February 9, 2026

A Federal Worker Developed A Brain Tumor. The Trump Admin's Next Move Was Unspeakably Cruel.

When Helen Shaw found out in December that she needed to have a brain tumor removed, she emailed her employer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to ask about the agency’s short-term disability plan.

A human-resources representative for the watchdog agency told Shaw that the plan “likely will not be available” by the time she expected to have surgery in 2026. Sure enough, in January, all employees received the news in an email: Russell Vought, the CFPB’s acting director, was ending not only their disability plan but their dental and life insurance plans as well.

Shaw, a single mother, is now trying to decide what to do. A neurologist offering a second opinion told her she could wait and see if the tumor grows before proceeding with a craniotomy — a surgery where doctors would cut into her skull so they could remove the tumor. She had hoped the short-term disability plan would replace some of her lost income during a recovery that could last three months. Instead, she’s left wondering how she’d support her 9- and 4-year-old kids, one of whom has special needs, when she’s not supposed to walk down the stairs. She was recently quoted $11,000 per month for overnight care, and that was from someone offering her a break due to her circumstances.

She feels overwhelmed — and angry at what’s happened to her agency under President Donald Trump.

“Everything the administration has been doing with regard to the CFPB is illegal,” said Shaw, who clarified that she was speaking in her personal capacity. “From trying to shut down an agency that Congress created, down to my situation where they’re now coming for CFPB employees’ paychecks and health care and benefits.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russell-vought-cfpb-cuts_n_697d1c86e4b0d9ba36c6b65c?origin=home-latest-news-unit

Russell Vought is an asshole---oh wait, assholes serve a useful function.

February 7, 2026

Green Day Singer Gives ICE Officers Some Career Advice 2 Days Before Super Bowl

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong advised U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to say “good riddance” to their jobs.

“This goes out to all the ICE agents out there, wherever you are,” Armstrong said on stage Friday at a pre-Super Bowl event held in San Francisco by FanDuel and Spotify. “Quit your shitty-ass job.”

The comments came two days before Green Day is lined up to perform in the Super Bowl pre-game ceremony on Sunday.

“Quit that shitty job you have,” Armstrong continued. “Because when this is over — and it will be over at some point in time — Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Donald Trump, they’re gonna drop you like a bad fucking habit. Come on this side of the line.”

While it remains to be seen if the rock band will get political at the Super Bowl, Green Day has made headlines over the past year for repeatedly switching up lyrics to take aim at present-day conservatives.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/green-day-super-bowl-ice_n_6987760ee4b04dcdbed5ad4e?origin=home-latest-news-unit

He's right---but once a future employer sees that they were in ICE, who's gonna hire them?

February 7, 2026

Winter Olympian Pees A Message In The Snow For Trump Administration

Freestyle Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy streamed his protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week, seemingly peeing his message in the snow.

“fuck ice,” the yellow message read in a photo Kenworthy shared on Instagram.

Kenworth appeared to confirm in another post that he actually urinated the words.

Kenworthy, who won a silver medal for the United States in 2014 and is competing for Great Britain at the Milan Cortina Games, included a sample script for people to contact their senators and voice their objections to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. He concluded with an impassioned plea.

“Innocent people have been murdered, and enough is enough,” he wrote. “We can’t wait around while ICE continues to operate with unchecked power in our communities. Senators still have leverage right now, and Senator [Name] must use it to demand real guardrails and accountability.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gus-kenworthy-pees-snow-ice_n_69870b6de4b09b6b16d7d41b?origin=home-latest-news-unit

Guys have an advantage there!

February 7, 2026

The Epstein files reveal that a vast global conspiracy actually exists - sort of

The millions of Jeffrey Epstein files dumped last Friday by the US Department of Justice will provide journalists, conspiracy theorists and interested members of the public with months of reading. And what they will read is enraging.

What makes these files so infuriating, however, is not just Epstein’s horrific predatory behavior, which is well-known, but the more mundane examples of elite conduct that the documents continue to expose. They vividly illustrate a world whose existence many everyday people, whether fevered with visions of the Illuminati or just jaundiced by banal anti-establishment cynicism, already suspected exists: an informal global club of powerful, ultra-rich people who all seemingly know each other, help one another out, and protect each other from the consequences of their depravity.

The new files will probably not provide satisfying answers to questions about, say, whether any of Epstein’s famous friends participated in his sex trafficking, or if his death in custody in 2019 was truly a suicide, as authorities have said. But conspiracy theorists may still feel vindicated – and to some extent they should, Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, said.

Although the documents may not expose an actual criminal conspiracy, he said, they confirm the belief behind most conspiracy theories: that elites “get special treatment, that they’re shielded from the rules that are supposed to apply to everyone equally, and that there is a kind of corruption in the broadest sense of the word”.

