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In what one sage deemed "amateur-hour, clown-fucker, reality-show dictatorship shit," this week's House hearings on ICE abuses, Epstein cover-ups and other GOP atrocities showcased a parade of rancid, lying, stonewalling MAGA lickspittles and deplorables - loudest among them sneering "bad acid trip come to life" Pam Bondi - facing off against a for-once united cohort of smart, angry, truth-telling Democrats with righteous history on their side and, finally, no fucks left to give. We are here for it.
Deep in his delusional bubble, the mad child-king ostensibly in charge of these evil cretins told Fox News Wednesday that Americans are living in "the greatest period of anything we’ve ever seen." Maybe he meant how he's been whining about a bridge he thinks Canada ripped us off for while forgetting he praised it when it was built, and paid for, by Canada. Or maybe it's 'cause in exchange for idiotically spending our money trying to prop up dirty, pricey, inefficient coal - "the 19th century called and it wants its fuel source back" - and glitching out en route, the "simplest mark of all time" got another shiny participation trophy as the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal." "Lookit his happy face!" the Internet chortled. "The big special boy is so big and so special!" Also, "Marvel is running out of Superheroes" and "This is the saddest thing I've ever seen."
Possibly sadder is MAGA Reps. Andy Ogles and Mark Alford still melting down about Bad Bunny's "pure smut" half-time show wherein "children were forced to endure explicit displays of gay sexual acts" that are "illegal to be displayed on public airways" which is why he wants a Congressional inquiry into said "unspeakable depravities," though they might be confusing them with Epstein's, which they've notably ignored. Also sad is another bigly fail by US Attorney Jeanine Boxwine to get a grand jury indictment for fake crimes, in this case against Dem Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four Reps, all veterans, for their video reading the law out loud to remind military they have the right not to obey illegal orders. The kicker: Her attempt was so ludicrous that reportedly zero grand jurors thought she hit the famously low ham-sandwich bar for probable cause.
In this week's House hearings, it was clear Dem lawmakers, like the rest of us, had reached the famed point in 1954's McCarthy hearings when an appalled Joseph Welch, at the limit of his tolerance for McCarthy's lies and cruelty, exclaimed, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" That fierce moral outrage, and the strength and clarity needed to vent it, has been evident in besieged Minnesota for weeks: In grand jurors' staunch refusal to indict so-called "rioters,” in protesters' profane, hilarious anthem pillorying ICE Barbie, in neighbors seething at the masked, armed rabble that just caused a multi-vehicle crash in St.Paul, the latest in a long line of ICE crimes and transgressions. "Oh my God, you guys are so....evil. I can feel it, " railed one resident. "Jesus. Fucking incels, racists, murderers, thugs. What are you doing?!"
So it was that, in Tuesday's House Homeland Security Committee hearing, when acting ICE director Todd Lyons whined in his opening statement that "to say the men and women of ICE are Gestapo (is) wrong," Rep. Dan Goldman hit back. "People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are un-American and outright fascist," he said. Goldman cited their racial profiling, asking people for their papers, use of excessive force and other forms of intimidation, likening them to Nazi and Soviet regimes and shutting down Lyons' protestations in response as "unnecessary speaking. "I have a simple suggestion," Goldman said calmly. "If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or a secret police, then stop acting like one." Other Dems followed suit, mincing no words.
New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver: "Mr. Lyons, do you consider yourself a religious man?" "Yes, Ma'am." "Well, how do you think Judgment Day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?" "I'm not gonna entertain that question." "Oh, ok, of course not. Do you think you’re going to hell, Mr. Lyons?" "I’m not gonna entertain that question." When the Chair sternly reminds her to "adhere to established standards of decorum," she blithely notes, "Well, you guys are always talking about religion, so it's OK for me to just ask a question, right? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you." She goes on, "How many government agencies, Mr. Lyons, are you aware of that routinely kill American citizens and still get funding?” "Ma'am, I'm not gonna entertain that." "Of course you're not. Exactly. This is exactly why we should not be funding this agency...The people are watching you."
And so it went. Eric Swalwell quoted Lyons' earlier testimony he "wanted to see a deportation process like Amazon Prime, but with human beings" before asking, "How many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom 3 times in the face?" "None," said Lyons, before lamely noting he meant it "needs to be more efficient" and he'd added, "we deal with humans so we can't be like them." Swalwell, coolly, "Speaking of humans, how many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?” Online, commenters pointed out, "Obviously, Amazon Prime doesn't shoot you in the face. You have to pay for Amazon Prime Plus to get that level of service," though, "you'll still get ads unless you step up to Premium, and you'll have to pay for the ammo up front." From another, "Is this the first time Amazon has been used as the good guy in a comparison? Fuck him up."
