Fruit Blossom | Heavy Rain | Wrestling Champs | Niesen Tragedy | Reynoso Services | Help Fremont | Joe Pulido | Variety Show | Unity Club | Audubon Women | Best Garden | Assemblyman Philo | Yee Second | More Civility | Friendly Neighbor | TWK Reactions | Navarro Watershed | Yesterday's Catch | Cloverdale Water | NY Movie | SMART Opposition/a> | Oil Sponsors | On Foot | Modern Crisis | Epstein Death | Representative Talarico | Confused Monkeys | Early Smartphone | Mindless Deregulation | Frontier Battle | Security Breach | Predatory Hegemon | Insufficient Capital | Ill Will | Sharp, Delta | Long Slog | Lead Stories | Totalitarian Control | Allen Ginsberg | The Life | Pure Gonzo | Carlin Arrest | Remembering Gwendolyn | Mexican Protest | Endless Repetition | Old Pooperoo | Piano Man | Awakening
RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Leggett 3.84” - Laytonville 3.60” - Willits 2.73” - Covelo 1.91” - Yorkville 1.48” - Boonville 0.83” - Ukiah 0.72” - Hopland 0.68”
A FRONTAL SYSTEM will continue to produce moderate to heavy rain and a threat for minor flooding through this evening.Showers tonight are forecast to diminish on Wednesday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A rainy 54F this Tuesday morning on the coast with a healthy 1.24" of new rainfall that I did not hear falling ? Rainy today then dry Wednesday thru Friday then maybe a sprinkle for the weekend ? We'll see ?
UKIAH BOYS WRESTLING are the 2026 North Coast Section Champs!
Three student athletes advance to state: Gibran Silva, Keith Christianson, and Jordan Schwarm! Proud of our amazing Wildcats! The 2026 CIF State Wrestling Championships will be held February 26-28 at the Dignity Health Arena in Bakersfield, CA.
THE NIESEN TRAGEDY: OFFICIAL VERSION
On Tuesday, February 17, 2026 at approximately 11:34 A.M., Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies overheard radio traffic regarding a vehicle collision into the Eel River on Highway 162 at approximately mile marker 10.9.
Deputies, Officers with the California Highway Patrol, and medical personnel responded to the scene. A family member had located vehicle debris and personal belongings near the river, which indicated the vehicle had entered the fast-moving water. The vehicle had been occupied by Gary and Yvonne Niesen from Covelo (ages 89 and 91, respectively). The husband and wife were reportedly traveling from Covelo to the Willits area on 2/17/2026 to meet a family member for an appointment.
Over the next several days, swift-water-rescue teams and Search and Rescue personnel made attempts to locate the Niesen’s and their vehicle with negative results. Search conditions were extremely difficult in this area due to recent storms, water flow, difficult terrain, and the constantly changing river conditions. Sheriff's Deputies took a missing persons report for Gary and Yvonne Niesen, due to the circumstances of this ongoing investigation.
On Friday, 2/20/26, family members of the missing persons were able to enlist the help of a private diver, Juan Heredia, who is the founder of Angels Recovery Dive Team. Heredia was able to locate the vehicle and confirm that only Gary Niesen was contained within the vehicle. A heavy-duty tow truck responded to the scene and was able to recover the vehicle and Gary Niesen, who was positively identify by Sheriff's Deputy-Coroner investigators.
On Saturday, 2/21/26, approximately 40 searchers from multiple agencies throughout the state arrived and began searching the area. Two good Samaritans were also in the area on a planned kayaking trip. At approximately 2:00 P.M. the kayakers notified searchers they had located a deceased subject in the Eel River in the area of mile marker 14.1 on Highway 162. Personnel were able to recover the subject, who was positively identified as Yvonne Niesen by Sheriff's Deputy-Coroner investigators.
The family and legal next-of-kin for Gary and Yvonne Niesen were notified of this investigation and were also present and assisted with the ongoing efforts to locate and recover the vehicle from the Eel River.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the multiple agencies who responded from throughout the region to assist in the search and recovery efforts.
AURELIANO REYNOSO
It is with heavy hearts that we share the news of the passing of our dear father. His smile, kindness, and love touched the lives of many.
Viewing: Wednesday, February 26, Eversole Mortuary, 141 Low Gap Road, Ukiah. 3-8pm.
Mass: Thursday, February 27, Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, 900 Oak St., Ukiah. 10am – 11am.
Funeral: February 27, Russian River Cemetery, 940 Low Gap Road, Ukiah. 11am-noon.
Celebration of Life: February 27, Veterans Memorial Building, 293 Seminary Ave., Ukiah. After funeral.
LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL
I woke up from sleep with the song playing in my head where they shout, "Let it roll!" dum da-da-da dump dummm "Down the highway!" dum da-da-da dump dummm "Let it roll! Roll! Roll!"
It occurred to me that there's a lot of advice in our culture about letting things do what they're gonna do when there's not a lot we can do about it anyway. It's probably such a big catalog for the same reason we have a thousand words or phrases for being drunk and/or throwing up, and they used to say the Eskimos have 400 words for snow. It's who we are. I know a man who spent a few years in prison, who told me that the first six months were really stressful because he was still trying to manage his old life, but then he realized that the world would keep turning whether he cranked it or not. After that it wasn't a piece of cake but it was a lot easier.
Also I read that John Fremont died. I used to work for him 30 years ago, for almost two years, one of the several jobs I have been fired from in my life. (Reason given by the office manager: "Have you ever heard of the concept of clicking." I said, "Go on." She: "Well, you know, some people just don't… click." I said, "Click." She said: "Click.") I have some more funny stories. But there's a problem: Cindy and John paid years in advance, when there was some money, for all their death expenses, and when the event occurred, Cindy found out that the funeral company managing that went out of business long ago*, and there's no record of the money, and she needs the money now, because, see above, John died. There's a GoFundMe to help her: https://gofund.me/9fcd05599
*It wasn't Neptune Society. I looked it up because my mother has that. Neptune Society is still in business and doing fine.
