“The economy is growing. Unemployment is low. Wages, for most people, are rising faster than prices. Stocks are rising. Yet the public keeps giving the economy a thumbs-way-down. Gallup finds that only 21 percent of Americans give it an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ rating. That’s roughly the same as the percentage that felt positively about the economy in April 2013, during the painfully slow recovery from the Great Recession, when the unemployment rate was 7.5 percent instead of the current 4.4. At first glance, the dissatisfaction looks disproportionate to the statistics.” (02/11/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Alejandro A Tagliavini
“The advance of automation has accelerated the development of machines capable of performing repetitive and physically-demanding tasks, transforming processes that once took hours into actions that are now completed in minutes. For example, the robotic arm developed by Pickle Robot Company was specifically designed to handle packages in logistics environments. Its main function is to load and unload boxes from trucks with precision, a task that demands significant physical effort and poses risks to workers. In other words, technology increases productivity and quality of life by eliminating physical exertion, and workers can invest that saved time in other tasks, expanding and developing human knowledge. It goes without saying that politicians don’t like robots since they don’t pay personal taxes or contribute to state ‘social security’ funds that enrich bureaucrats and their cronies. But they don’t just hate robotics; they hate productivity in general.” (02/11/26)
“Many in the Islamic world continue to believe that the answer to their struggles is the restoration of the old caliphate system. Hamas, for instance, called for this in its founding charter. This was also the impassioned dream of Osama bin Laden. Spurring these beliefs are a series of widely-held notions about the past. Given the powerful present-day interest, attraction, and obsession with the idea, we need to arrive at an accurate estimate of the caliphates.” (02/11/26)
“Social Security is drifting toward a cliff, and Congress keeps pretending the shortfall will fix itself. It won’t. Absent reform, benefits will be cut across the board by roughly 23 percent within six years. That outcome would harm retirees who depend on Social Security the most — while barely affecting the living standards of those who do not need financial support in old age. There is a better option: reduce distributions to the wealthiest retirees, preserving them for those most dependent on benefits.” (02/11/26)
“In a post on Bluesky, [Jamelle] Bouie mocked the addiction of the mother of Vice President JD Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs. Bouie used Bluesky — a digital safe zone for viewpoint intolerance on the left — to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance, [writing] that ‘this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway.’ That is hardly notable on today’s rage scale. However, he then decided to use the painful addiction history of Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins, against her son: ‘No wonder his mom tried to sell him for Percocets. I can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for Percocet if they knew he would turn out like this.'” [editor’s note: Not a very nice thing to say about Vance’s mom, but he certainly described Vance accurately – TLK] (02/11/25)
“Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has hired a federal prosecutor, who quit amid the White House’s immigration blitz on Minneapolis, to defend him from charges related to his coverage of a church protest. Lemon officially brought Joseph H Thompson on to his legal team, according to a Tuesday court filing. Thompson, who Donald Trump had appointed acting US attorney for Minnesota in June, reportedly resigned in January over the justice department’s treatment of immigration enforcement. A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted Lemon, now an independent journalist, on charges of conspiracy and interfering with congregants’ constitutional rights to freely exercise their religion during an 18 January protest at the Cities church in St Paul.” (02/11/26)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Beryl Lipton & Sarah Hamid
“Surveillance technology vendors, federal agencies, and wealthy private donors have long helped provide local law enforcement ‘free’ access to surveillance equipment that bypasses local oversight. The result is predictable: serious accountability gaps and data pipelines to other entities, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that expose millions of people to harm.” (02/11/26)
“One of the biggest criticisms of those who opposed the JCPOA is that it did not meaningfully prevent Iran from supporting its regional proxies: the Yemeni Houthis, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Hamas. While these proxy groups threaten Israel, they do not constitute a threat to the United States. The second Trump administration must not make the same mistake as the Biden administration: prioritizing foreign nations over stopping nuclear proliferation. Reviving the JCPOA is not idealism; it is a pragmatic solution to the threat of nuclear proliferation.” (02/11/26)
