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“De Facto Dictatorship”: Democrats Confront ICE, CBP Officials on Brutal Tactics
20:17
Democracy Now Video • Feb 11, 2026

“De Facto Dictatorship”: Democrats Confront ICE, CBP Officials on Brutal Tactics

How RFK Jr.’s “MAHA” Quackery Is Making Flu Season Worse
New Republic • Feb 11, 2026

How RFK Jr.’s “MAHA” Quackery Is Making Flu Season Worse

Last month, cases of flu reached their highest levels in the United States in 25 years. Many hospitals were unprepared for the surge; as emergency wards filled with flu patients, health care workers were left to weather the impacts. As of February 6, there have been at least 22 million reported cases, 280,000 hospitalizations, and 12,000 deaths from flu so far this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of those afflicted are being hospitalized due to severe postviral complications, such as pneumonia, antibiotic-resistant staph, and even fatal brain swelling.And while rates have since subsided, we’re not out of the woods yet, with flu B now on the rise. As epidemiologist Marisa Donnelly said, “We’re still in the thick of the season.”What explains why recent flu seasons have been so severe? There are several factors.In this political climate, the first thing that may come to mind is the anti-vaccine policy coming from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, which has sown confusion around vaccines, leading to lower rates of vaccination for the flu and other diseases—not to mention massive preventable measles outbreaks. But it’s also true that the dominant strain of flu may not be well matched to the existing vaccine. However, a less discussed aspect behind the high rates of flu and disease severity is a slew of recent research finding that prior Covid-19 infections can damage immune responses—and most Americans have been infected with Covid at least once by now.“It is clear that at least some of what we’re seeing right now is likely related to that immunity problem from Covid-19 infections,” Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and co-author of a study on the subject, told The New Republic.He’s not the only doctor to connect these dots. According to Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Texas, El Paso, “Prior Covid-19 infection can lead to persistent immune dysfunction, which may increase susceptibility to subsequent influenza infection and severity of disease.” Despite this, there is a “pervasive nonchalance” about the surge in flu and spread of other respiratory viruses like Covid among the public, as Al-Aly put it—and RFK Jr.’s moves at HHS are in part to blame, he said. On top of that, hospitals are refusing to adequately staff their wards or protect health care workers from infection, increasing the burden of disease and putting the public at risk. And this week, the FDA decided not to consider Moderna’s application for a new mRNA-based flu vaccine—a decision handed down by the agency’s notorious anti-vaxxer Vinay Prasad. Overall, under Kennedy’s watch, there has been more chaos, more confusion, and less vaccination—and the consequences have been deadly.Sixty children have died from the flu this season—the vast majority of whom were unvaccinated—according to the CDC. In the midst of this unfolding tragedy, the Department of Health and Human Services made the controversial, unilateral decision to slash the childhood vaccine schedule from 17 universally recommended vaccines down to 11. Six vaccines—rotavirus, Covid-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B—have been demoted to the status of “shared clinical decision-making.” This status is typically reserved for “situations of genuine clinical equipoise,” wrote Dr. Jake Scott for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which does not apply to the six removed vaccines, given the scientific consensus on their safety and efficacy.HHS was quick to justify its decision, in a paper penned by notorious anti-vax HHS leadership, which went to great lengths to play up the small risks of those vaccines. Its authors wrote that they were aligning vaccine policy with that of “peer” countries like Denmark, when in fact Denmark itself is an outlier among most European countries, according to KFF. It also isn’t a fair comparison: Denmark has a much smaller population and universal health care coverage, meaning many fewer patients fall between the cracks in terms of needed preventative care.The result of this change will be that fewer parents will come to view the flu vaccine as safe and necessary for their children, experts say. “Many parents are already unsure if their child needs a flu vaccine, and the secretary’s statements can tip the balance and lead to less use,” said Dorit Reiss, a law professor and vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law, in a statement to The New Republic. “Less vaccines will likely lead to more deaths—among children and adults.” She pointed out that “for influenza, children are a real source of infection for other family members, including the elderly.” Vaccination rates for children for flu have dropped from 58 to 45 percent since the 2019–2020 season, as of late January, according to the CDC. “With fewer people