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Mendocino County Today: Wednesday, Feb 10, 2016

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SANDERS, TRUMP WIN BIG in New Hampshire.

SandersWinsRepublican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders swept to thumping outsider victories in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, seizing on the fury of grass-roots voters to rock the elites who control American politics. Trump got 34% in a still relatively crowded Republican field winning over second place Ohio governor John Kasich who got only 16%. (Cruz, Bush and Rubio tied at about 11%.) Sanders, Senator from nearby Vermont, got an impressive 60% of a big voter turnout in New Hampshire, a much bigger margin over Clinton’s not-quite-40% than the thin one Clinton allegedly took in Iowa.

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KEMPER REPORT: In August of 2015, the Executive Office contracted with Kemper Consulting Group to perform a review of Mendocino County’s mental health services, in particular the delivery of services by the Administrative Service Organizations, Redwood Quality Management Company and Ortner Management Group. In conducting this review, Kemper reviewed a wide range of written documents, fiscal and programmatic data, and conducted over 40 key informant interviews, including members of the Board of Supervisors, county staff, Behavioral Health Advisory Board members, justice system officials, representatives of both ASOs, and local service providers. The Board discussion on the Report’s analysis and recommendations is planned at 1:30 pm on February 16th.

— County CEO/Board Clerk Carmel Angelo

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IMPRESSIONS OF THE SUPES ON THE COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER

Editor,

I attended the meeting yesterday and want to take the time to express my disappointment with the process. You heard from many county citizens yesterday and the overwhelming majority pointed out the short comings of the shelter as it is today and how it is not serving the county's homeless pet population.

The discussion afterwards between all of you was fascinating and frustrating to listen to. How all four of you and Ms. Cryer's sidekick pushed that political shelter foot ball around the room, successfully avoiding to hold anybody to task for letting the Petaluma shelter proposal languish for over six month with no action. To avoid making a decision, taking a stand or making a concrete follow up plan was truly sickening. Listening to what was NOT said, I walked away with the impression that the Petaluma proposal is already dead, because Petaluma cannot offer their services for less then what the county spends on the shelter to date. Even the possibility to have the shelter future on the next BOS meeting agenda seemed at best tentative.

If my sources are correct the interim shelter manager is going to be Mary Jane Montana, the former Executive Director of the SPCA Lake County shelter, a failed shelter that since has been closed. Supposedly Ms. Montana was fired from her position there for not vaccinating and caring for the animals appropriately. Is this really the best we can do for our animals?

Sincerely,

Monika Fuchs

Philo

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MY DOCTOR GOT BUSTED

by John Hardin

I’ve never understood people’s fascination with pharmaceutical drugs. I’ve been prescribed narcotic pain meds, and found their effects nearly as unpleasant as the pain they were meant to relieve. The only pharmaceutical drug I ever remember enjoying was something called a “pink lemon stat.” At the time, roughly 30 years ago, I played bass in a hard working rock band.

We played two or three gigs a week, and I waited tables at a restaurant to pay the bills. Our guitar player had an overweight girlfriend who had a prescription for 90 of these beans every month, to help her lose weight. She shared them with her boyfriend, and he shared them with the band. Half of one of those pills would keep me energized all night.

One weekend, however, after playing gigs on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, plus an after hours jam after the gig on Saturday, and then working the Sunday Brunch shift at the restaurant, I remember walking home after work. The whole world seemed impossibly gray, bleak and depressing. I knew I couldn’t bear to feel that way for long, and I never, ever want to feel that way again. I never took any more of those little pink pills after that.

At the other end of the spectrum, I discovered cannabis and psychedelics as a teenager, and my relationship with these mostly plant and fungus-based compounds has been entirely positive. Although I am not a doctor, I recommend them to everyone, despite the fact that you cannot get any of them from a pharmacist and your insurance will not cover the cost.

This is how I see the world of drugs in America: All of the good drugs are listed under “Schedule 1” and prohibited to everyone, including doctors and scientists. You can buy all of the bad drugs you want, at the pharmacy, so long as you have a note from your doctor, and the worst drugs, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and sugar are heavily advertised, ubiquitous, and all but crammed down our throats. As cruel and perverse as it seems, the logic behind our nation’s drug policy is impeccable, in that it maximizes the potential for harm and the profitability of all drugs.

Other people might see it differently, and apparently I’m in the minority here in Humboldt County. It seems that here in Humboldt, our enthusiasm for prescription drugs nearly eclipses our passion for cannabis. We don’t have big colorful festivals to celebrate our love for prescription drugs, but according to a great piece by Ryan Burns at LoCO, we consume the equivalent of 14 Vicodin tablets per day for every man woman and child in Humboldt County, “including babies and people in comas.”

At that level of consumption, it’s a wonder we’re not all in comas. I also read recently that we have more active prescriptions for pain meds in Humboldt County that we have people, by about 20 percent! I guess Oxycontin alone doesn’t cut it anymore. Does it really hurt that much to live here? Or, do local doctors nurture our enthusiasm for narcotics by prescribing them as freely as I recommend weed?

Recently, my doctor, at least the last real doctor I saw at Redwoods Rural Health Clinic here in Redway, made the news because of her enthusiasm for prescription drugs. Dr. Wendi Joiner pleaded “no contest” to DUI and drugs charges, and had her license to practice medicine suspended. A state medical board disciplinary investigation determined that Dr. Joiner had written 33 prescriptions, for a wide range of drugs, to a fictitious patient.

A few years ago Dr Wendi Joiner left Redwoods Rural to take a job in Marin County, but in December of 2014, a State Trooper pulled her car over in Sonoma County, and that’s when things began to fall apart for her. When the cops pulled her over, she appeared intoxicated and failed a sobriety test. In her car, they found two full, and one mostly empty bottles of booze, a whipped cream dispenser, charged with nitrous oxide, along with nine casesof nitrous oxide cartridges, or “whip-its,” and over 100 prescription pills, ranging from Norco and Xanax, to Ritalin. Apparently, perhaps ironically, she had no weed on her.

The article I read, suggested our good doctor was using the nitrous oxide to inhale the other drugs. I still cannot imagine how that would work, but maybe she knows something I don’t. She is, or at least was, a doctor, after all. Either way, she had enough drugs to get a lot of people really fucked-up, even without the novel delivery system.

The Whip-its surprised me. First, because, being a doctor, you’d think she could get her hands on one of those nice refillable nitrous tanks, rather than waste all of those stupid disposable metal cartridges. Second, I remember seeing lots of those spent whip-it cartridges on the side of the road, all over SoHum, back when she worked here, and not so many since. I would have never guessed that she dumped them.

I remember noticing a Burning Man sticker on the back of her Subaru in the parking lot, which told me a little about her, but for all of her now famous enthusiasm for prescription drugs, she did not seem particularly interested in practicing medicine. I recall she spent most of our time together in the exam room looking at her cell phone. I also recall that she did not look well.

She was relatively young and slender, without any major deformities. She should have been attractive, but her hair looked particularly dull, and her skin had no glow. I attributed it to overwork, because I assume all doctors work too much, but everyone else I know who looks that way, has health problems. I hope she gets the help she needs, but unfortunately, doctors seem to be much better at creating these kinds of problems than solving them.

(John Hardin writes at Like You’ve Got Something Better to Do.)

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BAD MIX

On Sunday, February 7th at about 8:11 am, Ukiah Police Department officers were dispatched to 504 Park Blvd. (Anton Stadium) for a report of an occupied suspicious vehicle.
 Upon arrival, officers found the vehicle and contacted the driver identified as Jeremy Auman, age 31, from Laytonville and the passenger, identified as Evangeline Martinez, age 27, from Willits.
 During the investigation, officers found that Auman and Martinez were in possession of suspected methamphetamine, Oxycodone and drug paraphernalia. Inside the vehicle was a loaded unregistered 9mm handgun, which was linked to Auman.
 Auman was placed under arrest for possession of an unlawfully obtained firearm, possession of an illegal controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
 Martinez was placed under arrest for possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. Both were booked into the county jail.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, February 9, 2016

Angel, Beck, Blanton
Angel, Beck, Blanton

JODY ANGEL, Ukiah. DUI.

CHRISTOPHER BECK, Ukiah. Burglary, burglary tools, loitering, conspiracy.

JESSE BLANTON, Fort Bragg. County parole violation.

Boulerice, Brown, Cape
Boulerice, Brown, Cape

JESSE BOULERICE, Ukiah. Burglary, burglary tools, loitering, conspiracy.

JAMES BROWN SR., Calpella. Drunk in public.

CHERLYN CAPE, Willits. Failure to appear.

Cope, Fischer, Golyer
Cope, Fischer, Golyer

DAVID COPE, Fort Bragg. Vehicle registration alteration, probation revocation.

TIMOTHY FISCHER, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Drunk in public.

PAUL GOLYER, Ukiah. Battery, controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

Guevara, Hodges, Ishcomer, Keator
Guevara, Hodges, Ishcomer, Keator

RANDOLPH GUEVARA, Ukiah. Vehicle registration alteration, suspended license, probation revocation.

LISA HODGES, Ukiah. Smuggling booze or drugs into jail.

NITA ISHCOMER, Little River. Failure to appear.

BENJAMIN KEATOR, Redwood Valley. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license, probation revocation.

Mack, Sallinen, Sanderson, Vasquez
Mack, Sallinen, Sanderson, Vasquez

DONALD MACK, Fort Bragg. Grand theft, burglary, vandalism, receiving stolen property, conspiracy, resisting.

BRANDY SALLINEN, Mendocino. Failure to appear.

DAIN SANDERSON, Ukiah. Unspecified misdemeanor.

DONNA VASQUEZ, Brentwood/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

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WATER BOND DELAYED

Dear Friend of California water

We have decided to defer our water bond initiative to the November, 2018 ballot. There are several reasons for this decision.

The Legislative leadership has expressed an interest in natural resources bonds, and we are committed to working with them to place a measure on the 2016 ballot through the Legislative process. If this effort is not successful, we plan to place a water bond initiative on the November 2018 ballot.

The Brown Administration will have time to expend more of the funds approved by the 2014 water bond (Proposition 1), further demonstrating the clear need for another water bond.

The cost of gaining a place on this November’s ballot has risen dramatically in the last few weeks. An extraordinary eleven initiatives are in circulation today, with several more about to enter circulation. This has driven the price of signatures to a very high level. Deferring the initiative will help conserve resources for a 2018 bond act initiative should the legislative effort not be successful.

We are confident that the measure we have crafted with the help of water agencies, conservation groups, and a wide variety of other water interests would have great appeal to the voters. Our polling is as high or higher than any previous water bond, including 2014’s Proposition 1 at a comparative juncture. California voters understand the growing challenges that climate change will bring to both water management and protection of streams and vital habitat for fish and wildlife.