The new material is the largest, and possibly last, tranche of the so-called Epstein files, though the government is keeping as many as 3m more pages under wraps. Yet even the initial revelations of these files deepen the astonishing constellation of ties between Epstein and members of the global elite – including tech billionaires; a former US president; British, Norwegian and Saudi royalty or royal courtiers; current and former US cabinet secretaries and governors; and prominent business executives and academics.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/07/epstein-files-global-conspiracy

They're all in it. All of them.

February 7, 2026

The powerful, personal politics of America's Olympic 'Blade Angels'

By Hannah Holland

They call themselves the “Blade Angels.” U.S. Olympians Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito are known across figure skating and, increasingly, among spectators for their technical skill and precision, creativity and camaraderie. Above all, they are known for their authenticity. In a sport still largely defined by traditional, narrow ideas of femininity and grace, Liu and Glenn are not stereotypical figure skaters. They lean into their athleticism. They are open about what they like and who they love. Liu is unabashedly alternative and Glenn is queer. Which means, whether or not they medal, their very presence at the 2026 Winter Games is political.

For all of the Olympics’ celebration of sport, athleticism and international goodwill, the Games have long been a stage for political statements: Think the Refugee Olympic Team in 2016; the U.S. and Soviet boycotts in 1980 and 1984, respectively; or U.S. medalists raising their black-gloved fists on the Mexico City podium in 1968 to highlight racial injustice.

The 2026 Games already feel especially charged, not only with some countries eager to defeat U.S. athletes as a sort of rebuke to the Trump administration, but also because the administration is at ideological odds with some outspoken American athletes. “It’s a confusing time to be wearing the Stars and Stripes,” U.S. cross-country skier Ben Ogden said Thursday. There “are aspects of being American I’m not proud of.” The announcement that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit would join the U.S. delegation — ostensibly to provide security — has added to tensions.

Skating events began Friday, with Liu and Glenn competing on behalf of a homeland in the throes of a cultural regression. Court rulings and state legislatures have restricted women’s autonomy in recent years. The Trump administration is promoting neo-traditional roles for women.

Against this backdrop, the Blade Angels, particularly Liu and Glenn, can be seen as opposition figures. They are powerful. They are themselves. They are unashamed. And they are succeeding.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/olympics-figure-skaters-alysa-liu-amber-glenn-women-politics

Hurray for them! Because I am sick and tired of female figure skaters being in the "baby ballerina" mode and expected to say nothing!

February 7, 2026

MAGA is screaming foul over Bad Bunny's halftime show. Here's why the NFL doesn't seem to care.

On paper, Bad Bunny is the Super Bowl halftime performer you’d expect the NFL to hate. Most of the league’s owners lean Republican and give to Republican causes, and MAGA influencers have framed the Puerto Rican megastar as a “woke” musician who will bash the United States in Spanish and wear dresses during his performance. But as ESPN’s deep dive into the halftime decision notes, those NFL owners, as conservative as they may be, are looking to expand the NFL’s reach. That means reaching out to Latinos in this country and bumping up the league’s international footprint into regions that include Latin America. Indeed, “the massive Trump hater,” as MAGA commentator Benny Johnson called Bad Bunny last year, is exactly who the NFL wants and needs.

“I think it’s awesome, and I think our Latino fan base is amazing,” Charlotte Jones, the Dallas Cowboys’ chief brand officer and daughter of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, told Katie Miller — wife of the immigrant-bashing White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller — on Miller’s podcast in November about the selection of Bad Bunny as the halftime performer for Super Bowl 60. “We are on a global stage, and we can’t ever forget that. We have a mixed culture, and our whole society is based on immigrants who have come here and founded our country, and I think we can celebrate that.”

Forget “celebrate.” A “mixed culture” is something the MAGA world has decided it can’t even tolerate. That xenophobia is driving MAGA’s deportation push and the outrage to Bad Bunny. “To bring in a performer who is going to be the majority performing in Spanish, I think it’s sort of disrespectful to all the people who aren’t even going to understand what the hell is going on,” one conservative influencer told The Wall Street Journal.

President Donald Trump, who always picks division over unity, has called the Bad Bunny selection “ridiculous,” and said he and Green Day, the Super Bowl pregame act, are there to just “sow hatred.”

But in a Grammy award acceptance speech from a week ago that he started by saying “ICE out,” Bad Bunny explained, “We don’t hate them, we love our people, we love our family, and that’s the way to do it — with love.”

https://www.ms.now/opinion/super-bowl-lx-bad-bunny-halftime-show-nfl-needs

And TPUSA's "alternative" show is crap and will fall flat on it's azz. Meanwhile, I'll watch Bad Bunny even though I don't give a flying fuck about the Super Bowl (except I hope the Patriots lose)

February 7, 2026

Musk's underground tunnels in Las Vegas face scrutiny over safety, environmental concerns

Elon Musk’s “Vegas Loop,” a network of underground tunnels to ferry passengers in Teslas, was under fresh scrutiny this week from Nevada lawmakers who raised concern about alleged workplace safety and environmental violations.

