The Consumer Price Index for the 12 months ending January was up 2.4%, after a CPI of 2.7% in December, the Labor Department reports. Month-over-month inflation was +0.2%, with shelter the largest factor, also up 0.2%. Food prices rose 0.2% and food away from home rose 0.1%, while energy prices were down 1.5% for the month. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics]
Homeland Shutdown – The US is left with a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security this weekend as Capitol Hill lawmakers skipped town Thursday after failing to secure an agreement on appropriations before its two-week extension runs out. Both Senate and House are scheduled to be on recess next week, with bipartisan negotiations on an immigration plan to continue in the meantime, CQ Roll Call reports. If leaders of both chambers reach a deal, Congress members will have 48 hours notice to return for a vote.
With $70 billion in separate funding included in President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will not soon be affected.
The Senate on Thursday fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass the House appropriations bill for Homeland Security, 52-47, with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) the only Democrat to vote with Republicans, and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) flipping to a “no” to allow him to consider the spending bill at a later time, according to Roll Call.
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Airing Grievances – President Trump has quashed yet another Obama-era policy, the Endangerment Finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses threaten public health and welfare. The Environmental Protection Agency Thursday is dropping adherence to the Endangerment Finding, allowing it to drop legal authority to regulate greenhouse gasses, NPR’s All Things Considered reports.
“Under President Trump’s leadership today, the Trump EPA has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said at the White House, with Trump looking on.
The president says automakers now will be allowed to build bigger, better cars and trucks. The regulations pushed up new and used vehicle prices while hurting their drive quality, Trump suggests.
While auto executives have long decried emissions and fuel economy standards, they are not about to abandon the years and $billions they have spent on cleaner, more fuel-efficient engines as well as electric and hybrid powertrains. What the new rules will do is allow them to sell a larger share of V-8- and six-cylinder-powered cars and trucks, which will spew higher levels of greenhouse gasses.
And the automakers will want to sell more of them, because V-8s and sixes generally are used in bigger, more expensive – and more profitable -- vehicles.
The new Trump-Zeldin EPA rule allows for 30-days public comment after publication in the Federal Register. Expect myriad lawsuits from environmental groups.
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Unemployment Rate Notches Down to 4.3% -- The US added 130,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department reported early this week. Employment in health care, social assistance and construction rose while the numbers for the federal government and financial activities fell. The 4.3% unemployment rate fell slightly from 4.4% in December. But the Labor Department later in the week downgraded its job growth numbers for all of 2025, from the 584,000 new jobs initially reported to just 181,000. That revised number for the whole year does make January’s number look even better. –TL
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THURSDAY 2/12/26
Kelly’s Rank Retained – US District Judge Richard Leon Thursday blocked efforts by the War/Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth-run Pentagon to censure Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and lower his retirement rank, The Hill reports, over a video in which he advises active service members they have a duty to reject unlawful orders. Kelly had sued the Pentagon after Hegseth initiated retirement grade determination proceedings against Kelly, a retired US Navy captain.
Judge Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, acknowledged that active-duty military face free speech restrictions to preserve discipline, but retired veterans do not. The Pentagon’s actions “clearly pass the bar” for retaliation, Leon said in his ruling, and would chill the speech of other veterans.
Early this week, a grand jury declined to indict Kelly and five other Democrats, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Jason Chow of Colorado, for their November video reminding active duty military they do not have to obey illegal orders (per TIME).
The six Democratic lawmakers already are cashing in on this latest rebuke of the Justice Department’s attempted indictments against President Trump’s political enemies by building their campaign war chests, according to Politico.
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Johnson Sort of Reprimands DOJ – Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Thursday the Justice Department should not track House members’ searches of the Epstein Files, The Hill reports.
“My understanding is that there are computers set up where the DOJ was allowing access to the files. And I think members obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion,” he told reporters. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for anybody to be tracking that. So, I will echo that to anybody involved with the DOJ. And I’m sure it was an oversight. That’s my guess, OK?”
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ICE Puddle – Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis is drawing down, Trump administration immigration czar Tom Homan told a presser Thursday morning, Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News reports.
“I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,” Homan said. “A significant drawdown has been underway this week and will continue through next week.”
Homan addressed reporters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities, which has been the basis for immigration crackdown operations and houses a Department of Homeland Security facility used to detain people.
A small contingent of DHS personnel, including Homan, will remain to “close out and transition full command and control” to the Twin Cities fieldhouse of about 150 officers, he said.
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Unfunding Security – The Senate is ready to skip town Thursday with no progress toward funding the Department of Homeland Security in time to avoid its partial shutdown Friday, CQ Roll Call reports. Requiring judicial warrants and the badging and de-masking of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers remain sticking points between Senate Democrats and Republicans.
“As soon as we can strike a deal, we’ll vote on it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said. “Until then, I don’t know if there is any point in keeping people around here, sitting around and doing nothing. I think it’s important that the people at the negotiating table double down, sharpen their pencils and strike a deal.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), said; “If they don’t propose something that’s strong, that reins in ICE, that ends the killing, don’t expect our votes.”
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Roy Cohn Would be Proud – Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi appeared to be channeling Roy Cohn via Trump with her über-combative testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, where she arrived with an “opposition research” binder-full of attacks and insults. Bondi cited specific crimes in the districts of Democrats on the committee and reminded them of stock market performance under the second Trump administration, The Hill reports, while reminding them she considers Trump the best and most effective president in the history of the republic.
House members who viewed the latest tranche of Epstein Files with redactions removed at the Justice Department recently, were recorded by the department to keep track of which specific documents they studied, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) told NPR’s Morning Edition Thursday. They were not allowed to make copies, take pictures of or take notes on the files, she said.
