer. He is inspired by his Native American cultural traditions, his world travels, by the Ukiyo-i Japanese woodblock print artist Hiroshige in painting, and by the poet Cesar Vallejo in poetry.”

https://duane-bigeagle.pixels.com

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BOONVILLE

by Bob Lorentzen

Highway 128 traffic is supposed to slow to 30mph to pass through Boonville, the unofficial capital of Anderson Valley. The upper valley of the Navarro River once supported a large population of Northern Pomo people, who thrived on abundant acorns and fish in the mild climate. The Pomo named the area Taa-bo-tah, meaning “long valley.”

Most of the native population was forced onto the Mendocino Indian Reservation near Fort Bragg in 1856. In 1851 the first white settlers came, naming Anderson Valley after their leader, Walter Anderson. After he first saw the valley, Anderson announced his intention to move to “the Garden of Eden.” In the next six years 20 more families settled in Anderson Valley, many of them of Scottish or Irish descent. One was W.W. Boone, a relative of Daniel Boone.

The valley's largest town was named for W.W. after he bought the principal store (from early San Francisco merchants Levi and Strauss). The burg had previously been called Kendall City. Boonville and Philo sprang into existence around 1862. The down-river settlements of Christine, Wendling and Navarro soon followed. By 1900 about 100 families had settled in these parts.

(The Glove Box Guide to the Mendocino Coast, 1995)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, October 17, 2025

MARIE ALVAREZ, 20, Lakeport/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

AMANDA FIGG-HOBLYN, 25, Willits. Under influence, paraphernalia, contempt of court, probation violation.

SARA FULLER, 29, Eureka/Ukiah. Reckless driving in off-street parking facility.

VINCENT HERNANDEZ JR., 34, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia, conspiracy.

REBECCA HOOVER, 40, Eureka/Ukiah. Grand theft, theft by use of access card info, conspiracy.

WILLIAM HOWE, 80, Ukiah. Sex registrant failure to report address change.

JORDAN JOHNSON, 20, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, domestic battery, robbery.

BRIAN KLOVSKI, 45, Ukiah. Possession of obscene matter of minor in sexual act.

BUCIO MANON, 39, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

NATHAN MORALES-SALDANA, 35, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MARK NEWELL, 68, Redwood Valley. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

JOSE PALAFOX-CERANTES, 35, Covelo. Stolen vehicle, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, paraphernalia, failure to appear.

MANUEL RAMIREZ, 42, Cave Junction/Ukiah. DUI.

ERIC SEALE, 50, Fort Bragg. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

CHRISTINA SIMMONS, 34, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia, conspiracy, failure to appear, probation revocation.

LINDA TREVINO, 42, Hopland. Failure to appear.

JOSEPH VALDEZ, 30, Lakeport/Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance.

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MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night tonight on KNYO and KAKX!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is five or six. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino. I'm live from Albion tonight again. I have some jazz standards to play for breaks, from Ira Rosenberg's/Zida Borcich's show Wednesday afternoon, that I wish I had done a little better job of recording, but they're a class act, you'll see.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

This year's iteration of the best Halloween band yet. You can relax that they're gonna poke their own eyes out with their costume scissorhands. Miraculously they don't. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2025/10/broken-peachs-halloween-song-2025.html

Why we have annoying fire drills and building codes. https://www.neatorama.com/2025/10/05/This-Is-Why-We-Have-Fire-Drills-in-Schools

And Prom. In the early 1970s I read a story in National Lampoon Magazine by Doug Kenney, about a girl whose first date ever with a boy she likes is to the Prom. They dance the night away, then the boy takes her someplace remote, takes horrific humiliating sexual advantage of her, dumps her off at her house exhausted, bloody and bruised and half naked, and her father compounds the abuse by blaming her. Now, what was the title of that? I'll find it and read it tonight. https://www.vintag.es/2025/10/1960s-prom-couples.html

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

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AMERICAN RESTATEMENT

"Love thine enemy
As thyself." If this be woke,
Make the most of it.

— Jim Luther

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JIM OWEN:

Two weeks ago my wife and I were in one of our favorite towns to visit. It's a small southern university town with a picturesque downtown of historic buildings and homes dating back to the 1700s. People sit along the main street in front of coffee shops and bakeries and talk with the passerby. Charming, relaxed, laid back and full of interesting people. While we sat at the bakery here comes a group of geriatrics who appeared to be making a pilgrimage to the local funeral home to surrender themselves. But no, they stop in the town square to pull out their signs of protest, including several proclaiming "86 Trump". They all had on their nastiest faces, scowling, frowning, just looking like the most miserable people ever. It was a hot day and as one would guess soon one fell to the ground passing out from the heat, others were wiping their brow and in a matter of minutes their planned protest dissembled and they tottered off, many with the aid of walkers.

Back in June we were in the lovely town of Sonoma California, (scenery is lovely the people aren't), and we saw the exact same scene play out.

I'm sure this "No Kings Day," whatever that means, will be much the same.

