Welcome to Thursaday, February 19, 2026, and Iwo Jima Day, marking the American invasion of that Japanese-held Pacific Island on this day in 1945. Four days later, five marines climbed Mt. Surabachi (the island’s high point) and planted the American flag on top. You all know the classic photo by Joe Rosenthal, which won the Pulitzer Prize for that year and was made into an iconic statue that sits in Virginia across the Potomac from Washington D.C. Several of the soldiers shown below did not survive the battle:
But did you know there was a movie filmed by Sergeant Bill Genaust at the same time that Rosenthal was snapping his photo? Here it is. (I find it amazing that this iconic moment was captured by two people.) The crucial moment is about 29 seconds in.
It’s also International Tug of War Day, National Arabian Horse Day, and Natioonal Chocolate Mint Day.
There’s a Google Doodle for women’s figure skating at the Olympics today. U.S. women haven’t won a medal in that event since 2006, but the news says there are several candidates this year. Click to see where this goes:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 19 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*You could see this coming! Probably unable to pass his “wealth tax” on NYC residents, as that would drive the wealthy out of the city, Islamist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now threatening to impose a 9.5% property tax on many residents, and not just the rich.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday proposed to raise property tax rates in New York City by nearly 10 percent, a measure he is preparing as a “last resort” to be deployed if he cannot persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise income taxes on the wealthy.
The suggested 9.5 percent increase would affect more than three million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings, Mr. Mamdani said as he delivered his preliminary spending plan.
The mayor acknowledged that his proposal would not merely force the wealthy to pay more taxes, but would also be a “tax on working- and middle-class New Yorkers,” and stressed that this was not his first choice.
But he noted that New York City mayors had little authority to raise taxes without the governor’s and Legislature’s acquiescence, and said that a city property tax increase — combined with raiding the city’s reserve funds — was the only way to address a looming budget deficit projected to reach $5.4 billion over two years.
“If we cannot follow this first path,” he said, referring to his proposed income tax hike on wealthier New Yorkers, “we will be forced onto a much more damaging path of last resort — one where we have to use the only tools at the city’s disposal: raising property taxes and raiding our reserves.”
“The second path is painful,” he added. “We will continue to work with Albany to avoid it.”
If other options surface, Mr. Mamdani may yet water down or abandon the proposed tax increase as the June 30 city budget deadline draws closer — a possibility that Ms. Hochul alluded to on Tuesday, as she played down the likelihood of city property taxes rising.
“That’s their prerogative to look at that as an option,” she said, suggesting that cost-cutting measures and updated accounting might make such an increase unnecessary. “He’s required to put options on the table; that does not mean that’s the final resolution.”
Is this a surprise? Of course not! The budget was in trouble before Mamdani took office. What is new is that Governor Hochul now seems less willing to levy a new tax on the rich. In the face of this budget crunch, Mamdani’s promises, which got him elected, may well come to nought.
*Colin Wright’s new post on his Substack site discusses a distressing side effect of “affirmative care” applied to adolescents: permanent sterility. The article suggests that many who choose this option, and are even told of its consequences for fertility, nevertheless still hope to have their own children in the future. They won’t. And this is a sad irony.
Over the past decade, pediatric “gender-affirming care” has been adopted widely in clinical settings despite a remarkably weak evidence base. Systematic reviews from several countries have consistently found that the research supporting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and related interventions in minors is of low quality, lacking reliable long-term data on physical or psychological outcomes. Meanwhile, the severe and often irreversible side effects of these treatments are well documented. Chief among them is the loss of fertility.
Because of this risk, clinical guidelines recommend that adolescents be counseled about infertility and offered fertility preservation before beginning medical transition. In theory, this gives them the choice to protect their ability to have biological children in the future. In practice, however, only a vanishingly small number of “transgender and gender-diverse” (TGD) adolescents actually pursue fertility preservation, even when counseling is provided.