We plan to refile our water bond initiative early next year depending on what is accomplished in the legislative arena this year.

We will maintain information and updates about the initiative at the NHI website: www.n-h-i.org and on the TNC website at www.conserveca. org. Please direct any questions to jerrymeral@gmail.com or Jay Ziegler at jay_ziegler@tnc.org.

Thanks for your continued interest in the water bond initiative.

Jerry Meral, Director, Jay Ziegler
California Water Program, Director, Policy & External Affairs
Natural Heritage Institute, The Nature Conservancy

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Get me some prolixin decanoate somebody – STAT!

I almost fell off the treadmill at the gym when I saw Jeb being interviewed on CNN with, none other than the matriarch of the Bush Dynasty itself, Barbara Bush.

Holy crap – a 62 year old man, who aspires to the highest political office in the land, with every conceivable old-guard and bedrock GOP establishment advantage in attaining his goal, had to trot out his 91 year old mother – so she could tell CNN and the world that Jeb is a nice, polite boy?

What a scene - crybaby brat needs mommy to help him after that mean The Donald person and fat Mr. Christie plus that little Cuban guy from down the road in Miami were so terrible to him these long months. Someone get Jeb a big box of Pampers.

But I thought I saw the thought bubble above Barbara’s head as she was explaining how wonderful Jeb's values are.

It appeared to say “My husband George was the president, my idiot son Junior was the president, its JEB!’s turn now goddammit! It’s our family business.”

Please, somebody clap.

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CHRISTMAS RAINBOW, Irish Beach

IrishBeachRainbow
(Photo by Amy Rathbun, Manchester)

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THE LATEST ON THE YELLOWSTONE WOLVES

Wolves in Yellowstone,

forwolves.org/ralph/wpages/yell-o.htm

Ranger Rick McIntyre has written a fascinating eye-witness account of the fight between the Rose Creek and Druid Peak packs which took place on June 18, 1996 in Slough Creek. The Druids may have also killed wolf 19F in April of 1997 with the result that her 4 pups perished too. The pack retained its reputation of ferocity. I learned a year after the fact that in the fall of 1996 they almost got wolf Chief Joseph wolf, 34M, although surprisingly, they allowed his pack mate no 31M to join the Druid pack. The difference may have been that 34 was seeking to pair with a female and 31M was seeking to join the pack as the beta male.

The pack’s aggressiveness continued in later years, and many people have attributed its aggressiveness to no. 40F who eventually emerged as the alpha female and was viewed by some as a tyrant over her own pack as well.

R29M, a gray male yearling from the Half-way pack. 100 pounds on arrival. 
Current status: deceased. He was the alpha male of the Nez Perce Pack, but he left, or was driven from the pack in the summer of 1998. 
The Druids change from caution to bold aggressiveness - 
Even after leaving the pen, the Druid Peak pack did not quickly explore the surrounding area. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a very aggressive pack. They soon killed the alpha male of the Crystal Creek Bench pack and a yearling from the Rose Creek Pack.

They probably also injured the alpha female of the Crystal Creek Pack and killed her 1996 litter of pups.

The Crystal Creek female (no. 5F) denned, but no pups were ever observed, Number 5F abandoned her den shortly after the Druids killed her mate, and she was seen limping with her tail held low for a while. 
The replacement of 38M and 31M with 21M seemed lessen the hostility between the Druid Peak pack and the Rose Creek Pack. After no. 21 came to lead the Druids, hostile encounters with the Rose Creek Pack ended until fall of 1998 when the Druids caught a Rose Creek female alone in Druid territory. The Druid alpha female, no. 40F led the attack, and pack tore the intruder apart.

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BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

The White House will propose spending $11 billion over the next 10 years to fight family homelessness. Nearly 26% of the country’s homeless families are in New York state, and most of those are located in New York City. “We can see that in New York City specifically, there is a tremendous need,” said Federal Housing Secretary Julián Castro. “As New York City goes, so goes the nation.” As part of his 2017 budget, which will be presented Tuesday, President Obama is expected to ask that $8.8 billion of the proposed money go to housing vouchers and an additional $2.2 billion to short-term assistance. The amount proposed in the new budget is intended to end family homelessness by 2020.

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BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, TAKE TWO:

President Barack Obama’s proposed $4 trillion budget for 2017 would pour billions into education, clean energy, and Medicaid by increasing taxes on big banks and America's wealthiest citizens. The proposal reads like "a grab-bag of Democratic priorities," as Politico reports, and includes hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on capital gains and a newly imposed “Buffett Rule,” which requires wealthy millionaires to pay upwards of 30 percent in income taxes. News also broke this week that the plan includes $11 billion over the next ten years to help end family homelessness.

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NO EXCUSE FOR INCIVILITY

To the Editor:

I am a Democrat, a Catholic and a loyal citizen of the United States. I vote in every election and try my best to do the research required to make an informed decision. I believe that we have a good government albeit not a perfect one. However, I am so sorry that this presidential election has devolved into the sorry mess that I see in the media.

Along with millions of other people in this wonderful country I watched the Presidential debates. I am ashamed of those politicians, and of the moderators and of anyone who thinks that the name calling, insulting, childish rudeness and disrespect that was displayed is acceptable. I am ashamed of our television reporters and all of our media and of anybody who did not stand up and stop it. How does that kind of behavior help? How can we change what is wrong with our country and with our government when we cannot act like responsible adults? Do we even wish to consider an individual for election to one of the most powerful positions in the world if they cannot be civil to each other? What will they do with our foreign policy? For goodness sake I can only hang my head in disgust and shame!