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DO PROTESTS LIKE NO KINGS STILL MATTER?

by Joe Garofoli

Twice recently during Bay Area speaking gigs, I’ve been asked a version of the same question: What good does it do to go to marches and protests like Saturday’s No Kings day of action?

Their questions reflect a collective frustration that virtually nothing can slow the pace of President Donald Trump’s autocratic actions. Congressional Democrats remain powerless, and leaders of media, academia and tech seem eager to appease him. What good will marching in the streets do?

The upcoming demonstrations happening at more than 2,600 locations nationwide are expected to make up one of the largest protests in American history. Organizers ask that participants wear yellow. “Throughout history, people who have come together in protest against authoritarian governments have used a unifying color to symbolize their peaceful resistance. Our movement is no different. Yellow is a bright, unmistakable reminder that millions of us stand together in the belief that America belongs to its people — not to kings,” Indivisible, one of the 150 groups in the No Kings organizing coalition, wrote on social media.

Its predecessor, the June 14 No Kings rally, attracted an estimated 5 million people nationwide, comparable to the 2017 Women’s March, held shortly after President Donald Trump first took office.

Since then, however, Trump has sent in military troops to police U.S. citizens — one of those deployments has since been ruled illegal — ramped up Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s harassment — efforts that have also ensnared U.S. citizens — transformed the Department of Justice into a sword to impale his political enemies, stifled free speech and tried to cow media institutions and universities into submitting to his demands.

In response, there have been nearly three times the number of nonviolent demonstrations through July of this year, compared with the same period in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term. While that doesn’t make it sound like protests have done much to stop Trump’s march toward authoritarianism, experts said it takes time for effective movements to build.

Mass protests are just one tactic. They are not a magic wand that will change the world in one wave. When managed well, they lead to other actions over the long haul, analysts told the Chronicle.

Mass protests “do a lot, but they don’t do everything that you want them to do,” said David Meyer, a professor of sociology at UC Irvine and author of “How Social Movements (Sometimes) Matter.” “So on Oct. 19, Donald Trump will probably still be president.”

Protests can communicate a collective anger to the people in charge, Meyer said. “Big protests send a message to people who have an interest in what the public thinks and how committed people are,” he said.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Gov. Gavin Newsom on his podcast this week that “history tells us that when the people stand up, something magical happens.”

Here is what experts say is the value of large-scale street protests, and what Saturday’s mass demonstrations should try to accomplish:

They help individuals channel their frustration, isolation and desperation: “Peaceful protest in this moment is very much a performative act of resistance,” said Dana Fisher, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who specializes in surveying participants in mass protests. Saturday’s events are “not going to change President Trump or his administration’s policies. (But) going out into the streets provides what we call a sense of collective identity, which is this feeling of not being alone.” And they often help people frustrated by the current state of the world feel they are physically doing something to state their opposition.

They are a show of strength: Trump has been trying to arm-twist society into submitting to his demands and create the perception that he will inevitably consolidate enough power that resistance will be futile. “In a period like that, large-scale, mass popular protest is a really important tool for holding open space for resistance across a broader swath of places. Because it makes clear that this is not, in fact, a foregone conclusion that he will successfully consolidate power,” Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, told me Thursday.

They typically lead to more political involvement: The high of participating in a mass demonstration often leads marchers to get involved in other kinds of political activity, said Fisher. That could take the form of advocating on behalf of immigrants, participating in boycotts or strikes or running for office themselves, as was the case with many who participated in the 2017 Women’s March, she said.

Fisher tracked participants in those demonstrations and their participation in the 2018 midterms. “What they ended up doing is channeling their outrage and enthusiasm from the streets to the ballot box in terms of getting involved in the midterm elections, which is one of the reasons we saw that blue wave” in 2018, she said.

One of the problems that social movements always confront is: What happens after the demonstration?” Meyers said. “You can bet that at No Kings, they’re going to be talking about Democratic primary campaigns. They are going to be talking about the gubernatorial elections (next month) in Virginia and New Jersey. They’re going to be talking about the barrels of lawsuits that are still underway, and they’re going to be talking about redistricting, which is very salient in California,” where Proposition 50 is being pitched in new ads as “a way to stick it to Trump.”

They have already produced wins: Hours after ABC pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air for his comments in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, a network of activists organized 1.7 million paid subscribers to cancel their memberships to Disney+, the network’s parent company. Kimmel was reinstated. Analysts also attribute Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., standing firm in the current shutdown to him seeing people in the streets urging him to do so. “The fact that Schumer was more responsive to the activist base in the Democratic Party this time than he was earlier in the year, that is a function of mass organizing, which includes the first No Kings rally,” Meyers said.

They must remain nonviolent to be effective: Saturday’s demonstrations must remain nonviolent and peaceful if supporters hope to broaden their tent. Anything less than that will give ammunition to conservatives who want to undercut the movement by linking it to terrorists or tar it by calling it a “hate America” rally.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox Business that the No Kings protest “is part of antifa, paid protesters.” Duffy, a former reality show star, should have listened to Trump’s former FBI director Christopher Wray, who described “antifa” as “an ideology, not an organization.” But facts matter little in conservative media circles. It’s more powerful to throw out scary buzzwords to non-discerning listeners. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called Saturday’s demonstrations “a hate America” rally, seemingly unaware of the irony that statements like those reveal him as someone who hates the First Amendment — a tentpole of American life.

I told Greenberg that most Indivisible meetings or rallies I’ve attended have seemed about as menacing as a pickleball club. There is no evidence of links between the 150 organizations in the No Kings coalition and antifa. At the first No Kings rally, Indivisible Co-Director Ezra Levin led 100,000 marchers in Philadelphia in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Hardly hateful.

“We can both recognize that (the conservative accusations are) ridiculous and also recognize that it’s quite sinister at the same time,” Greenberg told me. “It’s a classic authoritarian playbook move. It is smearing your opponents. It is trying to conflate peaceful protests with other activities in a way that sets up a permission structure for the repression of your dissent, for going after organized opposition, for shutting down people’s free speech rights.”

Yet organizers understand the importance of how the rallies are portrayed and have emphasized they must remain nonviolent. This week, 18,000 people attended an online tutorial on how to deescalate potential conflicts that may arise Saturday.

They must be in small towns in the heartland, not just big coastal cities: This week, organizers highlighted how there will be No Kings events held in places such as Bryson City, N.C. (population 1,500), Storm Lake, Iowa (population 12,000), and Manitowoc, Wis. (population 35,000).

We know that progressive strongholds such as Oakland and San Francisco will show up and show out Saturday. But Hardy Merriman, former president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, told me that “when you have distributed protests in not just big cities but small towns around the country — when people see it in their community — it helps to cut through some of the propaganda and misinformation that they may have seen online.”

Merriman said that trusted messengers against misinformation are people who live in a local community. “When you see the small business owner taking a stand in your community, or the teacher or the leader of the faith community, that may have more sway actually than what politicians are saying,” he said.

(SF Chronicle)

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INSURRECTION ANYONE?

“Friday is a perfect day to indict Schifty!” — Svetlana Lokhova

by James Kunstler

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 18, you might have heard, is this year’s culminating “No Kings” protest demo all over land. We’ve been to a couple of these curious spectacles since springtime here in the Hudson River Valley, in the next town over. The crowd there was just about entirely made up of aging Boomers, joyfully re-living the halcyon days of the Vietnam protests. It was kind of like a street production of the old Broadway hit Hair, only with a cast of 75-year-olds. Let the sun shine in! But this rural, small-town corner of America is overwhelmingly geriatric. There is next to nothing for young people to do around here, so they flee at the earliest opportunity. The catch is: turns out that opportunity is rather scarce elsewhere, too.

For sure, many of these hippie elders have children, even grandchildren now, who are exactly those who are not thriving in the places they have fled to. Deep down, they don’t really know who to blame. Something has gone wrong in this country. But their placards said “Resist.” Resist what? We asked. Trump, of course. Trump, Trump, Trump, we go a’marchin’. He’s Stealing our democracy! Meaning: Trump is the one responsible for our country’s decades-long descent into economic failure, political animus, and social degeneracy. You had to wonder who is paying them to yell an empty slogan that Nancy Pelosi has repeated a million times. We are going to find out.

Tomorrow’s “No Kings” action is apt to be a bit livelier in the crisp fall weather, at least in the cities where the under-employed, debt-oppressed, hormonally-driven younger gen folk gravitate into organized cadres more prone to physically acting-out their discontents — groups like Antifa. The street action lately in places like Portland, Oregon, Chicago, and Los Angeles has gotten quite a bit rowdier since last spring.

Positions have hardened, largely because the Democratic Party is going extinct. As that occurs, its tactics wax more desperate, tending more towards riots and violence. A lot of the recent violence is in service to the project of rescuing illegal immigrants from deportation. Democratic Party leaders such as LA Mayor Karen Bass say the protesters are defending “the community.”

Community is a magic word in the argot of The Resistance. Community is a giant, warm, welcoming amoeba that absorbs all comers into its gelatinous folds, conferring solidarity and safety from outside threats such as the US immigration laws. Of course, the reason that the Democrats are so desperate to rescue illegal immigrants is that millions were allowed to enter the country on-purpose by “Joe Biden” in order to provide a gigantic legion of fresh voters inclined to elect Democrats, so the party won’t go extinct. Thus, expelling them, as the professors might say, is problematic.

Flooding the land with illegal immigrants for four years was a deliberate program, then. It was melded with such devices as the motor-voter process that automatically registers to vote anyone who applies for a driver’s license. All a state had to do was declare that anyone, citizen or not, is eligible for the driver’s license. . . and, cazart. . . newly-minted voters by the millions! It was so arrantly in-your-face that you have to wonder why nobody has moved to stop it.

But they didn’t. Not even the hated Trump, at least not yet. But we have reason to hope that motor-voter and the other devices for rigging elections can be disassembled before the 2026 midterms. Surely the mail-in ballot has lost its justification — if it even had any — now that the Covid op is bygone. How can any state justify not requiring voter ID based on proof of citizenship at registration? It’s a sign of how generally psychotic — or nefariously careless —our culture had become that there should be any question about proof of citizenship.

