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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 46F under clear skies this Monday morning on the coast. Clear here at 4am but there are plenty of high & low clouds out there so that could easily change during the day. More of the same thru Saturday then it looks like more rain is on it's way for next week. Naturally I will keep you posted.
CLOUDY and misty conditions for Del Norte and Humboldt counties tonight. Generally dry weather conditions and a warming trend are expected to prevail across NW CA this coming week, with periods of light rain/drizzle for the North Coast. (NWS)
LEAKED TRIBAL MEETING UPENDS ‘TWO-BASIN SOLUTION’: RVIT Attorney Says All Diversions Will End
“There will come a time, when, no matter what happens, the diversions will stop…That will happen for sure.”
by Keely Covello
A recent Round Valley Indian Tribes (RVIT) meeting adds sobering details to a water diversion plan being touted as a replacement for the Potter Valley Project.
RVIT is set to assume all water rights once dams are torn out. Impacted communities in Mendocino and Sonoma counties have been assured they will continue to receive Eel River water diversions.
This meeting suggests otherwise.
“There will come a time when, no matter what happens, the diversions will stop,” said Curtis Berkey, water attorney for RVIT, in the November 22 meeting. “That will happen for sure.”
“The Two-Basin Solution is checkmate. The end of Potter Valley…”
The Potter Valley Project was built over a century ago to generate hydropower and store surplus winter rainwater for the region’s dry summers. The dams in the project divert less than 2% of the flow of the Eel River. This water, which is stored in Lake Pillsbury, would otherwise be lost in the Pacific Ocean. Lake Pillsbury water is released during dry months to Russian River communities as well as back into the Eel River, which also sees low levels during the summer.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has asked the federal government for permission to demolish the dams after years of environmental lawsuits from groups like California Trout (CalTrout) and Trout Unlimited. If Potter Valley dams are removed, over 600,000 people in an agricultural and fire-prone region will lose water.
These communities are being told the so-called Two Basin Solution will ensure a continued water supply. They will be interested to hear that, based on conditions described in the RVIT meeting, groups set to control this water after dam removal appear likely to not only supply no summer water at all, but guarantee the end of all diversions.
“This is what we’re locking ourselves into with this agreement,” says a Potter Valley rancher who asked to remain anonymous. “Why would the feds or anyone else give hundreds of millions of dollars to develop future water storage—raise dams, put in reservoirs—under this agreement? This Two-Basin Solution is checkmate. The end of Potter Valley and beyond.”
RVIT Water Attorney: “Diversions will stop”
About 450 of RVIT’s 5,000 members live on the Round Valley reservation, which sits on the Middle Fork of the Eel River. The tribe claims their water has been stolen by the Potter Valley Project for over 100 years, harming their fisheries.
Berkey said the tribe has had three goals: to turn the Eel River into a “free flowing” river, restore fish populations, and stop water diversions.
“I’m happy to say that we are on the road to achieving those goals,” he told tribal members.
Berkey said PG&E’s decision not to relicense the project presents an “incredible opportunity.” RVIT will lease water rights to a joint powers group called the Eel River Project Authority (ERPA) to supply the thousands of residents who will lose water when dams are taken out. This is marketed as the Two-Basin Solution.
A number of parties came together with RVIT to form the Two-Basin Solution, including Sonoma Water, the Mendocino County Inland Water & Power Commission (IWPC), the California Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW), CalTrout, and Trout Unlimited.
Diversions only in winter, and only in good rain years
While the Two-Basin Solution will allow some water diversions back to the Russian River, Berkey says, this will only happen in winter when flows are already high.
“From 1908 to when this new arrangement goes into place, the only entity in the Russian River basin that paid for Eel River water was the Potter Valley Irrigation District,” said Berkey. “Those days are over. People are going to have to start paying. They’re complaining that they’re not getting as much water as they were before. We can argue about that but the key thing for us—for Round Valley Tribes and others concerned about Eel River fisheries—is, during the summer months when the river is at its lowest flow and you need to keep water in the river so that it doesn’t get too hot for salmon in the river, no diversions can occur. The diversions are only going to happen in the wintertime when the flows are really high and even if they’re not high enough in the wintertime no flows can occur.”
He concedes that RVIT would have preferred to stop all diversions completely, but depicts the agreement as strategic.
“PG&E would not convey its water rights to the Round Valley Indian Tribes unless we had this agreement in place,” he said.
RVIT has the right to review fish impact every five years and stop sending water
Berkey cites another “key condition” for diversions: If the tribe’s scientists conclude sending water to the Russian River is hurting fish in the Eel River, diversions must stop.
Under the agreement, RVIT has the right to assess fish impact every five years.
“If we conclude, we show, that the evidence shows that fish are continuing to decline and not recovering, then those diversions have to stop,” he says. “Diversions will continue, but subject to strict control.”
Potter Valley cattle rancher Matt Delbar says this contradicts what the community was told by IWPC attorney Scott Shapiro at a public workshop held November 25.
“Suggesting that any salmon decrease could lead to the end of the diversion, not just a decrease caused or even correlated to the diversion, this is different than what the IWPC lawyer has to say,” Delbar says.
Casey Burris is another rancher in Potter Valley who feels blindsided by Berkey’s comments.
“We were told if we did not come to an agreement with Round Valley then no diversion would be allowed and Round Valley would control it,” he says. “I did not know that in five years we could lose the entire investment if the fish count goes down. They never told us that. I think they have signed our death warrant.”
Another Potter Valley rancher points out that while Round Valley has an interest in the Middle and North Forks of the Eel River, it is “completely disconnected” from the Upper Eel, where dams are located.
“And it only minimally touches on the Main Branch of the Eel, into which the Upper Eel drains,” he adds. “It has much less involvement in the Upper Eel than a number of other tribes.”
The Potter Valley Tribe recently filed a motion to intervene in dam removal, saying they have been kept out of the conversation entirely. Lake County, where Lake Pillsbury is located, is home to seven federally-recognized tribes and has also been shut out of stakeholder discussions.
RVIT set to receive $1 million per year for water rights
Under this agreement, ERPA will pay the Round Valley Tribes $1 million every year for the duration of the 30-year water lease. There will also be an annual $750,000 restoration payment, which Berkey says will most likely be managed by a “new non-profit.” RVIT will be on its board of directors, he predicts, along with CalTrout, Trout Unlimited, and Humboldt County. River restoration will require a lot of help, Berkey told the group, because the Eel River has been “suffering” since 1908.
A tribal leader assured members the tribe will be paid even if water diversions are cut.
“If there’s years that we don’t get much rain, we go back into a drought, they still have to pay that money to us by contract whether they get [inaudible] water or not,” he said.
“There’s gonna be millions of dollars of money coming in”
“The other big part of this is that, as part of this Two-Basin Solution, there’s gonna be millions of dollars of money coming in to the Eel River Basin for restoration,” Berkey said. “We’re working hard to make sure that your priorities are front and center in that process.”
There have already been grants made. CDFW has awarded $9 million to Eel River restoration.
“Round Valley Indian Tribes are going to be getting—and you can decide how you want to use this—$2.5 million of that.”
Berkey says the rest of the money will be divided between other entities, including NGOs like CalTrout and Trout Unlimited.
