UNDER CONSTRUCTION - MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON
https://middlebororeviewandsoon.blogspot.com/
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Weeky in Review | The Monstrous, Murderous, Chaotic, Lawless Trump Nightmare Continues
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER.....
ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON
MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON
Journalism Fighting Like Hell Against Fascism
The Common Dreams newsroom is funded by good people like you who believe that the common good should never bow to fascist authoritarians.
Everything you read on our pages is powered by the belief the independent journalism is key in the fight to defend democracy, confront corruption, and build a better world. The model is simple: media that belongs to the people and serves the common good is more trustworthy because it is not bought and paid for by corporate interests or billionaire owners. But for us to survive—and remain strong—we need your support. If that support dries up, so do we. Please—if you can—give today to our Winter Campaign today. We won’t make it without you.
"The economic damage Trump has already done to business investment, manufacturing, and working families’ budgets will linger for years to come."
By Jake Johnson • Feb 20, 2026
The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he invoked an emergency law to impose sweeping global tariffs, sparking a disastrous trade war and burdening American consumers and businesses with higher costs.
The 6-3 decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, states that “nothing” in the text of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) “enables the president to unilaterally impose tariffs.”
“And needless to say,” Roberts wrote, “without statutory authority, the president’s tariffs cannot stand.” Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito dissented in the case, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump.
The ruling deals a massive blow to Trump’s tariff regime, which he placed at the center of his economic policy agenda despite warnings that the sweeping import taxes would drive up costs for US consumers and businesses—which is precisely what happened.
An analysis released by congressional Democrats just after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling estimated that the average US family has paid more than $1,700 in tariff costs since the start of Trump’s second White House term. While businesses may be eligible for tariff refunds in the wake of the high court’s decision, it’s far from clear that consumers who paid higher costs for groceries and other goods affected by the levies will have any such recourse.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not directly address the issue of refunds for tariff costs, which tripled for midsize US companies last year.
“Any consumer looking for relief from tariff-driven price hikes did not find it at the Supreme Court today,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative. “The economic damage Trump has already done to business investment, manufacturing, and working families’ budgets will linger for years to come.”
“Refunds for impacted businesses will take months or even years to process, and there is little reason to believe companies will pass those savings on to consumers,” Jacquez added. “Trump must set aside his erratic tariff policy and instead pursue a trade agenda that protects workers, supports manufacturers, and doesn’t punish consumers.”
“Trump will try to do this again another way, because he is intent on continuing his unhinged economic sabotage.”
Most of the tariffs Trump has imposed during his second term will be impacted by the Supreme Court’s decision. NBC Newsnoted that the decision “upends his tariffs in two categories. One is country-by-country or ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, which range from 34% for China to a 10% baseline for the rest of the world.”
“The other is a 25% tariff Trump imposed on some goods from Canada, China, and Mexico for what the administration said was their failure to curb the flow of fentanyl,” the outlet added.
On top of driving up costs for American consumers and businesses, Trump’s tariffs failed to make a dent in the US trade deficit and did not stop the loss of manufacturing jobs, which declined by an estimated 108,000 during the president’s first year back in the White House.
Fearing a negative Supreme Court ruling, Trump administration officials have reportedly been exploring alternatives to the IEEPA, prompting concerns that the president could swiftly pursue similar tariffs under a different authority.
“This decision is unlikely to alter US tariff rates or policies much because there are other statutes that could provide broad authority for Trump to impose tariffs,” said Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project.
“In the immediate term, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 explicitly authorizes a president to impose tariffs up to 15% for up to 150 days on any and all countries related to ‘large and serious’ balance of payments issues, which relates to the huge chronic US trade deficit,” Wallach observed. “Section 122 does not require investigations or impose other procedural limits.”
US Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the ranking member of the House BudgetCommittee, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision but warned that “Trump will try to do this again another way, because he is intent on continuing his unhinged economic sabotage.”
"Alexandria lives in JD Vance’s head rent-free because she won't back down from fighting for what's right," said the progressive's reelection campaign.
By Jessica Corbett • Feb 19, 2026
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez swiftly fired back at Vice President JD Vance on Thursday after the Republican mocked the New York Democrat for her difficulty answering a question about Taiwan during the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Speaking during the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, Vance attempted a joke: “Thank you, Mr. President, very much for your leadership, but also for the kind words about me personally. I knew exactly what I wanted to say but then after the president said that I was so smart and that I didn’t want to repeat our congresswoman who froze for 20 seconds over in Munich. Now I’m tempted, sir, just to freeze for 20 seconds and just stare at the cameras, and maybe they’ll say nice things about me, like they do about Congresswoman Cortez, but I have three very brief messages.”
