Politics
One far-right leader ousted. Another barely hangs on. Is Shasta rejecting MAGA politics?
Shasta County voters have booted from office a key figure in the county’s hard-right shift, even as the fate of a second far-right crusader on the powerful Board of Supervisors still hangs in the balance.
Patrick Jones, a former chair of the five-member board, was soundly defeated in the Super Tuesday election, according to results released by the county registrar Friday afternoon. With 98% of the vote counted, Jones’ opponent, Matt Plummer, a nonprofit adviser, was winning outright with nearly 60% of the vote.
It marked a stunning turn for Jones, a gun store manager who in his one term in office has emerged as a leading voice in an ultraconservative insurgence that transformed this largely rural Northern California county into a national poster child for hard-right governance and election denialism.
In recent months, Jones led the conspiracy-laden charge to dump Dominion voting machines and return the county to hand-counting its ballots. He helped push through a county resolution pledging fealty to the 2nd Amendment and a measure to allow concealed weapons in local government buildings, in defiance of state law.
More broadly, he worked with militia members and secessionists on campaign efforts that dramatically reshaped governance in a county long run by mainstream Republicans.
In another closely watched primary race, Jones’ political ally, Supervisor Kevin Crye, was surviving a recall election by just 46 votes. Crye made headlines last year when he enlisted support for nixing Dominion machines from Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive and pro-Trump election denier.
Meanwhile, Allen Long, a retired Redding police lieutenant and relative moderate, was the front-runner in a race to fill an open board seat representing western Shasta County. In a four-way race, Long had 50.3% of the vote on Friday and was narrowly avoiding a runoff.
On the campaign trail, Long said, many voters shared his horror at what they heard coming out of supervisors’ meetings and felt “a desperation for change.” The county government, he said, should focus on issues like homelessness and making local communities safer from wildfires.
“I was watching the politics here in our county, and I thought, ‘Wow, this has really become extreme,’” he said. “I wanted to guide us back to the middle.”
Running a distant second, with 19% of the vote, was Laura Hobbs, who said in her candidate statement she is a stay-at-home mom who is “100% MAGA and America First.” She recently accused incumbent Supervisor Mary Rickert — a moderate Republican who regularly opposes Jones and Crye — of worshiping Satan because her license plate has the number “666” on it.
In her own reelection bid, Rickert led with 40.4% of the vote, but appears to be headed for a runoff against quarry owner Corkey Harmon. Win Carpenter, a prominent far-right voice in the State of Jefferson secessionist movement, was running third.
Taken as a whole, the election results could signal a shift toward the political center in Shasta County — or at least a desire for a local government more focused on day-to-day life and operations.
“The last couple of years have been exhausting. And difficult,” said Jenny O’Connell, a Redding resident who voted in favor of Crye’s recall. “People are saying, ‘I just need this to stop. I need just sanity and normalcy.’”
“Part of the problem of dealing with constant insanity,” she added, “is that after a while you forget how crazy it is.”
Even if Crye survives the recall, Jones’ loss is expected to upend leadership on the board, where ultraconservatives currently have a 3-2 majority.
Shasta County Supervisor Patrick Jones, shown here at his family’s Redding gun store, has helped spearhead a far-right shift in local governance.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
In an interview Friday, Jones took his loss in stride. He has about nine months left in his current term and said the conservative bloc still has time to carry out its agenda.
“I’m real happy,” he said. “We got a lot of stuff done last year. This year, we still have all year to continue with our policies.”
The registrar’s office said 1,208 ballots were still unprocessed, including some that are damaged and others that need further review.
As the votes were being counted, questions swirled about Jones’ connection to a controversial radio ad, aired a week before the election, that claimed a large number of incorrect ballots, including some for dead people, had been mailed to residents. The ad, aired on news station KQMS, provided listeners with a phone number to call if they received voting materials that did not belong to them.
The county administrative office quickly put out a statement saying the ad had not been approved by elections officials or the Board of Supervisors and that the phone number provided was registered to a private citizen.
