New Jersey elementary school students run from ICE

Frightened little kids who are U.S. citizens are running from agents of their own government because their skin color is brown instead of white.  My childhood was full of fear.  It is horrifying and in the case of these children it is complete bigotry and racism directed by Nazi wannabe Stephen Miller.  

What is wrong in this country where adults think terrorizing little kids because of their skin color is acceptable?  I cannot accept this. I cannot accept terrified children running from adults just because of skin color!  What are we, apartheid South Africa?  This video is horrific!  Only racists could like seeing this.  Hugs

From W. Kamau Bell In Minneapolis:

Listen, read, or both; click through to hear it.

ICE Created a Restaurant That is 100% Free (And They Aren’t Allowed to Eat There)

Episode 4 of I SPENT THREE DAYS IN MINNEAPOLIS!

W. Kamau Bell

In the days after federal agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti (only days after other federal agents killed Renee Good), I saw a video of a haggard Minneapolis restaurant owner saying that he was going to give food away until the federal government’s occupation of Minnesota ends. His restaurant, Modern Times Cafe, was going to be 100% free… for everyone. It wasn’t just going to be free for people who proved they needed free food or for folks who asked for free food. It was going to be FREE. FOR. EVERYONE. Dylan Alverson, owner of the now-renamed Post Modern Times Cafe, was mad as hell, and he was not going to charge for pancakes anymore!

(Full Instagram bit on the page; above is a photo)

Actor and singer Mandy Patinkin’s son Gideon had shared Dylan’s video with me. Gideon runs Mandy’s verified Instagram account. The Patinkins’ IG page is filled with hopeful political messages, righteous leftist anger, and—most importantly—ways to help. At some point our Internet paths crossed, and we have tagged each other in posts ever since. Seeing Dylan’s video was yet another battery in my back that gave me the juice to go to Minneapolis. I saw the video on Monday, January 26, and by that Thursday, January 29 I was on a Zoom with the McKnight Foundation to figure out how we could work together to get me to the Twin Cities. Once we decided that I would go, I quickly put a visit to Post Modern Times on the agenda. I didn’t go there for McKnight. I went there for me. I really wanted to meet Dylan. He reminded me of people I met in Berkeley, back in the day. True believers who are more than excited to go against the grain. Luckily, Dylan was down to talk. As we discuss in the episode, he is not one for attention. He just wants to help his neighbors. I also found out that since he shared that initial video, he has decided that having a free restaurant feels so good that he wants to keep Post Modern Times Cafe free, even after Trump’s government leaves (which they finally announced they are going to do).

(Snip)

Dylan plans to turn his restaurant into a nonprofit organization. This just shows, yet again, that the effect this occupation has had on Minnesota is permanent. It doesn’t matter if the feds leave today, they have:

  • killed two people,
  • shot at least one more,
  • made schoolchildren afraid to go to school,
  • made some people (especially Latino restaurant workers) afraid to go to work,
  • hurt local business across Minnesota, because consumers are afraid to shop (or are too broke shop because they aren’t working), and
  • generally traumatized the state.

None of that gets erased, fixed, or healed just because the goons get gone. I truly hope that more people are able to sue the federal government like the teachers union, Education Minnesota, did. The only thing that has stopped the people of the Twin Cities and beyond from folding completely is that there are many, many, MANY people like Dylan Alverson who are committed to community. Like Dylan, they are committed above and beyond their own self-interest… or even their own commonsense.

While Dylan’s free restaurant may seem like a gimmick or a naive idea, Dylan sees it as part of a larger way to fight back against our authoritarian government. Dylan put it best in our interview:

“The world is watching, and they should. This could be the start of a revolution. We don’t know. But to me, it feels like it. And I’m willing to go as far as I need to if I can make that happen.”

Post Modern Times will only be able to keep up its anti-capitalistic “gamble” (gamble is Dylan’s word for what they are doing) if they also have community support. If you can, donate or spread the word about Post Modern Times Cafe’s bold plan.

(snip-MORE, including a podcast with Mandy Patinkin & Katherine Grody, helping MN teachers, and yet more!)

How Cool Is This?

Chart Shows Widespread Side Effect to Bad Bunny Performing in Spanish

By Melissa Fleur Afshar Life and Trends Reporter


Duolingo saw a sharp rise in Spanish learners following Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show, according to a post shared by the language-learning app on social media.

