“As someone who loves comedy, what ass-clowns like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert have done to the concept is like what Harvey Weinstein did to movie production or what Democrats have done to journalism, if journalism were their cellmate in Super-Max. Colbert is the Jeffrey Epstein of truth and Kimmel is the Luigi Mangione of honesty. That’s why it was not shocking to anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size that Colbert would go on his show and lie, doing his best to help a white guy, James Talarico, beat a black woman, Jasmine Crockett, in the Democratic primary in the Texas Senate race. First, I have to tell you about the concept of equal time.” (02/19/26)
“For years the Food and Drug Administration has handed down shocking decision after shocking decision, always in the same direction: The approval of Alzheimer’s drugs that are balanced precariously on a mountain of fraudulent papers and that sometimes make your brain explode; the approval of OxyContin for 11-year-olds; the approval of COVID-19 booster shots in healthy young people in order to please the political science majors in the White House. But there’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s made a lot of powerful enemies already reining in a lawless pharmaceutical industry.” (02/18/26)
“When Britain’s most notorious far-right agitator, Tommy Robinson (whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), endorsed a Reform UK candidate late last month, it was yet another indicator of the growing ideological overlap between the nation’s most extreme anti-immigration elements and the right’s institutional organs. Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s insurgent right-wing populist party that has led the polls for over a year, disavowed Robinson—a predictable maneuver aimed at damage control. But it couldn’t obscure the real story: the collapse of any meaningful ideological daylight between Robinson’s street-level radicalism and right-wing electoral politics in Britain today.” (02/18/26)
Source: Orange County Register
by Alexander Langlois
“One can be excused for wondering why the Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently beaten accusations of near-death since its inception in 1979. The regime in Tehran has held onto power through successive internal and external crises regardless of doomsday prophesizing in Washington or Tel Aviv. As the Iranian government faces one of the most difficult moments in its brief existence – both internally and externally — the question now, as the US sends a second aircraft carrier to the region is will this time be different?” (02/18/26)
“Distinguished Members of the Security Council, The President of the United States is issuing grave threats of force against the Islamic Republic of Iran if it does not accede to US demands. His actions risk a major regional war that would be devastating. Asked if he wanted regime change, he responded that it ‘seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.’ When asked why a second US aircraft carrier has been sent to the region, President Trump answered ’in case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it … if we need it, we’ll have it ready.’ These threats are in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which declares that ’All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.'” (02/19/26)
“Around this time last week, I was standing in the pouring rain in West Sussex, handing out leaflets to defend something that should never have needed defending: the right of local residents to vote. The TaxPayers’ Alliance had been out across the county campaigning against the Labour government’s plan to cancel elections in 30 local authorities across England. … taxpayers should never have had to rely on opposition parties, newspapers and campaign groups to defend the most basic principles of democracy. Holding regular elections should be the bare minimum we expect of the people in charge.” (02/18/26)
“Can a building be a sex trafficker? Some lawyers seem to be hoping so. Apartment buildings, nightclubs, and hotels have been coming under fire for facilitating interactions that some say should have been tip-offs to sex trafficking or sexual violence taking place. Victims in these lawsuits describe some heinous actions by their alleged abusers. I’m not trying to minimize any such harm or suggest actual perpetrators of violence shouldn’t be punished. But in the push to hold more entities legally accountable for alleged sex crimes against women, these suits are setting up a system in which women are increasingly watched and their sex lives increasingly subject to questioning. The end result here isn’t likely to be a world in which women are safer but one in which they’re more surveilled.” (02/18/26)
“As Voltairine de Cleyre wrote in 1908, ‘[T]he sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly.’ They thought America could have liberty along with a central government — a state. It didn’t work. Now we are stuck with a growing police state, and the tatters of our remaining liberty are being criminalized at an astonishing rate. This won’t end well. Liberty is indivisible — it can’t be broken into pieces and remain liberty. You can’t respect it selectively (for some people, in some areas, some of the time) and call it ‘liberty.’ True liberty requires consistent respect for everyone’s rights, everywhere, all the time.” (02/18/26)
“I’m a bitcoin advocate, but I also love gold and silver; they’re honest money with no necessity of a counter-party. That is, they’re wonderful for decentralized commerce, which we and the world very much need. My plea to Team Gold is to begin using their wonderful money, rather than leaving it forever on shelves. (Whether their own or in a vault.) By no means am I opposed to keeping gold as an insurance policy; it’s great for that use. But the monetary metals have just enjoyed a great and long overdue run-up, at this point I think we need to take the next logical step: To start using our better money. … we’ll simultaneously build a new infrastructure. And I know this is true because I’ve watched it happen twice in a row over the past twenty-five years: first for e-gold and then for bitcoin.” (02/18/26)
“Hawkish Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has never been a big fan of arms control agreements. His new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal confirms that his attitude has not softened in the slightest. … His goal is to justify an extensive increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal under the label of ‘modernization.’ Cotton’s op-ed presents a six-part plan for doing so.” (02/18/26)
