Spoke with my mother this morning (93 turning 94 in October), she lives locally in a senior living facility. This isn't unusual, she calls everyday at 10:30am. This call was established as a form of structure. A chance to chat, a notice of what medicines need to be refilled, what supplies need to be refilled. She's as healthy as she can be given her age and still has all her mental faculties.

Lately she has been thinking it might be time for her to move to an assisted living facility. That would be a big change, but I like that it is her idea.

There are limited options where we live, so I told her that she needs to do her research in able to have a choice where she would want to go. She's comfortable using the internet, but I told her to go back to pencil and paper. Look at her options, list them by facility, and then list the pro's and con's of each facility. She liked that idea.

So do I. I told her to do her homework now because there will likely become a time when she will know longer be able to make the decision on her own and it will be made for her. She's cool with that, and acknowledges that it's true. I can only hope she follows through.

I feel fortunate that she planned far better for her old age and end of life and prepared for it. Far better than I have. It makes conversations like this far more comfortable.

Days after the top elections official in Shasta County announced that he planned to hire an election denier who served prison time for tampering with voting machines, county leaders there made an extraordinary plea to state and federal authorities: Please come investigate.

A statement released by the county Tuesday afternoon said Clint Curtis, the registrar of voters, had made “frivolous” claims and “unproven statements” about the June primary election, which he administered and certified.

“The County condemns the conduct of the Clerk-Registrar of Voters and invites all relevant state and federal agencies to review the allegations he has made and to proactively investigate his official actions and practices as Shasta County’s elections official,” read the statement released by Stewart Buettell, the county’s deputy chief executive.

Curtis — whose name was on the ballot, in a race he lost — has sequestered primary ballots in a room in the elections office in Redding, sealing the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”

Curtis has told reporters that the ballots did not look, feel or smell right and that he had directed facilities workers to put a lock on the room and destroy the keys so that if anyone tries to gain access, they will need a warrant and bolt cutter.

Curtis said he, too, had asked the FBI to investigate.

The county fired back, saying in its statement that it wanted the FBI — as well as the California secretary of state and the attorney general — to investigate Curtis, whose short tenure as registrar has been fraught with controversy.

“Mr. Curtis was appointed to enhance transparency, strengthen election integrity, and restore trust in the democratic process,” the county wrote. “While some progress has been achieved, including the promotion of meaningful observation within the Elections Office, Mr. Curtis has failed significantly in other core responsibilities, undermining the very principles he was appointed to uphold.”

Curtis could not immediately be reached for comment. The FBI field office in Sacramento said it was unable to comment.

Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson, in a statement Tuesday, said he was “aware of the controversy involving the ROV and ballots,” including claims on social media that he had been requested “to sequester alleged illegal or illegitimate ballots locked in the ROV’s office [and] addressing threats made to burn down the facility.”

Johnson said Curtis had agreed to provide a statement regarding a person who allegedly threatened the facility and that it was “an active investigation.”

“It is the Sheriff’s understanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is investigating the matter; therefore, Sheriff Johnson is urging members of the public to be patient and await the results of that investigation,” Johnson wrote. “At this point, launching a second investigation could complicate a process already in place.”

In an interview on Lindell TV, created by MAGA conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, Curtis said that the ballots “are being held at my office, which is kind of problematic because it’s a really old building and we have a lot of Antifa people,” including one who “once commented how easy it would be to burn that building down.”

The showdown in Shasta comes as Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — who in February used armed deputies to confiscate more than half a million ballots from last year’s special election for Proposition 50 to determine if they were fraudulently counted — is defending that seizure before the California Supreme Court this week.

The Supreme Court justices hammered Bianco, a Republican who came in fourth in this spring’s crowded California gubernatorial primary, in back-to-back hearings Monday. They appeared poised to order the ballots returned and to sharply limit the sheriff’s power to snatch election materials in the future.

In February, Curtis was the first person to publicly announce Bianco planned to confiscate the ballots.

Curtis had worked with the Riverside County citizens group whose fraud allegations sparked Bianco’s investigation, even traveling 600 miles south to speak on their behalf.

Potential hiring of election denier sets off alarm bells

Last week, Curtis drew national headlines by saying he wanted to hire election denier Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was released early from prison this summer amid a pressure campaign from President Trump.

Curtis, himself a longtime election denier, told The Times in an email that he wanted to hire Peters as a consultant “to assist with supervision of the November election.”

“None of our consultants have access to the voting systems, so she would be insulated from false claims,” he wrote.

Peters was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.

She was found guilty of helping an outside computer expert, an associate of Lindell, gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.

Peters was released from prison in June. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence after months of haranguing from the president.