At one point in the Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) told Bondi he would “like to see you flip to the Jared Moscowitz section of the binder. I’m interested to see what staff provided on the opposition to me,” according to The Hill’s coverage.
Bondi refused to acknowledge at least 11 victims of Jeffrey Epstein assembled in the audience by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). When pressed to apologize to them for redacting the names and information of men in the files while failing to redact their names and pictures, Bondi said she was sorry about the way Epstein treated them.
Jayapal showed an email exchange between Epstein and another associate which concealed the identification of Epstein’s associate, then another file that publicly listed victims’ names.
Bondi said she would work to fix any improper redaction in files. But she asked why Biden administration Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland didn’t get this sort of scrutiny from lawmakers.
“This is bigger than Watergate,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) replied, adding that the Epstein scandal goes back at least four administrations, to Presidents Obama and George W. Bush. “This cover-up spans decades, you are responsible for this portion of it.”
As if Bondi needed to be any more solid with her boss, she accused Massie – a rare Republican congressmember who has been pushing back against the Trump administration – of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
In an especially loud and angry exchange, Bondi called former constitutional law professor Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD); “You washed-up loser lawyer. You’re not even a lawyer.”
To Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY); “You’re about as good of a lawyer today as you were when you tried to impeach President Trump in 2016.” [Trump, who began his first term in 2017, was first impeached in 2019. And again in 2021.]
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) referred to Bondi as, “Our witness who somehow is a lawyer but does not understand how [testifying] works.” –TL
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WEDNESDAY 2/11/26
UPDATE: Despite his name coming up in the Epstein Files, Casey Wasserman will remain chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee, the organization announced Wednesday (per USA Today).
The Truth is Out There – Peter Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party and the House of Lords, and in his role as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ambassador to the US last week after the latest – last? – tranche of Epstein Files revealed that Mandelson leaked sensitive government documents to, and accepted money from, the late convicted child sex trafficker.
And let’s not forget the Andrew formerly known as Prince, and Duke of York. The British certainly won’t.
Sources told The Wall Street Journal in an exclusive scoop that the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee has called a meeting Wednesday to “address the status” of LA28 Chairman Casey Wasserman, whose name also has surfaced in the Epstein Files. Singer Chappell Roan and retired US women’s soccer star Abby Wambach both have announced they are no longer clients of Wasserman’s eponymous talent agency.
Meanwhile … Howard Lutnick remains in his role as the Trump administration’s commerce secretary, after the Epstein Files caught him out in a lie when he said a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home, next door to his in New York City, left Lutnick and his wife “disturbed.” It was their only formal meeting with the child sex trafficker, Lutnick maintained … before the latest tranche of files were released.
Those files show Lutnick and his wife, children and their nanny had lunch with Epstein on his private island in 2012, a year after Lutnick had a one-hour long engagement with Epstein at his home, according to The Associated Press.
Lutnick “remains a very important member of President Trump’s team,” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in response to reporters’ questions, “and the president fully supports the secretary.”
The commerce secretary appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday, where Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told Lutnick; “There’s not an indication that you yourself engaged in any wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the fact that you believe that you misled the country and the Congress based on your earlier statements.”
Van Hollen requested Lutnick provide documentation of any ties to Epstein, AP reports.
Several Republicans also questioned Lutnick’s relationship with Epstein, including Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who said his visit to the island “would raise questions,” and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who said “It’s something I’m concerned with.” –TL
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TUESDAY 2/10/26
Redacted E-Files – Two congressmen, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) walk into the Justice Department to read portions of the Epstein Files with the redactions unredacted. They find at least six erstwhile redacted names of individuals “likely incriminated” by their inclusion in the Epstein Files, The Hill reports.
“There are six men,” Massie told reporters outside the Department of Justice building in Washington. “We went in there for two hours. There’s millions of files, right? And in a couple of hours, we found six men where names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented.”
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Fifth of Maxwell – If anyone knows all the redacted Epstein Files names, it must be Ghislaine Maxwell, the late convicted sex offender’s longtime companion serving 20 years herself. And so, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee invited her to tell them what she knows. Maxwell was piped in via video from her prison camp home in Texas where she promptly pleaded the Fifth Amendment, on her attorney, David Oscar Markus’ advice.
According to Markus’ opening statement, obtained by Politico, Maxwell’s attorney reiterated that clemency would facilitate her testimony.
“Only she can provide the complete account,” Markus said. “Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters.”
If she is provided clemency in her conviction, Maxwell will testify that both President Trump and former President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing in the Epstein case.
Trump has not ruled out a pardon for Maxwell.
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US-Russia Deal = Sellout of Ukraine? – Ukraine’s intelligence services uncovered plans for $12 trillion in business deals between the US and Russia being decided without Ukraine, its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said last weekend. This was being worked out as Russia continues its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure during a particularly brutal winter.
The alleged discussions, which fly in the face of calls for crackdowns on Russia’s economy in order to get the Kremlin to discuss a viable peace deal with the US and Ukraine that does not involve handing dictator/President Vladimir Putin more Donbas Oblast land than what his soldiers have not already conquered, are not as surprising as how little press coverage Zelenskyy’s revelations have received.
One exception is NPR’s Morning Edition, on which Russian economic specialist Pavlo Shkurenko told co-host Leila Fadel; “It’s the Russian team trying to engage the US team not by talking about politics, but by creating some economic incentives for a small circle of business representatives within the US administration to get the transactional side of the American team on board.”
Which seems like it ought to go over well with famously transactional President Trump.
The catch is that Russia’s entire gross domestic product (GDP) was just $2.3 trillion in 2025, according to Shkurenko, who is a specialist with the think tank KSE.
“As of now, the economic situation in Russia is such that there is no money to be made there,” Shkurenko told Fadel. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa