Meth, Meds and 'Mergencies

Though it is a town with a very limited tree canopy, in one sense, Port Angeles is very much an evergreen community. Yes, the classics never die! That's why you will, every six months or so, see a headline like this:

Ideas broached for economic growth in Port Angeles

Say! Now there's an idea! Hold a meeting, wag some jaws, and "grow the economy"! But, folks, before we do that, let's be sure we're not just spouting out harebrained notions that we've been over before, or just embracing any of the same old, same old scams that are so prevalent here, okay? Keep it real, people...

A few individuals focused on the high career prospects for those who learn coding and cybersecurity — and the fact that these jobs can be performed anywhere in the world.

Port Angeles also could become a gathering place for the tech community, they said.

Port Angeles School Board member Sandy Long said unlike metropolitan cities such as Seattle, Port Angeles does not have a large community space where people can gather.

Schroeter wrote “confirm space” on a poster and posed a future performing arts center as a potential gathering place that could host tech groups and others.

People! Did you not...Sigh...

Okay. Tech jobs develop where tech people congregate, or at least might want to congregate. Now, look around...Do you see any groups of talented young brilliant minds just, you know, hanging out in Port Angeles? (Insert sound of crickets chirping here.) No, I don't see any either.

Remember that phrase, "quality of life"? The one that NOAA invoked as to why they were giving Port Angeles a pass? Guess what? That phrase is vital to the tech industry as well. Since, as this PDN article points out, those jobs "can be performed anywhere in the world," they tend to want to "perform" them someplace nice. With amenities, with culture. With...You got it, go on...That's right, with quality of life.

Oh, and they also probably want to "perform" them in a place that has good schools and does not have a raging drug abuse problem. (Full disclosure: Since I work at a tech company - we have ping pong tables and everything! - I think I have a little bit of an understanding of what they're looking for in terms of locations and/or employees.)

Hey, you Google sissies! Think you so damned smart!

We got us some toilet seat horseshoes on our tech campus!



So, when someone says Port Angeles "could become a gathering place for the tech community," it's true that it could. It's not absolutely impossible. Port Angeles could also become a place where Space X launches shuttles to Mars. It could. But does it seem likely? No.

Especially, and this is the other thing I warned you people not to fixate on, but especially not when Port Angeles is the place where scams are King. You see, the preposterous "need" for an "arts (which is to say conference) center" is just that - preposterous. Trying to sugarcoat and spin that scam as something vital to the future "tech community" development of Port Angeles...Well, that just strains credibility, credulity and everything else. It's obvious, it's clumsy.

Just like low tech Port Angeles.

I think the immediate "growth" areas for "economic development" in economically distressed Port Angeles are listed in the title to this piece. Keep it real, people.

Civic Cancer

You know...This whole bizarre Adam Chamberlin and the Animals story first cropped up (for me) last Thursday afternoon, when I got a tip about it. A few hours later, the request was up on the Sheriff's Facebook page, it was posted here, and hundreds of people were commenting on it. That was by Thursday evening.

Well, don't you know the Peninsula Snaily News has finally gotten around to covering this story. Except that their coverage is more like a minimalist cover-up. The following is their entire "article" on this subject:

Although a public records request for information on more than 2,000 pet owners and their animals has been rescinded, Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict has indefinitely suspended the county’s mandatory pet licensing program while privacy issues are addressed.

Benedict said Friday that Adam Chamberlin of Port Angeles has dropped the June 30 request for “a CD containing all of the licensed pets in Clallam County, including license numbers, owner information, and all other pertinent information,” according to the request.

Not a lot there, is there? The Sheriff's Facebook posting - which is where they obviously cribbed this - contains a lot more information than this "article." It's clear that they didn't even talk to Sheriff Benedict. It's also clear, and even more revealing, that they didn't talk to Adam Chamberlin, the three time loser convicted felon, and ask him what he was up to. The silence on that particular point is deafening.

In continuing to state the obvious, let's note that this all, somehow, is clearly tied up in the attempts by both the PDN and Adam Chamberlin and the "Our Town" clowns to drive Dale Wilson down and out. Let us further note that it seems likely that Judge Porter and Mark Nichols have their slimy little fingers in there somewhere as well. Which, to wrap it all up, shows just how corrupt, incestuous and vicious the existing power structure is in Clallam County.

Constitutional rights mean nothing. The right of the people to know means nothing. The responsibility to protect the public trust (via the press and the law) means nothing. Protecting the ability of a favored few to scam and steal is all that matters. Those who would expose or oppose the crooks will be destroyed.

So, yes, Port Angeles is officially, as is often pointed out here, a "distressed" community. But that distress doesn't come from homeless people, or drug users, or bureaucrats in Olympia or Washington D.C. That distress comes right from the top of the (dung) heap in Port Angeles itself.

Bow WOW!