I am writing this letter because I want it known that there are people in the nation who do not agree with this kind of disrespectful display. I am 75 years old and I can remember when we respected the political administration of the United States. I still do! I want the governing body of our awesome country to be respected again and I don’t see how that’s possible if our citizens can’t summon the decency required to be respectful of our politicians and each other.

Disagreeing with each other is inevitable, disrespecting each other is not acceptable. The debate of presidential hopefuls was a frightening display of animalistic combative discussions that solve nothing and only serve to exhibit cretinism!

I hope that the decent human beings of our nation will continue to strive for a government by the people and that our politicians will rise to meet the challenges without descending into reprehensible, bitter humans who can not discuss with out name-calling disrespect.

There is never an excuse for discourtesy or incivility, not in our daily lives and definitely not in our public lives.

Lorena Tournour, Calpella

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LESSER EVIL VOTING & HILLARY CLINTON’S WAR ON THE POOR

by Ben Burgis

French President Jacques Chirac was elected to his second term in office in 2002. In the first round of the election, French voters had an array of choices on their ballots, ranging from Greens to Communists to various right-wing parties to two competing Trotskyist groups that each received well over 4% of the vote. In the runoff, this narrowed down to a dismal choice between the hated conservative incumbent and Jean Marie Le-Pen of the neofascist National Front. Many French leftists announced their intention to wear rubber gloves to the polling places to vote for Chirac.

Here in America, leftists argue every four years about third parties and ‘lesser evil’ voting and ‘tactical voting’ and the rest. A victory for Bernie Sanders would dramatically change the face of that debate. With Bernie and Hillary tied in Iowa, Bernie likely to win big in New Hampshire, and Hillary likely to win even bigger in South Carolina, it’s too soon be sure what will happen, but as things stand, the odds favor Hillary. Even if superdelegates didn’t exist, Wall Street’s favored candidate beating a self-described socialist who looks like Doc Brown from Back to the Future would be the least surprising political development of all time.

Certainly, on the Republican side, it’s far too early to know who will emerge from the clown car this summer, his lips smeared with the blood of all the other clowns he had to eat to get out of the car. What we can be sure of is that if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, the great majority of good-hearted progressive people will feel duty-bound to vote for her to keep Cruz or Trump or Rubio or Pennywise or whoever out of the Oval Office. It’s both understandable and depressing, because this is how the system works. Republicans trade on their base’s fears about Muslims and gays and gun-confiscating liberals to corral them to vote against their economic interests, and Democrats trade on their base’s fear of abortion-banning conservatives to corral them to vote against their economic interests. Wall Street cashes in either way. So do military contractors.

I voted for Jill Stein in 2012, and I’ll do so again as a matter of course if Hillary is nominated in 2016. I’m cautiously optimistic that a non-trivial fraction of those currently Feeling the Bern may do the same, just as a spillover effect from Ron Paul’s liberatarian-ish Presidential campaign in 2012 seems to have contributed to the unprecedented million votes received by Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson in the 2012 general election. I would argue that breaking the stranglehold of the two-party ‘duopoly’ on American politics is clearly in the interests of working people — not to mention the interests of all the people in the third world who live in fear of American bombs. As OACW union leader Tony Mazzocchi was fond of saying, “The bosses have two parties. We need one of our own.”

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that I’m wrong about all of that. Let’s assume, as liberal pundits uniformly insist, that it would be dangerously irresponsible to even consider voting for anyone but Hillary Clinton in the general election. Even granting that premise, why not vote for her with rubber gloves and open eyes?

Instead of emulating the French, scolding liberal commentators constantly tell us that the differences between Hillary and Bernie shouldn’t be “exaggerated.” They tell us that Hillary is a flawed but basically progressive candidate who shouldn’t be “demonized.” After all, she’s spent her “entire life” advocating on behalf of “women and girls.”

As Doug Henwood has pointed out, most of what Clinton did “for women and girls” as Secretary of State was to do photo-ops with women around the world wearing colorful ethnic garb. Indeed, it’s revealing that, when you dig beyond bumper sticker slogans like “advocacy on behalf of women and girls,” Clinton supporters rarely want to discuss the particulars of her record. The candidate herself frequently talks up the sheer number of miles she traveled as if this alone added up to some sort of praiseworthy political accomplishment. The fact is that the policies she flew around the world supporting were a disaster for poor people around the world, and especially for poor women.

During the early years of the Obama administration, the Haitian government tried to raise the minimum wage there to all of 61 cents an hour, which works out to about five dollars a day. (The minimum wage before the proposed increase was 22 cents.) Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2011 show that the sweatshops supplying Hanes and Levi-Strauss made a huge stink, and got the State Department involved to lobby the Haitian government against their plan to go to all the way up to 61 cents an hour. The U.S. State Department has a fairly massive level of sway in the deliberations of the Haitian government, considering the United States’ long history of meddling, backing coups, and even invading the country when governments there displease Uncle Sam. Nor is this ancient history from the Cold War. U.S. Marines removed the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 2004. So when the U.S. Embassy says jump, the Haitian government tends to ask how high. In this case, they ended up cutting the proposed minimum wage hike of 39 cents an hour all the way down to 9 cents. It might be worth thinking hard about the fact that the girls sewing your jeans have Hillary Clinton to thank for their current salary of 31 cents an hour next time a liberal scold tells you not to “demonize” Secretary Clinton.

Of course, Haitians are foreigners, and black foreigners at that, so maybe they don’t quite count. (After all, Hillary’s liberal supporters are willing to overlook that small matter of her support for the invasion of Iraq.) Perhaps, in evaluating her record, we should focus on her no-doubt glorious history of domestic progressivism.

Back in the mid-1980s, the Clintons and a lot of their friends founded something called the Democratic Leadership Council to move the Democratic Party back to “the center.” Throughout that decade, Ronald Reagan had led the Republicans in demonizing “welfare queens” allegedly ripping off vast sums from the hard-working taxpayers. The evidence for the claim that a non-trivial amount of money was being lost to welfare benefits being paid out to people who simply didn’t want to work was always pretty thin, but it hardly mattered. The racial subtext was powerful and it was thinly disguised, and Reagan’s skillful use of this rhetoric paid off in a big way for the GOP.

When the Democratic Leadership Council, which still claimed to be “socially progressive,” talked about moving “to the center” on economic issues, this is precisely the center they were talking about capturing. Bill Clinton made it explicit in 1992 with his campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it.” Unlike quite a few of his other promises, he kept this one, signing away the end of federal welfare requirements in 1996. The impact of this “reform” on millions of desperate people was predictably grim, even for those who did manage to hold onto some kind of benefits so they could keep the heat on and make rent.

(Google “workfare” to see what this often looked like in practice. One of the options Google helpfully offers you when you type that word into the search engine is workfare is a form of slave labor.) With federal requirements abolished, the paltry funds made available for welfare were sent out as bloc grants to the states, where bloody-minded conservative state legislatures could have their way with the programs. In the years since “welfare reform” was passed, the percentage of Americans living in extreme poverty has greatly increased. As Ryan Cooper puts it, “Even after the worst economic crisis in 80 years, TANF has basically ceased to exist in much of the country. Eligibility requirements have gotten so onerous, and benefit levels so miserly, that many poor people haven’t even heard of the program, or think it was abolished.”

So, where was Hillary Clinton in all this? She was an enthusiastic supporter of her husband’s initiative, both in her role as an administration advisor and in her many public statements on the matter, including ones that she made after Bill’s Presidency ended and she was elected to the Senate. She called single mothers on benefits “deadbeats” and talked about them over and over again in the most offensively cliched terms, as people who knew nothing but “dependency” and had no inkling of the value of work. So, for example, using Ronald Reagan’s trademark rhetorical technique of a supposedly representative anecdote that sounds authoritative becomes it comes with a proper name, Clinton talked about a former welfare queen named Rhonda Costa. “Rhonda Costa’s daughter came home from school and announced, ‘Mommy, I’m tired of seeing you sitting around the house doing nothing.’ That’s the day Rhonda decided to get off welfare….”

Because it’s just that easy, right? These people are clearly on welfare because they don’t want to work, and any time they decide that they’d like a job, one will fall in their lap. It’s certainly not as if holes on resumes matter, or workfare requirements often prevent welfare recipients from being able to go to job interviews, or “structural unemployment” is a feature of market economies.

Matt Bruenig sums things up nicely:

"For lifelong upper class pundits, these statements may not actually cause much feeling inside of them. But, as someone who actually grew up in and adjacent to the class of people being described here, I can tell you that these are really the height of anti-poor slurs. Under Clinton’s estimation, welfare beneficiaries are dignity-lacking dependent deadbeats who are such losers that even their own kids think they are trash. We don’t talk a lot about classism in the US (and frankly I don’t like the term), but that’s what this is. It is the class equivalent of calling women airhead bimbos."

Nor, of course, are the class and gender dimensions of all this entirely unrelated. Not so coincidentally, the picture of an allegedly typical welfare recipient you get from Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric on this — the “Rhonda Costa” of her anecdote — is a single mother.

As Bernie Sanders tried to keep the focus of this year’s Democratic debates on economics and his proposals to expand the welfare state, Hillary Clinton changed the subject as often as possible to guns. This is the one issue where the Secretary thought she had an opening to outflank Bernie Sanders on the “left,” on the grounds that Senator Sanders has sometimes been insufficiently enthusiastic about gun control.

It’s a complicated issue. On the one hand, the statistics about gun accidents, never mind gun crimes, are pretty grim. On the other hand, the fact that “stop and frisk” started as a program to go after illegal guns should make leftists who harbor concerns about police power and the carceral state think twice about bold new gun regulations are likely to play out. On a normal day, I’m not entirely sure what to think.

Today, after preparing to write this article by reviewing Secretary Clinton’s disgusting rhetoric about welfare mothers and reviewing the facts about workfare, benefit reductions, and the uptick in extreme poverty, I know exactly what to think. Guns should be confiscated from NRA members and redistributed to single mothers who have been kicked off of benefits. Lacking money from the now-defunct Aid to Families with Dependent Children program to help them keep the lights on and buy groceries for their kids, let’s give them the ability to procure groceries by other means.

(Ben Burgis is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Underwood International College, Yonsei University.)

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KZYX ELECTS

The roster of upcoming KZYX Board candidates...

At Large: John Azarro, John Sakowicz, Charlie Hochberg, Jeff Wright

Programmer seat: Stuart Campbell, Robert Vaughan, Johanna Wildoak

1st District: Jonathan Middlebrook. (Middlebrook is running unopposed, so he will have this seat.)

