Abortion rights activists protest after the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court, in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on June 24, 2022.
(Photo by Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images)
Feb 23, 2026
“If you kill a baby from embryo on up with a pill or a scalpel, we oughta execute you.”
That’s not social media rage bait by some random zealot, it’s the premise of legislation recently introduced by Republican state lawmakers in Tennessee to make abortion a capital offense, as voiced by one of the measure’s sponsors. And it’s setting off alarm bells in recent days across a nation in which attacks on remaining reproductive rights have been accelerating in the years since the right-wing US Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling nearly four years ago.
An amendment to HB 570/SB 738 was filed by primary sponsors Rep. Jody Barrett (R-69) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-17) and co-sponsored by five of their GOP colleagues, all men, including Rep. Monty Fritts (R-32), who is also running for governor—and who is the source of the quote in this article’s lede. Fritts spoke those words at a meeting in Jonesborough, where TN Repro News publisher Rachel Wells last year interviewed a pregnant woman who was allegedly denied prenatal care under Tennessee’s Medical Ethics Defense Act because she is unmarried to her partner of 15 years.
If passed, Barrett and Pody’s amendment—which was still adding co-sponsors as of Monday—would classify abortion as “homicide of an unborn child,” punishable by life imprisonment with or without parole—or even death by lethal injection. The measure contains very narrow exceptions, including for spontaneous miscarriage or when abortion is needed to save a mother’s life. The amendment is currently under committee review has not yet been scheduled for a vote.
Tennessee already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the United States, with a near-total ban on the procedure in effect since Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed it in August 2022. Abortion is banned from fertilization, with limited exceptions.
While religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention and Foundation to Abolish Abortion hailed the proposal as a life-saving measure that serves the will of the Abrahamic deity figure “God,” reproductive rights defenders expressed alarm and outrage.
“We are talking about a gubernatorial candidate openly calling for women who end their pregnancies to be charged with a capital crime and spend their life in prison or for the to get the death penalty. That is where we’re at right now,” Abortion, Every Day publisher Jessica Valenti said in a video posted on social media.
“This is not just about this one guy,” she continued. “This is about the future of the anti-abortion movement in the Republican Party and the way that they are embracing extremism at a rate that is so fucking alarming.”
“Saying that women should be punished for having abortions was once... an unthinkable thing to say within the anti-abortion movement,” Valenti added. “Now they’re openly embracing it. Over a dozen states over the last year have introduced or advanced equal protection legislation... that would punish abortion patients as murders, which in some states can mean the death penalty, it could mean life in prison.”
“This is not some fringe element,” she stressed. “This is becoming the mainstream of the movement. Right now in Texas... the Republican Party platform calls for equal protection. It calls for the execution of women or life in prison for women who have abortions. This is not fringe.”
In South Carolina, where a bill to execute people who have abortions garnered more than 20 GOP votes on its way to defeat but performing the procedure is a felony, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office last week launched an investigation into a fetus that was found at a water treatment plant. Investigators will test tissue samples from the fetus “to determine the race and locate the mother.”
Numerous deaths have been attributed to abortion bans in states including Texas and Georgia.
Back in Tennessee, Fritts—who is polling at around 5-7% in the GOP gubernatorial primary, depending on the survey—has been busy defending his proposal to kill people who have abortions.
“Murder is murder. I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise,” he told the Tennessee Holler, comparing abortion pills to cyanide capsules.
Fritts’ campaign slogan is “liberty & less government.”
Responding to Fritts’ co-sponsorship of the death penalty amendment, Jon Tate’s Daily Practice publisher Jon Tate wrote, “Disgusting.”
“While I was busy and not paying attention, my state was apparently becoming ground zero for white-supremacist Christofascism,” he added. “It breaks my brain and my heart.”
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“If you kill a baby from embryo on up with a pill or a scalpel, we oughta execute you.”
That’s not social media rage bait by some random zealot, it’s the premise of legislation recently introduced by Republican state lawmakers in Tennessee to make abortion a capital offense, as voiced by one of the measure’s sponsors. And it’s setting off alarm bells in recent days across a nation in which attacks on remaining reproductive rights have been accelerating in the years since the right-wing US Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling nearly four years ago.
An amendment to HB 570/SB 738 was filed by primary sponsors Rep. Jody Barrett (R-69) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-17) and co-sponsored by five of their GOP colleagues, all men, including Rep. Monty Fritts (R-32), who is also running for governor—and who is the source of the quote in this article’s lede. Fritts spoke those words at a meeting in Jonesborough, where TN Repro News publisher Rachel Wells last year interviewed a pregnant woman who was allegedly denied prenatal care under Tennessee’s Medical Ethics Defense Act because she is unmarried to her partner of 15 years.
If passed, Barrett and Pody’s amendment—which was still adding co-sponsors as of Monday—would classify abortion as “homicide of an unborn child,” punishable by life imprisonment with or without parole—or even death by lethal injection. The measure contains very narrow exceptions, including for spontaneous miscarriage or when abortion is needed to save a mother’s life. The amendment is currently under committee review has not yet been scheduled for a vote.
Tennessee already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the United States, with a near-total ban on the procedure in effect since Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed it in August 2022. Abortion is banned from fertilization, with limited exceptions.
While religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention and Foundation to Abolish Abortion hailed the proposal as a life-saving measure that serves the will of the Abrahamic deity figure “God,” reproductive rights defenders expressed alarm and outrage.
“We are talking about a gubernatorial candidate openly calling for women who end their pregnancies to be charged with a capital crime and spend their life in prison or for the to get the death penalty. That is where we’re at right now,” Abortion, Every Day publisher Jessica Valenti said in a video posted on social media.
“This is not just about this one guy,” she continued. “This is about the future of the anti-abortion movement in the Republican Party and the way that they are embracing extremism at a rate that is so fucking alarming.”
“Saying that women should be punished for having abortions was once... an unthinkable thing to say within the anti-abortion movement,” Valenti added. “Now they’re openly embracing it. Over a dozen states over the last year have introduced or advanced equal protection legislation... that would punish abortion patients as murders, which in some states can mean the death penalty, it could mean life in prison.”
“This is not some fringe element,” she stressed. “This is becoming the mainstream of the movement. Right now in Texas... the Republican Party platform calls for equal protection. It calls for the execution of women or life in prison for women who have abortions. This is not fringe.”
In South Carolina, where a bill to execute people who have abortions garnered more than 20 GOP votes on its way to defeat but performing the procedure is a felony, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office last week launched an investigation into a fetus that was found at a water treatment plant. Investigators will test tissue samples from the fetus “to determine the race and locate the mother.”
Numerous deaths have been attributed to abortion bans in states including Texas and Georgia.
Back in Tennessee, Fritts—who is polling at around 5-7% in the GOP gubernatorial primary, depending on the survey—has been busy defending his proposal to kill people who have abortions.
“Murder is murder. I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise,” he told the Tennessee Holler, comparing abortion pills to cyanide capsules.
Fritts’ campaign slogan is “liberty & less government.”
Responding to Fritts’ co-sponsorship of the death penalty amendment, Jon Tate’s Daily Practice publisher Jon Tate wrote, “Disgusting.”
“While I was busy and not paying attention, my state was apparently becoming ground zero for white-supremacist Christofascism,” he added. “It breaks my brain and my heart.”
From Your Site Articles
- Tennessee Self-Abortion Arrest Highlights Dangers of War on Women ›
- Third Death Tied to Texas Abortion Ban as ‘Stigma and Fear’ Disrupt Miscarriage Care ›
- South Carolina Bill to Execute People Who Have Abortions Gets Support From 21 Republicans ›
- Texas GOP Wish List Includes Death Penalty for Abortion Patients ›
“If you kill a baby from embryo on up with a pill or a scalpel, we oughta execute you.”
