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Roy Lee this week nailed down Santa Barbara County's most stunning political victory in decades, ousting entrenched Supervisor Das Williams, who with his handlers, was left to blame everything and everyone but himself. With only a few provisional ballots left to process, the tally in the county's First District stood: Lee. 12,670 50.95 percent Williams 12,116 48.72 percent The improbable upset by Carpinteria City Council member Lee over the seemingly ineradicable Williams - his first loss since the earliest days of his peripatetic local career, and only his second ever - shocked the local political establishment and pierced the cloak of invincibility of the county Democratic Party organization. The Willy Loman of Santa Barbara politics, Williams conceded the race, more or less, soon after the latest vote count was posted on Wednesday, in a passive-voice statement ("my re-election has fallen short" -- mistakes were made!), that lacked the courtesy of even a word of congratulations or a wish of good luck to Roy. Team Das had plenty of excuses, though: It was the campaign manager's fault! Low turnout! Trump voters! People who promised canvassers they'd vote for him and didn't show! And the most risible of all - "vicious and false...negative campaigning" -- this from a guy who defamed coastal advocate Susan Jordan with a photoshopped mailer during a 2010 state legislative race and, four years ago, stood by while Republican allies smeared Laura Capps on his behalf. Sheesh. Nick Welsh and Josh Molina join the genial host on this week's episode of Newsmakers TV, for some post-game analysis of Lee's surprise triumph and Das's defeat in the First, along with a final look at Joan Hartmann's landslide win against two opponents in the Third District. And Callie Fausey joins the gang with all the latest on those big jobs cuts approved in the Santa Barbara Unified School District, where the administration and the teacher's union still have not reached agreement, and also details a troubling story out of the Carpinteria Unified district, where the superintendent and the head of the teachers' union are locked in a legal cage match over his suitability to work in a classroom. More: affordable housing advocates weigh in on the mega-project being negotiated for Paseo Nuevo; the SB city council has yet more thoughts on restaurant parklets; and ice plant is under serious attack at East Beach -- to the possible detriment of allergy sufferers. Plus: A fond farewell to City Hall scrapper Bob Hansen. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. Check out the latest episode via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

The presidential race that voters didn’t want, a match-up between the antediluvian Democrat and the Republican autocrat, has begun. Last week, former President Donald Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination for the third straight time, as incumbent Joe Biden delivered a campaign stemwinder as his third State of the Union address. This confluence of events delivered a harsh dose of reality to voters hooked on hopium, or still in denial, that the nation would not really have to face Biden–Trump: The Sequel. Amid voter anxiety about Biden’s age of 81, or the 91 criminal charges against Trump — along with real-life concerns, from abortion rights, climate change, and sky-high grocery prices to crime, immigration, and sky-high grocery prices — the 2024 election also poses a more fundamental and urgent, if seemingly less practical, question: What form of government will we have in 2025? Joe Biden is a traditional politician whose policy ideas, while sometimes controversial, range between the 40-yard lines of mainstream American governance; Donald Trump, however, openly, routinely, and unapologetically challenges basic values of 18th-century liberal (small “d”) democracy on which the nation was founded: the rule of law, pluralism, and the separation of powers, for starters. “The heart of Trump’s agenda is not to address particular policy challenges or advance public policy goals; it is to aggrandize the executive branch’s powers and use them for retribution,” the nonprofit organization United to Protect Democracy wrote in a recently released study of Trump’s stated promises and policy plans, titled “The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025.” Amid Trump’s frequent, autocratic public statements — e.g., per the Constitution, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president” — allies in his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement have populated and established Washington think tanks and legal circles that already have prepared detailed policy plans, assembled lists of potential administration employees pre-tested for loyalty, and set forth judicial arguments for use in a second Trump term; these rest on vastly expanding powers of the President, via a concept known as the “unitary executive.” C Chief among these sets of proposals is Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, a 887-page doorstop produced by the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” as part of a “unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12:00 noon, Jan. 20, 2025,” when the next president will be inaugurated. For “The Authoritarian Playbook 2025,” the pro-democracy group assembled former government officials, scholars, lawyers, activists, and others of both major political parties to factually analyze these promises and plans, and to identify specific levers of power a Trump administration could wield to implement the vision of government espoused by him and his allies. They also assessed the strength of legal, political, and normative guardrails that might challenge his political project. The report identified six areas of concern: Pardons to license lawbreaking Investigations against critics and rivals Regulatory retaliation Federal law enforcement overreach Domestic deployment of the military Refusal to leave office Trump has made no secret of his admiration for autocrats and dictators around the world, from Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. In his first term, he repeatedly sought to exert their brand of singular executive power, from the judicially rejected “Muslim ban” in his first days in office in 2017 to the insurrectionist mob he rallied to stop congressional certification of the 2020 election. To a second term, Trump would bring far more knowledge of how the federal government works. It is unlikely he would appoint to his staff or Cabinet the kind of institutional “grownups” who frustrated some of his more antidemocratic initiatives, in favor of MAGA loyalists who would pledge to do his bidding. As Kash Patel, a first-term Trump national security official, phrased it in a discussion on the War Room podcast of Steve Bannon, former Trump White House chief strategist: “The one thing we learned in the Trump Administration, the first go-around, is we got to put in all America patriots, top to bottom, and we got them for law enforcement, we got them for intel collection, we got them for offensive operations, we got them for (Defense Department), CIA, everywhere… “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.” Two hundred and thirty days before the November 5 election, media polls show that Trump leads Biden, both in the national popular vote and in most of the handful of key states that will determine the Electoral College outcome. Here are four instructive takeaways from “The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025.” Henchmen pardons. The president’s constitutional power to extend clemency to those convicted of breaking the law, by issuing pardons and prison sentence commutations, is nearly absolute. The power may be abused by letting off political allies for conduct that benefits the president — as Trump did with Roger Stone and Paul Manafort after they refused to cooperate with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s Investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. It can also be abused to enable or excuse violence by supporters — as Trump has vowed to do for many of more than 1,200 convicted January 6 rioters. In the same way, a president can promise clemency in advance for breaking a law that benefits the chief executive — as he told his Customs and Border Protection Commissioner he would do if he was charged for implementing a legally questionable Trump policy. He can also do so to protect himself from legal consequences — as Trump has vowed to do in criminal cases against him, if elected a second time. There are few government guardrails against such clemency actions, sometimes termed “henchmen pardons.” The buffers are primarily norms of ethical behavior, not legal requirements. Trump in his first term overrode or ignored most of these guardrails — such as political or congressional pressure, advice from White House lawyers, and his oath to “faithfully execute” the law — and could be expected to be more aggressive in doing so in a second term. The most formal process to prevent abuse of the pardon power rests with the Office of Pardon Attorney, an officer within the Department of Justice who oversees applications and guidelines. The “Authoritarian Handbook” study reported that of the 238 clemency orders Trump