▲ 52 r/IndianCountry+2 crossposts

LAND BACK via direct donation, loans or state grants: How do tribal members actually use these parcels? And would YOU return your property to the Wailaki, Lassik, Sinkyone or Wiyot ?

Do you know how Land Back works in California? Local tribes can receive direct donations but they can also purchase property at fair market value. They use state funding like the Tribal Nature-Based Solutions program, or federal tribal lending paths to buy strategic acreage, especially parcels with headwaters and old-growth oak or tanoak woodlands.

I’m curious what people's thoughts are about this process, specifically tribal members. If a tribe reacquires land through a buyout, is there even an appreciable impact on your community? Are people actually going out to gather acorns, harvest soaproot and rushes, collect spring water, or manage the land with cultural burning? Or do bureaucratic obstacles prevent people from actually accessing and using the land once it's acquired?

On the flip side, maybe the biggest obstacle is just finding willing private landowners. Has anyone here actually returned their private rural land to the original Indigenous people?

I'm looking for opinions, information, and especially first-person accounts of parcels returned to tribal hands in Humboldt County.

reddit.com
u/Pristine-Compote-804 — 5 days ago

Deepening Delusions on Miranda's Rescue: John Chiv Unfiltered: Fake Conspiracies, Ransom Demands to Finally Leave, Courthouse Blackout, and Biblical Meltdowns and more...

John Chiv’s posture has perverted itself from "defensive access journalist" into pure, unadulterated psychological projection. 🫠

While trying to maintain his “I am the only objective legal scholar ” lane, the framing of his sturdy little blog is completely collapsing around him.

As a multi-agency major crimes task force - including the FBI- unearth 117 dogs with chips and bullet wounds, 21 skulls, multiple piles of bones and animals in advanced decomposition - in addition to the 8 dogs removed in April -and used as evidence in the original warrant on Miranda's Rescue property- Chiv would rather spend vast amounts of his emotional bandwidth and blog column inches aggressively hyper-focusing on:

1. The Whistleblower’s Windows: He launched a multi-day blog campaign demanding to see code enforcement permits for Miranda's neighbor Jennifer Raymond's residential windows.

2. Mark Zuckerberg’s Software: Chiv spun a fantastically dark web conspiracy theory today about "shadowy anon trolls" because evidently he doesn't understand that Facebook groups can generate random animal avatars for users (like MotivatedSalamander9969) for privacy. 😹

3. The Nepotism Conspiracy: Chiv recently accused Sheriff Honsal of running a corrupted, biased felony animal-abuse investigation to satisfy a family vendetta, and he LITERALLY demanded the Attorney General step in to investigate the Sheriff’s wife. 🤯

All the while he doesn't write a single word about the dogs confiscated as evidence, the 600 collars found in what appeared to be a killing zone, the 731 unaccounted-for animals or the fraud and conspiracy being investigated by the prosecution team.

4. "Judge not lest ye be judged" he did a big pivot to virtuous warning energy 😂 A lecture for his readers morality, is rich, coming from the guy frantically pecking out name-calling insults at all the "miserable online trolls."

5. Pay-To-Play: Digital Ransom Note for Moving Expenses. June 19, Chiv offered a financial buyout to get him to exit Humboldt. Informing his readers:

>"Want me to leave? I have a one time deal for you... agree to come up with the money and meet all my conditions and I will leave... I want some additional funds like moving expenses, legal costs, and other damages incurred in this corrupt, podunk county."

He is actually trying to Crowd-fund his own eviction notice by telling the community that his absence has a price tag. 🙃

6. Locked Out: Has the Humboldt Sheriff Finally Froze Out John Chiv?

The biggest tell that his "insider access" has been obliterated is his recent, bitter confession: (which i have taken the liberty of running through an editor program so we can understand wtf he was trying to say:)

>The Raw "Chiv" Draft

>"...because I doub the other media will ask Sheriff William Honsal tomorrow at the press conference tomorrow is once this Miranda's rescue investigation is going to be complete... I would ask those questions tomorrow but Sheriff Honsal tomorrow is not communicating with me these days."

The "AI Writing Pal" Polish

>"I doubt the mainstream media will ask Sheriff William Honsal the necessary questions at tomorrow's press conference regarding the long-term timeline of the Miranda’s Rescue investigation. I would ask these questions myself, but the Sheriff's Office is currently freezing me out of official communications."

Is chiv officially frozen out and blacklisted by local law enforcement?

Has his aggressive defense of Shannon Miranda and antagonistic legal threats against the Sheriff's Office stripped him of his coveted media credentials?

Is he forced to sit on the sidewalk, locked out of the press briefing room, while the mainstream media that he despises gets the raw updates from the actual prosecution team? Inquiring minds want to know.

ONCORE

7. Chiv's Meltdown: "Shitfaced Coward" & Tech Delusions It sadly, gets worse. Tonight Chiv completely lost his temper resorting to aggressive name-calling. He typed:

>"You are a shitfaced coward who is biased in your opinion... I hope you lose your job, your home, your reputation and that Sheriff Honsal investigates you next and that the same sewer online rats you hang out with turn on you... You are a miserable snake with no accomplishments."