vaccinated, you’re seeing the risk of having a severe reaction increase. So that’s definitely a major factor in seeing high flu hospitalizations,” said Donnelly, who also writes the New York edition of the public health newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist. HHS changing the vaccine schedule followed a year of other unprecedented moves to circumvent and challenge established vaccine policy. The list of changes is dizzying: including HHS’s replacing the members of its vaccine advisory board with vaccine skeptics, cutting access to Covid vaccines, and slashing funding for mRNA vaccine research. This has led to pharmaceutical companies themselves turning away from this important vaccine technology, making note of the anti-vaccine tone set by the government. This comes atop decimating cuts to the CDC. Meanwhile, many states and major medical associations have maintained their previous vaccine recommendations, citing the changes as not based in science, with initiatives like the Vaccine Integrity Project attempting to fill in the gaps left by the corrupted CDC.However, patients are “confused” about what they should do given the mixed messaging they are receiving, explained Donnelly. Despite the claims of the Make America Healthy Again movement that they are restoring trust in public health, they are doing the opposite. According to a survey by KFF, less than half of respondents said that they trusted the CDC, the lowest number since before the pandemic.Inconsistent public health messaging “undermines trust,” said Al-Aly. “All of that political turmoil and misinformation … has a true effect on people’s lives.” We are already seeing those impacts with measles, he added. “It’s really, really tragic.”As threats have grown to the public, health care workers on the front lines have found themselves at greater risk, as well. The flu surge has exacerbated overcrowding and understaffing issues for hospital workers in many cases, according to Jane Thomason, the assistant director for Health and Safety at National Nurses United. She said that hospitals didn’t prepare adequately for the flu season despite it being “predictable.” As she put it, “Employers are just refusing to staff units with the number of nurses needed to care for patients. And then we’re adding in this surge of patients on top of that. And so the impacts here can be really severe, for both patients and nurses.”In coming years, hospitals will only find themselves further strapped for personnel as the government cuts Medicaid and Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, leaving millions more uninsured. The impact will disproportionately affect low-income hospitals where more patients are on Medicaid. With lower insured rates, more people will delay medical care until it is an emergency and the hospital is their only option. This is especially true for immigrants, many of whom are now terrified to seek medical care as Medicaid shares data with immigration enforcement officers who now lurk around hospitals. Thomason pointed to the dangers of hospital overcrowding—longer wait times can lead to more deaths and complications. Understaffing can also contribute to staff injuries and workplace violence, according to research published by National Nurses United. In fact, hospitals consistently rank among the most dangerous worksites for employees. These are among the reasons behind the massive New York City nurses’ strike, and they are far from the only nurses protesting for better conditions.“We’re not just talking about theoretical impacts, or discomfort,” Thomason said. “We’re talking about people dying.”Cuts to funding for disease surveillance, such as wastewater data, will also leave us less prepared to face the next pandemic, according to Donnelly, who is also the head epidemiologist at Biobot Analytics, a top wastewater research company. “There was so much invested in building wastewater surveillance infrastructure during the pandemic. And communities really used this as a tool to understand what was going on locally, communicate with the public, inform the public,” she said. “If that funding is taken away, it moves us backwards in terms of preparedness for the next public health emergency.”Thomason also said that hospitals aren’t doing enough to protect their staff from catching the same respiratory viruses their patients are battling. Often, hospitals don’t provide adequate personal protective equipment to staff, screen patients for respiratory illnesses, employ correct isolation procedures among patients, or prioritize air filtration, she said—all in addition to offering inadequate “nonpunitive” sick leave. “Those are the conditions that are putting nurses at risk of getting an infection at work,” she said, citing a 2024 National Nurses United survey.Donnelly, Thomason, and Al-Aly all stressed the importance of ensuring widespread vaccination, investing in proper ventilation in health care and other crowded public settings, and using PPE as ways to mitigate surges like these.“You go to the E.R., and there’s no isolation procedures—people are sitting in a packed E.R. coughing, no mask, nothing, and then literally spreading it around,” Al-Aly said. “And that is a major failure of the hospital system.”

