Mendocino County Today: Saturday 12/6/2025

Moonrise | Leal Correction | Warmer | Friday's Results | All-League Wildcats | Lepiota | Hopland High-Handed | Steele Trial | Local Events | BOS Performance | Karen Daly | CA AB518 | Trail Cost | Past Classic | Grove Dinner | Vintage Laytonville | Crafts Fair | Dance Fundraiser | Ukiah Library | Blues Festival | Yesterday's Catch | Be Mean | Tree Injunction | King Crumb | Hegseth Hague | Pardoning Criminals | AI Numbers | Albino Alligator | Marco Radio | Unknown Citizen | Liberal Fascism | Trump Cup | Retirement Age | Cole Case | Jim Bennett | Hegseth Issue | Lead Stories | Double-Tap Obama | Drunk Anniversary | Authoritarian Regime | Country Music | Genocide Propaganda | Maynard Dixon | Palestine 36 | To Bed

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CORRECTION: Our original information that Mr. John Leal of Boonville had died, passed along to us by a local friend, was apparently incorrect or misunderstood. On-line readers have confirmed our error. Apologies to Mr. Leal and anyone else affected.

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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A much warmer 52F with overcast skies this Saturday morning on the coast. We are supposed to see the sun later today, any bets ? Fog, sun & mentions of drizzle dot our forecast for the next week.

LIGHT RAIN possible for Humboldt and Del Norte late through the weekend into early next week. King tides combined with tidal anomaly will continue to bring the threat of coastal flooding in low-lying areas around Humboldt Bay Saturday. A series of frontal systems moving north of the area will bring a chance of light rain across the northern portion of the area through the weekend. (NWS)

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FRIDAY'S RESULTS

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SIXTEEN UKIAH HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYERS EARN ALL-LEAGUE HONORS

by Sarah Stierch

Sixteen Ukiah High School football players earned North Bay High School Athletic League honors for the 2025 season, the district said Tuesday.

The Wildcats ended their season Friday with a 32–21 loss to El Cerrito in the league championship game.

All-League selections are the highest individual honors awarded to players within the conference. This year, Ukiah swept the league’s top awards: quarterback Beau David was named Offensive Player of the Year, and defensive tackle Jordan Schwarm earned Defensive Player of the Year.

Ukiah placed six players on the First Team. Ryan Todd (WR), Coner Quigley (OL), Dante Giacomini (LB), Clayton Petri (LB), and Sterling Wright III (DL) each received First Team honors.

Dareon Dorsey was recognized twice — as a First Team wide receiver and as a First Team defensive back.

Second Team selections included Christopher Thompson (RB), Colton Gaylord (OL), Jackson Cronin (OL), Parker Marsh (LB), and Will Durnil (DL).

Zach Martinez earned both Offensive and Defensive Second Team honors for his work at wide receiver and defensive back.

“We’re proud of these amazing student athletes,” the district said. “They not only played with skill and heart but modeled good sportsmanship throughout the season. We offer our congratulations to the entire team of players and coaches, and their families. Go Wildcats!”

(www.MendoVoice.com)

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‘READY TO GO TO COURT’: Hopland Residents Fight Water and Sewer Rate Hikes

A KMUD News and MendoLocal.News report

by Elise Cox

Colin Pearce, an attorney at Duane Morris, a full-service international law firm, responded to the Cure and Correct letter sent by Hopland ratepayer Vernon Budinger on Thursday, December 4.

Pearce denied all Budinger’s claims, including his assertion that the ten-minute limitation on public comment on the rate increase imposed at the October 9 meeting was not compliant with the act. Instead Pearce suggested it was a policy that the board of directors for the Hopland Public Utility District had previously adopted.

Budinger said he is unaware of any such policy, and he noted that the policy was not enforced at a previous meeting he attended in August.

Neither Joan Norry, president of the Board of Director of the Hopland Public Utility District, nor Jared Walker, the deputy director of water resources for the Ukiah Valley Water Authority, which provides operations services to Hopland, responded to a request for comment on Thursday.

Norry had previously responded herself to a Cure and Correct letter sent by Hopland ratepayer Matthew LaFever on October 12. She stated in the response that “the 10-minute time limit referenced applies only to non-agendized items, as clearly noted on the agenda.”

This was only partially true.

In fact, Norry gave specific instructions to the public about the time limit for commenting on the large rate increase:

“For the timing, for the Brown Act, for speakers on a particular item, the maximum amount of time to speak on an item is 10 minutes, and you’re allowed three minutes each. And so use your time wisely around questions and answers so that everybody can get some questions answered, because we will take questions and answers for 10 minutes.”

Board member Carol Gunter-Hall interjects: “A total of 10 minutes per topic. Per topic. Are we clear on that?”

Ratepayer Vernon Budinger says, “No. So per topic, that means when we get to the issue, the rate increase, that there’s only 10 minutes of discussion?”

Gunter-Hall: “Total, total. So if you divide it, if 15 of you want to speak, you better not repeat yourself.”

Budinger confirmed in an interview he is ready to go to court to enforce the Brown Act. Under the law, he will have 15 days to “commence an action.”

(Mendolocal.news)

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THAT TERRIBLE CHILD ABANDONMENT CASE against Edward ‘Two Feathers’ Steele from 2022 went to trial this week.

Steele, a member of the Hopland band of Pomo Indians, is accused of abandoning a one-year old infant leading to the child’s exposure and death. The child was the son of a woman Steele was dating at the time.

Steele’s previous defense attorney questioned Steele’s competence to stand trial which partly explains the delays in the trial. Steele has plead not guilty from the outset.

Previous police reports allege that Sheriff’s deputies arrested the mother on suspicion of domestic violence and battery, and Steele retrieved the children, who were with a babysitter at a Motel 6 on North Street in Ukiah. Investigators said deputies were advised that a babysitter was with the boys and child protective services would have been called if the children were present during the arrest and showed signs of child abuse or neglect.

The mother was later released and reported that her children were missing. Later that day, a passerby found the victims’s two-year old brother who was taken to Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Hospital for life-threatening injuries but survived. The younger sibling was found nearby and pronounced dead at the scene. Questions of whether it was really Steele seen on an incriminating video, exactly what he knew and when, what his responsibility may have been, and the roles of the cops and child protective services are expected to arise. Steele has a long history of prior arrests. The trial is expected to take two or three weeks. Judge Victoria Shanahan presiding.

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LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

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JULIE BEARDSLEY:

“Waste and inefficiency,” while likely true to some extent, is too generic a complaint to take seriously.”

