Source: The UnPopulist
by Anne Lutz Fernandez
“News of Trump’s plans to gut the Department of Education has certainly made waves. But given that the federal government has a limited role in K-12 education and limited control over education spending, too few are focused on considering what public education under Trump’s second term might look like. If Uncle Sam is out of the K-12 business, at least President Trump won’t be using his power to interfere with local schools, right? If only! Trump, working with a GOP-controlled Congress, can inflict damage not just to American education but through it. The track record of MAGA-run states, the policy designs of Project 2025, and Trump’s own statements reveal a clear interest in using schools to sunder the separation of church and state.” (02/19/25)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-is-not-taking-the-state-out
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Tori Noble
“You shouldn’t need a permission slip to read a webpage–whether you do it with your own eyes, or use software to help. AI is a category of general-purpose tools with myriad beneficial uses. Requiring developers to license the materials needed to create this technology threatens the development of more innovative and inclusive AI models, as well as important uses of AI as a tool for expression and scientific research.” (02/19/25)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/ai-and-copyright-expanding-copyright-hurts-everyone-heres-what-do-instead
Source: US News & World Report
“Three oil tankers have been damaged by blasts in the last month in separate incidents around the Mediterranean, with the causes unknown, shipping and security sources said on Wednesday. … An explosion caused a one-metre inward breach below the waterline on the hull of Greek-operated crude oil tanker Seajewel at a port in northern Italy on Saturday, one of the shipping sources said. A second blast occurred 20 minutes later on the same vessel without causing further damage. … Another vessel operated by Thenamaris, the crude oil tanker Seacharm, was also damaged by a blast off the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in late January, two of the sources said. In a third incident, the Liberia-flagged chemical and products tanker Grace Ferrum was damaged off Libya in February, three sources said, with one adding that the vessel would require a salvage operation.” (02/19/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-02-19/three-tankers-damaged-by-blasts-in-mediterranean-in-the-last-month-causes-unknown-sources-say
Source: Reason
“Wall Street legend Jim O’Shaughnessy discusses how to live well and innovate boldly during the age of Trump, Musk, and AI.” (02/19/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/02/19/jim-oshaughnessy-dont-squander-this-age-of-innovation/
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“‘Workers across the country responded with anger and confusion,’ the Associated Press reported last week, in response to the Trump administration’s layoffs of probationary workers. … The legacy media has portrayed this all as a conflict between the hard-working, guileless folk of the federal workforce on the one hand, and the insensitive villains of the Trump administration on the other. There is a third party to all of this that is virtually never mentioned by the media, though: the taxpayers who pay for it all.” (02/19/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/class-warfare-exploitation-taxpayers-federal-workers
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“This week, the Supreme Court can begin cleaning up a predictable mess — it was predicted by a justice at the time — that it made with a misbegotten decision 20 years ago. The justices in conference on Friday are set to begin considering whether to decide a case that gives the court an opportunity to overturn Kelo, a decision so bad it provoked the passage of many beneficial state laws.” (02/19/25)
https://archive.is/NnJM5
Source: Fox News
by Sean Duffy
“On my first day as secretary of Transportation, we witnessed the midair collision in Washington, D.C., that took 67 lives. While the investigation is ongoing, the tragedy highlighted the urgent need to modernize our air traffic systems — and to move past the broken promises and political inertia of the past. The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) unsustainable software systems that we’ve inherited are symptomatic of the endemic problems that plagued the Biden administration: a bloated bureaucracy that pushed overregulation instead of innovation, and radical DEI instead of merit. As a result, innovation stagnated and safety was sacrificed. Unlike my predecessors, I won’t run from difficult problems; I will fix them.” (02/19/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sean-duffy-americas-air-traffic-systems-need-urgent-upgrade
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on Dr. Deborah Birx’s recent admission about the Covid-19 vaccines.” (02/19/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5153009-rising-february-19-2025/
Source: Liberal Currents
by Gus DiZerega
“American conservatism is largely an intellectual corpse, killed by people who claim to be conservatives.” (02/19/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-suicide-of-american-conservatism/
Source: New York Post
by Alan Dershowitz
“The president, through his attorney general, has the power to determine prosecutorial priorities — such as the deportation of illegal [sic] aliens over the prosecution of a mayor who he believes could help him implement that policy. Danielle Sassoon (who once was a student researcher for me and is a friend) had the right to refuse to play a role in dropping the prosecution of Adams, who she understandably believes is guilty of serious crimes that were neutrally investigated for years before Trump assumed office. She, like any public official, has the prerogative to resign or be fired rather than agree to file a motion she believes is wrong. In her resignation letter, Sassoon said her decision was a matter of ethics because she believed that the decision to drop the charges was part of a quid pro quo.” (02/19/25)
https://nypost.com/2025/02/19/opinion/theres-nothing-unusual-or-wrong-with-deal-justice-offered-mayor-adams/
