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Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2017

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THE WEATHER went from fall to winter Monday morning at exactly 11:20am, when a cold wind blew in from the north, harbinger of rain beginning Friday.

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NEW LOCATION AND OPERATION HOURS FOR LOCAL ASSISTANCE CENTER

On October 31, 2017, the Mendocino County Local Assistance Center (LAC), for individuals, families, and businesses impacted by the Redwood Fire will be moving from Mendocino College to a new location in the Raley’s Shopping Center.

The LAC provides a single facility where those impacted by the fire can access available disaster assistance programs and services. This multi-agency facility will include representatives from local, state, and federal agencies, non-profit agencies, counseling services, and other support services.

The LAC will now be located in the Raley’s Shopping Center at 1375 N. State Street in Ukiah (the storefront to the left of Raley's) and is a one-stop center for local assistance related to the fire. The LAC will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday - Saturday. Mendocino County will continue to provide services through the LAC as long as needed to meet the needs of our local residents.

For more information, visit www.mendocinocounty.org/fireinfo or call (707) 467-6428.

Carmel J. Angelo, Chief Executive Officer

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HELEN BERNICE CLOW

Born April 11, 1929, in Bakoshe, Oklahoma, to  Lola Richardson Gaskin and Franklin Raymond Gaskin, Bernice had five brothers and one sister. They all grew up together and remained close throughout the years. Bernice is survived by one brother who is 100 years old, Marvin Gaskin.

Bernice spent the majority of her life in Anderson Valley between going to school and having various jobs in the Valley. Bernice made many friends along the way. When she was 15 she met a young handsome local boy named "Jim." After dating, they soon married at the local Methodist Church and began their lives as ranchers. Soon to follow were their children William ‘Bill’ and Jack ‘Lindsay’. She was very devoted to her family no matter what.

Jim and Bernice were married for 63 years. They enjoyed square dancing, local events, parades, their summer gardens, helping work the camp at the McDougal Ranch and spending time with their six grandchildren. In 2007 Bernice was diagnosed with Alzheimer's which she lived with for ten years. She passed away peacefully and is now in the beloved arms of her husband Jim.

Grandma, you made our lives complete with your unconditional love.

Services will be announced soon.

A special thanks to Holy Spirit and to Perla and family and staff who loved Grandma.

Thank you, the Clow Family

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WE ARE SADDENED to learn that Bernice Clow has died, wife of the late Jim Clow. Jim Clow was manager of the Boonville Fair and Fairgrounds in the 1970s and 80s. Some of us will remember Bernice from the days she was an unfailingly friendly presence at the Anderson Valley Market. Our condolences to Bill and Lindsay Clow, sons of Jim and Bernice and natives of Anderson Valley who still live here. Lindsay continues in the tradition of his dad as a member of the Fair Board.

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FOG ROLLS IN

(Courtesy, MendocinoSportsPlus)

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SAD STORY from Fort Bragg. The young man pictured below, and recently arrested in Fort Bragg, is Shawn Bias.

He has an interesting, if not tragic, back story. Shawn was once on his way to becoming a champion cage fighter. There are several different stories told about Shawn and his downfall, but one worth looking into is about him allegedly being beaten by Oroville Police so severely he was left in a coma.

https://www.newsreview.com/chico/fight-of-his-life/content?oid=618509

There  should be permanent help out there for people like this kid. Fortunately for him, he's not homeless and has a strong family looking out for him. But he's out and about a lot and suffers diminished capacity and....

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LITTLE DOG SAYS, “My grandad used to say, ‘Laugh all you want about the old Dick and Jane readers, but we all learned to read, which is more than I can say about you and your Gizmo Generation, Little Dog’."

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JENNIFER DENISE MENDOZA, as confirmed by the CHP, is the name of the young woman involved in the terrible single vehicle accident in Navarro the late morning of Friday, October 20. She miraculously emerged unscathed from the wreckage of her car.  Some locals, and at least two eyewitnesses, said the young woman responsible for the accident was our Jennifer Mendoza, a medical assistant at the Anderson Valley Health Center. The CHP, however, said Jennifer Mendoza in the accident is from Phoenix, Arizona. We called our Jennifer Mendoza at the Health Center but, as we went to press, she hadn’t called back. Will the real Jennifer Mendoza please stand up?

