A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. Related | High-profile resignations and replacements as Epstein case fallout spreads
A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. Americans are pissed at the state of Trump's union He’s just as popular as he was after Jan. 6. Despite crises in US, FBI director chugs a beer in Italy U.S.A.! U.S. … ugh. All the ways Trump will illegally impose more tariffs He’s nothing if not a petulant jerk. Cartoon: Stocks & Bondis The attorney general’s fawning over Trump won’t save her. Lawyer who took down tariffs trolls Trump Children of immigrants: They get the job done. Nicki Minaj trades 'Barbz' for bots amid MAGA transformation Looks like there are some “super freaky” shenanigans going on. How Democrats can leverage Trump’s economic disaster It’s still the economy, stupid. Trump tells grieving families all about his own suffering It’s the “Let’s not make this about me” challenge, level: impossible. Click here to see more cartoons.
After a Winter Olympic Games of athletes celebrating each other as much as they did winning, the response from the Trump administration is equal parts disheartening and gross. These are people who are functionally incapable of seeing the Olympics as anything but an opportunity to display their xenophobic loathing of other countries and to celebrate victory as a sort of violent domination. In short, the Trump team simply didn’t understand anything about these Olympics. Amber Glenn takes a selfie with ice dance team Madison Chock and Evan Bates after winning gold on Feb. 8. Perhaps the highest-profile example of this was the diminutive FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the U.S. men’s hockey team on your dime. Or maybe it’s that, after the men’s hockey team beat Canada for the gold, the official White House X account posted a picture—which we can all safely assume is AI slop—of a bald eagle attacking a Canadian goose on a frozen lake. Beating Canada in a hockey game apparently means we have subjugated the entire country? Terrific. Or perhaps it’s the AI slop video of President Donald Trump—the biggest, most pathetic starfucker there ever was—inserting himself into the game so he could punch a Canadian hockey player. This behavior would be disgusting at any time, but it’s especially jarring after an Olympics where the athletes themselves made conscious decisions to show care for each other—including their rivals. Nowhere was this clearer than in figure skating, where U.S. skaters banded together to cheer other countries’ skaters on, with Ilia Malinin taking time to congratulate Mikhail Shaidorov for his gold medal—even after Malinin’s didn’t place at all for his free skate performance. And after Japan’s Kaori Sakamoto was inundated with reporters forcing cameras in her face, she learned that she lost the gold to U.S. skater Alysa Liu. Liu’s teammate, Amber Glenn, rushed to comfort Sakamoto, telling one reporter to stop trying to film her crying. But it wasn’t just figure skaters. After Australian snowboarder Valentino Guseli unexpectedly made it into the finals of the big air competition, Swiss snowboarder Jonas Hasler carried Guseli around on his shoulders in celebration. Australia's Valentino Guseli competes during the men's snowboarding halfpipe finals on Feb. 13. And we also were treated to the adorableness of “Dads Podium,” where all three dual moguls winners were joined by their partners and young children. It also wasn’t just athletes. The closing ceremony highlighted how important togetherness was to the games, with International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry telling athletes in her final remarks, “You showed us that the Olympic Games are a place for everyone. A place where sport brings us together.” She also thanked the Italian people for their graciousness toward the athletes. “You celebrated your champions and you cheered for athletes of every nation, showing that passion and respect can live side by side,” Coventry said. The notion that people can care for each other—even as sports rivals—and that connection matters more than jingoism and xenophobia is utterly foreign to people like Trump. The only thing he knows how to celebrate is the subjugation of others. Related | Why the Olympics turn Republicans into sore losers Sadly, it looks like the U.S. men’s hockey team is totally down for this sort of thing, eagerly accepting Trump’s invitation to his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The plans for it already sound gross, with House Speaker Mike Johnson trying to break the House rule that says that no special guests are allowed on the floor. He says he’s “trying to work out logistics to see if there’s some way to perhaps get them into the gallery and the doors, wave and receive the applause they’re due.” Proposing to break legislative rules to do some xenophobic screaming about AMERICA is so on brand for this administration that it feels like the writers’ room for this season is getting lazy. But unfortunately, it’s real. At least the rest of us can fall back on our memories of what it looks like when athletes come together and care for each other.
