“Thanks to Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes, there has been a Vesuvian eruption of antisemitism on the American right. Fierce controversy has ensued in and around Trump world over how to address it — and how to deal with the swelling segment of MAGA supporters, especially younger people, who go in for it. Especially fascinating is the MAGA subset1 of self-professed ‘national conservatives,’ not least because their impresario, Yoram Hazony, is himself Jewish. Crosswinds have been blowing him hither and thither. The trouble is that some of the closest allies of his aborning ideology of national conservatism have become America’s most prominent antisemitic voices.” (02/18/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Dr. Anton Friesen
“After the end of the war in Ukraine, what would be the nature of a European order that included Russia instead of marginalizing it? What is the future for Europe in an increasingly multipolar world? How should such a European order be institutionalized so that peace, freedom, democracy, and effectiveness are ensured and Europe’s own identity is protected? These are questions that cannot wait to be asked until the guns finally fall silent in Ukraine. In the present context, these questions can only be outlined sketchily in the space of a few pages. Nevertheless, it is worth trying to find an alternative for Europe.” (02/18/26)
“On the day after Trump’s efforts to censor Stephen Colbert blew up in his face, I have fresh reporting on why Netflix is not likely to be successful in taking over Warner Bros. Discovery, which opens the door to Paramount-SkyDance owning Warner. That would mean that Trump, Bari Weiss, and company would control not just CBS News but CNN, HBO, and other properties, and Trump would increase his stranglehold over old media. So let’s first talk about the cowardice of CBS executives.” (02/17/26)
“When Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, last week announced that ICE’s ‘surge’ in Minnesota would wind down, it marked a significant victory for the thousands of Minnesotans who have fought back against the federal forces terrorizing their state; resistance forced the Trump regime to change its plans. But nothing is ramping down when it comes to the deportation machine at large. When billions of dollars are spent to turn industrial spaces into detention camps, authoritarian desires meet market logic: The warehouses must be filled. Local communities are nonetheless pushing back, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable federal forces with unlimited funding, abetted by powerful private interests who stand to gain from this carceral build-out.” (02/17/26)
“Within the last six months, two friends, both pioneers and giants in the world of ideas in Washington, D.C., passed from this world. One, Ed Feulner, was the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, which became the nation’s defining policy institute for conservative ideas. Now, last week, Ed Crane, the co-founder of the Cato Institute, passed away. Ed Crane built Cato to become the major presence in the nation’s capital for libertarian ideas and policy. My personal involvement with Cato began in 1996 when I was invited to join the national advisory board for Cato’s project to transform Social Security from a government tax and spend program to a program of individually owned personal retirement accounts. When I began working in the business of policy reform, a friend pointed out to me the words of futurist John Naisbitt, who observed, ‘Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that no one knows you’re in it.'” (02/18/26)
“American democracy is facing its most serious crisis since the Civil War, but we have no coherent effort to do anything about it, not even to try to make sense of what’s wrong. That’s not the case in Nordic countries, such as Denmark — which has the world’s best liberal democracy, according to V-DEM’s last three annual Democracy Reports. There, the Danish parliament has launched a multi-year ‘Power and Democracy study’ to analyze how Denmark’s democracy is functioning, what challenges it faces, and what can be done to improve it.” (02/17/26)
“If you get stopped at an airport security checkpoint with $100 or more in cash, Transportation Security Administration agents can fleece you. TSA has stripped more than 10,000 travelers of their money since 2014, but the supposed ‘criminals’ are almost never charged after their cash is taken. A class-action federal court case could finally end this outrage.” (02/17/26)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Graham Piro
“Texas Tech leaders have somehow convinced themselves that race and gender are not legitimate topics to discuss in a psychology class. That’s absurd on its face: You can’t teach human behavior while treating basic dimensions of human identity as off-limits. Will Crescioni, a lecturer in Texas Tech’s Department of Psychological Sciences, submitted his course materials for his honors-level psychology course the same day the Texas Tech system issued a memo ordering universities to review courses and ensure faculty do not ‘promote or otherwise inculcate’ certain ideas related to race and gender. Just over a month later — and only two days before the semester began — his course was scrapped. His offense? Refusing to alter his course content.” (02/17/26)
“The author Arundhati Roy is boycotting the Berlinale film festival because organizers have suggested that artists should not be compelled to talk about politics. This would seem to be unobjectionable: free speech should also apply to artists who don’t want to let reporters troll them into a political controversy …. A group of 81 actors and other festival participants — among them Tilda Swinton and Javier Bardem — signed an open letter hitting back at the Berlinale and making clear what this fight is really about: ‘Berlinale has so far not even met the demands of its community to issue a statement that affirms the Palestinian’ narrative of the war, the statement complained. More to the point, the letter warned: ‘The tide is changing across the international film world. Many international film festivals have endorsed the cultural boycott of apartheid Israel.’ Ah, there we are. Actors want an anti-Jewish blacklist. In the name of free speech and anti-fascism.” (02/17/26)
