Restless Again
By
Cat West
January 18, 2026
Late, I Know
None of this is Breaking News… (IMO, News is pretty much broken as it is these days, but enough of that)
Werner got his hearing and it was a good one. Witnesses were called to the stand, sworn in and gave testimony and answered questions. Lonnie Olson, a sitting Federal judge was put on the stand and his responses to obvious flaws in his prosecution, were just as lame as his (via the prosecutor’s office) responses to the 201+ points request for a new hearing where it was essentially that the Defense should’ve known he/his office was hiding evidence of Werner’s innocence and could’ve ‘asked’ for it. Never mind they had put in the requests for Brady material. He thinks they should’ve known he was hiding witness statements and made some sort of personal request? I don’t know because I wasn’t in the courtroom, but I’m told he looked both arrogant and squirmy.
To some who were in the courtroom he made it sound like withholding Brady material was a common practice in his office, and to me, that would open up every conviction for a retrial either because he was ignorant of the law and repeatedly made “mistakes” that convicted the innocent, or because it was deliberate on his part. Either way.
I’m just a mouthy blogger, not a legal expert, so if a legal expert would like to weigh in on this and justify his blatant actions in Werner’s case, or any other, where he likely or possibly withheld Brady Material, feel free. I’ll even post it. Experts are always welcome.
Werner’s team were laser precise in their presentation and their questioning and at the end of the hearing, the Judge said to Werner: “Mr. Kunkel, you were well represented here.” I’m told he was smiling when he said it.
We still have to wait for the ruling as to when/if there will be a new trial but all of us (except Lonnie Olson) are hopeful that there will be.
Kudos
While I’m passing out “attaboys” I’d like to commend the Devil’s Lake Journal for their excellent write up of the proceedings. The Managing Editor personally wrote it up. That is especially sweet on top of the whole event. That shows the case is important to the DLJ.
Now They See Him
I heard that now the guards who were often downright abusive to Werner, some enjoying tormenting him, now have a clearer picture of who he is and they are treating him better. I’m glad to hear that but it also brings up the issue of how people in prison are treated; that the system isn’t just about locking up the convicted, but also about those who work in the system getting to play god over the safety and well-being of those who are essentially in their care.
Maybe start treating prisoners like human beings? If your job perk is that you get to torment someone, maybe there’s something else you should be doing? Just a thought. But if we want people who will someday be released to want to belong in the society and behave better, maybe don’t torture them while they’re locked up? If you can’t do your job without being abusive, you don’t belong where you are.
We’ll go on about having private corporations running prisons for profit another time. It’s what’s making it profitable to fill prisons, mistreat prisoners, and return the damaged human beings back into society. There are better ways, but they aren’t as much fun for the billionaire class and they don’t make anyone wealthy. They just make society safer and more moral. Decide what society you’d rather live in and work towards making that happen.
When Werner was led back to jail, all the prisoners had already heard about the hearing, one man shouted “Innocent Man Walking!” as he was led to his cell. I don’t know about you, but that gives me a good feeling.
GNIP
There was quite a bit of media coverage in general of this hearing. Really happy to hear about that. A man locked up for over 30 years for a vicious crime he had nothing to do with; a man unknown and without high public profile, thrown away, put in a hole, and left to rot, has been raised up and brought into the light. If not for the Innocence Project in general and the Great Northern Innocence Project in North Dakota, the innocent man would still be rotting.
A wrong that has ruined one man’s life, stolen it from him, would still be buried in the system. Now, especially since the hearing, and media coverage in general, and I should remind everyone that Pat Springer of the Fargo Forum did an amazing 7-part series on Werner’s case (Gilbert Fassett) and on the Eddie Peltier Case and what they have in common, people can see that the Justice System is a flawed system. Flawed because it is run by Human Beings; some of whom make mistakes, and others who are corrupt. But it also has in it people who work passionately to make it fair, to bring justice and to right the wrongs.
Now They All Know
We Human Beings who are surrounded by this and subject to it can be misled, tricked, and our opinions aimed in the directions we see as credible, even when it is a lie. That’s because we too, are HUMAN. But we can also be enlightened, educated and set straight when more evidence, more proof are presented. The trick to having a functioning society is to have an open mind. When something shows up that counters a firmly held belief—reconsider. It costs us nothing.