Rep.Delia Ramirez ripped Lyons: "My mother, a Guatemalan immigrant and (finger in air) an American taught me I have a responsibility to look evil in the eye and you have used your power to perpetrate great evil, and it's time you answer to this committee for the lawlessness you have empowered." She named Good, Pretti, Marimar Martinez - "Do something bitch" - and myriad other crimes: 100 court orders violated, dozens of tear-gas attacks despite a court order, banned chokeholds, warrantless arrests, 3,800 children in detention, roving patrols, plate switching, observer intimidation. On ICE demands to "respect the mission": "I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color... the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Their activities were immoral and criminal, and so are yours."
Wednesday, A.G. Pam Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in a rabid attempt to make them forget her months of covering up the Epstein files, missing deadlines, redacting perps, releasing survivors' names and otherwise ignoring them by "shouting, lying and being a cold bitch." Over five hours, in "an astonishingly contemptuous performance," she failed to answer a single question. Acting out "a sociopathic tween," she shrieked, veered, lied, argued, insulted, stonewalled, deflected, obfuscated, rolled her eyes and mean-girled through a book of scripted smears at Dems daring to seek accountability: "Insolent, Shouty Brat Brings Burn Book To Congress." She was "a nasty piece of work," a "demented skank," a "Nazi redneck bleach blond Barbie," a "historic villain" who once vowed to "put human trafficking monsters...behind bars" and will now be shunned "in every room she ever walks into for the rest of her life," to die "as a disbarred lawyer and a national disgrace...Her cheese has slid off her cracker."
She was queen of the non-sequiturs. When Jerry Nadler asked how many Epstein co-conspirators she'd indicted - zero, obviously - she raved, "You all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the President, and I am not going to have it." Then she veered, wildly, yelling, "The Dow right now is over 50,000, the S&P at almost 7,000, the NASDAQ is smashing records, Americans’ 401(k)s and retirement savings are booming. That’s what we should be talking about.” When Zoe Lofgren asked her about redacting perps' names, she sneered, "I find it interesting she keeps going after President Trump, the greatest president in American history. She didn't say how much money she took from Reid Hoffman, did she?" Asked about Ludnick's ties to Epstein, she bickered, "what is ties?", scowled "shame on you," scoffed, "I'm stunned you want to keep talking."
Jamie Raskin, the Committee's Ranking Member, repeatedly called bullshit: "You can filibuster all you want, but not on our time. The way it works is, we ask you a question, you answer it. I warned you at the outset of this hearing." Bondi exploded. "You don't TELL ME anything,” she shrieked. “You’re a washed-up, loser lawyer." Then, mad-Lady-Macbeth-like, she muttered, "You’re not even a lawyer." (Raskin, a graduate of Harvard Law School and former editor of Harvard Law Review, is a longtime professor of Constitutional law at American University, and has written several books.) Unflappable, Raskin coolly accused her of running an Epstein cover-up of "staggering incompetence." "You've turned the people's Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” he charged. “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time."
Bondi blocked questions from Becca Balint with smears against Merrick Garland - Balint: "Weak sauce" - then with charges of anti-Semitism. Balint, whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust: "You want to go there?! Really?!" Ted Lieu asked if Trump attended parties with underage girls; Bondi rolled her eyes. "This is so ridiculous," she said. "They are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is no evidence he has committed a crime. Everyone knows that." Lieu: "I believe you just lied under oath, which is a crime." Bondi, screaming, "Don't you ever accuse me of committing a crime!" Jared Moskowitz noted Trump's name appears over a million times in the Epstein files, "more than God's name in the book about God." Grinning, he mused about her Burn Book zingers: "I'm curious. Just flip to Moskowitz. Because we’re in the Olympics, I’m going to give it a grade. Give me your best one. Whaddya got?"
With almost a dozen Epstein survivors sitting behind Bondi in the hearing room, Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands if they'd tried and failed to meet with DOJ officials. They all did. She asked Bondi to turn around and apologize; Bondi stood her ground: "I'm not going to get in the gutter with this woman and her theatrics." Noting an earlier claim that any victim who wants to talk to the DOJ has done so, Dan Goldman took up her quest. He asked how many had met with the DOJ: None. How many had reached out asking to: All. Of those who reached out, how many were ignored: All. And despite "their shameful, despicable efforts to intimidate," how many are still willing to talk to them? All. Bondi, still sitting and steadfastly unperturbed, breezily flips her fake blond hair back, gazing into space.