That’s not social media rage bait by some random zealot, it’s the premise of legislation recently introduced by Republican state lawmakers in Tennessee to make abortion a capital offense, as voiced by one of the measure’s sponsors. And it’s setting off alarm bells in recent days across a nation in which attacks on remaining reproductive rights have been accelerating in the years since the right-wing US Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling nearly four years ago.
An amendment to HB 570/SB 738 was filed by primary sponsors Rep. Jody Barrett (R-69) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-17) and co-sponsored by five of their GOP colleagues, all men, including Rep. Monty Fritts (R-32), who is also running for governor—and who is the source of the quote in this article’s lede. Fritts spoke those words at a meeting in Jonesborough, where TN Repro News publisher Rachel Wells last year interviewed a pregnant woman who was allegedly denied prenatal care under Tennessee’s Medical Ethics Defense Act because she is unmarried to her partner of 15 years.
If passed, Barrett and Pody’s amendment—which was still adding co-sponsors as of Monday—would classify abortion as “homicide of an unborn child,” punishable by life imprisonment with or without parole—or even death by lethal injection. The measure contains very narrow exceptions, including for spontaneous miscarriage or when abortion is needed to save a mother’s life. The amendment is currently under committee review has not yet been scheduled for a vote.
Tennessee already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the United States, with a near-total ban on the procedure in effect since Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed it in August 2022. Abortion is banned from fertilization, with limited exceptions.
While religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention and Foundation to Abolish Abortion hailed the proposal as a life-saving measure that serves the will of the Abrahamic deity figure “God,” reproductive rights defenders expressed alarm and outrage.
“We are talking about a gubernatorial candidate openly calling for women who end their pregnancies to be charged with a capital crime and spend their life in prison or for the to get the death penalty. That is where we’re at right now,” Abortion, Every Day publisher Jessica Valenti said in a video posted on social media.
“This is not just about this one guy,” she continued. “This is about the future of the anti-abortion movement in the Republican Party and the way that they are embracing extremism at a rate that is so fucking alarming.”
“Saying that women should be punished for having abortions was once... an unthinkable thing to say within the anti-abortion movement,” Valenti added. “Now they’re openly embracing it. Over a dozen states over the last year have introduced or advanced equal protection legislation... that would punish abortion patients as murders, which in some states can mean the death penalty, it could mean life in prison.”
“This is not some fringe element,” she stressed. “This is becoming the mainstream of the movement. Right now in Texas... the Republican Party platform calls for equal protection. It calls for the execution of women or life in prison for women who have abortions. This is not fringe.”
In South Carolina, where a bill to execute people who have abortions garnered more than 20 GOP votes on its way to defeat but performing the procedure is a felony, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office last week launched an investigation into a fetus that was found at a water treatment plant. Investigators will test tissue samples from the fetus “to determine the race and locate the mother.”
Numerous deaths have been attributed to abortion bans in states including Texas and Georgia.
Back in Tennessee, Fritts—who is polling at around 5-7% in the GOP gubernatorial primary, depending on the survey—has been busy defending his proposal to kill people who have abortions.
“Murder is murder. I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise,” he told the Tennessee Holler, comparing abortion pills to cyanide capsules.
Fritts’ campaign slogan is “liberty & less government.”
Responding to Fritts’ co-sponsorship of the death penalty amendment, Jon Tate’s Daily Practice publisher Jon Tate wrote, “Disgusting.”
“While I was busy and not paying attention, my state was apparently becoming ground zero for white-supremacist Christofascism,” he added. “It breaks my brain and my heart.”
From Your Site Articles
- Tennessee Self-Abortion Arrest Highlights Dangers of War on Women ›
- Third Death Tied to Texas Abortion Ban as ‘Stigma and Fear’ Disrupt Miscarriage Care ›
- South Carolina Bill to Execute People Who Have Abortions Gets Support From 21 Republicans ›
- Texas GOP Wish List Includes Death Penalty for Abortion Patients ›
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LATEST NEWS
Congress Urged to Require Warrants in Reauthorization of Key Spy Power
“FISA 702 has been abused in shocking ways,” said one campaigner. “If Congress genuinely cares about surveillance abuse, weaponization, and ‘lawfare,’ it needs to rein in this warrantless surveillance power.”
Feb 24, 2026
Privacy advocates are backing a bipartisan bill introduced in the US Senate this week that's intended to protect Americans from warrantless government surveillance.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) unveiled the Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act on Monday, in the wake of Politico reporting that President Donald Trump's White House "is quietly pushing for a key spy authority to be extended as is into 2027, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss the private talks."
There have long been arguments on Capitol Hill and beyond over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which empowers the federal government to surveil electronic communications without a warrant. The law only allows for targeting foreigners outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information, but Americans' data is also collected.
Despite such arguments, Congress reauthorized Section 702 nearly two years ago, under then-President Joe Biden. That decision is set to expire on April 20, setting up a new battle over the spying power—hence the bill's introduction this week.
Under Durbin and Lee's proposal, the authority would be extended another two years, but government agencies must obtain a FISA Title I order or a warrant before accessing Americans' communications. As the pair noted in a statement, it also "closes the 'data broker loophole' that intelligence and law enforcement agencies use to buy their way around the Fourth Amendment" to the US Constitution, which bars unreasonable searches and seizures and details requirements for issuing warrants.
"Section 702 is a valuable tool to help keep our nation safe," said Durbin. "However, it's being used to conduct thousands of warrantless searches of Americans' private communications. That's unacceptable. Our bipartisan SAFE Act is a commonsense solution to continue protecting our country from foreign threats—while safeguarding Americans' civil liberties and privacy."
In a Tuesday statement welcoming the legislation, Demand Progress senior policy adviser Hajar Hammado highlighted that "right now, the government can freely troll through your private emails and texts swept up in 702 collections and this power has been abused to spy on everyday Americans, journalists, and even members of Congress."
"No government, whether it's run by Donald Trump and Stephen Miller or Joe Biden, should be able to do this," argued Hammado. According to Politico, Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, "is a leading advocate" for extending Section 702.
Hammado stressed that "the SAFE Act is a bipartisan solution to this problem, and all members of Congress should not support reauthorization without these critical reforms. We thank Sens. Lee and Durbin for their leadership on this bill and for modeling how Republicans and Democrats can come together to stop oppressive government overreach."
Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Security & Surveillance project, also endorsed the bill in a Tuesday statement.
"FISA 702 has been abused in shocking ways," said Laperruque. "The FBI has misused it to snoop on protesters, lawmakers, journalists, judges, and campaign donors. If Congress genuinely cares about surveillance abuse, weaponization, and 'lawfare,' it needs to rein in this warrantless surveillance power."
"The SAFE Act includes bold FISA reforms, creates strong guardrails against surveillance misconduct, and has been meticulously crafted to protect national security," he continued. "With less than 10 weeks until FISA 702 expires, Congress should take up reform legislation quickly. Kicking the can on FISA would be a dereliction of duty."
A CDT-led coalition of privacy advocates across the political spectrum recently identified these as the four key issues to address in FISA reform. The SAFE Act effectively takes on all of them. With just SEVEN weeks until FISA 702 expires, we hope Congress will quickly take up this vital bill.
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— Jake Laperruque (@jakelaperruque.bsky.social) February 24, 2026 at 12:22 PM
Republicans have a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress but, due to Senate rules, generally need some Democratic support to send legislation to Trump's desk. However, the GOP could also run into trouble on this issue in the House of Representatives. As Politico pointed out last week:
Ultimately, there's no easy path to pass a clean extension in the House. One of the people with knowledge of the discussions said GOP leaders are "going to have a problem" trying to unite Republicans behind a special "rule" allowing for an up-or-down floor vote on a clean extension, which are typically party-line affairs.
