WE STILL DON'T HAVE A CLEAR ANSWER ON THE MOST BASIC QUESTION ABOUT THE IRAN WAR
WHY did the U.S. go to war?
A Popular Information review of public statements over the last 9 days found 17 DIFFERENT EXPLAINATIONS. Many of which contradict each other.
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The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol, is using a broad web of surveillance tools — purchased as its budget has ballooned under this administration — to monitor, apprehend and intimidate the people it seeks to deport and the U.S. citizens critical of its policies.
The Republicans seem to be prepping an argument that any domestic terror attacks in the aftermath of their Iran attacks will be the fault of Democrats for shutting down DHS funding, so I'd like to remind everyone of this appointment:
NEW, from me: I talked to Aliya Rahman, who was dragged out of Tuesday's State of the Union + arrested for... standing up.
Really.
Rahman, who is autistic and has disabilities, was a guest of Rep. Ilhan Omar + was previously brutally detained by ICE in Minneapolis. www.huffpost.com/entry/aliya-...
Floor plan for an ICE concentration camp.
(Gift link for the @willbunch.bsky.social piece is in the thread.)
JD Vance personally invited Pope Leo to the U.S. 250th celebration on the 4th of July. Today the Vatican announced Leo will be spending the day with migrants instead.
UK: Prince Andrew arrested.
South Korea: Former President Yoon sentenced for life.
Brazil: Former President Bolsonaro serving a 27-year sentence.
USA: President Trump demands $10 billion payout from taxpayers.
The American president is more insulated from accountability than a British royal.
Our political system provides the elite with immunity. It has to change.
I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is
Read this sentence slowly:
“Gov. Gavin Newsom, crypto executives and business leaders are ramping up efforts this week to stop the proposed wealth tax...”
gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...
It's unchartered, but we can see the terrain: the territory ahead includes masked secret police taking people to concentration camps but not new vaccines. That's our reward for a system in which fewer than 20 people, all of them deranged and malicious, control over $3 trillion.
Here’s the thing… a dusty, used-up, gravel-sounding, lying, murderous eugenicist who snorted blow off a toilet seat *is* the best that MAGA can find to do the job. Nobody else is any better than this scumbag. That’s the problem, they’re all this venal. It’s a jobs program for the scum of the earth.
The Project 2025 author is using millions of dollars in USAID money for his own security detail.
It is estimated that 762,000 people have *already died* as a result of Elon Musk and Russell Vought’s obscene murder of USAID, including more than 500,000 children.
Vought is a mass murderer.
Bad POTUS
Today, the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules. Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change—all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.
Every photo from Minneapolis looks like this. Cops decked out with guns and full tac gear facing off against people in bathrobes, parkas, and sweatpants armed only with whistles and cell phones.
Yet every verified MAGA chode on X dutifully calls it a riot or violent insurrection.
Dear God.
I’ve watched Gavin Newsom’s career for 20+ years. It’s a buffet of big lies & failed hopes
Like Trump, he breaks promises, serves billionaire interests & mistakes social media theatrics for leadership.
Is that what we need in 2028?
via @us.theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Struggling to navigate the Epstein files? Here is a visual guide
Struggling to navigate the Epstein files? Here is a visual guide https://aje.news/51oyhz
just building this awful camp system is a crime against humanity imo
“He remembers ICE agents pulling him from a friend’s car outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him & striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he was beaten again.”
It really pays to remind ourselves frequently that this whole immigration "crisis" is made up out of whole cloth. There was no emergency,danger or problem, only a demagogue stirring up racist grievances for political advantage.
The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!
This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
Three rules in FBI firearm training:
1. Always point your weapon downrange
2. Do not point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot
3. Don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to shoot
Guns are not for threatening compliance for unarmed people doing things you don’t like
BREAKING: The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com
This is a white supremacist paramilitary operation. Their goal—their stated goal!—is to force America to submit to the President's racist domineering vision for the country.
The sooner everybody starts confronting it on the terms that they themselves have stated, the better.
You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.
I can't put into words the feeling of watching our government, a hive of evil antisocial filth, the absolute worst humanity has to offer, colliding with the best. Ordinary people trying to help each other, risking everything to stand up for what's plainly, unambiguously fair and right. It's unreal
