Finally Friday Reads: How Goes the War

Posted: February 20, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked | Tags: , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

“DEFCON 1!!!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Glancing through the headlines in traditional and social media reminds us that there is nothing normal about life in the United States these days. Economic news is surreal, as historical, economic, and constitutional mistakes like tariffs are back in the headlines. Plans for a potential war with Iran sit on the resolute desk somewhere. Don’t even get me started on jaw-dropping weirdness still happening among the jerks and incompetents sitting in Cabinet offices. I guess it’s just another normal yet insane week in Trumplandia.

It may be hard to choose the read to start out with, but the rest will be equally shocking today, believe me. Just minutes ago, the Supreme Court made the obvious decision to strike down most of Trump’s tariffs in a 6-3 vote. This is from the New York Times. Live Updates: Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Sweeping Tariffs. In a major setback for President Trump’s economic agenda, the court ruled that he could not invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to set tariffs on imports. (I’ve gifted the full article for you to read.)

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that President Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on imports fromnearly every U.S. trading partner, a major setback for his administration’s second-term agenda.

The court’s 6-3 decision has significant implications for the U.S. economy, consumers and the president’s trade policy. The Trump administration had said that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to unwind trade deals with other countries and potentially pay hefty refunds to importers.

Mr. Trump is the first president to claim that a 1970s emergency statute, which does not mention the word “tariffs,” allowed him to unilaterally impose the duties without congressional approval.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the statute does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.

“The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it,” the chief justice wrote.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh dissented, with Justice Kavanaugh warning that any refund process could be a substantial “mess.”

The United States “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid” the tariffs, he wrote, “even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

The court’s ruling, backed by justices from across the ideological spectrum, was a rare and significant example of the Supreme Court pushing back on Mr. Trump’s agenda. Since he returned to the White House, the court’s conservative majority had overwhelmingly issued emergency orders allowing the president to carry out his policies on a temporary basis. But the decision on Friday will have a more lasting impact.

Early last year, Mr. Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to set tariffs on imported goods from more than 100 countries. He said his goal was to reduce the trade deficit and spur more manufacturing in the United States. Since then, he has used the tariffs to raise revenue and to pressure other countries in trade negotiations.

A dozen states and a group of small businesses, including an educational toy manufacturer and a wine importer, sued over the tariffs, saying the president had unlawfully infringed on Congress’s power under the Constitution to impose taxes. The businesses, which rely on imported goods, argued in court filings that the tariffs had disrupted their operations and led to higher prices for consumers and cutbacks in staffing.

In court filings and social media posts, the president and his advisers cast the outcome of the Supreme Court case as critical to his trade and foreign policies, making clear he would see defeat as a personal rebuke. Without the emergency power, the solicitor general had warned the justices, there would be economic ruin akin to the Great Depression, in addition to an interruption of trade negotiations and diplomatic embarrassment.

This is from Talking Points Memo‘s Layla A. Jones.

The Supreme Court blocked President Donald Trump’s signature economic and foreign policy Friday morning in a fractured 6-3 split decision.

Trump cannot use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to override Congress’s power of the purse, using the emergency declaration to levy widespread global tariffs, the majority held. The decision will now likely require an end to those tariffs, and could trigger the return of tariff revenue collected by Customs and Border Protection and deposited into the U.S. Treasury.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which was joined in part by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kagan filed a concurring opinion, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, while Jackson filed her own concurring opinion.  Gorsuch and Barrett also filed concurring opinions.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito dissented, with Thomas filing one dissenting opinion and Kavanaugh filing another, joined by Thomas and Alito.

“Based on two words separated by 16 others in [a section of] of IEEPA — ‘regulate’ and ‘importation’ — the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time,” Roberts wrote. “Those words cannot bear such weight.”

The majority opinion ultimately agrees with the main argument of the plaintiffs, a slate of small businesses suing the government on the grounds that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are illegal. Tariffs are a tax, the plaintiffs had argued, and taxing authority rests solely with Congress.

Speaking of authorities that rest solely with Congress, Trump is still brooding about declaring War on Iran. This is from Michelle Goldberg writing for the New York Times. “This Is How an Autocrat Goes to War.”

