Finally Friday Reads: Endless Fresh Hells
Posted: February 13, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics | Tags: Department of Homeland Security, Epstein Files, Health and Human Services Shuffle, ICE, Pam Bondi testifies, Trump and the Elections Clause 4 Comments
“The Attorney General of the United States showed her true colors.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Just when you think the Circus of Incompetence and Evil has wound down, another one of the players finds a way to the stage to make a hash of reality. The Epstein files and the illegal ICE raids have pretty much taken center stage, but other atrocities are happening within the Trump Regime. I’m going to focus on the Testimony given by Pam Bondi and the entire Epstein mess that has alerted us to exactly how many people with money and power have ruined the lives and the innocence of children.
I must issue trigger warnings here because none of this is easy to see or read.
I will start with this analysis by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate. “Pam Bondi Is Not Practicing Law. The attorney general’s testimony before Congress revealed what a farce this is.”
The release of the Epstein files—the slow-drip revelations of a web of privileged (mostly) men trading gifts, access, favors, and sickening child predation as casually as Pokémon cards—has been deliberately parsed out through 2026 as to both be buried itself and bury other horrific news coming out of the Trump administration. But this misses a critical point: The Epstein file dump is not simply playing out as a backdrop against which other acts of American lawlessness are occurring. The Epstein story is also the template and the proof text for all that is happening in Minnesota; at dangerous detention centers; in efforts to punish members of Congress for lawful speech; for crypto scams; and for measles outbreaks. It is an ongoing road map for an administration that lives out the reality that they are rich and powerful and famous enough to be above the law each day, and wishes for the rest of us to ultimately learn and accept that fact.
So it follows that Attorney General Pam Bondi testifying blithely before a congressional hearing on Wednesday, as Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors sat behind her, unacknowledged and irrelevant to her purposes, is the template for that messaging: Blond woman who knows she must seek and maintain protection from this administration’s simulacrum of justice crows about the Dow Jones for the cameras, because she understands that if she doesn’t, she will be left behind, asking to be respected, like the masses of women behind her.
And it is equally true that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick could bring his children and their nannies to a bespoke lunch on Epstein’s island in 2012, long after he allegedly broke off contact with the sex predator, precisely because Lutnick’s children and their nannies were not the types of children or women who would be abandoned there to be raped and threatened. He is also a walking infomercial about whom the law protects and whom it leaves broken and invisible, behind. Lutnick’s testimony this past week, like Bondi’s, is thus operating as a still life in what happens when the law becomes inert. On the one hand, it is not relevant as a restraint to those who need not rely on it; on the other, it is not protective for those who do.
Liz Plank, on her Substack, describes the nausea and disorientation felt by women realizing this past week that we had all been gaslit yet again. Those of us who cannot even begin to imagine a permission structure that allowed and encouraged passing young girls around, trading insults and articles about them (“your littlest girl was a little naughty”), and bonding over the hysteria of #MeToo can barely comprehend why it was that this class of men always took the gift and the freebie and the shitty watch and the plane trip, because access to yet more of the same somehow became the coin of the realm. What Plank describes as “trust bias”—the psychological tendency to assume that others are operating within the same moral and ethical universe as yourself—means that we are all, once again, annihilated by the fact that America’s shared moral universe is a collective fiction, one that constrains one class of people and merely titillates another.
We err when we call what is being done by ICE officials to citizens and noncitizens on the streets of American cities “law,” just as we err when we call what has thus far been afforded the Epstein survivors “justice.” Indeed, the word law is too generous to contain the plea deals and the willing ignorance and the prison transfers that were granted to Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators at every turn. And the word injustice is far too small to describe the spectacle of hundreds of survivors who have still not been given a reckoning or a measure of genuine accountability, whose unredacted names appeared in public documents and who had never been contacted by the Department of Justice.
Pam Bondi may be in charge of many officials and many investigations and many legal things at the DOJ, but what she is protecting is neither justice nor law. And that means that what Plank describes as a trust bias is also an exquisitely American “law bias,” and we should dispense with the notion that we are all in some group compact to protect and preserve the same things. The law is neither protecting the vulnerable nor constraining the Epstein class. And perhaps we should stop referencing that word to mean either project, much less deploying it to describe both.
One of Maria Farmer’s works of art was released from the Epstein Files.
Continue to read this excellent piece at the link. Meanwhile, a friend of mine sent this link to a site with a Link to the Justice Department. The link provides a window into the artwork from Jeffrey Epstein survivor Maria Farmer, found in the Epstein files. CNN reported on Farmer during the first wave of releases. This is from December 19,2025. “Epstein files vindicate a survivor who reported him in the 1990s, but others are still seeking answers.” Everyone is still seeking answers, and all we get are performances like Bondi’s and distractions.
The Justice Department’s partial release of its files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday marked a moment of triumph for Epstein survivor Maria Farmer and her sister Annie, who have said for years that Maria had filed one of the first complaints against Epstein in the 1990s.
An FBI document released Friday included a 1996 description of a criminal complaint against Epstein related to child pornography.
While the name of the complainant is redacted in the document, Maria Farmer’s lawyer, Jennifer Freeman, confirmed on CNN that the complaint was in fact made by her client.
The “facts of complaint” part of the document says that the woman — who describes herself as a professional artist — had taken photos of her underage sisters for her own personal artwork.
“Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers,” the document reads. “Epstein at one time requested (redacted) to take pictures of young girls at swimming pools.” It continued: “Epstein is now threatening (redacted) that if she tells anyone about the photos he will burn her house down.”
Examining these photos is difficult. It is, however, one way we can give voice to these survivors. These paintings have returned to the conversation about who exactly should be brought to justice for this massive child sex trafficking travesty.
Maria’s painting shows many familiar faces. Take a look.
It appears that DHS will shut down this weekend. This is from the AP. “What to know about the Homeland Security shutdown starting this weekend.”
Another shutdown for parts of the federal government is expected this weekend as lawmakers debate new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security is set to expire Saturday. Democrats say they won’t help approve more funding until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis last month.
The White House has been negotiating with the Democrats, but the two sides failed to reach a deal by the end of the week, guaranteeing that funding for the department will lapse.
Unlike the record 43-day shutdown last fall, the closures will be narrowly confined, as only agencies under the DHS umbrella — like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — will be affected. Still, depending on how long the shutdown lasts, some federal workers could begin to miss paychecks.
Services like airport screening could also suffer if the shutdown drags on for weeks.
At the Transportation Security Administration, about 95% of employees are deemed essential. They will continue to scan passengers and their bags at the nation’s commercial airports. But they will work without pay until the funding lapse is resolved, raising the possibility that workers will being calling out or taking unscheduled leave. Many TSA workers already faced financial stress last year.
“Some are just now recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown” said Ha Nguyen McNeill, a senior official performing the duties of TSA administrator. “Many are still reeling from it.”
This is breaking news from the Washington Post. “Much of DHS set to shut down as Democrats demand new restraints on ICE. Democrats are pushing for new policies requiring agents to wear body cameras and get judicial warrants for raids.”
The Department of Homeland Security is expected to shut down early Saturday as congressional Democrats and the White House remain at an impasse over new restrictions on federal immigration agents.
The shutdown beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday would impact about 13 percent of the federal civilian workforce, including the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard.
But Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection — the main targets of Democrats’ outrage — would be able to continue immigration enforcement efforts due to an influx of funding from the Republican tax and spending law passed this past summer.
Despite the stalemate, both chambers of Congress have already left Washington and do not plan to return until Feb. 23 after a scheduled week-long recess that includes, for some senators, a trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
State governments are fighting to keep the Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution real. This is from Democracy Docket‘s Matt Cohen.
The Democratic chief election officials of six states are denouncing two new voter suppression bills making their way through Congress — underscoring how the legislation would place a huge burden on voters and election administrators just as midterm election season kicks off.
