On February 12, 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on a podcast called The Past Weekend with comedian Theo Von. “I’m not scared of a germ,” said RFK Jr. “I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.” If you can get past the fact that this statement was made by the nation’s leading public health official, let’s discuss whether it makes sense.
We’ll start with the toilet seat, by which I assume he means the toilet seat cover, which is where the snorting normally takes place. Toilet seats are wrongly considered to be a place where people can be infected with sexually transmitted germs such as HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis or chlamydia. These pathogens require warm, moist surfaces; all will die almost instantly when exposed to the cold, hard surface of a toilet seat. RFK Jr. was right not to be concerned about them. Surprisingly, other items in the bathroom are more dangerous than toilet seats or toilet seat covers. For example:
• Faucets: More than 300 different types of bacteria can be found on faucet handles, far more than would be found on a toilet seat cover.
• Soap and Paper Towel dispensers: Refillable dispensers are often heavily contaminated with bacteria when replaced.
• Hand Blowers: Hand blowers take in air from the restroom and blow bacteria directly onto your hands. Levels of bacteria on hand blowers are 27 times greater than those found on paper towel dispensers.
• Money: I’m going to assume that RFK Jr. snorted his cocaine through a rolled-up dollar bill (or $100 bill). Money is highly absorbent and contains bacteria from tens of thousandsof people who previously touched it. Of interest, one study found that 79% of paper currency in America contains traces of cocaine, more than any other country in the world.
In summary, RFK Jr. shouldn’t have been terribly scared of the toilet seat. But what about other germs? RFK Jr. and I were both born in the early 1950s. If his parents cared about him as mine did about me, he would have received the smallpox, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, and polio vaccines as a child. Neither RFK Jr. nor I need to worry about polio. Like most children born in the early 1950s, RFK Jr. probably suffered measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), and varicella (chickenpox). Surviving those infections provides lifelong protection. So, RFK Jr. and I don’t need to worry about them, either.
However, RFK Jr. and I should worry about vaccine-preventable diseases for which men in their 70s are at highest risk. For example, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes as many as 160,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths every year in the United States, primarily in those over 65. Pneumonia caused by the bacterium pneumococcus causes 150,000 hospitalizations in the elderly with as many as 1 in 4 dying within a year of hospitalization. Influenza causes at least 470,000 hospitalizations and 28,000 deaths every year; those over 65 are disproportionally infected. Lastly, COVID caused about 270,000 hospitalizations and 32,000 deaths last year; again, the elderly suffered the most.
RFK Jr.’s successful snorting of cocaine off toilet seats doesn’t protect him against any of these vaccine-preventable diseases. Were he a responsible Secretary of Health and Human Services—and not a comic actor in a bad Saturday Night Live skit—RFK Jr. would use his considerable platform to urge all elderly Americans to vaccinate against RSV, pneumococcus, influenza, and COVID instead of reassuring us that if we can survive snorting cocaine off toilet seats, we have nothing to worry about.
Ed note: Think about war — easy to start, hard to finish. Not unusual for a more radical regime to take over. The students have no weapons. The Iranian government structure is broad and deep. There will be unanticipated consequences. Can the US Congress grow a backbone?
Last night, the Trump Administration employed military force against Iran. I will continue to share updates on this situation, so please subscribe to my newsletter to stay up to date on future statements, media appearances, and events. “Overnight, the President ordered preemptive military strikes against Iran. Let me be clear that I oppose these preemptive strikes and am concerned the situation is prone to rapid escalation that puts Americans at risk and threatens to drag us into a war of choice with no strategic endgame.
“This offensive use of military force against Iran, absent congressional authorization, is contrary to domestic and international law. Our system of checks and balances is crucial to ensuring that we adhere to the law and, hopefully, learn from the mistakes of our past.
“There is no question that the Iranian regime is guilty of horrific crimes against its own people and conducts destabilization activities in the region. That is why the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was so important for limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions and allowed access into the country to monitor their nuclear activities. The Trump Administration’s abandonment of that agreement, which was overwhelmingly beneficial to U.S. and regional interests, has left us without a key point of leverage at a critical time.
