Page 1 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 February 5, 2026 Volume 9 Issue 34 From Island to Bay, News on the Level production@sunbaypaper.com www.sunbaypaper.com Right... All Along Digital Version WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ... WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ... ABOUT THE COUP... OBAMA PROMISED ...THREATENED...AND MAMDANI WILL CONTINUE!!! Mr. President, congratulations for all you have accomplished in your first year! May I suggest ...use your Proclamation powers and ban all Islamic, Muslims from entering the US ...like you did before ...or we will be overrun with Muslims! Do like President Jimmy Carter did and deport all non-US citizen Muslims, as well ...especially the exchange student programs ... send non-US citizen Muslims back to where they came from. For those who are ignorant of what Islam and Socialism are all about and what your Bill of Rights and Constitution are ...allow me to explain ..you will lose your Bill of Rights! First, Islam is NOT a religion... unless you believe it is OKAY for a “RELIGION” to kill those who do not believe in Islam. Before you disagree ...I watched ISIS bulldoze a single ditch in Iraq, probably a hundred feet long ...then line up some 50 Kafirs (that’s Muslims who do NOT believe in all the Surahs ...they are disbelievers). ISIS machine gunned all, bulldozed their bodies into the ditch, cut all their heads off, placed the heads on the former owner’s chests and then covered everything with that bulldozer! That, folks, is Islam! It demands death to those who do not carry out those Surahs, in their book of faith, the Quran. (See Surah 8-12 and 9-29 and MANY, more). Islam is a dangerous form of Socialism, which does not believe in our Constitutional Republic, or Bill of Rights! ISIS killed thousands of Kafirs in Iraq and THEYWERE ALL MUSLIMS! There is no private ownership of property in Socialism ...the perfect example is the new Mayor of the biggest city in the world telling you, through someone who appears to be incompetent, my opinion...is that the “best” Mamdani could do for a staff member (Cea Weaver) ...with an office of such power!? She said she is going to take your businesses away ...you may suffer a little bit!? Mostly white people...??? Understand, what you did when you elected an openly admitted Socialist, Islamic, Muslim that does not believe in your rights ...any of them ...you will not have the “Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” ...under the Zohran Mamdani rule. You who voted for him will not get the free stuff you want and when somebody breaks into your home ...don’t be surprised when there is nobody to respond ...you get what you deserve! Schumer...you total ASSHOLE... just wait and see what this Marxist, Red Commie, Left wing, Pinko, Muslim is about to do. He will carry out his Islamic beliefs ...he follows Allah and cuts your head off ... not what you thought he would do?! You need to pull your head out of your ass and read the Quran...see the above Surahs! The fraud you are seeing NOW ... that the Governor of Minnesota and some 80% of the Islam population are responsible for ...as well as most Democrap States... is NOTHING ...compared to what you’re about to see! Mamdani is going to follow up what Obama is/was doing and that is to “Fundamentally Change America”...bankrupt us into an Islamic state, by bankrupting all the social welfare programs, flood America with illegal aliens, pour every dime the government has to fund the aliens with Medicare, $1500 a day living quarters, cell phones that working citizens cannot afford, pocket cash to families of $400.00 each ...drain everything you can, including create phony companies, schools, businesses, buy luxury cars for personal transportation ...and on and on? Sound familiar? I predict that Mamdani will not last one year! He will be arrested for “Criminal Negligence” ...remember I predicted! Understand he took an oath to protect and preserve you ...let’s see if he does! Now, let’s take a peek at one of the most dishonest persons in Congress … and she makes Swallow, Shitty, Nadler look like angels! Oh, yes ...you, Omar, I am so happy that you committed all the crimes that you committed. You have created paper trails that are etched in stone, on just about every crime you committed! I’ll give you an idea of a few ...you married your brother (doesn’t matter how or why), its “incest”, a serious felony, in your state and Federal! You took the Citizens Oath to become a US Citizen... “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America”, you failed to honor your Oath ...you failed to denounce Islam, you failed to Honor the Constitution! You said, on the record, “That, you are not here to represent America, Cont. on pg. 2 The Right Side
Page 2 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 The Right Side WHAT THE PUBLIC DOES NOT UNDERSTAND ... CONT’D Cont. from pg. 1 you are representing Somalia”! You provided us with the evidence we needed, thank you! In my opinion, your actions will not survive an IRS Audit! Further, I believe that you will be found guilty of Mail Fraud, Wire Fraud and lose your US Citizenship. You may keep the Somali Citizenship. The money you acquired to gain a “net worth of some 25 million dollars” ...that is the nail in your coffin. I would not try to cover that up... you’ll be digging a deeper hole. But what do I know? I only worked major thefts, bank robbery, embezzlement, along with mail and wire fraud for most of my 30-year FBI career and retired Supervisor. The only way to teach states like California, Gov Nosense, is to deny them the Federal money that keeps them going! For a state to receive Federal funds for anything ...they MUST OBEYALL the other Federal Laws. So, Gov Nosense ... when he created Sanctuary Cities, he violated the Federal Laws, and Federal funds must be withheld! When he allowed those fires to rage out of control, he destroyed millions of acres and untold homes ...then he wants US ...us to fund him? Arrest him for criminal negligence! The next time ANY elected official urges crowds to form and interfere ...send a squad to the riot and crank up the fire hoses on nice winter days, place and arrest them for any of a dozen laws... Obstruction, inciting, interfering ...in fact arrest the mayor and arrest the Governor ...they need to be taught to NOT encourage anybody to resist ...period! J. Gary DiLaura, FBI RET Owner, SBP Media LLC therightsidejgarydilaura.com Shameless Ilhan Omar Accuses Trump of Wasting Taxpayer Dollars Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is in a very special category: black, Muslim and a refugee from Somalia. It's a triple-banger, like Karine Jean-Pierre, always touted as black, lesbian and Haitian. Never question their prominence on the merits. It's a born-on-third-base situation in national