In a reported story, KQMS said Jones and Bev Gray — Jones’ appointee to a newly created citizens’ elections commission — were responsible for the ad. Jones said Gray wrote the ad but that he took her to the radio station to show her how to record it. The radio station said an invoice showed it was billed to Jones Fort, his family’s Redding gun store.
Jones dismissed concerns about the propriety of the ad, accusing his opponents of “trying to make something out of nothing.”
The Shasta County district attorney’s office said in a statement that the incident had been referred to them for investigation, but offered no details.
Jones told The Times that Dist. Atty. Stephanie Bridgett, “to try to intimidate” him, sent two detectives to the radio station. “Of course, that stuff doesn’t work, and she should know better,” Jones said. “If she has that much time on her hands, we may want to take a look at her budget, come June.”
Jones, a former Redding mayor, was the first hard-right figure elected to the board, as conservative backlash over COVID-19-related lockdowns, masks and vaccines coalesced with rage over President Trump losing the 2020 election. (Shasta County overwhelmingly supported his reelection bid.)
Jones’ introductory meeting was Jan. 5, 2021 — the day before the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol. Jones showed up to what was supposed to be a virtual meeting, unlocked the supervisor chambers and let an angry crowd into the county building.
Residents poured in, unmasked, and some threatened supervisors over their so-called government tyranny. “When the ballot box is gone, there is only the cartridge box,” one audience member snarled. “You have made bullets expensive. But luckily for you, ropes are reusable.”
In early 2022, ultraconservatives — bankrolled by Reverge Anselmo, a former Hollywood filmmaker who left the county after a land dispute — shocked the state’s political establishment by pushing the successful recall of Supervisor Leonard Moty, a Republican former police chief, in part because he abided by state coronavirus mandates.
Crye, the current board chair, and Supervisor Chris Kelstrom were elected to the board later that year.
Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye poses for a photo on the Sundial Bridge in Redding.
(Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
For the local vector control board, the board majority appointed a right-wing political activist who warned of mosquitoes being used as “flying syringes” for mass vaccination. And they named an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates to be the county’s new health officer.
And then there were the voting machines.
Last year, the Board of Supervisors upended the county’s elections process, canceling its contract with Dominion Voting Systems because of unfounded voter fraud claims pushed by Trump. The supervisors opted to pursue hand-counting ballots for the county’s more than 112,000 registered voters, making Shasta the largest government entity in the U.S. to employ hand counts. Voters’ rights organizations were aghast. In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law — which Jones vowed to challenge — that limited counties from hand-counting votes.
For years, Jones directed his ire at the longtime registrar-recorder, Cathy Darling Allen, the only Democrat elected to countywide office, publicly accusing her of lying about voting machines.
Elections staffers have been harassed, and during a June 2022 election, someone hung a trail camera — the kind hunters use to track wildlife — in the alley behind the registrar’s office. Darling Allen, 55, recently announced that she will retire this spring because she has been diagnosed with heart failure and needs to reduce her stress level.
Jones’ opponent, Plummer, told The Times he had knocked on nearly 9,000 doors while campaigning and that people didn’t want to talk about partisan politics but preferred to discuss issues integral to their daily lives like crime and roads.
“We disassociated politics from those everyday issues, because a lot of politics has become about rhetoric and ideology instead of the core issues,” Plummer said.
Many residents have grown tired of the drama.
John Deaton joins a February demonstration in Redding calling for the recall of Shasta County Supervisor Kevin Crye.
(Rich Pedroncelli / AP)
Last spring, after the Dominion vote, residents in Crye’s district launched a recall — just months after he took office in an election he won by 90 votes. Organizers said they were angered by his decision to upend the voting system, as well as his exploring the idea of hiring a California secessionist leader as the county’s chief executive.
“He hadn’t told us that he was going to do all these things,” said retired public defender Jeff Gorder, a leader of the recall effort. “In our view, he lied about what he was going to do and he started pursuing this extremist agenda.”
