Saturday, February 07, 2026
New Poll Shows Americans Think ICE Has Gone Too Far
The charts above are from the NPR / PBS News / Marist Poll -- done between January 27th and 30th of a nationwide sample of 1,462 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.
CBS Poll Shows Americans Still Very Unhappy With The Economy
The charts above are from the CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done between February 3rd and 5th of a nationwide sample of 2,425 adults, with a 2.4 point margin of error.
Trump Could Change Policies To Please Voters - But He'd Rather Cheat
The following is part of a post by Dan Rather and his staff:
Donald Trump knows his party will probably lose one, if not both, houses of Congress in November. He could do something politically rational to help his cause, such as removing the remaining 2,300 ICE agents from the streets of Minneapolis, or lifting tariffs, or restoring Obamacare subsidies to lower health insurance costs.
Since his is very much a “me” not a “we” presidency, none of that will happen. Making the lives of the American people better doesn’t seem to be in his wheelhouse. . . .
Trump has known for some time that Republican prospects for the midterms are bleak. He also knows his unceasing and erroneous refrain that American elections are rigged and hordes of undocumented immigrants vote illegally are tired, old lies.
In July, he demanded that Texas undergo an unorthodox, mid-decade redistricting that could net five Republican House seats in November. California countered with a redistricting plan of its own, which was upheld by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, only adding to the president’s alarm. He has tried to strong-arm a number of other states into partisan gerrymandering, with less success.
So, if he can’t gain enough seats by redrawing congressional maps and disenfranchising millions of people, how about trashing the Constitution? On Monday, Trump told Dan Bongino, current podcaster and former FBI deputy director, “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” . . .
If federalizing the election process won’t work, Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s most trusted advisers, has another plan. He is setting the stage for chaos and intimidation on Election Day. On Tuesday, he announced, “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’ll never again allow an election to be stolen.”
Trump has also toyed with the idea of calling off the midterms, which he can’t do legally. But he can use ICE to block and deter voters. And he could use the Department of Justice to seize ballots and take over vote counting. He has also threatened to decertify voting machines. None of these moves would be justified, but lack of justification has never stopped him.
Last week, the FBI seized Fulton County, Georgia’s 2020 election ballots. Fulton County includes Atlanta. In 2020, Trump lost Georgia, even after two recounts. He then tried to lean on the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the election. So why seize these documents now?
Since nothing can or should be done about the 2020 results, the only reason for this unprecedented action now is to set the stage for 2026.
The DOJ has demanded unredacted voter files from all 50 states. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have not complied. No surprise, Trump & Co. are suing them.
Like most of their suits, it isn’t going well. On January 15, a U.S. district court found that the Justice Department’s demands for states’ voter data violated federal privacy laws.
Voter files are a critical weapon for voter suppression and election subversion. They can be used to purge voters. As we know, the DOJ doesn’t need a valid reason to do such a thing. . . .
Anyone who really cares about the country should be paying close attention. November’s midterm elections are shaping up to be a fight not just at the ballot box, but for democracy itself.
Friday, February 06, 2026
New Poll Shows Voters Unhappy With Trump, Noem, And ICE
The charts above reflect the results of the Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between January 29th and February 2nd of a nationwide sample of 1,191 registered voters, with a 3.6 point margin of error.
Loyalty To Trump Will NOT Result In Protection When He's Gone
The following is part of a post by Thom Hartmann at The Hartmann Report:
You’re out there defending Donald Trump’s lawbreaking, cheering his attacks on judges, prosecutors, immigrants, journalists, and even the Constitution itself. You defend his bribe-taking, the jet from Qatar, the violence of ICE, and his hotel and crypto grifts. You say it’s necessary for him to abuse power to “get things done,” that the other side is worse, that he’s strong and that’s what the American people need.
History is littered with people who believed the same things. . . .
Here’s the uncomfortable (for you) truth: authoritarian leaders like Trump and Putin treat loyalty like a disposable resource. Just look at all the Republicans who served in Trump’s first term and he’s now trying to throw into prison. Loyalty, for narcissists and authoritarians like Trump, is always a one-way street.
So long as you’re useful, you’re protected, but the moment Dear Leader no longer commands power you’ll become a liability, an offering to be thrown out to appease the angry mob.
And when the prosecutors come calling for you after Trump’s gone, they won’t start with your elegant speeches or proclamations that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were “domestic terrorists.” They start with your memos, phone calls, pressure campaigns, documents, and quiet threats; they’ll go after your “find the votes” activities, the cooked reports, the arrests without cause, the orders that violated others’ civil rights. . . .
Right now you may feel powerful. You’re on TV, retweeted, and praised by Trump. The base cheers, the fundraising money pours in, the billionaires are chummy, and it feels like history is being written by your side.
But history has a funny way of circling back:
— Nixon’s aides told themselves they were protecting the presidency, but they destroyed their own lives instead.
— The seniormost Nazis told themselves they were saving Germany, but they were prosecuted as war criminals.
— Mussolini’s ministers told themselves they were stabilizing Italy, but they ended up dead or disgraced.
— Pinochet’s enforcers told themselves they were fighting communism, but they ended up in prison.
And there’s no statute of limitations on some of the crimes you’re now waving away. . . .
You may tell yourself — like all those people before you told themselves — that Trump will protect you. But Nixon didn’t protect his people; he left the White House and never looked back to watch his underlings fall. History’s strongmen never look back. When the heat gets intense enough, they point at others, not themselves. . . .
The courts won’t ask whether you believed in the cause: they’ll ask what you did.
Did you pressure an official? Did you sign that order? Did you participate in killing those fishermen with a missile? Did you move the funds? Did you authorize those deportations to foreign torture centers? Did you look the other way? Did you help cover up the child rapes?
That’s when you’ll discover the very real difference between a political appointee and the defendant you’ll become. . . .
Presidents can walk away, but staffers, lawyers, deputies, agency heads, cabinet officials, and enablers can’t.
You still have time to choose which side of history you’re on, and which side of a courtroom you never want to sit in.
Because the lesson of every fallen strongman is the same: abusive power-by-association today becomes criminal liability tomorrow.
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