In a letter sent Friday to GOP congressional leaders, the secretaries of state of Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont raised a number of urgent issues with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) America Act and the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act.
“These bills would place a massive burden on American eligible voters, require unfeasible overhauls of state systems while preparations for the 2026 midterm elections are well underway, and create unfunded mandates for already under-resourced states and municipalities,” the secretaries wrote. “American voters will be the ones paying for this — by paying more in taxes, spending more time jumping through bureaucratic hoops, or losing access to the ballot box altogether.”
The House passed the SAVE America Act late Wednesday evening in a 218-213 vote, with every present Republican — along with one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas — voting in favor of the sweeping voter suppression bill. The bill — along with the MEGA Act, which was introduced earlier this week — stands to disenfranchise millions by imposing strict requirements for voters to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote, and to provide photo ID when casting ballots.
While the secretaries highlight that both bills “would make it harder for eligible voters to both register and cast their ballots,” they also call attention to the reality that GOP lawmakers have yet to address: Making such extensive changes to the voting process so close to an election would create chaos for election administrators.
Some states, like North Carolina, have already started with early voting, and any attempt to overhaul requirements for voters to register and cast ballots would be extremely costly to both states and voters, according to the secretaries.
“A series of sweeping overhauls to the nation’s voter registration and election administration laws, when some states are weeks or months away from conducting their primary elections, is not a serious effort at improving the democratic process,” the letter said. “Election administrators already face significant challenges in educating voters on registration requirements, especially considering the significant mis- and dis-information on the issue coming out of Washington, D.C.”
Democracy backsliding is real. One more surreal headline from about the HHS Secretary who admits to snorting coke from bathroom toilets. This is from The Hill’s Joseph Choi. “HHS shaking up top personnel to push Trump, MAHA priorities ahead of midterms.”
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday announced a reshuffling of top staffers in his department as the Trump administration looks to shore up health wins that can boost GOP success in the upcoming midterms.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Deputy Administrator Chris Klomp will be chief counselor at the HHS.
John Brooks, CMS deputy administrator and the chief policy and regulatory officer, will now be CMS senior counselor. Kyle Diamantas, deputy commissioner for human foods at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Grace Graham, FDA deputy commissioner for policy, legislation, and international affairs, have been named as senior counselors for the FDA.
As CNN reported, current HHS chief of staff Matt Buckham will also move to a senior counselor role. Administration officials who spoke with the outlet said the changes came as a result of conversation between the HHS and the White House.
“In just over a year, we have driven historic progress on President Trump’s health care priorities and delivered real, measurable change,” Kennedy said in a statement.
“We are restoring accountability, challenging entrenched interests, and putting the health of the American people first. I am proud to elevate battle-tested, principled leaders onto my immediate team—individuals with the courage and experience to help us move faster and go further as we work to Make America Healthy Again.”
Kennedy’s support for President Trump helped deliver a bloc of voters long critical and suspicious of the medical establishment. But many observers have noted this support is tenuous.
As Jeff Hutt, a spokesperson for the MAHA PAC, recently told The Hill “Make America Health Again” voters aren’t necessarily those who show up strongly for the GOP during midterms.
Can you believe anyone still believes this guy?
Anyway, with that , I have to get ready to go get a mammogram. Have a great weekend! It’s total Mardi Gras Crazy down here! It’s also Friday the 13th.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Election Interference, Racism, and Rotten Economic Policies, Oh My!
Posted: February 9, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, Donald Trump, Economic Racism and injustice, The Election Clause of the US Constitution | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Bad Bunny, Olympians on US Politics, right to vote, The Election Clause, Trump Economy wrecker, Trump Election Interference, Trump Racist 11 Comments
“Attention International Olympic Committee, thank you for your attention to this matter.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
This weekend had a Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics, and a peak ongoing #FARTUS shitshow. The headline that caught my attention was the FBI seizure of 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia. The Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution is short and leaves much to be determined by Congress and the courts. However, it is quite clear that both State Representatives and Congress are responsible for elections. The DOJ is completely out of its realm when it comes to what happened in Fulton County. Stacked courts and statewide politics are key here.
This headline is from Politico. Josh Gerstein has the analysis. “Fulton County argues FBI seizure of 2020 ballots shows ‘callous disregard’ for constitutional rights. A Trump-appointed judge set a Tuesday deadline to disclose justification for the raid.”
Local officials in Georgia demanding that the FBI return hundreds of thousands of ballots from the 2020 presidential election contend that the seizure took place with “callous disregard” for the constitutional rights of voters and county officials, according to court filings unsealed Saturday.
Judge J.P. Boulee, a Trump appointee, has been assigned to rule on a motion Fulton County, Georgia, officials filed last week challenging the Jan. 28 seizure of 24 pallets containing about 700 boxes of ballots and other records from a warehouse outside Atlanta.
In addition to unsealing the Democratic-run county’s legal arguments, Boulee issued an order Saturday giving the Justice Department until 5 p.m. Tuesday to file publicly the arguments federal prosecutors put forward to persuade Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas to issue the search warrant authorizing the seizure of all of the physical ballots from the 2020 election, along with ballot images, tabulator tapes and voter rolls.
Boulee said unsealing the affidavit was appropriate due to “the importance of the public’s access to judicial proceedings,” but he said he will allow Justice Department lawyers to redact the names of “non-governmental witnesses” from the version that is made public.
The precise focus of the investigation that led to the seizure of the ballots has remained mysterious in recent days. The search warrant, which is available even as the underlying affidavit is not, cites two federal statutes: one making it a crime to engage in voting fraud in connection with a federal election and another requiring that ballots in federal elections be preserved for 22 months after Election Day.
Without providing evidence, President Donald Trump has long complained that fraud led to his loss in Georgia in 2020. In a phone call shortly after the election, he famously but unsuccessfully implored state officials to “find” about 11,800 ballots so that he could be declared the winner.
More recently, Republicans have complained that Fulton County computer files are missing images corresponding to thousands of physical ballots, but county officials have countered that recounts and court challenges verified the vote tallies there and that the law at the time did not require keeping the computer scans.
“Claims that the 2020 election results were fraudulent or otherwise invalid have been exhaustively reviewed and, without exception, refuted,” Fulton County Attorney Y. Soo Jo wrote in the county’s motion demanding return of the seized ballots. “Eleven different post-election lawsuits, challenging various aspects of Georgia’s election process, failed to demonstrate fraud.”
Trump’s obsession with losing is at odds with one of our most precious rights. The Right to vote with a secret ballot is on the line here. The Super Bowl is one of those panem et circenses events in our country. It displays some of the worst and best of our cultural quirks. You won’t catch me watching it, but I do eventually come around to going to YouTube to watch the Musical performances. My vote for the best half-time performance is Prince forever. You can follow this link to Parade to see how many American Super Stars have taken the field. “Prince’s ‘Legendary’ Super Bowl Halftime Show Goes Viral Ahead of Bad Bunny Performance. Prince put on an epic Super Bowl halftime show that fans are still talking about.”
I’m going to use The Wall Street Journal as my source for the Super Bowl halftime show report. “Bad Bunny Uses Joy to Put Out Political Firestorm at Super Bowl Halftime. ‘We’re still here,’ Puerto Rican superstar says in Spanish while spiking a football.”
Bad Bunny delivered a pointed message in Spanish to millions of Americans watching the Super Bowl on Sunday night: “We’re still here.”
In a history-making halftime show performed almost entirely in Spanish, the Puerto Rican star paid tribute to his heritage and the many countries—from Brazil to Mexico—whose people have come to shape the modern-day U.S.
Just a week ago, Bad Bunny denounced Immigration and Customs Enforcement while accepting a Grammy award, stoking further political furor from conservatives ahead of the Super Bowl. But on the halftime stage, he offered up a buoyant celebration of Latino culture.