granted during four years in office, only 25 — 11 percent — were recommended by the Office of Pardon Attorney. Politically motivated investigations. In his first term, Trump famously asked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” when Jeff Sessions, his first Attorney General, enraged him by recusing himself from the investigation into Russian election interference instead of shutting it down. Invoking the late Cohn, who in New York represented the mob and Trump as a New York developer, among other clients, speaks volumes about Trump’s view of the Department of Justice. In a second term, Trump publicly has vowed to prosecute and jail political enemies and individuals who have criticized him, from Joe Biden to his own former White House Chief of Staff, second Attorney General, and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair. Doing so would end the traditional independence and impartiality of the Justice Department, and MAGA attorneys already have prepared justifications for doing so. Presidential administrations of both parties for decades have generated documents known as “contact memos” to establish policies and procedures limiting communications between the White House and the Justice Department to a small number of senior officials, to ensure the propriety of such dealings. The Heritage Foundation, as part of its “Project 2025,” has proposed a second Trump Administration “reexamine” — i.e., end — the use of “contact memos.” MAGA attorneys meanwhile publicly make the case against Justice Department independence. One of the more prominent is Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump sought to appoint Acting Attorney General in the final days of his term, because Clark promised to take official action in furtherance of the president’s false claims about widespread 2020 voter fraud. The appointment was stopped only by the threat of mass resignations by career DOJ attorneys. Clark — who, along with Trump, has been indicted for his actions — now is viewed in Washington as a possible second-term Attorney General. He has been high-profile in calling for elimination of restraints on a president personally directing prosecutions or investigations. “The U.S. Justice Department is not independent,” read the headline of a widely discussed article he wrote for Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-allied think tank, in which he termed the norm a “canard” and the use of contact memos unnecessary “rigamarole.” “We shouldn’t doubt that (Trump) will follow through on his pledge to appoint DOJ and White House lawyers who will have no qualms about, and thus will not inhibit from, carrying out his vision of personal absolute control over the government’s law enforcement powers,” the democracy group report said. “And at the same time, he’ll shut down any inquiry into wrongdoing by him or his allies. This is a recipe for rampant authoritarianism directed from the Oval Office.” Ending civil service. A president controls about 4,000 political appointments in a federal government workforce of about 2.9 million employees. Trump has vowed to change that in a second term, with an attack on the civil service system, which was created to end patronage and the “spoils system” of filling government jobs with political loyalists, beginning with the Pendleton Act of 1883. In multiple public statements, he has promised to “totally obliterate the deep state,” by issuing an executive order, titled “Creating a Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” to circumvent certain regulations and clear the way to fire tens — perhaps hundreds — of thousands of merit-based professional employees and replace them with Trump loyalists. Allies and advisers already are screening candidates “more on political philosophy than on experience, education, or other credentials,” the report notes. Domestic deployment of the military. Since the Declaration of Independence, there has been deep opposition to deploying the military on U.S. soil. Trump, however, already has suggested he would do so in a second term, using loopholes in constraints on his authority as Commander in Chief, which include the congressional War Powers Resolution of 1973, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, proscribing the military from engaging in domestic law enforcement. The most consequential of these is the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to order military members to take part in domestic law enforcement under certain, very limited conditions, and which Trump avidly sought to do during the George Floyd protests. “Using the military was one of the President’s fixations that had to be batted down on a regular basis,” former Attorney General Bill Barr wrote in his memoir. “For a time, almost on a weekly basis, he would give me ultimatums — he said he was ready to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military (to American cities) in twenty-four hours unless I came forward with an alternative plan.” Barr enabled many of Trump’s worst impulses in the first term but was successful in blocking his use of the Insurrection Act; it is unlikely a second term Attorney General would do the same. “Politicizing institutions like the military,” the democracy study concludes, “is a hallmark authoritarian tactic intended to silence dissenters, target vulnerable communities and coerce fealty to the autocratic leader.” Jerry Roberts This piece also was published this week by the Santa Barbara Independent. Image: Donald Trump addresses a rally (CNN).

Roy Lee clung to a 510 vote lead over Das Williams in the too-close-to-call First District Board of Supervisors race on Friday, as Santa Barbara County elections chief Joe Holland said state laws that make it increasingly easy to vote have put his office "in uncharted territory." "People are changing their behaviors for voting, which is all okay," Holland told Newsmakers shortly after election workers posted a new tranche of votes for contests and ballot measures in Tuesday's election. "I'm not complaining by any means - we want more people to vote." The latest tally from the First District boosted turnout there to almost 37 percent, compared to less than 30 percent in Third and Fourth Districts, which also had elections for board seats: Roy Lee. 10,017 51.16 percent Das Williams 9,507 48.55 percent As the world awaited final word on the Black Swan race of the year, Gwyn Lurie Josh Molina and Dale Francisco joined the genial host on this week's edition of Newsmakers TV to go behind the scenes, and practice some plenteous punditry, not only about the First District contest, but also about the results in the Third District, where SupervisorJoan Hartmann surprised the cognoscenti by winning six of every 10 votes in a newly drawn district that was mistakenly expected to have created some ideological challenges for the liberal incumbent, The gang goes full Mt. Olympus with some lofty thoughts about the failure of the Democratic Party to use persuasion as a political strategy that would expand their coalition, the future, if any, of the Republican Party in Santa Barbara and throughout California, and the flops and favorable outcomes in the campaign for the U.S. Senate and Gavin Newsom's effort to squeeze another $6.5 billion out of taxpayers for his latest Big Idea social engineering schemes for homelessness and housing, aka Proposition 1. Plus: an elegy for the lost art of the gracious political concession. Holland redux. Joe Holland, whose formal title is Santa Barbara County Clerk, Recorder, Assessor and Registrar of Voters (breathe) portrayed the apparently slow count of some 41,000 ballots uncounted on Election Night as continued growing pains in coping with the all-mail ballot systems the state cranked up during the pandemic, in part to encourage more participation. "We don't know yet how the trends are going to go," he said, adding that there were dramatic differences between the uncertain pace and volume of ballots submitted under still-new rules, and the methods in place even five years ago when, he said, planning for elections "used to be like a wedding." Holland said that "turnout was more than I thought" and that elections officials were surprised not only by "tons of ballots dropped off Election Day," but also by the "huge number of ballots" voters placed in mailboxes on Tuesday alone, which officially was still "Election Day" -- even though ballots were sent to voters 29 days earlier and could be submitted at any time. "I was totally surprised to see how many came in in the mail," Holland said, noting that ballots postmarked by Tuesday were still arriving in his office on Friday; any ballots with a proper postmark that arrive through next Tuesday are to be counted. "We're in uncharted territory," he said. With political anxiety over the Das-Roy contest ratcheting up, Holland said the next ballot count will be reported on Thursday (March 14), which he hopes will be the final tranche. "I know it's frustrating and I'm sympathetic about people wanting to know who won," in the First District, he said. "People need to be patient. People are just going to have to wait." JR Check out the new edition of Newsmakers TV via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. Images: High Anxiety (depositphotos.com); Joe Holland (Santa Barbara County).

