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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Drifting Slim

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer and one-man band Elmon "Driftin' Slim" Mickle. Enjoy!

^{Drifting Slim (Elmon Mickle) - Good Morning Baby}

"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God."

-- Thomas Jefferson

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News and Opinion

More Shockingly Honest Confessions From The Empire Managers

US empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school western colonialism.

During a Monday press conference in Tel Aviv after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Graham said that “I’ve been coming here every two weeks whether I need to or not.”

Why is a South Carolina senator traveling to Israel every two weeks, rain or shine? The bloodthirsty warmonger answers this question in short order.

“The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel,” Graham said. “Because if you’re not one step ahead of the enemy, you suffer. The most clever, creative military forces on the planet are here in Israel.”

Sometimes, Senator Graham just puts it out in the plainest language:

“The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel.” pic.twitter.com/hs4MQGBK3n

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) February 16, 2026

Graham salivated about the possibility of a US war with Iran, acknowledging that such a war could absolutely result in American troops in the region being struck by Iranian missiles but saying the US should go to war anyway.

“Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely, they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can,” Graham said, arguing that “the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking and pulling the plug and not helping the people as you promised.”

During a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the mask all the way off in an unsettling rant about the need to return to the good old days when western powers dominated the global south without pretense or apology.

“For five centuries, before the end of the second world war, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Rubio said. “But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.”

This is insane.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio just gave one of the most explicitly pro-colonialist speeches I have seen in the 21st century.

The US empire wants Europe to help it recolonize the Global South.

Rubio praised Western colonialists for "settl[ing] new… pic.twitter.com/tl4NojNdmP

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 15, 2026

Rubio, a notoriously anti-communist gusano, is here admitting that socialism played a leading role in pushing back against the abusive colonialism and empire-building of the western world in recent decades. A normal person would take this as a strong argument in favor of socialism, but Rubio says it like it’s a bad thing.

Rubio urged Europeans to join their white Christian brethren in the United States in re-conquering the brown-skinned communists and heathens who have been insisting upon their own sovereignty and the advancement of their own interests:

“Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.

“For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The man who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

“We are part of one civilization — Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

MARCO RUBIO CALLS FOR RETURN OF COLONIALISM

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave one of the most overtly colonial speeches at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday, 14th February, where he reminisced about 500 years of Western colonialism and how it expanded to… pic.twitter.com/uZqC5Y4pwS

— Sovereign Media (@sov_media) February 16, 2026

It takes a special kind of psychopath to look back with fondness upon five centuries of unchecked western colonialism and imperialism and then advocate a return to those horrific days. Mass genocides across entire continents. The African slave trade. The violent subjugation and enslavement of entire populations. That is what Rubio is looking back on and sighing with nostalgia.

And this is of course to say nothing of the savagery his beloved “Western civilization” is perpetrating in the present day. This is the civilization of the Gaza holocaust. The civilization that cannot exist without constant war, exploitation and extraction. The civilization that is presently strangling Cuba to death and preparing for war with Iran. The civilization that still to this day violently subjugates and robs the global south. The civilization of ecocide. The civilization of Epstein.

Western civilization is the most depraved and abusive civilization that has ever existed. It doesn’t need a return to its prime, it needs to be stopped in its tracks and made healthy. This is obvious from a glance at the deranged empire managers this civilization has been elevating to positions of leadership.

Prof. John Mearsheimer : How Trump Has Boxed Himself Into a Corner on Iran

Group Seeks Chilean Prosecution of IDF Sniper Rom Kovtun Over Gaza Hospital Siege

A Brussels-based human rights group on Monday filed a criminal complaint in Chile seeking the prosecution of an Israel Defense Forces sniper accused of taking part in the deadly 2024 siege and destruction of Gaza’s largest hospital.

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF)—named after the young Palestinian girl who was killed in January 2024 along with six relatives and two rescue workers by IDF troops in Gaza City—said it filed the complaint in the 8th Guarantee Court in Santiago, the Chilean capital, requesting investigation and prosecution of Rom Kovtun, an Israeli Ukrainian sniper in the 424th “Shaked” Battalion of the Givati Brigade, under Chilean Law 20.357.

The law criminalizes genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes under the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), which in 2024 issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged murder and forced starvation in Gaza.

