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Civil Rights Groups Sue to Protect Georgia Voter Data Seized by FBI
New Republic • Feb 16, 2026

Civil Rights Groups Sue to Protect Georgia Voter Data Seized by FBI

The federal government is being sued by civil rights organizations to protect voter data seized by the FBI in a raid at a Fulton County, Georgia, elections building last month. The NAACP, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Georgia Coalition of the People’s Agenda, and other groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Sunday to “prohibit the Trump administration from misusing the voter information” it seized as part of the raid.Donald Trump has long claimed the 2020 election was stolen from him despite no evidence of voter fraud. Georgia was won by President Biden in that election, and as a result, the Trump administration last month launched an investigation into Fulton County, the largest and most Democratic-leaning county in the state.“Having already failed to overturn the valid results of the 2020 presidential election by invoking false claims of widespread voter fraud, promoting fake electors, and inciting a violent insurrection, Trump and his minions are refusing to give up the ‘lost cause,’ trampling even more voting and privacy rights in the process,” said Damon Hewitt, the president and executive director of the Lawyer’s Committee, in a statement. “Ironically, this is happening in the same jurisdiction where Trump pressured state elections officials to ‘find 11,870 votes’ in an effort to declare himself the victor in 2020.”The Georgia raid has raised concerns that Trump is trying to manufacture a justification to take over elections in battleground areas, especially considering that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was inexplicably present and found to be giving updates to Trump the next day. The president claims the raid happened on the orders of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who hasn’t cleared things up. Gabbard has spent the last several months investigating long-debunked claims of voter fraud from the 2020 election, a departure from her supposed job overseeing U.S. intelligence. Under her watch, the FBI seized close to 700 ballots and other election materials from Fulton County, including tabulator tapes from scanners that count votes, electronic ballot images created when ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter rolls.This new lawsuit joins another legal action filed by the county earlier this month to return all seized materials. Meanwhile, Trump and his Republican allies continue to push for a federal takeover of elections, with the president threatening to push through voter I.D. even without Congress. It seems that the future of free and fair elections rests on whether the courts can stop the Trump administration.

Trump Blames Popular Black Democrat for Potomac River Sewage Spill
New Republic • Feb 16, 2026

Trump Blames Popular Black Democrat for Potomac River Sewage Spill

President Trump is blaming Maryland Governor Wes Moore for sewage pollution in the Potomac River, something Moore has no control over. “There is a massive Ecological Disaster unfolding in the Potomac River as a result of the Gross Mismanagement of Local Democrat Leaders, particularly, Governor Wes Moore, of Maryland,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday afternoon. “A sewer line breach in Maryland has caused millions of gallons of raw sewage to be dumped directly into the Potomac River, a result of incompetent Local and State Management of Essential Waste Management Systems. This is the same Governor who cannot rebuild a Bridge. It is clear Local Authorities cannot adequately handle this calamity.” Trump added that he is “directing Federal Authorities to immediately provide all necessary Management, Direction, and Coordination to protect the Potomac, the Water Supply in the Capital Region, and our treasured National Resources in our Nation’s Capital City.” Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin reposted Trump’s message. It sounds like Trump heard “sewage emergency in Maryland” and took the opportunity to shit on a popular Black Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate without doing his research.  “He’s just blatantly lying about this,” The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg wrote on X. “The pipe is maintained by ⁦DC Water⁩ and runs along the Clara Barton Parkway, which is maintained/run by the National Park Service. It has nothing to do with ⁦Governor Wes Moore⁩.”A massive overflow of sewage spewed into the Potomac River in January after a large pipe burst, leading to contamination in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. Federal authorities were already involved before Trump’s Truth Social post Monday, as the National Park Service has been closely working with DC Water to address the issue.The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland, which Trump was likely referring to in his post, collapsed in 2024 when a cargo boat struck one of its piers, and is projected to open back up in 2030. 