But Republicans also believe that with Trump in office, a number of Democrats who previously supported leaving Section 702 intact will now support putting more fetters on intelligence agencies—making the alternative route, a two-thirds-majority bipartisan vote under suspension of the rules, all but impossible.
The latest Section 702 fight comes as Trump is under fire for his rising authoritarianism, from invasions of US cities targeting immigrants to his sweeping assault on First Amendment rights, including reported federal watch lists to track and categorize US citizens—especially activists and protesters—as "domestic terrorists."
Trump Admin Sued Over ‘Unlawful Warrantless Arrests’ During North Carolina ICE Blitz
“I am a US citizen, but my papers did not protect me,” said one plaintiff. “I want to be involved in this case because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Feb 24, 2026
A coalition of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday "seeking to prevent a pattern of unlawful warrantless arrests in North Carolina that is harming communities" during the Trump administration's deadly crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their defenders.
Democracy Forward, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on behalf of five individuals, including four American citizens and one legal US resident from El Salvador.
“I am a US citizen, but my papers did not protect me,” 46-year-old plaintiff Willy Aceituno said in a statement. “I want to be involved in this case because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I want to help protect my Latino family, friends, and neighbors.”
Another plaintiff, 23-year-old North Carolina native Yoshi Cuenca Villamar, said: “I have a lot of fear that this will happen to me again. I was essentially kidnapped based only on the color of my skin. That really weighs on me."
“I think it is important to take action through this case so that the government starts doing their jobs correctly instead of stopping people solely because they look a certain way," Cuenca added.
Democracy Forward said in a statement announcing the lawsuit: "In mid-November, the Trump-Vance administration accelerated its immigration crackdown across North Carolina during Operation Charlotte’s Web. Heavily armed, masked DHS agents, including ICE and CBP officers, roamed Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, and other communities, detaining and arresting people indiscriminately without warrants or legal justification."
"Each plaintiff was arrested by DHS agents without probable cause to believe that they are legally removable from the country and that they pose a flight risk—determinations required under federal law for warrantless arrests," Democracy Forward continued.
The plaintiffs “represent a class of individuals who have been or will be subjected to warrantless immigration arrests by DHS in North Carolina, including arrests made without probable cause based on flight risk or removability," the group added. "They ask the federal court for the Western District of North Carolina to declare DHS’ mass warrantless arrest policy unlawful and to issue a permanent injunction blocking these unlawful practices.”
ACLU-NC staff attorney Corina Scott said in a statement Tuesday: “Federal immigration agents have consistently ignored the law and trampled civil rights in North Carolina. This lawsuit seeks to stop this abuse of power and demand accountability going forward so that our communities do not continue to suffer violent and unlawful arrests.”
We just filed the first class action lawsuit challenging unlawful warrantless immigration arrests in North Carolina amid the federal government's crackdown. Join us in calling for an end to ICE & CBP terror! https://rebrand.ly/iceout
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— ACLU of North Carolina (@aclunc.bsky.social) February 24, 2026 at 2:40 PM
Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman said that “when armed, masked agents are breaking car windows, handcuffing people without probable cause, and dumping them on the side of the road, that is not law enforcement, it is lawlessness."
"Congress was explicit: Warrantless immigration arrests require individualized probable cause to be proven," she noted. "That standard is not optional based on the whims of whoever is in the White House. [DHS] is carrying out mass arrests that disregard the limits that Congress imposed and the Constitution requires. Federal agencies do not have the authority to sweep up people in America—whether they are US citizens, lawful residents, or anyone else—without legal justification."
"This case is about restoring basic guardrails on government power and ensuring that federal officers follow the law they are sworn to uphold," Perryman added.
DOJ Under Fire for Withholding Epstein Files Related to Alleged Trump Child Sex Assault
“Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House,” said one Democratic congressman.
Feb 24, 2026
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee announced Tuesday that an investigation will be opened into the US Department of Justice's withholding of Epstein files related to an alleged sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl committed by President Donald Trump decades ago.
“For the last few weeks, Oversight Democrats have been investigating the FBI’s handling of allegations from 2019 of sexual assault on a minor made against President Donald Trump by a survivor," Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
“Yesterday, I reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the Department of Justice. Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes," he continued. "Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation into this."
"Under the Oversight Committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public," Garcia added. "Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up."
Oversight Dems have access to a list of documents, including interviews detailing serious allegations against President Trump, that are missing from the DOJ’s so-called “unredacted” files.Where are the missing files? What do they say? This all points to yet another cover up.
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— Rep. Robert Garcia (@robertgarcia.house.gov) February 24, 2026 at 2:21 PM
The Trump administration is accused of continuously flouting the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which mandated that all materials related to convicted child sex criminal and longtime former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein be released by December 19. But critically, the law gives Attorney General Pam Bondi wide discretion to redact large amounts of information that could harm "national security."
Files on Epstein—who died under mysterious circumstances in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges—that have not been released to the public despite the transparency law "include what appears to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor," NPR reported Tuesday.
That minor was allegedly introduced to Trump around 1983, when she was 13 years old.
“[REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump, who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit," a DOJ file on the alleged incident states. "In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out."
The child is one of more than two dozen women who have accused Trump of raping, sexually assaulting, or sexually harassing them.
In 2023, a civil jury in New York City found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming journalist E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million. In a separate defamation trial, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll another $83.3 million.
Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, is challenging these civil awards. Trump also denies an allegation that he and Epstein "brutally raped" a 13-year-old girl identified by the pseudonym "Katie Johnson" at a 1994 party.
As NPR reported Tuesday:
Other files scrubbed from public view pertain to a separate woman who was a key witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of Epstein's co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. Maxwell is seeking clemency from Trump. Some of those documents were briefly taken down and put back online last week, while others remain hidden, according to NPR's comparison of the initial dataset from January 30 with document metadata of those files currently on the Justice Department website.
Earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that the unreacted Epstein files, which he had viewed, contained "more than million" references to Trump.
Robert Glassman, an attorney representing a woman who testified against Maxwell, blasted the DOJ for its "ridiculous" handling of the Epstein files.
"The DOJ was ordered to release information to the public to be transparent about Epstein and Maxwell's criminal enterprise network," he told NPR. "Instead, they released the names of courageous victims who have fought hard for decades to remain anonymous and out of the limelight. Whether the disclosures were inadvertent or not—they had one job to do here and they didn't do it."
Responding to the NPR report, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on X, "I guarantee if these files exonerated Trump, they would have been released," adding that Bondi "must resign, and she must be prosecuted."
Democratic National Committee Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer released a statement Tuesday asserting that "Donald Trump continues to lie about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, while his administration works overtime to hide the truth about Epstein’s heinous crimes from the American people."
"Tonight at the State of the Union, Trump will be in the same room as survivors of Epstein’s crimes, whom he has denied transparency and justice," Witmer added. "He and his administration must be held accountable for protecting pedophiles.”
Democratic lawmakers including Garcia, Raskin, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have invited Epstein survivors as guests to Tuesday night's speech by Trump.
Elisa Batista, campaign director at the advocacy group UltraViolet Action, said in a statement Tuesday that we are in solidarity with the courageous survivors showing up in defiance of Trump’s attempts to change the conversation at the State of the Union tonight."
Batista continued:
Their bravery represents the will of millions of Americans who are demanding accountability not just for all those who enabled Jeffrey Epstein, but also for public officials like Attorney General Pam Bondi who continue to protect those abusers and enablers by refusing to release all of the Epstein files.