“We absolutely should exert pressure on Iran in order to ensure that they don’t build a nuclear weapon. However, the far more appropriate options for exerting that pressure are continued diplomatic engagement, coalition building with partners and allies in the region, and enforcement of targeted economic sanctions. These options are also far more likely to succeed without risking war with a country with advanced weapons systems and a demonstrated willingness to use those systems against thousands of American service members in the region and beyond.
“Make no mistake, the president’s actions have dragged the United States into a war of his choosing. Regardless of my opposition to the course of action the president has unilaterally taken, my thoughts are with the brave men and women in uniform, and their families.”Thank you for taking the time to read this message. Subscribe to my newsletter for future updates. Sincerely,
From BBC written by Max Matza (Seattle) – thanks to Ed M.
Wallace Nagedzi Watts had been going to Seahawks games for almost three decades when a historical discovery helped supercharge his fandom – and deepened his connection to his indigenous roots.
“It kind of changed my whole life,” says Watts, a prominent fan of the American football team who goes by the name Captain Seahawk.
“Because of the Seattle Seahawks I started getting back into my culture.”
Speaking to the BBC while driving down to attend the Super Bowl game in Santa Clara, California, where the Seahawks are due to take on the New England Patriots, Watts says “it’s been my life’s mission for the last 12 years to notify everyone that the Seahawks logo was copied from the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe on Vancouver Island”.
The discovery was made during the Seahawks last Super Bowl sting – coincidentally also against the Patriots – in 2014.
Amid city-wide excitement,the Burke Museum in Seattle decided to investigate the origins of the Seahawks logo, which was chosen by the team’s manager in the mid-1970s. A black-and-white photo of a ceremonial mask in an old art book revealed the inspiration behind the design, which was then traced to a collection at the Hudson Museum in Maine.
The museum sent the mask to Seattle on loan, where a ceremony was held featuring both tribal members and team representatives.
The mask has been repainted in the years since leaving western Canada.
The mask, which was created in the late 1800s and was carved from cedar, had been in private collections since leaving Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where it was created by members of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation, says Katie Bunn-Marcuse, the curator of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum. (continued on Page 2 or here)
The carving, which is known as a “transformational mask” and depicts the ancestral origins of one’s family, was created around the time that Canada introduced a ban on many indigenous practices, in a move which decimated many tribes in western Canada.
Using the mask for its intended purpose, at large gatherings called potlaches, became a crime. Many people went to jail for their cultural practices, however, the Kwakwaka’wakw people continued to hold underground potlaches.
“The Indian Act banned people gathering and performing their songs,” says Bunn-Marcuse, adding, that “the potlatch was the economic and legal system of the coast”. The ban was lifted in 1951, and in 2015 Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that it was part of a “cultural genocide”, which also included the notorious residential school programme, which separated families and erased local languages.
Watts had been going to games for decades before discovering his own tribal connection to the team.
Watts grew up on a reserve in Port Alberni on the west side of Vancouver Island, in his father’s tribal community. But after the discovery of the logo’s Kwakwaka’wakw origins, he decided to look into his mother’s family history on the other side of the island.
Travelling back to Vancouver Island, he set out on a series of tribal canoe journeys, where he reconnected with Kwakwaka’wakw family members and learned more about their cultural practices.
During one trip, he was invited to take place in a ritual in which he was declared a “warrior”, or guardian of the tribe’s culture.
“I had to dance half-naked in front of a thousand people, and then I came back in warriors clothing. To me it’s like being baptised as a Christian. It really changed my life.”
The ‘transformational’ mask opens to show a human inside.
Bruce Alfred, an artist living in Alert Bay, British Columbia, recalls when his cousin started showing up, inspired by his commitment to the Seahawks and his cultural heritage. He says that Watts is not the only person who has been inspired by the NFL team to look into their family history.
Alfred was part of the Burke team that surveyed the mask, and confirmed that it was indeed Kwakwaka’wakw, and had been used in spiritual ceremonies before going into a private collection.
“After the potlatch ban they took everything away from our people,” he says, adding that the goal of the government and missionaries was to “annihilate and assimilate us – either one”.
The Seahawks are popular throughout Canada’s western coast, where no other NFL team exists. Alfred says that many people in his village are Seahawks supporters, and that more people have been inspired to look into their heritage after discovering the team’s connection. It comes amid a larger tribal movement to reconnect with the past.
“There is a resurgence of our people that are stepping up and they’re learning the language, the culture, their own identity,” he says.