“Duolingo saw a 35 percent increase in Spanish learners last night. Better late than never,” the company wrote on Threads on February 9, under its official account, @duolingo. The post, which included a graph showing a clear spike in Spanish lessons, has been liked more than 7,500 times to date.

The surge followed Bad Bunny’s history‑making performance at the Super Bowl Halftime Show, where he became the first artist to sing primarily in Spanish during the most-watched sporting event in the U.S. Duolingo’s official Threads account shared the data shortly after the night ended, highlighting the immediate impact the performance appeared to have on language learning behavior.

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl appearance came months after he used a Spanish-language monologue on Saturday Night Live (SNL) to tell audiences they had “four months to learn” Spanish ahead of the game. Despite online backlash from some commentators at the time, the data shared by Duolingo suggests many viewers embraced the message, with interest in learning Spanish rising sharply during the Halftime Show.

Snip-MORE

Political cartoons / memes / and news I want to share. 2-16-2026

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#Buddha from What Are You Really Afraid Of?

 

 

 

My nights   

 

Image from Everything Is Star Stuff

This is why I have a Rolodex with all my passwords and user names. Hugs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#tnycartoons from The New Yorker

 

 

Image from What Are You Really Afraid Of?

 

 

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The Department of Homeland Security has brought on a 21-year-old social media professional from the Department of Labor to help run its communications channels — despite internal concerns about N*zi-coded content he previously posted.

According to The New York Times, Peyton Rollins moved from digital content manager at the Labor Department to a key role in DHS communications this month.

His name is Peyton Rollins. C’mon.

This kid has definitely killed small animals.

Could central casting find a more inbred Nazi looking 21 year old?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder when they will attack my blog or me. Hugs  

 

 

 

 

 

There were masks on the walls in a room on Epstein Island what had a dentist chair in the middle. Howard Lutnick [current Sec of Commerce] lived next to Jeffrey Epstein on 71st St and both their homes were owned by Les Wexner. #TheEpsteinClass

 

Republicans love immigrant #PeterThiel and his rampant drug use. Republicans look right past his homosexuality. Republicans love his Big Government Palantir tracking your every move.

This all shows that it’s not about invasive, gay, immigrant, ketamine addicts. All that matters is who serves fascist white nationalism.

Billionaire sex abusers get more than due process, they get Republican protection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Bramhall for 2/15/2026

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joy

His wife joins him during this dance.

Seeking admission: How a federal appeals court in Texas decision supercharged ICE

This is why anyone detained by ICE is shipped to Texas as soon as possible.  The conservative appeals court ruled all detainees in the country can be treated like they were detained at the border.  That is not the law, but the court is racist.  So once in Texas the kidnapped people lose the right to challenge their being held where in the rest of the country they can.  ICE is so desperate to deny people their constitutional rights in an effort to make the US a white ethnostate and cement white majority rule for as long as possible.  Hugs.  

Today In History/Black History

From LitHub.

Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City.

On Sunday, February 21, 1965, a little after 3pm, as he was preparing to address his Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York’s Audubon Ballroom, the controversial civil rights leader and revolutionary Malcolm X was shot dead by members of the Nation of Islam, the religious group X had broken from the year before. He was 39.

“In the aftermath, rivers of ink spilled across New York City’s many newspapers,” wrote Ted Hamm. The legendary journalist Jimmy Breslin was callous and dismissive; Langston Hughes “somewhat cryptic.”  

James Baldwin, who was in London at the time, famously shouted at the reporters who found him after X’s death: “You did it! It is because of you—the men that created this white supremacy—that this man is dead. You are not guilty, but you did it. … Your mills, your cities, your rape of a continent started all this.” 
Later, Baldwin told the story this way:

“There we were, at the table, all dressed up, and we’d ordered everything, and we were having a very nice time with each other. The headwaiter came, and said there was a phone call for me, and Gloria rose to take it. She was very strange when she came back—she didn’t say anything, and I began to be afraid to ask her anything. Then, nibbling at something she obviously wasn’t tasting, she said, ‘Well, I’ve got to tell you because the press is on its way over here. They’ve just killed Malcolm X.’ The British press said that I accused innocent people of this murder. What I tried to say then, and will try to repeat now, is that whatever hand pulled the trigger did not buy the bullet. That bullet was forged in the crucible of the West, that death was dictated by the most successful conspiracy in the history of the world, and its name is white supremacy.”