The elaborate stage design included a maze of sugar cane and a single-story house similar to the one he used during his 31-date residency in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last summer. As Bad Bunny strutted through the greenery, he passed by old men playing dominoes, women chatting in a nail salon and boxers sparring—a montage of scenes from life in Puerto Rico.
He opened with some of his kinetic reggaeton hits—“Tití Me Preguntó,” an insistent single about a hyperactive love life, and “Yo Perreo Sola,” a club missile—and later moved through muscular Latin trap (“Monaco”) and sparkling salsa (the opening of “Nuevayol”).
A stream of celebrities showed up to offer their support: Jessica Alba, Pedro Pascal, Cardi B, Karol G and Young Miko threw a house-party behind a phalanx of dancers. Lady Gaga sang a salsa version of her hit “Die With a Smile,” originally a duet with Bruno Mars, while Ricky Martin delivered a full-throated rendition of Bad Bunny’s song “Lo Que le Pasó a Hawaii”—which critiques the potential consequences of U.S. statehood for Puerto Rico through the lens of Hawaii.
Bad Bunny finished his set by spiking a football which read “Together, We Are America.” Then he led a raucous singalong to his nostalgic hit “DTMF” as a crowd hoisted the flags of nations across Latin America behind him.
“He went from bagging groceries 10 years ago to playing the biggest stage this planet has to offer, and did it unwaveringly on his own terms in his native tongue,” said Carlos Cancela, a Bad Bunny fan and former executive at a major label. “He is quite literally the embodiment of the American Dream.”
But Bad Bunny, whose full name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also sparked the latest culture-war controversy as conservatives railed against his selection. Right-wing influencers and commentators zeroed in on the star’s past criticism of President Trump’s immigration agenda, his Spanish-language song lyrics and his gender-fluid fashion choices. Last week, Bad Bunny said, “ICE out,” on stage at the Grammys, where he became the first artist to win album of the year for an all-Spanish release, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos.”
Of course, Trump wasn’t the center of attention here so he had to make a particularly set of nasty comments about Ocasio and the show. This is from The Guardian. “Trump claims ‘no one could understand’ Bad Bunny halftime show: ‘A slap in the face to our country’. Rant comes as Turning Point USA’s ‘All-American’ Super Bowl halftime show garnered just four million viewers.” Trump is a one trick pony. He puts on a display of overt racism to deflect anything that gets in the way of his perceived greatness and tries to draw attention away from the current Epstein file dump.
President Donald Trump has slammed Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show performance as “an affront to the Greatness of America” in a lengthy post on Truth Social.
“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” Trump said on Truth Social approximately 30 minutes after the performance ended.
Trump’s rant comes as Turning Point USA’s “All-American” Super Bowl halftime show, headlined by Kid Rock, garnered roughly four million views. The event, which was streamed online, was launched in protest against the NFL’s picks.
The average Super Bowl halftime show pulls in around 127 million, while last year Kendrick Lamar set a record with 133.5 million.
Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is the first male solo Latin artist to perform the halftime show, as well as the first to perform their set entirely in Spanish.
Toward the end of his set, Bad Bunny was handed a ball with the words, “Together, we are America” written on it, and a message on the big screen read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
That Truth Social screed is up there on the worst of the worst list. He just keeps outdoing himself these days. This link The Independent. “Trump claims ‘no one could understand’ Bad Bunny halftime show: ‘A slap in the face to our country’. Rant comes as Turning Point USA’s ‘All-American’ Super Bowl halftime show garnered just four million viewers.” Rhian Lubin has the story.
Toward the end of his set, Bad Bunny was handed a ball with the words, “Together, we are America” written on it, and a message on the big screen read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
But the message of unity clearly did not go down well with the president.
“Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World,” Trump raged.
“This “Show” is just a “slap in the face” to our Country, which is setting new standards and records every single day — including the Best Stock Market and 401(k)s in History!” the president fumed. “There is nothing inspirational about this mess of a Halftime Show and watch, it will get great reviews from the Fake News Media, because they haven’t got a clue of what is going on in the REAL WORLD.”
It was not immediately clear whether Trump watched the Turning Point USA halftime show, but from the president’s Truth Social post, it became apparent he did not miss the Puerto Rican megastar.
Trump is hosting his own Super Bowl watch party thousands of miles away at his Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to the president’s public schedule.
What’s left of the Washington Post had this headline today. “Trump plans to keep Democratic governors out of traditionally bipartisan meeting. The White House did not explain why Democrats were not invited to the meeting. In addition, at least two Democrats were uninvited to a White House dinner, according to their offices.” Mariana Alfaro has the story.
President Donald Trump plans to keepDemocrats out of a traditionally bipartisan White House gathering of governorstypically held as part of the National Governors Association’s annual Washington summit, the organization said.
According to the governors’ offices, the president also revoked invitations sent to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), the NGA’s vice chair; and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) to attend a second White House event scheduled to occur around the summit: a dinner for governors.
“This week, I learned that I was uninvited to this year’s National Governors Association dinner — a decades-long annual tradition meant to bring governors from both parties together to build bonds and celebrate a shared service to our citizens with the President of the United States,” Moore said in a statement Sunday. “… It’s hard not to see this decision as another example of blatant disrespect and a snub to the spirit of bipartisan federal-state partnership.”
Moore told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that he was confused by the White House’s decision, saying that, just a few weeks ago, he led a bipartisan group of governors who met with the president as Trump signed a memorandum on bringing down energy costs.
Moore also said on CNN that it was “not lost” on him that he is the only Black governor of a state.
“I find that to be particularly painful, considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from an organization that not only my peers have asked me to help to lead, but then also a place where I know I belong in,” he said. “I’m never in a room because of someone’s benevolence nor kindness. I’m not in a room because of a social experiment. I’m in the room because I belong there and the room was incomplete until I got there.”
Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Polis, said the decision to exclude the Colorado governor was “disappointing.”
“Gov. Polis has always been willing to work with anyone across the political spectrum who wants to help work on the hardest problems facing Colorado and America, regardless of party or who occupies the White House,” Maruyama said in a statement.
Those of us living the reality of high prices and questionable incomes realize the Trump Economy is in a ditch that feels like we’re careening towards a cliff. However, Trump does not see it that way. This is from NBC News. You don’t need to be an economist like to realize how tough it is to make ends meet if you’re not a billionaire. “Trump accepts ownership of the current economy: ‘I’m very proud of it’. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, the president said the country is already experiencing the “Trump economy.” This is reported by Jonathan Allen.
President Donald Trump says it’s his economy now.
In an interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas that aired during the Super Bowl on Sunday, the 47th president said the country is already experiencing the Trump economy.
“At what point are we in the Trump economy?” Llamas asked.
“I’d say we’re there now,” he replied. “I’m very proud of it.”
His remarks come at a time when most Americans tell pollsters they are not satisfied with the state of the economy and as Trump executes a barnstorming strategy to bring his economic message to political battlegrounds before the November midterms.
An NPR/Marist/PBS News survey released last week showed that 36% of adults say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 59% disapprove. In off-year elections last November, Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and New York hammered away at “affordability” on their way to victory.
In the interview, which was taped Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump said the economy is doing so well that Democrats are abandoning that message — and also blamed his predecessor, President Joe Biden, for stubbornly high prices on some staples.
“In the last four days, it’s only four days, the Democrats have not uttered the word ‘affordability,’” he said. “They’re the ones that caused the problem. I took over a mess in every way.”
Using figures that are not backed up by the administration’s own data, Trump claimed that the gross domestic product has grown by 5.6% on his watch. According to the Labor Department, the economy grew at a strong annualized rate of 4.4% in the third quarter of 2025. It has not grown at more than 5% in any quarter since 2021, when the U.S. was recovering from the Covid pandemic.
