☕️ CATASTROPHES AND CUDDLES ☙ Wednesday, February 18, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Mamdani taxes everybody; Witkoff and Kushner outrun State Dept; Potomac River gets pungent DEI makeover; DeSantis invests in teachers; the Epstein files claim another executive scalp; more.

Good morning, C&C family, it’s Wednesday! Your roundup includes: YC’s youngest mayor threatens a 10% property tax hike 45 days into the job; Trump’s two-man diplomatic team speed-runs two peace negotiations in one day in Geneva; the nation’s capital gets a 250-million-gallon sewage metaphor; Governor DeSantis pays teachers to learn Western Civilization; and another Epstein billionaire gets scalped.

⛑️ C&C ARMY POST ⛑️

Just released: I appeared as a guest on a new Code Red Podcast this week, titled, “The Epstein Files, AI Singularity & the Death of Institutional Trust | Jeff Childers on Code Red. Regular readers will be familiar with most of it, but I allowed myself to dip more in the speculative parts than I usually do here on the blog. If you’re in the kooky “can’t get enough C&C” crowd, put it on while you’re mowing or cooking.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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New York City’s youngest Mayor is setting a new communist party land speed record. 45 days in, he’s threatening state legislators by holding a tax gun to his own voters’ heads. Yesterday, the New York Times covered the darkly hilarious story, headlined, “Mamdani Threatens 9.5% Property Tax Increase if Wealth Tax Is Not Passed.” The sub-headline added, “Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his proposal to raise New York City property taxes was a ‘last resort’ to close a budget gap.”

Back in January 30th’s post(“Annum Operum”), I explained how Mamdani’s campaign promises to tax NYC billionaires were moronic, not only because it would drive all the wealthy away, but because the only tax the mayor can legally raise is the property tax. I guess Mamdani finally figured it out. (Or more likely, knew the whole time.)

Yesterday, Mamdani celebrated the first day of Ramadan by revealing his first municipal budget. It weighed in at a record-setting $127 billion —an $11 billion increase over last year’s morbidly obese version— but with a teensy problem: state law requires the budget to balance, and Zohran was $2.7 billion short. (The Times misleadingly reported it as $5.4 billion— but over a two-year period.) In other words, a gap of around 2%.

In a sane world, city officials would tweak the spreadsheet, scrape a little fat off the bottom, and voilá. But Big Apple people are living in crazy town now. So Mamdani’s budget proposed to close the 2% gap by cutting nothing, creating new universal child care programs, borrowing $1 billion from the city’s emergency reserves, and raising property taxes on city residents by nearly 10% across the board.

Municipal property taxes haven’t been raised in 20 years. It would increase revenues to around $14.7 billion over four years —$3.8 billion a year— far beyond what Zohran needs to close the gap.

He says he will be ‘reluctantly’ forced to raise property taxes (which are already in the budget) unless the State of New York agrees to implement a “billionaire tax” on folks making more than $1 million a year, which is technically not a billion, just saying, but close enough for socialists. Just ask AOC. If New York passed Mamdani’s new income tax, the rate would be the highest in the country at nearly 20%. That ain’t likely, since Governor Kathy Hochul is running for re-election this year. So property taxes it is!

Mayor Zohran “The Magnificent” Mamdani —a come-from-nowhere candidate whose previous government experience consisted of representing a single Queens district in the state assembly for one term— ran on a populist “tax the billionaires” platform. And he won! How exciting! And now, 45 days later, he’s proposing a 9.5% property tax increase that would hit three million single-family homes, co-ops, condos, salons, bodegas, and 100,000 other commercial buildings across all five boroughs.

In other words, taxing all the non-billionaires. Not even millionaires. Just the bourgeois landowners. Kulaks. During yesterday’s presser, he squinted in shared pain, called it a “last resort,” a “painful path,” and something he “obviously doesn’t want to do” —which is an awful lot of qualifiers for something that was clearly Plan A all along.

I sympathize with folks who live in the City. But buck up! Your suffering isn’t in vain. It will serve as a warning to others. So.

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“I settle wars,” President Trump said. Wars,plural. Yesterday, in a feat of diplomatic multitasking that would have given John Kerry a dizzy spell, President Trump’s team ran two simultaneous peace negotiations in the same city, on the same day, using the same two guys— neither of whom works for the government. The Times reported, “Trump Bets on Diplomacy Without Diplomats.”

