The Merit of “Melania”

Source: The Pamphleteer
by Jerod Hollyfield

“The opening chords of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ wash over a drone shot of Mar-a-Lago. As the camera shifts to a set of black high heels and then tilts up to the once-and-future First Lady, Mick Jagger screams ‘War, children, It’s just a shot away. It’s just a shot away.’ This is not a typical moment in what’s come to pass for a documentary in 2025: an endless stream of brooding explanations of lefty issues or recreations of murders rubber stamped for Netflix with overwrought scores. … But it’s this naked, smug lefty do-gooderism that has eroded the documentary form for the last two decades …” (02/06/25)

https://pamphleteer.co/newsletter/the-merit-of-melania/

Steve Trinward

Flying car now for sale for $190,000

Source: Fox News

“A future with flying cars no longer lives just in concept videos. It now lives in Palo Alto, and if you have about $200,000 plus patience, you can reserve one today. The company behind that future vehicle is Pivotal, a California company that has quietly spent more than a decade turning a radical idea into a real aircraft. Its latest creation, called Helix, is now open for reservations, and delivery could be less than a year away. Yes, this is an actual flying car you can buy.” (02/08/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/flying-car-now-sale-190000

Thomas L. Knapp

The US is a Small Country

Source: EconLog
by Jon Murphy

“In my recent post on US manufacturing jobs and tariffs, I mentioned a Wall Street Journal article that pointed toward American tariffs having little impact on Chinese exports; the exports are simply being shifted to other countries. In the earlier post, I discussed what that fact meant for US manufacturing jobs. Here, I discuss what that shift means for who bears the burden of the tax.” (02/06/26)

https://www.econlib.org/econlog/the-us-is-a-small-country

Thomas L. Knapp

The death of “America First”

Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter

“The Trump phenomenon was supposed to be a changing of the old Republican guard, however imperfectly, for a new foreign policy ethos that was closer to Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul than Bill Kristol and David Frum. That’s exactly why so many neoconservatives and War Party Republicans got behind the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. So seven years ago, when Bolton tried to redefine Donald Trump’s America First brand as a continuation of McCain-Bush interventionism, I laughed. Did Bolton really think the conservative base was this gullible? I’m not laughing anymore. Hawks, including old neoconservatives, now present pro-war interventionism as America First all the time.” (02/06/26)

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/america-first-trump/

Thomas L. Knapp

Grand jury indicts actor Tim Busfield on child sex abuse charges

Source: United Press International

“A New Mexico grand jury on Friday indicted actor Timothy Busfield on four counts that accuse him of criminal sexual contact of a child. Each charge carries a minimum sentence of three years in prison if Busfield, 68, is found guilty, according to New Mexico law. … He has pleaded not guilty to all charges filed against him after allegations by two boys who had been cast members of the Fox television series The Cleaning Lady, in which Busfield acted and directed from 2022 to 2024. Busfield accused the mother of the two boys of falsely accusing him because he did not cast the two boys in the series’ final season.” (02/06/26)

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/02/06/tim-busfield-indicted/7991770417437/

Thomas L. Knapp