You might have heard the good news that the Dominion Voting Machine company was sold last month to Liberty Vote, a Missouri-based company. Dominion machines had been used in twenty-eight states, including states with the sketchiest election results: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Dominion was previously owned and based in Canada, a country lately captured by crypto-Marxists in thrall to European banking interests. The Dominion machines have long been accused of containing modems enabling connection to the Internet, and thus to hacking. Plus, they’d contained lines of Chinese software. The new owner promises major changes in the way that votes are tabulated.

Don’t be surprised if tomorrow’s “No Kings” demo descends into violence, arson, and looting. The Democratic Party needs this happen so it can provoke the president to invoke the Insurrection Act, so they can label him “Hitler” again. It is another absolutely in-your-face move. Mr. Trump has discussed the possibility of having to invoke the act. Such a dynamic course of events will backfire badly on the desperate Democrats. More than half the country has had enough of Woke Marxist roguery. They will probably be glad to see extraordinary measures used to stop it, and to override the rogue judiciary that lets it loose on the nation.

It can’t be hard at all to discover who has been paying for this Resistance uprising that includes the “No Kings” demos. It is relatively easy to track the money trails from one bank to another, or many banks to many others, and to see which NGOs are sending all the dough. . . and then who among the operational units are receiving it. It is all going to be shut down. People will be charged and indicted, perhaps even mayors and governors. The charges will be serious. Stand by to see how all this unspools tomorrow.

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WHEN SEVEN NAZIS showed up to picket the opening of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” at Westwood’s Village Theatre on December 22, 1967, it lead to at least 30 moviegoers stepping out of line to beat the hell out of them before sending them running off into the night.

I’ve posted this before, but it’s been four years now and it’s one of my all-time favorites, so I’m sharing it again.

According to the article in the Times, the nazis arrived signs bearing racist and anti-semitic slogans, immediately drawing taunts and jeers from the crowd of hundreds waiting to get in. “Finally, somebody started swinging at them. It looked like about 30 people were trying to fight them and the rest were milling around,” said the theater owner. “The Nazis took off running with the crowd at their heels. [They] caught one of them in an alley; I hear he caught quite a beating.”

By the time that police arrived at the scene, the agitators were long gone, probably halfway back to the American Nazi Party headquarters in El Monte (they had just finally been run out of Glendale in 1966).

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JOKE IS ON WAYMO PRANKSTER WHO SENT 50 S.F. ROBOTAXIS TO DEAD-END STREET

Editor,

Regarding “Tech prankster sends 50 Waymo robotaxis to a San Francisco dead end street” (Bay Area, SFChronicle.com, Oct. 13): With their cautious driving and top-hat sensors, Waymo’s cars can appear naive. Now, they can be pranked?

But rather than demonstrating the exploitability of Waymo cars, the shenanigans highlight their safety.

Pranking human drivers might earn angry gestures at best and violent retribution at worst. In contrast, Waymo’s robotaxis patiently waited for the pranksters before departing. For autonomous vehicles, needlessly dangerous behaviors like road rage and drunk driving are impossible.

Waymo’s fleet may have even benefited from the prank’s stress test. To an autonomous vehicle, every mishap or crash is not an accident but a learning opportunity to prevent future harm.

Moreover, the cars’ adherence to traffic laws can support safety initiatives like reducing speed limits and San Francisco’s Vision Zero goal for traffic fatalities.

As a frequent cyclist, I’ve experienced how modernizing traffic infrastructure can improve the city’s transportation system. Alongside better public transit and safer street design, autonomous vehicles could enhance mobility and safety for pedestrians, bikers and drivers.

Maxwell Ho

San Francisco

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EXPERT TESTIMONY REVEALS DELTA TUNNEL PROJECT VIOLATES CLIMATE AND AFFORDABILITY GOALS

by Dan Bacher

Sacramento, CA — While opponents of the Delta Tunnel in September stopped a legislative proposal by Governor Newsom’s Office to fast-track the embattled pork barrel project, the decades-long battle to stop the environmentally destructive project continues. 

First, In recent testimony to the State Water Resources Control Board, California Water Impact Network senior policy advisor Max Gomberg said Governor Newsom’s proposed Delta Conveyance Project (DCP) “runs contrary to state laws on climate adaptation, racial equity, and sustainable water management.”

Gomberg’s testimony explains that the state legislature “has passed multiple laws over the past two decades designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, help Californians adapt to climate change-driven weather extremes without creating an affordability crisis, and ensure that low-income communities receive their fair share of investments in climate resilience,” according to a press release from the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN).

The climate policies specific to water use, including the Delta Reform Act of 2009, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act [SGMA] of 2014, and the 2018 water conservation statutes AB 1668 & SB 606, all recognize the need to reduce unsustainable water use in an era of increasing hydrologic extremes.