politics and media. So when Omar submits herself to television interviews from liberal networks, she knows she can say inflammatory things and not be seriously challenged. On CBS's "Face the Nation," the topic was Renee Good being shot after she drove into an ICE agent with her SUV. Omar claimed Good was "sitting in her car peacefully," and then the ICE agent "shouldn't be trying to get in front of a moving car." Good was right whether she was in Park or in Drive. On top of that, Team Trump shouldn't defend the ICE agent, because "we can see in the videos that have been produced so far that what they are describing is really not what is taking place." This is engaging in denialism. It's obvious from the ICE agent's video that he was struck by Good's car. CBS host Margaret Brennan didn't challenge Omar on that, or anything else about the incident. She only pushed back by vaguely stipulating there has been violence against ICE agents. This agent was previously run over by a car in his official capacity. That's not relevant when you've decided that in every instance, ICE and Trump are the villains. That wasn't as outrageous as Omar's appearance later on MS NOW's "The Weekend: Primetime." Over half an hour, all the questions were designed to elicit her talking points. Co-host Antonia Hylton asked: "In the wake of someone being shot and killed, are you worried that more of your constituents' lives will be at risk? Are you worried at all as they pull out their cellphones, as they interact with these officers, that that might just, frankly, not be safe?" Omar broke out the conspiracy theories: "What this administration is looking for is for there to be deadly encounters so that they can invoke the Insurrection Act and have martial law. And it is a dangerous, dangerous escalation that they're looking for." But it's the second segment of this interview that shocked the conservative world, when they asked Omar about fighting welfare fraud, as if Omar isn't connected to Somalis who benefited from fraud schemes, including employees of her campaigns. MS NOW star Ayman Mohyeldin disparaged "conservative YouTuber" Nick Shirley and complained, "We have politicians making decisions based off of conspiracy theories. I'm just wondering what you make of that and how dangerous that is, that our politicians are falling for this." Omar lamented that anyone would fall for the idea that "Democrats condone this fraud," and suggested all the fraud prosecutions occurred under the Biden administration. That's not true. But Omar was on a roll, attacking Team Trump: "I'm so exhausted in trying to ask what any of this, you know, information has led to you finding any criminals that you have indicted, that explains why you are wasting so much of our taxpayer resources." U.S. attorneys under Biden achieved about 60 fraud convictions, many of them Somalis, and that effort continues under Trump. That's not "wasting" taxpayer dollars. It's trying to punish people who stole money from social programs. Shameless Ilhan Omar doesn't have to worry about journalists bothering her with challenging questions about her conspiracy theories or her connections to fraudsters, or her booming net worth and if that was ethically gained. "Diversity, equity and inclusion" goals translate to media coddling, polishing and defusing. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Page 3 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 The Perpetual Climate Panic Machine ‘Collapses’ Global warming has gone cold as an issue. Despite decades of panicked predictions of doom, it’s never been a high priority for voters, and Trump’s bold expressions of “climate denial” went unpunished by voters. The media still sound allied with the Green New Deal pushers, but the thrill is gone. Last November, leftists blasted ABC, CBS and NBC for barely touching the COP30 global climate summit in Brazil. (PBS gave it nearly 16 minutes, and 10 of it was a John Kerry softball interview.) Now Axios.com posted an analysis by Amy Harder on this trend, titled “The world’s great climate collapse.” Greenpeace gang, beware: “The last year has seen an epic reversal that spread quickly from governments to boardrooms to pop culture.” Not only has Trump dismissed climate panic, but Harder noted Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, “once one of the world’s most vocal climate advocates,” is now repealing some of his country’s climate policies. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also issued a memo questioning the wisdom of pursuing “net zero” emissions policies. Then there’s billionaire Bill Gates, an unelected global leader. He circulated a memo criticizing the climate movement while shifting much of his money and focus back to public health -- just four years after publishing the book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” a bestseller that drew gushy reviews from AP, CNN, USA Today and Oprah Daily magazine. With Trump in office, Ford pulled back sharply from its electric-vehicle plans, shifting focus to more popular and profitable hybrids and gas vehicles due to slowing EV demand. Europe scaled back its plan to ban gasoline-powered cars in the next decade and softened climate disclosure rules, which The New York Times captured with a dejected headline: “Europe Begins to Tiptoe Away From Key Climate Policies.” The Axios analysis claimed even Hollywood is tiptoeing away, “swapping climate angst ... for oil swagger, as seen in the current hit TV show ‘Landman.’” That’s not entirely true. In December, the CBS drama “Fire Country” featured a firefighter lecturing like Al Gore: “We all know damn well there is no fire season anymore. Thanks to climate change, it’s all year round. Just keeps getting worse,” and concluding, “We’re at war.” Also in December, “Daily Show” star Jon Stewart brought on New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert to uncork the usual panic. Manhattan used to be an ice sheet like Greenland, she said. Stewart then quipped, “See, what I hear from that story is, if we keep this up, we could turn Greenland into Manhattan.” Kolbert jumped on the panic button: “That is absolutely true. Keep it up, but there’s 20 feet of sea level rising. So Manhattan will not be here.” This is not a new shtick. In 2008, ABC News showed a picture of New York City vanishing underwater in its prediction of what will happen by 2015. Ooooops. Never forget that in 1989, leftist scientist Paul Ehrlich narrated a segment on NBC’s “Today” show predicting that global warming would trigger a flood to completely cover Washington, D.C., which obviously never happened. After eco-leftists predicted certain climate- change doom by 1995, or by 2000, or by 2015, and now we’re still doom-less in 2026, the public should be skeptical that they’re the most credible experts on predicting what the future holds. If the perpetual climate panic machine has collapsed, it’s because the facts never lined up to prove any reason to panic. Their authoritarian “solutions” -- banning everything from gas-powered cars to gas stoves and grills -- needed the fuel of panic to be forced on the public. The bloom is off their poisoned rose. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. Last issue’s puzzle solution to ‘TAKE 5’
