Five volatile moments from Trump's 2026 State of the Union speech

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 24, 2026. REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

Adam Lynch

February 24, 2026

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night descended into chaos and confrontation as Democratic lawmakers repeatedly challenged his rhetoric on immigration, election integrity, and economic policy. The speech was marked by heated exchanges, dramatic walkouts, and direct accusations—beginning before Trump even took the podium and intensifying throughout the evening as tensions between the president and opposition lawmakers reached a boiling point.

The evening revealed a Congress fundamentally divided not just on policy, but on basic facts, with Democrats pointing to real-world consequences of Trump administration actions while the president made claims contradicted by trade partners, economists and his own officials.


Following are the five most manic moments from Trump's address:

1. Al Green escorted from the chamber before it even gets good and started.

Holding a sign declaring that “Black People Aren’t Apes,” Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was escorted from the chamber before Trump’s State of the Union speech really began

Green’s sign, and his subsequent removal, stemmed from a video posted by Trump on his Truth Social account featuring a racist depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. At the end of the 62-second video the Obamas' faces appear on apes' bodies for about 1 second as The Tokens' song 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' plays.

Trump later removed the post, but never apologized for the inflammatory post, not even when asked by reporters.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) attempted to pull Green’s sign away on his way out, and Trump made no mention of the lawmaker’s removal nor an apology.


2.Trump claims other countries were “happy” being tariffed by tweet

Trump was determined to defend his illegal tariffs, even after the conservative Roberts Supreme Court dismantled his ability to wield them through emergency orders.

“These tariffs took in hundreds of billions of dollars to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis. Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. They were ripping us so badly. You all know that. Everybody knows it. Even the Democrats know it. They just don't want to say it. And yet these countries are now happy and so are we. We made deals, the deals are all done and they're happy,” Trump claimed.


“… And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down,” continued Trump. “Very unfortunate ruling. But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. … knowing that the legal power that I, as president, have to make a new deal could be far worse for them, and therefore they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the supreme court's unfortunate involvement.”

In actuality, the European Commission has slammed the brakes on U.S. trade negotiations after Trump made his retaliatory announcement of blanket tariffs in the aftermath of the court ruling.

Trump also claimed, incorrectly, that “Congressional action will not be necessary,” despite Congress being required to extend them beyond their short lifespan.

He also claimed, incorrectly, that his tariffs are funded “by foreign countries,” despite claims from U.S. consumers, farmers, and businesses saying they pay them.


3. Trump blasts Democrats for beating him to death on ‘affordability’

Trump clearly remains sore that Democrats are getting such good traction out of high food and service costs this year, as indicated by their successful wins in off-year elections. Trump ranted that Democrats’ campaign arguments are effective while blaming them for causing the high costs to begin with.

“[N]ow, the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly use the word ‘affordability’ –a word. They just used it. Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure.”

“You caused that problem. You caused that problem,” Trump said, looking to Democrats in the audience. “They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices,” Trump said before launching into claims that he is reducing inflation, despite reports showing no meaningful shift.


“Our policies are rapidly ending [inflation.] We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward. … The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot. And even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly. Just hold on a little while. We're getting it down, and soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve.

4. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) calls Trump a “murderer” to his face.

Trump was in the middle of haranguing Democrats for refusing to stand and cheer him on his more controversial claims, when a shouting match erupted across the chamber.

“You should be ashamed of yourself for not standing up,” Trump said. “You should be ashamed of yourself. That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens. In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country.”

“You’re the murderer,” Omar shouted from her seat, likely referring to Trump’s politicized Homeland Security force causing the deaths of multiple residents in Minnesota. Omar’s outburst prompted the president’s supporters to chant to drown her out with shouts of “USA! USA! USA!”

“… They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country. And you should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump said over the noise.

“You should be ashamed,” Omar blasted back with an accusatory point, joined by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) who sat beside her.

5.Trump accuses Democrats of cheating in elections, again without evidence.

Trump made a point to try to hold Democrats accountable for not supporting new ballot restrictions that could impact voters across the nation.

“You need to show two original forms of ID and a Social Security card,” Trump said, referring to hiring practices in New York City. “Yet [Democrats] don't want identification for the greatest privilege of them all: Voting in America.”

Trump claimed “both Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agree on the policy” of new ID requirements for voting, despite claiming in the same breath that Democrats oppose the effort.

“… [T]he reason they don't want to do it — why would anybody not want voter ID? One reason: because they want to cheat. There's only one reason. They make up all excuses. They say it's racist. They come up with things. You almost say what imagination they have. They want to cheat, they have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat. And we're going to stop it. We have to stop it. And here is one more opportunity to show common sense in government.”

Of all U.S. presidents, Trump remains the only one who has been impeached for his actions in the attempted overthrow the U.S. election in 2020.

Trump Uses State of the Union Address to Falsely Declare Economy Is “Roaring”


Ignoring the economic reality of most Americans is an incredible gamble for the president.

By Chris Walker ,

Truthout

February 25, 2026

President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress on February 24, 2026.Kenny Holston-Pool / Getty Images

President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union speech since returning to the White House for a second term, largely ignoring the real economic conditions of the American people.

Trump declared economic success, claiming “the interests of hardworking American citizens are always our first and ultimate concern.”

“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” Trump said.




During his speech, Trump claimed there was “no inflation,” only to state later that “inflation is plummeting.”

In reality, the 2.7 percent rate of inflation seen in 2025 is only 0.2 percent lower than it was in the year prior to Trump re-entering the White House. Food prices are also up by 2.4 percent overall during the first year of Trump’s second term.

Trump’s Pre-State of the Union Polling Numbers Among the Worst He’s Ever Had
Trump receives negative marks on the economy, foreign policy matters, his handling of immigration, and more. By Chris Walker , Truthout February 23, 2026

The president also touted tax cuts in his so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act as beneficial for most Americans. However, the law’s tax cuts largely benefited the wealthy, and the bill made significant cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Trump also praised his tariffs and blasted the Supreme Court decision last week that declared them unlawful and unconstitutional. He promised to institute more tariffs, using different mechanisms, and falsely claimed that American consumers wouldn’t bear the costs.

He absurdly claimed tariffs could replace income taxes one day, too.

“I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love,” Trump said.

Experts regard tariffs as a regressive form of taxation, affecting people with lower incomes much more than the wealthy. Trump’s tariffs are also the largest increase in taxes seen since 1993. Some economists believe that Trump’s tariffs have negatively impacted job growth in the U.S.

Trump’s comments were absurd at times.

“Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we’re winning too much,” Trump said at one point.