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IN OTHER NEWS from the Deepend, a small army of Fish and Wildlife agents descended on the Bloyd home in downtown Navarro last Friday morning at 7am, and stayed through the lunch hour. Who and what they were looking for has not yet been revealed. Our call to F&W’s Eureka office was referred to headquarters in Sacramento. Fish and Wildlife, by the way, is one of our more elusive public agencies, but “I’m not at liberty blah blah blah” is commonplace at all levels of public agencies from the Anderson Valley Health Center to Trump. So you get a twenty-man raid team dicking off half the day in Navarro but no one in the agency is “available” to confirm, even minimally, what the raid was about?

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TRACY ANDERSON is the first graduate of the Anderson Valley schools to come back and run one. She proudly points to the varsity sports letters on her office wall that she won as a high school basketball and volleyball veteran of many winning games and matches in the Boonville gym. We immediately commenced a round of ‘Remember When’ from our flush common stock of local memories. Presently in her first year as principal of the elementary school, when Tracy left Boonville for the big world beyond, her diploma had been certified by none other than Superintendent Ron Snowden; her mom, the late Terry Anderson, was helping get the Anderson Valley Health Center started, a vital community institution then staffed by barefoot doctors in the dubious premises of the now abandoned Ricard Building; the Valley’s ambulance was crafted out of an ancient station wagon, and our purely volunteer fire department often made do with garden hoses. Principal Anderson marvels, “It’s all come a long way since then.” Tracy’s dad, Jim Anderson, still lives in the Anderson Valley. (The kid has roots!) Tracy began working for Safeway in Ukiah while still a high school student, and kept on working for Safeway through college at SF State, enjoying life in the Bay Area cities of San Francisco, Alameda and Orinda. The energetic educator has a 27-year-old daughter engaged to be married, and provides the additional intelligence that she has never been far from the Anderson Valley, an extended tour of Africa notwithstanding. Tracy worked a year at the old Unicorn School in Philo and for many years just over the hill in Ukiah. Tracy’s partner is Mark Theiss, who locals will remember from his beginnings in the wine industry with Tony Husch, the original Tony Husch. He is now with Kendall-Jackson, launching his career in wine with Jed Steele, the original Jed Steele. He and Tracy have lived for many years in Healdsburg, from where Tracy commutes to her work in Boonville. Having worked in the Ukiah schools for 17 years, “I’ve pretty much done it all,” she says, “from special ed to administration. When the job here opened up, I said to myself, ‘Now this would be interesting.’” And it apparently has been. “I love it here. This staff is really, really good and everyone is so friendly. Good things are happening here, for sure, as we address the new fact of English-language learners.”

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JUST SIGNED UP for Woodlands Wildlife, a newsletter I learned of from Ronnie James, the Mendo Coast's go-to wildlife person. Lots of interesting stuff in the first one I've received and, better yet, available for a modest donation of whatever you can afford. "100% of your donation will be used to purchase food and medical supplies for injured or orphaned wildlife or for educational purposes." Woodland Wildlife, Box 1336, Mendocino 95460.

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TRACK & TRACE, THURSDAY, NOV. 2, CANNABIS HOUR, KZYX

The Cannabis Hour, NOV. 2, 9 a.m., KZYX - Track and Trace, with Carmel Angelo, CEO, Mendocino County Track and trace is the cannabis tracking system Mendocino County's licensed cannabis cultivators must use to follow their cannabis crop from seedling to distribution. Mendocino County CEO Carmel Angelo and a representative from SIPCA, the program the county has adopted, will join host Jane Futcher on The Cannabis Hour, explaining how the system works and why it is different from the track and trace system the State of California has adopted. That's Thursday, Nov. 2 at 9 a.m. on KZYX.

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FIRES DESTROY MARIJUANA CROP AT HARVEST TIME; MILLIONS IN TAXES AT RISK

The Northern California fires affected all sectors of the burgeoning marijuana industry including cultivators, manufacturers and distributors.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, October 30, 2017

Doak, Johnson, Swinney

BILLY DOAK JR., Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, probation revocation.

KYLIE JOHNSON, Healdsburg/Ukiah. Domestic battery.

JUSTIN SWINNEY, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

No, a nation of eunuchs and trannies is an arrangement without a future. A country of passive, weepy, dress-wearing “men” is one not long for this world.

The only way for the polity recently known as the USA to survive is for American men to put on their man-pants and to act like men and for American women to start expecting their penis-wielding counterparts to man-up. No other disposition has any hope.

Only in this grotesquely distorted order of things could Harvey get away with his predations for so long. There was no apparent thought among the female victims to tell their boyfriend, husband, father, brother because there apparently was no expectation that Harv would be taken to task. Pathetic isn’t it? Any such cuckoldry-gone-mainstream place should have no expectation and no right to continued existence.