Responding to a video clip of Vance on social media, Ocasio-Cortez said, “The only thing longer than my pause to think was their silence to his joke,” with a skull emoji, generally used to convey laughing to death.
Vance previously took aim at Ocasio-Cortez during a Tuesday interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, who asked him to weigh in on footage from Munich last Friday, when Ocasio-Cortez was asked whether the United States should send troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
The congresswoman began, “Um, you know, I think that, uh, this is such a, a—you know, I think that—this is a, um—this is of course, a, uh, a very long-standing, um, policy of the United States.”
While Fox cut off the clip there, Ocasio-Cortez added: “And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic, research, and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.”
Describing the congresswoman as “a person who doesn’t know what she actually thinks,” the vice president—who may run as Trump’s successor in 2028—called her answer “embarrassing” and “the most uncomfortable 20 seconds of television I’ve ever seen.”
“Does anybody really believe that AOC has very thoughtful ideas about the global world order or about what the United States should do with our policy in Asia or our policy Europe?” Vance added. “No, this is a person who is mouthing the slogans that somebody else gave her.”
Ocasio-Cortez is seeking another term in the House of Representatives this cycle, though she has fueled speculation of a possible Senate or presidential run in 2028, including with her trip to Germany, where she argued that “working-class-centered politics” is key to defeating the “scourge of authoritarianism.”
Her congressional campaign noted the attack from Vance in a Thursday email to supporters: “Did you see what JD Vance said about Alexandria? He said she’s ‘somebody who doesn’t know what she actually thinks.’JD Vance is wrong.”
It goes on to detail some of “what Alexandria thinks,” including:
In the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, when a person gets sick, they shouldn’t go bankrupt;
A minimum wage should cover the minimum cost to live; and
Homes are not slot machines for investors and Wall Street to extort working families out of every last dollar that they have.
“Alexandria lives in JD Vance’s head rent-free because she won’t back down from fighting for what’s right,” the email adds. “But she can’t do this work alone. She needs a movement alongside her.”
The congresswoman wasn’t alone is ridiculing Vance after he mocked her on Thursday. Journalist Mehdi Hasan said that “it’s so funny that he tries to make a joke about AOC and gets no laughs.”
It is “a reminder” that Ocasio-Cortez, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, “and the rest of the top-tier Dems could make mincemeat out of this guy in 2028,” Hasan declared. “He has the charisma of a broken wooden chair and the humor of Elon Musk.”
"Can’t help but notice that this insane attempted theft is the same sum he’s trying to steal from the Treasury, disguised as damages for the disclosure of his tax records," wrote one observer.
By Jake Johnson • Feb 19, 2026
President Donald Trump pledged Thursday that the United States would provide $10 billion in funding for his so-called Board of Peace—without specifying where the money would come from or how it would be used.
“Totally illegal,” US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in response to Trump’s remarks at the inaugural meeting of the president’s board, where attendees—from far-right Argentine President Javier Milei to FIFA president Gianni Infantino—were given MAGA-style red hats.
Trump said during the gathering that “the United States is going to make a contribution of $10 billion to the Board of Peace.”
“We’ve had great support for that number,” the president said, without saying from whom. “And that number is a very small number when you look at that compared to the cost of war. That’s two weeks of fighting. It’s a very small number. Sounds like a lot, but it’s a very small number, so we’re committed to $10 billion.”
Trump also said that member nations of the board have pledged $7 billion total for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has obliterated with the help of US weaponry. (The United Nations has estimated that Gaza reconstruction would cost more than $70 billion over the course of several decades.)
Watch Trump’s remarks:
Trump’s vow to provide $10 billion in US funds for a board he created and leads intensified concerns that the entire project is another grift by a president who has been described as the most corrupt leader in US history, openly using the power of his office to enrich himself and his family.
“Can’t help but notice that this insane attempted theft is the same sum he’s trying to steal from the Treasury, disguised as damages for the disclosure of his tax records,” wrote journalist Brian Beutler, referring to the $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed last month against the US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service.
“Probably a coincidence, which is worse, because it implies double stealing,” Beutler added.
Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Center for International Policy, warned in an op-ed for The Hill on Wednesday that the Board of Peace is part of the Trump administration’s “the monetization and privatization of foreign policy for personal enrichment.”
“Initially presented as a mechanism to oversee a Gaza-Israel peace process, it has been widely chided as just another unserious Trump vanity project,” Okail noted.
David Corn of Mother Joneswrote earlier this month that Trump is “essentially cooking up a global slush fund over which he will exert complete control.”
“Countries that get in early—while he’s president—will certainly be in a strong position to request preferential treatment in state affairs. The opportunities for graft and grift are immense. He will probably ask Congress to kick in the $1 billion pay-to-play membership fee to guarantee he’ll have a pot of money to spend (or pocket) at his fancy.”
But on Wednesday the nation’s top health official could only shrug after President Donald Trumpissued an executive order mandating the production of the chemical, which was found in 2015 to be “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization.
Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, which has historically been used to spur production of supplies needed for national security, to guarantee the supply of herbicides containing glyphosate, claiming a lack of such weedkillers would “critically jeopardize agricultural productivity, adding pressure to the domestic food system.”
Kennedy, who like Trump promised on the campaign trail to confront dangerous pesticides and chemicals, said in a statement that the executive order “puts America first where it matters most—our defense readiness and our food supply.” He also hintedduring his confirmation hearing last year that the administration would treat glyphosate as a critical supply for farmers.
Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, which supported some aspects of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, said he couldn’t “envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this.”
“If anyone still wondered whether ‘Make America Healthy Again’ was a genuine commitment to protectingpublic healthor a scam concocted by President Trump and RFK Jr. to rally health-conscious voters in 2024, today’s decision answers that question,” said Cook. “It’s a shocking betrayal to all of us but especially the people who live and work near farm fields where glyphosate is used.”
In addition to being linked to cancer, glyphosate has also been found to causereproductive harmsin some studies.
Zen Honeycutt, founder of the pro-MAHA group Moms Across America, said she was “disgusted” by the executive order.
The use of the Defense Production Act could provideBayer, the pharmaceutical company that acquired herbicide maker Monsanto in 2018, with legal immunity if it is challenged in court again in public health lawsuits.
The order comes months after a major study that had determined glyphosate was safe for humans was retracted by Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, the scientific journal that had published it. It was found that scientists at Monsanto had participated in gathering data for, writing, and reviewing the paper, and that other authors had received compensation from the company for their work. The journal cited “serious ethical concerns regarding the independence and accountability of the authors” when it retracted the article.
The executive order was also announced a year after Bayer donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.
During Trump’s first term in 2017, two years after the WHO cancer agency determined glyphosate was likely carcinogenic, the USEnvironmental Protection Agencyissued a finding that the chemical—which is used widely on soybeans, corn, and wheat and in home gardens—was safe.
This week, Bayer announced it had reached a deal to pay $7.25 billion to settle tens of thousands of health lawsuits regarding Roundup, the product that includes glyphosate as its active ingredient. The company continues to claim the herbicide is safe.
“By granting immunity to the makers of the nation’s most widely used pesticide, President Trump just gave Bayer a license to poison people,” said Cook. “Full stop.”
This article has been updated to note that International Agency for Research on Cancer, a committee of the World Health Organization, found glyphosate to likely be carcinogenic to humans in 2015.
"It's astonishing that we're building up for a significant military clash, and Congress isn't involved, no real case is being made to the public, and the average American has no clue."
By Stephen Prager • Feb 18, 2026
Amid reports that President Donald Trump is pushing the US toward a “massive” war in Iran, critics have found themselves shocked by the lack of “pushback” from top Democrats and mainstream media institutions.
Barak Ravidreported for Axios on Wednesday that, with a deal between the US and Iran appearing increasingly out of sight, “the Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize” and “It could begin very soon.”
Sources told the outlet that “A US military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela.”
“Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency,” Ravid wrote.
However, with Congress on recess and the media largely distracted by a whirlwind of other issues, he noted, “there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential US military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.”
As columnist Adam Johnson pointed out on social media, Trump’s sabre-rattling toward Iran was underway well before Congress left town.
Despite this, Johnson said, the “two most powerful Democrats in the country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), “have once again not leveled a single word of substantive pushback,” as was the case when Trump conducted strikes against Iran over the summer.
