Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 1/6/2026

Clearing | 175 & 128 Flooded | LaFever Case | AV Village Newsletter | Burnt Roots | Interviewing Elders | Breathe In | Hire Frank | Westport Archaeologist | Blacksmith Shop | Writing Classes | Pianists Concerts | Indian Creek School | Supervisor Avila | Water Tower | Yesterday's Catch | Resolutions | Robber Barons | Good Authority | Preserving Scotia | Internet Exposure | Scandinavian Films | Men | Bigfooted | Not Popular | Martha D-Day | Climb Inside | Lead Stories | Hegseth Warned | Poll Numbers | Empire Tyrant | Rodeo Legislation | Murder Inc. | Long Enough | Legalized Counterfeiters | Second Holiday

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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 43F under partly cloudy skies this Tuesday morning on the coast. I have .63" more rainfall. Maybe a sprinkle today & tomorrow then an extended dry spell is at hand ! Finally.

RAIN continues to diminish. Both small stream and river flooding continue early Tuesday for the southern portion of the region. Light rain and mountain snow return Tuesday through Wednesday night. High pressure is expected to build in late this week. (NWS)

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CALTRANS TRAFFIC ALERTS

Route 175 is FULLY CLOSED at Hopland (PM 0-0.7) in Mendocino County due to flooding. There is no expected time to be reopened. [Monday 3:20pm]

Route 128 is FULLY CLOSED in Mendocino County from the Route 1 junction to west of Flynn Creek Road near Navarro (post miles 0-12) due to flooding. [Monday 2:14pm]

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JUDGE EXONERATES BOND FOR UKIAH JOURNALIST, BUT DOCUMENTS REMAIN SEALED

Prosecution to notify defense if criminal charges will be filed

by Elise Cox

Matthew LaFever’s $10,000 bond was exonerated on Monday by Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder, two months after LaFever was arrested by the Ukiah Police Department on suspicion of misdemeanor child annoyance or molestation stemming from alleged Snapchat communications.

LaFever has not been charged with any crime. Bonds are typically “exonerated” or cancelled after a defendant has filled all their obligations to the court. In this case, the exoneration signals the court’s confidence that LaFever will show up in court if he is later charged by the District Attorney.

The brief hearing came after the court’s December 22 appointment of a special master to oversee the handling of materials seized from LaFever and to ensure compliance with protections provided by the California Constitution and state law. Those protections are intended to prevent law enforcement from conducting overly broad digital searches and, in LaFever’s case, to protect unpublished interviews, notes, and other material from his work as a journalist from disclosure.

Judge Faulder, who presided Monday, had previously approved a Ramey warrant sought by Ukiah police on November 2, one day before LaFever’s arrest.

The arrest, which was preceded by the seizure of LaFever’s electronic devices two weeks earlier drew scrutiny from First Amendment attorneys, particularly because LaFever is a working journalist.

David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, said California law places strict limits on the scope of digital searches conducted by law enforcement.

“The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act explains that any warrant for digital devices or searches of digital data must be strictly limited to the precise contours of what’s under investigation,” Loy said.

For example, if an allegation involves inappropriate contact with minors, he said, any search should be confined to material directly relevant to that allegation. “It should not cover anything else,” Loy said.

Loy also pointed to California’s Shield Law, which prohibits the government from compelling the disclosure of journalistic materials. “That could include notes, drafts, or unpublished photographs,” he said.

Loy sent a letter to Ukiah Police Chief Tom Corning on November 7 recapping the relevant laws. In the letter, Loy emphasized that he assumed “the warrant was supported by probable cause that evidence relevant to that charge would be found [on] Mr. LaFever’s devices or accounts.”

Loy said he took no position on the merits of any charges against LaFever. “However, because any search of a journalist’s devices, accounts or property raises significant concerns, I write to confirm that relevant legal protections for press freedom and independence were followed,” he wrote.

The request for a special master was submitted under seal by Orchid Vaghti, LaFever’s attorney. All sealed filings appear under a case styled ‘Matthew LaFever v. State of California and the Ukiah Police Department, case number 25CR09419,’ according to a courthouse source who viewed the case while describing it to MendoLocal.

None of the sealed motions or scheduled hearings — including Monday’s bond hearing — are visible through the court’s public online portal.

In response to a California Public Records Act request, the Ukiah Police Department stated that it has not received any legal complaint or other formal legal notice from LaFever.

Vaghti declined to comment last week and did not respond to a renewed request for comment on Monday.

Mendo Local on Monday filed a “Motion by Intervenor,” seeking access to court proceedings and records in the case. A hearing date has not yet been announced.

Faulder is expected to sign a joint order drafted by the defense and prosecution related to the special master. If the prosecution decides to move forward with charges, LaFever’s attorney will be contacted directly.

Separately, Ukiah Police Chief Tom Corning on Monday responded to questions Mendo Local sent on December 16 regarding the department’s decision to seek a Ramey warrant rather than working directly with the District Attorney’s Office prior to LaFever’s arrest.

Corning also addressed allegations that an employee of the Ukiah police department disclosed confidential details of the LaFever investigation to an online personality, allegedly for the purpose of defaming a journalist.

Some of the information described by the online personality referred to sexual intercourse between two adults and the photo of a body part. Other information was taken directly from the search warrant and Ramey warrant weeks before the police department filed those documents with the court.

“We take very seriously the need for confidentiality and integrity in our investigations,” Corning said. He acknowledged being aware of a Youtube video discussing the case and said the department conducted an internal investigation but did not identify the source of the leak.

Corning said the department used the incident to remind personnel of their obligations regarding sensitive information and confidentiality.

Addressing the use of a Ramey warrant, Corning said detectives believed it was the most appropriate and lawful tool to take LaFever into custody based on information available at the time.

“While Ramey warrants are often associated with exigent circumstances, their use is not limited to any single type of offense,” Corning said. “In this instance, detectives determined that a judicially reviewed arrest warrant was the most appropriate course of action to ensure a lawful and orderly custody process.”