Wyatt Smith, a fish biologist and program coordinator for RVIT, followed up with a presentation on how the money could be spent, including a large chunk on “studies” in Potter Valley. One tribal member asked why any money would be spent in Potter Valley.
“This is the beginning of funding, not the end,” Smith responded. “It’s hopefully going to set us up to get a bunch more money.”
Sonoma and Mendocino must raise $25 million in 30 years to keep diversions coming
Berkey says the diversion rules he lists, including five-year assessments, are baked into the Two-Basin Solution.
“If they violate them we can sue them,” he said. “And we will.”
Berkey also informed the group that Sonoma and Mendocino counties must raise and pay $25 million within 30 years in order to keep diversions coming.
“If they don’t raise that money, the diversions stop in 30 years. Period, the end. That’s an absolute condition.”
Berkey added that the Eel River community’s interests are aligned with PG&E’s in “getting those dams out as fast as humanly possible.”
He urged tribal members to submit comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which will decide on PG&E’s dam surrender plan. Berkey dismissed any chance that FERC would require PG&E to keep the dams in place.
“The key thing is, unless Congress steps in—and that’s, you know, in this political climate that’s not completely out of the question—unless Congress steps in, those dams are coming out.”
He thinks that could happen as early as 2031.
Note: The November 22 RVIT meeting was recorded and streamed publicly by an attendee on a Facebook profile, where it remained publicly accessible as of publication. Quotes here are based on our transcription of the video; minor discrepancies may exist due to sound quality or unclear speech.
(americaunwon.com)
TIME TO PREPARE FOR REMOVAL OF SCOTT DAM
Editor:
I lived for a number of years in Wyoming. There is a proposed dam on the Wyoming-Colorado border that would cost $150 million of public money and would benefit 100 irrigators, allowing them an extra hay cutting each year. One farmer was quoted as saying, “We are, at the end of the day, at the mercy of Mother Nature.” Rather than irrigating alfalfa, they are switching to native grass hay to feed their cattle.
The lumber mill industry crashed when it became cheaper to send raw logs to Japan for milling than do it at home. The Midwest factory belt is a hollow shell because of China’s industrial growth. Viticulture — the primary business in Redwood Valley — is facing a similar fate.
The rolling vineyards and the industries supporting them are dependent on a model that developed 100 years ago when Scott Dam was built. The reality that led to the dam’s construction no longer exists. The 100 businesses or so affected by loss of the dam have up to a decade to prepare. Due to shifting priorities, Sonoma County lost most of its apple, pear and plum orchards to vineyards. It may be that Redwood Valley is the canary in the coal mine.
Jeffrey J. Olson
Clearlake Oaks
FIRST DISTRICT SUPERVISOR MADELINE CLINE:
Today was the first meeting of the Mendocino County Public Health Advisory Board! This included an update from the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program.
WIC is a nutrition program that helps mothers and young children eat health. Over 2600 individuals benefit from WIC in Mendocino County. It’s more than an EBT card, it’s also breastfeeding support and referrals to medical providers and other community services. Some of the progress in WIC included more certified lactation specialists including bilingual specialists!
From the website: “The Public Health Advisory Board shall serve as an advisory body to the Board of Supervisors, County Health Officer, and Director of Health Services on matters relating to local Public Health and will provide a structured mechanism for community members to advise the Public Health Department on the efforts to address public health issues affecting the community. The Public Health Advisory Board consists of 9 board member positions, as well as a representative from the Board of Supervisors, the County Health Officer, the Director of Health Services, and a County Public Health Employee.”
It’s a pleasure to represent the Board of Supervisors on the Public Health Advisory Board and see it established with such a well rounded membership.
VIRGINIA SHARKEY: Happy to be chosen for the exhibition entitled ‘H20’ at MONCA (Museum of Northern California Art) in Chico. You can see it now until January 18th. This is an oil painting inspired by Vernal Falls in Yosemite titled Vernal Gold.
SAVE THE SCHOOL STREET TREES
To the Editor:
Thank you for your article concerning the City of Ukiah’s School Street Project (“School Street trees in downtown Ukiah not imperiled. Yet.” 10/31/25). I am writing today to alert the public about a petition to save the trees and the upcoming opportunity for public engagement.
Ukiah is the “City of Trees”, an urban forest that benefits nature and people, providing shade during the summer and glorious color every fall. School Street is especially beautiful and is the cultural heart of the City, with many special events in addition to daily shopping and the weekly farmers’ market.
The City of Ukiah has begun a School Street Multimodal Transportation Corridor Study to consider changes that include traffic flow, bike lanes, sidewalk widening, and accessibility.
It will also consider the removal of trees in order to protect infrastructure. More information is available at https://ghd.mysocialpinpoint.com/school-street-corridor-study/home/.
A petition to save as many trees as possible is available at https://c.org/HYnWVMVqc8, along with an explanation of concerns. At this time, 2,933 people have signed. I have written to City Council, asking them make individual determinations for each tree in the study zone. Removing a tree should be the last option, not the first.
On Thursday, Dec. 11, at 3:45 p.m., there will be a final walking audit along School Street starting at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, 200 South School Street.
That will be followed by a community workshop from 5-7 p.m. at the same location.
Thank you again for keeping the public informed about this important matter.
Dennis O’Brien
Ukiah
MEMORIES OF “THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING! The Russians are Coming!”
by Carol Dominy
“The Russian are Coming! The Russian are Coming!” was filmed on the Mendocino Coast in 1965. As part of the 60th anniversary of this classic cold war comedy, we asked folks who were part of the production to share their stories. Here’s what we learned.
Jone Lemos: I was 10 years old when I had my acting debut as an extra in TRAC. I was there with my three sisters and our mother, Toni Lemos, as part of the “townspeople.” All the townspeople had gathered at the pier on the river to look at the Russian submarine. Suddenly a little boy screamed and we all turned around to see the boy who had climbed up the church tower roof to have a better look at the sub. He had fallen off the roof and was hanging by his belt on the gutter. All the townspeople rushed over to stare up in horror at the little boy (who actually was a adult stunt double). We then watched as the Russians and townsmen joined together to save the little boy. I remember we had to repeat this scene, running from the pier to the church, what seemed like 50 times. After about the third time, I was bored and ready to quit. But all in all, it was a memorable experience and at least we got out of school for a few days!
Ed Sheldon: I saw your FB posting about the movie. Attached is a photo of the house that was built for the movie. My mom, my sister & I were allowed to roam around in the house before filming began. There was food in the refrigerator (Foremost Milk).
Nobody paid attention to 2 teenage kids rattling around. The outside windows were lower than normal; I think this was for the cameras to get a better angle. We were told that the house was burned to the ground.
The prop department "acquired" old wooden fences to be placed around the property. Some pro guy was stacking firewood outside the house. The wood was oak but not the type found near the coast.
Cheryl Phillips Shatto: My uncle Chris was an extra in this film. He was the man in the red and black jacket that helped untie Carl Reiner and the telephone operator after they rolled down the stairs. I always thought it was funny that Uncle Chris was Russian.
Nancy Fereira: There’s an editing mistake in the film. At the end when the Russian sailor is saying goodbye to the girl, people are rushing to boats to escort the submarine. Aunt Addie was wearing a royal blue sweater coat and a white blouse, she has white hair. She goes by in the same direction twice in that scene!