He said the top Democrats have only acknowledged Trump’s threats “when asked by reporters” and have made only “process criticisms” rather than criticizing the merits of the war itself.
Last month, as Trump threatened to carry out massive strikes in retaliation for Iran’s brutalization of protesters, Schumer limited his criticism to the fact that Trump had not consulted Congress.
“It has to be debated by Congress. Something like that, the War Powers Act, the Constitution, requires a discussion in Congress. We’ve had no reach-out from the administration at this point,” he told reporters.
More recently, Jeffries—a member of Congress who is briefed on national security matters—was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation what he knew about the war plans or what he would want to know.
He did not answer that question, but vaguely lamented that Trump “has been slow to provide information... to the Gang of Eight members of Congress” and “hasn’t provided a significant amount of information to Congress in general.”
“When it comes to sanctions, perma-war, and bombings, we do not have an opposition party,” Johnson said. “We have sleepy AIPAC-funded hall monitors paid to get wedgies and vaguely object after the craters are smoking in the ground.”
New York Times columnist David French agreed: “It’s astonishing that we’re building up for a significant military clash, and Congress isn’t involved, no real case is being made to the public, and the average American has no clue. If this gets serious, it will be a shock for lots of people.”
There is little hunger in the American public for a war with Iran. A YouGov survey from early February found that 48% said they strongly or somewhat opposed military action in Iran, compared with just 28% who supported it and 24% who weren’t sure.
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in an interview with Democracy Now! on Wednesday that, despite the public’s broadly anti-interventionist attitudes, “their voices are more or less not being heard in the mainstream media.”
“We’re seeing exactly what we saw during the Iraq War, in which a large number of pro-intervention Iraqi voices were paraded through mainstream media in order to give the impression that not only is this something that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi society, but also that this is the morally right thing to do,” Parsi said.
Drop Site News founder Ryan Grim said that when compared with the invasion of Iraq, which was built up over the course of more than a year through persistent propaganda to get the public on board, the Trump administration’s effort to sell a war with Iran is laughable.
“We don’t even get the respect of being lied into war anymore,” he said. “He’s just going to do it.”
"To unnecessarily deport a sick baby and his entire family is heinous," said US Rep. Joaquin Castro.
By Jake Johnson • Feb 18, 2026
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 2-month-old Juan Nicolás to Mexico—along with his 16-month-old sister, mother, and father—following the infant’s hospitalization for respiratory issues and vomiting, which he suffered after spending more than three weeks in a Texas detention center run by the notorious private prison firm CoreCivic.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who has been pushing theTrump administration to release Juan and his family, confirmed late Tuesday that they were deported after speaking with the family’s attorney, who told the lawmaker that ICE removed them from the US “with only the money that they had in their commissary—a total of $190.” Castro wrote that “to unnecessarily deport a sick baby and his entire family is heinous.”
“My staff and I are in contact with Juan’s family,” Castro added. “We are laser-focused on tracking them down, holding ICE accountable for this monstrous action, demanding specific details on their whereabouts and well-being, and ensuring their safety.”
According toMigrant Insider‘s Pablo Manríquez, Juan Nicolás “has been fighting respiratory illness in a facility where measles recently walked through the door, where mothers report struggling to get cleanwater for formula, where sick children cycle through ibuprofen and basic antibiotics until they deteriorate badly enough that someone finally calls an ambulance.”
“Which is what happened Monday night. An ambulance came,” Manríquez wrote. “It was, depending on how you look at it, either a rescue or an admission of guilt.”
Juan’s mother told Castro that the baby is suffering from bronchitis. “We are all deeply concerned that Juan and his mom will be deported and that Juan’s health will continue to deteriorate,” the Texas Democrat wrote Tuesday afternoon. “His life is in danger because of ICE’s monstrous cruelty.”
Univision journalist Lidia Terrazas crossed into Mexico and located Juan and his family in the hours following their deportation. The reporter later posted a photo with Juan on Instagram.
The number of children held in ICE detention has skyrocketed during President Donald Trump’s second White Houseterm, rising more than sixfold. A recent analysis by The Marshall Project found that “on some days, ICE held 400 children or more.”
“They are literally being treated as prisoners,” Castro said after spending more than two hours inside the CoreCivic facility in Dilley, Texas last month. “This is a monstrous machine.”
"Tenants in Minnesota are in a crisis," said Minneapolis City Council Member Aisha Chughtai. "The federal invasion forced many of our neighbors to stay home and devastated our local economy."