“We can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we were just always losing, but now we’re winning too much,” he continued, adding that he’s not going to stop, and the U.S. will supposedly “win bigger than ever.”

Throughout his speech, Trump celebrated an economy that the majority of Americans think he is mishandling.

“We are the hottest country anywhere in the world,” he said.

A majority of Americans do not share that sentiment, several polls have found.

Trump entered the State of the Union Address with some of the worst polling numbers he’s seen in his two terms in office. A CNN/SSRS poll, for example, showed that only 36 percent of Americans approve of how Trump is handling his presidency, with 63 percent saying they disapprove.

A recent Pew Research poll found that only 28 percent of Americans believe the president’s economic policies have improved the country, while 52 percent believe his administration’s actions have made things worse.

An Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday also found that only 28 percent of Americans rate the current state of the economy as “excellent” or “good,” while 69 percent only rate it as “fair” or “poor.”

Most respondents in that poll were pessimistic about how the economy is trending, with 50 percent stating that things are “getting worse” overall.

Trump’s speech on Tuesday night is unlikely to ease the concerns of most Americans, as most State of the Union addresses fail to provide more than a statistical “bump” in presidents’ polling numbers. But if Trump continues to celebrate the economy while Americans by and large do not share the same rosy outlooks, the president’s risky gamble could affect how well the Republican Party does against Democrats in the midterms this fall.

Nobel laureate says Trump’s economy is not the 'envy' of Europe

U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart Haneda Airport for South Korea, in Tokyo, Japan, October 29, 2025. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein

Adam Lynch

February 25, 2026 

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump and Republicans enjoy bashing the European economy as a foil to America’s awesome growth, but Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman says the party really doesn’t have much to brag about.

“When comparing the US and the EU, uncritical use of real GDP numbers can lead to the conclusion that Europe is getting poorer relative to America. But it isn’t,” said Krugman on his substack.

A lazy glance at growth in real GDP between the U.S. and the EU might suggest the U.S. is growing substantially more than the EU, but “not so fast,” said Krugman. A third comparison adjusting for differences in the overall price level goods in the U.S. and EU puts the rate of growth between the two economies extremely close to one another between 2007 and 2024.

“One says that in real terms the U.S. economy has grown much faster than the EU economy. The other says that in real terms the two economies have stayed roughly equal in size,” said Krugman, adding that the contradiction appears to exist “because the concept of real GDP is often misunderstood.”

It can certainly lead you astray when “comparing nations that produce different mixes of goods because they have staked out different positions in the global economy,” said Krugman.

The U.S. conceivably produces more tech than the EU, and this spurs rapid technological progress, but that progress gets “passed on to everyone in the form of lower prices. … The relative size of the economies measured [while adjusting for differences in the overall price level] doesn’t change.”

And should Europe envy the United States for its tech sector? No, said Krugman. Big tech makes big money for big tech billionaires.

”Aside from the fact that Europeans are living well, tech generates a big negative externality, because among other things it generates tech-bro billionaires, who are corrupting our politics,” Krugman said, likely referring to Elon Musk putting his finger on Trump’s re-election, and his more recent failed endeavor to win a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat for Republicans.

DC insider lets loose on Trump's bad economy — and Republicans' 'irrelevance'

U.S. President Donald Trump smiles as he departs following the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 24, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Sarah K. Burris

February 25, 2026 

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump is being trashed for the false claims he made last night in his speech, distorting the truth about the economy. But one former Republican leader said something worse is happening.

Speaking to MS NOW's Katy Tur, fellow host Michael Steele said that voters are already telling the country that whatever efforts Trump has attempted aren't working.

"He's upside down, not just with the broad swath of Americans. Independents, he's lost 43 points with Independents. He's down 16 points with his own base. I mean, come on," said Steele.

He said that support among Republicans may still be high, but losing any ground is a unique situation for Trump.

"But here, let's level-set what we're talking about here. You know this, you've known this, and followed this guy from the very moment he stepped on the stage. He doesn't care about the politics of politics within the organs and the sinews of a party to get folks elected and connect that to a broader message, to sort of drag the laggards to the —" Steele said before he was cut off by Tur.


"He doesn't care about Congress," she said.

Steele argued that Trump doesn't care about anything other than himself.

For those working in Republican Party politics, Trump would never be someone to rely on.


"So, if you're in the game of politics, [and] the titular head of your party doesn't even care that you're there, meaning your fate is not aligned with his, and his is not aligned with yours, particularly in a congressional cycle where they should be aligned. That's how you don't lose 63 House seats if you're the Democratic Party, or what's going to happen to Republicans this November," said Steele.

Tur said that Trump has always been the one to say he can do everything by himself and doesn't need help from anyone to accomplish his goals. Now he's in a position where he holds every house of Congress, and the Supreme Court is dominated by conservatives.

Steele and Tur agreed that Trump still can't get anything passed because Republicans are unwilling to work with Democrats on bipartisan legislation.


"So, there's been basically no legislation," he said.

It means that Trump has turned House and Senate Republicans "irrelevant," so it ultimately hurts their reelection campaigns.

"Here's the kicker. Republicans in the House and Senate have made themselves irrelevant because at any juncture, particularly after the decision by the Supreme Court on tariffs, that's a moment where you step in. The Supreme Court is giving you your power back," continued Steele.

It's a rare opportunity to work on tariffs, Steele said, and show Americans that they are relevant again. What Speaker Mike Johnson did, however, was to continue allowing Trump to run the show.


The two compared it to having someone throw a ball and stepping aside, letting it sit.

Tur simply couldn't understand why.

"Because they're mini men," he said. "They play small ball. From the very beginning, they always saw Donald Trump as something that he was not. And they gave him power he did not have because Donald Trump wasn't in the districts. He may endorse you, but he's not running your race. He's not managing your campaign. He's not getting you elected. They made him who he is," Steele closed.

"And at no time along the way have they decided that this individual is not in our political best interest. And the political calculation for that was realized when Mitch McConnell refused to convict after Jan. 6," he said.

'His policies have failed': Nobel economist disputes Trump's myths

U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Amy Goodman 
Democracy Now 

February 25, 2026 

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz responds to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, when the president repeatedly touted his tariffs as saving the country money and boosting the economy. Stiglitz says Trump’s “lies” about tariffs can’t erase the truth about how they have raised costs for most U.S. residents. “It is estimated the average family is paying somewhere between $1,000 and $1,700 in extra money because of the tariffs,” says Stiglitz. “His policies have failed.”






This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: “Streets of Minneapolis” by Bruce Springsteen. Later in the broadcast, we will speak with Aliya Rahman. She was ripped out of her car, her windshield ”the passenger glass broken by immigration agents as they cut her seatbelt. A U.S. citizen who was then invited to the State of the Union by Congressmember Ilhan Omar. She was removed from the gallery. We will ask her if she was also arrested. That’s coming up.


This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. During his State of the Union, President Trump repeatedly hailed his economic record over the past year. He also openly criticized the Supreme Court again for striking down his global tariffs in a decision that’s having major implications on the global economy. Less than half, four of the nine Supreme Court justices, attended the speech. This is part of what Trump said.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Everything was working well. Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. They were ripping us so badly, you all know that. Everybody knows it. Even the Democrats know it, they just don’t want to say it. And yet these countries are now happy and so are we. We made deals. The deals are all done and they’re happy. They’re not making money like they used to but we’re making a lot of money. There was no inflation, tremendous growth. And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly and 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn’t. They got it totally wrong. They got it really wrong. And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court, it just came down. It came down.

PEOPLE: [applause]


PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Very unfortunate ruling.

PEOPLE: [cheers and applause]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. Right, Scott? Knowing that the legal power that I as president have to make a new deal could be far worse for them. And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement.


So despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful country-saving—it’s saving our country, the kind of money we’re taking in—peace-protecting—many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs, I wouldn’t have been able to settle them without—will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes, and they have been tested for a long time—they’re a little more complex but they’re actually probably better—leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before.

Congressional action will not be necessary. It’s already time-tested and approved. And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will like in the past substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.

PEOPLE: [applause]


AMY GOODMAN: We are joined now by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Stiglitz is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His latest book just out in paperback this week, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.


Professor Stiglitz, welcome back to Democracy Now! Your response? You were among the signatories, the economists who have signed a letter against the tariffs. Talk about the president’s State of the Union and his argument for tariffs and against the Supreme Court. Two of his own appointees ruled against him.

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, the speech was characteristic of Trump's lies, misleading statements.
I was with a group of a large number of Nobel Prize winners who predicted that he would be bad for the economy and we were right. The tariffs are paid by Americans. They’re not paid for by the foreigners. He says they didn’t have any effect on inflation. We saw inflation was going down, and if we compare where inflation would have been with where we are today, it is estimated the average family is paying somewhere between $1,000 and $1,700 in extra money because of the tariffs.

The irony is he said it was going to bring back manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are down in the United States in 2025 when they were up under President Biden. He doesn’t talk about that. In fact, last year was one of the slowest growth in jobs ever in recent memory, about a quarter of what it was under President Biden. And interestingly, most or more than 100% of the jobs that were created were in the healthcare sector, nothing to do with his tariffs at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump said in the past, “We have the most people working in history.” What is the state of unemployment, of livable employment, the overall economy?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, when the economy is ”more people in the country? Yes, there are going to be more people working. That’s true. The fact is that labor force participation has not gone up. The unemployment rate has gone up a little bit, not a lot. But what is striking is how weak the job market is. As I said before, we have not created very many jobs, less than a quarter of what we had created under President Biden. And anybody with friends trying to get jobs knows what a difficult labor market today’s labor market is.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to President Trump speaking last night.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly use the word “affordability,” a word they just used it, somebody gave it to them knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem.


AMY GOODMAN: “Affordability,” Professor Stiglitz. We are speaking to you here in New York. Of course the new mayor Zohran Mamdani sent the message to people all over the country, especially those who are considering elected office or to diehard politicians, senators, congressmembers, that affordability was the word, was the issue people are most concerned about. What about President Trump mocking it?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: I think he is mocking the American people when he mocks the issue of affordability. The reason people worry about affordability is things are not affordable. And the other way of putting it is that their real incomes adjusted for inflation are down. Now, one of the striking things about what President Trump has done, he talked about this tax cut, the biggest tax cut in history. He was wrong about that. As a percentage of GDP, it doesn’t even rank near the top.

But where it does rank at the top is that it was the most regressive tax cut. That is to say the benefits went to the millionaires, the billionaires, the corporations, and those at the bottom paid the price. They paid the price with almost a $1 trillion cut in Medicaid. That was why the Democrats had insisted on the government shutdown. They said, “You can’t do that! That’s not right!” That you would be giving a tax cut for billionaires and asking the poorest Americans not to have adequate healthcare in a country where healthcare has been so bad, so bad that life expectancy even before the pandemic was on the down.

AMY GOODMAN: Your final comments, Professor Stiglitz, coming off of what’s considered one of the longest State of the Unions, an assessment of this country, in modern history?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, long speeches like that reminds me of Castro and other demagogues who just loves ”they get the platform and they just talk and talk and talk. But I think the striking thing is that in spite of the tariffs that were supposed to bring back manufacturing jobs, manufacturing jobs are actually down. And in spite of the tariffs that were supposed to eliminate the huge trade deficit in goods, the trade deficit in goods is actually up. So his policies have failed even in the areas where he—in the objectives that he set forth. So, yes, his speech was filled with misleading statements, with lies. We’ve come to expect that. But in the core aspect of his agenda, the numbers show that he has dramatically failed to do what he promised.

AMY GOODMAN: Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, Columbia University professor, and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Stiglitz is also currently the chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. His new book just out in paperback this week, The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society.

GILEAD

Republican Lawmakers’ Bid to Execute Tennessee Abortion Patients Slammed as ‘Christofascism’

“This is about the future of the anti-abortion movement in the Republican Party and the way that they are embracing extremism at a rate that is so fucking alarming,” said one critic.


Abortion rights activists protest after the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court, in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on June 24, 2022.
(Photo by Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Feb 23, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


“If you kill a baby from embryo on up with a pill or a scalpel, we oughta execute you.”

That’s not social media rage bait by some random zealot, it’s the premise of legislation recently introduced by Republican state lawmakers in Tennessee to make abortion a capital offense, as voiced by one of the measure’s sponsors. And it’s setting off alarm bells in recent days across a nation in which attacks on remaining reproductive rights have been accelerating in the years since the right-wing US Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling nearly four years ago.

An amendment to HB 570/SB 738 was filed by primary sponsors Rep. Jody Barrett (R-69) and Sen. Mark Pody (R-17) and co-sponsored by five of their GOP colleagues, all men, including Rep. Monty Fritts (R-32), who is also running for governor—and who is the source of the quote in this article’s lede. Fritts spoke those words at a meeting in Jonesborough, where TN Repro News publisher Rachel Wells last year interviewed a pregnant woman who was allegedly denied prenatal care under Tennessee’s Medical Ethics Defense Act because she is unmarried to her partner of 15 years.

