Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 1/27/2026

Showers | Red Sky | Measles Case | Mr. Vaccine | Haschak 2.0 | 1973 BBQ | Bags Please | Author Event | Mendocino Women | Wagon Train | Barn Collective | Yesterday's Catch | Sites Reservoir | Huffman Disgust | Mystery Photo | Recon Alert | Lying | Hatred | Love | Protest Weapon | Pretti Execution | Cadillac | Sheer Insanity | Lead Stories | News Off | Family Morning | Right Things | Green Day | Team Change | Super 60 | Carolina Morning | AI Silver | People Power | Davos Speech | My Muse | Burns Birl | Chambered Nautilus

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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): That large system off our coast will yield only some afternoon showers today before moving thru. A cloudy 48F this Tuesday morning on the coast. Mostly cloudy rest of the week then showers on Monday. Nothing big in sight for now.

STRONG TO GUSTY SOUTH WINDS early this morning through late afternoon for mostly coastal headlands and higher terrain of Del Norte and Humboldt counties. Light to moderate rain is forecast this afternoon through early evening, followed by lingering showers into Wednesday. Rain chances returns this weekend as another frontal system approaches from the west. (NWS)

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PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS NAPA COUNTY CONFIRMS ONE CASE OF MEASLES; Reminds the Community of the Importance of Vaccination

Ukiah, CA - On January 21, 2026, Public Health officials in Napa County confirmed a case of measles in an unvaccinated child that had traveled out of state. While there have been no confirmed resident cases in Mendocino County, this nearby case along with a statewide total of two confirmed cases in California as of January 19, 2026, serves as a critical reminder of the importance of the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine.

What is Measles?

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease that 9 out of 10 people who come near an infected person can also become infected if they are not protected by vaccination. The virus spreads through the air when a sick person coughs or sneezes and can stay in the air for up to two hours after they leave a space. Symptoms appear 7 to 21 days after exposure and typically include:

• High fever (may spike above 104F)
• Cough
• Runny nose
• Conjunctivitis (pink eye)
• Rash

A rash typically breaks out 3 to 5 days after symptoms begin. The rash usually appears on the face, along the hairline and behind the ears, then it affects the rest of the body. Individuals can spread measles from approximately four days before the rash appears through four days afterward.

Why is Vaccination Important?

Vaccination is the most effective defense against measles and its complications, which can include pneumonia, encephalitis (brain swelling), and death. CDC recommends two doses of the MMR vaccine: the first at 12-15 months of age and the second at 4-6 years of age. Two doses are approximately 97% effective. If you are unsure of your measles vaccination status, contact your primary care provider to learn more.

Protecting Our Community

Unvaccinated adults and those with weakened immune systems are also at a higher risk of infection and severe illness during an outbreak. High community vaccination rates are crucial to limit outbreaks and protect those who are too young or unable to be vaccinated.

According to recent data, Mendocino County is currently categorized as a medium risk with 74.1% vaccination rate among young children; public health officials aim for higher coverage to ensure community-wide protection.

What to Do If You May Have Been Exposed

If you believe you or a family member may have been exposed to measles, or if symptoms develop:

• Contact your healthcare provider immediately
• Call ahead before visiting a clinic or hospital so staff can provide guidance and help prevent further spread in waiting areas.

If you do not have a healthcare provider, please call (707) 472-2713 to check your eligibility and schedule an appointment for free vaccination through the California Vaccines for Children (VFC) program for eligible families.

Mendocino County Public Health is closely monitoring measles activity across California to assess and reduce potential local risk.

For more information about Measles and Vaccination, visit the websites: www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Immunization/measles.aspx or www.mendocinocounty.gov/departments/public-health/nursing/vaccines

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JOHN HASCHAK 2.0?

by Mark Scaramella

It was disappointing to read that recently declared Third District Supervisor Candidate Buffey Bourasa of Willits has no agenda or plan behind her candidacy. She told the Mendocino Voice: “Change has to come from the community. That’s how we make things different.”

Ms. Bourasa thus joins a long tradition of candidates for local office without the slightest idea about what to do if elected other than sit at the podium, participate in the general blather and vote for what the CEO tells her to vote for.

In January of 2017 when then-Third District Supervisor Tom Woodhouse was made mentally ill by his abortive tenure as a Supervisor and resigned, Willits Spanish teacher John Haschak declared his desire to be appointed to the vacant seat with the usual vacuous remarks. “We need progressive leadership,” said Haschak, whatever he may have meant by “progressive” and “leadership.” “I think I’ll be able to work with people in the Third District and on the board of supervisors so we can get things done and move the county forward.”

During the campaign Haschak claimed that his presence on a Teachers Association budget committee made him “qualified to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing Mendocino County including the emergence of the legal cannabis industry, transportation and infrastructure and advocating for fiscal responsibility.” Haschak also claimed budget expertise because he had “looked at” the Willits schools budget.

As we noted at the time, those were some of the most ridiculous claims we’ve heard a supes candidate make. But what else could he say about his irrelevant experience?

Haschak declared that he “guessed” he had “that work ethic of ‘Just get in there and do it, and hope you make a positive change’.” Piling on the empty rhetoric, Haschak said he wanted to “look at how we can really diversify our economy and entice well-paying sustainable jobs to this area,” and “bring more programs to improve career and technical education into the area,” adding, “It’s all about creating a place that’s sustainable for our economy.”

Haschak boldly declared that he was for “improved infrastructure and county roads.” He was for water. He was for more housing. “It’s looking at what are the roadblocks to creating more housing for people,” Haschak said. “I am not sure what those roadblocks are at this point [sic], but I think it is one of those critical needs for our county.”

Yes, it was a critical need. Still is. But knowing that we need housing doesn’t exactly make someone a good candidate for Supervisor.