Page 4 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 I got a letter recently from the Social Security Administration. It told me that my monthly Social Security benefit was going up by a few bucks each month. And why was that? As the letter explained, they finally got around to factoring in my 2024 earnings into my benefit calculation. Those additional earnings boosted my monthly Social Security check. The letter said I would be getting a one-time check to pay me back to January 2025 (when the increase for 2024 earnings goes into effect). My ongoing monthly benefit would be increased by the small amount my 2024 earnings earned me. And just coincidentally, the same day I got that letter from the SSA, I also got an email from a reader asking me this question: “I’m 76 years old and just went back to work. Do I still have to pay Social Security taxes even though I’m already getting Social Security benefits? And if yes, will my current earnings increase my Social Security benefit?” The answer to the first question is “Yes.” All people who work at jobs that are covered by Social Security (and almost all jobs are) must have payroll taxes deducted from their paychecks -- whether they are 16 years old or 76 years old or 106 years old. The answer to the second question is “Maybe.” To understand whether or not the earnings you have, and the taxes you pay, after you start getting Social Security, will increase your benefits, you have to understand how Social Security retirement benefits are figured in the first place. Simply stated, your Social Security retirement benefit is based on your average monthly income, indexed for inflation, using a 35year base of earnings. So, when you initially filed for benefits, the Social Security Administration looked at your entire earnings history. Then they adjusted each year of earnings for inflation. The inflation adjustment factor depends on your year of birth and varies from one year to the next. Here is an example. Let’s take a guy who was born in 1949. Let’s say that he made $7,000 in 1970. When figuring his Social Security benefit, the SSA multiplied that $7,000 by an inflation adjustment factor of 6.58. In other words, instead of $7,000, they actually used $46,060 as his 1970 earnings when figuring his Social Security benefit. (There are different inflation factors for each year of earnings.) After the SSA indexes each year of earnings for inflation, they pull out your highest 35 years and add them up. Then they divide the total by 420 -- that’s the number of months in 35 years -- to get your average monthly inflation-adjusted income. Your Social Security benefit is a percentage of that amount. The percentage used depends on a variety of factors to complex to explain here. But for this column, we don’t need to know the precise percentage. Suffice it to say that for most people, their Social Security retirement benefit represents roughly 40% of their average inflation-adjusted monthly income. When you are working and paying Social Security taxes after you start receiving Social Security benefits, those additional taxes you are paying will increase your monthly Social Security check IF your current earnings increase your average monthly income. Or to be more precise, if your current annual income is higher than the lowest inflation-adjusted year of earnings used in your most recent Social Security computation, the SSA will drop out that low year, add in the new, higher year, recalculate your average monthly income, and then refigure your Social Security benefit. Here is a quick example of what I mean. Let’s go back to that guy who made $7,000 in 1970 and say that was the lowest year in his current Social Security computation. And let’s further say that he is now working and made $35,000 last year. You might assume that because $35,000 is much higher than $7,000, he should get an increase in his Social Security checks. But remember, the SSA didn’t use $7,000 in his benefit calculation. They used the inflation-adjusted amount of $46,060. Because his current earnings of $35,000 are lower than the low year of $46,060 used in his Social Security retirement computation, the additional earnings do NOT increase his average monthly income, so his Social Security benefit will not go up. On the other hand, had his current earnings been $70,000, for example, that would increase his benefit. The SSA would replace his low year of $46,060 with the new higher year of $70,000, recompute his average monthly wage and refigure his benefit. By the way, in my case, I really don’t make all that much money from the jobs I have (writing this column and doing an occasional paid speaking gig). But because I was a federal worker for most of my career, and at the time I worked, federal government employees did not pay into Social Security (they now do), my Social Security record is full of a bunch of years with zero earnings. So anything I make now is better than a “zero” year, and thus, I get a small increase in my benefits no matter how much money I make. Anyway, if you’re working and you’ve had a good year of earnings and you are pretty sure it should increase your Social Security check, what do you have to do to make that happen? The answer is: nothing. The SSA has a software program that automatically tracks the earnings of working Social Security beneficiaries and recalculates their benefits to see if any increase is due. It generally happens by October of each year. In other words, if you are getting Social Security benefits, and if you are working, and if your latest earnings increase your average monthly wage and thus your Social Security benefit, you generally will see that increase by October of the following year. For example, you would get an increase for your 2024 earnings by October 2025. And as happened with me, the SSA sends you a notice indicating the increase in your monthly benefit, which is retroactive to January of the year you get the notice. If you are working and you don’t get an increase, that means your earnings were simply not high enough to raise your average monthly income and thus your Social Security benefit. Tom Margenau If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called “Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security.” The other is “Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts.” You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. Why Did I Start Getting More Money from Social Security?