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You may already have forgotten that MyPillow CEO and all-around weirdo Mike Lindell has mounted a vanity campaign for governor of Minnesota. He’s got little chance of making it through even the Republican primary, but nonetheless, some suckers out there have donated money to Lindell. However, out of the roughly $350,000 in contributions he’s netted so far, he has spent over $187,000 on buying his own book—and you betcha he is going to keep doing it. x x YouTube Video When NewsNation pressed Lindell on the book purchases, he claimed that he was handing out the books in lieu of campaign literature, like pamphlets. “What you can do instead of paying money for flyers and stuff, we had to go around do debates for about a month and a half, these debates, and we gave out the books instead of giving them a little flyer about me,” he said. Also, he said he got the books at a “very good price.” This is an especially odd move given Lindell is not hawking a new book. Rather, “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO” is Lindell’s self-published memoir from 2019. Back then, he printed 3 million copies at his own expense. The thing is, conservatives regularly rely on bulk-buying schemes to juice their books’ sales numbers. Typically, that has involved external groups, like the Republican National Committee, snapping them up and then giving them away. That’s what you have to do when you can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas. However, Lindell’s grift isn’t without precedent. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, shown in 2024. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas allegedly tried a similar trick back in 2020, spending over $153,000 to buy his book “One Vote Away” from third-party retailers. This illegal move triggered complaints from the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan legal organization. However, that alleged scheme was just a drop in a bucket for Cruz. Between 2015 and 2020, a political action committee affiliated with him raked in over $54 million, according to Open Secrets. That stands in stark contrast with Lindell, who has spent over half of his meager total haul—a move that may be illegal but is also unsustainable. Lindell is not exactly raking in money, so he doesn’t have a lot of money to waste on propping up his book sales. There’s also the problem of Lindell owing millions of dollars while claiming he is just too broke to pay up. He owes millions of dollars after losing a lawsuit and millions more to his attorneys, who tried to quit back in 2023 over his failure to pay them. (Note: Those are not the same lawyers of Lindells who were recently slapped with sanctions for filing a brief that included AI-hallucinated fake cases.) One should never feel sorry for Lindell, but it is notable that he remains one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest soldiers still promoting the lie that Trump won the 2020 election. However, Lindell, unlike countless others, has not been rewarded with a place in the administration. Sure, Trump shouted out Lindell at a conservative conference in 2025, but that’s about it. Imagine being too weird or too inept for this administration. Nevertheless, potential Lindell donors, beware! You’re better off lighting that cash on fire.
President Donald Trump wants to hurt Democratic-controlled states by withholding infrastructure funds, but ironically, his moves could sink Republicans in key races in this year’s midterm elections. On Monday, Trump went on yet another diatribe against the critical Gateway project, which will expand the rail systems between New Jersey and New York, reducing delays that have plagued the nation’s busiest rail corridor. Trump had been withholding the project’s funding for months, leading to a work stoppage as well as the need to lay off more than 1,000 construction workers. Withholding those funds already hurt Republicans last November in New Jersey’s gubernatorial election, which Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill won easily after making the project a top issue in the race. A tunnel is under construction in Manhattan that will connect New York and New Jersey. Last week, a federal judge forced Trump to finally release some of the funds. Yet the president still raged against the project, writing on Truth Social on Monday, “I am opposed to the future boondoggle known as ‘Gateway,’ in New York/New Jersey, because it will cost many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS more than projected or anticipated.” Those comments raise questions about whether Trump will try again to delay Gateway funds. However, ending train delays under the Hudson River are important to millions of voters in the New York and New Jersey suburbs, which are home to vulnerable GOP lawmakers. New Jersey GOP Rep. Tom Kean's district has thousands of commuters who are desperate to see the end of tunnel-related New Jersey transit delays. If the Gateway project is delayed further due to Trump's «unhinged» behavior—as Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey described it—it could sink Kean's already tough odds in November. In January, Kean, who claims to support the tunnel, refused to sign on to a letter from New Jersey’s congressional delegation that urged Trump to release the funds Congress had appropriated for the project. Here’s how the New Jersey Globe described Kean’s political peril over Trump’s tunnel drama: Kean’s many Democratic opponents, hoping to take him down in this year’s competitive election for the 7th congressional district, see an opening. Rebecca Bennett called Kean’s response “lots of words, and zero spine,” Brian Varela said he’s “Trump’s puppet,” and Tina Shah said the district needs “someone in Congress who will actually stand up for what we need here in the district. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who represents a toss-up district with many commuters, also faces electoral risk if the project stalls due to Trump. When reports emerged that Trump was withholding the funds in an attempt to get Penn Station, as well as Virginia’s Dulles Airport, named after himself, Lawler refused to condemn Trump, leading to attacks from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. x x YouTube Video “Mike Lawler is once again choosing blind loyalty to Trump, even when it means screwing over New York commuters and tanking the regional economy,” the DCCC said in a statement. “If Lawler actually cared about getting Gateway done, he’d be calling out Trump’s reckless obstruction instead of defending it on national television.” It's not just New York and New Jersey being targeted by Trump's revenge tour. Michigan is also in Trump's crosshairs. He said he would refuse to allow a nearly complete bridge that connects the state to Canada to open unless Canada met some arbitrary demand to treat «the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.» Michigan is a swing state where Republicans are seeking to pick up a U.S. Senate seat and the state's governor's mansion, and defend a handful of House seats. If he vindictively stops the bridge from opening, it could hamper the GOP's chances in those races. Former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, shown in 2016. Even the state's Republican former governor slammed Trump over his latest extortionist threat. «The threat to block the bridge’s opening as 'leverage' for broader trade disputes—whether over dairy, liquor, or Canada’s engagement with China—is not a course of action that I believe is appropriate,» former Gov. Rick Snyder wrote in an op-ed in the Toronto Star. «Every day that the Gordie Howe bridge isn’t open raises costs for both businesses and consumers on both sides of the border. Connecting infrastructure of this scale and importance needs to be protected and prioritized, not put at risk.» And in July, Trump pulled funding for a high-speed rail project in California, a state where the GOP is already nearly extinct but could go the way of the Dodo even faster thanks to Trump's actions. Ultimately, Democrats need to net just three seats to win control of the House in November. By targeting infrastructure projects that impact some of the most competitive House contests on the map, he could help ensure Democrats take control of the chamber and functionally make him a lame duck for the last two years of his presidency.
A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Related | Bezos guts the Washington Post—just like Trump wanted
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. x x 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. Related | Does James Talarico know how to flip Texas? 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.” x x 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. Related | Jasmine Crockett on blazing her own trail in Texas politics 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.
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. 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.” xMichelle 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. xJesse 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.” x x YouTube Video Rest in power.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana is ringing the alarm that his party is headed for big trouble in this year’s midterm elections, singling out the ongoing failure of the Trump economy as a key factor. In an interview with The Hill, Kennedy advocated for Republicans to pass more legislation via the reconciliation process used to pass the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025. Kennedy argues that Republicans need to address rising costs or else they will be punished this fall. He notes that installing pro-Trump operatives in the government and in the judiciary hasn’t helped the party’s approval. “We’re not going to win the midterm by going to the American people and saying, ‘Look, we passed 11 out of 12 appropriations bills and we confirmed all of President Trump’s nominees,’” Kennedy said. Related | American optimism hits new low Kennedy went on to explain, “[Voters are] worried about the cost of living. … In their minds, they’re tired of selling blood plasma to go grocery shopping.” But ironically, Kennedy was one of 51 Senate Republicans who voted for the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed on a party-line vote opposed by every Democrat. The bill cut subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), contributing to the increase in health care costs that has been a part of the affordability problems booming under Trump. The senator is a part of the problem he is now openly worrying about. In Trump’s first year back in office, the economy added almost no jobs—a reversal from the strong job gains that had occurred under former President Joe Biden and a return to Trump’s poor job performance in his first term. Policies like the Big Beautiful Bill and huge tariffs have acted like an anchor on the economy, raising taxes and costs instead of helping consumers. Things have gotten so bad that even a handful of congressional Republicans recently joined with Democrats to symbolically rebuke and rein in Trump’s tariff powers. Recent special election results and races last year have almost uniformly shown voters shifting towards the Democrats, with even Republican wins in previously safe areas showing much narrower margins. There are clear signs of a coming blue tsunami of votes in favor of the Democrats, which has left Republicans scrambling to rig election rules to preserve their party’s power. It hasn’t helped Republicans that Trump’s approval ratings have nosedived. He did not start out his second term from the strong position of other recent presidents like Obama and Biden, and his failures on economic policy have been compounded by his abuse of migrants, embrace of racism, and stumbling on the world stage. On the key issue of affordability, Trump has made things difficult for Republicans trying to win races. He has falsely declared that inflation has been “solved,” and argued that the very notion of affordability was a “hoax” pushed by Democrats. Kennedy is unlikely to get his wish of a Republican bill designed to stop Democratic gains in this year’s elections. Instead, he and his party are stuck with Trump’s poor economy while voters are set to punish the GOP’s failures. Again.