By Stephen Prager • Feb 17, 2026
Tenant and labor unions in Minneapolis and St. Paul have announced plans to carry out what they said would be the “largest rent strike in the United States in the last 100 years.”
Beginning on March 1, if Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz does not meet their urgent demands for an eviction moratorium and rent relief, a coalition of nearly 26,000 workers has pledged to withhold rent, which they said could create a massive economic disruption.
The plans were announced on Tuesday by the tenants union Twin Cities Tenants, which is joined by five labor unions: Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota/Iowa, UNITE HERE Local 17, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) 1005, and Communication Workers of America (CWA) 7250.
They argued that a freeze on rents is desperately needed after “nearly three months of federal occupation” under President Donald Trump’s “Operation Metro Surge,” which sent nearly 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration agents to the area, resulting in multiple fatal shootings and a wave of civil rights violations, including explicit racial profiling.
The unions said the daily presence of militarized agents “has taken a painful economic toll on poor and working-class tenants across the Twin Cities.”
“Over 35,000 low-income Twin Cities households were already unable to afford the rent before the federal siege,” they said. “Estimates show over $47 million in lost wages among people who have not been safe to go to work, and at least $15.7 million in additional rental assistance needed due to lost household income—leaving many of those households at imminent risk of eviction.”
Evictions in Hennepin County spiked by 45% between this January and last, while requests for financial assistance have nearly doubled, according to a report this month from the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
As the federal siege wore on and immigrants remained trapped in their homes, community members raised tens of thousands of dollars through GoFundMe campaigns. But it proved far too little to help the thousands of families suddenly at risk of losing their homes.
On January 30, tenant organizers, union members, and other local activists staged a sit-in at the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and called for an immediate halt to evictions. Another group gathered outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul.
“We’re here today because federal immigration enforcement, eviction courts, and the police power of the state are converging to terrorize the same families,” said Jess Zarik, co-executive director of HOME Line. “Housing instability is being used as a weapon, and the scale of this crisis is unlike anything we’ve seen in our 34-year history.”
While city and state leaders have fought back rhetorically against the Trump administration’s highest-profile abuses—including the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by agents last month—and called for accountability, organizers said they’ve been slow to remedy the wider effects it has had on working-class residents across the Twin Cities.
“A lot of people just can’t get to and from work because ICE has been stopping random cars on the road, largely based on what they think the skin color of the driver is,” said Klyde Warren, a Minneapolis renter and Twin Cities Tenants organizer. “How are you supposed to go to work and make money to pay your rent in those conditions? The answer is a lot of people just can’t right now, but the eviction courts are still operating as if things are normal and they’re not normal.”
Last week, Walz’s office toldAxios that the governor “does not currently have the legal authority to enact an eviction moratorium.”
Walz enacted an eviction moratorium in early spring 2020, which tenant organizers said allowed renters to stay home safely to avoid risks from the Covid-19pandemic. He did this using what is known as a “peacetime emergency” declaration, which allows the governor to circumvent typical rulemaking procedures during extraordinary circumstances.
The city councils of both Minneapolis and St. Paul voted unanimously last month for nonbinding resolutions calling on Walz to take similar action to protect vulnerable residents from displacement.
“Tenants in Minnesota are in a crisis. The federal invasion forced many of our neighbors to stay home and devastated our local economy,” said Minneapolis City Council Member Aisha Chughtai (D-10). “We need real solutions for the cliff of the rental crisis we are facing on March 1.”
“I will be going on rent strike on March 1, and I call on my constituents to join me, until we can get a real solution from our state government for this crisis,” she said.
Even as ICE’s operation draws to a close, some agents are still deployed and arresting Twin Cities residents. Organizers said that even after the surge itself ends, the economic fallout will need to be addressed.
“We absolutely need an eviction moratorium,” said Geof Paquette, the internal organizing director at UNITE HERE Local 17. “Our members were struggling to keep up with housing costs before ICE occupied our streets. It has now become an emergency as many of our members are behind in their rent. It’s well past time for some relief.”
The unions have estimated that if just 10,000 of their members withheld their rent, it could cause $15 million in economic disruption and pressure the city and state government into action.
“The people of Minneapolis and St. Paul have shown the way, fighting a federal invasion and caring for their neighbors; their fight and their care continue in this historic rent strike,” said Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation. “Tenants and workers have decided that... they have no other choice but to strike. In taking this step, they join a storied tradition of struggle. The struggle can end whenever the governor steps in to do what’s right.”