He added that because the case involved alleged crimes affecting minors, the department “moved quickly to issue a press release with information about the arrest including the suspect’s photos and screen name in order to ask any additional victims to contact law enforcement.

“As with all investigations, the Ukiah Police Department acts in good faith, reliance on applicable law, prosecutorial guidance, and judicial oversight,” Corning said. “We remain confident that the actions taken were consistent with legal standards and department policy.”

(Mendolocal.news)

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ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE NEWSLETTER, January 2026 [select excerpts]

2026 Holiday Party: Although the weather tried to stop the party, the party would not be stopped!

https://mailchi.mp/8dbdb8b70b87/anderson-valley-village-newsletter-august-5858274?e=358077c1c9

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INTERVIEWING THE ELDERS

by Katy Tahja

Old Timers have great stories to share and quite often just need to be encouraged to tell them. Having a framework of questions makes interviewing easier. If readers just did one interview with one elder and then contributed it to a local historical society we’d save a wealth of knowledge.

But what should you ask about? In 1988 College of the Redwoods offered a Mendocino County History class taught by historian Bruce Levene in Mendocino. Almost 40 years later these are still great questions to ask from a list of questions Levene gave the class. Personally I’d like to suggest interviewing people who, if not born in the county, have lived here more than 50 years. Levene helped produce the two volume “Mendocino County Remembered” with oral histories collected in the late 1970s from elders born in the last century, and everyone was asked the same list of questions. You can find those oral histories in the reference section of libraries and museum archives.

So what to ask?

Name of the interviewee, contact information, and date of the interview

Their parents name and when you, or your family, came to Mendocino County

Where did they come from? Why did they come. Here?

What was their occupation? If farming or ranching what did they raise?

When did the interviewee start school? Where?

Did your parents tell you about the 1906 earthquake, or wartimes, or JFK’s death? Were they anti-Vietnam War protestors?

Did you have any unusual problems early in your life? (Like natural disasters, shortages of money, food or any illness?)

Do you remember other early long time residents your family knew locally?

When did you marry? Who? How did you find them?

What are your hobbies/crafts/outdoor sports?

What about great parties? Church & School affairs, Holidays, Hunting? Work parties? County Fair?

Have you preserved letters, photos, diaries about this area long ago? (Can we copy them, then give them back?) Maps? Membership lists? Early days old time magazines? Names ands addresses of other individuals that might share facts about local history.

Any memories of towns, schools, churches, businesses, unusual buildings now gone. Local “characters” important in peoples lives. People with unusual talents?

What was the most important event in your life? (Historical or personal)

Tell your interview you will type up the interview and share it with them to make sure you got the story right. Thank them for sharing their story.

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FRANK CEE (Laytonville): I’m looking for work. I’ll do any job, no job is below me. I am drama free. I don’t drink or do drugs. I smoke pot. I own a few marijuana licenses but it’s just not paying the bills. So if you have anything please hit me up on messenger or 707/369-2889. Thanks Laytonville. I’m depressed and I don’t complain. I would just be grateful for a chance so I can build my reputation and continue to find work. Praying to god something happens. It’s getting bad. Thank you

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THAD M. VAN BUEREN TO SPEAK ON ‘FIRST NATIONS IN THE WESTPORT AREA DURING THE HISTORIC ERA’

Sunday, January 18th at 2 PM

Community Room, Fort Bragg Library

499 East Laurel St.

Thad M. Van Bueren earned a B.A. in 1978 and M.A. in 1983 from San Francisco State University in the field of Anthropology. As a professional archaeologist he has worked to protect and mitigate impacts to prehistoric and historical resources in California for development projects that must comply with environmental laws. Thad has lived in Westport since 1994, conducting many local investigations as a private consultant, or while employed by Caltrans and State Parks. He has worked closely with descendants of the first people to inhabit California, as well as more recent immigrant communities.

The title of his talk will be: “First Nations in the Westport Area During the Historic Era” and will focus on his investigations of First Nation campsites surrounding the northern outpost of the Mendocino Reservation in the 1860s and early 1870s. A question and answer period will follow.

This program is neither sponsored by nor affiliated with the Fort Bragg Library

The Noyo Bida Truth Project invites entries to two Essay Contests

Write an essay, and if you are over 18 and a resident of the City of Fort Bragg, you could win $1,000!

https://www.thenoyobidatruthproject.org

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RON PARKER:

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Can't find any information on Richard Fitch, though there was a Fitch family in AV at the time. (Marshall Newman)

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MENDOCINO COLLEGE OFFERS SPRING CREATIVE WRITING CLASSES IN POINT ARENA AND BOONVILLE

Got stories burning inside you but don't know where to begin? Or maybe you're a seasoned writer who could use some literary comrades and fresh narrative techniques? Whether you're hovering over your first blank page or polishing your hundredth manuscript, a Mendocino College creative writing class will fan those creative flames.

Join an upcoming spring writing class for a deep dive into the wild and wonderful art of storytelling. Taught by Melinda Misuraca—a writer, editor, and passionate teacher with an infectious love for the craft—these classes offer an innovative, multi-dimensional approach to each week's writing adventure. Through carefully chosen readings, hands-on writing exercises, illuminating craft talks, and supportive workshop sessions, you'll discover new ways to breathe life into your narratives and find your unique voice on the page.

Classes are geared toward adult writers of all levels and offer flexible formats: choose a hybrid class combining in-person sessions at Point Arena's Coast Community Library with alternating Zoom meetings, or a fully in-person class at Anderson Valley Adult School in Boonville. Either way, you'll come away with a freshly stocked literary toolbox and a community of supportive writers to inspire and motivate you.

Classes start soon:

ENG 503-4351 in Point Arena begins Tuesday, January 21, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM at Coast Community Library (hybrid format).

ENG 503-0528 in Boonville begins Tuesday, February 4, 2:00–5:10 PM at Anderson Valley Adult School (in-person).

Register at www.mendocino.edu or come to the first class and register then.

For more information: [email protected]

Your story is waiting!

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PROFESSIONAL PIANISTS CONCERTS, 2026

On Saturday, January 24 and Sunday, January 25, the 33rd Annual Professional Pianists Concerts return to Ukiah with two unforgettable performances featuring eleven exceptional pianists, all appearing at the Mendocino College Center Theatre.

This year’s performers include Spencer Brewer, Elena Casanova, Alejandro del Valle, Wendy DeWitt, Tammy L. Hall, Tom Ganoung, Elizabeth MacDougall, Ed Reinhart, Ben Rueb, Charlie Seltzer, and Chris James. Musical styles span classical, jazz, boogie-woogie, Cuban, blues, ragtime, and more—each performance completely different from the other.

These concerts showcase the finest pianists in the region across a remarkable range of styles. Humor and musical repartee run high as all the artists remain onstage throughout the show, gathered in a relaxed “living room” setting around two concert grand pianos, trading stories and spontaneous musical moments. The event is an annual sell-out thanks to its diversity, quality, and unpredictability—no one knows who’s playing next or what they’ll perform.

Concert Schedule

Saturday, January 24 at 7:00 PM

Spencer Brewer • Elena Casanova • Tammy L. Hall • Ed Reinhart • Ben Rueb • Charlie Seltzer

Sunday, January 25 at 2:00 PM

Spencer Brewer • Wendy DeWitt • Alejandro del Valle • Tom Ganoung • Chris James • Elizabeth MacDougall

No two concerts are the same—so piano lovers can attend both performances. Ebonies and Ivories on fire!

Tickets & Info

Proceeds benefit the Ukiah Community Concert Association, Mendocino College Recording Arts Club, and the Allegro Scholarship Program.

Tickets are available at Mendocino Book Co. (Ukiah), Mazahar (Willits), and online at www.UkiahConcerts.org or https://ukiahcommunityconcertassociation.thundertix.com/

For more information, call (707) 463-2738.

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FROM EBAY, A POSTCARD OF LOCAL INTEREST.

The Indian Creek School, Circa 1907.

Postcard mailed to Mariza Clow in Boonville (who was born in 1893 and died in 1992).

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WHEN AUGIE AVILA RAN FOR FOURTH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR

by Augie Avila

I went into politics in 1964. It wasn't really my decision. I'd say that people conspired to get me to do that. My wife likes to tell the story about how for years I'd read the newspaper and she'd listen to me criticize the people in office.

Finally one day, she said, "You know so much and think it's so easy, why don't you run for supervisor?" Then a couple of our friends said to her, "Get Augie to run for supervisor." And she said, "Well, I'll do my best."

At that time she got a little money from her father. To wear a fur coat in Fort Bragg, at that time, was showing off. She said, "You either run for supervisor, or with this money I'm going to buy myself a full length mink coat."

I went down the street one day and somebody said, "I hear you're running for supervisor," and I said, "Where'd you hear that from?" "A friend told me." "That's news to me." Then a friend of ours, Vic Biaggi, at a party one day, he kept putting the pressure on me. "Oh yes, you're gonna run." I said, "I'm not cut out for that. I don't even have any knowledge of city politics, let alone county politics. “ “You can go there,” he said, "and you can learn." We shook hands and then I said, "Okay, I'm in the race now." Then I went all out.

I campaigned door to door. I had blocks. I'd take one block in one day and a part of a block until I got down to Italian town. I was running against a former supervisor, Harold Bainbridge, but Oscar Klee had beat him out. Oscar Klee was supervisor then but he decided, eventually, not to run, and he never ran against me. I forgot who else was there. I had three opponents. The last opponent was the road foreman here, Ernie Thorstrom, and he filed, I think, on the last day.

He and I had to run it off in the general election.

I won the election and I had to start off from scratch. One of the older supervisors, Joe Scaramella asked me after a few weeks, "Don't you say anything?" I said, "I just listen to the elderly people. That's the only way I can find out what politics really is, see?" I had never been involved in politics before. I had been involved in organizations.

I was the district manager of the American Legion. But I had never held any kind of public political office.

But slowly I grasped the manifestations of politics. The second time I ran, I didn't have an opponent and then the third time I ran, I had one opponent.

I was first elected in '64-'65. The areas have all been redistricted. The time I ran, my district, the Fourth, went down to Albion. Then, after the Supreme Court ruled that districts had to be divided on the basis of one man, one vote and had to be equalized, the district lines were moved. They had been from Hales Grove to Albion for years. We had a supervisor once who lived in Albion. Then ten years later the district lines were moved and again ten years after that.

I was a supervisor for twelve years. I think that any politician ought to retire after about twelve years. In fact, I had Al Beltrami (Mendocino County Administrator) draft up a resolution to be adopted by the Board that Supervisors could hold terms for only twelve years. It's legal, but I sensed the policy of the Board and I decided not to introduce the resolution. I think three terms is enough for any Supervisor, because I think it needs an injection of new blood and new ideas. You get pretty stereotyped if you're in there for too long, if you don't think along the lines of progress, you know, changes.

There was another reason too. My father was getting old and I kind of felt that he couldn't go on much longer, so I thought maybe the best thing to do was to get back to the ranch and try keep it going.

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GEBBARD HATENMEYER’S WATER TOWER in Mendocino, built in 1884.

(Kelley House Museum)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, January 5, 2026

JOSUE ALFARO, 47, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

EDUARDO ALVAREZ, 30, Ukiah. Under influence.

JENNYLYNN ARDENYI, 47, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

ARLEN CORDOVA-DALSON, 22, Covelo. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

ANDREA HICKMAN, 47, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

TIMOTHY KANE, 63, Fort Bragg. Fugitive from justice.

ANDREW KARST, 56, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, damaging wireless communications.

MIREYA MELLO-GARCIA, 24, Fort Bragg. DUI, probation revocation.

CODY MENDEZ, 22, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

NICKOLAS TULA, 40, Ukiah. DUI.