When it comes to the Epstein class, the real state of the union remains unchanged: These powerful abusers and enablers believe they will be shielded by their wealth, networks, or influence. Now, like before, it’s been the fearless insistence of survivors that’s stood in the way of efforts by politicians like Trump and Bondi to sweep the full legacy of Epstein’s child sex trafficking network under the rug.
“No matter how much Trump and Bondi try to distract us from the fact that they broke the law to keep the public in the dark about the extent of Epstein’s child abuse, we, survivors and allies, will not allow them to forget their role in offering cover for Epstein and his enablers," Batista added.
Report Details How Trump Economic Agenda ‘Will Make Ordinary Families Reliably Poorer in the Future’
In just one year, Republicans’ 2025 budget package is expected to increase income inequality at quadruple the rate seen over the past 40 years.
Feb 24, 2026
President Donald Trump's economic agenda "will make ordinary families reliably poorer in the future," according to the author of a report published Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute.
Josh Bivens, EPI's chief economist, said Trump's slashing of federal spending and jobs, mass deportations, chaotic tariffs, and anti-labor policies were suppressing hiring and wages, draining household and business spending, and slowing economic growth.
While a recession is not yet inevitable, Bivens argued that worrying signs are already on the horizon, with 1.4 million fewer new jobs than expected in 2025 and unemployment ticking up to 4.4%, up from the low of 3.4% in April 2023.
For low-wage earners, the past year has been particularly rough. After seeing unusually fast growth during the presidency of Joe Biden, real wages for the bottom 10% of earners fell by 0.3% in 2025.
The report predicts that Republicans' 2025 budget package will reduce “aggregate demand” in the coming years. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts $100 billion annually from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while allowing health insurance subsidies that saved families thousands to expire, which the report projects will cause many families who rely on these benefits to pull back spending in the economy.
While the law reduced taxes, the vast majority of those benefits went to the wealthiest earners, whose spending was already much less constrained by their incomes.
The report notes the astonishing increase in inequality caused by the law. Between the years of 1979 and 2019, which were considered to have seen an explosion of wealth inequality, the share of income claimed by the richest 10% increased by about 0.25% per year.
It found that the GOP budget law will, in just one year, increase the top decile's share of wealth by a full percentage point. In other words, the rate of inequality will "quadruple in its first year."
Aside from this major driver of inequality, the report also says that the Trump administration's hostility toward collective bargaining rights and its mass firings of federal workers would further suppress wages by making the labor market less competitive, and that the president's erratic tariff regime would make those wages less valuable by fueling inflation.
“Disastrous policy choices that led to excess unemployment, slower growth in the economy’s productive capacity, and rising inequality have made life less affordable for typical families in recent decades," Bivens said. "The Trump administration’s policies double down on the worst policy decisions of this period and will make ordinary families reliably poorer in the future, even if an outright recession or spiking inflation does not happen."
Whistleblower: Kash Patel’s Use of FBI Jets for Personal Travel Delayed Murder Probe
“The FBI cannot afford to have its resources further stretched by a director who views its staff and aircraft as a means to support his jet-setting lifestyle.”
Feb 24, 2026
A whistleblower is claiming that FBI Director Kash Patel's frequent use of one of the agency's two jets has led to the delay of a high-profile murder probe.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday revealed he had received new whistleblower disclosures related to his investigations into Patel's use of FBI aircraft for personal travel, and he said they showed Patel's decisions regarding the use of FBI planes had delayed investigations not only into the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk but also the November 2025 mass shooting at Brown University.
In the case of Kirk, Durbin said that the FBI shooting reconstruction team's deployment to Utah "was delayed by at least a day because of a bureau plane and pilot shortage caused by the director's personal flights."
Durbin said that he also received information showing how Patel bungled the aftermath of the Brown shooting by putting the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) on standby to respond to the incident.
"The director’s decision caused immediate confusion," Durbin said, "because that order was not communicated to HRT; it upended the responsibility typically assigned to the local field office closest to the incident in question—in this case Boston or New York City—to provide immediate support; and it froze the aircraft’s usage by any other FBI team until the director removed the hold."
Durbin then said that the whistleblower described how his team "had to drive from Quantico, Virginia to Providence, Rhode Island overnight during a winter storm to reach the scene by 9:00 am the following morning to immediately process evidence."
Durbin noted he received this information shortly after Patel was seen chugging down a beer in the locker room of the gold medal-winning US men's Olympic hockey team on Sunday, after the director once again used an FBI plane to fly to Milan, Italy.
The Democratic senator said that Patel's trip to Italy could have seriously hampered the FBI's ability to investigate what may have been an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump.
"It also cannot be ignored that the director’s latest personal jaunt occurred on the same weekend an armed intruder attempted to breach President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence," Durbin explained. "The man was allegedly carrying a gas can and a shotgun, and he was killed on the scene by law enforcement."
Durbin concluded by saying that "the FBI cannot afford to have its resources further stretched by a director who views its staff and aircraft as a means to support his jet-setting lifestyle."
MS NOW reported that an FBI spokesperson has "disputed" the whistleblower's claims that Patel's decisions had caused delays to investigations, but added that they need to "check into the matter more deeply to gather information."
As Trump Imposes New Tariffs, State Lawmakers Demand Direct Refunds for Americans
“Your illegal tariff taxes have created an unprecedented affordability crisis, spiking prices for groceries, cars, clothes, electronics, and countless other household necessities.”
Feb 24, 2026
As President Donald Trump plows ahead with his controversial and legally contested tariffs, he faces mounting pressure to refund Americans for duties struck down last week by the US Supreme Court, including in a letter from 21 Democratic state legislators, first reported Tuesday by Common Dreams.
Lawmakers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont called for a swift response to the high court's "definitive ruling" last Friday that the president's imposition of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) "is illegal, unconstitutional, and amounts to an unauthorized tax on the American people."
"Your illegal tariff taxes have created an unprecedented affordability crisis, spiking prices for groceries, cars, clothes, electronics, and countless other household necessities," the lawmakers noted. "Families across our states have been forced to make impossible choices between paying for food, keeping the heat on, and affording clothing for their children."
"Farmers have lost markets, small businesses have been stretched to the breaking point, manufacturing hasn't returned as you promised, job growth flatlined, layoffs rose, and the economy has slowed to a crawl," they continued. "Your illegal tariffs have been an unmitigated disaster."
The legislators demanded that Trump "work with Congress immediately to provide a refund to American families for the illegal tariff taxes you imposed on them through higher prices on everything, from clothes and cars to electronics and groceries, and which cost families at least $1,700 each last year alone."
"These refunds should go to the American people, not just the businesses who paid the tariffs and passed on their cost to Americans in the form of higher prices, lost wages, and layoffs," they stressed. The lawmakers also demanded that Trump "immediately abide by the court's ruling and stop collecting these illegal tariff taxes," and "cease and desist on any plan or scheme to reimpose the tariffs at issue in the Supreme Court's decision without congressional approval."
The letter was organized by Defend America Action as part of a campaign pushing for tariff refunds and also sent to US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Its signatories include Colorado Sen. Cathy Kipp (D-14) as well as Illinois Sens. Mary Edly-Allen (D-31) and Graciela Guzmán (D-20).
The other signatories are Democratic Reps. Ken Croken (97) of Iowa; Gary Friedmann (14) of Maine; Noah Arbit (20) and Stephen Wooden (81) of Michigan; Susan Almy (Grafton 17), Tony Caplan (Merrimack 8), and Linda Haskins (Rockingham 11) of New Hampshire; Jo Anne Simon (52) of New York; Arvind Venkat (30) of Pennsylvania; Aftyn Behn (51) Tennessee; Rhetta Andrews Bowers (113), Jessica González (104), Vikki Goodwin (47), Josey Garcia (124), Vincent Perez (77), Ron Reynolds (27), and Gene Wu (137) of Texas; and Will Greer (Bennington 2) of Vermont.