Page 5 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 12 Ways to Simplify Your Life Copyright © SBP Media LLC and Sun Bay Paper All rights reserved. This newspaper or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher. Quote of the Week “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ― Maya Angelou The Sun Bay Paper MAIL: PO Box 471, Sanborn, NY 14132 EMAILS: production@sunbaypaper.com thesbpmedia@gmail.com WEBSITE & DIGITAL VERSION: www.sunbaypaper.com OWNER/PUBLISHER: J. GARY DILAURA CONTRIBUTORS: RICHARD LUTHMANN, BOBBY MIMMO The information contained in this publication is for educational, general information, and entertainment purposes only and is never intended to constitute medical, financial or legal advice or to replace the personalized care of a primary care practitioner, financial or legal expert Would you be willing to accept a reduction in pay if you could work fewer hours to spend more time with your family? It is a lovely thought, but how realistic is it? Working less usually means earning less -- hardly an option for most people. But that doesn’t mean we cannot take small steps to simplify our complicated lives. A little bit here and there, and before you know it your efforts will add up to something significant. DECLUTTER Too much stuff leads to more stuff. And even more and more! All that stuff weighs us down and robs our joy and precious time because everything becomes so complicated. Getting rid of clutter is a cheap, fast and effective way to become physically and financially sound. It’s also the path to emotional and intellectual happiness. Dejunk your home one drawer, cupboard, closet and room at a time. Expect to experience a new feeling of “lightness.” GIVE EVERYTHING A HOME We know the rule: Everything has a place. Adhering to that ideal can be quite another matter. But truth be told, once everything has a home, it’s easy to maintain a clean and functional space. Cleanup is quick and easy because it’s simple. Whatever it takes to reach the everything-has-a-place goal will be so worth the effort. PHONE CONTROL Just because it happens to be a convenient time for someone to call you doesn’t mean it’s convenient for you to answer. Let your calls go to voicemail. Every instant message does not deserve an instant response. Telling your phone who’s in charge will greatly simplify your life. RUN THE DISHWASHER ONCE A DAY In most homes, the dishwasher has a tendency to fill up quickly. Here’s a workable routine that will bring simplicity and calm to your home: Every morning, after breakfast, run the dishwasher and then empty it right before lunch. Now you can put the dirty dishes from lunch and dinner directly into the dishwasher and go to bed with nothing in the sink. RECORD IT Write down what you need to remember and forget everything else. Don’t allow your mind to dwell on things over which you have no control. You will never regret making this a new habit. SHARE, LEND, BORROW, RENT Part of the reason we have such a love affair with shopping and consumerism is that we think we need to personally own everything we use. Before you agree to complicate your life further with yet another possession, consider the alternatives. STOP PAYING FOR CABLE Due to hidden fees on top of basic service, the average household cable package is now $217.42 per month, which is more than the monthly average U.S. household pays for all major utilities combined ($205.50). Cutting the cable is a good step toward simplifying your life, and quite frankly, something you may never regret. With so many free or at least cheaper options, you might not even miss cable TV at all. TAKE A BREAK You may not realize how screen time is affecting your purchasing and lifestyle choices. If you are addicted to Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and television in general, taking a break will simplify your life. If you’re not willing to go cold turkey, at least disable notifications. Then limit the number of times each day that you check your various feeds. FOMO (fear of missing out) is a real thing that has no merit -- a fake fear. DRIVE A SIMPLE CAR High-end, luxury automobiles are nice to drive but can complicate one’s life. Typically, they are gas-guzzlers and expensive to insure, register, maintain and repair. It’s a simple, totally doable step, but one that may take a while to achieve. SELECT A PATTERNED CARPET Light-colored, plush carpeting is beautiful but can be life-altering. It shows every speck, spot, fleck and crumb. If you want your carpets to look good without having to spend all your free time spotting, vacuuming, deflecking and uncrumbing, go with something speckled, patterned or multicolored. GET UP EARLIER The best hour of the day is the one right before you normally get up. It may take you a few weeks to truly enjoy that hour right before dawn, but when you create the habit you will be amazed by the simplicity that 60 quiet, stressfree minutes will add to your day. CULTIVATE CONTENTMENT Decide to be happy with what you have. The social imperative that we must consume to be happy breeds dissatisfaction and nonfulfillment. The constant ratcheting up of standards demands that we constantly upgrade in order to keep up. It takes a conscious effort to desire less. MARY HUNT EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE Mary invites you to visit her at EverydayCheapskate.com, where this column is archived complete with links and resources for all recommended products and services. Mary invites questions and comments at https://www.everydaycheapskate.com/contact/, “Ask Mary.” This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. Mary Hunt is the founder of EverydayCheapskate.com, a frugal living blog, and the author of the book “Debt-Proof Living.”