Dana Hall: As far as my favorite memories…
The scene with Jonathan Winters took all day to shoot. They had to set up many different camera angles so in between takes we kids would go outside and sit in the yard. Jonathan would come out and make jokes and draw caricatures to entertain us. Truly a fabulous man.
During the shoot we were told to pay attention while eating our cereal. By the time mid-afternoon came around, the milk in the cereal was…lumpy…that is why I grabbed a brownie to nibble on towards the end.
One more local star, Sid Noyes…I believe he was the only youngster to have a speaking part. When confronted by the Russians he screamed "Maaa!" (if I remember correctly…also he was eating something, maybe a pomegranate. He had sticky stuff on his face.)
It was a great experience…and the best $20 bucks I ever made! The only negative…I was overlooked during the Oscar nominations!
Steve Jordan: This is about Eva Marie Saint, who was in TRAC. I wasn’t, although i really tried to get a part. One day I saw Eva Marie Saint on the street with her two children, and took a photo of them. Eva really wanted the negative of the print, so I very nervously drove up to the hotel in Fort Bragg where she and her kids were staying and gave her the negative. I thought that was the end of it, but I eventually got a letter in the mail from Eva and it included the negative. I was very surprised to get it back, but even more thrilled to have received a letter from her.
(www.kelleyhousemuseum.org)
LOCAL EVENTS (this week)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, December 7, 2025
BRENDA ALCAZAR-TORRES, 27, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
PATRICIA HILLARD, 38, McKinleyville/Ukiah. Stolen vehicle, petty theft, controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.
MATTHEW HOLBERG, 35, Ukiah. Probation revocation, resisting.
JEREMY HOLZ, 51, San Rafael/Ukiah. Under influence.
LAMONT JONES JR., 48, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, battery with serious injury, paraphernalia, probation violation.
AARON KING, 61, Ukiah. Domestic battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun.
LUIS LOPEZ, 39, Willits. Domestic battery, felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, failure to appear.
TIA MEILING, 37, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear.
ANGEL MEJIA, 31, Tracy/Ukiah. Possession of obscene matter of minor in sexual act, employment of minor-marijuana activity, child neglect, parole violation, unspecified offense.
DANIEL NUNEZ-SANCHEZ, 27, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, failure to obey lawful order from peace officer, resisting.
NAEDEAN PARKER, 19, Ukiah. Under influence.
MARCELINO RUIZ-RUIZ, Lakeport/Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance.
MARCELINO RUIZ-TERATOL, 41, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, failure to obey lawful order from peace officer, resisting.
DOMINICK SEVERNS, 24, McKinleyville/Ukiah. Ammo possession by prohibited person.
KAYLEN THOM, 19, Willits. Hit&run with property damage, underage person with blood-alcohol of 0.01% or over.
LAKE SUPERIOR NEVER GIVES UP ITS DEAD
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
There are many things I don’t understand. Some are common, like the mystery of airplanes able to heave their loaded bulk high above the clouds, coming down a million miles away with (almost) never a mishap.
Or communications. How did Morse Code technology work, and after that the telephone? Then came radio and CB radio and iPhones. I could not compose a single coherent sentence explaining any of it.
Or electricity. I’m in my eighth decade and all I know about electricity is how to spell it.
This column touches upon things that don’t make sense. It mostly concerns a fine book called ‘Gales of November’ by John U. Bacon, an account of the Edmund Fitzgerald ship and its sinking in November of 1975.
Unlike electricity, a sunken ship makes (tragic) sense. The book details the treacherous history of sailing and shipping on the Great Lakes by hammering home the argument that the Great Lakes are far more dangerous to sail than the Pacific Ocean, and has the shipwrecks and dead sailors to prove it.
‘Gales of November’ also provides tidbits about the Great Lakes including its collective water mass which, if drained, would cover all of North America and all of South America under water two feet deep.
And: Beneath Lake Huron lies the world’s biggest salt mine.
And: The world’s largest freshwater lake is Lake Superior, and upon it is Isle Royale, an island big enough to contain its own lake with its own island. On that island is another lake with another island inside it, and on that island is another lake with its own island.
Storms on the Great Lakes are infamous, fearsome and frequent. Waves have topped 85 feet and winds can exceed 100 miles per hour. One of the bigger storms in Great Lakes history resulted from warm weather blowing north out of southern California until colliding with an icy Canadian storm on November 10, 1975. Also present at the catastrophe: the Edmund Fitzgerald.
At ship’s helm was a longtime veteran known as the most knowledgeable and experienced navigator on the Great Lakes, Captain Ernest McSorley. He’d announced his retirement weeks earlier, and said this would be his final voyage. It was. And also for 28 crew members.
The ship, 729 feet long, was Detroit-bound, carrying 29,000 tons of iron ore. It sank in Lake Superior 17 miles off Whitefish Bay and came to rest 530 feet below the surface.
And this is what I don’t understand:
Why, when a ship at sea or large lake goes down, is it instantly and forever termed a “watery grave” and off-limits to retrieving bodies? By contrast if an airplane crashes into a mountain or a train rolls off a bridge or six buses go over six cliffs in Peru, the dead are identified, their families notified and given proper burials or cremations.
But not drowned sailors or common citizens. Go down with the ship and suddenly a chorus insists the broken boat and all the drowned bodies must lie undisturbed.
Forever. Or until pirates and looters find the pieces of boats and victims and make off with souvenirs and jewelry.
Following a plane wreck or car wreck the deceased are treated differently. Their survivors are able to recover precious mementos (grandpa’s gold watch, the $64,000 in mom’s leather purse) but if submerged underwater, must lie forever ‘neath the icy waves until a whale comes along and eats everything including the ship’s brass bell.
Ahh, the brass bell. When a proposal to bring the Edmund Fitzgerald’s bell up and mounted in Michigan’s Great Lakes Sailing Museum there came predictable cries of “watery grave!” and complaints the dead must be left undisturbed. After more than 20 years of wrangling the bell was retrieved and is on display at the museum.
A replica of a bell was taken to the bottom of Lake Superior and affixed among the sunken wreckage, allowing the beloved Myopic Mackerel of Lake Michigan to enjoy their murky reflection in the brass bell shell. I doubt the new bell brought joy to the dead sailors, but at least they have their watery grave.
Is there another road to death that results in a corpse being denied the dignity of a burial where family might solemnly gather? Suicide? Firing squad? Buried alive? None come to mind.
Oh wait! Now I remember: Electricity is a form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles (such as electrons or protons) either statically as an accumulation of charge, or dynamically as a current.
(Tommy Wayne Kramer reminds his many readers that it’s the holiday season and the ideal time to reward local op-ed writers with gratuities to show your appreciation. Remember, as Tom Hine often says, you can judge a society by how it treats it columnists.)
KALI YUGA
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Taking Spiritually Sourced Direct Action
Considering the dire situation on the planet earth in every category, it is up to those of us who can, to take spiritually sourced direct action. There is no other remedy to the abominable circumstances of global ecology and the dangerous mess that civil society has become. Materialistic to the point of insanity, ignorant of one's true nature, and just plain lost in a psychotic fantasy. Welcome to the dark phase of the Kali Yuga as it segues into the Satya Yuga.
