SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
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 bravely standing up for 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' 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 endless 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" and hurts their alleged feelings, Rep. Dan Goldman wasn't having it. "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/ Soviet regimes and shutting down Lyons' protestations 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." Tell it to power-mad, I-want-my-blankey ICE Barbie, reportedly fascisting it up big time over her goons. Jesus.
Other Dems minced no words. 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 chides her about "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." (Comment: "We need more Black women in Congress.") 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. This is exactly why we should not be funding this agency...The people are watching you."
And so it went. Quoting Lyons' earlier testimony he "wanted to see a deportation process like Amazon Prime, but with human beings," Eric Swalwell asked, "How many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom 3 times in the face?" "None," said Lyons, 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 clarified, "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." 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, sniped, stonewalled, deflected, 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 snippy queen of the frantic non-sequiturs, with "an unmistakable stench of desperation" in her tantrums. When Jerry Nadler asked how many Epstein perps she's indicted - zero, duh - 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 wildly pivoted - what child rape? - yelling, "The Dow is over 50,000, the S&P at almost 7,000, the NASDAQ is smashing records, Americans’ 401(k)s are booming. That’s what we should be talking about." WTF. When Zoe Lofgren asked her about redacting traffickers' 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, still hating, still 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."
"
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."
US Sen. Bernie Sanders responded incredulously on Tuesday to President Donald Trump's claim that the nation's economy under his stewardship is "the greatest... actually ever in history," despite surging personal and business bankruptcies, plunging consumer sentiment, rising costs, and anemic job and wage growth.
In an appearance on MS NOW, Sanders (I-Vt.) said that "you wonder whether Trump is completely crazy and delusional or just a pathological liar, but the idea that anybody would believe that this is a great economy when 60% of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, when the cost of healthcare is going up, people can't afford housing, people can't afford their basic groceries, the childcare system is dysfunctional, people can't afford to go to college."
"If this is the greatest economy in the history of the world," the senator added, "God help us."
Watch:
Sanders' remarks came in response to Trump's interview Tuesday with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, during which the president falsely claimed he has ushered in "the greatest period of anything that we've ever seen," including "the greatest economy actually ever in history."
While Trump and members of his class have seen their wealth surge to record levels during his second White House term, working-class Americans are struggling to make ends meet as the president's tariffs and assault on the social safety net drive up costs. One recent analysis estimated that the average US family paid $1,625 in higher costs last year as prices for groceries, housing, and other necessities continued to rise.
Trump's claim of an economic "golden age" in the US was also undermined by a new House Budget Committee report report showing that personal bankruptcy filings increased 11% last year, reaching levels not seen since 2019—during the president's first term in the White House. Those figures came on top of earlier data showing that business bankruptcies are at a 15-year high.
“Donald Trump’s reckless tariff taxes are driving up prices, hurting the economy, and leaving families to pay the price," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement. "The only people benefiting in Donald Trump’s economy are his billionaire donors—everyone else is falling further behind.”
Sanders echoed that message during his MS NOW appearance late Tuesday, saying, "The billionaires who sat behind Trump at his inauguration: Yeah, the economy is the best ever for them."
"But for the average working person," Sanders said, "not quite the case."
Texas Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico turned the tables on a town hall questioner who asked him if he was pushing “class warfare” with his populist economic pitch and frequent criticism of billionaires.
Talarico responded that there is already class warfare in the US.
"It's the billionaires waging war against the rest of us, and right now the billionaires are winning," explained the Texas Democrat in a video clip of the town hall posted on social media Wednesday. "They've been winning for 50 years. Trickle-down economics is not a theory, it is theft."
A young man at our town hall asked if I was pushing class warfare.
I told him: “We already have class warfare in this country — billionaires are waging war on the rest of us.” pic.twitter.com/w238OfB8yH
— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) February 12, 2026
Talarico went on to accuse billionaires of "stealing from the American people, stealing the wealth that we created."