Page 6 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 What’s New around Fort Myers 2026 annual festivals and events ArtFest Fort Myers, downtown Fort Myers Feb. 6-8 artfestfortmyers.com Southwest Florida Ag Expo Feb. 26-March 8 Lee County Civic Center Complex swflagexpo.com 88th Edison Festival of Light Grand Parade, Fort Myers Feb. 21 edisonfestival.org Spring training Boston Red Sox February/March 2026 mlb.com/redsox/spring-training JetBlue Park, Fort Myers Minnesota Twins mlb.com/twins/spring-training February/March 2026 Lee Health Sports Complex/Hammond Stadium, Fort Myers 24th annual Burrowing Owl Festival, Cape Coral February tba Rotary Park Environmental Center Rotary Park ccfriendsofwildlife.org/burrowing-owl-festival-2 Fort Myers Beach Lions Club Shrimp Festival March 7 fortmyersbeachshrimpfestival.com 27th annual Southwest Florida Reading Festival, Fort Myers March 7 Fort Myers Regional Library, downtown Fort Myers readfest.org CROW Taste of the Islands, Sanibel Island March tba tasteoftheislands.org Sanibel Shell Show, Fort Myers March tba Marriott Sanibel Harbour Resort sanibelshellclub.com/6306-2 89th annual Sanibel Shell Festival, Sanibel Island March tba Community House tinyurl.com/shellfest88 Fort Myers River Festival, downtown Fort Myers March tba paragonfestivals.com/festival/fort-myers-river-music-festival ECHO Global Food and Farm Festival, North Fort Myers March tba echonet.org/events/global-food-and-farm-festival 4th annual SWFL Mural Fest, Fort Myers March tba artsembleunderground.com/swfl-muralfest 11th annual Bonita Springs Film Festival April tba Prado Stadium bonitaspringsfilmfestival.org “Ding” Darling Day Conservation Carnival, Fort Myers April tba Lakes Park dingdarlingday.com 14th annual “Ding” Darling & Doc Ford’s Tarpon Tournament, Sanibel Island May tba dingdarlingsociety.org/tarpon-tournament World’s Richest Tarpon Tournament, Boca Grande May tba bocagrandechamber.com/worlds-richest-tarpon-tournament 16th annual Fort Myers Film Festival May 14-18 fortmyersfilmfestival.com Alliance for the Arts, Fringe Fort Myers May tba artinlee.org/experience/fringe National Seashell Day June 20 visitfortmyers.com/national-seashell-day 30th annual MangoMania July 12 Winn Dixie Plaza, St. James City pineislandchamber.org/chamber-events/mangomania
Page 7 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 As Pelosi Steps Away, The Press Keeps Pampering Nancy Pelosi may be retiring from Congress, but no one should expect the DNC media to stop treating her as a most glorious political figure. She draws deep bows wherever she goes. She’s always the Best Ever. On CBS’s “Sunday Morning” in early 2024, substitute host Tracy Smith announced Pelosi “has a new book out, ‘The Art of Power’ -- an art which Nancy Pelosi is something of a master.” After Pelosi bizarrely suggested Joe Biden could go on Mount Rushmore, Stahl just had to follow up with flattery: “If there were a Mount Rushmore for Speakers of the House, Nancy Pelosi would certainly be up there, commemorating her 20 years as a commanding leader in Congress.” In mid-December, USA Today reporter Susan Page put her Pelosi interview on the front page. Page wrote a gushy book in 2022 titled “Madam Speaker,” touting her as a “master legislator, and an indefatigable political warrior.” Pelosi suggested when (not if) Democrats retake the House next year, they shouldn’t impeach Trump a third time. “We won’t be able to get his signature on things, maybe,” she said of Trump, “but we’ll be able to slow down the terror that he is inflicting on the country.” Trump is a terrorist. That gets no pushback. She calls his administration “corrupt, incoherent, chaotic, cruel” and his political priorities “sick.” Then on Dec. 29, the gushy narrator was ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week.” He introduced it this way: “History maker ... As Nancy Pelosi prepares to leave office, we sit down for an exclusive conversation about her groundbreaking path, her confrontations with Donald Trump, and the challenges ahead for Democrats.” Karl then insisted, “Whether you agree with her or not, there is no real dispute that Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful woman in the history of American politics. ... We caught up with her in Georgetown to take a look at her remarkable career and to discuss her advice to Democrats going forward.” Again, Pelosi was allowed to say wacky things without pushback. “The Republicans in the Congress have abolished the Congress. They just do what the president insists that they do.” They “abolished” Congress? Where are the “independent fact checkers”? Do we believe that when Pelosi was Speaker under Presidents Obama and Biden, she didn’t do what the president wanted? Or were they simply doing her bidding? Karl spent most of this interview rehashing Pelosi’s narrative on the Jan. 6 riot. He cited “the remarkable footage her daughter Alexandra captured -- featured in the 2022 HBO documentary, ‘Pelosi in the House.’” He noted from that afternoon, “Speaker Pelosi pleads with military leaders to send in the National Guard.” But what about the days before the riot? In June 2024, the House Republicans posted previously unseen video from Pelosi’s daughter where the Speaker blames herself for the lack of National Guard troops: “Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with? ... I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more.” Even as Pelosi retires, ABC and the rest can never wonder out loud why the Democrats, from Pelosi to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, failed to protect the Congress with the National Guard, as they were still reeling from the George Floyd riots and the “defund the police” aftermath on the Left. The fawning over Pelosi could be Exhibit A in documenting how fervently the elitist media serves the Democratic Party, pushing its narratives and painting its leaders in the brightest hues. Pelosi not just expected but demanded strict partisan discipline from the national media, and they have obeyed. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com. Two Californians Are Eyeing a White House Run in 2028. Republicans Rejoice WASHINGTON -- Two California Democrats could run for president in 2028: Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Republican operatives must be thinking: Bring it on. Under Newsom, California's image has become less golden than it used to be. The high cost of living has taken a toll. The IRS announced last month that California is the state experiencing the highest net loss of taxpayers, with one taxpayer leaving every 1 minute and 44 seconds. Nearly 39,000 Californians moved to Nevada last year. Hope that the Silver State newbies don't bring their progressive politics with them. And good luck with that. The entertainment industry has been decamping from Hollywood for some time, but the decline of greater Los Angeles as an industry town accelerated after the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America strikes of 2023. On-location production in the area fell more than 22% from January through March 2025, according to FilmLA, which tracks filming in Southern California. California's loss could be good for Nevada. Actor Mark Wahlberg and others have been working to turn the Las Vegas area into a more affordable home for the industry, a Hollywood 