I am eager to leave the homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. and go where I need to go and do what I need to do. I have already shared the details of my financial, health, and general condition. My goal at this point is to realize a spiritually sourced direct action group, which means the body-mind complex utilized by the Absolute, or the Dao, or the Goddess. This is the way to manage the movement of the Kali Yuga into the Satya Yuga, or age of truth and light.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
BUSTING MY MOVE
by Paul Modic
I had planned for days, weeks, months and years, thinking I was going to go live on facebook or somewhere, but hadn’t thought about live in person until I decided to try it out at the open mic in Garberville last spring. Then the open mic fizzled out after three times and I was back rockin’ in the living room.
After years of development I cut it down from fifty-eight seconds to nineteen, my stoned dream being to start an ap or something where I and fellow enthusiasts could maybe meet online for a dance greeting. (Why you may ask, to which I say why not?)
I was aiming for the first Saturday act at Summer Arts where my friends’ band was opening the festival at 10:30 at the Community Park. I parked by the Kimtu skate ramp and got my props together, putting on my hat and sticking my senior grabber into my belt like a sword, and walked forty minutes to the site. (Though I slipped in the back way I quickly found the admissions tent and paid my $30.)
“Bottoms Up” started playing, with influencer and lead singer Kate Nicole, while I sat under the big tent talking to David Katz and Bruce Champie. I was hesitant to get up in front of the band but I had to do it, had to see what it felt like, I’d waited long enough.
David glanced at my grabber and said, “Why do you have that, going to pick up some litter?”
“No, it’s a prop for busting my dance move,” I said.
Was I really afraid to get up there, after all these years of boogies? Finally I lurched out of my seat toward the stage, cold sober, and busted my move with arms in the air and a smile on my face. (That will probably be my highlight of the year.)
DIABLO CANYON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IS NOT NEEDED AND POSES RISKS. WHY KEEP IT OPEN?
Editor,
While Gov. Gavin Newsom stepped on the world stage of the climate change battle at the United Nations COP30 conference, we ask that he end the damage being done in California at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant in San Luis Obispo County.
Diablo Canyon heats the ocean with its once-through cooling system, which has since been banned for new facilities because of the tremendous damage it causes.
According to a report from the California Coastal Commission: Diablo Canyon’s cooling system draws in 2.5 billion gallons of seawater a day and discharges it to the ocean 20 degrees warmer. The marine life sucked in and killed each year by the cooling water is equivalent to what is found in 9,300 acres of nearshore waters.
Also, accumulating radioactive waste on an active earthquake fault is dangerous.
Thankfully, Newsom has accelerated renewable energy production so much that the California Energy Commission found that the state’s system is over-reliable, even without Diablo Canyon.
Now, Newsom must shut down Diablo Canyon and prove what he stated last month at COP30, “that a safer, more sustainable world is possible — one degree cooler at a time.”
Linda Parks, board member, Environmental Defense Center,
Los Osos, San Luis Obispo County
PARDONS FOR CRIMINALS
Editor:
I had wondered how the current president selected the people he thought deserved to be pardoned. We saw pardons for those who physically attacked our legislative houses, which seemed unjust. But he was just getting started. The list of convicted criminals pardoned because they were his supporters is long, and it’s being added to every day.
But now we know that there is nobody too evil or too hostile to our country to receive this gift. Juan Orlando Hernandez, the convicted ex-president of Honduras who boasted of inundating our country with drugs, is now a free man coming in safely to reside here — courtesy of the convicted current president of the United States, all this while non-criminal residents of our country are being abducted and sent to faraway prisons.
We must be careful. It seems no one is safe from his “generosity.”
Patricia F. Clothier
Santa Rosa
CALIFORNIA IS RELEASING VIOLENT MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE INTO COMMUNITIES. IT’S WORSE THAN YOU COULD IMAGINE
(SF Chronicle Editorial)
How did San Francisco’s most notorious serial harasser, Bill Gene Hobbs, wind up back on city streets, free to slide — seemingly unsupervised — into his old ways after brief stints in jail, prison and a state mental hospital?
The answer starts with 13 words:
“Hopefully, he is telling us the truth, and he will take his medication.”
San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Barry LaBarbera spoke those words in March when he ordered that Hobbs be released from Atascadero State Hospital, where Hobbs was serving parole after being sentenced to 5½ years in jail and prison for grabbing, groping, forcibly kissing and chasing more than a dozen known victims.
Three psychologists testified about Hobbs’ condition. They all agreed that Hobbs had a serious mental health disorder that was not in remission. Two further testified that Hobbs represented “a substantial danger of physical harm to others.”
Yet despite noting that Hobbs showed “little insight” into his disorder and that there “is certainly an argument that he represents a substantial danger” to the public, LaBarbera was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Hobbs met the criteria required by state law to remain in the state hospital, so he had to be released.
Unsurprisingly, this didn’t end well.
In late October, Chronicle reporters witnessed Hobbs, in an erratic and agitated state, harassing women in San Francisco’s Duboce Triangle neighborhood. He was arrested soon after for alleged parole violations.
City residents were left dumbstruck and frustrated. How was a known serial groper with “EVIL” tattooed across his fingers so quickly back on the streets, seemingly no better than when he left?
Officials offered little explanation beyond stating that Hobbs had served his full prison sentence and had been paroled to the community after a brief stint in Atascadero.
To understand what went wrong, the editorial board obtained court documents, reported here for the first time, that not only reveal the nature of Hobbs’ condition, but also expose stunning gaps in state law that governs the treatment of violent offenders with severe mental illness.
“Hopefully … he will take his medication” aren’t just the words of an overly credulous judge; they effectively represent state policy.
California law doesn’t just permit offenders with violent histories to be released from mental hospitals despite still being severely ill and potentially dangerous. In some cases, it requires this to happen. And the state has few protocols to ensure these individuals, once released, safely reenter society — leaving local communities to suffer the consequences.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. In 2023, exactly one week after his release from Atascadero after a court found he was no longer eligible for involuntary confinement, a man named Fook Poy Lai was accused of stabbing a Chinatown worker in the neck. Lai is currently in a state hospital after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Our coverage of Lai’s case prompted a change to California law that gave the state and counties more time to coordinate comprehensive plans for individuals released from state mental hospitals.
But Hobbs’ case shows that more robust changes are needed to the legal framework that governs violent offenders with serious mental illness. And it suggests that the state needs to take a more central role in caring for the hardest-to-treat and most dangerous individuals.
As the end of Hobbs’ prison sentence neared, state doctors determined that he met the criteria required by state law to be considered an “Offender with a Mental Health Disorder” and could be forced to serve his parole in a state hospital instead of being released to the community. He was sent to Atascadero on Nov. 3, 2024.
Although California lawmakers disincentivized indefinite involuntary confinement and created stronger protections for civil liberties after the cruel warehousing of mentally ill people during the era of mass institutionalization, there are still multiple ways a person can wind up being involuntarily treated by the state.
Many offenders enter a state hospital from the criminal justice system after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity. But in this editorial, we’ll exclusively focus on the statutes and practices that govern Offenders with a Mental Health Disorder who are paroled to a state hospital from prison.
