ICE Goons Getting Paid Despite DHS Shutdown - The Monday AM Quickie 2/16/26
I made this for my fellow D&D adventurers this weekend and then my character advanced to level nine. - Whitney
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THE BIG NEWS
ICE Goons Getting Paid Despite DHS Shutdown
Lawmakers failed to meet a Friday deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security before they split town for the long weekend, so now the agency is shut down, the AP reported. It’s the third government shutdown of Trump’s second term, bringing the total number on his watch to five. To everyone who voted for Trump because they thought he would run the country like he runs his businesses, congratulations. The guy who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy six times is doing just that.
The shutdown only affects DHS. Republicans refused to accept Democrats’ frankly minor reforms for immigration agents, including requiring that they wear body cameras (which Homeland Securiti Secretari Kristi Noem is already doing) and other measures, like requiring that agents identify themselves and take off their masks. Republicans are crying about how that’s too hard and would expose agents to harm. Thing is, there is no proof that agents are in grave mortal danger, as the Trump administration likes to say. At a hearing last week, for example, DHS officials claimed that ICE agents are facing the “deadliest” environment ever. That is a lie. The government’s own data shows that zero ICE agents have died on the job since 2024. They are deadly for the rest of us, though. The database I maintain for my day job shows that immigration agents have killed at least 25 people since January 2025.
Even though DHS is shut down, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents will keep getting paid to terrorize immigrants across the country because those agencies got $75 billion of our tax dollars in the Big Beautiful Bill Act law. The agencies that are affected are ones that are actually necessary for our decreasingly United States to function, including the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, The Guardian reported. TSA workers, including airport security and baggage handlers, worked the weekend without pay, while FEMA workers are expected to be furloughed without pay, which will slow the agency’s already abysmal response to natural disasters.
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Russell Vought Funding Personal Bodyguards With USAID Money
The paranoid Christofascist leader of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Thurlow Vought, is using $15 million of what’s left of the US Agency for International Development to pay for his personal security detail of “more than one dozen U.S. Marshals,” Reuters reported. The Marshals Service usually protects federal courthouses and judges but can also protect members of the executive branch if Attorney General Pamela Bondi directs them to. Vought gutted USAID and cancelled most of its programs last year. Its skeleton crew of about 100 staff and contractors are working to close outstanding contracts and will shut down the agency completely by September. A new study in The Lancet projects that the end to international aid could lead to at least 9.4 million additional deaths within the next four years. About 2.5 million of those deaths are projected to be children younger than 5 years old.
RFK Jr. and Allies Move to Kill Vaccine Requirements for Day Care, School
The pestilential health secretary’s best friends have a new club called the Medical Freedom Act Coalition, through which they’re working to end vaccine requirements for children to attend day care and public school, the NYT reported. The group is composed of at least 15 nonprofits and advocates to repeal “state laws that codify what they call medical mandates,” such as getting a vaccine for measles, which is making a major comeback, and polio. Already, lawmakers in nine states have introduced bills to eliminate all or almost all school requirements, including Idaho, Iowa, Georgia, New Hampshire and New York. Per the Times:
Eliminating school requirements is viewed by public health experts as a sure way to reduce vaccine coverage, resulting in a surge of measles and whooping cough cases, followed later by potential outbreaks of rubella and polio. The consequences are on display in South Carolina, where a measles outbreak has affected more than 900 people, including at least 19 who were hospitalized with complications including pneumonia and brain swelling.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Trump Threatens Voter ID Requirement for Midterms ‘Whether Approved By Congress Or Not!’ He also said that he wants “no Mail-In Ballots” except in certain rare circumstances. via Huffpost.
- 133 Dead in Peter Brian Hegseth’s Ongoing Illegal Caribbean Killing Spree The US military conducted two attacks last week, killing five in total; the Trump administration continues to insist without proof that the victims are terrorists. via The Guardian.
- Meta Plans to Put Facial Rec in Perv Glasses The technology won’t allow users to ID people with a “universal” database, only those with a public account on one of the tech giant’s websites, like Instagram. via the NYT.
- UK High Court Rules Designation of Palestine Action as Terrorist Group Unlawful The Friday decision allows the ban to remain so the government can appeal; if the ruling is ultimately upheld, it will make it easier for the more than 500 people charged with terrorism for participating in Palestine Action to get those charges dropped. As of last July, membership in the group, or showing support for it, became a crime punishable by 14 years in prison. via The Guardian.
SOME NUMBER
3 days
That’s how long it took athletes in the Olympic Village to run out of condoms.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
It Doesn't Get Dumber Than This, Folks
Millionaire tax flight is a myth.
Epstein Fallout Keeps Getting Worse
Consequences, please.
PARTING WORDS
“So should we use a general strike as a tool? Absolutely. We should be prepared to use that tool because I think our democracy is worth it.”
– David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, discussing with HuffPost his arrest last June, when he refused to move out of the way for immigration agents. Officers threw him to the ground and arrested him; he now faces up to a year in prison for allegedly interfering with their operation. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. “I was tackled, I was pepper sprayed, I was detained [while] exercising a First Amendment right,” he said. “I firmly believe that everything that’s happened since then – not only to myself but to others – is with the intention to silence dissent. It’s state repression against people who are exercising their First Amendment rights.”
ON THE SHOW TODAY
2/16: Emma is hosting solo all week and her guest today will be revealed when we tune in at 12 p.m. EST.
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