— Marco McClean
JOE A. PUILIDO (March 26, 1932 – February 12, 2026)
Joe A. Pulido was born in Jiquilpan Michoacan, Mexico.
Joe traveled to the US after serving in the armed forces in Mexico approx. 21 years old, he worked as a farm laborer throughout California for a few years before deciding to make Ukiah his home, where he met his wife, Margaret Lorene Pulido. ( Deceased 05/17/2011) married in 1956 or 1957. ( He did not remarry after her death)
Joe worked for the Southern Pacific Railway for over 35 years. earning countless awards and certificates in outstanding achievement and safety recognition. He loved fishing, hunting, and abalone diving. He also enjoyed long drives with his wife, often to the coast. Joe was known for his generous support, especially encouraging youth and sponsoring sport/athletics within his community. He also enjoyed helping his wife prepare a special dish for Native Gatherings (Accorn Mush).
Grandchildren * Roy Lincoln (D) * Ron Lincoln (D) Lenny Lincoln, Keith Lincoln, Gina Lincoln, Lorene Lincoln and Carol Lincoln, Kenny Gonzalez, Steve Gonzalez, Dawn Gonzalez, Norene Trippo, Alicia Idica, and Amber Idica, as well as numerous Great-Grandchildren, Great Great-Grandchildren, Great Great Great- Grandchildren and God Children. Siblings: Carmen Amezcua; Benjamin Amezcua (D) at age 9; Jose Amezcua; Luis Amezcua; Francisca Amezcua (D); Maria Amezcua; Esperanza Amezcua; Josefina Amezcua; Guadalupe Amezcua; Amalia Amezcua.
He is preceded in death by his daughter Carol Joyce Idica, son Severo Idica Jr., and his parents Esteban Amezcua Ruiz & Maria Luisa Pulido Murgo.
UNITY CLUB NEWS
That rain was very welcome. My soil sucked it all up, and my driveway is dry, between the storms. We have a good meeting lined up for you on March 5th at 1:30 in the Fairgrounds Dining Room. Alexis Moyer of the Pot Shop will be speaking about her business. She is so dedicated to her art. Find out what magic she spins to keep her shop successful. Your hostess crew will be Grace Espinoza, Miriam Martinez, and Donna Pierson-Pugh. They will provide sweet and savory snacks, as well as coffee and an assortment of teas.
Our Annual Wild Flower Show is coming up on the 25th & 26th of April from 10 to 4 both days. Admission is FREE. Members, please sign up for which ever duty your special talent is suited for. We'll have plant sale's, Plant IDs, Student art exhibit, Tick information and the California Native Plants Society all present. Sign up as the volunteer sheets circulate. The flowers should be spectacular this year.
Our Lending Library is open Tuesdays from 1 to 4 and Saturdays, when the Fairgrounds aren't hosting an event, from 12:30 to 2:30. Some of you have been helping me search for Ann Cleeves' Shetland series. Call off the search; my gal pal got me the the complete set.
Dues are due: $30. Bring yours to the March meeting or mail them to: Jean Condon, Treasurer P.O. Box 466, Philo, CA 95466-0466. Jean has to have everything in to the State by April. Keep our voice strong, in the State of California and in Washington DC.
Will the Library be open special hours during the Wildflower Show? Come to the March 5th meeting to find out. Thursday, March 5th at 1:30, in the Dining Room of the Fairgrounds are the date and time. I'll see you there.
— Miriam L. Martinez
VOTING FOR "BEST BOTANICAL GARDEN" is open now through March 9. We are thrilled and deeply honored to share that your local botanical wonder, Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, has once again been selected among the nation's very best. Among all gardens nationwide, MCBG was selected as a finalist for the annual 10Best Readers' Choice Awards, and now the final ranking is in the hands of flower fans everywhere.
Vote Here: https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/mendocino-coast-botanical-gardens-fort-bragg-california
Vote daily! You can vote from each browser and device. Phone, tablet, laptop, desktop. If it connects to the internet, it counts. Every single vote matters. Share with friends, family, neighbors, and anyone who appreciates this botanical wonder by the Pacific.
ASSEMBLYMAN ROGERS IN PHILO ON FRIDAY
Please join me this Friday, February 27, for a town hall at the Anderson Valley Grange Hall! I will be giving a legislative update, discussing the important work my team and I are doing throughout Assembly District 2, and taking questions from participants. If you're interested in attending, RSVP for the event using the link below. Please contact my office with any questions about the event at 707-463-5770.
Guests who RSVP will be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis. An RSVP does not guarantee admittance.
Friday, February 27
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Anderson Valley Grange Hall, 9800 Highway 128, Philo, CA 95466
Priority will be given to constituents of California’s Second District on a first-come, first-served basis.
VAL MUCHOSWKI: Betty Yee polled second in delegate vote at the California Democratic Party Endorsement Convention in San Francisco on Saturday. February 21, 2026.
MARK CURRIER:
I am asking for more civility in our community.
In check out line at Harvest today a lady said loudly,
"Food prices are higher because of the mango Mussolini".
A tweaker cut off a car S.B. Hwy 1 turning into Red Rino gas station and then upset folks inside.
Saturdays downtown at 11 a.m. we have folks showing hate.
During the Biden administration I voiced my concerns as to our Country's safety but not in public places, I expressed them on F.B. which is not in public but rather the Ethernet.
