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Cuba's U.N. Ambassador Denounces U.S. Oil Blockade, Push to Topple Government
18:22
Democracy Now Video • Feb 13, 2026

Cuba's U.N. Ambassador Denounces U.S. Oil Blockade, Push to Topple Government

"Love Forward Together": Faith Leaders in North Carolina Launch 50-Mile March for Social Justice
7:52
Democracy Now Video • Feb 13, 2026

"Love Forward Together": Faith Leaders in North Carolina Launch 50-Mile March for Social Justice

House Passes "Worst Voter Suppression Bill Ever" in Latest Push to Help Trump Take Over Elections
13:34
Democracy Now Video • Feb 13, 2026

House Passes "Worst Voter Suppression Bill Ever" in Latest Push to Help Trump Take Over Elections

Top U.S. & World Headlines — February 13, 2026
14:42
Democracy Now Video • Feb 13, 2026

Top U.S. & World Headlines — February 13, 2026

The Sickening Image That Will Haunt Pam Bondi the Rest of Her Life
New Republic • Feb 13, 2026

The Sickening Image That Will Haunt Pam Bondi the Rest of Her Life

During and right after Pam Bondi’s House testimony Wednesday, I flipped on Fox News and Newsmax to see how they were covering it. I was expecting to see a celebration of how the attorney general really put those America-hating libs in their place. To my surprise, I did not. I saw mostly ads, to be honest, but the little programming I did catch was devoted entirely to the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping story.Disappointed, I flipped back to MS NOW and didn’t think much of it. But Wednesday evening, The Daily Beast reported that my experience was not aberrational: Bondi testified for about five hours, and Fox News ran roughly 10 minutes of it live. It’s an old, old Murdochian ploy: When there’s news that doesn’t suit the agenda, just ignore it. I’ve seen this movie many times. Back in a different era, Rupert’s favorite politician was Al D’Amato, the hacky and corrupt Republican senator from New York. Whenever there was a new allegation about D’Amato’s ethics, or a Senate report reviewing same, it would be on the front page of The New York Times and get prominent play in the Daily News—and in the New York Post, there usually wasn’t a word.Fox’s near silence on Bondi is an admission that the hearing was an indefensible horror show. And it gets worse if you really think about it for a few minutes. Think of all the planning and strategizing that went into that performance. Employees of the Department of Justice, working on our dime, spent hours prepping Bondi on exactly how to insult each and every Democratic member of the committee. They came up with the idea of requiring each House member to have an individual log-in to peruse the Epstein files so the DOJ could spy on them. They spent hours assembling Bondi’s little burn book. She had to have been coached for hours about exactly how to ignore the questions and try to turn the tables on her interrogators. In other words: Her aides, whose salaries we pay, probably thought this would be great. That she’d walk away with a catalog of sound-bite knockout punches.Instead, Bondi walked away with the image that will haunt her for the rest of her life: her back turned to those Jeffrey Epstein victims as Representative Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands “if you have still not been able to meet with the DOJ”—and they all raised their hands. That image looked horrible Wednesday; as more and more details about the Epstein story leak out in the coming weeks and months, it’s only going to look worse.And yet, for all this? In substantive terms, her performance at that hearing may not even have been the worst thing Bondi did this week! The morning after the hearing, she fired Gail Slater, the head of the department’s antitrust division. Slater actually had a decent reputation—she was part of the populist-MAGA anti-monopoly movement, and she brought a high-profile case against Google over its monopolization of the ad tech market. Many progressive anti-monopolists were cheering for Slater. Said Senator Elizabeth Warren upon hearing this news: “A small army of MAGA-aligned lawyers and lobbyists have been trying to sell off merger approvals that will increase prices and harm innovation to the highest bidder. Every antitrust case in front of the Trump Justice Department now reeks of double-dealing—Ticketmaster’s stock is already surging.” That last sentence is true. If you’re interested, you can read here about why this is so bad. The bottom line is that Bondi’s firing of Slater is a big nail in the coffin of the idea that Trumpian right-wing populism is willing to take on powerful interests. It may—but only as long as they’re designated enemies of Trump.To circle back to Fox News: If they’re going to follow the old Murdoch edict of ignoring all bad news, pretty soon they’re going to be reduced to airing nothing but scare stories about woke Olympic athletes and Spanish-speaking superstars. It’s not even clear Bondi had the worst week among Trump Cabinet officials. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got seriously pulverized twice this week. First, when a grand jury refused to indict six Democrats for their earlier video reminding soldiers that they had a duty to disobey illegal orders; as Chesa Boudin and Eric Fish point out in a Times op-ed today, grand juries convened by the mighty Justice Department almost never fail to return an indictment. Second, when a federal judge blocked Hegseth from punishing one of the six, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, writing that Hegseth had grossly violated Kelly’s First Amendment rights. “Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired servicemembers, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired servicemembers have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years,” Judge Richard Leon wrote. “If so, they will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first Amendment in the Bill of Rights!”And Kristi Noem had to endure the indignity of seeing rival Tom Homan, the border czar, make her ICE-men goeth out of Minneapolis. Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal posted a long and devastating story about the mayhem at the Department of Homeland Security under Noem and her rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski. It’s the kind of Washington story that appears only when inside sources decide to start running to reporters to spill saucy details they once sat on—a clear sign that no one is scared of her anymore.None of these people, of course, belongs in a high position in the federal government. They’re psychopathic monsters. There’s no doubt Bondi and her advisers think she knocked a home run on Wednesday. But one day, we’ll all learn what she’s hiding about the Epstein story. Can’t wait for that hearing. This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. Sign up here.

