Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

Bill in Portland Maine

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday February 18, 2026 · 8:31 AM PST

2026/02/18 · 08:31

Cheers and Jeers is a weekday coping mechanism from the great state of Maine.

Here It Is

The interview CBS and the FCC don’t want you to see.

~~Two~~ ~~Three~~ Five million people have seen what CBS and the FCC don’t want you to see. Click here and you could be person 5,000,001 to see it...

YouTube Video

Great job, CBS management. By trying to not fight the fascists, you just broke their jaw.

And now, our feature presentation...

Poll

549 votes Show Results

Have you ever fired the pilot of your private jet because he didn't transfer your blanket to your other private jet...but then unfired him after you realized he's the only one who knows how to fly it?

549 votes Vote Now!

Have you ever fired the pilot of your private jet because he didn't transfer your blanket to your other private jet...but then unfired him after you realized he's the only one who knows how to fly it?

Yes, but only that one time

180 votes

Yes, many times

89 votes

268 votes

Not sure/No opinion

12 votes

What if everyone had to prove their citizenship to register to vote?

Votebeat

Wednesday February 18, 2026 · 8:09 AM PST

2026/02/18 · 08:09

no image description available — Voters congregate at the election office at the Black Hawk County Courthouse in Waterloo, Iowa, in Sept. 2012.

If enacted, the SAVE America Act would create hurdles for potential voters and election officials alike.

By Nathaniel Rakich for Votebeat

Presidents’ Day is always the hardest holiday to shop for; it’s hard to know what to get the president in your life. But the U.S. House of Representatives got President Donald Trump exactly what he wanted when it passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday.

The act, which passed with the support of all 217 House Republicans but only one Democrat, is a centerpiece of Trump’s agenda to exercise more federal oversight over elections and prevent illegal voting, which is already very rare. It’s essentially version 2.0 of the SAVE Act, which passed the House last year.

Like its predecessor, the SAVE America Act would require people who are registering to vote to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship. (Currently, new registrants only have to attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens.) This version of the bill also adds a photo ID requirement for voters and requires states to run their voter rolls through the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to scan for noncitizens. All provisions of the bill would take effect immediately upon enactment.

But enactment is unlikely. The filibuster rule effectively means that legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, and Republicans hold only a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber. Some Republicans are pushing to turn the filibuster from a procedural formality into a literal requirement that Democrats hold the floor and talk indefinitely in order to block the bill, which could allow the bill to pass with a simple majority if Democrats run out of steam. But that would derail the Senate for weeks, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t making encouraging noises.

If the bill does somehow become law, though, it would dramatically shake up how the 2026 elections run. Only three states currently require all newly registering voters to prove their citizenship, and 27 states don’t require photo IDs to vote, so the bill would suddenly impose new requirements on millions of Americans.

And there are serious questions about whether it’s even practically possible to implement them all in time for the midterm elections. Election officials are sounding the alarm about how the bill would force them to build out entirely new procedures without the time or money to do so.

The SAVE America Act could stymie potential voters

The proof-of-citizenship requirement in particular would be a hassle for potential voters and election officials alike. According to a 2023 survey conducted by SSRS on behalf of the University of Maryland and three voting-rights groups, 9% of voting-age citizens don’t have easy access to a document that proves their citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization certificate.

Even people with the correct paperwork could be confused or inconvenienced too. Several election officials have compared a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the Transportation Security Administration’s slow rollout of REAL ID requirements. That policy was repeatedly delayed amid confusion over what documents were necessary to get a REAL ID and bottlenecks at driver’s license agencies.

The SAVE America Act would also effectively neuter the option to register to vote by mail or online, since new registrants would have to show up in person with their documentation.

In states that have already tried to implement proof-of-citizenship requirements, many eligible voters ended up getting disenfranchised. After Kansas started requiring proof of citizenship in 2013, 31,089 people were unable to register because they couldn’t prove their citizenship. That amounted to 12% of all the people who tried to register to vote in Kansas during that period. By contrast, the state could identify only 39 confirmed noncitizens who had registered to vote in the previous 14 years.

A court struck down Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship law in 2018.

An election administration ‘nightmare’

“This is bad for voters, but this will be a nightmare for election administrators,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, told Votebeat.

Multiple election officials said that adding document verification to their already very full plates was a logistical burden that they were not prepared to assume. Many felt that it was simply not possible to implement a proof-of-citizenship requirement in time for the midterms, especially since the SAVE America Act does not provide them with additional funding to, for example, hire more staff to review documents.

