Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Anyone silly enough to believe the US wants to bring democracy to Iran should have a look at what the US is currently doing to sabotage democracy in Iraq. President Trump has been aggressively threatening to cut off Iraq’s oil revenue if it allows the return to office of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom the Trump administration views as too sympathetic to Iran. And the threats appear to be working, as Antiwar’s Jason Ditz reports: ‘Once and possibly future Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s candidacy is increasingly in doubt this weekend, with reports that President Trump’s demand he not be allowed to return to office increasing the possibility that the Coordination Framework bloc may withdraw him as their choice for premier.'” (02/24/26)
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Patrick McLaughlin & Caleb O Brown
“Regulatory restrictions, accumulated over years of lawmaking, have resulted in thousands of outdated rules that carry burdens for businesses and consumers alike.” (02/24/26)
“With his campaign trailing [Jasmine] Crockett in the polls, [James] Talarico needed a shot in the arm, and he got one. He was slated last week to go on Stephen Colbert’s CBS ‘Late Show’ for a 15-minute taped conversation. It was a go until it was a stop, when everything hit the fan, including the First Amendment. The broadcast was ultimately not put on the airwaves, because then CBS might have been required to give Crockett equal time. … FCC chairman Brendan Carr called it a ‘hoax’ to blame the Trump administration for CBS’s programming decisions. But since Trump’s return to the White House last January, the FCC has aggressively targeted media institutions Trump has criticized. … Colbert posted the interview on the ‘Late Show’ YouTube channel, where it went viral, becoming his most-watched interview since the start of 2025. As of Monday, the short interview had been seen by more than 8.7 million viewers.” (02/24/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“Portugal is one of the national teams favored to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Yet most of the team’s players don’t play for Portuguese clubs. Despite producing world-class talent, the country faces difficulties in retaining it domestically. This paradox has clear economic implications: Portugal knows how to produce elite talent but fails to create conditions to keep it, reflecting a broader structural challenge affecting its economy.” (02/24/26)
“Here’s a depressing but all too predictable headline from The Wall Street Journal last week: ‘Detroit’s EV Pullback Is Costing $50 Billion.’ Yikes! That’s a lot of money for the American auto industry to lose. Once again, we have confirmation of an iron law of economics: If you want to kill an industry, subsidize it.” (02/24/26)
“Christopher Rufo, a Manhattan Institute made man, is complaining again about the deplorable conditions of discourse on the right. … This is quite rich considering Rufo made his bones in the movement as a vulgar propagandist, doing things like spreading lies about Haitian cat eaters in Ohio or suggesting that scammers in Minnesota have been funding Al-Qaeda offshoots in Somalia, a claim that even the Trump DOJ rebuts. While decrying the suddenly rampant racism and antisemitism on the right, Rufo routinely demeans the intelligence and moral worth of Somali-Americans. Or acts as a sophist for a White Nationalist up for a Senate-approved post in the administration. Is this hypocrisy, stupidity, or unabashed malevolence? Try all three: it’s politics.” (02/24/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Danielle Henry
“Last weekend, Pittsburghers pillaged their nearest Giant Eagle, stashing bread and toilet paper to prepare for Winter Storm Fern. Unsurprisingly, the City of Pittsburgh was not as diligently fortified as its private residents. After Fern deposited just shy of a foot of snow over the city, nearly 40 percent of the city plows broke down. … Surely, after Allegheny County’s 36 percent increase in property taxes in 2025, residents could expect safe commutes into town days after a snow storm. … What did the city resort to in order to resolve its gross incompetence? On Tuesday, January 26, Mayor Corey O’Connor declared a state of emergency. This state of emergency was required to emancipate the government from the shackles of its own bureaucracy to permit itself to hire ‘contractors.’ ‘Contractors’ are what the government calls private citizens who can do their job better than it can.” (02/24/26)
“There is almost no support for a new war, but there is a vocal group of hardliners in the Republican Party and in Washington that has been seeking this conflict for decades. The report mentions Mark Levin as one example, and there are also ideological fanatics in the Senate including Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham. Genocide denier Bret Stephens chimed in again this week with a despicable plea for war. They have been goading Trump to attack, and I fear they are going to get what they want. The vocal fanatics might not matter as much if they faced real opposition, but there is virtually no one in the Republican Party pushing in the opposite direction.” (02/24/26)
“Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers pulled over several cars in Eagle County, Colorado. They took the people away in handcuffs, according to a witness, and left the cars idling at the side of the road. When family members of the disappeared immigrants arrived, there was no sign of their loved ones. What they found instead were customized ace of spades playing cards that read ‘ICE Denver Field Office.’ When I saw an image of that card, the memories came flooding back. I’d seen something similar many years before. Sitting in the U.S. National Archives building — Archives II — in College Park, Maryland, sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s, I’d spent parts of several afternoons watching film footage shot by, and of, U.S. troops in Vietnam back in the 1960s. One of those silent military home movies always stuck with me.” (02/24/26)
“Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Colombia during 2025 closed at USD 9.173 billion, marking a 14.1 percent drop compared to 2024, according to figures from the central bank, mainly due to an increase in the tax burden ordered by the current socialist government. Meanwhile, in Brazil, FDI reached a significant milestone in 2025, totaling USD 84.1 billion between January and November, the highest level in a decade and surpassing the figures for 2014. In stark contrast, the government has managed to ensure that, for the first time since 2003, FDI in Argentina shows a negative cumulative balance of USD 1.521 billion between January and November 25.” (02/24/26)