HRF’s complaint was formally submitted by Chilean lawyer Pablo Andrés Araya Zacarías, a partner at Silva-Riesco Abogados. The filing invokes universal jurisdiction—the legal principle empowering states to investigate and prosecute individuals for heinous crimes regardless of where they occurred—based on Kovtun’s presence in Chile and Israel’s refusal to prosecute him.

According to the complaint, Kovtun took part in the March-April 2024 siege and attack on al-Shifa Hospital in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. The World Health Organization said at least 21 patients were killed during attacks on the facility, while Gaza officials claimed the toll was much higher.

Survivors and witnesses said IDF troops executed civilians during the raid on al-Shifa, including 13 children. The IDF denied the allegations. Doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers were also abducted and allegedly tortured by their IDF captors. Israeli claims that Hamas fighters were using al-Shifa as a command center were subsequently debunked as lies.

Hundreds of Palestinian bodies—some with bound limbs and signs of torture and execution—were found outside the hospital after IDF troops withdrew from the area, although it is not known if they were all killed there.

“The targeting and destruction of a functioning hospital during a military siege strike at the core of international humanitarian law,” HRF general director Dyab Abou Jahjah said on Monday. “When evidence indicates that a sniper participated in such an operation, domestic courts cannot look away. Universal jurisdiction exists to ensure that the most serious crimes do not go unexamined simply because they were committed abroad.”

HRF head of litigation Natacha Bracq said that “international humanitarian law grants special protection to hospitals, medical personnel, and the wounded.”

“The encirclement and destruction of a functioning medical complex, combined with the deprivation of food, water, and medical care, are not collateral damage—they constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide,” she added.

Chile embraced universal jurisdiction in the decades following the fall of the US-backed military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose 1998 arrest in London for crimes against humanity stemmed from an international warrant issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón based on universal jurisdiction.

Mohammad Marandi: Iran JUST Closed the Strait of Hormuz - Wiped Out: Iran Plans to Sink the US Navy

Francesca Albanese Defenders Decry Bid to Remove UN Expert Over Misrepresented Israel Remarks

Human rights advocates, United Nations officials, and prominent international artists are among those defending UN independent Palestine expert Francesca Albanese in recent days amid a smear campaign by several European foreign ministers and pro-Israel groups, who are demanding her firing over alleged antisemitic remarks she never made.

The foreign ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic, France, and Germany have publicly called for Albanese’s resignation or termination after the pro-Israel group UN Watch—which is unaffiliated with the world body—circulated an edited video of the 48-year-old Italian jurist purportedly calling Israel “the common enemy of humanity” during a February 7 speech at a forum in Doha, Qatar organized by Al Jazeera.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said last week that he will demand Albanese’s resignation or removal during the upcoming UN Human Rights Council meeting, calling her alleged remarks “outrageous and reprehensible.”

Other European officials piled on, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul calling her continued service as a UN expert “untenable.”

However, what’s “reprehensible,” Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard argued Saturday, is that the foreign ministers attacked Albanese “based on a deliberately truncated video to misrepresent and gravely misconstrue her messages.”

This is what Albanese actually said in Doha:

The fact that instead of stopping Israel, most of the world has armed, given Israel political excuses, political sheltering, economic and financial support. This is a challenge. The fact that most of the media in the Western world has been amplifying the pro-apartheid genocidal narrative is a challenge. At the same time, here also lays the opportunity. Because if international law has been stabbed in the heart, it’s also true that never before the global community has seen the challenges that we all face. We who do not control large amounts of financial capitals, algorithms, and weapons, we now see that we as a humanity have a common enemy, and freedoms, the respect of fundamental freedoms is the last peaceful avenue, the last peaceful toolbox that we have to regain our freedom.

“The ministers that have spread disinformation must act beyond merely deleting their comments on social media—as some have done,” Callamard said. “They must publicly apologize and retract any calls for Francesca Albanese’s resignation. Their governments must also investigate how this disinformation happened with a view to preventing such situations.”

“If only these ministers had been as loud and forceful in confronting a state committing genocide, unlawful occupation, and apartheid as they have in attacking a UN expert,” she added. “Their cowardice and refusal to hold Israel accountable stand in stark contrast to the special rapporteur’s unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power.”

On Monday, Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said in a statement that “how we act in the face of fake news and vicious disinformation campaigns is a sign of our moral compass.”

“Over and over during the war in Gaza, we have seen how coordinated campaigns seek to discredit and silence those who speak out about human rights impacts and violations of international humanitarian law,” Lazzarini added. “The latest attacks on Francesca Albanese—an independent expert mandated... to monitor the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory—aim at silencing her voice and undermining the few remaining independent human rights reporting mechanisms.”

Israeli forces have killed more than 370 UNRWA staff members since October 2023. Lazzarini and others have also accused Israeli forces of torturing UNRWA staffers in a bid to force false confessions corroborating their dubious allegations that members of the

humanitarian agency are Hamas fighters. The International Court of Justice (ICJ)—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—found last year that UNRWA has not been infiltrated by Hamas, as claimed by Israeli leaders.

More than 100 prominent international actors, musicians, writers, and other creatives with Artists for Palestine have also signed an open letter supporting Albanese.

French filmmaker Frank Barat is among 100 artists who’ve signed an open letter in support of Francesca Albanese who faces growing calls from European gov't's to step down as UN rapporteur. It comes after a fake video of her sparked allegations of anti-Semitism. pic.twitter.com/fnL4t1xmrP

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 15, 2026

“According to the Israeli army itself, at least 83% of those murdered are civilians,” the letter states. “What has the French state done about this for over two years? It has not imposed sanctions against a state that is openly—and even proudly—flouting international law.”

“Worse yet, through political, diplomatic, moral, and material support, the French state, like many of its European counterparts, allowed this senseless massacre to continue, thereby violating all its legal obligations,” the letter continues. “On July 29, 2025, a complaint against [French President] Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Noël Barrot, and other members of the French executive was filed by 114 lawyers before the [International Criminal Court], for ‘complicity in genocide in Gaza.’”

The letter’s signers including actors Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo, and Susan Sarandon; musicians Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, and Annie Lennox; and authors Annie Ernaux and Alice Walker.

Albanese has long been targeted for her vocal opposition to what she and a UN expert panel on which she did not serve call Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The administration of President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on her after she highlighted US companies’ complicity in the Gaza slaughter. US officials have also attempted to discredit her work and called for her removal.

Albanese responded to the attacks by highlighting the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, saying on X Friday that “three European governments accuse me—based on statements I never made—with a virulence and conviction that they have NEVER used against those who have slaughtered 20,000+ children in 858 days.”

Albanese underscored that her Doha remarks clearly meant that “the common enemy of humanity is THE SYSTEM that has enabled the genocide in Palestine, including the financial capital that funds it, the algorithms that obscure it, and the weapons that enable it.”

Lindsey Graham: "Wars of future Planned in ISRAEL"

Netanyahu Aide Says Israel Will Give Hamas 60-Day Deadline To Disarm

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will give Hamas a 60-day deadline to disarm, and if it doesn’t, Israel will restart its full-scale bombing campaign in Gaza.

Israeli Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs said at a conference in Jerusalem that it was unclear when the 60-day deadline would begin, but suggested it could start on Thursday when the so-called “Board of Peace” holds its first official meeting in Washington.

President Trump is convening the US-led board as Israel continues constant ceasefire violations in Gaza, where the IDF has killed more than 600 Palestinians since the truce deal was signed in early October.

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Will Trump Start WWIII ?

Gaza’s jobs crisis leaves people struggling to afford basics

Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living. Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the conflict. Like hundreds of thousands of others across Gaza, Bakr needs a job.

“Money is the main means of survival in Gaza … without it, a person cannot do anything,” he says. “The limited aid that reaches us doesn’t replace our need for money in any way and doesn’t cover even the most basic living requirements.” In January, United Nations agencies and their partners reached approximately 1.6 million people with household-level general food assistance. World Central Kitchen, an NGO, is now serving 1 million hot meals a day. But such assistance remains vastly insufficient and still covers only basic necessities. For everything else, brought in by the private sector, Palestinians in Gaza need cash.

Aid workers in Gaza say more fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, clothes and household items are now available, but at exorbitant prices. “There has been a huge increase in commercial supplies … but it is all very expensive,” says Kate Charlton, a Médecins Sans Frontières medical coordinator in Gaza City.