34 Comments

  1. Bruce McEwen February 10, 2016

    • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

      Oh Jesus fucking Christ!
      Mia culpa for posting a video, but this provocation cannot go unanswered.

      • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

        I always thought that the Virgin Mary was the only person to witness the”coming of our lord.”

        Must have been abundant and disgusting.

      • BB Grace February 10, 2016

  2. Sonya Nesch February 10, 2016

    CORRECTION to Carmel Angelo Press Release — The Kemper Report will be presented at 10 am on Tuesday February 16 (NOT at 1:30). Questions and discussion will go on for the rest of the day.

    • james marmon February 10, 2016

      I really wish I could be there in person on this one, but my 3 year restraining order does not expire for another 44 days.

  3. BB Grace February 10, 2016

    RE: Sanders

    The Bern just made history as the first Jew to ever win a US presidentical primary.

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-is-first-jew-to-win-a-presidential-primary/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=19d4aae99e-2016_02_10&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-19d4aae99e-54760781

    This is huge headline news in Israel, where Sanders once lived and worked on a Kibbutz, and the liberals feel oppressed with the power of the Likid Party; Sanders primary win has liberal Israels dancing in the streets with hope and joy.

    Amazing times we live in.

    • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

      BB

      Sanders’ religion is as relevant as Hillary’s gender.

      The israelis should concern themselves with ridding themselves of your evil “tocayo” or namesake. Although, with all the financial support those sons of bitches get from “our government”, I suppose it’s natural for them to meddle in our politics.

      I’m interested in ideologies and programs. Jill Stein will probably not be elected as our next president, but at least she addresses issues that are important to me.

      Sanders is a faux socialist. I hope he beats Hillary in every primary, but will not vote for him myself.

      • james marmon February 10, 2016

        I was raised to never talk politics or religion at family gatherings.

        • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

          Very good idea.

      • BB Grace February 10, 2016

        LB

        Sanders is a secular Jew, so Judaism is his heritage, not his religious practice, which is why this is so very important to the left in Israel, expaning into American religious Jews, Conservative/Reform/Messianic/ and others who feel completely ostracized for the favortism of the Orthodox/ Hassidic. It’s really a very exciting time especially since Sanders lived in a Kibbutz. The Kibbutz have been struggling since so many nations deeply invested in Israeli technology, that afforded Mushavs, that are expanding, and I’m not talking about disputed settlements. I believe there are 8 American Mushaves. So this is huge, that Americans voted for a Jew that actually lived and worked on a Kibbutz, and according to the Kibbutz, The Bern is the same guy he always was, just better.

        I believe Clinton’s sex matters a great deal to Islam, as does The Bern’s heritage, and all the more why this is such amazing times.

        Furthermore, the fact Israel is going ape over The Bern, Clinton is being ignored, Trump is being shunned and no one standing in the GOP has a good relationship with Israel, it’s very interesting.

  4. james marmon February 10, 2016

    Okay, here it is.

    Marmon Report on the Kemper Report.

    Excellent! He told the Board to prepare to face large audit exceptions over the next few years and that they need to get a handle on things fast.

    Both OMG and RQMC

    James Marmon MSW

    PS. Picking on RQMC is not picking on children, believe me.

    • james marmon February 10, 2016

      The issue going forward is “who pays the money back.” The County is ultimately the responsible party. RQMC has shifted their responsibility to their sub-contracted therapists, a big legal battle ahead. I am so glad I chose to be a social worker and not a therapist just trying to make a honest living.

  5. Jim Updegraff February 10, 2016

    Videos and links – why don’t people speak their own minds on issues rather than resorting to props.

    Comment of the day: How in hell did that wimp Jeb Bush ever get elected Governor of Florida. What a joke dragging out that old battle ax to wipe his bottom

    When you look at all the GOP candidates there really anyone that can stop Trump from winning the nomination.

    Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Halfbright- a couple of has beens making fools out of themselves.

    • james marmon February 10, 2016

      thought provoking

      • james marmon February 10, 2016

        In Mendocino County it is considered “Public Abuse.”

  6. Jim Updegraff February 10, 2016

    As for Israel – apartheid states reach a time limit as to how long they can suppress the majority. Those that oppose the apartheid are referred to as terrorists.

    • BB Grace February 10, 2016

      “Those who refer to Israel as apartide don’t know what apartide is”, says the Honorable Rev. Kenneth Meshoe, who lived through apartide and explains why Israel is not apartide, and what apartide is:

      • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

        Israel certainly is an apartheid state and a deranged theocracy.
        I agree with Professor Norman Finkelstein whose parents lived in the Warsaw Ghetto and were interned in a concentration camp. He said if his parents were alive, they’d identify with the Palestinians and see the Israelis as oppressors.

        • BB Grace February 10, 2016

          Well, LB..

          This morning when I got up and went outside I saw what appeared as a large glowing triangle in the North East, and it grew to look like the Eiffle tower on fire. I could see that it was a rocket leading the formation. Sure enough I read that a satelite for recogannaiance was fired off this morning and I guess I caught sight of it as it was going into orbit.

          Next bit of news was that a person who if I had a spiritual leader, I would say they were my spiritual leader because I have never enjoyed learning more from anyone. Chabad Rabbi Gordon passed away. What a great light he is.

          Then I see the news about The Bern and I find it all amazing. I don’t say much about Israel because to me, Israel is the best kept secret on Earth. The more people who think Israel is bad the better otherwise it would be way too much for little Israel to handle.

          Palestinians.. I love their movies. Hiam Abbass is my most favorite actress.

          I’m not sure how much Palestinan Abbas appreciates your contribution in his building a mansion for $13 milliion, but since you and Finky are in solidarity, maybe if you convert to Islam you can stay there where Cocacola is king and Pizza Hut more popular than McDonalds?

  7. Jim Updegraff February 10, 2016

    Good heavens another video – I don’t have sound on my computer nor do I ever have any intention of ever having sound. If you have a point my good fellow then say what it is about about the apartheid (it is not spelled apartide) in Israel as compared to South Africa. Although you may be talking apples and oranges.

    • BB Grace February 10, 2016

      Meshoe has argued against claims that Israel is an apartheid state, calling such accusations slanderous and deceptive. According to Meshoe, these claims trivialize the word apartheid, and belittles the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by non-white South Africans during the apartheid era.[2][3]

      wiki

      Do you now understand how your use of the word apartheid when describing Israel is slanderous and deceptive to the Black Lives that suffered through aparthide? Does that matter to you? Or is slander and deception just part of your hate package?

      Tell me what you love about Israel.

      • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

        Fun Quotes By Zionists

        1. “This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.”
        (Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971)

        2. “It is impossible for a man to become assimilated with people whose blood is different from his own. …We shall never allow such things as mixed marriage because the preservation of national integrity is impossible except by means of racial purity and for that purpose we will have this territory where our people will constitute the racially pure inhabitants.”
        (Vladimir Jabotinsky)

        3. . “A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice except to expel that population.”
        (Benny Morris)

        4. “We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state. Instead of Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You do not even know the names of those villages, and I don’t blame you because the villages no longer exist. There is not a single settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab village.”
        (Moshe Dayan, 1969)

        • BB Grace February 10, 2016

          1. Taken way out of context.. Israel exists because the British mandated it as part of their WWI spoils. The entire League of Nations voted to establish Israel.. countries couldn’t wait to purge Jews shoved in ghettos and never treated as equals, and they let the Jews go just to sink the refugee ships and the Brittish shot Jews coming to the land that was promised to them by the UN. Israel won every war waged against it and has not waged a war but has fought in defense. There is no more human military in the world. That’s why Israel exists on another level and I can go on many levels.

          2. What blood is Jew? Farci isn’t Jew? Sophardic isn’t Jew? Chinese isn’t Jew? Jews know all races and all races have Jews.

          3. Gaza would not have come into being if not the uprooting of 750K Israelis, whose homes, businesees, schools, temples were handed to Palestines to establish a free state,,, alas Hamas came in and has done everything to destroy what was given to them. Even Egypt has closed the border for the past two years, recently flooded Hamas new tunnels. What country ever gave land to another it had won in war? Think the US will ever give the land back to the Natives?

          4. Palestine was not heavily populated with Arabs. Even today Arab nations are purging their populations, Assad is being accused of “exterminating” prisoners. This is after so many who hate Israel were so sure Assad didn’t gas his own people. Jews have alays been part of Canaan/Philistein/Palestine. Millions had been invested in Israel before 1948. Arabs came for jobs. You gonna tell me all those Arabs are Beduoin? Most Bedouin Israels say they have it the best of ALL Arabs. Go figure.

    • LouisBedrock February 10, 2016

      Jim,

      Immediately after posting my first and last video on this comment section, I visited a Catholic Priest who is old friend and confessed. He told me to say three “Hail Robert Ingersol”s” and buy a bottle of vodka for the first drunken infidel I ran into. He assured me that Athena or any existing gods would forgive me

      Hope other readers of the comment section that hate videos as much as I do will forgive also.

  8. Jim Updegraff February 10, 2016

    Louis: I have heard your confessions and you are forgiven your sin.

    Another matter: Mr. Grace you do not consider what is happening to the Bedouins in the Negev Desert as a flagrant example of apartheid. I gather you do not see any apartheid in the internal passport system and the way it is administered. You might change your mind if your wife had breast cancer and was not allowed to go from the West Bank to Jerusalem for treatment. And I will not bore you with what happens to West Bank Arabs who live near Jewish settlements.I don’t “love” countries rather I support countries who treat ALL their citizens with love. Can’t be said for Israel. Now you tell me what you “love” about the Arabs.

    • BB Grace February 10, 2016

      Only because of the awesome Bedouin women in the IDF. I mentioned to LB that I love Palestinian Movies. You should watch a number of them and get a clue what the PA does to their own people. No wonder they’d rasther work and live in Israel.

  9. Jim Updegraff February 10, 2016

    Not another video – easy way out rather than response to written questions.

    • BB Grace February 10, 2016

      When it comes to examples, videos are helpful.

      Israel has more Bedouin in their kessnet than the US has Native Americans in any government office, including Indian/Federal offices.

      Just as long as you understand that everytime you call Israsel aparthide you are insulting every person who lived through South African apartide; I’ve made my point.

      • LouisBedrock February 11, 2016

        Nor have you dealt with Israeli ties to South Africa, their financial, military, and scientific cooperation, and the expressed admiration of Zionist leaders for Cecil Rhodes and Jan Smuts.

        Zionists like Martin Buber and Vladimir Jabotinsky were strong proponents of eugenics as were the Rockefellers (and many other Americans), the Nazis, and the South Africans.

