“As the scale and scope of state violence against migrants and the neighbors and community members who protect them — including the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis and of Keith Porter and Silverio Villegas González by ICE in Los Angeles and Chicago — has rapidly escalated over the first year of the second Trump administration, so have the familiar calls for quick fixes for state violence. Meanwhile, hopes placed in Democrats to save us by finally recognizing that the police state they have helped build is the vehicle through which authoritarianism is being consolidated are repeatedly dashed. This is true of the party’s recent, tepid proposals to put ‘guardrails’ on ICE.” (02/12/26)
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman
“For months, we have warned of a drive by President Donald Trump and his administration to undermine the 2026 election. It is unprecedented, outlandish. Now Trump himself is blaring his intent, and over the past week the public issue has exploded. The fight for a free and fair vote is taking shape, especially after House Republicans on Wednesday night passed the euphemistically named SAVE Act. Make no mistake: The SAVE Act would stop millions of American citizens from voting. It would be the most restrictive voting bill ever passed by Congress. It is Trump’s power grab in legislative garb. Effectively, the bill would require Americans to produce a passport or birth certificate to register and thus to vote. Brennan Center research shows that 21 million people lack ready access to these documents. Half of all Americans don’t have a passport, for example.” (02/12/25)
“Minneapolis was not the war zone I expected to find. Depending on who you are and where you live, things can seem, for a few fleeting moments, almost normal, like a few blocks or neighborhoods over people aren’t being tear gassed or rounded up by ICE or, in two tragic cases, being gunned down by federal agents. Even now some people walk their dogs, run errands and buy groceries, meet friends for dinner and drinks. Daily life has become sinister in its banality, because Minneapolis remains a city under siege. ICE and CBP agents roam the streets, though their tactics have shifted as of late: No longer acting like an occupying army, the Department of Homeland Security now operates like secret police.” (02/12/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“After decades of subsidizing expansion, Brussels is now paying to destroy vineyards, without fixing the distortions it created. The European Union is paying to uproot vineyards. The new Wine Package, proposed in March 2025 with a provisional agreement reached in December 2025, proposes among several measures, the possibility of using EU funds for the voluntary destruction of productive vines, which represents the most visible sign of a market distortion created by decades of intervention from Brussels. Successive policies supporting the wine sector progressively disconnected production from market signals. The result was a growing imbalance, marked by persistent surpluses and, later, by subsidies aimed at vineyard removal itself.” 902/12/26)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul Mueller & Thomas Savidge
“Once firmly established in American finance, the proxy advisory industry now faces regulatory threats and AI-driven challenges. To survive, firms must serve customers, not political agendas.” (02/12/26)
“Despite rising public debt, intensifying fiscal extraction, recurrent economic shocks, and heightened trade and policy uncertainty, the global economy has exhibited a striking degree of resilience. This resilience, however, goes beyond mere survival. It reflects a shift from robustness to what can be described as ‘antifragility,’ where systems not only withstand shocks but gain from them. This dynamic adaptation is evidenced not just in headline GDP figures consistently surpassing pessimistic forecasts, but more profoundly in the way markets adapt and evolve in response to these challenges, becoming stronger rather than merely enduring.” (02/12/26)
“For several months now, controversy has swirled over Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts and his strange defense of Tucker Carlson against charges of antisemitism. A wave of staffers have resigned from Heritage in protest, as well as a number of high-profile trustees. More interesting than the daily drama of open letters and leaked team meetings, though, is the way the controversy has become a proxy fight for the battle to define the future of the conservative movement. Many of Roberts’s most passionate and vocal supporters come from the so-called ‘postliberal’ camp. … These new ideologues of the right seem far less interested in preserving the particular arrangements and commitments of the American Republic (and the philosophical truths they incarnate) than in promoting some abstract sense of, to use Howting’s term, ‘Western identity.'” (02/12/26)
“New York City is facing serious public health challenges. Drug overdoses are surging. Mental illness is rampant. Emergency rooms are under strain. Life expectancy in parts of the city has declined. So what are some employees at the New York City Department of Health reportedly studying? The effects of ‘global oppression’ on health. This is not a joke. It is a disturbing example of how ideology has displaced competence in city government — and how taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill. A public health department has a straightforward mission: protect people from disease, respond to health emergencies and ensure basic safety standards. It exists to prevent outbreaks, combat addiction, improve maternal health and keep food and water safe. It is not a political theory workshop.” (02/12/25)
“Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its ‘ancient faith’ that all men are created equal. How can it be that lawyers know so little of the giant of their profession?” (02/12/26)