Only the Progressive Left advocates that men stop acting the part. And this is the logical consequence. This is deviance pure and simple but on a societal scale. To the Left no deviancy is too deviant.

As for those drinking the NRA Kool-Aid, wtf? More guns than people, yet the borders are open, Wall Street fucked everyone over, the jobs went to Mexico and China. Cold, dead hands? They might as well be for all the good they did.

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CONFUSION COMING WITH CALIFORNIA’S LEGAL MARIJUANA

Ready or not, California kicks off recreational marijuana sales on Jan. 1. And, mostly, it’s not.

by Michael Blood

Los Angeles and San Francisco are among many cities still struggling to fashion local rules for pot shops and growers. Without the regulations, there could be limited options in many places for consumers eager to ring in the new year with a legal pot purchase.

“The bulk of folks probably are not going to be ready Jan. 1,” conceded Cara Martinson of the California State Association of Counties.

In general, California will treat cannabis like alcohol, allowing people 21 and older to legally possess up to an ounce and grow six marijuana plants at home.

Come January, the newly legalized recreational sales will be merged with the state’s two-decade-old medical marijuana market, which is also coming under much stronger regulation.

But big gaps loom in the system intended to move cannabis from the field to distribution centers, then to testing labs and eventually retail shops.

The state intends to issue only temporary licenses starting in January, and it has yet to release its plan to govern the estimated $7 billion marketplace, the nation’s largest legal pot economy.

If businesses aren’t licensed and operating in the legal market, governments aren’t collecting their slice of revenue from sales. The state alone estimates it could see as much as $1 billion roll in within several years.

Operators have complained about what they see as potential conflicts in various laws and rules, or seemingly contradictory plans.

The state expects businesses that receive licenses will only work with others that hold them. But that has alarmed operators who wonder what will happen if their supplier, for instance, decides not to join the new legal market.

Others say it’s not clear what could happen in cities that don’t enact pot laws, which they warn could open a loophole for businesses to set up shop. Some communities have banned recreational sales completely.

Most banks continue to refuse to do business with marijuana operators - pot remains illegal under federal law - and there are also problems obtaining insurance.

With recreational legalization fast approaching, “we don’t have enough of anything,” lamented Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, a marijuana industry group.

The route to legalization began last year when voters approved Proposition 64, which opened the way for recreational pot sales to adults in the nation’s most populous state.

Unlike the state, cities and counties face no deadline to act. However, the concern is that confusion and a patchwork of local rules could discourage operators from entering the legal economy, feeding a black market that could undercut the legitimate one.

Local regulation is a foundation block of the emerging pot economy: A grower or retailer needs a local permit first, which is a steppingstone to obtaining a state license to operate.

But those rules remain in limbo in many places.

San Jose, the state’s third-largest city, has a temporary ban on sales other than medical pot but officials this week proposed hearings to take another look at how to regulate the local industry.

Kern County, home to nearly 900,000 people, has banned the sale of marijuana even as California legalizes it. Supervisors said they see it as a danger to citizens and also voted to phase out more than two dozen medical marijuana dispensaries.

In Los Angeles, which by some estimates could be a $1 billion marketplace, voters have been strongly supportive of legal pot.

But its proposed regulations hit snags, including a dispute over a proposal for so-called certificates of compliance, which operators feared would not meet qualification requirements for state licenses.

Adam Spiker, executive director of the Southern California Coalition, an industry group, warned last month that L.A.’s draft rules could upend the emerging industry by failing to provide a prompt way to license suppliers, potentially forcing then to shut down. And he’s dubious that the city will be ready to begin issuing licenses on Jan. 1.

“There’s not a lot of calendar days left in the year,” he said.

San Francisco, another city that strongly supports legalization, still is debating local rules. Again, it’s uncertain what will be ready, or when.

“What we want to do is bring everything into the daylight, regulate it, get fees for the cost of regulation and collect taxes as appropriate,” said county Supervisor Jeff Sheehy.

San Diego is among the cities ready to get the recreational market going.

Phil Rath, executive director of the United Medical Marijuana Coalition, a San Diego trade group, said years of disorder in the medical market led to increased black market business. That provided a ready example of how not to manage recreational sales.

San Diego moved promptly, setting up a system that will allow recreational sales at dispensaries permitted under the medical system, once they qualify for a state license.

Industry experts say the distribution system - a sort of main artery where pot will be received from growers, sent out for testing, taxed, and eventually shipped to retail stores - is not robust enough to support the vast new market.

