Warming | Emergent | Willits Quake | Shark Attack | Ed Nickerman | Girls Basketball | Ukiah Rumors | Pesticide Operators | Marshall Wallace | Water Forecasting | Skunk Ruling | Black Trumpets | Mission Grafica | Open Mic | White Lumber Co | Yesterday's Catch | Big City Girl | Paris Week | Transformation | 49ers Coming | Newsom Context | Labeled | Horribly Limited | Shadowy Spending | Whiteman Trapped | Dissent 2026 | Slammed Down | Outraged | Ex-Pres Silence | Send Code | Getting Weirder | Lead Stories | Vacant Eye | Amargosa Desert | Terror Machinery | Henriette Portrait
HIGH PRESSURE continues over NW California resulting in dry weather and warmer daytime temperatures this week. Overnight and early morning temperatures will remain chilly. Nocturnal valley fog will form each night in the river valleys, especially in Trinity, Humboldt and northern Mendocino Counties. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 41F this Wednesday morning on the coast. I suspect the fog is barely onshore so sky cover likely varies greatly depending on your location. Fog & sun rules the forecast with no rain in sight the next 10 days.
WILLITS SHOOK
A preliminary magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck near Willits at about 1:10 p.m Tuesday., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was centered roughly six miles east-southeast of Willits, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
USGS data indicates that shaking was felt across parts of Mendocino County and nearby areas, based on early reports submitted through the agency’s “Did You Feel It?” system.
Two smaller earthquakes, each measuring less than magnitude 2.0, followed the initial quakes, according to USGS records.
TWO MINOR EARTHQUAKES TUESDAY AFTERNOON. The first was a reported 4.4 quake with an epicenter a few miles outside Willits around 1:10pm. An aftershock of about 3.7 in the same area hit about two hours later. The quakes were felt in Boonville, but there were no reports of damage.
SURFER ATTACKED BY SHARK IN MENDOCINO COUNTY — board ripped in half
by Brooke Park
A shark attacked a male surfer along the Mendocino County coast Tuesday morning, leaving him with “puncture wounds” deemed as minor injuries, the local fire chief said.
First responders arrived around 8:45 a.m. north of the Gualala River for a possible shark attack and found a male surfer who had gotten out of the water with half a surfboard and suffered some “puncture wounds,” South Coast Fire Chief Jason Warner said.
The man took himself to an area hospital for sutures, Warner said.
The surfer had been in the water for less than 10 minutes nearly 150 feet off shore when a friend saw him get hit and thrown in the air. The friend told officials that he witnessed a large shark take half of his companion’s surfboard and thrash it in the water.
Tuesday’s attack follows a succession of encounters along the Northern California coast last month. Triathlete and open-water swimmer Erica Fox was killed in a shark attack in Monterey Bay on Dec. 21. The next day, a suspected great white shark bumped into the bottom of a surfer’s board.
Earlier that month, a shark bit a surfer’s hand in the waters of a North Bay beach, sending the surfer to the hospital.
(sfchronicle.com)
PHILLIP “ED” NICKERMAN (4/20/1930 - 1/5/2026)
Ed Nickerman passed away peacefully at the age of 95 on January 5, 2026.
Born in Salt Lake City, Ed was one of five children. He and his siblings were free-range kids, roaming the mountains and valleys around Salt Lake, jumping park benches on ice skates in the winter and damming levies to create swimming holes in the summer.
When his family moved to Los Angeles, Ed’s adventurous bent only accelerated. Ed took road trips with his siblings, ran away from home on the train, and lost his left index finger when he was 13 due to a shooting incident, inadvertently becoming the first patient to receive penicillin in Los Angeles, which saved the rest of his hand.
When Ed was 16 he lied about his age to join the army and honor his brother who died in the war, serving in Japan during the occupation. After returning home he put his GI Bill to work, graduating from Pasadena City College, Pomona College and Claremont Graduate School, receiving a scholarship for B students that would be A students if they didn’t have to work so hard to support themselves.
Education became his passion, working as a teacher and administrator in Los Angeles, Alaska, and Mendocino County. He fell in love with Alaska, spending his spare time fishing, hunting, flying his Cessna 180, and building a home and cabin. He was also there to witness the 9.2 magnitude earthquake of 1964, describing the road he was driving on at the time as having turned into a wave.
After moving to Potter Valley, he spent 20 years as Assistant Superintendent at the Mendocino Office of Education, where his greatest professional impact might have been in a completely different field – healthcare. He introduced one of the most innovative coverage concepts of the last 50 years – the nation’s first high deductible plan with a health savings account, the StayWell Plan, for which he received national recognition and created significant savings for the district.
After retiring, he served on the Mendocino County Board of Education in his 60s and 70s, and the Mendocino-Lake Community College Board when he was in his 80s and 90s. Ed’s dedication to educating kids was unwavering, early on he started a teacher training program to get more Mendocino County residents involved in teaching and up until his death he was working on getting resources for the autoshop at Mendocino College and a pool for Potter Valley.
Ed’s curious nature and work ethic also led him to start the Redwood Empire Auctioneering Company, which helped the county and other local agencies dispose of used equipment and cars. If this weren’t all enough, he built homes on the side, including the house on his farm in Potter Valley, which he worked for decades, dabbling in raising sheep, pigs, chickens, donkeys, hay, vegetables, and, his passion, apples.
Ed’s community involvement was neverending as well. He served on the Grand Jury and was a member of the Rotary Club of Ukiah, where he raised funds and was involved in countless local, national, and international projects.
Lastly, Ed’s vacations, if you can call them that, were no less prolific. After moving to Potter Valley he took trips in his airplane and routinely landed it in the back field at the farm. After selling the plane in the 1980s he took up sailing, joined the Lakeport Yacht Club and sailed his Catalina 25 around the San Juan Islands and through Alaska’s Inside Passage.
Above all, Ed loved his family, raising 8 children and serving as a father figure for many more. He loved his community of Potter Valley where he had resided for 50+ years.
Ed is survived by his wife, Janice “Jan” of 47 years; 8 children: Kim, Chuck, Diana, Lisa, Tanna, Renee, Luke, and Jesse; 19 grandchildren; and 10 great grandchildren. He will be missed dearly.
Services for Ed will be January 17@ 11 am at St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, 900 S. Oak Street, Ukiah, CA. Donations in memory of Ed may be sent to Potter Valley Youth and Community Center, P.O. Box 273, Potter Valley, CA 95469
A READER WRITES: News (Rumor) From Ukiah.
I heard today that Dunkin' Donuts is coming to the old Carl's Jr in Ukiah, and Chick Fil A (a fried chicken franchise) is being planned for Jensen's Truck Stop. So far I would consider this just a rumor, but my source is pretty reliable.
WE WERE SURPRISED to learn that Mendocino County has 865 pesticide operator permits for people who apply pesticides in the County, and 19 more with “restricted material” permits, which, the Ag Department explained on Tuesday, are for “pesticides that are, um, a little more hazardous than the other ones.” County Ag Biologist Matt Doherty added that his Ag department is trying to reduce those “restricted materials” permits. He said that his department issued 148 pesticide application permits in 2025. “These numbers are usually higher,” he said, “but we’ve been short-staffed. We would like to see around twice that amount in a normal year.”
(Mark Scaramella)
MARSHALL EDWIN WALLACE
Marshall Edwin "Ed" Wallace was born on May 13, 1935 to Marshall Moody, and Marietta Georgia Wallace.
He met the Love of his life (Arlene Joanne Ehret) in Luther League at the St Paul's Lutheran Church in Montebello, California.
They married on May 18, 1957 at the same Church. They had their first child, Terri Lynn two years later. Brian Keith was born three years later, and then Kevin Scott completed the family in 1965.
Ed worked for his father-in-law until October 1967 when he moved the family up to Northern California to branch out on his own, where he worked for Stow Manufacturing Co. out of Binghamton, New York.
Ed and Arlene began their life in Northern California in a cozy little town just north of San Rafael, called Terra Linda. Arlene wasn't convinced she wanted to stay in Northern California at first, but soon came to appreciate the beauty of the area along with the bravery of her husband to seek a better life for his family.
Two years later, the couple sold their home in Hacienda Heights, Ca and set down roots by purchasing the home they would finish raising their family and begin their retirement in, in Novato, California. They ended up living there for 30 years, raising the kids, making life-long friendships, creating memories, and establishing themselves in the community as well as the local Lutheran Church. (Good Shepherd Lutheran)
As his children grew older, Ed wanted a reason for the kids to want to hang around with the family, especially during the summer months so he purchased a boat! It worked! The family spent many summers water-skiing!