Actually, let’s look at the past 10 years or so… First there was combining Social Services, Mental Health and Public Health under one umbrella as Health and Human Services (HHSA). Then when it became apparent that this arrangement wasn’t working or saving money, the departments were separated back out. Then came the push to combine Mental Health, or Behavioral Health and Recovery Service (BHRS) as it is now known, with Public Health, despite strong objections from Public Health staff and local community members who had a vested interest in seeing Public Health continue the work they were doing. Public Health spent over 10 years and thousands of dollars in resources and staff hours to try to become an Accredited Public Health Department. This effort was abandoned a year or so ago. Accreditation is like a road map for how to run a Public Health Department, but with Public Health being taken over by the psychologist Dr. Jenine Miller, it’s not doing what it should be doing and so can’t be Accredited. I have seen the waste of materials, overbuying, and actual fraud being committed to cover up purchases. Combining the Tax Collector and Auditor’s office, despite objections from the staff, and now un-combining them. – another example. The firing of several qualified Public Health directors is another example of waste and inefficiency. The firing ( or harassment until they quit) of so many staff members I have lost count, by managers who felt threatened because they were incompetent, and the staff members knew these supervisors and managers were in over their heads. Darcie Antle the current CEO is a classic example of someone who should not have been made CEO, and we the tax payers are on the hook for all the nonsense County management perpetuates. These terminations frequently get the County into legal hassles that cost the tax payers millions of dollars. The recent letters to this publication about managers at Social Services berating staff, and behaving in ways that should have gotten them immediately fired, is another example. When I was President of SEIU 1021, I talked to members of the Board of Supervisors about some of these problems, and got the response that they don’t want to get involved in staffing issues. So the problems continue because no one is willing to do anything about the bad behavior or stupid decisions. Everyone who cares about our Mendocino County community should be calling out this crap!

PS. Oh, and here’s another one – appointing members of a Public Health Advisory Board, and then never having meetings. Because they don’t want no advice.

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MORGAN BAYNAM:

Re: The Supes’ Low Approval…

Maybe the board would have a higher approval rating if its members spent more time with the people they represent. It used to be normal to see our 5th District supervisors at local fundraisers, board meetings, potlucks, and other community events. Mendocino 4th of July parade. Come on Ted where are you. I remember meeting Norm De Vall, John Peterson etc, at the Great Day in Elk or the Mendo County Fair or the local fire department barbecues. It used to be that all of the county supervisors showed up at their County Fair.

Ted Williams has never been seen at any of these events. If the board wants the public’s confidence, they need to get out there, meet people face to face, and offer real updates about what is going on. This county is not that big, and the supervisors are paid well. Being visible and accessible should be part of the job.

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MAZIE MALONE:

On Measure B and the so-called “accountability provisions…” Was that a belief by the authors of the measure or a trick? The measure promised an independent oversight committee, and then immediately stacked it with representatives from the Sheriff’s Office, the Auditor’s Office, the CEO’s Office, plus five “citizens” chosen by the Supervisors themselves. That is definitely not independence. That is political control dressed up as oversight, and of course that is why the committee never held anyone accountable.

There’s another point that needs to be straightened out. A PHF is not where someone “gets their meds straight.” A PHF is short-term crisis stabilization: safety, assessment, and acute intervention. Once someone leaves, the responsibility moves to outpatient psychiatric care. And while we technically have psychiatric care in this county, there is no coordinated system that connects PHF discharge to timely follow-up. That gap is one of the main reasons people end up back in crisis. Buildings don’t fix that. Committees don’t fix that. The system paid for by the County is entrusted to enact protocols that address the needs of people living with these conditions. They are the “experts.”

This is the real failure. Measure B should have focused on the structure, the protocols, and the support that exist outside the jail and outside the PHF. That’s where outcomes are decided. Without continuity, accountability gets misdirected, usually back onto the individuals dealing with these issues.

There are solutions, but they require protocols, intervention, transparency, and actual collaboration. Here are some very necessary structural changes that would address the gaps in treatment and care:

• A 24/7 clinician-led crisis team so people aren’t relying on law enforcement for medical emergencies.
• Psychiatric follow-up within days of a PHF discharge, not weeks.
• A coordinated medication-management system instead of leaving people to navigate the cracks on their own.
• Real detox and treatment options.
• Stabilization that includes a housing plan instead of sending someone straight back to the street.
• Systems that include family when appropriate, because when family is involved, the chances of recovery increase; everyone in the field knows this.
• Transparent data so the public doesn’t have to guess what’s happening.
• Funding that goes to services, not endless planning, committees, and meetings.
• Above all, protocols that match the severity of what people are actually living through.

Until the County builds those pieces into the real responsibility chain we’re going to keep getting the same outcomes, the same crises, and the same excuses. The PHF is a band-aid. It is not infrastructure. It is not support. That happens outside the walls of institutions, and we simply do not have it.

PS. Also in 2022 there was a pie graph circulated by Ted Williams via social media that showed where the Measure B funds were allocated. Some of those funds were allocated to NAMI who utilized a very small portion of the total $700,000 and then rescinded the rest, based on what I’m not really sure. The whole purpose of that organization is education and advocacy for individuals and their families who are experiencing mental illness, the education portion specifically for Serious Mental Illness! Then of course, the training facility that gets barely any use. I do not understand the point of that, literally. Those meetings can be held at a number of places in town. And the one that really gets me is the Psychiatric Aftercare allocation. Over $1 million for that I am assuming, since it is not transparent info that most of that is cost related to transport of patients to psychiatric health facilities via ambulance and transportation by RCS back to Mendocino County. So technically the new PHF here in Ukiah should cut that cost significantly. We have not seen such a graph since, so we have no idea if the cost of that went up. There is also the cost of mobile outreach teams that was $1,360,000. I wish i could post the graph but the important thing is that spending the funds in this manner gives the appearance of success. In actuality success means support, treatment and housing that is the infrastructure that is necessary to alleviate these conditions.

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KAREN ANN DALY

Karen Ann Daly Ukiah, CA, born to Kenneth Earl and Mary Elizabeth Rush on September 10, 1946 in Louisville, KY passed on to the Lord Jesus Christ on October 3, 2025.

She was preceded in death by both her parents, an infant son Michael, four adult children, one adult grandchild and her former husband Ted Daly.

She is survived by her current husband Thomas Wilson of Ukiah, older brother David Rush of La Mirada, CA, six adult children, numerous grand-children, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.

At age 8 Karen’s family moved across the Ohio River to Jeffersonville, IN where she graduated from high school in 1964. She earned an Associate degree in Accounting in St. Louis, MO. In the early 1970’s she moved to La Mirada where she met and married Ted Daly. In the mid 1980’s she and Ted moved to Ukiah where she resided until her death. From the time she earned her degree she worked as an accountant or in related positions. After 24 years of service with Alpha Analytical Laboratories in Ukiah she retired in 2018.

Karen loved crocheting, golf, bowling, Star Trek, cruising and watching her grandchildren grow up. She was a former member of the Rotary Club of Ukiah.

A memorial service in remembrance of her life will be held on Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 11:00AM. The service will be held at New Life Community Church, 750 Yosemite Dr., Ukiah, CA. There will be a reception with refreshments in the fellowship hall after the service.