Even by the warped standards of Clallam County...This is a strange one:

**NEWS RELEASE FROM SHERIFF BENEDICT**
**PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST FOR ANIMAL LICENSES**
Recently the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office received a Public Records Act (PRA- RCW 42.56) request from Port Angeles resident Adam Chamberlin as follows:
----Please provide me with a CD containing all of the licensed pets in Clallam County, including license numbers, owner information, and all other pertinent information. Please provide me an invoice for the compilation of these records and I will pay upon pickup.---

First Steve Markwell, now this. What the..? Why, why would Adam Chamberlin, the thrice convicted felon, be requesting this information? Can anyone offer any insights into this bizarre - and now, apparently withdrawn - request?

 

Lassie, what is it? Is Cherie Kidd down in the old well? Is Pat Downie trapped in the old mine? Did Glenn Cutler fall into the old Turd Tank? What the..?

Woof! Woof! Watch out! Madam likes to fetch

sawed-off shotguns! Woof! Woof!



Don't Call City Employees Hacks...

...But you might be on the money - quite literally - if you were call some of them "hack enablers."

City officials will hire a computer forensics company by noon today to investigate reports by residents this week that information on credit cards they used online to pay utility bills was hacked, City Manager Dan McKeen said Tuesday.

McKeen said the firm will investigate an “abnormality” that was discovered Monday on a city server that prompted 20 reports Monday and Tuesday from residents who said their credit card information had been hacked and fraudulent purchases made.

Ah, yes. The ease and convenience of paying your outrageous City utility bills online. Alas, it seems that there was some other form of ease and convenience involved that folks aren't going to be too happy with. I guess some enterprising folks working in "economic development" found a way to switch City Hall to City Haul...

Firewall? Jeepers, we thought you said we

needed a fire extinguisher!

Turn Back the Clock, Turn Your Back on the Future

Port Angeles and Clallam County are pretty badly dysfunctional, yes?

I'm not hearing anyone disputing that fact - and therefore we'll treat it as a fact - so let me proceed.

One of the main features of this dysfunction is denial. This can take the form of trying to deny that the causes of problems are causing problems, or, it can be as simple as just denying there are problems at all. The first one is a combo of displace and deny, while the second is, again, simply deny, deny, deny. (Repeat as necessary!)

Denial, in its various forms, is also one of the things that unites many (many, many) of the people who are doing wrong by their community. It's a common thread between the chaotic idiocy of, say, Cherie Kidd, and the just plain vicious idiocy of, say, the "Our Town" clowns. Cherie denies the validity of her detractors; denies the many lies she has told ("Motivational Speaker"? Please.); and denies her own glaringly obvious inadequacies. The "Our Town" clowns, on the other hand, deny the real root causes of the drug abuse they so obviously hate; deny that idiotic politicians (like Cherie Kidd) are often one of those very root causes; and, of course, they deny that they have done the many vicious and illegal things they have in fact done.

They deny reality. They deny the world that surrounds them as it is, and try their mightiest to cling to some mythical past, to turn back the clock to a supposedly better, more innocent, purer time.



So, mush-mouthed Cherie the hypocrite can get herself all worked up over cussing. Jeepers! And the supposedly clean-living Christians who are all a-lather over drug users getting high, instead get their own twisted kicks from bullying and violence. Hallelujah! Never mind that Cherie cusses a fair amount when the mike isn't on. Never mind that some of the "Our Town" clowns have substance abuse issues of their own in the past (and probably the present). No, never mind all that hypocrisy. Just do as they say, and not as they do, and turn that clock back, damn...I mean darn it.

Are there problems with this approach to life? Uh, yeah, just a few.

For one thing, the past wasn't as pure and sweet and simple as it's often made out to be.



For another, you very much risk (as mentioned above) totally missing and/or ignoring the actual, causative factors driving whatever problem you are supposedly so concerned with. Drug abuse is a symptom, for example, not a cause of dysfunction. I just read a great new study showing how as unemployment goes up, so does drug abuse. Gee, got any unemployment problems in Clallam County? Hmmm...How often do the "Our Town" clowns focus their efforts to push for more sensible, local, accountable economic development? Hmmm...



Related to that last point, by trying to turn back to an unattainable past, you also risk missing out on a little thing called the future. Here's a line by the fake psychic Criswell, from the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space: "Future events such as these will affect us all in the future, for that is where we will all spend the rest of our lives!" Get it? If not, here's the title of my favorite Johnny Thunders song: You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory. Criswell was a charlatan and Johnny was a junkie, but even they knew that you can't live in the past.

Finally, by taking this approach, you risk opening yourself up to charges of being a hypocrite. Because in this dream world, 1950s Port Angeles that folks like Cherie and the "Our Town" clowns like to pretend they live in, how do you explain the existence of something like this?