“The Governor thinks that spending $60 to $100 billion building a tunnel to maintain current levels of water use is reasonable, but it contradicts clear legislative direction,” Gomberg observed. “If we want to reduce agricultural sector emissions, reduce the number of people at risk from extreme heat and wildfire, and keep urban water supply affordable, we need a smaller water budget, especially for agriculture.”…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/15/2348714/-Expert-testimony-reveals-Delta-Tunnel-project-violates-California-s-climate-and-affordability-goals

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'TWICE IN THE ARMY I got into fights, once with a supply sergeant at Camp Myles Standish, and once with a big Australian at a pub in Wales. The fight with the sergeant was supervised by the captain. I hurt the guy pretty badly and he quit in the first round. The fight in Wales was strictly a brawl. The other guy was loud and nasty, and we finally went at it. I knocked him out with one punch.

But I didn't do any formal boxing until I went to Fort Lewis, Washington, after the war was over. I still had eight months to serve, and I entered an Army boxing tournament. It was the first time in my life I had ever been in a ring with spectators and everything. The guy I was fighting dressed in the same room as me. He was talking in a loud voice about how he was a pro and what he was going to do to me. He didn't scare me because I knew I was in good enough condition so he couldn't hurt me. But I knew I could lose, and I wondered what it would feel like to lose a fight in front of all those people.

We got out into the ring and this other guy was warming up in his corner, shadow-boxing and everything. The trainer asked me, 'How many fights have you had, kid?' and I told him this was my first. 'Well,' he says, 'you look like a good strong boy. You got nothing to worry about.' We boxed three rounds. I didn't knock the other guy out, but I won the decision. The post newspaper wrote it up, and for the first time in my life I saw my name in print as a boxer.'

— Rocky Marciano

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TRUMP FREES GEORGE SANTOS FROM JAIL AFTER DISGRACED GOP REP. SWINDLED THOUSANDS FROM DISABLED NAVY VETERAN

by James Gordon

President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of George Santos, releasing the disgraced former Republican congressman immediately.

The remarkable move by Trump comes about three months after Santos - a serial fabulist and onetime drag queen - reported to a federal prison in New Jersey in July to begin serving a seven-year sentence.

'George Santos was somewhat of a 'rogue,' but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren't forced to serve seven years in prison,' Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post.

'George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!', the president continued.

Santos pled guilty to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges for deceiving donors and stealing people's identities in order to fund his congressional campaign.

Despite his crimes and his lies, Santos had his backers.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene formally came to his aid this summer arguing the length of his term represented 'a grave injustice.'

The plea, which was sent to a Justice Department pardon attorney, came less than two weeks after Santos began his sentence.

'While his crimes warrant punishment, many of my colleagues who I serve with have committed far worse offenses than Mr. Santos yet have faced zero criminal charges,' Greene, a Georgia Republican, wrote without elaborating.

'I strongly believe in accountability for one's actions, but I believe the sentencing of Mr. Santos is an abusive overreach by the judicial system.'

Last month, Greene once again tweeted at length as to why Santos should be released.

'Former Congressman George Santos has been in solitary confinement for nearly 30 days in FCI Fairton NJ. They say it’s “for his safety” due to threats. I’m told he is in his cell 24 hours per day and he is only allowed to get a shower 3 times a week,' Greene began.

'He does not get any sunlight. He’s only allowed to buy stamps from the commissary and is drinking water from the sink…This is torture. I have sent a letter asking for his sentence to commuted, 87 months is way too long for the crimes he was sentenced for…. George should be pardoned!!!'

On Friday night, Greene publicly thanked Trump for his compassion.

'THANK YOU President Trump for releasing George Santos!! He was unfairly treated and put in solitary confinement, which is torture!!'

(DailyMail.uk)

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“WHEN POWER leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

— John F. Kennedy

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“LIFE IS NOT AN EASY MATTER…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.”

— Leon Trotsky

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LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Santos Is Released After Trump Commutes His 7-Year Sentence

The Shutdown is Stretching On. Trump Doesn’t Seem to Mind.

Prosecutor Who Rejected Trump’s Pressure to Charge James Is Said to Have Been Fired

U.S. Detains 2 Survivors of Latest Military Strike in Caribbean

Tennessee Officials Sue Over National Guard Presence in Memphis

Trump Sets Tariffs on Trucks and Buses

Food Stamp Benefits May Run Out in November, Officials Warn

Ukraine Braces for New Talks Without the Leverage of New Missiles

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WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

To the Editor:

Sitting here in tears watching the morning news: the violent abduction of a young Hispanic woman right next to an elementary school in Chicago. Venezuelan boats being blown out of the water without a semblance of evidence, not to mention due process or justice for the people killed on them. All just part of the lawless, violent, terrifying Trump regime.

What will it take to get even a semblance of democracy back?

Hester Eisenstein

New York

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VENEZUELAN DICTATOR NICOLAS MADURO ‘DOESN’T WANT TO F–K AROUND’ WITH US, TRUMP SAYS

by Victor Nava

President Trump dropped an F-bomb Friday as he explained why Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro appears willing to give the US a stake in the South American nation’s oil and mineral wealth.

“He’s offered everything. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to f–k around with the United States,” Trump said of Maduro, during a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump has ordered the US armed forces to take out narcoterrorist trafficking drugs out of Venezuela.CSPAN

The Maduro regime reportedly offered to provide US companies preferential contracts and access to all existing and future oil and gold projects in Venezuela as part of a deal discussed with Trump administration officials, according to the New York Times.

Maduro also pledged to stop selling Venezuelan oil to China and slash energy and mining contracts Venezuela had entered into with Chinese, Iranian and Russian companies, the outlet reported.

The deal fell apart after Trump reportedly ordered special envoy Richard Grenell to end all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela last week, as the US military continues to carry out strikes against drug boats in the Caribbean Sea.

The president has since revealed that he has authorized the CIA to start engaging in clandestine operations within Venezuela as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crackdown on drug cartels, which are suspected of operating under Maduro’s direction.

“We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea under control,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.

“A lot of Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea. So you get to see that, but we’re going to stop them by land also.”

(NY Post)

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‘YOU’RE HERE NOW’ — Arrested by Israel for trying to deliver humanitarian aid.

by Naoise Dolan

The steel handcuffs the Israeli guard locked on me were ‘Tri-Max Made in England’. Clanking mine to the beat, I sang the Irish resistance ballad ‘Óró sé do bheatha bhaile’, then translated the lyrics for the other (French, Spanish, Canadian) occupants of my cell. We’d just been transferred by bus to our second prison, Givon, between West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

A few days earlier, in the first prison – Ktzi’ot, near the border with Egypt – after a strip search they’d given me a uniform: white cotton T-shirt, gray jumper and tracksuit bottoms, dark green flip-flops with a cartoon bull’s head on it and the words ‘High and Mighty’ in shaky cursive. The sandals were quite funny. The guards’ repertoire, though, didn’t extend past saying ‘Welcome to Israel’ and mimicking us in high voices: ‘Genocide, I was kidnapped – I don’t care, you’re here now.’

Just after 5 a.m. on Wednesday, 8 October, Israeli forces had illegally boarded us in international waters, at roughly the same longitude as Port Said, Egypt. It was our twelfth day at sea in a forty-foot sailing boat, with medical aid and baby formula packed in the stern cabin and cockpit locker.

When I’d climbed outside at 2 a.m. to begin my watch, the two people on deck had told me they’d seen speedboats on the horizon that weren’t showing up on the tracker. ‘It’s probably just intimidation, but keep counting the lights.’ The drones that had been our constant companions the previous few nights had disappeared from the sky. The sailor still on duty smoked and adjusted the ropes while the yellow walkie-talkie beside me crackled with updates from other ships in the flotilla. They kept their dispatches factual and brief: more speedboats, some getting nearer. I went to bed at the usual time, 5 a.m., and debated whether to sleep fully clothed. In the end I just took my jumper off. Half an hour later, someone shouted from the cockpit: ‘Come outside, not a drill.’

We tossed anything that could be construed as a weapon into the ocean – plastic knives, camera tripods – along with our burner phones. Our communications had been jammed; the only message we could receive was an unidentified voice telling us to stop the boat. Two of their vessels were closing in on us: a larger boat accelerating in circles around us and a smaller one with troops preparing to board. ‘We’ll last until dawn,’ the sailor at the wheel said, still smoking. ‘We’ll do that much.’

They rammed us just before the sun rose. Soldiers with guns climbed on board. ‘Hands up!’ They repeatedly demanded of the man at their helm whether we’d hidden cameras: ‘If we find a camera, it will not be good.’

They ripped down the Palestinian and Irish flags – the French one they left intact – and searched us individually on the deck. ‘Remember that we are the good,’ a guard told me twice. He said it a third time as they prepared to traffic me from my hijacked boat onto a dark-gray Israeli warship. ‘OK,’ I said.

We spent the next twelve hours locked in a five-bed cabin. A barrier outside blocked the view; all we’d seen from the window was two men bickering on the deck, and another two sniffing a pair of underpants they’d taken from a confiscated bag.

‘Out,’ said the man who unlocked our cabin. ‘Left.’

Once on land we were handed over from the navy to the police. Two officers shoved my head down, wrenched my arms behind my back, dragged me forwards and shouted at me to kneel.

They herded us through port security. The police went through my bag, searched me (‘legs wider, legs wider’) and interrogated me. ‘To deliver humanitarian aid,’ I said when asked why I’d joined the flotilla. The officer slammed his fist on the desk: ‘I don’t understand it.’

They wanted me to sign a release form. Before setting sail, I had resolved not to; to do so, I thought, would be to collaborate with our kidnapping, and by extension with Israel’s blockade on Gaza. ‘You sign, you go home right now,’ the officer said. ‘You don’t sign, we arrest you.’

‘I won’t sign without seeing a lawyer,’ I said.

‘OK,’ he said, and sent me on to the prison transport van.

Five elected politicians from the flotilla flew home that night, but everyone else was imprisoned whether they’d signed a release form or not.