Since his election in 2018 Haschak has made a few minor proposals, none of which even got a second from his colleagues, after which he provided very little follow-up. He tried to get the Board to consider increasing the Transient Occupancy Tax a little; no support. He tried to get the Board to give themselves a small token pay cut in recognition of the County’s budget deficit; no support. He engineered the destruction of the County’s trapper program, promising to set up an allegedly more humane County-wide animal control system on the cheap. Nothing was set up other than a website link to a Sonoma County animal rights group which hasn’t done a thing to help people in the unincorporated areas of the County with their animal problems. In eight years of trying to get a second emergency access route into/out of Brooktrails, Haschak today, eight years later, says he is still “working on it.” He likes to take credit for the lack of complaints in the last couple of years about the County’s failed marijuana permit program — now that most growers have given up on the permit application process. Haschak defended the CEO’s ill-advised Veterans Service Office relocation for several months until the Veterans finally pressured the board into undoing it six months later with none of the cost savings that was the original purpose of the stupid move. Haschak voted against the ill-advised (and now being undone) consolidation of the Auditor and Treasurer offices, but only because he didn’t think it had been analyzed enough, not because he thought it was a bad idea. But then when the time came to suspend elected Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison after the DA’s flimsy and ultimately unsupported charges, Haschak went along with his colleagues to suspend her without pay without even allowing her to object or respond.

Like Ms. Bourasa, when he declared his candidacy Haschak had never attended a Board meeting, never uttered a single remark about the Board or other County organizations and their many shortcomings. Never written any letters to the editor about county matters. And he had no specific ideas or projects he wanted to pursue.

Anyone who follows County affairs knows that during his going-on eight years as a Supervisor not only did nothing significant happen in any of the general areas Haschak flab-gabbed about, but Haschak never brought forward any proposals along those lines.

Similarly, we have been unable to find any record of Ms. Bourasa taking a position on any specific issue in Mendo, Willits (a troubled city which may have to turn its law enforcement over to the County’s understaffed Sheriff’s department soon), or elsewhere. Her statements so far have been free of specifics, offering only an earnest resume of her mostly irrelevant personal background and a promise to bring “accountability, collaboration and results” to Mendocino County government.

Here, from her fledging campaign facebook page, is her statement about why she’s running for Supervisor:

“I recently shared why I’m running for District 3 Supervisor in Mendocino County—my roots here, my experience in county government, and my commitment to community-driven leadership.

What I want you to know now is this: this campaign isn’t about me—it’s about us.

It’s about local families, farmers, ranchers, small businesses, and diverse communities who want a county that is proactive.

It’s about safe communities supported by both strong public safety and prevention.

It’s about open, transparent government that listens before acting and centers your voice at the decision-making table.

And it’s about real partnership with Tribal governments built on respect and shared responsibility.

I’m listening. I’m showing up. And I’m building a campaign that reflects the voices of District 3.

Here’s how you can be part of it:

• Volunteer to help reach neighbors and host conversations.
• Donate if you’re able.

Every conversation, every hour volunteered, and every contribution helps move this work forward.

I’m grateful to walk this path with you—and I look forward to hearing what matters most to you.

I’m Buffey Wright Bourassa, and I’m running to be your District 3 Supervisor.”

Ms. Bourasa certainly checks a lot of demographic boxes and can rattle off the usual political buzzwords that will probably be more than enough for a lot of people to support her. But judging by her predictably insubstantial statements so far, Ms. Bourasa (who seems like a nice person, competent at her job in the “restorative justice” arena), Mendo is likely to have nothing more than a female version of Haschak as its next Third District Supervisor.

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THE WORLD’S LARGEST SALMON BBQ, Noyo Basin, 1973

Ken Stampfli, Bill Grader, Congressman Don Clausen, Jim Myers. (Fort Bragg Advocate)

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SEEKING OLD BAGS

Hello folks,

The Food Bank at the north end of Franklin Street [Fort Bragg] is requesting more plastic bags as soon as possible. The retail stores are now giving out only paper bags per the new law, so bring whatever plastic ones you still have to the Food Bank, please, as well as paper bags, too.

Many thanks for your kindness.

Diana, [email protected]

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AN AFTERNOON WITH AUTHOR BECKY EISMANN

Come join the community to hear poet and author Becky Eismann speak about her book "The Art of Heavenly Hospitality: My Dance with Angels, Friends, and Strangers."

Meet the author event is this Wed, 1/28 at 1:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Bragg, 367 S. Sanderson Drive.

Everyone is invited to come and hear this fascinating author share insights about her book.

Kathy Hart, [email protected]

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WOMEN'S HISTORY

It’s time to acknowledge and honor women in our county through the Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition annual Women’s History Gala. This year’s theme is Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future. Know someone who fits that description? Nominate her!

Write a few paragraphs about who this woman is and how she fits this year’s theme. A panel of women will review the nominations without knowing who the nominee is; names on nominations will be redacted during the selection process.

There will be three women selected to be honored at the Women’s History Gala on Sunday, March 1st. This year the Gala will be at SPACE Theater in Ukiah with doors opening at noon and program starting at 1 pm.

Typically the person nominating the selected honorees introduces them during the program at the Gala. Don’t let that deter you if public speaking isn’t your thing. You and the honoree can choose someone else for that task.

Honorees have always been very appreciative of this acknowledgement. Please help find these deserving women.

You can email your nominations to me at [email protected], or mail them to MWPC, PO Box 1140, Ukiah, CA 95482.

The Women’s History Gala organizing committee thanks you for your contribution to this centerpiece of our annual event. Deadline for nominations is February 5, 2026.

Lynda McClure

https://mendocinowomen.org

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J.D. FAIRFAX: I want to give a shout-out to a small, northern CA farm, Boonville Barn Collective. They grow chiles and beans in Mendocino County. We recently tried their dried Zolfini beans, a bean native to Tuscany, Italy. The beans are fabulous: creamy and tasty. We got the bean collection package and look forward to trying the other varieties. Boonville Barn Collective's prices are great, the service is quick and efficient, and the customer service care taken by the owners is superb. Give them a try! Here's a link to their website: https://www.boonvillebarn.com

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, January 26, 2026

CARLOS AGUIRRE, 40, Stockton/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

LEVI AX, 61, Orangevale/Ukiah. Sexually violent predator must register.

