Category: Opinion

Source: spiked
by Tim Black

“The obsession with these tawdry emails and images risks junking due process and fuelling conspiracism.” (02/02/26)

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/02/02/the-epstein-feeding-frenzy/

Source: The Intercept
by Nick Turse

“‘Terrorist’ is the word that the Trump administration employs to describe the victims of its most egregious acts of state violence. President Donald Trump has used the word ‘terrorist’ to justify the extrajudicial killings of civilians in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. And his deputies used it to explain away the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis by federal agents. … These killings were conducted thousands of miles apart by different agencies in very different contexts. But the connection between them could be more than semantic.” (02/02/26)

https://theintercept.com/2026/02/02/trump-nspm-7-domestic-terrorist-minneapolis-alex-pretti/

Source: TomDispatch
by Juan Cole

“The pro-democracy protesters in Iran deserved so much better. They deserved the support of a democratic United States that could sincerely urge the rule of law and habeas corpus (allowing people to legally challenge their detentions) be respected, not to speak of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly in accordance with the Constitution. Unfortunately, President Donald J. Trump has forfeited any claim to respect for such rights or a principled foreign policy and so has proved strikingly ineffective in aiding those protesters. The arbitrary arrests and killings committed by agents of Trump’s authoritarian-style rule differ only in number, not in kind, from the detainments and killings of protesters carried out by the basij (or pro-regime street militias) in Iran. In fact, they rendered his protests and bluster about Iran the height of hypocrisy.” (02/02/25)

https://tomdispatch.com/why-trumps-denunciations-of-the-iranian-killings-ring-fatally-hollow/

Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders

“Healthy societies balance freedom and order, just as healthy individuals balance the energies within each of us.” (02/02/26)

https://underthrow.substack.com/p/human-energies-feminine-and-masculine

Source: RealClearPolitics
by Bill King

“For the last two decades, Republican leaders have governed the state to satisfy their base – pandering to the issues important to those voters and ignoring what most Texans wanted. That was largely because independents, even though they frequently disagreed with the positions state leaders were taking, found Democratic candidates even further outside their comfort zone. But the Tarrant County results and the polling trends over the last year suggest Republican leaders may have gone so far that independents now view Democrats as the lesser of the two evils.” (02/03/26)

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/02/03/a_texas_political_shock_republicans_cant_ignore_153789.html

Source: Washington Post
by Matthew Lynn

“Governments can’t increase birth rates. Instead, learn to cope with a shrinking population.” (02/02/26)

https://archive.is/D7Omh

Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul

“For the past month, Americans have been wondering whether President Trump will attack Iran, or whether the massive military build-up in the Middle East is just another bluff. President Trump claims that the decision is his alone to make. Thus far, President Trump has made little effort to explain to the American people – or to Congress – why launching a war against Iran is in our national interest. Instead, he wanders from one reason to another, hoping something will stick.” (02/02/26)

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/will-he-or-wont-he

Source: Town Hall
by Victor Davis Hanson

“In the months before the April 12, 1861, firing on Fort Sumter, there were lots of sharp divisions in the North about the proper reaction to the first seven Confederate states that had already left the Union. Not all Unionists believed that war was inevitable. Some, in fact, were happy to be done with the departing South and thus see their stain of slavery gone from the Union. Similarly, others agreed that the emerging Confederacy was not worth the trouble and costs of war, and the secessionists could just form their own nation and stew in their own backward, servile juice. But after Fort Sumter, Lincoln … gained a consensus that the Constitution had no clauses about any lawful departure from the Union. But it did operate under a clear supremacy clause that made state obstruction of federal law and occupation of federal property veritable sedition.” (02/02/25)

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2026/02/02/slouching-toward-fort-sumter-n2670522

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by James Bovard

“In last month’s Future of Freedom article, I explained how the 2016 presidential election made ‘post-truth’ become the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year. Americans felt forced to choose between two candidates that most voters despised. The political system’s credibility plummeted in the 2016 campaign. But the 2016 election was actually far more corrupt than it appeared at the time. The FBI sought to cast a veto over the votes of American citizens.” (02/02/26)

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/how-the-fbi-crippled-democracy-in-2016-and-beyond/

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott

“After nearly two decades of halting, stumbling talks, India and the European Union (EU) have at last concluded a free trade agreement (FTA) that both sides are describing as economically consequential and strategically necessary. Exposure to global volatility has shaped India’s economic geostrategy in 2025 and looks to do so in 2026 just as much, meaning that a reliable trading partner is highly sought after; while the EU has been left feeling bruised over trade relations with the United States.” (02/02/26)

https://fee.org/articles/europes-new-india-deal/