On Wednesday, Axios’s well-sourced reporter Barak Ravid warned, “The Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon.” America has undertaken the largest air power buildup in the region since the Iraq war. Outlets including The New York Times have reported that the military has given Trump the option to strike as soon as this weekend.

Not only has Congress not authorized such a war, it has barely even debated it. The administration has not bothered to explain, either to Congress or the American people, why it might bomb Iran or what it hopes to achieve. “There haven’t been any briefings about a military strategy,” said the Democratic representative Ro Khanna, who is working with his Republican colleague Thomas Massie to force a vote on an antiwar measure.

Most reporting indicates that the White House is planning for a campaign far more intense and sustained than last year’s bombing of Iran or the abduction of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. But we don’t know if Trump and his team are after regime change, and if they are, what they think comes next. This is how an autocracy goes to war, without even a pretense that the consent of the governed matters.

At the center of the conflict between America and Iran is Iran’s nuclear program, which Trump claims he destroyed eight months ago, at the close of Israel’s 12-day war. Back then, a report from the Defense Intelligence Agency found that America’s bombing campaign set Iran’s program back by less than six months. But to this day, a page on the White House website proclaims, “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise Are Fake News.” The administration apparently feels no need to justify a potential war to end a program that it claims it already eliminated.

The administration is also reportedly demanding that Iran curtail its ballistic missile program and end its support for regional proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. It is unclear whether these demands are serious or simply a negotiating tactic, but they seem to be red lines for Iran.

“I don’t know whether it’s pretextual or genuine,” Rob Malley, Joe Biden’s special envoy for Iran, said of the Trump administration’s conditions. Given that Iran was probably bound to refuse, he said, the Trump team’s position could be “simply part of a Kabuki game to be able to say, ‘We tried diplomacy.’”

So far, the administration has scarcely bothered to elaborate the reasoning behind these demands. After all, Iran’s missiles, and the militias it supports, threaten Israel far more than they do the United States. If you take the administration’s stance at face value, it’s hard to square it with Trump’s America First campaign rhetoric.

If Trump isn’t bad enough, he has a cabinet that’s equally incompetent and dangerous. This is yet another New York Times headline. “Labor Secretary’s Husband Barred From the Department After Sexual Assault Reports.  At least two female staff members said Dr. Shawn DeRemer had touched them inappropriately at the agency in Washington.”

The husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been barred from the department’s headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them, according to people familiar with the decision and a police report obtained by The New York Times.

The women said Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, had touched them inappropriately at the Labor Department’s building on Constitution Avenue. One of the incidents, during working hours on the morning of Dec. 18, was recorded on office security cameras, the people said. The video showed Dr. DeRemer giving one of the women an extended embrace, and was reviewed as part of a criminal investigation, one of the people said.

In January, the women’s concerns about Dr. DeRemer, 57, were raised as part of an internal investigation by the department’s inspector general into alleged misconduct by Ms. Chavez-DeRemer and her senior staff, one of the people said.

On Jan. 24, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department filed a report about forced sexual contact in December at the Labor Department, according to their report, which was viewed by The Times.

The police report is the only one from the last three months associated with the Labor Department’s address, a police spokesman said, adding that the Police Department’s sexual assault unit is investigating.

After the women described the incidents to investigators, Dr. DeRemer was barred from entering the Labor Department’s premises, according to people familiar with the decision, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the allegations and ongoing investigations surrounding the department.

“If Mr. DeRemer attempts to enter, he is to be asked to leave,” a building restriction notice viewed by The Times said.

Mika reacts

Then there is this embarrassing, let me rephrase that to gross, televised moment from the HHS Secretary. This is from The Independent.  “Even Fox News hosts struggling to make sense of RFK Jr’s and Kid Rock’s workout video, ‘Listen, somebody needs to tell RFK Jr. it’s okay to wear shorts. I mean, bro, don’t be upset about your legs,’ Fox News military analyst Johnny Jones said.” This is reported by Graig Graziosi.