Alfred, and other indigenous people who spoke to the BBC, say that unlike other major league sports teams, the Seahawks logo has not sparked backlash because it respectfully borrows from indigenous culture, rather than plays in to racist stereotypes.
The display of indigenous cultural materials as artworks has been criticised by some tribal people, who see these as sacred tools for worship.
At the Kwakwaka’wakw exhibit at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, one mask is kept under a sheet to symbolically show how some believe these objects should not be displayed, and only taken out for important occasions.
The debate is always ongoing for museums that display indigenous relics, says Bunn-Marcuse.
“In community, many of these masks are not brought out until the moment that they are needed,” she says.
“Whenever we do our exhibits we do them collaboratively with input and advising by community members. So there are some masks that we no longer show because community has said those are not appropriate to be shown ever outside of their ceremonial context.”
Others have critiqued the artwork for originating from a tribe that is hundreds of miles from Seattle, halfway to Alaska. The artwork of local peoples such as the Coast Salish could be used instead, they argue.
The logo has been redrawn by local Washington artists, including this one by Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson, in their own indigenous styles.
Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson, a Coast Salish artist from the Puyallup Tribe near Tacoma, Washington, is among many indigenous artists who have redesigned unofficial Seahawks logos in the style of their own local culture.
“People within the tribal communities are just really excited about native iconography of any kind,” he says.
“Nobody takes offense” to the official logo, he adds, adding that it is not a “misrepresentation” and instead “borrows from” indigenous art.
Watts, who proudly boasts that he’s the first person to arrive at games and the last to leave, is using his celebrity status as a superfan to fund raise for multiple charities.
He also cooks at a food bank, and mentors Native American youths in prison.
“I really had a different outlook on my entire life” after connecting with the roots of the logo, Watts says.
“We’re supposed to be the guardians of our tribe. We protect and provide.”
Ed Note: Rebecca Crichton started her ‘Encore Career’ as ED of NWCCA in 2012 after 21 years with The Boeing Company. She refashioned her skills and knowledge as a writer, curriculum designer and leadership development coach to offer programs related to Creative Aging at many venues in the Seattle area. Her website and newsletter cover a wide array of life enhancements from dementia care to book clubs: https://www.nwcreativeaging.org/
A recent, standing-room-only presentation by Dr. John Zeisel at the Frye Art Museum focused on the many resources related to dementia in our region. Dr. Zeisel, the founder of the I’m Still Here Foundation, shared a hopeful vision of the future of dementia care in our region.
Dr. Zeisel listed fifteen local organizations and groups that provide care and services for people with cognitive loss. The number is impressive for any city. Equally impressive is the level of coordination and mutual support the various entities provide.
This is reassuring information. I know I am not alone with concerns about my cognitive abilities. Many of my friends and colleagues worry about dementia and whether they might be on a road with dementia as the destination.
Most of us can recount stories of the misplaced keys (as well as cars in parking lots), missed appointments, and scrambled dates and times as indicators that set off internal alarms about our changing mental capacities.
In tandem with our fears about the possibility of our own dementia is the discomfort we feel around people dealing with dementia. Although most of us know people who have it, I will venture to guess that frequently we don’t know how to behave and interact with them. Our own fear creates stigma, which in turn creates distance, discomfort, and avoidance.
I am trying to learn more about dementia for both my personal and professional benefit. The more I learn, the more comfortable I am with the people in my life who are directly touched by the disease.
I want to be more compassionate and hopefully supportive in their lives. Destigmatizing dementia is a goal I share with the many organizations and groups that remind us that people with dementia are still here.
We know much more about our brains than ever before. And the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know and are still learning.
My March essay highlights how I think about my own thinking. To the extent that you can be aware of your personal Internal Broadcasting Company, and know which files you open regularly, the more you can understand and recognize your own mental state.
I’m looking forward to my conversation at Town Hall on March 9 with Dr. Jim deMaine. He is a longtime advocate, author, and presenter on end-of-life issues. Our discussion will explore his work and his thoughts as he navigates the challenges of aging.
March brings us longer days, brilliant blooms, and the gifts of spring. Enjoy the light!
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of the Committee… as a former Senator, I have respect for legislative oversight and I expect its exercise, as do the American people, to be principled and fearless in pursuit of truth and accountability.