Excuse me while I make my humble grocery list and pull my hair out. Oops. I forgot the Winter Olympics. Well, there’s this from the L.A. Times. “U.S. Olympic athletes in Italy are speaking out about the political situation at home.”
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Olympic skiers Mikaela Shiffrin and Hunter Hess are among the athletes who’ve talked about the political situation in the U.S. while at the Milan-Cortina Games.
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President Trump called freestyle skier Hess a “loser” on social media after Hess said he had mixed emotions about representing the U.S. at the Olympics.
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Multiple U.S. athletes emphasize they represent American values of inclusivity and compassion, not the current political situation in the country.
Feeling any better?
“The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Our Racist President Rides Again
Posted: February 6, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, 2026 Elections, American Fascists, Donald Trump, Economic Racism and injustice, racism, racism in MAGA | Tags: American Decency, China and South Africa Trade Talks, Comfortably Numb, ICE, Jeff Bezos Asshole, John (repeat1968) Buss @johnbuss.bsky.social, Liam Conejo Ramos, Minnesota Nice, Paul Krugman, Trump & Racism 8 Comments
“The Orangeutan is full-bore flinging poo to distract from the Epstein Trump Files.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers
My outrage today at the latest, least presidential Truth Social Post that I may have ever seen knows no bounds. And yet, the boundless insanity of the “Press Secretary” tells me it’s fake. Don’t you just hate it when some Clairol MAGA Blonde bimbo tries to tell you how you feel? Here’s the headline at the New York Times. I’d share the Washington Post headline, too, but Jeff Bezos is busy ripping all the vital organs of that once great newspaper. “Trump Posts Video Portraying Obamas as Apes. The White House press secretary dismissed criticism of the clip’s racist content, shared by the president’s Truth Social account, as “fake outrage.” What an international disgrace of a country we’ve become!
Erica L. Green and Isabella Kwai share the lede.
President Trump posted a blatantly racist video clip portraying former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama as apes, the latest in a long pattern by Mr. Trump of promoting offensive stereotypes about Black Americans and others.
The brief clip, set to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” was spliced near the end of a 62-second video that promoted conspiracy theories about anomalies in the 2020 presidential election.
The depiction of Mr. and Mrs. Obama as apes perpetuates a racist trope, used historically by slave traders and segregationists to dehumanize Black people and justify lynchings and other atrocities. A spokeswoman for Mr. Obama declined to comment.
Mr. Trump has a history of making degrading remarks about people of color, women and immigrants. And in his second administration, official posts from the White House, Labor Department and Homeland Security Department have posted images and slogans that echo white supremacist messaging.
In response to questions about the clip, which Mr. Trump posted Thursday during a late-night spree on social media, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said criticism of the video was “fake outrage.”
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” she said. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — the Senate’s only Black Republican — wrote on X that he hoped the post was fake “because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
The latest clip appeared to have been taken from a video that was shared in October by a user on X with the caption “President Trump: King of the Jungle,” and an emoji of a lion.
In that video, several high-profile Democrats — including former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former vice president Kamala Harris — were shown as various animals, while Mr. Trump was depicted as a lion. The Obamas, in the clip, were shown as apes. The video ended with the animals bowing down to Mr. Trump.
NBC News‘ Rebecca Shabad has further information on the disgusting post. “Trump shares racist video depicting the Obamas as monkeys. The White House defended Trump’s post, saying it was “from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle.”
The roughly minute-long video otherwise focused on false election fraud claims about the 2020 presidential election, but at the very end it suddenly flashed to a clip of the Obamas’ faces superimposed on the heads of cartoon apes as the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens played in the background.
The imagery, which evokes long-standing racist tropes against Black people, comes during Black History Month, which honors the accomplishments and contributions of Black Americans. Barack Obama made U.S. history as the first Black president.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to NBC News’ request for comment Friday morning with a statement: “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
The video the White House referred to appeared to have been posted initially by an X user in October and shows the Obamas as apes in the beginning and other Democrats’ faces as the heads of other African animals as the song continues to play. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is depicted as a warthog and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker as an elephant, for example, while Trump is presented as a lion.
Representatives for the Obamas didn’t immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Trump’s repost drew strong criticism on social media, including from Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who sharply denounced the president on X. “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” he said.
The President continues to do despicable things to immigrant families and to communities that stand up to his reckless and unconstitutional policies. This is from MPR News, located in the Twin Cities area. Regina Medina reports the story. “DHS has requested expedited deportation proceedings against family of Liam Conejo Ramos.”
The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family. The 5-year-old returned home this week after he was detained with his father on Jan. 20 and sent to a detention center in Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security filed a motion Wednesday to expedite deportation proceedings in the family’s case, said immigration attorney Danielle Molliver with Nwokocha & Operana Law Offices.
A hearing is scheduled for Friday, although Molliver is requesting more time to respond. She said she thought the motion was “retaliatory.”
“It’s really frustrating as an attorney, because they keep throwing new obstacles in our way. There’s absolutely no reason that this should be expedited. It’s not very common,” Molliver said.
Molliver said the federal government may not deport them to Ecuador, their home country. Instead, the family could apply for asylum in a third country.
Liam’s father, Adrian Conejo Arias, said they don’t know what will happen to them.
“The government is moving many pieces, it’s doing everything possible to do us harm, so that they’ll probably deport us. We live with that fear too,” Conejo Arias said. The interview was conducted in Spanish and translated by MPR News.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
I truly believe that the more he goes after this family, the more his polls will fall, and he will pull Republicans down further as the Midterm elections near. What is also clear is that the Washington Post will not be up to doing any kind of real reporting on any of this. Ruth Marcus of The New Yorker has this analysis. “How Jeff Bezos Brought Down the Washington Post. The Amazon founder bought the paper to save it. Instead, with a mass layoff, he’s forced it into severe decline.”
On September 4, 2013, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos held his first meeting with the staff of the Washington Post, the newspaper he had agreed to purchase a month earlier from the Graham family, for two hundred and fifty million dollars. It had been a long and unsettling stretch for the paper’s staff. We—I was a deputy editor of the editorial page at the time—had suffered through years of retrenchment. We trusted that Don Graham would place us in capable hands, but we did not know this new owner, and he did not know or love our business in the way that the Graham family had. Bezos’s words at that meeting, about “a new golden era for the Washington Post,” were reassuring. Bob Woodward asked why he had purchased the paper, and Bezos was clear about the commitment he was prepared to make. “I finally concluded that I could provide runway—financial runway—because I don’t think you can keep shrinking the business,” he said. “You can be profitable and shrinking. And that’s a survival strategy, but it ultimately leads to irrelevance, at best. And, at worst, it leads to extinction.”
To look back on that moment is to wonder: How could it have come to this? The paper had some profitable years under Bezos, sparked by the 2016 election and the first Trump term. But it began losing enormous sums: seventy-seven million dollars in 2023, another hundred million in 2024. The owner who once offered runway was unwilling to tolerate losses of that magnitude. And so, after years of Bezos-fuelled growth, the Post endured two punishing rounds of voluntary buyouts, in 2023 and 2025, that reduced its newsroom from more than a thousand staffers to under eight hundred, and cost the Post some of its best writers and editors. Then, early Wednesday morning, newsroom employees received an e-mail announcing “some significant actions.” They were instructed to stay home and attend a “Zoom webinar at 8:30 a.m.” Everyone knew what was coming—mass layoffs.
The scale of the demolition, though, was staggering—reportedly more than three hundred newsroom staffers. The announcement was left to the executive editor, Matt Murray, and human-relations chief Wayne Connell; the newspaper’s publisher, Will Lewis, was nowhere to be seen as the grim news was unveiled. In what Murray termed a “broad strategic reset,” the Post’s storied sports department was shuttered “in its current form”; several reporters will now cover sports as a “cultural and societal phenomenon.” The metro staff, already cut to about forty staffers during the past five years, has been shrunk to about twelve; the foreign desks will be reduced to approximately twelve locations from more than twenty; Peter Finn, the international editor, told me that he asked to be laid off. The books section and the flagship podcast, “Post Reports,” will end. Shortly after the meeting, staffers received individualized e-mails letting them know whether they would stay or go. Murray said the retrenched Post would “concentrate on areas that demonstrate authority, distinctiveness, and impact,” focussing on areas such as politics and national security. This strategy, a kind of Politico-lite, would be more convincing if so many of the most talented players were not already gone.
Graham, who has previously been resolutely silent about changes at the paper, posted a message on Facebook that pulsed with anguish. “It’s a bad day,” he wrote, adding, “I am sad that so many excellent reporters and editors—and old friends—are losing their jobs. My first concern is for them; I will do anything I can to help.” As for himself, Graham, who once edited the sports section, said, “I will have to learn a new way to read the paper, since I have started with the sports page since the late 1940’s.”
Tech Bros and MAGA have ruined our democracy. Paul Krugman, however, argues that “American Decency Still Lives. When pushed far enough, Americans will do the right thing.” This is posted on his SubStack. I have found this to be true here in New Orleans. Even more so, I watch the city where I lived before moving here show the earnest Lutheran social justice so famously known as Minnesota nice. It has a yin and a yang, believe me.
If you want to accomplish anything in politics, you have to have realistic expectations about voters. Ordinary people aren’t deeply informed about policy or politics. They have jobs to do, children to raise, lives to live. A large proportion of voters don’t have strong ideological preferences — not because they’re “moderates,” but because they don’t think ideologically at all. Instead, they think pragmatically – they think about things like the price of eggs and the cost of health insurance. And because the average voter isn’t a policy or data wonk, they are often misled – for example, by claims that crime is rising even when it’s actually falling.
Granted, some voting behavior is motivated by ugly biases. Racism and sexism, homophobia and transphobia, are still important factors in politics. But there’s a difference between political realism and nihilistic cynicism.
Many of my readers are probably aware of the famous confessional by the German pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for meI don’t know if Stephen Miller has ever seen these words. But if he has, he has taken them not as a warning but as operating instructions. MAGA’s ethnic cleansing plans — because that’s what they are — were clearly based on the cynical assumption that native-born white Americans wouldn’t rise to the defense of civil liberties and rule of law if state violence was directed at people who don’t look like them.
And for much of Trump’s first year in office many Democrats were reluctant to challenge his immigration policies, because their defeat in 2024 was widely seen as in part a response to surging immigration during the Biden years. Until recently, Democrats tried to keep the national conversation focused on affordability and Trump’s obvious failure to deliver on his promises to bring grocery prices way down.
While the Democratic strategy was an understandable response to a shattering electoral defeat, it rested on a cynical and nihilistic view of American voters: that they couldn’t be trusted to vote against a party that reveled in inflicting cruelty and injustice as long as the price of gasoline fell.
But recent events refute this nihilistic cynicism. Yes, Americans still name the economy as the most important political issue. But moral outrage over the Trump administration’s brutality (and its corruption, but that’s a subject for another post) has exploded as a political force over the past two months.
There was substantial resistance to ICE’s attempts to intimidate Los Angeles and Chicago. But the response since the invasion of Minneapolis (and now all of Minnesota) began in December has been on another level, a mass nonviolent uprising reminiscent of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the color revolutions in the former Soviet empire.
MPR News reports that nearly 30,000 Minnesotans have been trained as constitutional observers, with another 6,000 volunteers registered to deliver food, give at-risk families rides, and so on. This is time-consuming, exhausting, dangerousactivism. Yet ordinary Americans in large numbers are willing to do it.
Cell phone cameras and whistles can’t completely stop ICE’s brutality and lawlessness. For some reason I’m especially troubled by tales of the many cars found abandoned in the middle of the street, their windows smashed and their occupants obviously abducted. But the resistance is throwing sand in the gears and producing acute frustration among the masked thugs, who have repeatedly been filmed drawing guns on citizens doing nothing but observing them.
And the public is not on the side of the thugs.
Plus, once again, a major nation is turning to China for its trade initiatives because our #FARTUS is too stupid and stuck-up to recognize that his economic policies are dooming a lot of our industries and jobs. This is from the AP. I cannot believe we keep repeating obvious mistakes from the past because no one in Congress will do their fucking job! “Facing high Trump tariffs, Africa’s leading economy says it’s close to a new trade deal with China.” Just think, a few years ago, we were on target to keep them in second place.
China and South Africa signed a framework agreement for a new trade deal on Friday as Africa’s leading economy looks to other options following the high import tariffs imposed on it by the U.S. and its diplomatic fallout with the Trump administration.
South Africa’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said the agreement would start negotiations over a deal that would give some South African goods, such as fruit, duty-free access to the Chinese market. The ministry said it expected the trade deal to be finalized by the end of March.
In return, the trade ministry said China will get enhanced investment opportunities in South Africa, where its car sales have seen rapid growth.
The U.S. slapped 30% duties on some South African goods under U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs policy — one of the higher rates applied across the world. South Africa has said it is still negotiating with the U.S. for a better deal.
The China-South Africa deal follows others looking for alternatives to U.S. partnership in the face of Trump’s aggressive trade policies.
The announcement on the negotiations between China and South Africa came days after Trump issued a short-term renewal of a longstanding free-trade agreement between the U.S. and African nations. The U.S. extended the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which South Africa is a major beneficiary of, just until the end of the year and indicated it would be modified to fit the administration’s America First policy.
China is already South Africa’s largest trade partner for both imports and exports, while Chinese economic influence across the African continent continues to grow and it dominates in the extraction of Africa’s critical minerals that are key components for new high-tech products.
“South Africa looks forward to working with China in a friendly, pragmatic and flexible manner,” the trade ministry said.
The Stupid. It hurts.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: The February 2026 Blues
Posted: February 2, 2026 Filed under: #FARTUS, Broligarchy, ethics, kleptocracy | Tags: Black History Month, Corrupt SCOTUS, Department of UnJustice, ICE Crimes Against Humanity, Welcome Home LIam!!! 6 Comments
“Groundhog Day is serious business for our illustrious Homeland Security Secretary.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
This year has started out with violence and erasure of those members of our diverse nation that are deemed inconvenient to the old white christian nationalist me. Trump and his Klan have forsaken everything promised in our laws and Constitution. They’ve replaced it completely with identity politics and allegiance to an orange guy who likely has never read an entire verse of the Bible in his lifetime. The headlines lack substance and describe horror.
I’ve two rather nerdy articles that will impact all of us if we don’t pay attention. The third is basically more deadly results of Trumpian incompetence. The Groundhog and the annual celebration of Black excellence are on the calendar, but not the news desks today. Let’s focus on why justice and equality of been taken off the American agenda and replaced with mayhem and hatred.
First up is an article at the New York Times. It’s written by Jodi Kantor. “How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive. Amid calls to increase transparency and revelations about the court’s inner workings, the chief justice imposed nondisclosure agreements on clerks and employees.” There’s enough injustice nowadays to go around for everyone but rich old men and the traditional sellout members of disenfranchised Americans.
In November of 2024, two weeks after voters returned President Donald Trump to office, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. summoned employees of the U.S. Supreme Court for an unusual announcement. Facing them in a grand conference room beneath ornate chandeliers, he requested they each sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to keep the court’s inner workings secret.
The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks of internal court documents, most notably of the decision overturning the right to abortion, and news reports about ethical lapses by the justices. Trust in the institution was languishing at a historic low. Debate was intensifying over whether the black box institution should be more transparent.
Instead, the chief justice tightened the court’s hold on information.Its employees have long been expected to stay silent about what they witness behind the scenes. But starting that autumn, in a move that has not been previously reported, the chief justice converted what was once a norm into a formal contract, according to five people familiar with the shift.
Over the years, journalists and authors have sought to penetrate the court, and the justices have tried varying methods to guard its secrets. Some generations of clerks, but not others, said they were asked tosign a different kind of confidentiality pledge.
The New York Times has not reviewed the new agreements. But people familiar with them said theyappeared to be more forceful and understood them to threaten legal action if an employee revealed confidential information. Clerks and members of the court’s support staff signed them in 2024, and new arrivals have continued to do so, the people said.
A spokeswoman for the court declined to comment about the nondisclosure agreements. She also did not respond to a question about whether the justices have been asked to sign the contracts.
The people who described the agreements spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about court matters.
The justices are accustomed to controlling what the public knows about their work, sealing nearly everything but their oral arguments and written opinions behind a high wall of secrecy. Courts are excluded from the open records laws that require many other government bodies to maintain and make available internal information.
The justices claim their papers belong to them, not the government or the public, and generally arrange to have them locked away until long after their deaths. The court releases no visitor logs to reveal who meets with the justices.
This comes after a series of leaks and reports about the Court’s inner workings. We’re entering a period where it will take some real balls to be a whistleblower, knowing what kind of misfortune comes to those in any branch of government who dare question the wannabe king and his court of sycophants. The second article on liberty and justice comes from Steve Vladeck’s Substack One First. “207. The Justice Department Beclowns Itself (Again). The denouement of DOJ’s misconduct complaint against Chief Judge Boasberg provides useful lessons relating to both the Department’s continuing misbehavior and the emptiness of calls for impeachment.”
There is, as ever, too much court- (and Court-)adjacent news to cover, including this morning’s New York Times double-feature on the Chief Justice’s move to have Court employees sign non-disclosure agreements and on the Times’s own expanding coverage of the Court. But I wanted to use today’s “Long Read” to come back to a post I wrote last July—shortly after the Department of Justice submitted (and then Attorney General Bondi tweeted about) an unprecedented judicial misconduct complaint against the chief judge of the D.C. federal district court, James E. Boasberg. As I wrote at the time, DOJ’s complaint was “almost laughably preposterous.” The gravamen of its charge was that Boasberg had violated the Code of Conduct for United States Judges by relaying (at a private breakfast with the Chief Justice and a group of other district judges before a meeting of the Judicial Conference of the United States) that several of his colleagues were worried about the Trump administration potentially defying their rulings.
That complaint is back in the news because late last week, we finally learned about its outcome. After a bit of procedural shuffling that I’ll explain below, it was dismissed, quite cursorily, by Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton in a … brusk … seven-page memorandum and order. Not only did Sutton pour cold water on DOJ’s theor(ies) of Boasberg’s misconduct, but he also expressed understandable frustration with the fact that DOJ never produced the document that it claimed memorialized Boasberg’s alleged misconduct—even after it was specifically told that it needed to do so to substantiate its claims.
In other words, after filing an unprecedented complaint against a sitting federal judge, making a big public stink about it (which, by the way, was itself a violation of the law), and having its complaint invoked as one of the grounds for the proposed impeachment charges against Chief Judge Boasberg, DOJ … never followed through. It turns out, it was never about adjudicating Boasberg’s behavior; it was about making splashy headlines and fueling right-wing attacks on the judiciary without regard to whether DOJ’s specious charges would withstand meaningful scrutiny.
The obvious takeaway is that the Department of Justice has once again beclowned itself. I’d say it has shredded even more of its credibility, but when you’re publicly soliciting for new lawyers to apply via Twitter (with the primary qualification being that they “support President Trump”), there may not be any credibility left to shred. Instead, the more significant takeaway is that this really ought to be the final nail in the coffin of congressional Republicans’ breathless efforts to gin up impeachment charges against a judge whose only actual sin, as it turns out, was to decline to roll over when the government defied one of his orders, and then lied about it.
Read more details on the case at the link. Watching a war within the Judicial Branch is not something I had on my bingo card. This tragic headline is reported by Stephanie Kothan, writing for the San Antonio Current.”Source: Measles outbreak reported at ICE’s Dilley family detention facility. ICE officials informed members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the outbreak, immigration attorney Eric Lee said.”
After a week of public outcry over the South Texas Family Residential Center’s treatment of young children behind its walls, the Dilley facility is experiencing a measles outbreak, according to immigration attorney Eric Lee.
Lee, who went viral last week for capturing the moment a protest broke out inside the facility, told the Current that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) informed Senate Judiciary staff of the outbreak over the weekend. At least two cases have been confirmed at the facility as of press time, the attorney said.
Over 400 children are detained at the Dilley facility, which currently holds approximately 1,200 detainees.
Speaking with the Current on the phone, Lee detailed the harsh conditions families already experience inside, including “food with worms, bugs in it.” Lee also described the putrid smell of the water families are forced to drink, which they also have no choice but to mix with baby formula.
Lee represents a family of six inside the facility, including several small children.
One of the children, all of whom have spent a birthday in the facility, suffered from appendicitis and was told by staff to take a pain reliever. He was later rushed to the hospital to have his appendix removed after his condition had worsened.
“He nearly died,” Lee said.
Speaking at a press conference outside of San Antonio City Hall on Wednesday, Congressman Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio spoke of a 2-month old baby detained at the facility “for four or five days.”
Measles was declared eliminated in the Unites States in 2000, but it is again circulating in parts of the country.
“[I]ncreasing numbers of measles infections — driven by misinformation about vaccines and reduced vaccination rates in some communities — have been reported over the last five years,” according to report by University of Chicago Medicine.
CBS News has this follow-up. “ICE halts all movement at Texas detention facility due to measles infections.” This story is reported by Camilo Montoya-Galvez.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement halted “all movement” at a detention center in Texas for families and quarantined some migrants there after medical staff confirmed two detainees had “active measles infections,” the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday.
The measles cases at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center were detected Friday, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News. The ICE facility houses parents and children taken into federal custody over alleged violations of immigration law. It is located in south Texas, roughly an hour drive from San Antonio.
“ICE Health Services Corps immediately took steps to quarantine and control further spread and infection, ceasing all movement within the facility and quarantining all individuals suspected of making contact with the infected,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin said medical officials were monitoring detainees and taking “appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection.”
“All detainees are being provided with proper medical care,” she added.
Before McLaughlin’s statement on Sunday, immigration lawyers had reported concerns about a potential measles outbreak at the Dilley center.
Neha Desai, a lawyer for the California-based National Center of Youth Law, which represents children in U.S. immigration custody, said she hopes the measles infections at Dilley are not used to “unnecessarily” prevent lawmakers and attorneys from inspecting the detention center in the near future, citing broader concerns about the facility.
“In the meantime, we are deeply concerned for the physical and the mental health of every family detained at Dilley,” Desai said. “It is important to remember that no family needs to be detained — this is a choice that the administration is making.”
This neat link shows that at many levels of the Federal Government, our Federal Workers are still trying to make it work! “February is Black History Month. The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.” It covers many topics, including the role of Black Americans in the Military,
More than 400 years of Black history and heritage are preserved in national parks and communities around the country. Discover stories shared by people who formed powerful connections with these places of history, nature, and enjoyment. Inspire others by sharing your “park story”!
Here is one sad example of the backsliding today, as reported by Dr. Stacey Patton on SubStack. “A Law Written to Stop White Men from Lynching Black People Is Now Being Used Against Black Journalists. Sit With That!”
The Klan was not a disorder problem. It was not a public nuisance. It was a domestic terror machine built to erase Black citizenship through fear, spectacle, and mass killing.