If passed, Barrett and Pody’s amendment—which was still adding co-sponsors as of Monday—would classify abortion as “homicide of an unborn child,” punishable by life imprisonment with or without parole—or even death by lethal injection. The measure contains very narrow exceptions, including for spontaneous miscarriage or when abortion is needed to save a mother’s life. The amendment is currently under committee review has not yet been scheduled for a vote.

Tennessee already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the United States, with a near-total ban on the procedure in effect since Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed it in August 2022. Abortion is banned from fertilization, with limited exceptions.

While religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention and Foundation to Abolish Abortion hailed the proposal as a life-saving measure that serves the will of the Abrahamic deity figure “God,” reproductive rights defenders expressed alarm and outrage.

“We are talking about a gubernatorial candidate openly calling for women who end their pregnancies to be charged with a capital crime and spend their life in prison or for the to get the death penalty. That is where we’re at right now,” Abortion, Every Day publisher Jessica Valenti said in a video posted on social media.

“This is not just about this one guy,” she continued. “This is about the future of the anti-abortion movement in the Republican Party and the way that they are embracing extremism at a rate that is so fucking alarming.”



“Saying that women should be punished for having abortions was once... an unthinkable thing to say within the anti-abortion movement,” Valenti added. “Now they’re openly embracing it. Over a dozen states over the last year have introduced or advanced equal protection legislation... that would punish abortion patients as murders, which in some states can mean the death penalty, it could mean life in prison.”

“This is not some fringe element,” she stressed. “This is becoming the mainstream of the movement. Right now in Texas... the Republican Party platform calls for equal protection. It calls for the execution of women or life in prison for women who have abortions. This is not fringe.”

In South Carolina, where a bill to execute people who have abortions garnered more than 20 GOP votes on its way to defeat but performing the procedure is a felony, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office last week launched an investigation into a fetus that was found at a water treatment plant. Investigators will test tissue samples from the fetus “to determine the race and locate the mother.”

Numerous deaths have been attributed to abortion bans in states including Texas and Georgia.

Back in Tennessee, Fritts—who is polling at around 5-7% in the GOP gubernatorial primary, depending on the survey—has been busy defending his proposal to kill people who have abortions.

“Murder is murder. I know that’s hard for people to hear, and I don’t mean to be hard with it, I promise,” he told the Tennessee Holler, comparing abortion pills to cyanide capsules.

Fritts’ campaign slogan is “liberty & less government.”

Responding to Fritts’ co-sponsorship of the death penalty amendment, Jon Tate’s Daily Practice publisher Jon Tate wrote, “Disgusting.”

“While I was busy and not paying attention, my state was apparently becoming ground zero for white-supremacist Christofascism,” he added. “It breaks my brain and my heart.”

Former ICE Lawyer Says Agency Is Teaching Recruits to ‘Violate the Constitution’

“Never in my career had I ever received such a blatantly unlawful order,” said Ryan Schwank, who blew the whistle last month on a “secretive” ICE memo directing agents to enter homes without judicial warrants.


A former US Immigration and Customs Enforcement instructor responsible for educating new ICE officers, Ryan Schwank, speaks during a forum on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Dirksen Senate Office Building at the US Capitol on February 23, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Feb 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “lying to Congress and the American people” and directing new recruits to “violate the Constitution,” according to a whistleblower who testified on Capitol Hill Monday.

Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, stepped down from his post last week after submitting a whistleblower complaint about an agency policy directing agents to enter homes and arrest people without a judge’s warrant.

“I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Schwank said at a joint forum on ICE’s constitutional violations hosted by Senate and House Democrats. “I followed that oath for four-and-a-half years, working side by side with ICE officers. And I followed it when I resigned on February 13, 2026, a little over a week ago, so I could speak to you today.”

He had joined ICE in 2021 as a senior lawyer for the agency, tasked with advising agents on immigration laws and the Constitution. In September 2025, amid President Donald Trump’s “surge” in recruitment to carry out his “mass deportation” crusade, Schwank became an instructor for new recruits at the ICE Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.

“On my first day,” Schwank said, “I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant.”

Schwank said he was “instructed to read and return a memo” that claimed ICE agents had this power in the presence of his supervisor. “Before I was shown this memo, my supervisor warned me that two previous ICE instructors had been dismissed because they questioned senior ICE management over the legality of the memo.”

That memo, which was sent to US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials in May, was revealed to the Senate last month through a whistleblower disclosure by Schwank and another official whose identity has not yet been made public.

“The acting ICE director authorized the very conduct that DHS—in 2025 legal training materials—has called ‘the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed’—that is, ‘physical entry of the home’ without consent or a proper warrant,” Schwank said.

His testimony confirms previous reporting from the Associated Press, which found that these orders were distributed in a highly unusual way: DHS officials like Schwank were shown the memo before being required to return it to their supervisors and relay the information verbally to new recruits without showing them the directive.

Under this new directive, the whistleblower report said “newly hired ICE agents—many of whom do not have a law enforcement background—are now being directed to rely solely on” an administrative warrant drafted and signed by an ICE official to enter homes and make arrests.

“No court has ever found that any law enforcement has this type of authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant under such circumstances,” said David Kligerman, the senior vice president and special counsel for Whistleblower Aid, the group that sent the disclosure to Congress.

“Never in my career had I ever received such a blatantly unlawful order—nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,” Schwank said on Monday. “I was being shown this memo in secret by a supervisor who made sure that I understood that disobedience could cost me my job. ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution, and they were attempting to cloak it in secrecy.”



Schwank also said that top ICE and DHS officials were deceiving Congress and the public when they claimed that the new officers and agents brought on as part of the agency’s hiring spree were receiving the same basic training as in the past, even as agency syllabi showed that their training hours had been slashed by about 40%.

Testifying before Congress earlier this month, ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, said that while hours have been cut, “The meat of the training was never removed.”

“This is a lie,” Schwank said. “ICE made the program shorter, and they removed so many essential parts that what remains is a dangerous husk. No reasonable person would believe a training program suddenly cut nearly in half could meet the minimum legal requirements.”

The Trump administration has said the reduction of ICE training by more than 240 hours was mostly the result of eliminating Spanish-language classes.

However, according to dozens of pages of internal documents released by Senate Democrats, which were reviewed by the New York Times, the agency’s February syllabus had also eliminated classes about the proper use of force, handling the property of detainees, filling out paperwork alleging someone is in the United States without authorization, taking a “victim-centered approach,” and “integrity awareness training.”

The number of exams agents must take has also been drastically reduced, from 25 in 2021 down to just nine. Some of the exams no longer required are ones on “Judgment Pistol Shooting” and “Determine Removability,” which the Times said was “a reference to how agents decide if people they encounter have legal status in the United States.”