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GLAMPING LAW LINK

A READER WRITES: A link to the new glamping law featured in today's AVA: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB518/2025

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ADAM GASKA: Cost of the Great Redwood Trail. Phase 4, which is currently under construction, has $4 million appropriated for engineering, environmental compliance, and construction. It’s 1.9 miles so roughly $2 million a mile.

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NORM CLOW: The Redwood Classic has kicked off its 68th edition at Anderson Valley High School this week, the longest-running, and arguably the best, small-school basketball tournament in California (and here we are in Texas). I was privileged to be involved in it during the 1980s into 1990 when we moved to the Pacific Islands, and again for a few years when we returned in 1998, as an announcer, reporter, souvenir program editor with Kenneth Jones, and member of the tournament committee. In 1990, station manager Johnny Bazanno and I broadcast the first-ever local airing of the championship game on KZYX radio. It was a hoot, as Jerry Garcia would say. I ditched the beard the next week in preparation for my interview in San Francisco with the president of the Federated States of Micronesia Development Bank in the Caroline Islands. Not sure if it had any effect, but I got the job, and away we went. In any event, the Redwood Classic is a great time, with some great basketball.

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SKYWRITING: NOYO FOOD FOREST

by Andrew Scully

Good evening, Coasters. It was "Giving Tuesday" earlier this week, apparently a relatively new day devoted to charitable contributions; if you are like me, or even if you're not, your email box may be overflowing with appeals from the needy and the wanting.

It's a metaphorical Thursday morning swimming pool full of floating rubber duckies, inner tubes, and neon foam noodles, all competing for your attention. Why would I want to put another toy in the pool to distract you? I don't want to do that. So instead I direct your attention to the small airplane, a Sopwith Camel biplane, now beginning to circle up in the air above the pool. Do you see it… just there? Way up. He's beginning to skywrite. What do those puffy white smokey letters say? What are they beginning to spell out?

Well, let me help you, cuz I can see it clearly… It says: Noyo Food Forest - Mendocino Grove Saturday Night.

What does it mean? I can assist with that as well. It means that This Saturday Night One Night Only is the 4th Annual Mendocino Grove Holiday Craft Extravaganza And Dinner Party Under The Stars to benefit Noyo Food Forest.

For those of you who may be new to the area or who may be unfamiliar: The Noyo Food Forest is a cooperative non-profit venture with the Fort Bragg School District that provides a organic working farm experience to our most valuable treasure, our young people, students in the local public schools. The NFF is an organic farm, located adjacent to the high school which provides internships, educational opportunities, learning, teaching, and food! The farm programs grow thousands of pounds of organic fresh food for the Fort Bragg School district cafeterias where 100% of the students are in free and reduced-cost nutrition programs.

The Noyo Food Forest is a remarkably cost-effecient and effective program that enhances our lives. Promoting agricultural education, stewardship, community engagement and empowerment through food security and biodiversity. Please give generously today. Link is here: https://noyofoodforest.networkforgood.com/events/92317-annual-benefit-gathering

And do make plans to attend the Gala Magical Evening on Saturday night December 6 at the Mendocino Grove. Local impresario Teresa Raffo and her family will once again host the annual fundraiser at their beautiful glamping resort. The interactive and immersive event includes all activities: food, libations, drinks, appetizers, craft making, activities, fun, friends and festivities all benefiting the NFF and all in the magical twinkling Mendocino Grove… High end glamping at its finest.

I ran into Teresa and her daughter Ella in the poultry aisle at Harvest Market on Sunday and she advised me that ticket sales are a little slow. We're less than 25% sold with less than a week to go. We need to pick it up. So people please come out and support our treasure, our young people, and our Noyo Food Forest. Let the call go out, to the very forks of the creeks: Open your hearts and your wallets, give it up and come celebrate with us under the stars and the twinkling lights of the Grove.

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RON PARKER (Mendocino County Way Back When): Vintage Laytonville

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ELK HOLIDAY ARTS AND CRAFTS FAIR SATURDAY

The Greenwood Community Church Foundation will hold its 25th annual Arts & Crafts Fair, this Saturday December 6th from 10am until 4pm at The Greenwood Community Center in downtown Elk.

Several new vendors as well as perennial favorites will be participating. Snack bar with yummy treats to keep up your strength while you shop. And a delicious lunch of Vindaloo or Veggie Curry made by Elk’s own Maritime Cafe benefits the Greenwood Preschool.

Let’s support our local Makers and Community this year. It’s more important than ever!

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DANCE SHOW BAKE SALE Saturday 12/6/25 12pm-2pm

Our last fundraiser bake sale will be held tomorrow, Saturday, December 6th from 12pm until 2pm in front of Harvest Market in Fort Bragg.

We are raising funds to offset the many production costs to bring our new annual dance show to Cotton Auditorium, NEXT WEEKEND!

  - Saturday, December 13th at 6pm (doors at 5:30pm)
  - Sunday, December 14th at 2pm (doors at 1:30pm)

We will be selling tickets at our bake sale (you can also purchase online at tylerfosse.com), as well as homemade blackberry jam, and homemade canned apple pie filling - great to give for holiday gifts! Along with some seasonal treats.

Please stop by and help us support our local performing arts and artists!

(Tyler January Fosse)

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RON PARKER: Ukiah Way Back When

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THE BLUES RETURN - FORT BRAGG BLUES FESTIVAL 2026

The Blues Are Coming Back to Fort Bragg: Second Annual Fort Bragg Blues Festival Set for May 1-3, 2026! Following a fantastic first year, The Fort Bragg Blues Festival (FBBF) returns for three days of rocking rhythms over the first weekend in May, promising an even bigger and more soulful experience. This event will once again bring acclaimed and up-and-coming blues musicians to the heart of the coast, blending soulful tunes with Fort Bragg’s coastal charm.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, December 5, 2025

BRENT ANDERSON, 39, Westport. Domestic violence court order violation, failure to appear.

JESSICA BELL, 36, Willits. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

CECILLIA BLOYD, 24, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI-any drug, suspended license, probation revocation.

GERALD COATS, 32, Brentwood/Ukiah. DUI.

SHAWN COCHRAN, 43, Willits. No license, injury or threat of injury to person based on race, religion, color, gender or sexual preference, vandalism.

JEREMY HOLZ, 51, San Rafael/Ukiah. Under influence, paraphernalia.

TRINITY MARTIN, 29, Redwood Valley. Probation revocation.

ALEXIS MARTINEZ-PATINO, 26, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

ALEX MORA-WHITEHURST, 38, Willits. Parole violation.

NATALIE RODRIGUEZ, 34, Ukiah. Under influence, parole violation.

VALENCIA SPIKES, 38, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI.

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WHY DID THE GOVERNMENT CUT OFF FOOD STAMPS?

Editor:

What, exactly, was the administration’s point of cutting off SNAP (food stamps) payments during the federal shutdown? Eighty-eight percent of SNAP recipients are households with children, elderly or a disabled individual. The government found the money to keep air traffic controllers and national park rangers at their jobs. Are air traffic and park operations more important than keeping citizens fed? I am sure that even our secretary of health and human services would agree that regular meals are more vital to public health.

With the collection of billionaires in the Cabinet (and the cheerleading squad of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, et al.), I am surprised that they would not float a loan to the Treasury to tide the government over to make the payments. Maybe the point was just to be mean to people who already had very little for Thanksgiving.

Mark Mills-Thysen

Sebastopol

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FEDERAL COURT ISSUES INJUNCTION BLOCKING ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS’ REMOVAL OF AMERICAN RIVER TREES IN SACRAMENTO

by Dan Bacher

A Sacramento federal judge has issued an injunction blocking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from cutting down more than 700 trees, including some heritage oaks, along the Lower American River.

The injunction issued by the U.S. District Court was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Save the American River Association and American River Trees. 

The area slated for tree removal by the Army Corps for “flood control” features 3.3 miles of riparian forest around Howe and Watt avenues in the heart of the Sacramento Metropolitan Region.

“I’m grateful this injunction will keep the forest of the Lower American River intact and healthy,” said Justin Augustine, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “The court ruled correctly that the Army Corps must look at options to prevent erosion without sacrificing the forest’s heritage oaks that are so important to both Sacramento’s wildlife and people. Our hope is that this ruling pushes the Corps towards a more holistic approach that protects these irreplaceable natural areas instead of cutting them down.”

Augustine noted that the Army Corps’ project sought to address erosion by cutting down forest along the river’s banks and replacing it with giant, boulder-sized rocks known as rip-rap. The court found that the Corps had promised to analyze an alternative that would prevent erosion while leaving the forest intact, but then failed to do so.

“Located along the Lower American River between the Howe Avenue Bridge and Larchmont Park, the forest is one of the most popular recreational areas in the Sacramento region for hiking, biking, running, fishing and swimming” the CBD pointed out. “Despite being close to an urban center, the forest also supports abundant wildlife including bobcats, otters, deer, rare turtles, endangered salmon and numerous species of birds.”

The river parkway is protected under both federal and state Wild and Scenic River acts, which was not lost on the CBD. “These acts are designed to preserve designated rivers and their surrounding forests so that they can be enjoyed in perpetuity,” the organization noted.

Judge Dena Coggins, in her Nov. 20 decision, ruled that the “public interest in preserving the natural landscape along the Lower American River for recreational purposes is especially strong, where, as here, the river is designated for protection under both the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.”  

Bill Brattain of American River Trees also celebrated the court victory against the Army Corps — and explained where the litigation will proceed from here.

“We have been granted the Preliminary Injunction we filed to stop the Army Corps of Engineers and partner agencies from removing almost 700 trees along the American River Parkway for their erosion project,” said Brittain. “This means they cannot remove any trees until our lawsuit against them is settled or reaches a final judgment in federal court … In her ruling, the judge agreed with all of our major arguments, among which were that they did not analyze any other less destructive alternatives including ‘bioengineering along with rock’ (cobble) that they planned to and promised to analyze back in 2015/16.”

He added, “This is an enormous victory for users of the parkway, the animals, and the environment!  It’s also a huge vindication for all our arguments they tried to shoot down and all our efforts to get a less destructive approach.”

(sacramento.newsreview.com)

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MOVE OVER, DUTERTE

Editor,

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is our very own Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, is sitting in a jail cell at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He is charged with crimes against humanity for ordering people to kill alleged drug offenders rather than arresting them and holding them for trial. This, of course, is exactly what Hegseth has been doing.

Perhaps, someday, there will be a jail cell waiting for Hegseth in The Hague.

Kenneth Hopkins

San Francisco

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PARDONING CRIMINALS

Editor:

It’s time to limit presidents’ power to grant pardons.

It is time to place some controls on the privilege of presidential pardons, which is being grossly abused by this administration. No only has Donald Trump pardoned scores of Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists who did his bidding and virtually sold pardons to billionaires who have generously contributed campaign funds, but the list now includes ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of cocaine smuggling (while we blow up boats in the Caribbean); David Gentile, who was convicted of defrauding investors of $1.6 billion; ex-Congressman George Santos, who was convicted of fraud; and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to fraud and is tied to Trump’s sons in establishing the Liberty Financial cryptocurrency marketplace. The Justice Department is being weaponized to persecute Trump’s “enemies” and ICE is rounding up individuals for deportation without any semblance of a fair judicial process. It’s time we take back the rule of law.

Leland Davis

Santa Rosa

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KEN DEI SIGNORE:

The AI numbers are off by orders of magnitude. Subsidies are driving data center growth, AI growth is a media fallacy. Before AI they said it was bitcoin.

Spend 5 minutes doing a back of the envelope calculation. How many tokens per day are processed? How much energy per token? Compared with current data center energy usage? AI is only using a fraction of 1% of the data center capacity.

Back in the bitcoin days, you could divide the daily total data center energy usage by the daily number of bitcoin transactions and it would cost something like $10,000 in electricity to make a single bitcoin transaction according to the media reports.

What is really happening is the political parties have rigged up subsidy regimes to pay the data centers to consume power, so they can't build them fast enough. Most likely they are running infinite loops to generate usage reports that are turned in for subsidies.

A big giveaway is that the data center power draw is constant 24/7/365. If it were human generated usage, the load would drop at night and on the weekends.

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SAN FRANCISCO’S BELOVED ALBINO ALLIGATOR CLAUDE DIES AT 30

by Janie Har

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A rare albino alligator named Claude who was beloved by fans around the world died Tuesday, according to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He was 30.

The science museum in Golden Gate Park is popular with Bay Area school children and international tourists, and many kids over the years have ended their visits clutching a mini Claude stuffed animal to take home. As an unofficial mascot of the museum and the city, Claude appeared in a children’s book and in ads at bus and light-rail stations.

The alligator icon had a “quiet charisma” that captivated hearts in his 17 years in San Francisco, the museum said in a statement. It has also said there are fewer than 200 albino alligators in the world.

“Claude showed us the power of ambassador animals to connect people to nature and stoke curiosity to learn more about the world around us,” it said.

Claude hatched in 1995 at an alligator farm in Louisiana, and came to live at the Academy in 2008. He was born with albinism, a genetic mutation that made him appear white. His eyes looked pinkish-red because of blood vessels that were visible through his clear irises.

Albino alligators do not survive for long in the wild, but American alligators can live up to 70 in captivity. The museum rang in Claude’s 30th birthday in September with festivities, speeches and a special alligator birthday cake made of fish and ice.

Claude, who was 10 feet (3 meters) and 300 pounds (136 kilograms), recently underwent treatment for a suspected infection after showing signs of a reduced appetite. The University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine will exam Claude to learn of a possible cause of death.