Trump is also facing pressure from Democratic governors and members of Congress in the wake of the high court's ruling. On Monday, US Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—along with 19 other members of the chamber's Democratic Caucus, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)—unveiled the Tariff Refund Act.
The bill would require US Customs and Border Protection to pay refunds for the $175 billion in unlawfully imposed tariffs within 180 days, prioritizing small businesses. It calls on importers, wholesalers, and large corporations to pass on those refunds to their customers.
On Tuesday, US Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.)—who are all notably not original co-sponsors of that bill—wrote to Trump and highlighted that roughly 95% of the cost from Trump's IEEPA tariffs "was passed on to American families and small businesses in the form of increased costs."
"Any refunds from the federal government should be returned to the millions of Americans and small businesses that were illegally cheated out of their hard-earned money," the trio argued. "Your inability or unwillingness to provide tariff refunds to American families would represent an egregious abdication of your responsibility as president—a giveaway to giant corporations that amounts to theft from the middle class."
In the House of Representatives, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) also signaled support for refunds, taking aim at Trump on social media Tuesday morning: "We need our money back. He owes us: $1,700 in illegal tariffs per family; $4 billion he's profited off the presidency; $1 trillion he stole in tax breaks for the ultrarich."
Trump has responded to the Supreme Court's decision by not only lashing out at justices but also doubling down on his mission to impose tariffs. Rather than relying on the IEEPA, Trump is now invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. A 10% tariff took effect on Tuesday, though the president promised over the weekend that he would aim for 15%.
"Every day, I hear from my neighbors how their cost of living is rising rapidly," Venkat, one of the state lawmakers who signed the letter, told Common Dreams. "Whether it's food, utilities, housing, or healthcare, tariffs are driving inflation and a regressive tax."
Venkat said that Trump doubling down on tariffs is "disastrous for my constituents and all Pennsylvanians."
New Poll Shows Platner Romping in Dem Primary and Comfortably Ahead of Collins for Maine Senate Seat
“Platner stomping Mills in the primary, then cruising to a double-digit win in the general election... wouldn’t just be a Senate-seat victory but a narrative earthquake,” said one writer.
Feb 24, 2026
The progressive candidate Graham Platner has a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for Maine's US Senate seat over the state's centrist Gov. Janet Mills. Come November, he's also much more likely than Mills to defeat the Republican incumbent, Sen. Susan Collins.
The University of New Hampshire's Pine Tree State Poll, released Tuesday morning, showed that Platner has built momentum since October. Five months ago, 58% of likely Democratic voters said the 41-year-old oyster farmer was their first choice to be the state's next senator, compared with 24% who preferred the governor.
Now, with the June primary less than four months away, undecided voters have broken hard in Platner's favor: 64% said he’s their first choice, while Mills has only jumped up to 26%.
It's perhaps an unsurprising result, as Democratic voters overwhelmingly support the kind of economically populist anti-oligarchy politics that Platner—a proponent of Medicare for All and a federal billionaires' tax, with backing from labor unions and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—has unapologetically championed.
But Tuesday's poll suggests his message is not only resonating with Democrats. Where a race between Mills and Collins has the Democrat leading by a single point, within the margin of error, Platner would be expected to win the general election comfortably with 49% of the vote to just 38% for Collins.
The steady shift toward Platner comes as affordability issues have become increasingly salient to Maine voters. A full 35% of voters said that either the cost of living or housing was the most important problem facing Maine.
As President Donald Trump suffers historic unpopularity amid a flailing economy, the most marked shift has been concern about the cost of living. Where just 4% of Mainers said it was their No. 1 issue in March 2025, that number has shot up to 20% this month.
Collins' popularity has been in a dramatic freefall in the era of Trump 2.0, to the point where a late January Morning Consult poll showed her to be the second-least popular US senator, behind only the former longtime GOP leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
While Democratic Party insiders have long argued that voters prefer a safer, moderate candidate when ousting a hated incumbent, observers say Platner's success over the candidate backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and much of the party establishment is redefining what it means to be "electable" in a swing state.
"The fatal part of this poll for Mills isn’t even the massive lead Platner has," said Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim. "It’s that he is 10 points more electable against Collins, which is the real priority for Maine voters who don’t want her in office anymore."
New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells said: "This is a small-sample poll, and there’s a long way to go. But if something like this comes to pass—Platner stomping Mills in the primary, then cruising to a double-digit win in the general election—it wouldn’t just be a Senate-seat victory but a narrative earthquake."
Ahead of State of the Union Address, Progressive Caucus Leader Tells Trump: ‘We Need Our Money Back’
“Spare us the speech,” said Rep. Greg Casar. “Pay up or shut up.”
Feb 24, 2026
Now that the US Supreme Court has ruled President Donald Trump levied illegal tariffs on US businesses and consumers for more than a year, progressive Democrats are escalating demands that Americans get their money back.
Days after the Supreme Court shut down Trump's ability to unilaterally enact tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) said on Tuesday that during the State of the Union address, Trump should announce refunds for Americans he unlawfully taxed.
"Americans don’t need a rambling, two hour lecture from Trump," Casar wrote in a social media post. "We need our money back. He owes us: $1,700 in illegal tariffs per family; $4 billion he’s profited off the presidency; $1 trillion he stole in tax breaks for the ultra-rich. Spare us the speech. Pay up or shut up."
Casar's demands for tariff refunds aren't isolated.
Politico reported on Monday that Democrats have pounced on the Supreme Court ruling to deliver a simple message to voters: Trump wrongfully took your money and should return it.
Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who along with Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.) introduced legislation mandating tariff refunds on Friday, accused Trump of outright thievery.
"When someone takes money that wasn’t authorized and does it in a way that harms you," Horsford told Politico, "they’ve stolen from you, and that is what the Trump administration has done for the last year."
Horsford's rhetoric echoed a statement made by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who said in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling last week that Trump "illegally stole your money" and "should give it back to you" instead of trying to cook up new ways to slap tariffs on imported goods.
Groundwork Collaborative on Tuesday previewed Trump's State of the Union speech by noting the president has totally failed to keep his promise to bring down prices, adding that his tariffs "cost the average working family nearly $1,200 last year."
"No matter what Trump says in the upcoming State of the Union address," Groundwork Collaborative said, "it won’t change the fact that working families know that the president and his lackeys in Congress alone bear responsibility for painfully high prices and a dragging economy."
Although the Supreme Court clipped Trump's power to levy tariffs via the IEEPA, he has since announced plans to issue a 15% global tariff using his authority under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to levy tariffs to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits with foreign nations.
However, as a recent analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute explained, any tariffs enacted through Section 122 expire after 150 days without authorization from Congress, which in theory could put vulnerable congressional Republicans on the spot to vote for or against the president’s signature economic policy this summer right before the 2026 midterm elections.
Israeli Analysis Affirms Gaza Health Ministry’s Official Palestinian Death Count
One Israeli expert placed discrepancies in the list at “around 1%.” Another said the error rate appears even lower.
Feb 24, 2026
An Israeli analysis published Tuesday examining the Gaza Health Ministry's list of Palestinians killed during Israel's US-backed annihilation of the Gaza Strip largely affirmed the official death count, while noting some imperfections in the 2,000-page document.
Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, dissected the Gaza Health Ministry's (GHM) database of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, which at the time contained nearly 70,000 names—it's now over 72,000—in part by using artificial intelligence to analyze the massive file.
"A consensus has taken shape: Even if the list has weaknesses, including the fact that it does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, it reflects the scale of the disaster inflicted on Gaza and its people," article author Nir Hasson wrote. "It also forms the basis for allegations that Israel committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide."