Jasmine Crockett declined to "ask any questions of this witness because (she) has no intention of answering them." She turned to Ballint. "Right or wrong? Raping children." Ballint: "Wrong." "Killing random citizens." "Wrong." Etc. Crockett: "OK, thank you. I never woulda got that from our witness, who is somehow a lawyer but doesn't understand how it works with witnesses. I'm not sure what law school you went to (Stetson)... but you don’t seem very good at your job...Americans are looking for answers (not) protecting pedophiles and creeps. You will be remembered as one of the worst Attorney Generals in history." Bondi cuts in to rave about immigrants convicted of crimes in Texas. Crocket cuts her off: "CONVICTED! So what we talkin’ about? Convict some of these perpetrators who raped these women sitting behind you that you won’t even acknowledge are here!” She stalks out. Bondi is still babbling about Hakeem Jeffries and some money.
Observers were aghast at the wretched Bondi spectacle. Online, one older woman conceded "I'm sure this will get taken down" but spoke her mind for all of us: "Bondi is an absolute cunt, and needs to rot in prison for the rest of her life. What an evil evil woman. My God." Trump loved it: Bondi was "fantastic." John Pavlovitz, pastor and father, looked on at her "masterclass in gaslighting," and wondered, "How does someone become Pam Bondi?" He muses about "the meandering road to losing one's soul...so completely bereft of empathy, so seemingly unencumbered by other people’s suffering, and so strident in the face of simple accountability." As someone's daughter, he writes, "I'm sure there’s a story you have to tell yourself to keep the self-loathing at bay and let you sleep at night...I hope whatever you got for your soul was worth it to you. It sure as hell isn’t for the rest of us."
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In response to rising concerns about the extreme energy demands of artificial intelligence data centers, Democratic legislators in New York are proposing a three-year pause on their creation in the state.
The environmental group Food & Water Watch called the proposal, introduced Friday by state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-28) and Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-125), the "strongest data center moratorium bill in the country," the sort that is in increasing demand as the public becomes aware of the staggering energy costs required to power the centers.
Last month, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that US electricity demand could increase by 60% to 80% over the next quarter century, with data centers accounting for more than half the increase by 2030—costing anywhere from $886 billion to $978 billion and pumping anywhere from 19% to 29% more planet-heating carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In large part due to data centers, New York's power grid may fall as much as 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements, according to a projection from the New York Independent System Operator last year.
“Massive data centers are gunning for New York, and right now we are completely unprepared," Krueger said. When one of these energy-guzzling facilities comes to town, they drive up utility prices and have significant negative impacts on the environment and the community—and they have little to no positive impact on the local economy.
"New Yorkers are suffering from an affordability crisis and a climate crisis, and data centers are going to make both of those much harder to deal with," she added.
The bill would halt new data center projects exceeding 20 megawatts for three years and require the state to conduct environmental reviews and propose new regulations to address any identified impacts.
"Data centers are being built rapidly and with little meaningful oversight, despite the serious strain they place on our energy system, water resources, and local communities," explained Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (D-34), another supporter of the legislation.
"These facilities increase pollution, drive up electricity costs, and threaten farmland and natural land, while disproportionately impacting low-income communities and Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities that have long faced environmental injustice," she said.
According to Politico, pushes to curb data center growth are gaining steam around the country:
New York is the largest state where lawmakers have proposed a moratorium on data centers. But concerns about the growing issue are bipartisan, with Republicans and Democrats backing moratoriums in various states.
Similar measures have been introduced in Maryland, Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Vermont. A Republican legislator in Michigan—where dozens of local governments have already passed moratoriums—has said she’ll introduce a statewide measure there, as well. In Wisconsin, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate has also called for a moratorium.
Eric Weltman, senior New York organizer at Food & Water Watch, said the bill was necessary to curb "one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation."
"This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for dirty energy, straining water resources, and raising electricity rates for families and small businesses," Weltman said. "New Yorkers are paying the price while Big Tech rakes in the riches. This strongest-in-the-nation moratorium bill is logical, it’s timely, and it will deliver the results we need."
Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian, said the bill "not only safeguards our shared future here in New York, but sets a powerful precedent for states across the nation."
Corporate profits in the US have surged in recent decades, with subscription-based businesses reporting some of the biggest revenue growth as more Americans use streaming services and sign up for "subscribe and save" models in a quest for ease and convenience.
While promising consumers that subscribing to a service will save them money and time, subscription-based businesses have made canceling the services increasingly difficult, contributing to Americans spending 60% longer on the phone with customer service lines than they did two decades ago.
