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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Andrew Brown

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Andrew Brown. Enjoy!

^{Andrew Brown – I Got News For You}

"Don't be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces."

-- Jean-Paul Marat

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News and Opinion

If You Think The US Wants To Bring Democracy To Iran, Watch What They’re Currently Doing To Iraq

Anyone silly enough to believe the US wants to bring democracy to Iran should have a look at what the US is currently doing to sabotage democracy in Iraq.

President Trump has been aggressively threatening to cut off Iraq’s oil revenue if it allows the return to office of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom the Trump administration views as too sympathetic to Iran.

And the threats appear to be working, as Antiwar’s Jason Ditz reports:

“Once and possibly future Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s candidacy is increasingly in doubt this weekend, with reports that President Trump’s demand he not be allowed to return to office increasing the possibility that the Coordination Framework bloc may withdraw him as their choice for premier.

“Last year’s Iraq elections ended with the usual deeply split parliament, though the State of Law Party’s fourth place finish with 6% of the vote was generally seen as enough to give Maliki the coalition leadership, since current PM Mohammed al-Sudani does not intend to return.

“Late last month, Trump demanded that Maliki step down from the nomination, but he refused at the time, saying that the US should stay out of Iraq’s internal affairs. Maliki was already Iraq’s PM from 2006 through 2014.”

Iraq May Drop Maliki as PM Candidate After US Threats
Report: US gave Iraq ultimatum to scrap Maliki’s candidacy by Sunday#Iraq #Maliki https://t.co/JiIQhL8o3T

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) February 22, 2026

Ditz explains that Trump is able to sway Iraqi politics with credible threats due to the US control that was imposed on the nation’s economy following the Iraq invasion:

“Underpinning this whole thing is that after the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the country was restructured such that all of Iraq’s oil revenue was paid in US dollars through the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Since that revenue is almost the entirety of Iraq’s government budget, that means the US can virtually seize Iraq’s treasury at any time and bankrupt the country on a moment’s notice.”

This is what US-imposed “democracy” looks like in practice: giving a nation the freedom to do what Washington tells them to do and elect the leaders that Washington allows them to elect.

You may recall that the narrative to justify the US coalition’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was the urgent need to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. The US literally titled the invasion “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. They then killed a million people, plunged the region into chaos and instability for years, and ensured that the Iraqi people would forever remain under the boot of the US empire.

There is no excuse for a grown adult to believe the US empire wants to bring democracy to Iran. The US consistently props up dictatorships and monarchies in the middle east exactly because they do not want the will of the people to determine the actions and policies of the governments of those nations. Truly democratic states in the region would see people using their votes to elect leaders who are hostile to Israel and the United States, and who set fossil fuel policies which advance the interests of their own people rather than the interests of the western empire.

This is why the middle east is rife with wealthy monarchies who are extremely friendly with the US and its allies. That didn’t happen by accident; the west has been intimately involved with aggressively manipulating middle eastern affairs for generations. This includes Iran; the CIA staged a coup in 1953 to replace its democratically elected government with a US-aligned monarchy, who was then overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

US military intervention against Iran in conjunction with economic warfare and support for sectarianism DOES NOT constitute a regime change operation. That hasn’t been the play for years.

Warhawks are hoping for deep destabilization and Balkanization. pic.twitter.com/tPhD1N9poh

— Greg Stoker (@gregjstoker) February 19, 2026

The plan isn’t to bring democracy to Iran, and there’s a convincing argument to be made that it’s not even to preserve Iran as a unified state. Influential Iran hawks have been pushing balkanization as the preferred strategy lately, with war propagandists now promoting the idea that an Iran fractured along ethnic lines might be in everyone’s best interest. This strategy would create unfathomable strife and horrifically deadly chaos, but it would allow for the toppling of the Iranian government without having to go to all the trouble of replacing it with a new government. They can just smash Iran to eliminate a disobedient regional power and let the pieces land where they may, with no fear of a future revolution replacing their puppet regime in a large and unified state.

The US does not seek democracy, it seeks planetary domination. That’s all these moves are ever about, and the empire doesn’t care how many people it needs to hurt along the way in order to get there.