And now, more than 150 years later, that same legal architecture is being aimed in the opposite direction. Not at racial terror networks. Not at organized white nationalist violence. Not at the groups openly fantasizing about civil war and racial cleansing online. At Black journalists documenting racial injustice in real time. That is not irony. That is the goddamn strategy!
Because American racial power has never only been about domination. It has always been about narrative control. Who defines violence. Who defines disorder. Who defines threat. And one of the most reliable tools in that playbook is inversion.
Inversion is when civil rights law becomes “reverse discrimination.” Anti-lynching language becomes “law and order.” Voting rights enforcement becomes “election interference.” Anti-racist speech becomes “racial division.” And now, a Reconstruction-era anti-terror statute becomes a tool to criminalize Black documentation of racial injustice.
The pattern is brutally consistent. Civil rights protections are not just attacked. They are eventually repurposed. Not immediately. Not clumsily. But strategically. Once enough historical distance exists for the original bloodstains to be blurred, sanitized, or erased. And that erasure is not accidental.
Because you cannot weaponize civil rights law against Black people unless you first strip it of memory. You have to remove the smoke. The photographs. The testimonies. The written admission that white citizens once terrorized Black ones while state governments stood aside.
Once you erase that, you can do anything.
Orange Caligulia cannot keep his hands off our National Treasures. We’ve already lost the historic East Wing of the White House. Are we about to see the Kennedy Center be the next disaster brought on by Trump’s nasty taste and love for wrecking real estate? This is from the AP. “Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations, Trump says, after performers’ backlash.” This seems to be the destiny of some of our most important Federal and Heritage sites.
President Donald Trump said Sunday he will move to close Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts center for two years starting in July for construction, his latest proposal to upturn the storied venue since returning to the White House.
Trump’s announcement on social media follows a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building. Trump made no mention in his post of the recent cancellations.
His proposal, announced days after the premiere of “Melania, ” a documentary of the first lady was shown at the center, he said was subject to approval by the board of the Kennedy Center, which has been stocked with his hand-picked allies. Trump himself chairs the center’s board of trustees.
“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment,” Trump wrote in his post.
Neither Trump nor Kennedy Center President Ric Grenell, a Trump ally, have provided evidence to back up their claims about the building being in disrepair, and last October, Trump had pledged the center would remain open during renovations. In Sunday’s announcement, Trump said the center will close on July 4th, when he said the construction would begin.
So, that’s it for me today! Take care of yourselves and remember that there are more of us than them. We just need to continue to remind them of it!
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: WTF has this regime done to our Country?
Posted: January 30, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Minneapolis, ICE raids, Take Back America | Tags: Civil and Constitutional Rights, Don Lemon, Fed Chair, Georgia Fort, ICE Arrests Journalists, ICE Lawlessness, melania the grift 10 Comments
“The Eighth Amendment prohibits ‘cruel and unusual punishments,’ which the real Supreme Court has interpreted to forbid torture. Of course, the Trump administration does as it pleases.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The first text message I woke up to today put a lot into perspective. “ICE on S Claiborne in Holly Grove! Please relay… 3 HOURS AGO.” It was way uptown, so all I could do was just put the word out and hope. I have a copy of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in my desk drawer, which I had left on top after trying to tame the contents of my drawers.
Which among us these days would “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor?” It’s times like these that I remember the 6 in my family who did, and 7 if you count the stepfather of one of my grandfathers, George Washington. Then there is the rest of the family who fought in all the wars to keep us free and ensure that all men and women were free and had the right to vote.
It’s been interesting to share the awful experience of having your city invaded by your own country. It’s given me a chance to reconnect with high school friends in L.A. and Minneapolis. I know many people here who daily mutually pledge to these causes down here in New Orleans, and we didn’t become a part of the scene until the Louisiana Purchase.
It’s time to stand up for what we’re supposed to stand for.
This Op-Ed in the New York Times caught my eye immediately after I tucked my pamphlet back in its rightful drawer. Lydia Polgreen, an Opinion Columnist, asked the same question that I had earlier and answered it succinctly. “This Week Has Revealed 3 Types of Americans.” I know where I stand, do you?
In Minnesota, I saw scenes that reminded me of the chaos and violence in civil wars I’ve covered in other countries. Heavily armed agents have rampaged through the streets, assaulting, tear-gassing and arbitrarily detaining people. They have fired on civilians at close range, killing two of them.
If this is a war, it is one-sided: The forces Trump has unleashed face not military opponents to their authority but ordinary people equipped with cellphones and whistles. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota has activated the National Guard under his command, it’s true. But so far, they have been deployed to do little more than deliver coffee, hot cocoa and doughnuts to Minnesotans who have taken to the streets. There hasn’t been the kind of state and federal standoff that would constitute a classic civil war, though Walz has worried such a confrontation could soon be in the offing.
Yet the clash in Minneapolis has revealed a cleavage over the meaning of citizenship and constitutional rights perhaps as profound as the one that split the nation in 1861. The fight, now as it was then, is over that simple question: What kind of America are we?
There were the bystanders and accommodationists. On the day federal officers gunned down Alex Pretti, a nurse who cared for critically ill veterans, they were on full display. Dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns, some of the country’s richest men and women streamed into the White House for a special private screening of a hagiographic documentary about Melania Trump, the first lady.
Along with the chief executives of Apple and Amazon — the latter company had paid the first lady’s production company $40 million for the rights to the film — grandees and celebrities filled out the guest list. Beneath a glittering chandelier, gloved waiters served popcorn in glossy, black-and-white commemorative buckets. As if to underscore the transformation of the people’s house into a Trumpian Versailles, guests were sent home with French cookies emblazoned with the first lady’s name.
Then there were the aggressors. Not content to be largely silent supplicants, these Americans actively supported what had happened. Top administration figures like Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem rushed to paint Pretti as a domestic terrorist bent on slaughtering officers of the law. Never mind that he was a former boy scout and choir boy with no criminal record, his legally owned gun safely holstered. Perhaps most odiously, the conservative media personality Megyn Kelly declared that Pretti had only himself to blame for his death.
But arrayed against these powerful figures were the resisters, embodied by the two Americans gunned down in Minneapolis this month: Renee Good, a poet and a mother who had just dropped her son off at school, shot through the head by an ICE agent whom, it was baselessly claimed, she sought to run down with her car; and Pretti, who bravely placed himself between federal agents and a woman they shoved to the ground, paying for this valor with his life.
You may read more stories about these resisters at the gift link. And then, there are the journalists covering the story. This is from CNN. Journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were taken into custody after a Minnesota church protest. My great-granddaddy was a Methodist Circuit rider back in Kansas and back in the day, and a fierce abolitionist. People are just oozing traditional American values here, while the Trump Regime just ignores all those years of fighting, standing, dying, and making history. Remember the Presbyterian minister in Chicago? They certainly didn’t care about his right to peacefully protest. What about the rights of journalists to report a story?
Two independent journalists, Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, have been arrested in connection with a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Lemon and Fort were live-streaming as dozens of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters rushed into Cities Church on January 18, interrupting a church service and leading to tense confrontations.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday announced said four people total had been arrested “in connection with the coordinated attack” at the church.
The other two individuals Bondi named were Trahern Jeen Crew and Jamael Lydell Lundy.
Court records related to the arrests were not immediately available. Lemon, a former CNN anchor who now hosts his own show on YouTube and other platforms, is expected to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday.
Lemon was in L.A. to cover the Grammy Awards and was arrested after 11 p.m. local time in a hotel lobby in Beverly Hills.
“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done,” Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement Friday morning. “The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.”
“Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case,” Lowell added. “This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.”
Lemon has repeatedly said he was present at the demonstration as a journalist, not as an activist. In a video of the episode that he posted to YouTube, Lemon said, “I’m just here photographing, I’m not part of the group… I’m a journalist.”
