Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Have you ever noticed that in the tug of war beteeen federal and state power, politicians of all stripes support the Constitution’s balance when it suits them and ignore it when it doesn’t?” (02/04/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/02/04/federal-election-takeover/
Source: The Atlantic
by Jonathan Lemire
“Anger about the scenes of unrest and violence amid ICE deportation operations in Minnesota? Well, the Trump administration has telegraphed that it would like to carry out a crackdown on Haitians in Ohio next. Concern about brandishing military force after the U.S. removed the leader of Venezuela and then threatened Greenland? Trump has sent an ‘armada’ of warships to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran. A sense that the president has lost focus on what got him elected as he takes on vanity projects such as the White House ballroom? Well, he’ll see you that and raise you both the Kennedy Center renovation and the construction of a giant arch that no one seems to want.” (02/04/26)
Source: Antiwar.com
by JD Hester
“With resources dwindling and rampant foreign military aid corruption, Azov has increasingly relied on donations from individuals and companies. According to reporting from Svidomi, which included interviews with founders and project managers, a new project, Strum, has become the ‘driving force’ behind the Brigade. The platform operates as a subscription service like Netflix or Spotify, but with some substantial differences and additional features.” [editor’s note: I’m not a fan of Azov, but this is the way ALL military organizations should be funded – TLK] (02/04/26)
Source: Washington Monthly
by Paul Glastris
“Democrats have a stronger hand. They should raise their bets.” (02/03/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/02/03/affordability-bidding-war-democrats-trump/
Source: The Jolly Libertarian
by Marco den Ouden
“There is a new strain of authoritarian thought emerging in America today, one that threatens to rip asunder America as we know it. It has its roots in the neo-feudalism of anarcho-capitalist theorist Hans-Hermann Hoppe. It evolved into the neo-reactionism of Curtis Yarvin writing as Mencius Moldbug. His Patchwork philosophy called for a fractured network of corporate city states, each ruled by a corporate CEO with absolute power. More recently Yarvin has come out explicitly for regime change and the establishment of a de facto centralized authoritarian one party state through what he he calls Hard Party politics. An approach one might call Shock-and-Awe Centralism.” (02/03/26)
https://jollylibertarian.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-techno-authoritarian-blueprint-for.html
Source: New York Post
by Corey DeAngelis
“A wave of school protests sweeping the US in response to the fatal shooting of two anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota has revealed how teachers unions have weaponized classrooms for their own left-wing agenda. The unions have revealed themselves as political operatives more concerned with indoctrinating kids than teaching them reading, writing and arithmetic. These disruptions didn’t materialize out of thin air. The teachers’ unions fired the starting gun by blasting out anti-ICE propaganda to teachers, urging them to rally against immigration enforcement and turn schools into battlegrounds for their partisan fights. The National Education Association is also pushing teachers to print out immigration-related political propaganda posters and put them in their classrooms.” [editor’s note: Anti-ICE isn’t “left-wing,” it’s “anti-gang” – TLK] (02/04/25)
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro
“One month on, it’s clear which approach to Venezuela is winning.” (02/03/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/for-trump-dictatorship-in-venezuela
Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko
“The government is cracking down. The people are standing up.” (02/03/26)
Source: Niskanen Center
by Jia-Shen Tsai
“One year into the second Trump administration, carbon management policy is no longer advancing through climate-focused priorities at the executive level. Although the administration has been explicit that climate is not a central objective, its policy choices continue to carry significant emissions implications. Congress, meanwhile, continues to consider legislation that affects emissions outcomes, both directly and indirectly. As a result, the most consequential developments for U.S. emissions in 2026 are likely to emerge from decisions on trade dynamics and emissions data governance.” (02/03/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/where-u-s-carbon-policy-is-being-decided-in-2026
Source: Town Hall
by EJ Antoni, Ph.D.
“President Trump has been clamoring for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates on the grounds that inflation is much lower than what’s being officially reported. It turns out Trump is spot on, with today’s real inflation rate being only one-third of the official metrics. These numbers come from the real-time price aggregator Truflation, which monitors millions of prices daily. That is orders of magnitude higher than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which observes only a few thousand prices three times per month. According to Truflation, prices have risen an average of just 0.9 percent over the last 12 months. That’s about as good as it gets outside of a recession, especially when the Fed is engaged in money printing, euphemistically called ‘quantitative easing’. Truflation’s annual inflation rate is now much lower than the official inflation rate of 2.7 percent reported by the consumer price index (CPI).” (02/04/25)
https://townhall.com/columnists/ej-antoni/2026/02/04/less-than-1-percent-inflation-yes-n2670615