Ed is survived by all his children; Terri Dick, Darwin Dick (SIL), Brian Wallace, Kevin Wallace, Julie Wallace (DIL)
Grandchildren; Travis Grey, Taylor Grey, Jerrica Cable, Tucker Grey, Brandon Wallace, Ethan Wallace, & Brianna Wallace. (& 5 step grandchildren)
Great Grandchildren; Trevor Grey, Tyler Grey, Hailie Grey, Jace Grey, Jesslyn Sandlin, Derik Sandlin, Nicolette Stogner & Alby Grey (& 11 step great grandchildren)
As well as his sister, Linda Sue Hermann.
In lieu of flowers please consider donating to a worthy cause for Veterans or a local Hospice.
NEW RESERVOIR TECHNOLOGY CREATES "ANOTHER LAKE MENDOCINO"
Gains underscore the need for more accurate long-term weather forecasts
by Elise Cox
Modern forecasting technology saved an additional 30,000 acre-feet of water in the Russian River watershed over the last three years, a volume nearly equivalent to the total capacity of Lake Mendocino, officials said during a regional water wrap-up webinar last month.
The inaugural "Rainfall and Reservoirs" event, hosted by Sonoma Water, marked the close of Water Year 2025 on September 30. The 2026 cycle began on Oct. 1. The Russian River system provides drinking water to more than 600,000 residents in Sonoma and Marin counties.
Experts from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Sonoma Water, and the California Department of Water Resources discussed how dynamic management strategies are helping the region navigate climate change.
Improved Reservoir Management
A new management strategy known as Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) is responsible for the increase in water availability. Unlike traditional methods that only consider water already on the ground, FIRO allows managers to use 10-day weather forecasts to make proactive decisions.
Nick Malasavage, chief of the operations and readiness division for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, explained that FIRO enables "pre-releases," where water is discharged before a storm hits to create "flood control airspace." Conversely, if a dry forecast is predicted, operators can "let it ride" and hold water above traditional limits to bolster the regional supply.
"We are informed by the forecast, not controlled by it," Malasavage said, noting that the technology leads to less frequent and less intense flood control releases.
Highlights from Water Year 2025
October marked the end of the third consecutive "above normal" wet year for Mendocino and Sonoma counties. Rainfall was well-distributed, beginning in mid-November and continuing through April. While the city of Ukiah met its 30-year average, the Santa Rosa area saw rainfall 23% to 24% higher than the average.
Don Seymour, Sonoma Water’s deputy director of engineering, highlighted the importance of these conditions given the decline of the Potter Valley Project. Historically, that project transferred an average of 150,000 acre-feet of water from the Eel River into the Russian River system annually, but infrastructure and licensing issues have reduced that flow to roughly 39,000 to 40,000 acre-feet.
The increased efficiency from FIRO has helped offset these losses, ending the year with deep pools at Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma. This results in higher water quality and colder temperatures, which are critical for local fisheries and hatchery programs.
“It’s like over the last three years, we created another Lake Mendocino,” Seymour said.
Forecasters Struggle with Complex Weather Patterns
Despite local successes, reliable weather prediction remains a challenge. Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources, stated that current Sub-seasonal to Seasonal (S2S) NOAA forecasts—which look six weeks to several months ahead—currently have "no skill" in predicting California's complex weather patterns.
“In particular, we can look at past water years, like 2023, and see that they got it completely wrong,” Jones said. “This is why you really don’t take the NOAA outlooks seriously, because they are simply not accurate.”
Jones said that the state has entered a La Niña pattern, which typically suggests drier conditions for Southern California but offers no reliable signal for the North Coast. To address this, state officials are advocating for federal legislation, which would fund pilot projects to improve S2S forecasting for western water management.
"California has the largest variability in average annual precipitation of any state," Jones said. "Plan for the worst, but hope for the best."
(Mendolocal.news)
CALIFORNIA APPEALS COURT RULES SKUNK TRAIN OPERATOR IS PUBLIC UTILITY, CAN CONDEMN PRIVATE PROPERTY
by Joe Dworetzky
A California state appeals court last week denied a landowner’s request that the court reconsider its decision that the owner of the Skunk Train in Mendocino County has the power to condemn private property.
The decision is the latest salvo in a long-running dispute over the attempt of Mendocino Railway — the owner and operator of the popular Skunk Train excursion service — to condemn a 20-acre undeveloped parcel in Willits, allegedly to be used for current and future passenger and freight rail operations.
In California, a public utility is authorized to condemn private property for public purposes, providing that it pays the owner “just compensation” for the land.
The owner of the parcel, John Meyer, challenged the condemnation on grounds that Mendocino Railway is not a “public utility” for purposes of the eminent domain law and therefore had no power to pursue condemnation. Meyer also argued that even if the railway was a public utility, the proposed use of the condemned property was not for public purposes and therefore did not qualify for condemnation.
After a six-day jury trial in 2022, Meyer’s arguments prevailed in Mendocino County Superior Court.
Under California law, to be deemed a public utility, a rail operator must be open to, and actually serve, the general public, not a private group, and the property to be condemned must be for public purposes.
The railway owns a roughly 40-mile rail line that runs from Fort Bragg to Willits. The track’s primary operations and revenues (over 90%) come from running private Skunk Train excursions. In addition, the line provides passenger commuter service to a small number of individuals and families that commute to their properties on the line. The train also has some modest freight operations and hopes to have more in the future.
The line was open for the full 40-mile run until 2015 when a collapsed tunnel — yet unrepaired — severed the line into two parts. Notwithstanding the collapse, the railway continued offering the Skunk Train excursions. It also continued to offer out-and-back service on either side of the tunnel, both for passengers and freight, but there was no longer end-to-end service. As before, the passenger and freight operations were dwarfed by the excursion operations.
Meyer argued that the private excursion business was the predominant business of the railway and it overwhelmed the small freight and passenger commuter business. On that basis, he argued that the railway was just a private business and not a railroad public utility.
Meyer also contended that the land was not being acquired for a public purpose but was intended to enhance the railway’s excursion business. In that regard, Meyer pointed out that the original project description included a campground, pool and an RV park, uses that had little relevance to railroad operations, the asserted public purpose of the condemnation.
On April 19, 2023, Superior Court Judge Jeanine Nadel found that the railway’s limited commuter and freight operations were far outweighed by the railways’ private excursion operation. She also found that the railway had not met its burden of showing that the land was being acquired for public purposes. She ruled in Meyer’s favor and awarded him $265,000 to reimburse the legal fees he incurred in his successful battle against the condemnation.
The railway appealed and on Dec. 9, 2025, a panel of the California Court of Appeal reversed the decision of Nadel. The court found that if an operator is offering to provide the general public with a service that is in the public interest, it should be recognized as a public utility even if it also has private operations. In its view, the passenger and freight operations were offered to the general public, and its private operations, though more substantial, did not defeat its public utility classification.
The Court of Appeals also noted the testimony of the railway’s chief executive officer and president, Robert Pinoli, to the effect that the campsite and RV uses had been abandoned. According to Pinoli, the acquisition would allow the railway to “fully operate its freight rail services with storage yards, maintenance, and repair shops, transload facilities, rail car storage capacity, and a passenger depot.”
The court found that this testimony was sufficient to meet the railway’s burden of proof that the condemned property was being acquired for public purposes.
Based on the findings, the court set aside the lower decision and vacated the attorney’s fee award. The court ordered that the case go back to the trial court to determine the amount of just compensation Meyer is due for the taking of his property.
Meyer asked the court to reconsider its decision, arguing that the appeals court failed to give proper weight to Nadel’s findings even though she had heard six days of in-court testimony and, as a result, had ample opportunity to assess the credibility of the witnesses on the key factual questions.
Meyer argued the supposed use of the property to support passenger and freight uses “on its isolated 40-mile-long line [make] no financial or logistical sense.”
With the collapsed tunnel severing the line, Meyer’s court filing said, Mendocino Railway “is, in essence, attempting to proceed with the taking of the Meyer property to create a freight and commuter passenger line to nowhere.”
In Meyer’s view, the railway’s primary objective is to obtain the property to serve the excursion service.
The appeals court last Wednesday denied Meyer’s request for reconsideration without further elaboration.
The ruling is unlikely to end the dispute. Meyer’s lawyer intends to file a petition for review with the California Supreme Court.
Counsel for Mendocino Railway did not immediately return a request for comment on the ruling.
(Bay City News)
MISSION GRAFICA
Grace Hudson Museum offers two consecutive events on Saturday, Jan. 17, related to its current exhibit, "Mission Grafica; Reflecting a Community in Print."