“We are going to have significant challenges training all of our clerks and registrars to uniformly verify citizenship,” said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat. “We will have to create the training from scratch, and we don’t have the personnel to travel to all 487 municipalities [in Maine] to make sure that they’re doing it right.”

“If Congress wants to do this,” she said, “they should give the states the proper runway of multiple years and millions of dollars of funding per state.”

Justin Riemer, the president of the group Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, which has advocated for proof-of-citizenship requirements, was more optimistic that states were up to the task. “States will undoubtedly have to move very quickly to implement this legislation,” he said, “but there is precedent, as states did [quickly change their voting procedures] during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Riemer pointed out that a plurality of new voters already register through their state department of motor vehicles, whose staffs are already well trained in document verification thanks to the REAL ID requirements.

A proof-of-citizenship requirement would undeniably cost election officials more time and money, though. According to a social media post by Bob Page, the registrar of voters in Orange County, California, the county conducted an analysis last year of what it would have taken to prove the citizenship of the 633,568 people who registered to vote or updated their voter registration in 2024. The study found that, at an average of 10 minutes per applicant whose documentation needed to be verified, the county would have needed to hire 59 additional staffers at a cost of $6 million.

And according to a report from the Campaign Legal Center, proof-of-citizenship laws cost Kansas and Arizona (one of the three states where the requirement is currently in place) millions of dollars — in additional staffing, voter-education efforts, system upgrades, fixing errors, and defending against lawsuits over the requirements.

Ultimately, as long as the filibuster remains in place in the Senate, the SAVE America Act has little chance of becoming law before the midterms.

But that may be the point: The bill wasn’t introduced with the goal of making elections run more smoothly; it was introduced to make the point that elections aren’t as secure as they could be. If, as expected, the bill fails and voters don’t have to prove their citizenship or show photo ID in 2026, it could make it easier for Trump and his allies to claim that the results are tainted by fraud. That could be a different type of nightmare scenario.

Votebeat editor-in-chief Carrie Levine contributed

Mark your calendars: Ukraine support rallies on the fourth year of full-scale war

KyivGuy

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 5:38 PM PST

2026/02/17 · 17:38

UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 18, 2026 · 1:00:24 PM +00:00 · KyivGuy

Many thanks for reposting my diary in so many community groups!

I have added several links for books, movies, and music lovers to check out at the end of the text.

As usual, there are interesting and useful tips and thoughts in the comments — do check them out!

February 24, 2026 marks the fourth anniversary of the Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

February 27, 2026 marks the twelfth anniversary of the beginning of the Russian war against Ukraine.

Ukrainians all over the world gather to express their solidarity with Ukraine and call the governments and the nations of the world to support Ukraine in defending and reversing the brutal, illegal, genocidal Russian aggression.

I understand that the US citizens may have many other causes for national rallies these weeks, but I ask you to dedicate this day to Ukraine.

Of course, the best way is to participate in the Ukraine support rally (please note that most of them will be held during the weekend of February 21 and 22).

You can find many Ukrainian rally locations and other details on this map, run by Ukrainian World Congress: https://uaworldmap.ukrainianworldcongress.org/en

The list on the website may not be exhaustive, so I suggest googling something like “Ukrainian rally 2026 [your area]”.

If you can’t join the rally, or if you wish to dedicate an extra effort to support and connect with Ukraine, please note that there might be other Ukraine-related events in your neighborhood during February, such as:

For a wider selection of ways to help and connect with Ukraine, I traditionally recommend my text How can I personally help Ukraine? Pick your way! (30+ ways to help + general advice on helping better).

For the book, music, and movie lovers, please check out these lists:

100 Books to Help Understand Ukraine, available in English (and some other major languages), compiled by PEN Ukraine and Sensor Media;
Top 100 Ukrainian Films, compiled by Dovzhenko Centre. Many are available with English subtitles on streaming services, YouTube, and sometimes even on DVDs;
Ukrainian modern folk-inspired music playlist on YouTube, by EdEra;
Music from Ukraine: recommendations and a playlist for any mood, from classical music to rock, by Rubryka (text and a Spotify playlist).

Thank you to everyone who has been supporting us during all these difficult years. We still need your support and your belief in us. Until the victory.

Stand with Ukraine! God bless America!

Daily Kos new site update: We have our first build!

kos

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 4:26 PM PST

2026/02/17 · 16:26

Guys.

