Notices by Karl Auerbach (karlauerbach@sfba.social)

There is a risk, a real risk, that because of California's "jungle" primary system that there could be no D candidate - yes, no D candidate at all - on the November ballot to replace the term-limited Gavin Newsom.

The D's need to focus - some D candidates need to drop out so that the primary vote is not split and thus allow the two top R's to take the two spots on the November general election ballot.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/02/18/hilton-swalwell-lead-california-governors-race-in-new-independent-poll/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

1/n Ours is a Federal system in which there are distinct, but partially overlapping, sovereignties, each supreme in its sphere.

It has long been held that "police powers" are the realm of the state's supreme role. Indeed we see this when the Federal government could not even prosecute murders of protesters during the '60s//70's and had to resort to prosecutions based on Federal power (under 14th amendment) to enforce civil rights.

Here we have a gang of goons - an actual organization with an org chart with Kristi Noem at the top, which is openly pursuing violations of state powers - the power to pursue criminal sanctions against murders, kidnappers, etc. And also of conspiracy to murder, kidnap, etc.

So, here we have the Fed's blocking a state - Minnesota - from exercising its Constitutional, and supreme, authority, to redress these crimes.

So what would I do about it... (next post in this series)

"FBI won’t share Alex Pretti shooting evidence, Minnesota authorities say"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/fbi-alex-pretti-minnesota-authorities-information-sharing

The headline below is wildly incorrect.

It should read:

"D's cave, again. Allow ICE to continue".

It isn't just trump who is TACO, it is the D-party.

By passing most of the funding the D's have given away their leverage to affect things in the future. Schumer could publish a book titled "The Art of Losing".

I do not think the D party knows the word "No".

"Deal struck to keep government funded, Trump and Democrats say"

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/29/shutdown-spending-deal-trump-00756372

The article below reminds me of a play that I crewed on:

In the play the Earth is taken over by space aliens who eat people. Earth people don't like this. The aliens try to fix things by hiring a PR firm to improve their public image. But the PR firm turns out to be a front for Earth-people resistance. And it went from there.

So here we have a couple of brothers - who have so much hubris that they are effectively space aliens in relation to the rest of us - who do bad things and then hire a PR firm to try to improve their image (and influence the jury in their criminal trial.)

"Brothers Charged With Sex Trafficking Wage Campaign to Shame Accusers"

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/nyregion/alexander-brothers-public-relations-campaign.html

@annmlipton I look forward to reading your lecture.

I've long been thinking that we need to revisit our concept of "corporation". After Milton Friedman's assertion - one with with I have *major* disagreements - that the goal of corporate management is to "increase shareholder value" - corporations have ceased being vehicles for the merger of capital, innovating, and management expertise, all under an state granted incentive of limited liability and the convenience of a unified legal identity.

After Citizens United, corporations have become to become not merely never-dying dynastic accumulations of wealth, but also means through which a few hired managers - not even the board of directors, and much less the shareholders - can leverage the assets and wealth of the corporation into an intense political force.

(I am rather intrigued by the state level "Montana Plan" as well as my constitutional plan - https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/redressing_corp_power/ )

It is pretty clear that ICE/DHS are intentionally trying to elicit a violent, possibly armed, response to these violent acts.

The ICE-gang is desiring this because then el cheato will invoke the insurrection act. That will, in turn, open the gates for the goons to really start breaking heads and for blood to flow in the streets.

My guess is that some ICE goon, somewhere, is going to get shot by a sniper or protester within a month, if not sooner.

I expect February to begin a true rain of maga terror.

(And, of course, we will see Noem posing on an advancing armored troop carrier - wearing a tight t-shirt, bullet-resistant vest, and maga-face - with an M16 or M4.)

"Anti-ICE protester blinded by federal agent during demonstration in Santa Ana, family says"

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-01-13/socal-protester-permanently-blinded-by-dhs-agent-family-says

I've been beaten by the LAPD. I lived in Berkeley in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I've been tear gassed and watched police push people backwards off of highway overpasses. I knew and understood many Black Panthers.

I am sick and tired of Kumbaya songs. I am sick and tired of turn-the-other-cheek reactions to current affairs in the US.

But I am also a lawyer, sworn to peaceful methods.

What do I do?

What strikes me is the age old method of ostracism - practiced in ancient Athens, written about in plays like Lysistrata, and rendered into strong force by churches through the practice of excommunication.

We ought to perform civil excommunication on ICE agents - do not sell or rent products to them in stores, do not rent hotel rooms to them, do not fund them, treat them like modern day lepers. Businesses should make it clear that they will never be hired for a job. Do not adopt Jesus' policy of acceptance of them.

Spread their names so that we may cut them off from society.

I live in California.

California was extorted from Mexico by the so-called "Mexican War" or 1846.

President, US Grant - yes that Grant from the Civil War - said that the 1846 Mexican War was the most unjust war he had ever seen. And Grant was right, it was a pretext war to take land from Mexico.

So I am wondering when Mexico will do a snatch and grab on El Cheato and take over the running of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Nevada and Utah.

Seems only fair.

This is

a) a violation of our US laws (and Constitution) regarding war-like acts.

b) going to further inflame and fuel the belief among Muslims that the US is pursuing a new christian-religious crusade. The long term damage this will cause to the US is immense.

In other words, el cheato is violating US law and putting US interests (and citizens) in considerable danger.

