KUDOS to new supervisor Mo Mulheren for resisting — on her first day in office yet — the indefensible payout of another hundred thousand dollars to the San Diego-based county health officer, Dr. Doohan, apparently to assist her successor county health officer, Dr. Coren, to do exactly what? CEO Angelo commented she wished we had three county health officers.
AN AVA READER asks about the Adventist's vaccine screw-up: “Why weren't the emergency calls directed to first responders and high risk people instead of emails to personal friends and acquaintances? Why wasn't the freezer thoroughly checked out and brought up to snuff by the hospital when it knew of the storage need? Why wasn't the freezer's alarm system checked, and rechecked? Why wasn't it on a backup generator? Sorry, but count me among those who feel this is one more glaring example of the sloppy medical care provided by Adventist Health. Inexcusable. Someone needs to be held accountable, instead of high fives all around.”
HERE WE HAVE these crucial potions stored at Adventist Hospital, Ukiah, when their freezer where the vaccines are stored in conks out at 2am but it isn't until 1130am before anybody at Adventist notices? Inexcusable, and hardly a confidence builder in Mendocino County's ability to inoculate its citizens.
READER COMMENT: “I absolutely hold public health and Adventist Health in contempt over this. Not because they distributed it in an emergency but because there was an emergency to begin with. Those doses were in that freezer for 3 WEEKS! They should have been administered the day they were received, not put in a freezer for "clinics" in future weeks. There was over 8 months for them to plan the distribution. At this rate it will be literally 3 years for the general population to get a vaccine. And now the doses intended for health care workers are gone. The tier 1A people still stay in tier 1A and the tier 1B people will continue to wait for our incompetent county and adventist health to get their crap together. Meanwhile 4 people died here this week and in the past 3 weeks since they started vaccinating people hundreds of more people are sick. Add to the insult there is no list for anyone to get on. Not at the doctor's offices, not at the hospital and not at public health. This incident brought to light the complete incompetence of public health and Adventist Health Ukiah Valley.”
LAST WEDNESDAY’S Blowhard Day in Washington D.C. was more serious than the Blowhard Day we assumed it would be before it jumped off. Summoned to town by their orange pied piper to protest the stolen election, proof of the theft yet to be revealed, the true militants among these Trumpers got off a serious three hours of pure insurrection, which seems to be shaping up as a American Civil War, Take Two. Millions of irreconcilables immediately celebrated January 6th as their Fort Sumpter, while us concilables, at least this one, expect, from now on, a rolling descent into pure anarchy.
BACK HERE IN LILLIPUT, at Tuesday's BOS meeting, there were numerous demands from the usual claque of illiberal liberals (via Zoom) for Sheriff Kendall to apologize for using a “hurtful” “racist” photo in his original submission to the Board requesting $4 mil for the additional deputies to help quell pot-related violence in the North County. Kendall rightly ignored the illiberal liberals, not bothering to respond that the photo they objected to was in fact his worried example of the kind of thing that will happen if there aren't enough deputies to sort out home invaders before the home invaders are violently sorted out by the invaded.
SHERIFF KENDALL RESPONDS:
I was contacted by a friend who had seen the images I placed on the agenda for the upcoming Board of Supervisors meeting (January 5th, 2021) regarding additional staffing for the Sheriff’s Office.
There were two images shared.
One was a subject who was caught on game camera with a large pack and an assault rifle. This image was reportedly taken during theft of marijuana. The subject is blurry due to the resolution of the camera and is unable to be identified.
The second image was of a subject who had been captured by locals following a robbery. I intentionally blocked out the subject's face to protect his identity, including the subject's race and age which also protects identity.
My friend advised me the image had previously been shared on social media following a robbery in Mendocino County, therefore people would be able to remember the unprotected image.
This image has stirred concerns in our community and I am truly sorry this image caused these concerns.
My intent was to show the crimes and begin conversations regarding the disturbing truth behind what many of our residents are facing regarding violence.
I also wanted to make clear my concerns regarding what can occur if persons choose to enforce laws themselves. I also wanted to make a point, policing should be handled by trained professionals.
I fear what can happen when persons who are not properly trained attempt to enforce laws.
These images were disturbing, please understand they were equally disturbing to me. We are in a time where we have to have honest straight forward conversations regarding crime and the effects on our communities.
If we in law enforcement don’t do our jobs, someone who is untrained will attempt to do them for us.
Please understand I don’t agree with anything in either of these images and that was my point and focus when providing them to our Board of Supervisors.
I appreciate the fact we live in a community that is able to reach out to me, and I to you, early on a Sunday Morning regarding any issue.
I also appreciate the honest discussions regarding many things including this matter in particular.
Thank you, Sheriff Matt Kendall
PEOPLE FLEEING the Golden State? Look at U-Haul traffic: California suffered the steepest outflow of residents via rental truck among all 50 states in 2020, with San Francisco the epicenter of the Bay Area’s pandemic exodus for DIY movers. California had the nation’s most severe outmigration growth ranking last year, with the largest net loss of one-way U-Haul trucks crossing its border in 2020, according to U-Haul stats.
COAST TRAGEDY. 45-year-old David Reyes Juarez, an educator from Rancho Cucamonga, visited Mendocino Big River Headlands State Park on Saturday, January 2, 2021. He and his family hiked along the headlands as king tide waves surged below them when David Juarez fell into the heavy seas. After a multi-agency rescue attempt, Juarez was found and pronounced dead.
FROM CONGRESSMAN HUFFMAN on January 6th: “My staff and I are safe. I am incredibly grateful to the first responders struggling to protect us. I never could have imagined I would be riding out a violent coup attempt led by a President. This is terrorism, and Donald Trump is responsible.” (Whew! Jared we were soooooooo worried.)
RESTAURANT CLOSURES, a reader writes: One of the ways I manage my risk of getting COVID is deciding not to go to restaurants for indoor or outdoor dining in the first place. I have no problem with pick-up, take-out or curbside delivery. Been doing it since March. It's my choice. I know several restaurant owners. What galls me is that over the past nine months they've spent thousands of dollars installing mitigation measures spelled out in the tiniest detail by the state, supposedly to keep everyone safe while allowing business to continue so some degree, only to be told now that, "Sorry, all that was a mistake and useless and you really can't have any customers eat on-site at all. And, by the way, this order is in effect immediately and indefinitely." Staff, who are most often members of the most "at risk" communities, have been furloughed if they're lucky or laid off permanently if they're not. And good luck with EDD. The state has decided that to keep people apart they must close most places where people might congregate in any number whatsoever. Except, of course, for political protests on behalf of certain causes. The state will force-manage us our risk for us, but in the process some people, perhaps a lot, will be terribly hurt and lives ruined, without ever contracting the disease.
In the meantime, infections soar, the number turning into serious cases requiring hospitalization increases, and deaths continue. Efforts to date have not produced the desired results. Wouldn't it be better all around to follow the conventional approach to getting through pandemics: vigorously protect the most vulnerable, ramp up treatment capacity (hospital space and staff), develop and use all effective therapeutics, and vaccinate quickly and broadly across the population?
OUR BOARD OF SUPERVISORS has two new members, Mo Mulheren from the 2nd District (Ukiah) and Glenn McGourty of the 1st District (Greater Ukiah, Redwood Valley, Potter Valley.) The two newbies got off to a properly skeptical start last week by challenging the sweetheart contract extension of Dr. Doohan. Doohan will function as some kind of long distance assistant to the present public health officer, Dr. Coren. Both of them are wildly overpaid for simply passing along state covid updates and, presumably, preparing plans for Mendo vaccinations on the glorious day the magic potions appear on the Ukiah side of the Green Curtain. (CEO Angelo remarked re the Doohan contract discussion that she would like to see three health officers for the county, and maybe Angelo would like to fund another one out of her overstuffed salary.) Mo stuck to her guns, voting against the Doohan extension while McGourty, perhaps out of a mistaken sense of collegiality seeing how it was a done deal, joined his three colleagues in approving the contract for Doohan, who continues to “work” out of her San Diego home.
WE COULD have the first truly functioning board of supervisors in years. Check that: first ever, assuming the catatonic Gjerde awakens from his eight-year, self-induced coma to join McGourty, Mulheren, and Williams for a majority of Supervisors who remember that their first duty is to make local government work for the people it allegedly serves, and maybe even spend public money as carefully as they spend their own. Supervisor Haschak might even be emboldened to occasionally do the right thing with some collegial back0up. (Gjerde seems also to have disappeared from social media, and he long ago stopped returning our calls, which we find annoying as hell since we've supported him for years, long before he became Supervisor, all the way back to when he was menaced, and even attacked, by Dominic Affinito.)
TRUMP'S in office because the Democrats stopped representing working people years ago, a fact you can verify for yourself right here in Mendo by asking to see, or talk to on the phone, or get a non-canned response, from your Democratic congressman. Or state reps Wood and McGuire. Name one thing, just one, that Democrats have done for the Northcoast over the last 75 years.
THE NATIONAL PARTY? Its “leadership” even blocked Bernie's attempt to get Medicare for All into the Democratic Party platform. All the grand talk on lib media about the insult to the people's democracy from Wednesday's yobbo occupation of the Capitol? Apart from maybe twenty representatives, the “people” haven't been represented since Roosevelt, a little by Truman, a tiny bit by Kennedy before he was murdered for trying. So here we are with the obviously unfit Biden, a much bigger crook than Trump, with a neo-lib crew of corporate and big bank errand runners advising him. These people are going to pick up the pieces from the rolling catastrophes wrought by covid?
MY FRIEND GEORGE DORNER is a good example of an unrepresented, unserved American: “Now that I’m pushing 80, I thought I might exercise some foresight and be ready to get help from IHSS if it becomes necessary. I’m a 100% disabled veteran, so I thought I should easily qualify. I blundered through the paperwork a couple of times before I was told I did qualify, but with a copay. So how much is the co-pay? I asked. $3,000 per month, was the answer. In other words, if I hand over my entire monthly VA income, I can hire an IHSS worker. What a deal!”
IF TRUMP had waddled out Wednesday to address his mistaken mob in a black jumpsuit, and after his usual free-association whining about how he was jobbed out of the election, and yelled, “This is it! Follow me! We're taking over!” it would have accelerated what is shaping up as a hundred-year civil war, but windy wuss that he is…
INTERESTING comment from some Trumpers re Wednesday's lazy coup attempt. “Let's move on to someone that will actually fight and isn't afraid of scrutiny,” one user commented. “He led us to slaughter,” said another.
MORE OMINOUSLY: “Sleep well tonight patriots. … You are going to love how this movie ends,” wrote “StormIsUponUs,” a QAnon-espousing account with more than 450,000 followers on Parler. “‘Nothing can stop what's coming’ wasn't just a catch-phrase.”
CLOSER TO HOME, I hope the DA is keeping a wary eye on that Trumper across the street, Al Kubanis. If Al goes off in the County Courthouse, dozens of donuts could be in mortal danger.
NOT THAT TRUMPERS seem capable of adjusting their views to fit reality, but their notion that Biden is a “leftist” is just one more of their fantasies. Biden, like Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein and the rest of the dreary Demo establishment, is barely a liberal on his best days. His tax policies are only slightly to the left of Reagan, and nobody making under $400,000 a year would see an income tax increase if the rich were taxed at the wimpy rate of forty percent as Biden says he's for.
TALKING with an old lefty comrade today, he wondered, "What if the Trumpers now go all Baader-Meinhof-Weather Underground on us?" Hmmm. They don't seem to be contemplating full-on insurrection at this time, but if they do they can do a lot of damage because, unlike, say, the Weather Underground, there are millions of them with potentially huge support networks. And they tend heavily to violence. And they have home arsenals.
BOB ABELES: “I don’t think that we’ve gotten the whole story about what happened Wednesday at the Capitol. So many circumstances point to a larger and more sinister story. At this point all we do know is that a sea change is coming to the state of national power politics. It is unprecedented that the House speaker has called on the President to resign immediately or face impeachment. I don’t think this is an idle threat and I don’t think it’s the result of rattle. Issuing an ultimatum of this magnitude requires an equal magnitude of proof of wrongdoing, enough that will bring over a full 2/3 of the Senate. A Republican state legislator from West Virginia was among those who breached police lines and broke into the Capitol, live streaming as he went. More disturbingly, one intruder carried a ready supply of zip-tie handcuffs. Some of the intruders seemed to know where the electoral vote box is normally stored and made a beeline for it. Others moved to locate the Vice President and the Senate majority leader. Some of the intruders were armed. You can read it all as well as I can. I’m not certain what is about to happen, but I think we’re in for some rough days ahead.”
SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS: Governor Newsom’s fiscal year 2021-2022 budget proposal released today includes a proposal to consolidate the three state licensing authorities into a single Department of Cannabis Control. This proposal was first announced in January 2020 but was delayed due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. If approved by the Legislature, the new Department will be created on July 1, 2021.
SCOTT WARD REPLIED: Just moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. California government is incapable of streamlining or simplifying anything. Same tune different band.
TWO WEEKS AGO, I ASKED Mendo Public Defender Jeffrey Aaron if Tim Stoen was back in town and working for the Public Defender's office. Aaron said he couldn't tell me because it was a personnel matter, and as we all know Mendo personnel matters are the very keys to the kingdom. But Tim Stoen is right there in black and white on the State Bar website listed as employed by the Mendocino County Public Defender.