We all need to behave more with civility around others in public places.
Let's all take a deep breath and focus on the world renowned beauty we live in, volunteer for community embellishments, help some elderly, clean a beach, be a mentor to young ones.
If you love living here, respect all fellow humans that are not breaking the law.
Go out on the bluffs and watch whales, pelicans, take a walk or wheelchair adventure.
LINDY PETERS:
Poor TWK. Apparently he knows nothing about Dozy Don. Here is a test for the rest of us who are actually paying attention.
Q) If Donald Trump ever discovered a potent new energy source at Lake Mendocino he most likely would.:
A) Privatize it immediately, monetize it strictly for the Trump family and outlaw every other type of energy production.
B) Blame Joe Biden for not discovering it earlier.
C) Demand a Nobel Prize for scientific achievement.
D) All of the above.
MAZIE MALONE:
Re; TWK and the homeless individual in the rain.
The image TWK described, someone hunched in the rain at State and Gobbi, is not easy to ignore. Sadly we do it all the time. So it’s important to say this plainly: he isn’t the only one. On cold, wet days and nights in Ukiah there are multiple people walking, sitting, or trying to stay dry under awnings because there is not enough shelter, not enough supportive housing, and not enough real pathways that move people from the street into housing.
There is literally nowhere for many of them to go.
Our shelter is small. It has roughly fifty beds. That is the extent of our formal shelter capacity in this area. So when someone is sitting in the rain, it is not because there is some open, warm option being refused. We simply do not have enough places for people to go.
We also do not have a coordinated, real time system that activates when conditions become dangerous.
We already have multiple programs in this county addressing homelessness, addiction, and mental health. The issue is not the absence of programs. The issue is that they do not operate as a unified, functional response when someone is in crisis.
Protocols exist.
Meetings happen.
Collaboration is discussed.
But in reality, after 5 PM, intervention largely disappears. There is no real time coordination that expands shelter, creates immediate placement, or moves people quickly out of unsafe conditions.
And being outside in freezing rain with nowhere safe to sleep is a crisis.
The narrative that people “just refuse help” is false.
In 2020, during COVID, people were moved indoors rapidly. Motel rooms were secured. Placement happened. When the will and structure aligned, housing was provided. That moment proved that rapid coordination is possible.
What we are seeing now is not a mystery.
The system, as it currently operates, manages homelessness. It does not resolve it.
Until shelter capacity increases and real time coordination actually functions in practice, not just in meetings, we will continue to see people sleeping in the cold and rain, not because they refuse help, but because the system does not respond in the moment it is needed.
MIKE GENIELLA:
Lindy Peters and Mazie Malone nailed it regarding Tommy Wayne Kramer’s relentless criticism of local homeless issues and the slavish defense of his political icon, Donald J. Trump. What a waste of Tom Hine’s talent. Hopefully, he too becomes weary of his recycled observations that offer no alternatives. Hine makes no mention of $500 billion in new defense budgets, or Trump’s plans for a gaudy new ballroom that will dwarf the historic White House in size. He fails to bring up Trump taking $10 billion in taxpayer money to fund his “Board of Peace” so he and his pals can convert Gaza, the global center of homelessness, into golf courses and luxury oceanfront resorts. Get a grip, Tom Hine. Your polling numbers are falling as fast as Trump’s.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, February 23, 2026
RAYMOND BOWES, 28, Covelo. Evasion, resisting, probation revocation.
RAMON CAMPION-MENDOCA, 32, San Jose/Ukiah. DUI-any drug.
NATHAN CASADY, 47, Espanola, New Mexico/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
ASHLEIGH ESTES, 41, Garberville/Ukiah. Camping in Ukiah, contempt of court.
REBECCA JONES, 46, Redwood Valley. Toluene or similar substance.
MAURICIO REYES-PENA, 38, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.
DYLAN RUMBLE, 26, Willits. Controlled substance, failure to appear.
JESSICA SCROGGINS, 27, Covelo. Failure to appear.
CHRISTINA TORRES, 38, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.
RUSTI VASSAR, 34, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, burglary tools, vehicle tampering, vandalism, parole violation.
CLOVERDALE, WATER AND THE ESMERALDA PROJECT
Editor:
Recently, the city accepted a water report submitted by the developers that asserts Cloverdale has plenty of water to support the influx of residents and hotel guests. Disregarded is the uncertainty of Cloverdale’s future water source due to the decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project, which funnels some water from the Eel River to supplement the Russian River during dry months. This water flows south, supplying Cloverdale and Geyserville.
With numerous entities affected, local, state, tribal and federal agencies are currently working on a solution so a portion of water will continue to be sent south via the Russian River. It may be years before a resolution is achieved and implemented, and for this reason I don’t believe it’s an opportune time to be approving the Esmeralda project with its 1,500 potential residents, hotels, landscaped grounds, sports fields and businesses.
Townspeople I’ve spoken with are not against growth, but it needs to be smart growth, and we should not be promising water availability until we’re sure we can keep such promises.
Diana Pennington
Cloverdale
WHY ARE THE GALLAHERS ATTACKING SMART?
Editor:
I recently received an unsolicited book from the Gallahers intended to negatively influence the June tax vote for SMART. Rather than funding such mailers, it would be more helpful to understand why mass transit projects face such opposition from wealthy donors.
Despite the opening of the Novato Narrows, traffic on Highway 101 remains congested. Riding SMART allows passengers to bypass this traffic entirely. I am pleased to hear that SMART plans to extend its evening service. While the connection to the Larkspur ferry is a great asset, later train options would make trips to San Francisco more flexible. I also look forward to the Healdsburg station, though I already enjoy visiting Windsor. A later departing train from Windsor would be a welcome improvement, as current schedules require evening visits to end prematurely.
