The MAGA Bubble Is Imploding
Americans aren’t buying Trumpist gaslighting about the economy
Trump official allies with Europe’s far right in attacks on migration and hate speech policies
US state department’s Sarah B Rogers has become face of White House’s hostility to European liberal democracies
Jason Wilson
Don Lemon hires federal attorney who quit over handling of inquiry into Renee Good’s killing
Ex-CNN anchor brings on Joseph H Thompson to defend him from charges related to coverage of a church protest
Victoria Bekiempis
Trump orders Pentagon to buy electricity generated by coal
Trump’s order is the latest move by US administration to boost fossil fuel industry despite climate change concerns
John Power
Trump official overruled FDA scientists to reject Moderna’s flu shot
FDA’s top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad, is known for overruling scientists
Beth Mole
Joe Rogan Thinks People Are Not Allowed To Leave Oxford, England
People are allowed to leave Oxford, England
Robyn Pennacchia
The Racist Protector of Rapists
A million mentions in the Epstein files and counting
Mary L Trump
Minneapolis showed us why Trump and his fascists will lose
Lucian K. Truscott IV
February 12, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson
Pete Hegseth So Good At Job. Tabs, Fri., Feb. 13, 2026
Morning news roundup! Things to read!
Rebecca Schoenkopf
Fox News Pretty Sure ‘Shrieking Karen’ Pam Bondi Should Smile More
And that is what Fox News thinks about Pam Bondi
Evan Hurst
A Vote for Republicans Is a Vote Against Democracy
Can we reject the politics of concentration camps, election denial, and oligarchy by showing up in numbers too large to ignore?
Thom Hartmann
Maybe Russ Vought Wouldn't Need The Bodyguards If He Spent This $15 Million On Food Instead
Cause, meet effect.
Gary Legum
February 13, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson
Source: Haver Analytics. US is S&P 500, Euro area S&P Euro 350.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s meltdown on Wednesday while being questioned the House Judiciary Committee was exceptional, even by this administration’s rock-bottom standards. Has any high-level official ever before shrieked at a member of Congress, “You don’t tell me anything, you washed-up, loser lawyer”?
Yet what truly amazed me was her demand that Democrats stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein because the Dow was above 50,000. This plumbed new depths of moral bankruptcy, effectively saying: “How dare you complain about child rape when the stock market is up?”
There was an unmistakable stench of desperation in Bondi’s tantrum. And it fooled no one. The cracks are showing, as some congressional Republicans have now voted against Trump’s tariffs , Justice Department lawyers are quitting en masse or just plain cracking up , and attempts to weaponize prosecutions keep failing .
Now Tom Homan says that the ICE surge in Minnesota will be wound down — an ignominious retreat if true — while Democrats are standing firm on refusing further DHS funding without significant reforms. And Bondi’s yelling isn’t making Epstein go away.
But let’s examine Bondi’s demand that Americans ignore the omnishambles because stocks are up. It’s morally depraved, but what about the economics?
Yes, stock prices are up. As any economist can tell you, however, the stock market is a poor indicator of the economy’s overall health. Paul Samuelson famously quipped that the market had predicted nine of the last five recessions.
Furthermore, stock prices are up almost everywhere — and up more in other countries than they are in the United States. The chart at the top compares stock prices in the U.S. and in the euro area; since the latter is measured in euros, and the euro has risen against the dollar, Europe has substantially outperformed America.
And if we go beyond the stock market and look at what really matters to most Americans — affordability and jobs — the Trump economy isn’t delivering. Inflation remains stubbornly elevated. Despite one good month, employment growth has shriveled . And it keeps getting more difficult to find a job.
Here’s one measure I find useful, the Conference Board’s “labor market differential” — the difference between the percentage of Americans saying that jobs are plentiful and the percentage saying that jobs are hard to find:
Source: The Conference Board via Haver Analytics
This is certainly not a great economy. It’s not even a healthy economy. And Americans are not buying the administration’s lies.
MAGA types constantly bash Joe Biden while deifying Trump. Yet it took only a year for Americans outside the Republican base to decide that Biden was actually a better president. Here are results from the latest YouGov poll:
Source: YouGov
That was fast. And it belies the conventional wisdom that still sees Trump’s 1.5 percentage point popular vote margin in 2024 — smaller than Hillary Clinton’s margin in 2016! — as marking a fundamental realignment of U.S. politics.
What actually happened in 2024 was that low-knowledge voters believed Trump when he promised to bring prices way down and deliver unprecedented prosperity. “Low-knowledge” isn’t a pejorative: G. Elliott Morris uses it to mean voters who don’t know which party controls the House and Senate. These voters went strongly for Trump in 2024, but their opinion of him has crashed:
So while people inside the MAGA bubble keep insisting that Trump is a great president, the greatest president ever, presidenting like nobody has ever seen before, their cheerleading reeks of desperation. The MAGA implosion is gathering force. Americans are mad as hell, and they won’t be gaslit anymore.
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Who will be the first HT MAGA to recognize that Trump is a horrible person and a horrible President?
If one looks at the voter baseone finds 25-30% of the voters are MAGA loyalists who love Trump because he is stirring up the shit and will vote in whatever way they think will continue the shit-pond stirring. In other words, they love him because he is an asshole to the people whom they have been told to dislike. Therefore, there is no amount of shit that can cover him or his base that will be seen as disqualifying his agenda. Oh! Hello tail, prepare to be swallowed... And So It Goes.
The persuadable middle has been persuaded. Too bad the next elections are not immediately upon us. It is a very long time till November.
Personally, I think the whole mess of legislators need to vote the parties out of the election business. I do not see Pigs on the Wing, though.
Pity the poor GOPpers... If they don't defy Trump, they're headed for an electoral bloodbath. If any one of them does defy Trump, thet get primaried.
What's a poor fascist to do??
Well last time we saw them attack our capital and beat capital police officers only to be pardoned of their illegal violence and attempted insurrection by the very scum bag they were trying to install as Americas dear Leader. I honestly wouldn't put anything past these lying sacks of fascist shit. Hell, they're still defending the extra-judicial killings of a protesters, they have completely given up their humanity.
You don't particulary like them, hmmm?
Possibly the first to hit him from a thousand yards?
Pretty sure he's pissed off enough military sniper folk.
MTG?
While I agree with the sentiment of the meme posted, my anal retentive side wants to question the numbers attached, what exactly the "lowest" is in relation to, and would like to know something about the "John F. Kenny" and "George H.M. Bush" administrations because they weren't in any textbooks that I have read...