2.0. The Nevada Legislature, however, has rejected rich transferable tax credits as a carrot to create film studios in southern Nevada. Much of Silicon Valley's Big Tech has decamped to the Lone Star State because of its lower taxes and less restrictive regulations. In 2021, Elon Musk moved Tesla's headquarters to Texas. In 2024, Musk moved the headquarters for X (formerly Twitter) from San Francisco, and his personal home and other operations in Silicon Valley, to Texas. I'll never forget interviewing former eBay CEO Meg Whitman when she was running for California governor in 2010. I worked for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. Whitman told me how eBay executives had begun to talk about where they would rebuild if eBay had to start all over again. Whitman's answer was not California. "Probably Texas," she offered. Energy companies fled. Chevron left San Ramon, California, for Houston. California doesn't look like a can-do state anymore. Consider the Southland's inability to prevent fires from scorching Pacific Palisades and Altadena, as city, county and state governments seemed more interested in imposing their politics on the public than providing essential services and infrastructure. With all that failure, hypocrisy doesn't look so bad. Republican rivals may not even bring up Governor Handsome's infamous COVID-19 dinner with fellow big shots at the tony French Laundry in Napa, even as his team was lecturing Californians that they should not to have Thanksgiving dinners with members of more than three households. So run, Gavin, run. As for Harris, well, she will have to answer for her erstwhile boss, former President Joe Biden, who opened the border to millions of unvetted immigrants without any inkling of the likely consequences. Harris famously made a verbal blunder in October 2024, when the ladies of "The View" asked what she might have done differently than Biden and she answered, "There is not a thing that comes to mind." California Democratic political consultant Darry Sragow wonders if, after losing the world's biggest prize, Harris might turn out "to be a very different candidate than she's been" if she does run for the White House again. Sragow warns against assuming Harris did not learn from 2024's missteps. As for Newsom, Sragow offered that voters have been "waiting for someone to go toe to toe with Donald Trump," and the slick-haired Democrat could be the man. Newsom has served as anti-Trumpers' favorite troll. Sragow notes that while the rest of America may see California as cray-cray (not his words), events can change everything. Besides, Californians enjoy a balmy climate that New Yorkers and Washingtonians envy. The economic climate, I would counter, is another issue. Contact Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com Follow @debrajsaunders on x
Page 8 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 Why I Keep Binder Clips in Every Room There are a few things I like to keep handy at all times -- nail file, a good pair of sunglasses, and binder clips. Yes, binder clips. The small, black ones with shiny silver handles that come in myriad sizes. The kind you can find in bulk at office supply stores for about the price of a fancy coffee. I keep binder clips in nearly every room of my house. Not because I'm some kind of rogue stationery hoarder but because these little workhorses are endlessly useful. They're inexpensive, reusable, nearly indestructible -- and far more versatile than the name might imply. Let's start in the kitchen, where I use binder clips to close bags of chips, flour, sugar and frozen vegetables. A binder clip keeps things fresh without the visual drama. I don't need pretty -- I need function! I also clip printed recipes to a cabinet handle so they're at eye level while I cook -- no sticky phones or splattered cookbooks required. In the fridge, I hang lightweight snack bags or condiment packets from the wire shelves using binder clips. This keeps everything in view, which prevents mystery bags of frozen peas from turning into science projects. Even the bathroom isn't safe from my binder clip enthusiasm. I clip them to nearly empty tubes of toothpaste and gently roll them up, squeezing every last bit of minty paste. A large binder clip on the shower curtain liner is heavy enough to stop it from ballooning inward and sticking to you like it's trying to start a conversation. At my desk, these clips really shine. I loop my phone charging cable through the handles of a binder clip secured to the edge of my desk. That way, the cord doesn't fall behind the furniture every time I unplug. I've used binder clips to prop up recipe cards, display photos, and even replace a broken keyboard leg. (Yes, really. It's still going strong.) In the bedroom, binder clips keep my blackout curtains firmly closed so I can sleep in peace. I use one to hold my phone cord in place on my nightstand so I'm not fumbling around like I'm defusing a bomb in the dark. I also clip socks together before tossing them in the wash -- and wouldn't you know, they actually come out as a pair. It's basically a miracle. Even the closet gets a binder clip upgrade. I hang scarves from pants hangers using binder clips -- easy to see, easy to grab. I also clip together the backs of sandals or flats that tend to wander away from their partners. If I hand-wash delicates like bras or camisoles, binder clips make air-drying a breeze. Just clip them to a hanger and hang them on the shower rod. They've made their way into my car too. I keep a clip in the glove compartment to hold together my insurance and registration papers -- no more frantic digging. I've even clipped two large binder clips together to wedge into a car vent as a makeshift phone mount. It's not pretty, but it works in a pinch. And don't even get me started on travel. I once used binder clips to keep hotel curtains shut so I didn't wake up with a beam of parking lot light aimed directly at my face. I've used them as toothbrush stands and laundry line clips, and even to pinch a stubborn zipper pull on a stuck suitcase. When you're trying to pack light and travel smart, they're worth their weight in gold. Here's the thing: You don't have to be a DIY genius or a hyper-organized minimalist to appreciate a tool that just works. Binder clips are like the friends who show up with a shovel when your car's stuck in the snow -- unassuming, helpful and always ready. If you haven't already brought a few binder clips into your everyday life, go ahead and try. You might just find yourself reaching for one more often than you expected. For more practical household tips that save money, space and your sanity, visit me at EverydayCheapskate.com/binderclips. I'll be the one gushing about binder clips and other surprisingly useful stuff -- like it's totally normal. MARY HUNT EVERYDAY CHEAPSKATE Mary invites you to visit her at EverydayCheapskate.com, where this column is archived complete with links and resources for all recommended products and services. Mary invites questions and comments at https://www.everydaycheapskate.com/contact/, “Ask Mary.” This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. Mary Hunt is the founder of EverydayCheapskate.com, a frugal living blog, and the author of the book “Debt-Proof Living.” Last issue’s puzzle solution to ‘YOU’RE A SAINT!’