MAGA Senator Took Donation From Epstein Friend Before Key Vote
New Republic • Feb 13, 2026

MAGA Senator Took Donation From Epstein Friend Before Key Vote

Ohio Senator John Husted accepted thousands of dollars in donations from one of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators, before voting against releasing the Department of Justice’s files on the alleged sex trafficker. As long as Husted has been in office, he has accepted money from Les Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret whose name was inexplicably redacted out of the Epstein files until earlier this week. The Ohio Republican has raked in more than $116,000 from Wexner since 2001, when he first entered public office as a member of Ohio’s state House of Representatives. Husted accepted $3,500 from Wexner as recently as July—only two months before he voted to block the release of the Epstein files, according to campaign finance records reviewed by TiffinOhio. In November, Husted, a steady MAGA sycophant, again voiced opposition to releasing files. But days later, the Epstein Files Transparency Act was passed through the Senate by unanimous consent. Husted wasn’t the only one who accepted money from the Wexner: The billionaire doled out more than $250,000 in donations to Republican candidates in the past year, especially ones in his home state of Ohio, according to NOTUS.In June, Wexner gave $3,500 to Senator Bernie Moreno, and a month later, the Republican senator claimed that the frenzy to release the Epstein files was being “fueled” by the media and Democrats—despite mounting calls from members of his own party to release the documents. In September, he joined Husted in voting against the files’ release, before ultimately agreeing to support the Epstein Files Transparency Act’s passage in November. Wexner also gave $3,500 to Republican Representative Mike Carey, as well as one Democrat, Representative Joyce Beatty. Wexner was among the six powerful men who had their names redacted by the DOJ, and his name appeared on a list of potential co-conspirators.

Kristi Noem Fired—and Immediately Rehired—Someone Over a Blanket
New Republic • Feb 13, 2026

Kristi Noem Fired—and Immediately Rehired—Someone Over a Blanket

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is under fire for pink-slipping a Coast Guard pilot and then rehiring them moments later, over a blanket. Noem and her expired-special-employee chief adviser (and rumored beau) Corey Lewandowski are no strangers to a toxic work environment—rather, they seem to enjoy creating them. The duo are known for frequently berating their senior-level staff and have even demanded that employees submit to polygraph tests as exhibitions of loyalty. But days after federal agents working under Noem’s purview shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the DHS secretary snapped.A maintenance issue on one of her planes had forced her to land and deboard to another aircraft, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday. The sudden switch inspired Lewandowski to fire the U.S. Coast Guard pilot from the first plane, though the pilot’s abilities weren’t the problem: Noem was upset that her blanket had not followed her to her second plane.The pilot was told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination, according to the Journal’s report.But moments later, Noem had to backtrack on the pilot’s terminated employment, though she didn’t do so in any admission of wrongdoing. Instead, Noem tapped the pilot to fly her around again because “no one else was available to fly them home,” reported the Journal.A DHS spokeswoman declined to address the episode but told the newspaper that the secretary had “made personnel decisions to deliver excellence.”Some of those personnel decisions have been nothing short of seismic. In 2025, Noem and Lewandowski completely reengineered Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their image, firing or demoting approximately 80 percent of the agency’s field leadership.Their 2026 plans for the agency involve a massive “wartime recruitment” hiring spree that aims to take on as many as 10,000 new ICE officers in the coming year. Part of that strategy includes spending millions on social media advertisements targeted at gun rights advocates, UFC enthusiasts, and manosphere podcast audiences.Meanwhile, AI-induced slip-ups have “sent many new recruits into field offices without proper training,” according to law enforcement officials.

Trump Official Who Helped Kill USAID Now Using Its Funds for Himself
New Republic • Feb 13, 2026

Trump Official Who Helped Kill USAID Now Using Its Funds for Himself

Office of Budget and Management Director Russell Vought killed USAID, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, and is now using the money he “saved” to bankroll his security detail. A Reuters report Friday states that the Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding—money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases—to pay his U.S. Marshal security through the end of the year.One source told Reuters that Vought has more than a dozen U.S. marshals in his security detail.While Vought allegedly faced a threat on his life last month, the irony of the man who ripped disease-fighting funding away from some of the most at-risk people in the world only to use it to beef up his personal bodyguard staff is impossible to ignore.This is yet another example of Trump officials’ questionable personal spending habits. On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Homeland Security is leasing a $70 million jet that Secretary Kristi Noem and her alleged boyfriend Corey Lewandowski use to travel in luxury. And what’s up with that $400 million White House ballroom?

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