A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Trump posts video of the Obamas as apes—and won't apologize
When Victor Villa arrived back at his taqueria in Los Angeles—just 24 hours after appearing alongside Bad Bunny in the Super Bowl halftime show—confetti streamers filled the air as his parents embraced him. The owner of Villa’s Tacos was among the revelers featured by rapper Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio (aka Bad Bunny) during his iconic performance highlighting the deep, colorful Latino culture that has long existed across the Americas. And the message couldn’t have come at a more crucial time for the U.S. In the past year, Latin Americans and Latino immigrants have become targets of the Trump administration’s cruel mass deportation plan. “I pray for [the immigrants]. And more than anything, I pray for discernment for ICE agents, that they can open their hearts,” Villa told Daily Kos. x x YouTube Video When Bad Bunny turned towards the camera on Feb. 8, he was surrounded by a makeshift Puerto Rican sugar cane field. Various other scenes familiar to Latin Americans played out across the performance. All of them aimed to bolster a sense of pride for people and cultures currently under attack by the Trump administration. “The lady on the corner selling flowers isn't the problem,” Villa said, explaining that the countless arrests happening likely aren’t targeting the hardened criminals the Trump administration claims to be going after. Related | All the Easter eggs in Bad Bunny’s halftime show While other nationalities have been impacted by Trump’s chaotic deportation crusade, ICE data shows that people from Central and South American countries in particular have had the highest number of arrests. Latinos across the U.S. have been in a state of terror and shock by the federal government’s aggressive approach. Doors remain locked, school graduations have been missed, people aren’t going to work—all out of fear that they or someone they love will be snatched and disappear in Trump’s callous deportation system. And their fears are increasingly shown to be justified. In the past year, ICE detention facilities saw the highest number of deaths in over 20 years. Meanwhile, men accused of being gang members have been sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite no due process and many not even being from that country. Many others have been deported to countries other than their homelands, as well. Leading up to the Super Bowl, headlines swirled with threats of ICE’s presence outside of the Bay Area stadium. And MAGA supporters seethed over the concept of a halftime show by the Puerto Rican artist, who isn’t bringing his new world tour to the U.S. over fears that his shows will be targeted by immigration authorities. But at the Super Bowl, that fear was set aside for at least 13 joyful minutes. Villa, standing behind a mobile grill for his Michelin-recognized tacos, was among the many celebrating that day—both on the field and at home watching the show on TV. Another featured guest during Bad Bunny’s performance also made the magical moment memorable with a legitimate proposal. x x YouTube Video Daily Kos also spoke with Victor Dimaren, who got on one knee during the performance. He confirmed via text that the proposal to his now-fiancée, Emma Eldridge, was real. Still, after the dust settled and Villa returned to Los Angeles, the business owner’s whirlwind moment of celebration came juxtaposed with the reality of why Bad Bunny closed his performance by saying, “Mi patria, Puerto Rico, seguimos aquí (My country, Puerto Rico, we’re still here).” Latinos, including Puerto Ricans—who are definitely American citizens no matter how many times Republicans forget it—are facing cultural erasure in the U.S. Related | MAGA freaks out as millions of normal people enjoy Bad Bunny But Villa, after handing out beers to the excited patrons standing in a long line waiting to try his tacos after his Super Bowl cameo, told Daily Kos that he has nothing but pride. “I started this business, my parents were immigrants and I'm a byproduct of those immigrants,” he said. “We look at everybody as just people, they deserve to be loved. They deserve to be appreciated. They deserve to be treated with respect.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continued to command the world stage, providing at least one sane emissary from the United States amid the rise of Donald Trump’s chaotic, autocratic movement. In a wide-ranging interview Sunday at Technische Universität Berlin with German Bundestag member Isabel Cademartori, Ocasio-Cortez took aim at the architects of MAGA’s «anti-cancel culture» movement who are now trying to dodge accountability over the Epstein files—and slammed attorney general Pam Bondi’s pathetic performance before Congress. x x YouTube Video Ocasio-Cortez described the “cancel culture” narrative as a politicization of decency. “That's the erosion in culture [and] morality that is being hinted at here when Pam Bondi says there's no more work here to be done,” she said. “Really? You are the Attorney General of the United States of America and you don't want to hold any one of these pedophiles accountable. Resign or be impeached.” Bondi’s bizarre performance last week did little to ease the public's frustration over the Trump administration’s handling of the long-promised files. Related | Pam Bondi loses her sh-t at Epstein hearing The well-earned public scorn being experienced by many powerful figures does not preclude the need for true accountability, and Ocasio-Cortez could run for any office on that—and maybe she will.