Why did Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and aging rap-rocker Kid Rock release a sweaty, shirtless workout collab video? Not even Fox News is sure.

During an episode of The Five on Wednesday, the panel members were left scratching their heads during a discussion of the bizarre video.

In a clip posted to X, Kennedy and Kid Rock, both shirtless, take turns riding on a stationary bike and doing pushups in what looks like a sauna. At one point, Kid Rock flips the middle finger to the camera. A title screen, inexplicably featuring a great white shark, tells us this is Kennedy and Kid Rock’s “Rock Out Work Out.”

The video is apparently intended to promote the DHHS secretary’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.

Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld watched the video and asked his co-panelists, “This raises a question: who rubs off on who?”

“You would think, ‘Oh, my God. RFK Jr is hanging out with Kid Rock. Oh, poor RFK Jr. is going to end up drinking. He’s going to be drinking again. He’s going to be womanizing again.’ And then what happens? You see Kid Rock at the gym,” Gutfeld said. “He’s like, you know, working out and cold plunge—it’s like RFK was a bad influence on Kid Rock. Who would have seen that coming?”

Fox News military analyst Johnny Jones pointed out that the DHHS secretary wore blue jeans throughout his entire workout.

“Listen, somebody needs to tell RFK Jr. it’s okay to wear shorts. I mean, bro, don’t be upset about your legs. I don’t care what they look like. Take it from me, nobody needs impressive legs. You look great with your shirt off. Throw the shorts on so we don’t all go, ‘Wow, that’s weird.’”

Esquire’s coverage was brutal. “The Republican Party Is So Tacky Now. The party of Lincoln has been reduced to RFK Jr. and Kid Rock’s “workout” video. Are they really okay with that?”  This analysis was written by Dave Holmes.

As you know by now, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got together with Woodstock ’99 standout Kid Rock to produce a short video promoting nutrition, exercise, and bathing with your pants on. The “Rock Out WORK OUT” video was filmed at Kid Rock’s home gym and sauna, and it is scored to his 1998 single “Bawitdaba,” so just when you start to realize that your tax dollars funded this video, you have to face the fact that some of your tax dollars have gone directly to Kid Rock, which is a lot to sit with. Like you, I spent much of yesterday trying not to see it. But it turns out to be a pretty good barometer of where we are as a country and a culture in February 2026, and if I have to lose 90 seconds to this goddamn thing, then so do you. Pour yourself a glass of whole milk and let’s dive in.

The video opens with Kennedy and Kid, shirtless and flexing, in front of the taxidermic bear you were already sure existed in Kid Rock’s home gym. A quick camera pan reveals that this bear is wearing a checkered fedora, suggesting that it was shot while onstage with its ska band, which hardly seems sporting. From there is a montage that includes an American flag, a shark, a fighter jet, a bald eagle, and an explosion, so what we know right off the bat is two things: One, they’re going to be throwing everything at the wall here, and two, NFTs must really be over, because this would be the perfect place to slide one in.

A highlight reel shows Secretary Kennedy and American Bad Calves running through some basic exercises in the workout room, and then it’s right to the sauna, where Kennedy keeps his jeans on and Rock does a set of push-ups so comically weak it awakens the sadistic gym teacher inside us all. Seriously: I want to bully him, and I own Liza with a Z on Blu-ray. What is happening here? As if anticipating this response, Kid Rock flips off the camera. That’s the message of American public health in 2026: Get active, eat real food, and fuck you.

Kennedy dips himself in the cold plunge, in the jeans which you have to imagine are sodden with sweat from the Assault bike session he just did in the sauna. The hygienic ramifications are too hideous to consider, so you focus your attention on the decor of Kid Rock’s home fitness center, which is identical to what you’d see in one of those Hammer & Nails salons for men, where they surround you with rough-hewn wood and tables made out of wagon wheels so you can get a pedicure and it won’t make you gay.

Kennedy gets out of the cold plunge and walks his wet ass through a sitting area, dripping his Kennedy juice all over the Navajo rug. “Where’s Kid?” he asks, a valid question only after we have answered the question “Why is Kid?” Well, Kid is in some kind of hot-tub room, flexing his biceps with a look on his face that is unmistakably 10 percent apologetic. Kennedy shakes his head. Kid, in his own hot tub? He can’t believe it!

The economy remains sluggish, with high prices. This is from CNBC. Jeff Cox reports that “Fourth-quarter U.S. GDP up just 1.4%, badly missing estimate; inflation firms at 3%.”

U.S. growth slowed more than expected near the end of 2025 as the government shutdown impacted spending and investment, while a key inflation metric showed high prices are still a factor for the economy, according to data released Friday.

Gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of just 1.4%, according to the Commerce Department, well below the Dow Jones estimate for a 2.5% gain.

Consumer spending increased at a slower pace for the period while government spending tumbled sharply in a quarter marked by the record-length shutdown. The department estimated that the shutdown subtracted about 1 percentage point from growth, though it added that the exact impacts “cannot be quantified.”

For the full year in 2025, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.2% pace, down from the 2.8% increase in 2024.

“The Federal government shutdown clearly sent the economy careening off its strong growth path in the fourth quarter which is a one-off that won’t be repeated in early 2026,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds.

It doesn’t take an economist to know that Trump and his lackeys have no idea what they are doing.

Anyway, I hate being the bearer of bad news, but other than the SCOTUS decisions, that’s what’s out there.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: Presidents Day in a Lost Country

Posted: February 16, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, Democratic Backsliding, Environmental Protection, Foreign Affairs | Tags: , , , , | 15 Comments

“The latest cabinet meetings aren’t televised for a reason. Fear not, our de facto leader is in control as the ethnic cleansing of the country formerly known as the United States roars ahead unabated. The must-see TV drama not being broadcast is Whose Turn Is It to Change the Old Guy’s Diaper?” John Buss, @repeat 1968

Good Day Sky Dancers!

As we stare down the 250th anniversary of the day our country started its journey from monarchy to democracy, we have to take a look at where we’ve landed today and utter some word of disappointment. The headlines today are filled with references to autocracy, and it’s not difficult to see how the MAGA/Trump overreach is playing out.

Politico sums up the current situation like this. “Trump’s second year: Whiplash. Even proposals that don’t ultimately move forward have consequences.” I’d just like a few more adjectives like weird, cruel, and inexplicably unnecessary.

President Donald Trump’s first year back in office was defined by sweeping upheaval that was largely plotted out during his four-year Florida exile. But the president has somehow intensified the volatility in year two with a succession of whiplash-inducing policy swings, several of which have almost immediately withered in the face of Republican opposition and public outcry.

The administration this week finally withdrew the thousands of federal law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, after violent and at times deadly clashes with protesters turned the tide of public opinion against the president’s immigration crackdown.

It came after Trump threatened to decertify Canadian aircraft, a move deemed “unjustified and dangerous” by a Washington-based aerospace trade union that the president soon dropped. Trump said in early January that he’d cap credit card rates at 10 percent, a move that would have upended the banking industry, only to change his mind and ask Congress for legislation.

Also last month, Trump’s administration paused millions in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for state public health infrastructure — only to reverse course roughly 24 hours later.

“The whiplash has real implications,” said Chrissie Juliano, executive director of the Big Cities Health Coalition, a forum of the leaders of metropolitan health departments. “It’s incredibly disruptive, even if you can get back to continuing the work, you know, two days later.”

The unpredictability of a presidency that prioritizes posting over process and often leaves friends and foes alike guessing whether pronouncements should be taken seriously, literally, or both, remains a feature, not a bug of Trump’s approach to governance. In many matters, especially negotiations with other countries, his mercurial opacity is often an attempt to gain leverage, but his threats seemingly lead just as often to backtracking as blowing things up, be they Iranian missile depots, Venezuelan drug boats or the transatlantic alliance.

The same often holds true for domestic policy. The president has made numerous pronouncements with emphatic declarations on social media, sometimes even suggesting he is governing by fiat in cases where legislation is required. But he has quickly moved on from many of them: a cap on credit card interest rates, 50-year mortgages and, according to a new Financial Times report, possibly even the sweeping tariffs on aluminum and steel that have led to higher costs.