Page 9 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 Why Children Under 13 Should Be Banned From Social Media The debate over children and social media is often framed as a question of parental control or technological inevitability. It should not be. At its core, this is a moral question about what kind of society we are shaping, what we choose to protect, and what we are willing to sacrifice in the name of convenience, profit and false notions of freedom. Children under the age of 13 should not be on social media. Not because technology is evil, but because childhood is fragile and social media is not built for moral development. At this stage of life, children are still forming their identity, learning boundaries, and developing the capacity for judgment and self-regulation. Neuroscience is clear: Impulse control, emotional regulation and critical thinking mature well into adolescence. Social media, by contrast, is designed to exploit impulse, reward comparison, and intensify emotion. It does not educate young minds; it conditions them. What children encounter online is rarely neutral. Content is optimized not for truth, growth or well-being but for engagement. Shock travels faster than nuance. Sexualized imagery appears long before children can contextualize it. Violence is stripped of consequence. Cruelty is reframed as humor. Validation becomes currency, and self-worth becomes a public negotiation. This is not harmless exposure. It is moral interference at scale. Much of the harm is subtle and therefore dismissed. Children are not typically pushed toward overtly illegal or extreme material. Instead, they are nudged slowly and persistently toward distorted norms about relationships, body image, success and identity. Algorithms learn what unsettles, excites or angers a child and deliver more of it. The child does not choose this environment; it is curated around them without their understanding or consent. The result is corruption without awareness. Anxiety, depression, aggression and social withdrawal often appear later, long after the source has been normalized. There is also a deeper ecosystem at work, one most parents never see. While children may never intentionally access the darkest corners of the internet, the culture shaped there does not remain contained. Exploitation, predation, dehumanization and nihilism bleed upward into mainstream platforms through trends, language and aesthetics. By the time this content reaches children, it has been sanitized just enough to avoid scrutiny, but not enough to avoid harm. Children do not need to visit the dark web to absorb its values. Tech companies know this. Internal research, much of it reluctantly disclosed, has repeatedly shown harm to young users. Yet enforcement of age limits remains performative at best. Why? Because early engagement builds lifelong consumers. Attention is monetized. Addiction is profitable. And responsibility is quietly outsourced to parents, who cannot reasonably compete with billion-dollar behavioral engineering. This is not simply a failure of parenting. It is institutional negligence disguised as innovation. Some argue that banning children under 13 from social media infringes on freedom or limits digital literacy. That argument confuses preparation with exposure. We do not teach children to swim by throwing them into open water. We do not prepare them for adulthood by immersing them in adult environments prematurely. Childhood is not a training ground for markets; it is a protected space for moral formation. A ban is not censorship. It is a boundary. We already draw such lines in countless areas of life: labor laws, age restrictions, content ratings and consent standards. These are not arbitrary. They exist because we recognize that some environments are incompatible with healthy development. The cost of ignoring this reality is visible everywhere: rising youth anxiety, fractured identity, diminished attention spans and a generation struggling to distinguish authenticity from performance. These are not isolated trends. They are symptoms of a culture that has confused access with progress, and profit with purpose. A society that allows children to be shaped by anonymous influence, algorithmic manipulation and unaccountable power cannot later claim innocence when those children grow into distrustful, disconnected adults. Moral development cannot be crowdsourced. It must be protected. Banning children under 13 from social media is not a retreat from modern life. It is an assertion of responsibility. The question is no longer whether harm exists. The question is whether we are willing to act or whether we will continue to sacrifice childhood on the altar of convenience and greed, then pretend we did not see it coming. ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS
Page 10 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 Trump’s First Year of His Second Term Lacks the Drama of 2017. Good. WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump is a better boss the second time around. You can see it in his staffing. Trump is putting the right people in top jobs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is flexing his foreign policy chops. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is selling Trump’s policies to Wall Street and Main Street. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy isn’t trying to paper over problems on American roads and in the skies. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is taking on the education bureaucracy. The first year of Trump’s first term was chaotic: The turnover of his “A-Team” hit 35%, according to an analysis by Brookings Institution visiting fellow Kathryn Dunn Tenpas. Former President Barack Obama’s first year turnover was 9%; according to Tenpas, the closest modern predecessor to Trump was Ronald Reagan with 17% turnover in his first year. Given that Trump had never served in public office until he was elected president, hiccups were predictable. In that first year, Trump spit out his first chief of staff (Reince Priebus), press secretary (Sean Spicer) and national security adviser (Michael Flynn). Tenpas has a term for such departures: RUP, for “resigned under pressure.” As you look at Trump’s picks this goround, you see how his four years in the wilderness paid off, and with Susie Wiles serving as chief of staff, there’s a stability you didn’t see in 2017. There has been “no publicly announced firing” among senior staff in the Executive Office of the President, Tenpas told me. Trump’s first second-term national security adviser (Michael Waltz) was caught adding a journalist to a Signal chat group that discussed plans for a U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen. But rather than outright firing Waltz, Trump moved the former Army Special Forces officer to the United Nations, where he serves as U.S. ambassador. Waltz’s replacement? Rubio, who is acting national security adviser and the archivist of the United States. Trump is “double and triple hatting people,” is how Tenpas put it. “When one of them leaves, he likes to hire from within.” Also, Tenpas wrote, “The share of women and non-whites holding the most senior government positions is the lowest of the past four administrations.” While I see the lesser turnover as a sign that Trump has seasoned, Tenpas credits the administration’s “far more intense focus on loyalty.” When Trump first became president, he had never served in office, so he didn’t have a stable of long-term operatives. At times it seemed Trump picked some top staff and Cabinet members for their news (and entertainment) value. Remember Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had recommended the former CEO of ExxonMobil. A newbie president and a newbie secretary of state. What could go wrong? In March 2018, Trump announced he was firing Tillerson on Twitter. “Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job!” Trump posted. “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service!” The most theatrical firing of 2017 came when then-FBI Director James Comey learned he was unemployed during a recruitment event in Los Angeles. Awkward. Nearly a year into Trump’s second term, America has not witnessed a similar public shaming/firing. And some Trump picks -- most notably Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth -- don’t exactly have the heavyweight personas you would expect for their positions. Trump should have put them on Mediterranean or Baltic Avenue, but somehow they landed on Park Avenue and Boardwalk. Contact Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com Follow @debrajsaunders on X