The official unemployment rate, estimated by the UN, is 80% and the economy has shrunk to 13% of its former size. In November, Pedro Manuel Moreno, the deputy secretary general of the UN’s trade and development agency, said the war had “wiped out decades of progress”. “Gaza is going through the fastest and most damaging economic collapse ever recorded,” he said.

The UN agency’s data shows that in 2024, GDP per capita in Gaza fell to just $161 (£118) a year – among the lowest in the world. The Israeli offensive shattered sanitation, transport, power and health systems, ruined fields and greenhouses and decimated Gaza’s fishing industry, which once employed thousands.

‘I just want to stop hearing about it’: a weary South Korea awaits verdict on Yoon insurrection charges

South Korea is awaiting one of the most consequential court rulings in decades this week, with judges due to deliver their verdict on insurrection charges against the former president Yoon Suk Yeol and prosecutors demanding the death penalty.

When Yoon stands in courtroom 417 of Seoul central district court on Thursday to hear his fate, which will be broadcast live, he will do so in the same room where the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan was sentenced to death three decades ago. The charge is formally the same. Last time, it took almost 17 years and a democratic transition to deliver a verdict. This time, it has taken 14 months. Chun’s death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment on appeal, and he was eventually pardoned. ...

But as the ruling approaches, there is a sense of exhaustion and division in South Korea as the months-long saga, in which 27 people have been indicted over the martial law crisis, continues. ...

The K-pop light stick protests that once brought millions on to the streets have long subsided. Maga-inspired pro-Yoon rallies have dwindled to the fringes. At a recent gathering where 2,300 registered supporters were expected, about 20 appeared. The political fallout has been devastating for the People Power party, which has been unable to divorce itself from Yoon’s legacy. It polled at just 22% last week, according to Gallup Korea, against 44% for the ruling Democratic party. ...

Many of those watching will have lived through the authoritarian era of the 1980s that the 2024 martial law declaration so starkly echoed. The democratic guardrails they fought to build are being tested. By Thursday afternoon, the country will know whether they have held.

Clara Mattei: capitalism is not natural - it’s enforced

At the AI Race’s Finishing Line: A World of Abundance or Automated Dominance?

As Companies Plot Price Hikes, GOP Congress Urged to End Trump Tariffs

A national campaign “to fix the rules of our economy to make it work for working people” took aim at Republicans in Congress on Monday in response to reporting that US companies are planning another round of price hikes due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“Companies had raised prices last year after tariffs hoisted costs. Yet starting in the fall, many firms held off on increases and sometimes offered discounts to capture holiday shoppers,” the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. “The pricing break is over.”

“Some companies have pointed a finger at tariffs for their increases, while others, especially small businesses, also blame higher wages and hefty health insurance costs that firms said they can’t absorb or share with suppliers,” the Journal detailed.

Citing a December survey of 600 entrepreneurs by Vistage Worldwide, the newspaper noted that “more than half of small business leaders said they planned to increase prices in the next three months,” and “nearly 70% planned increases of 4% to 10%, while another 10% forecast increases of more than 10%.”

In a Monday statement about the reporting, Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal declared that “Americans are once again bracing for higher costs thanks to Republican-backed tariffs. Republicans in Congress have the power to end these cost-raising policies, but instead are voting to rubber-stamp them and put more strain on their constituents.”

Last Wednesday, all but six Republicans in the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives opposed a resolution expressing disapproval of Trump’s tariffs targeting Canada. Shortly before the vote, the president said on his Truth Social platform, “Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!”

Higher tariffs, labor and health-insurance costs have pushed many businesses to raise prices

"After holding the line on prices for several months, companies—big and small—have begun a new round of increases, in some cases by high-single-digit %"https://t.co/PqZgBpTCHe pic.twitter.com/PGzzerHLn7

— Gregory Daco (@GregDaco) February 16, 2026

Tal said Monday that “from pushing for the largest cuts to healthcare in history, to backing tariffs that raise the price of everyday goods for Americans, Republicans in Congress have made life less affordable for their constituents at every turn—all while giving billionaires massive tax breaks.”

GOP lawmakers stuffed those tax breaks into the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed last summer. The budget package also featured massive cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and did not extend tax credits that helped millions buy health insurance on Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges.

Subsequent efforts to continue the ACA subsidies—which lapsed at the end of last year—have also failed. That means millions of Americans now face skyrocketing health insurance premiums alongside rising costs tied to policies that include Trump’s tariffs.

Trump often insists that foreign producers pay for his tariffs, but a major study released last month by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, made clear that—in line with decades of economic research—US businesses and consumers are largely paying for the president’s taxes on imports.

Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee last month released another report showing that the average American family paid $1,625 in higher costs last year due to tariffs and other Trump policies. In some states—including Alaska, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York—the impact for the typical household exceeded $2,000.

Trump donor who criticized offshoring to close Ohio plant and move work to China

John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and one of Donald Trump’s earliest Wall Street backers, is planning to offshore an Ohio manufacturing plant to China despite heavy pushback from employees. Workers at the plant call the move “a slap in our face”, after Paulson vocally defended domestic manufacturing, and are fighting to keep the plant open.

Conn Selmer, the largest US manufacturer of brass and orchestra instruments, told the union it planned to offshore most work at its Eastlake, Ohio, plant to China by the end of June 2026, eliminating 150 jobs. United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2359, which represents the 150 employees, said workers were informed of the closing when it first sat down to bargain over their new union contract last month.

“We came in with a full proposal, fully prepared to bargain, and they started off with a presentation of telling us how bad we were doing,” said Robert Hines, president of UAW Local 2359 and an employee at the plant. The company told them there would be no bargaining and the plant would be closing. Workers say offshoring is an attack on the union, citing rhetoric that the plant has not been productive despite previous praise from company management.

Paulson, like Trump, has publicly criticized offshoring. “We can’t have American producers closing American factories and offshoring. We need to protect American jobs and protect American manufacturing,” he said during an interview with CNBC in September 2024.

Only 2% Of Epstein Files Released

Epstein sympathized with Kavanaugh during supreme court confirmation

Jeffrey Epstein sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh during the then-supreme court nominee’s contentious 2018 confirmation and even suggested Republicans should have been harder on Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Emails and text messages released by the Department of Justice show Epstein was closely monitoring the confirmation and seemed to believe that Ford’s allegation of sexual assault could derail the process.

Epstein told one person, whose name was redacted, on 22 September 2018 “Ive sat in Kavanaugh chair. Im thinking of November.” The meaning of the November reference is not clear. Epstein called the pending judiciary hearing “a trap!”, adding “Iye [sic] been through many of these. MANY!! She will cry, make sordid allegations. Say she feels bullied, fearful, traumatized. Every thing bad in her life was s result of the rape attempt. Suffered anxiety! Her relationships with men etc. this is a very special skill set needed.”

Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University who grew up in the Washington DC suburbs, delivered gripping and harrowing Senate testimony on 26 September 2018, in which she alleged under oath how a “visibly drunk” Kavanaugh had pinned her on a bed, groped and ground against her, and tried to take off her clothes during a gathering in the summer of 1982. Both were teenagers.

The all-male Republican senators judiciary committee had appointed a female prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, to essentially cross-examine Ford, a decision that Epstein called a huge mistake. He wrote to an unidentified person on 27 September 2018: “horrible choice of prosecutor woman. critical and maybe lethal mistake. . prosecutors don’t cross examine. they prosecute.. power on their side . she should have been a criminal defense attorney.” He then rattled off a series of questions he seemingly believed Ford should have been asked instead, including whether there was a “history of anxiety” in Ford’s family, whether lights were on in the bedroom, if Ford had seen Kavanaugh again, and probing how Ford got away from the party.

There is no evidence in the files that Kavanaugh knew or met Epstein. But Epstein was in frequent contact with Kenneth Starr, the late former US solicitor general and independent counsel who led an investigation into Bill Clinton’s relationship with then-intern Monica Lewinsky and other scandals. Kavanaugh served as an associate to Starr during the investigation into Clinton. Starr, who died in 2022, was a close personal friend and professional contact of Epstein, and was the key lawyer who helped Epstein clinch a plea agreement in 2008, which is how Epstein avoided federal sex-trafficking charges and served a reduced sentence.

ICE memo outlines massive $38.3 billion expansion of concentration camp network

On February 13, a memorandum issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outlined the agency’s plan for a massive permanent expansion of detention facilities across the United States involving tens of billions of dollars, thousands of new federal agents and the construction of “mega-centers” to hold human beings for months at a time. The memo states that by the end of November 2026, the same month the midterm elections are scheduled to be held, the agency will be overseeing “eight large-scale detention centers and 16 processing sites, as well as the acquisition of 10 existing ‘turnkey’ facilities where ICE ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] already operates.”

