02/10 -- Massie, Khanna Say They Found the Names of Six Potential Epstein Co-Conspirators; On Its 30th Birthday, Section 230 Remains The Lynchpin For Users' Speech
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Thomas L. Knapp
Feb 10, 2026, 6:15:32 AM (yesterday) Feb 10
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 02/10/26
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Massie, Khanna Say They Found the Names of Six Potential Epstein Co-Conspirators
2) Palestine: Israeli Regime Approves Expanded Squatting in Occupied West Bank
3) Indian Ocean: US-based pirates seize oil tanker
4) Donetsk: Russian Forces Pressuring Pokrovsk as “Last Battles” Rage
5) Maxwell pleads the Fifth in House deposition on Epstein files
6) Eddie Bauer stores file bankruptcy and begin liquidation sales
7) Tanzania: Opposition leader returns to court for treason trial after monthslong delay
8) US DOJ wants Bannon’s contempt conviction overturned
9) Air Canada halts Cuba flights as Cuban airport warns it will run out of jet fuel
10) Trump officials get more time to hold Hudson River tunnel funds
11) Former Walmart US CEO Greg Foran takes helm at rival grocer Kroger after year-long search
12) EU bureaucrats prep new bribe demands from Meta over blocking rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp
13) US Treasuries Decline on News Chinese Banks Asked to Limit US Bonds
14) War crimes prosecutors seek 45 years’ prison for Kosovo ex-president
15) CA: San Francisco Teachers Walk Out for the First Time Since 1979
16) UK: Lawmakers rally in support of Starmer as calls to resign ease
17) GA: Federal judge orders search warrants to be unsealed in Fulton County election raid
18) Hong Kong: Beijing puppet court sentence political prisoner Jimmy Lai to 20 years
19) Trial of frivolous money grab suit against Instagram, YouTube begins
20) Epstein files: Congressional lawmakers call for Trump Commerce chief Lutnick to resign, or be fired
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) On Its 30th Birthday, Section 230 Remains The Lynchpin For Users’ Speech
22) Is Nixing Aid to Israel a Poison Chalice?
23) Can the rise of populism be explained as a reaction to the rule of experts?
24) The Supreme Court Lives in Fox News’s America
25) Privatize Ollantaytambo
26) Trump said he’d reduce federal spending. It’s gotten worse.
27) The Evil of US Economic Strangulation of Cuba
28) Uncle Sam, Drug Traffickers, and Their Friendship
29) Eight Decades Later, It Remains One World or None
30) No, it is not Islamophobic to criticise the Islamic Republic
31) What happens when we give Europe first dibs on US missiles for war
32) If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait’l You See What They Do Out In The Open
33) Iran: A Bogus or Genuine Rebellion?
34) Civilizational Schlerosis
35) Pricing, Information, and Risk in Pharma
36) How Jeff Bezos ruined The Washington Post and why he should sell it
37) The Genie in the Bottle: Vaccine Rites
38) Alienated by Trump, Europeans Finally Take Responsibility for Defense
39) The Reopening of the Conservative Mind?
40) Iran’s Comprehensive Peace Proposal to the United States
41) Marriage Markets
42) The best evidence against Trump’s tariffs? His own first term.
43) Liberty Eroding, Gold Rising: 30 Years of Warning
44) It’s Time to Unleash 401(k)s
45) Democrats stir up racial division to seize political power; time we stop falling for their hoaxes
46) From Greenland to the Great Lakes, Secession is Our Best Hope for Escaping Tyranny
47) British Politicians Are Still Capable of Shame. Americans Aren’t.
48) Plato Understood Why Masking Would Turn ICE Agents Into Devils
49) Board of Peace Is a Board of Profits
50) Denuclearizing North Korea Is Unrealistic
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 02/09/26
52) Finding Freedom, 02/09/26
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/09/26
54) Rising, 02/09/26
55) Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 153
56) EconTalk, 02/09/26
57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 02/09/26
58) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 02/08/26
59) Free Talk Live, 02/08/26
60) Matt Williams on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Massie, Khanna Say They Found the Names of Six Potential Epstein Co-Conspirators
Source: NOTUS
“Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna claimed on Monday that the Department of Justice improperly redacted the names and faces of six potential co-conspirators of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The two lawmakers, who led the congressional charge to compel the DOJ to release every government file related to Epstein, arrived at Two Constitution Square to review less-redacted versions of the files than have been released to the public so far. After their in-person review on Monday, they again accused the DOJ of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act. … Massie claimed the men were ‘likely incriminated’ based on the document’s context, but declined for now to share their names. He said he first wanted to give the DOJ a chance to explain why those names weren’t made public.” (02/09/26)
https://www.notus.org/congress/ro-khanna-and-thomas-massie-names-jeffrey-epstein-co-conspirators
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2) Palestine: Israeli Regime Approves Expanded Squatting in Occupied West Bank
Source: New York Times
“Israel’s government has taken unilateral steps to give itself greater control over the occupied West Bank, challenging President Trump’s opposition to Israeli annexation of the territory and possibly violating international law. The measures, which make it easier for [squatters to steal] land and undercut the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank that it administers, appear to flout important agreements that Israel signed under the Oslo peace process decades ago. The changes were made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet at a closed-door meeting on Sunday. By enhancing Israel’s control over West Bank territory [within the borders of the State of Palestine], they effectively advance the cause of annexation by degrees — continuing a strategy that the government has been pursuing for years.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/ZPqke
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3) Indian Ocean: US-based pirates seize oil tanker
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“U.S. military [pirates] boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday. The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces U.S. sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after U.S. forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.” (02/09/26)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/09/pentagon-oil-tanker/
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4) Donetsk: Russian Forces Pressuring Pokrovsk as “Last Battles” Rage
Source: US News & World Report
“Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in [Donetsk], Kyiv’s military said on Monday, hoping to conclude a months-long campaign to seize the strategic hub as Moscow seeks to capture the whole of the Donetsk [republic]. Ukraine has struggled to halt slow Russian advances around Pokrovsk and elsewhere along the 1,200-km (746-mile) front line while it comes under U.S. pressure to reach a peace deal to end the four-year war in ongoing talks. Kyiv’s General Staff said on Monday its forces still held the northern part of Pokrovsk, a city with a pre-war population of 60,000, and were also defending the smaller city of Myrnohrad nearby.” (02/09/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-02-09/russian-forces-pressuring-pokrovsk-as-last-battles-rage
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5) Maxwell pleads the Fifth in House deposition on Epstein files
Source: The Hill
“Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, refused to answer questions during a deposition with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday, asserting her Fifth Amendment right. Maxwell previously indicated her plans to do so, saying she would testify under oath only if she was given criminal immunity. Lawmakers exiting the deposition were incensed she asserted her Fifth Amendment right on every question posed to her, arguing the blanket response was inappropriate given that they had many questions that did not concern her conduct.” (02/09/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5729647-ghislaine-maxwell-fifth-amendment-jeffrey-epstein/
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6) Eddie Bauer stores file bankruptcy and begin liquidation sales
Source: Axios
“The company that runs Eddie Bauer stores in the U.S. and Canada filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began liquidation sales. Mall retailers have been challenged for years amid waning foot traffic and digital competition. Eddie Bauer LLC said early Monday in a court filing that it had already begun going-out-of-business sales at its approximately 175 remaining stores. The company said it had lined up a restructuring agreement with secured lenders in conjunction with its bankruptcy filing. It will pursue a sale that could result in halting the liquidation sales and keeping stores open.” (02/09/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/09/eddie-bauer-closing-bankruptcy-sales
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7) Tanzania: Opposition leader returns to court for treason trial after monthslong delay
Source: ABC News
“Tanzania’s opposition leader charged with treason appeared in court for the first time in months on Monday, but the hearing was adjourned yet again after he opposed the prosecution’s plan to have secret witnesses appear in a special enclosed cell. Opposition leader Tundu Lissu has been in prison for 10 months after he was arrested following an opposition rally in which he called for constitutional and electoral law reforms before last year’s disputed election. Lissu, who is representing himself in the case, said the punishment for treason is death and that secret witnesses in enclosed cells pose a huge risk and are likely to result in an unjust outcome for the case.” (02/09/26)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/tanzania-opposition-leader-returns-court-treason-trial-after-129997946
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8) US DOJ wants Bannon’s contempt conviction overturned
Source: USA Today
“The Trump administration is seeking to overturn former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction. In filings to the district court and Supreme Court, the Justice Department said the government has determined ‘that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.’ The filings did not elaborate further. Bannon defied a congressional subpoena demanding he testify about the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. President Donald Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bannon and others as political, including the approximately 1,600 people he pardoned for charges related to the attack. A dismissal of Bannon’s case would avoid the need for Trump to pardon him, too. At the end of his first term as president, Trump pardoned Bannon as he was awaiting trial in Manhattan for a different case: fraud charges tied to a border wall fundraising effort.” (02/09/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/02/09/justice-department-trump-steve-bannon-conviction-contempt/88594169007/
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9) Air Canada halts Cuba flights as Cuban airport warns it will run out of jet fuel
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“Air Canada says it is suspending service to Cuba effective Monday as the Caribbean island’s major airport warns it will run out of jet fuel. Over the following days, the airline will fly empty planes to pick up approximately 3,000 customers already in Cuba and return them home, Air Canada said Monday in a statement. … In an official notice called a NOTAM posted to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website Sunday, Havana’s José Martí International Airport warns ‘Jet A1 fuel not available’ as of Tuesday, with the warning running until March 11.” (02/09/26)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/travel-to-cuba-fuel-shortage-9.7080648
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10) Trump officials get more time to hold Hudson River tunnel funds
Source: Crain’s New York Business
“The Trump administration plans to appeal a temporary court order that blocks the federal government from withholding funds for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The Gateway Development Commission is building the new tunnel but had to stop construction late Friday because it’s exhausted all of its funding sources. The Trump administration has been in a standstill with Gateway since October, when it halted funding for the tunnel over a new rule that prohibits contracting requirements based on race or sex. New York and New Jersey sued the administration on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan after Gateway filed its own suit late Monday in an effort to unlock more than $205 million of federal funds in the Court of Federal Claims.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/Cn23k
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11) Former Walmart US CEO Greg Foran takes helm at rival grocer Kroger after year-long search
Source: Fox Business
“A former top rival of grocery giant Kroger has been named the company’s next chief executive officer. Greg Foran — former CEO of Walmart’s U.S. division — will now lead Kroger following an ‘extensive’ year-long search for ‘an innovative retail leader with a strong track record,’ the company announced Monday. Kroger is America’s biggest grocer by sales, behind only Walmart, and has been looking for a new leader since March 2025 when former CEO Rodney McMullen was ousted over an undisclosed ethics violation.” (02/09/26)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/former-walmart-us-ceo-greg-foran-takes-helm-rival-grocer-kroger-after-year-long-search