The museum will hold a public memorial for Claude but for now, people can share memories of Claude and send messages to his human care team at the California Academy of Sciences.

(apnews.com)

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MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all Friday night on KNYO and KAKX.

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is six or eight. 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.

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:

Rerun: Songs where they sing Stop and the music actually stops for a moment. Songs that stop on Stop. An enjoyable half an hour of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I1OaNrphk0

Booker T. and the MGs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbBcXvKvB08

And the ska Inspector Gadget theme. https://theawesomer.com/inspector-skaget/789449/

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

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THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

— W.H. Auden (1940)

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THINK THE WORLD CUP DRAW WAS CRINGE? Trump propaganda machine was just warming up.

by Ann Killion

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to be at Hitler’s Berlin Olympics in 1936 or at Mussolini’s 1934 World Cup, good news! You’ll get your chance at a similar experience next summer.

The 2026 World Cup kicked off on Friday, with the World Cup draw. The distribution of participating countries into 12 different groups should have been an efficient 20 minute process. Instead it turned into a bloated, bizarre propaganda piece for the Trump administration.

Between the obsequiousness of FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the servile bent of Fox — the event’s English-language broadcaster in the United States — the Trump World Cup propaganda machine is up and running.

Trump has long coveted the power and pomp of sporting events. Sports has historically been used for propaganda, not only by Hitler and Mussolini but by dictators around the world and, recently, by Saudis to sanitize their repressive regimes. What many feared could happen with the 2026 World Cup became reality on Friday, when the draw was interrupted by a 10-minute infomercial for the greatness of Trump and a made-up “FIFA peace prize.”

It was just one embarrassing moment in a fatuous, inane production.

“Is it possible to die from cringe?” one commenter wondered on social media.

We’re going to find out. Because if the kickoff event was any indication, the North American World Cup — hosted by three countries with the largest field in history — is not only going to be a month of football games, but also cringe-worthy exhibits, disinformation and bloviating.

“Can we get to the draw already?” said French legend Thierry Henry, a newcomer to the Fox coverage team and obviously unschooled on the excesses of his new employer.

Not yet. It took another half hour after Henry’s complaint, but the draw did eventually happen. The United States was placed into Group D, joined by Australia, Paraguay and the winner of a March playoff that will involve Turkey, Romania, Slovakia and Kosovo. The first game will be June 12 against Paraguay, at SoFi in Los Angeles.

Though if Turkey ends up advancing Group D will become decidedly more difficult, it’s a very friendly draw, which fits in with what will be incessant American chest-pounding next summer, amplified by Fox.

Fox’s loudest soccer mouth, Alexi Lalas, told the U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino that it would be an absolute disaster if his team didn’t get out of Group D and that he, Lalas, believed the Americans would win the group. Pochettino, who is trying to change the Americans' undeservedly entitled mindset, pushed back.

“We cannot win before we play,” he said. “We cannot look ahead to the next round when we haven’t played. … We need to prepare like each game is the final of the World Cup. Thinking we should win before we play the games is the wrong mindset.”

The draw was held at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The move was made at Trump’s behest. Trump has insisted on putting his imprint on this World Cup, including his ongoing effort to turn it into a political football, threatening to move games out of cities led by Democratic mayors. His travel bans and immigration policies imperil the ability of fans to attend and enjoy the world’s game.

Observers around the world were puzzled by almost everything regarding the very Americanized draw. The ridiculous musical acts, ending with the Village People. The presence of Aaron Judge, Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal and Wayne Gretzky to draw the names of countries — apparently a Mexican athlete wasn’t deemed worthy. The choice of Rio Ferdinand as the master of ceremonies (“He never won a f–ing thing with England” a friend chimed in from London). And, most of all, the ongoing suck-up to Trump.

In an extremely self-important video, FIFA told us why peace is important: so that people can play football. And because Trump won’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, Infantino unilaterally made up a “FIFA peace prize” — theoretically to be presented annually. Shockingly, the inaugural edition was awarded to Trump.

Infantino, the leader of one of the world’s most corrupt organizations, has positioned himself as Trump’s pet puppy. He even, bizarrely, accompanied the president to Egypt for the signing of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement — which has been routinely violated since that signing.

Infantino’s presentation to Trump on Friday included a trophy, a medal, a certificate and a long-winded, ego-stroking speech full of misinformation — “facts” that have been disputed, diluted or labeled as “widely false” — about Trump’s peace-making skills. No mention of killing people on boats in the Caribbean or sending armed troops into American cities or the hunting down of hard-working immigrants or the cutting of aid to children around the world.

In the first upset of the World Cup, Trump stayed within his allotted time and kept the rambling to a minimum, while still augmenting the misinformation.

Get used to it. Propaganda, disinformation and jingoism will be key components of the 2026 World Cup. There will be some awesome games played, too. But if the 1934 World Cup and the 1936 Olympics taught us anything, it’s that the competition won’t be the lasting memory.

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COLD CASE HEATS UP

by James Kunstler

"[The current FBI] was competent at cracking the case; [Christopher Wray's] was competent at corruption and obstructing it." —Mike Benz

Do you have any idea what tapestry of corruption and crime is attached to the little thread of the J6 / DNC / RNC pipe bomber suspect arrested yesterday by the FBI? Consider this: suspect Brian Cole, Jr., is alive and probably talking, unlike, say, Jeffrey Epstein and Thomas Matthew Crooks in other matters of public interest. Let’s hope he is under FBI protection in custody, lest something. . . say. . . happen to him.

As of early this morning, the country knows next to nothing else about Cole and what he was up to the night of Jan. 5, 2021. The FBI has not even said how he is employed. But his photo shows a young man dressed for office work. . . he lives in a nice house in the DC suburbs of Virginia. . .and you might infer that he is, possibly, a federal government worker. Oh, and the FBI was unable to catch him through the whole four years of “Joe Biden?”

You can suppose at this point that the story of that four-year botched investigation will be a way bigger thing than the pipe bomber’s little prank itself. It probably leads to the story of wholesale corruption in Christopher Wray’s FBI, and even more consequentially, to the realization that the so-called J6, 2021 “insurrection” was a government op from top to bottom, aimed at eradicating Trump and Trumpism.

First, what was supposed to happen in a joint session of Congress that day? Answer: certification of electoral college votes in the 2020 election. What else was liable to happen that day? Answer: under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 (3 U.S.C. §§ 5–6, 15–18) — as amended, and by the rules laid out in the U.S. Constitution (Article II and the 12th Amendment) — objections to several states’ slates of electors were expected to be entertained, triggering debate and possible rejection of those states’ electors on the basis that the votes were not “lawfully certified” (under 3 U.S.C. § 6), or not “regularly given” (meaning the vote was marred by fraud, corruption, or violence). Any state’s electoral votes could be rejected if both the House and Senate voted by simple majority, after up to two hours of separate debate.