Lee Mordechai, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who says Israeli is committing genocide in Gaza, told Hasson, "It's clear that the list isn't 100% accurate and that it has errors, but I think they're around 1%."
Gabriel Epstein, an associate at the US-based Israel Policy Forum who was formerly skeptical of the GHM list, "now believes it is largely accurate and may even slightly undercount the dead," according to Hasson.
"Epstein reviewed the list obtained by Haaretz," the article states. "He found 24 duplicates and 38 entries with problems in the ID numbers. That means 99.91% of the entries were complete, with verified ID numbers. He also found that 64 deaths that had appeared on earlier lists were later removed, while 158 names removed by March of last year were added back."
The GHM list notably only contains the names of people who died from combat-related violence, not from "hunger, disease, accidents, or the collapse of the health system."
It also does not include the thousands of people who are missing and likely dead and buried beneath the rubble of the 80% of Gaza's buildings that have been destroyed or damaged during the war.
Other research, including multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet, have also concluded that the ministry was undercounting the number of people killed by Israel's war on Gaza.
As for the issue of Hamas not differentiating between combatants and civilians on the ministry's death list, an investigation last year by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison analyzed classified Israel Defense Forces intelligence data showing that 5 in 6 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops through the first 19 months of the war were civilians. The probe obliterated IDF claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio.
Last September, Former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who was in command for much of the war—said that “over 10%” of Gaza’s approximately 2.2 million people “were killed or injured” since October 2023. Halevi’s acknowledgment tracked with GHM figures showing at least 228,815 people killed or wounded at the time.
In January, Israeli media outlets including Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, and the Times of Israel reported that the IDF accepted the accuracy of GHM's death count, which at the time stood at over 71,000.
Israeli officials and media, along with their supportive US counterparts during both the Biden and Trump administrations, once cast doubt upon or outright denied GHM figures because the ministry is under Hamas' control. These aspersions came in addition to widespread Israeli and US denials of Israel’s forced famine and starvation deaths and IDF war crimes in Gaza.
"As the months have passed, claims of fabrication and exaggeration have largely remained confined to Israeli television panels," Hasson wrote in the new analysis. "At the end of January, an apparent dispute over the number of dead seemed to end in Israel when a senior army source confirmed that the IDF recognizes that 70,000 people died, precisely the figure cited by Gazan authorities."
"Even if the argument over the total number of dead is, for now, largely settled, disagreement in Israel continues over who the dead were," he continued. "How many were gunmen, how many were affiliated with Hamas, how many were killed under circumstances that meet the conditions of international law?"
"None of this alters the stark figures in the table," Hasson added. "Of the recorded deaths, 20,876, about 30%, are young girls, teenage girls, and women. Another 3,220 were aged 65 and over, including the final name on the list, Tamam al-Batsh, who was 110 when she died."
While Israel officials continue to insist that GHM figures are "misleading and unreliable"—or even "fake"—Hasson noted the general consistency between Israeli and Palestinian tallies across past Israeli attacks on Gaza. During Operation Cast Lead (2008-09), the Palestinian count was 23% higher than Israel's. For Operation Pillar of Success (2012), Israel's tally of Gazan deaths was 11% higher than the Palestinian figure. In Operation Protective Edge (2014), the Palestinian count was 8% higher. And during 2021's Operation Guardian of the Walls, Palestinian officials counted 10% more Gaza deaths than Israel.
The United Nations and US administrations of both major political parties have long acknowledged the GHM's accounting of Palestinian casualties in Israeli attacks, including the assault that began in October 2023.
Hasson noted that "it has been increasingly harder to find Israeli officials commenting on the subject" of the GHM death count in the ongoing war as evidence of its accuracy mounts.
"Since the war began," he said, "Israel has made no serious effort to demonstrate that the list is false or to present an alternative. It has not proven even once that a person listed as deceased is in fact alive."
50+ Groups Condemn Trump Admin for Trying to Sabotage Independent Probe of Alex Pretti Killing
“The Trump administration is sending a clear message: federal law enforcement can kill with absolute impunity.”
Feb 24, 2026
A broad coalition of organizations on Tuesday accused the Trump administration of trying to sabotage a genuine investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti, the intensive care nurse who was fatally shot by federal immigration enforcement agents last month.
In a statement released by the Not Above the Law Coalition, the groups pointed to recent reporting about the FBI denying Minnesota law enforcement officials access to evidence gathered in relation to the Pretti shooting as proof that the administration has no intention of conducting an independent investigation into his death, which has been ruled a homicide by the Hennepin County medical examiner.
"By blocking Minnesota's investigation and attempting to shield agents from accountability," said the groups, "the Trump administration is sending a clear message: federal law enforcement can kill with absolute impunity. This move attempts to place federal agents above the law and beyond the reach of justice."
The groups noted that the administration was breaking with decades of standard practices by not cooperating with local police and prosecutors to investigate Pretti's death, and they warned it could set a dangerous precedent for future shootings carried out by federal officers.
"We demand immediate action," they concluded. "Mandatory independent investigations for all federal use of deadly force, recognition of state authority to investigate federal misconduct, federal cooperation with local investigators, and real consequences for constitutional violations. Without accountability, we allow federal forces to operate with impunity and face no consequences for taking American lives."
Included among the statement's signatories were the ACLU, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Indivisible, Public Citizen, and the Revolving Door Project.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) said last week that it was continuing its probe into Pretti's killing, even without the assistance of federal investigators.
“The BCA will present its findings without recommendation to the appropriate prosecutorial authorities for review," the agency vowed.
In addition to investigating the Pretti killing, the BCA is also conducting probes into the fatal shooting of Minneapolis mother Renee Good and the shooting of Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty last week similarly said that her office was not getting any help from the federal government in its investigation into the Pretti shooting, though she said her team was continuing to gather evidence and interview witnesses.
Moriarty emphasized that her office, which is currently working with the Minnesota BCA in its investigation, can bring criminal charges against federal immigration officers if it has enough evidence to do so, even without the cooperation of the Trump administration.
Praising Denver and Other Cities for Leading the Way, Sanders Renews Call for National Data Center Moratorium
“We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue,” said the senator. “The time for action is now.”
Feb 24, 2026
Although Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is a vocal supporter of artificial intelligence and has pushed to adopt AI-driven products to power the city's infrastructure, he joined City Council members on Monday in announcing a moratorium on the construction of massive AI data centers—the latest sign, said US Sen. Bernie Sanders, that the push to stop corporations from building the energy-guzzling, pollution-causing facilities is not "radical, fringe, and Luddite" as some claim.
Johnston, a Democrat, and other local officials across the country who are pushing to block the construction of data centers "are right," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "Data centers will have a profound impact on land and water use, and will drive up electricity costs."
As grassroots community groups and experts have warned, AI will also "likely have a catastrophic impact on the lives of working-class Americans, eliminating tens of millions of blue- and white-collar jobs in every sector of our economy," said the senator, who proposed a nationwide moratorium on AI data centers in December.
He renewed that call after Johnston and the Denver City Council announced the city would halt any plans for new data centers for at least several months and would require projects that are already permitted or under construction to follow new guidelines once they're finalized by local officials.
"We need a federal moratorium on AI data centers," said Sanders.
Johnston said in a statement that he believes "data centers power the technology we depend upon and strengthen our economy," but stressed that "as this industry evolves, so must our policies."
"This pause allows us to put clear and consistent guardrails in place while protecting our most precious resources and preserving our quality of life," said the mayor.
The city plans to review regulations for data centers that would target “responsible land, energy, and water use as well as zoning and affordability for ratepayers.”
