“Some Republican legislators are looking to restrict their states’ ability to set environmental regulations, a move that comes as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to roll back environmental rules on power plants, water and greenhouse gases. The Alabama Legislature on Tuesday approved legislation backed by business groups that would prevent state agencies from setting restrictions on pollutants and hazardous substances exceeding those set by the federal government. In areas where no federal standard exists, the state could adopt new rules only if there is ‘a direct causal link’ between exposure to harmful emissions and ‘manifest bodily harm’ to humans. Supporters said the Alabama measure would ground standards in ‘sound science’ and prevent regulatory overreach. Environmental groups said it would cripple the state’s ability to respond to environmental or health risks, including a group of chemicals known as PFAS, or forever chemicals, that has contaminated swaths of the South.” (02/18/26)
“As Americans struggle with how to effectively confront an autocratic leader and his billionaire backers as they brazenly dismantle democracy and the rule of law, they might well look to a southern state where an unlikely movement managed to defeat the extreme-right agenda of a governor who followed a similar path. History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes, as the aphorism goes. Consider this: A newly-elected executive appoints a powerful donor and plutocrat to dismantle government root and branch, mounts broad-based attacks on education, social safety net programs, and collective bargaining, and pushes income tax cuts that benefit corporations and the wealthy. Lawmakers quickly fall in line. The aggressive agenda seems set to succeed with remarkable speed, grinding all opposition into the ground with a sense of inevitability.” (02/17/26)
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by Scott Baldauf
“It’s not every day that a reporter gets an email from Ben Franklin. In the course of reporting a story on historical reenactors from the American Revolutionary War period, I was in regular email contact with two Ben Franklins, one George Washington, and an 18th-century tavern owner from the British colony of New Hampshire. One of the Bens invited me to read his Substack column. It reads exactly like Ben Franklin would have written it if he did, in fact, live in a society that had capitalized on the newly discovered energy source of electricity, taken a magical carriage ride through the Industrial Age to the computer age, and ditched typeset printing tools for digital publishing. Why would a Monitor reporter do any of this? The answer is right there in the headlines we read (or avoid reading) every day.” (02/17/26)
“Once upon a time, if you had described Donald Trump’s America to me (the second time around), I would have thought you mad as Alice in Wonderland‘s proverbial hatter — or, if you were a fiction writer, I would have considered your plot so ludicrous that, after reading a few pages, I would undoubtedly have tossed your book in the trash. And yet here we are, not once (yes, all of us can make a mistake once, can’t we?) but twice! And the one thing you should take for granted is that Donald Trump in the White House a second time around is the all-too-literal personification of imperial decline. In fact, decline is hardly an adequate word for it. We just don’t happen to have another word or phrase that would describe him and his crew aptly enough in all their eerie strangeness.” (02/17/26)
“The Left [sic] never (never) fails, daily, to produce something perverted, abnormal, violent, irrational, decadent, barbaric, and utterly, completely stupid. Let me share with you three recent examples I ran across: 1.) This first one is Canadian, a country that is farther gone (if that is possible) into leftism than many Americans. This is incredible! … Well, for the Left [sic], no, it’s not. Headline from the National Post: ‘Ontario resident who wants both a vagina and penis wins public funding for unique surgery; A court has ruled Ontario must pay for a penis-sparing vaginoplasty for a person who identifies as neither fully female nor fully male.’ Are there any words, in the tongues of men or angels, that can describe this?” (02/17/26)
“US Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has said he will ‘seriously consider’ running for president in 2028 as he battles the Trump administration over a video in which he urged military personnel to refuse illegal orders. The Arizona senator, who was accused of ‘seditious behaviour’ by Donald Trump over the November clip, said he and his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, received ‘many’ death threats after the president’s comments. ‘We get them on a weekly basis now,’ he told BBC Newsnight. ‘We had to get security to protect us 24 hours a day.’ Asked if he was considering a White House run, the retired Navy captain said he was considering it ‘because we’re in some seriously challenging times.’ The 61-year-old, who is a former astronaut, noted he was very different from most senators.” (02/17/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“US empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school western colonialism. During a Monday press conference in Tel Aviv after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Graham said that ‘I’ve been coming here every two weeks whether I need to or not.’ Why is a South Carolina senator traveling to Israel every two weeks, rain or shine? The bloodthirsty warmonger answers this question in short order. ‘The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel,’ Graham said. ‘Because if you’re not one step ahead of the enemy, you suffer. The most clever, creative military forces on the planet are here in Israel.'” (02/17/26)
“Time is not fungible. The time you spend reading this column cannot be ‘reclaimed’. It is gone and it won’t be back. Which is why the ‘talking filibuster’ proposal for the United States Senate is such an awful idea. I wrote the first paragraph fully aware of the jests it will bring forth — thank you for underscoring my point by posting a comment along the lines of ‘That’s five minutes I will never get back!’ You are correct. You won’t get it back. Hold that thought. It applies to the United States Senate too. Another debate has come around about the rules of the United States Senate. The debate is welcome provided it occurs in columns and in studios and doesn’t take up ‘floor time’ in the Senate.” (02/17/26)
“Lawmakers and the White House offered no signs of compromise over the holiday weekend in their battle over oversight of federal immigration officers that has led to a pause in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. A partial government shutdown began Saturday after congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump ’s team failed to reach a deal on legislation to fund the department through September. Democrats are demanding changes to how immigration operations are conducted after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers in Minneapolis last month. Unlike the record 43-day shutdown last fall, the closures are narrowly confined, affecting only agencies under the DHS umbrella, including the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” (02/17/26)
“North Carolina’s elections board came to an agreement with the Republican and Democratic parties on Monday to give 73,000 voters more time to update their voter registrations before they are removed from voter rolls. The settlement concludes an extended legal battle that rose after the Republican National Committee and North Carolina GOP sued state election officials in 2024, claiming that roughly 250,000 voters had been improperly registered. The voters in question did not provide the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers or an attestation that they had neither on their registrations. Republicans had requested that the voters be removed from rolls and their votes in the 2024 elections be thrown out. The Democratic National Committee hailed the settlement as a win on Monday, accusing the GOP of voter suppression.” (02/17/26)