“I was certainly saddened by the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband,” Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to Betty Shabazz, X’s wife, after the murder. 

“While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.”

More than sixty years later, some details about the assassination remain unclear. But Malcolm X has endured as a cultural icon, death being, in the end, not quite enough to silence him.
MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM

 How Two of America’s Biggest Columnists Reacted to the Assassination of Malcolm X  

Fatima Bhutto on Channeling the Fearlessness of Malcolm X 

Naming the Unnamed:On the Many Uses of the Letter X
EVERGREEN QUOTE:“You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.”–Malcolm X

‘A feature, not a bug’: Trump admin’s pattern of hiring people with extremist views

Ohio Bill Would Overturn Local Ex-Gay Torture Bans

Again it is a fundamentalist / evangelical Christian who wants to force everyone to follow their church doctrines by enshrining them in the civil laws.  Their hate seems to drive them far more than Jesus’s love.   All studies ahve show that not only does conversion therapy not work it is very harmful to those that experience it.  These people don’t care because they want the LGBTQ+ gone, erased from society.  When will they learn it is inherent and can’t be changed by outside forces or because a person wants it to?  I like to ask people who believe in it if they could be converted to gay or trans and the response is always no that would be crazy.  Then why try to convert LGBTQ+ kids / people.  Because they see it as a choice and a sin, and nothing on can say will change their minds.  Horrible people doing horrible things.  Hugs

Ohio Bill Would Overturn Local Ex-Gay Torture Bans

February 13, 2026

The Ohio Capital Journal reports:

Ohio Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would punish state agencies and local governments for being too supportive of LGBTQ+ youth. Among a slew of provisions, conversion therapy would be reinstated where it has been banned, teachers may be prevented from using a student’s preferred pronouns, and parents wouldn’t be able to lose custody due to refusing to support their child’s gender identity.

“State institutions, government institutions cannot promote that woke ideology,” state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, said in an interview Tuesday. Click believes government agencies have been overly affirming of LGBTQ+ children, which he claims has hurt parents. “It is not conversion therapy to help children discover their identity and who they are biologically,” Click said. Click has focused significant time in the legislature targeting LGBTQ+ people.

Read the full article.

Click, a former pastor, last appeared here in December 2025 when he introduced the “Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act,” which would mandate teaching public school students about “the positive influence of Christianity on American culture.”

He first appeared here in 2018 when he led the invocation at Trump rally by asking Jesus to protect Trump from “wicked jungle journalism.”

In 2023, Click appeared here when he convened a hearing against transgender rights during which his invited guest testified that non-Christian lawmakers are “possessed by demons.”

Click is a regular on Tony Perkins’ podcast.

 

TN Advances Bills To Legalize Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination

TN Advances Bills To Legalize Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination

February 13, 2026

Nashville’s NPR affiliate reports:

Tennessee lawmakers have advanced a host of anti-LGBTQ bills that would run counter to U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Two measures, both proposed by Rep. Gino Bulso, R-Franklin, would challenge landmark cases that legalized same-sex marriage and established protections for discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, questioned the legality to going against Bostock v. Clayton County, which established that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Tom Lee, member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Pride Chamber, spoke against the bill, arguing that it could allow discrimination against LGBTQ couples.

“Imagine if under this bill a private employer said, ‘Well, you can’t take family leave because I, as a private citizen, don’t recognize — using the language of the bill — your purported marriage,’” Lee said. “Or a bank says, ‘You’ll pay the higher rate (for unmarried couples). We’re not bound by the 14th Amendment. You’re not married in our eyes.’”

From my January 2025 report:

The Banning Bostock Act would codify that laws prohibiting sex discrimination would not prohibit discrimination against a person for being homosexual or transgender, nor would it prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation, sexual behavior, gender identity, or gender non-conforming behavior.

Meanwhile, the next bill would allow private citizens, businesses, and organizations to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage, and protect attorneys from being punished for refusing to celebrate or perform a same sex marriage.

Bulso first appeared here in February 2024 for his ultimately failed bid to ban Pride flags, which he is now attempting again. In April 2024, we heard from Bulso when he objected to a ban on marriages between first cousins because gays can’t make babies. Last year Bulso launched a failed bid to fill the US House seat left open by the abrupt resignation of Rep. Mark Green.