LOVE ME, I'M A LIBERAL, and I'm Anderson Cooper, one of many media stars who manage to make Trump and Trumpians look good: “All those Trump terrorists who stormed the Capitol then made it to safety will go back to The Olive Garden and their Holiday Inns for drinks and high five what a great day it was!”
THE BIG MISTAKE as bluntly stated by the ACLU: “It should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier.”
ANYBODY BELIEVE THIS? “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.”
ANOTHER MEGA-LIE FROM APPLE (Saturday night): “We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity. Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people's safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.”
ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] Did anyone see Times Square on TV this New Year’s Eve? Oh, the flashing light show, the crowd noises without the crowd, police buses blocking access and over 100 police standing in formation like storm troopers ready to chase away any revelers if they dared to show up. Superimposed over this, Frank Sinatra cheerfully belting out a rendition of “New York, New York.” Yeah baby, that was some good time in Times Square! Am I the only one who thinks we live in a bizarro land dystopia?
[2] The United States was lost long ago in a black hole of a century’s-long orgy of fiat money conjuring, horrendous wars and loss of life, the sacrifice of a 1960s president, the continuous erosion and erasure of Constitutional rights, the offshoring of America’s jobs, and finally, insanity setting in amongst We the People. The Shining City on the Hill has turned into a Dark Cave of Fear, Loathing, Anger, Frustration, Confusion, and Mask Shaming. Not to mention a serious case of Wokesterdom and total wreckage and loss of our shared historical foundations and sense of common interest. A great comic who appeared often on TV in the 1960s said back then, “The United States of America is going to have… a going out of business sale!” That man was more prophet than comic as the nation has been holding a 60-year liquidation sale that is nearing completion. Not much left to sell now but the shelving and the signage. Most of the floor space is empty and gathering dust. The wails of dismay now echo endlessly in the cavernous darkness.
“Whatever occurs in this strange week of confrontation, Joe Biden will not be leading any part of it. Where has he been since Christmas?” Biden today is nothing but a computer-generated image. He is a Far Eastern AI program. He can appear anywhere and everywhere and as any age They choose to conjure him to look like. They make him look old and confused right now so that Her Highness can soon be installed as our Queen and complete the process of National Wokesterdom and sensibility purging. Remember what our Queen-to-be has already said… “THAT’s what real leadership looks like!”
[3] “Republicans had better stop shouting fraud …”
Indeed – it seems to me as a middle-of-the-road type, that Donald Trump made three critical (and seemingly fatal) mistakes:
(1) Obviously, he saw the pandemic as a losing proposition, but if he had grabbed it with both hands and been out-front combatting it, he would have won easily, I expect.
(2) He claimed months ago that if he lost the election then it would only be because the election was rigged – I’m not certain that this type of self-assured arrogance went down well with the 10-20% in the center who could have been persuaded.
(3) And he attacked mail-in voting (despite the pandemic), rather than embracing it and encouraging it, as the Democrats did.
The 40% or so who would always vote for Donald Trump were locked in, but the three factors above almost guaranteed he wouldn’t get the support of the 10% or so he needed for victory. They were big mistakes in my view.
BTW – I don’t think the Georgia Democrat candidates are “far left” by most criteria … in any other Western democracy they would probably be seen as moderate and centrist (maybe center-left, maybe center-right – but not by any real stretch as serious lefties).
I don’t recall them ever demanding the end of private property and capitalism, rounding up and shooting the ruling class, and for the proletariat to seize the means of production.
[4] There is a reason the media and politicians (besides Sanders) don’t talk about class.
“It’s a big club, and you’re not in it”
Most of the MAGAs storming the capitol have more in common with your local poor black neighborhood than with 45. Media and the political parties don’t want to admit it because the entire culture of this country has a caste system baked in, and it is designed to prevent the masses from ever overthrowing the elites. Distract the workers with racism, spectacle, fake politics, and now social media too.
How many of the folks on here are willing to admit that BLM and MAGA are two flavors of the same thing?
There is an increase of populism and anti-elitism in the USA, and although each person is feeling it for a different reason, if we don’t start talking to each other like humans again it’s not going to be pretty
[5] I think I speak for many who are on the right, alt-right, white or male when I say this doesn’t feel like our country and we are now hated citizens in our own land. I was born into a heavy democrat family, union and all that, and I believed many of the core OLD democrat values: anti-war, pro-environment, pro-worker – of course we have not seen those values espoused for 20 years. Obama paid some small lip service before proceeding to disregard everything and switch hard into identity politics.