Schwank’s testimony comes after immigration agents shot and killed three United States citizens in recent weeks, causing heightened scrutiny of ICE and other DHS agencies. Since Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, at least 32 people have been shot by agents, resulting in nine deaths.

In areas where ICE has been surged, such as Minnesota—which was swarmed by around 3,000 agents late last year—numerous instances have been documented of what appear to be uses of unnecessary force, racial profiling, and violations of constitutional rights.

“I am here because I am duty-bound to report the legally required training program at the ICE academy is deficient, defective, and broken,” Schwank said. “Deficient training can and will get people killed... It can and will lead to unlawful arrests, violations of constitutional rights, and fundamental loss of public trust in law enforcement.”

Schwank’s testimony came as a partial shutdown of DHS entered its second week, after Democrats refused to fund the agency without significant reforms to ICE, including requirements that they obtain judicial warrants and carry out their duties without masks.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who chaired Monday’s panel, said he hopes Schwank’s testimony will encourage other whistleblowers to come forward.

“We know about the Trump administration’s decimation of training for immigration officers and its secret policy to shred your Constitutional rights because of the brave Americans who are speaking out today,” Blumenthal said. “They are coming to Congress because we have the responsibility to not only bear witness to these crimes, but to do something to make sure they don’t happen again.”

“To anyone else who is repulsed by what you’re seeing or what authorities are asking you to do, please know that you can make a real difference by coming forward,” he added. “You’ll meet a moral imperative. Our door is open, we are here for you when you are ready, and we will do everything within our power to protect your rights.”

Praising Denver and Other Cities for Leading the Way, Sanders Renews Call for National Data Center Moratorium

“We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue,” said the senator. “The time for action is now.”


Prime Data Center is seen in Vernon, California on December 25, 2025.
(Photo by Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Feb 24, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


Although Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is a vocal supporter of artificial intelligence and has pushed to adopt AI-driven products to power the city’s infrastructure, he joined City Council members on Monday in announcing a moratorium on the construction of massive AI data centers—the latest sign, said US Sen. Bernie Sanders, that the push to stop corporations from building the energy-guzzling, pollution-causing facilities is not “radical, fringe, and Luddite” as some claim.

Johnston, a Democrat, and other local officials across the country who are pushing to block the construction of data centers “are right,” said Sanders (I-Vt.). “Data centers will have a profound impact on land and water use, and will drive up electricity costs.”



‘What a Surprise’: Sanders Undeterred by Bezos-Owned Washington Post’s Dismissal of AI Data Center Pause

As grassroots community groups and experts have warned, AI will also “likely have a catastrophic impact on the lives of working-class Americans, eliminating tens of millions of blue- and white-collar jobs in every sector of our economy,” said the senator, who proposed a nationwide moratorium on AI data centers in December.

He renewed that call after Johnston and the Denver City Council announced the city would halt any plans for new data centers for at least several months and would require projects that are already permitted or under construction to follow new guidelines once they’re finalized by local officials.

“We need a federal moratorium on AI data centers,” said Sanders.




Johnston said in a statement that he believes “data centers power the technology we depend upon and strengthen our economy,” but stressed that “as this industry evolves, so must our policies.”

“This pause allows us to put clear and consistent guardrails in place while protecting our most precious resources and preserving our quality of life,” said the mayor.

The city plans to review regulations for data centers that would target “responsible land, energy, and water use as well as zoning and affordability for ratepayers.”

Soaring electricity bills across the country have been linked to the build-out of data centers, which have cropped up as President Donald Trump has pushed to preempt state and local regulations on AI. As CNBC reported last year, residential utility bills rose 6% in August nationwide, but much higher price hikes were reported in states with high concentrations of data centers, like Virginia (13%) and Illinois (16%).

Sanders’ office issued a report last October showing that AI, automation, and robotics could replace nearly 100 million jobs over the next decade, including 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, and 89% of fast food workers.

And a study published in Nature Sustainability last year found that data centers could consume as much water as 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 10 million cars.

At a forum last week at Stanford University, Sanders joined Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in warning that the expansion of AI data centers is meant to increase the wealth of billionaire tech moguls with no regard for how working Americans are affected.

“The question that we should be asking day after day… is who is pushing this revolution, who benefits from it, and who gets hurt?” Sanderss said.

In Denver, the moratorium was announced ahead of a planned community meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening at Geotech Environmental, where neighbors are planning to speak out against the 170,000-square foot DE3 data center being built in the Globeville-Elyria-Swansea (GES) area by the Denver-based company CoreSite.

The burden that will be placed on locals if the project is completed “is not accidental,” reads a petition by the local grassroots community organization GES Coalition. “It is the outcome of colonial dispossession and extraction, then decades of zoning, redlining, highway construction, and industrial siting that concentrated pollution next to working-class homes alongside the legacy of the Vasquez Boulevard/I-70 Superfund site, a 4.5-square-mile smelting contamination footprint affecting multiple neighborhoods.”

Meanwhile, state legislators have introduced at least two bills regarding AI data center development. One, House Bill 1030, would offer sales and use tax exemptions for data center builders—and would slash state general fund revenue while also triggering a $106 million reduction in tax credits for low-income households.

Another, Senate Bill 102, would require data centers to use renewable energy sources and ensure their energy use does not raise rates for consumers.

Grassroots efforts to block the construction of data centers have taken off in places including Saline, Michigan; Port Washington, Wisconsin; and Tucson, Arizona, where community members successfully blocked plans for a new center owned by Amazon.

State lawmakers in Maine, South Dakota, and Oklahoma are also considering moratoriums or limits on new data centers.

“We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue,” said Sanders. “The time for action is now.”

Please Advise! Is Trump’s Brain Totally Pucked?

Why else vow to block the Gordie Howe bridge while proclaiming China will ban the Stanley Cup?

Steve Burgess 

17 Feb 2026

The Tyee

Donald Trump’s threats to halt the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge would have drawn a sharp elbow from the hockey legend. Howe photo by Doug Ball, the Canadian Press. Trump photo via Shutterstock.

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Donald Trump has threatened to block the opening of the new Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor over his continued complaints about Canada. “I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them,” Trump wrote. The president posted his online rant shortly after Matthew Moroun, the billionaire owner of the nearby tolled Ambassador Bridge, met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

Will the bridge ever open, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Red Kelly


Dear Red,

Before discussing this further, let’s pause first to consider Trump’s online post. Like farmers who learn to distinguish hail clouds from incipient tornadoes, we have all become unwilling experts in Trump storm fronts. At this point it’s common knowledge that, morally, Trump has no bottom, but that observation does not convey the astonishing breadth of his absurdity. This guy is giving dementia a bad name. His bridge babble was one for the ages.

