“The history of ‘President’s Day’ is a convoluted one. (Isn’t everything with government?) Legally, for the FedGov, it is officially still ‘Washington’s Birthday’ and just the calendar date was changed back in 1971, from 22 February to the third Monday in February. (Many States have officially changed the name; the common title reflects the popular belief that it also replaced any celebration of Honest Abe’s birthday (12 February) honored ‘all POTUS.’ Yup, even Nixon.) But since most of us treat this like ‘All Presidents’ Day’ (and absolutely nothing to do with the idea behind All Saints’ Day), let us look back at one of the few POTUS that has some really good things to say about him. Thomas Jefferson.” (02/16/26)
“As ICE tactics continue to undermine due process rights, the New York Times editorial board and kindred others have reflected on the role ICE plays in a broader challenge the Trump administration poses to democracy. Trump’s immigration policies are dramatically unjust. But meaningful reflection on what’s wrong with them means recognizing an uncomfortable fact: they are not ‘undemocratic’ but all too much a product of democracy. It’s an uncomfortable fact that Donald Trump won the 2024 election, not just in the electoral college but by 2 million in the popular vote. And he did it by loudly campaigning for his immigration policy. He promised to carry out ‘the largest deportation effort in American history,’ and his running mate suggested starting with deporting 1 million people. Remorseful Trump voters have no excuse for thinking they voted for something else.” (02/16/26)
“The downside of the budget impasse is that it has made police state tactics a point of negotiation. In any other era, if a local police department were doing what ICE and Border Patrol have done in Chicago, Portland, and Minnesota, a state attorney general or federal government would have launched investigations, and the architects of the policy — Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Corey Lewandowski — would be sweating out questions at oversight hearings. Instead, we’re talking about these abuses in the context of a budget fight. And that risks giving the impression that basic constitutional rights and restraints on police and executive power that date back to the Founding are, actually, negotiable. I guess we’ll see over the next couple weeks if the Democrats believe they really are.” (02/16/26)
“If you asked me to call it as I see it, I’d say President Trump is fasc-ish, fascist lite, or ‘semi-fascist.’ And until recently, writer Jonathan Rauch (whom I’ve long admired) would have agreed with my assessment. But in his Atlantic piece, ‘Yes, it’s Fascism,’ Rauch pulls a Jason Stanley. That is, he comes up with his own laundry list of purportedly fascist indicators to prove that President Trump is, indeed, a fascist, which suggests Trump is uniquely evil in American history. … In setting out to prove that Trump is a fascist, Rauch proves that the President is just an odd species of progressive and that past progressive presidents were fascist, too. Progressivism, after all, is a form of fascism.” (02/16/26)
“Big media and big government are in bed together and they hate the fact that we can communicate with each other without their filters and influence. They long for the days when they could shovel down our throats just what they wanted us to hear and believe. While we may be winning this battle for free expression, we must not fool ourselves into thinking that we have won the war. We must remember just a few years ago during COVID that all it took to have your platform wiped off the face of the earth was to dare question the ‘wisdom’ of Anthony Fauci. Even today there are forces seeking to use the power of the state to silence opinions they disagree with.” (02/16/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“A look back at Diem’s assassination, setting off the Vietnam War — who says Washington isn’t led by the same self-destructive characters throughout time?” (02/16/26)
“Every February, Black History Month invites Americans to honor the giants of the civil rights movement. We commemorate them in speeches and street names, reassuring ourselves that their struggles belong safely to the past. But history tells a less comforting story. We tend to celebrate Black moral courage only after it has been stripped of urgency — after its disruptions have been neutralized and its challenges to power rendered harmless. The figures we now hold up as national icons were once dismissed as dangerous or destabilizing by moderates and institutions that claimed to support equality while resisting its consequences. This pattern is not accidental. It is structural.” (02/16/26)
“The avatars of MAGA-land often appear to operate with almost boundless impunity. President Trump was granted nearly total immunity by the U.S. Supreme Court. He pardoned more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters. His officials reflexively defend masked immigration enforcement officials gunning down Minnesota protesters, rather than suspending or at least investigating them. There have been few if any lasting consequences for crimes or malfeasance in Trump world. It was, therefore, truly heartening to see a group of Republicans acknowledge that law-breaking must be meaningfully penalized, even if committed under the MAGA banner. Last month, the nine justices of the Georgia Supreme Court — eight of whom were appointed by Republican governors — unanimously stated that nothing less than disbarment was called for in the case of William McCall Calhoun, Jr., an attorney who had participated in the ‘violent takeover of the Capitol’ on Jan. 6, 2021.” (02/16/26)
“Lest anyone think I am taking the words of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) out of context, here is, verbatim, her answer to a question during an appearance at the Munich Security Conference last week. … Asked, ‘Would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?,’ Ocasio-Cortez replied: ‘You know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a, this is, of course, a very long-standing policy of the United States. And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.’ This was a yes-or-no question, and Ocasio-Cortez did not answer it.” (02/16/26)
Source: Independent Institute
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
“For a subcontinent known for holding ‘honor’ and ‘dignity’ in (disproportionately) high esteem, as seen in everything from pop culture, including soap operas, to political discourse, the turn of events in Venezuela is fascinating. The speed and ease with which the regime’s top figures (interim president Delcy Rodriguez, minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello, minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino and the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez) have become the incarnation of everything they once despised should put the last nail in the coffin of the myth that the Latin American revolutionary left stands, well, for honor and dignity.” (02/16/26)