This creates an odd set of seemingly contradictory facts. Survey-based studies show that while few adolescents choose to preserve their fertility, a significant number hope to become parents later in life. Follow-up studies of adults who began medical transition as teenagers confirm that the desire for children often increases with age, leaving many to deeply regret not preserving their fertility when they had the chance.
. . .A new retrospective cross-sectional study published in the Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology helps clarify this issue by tracking patients from their first counseling visit through referral, specialist consultation, and—if it occurred—completion of a fertility preservation procedure.
The study followed 311 “transgender and gender-diverse” patients between the ages of 10 and 24 who presented for initial gender-related medical evaluations at a pediatric gender clinic between 2020 and 2023. During the intake process, patients were asked about their “fertility goals” and how important biological children might be to them in the future.
The attrition rate was steep. Of the 311 patients, 25 (8 percent) agreed to a referral to a reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI) specialist. Nineteen of these 25 actually attended the REI consultation, and only eight ultimately completed fertility preservation. In total, this is roughly 2.5 percent of the entire group.
But the most revealing detail is who those eight patients were. All were biologically male, opting for sperm cryopreservation. Not a single female patient underwent egg or embryo preservation. As the authors note, this disparity “likely reflects the relative simplicity and lower cost of sperm cryopreservation compared with oocyte preservation.”
. . . . The literature on fertility preservation exposes a central flaw of the pediatric “gender-affirming” model. Interventions are aggressively promoted despite low-quality evidence, highly uncertain long-term benefits, and increasingly well-documented harms. The model also operates on the pseudoscientific premise biological sex is mutable, can meaningfully conflict with a person’s “brain sex,” and can be medically altered to resolve that conflict. The difficulty adolescents face in preserving fertility is not an incidental side effect of this model but a predictable consequence of it.
Puberty blockers cause sterility while they’re being administered, but often that effect is reversible if blockers are stopped without further treatment. But if blockers lead to cross-sex hormone treatment, as they often do in “affirmative care”, sterility cannot be reversed. This is one more reason why gender transitioning should be delayed until the transitioner is of age to consent and fully apprehend the consequences. This article shows that patients often don’t grasp those consequences.
*The White House has rejected the latest proposal from Democrats to put limits on ICE agents, and, in the absence of an agreement, the partial government shutdown continues (ICE itself won’t shut down, as it has billions of dollars), but imporant aspects of the government will not be funded until the Democrats and Republicans forge a compromise on ICE:
The White House on Tuesday rejected the latest offer from Democratic lawmakers on proposed new constraints on federal immigration officers, the latest sign that there would not be a quick resolution of the stalemate that has left the Department of Homeland Security without funding since Saturday.
A White House official who provided a statement on the condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations said the two parties were still far apart, adding that President Trump’s team remained interested in continuing good-faith talks to resolve the impasse.
In response, aides for the Democratic leaders in Congress said that Republicans had largely ignored the guardrails the public was demanding, and urged them to start negotiating in good faith as they said their side had been doing.
Both White House officials and Democrats on Capitol Hill have kept largely confidential the specifics of their offers to end the standoff that allowed funding for the agency to lapse as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
The outlines of the Democratic demands, however, are well known: limits on masked police, an end to random sweeps, new requirements for judicial warrants, putting “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools, hospitals and polling places off limits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement among them. The offer was given to the White House Monday evening but brushed aside by the White House less than 24 hours later.
“These are common sense,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said Sunday on CNN about the Democratic proposals. “Police departments across America use them. We have a rogue agency. Why don’t we rein them in? That’s what the American people are asking Republicans.”
It seems to me that there is room for compromise here, as several of the Democratic demands make sense for any law enforcement (e.g., no masks, strict requirement for warrants), while the Democrats could compromise on, say, areas where ICE agents aren’t allowed. So long as both sides dig in their heels, though, there will be no compromise and no funding for TSA, the Coast Guard, or FEMA. This has apparently become a hill to die on for both sides, but the people who will suffer are us—the average Americans.
