​… And For His Next Offense To maintain control of Congress Trump is trying to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans DAN RATHER AND TEAM STEADY FEB 16, 2026

Don't miss the video at the very end of this article / Harv

November 3 is 260 days away. Between now and then, no story is more consequential to the survival of our republic than Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the midterm elections. These biennial contests have long been viewed as an interesting political exercise about the popularity of the president and his administration’s policies.

November 3 is 260 days away. Between now and then, no story is more consequential to the survival of our republic than Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the midterm elections. These biennial contests have long been viewed as an interesting political exercise about the popularity of the president and his administration’s policies.

If only things were still so innocent and uncomplicated. The current president is applying maximum pressure trying to ensure the election keeps Republicans in power, whatever the cost to our democracy. The latest misadventure by Trump and his minions was on Friday when

Kristi Noem, the oft-criticized Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, made it clear she believes her agency should be involved in election integrity, claiming she has the authority to find “vulnerabilities” in the election system to make sure they are “run correctly.” The last thing this country needs is ICE agents or DHS involved in elections. Noem was in Arizona when she made these remarks, speaking to election deniers about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The SAVE Act, which passed the House on Thursday, includes a provision that requires a photo ID to vote and one that would mandate people to prove their citizenship by producing a birth certificate or passport when registering to vote.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 21 million Americans, or 9% of the voting public, lack easy access to these documents, and half of Americans don’t even possess a passport. Young voters and people of color, who tend to vote Democratic, would be disproportionately affected by this requirement. Women who change their last names when they marry would face new hurdles when registering since the name on their birth certificate would not match current identification. Eighty-five percent of married women take their husband’s name or hyphenate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there is currently no pathway to passage of the SAVE Act in the Senate, deliberately avoiding calls for elimination of the filibuster. That didn’t sit well with Trump, who took to social media in a huff. “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!” he wrote. Whether it is constitutional or not. Trump’s unyielding election denialism and his ever-increasing menu of illegal maneuvers to subvert the election come not from any evidence that U.S. elections are rife with fraud but from his inability to admit he lost in 2020. His tacit understanding is that Republicans will lose big in November— and that it will be his fault.

​New polling in the wake of Alex Pretti’s killing at the hands of federal agents and recent, disturbing revelations in the Epstein files shows Trump’s approval rating average has hit an all-time low. He is currently 15 points underwater and less popular than Joe Biden was at this point in his presidency. The fact that midterm elections tend to be referenda on a president’s policies does not bode well for Republicans’ chances in November. Trump’s approval on his top agenda items, immigration enforcement and the economy, are also underwater. Historically, when a sitting president’s approval is above 50% he should expect to lose a handful of House seats in the midterm elections. The loss of three seats in 2026 would result in the Democrats retaking the majority. When a president’s approval dips below 50%, the predictions are far worse. Trump, who hasn’t been at or above 50% approval for more than a year, may lose at least 32 congressional seats, according to an analysis by Gallup. According to Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias, Trump’s election subversion timeline is right on schedule. First, he lies about voting and fraud, which he has been doing since Day One of his second term. When that loses steam, he tries to gain traction by going to the courts. When those cases inevitably fail, as they have almost every time since he started this practice in 2016, he resorts to abusing executive power. This is roughly where we’ve been and where we are. Since he can’t win in a court of law, he makes his case in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, he has achieved significantly more success there. It is worth mentioning that Trump had no problem with the 2016 or 2024 presidential election results, the ones he won. Only the results of 2020 remain in doubt in his mind. But he has done a masterful job conning millions of people into believing that one election was rigged — this despite mountains of evidence that it was free and fair, according to multiple independent organizations including the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank and the University of Maryland Center for Democracy. Even the far-right Heritage Foundation’s own data shows fewer than 100 noncitizens have voted since 1982! But lack of evidence has never stopped this president. A frustrating paradox of our current political state is that democratic mechanisms are being used to undermine democracy itself. Political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way call Trump’s form of governance “competitive authoritarianism,” a hybrid regime where democratic institutions — elections, the courts, the media — still exist but are forcibly skewed in favor of those in power, tipping the scales so they may remain in power. Election subversion is one tactic of “competitive authoritarianism.” It is used to legally hold onto power by corrupting elections to prevent the true winner from taking office. It allows for elections to take place, while supplying a patina of legitimacy. Think Hungary and Viktor Orbán, Recep Erdoğan in Turkey, or Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. For a man who claims to be worried about the safety of our elections Trump has a dangerous way of showing it. He dismantled the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which helped states keep our elections safe, especially from the increased threat of cyber attacks. He fired or sidelined election security personnel. He threatened to prosecute election officials in states where he didn’t like the outcome in 2020. He demanded voter files from all 50 states and the District of Columbia in order to purge legitimate voters from the rolls, which he has no authority to do. Twenty-four states, including some red states, have not complied. So he took them to court, unsuccessfully so far. He is now promising an executive order that would require photo identification to vote and ban mail-in ballots. He seems undeterred by the fact that he issued a similar order last March and was blocked by a federal court. Recent election wins by Democrats, low approval ratings, and defeats in court are fueling Trump’s increasingly desperate attempts to find ways to manipulate the system to guarantee Republicans wins in November. This election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential of my lifetime. The very foundation of our constitutional republic, based on the principles of freedom and democracy, is at stake.