Have the "Our Town" clowns protested this place? Has Cherie gotten in their face over their profane and juvenile sign? That would be "no" and "no." Because they're hypocrites. Because they're liars. And because, in their own ways, they're absolutely just as dysfunctional and fractured as the customers seeking beer, bongs and bullshit. That they pretend otherwise is the biggest load of bullshit of all.

Don't Sell Them the Steak, Sell Them the Fizzle

I really, really don't want to step on the toes of the previous post, which is extremely revealing and important. But, I just can't help but take a quick moment to mock the latest from the Composites Technology Money Laundering Center. It makes so clear how bold they are - not in their thinking - but in being upfront about how much of a ripoff it is, and how incompetent they are.

Thus...

The CRTC, which created the world’s first scrap aerospace-quality carbon fiber pickleball paddle, is preparing for another “breakthrough” sporting product he said.

The pickleball paddle hasn’t sold as expected, he said, adding it is competing against 150 other paddles on the market.

Do I remember a booster or two of this lame, toxic waste receptacle of a scam taking issue with this blog taking issue with the wisdom of trying to market yet another pickleball paddle? One with a bigger than usual price tag? Don't I remember the sensible commenters on this blog saying that it wouldn't work? That it wouldn't fly off the shelves? In short, didn't many commenters here say that what has come to pass would come to pass?

AND YET...Here we are today, with one failed, high priced sporting good under the belt - and under the radar - and the bozos at the Composites Center are confidently trotting out...Another "breakthrough" sporting product.

Surely, yes surely, great days must lie ahead! Well, anyway, there's something or somebody lying...

Pixie Bob Larsen...

 

...and an X-Ray of Pixie Bob's head.

 



Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged Unfit to Judge Anything At All - Now with 100% LESS Radio Silence

 

Back in black (and white)...Read it and weep...

According to a Clallam County (Washington) District Court Judge (pro tem) it is now an offense to publish the news and to post anonymously on a local public interest blog. He considers it harassment.

Port O Call publisher Dale Wilson was subpoenaed to District Court on a petition signed by Chelsea Ward, founder of a local domestic terrorist group called "Our Town." "Our Town's" stated goal is to "clean up the city" by harassing the homeless population until they leave town. On the other hand, Port O Call has, for the past four years, reported on local government, concentrating on waste, fraud and corruption.

It was only after a homeless family got pepper-sprayed that Port O Call delved into the activities of this virulent vigilante group.

Ward filed the petition under the Domestic Violence statute which, when successfully deployed, prohibits the respondent-publisher from reporting the news. She did not say Wilson has ever been in her presence nor ever contacted her personally nor electronically.

Her entire case before the ironically named Judge (pro tem) Laurence Freedman centered on news articles published by Wilson on the activities of the vigilante wing of her Facebook-centric group, "Our Town." 

Reports included armed vigilantes intruding on homeless camps and harassing them. One of the leaders of "Our Town" is a thrice convicted felon (Madam Chamberlin) recently charged with possessing of "a sack full" of stolen data chips from cell phones stolen from homeless individuals. 

This same felon was charged by the local sheriff's department with pepper-spraying a family in their car. Recently he was convicted of his third felony, possession of a sawed off shotgun. From one of the stolen data cards this felon found a video of an intimate act between the owner of the cell phone and her lover. This he posted online with salacious comments. Because, really, that's what Jesus would do, right?

Coverage of these news stories are the sum total of Ward's complaint for harassment. Said coverage has been limited almost exclusively to the Port O Call; the Peninsula Daily News has been (not so) strangely quiet about their activities.

Additionally, she read into the court’s record from a series of anonymous posts to a local blog, Port Angeles Unearthed. Without any attempt at proving Wilson posted the comments, the judge allowed her to present her case of harassment, found it credible, and issued a restraining order on Wilson and ordered he not “defame” her. Because, as we all know, facts can be so defaming.

Despite the judge pro tem allowing her to ignore all the rules of evidence and allowing her to represent a third party, "Our Town," the order went out and could cause the arrest of the publisher if he finds himself within 200 feet of Ward. She did not even suggest that the publisher had ever been in her presence. All of her "harassment" was from news reports and anonymous blog posts which she attributed to the publisher, Dale Wilson.

The anti-harassment statutes are intended to provide a safe process for domestic-violence victims to get protection orders from abusive domestic partners. In a broad stretch of the statutes Freedman now says one does not have to have ever seen or been in the company of a “victim” to be guilty of harassment.

The hijacking of this statute to muzzle legitimate news reporting is something every newspaper publisher in the country should take very seriously. Freedman just gutted the Supreme Court decision in New York Times v United States where the court overturned a previous order prohibiting the Times from reporting on The Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court, in 1971, called this "Prior Restraint" and forbids it.

The Supreme Court rightly concluded there are torts available to those who feel they have been maligned by published articles. These include causes of action for libel, slander or defamation.