At mid-day, objections meeting the written requirement (one House member + one Senator) were filed for Arizona and Pennsylvania. The objection to the Arizona vote (Rep. Paul Gosar + Sen. Ted Cruz) was the first scheduled to be debated shortly after 1:00 p.m. It was not allowed to happen. Instead, Congress evacuated the chamber. When Congress returned at 8:00 p.m., votes objecting to Arizona and Pennsylvania slates failed and no others were taken up. Senators who previously had committed to debating the votes of several other swing states demurred, citing the breach of demonstrators into the Capitol. The full tally concluded at 3:44 in the morning, Jan 7, “Joe Biden” and Kamala Harris were certified as winners of the 2020 election.

Here are some things to know about the pipe bomb subplot in the J-6 story. Kamala Harris. vice president-elect, still a sitting Senator (CA), was not in the chamber for the certification process. She arrived at the DNC headquarters some blocks away from the Capitol by motorcade at 11:30 a.m. and stayed until she was evacuated from the DNC at 1:14 p.m. Couple of questions about that? 1) did she not want to be present in the chamber at the momentous instant that her election as veep was certified? 2) Did she not have a duty to be present for voting on any of the procedure? Weird, a little bit. She has never explained what she was doing at the DNC that day.

Kamala Harris was in the DNC building when the pipe bomb was discovered there, around 1:07 p.m. The pipe bomb at the RNC had been discovered some 20 minutes prior, and it was the discovery of that bomb, at 12:44 p.m. that prompted the evacuation of the joint House / Senate session in Congress, not any breach of the Capitol building, which did not occur until 2:13, p.m., more than an hour later.

Now, to the FBI response to all this. They quickly collected tons of closed-circuit video of a suspect planting these pipe bombs. The footage they released showed the suspect at a one-frame-per-second recording rate which, as Mike Benz points out, is a hundred times slower than any common gas station closed circuit camera nowadays. The FBI also doctored the recordings, specifically blurring out the section of the suspect’s face at one angle captured by a CC camera about eight meters away. The rectangular blur patch over his eyes can be clearly seen. How’d that happen?

The FBI also managed to botch every other aspect of the investigation into the act that actually triggered the evacuation of Congress that day — which was (repeat) not the breach of the Capitol building but the pipe bombs. In the months afterward, FBI Director Wray took agents off the case. He had in place as chief of the FBI’s Washington office an assistant director named Steven D’Antuono who had been in charge previously, as Detroit field chief, of the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case in which at least 12 confidential informants and three FBI agents were involved in what looked like an entrapment scheme. D’Antuono had demonstrated considerable skill in constructing skeezy FBI ops when he was put in charge of the DC office. The agency managed to lose the chain-of-custody for much of the evidence in the case, including originals of the videos, cell phone records, communications records between Capitol police, DC metropolitan police, Secret Service, and the FBI, and more.

So, the pipe bomber has been a cold case lo these many years. And now we’re informed as of yesterday’s FBI / DOJ press conference, that the FBI under Director Patel cracked the case using only information and evidence already in the FBI files. So, get this: there must be a record of exactly which agents were on the pipe bomber case those four years under Christopher Wray. There must be a record of who, by name, was in charge of chains-of-custody for all that evidence. And there must be a record of the senior agents and deputy directors who oversaw all their activities, all the way up to Director Wray. Why would they not be subject to charges of obstruction of justice?

All of this is just the pipe bomber subplot of the J6 story. There remains the weird business with then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her failure to request national guard protection at the US Capitol that day. And there remains the question of how many agents, assets, and confidential informants the FBI had in-place at the Capitol on J6, 2021, including Antifa members, and which actions, including the breach inside the building, they instigated. Then there is the question of the House J6 committee, how it was constructed with the help of lawfare ninja Norm Eisen, and how it deliberately destroyed all the evidence it collected over the months of its existence.

Be prepared to learn how the J6 “insurrection” was a government-sponsored seditious conspiracy and then ponder who, by name, will be held responsible for it. That’s the tapestry that Brian Cole, Jr.’s little thread leads to.

Shout out to Mike Benz for his nearly four-hour discussion about the pipe bomber case on “X”.

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THE WOUND just inches from his heart had already decided what the rest of his life would look like.

In 1894, Jim Bennett—one of the last active members of the crumbling Dalton Gang—stumbled away from a botched bank robbery with more blood than luck left in him. There was no chance for a clean escape, no final burst of outlaw bravado. By the time the posse closed in, Bennett was too weak to run and too far gone to fight, captured on the very edge of collapse as the gang’s dying era flickered out around him.

The photograph taken after his arrest shows him leaning against a wooden barrel, wounded, exhausted, and stripped of any myth. His injury is plainly visible, the mark of a life lived on the wrong side of the law—not in glory, but in constant danger. His eyes reveal a quiet understanding of the truth: that the Old West was never the romantic world of campfire tales, but a harsh place where bullets flew faster than dreams and survival depended more on luck than skill. In that single image, the swagger of outlaw life dissolves into something far more real and sobering.

Bennett’s story ended not in a blaze of gunfire, but at the gallows. After a swift trial, he was sentenced to death, becoming one more outlaw whose name faded into the shadow of more famous figures. He did not become a legend like Jesse James or Butch Cassidy; instead, he became a cautionary footnote in the long, grim record of frontier justice. His photograph remains the clearest reminder of what truly awaited most men who chose the outlaw trail—a violent wound, a brief moment of survival, and an unforgiving end.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Hopefully you're not confused about what it is about Hegseth people despise. I mean, it's one thing to accept a civilian with little high level leadership experience for anything running the show, but to accept a TV face who few would take seriously on much if he didn't have this job, in combination with him being, what, a 2nd Lieutenant? I mean, ask the top folks at your work if they want to suddenly serve under a CEO who until now was the mid level manager considered of average capability, but who admittedly does tell some great stories in the lunchroom.

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LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

Battlefield Picture Worsening for Ukraine as Trump Pushes Peace Plan

Trump’s National Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy

The Supreme Court, Once Wary of Partisan Gerrymandering, Goes All In

Have Trump’s Tariffs Hit the ‘High-Water Mark’?

The Newest V.I.P.s at the U.S. Embassy in South Africa Are Afrikaners

Giving Money Directly to Children Is an Idea the Right and the Left Could Love

See the East Wing Design, Before Trump Changed Architects

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THE DOUBLE-TAP STRIKES are appalling and illegal, but Hegseth is merely following the bloody path Barack Obama blazed. Obama’s drone assassination team even had a name for wounded survivors they would target for a second kill strike: squirters. According to David Shedd, Obama’s former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. “We used double-taps all the time. You would get the initial signature off of a target that’s been hit and if you saw that they ‘squirted’ and were injured … you hit them again.” Shedd told Washington Post columnist Mark Thyssen: “There was often a second predator ready to go … that was fully expected to be used if you didn’t have a 100 percent coming out of the first hit — and maybe a third hit…It was done routinely.”