And although corporations hardly need the extra money, making cancellations more arduous for customers can boost their revenue by anywhere from 14% to over 200%, according to the think tank Groundwork Collaborative, which released a report Monday on what it calls "the annoyance economy."
The labyrinthine processes that millions of Americans face each year when they try to cancel subscription services is just one part of the annoyance economy, according to Groundwork, which detailed the seemingly endless time, money, and patience people spend "just trying to get basic things done"—as well as efforts by corporations and the Trump administration to make sure it stays that way.
While millions are struggling with the rising costs of groceries, healthcare, housing, childcare, and just about everything else, the report explains how—thanks to corporate greed and a White House intent on enabling it—Americans are also shelling out at least $165 billion per year in fees as well as lost time.
In addition to cancellation processes, the annoyance economy includes the $90 billion people across the US spend every year on junk fees when they buy concert tickets, make hotel reservations, and order food delivery; rental application fees that keep people from even attempting to move to new housing that could put them closer to work or school; and administrative healthcare tasks like obtaining coverage information and resolving questions about premiums and deductibles.
"While seemingly minor, these little annoyances add up," wrote Groundwork policy fellow Chad Maisel and Stanford University economist Neale Mahoney, the authors of the report, who cited a 2019 survey that found 1 in 4 respondents delayed getting healthcare or avoided it altogether specifically because of the administrative tasks they had to complete in order to get an appointment and make sure it was covered.
"All told, American workers collectively spend about $21.6-billion-worth of time each year dealing with healthcare administration, between calls, claims, explanations, and paperwork, according to a recent analysis."
Another new poll from Data for Progress found that nearly 80% of Americans reported "at least a little frustration" when coordinating their healthcare and filling out health insurance paperwork.
"All told, American workers collectively spend about $21.6-billion-worth of time each year dealing with healthcare administration, between calls, claims, explanations, and paperwork," reads the report, citing another recent analysis. "Polling confirms this: More than 1 in 3 Americans report dealing with health insurance headaches more than 20 times per year."
With frustration over health insurance companies' practices increasingly common, reads the report, "policymakers are missing important opportunities to take on a handful of egregious and particularly annoying practices."
Lawmakers could require insurance companies to make it easy for patients to fill out and submit claims online—instead of downloading, printing, and physically mailing claim forms with itemized receipts as Cigna requires patients to do.
Congress could also create a "healthcare sludge unit" to monitor and root out "needless friction throughout the healthcare experience."
Such a project could leverage tools "like 'blind shopper' experiments, public feedback lines, and direct engagement with industry to surface and fix barriers that waste patients’ time and erode trust."
The report also takes on the spam texts and calls that have become all-to-familiar to anyone with a cellphone.
"Text messaging, once reserved for conversation with friends and family, now resembles our email spam folders, dominated by unsolicited offers from companies, politicians, and fraudsters," wrote Maisel and Mahoney, who shared that on the day they wrote about spam in the report, "one of us received five spam calls, a text from 'Victoria' offering a $500-a-day job, and two breathless fundraising messages from political candidates we’ve never supported—or even heard of."
Those spam communications were some of the more than 130 million scam and illegal marketing calls Americans receive each day and the nearly 20 billion texts that were sent each month over the past year—leading "virtually all respondents" to Data for Progress' poll to report that the calls and texts are at least "a little frustrating" and 68% call them "very frustrating."
State and federal lawmakers could and should take action against spam calls and texts, said Maisel and Mahoney. Congress should modernize the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which was passed in 1991—well before companies began inundating Americans' inboxes with the newest robocalling and texting software.
"If a platform automatically dials from a stored list of numbers, it’s now exempt from the TCPA’s rules," reads the report. "The result: far more robocall and spam text operations can legally target people without their consent. Congress should update the definition of autodialer to include any callers and texters who automatically contact stored numbers, unless there’s real human involvement in sending each message."
Former President Joe Biden's Federal Communications Commission tried to close the "lead generator loophole,” which allows third-party marketers to collect people's contact information and sell it to dozens, sometimes hundreds, of businesses, but companies sued over the FCC's action and won in court.
President Donald Trump could issue an executive order directing federal agencies "to leverage all available resources and authorities to end robocalls and spam texts once and for all," said Maisel and Mahoney.
But the authors noted that the Trump administration's mass layoffs across the government would make enforcement more difficult.
"The Department of Justice also needs to prioritize enforcement against bad actors," they wrote. "While the FCC can levy fines for violations, it cannot pursue their collection without the DOJ. Of the eight robocalling forfeiture orders referred by the FCC, the DOJ has pursued only two for collection."
