Source: The Times [UK]
“Pakistan has declared ‘open war’ against Afghanistan, bombing the capital and other major cities after a series of escalating attacks between the neighbours. Afghanistan had made its own cross-border attack on Thursday against Pakistan in retaliation for deadly airstrikes on border areas over the weekend, which were reported to have killed a dozen people. In response, Pakistan carried out airstrikes early on Friday, including in Kabul, where at least three explosions were heard. Kandahar in the south, where the Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is based, was targeted, as was the province of Paktia in the east.” (02/27/26)
https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/pakistan-afghanistan-news-war-mwmrhz026
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Roger Bate
“Over the past few years, quiet but extraordinary warnings have emerged from the US Treasury Department. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reports that illicit e-cigarettes are being used as part of trade-based money-laundering schemes linked to fentanyl trafficking. Illegal vaping products are no longer just a regulatory nuisance or a youth-use talking point. They have become a financial instrument in the cartel economy. The finding matters because it exposes a reality many policymakers have spent years denying — prohibition does not eliminate markets, it reorganizes them. And when demand persists, prohibition reliably hands control to the most ruthless and well-organized suppliers.” (02/26/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/fincens-warning-and-the-predictable-failure-of-prohibition/
Source: Serious Trouble
“But Are the Wings Wild?” (02/26/26)
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/but-are-the-wings-wild
Source: Axios
“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified that she has no new information regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities during a deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s depositions on Thursday and Friday mark the first time a former first couple has appeared before a congressional panel under subpoena. … ‘You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” Hillary Clinton said in her opening statement to lawmakers.’ Clinton told the panel Thursday that she does not recall ever meeting Epstein, and told the New York Times that she met Maxwell only a few times. Her name does not appear to have been mentioned in the Justice Department’s publicly released Epstein files.” (02/26/26)
https://archive.is/tY1PS
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Protectionism has been absurd for centuries. Trade is, for all practical purposes, a technology, so protectionism is just Luddism in disguise. … But over the last ten years, protectionism has taken a major turn for the worse. Classic protectionism was at least predictable. Protectionists looked at sellers and saw gainers; they looked at buyers and saw losers. … however, protectionists have risen to a new level of nonsense. While they still loudly complain when their countrymen buy goods and services from foreigners, they also loudly complain when their countrymen sell oddly specific goods to foreigners.” ()2/26/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/theyve-got-you-buying-and-selling
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“At least six Palestinians have been killed in Israeli drone attacks targeting two police posts in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip and the al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis in the south, as Israel presses on with its more than two-year genocidal war on the devastated enclave. The attacks overnight into Friday were condemned by Hamas as undermining mediator efforts during a ‘ceasefire’ phase that Israel has violated almost daily since October 10. Medical sources at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis reported the arrival of four bodies and several wounded individuals following an Israeli military strike on a police checkpoint at the al-Maslakh intersection in al-Mawasi. The sources said that the strike occurred in an area outside the Israeli military’s control, and described the condition of some of the wounded as critical.” (02/27/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/27/israeli-attacks-on-police-sites-kill-five-in-southern-central-gaza
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano
“When President Donald Trump first announced that he had ordered the Pentagon to attack fishing boats and speedboats on the high seas which he said carried dangerous drugs destined for willing buyers in the United States, many of us who monitor the government for its indifference to the Constitution perceived it as truly criminal and utterly scandalous. The military commits murder when it intentionally kills a civilian non-combatant who poses no immediate threat to the U.S. or to military personnel. The crime is committed by all personnel in the chain of command who knowingly participate in these attacks. The order to kill civilian non-combatants is an unlawful order which the military personnel who receive it have a legal and moral duty to challenge and either decline to carry out or resign from the military. It was scandalous because the president and his secretary of defense boasted about it.” (02/26/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/02/25/the-price-of-perfect-nihilism
Source: Yahoo! News
“Mortgage rates dipped into the 5% range for the first time since 2022 as Treasury yields continued to fall. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell three basis points for the week ending Wednesday to 5.98%. That’s the lowest level since Sept. 8, 2022. The 15-year fixed rose nine basis points to 5.44%. Three months of a slow interest rate decline have filtered through the mortgage industry, with increasing reports of home loan rates finally slipping below 6%. Freddie Mac is the latest rate aggregator to record a sub-6% result, with a 30-year fixed rate of 5.98%.” (02/26/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/mortgages/article/mortgage-rates-fall-below-6-for-first-time-in-over-3-years-110032209.html
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by James Vermilion
“Seventy years ago, Leonard Read invited a pencil to tell its story. The lesson has not changed. Only the complexity has. I am a computer chip. I am a thin square of silicon, sealed in plastic, small enough to disappear into your phone, your car, your thermostat, or your pacemaker. You notice me only when I fail. Yet each day you ask more of me than entire rooms of machinery once delivered in a year. You may say I am made in factories, designed by engineers, financed by corporations, and regulated by governments. Each of these statements is true. And yet no single person on earth knows how to make me.” (02/26/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/129706/
Source: KVUE
“Kansas officials have sent letters out to over 1,000 transgender state residents, warning them that their driver’s licenses and birth certificates may now be invalid. Kansas Department of Revenue Spokesperson Zach Denney confirmed to The Topeka Capital-Journal that the letters were sent out to an estimated 1,500 trans people in the state after a new law took effect, invalidating gender marker changes on the documents. … State lawmakers previously passed the anti-trans legislation despite warnings from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who vetoed the bill. Lawmakers in both the state’s House and Senate overrode Kelly’s veto on Feb. 18. The law also banned transgender people from using bathrooms or locker rooms in government buildings that align with their gender identity and banned the creation of gender-neutral bathrooms with more than one stall.” (02/26/26)
https://www.kvue.com/article/news/nation-world/kansas-letters-trans-people-invalid-drivers-licenses-birth-certificates/507-6dcb1628-7c14-4479-b42a-33d4b483222f
