“White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that more than 1,000 [federal gang members] have left Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its [occupation]. A ‘small’ security force will stay for a short period to protect remaining [gang members] and will respond ‘when our agents are out and they get surrounded by [angry citizens] and things got out of control,’ Homan told CBS’[s] ‘Face the Nation.’ He did not define ‘small.'” (02/16/26)
“American prisons have never been much for the First Amendment, and now, the Trump administration is exporting prison-style censorship to the general population. In tactics that are easily recognizable to incarcerated people like me, they’re doing it in the name of ‘security.’ This includes claiming antiestablishment ideologies and literature must be punished because they pose nebulous risks to those with government-approved political views. It also includes the logical next step: criminalizing efforts to keep authorities from finding out that one holds those ideologies or reads that literature.” (02/16/26)
“Presidents’ Day is a good day to rank presidents. There’s debate about the top three — my choices are Lincoln, Washington, and FDR — but no suspense about who’s bringing up the rear. Even if he racks up an achievement or two in the next couple of years, we can be confident that Donald Trump will be viewed as the worst president in U.S. history, with Richard Nixon now a distant second. Yes, historians said that in his first term, and more than 70 million Americans ignored his coup attempt and returned him to office. But Trump has no road back now; the country as a whole is finished with him. This period reminds me of 1943, when the Allies knew we would eventually defeat the fascists, but only after a lot more death and destruction.” (02/16/26)
“Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said his government would change the law to protect ministers from suspension while they are under criminal investigation, prompting the opposition to accuse him of trying to protect himself and harming judicial independence. A court suspended Rama’s deputy, Belinda Balluku, in November following her indictment by Albania’s anti-graft prosecutors, known as SPAK, over alleged meddling in a tender for infrastructure projects, which she denies. The case has sparked a dispute between SPAK, which has asked parliament to lift Balluku’s immunity to allow her arrest, and Rama, who has complained about judicial overreach, especially with pre-trial detentions.” (02/16/26)
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a recent revelation that four men named by Rep. Ro Khanna as being associated with Jeffrey Epstein now appear to have no actual ties to him.” (02/16/26)
“Thomas Jefferson enshrined our ideals in the Declaration of Independence with words every American recognizes: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ But he immediately followed that soaring statement with something just as important: ‘That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ Ideals alone were never meant to stand. They required durable forms capable of securing and sustaining them. Those forms were later prescribed in the Constitution.” (02/16/26)
“The United States and Hungary signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement on Monday, as the Trump administration deepened bilateral ties with a controversial ally at a politically sensitive moment for Budapest. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Budapest for meetings with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and senior members of his government, during which Rubio and Orbán signed the pact. The deal comes two months before Hungary’s next parliamentary elections, which may determine whether Orbán can maintain his two-decade grip on power.” (02/16/26)
“The lesson here isn’t a hard one. It’s not difficult to see the writing on the wall. You can’t out-fash the fascists, so don’t try (and maybe you shouldn’t try since fascism is hostile to all things human and decent; just a thought from a humble blogger). Stop trying to peel away parts of the fascist electorate and instead use your money and power and influence to tell otherwise disengaged people — folks who sit on the sideline, convinced both major U.S. parties are exactly the same — what to think about political issues. Don’t concede far-right framing around immigration and economic matters and everything else that drives voter turnout. Fascists gain power by changing people’s minds — that is how they gain a foothold in multicultural liberal democracies that have largely rejected far-right messaging for decades.” (02/16/26)