Fort made the same points in a Facebook Live stream when federal agents arrived at her home early Friday morning.
“This is all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest as a member of the media,” Fort said before she surrendered to agents.
“We are supposed to have our constitutional right of the freedom to film, to be a member of the press,” she said. “I don’t feel like I have my First Amendment right as a member of the press because now federal agents are at my door arresting me for filming the church protest a few weeks ago.”
Our fat Orange Caligula and his cronies sure want him to be king. I just don’t understand how anyone who knows our history could possibly find these events anything but outrageous breaches of our Constitutional democracy. But catch this Trump hatement today. This is reported by NBC News‘ Pillar Melendez. “Trump calls Alex Pretti an ‘insurrectionist’ and ‘agitator’ after new video of ICU nurse emerges. The president’s rebuke of the slain ICU nurse came after a video emerged of a confrontation between Pretti and federal agents days before he was fatally shot in Minneapolis.” The orange idiot has to be the center of attention, no matter how Bond villain evil he sounds.
Donald Trump on Friday called Alex Pretti an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist,” marking an increase in the intensity of his rhetoric toward the ICU nurse fatally shot by federal agents after the president recently said he wanted to “de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Pretti’s “stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces.’
NBC News previously reported on the video, shared online this week, that appeared to show Pretti in an altercation with agents just days before he was fatally shot. In the video taken on Jan. 13, Pretti is seen yelling at federal immigration agents and kicking the back of a vehicle used by agents, breaking a taillight. It is not clear what happened before the interaction.
“It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in the Friday post.
The Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights probe into Pretti’s death, Deputy AG Todd Blanche said in a Friday press conference. He added that he does not know where Pretti’s phone is or the gun that he had on him before his death.
“We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Blanche said.
David Rothkopf, writing for The Daily Beast, has this characterization of Trump and his hatred of Free Speech. “There Can Be No More Doubt. Trump Wants to Kill Free Speech. JEFFERSON WEEPS. Don Lemon is the most high-profile reporter being targeted. Trump wants to target all of us.”
Donald Trump is seeking to execute the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the same way that his thugs gunned down Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.
The arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for doing their jobs as journalists and covering a public protest at a church in Minneapolis is a violent assault on freedom of the press in the United States of America, one of the most egregious we have ever seen from a U.S. government.
Not one but two judges rejected prior efforts by the—misnamed—U.S. Department of Justice to indict Lemon and Fort for their presence at the church protest. But undaunted, Attorney General Pam Bondi proceeded to personally direct the arrest of Lemon in Los Angeles late on Thursday night, thus reminding us that she more than any other member of the Trump cabinet deserves to be impeached—no small distinction in a group that includes deserving candidates for being fired and convicted by the Senate like Kristi Noem, RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth.
Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote in a statement, “Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable” and he characterized the arrest as an “unprecedented attack” on a free press.
If anything, Lowell understates the dangers associated with Lemon’s arrest. Seeking to prosecute him represents not one but three separate attacks on freedoms so fundamental that were among the first guaranteed by our Constitution.
The latest Trump-appointed Fed Chair is like a read-it-and-weep announcement. I’m wondering what this will do to financial markets worldwide. This is from CNBC. “Trump nominates Kevin Warsh for Federal Reserve chair to succeed Jerome Powell.” Jeff Cox has the lede.
President Donald Trump on Friday named Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair, ending a prolonged odyssey that has seen unprecedented turmoil around the central bank.
The decision culminates a process that officially began last summer but started much earlier than that, with Trump launching a fusillade of criticism against the Powell-led Fed almost since Powell took the job in 2018.
“I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the selection.
The pick of Warsh, 55, likely won’t ripple markets because of his past Fed experience and Wall Street’s view that he wouldn’t always do Trump’s bidding.
“He has the respect and credibility of the financial markets,” said David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“There was no person who was going to get this job who wasn’t going to be cutting rates in the short term. However, I believe longer term he will be a credible candidate,” added Bahnsen.
Stock market futures nevertheless were slightly negative Friday morning, though off their lows since Warsh’s appointment became clear.
Warsh now faces Senate confirmation. If approved, he will take over the position in May, when Powell’s term expires. Warsh will fill the Board of Governors position currently held by Governor Stephen Miran, whose term expires Saturday. Miran can continue to serve until a replacement is named.
(Sigh). And now, the movie with the worst buzz ever!!! This is from Mother Jones. “Those Brutal ‘Melania’ Documentary Reviews Have Vanished from Letterboxd. Meanwhile, the First Lady used a Fox News appearance calling for ‘unity’ to shill the film.” I don’t think at my advanced age I’m going to start getting into porn, frankly.
Yesterday I published a story about what was quickly becoming a surprising site of capital R Resistance: the Letterboxd review page for the $75 million documentary film, Melania.
Comments were profane, fun, silly, unprintable. I included some of my favorites. The point I was making was this: Even before the movie’s release this Friday, it has become a lightning rod for anger, not least because Melania Trump’s oligarchic private premiere gala at the White House came the same day Alex Pretti was shot dead in the streets of Minneapolis amid her husband’s disastrous siege of the city. A real let-them-eat-cake moment.
But as my colleague Arianna Coghill went to promote the story today on our social media channels, she discovered the reviews have been wiped from the site entirely.
Sad.
So I sent an email to the Letterboxd press team asking why. What terms were violated? When did that happen? Even though the reviews appeared before the official release of the film, how is Letterboxd to know reviewers hadn’t seen the film itself?
They haven’t gotten back to me, and I’ll share their response when they do.
Update, Tuesday, January 27, 5:45 p.m.: Letterboxd just got back to me (they are based in New Zealand), attributing the erasure to an innocuous, automated back-end update:
This was an automatic update, caused by a previously incorrect premiere date. Letterboxd pulls through film data from TMDB, a user editable database for movies. The official premiere date was corrected on TMDB, automatically updated on the film’s main page on Letterboxd, thus preventing all reviews from appearing on the film page until its premiere. This happens from time to time on film pages through the automated sync, with no manual intervention required from the Letterboxd team.
So there you have it. Friday’s official release of the Amazon-MGM doc will provide would-be reviewers a fresh opportunity to contribute to Letterboxd’s thriving message boards.
Mo. Basuony at Filmogaz has this headline: “melania movie opens after Kennedy Center premiere as reviews turn combative.”
The melania movie reached theaters Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, after a Washington, D.C. premiere that blended red-carpet spectacle with unusually loud online blowback. The project — marketed as both a film and a companion series — has become a test case for how politics, celebrity, and platform-scale promotion can reshape a documentary rollout in real time.
The release centers on Melania Trump and the final weeks leading up to her return to the White House, with Brett Ratner directing and Melania serving as a producer with significant creative input. The premiere drew a mixed roster of political figures and pop culture guests, including Nicki Minaj, while early reactions focused less on what’s on screen and more on money, optics, and the film’s unusually aggressive marketing push.
Thursday night’s invite-only event took place at the Kennedy Center, though invitations and branding around the premiere used the phrase “Trump-Kennedy Center,” prompting immediate debate over naming and institutional politics. The red-carpet photos and guest lists quickly became part of the story, not just a prelude to the story.
Nicki Minaj’s appearance added to the swirl: her presence at a politically charged premiere turned the event into a crossover moment that traveled far beyond film pages and into fandom and campaign-world timelines. The result was a premiere that functioned as a media event first and a film debut second.
The money and the rollout plan
The financial contours are now inseparable from public perception. The film’s backing has been described as a rights/licensing deal near $40 million plus a marketing push widely pegged around $35 million, often summarized as a $75 million total outlay — a figure the filmmakers and team have pushed back on in parts, arguing the production scope is larger than a typical standalone documentary.
So, it’s just a usual day of grifting and pummeling Constitutional law. And how’s your day going?
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