“For my entire adult life, I’ve listened to self-described ‘constitutional’ conservatives strut around like God’s gift to the nation’s conscience, as they lecture everyone on the importance of upholding the original intent of America’s founding document. They’ve been oddly silent as Donald Trump’s administration directly assaults the Constitution. He’s not the first one to do it, but he is doing so more brazenly than others. Even if some ‘whataboutism’ is appropriate, wouldn’t it be more consistent for conservatives to criticize these assaults just as they criticized previous assaults under Joe Biden and Barack Obama? Cheering — or remaining silent — as ICE agents arrest those who photograph them (First Amendment), carry out warrantless searches (Fourth Amendment), and ignore the directives of governors (10th Amendment) is the definition of hypocrisy.” (02/06/26)
“The recent expansion of the drug war into military action underscores a deeper problem: a longstanding policy with costs that are concrete, immense and well documented, while its benefits remain vague and modest.” (02/06/26)
“Formally, the United States still has a Constitution. We still have the three branches of government. Congress still has the House of Representatives and the Senate. The president is still elected by the Electoral College. The courts still function to resolve disputes and to define what the laws mean and what the Constitution means. Yet, thanks in large measure to the public fear and mania in the war on drugs in the 1980s and 1990s, the war on terror in the 2000s and 2010s, and now the war on immigrants, functionally, Congress found it easy to cut constitutional corners and to look the other way as one crisis after another has led to the expansion of executive powers and the erosion of personal freedoms.” (02/06/26)
“There is an unbridgeable gap in the United States right now between two people with polar opposite views of the world, its purpose, man’s place in it, and what the country should be in the future. And nobody can sit on the fence; you are on one side or another. ‘You are either for me or against me,’ Jesus said, and that is the situation every American faces right now, regarding the future and destiny of the nation. The Left isn’t going to change, folks. They are, for the foreseeable and indefinite future, rooted in their beliefs and ideology, and they aren’t going to be converted.” [editor’s note: Nor, I suspect, will Mark Lewis turn his life around, start rejecting the glamour of evil, and refuse to be further mastered by sin – TLK] (02/07/25)
“Are you sitting down? There’s big news from the Democratic Party. No, they haven’t developed a coherent plan to address ICE shooting civilians on American streets. Nor have they much to say about Trump’s foreign policy, which is so disruptive that it forced European nations to remember they have armies and deploy troops to Greenland. No, this is much more important for the country. Kamala Harris has released a video. … Harris is right that Democrats have struggled to keep momentum going after 2024. But the solution isn’t to pretend that a glossy website counts as a genuine gameplan. As the Democrats’ cringey YouTube channel showed us, the issue isn’t a lack of content. It’s a lack of substance.” (02/07/26)
“Yes, the Big Three Woke States (California, New York, and Illinois) all lost population. Note this is despite the influx of border jumpers into those States during Uncle Joe’s reign. But at the most causal observation, it is clear that many other Woke ‘Democratic Party stronghold’ States did have population growth. Particularly note Delaware, with 7.1% but even the Great Lake States (MN, WI, and MI), Washington State, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona had increases. Which apparently are mostly additions to their big urban areas. Their rural and frontier areas show little growth.” (02/07/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I saw a tweet by Elon Musk the other day: ‘Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.’ He put a sadface emoji at the end. I personally do not feel the slightest bit sorry for Elon Musk and his feelings. But the fact that these billionaires aren’t even enjoying themselves as they poison our planet and rob us all says so much about the madness of the civilization we are living in. I mean, think about it. It’s not even making them happy. … It would be terrible if these obscenely wealthy oligarchs were robbing everyone else of happiness in order to make themselves exponentially happier than all of us. But they’re not even making themselves happy. They’re fucking miserable. Everyone involved in this abusive dynamic is suffering from it — even the abusers.” (02/07/25)
Source: Independent Institute
by Williamson M Evers
“The Los Angeles Unified School District is about to endure a probably ugly teachers strike. But pouring more money into teacher salaries is not the answer. Rather, only three reforms have any hope of improving performance in LA Unified: breaking up the district; parental choice; and Mississippi-style rigor.” (02/07/26)
“Classical liberal arts education embraces the ideals of sharpening students’ critical and creative thinking; provoking them to examine divergent perspectives; and teaching them to strengthen their oral and written arguments. Yet, during the Covid period, colleges and universities all over the country followed government and bureaucratic mandates while discouraging and even punishing students’ critical thinking and questioning.” (02/07/26)
“The sustainable agriculture movement’s ideological opposition to biotechnology undermines genuine environmental progress and food security.” (02/08/26)