"It's why everyone is so angry right now," he continued. "It's why, no matter how hard you work, you can't seem to get ahead. The American people are not asking for a whole lot: A job we don't hate, a house big enough to raise a family in, and a little left over so we can go on vacation every once in a while. That is a lot harder than it should be in America."
Talarico's answer on "class warfare" came two days after a Monday report in the Wall Street Journal revealed that labor compensation in the US has fallen to its lowest percentage of gross domestic income since at least 1980, even as corporate profits have risen to the highest percentage of gross domestic income over that same period.
"The divergence between capital and labor helps explain the disconnect between a buoyant economy and pessimistic households," explained the Journal. "It will also play an outsize role in where the economy goes from here."
An analysis released in January by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found that the collective wealth of US billionaires surged to $8.1 trillion in 2025, even as many working-class Americans struggled with basic expenses such as groceries, housing and healthcare.
Newly released evidence shows that the Department of Homeland Security lied about the shooting of yet another US citizen.
In October, a Border Patrol agent shot Marimar Martinez, a 30-year-old school assistant, five times while she was in her vehicle in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago. She had been tailing agents while warning the neighborhood that “la migra” was coming.
Immediately after the shooting, DHS leapt to defend the agent who shot Martinez, Charles Exum. The agency claimed in an incident report that Martinez was blocking agents and had "rammed" them with her car. The agency described her as a "domestic terrorist."
Martinez, who survived the shooting, was charged with assaulting officers and pleaded not guilty.
The government's case was fatally undermined in November when it was revealed during a hearing that Exum had bragged to friends about injuring Martinez over text message: “I fired five rounds, and she had seven holes. Put that in your book, boys," he said.
Martinez's lawyers also said body camera footage—kept under seal by a federal protective order—showed a different series of events from what the agency had portrayed.
In November, federal prosecutors dropped the case against Martinez without explanation. But even afterwards, federal officials have continued to label her as a terrorist.
"This is before there’s any investigation done," said her attorney Chris Parente, who has argued that the public should be able to view the evidence for itself.
On Wednesday, the US Attorney’s Office in Chicago released body camera footage from two other agents involved in the incident—Adam J. Perkins and Lorenzo Cordero—as well as dozens of Exum's other emails and text messages from the incident's aftermath.
Parente, who presented the evidence in a press conference on Wednesday alongside Martinez and her other lawyers, said that with the release, “People can actually see the real evidence as opposed to the false claims by our government.”
He said the release after several months of keeping the footage buried was a "misguided attempt to take the sting out of just how damaging it is for the government.”
Block Club Chicago, which reviewed the body cam footage, explained that it "counters the incident report’s narrative" that Martinez had been the aggressor. Rather, it shows that she was attempting to drive away and that agents chose to ram her.
It shows Cordero and Perkins with weapons drawn and pointing out the rear passenger window about one minute before the collision and shooting of Martinez.
The phrase “it’s time to get aggressive” and “we’re going to make contact, we’re boxed in,” can be heard by one of the three agents before Exum is seen yanking his steering wheel to the left and hitting Martinez’s car.
After the collision, Exum is seen getting out of the car and firing five shots within two seconds.
The body camera footage verifies claims made by Martinez's attorneys, who said that after drawing their weapons, one of the agents could be heard saying, "Do something, bitch."
It also provides support to attorneys’ claims about text messages sent by agents after the shooting. Exum is seen bragging about the shooting, calling it a “great new scenario to add to our training.” Other agents sent messages praising him: One called him “a legend among agents.” Another said, “Good job, brother, glad you’re unharmed.” A third said, “Beers on me.”
Exum replied with the phrase "Fuck around and find out," which has been an oft-used slogan within the Trump administration to justify killings by law enforcement and the military.
Exum also discussed the "big time" support he was getting from top Trump administration officials. He said "everyone" had been "supportive," including then-Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and even "El Jefe himself," likely referring to President Donald Trump.