MICHELLE DAY, 42, Dinuba/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

BRIAN DIAZ, 31, Sonoma/Ukiah. More than an ounce of pot, loaded handgun not registered owner, concealed weapon in vehicle, large capacity magazine.

ROYCE GOOD, 56, Laytonville. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

CASEY IRELAND, 32, Willits. County parole violation.

MARK SMITH, 33, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LAUREN VANCE, 43, Albion. DUI-any drug, loaded firearm in public not registered owner, no license.

JUSTIN WILLIAMSON, 43, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

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AS SALMON AND DELTA FISH CRASH, TRUMP REGIME APPROVES SITES RESERVOIR PROJECT ROD

by Dan Bacher

The U.S. Department of the Interior on Friday celebrated the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s Executive Order 14181 that would increase water diversions from the Sacramento River watershed and California Delta by approving the Record of Decision (ROD) for the controversial Sites Reservoir Project in Northern California.

That order directed the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce to immediately take actions to “override existing activities that unduly burden efforts to maximize water deliveries” at a time when salmon and Delta fish populations are in peril due to the already massive quantities of water exported out of the estuary on an annual basis.

Yes, that was the order that followed Trump’s crazed Memorandum, “Putting People over Fish: Stopping  Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California,” on January 20, 2025 where Trump blamed the “alleged protections” for Delta Smelt and other fish species” for the loss of the “enormous water supply” that “flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean” even though Southern California reservoirs were in great shape and near capacity at that time.

Trump administration officials, Central Valley agribusiness interests, water agencies and California Governor Gavin Newsom claim that the Sites Project is needed to increase “water supply reliability” in the state, while a broad coalition of environmental justice groups, Tribes, fishing groups and conservation organizations say it will devastate imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations and harm local drinking supplies while costing up to $6.8 billion.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/24/2365133/-As-salmon-and-CA-Delta-fish-near-extinction-Trump-regime-approves-Sites-Reservoir-Project-ROD

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HUFFMAN COMES ALIVE!

A Reader Writes: I'm not on bluesky, but I check out dailykos for their 10 gems of bluesky every day. Cause sometimes there are some pretty great videos (of art, dogs, cats--anything to take my mind off of…)

https://bsky.app/profile/ashleyvotesblue.bsky.social/post/3md2ducwxy22u

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AVA READERS!

Explain the significance of this photograph.

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RECON AND ALERT

Stay up on patrol.
Armed with cameras and whistles.
Be careful out there.

— Jim Luther

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IF THEY LIE about something as obviously proven to be lies by multiple videos, what else are they lying about where there is no video?

— Jon Stewart

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HATRED is a self-sustaining cycle: “When you hate, you generate a reciprocal hate. When individuals hate each other, the harm is finite; but when great groups of nations hate each other, the harm may be infinite and absolute. Do not fall back upon the thought that those whom you hate deserve to be hated. I do not know whether anybody deserves to be hated, but I do know that hatred of those whom we believe to be evil is not what will redeem mankind.”

— Bertrand Russell, 1954

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“PERHAPS they were right putting love into books. Perhaps it could not live anywhere else.”

― William Faulkner

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WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, THE LIES BEGIN: ON THE EXECUTION OF ALEX PRETTI

by Jeffrey St. Clair

Here’s what I saw after watching multiple videos of the execution of Alexi Pretti: VA nurse Alex Pretti, whom Gregory Bovino said wanted to do “maximum damage,” was trying to protect a woman who was being pepper-sprayed, an act of humanity which enraged the CPB agents who then went after him en masse, pepper-spraying him in the face. He was holding a cellphone in his hand at the time eight agents descended on him and slammed him to the pavement. With six immigration agents on top of him, Alex Pritti could easily have been “Chauvined” to death…if they hadn’t decided to shoot him. He had a holstered gun, which  he had a permit (and god-given right, according to Trump and the NRA) to “open carry.” And that gun was taken from him by an agent who walked away, then they shot him multiple times from only inches away, as many as 10 shots in less than five seconds.

The attempted cover-up happened immediately. As the gang of officers splintered like a fissured atom from Pretti’s prone body after the shots were fired, they turned directly on the crowd who had filmed and screamed in horror at the execution they’d just witnessed. Out came the pepper-spray. Out came the clubs. Out came the guns. They tried to detain witnesses and steal their cellphones. Homicide is a state crime. But DHS, once again, as in the case of Renee Good, blocked the Minnesota state police from investigating the killing of a Minnesota resident and US citizen and the FBI shut down any internal investigation of the shootings. They refused to reveal the identity of the shooter and removed him from Minnesota to another jurisdiction and put him right back on the streets That’s evidence of guilt. It’s also evidence that Cheney’s “Dark Side” tactics aren’t for black sites anymore. They’ve come home to roost against Americans in broad daylight…

Noem, Bovino and Trump were willing to slander the corpse of a man who worked for their own government, providing care for American veterans. A US citizen, born to US citizens. A man with no criminal record, who had committed no criminal act when he was shot, except trying to protect himself and others from being brutalized by masked, federal agents, who were armed to the teeth. They slimed him before they knew anything about him. They vilified him before his blood had even frozen on the sidewalk. They libeled him before they’d even seen the videos of his murder. They smeared him after they saw the videos of his murder. They blamed him because he was blameless. They defamed him to hide their own guilt. A guilt that runs from that sidewalk in Minneapolis to the offices of Border Patrol to the DHS HQ to the White House. The lies, so outrageous, so transparent, are proof of their culpability. 