There are six criteria to be considered an Offender with a Mental Health Disorder, and they manage to be dense and vague at the same time:
1) The prisoner has a severe mental health disorder that, among other things, “substantially impairs” their thoughts, perception of reality or judgment, 2) has been sentenced to a potentially qualifying crime, 3) their mental illness was a cause of or aggravating factor in that crime, 4) their disorder is not in remission or can’t be kept in remission without treatment, 5) the prisoner has been treated for that disorder for at least 90 days within the year before parole, and 6) because of the disorder, the prisoner represents a substantial danger of physical harm to others.
In its most recent budget projections, the California Department of State Hospitals estimates that 1,033 people who meet these criteria will be in its hospitals by June 30, 2026 — out of a total state hospital population of 5,772.
Offenders have the right to appeal this classification, and if the state prison department’s Board of Parole Hearings upholds it, they can take their appeal to a court.
If the court finds someone doesn’t meet even one of the six criteria, the law says they must be released within 30 days.
On Feb. 6, Hobbs filed an appeal in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court. He also waived his right to a jury trial — meaning that a judge would decide whether he needed to stay in the state hospital or could be released.
The 67-page transcript of Hobbs’ March 18 trial features testimony from three psychologists — including two who initially evaluated Hobbs for his state hospital placement.
The psychologists and Hobbs himself testified that he suffers from bipolar 1 disorder with “psychotic features,” which the doctors said can manifest in episodes of high energy and mania, poor judgment, poor impulse control, grandiose illusions and hypersexuality.
When Hobbs entered the state hospital, he “presented as manic, as evidenced by his racing thoughts, thought disorganization, and speaking about grandiose and hyper-religious topics,” psychologist Roxanne Rassti testified.
During Hobbs’ first few months in the hospital, the psychologists testified, he refused to take his prescribed medications — Zyprexa, an antipsychotic drug, and lithium, a mood stabilizer that helps treat manic episodes — because he didn’t yet believe he had a mental illness.
Hobbs was ultimately placed on an involuntary medication order. Forced to take his meds, his symptoms began to improve by early December 2024, Rassti said, but were persistent enough that his dosage was upped on Jan. 28.
Nevertheless, when Rassti interviewed Hobbs in February, she found he still “presented as hypomanic.” Rastti recounted to the court that Hobbs “went to his room three times during the course of our interview to grab materials, one of which was a large bag full of at least 10 notebooks” with “disorganized writings and concepts of a grandiose nature,” such as “his own idea for a neighborhood watch.”
Rassti and the other psychologists, Charles Silverstein and Alexis Vosburg, agreed that Hobbs still met five of the six criteria to be considered an Offender with a Mental Health Disorder, including that his symptoms were not in remission.
But they disagreed on the sixth: whether Hobbs represented “a substantial danger of physical harm to others.”
The sticking point: the meaning of “physical harm.”
Silverstein, who interviewed Hobbs on Sept. 24, 2024, testified that Hobbs did present a danger of physical harm because “he put hands on (his victims) and restrained them.”
Hobbs, Silverstein added, was “at much higher risk of engaging in violent behavior in the future” because he refused to take his medications, had a “poor history of complying with conditions of supervised release” and had a history of illicit substance use.
Vosburg, who interviewed Hobbs on Aug. 28, 2024, also testified that “restraining somebody,” the crime that sent Hobbs to prison, “would be considered some type of a physical injury.” She added that she believed Hobbs met the sixth criterion because he showed “no insight into his mental illness” and told her he didn’t plan to continue mental health treatment once released.
“I believe that his poor judgment and his hypersexuality places him at risk (of reoffending) if he is not taking his psychotropic medication and in treatment,” Vosburg said.
Rassti, however, disagreed.
Hobbs, she argued, did not display the three main characteristics that she said research shows are associated with violent sexual offenders: a “pattern of escalating physical violence or predatory intent,” “fixating on victims” and engaging in “prolonged stalking behavior.”
Rassti acknowledged that “he caused great psychological and emotional harm to the victims.” But, she said, the law specifies “physical harm,” and despite his convictions for battery, sexual battery and assault and felony false imprisonment, “there is no evidence Mr. Hobbs has ever physically harmed another person.”
This flies in the face of how many people think about sexual assault. But the law is vague enough about the meaning of “physical harm” to allow for such analysis.
In his testimony, Hobbs admitted that he had done some “inappropriate” things: “I grabbed those two girls’ butts,” he said.
But he seemed to see nothing wrong with the rest of his behavior: “Everything else was normal social interactions.” He also repeatedly denied picking up the woman and carrying her for a block — the crime that sent him to prison. “I did not pick that girl up and move her. I never did that,” Hobbs said. “I was never even there. I never met that lady.”
This failure to acknowledge his crimes should have raised red flags for the court. Equally concerning, given the severity of Hobbs’ condition, was his game plan for what he would do if released: He said he planned to find a part-time job and earn an associate’s degree at City College of San Francisco while living in parole housing and going to Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to “continue a life of sobriety.”
While these are fine long-term goals, Dr. Robert Okin, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at UCSF School of Medicine and the former chief of psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital, told us someone with Hobbs’ condition almost certainly wouldn’t be ready for such challenges and would need “to be monitored daily, including his medication compliance … until he had demonstrated that he intended to follow these plans. Otherwise, the consequences could only be disastrous, as they proved to be.”
Hobbs did pledge “to continue taking my medication for the rest of my life,” even though he’d repeatedly failed to do so in the past — which, he admitted, had caused a “return of the mania.”
Sean Baird, a San Luis Obispo County deputy district attorney, conceded that “it seems Mr. Hobbs has made some significant improvement.” However, he said, much of this improvement seemed to come after the Jan. 16 Board of Parole Hearings date — and state law prohibits consideration of evidence past this date.
Ultimately, though, the crux of Hobbs’ case “comes down to physical harm,” Baird said. “Dr. Rassti’s interpreting it to mean injury. That is not what the statute says.”
Hobbs’ defense lawyer, James Royer, argued that Rassti was “the most credible” because she’d spoken to Hobbs most recently and appeared to be the only one who’d spoken with his treatment team and reviewed his state hospital records. He added that the other psychologists “equated physical harm with psychological harm.”
This clearly resonated with Judge LaBarbera, who said that he found Rassti’s opinion “the most persuasive.” He added, “I respect her opinion because I’ve heard her opinions many, many times.”
Hobbs’ testimony was “persuasive,” the judge said, because he recognized his mental health disorder and “started to realize what the medications do for him.”
LaBarbera acknowledged that at the time of the Board of Parole Hearings decision, Hobbs’ mental disorder was not in remission, he had “little insight” into his condition, and that he could pose a “substantial danger.” But the judge voiced doubt as to whether Hobbs met all six criteria beyond a reasonable doubt — and granted Hobbs’ release.
“Hopefully … he’ll engage in services, he’ll be taking classes, substance abuse treatment, et cetera,” LaBarbera concluded. “Hopefully, he is to be trusted to do that.”
We still don’t know where exactly Hobbs went after his release from Atascadero — or the terms and conditions of his parole — when he returned to San Francisco on April 7. Officials from the district attorney’s office, public defender’s office, parole office, state prison department and state hospital department declined to provide details, citing privacy laws.
Upon Hobbs’ release from Atascadero, “there was a comprehensive parole plan to address his reentry needs, including housing,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in an unsigned Oct. 30 statement.
But releasing an individual who still had severe mental health needs by invoking thoughts and prayers wasn’t an auspicious start.