Less than four hours after the shooting, Exum received an email from Bovino, who offered to extend his retirement age beyond 57 and praised his "excellent service to Chicago."
On Wednesday, the same day the new evidence was released, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that Exum has now been placed on administrative leave. They did not clarify how long the leave would last or when it began.
Parente said the smearing of Martinez as a terrorist fits a pattern that the Trump administration has since used to justify other shootings by agents.
"We live in a strange time right now where we cannot trust our federal government," he said. “Within an hour of the actual incident, DHS branded [Martinez] a domestic terrorist. The same thing they did to Renee Good. The same thing they did to Mr. [Alex] Pretti,” referring to two other US citizens shot and killed last month by agents in Minneapolis.
Martinez has announced plans to sue the federal government and Exum for "tens of millions of dollars," citing physical injuries to her right leg, right forearm, and chest; reputational damage; and emotional harm.
During a hearing earlier this month on Capitol Hill about the violent use of force by DHS agents, she described the shooting as an attempted "execution."
"I looked down and noticed blood gushing out of my arms and legs, and I realized I'd been shot multiple times," she said. "What happened to me in a matter of seconds on October 4th will unfortunately be with me for a lifetime."
An investigation conducted by Al Jazeera based on evidence collected by the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip has concluded that nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been "evaporated" by Israel through the use of thermal weapons—some of them supplied by the US.
As reported by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, the investigation found that 2,842 Palestinians were killed due to Israel's "systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit]."
The heat generated by these weapons is so intense, investigators noted, that they leave behind almost no detectable human remains other than blood stains or pieces of flesh.
Israel's use of such weapons was flagged last year in a social media post by Omar Hamad, a Gaza pharmacist who posted a video purportedly showing a thermobaric bomb being detonated in Beit Hanoun.
Israel is using thermobaric (vacuum) bombs in Beit Hanoun. These are shock waves that spread in a circular and low pattern near the ground surface, preceding the appearance of the dust cloud by far, indicating a speed faster than the speed of sound.
This is genocide. pic.twitter.com/tA7jC61g33
— Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 (@OmarHamadD) July 13, 2025
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, said hat the investigation was not a mere estimate of Palestinians incinerated by thermal and thermobaric weapons, but the result of painstaking forensic work.
"We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered," Basal explained. "If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps."
Unlike the explosions caused by traditional bombs, the thermobaric weapons used by Israel in Gaza first disperse clouds of fuel in a given area that are then ignited to create an enormous and intense fireball.
The investigation found that the fuel typically used in Israeli thermobaric weapons was tritonal, a mixture consisting of 80% TNT and 20% aluminum powder often found in US-manufactured weapons such as the Mark 84 aircraft bomb.
Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the heat generated by these weapons is so intense that any living creatures' bodily fluids will immediately boil.
"When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly," al-Bursh explained. "The tissues vaporize and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable."
Gaza resident Yasmin Mahani told Al Jazeera that her son, Saad, was incinerated by a 2024 Israeli strike that hit a school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.
“We found nothing of Saad," Mahani said. "Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”
“Every antitrust case in front of the Trump Justice Department now reeks of double-dealing," said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday raised alarm over what she described as the highly suspicious circumstances surrounding Gail Slater's ouster as the Trump administration's top antitrust official, a move that was cheered by Wall Street investors and lobbyists working to shield corporate monopolists.
"It looks like corruption," Warren (D-Mass.) said in a statement after Slater announced her departure on Thursday following a behind-the-scenes power struggle with pro-corporate Trump officials. "A small army of MAGA-aligned lawyers and lobbyists have been trying to sell off merger approvals that will increase prices and harm innovation to the highest bidder."
“Every antitrust case in front of the Trump Justice Department now reeks of double-dealing," the senator added, noting that Live Nation—the owner of Ticketmaster—saw its stock price surge following news of Slater's removal.