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THE GREATEST HEIST EVER

Editor,

The RAND Corporation reports that the top 1% wealthy have robbed the bottom 90% of working people of $79 trillion over a half-century from 1975 to 2023.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz reveals the “Golden Age” of Capitalism, post-WWII until 1975, was a period of the largest economic growth and middle class expansion. Since 1975, expanding wealth inequality has reduced economic productivity and prosperity. Had earnings remained equitable at pre-1975 levels, the average worker in the bottom 90th percentile reportedly would have earned $32,000 more annually as of 2023.

Ronald Reagan’s neoliberal policies crushed unions, flattened wages, gutted anti-trust law, deregulated industry and legalized stock buybacks, supercharging wealth transfer upward. Neoliberalism promotes financialization — the privatization for profit of many economic sectors, including healthcare, boosting continual wealth transfer upward.

Kleptocrats’ President Donald Trump, accelerates deconstruction of Democracy and wealth transfer upward. The Congressional Budget Office reports that Trump’s reconciliation bill is “the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history.”

Washington must halt privatization of Medicare, instead improving and expanding Medicare for All. An economy and health care for the people would halt the billionaire kleptocrats’ heist of people’s wealth and health.

Michele Swenson

Denver

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GOOD AUTHORITY

Uncertain, I asked
My dog and she assured me,
Yes Jim, God exists.

— Jim Luther

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FROM TIMBER WARS TO CANNABIS CRASH: SCOTIA’S BATTLE TO SURVIVE AS CALIFORNIA’S LAST COMPANY TOWN

by Jessica Garrison

• Scotia, one of the last company towns in America, is being sold off house by house after Pacific Lumber’s 2008 bankruptcy, when the town was picked up by a New York hedge fund.
• Nearly 20 years later, only 170 of 270 homes have sold as planners grapple with the challenges of subdividing a century-old company property.
• The slow transformation mirrors larger struggles in Humboldt County, where logging and cannabis farming are no longer the economic engines they once were.

The last time Mary Bullwinkel and her beloved little town were in the national media spotlight was not a happy period. Bullwinkel was the spokesperson for the logging giant Pacific Lumber in the late 1990s, when reporters flooded into this often forgotten corner of Humboldt County to cover the timber wars and visit a young woman who had staged a dramatic environmental protest in an old growth redwood tree.

Julia “Butterfly” Hill — whose ethereal, barefoot portraits high in the redwood canopy became a symbol of the Redwood Summer — spent two years living in a thousand-year-old tree, named Luna, to keep it from being felled. Down on the ground, it was Bullwinkel’s duty to speak not for the trees but for the timber workers, many of them living in the Pacific Lumber town of Scotia, whose livelihoods were at stake. It was a role that brought her death threats and negative publicity.

The timber wars have receded into the mists of history. Old-growth forests were protected. Pacific Lumber went bankrupt. Thousands of timber jobs were lost. But Bullwinkel, now 68, is still in Scotia. And this time, she has a much less fraught mission — although one that is no less difficult: She and another longtime PALCO employee are fighting to save Scotia itself, by selling it off, house by house.

After the 2008 bankruptcy of Pacific Lumber, a New York hedge fund took possession of the town, an asset it did not relish in its portfolio. Bullwinkel and her boss, Steve Deike, came on board to attract would-be homebuyers and remake what many say is the last company town in America into a vibrant new community.

“It’s very gratifying for me to be here today,” Bullwinkel said recently, as she strolled the town’s streets, which look as though they could have been teleported in from the 1920s. “To keep Scotia alive, basically.”

Some new residents say they are thrilled.

“It’s beautiful. I call it my little Mayberry. It’s like going back in time,” said Morgan Dodson, 40, who bought the fourth house sold in town in 2018 and lives there with her husband and two children, ages 9 and 6.

But the transformation has proved more complicated — and taken longer — than anyone ever imagined it would. Nearly two decades after PALCO filed for bankrupcty, just 170 of the 270 houses have been sold, with seven more on the market.

“No one has ever subdivided a company town before,” Bullwinkel said, noting that many other company towns that dotted the country in the 19th century “just disappeared, as far as I know.”

The first big hurdle was figuring out how to legally prepare the homes for sale: As a company town, Scotia was not made up of hundreds of individual parcels, with individual gas meters and water mains. It was one big property. More recently, the flagging real estate market has made people skittish.

Many in town say the struggle to transform Scotia mirrors a larger struggle in Humboldt County, which has been rocked, first by the faltering of its logging industry and more recently by the collapse of its cannabis economy.

“Scotia is a microcosm of so many things,” said Gage Duran, a Colorado-based architect who bought the century-old hospital and is working to redevelop it into apartments. “It’s a microcosm for what’s happening in Humboldt County. It’s a microcosm for the challenges that California is facing.”

The Humboldt Sawmill Company Power Plant still operates in of Scotia.

The Pacific Lumber Company was founded in 1863 as the Civil War raged. The company, which eventually became the largest employer in Humboldt County, planted itself along the Eel River south of Eureka and set about harvesting the ancient redwood and Douglas fir forests that extended for miles through the ocean mists. By the late 1800s, the company had begun to build homes for its workers near its sawmill. Originally called “Forestville,” company officials changed the town’s name to Scotia in the 1880s.

For more than 100 years, life in Scotia was governed by the company that built it. Workers lived in the town’s redwood cottages and paid rent to their employer. They kept their yards in nice shape, or faced the wrath of their employer. Water and power came from their employer.

But the company took care of its workers and created a community that was the envy of many. The neat redwood cottages were well maintained. The hospital in town provided personal care. Neighbors walked to the market or the community center or down to the baseball diamond. When the town’s children grew up, company officials provided them with college scholarships.

“I desperately wanted to live in Scotia,” recalled Jeannie Fulton, who is now the head of the Humboldt County Farm Bureau. When she and her husband were younger, she said, her husband worked for Pacific Lumber but the couple did not live in the company town.

