Notices by Chuck Darwin (cdarwin@c.im)

Trump’s likely casus belli for an attack on Iran
– which would be the largest US intervention since the Iraq war
– is fraught with contradictions,
and his top advisers have been left to cover for him as the White House makes the case for intervention.

In his State of the Union address this week, Trump alleged that Iran posed a direct threat to the US
and that the country was “working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America”.
But that claim has not been backed up with evidence by the White House or the Pentagon,
and US intelligence reports from just last year say that it would take Iran 10 years to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the US.
A public US defense intelligence agency assessment from 2025 says that Iran could use its space-launch vehicles to “develop a militarily-viable ICBM by 2035 should Tehran decide to pursue the capability”.
But that threat to the US homeland, as laid out in the document, pales in comparison to the ones already presented by Russia and China, as well as other hostile states like North Korea.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/27/trump-iran-war-evidence?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Department of Homeland Security was caught lying Thursday about ⚠️ abandoning a blind refugee who was later found dead on the street.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed that the Tim Hortons in Buffalo
where federal agents left Nurul Amin Shah Alam,
a 56-year-old Burmese refugee who was blind and spoke no English,
was “determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address.”

Video footage reviewed by The Washington Post, however, showed that the location had already closed, except for the drive-thru.

In video footage released by IP, Shah Alam could be seen walking past the drive-thru window,
then pacing by the locked front doors,
before he eventually wandered across the parking lot toward a Dollar Tree.

The Border Patrol agents drove away after one minute.

Shah Alam was blind and spoke no English.

He was found dead on Tuesday

https://newrepublic.com/post/207151/dhs-caught-lying-blind-refugee-agents-left-die-buffalo

American businesses and consumers absorbed nearly 90% of the 2025 tariffs’ economic burden.

The researchers weren’t working from theory: They tracked actual transaction-level import price data

and found that prices paid by U.S. importers rose nearly one-for-one with tariff rates.

These results confirm what research on the 2018-19 tariffs already established and echoes other studies of the last year.

The bottom line is that, faced with tariffs,
foreign exporters don’t really cut their prices to cushion the blow.

Corporations don’t quietly absorb these hits.

The costs are passed on, one way or another, just as the textbooks predict.
https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is-paying-for-the-2025-u-s-tariffs/

Death Valley and parts of southern California have erupted in #wildflowers thanks to record rain that helped deliver spectacular blooms.

In the famously arid national park,
the rare display has covered miles of the landscape in vibrant shades of yellow and purple.
Park officials announced on Sunday that Death Valley was experiencing an “above-average bloom year”
that is nearing levels of a #superbloom, a phenomenon that typically occurs once a decade.
The area most recently had a superbloom of millions of flowers in 2016,
which can only occur in “perfect conditions” with “well-spaced rainfall” and mild temperatures, the park said in a statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/25/death-valley-wildflowers-superbloom?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Checks and balances aren't working under Trump

The decline in faith is seen across the partisan spectrum,
with Democrats and independents swinging 45 and 34 points respectively since then.

Among Republicans, who control the White House and have majorities in both chambers of Congress,
there's also been a significant
19 percentage-point drop in confidence in the system.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/checks-and-balances-arent-working-under-trump-growing-majority-says

The first AI-assisted drive on another planet:

Claude helped NASA’s Perseverance rover travel four hundred meters on Mars.

https://www.anthropic.com/features/claude-on-mars

WATCH LIVE:
Gov. Spanberger delivers Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-gov-spanberger-delivers-democratic-response-to-trumps-state-of-the-union

New whistleblower documents detail substantial cuts by the Trump administration to the training requirements for new immigration officers.
Among the cuts are the elimination of practical exams, use of force and legal training courses, and an overall reduction in training time, contrary to an official’s testimony to Congress earlier this month.

The documents, provided to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) by whistleblowers from the Department of Homeland Security, were publicly revealed ahead of a forum Monday with congressional Democrats — the third in recent weeks probing what the members view as abusive and illegal tactics used by federal agents.
Lauren Bis, deputy assistant public affairs secretary at Homeland Security, said no training hours have been cut.
“Our officers receive extensive firearm training, are taught de-escalation tactics, and receive 4th and 5th Amendment comprehensive instruction,” she said. “The training does not stop after graduation from the academy. Recruits are put on a rigorous on-the-job training program that is tracked and monitored.”