The truth becomes more visible whether we want it to or not. Once we see it, maturity requires that we accept it and adapt our thinking and actions accordingly. Holding onto a belief predicated on a lie does not make us smarter, better or stronger. It only makes us easier to manipulate by more lies, misconceptions, deceptions.
We’ll talk more about racism, misogyny and bigotry and how that is used to play against us at another time, but you get the idea. Preconceived ideas are fine until they aren’t. The USA is in a world of shit right now and it’s being driven by mindless, ignorant hate, and that is making it dangerous for everyone. It’s up to us to help one another and to look for the truth, regardless of what we want to believe. It’s how we make our society better, stronger, smarter, and safer for everyone.
Unless you prefer to live in fear.
Back To The Rez
Corruption is built into the system that governs and exploits First Nations, all across the country. Previous experience has shown me how many have prospered from it, at all levels of government, and the people subjected to it have little or no recourse. The corruption is by design.
When people worked in Social Services, a nun, a staffer, and even an administrator of the Federal agency that is supposed to protect children and families uncovered rampant abuses, child trafficking, and millions of dollars being drained from the accounts that were supposed to support these vulnerable children, the FBI did not pursue the corrupt, nor did the head of the agencies, (an appointed position) back up or support their District Administrator, they in fact pursued and harassed them, mercilessly, all the while ignoring the crimes being committed upon these children and against the government laws and rules.
The system was built on corruption and it continues to be corrupt. There will be no investigations at any levels because those who got wealthy from it, continue to get wealthy from it and the system protects the wealthy, not the workers, not the children.
The only way the tribes can fight back to any degree is to elect and hold accountable, leaders who look out for the welfare of everyone, not just their own self interests. You know if your leaders are corrupt or not by watching those who fight against crimes and corruption face harassment. Banishing those who fight the corruption, who seek to protect the tribe from criminals, or who search for the missing and the murdered, is a sign that your leaders are corrupt.
I hear talk that those who are organizing marches and actively searching for the murdered and missing are being threatened with being floated off the rez. If you allow that to happen, who is going to look for your missing or murdered children, grandchildren, brothers or sisters?
Addiction is rampant on the rez. It’s vicious. It needs to be dealt with. Nobody gets addicted alone and nobody can beat addiction alone. Make your leaders address this issue directly until something gets done that can make it better and people can start to heal.
When your leaders motion to rid the community of those who are, despite the lack of authority, working to find the missing, the murdered or reporting the abuses or corruption, those are the people you need to keep in your community and keep safe.
You already know the BIA, local, state, Federal Law Enforcement is a joke. They have had the wherewithal and the tools for 200 years to end the corruption if they wanted to. THEY DON’T WANT TO. They will lecture you that if you see something, say something… but they won’t do something. They will take credit when it is the people who are, at great risk, solving crimes on the rez, but they won’t help.
They are, however, very good at PR and the media always turns to their PR for their stories instead of searching deeper into the places and the people who are involved, who know and who are doing the work.
Bad Boys! Bad Boys! Whachugonna do?
Someone accused me of “Hating Police”. I don’t. Never did. I have a firm dislike for corruption. Good cops exist. In fact, almost every department has good cops. Those are the ones they march out as representing their departments when the cameras come on. TV shows are full of good cops. They don’t make shows showcasing bad cops, corrupt cops, and good cops get no help from leadership when they try to expose bad cops. That’s why there are bad cops. Not a few ‘bad apples’ but a system that protects the worst of the worst.
Now, when I read news about bad cops being fired or put on trial for their crimes I am both delighted and sickened. What they got caught at wasn’t a one off, not a one time, not a mistake, but rather a pattern of behavior that filled their careers. So, yea! Bad cops got busted but how many years, decades did they get away with it?
Now, with Qualified Immunity, they don’t really have to follow the law. They can shoot someone, plant a gun on them, and declare (say it with me) “I feared for my life”—case closed.
If you look at it in total, those living on the rez are dealing with corruption and can’t trust law enforcement. Those of us living everywhere else? Not that different. We just don’t want to see it. We have cop shows polishing their reputations 6x a day.