Fulton recalled that the company had “the best Christmas party ever” each year, and officials handed out a beautiful gift to every single child. “Not cheap little gifts. These were Santa Claus worthy,” Fulton said.

But things began to change in the 1980s, when Pacific Lumber was acquired in a hostile takeover by Texas-based Maxxam Inc. The acquisition led to the departure of the longtime owners, who had been committed to sustainably harvesting timber. It also left the company loaded with debt.

To pay off the debts, the new company began cutting trees at a furious pace, which infuriated environmental activists.

Among them was Hill, who was 23 years old on a fall day in 1997 when she and other activists hiked onto Pacific Lumber land. “I didn’t know much about the forest activist movement or what we were about to do,” Hill later wrote in her book. “I just knew that we were going to sit in this tree and that it had something to do with protecting the forest.”

Once she was cradled in Luna’s limbs, Hill did not come down for more than two years. She became a cause celebre. Movie stars such as Woody Harrelson and musicians including Willie Nelson and Joan Baez came to visit her. With Hill still in the tree, Pacific Lumber agreed to sell 7,400 acres, including the ancient Headwaters Grove, to the government to be preserved.

Then just before Christmas in 1999, Hill and her compatriots reached a final deal with Pacific Lumber. Luna would be protected. The tree still stands today.

Pacific Lumber limped along for seven more years before filing for bankruptcy, which was finalized in 2008.

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Marathon Asset Management, a New York hedge fund, found itself in possession of the town.

Deike, who was born in the Scotia hospital and lived in town for years, and Bullwinkel, came on board as employees of a company called The Town of Scotia to begin selling it off.

Deike said he thought it might be a three-year job. That was nearly 20 years ago.

He started in the mailroom at Pacific Lumber as a young man and rose to become one of its most prominent local executives. Now he sounds like an urban planner when he describes the process of transforming a company town.

His speech is peppered with references to “infrastructure improvements” and “subdivision maps” and also to the peculiar challenges created by Pacific Lumber’s building.

“They did whatever they wanted,” he said. “Build this house over the sewer line. There was a manhole cover in a garage. Plus, it wasn’t mapped.”

The first houses went up for sale in 2017 and more have followed every year since.

Dodson and her family came in 2018. Like some of the new owners, Dodson had some history with Scotia. Although she lived in Sacramento growing up, some of her family worked for Pacific Lumber and lived in Scotia and she had happy memories of visiting the town.

“The first house I saw was perfect,” she said. “Hardwood floors, and made out of redwood so you don’t have to worry about termites.”

She has loved every minute since. “We walk to school. We walk to pay our water bill. We walk to pick up our mail. There’s lots of kids in the neighborhood.”

The transformation, however, has proceeded slowly.

And lately, economic forces have begun to buffet the effort as well, including the slowing real estate market.

Dodson, who also works as a real estate agent, said she thinks some people may be put off by the town’s cheek-by-jowl houses. Also, she added, “we don’t have garages and the water bill is astronomical.”

But she added, “once people get inside them, they see the craftsmanship.”

Duran, the Colorado architect trying to fix up the old hospital, is among those who have run into unexpected hurdles on the road to redevelopment.

A project that was supposed to take a year is now in its third, delayed by everything from a shortage of electrical equipment to a dearth of workers.

“I would guess that a portion of the skilled workforce has left Humboldt County,” Duran said, adding that the collapse of the weed market means that “some people have relocated because they were doing construction but also cannabis.”

He added that he and his family and friends have been “doing a hard thing to try to fix up this building and give it new life, and my hope is that other people will make their own investments into the community.”

A year ago, an unlikely visitor returned: Hill herself. She came back to speak at a fundraiser for Sanctuary Forest, a nonprofit land conservation group that is now the steward of Luna. The event was held at the 100-year-old Scotia Lodge — which once housed visiting timber executives but now offers boutique hotel rooms and craft cocktails.

Many of the new residents had never heard of Hill or known of her connection to the area. Tamara Nichols, 67, who discovered Scotia in late 2023 after moving from Paso Robles, said she knew little of the town’s history.

But she loves being so close to the old-growth redwoods and the Eel River, which she swims in. She also loves how intentional so many in town are about building community.

What’s more, she added: “All those trees, there’s just a feel to them.”

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MARILYN DAVIN:

Beg to differ on the Italian series, but since this is the AVA I have little fear of being hauled off to a dungeon for expressing it. I watch Scandinavian films on Netflix. Before giving the nod to The Snowman (based in Norway but American made), I recommend Borgen (Danish), which features the inner working of the Danish parliament and Chestnut Man (also Danish), a great murder whodunnit. These films feel like home for several reasons: the women (gasp) are normal – normal, healthy weights, nobody is ever on a diet, no fake boobs, no detailed sex, no Goldilocks tresses framing inflated breasts precariously exposed to tiny, cinched-in waists. Northern European women clearly have not adopted the so-called “hyper feminity” of Trumpworld, where women in his orbit look like high-end hookers. That aside, since these films do not feature complicated graphics, explosions, and the like, they instead offer complicated plots and intelligent story lines. They also show collegial relationships where everybody has healthcare and there’s no homelessness. Democratic socialists all, the embodiment of which Satan in the White House has asked us all to fear.

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MIKE KALANTARIAN:

Complete agreement on Scandi films, an oasis of quality films and series. A recent find was the short series “Families Like Ours” (the same filmmaker, Thomas Vinterberg, also made a delightful movie about five years ago called “Another Round”).

Even though most American productions are junk, every once in a while you come across inspired greatness. I thought “Succession” was an outstanding series, and more recently the film “Train Dreams” gets very high marks.

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MEN

They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
They'll try to make you different;
At once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They'd make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They'd alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.

— Dorothy Parker (1926)

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I have two boys, 22 and 19 and I spent a few parent teacher conferences telling teachers that I'll deal with my sons' behavior issues. I did. I managed to get those boys through school without any form of psychotropic drugs and they are are still covid vaccine FREE pure blooded American men.