I just got my first real look at a working build of Daily Kos on WordPress, with Viafoura comments fully integrated.

(If that sentence is gibberish to you, you can read about why we are moving to WordPress here, and what the heck Viafoura comments are here. The most recent update was here.)

I took a deep dive into a very early version of the new site—clicked around, opened threads, poked at pages. And I’m not exaggerating when I say it is freakin’ sweet.

Related | Site migration update: Comments and more!

Everything loads instantly. No jitter. No lag. No mysterious pauses while the server gathers its thoughts. It’s just … there. Smooth. Clean. Responsive. It makes the existing site feel like molasses in comparison.

We’ve been talking internally for years about what this project could be. To finally see it. To click through it. To feel it working. It honestly fills me with joy.

Because this is what modern code feels like. Lightweight. Efficient. Purpose-built. Not layers of legacy systems piled on top of each other over 20+ years, but streamlined architecture built on current standards and optimized frameworks. The page isn’t fighting itself anymore.

It just works.

Our internal beta—which will include your Community Advisory Panel—is about a month away. We’re aiming to open the beta to the entire community around March 31, so roughly six weeks from now. Final launch timing will depend heavily on beta feedback, but we’re targeting sometime between April 13–20, about two months out, give or take a few days. That time will fly by.

Here’s a screenshot of part of it, which is dangerous for me to offer. I can say EARLY BUILD 47 times in all-caps, and someone will still circle a pixel and lose their minds. But what the heck. Here’s a sneak peek of a VERY NOT FINISHED AND VERY EARLY version.

The visuals will continue to be dialed in over the coming weeks. Spacing. Fonts. Polish. Avatars need to be pulled in, etc. There’s still tons of work to do. But what already stands out is how much simpler and more readable everything feels.

We’ve stripped out decades of cruft. Not just things that slowed the site down, but things that made it harder for new people to understand where they were and what to do next. Page bloat is gone. Much of the noise is gone.

What’s intentionally left—front and center—is content and conversation.

And that’s what I love most about it: It’s focused.

Cleaner lines. Fewer distractions. The writing stands out instead of fighting layers of interface. The conversation feels like the center of gravity again.

The whole experience is simpler in a way that makes Daily Kos more accessible—especially for people discovering us for the first time.

There will absolutely be things some of you miss. Change always brings that up. And we’ll work through those issues together during beta. But there is so much to love here—especially how this new foundation will support the conversations and debates that are central to who we are.

On a somewhat-related note …

There’s been a lot of passion around the old front page view—the classic reverse-chronological blog roll many of you have used for years.

I’ve been clear that maintaining multiple fully supported homepage experiences adds complexity and cost that run counter to our larger goal: building a faster, simpler, more sustainable Daily Kos. Especially when readers are coming in from phones, VR goggles, tablets, giant monitors, and everything in between.

But yeah, yeah, I also hear you. So here’s what we’re going to do.

We’re building a lightweight version of the classic blog view. It won’t be in the main menu, and we’re not going to engineer the entire site around it. It’ll live at its own link, work best on desktop, and stay simple by design. It might not be pretty, but it’ll do the trick.

I’m happy to offer that continuity, while still building the site with an eye firmly on the future.

For more than two decades, Daily Kos has grown layer by layer, fight by fight, thread by thread.

This next version won’t change who we are. But it matters to me that it makes it easier for our friends and allies to join us in what we do best—arguing, organizing, debating, laughing, loving, hating … what have I missed? Oh yeah, building power. Because winning is where it’s at.

The beta is right around the corner.

I’m excited. And I can’t wait for you to see it for yourselves.

Oh, one last thing—I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that this project is hellaciously expensive, and we’re having to maintain two infrastructures at this time. So if you haven’t chipped in yet, now would be a great time!

This transformation depends on you. Click here to donate and help us launch the future of Daily Kos.

‘I am somebody’: Tributes pour in for civil rights icon Jesse Jackson

Walter Einenkel

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 4:00 PM PST

2026/02/17 · 16:00

The Rev. Jesse Jackson died on Tuesday, at age 84. The famed civil rights activist inspired hope in generations of young progressives with his inclusive vision following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, and tributes to Jackson Tributes began pouring in soon after news of his death.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris called Jackson “one of America’s greatest patriots,” recalling how she proudly drove her car with a “Jesse Jackson for President” bumper sticker while in law school. “Today and every day, we will carry forward his call to ‘Keep hope alive,’” she wrote.

Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King, remembered her father’s former comrade and his tireless advocacy for the marginalized. “As we grieve, we give thanks for a life that pushed hope into weary places,” she said in a post on X.

FILE - Former South African President Nelson Mandela, left, walks with the Rev. Jesse Jackson after their meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, Oct. 26, 2005. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File) — Former South African President Nelson Mandela, left, walks with the Rev. Jesse Jackson after their meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2005.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson described Jackson as a mentor and friend, detailing the many causes Jackson championed. “As we lift up his life and wrap our arms around his family and all those who loved him, I ask you to anchor your hope in action to honor Rev. Jackson's enduring contributions. He believed in you, and found hope in humanity. Do something today to keep hope alive,” Johnson said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised Jackson as a giant of the Civil Rights Movement, writing on X, “He marched, he ran, he organized and he preached justice without apology. May we honor him not just in words, but in struggle.”

Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Jackson a “legendary voice for the voiceless, powerful civil rights champion and trailblazer extraordinaire.”

Stacey Abrams, a former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, wrote on X, “With courage, tenacity and an audacious spirit, he widened our capacity for imagining true unity and deepened our commitment to justice for all.”

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts described Jackson as a “trailblazer and a fighter” who gave hope to a new generation of leaders.

Former President Barack Obama honored Jackson’s “lifetime of service,” saying that “we stood on his shoulders.”

Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of a true giant, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. We will always be grateful for Jesse's lifetime of service, and the friendship our families share. We stood on his shoulders. We send our deepest condolences to the Jackson… pic.twitter.com/Q68r4IJt9U
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 17, 2026

In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump called Jackson “a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts,’” before attacking President Barack Obama and people who call Trump racist. It was classy stuff.

C-SPAN posted the historic video of Jackson receiving the President Medal of Freedom in 2000 from president Bill Clinton.

Jesse Jackson receives the President Medal of Freedom in 2000 from @BillClinton. RIP. pic.twitter.com/B6P87pb5TV
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 17, 2026

Here is a memory of Jackson that I, along with tens of millions of others who grew up knowing that we were somebody, will hold close: Jackson’s legendary 1972 appearance on “Sesame Street.”

YouTube Video

Rest in power.

‘The cavalry is coming’: Springsteen sticks it to Trump with new tour

Walter Einenkel

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 3:57 PM PST

2026/02/17 · 15:57

The legendary Bruce Springsteen announced that he and the E Street Band will embark on a three-month, 20-show “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour, beginning March 31 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“Brothers and sisters, fans, friends, and good folk from coast to coast: we are living through dark, disturbing, and dangerous times,” Springsteen said in a video announcing the tour. “But do not despair: The cavalry is coming.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bruce Springsteen (@springsteen)

“We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America, American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream,” he added. “All of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington D.C.”

Springsteen also revealed his tour dates with a poster featuring the anti-Trump protest phrase, “No kings.”

We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair — the cavalry is coming! Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will be taking the stage this spring from Minneapolis to California to Texas to Washington, D.C. for the Land of Hope And Dreams American Tour.
— Bruce Springsteen (@brucespringsteen.net) 2026-02-17T17:11:34.292Z

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s violent immigration tactics, including the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Springsteen has used his platform to speak out against Trump and his unconstitutional agenda.

In January, Springsteen released a protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” highlighting the civil rights abuses and violence in Minnesota.

YouTube Video

Time will tell how bent out of shape MAGA gets over the tour announcement.

Cartoon: Olympic fail

Clay Bennett

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 3:52 PM PST

2026/02/17 · 15:52

A cartoon by Clay Bennett.

Related | US Olympians rip Trump's atrocities, infuriating GOP

US Olympians rip Trump's atrocities, infuriating GOP

Emily Singer

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 3:50 PM PST

2026/02/17 · 15:50

In yet another sign that the GOP doesn't actually care about free speech, President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers are trashing U.S. Olympians who said they do not support the cruelty that Trump is carrying out back home, calling them un-American and even rooting for them to lose.

Multiple Olympians, including freestyle skiers Hunter Hess and Chris Lillis, have said they do not support Trump's violent and deadly immigration crackdown in the United States.

Hess said at a news conference that "it brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now," and that, "there's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of and I think a lot of people aren't. Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the U.S."