I remember when the show COPS first came on the air. I watched an episode (catchy tune by the way) that took place in the county next to mine. The cops chased a guy who was breaking into cars… running through backyards, over fences, dogs barking, police dog straining at the leash… black guy finally surrendered. Was on the ground, handcuffed.
The dog handler took the dog over and it bit man’s leg, and thrashed it. Looked like part of the calf muscle was torn. The man screamed in agony, was told to shut up. The handler, with a big grin on his face said something close to “We like to give them a bite after a chase, as a reward.” He was rewarding the dog by letting it bite a man who was down, immobilized, handcuffed and defenseless.
I was shocked. I talked to my friends about it at lunch the next day. They worked for LA Law enforcement. They weren’t shocked. Disgusted, yes, but not shocked.
That was almost 50 years ago. Now, we can watch them sit on a man’s neck or back, until he’s crippled or dead. They don’t care who’s watching. They like it. That’s why crime is so high. That’s why there’s no respect for the police from the people who have seen them in action.
If we don’t change the culture of policing, it’s only going to get worse. In fact, it already has.
Take care of one another. Protect the good among us, and work together to rid us of the worst in power or authority.
If we don’t come together, if we don’t abandon these mindless divisions based on race, gender, ethnicity, or religion, we will be ground into the mud under the heel of jackbooted thugs who openly commit murder with the full protection and support of a man convicted of 34 felonies who doesn’t want us to see the Epstein Files because his name is all over them.
ICE now has more funding than the military. They aren’t protecting us. They are killing people and terrorizing communities because that’s what they were hired to do. Just so a guilty man doesn’t have to answer for what he has done.
Meanwhile, he’s attacking Venezuela to steal their oil, which isn’t worth having, and now wants to invade Greenland just to make his map look bigger. And 33% of Americans are just fine with that. The US has fallen and it can’t get up. Stand together, or get picked off, one community at a time.
For those of you who voted for him, don’t tell me this isn’t what you voted for. This is exactly what you voted for. You just don’t like the way it looks on you now. You owe it to everyone, especially your kids and grandkids, to change your attitude towards your fellow citizens, now. Only cowards hold onto corruption. Be something better.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
#Random: Dealing with Rats
Climate Change (Global Warming) Yes, it’s real, brings with it more pests. Rodents for one thing, and Rats in particular, are thriving because of it.
Make sure you have no attractants around your house: Clear up any garbage, trash with tasty smells. Rats can smell for a very long ways. If that is all cleared up and you still have rats showing up, be very careful. Wear a mask, N95 preferably, and a face shield if you can, when cleaning up droppings. Hanta Virus is deadly. Droppings create a dust that becomes airborne.
Spray surfaces with Lysol or Pine Sol before sweeping droppings away. Dispose of them in a plastic bag you can knot or seal.
If you can, scrub the area thoroughly (or use a steam cleaner) and then spray Pine Sol or Lysol heavily over the area. Rates hate Pine Sol. The smell drives them away. You may have to spray around your place at least every week if there’s an infestation in your area.
Don’t leave trash or garbage piles around your property.
Don’t bait rat traps that are outdoors. That attracts the other thousands of rats. Set the trap with no food product bait. Rats are curious and they will step on it, snoop it just because it’s there. You can put a ribbon on it/across it and they will try to snag that for a nest.
Bait with food only for indoor traps.
I don’t know why by my finishing rant on the blog made me think of rats.
January 1, 2026
Reflections, Apparitions
Buckle up, 2026 is sniffing at the tracks of past crimes, and evidence will be revealed despite the efforts to conceal it. In local matters, burning down a garage where the beheading of Joe Bruce took place. Didn’t matter because law enforcement wasn’t going to look anyways. And now, the apparition of some ghostly figure holding the head and shoving it in the faces of those who murdered him.
Wow, just a bad dream, eh? But the way it came out of the dark, like it was rising up from some inky clouds. You think you know what it means? I think you don’t. It means that your friends, the ones who did this with you, are coming after you. I don’t know if it’s because you helped and now they don’t trust you (too many witnesses spoil the kill), or because they’re just cleaning up after themselves, in the same way they burned down a perfectly good garage.
Oh, they wouldn’t do that! They’re your friends! Reflect for a small moment, when no one is looking at you, reading your face, body language, looking for clues the way only the most paranoid can do: Remember when Joe was a friend to you and them, too?
Who was that holding up his head? His murdered sister? Some other dead?
You know they, nor so many others, can’t cross over because of how they were killed. They have to haunt y’all until you break, and they will.
Go see some Black Road Medicine Man for the cure. That will only make it worse, but you’re strangling on your own phlegm and you know more is coming. Sleep sitting up if you can sleep at all. Listen very closely to the ceilings, the floors and the walls.
Other Bigger Crimes
Law Enforcement is a joke. They are men in positions of protecting perverts, pedophiles, rapists, and they don’t care that your little girl had a psychotic break at the age of 14 after being raped. Those men are powerful and they can get you places.
Presently, the man who took a wrecking ball to the White House in order to build himself a palace, is trying to start wars with tiny nations in order to distract from the Epstein Files. A scaled up version of a garage fire.
A global pedophile ring, which all the biggest, bestest and most powerful agencies always knew about but always covered up. From small neighborhoods, to big cities; from government dependent reservations to private schools, and everything in between, across the globe, these powerful men had a buffet of children, most under the age of 14, some as young as infants; mostly female but some of the rich and powerful have ‘different tastes’.
There was no taboo forbidden to them, and the children had no escape. Early in the 80’s reports, credible reports were being filed by parents, guardians, over what happened to their children, and what was still going on… and…. those reports when to DA’s and AG’s and … and… covered up. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, even when you see and you know what they are feasting on: The young lives whose futures were snapped like twigs and tossed carelessly into the ditch.
Bankers, College & University Presidents, corporate bigwigs, celebrities, royalty, political leaders, all at the buffet. The men providing the menu to serve their perverted desires built fortunes taller than buildings—but even more important to the process, they got to control the diners at their buffet. You wonder why corporate heads, our most powerful and esteemed universities, the biggest law firms in the country not only bowed down but also readily paid billions when legally they could have easily won lawsuits against the toddler in the WH?
Reflect for a moment on his last term. The one where his FBI raided over 10 properties of Jeffery Epstein. They hauled out semi-truckloads of evidence from every one of those places: Files, videos, recordings, photos, of everyone involved. The meticulous records he kept are what kept him safe for all those years. He was not only providing children to fulfill the perverted desires of powerful men, he was then blackmailing them with proof of their crimes, and with a network of other compromised men who would publish the evidence if there was any pushback.
Suddenly, f47 was no longer afraid of Epstein and what he might reveal. No, Epstein didn’t hang himself unless you want to believe a series of 8 coincidences that all happened in less than 20 minutes, made it a suicide nobody saw. But he ended up dead anyway. That left one man with ALL the evidence at his disposal.
If the FBI was honest at the top levels, they would’ve stopped him. Which him? All of them. They got those reports as early as 1987. They knew. All of them knew. They knew who, how and where. But the “who” in these files were the most powerful men in their fields and in their governments. The children didn’t matter. The damage didn’t matter. Keeping their job and their pensions mattered.
And suddenly f47 has turned every “independent” government agency into his bootlickers.
They literally pulled top FBI agents off of major pedophile ring investigations and assigned them to covering up his name in every piece of paper in the files they took from Epstein’s property. And their bubble head AG, Bondi, bragged that they had over 1,000 agents working 24/7 for over a month, scrubbing his name from the files. Think about it: That’s a lot of crime to cover up.
Why is the FBI willing to do this? Because agents who weren’t willing to sign, literally sign (and I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t in blood) a loyalty oath to f47. They don’t work for the US any longer. They are his. They don’t protect The USA from outside or inside criminals, they protect him from being held accountable for his crimes.
I for one, am not surprised. I watched the FBI purge out, discourage any agents that truly had a sense of patriotism and duty. How was this done? Easy. And right in plain sight, over decades. All top agency heads are picked by the president. There are no qualifications, just his choice. Most tried to at least give an appearance of qualified applicants, but mostly it boiled down to who was their biggest fundraiser and would they like to be agency head as a reward? Sure!