What our schools have done to countless young men in this country is horrific. It's what we get when school systems are run by women. In my local elementary school during my children's tenure there (I have two boys and two daughters) they never had a male teacher. Principals are always female. School board is populated by women. Education is a feminine system run by females and it punishes our young men for being young men.

I tried to get on the school board and was soundly defeated. I'm not a popular person and my views are very conservative when it comes to government and what government should be doing. Not popular in a society that worships government.

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BILL KIMBERLIN:

When I worked on the movie, “Saving Private Ryan” where we re-created the Normandy Landing using Special Effects, I did some research and came across another interesting fact related to the real invasion itself.

There is a lot more to this story. On June 6th 1944 150,000 men and one woman hit the beaches of Normandy. That woman was Martha Gellhorn, a journalist and the third wife of Ernest Hemingway. She was going to be a credentialed reporter for Collier’s Weekly until Hemingway found out and told Collier’s he would report for them, so due to his fame he got her credential. On June 5, 1944, however, journalist Martha Gellhorn hid herself in the bathroom of a hospital ship — just one of the 5,000 vessels set to sail across the English Channel with some of the estimated 150 to 160 thousand men and 30 thousand vehicles headed to Normandy.

“Where I want to be, boy, is where it is all blowing up,” Martha is quoted as saying. By dawn on June 6, better known as D-Day, her hospital vessel landing craft was on the beach of France, shortly before the invasions began. By nightfall on June 6, 1944, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded.

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"YOU NEVER REALLY UNDERSTAND a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

― Harper Lee, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

At the U.N., Even Allies Condemn U.S. Action in Venezuela

Venezuela’s Legislators Offer Scorn as Trump Demands Obedience

Maduro Says He Is a Prisoner of War, Not a Defendant. The Words Matter

Congress Is Divided Over Maduro Raid After First Briefing

Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland

Kennedy Scales Back the Number of Vaccines Recommended for Children

Trump’s Harshest Republican Critics? Lawmakers Headed for the Exits

Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s Stepsister and Holocaust Survivor, Dies at 96

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SENATOR MARK KELLY (former Navy Captain, astronaut, combat pilot):

Over twenty-five years in the U.S. Navy, thirty-nine combat missions, and four missions to space, I risked my life for this country and to defend our Constitution – including the First Amendment rights of every American to speak out. I never expected that the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would attack me for doing exactly that.

My rank and retirement are things that I earned through my service and sacrifice for this country. I got shot at. I missed holidays and birthdays. I commanded a space shuttle mission while my wife Gabby recovered from a gunshot wound to the head – all while proudly wearing the American flag on my shoulder. Generations of servicemembers have made these same patriotic sacrifices for this country, earning the respect, appreciation, and rank they deserve.

Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way. It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that.

If Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in our country’s history, thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn’t get it. I will fight this with everything I’ve got — not for myself, but to send a message back that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don’t get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government.

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THE US EMPIRE NEEDS MEN LIKE TRUMP

The empire needs its skillful orators and apologists like Obama, but it also needs its iron-fisted overt tyrants like Trump.

by Caitlin Johnstone

If you were wondering why the US establishment was so much more chill about Trump becoming president this term than they were the first time around, you’re watching the reason now. The powers that be were assured that he’d carry out longstanding imperial agendas like kidnapping Maduro, bombing Iran and overseeing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and they trusted him to carry out those plans.

The MAGA narrative that the establishment hates Trump because he’s fighting the Deep State has never been true; there were certain factions within the US imperial power structure which disliked Trump, but that was only because he was not a proven commodity like Hillary Clinton and they didn’t trust him to be a reliable steward of the empire. Trump proved that he could be trusted with his advancement of longtime swamp monster agendas throughout his first term, and he plainly did enough during his time out of office to assure his fellow empire managers that he would do even more if re-elected.

The empire needs its skillful orators and apologists like Obama, but it also needs its iron-fisted overt tyrants like Trump. It needs good cop presidents to manufacture global consensus and expand US soft power, and it also needs bad cop presidents to inflict the hard power abuses the good cops can’t get away with. Both are essential components to the operation of the imperial machine.

Cuba for example has been a socialist island nation off the coast of the United States for generations, because the US hasn’t been able topple its government by its usual means. All the standard CIA assassination ops, proxy warfare and economic blockades were unsuccessful, and there’s been no national or international support for sending US boots on the ground to regime change a small country that poses no military threat. But a last-term bad cop president like Trump has options at his disposal that would be off the table for good cop presidents.

US empire managers are discussing this openly.

“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Maduro’s capture.

“Cuba is ready to fall,” Trump told the press on Sunday next to a delighted Lindsey Graham. “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall.”

“You just wait for Cuba,” Graham added. “Cuba is a Communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns, they preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We’re gonna wake up one day, I hope in ’26, in our backyard we’re gonna have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narcoterrorist dictators killing Americans.”

“Donald Trump will have done something that’s eluded America since the fifties: deal with the Communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida,” Graham said on Fox News. “I can’t wait till that day comes. To our Cuban friends in Florida and throughout America, the liberation of your homeland is close.”

The Beltway swamp was saying this well before Trump’s Venezuela assault. In October, Senator Rick Scott told 60 Minutes that if Maduro is removed “it’ll be the end of Cuba,” saying “America is gonna take care of the southern hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy.”

Trump’s blatant smash-and-grab violation of international law in Venezuela wouldn’t have worked for a president who’s trying to put a nice guy face on the US empire, but for a wealthy reality TV star who’s comfortable playing the WWE heel, it’s opened up potential power grabs that have been eluding the imperialists for decades.

When the news broke that Trump had attacked Caracas I was working on an article about his warmongering with Iran which I had to abandon to focus on the new development. The president had announced on Truth Social that if any of the people protesting in Iran are killed, “the United States of America will come to their rescue,” adding, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Prior to that Trump had confirmed to the press that the US would attack Iran if it tried to rebuild its missile program, saying in a joint news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because if they are, we’re going have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”

To be clear, the president is not talking about attacking Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear facilities or construct a nuclear weapon. He’s talking about Iran’s conventional ballistic missile program. The United States is saying that Iran simply is not allowed to defend itself in any way, shape or form, and that if it tries to rebuild its ability to do so it will be attacked again.

