Hello All – Donald Trump is clearly crazy. The more that he says and does, the clearer this is. In a better world, his friends would ease him into retirement and find him some help. In our “real world,” the 25th Amendment to the Constitution has a path to replace a president when disabled, but it requires a decision by the Vice-President and a majority of the Cabinet to put the transition in motion. Short of a debilitating stroke, it is hard to see Trump’s loyalists, so intimidated and brain-washed, doing any such thing. Even a Democratic sweep in the November elections would not in itself rid us of this tyrant. Can we find another path?
Amid all the bad news, I think we should pay attention to the strengthening of the opposition to Trump and to any conservative plans coming from the Democratic Party leadership. A majority of self-identified Democrats now consider “socialism” a reasonable course to take. A majority of Democrats also reject support for Israel’s genocide in Palestine, and a majority of all Americans do not want another war. Led by the stalwarts of Minneapolis, our large cities are building strong networks of self-help and neighborly defense, the vital step necessary if we are to think serious about “general strikes.” Since the Civil Rights movement, I can’t think of a time when “ordinary Americans” are showing so much political courage. Let’s build on this and keep moving forward.
SOME ESSAYS ILLUMINATING THIS WEEK
The Minneapolis Strategy for Fighting ICE Is Worth Studying
An interview with several organizers, Jacobin Magazine [February 2026]
---- In Minneapolis, years of robust labor and community organizing set the stage for the fierce pushback against federal immigration agents’ aggressive invasion. Their experience may soon be relevant to cities elsewhere in the US facing incursions from ICE. … On January 23, tens of thousands of Minnesotans braved subzero temperatures and took to the streets as part of a call for “No Work, No School, No Shopping” in protest of the brutal and deadly occupation of thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents across the state. Polling suggests hundreds of thousands in the state stayed home from work in response to that call. Dan Denvir, host of the Jacobin Radio podcast The Dig, sat down with three organizing leaders behind the January 23 action — Emilia González Avalos, Greg Nammacher, and JaNaé Bates Imari — to discuss how that day came to be, and how their fight continues. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. [Read More]
On the Road to Nuclear War
By Lawrence Wittner, Peace Action NYS (Albany) [February 5, 2026]
---- On January 27, 2026, the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of their famous “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds to midnight―the closest setting, since the appearance of the clock in 1946, to nuclear annihilation. This grim appraisal has impressive evidence to support it. The New Start Treaty, the last of the major nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties between the United States and Russia, expired on February 5, without any serious attempt to replace it. New Start’s demise enables both nations, which possess about 86 percent of the world’s 12,321 nuclear weapons, to move beyond the strict limits set by the treaty on the number of their strategic nuclear weapons (the most powerful, most devastating kind), thus enhancing the ability of their governments to reduce the world to a charred wasteland. Actually, a nuclear arms race has been gathering steam for years, as nearly all the governments of the nine nuclear powers (which, in addition to Russia and the United States, include China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) scramble to upgrade existing weapons systems and add newer versions. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “New START expires. Now what?” by Greg Dwyer, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [February 4, 2026] [Link]; “The Military’s AI Strategy Threatens Everything We Love,” by Chris Jeske, CODEPINK Milwaukee [February 5, 2026] [Link]; and (Video) “A New Nuclear Arms Race Could “Spiral” as Last U.S.-Russia Treaty Expires,” from Democracy Now! [February 4, 2026] [Link].
NEWS NOTES
The Global Sumud Flotilla has announced a new Gaza aid mission. Described on Democracy Now! as “the largest flotilla yet,” the mission to Gaza intends to depart from Barcelona on March 29. To read more about past flotillas and who/how many will be joining the next flotilla, go here.
The team at Alliance for a Nuclear Free New York invites us to an online forum, “Why Nuclear Power is NOT a Climate Solution.” It will take place on Friday, February 13, at 4 pm. They say, “Leading experts will present current evidence that expanding nuclear power in New York and nationally will actually make climate change worse, not better.” Pre-registration is required; to sign up, go here.
AIPAC’s millions helped put Reps Jamaal Bowman and Corie Bush out of Congress in 2004, but hatred for Israel’s genocide in Gaza seems to be an obstacle for an AIPAC repeat in the 2006 congressional primary season. This useful article from The New York Times describes AIPAC’s failure in a New Jersey congressional race and surveys the tough sledding for pro-genocide AIPAC-endorsed candidates in other races.
A lunchtime outing with grandson Julian today emboldens me to share some breaking scientific news. While Rousseau claimed that “Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains,” “The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle,” in last week’s New York Times informs us that “Man” is born with a sense of humor and an early capacity for a belly-laugh.
MAMDANI AND NEW YORK
Zohran Mamdani: Why I’m Endorsing Kathy Hochul
From The Nation [February 5, 2026]
---- New York City faces budget hardships, an affordability crisis that rages on, and an urgent need for government to deliver. The temptation is to allow difference to turn into distrust. But over the course of our relationship, I have come to trust Governor Hochul as someone willing to engage in an honest dialogue that leads to results. As we face threats from Washington, she has defended our social safety net and protected funding for critical infrastructure projects. …The Governor and I do not agree on everything. We have real differences, particularly when it comes to taxation of the wealthiest, at a moment defined by profound income inequality. I continue to believe that the wealthiest among us can afford to pay just a little bit more. [Read More]
CFOW NUTS & BOLTS
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) The Northwest Yonkers Neighbors for Black Lives Matter holds a Monday afternoon vigil at 5:30 pm at the corner of Warburton Ave and Odell. The CFOW newsletter can be read on Substack, and is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook group. Another Facebook group focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. If you would like to support our work by making a CONTRIBUTION, please make out your check to “Frank Brodhead,” write “CFOW” on the memo line, and send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks.
REWARDS!
This week’s Rewards for stalwart newsletter readers focus on Bad Bunny, today’s half-time performer at the Super Bowl. For those who, like your editor, know NOTHING about Bad Bunny, here is a Bad Bunny tutorial. As in this tutorial, Bad Bunny’s fame is helping to unveil the colonial status of Puerto Rico and all that goes with it.. As for some music, there’s tons of it on-line; choosing almost at random, here are “Where She Goes,” (263 million views) and No me quiero ir de aquí “Una Más” (“I Don’t Want to Leave Here. One More”). Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW WEEKLY READER
FEATURED ARTICLES & ESSAYS
(Video) How to Defeat MAGA Tyranny, Chapters 3 & 4: Social Strikes vs MAGA & Laying the Groundwork
By Jeremy Brecher, Znet [February 6, 2026]
---- As authoritarian politics harden in the United States, familiar channels of resistance are proving dangerously inadequate. Elections are constrained, courts are under siege, and dissent is increasingly met with repression in the streets. In this moment, questions of power — who has it, how it is exercised, and how it can be withdrawn — are no longer abstract. They are immediate and practical. Labor historian and longtime organizer Jeremy Brecher has spent decades grappling with these questions, and in a recent series of reports, culminating in “Social Strikes: Can General Strikes, Mass Strikes, and People Power Uprisings Provide a Last Defense Against MAGA Tyranny?,” he argues that large-scale noncooperation may be one of the few strategies capable of halting an authoritarian slide. [Read More]
Mother Trouble – [Arundhati Roy]
By Vivian Gornick, New York Review of Books [February 26, 2026 issue]
[FB – This is a review of Arundhati Roy’s recent book, Mother Mary Come to Me.]
In her new memoir, Arundhati Roy tries to find the language to grapple with the shadow of her formidable, extraordinary mother.
---- “In those days, women were only allowed the option of cloying virtue—or its affectation…. I watched [my mother] unleash all of herself—her genius, her eccentricity, her radical kindness, her militant courage, her ruthlessness, her generosity, her cruelty, her bullying, her head for business, and her wild, unpredictable temper—with complete abandon….”
---- “Once I learned to protect myself (somewhat) from its soul-crushing meanness, I even grew fascinated by her wrath against motherhood itself. Sometimes the barefaced nakedness of it made me laugh….”
---- “She was my shelter and my storm.”