A screen-printing workshop will be offered by Jos Sances from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Participants can find out how screen-printing is done and then print their own design on paper or textile to take home. Jos Sances is a co-founder of Mission Grafica, printmaker, and muralist. There is a fee of $20/person. Scholarship spots are available. The workshops are appropriate for ages 16 and up. Call the Museum at (707) 467-2836 to secure your place.
Juan Fuentes will offer a relief carving and printing demonstration from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Attendees can discover the various printing methods used by the artists in the exhibition as Fuentes demonstrates wood and linoleum relief carving and printing techniques. Juan Fuentes is a long-time Chicano printmaker, teacher, activist, and former director of Mission Grafica who seeks to portray his people in positive, beautiful, and dignified ways.
Grace Hudson Museum is located at 431 Main St. in Ukiah. For more information, call (707) 467-2836, or visit online at: www.gracehudsonmuseum.org.
MENDOCINO OPEN MIC POETRY SERIES
Dear Poets and Lovers of Poetry,
Please join us January 31st for the first poetry reading of the new year at the Mendocino Open Mic Poetry series.
Location, dates and time are as follows:
Please note we are not located at the Art Center for January
Location for January: 45160 Main Street, Mendocino, CA. (Downstairs Law Offices of Maggie O'Rourke)
Saturday, January 31st, 4-6 PM
The open mic will begin with readings from our featured readers, followed by a brief break and the open mic.
Featured Poets: C. Rowan Hawthorn and Riantee Rand
Riantee Rand:
Riantee Rand will be reading, as a book launch, from her recently published book of poetry, “Crossings.” Her poetry, translations, articles, and short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies.
She has hosted writing retreats in France, performed her work on Public Radio, and worked as an editor and translator for an online literary magazine. Her books include poetry, a memoir, two non-fiction books and two childrens books.
C. Rowan Hawthorn:
C. Rowan Hawthorn is a poet and bookseller who writes mostly for herself. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1997. She has been published in a small Modesto-based zine called Faces of the Goddess, the online literary journal, Slouching Beast, and the Writers of the Mendocino Coast Anthology.
I look forward to seeing everyone and bringing in the new year with our community poetry.
All best,
Devreaux Baker
FROM EBAY, A PHOTOGRAPH OF SEMI-LOCAL INTEREST (via Marshall Newman)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, January 13, 2026
BRANDY ELLIOTT, 43, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
NICHOLAS FURR, 29, Fort Bragg. DUI-any drug, no license.
MANUEL GONZALEZ, 46, Willits. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun with great bodily injury, DUI, resisting.
CHARLES GREPPI, 39, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
ADRIAN MANRIQUEZ, 20, Ukiah. Marijuana for sale, assault weapon, money laundering, narcotics for sale, conspiracy.
JEVIN MARINO, 19, Ukiah. Marijuana for sale, assault weapon, money laundering, narcotics for sale, conspiracy.
MICHAEL MARTIN, 56, Ukiah. Parole violation.
ENRIQUE SILVA, 53, Ukiah. Burglary, domestic abuse, cruelty to child-infliction of injury.
MEGAN SPAIN, 33, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
DOUGLAS WHIPPLE III, 39, Covelo. Controlled substance, marijuana for sale, parole violation, resisting.
RODRIGO ZUNIGA, 22, Ukiah. Assault weapon, short-berrelled rifle, marijuana for sale, contempt of court, conspiracy.
A WEEK IN PARIS 2026
by Terry Sites
My cousin wanted to be in Paris for her 75th birthday, which falls on New Year’s Eve. Only six months apart in age we grew up together in Los Angeles. Part of a very close family, neither one of us remembers a time without the other in it. This trip turned out to be the cherry on top of a lifetime of shared memories. A full week in Paris includes a lot of indelible impressions. While she had been there before as a ten-year old this was my first trip to France.
At 75 a totally new experience is something of a rarity and it did take my breath away. Coming from southern California where most of the buildings were built in my lifetime, the age of the things I saw stunned me. Knowing that most of it was built without electricity is totally mind-boggling. Those yesteryear people must have had technical ability coming out of every pore to assemble those cathedrals, castles and fine homes without powerful machines. Their vision, daring and persistence left me speechless.
Although I saw enough to impress me to my marrow, what I was able to see is less than a hangnail on the figurative hands that make up Paris. With the exception of Versailles, our entire trip was confined to Paris proper. There is so much more to see and marvel over than we were able to experience. Nevertheless, I think I got to feel the spirit of the city and the French people who live there. The Americans and the French look very much alike with a few exceptions, but they feel very different.
We went to a restaurant on an island in the Seine for New Year’s Eve. It was the Americans who were up and dancing around the tables while the French held back. They were dressed in more formal attire and we clearly appalled them…for a while. But, before the night was over they were up and dancing with us. We were more exuberant and they were more reserved, but all of us liked to have a good time.
The children I saw throughout Paris were quieter and better behaved than their American contemporaries. Babies and toddlers were universally strapped firmly into strollers — no papoose-style backpacks. It was cold so they were dressed in snowsuits that made them as stiff as little starfish; the only part they could move was their eyes. Older French children seemed less precocious and younger acting than livelier American kids. Their restaurant manners astounded me. Like their parents, they all seemed to take time at the table quite seriously. They were able to manage their silverware with great aplomb and really seemed to enjoy their food, which was always the same as what their parents were eating.
There are so many apartments, many identical — you never see anyone go in or come out. Shopping for food seems to be on a meal-by-meal basis. I did not see a single supermarket. Food is beautifully displayed and expensive. If you want to live in Paris bring money. Our dollars are 25% less valuable than their Euros. When you look at price tags in Euros it is hard not to think in dollars, but needs must.
Was it beautiful? It was beyond beautiful. It had been very cold before we got there with some rain and snow. We brought warm clothes and we used them as days were from the mid 30s to high 40s. There was little real weather while we were there — a sprinkle of rain, a dusting of snow. We brought sunny skies with us making for long views and easy access everywhere we went.
One day after we got on our Air France flight home a storm named “Goretti” rolled in, shutting down buses, closing schools, cancelling flights and causing blackouts. The Eiffel tower was closed due to ice and they were actually skiing on the grounds around it. Were we lucky or what?
Knowing what I know now I would hesitate to travel to Europe in mid-winter. The Xmas light display and excitement of New Year’s was wonderful, but if we had traveled one week later every activity we had scheduled would have been completely disrupted.
The places we went, food we ate, and sights we saw filled me with wonder. I will write about some of our specific experiences in my next column. Until then let me just say that I would recommend a pilgrimage to the “City of Lights” at least once in a lifetime for anyone who can possibly manage it. If you don’t find a lot to love in Paris it is time to check your pulse. Paris is tres magnifique!
TRANSFORMATION
by Marilyn Davin
When my daughter was in high school she announced one day that she was getting a tattoo. I looked levelly at her over my coffee cup and told her that if she got a tattoo I would find out where she got it and dedicate the rest of my life, if necessary, to exposing the tattoo shop that did it and put it out of business for tattooing a minor. She was 16 years old. On her eighteenth birthday she got her tattoos. Ten years later, after beginning her professional adult life, she spent thousands of dollars removing them.
I know all the arguments in favor of permitting underage boys and girls to undergo pharmaceutical or surgical procedures to “become the gender they identify with.” Pushing these procedures to earlier and earlier ages buttresses this belief, effectively allowing boys who want to be girls and girls who want to be boys to undergo changes that will still be with them on their old-age deathbeds. These choices, in my view, are cornerstones of personal liberty and should be legal and accessible to anyone, without prejudice. As long as they’re adults.
Changing one’s gender is a more weighty decision than getting a tattoo, of course; you can get rid of tattoos if they lose their luster in adulthood. But the principle is the same. Teenagers suck up their contemporary culture like ravenous sponges. It’s their existential role to explore the world, challenge assumptions, to view that world with fresh, unjaded eyes. As a teenager I remember high-handedly telling my parents that the nuclear family was dead, that my generation was shedding their unenlightened generation’s notion in favor of egalitarian communal life.
Moving beyond children toiling in coal mines, lumber mills, and charnel houses, twentieth century laws shifted the protection of children from private charity to codified law. These laws protect children from all manner of abuse─most at the hands of us, their parents. Other western countries (with functioning national governments) apply these laws universally.
This being the United States, states set their own laws. In California, the age of consent for marriage, voting, military conscription, elective body alterations, and many other things, is 18. There are exceptions to laws with 21-year cut-offs, notably for tobacco and alcohol. (Remember Barry McGuire’s famous lyrics of the time, “Old enough to kill, but not for votin’,” from “Eve of Destruction?)
