The Forgiveness of Children
4 hours ago
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
Friday, February 20, 2026
Supreme Court Strikes Down Most of Trump's Tariffs
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.
The 6-3 decision centers on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.
It’s the first major piece of Trump’s broad agenda to come squarely before the nation’s highest court, which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.
The majority found that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs. “The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
Read the rest here.
See also:
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Poll: Canadians View the US as a Threat to World Peace
OTTAWA — It’s the world’s most awkward breakup.
More than a year after U.S. President Donald Trump casually joked about absorbing Canada and repeatedly threatened debilitating tariffs on its goods, many Canadians are convinced their former pals to the south have lost the plot.
New results from The POLITICO Poll suggest a lasting chill has settled over the world’s former bosom buddies. Americans are rosy as ever about their northern neighbors, but Canadians don’t share the love.
Their message to America: It’s not us, it’s you.
Canadians don’t see Trump’s America as merely an annoyance, the survey found. They consider the superpower next door the world’s greatest threat to peacetime.
The POLITICO Poll — in partnership with U.K. polling firm Public First — finds Canadians increasingly view the United States as a source of global volatility instead of as a stabilizing ally.
In survey question after survey question, Canadians say the U.S. no longer reflects their values, is more likely to provoke conflict than to prevent it and, as a result, is pushing Canada to consider closer ties with other global powers — including overtures to China that would have seemed unthinkable only a couple of years ago.
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
The Corruption of the Legal System
Andrew Wiederhorn lived large. His Oregon estate, on a bluff overlooking downtown Portland, had 10 bedrooms, a 2,000-square-foot pool and an indoor basketball court. Even after he lost the property, he flew on private jets, took luxury vacations and in less than four years spent nearly $700,000 on shopping and jewelry alone.
How did Mr. Wiederhorn get this money? According to the Justice Department, largely through fraud. Mr. Wiederhorn was the chief executive of the fast-food company that owns Johnny Rockets and Fatburger, and according to prosecutors, he stole some $47 million from the business in secret payments disguised as loans. (Mr. Wiederhorn and his legal team denied any wrongdoing.) This wasn’t even the first time Mr. Wiederhorn was accused of a criminal scheme: Two decades earlier, he spent over a year in prison for his role in a plan to steal from a union pension fund.
Mr. Wiederhorn was never convicted for the secret payments; his case never even went to trial. In late 2024, his company donated $100,000 to President Trump’s second inaugural committee. A few months later, the prosecutor on his case was fired by a White House official, and a few months after that, the government dropped the criminal case entirely. Mr. Wiederhorn, who had left his job after being indicted, returned to running the business he allegedly stole from. Shortly after, the company went bankrupt.
Mr. Wiederhorn is one of many defendants helping to forge a new path in American justice, one that takes the rich quite literally beyond the reach of the law. Their corruption threatens our economy and our democracy, and is so widespread and so brazen that it is easy to feel powerless. But we are not. There are legal tools that we can use to stop this corruption without waiting for the Justice Department, or anyone else, to act. We can fight back. But first, we need to understand who we’re fighting.
Consider, for instance, Trevor Milton, who was convicted of defrauding investors in his electric vehicle company. (Among other tricks: A video of his electric semi truck was allegedly forged by simply dragging the inoperable vehicle to the top of a hill and then letting it roll down.) Mr. Milton was sentenced to four years in prison. After he gave nearly $2 million to Trump-allied political committees, the president pardoned him. This meant that, among other things, Mr. Milton would not have to pay the $660 million that prosecutors demanded be returned to his defrauded investors.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
The Decline of Liberal Policing in Britain and its Former Empire
The concept of classical liberal policing (henceforth “liberal policing”) has taken a beating in recent years, nowhere more so than in Britain and its former dominions. When Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police in 1829, the flagship of Britain’s modern police forces, he envisioned it as a people’s police. Officers would defend British liberties on behalf of the public, not because the common people were incapable, but because it was more efficient to delegate the task to full-time professionals. To reduce undue political influence, officers swore an oath of allegiance to the Crown and to the law, not to the government of the day. They were unarmed and dressed in blue, as opposed to military scarlet, to emphasize their civilian status. The liberal image of British “bobbies,” as they were affectionately nicknamed, was immortalized in the television show Dixon of Dock Green (1955–1976). The main character, Police Constable George Dixon, lived among the community he served and upheld the law through routine foot patrols. His knack for subduing wrongdoers through words of wisdom meant that he rarely used violence.