Watch this video.  It really explains a lot in about 15 minutes.  Do I think democracy is at stake?  YES!  The video will explain why!

​IN DHS SHUTDOWN, MANY WORK, FEW PAID Officials say they worry about morale during latest funding lapse. ​By KAROUN DEMIRJIAN and MADELEINE NGO • The New York Times WASHINGTON

​— Funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapsed early Saturday, with no breakthrough in negotiations and no clear sign of when it might be revived.

The shutdown of the sprawling department is the result of a bitter impasse over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in cities including Minneapolis . Democrats do not want to fund the department unless Congress imposes rules requiring immigration officers to identify themselves during operations, remove their masks and obtain judicial warrants to make arrests on private property. Republicans have rejected those demands as overly burdensome.

But the lapse in funding is not expected to bring the department's immigration enforcement operations to a screeching halt. And the department is home to several agencies unrelated to immigration, including the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, that will be affected.

During last fall's recordlong federal shutdown, more than 90% of the department's employees were required to work. The department has not updated its public guidance for funding lapses since then, but it is expected to handle a DHSfocused shutdown similarly.

"DHS essential missions and functions will continue as they do during every shutdown," the department said in a statement. "However, during a shutdown, many employees will be forced to work without pay, putting strain on the frontline defenders of our nation."

Here's how the shutdown could affect some of the department's most visible activities.

Immigration enforcement
The agencies at the heart of the dispute over DHS funding will almost certainly be among the least affected by a department shutdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which employs about 22,000 officers, and Customs and Border Protection, which employs more than 60,000 officials, perform work seen as essential to public safety, and employees can therefore be legally required to work, even without pay. (Under a 2019 law, they — like others employed directly by the federal government — are entitled to back pay once funding resumes.) ICE in particular has an extra cushion: Last summer, Congress drastically expanded its operating budget as part of a sweeping domestic policy bill with an extra $75 billion, resources it can use to ride out a lapse in funding.

Airport security
About 95% of the Transportation Security Administration's roughly 60,000 employees are required to report to work through a shutdown without being paid, according to the agency's acting administrator, Ha Nguyen McNeill.

Still, during the fall's shutdown, that open-ended requirement proved untenable to many workers, who found it difficult to ride out what became a 43-day shutdown without taking side jobs. TSA saw a spike in resignations after that shutdown, McNeill told lawmakers this week, while she noted that the agency was trying to increase hiring before the World Cup later this year.

Disaster response
Nearly 85% of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees are expected to work without pay through any shutdown, based on how the agency handled last fall's lapse in funding.

FEMA's disaster relief fund has enough money to carry out its current and anticipated emergency response activities, according to Gregg Phillips, the associate administrator for the agency's Office of Response and Recovery. But if a catastrophic disaster were to occur during a Homeland Security Department shutdown, the fund "would be seriously strained," he told lawmakers last week.

FEMA would find it difficult to reimburse states for disaster relief operations quickly, Phillips said. Those delays could in turn slow recovery efforts, he added.

Immigration benefits
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes green cards, naturalization and other benefit applications, is largely funded by fees it charges applicants, so most operations would typically continue during a shutdown. During the last shutdown, a vast majority of the agency's roughly 22,000 employees continued working.
Some programs do receive appropriated funds, including E-Verify, which allows employers to check their employees' eligibility to work in the country.

During the last shutdown, the program was temporarily suspended. In a statement Thursday, Matthew Tragesser, an agency spokesperson, said the administration would "take decisive action to keep E-Verify open during a shutdown."

Coast Guard
Although the Coast Guard is part of the Homeland Security department, it operates like any other branch of the military when it comes to government shutdowns: Uniformed personnel must keep coming to work, even though most of them will not be paid until after the shutdown is over.

Vice Admiral Thomas Allan, the acting vice commandant of the Coast Guard, has warned that a prolonged shutdown would erode mission readiness and hurt morale.

Cybersecurity operations
Most employees at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which helps protect the country's election system, power grids and water utilities, will be furloughed during the shutdown.

The agency is requiring 888 of its 2,341 employees to continue working, many of them without pay.

Secret Service
About 94% of the Secret Service's workforce of more than 8,000 is staying on the job, many without pay, during the shutdown. Matthew C. Quinn, the deputy director of the agency, said Wednesday that agents would continue to protect the president and vice president, along with their families. They would also continue to protect former presidents and their spouses, in addition to visiting heads of state and other top government officials. Still, Quinn warned about fading morale "as bills come due."