Then came the lies. He had a gun in his hand and was ready to shoot. He was planning a massacre. He was packed with ammunition. He was a domestic terrorist. He was an assassin. He was armed when they shot him. All lies. Lies told by some of the highest-ranking people in the government. Lies that then bled straight into the right-wing media conglomerate. Lies that spread like a mind-eating virus through the 30 percent of the country eager to believe anything Trump and his regime tell them. Lying is about the only manufacturing this regime is capable of.

The lies aren’t even creative. They’re pro forma. They tell them to cloak the impunity given to the murderous agents of the state, who’ve been unshackled from the Constitution and given license to raid and ransack, detain and kill at will. But how long will even the most slavish devotees of this regime be willing to swallow the lies without convulsing from deep-welling nausea?  The right-to-lifers? The evangelicals? The NRA? How much will they tolerate? After all,  federal agents disarmed Alex Pretti, then they shot him. You couldn’t script a more harrowing parable for Charlton Heston’s warnings about the sanctity of gun rights in the face of tyranny for all these years. Will this heinous killing finally make the NRA turn on Trump? Don’t count on it. Like the Sierra Club, the NRA is more interested in money and access to power than the issues they raise the money on, and the organization is unlikely to jeopardize its relationship with Trump, one-sided though it might be. Their members, however, may feel differently.

Here’s one way the comparisons of Nazi Germany to MAGA, America fail: Most of the Nazi leadership wasn’t as stupid as the people Trump has surrounded himself with, like Noem, Patel, Homan, and Bondi. He didn’t hire people for their competency but their unthinking loyalty. In fact, he prefers his subalterns to be amoral and incompetent, lacking knowledge of and interest in the laws and organizations they are meant oversee. Hitler purged the SA in the Night of the Long Knives for a reason. (As Jim Bovard reminded me, “After that carnage, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag passed a ‘law’ that retroactively legalized all the killings of the purge.  Just like the Military Commissions Act of 2006 retroactively legalized torture.”) While its street thugs were vital to secure power, they were a liability in maintaining it. Trump himself is too vain and insecure to realize the danger lurking within and this may well prove his undoing.

But the people who were on the frigid street that morning to document the know exactly what went down. They heard it. They watched it. They felt it. They smelled the cordite from the gunshots. They saw the blood flow. They saw the agents scattered from what they’d done. They knew who started it. They knew who ended the life of a person who saved lives for a living. Imagine their anger and disgust at hearing their own government tell vile fabrications about what happened. If they lie about this, what won’t they lie about it?

Here’s what happened, according to the affidavit signed by a person who was standing next to Alex Pretti and who was only a few feet away from him when he was gang tackled to the ground and shot on the sidewalk.

It was 8:50 in the morning when she heard a whistle warning that immigration agents were in her Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis. She was part of a community group that had been observing and recording ICE raids and she drove to the nearby intersection of Nicolet Avenue and 26th Street, where she saw a convoy of CBP and ICE cars and numerous agents prowling the street. Some of them were pounding on the windows and trying to pull people of their cars. 

As she parked her car, the witness saw a man helping to move traffic through the immigration agents’ attempted blockade. That man turned out to be Alex Pretti, a VA nurse and rapid responder at ICE raids. She parked her car and went up to Pretti and told him, “I’m going to film and use my whistle.”

Together, Pretti and the witness watched a federal agent throw someone to the ground further up the street. Meanwhile, across the street, masked agents were harassing some protesters, who were shouting at them and blowing whistles. Alex Pretti began filming the interaction with his cellphone. An agent rushed over to them and barked that they needed to move back. The witness slowly retreated to the sidewalk. But Pretti stayed where he was and continued to record the escalating situation in front of him, where agents had started pepper-spraying the two observers. As Pretti moved toward them to render aid, one of the agents roughly pushed a woman to the pavement and then began pepper-spraying all three observers, including Pretti, who, at that point, was holding both hands above his head and still gripping his cellphone–not, as DHS claimed, a gun.

The agent shoved Pretti, who stumbled, then recovered his balance and leaned down to help the injured woman. The agitated agent pepper-sprayed both of them in the face at close range. So much pepper-spray was now in the air that the witness felt her eyes burning. Five more masked agents rushed over. They grabbed Pretti as he was trying to help the woman to her feet and then threw him to the pavement. Five or six agents pinned him to the ground. One of the agents emerged with Pretti’s gun, which had never left its holster, and ran into the street holding it in his hand, as if it were a trophy of war. Then, the witness said, “They just started shooting. They shot him so many times. I don’t know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet away and they just shot him.”

This is an accurate and intimate account of the killing of Alex Pretti. It is corroborated by every video of the murder. It exposes the lies told by people who weren’t there, yet have every motive to lie to conceal their own complicity. In MAGA America, mothers, priests, poets and nurses are now considered “domestic terrorists,” and the masked men who batter, tear-gas and shoot them are “law enforcement.”

In 2014, JoAnn Wypijewski, Kevin Alexander Gray and I edited a book called Killing Travyons: An Anthology of American Violence, which was a chronicle of American police abuses against minorities, especially Blacks. Looks like we’re all Trayvons now. In a span of a few days, Trump’s immigration storm troopers have shot and killed a poet and a nurse. Who will be next? A watercolorist? A pre-school teacher? A manicurist? A T-ball coach?

We live in a country where you can be charged with resisting arrest without having committed a crime to be arrested for. We live in a country where even the most passive acts of defiance and resistance are an excuse to kill you. Blacks and Hispanics and Native people have experienced this since the earliest days of the Republic. Now white Americans of conscience also find themselves in the crosshairs of their own government.

We also live in a country where people, ordinary people, are so revolted by what’s happening that they are willing to go out every day in Arctic temperatures to confront and resist the paramilitary-style forces that are terrorizing their neighborhoods, knowing the kind of violence that might be visited against them.