*Two UK men were jailed last Friday for concocting a plot that would have killed “hundreds of Jews.”—a massacre that could have been worse than Australia’s Bondi Beach shooting. The plotters were given life sentences, while the brother of one of them was sentenced to six years for not disclosing information about terrorism.
Two men have been jailed for life after attempting to stage one of the UK’s deadliest terrorist attacks before it was thwarted by an undercover operative.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester’s Jewish community.
On Friday, the pair were sentenced at Preston crown court after being found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism between December 2023 and May 2024.
The prime mover in the plot, Tunisian-born Saadaoui, of Abram, Wigan, was ordered to serve a minimum of 37 years.
Hussein, of no fixed address, was ordered to serve at least 26 years.
Saadaoui’s younger brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 37, of Hindley, Wigan, was sentenced to six years in prison for failing to disclose information about the plan.
All three had denied the offences in a trial lasting almost three months last year, in which jurors were told they were Islamist extremists with a “visceral dislike” of Jewish people.
Walid Saadaoui, a former Italian restaurant owner and hotel entertainer, arranged for the purchase and delivery of semi-automatic rifles, conducted reconnaissance and identified targets, but the man supplying them with the weapons was an undercover operative.
The operative, known to them as Farouk, had infiltrated jihadist social media networks and convinced Saadaoui that he was a fellow extremist.
Saadaoui was arrested in a counter-terror strike involving more than 200 officers as he attempted to take possession of two assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition in the car park of the Last Drop hotel in Bolton on 8 May 2024. The weapons had been deactivated.
The court heard that Saadaoui hero-worshipped the IS terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who orchestrated the 2015 Paris terror attacks in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured in gun attacks.
Saadaoui and Hussein planned to disguise themselves as Jews and attack an antisemitism march in Manchester city centre before heading to suburbs north of Manchester city centre that are home to one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities.
These plotters are truly evil, and thank Ceiling Cat that their plot was stopped in its tracks. And kudos for “Farouk”, a brave man who risked his life to pose as an extremist—and probably saved the life of many Jews. He must have been a convincing terrorist, and it’s very lucky that the plotters didn’t get hold of some real extemists with fully activated weapons. But, for a Jew, it’s tiresome to see this kind of stuff day after day. It’s not like Jews all over the world are plotting to slaughter Muslims, you know. And it’s clear that the target wassn’t Zionists, but Jews. As one of my friends said, “‘Globalize the intifada’ is here.”
*And from the WaPo news summary:
- For the past two nights: Colbert has roasted his own network, saying that lawyers stopped him from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico [a Democrat]—watch here.
- The disagreement: Colbert said the segment was blocked because of FCC rules requiring broadcasters to provide equal opportunity to candidates. CBS has disputed his account.
The first mention:
In response, the studio audience booed.“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” Colbert continued. “And because my network clearly does not want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
Colbert launched into a segment about the FCC’s equal-time rule, which requires broadcasters to provide equal opportunity to political candidates. News and talk show interviews have traditionally been exempt from the mandate. But in January, the FCC issued a public notice saying that daytime and nighttime talk shows would have to apply for exemptions to the equal-time rule for each of their programs.
. . . and the second:
On Monday, Colbert accused lawyers for the network’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, of blocking his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D), a U.S. Senate candidate, over concerns it would violate the equal-time rule.
CBS pushed back against that account in a statement Tuesday, suggesting its executives hadn’t prohibited the interview but instead had informed Colbert of legal guidance that it could trigger the FCC equal-time rule.
. . . and the video:
That is one strong video; kudos to Colbert. I doubt that he would have delivered such a monologue had he not already planned to leave the network. Why did this happen? Possibly because the network, CBS, has named Bari Weiss as the Editor-in-Chief of the news, and she is enforcing a strict doctrine of “equal time.” (She didn’t do that when Charlie Kirk’s wife appeared.) But, as Colbert notes, that policy not apply to late-night talk shows. But Colbert was even prohibited from mentioning the name of guests that weren’t allowed to be invited! That seems to be crossing the line into network censorship.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej has worked himself too hard, but he says it’s a mild flu.
Hili: Better cook enough for a few days.
Andrzej: Why?
Hili: The flu is catching up with you.
Hili: Lepiej zrób obiad na kilka dni.
Ja: Dlaczego:
Hili: Zaczyna ci się grypa.
*******************
From Stacy, a story that appears to be true Only in America!
From Terrible Maps. Oy vey!
From Cats, Coffee, and Chaos:
From Hillel Neuer, head of UN Watch, showing Masih giving a powerful speech. But do note the “Community Note”:
This meeting in Geneva was held by UN Watch, a private group not affiliated with the UN. Its name and setting often mislead audiences. The board’s claim here is deliberately false—these remarks were not read at the UN and carry no official legitimacy.
The speech (NOT at the UN); I’m not clear why Hillel Neuer would say that. Still, Masih’s words are stirring:
Rare Moment of Truth at UN: Iranian women’s rights activist @AlinejadMasih takes the floor at United Nations @GenevaSummit to blast European politicians who for years failed to call out the regime’s terrorism and gender apartheid, points to victims in the room shot by the regime. pic.twitter.com/zvgdS2J8Ld
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 18, 2026
From Malcolm: very talkative cats:
cats being the funniest creatures everpic.twitter.com/Uvnp7Z7g9F
— Antidepressant Content (@depressionlesss) January 23, 2026
From Bryan, 3D photos (here’s a video on how to view them without special glasses):
Beautiful Northern Ireland (in 3D for those with viewers or who can free fuse) – Stereo photos of castles, coastlines, greenery, and Giant’s Causeway. https://t.co/R1HO9n043w pic.twitter.com/OeB0jsfBIL
— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) February 18, 2026
This is a pretty dire story, as the tweet notes:
A nurse with a 30-year unblemished record didn’t want to get undressed in front of a man – and she told him so.
Of all the gender ideology stories I’ve covered, the witch hunt of Sandie Peggie is the most insane and enraging.
I met her for @thetimes https://t.co/NZU75EDXm4— Janice Turner (@VictoriaPeckham) February 14, 2026
An adorable one from my feed:
love in the purest form 🤍 pic.twitter.com/TC3jv7ULQy
— Kitty Cat Empire (@KittyCatEmpire) February 17, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. Had she lived, she’d be ninety today. https://t.co/1Co9llPU2G
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 19, 2026
. . . and two from Dr. Cobb. First, the history of Aylesbury ducks (yes, they are a real breed):
What's with all the ducks?
— Buckinghamshire Archives (@bucksarchives.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T13:03:33.565Z
As far as I know, this is a real Trumpian statement:
Yes, this is a real thing posted by the deranged lunatic today.It must be so embarrassing to have to try to defend this nutjob
— Mark Lemley (@marklemley.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T02:17:00.780Z
The description of the Colbert issues is off slightly. The FCC did not cancel the segment. The FCC reminded CBS of the Equal Time Rule, and CBS decided not to air the segment. To be clear, as well, the Equal Time Rule applies only to political CANDIDATES, not to any person who is partisan. This became an issue because Talarico is an active candidate for U.S. Senate from Texas. Not only did Colbert not plan to have the Republican candidate on, he had no plans to have the other Democratic candidates for that seat on.
The FCC changed its interpretation of the rule, something different from “reminding”. There is a pretty long history of treating talk shows as within the bona fide news exception. The timing of the change in interpretation is relevant.
The Talarico campaign raised $2.5 in 24 hours after the YouTube video. The number of viewers was approximately twice the number of a typical Colbert show.
Earlier this month Talarico was behind Jasmine Crockett in name recognition. I’m guessing he has caught up.
Another case of Streisand effect.