“Americans’ top concern is affordability, but one of Trump’s few bipartisan-supported nominees—the top law enforcement official responsible for stopping illegal monopolies and protecting American consumers—was just ousted," said Warren. "Congress has a responsibility to unearth exactly what happened and hold the Trump administration accountable.”
In recent weeks, Live Nation has been in talks with top Justice Department officials to avoid an antitrust trial that's supposed to begin next month. The negotiations have reportedly bypassed the DOJ antitrust division previously headed by Slater, who was once viewed as the leader of a supposedly burgeoning "MAGA antitrust movement" but was abandoned by her top ally within the Trump administration, Vice President JD Vance, and forced out.
Influence peddlers reportedly on Live Nation's payroll include Mike Davis—who welcomed Slater's departure in a post on social media—and Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to President Donald Trump. The American Prospect noted that Davis "reportedly earned a $1 million 'success fee' for getting DOJ to drop its challenge to the $14 billion Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks merger," a settlement in which Attorney General Pam Bondi's chief of staff overruled Slater.
"Davis also earned at least $1 million by persuading the Justice Department to allow a merger between Compass and Anywhere Real Estate, the two largest real estate brokerages by volume in 2024, despite objections from antitrust division attorneys," according to the Prospect.
One of Slater's deputies who was fired from the antitrust division last year later alleged that lobbyists are effectively dictating antitrust policy at the DOJ under Bondi's leadership.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the former chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, said Thursday that Slater's removal represents "a major loss for bipartisan antitrust enforcement."
"She received significant bipartisan support in the Senate and has continued important cases brought by administrations of both parties, including winning a landmark monopolization case against Google and preparing the vital case to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster for trial next month,” said Klobuchar. “Her departure raises significant concerns about this administration’s commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws for the betterment of consumers and small businesses, including seeing through its cases against monopolies.”
One senior DHS official said the program "is just the first step in breaching people’s privacy settings in ways that they are not even aware of.”
US Department of Homeland Security agents are increasingly infiltrating social media platforms to monitor users, collect intelligence, and target people, according to new reporting based on leaked documents.
Ken Klippenstein exposed the open source monitoring program, which DHS calls "masked engagement," with new reporting Thursday that details how agents "assume false identities and interact with users—friending them, joining closed groups, and gaining access to otherwise private postings, photographs, friend lists, and more."
"A senior [DHS] official tells me that over 6,500 field agents and intelligence operatives can use the new tool, a significant increase explicitly linked to more intense monitoring of American citizens," Klippenstein wrote.
The so-called "masked engagement" by DHS operatives online comes as actual masked federal agents are engaged in the Trump administration's deadly deployments in communities nationwide.
Important to note that "Authorized" here means that DHS/ICE have given *Themselves* permission to do this "masked engagement" bullshit, not that either congress or the courts say it's okay.Challenge this everywhere & every way possible, & in the meantime, keep ourselves & each other safe as we can
[image or embed]
— Dr. Damien P. Williams can't think of a fun display name right n (@wolvendamien.bsky.social) February 12, 2026 at 4:46 PM
Masked engagement adds a new level to DHS' open source intelligence (OSINT) collection regime, which previously consisted of overt engagement, overt research, overt monitoring, masked monitoring, and undercover engagement. Masked engagement, in which agents conceal their government affiliation without assuming a false identity while interacting with a target, is a step below undercover engagement, in which DHS operatives use false identities and cover stories.
According to Klippenstein:
Masked monitoring allows officers at agencies like [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Border Patrol to use alias accounts to passively observe public online activity. Crucially, this level of monitoring bars DHS representatives from interacting with other users directly. Under masked monitoring, officers are not allowed to ask an admin for entry into a private group or to “friend” a target to see non-public posts.
But with masked engagement (separate from masked monitoring), that firewall has now been dismantled. The only restriction imposed on masked engagement is that DHS officers [note] the threshold of “substantive engagement”—a term the rules leave conveniently ill-defined.