As we all know, however, too often Congressional investigations are partisan political theater, which is an abdication of duty and an insult to the American people.
The Committee justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.
As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that.
Like every decent person, I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes. It’s unfathomable that Mr. Epstein initially got a slap on the wrist in 2008, which allowed him to continue his predatory practices for another decade.
Mr. Chairman, your investigation is supposed to be assessing the federal government’s handling of the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein and his crimes. You subpoenaed eight law enforcement officials, all of whom ran the Department of Justice or directed the FBI when Epstein’s crimes were investigated and prosecuted. Of those eight, only one appeared before the Committee. Five of the six former attorneys general were allowed to submit brief statements stating they had no information to provide.
You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions.
You have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And when you did, not a single Republican Member showed up for Les Wexner’s deposition.
This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors, as well as the public who also want to get to the bottom of this matter. My heart breaks for the survivors. And I am furious on their behalf.
I have spent my life advocating for women and girls. I have worked hard to stop the terrible abuses so many women and girls face here and around the world, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexual slavery. For too long, these have been largely invisible crimes or not treated as crimes at all. But the survivors are real and they are entitled to better.
In Southeast Asia, I met girls as young as twelve years old who were forced into prostitution and raped repeatedly. Some were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I met mothers who told me how they lost daughters to trafficking and did not know where to turn. In settings around the world, I met survivors trying to rebuild their lives and help rescue others — with little support from people in power, who too often turned a blind eye and a cold shoulder.
If you are new to this issue, let me tell you: Jeffrey Epstein was a heinous individual, but he’s far from alone. This is not a one-off tabloid sensation or a political scandal.
It’s a global scourge with an unimaginable human toll.
My work combatting sex trafficking goes back to my days as First Lady. I worked to pass the first federal legislation against trafficking and was proud that my husband signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which increased support for survivors and gave prosecutors better tools for going after traffickers.
As Secretary of State, I appointed a former federal prosecutor, Lou deBaca, to ramp up our global antitrafficking efforts. I oversaw nearly 170 anti-trafficking programs in 70 nations and directly pressed foreign leaders to crack down on trafficking networks in their countries. Every year we published a global report to shine a light on abuses.
The findings of those reports triggered sanctions on countries failing to make progress, so they became a powerful diplomatic tool to drive concrete action.
I insisted that the United States be included in the report for the first time ever in 2011. Because we must hold ourselves not just to the same standard as the rest of the world but to an even higher one. Sex trafficking and modern slavery should have no place in America. None.
Infuriatingly, the Trump Administration gutted the Trafficking in Persons Office at the State Department, cutting more than 70 percent of the career civil and foreign service experts who worked so hard to prevent trafficking crimes. The annual trafficking report, required by law, was delayed for months. The message from the Trump Administration to the American people and the world could not be clearer: combatting human trafficking is no longer an American priority under the Trump White House.
That is a tragedy. It’s a scandal. It deserves vigorous investigation and oversight.
A committee endeavoring to stop human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008.
A committee run by elected officials with a commitment to transparency would ensure the full release of all the files.
It would ensure that the lawful redactions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men and political allies.
It would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes.
It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the “wildest party” on Epstein’s island.
It would demand testimony from prosecutors in Florida and New York about why they gave Epstein a sweetheart deal and chose not to pursue others who may have been implicated.
It would demand that Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Bondi testify about why this administration is abandoning survivors and playing into the hands of traffickers.
It would seek out officers on the front lines of this fight and ask them what support they need.
It would put forth legislation to provide more resources and force this administration to act.
But that’s not happening.
Instead, you have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.
If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.
If the majority was serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions. There is too much that needs to be done.
What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover-up?
My challenge to you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, is the same challenge I put to myself throughout my long service to this nation. How to be worthy of the trust the American people have given you. They expect statesmanship, not gamesmanship. Leading, not grandstanding. They expect you to use your power to get to the truth and to do more to help survivors of Epstein’s crimes as well as the millions more who are victims of sex trafficking.
On January 27, 2026, researchers from Vanderbilt University, the University of North Carolina, and Harvard Medical School published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that revealed a surprising and previously unrealized aspect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s war on vaccines. Two vaccines were at the center of their findings: influenza and COVID.