These laws recognize that children are too young and inexperienced, too unschooled in the ways of the world, to make impactful, life-changing decisions on their own. As parents, this can be difficult in the face of rampant, 24/7 social media, the perfect medium for developing teenage brains. Some teenagers are social media influencers, a subset raking in millions in the process. They look Like adults, sound like adults (albeit with limited language skills like grammar and noun/verb agreement).
But no matter how grown-up they look, how articulate they sound, they’re still basically kids at heart. One of our greatest challenges as parents in today’s America is the struggle to protect our kids from harm when they’re teenagers. They’ll be adults and out of your reach soon enough. This became a decade-long struggle for my best friend, whose teenaged son crashed cars, got DUIs, and generally ran hot and wild with his friends. The law recognized the transitory follies of youth and did not tar him with a record.
Today he’s a prosecutor with his own family.
NEWSOM ISN'T PERFECT, BUT…
Editor,
Regarding “Newsom’s contradictory State of the State speech doesn’t bode well for presidential run," Emily Hoeven did a good job of identifying inconsistencies in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approach to governance. He is not committed to defending his positions when they are wrong and often changes course, as we all should when faced with changing circumstances.
Newsom is a politician and duly subject to scrutiny. I support Hoeven doing that. Which brings me to context.
Considering the mayhem being thrust upon us by the Trump administration, Newsom is the most active defender of our democracy. So let us not be overtly critical because he is not perfect.
We must vote out those who enable the Trump regime and its attacks on the middle class. Unarmed citizens are being kidnapped and shot dead in the streets by a secret police force that answers only to an authoritarian regime that never admits mistakes are made, takes no responsibility, takes no action to investigate and demonizes victims while burying the truth.
That is context.
Mitchell Neto
Davenport (Santa Cruz County)
“ONCE YOU BEGIN to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.”
— Virginia Woolf
“I CAN NEVER read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
NO CAMPAIGN? NO PROBLEM. INSIDE CALIFORNIA POLITICAL ELITES’ SHADOWY SPENDING
by Nicole Nixon, Kate Wolfe
During his first speech as Senate President pro Tempore in early 2024, McGuire gave a shout-out to his beloved team, who were days away from facing the Kansas City Chiefs at the Super Bowl.
His late grandmother “would be more excited that the 49ers are heading to the Super Bowl than me being up here today,” McGuire joked to laughs and applause.
“So I think we need to do a ‘Go Niners,’ everybody.”
A few days later, McGuire attended the game in Las Vegas. He paid for the tickets not out of his own pocket, but through a ballot measure committee called “Progress for California.”
The committee spent $40,000 for tickets, meals, lodging and transportation for a three-day stay in Las Vegas during the event, according to campaign finance records, paying Super Bowl beer sponsor Anheuser-Busch directly. The company also gifted McGuire ticket packages worth $33,750.
A campaign spokesman for McGuire said the trip was for a fundraiser held with his predecessor, former Senate pro Tem Toni Atkins.
In the two years since he opened the account, McGuire’s “Progress for California” ballot committee has amassed more than $850,000 in political donations from labor unions, tribes, businesses and other political action committees
But despite its name, it has yet to donate to any ballot measure.
The arrest and indictment of Dana Williamson, a former top aide to Gov. Gavin Newsom, cracked open a window to Sacramento’s campaign finance ecosystem, showing the sometimes questionable ways that lawmakers, lobbyists, consultants and interest groups use accounts to trade money, time and access.
A Sacramento Bee review of more than 100 accounts and lobbying records reveals how two types of accounts in particular – ballot measure committees and campaign accounts held by ex-lawmakers – are commonly used to shore up political connections and help elected officials live large, while spending little, if anything, on campaigns those accounts were ostensibly designed to support.
Williamson, Newsom’s former chief of staff, pleaded not guilty in November in a scheme to enrich her friend Sean McCluskie, a longtime deputy to former Attorney General Xavier Becerra, using money funneled from one of Becerra’s dormant campaign accounts. McCluskie and another lobbyist pleaded guilty; Becerra said he was unaware of what was happening and cooperated with federal investigators.
The Bee’s analysis of campaign accounts controlled by current and former elected officials, including dozens like the one used to steal from Becerra, reveals the price to get a state lawmaker’s ear for an evening or a weekend – and it’s not cheap. Special interests often donate tens of thousands of dollars to lawmakers and gain access to private fundraisers at high-end resorts and other exclusive events.
After years of lax oversight from the Fair Political Practices Commission, some elected officials exploit loopholes to cozy up to special interests. Others push legal and ethical boundaries to set themselves up for a career in the private sector after term limits. This type of political spending is legal under California law.
“Money in politics is kind of this perverse game where both parties are guilty of the pay-to-play,” said Sean McMorris, a program manager for California Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that advocates for democracy and good governance.
Campaign finance loopholes allow players to trade money and influence without breaking the law, he said. “So they can say, ‘Hey, I’ve done nothing wrong,’ and they often do. It patronizes the heck out of the public because we’re not stupid.”
The review of campaign finance records follows recent reporting by The Bee and other news outlets about questionable spending by state lawmakers and other California elected officials, including Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and Assembly Republican Leader Heath Flora.
Ballot measure committees fund much more
McGuire’s ballot measure committee shows how special interests are able to funnel tens of thousands to the very lawmakers they spend months lobbying. In the same way that federal PACs can raise unlimited funds from special interests, these campaign accounts have few restrictions on how much they can raise from a single source.
Top donors to the committee include Smart Justice California, a criminal justice advocacy group, and health care company DaVita, which have each given more than $100,000 since 2024.
Many lawmakers who control ballot measure committees use them to raise money to sway voters on ballot propositions. But campaign finance records show that since creating the account in late 2023, McGuire has not used the committee’s money on any actual ballot campaigns.
Instead, his “Progress for California” committee has been used primarily as a vehicle for fundraising: collecting large checks from special interests groups and spending thousands to attend fundraisers – including the Super Bowl event – and dinners.
McGuire did cut checks totaling over $150,000 to the ‘Yes on 50’ campaign in 2025 as the redistricting measure went to voters – however, those donations did not come from Progress for California, but another campaign account he was using to run for a higher elected office.
When asked about the committee’s spending, a spokesperson for McGuire’s campaign said the Super Bowl fundraiser was held alongside Atkins, who for years held fundraisers at the NFL championships. Campaign records show Atkins’ own ballot measure committee spent more than $150,000 to host the 2024 fundraiser. She also dropped $345,000 into various ballot measure campaigns in California and Nevada that year.
The Bee reviewed 90 active ballot measure committees controlled by sitting or former elected officials and found that these accounts are funded almost exclusively by special interests, which cut checks worth thousands – sometimes tens of thousands – of dollars. The money is often given to attend fundraisers at entertainment venues or luxury resorts.
In exchange for a “suggested donation” to the committees, trade organizations and other businesses and industry groups that regularly lobby the legislature can send a representative to rub elbows with a host lawmaker for an evening or weekend away from the Capitol.
“There’s no quid pro quo most of the time. It would be illegal,” said McMorris with California Common Cause. “But everyone knows how the game is played. It’s kind of a wink and a nod thing.”
Since 2024, lawmakers have hosted fundraisers at Beyoncé and Taylor Swift concerts, Disneyland, Las Vegas and lavish resorts such as Pelican Hill in Newport Beach. Many lawmakers also use their ballot measure accounts to pay political consulting fees.
Because candidates and elected officials are not required to report certain details about these fundraisers, few specifics are known about who attends and whether potential legislation is ever discussed in private.
State laws prevent registered lobbyists from making political donations, but no rules prohibit a company or interest group from donating a large sum for access to an elected official’s fundraiser, and then sending their lobbyist to the event.
Lobbyists and other “moneyed interests” know that donating to an elected officials’ campaign account – or accounts – is a way to “curry favor,” McMorris said. Politicians know it, too, “so those are the first people they reach out to for campaign contributions.”
The Bee’s analysis found most lawmaker-controlled ballot measure committees do spend money to either support or oppose ballot propositions. But some committees have spent upwards of $100,000 on fundraisers paid for, and attended by, the same businesses and association groups that lobby the Legislature while spending little, if any, money trying to reach their voters about a particular issue.
In early 2025, Assemblymember Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, reported spending north of $63,000 on a three-day trip to New Orleans that fell over Super Bowl weekend in that city. Rubio used the ballot measure committee to pay for travel and meals for herself and three members of her household, which she expensed as related to a fundraiser. She also used the account to make a $6,000 purchase at the Apple Store and to pay for Clear, the airport clearance service.
And in an unusual move, Rubio has used her ballot measure committee to pay a nearly $4,000 monthly salary to a campaign worker. The employee, Hilda Escobar, also works as Rubio’s legislative scheduler, a job for which she earns an annual salary of $107,868.