“You can’t make a decision on whether to discharge a patient based on hope,” Dr. Okin told the editorial board. “That would be like if you have cancer, and you say, ‘Well, I hope it goes away.’”
Okin, who reviewed the transcripts at the editorial board’s request, found it disconcerting that LaBarbera was swayed by Rassti’s opinion. He argued Rassti — who declined to comment for this editorial — came up “with her own criterion” as to whether Hobbs posed a substantial risk of physical harm to others.
“She came up with this theory that the thing that required him to stay in the hospital would have been whether he showed predatory sexual behavior, i.e. an obsessive focus on and tracking of the women that he harassed,” Okin said. But those factors are “nowhere in the statute.”
Furthermore, Rassti’s assertion that Hobbs wasn’t displaying those behaviors seems to be inaccurate. Hobbs was once arrested for allegedly stalking a 15-year-old. Two years later, he allegedly showed up at the teen’s baseball practice. Another woman told the Chronicle in 2023 that a man she believes was Hobbs followed her on two separate occasions.
Rassti may not have been aware of these incidents, given that many were wiped from Hobbs’ record due to judges dismissing multiple cases.
Nevertheless, it’s problematic that the vagueness of the criteria in California’s Offender with a Mental Health Disorder statute allows such subjective analysis to govern the release of dangerous individuals.
The phrase “substantial risk of physical harm,” for example, is not clearly defined — although the statute notes it “does not require proof of a recent overt act.” This suggests that an offender doesn’t need to have, say, bludgeoned someone over the head to pose a substantial risk to public safety — which weakens Rassti’s contention that Hobbs wasn’t a public safety threat.
Still, the lack of clearer guidelines means 10 different psychologists could interpret that phrase in 10 different ways — leaving judges, who are not medical professionals, to make decisions based on rhetoric and gut feelings.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Research shows that evidence-based, standardized tools can more accurately gauge a person’s risk of committing violent or sexual offenses than a clinician’s unstructured judgment — their overall impression of a patient — Alex Yufik, a California-based board-certified forensic psychologist, told the editorial board.
Yufik, who also reviewed the transcripts at our request, noted that Silverstein and Vosburg appeared to be using unstructured judgment to appraise Hobbs’ risk. Rassti did identify specific risk factors, but it’s not clear how she chose them. Yufik said they aren’t included in the manual that forensic psychologists typically use to assess a patient’s sexual violence risk.
“You really should use an evidence-based practice,” Yufik said. “I didn’t see that, from my perspective, in the transcript.”
Mandating that psychologists use a standardized tool to assess risk in cases like Hobbs’ would likely be highly controversial. The state Legislature historically has been reluctant to dictate how medical professionals should do their jobs, and these tools can have their own biases and blind spots.
Yet there is precedent: California has long used an actuarial risk prediction tool known as Static-99R for adult male sexually violent predators. A 2022 study found that the tool resulted in consistent and reliable evaluations.
In an unsigned statement, the California Department of State Hospitals confirmed “there is no standardized tool” to determine whether prisoners pose a substantial risk of physical harm to others. However, the department said, “evaluators do use and consider relevant research-established violence risk factors in their assessment,” such as episodes of mental-illness-related violence, mental-illness symptoms known to be linked to violence and a history of treatment noncompliance.
Yet California legislators can’t continue to leave evidence-based analyses to chance involving decisions over releasing potentially dangerous individuals. They should specify standardized risk factors that psychologists and judges must consider when evaluating cases like Hobbs’.
It’s also incumbent on the state to devise more reasonable and holistic release protocols.
Many Californians might assume that state hospitals are required to at least outwardly stabilize patients with severe mental illness and histories of violence before releasing them. But this isn’t always true.
At the time of his release, Hobbs met five of the six criteria required to serve his parole in a state hospital, while experts argued over the sixth. This indicated he still had severe mental health needs that demanded a rigorous step-down plan.
The Department of State Hospitals told us that when patients are decertified as Offenders with a Mental Health Disorder, their treatment unit meets weekly with parole officials to share advice about patients’ clinical needs and recommended support. Thanks to changes in state law sparked by our reporting on the Lai case, courts can require these agencies to return to court to ensure they’ve coordinated a comprehensive release plan.
That’s better than nothing. But in the eyes of the state, you’re either an Offender with a Mental Health Disorder or you aren’t. And if you aren’t, you are largely treated like any other parolee.
An individual’s parole terms — which are set by the state prison department’s Board of Parole Hearings — can include requirements such as mental-health treatment and medication. And a behavioral health reintegration unit is embedded in each parole office, ensuring parolees have access to licensed social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists. But parole officers are legally prohibited from forcibly administering medication or requiring someone to take prescribed medication — meaning there is very little recourse if a parolee with a history of severe mental illness and violence stops taking their medication against a doctor’s orders.
This is especially concerning because, as experts told us, patients with these conditions likely need medication for life. And while maintaining a consistent regimen could allow many of these individuals to live normal lives — even those with violent pasts — falling off medication almost certainly leads to relapsing.
Medication alone isn’t enough. A patient like Hobbs would be best served by entering a facility less restrictive than a state hospital but far more structured than, say, a halfway house, Dr. Okin told us.
“That converts the decision to discharge him from hope to evidence,” Okin said.
Yet judges lack the ability to compel patients to be released to an appropriate environment. Nor does the state have any formal step-down requirements for patients who have successfully appealed their classification as an Offender with a Mental Health Disorder — short of recommending that the patient be placed under a conservatorship or referred to CARE Court.
As a result, offenders like Hobbs are often released to locations unprepared to handle them.
In San Francisco, many parolees wind up in facilities that aren’t “particularly equipped to serve people with severe mental illness and limited insight into their health conditions,” Charlie Berman, a San Francisco social worker serving clients with severe mental illness, told the editorial board.
Lai, for example, was released directly from a state mental hospital to the Potter Hotel, a single-room-occupancy hotel with no onsite services in the South of Market neighborhood, before being moved to 111 Taylor, a halfway house in the Tenderloin.
California broadly lacks enough beds to effectively and humanely treat individuals like Lai and Hobbs.
Studies from the nonpartisan Rand Corp., the state auditor and the California Department of Health Care Services have found that a specific subset of severely mentally ill people — those with criminal records and complex co-occurring conditions — is creating disproportionate bottlenecks in California’s behavioral health system. In a 2022 state assessment, 58% of California’s counties said mental health providers were unwilling to accept people with felony convictions.
Even the $6.4 billion investment from Proposition 1, which voters approved in 2024 to build behavioral health facilities at all levels of care, is unlikely to meet the demand.
This means that many individuals like Hobbs are all but certain to deteriorate quickly upon their release from a state hospital — effectively canceling out the resources and time spent stabilizing them.
“There has to be a way where he can be discharged safely, so that he is safe as well as the community being safe,” Okin said. But the state’s current process “operates on the basis of trust and hope.”
California is fully aware that its current approach is failing — and that more effective alternatives exist.
A July 2024 report by the Department of State Hospitals found that offenders who were released from state hospitals from 2012 through 2017 and entered a state-run conditional release program known as CONREP “consistently” and “significantly” demonstrated lower recidivism rates than those released directly into the community.