In the case of the hoops consumers are made to jump through in order to cancel subscriptions and services, the report emphasizes that the federal government has made significant inroads before to help the public.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) intervened in 2023 and stopped Toyota Motor Credit from continuing its practice of routing all consumer calls through a hotline "where representatives were instructed to keep promoting products until a consumer asked to cancel three times, at which point they were told cancellation was only possible by submitting a written request."
Under the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was lauded by consumer advocates for its click-to-cancel rule in 2024, requiring sellers to “make it as easy for consumers to cancel their enrollment as it was to sign up."
But Trump's FTC last year delayed implementation of the rule after industry groups said that "it would take a substantial amount of time to come into compliance.” A federal appeals court then effectively killed the rule altogether.
While the fees that gradually trickle out of Americans' bank accounts into the annoyance economy are often small individually, the report emphasizes that they add up—and the consequences of these business practices and the government's failure to stop them "extend beyond wasted time and money."
"When life is reduced to jumping through an endless series of hoops—just to fix a billing error, secure a refund, or cancel a subscription—it breeds cynicism and disengagement," reads the report. "If the government can remove even a few of those obstacles, we can show the American people that someone is paying attention and begin the long process of rebuilding public trust."
Along with refusing to acknowledge the harm her Department of Justice has done to victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and yelling personal insults at Democratic members of Congress, US Attorney General Pam Bondi stonewalled at Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing when Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon asked her direct questions about the Trump administration's attempts to label dissenters "domestic terrorists."
At the hearing focusing on oversight of the DOJ, Scanlon (D-Pa.) asked about National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which President Donald Trump signed in September, weeks after claiming the "radical left" was "directly responsible" for the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
The memo directs federal agencies to develop a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts," with an exclusive focus on anti-fascist or left-wing groups.
It classifies anti-capitalism; "extremism" on migration, race, and gender; and "hostility" toward "traditional American views on family" as some of the viewpoints that are held by groups that the Trump administration aims to disrupt, and the memo was expanded on by another memo in which Bondi directed the DOJ to compile a list of possible "domestic terrorism" groups that hold the views identified in NSPM-7.
The memos were signed months after Bondi said under oath that there would "never be an enemies list" compiled by the DOJ.
Scanlon noted in the hearing Wednesday that "Americans across the political spectrum were immediately alarmed by the memo's blurring of the line between unlawful conduct and constitutionally protected speech and activity, as well as its call to investigate, prosecute, and dismantle groups" with which the administration disagrees.
When the congresswoman asked Bondi to confirm whether the list she called for in her December memo has been compiled, the attorney general said she was "not going to answer yes or no" before saying that "an antifa member" was arrested earlier this month in Minneapolis for "cyberstalking."
🚨 Pam Bondi refuses to say if the list of "domestic terrorist organizations" she ordered the Justice Department to create has been completed.
"I'm not going to answer yes or no" pic.twitter.com/51oPYvaxQg
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) February 11, 2026
The exchange was typical of the proceedings; members of the committee were continually frustrated during the hearing as Bondi refused to respond to straightforward questions about the Epstein files and other issues. Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) at one point implored the attorney general not to "go off on a wild goose chase, another tangent," when asked a question.
Scanlon later asked Bondi if she would commit to providing the committee with the list of entities that the DOJ believes should be "designated as domestic terrorist organizations."
"I'm not going to commit to anything to you because you won't let me answer questions," the attorney general replied.
CONGRESS: Will you commit to provide this committee with your list of entities that you recommend be designated as domestic terrorist organizations?
PAM BONDI: I'm not going to commit to anything pic.twitter.com/K9HySj72MU
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) February 11, 2026
Scanlon responded, "We understand your current position is that you have a secret list of people or groups who you are accusing of domestic terrorism, but you won't share it with Congress."
The exchange came two weeks after independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported that he had learned from senior administration officials that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have already compiled over a dozen "secret and obscure" watchlists of pro-Palestinian and anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protesters and other people who have been labeled "domestic terrorists."
An ICE agent deployed in Maine also sparked alarm last month when he told a woman who was filming him that doing so would land her in a "nice little database" the department has, where she would be labeled a domestic terrorist. Filming ICE agents is protected under the First Amendment.
And CNN reported that DHS sent a memo to ICE agents deployed in Minneapolis directing them to fill out forms with personal data about protesters and people the department labeled "agitators."
Despite the mounting evidence that the administration is compiling data about dissenters, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said late last month that "there is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS."
While Bondi similarly refused to confirm that DOJ has compiled a list of what it claims are domestic terrorist groups, Scanlon issued a warning that "Americans have never tolerated political demagogues who use the government to punish people on an enemies list."
