Source: EconLog
by Christopher Freiman
“Even people who are otherwise enthusiastic about a free market in labor can get cold feet about immigration once redistribution enters the picture. Some are fond of quoting Milton Friedman, who famously (or infamously) said: ‘It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.’ On this view, immigration is fine under fully free market institutions, but in the actual world with its abundant government-provided benefits, immigration restrictions are justified to protect taxpayers from the added expense that could arise if immigrants consume these benefits. But this conclusion is too quick, and even Friedman’s position is more nuanced than people on both sides of the immigration debate tend to realize.” (02/20/26)
https://www.econlib.org/econlog/friedman-on-immigration-setting-the-record-straight
Source: Fox News
“Hungary is threatening to block a proposed 90 billion-euro European Union loan to Ukraine — worth roughly $106 billion — unless oil shipments through the Druzhba pipeline are restored. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó wrote Friday on X that Hungary would oppose the EU funding package until oil transit via the Russian-linked Druzhba pipeline resumes. ‘Ukraine is blackmailing Hungary by halting oil transit in coordination with Brussels and the Hungarian opposition to create supply disruptions in Hungary and push fuel prices higher before the elections,’ Szijjártó said. He further claimed that blocking oil transit violates the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and breaches Kyiv’s commitments to the European Union.” (02/22/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/hungary-threatens-block-eu-loan-ukraine-unless-russian-oil-shipments-resume
Source: The Intercept
“What Does the Trump Administration Want With Cuba?” (02/20/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/02/20/podcast-trump-cuba/
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman
“On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal published an article with the headline ‘Billionaires’ low taxes are becoming a problem for the economy.’ Hey, what do you expect from a woke, left-wing rag? To be honest, the article didn’t make a very compelling case for its ostensible point, that the growing concentration of wealth at the very top may lead to economic instability. But it did offer a good discussion of both the soaring concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny elite and of the extent to which this elite is able to avoid paying taxes.” (02/20/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-ultra-rich-are-different-from
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“The Founding Fathers tried to establish a system that would prevent the injustice, the corruption, the incredible abuses which they were familiar with. Not just in the Old World: the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal. Not just in other parts of the New World: La Nueva Espanya (Mexico), Haiti, Brazil. But in their own States: New York, Massachusetts, Georgia, and more. Petit and grand juries, the Bill of Rights, decentralized governments, and much more was intended to prevent the evils of government while preserving the independence of the new nations and the liberties of the people. Even the minorities when it came to elections and more. They failed.” (02/20/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/02/20/more-injustice-in-our-world/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Nadya William
“One of the earliest known instances of writing using the Greek alphabet combines vandalism with poetic experimentation. Sometime in the eighth century BC at Pithekoussai, a Greek colony on Ischia, a small island off the coast of Italy, a dinner guest rudely defaced one of his host’s fine drinking cups. … While the Greeks eventually settled on writing from left to right, a variety of letter shapes and directions of writing survive in the earliest inscriptions in the Greek alphabet. … the three lines of writing proceed in a boustrophedon fashion — as the ox ploughs. The first line goes from right to left, then the second line turns around and goes from left to right, and the last one is from right to left again. What we see is a civilization on the cusp of adopting a new revolutionary technology: writing with an alphabet.” (02/20/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/civilizational-hardware-and-software/
Source: Liberal Currents
by Mike Somes
“The American right has a question. They want to know why the people of the Twin Cities didn’t just let the Department of Homeland Security wander through and take whoever they felt like. Why do we insist on following them when we could stay home instead? … I know the reason I decided to dedicate time and effort to keeping the government from securing the full weight of the homeland upon my community is that I am an idiot. Some time before I was born, America’s finest comedic minds decided it would be really funny if we all pretended that there was no greater idea than the notion that all people had inalienable rights, and that there could be no cause more noble than any effort to protect those rights for others. I, perhaps the biggest Bozo in the United States, totally missed that they were kidding.” (02/20/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-last-idiot-who-earnestly-believes-in-the-american-experiment/
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andy Worthington
“In the long, dark farce of Guantánamo’s military commissions, the recently announced and almost entirely ignored decision by the Pentagon to turn down a plea deal for Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, a prominent CIA torture victim and the alleged architect of the Al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, and to proceed, instead, with an unwinnable trial, is just the latest manifestation of a refusal by successive US administrations to reckon with the corrosive effects of the use of torture.” (02/20/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/worthington/2026/02/19/a-mockery-of-justice-torture-victim-to-face-trial-at-guantanamo-after-25-years/
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“A Turkish journalist with German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) was jailed by an Istanbul court on Friday on charges of ‘insulting the president,’ an NGO said a day after his arrest by 30 police officers. Alican Uludag was arrested in Ankara on Thursday evening following a warrant issued by the Istanbul public prosecutor’s office, which said it had opened an investigation into him for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and ‘disseminating false news’ in connection with ‘certain posts’ on X.” (02/20/26)
https://www.newarab.com/news/turkish-authorities-arrest-journalist-insulting-president
Source: The American Conservative
“AOC Flubs in Munich, Trump Escalates with Iran.” (02/20/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/tac-right-now-aoc-flubs-in-munich-trump-escalates-with-iran/