For a man who spent the earlier part of the evening quoting Jesus and the Bible to shame his critics, to actively wish homelessness and ruin on a local courthouse employee on a Sunday night - just because they call out his perverted coverage of the investigation of Shannon Miranda - is un-Christian, and un-hinged.

Chiv has hitched his entire journalistic reputation to the absolute wrong pony, and now that the case has hit CNN, he is left screaming into his disabled comment section while the rest of the county, and the COUNTRY. move on to the actual criminal justice phase.

Will he ever decide to join that conversation?

reddit.com
u/Pristine-Compote-804 — 7 days ago

Miranda's Rescue: where "adopted" means...something else 💀

Completely random thought:

After reading about dogs reported as adopted, my brain started staring at the word itself.

A D O P T E D

Rearrange the letters and you get:

DEAD OPT

Not a real phrase, but in the context of this story it feels strangely fitting.

"Dead option."

"Opted out."

"No way out."

Miranda's "*Rescue"'*may go down as one of the cruelest misnomers in Humboldt County history, where instead of rescued, adopted meant Dead Opt.

Stuff of nightmares for those poor animals, and for this community.

reddit.com
u/Pristine-Compote-804 — 1 month ago
▲ 38 r/u_Pristine-Compote-804+1 crossposts

Miranda's Rescue: Legit Accounting, Creative Writing, or Something Else Entirely? Plus 23 Years of Humboldt County Planning "Oversight" Analyzing the Reporting of Maranda Vargas

Source: The Times-Standard, "Miranda's Rescue Investigation: How It Started and Where It's Going" by Maranda Vargas (May 30, 2026)

One thing Maranda Vargas accomplished in this piece was connecting the animal cruelty allegations, financial questions, and county oversight failures all ​into a powerful ​single read.

Most people are already familiar with ​the upsetting details of the ​burial pit allegations, the recovered dogs, the microchips tracing animals back to Bay Area shelters, and the allegations of false adoption claims. This article cites 635 dogs transferred from ​shelters to Miranda's Rescue in 2025 alone.

Then there are the financials.

The article notes that​ nonprofit filings show a board member reportedly received no compensation in 2023 and more than $106,000 in 2024.

Thrift store numbers​ reported $1,109,815 in sales, $1,106,433 in cost of goods sold, and only $3,382 in reported revenue.

Let's think about that. A 5-location ​thrift store operation that sells donated merchandise reports ​over $1.1 million in sales and nearly the same amount in cost of goods sold, and claims just 3k in revenue? What is up with that?

This well-formulated article also revealed that, according to county records, the facility has been operating for 23 years without completing stipulations of the Conditional Use Permit - originally sought in 2003/2004. Those unmet conditions reportedly included floodplain compliance, building permits, and sewage/septic requirements.

Now, instead of requiring a new application process, the county has entered into a compliance agreement thereby extending deadlines missed for 23 years into 2027?

Credit to Maranda Vargas for following the records, connecting the dots, and asking uncomfortable questions!

Which unfortunately raises more questions.

Like**,** Is there a reasonable explanation for a thrift store operation reporting $1.1 million in sales, $1.106 million in cost of goods sold, and only $3,382 in revenue?

And what is wrong with Humboldt county planning? People all over Humboldt County were cited and fined ​$$$$$ over made-up ​"greenhouse/cultivation" code violations, yet somehow this situation sits unresolved for a quarter of a century - and is instead issued an extension?

u/Pristine-Compote-804 — 1 month ago

Analysis of John Chiv reporting on Miranda's Rescue animal abuse /fraud investigation

John Chiv’s posture Here ​is fascinating because he’s trying to occupy this:

>“I alone am calm and objective while everyone else is hysterical”
lane. 🫠

But the weirdness is that he simultaneously:

  • minimizes the reporting as “mob mentality,”
  • frames Humboldt as jealous/petty,
  • complains coverage is one-sided,
  • emphasizes he “reached out to Shannon directly,”
  • and subtly scolds the public for discussing the case…

…while apparently saying almost nothing substantive about:

  • the buried dogs,
  • the alleged false adoption claims,
  • Oakland’s statements,
  • or the warrant allegations themselves.

That imbalance is what makes the post feel off. ​Also this line:

>“facts don't matter to many in this small, jealous, petty county”

is such a bizarre framing given that the entire scandal currently revolves around people demanding:

factual accounting of where thousands of dogs went.

And the:

>“what you posted can be used against you”

warning energy is peak Chiv. 😂

Like sir, the internet commenters are not the ones facing affidavits alleging fraud, conspiracy, and felony cruelty.

He also keeps leaning heavily

into:

>“nobody has spoken directly to Shannon except me”

as though access itself confers credibility or neutrality. But access journalism can cut both ways. Being the only person getting replies from someone under investigation does not automatically make the resulting coverage more balanced.

And honestly, calling Reddit/Facebook a “toilet bowl” while posting cryptic blogspot sermons with comments disabled is very glass-houses-and-stones energy. 🪟💀

The biggest tell for me is that the post spends vastly more emotional bandwidth criticizing:

  • commenters,
  • local media,
  • online speculation,
  • Humboldt culture,

than grappling with why:

  • multiple shelters severed ties,
  • Oakland publicly spoke out,
  • search warrants were served,
  • and statewide/nationwide media picked this story ​up.
u/Pristine-Compote-804 — 1 month ago