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12) EU bureaucrats prep new bribe demands from Meta over blocking rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp
Source: Engadget
“The EU could take ‘interim measures’ against WhatsApp as it investigates AI providers’ access to the app. On Monday, the EU’s regulatory arm announced its ‘preliminary view’ that Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, violated antitrust laws by blocking third-party AI assistants from operating on WhatsApp. The European Commission’s is concerned that Meta’s actions will limit competitors from entering the AI assistant market. ‘We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,’ Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition said in a statement.” (02/09/26)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/eu-warns-meta-over-blocking-rival-ai-chatbots-on-whatsapp-121708895.html?src=rss
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13) US Treasuries Decline on News Chinese Banks Asked to Limit US Bonds
Source: Bloomberg
“Treasuries extended losses after Chinese regulators reportedly asked the nation’s financial institutions to rein in their holdings of US bonds. Yields on 10-year Treasuries rose as much as four basis points on the day to 4.25% after trading around 4.22% earlier. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped 0.1%. Chinese officials had urged banks to limit purchases of US government bonds, and instructed those with high exposure to pare their positions, according to people familiar with the matter. The move was framed around diversifying risk rather than anything to do with geopolitical maneuvering or a fundamental loss of confidence in US creditworthiness. The directive doesn’t apply to China’s state holdings of US Treasuries.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/Lb821
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14) War crimes prosecutors seek 45 years’ prison for Kosovo ex-president
Source: Reuters
“International war crimes prosecutors said on Monday Kosovo’s former president Hashim Thaci controlled ethnic Albanian guerrillas and should be convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 45 years in prison. Thaci and three other ex-Kosovo Liberation Army commanders are charged with persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearances of people during and shortly after the 1998-99 uprising that eventually brought independence for the Albanian majority region from Serbia. … Thaci, 57, who served as prime minister, foreign minister and president of independent Kosovo between 2008 and 2020, and his co-accused deny all the charges.” (02/09/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/war-crimes-prosecutors-seek-45-years-prison-for-kosovo-ex-president-2026-02-09/
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15) CA: San Francisco Teachers Walk Out for the First Time Since 1979
Source: New York Times
“San Francisco teachers went on strike on Monday for the first time in nearly half a century, closing public schools for roughly 50,000 students in the city. The teachers walked out after their union, United Educators of San Francisco, could not reach an agreement on raises and health care costs despite nearly a year of negotiations with the San Francisco Unified School District. The union represents about 6,000 educators, counselors and nurses who work in more than 100 schools in the city. The strike has no set end date. The last teachers strike in San Francisco, in 1979, lasted for nearly seven weeks, making it one of the longest in state history.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/lR1WZ
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16) UK: Lawmakers rally in support of Starmer as calls to resign ease
Source: Associated Press
“British Prime Minister Keir Starmer found broad support among lawmakers Monday, easing speculation that he will be toppled by revelations about his former ambassador’s ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In an attempt to rebuild some of his badly weakened authority, Starmer addressed Labour lawmakers in a 75-minute closed-door session, the same day his office said he does not plan to step down. All of Starmer’s Cabinet members extended public support to him in the hours before the session, and legislators gave him a round of applause when it concluded. The prime minister is facing heavy criticism for appointing in 2024 Labour politician Peter Mandelson as the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. despite his disclosed ties to the convicted sex offender. Starmer fired Mandelson in September after published emails revealed his friendship with Epstein.” (02/09/26)
https://apnews.com/live/uk-starmer-resign-epstein-mandelson-updates
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17) GA: Federal judge orders search warrants to be unsealed in Fulton County election raid
Source: WSB-TV News
“The search warrants in last month’s FBI raid at the Fulton County Elections Hub have been ordered to be unsealed. Earlier this week, Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts and the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections filed a motion to have the records unsealed. The night of the raid, Pitts confirmed that when FBI agents arrived at the facility, their search warrant did not include the correct location for 2020 election records. Agents had to get a new warrant signed by a judge and returned to the facility, where they seized 700 boxes of ballots and voter data from the presidential election. As of now, those warrants have not been released. Pitts reported after the raid that he had not seen the warrants himself.” (02/08/26)
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/fulton-county/federal-judge-orders-search-warrants-be-unsealed-fulton-county-election-raid/UK3OKLGZL5CZVJTKIASAYNV3RU/
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18) Hong Kong: Beijing puppet court sentence political prisoner Jimmy Lai to 20 years
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Jimmy Lai, the media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences, a punishment his daughter said could mean ‘he will die a martyr behind bars.’ Claire Lai said the sentence was ‘heartbreakingly cruel’ given her 78-year-old father’s declining health, while her brother Sebastien Lai called the sentence ‘draconian’ and ‘devastating.’ … Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges. … Lai is the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, a popular Hong Kong newspaper that supported the pro-democracy movement that swelled in the city in the 2010s. The movement was crushed in June 2020 by the imposition of a harsh national security law that criminalised most forms of dissent.” (02/09/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/09/jimmy-lai-sentencing-china-hong-kong-pro-democracy-businessman
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19) Trial of frivolous money grab suit against Instagram, YouTube begins
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The world’s largest social media companies have been accused of creating ‘addiction machines’ as a landmark trial began in California examining the mental health effects of Instagram and YouTube. In his opening argument before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl and a jury, Mark Lanier argued that his client, plaintiff ‘K.G.M.,’ suffered from mental health issues as a result of her social media addiction. … The outcome of the trial may provide a benchmark for monetary damages [sic] that would likely impact thousands of cases brought by other plaintiffs, their families, state prosecutors, and school districts across the United States.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/nxmaT
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20) Epstein files: Congressional lawmakers call for Trump Commerce chief Lutnick to resign, or be fired
Source: CNBC
“Two congressional lawmakers on Sunday called on Howard Lutnick to resign amid revelations that the Commerce secretary had more extensive business and personal dealings with deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein than were previously disclosed. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., urged Lutnick to step down after The New York Times reported the Trump ally interacted ‘regularly’ with Epstein, according to files released by the Department of Justice relating to the notorious sex offender. Massie was the lead Republican on the Epstein Files Transparency Act that compelled the release of the Epstein files. … Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, took it a step further, calling on Lutnick to resign — or be fired.” (02/08/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/08/epstein-files-trump-lutnick-massie.html
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) On Its 30th Birthday, Section 230 Remains The Lynchpin For Users’ Speech
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Aaron Mackey
“For thirty years, internet users have benefited from a key federal law that allows everyone to express themselves, find community, organize politically, and participate in society. Section 230, which protects internet users’ speech by protecting the online intermediaries we rely on, is the legal support that sustains the internet as we know it. Yet as Section 230 turns 30 this week, there are bipartisan proposals in Congress to either repeal or sunset the law. These proposals seize upon legitimate concerns with the harmful and anti-competitive practices of the largest tech companies, but then misdirect that anger toward Section 230.” (02/09/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/its-30th-birthday-section-230-remains-lynchpin-users-speech
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22) Is Nixing Aid to Israel a Poison Chalice?
Source: The American Conservative
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“There is a lot of talk about getting rid of the massive agreement that guarantees Israel billions of dollars in military aid each year. And it’s not just critics of Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senator Lindsey Graham have even said they want to ‘taper off’ the money because Israel is ready to stand on its own two feet. But while a debate over the annual package would be a most welcome one given the enormous sums of American taxpayer money that has flowed to Israel’s wars in recent years, it is important to keep an eye on what might be a bait and switch: trading one guarantee for a set of others that might be less transparent and more expensive than what’s on the books today.” (02/09/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/is-nixing-aid-to-israel-a-poison-chalice/
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23) Can the rise of populism be explained as a reaction to the rule of experts?
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates
“In an essay written over 15 years ago I observed that we were beginning to see a populist reaction to the rule of experts in the United States and (to a lesser extent) in Australia. In more recent essays, however, I have tended to see populism as a manifestation of interest group politics. These explanations are not mutually exclusive, but it may be useful to consider how the rule of experts and populism are both entangled with interest group politics.” (02/09/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/02/can-rise-of-populism-be-explained-as.html
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24) The Supreme Court Lives in Fox News’s America
Source: Liberal Currents
by Steve Kennedy
“The Supreme Court has never been a democratic institution in any robust sense. From its inception, it has been insulated from popular pressure, staffed by elites, and oriented toward protecting property and hierarchy. For most of its history, it functioned as a brake on democratic change rather than an engine of it. And yet, over time, even this deeply conservative body proved somewhat responsive to shifts in public understanding. … What most distinguishes the present Supreme Court is not merely its conservatism, or even its willingness to roll back settled rights. It is the degree to which the conservative majority appears severed from shared facts altogether. This is not accidental. The modern conservative legal movement, organized and disciplined through institutions like the Federalist Society, has spent decades constructing a parallel professional universe.” (02/09/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-court-lives-in-fox-news-america/
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25) Privatize Ollantaytambo
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“The best way to make Machu Picchu work like clockwork is, as usual, full privatization. Auction off the whole site — including the railroad — to international investors. In the short run, prices will rise, passport checks will vanish, and hours of operation will double. In the longer-run, cable cars will replace buses, and Ciudad Machu Picchu will get its own international airport. This is plausibly the most amazing archaeological site on Earth, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t be as popular as Disneyland — which gets over ten times as many visitors. Make the experience vastly more convenient, ration with money instead of queuing and aggravation, and all will be well. That said, I’m painfully aware that no electable Peruvian government will heed my advice to privatize their nation’s crown jewel. But rather than give up, I’ve concocted a much more palatable privatization proposal.” (02/09/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/privatize-ollantaytambo
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26) Trump said he’d reduce federal spending. It’s gotten worse.