Crye did not respond to requests for comment. But he did talk about the recall on his radio show last month, saying the attacks on him have been painful. He called the people behind the recall “flat-out liars.”
Supervisor Kelstrom, a local chamber of commerce director whose 2022 campaign platform included a desire “to bring the ‘punishment’ back to crime and punishment,” remains on the board as an ultraconservative member. He was not up for reelection and could not be reached for comment.
new video loaded: Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did Nothing Wrong’ in House Epstein Inquiry
transcript
transcript
Bill Clinton Says He ‘Did Nothing Wrong’ in House Epstein Inquiry
Former President Bill Clinton told members of the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door deposition that he “saw nothing” and had done nothing wrong when he associated with Jeffrey Epstein decades ago.
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“Cause we don’t know when the video will be out. I don’t know when the transcript will be out. We’ve asked that they be out as quickly as possible.” “I don’t like seeing him deposed, but they certainly went after me a lot more than that.” “Republicans have now set a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify. So we’re once again going to make that call that we did yesterday. We are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee.” “Ranking Member Garcia asked President Clinton, quote, ‘Should President Trump be called to answer questions from this committee?’ And President Clinton said, that’s for you to decide. And the president went on to say that the President Trump has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved. “The way Chairman Comer described it, I don’t think is a complete, accurate description of what actually was said. So let’s release the full transcript.”
By Jackeline Luna
February 27, 2026
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accused Everett, Washington, Mayor Cassie Franklin of escalating tensions with federal authorities after she issued a directive limiting immigration enforcement in the city.
Franklin issued a mayoral directive this week establishing citywide protocols for staff, including law enforcement, that restrict federal immigration agents from entering non-public areas of city buildings without a judicial warrant.
“We’ve heard directly from residents who are afraid to leave their houses because of the concerning immigration activity happening locally and across our country. It’s heartbreaking to see the impacts on Everett families and businesses,” Franklin said in a statement.
“With this directive, we are setting clear protocols, protecting access to services and reinforcing our commitment to serving the entire community.”
ICE blasted the directive Friday, writing on X it “escalates tension and directs city law enforcement to intervene with ICE operations at their own discretion,” thereby “putting everyone at greater risk.”
Mayor Cassie Franklin said her new citywide immigration enforcement protocols are intended to protect residents and ensure access to services, while ICE accused her of escalating tensions with federal authorities. (Google Maps)
ICE said Franklin was directing city workers to “impede ICE operations and expose the location of ICE officers and agents.”
“Working AGAINST ICE forces federal teams into the community searching for criminal illegal aliens released from local jails — INCREASING THE FEDERAL PRESENCE,” the agency said. “Working with ICE reduces the federal presence.”
“If Mayor Franklin wanted to protect the people she claims to serve, she’d empower the city police with an ICE 287g partnership — instead she serves criminal illegal aliens,” ICE added.
DHS, WHITE HOUSE MOCK CHICAGO’S LAWSUIT OVER ICE: ‘MIRACULOUSLY REDISCOVERED THE 10TH AMENDMENT’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement blasted Everett’s mayor after she issued a directive restricting federal agents from accessing non-public areas of city facilities without a warrant. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During a city council meeting where she announced the policy, Franklin said “federal immigration enforcement is causing real fear for Everett residents.”
“It’s been heartbreaking to see the racial profiling that’s having an impact on Everett families and businesses,” she said. “We know there are kids staying home from school, people not going to work or people not going about their day, dining out or shopping for essentials.”
The mayor’s directive covers four main areas, including restricting federal immigration agents from accessing non-public areas of city buildings without a warrant, requiring immediate reporting of enforcement activity on city property and mandating clear signage to enforce access limits.
BLOCKING ICE COOPERATION FUELED MINNESOTA UNREST, OFFICIALS WARN AS VIRGINIA REVERSES COURSE
Everett, Wash., Mayor Cassie Franklin said her new directive is aimed at protecting residents amid heightened immigration enforcement activity. (iStock)
It also calls for an internal policy review and staff training, including the creation of an Interdepartmental Response Team and updated immigration enforcement protocols to ensure compliance with state law.