After some preliminary spittle about perfidious, predatory Canada, the stupidity of “Barack Hussein Obama” and the absence of American poison from Canadian liquor store shelves, Trump’s Truth Social ramble turned to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trade deal with China. “The first thing China will do is terminate ALL ice hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate the Stanley Cup,” he wrote.

Eliminate the Stanley Cup? Why? Is China cutting a deal with Florida? And if China truly intends to destroy the game of hockey, could that explain what’s been going on with the Canucks? Did China trade Quinn Hughes to those troublemaking socialists in Minnesota?


Billionaires Don’t Control Us


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Trump also opined that China will “eat Canada alive! We’ll just get the leftovers.”

“The leftovers?” So Canada is a half-empty Styrofoam container of moo shu pork with a couple of stale wraps? In the world according to Trump, it seems the United States and China are a jackal and a hyena barking over a water buffalo carcass, or two drunken frat bros staring at the last remaining slice of Domino’s Pepperoni Feast. Canada is not the 51st state — we’re the fifth plate of jumbo shrimp at the Sizzler in Grand Rapids.

Trump’s latest Mad Libs effort apparently followed a conversation with Lutnick. The commerce secretary had been lobbied by Matthew Moroun, member of the Billionaire Brotherhood and owner of the Ambassador Bridge. The Gordie Howe International Bridge will cut into Moroun’s toll revenues, so Lutnick probably endorsed the plan to stop truck traffic over the new crossing. Considering the recent revelation that Lutnick was chummy with Jeffrey Epstein, you wouldn’t expect him to have a problem with trafficking. In fact they should probably call it the Epstein Bridge, since it’s sitting right there but Trump doesn’t want it open.

To be fair, Detroit-Windsor isn’t the only crossing point targeted for closure recently. Last week, airspace over El Paso, Texas, was briefly closed, apparently because U.S. Customs and Border Protection used lasers to shoot down some party balloons. Overreaction? Maybe. But maybe the party had been a quinceañera. Maybe they had been speaking Spanish and playing the music of Bad Bunny. For U.S. border agents, that’s triggering.



Trump’s America Comes for Alberta read more

As for Gordie Howe, he spoke Canadian, often with his fists. It was Howe who inspired the defiant “Elbows Up” slogan. Historically, he is Even Worse Bunny. Clearly, Trump has been triggered too.

How to placate the president? Qatar bribed Trump with a $400-million jet. The bridge reportedly cost $3.8 billion. Seems a bit much.

There’s another Gordie Howe Bridge in Saskatoon though. We could give him that and hope he won’t notice. Kind of like a box of Kirkland chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Just as good, really.

Trump says he will keep the Gordie Howe International Bridge closed until the U.S. is “fully compensated” for all they have given Canada. Great. Not only do we get more measles, but now we get charged for them too.

Come to think of it, maybe we need to rethink this. Maybe we need to seriously consider Trump’s remark about all we have received from the U.S. And maybe that bridge ought to stay closed. 

Steve Burgess writes about politics and culture for The Tyee. Read his previous articles.

Why We ‘Wackos’ Want Alberta to Stay in Canada

The case against tying our fate to the US is simple: Sorry, not that.

Lisa Young 

17 Feb 2026

The Tyee

Lisa Young is a professor at the University of Calgary.

Who’s making sense? In Oyen, Alberta, a truck flies a modified Alberta flag with the word ‘Republic’ and an upside-down Canadian flag with a ‘No’ symbol. Photo by Don Denton, the Canadian Press.

[Editor’s note: This first appeared in political scientist Lisa Young’s Substack What Now?!? and is republished with permission.]

Faced with polling data that suggests that many Albertans have no desire to remain in an independent Alberta, apologists for the separatists have started to shout that “wacko” opponents of separation have no right to threaten to leave. (Let’s pause for a moment and appreciate the irony.)

Rather, they insist that federalists make “clear, well thought-out arguments for Alberta staying in Canada.” If only the federalists could possibly match the clear, fact-based case the separatists make! Like this document on the Alberta Prosperity Project webpage that makes the dubious promise that there would be no sales, income or corporate income taxes in a free Alberta. It’s magical thinking for the win!

Happily, Alberta federalists have been making the positive case for some time, without having to resort to magical thinking. Senator Paula Simons has written a beautiful piece in Alberta Views magazine: “The Case for Sticking Around.” A couple of paragraphs worth quoting:



Has Separatism Gone Mainstream in Alberta? read more

We are privileged to live in a country that values peace and inclusion and the rule of law. A country that encourages entrepreneurship and economic opportunity. A country that strives to balance individual rights and freedoms with the good of the collective community. A country where healthcare and public education are rights and gun ownership is not. A country where women control their own bodies and choose their own clothing, whether that’s a niqab or a bikini.

We’re not a country of polarization, but a country that values creative compromise, because we were born out of creative compromise.

On Valentine’s Day, Duane Bratt rose to the challenge and made his case. I was making the case way back in 2021! And the list goes on.

Having said all that, I want to disagree with the idea that it’s up to federalists to make a positive case for staying in Canada. It is a perfectly reasonable — and very Canadian — approach to argue simply that the status quo is preferable to the alternative.



The Wild Claims of Jeff Rath, Separatist Firebrand read more

If we look back to the years leading up to Canadian confederation, the impetus for joining together into the Canadian federation can be summed up as: “sorry, not that.” Having fought its (first?) civil war, the United States was well armed and feeling a bit expansionist. This was one of the motivators for the fathers of confederation to come together and make a deal.

The leaders of the contemporary separatist movement have made it quite clear through their words and actions that they see separation as a way to ally Alberta closely with the United States, if not to join it altogether. A “free” Alberta, they claim, would be able to build a pipeline through Montana, Idaho and Washington. It would benefit from loans from the Americans. Its sovereignty would be guaranteed by the United States.

Just as the Fathers of Confederation back in the 1860s looked south of the border, shook their heads and got busy confederating, a majority of Albertans today look at the spectacle that is Trump’s America and echo the sentiment: “Sorry, no, not that.”

Whether it’s the shorter life expectancy, lower level of life satisfaction, less functional democracy, or higher rate of economic inequality in the U.S., state-sponsored violence in the streets, or the utter dysfunction of the political system, most of us “wackos” are prepared to give that a hard pass.


