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And be sure to check out what we’ve been publishing this week in DW Opinion:

• Daily Wire: Ron Johnson: I’ve Seen Enough: The Senate Is Broken, And It’s Time To Change The Rules

• Daily Wire: You Can Kiss Republicans Goodbye If This Election Rule Doesn’t Change

• Daily Wire: Michigan Voters, Don’t Let Radicals Fool You Into Thinking They’re Normal

• Daily Wire: Washington State’s Democrats Vote To Eat The Rich

• Daily Wire: Democrat Admits To ‘Unfair’ Map — While Keeping Voters In The Dark

• Daily Wire: No, The Bible Still Doesn’t Advocate For Abortion

• Daily Wire: Even Religious-minded Americans Are Willing To Accept Assisted Suicide

• Daily Wire: Public “Intellectual” Wants Kids To Be As Miserable As He Is

• Daily Wire: Winston Marshall: Cocaine With The Castros

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For now, Facebook is still technically called Meta. But the “metaverse,” Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious virtual reality project, is in shambles. Tech outlets reported last week that the company would be sunsetting Horizon Worlds, its VR social media platform. Then CTO Andrew Bosworth clarified that Horizon Worlds would rema…

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✍️ Feature

• Daily Wire: You Gotta Know When To Fold ’Em: Inside The Late Night Poker Raid In The Lone Star State

🌍 Foreign

• The National Interest: The U.S. Still Needs an Iran War Strategy

• Politico: Why Targeting Kharg Island Could Backfire on Trump

• Punchbowl News: Five Questions on What Comes Next With Iran

• The Wall Street Journal: Mexican Drug Kingpin Was Also an American Citizen

• Fox News: Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ‘Misfunctioning,’ Not Controlling Regime: Sources

• MSN: Trump Says Israel Won’t Attack Iran Gas Field Again After It ‘Violently Lashed Out’

• The National Interest: Why Iran Was Always a Threat to the U.S.

• MSN: Cubans at Their Limit: ‘How Is It Possible That in My Country They Listen to Anyone but the People?’

• The Telegraph: Everyone is Too Terrified to Admit How Vulnerable Britain Has Become

🏛️ Domestic

• Daily Wire: Red Hen Déjà Vu: Sarah Sanders Kicked Out Of Arkansas Restaurant, Flipped Off By Staff

• Daily Wire: Top Microsoft Exec To Host ‘Take Back The House’ Dem Fundraiser For Transgender Lawmaker

• Washington Examiner: Senate Committee Advances Nomination of Markwayne Mullin as DHS Secretary

• Washington Examiner: Joe Kent: Israel, Trump, and the Iran War Debate

• Politico: Mike Johnson Faces Questions on Iran War Funding

• Politico: Kevin Hern Navigates Oklahoma Senate Endorsements

• Axios: Democratic Primaries Show House Left Rising

• Semafor: Republican Floats Vote on Filibuster

• New York Post: Turns Out Mar-a-Lago Wasn’t Overvalued, Tish

• Politico: Cesar Chavez Abuse Allegations Stun Newsom and Democrats

🗳️ 2028

• Politico: Pritzker’s 2028 Ambitions Stir Tensions With Congressional Black Caucus

• City Journal: Gavin Newsom’s Wildlife Crossing Project Faces Scrutiny

📰 Media

• New York Post: Piers Morgan Storms Off His Own Show After Manosphere Influencer’s Crude Remark

• Variety: CBS Evening News Ratings Drop Below 4 Million With Tony Dokoupil

✝️ Religion

• Daily Wire: Biden Made Secret Sweetheart Deal With Iran Group Backing Anti-American Mosque

💻 Tech

• The Wall Street Journal: Apple’s AI Subscription Strategy Takes Shape

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

• Tablet Magazine: The Funny Numbers Behind Netflix Ratings

• The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Dune 3,’ ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Both Set for December 18 Release Date

• The Hollywood Reporter: Kevin Spacey Settles Sexual Assault Claims in Civil Suit

• Variety: Miley Cyrus Reflects on ‘Hannah Montana’ Anniversary

• Variety: Val Kilmer to Star in AI Film ‘As Deep as the Grave’

• Variety: Bob Iger Signals Disney CEO Exit Timeline at Shareholder Meeting

🪶 Quote

“If you become indignant, this elevates you to the plane of ‘intellectual.’”

― Tom Wolfe

Sound advice in Washington is never to take a job unless you’re prepared to resign, and more people should heed it. The resignation Tuesday of a Trump counterterror official in protest against the Iran war is notable on those grounds, but why was he in the Administration in the first place?

“I cannot in good conscience support the ong…

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The conventional wisdom in Washington holds that the United States and Israel share a unified strategic interest in confronting Iran. Politicians on both sides of the aisle recite it like a catechism. The think tanks reinforce it. The defense establishment operationalizes it. But conventional wisdom, particularly in the Middle East, has a remarkable track record of being wrong—and this case is no exception.

Let us be precise about what each party actually wants, because imprecision in foreign policy is not only the cause of intellectual failure but also the expense of blood and treasure.