President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday night at times resembled a campaign or convention speech, but Rep. Salud Carbajal asserted that it effectively set forth key differences with Donald Trump, while demonstrating that the incumbent remains up to the job. "I think people wanted to see him be very present, very able, very strong, and he did that," Santa Barbara's Democratic congressman told Newsmakers, moments after the speech ended. "He was strong, he was bold, he was clear, and he set forward a course reminding the American people of the contrast between taking our country forward and being inclusive, or resorting to the alternative which is chaos, belittling people, chaos, at best," Carbajal said in a remote interview from Capitol Hill. In a week when former president Trump clinched the Republican nomination, and new polling showed Biden trailing him nationally and in key battleground states, the president's annual address to Congress represented the unofficial tipoff of the general election campaign. Biden himself clearly believed that to be true, as he criticized Trump via the phrase "my predecessor" at least a dozen times, without once mentioning him by name, on the economy, foreign policy and national security. If not unprecedented, it was a highly unusual device for a State of the Union, a ceremonial event more commonly used to deliver a message of unity. However, a large majority of Americans now express concerns that the 81-year old Biden is too old, too frail or too mentally diminished for the presidency, and Carbajal portrayed last night's speech as solid push back on that view. Biden spoke -- often loudly -- for over an hour, mixing in ad libs and verbal sparring with several GOP congress members who heckled him from the floor. "He showed us that experience matters," Salud told us. "He said there’s another guy his age that’s also running that continues to espouse messages that show that he wants to take us back as a country to darker days, instead of moving us forward. I thought he did an extraordinary job." In addition to giving Biden what is all but certain to be the largest television and online audience he will have before Election Day, the State of the Union also is an important social event on the congressional calendar for Senators and House members, many of whom who invite honored or politically beneficial guests; position themselves to greet the President (or taunt him, in the case of a few rudeniks from the opposition party) as he walks up the aisle to the dais, and compete for aisle seats, the better to be seen by voters back home. Now in his fourth term, Carbajal scored a trifecta on those political challenges last night. At 4 p.m., he set down a folder with his name on it on an aisle seat, in a bid to reserve the premium spot. Somewhat to his surprise, it was still there when he came back a few hours later, having survived sweeps both from the Secret Service and janitorial staff. Thus, he managed to score some serious face time on national broadcasts when Biden stopped briefly to shake hands and exchange a few words with him: "He was being heckled by some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I just told him, 'keep your head up,' looking forward to hearing your speech,'" Salud told us. As far as honored guests, Carbajal earned massive domestic props by escorting his wife, Gina, who had never before attended a State of the Union, to the event. "I can never deny my number one constituent," he said. JR Check out our post-State of the Union conversation with Rep. Salud Carbajal via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. "

Newsmakers’ editorial operation is based in Santa Barbara County’s First District, so our interest in the campaign for its seat on the Board of Supervisors' is both professional and personal. A longtime independent, No Party Preference registered voter, this columnist has reported, written and commented on TV about the contest -- but still has a citizen's duty to cast a ballot in next Tuesday’s election. In furtherance of full disclosure, a spoiler alert: Here’s one more vote for Roy Lee. The case for Roy. This decision is based on the shape of the race that has emerged between challenger Lee and incumbent Supervisor Das Williams: Change vs More of the Same. The criteria of choice behind the pick boils down to eight words: Roy's in public service for the right reasons. A community-minded small business owner and conscientious member of the Carpinteria City Council, Roy Lee embodies the non-partisan values and unpretentious virtue of a true, local government public servant -- not a political hack. As an elected official, he has demonstrated two skills increasingly rare in the political realm: he listens more than he talks, and he speaks with, not at, the people he represents. Lee has a record of commonsense and open-minded pragmatism on council. He has displayed a willingness to dive in and work hard on unglamorous, but crucial, problems which affect the day-to-day lives of local residents, from his thoughtful advocacy about the importance of school safety officers to fixing the holes in the roads. Personally modest and politically moderate, Lee has a blue-collar work ethic and, as a supervisor, would model fiscal prudence and a pro-business perspective, two qualities often in short supply among the social engineering schemes, unintended consequences and ill-advised programs for spending other people's money that prevail among current board denizens. He'd keep a keen eye on taxpayer revenue, in the belief that homeowners, privileged to pay the bulk of the freight for the county's $1.5 billion budget, deserve a seat at the table too. Perhaps most importantly, Lee would represent a clear-the-air renewal of the corrosive local political landscape – personified by the political careerism, cynical maneuvering and overweening self-regard of his opponent. The case against Das. Newsmakers has followed the actions and witnessed the conduct of Das Williams since his first race for SB City Council in 2003. Long ago, we tired of his job hopping, campaign money grubbing, truth shading, special interest catering and demonizing of anyone who dares disagree with him - as well as his complacent entitlement, performative, unearned displays of moral superiority, and vaingloriousness – all in service to his personal ambition. After a mediocre six-year stint in the state Assembly, Das’s political project upon returning to local government was to infuse it with Sacramento-style practices, shaped by hardline partisanship, pay-to-play policy making, and pure, old-fangled patronage, an agenda that obliterated any trace of a dividing line between his personal aspirations and the public trust awarded by voters. It's no accident that longtime sponsors and backers of his multiple candidacies, who have worked with him, up close and personal -- from the Women's Political Committee, Democratic Women and the Santa Barbara Independent, to former District Attorney Joyce Dudley, former Fire Chief Pat McElroy and ex-Police Chief Barney Melekian, for starters - have withdrawn their support in this race, with some publicly endorsing Lee. Das is Exhibit A for what happens to a community that loses daily, beat reporting journalism. Since 2006, when the