Doing so "brought down" former Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare, she said, as well as former President Richard Nixon.
"And it will bring down this administration as well," said Scanlon.
A group of Texas legislators have delivered an urgent warning about the treatment of detainees in the country’s largest immigration detention camp, which sits on an Army base in El Paso.
“We have received numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment of detained individuals at the Camp East Montana migrant detention facility, located within Fort Bliss,” said Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos (D-102), who joined 35 other Democrats in the Texas state House on Tuesday to demand an investigation into the facility.
Camp East Montana was constructed in August as part of the Trump administration's effort to ramp up Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "mass deportation" of immigrants. The selection of Fort Bliss has historical precedent, having previously been used as a site for the internment of Japanese people during World War II.
Using a secretive contract undisclosed to the public, the Pentagon awarded roughly $1.2 billion to a private contractor in July to construct a sprawling tent city to hold around 5,000 people rounded up by ICE.
"Almost immediately upon its opening, detainees, their families, and legal watchdog organizations began bringing attention to conditions that were deemed unsuitable for detainees, even by internal standards set by Immigration and Customs Enforcement," the legislators wrote in a letter to state Rep. Cole Hefner (R-5), who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans Affairs.
During the camp's first 50 days of operation, ICE inspections revealed that it had violated more than 60 federal detention standards. The report, compiled in September, was not released to the public, but was reported on by the Washington Post, which spoke with dozens of detainees.
"On ICE's webpage titled 'Detention Management,' it states that 'detention is non-punitive,'" the legislators wrote Tuesday. "Yet, according to reporting by the Washington Post based on sworn statements from dozens of detainees, the facility, for months, was being run like a prison in a country without standards for oversight, health, or safety for the inmates."
"There were complaints that the toilets and sinks didn't work for the first few weeks after the facility's opening last August. There were complaints logged that, for the first few weeks, the facility didn't adequately feed detainees. They also complained about another violation of ICE standards: the lack of access to telephones for detainees to communicate with family and legal representation," they continued.
Earlier this week, US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who visited the facility unannounced on Friday, disclosed that at least two cases of tuberculosis and 18 cases of Covid-19 had been identified at the facility.
"While the private corporation continues to pocket our tax dollars, it's clear the conditions are only getting worse," she said.
The state lawmakers also cited a letter sent by the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and several other civil rights groups in December addressing "cases of illegal, extrajudicial attempts to deport detainees to Mexico."
One inmate, a Cuban immigrant identified as "Benjamin," said he was threatened by guards who attempted to make him sign a letter agreeing to be deported to Mexico.
“The guards told him that if he did not, they would handcuff him, put a bag over his head, and send him to Mexico. Benjamin refused to sign the document, stating that he was scared to go to Mexico, because he had heard that migrants are often kidnapped, robbed, or killed there,” the ACLU letter said.
The letter also provided several examples of inmates being subject to physical and sexual assault at the hands of officers.
"People detained at Fort Bliss report that officers have crushed detainees’ testicles with their fingers, slammed detained people to the ground, stomped on detained people and punched their faces, and beaten detained people even after they are cuffed and restrained," it said.
The legislators also noted that three detainees have died in the facility in just two months.
On December 3, 48-year-old Guatemalan inmate Francisco Gaspar-Andrés was reported to have died of natural causes, namely liver and kidney failure, according to an ICE press release.
Since then, two other inmates have died. On January 14, 36-year-old Victor Manuel Diaz was found dead of an apparent suicide, though the cause of death remains under investigation.
Prior to that, the Department of Homeland Security reported that the death of another inmate, 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos from Cuba, on January 3, was also a suicide.
However, witnesses have said they saw guards choking Lunas Campos and that he was heard saying, "I can’t breathe." His death has since been ruled a homicide after an autopsy revealed the cause of death to have been “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”
The letter notes that while Lunas Campos was "convicted of heinous crimes," including sexual contact with an 11-year-old, "he was not sentenced to death by a judge or jury—he was killed by someone responsible for his care, for unknown reasons or circumstances."
"It is our responsibility as Texas legislators to ensure that we can trust that jails, prisons, and detention facilities in Texas operate to our high standards and expectations," the lawmakers said. "We must learn more, investigate, and provide answers to the millions of Americans demanding the truth. We must also ensure this does not happen again in any federal detention facility."
The call for an investigation comes as DHS plans to rapidly convert at least around two dozen warehouses into massive new detention centers across the country. At least three of these locations are planned for Texas. One of them, planned for the town of Hutchins outside Dallas, is expected to hold around 9,500 inmates.