Rubio’s campaign did not respond to the Bee’s questions about her ballot measure committee spending or the nature of Escobar’s work on it.
Her sister, Sen. Susan Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, has spent more than $40,000 from her own ballot measure committee for two small fundraisers at a wellness resort in Tucson, Ariz. since last year.
Since taking over as chair of the Senate Insurance Committee in 2019, her ballot measure committee has taken at least $193,000 from industry players, including Allstate, the American Property Casualty Insurance Association and the Personal Insurance Federation of California Agents.
While Blanca Rubio did use her ballot measure committee to give $25,000 in support of Proposition 50 last year, Susan Rubio reported no spending on ballot measures or related items like ads or mailers.
A spokesperson for Sen. Susan Rubio said she “has always acted with the highest level of ethical and moral integrity, placing the interest of consumers and residents above all, and voting on issues regardless of who has contributed to her campaigns.”
State lawmakers representing Orange County have a history of hosting large fundraisers at Disneyland – a tradition that Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, D-Anaheim, has continued.
In 2024, most of the money spent by his “Golden State of Mind” ballot committee – about $150,000 – paid for a fundraiser at the theme park, a huge and influential economic force in Valencia’s district.
“Golden State of Mind” has raised more than $480,000 over the past two years, mostly from groups like the California Apartment Association and PACs controlled by public employee unions, health care and insurance companies, and other lawmakers.
A fraction of the money in that account has gone toward advocating for ballot propositions – Valencia spent $22,000 last fall to help pass Prop. 50, and in 2024 he donated $2,500 to oppose Huntington Beach’s voter ID proposal.
Valencia has not filed reports for most of his ballot committee’s spending in 2025, though his campaign confirmed he hosted another Disneyland fundraiser last year.
The fundraisers “followed all applicable campaign finance rules,” said Derek Humphrey, a spokesperson for Valencia’s campaign. “The committee produced direct mail and digital billboards in support of Proposition 50 (in 2025) and plans to be active again in 2026.”
Humphrey also said Valencia made an additional in-kind donation for Prop. 50 mailers that has not yet been reported.
Former lawmakers keep accounts open, work in lobbying
Campaign finance law allows lawmakers to raise and spend large amounts of money through ballot measure committees that require no link to an actual ballot measure. The same is true for campaign committees held by lawmakers who have left office – a real campaign isn’t necessary.
For the past 17 years, former Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez has transferred the money he raised in office to new campaign accounts at a regular interval – for Senate in 2010, Treasurer in 2014, Treasurer in 2018, Treasurer in 2022 and Treasurer in 2026.
In that time, he has never again run for office, instead using the balance of the accounts to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to sitting legislators.
The pattern began shortly after Núñez termed out of office in 2008, when he became a partner at a lobbying firm in Sacramento. Soon after he was hired at the firm, Núñez transferred $5 million from his existing campaign account to a new one – Friends of Fabian Núñez for Senate 2010.
Months later, that account gave $3,672 to the campaign account of sitting Assemblymember Ricardo Lara, according to campaign finance records, and a month later, $1,000 to the account of then-Assemblymember Kevin McCarty.
Registered lobbyists are not allowed to make these kinds of contributions, but no rules prevent partners and owners of lobbying firms from doing so. Over the years, Núñez has given over $1.3 million to political candidates and their causes, including $228,000 during the first six months of 2025.
Núñez didn’t answer directly when asked via email whether he really plans to run for Treasurer this year.
“Mr Núñez is passionate about the issues that matter to Californians and is continually looking for another opportunity to serve them,” said Núñez’s spokesperson, Steve Maviglio. “He also actively contributes to causes and candidates that share his vision.”
Campaign finance records show Núñez gave $6,500 to help elect Maviglio to the American River Flood Control District Board.
In addition to Núñez’s account, The Bee reviewed dozens of other accounts opened for 2026 and 2030 races, and found that in many cases, these accounts belonged to former lawmakers who use them to hold and spend money raised during their time in office – not to run for the seat in question.
The accounts rarely spent money on campaign-related expenses – like consultants, polling, mailers or other voter interaction – and almost never raised additional funds. Instead, some former lawmakers have used them to further their careers in lobbying and public affairs.
“It’s essentially a lifetime slush fund for former elected officials,” said Dan Schnur, a former chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission who is now a political science professor at USC, Pepperdine and UC Berkeley.
“Donors give you money for a specific reason for a specific election, and once you decide not to seek office anymore, you’re free to spend that money however you like, regardless where it came from and the reasons that a donor may have given it.”
Núñez didn’t just spend his money on campaign contributions. As a founder and managing partner of the global consulting firm Actum Strategies, he also gave money to charities with ties to his firm.
An analysis of Núñez’s accounts show at least two instances of overlap between organizations he has donated campaign funds to and those that have been clients of Actum Strategies. In 2019, he gave the Anti-Recidivism Coalition $12,500. At the time, his son was the organization’s policy director. In 2023, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition became a client of Actum’s and contracted with the firm in 2024 and 2025.
One of Actum’s largest clients is AltaMed Health Services Corporation, a federally-qualified network of community health centers in Los Angeles. They became clients of the firm after years of donations from Núñez’s campaigns. From 2023 to 2025, the organization spent close to $700,000 on Actum’s services. At the end of 2024, Núñez gave $150,000 to the fundraising arm of the corporation, AltaMed Foundation.
“Former Speaker Núñez has a long track record of charitable giving from his accounts in compliance with state law, particularly to those causes like health care and human rights that he is passionate about,” said Maviglio. He added that the AltaMed Foundation’s board is separate from the corporation.
There are other examples of lawmakers leaving public office for lobbying roles, but keeping their accounts open and spending from them.
Former Democratic assemblymember Tom Daly, who left office in 2022, spent $33,000 in 2025 from a “Daly for Insurance Commissioner 2026” account. Daly currently is a partner at the lobbying firm Clear Advocacy. He is not currently running for Insurance Commissioner.
The largest expense from his account was $14,000 in “civic donations” to the Independent Voter Project, an organization that hosts an annual conference with legislators and lobbyists in Maui. Daly made a similar “civic donation” of $12,500 to the IVP in 2024, and was listed by the organization as one of its 2024 attendees on behalf of Clear Advocacy. He is not a registered lobbyist for the organization, though his wife, Debbie Daly, is. Other expenses from 2025 include thousands of dollars spent on campaign contributions to sitting legislators.
California State Senator Bill Dodd speaks during the dedication ceremony for the River Trail Village residence halls at Napa Valley College in Napa on Friday, September 20, 2024. (Christopher Chung/The Press Democrat)
Democratic state Sen. Bill Dodd left office in 2024 and now runs a legislative and public affairs service firm, Dodd & Chaaban Strategies LLC, where his former chief of staff, Ezrah Chaaban, is a registered lobbyist.
Dodd began 2025 with about $1 million in his “Dodd for Lt. Governor 2026” campaign account, although as of January he was not campaigning for the office. He did use some of the balance in 2025 to pay $7,200 for six people to attend the BottleRock Music Festival in Napa, and over $3,200 for airfare for four people to attend the ritzy Protem Cup golf fundraiser in San Diego. The records did not say who attended the events with him and his wife.
Former assemblywoman Autumn Burke was also apparently considering a run for lieutenant governor this year. She spent over $450,000 out of her “Autumn Burke for Lieutenant Governor 2026” account in the years after she left office in 2022, on conferences and political contributions.
She is currently transferring the $111,000 in that account to an “Autumn Burke for Insurance Commissioner 2030” account. Burke has been a registered lobbyist at times for Axiom Advisors and started a new political strategy company, Revan Consulting Group, in April 2025.
When reached for comment, Burke said her contributions have nothing to do with her role at lobbying firms and that she is “seriously considering” running for the position of Insurance Commissioner in 2030.
According to campaign finance records for her lieutenant governor account, in the latter half of 2023, Burke also donated $25,000 to her own charity, BIWOC on K, for which she is the president. The organization puts on talks and networking events for women of color in Sacramento, and solicits sponsorships from companies like AT&T and the California Faculty Association.
Burke said she doesn’t derive any income from the charity and didn’t see why donating money to the cause would be a problem.
McMorris said even if a charitable contribution doesn’t incur a monetary benefit to a candidate, “it could benefit them in other ways, like name recognition, prestige, expanded social and business networks.”
“None of this is to diminish the good work a nonprofit may be doing, but the ends don’t always justify the means if it creates a perception of impropriety,” he added.
California’s political watchdog is stretched thin
Ethics and transparency advocates say California’s political regulator has not kept pace with ballooning campaign spending in the state and is woefully understaffed.