Trapped by ICE in a ‘prison of fear’ Across Minnesota, refugees and immigrants hide at home. Story by JAMES WALSH and JP LAWRENCE • Photo by ELIZABETH FLORES The Minnesota Star Tribune

MANKATO - The pickup truck with Texas plates rolled slowly past as the driver looked at the home, then his phone, before turning the corner.
Inside the mobile home, two families — three adults and six children — huddled behind drawn curtains and locked doors, waiting for the feared pounding on the door. Minutes passed before they could exhale, safe from federal agents — for now.

Across Minnesota, thousands of immigrants and refugees, many of them legal residents, have been hiding for weeks from U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents deployed to the state in the largest immigration enforcement operation in history.

Immigrants and refugees interviewed by the Minnesota Star Tribune say they fear being detained, fear being separated from loved ones, and fear being physically hurt by federal agents.

As a result, many restaurants are shortstaffed or closing altogether. Sales have plummeted at small businesses. And attendance at schools has dropped sharply as more kids opt to stay home.

Besides detaining undocumented immigrants as part of Operation Metro Surge, the Department of Homeland Security also launched Operation PARRIS in January to detain and "re-examine" refugees who were admitted to the U.S. legally but have not yet gotten green cards. It applies to an estimated 5,600 Minnesota refugees who have gone through a robust screening process and are on the pathway to citizenship.

In the Mankato home, one of the mothers (who asked that her name not be used) said through an interpreter that the family is here legally and is waiting to be granted asylum. They have lived and worked in Minnesota for three years.

They are hiding anyway. For the past month, they haven't left their two-bedroom mobile home. Weeks-old snow covers two of the three cars parked outside. There is no hot water; the water heater has been broken for weeks.

"These are things we are living. The kids don't sleep. We don't sleep. We are even afraid to take out the garbage," the mother said.

Willmar parents reassure their children
It's the middle of the afternoon, but 11-year-old Allison's room in Willmar is as dark as night.

The shades are firmly shut, the lights switched off. As the girl holds her baby brother in the darkness, her mother, Erika, who came to the U.S. four years ago from Honduras and has an open asylum case, watches and worries from the threshold of the bedroom door.

Like other immigrant children across the state, Allison has asked questions that her parents have difficulty answering: Can she go back to school soon? Why are federal agents detaining people? What if our family gets separated?

Erika worries Allison is getting depressed, staying inside her room with the shades drawn and the door closed. Her friends at school made clay sculptures recently. If life were normal, Allison said, she knows exactly what she would have sculpted: a butterfly.

Erika tries to reassure Allison, but it's becoming harder, she said, because she's scared, too.

Also in Willmar, Diana Alvarado Reyes, a U.S. citizen originally from Honduras, said she gets hard questions from her 7-year-old son.
He asked her whether they should leave the country, and why they have to be afraid "if we're not bad people, if we go to church."

Said Reyes: "It's hard for us to give them some explanation. We don't know how they're going to take it, but we're just trying to do our best."
Like Reyes, her children are U.S. citizens, but she said she doesn't trust that her family is safe or that federal agents are only going after criminals, which is what the Trump administration has claimed. She cited videos of ICE agents using heavyhanded tactics and detaining U.S. citizens. Local activists and officials have alleged agents are using racial profiling — which federal officials deny.

'Hiding in the shadows'
K, who didn't want to give his full name out of fear, is a legal resident seeking asylum from genocide and civil war in Ethiopia.

A doctor in his home country, K said he's now enrolled in an MBA program. He said he has no criminal history.

But he's been unable to go to class or work. Fear of being detained by ICE has kept him shut up in his apartment for the past three weeks. He can't even go grocery shopping, he said.

"I am a prisoner in my apartment," said the 30-yearold North St. Paul resident. "I am hiding in the shadows, not because I have committed a crime, but because the streets of Minnesota have begun to look terrifyingly similar to the war zone I escaped."

He said he came to America more than three years ago because he "believed in its fundamental promise: that liberty, safety and due process are inalienable rights."

Yet, despite following the law, paying taxes and his rent, and receiving no government aid, K said he's trapped "in a nightmare."

ICE's tactics, he said, are the ones used by government forces in Ethiopia: checkpoints, warrantless searches, profiling based on skin color or accent and arrests for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

K, who is receiving treatment for PTSD at the Center for Victims of Torture, said: "This is not the freedom I sought. This is a prison of fear."
The center's Scott Roehm said detaining legal asylum-seekers and transferring detainees out of state "is a singular, wholesale attack on human rights."

"There is an inherent cruelty to it," he said. "There's an inherent bigotry to it. I also think there's a thought this demonstrates power. But I think it demonstrates weakness."