And there you have Arundhati Roy’s new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, all of it. Well, almost all of it—or maybe just some of it. It’s the kind of book that actually makes a reader think about how a book gets made, especially when all the necessary parts are there but somehow do not seem to get properly knit together. [Read More]
(Video) You Don’t Own Your Narrative Anymore — Naomi Klein and Yanis Varoufakis
From DiEM25 [February 6, 2026]
---- From recent deepfakes using Yanis’ image for viral gain, to his latest police harassment over events from decades ago, the discussion opens onto larger questions Naomi explores in Doppelgänger (identity, imitation, credibility, and what “truth” means when noise travels faster than institutions — and institutions still hold power) before moving on to current affairs and lessons for the left from the tumultuous way 2026 has begun. [See the Program]
(Video) Michael Pollan Says Humanity Is About to Undergo a Revolutionary Change
An interview with Michael Pollan, New York Times [February 7, 2026]
---- One of the reasons people are happy to be less conscious and fill their attention with distractions and drugs is because the mind can be a scary place to visit. We often want to be less aware of what’s going on. There are reasons people avoid going down these rabbit holes. It takes a willingness to risk something. … One of the things Trump has done is occupy a significant chunk of our attention every single day. Our consciousness is being polluted, and protecting ourselves against that at the same time we preserve the ability to act politically is a difficult balancing act. Consciousness is a very precious realm. It’s the realm of our privacy and our freedom to think. So I think we need some kind of consciousness hygiene, particularly at this moment, where this one politician has figured out ways to command our attention. Consciousness is more relevant now than it even was 10 or 20 years ago, as something to think about, protect and nurture. [See the Program]
THE EPSTEIN CRIMES
Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich
By David Enrich, et al., New York Times Magazine [December 16, 2025]
---- For years, rumors swirled about where his wealth came from. A Times investigation reveals the truth of how a college dropout clawed his way to the pinnacle of American finance and society. [Read More]
Breaking the Silencing Machine
By Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency [February 6, 2026]
---- In many ways this society has moved toward a democracy of voices, as people who for their race or gender were shut out of systems of power and possibility – out of jury duty, professions, institutions educational and otherwise – fought to be included. But we still have so far to go, and the right is seeking to roll back these successes. ... What’s most striking about the Epstein case is how hundreds of victims remained unheard for decades while his and his associates’ crime spree continued. The same is true in the cases of Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and countless others less known than these figures. They got away with violent felonies, sometimes with crime sprees spanning decades, because we live in an unequal society where they counted on their victims having little or no access to power, including the power of being heard, believed, having voices that had consequence in the legal system and elsewhere. Often they used tools – including lawyers, threats, and intimidation – that money can buy to keep victims from being heard or from daring to speak, but often others aided them because of their status, power, and gender. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “The Epstein Files: Blackmail, power, and geopolitical shadows,” by Jasim Al-Azzawi, Middle East Monitor [February 3, 2026] (Epstein and Israel) [Link]; and “Noam Chomsky’s wife responds to Epstein controversy,” from Aaron Maté [February 7, 2026] Link].
THE WAR ON PALESTINE
Like a Gambler Who Lost His Fortune, Israel Wants Another War
By Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz [Israel] [February 1, 2026]
---- The reopening of the Gaza-Egypt border is supposed to mark a new beginning. Phase two of the American plan begins. Is that indeed the case? Israel will do all it can to sabotage it. Perhaps 30 deaths in one a day aren’t enough for that, but they provide a fitting backdrop for the “peace plan.” Hamas completed its part of the plan by releasing all the hostages, while Israel did not stop killing for even a single day. It’s no longer only the bloodlust and the thirst for revenge, that have not stopped since October 7. Now it’s the desire to disrupt Donald Trump’s plan, in order to return to war. Amos Harel reported in Haaretz Friday that the government’s policy is based on the hope that the Trump plan will crash and the U.S. president will give Israel the green light to recapture Gaza. That’s what Israel wants. [Read More]
The West Bank
What is Israel planning for Palestinians in the West Bank?
By Sania Faisal El-Husseini, Middle East Monitor [February 8, 2026]
---- Israeli policies and measures directed at Palestinians in the West Bank have steadily intensified since the current right-wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu came to power at the end of 2022. These policies became more explicit in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks the following year, and increasingly actionable with Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, a shift openly welcomed and endorsed by Netanyahu, members of his government, and their political base. While these measures are not detached from the structural policies that Israeli authorities have gradually entrenched in the West Bank over past decades, their recent evolution has brought them together into a coherent system. Taken as a whole, they outline Israel’s emerging vision for the future of the West Bank, a vision that is in no way separable from how it envisages the future of Gaza. A series of major aggressive and threatening measures that have marked Israel’s policies toward Palestinians and their land in the West Bank over the past two years point to a deliberate strategy, one that lays bare the occupation’s objectives for the territory. [Read More]
ALSO OF INTEREST - “A Palestinian Family With Four Children Lives Here. For Israeli Settlers, It’s a Trash Dump,” by Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, Ha’aretz Magazine [Israel] [February 7, 2026] [Link]; and “Israeli Settlers, Military Accelerate Violent Expulsion of Palestinians Off Their Land in the West Bank,” by Zena Tahhan, Drop Site News [February 7, 2026] [Link].
WAR ON IRAN?