Speaking at a press conference in Milan, Team USA freestyle skiers Chris Lillis and Hunter Hess said the actions of ICE agents do not reflect the country they represent https://t.co/GZHRFUuWMz pic.twitter.com/JQI93JuCnT
— Reuters Sports (@ReutersSports) February 6, 2026

Lillis, meanwhile, said that the U.S. “needs to focus on respecting everybody’s rights and making sure that we’re treating our citizens as well as anybody with love and respect. And I hope that when people look at the athletes competing in the Olympics they realize that that’s the America that we’re trying to represent.”

U.S. figure skater Amber Glenn also spoke out about Trump's anti-LGBTQ+ policies, saying at a news conference that, "Politics affect us all. It is something that I will not just be quiet about."

BREAKING: American figure skater Amber Glenn just powerfully spoke about how she is using her platform to support LGBTQ+ Americans under the Trump Administration. This is amazing. pic.twitter.com/VRyKbsMUWT
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) February 7, 2026

But Trump and the GOP simply cannot handle that anyone would oppose Dear Leader or his policies, calling the athletes out and siccing their MAGA base against them.

“Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday.

Republican members of Congress also piled on.

Rep. Byron Donalds, the Florida Republican running for governor of the Sunshine State, parroted his puppet master, writing in a post on X on Saturday, "YOU chose to wear our flag. YOU chose to represent our country. YOU chose to compete at the @Olympics. If that’s too hard for you, then GO HOME. Some things are bigger than politics. You just don’t get it."

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told Hess to, “Shut up and go play in the snow.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) went a step further, saying Hess and anyone else who feels the need to speak out against Trump should be banned from competing.

"Representing the United States—a beacon for freedom and democracy—at the Olympics is an honor. Anyone who feels otherwise should be stripped of their USA Olympic uniform," Scott said Sunday in a post on X.

The dumbest response, among many dumb responses, however, came from Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who wrote in a post on X:

If @TeamUSA skier Hunter Hess wants to rep just his ‘friends and family’, and not all of America, then his friends and family should be footing the bill for his all expense paid boondoggle to Italy, not the American tax payer. These heroes did not have ‘mixed feelings’ about risking their lives for his entitled, ungrateful ass. Hess needs to be stripped of that uniform and sent back home via Arlington National Cemetery.

But taxpayers do not fund Olympic athletes. In fact, the U.S. is one of the only countries that doesn’t fund their Olympic teams, according to NBC News, which said that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is funded through corporate sponsorships, donations, and broadcast licensing. Looks like Van Orden should’ve done more research before running his own mouth.

Of course, being able to criticize your own government is exactly what makes the United States free. Making athletes stay silent or punishing them for speech directly violates the First Amendment right to free speech.

Related | Republicans aren’t even pretending to give a sh-t about free speech now

The Republican Party once said it stood for free speech.

But in actuality, they only want free speech for themselves so they can espouse their racist and cruel positions without any repercussions. They want everyone else to shut up and let them violently arrest immigrants, anyone they think looks like an immigrant, and citizens who are standing up to the administration’s brutality.

"Trump called American Olympian Hunter Hess a 'real loser' for criticizing what’s happening in our country under Trump. Mr. President, this is not a monarchy. This is the United States and no one is required to bow down to you," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wrote in a post on X. "Hess is not a 'loser.' He's a proud American."

CBS forces Colbert to pull segment—and he isn't doing it quietly

Oliver Willis

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday February 17, 2026 · 11:33 AM PST

2026/02/17 · 11:33

That is the face of a man willing to stand up to his employer and the FCC.

CBS prevented late night host Stephen Colbert from airing an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico on Monday night, the latest act of censorship from the increasingly right-wing network in coordination with the Trump administration’s regime at the Federal Communications Commission.

YouTube Video

Colbert revealed the details of the plot on the Monday edition of his program, “The Late Show.”

“We were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have [Talarico] on the broadcast,” Colbert explained. “I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly does not want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this”

Colbert said that CBS’ reasoning for blocking his interview with Talarico was sourced to a recent directive from FCC Chair Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee. Carr argued that late-night comedy shows and daytime talk shows are no longer exempt from equal time regulations for broadcasts that require news programs to provide “equal opportunities” for rebuttals during candidate interviews.

FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, the only remaining commissioner appointed by a Democratic president, slammed Carr’s argument at the time. “[Carr’s] announcement therefore does not change the law, but it does represent an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech,” she said in a statement.

Colbert further noted, “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV. He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers.”