Even as this television show was being aired,
however, British police forces were discarding the
liberal policing model. Constables have become
increasingly militarized, politicized, and distant
from the citizens they are supposed to serve.
Nowadays, they appear more likely to violate civil
liberties than to safeguard them. Two examples will
suffice to show this fact. In 2002, the police arrested
Harry Hammond, a British evangelical Christian,
for exercising his right to protest. Hammond held
up a placard in public criticizing homosexuality.
When offended hecklers began verbally and
physically harassing Hammond, the police were
called. In the old days, they would have protected
Hammond because freedom of speech is a central
pillar of British justice. Instead, an officer arrested
Hammond for hate speech. Even influential figures
find themselves targeted. In September 2025, counter-terrorism police detained George Galloway
and his wife. Galloway is a former member of
parliament who leads the far-left Workers Party of
Britain. Many of Galloway’s political opinions are
anathema to liberalism. Nevertheless, he has a right
to freedom of speech, and he is a brave critic of
British imperialism. Counter terrorism officers
informed Galloway and his wife that they were
being detained without charge and that they had no
right to silence. The elderly couple were grilled for
several hours about their views on Palestine, Russia,
China, and other areas of the world. Their devices
and documents were confiscated. Galloway, who is
in his seventies, says the stress of the ordeal has left
him with heart problems.
How could the British police have degenerated so
quickly from Dixon of Dock Green into an
overbearing state gendarmerie? This article argues
that there was always an illiberal streak in Peel’s
model of policing. Like many British liberals, Peel
supported the British Empire, which used repression
to keep subject peoples in check. From the outset,
this concession to imperialism left the door open to police authoritarianism. This threshold was crossed
irrevocably in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, as colonialism reached its apex
and the First World War militarized the country.
This tendency compromised the British police by
the 1920s, though it preserved some liberal aspects
until the 1960s, and one could find a liberal-minded
remnant well into the early 2000s.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Prayers please...
Fr.. Z's mother has reposed. In your mercy please for the repose of her soul. Having recently experienced the same loss, I extend my deepest sympathies and prayers.
Memory eternal!
Thursday, February 12, 2026
How Virginia's top court might decide Democrats' gerrymandering fate
Virginia Democrats are moving forward with plans to gerrymander their way to four more congressional seats — but they need help from the state’s top court.
After a lower court blocked Democrats’ efforts to amend the state Constitution and redraw federal congressional lines ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, the Virginia Court of Appeals requested the Virginia Supreme Court weigh in.
That puts the fate of the map — and potentially congressional control after the 2026 midterms — in the hands of a group of justices that observers say can be hard to predict.
Political and legal experts in Virginia agree the state Supreme Court is not overtly ideological, with many describing it as “small-c conservative,” leaning heavily on tradition and precedent rather than handing down ideologically right-wing rulings. And many observers say the court is wary of wading too heavily into political fights. But this time, it’s unavoidable.
“It’s kind of a state Supreme Court tradition to stay away from political matters whenever they can. They like to leave the legislating to the legislature. So this is going to be a really interesting test of that tradition,” said Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, who attended William & Mary Law School in Virginia and worked in state politics.
Read the rest here.
Baseball's Salary Wars Are About to Go Nuclear
Kyle Tucker
THERE IS A group of fans who are angry at baseball. There are a lot of them, and they do not exist only on social media. They are inside of group chats that talk about how much money the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending after winning the past two World Series, and they are in cities big and small that look at the Dodgers with envy masked by eye rolls and curses, and they might just want to devote more time to the game -- maybe they love the pitch clock or Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge or the in-person vibe or any number of things about the game today worth loving -- but they're not sure the whole thing is fair.
Owners are angry, too. Their franchise valuations aren't growing as quickly as their billionaire peers' in other sports, and they blame the system that governs Major League Baseball. They don't like it. Nearly every owner believes MLB needs a salary cap. Its presence, owners say, immediately would juice franchise values, with the labor cost essentially fixed and no more chasing Dodgers teams spending $500 million annually on players. At the same time, they say, it would provide a pathway to competitive balance, which they believe is entirely out of whack. They think a salary cap will fix everything, even if it means jeopardizing the 2027 season. "They are ready to burn the f---ing house down," one high-ranking team official said.