THE BLACK PANTHERS ARE BACK?
18:05
Hasan Abi • Feb 16, 2026

THE BLACK PANTHERS ARE BACK?

The Pentagon Just Sent a Terrifying Message to AI Companies
New Republic • Feb 16, 2026

The Pentagon Just Sent a Terrifying Message to AI Companies

Donald Trump’s so-called Department of War is threatening to cut ties with Anthropic because it won’t help the Pentagon conduct mass surveillance on Americans or make fully autonomous weapons that the administration can use however it likes.A senior Trump administration official told Axios Monday that the Pentagon was fed up after Anthropic refused unfettered use of its AI systems. “Everything’s on the table,” including cutting ties altogether, the official said.An “orderly replacement” would have to be found, if they ended the relationship, the official added.Last summer, Anthropic signed a contract with the Pentagon valued up to $200 million—but the company set hard boundaries against its systems being used to develop weapons, conduct surveillance, or facilitate violence. For months, the Pentagon has sought to negotiate with Anthropic to let the military use its tools for “all lawful purposes,” including weapons development and intelligence gathering, without being forced to argue individual use cases.In January, tensions came to a head after an executive at Anthropic reportedly reached out to an executive at Palantir to ask whether it had used the company’s Claude AI assistant as part of the U.S. military raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. (Spoiler alert: It did.)“It was raised in such a way to imply that they might disapprove of their software being used, because obviously there was kinetic fire during that raid, people were shot,” the senior official told Axios.A spokesperson for Anthropic denied that such a conversation had taken place in a statement to Axios, saying the company had “not discussed the use of Claude for specific operations with the Department of War. We have also not discussed this with any industry partners, outside of routine discussions on strictly technical matters.”“Anthropic’s conversations with the DoW to date have focused on a specific set of Usage Policy questions—namely, our hard limits around fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance—none of which relate to current operations,” the spokesperson added.Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell suggested to The Wall Street Journal that the Department of War’s relationship with Anthropic was under review. “Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight,” Parnell said.Meanwhile, Anthropic appears to only be wading further into politics. Last week, the company announced that it would pledge $20 million toward Public First, a super PAC that will oppose groups funded by the company’s rival OpenAI.

IHIP News: Hakeem Jeffries FACEPLANTS When GRILLED On ICE and AIPAC! New Leadership Now!
16:02
I've Had It Podcast • Feb 16, 2026

IHIP News: Hakeem Jeffries FACEPLANTS When GRILLED On ICE and AIPAC! New Leadership Now!

George W. Bush Torches Trump in Presidents’ Day Message
New Republic • Feb 16, 2026

George W. Bush Torches Trump in Presidents’ Day Message

Former President George W. Bush won’t defy the “code of silence” that prevents ex-U.S. leaders from publicly chastising their successors, but he’s apparently not opposed to throwing shade.In a Presidents’ Day essay published Monday by the pro-democracy institution More Perfect, Bush’s adoring gaze toward the qualities of America’s first president only served to underscore just how unpresidential the current administration has become.Bush waxed poetic on several of George Washington’s qualities, but paid particular attention to ones that are currently in short supply. Those included “humility,” a deep appreciation for history, a reverence for knowledge superior to his own, and an unwillingness to retain power “for power’s sake.”“Our first president could have remained all-powerful, but twice he chose not to,” Bush wrote. “In so doing, he set a standard for all presidents to live up to.”Bush also dissected Washington’s commitment to a code of conduct that was considered, at the time, to be the “gentlemanly arts.” Washington, according to Bush’s research, “schooled himself” by copying “the 110 maxims from Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,” a text authored by French Jesuits in the late sixteenth century.“Many of the qualities that came to be associated with Washington’s leadership, from self-control and courteousness to modesty and diplomacy, can be traced to that short book on manners,” Bush wrote.Washington’s repeated decisions to step down from power were critical lessons for the nation, according to Bush, who argued that Washington’s decision to step down as commander of the U.S. Army after the Revolution, and his later decision to end his presidency after two terms,  “ensured America wouldn’t become a monarchy, or worse.”The message carried particular weight considering that Donald Trump has continually contested election results in fruitless grasps at power, including an attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and threats to run for president a third time, against the constraints of the law.But Washington’s performance—and his commitment to building a lasting governmental foundation—was paramount not just to his success but to the future of the Oval Office and the country, according to the forty-third president.“Our first leader helped define not only the character of the presidency but the character of the country,” Bush wrote. “Washington modeled what it means to put the good of the nation over self-interest and selfish ambition. He embodied integrity and modeled why it’s worth aspiring to. And he carried himself with dignity and self-restraint, honoring the office without allowing it to become invested with near-mythical powers.”

