Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on CBS news’s Margaret Brennan’s tussle with Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Vice President JD Vance’s speech in Munich.” (02/17/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5149274-rising-february-17-2025/
Source: Foreign Policy
by Robert Muggah & Misha Glenny
“Organized crime, one of the world’s oldest professions, is entering a golden age. Whether pursued by tomb robbers in ancient Egypt, assassins in the Middle East, secret societies in China, pirates in the Caribbean, or the Italian Mafia, the criminal underworld is a constant of history. Modern tools of the trade — intimidation, corruption, trafficking, and violence — are much the same as in past millennia. Yet as [Rob] Jones observed, the sophistication, speed, and scale of today’s organized crime is breathtaking. And the international crime control regime — the legal frameworks, institutions, and cooperative mechanisms established by states and global organizations to prevent, investigate, and prosecute crime — is not remotely prepared.” 902/17/25)
Source: Associated Press
“Conservative activist Ed Martin, who echoed Donald Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election and defended Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol rioters, was nominated by the president on Monday to be the top federal prosecutor in Washington on a permanent basis. Martin had been serving as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia on an interim basis since just after Trump, a Republican, was sworn in for his second term on Jan. 20. His appointment must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. … Martin supervised legal clinics for low-income residents as director of the human rights office for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis and, for two decades before becoming U.S. attorney, ran his own law practice and was active in Republican politics, including as the head of the Missouri Republican Party.” (02/17/25)
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“The Trump administration’s foreign policy gambits can be baffling: Why rename the Gulf of Mexico? What is this fixation on annexing Greenland? Does anybody really want to find out what happens if we add Canadians to the U.S. Senate? But the president is right that allies have been allowed to shift the costs of their defense to the United States for decades, and they’ve relied on the U.S. to resolve what are largely European problems. With the U.S. government spending far beyond its means, it’s time for our NATO allies to step up, as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently suggested.” (02/17/25)
https://reason.com/2025/02/17/u-s-tells-europe-to-handle-its-own-defense/
Source: TomDispatch
by William Astore
“A few years ago, I came across an old book at an estate sale. Its title caught my eye: ‘Our New Possessions’. Its cover featured the Statue of Liberty against stylized stars and stripes. What were those ‘new possessions’? The cover made it quite clear: Cuba, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The subtitle made it even clearer: ‘A graphic account, descriptive and historical, of the tropic islands of the sea which have fallen under our sway, their cities, peoples, and commerce, natural resources and the opportunities they offer to Americans.’ What a mouthful! I’m still impressed with the notion that ‘tropical’ peoples falling ‘under our sway’ offered real Americans amazing opportunities, as did our (whoops — I meant their) lands. Consider that Manifest Destiny at its boldest, imperialism unapologetically being celebrated as a new basis for burgeoning American greatness.” (02/17/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/greenland-canada-the-panama-canal-the-gulf-of-america-gaza/
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson
“‘I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,’ J.D. Vance said in 2022 as he was running for the U.S. Senate. Now the vice president, he has been dispatched to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Munich. And it just had to be Munich, didn’t it? Where better to surrender to a tyrant without a fight? Mnichovska zrada, the Czechs call it — the Betrayal at Munich. But Donald Trump is no Neville Chamberlain — Chamberlain was an intelligent, accomplished, self-made man, and a patriot, albeit one who made a terrible error in judgment. He didn’t try to stage a coup when the British people voted him out in disgust. … Vis-a-vis Moscow, the Trump administration is not even a paper tiger: A paper tiger might at least give you a papercut.” (02/17/25)
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“A Delta Air Lines passenger jet crash landed at Toronto’s airport on Monday, the airport authority said, flipping upside down and leaving at least eight people injured, according to local media. The Endeavor Flight 4819 was landing in Canada’s biggest city from Minneapolis in the US state of Minnesota when it crashed, the airline said. Public broadcaster CBC said up to eight people were injured, including three critically. One of those three was a child, it said, adding they had been taken to hospital.” (02/17/25)
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Breaking out of a mindset of scarcity is harder than it sounds. Paul Rosenberg makes the case that scarcity on earth has been fundamentally overcome, yet, it’s the truth we can’t accept.” (02/17/25)
Source: The Hill
by Svante Myrick
“Donald Trump was elected president in large part by promising to bring down higher prices that have made life harder for millions of Americans. But since being sworn in, Trump has basically ignored those promises. In fact, the past few weeks have made it clear that lowering prices for average Americans is the least of Trump’s concerns. How do Trump’s promises to American families line up with his demonstrated priorities? Let’s review.” (02/17/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5145879-trump-abandons-inflation-promises/