State hospital medical directors recommend Offenders with a Mental Health Disorder for CONREP if it’s determined they can be safely treated in the community. To participate, patients must agree to follow a court-approved treatment plan, which can include involuntary medication. Housing placement and intensity of services depend on the severity of needs. Failure to follow the plan can result in the patient being returned to the state hospital.
The disparity in outcomes between this approach and direct release is shocking.
Within one year of exiting the state hospital, those directly released into the community had a recidivism rate of more than 21%, compared to about 3% for those released under CONREP, the report shows. Within five years of exiting the state hospital, the recidivism rate for those released under CONREP was less than 10%, compared with nearly 50% for those directly released into the community.
CONREP is far from perfect. Civil libertarians have raised concerns that it can trap people in legal limbo for decades. And enhanced supervision can be moot if patients aren’t released to appropriate step-down facilities — as was the case last year in San Diego, where a man deemed to be a sexually violent predator was released as a transient under CONREP after officials struggled to find a suitable placement for him.
Yet it’s hard to dispute that CONREP, while flawed, has far better outcomes than direct community release. The state itself appears to acknowledge this in the 2024 report, noting that “expanded access to CONREP programs would reduce recidivism for patients discharged from the state hospitals overall.”
By “easing CONREP release criteria,” the report continued, the state hospital system could “place the patients most vulnerable to rearrest and most in need of services into CONREP, rather than directly into the community through courts or other means.”
That’s encouraging. But, as Dr. Okin told us, expanding CONREP eligibility alone won’t solve the problem, absent a significant expansion in housing, community placements and treatment resources.
“What is needed is a state-mandated or operated clinical step-down continuum — staffed, funded and empowered to treat the people who are too ill for simple release but do not meet the full statutory criteria for (Offender with a Mental Health Disorder) commitment,” Okin said.
The Department of State Hospitals told us in a statement that while it does not comment on potential or pending legislation, that doesn’t mean it isn’t “participating in, or advocating for, further improvements in treatment models or systems of care.” The department noted that it received funding in the 2021 state budget to establish new settings for CONREP patients who are discharged from state hospitals but need higher levels of care than the program typically provides.
But it still wouldn’t benefit someone like Hobbs. Once the court determined he wasn’t an Offender with a Mental Health Disorder, he would no longer be eligible for CONREP under current laws.
For the moment, Hobbs is no longer in San Francisco. After being arrested on two alleged parole violations — for missing a mental-health treatment program meeting and failing to fully charge his GPS monitoring device — his parole was administratively revoked on Oct. 30, court records show. On Nov. 10, “parole arranged to have his supervision transferred out of San Francisco to another jurisdiction, where Mr. Hobbs could be closer to his support system,” the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
The state parole office declined to comment to the Chronicle on the terms of Hobbs’ supervision, but it seems likely that Hobbs is in Bakersfield, where his mother lives and where he reportedly first went after being released from the state hospital.
Hobbs is still under the supervision of parole agents in San Francisco, however, and will presumably have to return to the city regularly for court appearances.
(sfchronicle.com)
“WHY KID OURSELVES, people have nothing to say to one another, they all talk about their own troubles and nothing else. Each man for himself, the earth for us all. They try to unload their unhappiness on someone else when making love, they do their damnedest, but it doesn't work, they keep it all, and then they start all over again, trying to find a place for it. "Your pretty, Mademoiselle," they say. And life takes hold of them again until the next time, and then they try the same little gimmick. "You're very pretty, Mademoiselle…" And in between they boast that they've succeeded in getting rid of their unhappiness, but everyone knows it's not true and they've simply kept it all to themselves. Since at the little game you get uglier and more repulsive as you grow older, you can't hope to hide your unhappiness, your bankruptcy, any longer. In the end your features are marked with that hideous grimace that takes twenty, thrity years or more to climb form your belly to your face. That's all a man is good for, that and no more, a grimace that he takes a whole lifetime to compose. The grimace a man would need to express his true soul without losing any of it is so heavy and complicated that he doesn't always succeed in completing it.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Celine
THE BALL POEM
What is the boy now, who has lost his ball.
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street,
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight.
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
— John Berryman (1941)
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #1
Well, sheeit… I declared a couple of days ago I was going to disengage from current events, but I guess I'm too much in love with the sound of my own vaporings to shut up for more than a couple of days. I really mean it this time. I'm going silent. That's my Christmas gift to you all.
LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT
Supreme Court to Hear Major Test of Trump’s Power to Fire Officials
Conservative Project at Supreme Court Meets Trump’s Push to Oust Officials
Running Out of Time, Republicans in Congress Still Lack a Health Plan
Bipartisan House Group Proposes Long-Shot Health Care Plan
Poll Suggests G.O.P. Will Face More Blame if Obamacare Subsidies Go Away
States Are Raking In Billions From Slot Machines on Your Phone
Outdoor Concerts? Uncovered Hair? Shimmying in Public? Is This Iran?
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY #2
Jesus…So the survivors were just trying to signal for help and clinging to the wreckage to avoid drowning but they killed them anyway. Supposedly the boat was headed to a mother ship that they decided to not bother with. So if they have all this intel why are they not waiting and boarding the mother ship? A ship unlike the boat strike boat, that could reach the U.S. Are we great yet?
TRUMP’S HENCHMEN KEEP CALLING THEIR WAR SLUT PRESIDENT A PEACEMAKER
by Caitlin Johnstone
The US State Department has renamed the US Institute of Peace the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace, proclaiming that it did so “to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.”
“President Trump will be remembered by history as the President of Peace,” tweeted Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the announcement.
Earlier this year the president’s intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard made a similar social media post, tweeting that “President Trump IS the President of Peace. He is ending bloodshed across the world and will deliver lasting peace in the Middle East.”
This would be the same President Trump who has bombed Somalia more times in the last year than presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama did in their combined twelve years in office.
The same President Trump who is bombing boats in the Caribbean and openly ramping up for a disastrous regime change military intervention in Venezuela at this very moment, with his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs declaring that Americans can expect a coming war “in our neighborhood”.
The same President Trump who has spent an entire year pouring weapons into the horrific US proxy war in Ukraine despite promising throughout his entire campaign to end the conflict on day one.
The same President Trump who helped Israel incinerate Gaza for months before suckering the world with a fake “ceasefire” deal which as of this writing has seen at least 373 Palestinians murdered by Israel in just two months since taking effect, while a nightmarish surveillance system is constructed around the survivors.
The same President Trump who risked a horrifying escalation in the middle east by bombing Iran.
The same President Trump who slaughtered hundreds of civilians in his murderous bombing campaign in Yemen earlier this year.
The same President Trump who spent all year ignoring the UAE-backed genocide in Sudan until he was given a nudge by none other genocidal Saudi tyrant Mohammed bin Salman.
The same President Trump who spent his entire first term advancing the longstanding agendas of warmongering DC swamp monsters by starving Venezuela, backing Saudi Arabia’s genocidal atrocities in Yemen, ramping up cold war escalations against Russia which paved the way to the conflict in Ukraine, imprisoning Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, staging brutal regime change ops in Iran, occupying Syrian oil fields with the goal of facilitating regime change, assassinating General Soleimani, and expanding the US murder machine around the world.
This rhetoric about Trump being the “President of Peace” is just that: rhetoric. It’s words. This administration has been taking credit for resolving a bunch of conflicts it either made up, didn’t help resolve, or was an active belligerent in, while in actual reality turning the gears of the imperial war machine as rapidly as any other president the United States has ever had.
Trump campaigned on being a president of peace and continues to stake his personal reputation on big talk about peacemaking, but in terms of concrete action he’s just as much of a warmonger as the psychopaths who came before him.
There is no basis to continue to support Trump if you are opposed to war. You can support him because he “triggers the libs” or “fights wokeness” or whatever other dopey culture war reason you want if that’s what you’re into, because he absolutely does feed into that nonsense. But if you support him because you think he’s making peace, draining the swamp, or sticking up for the little guy, you’re just plain delusional.
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
GENERIC BLUES
I woke up this morning
Then I went back to bed
Said I woke up this morning
Then I went right back to bed
Got a funny kind of feelin' like I got broken glass in my underwear
And a herd of wild pigs is trying to chew off my head
You know what I'm sayin'
Well I ain't got not money
I'm just walkin' down the road
Said I ain't got no money, honey
So I'm just walking down this lonely old road
Well, I wish I could get me some money
But I forgot my automated teller code
I was born in a paper sack in the bottom of a sewer
I had to eat dirt clods for breakfast, my family was so poor
My daddy was a waitress, my mama sold bathroom tiles
My brothers and sisters all hated me 'cause I was an only child
I got the blues so bad, woo
Kinda wish I was dead
Maybe I'll blow my brains out mama
Or maybe I'll, yeah maybe I'll just go bowlin' instead
I'm just a no good, scum sucking, nose picking, boot licking,
Sniveling, groveling, worthless hunk of slime
Nothing but a low-down beer bellied, bone headed, pigeon toed,
Turkey necked, weasel faced, worthless hunk of slime
Guess I pretty low self image
Maybe it's a chemical imbalance or something, I
I should probably go and see a doctor about it when I've got the time
Make it talk
Aw, make it talk, son, make it talk
OK, now make it shut up
Plagues and famine and pestilence always seem to get me down
I always feel so miserable whenever I'm around
I wish somebody would come along, stick a pitchfork through my brain
I'd flush myself right down the toilet, but I'd just clog up the drain
I got the blues so bad
Kinda wish I was dead
Maybe I'll blow my brains out mama
Or maybe I'll go bowling
Or I just might go bowling
Maybe I'll just rent some shoes and go bowling
Maybe I'll join a league, enter a tournament, put on a stupid looking
Shirt and go bowling instead
— "Weird Al" Yankovic (1989)
ENTRANCE
Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.
— Rainer Maria Rilke (1901)
Good morning, ☃️🎄
Releasing people with Serious Mental Illness;
I think something important is missing in this entire editorial. The headline itself guarantees fear before anyone even reads a word. It paints all mentally ill people as violent and dangerous when the truth is that violence is not the norm and most people with serious mental illness are far more vulnerable than they are threatening. Starting a conversation with fear sets the tone for stigma.
Inside the article, they describe anosognosia again and again with phrases like no insight and does not believe he is sick, but they never name it. When you do not name the actual medical condition, you turn a neurological symptom into a personal failing. That alone creates stigma.
They also keep calling bipolar I with psychotic features a mental health disorder when it is a serious mental illness and a brain illness that does not simply go away. Using softer language downplays the severity and leaves people thinking this is the same as anxiety or mood struggles. It is not. This level of illness affects judgment, impulse control, and the ability to understand that help is even needed.
And here is something I have said many times over the years. When someone has dementia or Alzheimer’s, which are also neurological brain illnesses, we automatically supervise them and build structure around them because we understand the illness will continue. No one expects insight or perfect judgment from an eighty year old with Alzheimer’s. We adjust the world around them. We protect them. We help them.
But when someone has a serious mental illness at age twenty, thirty or forty, suddenly the expectations flip. Now they are supposed to recognize their symptoms, take their medication on schedule, and plan their own treatment. Even though, just like dementia, there is a neurological reason they cannot see the problem. The illness does not go away simply because the setting changes.
In the psychiatric hospital, medication is not optional. The moment someone is released, everything becomes optional, even though the illness is still there. That contradiction is not clinical. It is stigma. It is a belief that some brain illnesses deserve support and others deserve judgment.
When you do not name the illness and you do not name the gaps in care, the only thing the public sees is dangerous mentally ill people. But the real issue is a system with no middle ground and no structure that matches the severity of the illness. People do not fail treatment. The lack of treatment fails them.
mm💕
Perfectly explained, Mazie. You help me–and I’m sure many others–better understand these issues.
Thank you Chuck! 🙃🤗
mm💕
LEAKED TRIBAL MEETING UPENDS ‘TWO-BASIN SOLUTION’: RVIT Attorney Says All Diversions Will End
The diversions should never have been started. Just a sign of greed and stupidity. Humans v Nature. Nature wins, no matter how the diverters howl.
Get the human population down to its natural carrying capacity!
While I don’t disagree with you about the world’s population, are you going to volunteer to be the first to self terminate? All great causes must begin somewhere.
No, but I got a vasectomy decades ago.
The western United States is full of examples where rivers were dammed and water was diverted outside of its natural drainage. Much of this was done when natural resources seemed inexhaustible, and most of the water went to agriculture. I do not fault those that promoted and constructed those projects because, at that time, they provided great benefits. But they did overlook environmental issues, and adverse effects to tribal interests. Let’s hope that we can adjust to provide solutions that will prioritize the overall environmental and public wellbeing, while minimizing the pain of specific locations and populations. But first we will need accurate data and projections on all the consequences of the pending dam removals. Then we must honestly look at various locations to see how much water will be available for agriculture, industrial, and residential uses. Then municipalities will need to apply that information to the general plans, to be sure they can provide the water that will be needed. Growth has always been an economic driver, but now we must be realistic about the limits to water supplies. And, while some have legitimate grievances over past acts and practices, punitive demeanors do not serve the best public interest. Whatever the final outcome, I hope we can do this in a manner that we can be proud of.
Me again, 🤗
I also forgot to add this tid-bit.
As someone who knows these realities up close, I can say that a headline like that is deeply offensive to families. It reduces our loved ones to fear labels and ignores the medical truth of what they live with.
These are treatable medical conditions.
mm💕
3 brief comments:
mk—Nice one, that “sun ray” in the dark woods— perfect timing!
A sly pairing by the AVA guys—Craig’s missive of the day with Opus the penguin encountering the begging monk from Bloom County. Gave me a little smile.
Trump pardons—an apt, just so, description by Patricia F. Clothier: “But now we know that there is nobody too evil or too hostile to our country to receive this gift.”
This Two Basin Solution doesn’t make any sense to me.
It would be different if we didn’t have the history and development behind the usage.
We would have 100 years of water usage, if you pardon the pun, flushed down the drain.
I think we need the water, fire protection and power generation more than we ever imagined in the past.
It doesn’t seem progressive, but regressive, to give it back to one group of natives and promise to pay them for sometimes water usage and restoration.
Those I hear championing it don’t have any skin in the game. I wonder how it would be if they we being asked to give back the land their house is on and have the mandatory payments for sometimes usage of the same.
What I often hear is just another form of Senator Russell Long’s famous quote of “don’t tax him, don’t tax me, tax the other fella behind the tree”. I don’t think that is leadership, brings us together, or what made us great.
I hope we find a more progressive solution to this situation.