PROF. John Mearsheimer : Trump Has No Offramp

Trump Iran airstrikes decision to be guided by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s advice

Donald Trump’s decision to order airstrikes against Iran will hinge in part on the judgment of Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, about whether Tehran is stalling over a deal to relinquish its capacity to produce nuclear weapons, according to people familiar with the matter. The president has not made a final determination on any strikes, as the administration prepares for Iran to send its latest proposal this week, ahead of what officials have described as a last-ditch round of negotiations scheduled for Thursday in Geneva.

Those talks will be led by Witkoff and Kushner, whose assessment on the likelihood of a deal will shape Trump’s calculus. If there is no deal, Trump has told advisers he is considering limited strikes to pressure Iran and, failing that, a far larger attack to force regime change. A US official said on Monday that Witkoff was part of the group advising Trump on his decision about how to proceed with Iran and had been involved in all meetings related to the matter.

The other main advisers include the vice-president, JD Vance; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff; Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. Vance has presented both sides of the argument for airstrikes. But he has pressed Caine on the possible risks, not least because he has been far less confident about the likelihood of success with attacking Iran than he was about the operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

Caine’s concern has centered on the low stockpile of anti-missile systems, the people said. After Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites last year, the US fired 30 Patriot missiles to intercept Iranian counterattacks, the largest single use of those missiles in US history. ... Caine has come across as more vocal about his concerns inside the Pentagon than when he has briefed Trump, in what officials have privately speculated as an effort to not appear to be advocating for a particular course of action, a person familiar with the matter said.

Top Generals DIRE WARNING: Iran War Will Be Disaster

US evacuates staff from Lebanon embassy amid tensions with Iran

Washington has evacuated dozens of non-essential personnel from its embassy in Lebanon as US ships and warplanes have been positioned in the region for a potential strike against Iran in the coming days. The diplomatic drawdown followed reports that dozens of US personnel had been evacuated through Lebanon’s Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport to protect them from a possible Iranian counterattack if tensions between the US and Iran escalate into war. Roughly 30-50 US embassy personnel have left the country, estimates suggest.

The US has evacuated personnel from its embassies and military bases as part of its preparations for armed conflict with Iran in the past. In 2025, the US temporarily evacuated non-essential personnel from embassies in Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait before launching strikes on Iranian uranium enrichment and other facilities linked to its nuclear programme.

US officials have warned that Iran could react by launching missiles at US embassies and military bases, or by greenlighting asymmetrical attacks through its proxy forces in the region. US diplomatic facilities are seen as a likely target for Iranian-backed militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The US has also begun withdrawing its military from bases in Syria, Reuters reported, citing local sources, in a personnel drawdown from another potential target for an Iranian counterattack. The Trump administration has denied that the evacuation there is related to a potential strike on Iran.

The US has sent two aircraft carriers, as well as dozens of warplanes, combat ships, and advanced aircraft including Awacs jets to the region in the largest buildup of US military firepower since before the Iraq war. The USS Gerald Ford, the second aircraft carrier deployed to the region, will be in position in several days and arrived in Souda Bay off of Crete, where the US has a major naval base.

Matt Hoh : US Complicit in Israel’s Expansion

Joint Chiefs Chairman Warns Trump of Significant Risks if US Attacks Iran

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, the highest-ranking US military officer, has warned President Trump that there would be significant risks that come with attacking Iran, including the possibility of a protracted war, Axios reported on Monday, a report President Trump later rejected.

Two sources told Axios reporter Barak Ravid that Caine was all in on the recent US attack on Venezuela to kidnap President Nicolas Maduro, but described him as a “reluctant warrior” when it came to Iran, as he sees a greater risk of a prolonged war and US casualties. According to The Wall Street Journal, he has also warned that any war with Iran would deplete US military stockpiles, as the US used a large number of interceptors defending Israel during the 12-Day War in June 2025.

The New York Times also reported on the Trump administration’s deliberations about attacking Iran and said that Caine couldn’t provide the same assurances for success as he did with Venezuela. It appears that if the US attacks Iran, the goal would be to topple the government or destroy Iran’s ability to strike Israel with missiles, which would require a massive bombing campaign.

President Trump later denied the series of reports about Caine’s warnings. “Gen. Caine, like all of us, would like not to see War but, if a decision is made on going against Iran at a Military level, it is his opinion that it will be something easily won,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about, he only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack.”