"The strikes are fading from public attention despite their illegality," warned one group. "This normalization poses dangers."
By Julia Conley • Feb 17, 2026
“No amount of terrorism talk renders this slaughter lawful,” said one policy analyst Tuesday after the US Department of Defense announced it had killed 11 people on three boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean—bringing the total number of people killed by the Trump administration in the region to at least 145 as the White House claims to be combating drug trafficking at sea.
The US Southern Command reported that Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted “lethal kinetic strikes” on boats operated by “Designated Terrorist Organizations” that were “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
Two of the boats were in the eastern Pacific and one was in the Caribbean, and Southern Command reported that they were “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes.”
As with the other strikes the Pentagon has conducted since September, the Trump administration did not release evidence of its claim that the boats or passengers were involved in drug trafficking.
In the case of one bombed boat last year, evidence showed it had been headed for Suriname, not the US. Past victims have been identified as fishermen—including one whose family filed a formal legal complaint against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—and a bus driver who had agreed to ferry narcotics, leading one expert to compare the strikes to “straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”
Legal analysts have stressed over the past five months that when the US government has previously identified drug trafficking vessels in international waters, federal agencies have boarded the boats, confiscated illegal substances, and detained people on board for breaking the law.
The strikes on Monday evening, in contrast, were a continuation of “an extrajudicial killing spree,” said history professor Robert Crews.
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) warned Tuesday that with President Donald Trump’s intensified threats against Cuba and continued mass deportation and detention campaign at home in the US, “the strikes are fading from public attention despite their illegality.”
“This normalization poses dangers: The justifications being used could extend to other victims in other contexts, and elements of the US military appear to be accepting unlawful orders,” said Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at WOLA, and John Walsh, the group’s director for drug policy and the Andes.
Trump informed Congress in October, a month after his administration began bombing vessels in the region, that he viewed the US as being in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Latin America including in Venezuela, but international and domestic drug and crime agencies have not identified Venezuela as a major source of drug trafficking to the US—particularly not of fentanyl, which is responsible for a majority of overdoses in the US.
Isacson and Walsh emphasized Tuesday that despite Trump’s claims, “there is no congressional authorization for military force against drug traffickers. Under international law, the United States is not engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels—designating groups as foreign terrorist organizations does not confer wartime authorities.”
Though the ongoing killings are being largely overshadowed by other news stories in the mainstream press, said Isacson, “February is on track to be the third-deadliest month of illegal US boat strikes, with 1.2 deaths per day so far, and 11 killed just yesterday.”
Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have introduced war powers resolutions to stop the Trump administration from continuing the boat bombings and attacking Venezuela, but the vast majority of Republican lawmakers have blocked the efforts.
The human rights group Amnesty International, which said in December that Trump’s boat strikes “constitute murder,” called on Congress to “do more to rein in this administration’s lawless actions” and urged the public to put pressure on lawmakers.
“This murder spree,” said Amnesty, “is unconscionable and illegal.”
"Cuba isn’t failing, it’s being suffocated," said one anti-war group.
By Julia Conley • Feb 17, 2026
US President Donald Trump’s latest comments on his government’s blockade on Cuba Monday evening amounted to “boasting of a war crime,” one journalist said after the president told the press that the Caribbean island is a “failed nation” weeks after Trump himself cut off Cuba’s main source of energy and threatened countries with tariffs if they provided the government with oil.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump listed some of the impacts of the blockade the White House imposed after invading Venezuela last month and pushing for control of its oil supply.
“They don’t even have jet fuel to get their airplanes to take off. They’re clogging up their runway. We’re talking to Cuba right now... and they should absolutely make a deal, because it’s really a humanitarian threat,” said the president. “There’s an embargo, there’s no oil, there’s no money, there’s no anything.”
Carlos F. de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, pointed out that it has been “frequent for US officials and diplomats to claim that US aggression is not responsible for difficulties in Cuba,” as the trade embargo maintained by the US for more than six decades has impeded medications, food, and other humanitarian assistance from reaching Cubans.
It seems those officials “don’t listen to their president,” said de Cossio.
Trump commented on the impact of his ramped-up blockade as Al Jazeera and Reutersreported that just 44 of Havana’s 106 sanitation trucks have been able to operate in recent weeks due to the fuel shortage, leading waste to pile up on the Cuban capital’s streets and raising fears of public health risks.