So they’re clearly just making up excuses to bomb Iran and waiting for something to stick.

Senator Graham recently tweeted a photo of himself grinning with the president, who was holding a hat which said “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”. You can pretty much determine how warlike the US empire is from day to day by looking at the expression on Lindsey Graham’s face, and lately he’s been looking positively ecstatic.

Trump used to slam warmongers like Graham, building a huge part of his presidential 2016 campaign around contrasting himself with their disastrous foreign policy platforms. Now that he doesn’t have a re-election to posture for they’re best friends, with Graham proclaiming that “Trump is my favorite president” because “we’re killing all the right people and lowering your taxes”.

January 2029 is still a long way off, and we’re seeing every indication that Trump is going to be making Lindsey Graham smile for years to come.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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MURDER INC.

by Forrest Hylton

Donald Trump did not inform, much less seek consent from, the US Congress before launching military strikes on Caracas, Miranda and La Guaira in the early hours of Saturday morning, and abducting the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro. Like the attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have killed more than 110 people since September, the strikes of January 3, which left more than eighty dead, including 24 civilians and 32 Cuban nationals, are unconstitutional and violate international law.

US foreign policy in South America used to differ from its approach to Central America and the Caribbean. In the 20th century, aside from Mexico, the US intervened directly in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama. In South America, by contrast, during the Cold War the US funded gargantuan military and police bureaucracies that it relied on to do the dirty work of torturing, murdering and disappearing tens of thousands of suspected leftists. “National security” throughout the Western hemisphere meant a stable business climate for US investors and corporations.

The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine effectively extends the Central American and Caribbean realm to South America. Venezuela’s oil, gas, gold, iron and rare earth minerals make it a singular prize: nowhere else in South America comes close. Stephen Miller apparently came up with the idea, which Trump echoes, that by nationalizing its oil under Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1976, Venezuela “stole it” from the US. Such casuistry is unlikely to convince many besides Pete Hegseth.

As Maduro emphasized in his interview with Ignacio Ramonet on January 1, Trump and US corporations could have had almost everything they wanted without military intervention.

On January 2, China’s special envoy was in Caracas to discuss the future of Beijing’s energy interests and investments. Two Russian vessels lie anchored off the coast of Venezuela. Unless the US attacks those, Russia is unlikely to pose a challenge to US designs. Should China wish to make the US pay for its actions, dumping US treasuries would be a safer path than arming Venezuela.

Maduro was reportedly willing to leave Venezuela as long as he was granted amnesty but that didn’t satisfy Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who determined a course of military action months ago.

Maduro is on trial in New York’s Southern District on drugs and weapons charges. About 8% of cocaine shipments from South America pass through Venezuela. There’s stronger evidence of more serious involvement in narco-trafficking by the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa – but then he’s a Trump ally.

And last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who rose to power after a coup in 2009 and was long backed by the US but found guilty of drug trafficking in a New York federal court in 2024.

Under George W. Bush, the US tried and failed to effect regime change in Venezuela in 2002 with the attempted overthrow of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, but his life was saved by the rapid response of the citizenry of Caracas.

Trump wanted to overthrow Maduro during his first term but complained that the US military prevented him from invading so that he could take Venezuela’s oil. He can now claim “mission accomplished.”

Though he has rolled back initial claims that the US would “run” Venezuela, he still says it is “in charge.” Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, now acting president, has called for “co-operation” with the US. The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that a group of asset management and hedge fund CEOs, along with leaders of the defense and energy sectors, are planning to travel to Caracas in March.

Kidnapping, murdering or deposing the president of a sovereign country is one thing; military occupation and administration is quite another, as the US found in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the occupation did not, as Donald Rumsfeld had promised it would, pay for itself. Some people got rich, though, as untold billions went missing and unaccounted for.

The US occupation of Iraq happened in part because no one learned the lessons of Vietnam, and it seems that whatever happens in Venezuela, no one has learned the lessons of Iraq or Afghanistan – forever wars against which Trump campaigned. If Trump and Rubio ignite a forever war in Venezuela – supposedly off the cards, though 15,000 US troops remain in the Caribbean to exert “leverage” over the country – they may find facts to be stubborn things, and anti-imperial nationalism a powerful force.

Around the world on January 3, in Barcelona, Rome, New York, Paris, Bogotá, Buenos Aires and elsewhere, mass demonstrations took place condemning the US intervention, though as we have seen with Gaza, international protest is symbolic. (The widespread protests in Venezuela itself are a different matter.) When the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, demanded a UN Security Council meeting to condemn US actions, Trump said Petro was a “sick man” and Colombia could be next. When the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, repudiated the assault in no uncertain terms, Trump suggested he might consider military action in Mexico. He has also threatened Cuba.

After leaving office, Lyndon Johnson said that when he became president the US had been running a “Murder Inc.” in the Caribbean. He halted the assassination programs in Cuba, but in 1965 – at the same time as he was deploying tens of thousands of ground troops in Vietnam – he invaded the Dominican Republic. The covert gangsterism of Eisenhower and Kennedy was revamped under Nixon – Pinochet carried out his CIA-enabled coup in Chile eight months after Johnson’s death – and continued under Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who invaded Panama in December 1989 to capture President Manuel Noriega. The invasion was codenamed Operation Just Cause. Hundreds of civilians were killed. Cloaked in the rhetoric of justice, Murder Inc. is once again official US policy in Latin America.

(London Review of Books)

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WHAT CAUSES POVERTY?

by Upton Sinclair

How does it happen that, in this our land of liberty and prosperity, the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer?

When you talk about the matter with an economist, he uses many long words, and tells you about natural processes, controlled by inexorable laws.