“It was a stark example,” the Times began, “of Mr. Trump’s conviction that the State Department and the National Security Council, the two institutions that have coordinated negotiations over global crises for nearly 80 years, are best left on the sidelines.”

It’s not difficult to understand why. Their records stink.

Enter “White House special envoy” Steve Witkoff and another guy, Jared Kushner, who has no title at all, not even just “envoy.” Neither gentleman gets paid. Witkoff even flies his own jet and doesn’t submit for reimbursements. (It’s probably a trust issue. I don’t blame him.)

Indeed, even though the Times did its best to manufacture hysteria over the fact that two volunteers are negotiating the most difficult conflicts in the entire world —they’re not even experts!!— it was forced to admit, through gritted teeth, with an arm twisted behind its journalistic back, that it is working. Imagine that.

Get this: the US side scheduled two negotiating sessions yesterday in Geneva. Iran in the morning, and Ukraine in the afternoon. Both run by Witkoff/Kushner. Alright, gentlemen, we need to wrap this up by lunch, because we have another meeting.

The logistics alone were record-breaking. Witkoff and Kushner speed-ran the morning with indirect Iranian nuclear talks— and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi admitted “good progress” toward an “agreement on guiding principles.” A US official said Iran would make “detailed proposals” within two weeks. Oil futures dropped (i.e., the markets believed progress was made).

Then Witkoff and Kushner raced across town for the afternoon shift: mediating Day Two of the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, which a Russian source described as “very tense” and lasting six hours. There is zero chance the State Department could have pulled this off. After all, this kind of insane schedule leaves no time for skiing, shopping, or hobnobbing with local elites and escorts.

Witkoff and Kushner resolved more in one Tuesday in Geneva than John Kerry accomplished in four years, three climate summits, and an unlimited frequent-flyer budget. Whereas the Foggy Bottom team produced the Iran Deal (spoiler: Iran cheated), the shambolic Afghanistan withdrawal (13 dead Marines), and a Ukraine policy that generated at least 200,000 casualties (and counting).

Why not try the real-estate guys? They can’t do any worse than the bureaucrats.

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In what might be the most incredible metaphor in living history, yesterday’s Times reported, “Potomac Sewage Spill Becomes Ecological Disaster and Political Fight.” Ecological disaster undersells it. It is the largest discharge of raw sewage in American history, full stop. Right into the Potomac River, five miles upstream from Washington, DC.

Starting a month ago on January 19th, 250 million gallons of untreated, raw human sewage gushed from a broken pipe directly into the river. It took a full week for local utilities workers to ‘divert’ the discharge into the C&O canal. The Potomac River —which once inspired Francis Scott Key, hosted cherry-blossom strollers, and formed the majestic backdrop of the nation’s capital— is now basically a 400-mile open sewer. Right in time for the Nation’s 250th birthday celebration.

Since the diversion, “there have been intermittent sewage spills as recently as Feb. 10,” the article said, and the utility expects it could be up to nine months before the pipe is repaired.

E. coli levels downstream spiked to 10,000 times the safe standard in the days following the collapse. University of Maryland researchers also detected antibiotic-resistant MRSA, because apparently regular sewage contamination isn’t ambitious enough. The culprit is a 72-inch concrete pipe called the Potomac Interceptor, which normally “intercepts” 60 million gallons of waste per day and routes it to a treatment plant — a job it performed reliably for about sixty years before it suddenly, catastrophically stopped intercepting anything and started distributing instead. Weird. ‘Interceptor’ might need a rebrand.

To give you a sense of the scale, the Times quoted an environmental group which explained, “The amount of nitrate pollution that has flowed into the river was roughly equivalent to a year’s worth of output from a large sewage treatment facility … which feeds large algae blooms that can disrupt the river’s ecology and strip its waters of oxygen.”

Intrepid independents on X quickly located this 2021 clip from DC Water’s CEO, David Gadis, who described how the utility had too many white men and he fixed it with DEI.

CLIP: “My executive team looks like the people we serve, people of color” (0:58).

“The outcomes have been fantastic,” Mr. Gadis bragged. “When I arrived, this was an organization that looked very similar to our industry. You know, predominantly white males at the top. Now my executive team, you know, looks exactly like the employees, the community, you know, people of color.” At least he has priorities.

To get a flavor, meet one of DC Water’s new executive team appointments: Dr. Unique N. Morris-Hughes. I did not make that name up (but suspect it’s fake).