I was blindfolded and cable-tied for five hours. They’d separated men and women when they placed us in vans. The woman sitting next to me had been handcuffed so tightly that she was screaming in pain. The officers heard her before we left and told her to wait. When they finally removed her handcuffs, it took several attempts because of how badly her flesh had swollen around the metal.

By the time my blindfold was removed I was in a prison yard. Officers led me away for the first of several strip searches. In front of two guards in a harshly lit prefab, I changed into the gray prison uniform and the ‘High and Mighty’ flip-flops.

Back in the yard, while I waited with the other women in our new uniforms to be assigned to our cells, we heard a man from our crew screaming in agony on the other side of the fence.

Our cell had two metal bunk beds, another single bed and thin purple mattresses with no sheets. On the walls were calendars with days, months, years crossed off, and messages written mostly in Arabic. The view from the back window was of a twelve-foot cement wall topped with barbed wire; from the front, a gray yard and a huge Israeli flag on the wall. Beneath it was a poster of a razed city with a slogan clearly targeted at Palestinians: ‘The new Gaza.’ (We were kept apart from Palestinian prisoners throughout our time in Ktzi’ot.)

Our sanitary facilities consisted of a dirty toilet and sink. We hadn’t had bathroom access or anything to drink since our arrival at the port at least six hours ago. I gulped the brown water from my cupped hands at the tap.

The guards came every few hours through the night to count us. The electrical fittings in our cell had been ripped out before we arrived but they seemed to have forgotten this. ‘Who did this?’ they asked every time the light didn’t work.

A rush of land sickness hit me in the morning when I tried to climb down from my bed; my insides swayed as if I were still at sea.

Most of us had resolved to go on hunger strike throughout our detention. The only breakfast offered, anyway, was stale bread and sliced tomato. I hadn’t eaten since Tuesday evening, around 36 hours earlier; the toilet water hit my stomach hard. ‘Today,’ I reminded myself, ‘is Wednesday, 9 October.’ The date was a precious thread that I would not be able to pick up again if I dropped it.

Late in the morning, in a small room with no natural light, I and two other abductees met with a judge who issued our deportation orders. (We still hadn’t seen a lawyer.) ‘How are you?’ she asked. We took the opportunity to get various things on the record: that we’d been denied water, our friend’s injuries from the handcuffs. The judge looked momentarily disquieted.

The flotilla participants who’d signed release forms went home on Friday morning, along with a few we were fairly sure hadn’t. They shackled the rest of us and herded us outside without saying where they were taking us. In the stations that followed – holding cell, passport check, strip search – it still wasn’t clear; only once we’d been locked in our new cells were we sure that we’d simply moved jail.

There were six of us in this cell. We banged on the door, chanted, sang, organized exercise sessions and discussion circles. Seven officers barged in and held us against the wall while one shouted that we were animals. Every few hours they searched us in the bathroom, handcuffed us or made us kneel; they took away our 20 minutes of daily yard time, leaving us to stew in a room with one window you had to climb on a wardrobe to see out of.

Knowing that most of us had been on hunger strike for days, they left food in the cell. ‘You don’t want to eat, don’t eat,’ they said. (Bobby Sands’s prison diary describes H-Block guards doing the same thing.)

‘I’m going to read my Quran now,’ a Muslim cellmate said each night. They had allowed us no personal items, certainly no books, but she scanned a piece of memorised text in her head before going to sleep.

On our fifth day the guards told us we were leaving. ‘They lie,’ we reminded ourselves. ‘They lie all the time.’

Before we left our cells, they cuffed us in pairs, wrist to wrist; they removed those in the holding cell and cuffed us individually; finally they took those off, too, and shackled us to board a vehicle outside. ‘Non, rien de rien,’ I sang with a French friend who was still in the holding cell as officers led me away.

In the van we were two to a small compartment. We faced away from the grille window, but I could faintly see its reflection on the glass in front. Only when the signs changed to Arabic was I positive we would be free.

Nearly 2000 Palestinians, including about 1700 seized from Gaza since October 2023 and held without charge, were released from Israeli jails at the same time as us. It is already well-documented that they faced far worse abuses than we did at Ktzi’ot. Firas Hassan was arrested in August 2022 and held in administrative detention until April 2024. After 7 October 2023, he told the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, ‘it was like living inside a tsunami’. He described a six-month flurry of collective punishment, with severe food and water deprivation, attacks by dogs and relentless beatings, sometimes on camera (‘we’re livestreaming for Ben Gvir’). Thousands of Palestinians are still held prisoner by Israel with no prospect of release. They remain behind bars without any of the few protections that we had.

In my first cell at Ktzi’ot, we found a pen hidden in the windowframe; a French cellmate used it to write ‘Free Palestine’ in large block capitals on the floor. I don’t know who is in that cell now. But I’ll keep sailing with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition until she too is free.

