Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance
“The Trump administration’s turning off of the foreign aid spigot to some recipients of foreign aid should come as no surprise. Republicans have over the years called for foreign aid to be withheld from one country or another to punish them for doing something particularly egregious or to persuade them to follow a particular course of action. But Republicans have no philosophical opposition to foreign aid. Just like they have no philosophical objection to government grants to the arts unless it funds blasphemous or pornographic art, no philosophical objection to welfare as long as it has some work requirements, and no philosophical objection to antidiscrimination laws as long as they don’t include discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity. Republicans generally don’t even have any objection to government funding for Planned Parenthood as long as the funding is not used to provide abortions.” (02/16/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/why-not-eliminate-all-foreign-aid/
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
“The viscous and sustained campaign mounted against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, by Israel and the U.S. now includes the German, Italian, French, Austrian and Czech foreign ministers demanding her resignation. This campaign is part of an effort by industrial nations to at once sustain the genocide in Gaza — nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the sham ceasefire took effect — and silence all those who demand the international community abide by the rule of law.” (02/16/26)
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-increasing-attacks-on-francesca
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The National-Security State.” (02/16/26)
https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/the-evil-within-part-2-the-national-security-state/
Source: Wired
by Boone Ashworth
“As the US government’s immigration crackdown expands across the country, anxious residents have mobilized to look out for each other. One way they’re doing that is by finding ways to build the tools they need to be resilient against the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents empowered to kill with impunity. All over the country, makers are 3D-printing thousands of whistles to help people on the ground alert others to nearby ICE activity. But the whistles are far from the only tools being used to respond to the surge of federal agents. Protesters are DIY-ing a wide array of gadgets like camera mounts, mobile networking gear, and handheld eye washers to clear away pepper spray, tear gas, and irritants used to quell protests. Many of these efforts are coming from individual makers. Many of these projects are being made in hacker spaces.” (02/16/26)
https://archive.is/VI9t3
Source: Fox News
by Jillian Michaels
“In the 1990s, America watched tobacco executives raise their right hands before Congress and swear nicotine was not addictive. We now know they were lying through their teeth. Internal documents later proved cigarettes were chemically engineered to maximize dependency and deliberately marketed to children to create ‘replacement smokers’ for a dying customer base. Today, we are watching the same lie unfold in real time. Only now, the product is not Marlboro. It is the algorithm. A new class of titans – Meta, TikTok, Snap and Google – have built digital machines designed to addict our kids. The damage is not in their lungs. It is in the wiring of their developing brains. On Feb. 9, a landmark jury trial began in California Superior Court that could fundamentally reshape how social media is regulated.” (02/16/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jillian-michaels-big-tech-built-digital-drug-our-kids-hooked
Source: The Hill
“President Trump on Monday blamed local and state officials in Washington, D.C., and Maryland for the wastewater spill into the Potomac River and directed federal authorities to assist in recovery efforts. Trump wrote on Truth Social that the spillage, which stemmed from a section of the Potomac Interceptor sewer line in Maryland collapsing last month, is a ‘massive Ecological Disaster’ that is the ‘result of the Gross Mismanagement of Local Democrat Leaders, particularly, Governor Wes Moore, of Maryland.’ The president went on to say he is ‘directing Federal Authorities to immediately provide all necessary Management, Direction, and Coordination to protect the Potomac, the Water Supply in the Capital Region, and our treasured National Resources in our Nation’s Capital City.'” (02/16/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5740548-trump-blames-potomac-spill/
Source: Le Monde [France]
“The ‘ultra-left’ in France was behind the deadly beating of a French youth aligned with the far right whose death has inflamed political tensions in the country, the justice minister said on Sunday, February 15. Gérald Darmanin also accused hard-left politicians, including from the La France Insoumise (LFI) party, the largest left-wing faction in parliament, of fueling violence with their language. The victim, identified only as Quentin, aged 23, had been hospitalized and placed into a coma on Thursday after being attacked in Lyon. Supporters said he was providing security at a protest against an appearance by Rima Hassan, an LFI member of the European Parliament, at Sciences Po Lyon university when he was assaulted by a gang of rival activists. The office of the Lyon prosecutor on Saturday told AFP he had died of his wounds.” (02/15/26)
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/02/15/french-ultra-left-behind-killing-of-right-wing-youth-says-justice-minister-darmanin_6750511_7.html
Source: The Bulwark
“The Real Conflict is Between Decent and Indecent (w/ David French).” (02/16/26)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-real-conflict-is-between-decent
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Kevin Duffy
“In my opinion, the benign environment of the past 17 years — zero interest rates, US tech dominance, S&P 500 index funds spitting out double-digit returns like a broken candy machine — is over. Interest rates one can actually see, the emergence of Chinese innovation, decline of the US dollar, and soaring precious metals prices have changed the investment game permanently. There is no going back. Yet most investors long for the past. Can you blame them? As a result, the current landscape is full of finches with abnormally long beaks.” (02/16/26)
https://mises.org/power-market/survival-least-fit
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ramzy Baroud
“While many nations occasionally resort to a ‘state of exception’ to deal with temporary crises, Israel exists in a permanent state of exception. This Israeli exceptionalism is the very essence of the instability that plagues the Middle East. The concept of the state of exception dates back to the Roman justitium, a legal mechanism for suspending law during times of civil unrest. However, the modern understanding was shaped by the German jurist Carl Schmitt, who famously wrote that the ‘sovereign is he who decides on the exception.’ While Schmitt’s own history as a jurist for the Third Reich serves as a chilling reminder of where such theories can lead, his work provides an undeniably accurate anatomy of raw power: it reveals how a ruler who institutes laws also holds the power to dismiss them, under the pretext that no constitution can foresee every possible crisis.” (02/16/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2026/02/15/first-gaza-then-the-world-the-global-danger-of-israeli-exceptionalism