The lack of fuel has also caused blackouts in cities and rural areas, and one diplomat toldThe Guardian on Sunday that “it’s a matter of weeks” before the blockade could cause extreme shortages of water and food.
While appearing to express concern for the Cuban public, Trump described how he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “are overseeing a siege on Cuba... with no discernible foreign policy objective other than sadism,” said Emma Vigeland of Majority Report.
“This is not an embargo. The US has had an embargo on Cuba for over 60 years, and it has failed” to force a regime change, said Vigeland.
The anti-war group Code Pink added: “If Cuba is a ‘failed nation’ then why has the U.S. spent 66 years trying and failing to destroy it?”
“Cuba isn’t failing, it’s being suffocated,” said the group.
Trump repeated his demand that Cuban officials “make a deal,” but Cuban officials have said they are open to coming to an agreement with the US. Meanwhile, Drop Site News reported last week that Rubio has been falsely claiming negotiations are taking place in an apparent bid to ultimately force regime change through other means.
One reporter asked the president Monday evening whether he would consider “an operation like the one in Venezuela,” where US forces last month abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and killed dozens of people, including many Cuban soldiers and guards.
Trump did not confirm or deny whether he would take military action in Cuba, but issued a veiled threat: “It wouldn’t be a very tough operation, as you can figure.”
Also on Monday, over 100 Cuban artists signed on to a call for “international solidarity” against the blockade.
“The empire says that Cuba represents a threat to its national security, which is ridiculous and implausible. It has imposed an oil blockade, resulting in the paralysis of hospitals, schools, industries, and transportation. They try to prevent our doctors from saving lives; they try to paralyze our free and universal education system, to plunge us into famine, into a lack of energy to guarantee access to drinking water and cooking food; in short, they aim to slowly and bloodily extinguish a country,” reads the open letter.
“Cuba resists and will resist this inhumane aggression, but it counts on the active solidarity of all honest, humanist, and good-willed men and women of the world,” it continues. “It is about preventing a genocidal act and saving a heroic people whose only ‘crime and threat’ has been to defend their sovereignty.”
The data center will get access to 400,000 gallons of water per day—enough to serve over 2,300 homes.
By Brad Reed • Feb 16, 2026
An artificial intelligence data center development venture has signed a multimillion-dollar deal that will allow it to consume over 40% of a Pennsylvania town’s excess water supply.
PennLivereported on Monday that Carlisle Development Partners, a joint venture created by developers Pennsylvania Data Center Partners and PowerHouse Data Centers, had signed a $14.1 million agreement that will let it tap into the public water and sewer systems of Middlesex Township, Pennsylvania.
According to PennLive, the deal will formalize the 18-building data center’s right to access up to 400,000 gallons of water per day, which the publication notes is “equal to the consumption of 2,367 dwelling units.”
Middlesex Township Supervisor Phil Neiderer said during a recent planning commission meeting that the big influx of revenue to the local government would more than make up for the massive amounts of water being consumed by the data center.
“What that’s going to do is it’s going to fund a lot of projects that have already been in the books that are completely unrelated to the data center,” Neiderer said, according to PennLive.
In recent months, residents of Middlesex Township and Cumberland County have raised concerns about not only water use but also pollution and utility rates tied to the project.
AI data centers have become a major controversy throughout the US in recent months, as their massive energy needs have pushed up utility bills and put a strain on communities’ water supplies.
A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability last year found that data centers could soon consume as much water as 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 10 million cars, or roughly the same amount of consumption as the entire state of New York.
CNBCreported last month PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027 thanks to the gargantuan power demands of data centers.
Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he’s never seen the grid under such projected strain.
“It’s at a crisis stage right now,” Bowring said. “PJM has never been this short.”
"Minnesota needs impartial investigations into the shootings of American citizens on our streets," said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. "Trump’s left hand cannot investigate his right hand."
By Brad Reed • Feb 16, 2026
President Donald Trump’s administration has officially denied law enforcement officials in Minnesota access to evidence related to the fatal shooting of Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti last month.
In a Monday announcement, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) revealed that the FBI on Friday delivered a formal notification informing the agency that will not receive “access to any information or evidence that it has collected” related to Pretti’s shooting at the hands of federal immigration enforcement officials.