This story appeared in the Daily Mail, if true it’s terrifying. Note that the person was an actor speaking lines in a play not a far right activist.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/actor-is-attacked-by-audience-while-delivering-far-right-speech-in-character-at-german-theatre/ar-AA1Wvi6S
Stanislavski would have been impressed! 🙂
Have people on that side of the pond been following the Chagos Islands saga? Short summary:
Britain has sovereignty over the Chagos Islands (in the middle of the Indian Ocean) on which is the stragegically important Diego Garcia US/UK military base.
(Note, Chagos Islanders were pushed out to make way for the base, which was bad, though the islanders population only dates back to about 1880, before that the islands were uninhabited as too remote from anywhere.)
Keir Starmer, wanting to virtue signal how decolonialist he is, wants to hand sovereignty over the Mauritius (who have no better claim to the Islands than the UK does). He then wants to pay Mauritus billions to lease back the islands to maintain the military base.
Everyone except that pathologically woke think this is a dumb idea, costing billions for no gain other than “look how anti-colonialist I am!”. (Note that the displaced Chagos Islanders are also against Mauritius having sovereignty.)
Note that Mauritius is very much in the pocket of the Chinese, who also might like the idea of having the base for themselves after Starmer’s 99-yr lease expires.
The deal needs the OK of the US, under the terms of the US/UK deal over the Diego Garcia base.
Starmer has invested huge effort in lobbying to get this approval from the US, and also in pushing it through Parliament. It is really, really important to him to be able to flaunt those anti-colonialist credentials! Everyone else in the UK has been lobbying Trump, asking him to can the deal.
As of yesterday, Trump seems to have finally woken up to how dumb this deal is, and is threatening to veto it.
My solution, if Britain really can no longer stomach having the sovereignty of some islands on the opposite side of the globe, is to sell them to Trump for $1, and thus solve the problem, and also get in Trump’s good books.
Starmer, of course, doesn’t want to be in Trump’s good books, he wants to signal how much he hates Trump and how de-colonial he is.
Is Starmer really that woke? I hear his government isn’t doing well.
I’ve been following it Coel. It made me too angry to write an article about it. I can’t remember seeing a democracy do such a stupid thing in my life.
D.A.
NYC
Regarding the trumpian blatherings at the end of the post, it’s a hilarious way to sign off. Like he’s complaining to a city council about his rubbish bins not being emptied.
Breaking news: the Andrew Formerly Known as Prince has been arrested for Misconduct in Public Office.
If you’re having trouble reaching the Times article about the nurse fired for not wanting to change in front of trans, try this shortened link. The Times forces other links to their main page.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/7c572c7c-b34d-4d19-8f9e-7ab39de5e482
Stu Campbell has written several good pieces about the Peggie trial if anyone wants the details, one link below.
The part she won will get her substantial compensation from NHS Fife and she has decided to appeal the parts that weren’t found in her favour. I expect she will win on appeal.
There have been many lawyers calling for Judge Kemp to resign because of the shockingly low standard of his judgement document.
The TL;DR version of the link below is that the judge misinterpreted and tried to overrule UK law as set by the Supreme Court, he included a completely made up ‘quote’ from the Forestater trial judgement and based based a major part of his judgement on the fictitious quote, he made a claim of a ‘hierarchy of protected characteristics’ which doesn’t exist in law, and he likely used AI to write part of his judgement without verifying what the AI stated.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-valley-of-the-dolls/
Kemp has since issued a legal correction admitting that the Forstater quote is false, but didn’t address the parts of his judgement that he based on the imaginary quote.
I’m adept at 3D viewing, but I can’t get those photographs to a n appropriate size on my computer screen.
The thumbnail photos as seen in the post embedded here in WEIT don’t have enough image overlap to make a melded image. I clicked on the post, which opens X, then clicked on the picture which opens each pair of images in full screen which then meld very nicely. (I’m not on X and it still works.)
Hope this works.