Read more: Alberta

AB NDP’s Rakhi Pancholi dismantles Danielle Smith’s referendum claims

by David J. Climenhaga

February 23, 2026
RABBLE.CA

UCP strategists must be thanking their Judeo-Christian deity she’s not the leader of the Opposition!

Alberta NDP Deputy Leader Rakhi Pancholi as she eviscerated Premier Danielle Smith’s claims and policies with forensic precision during a news conference Friday.

 Credit: Alberta NDP


With Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi nowhere to be found Friday morning, Rakhi Pancholi took up the task of eviscerating the long list of intentionally confusing referendum questions announced by Premier Danielle Smith in her prime-time televised message the day before, not to mention the way the premier coddles separatists, her dog whistling about immigration, and her refusal to take responsibility for her government’s fiscal mismanagement.

“Cut the bullshit! Call the election!” Pancholi began her Friday morning news conference, cutting right to the chase.

“Danielle Smith and the UCP did not campaign on nine new referendum questions,” the Opposition party’s deputy leader immediately continued. “They do not have a mandate from Albertans for this. Not on separatism, not on pulling out of the CPP, not on breaching the Charter rights of Albertans, not on coal mining in the Eastern Slopes, and not on bringing in two-tier health care!

“The premier is trying to distract us ahead of a UCP budget that will contain billions of dollars in deficits,” Pancholi rolled on. “She’s trying to distract us from separatism – which she put on the agenda and is already putting our province at risk. The premier is blaming oil prices and immigration for her poor planning and financial mismanagement.” (And, as ever, she’s also blaming long gone former prime minister Justin Trudeau, it must be added.)

After that, it just got better. Pancholi never faltered in her forensic deconstruction of the house of cards Smith has built, starting with the premier’s plan for nine murkily worded referenda next October 19, the point of which appears to be to create a constitutional crisis in Canada that will help break up the federation.

Over the next half hour, Pancholi repeated the mild profanity she started with two more times – just to make sure everyone was awake and understood that she, at least, had had enough of Smith’s constant nonsense, and that political discourse in Alberta is shifting whether the UCP likes it or not.

One imagines the post-adolescent pundits at this province’s plethora of well-funded right-wing propaganda platforms were sharpening their crayons to accuse Pancholi of having a potty mouth. It won’t work. She sounded impassioned, not profane. And Albertans who listen to her presentation will want to hear more.

On the low oil prices the premier blames for Thursday’s sad-sack deficit budget: “Oil production is hitting record levels, and resource revenue from the past five years is the highest it has been in decades. Only the UCP can blow a resource boom!”

On the premier’s pivot to condemning immigration from demanding it: “The hypocrisy on immigration is unreal! Less than two years ago, in 2024, Danielle Smith herself asked Justin Trudeau to increase immigration levels because Alberta wanted more than what Ottawa was offering. Also in 2024, she stated publicly that she wanted to double Alberta’s population to 10 million people, grow cities like Red Deer 10 times their size to one million, all while promoting the ‘Alberta is Calling’ campaign asking people from Canada and around the world to make Alberta their home.

“She did all this without a thought or plan for how to create the jobs, build the houses, schools and hospitals that we already needed!”

And now, Pancholi continued, the premier wants us to blame immigrants and asylum seekers and to send us to the polls to vote on a raft of referenda to enable such a campaign pulled right from the pages of Donald Trump’s agenda. “Again, what a load of absolute bullshit! She’s trying to make people angry about things that she can’t even back up with facts. She’s stoking the flames and raising the temperature. This is the opposite of leadership!”

Pancholi’s performance made an interesting contrast to the premier’s “media availability” the same day, during which Smith was by turns shouty, defensive, cranky and smug, all the while offering a master class in gaslighting. Just listening to Smith was exhausting. More than a whiff of panic was in the air.

But the UCP, after all, is a party that has made a cult of avoiding deficits at any cost. Now they’re going to bring down a budget expected to have a deficit of at least $6 billion to $8 billion because … what? They haven’t figured out the price of oil fluctuates?

Once again, Alberta is reduced to playing to poor little rich kid of Confederation, only this time with a separatist problem of its own creation to complicate matters. UCP fiscal incompetence will be revealed in all its glory Thursday, and blaming Trudeau and asylum seekers isn’t going to cut the mustard with anybody except the UCP’s MAGA base.

“The UCP has been in power for six years now,” explained Pancholi. “This is the premier’s fourth budget and will now be her second big deficit. Tell me how this is not a disaster in managing Alberta’s finances!”

When a reporter suggested it might be dangerous for the NDP to demand an election – after all, they might just get their wish – Pancholi said confidently she was willing to take the risk. As she put it in her formal remarks: Danielle Smith “wants to champion direct democracy? We have a direct democracy, and it’s called a general election. Call it!”

Packed Emergency Rooms, crowded classrooms, a million Albertans without a family doctor, no caps on sky-high insurance rates, soaring utility bills, the lowest minimum wage in Canada? “Where’s the premier’s leadership on any of this?”

So, concluded Pancholi, who ran for the NDP leadership in 2024 but dropped out in favour of Nenshi when his victory was clearly inevitable: “Cut the bullshit, premier! Stop with the distractions, and if you’re so convinced this is what Albertans want, call an election and let Albertans decide.”

It was a delight to see Pancholi tear into the UCP with an aggressive spirit that has been largely missing from Alberta politics on the Opposition side since Jason Kenney defeated Rachel Notley’s one-term government in April 2019.

This is what NDP members thought they were voting for when they chose Nenshi as leader in June 2024. Instead, it has been almost completely absent since Nenshi took over.

And where was Nenshi Thursday night, immediately after Smith’s remarks, or Friday morning for the news conference Pancholi handled so well? The deputy leader assured reporters that her leader had just returned from a well-deserved vacation and would reappear soon. I’m sure the UCP was relieved.

Danielle Smith remains a talented communicator skilled at setting political narratives before the Opposition gets out of their seats. She is not to be underestimated.

Pancholi, a lawyer by profession, seems to have the ability to destroy an overconfident and glib witness with forensic precision. With 20/20 hindsight, we can see that she might have been the perfect opponent for a premier with such a casual relationship with the truth and such a destructive ideology.

We can only hope that Nenshi has the sense to set her loose on the premier while he practices politics in full sentences, or whatever his passive strategy is called.

Alberta politics


David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike... More by David J. Climenhaga

Danielle Smith announces anti-immigration referendum for Oct. 19

by David J. Climenhaga

February 20, 2026

RABBLE.CA


Alberta premier’s referenda may play in Ponoka but not in Powell River or Peterborough – that’s probably the idea.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith during her fire-free fireside chat about Alberta’s economy and her referendum plans. Credit: Government of Alberta

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith yesterday announced a raft of referendum questions for October 19 demanding provincial intrusion into federal jurisdiction, cutting services to new Canadians and other anti-immigrant measures, and seeking significant changes to the Canadian constitution.