One has to wonder if those opposing these measures, like the Gallahers, utilize helicopters to avoid freeway congestion or if they simply do not mind the delays.
Nancee Fox
Santa Rosa
SACRAMENTO KINGS FANS SLAM TEAM'S FOSSIL FUEL SPONSORSHIPS AS PART OF NATION-WIDE PROTESTS
by Dan Bacher
On February 17, a dedicated crew of Sacramento Kings fans from Third Act Sacramento braved torrential rain to protest the team's sponsorship by Shell and AM/PM, joining environmentalists in nine other cities simultaneously demonstrating against professional teams sponsored by Big Oil, major banks that finance large fossil projects, or utilities heavy on fossil fuel generation.…
“THE CRISIS of modern society is precisely that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up. They don’t believe it is empirically true to the problems of their lives and times.”
– Ernest Becker
JOHN SAKOWICZ:
A friend at DOJ just shared the following with me.
Was it suicide? Or a professional hit? You decide.
https://avalonlibrary.net/Jeffrey_Epstein/EFTA00161494.pdf
DAVID REMNICK, The New Yorker Editor:
Even before last week, when he became a central character in Stephen Colbert’s fight with his own network and with the head of the Federal Communications Commission, the Texas state representative James Talarico had shown a knack for getting attention.
The thirty-six-year-old Democrat’s social-media posts, in which he connects his religious faith to his hopeful politics, have racked up millions of views. This past July, Talarico went on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” and, by the end of the show, Rogan told his guest, “You need to run for President.”
For now, Talarico is running for the Senate, becoming the latest in a line of buzzy Democrats put forward to pursue the Party’s increasingly elusive dream of winning a statewide election in Texas. But, as Tad Friend reports in the week’s issue, Talarico is different from other Democratic standouts past and present. Part of it is his public expression of Christian faith—Talarico is currently on leave from the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary—but it’s also the way he talks about elections and political life. “I’m not a huge fan of being against someone,” he tells Friend. “A campaign based on love is more durable than one based on fear.” Even his mother wishes her son would get his hands a little dirtier. “He won’t trash-talk,” she says. “And that’s very annoying, because some people need trash-talking.”
Friend spent weeks on the trail with Talarico, speaking to the candidate and those around him in Texas politics. The resulting portrait reveals a man who’s less beatific than he may first appear. His colleagues in the Texas legislature, impressed with Talarico’s skills, have called him “the baby-faced assassin.” Friend documents the way that Talarico muscled his way into the Senate race, going against the wishes of some of the state’s Democratic Party leaders. “James came in, like, ‘I don’t care what you guys are doing with your little huddle. Fuck all y’all, I’m doing this,’ ” Beto O’Rourke, the former golden-boy Senate candidate, tells Friend. “He blew everything up in his excitement to make the case for himself.” O’Rourke adds, “You’re not going to win in this game unless you’re really fucking confident.”
Friend spoke with Talarico shortly after his campaign was hit by what the candidate describes as “an asteroid”—the late entry into the primary race of the U.S. congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a liberal firebrand and social-media superstar, who sharply criticizes Donald Trump’s agenda but operates with much of his rude charisma and main-character energy. Crockett’s bid was cheered by Republicans, who believe she will be easier to beat in a general election. Crockett has won endorsements from many prominent Democrats. Polls are, at this point, inconclusive. When Texas Democrats make their pick between Talarico and Crockett, on March 3rd, they will be, in part, choosing between two modes of resistance in the Trump era—a commitment to seek common ground or a steadfast promise to fight. For his part, Talarico has declared that the primary result “will determine the course of the Democratic Party.”
“WE ARE BURIED beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.”
— Tom Waits
EARLY SMARTPHONE
TYRANT TRUMP DECLARES END OF LAWS SAVING AMERICAN LIVES
Trump deserves Impeachment and Removal from Office. Congress should act now, before more Americans die, get sick, or are injured from the destruction of long-established, critical protections.
by Ralph Nader
“Deregulation” is an antiseptic word loved by the giant corporations that rule the people. In reality, health and safety “deregulation” spells death, injury, and disease for the American people of all ages and backgrounds. This is especially so with the deranged dictates from the Tyrant Trump, who is happily beholden to his corporate paymasters, who are making him richer by the day.
Trump’s mindless deregulation mania got underway in January 2025 with his illegal shutting down of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has saved lives in poor countries – by providing food, water, medicine, etc. – for a pittance. USAID spends less in a year than the Pentagon spends in a week. International aid groups predict that the ongoing cuts could lead to 9.4 million preventable deaths occurring in poor countries by 2030 unless the vicious and cruel, unlawful Trumpian shutdown is reversed.
It turns out Trump was just warming up for his illegal violence against innocent American families in both blue and red states. He has abolished requirements for the auto industry to limit its emissions and maintain fuel efficiencies. The result: more disease-bearing gases and particulates into the lungs of Americans, including the most vulnerable – children and people suffering from respiratory diseases.
Trump wants to roll back the regulations that would require auto company fleets to average 50 miles per gallon by 2031. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its proposed vehicle fuel economy standards would save Americans more than $23 billion in fuel costs while reducing pollution.
Month after month, Trump is illegally reducing or shutting down life-saving programs without the required Congressional approval. One of his major targets is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This month, his puppet EPA head, Lee Zeldin, celebrated the elimination of lethal greenhouse gases from the EPA’s regulatory controls. Zeldin and Trump are in effect telling Americans, “Let them breathe toxic air.” Plus, more climate catastrophes.
Smothering wind and solar projects while boosting the omnicidal polluting oil, gas, and coal production is another way Trump is exposing people to sickening gases and particulates. A corporate cynic once joked, “No problem, you can always refuse to inhale.”