— Jeffrey St. Clair

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THIS IS WHERE AUTHORITARIANISM LEADS

by Bernie Sanders

Authoritarianism is not just the loss of democracy, freedom of expression or civil liberties. It can also mean horrific wars and massive loss of life. When we defend democracy, we are fighting not only for our personal freedoms but to prevent autocratic leaders from dragging us into bloody and unnecessary wars.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine offers a painful example of what happens when leaders have unchecked power. In February 2022, the Russian dictator ordered an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. No public debate. No support from legitimately elected officials. No objective media reporting. Putin, based on his own whims, simply plunged his country into war. The Russians who dared protest were jailed, opposition media was silenced and an estimated 1 million people fled the country.

The human toll of Putin’s decision has been catastrophic. While not widely reported, the war has led to roughly one million Russian military casualties, including an estimated 250,000 deaths, in less than four years. Ukraine has suffered 400,000 casualties, including about 100,000 deaths. In other words, an entire generation has become cannon fodder for one man’s imperialist ambitions.

To put that carnage into context: the United States, with twice Russia’s population, lost 59,000 soldiers over eight years in Vietnam. Putin did this not because Russia was under attack, but because he could. He does not answer to voters, to a free press or to a functioning opposition. He has destroyed democratic institutions and crushed all dissent. As one of the wealthiest people in the world, he and his oligarch friends are shielded from the horror of the war, living in extreme luxury as a generation of young Russians die for the delusions of empire. That is what authoritarianism and oligarchy are all about.

And we must learn that lesson here in the United States, where the president shows his contempt for democracy and concentrates more and more power in his own reckless hands. It’s not just that he wants to usurp the powers of Congress and the courts. It’s not just that he wants to intimidate the media, law firms and universities. Now, he wants the power, in a grossly unconstitutional way, to take this country into war without the approval of Congress.

In this critical moment in American history, Congress and the American people must make it very clear. No, Mr. President. You don’t have the right to attack boats and kill people who you think may be drug dealers. No. You don’t have the right to bomb Iran. No. You don’t have the right to enter into military alliances with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, putting American lives on the line to defend dictators. No. You don’t have the right to go to war with Venezuela.

Because if we allow one leader — any leader — to take this nation into conflict without oversight, without restraint, without the consent of the people, then we have forgotten the lessons of history. And we will pay the same terrible price.

No war without Congressional debate and approval.

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HILLARY SAYS YOUNG PEOPLE OPPOSE GAZA GENOCIDE DUE TO ’TOTALLY MADE UP’ VIDEOS

by Sharon Zhang

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has claimed that the ignorance of young people and their consumption of content on social media is responsible for their opposition to Israel and its genocide in Gaza, blaming “made up” propaganda on Tuesday while speaking at a conference held by a far right Israeli publication.

In remarks on Tuesday, Clinton said that the sentiments among young people following the October 7, 2023, attack are a “serious problem for democracy” in Israel and the U.S. alike, and lamented that Israel has the “worst PR of any group.”

Immediately following the attack, as Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, there was an “organized effort” to spread anti-Israel sentiment, Clinton said — perhaps ignoring Israel’s documented, multi-million dollar propaganda campaign organized with major corporations and the United States government. Speaking of students she taught and engaged with at Columbia University, she said “it was very difficult” to discuss the issue “because they did not know history.”

“They had very little context. And what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided, it was pure propaganda,” Clinton said, later adding that many are watching “short form videos, some of them totally made up.”

Those wishing to target people with Israeli PR should target young people, Clinton said. “It’s not just the usual suspects. It is a lot of young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history, and don’t understand.”

Clinton delivered her remarks in a New York City summit put on by the far right Israeli publication Israel Hayom, whose publisher is Donald Trump megadonor Miriam Adelson. Other speakers included figures like Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz.

Clinton has a long history of taking action to violate Palestinians’ humanity and human rights and repress those in the U.S. who speak out for Palestinian rights. As a senator, she backed numerous pieces of legislation seeking to further entrench Israel’s occupation of Palestine, including a resolution opposing supposed “Terrorism” by Palestinians passed in 2006. That same year, she praised Israel’s bombardments of Lebanon and Gaza, which together killed over a thousand civilians and deepened Israeli control in the regions.

As secretary of state under Barack Obama, she helped to enforce his policy of “no daylight” between Israel and the U.S. And in 2015, amid her failed presidential run, she wrote a letter to AIPAC megadonor Haim Saban condemning the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and seeking his advice on how to “make countering BDS a priority.” Then, in 2016, she gave a speech to AIPAC touting her moves to “deepen America’s ties with Israel.”

Clinton’s assertions about a “generational divide” on Palestine are misleading at best. While polls show that young people are most likely to side with Palestinians and express negative views of Israel and its actions in Gaza, polling has found that every demographic has shifted against Israel since the genocide began. This has led to record lows in Israel’s favorability among Americans.

(www.truthout.org)

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A STORY OF A 1930s UPRISING AGAINST BRITISH COLONIALISM is key to understanding Gaza today

‘Palestine 36’ is a potent reminder that the blueprint for Israel's depraved war crimes in Gaza were laid down by a British empire whose tyranny the Palestinians tried - and failed - to end

by Jonathan Cook

Anyone wondering why the British state and media, despite the latter’s pretension to serve as a watchdog on power, continue to cheerlead Israel’s genocidal slaughter of civilians in Gaza will find the answers in a new film.

It recounts not the current period of history, but a story from nearly 90 years ago.

Palestine 36, directed by the remarkable Palestinian film-maker Annemarie Jacir, illuminates more about the events unfolding for the past two years in Gaza than anything you will read in a British newspaper or watch on the BBC – if, that is, you can find anything at all about Gaza in the news since Donald Trump rebranded the killing and dispossession of Palestinians as a “ceasefire”.

And Palestine 36 does so, unusually for a Palestinian film, with a budget worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster and with a cast that includes names recognisable to western audiences, from Jeremy Irons to Liam Cunningham.

This is a major episode of British colonial history told not through British eyes but, for once, through the eyes of its victims.

The “36” of the title refers to 1936, when Palestinians rose up against British colonial tyranny – more usually, and deceitfully, referred to as a “British Mandate” issued by the League of Nations.

The problem for Palestinians was not just the systematic violence of those three decades of tyranny. It was that Britain’s role as a supposed caretaker of Palestine – an “arbiter of peace” between native Palestinians and mostly Jewish immigrants – served as cover for a much more sinister project.

It was British officials who ushered Jews out of Europe – where they were unwanted by racist governments, including Britain’s – to implant them in Palestine. There, they were actively nurtured as the foot soldiers of a coming “Jewish state” that was supposed to be dependent on Britain and assist in strengthening its imperial, regional agenda.