Lawmakers spent hours grilling state safety officials over alleged violations by the Boring Company, the Musk-owned venture with tunneling projects also planned in Nashville and Dubai. Company officials declined to attend but provided written answers defending the project.

“I think they are a company that acts like they are kind of above the law and want to play by their own set of rules,” Democratic Assemblymember Howard Watts, whose district includes the tunnel project, told The Associated Press.

First opened in 2021, the Vegas Loop offers free rides around the Las Vegas Convention Center and charges between $4 and $12 for rides to some hotels, casinos and the airport. The Teslas can be hailed by website or accessed at stations. The Boring Company is approved to build 68 miles (109.44 kilometers) of tunnels and 104 stations over the next few years in Vegas, a city that lacks fast and robust public transit.

https://apnews.com/article/las-vegas-tunnels-musk-boring-company-01d465b7124fc10843b117241adaa7c9

Eloon himself definitely believes he is above the law and wants to play by his own rules.

February 7, 2026

Immigrant whose skull was broken in eight places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked

Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance.

But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain.

He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again.

He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” the Mexican immigrant recounted this week to The Associated Press, which recently reported on how his case contributed to mounting friction between federal immigration agents and a Minneapolis hospital.

Castañeda Mondragón, 31, is one of an unknown number of immigration detainees who, despite avoiding deportation during the Trump administration’s enforcement crackdown, have been left with lasting injuries following violent encounters with ICE officers. His case is one of the excessive-force claims the federal government has thus far declined to investigate.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-enforcement-minneapolis-hospital-ice-beating-assault-4e77742e0629fc7f127c0aa38b3d2a70

These guys have so far broken every rule in their training handbook. (And there is one, believe it or not!)

February 5, 2026

Why haven't American elites stood up for Minnesota?

Daniel Altschuler

Alex Pretti – an ICU nurse documenting alleged cases of federal immigration agents’ overreach – was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis on 24 January. Just hours later, Minnesotans gathered in their neighborhoods for vigils to mourn his death and demand an end to the federal incursion on their state.

Meanwhile, the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Zoom and the New York Stock Exchange attended a glitzy screening of the new Melania documentary at the White House, where they munched on popcorn in special commemorative black-and-white boxes and took home Melania-branded cookies.

That day offered a stark split-screen, with the courage of everyday people on one side, and the cowardice of elites on the other.

Pretti and his fellow Minnesotans decided to risk physical abuse and even death to defend and support their neighbors. Minnesotans have modeled community and courage, and people from coast to coast have spoken up, donated and acted in solidarity. Following Pretti’s death, their determination has only grown.

There is no shortage of courage in our country right now. It is just unevenly distributed.
(snip)

Even amid the recent horrors in Minnesota, the state’s big corporations could muster only a statement of lackluster both-sidesism after Pretti’s death, “calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions”. And while a handful of corporate leaders nationally have issued mostly muted statements for ICE to stand down, these calls have been few and far between and failed to match the gravity of the crisis we are facing.

If the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti aren’t enough to jolt those leading major institutions out of their complacency, what will be?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/05/minnesota-business-elites-immigration

Are they all in bed with Shitler, or just scared of him? If the latter, why? That's my question.

February 5, 2026

Why Target is under fire over Minnesota ICE raids

Target and other major Minnesota businesses are facing rising discontent from staff, as workers fear the Trump administration's immigration crackdown puts them at risk on the job.

Employees are pushing firms to provide clearer guidance about how to respond if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrive at their worksites - and asking them to do more to limit agents' access to stores and parking lots.

The pressures have been particularly acute at Target, a national name and one of the state's flagship employers, after the detention of two workers inside one of its suburban Minneapolis stores last month.

In the aftermath, more than 300 staff signed an internal letter, seen by the BBC, urging executives to speak up, and take steps to keep ICE officers off Target properties.

Target cashier Sandra Macmillan, 71, said she resigned last month after seeing the videos, which showed masked agents pinning the two employees to the ground in the store's entryway before pushing them into a vehicle, while one shouted: "I'm literally a US citizen".

"I looked online and saw no response from Target," said Macmillan, who had worked for the company in Texas since 2021, calling it "the last straw". "There was no acknowledgement whatsoever."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g4y4gwjpeo

Target wants to remain a good corporate (read" Trumpian) citizen. But what will they do when it all comes crashing down? Zebras din;t automatically become giraffes.