The FPPC is tasked with monitoring the finances and public disclosures of thousands of candidates and officeholders at state and local levels. Those who break the rules are hit with fines depending on the severity of the infraction.
The agency has a staff of about 100 lawyers, investigators and support staff to do this work. Multiple people who have spent time at the FPPC told The Bee the staff is not big enough to effectively do the job. The commission primarily opens inquiries in response to tips – and bigger investigations can often take years to complete.
“Everybody loves oversight unless they’re the ones being overseen,” said Schnur, who led the agency during the final year of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term. “So it’s not surprising that legislators and governors tend not to give their watchdog enough resources to do the job.”
He said it’s easy for the agency to focus on lower-level infractions at the expense of more serious offenses or corruption.
“There’s so many minnows,” he said, “that it’s really easy to lose track of the whales.”
Schnur credited current chairman Adam Silver, saying he has “done better than most” at prioritizing high-level cases.
One of the biggest fines the agency leveled in 2025 was against Evan Low, a Democrat who served in the legislature for a decade. Low was fined $106,000 for concealing payments between his tech nonprofit and actor Alec Baldwin.
Low, who now works as president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, settled the fine – but not from his personal assets.
He paid it using leftover campaign cash stashed in an account called “Evan Low for State Controller 2030.”
(Sacramento Bee)
TAKE IT TO THE STREETS
Do Americans still believe in mass protest? Or do we just not know of any other possible mechanism, outside voting, for achieving social change? When we take to the streets—which we still do, in great numbers—do we expect something to come of it, or are we out there simply because our understanding of American history tells us that this is what we are supposed to do next?
The footage of an ICE agent killing Renee Nicole Good “has confirmed all the mounting fears about what happens when unchecked, extralegal, and largely untrained military forces are set loose in an American city,” Jay Caspian Kang writes. At this point, less than a week after Good’s killing, one can discern the beginning stages of the mass mobilization we saw in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, with marches springing up in cities across the country. But, to date, we have not seen an outpouring of spontaneous street action on the scale that we saw back then.
“We seem to have stumbled into an uneasy paradox: millions of people are willing to participate in widespread protests, but few appear to believe that they will lead to much change,” Kang continues. “This is the first time in recent memory in which the will of the majority feels both irrelevant and totally impotent.” Read Kang’s latest column, about what dissent looks like in 2026—and what we hope to accomplish by expressing it: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/KFKfkw
ICE WENT INTO A TARGET, where they snatched a 17-year-old worker from his job, threw him to the ground outside the entry and cuffed him, as he kept telling them he was a US citizen. Twenty minutes later or so later, after confirming that the teenager was in fact a US citizen, they dumped him in the parking lot of a Walmart a mile away, where people found him bleeding and crying: “They slammed me on the ground.”
Remember when the regime said they were pursuing dangerous criminals and not workers just trying to pay rent? (via Mike Geniella)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Something like 90% of recent deportations are those who have no criminal history. Miller set a high quota and they are roaming around in public accosting people in parking lots and work places because there simply aren’t enough criminals to meet the quota. Those are the facts.
So please don’t assert something that I can see with my eyes isn’t true.
Let me be perfectly clear: I support the right of ICE to do whatever is necessary to deport anyone with a criminal record or lawful deportation order. Neither me nor frankly the vast majority of protesters are disputing that. That is not what we are upset about. We are upset about thugs harassing people in the street asking for papers. That’s not the kind of country I want to live in, and if that’s what it takes to track down every last illegal, then it isn’t worth the cost.
Spare me your law and order and only enforcing the law. Violating the constitution, the supreme law, in the name of law enforcement is an outrage.
EX-PRESIDENTS & DEM LEADERS SILENT ON IMPEACHMENT OF TRUMP
by Ralph Nader
The staggering cowardliness by four ex-Presidents vis-à-vis Tyrant Trump’s wrecking of America cannot escape history’s verdict. However, there is still an opportunity for vigorous redemption by George W. Bush – whose life-saving AIDS Medicine Program in Africa was shut down by Trump – Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, if they have any self-respect for their patriotic duty.
As of now, these former Presidents are living lives of luxury and personal pursuits. They are at the apex of the ‘contented classes’ (see my column “Trump and the Contented Classes”, November 14, 2025) who have chosen to be bystanders to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and the doling out of Trump’s corporatist welfare giveaways.
Imagine, if you will, what would happen if these four wealthy politicians, who still have most of their voters liking them, decided to band together and take on Trump full throttle. Privately, they believe and want Trump to be impeached (for the third time in the House) and convicted in the Senate. This time, on many impeachable actions that Trump himself boasts about, claiming, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President.”
Right off, they can upend the public discourse that Trump dominates daily with phony personal accusations, stunningly unrebutted by the feeble Democratic Party leaders. This counterattack with vivid, accurate words will further increase the majority of people who want Trump “Fired.” Just from their own observations of Trump’s vicious, cruel destruction of large parts of our government and civil service, which benefits and protects the populace, should jolt the former presidents into action.
Next, the bipartisan Band of Four can raise tens of millions of dollars instantly to form “Save Our Republic” advocacy groups in every Congressional District. The heat on both Parties in Congress would immediately rise to make them start the Impeachment Drive. Congressional Republicans’ fear of losing big in the 2026 elections, as their polls are plummeting, will motivate some to support impeachment. Congressional Republicans abandoned President Richard Nixon in 1974, forcing his resignation with Impeachment on his political horizon.
Events can move very fast. First, Trump is the most powerful contributor to his own Impeachment. Day after day, this illegal closer of long-established social safety nets and services is alienating tens of millions of frightened and angry Americans.
Daily, Trump is breaking his many campaign promises. His exaggerated predictions are wrong. Remember his frequent promise to stop “these endless wars,” his assurance that he would not impair government health insurance programs (tell that to the millions soon to lose, due to Trump, their Medicaid coverage), his promise of lifting people into prosperity (he opposes any increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour) and he has signed GOP legislation to strip tens of millions of Americans from the SNAP food support and take away the Obama subsidies for Obamacare. Many Trump voters are among the vast number of people experiencing his treachery, where they live and raise their families, will lose out here. The catalytic opportunities of these four ex-presidents and their skilled operating teams are endless.
Further, this Band of Presidents, discovering their patriotic duty, will recharge the Democratic Party leaders or lead to the immediate replacement of those who simply do not want or know how to throw back the English language against this Bully-in-Chief, this abuser of women, this stunning racist, this chronic liar about serious matters, this inciter of violence including violence against members of Congress, this invader of cities with increasingly violent, law breaking storm-troopers turning a former Border Patrol force into a vast recruitment program for police state operators.
Trump uses the word “Impeachment” frequently against judges who rule against him, and even mentions it in relation to it being applied to him. Tragically, Democratic Party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo, arguing the time is not yet ripe. How many more abuses of power do they need to galvanize the Democrats in the House and Senate against the most blatantly impeachable president by far in American history? He keeps adding to his list – recently, he has become a Pirate and killer on the High Seas, an unconstitutional war maker on Iran and Venezuela, openly threatening to illegally seize the Panama Canal, Greenland, and the overthrow of the Cuban government.
Constitutional scholar Obama can ask dozens of constitutional law professors the question: “Would any of the 56 delegates who signed our U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the 39 drafters who signed our U.S. Constitution in 1787, being told about Monarch King Donald Trump, oppose his immediate Impeachment and Removal – the only tool left he doesn’t control?” Not one, would be their studied response.
Trump, a serial draft dodger, pushes through another $150 billion to the Pentagon above what the Generals requested while starving well-being programs of nutrition for our children and elderly, and cutting services, by staff reductions, for American veterans, and stripmining our preparedness for climate violence and likely pandemics.
He promised law and order during the election and then betrayed it right after his inauguration, pardoning 1,500 convicted, imprisoned criminals, 600 of them violent, emptying their prison cells and calling them “patriots” for what they did to Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Ex-Presidents, Just What Are You Waiting For? What are your escapist excuses? Call your friends who are ranking members of the GOP controlled Committees of Congress and tell them to hold prompt SHADOW HEARINGS to educate the public through witnesses about the TRUMP DUMP, impeachable, illegal, and unconstitutional government. The media would welcome the opportunity to cover such hearings. Congressman Jamie Raskin thought this was “a good idea” before being admonished by his frightened Democratic leaders to bide his time and remain silent.
As more of Trump’s iron boots drop on people’s livelihoods, their freedoms, their worry for their children and grandchildren, their antipathy to more aggressive wars against non-threatening countries, and their demands at town meetings and mass marches for action against Trump’s self-enriching despotism, the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify. Unless they wake up to the challenge. With the mainstream media attacked regularly and being sued by Trump’s coercive, illegal extortion, the action by the Band of Four will bolster press freedom, press coverage, and their own redemption.
