Marc Edelman

Donald Trump’s AI push fuels revolt in Maga heartlands Republicans fear backlash against White House agenda could undermine support in this year’s midterm elections

Along with ICE warehouses, AI data centers are another potential wedge issue for Dems, if they're paying attention.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

Serial killers.

Army and DHS spokespersons both resign today. Rats fleeing a sinking regime?

The Quintessential Epstein Files Email - The American Prospect Jeffrey Epstein and his friends standing up for Mary Jo White against Elizabeth Warren tells you everything about the class war at the heart of the files.

"The Epstein files are resonating because they show how the real divides in our country fall along the lines of class."

prospect.org/2026/02/17/e...

Used to be that robber barons would give away vast sums of wealth to charitable causes to launder their reputations. Now the billionaires just try to control the narrative by buying up the media companies

Opinion | Trump Risks Igniting a Nuclear Wildfire

"In an era of rising tension and decaying treaties, leaving the fate of the world to the judgment of a single person — whoever it is — is a risk no democracy should tolerate."

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/o...

The Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding—money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases—to bankroll his security detail. trib.al/TSV3cmb

The Trump Admin Is Building a Mass Detention System—What Will You Do About It? | Common Dreams ​What they have not told you is that the immigration detention system is not processing people, it is accumulating them. The math shows how fast; the history shows what comes next.

“The historical record offers no example of a detention system with these structural features that reversed course without public rupture, legal compulsion, or political defeat. None. Not one.”

www.commondreams.org/opinion/trum...

Trump’s Relentless Self-Promotion Fosters an American Cult of Personality

"Trump regularly depicts himself in a heroic, almost godly fashion, as a king, as a Superman, as a Jedi knight, as a military hero, even as a pope in a white cassock."

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/u...

House Passes “Worst Voter Suppression Bill Ever” in Latest Push to Help Trump Take Over Elections The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to require proof of U.S. citizenship in the November midterm elections. If it becomes law, it would be the “worst voter suppressio...

"The president and his allies are trying to ignore the Constitution … to interfere in some way or another with the midterm elections," says reporter Ari Berman.

US businesses and consumers pay 90% of tariff costs, New York Fed says Central bank’s research undercuts Trump’s claims that foreign companies will pay for levies

The tariffs amounted to an average tax increase on US households of $1,000 in 2025 and $1,300 in 2026.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

Exclusive: White House uses USAID funds for budget director Vought's security, documents show The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from the former U.S. foreign aid agency to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's budget chief and an archit...

there's fierce competition, but this is one of the most stomach-turning things I've read in some time

Strip away the futurist gloss from Oz’s answer for rural America’s mental health crisis, and the message to 60 million rural Americans becomes stark: Your suffering is rooted in disconnection from other human beings, and the federal response is you should talk to a robot. trib.al/v16kp1t

"It’s time to get aggressive and get the f**k out because they’re trying to box us in." Key word: "they." They ever feverishly imagine they're facing coordinated group attack, even when there is no "they"--just a single individual avoiding conflict by getting out of their way.

Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser

Phew! The party balloon in has been neutralized by CBP's laser.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/u...

Gallup to stop tracking presidential approval ratings after 88 years Public opinion polling agency says decision ‘solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities’

I know a certain president who will be very happy about this decision.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Republicans want you to show citizenship papers to register to vote & strict forms of photo ID to cast a ballot but won’t require ICE agents to take off their masks

(CNN) - The United States has fallen to its worst-ever position in a leading global index that measures perception of corruption in the public sector among independent experts and businesspeople.

@cnn.com
www.cnn.com/2026/02/10/b...

Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation

Watch out, climate criminals!

You may one day face your own special Nuremberg tribunal.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/c...

Dear Ms. Wolfe, Petitioner-Appellee Rümeysa Öztürk submits this Rule 28(j) letter to advise the Court that on January 29, 2026, the immigration court held that the Department of Homeland Security had not met its burden of proving removability, and the immigration court thereby terminated removal proceedings against Ms. Öztürk.' This development underscores the dangers of the government's interpretation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under the government's view, it could punitively detain any noncitizen in retaliation for her speech for many months, so long as it simultaneously institutes removal proceedings—no matter how unmeritorious—all without any federal court review of the lawfulness of detention at any time. To be clear, the termination of Ms. Öztürk's removal proceedings does not moot her habeas case. (By contrast, as Ms. Öztürk has argued, this appeal is moot. Br. 18-20.) Without habeas jurisdiction and the bail order that is currently in place, any government appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals would again subject Ms. Öztürk to re-detention. See 8 C.F.R. § 1003.6(a). For that reason, she continues to suffer the threat of continuing "now-or-never" First and Fifth Amendment harms. Br. in Opp. 55-57.

NEW: An immigration court has terminated removal proceedings against Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, finding that DHS did not meet its burden of establishing that she was removable, her lawyers tell the Second Circuit. live-awp-vermont.pantheonsite.io/app/uploads/...

Here’s the latest.

Trump: “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying.”

Reminder: 550 million people worldwide speak Spanish, 45 million of them in the USA.

Poor monolingual president. He doesn’t get it and can barely even speak English.

www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

For $1 Million, Donors to U.S.A. Birthday Group Offered Access to Trump

"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/u...

We are deciding right now whether we want to be a country with ethnic cleansing and concentration camps.

Musk will have to testify over his role in shuttering USAID, a judge has ruled.

The DOJ tried to protect Musk from testifying, arguing it would “intrude on White House activities," but as Musk wasn’t a secretary or agency head, this reasoning doesn't excuse him. trib.al/EGROKkN

Some serious, logical and do-able suggestions to address & reform the bloated and predatory “finance sector”, from the smart and provocative @deanbaker13.bsky.social .
As usual.

This man with serious cognitive decline has the nuclear codes,

Robotics: The Last Nail in Rural America’s Coffin? John Deere has announced its plans to go 100% robotic by 2030. What does that mean for rural America?

Farms without farmers are likely coming to a county near you

barnraisingmedia.com/robot-farms-...

Here's @rickhasen.bsky.social detailing the scenario in which Trump uses search warrant to seize ballot boxes in a contested 2026 locale. This is more worrisome than ICE at the polls. Hasen also suggests ways to act against this now.

It's harrowing stuff:

newrepublic.com/article/2062...

If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff.

Democracy dies in oligarchy.

Trump’s New “Prison Camp” Threat Unleashes Fury Even in MAGA Country The next phase of ICE’s big ramp-up: a nationwide network of vast detention facilities. But guess what? Even parts of Red America are saying no.

Remarkable: Trump's planned migrant prison camps are hitting deep resistance in red areas. In Virginia's partly rural Hanover (+26 Trump) opposition is intense. GOP leaders in other states are opposed.

Voters are rejecting mass deportations big time. 1/

(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2060...