Source: USA Today
by Sara Pequeño
“Between an influx of funding for agencies that serve the president’s interests and cuts to departments that will ultimately cost taxpayers later on, it’s clear Republicans have no interest in curbing spending. Our tax dollars aren’t just being used to fund cruelty – they’re being used to fund idiocy. The aforementioned Big Beautiful Bill – now law – is projected to add $3.4 trillion to the already gargantuan national debt, all while decimating Medicaid access and gutting federal agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) didn’t live up to its name, only saving approximately $1.4 billion, according to Politico, and ultimately costing the U.S. government thanks to lawsuits.” (02/09/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/02/09/national-debt-federal-budget-ice-funding/88528339007/
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27) The Evil of US Economic Strangulation of Cuba
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“To justify his targeting the Cuban people with severe economic privation, including a high risk of death by starvation and illness, President Trump has declared a ‘national emergency.’ What’s the ’emergency? He says that Cuba’s communist regime poses a grave threat to the United States because, he says, it is a supporter of terrorism and because it has aligned itself with America’s ‘adversaries.’ This ‘national-emergency’ declaration is, of course, a sham and lie. Cuba has never been a threat to the United States.” (02/09/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/02/09/the-evil-of-u-s-economic-strangulation-of-cuba/
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28) Uncle Sam, Drug Traffickers, and Their Friendship
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño
“Washington’s moral pronouncements about combating drug trafficking collapse when confronted with geopolitical convenience. The officials America partners with to wage the War on Drugs are often the very people facilitating the traffic. The prosecutions come only after these allies cease to be useful, and sometimes not even then.” (02/09/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/uncle-sam-drug-traffickers-and-their-friendship
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29) Eight Decades Later, It Remains One World or None
Source: TomDispatch
by Eric Ross
“On February 5th, with the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, the only bilateral arms control treaty left between the United States and Russia, we are guaranteed to find ourselves ever closer to the edge of a perilous precipice. The renewed arms race that seems likely to take place could plunge the world, once and for all, into the nuclear abyss. This crisis is neither sudden nor surprising, but the predictable culmination of a truth that has haunted us for nearly 80 years: humanity has long been living on borrowed time. In such a context, you might think that our collective survival instinct has proven remarkably poor, which is, at least to a certain extent, understandable.” (02/09/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/eight-decades-later-it-remains-one-world-or-none/
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30) No, it is not Islamophobic to criticise the Islamic Republic
Source: spiked
“A couple of years ago, in my book, A Heretic’s Manifesto, I envisioned a situation where Iran’s female warriors against theocracy might one day come to the West only to find themselves branded ‘Islamophobic.’ In my dystopic foretelling, these valiant hijab-burners would be accused by the pious pricks of the woke of such blasphemous sins as ‘hijabophobia’ – a real word, meaning ‘hostility to the hijab.’ They might look to the West for refuge and wind up not being celebrated but being shouted down, charged with the thoughtcrime of Islamophobia. Well, now it’s happened.” 902/09/26)
https://archive.is/sXyaO
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31) What happens when we give Europe first dibs on US missiles for war
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh
“For weeks the question animating the Washington D.C. commentariat has been this: When will President Donald Trump make good on his threat and launch a second round of airstrikes on Iran? So far at least, the answer is ‘not yet.’ Many explanations for Trump’s surprising (but very welcome) restraint have emerged. Among the most troubling, however, is that it is a lack of the necessary munitions, and in particular air defense interceptors, that is giving Trump second thoughts. … Even those who hope Trump chooses to avoid military action in Iran altogether should be taken aback to hear that eight months after the last extended U.S. military campaign ended (the defense of Israel during the 12-day war and Operation Midnight Hammer), American missile defense arsenals could still be in such rough shape.” (02/09/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/missile-defense-iran-attack/
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32) If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait’l You See What They Do Out In The Open
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“They launched a live-streamed genocide in full view of the entire world. They’re openly targeting civilian populations with siege warfare in Iran and Cuba in full view of the entire world. They openly kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation in full view of the entire world. They deliberately provoked a horrific and dangerous proxy war in Ukraine in full view of the entire world. They spent years actively backing Saudi Arabia’s monstrous genocidal atrocities in Yemen in full view of the entire world. They’re plundering and exploiting the resources and labor of the global south in full view of the entire world. They’re killing the biosphere we all depend on for their own enrichment in full view of the entire world.” (02/09/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/02/09/if-you-think-our-rulers-do-bad-things-in-secret-wait-til-you-see-what-they-do-out-in-the-open/
-----
33) Iran: A Bogus or Genuine Rebellion?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“At this point, we cannot be certain if the demonstrations constitute the first stage of a popular rebellion on the part of an aggrieved population finally pushed beyond endurance or is the latest cynical power play by the United States and its favorite ally. It should not come as a surprise if a mounting percentage of Iranians have had their fill of the mullahs and religious tyranny. … However, it also would be naïve to assume that the United States and its allies (especially Israel) would not resort to even the dirtiest tactics to overthrow the clerical regime.” (02/09/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2026/02/08/iran-a-bogus-or-genuine-rebellion/
-----
34) Civilizational Schlerosis
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“If you peer through the constructal lens, you can set aside partisan binaries and begin to diagnose the West’s decline in terms of physics.” (02/09/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/civilizational-schlerosis
-----
35) Pricing, Information, and Risk in Pharma
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Matthew Williams
“The pricing of prescription drugs is often the subject of debate. Many forget that pharmaceuticals and drug development form a market like any other, but circumstances and the human condition make it admittedly more complicated. Medicine is unique in that it grapples with human life amid unavoidable scarcity. Scarcity forces tough trade-offs and costs, and when lives of our loved ones hang in the balance, emotions can overwhelm rational judgment. Politicians eagerly exploit these situations.” (02/09/26)
https://fee.org/articles/pricing-information-and-risk-in-pharma/
-----
36) How Jeff Bezos ruined The Washington Post and why he should sell it
Source: Fox News
by Howard Kurtz
“The first time I spoke to Jeff Bezos, he had founded Amazon as an online bookstore and made himself available to all kinds of journalists — a ‘political genius,’ said The New York Times Magazine, a ‘brilliant, charming, hyper, and misleadingly goofy mastermind.’ In 1999, having blown past the naysayers who scoffed at the strange notion of online retailing, the 35-year-old businessman was named Time’s Person of the Year. Nearly a decade-and-a-half later, as one of the world’s richest men, Bezos spent $250 million of his personal fortune to buy the Washington Post from Katharine Graham’s family. And now he should fold his cards and sell it. It’s a different era for the industry and a very different Bezos, one who is comfortable slashing a third of the paper’s staff.” (02/09/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-jeff-bezos-ruined-washington-post-why-he-should-sell
-----
37) The Genie in the Bottle: Vaccine Rites
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Daniel Polikoff
“The more forceful, invasive, violent, and dangerous the deed performed upon the body, the more powerful the assault upon the sovereignty of the individual person. Corporal punishment of any kind violates the inherent dignity of human beings. Torture aims to break the human spirit by abusing the human body, crippling its form and impairing its function so it no longer so readily stands, upright, as vessel of immortal spirit. By contrast, forced injection entails — no blows landed upon the surface of the body — but penetration of the physical interior of the person. Coerced vaccination forces entry into the figurative as well as literal bloodstream of the unwilling subject.” (02/09/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-genie-in-the-bottle-vaccine-rites/
-----
38) Alienated by Trump, Europeans Finally Take Responsibility for Defense
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“There are downsides to insulting and threatening friends and acting like a Mafia don slapping around his goons. You risk turning them against you, for one thing. But if those friends have been freeloading off you for years, well, there are some upsides, too. We’re seeing that as President Donald Trump’s rough treatment of our European allies has driven them to huffily make steps to actually defend themselves rather than continue to rely on the American defense umbrella.” (02/09/26)
https://reason.com/2026/02/09/alienated-by-trump-europeans-finally-take-responsibility-for-defense/s
-----
39) The Reopening of the Conservative Mind?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jeffrey Polet
“A tradition of intellectual conservatism can help the next generation reject hate and realize that ‘the object of life is Love.'” (02/09/26)
https://lawliberty.org/the-reopening-of-the-conservative-mind/
-----
40) Iran’s Comprehensive Peace Proposal to the United States
Source: Common Dreams
by Jeffrey D Sachs & Sybil Fares
“History occasionally presents moments when the truth about a conflict is stated plainly enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s February 7 address in Doha, Qatar (transcript here) should prove to be such a moment. His important and constructive remarks responded to the US call for comprehensive negotiations, and he laid out a sound proposal for peace across the Middle East. Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for comprehensive negotiations: ‘If the Iranians want to meet, we’re ready.’ He proposed for talks to include the nuclear issue, Iran’s military capabilities, and its support for proxy groups around the region. On its surface, this sounds like a serious and constructive proposal. The Middle East’s security crises are interconnected, and diplomacy that isolates nuclear issues from broader regional dynamics is unlikely to endure.” (02/09/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/comprehensive-peace-plan-middle-east
-----
41) Marriage Markets
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“People talk a lot about inequality of income but there are other forms of inequality. In a society where most women get married and whom they marry largely determines the rest of their lives, inequality in the characteristics that men value in a wife, most obviously physical attractiveness, may be more important than inequality of wealth. An attractive woman has her choice of husbands, an ugly woman may be unable to get an offer from even one. In a society with bride price and dowry, the parents of an attractive woman can collect a sizable bride price while other parents, if they want to marry off their daughter, may have to provide a sizable dowry. Herodotus describes an economist’s solution to this particular form of inequality.” (02/09/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/marriage-markets
-----
42) The best evidence against Trump’s tariffs? His own first term.