        Instead of confronting these issues, you brush them off as irrelevant, out of context, or try to joke and happy talk them into insignificance. You know very little about the bloodshed and misery that has been produced by the establishment and metastasis of the Zionist state,

        Probably the only author you’ve read on the topic is Dershowitz.

        The Palestinians were not responsible for the Holocaust. And don’t respond with any glib blather about the mythical non-existence of the Palestinians: that’s as offensive as Holocaust denial.

        If the damned Brits wanted to give the Jews their own state, it should have been located in Bavaria. What right did Balfour have to give them Palestine? How would you feel if he were alive and gave California back to the Mexicans?

        • BB Grace February 11, 2016

          Alan Dershowitz makes good points, but I don’t agree with a two state solution.

          In my research of Palestine-Israel, I came across an interesting book by Sophia Loeb, “Palestine Awake: The Birth of a Nation”,(1927) forward by Nathanial Strauss. Loeb was president of New York Social Services and had established a national milk for schools program. She was sent to Palestine as an ambassador of sorts to report on what she found. The photographs are outstanding, and the people she meets and interviews from the Grand Mufti, to all kinds of peoples representing cultures spanning Europe, Asia and Africa all living and working in what everyone knows as Palestine. Bedouin support the Jews investments. Palestine was heavily populated with Turks and British soldiers occupied most Jeresalem.

          Loeb reports on the work being done by American Zionists, building cement factories, mills, women and children pulling rocks out of the earth with their bare hands and sticks to plant wheat, and grow food, and makes it clear, Zionists are from every nation, all coming to PALESTINE to build a life where a Jew can be a Jew. Why not in Canaan/Philestein/ Palestine where even Homer wrotes of wars and wars to come? When did Jews not know suffering or struggle? So they worked and invested, fought and established what today is known as Israel. I think it’s a fantastic acheivement in what a small group of people can do. Israel is outstanding in so many ways, what the Jewish people have achieved is awesome, while the rest of us watch everything our Forefathers of this Union worked for slip away. Our losses have nothing to do with Israel’s gains. It’s our own ignorance, prejuduce and loathing bathed on propeganda from no less, Persian oily interests and Islamic supremacy.

          Loeb discribes the landscapes, arid, rocky, lacking resources, swamps, disease infested, yet there is some feeling about the desert, the caravans, the mix of cultures, the comopolitain air that inspired. All the money from Loeb’s book sales went to buying land in Palestine. So it is a fact that much land in Israel was purchased in peace by Jews, who many got ripped off. And this is what also happens in settlements, as Jews come looking to move where they believe they can be a Jew and not fear for their life.. Palestine Authoity (SUCKS!) has a law that they can’t sell land to Jews. That’s racist! Eh? So Jews from all over the world, buy land that wasn’t supposed to be sold. They come to build, and then find themselves in a fight.

          But I want to address Palestine, because the secular Palestinians LOVE Israel. There you have it.

          Why are you in solidarity with Sunni Islam and the extremist groups like Hamas that want to eliminate Israel?

          One thing I learned from studying Catachism is that governments come and go. Maybe the Cascadia Fault and big quake will take back CA? I have no problem with a State of Jefferson. Give CA to Mexico.. why not? I won’t protest, though I think it would be better to give the land back Natives as they did a better jpob managing land, water fish and game than any layer of Union government today.

          What right did Balfore have? By my research, the right Balfore had was his interest in the Suez Canal and using Jews as pawns to get it. Looked like a good idea to the industrialists of the day, which includes Rothchilde.

          Do you ever look to see what GOOD Israel does? I once counted, 460 videos about how evil Israel is before I found a video that was positive, by my ideas, like creating thriving environments. I am amazed how Israel has brought back rare and near exinct life back to thrive WITH the human population.. We tend to seperate people from nature, but the Israelis are establishing thriving environments where nature and people live in balance. After that, well, it was like someone turned the light on, and WOW!! The human acheivement in arts, science.. it’s a richness that religion works to represent, and secular exploit, but it’s there and why the 1% LOVE Israel.

          Israel has it’s warts. What country doesn’t?

          Israel, not the US, not Russia is building desalination plants in South Africa.

          • LouisBedrock February 11, 2016

            This is sophistry and blather.
            You have not addressed any issues raised by Jim and me.

            I have nothing more to say.

  10. Jim Updegraff February 10, 2016

    And the question about the Bedouin and the Negev Desert you have not answered. Are you aware how many Bedouins are involved. Also the issue of internal passports. You don’t have a problem? Then there is the issue which came again about about Arab schools in Jerusalem. To flip your question why do YOU hate so much the Arabs?

    • BB Grace February 11, 2016

      I didn’t see this post yesterday. I apologise for not responding sooner.

      You may not be able to watch and listen to the video of the BEDUOIN FEMALE IDF, but the still shot shows her. I gave you that video as an example of admiration and respect I have for an Arab Israeli grateful for the Jewish education, and you say I hate Arabs? She tells you she went to Jewish school and you say school is aparthied?

      Hate like anger are energies. They can be used destructively or constructively.

      There is something about every person and every race to genuinely LOVE. I love the story of Curry because it tells the story of the spice trade and Arabs long before Islam. None the less.

      I mentioned The Bern being the first Jew to ever win a presidential nomination. Apparently you and LB have issues with Israel you don’t understand well enough to seriously debate, and LB’s drops out with an insult.

      The Negeve is blooming with ag and energie technologies that reduce the dependency on Arab oil.

      What’s wrong with that Mr. Climate Change scaredy cat?

      Make Peace, Bring Love.

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