Send these four politicians, who are friendly with one another, petitions, letters, emails, satiric cartoons, or whatever communications that might redeem them from the further condemnation of history.
Rest assured, with Trump in the disgraced White House, Things Are Only Going To Get Worse, Much Worse! For that is the predictable behavior from the past year and from his dangerously unstable, arrogant, vengeful, and egomaniacal personality.
“THE WORLD is getting weirder and weirder. Huge things are happening at speeds too high to measure, or even fathom, in the brain of a normal human. We are like moths in a blizzard.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, ‘Hey Rube’
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Six Prosecutors Quit Over Push to Investigate ICE Shooting Victim’s Widow
ICE Arrested Dozens of Refugees in Minnesota and Sent Them to Texas, Lawyers Say
Tensions Are High as Vance and Rubio Prepare to Meet Danish and Greenlandic Officials
U.S. to Name Palestinian Committee to Run Gaza
China Announces Record Trade Surplus as Its Exports Flood World Markets
Newsom Vows to Stop Proposed Billionaire Tax in California
Claudette Colvin, Who Refused to Give Her Bus Seat to a White Woman, Dies at 86
Israel Is Still Demolishing Gaza, Building by Building
LOITERING WITH A VACANT EYE
Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And stedfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look would say,
"We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."
Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard:
"What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.
Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I stept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone.
— A.E. Housman (1895)
THE MACHINERY OF TERROR
The Trump administration is consolidating the familiar machinery of terror of all authoritarian states. We must resist now. If we wait, it will be too late.
by Chris Hedges
I have seen the masked goons who terrorize our streets before. I saw them during the “Dirty War” in Argentina, where 30,000 men, women and children were “disappeared” by the military junta. Victims were held in secret prisons, savagely tortured and murdered. To this day, many families do not know the fate of their loved ones.
I saw them in El Salvador, when death squads were killing 800 people a month. I saw them in Guatemala under the dictatorship of José Efraín Ríos Montt. I saw them in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I saw them in Iran under the rule of the ayatollahs where I was arrested and jailed twice and once deported in handcuffs. I saw them in Hafez al-Assad’s Syria. I saw them in Bosnia, where Muslims were herded into concentration camps, executed and buried in mass graves.
I know these goons. I have been a prisoner in their jails and spent hours in their interrogation rooms. I have been beaten by them. I have been deported, and in several cases banned, from their countries. I know what is coming.
Terror is the engine that empowers dictatorships. It eliminates dissidents. It silences critics. It dismantles the law. It creates a society of timid and frightened collaborators, those who look away when people are snatched off streets or gunned down, those who inform to save themselves, those who retreat into their tiny rabbit holes, pulling down the blinds, desperately praying to be left in peace.
Terror works.
The iron doors have not yet shut. There are still protests. The media is still able to document state atrocities, including the Jan. 7 murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross. But the doors are closing fast. ICE has deported over 300,000 people and detained nearly 69,000 others — as well as been involved in 16 shootings, including four killings — since Trump began his campaign against immigrants.
ICE, our Americanized Gestapo, is being birthed.
Resistance must be collective. We must assert not only our individual rights, but economic, social and political rights — without them we are powerless. Resistance means organizing to disrupt the machinery of commerce and government. It means preventing arrests by patrolling neighborhoods to warn of impending ICE raids. It means protesting outside detention facilities. It means strikes. It means blocking streets and highways and occupying buildings. It means providing photographic evidence. It means sustained pressure on local politicians and police to refuse to cooperate with ICE. It means providing legal representation, food and financial assistance to families with members detained. It means a willingness to be arrested. It means a nationwide campaign to defy the state’s inhumanity.
If we fail, the dimming flames of our open society will be snuffed out.
Authoritarian states are constructed incrementally. No dictatorship advertises its plan to extinguish civil liberties. It pays lip service to liberty and justice as it dismantles the institutions and laws that make liberty and justice possible. Opponents of the regime, including those within the establishment, make sporadic attempts to resist. They throw up temporary roadblocks, but they are soon purged.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in “The Gulag Archipelago” notes that the consolidation of Soviet tyranny “was stretched out over many years because it was of primary importance that it be stealthy and unnoticed.” He called the process “a grandiose silent game of solitaire, whose rules were totally incomprehensible to its contemporaries, and whose outlines we can appreciate only now.”
“What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?” Solzhenitsyn asks. “Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!”
Czesław Miłosz, in “The Captive Mind,” also documents the creep of tyranny, how it advances stealthily, until intellectuals are not only forced to repeat the regime’s self-adulating slogans but, as our leading universities did when they caved to false allegations of being bastions of antisemitism, embrace its absurdism.
Manufactured fear engenders self-doubt. It makes a population — often unconsciously — conform outwardly and inwardly. It conditions citizens to relate to those around them with suspicion and distrust. It destroys the solidarity vital to organizing, community and dissent.
The historian Robert Gellately, in his book “Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany,” argues that state terror in Nazi Germany was effective not because of omnipresent state surveillance, but because it fostered a “culture of denunciation.”
Rat out your neighbors and coworkers and survive. If you see something, say something.
The worse it gets, the more established institutions, desperate to survive, silence those who warn us.
“Before societies fall, just such a stratum of wise, thinking people emerges, people who are that and nothing more,” Solzhenitsyn writes of those who see what is coming. “And how they were laughed at! How they were mocked!”
The Austrian writer Joseph Roth, whose early warnings about the rise of fascism were largely dismissed, and who told fellow intellectuals to stop naively appealing to “the remains of a European conscience,” saw his books tossed into the bonfires in the spring of 1933 during the Nazi book burnings. So far, we have not burned books, but have banned nearly 23,000 titles in public schools since 2021.
The authoritarian state cannibalizes the institutions that foolishly aid and abet the witch hunts. It replaces them with pseudo-institutions populated with pseudo-legislators, pseudo-courts, pseudo-journalists, pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-citizens. Columbia University is a shining example of this willful self-immolation. Nothing is as it is presented.
There are increasing numbers of violent kidnappings by masked ICE agents in unmarked cars on our city streets. People are ripped from their vehicles and beaten. They are arrested outside schools and day care centers. They are raided at work, thrown onto the floor, handcuffed, driven away in vans and shipped off to concentration camps in countries such as El Salvador. They are seized when they appear at court for a green card application or interview to finalize a visa.
Once detained, they disappear into the labyrinth of over 200 detention centers, where they are moved from one facility to the next to hide them from family, lawyers and the courts. Due process, once a constitutional right afforded to everyone in the United States, no longer exists.
“Laws that are not equal for all revert to rights and privileges, something contradictory to the very nature of nation-states,” Hannah Arendt writes in “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” “The clearer the proof of their inability to treat stateless people as legal persons and the greater the extension of arbitrary rule by police decree, the more difficult it is for states to resist the temptation to deprive all citizens of legal status and rule them with an omnipotent police.”
The FBI, in an example of how justice is perverted, refuses to cooperate with local law enforcement agencies in Minneapolis, blocking access to any evidence that would allow them to file criminal charges against Jonathan Ross.
Killing of unarmed citizens by the state is carried out with impunity.
ICE has more than doubled the size of its force since early 2025 — to 22,000 agents — hiring 12,000 new officers in four months from a pool of 220,000 applicants. It plans to spend $100 million over a one-year period to hire even more recruits, part of the $170 billion for border and interior enforcement, including $75 billion for ICE, to be spent over four years. Salaries for these new recruits, poorly trained and often haphazardly vetted, will range from $49,739 to $89,528 a year, along with a $50,000 signing bonus — split over three years — and up to $60,000 in student loan repayments.
ICE is building new detention centers nationwide in 23 towns and cities. It promises that once it is fully operational, it will go door-to-door as part of the largest deportation effort in American history.
ICE agents, intoxicated by the license to kick down doors while wearing body armor and firing automatic weapons at terrified women and children, are not warriors as they imagine, but thugs. They have few skills, other than weapons training, cruelty and brutality. They intend to remain employed by the state. The state intends to keep them employed.
None of this should surprise us. The repressive techniques used by ICE and our militarized police were perfected overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Occupied Palestine, and earlier in Vietnam. The ICE agent who murdered Good was a machinegunner in Iraq. A night raid in Chicago, with agents rappelling from a helicopter to storm an apartment complex filled with terrified families, does not look any different from a night raid in Fallujah.
Aimé Césaire, the Martinician playwright and politician, in “Discourse on Colonialism” writes that the savage tools of imperialism and colonialism eventually migrate back to the home country. It is known as imperial boomerang.