Franklin directed city staff to expand partnerships with community leaders, advocacy groups and regional governments to coordinate responses to immigration enforcement, while promoting immigrant-owned businesses and providing workplace protections and “know your rights” resources.
The mayor also reaffirmed a commitment to “constitutional policing and best practices,” stating that the police department will comply with state law barring participation in civil immigration enforcement. The directive outlines protocols for documenting interactions with federal officials, reviewing records requests and strengthening privacy safeguards and technology audits.
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Everett, Wash., Mayor Cassie Franklin issued a directive limiting federal immigration enforcement in city facilities. (iStock)
“We want everyone in the city of Everett to feel safe calling 911 when they need help and to know that Everett Police will not ask about your immigration status,” Franklin said during the council meeting. ”I also expect our officers to intervene if it’s safe to do so to protect our residents when they witness federal officers using unnecessary force.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Mayor Franklin’s office and ICE for comment.
Related Article
The morning after Netflix clinched its deal to buy Warner Bros., Paramount Skydance Chairman David Ellison assembled a war room of trusted advisors, including his billionaire father, Larry Ellison.
Furious at Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav for ending the auction, the Ellisons and their team began plotting their comeback on that crisp December day.
To rattle Warner Bros. Discovery and its investors, they launched a three-front campaign: a lawsuit, a hostile takeover bid and direct lobbying of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
“There was a master battle plan — and it was extremely disciplined,” said one auction insider who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Netflix stunned the industry late Thursday by pulling out of the bidding, clearing the way for Paramount to claim the company that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and the Warner Bros. film and television studios in Burbank. The deal was valued at more than $111 billion.
The streaming giant’s reversal came just hours after co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos met with Atty Gen. Pam Bondi and a deputy at the White House. It was a cordial session, but the Trump officials told Sarandos that his deal was facing significant hurdles in Washington, according to a person close to the administration who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Even before that meeting, the tide had turned for Paramount in a swell of power, politics and brinkmanship.
“Netflix played their cards well; however, Paramount played their cards perfectly,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media Co. “They did exactly what they had to do and when they had to do it — which was at the very last moment.”
Key to victory was Larry Ellison, his $200-billion fortune and his connections to President Trump and congressional Republicans.
Paramount also hired Trump’s former antitrust chief, attorney Makan Delrahim, to quarterback the firm’s legal and regulatory action.
Republicans during a Senate hearing this month piled onto Sarandos with complaints about potential monopolistic practices and “woke” programming.
David Ellison skipped that hearing. This week, however, he attended Trump’s State of the Union address in the Capitol chambers, a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The two men posed, grinning and giving a thumbs-up, for a photo that was posted to Graham’s X account.
David Ellison, the chairman and chief executive of Paramount Skydance Corp., walks through Statuary Hall to the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026.
(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)
On Friday, Netflix said it had received a $2.8-billion payment — a termination fee Paramount agreed to pay to send Netflix on its way.
Long before David Ellison and his family acquired Paramount and CBS last summer, the 43-year-old tech scion and aircraft pilot already had his sights set on Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount’s assets, including MTV, Nickelodeon and the Melrose Avenue movie studio, have been fading. Ellison recognized he needed the more robust company — Warner Bros. Discovery — to achieve his ambitions.
“From the very beginning, our pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery has been guided by a clear purpose: to honor the legacy of two iconic companies while accelerating our vision of building a next-generation media and entertainment company,” David Ellison said in a Friday statement. “We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead.”
Warner’s chief, Zaslav, who had initially opposed the Paramount bid, added: “We look forward to working with Paramount to complete this historic transaction.”
Netflix, in a separate statement, said it was unwilling to go beyond its $82.7-billion proposal that Warner board members accepted Dec. 4.
“We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.’ iconic brands, and that our deal would have strengthened the entertainment industry and preserved and created more production jobs,” Sarandos and co-Chief Executive Greg Peters said in a statement.