Source: Washington Post
by Phil Gramm and Donald J Boudreaux
“President Donald Trump regularly claims to have achieved unprecedented prosperity in his second term, which he attributes to his implementation of the highest tariffs since the Great Depression. But no matter what data points the president points to, his tariff policies appear to be holding back the very prosperity he claims to have achieved. How can one know this? Test the president’s claim with a comparison that’s as close as you get in the real world to a controlled experiment: Evaluate economic growth in the first year of his first term — which did not see the implementation of tariffs — against the same data in the first year of his second term, which did. This comparison works because all other economic policies in the two terms are virtually identical.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/6JTek
-----
43) Liberty Eroding, Gold Rising: 30 Years of Warning
Source: The Daily Economy
by Richard Salsman
“The dollar’s lost half its value and the price of gold exploded since our author first warned that politicians are ruining our purchasing power.” (02/09/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/liberty-eroding-gold-rising-30-years-of-warning/
-----
44) It’s Time to Unleash 401(k)s
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer
“The 401(k) is one of the most consequential financial inventions of the last half-century. Accounting for $9.3 trillion in assets, 401(k)s direct the investment and retirement decisions of 70 million Americans. But they’re not as high-yielding as most plan owners might think. When workers set one up through brokerages like Fidelity or Voya, they learn that their ‘choices’ are limited to mutual funds, target-date funds, and perhaps a bond fund. … Such limits don’t come from brokerages or technological barriers. A federal law called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regulates 401(k)s. Passed a half-century ago, it imposes a mindset that’s both infantilizing and outdated, and in practice is designed less to empower workers than protect employers from lawsuits.” (02/08/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/02/08/its-time-to-unleash-401ks/
-----
45) Democrats stir up racial division to seize political power; time we stop falling for their hoaxes
Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine
“Whoever posted a video on President Trump’s social media containing a racist animation of the Obamas as apes committed an own goal that overshadowed what otherwise would have been a great week for the administration. It shouldn’t have needed the GOP’s only black senator, Tim Scott, to decry the clip as racist for the post to be deleted and an apology issued by the White House. The one-minute video reposted late Thursday on Trump’s Truth Social account was about voter fraud in the 2020 election, one of the president’s favorite subjects. At the end, the video flashed for a split second to a clip of the Obamas from an old ‘Lion King’ meme depicting Democrats as animals, and Trump as a lion. It was obviously a mistake.” [editor’s note: So it’s not the person who posted the video “stirring up racial division,” it’s anyone who noticed and mentioned it? How … Clintonesque – TLK] (02/08/25)
https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/opinion/democrats-stir-up-racial-division-to-seize-political-power-time-we-stop-falling-for-their-hoaxes/
-----
46) From Greenland to the Great Lakes, Secession is Our Best Hope for Escaping Tyranny
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“The people of Greenland have been fighting for their sovereignty from both Europe and their NATO-American overlords for generations, finally achieving home rule in 1979, voting to withdraw from the EU in 1985, and expanding home rule to a self-government agreement with a window to complete independence in 2009. This is what the actual people of Greenland overwhelmingly support; to be free of pompous white assholes from both sides of the Atlantic along with their toxic waste and petty pissing matches. But Denmark, dear tolerant socialist Denmark, continues to hold Greenland’s local government hostage with a 5 billion Kroner block grant that funds nearly all of their public services with the unspoken threat being that full independence would mean economic devastation.” (02/08/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/02/from-greenland-to-great-lakes-secession.html
-----
47) British Politicians Are Still Capable of Shame. Americans Aren’t.
Source: The Atlantic
by Idrees Kahloon
“There is an irony to the undying Jeffrey Epstein scandal: It may never be more than an annoyance for President Trump, who knew Epstein well, but it could topple British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who never met the sex-offender financier. Starmer has a 71 percent disapproval rating and leads the least popular British government since World War II. The reasons for the Labour Party leader’s deepening plight are moral, because decency and shame still matter in British politics. But they are also institutional. An American president is less democratically accountable than the British prime minister, because partisanship has disabled the checks that the Founders placed on the chief executive.” (02/08/26)
https://archive.is/iOTu2
-----
48) Plato Understood Why Masking Would Turn ICE Agents Into Devils
Source: The UnPopulist
by Paul Rosenzweig
‘More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato predicted ICE’s tactics. He knew, even then, that the character of a certain type of man or woman was corrupt and that anonymity would enable brutality. In short, he knew that ICE agents would want to wear masks not to protect themselves from danger, but rather to enable their immoral conduct. Plato’s prescient understanding of ICE agents arose during a discussion of the parable of the ring of Gyges. The debate occurred during Socrates’s inquiry into human virtue, recounted in Plato’s Republic.” (02/08/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/plato-understood-why-masking-would
-----
49) Board of Peace Is a Board of Profits
Source: The American Prospect
by Ellen Ioanes
“As details about President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace and its plans for the reconstruction of Gaza trickle out, two things become increasingly clear: Palestinians have barely, if at all, been consulted in these plans; and the people in Trump’s orbit stand to benefit from the project the most. The U.N. Security Council approved the Board of Peace as a mechanism for implementing Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Israel and Gaza back in November, though its mandate now appears much broader. The BoP itself consists of high-level representatives from Gulf nations, Israel, Serbia, Albania, and Argentina, among others, with Trump himself as the chair and ultimate decision-maker. Absent from the Board of Peace are representatives from almost every EU country except Bulgaria and Hungary, and anyone representing Palestine.” (02/09/25)
https://prospect.org/2026/02/09/board-of-peace-profits-trump-kushner-gaza/
-----
50) Denuclearizing North Korea Is Unrealistic
Source: The American Conservative
by James Park
“The harsh reality is that denuclearizing North Korea has become unrealistic. Pyongyang is known to already possess at least 50—possibly over a hundred—nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to build many more, while rapidly enhancing missile capabilities to credibly threaten nuclear use against South Korea, Japan, and even the American mainland. Meanwhile, the threshold of North Korean nuclear use has also gone down. Pyongyang’s nuclear doctrine has become markedly more aggressive in recent years, declaring possible preemptive use to deter perceived imminent threats on the horizon against the regime. In the event of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, one can only hope that the North Korean leadership will exercise rational judgment to avoid nuclear escalation.” (02/08/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/denuclearizing-north-korea-is-unrealistic/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 02/09/26
Source: Reason
"Libertarians Tried To Warn You About Executive Power." (02/09/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/02/09/libertarians-tried-to-warn-you-about-executive-power/
-----
52) Finding Freedom, 02/09/26
Source: Lions of Liberty
“GLP-1 Override or Restoration.” (02/09/26)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/ff-glp-1-override-or-restoration
-----
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/09/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Will The Senate Go ‘Nuclear’ Over Voter ID?” (02/09/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OyKAjLvrQMGb
-----
54) Rising, 02/09/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on Jeffrey Epstein survivors releasing a new public service announcement demanding Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Epstein associates.” (02/09/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5723999-rising-february-9-2026/
-----
55) Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 153
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“The Pettiness of Trump and His Codependent Frenemies.” (02/09/26)
https://rumble.com/v754wfk-153-the-pettiness-of-trump-and-his-codependent-frenemies-gracearchy-with-ji.html
-----
56) EconTalk, 02/09/26
Source: EconTalk
“A Military Analysis of Israel’s War in Gaza (with Andrew Fox).” (02/09/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/a-military-analysis-of-israels-war-in-gaza-with-andrew-fox/
-----
57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 02/09/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Netanyahu To Meet Trump To Push Iran War, GOP Works on $1.5 Trillion Military Budget, and More.” (02/09/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCTEZ4RysA
-----
58) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 02/08/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Should We Believe Trump’s Truth Social Threats?” (02/08/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-should-we-believe-trumps-truth-social-threats/
-----
59) Free Talk Live, 02/08/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Gen Z Dubbed the first gen dumber than the gen before :: Is their doing worse in school a sign they’re breaking through the matrix? :: The Boomers’ advantage and 2008 crash and the Dot Com bubble crash :: How much can AI replace surgeons? :: Reasons to avoid buying from an MLM :: Hillary and Bill Clinton want to testify in open court about Epstein :: ‘Qualified Imm-bull crap’ :: Surveillence cams in cars :: Runaway Prius incidents memoryholed :: They dumb us down in public school so we can’t stand up against them :: Don’t take the plea deal :: NH activists history :: Russell Kanning’s activist rampage :: ‘Snowball raid’ on a fed building :: Should we have a duty to help a cop? :: Cops are trained to lie :: Who deported more people? Obama or Trump? :: No victim, no crime :: 2026-02-08 Hosts: Bonnie, Rich E Rich, Bear Arms.” (02/08/26)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2026-02-08
-----
60) Matt Williams on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Matt Williams on What the Epstein Files Reveal about the Global Elites.” (02/08/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/2-6-26-matt-williams-on-what-the-epstein-files-reveal-about-the-global-elites/
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Today's Freedom News:
1) Massie, Khanna Say They Found the Names of Six Potential Epstein Co-Conspirators
2) Palestine: Israeli Regime Approves Expanded Squatting in Occupied West Bank
3) Indian Ocean: US-based pirates seize oil tanker
4) Donetsk: Russian Forces Pressuring Pokrovsk as “Last Battles” Rage
5) Maxwell pleads the Fifth in House deposition on Epstein files
6) Eddie Bauer stores file bankruptcy and begin liquidation sales
7) Tanzania: Opposition leader returns to court for treason trial after monthslong delay
8) US DOJ wants Bannon’s contempt conviction overturned
9) Air Canada halts Cuba flights as Cuban airport warns it will run out of jet fuel
10) Trump officials get more time to hold Hudson River tunnel funds
11) Former Walmart US CEO Greg Foran takes helm at rival grocer Kroger after year-long search
12) EU bureaucrats prep new bribe demands from Meta over blocking rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp
13) US Treasuries Decline on News Chinese Banks Asked to Limit US Bonds
14) War crimes prosecutors seek 45 years’ prison for Kosovo ex-president
15) CA: San Francisco Teachers Walk Out for the First Time Since 1979
16) UK: Lawmakers rally in support of Starmer as calls to resign ease
17) GA: Federal judge orders search warrants to be unsealed in Fulton County election raid
18) Hong Kong: Beijing puppet court sentence political prisoner Jimmy Lai to 20 years
19) Trial of frivolous money grab suit against Instagram, YouTube begins
20) Epstein files: Congressional lawmakers call for Trump Commerce chief Lutnick to resign, or be fired
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) On Its 30th Birthday, Section 230 Remains The Lynchpin For Users’ Speech
22) Is Nixing Aid to Israel a Poison Chalice?