RFK Jr. has done everything he can to discourage the use of influenza vaccine. In February 2025, within days of his confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), RFK Jr. canceled the CDC’s campaign to encourage influenza vaccination. Then, on January 7, 2026, he told a CBS News reporter that children might be “better off” if they didn’t get an influenza vaccine. His war against the influenza vaccine for children has been successful—289 children died last year from influenza and another 60 have died in January 2026. Virtually all were unvaccinated.
Similarly, RFK Jr. has waged a war on COVID vaccines. In 2021, when COVID vaccines were first available for children, RFK Jr. claimed that they were “the deadliest vaccines ever made.” In May 2025, three months after being sworn in as Secretary of HHS, RFK Jr. said that he was no longer recommending COVID vaccines for healthy children. RFK Jr.’s plan to discourage COVID vaccinations in children has also been successful. During this past year, roughly 7,000 children were hospitalized with COVID. About 20 percent of those hospitalized were admitted to the intensive care unit, half were previously healthy, virtually all were unvaccinated, and 152 died, most less than four years of age.
Because RFK Jr.’s campaigns against vaccines have been successful, children have suffered and died unnecessarily. This isn’t a good look for the Trump administration. RFK Jr. knows that he must do something to hide these heartbreaking outcomes. His solution can be found in the study that was just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Investigators examined 82 CDC databases that had been updated monthly before RFK Jr. became head of HHS. They found that 44 of the 82 databases continued to be updated monthly whereas 38 had unexplained pauses. None of the 44 databases that were updated concerned vaccines. Among the 38 databases that had unexplained pauses, 33 (87%) reported information about respiratory diseases like influenza and COVID that included statistics on hospitalizations and emergency department visits.
RFK Jr.’s plan is simple. If the public doesn’t know the actual number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by influenza and COVID, they can continue to withhold vaccines with impunity. And if state and local health departments don’t know about the areas of greatest risk for outbreaks, they won’t launch immunization clinics in regions with low vaccination rates. RFK Jr.’s “see no evil” approach is working. An increasing number of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children.
Declining pediatric COVID Vaccination rates
Declining pediatric influenza vaccination rates
Until Congress stands up to the anti-vaccine activist who currently heads our nation’s number one public health agency, outbreaks will continue and children will suffer and die needlessly. Worse, because of recent changes at the CDC, we might have no idea just how bad things really are.
On March 5, 2026, during National Consumer Protection Week, the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will lead National Slam the Scam Day.
Take part by using tools from SSA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to recognize imposters — including Social Security-related scams — and stop scammers from stealing your money and personal information.
Help Us Slam the Scam!
Learn about common tactics and how to recognize the signs. For example:
An unexpected problem or offer of a prize or government benefit increase.
Pressure to act immediately.
Request for unusual payments like cryptocurrency, gift cards, gold bars, cash, or wire transfers, even with the promise of keeping your money safe.
Spread the word. Visit ssa.gov/scam for more information that could help you and others stay safe.
Report suspicious activity. Report Social Security-related issues to SSA OIG (oig.ssa.gov/report) and other concerns to the FTC (reportfraud.ftc.gov).
“Ever since taking office a year ago, the President has shown no respect for the principles upon which this country is based—the Constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, and the rights guaranteed to every person under the Constitution. His actions have done tremendous harm to the American people, to our standing among nations, and to our institutions of government,” Senator Angus King (I-ME) said in a statement. “For this reason, I cannot in good conscience participate in a function with this President at its center. To do so would require me to ignore all that has gone before and to pay him a measure of respect which he has not earned. I will not be attending the State of the Union address.”
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
– Matthew 16:26
“Truth does not shine from itself, because there is nothing flaming in it alone. But Truth shines from Goodness, for Goodness is like a flame which gives light.”
[Open the refrigerator, insert the giraffe and close the door. The question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.]
2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
[Did you say, “Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the door.”? Wrong! Correct answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.]
3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?
[The elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him there. This tests your memory.]
4. There is a river you must cross but it is inhabited by crocodiles. How do you manage it.?
[You swim across. All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.]
According to Andersen Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong. But many preschoolers got several correct answers. Andersen Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.
“Overnight, the President ordered preemptive military strikes against Iran. Let me be clear that I oppose these preemptive strikes and am concerned the situation is prone to rapid escalation that puts Americans at risk and threatens to drag us into a war of choice with no strategic endgame. 
Reload document 
Open in new tab 