The distributor model “was the subject of most of the political wrangling over the last two years,” Allen said.

“That’s the control point,” he said, but “we don’t have enough of them.”

(Associated Press)

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Dennis Banks (1937-2017)

by Jonah Raskin

I met Dennis Banks—who died on October 29, 2017 at the age of 80–just once. He was a fugitive wanted by the FBI and he was hiding out at the house of a friend in the East Bay. I don’t remember how I managed to connect to him, but it was probably through a lawyer and maybe Bill Kunstler. The lawyers I knew in the 1960s and 1970s all had links to former clients who were wanted by the FBI. I was drawn to Banks as much for his fugitive status as for his engagement with the American Indian Movement (AIM) that he co-founded, or his stance at Alcatraz. I wrote up our interview. An underground paper, one of the last of its kind, published it, but I haven’t a clue as to where it might be in my files and I don’t want to spend days hunting for it.

I do have copies of the book I wrote that was based on Bank’s own life, which he had described to me in detail, going all the way back to his youth. He didn’t last long as a fugitive; few do. Soon he found himself behind bars in California, facing extradition to South Dakota where his trial was slated to take place. But an angel incarnated as California Governor Jerry Brown refused to allow Banks to be extradited to South Dakota. Brown also granted him amnesty. It was one of the finer things our governor has ever done.

Banks was probably as famous as any American Indian of his generation. He was born in 1937, and he called himself an Indian and not a Native American. Whites seem to prefer Native American. Indians seem to prefer Indian. In any case, Banks, Russell Means, Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt and many others, including Leonard Peltier, who is still in prison, helped to reinvent the American Indian. They revived and rejuvenated a tradition of resistance to invasion, occupation and genocide that had had gone on for more than five-hundred years.

I never saw Banks with a gun and I never heard him talk about violence, unless it was the violence inflicted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the FBI and the U.S. government that broke hundreds of treaties with Indian nations. The man I met was gentle and soft-spoken. After it was published, I showed him a copy of the book that was inspired by his life and that was called Homecoming. My friend “Azul” did the drawings. I used my alias “Jomo” as my pen name. The cover shows two young Indians who are both handcuffed.

Banks read the book in one sitting and thanked me for writing it. “It’s a good story,” he said. “You showed a lot of the hardships Indians face. But you don’t have the comedy. Indians also have a sense of humor.” I had never heard that before. I don’t think I knew any Indian humor until I read in the 1990s, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, a collection of stories by Sherman Alexie.

Goodbye, Dennis. I won’t say “Happy Hunting.” That sounds like a cliché and a kind of cultural insult to all Indians. But wherever you are going, I thank you for talking with me when you were a fugitive wanted by the FBI and really didn’t know anything about me except my name and the fact that I wanted to talk to you and write about you. Thanks for trusting. I will probably always remember you from that safe house in the East Bay when your days as a fugitive were numbered.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Depravity and frivolity now stands in for art and entertainment. A walk in the woods to enjoy the fall colors of autumn leaves will not suffice for much of the population. So desperate for a rush of endorphins people constantly seek more and more outrageous things to give it to them. Normal things can no longer give them a feeling of joy. Their own lives are empty so they focus on the lives of people famous for nothing else than being famous to fill them up. We are a society more interested in reality television than actual reality. Such a society can’t possibly be invested in our future. We’re pretty much finished.

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PUMPKIN NIGHT - CONTEST WINNERS!

What a great night! This past Saturday, October 28, Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens held a Halloween party and pumpkin carving contest. Thanks to all those who entered the contest and everyone who came out that night to vote!

THE WINNERS OF THE 2017 PUMPKIN CONTEST ARE:

Maisy Wells "Spooky Spider" — Kid (ages 6 and under)

Rinah and Renen Garza-Hillman "Day of the Dead Twins" — Big Kids (ages 7-12)

Luna Garza-Hillman "Unicorn" — Teen (ages 13-17)

April Peak "Edwin Vesuvius Ghouligan Duck" — Adult (age 18 and up)

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AS PREDICTED....

PG&E wants ratepayers to pay California wildfire costs

eastbaytimes.com/2017/10/26/pge-pushes-for-ratepayers-to-pay-millions-in-california-wildfire-costs/

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NO POLITICAL ADS ON PUBLIC RADIO AND TV, 9TH CIRCUIT COURT RULES

by Maura Dolan

A divided federal appeals court upheld a federal ban Monday on paid commercial, political and issue advertising on public broadcast radio and television stations.

