“President Joe Biden not only allowed 6 million to 10 million illegal [sic] aliens to walk across the border during his term, he also granted a ‘quiet amnesty’ to nearly 1 million. We’re only learning this now, as the Department of Justice revealed Biden officials improperly ‘terminated,’ ‘dismissed’ or ‘closed’ that many cases before the nation’s immigration tribunals. The tool for this deception was the DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (‘EOIR’, pronounced like Winnie the Pooh’s sad donkey friend), which oversees deportation cases. Under Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Biden administration used EOIR to manipulate removal hearings, tanking pending cases in the name of ‘prosecutorial discretion.'” (02/16/26)
“There’s a reason we talk more about power than individual people. Take Jeffrey Epstein. The man is dead, but the power problem lives on. The files not only revealed a whole lot of individual predators, but also an entire ecosystem of money, and power, and abuse, and protection by bankers, and billionaires, and politicians, and protectors, many of whom continue to wield enormous power at the very height of our society today. Put that creepy picture next to another, one of a sprawling network of secretive detention centers and camps where tens of thousands of people, including women and girls, are hidden away in far off places and moved from camp to camp and state to state and cage to cage without documents or phones or anyone to hear their calls. We do not come to this moment uninformed.” (02/17/26)
“Hierarchical structures within religion are largely acceptable to liberalism so long as they are based on consent rather than coercion. Hierarchy must be justified, but consent suffices to justify. Shifting our focus from theory to practice, American law has never questioned the right of the Catholic Church to confine the priesthood to males, or to impose on the priesthood difficult demands such as celibacy, or to condemn as immoral homosexual sex and contraception. Liberals often harshly denounce and stigmatize these ideas, putting painful social pressure on those who hold them, but the postliberals claim more than this: outright coercion and censorship. Liberals believe in free speech, even for ideas we don’t like.” (02/16/26)
“A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal lays out what has been on the minds of many (or at least mine) for some time. The traditional education establishment that was in charge of all things K-12 in the last century is crumbling. In the last decade, millions of children have exited their assigned public schools in exchange for a scholarship that is a fraction of what was spent on them by the education blob. It is becoming clear — parents want to be able to choose from a range of options when it comes to the education of their children.” (02/16/26)
“One of the towering questions hovering over the Epstein saga was whether the illicit sexual activities of the world’s most powerful people were used as blackmail by Epstein or by intelligence agencies with whom (or for whom) he worked. The Trump administration now insists that no such blackmail occurred. … There are still many files that remain heavily and inexplicably redacted. But, from the files that have been made public, we know one thing for certain. One of Epstein’s two key benefactors — the hedge fund billionaire Leon Black, who paid Epstein at least $158 million from 2012 through 2017 — was aggressively blackmailed over his sexual conduct. ” (02/16/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“Decades before the Marxists came along, the classical liberals exposed how some classes exploit other classes. Through taxes and inflation, government regimes transfer wealth from the more productive members of society to the less productive ones. For at least two centuries, political theorists have attempted to identify and understand the ways that various social and economic classes have interacted within this system of state exploitation. … Among these classes we also find a group that is often ignored, or at least it is infrequently mentioned. It is the class small enterprise: the owners of small factories, the artisans, and the shopkeepers. Or, to use a term more frequently found outside the United States: the petite bourgeoisie.” (02/16/26)
“2025 was a good year for the stock market. Americans who invested in a broad market index like the Standard and Poor 500 did really well. But not as well as 29 members of the U.S. Congress who beat the market in 2025. Beating the market is not easy and beating an index like the S&P 500 in 2025 means getting gains of more than 16.8%. Unusual Whales compiled a report on the members of Congress whose investments beat that return in 2025. I compiled the chart below from the report to focus on the 29 members of Congress whose investment portfolios grew by more than 16.8% last year.” (02/16/26)
“On June 5, 2015, Kathy Ruemmler, then a corporate lawyer for Latham & Watkins but just one year removed from her stint as White House counsel for Barack Obama, emailed her good friend Jeffrey Epstein. Ruemmler, who was once under consideration to become Obama’s attorney general, wrote, ‘I am working on a PR strategy for MJ White v. Elizabeth Warren.’ Epstein responded, ‘Good[.] mj is good.’ And Ruemmler followed on in a response, ‘Yes, and EW is the worst.’ This is the perfect Jeffrey Epstein email, with as much explanatory power about this man, and more important the world he associated with and cultivated, than anything to do with child sex abuse. It shows that there is in fact an Epstein class, which not only believes in their own personal impunity, but seeks to protect their fellow travelers as well.” (02/17/26)
“Perpetual Trumpworld figure Steve Bannon is taking a lot of heat this month as newly released Jeffrey Epstein files show he maintained close ties with the notorious sex trafficker, even after many of Epstein’s worst crimes were exposed. But that’s not the only perilous legal matter on Bannon’s plate. The influential conservative podcaster also finds himself in hot water for his management of the disastrous ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ cryptocurrency.” (02/16/26)
“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)
