SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
marimar-martinez
Judge Blasts Hegseth Over Effort to 'Shrink the First Amendment Liberties' of Sen. Mark Kelly
"This court has all it needs to conclude that defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly's First Amendment freedoms."
Feb 12, 2026
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.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Under Oath, Top DHS Officials Admit Filming Agents Is Not a Crime
Their boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has said that videotaping officers on the job is a form of "doxing" and "violence."
Feb 12, 2026
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.
Keep ReadingShow Less
‘Pure Corruption Reigns’ at Trump DOJ as Top Antitrust Official Gail Slater Ousted
"Congress needs to pass legislation in 2029 that will automatically undo all major mergers occurring under this corrupt regime," said one antitrust advocate.
Feb 12, 2026
Gail Slater, once heralded as the leader of the "surging MAGA antitrust movement," announced Thursday that she is leaving her role as the top antitrust official at the US Justice Department after repeatedly clashing with Trump administration leadership over corporate merger enforcement.
Slater said in a statement that "it is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as [assistant attorney general] for antitrust today," but reporting indicates she was forced out. According to The Guardian, Slater was "given the option to resign or be let go." CBS News reported that "top Trump administration officials had decided to oust" Slater and "had discussions with her shortly before she announced on social media that she was leaving the department."
Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement that Congress must "aggressively investigate" the circumstances surrounding Slater's departure, noting that it came shortly before the closely watched Live Nation-Ticketmaster antitrust trial is set to begin next month.
Live Nation's stock price jumped following Slater's announcement, and at least one lobbyist openly celebrated the news.
Days before Slater's apparent removal, Semafor reported that Live Nation executives and lobbyists "have been negotiating with senior DOJ officials outside the antitrust division to avert a trial over whether the company is operating an illegal monopoly that has driven up concert prices."
" Wall Street expects there will be a settlement to block this trial at the behest of the lobbyists who engineered this ouster," said Stoller. "Congress needs to pass legislation in 2029 that will automatically undo all major mergers occurring under this corrupt regime, as well as breaking up companies who have their monopolization cases settled. In addition, the next Justice Department needs to organize an aggressive white-collar criminal law section to jail the lawyers, bankers, and lobbyists enabling this seeming crime spree."
Huge L for the populists on the right as lobbyists successfully got Trump's head of antitrust fired. I have not been a fan of Gail Slater, and this firing has been a long time coming. Things were bad under Gail, they could get worse now. https://t.co/zzyhXA3iWo
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) February 12, 2026
Slater's tenure at the head of the DOJ's antitrust division was marked by a power struggle with pro-corporate officials within—and at the top of—the department, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former corporate lobbyist.
Last summer, top Justice Department officials reportedly bypassed Slater and cut a sweetheart merger settlement deal with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. Weeks later, DOJ leadership removed two of Slater's deputies for "insubordination."
Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said Thursday that Slater's departure "is very bad news for small businesses who had hoped for some faithful enforcement of the antitrust laws against monopolies like Ticketmaster."
"Instead, it looks like pure corruption reigns at the DOJ—pay the right people and you can freely crush your small rivals," Mitchell added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'What Did These Cuban Children Do to Trump?': US Embargo Blamed as Infant Mortality Soars
"Is there anything worse than a child dying of cancer when it was preventable?" asked one observer.
Feb 12, 2026
Infant mortality is on the rise in Cuba as the Trump administration tightens a decadeslong economic embargo on the island nation in hopes of toppling a socialist government that's outlasted a dozen US presidents.
According to the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, infant mortality in Cuba—which plummeted dramatically in the decades after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution—has increased from 4 to 7.4 per 1,000 live births since 2018, an 85% increase.
The rise in infant mortality comes amid a deadly surge in mosquito-borne illness, including dengue and chikungunya, that has inundated already struggling hospitals suffering shortages of staff and even basic supplies. Hospitals in Cuba—which in 2015 became the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and congenital syphilis—are now reliant upon donations and the black market for their needs.
The crisis is particularly dire among children with cancer. Cuba's free healthcare system—which prioritizes the health of the people instead of industry profits, as in the United States—once boasted a pediatric cancer survival rate of 80%, on par with the world's wealthy nations. Now that's down to around 65% as the blockade has forced healthcare providers to modify treatment protocols and medications.
“The situation is very serious at the moment. It was already in terms of acquiring supplies and medicines. But now it is intensifying and complicated with other aspects," Dr. Forteza Saéz, an oncologist at Havana's University of Medical Sciences, told La Jornada in an interview on Wednesday.
Dr. Luis Curbelo Alonso, former longtime director of the National Institute of Oncology and Radiology in Havana, told La Jornada: "You have the knowledge, the expertise, the team to face something that can be curable or can be controllable and yet not have the drug. It's a very lacerating thing as a professional, very cruel."
The situation is also driving Cubans to extreme measures to find treatment. Two-year-old Mía Rey Jiménez and her family left their home in Cardenas, Matanzas last May weeks after the child was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 neuroblastoma, an extremely aggressive childhood cancer requiring complex treatment.
The family left Cuba to seek treatment in Nicaragua and then Costa Rica, where Jiménez underwent chemotherapy and high-risk surgery. Still left with a tumor in her lung and cancer in her bone marrow, Jiménez's family sought help from Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, one of the world's leading specialized facilities.
The hospital agreed to evaluate Jiménez and estimated her chances of survival with proper care at up to 80%—more than double her prognosis in Costa Rica. However, the humanitarian visa for which Jiménez's family applied was denied by US authorities due to what they claimed was "lack of evidence," even though the girl's father resides legally in the United States.
The family successfully appealed their denial and Jiménez and her mother Liudmila Jiménez Matos arrived in Miami in January.
“I can’t be happier," Jiménez Matos told Cuba Noticias 360 last month. "My daughter will be treated by doctors who have been waiting for her for a long time. That’s a love for the profession and for saving another life."
As President Donald Trump tightens the blockade on Cuba following a similar strangulation of Venezuela that ended with last month's US invasion and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to face dubious "narco-terrorism" charges in the United States, critics are renewing calls to end Washington's embargo.
Imposed in the early 1960s after a successful revolution that overthrew a brutal US-backed dictatorship and replaced it with a socialist government, the blockade—which accompanied a decadeslong campaign of terrorism by US-based Cuban exiles—has claimed thousands of Cuban lives and cost the country's economy more than $1 trillion, according to official estimates.
The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly condemned the blockade 33 times.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned Wednesday of a potential "collapse" of Cuba's economy if the US keeps blocking oil from entering the country.
On Thursday, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who visited Cuba in 2024 as part of a delegation of progressive US lawmakers, called the ramped-up embargo, which is now targeting fuel imports, as "cruel and despotic."
Back in Havana, Cuban doctors vowed to do the best they can for their patients under the harrowing circumstances.
“We will continue to resist," Dr. Carlos Alberto Martínez, head of the Ministry of Health's cancer control section, told La Jornada. "We will continue to look for alternatives that allow the sustainability of what has been achieved."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular