“A small number of medical evacuees from Gaza entered Egypt on Monday as the Rafah border crossing reopened, marking a key step in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire but a mostly symbolic one. Few people will be allowed to travel in either direction and no goods will pass through. About 20,000 Palestinian children and adults needing medical care hope to leave the devastated territory via the crossing, according to Gaza health officials. Thousands of other Palestinians outside the territory hope to enter and return home. The crossing had been closed since Israeli troops seized it in May 2024. The number of travelers is expected to increase over time if the system is successful. Israel has said it and Egypt will vet people for exit and entry.” (02/02/26)
“There are two morals to today’s quixotic quest. First: ‘All theories are false’ is false. Some theories are true. Indeed, we’re awash in true theories. Many of these are only true to a few decimal places, but that’s fine. Some theories are true only under normal conditions, but that, too, is fine. Most listeners take such qualifications for granted — and any remaining ambiguity is easy enough to fix with explicit caveats. Second: Scientists are bad at philosophy of science.” (02/02/26)
“It’s the first thing you learn when you go to some rough-and-tumble new school—if you run into a bully, the trick is to stand up to them. More than the particular situation, what matters is the underlying psychology. The point is that, whatever else seems to be going on, bullies usually prefer to puff up than to follow through, and, once they sniff strength, they’ll tend to move on to someone they can more readily pick on. After ten years of Trumpism — ten-and-a-half if we date our current era to Trump’s descent down the golden escalator — the great wisdom of our time may simply be to confirm the schoolyard adage.” (02/02/26)
“Elon Musk’s spacecraft and satellite communications company SpaceX has acquired his AI company xAI, the tech billionaire said Monday. ‘SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,’ he wrote in a release on SpaceX’s website. Musk previously merged xAI with X in a deal last March that valued the AI firm at $80 billion and the social media company at $33 billion. The latest merger with SpaceX comes as the company reportedly prepares to go public this year. The tech mogul, who also owns Tesla, appears heavily focused on building AI data centers in space.” (02/02/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“During the entire Cold War racket, when U.S. officials repeatedly said that the Reds were coming to get us, did you ever think for a moment that the U.S. government, led by the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, would be actually partnering with a Red regime? Yet, here we are — the national-security branch of the federal government and President Trump partnering with the Red regime in Venezuela to oust the Red regime in Cuba. That’s amusing, but what is pathetic is that the U.S. Empire is targeting the Cuban people with death and economic privation as a way to effect a change in policy of the Cuban government or, better yet, an entire change to a pro-U.S. regime that will loyally obey the orders of the U.S. Empire, as the Venezuelan Red regime is now doing.” (02/02/26)
“‘Terrorist’ is the word that the Trump administration employs to describe the victims of its most egregious acts of state violence. President Donald Trump has used the word ‘terrorist’ to justify the extrajudicial killings of civilians in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. And his deputies used it to explain away the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis by federal agents. … These killings were conducted thousands of miles apart by different agencies in very different contexts. But the connection between them could be more than semantic.” (02/02/26)
“Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said President Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan was a ‘lie,’ saying his first year back in office was focused on obliging wealthy supporters. ‘I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,’ Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen. … The former Georgia representative recently resigned from Congress, after airing concerns over the future of health care premiums and the war in Gaza, citing fractures within the GOP and falling out with Trump and MAGA, despite years of loyal support for the president.” (02/02/26)