Page 11 The Sun Bay Paper February 5, 2026 Young People and Social Security The people who syndicate this column have just assigned a new editor to me. She’s a relatively young person. (Of course, when you are 76 years old, as I am, the majority of people I meet and deal with are younger than me!) I sort of apologized to my young editor for having to work with a guy who writes a column about an old people’s topic like Social Security. But she graciously let me know she was looking forward to learning more about the program. Anyway, this got me to thinking about the issue of young people and Social Security. And it turns out they are more involved with the program than most folks might think. And I’ll use the rest of this column to explain. I’ll start out by sharing this story. For part of my career with the Social Security Administration, my job was to run around and give speeches and make presentations about the program to various groups and organizations. I used to go out of my way to schedule such talks to high school students -- usually as part of a history or economics class. You might think that I had some kind of speaker’s death wish. After all, can you think of a tougher crowd to stand up in front of and talk about Social Security than a group of teenagers? But there was a method to my madness. I’d start each class by asking the kids what they thought of when I said the words, “Social Security.” Inevitably, someone would say “old people.” And another kid might pop up and say, “Yeah, I think my grandparents get Social Security checks.” And usually another student would say, “I think that’s what they are taking out of my paycheck at McDonald’s.” Those were the kinds of responses I was expecting. After a few minutes of playing that word association game, I’d turn the tables a bit and tell the class this. “Many years ago, when I was sitting where you are sitting, I was getting a Social Security check every month from the government.” And then I’d ask them, “How come?” There was always a long pause as the kids mulled this over. In fact, even the teacher usually looked puzzled. But eventually, a young person somewhere in the room would raise his or her hand and say, “Maybe one of your parents died?” And that was the right answer. My dad died when I was a little kid. And soon after that, my mom and my sister and brothers and I started getting monthly survivor benefits. So when I was in high school, I was indeed getting a Social Security check every month from the government. (And in case you’re wondering, I wasn’t making a killing off the program. As I recall, my check was all of $22 per month. But of course, that was 60 years ago.) By the way, I just said “eventually” some kid in the class would figure out that my dad had died. And that was always because that child also had a deceased parent and was getting Social Security survivor benefits just as I was many years earlier. In fact, I probably made a hundred such talks to high school classes during that part of my career, and I don’t remember a single class that didn’t have at least one kid who was collecting a monthly Social Security check off the record of a deceased parent. That’s a big part of the message I was delivering to the kids (and now, to you). Social Security isn’t just about old people. There are many millions of younger people who get Social Security benefits every month. They might be children of a deceased parent. Or they might be children of someone getting Social Security retirement or disability benefits. And speaking of the latter, they also might be young or middle-aged adults getting Social Security disability benefits. The point is that survivor benefits (around since 1940) and disability benefits (around since 1956) are a big part of the Social Security program that many people usually don’t think about. How big? Let’s look at some numbers. There are 70 million people getting Social Security benefits. Of those, about 8 million are getting disability benefits and another 6 million are getting survivor benefits. In other words, almost 20% of the people getting Social Security benefits are not retirees -- the kind of “old people” normally associated with the Social Security program. Let me break that down further to highlight the number of children getting Social Security. There are about 1 million children of disabled workers getting monthly dependent benefits, and 2 million children of a deceased parent who are getting monthly survivor benefits. Further, there are another 723,000 children of retirees who are getting dependent benefits. In other words, we are talking about senior citizens (almost always men) who are getting Social Security retirement benefits who happen to have one or more minor children still living at home. (For obvious biological reasons, it would be rather rare for a woman in her 60s to still have a minor child.) This has always been a controversial part of the program. I can tell from the emails I’ve gotten over the years that people don’t mind kids getting benefits from a disabled or deceased parent. But for some reason, they have a problem with the children of retirees getting benefits. I’m guessing it’s because they figure we are talking about some old goat who has married a much younger woman and fathered a child or two by her -- and now those kids are getting monthly Social Security checks. Of course, that is not always the case. But I think it’s the perception most people have of male retirees with small children at home. Although when it comes to benefits for “children,” we are not necessarily always talking about a minor. Those monthly Social Security checks to kids usually end when the child turns 18. But the law has always said that a child can get benefits after 18 if he or she is disabled. In other words, there are adults in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are getting “disabled adult child” benefits. That number is about 1 million. And that cuts across all three of the major benefit categories. In other words, of the 723,000 children of retirees and 1 million children of disabled workers and 2 million children getting survivor benefits, about 1 million of them are “disabled adult children.” Anyway, the whole point of this column is to point out that Social Security isn’t always an old people’s program. Tom Margenau If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called “Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security.” The other is “Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts.” You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at thomas.margenau@ comcast.net.
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