Iran War OVER? US Warship Sinking, Pentagon in PANIC | Larry Johnson & Patrick Henningsen

Huckabee Accused of Inciting Murder After Israeli Settlers Kill Palestinian-American Teen

Human rights defenders this week accused US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee—who recently endorsed Israel conquering much of the Middle East—of inciting deadly violence after Israeli colonists in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine fatally shot a Palestinian-American teenager who was trying to stop settlers from stealing livestock.

Nasrallah Abu Siyam, 19, was shot dead last Wednesday by a masked Israeli settler armed with an M-16 rifle in the village of Mukhmas, where the 19-year-old Philadelphia native had been living and helping his father, Mohammed Abu Siyam, tend the family’s livestock and cultivate their olive trees.

According to eyewitness accounts as reported by independent New York journalist and Palestine specialist Jasper Diamond Nathaniel:

At least four other local Palestinians were wounded by settler gunfire during the invasion of the village, including another young man whose foot may be amputated. Some were shot while carrying the wounded to safety. Many others were severely beaten with metal rods. Israeli soldiers, who accompanied the settlers into the village, responded to the shooting rampage by firing stun grenades and tear gas into the residential area, burning an elderly man. When it was over, settlers walked off with more than 300 of the village’s sheep and goats under the military’s watch. It was the first full day of Ramadan. As of this writing, no one has been arrested.

While human rights groups and some Democratic US lawmakers have called for a full investigation into Abu Siyam’s killing, Huckabee has so far been silent. Last July, Huckabee responded to Israeli settlers’ killing of 23-year-old Palestinian-American Sayfollah Musallet, who was beaten to death while visiting relatives in the West Bank, as “a criminal and terrorist act” that Israeli authorities should “aggressively investigate.” As is usually the case when Israeli settlers kill Palestinians, no one has been charged for killing Musallet.

Last Friday, Huckabee—who during his ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign denied the very existence of the Palestinian people—sat for an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson during which he backed the realization of a so-called “Greater Israel” stretching from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq, saying that “it would be fine” if Israel “took it all,” as many Jews and Evangelical Christians believe their common deity figure “God” intended them to do.

Numerous observers said the envoy’s remarks inherently endorsed violence and forced displacement akin to what’s happening to Palestinians living under occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, apartheid—and in the case of Gaza, genocide.

“Shortly after the lynching murder of an American citizen, footage aired of the US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee justifying the very structure of occupation, and rhetoric of ethnic cleansing, that led to the murder and continuing attacks on the occupied West Bank,” the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) said in a statement Monday.

ADC said Huckabee’s endorsement of Greater Israel “signals permission and the green light for Israeli forces to use violence and empower settlers for further annexation and dispossession.”

The group continued:

The United States continues to fund, shield, and excuse Israeli violence, forced displacement, and mass atrocity across Palestine. Now the US ambassador to Israel is engaging in empowering and allowing for actions that lead to the targeted lynching and killing of US citizens. At the same time, Congress continues to put Israel first by sending American taxpayer dollars to Israel.

Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed at least a dozen Americans since 2022. Time and again, our government refuses to defend the rights, dignity, and safety of its own citizens simply to appease the demands of a foreign government and give impunity to Israel.

“The impunity cannot continue,” ADC added.

Huckabee IN SHAMBLES as Tucker DISMANTLES Christian Zionism

US accuses China of ‘massively’ expanding nuclear arsenal amid fears of new arms race

The US has accused China of dramatically expanding its nuclear arsenal, while doubling down on claims that Beijing had conducted secret nuclear tests. Washington said the lapsing of New Start – the last treaty between top nuclear powers the US and Russia – earlier this month presented the possibility of striking a “better agreement” that included Beijing.

Christopher Yeaw, the US assistant secretary of state for arms control and non-proliferation, told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that New Start had been seriously flawed and “did not account for the unprecedented, deliberate, rapid and opaque nuclear weapons buildup by China”.

“Despite its claims to the contrary, China has deliberately and without constraint, massively expanded its nuclear arsenal without transparency or any indication of China’s intent or end point,” he said. The Chinese ambassador Shen Jian told the conference that his country “firmly opposes the constant distortion and smearing of its nuclear policy by certain countries”, insisting that Beijing would not “engage in any nuclear arms race, with any country”.

Russia and the US have more than 5,000 nuclear weapons, according to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Ican), the Nobel peace prize-winning campaign group. New Start, which expired on 5 February, restricted the US and Russia to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each – a number Washington claims Russia has passed and China is fast approaching. “Beijing is on track to have the fissile material necessary for more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030,” Yeaw said.

