South of Redding, residents formed the Cottonwood militia more than a decade ago when five local businesses in the town were robbed on five subsequent nights, according to one of the group’s founders and leaders, Woody Clendenen. It has since grown from 11 members to a sizeable political force, including Zapata, with an increasingly savvy media reach across Northern California and beyond.
Its members are well-known in the community, offering a scholarship each year, hosting a boys’ camp, and sometimes being called in lieu of the police, said Clendenen.
“It grew into almost kind of a political action committee,” said Clendenen, a Cottonwood barber and bit actor in Hollywood B-movies. Candidates for office would call and court militia members for support, he said. Before the pandemic, he said, “our fundraiser dinners, the sheriff and the supervisors come.”
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I woke up Sunday planning to listen to one long radio program that was scheduled to last three hours. It related to Shasta County’s future. But as I prepared my coffee and listened to my regular station, I heard an unexpected short story that made my heart sag a little.
The surprise story that featured Shasta County was broadcast on North State Public Radi0.
The second program, the one I’d known about, was broadcast on Redding-based KCNR where a group of high-profile right wing citizens promised to unveil their blueprint to “take back” the county via a recall.
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REDDING, California Mark Baird is a third-generation Californian who hopes to one day be a first-generation Jeffersonian.
Baird, like many in California s sprawling, mostly rural north, is disillusioned with his state s Sacramento-based government, which he believes no longer represents northern interests.
That s why Baird and many others in the 23 counties above Sacramento have officially declared the reclamation of their state, even if it means breaking away and starting anew in the proposed 51st state of Jefferson, named for the third U.S. president. People are basically hopeless here, said Baird, who lives in Siskiyou County. We’ve gone from being economically viable and net contributors to the general fund to being what the rest of California jokingly refer to as the welfare counties. But, we weren’t the welfare counties. We were made the welfare counties by the state of California.
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
A day before Capitol attack, pro-Trump crowd stormed meeting, threatened officials in rural California [Los Angeles Times :: BC-CALIF-MEETING-PROTEST:LA]
REDDING, Calif. The rebellion that took place inside a government building in rural Northern California happened the day before the violent siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors had planned to meet virtually Jan. 5 because of an uptick in coronavirus cases. The supervisors’ chambers in Redding were closed. Seats had been removed. The public speakers’ microphone was disabled.
But, in protest, a newly elected supervisor unlocked the doors. In poured dozens of people, unmasked, to vent their fury. Three supervisors attending virtually watched from afar as threats flew amid the speeches.