“The ‘ultra-left’ in France was behind the deadly beating of a French youth aligned with the far right whose death has inflamed political tensions in the country, the justice minister said on Sunday, February 15. Gérald Darmanin also accused hard-left politicians, including from the La France Insoumise (LFI) party, the largest left-wing faction in parliament, of fueling violence with their language. The victim, identified only as Quentin, aged 23, had been hospitalized and placed into a coma on Thursday after being attacked in Lyon. Supporters said he was providing security at a protest against an appearance by Rima Hassan, an LFI member of the European Parliament, at Sciences Po Lyon university when he was assaulted by a gang of rival activists. The office of the Lyon prosecutor on Saturday told AFP he had died of his wounds.” (02/15/26)
“In my opinion, the benign environment of the past 17 years — zero interest rates, US tech dominance, S&P 500 index funds spitting out double-digit returns like a broken candy machine — is over. Interest rates one can actually see, the emergence of Chinese innovation, decline of the US dollar, and soaring precious metals prices have changed the investment game permanently. There is no going back. Yet most investors long for the past. Can you blame them? As a result, the current landscape is full of finches with abnormally long beaks.” (02/16/26)
“While many nations occasionally resort to a ‘state of exception’ to deal with temporary crises, Israel exists in a permanent state of exception. This Israeli exceptionalism is the very essence of the instability that plagues the Middle East. The concept of the state of exception dates back to the Roman justitium, a legal mechanism for suspending law during times of civil unrest. However, the modern understanding was shaped by the German jurist Carl Schmitt, who famously wrote that the ‘sovereign is he who decides on the exception.’ While Schmitt’s own history as a jurist for the Third Reich serves as a chilling reminder of where such theories can lead, his work provides an undeniably accurate anatomy of raw power: it reveals how a ruler who institutes laws also holds the power to dismiss them, under the pretext that no constitution can foresee every possible crisis.” (02/16/26)
“One year after fires tore through the Los Angeles region, devastation remains etched into the landscape, not only in the thousands of empty lots, but also in the near absence of rebuilding. More than 13,000 homes were destroyed across Los Angeles County; 12 months later, just 28 have been rebuilt. What should have been a story of recovery instead reveals deeper institutional failure. Despite political urgency, partial regulatory reforms, and repeated promises of speed, reconstruction has stalled under the weight of a collapsing insurance market, regulatory overreach, labor shortages, and soaring construction costs.” (02/16/26)
“White House border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that more than 1,000 [federal gang members] have left Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its [occupation]. A ‘small’ security force will stay for a short period to protect remaining [gang members] and will respond ‘when our agents are out and they get surrounded by [angry citizens] and things got out of control,’ Homan told CBS’[s] ‘Face the Nation.’ He did not define ‘small.'” (02/16/26)
“American prisons have never been much for the First Amendment, and now, the Trump administration is exporting prison-style censorship to the general population. In tactics that are easily recognizable to incarcerated people like me, they’re doing it in the name of ‘security.’ This includes claiming antiestablishment ideologies and literature must be punished because they pose nebulous risks to those with government-approved political views. It also includes the logical next step: criminalizing efforts to keep authorities from finding out that one holds those ideologies or reads that literature.” (02/16/26)
“Presidents’ Day is a good day to rank presidents. There’s debate about the top three — my choices are Lincoln, Washington, and FDR — but no suspense about who’s bringing up the rear. Even if he racks up an achievement or two in the next couple of years, we can be confident that Donald Trump will be viewed as the worst president in U.S. history, with Richard Nixon now a distant second. Yes, historians said that in his first term, and more than 70 million Americans ignored his coup attempt and returned him to office. But Trump has no road back now; the country as a whole is finished with him. This period reminds me of 1943, when the Allies knew we would eventually defeat the fascists, but only after a lot more death and destruction.” (02/16/26)
“Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said his government would change the law to protect ministers from suspension while they are under criminal investigation, prompting the opposition to accuse him of trying to protect himself and harming judicial independence. A court suspended Rama’s deputy, Belinda Balluku, in November following her indictment by Albania’s anti-graft prosecutors, known as SPAK, over alleged meddling in a tender for infrastructure projects, which she denies. The case has sparked a dispute between SPAK, which has asked parliament to lift Balluku’s immunity to allow her arrest, and Rama, who has complained about judicial overreach, especially with pre-trial detentions.” (02/16/26)