YouTube Video

Colbert also announced that he was nonetheless going ahead with the interview and posted it in full to his YouTube page where it racked up over 719,000 views in the first nine hours of availability.

Talarico posted the interview on his social media account, noting, “This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see. His FCC refused to air my interview with Stephen Colbert. Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas.”

In the interview, Colbert and Talarico discussed Carr’s decision to launch a probe of ABC’s “The View” after he was interviewed on that program and Talarico said the federal action reflected fear of a Democrat winning the Texas Senate race.

While Republicans have held both Texas Senate seats since 1997, both Talarico and fellow Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Jasmine Crockett have polled within striking distance of the three current Republican frontrunners. Talarico is within the margin of error in polling against Ken Paxton, John Cornyn, and Wesley Hunt.

Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and Democrats would need to flip four seats to take control.

CBS’ decision to censor Colbert echoes the network’s ongoing move to the right. At CBS News, conservative editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has been withholding news stories critical of the Trump administration, while CBS parent Paramount paid out a settlement to Trump while the Republican donors who own the company are given a green light for mergers by the administration.

Trump is waging war against free speech and corporations like CBS are there to help.

Cartoon: Worst of the worst

Mike Luckovich

Monday February 16, 2026 · 1:51 PM PST

2026/02/16 · 13:51

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich.

Related| 'It's horrific': Major podcast bro dumps Trump over ICE abuses

Presidents Day 2026: Here's what's open and closed on the holiday

Associated Press

Monday February 16, 2026 · 12:06 PM PST

2026/02/16 · 12:06

Government offices, the stock market and schools are closed Monday in observance of Presidents Day, but most big retailers are open.

When in doubt, call ahead or look up more specific schedules online for stores in your neighborhood.

Here’s a rundown of what’s open and closed on Presidents Day 2026:

Government offices

Federal and state government offices are closed. Courts and most schools are also closed.

The official designation for the holiday is Washington’s Birthday after first President George Washington, although it has come to be known informally as Presidents Day. Arguments have been made to honor President Abraham Lincoln as well because his birth date falls nearby, on Feb. 12.

Banks and the stock market

U.S. stock markets and banks are closed Monday but will reopen on Tuesday.

Retailers

Most big stores and other businesses are open.

National parks

National parks are open and free to U.S. residents on Presidents Day. Late last year, the National Park Service announced that admission would no longer be free on Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth, but instead on June 14, which is Flag Day and President Donald Trump's birthday.

Related | Thanks, Trump! National Park Service gets racist new calendar

But it is still free on other holidays including Presidents Day, Memorial Day and Independence Day weekend.

New Day Cafe: Bathrobe Lady and Local Journalism

samanthab

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday February 16, 2026 · 12:01 PM PST

2026/02/16 · 12:01

Welcome to the New Day Cafe! This is an open thread.

I have some things I’ve procrastinated on to get done, and then I’ll have a locksmith visiting. This diary will be short, and I may not join you.

This is cool and inspiring, however.

hello minnesota and beyond! thank you for your kind messages. it is very weird to be the news when you cover the news. i love this beautiful state and journalism, and i am hopeful for better days. but we will be forever changed bc of the last two months.

[image or embed]
— sam stroozas (@samstroozas.bsky.social) February 13, 2026 at 11:44 PM

“Earlier this week, an unexpected and fast-moving incident unfolded in St. Paul, Minnesota involving both federal and local law enforcement. As crowds gathered and questions mounted, one of our MPR News reporters, Sam Stroozas, realized she lived just blocks away.

She did what reporters do.

She went.

There wasn’t time to change clothes. Sam arrived in a bathrobe and slippers and began reporting from the scene.

A photo captured the moment. It circulated quickly across local media and online, sparking conversation — and, overwhelmingly, appreciation for Minnesota’s ‘Bathrobe Lady.’

The reaction wasn’t really about the bathrobe.

It was about what it represented.

Local journalism often begins before a camera is rolling, before a live shot is framed, before a headline is written. It begins with proximity. With awareness. With someone deciding that what’s happening matters enough to go see it firsthand.

It begins with showing up.”

It was a local journalist in Miami, Julie Brown, who first reported on Epstein. Local journalists regularly get the ball rolling on stories that go national. They’re so important to support, and yet they’re a dying breed.

Poll

106 votes Show Results

Do you have a vibrant local news source, and do you support it?

106 votes Vote Now!

Do you have a vibrant local news source, and do you support it?

Yes.

42 votes

No.

46 votes

Sometimes.

18 votes

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