The legislators said: "Human rights abuses, ignoring due process requirements, repeated violation of federal regulations, clear disrespect for the United States Constitution, and murder are unconscionable on any inch of American soil—but these crimes against real people are happening in Texas, and require proud Texans to stand up in defense of our Constitution and use our power to end this widespread abuse."
The inter-American branch of a global labor federation representing tens of millions of workers issued a statement Monday condemning the Trump administration's intensifying economic assault on Cuba and threats of regime change, calling such actions "war by other means" and violations of international law.
"They are incompatible with peace, the human right to dignity, and the principle of national sovereignty," said Public Services International (PSI) Inter-America as the Trump administration's blockade of oil imports fueled a worsening humanitarian crisis for the island nation, bringing rolling blackouts, straining hospitals, and causing shortages of food and other necessities.
The labor federation said Monday that the Trump administration's policies are an extension of the catastrophic, decades-long economic US blockade on Cuba, "which constitutes a violation of the United Nations Charter and has been condemned year after year by the overwhelming majority of the international community."
"Recent actions by the Trump administration have further exacerbated an already US-manufactured humanitarian crisis," PSI Inter-America said, pointing to the White House's blockade of Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threats of economic retaliation against any country that provides the island nation with fuel.
"These measures deliberately deepen suffering and place lives in danger," the union federation said. "The blockade itself causes avoidable hardship, illness, and death among the Cuban people every year. Its intensification follows months of sanctions, seizures, and interference targeting Venezuelan oil shipments, further depriving Cuba of essential energy supplies."
The federation called on all of its affiliates worldwide and trade unions in the Americas to:
During a news conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the Trump administration's escalating economic warfare against Cuba as "deeply unjust" and vowed to "continue supporting Cuba"—even as her government halted oil shipments to its ally amid the US president's threats.
"You cannot strangle a people in this way," said Sheinbaum, who this past weekend authorized a shipment of more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, including food and other necessities.
"No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing because of the sanctions that the United States is imposing in a very unfair manner," the Mexican president added.
"Together, we can break the siege, save lives, and stand up for the cause of Cuban self-determination," said the mission's organizers.
As the Trump administration tightens an already devastating economic embargo of Cuba by targeting the island's fuel imports in a bid to topple the country's socialist government, a coalition of progressive groups on Thursday announced plans for a flotilla to deliver food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the besieged Cuban people.
Members of Progressive International, CodePink, and other direct action and advocacy groups plan to set sail for Cuba next month in the Nuestra América—or Our America—Flotilla, which they said is inspired by the Global Sumud Flotilla missions to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza amid the ongoing genocide in the Palestinian exclave.
"We are sailing to Cuba, bringing critical humanitarian aid for its people," the flotilla organizers said on their website. "The Trump administration is strangling the island, cutting off fuel, flights, and critical supplies for survival. The consequences are lethal, for newborns and parents, for the elderly and the sick."
"That is why we are launching the Nuestra América Flotilla, setting sail from across the Caribbean Sea in solidarity with the Cuban people," the organizers continued. "And we are asking for your support, to help us prepare the mission and purchase the food and medicine that we will bring to the Cuban people."
"Together, we can break the siege, save lives, and stand up for the cause of Cuban self-determination," they added.
The announcement of the flotilla came as the Trump administration ratchets up pressure on Cuba's socialist government by further suffocating the island's economy via an oil embargo similar to the one imposed on Venezuela before last month's US invasion and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
At the time, President Donald Trump threatened the leaders of Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico that they could be next.
Trump reversed former President Joe Biden's eleventh-hour move in January 2025 to remove Cuba from the US state sponsors of terrorism list, a designation utterly divorced from reality. Trump officials have cited Cuba's baseless inclusion on the list as justification for measures taken against the country's government and people.
The US embargo on Cuba dates to the early 1960s when the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations responded to the successful revolution that overthrew a brutal US-backed dictatorship with a blockade accompanied by a decadeslong campaign of state-sponsored terrorism against the Cuban people that left thousands dead and more than $1 trillion in economic damages, according to the Cuban government.
Every year since 1992—with the exception of the Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020—the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn and call for an end to the US blockade of Cuba.
Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler told El País' Veronica Garrido Thursday, "The US government is drowning the Cuban people, who are running out of light, have no food, no medicine, no energy."
"I do not exaggerate when I say that we are seeing in Cuba the same playbook that Israel applied to the people of Gaza: an encirclement, an act of collective punishment that violates every aspect of international law,” he continued.