city’s historic morning paper began its meltdown, virtually his entire career has unfolded in the shadows, without rigorous day-to-day news coverage that might have made him more accountable – and spared us the disastrous cannabis ordinance whose stench, atmospheric and ethical, will stand as his singular legacy. In dealing with Santa Barbara's tiny press corps these days, Das at times seems downright Trumpian: with an apparently bottomless need for attention and approval, he thrusts himself, in the manner of Zelig, into the center of every staged media event on the South Coast (Question: What is the most dangerous place in the world to stand? Answer: Between Das and a TV camera), while cravenly avoiding platforms where he would confront truth-to-power interrogation. To give Williams his due: he has skills and a talent for organizing and executing political campaigns. The problems arise after he claims victory. Here are three critical reasons for casting a vote for Roy Lee. Real world experience vs. political careerism. Roy's immigrant history is a true American success story. Arriving with his parents in the U.S. from Taiwan at the age of six, he spent much of his teenage era washing dishes and waiting tables in the Chinese restaurant that was the family business, working after school to help support the household while grinding to obtain an education at SBCC and UCSB. He finally became the business owner himself in 1994, taking over Uncle Chen, which he operates in Carpinteria, alongside his wife and their three children. With the restaurant established as a local institution, he turned to community service, seeking and winning a seat on the Carp council in 2018, to which he was re-elected four years later. Das, the grandson of immigrants, typically offers a well-rehearsed origin story at campaign events that portrays him as a precociously righteous little boy, morally superior to other, ordinary kids in his early grade school grasp of the world’s inequities and injustices. “I was immediately one of those kids that you see at school that's a little weird, okay?” he said at a recent campaign forum. “I had an innate sense that the world was not the way it should be…It filled me with a real rage for justice, that things ought to be different.” (Here we feel compelled to note that Williams' frequent use of the phrase “rage for justice” to define himself, echoes the title of a fine biography of legendary San Francisco congressman Phil Burton, written by my late colleague John Jacobs. It was published, to widespread attention in the Bay Area, by the University of California Press at Berkeley, in 1995, squarely in the middle of Das’ 1993-96 term at UC Berkeley, when he earned a BA in Political Science; Coincidence? You be the judge). In contrast to Roy, Das has spent his entire adult life as a political striver. Morphing from aide and campaign operative for former state legislator Hannah Beth Jackson, he landed at the public trough with his election to council in 2003, whereupon he almost instantly sought to move up the ladder, running for office three times in the first four years of his career, settling down to mount a mere nine campaigns altogether in two decades as a political careerist. “I basically would not be able to do this job if my wife wasn’t basically heavily subsidizing this effort,” he whinged last year, as he voted to raise his own salary. Independence vs. partisanship. Although a registered Democrat, Roy comports himself as a non-partisan elected official, in fealty to Article 2 Section 6(a) of the California Constitution: "All judicial, school, county, and city offices...shall be nonpartisan.” Das, by contrast, is the closest thing Santa Barbara has to a party boss, and his county office effectively is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the local Democratic organization. In yet another ploy well-known to those familiar with Sacramento politics, Williams stashes loyal operatives and apparatchiks on the public payroll, where they’re well-paid while positioned to toggle back and forth between campaign duties and “public service.” Political scientists call this “patronage.” It is defined as “the practice of giving individuals or groups political offices, money, material goods, and power in return for political support during an election. “ The chief of staff for Supervisor Williams, who was pulling down more than $190,000 in annual salary and benefits the last time we checked, conveniently also labors as the Chair of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party. She recently sent out an e-blast, soliciting volunteers to “be part of the 'Machine.'" "We are not successful unless we are all successful together, which is why we need you to keep the 'Machine' running and ensure electoral success in March for our whole team of endorsed candidates..." she wrote. Amazing but true – the Dem Party did not extend Democrat Roy Lee even the courtesy of an invitation to interview before awarding their influential endorsement to Das. Further down the political food chain at the county, one of Das's administrative assistants, a former longtime Dem Party paid operative, now collects $142,000 in taxpayer-financed salary and benefits, according to a public information officer. He recently “went on leave” to manage Das’s re-election campaign, before jumping back on the public payroll last week, he told us. Of course these folks are quick to protest and proclaim that they only do political chores on “our own time" – as if there was a magic switch or bright red line to keep policy and politics separate, a downright laughable assertion that only serves to insult the intelligence of voters. Integrity vs. pay to play. One of Roy’s key weaknesses as a candidate is his distaste for asking people for campaign donations. Das is a master at it. Lee views public service as the responsibility to seek out, understand and respond to the real-life needs of real-life constituents, no matter if they back him or not. Williams has a considerably more transactional approach. Like almost every professional Democratic officeholder in California, he’s in thrall to public employee unions, which have poured tens of thousands of dollars into his various and sundry campaigns, earning them loyalty over financial demands on the public treasury. He also raked in loot from construction and crafts unions, which benefitted from his help pushing through a sweetheart arrangement known as a Project Labor Agreement, which requires union hall hiring on public works projects (no surprise, it was Das's chief of staff who made the formal presentation of the plan to the board). He led the charge to snatch the county's lucrative ambulance contract from a private company and award it to local firefighters who’ve backed him – until a Superior Court judge enjoined the move, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a brief citing the supervisors' "sidestep" of state restrictions in the process. Even small-bore appointments to volunteer citizen boards get caught up in the swirl of money. Largely at the behest of construction magnate and appointed Montecito Planning Commissioner Ron Pulice, who's donated at least $13,950 to Williams, he unceremoniously kicked Susan Keller, a longtime and original member, off the commission, for