Daily Republic: Monday, June 19, 2023 by mcnaughtonmedia

Long-time skeptic of the air fryer becomes a big fan B2

Wyndham Clark wins the U.S. Open championship B1

MONDAY | June 19, 2023 | $1.00

DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.

Blinken has ‘candid’ talks with China’s Qin in Beijing Bloomberg News Secretary of State Antony Blinken had “candid” talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, the two countries said, as both looked to project a positive but cautious tone about a visit that’s meant to bring some semblance of normalcy back to a strained relationship. Discussions between the delegations led by Blinken and Foreign Minister Qin Ganglasted 7 1/2 hours – much longer than planned, officials said. In a further signal that the two saw the meeting as a path to closer ties, Qin accepted Blinken’s invitation to visit Washington at “a mutually suitable time,” the State Department said. “The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” a U.S. readout of the meeting said. “The Secretary raised a number of issues of concern,” it said,

without identifying them. The U.S. described the talks as “candid, substantive, and constructive.” State-run China Central Television used similar phrasing, calling them “candid, deep and constructive.” Blinken’s previous attempt to visit China in February was scrapped at the last minute when the U.S. revealed an alleged Chinese spy balloon was floating over American territory – an incident that led China to accuse the U.S. of “hysteria.” In its own description of the conversations, CCTV said it hoped the U.S. could “deal with accidents in a sober, professional and rational manner.” The main goal of Blinken’s trip will be to try to reestablish seniorlevel communications channels with Chinese counterparts, including between their militaries, to manage the intense competition between the countries, according to U.S. officials. They have sought to set expectations low, saying there would be no breakthroughs. See Blinken, Page A7

Bill O’Leary/Washington Post

William P. Barr, attorney general under President Donald Trump, has criticized his former boss’s handling of classified documents.

Barr condemns Trump’s action as ‘absurd,’ ‘wacky’ Washington Post Former attorney general William P. Barr on Sunday compared his former boss, Donald Trump, to a “defiant, 9-year-old kid” and continued his condemnation of the actions described in Trump’s recently unsealed federal indictment. Speaking to CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Barr, a Republican, pushed back on a number of his party’s talking points in excusing the former president’s alleged actions. “The legal theory by which he gets to take battle plans and sensitive national security information as his personal papers is absurd,”

Barr said. “It’s just as wacky as the legal doctrine they came up with for, you know, having the vice president unilaterally determine who won the election.” Barr said that Trump did some good things as president but that he does not believe Trump should continue to be the Republican standard-bearer. “He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests,” Barr said. “This is a perfect example of that.” Barr, who drifted away from Trump after the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, resigned from Trump’s

Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic

Construction crew members work on a site near Cordelia Road in Fairfield, Friday.

Economist concerned with the length of economic slowdown Daily Republic Staff

DRNEWS@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

FAIRFIELD — There is a lot of conversation, debate and political discourse about whether the country is heading toward a recession – maybe another great recession – but at least one economist said that is not what Solano County should focus on in the coming years. “Are we on the precipice of a recession? Are we on the precipice of a deep recession? Or are we going to skirt a recession? The answer is don’t be so worried about the declaration of a recession; be more worried about the length of an economic slowdown,” Robert Eyler told the Solano County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. He is the owner of Economic Forensics and Analytics and a professor at California State Uni-

versity, Sonoma. The comment was part of the 17th Solano County Index of Economic and Community Progress report, which focused largely on finding a balance in the post-Covid, inflation-pressured economy. Eyler has been a central part of creating the index for the past 11 years. “Inflation continues to be a burden” said Eyler, adding that it will likely be felt through 2025. However, he said the government’s investment during the pandemic eased some of the pain. There were, of course, the common and recurring themes of Solano’s advantage of sitting between the major markets of San Francisco and Sacramento with adequate and improving transportation routes. Housing prices are affordable when looking outside the county borders, but the prices are making

See Economic, Page A7

Latest effort to break away from state brewing in El Dorado County Grace Toohey

LOS ANGELES TIMES

It’s a decades-old pursuit that’s been attempted, thus far, unsuccessfully – but a group of El Dorado County residents are hoping to finally get their shot at breaking free from California. The new effort to separate from one of the largest states in the U.S. is brewing in one of its smallest counties. Located east of Sacramento, El Dorado County is home to fewer than 200,000 residents but includes such pic-

turesque spots as south Lake Tahoe. “We all knew that our problem was representation, living in Northern California,” said Sharon Durst, who is garnering support for El Dorado County to become its own state. “We don’t have a voice. We don’t have one representative – state or federal government – that lives in the border of El Dorado County.” Durst, 84, recently formed the Republic of El Dorado State group, which is working to collect signatures of support for their movement to see the

county secede from California – ideally, without the approval of elected leaders in Sacramento. Durst’s is an unusual plan for a campaign that’s become almost cyclical over the years, with different factions and regions pursuing sovereignty – but one that law experts say doesn’t include the necessary legal footing to succeed. There have been more than 200 recorded attempts over the years to either break off from California or simply break up the Golden State, including recent ones

by more conservative or rural regions. Officials in San Bernardino County – the largest county by geographic size – are studying the idea of seceding after voters requested the review last year; in 2018, a ballot measure – later deemed unconstitutional – was aimed at splitting California into three states; and other groups over the years have tried to divide the state into two parts or break off a section of Northern California. That last effort, which See Break, Page A7

— N A PA VA L L E Y —

Dr. David P. Simon, MD, FACS.

See Barr, Page A7

if very difficult to move into home ownership. One of the keys, Eyler said, is to make sure there is a mix of housing types for the various levels of the workforce, from the top end executive to the declining number of farmworkers. And the county is losing population, mostly younger, and that brings a host of new challenges, Eyler said. One of the primary concerns is that loss in population may be a significant reason why job growth in the county has flattened out since the robust growth prior to the Covid pandemic. Eyler said the county is at about 97.5% of the number of local jobs as existed in January 2020. “We saw the recovery pattern of the number of workers in California really slowing down in the

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