Alex Pretti was one of those “ordinary” Americans. He didn’t do anything to deserve being assaulted, never mind shot. He did what nurses are trained to do: help someone who had been hurt, a woman gratuitously shoved to the ground and pepper-sprayed by a CBP agent, a woman who had also done nothing to deserve this brutal treatment. Alex Pretti wasn’t the “worst of the worst.” He was the best of the best.

Jeffrey St. Clair is co-editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: [email protected] or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3.

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“NEVER has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest — forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”

— Hannah Arendt

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

Crackdown Chief to Leave Minneapolis as White House Distances Trump From Uproar

Border Patrol Official Gregory Bovino Is Set to Leave Minnesota

They ‘Had Done Everything Right.’ ICE Detained Them Anyway.

Israel Recovers Remains of Last Captive in Gaza, Closing a Chapter

Social Media Giants Face Landmark Legal Tests on Child Safety

After Mamdani Nods to ‘Heated Rivalry,’ Library E-Book Downloads Surge

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I used to work in local tv news in a major market. When I left, I turned off local news. Several years later, I turned off national news. Mental/emotional health tip: TURN OFF THE NEWS. If you want to know what's going on, look online. You can check sources you trust and are not being bombarded by death and destruction stories before you hear the story you want to hear.

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“HOW can you possibly hope to reform her after the life she's been leading?”

“It's not her I'm wanting to reform — it's me,” he replied. “Besides, it's taking me into a world where I can do some good.” “I can't imagine you happy.”

“That's not the point.”

“Of course it isn't. But if she has a heart, she can't be happy either. She can't want you to do that.”

“No, she doesn't.”

“I see. But life…”

“What about life?”

“Life demands something different.”

“Life only wants us to do the right things,” said Nekhlyudov.

― Leo Tolstoy, ‘Resurrection’

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WHY TRUMP IS ANGRY ABOUT GREEN DAY PLAYING AT THE SUPER BOWL

by Inga Parkel

Rock band Green Day, known for its political outspokenness, is set to perform at the Super Bowl's 60th anniversary tribute.

This performance follows the NFL facing criticism from Trump supporters for inviting rapper Bad Bunny to headline the halftime show.

Green Day's frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, has publicly criticised Trump since 2016, once comparing him to Hitler and expressing concern for his followers.

The band has a history of making political statements during performances, including chanting “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA” at the 2016 American Music Awards.

They have also famously altered lyrics in their song 'American Idiot' to target the 'MAGA agenda' and recently took aim at Elon Musk and JD Vance in live shows.

(London Independent, UK)

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SEAHAWKS VS. PATRIOTS IN SUPER BOWL LX? 49ERS FANS WON’T LIKE WHAT COMES NEXT

by Ann Killion

The Los Angeles Rams won’t be at Levi’s Stadium on February 8. Neither will the Denver Broncos.

Also skipping the Super Bowl is Donald Trump who announced that Northern California is simply “too far away.”

But the Seattle Seahawks will be there. And so will the New England Patriots. The conference champions are coming to the Bay Area, vying to win a Super Bowl in the 49ers’ home building. And no matter the outcome, the result will be a bit humbling for Levi’s permanent tenant.

Because Seattle, the team that has surpassed the Cowboys as the 49ers’ archrival, will swagger into Levi’s with a nine-game winning streak, launching what could be a new era of dominance.

The Seahawks team that smothered the 49ers’ offense in the regular season finale and the divisional round last week, knocked off the mighty Rams. The Seahawks are young and fierce on defense and talented on offense. The 49ers’ one-time reclamation project Sam Darnold, thought to be the team’s weak link, threw for 346 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. The Seahawks could be a problem for the 49ers for a long time.

New England will be making its 12th Super Bowl appearance and its 11th since the last time the 49ers won a Lombardi Trophy. In that time, the Patriots have won six Super Bowls and are on a quest for seven. As no one needs to be reminded, the 49ers have been looking for No. 6 for more than three decades.

In a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX, either the Seahawks or the Patriots will take home another Super Bowl trophy.

Most of the folks in the stands on Feb. 8 probably won’t particularly care who wins the game. The majority of attendees at Super Bowls are corporate types, simply there for the big event, not true fans. But everyone in attendance will likely be thankful that Trump is deciding to skip the game. Having a sitting president at a sporting event is a nightmare of security, logistics, traffic snarls and delays, both inside the stadium and for miles around the event.

Trump told the New York Post “it’s just too far away.” And we’re sure that’s probably the reason and not the prospect of massive protests outside the stadium and deafening boos inside the stadium. Though Trump said his decision didn’t have anything to do with the game day entertainment, he still took the opportunity to rip Bad Bunny and Green Day.

“I’m anti-them,” Trump told the Post. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”

In this day of corporate groveling to Trump, kudos to the NFL for refusing to bend the knee. Not only has Roger Goodell praised the halftime entertainment choice of Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, the NFL doubled down by slating highly political, passionately anti-Trump locals Green Day as the pregame entertainment. A right wing “alternative halftime show” has yet to materialize.

The two teams who will be trying to win the 60th edition of the Super Bowl took decidedly different paths to get there on Sunday.

In a defensive struggle that devolved into weather chaos, New England outlasted Denver to win 10-7. It wasn’t a pretty game. And if NFL coaches are paying attention, the result will hopefully help swing the pendulum away from the “we will always go for it on fourth-and-short and sometimes we’ll even throw the ball” mindset that now dominates the NFL.

Because in the first half, Denver was in charge. Playing with backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham, who had only started four games in his life and none since January of 2024, the Broncos had a chance to go up 10-0 with snow scheduled to move in at the half. Instead, on fourth-and-one from the New England 14, rather than kicking the field goal, or – second best option – running for the yard, Sean Payton asked his inexperienced quarterback to drop back and pass for that one yard. Not surprisingly, the pass fell incomplete.