Despite the constant rhetoric of ‘racism’/sexism whatever, being white and male you are discriminated against covertly or overtly in this country, and it will only get worse. Many, many civil service exams give points to female, minority, and military, so Sandra Martinez the 1 year army private who left after pregnancy is getting +15 pts on a 100 point test. So when someone tries to tell me how racist or sexist I am by virtue of simply being a white male, it simply doesn’t stack up to the facts.
The scariest thing is the rise of big tech. Watching the alt-right back in the heyday of the movement (early 2010s) was a fascinating and exciting time. But slowly and inevitably youtube, google and others would delist, block and destroy major alt-right players – replacing them with ‘approved’ alternatives who almost always had connections back to big tech or finance. All the real people got wiped out. This culminated in the 2016 Charlottesville witch hunt that generally destroyed the movement (which was prevailing against big tech despite the uphill battle)
Trump won, and acted as a type of relief valve to the anger of the right. As to whether he was successful, that leaves a lot open for debate. But what is not debatable is the fact this election was out-right stolen and bigtech/dems refuse to do any sort of audit to cast legitimacy over it. Joe Biden is not a leader, nor is the identity politics ‘multi-race’ Harris, they are clear stooges of the deep state.
To be clear, the alt-right (and all those with similar views) have been hunted online for many years, Trump represented a type of control or stress relief. With the blatant steal, and total disregard for the right we now feel like there is nothing left to strive or live for in this country. It has abandoned us and views us as enemies. This will not turn out pretty. Expect a quick slide into 3rd world economies, banana boat republics and the worst parts of cyberpunk dystopias of passports/vaccines and spying.
Also expect a lot of violence, real or otherwise, all of it blamed on the right of course.
[6] Bread and circuses being standardized.
Free money (kind of, if you don’t have any real standard of living), stay home, ignore mom and dad, watch TV, play Xbox, order in tepid Chipotle, smoke up, keep yourself occupied with fantasy sports and betting.
Times have changed.
Legalizing weed used to sound like a fun radical idea. Now I think it’s being used to keep people from caring about what’s going on. I, too, have no problem with legalizing weed, but its main attraction is that it makes you okay with being bored and not participating in the world. Great for a day here and there, but as a lifestyle not something to foist on an entire population if you want them involved. They clearly do not want us involved.
THE TRUMPER PERSPECTIVE, an on-line comment:
Like everyone else, I’ve been digesting all that has transpired in this past week and reflecting on the past 4 years, and I am left deeply depressed by my conclusions which are as follows:
1) Both of our political parties are morally bankrupt and don’t give a damn about this country or the people who inhabit it. Almost without exception, the people who populate the elected offices of our state and federal governments are narcissistic scum who care only about themselves and everyone knows it.
2) The United States government is financially bankrupt. It is only a matter of time before all of the Ponzi schemes of Wall Street, the Fed, and the BitCoin shysters collapse, leaving all of us to scramble for meager resources in the smoking ruins of the economy that will remain. The Dollar, of course, is doomed. Hyperinflation is just a matter of time and the savings of everyone will be destroyed unless you have had the foresight to stash away a little gold and silver buried in your backyard.
3) This country is already in a de facto “civil war.” The origins can be traced all the way back to 1865 when the last one ended, but the current conflict really got underway in a serious way after Trump won the election of 2016. That is when the Democrats, academia, Hollywood, Wall Street, the mainstream media, disgruntled RINOS, the Bush crime family, the Clinton crime family, the military-industrial complex, and pretty much everyone else who profits from the “established” corrupt system, decided to flush our Constitution down the commode and stop at nothing – and I mean nothing – to deny Trump and his nationalist/populist movement, the opportunity to drain the swamp and restore the political, social, and economic greatness that this country used to enjoy, once upon a time.
4) There really are “Two America’s” with utterly irreconcilable worldviews and this new civil war will not end until one side is completely triumphant and the other is utterly crushed. Sorry, but there will be no Great Compromise nor a truce. It’s been “game on” now for 5 years and counting and things are getting worse by the minute.
Just in the past week alone we have had Congressmen almost coming to blows on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives; an invasion of the Capitol Building by frustrated MAGA patriots fed up with the fraud, corruption, and lack of institutional response to correct any of it; and a planeload of people yelling and screaming at each other about the fraudulent election; etc., etc. Just GOOGLE, and you’ll find examples of this type of unprecedented unrest chronicled all over America.
Things are rapidly getting worse with each passing day and each fresh new outrage simply escalates things further. It feels like events are beginning to spiral out of control during the “Dark Winter” of 2020-21. (Just as happened during the Secession Winter of 1860-61.
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