23) Can the rise of populism be explained as a reaction to the rule of experts?
24) The Supreme Court Lives in Fox News’s America
25) Privatize Ollantaytambo
26) Trump said he’d reduce federal spending. It’s gotten worse.
27) The Evil of US Economic Strangulation of Cuba
28) Uncle Sam, Drug Traffickers, and Their Friendship
29) Eight Decades Later, It Remains One World or None
30) No, it is not Islamophobic to criticise the Islamic Republic
31) What happens when we give Europe first dibs on US missiles for war
32) If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait’l You See What They Do Out In The Open
33) Iran: A Bogus or Genuine Rebellion?
34) Civilizational Schlerosis
35) Pricing, Information, and Risk in Pharma
36) How Jeff Bezos ruined The Washington Post and why he should sell it
37) The Genie in the Bottle: Vaccine Rites
38) Alienated by Trump, Europeans Finally Take Responsibility for Defense
39) The Reopening of the Conservative Mind?
40) Iran’s Comprehensive Peace Proposal to the United States
41) Marriage Markets
42) The best evidence against Trump’s tariffs? His own first term.
43) Liberty Eroding, Gold Rising: 30 Years of Warning
44) It’s Time to Unleash 401(k)s
45) Democrats stir up racial division to seize political power; time we stop falling for their hoaxes
46) From Greenland to the Great Lakes, Secession is Our Best Hope for Escaping Tyranny
47) British Politicians Are Still Capable of Shame. Americans Aren’t.
48) Plato Understood Why Masking Would Turn ICE Agents Into Devils
49) Board of Peace Is a Board of Profits
50) Denuclearizing North Korea Is Unrealistic
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Reason Roundtable, 02/09/26
52) Finding Freedom, 02/09/26
53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/09/26
54) Rising, 02/09/26
55) Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 153
56) EconTalk, 02/09/26
57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 02/09/26
58) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 02/08/26
59) Free Talk Live, 02/08/26
60) Matt Williams on The Scott Horton Show
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) Massie, Khanna Say They Found the Names of Six Potential Epstein Co-Conspirators
Source: NOTUS
“Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna claimed on Monday that the Department of Justice improperly redacted the names and faces of six potential co-conspirators of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The two lawmakers, who led the congressional charge to compel the DOJ to release every government file related to Epstein, arrived at Two Constitution Square to review less-redacted versions of the files than have been released to the public so far. After their in-person review on Monday, they again accused the DOJ of violating the Epstein Files Transparency Act. … Massie claimed the men were ‘likely incriminated’ based on the document’s context, but declined for now to share their names. He said he first wanted to give the DOJ a chance to explain why those names weren’t made public.” (02/09/26)
https://www.notus.org/congress/ro-khanna-and-thomas-massie-names-jeffrey-epstein-co-conspirators
-----
2) Palestine: Israeli Regime Approves Expanded Squatting in Occupied West Bank
Source: New York Times
“Israel’s government has taken unilateral steps to give itself greater control over the occupied West Bank, challenging President Trump’s opposition to Israeli annexation of the territory and possibly violating international law. The measures, which make it easier for [squatters to steal] land and undercut the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank that it administers, appear to flout important agreements that Israel signed under the Oslo peace process decades ago. The changes were made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet at a closed-door meeting on Sunday. By enhancing Israel’s control over West Bank territory [within the borders of the State of Palestine], they effectively advance the cause of annexation by degrees — continuing a strategy that the government has been pursuing for years.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/ZPqke
-----
3) Indian Ocean: US-based pirates seize oil tanker
Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
“U.S. military [pirates] boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday. The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces U.S. sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after U.S. forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.” (02/09/26)
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/09/pentagon-oil-tanker/
-----
4) Donetsk: Russian Forces Pressuring Pokrovsk as “Last Battles” Rage
Source: US News & World Report
“Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in [Donetsk], Kyiv’s military said on Monday, hoping to conclude a months-long campaign to seize the strategic hub as Moscow seeks to capture the whole of the Donetsk [republic]. Ukraine has struggled to halt slow Russian advances around Pokrovsk and elsewhere along the 1,200-km (746-mile) front line while it comes under U.S. pressure to reach a peace deal to end the four-year war in ongoing talks. Kyiv’s General Staff said on Monday its forces still held the northern part of Pokrovsk, a city with a pre-war population of 60,000, and were also defending the smaller city of Myrnohrad nearby.” (02/09/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-02-09/russian-forces-pressuring-pokrovsk-as-last-battles-rage
-----
5) Maxwell pleads the Fifth in House deposition on Epstein files
Source: The Hill
“Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, refused to answer questions during a deposition with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday, asserting her Fifth Amendment right. Maxwell previously indicated her plans to do so, saying she would testify under oath only if she was given criminal immunity. Lawmakers exiting the deposition were incensed she asserted her Fifth Amendment right on every question posed to her, arguing the blanket response was inappropriate given that they had many questions that did not concern her conduct.” (02/09/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5729647-ghislaine-maxwell-fifth-amendment-jeffrey-epstein/
-----
6) Eddie Bauer stores file bankruptcy and begin liquidation sales
Source: Axios
“The company that runs Eddie Bauer stores in the U.S. and Canada filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and began liquidation sales. Mall retailers have been challenged for years amid waning foot traffic and digital competition. Eddie Bauer LLC said early Monday in a court filing that it had already begun going-out-of-business sales at its approximately 175 remaining stores. The company said it had lined up a restructuring agreement with secured lenders in conjunction with its bankruptcy filing. It will pursue a sale that could result in halting the liquidation sales and keeping stores open.” (02/09/26)
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/09/eddie-bauer-closing-bankruptcy-sales
-----
7) Tanzania: Opposition leader returns to court for treason trial after monthslong delay
Source: ABC News
“Tanzania’s opposition leader charged with treason appeared in court for the first time in months on Monday, but the hearing was adjourned yet again after he opposed the prosecution’s plan to have secret witnesses appear in a special enclosed cell. Opposition leader Tundu Lissu has been in prison for 10 months after he was arrested following an opposition rally in which he called for constitutional and electoral law reforms before last year’s disputed election. Lissu, who is representing himself in the case, said the punishment for treason is death and that secret witnesses in enclosed cells pose a huge risk and are likely to result in an unjust outcome for the case.” (02/09/26)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/tanzania-opposition-leader-returns-court-treason-trial-after-129997946
-----
8) US DOJ wants Bannon’s contempt conviction overturned
Source: USA Today
“The Trump administration is seeking to overturn former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction. In filings to the district court and Supreme Court, the Justice Department said the government has determined ‘that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice.’ The filings did not elaborate further. Bannon defied a congressional subpoena demanding he testify about the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. President Donald Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bannon and others as political, including the approximately 1,600 people he pardoned for charges related to the attack. A dismissal of Bannon’s case would avoid the need for Trump to pardon him, too. At the end of his first term as president, Trump pardoned Bannon as he was awaiting trial in Manhattan for a different case: fraud charges tied to a border wall fundraising effort.” (02/09/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/02/09/justice-department-trump-steve-bannon-conviction-contempt/88594169007/
-----
9) Air Canada halts Cuba flights as Cuban airport warns it will run out of jet fuel
Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]
“Air Canada says it is suspending service to Cuba effective Monday as the Caribbean island’s major airport warns it will run out of jet fuel. Over the following days, the airline will fly empty planes to pick up approximately 3,000 customers already in Cuba and return them home, Air Canada said Monday in a statement. … In an official notice called a NOTAM posted to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) website Sunday, Havana’s José Martí International Airport warns ‘Jet A1 fuel not available’ as of Tuesday, with the warning running until March 11.” (02/09/26)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/travel-to-cuba-fuel-shortage-9.7080648
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10) Trump officials get more time to hold Hudson River tunnel funds
Source: Crain’s New York Business
“The Trump administration plans to appeal a temporary court order that blocks the federal government from withholding funds for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The Gateway Development Commission is building the new tunnel but had to stop construction late Friday because it’s exhausted all of its funding sources. The Trump administration has been in a standstill with Gateway since October, when it halted funding for the tunnel over a new rule that prohibits contracting requirements based on race or sex. New York and New Jersey sued the administration on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan after Gateway filed its own suit late Monday in an effort to unlock more than $205 million of federal funds in the Court of Federal Claims.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/Cn23k
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11) Former Walmart US CEO Greg Foran takes helm at rival grocer Kroger after year-long search
Source: Fox Business
“A former top rival of grocery giant Kroger has been named the company’s next chief executive officer. Greg Foran — former CEO of Walmart’s U.S. division — will now lead Kroger following an ‘extensive’ year-long search for ‘an innovative retail leader with a strong track record,’ the company announced Monday. Kroger is America’s biggest grocer by sales, behind only Walmart, and has been looking for a new leader since March 2025 when former CEO Rodney McMullen was ousted over an undisclosed ethics violation.” (02/09/26)
https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/former-walmart-us-ceo-greg-foran-takes-helm-rival-grocer-kroger-after-year-long-search
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12) EU bureaucrats prep new bribe demands from Meta over blocking rival AI chatbots on WhatsApp
Source: Engadget
“The EU could take ‘interim measures’ against WhatsApp as it investigates AI providers’ access to the app. On Monday, the EU’s regulatory arm announced its ‘preliminary view’ that Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, violated antitrust laws by blocking third-party AI assistants from operating on WhatsApp. The European Commission’s is concerned that Meta’s actions will limit competitors from entering the AI assistant market. ‘We must protect effective competition in this vibrant field, which means we cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,’ Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition said in a statement.” (02/09/26)
https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/eu-warns-meta-over-blocking-rival-ai-chatbots-on-whatsapp-121708895.html?src=rss
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13) US Treasuries Decline on News Chinese Banks Asked to Limit US Bonds
Source: Bloomberg