That turnover on downs flipped the whole momentum of the game. On Denver’s next possession, Stidham turned the ball over, with a backwards pass that led to New England’s only touchdown. Instead of Denver maintaining a lead, the game was tied. Both teams missed field goals to end the first half.

The Patriots got the ball to start the second half and drove down the field for a field goal. With the weather worsening by the minute, that was the end of the scoring. The Broncos, as the home team, should have been aware how difficult conditions would be and that their inexperienced quarterback would have few chances to score points. And that’s exactly how it played out. New England advanced to its 12th Super Bowl, four more appearances than any other team.

The Seahawks-Rams game was the complete opposite, an offensive shootout in sparkling clear Northwest weather. The two NFC West teams, playing their rubber match, are clearly the class not only of the division but of the NFC. And that’s bad news for the 49ers.

The teams, which played two close regular-season games, including one of the best of the year last month, have started their own fierce rivalry. Unlike Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay devised ways for his team to get into the end zone against Mike McDonald’s defense. Though Seattle led most of the game, the game was an offensive bonanza, with one of the teams scoring on 10 of the first 16 drives. The game featured two of the best receivers in the game in Davante Adams and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The quarterbacks threw for a combined 720 yards.

The Rams, once again, were hurt badly by a special teams blunder: a fumble on a punt that turned into a Seattle touchdown. For a time in the fourth quarter it looked like an idiotic penalty by Seattle cornerback Riq Woolen – taunting the Rams bench right in front of an official – could ruin the Seahawks. Instead of facing 4th and 12, the Rams got a first down and immediately scored a touchdown – on Woolen – to cut the deficit to 31-27.

But Seattle’s defense stood tall. The Rams, making some surprising decisions with the clock, couldn’t score again. And Seattle – a team that Michael Strahan, on the postgame podium called an NFC West “afterthought” – celebrated. Their wild and roaring 12s shook the stadium.

The Rams were a favorite all season to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. But Sunday might have been their last best chance in the Matt Stafford era. Stafford, who may be the league’s MVP, will turn 38 in two weeks and said he wasn’t even sure he would be able to play this season due to a back injury.

This feels like Seattle’s year. Remember those cigars they left in the visiting locker room after beating the 49ers on January 3? That looks like a harbinger of what to expect on Feb. 8, only on that day the Seahawks will be assigned the 49ers locker room. Ouch.

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'AI IS RUNNING INTO SILVER' — AND $110 MAY ONLY BE THE FIRST SIGNAL

By Piero Cingari

Something long ignored in the AI boom is suddenly dictating prices, and silver's explosive move past $110 is flashing a message investors can no longer overlook.

Silver – tracked by the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV) – broke above $110 on Monday, extending a staggering 260% gain over the past year. The rally marks the metal's strongest rolling 12-month return since 1980.

A growing group of macro analysts believes silver’s move is signaling something deeper — a collision between artificial intelligence and the physical world.

"Silver's message is treasure lies in forgotten investments," Jordi Visser, head of AI Macro Nexus research at 22V Research said in a note to clients on Monday.

"We're at an inflection point where making money in AI requires a completely different playbook."

From Software Abundance to Physical Scarcity

For more than a decade, technological progress rewarded abundance. Software scaled effortlessly. Code became cheaper. Cloud infrastructure expanded. Marginal costs fell.

AI accelerated that dynamic.

"The core thesis is scarcity versus abundance," Visser said. "Software has become abundant, coding is everywhere, apps are being built at record pace via vibe coding."

He said agentic AI is now disrupting enterprise software by replacing standardized workflows with customized solutions.

The constraint has shifted.

"Critical minerals like silver, copper and rare earths face structural shortages that will persist for 15 plus years," Visser said.

AI, in other words, is no longer constrained by intelligence. It is constrained by physics.

Why ‘AI Is Running Into Silver’

Every wave of exponential innovation carries the illusion that progress is limited primarily by ideas, algorithms, or imagination. History shows that illusion only holds in the early phase.

Eventually, exponential systems collide with their narrowest constraint.

In AI, that constraint has already begun migrating downward — first from models to compute, then from compute to memory, and now from memory to electricity and materials.

AI systems do not fail because they lack ideas. They fail when physical bottlenecks appear.

"AI systems do not run on energy in the abstract," Visser said. "They run on electricity delivered with extreme precision, density and reliability."

That distinction is becoming critical as AI expands beyond centralized data centers into robots, vehicles and edge devices.

"Electricity plays the same role in the physical world that memory plays in the digital one," Visser said. "It determines whether theoretical capacity can be turned into real performance."

"Silver sits precisely at this interface," the expert added.

Why Silver, Why Now

Silver does not generate energy. It enables electricity to move through systems under extreme stress.

It is used in contacts, switches, connectors, conductive pastes, solders, photovoltaic cells, and power electronics — not as bulk material, but at critical failure points.

As electrical loads scale and reliability margins shrink, silver demand rises not because more silver is used everywhere, but because it is required precisely where systems cannot afford to fail.

Solar power illustrates the dynamic clearly. Even though silver intensity per solar cell has fallen roughly 95% since 2010, total solar silver consumption has quadrupled as deployment has overwhelmed efficiency gains. Solar scales by surface area, not device count. Utility-scale installations consume silver by the ton.

AI is now binding itself directly to that same energy supply chain. What makes the current silver move different from prior cycles is synchronization.

AI data centers. Grid hardening. Solar expansion. Electrified transport. Edge inference. Industrial automation. Defense modernization.

Each trend alone would be manageable. Together, they converge on the same physical bottlenecks.

Supply, meanwhile, cannot respond symmetrically.

Most silver production is a byproduct of mining other metals, making supply structurally price-inelastic. Recycling helps only at the margin. Substitution fails precisely where reliability requirements are highest.

This imbalance is not cyclical.

"This is not a temporary imbalance," Visser said. "It is structural."