Trump’s treachery toward coal miners, whom he praises, is shocking. He cut the funds for free testing of coal miners’ lungs, often afflicted with the deadly black lung diseases that have taken hundreds of thousands of coal miners’ lives over the past century and a half. We worked to pass the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, to control the levels of coal dust causing this disease, but Trump is unraveling it by cutting law enforcement. The Trump administration says it is “reconsidering” the long-awaited proposed silica control regulations. More unnecessary delay. In 2024, Politico reported that “Mine Safety and Health Administration projects that the final rule will avert up to 1,067 deaths and 3,746 silica-related illnesses.”
In his mass firings of federal civil servants, Trump has included the ranks of federal safety inspectors for meat and poultry plants (USDA), for occupational health and safety (OSHA), and specialized areas like you would never imagine – such as nuclear security. Tyrant Trump worsened the potential danger for workers and communities by firing most of the Inspector Generals – again illegally – who are the powerful watchdogs over federal departments and agencies. Many Inspector General positions are still vacant.
In terms of short and long-run perils, Trump’s attacks on scientific research and discovery to reduce or prevent diseases would be enough to give him the grisly record for knowingly letting Americans die. The assault on vaccines, including for contagious diseases, is staggering, led by RFK, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
RFK, Jr. becomes more extreme by the day. His actions go way beyond any legitimate skepticism of the drug companies. He is going along with officials in states like Florida who are about to ban children’s vaccine mandates, even for polio, measles, and whooping cough. He has severely slashed, without Congressional authority, budgets for basic and applied science programs underway at universities and other public institutions. His salvos are resulting in the reduction of families getting their children vaccinated, who, if contagious, could infect their classmates. The so-called powerful medical societies have not risen to their optimal level of resistance to what is fast coming, a green light for epidemics – starting with the resurgence of measles now underway in places like South Carolina.
The crazed Menace-in-Chief wanted to abolish FEMA and its Rescue responses to hyper-hurricanes, floods, and giant wildfires. He recklessly says the states can handle the carnage from such disasters. The real reason is that he doesn’t want to be held responsible for failing to properly respond to such disasters. Remember the criticism of George W. Bush’s response to Katrina?
Again, with Trump, it is all about him, feeding his insatiable MONSTROUS EGO, rather than saving American lives. Recently, tragic events have forced him to reconsider. He is bringing back some of the experts and rescuers he fired from FEMA earlier last year.
Rather than faithfully execute federal laws, and ensure the well-being of the people, Dictator Donald, is using his position and time in the White House to enrich himself and to get his name on anything he can get away with – the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the U.S. Treasury Department’s relief checks during Covid-19, the federal investment accounts, special visas, and a discount drug program. (See the February 16, 2026, article in the New York Times by Peter Baker titled, A Superman, Jedi and Pope).
Chronically lying, threatening violence against his opponents and people abroad, slandering anyone he feels like via the complaint mass media, including journalists and editors, and generally wrecking America as a serial law violator, Trump deserves to be told, “YOU’RE FIRED.” (This was his favorite TV show catchphrase). Trump deserves Impeachment and Removal from Office. Congress should act now, before more Americans die, get sick, or are injured from the destruction of long-established, critical protections under both Republican and Democratic Administrations.
MAR-A-LAGO GUNMAN Austin Tucker Martin slipped through employee exit gate in alarming security breach as new details emerge…
A Reader Notes: Coverage on many news sites is not being updated as far as I can tell.
THE PREDATORY HEGEMON
The abandonment of international allies, treaties and norms, Stephen Walt argues, will slowly ostracize the United States and give rise to a multipolar world order which will leave the country behind.
by Chris Hedges with Stephen Walt
As Donald Trump’s administration continues down the path of self destruction, it is taking the rest of the American population down with it. The abandonment of international allies, treaties and norms, the political scientist Stephen Walt argues, will slowly ostracize the United States and give rise to a multipolar world order which will leave the country behind.
Walt, the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of multiple books, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to chronicle what this decline may look like and how Trump’s policy choices are not unlike past empires in history.
The decline, Walt and Hedges emphasize, is multifaceted. On the one hand, Trump is motivated by personal gain for himself and his family, and on the other, petty grievances towards countries once considered allies. This policy pattern will isolate the U.S. as Walt says, “we’re already starting to see lots of countries who are currently accommodating the United States in the short term also looking to find ways to de-risk, to reduce their vulnerability, to create alternative structures to one in which the United States has the central role. This isn’t going to leave the United States completely isolated. We’re too big for that. But it’s going to mean a long-term diminution in American wealth, power, influence, and security.”
International politicians, such as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, have already begun to understand that rather than groveling to a toxic Trump regime, standing up for your citizens can ultimately pay greater dividends. “You are going to see other leaders realize that kowtowing to Trump doesn’t get you any good, may prompt something of a nationalist backlash in your own country as well. And that in fact, taking a more principled position, defending your own country’s interests, even in the face of American pressure actually will pay political benefits,” Walt explains.…
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-predatory-hegemon-w-stephen-walt
A CAMPAIGN OF BAD FAITH AND ILL WILL
by James Kunstler
“The SAVE Act can pass today under existing procedure. The obstacle is not the filibuster. It is the habit of surrendering to a myth." — Alex Muse on X
Lunacy proceeds from crime. In case you wonder why half the country has gone crazy, seek no further than Susan Rice’s stark warning to the other half of the country that is not crazy. Ms. Rice was Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor and then “Joe Biden’s” Domestic Policy Advisor. She did a podcast last week with Preet Bharaha, former US Attorney in the SDNY, now a private lawyer with the Beltway law firm WilmerHale. Her message to Trump supporters: We’re coming after you when we’re back in power. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
It was an important signal and it got a lot of people’s attention. It telegraphed the fear running through the Lefty-left that their crimes against the country are being tallied, carefully catalogued, and presented to a grand jury in Florida. The crimes are bundled as a multifaceted conspiracy to overthrow the US government. Pretty serious. Sedition and Treason. Susan Rice knows what she (and others) did.