Soaring electricity bills across the country have been linked to the build-out of data centers, which have cropped up as President Donald Trump has pushed to preempt state and local regulations on AI. As CNBC reported last year, residential utility bills rose 6% in August nationwide, but much higher price hikes were reported in states with high concentrations of data centers, like Virginia (13%) and Illinois (16%).
Sanders' office issued a report last October showing that AI, automation, and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs over the next decade, including 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, and 89% of fast food workers.
And a study published in Nature Sustainability last year found that data centers could consume as much water as 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 10 million cars.
At a forum last week at Stanford University, Sanders joined Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in warning that the expansion of AI data centers is meant to increase the wealth of billionaire tech moguls with no regard for how working Americans are affected.
“The question that we should be asking day after day… is who is pushing this revolution, who benefits from it, and who gets hurt?” Sanderss said.
In Denver, the moratorium was announced ahead of a planned community meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening at Geotech Environmental, where neighbors are planning to speak out against the 170,000-square foot DE3 data center being built in the Globeville-Elyria-Swansea (GES) area by the Denver-based company CoreSite.
The burden that will be placed on locals if the project is completed "is not accidental," reads a petition by the local grassroots community organization GES Coalition. “It is the outcome of colonial dispossession and extraction, then decades of zoning, redlining, highway construction, and industrial siting that concentrated pollution next to working-class homes alongside the legacy of the Vasquez Boulevard/I-70 Superfund site, a 4.5-square-mile smelting contamination footprint affecting multiple neighborhoods."
Meanwhile, state legislators have introduced at least two bills regarding AI data center development. One, House Bill 1030, would offer sales and use tax exemptions for data center builders—and would slash state general fund revenue while also triggering a $106 million reduction in tax credits for low-income households.
Another, Senate Bill 102, would require data centers to use renewable energy sources and ensure their energy use does not raise rates for consumers.
Grassroots efforts to block the construction of data centers have taken off in places including Saline, Michigan; Port Washington, Wisconsin; and Tucson, Arizona, where community members successfully blocked plans for a new center owned by Amazon.
State lawmakers in Maine, South Dakota, and Oklahoma are also considering moratoriums or limits on new data centers.
"We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue," said Sanders. "The time for action is now."
Former ICE Lawyer Says Agency Is Teaching Recruits to ‘Violate the Constitution’
“Never in my career had I ever received such a blatantly unlawful order,” said Ryan Schwank, who blew the whistle last month on a “secretive” ICE memo directing agents to enter homes without judicial warrants.
Feb 24, 2026
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is "lying to Congress and the American people" and directing new recruits to "violate the Constitution," according to a whistleblower who testified on Capitol Hill Monday.
Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, stepped down from his post last week after submitting a whistleblower complaint about an agency policy directing agents to enter homes and arrest people without a judge's warrant.
"I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution," Schwank said at a joint forum on ICE's constitutional violations hosted by Senate and House Democrats. "I followed that oath for four-and-a-half years, working side by side with ICE officers. And I followed it when I resigned on February 13, 2026, a little over a week ago, so I could speak to you today."
He had joined ICE in 2021 as a senior lawyer for the agency, tasked with advising agents on immigration laws and the Constitution. In September 2025, amid President Donald Trump's "surge" in recruitment to carry out his "mass deportation" crusade, Schwank became an instructor for new recruits at the ICE Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.
"On my first day," Schwank said, "I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant."
Schwank said he was “instructed to read and return a memo" that claimed ICE agents had this power in the presence of his supervisor. “Before I was shown this memo, my supervisor warned me that two previous ICE instructors had been dismissed because they questioned senior ICE management over the legality of the memo.”
That memo, which was sent to US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials in May, was revealed to the Senate last month through a whistleblower disclosure by Schwank and another official whose identity has not yet been made public.
“The acting ICE director authorized the very conduct that DHS—in 2025 legal training materials—has called ‘the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed’—that is, ‘physical entry of the home’ without consent or a proper warrant,” Schwank said.
His testimony confirms previous reporting from the Associated Press, which found that these orders were distributed in a highly unusual way: DHS officials like Schwank were shown the memo before being required to return it to their supervisors and relay the information verbally to new recruits without showing them the directive.
Under this new directive, the whistleblower report said “newly hired ICE agents—many of whom do not have a law enforcement background—are now being directed to rely solely on” an administrative warrant drafted and signed by an ICE official to enter homes and make arrests.
“No court has ever found that any law enforcement has this type of authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant under such circumstances,” said David Kligerman, the senior vice president and special counsel for Whistleblower Aid, the group that sent the disclosure to Congress.
“Never in my career had I ever received such a blatantly unlawful order—nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,” Schwank said on Monday. “I was being shown this memo in secret by a supervisor who made sure that I understood that disobedience could cost me my job. ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution, and they were attempting to cloak it in secrecy.”
Schwank also said that top ICE and DHS officials were deceiving Congress and the public when they claimed that the new officers and agents brought on as part of the agency's hiring spree were receiving the same basic training as in the past, even as agency syllabi showed that their training hours had been slashed by about 40%.
Testifying before Congress earlier this month, ICE's acting director, Todd Lyons, said that while hours have been cut, “The meat of the training was never removed."
"This is a lie,” Schwank said. “ICE made the program shorter, and they removed so many essential parts that what remains is a dangerous husk. No reasonable person would believe a training program suddenly cut nearly in half could meet the minimum legal requirements.”
The Trump administration has said the reduction of ICE training by more than 240 hours was mostly the result of eliminating Spanish-language classes.
However, according to dozens of pages of internal documents released by Senate Democrats, which were reviewed by the New York Times, the agency's February syllabus had also eliminated classes about the proper use of force, handling the property of detainees, filling out paperwork alleging someone is in the United States without authorization, taking a "victim-centered approach," and "integrity awareness training."
The number of exams agents must take has also been drastically reduced, from 25 in 2021 down to just nine. Some of the exams no longer required are ones on "Judgment Pistol Shooting” and “Determine Removability,” which the Times said was "a reference to how agents decide if people they encounter have legal status in the United States."
Schwank’s testimony comes after immigration agents shot and killed three United States citizens in recent weeks, causing heightened scrutiny of ICE and other DHS agencies. Since Trump's second inauguration on January 20, at least 32 people have been shot by agents, resulting in nine deaths.
In areas where ICE has been surged, such as Minnesota—which was swarmed by around 3,000 agents late last year—numerous instances have been documented of what appear to be uses of unnecessary force, racial profiling, and violations of constitutional rights.
“I am here because I am duty-bound to report the legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective, and broken,” Schwank said. “Deficient training can and will get people killed... It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights, and fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement.”
Schwank's testimony came as a partial shutdown of DHS entered its second week, after Democrats refused to fund the agency without significant reforms to ICE, including requirements that they obtain judicial warrants and carry out their duties without masks.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who chaired Monday's panel, said he hopes Schwank's testimony will encourage other whistleblowers to come forward.
“We know about the Trump administration’s decimation of training for immigration officers and its secret policy to shred your Constitutional rights because of the brave Americans who are speaking out today,” Blumenthal said. “They are coming to Congress because we have the responsibility to not only bear witness to these crimes, but to do something to make sure they don’t happen again.”
“To anyone else who is repulsed by what you’re seeing or what authorities are asking you to do, please know that you can make a real difference by coming forward," he added. "You’ll meet a moral imperative. Our door is open, we are here for you when you are ready, and we will do everything within our power to protect your rights.”
Canada Vows Aid for Cuba as Trump Oil Embargo Fuels Humanitarian Disaster
Mexico earlier this month also stepped up aid shipments to Cuba during the Trump administration’s oil embargo.