Rejecting a free-speech challenge to the ban, an 11-member en banc panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress was entitled to establish regulations to ensure that public broadcasting would be educational and noncommercial.

Monday’s ruling overturned a smaller panel’s decision last year that would have permitted paid political and issue advertising. That ruling opened the door to hundreds of millions of dollars in ads for struggling public stations — and could have caused economic headaches for radio and TV stations who depend on political ad spending.

“Congress recognized that advertising would change the character of public broadcast programming and undermine the intended distinction between commercial and noncommercial broadcasting,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority Monday.

The case stemmed from a dispute between a San Francisco public television station, Minority Television Project, and the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC determined that the station’s announcements on behalf of for-profit companies, including Chevron and Ford, contained improper promotional language.

Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski argued in a dissent that even barring advertising from for-profit companies violated the 1st Amendment.

“Advertising revenue would allow public broadcast stations to acquire content that will serve their audiences,” Kozinski wrote, joined by Judge John T. Noonan. “Additional revenue would also enable stations to produce local content, which is one of the identified goals of public broadcasting, rather than relying on content produced nationally or abroad.”

Judge Consuelo M. Callahan agreed that the ban against commercial advertising was constitutional but would have struck down the prohibition on political and public interest ads.

(courtesy Los Angeles Times)

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NETFLIX FOR INMATES

Editor,

Paid Programming — I would just like to express some discomfort over here at the Low Gap detention facility. As you may know on October 17, 2017, the Warriors were set to play wearing one time only promotional woodland camo jerseys for the fire victims in a game against the Houston Rockets. Well, we were blacklisted and effectively denied viewership.

Also the last issue of the AVA was suddenly missing from all buildings the day my last letter would have been published in Volume 65, number 42. A common nuisance expected to statutorily violate your Title 15 rights committed by your friendly local robocops trying hard to get a promotion. I say in light of every clinic in town having a Netflix kiosk, we are entitled to channels like TNT, the do-it-yourself network and other programming.

Jewel Dyer A#20559

Mendocino Corrections Division, 951 Lo Gap Road, Ukiah 95482

PS. I'm a big fan of random contemporary literature and contingency/medical malpractice lawyers versed in the 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, etc. USCA arts. We are denied phones through phonebooks along with everything else under the sun. Lots of documentation, logs and other evidence is primed and ready for any overtime-enjoying professional to apply some elbow grease!

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THAR SHE BLOWS!

by James Kunstler

I’m obliged to file this blog before Robert Mueller’s office releases the name of the first winner in the Russian Election Meddling tribunal indictment lottery. Most of the betting is on Paul Manafort, the Swamp-creature-fixer-lobbyist-grifter who spent his summer vacation of 2016 managing Donald Trump’s election campaign.

Before that unfortunate summer internship, Manafort was just a shadier-than-average influence-peddler. It happened that many of his clients were bigshots in foreign lands — Mobuto Sese Seko (Congo), Jonas Savimbi (Angola), and Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), as well as interests in Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ukraine, and other world beauty spots. Also, most notably, Russia where the wicked Mr. Putin dwells and incessantly plots evil against our shining city of a republic.

Over the years, Manafort took large sums of money to the DC laundry room and then distributed bales of it around town to other lobbyist subcontractors, but he left quite a trail. And he overlooked the requirement to register as an agent for foreign interests. So, indicting him looks like a no-brainer. An entry-level US Attorney could, figuratively speaking, hitch him up to the rear bumper of a Chevy Yukon and drag him over five miles of broken Coke bottles.

If I am right, his indictment will provoke a five-column headline in The New York Times, Don Lemon will have a multiple orgasm on CNN tonight, and by Halloween the whole Manafort matter will be as forgotten as Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Las Vegas Country Music Massacre. That’s how we roll in Attention Deficit Nation. I suppose Mueller’s team next will want to charge fired National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn for failing to register as a foreign agent prior to a having conversation with the Russian ambassador — but mightn’t it be a little absurd to outlaw dialogue between incoming White House officials and foreign ambassadors who, after all, are here to have conversations with our people? That’ll be an interesting precedent. Why would other countries even bother to send an ambassador here if that’s our policy?

There’s an outside chance, of course — outside, say as far away as the planet Mars — that Mr. Mueller will just flop his whole hand on the table and indict President Trump. Wouldn’t that be a jolt? And it would instantly prompt a constitutional crisis, so my money says ain’t gonna happen.