A Signal, Not A Story

Exponential systems do not announce their bottlenecks in advance. They reveal them through stress, repricing, and the failure of substitution.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described the coming AI-driven infrastructure expansion as an $85 trillion opportunity over the next 15 years.

That buildout will not be limited to chips or data centers. It will stress grids, power electronics and materials.

Silver's surge is not the story of AI. It is the signal.

"AI is not escaping the physical world," Visser said. "It is colliding with it."

And markets are already responding.

(Benzinga.com)

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FORGET TRUMP AND GREENLAND. Howard Lutnick Gave the Davos Speech that Mattered

The death of globalization is the real headline from the international self-indulgence festival at Davos

by Matt Taibbi

After Donald Trump spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, the obligatory headline term was humiliation. “Lonely Trump Humiliated as Major Allies Refuse to Be Bullied,” was one of two Daily Beast stories on the theme, the other being “Trump, 79, Croaks Through ‘Peace’ Grift Speech After 48 Hours of Ritual Humiliation,” under the tag BORED OF PEACE. Jen Psaki on MSNOW chortled over his “humiliating ramble,” while Chris Hayes declared him “isolated and humiliated.”

Coverage of Trump long ago devolved into an homage to Pee Wee’s Playhouse, when comic Paul Reubens would get a secret word from Conky the robot in each show. After, audiences would have to shout in unison at every mention of it. I remember being in a room of stoned teenagers shouting “PLACE!” at the TV in 1986.

Trump news cycles are the same, only anchors shout TREASON! or FELON! or DICTATOR! His address on Greenland, NATO, and Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses was blasted for a hundred reasons, many legitimate, but the real drama came from a non-Trump speech. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ripped his European hosts by declaring “Globalization has failed”:

“Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy. It is what the WEF has stood for, which is export offshore, far-shore, find the cheapest labor in the world and the world is a better place for it. The fact is, it has left America behind. It has left the American worker behind. And what we are here to say is that America First is a different model—one that we encourage other countries to consider—which is that our workers come first. We can have policies that impact our workers.”

Pop quiz: how was the previous President received at Davos? He wasn’t. Joe Biden was the first president this century to skip the WEF. It was just fine with world plutocrats that the United States was piloted by a wandering outpatient. The last major American Davos speech pre-Trump was delivered in 2024 by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, an unelected spooktocrat who declared that “major powers are vastly more interdependent than in any time during the Cold War” and pledged to stiffen “our ranks” at NATO. He earned nervous applause. German Finance Minister Christian Lindner meanwhile let the cat out of the bag, chiding European leaders that a possible Trump return required preparing for “fair burden sharing” under NATO, developing “capabilities to defend ourselves,” and returning to intra-European “competitiveness” economically. This damning speech was a de facto admission that Europe had been enjoying a world without American “competitiveness” for ages.

Lindner was preparing Europe for this week’s speech by Lutnick, which told Davosians the free ride was over. In onstage remarks and at an invitation-only dinner, the Commerce chief and longtime head of the Cantor Fitzgerald investment bank slammed former American pols for submitting to “lies”: that “offshoring was necessary, borders were not, and our national interest needed to submit to global lower cost of labor.” These remarks generated event-wide outrage, even inspiring Al “He’s Still Alive?” Gore to start booing and European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde to walk out, though some dispute this.

Trump was abrasive and insulting and no one budged. Lutnick was rational and clear, and the WEF attendees who didn’t throw fits cried anonymously to media. Trump is surely hated, but on Planet Davos the most unforgivable sin is abandoning the globalism gravy train in favor of a return to national-interest politics.

J.D. Vance’s much-derided speech at a Munich security conference last February was meant to declare an end to the Atlantic security dream while knocking Europe for abandoning free speech and democratic rights. It could have been historic, if the Trump administration had held up its end of the civil liberties bargain. The Lutnick speech is a similar moment. If it really marks the end of the globalization project, that will be a huge victory, no matter how insane our current political situation is. Think about the journey we’ve traveled in ten years:

In January 2016, Donald Trump was on his way to the Republican nomination, but remained beneath discussion at that year’s Davos conference to all but one speaker:

These were the salad days of Davos, when the WEF was on the verge of being able to rename itself something like the Rich Twats Directorate and was undisguisedly a mere excuse for high-rolling douchebags to snuggle in Swiss cabins with vetted sex workers in between panels with names like “5 Tips For Sounding Smart.” A week after Spacey’s talk, the WEF put out a paper that did mention Trump, briefly, called “Why Populism is on the Rise.” The answer wasn’t, “Because 99% of everyone wants to hurl people like us in lava pits,” but that life was just too darn good:

“Globalization is transforming societies, and a growing middle class is becoming the backbone of societies that are just one or two generations removed from extreme poverty. Add migration and the new social media landscape, and it is hardly surprising that a significant share of the Western population feels that society has lost its bearings.”

The WEF was the face of globalization, which hadn’t exactly been popular, but was definitely successful in its ends. The U.S. and Europe had already integrated with captive markets in places like China, and the export of America’s manufacturing economy was more or less complete, while European powers like Germany and the U.K. had undergone similar transformations.

This had two effects. One was lower labor costs for transnational corporations like Siemens, Novartis and Unilever, which still pay $500,000 or more annually to be named “strategic partners” of the WEF. The other was lessened accountability for the same esteemed corporate citizens to local authorities (read: nations). Before Trump and Brexit, the main blips of protest to these developments came from the left.

If the current demonstrators in Minnesota look familiar, it might be because you saw people like them on TV in 1999, when masked protesters descended upon a World Trade Organization conference in the “Battle of Seattle.”