First, in the frantic days between Nov. 3, 2016 and January 20, 2017, Barack Obama’s White House cooked up the Russia collusion hoax with John Brennan’s CIA, James Comey’s FBI, and Loretta Lynch’s DOJ. Ms. Rice, who was in on it, notoriously wrote a CYA memo memorializing the meetings and planted it in her office desk to be easily discovered by the new Trump admin. The memo stated that “every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book’.” Of course, that was exactly the opposite of what really happened. The mischief emanating from it has run for ten years, crime upon crime upon crime.
Secondly, and surely less-known to the American public, was Ms. Rice’s role as Domestic Policy Advisor under “Joe Biden.” Her actual job from 2021 to 2023 was to serve as a conduit for Barack Obama to run “Joe Biden’s” White House, along with Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken. During those years, the public rarely (if ever) saw Susan Rice. She avoided the news media and did not make public statements or appearances at White House events. The news media were happy to ignore her. They knew exactly what she was up to.
The prime concerns of this cabal were to protect the image (cover up the crimes) of Barack Obama and his associates, to cover up the criminal degeneracy of the Biden family, and to get the Democrat Party back in power by utterly destroying Donald Trump and the populist revolt he headed.
Everything done in “Joe Biden’s” name during those years was to guarantee his party’s return to power, especially the deluge of illegal aliens across the border to pad the census for congressional districts and provide millions of future voters indebted to the party for letting them in (and giving them tons of freebies when they got here. . . phones, housing, food, walking-around money).
Meanwhile, the Democrats erected an immense scaffold of NGOs to funnel taxpayer money into salaries for their corps of political activists — outfits such as Stacey Abrams’ empire of grift in Georgia, the national networks of Antifa and BLM street-fighters, and the matrix of Somali social service fraud in Minnesota and Maine. This created a huge parasitical patronage class, basically a national racketeering operation. Eventually all the NGO grift became an end in itself — the Democrats animating principle: grift for grift’s sake, power to just keep it all going and continue to cover up the crime behind it.
The vital component to all this was weapons-grade mind-fuckery to produce a fog of war that would keep the American public utterly bamboozled, unable to comprehend what was happening amid gales of hoaxes, ops, and scams. The Covid-19 caper was the doozy. We still don’t know definitively if the mRNA vaccine program was a deliberate depopulation project, but it kind of looked like it, while plenty of messaging from global institutions — from the Gates Foundation to the WEF to the UN — was pretty explicit about getting rid of useless eaters. On top of all that, throw in the trashing of Western Civ’s industrial economies with “green” trickery, adding another layer of anxiety onto a sore-beset citizenry.
Of course, despite their best efforts — and it was a mighty crusade of bad faith and ill will — the Democrats failed to vanquish Mr. Trump, a strange miracle itself suggesting some sort of divine intervention. The question now is, will Mr. Trump be able to vanquish them? It begins to look like he might, with plenty of help from the Democrats themselves, who have reached a pitch of madness rarely seen in human societies.
Their latest prank: a boycott of the State of the Union speech to Congress. So far, seven senators and nine congresspersons have promised to bale on the speech, led ostensibly by Senator Adam Schiff of California, a liar so prodigious and fertile that it can be truly said he never uttered an honest word including “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” This faction will gather on the mall instead and hurl objurgations at the Capitol rotunda.
All that’s needed to finish them off, really, is passage of the SAVE Act so that voters will be required to prove their identity and citizenship, and absentee ballots will be restricted to the old rules about being too sick to get to the poling place, or else out of the country. Last week, staffers behind the walking mummy, Mitch McConnell, prevented the bill from reaching the Senate floor with some procedural rigmarole. Mr. Trump must call them out, and call out Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), too, for dragging his feet on whatever’s necessary to pass the SAVE Act. The country demands honest elections, and one way or another they’ll get them.
(kunstler.com)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Any long-term improvements where adults will be allowed to re-take the reins will most likely require citizens of good character operating outside of the existing political machines. And that will most likely be a long slog through the muck of collapse and rebirth, and that process can go so many different ways the odds are slim we end up with anything resembling a Republic on the other side…
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Training for New ICE Agents Is 'Deficient' and 'Broken,' Whistle-Blower Says
Mexican Forces Say They Tracked El Mencho to Cabin by Following His Lover
Canada Presses OpenAI for Answers on Mass Shooter's Chatbot Use
Iran Students Protest for Second Day Despite State Crackdown
Iran Turns to Digital Surveillance Tools to Track Down Protesters
The Bad Bunny Effect: Dance Without Fear
AN INTEGRAL PART of totalitarian control is the attack on critical and independent thought. The appeal to facts is substituted for the appeal to reason. No reason can sanction a regime that uses the greatest productive apparatus man has ever created in the interest of an increasing restriction on human satisfactions—no reason except the fact that the economic system can be retained in no other way.
— Herbert Marcuse
ALAN GINSBERG
Allen Ginsberg stood in a small San Francisco gallery in October 1955 and began reading a poem so raw that one listener later said, “The room felt like it had been electrically shocked.”
The poem was Howl.
The location was the Six Gallery. About 100 people were packed inside. Among them were young writers, artists, and a few curious outsiders. No one expected the reading to change American literature.
Then Ginsberg started.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…”
The poem didn’t hold back. It described mental illness, addiction, sexuality, police raids, and the emotional wreckage of postwar America. The language was explicit. The anger was direct.
When he finished, the room was silent for a moment.
Then the audience erupted.
But the real explosion came after publication.
In 1956, City Lights Books printed Howl and Other Poems. Within months, U.S. Customs seized shipments arriving from the printer in England. Soon after, San Francisco police arrested publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti and charged him with distributing obscene material.
The case went to court in 1957.
Prosecutors argued the poem had no social value. The defense called literary experts who testified that the work reflected the emotional reality of a generation shaped by war, conformity, and fear.
The trial wasn’t just about one poem.
It was about whether modern literature could speak honestly about subjects America preferred to keep hidden.
Judge Clayton Horn ruled in favor of the defense.
Howl was not obscene. It had “redeeming social importance.”
The decision became a landmark for free expression in American publishing.
After the trial, sales surged. The book that authorities tried to suppress became one of the defining works of the Beat Generation, eventually selling more than a million copies.
Ginsberg never presented Howl as a polished literary exercise.
He called it a confession.
Years later, he explained his approach simply:
“I wrote it because I needed to tell the truth of what I saw.”
Allen Ginsberg did not become influential by writing safely.
He became influential because a poem that shocked a room of 100 people forced a courtroom, and then a country, to decide whether honesty itself could be illegal.
I GUESS IT’S IMPORTANT to take it all the way back to having dinner in Aspen with Jim Salter, a novelist who had sort of a continental style. It was one of those long European dinners with lots of wine, and Salter said something like, “Well, the Derby’s coming up. Aren’t you going to be there?” And I thought, well, I’ll be damned. That’s a good idea.
I was working at the time for Warren Hinkle at Scanlon’s magazine. So I immediately called Hinkle and said, “I have a wonderful idea, we must do the derby. It’s the greatest spectacle the country can produce.” It was 3:30 in the morning or something like that, but Hinkle got right into it. By that time I’d learned to hate photographers; I still do. I can’t stand to work with them. So I said we’ve got to get an illustrator for this, and I had Pat Oliphant in mind. Hinkle said fine, you know, do it.
In an hour’s time the whole thing was settled. Oliphant wasn’t available, but Ralph Steadman was coming over on his first trip to the U.S. and it was all set up that I would go to Louisville and do the advance work, and Ralph would meet me there later.
I think I took off the next day. The whole thing took less than 24 hours. I got there and of course found that the place was jammed, there were no rooms and it was out of the question to get a press pass. The deadline had been three months earlier. It took me about two days to get two whole press kits. I’m not sure exactly how I did it. I traded off the outrage, which was so gross, that somebody from a thing called Scanlon, which we told them was an Irish magazine famous all over the world, was sending a famous European artist to illustrate the derby for the British Museum, weird stuff like that. They agreed to give me two of everything except passes to the clubhouse and the drunk tank—I mean the blue-blood drunk tank at the center of the clubhouse. That’s where Goldwater and all the movie stars and those people sit. The best seats in the house. They wouldn’t give us those. So I think we stole those.
In any case, we got total access to everything, including a heavy can of mace…Now this is bad, this is ugly. The press box is on the roof, directly over the governor’s box. And I had this can of mace, I’m not sure why…maybe for arguments; mace is a very efficient way of ending arguments. So I’d been fondling the can in my pocket, but we couldn’t find any use for it—nobody threatened me. I was kind of restless. Then just before the derby started we were standing in the front row of the press box, up on the roof, and just for the hell of it I blasted the thing about three times about 100 feet straight down to the governor’s box. Then I grabbed Ralph and said let’s get out of here. Nobody maces the governor in the press box. It’s not done. It’s out of the question. I have no idea what the hell went on in the box when the stuff hit because we took off. That was sort of the end of the story.
About two days later. Ralph had all the drawings done, and I stayed on to write the story, but I couldn’t get much done. That goddamned Kent State thing happened the Monday after the derby; that was all I could think of for a while. So I finally flew up to New York, and that’s when the real fear started. Most of the magazine was either printed or on the press out in San Francisco—except for my story, which was the lead story, which was also the cover story, and I was having at the time what felt to me like a terminal writer’s block, whatever the hell that means.
I would lie in the bathtub at this weird hotel. I had a suite with everything I wanted—except I couldn’t leave. After three days of not writing more than two pages, this kind of anxiety/depression syndrome builds up, and it really locks you up. They were sending copy boys and copy girls and people down every hour to see what I had done, and the pressure began to silently build like a dog whistle kind of scream, you know. You couldn’t hear it but it was everywhere.
After the third day of that horrible lockup, I’d lie in the tub for three hours in the morning drinking White Horse scotch out of the bottle—just lying in the tub, feeling like, “Well, I got away with it for a while, but this time I’ve pushed it too far.” But there was no alternative; something had to go in.
Finally I just began to tear the pages out of my notebooks since I write constantly in the notebooks and draw things, and they were legible. But they were hard to fit in the telecopier. We began to send just torn pages. When I first sent one down with the copy boy, I thought the phone was going to ring any minute, with some torrent of abuse from whoever was editing the thing in the New York office. I just sort of sat back and watched TV.
I was waiting for the shit to hit the fan….But almost immediately the copy boy was back and wanted more. And I thought, “Ah, ha, what’s this?” Here’s the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe they’re crazy, but why worry? I think I actually called Hinkle in San Francisco and asked him if he wanted any more pages and he said, “Oh, yeah. It’s wonderful stuff…wonderful.’’ So I just began to tear the fucking things out. And sometimes I would have to write handwritten inserts—I just gave up on the typewriter-sending page after page right out of the notebook, and of course Hinkle was happy as 12 dogs. But I was full of grief and shame; I thought this was the end, it was the worst hole I had ever gotten into. And I always had been almost pretty good about making deadlines—scaring people to death, but making them. This time I made it, but in what I considered the foulest and cheapest way, like Oakland’s unclean touchdown against Miami—off balance…they did it all wrong…six seconds to go…but it worked.