(London Review of Books)

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IT WAS NEVER A GAZA 'WAR'. The 'ceasefire' is a lie cut from the same cloth

Trump’s ‘peace plan’ is doomed. No people in history has ever resigned itself to permanent servitude and oppression. The Palestinians will prove no different

by Jonathan Cook

Ceasefires stick because the two sides in a war have reached military stalemate – or because the incentives for each side in laying down their arms outweigh those of continuing the bloodshed.

None of this applies in Gaza.

The past two years in the enclave have been many things. But the one thing they have not been is a war, whatever western politicians and media wish us to believe.

Which means the current narrative of a “ceasefire” is as much a lie as the preceding narrative of a “Gaza war”.

The ceasefire is not “fragile”, as we keep being told. It is non-existent, as evidenced by Israel’s continual violations – from its soldiers continuing to shoot dead Palestinian civilians to it blocking promised aid.

So what is really going on?

To understand the “ceasefire” and US President Donald Trump’s even more deluded 20-point “peace plan“, we first need to make sense of what the earlier “war” rhetoric was used to conceal.

Over the past 24 months, we witnessed something deeply sinister.

We watched the indiscriminate slaughter of a largely civilian population, already under a 17-year siege, by Israel, a regional military goliath supported and armed by the global military goliath of the United States.

We watched the erasure of almost every home in Gaza – in what already amounted to a concentration camp for its people.

Families were forced into makeshift tents, as they had been when they were expelled decades ago at gunpoint from their lands in what is now Israel. But this time they have been exposed to a toxic brew of the rubble-dust of their former homes and the spent materials from many Hiroshimas-worth of bombs dropped on the enclave.

We watched a captive population being starved for months on end, in what amounted to, on the most generous view, an undisguised policy of collective punishment – a crime against humanity for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being pursued by the International Criminal Court.

Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have been physically damaged, in addition to their psychological trauma, by a malnourishment that has altered their DNA – damage that will most likely be passed on to future generations.

We watched Gaza’s hospitals being systematically dismantled, one by one, until the entire health sector was hollowed out, unable to deal with either the flood of wounded or the growing tide of malnourished children.

We watched large-scale ethnic cleansing operations, in which families – or what was left of them – were driven out of “kill zones” into areas Israel termed “safe zones”, only for those safe zones to quickly turn, undeclared, into new kill zones.

And as Trump stepped up the pressure for a “ceasefire”, we watched Israel unleash an orgy of violence, destroying as much of Gaza City as it could before the deadline arrived to stop.…

https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/it-was-never-a-gaza-war-the-ceasefire

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WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND AND COMMUNICATE TO OUR POLITICIANS ABOUT THE COMING UNSTOPPABLE RAPID POLAR ICE SHEET COLLAPSE

by Andy Caffrey

This is my response to my buddy Jerry who wondered why I mentioned that Gaza is going to be wiped out by rapid sea level increases predicted by NASA, James Hansen, and other top scientists to kick in, well, any time now, but certainly in the next two decades. NOAA predicts 9 feet of sea level rise by 2050. Just twenty-five years from now!

And despite my best efforts to get this science to every member of Congress, and running for Congress several times between 2010 and 2018 on this issue, every member of Congress is ignoring it. So now we've lost 15 years of preparing how to relocate coastal civilization.

It looks like, unless I get a big platform very soon, we're not going to do any preparation until we get hit by the first foot of rapid sea level rise. And neither will the other 150+ nations that have ocean coastlines. Just imagine that: 150 nations all hit with a foot of sea level rise one year, and then another foot the next year (and that's the best case scenario), and on and on, not stopping until the oceans have risen 40 feet (and if East Antarctica's Totten glacier adds to the oceans, its collapse would add 23 feet more).

You may wonder why no one is talking about this. When MSNBC had me on their shows as a Congressional candidate twice in 2012, they only talked about my joint smoking.

Even though they knew my main issue was fighting the climate crisis as our top national (and international) security threat, when NASA made its announcement two years later, you would have thought they would have brought me back to discuss it, since I was the only person in the world who correctly predicted it before it became too late to prevent it. But neither Lawrence O'Donnell nor Alex Wagner responded to my requests.

But that would have meant they'd have to stop running car, truck, and cruise ship commercials that pay their million dollar salaries, since it means we've run out of time and the more we continue to burn fossil fuels the sooner we go into the stage of rapid foot or more-per year sea level rise.

The Democrats in power won't talk about it because they'd have to admit they all failed to meet their oath of office to defend the nation against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC, including the fossil fuel interests who bribed them with campaign contributions.

That's also why they are ignoring my call for #ClimateNuremberg trials of the people who brought about the now "unstoppable" (according to NASA) collapse of both of our polar ice sheets (in 2020 NASA announced that the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet has now "passed the point of no return.").

I know this is a bit long, but it's the most important essay you're ever going to read. If you love your children at all, you'll read it and act NOW on their behalf. It's going to take at least a decade to prepare to relocate coastal civilization. If we wait until you see this on your TV news, it will be too late. Our globalized capitalist economics can't handle a system assault of this magnitude.

I also strongly encourage you to watch my 2018 video presenting the science from the mouths of the scientists.…

https://www.facebook.com/andy.caffrey

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