But it all depends upon how you look at it — from the inside or the outside. If you look from the outside, you see mechanical economic processes; but if you look from the inside, you see the actions of men.

Wealth is produced by the actions of men — we all know that because we do that every day. If men, in the course of their dealings, have made a hell on earth, it has been because they first had a hell in their hearts; and if they are to make a paradise on earth, they first have to change their hearts, and then no economic laws will stand in their way.

First among the "actions of men" which have made poverty in America, I list our banking system. That is to say, the way men have behaved and are behaving with regard to money. This banking system has been constructed just as artifically as a house is constructed, and its plan can be summed up in one phrase: to enable those who already have money to get as much more as possible. Many things about the system may seem complicated but if you understand that basic idea, you will never be fooled.

One man raises grain, and another saws lumber. It would be awkward to exchange a stick of timber for so many bushels of wheat, therefore men have invented money, which is a standard of value, enabling anything to be exchanged for anything else.

The first point to be clear on is that money is not wealth, but only a symbol of wealth. You can see that if you imagine yourself stranded on a barren island with a million dollars in greenbacks. Would you be rich? You would not! And it is equally plain that nobody is made richer when the government prints a new lot of bank-notes. Of course, if you printed the notes yourself, and put them into circulation, you would be richer; but this wealth would be obtained by taking away from the owners of real wealth a certain percentage of what they owned; there would be a little more money in circulation, and so the existing stock of goods would have a slightly higher money-value.

That is what I refer to as “diluting the currency.” When it is done by governments, it is known as "inflation," and it is a favorite trick of governments in trouble. They print paper money, and spend it for goods, and the more they print, the less is the value of each unit of money, the rouble, the mark, the franc, or whatever it is called. The bankers, of course, are greatly opposed to this method of robbing the owners of wealth; their objection to the process being based upon the fact that when the paper money is printed, the government owns it, whereas the bankers think that they, the bankers, should own it. In this country they have been able to have their way, and we live under a system which establishes the bankers as legalized counterfeiters.

You must understand that only about one per cent of modern business is done upon a basis of cash — gold or silver or greenbacks; the rest is notes, or bills of exchange, or checks, or some other form of credit. And the banker is the man who creates this credit. He sells it to you, for whatever price he sees fit; and it is his royal privilege to grant or to withhold it. You may have ever so much real wealth to offer for security, and still meet with refusal; or you may have merely a pretense of security, and carry off the prize because you are the nephew of a director or the like.

The banker gives you a "pass-book" with a line of figures written in it, and you go out into the market, and you discover that your banker-made money is just as real as any other money you find there—as real as the corn the farmer has raised, or the house the carpenter has built.

The theory is that the banker is lending the money which his bank-customers have deposited with him.

But see! You take $350 in greenbacks and put it in the bank, and under our banking laws the banker can deposit those greenbacks with the Federal Reserve Bank, and by a process of "discounting paper," the credit of $350 will sustain a deposit of $1,000 or more, sometimes much more. Then on the basis of that $1,000 the banker is legally permitted to lend out sums amounting to about $10,000 to other customers of the bank. In other words, $350 deposited by a customer becomes the basis of bank-loans, not merely of that $350, but of 25 or 30 times as much, created by our legalized counterfeiters! The outstanding amount of actual greenbacks, about a third of a billion dollars, thus becomes the basis of ten billions of dollars worth of banker-created money.

The headquarters of this greatest graft of all the ages is Wall Street. The money from all the little banks pours in here, and likewise the insurance money which our people put up to insure the safety of the wives and children. It is all at the service of the big banker-speculators, to be used in manipulating markets, driving prices up and down, so that the insiders can buy while securities are low and sell while they are high. Here is concentrated the collective greed of all America. Such men become frenzied with visions of sudden gain; they sell the goods they hope to have, and buy with the profits they expect to make, and the fires of avarice are fanned white hot, until the whole thing bursts like a crucible in a steel mill.

The financial history of America is the record of a series of great panics, coming at intervals of from seven to ten years. In these crises the bankers used to suffer as well as the rest of us; but this was intolerable to them, and so they put their experts to work. To save yourself in a panic you must have money—a great deal of money in a hurry; and where can such money be obtained? Where, but from our good old Uncle Sam? So the bankers devised a wonderful new scheme, the Federal Reserve System; a chain of twelve regional banks with a directing head, a banker-board. Its function is to watch over our money system in the interest of the bankers, to lend money freely when they want it to be cheap, and to call in loans when they are ready for a killing; above everything else, to watch out for panics, and when these come, to issue credit to the big insiders, so that they can keep afloat while the rest of us drown.

In the summer of 1920, there was a riot of speculation, and this bankers' board decided that somebody had to be "deflated." So they picked out the farmers. Who cares anything about the "hicks" out in the sticks? "Go home and slop the hogs," was the word of a banker-legislator in North Dakota to a delegation of farmers.

So the Federal Reserve Board "advised" the banks to lend no more money to farmers; and one little hint was enough to bring farm prices crashing. Before the crisis was over, a total of 603,000 farmers had either lost their farms, or were keeping them on sufferance of their creditors — and those are government figures! You know how it was with produce that year? The farmers in the middle West burned their corn for fuel, and here in Southern California it didn't pay to gather the orange and lemon crops.

But the prices of automobiles and hardware and lumber and cement did not share this harsh fate; the big Wall Street banks had all the credit they needed, and they "carried" their friends, the big manufacturers, whose stocks and bonds repose in their vaults. They were "sitting pretty," and waited till the storm was over, and we were ready to buy their goods at the old fancy prices.

So you see what I mean by my phrase, "legalized counterfeiters"? The power to issue new credit is the power to dilute the currency, and merely by the stroke of a pen. All the highwaymen and safe-crackers and world conquerors of history never carried off as much treasure as Wall Street has taken from the American people by the use of this power.

In that summer of 1920, the Federal Reserve System took four billion dollars out of the pockets of our farmers!

So now, when you hear people say that human ingenuity cannot cure poverty, remember how much human ingenuity has done to cause it.

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