Category: 2026

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Business Insider: America’s economy is ‘driving through the fog’

The decline of economic data could end up with a lot of unemployed workers and increase the chance of recession
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For people who rely on the BLS, the past year has raised acute concerns. The first was President Donald Trump’s firing of BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in July. Revisions to that month’s jobs report showed that the US had created far fewer jobs than initially reported in the previous two months. Revisions are a standard part of the BLS data collection process, and the size of the adjustments was well within historical norms. Economists warned that the firing could be a harbinger of political meddling in the crucial job and price figures. Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Petersen Institute for International Economics, called the firing a “five-alarm intentional harm to the integrity of US economic data and the entire statistical system.” Skanda Amarnath, Executive Director of Employ America, a think tank, said, “public trust is permanently harmed when the BLS commissioner is fired after one bad jobs report.”
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Heather Delaney Reese: The Epstein files are a who’s who of Trump’s inner circle

With puffy eyes and a bruised right hand hidden under his left, Donald Trump sat hunched over on his leather chair behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Behind him stood Pam Bondi, Dr. Oz, RFK Jr., and a few others from his inner circle of elite enablers, all poised to give a false sense of power, control, and normalcy. Instead, it just showed how dazed and detached he was. …

This was not normal. And they all knew it, standing there with him.

It wasn’t the only sign that something was wrong. European leaders are openly saying what American officials won’t. Politico reported that Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who’s actually been one of Trump’s closest allies in the EU, told other European heads of state that his recent meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago left him deeply alarmed. While at the summit in Brussels, he described Trump’s “psychological state” as “dangerous,” according to multiple diplomats who were in the room. Fico didn’t say that lightly. He’s backed Trump’s nationalist agenda for years. But after seeing him in person on January 17, he brought his concerns to other EU leaders during an emergency summit that next week.
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And what we keep learning with every release of the files that comes to us is that Epstein didn’t just run a trafficking ring. He ran a blackmail operation. …

That’s why you’re seeing Trump propped up like Weekend at Bernie’s.
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BBC: Israeli air strikes kill at least 27 Palestinians in Gaza, rescue officials say

The civil defence agency, which is operated by Hamas, says children and women were among those killed. It added that in one attack, helicopter gunships hit a tent sheltering displaced people in the southern city of Khan Younis.

Palestinians have described these strikes as the heaviest since the second phase of the ceasefire, brokered by President Trump in October, came into effect earlier this month.

The Israeli military confirmed that a number of strikes were carried out in response to what it said was a Hamas violation of the agreement on Friday.
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Joyce Vance: Today Fulton County, Tomorrow???

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The most important question in 2026 is whether the midterm elections will be free and fair. And these developments go to the heart of that. If Trump gets away with seizing Fulton County’s ballots from the 2020 election, there is no reason to believe it will stop there. He will try to do it everywhere he thinks it might benefit him. For him, it’s not about the will of the voters; it’s about what he wants.

Last night, after news that the FBI was executing the search warrant broke, Donald Trump posted this on Truth Social.

Stolen Election. Obama. Cash to Iran. Hacked voting machines. Flipping votes from Trump to Biden. China. The Big Lie is back on—just in time for the midterm elections.
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Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims: Social media as state media

Silicon Valley was once viewed as a tool for liberation. Now, from blocking apps to banning groups, it is helping the White House suppress dissent.

In the past, social media platforms were viewed as engines of social change, empowering everyday citizens to band together against repressive governments. In 2009, during the Green Movement, millions of Iranian protesters relied on Twitter to coordinate gatherings and circumvent government media blackouts.

Social media, it seemed, was an effective tool that ordinary citizens could use to counteract the excesses of the powerful.

Times have changed.
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Contrarian and Indivisible Project: NO KINGS Coalition Responds to Escalating Brutality and Authoritarianism

No Kings Coalition Announces Immediate Efforts and Builds Towards Next National Mass Mobilization on March 28
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Rachel Hurley on Facebook: Federal government brought military weapons to Minnesota

Not for a war zone. For a protest in a parking lot outside a Marriott.

On January 26th – yesterday – law enforcement showed up to a protest in Maple Grove with an LRAD. That’s a Long Range Acoustic Device. The military developed them after the USS Cole bombing in 2000 to blast warnings at approaching boats from a quarter mile away. They can hit 162 decibels. A jet engine is 140. The threshold for permanent hearing damage is 130.
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One professor who got hit by an LRAD at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh described it this way: “The intensity of being hit at close range by a high-pitched sound blast designed to deter pirate boats and terrorists at least a quarter mile away is indescribable. The sound vibrates through you and causes pain throughout your body, not only in the ears. I thought I might die.”

That was Karen Piper. She sued the city. She has permanent hearing loss now.
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In 2017, a U.S. District Court determined that using an LRAD against protesters could constitute excessive force and violate the Constitution. The NYPD had to settle a lawsuit in 2021 over using one against Black Lives Matter protesters.
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Eyewitness accounts from January 7th describe them on Bearcats at the scene where Renee Good was killed. What I can’t confirm is whether they’ve actually fired the deterrent tone at protesters. But the presence alone is a threat. That’s the point.
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Charlie Sykes: What if There Were No Cameras?

“On January 23, 2016, Donald Trump notoriously declared, ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.’ That statement was understood at the time as a metaphorical expression of the depth of Republican voters’ commitment to him. Ten years and one day later, his administration’s agents shot a disarmed man on the street in full view of the public…. What was once seen as a joke has attained the status of a prophecy. — Jonathan Chait
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What if we did not have those videos? How many Americans would have believed this? Or given the Administration the benefit of the doubt?

This raises another — and rather urgent — question.

What else is happening that we are not seeing on camera? What else is going on at the hands of an organization that thrives on cruelty porn and is willing to execute American citizens in broad daylight? What are they doing when no one is watching?
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Newsweek: Former Trump Administration DHS Lawyer Demands President’s Impeachment

John Mitnick, who served as general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the first Trump administration, called for Congress to impeach and remove President Donald Trump after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.

“I am enraged and embarrassed by DHS’s lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty,” Mitnick said in a post on X. “Impeach and remove Trump—now.”
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AP: The man killed by a US Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis was an ICU nurse, family says

Family members say the man killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer in Minneapolis on Saturday was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who cared deeply about people and was upset by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in his city.

Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed getting in adventures with Joule, his beloved Catahoula Leopard dog who also recently died. He had participated in protests following the killing of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs officer on Jan. 7.

“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”
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