Kansas Mayor Who Voted for Trump as Noncitizen Faces Felony Charges
New Republic • Feb 16, 2026

Kansas Mayor Who Voted for Trump as Noncitizen Faces Felony Charges

A small-town Kansas mayor is in trouble for voting illegally as a noncitizen—but he has the support of his town.Joe Ceballos was recently reelected mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, by a comfortable 101-20 margin. But just hours before the results came in, Ceballos, a legal permanent U.S. resident, was charged in state court with three counts of election perjury and three counts of voting without being qualified.The Trump administration gleefully highlighted the case as it reinforced right-wing claims of widespread voter fraud. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin included Ceballos’s picture and a copy of his signature on a voter registration form on a press release, saying, “This alien committed a felony by voting in American elections.” But the town of Coldwater, almost entirely Republican, is rallying around their mayor, who voted for Donald Trump in the last three elections and has lived in the town since he was a teenager. Ceballos, 55, came to the United States at the age of 4 from Mexico, moving around a lot with his family before settling in Coldwater, close to Kansas’s border with Oklahoma. He received his green card in 1990.Ceballos told The New York Times that he has never been back to Mexico since he left. While he used to help police as a Spanish interpreter, he doesn’t speak the language very well these days. According to the Times, by all appearances he is a Kansan—he drives a Ram truck, has a slight Southern Plains accent, and wears cowboy boots.“I still strongly believe in Trump’s immigration laws about, ‘Let’s get the bad guys out of here.’ You know, they’re murderers, they killed people, they molested people, let’s get them out of here,” Ceballos said to the publication. “But I feel like I don’t fit that category. And I feel like that’s how they’re treating me.”Ceballos has a misdemeanor battery conviction from 1994 for a fight involving multiple people, which he said was related to his first marriage. He doesn’t seem to have had any brushes with the law since then. After he was charged with voting illegally, he resigned. But the people of Coldwater have come to his defense, with ads being placed in the local newspaper to support Ceballos at his court hearing, which was so well attended that it was standing-room only.Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has railed against voter fraud for more than a decade, is trying to make an example out of Ceballos. At a news conference announcing the charges against Ceballos, he said, “Noncitizen voting is a real problem. It is not something that happens once in a decade. It is something that happens fairly frequently.”In reality, noncitizen voting occurs very rarely in the U.S., with very few cases. Ceballos freely admits that he voted illegally, but he said he didn’t know that he couldn’t vote as a permanent resident and that he had never been told that he couldn’t. Last year, he applied to become a citizen, and he answered “yes” to a federal official in an interview who asked if he had ever voted. That, Ceballos says, is when everything went downhill.Now Ceballos fears he will be found guilty and deported to Mexico, away from his family, or picked up by ICE before he even returns to court. Will the president he voted for take an interest, or use him as a poster child for voter fraud and justify his deportation?

Epstein PLOTTED With Trump About Victim LONG AFTER Two “Cut Ties”?
12:48
Status Coup • Feb 16, 2026

Epstein PLOTTED With Trump About Victim LONG AFTER Two “Cut Ties”?

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