Iran’s Despair Is U.S. Policy
By Trita Parsi, Foreign Policy in Focus [February 4, 2026]
---- Something unexpected has begun to surface in the familiar rhythm of Iranian protests: Alongside the chants for freedom and an end to clerical rule, there is now a growing call for U.S. military intervention. What only a year ago would have been considered by many as treason can now openly be heard not only among exiled opposition figures but also from inside the country itself. Whether this sentiment represents a desperate minority, a growing plurality, or merely the loudest echo of despair is difficult to measure. But its very emergence marks a profound shift, suggesting that for some Iranians, desperation now runs so deep that the fear of foreign bombs is being eclipsed by the hopelessness of life in the Islamic Republic. … Iranians have been trapped between a repressive theocracy and external actors whose policies were deliberately designed to create despondency. The irony is stark: The same voices who helped close off avenues for peaceful dismantlement of the theocracy now present themselves as saviors, offering foreign military intervention as the only path to deliverance—an offer that would have found no buyers had the population not been driven to despair in the first place. [Read More]
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
Turning Point: Wind and Solar outstrip Fossil Fuels in Europe for First Time
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment [February 4, 2026]
---- Beatrice Petrovich at the Ember Energy Consultancy reports that for the first time last year, wind and solar generated more electricity in the European Union than did fossil fuels. It is another clear piece of proof that humanity can get to carbon neutral by 2050 if it wants to. The alternative is very bad for children and other living things. Combined, wind and solar generated 30% of EU power in 2025. That percentage was only 20% half a decade before. Wind, solar and hydro accounted for 47.1% of electricity generation, nearly half, in the Eurozone. The big story is solar. Regarding nameplate capacity, Europe installed 65 gigawatts of new solar last year. That rate is similar to the United States. Both the EU and the US are overshadowed in this regard by China, which put in 315 gigawatts of new solar capacity in 2025. If the European economy is to compete with that of China, it will have to up its game even further. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The Finance Industry Is a Grift. Let’s Start Treating It That Way.
By Oren Cass, New York Times [February 6, 2026]
---- Since Mary Poppins’s day, the financial sector as a whole — investment banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, cryptocurrency platforms and all the rest of it — has exploded as a share of the United States’ gross domestic product. It now claims the highest share of corporate profits and attracts the highest share of top talent from top schools, in part by offering the highest compensation. But actual business investment has declined, to an average of 2.9 percent of G.D.P. over the past decade from 5.2 percent in the 1960s, when the film was released…. A modern investment bank mostly earns its money in a way that not even the bravest lyricist would set to music: providing advisory services, executing complex financial engineering schemes, trading stocks and bonds, managing other people’s money, issuing credit cards and so on. Assets get bought and sold, divided and packaged, and the bank collects fees at each step. [Read More]
(Video) ICED out of America
From The Real News Network - 19 minutes
---- For over four months, masked federal officers have been arresting and disappearing immigrants attending their mandatory asylum court dates. Photojournalists in New York City fought to maintain their First Amendment right to observe the chaotic, cruel, and often violent breach of due process occurring daily in NYC’s immigration courts. A documentary by Michael Nigro. [See the Program]
OUR HISTORY
An American Reckoning – [Robert McNamara - Vietnam]
By Ben Rhodes, New York Review of Books [February 26, 2026 issue]
[FB – This is a review of McNamara at War: A New History, by Philip Taubman and William Taubman.]
---- What McNamara could not seem to challenge was why the United States was involved in Vietnam in the first place. What led men like him into rooms where they made decisions regarding a country they knew nothing about? How could American officials so devalue the lives of the Vietnamese relative to our own, killing more than three million Vietnamese people before our chaotic exit? What innate confidence in our own special character leads the US government to try to control a world that does not want to submit to our will and does not believe in our supremacy? … The Vietnam War has often been cast as a body blow to liberalism because it derailed the momentum of the Great Society and the civil rights movement. More than that, though, it betrayed a fatal blind spot within American liberalism, a devaluation of human life itself: the belief that a cohort of enlightened people could manage an empire while casting themselves as democrats. McNamara could never truly see this, could not see the United States—see himself—from the outside in. He mistook strength for wisdom; he experienced power as legitimizing, even righteous. [Read More]
(Video) Juan González on Lasting Impact of 9/11 Toxic Exposure as NYC Faces Calls to Release Suppressed Files
From Democracy Now! [February 6, 2026]
---- The September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center in New York City was a major polluting event. Debris from the collapse of the buildings spread toxic substances, including asbestos, lead, mercury and more, throughout the disaster zone. As New York City leaders issue new calls for the release of files detailing the extent of this pollution, we revisit the reporting of Democracy Now! co-host Juan González, the author of Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse. “What I tried to warn about in the series of articles that I wrote about the dangers, the health dangers, in the future for people who were living in or working at ground zero have proven to be true,” he says about his reporting on political leaders’ early denials of post-9/11 health risks. “More people have died as a result of illnesses contracted after the collapse of the World Trade Center than died on that day.” [See the Program]