"We hope that [the flotilla] will be a mechanism of popular pressure to the governments of the world that have the responsibility, before international law, to protect the fundamental rights of the Cuban people and export the energy required by the island,” Adler said.
“There is nothing illegal about what we are doing," he added. "We are coming to a sovereign country and delivering humanitarian aid. We are ready to take risks in the name of humanity and the fundamental right of the Cuban people."
"This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms."
A federal judge delivered a scathing ruling against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's effort to punish a Democratic US senator for warning members of the military against following unlawful orders.
US District Judge Richard Leon on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction that at least temporarily blocked Hegseth from punishing Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired US Navy captain who was one of several Democratic lawmakers to take part in a video that advised military service members that they had a duty to disobey President Donald Trump if he gave them unlawful orders.
In his ruling, Leon eviscerated Hegseth's efforts to reduce Kelly's retirement rank and pay simply for exercising his First Amendment rights.
While Leon acknowledged that active US service members do have certain restrictions on their freedom of speech, he said that these restrictions have never been applied to retired members of the US armed services.
"This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees," wrote Leon. "To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their government, and our constitution demands they receive it!"
The judge said he would be granting Kelly's request for an injunction because claims that his First Amendment rights were being violated were "likely to succeed on the merits," further noting that the senator has shown "irreparable harm" being done by Hegseth's efforts to censure him.
Leon concluded his ruling by imploring Hegseth to stop "trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired service members," and instead "reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired service members have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our nation over the past 250 years."
Shortly after Leon's ruling, Kelly posted a video on social media in which he highlighted the threats posed by the Trump administration's efforts to silence dissent.
"Today, a federal court made clear that Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said," Kelly remarked. "But this case was never just about me. This administration was sending a message to millions of retired veterans that they too can be censured or demoted just for speaking out. That's why I couldn't let this stand."
Kelly went on to accuse the Trump administration of "cracking down on our rights and trying to make examples out of everyone they can."
Today a federal court made clear Pete Hegseth violated the Constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said.
This is a critical moment to show this administration they can't keep undermining Americans' rights.
I also know this might not be over yet, because Trump… pic.twitter.com/9dRe9pmeCd
— Senator Mark Kelly (@SenMarkKelly) February 12, 2026
Leon's ruling came less than two days after it was reported that Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host who is now serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to get Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers criminally indicted on undisclosed charges before getting rejected by a DC grand jury.
According to a Wednesday report from NBC News, none of the grand jurors who heard evidence against the Democrats believed prosecutors had done enough to establish probable cause that the Democrats had committed a crime, leading to a rare unanimous rejection of an attempted federal prosecution.
Their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has said that videotaping officers on the job is a form of "doxing" and "violence."
The US Department of Homeland Security has claimed for months that filming immigration agents on the job constitutes a criminal offense. But under oath during a Senate Homeland Security Committee oversight hearing on Thursday, the leaders of immigration agencies under the department’s umbrella admitted this is not true.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the committee, interrogated Todd Lyons, the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and Joseph Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) about the recent surge of agents in Minnesota, which has resulted in the killing of two US citizens since January.
He zeroed in on the case of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse who was shot by a pair of immigration agents on January 24, showing footage of the incident leading up to Pretti's killing, which DHS claimed was justified prior to any investigation taking place.
"So what we see is the beginning of the encounter with Alexander Pretti. He's filming in the middle of the street," Paul explained after rolling the tape.
The senator then asked Scott and Lyons, "Is filming of ICE or Border Patrol either an assault or a crime in any way?"
They both responded flatly, "No."
Courts have generally affirmed that filming law enforcement agents is protected by the First Amendment. But this admission by Lyons and Scott is a major deviation from what their parent agency has claimed.
Their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, stated during a July press briefing that “violence” against DHS agents includes “doxing them” and “videotaping them where they’re at when they’re out on operations.”
Even in the wake of last month's shootings, DHS has held to this line, with spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claiming that “videoing our officers in an effort to dox them and reveal their identities is a federal crime and a felony.”
Agents have been directed to treat those who film ICE as criminals—a DHS bulletin from June described filming at protests as "unlawful civil unrest" tactics and "threats."
Several videos out of Minnesota, Maine, and other places flooded by ICE have documented federal agents telling bystanders to stop recording and issuing threats against them or detaining them.
In one case, a bystander was told that because she was filming, she was going to be put in a "nice little database" and was now "considered a domestic terrorist."
Last month, a federal judge sided with a group of journalists in California who cited the June bulletin to argue that Noem had "established, sanctioned, and ratified an agency policy of treating video recording of DHS agents in public as a threat that may be responded to with force and addressed as a crime," in violation of the First Amendment.