"US carries out strikes on Nigeria targeting Islamic State militants, Trump says"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/25/us-carries-out-airstrikes-against-islamic-state-terrorist-scum-in-nigeria-trump-says

We just got an "imminent threat alert" for tornadoes and telling us to go to the basement.

Tornado - in Santa Cruz? And who here has a basement?

I've been railing about the need to restructure SCOTUS for rather a while now. (I've added a couple of URLs after the Guardian opinion link.)

Here is an opinion piece that says something similar.

It adds something that I missed - that SCOTUS and Congress are filled with people who think that if El Cheato goes away that his mess will also go away.

I don't think so. The maga-klan is too deeply embedded into our judiciary and administrative agencies. It's going to take everything from metaphorical dental picks to dynamite to get 'em out.

"It’s time to accept that the US supreme court is illegitimate and must be replaced"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/19/us-supreme-court-legitimacy

"Building A Firewall Around A Radical Supreme Court"

https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/limit-scotus/

"Reformation of the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS)"

https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/scotus-reform/

#SCOTUS

The move of the Oscars to Google's YouTube carries a message that nearly everyone is missing:

Broadcast TV is dying.

This is OK (except that our point-to-point model of media dissemination on the Internet is far from efficient as compared to broadcast radio/TV.)

Note that the right wing in the US has been busy trying to buy up broadcast assets - both radio (AM mostly, but some FM) and TV.

That's like making an investment now in wagon wheel and buggy whips.

The switch to ATSC 3.0 will slowly obsolete many of the TV's that are presently in service. And my guess is that those who watch broadcast TV (and radio) these days tend to be people who will be the last to switch to the new technology, if at all.

In other words, the move of the Oscars to Youtube suggests that the right-wing investment in broadcast media is only of short term value.

(Personally I'd like to see good broadcast tech - for efficiency - and return to home DVRs.)

@amszmidt It was not El Cheato who has so badly twisted the 2nd Amendment, it is SCOTUS that did that dirty dead.

There was so very much that was wrong with the Heller decision. Not only did that decision erase words from the US Constitution, it also created a fake history about how the US has an entire legal backstory based on pre-1776 UK practice, and utterly forgetting that the great majority of the US came from France, Spain, Mexico, Russia, and the Dole Pineapple company rather than from the UK.

(BTW, our SCOTUS started erasing words from the US Constitution when it declared war on the 14th Amendment shortly after the US civil war. For instance, check the mayhem they committed on the "privileges or immunities" clause of the 14th amendment.

I would support a repeal of the 2nd amendment,

Farmers get tariff kickbacks, but the rest of us get to pick up the cost... And Congress, which is supposed to control our national spending, sits silently as it is emasculated.

"Trump to unveil $12 billion aid package for farmers hit by trade war"

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-unveil-12-billion-aid-farmers-hit-by-trade-war-white-house-official-says-2025-12-08/

To my eyes, this is an act of war by the US upon the nation of Venezuela. (Not to mention the blurring of GPS and the sinking of boats by the US.)

If indeed a state of war now exists (to borrow a phrase from FDR's speech to Congress after Pearl Harbor) then Venezuela could be anticipated to wage war against the US - endangering US people (including tourists) everywhere in the world.

El Cheato and Whiskey Pete are getting the US in Vietnam Part II.

"Trump says airspace above and around Venezuela should be considered closed"

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-says-airspace-above-surrounding-venezuela-be-closed-its-entirety-2025-11-29/

Yikes, this is about as Nazi as Nazi can get... El Cheato is demanding to know who is "jewish" and who is not.

"Federal Suit Seeking Names of Some Jewish Employees at Penn Sparks Backlash"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/us/eeoc-university-pennsylvania-antisemitism-jewish.html

@elfin @ai6yr @GhostOnTheHalfShell The first time I ran into Oracle was way back around 1981. I was at Interactive Systems (the first Unix company - which was bought by Sun and thus is now part of Oracle, uggh.) At that time there were several competing database companies, Oracle among them.

The Oracle people came to us and very forcefully demanded that we turn our Unix-on-VAX/VMS product in a way to make Oracle outperform its competitors. We considered that cheating.

Through the years I've watched employees at Oracle be belittled (or worse) by their management, with no protection of the employees from the top.

And I personally had a company (that I founded) illegally driven into the ground via an Ellison acolyte. (It was fun a few years later when that acolyte went up against Ellison and ended up getting brutally squished by Ellison.)

I had a condo in Redwood Shores - now home to Oracle - glad I moved away from there.

@ai6yr @GhostOnTheHalfShell @elfin When I was at Wells Fargo I bought a lot of computers and communications gear - so I was at the receiving end of many a sales pitch.

There were some companies, and their sales team, who were the opposite of Oracle. These folks were honest, helpful, and mutually supportive of one another - and also of my issues and needs. My memory suggests that one of those better companies was Digital Equipment (DEC).

On the other hand I've come across companies that were cocaine riddled hell-holes. (I have in mind a particular company whose ethical/moral standards can be represented by a guy who always had white powder on his lip, hit on all the women [including my wife], and told his own wife he was leaving her within minutes after she gave birth to their child. As fate would have it, this guy came, years later, to beg my wife, then a company president, for a job - he did not get it.)

@whitequark Another area where broken regex can sneak into DNS is in NAPTR records. (Fortunately those are not used very often.)

The burden should those go wrong would tend to be more distributed among caching and resolving servers, so less noticed. But the risk of a regex munching through heavy processing loads of greedy and non greedy matches is still there.