annoying male colleagues by asking too many questions. This variety of raw, Sacto-style, transactional politics crested with his legacy achievement – the county’s dreadful cannabis ordinance. On October 24, 2016, nearly three months before he took office as a supervisor, Williams accepted $10,000 in campaign contributions from three men who before long would hold dozens of cannabis licenses, big winners in Santa Barbara County’s marijuana bonanza. No one among the public or the press knew it at the time, but these were just the first of dozens of pot industry political contributions Williams would take in the years that followed. Campaign finance reports show that he has taken a total approaching $150,000 - about one-fifth of all the money he's raised in three races for Supervisor - from industry interests. After his 2017 swearing in, Williams swiftly latched onto the task of crafting the new cannabis law. In partnership with Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, and aided by former “cannabis czar” Dennis "Revolving Door" Bozanich (who later left county government for work as a pot lobbyist) they formed an “ad hoc committee” that freed them from pesky open meeting requirements of the state’s Brown Act, while permitting plenty of space for secret deliberations with lobbyists and industry growers. In 2020, the county Grand Jury published an historic, in-depth report that detailed the influence peddling and sleaze surrounding the ad hoc committee, and the origin and implementation of the pot ordinance. The document is worth revisiting for a speed read before casting a vote in the First District election. Some crucial excerpts: “The action taken by the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors to certify the development of a robust cannabis industry as the primary objective of the cannabis ordinances has altered the quality of life in Santa Barbara County, perhaps forever." “Instead of a balanced approach carefully evaluating how the cannabis industry would be compatible, both as to amount of acreage and location, the Board simply opened the floodgates.” “The Board of Supervisors granted nearly unfettered access to cannabis grower and industry lobbyists that was undisclosed to the public…” “Documents obtained by the Jury, that had not been previously disclosed to the public, show voluminous emails from cannabis lobbyists and cannabis growers…it was unnerving to the Jury to see both the tone and timing of these emails.” “The tone of these emails appeared at times as if to direct specific actions to the Board members and gave the perception of a command instead of recommend. Understanding that no such authority exists with the lobbyists, the Jury felt that limits on such direct conversations should have been established by the Board members receiving these emails.” “The timing of these emails was also concerning to the Jury. The documents reviewed show many being sent the day before a Board meeting, with some confirming the discussions had that day at a meeting with a Board member.” It is also valuable to revisit the groundbreaking investigative reporting on the debacle by Joe Mozingo of the Los Angeles Times, if only to recall some of Das’s chummy and obedient exchanges with lobbyist and grower pals, with several of whom he planned social outings. From Mozingo's report: “When the Planning Department…recommended a measure that the marijuiana farmers should bear all the costs of appeals to their permits filed by neighbors, the cultivators emailed Williams that it was unfair and urged him to reject it, “'Don’t worry, I’ll fix it with a 50-50 recovery model. Don’t tell anyone though,' he wrote to (one grower). “'On it,' he wrote to (Graham) Farrar, the president of the Carp Growers “We will cost split if I get my way.' 'Thanks Das,” Farrar replied." And so on. A few days ago, at a campaign forum in Carpinteria, Williams portrayed himself as an aggressive advocate for residents whose health and quality of life have been damaged by the consequences of his cannabis ordinance, employing spin, half-truths, fibs and whoppers to distance himself from his handiwork. Sort of like an arsonist who shows up at the fire and volunteers to help put it out. Bottom line. Sad but true, veteran local prognosticators forecast that Roy will fall short in his valiant bid to oust Das. Some political factors are at play: Lee got in the race late, struggled with fundraising and was outspent by about 3-to-1. His candidate skills definitely need work. Roy may not prevail in the election, but no matter what, Das is the loser. He has ceded whatever moral authority once attached to his office, and though he may win the battle on Election Day, he already has lost the war: his political brand is devastated, if not destroyed. All that aside, it’s clear that the public interest would be best served if voters selected Roy Lee for the Board of Supervisors: He's in it for the right reasons. Jerry Roberts

With most of the drama drained from next week's election, the city Planning Commission rushed in this week to fulfill Santa Barbara's bottomless need for performative politics. After a marathon hearing that featured the most political palaver since Donald Trump last opened his pie hole, commissioners awarded a split-decision go-ahead to a 250-room Funk Zone hotel project, for which the city first authorized the right to develop in (checks notes)...1983. Josh Molina and Ryan P. Cruz return to Newsmakers TV to amplify their reporting on the PC's head-shaking deliberations, marked by a brutish tone fueled in large part by commissioner Devon Wardlow, whose avid political ambition is transparent, and by its four-hour length, well-aided by the historic fulminations of erstwhile City Council member Brian Barnwell, who's clearly delighted to be back in the game.. Lily Dallow joins the panel to pull back the curtain on Election Night preparations over at KEYT, as the gang concurs that the few remaining questions in Tuesday's local balloting are whether: Incumbent Joan Hartmann wins 50-percent-plus-one of the vote for the Third District seat on the Board of Supervisors, to avoid a November runoff; Lompoc Mayor Jennelle Osborne, an independent No Party Preference candidate, ekes out Frank Troise, the fractured Republican Party's entry, for second place. Das Williams meets, or fails to match, expectations in a probable victory over Roy Lee which are set at 60-to-40 percent or better of the First District vote, considering the incumbent Supervisor outspent the Carpinteria City Council member by a 2 ½-to-1 ratio. And what would a local news week be without City Council members piling into the City Hall clown car to meddle yet again with the details and dimensions of the State Street Alleged Promenade, even as downtown commerce keeps circling the drain. Plus: Locals mark the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin's barbaric invasion of Ukraine; another outbreak of anti-Semitism at UCSB; and how many cruise ships is too many for Santa Barbara? All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out the new show on YouTube below or by clicking through this link. Check back for the podcast version. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday at 9 a.m. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday.

Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled, in a case involving in vitro fertilization, that frozen embryos are children, due all the legal rights of living, breathing human beings. On Monday, the executive director of a prominent feminist organization described the "extraordinary decision" as an inevitable extension of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 revocation of the longstanding constitutional right to abortion. It also is evidence of a national, right-wing extremist effort to control the reproductive choices and bodies of women, Katherine Spillar, leader of the Los Angeles-based Feminist Majority, said in a Newsmakers TV interview. "Everyone has to understand where this leads," she told us. "There is a very strong Christian nationalist movement that overlaps with the movement that we see spearheaded by Donald Trump, towards an authoritarian state. Where authoritarianism is on the rise, women's rights are the first to be attacked." As her organization prepares its members and supporters to contest the 2024 elections, Spillar is scheduled to be in Santa Barbara next Friday, to address the annual President's Circle Luncheon of the Women's Political Committee. While the Alabama decision, coupled with the threat of a federal abortion ban and the specter of legal suppression of birth control, represents an urgent defensive political priority, Spillar said, she also will discuss Feminist Majority's offensive strategy to push Congress to recognize the Equal Rights Amendment, ratified in 38 states, as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. "That is the only way to fully restore abortion rights and achieve women's full equality in this country," she stated. The threat from Alabama. In discussing the tendentious Alabama case, Spillar cited the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, which threw out the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. For a half-century, Roe provided a federal right to choose to have an abortion -- until the Dobbs opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, who variously referenced "unborn human beings," "fetal life" and "potential life" in it. It is this notion of fetal personhood that lies at the core of Alabama's in vitro ruling. In vitro fertilization - known as IVF - is a method of reproductive technology that involves fertilizing eggs -- perhaps a dozen or so single-celled zygotes - with sperm cells under laboratory conditions. A single fertilized egg is then implanted into the uterus in an effort to achieve pregnancy, while the other eggs are frozen, to be used later if needed. In the case, several dozen frozen embryos from three couples were accidentally destroyed in an Alabama hospital. The couples sued, and the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the embryos were children, and therefore the hospital could be held liable for their destruction under Alabama's 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor statute. In a concurring opinion, state Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote the following: "Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself. “We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness. It is as if the People of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in this state: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I sanctified you.’ Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV 1982)." "They said the quiet part out loud," Spillar told us. "They intend that this is going to be a Christian nation, which is what we're fighting in so many different ways - Christian nationalism." "The chief justice essentially says (that) his theology, the theology of Alabama...their particular faith, should be the law of the land and government," she added. "You're defining a fertilized egg as a full human being, as a child," Spillar noted. "A woman's life is on par with a fertilized egg." What is looming. A native of Texas, the feminist leader said that "anti-abortion extremists," are responsible, not only for the Alabama ruling, but also for high-profile, Republican-sponsored legal action that invokes the federal Comstock Act of 1873. This 150-year old law prohibited mailing anything “intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion.” and anti-abortion activists have cited it in a bid to ban the shipping of abortion drugs like mifepristone. The Alabama ruling raises further the already high stakes of this year's elections for President and for Congress, not least because "a federal ban (on abortion) is a very real possibility," with many Republicans, including Trump, favoring federal prohibitions on the procedure, variously, from the moment of conception to six or 16 weeks, Spillar said. "The minute they would take power, of the presidency, of the Senate and House, we would face very similar kinds of legislation to allow this kind of extremism," she forecast. Bottom line. However, Spillar believes that "women understand this to their core," and that voters ultimately will reject Trump and many of his allies in this raging political battle of the nation's cultural wars. "Every seat matters, and every vote matters," she said. "This is a top issue for women, especially young women...It will be a top issue until we have restored abortion rights permanently across this country, "And we intend to do that." P.S. The Santa Barbara Women's Political Committee's Presidents Circle Luncheon will be held on Friday, March 8, at the Cabrillo Arts Pavilion, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tickets are available at SBWPC.org/events. Scholarships for students are available. JR Watch our interview with Katherine Spillar via YouTube below, or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, broadcasts Newsmakers TV every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, airs the the program at 5:30 on Monday.

By Cheri Rae “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  - Margaret Mead. In a major development for public education in California, state lawmakers have taken a crucial first step towards joining the burgeoning movement to address the nation’s persistent literacy crisis, by reforming the way reading is taught. This month, Assembly Member Blanca Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) introduced legislation to require the adoption and implementation of literacy instruction based on scientific research and improved teacher training and professional development, in order to align classroom lessons with the reality of how the brain learns to read. The measure, AB 2222, is co-sponsored by a dozen assembly members and joined by influential advocacy groups Decoding Dyslexia CA ; EdVoice ; and Families in Schools. The text of the bill may be found, and its progress tracked through the Legislature, here. The effort in Sacramento comes as dozens of other states, from Alabama and Arizona, to North Carolina and Colorado, have improved their literacy rates by requiring big changes in how reading is taught. Perennially low-scoring Mississippi’s extraordinary gains have inspired lawmakers across the country. The cascading educational movement represents a political success story for an up-from-the-grassroots campaign led by parents of struggling readers, who have met and joined forces over the past decade to learn how to help their bright children who simply couldn’t seem to learn to read. Seizing the power of social media, they have connected in ways never before possible — sharing information, resources, and insights — and recognized their common frustration: It wasn’t that their children couldn’t learn to read, they weren’t being taught to read. These parents and community members learned that the blame belongs, not on the dismissive reasons often given, like student reluctance, lack of motivation, or parental failure to read to their children - but on a faulty theory of how to teach reading. Known as “balanced literacy,” the widely-used instructional approach ignores the five basic components of reading mastery — phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Instead, the approach focuses on guesswork, contextual clues, and the presumption that a love of literature would develop if students were just surrounded by enough good books. As they have increased their knowledge of literacy instruction, however, they have united to educate, advocate, and legislate about what works — science — and what doesn’t — the balanced literacy theory, And they set out to change the world. Science and full disclosure. I am one of those parents, and I’ve been working at this for more than a decade — long after my once-struggling child was tutored privately in the science-based reading instruction he should have received in the classroom. In one state after another, one school district after another, parents have engaged in a grassroots movement to improve literacy instruction from coast to coast. Joined by journalists—most notably Emily Hanford — and citing respected researchers, including Louisa Moats , Mark Seidenberg, and Maryanne Wolf , they have made the case that the art of education owes a great deal to scientific research, most especially in teaching students to read. The recently introduced AB2222 is just the latest in the efforts to improve reading in California at the state and local levels. Sacramento lawmakers may find an ally in dyslexic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who understands reading struggles first-hand and has done much to advance literacy instruction in the Golden State. He previously signed legislation to require universal screening for dyslexia, and provided funding for a variety of initiatives, including training and hiring literacy coaches, strengthening teacher credentials for TK-3 by requiring instruction in the Science of Reading, and funding the creation of a literacy road map by the Department of Education. I am an optimist by nature, but as a longtime advocate who has witnessed far the too many defeats of meaningful literacy legislation, must be realistic. I’m hoping that this time the scientific evidence, and the example of so many other states’ success with science, will override the objections of the predictable opposition. Sadly, and perhaps surprising to those unfamiliar with the politics involved in education, much of that opposition comes from within the education community. Maybe this time will be different. The local angle. What does all this mean to us in Santa Barbara? In the most recent California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) in the Santa Barbara Unified District, 50.06 per cent of students overall met or exceeded standards, with a good deal of variability between schools: elementary schools 22 to 57.8 percent; junior highs, 26.3 to 67.5 percent; and high schools 42.8 to 72 percent. It is an understatement to say there is much room for local improvement and accountability. The good news is that we don’t have to wait for the state legislation to become law, because change is already happening here. It hasn’t been quick or easy, but the writing is on the wall, and it spells out science. After years of ignoring advocates’ pleas to stop wasting tax dollars and students’ potential by stubbornly staying with the failed balanced literacy approach, SBUSD administrators finally acknowledged it was time to make a change. This school year they have adopted a curriculum based on the science of reading and have offered educators the opportunity to enroll in the specialized training that will become a requirement if the law passes. Yet district leaders do not speak publicly much about science, or help advance the community’s understanding of the enormity of the change from a theoretical approach to reading instruction grounded in research. Science of reading advocates in other local districts are having some success in moving the discussion forward. We can all look to Peabody Charter Elementary School as an outstanding example of how to embrace and successfully implement the science of reading: Principal/Superintendent Demian Barnett and Assistant Principal Claire Krock have shown leadership in their own study of reading instruction and have provided their teachers time and support for intensive professional development as well as provided outreach to the school community. Their efforts have paid off with 66.12 percent of Peabody students now meeting or exceeding standards — and earning designation as a California Distinguished School and a National Blue Ribbon School designation in the process. The County Office of Education, under the leadership of Superintendent Susan Salcido, also is beginning to grasp the science of reading. County education leaders recently hosted cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf, who spoke movingly about the science of reading at a well-attended workshop. Participants continued the hard work of learning about how the brain learns to read by taking part in a reading group that studying Wolf's book, Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. Bottom line. Assembly Bill 2222 may be successful. Our children deserve the right to read, and our parents and community members have other important work to do beyond continually advocating for literacy, one doubtful district and one skeptical administrator at a time. If this bill stalls or is defeated, there surely will be another. The tipping point has finally been reached; school districts can no longer pretend that teaching only half the students to read is acceptable, or try to pass off balanced literacy as a best practice in reading instruction. History shows that science triumphs, even in the change-resistant world of education.  Now practical legislation might finally be catching up with literacy, even in California. P.S. Last fall, Assembly member Gregg Hart served as the keynote speaker at SBUSD's annual "Love for Literacy Luncheon," and spoke of the importance of literacy. "We need to have a system that embraces everybody and their learning needs," he stated. The passage of AB2222 will go a long way to supporting literacy for everyone. Urge Hart to support AB2222. Longtime literacy advocate Cheri Rae is the author of DyslexiaLand: A Field Guide for Parents of Children with Dyslexia and the recent biography, A String of Pearls: Pearl Chase of Santa Barbara.

In a 2024 campaign surprise, the Santa Barbara Independent declined to endorse the re-election of Das Williams this week, after recommending its readers vote for him in all but one of the multiple races the First District Supervisor has run in his job-hopping political career. After backing Williams in seven of his eight bids for office[1] the Indy this time withheld its seal of approval, second in local influence only to the prepotent Democratic Party's, and stated in an editorial that it has been "staggered by how someone so politically gifted as Williams has gone so far out of his way to anger constituents and alienate supporters." Although the paper stopped short of endorsing challenger and Carpinteria City Council member Roy Lee, its "No Endorsement" stance makes Williams the only unendorsed local incumbent. Nick Welsh, executive editor of the liberal weekly, talks about the assessment and judgment behind the decision on this week's edition of Newsmakers TV, joining conservative columnist Dale Francisco, political reporter Josh Molina and the genial host in breaking down all the key races and issues confronting voters in the March 5 election. Beyond the Das-Roy campaign, the gang also dissects: Measure A, a proposed city charter amendment, aimed at making important changes in the way Santa Barbara City Hall awards public works construction contracts; Proposition 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed $6.5 billion bond measure to overhaul mental health treatment in California -- at a price to local governments; The battle for control of the Santa Barbara County Republican Party, a political junkie special, as the GOP struggles to regain influence here and around the state. The race for the Board of Supervisors seat now held by Joan Hartmann, as the incumbent seeks re-election against two rivals in a newly reapportioned Third District. Plus: Why Dale appears in the official voter handbook as both a supporter and an opponent of the city's low-profile proposed charter amendment. You could look it up. All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out our new episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. [1] The previous sole exception to the Independent's support for Williams came in 2006, when he made an ill-advised attempt in the primary election to jump from the SB City Council to the Board of Supervisors, but finished out of the money for the run-off, behind eventual winner Janet Wolf and the late Dr. Dan Secord. Otherwise, the newspaper backed Williams twice for city council, three times for the state Assembly, and in his two previous, successful elections to the First District supervisorial seat. CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Frank Cotham for The New Yorker. MUST READ OF THE WEEK "Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden" By Ezra Klein, New York Times Opinion. "

(Editor's note: This commentary first appeared on the media criticism site "Press Watch" and is reprinted with permission). By Dan Froomkin The Hunter Biden impeachment drama has been transformed by the revelation that the most essential witness for the GOP is a pathological liar and Russian intelligence asset. The story is no longer whether Joe Biden committed high crimes and misdemeanors by maintaining relations with his ne’er-do-well son. In fact, there has never been any credible evidence to support that conclusion. The real story is that the ludicrous Republican impeachment investigation has now been exposed as a Russian intelligence op. This, even as Republicans do Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding by blocking support for Ukraine and only a few short years after Trump aides welcomed Russian moves to help the Trump campaign in 2016. But the political reporters at our most esteemed newsrooms who went to great lengths to portray the Biden impeachment investigation as a serious inquiry seem unable to change gears. I’m not surprised. It  would require them to admit they were wrong. They don’t do that. This is now a major scandal, worthy of the kind of multiple-day front-page pile-on involving legions of reporters and opinion writers that Biden’s age got recently. But the response from the Washington Post and the New York Times has been tepid, with a grand total of one buried print story since the news about Alexander Smirnov’s Russian connections emerged in a Tuesday afternoon court filing by special counsel David Weiss. Here’s the limp New York Times story, which appeared on page A16 on Wednesday. An online-only article later on Wednesday focused almost exclusively on Smirnov and how he “stepped over the line.” That very same day, the Times front-paged a three-byline, 3,000-word story on the Hollywood lawyer who the authors apparently think helped Hunter Biden too much. Here’s the lackluster Washington Post story on the Russian connection, which appeared on page A4 on Wednesday – right above a longer piece by Matt Viser about the “high stakes” involved in the impeachment investigation and how Republicans “are still struggling to uncover firm evidence” that Biden profited from his son’s shady business dealings. (“Struggling” not “failing”.) Indeed, a Post story in today’s paper about the deposition of presidential brother James Biden continued to depict the impeachment investigation respectfully, rather than as a now-undermined and farcical act at attempted revenge. Author Matt Viser even speculated that the questioning of James Biden “could yield more information.” Politico barely even mentioned the Russian connection at all. The Associated Press had two stories about the new developments. The second-day storywas stronger than the first, leading this way: The explosive allegations at the center of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden were false, federal prosecutors said, and came from an ex-FBI informant who said he was in touch with Russian intelligence. But none of the major news organizations have come even close to acknowledging just how much the story has changed. By contrast, TPM editor Josh Marshall, writing on Wednesday afternoon, powerfully described the revelation as the latest example of “a continuing Russian information operation that has been ongoing for almost a decade.” He concluded: "The real issue… is the reporters, editorialists and commentators, who vouched for and credited this whole edifice of lies and bullshit. Yes, they guffawed when James Comer came forward yet again with more revelations that never quite panned out. But they didn’t give up hope. They were always waiting for the next revelation. Comer and his Republican colleagues hadn’t provided “hard evidence” yet but there sure was a lot of smoke. "This entire thing has been based on Russian plants and intelligence operations from the start. Every bit of it. It’s been obvious. And yet, well … they’re all dupes. Somehow almost a decade after this whole thing started we’re shocked to see, wow, Weiss’s office was being led around by another cat’s paw of the Russian intelligence