Césaire writes:
And then one fine day the bourgeoisie is awakened by a terrific boomerang effect: the gestapos are busy, the prisons fill up, the torturers standing around the racks invent, refine, discuss. People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind—it’s Nazism, it will pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.
During the interregnum between the last gasps of a democracy and the emergence of a dictatorship, the nation is gaslighted. It is told the rule of law is respected. It is told democratic rule is inviolate. These lies mollify those being frog-marched into their own enslavement.
“The majority sit quietly and dare to hope,” Solzhenitsyn writes. “Since you aren’t guilty, then how can they arrest you? It’s a mistake!”
Maybe, the fearful say, Trump and his minions are only being bombastic. Maybe they don’t mean it. Maybe they are incompetent. Maybe the courts will save us. Maybe the next elections will end this nightmare. Maybe there are limits to extremism. Maybe the worst is over.
These self-delusions prevent us from resisting while the gallows are being constructed in front of us.
Authoritarian states start by targeting the most vulnerable, those most easily demonized — the undocumented, students on college campuses who protest genocide, antifa, the so-called “radical left,” Muslims, poor people of color, intellectuals and liberals. They strike down one group after the next. They blow out, one by one, the long row of candles until we find ourselves in the dark, powerless and alone.
(chrishedges.substack.com)
Henriette Wyeth Hurd (1907-1997), Andrew's eldest sister, was an accomplished painter herself, though she struggled with a rigid right hand as a consequence of polio. When I first saw the painting I praised Andrew for placing her hands like a wonderful posy in her lap - a tribute to this beautiful and talented woman. I understood later it might have been more than that.
I cannot take credit for the Ukiah rumors. I don’t know anything about them. Sorry.
Apologies, Marshall, a mistake from moving elements around this morning. Now corrected.
Chris Hedges writes a powerful piece today, rooted in the history of authoritarian ways. Writings like this mean we can’t say we weren’t warned.
He rightly identifies the essence of what we’re seeing as ICE forces enter our cities:
“ICE agents, intoxicated by the license to kick down doors while wearing body armor and firing automatic weapons at terrified women and children, are not warriors as they imagine, but thugs. They have few skills, other than weapons training, cruelty and brutality. They intend to remain employed by the state. The state intends to keep them employed.”
Hedges ends with this stark warning:
“Authoritarian states start by targeting the most vulnerable, those most easily demonized — the undocumented, students on college campuses who protest genocide, antifa, the so-called “radical left,” Muslims, poor people of color, intellectuals and liberals. They strike down one group after the next. They blow out, one by one, the long row of candles until we find ourselves in the dark, powerless and alone.”
Perhaps not all fully realize yet the dangers here. I hope though, that all of us in our little County agree that ICE should not come here, has no business here.
Bumpersticker spotted in San Rafael: “Say hello to your pooch for me,” me concluding that the anthromorphs are crazier than I thought. And this personalized license plate: “Ulyanov.” A descendent perhaps? Doctors waiting room. 9 sufferers including me, 8 of whom are buried in their cell phones, motel-quality art on the walls, untouched travel mags on a glass table, the whole of it a picture of sterility
Ah Yes, Mr. Bruce, it’s a strange world out there, just try reaching a real soul on the phone for any kind of service. Sterility and an odd kind of “we don’t care” and “nothing seems to work well” seem to reign these days. BUT, there’s still the good old AVA–every day, on and on– to jolt us back to reality and touches of beauty and class and critical thought. That is a good thing, helps us all keep going.
Hope your doctor’s appointment went well and that you are doing well. We all wish that, I am sure.
Hey Bruce – I wasn’t the frequent flyer you are, but I ‘m guessing the professional staff more than makes up for the waiting room group. And the waiting room group ain’t bad when it includes Peter Magowan and Larry Baer. No, I did not speak with them, but we exchanged smiles and nods.
Seeing the info re the McGuire fundraising stirred questions in me about the viability of his current Congressional candidacy (for the District 1 seat). This might be a good time to note he might not be making it past the primary. Audrey Denny from Chico has filed and in 2018 she made it to the general election in district 1 against the now deceased incumbent LaMalfa and got 45% to his 54%.
https://audreyforcongress.com/about/
With lots of time left to file still, a Republican has finally jumped in after the recent death of LaMalfa, Angelita Valles. Her LinkedIn identifies her as HR manager for Excel Scientific based in the southern California desert town of Victorville CA.
Theres a long list of Democrats running who may dilute McGuire’s strength in the western portion of District one, giving a possible edge for Denny in the eastern region. If not too many Republicans jump in then one will likely make it to the final round.
(If Valles still lives down south, she can still run for the seat up here…you dont have to live in the district to run and serve.)
I suspect that most voters will cast ballots for their party’s leading candidate, resulting in a traditional D vs. R in the primary.
Who will be the dominant Democrat?
Here’s Denny on X responding to the Bee article re McGuire’s spending from that fund:
“Audrey Denney
@audreydenney
·
Jan 12
You can’t claim to be for working people while cozying up to the same corporations driving up their costs.
I’m running because our politics should serve families first, not donors with a VIP lane. Faith in government won’t return until we shut the door on pay-to-play politics for good. #AudreyforCongress”
McGuire’s base in this new district probably includes eastern Mendocino (Willits, Ukiah) and in Sonoma from Cloverdale thru Santa Rosa. Denny is likely strong east of highway 5 with her home base Chico.
After a robust campaign season, she may be popular in our area too. Right now McGuire has 17,000 x followers and she has 5,000.
In District 2, Huffman is probably looking over his shoulder at Democrat Rose Penelope Yee from Redding. She got 35% against LaMalfa in the 2024 election.
At this moment McGuire has the strongest hand. Barring a tectonic shift, he will be the favorite. I give CA democrats credit for having the sense not to cut their own throats. Okay, I tee’d it up for, let’er rip.
If you add up the populations of Willits, Ukiah, Cloverdale, Geyserville , Healdsburg, Windsor, and Santa Rosa vs Red Bluff, Susanville, Colusa, Grass Valley, Nevada City and Chico, the western section has a much higher population. McGuire already has the endorsements of most elected officials in Chico or Butte County with Denny getting endorsements from progressive wing figures. I think McGuire obviously has the edge right now but Denny may end up appealing to many of the sizeable number of progressives voting in our area as more become aware of her. Plus the Santa Rosa labor lawyer Wilson may lessen the McGuire vote from Santa Rosa.
In 2018 she got 45% of the vote in a heavy Republican district….if there’s no strong GOP candidate she may appeal to GOP voters due to her farming background and rural-friendly posture. So maybe its McGuire vs her in the final round.
So redistricting was successful. But are democrats willing to vote for Denny when it might result in a republican victory? I know I am not willing to take that chance. And how good can Denny be, if she is willing to place her own party in jeopardy of losing?
There might not even be a viable gop candidate….so far there’s only one and it looks like she lives in the SoCal desert. Denny actually got 45% of the vote against LaMalfa who generally won with opponents getting only 35%. Should be an interesting primary…..speaking of which, there’s a possibility that our Governor choice may be Chad Bianco vs Steve Hilton, thanks to multiple big name Dems running.
I’m all in with Tom Steyer, modern day version of Ross Perot. Willing to take on big oil and PG&E.
Using this vehicle to mention to Bruce Anderson that he might want to try take out from Little Aloha on Taraval Street. I thought about him when I read a recent review.
And the recent conversation about the universe reminded me of-
We come from dust. And we become dust. That’s why I don’t dust. It might be someone I know!
I don’t dust either, and now I have an excuse.
Me too, and it’s a good one, thanks to wise Gale. But still have to check with my wife, who probably won’t buy it.
In regards to the writer who observed French children to be much better behaved than our little kiddos, there is a great book that explains why. “Bringing up Bébé” by Pamela Druckerman, highlights French techniques for raising independent, well-behaved children who sleep well, eat diverse foods, and develop self-control, while encouraging parents to set boundaries and enjoy their own lives. I highly recommend it!
Nader in a nutshell. It might be the best we can hope for –
“The staggering cowardliness by four ex-Presidents…living lives of luxury and personal pursuits…the feeble Democratic Party leaders…Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo…the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify…the further condemnation of history.”
Yes, for sure. Step-up you cowards. Do the right thing!
Maybe Nader should take a look at all the republican senators and congressmen who haven’t lifted a finger to help our nation. The cowardice of former presidents pales in comparison to those unpatriotic freeloaders.
Dang! I just did a major dusting yesterday!
About bumperstickers, for over a decade I had one (regularly renewed: evolvefish.com) that made people in other cars laugh out loud:
“Born OK the First Time”
And another: “Make Orwell Fiction Again”
Just saw one the other day in Berkeley: “Baby On Board: Take Your Best Shot”