Progressives in Seattle then marched alongside “essentially nationalist” groups like the AFL-CIO and waved “DON’T TREAD ON ME” flags. Leftists at the time were exercised about the threat posed by bodies like the WTO to democratic sovereignty (e.g., the right to decide our own environmental rules, welfare programs, and agricultural subsidies). There was also concern that after decades of effort to clean our own labor markets, American retailers would fill shelves with foreign sweatshop products. Two battalions of National Guardsmen were called in by Democratic governor Gary Locke to quell the uprising, but he didn’t get Hitlered much in media coverage. In 1999, internationalists were the villains.

Politicians and think-tankers knew thirty years ago that globalization would be good for the college-educated and wealthy and bad for everyone else. A declassified OECD report from 1994 described consequences for developed nations in the early days of expanded global trade:

“About one-half of the male groups suffered a decline in real wages over the period. These groups included those who had not graduated from college and young males. Female workers were less adversely affected. They also found that the average wage of college graduates relative to high-school graduates rose by 20% during the decade.”

They knew this was going to cause disruptions, but ballooning corporate profits meant everyone who mattered could be bought off. Donor-fattened politicians would call for watering down the authority of nations, where idiots voted, while offloading power to international bureaucracies, where they didn’t. Corporate think-tanks cranked out paper after paper questioning the efficacy of the nation-state. Even the End of History wondered at voters’ irrational loyalty to nationhood. “It is curious,” Francis Fukuyama wrote, “why people believe that a phenomenon of such recent historical provenance as nationalism will henceforth be so permanent a feature of the human social landscape.”

Heading into 2016, the world’s future ruling bureaucracies were set to be manned by college graduates raised in stateless wealth archipelagoes whose chief political task would involve urging patience on ignorant middle and lower classes during bumpy decades when their incomes sank compared to India, China, Rwanda, and Bangladesh. There was no danger that any elected person in the Atlanticist realm would get in the way, since the only country that had enough military power to matter was America, and our ostensible labor party was even farther up the ass of globalism than Republicans. Paradise was just a moment away.

Then Trump got elected. He wasn’t Eugene Debs. He might even have been crazy. What mattered was he got elected by running against globalization. Thanks to this and other populist uprisings (Brexit, the rise of Viktor Orban, the Fratelli d’Italia, Marine Le Pen, the yellow vest movement, etc.), voter rejection of internationalist policies finally sank in, with an assist from Covid, which exposed the fragility of global supply lines. For all its bluster, even the WEF now admits the execution of globalization was “mindless,” causing “domestic, economic, social, and ultimately environmental” objectives to “fall by the wayside.”

In fact, going through the WEF’s more recent thinking about globalization is enough to make one want to reach for something sharp. You will hear, for instance, that in 2015-2016 financial leaders suddenly discovered that overall GDP was an imperfect measure of economic success, that there had been heretofore undiscovered “losers” of globalization, somewhere outside the Hamptons and Jackson Hole. In the WEF’s 2023 “Why Globalization Needs a Revamp” video, the losers are depicted via aerial drone footage of poorer neighborhoods, which is about as close as Swiss vacationers wanted to get to that reality:

Globalization has been terrible for the United States. In addition to lost jobs and hollowed manufacturing towns, integration with countries like China has massively weakened worker bargaining power and put heavy downward pressure on civil liberties and democracy. Core Trump accusations that American voters have been asked to swallow shitty trade deals for decades and foot Europe’s security bills for even longer (while getting little in return) aren’t wrong. That globalization caused once-powerful countries to lose self-sufficiency — a security issue as well as an economic one — and prioritize global economic growth over the needs of their own citizens is no longer even denied, not that anyone wants to hear it.

Watch what happened when Lutnick articulated the traitorous idea that countries should take care of their own citizens first, saying this is the “job” of government. “I would suggest that policy is something for other countries to deeply consider,” he said, “to take care of their own, and then we will work out wonderful relationships between us.”

There was a hush and then the moderator asked, “Can I bring you back to Greenland?”

That the panel understood and accepted Lutnick’s definition of national-interest politics was confirmed when British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves talked about introducing “securomics,” as a corrective to the “hollowing out of industrial strength” that occurred under globalization. It’s not a secret anymore that these policies were a four-decade cash grab that didn’t open foreign markets as promised, left Western countries economically devastated and less safe, and systematically moved decision-making away from voters.

It’s a big jump from Lutnick’s speech to Trump’s implied contention that America is owed Greenland as compensation for NATO and the globalization caper. None of this is to say, either, that Trump’s tariff or immigration policies are the right approach. Still, the major story of the Trump era has been voter rejection of unaccountable international bureaucrats, not just on economic globalization but especially there. The press will want everything this week to be about Greenland, but the death of the phenomenon Thomas Friedman once cheerfully dubbed the “golden straitjacket” is a much bigger headline. Is it really too much to ask for politicians to be working for their own voters first?

(racket.news)

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A BIRL FOR BURNS

From the start, Burns’ birl and rhythm,
That tongue the Ulster Scots brought wi’ them
And stick to still in County Antrim
Was in my ear.
From east of Bann it westered in
On the Derry air.

My neighbours toved and bummed and blowed,
They happed themselves until it thowed,
By slaps and stiles they thrawed and tholed
And snedded thrissles,
And when the rigs were braked and hoed
They’d wet their whistles.

Old men and women getting crabbèd
Would hark like dogs who’d seen a rabbit,
Then straighten, stare and have a stab at
Standard habbie:
Custom never staled their habit
O’ quotin’ Rabbie.

Leg-lifting, heartsome, lightsome Burns!
He overflowed the well-wrought urns
Like buttermilk from slurping churns,
Rich and unruly,
Or dancers flying, doing turns
At some wild hooley.

For Rabbie’s free and Rabbie’s big,
His stanza may be tight and trig
But once he sets the sail and rig
Away he goes
Like Tam-O-Shanter o’er the brig
Where no one follows.

And though his first tongue’s going, gone,
And word lists now get added on
And even words like stroan and thrawn
Have to be glossed,
In Burns’s rhymes they travel on
And won’t be lost.

— Seamus Heaney (2009)

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