Source: Niskanen Center
by Jia-Shen Tsai
“One year into the second Trump administration, carbon management policy is no longer advancing through climate-focused priorities at the executive level. Although the administration has been explicit that climate is not a central objective, its policy choices continue to carry significant emissions implications. Congress, meanwhile, continues to consider legislation that affects emissions outcomes, both directly and indirectly. As a result, the most consequential developments for U.S. emissions in 2026 are likely to emerge from decisions on trade dynamics and emissions data governance.” (02/03/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/where-u-s-carbon-policy-is-being-decided-in-2026
Source: Town Hall
by EJ Antoni, Ph.D.
“President Trump has been clamoring for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates on the grounds that inflation is much lower than what’s being officially reported. It turns out Trump is spot on, with today’s real inflation rate being only one-third of the official metrics. These numbers come from the real-time price aggregator Truflation, which monitors millions of prices daily. That is orders of magnitude higher than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which observes only a few thousand prices three times per month. According to Truflation, prices have risen an average of just 0.9 percent over the last 12 months. That’s about as good as it gets outside of a recession, especially when the Fed is engaged in money printing, euphemistically called ‘quantitative easing’. Truflation’s annual inflation rate is now much lower than the official inflation rate of 2.7 percent reported by the consumer price index (CPI).” (02/04/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/ej-antoni/2026/02/04/less-than-1-percent-inflation-yes-n2670615
Source: Independent Political Report
“The Libertarian National Committee has formally condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies over reports of repeated Fourth Amendment violations, accusing authorities of excessive force and constitutional overreach that undermine limits on government power. In a February 1 statement, the LNC pointed reports detailing a growing pattern of overreach by ICE and other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The national committee’s response follows an earlier resolution addressing the same concerns, which informed the statement. The measure, which required a three-fourths vote for adoption, passed 13–0 with one abstention. Prior to that, LNC Chair Steven Nekhaila also separately called for the abolition of ICE following the shooting of Alex Pretti, criticizing the agency for shifting away from administrative civil processes toward what he regards as confrontational, ‘occupation-style policing.'” (02/03/26)
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2026/02/libertarian-national-committee-condemns-ice-for-fourth-amendment-violations/
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“The Meaning of Moltbook | Robert Wright & Paul Bloom.” (02/03/26)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69280
Source: Orange County Register
by Connor O’Keeffe
“[T]he causes and cures of the so-called affordability crisis are not a mystery. To truly fix this problem, the inflationist monetary regime that is deliberately destroying the value of our money needs to be abolished and replaced by some form of market-determined sound money. And the myriad laws and regulations that artificially constrain supply in important sectors like housing and healthcare need to be repealed—along with the many price-amplifying, demand-side subsidies that have been building up in the wake of the artificial shortages. The Trump administration has shown no real interest in pursuing either of these solutions, which is bad enough. But Trump is also actively pursuing policies that, from an affordability standpoint, are worse than doing nothing.” (02/03/26)
https://archive.is/0wvgw
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Fifty or sixty years ago, when the risks of overpopulation played the same role in public discourse that the risks of global warming play today, a future of declining populations would have been considered good news. The predicted crisis did not happen; the populations of poor countries continued to grow but instead of getting poorer and hungrier as predicted they got richer and less hungry. The orthodoxy has reversed, declining population is now widely regarded as bad news, a threat to, among other things, there being enough young people to support an aging population.” (02/03/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/how-to-increase-the-total-fertility
Source: SFGate
“Officials in Georgia’s Fulton County said Wednesday they have asked a federal court to order the FBI to return ballots and other documents from the 2020 election that it seized last week, escalating a voting battle as President Donald Trump says he wants to ‘take over’ elections from Democratic-run areas with the November midterms on the horizon. The FBI had searched a warehouse near Atlanta where those records were stored, a move taken after Trump’s persistent demands for retribution over claims, without evidence, that fraud cost him victory in Georgia. Trump’s election comment came in an interview Monday with a conservative podcaster and the Republican president reaffirmed his position in Oval Office remarks the next day, citing fraud allegations that numerous audits, investigations and courts have debunked.” (02/04/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/georgia-s-fulton-county-seeks-return-of-2020-21333130.php
Source: US News & World Report
“Federal prosecutors are set to ask that a man convicted of trying to assassinate President Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 be sentenced to life in prison at a hearing on Wednesday. Ryan Routh is scheduled to appear before U. S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Fort Pierce. Her courtroom erupted into chaos in September shortly after jurors found Routh guilty on all counts, including attempting to kill a presidential candidate and several firearm-related charges. Routh tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen, and officers quickly dragged him out. Routh’s sentencing had initially been scheduled for December, but Cannon agreed to move the date back after Routh decided to use an attorney during the sentencing phase instead of representing himself as he did for most of the trial.” (02/04/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/florida/articles/2026-02-04/prosecutors-seek-life-sentence-for-man-who-tried-to-shoot-trump-at-a-florida-golf-course
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Clintons Will Testify in DC as DRAMA Hits the Texas Primaries (with Michael Cohen).” (02/03/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/clintons-will-testify-in-dc-as-drama
Source: Foreign Policy
by Casey Michael
“The days of laughing off Trump’s threats of turning Canada into the 51st U.S. state are long past. A new reality has suddenly rippled across Canada: that the United States under Trump is, as strange as it may be to stomach, suddenly Canada’s largest national security threat. It is a reality that Canadians are finally beginning to adapt to. But it is also a reality that taps into a far longer, far deeper vein of U.S. peril facing Canada. Indeed, the past 80 or so years of U.S.-Canada comity — in which the world’s longest border was largely peaceable and in which Washington and Ottawa became perhaps the closest allies in the entire world — may increasingly seem like an anachronism, an anomaly in which the United States simply paused on its far broader history of expansion in North America.” (02/03/26)
https://archive.is/GL27X