BCA described the refusal to share evidence as “concerning and unprecedented,” but it vowed to conduct a “thorough, independent, and transparent” investigation into the Pretti shooting “even if hampered by a lack of access to key information and evidence.”
In addition to requesting evidence gathered in the Pretti shooting, the BCA reiterated its call for federal law enforcement to share whatever evidence it has collected in relation to last month’s fatal shooting of Minneapolis mother Renee Good and the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
“BCA investigations of these incidents continue,” the agency vowed. “The BCA will present its findings without recommendation to the appropriate prosecutorial authorities for review.”
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz slammed the Trump administration for denying his state’s officials access to evidence, and he demanded a real investigation into Pretti’s killing.
“Minnesota needs impartial investigations into the shootings of American citizens on our streets,” hewrote in asocial media post. “Trump’s left hand cannot investigate his right hand. The families of the deceased deserve better.”
In a Sunday interview with CBS News Minnesota, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty revealed that her office was not getting any help from the federal government in its investigation into the Pretti shooting, though she said her team was continuing to gather evidence and interview witnesses.
Moriarty emphasized that her office, which is currently working with the Minnesota BCA in its investigation, can bring criminal charges against federal immigration officers if they have enough evidence to do so, even without the cooperation of the Trump administration.
One analyst called the US secretary of state's address "one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I've ever seen a senior American official make, and that's saying something."
By Jake Johnson • Feb 16, 2026
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s defense of Western colonialism and imperial power at the Munich Security Conference and the applause his remarks received from attendees were seen as deeply unsettling in the context of the Trump administration’s brazen trampling of international law, including the recent kidnapping of the president of a sovereign nation.
While Rubio gave lip service in his remarks to multilateral cooperation with Europe in what he called the global “task of renewal and restoration,” he made clear the US would carry out its agenda alone if needed and accused European allies of succumbing to a “climate cult,” embracing “free and unfettered trade,” and opening their doors to “unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies,” echoing the rhetoric of his boss, US President Donald Trump.
Rubio lamented the decline of the “great Western empires” in the face of “godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come”—and made clear that the Trump administration envisions a return to “the West’s age of dominance.”
“We in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline,” said Rubio. “We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.”
“Standing ovation for Rubio in Munich. Standing ovation for Netanyahu in Washington,” wrote Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler, referring to the Israeli prime minister’s visit to the US capital last week. “We are ruled by a transatlantic clique of criminals and midwit minions who clap like seals when their white supremacy is laundered by the language of ‘Western values.’ Sick stuff.”
Critics viewed the US secretary of state’s speech—both the explicit words and its undertones—as a self-serving interpretation of the past and a dangerous vision of the future, and expressed alarm at the celebratory response from the Munich crowd.
Geopolitical analyst Arnaud Bertrand called Rubio’s address “one of the most revisionist and imperialist speeches I’ve ever seen a senior American official make, and that’s saying something.”
“Basically the man is openly saying that the whole post-colonial order was a mistake and he’s calling on Europe to share the spoils of building a new one,” Bertrand wrote on social media. “When an imperial power is speaking to you of sentiments, of how much they like you and how they want to partner with you—the much weaker party—that’s cause for worry, not applause.”
Nathalie Tocci, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Europe, compared Rubio’s address to US Vice President JD Vance’s openly hostile attack on European nations during his Munich speech last year.
“Rubio’s message was more sophisticated and strategic than Vance’s. But it was just as dangerous, if not more so, precisely because it lowered the transatlantic temperature and may have lulled Europe into a false sense of calm,” Tocci wrote in a Guardianop-ed on Monday. “As Benjamin Haddad, France’s Europe minister, said in Munich, the European temptation may be to press the snooze button once again.”
“If Europeans were comforted by a false sense of reassurance as they walked away from the packed Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich,” Tocci added, “they risk walking straight into the trap that MAGA America has laid for them.”
JOIN THE MOVEMENT
As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover the issues the corporate media never will.
Your contribution supports this bold media model—free, independent, and dedicated to reporting the facts every day. Stand with us in the fight for economic equality, social justice, human rights, and a more sustainable future.
The implication, delivered with straight-faced solemnity in Munich, is that the US-backed campaign against leftist movements in the Cold War was a noble defense of freedom, democracy, and Christian civilization.
Despite its small population of about 2 million, the state of South Australia is widely seen as a demonstration project for what the renewables revolution can mean for the lives of people in the industrialized democracies.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.