Trump Tanked Job Growth to Almost Nothing in 2025
New Republic • Feb 11, 2026

Trump Tanked Job Growth to Almost Nothing in 2025

It’s official: The jobless boom of Donald Trump’s first year back in office was even worse than we originally thought. A jobs report published Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics contained significant downward revisions for the already weak job growth numbers in 2025. Last year, the labor market added only 181,000 jobs total. Previous estimations had suggested that 584,000 jobs were created in 2025.Earlier this week, Donald Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro suggested that these kinds of dismal job numbers weren’t a fluke at all. In fact, they were the new normal. But even he underestimated just how bad things had gotten. “We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like. When we were letting in two million illegal aliens, they’re coming in, coming in, we had to produce 200,000 jobs a month for a steady state,” Navarro said Tuesday, adding that “50,000 a month is going to be more like what we need.”While roughly 50,000 a month would’ve been in line with the initial projections of 584,000 new jobs, the average number of jobs being created per month is clearly much lower—only about 15,000 new jobs per month, on average. Economist Paul Krugman told The New Republic earlier Wednesday that job growth since Trump implemented his tariff policy in April “is basically nil.”“Most economists think that we had no job growth in 2025, or close enough, within measurement error,” he said. “And it may be getting worse.”Navarro’s remarks revealed that the Trump administration doesn’t actually care if undocumented immigrants are good for the economy because nothing is more important than the president’s ethno-nationalist reengineering of the country. That’s not the only Trump policy priority that’s hurting the economy: The federal workforce saw a significant cut of 324,000 jobs in 2025, according to the new data. And while manufacturing saw a gain of 5,000 jobs in January, it’s still 83,000 jobs short of where the industry was a year prior, painting a poor picture of Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” for American manufacturing.The new data suggested that the jobs market may have started to recover slightly in January, with the creation of 130,000 new jobs. While the unemployment rate dropped to 4.3 percent, it still remained elevated from where it sat a year earlier. Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal Credit Union, has dubbed the current jobs trend as a “hiring recession” or “jobless boom.”“It’s a scenario that is picture perfect for Wall Street, but tough for many on Main Street,” Long wrote on Substack. While some economic growth was still being spurred by AI jobs, a lack of hiring positions had caused Americans to feel “stuck and anxious.”

Nancy Mace’s WILD Crashout
36:10
The Bitchuation Room • Feb 11, 2026

Nancy Mace’s WILD Crashout

Top U.S. & World Headlines — February 11, 2026
14:23
Democracy Now Video • Feb 11, 2026

Top U.S. & World Headlines — February 11, 2026

Pam Bondi Loses It After Being Asked to Apologize to Epstein Victims
New Republic • Feb 11, 2026

Pam Bondi Loses It After Being Asked to Apologize to Epstein Victims

Attorney General Pam Bondi refused Wednesday to face the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking empire after her department inappropriately revealed several of their identities in the latest document release.Seated before members of the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi dodged and deflected attempts by Democrats to recognize the victims seated directly behind her.“The Epstein Files Transparency Act required your Department of Justice to disclose the perpetrators connected with Epstein’s criminal activities and to redact the information of survivors to protect their identities,” Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal said. “Let me show you what actually happened.”Referring to a large poster board behind her displaying some of the emails released by the DOJ, Jayapal highlighted that Bondi’s agency had actually done the opposite of what was required. In addition to concealing the identities of Epstein’s associates, the department failed to shield the identities of some 32 victims, “along with numerous files that disclose not only the names, emails, and addresses of survivors, but also nude photographs and even the identities of Jane Does who had been protected for decades until your department released their names.”Jayapal noted that, for some of the victims, the DOJ’s release was the first time that their families had heard that they were trafficked by Epstein. “For the survivors in the room, if you are willing, please stand,” Jayapal urged. “And if you are willing, please raise your hands if you have still not been able to meet with the DOJ.”All of the victims present raised their hands.“Attorney General Bondi. You apologized to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. Will you turn to them now and apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information?” Jayapal pressed.But Bondi would not. Instead, she decided to bring up former Attorney General Merrick Garland, though it was not clear why she did so.“This is not about anybody that came before you, it is about you taking responsibility for your Department of Justice and the harm that it has done to the survivors right behind you,” Jayapal said, her voice beginning to break.Bondi mentioned Garland again, but Jayapal insisted she answer the question.“I’m not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics,” Bondi sneered.🔥🚨 BREAKING: Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D) gets BOMBED by Attorney General Pam Bondi when she tries a gotcha question. BONDI: "I'm not going to get in the GUTTER for her theatrics." 🔥 pic.twitter.com/LGQzEYpmWi— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) February 11, 2026

IT IS SO OVER...
14:16
Hasan Abi • Feb 11, 2026

IT IS SO OVER...

Kash Patel’s FBI Flails as Person of Interest in Guthrie Case Released
New Republic • Feb 11, 2026

Kash Patel’s FBI Flails as Person of Interest in Guthrie Case Released

FBI Director Kash Patel has once again prematurely announced a major update in a criminal investigation, only to have to walk it back hours later. Police detained and questioned a person of interest on Tuesday night regarding the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, who was taken from her Arizona home over a week ago. New security camera footage released by the FBI  shows masked men on the front porch of Guthrie’s home the night she disappeared, but she still remains missing.On Tuesday, Patel went on Fox News with Sean Hannity and touted the FBI’s “brilliant” relationship with private-sector companies that allowed them to make “substantial progress in these last 36 [to] 48 hours. “And I do believe we are looking at people who, as we say, are persons of interest,” he continued. At least one of those “persons” appears to be a completely innocent man.The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, supported by Patel’s FBI, detained a man who identified himself as Carlos at a traffic stop in Tucson on Tuesday. He was released the same day, and later spoke to reporters outside his home, profusely proclaiming his innocence. “[It was] terrifying. Something I didn’t do … I felt like I was being kidnapped bro. They didn’t tell me anything at the beginning,” Carlos said, visibly shaken as his voice wavered. He said he was followed, detained at random, and questioned about his “whereabouts” and personal information by police. He was “held against his will” and says he wasn’t read his Miranda rights until two hours into his detainment.🚨 NEW: The man detained and now RELEASED in the Nancy Guthrie investigation speaks out:He says he had ZERO idea what was going on.“I’m just a delivery driver in Tucson. That’s it.” pic.twitter.com/TBKNTldLpi— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) February 11, 2026“Are you ever up in Tucson?” a reporter asked Carlos. “I work in Tucson … GLS, deliver packages,” he replied. “Do you think you might have delivered a package to Nancy Guthrie’s house?” “I don’t know, might’ve been a possibility.”Carlos, answering questions in both English and Spanish, later stated that he had no idea who Guthrie even was, and that he didn’t watch the Today show.“I hope they get the suspect. Because I’m not it. And they better do their job and find the suspect that did it so they can clear my name. And I’m done. Look at what I’m putting my family through,” he continued. “Not just them, but my parents in Tucson.”This is Carlos who says he was pulled over by police and was accused of kidnapping #NancyGuthrie.They have released him. We just spoke with him outside his house in Rio Rico Arizona⁦@CBSNews⁩ pic.twitter.com/BmsR2q5jBl— Andres Gutierrez (@AFGutierrez) February 11, 2026Detaining and interrogating a random person before throwing them out the door has become a pattern for the Patel FBI in high-profile investigations. Last September, Patel came under fire from the left and right for his premature social media post the day Charlie Kirk was shot, declaring that “the subject for the horrific shooting” was in custody—a claim almost immediately contradicted by local officials. Patel later backtracked, and the manhunt ensued for another 27-plus hours before the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was turned in by a family member. And in December, the FBI director wrote a long post boasting about the bureau’s efforts to detain another person of interest in the Brown University shooting that killed two and wounded nine. Blunders like these are only magnified under a bureau now left to the whims of Patel, who insists on force and bravado that does not match his success rate.

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