services. We’re shocked. But why are we shocked? "Every last person among the serious people of the nation’s capital and the sprawling thing called elite received opinion has egg on their face. And it’s not even clear they fully realize it yet. People I follow on social media have been justifiably outraged. Author Joseph O’Neill tweeted: "The truly scandalous thing about the MSM’s failure to splash this across the front pages is that secret treacherous collaboration between the GOP and Russia is a huge, sensational story by any normal journalistic standard." John Stoehr, the editor of the Editorial Board newsletter, tweeted: "It’s not enough to say that the GOP’s impeachment inquiry is falling apart. It’s not enough to say that they keep peddling debunked conspiracy theories. We should say clearly that the root of the lies is the Kremlin, then ask why the GOP is trafficking in Russian disinfo." Brian Beutler, author of the Off Message newsletter, tweeted: "It isn’t just MSM either. Many Dems, even very good ones, see this mainly as the death knell for impeachment. They haven’t realized or are trying to avoid the fact that this is the opening of a new scandal (or reopening of an old one, if you prefer)." Video journalist Brinda Adhikari tweeted: "I’m having trouble understanding why every single story on my feed is not about the Russian disinformation campaign to influence our election by deliberately seeding bad info about H. Biden. Like why is this not a huge story-how else might the Russians be trying to influence us??" Democratic commentator Kaivan Shroff tweeted: "5 YEARS of Hunter Biden coverage and all of a sudden media has lost interest now that we learn it was a Russian op that Republicans were happy to engage in. Absolutely insane." Condé Nast journalist Luke Zaleski warned: "We’re going to be gaslit into a dictatorship. It’s time to recalibrate the presumption that the Republican Party hasn’t been seriously compromised." I’ll leave the last words to David Roberts, author of the Volts newsletter, who tweeted: "The entire Biden impeachment effort was built around a guy who was peddling Russian disinformation. This seems like significant news, unless … [finger to ear] … never mind, I’m being told Biden is still old." (Dan Froomkin is a veteran national journalist and media critic. In 2019, he founded Press Watch as an independent non-profit organization devoted to encouraging political journalists to fulfill their essential mission of creating an informed electorate and holding the powerful accountable. It is funded by donations from readers and the philanthropic community). Images: Hunter Biden (NBC News); Dan Froomkin (LinkedIn). *Update: Since we posted, several readers have asked for an explanation of "MSM" This abbreviation refers collectively to large, mass, or "legacy" media outlets, such as those referenced in Dan's piece. MSM are distinct from "alternative media" outfits, like this one.

Supervisor Das Williams sent a warm and fuzzy, full-color campaign mailer to his neighbors in Carpinteria this week, portraying himself as a Mr. Dad homeboy. There was just one problem: he spelled "Carpinteria" wrong. "Carpenteria's Own," the brochure trumpets, identifying Williams as, "Our Supervisor. Our Neighbor. Working for Us." All righty then. On one level, the misspelling is just a silly screw-up, the kind of clanger that afflicts nearly every political campaign at one point or another, in a business built on urgency, adrenalin and quick turnarounds. From another angle, however, it's a humiliating unforced error in what should be a no-sweat re-election for Boss Das, not only because opponent Roy Lee is a city council member in (checks notes) Carpinteria -- but also because it validates Lee's critique of Williams as a career politician out of touch with his constituents, a moke with enough campaign cash to hire far-flung professional political consultants who can't manage to spell the name of his own town right, in a mailer targeted precisely at the voters of his own town. In the end, the blunder is unlikely to impact Das's bid for a third term on the Board of Supervisors. But it's one more drop in a drip-drip-drip of missteps steadily eroding his political brand as he looks ahead for the next office he can run for. At post time, Spencer Brandt, Williams' campaign manager, had not responded to a request for comment. JR

As stalled contract talks move to mediation, the Santa Barbara Teachers Association staged a large, long and noisy protest march this week, winding up at the school board meeting to clamor for a 23 percent, two-year salary increase that Unified School District officials say is out of the question. Callie Fausey and Josh Molina were on the street to cover the event, featuring 600 teachers, their families, dogs and community supporters, and on a new edition of Newsmakers TV,. reprise their reporting on the demonstration and the issues behind the conflict. The fight with the union has shadowed the SB Unified School District trustees, Superintendent Hilda Maldonado and top administrators since the school year began (don't miss Josh's story of cheating death while trying to get a good photo of the march from atop the wall outside the Museum of Art). Nick Welsh then briefs us on Kelly McAdoo, the just-hired Santa Barbara City Administrator, who not only has an impressive record of experience in the Bay Area, but also has a fascinating historic connection to Santa Barbara history and a one-time U.S. Senator from California. The gang also breaks down the controversy over council's go-ahead vote for a $32 million new pedestrian and bicycle bridge connecting Eastside neighborhoods to the waterfront; looks behind some alarming new statistics on how many people are using food stamps in the county, and examines some painful proposed cuts in the Goleta Union School District. Plus: our political roundtable discussion focuses on the three big public safety endorsements Carpinteria City Council member Roy Lee snagged this week in his insurgent challenge to entrenched Supervisor Das Williams; revisits the crucial race for the Board of Supervisors Third District seat and gets behind the annual fundraising drive for our radio partner, KCSB, 91.9 FM, which is in its final week. (Call to help out this lively and important part of Santa Barbara's media landscape at 805-893-2424, or donate online at KCSB.org/donate. Plenty of free parking). All this and more, right here, right now on Newsmakers TV. JR Check out the new episode via YouTube below or by clicking through this link. The podcast version is here. TVSB, Channel 17, airs the show every weeknight at 8 p.m. and at 9 a.m. on weekends. KCSB, 91.9 FM, broadcasts the program Monday at 5:30 p.m. Image: Drum corps led the Santa Barbara teachers union big march on Tuesday night (Josh Molina photo for Noozhawk). CARTOON OF THE WEEK Cartoon by Sofia Warren for The New Yorker. Must read of the Week "30 Things Joe Biden Did as President You Might Have Missed" Read it from Politico here.