“Treasuries extended losses after Chinese regulators reportedly asked the nation’s financial institutions to rein in their holdings of US bonds. Yields on 10-year Treasuries rose as much as four basis points on the day to 4.25% after trading around 4.22% earlier. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped 0.1%. Chinese officials had urged banks to limit purchases of US government bonds, and instructed those with high exposure to pare their positions, according to people familiar with the matter. The move was framed around diversifying risk rather than anything to do with geopolitical maneuvering or a fundamental loss of confidence in US creditworthiness. The directive doesn’t apply to China’s state holdings of US Treasuries.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/Lb821
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14) War crimes prosecutors seek 45 years’ prison for Kosovo ex-president
Source: Reuters
“International war crimes prosecutors said on Monday Kosovo’s former president Hashim Thaci controlled ethnic Albanian guerrillas and should be convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 45 years in prison. Thaci and three other ex-Kosovo Liberation Army commanders are charged with persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearances of people during and shortly after the 1998-99 uprising that eventually brought independence for the Albanian majority region from Serbia. … Thaci, 57, who served as prime minister, foreign minister and president of independent Kosovo between 2008 and 2020, and his co-accused deny all the charges.” (02/09/26)
https://www.reuters.com/world/war-crimes-prosecutors-seek-45-years-prison-for-kosovo-ex-president-2026-02-09/
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15) CA: San Francisco Teachers Walk Out for the First Time Since 1979
Source: New York Times
“San Francisco teachers went on strike on Monday for the first time in nearly half a century, closing public schools for roughly 50,000 students in the city. The teachers walked out after their union, United Educators of San Francisco, could not reach an agreement on raises and health care costs despite nearly a year of negotiations with the San Francisco Unified School District. The union represents about 6,000 educators, counselors and nurses who work in more than 100 schools in the city. The strike has no set end date. The last teachers strike in San Francisco, in 1979, lasted for nearly seven weeks, making it one of the longest in state history.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/lR1WZ
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16) UK: Lawmakers rally in support of Starmer as calls to resign ease
Source: Associated Press
“British Prime Minister Keir Starmer found broad support among lawmakers Monday, easing speculation that he will be toppled by revelations about his former ambassador’s ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In an attempt to rebuild some of his badly weakened authority, Starmer addressed Labour lawmakers in a 75-minute closed-door session, the same day his office said he does not plan to step down. All of Starmer’s Cabinet members extended public support to him in the hours before the session, and legislators gave him a round of applause when it concluded. The prime minister is facing heavy criticism for appointing in 2024 Labour politician Peter Mandelson as the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. despite his disclosed ties to the convicted sex offender. Starmer fired Mandelson in September after published emails revealed his friendship with Epstein.” (02/09/26)
https://apnews.com/live/uk-starmer-resign-epstein-mandelson-updates
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17) GA: Federal judge orders search warrants to be unsealed in Fulton County election raid
Source: WSB-TV News
“The search warrants in last month’s FBI raid at the Fulton County Elections Hub have been ordered to be unsealed. Earlier this week, Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts and the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections filed a motion to have the records unsealed. The night of the raid, Pitts confirmed that when FBI agents arrived at the facility, their search warrant did not include the correct location for 2020 election records. Agents had to get a new warrant signed by a judge and returned to the facility, where they seized 700 boxes of ballots and voter data from the presidential election. As of now, those warrants have not been released. Pitts reported after the raid that he had not seen the warrants himself.” (02/08/26)
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/fulton-county/federal-judge-orders-search-warrants-be-unsealed-fulton-county-election-raid/UK3OKLGZL5CZVJTKIASAYNV3RU/
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18) Hong Kong: Beijing puppet court sentence political prisoner Jimmy Lai to 20 years
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Jimmy Lai, the media mogul and prominent pro-democracy activist, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong for national security offences, a punishment his daughter said could mean ‘he will die a martyr behind bars.’ Claire Lai said the sentence was ‘heartbreakingly cruel’ given her 78-year-old father’s declining health, while her brother Sebastien Lai called the sentence ‘draconian’ and ‘devastating.’ … Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and conspiracy to collude with foreign forces. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges. … Lai is the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, a popular Hong Kong newspaper that supported the pro-democracy movement that swelled in the city in the 2010s. The movement was crushed in June 2020 by the imposition of a harsh national security law that criminalised most forms of dissent.” (02/09/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/09/jimmy-lai-sentencing-china-hong-kong-pro-democracy-businessman
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19) Trial of frivolous money grab suit against Instagram, YouTube begins
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The world’s largest social media companies have been accused of creating ‘addiction machines’ as a landmark trial began in California examining the mental health effects of Instagram and YouTube. In his opening argument before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl and a jury, Mark Lanier argued that his client, plaintiff ‘K.G.M.,’ suffered from mental health issues as a result of her social media addiction. … The outcome of the trial may provide a benchmark for monetary damages [sic] that would likely impact thousands of cases brought by other plaintiffs, their families, state prosecutors, and school districts across the United States.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/nxmaT
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20) Epstein files: Congressional lawmakers call for Trump Commerce chief Lutnick to resign, or be fired
Source: CNBC
“Two congressional lawmakers on Sunday called on Howard Lutnick to resign amid revelations that the Commerce secretary had more extensive business and personal dealings with deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein than were previously disclosed. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., urged Lutnick to step down after The New York Times reported the Trump ally interacted ‘regularly’ with Epstein, according to files released by the Department of Justice relating to the notorious sex offender. Massie was the lead Republican on the Epstein Files Transparency Act that compelled the release of the Epstein files. … Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, took it a step further, calling on Lutnick to resign — or be fired.” (02/08/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/08/epstein-files-trump-lutnick-massie.html
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) On Its 30th Birthday, Section 230 Remains The Lynchpin For Users’ Speech
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Aaron Mackey
“For thirty years, internet users have benefited from a key federal law that allows everyone to express themselves, find community, organize politically, and participate in society. Section 230, which protects internet users’ speech by protecting the online intermediaries we rely on, is the legal support that sustains the internet as we know it. Yet as Section 230 turns 30 this week, there are bipartisan proposals in Congress to either repeal or sunset the law. These proposals seize upon legitimate concerns with the harmful and anti-competitive practices of the largest tech companies, but then misdirect that anger toward Section 230.” (02/09/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/its-30th-birthday-section-230-remains-lynchpin-users-speech
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22) Is Nixing Aid to Israel a Poison Chalice?
Source: The American Conservative
by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
“There is a lot of talk about getting rid of the massive agreement that guarantees Israel billions of dollars in military aid each year. And it’s not just critics of Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senator Lindsey Graham have even said they want to ‘taper off’ the money because Israel is ready to stand on its own two feet. But while a debate over the annual package would be a most welcome one given the enormous sums of American taxpayer money that has flowed to Israel’s wars in recent years, it is important to keep an eye on what might be a bait and switch: trading one guarantee for a set of others that might be less transparent and more expensive than what’s on the books today.” (02/09/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/is-nixing-aid-to-israel-a-poison-chalice/
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23) Can the rise of populism be explained as a reaction to the rule of experts?
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates
“In an essay written over 15 years ago I observed that we were beginning to see a populist reaction to the rule of experts in the United States and (to a lesser extent) in Australia. In more recent essays, however, I have tended to see populism as a manifestation of interest group politics. These explanations are not mutually exclusive, but it may be useful to consider how the rule of experts and populism are both entangled with interest group politics.” (02/09/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/02/can-rise-of-populism-be-explained-as.html
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24) The Supreme Court Lives in Fox News’s America
Source: Liberal Currents
by Steve Kennedy
“The Supreme Court has never been a democratic institution in any robust sense. From its inception, it has been insulated from popular pressure, staffed by elites, and oriented toward protecting property and hierarchy. For most of its history, it functioned as a brake on democratic change rather than an engine of it. And yet, over time, even this deeply conservative body proved somewhat responsive to shifts in public understanding. … What most distinguishes the present Supreme Court is not merely its conservatism, or even its willingness to roll back settled rights. It is the degree to which the conservative majority appears severed from shared facts altogether. This is not accidental. The modern conservative legal movement, organized and disciplined through institutions like the Federalist Society, has spent decades constructing a parallel professional universe.” (02/09/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-supreme-court-lives-in-fox-news-america/
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25) Privatize Ollantaytambo
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“The best way to make Machu Picchu work like clockwork is, as usual, full privatization. Auction off the whole site — including the railroad — to international investors. In the short run, prices will rise, passport checks will vanish, and hours of operation will double. In the longer-run, cable cars will replace buses, and Ciudad Machu Picchu will get its own international airport. This is plausibly the most amazing archaeological site on Earth, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t be as popular as Disneyland — which gets over ten times as many visitors. Make the experience vastly more convenient, ration with money instead of queuing and aggravation, and all will be well. That said, I’m painfully aware that no electable Peruvian government will heed my advice to privatize their nation’s crown jewel. But rather than give up, I’ve concocted a much more palatable privatization proposal.” (02/09/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/privatize-ollantaytambo
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26) Trump said he’d reduce federal spending. It’s gotten worse.