Earlier this month, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons testified to Congress that while the agency had reduced the number of training days to 42 from 75, “We went from five days a week to six days a week. Five days a week was five eight-hour days and we’ve gone to six 12-hour days.”
But the documents appear to contradict Lyons’ testimony.
“The schedules reflected on these documents indicate that current ICE recruits receive nearly 250 fewer hours of training than previous cohorts of recruits,” according to a 90-page memorandum from minority staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Blumenthal is the top Democrat on that committee.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-02-23/ice-whistleblower-documents-reveal-deep-cuts-to-training-program

A rare desert plant in Nevada,
called threecorner milkvetch,
✅ increased from just 12 known plants to 93
after a large solar power project was built nearby.
💥Rather than clearing everything away, the project was designed in a way that allowed the plant not only to survive, but to grow in greater numbers than before
@jblue

https://www.earth.com/news/plant-species-threecorner-milkvetch-near-extinction-rebounded-solar-power-project/

John Oliver discusses ICE’s repeated atrocities over the past months and explores the massive entity overseeing it all:
the Department of Homeland Security.
How it started, who runs it, and how many hats Kristi Noem owns.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-KDUOHEZFk

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bo-french-deport-native-americans/

The Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs on Friday,
handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.
The 6-3 decision centers on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law -- including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.

It’s the first major piece of Trump’s broad agenda to come squarely before the nation’s highest court,
which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.

The majority found that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs.
“The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-tariffs-trump-0485fcda30a7310501123e4931dba3f9

@TheConversationUS

Republican billionaires who funded a fascist movement ... karma is coming.

All these donors to Project 2025 have earned themselves RICO investigations, plus Hatch Act, FARA & trading with the enemy hearings.

#FFFO
Fund a Fascist & Find Out.

-- Nicole Parsons

https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/project-2025-trump-mapped-how-6-billionaire-family-fortunes-fund-climate-denial/

Eight skiers who went missing after an avalanche swept the Castle Peak area of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California
have been confirmed dead.

One skier is still unaccounted for, while six others, who had been stranded, have since been rescued.

The avalanche, which now ranks among the deadliest single avalanches on record in the US, occurred about 10 miles (16km) north of Lake Tahoe at about 11.30am on Tuesday,
engulfing a group of backcountry skiers – including four guides and 11 clients.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/18/missing-skiers-avalanche-lake-tahoe?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Karoline Leavitt defended the ongoing development of an immigration concentration camp in her home state of New Hampshire today.

The possible construction in Merrimack, New Hampshire, has caused controversy in the state,
with the Republican governor Kelly Ayotte saying that she initially received limited information from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) about the facility
– which many local organizers and lawmakers have opposed.

Ayotte’s office published plans of the facility last week, after ICE acting director Todd Lyons claimed he had worked with the governor’s office
– Ayotte denied that the agency had shared the requisite documents.

The governor is now facing pressure to prevent the federal government to expand its detention footprint and signing off on the facility.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/feb/18/us-politics-latest-news-updates-donald-trump-colbert-cbs?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-699607178f087f0db00d3a81#block-699607178f087f0db00d3a81

The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupted on Sunday,

sending lava fountains, ash and smoke into the air.

The US Geological Survey said it was the 42nd episode of lava fountains since the current series of intermittent eruptions began in December 2024.

The plume from the latest eruption reached more than 10,000 metres (35,000 feet), according to the National Weather Service

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/feb/16/hawaiis-kilauea-volcano-erupts-video?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Thanks a lot, AI:

AI companies have bought out Western Digital's storage capacity for 2026. It's only February

Hard drives are already sold out for the entire year, says Western Digital
https://mashable.com/article/ai-hard-drive-hdd-shortages-western-digital-sold-out

The United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.

That’s the practical result of the Trump administration’s yearlong parade of regulatory rollbacks,
capped on Thursday by its killing of the “endangerment finding,”
the scientific determination that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases because of the threat to human health.

“The U.S. no longer has emission standards of any meaning,”
said Margo T. Oge, who served as the E.P.A.’s top vehicle emissions regulator under three presidents and has since advised both automakers and environmental groups.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/climate/endangerment-finding-auto-emissions-regulations.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

'The United States is now a hostile and potentially predatory nation’, says conservative historian
Robert Kagan

In a new column in The Atlantic, Robert Kagan writes that Donald Trump "managed in one year to destroy the American order "

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/12/tv/video/amanpour-kagan-trump-world-order

From claims that Jews kill children to make matzo, to accusations that immigrants in Ohio are devouring neighbors’ pets,

the myth of the blood libel is a nightmare that never ends

https://www.openmindmag.org/articles/the-worst-story-ever-told