In effect, an overstretched British empire hoped over time to outsource its colonial role to a “Jewish” fortress state.

Anti-colonial struggle

One of Britain’s top priorities was crushing an Arab nationalism sweeping an area of the Middle East known as the Levant in response to British and French colonial rule.

Arab nationalism was a secular, unifying political ideology that sought to overcome the arbitrary borders imposed by the colonial powers, and strengthen Arab identity in opposition to foreign occupation. It was profoundly anti-colonial, which is why Britain and France were so deeply hostile to it.

The Palestinians were critically important to Arab nationalism because their homeland served as a geographical bridgehead between the powerhouses of Arab nationalism in Lebanon and Syria to the north, and Egypt to the south.

For the British, the impulse for liberation in Palestine had to be snuffed out at all costs. However, the increasing brutality of British despotism simply fed an insurgency that by 1936 solidified into what westerners term a three-year “Arab Revolt” and Palestinians call their very “First Intifada”, or uprising.

Later, there would be years-long, large-scale Palestinian uprisings – this time against Israel’s even more repressive brand of settler colonialism – that erupted in 1987 and again in 2000.

The 1936-39 Revolt grew so large that at its height, according to Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi, Britain briefly had more British soldiers stationed in tiny Palestine than in the whole of India.

This is the story recounted by Palestine 36 – one that British schoolchildren are never taught, and one that the British media never offer as context for today’s crimes in historic Palestine.

Which is why Britons watching the film are likely not only to be shocked by the extent and nature of Britain’s colonial violence but to see in those savage events a premonition of what is now unfolding in Gaza.

War crimes training

There are small sections of the Palestinian solidarity movement quick to condemn Israel’s brutality towards Palestinians as something exceptional, as something peculiar to Israel and its rationalising ideology of Zionism.

Jacir’s film is a potent reminder of how foolish this approach is.

Israel’s current colonial violence is simply a more sophisticated, more hi-tech version of the techniques employed by British colonialism nearly a century ago. The Israeli military learnt from the British – quite literally.

One of the main characters in Palestine 36 is the British officer Orde Wingate, who carried out night raids on Palestinian villages to terrify their inhabitants. Wingate organised punishment squads, comprised of British soldiers and recently arrived Jewish militia members, to conduct these raids.

The training he offered to the Jewish militias in British military colonial strategy and hybrid warfare would later serve as the Israeli military’s playbook.

The death of Wingate in 1944 in a plane crash in Burma was lamented by David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father. He commented that, had Wingate survived, he might have served as Israel’s first military chief of staff.

The film shows Wingate committing routine war crimes: using a Palestinian child as a human shield; rounding up Palestinian women and children to put them in an open-air, barbed-wire camp, depriving them of water in the midday heat; burning Palestinian crops; blowing up a bus of Palestinian men he had arbitrarily detained.

Meanwhile, British colonial police officer Charles Tegart imported into Palestine militarised forts of a type he had earlier devised and constructed across India to put down the uprisings there.

These forts would become the blueprint for Israel’s series of steel and concrete walls and checkpoints that have fragmented historic Palestine, and caged much of the Palestinian population into prisons – including the largest, Gaza.

Watching Palestine 36, it is hard not be reminded – as we see Palestinians ritually humiliated, abused and killed by the British, supposedly to instil obedience – why each Palestinian generation has grown more radicalised and more desperate.

Britain’s vicious, colonial repression of the three-year uprising of 1936 led ultimately to Hamas’ violent one-day jail-break on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s genocidal, colonial rampage in response.

Israel’s genocide will no more pacify this generation of Palestinians than Wingate’s crushing of the Arab Revolt did to an earlier generation. It will simply deepen the wounds – and a collective will to resist.

Ideological zealotry

Importantly, the film also grapples with – if more obliquely – Britain’s contribution to an ideological zealotry usually attributed to Israel.

Wingate’s fervent subjugation of the Palestinian people and his view of them as little more than animals, as well as his passionate attachment to the Jewish people, were rooted in the ideology of Zionism.

All too often overlooked is the fact that Zionism long predates its modern-day incarnation as Jewish nationalism.

Wingate followed in a long tradition of influential European Christian Zionists, who believed that Biblical prophecy would be advanced by “restoring” the Jewish people to their ancient homeland. Only then, in a supposed “end times”, would the stage be set for Christ to return and establish his kingdom on earth.

Lord Balfour – he of the 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine – was another prominent British Christian Zionist.

Today, such views are shared by many tens of millions of Christian evangelicals, who are the support base for US President Trump.

The Palestinian people – many of whom, genetic studies suggest, are descended from the ancient Canaanites living in the region thousands of years ago, and who subsequently converted to Christianity and Islam – were viewed by Christian Zionists like Wingate as little more than an obstacle to the realisation of divine prophecy.

If they would not obey God’s will by clearing themselves out of their own homeland to make way for the Jewish people, then they would have to be forced to do so.

The Zionism of Israelis, as poll after poll shows, has led them in a similar, racist direction to Wingate: large numbers support ethnic cleansing and the genocide of Palestinians.

Social media posts by Israeli soldiers openly revel in their depraved treatment of Gaza’s people.

‘Not fully human’

Which brings us back to the present day.

Film reviews in the British press of Palestine 36 have been, at best, lukewarm. Even the supposedly liberal Guardian damns it as “heartfelt” – as if mollifying a child over a second-rate school essay.

That should not surprise us. The British establishment – just like the US one that took on the mantle of global policeman from Britain after the Second World War – still treats Arab nationalism as a threat.

It still views Israel as a vital colonial outpost. It still regards Palestine as a testing ground for techniques of surveillance and counter-insurgency. It still views the Palestinians as not fully human.

Which is why British Prime Minister Keir Starmer – sounding like a modern version of Wingate, reinvented as a politician – was unabashed in defending Israel’s decision to deprive the people of Gaza, including its one million children, of food, water and power. That is, to starve them in violation of the fundamentals of international law.

It is why Starmer and the British establishment keep shipping arms to Israel and supplying it with the intelligence it has been using to target civilians. It is why Starmer welcomed to Downing Street Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, who rationalised the genocide by stating there were no “uninvolved” civilians in Gaza.

It is why the British army is still training Israeli military officers in the UK, just as Wingate did with their predecessors. And it is why British officers still head to Israel to learn from its genocidal military.

It is why Britain still offers Israel diplomatic protection, and why it has threatened the International Criminal Court for seeking to hold Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to account for committing crimes against humanity in Gaza.

And it is why Starmer and his government have changed the definition of terrorism to criminalise Britons who express opposition to the genocide in Gaza.

The truth is we cannot look to our government, schools or our media to educate us about British colonial history, whether in Palestine or in any of the other places around the globe Britain has tyrannised.

Instead, we must start listening to the victims of our violence, if we are ever to understand not just the past, but the present too.

(jonathancook.substack.com)

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