Read the rest here.
HT: BW
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
What Trump Is the Best at, Hands Down
President Trump is unrivaled in American history in one respect: None of his predecessors ever cashed in on the presidency as he has.
The Teapot Dome scandal under Warren Harding? Richard Nixon’s slush funds during Watergate? Those seem like junior high school by comparison with the present culture of corruption.
The fire hose of disclosures has been overwhelming. A Times editorial estimated conservatively that the Trump family has made more than $1.4 billion in documented gains by exploiting the second term of his presidency. (Others offer higher figures.)
And all that pales beside the latest bombshell: a $500 million secret deal backed by a government leader in the United Arab Emirates, just four days before Trump was inaugurated for his second term.
Here’s what we know.
The Wall Street Journal broke the story, reporting that on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the Emiratis purchased 49 percent of a Trump family cryptocurrency company for $500 million. It’s difficult to see why anybody would pay so much for a fledgling company — unless the point was to enrich the Trumps.
Most of the money in effect went to the Trump family, but some found its way to the family of Steve Witkoff, a co-owner of the venture. Trump had selected Witkoff to become the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East.
Read the rest here.
Monday, February 09, 2026
Libertarians Tried to Warn You About Trump (link corrected)
Libertarians can be annoying, with our constant bellyaching about privacy and taxes, our obsession with the First Amendment and our fearmongering about jackbooted thugs.
But in light of how the past year has unfolded, consider cutting your friendly neighborhood libertarian some slack. After all, we did try to warn you.
On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. Masked federal officials are swarming areas far from the border, shooting American citizens and whisking away children in the name of immigration enforcement. Armed National Guardsmen walk the streets of several cities under the banner of vague emergency mandates to maintain law and order. Legal visa holders are being deported for expressing their opinions on Gaza and Charlie Kirk. Tariffs on China have been set at 10, 20, 54, 145 and 30 percent in just the last few months. The ownership of TikTok, Intel and U.S. Steel have all become matters in which the president has taken a personal interest — and threatened dire consequences if his wishes are not taken into account.
These stories represent a terrifying pattern and an undeniable vindication of the long-held libertarian view that the steady growth in the size of the federal government and executive power would lead to precisely this kind of runaway authoritarianism.
Libertarians have argued that the only way to prevent such abuses is to reduce the power of the federal government itself — abolishing unaccountable federal agencies, scaling back the administrative state, cutting spending — and to restore the balance of powers by reining in the executive. This path has generally been treated as hopelessly naïve at best, and morally suspect at worst.
Each of the major parties has pulled away from the libertarian elements of their coalitions (small-government, free-market types for the Republicans and civil libertarians for the Democrats), preferring instead the instant gratification of grasping power and wielding it as aggressively as possible for the period they hold it. Libertarian voices have gradually gone quiet in the halls of the capital — bullied into silence, primaried out or resigning in despair.
Yet it has never been more obvious that the grab-and-grow approach to power is a destructive and self-defeating way to conduct politics.
Read the rest here.
Honestly, I was somewhat surprised (pleasantly) to see something like this on the op-ed page of the NY Times.
(Note: I just noticed that I accidentally linked the wrong page. The link has been updated. Grrr.)
The Corrupt Pardon at the Center of Trump’s UAE Windfall
As forecast in the first post in this series, let’s turn to Changpeng Zhao, known to his crypto confederates as “CZ.”
Even before the Wall Street Journal’s recent reporting on the Trump-UAE crypto enterprise in which Zhao played a vital role, we already knew some of the story: I wrote about it last autumn and our Jim Geraghty did his usual stellar reporting on the topic.
Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire, is the founder of Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2023, he was convicted of money laundering and eventually served about four months in prison. Binance was also convicted, subjected to more than $4 billion in fines and forfeitures, and was banned from operating in the United States. Zhao pleaded guilty, and the platform accepted the severe penalties and sanctions because the government’s case was overwhelming. As the Justice Department put it, Zhao turned Binance into a covert funding channel for “terrorists, cybercriminals and child abusers.”