Have you been feeling like you need to rush to get a passport in case the SAVE Act voter suppression jamboree becomes law? What if, somehow, President Donald Trump signing a piece of paper means that the provisions of the SAVE Act go into effect even without legislation? Well, good luck scoring that passport in time. In what is a nakedly transparent move, even for this administration, the State Department announced that it is just straight-up making it harder to get a passport. Nonprofit libraries were just informed that they can no longer process passport applications. Though the administration teed this up last November when it began sending cease-and-desist letters to nonprofit libraries, it didn’t bring the hammer down nationwide until last week. Oh, and it’s already in effect as of February 13, 2026. Related | GOP's new voter suppression bill won't SAVE anything It sure looks a lot like this is being done with the hopes that either the SAVE Act passes or Trump’s big cool conservative friends on the Supreme Court bless Trump’s assertion that he can just singlehandedly impose a voter ID requirement nationwide. How is the administration justifying this? Well, like so many things—birthright citizenship, sending the military into cities, firing everyone at independent agencies—the administration has decided that decades of settled law and regulations have simply been interpreted by the courts and Congress wrongly all this time. According to the State Department, they’ve suddenly discovered that an obscure 1920 law forms the basis for prohibiting nonprofit libraries from issuing passports. There’s no explanation as to why, even if the State Department’s novel interpretation had any merit, this had to be rushed through. There’s also no explanation as to why the State Department has repeatedly reviewed, approved, and reauthorized nonprofit libraries to process passport applications in the past, only now discovering it is super-illegal. Government-run libraries are not affected by this announcement, so if your library is run by the county or the city, for example, you’re in luck. Nonprofit libraries are independently run and, gosh, whaddya know? They are most common in Northeastern states: Connecticut, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Huh. It’s probably just a coincidence that this would disproportionately affect blue states, right? Roughly 21 million people lack access to the additional documents required to comply with SAVE’s requirements. Driver’s licenses aren’t enough, so people need an additional document like a birth certificate or, you guessed it, a passport. No surprise the administration thus wants to make passports harder to obtain. Related | Republicans bail on states’ rights so Trump can rig elections You also won’t be surprised that the State Department is lying about the scope of this, saying it only affects “less than one percent of our total network” of 7,500 passport processing facilities. However, the American Library Association—which, let’s face it, is going to be far more reliable here than the administration—says it affects about 1,400 nonprofit libraries, a good deal more than 1%. While this move is no doubt part of an overall voter suppression plan, it’s also part of the administration’s overall attack on libraries. A public service open to everyone? With books about everything? That provides additional support and services to a community? Well, we can’t have that. At the start of his second term. Trump tried to kill the Institute of Museum and Library Services, firing the board members, placing nearly all staff on administrative leave, and cutting off grants for libraries nationwide. States had to sue to restore the funding, and a court ordered the administration to reinstate the grants last November. IMLS grants are the primary source of federal funding for state libraries, providing about $160 million each year, representing about one-third to one-half of library budgets. Barring nonprofit libraries from offering passport services is also a financial hit. In Connecticut, for example, one library processed almost 8,000 applications in the last year and received just under $200,000 for those services. Finally, eliminating nonprofit libraries makes it more likely that people will have to go to government-run offices to get passports. Naturalized citizens are entitled to vote and entitled to a United States passport. However, the administration desperately wants to strip citizenship from naturalized citizens. Where doing so has been quite rare in the past, the administration is shooting for 100-200 of these per month. Sure would be nice and convenient to be able to snatch people up right from the passport line, right? And given that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been given the authority to racially profile people and detain them if ICE decides their proof of citizenship just isn’t valid, based on vibes, it’s likely that plenty of people will just choose not to get a passport at a government-run office. Nonprofit libraries, on the other hand, often have longer hours, have a space for children to stay occupied during a parent or caregiver’s application process, and assist with language barriers. In short, they make it much safer and easier for people with less means to get a passport, and that’s exactly what the administration seeks to prevent. It’s tempting to fall back on saying this is a nonstarter because elections are run by the states, and the Supreme Court will not agree that a random executive order is suddenly the law nationwide, but the Supreme Court has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to curbing Trump’s excesses. And of course, the court’s conservatives are also extremely into voter suppression. Isn’t it fun that the very foundations of American democracy are now based on the whims of the very worst people?
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