The more unqualified, the more corruption ensues. And now, with this admin, it’s outright. It’s in your face. They defy you to stop them. Republicans never cross him. They, many of them, have bodies buried somewhere in those files. Or they are helping to keep those bodies buried and that makes them complicit. The most unqualified, the most dangerous, the most destructive were all confirmed to their posts.
It’s also a mistake to have presidents choosing judges. Again, ‘who’s your daddy?’ is at play.
Agencies like Children and Families, The FBI, Education, Health & Safety, the FAA, and the CIA among others, should be headed by those who rose through the ranks and earned the trust of those who will work under them. Any sane form of government would be run that way. But not, apparently, the USA.
The Power Of Appointed Federal Judges
We’re about to find out if Lonnie Olson has enough pull to cover up his incompetence or his outright corruption. His promotion to the Federal Bench has given him a lot of power over the cases and careers of those who come before him, prosecutors or defense attorneys, to make or break their cases, on a whim.
The clear misconduct of his prosecution of Werner Kunkel back when he was just a lowly DA, is coming back to haunt him, just like the apparition of a ghostly head surfacing from the inky blackness of the void where all secrets fall and rise.
There were credible witnesses that either disproved Werner’s guilt, or pointed directly at James Yankton and his accomplices. Lonnie knew that. But he chose to cover for the most heinous of criminals in one of the most horrific crimes, in order to accomplish what?
James Yankton had a lot of pull with powerful people due to his very own but much smaller Epstein type of operation. He and his family had been getting away with major crimes of rape, assault, murder, major drug dealing, for decades. You can’t do that alone. You need powerful, influential people assisting you. Blackmail always worked. He had pull. Lots of it. How far did Lonnie want to go in his career? Or did he already have enough material to compromise him? I don’t know.
I do know that Lonnie ignored the evidence, even concealed it from the Defense, and convicted an innocent man, on purpose. He now refuses to own up to what he did and the office of the Prosecutor could own up to it, but they refuse. They’re keeping Werner in prison because it protects Lonnie and Lonnie is protecting James Yankton, and James Yankton has a protection racket going on back decades.
Werner is getting a new trial this month. That alone is almost unheard of when a wrongful conviction has stood for 30 years like this one. The prosecutor’s office remains arrogant. They were disrespectful to the court, the judge in their response to the evidence of malfeasance being uncovered. Essentially: “You should’ve uncovered our deceptions and knew we were hiding evidence back in the day”… pretty much saying that the crimes committed by the prosecution should remain in place because no one uncovered them before?
Remember: The only way to have uncovered them would have been to know who the prosecution was talking to. I know how that office has worked in the past. Witnesses come forward with valuable information and evidence that proves someone else committed the crime and they are told not to talk to anyone else about it. They trust that the information goes where it should go, to the Defense. You know, the professionals talking to each other. But they don’t and it doesn’t. It’s concealed and the innocent are convicted.
The guilty go free. Accomplices in this find they have gained financially, professionally or gain higher office.
Again: Corruption starts at the top and the top dogs are appointees. The system was designed to fail. That’s why we have The Innocence Projects all over the country. No one in prison has a megaphone, or even a voice or a snowflake’s chance in hell, without them.
*A few of you have asked if you could donate to this blog. I’ll tell you what I told others the last time I ran the blog: Donate to the Innocence Projects in your area or the one in ND. They will do the real work. I’m just narrating what I see before me.*
One more ask: Show up for Werner in court. Looking at you, Devils Lake Journal
Summary
Well, five pages is probably enough for this first blog of 2026. I want you all to look around, see what thing you can do, large or small, to make it a little better or easier for someone around you, or for your community. These are dark times, but we all carry a light. Speak the Truth. Demand the Truth from those in positions of Authority.
And everyone, especially people outside of the Rez, read up on True History so you get an idea of not only what is going on, but how it got that way and maybe you can think of ways to make it better.
Don’t hate anyone. Despise what they do or have done, but don’t hate anyone—that diminishes you and takes energy away from any outcome you’d like to see happen. Stay clear-eyed.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
Remember: You can find all the previous blogs in "Previous" tab.
You know where to find me.
~Cat