And yet, President Donald Trump pardoned him. While it’s not a sure thing, the pardon, in wiping out Zhao’s criminal convictions, opens the possibility that Binance could be reinstated for U.S. operations. At the very least, the pardon bolsters Zhao’s chances of qualifying to do business in other markets, where Binance still faces licensing challenges. Places such as the UAE, where Zhao now lives and enjoys warm relations with the royal family — crypto enthusiasts. It’s the country he and his hosts would like to see Binance make its global hub.
Read the rest here.
See also: The Sordid Story of Trump, the Trump–Witkoff Family Business, and the UAE
Sunday, February 08, 2026
Demanding Political Loyalty, Trump's DOJ Struggles With Staffing
Chad Mizelle, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, hung an online help wanted sign for federal prosecutors last weekend that perhaps explained why so many valuable Justice Department staff members have left, and why so few candidates want in.
Assistant U.S. attorneys are not typically recruited, as Mr. Mizelle sought to do, by a former federal employee who asks potential candidates to send a private message to his X account. Nor have they been asked in the past to prove political or ideological fealty.
“If you are a lawyer, are interested in being an AUSA, and support President Trump and anti-crime agenda, DM me,” wrote Mr. Mizelle, a fierce Trump supporter who remains close with Justice Department leaders and senior officials in the West Wing.
Mr. Mizelle was acting as a private citizen expressing his own views. But the post reflected the prevailing sentiment inside the department — that Mr. Trump has the right to hire only those willing to execute his agenda. It also highlighted the dynamic that appears to be contributing to the very staffing shortages Mr. Mizelle tried to address.
The intermingling of law enforcement and political goals has made the department, long a magnet for platinum legal talent, an unappealing landing spot, according to current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The number of applications is down significantly from previous years, officials said, even as Trump loyalists have publicized vacancies through official and unconventional channels. Some of those applying are generally not as qualified as those who sought the position in the recent past, they added.
A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to specific questions, but said all of the department’s actions reflected Ms. Bondi’s February 2025 memo requiring all employees to “zealously advance, protect and defend” the interests of Mr. Trump in his role as the nation’s chief executive.
The White House has exercised extraordinary control over the Justice Department, with prosecutors pressured to investigate and prosecute the president’s enemies, all in the name of reversing purported politicization under Democrats.
Applications for vacant slots in U.S. attorneys’ offices, once apolitical questionnaires, now often include requirements to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s policies.
“How would you help advance the president’s executive orders and policy priorities in this role?” read one of the queries on an application for a job in the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, whose ranks have drastically thinned after the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis spawned an exodus of prosecutors.
“Identify one or two relevant executive orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired,” reads another.
Read the rest here.
Friday, February 06, 2026
Trump wanted Dulles Airport and Penn Station named after him as condition of releasing rail tunnel funds
Trump administration officials made it known to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that the president would release federal funds for a massive rail tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey on the condition that two major travel hubs be renamed in his honor, according to three people with knowledge of the request.
The three people, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive negotiation, said President Donald Trump would agree to release the funding for the Gateway project, which has been held up since October — but that his ask was that both Washington-Dulles International Airport outside Washington, and Pennsylvania Station in New York City, be renamed for the president.
Schumer declined the offer, according to two people with knowledge of the request. “There was nothing to trade,” said a person close to Schumer. “The president stopped the funding and he can restart the funding with a snap of his fingers.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Read the rest here.
Thursday, February 05, 2026
Bitcoin down almost half from its highs
Bitcoin’s plunge accelerated on Thursday, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency fell more than 10% to below $66,000 in afternoon trading, a level not seen since October 2024. The moves underscore how vulnerable cryptocurrencies can be when investors turn away from risk.
The sharp drop was a reversal from late last year, when bitcoin surged to record highs above $125,000 a coin. In the four months since then, the digital currency has lost nearly half its value.
The selling comes as investors pull back from riskier assets like crypto and tech stocks, and rotate into traditional “safe haven” assets like gold.
Since bitcoin’s October peak, the gap between its performance and gold’s has widened significantly. As of Thursday afternoon, the value of bitcoin had fallen 32% since February 2025, while the value of gold has soared 70%.
This year alone, gold is up more than 14% while bitcoin is down more than 20%.
As crypto plummets, the U.S. dollar is also feeling the heat from wary investors who are rethinking where they put their assets.
Read the rest here.
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