While there is “no money” for social services, public healthcare, education or housing, ICE estimates $38.3 billion will be spent on the “Detention Reengineering Initiative.” The plan makes clear that despite the ending of “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the US government plans to continue mass arrests and removals of those it deems “illegal” throughout 2026 and beyond. The memo states that the “new model is designed to strategically increase bed capacity to 92,600 beds.” The increased detention space coincides with the hiring of “12,000” additional immigration Gestapo.

Making clear that this is not a temporary measure in response to a made-up “border crisis” but the expansion of a police state directed against the working class, regardless of immigration status, the memo emphasizes that the facilities, “will be built to handle the immediate surge capacity and sustained long-term operations, providing a unified, scalable solution that delivers continuity, safety, compliance, and control.”

It calls for “Regional Processing Centers” that will house “1,000 to 1,500” people for “3-7 days.” These centers are envisioned as “staging locations for transfers or removals.” The centerpiece of the fascist proposal are “Large-Scale Detention Facilities” capable of “housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees for periods averaging less than 60 days. These sites will serve as the primary locations for international removals.” The internal ICE memo outlining the construction of massive, long-term detention facilities is only one component of a far broader expansion of the immigration enforcement apparatus. As reported by Wired, federal records show that alongside the buildup of detention capacity, the federal government has carried out what the outlet describes as “a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US.”

According to Wired, this campaign involves “more than 150 leases and office expansions” that “have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas.” The report notes that “in many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.” Wired reports that the General Services Administration was asked by DHS “explicitly to disregard usual government lease procurement procedures and even hide lease listings due to ‘national security concerns’” in order to support immigration enforcement. The outlet notes that “since President Donald Trump took office in 2025, ICE has more than doubled in size,” with DHS claiming “22,000 officers and agents stationed around the country,” funded by “nearly $80 billion” under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

ICE Shootings: FBI HIDING Evidence After Agents Caught LYING

FBI won’t share Alex Pretti shooting evidence

Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January.

Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis.

On Monday, Minnesota’s bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA), a state-level criminal investigative law enforcement agency, said the FBI had formally notified it that it would not share any information or evidence related to Pretti’s shooting. The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, has demanded an “impartial” investigation into the shootings in Minneapolis. “Trump’s left hand cannot investigate his right hand,” he said on Monday in response to the FBI’s refusal to share evidence. “The families of the deceased deserve better.”

“As we’ve previously said, full access to evidence, witnesses and information is necessary to meet the investigative standard that Minnesota law and the public demands; without it, we cannot do so,” the BCA said back in January, after the FBI boxed it out of the investigation.

Both Pretti and Good were US citizens and video footage of their shootings has circulated widely, leading to mass protests. Sosa-Celis was shot by an ICE official in the leg last month. Trump administration officials initially claimed Sosa-Celis and two other men had “ambushed” the ICE officer who then “fired a defensive shot to defend his life”. But last week two ICE officials were placed on leave while they are investigated for allegedly lying under oath about the interaction.

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Trump Promises ELECTION TAKEOVER Whether Congress Wants Or Not

Civil rights groups sue to protect voter data FBI seized from Georgia office

Rights groups have sued to protect voter information that was seized by the FBI in a controversial raid in Georgia at the behest of Donald Trump in his renewed push to invalidate the 2020 election. The NAACP and other civil rights organizations filed a motion on 15 February to “prohibit the Trump administration from misusing the voter information” taken from an elections warehouse in Fulton county, Georgia, late last month.

“Having already failed to overturn the valid results of the 2020 presidential election by invoking false claims of widespread voter fraud, promoting fake electors and inciting a violent insurrection, Trump and his minions are refusing to give up the ‘lost cause’, trampling even more voting and privacy rights in the process,” said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the groups involved, in a statement.

“Ironically, this is happening in the same jurisdiction where Trump pressured state elections officials to ‘find 11,870 votes’ in an effort to declare himself the victor in 2020. The voters of Fulton county, or anywhere in the country, should not be collateral damage in this partisan political warfare.”