We’re just beginning to explore the depths of depravity that Trump and his buddies will go to just feel powerful and get richer. This is from Robert Reich’s SubStack. “The Squalor of the Epstein Class. Happy Presidents Day!”

Here’s how Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie responded on Sunday, during ABC’s “This Week,” to a question about the Trump regime’s handling of the Epstein files:

“This is about the Epstein class …. They’re billionaires who were friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these kinds of people, in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he’s not. He’s still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration. And they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.”

The Epstein Class. Not just the people who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein or the subset who abused young girls. It’s an interconnected world of hugely rich, prominent, entitled, smug, powerful, self-important (mostly) men. Trump is honorary chairman.

Trump is still sitting on two and a half million files that he and Pam Bondi won’t release. Why? Because they implicate Trump and even more of the Epstein class. The files that have been released so far don’t paint a pretty picture.

Trump appears 1,433 times in the Epstein files so far. His billionaire backers are also members. Elon Musk appears 1,122 times. Howard Lutnick is there. So is Trump-backer Peter Thiel (2,710 times), and Leslie Wexner (565 times). As is Steven Witkoff, now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s consigliere (1,855 times).

The Epstein Class isn’t limited to Trump donors. Bill Clinton is a member (1,192 times), as is Larry Summers (5,621 times). So are LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (3,769 times), Prince Andrew (1,821 times), Bill Gates (6,385 times), and Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants (429 times).

If not politics, then what connects the members of the Epstein Class? It’s not just riches. Some members are not particularly wealthy, but they’re richly connected. They trade on their prominence, on whom they know and who will return their phone calls.

They exchange inside tips on stocks, on the movements of currencies, on IPOs, on new tax-avoidance mechanisms. On getting into exclusive clubs, reservations at chic restaurants, lush hotels, exotic travel.

Most members of the Epstein Class have seceded into their own small, self-contained world, disconnected from the rest of society. They fly in one other’s private jets. They entertain at one other’s guest houses and villas. Some exchange tips on how to procure certain drugs or kinky sex or valuable works of art. And, of course, how to accumulate more wealth.

Many don’t particularly believe in democracy; Peter Thiel (recall, he appears 2,710 times in the Epstein files) has said he “no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Many are putting their fortunes into electing people who will do their bidding. Hence, they are politically dangerous.

The Epstein Class is the by-product of an economy that emerged over the last two decades, from which this new elite has siphoned off vast amounts of wealth.

It’s an economy that bears almost no resemblance to that of mid-20th-century America. The most valuable companies in this new economy have few workers because they don’t make stuff. They design it. They create ideas. They sell concepts. They move money.

I’ve always argued here and in classes that the biggest economic policies of the Reagan and Bush years were tax cuts that made it more profitable to gamble on financial assets rather than to actually produce goods and services. The changes in tax policies that cut upper brackets, then treated capital gains as a tax slash, and other ridiculous policies mean that money never lands where it can actually do good. It also creates a lot of idle hands and minds.

China is beginning to look more modern, more concerned about actual economic outcomes, and the planet. The U.S. continues to race back to the Gilded Age with hints of the Great Depression years. This is from The Guardian. “The Guardian view on Donald Trump and the climate crisis: the US is in reverse while China ploughs ahead.  The president’s destructive policies enrich fossil fuel billionaires, while Beijing has bet big on the green transition.”

Devastating wildfires, flooding and winter storms were among the 23 extreme weather and climate-related disasters in the US which cost more than a billion dollars last year – at an estimated total loss of $115bn. The last three years have shattered previous records for such events. Last Wednesday, scientists said that we are closer than ever to the point after which global heating cannot be stopped.

Just one day later, Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, announced the elimination of the Obama-era endangerment finding which underpins federal climate regulations. Scrapping it is just one part of Mr Trump’s assault on environmental controls and promotion of fossil fuels. But it may be his most consequential. Any fragment of hope may lie in the fact that a president who has called global heating a “hoax” framed this primarily as about deregulation – perhaps because the science is now so widely accepted even in the US.