Of course when one brings such a tort case they must engage an attorney, file a complaint with a local court and pay court costs to initiate an action in court. They must also pay for service of process to notify the respondent of the action. Not so under the domestic violence statute. Taxpayers cover it.

By hijacking the domestic violence statute the "victim" does not have to pay a filing fee and the sheriff’s department must serve the summons on the "harasser" for free. Then it is up to a pro tem judge, usually a lawyer who plays golf with the elected judge, to make a ruling in the case without any allegiance to the rules of evidence nor even matching the statute with the charges alleged.

The court has allowed itself to become a tool of the harassment it is supposed to extinguish.

Yet to be told is the full story about how these vigilantes infiltrated the local police department and judicial system...   

 





Not at All...Honest

Usually, of course, the slimeballs and sleazebags of the world do everything they can to obscure their true intentions, their true nature. But every so often, something comes out unintentionally that really sums up and crystalizes what they're all about. Today offers a twofer in this department, courtesy of a recent City Council candidates debate:

Jake Oppelt, asking out loud if he has conflicts of interest, said, “not at all.”

He said he “is fully vested in the community,” pointing to ongoing projects such as renovation of the Lincoln Theater.

In politics, I have often found that when Politician A accuses Politician B of something, it's likely that it's really Politician A who is actually doing the deed in question. It's a pretty basic form of guilt displacement. The flip side to that is, when someone just spontaneously denies they're doing something, well, it's pretty much an admission.



"Is my photo upside down? Absolutely not!"

Thus, we have ambitious and ethically-challenged Jake Oppelt - he of the secret, mysterious moneyman partner(s), and proud bearer of numerous obvious conflicts of interest - taking the bull(shit) by the horns to declare that...He has no conflicts of interest.

Translation: Watch out!

The fact that this fact is then glossed over, ignored, unremarked upon in the Peninsula Daily News article about the debate tells you everything you need to know about their approach to news and the truth. It also probably tells you who they will be pulling for in the election.

Translation: Watch out!

We Are Fully (Dys)Functional! - AKA - Up, Up and Away...From Reality

File under, "Yes, But...":

The work this weekend ”allows us to regain full use of the airport,” said John Nutter, director of finance and administration for the port.

What is full use for an airport with no airlines flying into it? Does this mean the empty, unused building will sit there more fully and efficiently? What?

Do these people even think before they speak? Do they hear the nonsense that comes pouring out of their mouths? I mean, with this one short statement, John Nutter more than lives up to his name.

Breaking news! Now that this heavy gravestone that was sitting

on top of him has been removed, soon Jolson will sing again!

Please stay tuned for further developments in this exciting story!



He Said, She Said...He Did, But He Didn't?

How's this for some bullshit, crazy-making only-in-Clallam County thinking?

Nielsen concluded that Nichols likely “made overtures of romantic interest to Ms. Hendrickson for a period of several months in 2015, that he occasionally made indirect actions thereafter that Ms. Hendrickson could reasonably interpret as suggesting a continued romantic interest, and that some of Mr. Nichols’ attention was likely unwelcome to Ms. Hendrickson, but that Mr. Nichols did not create an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment for Ms. Hendrickson.”

So he did "make overtures of romantic interest." He did "make indirect actions." And what he absolutely did was "unwelcome." AND YET...This ongoing, improper behavior somehow did not create an intimidating or hostile work environment???

Thanks for the handshake, but...

Mark would really prefer a hug.



Boy, Mark Nichols sure got his money's worth out of that "independent" "investigation."

It is insanity like this that helps breed mistrust in government, and, on a larger scale, leads to things like people voting for Donald Trump. If the local Democrats had two brain cells to rub together, they'd be all over this issue.

But of course, the Clallam County Democrats do not have two brain cells to rub together. Hell, they'll probably praise Nichols for his steadfast perseverance or something "balanced" like that.

And the cynicism and dysfunction continues to fester...Just another great day in Port Angeles, to be sure.

Fireworks...But Not All Brains Do

Just in time for the 4th of July, here are some screenshots from those pathetic patriots from Our Town. These clowns are amazing. Who would Jesus harass next, right? Here's hoping that, in addition to shooting off their mouths, some of them blow off their hands in the next few days. (That might minimize the damage they can cause in the future...)

In the meantime, please note the NAMES of those involved, and feel free to share ANY AND ALL information about them you have. As a starter, here's a link to Scott Jensen's Facebook page...He's the owner of Angeles Communications...https://www.facebook.com/scott.jensen.3150

 

 

 

P.S. - Hope you're doing well, Adam Chamberlin, you convicted felon and well-documented bully. Still sleeping with illegal guns in your bed, Adam? What's the matter - can't you find a human to sleep with? Or can you only get it up for a gun with a big, long, hard barrel?