The Predatory Hegemon (w/ Stephen Walt) | The Chris Hedges Report

Peter Mandelson arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office

Peter Mandelson has been arrested by detectives investigating claims he committed misconduct in public office during his friendship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Video footage showed the former British ambassador to the US being driven away in an unmarked police car for questioning shortly after being escorted from his London home by plainclothes officers.

The Metropolitan police have been investigating allegations that he leaked Downing Street emails and market-sensitive information to the disgraced US financier during his time as business secretary. Mandelson has denied any wrongdoing.

His arrest, coming days before a crucial byelection in Gorton and Denton, Greater Manchester, will be an uncomfortable reminder of what critics say is one of Keir Starmer’s worst lapses of judgment in office: his decision to appoint him to Washington.

Ro Khanna: DOJ COVERED UP TRUMP ACCUSATIONS

Peter Attia resigns from CBS News amid revelations about ties to Epstein

Controversial longevity expert Dr Peter Attia has resigned from his post as a CBS News contributor after correspondence between Attia and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was made public. The Hollywood Reporter first broke the news of Attia’s departure.

Less than a month ago, Attia was announced as one of 19 new contributors to the network, as part of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s efforts to overhaul the news division. He joined the network just a few days before over 3m files were released as part of the federal government’s investigation into Epstein.

Included among the files were multiple instances of communication between Attia and Epstein, most of them from the mid-2010s, after Epstein had already pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges involving a minor. The messages indicate a congenial relationship between the two men, with Epstein sometimes seeking out Attia for medical advice. In a particularly crude exchange from 2016, Attia insinuates that female genitalia is considered “low carb”.

After the file disclosure, Attia wrote a lengthy apology on social media, which he also shared with his team and patients. He also stepped down from his position as chief science officer for David, a protein bar company, in the aftermath of the Epstein files release.

‘Horror on a shocking scale’: resurgent US movement calls for end to family ICE detention

On 28 January, hundreds of protesters gathered near the Dilley immigration processing center in south Texas, where hundreds of children are being held. Days earlier, immigration lawyer Eric Lee filmed a video of detainees screaming and chanting “libertad”, or “freedom”. Soon after, solidarity events arose in the state. “Community members saw the children and families crying out [and] having their own protests from within and said to everybody: we need to show up there too,” said the Rev Erin Walter, executive director of the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry.

Locally, more than 30 organizations, including Walter’s church, mobilized over the course of three days to amplify the voices of the people inside, with many organizers calling for an end to family detention altogether. Since Donald Trump took office, the daily number of children in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention has grown sixfold. At least 3,800 people under the age of 18 have been booked into custody during that time.

Demonstrations like the one outside Dilley are part of a resurgent, faith-backed campaign to end family detention in the United States. While the movement has ebbed and flowed across administrations, it has gained new momentum this year following the arrest and detention of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was photographed wearing a Spider-Man backpack and blue bunny hat as he was detained during Minnesota’s ICE surge. Liam and his father, who have pending asylum claims, were sent to Dilley. The child quickly became a symbol for many Americans of the cruelty of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown – and its impact on children. ...

The Children’s Defense Fund is part of the National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention, a network of dozens of organizations first convened in San Antonio to connect what is happening on the ground in Texas with advocacy at the national level. “The horror that we are seeing right now is happening on such a shocking scale. There’s no better way to describe it than state-sponsored child abuse,” she added.

Dilley is not the sole focus of activists – stopping the construction of new detention centers is also at play. Recently released documents outlined ICE’s plan to spend $38bn buying warehouses to turn into detention centers. “I don’t know how much more explicit the administration could be about their intention to cruelly house people in inhumane conditions,” Smith said. The cruelty on display seems to be swaying public opinion; in a recent poll, 65% of respondents across the political spectrum said ICE had gone too far in its immigration crackdown, up from 54% last June.

Judge blocks release of Jack Smith’s report on Trump documents case

A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump permanently barred the justice department on Monday from releasing the former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the president’s mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club after his first term. The ruling by US district judge Aileen Cannon marked the latest effort to stop the report from being sent to Congress or otherwise becoming publicly available.

In scathing language, Cannon condemned Smith for what she called a “brazen stratagem” of compiling a report even after she had dismissed the case on grounds that he was unlawfully appointed, a decision that flew in the face of historical precedent. “To say this chronology represents, at a minimum, a concerning breach of spirit of the dismissal order is an understatement, if not an outright violation of it,” she wrote in her 15-page decision.

Cannon also ruled that releasing the report into the classified documents case, known as volume II after the first volume addressed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, would release secret grand jury material that could cause irreparable harm to the president. In doing so, she endorsed the view proffered by Trump’s personal lawyers – one of whom, Todd Blanche, now serves as the US deputy attorney general – that the report should never see the light of day because the prosecutor who wrote it should never have been appointed.

Cannon conceded that previous special counsels have written reports on their work that have been later publicly released by the justice department, as Robert Mueller did with his report on the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and efforts to obstruct that inquiry. But she blocked Smith from doing the same, claiming the circumstances of the case – in which Trump was charged but never brought to trial – meant it was not fair for Trump to have details of the case made public.

Capitalism is a trap - and you can't get out | Clara Mattei interview

Senate Democrats call for government to start refunding $175bn in tariff money

A trio of Senate Democrats is calling for the government to start refunding roughly $175bn in tariff revenues that the supreme court ruled were collected because of an illegal set of orders by Donald Trump. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire are unveiling a bill on Monday that would require US Customs and Border Protection to issue refunds over the course of 180 days and pay interest on the refunded amount.

The measure would prioritize refunds to small businesses and encourages importers, wholesalers and large companies to pass the refunds on to their customers. “Trump’s illegal tax scheme has already done lasting damage to American families, small businesses and manufacturers who have been hammered by wave after wave of new Trump tariffs,” said Wyden, stressing that the “crucial first step” to fixing the problem begins with “putting money back in the pockets of small businesses and manufacturers as soon as possible”.

The bill is unlikely to become law, but it reveals how Democrats are starting to apply public pressure on a Trump administration that has shown little interest in trying to return tariff revenues after the supreme court announced its 6-3 ruling on Friday. Because of the ruling, going into November’s midterm elections for control of Congress, Democrats have begun telling the public that Trump illegally raised taxes and now refuses to repay the money back to the American people.

The Trump administration has asserted that its hands are tied, because any refunds should be the responsibility of further litigation in court. That message could put Republicans on the defensive as they try to explain why the government isn’t proactively seeking to return the money. GOP lawmakers had planned to try to preserve their House and Senate majorities by running on the income tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year, saying that tax refunds this year would help families.

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Majority believes Trump moving US in wrong direction, poll finds

Most US adults think Donald Trump is moving the country in the wrong direction during his second presidency, according to a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released the day before his State of the Union speech. Fifty-five percent of adults feel that Trump is changing the country for the worse, a 13-point increase from around the same time of his first presidency, the survey conducted from 27 to 30 January found. The number of people who held that view also increased four points from April.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in January also found that Trump’s second term actions were not popular. Only 27% of US adults said they supported all or most of his policies and plans.

Utah House voting map that helps Democrats can be used, federal court rules

New Utah voting districts that give Democrats an improved shot at winning a US House seat can be used in this year’s election, a federal court ruled Monday while turning aside a Republican request to block the new map. The ruling marked the second setback in recent days for Republicans, who also lost an appeal at Utah’s state supreme court.

A Utah judge imposed the new districts last November after striking down the congressional districts that the Republican-led legislature had adopted after the 2020 census. The judge ruled that the legislature had circumvented anti-gerrymandering standards passed by voters.

The ruling thrust Utah into a national redistricting battle being waged among states ahead of the midterm elections. Donald Trump has pressed Republican-led states such as Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to redraw their districts to give the GOP an advantage in the November elections, prompting Democratic-led states such as California and Virginia to respond with their own redistricting plans.

Republicans currently hold all four of Utah’s US House seats. The new map imposed last fall by Judge Dianna Gibson keeps Salt Lake county almost entirely within one district, instead of dividing the heavily Democratic population center among all four districts, as was previously the case. It was submitted by the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters of Utah and Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

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US supreme court takes up fossil fuel firms’ climate accountability case

The US supreme court has decided to hear arguments in a climate accountability lawsuit, marking the first time the high court has weighed in on such a case. The decision could potentially hinder the wave of climate litigation the US has seen in recent years. “It’s not a good sign,” said Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

The lawsuit in question was filed by the city of Boulder, Colorado, against two major oil companies: Suncor Energy USA and ExxonMobil Corporation. After Colorado’s supreme court refused to dismiss the lawsuit, the defendants filed a petition with the US supreme court asking them to shut down the case, arguing that it is pre-empted by federal laws. If the supreme court rules against the defendants, that could be boon for climate accountability cases, allowing not only the city of Boulder but also those who have launched similar cases to breathe a sigh of relief. It could also inspire other governments to file similar litigation. ...

But if the justices agree with the oil companies, it could void the Boulder case – and potentially more than a dozen others that make similar claims. “The expectation is that [the justices] are probably going to give the oil companies some kind of win,” said Parenteau.

The defendants in the case are asking the supreme court to decide if federal law should preclude the claims made in the lawsuit. The question could be complicated by a decision made by Trump’s EPA last week to repeal a foundational legal determination which gave the federal government the ability to regulate climate-warming pollution. In reviewing the oil companies’ petition, the supreme court could decide that before weighing in, it must determine whether or not the endangerment finding repeal affects whether or not federal law pre-empts the case. Or it could proceed as though the rollback will not change the legal argument, Parenteau said.

In addition to reviewing the arguments, the supreme court justices said they would “brief and argue” whether or not they have the authority to take up the case at this time. ... If they decide they do not have the jurisdiction to do so, the petition could be dismissed, emboldening the plaintiffs. “This is an unprecedented situation,” Parenteau said. “I don’t know how they’re going to handle this.” But in the meantime, the court’s decision to take up the petition at all could slow all climate accountability cases’ proceedings toward trial as courts around the country await the supreme court’s decision.

Sam Altman defends AI’s energy toll by saying it also takes a lot to ‘train a human’

The OpenAI boss, Sam Altman, has tried to ease concerns about how much power is used by artificial intelligence models by comparing it to the amount of energy required by human development. “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model – but it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman told the Indian Express recently while in India for the AI Impact summit. “It takes about 20 years of life – and all the food you consume during that time – before you become smart.”

He's saying a really big spreadsheet and a baby are morally equivalent.

One reason to believe that life is divine is so that you don’t allow sociopaths like this anywhere near anything important. https://t.co/ckXvbn6iMf

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) February 21, 2026

Despite that defense, he said that the public assessment of AI’s energy consumption was “fair”, adding: “We need to move towards nuclear or wind and solar very quickly.”

Those remarks come amid growing discussion about the environmental impact of the datacenters required to power AI models – and, more generally, about technology’s possible impact on society. Datacenters accounted for about 1.5% of global electricity consumption in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. The organization projects that such consumption will increase about 15% each year from 2024 to 2030, more than four times faster than the growth of electricity consumption from all other sectors.

“The demand for new datacenters cannot be met in a sustainable way,” Noman Bashir, a computing and climate impact fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s climate and sustainability consortium, told MIT’s news outlet. “The pace at which companies are building new datacenters means the bulk of the electricity to power them must come from fossil fuel-based power plants.”

In December, more than 230 environmental groups called for a moratorium on building datacenters in the US. “The rapid, largely unregulated rise of datacenters to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate and water security,” their letter states.

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Also of Interest

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

Investigation Details IDF’s ‘Execution-Style’ Massacre of Gaza Medics

Smotrich: ‘In the End,’ Israel Will Occupy Gaza and Establish Jewish Settlements

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian mosque in occupied West Bank during Ramadan

Supreme Court ruling against Trump tariffs exposes ruling class crisis

Lunatic Voice Of The Day

The Weirdness Of Getting Old

Democrats Unveil Bill to Stop DHS From Opening Detention Centers Without State, Local Consent

Brandi Carlile concert raises over $600,000 for families affected by ICE

From coal mines to hard times: A West Virginia county braces for new public assistance cuts

Top AI Safety Exec LOSES CONTROL Of AI Bot

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A Little Night Music

Andrew Brown - Can't Let You Go

Andrew Brown - If We Try / You Ought To Be Ashamed

Andrew Brown - You Made Me Suffer

Andrew Brown – Two Years

Andrew Brown – You Better Stop

Andrew Brown - For Liz

Andrew Brown ~ Losing Hand

Andrew Brown - Blues Do Something To Me

Andrew Brown - Mary Jane

Andrew Brown – Morning, Noon And Night

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