The administration claimed, without evidence, that Americans would save $1.3tn. Never mind insurance or healthcare costs; a recent report found that US earnings would be 12% higher without the climate crisis. The Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse called the decision “corruption, plain and simple”. In 2024, Mr Trump reportedly urged 20 fossil fuel tycoons to stump up $1bn for his presidential campaign – while vowing to remove controls on the industry.

In the same week as this reckless and destructive US decision, it emerged that China had recorded its 21st month of flat or slightly falling carbon emissions. As Washington tears up environmental regulations, Beijing is extending carbon reporting requirements. China remains the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, though its per capita and cumulative historical emissions are still far behind those of the US. But clean energy drove more than 90% of its investment growth last year.

The Carbon Brief website, which published the emissions analysis, says the numbers suggest that the decline in China’s carbon intensity – emissions per unit of GDP – was below the target set in the last five-year plan, making it hard to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement. The shift in emissions may not prove enduring. There is fear that China’s focus may change; the next five-year plan, due in March, will be key. Some subsidies for renewable power have already been withdrawn. The installation of huge quantities of renewable energy infrastructure has been accompanied by a surge in constructing coal-fired power plants, though the hope is that these are intended primarily as a fallback.

We continue to disregard the actual civilized nations and cavort with the worst of the worst. This is from France24.  “Rubio tells Orban ‘your success is our success’ during Hungary visit ahead of elections. During a visit to Budapest Monday, just weeks before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that the nationalist leader’s “success” was a success for the US. An ally of President Donald Trump, who has also maintained ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Orban lags behind the main opposition candidate in opinion polls.” The entire Trump cabinet is feckless, shameless, and incompetent. They are also enabling a backslide in democracy.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed Viktor Orban‘s leadership during a visit to Budapest on Monday, ahead of elections threatening the nationalist prime minister’s hold on power.

Rubio’s visit is the final stage of a whirlwind trip to Europe that also saw him address the Munich Security Conference and visit another right-wing ally, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.

US President Donald Trump has made no secret of his high regard for Orban, saying in a social media post on Friday that the prime minister had produced “phenomenal” results in Hungary.

But Orban, 62, has a fight on his hands for the April 12 legislative elections in Hungary. Polls suggest his Fidesz party is trailing opposition leader Peter Magyar’s TISZA.

“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success,” Rubio said during a joint press conference with Orban after their meeting.

“The president has an extraordinarily close relationship to the prime minister, he does, and it has had tangible benefits,” he said.

Europe’s nations have read the writing on the wall, according to CNN’s Kasie Hunt. “Trump’s damage is done. Democrats – and Europe – are struggling to define what’s next.”

Many of the Democrats who came to the Munich Security Conference this weekend want to be president. But even if one of them can win the White House in 2028, they may find they can no longer claim the title every American president since the 1940s has borne: leader of the free world.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom went on stage to insist his state is more permanent than President Donald Trump. But he acknowledged in an interview with CNN that the leaders he met with believe the damage to the transatlantic alliance is irrevocable.

Progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York came to pitch a left-wing populist foreign policy but made headlines for a massive stumble instead.

A number of Democratic senators hoping to burnish their foreign policy credentials ahead of possible presidential bids found themselves in a painfully awkward moment with the Danish prime minister, as some Democrats tried to smooth over pugnacious remarks Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham made at the start of the meeting that suggested Trump has not given up his designs on Greenland – a semiautonomous territory of Denmark.

And most members of the House of Representatives who planned to attend didn’t come at all after Republican Speaker Mike Johnson pulled the plug on the congressional delegation.

European thought leaders were reduced to offering a brief standing ovation to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose speech was far more conciliatory than the one Vice President JD Vance delivered at the same gathering last year. But Rubio had kicked off his trip telling American reporters: “The old world is gone.” He also left the conference to fly onward to Slovakia and Hungary, two countries led by strongmen sympathetic to Trump.

The conference’s opening remarks from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz crystallized Europe’s new reality in what seems to be rapidly becoming a post-American century.