Feb 24, 2026
The Canadian government on Monday announced plans to send aid to Cuba, which is currently being squeezed economically by a US oil embargo.
As reported by the Associated Press, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand revealed that the government is "preparing a plan to assist," adding that "we are not prepared at this point to provide any details" of what it will entail.
A Canadian aid package to Cuba would be the latest rebuff to US foreign policy. The two long-time allies have been at odds since President Donald Trump took office last year and slapped hefty tariffs on Canadian products, while also vowing to make the country into the "51st state" of the US.
Canada wouldn't be the first US ally to step up help for Cuba, as Mexico earlier this month sent two ships loaded with more than 2,000 tons of goods and food to the island nation.
The shipments to Cuba were aimed at easing the humanitarian crisis intensified by the Trump administration's oil embargo, which began shortly after the administration invaded Venezuela and abducted President Nicolás Maduro in January.
Trump has vowed to slap tariffs on any country that sends oil to Cuba, although the US Supreme Court's ruling last week slapping down his powers to unilaterally enact tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act has potentially neutered that threat.
Earlier this month, a group of United Nations human rights experts called the Trump blockade of Cuba "a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order," and "an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion with extraterritorial effects."
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, traveled to Cuba recently and spoke to local residents who described the devastating impact of the oil blockade.
"With no gasoline, buses don’t run, so we can’t get to work," Marta Jiménez, a hairdresser from Holguín, told Benjamin. "We have electricity only three to six hours a day. There’s no gas for cooking, so we’re burning wood and charcoal in our apartments. It’s like going back 100 years."
Massachusetts Town Passes Resolution Urging State to Hold ‘Lawless’ ICE Agents Accountable
“I hope Amherst’s resolution kicks off a wave of similar resolutions in cities and towns across the state,” said the measure’s lead sponsor.
Feb 24, 2026
The town council of Amherst, Massachusetts passed a resolution on Monday urging state and local officials to hold federal immigration agents accountable for violating the Commonwealth's laws, a move that advocates hailed as a model for lawmakers across the United States.
The resolution—which says agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have "repeatedly committed acts of violence against Massachusetts residents"—passed with unanimous support from the nine councilors who participated in the vote.
"ICE’s illegal operations have impacted residents of Amherst and surrounding communities directly, and we know that when any of our neighbors have their rights stripped away, none of us can take those rights for granted," Councilor Jill Brevik, the resolution's lead sponsor, said in a statement following the vote. "Silence and complying in advance created the environment that has enabled ICE agents to commit crimes and human rights abuses."
"As a result, it is critically important for our local and state-level leaders to speak loudly and take clear action to fight back and change course," Brevik added. "The work doesn’t end here, and I look forward to staying engaged. And I hope Amherst’s resolution kicks off a wave of similar resolutions in cities and towns across the state."
The resolution calls on Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, to "immediately cease all cooperation agreements with ICE," pointing to specific actions by federal immigration agents that "may be crimes under Massachusetts law, including but not limited to assault and battery, kidnapping, violation of constitutional rights, and assault and battery for the purpose of intimidation, and conspiracy, which may involve senior federal officials" including President Donald Trump.
Among the incidents highlighted by the resolution is ICE's 2025 abduction of Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was targeted for deportation for writing an op-ed criticizing the US-backed Israeli assault on Gaza. Last month, an immigration judge terminated removal proceedings against Öztürk.
The resolution also condemns ICE and CBP agents for "illegally kidnapping an 18-year old with no warrant and detaining him for a week with no access to showers or sufficient food in Worcester County; illegally kidnapping and assaulting a lawful permanent resident in Essex County, stealing his belongings, and threatening his legal status; assaulting a resident of Middlesex County, smashing his car’s windows and dragging him from it; detaining a first-year college student at Boston Logan Airport and forcing her out of the country in defiance of a court order; and repeatedly using unlawfully excessive force in encounters with Massachusetts resident."
“When our constitutional rights, our civil liberties, and our very lives come under attack by Trump’s lawless agents, we need every public official to stand with the people to fight back,” Jeff Conant, an Amherst resident who helped organize support for the newly approved measure, said Monday. “This commonsense resolution by our town council should serve as a model for every town and city in the Commonwealth and across the nation.”
The resolution demands that state and local officials "take affirmative steps to protect" Massachusetts residents, including by:
- Making a public statement confirming the principles that federal officials and agents are subject to state criminal jurisdiction;
- Taking affirmative steps to collect evidence of criminal acts committed by federal agents, including through the creation and dissemination of an accessible online tool for citizens to submit evidence; and
- Issuing guidelines to local law enforcement to preserve evidence, especially in cases of federal noncooperation with investigations, and beginning investigations where evidence indicates that a crime has been committed, regardless of the power or prestige of the federal officeholder who is suspected of committing said crime.
John Bonifaz, constitutional attorney and president of Free Speech For People—an advocacy group that helped draft the resolution—said that "state and local prosecutors in Massachusetts and across the country have a sworn duty to enforce state criminal laws against federal agents who commit crimes in their states."
"There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal ICE agents. While the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution allows federal agents to carry out their lawful duties across the country, they do not have immunity to commit murder, to kidnap, to commit assault and battery, and to engage in illegal detentions," he continued. "Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and district attorneys across Massachusetts must enforce state criminal laws against ICE agents for their unlawful actions in this state."
‘Do Not Get Numb to This’: Trump Admin Kills 3 More People in Caribbean
“The illegality is compounding,” said one expert. “Every strike takes us farther from the rule of law.”
Feb 24, 2026
The ramp-up of deadly boat bombings in the Caribbean since General Francis L. Donovan took over as head of US Southern Command continued on Monday, with three more people killed in a strike on a vessel that the Department of Defense claimed was operated by "Designated Terrorist Organizations."
Donovan took over as commander of US Southern Command on February 5 following the abrupt retirement of Admiral Alvin Hosley, who had reportedly raised concerns about the Pentagon's campaign of striking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean—a policy that Trump administration officials have insisted is aimed at stopping drug trafficking from Venezuela.
Venezuela plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the drug involved in most overdoses in the US, and the administration has provided no evidence that the dozens of strikes it's carried out since September have actually been aimed at drug trafficking boats.
Even if the targets were involved in transporting illicit substances to the US, legal experts say the strikes have violated international law.
Following the attack on Monday, the death toll in the Trump administration's maritime operations in the region since September has reached at least 150, and Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America emphasized that this month, there has been a clear acceleration of boat bombings.
Twenty-five people have been killed in the administration's boat attacks in just 19 days.
"None posed imminent threats," said Isacson. "None faced more than an accusation of guilt for a non-capital crime—'take our word for it.' The illegality is compounding. Every strike takes us farther from the rule of law."
"Do not get numb to this," he added.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Southern Command's killing of three people Monday amounted to "more summary executions."
On Sunday, after another strike that killed three people, the Freedom of the Press Foundation noted that "despite the rising death toll, the government’s legal rationale for these likely illegal attacks remains secret."
"By keeping the legal justifications hidden, the government is sidestepping accountability for what appear to be extrajudicial killings," said Lauren Harper, the group's Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy.
President Donald Trump told Congress in October that the US is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels. At the time, Gregory Corn, a former senior adviser for law-of-war issues for the US Army, said the president was crossing a "major legal line."
The boat bombing campaign led up to the US government's invasion of Venezuela in January and its abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, who were brought to the US and charged with drug trafficking. They pleaded not guilty in court last month. Since that military operation, the Trump administration has sought to take control of Venezuela's oil.
Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have spoken out against the boat bombings and have introduced war powers resolutions to stop the US from continuing the campaign and from attacking Venezuela, but so far, the vast majority of GOP lawmakers have voted down the efforts.
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