Federal officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roehm said he's not surprised that thousands of residents are hiding.
"Nobody is safe from what's happening right now. Nobody," he said. "It's a climate of terror, and you're seeing more people recognize that."
So far, Roehm said, the only defense is filing lawsuits as soon as possible, and continuing to alert the news media and elected officials about encounters with ICE.

Several legal groups and five refugees did just that, filing a class-action lawsuit in January over Operation PARRIS, alleging it violated the Constitution and is detaining refugees who are lawfully in Minnesota. In late January, a judge granted a temporary restraining order, and ordered the immediate release of refugees currently detained under the policy.

In announcing Operation PARRIS, federal officials said it would help root out fraud in Minnesota and is "part of a broader strategy to implement enhanced screening standards."

K said he still hopes to be granted asylum, but there's a backlog of cases.

Helping those who are in hiding
Across the state, Minnesotans are rallying to organize food drives and fundraisers to support families who are in hiding or unable to go the grocery store themselves. Schools, offices and places of worship have transformed into makeshift food shelves to collect and distribute groceries, diapers and other essentials to immigrant families.

Before the recent ICE surge in Minnesota, E, who also didn't want to be named for fear of being detained, worked in human resources for a Mankato area meatpacking company as a liaison to immigrants from Mexico.

He's worked in the Mankato area for four years. But after his work permit expired in September, E has been a volunteer community organizer, part of a team of hundreds helping residents get the things they need while in hiding, such as food, medicine and school materials, and tracking ICE's movements.

E, who said he has no criminal record, has applied for another work permit. In the meantime, the 34-year-old is also in danger of being detained and running out of money.

The need for help is only growing, he said. In September, about 1,000 area residents lost their work permits. This coming July, another 3,000 will be without work and subject to being detained, he said.

When their money runs out, he said, people will no longer be able to hide from ICE. "I'm just hoping we can make it," he said.

ElizabethFlores and Susan Du of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.
​
[email protected] [email protected]

"I am a prisoner in my apartment. I am hiding in the shadows, not because I have committed a crime, but because the streets of Minnesota have begun to look terrifyingly similar to the war zone I escaped."

K, a 30-year-old North St. Paul resident

U.N. says it’s facing financial collapse because of unpaid dues
By FARNAZ FASSIHI The New York Times

​ NEW YORK - The United Nations said that it was facing imminent financial collapse and would run out of money by July if countries, namely the United States, did not pay their annual dues that amount to billions of dollars.

Senior U.N. offi cials said that if the cash ran out, the agency would be forced to shut down its landmark headquarters in New York by August. The U.N. Security Council, a 15-member body responsible for maintaining international peace and stability, convenes its meetings at U.N. headquarters.

It would also have to cancel the annual General Assembly gathering of world leaders held in September and shut the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which responds to global emergencies like conflicts and natural disasters, it said Friday.

The U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, sent a letter to the ambassadors of all 196 member states Thursday warning them of "imminent financial collapse," saying the organization's financial straits this time were different from those in any previous periods, according to a copy of the letter seen by the New York Times.

"The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse," Guterres wrote. "And the situation will further deteriorate in the near future. I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face."

On Dec. 30, the General Assembly authorized $3.45 billion for the United Nations' 2026 budget, covering the organization's three core pillars of work: peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.

The United States is responsible for about 95% of the money owed to the United Nations, about $2.2 billion, according to a senior U.N. official who briefed reporters on the agency's budget crisis.

That amount is a combination of the U.S. annual dues for 2025, which has not been paid, and for 2026, the U.N. official said.

As for comment, the U.S. mission to the United Nations referred questions to the State Department, which did not immediately respond.

Annual U.N. dues are mandatory and set according to a country's gross domestic product.

President Donald Trump, citing mismanagement, waste and redundancy, withdrew the United States in early January from dozens of international organizations, including several U.N. agencies like the Population Fund. Trump had already pulled the country out of UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency; the World Health Organization; and the U.N. Human Rights Council. And he said the United States would reduce funding for peacekeeping operations.

In addition to its annual dues, the United States also owes the United Nations about $1.9 billion for active peacekeeping missions, $528 million for closed missions and $43.6 million for tribunals such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, said the senior U.N. offi cial in the briefing.

The United States has indicated to the United Nations that it would make a payment of about $160 million for active peacekeeping but would not pay for the tribunals, the senior U.N. offi cial said. Peacekeeping missions have been instructed to reduce their budgets by 15%, the U.N. official said.
​
Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for the United Nations, said that if the United Nations shut down in July, humanitarian work around the world would also be affected and the work of civilian staff hampered. Agencies such as UNICEF, which handles children's issues; the U.N. Refugee Agency; and the World Food Program have budgets separate from donations and would continue to operate. But the U.N. agency that coordinates relief work across agencies would close.