It’s hard to see where it goes from Manafort. The standard plot-line is to net these smaller fish and use them as bait to harpoon the Big White Whale. Give them immunity and let them sing their hearts out to avoid getting sent to ping-pong camp in the Poconos for a five-year stretch. Or else these two schnooks go bankrupt paying hotshot DC lawyers to get them off the hook. Does Mueller go after Donny Junior for having a conversation with a Russian lawyer? Or son-in-law Jared Kushner for flying to Russia and having meetings with Russians? Hey, does anyone remember that A) We’re not at war with Russia, and B) the soviet regime there folded up 25 years ago?

The casual observer can’t avoid dragging Hillary into this. It appears that, among other things, the Clinton Foundation received over a $100 million in “charitable donations” from various Russian companies and individuals over the years. Gosh, they’re a big-hearted people! Maybe it’s all the vodka they guzzle. No doubt, the newly-converted Russian capitalists were yearning to support “impact entrepreneurs” who are creating “new enterprises to generate both social impact and financial returns” by addressing market gaps in developing countries, or to “strengthen the capacity of people in the United States and throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence” — as the Clinton Foundation described their activities.

More likely they wanted to grease their access to the sure-thing It’s-My-Turn Madam President. Except then she went and lost the election… all because of Russian meddling.

(Support Kunstler’s writing by visiting his Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/JamesHowardKunstler)

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MUELLER INDICTMENTS WON'T SAVE DEMOCRATS AT ELECTION TIME: NEW REPORT

A new report out today says that the Democratic Party must change in order to win elections.

Coming a week before the anniversary of last year’s presidential election, the scathing new report blasts the Democratic Party’s national leadership.

The 34-page report — “Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis” — found that “the Democratic National Committee and the party’s congressional leadership remain bent on prioritizing the chase for elusive Republican voters over the Democratic base: especially people of color, young people and working-class voters overall.” According to the report, such priorities amount to a losing strategy.

The complete 13,000-word report, just posted at DemocraticAutopsy.org, states: "Rather than addressing topics beyond the control of the Democratic Party (whether FBI Director Comey, Russia, misogyny of some voters, etc.), this Autopsy focuses on some key factors that have been significantly under the party’s control."

John Sakowicz

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THE ETERNAL VACANCIES

First 5 Mendocino. (1) County Representative

If you are interested in serving on this Board, contact your Supervisor, or the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, at 501 Low Gap Road, Room 1010, Ukiah, CA 95482 (707) 463-4441. LAST DATE FOR FILING: November 9, 2017 or until filled.

 

24 Comments

  1. Eric Sunswheat October 31, 2017

    Despite all the bellyaching by fake news, revealed in court Monday October 30, 2017 in Willits, was that the level of meth in law enforcement jail health victim Steve Neuroth’s blood stream, was half of that necessary to be the sole cause of death, not the suicidal amount alleged by the blue code of silence, and parroted by the Fourth Estate’s pending dead body. Who are you going to call on Halloween. Ghost busters.

  2. George Hollister October 31, 2017

    I say things that don’t need saying, Manafort Is a swamp dweller.

    • james marmon October 31, 2017

      Old news Mr. Hollister, if you were watching FOX news you would know all about this a year ago August 17th. We all expected charges being brought against Manafort. You’re a year late Mr. Never Trumper.

      Paul Manafort resigns from Trump campaign

      “Manafort, who as a 26-year-old Republican operative, helped manage the 1976 convention floor for Gerald Ford in his successful showdown with Ronald Reagan, drew praise for steering the campaign through the final weeks of the primary process and the convention.

      But he came under fire following a New York Times article over the weekend claimed handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to him from ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian party between 2007 and 2012.”

      http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/08/19/developing-paul-manafort-resigns-from-trump-campaign.html

  3. Judy October 31, 2017

    I have met and talked with Shawn. Even with his issues he is a very polite young man.

    With the millions of dollars being handed over for mental health care each year I would like to know how many have actually been helped or are getting the help that so many obviously need.

    • Mark Scaramella October 31, 2017

      With all their hype about “transparency,” the fact is that official Mendo would declare bankruptcy before they’d turn over meaningful mental health stats to the public. One guess why.

      • james marmon October 31, 2017

        They’ve all become friends and have lost objectivity. Transparency would only expose flaws in their decision making processes. The ASO model is not working for anyone but the ASO.

        Where’s the money Camille?

        2016 MENDOCINO COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM REVIEW
        SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS IMPLEMENTATION PLAN – JUNE 7, 2016 UPDATE

        III(6) ASO Administration Costs Not Clearly Defined

        http://www.co.mendocino.ca.us/bos/cgi-bin/meetings/30124/30132/30133/30335/30393/ImplementationPlan30393.pdf

      • Eric Sunswheat October 31, 2017

        Perhaps jail has commissary, where inmates can have money put on books for optional treats. Thus there may be stats as to how many sugar candy bars purchased versus supplemental vitamin D3 multi B vitamins, vitamin C non acidic complex, and omega 3 essential oil nutrition, beyond minimum daily requirements. The answer may be zero, because jail in America is for punishment not rehabilitation, despite all the spin doctoring about baking organic bread at Mendocino County Jail. The one acre home owners need protection from uncouth disenfranchised, but why in a system of incremental genocide. Resist, with requiring income taxes levied on the robots, now being deployed to local Walmart warehouses to scan inventory, before the financial intelligence income vertical integration, to the billionaires class core reaches its irrefutable consequence. It’s not new information that organic rice contains 95 PPM arsenic, with allowable limit for children of 100 PPM. Thus Lundberg Farms bought up available land along the north coast to grow quinoa which does not sponge arsenic from the soil. Unless stats have changed, there is not a set arsenic PPM limit in food for adults. Baby food contamination with arsenic, yawn,

      • Judy October 31, 2017

        It’s all very sad for those needing the services. With the amount of money being spent one would think Mendocino County would have one of the finest Mental Health facilities available with qualified doctors. Wishful thinking… Perhaps the money is spread around to so many different places who offer very little in the way of real services/treatment that very few are actually helped. What if the money wasn’t spread around and instead concentrated on one facility large enough to really make a difference? Just a thought.

        • Mark Scaramella October 31, 2017

          The Board of Supervisors obviously doesn’t care about mental health services because they don’t ask for any useful information about the delivery of mental health services. Even Sheriff Allman doesn’t demand that mental health reporting be improved, nor do the local doctors who were quite vocal about Ortner. They’re all very good at telling us about not stigmatizing, about how bad it is having cops and the jail as the de facto mental health services for who knows how many people. But we don’t even get reports on how many people were 5150 last month and what their disposition was (e.g., out of county or not); no stats on how many cop 5150s were overturned by Mental Health staff and the patient released back to their hippie boyfriend or the like. No stats about the number of patient days in outside facilities and the cost. No info about the number of active cases. Nothing about how many release plans were written and how many follow-up contacts were made. (The Sheriff’s recent note that at any given time there are an average of almost four people on 5150 hold outside the County was the first useful factoid I’ve heard about Mental Health in years. But that was just a random data blip.) Supervisor Gjerde complained about Ortner’s admin rates once, but we haven’t heard about those rates since Ortner left.) No breakdown of the spending within the two big categories: Juvenile and Adult. Etc. The Mental Health/Behavioral Health Board never asks for management information and monthly reports. Of course, the Supes and the rest of Mendo don’t require reports on anything else either (except for the Fire Recovery which they’re doing reasonable well on which shows that they could do it if they wanted to). But the failure to require reporting on Mental Health, probably the single large departmental expenditure in the County, creates the biggest disconnect between rhetoric and delivery of all of them. I guess Measure B will help a little, but if we had to base our vote on actual data, or if we were members of a jury asked to decide on Measure B based on the evidence, we’d have to vote: Not Proven. Lack of Evidence.

          • Judy November 1, 2017

            Mark, I couldn’t agree with you more.

          • james marmon November 1, 2017

            Lee Kemper in the Kemper Report pressed the fact that a financial audit on both ASO’s should be completed before moving forward, that was over 2 years ago. Ortner left so the BOS ignored his recommendations, even the need for proper MOU’s with sub-contractors such as Hospitality House.

            Potter Valley’s Carre Brown and Camille Schraeder are not only neighbors but they have become close friends throughout the years. Requesting any kind of audit on Ms. Schraeder’s operations would only put a strain on their relationship.

            “Supervisor John McCowen: “I agree that it’s appropriate to have an objective look at where we really are. Do we have the appropriate systems in place? Do we have a way to measure whether they are operating appropriately?”

            https://www.theava.com/archives/49259

            As my dad, John Woolley, always said “don’t do business with friends or family”.

            James Marmon MSW
            Human Behavior Expert

  4. Harvey Reading October 31, 2017

    Re: LITTLE DOG

    Gotta disagree with you, buddy. There were plenty of semi-literates back in the good ol’ daze, too. Just another trip down faulty (wishful?) memory lane.

