Ben Bellows

ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion turning warehouses into detention centers ICE plans to spend $38.3 billion converting warehouses into detention centers, according to planning documents, more than the annual budgets of 22 states.

Imagine if even a fraction of what this administration plans to spend on cages went toward housing people.

Worked with The Economist to analyze 1.4 million emails from the latest Epstein file drops

We built Jikipedia, a new wiki that compiles Jmail data into exhaustive reports on key figures in the Epstein scandal.

It lists all recorded visits to Epstein's estates, each person's possible knowledge of Epstein's crimes and laws that they may have violated.

How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention A 9-year-old shares her story of being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas.

A 9-year-old shares her story of being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas. @micarosenberg.bsky.social

Germany already had ICE, pictured here.

European far-right parties push for ICE-style police Fringe figures want to follow the Trump playbook for tackling unauthorized migration.

The last thing Europeans should want: an ICE of their own. And the way Europe's neo-Nazi parties now wish to emulate Trump's America brings a sad reminder of how far the United States has fallen in its 250th anniversary year.

For what it's worth I once got into a HUGE argument with Marco Rublo (at Birmingham Rotary Club)'as he said there were "too many Professors of Roman History" in his talk and I told him his law degree would exist without them and he started yelling and his face turned purple w rage. Even then a fool.

Just watched our Secretary of State laud the Scientific Revolution and deride climate science as a “cult,” almost in same breath.

The distorting effect of fossil fuel’s corrupt influence is astounding, like a warped fun-house mirror.

The even/odd rule only applies to 2-digit interstates. Three digit interstates have another set of rules relating to their parent interstate and whether they are a loop or a one-way spur.

Democracy is when voters choose their leaders. Autocracy is when leaders choose their voters.

The Queen: "everyone viewing this hearing knows that several U.S. citizens have been deported to date"

Noem: "that's not true"

The Queen: "Secretary Noem, that was not a question"

I love @underwood.house.gov so much. If she runs for President, I would be falling all over myself to work for her

✊🏻

March 2021.

“Pandemic is essentially done.”

The GOP’s Voter Integrity Sham Make the Republicans hell bent on passing the SAVE Act put money where their mouths are.

I just applied for a passport renewal. The cost was $149 including postage. Requiring a passport or similar proof of citizenship to vote is thus a poll tax. The SAVE Act before the Senate asks to do just that.

Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them NO SAVE ACT

Compare Chinese state media (below) with US state media (Fox et al, with increasing bleed-over into many "legit" news operations.)

In its ongoing war against higher ed—and law firms—the battles MAGA has won are those where the other side surrendered in advance. (The Columbia/UT Austin/Paul Weiss "strategy," vs the Harvard/UCLA/Perkins Coie/etc strategy.)

Resistance is not just braver but also smarter and more effective.

Rethinking ADHD as ‘hypercuriosity’ What if ADHD isn’t a deficit of attention, but an intensified curiosity? A new study explores how reframing ADHD could transform education

Yes! What if we treated extremely normal human variation as something other than a "disorder"???

www.positive.news/society/yout...

What the congressman reports below is disgusting.
He reveals the utter lack of decency and humanity in the Trump administration, especially in the telling detail at the end.

well

Cubans turn to electric vehicles as US tightens oil blockade HAVANA, Feb 13 () - The rumble of 1959 Chevrolets, once the rhythmic heartbeat of Havana, is fading to ‌the near silence of electric vehicles as the island ‌faces its worst fuel shortage in years. For...

Why do the fascists want to keep you hooked on fossil fuels? Because it keeps them in power. If you don't need their fossil fuels, they lose a lot of that power. True for Putin, Trump and the Princes.

The smartest national security move now is to switch to renewables and electric transportation.

Sounds like “If the county fair were held in the winter”

The U.S. would be wise to allow joint ventures between US automakers and Chinese firms, provided there is US employment, technology transfer, protection of consumer data, and efforts to build a local supply chain over time.

I’ve been to Berlin, Zurich, and Rome on this trip, and although I spent the least time there, I’ll say this for Zurich: They’ve got some of the best tap water I’ve ever had. (NYC level, just short of Detroit’s pristine tap from the bottom of Lake Huron)

The Transformative Power of the White ‘Race Traitor’

"The first person to be executed for treason in the US was not a spy or someone who sold secrets to a foreign government. It was not a Confederate general who took up arms against his government. It was an abolitionist named John Brown." from @nhannahjones.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/m...

Two survival curves. One ('late') goes all the way down, the other ('early') stays well above it all the way and bottoms out at like 30%

This is just nuts.
In a well-powered randomised trial, giving immunotherapy in the morning rather than afternoon/evening produced ludicrously big improvements in progression-free survival
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
via
www.science.org/content/blog...

We as a society aren't reacting to these people like they are among the greatest monsters in history. But they are.

Bow drill in action, New Kingdom tomb painting from Western Thebes, Tomb of Rekhmire, object 31.6.25, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

When did humans start using drills? “A new study reveals that Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated drilling tool far earlier than previously suggested” (about 3250 BCE). It’s the oldest known rotary drill 🔩 you guys!
www.austriaca.at?arp=0x0041300e

Tell any of the scientists you know who have remained on the site everyone still calls Twitter, even though it's nothing like Twitter.

“.. The president railed against South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott .. throughout the weekend ..

“.. Trump had even stronger words for Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, one of the sources recalled, using expletives to denounce her and declaring that she was dead to him.”

@cnn.com
www.cnn.com/2026/02/13/p...

Exclusive: DHS based its newest refugee attack on a Trump proclamation that stated it would not apply to refugees New documents filed in a key refugee case in Minnesota shed light on a broad, aggressive plan to review all refugees admitted since the start of the Biden administration.

DHS is currently targeting 5,600 refugees in Minnesota as a first step in an expansive plan aimed at reviewing — and presumably restricting — the legal status of refugees admitted since the start of the Biden administration.

Read my Law Dork report on Trump admin memos filed in court Thursday: