February 22, 2026

Worst of the worst? Most US immigrants targeted for deportation in 2025 had no criminal charges, documents reveal

Within days of Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) trotted out a phrase that his surrogates would come to use over and over again: “the worst of the worst.”

The term has become a shorthand justification for the administration’s unprecedented overhaul of immigration enforcement – a relentless campaign the administration claims is focused on arresting and deporting violent criminals.

However, a review of records obtained by the Guardian and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against DHS, raises questions about those claims.

The findings come from little-known documents known as I-213 forms. DHS uses these forms in court to prove that a person is in the country illegally. The documents are filed when a person first encounters ICE, and DHS begins the deportation process, which is often when they are arrested. The documents contain biographical details about the person, including their criminal history, as well as any information that DHS feels is relevant to the immigration court case.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/22/us-immigration-trump-administration

And this should surprise anyone exactly HOW?

February 22, 2026

I study violence. There's a term for this kind of ICE withdrawal playing out in Minnesota.

By Nicole Bedera

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent some 3,000 agents to Minneapolis, the agency gave the effort a military-style name: Operation Metro Surge.

The name has turned out to be a rhetorical sleight of hand.

The word “surge” implies a sudden and powerful movement that just as quickly subsides, and the Trump administration has lately acted as though it’s already over, announcing that it’s moving hundreds of agents from the state, demoting Border Patrol “commander-at-large” Gregory Bovino and formally ending the operation.

But very little has actually changed in Minnesota.

Within hours of Homan’s declaration, local officials took to social media to share details about abductions that were still taking place. They were no more humane or any safer than the others. Minnesotans also noticed that an unspecified number of ICE agents will remain in the state, including border czar Tom Homan himself. Homan also indicated that ICE may replicate the tactics used in Minnesota in future large-scale operations.

As a sociologist who studies violence, I recognize the method the Trump administration is using. It’s called “symbolic compliance,” and it refers to an institution that responds to a backlash against its illegal behavior by pretending to take action without making any substantive changes, like a bully caught by the playground monitor who apologizes but doesn’t give back your lunch money.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/minneapolis-ice-metro-surge-trump-dhs

It's sleight of hand, y'all And it's only going to get worse---if we allow it.

February 20, 2026

Police search former Prince Andrew's home a day after his arrest

Police searched the former home of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor again on Friday, a day after he was arrested and held in custody for nearly 11 hours on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Following one of the most tumultuous days in the modern history of Britain’s royal family, the former Prince Andrew is back at his new residence on the Sandringham estate, King Charles III ‘s private retreat, which is around 115 miles (185 kilometers) north of London.

Police have concluded their search at Wood Farm, where Mountbatten-Windsor is living while waiting for his new home nearby, Marsh Farm, to be ready.

They are still searching Royal Lodge, his 30-room former home in the parkland near Windsor Castle, just west of the capital, where the king’s younger brother had lived for decades until his eviction earlier this month. Unmarked vans, believed to be police vehicles, have been entering the grounds throughout Friday morning.

https://apnews.com/article/andrew-mountbatten-windsor-arrest-king-charles-61ea3c437680b8341e623e4d9efa47b8

Be interesting to know what, if anything, they find.

February 19, 2026

Chinese American Olympian Gave The Perfect Response To Reporter's 'Ridiculous' Question About Her Medals

Chinese American freestyle skier Eileen Gu laughed at a reporter’s question Monday when asked if winning silver medals was disappointing, calling his perspective “ridiculous.”

“I’m the most decorated female free skier in history! I think that’s an answer in and of itself,” Gu said at a press conference.

The 22-year-old American-born skier has received right-wing backlash for representing China at the Olympics, with conservatives calling her a traitor.

She defended her decision, saying, “The U.S. already has the representation” and “I like building my own pond,” Newsweek reports.

The athlete previously won two gold medals and a silver medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics. This year in Milan-Cortina, she has added two more silver medals and begins competition in a third event, the women’s freeski halfpipe, on Thursday.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eileen-gu-silver-medals-ridiculous-olympics_n_69974c6de4b0c988997b7ed9?origin=home-whats-happening-unit

Geez, leave the kid alone! Silver is nothing to be ashamed of!

February 19, 2026

The right's latest buzzword is just racism by another name

At the outset, it’s appropriate to recognize that the recent uptick in rhetoric about the importance of America’s “heritage” is nothing more than repainted racism. It is no more complicated than Southern insistences that an embrace of the Confederacy is similarly about heritage, when the defining characteristic of the Confederacy was its unrelenting commitment to enslaving Black people.

When we see a social media account for President Donald Trump’s White House share a message about being “unapologetic in our heritage,” we correctly understand that as an extension of “making America great again” — unwinding America’s evolving diversity in favor of a society that continues to hand advantages to whites and men while pretending they are simply the natural state of things.

When we see Trump ally Elon Musk and others insist that this heritage is inextricably white — a culture of “English-Scotts-Irish origin,” in Musk’s verbiage — the point is not hard to perceive.

This language, cribbed in spirit (and, occasionally, actual wording) from white nationalists, gets America’s story willfully wrong. Being “American” has often been conflated with being “white” by those in power, largely for self-serving reasons. But the ethnicities placed under the “white” umbrella have evolved. An America in which Europeans were collectively white and immigration from other places was limited is not the historical norm for the U.S. It was, instead, a mid-20th century aberration.

“The baby boom grew up in the whitest, most native-origin population in U.S. history,” demographer Douglas Massey explained when we spoke several years ago. “In 1970, the percentage foreign-born fell to its lowest point ever in American history, 4.7%. The average immigrant in 1970 was somebody’s grandparent.”

https://www.ms.now/opinion/elon-musk-white-immigration-american-heritage

That would kind of eliminate Eloon, as he is a Suid-Afrikaner and maybe at least partly DUTCH. And it also ignores the fact that some of our earliest immigrant forebears (mine included) were DUTCH and GERMAN and SWEDISH. So screw them.

February 19, 2026

Trump's sons seek to profit off his warmongering ways

As President Donald Trump saber-rattles and threatens military incursions around the world, his sons are trying to cash in on the war economy.

Donald Trump Jr.’s investments in military manufacturers, including companies that develop drones and have been given large contracts from his father’s administration, have previously been reported on. And a new report in The Wall Street Journal, focused on Eric Trump, offers an even clearer window into the family’s shameless self-enrichment.

Specifically, the Journal reported that Eric Trump is investing in an Israeli drone company that has developed weapons used against Palestinians in Israel’s deadly yearslong bombardment of Gaza.

According to the Journal:

The president’s son is investing in the Israeli drone maker Xtend as part of a $1.5 billion deal to take the company public through a merger with a small Florida construction company.

Battle-tested during Israeli operations in Gaza in recent years, Xtend markets some of its drones as “low cost per kill” munitions that align with U.S. defense directives to help wage modern warfare. The company, which opened a facility in Florida, said it has already secured a multimillion-dollar Pentagon contract and is part of a continuing Defense Department competition for new suppliers.

The Journal reported that Donald Trump Jr. is involved in the deal as well, because a drone company he invests in is investing in Xtend.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/eric-trump-invest-israeli-drone-xtend-self-enrichment

And why would this surprise anyone? The junior sleazebangs are just emulating the senior one. We need to eliminate the whole lot of them.

February 19, 2026

Bill Gates pulls out of India's AI summit over Epstein files controversy

Bill Gates will not deliver his keynote address at the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi, his philanthropic organisation said hours before the Microsoft co-founder was due to speak.

The Gates Foundation said the decision was made after "careful consideration" and "to ensure the focus remains on the [summit's] key priorities", but did not elaborate.

Gates's withdrawal comes amid a controversy over his ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after he was named in new files released by the US Department of Justice in January.

Gates's spokesperson has called the claims in the files "absolutely absurd and completely false", and the billionaire has said he regretted spending time with Epstein.

Gates has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein's victims and the appearance of his name in the files does not imply criminal activity of any kind.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c309qv9zglno

And he hasn't even been accused of anything.....

February 19, 2026

Epstein files could be just tip of the iceberg for Andrew investigation

When Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested at about 08:00 on Thursday, it had nothing to do with Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused him of sexual abuse.

What led to him being arrested started with information that came out in the massive Epstein file release in January, around activities while he was a trade envoy for the British government. But it will not have stopped there.

It was emails in those files that seem to be between Andrew and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that led to Thames Valley Police getting involved.

One email in particular stood out. In November 2010, after Andrew had returned from a UK government-funded trip to Asia, he was sent a series of country reports relating to his trip.
(snip)

A month later, on Christmas Eve, Andrew appeared to email Epstein a confidential briefing on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, which was overseen at the time by British armed forces and funded by UK government money.

In a further email dated 9 February 2011, Andrew seems to suggest Epstein invest in a private equity firm he had visited a week before.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd032xnm804o

Oh, Andy, you in a heap of trouble now!

February 19, 2026

Federal judge accuses Trump administration of 'terror' against immigrants in scathing ruling

A federal judge has accused the Trump administration of terrorizing immigrants and recklessly violating the law in its efforts to deport millions of people living in the country illegally.

Citing the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the judge said that the White House had also “extended its violence on its own citizens.”

“The threats posed by the executive branch cannot be viewed in isolation,” U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes in Riverside, California said in her scathing decision issued late Wednesday.

Sykes ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to provide detained immigrants around the country with notice of her earlier decisions that they may be eligible to seek release on bond.

Under past administrations, people with no criminal record could generally request a bond hearing before an immigration judge while their cases wound through immigration court unless they were stopped at the border. President Donald Trump ’s White House reversed that policy in favor of mandatory detention.

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-trump-detention-bond-judge-50a5da122aa51eed77cace0830548df3

Good for her! Tell it, Judge Sykes! (I love that her name is Sunshine)

February 19, 2026

How a defendant in Minnesota went free because of Justice Department turmoil

The federal prosecutor’s office in Minnesota has been gutted by a wave of career officials resigning or retiring over objections to Trump administration directives. Because of the turmoil, 12-time convicted felon Cory Allen McKay caught a break.

With a three-decade record of violent crime that includes strangling a pregnant woman and firing a shotgun under a person’s chin, McKay was scheduled to stand trial next month on methamphetamine trafficking charges that could have locked him up for 25 years. Instead, he walked free after the prosecutor on his case retired.

The Trump administration says its aggressive immigration enforcement in Minnesota has improved public safety. Left in its wake, though, is a greatly weakened U.S. attorney’s office, where many prosecutors resented the way President Donald Trump’s political appointees at the Justice Department managed them.

A growing number of defendants are beginning to escape accountability, as the remaining prosecutors are forced to dismiss some cases, kill others before charges are filed and seek plea agreements and delays.
(snip)

After asking for a delay to find someone to take McKay’s case, the office led by Trump appointee Daniel Rosen dropped it so abruptly McKay’s lawyer didn’t learn about the move until after her client had been released.

https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-prosecutors-office-defendant-free-142f82b163a8b0d646ba6079251d32be

So let me get this straight. They're arresting people who did nothing just because they're brown, and letting the worst of the worst go free...because they're white?