Source: USA Today
by Sara Pequeño
“Between an influx of funding for agencies that serve the president’s interests and cuts to departments that will ultimately cost taxpayers later on, it’s clear Republicans have no interest in curbing spending. Our tax dollars aren’t just being used to fund cruelty – they’re being used to fund idiocy. The aforementioned Big Beautiful Bill – now law – is projected to add $3.4 trillion to the already gargantuan national debt, all while decimating Medicaid access and gutting federal agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) didn’t live up to its name, only saving approximately $1.4 billion, according to Politico, and ultimately costing the U.S. government thanks to lawsuits.” (02/09/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/02/09/national-debt-federal-budget-ice-funding/88528339007/
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27) The Evil of US Economic Strangulation of Cuba
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“To justify his targeting the Cuban people with severe economic privation, including a high risk of death by starvation and illness, President Trump has declared a ‘national emergency.’ What’s the ’emergency? He says that Cuba’s communist regime poses a grave threat to the United States because, he says, it is a supporter of terrorism and because it has aligned itself with America’s ‘adversaries.’ This ‘national-emergency’ declaration is, of course, a sham and lie. Cuba has never been a threat to the United States.” (02/09/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/02/09/the-evil-of-u-s-economic-strangulation-of-cuba/
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28) Uncle Sam, Drug Traffickers, and Their Friendship
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño
“Washington’s moral pronouncements about combating drug trafficking collapse when confronted with geopolitical convenience. The officials America partners with to wage the War on Drugs are often the very people facilitating the traffic. The prosecutions come only after these allies cease to be useful, and sometimes not even then.” (02/09/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/uncle-sam-drug-traffickers-and-their-friendship
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29) Eight Decades Later, It Remains One World or None
Source: TomDispatch
by Eric Ross
“On February 5th, with the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, the only bilateral arms control treaty left between the United States and Russia, we are guaranteed to find ourselves ever closer to the edge of a perilous precipice. The renewed arms race that seems likely to take place could plunge the world, once and for all, into the nuclear abyss. This crisis is neither sudden nor surprising, but the predictable culmination of a truth that has haunted us for nearly 80 years: humanity has long been living on borrowed time. In such a context, you might think that our collective survival instinct has proven remarkably poor, which is, at least to a certain extent, understandable.” (02/09/25)
https://tomdispatch.com/eight-decades-later-it-remains-one-world-or-none/
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30) No, it is not Islamophobic to criticise the Islamic Republic
Source: spiked
“A couple of years ago, in my book, A Heretic’s Manifesto, I envisioned a situation where Iran’s female warriors against theocracy might one day come to the West only to find themselves branded ‘Islamophobic.’ In my dystopic foretelling, these valiant hijab-burners would be accused by the pious pricks of the woke of such blasphemous sins as ‘hijabophobia’ – a real word, meaning ‘hostility to the hijab.’ They might look to the West for refuge and wind up not being celebrated but being shouted down, charged with the thoughtcrime of Islamophobia. Well, now it’s happened.” 902/09/26)
https://archive.is/sXyaO
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31) What happens when we give Europe first dibs on US missiles for war
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh
“For weeks the question animating the Washington D.C. commentariat has been this: When will President Donald Trump make good on his threat and launch a second round of airstrikes on Iran? So far at least, the answer is ‘not yet.’ Many explanations for Trump’s surprising (but very welcome) restraint have emerged. Among the most troubling, however, is that it is a lack of the necessary munitions, and in particular air defense interceptors, that is giving Trump second thoughts. … Even those who hope Trump chooses to avoid military action in Iran altogether should be taken aback to hear that eight months after the last extended U.S. military campaign ended (the defense of Israel during the 12-day war and Operation Midnight Hammer), American missile defense arsenals could still be in such rough shape.” (02/09/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/missile-defense-iran-attack/
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32) If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait’l You See What They Do Out In The Open
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“They launched a live-streamed genocide in full view of the entire world. They’re openly targeting civilian populations with siege warfare in Iran and Cuba in full view of the entire world. They openly kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation in full view of the entire world. They deliberately provoked a horrific and dangerous proxy war in Ukraine in full view of the entire world. They spent years actively backing Saudi Arabia’s monstrous genocidal atrocities in Yemen in full view of the entire world. They’re plundering and exploiting the resources and labor of the global south in full view of the entire world. They’re killing the biosphere we all depend on for their own enrichment in full view of the entire world.” (02/09/25)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/02/09/if-you-think-our-rulers-do-bad-things-in-secret-wait-til-you-see-what-they-do-out-in-the-open/
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33) Iran: A Bogus or Genuine Rebellion?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“At this point, we cannot be certain if the demonstrations constitute the first stage of a popular rebellion on the part of an aggrieved population finally pushed beyond endurance or is the latest cynical power play by the United States and its favorite ally. It should not come as a surprise if a mounting percentage of Iranians have had their fill of the mullahs and religious tyranny. … However, it also would be naïve to assume that the United States and its allies (especially Israel) would not resort to even the dirtiest tactics to overthrow the clerical regime.” (02/09/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2026/02/08/iran-a-bogus-or-genuine-rebellion/
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34) Civilizational Schlerosis
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“If you peer through the constructal lens, you can set aside partisan binaries and begin to diagnose the West’s decline in terms of physics.” (02/09/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/civilizational-schlerosis
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35) Pricing, Information, and Risk in Pharma
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Matthew Williams
“The pricing of prescription drugs is often the subject of debate. Many forget that pharmaceuticals and drug development form a market like any other, but circumstances and the human condition make it admittedly more complicated. Medicine is unique in that it grapples with human life amid unavoidable scarcity. Scarcity forces tough trade-offs and costs, and when lives of our loved ones hang in the balance, emotions can overwhelm rational judgment. Politicians eagerly exploit these situations.” (02/09/26)
https://fee.org/articles/pricing-information-and-risk-in-pharma/
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36) How Jeff Bezos ruined The Washington Post and why he should sell it
Source: Fox News
by Howard Kurtz
“The first time I spoke to Jeff Bezos, he had founded Amazon as an online bookstore and made himself available to all kinds of journalists — a ‘political genius,’ said The New York Times Magazine, a ‘brilliant, charming, hyper, and misleadingly goofy mastermind.’ In 1999, having blown past the naysayers who scoffed at the strange notion of online retailing, the 35-year-old businessman was named Time’s Person of the Year. Nearly a decade-and-a-half later, as one of the world’s richest men, Bezos spent $250 million of his personal fortune to buy the Washington Post from Katharine Graham’s family. And now he should fold his cards and sell it. It’s a different era for the industry and a very different Bezos, one who is comfortable slashing a third of the paper’s staff.” (02/09/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-jeff-bezos-ruined-washington-post-why-he-should-sell
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37) The Genie in the Bottle: Vaccine Rites
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Daniel Polikoff
“The more forceful, invasive, violent, and dangerous the deed performed upon the body, the more powerful the assault upon the sovereignty of the individual person. Corporal punishment of any kind violates the inherent dignity of human beings. Torture aims to break the human spirit by abusing the human body, crippling its form and impairing its function so it no longer so readily stands, upright, as vessel of immortal spirit. By contrast, forced injection entails — no blows landed upon the surface of the body — but penetration of the physical interior of the person. Coerced vaccination forces entry into the figurative as well as literal bloodstream of the unwilling subject.” (02/09/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-genie-in-the-bottle-vaccine-rites/
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38) Alienated by Trump, Europeans Finally Take Responsibility for Defense
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“There are downsides to insulting and threatening friends and acting like a Mafia don slapping around his goons. You risk turning them against you, for one thing. But if those friends have been freeloading off you for years, well, there are some upsides, too. We’re seeing that as President Donald Trump’s rough treatment of our European allies has driven them to huffily make steps to actually defend themselves rather than continue to rely on the American defense umbrella.” (02/09/26)
https://reason.com/2026/02/09/alienated-by-trump-europeans-finally-take-responsibility-for-defense/s
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39) The Reopening of the Conservative Mind?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Jeffrey Polet
“A tradition of intellectual conservatism can help the next generation reject hate and realize that ‘the object of life is Love.'” (02/09/26)
https://lawliberty.org/the-reopening-of-the-conservative-mind/
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40) Iran’s Comprehensive Peace Proposal to the United States
Source: Common Dreams
by Jeffrey D Sachs & Sybil Fares
“History occasionally presents moments when the truth about a conflict is stated plainly enough that it becomes impossible to ignore. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s February 7 address in Doha, Qatar (transcript here) should prove to be such a moment. His important and constructive remarks responded to the US call for comprehensive negotiations, and he laid out a sound proposal for peace across the Middle East. Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for comprehensive negotiations: ‘If the Iranians want to meet, we’re ready.’ He proposed for talks to include the nuclear issue, Iran’s military capabilities, and its support for proxy groups around the region. On its surface, this sounds like a serious and constructive proposal. The Middle East’s security crises are interconnected, and diplomacy that isolates nuclear issues from broader regional dynamics is unlikely to endure.” (02/09/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/comprehensive-peace-plan-middle-east
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41) Marriage Markets
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“People talk a lot about inequality of income but there are other forms of inequality. In a society where most women get married and whom they marry largely determines the rest of their lives, inequality in the characteristics that men value in a wife, most obviously physical attractiveness, may be more important than inequality of wealth. An attractive woman has her choice of husbands, an ugly woman may be unable to get an offer from even one. In a society with bride price and dowry, the parents of an attractive woman can collect a sizable bride price while other parents, if they want to marry off their daughter, may have to provide a sizable dowry. Herodotus describes an economist’s solution to this particular form of inequality.” (02/09/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/marriage-markets
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42) The best evidence against Trump’s tariffs? His own first term.