“But this transaction was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price,” the Netflix chiefs said.
Netflix may have miscalculated the Ellison family’s determination when it agreed Feb. 16 to allow Paramount back into the bidding.
The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company already had prevailed in the auction, and had an agreement in hand. Its next step was a shareholder vote.
“They didn’t need to let Paramount back in, but there was a lot of pressure on them to make sure the process wouldn’t be challenged,” Miller said.
In addition, Netflix’s stock had also been pummeled — the company had lost a quarter of its value — since investors learned the company was making a Warner run.
Upon news that Netflix had withdrawn, its shares soared Friday nearly 14% to $96.24.
Netflix Chief Executive Ted Sarandos arrives at the White House on Feb. 26, 2026.
(Andrew Leyden / Getty Images)
Invited back into the auction room, Paramount unveiled a much stronger proposal than the one it submitted in December.
The elder Ellison had pledged to personally guarantee the deal, including $45.7 billion in equity required to close the transaction. And if bankers became worried that Paramount was too leveraged, the tech mogul agreed to put in more money in order to secure the bank financing.
That promise assuaged Warner Bros. Discovery board members who had fretted for weeks that they weren’t sure Ellison would sign on the dotted line, according to two people close to the auction who were not authorized to comment.
Paramount’s pressure campaign had been relentless, first winning over theater owners, who expressed alarm over Netflix’s business model that encourages consumers to watch movies in their homes.
During the last two weeks, Sarandos got dragged into two ugly controversies.
First, famed filmmaker James Cameron endorsed Paramount, saying a Netflix takeover would lead to massive job losses in the entertainment industry, which is already reeling from a production slowdown in Southern California that has disrupted the lives of thousands of film industry workers.
Then, a week ago, Trump took aim at Netflix board member Susan Rice, a former high-level Obama and Biden administration official. In a social media post, Trump called Rice a “no talent … political hack,” and said that Netflix must fire her or “pay the consequences.”
The threat underscored the dicey environment for Netflix.
Additionally, Paramount had sowed doubts about Netflix among lawmakers, regulators, Warner investors and ultimately the Warner board.
Paramount assured Warner board members that it had a clear path to win regulatory approval so the deal would quickly be finalized. In a show of confidence, Delrahim filed to win the Justice Department’s blessing in December — even though Paramount didn’t have a deal.
This month, a deadline for the Justice Department to raise issues with Paramount’s proposed Warner takeover passed without comment from the Trump regulators.
“Analysts believe the deal is likely to close,” TD Cowen analysts said in a Friday report. “While Paramount-WBD does present material antitrust risks (higher pay TV prices, lower pay for TV/movie workers), analysts also see a key pro-competitive effect: improved competition in streaming, with Paramount+ and HBO Max representing a materially stronger counterweight to #1 Netflix.”
Throughout the battle, David Ellison relied on support from his father, attorney Delrahim, and three key board members: Oracle Executive Vice Chair Safra A. Catz; RedBird Capital Partners founder Gerry Cardinale; and Justin Hamill, managing director of tech investment firm Silver Lake.
In the final days, David Ellison led an effort to flip Warner board members who had firmly supported Netflix. With Paramount’s improved offer, several began leaning toward the Paramount deal.
On Tuesday, Warner announced that Paramount’s deal was promising.
On Thursday, Warner’s board determined Paramount’s deal had topped Netflix. That’s when Netflix surrendered.
“Paramount had a fulsome, 360-degree approach,” Miller said. “They approached it financially. … They understood the regulatory environment here and abroad in the EU. And they had a game plan for every aspect.”
On Friday, Paramount shares rose 21% to $13.51.
It was a reversal of fortunes for David Ellison, who appeared on CNBC just three days after that war room meeting in December.
“We put the company in play,” David Ellison told the CNBC anchor that day. “We’re really here to finish what we started.”
Times staff writer Ana Cabellos and Business Editor Richard Verrier contributed to this report.
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