There will be five wordy policy referenda focusing on immigration and clearly designed to appeal to the United Conservative Party (UCP)’s base, but worded to sound reasonable at an inattentive glance. There will be four additional questions asking voters to approve an effort to negotiate major constitutional changes.

Needless to say, once it gets a border or two away from Wild Rose Country’s well-trained voters, all this is likely to float about as well as the proverbial lead balloon.

But if nothing changes in the way the federation is structured, that will be just fine with Smith and her political brain trust. This is because the plan described in her 13-minute televised message last night at suppertime is clearly designed to succeed at the first step, passage by a majority of however many Albertans bother to vote, and thereafter to get bogged down in opposition from other provinces and the complexities of the Canadian Constitution’s amending formula. This will advance the United Conservative Party’s separatist agenda.

In the meantime, with her finger-pointing about how falling oil prices and Liberal politicians are responsible for rising costs and tighter spending in Alberta, her televised chat yesterday evening was also an opportunity to lower expectations for next Thursday’s provincial budget.

As retired Mount Royal University political science professor Keith Brownsey observed yesterday after the video had been aired, “what we have here is a premier blaming immigrants for her government’s failures to maintain health care, education and other social services. What she forgot to mention is that most ‘immigrants’ to Alberta come from other parts of Canada.”

“I can guarantee that there will be no constitutional changes,” Dr. Brownsey added. “She seems to be setting the province up for a vote on independence.”

Smith acknowledged that all the referenda ideas came out of her government’s directed and supporter-packed “Alberta Next” policy snake-oil road shows, but framed that as if it were a good thing.

Throughout the fire-free fireside, she blamed most of the province’s problems on lower-than-expected oil prices, immigrants, and Justin Trudeau, not necessarily in that order. The focus on immigration was widely expected, in part thanks to a couple of her advisors’ intemperate social media posts in the previous few hours.

Smith pointed to Trudeau Era immigration policies as the cause of the province’s shortage of classroom space for the children of new Albertans. Never mind her UCP government’s failure to plan for growth everyone knew for years was coming, or to fund it.

And while she barely mentioned the lack of capacity in Alberta’s hospitals that has seen them descend into chaos in recent months, that glossed over the fact it’s been more than 40 years since a new hospital was built in Edmonton while the population of Alberta’s capital city has more than doubled. It would have been hard to deny that Trudeau was prime minister for less than a quarter of that time.

Naturally, Smith also made no mention of the multi-millions of dollars her government has hosed away on ideological projects and political mischief to own the Libs in Ottawa, like that $70 million for almost unusable children’s “Tylenot” purchased during a short-lived national shortage of acetaminophen in 2022. The Globe and Mail reported yesterday that that Alberta has just spent another $718,000 to destroy what was left.

Nor did Smith say anything about her call less than two years ago for Alberta’s population to double to 10 million people – the better to throw our weight around in Confederation. Or the UCP’s successful advertising campaigns calling on Ontario and B.C. residents to move here. This caught the attention of her own party’s highly influential MAGA base and by the summer of 2024 she had jumped onto the anti-immigration bandwagon.

So her dream of Red Deer, a city of 100,000 souls best known as a coffee and gas stop halfway between the fleshpots of Calgary and Edmonton, hitting a population of a million any time soon will have to be put back on ice for a long spell.

“Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals and then give free access to our most-generous-in-the-country social programs to anyone who moves here,” Smith complained, exploiting her government’s carefully nurtured popular misunderstanding of how federal transfer payments work.

Turns out the population growth she was demanding so recently is “financially crippling and undercuts the quality of our health care, education and other social services.” You know, like public health care, which her government is striving to dismantle.

Hilariously, the premier assured listeners that despite low oil prices and the cost of all those immigrants, “the approved wage increases for our doctors, nurses and teachers will remain in place so we can continue to attract the skilled professionals needed to catch up with our growth.”

Nice to know. I wonder who informed her that, unlike the United States she so admires, even governments in this country have to abide by legal contracts and the rule of law? Can you imagine what would have happened if the UCP had tried to roll back just-negotiated wages with skilled health-care professionals? It wouldn’t have been pretty.

So here are Smith’s planned referenda questions, in her own words: Do you support the Government of Alberta taking increased control over immigration for the purpose of decreasing immigration to more sustainable levels, prioritizing economic migration and ensuring Albertans have first priority to new employment opportunities?
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law mandating only Canadian citizens, permanent residents and individuals with an Alberta approved immigration status will be eligible for provincially funded programs such as health, education and other social services?
Assuming that all citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for social support programs, as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring all individuals with a non-permanent legal immigration status to be resident in Alberta for at least 12 months before qualifying for any provincially funded social support programs?
Assuming that all citizens and permanent residents continue to qualify for public health care and education as they do now, do you support the Government of Alberta charging a reasonable fee or premium to individuals with a non-permanent immigration status living in Alberta for their and their families use of the health care and education systems?
Do you support the Government of Alberta introducing a law requiring individuals to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate or citizenship card, to be eligible to vote in a provincial election to strengthen Alberta’s constitutional and fiscal position within a united Canada.

Needless to say, much of this makes little sense upon examination. It is mostly bad policy that would not save money and in some cases would violate the constitution we have now. In addition, it would be mean-spirited and often cruel. The final point is a solution in search of a problem, although one that is fiercely believed in by MAGA fantasists.

In addition, the government will seek approval to work with “other willing provinces” to amend the Canadian Constitution in four ways, Smith said. It is not completely clear if this is supposed to be one referendum question with four bullets or four referenda. Have provincial governments and not the federal government select the justices appointed to provincial Kings Bench and appeals courts?
Abolish the unelected federal Senate.
Allow provinces to opt out of federal programs intruding on provincial jurisdictions such as health, education and social services without losing any of the associated federal funding for use in their own provincial social programs.
Better protect provincial rights from federal interference by giving a province’s laws dealing with provincial or shared constitutional areas of jurisdiction priority over federal laws when in conflict with one another.

All these ideas are likely to be immediately rejected by other provinces. Which, as previously noted, is probably the point.

The NDP Opposition, foolishly, decided to wait until this morning after the news cycle has moved on to respond. That fits with Leader Naheed Nenshi’s wish to do politics in full sentences. It doesn’t show much understanding of how political discourse is carried on in this era, though. The UCP, I am sure, was delighted.

Alberta politics


David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike... More by David J. Climenhaga