Gamete preservation isn’t possible until mature spermatozoa or mature oöcytes are being produced. In girls this happens only (and usually only one at a time) with the monthly FSH surge that begins late in puberty. Prior to that, the oöcytes the girl was born with are arrested at the first stage of meiosis and there is no known way to get them through the second stage to maturity in vitro, or by implantation into a surrogate ovary.
No one taking puberty blockers will have any mature gametes to preserve. Since the study included people up to age 24, presumably some female subjects were sexually mature and could have had gametes or embryos preserved before starting cross-sex hormones. But given the expense, not surprisingly none did. As the host says, nearly everyone who starts puberty blockers goes on to cross-sex hormones, thus foreclosing fertility in all adolescents committed to this folly.
“Puberty blockers cause sterility while they’re being administered, but often that effect is reversible if blockers are stopped without further treatment”.
Only if they are stopped before the body’s natural puberty window (as they are for precocious puberty) allowing puberty to take place.
Sadly, they are given to children with gender issues for a lot longer than those with precocious puberty, and over 90% of children put on blockers for gender issues go on to cross sex hormones.
If a child is put on blockers at Tanner Stage 2, and stays on them past the natural puberty window, the body doesn’t go back and generate the missed puberty if they are stopped, and this leaves the child intellectually, sexually and emotionally stunted for life.
Children need puberty as it matures the brain. It is essential for “development of frontal cortical circuits, and hippocampal and amygdala connectivity.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.17150
A living example is Jazz Jennings. At 17 he had the penis of a 9 year old. Had he stopped blockers at that point thinking he would develop normally, he would not have developed a normal penis as he had missed puberty. Ironically, the blockers are one cause of the multiple complications of his vaginoplasty as there was not enough penis tissue to use to create his neo vagina.
As he missed puberty his hypothalamus didn’t mature so he can’t feel sexual attraction or orgasm. At 22 he stated that he can’t even tell if he’s het, bi or gay. Had he been allowed a puberty and transitioned after it, his brain would have been mature and he wouldn’t now be sexually dysfunctional.
Presumably he wasn’t given fertility counselling, as he has stated on TV that he wants children. He said that his sister will give birth to them, but she looked none too pleased at that.
I believe a child cannot give informed consent to sterility and sexual dysfunction on behalf of their adult self. Personally, I think off label use of blockers breaches several articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This is 100% correct, Joolz, and more. Other parts of the brain’s development, mylenation, and overall, are slowed by cross sex hormones – endocrinology equivalent of putting diesel in a gasoline car.
One rub here is in the case of many “affirmed” transitioners, “fertility preservation” is offered if they’re already in Tanner stage 3, but its efficacy is iffy. So even in best case scenarios fertility is imperiled.
Colin Wright has a column about this in the last few days.
D.A.
NYC
It’s horrifying. They have already discovered many negative impacts of both blockers and cross sex hormones, I’m sure that many more will be found, especially as those children mature. We are literally experimenting on children, it’s barbaric. It’s not like they couldn’t have guessed that putting teenage girls into instant menopause would trigger early onset osteoporosis 🤦♀️ They have even found prostate tissue developing in women who take testosterone and who knows where that will lead.
There is a public campaign here to try and stop the planned puberty blocker medical trial. There are already many children who have had their puberty blocked and we should be studying them properly before creating any more dysfunctional children.
The gender lobby pushes the lie that’s transitioning prevents suicide to push parents to agree with mutilation but, as you know from Exulansic, many, many children have taken their own lives despite being affirmed and medicated.
Our idiot mayor’s tax might not come about: like Trump (he’s the Trump of the left) he lies his head off, makes promises he can’t and won’t keep. I’m going back to high tax NYC today in a car – puppy transportation ….in a sling. My little guy will be safe from CT hawks, wrapped up as tight as Maduro on the plane back to NY.
D.A.
NYC
The alligator baptism is likely fake. The news logo has a different name than the text, and there are only meme hits found in google, no news hits.