Dr. Unique is doubly diverse, but has zero background in water management or engineering. Here’s her bio. She is now chairperson of DC Water’s board. Who needs engineering anyway? How hard can it be? YOLO! In a way, it’s fitting. Unique is now the chairperson of the largest raw sewage spill in US history.

Online sleuths connected more dots. The Potomac Interceptor runs through Montgomery County, Maryland. Maryland’s governor is Wes Moore. Trump disinvited Governor Moore last month from the annual Governor’s meeting, even though he’s the vice-chairman of the Governor’s Association. Governor Moore immediately blamed racism. Now this.

President Trump has been posting fiery complaints to Truth Social all week. The federal government has offered help from EPA and FEMA (handicapped by the Democrats’ latest partial shutdown). Depending on who you ask, Maryland has refused federal assistance. Maryland says it’s open to help, but only if President Trump will first authorize payment for the state’s emergency expenses from last year. So there.

On Monday, President Trump said Governor Moore has yet to call him directly:

To recap: the pipe collapsed, a quarter billion gallons of raw human waste flooded the river, and Governor Moore’s response was to submit a reimbursement form for last year’s floods. Leadership, accountability, and invoice processing— the three pillars of progressive governance.

Later on Monday, President Trump posted that FEMA will “play a key role” in protecting the Potomac. Details remain fuzzy. FEMA is currently shut down, thanks to Democrat budget brinksmanship.

We now have literal sewage flowing into Washington, DC, which also perfectly illustrates the political sewage flowing out of it. I’m not saying DEI was to blame. I’m just saying.

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Last year, Sunshine State Governor Ron DeSantis created a 50-hour, online Western Civilization course for Florida teachers. They get $3,000 and a ‘Civics Seal of Excellence’ if they take it. So far, according to the Governor’s recent comments, twenty-one thousand teachers have completed the course. This is the way.

CLIP: Governor DeSantis explains new classic studies for teachers program (2:47).

DeSantis said over $60 million has been paid to Florida teachers in bonuses so far. Beyond the direct help to teachers, that number matters much more because every one of them returns to the classroom with a deeper understanding of where our ideas about democracy, individual rights, and the rule of law actually came from— and they pass it on to students who, in most other states, will never encounter those ideas in any structured way.

It’s the opposite of the DEI model: instead of teaching kids what to think, it trains teachers to explain how we learned to think in the first place. More, please.

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Another Epstein cuddler has been scalped. On Monday, ABC-7 reported, “Hyatt executive chairman Tom Pritzker steps down over Epstein ties.” The billionaire cousin of porcine Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has been Hyatt’s chief executive since 2004. He suddenly resigned this week following new vomit-inducing disclosures of his cozy relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Now he regrets it. “Good stewardship means protecting Hyatt, particularly in the context of my association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which I deeply regret,” the billionaire said in a statement. It is a miracle of nature how regret always blossoms after being fertilized with disclosure.

Hyatt, founded by the Pritzger family and the original source of its wealth, is a premium hotel brand that earns around $7 billion annually. In other words, it caters to elites.

Thomas Pritzker, 75, suddenly resigned on Monday after the most recently released Justice Department files revealed his regular, friendly contact with Jeffrey Epstein for years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction on sex crime charges. The two exchanged at least 20 emails arranging meals and meetings. One particularly damning 2018 exchange showed Pritzker helping Epstein’s girlfriend Karyna Shuliak plan a trip to Southeast Asia with the stated goal of finding girls for Epstein.

That one email chain could be sufficient to sustain an indictment for trafficking. Prosecuting billionaires is insanely hard. But still.

“The girl from Romania that you met at my house, is currently living in london, can we see if there is a starting position in any of the hotels,” Epstein wrote in another email. Pritzker responded by requesting her resume.

In his resignation letter, Pritzker admitted he’d “exercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact,” and offered “no excuse” for failing to distance himself sooner — a confession that might curry more sympathy if it hadn’t arrived seventeen years after Epstein’s conviction and only after three million pages of DOJ emails made the relationship impossible to deny.

A bigger point is easy to miss in the rush of events: An entire generation of well-entrenched progressive billionaires is being swept off the board. A shady, sordid, beastly, supra-national, unaccountable, invisible governance layer is being exposed before the world’s jaundiced eye. There is so much more to this story than anyone ever thought. It’s much bigger than CIA-fueled blackmail. I hope to address it soon. It’s going to blow your mind.

Have a wonderful Wednesday! Avoid swimming in the Potomac, and breaststroke back here tomorrow for more of Coffee & Covid’s essential news and commentary. See you then.

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