Source: Washington Post
by Phil Gramm and Donald J Boudreaux
“President Donald Trump regularly claims to have achieved unprecedented prosperity in his second term, which he attributes to his implementation of the highest tariffs since the Great Depression. But no matter what data points the president points to, his tariff policies appear to be holding back the very prosperity he claims to have achieved. How can one know this? Test the president’s claim with a comparison that’s as close as you get in the real world to a controlled experiment: Evaluate economic growth in the first year of his first term — which did not see the implementation of tariffs — against the same data in the first year of his second term, which did. This comparison works because all other economic policies in the two terms are virtually identical.” (02/09/26)
https://archive.is/6JTek
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43) Liberty Eroding, Gold Rising: 30 Years of Warning
Source: The Daily Economy
by Richard Salsman
“The dollar’s lost half its value and the price of gold exploded since our author first warned that politicians are ruining our purchasing power.” (02/09/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/liberty-eroding-gold-rising-30-years-of-warning/
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44) It’s Time to Unleash 401(k)s
Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer
“The 401(k) is one of the most consequential financial inventions of the last half-century. Accounting for $9.3 trillion in assets, 401(k)s direct the investment and retirement decisions of 70 million Americans. But they’re not as high-yielding as most plan owners might think. When workers set one up through brokerages like Fidelity or Voya, they learn that their ‘choices’ are limited to mutual funds, target-date funds, and perhaps a bond fund. … Such limits don’t come from brokerages or technological barriers. A federal law called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regulates 401(k)s. Passed a half-century ago, it imposes a mindset that’s both infantilizing and outdated, and in practice is designed less to empower workers than protect employers from lawsuits.” (02/08/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/02/08/its-time-to-unleash-401ks/
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45) Democrats stir up racial division to seize political power; time we stop falling for their hoaxes
Source: New York Post
by Miranda Devine
“Whoever posted a video on President Trump’s social media containing a racist animation of the Obamas as apes committed an own goal that overshadowed what otherwise would have been a great week for the administration. It shouldn’t have needed the GOP’s only black senator, Tim Scott, to decry the clip as racist for the post to be deleted and an apology issued by the White House. The one-minute video reposted late Thursday on Trump’s Truth Social account was about voter fraud in the 2020 election, one of the president’s favorite subjects. At the end, the video flashed for a split second to a clip of the Obamas from an old ‘Lion King’ meme depicting Democrats as animals, and Trump as a lion. It was obviously a mistake.” [editor’s note: So it’s not the person who posted the video “stirring up racial division,” it’s anyone who noticed and mentioned it? How … Clintonesque – TLK] (02/08/25)
https://nypost.com/2026/02/08/opinion/democrats-stir-up-racial-division-to-seize-political-power-time-we-stop-falling-for-their-hoaxes/
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46) From Greenland to the Great Lakes, Secession is Our Best Hope for Escaping Tyranny
Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“The people of Greenland have been fighting for their sovereignty from both Europe and their NATO-American overlords for generations, finally achieving home rule in 1979, voting to withdraw from the EU in 1985, and expanding home rule to a self-government agreement with a window to complete independence in 2009. This is what the actual people of Greenland overwhelmingly support; to be free of pompous white assholes from both sides of the Atlantic along with their toxic waste and petty pissing matches. But Denmark, dear tolerant socialist Denmark, continues to hold Greenland’s local government hostage with a 5 billion Kroner block grant that funds nearly all of their public services with the unspoken threat being that full independence would mean economic devastation.” (02/08/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/02/from-greenland-to-great-lakes-secession.html
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47) British Politicians Are Still Capable of Shame. Americans Aren’t.
Source: The Atlantic
by Idrees Kahloon
“There is an irony to the undying Jeffrey Epstein scandal: It may never be more than an annoyance for President Trump, who knew Epstein well, but it could topple British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who never met the sex-offender financier. Starmer has a 71 percent disapproval rating and leads the least popular British government since World War II. The reasons for the Labour Party leader’s deepening plight are moral, because decency and shame still matter in British politics. But they are also institutional. An American president is less democratically accountable than the British prime minister, because partisanship has disabled the checks that the Founders placed on the chief executive.” (02/08/26)
https://archive.is/iOTu2
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48) Plato Understood Why Masking Would Turn ICE Agents Into Devils
Source: The UnPopulist
by Paul Rosenzweig
‘More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato predicted ICE’s tactics. He knew, even then, that the character of a certain type of man or woman was corrupt and that anonymity would enable brutality. In short, he knew that ICE agents would want to wear masks not to protect themselves from danger, but rather to enable their immoral conduct. Plato’s prescient understanding of ICE agents arose during a discussion of the parable of the ring of Gyges. The debate occurred during Socrates’s inquiry into human virtue, recounted in Plato’s Republic.” (02/08/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/plato-understood-why-masking-would
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49) Board of Peace Is a Board of Profits
Source: The American Prospect
by Ellen Ioanes
“As details about President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace and its plans for the reconstruction of Gaza trickle out, two things become increasingly clear: Palestinians have barely, if at all, been consulted in these plans; and the people in Trump’s orbit stand to benefit from the project the most. The U.N. Security Council approved the Board of Peace as a mechanism for implementing Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Israel and Gaza back in November, though its mandate now appears much broader. The BoP itself consists of high-level representatives from Gulf nations, Israel, Serbia, Albania, and Argentina, among others, with Trump himself as the chair and ultimate decision-maker. Absent from the Board of Peace are representatives from almost every EU country except Bulgaria and Hungary, and anyone representing Palestine.” (02/09/25)
https://prospect.org/2026/02/09/board-of-peace-profits-trump-kushner-gaza/
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50) Denuclearizing North Korea Is Unrealistic
Source: The American Conservative
by James Park
“The harsh reality is that denuclearizing North Korea has become unrealistic. Pyongyang is known to already possess at least 50—possibly over a hundred—nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to build many more, while rapidly enhancing missile capabilities to credibly threaten nuclear use against South Korea, Japan, and even the American mainland. Meanwhile, the threshold of North Korean nuclear use has also gone down. Pyongyang’s nuclear doctrine has become markedly more aggressive in recent years, declaring possible preemptive use to deter perceived imminent threats on the horizon against the regime. In the event of a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, one can only hope that the North Korean leadership will exercise rational judgment to avoid nuclear escalation.” (02/08/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/denuclearizing-north-korea-is-unrealistic/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Reason Roundtable, 02/09/26
Source: Reason
"Libertarians Tried To Warn You About Executive Power." (02/09/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/02/09/libertarians-tried-to-warn-you-about-executive-power/
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52) Finding Freedom, 02/09/26
Source: Lions of Liberty
“GLP-1 Override or Restoration.” (02/09/26)
https://www.lionsofliberty.com/episodes/ff-glp-1-override-or-restoration
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53) Ron Paul Liberty Report, 02/09/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Will The Senate Go ‘Nuclear’ Over Voter ID?” (02/09/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1OyKAjLvrQMGb
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54) Rising, 02/09/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on Jeffrey Epstein survivors releasing a new public service announcement demanding Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Epstein associates.” (02/09/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5723999-rising-february-9-2026/
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55) Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 153
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“The Pettiness of Trump and His Codependent Frenemies.” (02/09/26)
https://rumble.com/v754wfk-153-the-pettiness-of-trump-and-his-codependent-frenemies-gracearchy-with-ji.html
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56) EconTalk, 02/09/26
Source: EconTalk
“A Military Analysis of Israel’s War in Gaza (with Andrew Fox).” (02/09/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/a-military-analysis-of-israels-war-in-gaza-with-andrew-fox/
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57) Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 02/09/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Netanyahu To Meet Trump To Push Iran War, GOP Works on $1.5 Trillion Military Budget, and More.” (02/09/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCTEZ4RysA
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58) The Kyle Anzalone Show, 02/08/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Should We Believe Trump’s Truth Social Threats?” (02/08/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-should-we-believe-trumps-truth-social-threats/
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59) Free Talk Live, 02/08/26
Source: Free Talk Live
“Gen Z Dubbed the first gen dumber than the gen before :: Is their doing worse in school a sign they’re breaking through the matrix? :: The Boomers’ advantage and 2008 crash and the Dot Com bubble crash :: How much can AI replace surgeons? :: Reasons to avoid buying from an MLM :: Hillary and Bill Clinton want to testify in open court about Epstein :: ‘Qualified Imm-bull crap’ :: Surveillence cams in cars :: Runaway Prius incidents memoryholed :: They dumb us down in public school so we can’t stand up against them :: Don’t take the plea deal :: NH activists history :: Russell Kanning’s activist rampage :: ‘Snowball raid’ on a fed building :: Should we have a duty to help a cop? :: Cops are trained to lie :: Who deported more people? Obama or Trump? :: No victim, no crime :: 2026-02-08 Hosts: Bonnie, Rich E Rich, Bear Arms.” (02/08/26)
https://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl2026-02-08
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60) Matt Williams on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Matt Williams on What the Epstein Files Reveal about the Global Elites.” (02/08/26)
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/2-6-26-matt-williams-on-what-the-epstein-files-reveal-about-the-global-elites/
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