"By labeling this a 'middle ground' between monitoring and full-blown undercover work, the DHS allows agents to infiltrate private digital spaces without the rigorous internal approvals and legal checks required for a formal undercover 'sting,'" Klippenstein explained.
Sources told Klippenstein that DHS has been using masked engagement tactics to infiltrate pro-Palestine groups in the United States and to compile databases of suspected Mexican and Mexican American transnational criminals.
“Open source monitoring has become so ubiquitous that we even have databases of identities used by the department to track our own online engagements,” the senior DHS official said.
“Yes, we have safeguards against violating people’s privacy, but masked engagement is just the first step in breaching people’s privacy settings in ways that they are not even aware of," they added.
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program, told Klippenstein that “CBP’s expansion into what they’re calling ‘masked engagement’ is cause for real concern."
“This new capability is being shoehorned in one step below undercover engagement (which already allows for a lot of overreach), it appears CBP believes that friending someone, following them, or joining a group is not as invasive as directly engaging or interacting with individuals," she continued.
“In addition, doing so through an alias account—an account that doesn’t reveal the user’s CBP affiliation, and pretends to be someone else—will weaken trust in government and weaken the trust that is critical to building community both online and off,” Levinson-Waldman added.
A DHS spokesperson told Klippenstein that the agency "has utilized its congressionally directed undercover authorities to root out child molesters and predators for years."
“We will continue using every tool at our disposal to protect the American people as our agents and officers Make America Safe Again," they added.
Those tools include an error-plagued mobile facial recognition application, mass phone surveillance technology, data broker platforms that allow operatives to circumvent warrant requirements, forensic extraction to bypass phone locks, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, and more.
Civil liberties groups, digital rights advocates, and some Democratic lawmakers are pushing back.
Last week, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) introduced the ICE Out of Our Faces Act, legislation that would ban ICE and Customs and Border Protection "from acquiring and using facial recognition technology and other biometric identification systems."
The bill would "also require the deletion of all data collected for use in or by biometric identification systems and allow individuals and state attorneys general to seek civil penalties for violations."
"President Trump has given up on caring about protecting working class Americans and has given the keys to our economy to billionaire scammers."
Alarms are being raised amid reports that President Donald Trump is stacking a key regulatory committee with CEOs of online prediction markets, cryptocurrency firms, and sports betting apps.
As reported on Thursday by the right-wing Daily Wire, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is launching a new initiative called the Innovation Advisory Committee, which CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said would be tasked with ensuring "the CFTC’s decisions reflect market realities so the agency can future-proof its markets and develop clear rules of the road for the Golden Age of American Financial Markets."
Among the members of the committee are Tarek Mansour, CEO of online betting market Kalshi; Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency hub Coinbase; Christian Genetski, president of the FanDuel sports betting app; and Matt Kalish, president of sports betting app DraftKings North America.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, education fund policy director at Demand Progress, said the committee's composition has deeply concerning implications for the future of the US economy.
"The corruption couldn’t be more obvious," said Peterson-Cassin. "It’s hard to see the CTFC succeeding at its mission to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis when it is influenced from the inside by a rogues’ gallery of billionaire CEOs responsible for monetizing and gamifying virtually every aspect of everyday life."
Peterson-Cassin added that the latest move shows that "President Trump has given up on caring about protecting working class Americans and has given the keys to our economy to billionaire scammers.”
The creation of the Innovation Advisory Committee wasn't the only news made by CFTC this week, as Barron's reported on Monday that the commission's enforcement division based in Chicago has now been completely gutted, as its entire litigation team has either resigned or been laid off.
One laid-off former CFTC attorney told Barron's that the gutting of the office will make it much easier for financial scammers to rip off Americans.
"If I was a different person I would launch a crypto scam right now," said the attorney, "because there’s no cops on the beat."