Shasta County officials told The Times that any prospective employee or consultant would have to go through the same hiring process as anyone else seeking employment with the county.

Talk of hiring Peters drew swift condemnation from California lawmakers, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it was looking into whether a contract with Peters violated state law.

And on Aug. 19, Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats, wrote in a letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber that they had “grave concern” about Curtis’ plan to hire Peters.

“We are concerned that this hiring decision in Shasta County has less to do with Ms. Peters’ qualifications, and more to do with the President’s obsession with interfering in the midterm elections,” they wrote.

The senators said that if the county hires her, Weber should “provide the maximum oversight possible to ensure that Ms. Peters does not improperly access ballots, voting systems, or sensitive information that could impact the rights and privacy of the over 100,000 registered voters in Shasta County.”

Controversy and censure

Curtis, a 68-year-old attorney, was appointed by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in the spring of 2025 to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons.

Curtis lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area and had never run an election. He got the position after advocating for hand-counting ballots and bragging in a public job interview that he had worked with Lindell.

He promptly eliminated nine of the vast, mostly rural county’s 13 ballot drop boxes. He accused his predecessors, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans, and repeatedly called on federal authorities to raid the office and seize ballots from previous elections.

The Board of Supervisors censured Curtis on Aug. 11 for his treatment of staff.

He responded by inviting reporters to the elections office in downtown Redding, where he shared security footage that, he said, showed employees breaking into a room in the building. He allowed reporters to take video of the footage.

The county condemned those actions in an Aug. 14 news release, saying he “has repeatedly been advised of appropriate procedures for addressing and investigating personnel matters and advised of the importance of maintaining confidentiality of such matters.”

Earlier this spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives.

An internal investigation and an external inquiry by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.

He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services, who wrote that he had “demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff.”

Curtis has denied the findings.

In its statement Tuesday, the county said he “has made and continues to make unsubstantiated accusations of illegal activities against employees without due process or an investigation.”

Buettell, the deputy chief executive, told The Times that the county does not have the power to terminate Curtis’ employment because he was appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected position.

“As soon as they assume that office, it’s as if they were elected,” Buettell said. To be removed from the office, he said, Curtis would have to be recalled by voters.

I'm a old guy working part time at what can be a very physical job.

You might be able to guess who I work for when I say that I'm an order fullfilment associate.

I work mostly with what I will call kids, adults young enough to be my grandchildren.

What strikes me now is how some of them "get it" and some don't.

In particular with large orders that either require physical labor or the employment of equipment.

Some get it, and do it without asking for help if they don't deem it necessary.

Others, ask for help when that help is unnecessary.

What I find interesting is how harshly the kids who get it regard the kids who don't.

What's more surprising is that at my age, while I ideologically agree with the kids that get it, I'll give some slack to the kids who don't.

I guess I'm getting soft in my old age.

I had several stints over the years selling cars. I wasn't great at it, but I was pretty good. Made more money for my employers than I cost them.

What I enjoyed most was the comradery amongst my fellow salesman. Sure we'd cut another's throat to get in on a deal, but when things were slow we'd just hang out and talk about this, that, and any other thing.

So what is the current take on claiming Social Security? Take it early, take it on time, wait until you get the max?

I know what I can get if I take it today. I know what I can get if I wait until wait until I wait until I turn 67. I know what I can get if I wait until I'm 70. I know that the break even point no matter how you choose is around 80.

Not sure I can make it to 80, so should I take the money now? If I'm wrong and live past 80 would I have better off taking the money now?

I live in the town we both grew up in. When my brother comes to visit, his friends come over to hang out. I consider them my friends as well since I've known them for well over 50 years. But they're my brothers friends because while I'm 64, he's 69 and met them in school.

So I'll hang out and catch up with what's going on currently, but the real gold is hearing stories from decades ago in their youth that I can only hear now because I'm no longer a "kid."

While this might be too political for this site, I thought it might be a good venue because we're old people who have lived long enough to have a better opinion on this subject.

My people were in America when it was still part of Britain. So I fully claim birthright citizenship.

I've had discussions (arguments) with people whose ancestors came later who oppose birthright citizenship.

The argument generally goes like this. I ask why you think you are a citizen. The respondent says because my parents were citizens. I ask why you think their parents are citizens. The respondent say because their parents were citizens. This goes on until the immigrant ancestor is introduced. Then it becomes "things were different back then."

I believe in birthright citizenship because I believe that I am a citizen because I was born here, not because my parents were born here. I believe that anyone born here is a citizen even if their parents weren't under the law.

I realize this might not be the most popular opinion, but I'm really leaning in to being becoming the old man who doesn't care what other people think.