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Trump lashes out at California governor’s green energy deal with UK

Donald Trump has vented his fury against a green energy deal between the British government and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a likely future Democratic presidential candidate. “The UK’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump said in an interview with Politico, using the derogatory nickname he reserves for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”

In an intervention that is likely to be clocked by British government officials wary of potential new landmines in the UK’s relationship with the White House, Trump went on to say it was “inappropriate” for Newsom to strike such agreements and “inappropriate for them [the UK] to be dealing with him”. Newsom, one of the loudest domestic opponents of the US president on issues ranging from ICE deportation raids to the climate crisis, signed a memorandum of understanding in London with the UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband.

Their agreement is aimed at deepening existing cooperation between the UK and California and creates a new framework to scale up clean energy technologies and enhance ties between businesses and researchers in Britain and the US state, which is in effect the world’s fourth largest global economy. The UK and California will also share practical expertise on protecting biodiversity and building resilience amid extreme weather, Miliband’s department announced on Monday.

Newsom was in London just after attending the Munich Security Conference, where he said: “Donald Trump’s administration is temporary. California’s commitment is not.”

US judge orders Trump administration to restore Philadelphia slavery exhibit

A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday ordered the National Park Service to reinstall a slavery exhibit at a Philadelphia historic site, pending the outcome of ongoing litigation after the city sued the federal government over its removal. The National Park Service last month dismantled and removed a long-established slavery-related exhibit at the Independence National Historical park, which holds the former residence of George Washington, in response to Donald Trump’s claims, which have been rejected by civil rights groups, of “anti-American ideology” at historical and cultural institutions.

The city of Philadelphia sued over the matter, accusing the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, and top officials of breaking the law and asking a judge to restore the exhibit. On Monday, a federal judge in Pennsylvania, Cynthia Rufe, granted the city’s request to temporarily block the federal government’s changes and ordered the National Park Service to restore the exhibit pending the outcome of litigation.

Rufe, who was appointed by George W Bush, began her ruling with a quote from a section of George Orwell’s 1984 which described the process by which the authoritarian party in the novel conducted a constant rewriting of past editions of newspapers – as well as “books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs” – to erase any uncomfortable facts from history.

The judge then drew an explicit comparison between the world of the novel and the Trump administration in the first lines of her opinion. “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims – to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote. “It does not.”

During a hearing last month, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, Rufe called the Trump administration’s argument that a president could unilaterally order changes to exhibits displayed in national parks both “horrifying” and “dangerous”.

Europe urged to prepare for 3C of global heating

Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating. Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already “paying a price” for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part “common sense and low-hanging fruit”.

The ESABCC describes current efforts to adapt to rising temperatures as “insufficient, largely incremental [and] often coming too late” in a new report that advises officials to prepare for a world 2.8-3.3C hotter than preindustrial levels by 2100. Weather extremes in Europe in recent years have at times surprised climate scientists with their strength and adaptation experts with their lethality as rising temperatures have warped the climate.

Heavy rains supercharged by climate breakdown killed 134 people in Germany’s Ahr valley in 2021 and 229 people in the Valencia region of Spain in 2024. Across the continent, summer heat kills many tens of thousands of people each year, with studies attributing between half and two-thirds of the death toll to the rise in temperatures caused by fossil fuel pollution. Last year’s wildfires, meanwhile, torched more of Europe than scientists have ever recorded.

Last week, Portugal was urged to draw up climate adaptation plans as the country was hit by an unprecedented series of storms that killed at least 16 people and caused an estimated €775m (£675m) of damage. Van Aalst said: “Twenty years ago, we’d have said those extremes are indeed going to be a problem, but primarily in poorer countries that cannot cope. What we’re now noticing is that Europe itself is vulnerable, especially for conditions it has not faced in the past.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

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Patrick Lawrence: Serial Buffoon at the Pentagon

U.S. Calls For New Colonial Era

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Trump Gone Wild! Is Jeffrey Epstein Even Dead? | Candace

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A Little Night Music

Driftin Slim & his blues band - Jackson blues

Drifting Slim - Mama Blues

Drifting Slim - I Feel So Good

Drifting Slim - My Sweet Woman

Drifting Slim - My Little Machine

Model T Slim (Elmon Mickle) - Oh Babe

Model T Slim - You're Growing Old Baby

Model T Slim - Take My Hand

Model T Slim - Shake Your Boogie

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