  5. Harvey Reading October 31, 2017

    Re: ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY and the week

    Both are just more rambling, incoherent, right-wing blabber.

  6. Jim Updegraff October 31, 2017

    General Kelly’s comments about Robert E. Lee and the reason for the civil War display an abysmal lack of knowledge about Lee and the real cause of the civil War.

    • George Hollister October 31, 2017

      The real cause? How about Johnny Reb was Scotts Irish, the Yanks were English, and they hated each other? To a lesser extent, still do.

      • Harvey Reading October 31, 2017

        You are so deep in outer space, George, that it’s comical. Thanks for the laugh.

        I believe it’s “Scots”. Damned old spell checker, I guess.

    • LouisBedrock October 31, 2017

      Civil War Factoids:

      1. About 200,000 Northern troops were Irish. About 20,000 Irish served the Confederacy.
      2. The South rebelled because they wanted to expand slavery and cotton throughout the West and not be restricted by the Missouri Compromise. They would have planted cotton in what is now the Dakotas if it could have been grown there.
      3. Lincoln’s election provoked fears of further restrictions upon and eventual elimination of slavery. Secession followed his election.
      4. The North could not afford to allow the South to secede any more than Spain can afford to lose Catalonia: cotton money fueled the Northern economy as had the slave trade.

      • George Hollister November 11, 2018

        Redneck culture has it’s roots in Scotland, not Ireland. ScotsIrish were those with Scot roots, who were sent to Ireland as Protestants to counter the Irish Catholics by the King of England. That is another story in itself. It is likely those Northern Irish troops were Catholic, and not Protestant.

        The conflicts between the Scots and the English are timeless, legendary and culturally based. That cultural divide was evident in the American Civil War, and was still evident in the South, when I lived there for a short time as a child. Thomas Sewell wrote an enlightening book on the subject.

  7. Harvey Reading October 31, 2017

    Re: MUELLER INDICTMENTS WON’T SAVE DEMOCRATS AT ELECTION TIME: NEW REPORT

    It may just be wishful thinking, but I’m hoping this “situation” explodes into the final demise of both right wings of the wealth party. Neither is fit to govern. Maybe, just maybe, Jill Stein, or someone with a similar platform, will be elected in 2020, along with a majority of real progressives in the cesspool of congress, resulting in the legacy of Reagan, the Bushes, the Clintons, Obama, and Trump becoming nothing more than a bad memory. As I see it, that’s about the only hope we have. The elections next year may be a good indicator of our fate in 2020.

  8. Debra Keipp November 3, 2017

    Ya know… I just gotta ask! Who at the AVA picks the pictures of the fashion section in the ad on the front page of the AVA website?

  9. Christine Bias June 13, 2018

    Hello. My name is Christine Bias and I am Shawn Bias’s mom. I found the article written about my son Shawn Bias and wish I could report that we have had a better outcome from our sad story. He is now wondering the streets of Ukiah because his father and I just have to use tough love and hope for the best. It’s so sad that drugs are everywhere in the world and sadly Shawn has become severely addicted to smoking meth. We have been in what seems a whirlwind and at times it seems all hope is lost. I have begged for help from all services but unfortunately I seem to get the same results there are just no funds and if Shawn does not want to change we can do everything in our power but he has to be the one to make that change for his life. I worry each and every day that I will never see my son again. I have to say as a parent there is no greater pain than to lose your once healthy normal
    Child into a deep black hole and not being able to reach them. I feel cruel because I have to be tough and stand my grounds and not be an inabler because that’s an easy role to take as a partner. I lose my mind and snap at him and then I break down emotionally because what if my anger is the last words I speak to him. It’s just so tough when I look at his pictures from high school where he has that amazing smile and he was so full of life. My son has fallen so deep into his addiction that that is all that matters to him in life. He looks so sad he’s dirty and wears random clothes that he finds I don’t even recognize my own son at times. I often think just when can we wake up from this horrible nightmare.

    • Ann November 9, 2018

      I’ve met Shawn recently, a few months ago, such a sweet guy. Today when I aaw him, he told me about his MMA days… But sometimes he talks about random things. But he is always polite

      • Christine Bias November 11, 2018

        Thank you for saying that. It warms my heart to hear positive things. There are people on Facebook that say them most painful things about him that are not true at all. I don’t understand why people want to bring a broken person down even more. Just so sad for us so it means the world to me to hear your kind positive words????

        • Christine Bias November 11, 2018

          Sorry for the typos. My phone has gone rouge on me and changed some of my words.

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