“A divide has opened up between Europe and the United States,” Merz said Friday. “The United States’ claim to leadership has been challenged, and possibly lost.”

It’s more than just words. Merz has said he held “confidential talks” with France on European nuclear deterrence. It’s a stunning admission there’s no longer unconditional trust that the US will do what needs to be done for its transatlantic allies.

“What I’m hearing now is, even if we are able to repair these relationships, it’s going to take generations before they feel comfortable,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, of Arizona, a possible presidential hopeful who traveled to Munich not long after learning the Trump administration had tried and failed to indict him over a video he made telling troops not to obey illegal orders.

If this continues, the momentum and direction of the world’s political entanglements will change. Who knows what this will mean? This Op Ed piece from MS Now by Anthony L. Fisher discusses Trump and his attempts at an Imperial Presidency. “Libertarians warned about the ‘imperial presidency.’ Too few actually warned about Trump. A recent New York Times op-ed showed the blind spot many libertarians still have for President Donald Trump.”

When I saw the headline “Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump” atop a New York Times op-ed last Monday, I thought, “Hmmm, that’s not quite how I remember it.” Adorned with the striking image of the Gadsden flag’s “Don’t Tread on Me” snake about to get curb-stomped by an enormous black jackboot, the piece was written by Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor in chief of the libertarian magazine and website Reason — where I worked as a journalist for roughly six years. (I left shortly after President Donald Trump’s first inauguration.)

Sure enough, upon reading the column, I discovered the headline didn’t accurately reflect Mangu-Ward’s argument. She primarily made the case that libertarians have warned for years — under presidents in both major parties — about the dangers of ever-expanding executive authority, what’s been aptly coined the “Imperial Presidency.” Rather than claiming to have specifically warned “about Trump,” the writer boasted that libertarians had long sounded the alarm over the consolidation of such power — power now being used for nefarious purposes by a president who just happens to be Donald Trump. (The Times later that day amended the headline to the less specific but more honest, “Libertarians: We Told You So.”)

I can’t argue with that. To the extent most self-identified professional libertarians warned about Trump, they warned about the awesome powers that could be abused by a generic authoritarian president from either party.

But Trump is not a hypothetical. He always told us who he was. And there are far fewer of us who took (and continue to hold) the comparatively unpopular view among libertarians and other right-of-center fellow travelers that Trump presented as a uniquely authoritarian, vindictive, racist, corrupt and lawless demagogue — of which there isn’t remotely an analog on the other side of the aisle.

The problem is that, even now that Trump has proven us skeptics right on every one of those counts, too many libertarians continue to position themselves safely in a “pox on both your houses” perch — much too nuanced and enlightened to be dragged into partisan rancor. This position is how your movement ends up conflating the tyranny of overbearing, temporary Covid policies in Democratic-run areas as equal to (or worse than) the tyranny of a secret police force acting without due process for everyone when attempting to arrest suspected illegal immigrants, summarily executing Americans in the street and branding them “domestic terrorists” while their bodies are still warm.

All of these thoughts lead to one logical conclusion. The Midterm elections need to depose him and remove the spineless and the true believers, or whatever this is, from Congress.

Just to let you know, we’re having the most unkind Mardi Gras Celebration that even the police have seen. We seem to have been overrun by spontaneous groups of young men that are behaving a lot like the droogies in A Clockwork Orange. I may write about it on Friday; however, I’m busy listening to my friends’ experiences uptown and around the Quarter right now.

Peace, Love, and Understanding to you all!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging Lists today?

 

Finally Friday Reads: Endless Fresh Hells

Posted: February 13, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics | Tags: , , , , , | 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 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, Donald Trump, Economic Racism and injustice, The Election Clause of the US Constitution | Tags: , , , , , , , | 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.”

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, 2026 Elections, American Fascists, Donald Trump, Economic Racism and injustice, racism, racism in MAGA | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 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 me

I 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.

Profanity-laden anti-MAGA chant erupts at major pro-wrestling event

— (@alternet.org) 2026-02-05T16:00:27Z

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.

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