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Only One Democrat Voted to Keep Funding Homeland Security
The lone Democrat in the Senate to vote to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded was none other than Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman. The progressive turned Trump sympathizer voted to advance a bill funding DHS for the next year, using the justification that he opposes government shutdowns for any reason. Every other Democrat in the Senate, including centrists such as Maine’s Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, voted against the funding. The bill ultimately failed to move forward, despite Fetterman’s best efforts.Fetterman posted a video on X Thursday claiming that “shutting DHS down has zero impact and zero changes for ICE.”“ICE already has $75B in funding from the BBB that I did not vote for,” Fetterman said, referencing Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that was passed in July. “But it will hit FEMA, Coast Guard, TSA and our Cybersecurity Agency. As a Democrat, I can’t vote to shut down critical parts of our government.”Shutting DHS down has zero impact and zero changes for ICE. ICE already has $75B in funding from the BBB that I did not vote for.But it will hit FEMA, Coast Guard, TSA and our Cybersecurity Agency.As a Democrat, I can’t vote to shut down critical parts of our government. pic.twitter.com/QYasx0LwCo— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) February 12, 2026“The Republicans have to work with us, and they haven’t even come to the table on addressing our concerns,” Masto said, adding that she would oppose even temporary funding for DHS because progress on reforming ICE and the Border Patrol had stalled. New Jersey’s Cory Booker said Wednesday that Congress “cannot give another dollar” to DHS.“You have a reckless, out-of-control agency that is violating the rights of Americans. Literally, shooting and killing Americans unjustly. And my colleagues do not seem to be aggrieved about this. The small-government conservatives don’t think that this is in any way an overreach of executive power into the lives of community members,” Booker told Chris Hayes on MS NOW.Fetterman has called for President Trump to fire DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, warning last month that “she is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy.” But otherwise, he has taken a right-wing stance on immigration, supporting ICE and Trump’s mass deportation agenda despite the fact that his own wife, Gisele, was once undocumented.
Congress faces the inevitability of its third shutdown in five months
The Department of Homeland Security is all but guaranteed to run out of money on Saturday as negotiations fracture.
Trump Says “Staffer” Who Posted Obama Video Faced No Consequences
Donald Trump could not care less that he virtually endorsed a blatantly racist clip of former President Barack Obama and his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama.The president admitted Thursday that no one will face consequences for a video that temporarily appeared on his Truth Social account last week, depicting the famed couple as a pair of apes.Trump casually brushed off the clip while answering questions at the White House, telling a reporter that the AI-generated scene was nothing more than a “little piece that had to do with The Lion King.”“Sir, have you fired or disciplined that staffer who posted the video from your account that included the Obamas?” asked a journalist.“No I have not,” Trump said. “That was a video, as you know, on voter fraud.”“Fairly long video, had a little piece that had to do with The Lion King, it was shown all over the place long before it was posted,” he continued, ignoring the fact the beloved children’s film only features one primate, Rafiki, who is a mandrill. “That was—I’m sure you saw it—a very strong piece on voter fraud.”Trump officials had quickly shifted blame away from the president after the bigoted video appeared on his Truth Social profile, claiming that an unnamed staffer was responsible—rather than Trump himself.A total lack of accountability is, however, par for the course for Trump, who rose to the forefront of American politics in 2016 despite widespread knowledge that he “grabs” women “by the pussy,” and multiple reports that Trump spent his real estate career dodging payments that he owed contractors.That same year, Trump famously told a crowd of his supporters in Iowa that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and [he] wouldn’t lose any voters.”Exactly one decade later, that lesson still holds true for the militant leader. Despite being mentioned more than 38,000 times in the publicly available, redacted version of the Epstein files, Trump’s Republican allies and staunch MAGA supporters have refused to condemn him. Images and reports of Trump schmoozing and buddying up to the child sex trafficker, as well as allegations that Trump abused a 13-year-old girl (referred to in an FBI tip sheet), have hardly moved the needle on the loyalty of his seemingly undying followers.
Will Trump Succeed in Jailing Don Lemon? A Legal Explainer
Constitutional law professor Kim Wehle examines the outrageous prosecution of the former CNN anchor while unpacking the Face Act, the First Amendment, and Trump's ongoing war on free speech.
'It Could Happen Here': Nuremberg Psychologist DIRE Warning From Grave
TPUSA Purges Staff Amid Fallout From Charlie Kirk Death Conspiracy
Turning Point USA has recently fired several employees, as a right-wing commentator’s conspiracy theories about founder Charlie Kirk’s death have reportedly begun to take root at the far-right organization, The Bulwark reported Thursday.Last week, Aubrey Laitsch, a former communications staffer at TPUSA, posted a video claiming that the organization lied about the reason she was let go. “I just have a gut feeling that I was terminated from Turning Point because I am questioning the narrative of what happened to my role model and CEO, Charlie Kirk, on the day of his assassination,” Laitsch said. She later documented a man who appeared to be a private investigator snooping around her house, further raising concerns that something was amiss. Laitsch’s suspicion that Kirk’s death was an inside job didn’t come from nowhere: It’s a conspiracy theory being pushed by Candace Owens, whose claims that Kirk was murdered for his rejection of Israel and AIPAC have ripped a massive hole in the middle of the far right. Laitsch’s firing is just the latest in a series of terminations, as staffers have reported a “purge” at the organization—and even started a “fallout fund” for terminated employees. Owens has also boosted stories of firings, sharing audio of an anonymous staffer who claimed to have been fired without explanation and another story of a TPUSA executive who showed up at an employee’s home to fire her and demand back her company electronics.One must not cry for the discarded members of an ultra-right-wing Christian-nationalist organization—and it’s worth noting that suggesting your boss committed murder would probably get you fired from any job.
WHO ARE THEY PROTECTING??
Black Men Endured Sexual Exploitation Under Slavery. Their Story Is Rarely Told.
Historian Thomas A. Foster discusses his new book Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men.