They printed it word for word, even with the pauses, thoughts and jagged stuff like that. And I felt nice that I hadn’t sunk the magazine by failing to get the story done right, and I slunk back to Colorado and said oh fuck, when it comes out I’m going to take a tremendous beating from a lot of people.
But exactly the opposite happened. Just as soon as the thing came out, I started getting calls and letters. People were calling it a tremendous breakthrough in journalism, a stroke of genius. And I thought, What in the shit?
One of the letters came from Bill Cardozo, who was the editor of the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine at the time. I’d heard him use the word Gonzo when I covered the New Hampshire primary in ’68 with him. It meant sort of “crazy,” “off-the-wall’’—a phrase that I always associate with Oakland. But Cardozo said something like, “Forget all the shit you’ve been writing, this is it; this is pure Gonzo. If this is a start, keep rolling.” Gonzo. Yeah, of course. That’s what I was doing all the time. Of course, I might be crazy.
— Hunter Thompson, 1977
ART IV: REMEMBERING GWENDOLYN BROOKS
For David J. Steiner, artist and filmmaker, December 26, 2016
art has its own language, name, and questions,
has clear talk, justice, and motivation.
art does not create itself,
does not escape the daily windstorms,
fires, gun blasts, ignorant mumblings,
or cruel misrepresentations of the
rulers and their gatekeepers.
artists and their art are liberated souls
forever sprinting and searching in the world.
they do not see borders, walls, or can’t do possibilities,
and when confronted with such,
they quietly and questionably,
loudly and deliberately—with
pens, paper, computers, film, cameras, paint,
canvas, phones, creative ideas, and feet—
run toward fear
without hesitation or limiting doubts,
with good and loving intentions, struggle
to move all of us into the yes community of
life-centered people
as directed by their art, conscience, and culture
while intentionally
advancing quality definitions of a
kind-based civilization and world.
— Haki R. Madhubuti (2023)
BLOCKADES SHUT DOWN MEXICAN HIGHWAYS
Farmworkers send a message to Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum
by David Bacon
San Quintin, Baja California (2/15/26) — In the dead of winter, Baja California's Transpeninsular Highway is the road strawberries take on their journey from the San Quintin Valley north to U.S. supermarkets. For a week this January, though, as waiting consumers froze in midwest cities, the huge semitrailers loaded with fruit ground to a halt, blockaded three hours south of the border by the people whose labor produces the harvest.
Every morning for over a week, hundreds of workers threw tires and traffic cones down on the highway's asphalt, and the trucks stopped. After sunset, huge crowds of men, women and children, dressed in the frayed clothing of field workers, milled around bonfires. The glowing red lights of the huge vehicles, lined up motionless into the distance, lit their blockade.…
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2026/02/blockades-shut-down-mexican-highways.html
THE TRUE HORROR of existence is not the fear of death, but the fear of life. It is the fear of waking up each day to face the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same pain. It is the fear that nothing will ever change, that you are trapped in a cycle of suffering that you cannot escape. And in that fear, there is a desperation, a longing for something, anything, to break the monotony, to bring meaning to the endless repetition of days.
— Albert Camus
THE MAN at the piano
plays a song
he didn’t write
sings words
that aren’t his
upon a piano
he doesn’t own
While
people at tables
eat, drink and talk
The man at the piano
finishes
to no applause
Then
begins to play
a new song
he didn’t write
begins to sing
words
that aren’t his
upon a piano
that isn’t his
As the
people at the tables
continue to
eat, drink and talk
When
he finishes
to no applause
he announces,
over the mike, that he is
going to take
a ten minute break
He goes
back to the men’s
room
enters
a toilet booth
bolts the door
sits down
pulls out a joint
lights up
He’s glad
he’s not
at the piano
And the
people at the tables
eating, drinking and talking
are glad
he isn’t there
either
This is
the way it goes
almost everywhere
with everybody and everything
as fiercely
in the hinterlands
the
black swan burns
— Charles Bukowski (1979)
Note to Mark Currier; the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances is clearly stated in our Constitution. Why do you describe this activity as hate? By doing so I would classify your actions as un American, or perhaps you are merely trying to bully people into silence as they attempt to face down tyranny. I think of the people out on the streets as Patriots in the finest sense of the word.
I agree, wholeheartedly.
+1
Expressing hate is constitutional. Is Mark Currier indicating otherwise?
LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL, see above, was an answer to someone who asked what prompted me to write the following:
Let it be. Let it be me. Let it go. Let it snow.
Let it bleed. Lemme in. Let the good times roll. Let it begin with me.
Let bygones be bygones. Let us pray. Let him speak now or forever hold his peace.
Let there be light. Let sleeping dogs lie. Let the chips fall where they may.
Let it ride. Let loose. Let fly. Let them eat cake. Let it all hang out. Let no good deed go unpunished.
Let justice be done though the heavens fall.
Let me be clear. Let the record show. Let nature take its course.
Let it be known. Let ‘er rip. Let there be peace on earth. Let me entertain you. Let the right one in. Let the games begin.
Let freedom ring. Let the people decide, then let my people go.
Let’s get it on. Let’s dance. Let’s spend the night together. Let the sunshine in. Let’s call the whole thing off.
Nice, Marco, thanks.
And John Fremont’s fund worked well, met the goal. That is good. Seems like every week or so another good soul from our community passes on.