What Israel wants is the elimination—not the containment, not the negotiated limitation—of Iran’s nuclear program and, increasingly, the weakening or collapse of the Islamic Republic itself. For Israel, this is existential calculus. A nuclear-armed Iran, in the Israeli strategic mind, represents an intolerable threat to its physical survival. Israeli leaders have said this clearly and repeatedly, and there is no reason to doubt their sincerity. They want the United States to fight this war fully, decisively, and at whatever cost is required to finish the job.

What the United States wants—or rather, what American interests dictate, as distinct from what American politicians say—is considerably more modest and considerably more complicated. Washington wants to prevent Iran from acquiring a deliverable nuclear weapon. It wants to preserve the flow of Persian Gulf oil. It wants to avoid another open-ended Middle Eastern military commitment that hollows out its conventional deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific. It wants to keep the global economy from absorbing an oil-price shock that accelerates its own fragmentation. And it wants, if possible, to get back to the business of managing its rivalry with China—the actual defining challenge of this century.

These are obviously not the same objectives. They overlap in places, but they diverge precisely where the pressure is greatest—the question of how far to go.

• The National Interest: Is the Iran War an Asset or Liability for Russia?

• Axios: Hegseth Says Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Wounded and Disfigured

• Foreign Affairs: The New Khamenei

• Yahoo News / Reuters: Iran War Exit Remains Elusive

• The Free Press: There is No MAGA Split on Iran

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Abortion Supporters Changed Their Tactics — So Should Pro-Lifers

Josh Hawley in The Daily Wire:

When the Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade — reversing the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott — pro-life Americans rejoiced. Little did we know the fight was only just beginning. Since then, abortion advocates have dumped millions of dollars in dark money into our states to overturn state laws, and in some cases, state constitutional provisions, protecting life. They’ve relentlessly pushed for pro-abortion judges for state courts and the federal judiciary. But above all, they’ve turned to a drug called mifepristone to bring abortion on demand to every state in the union. If pro-lifers want to protect the innocent unborn, and the health and safety of women, there’s only one thing to do: ban the chemical abortion drug.

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If you haven’t been paying attention, we’ve had some great pieces at Daily Wire Opinion this past week — here’s my latest, on how Mamdani is giving rise to a New Radical Chic — check them out:

• Benham Ben Taleblu: Trump’s Hormuz Moment: The Only Way Out Is Through

“The reality of the Strait of Hormuz is that it remains the world’s most important maritime chokepoint — and Iran knows it. If Tehran believes it can threaten global energy markets without consequence, deterrence has already failed.”

• Tim Anderson: Blue State Moves To Muzzle Oral History Of J6

“The attempt to shut down this oral history project reflects a growing effort to control the narrative surrounding January 6. History cannot be preserved if politicians are allowed to decide which stories are permitted to be told.”

• Clare Ath: The Hard Truth About Being A Working Mom In America

“If we truly want a culture that values life, we must confront the realities facing working mothers.”

“Childcare in America is not merely expensive — in many places it is simply unavailable.”

• Andrew Walker: A Kind Heretic Is Still A Heretic

“Kindness cannot replace truth. A teacher may be gentle and well-meaning, but if he denies the core doctrines of the faith, he is still teaching error.”

• Lisa De Pasquale: David Keene Bet On Young Conservatives Before Anyone Else Did

“David Keene understood something many leaders forget: movements survive only if they invest in the next generation. Long before it was fashionable, Keene was opening doors for young conservatives who would go on to shape the movement.”

• Bev Turner: Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud About Britain’s Free Speech Crisis

“Britain once prided itself on being the birthplace of free speech. Today, citizens are discovering that expressing the wrong opinion can bring a knock on the door from the police.”

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A preliminary analysis by the New York Police Department’s bomb squad determined that the device was “not a hoax device or a smoke bomb” but an improvised explosive that “could have caused serious injury or death,” New York City Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said on Sunday. Two men were arrested at the scene, Tisch said.

The FBI said in a Sun…

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Donald Trump understands something fundamental about foreign policy that most politicians don’t — including ones who have been active in this space for a very long time.

In the run-up to Operation Epic Fury, the critique circling on Capitol Hill wasn’t quiet. Republicans were concerned that, given the risk factors involved in a major regime change war — even one that was undertaken overwhelmingly by air and sea, not Army boots on the ground — the president had done little or nothing to warn the American people of the potential losses inherent in any attack.

Unlike the precision strikes Trump has used in the past — amazing feats of military technological capability, yes, but with lower potential loss of American lives — going after the Iranians meant inevitably setting off a barrage of missiles and drones that could attack all America’s forces in the Middle East, as well as our allies and regional partners.

Exfiltrating Nicolás Maduro and his wife without the loss of a single American life was an incredible achievement, one that was only possible thanks to the bravery and commitment of a terribly wounded helicopter pilot. Things could’ve gone sideways very quickly. Instead, the American forces under Trump pulled it off without one death. Assign it to good fortune, good planning, or the grace of God, but this is not the way such missions are expected to go.

The line from one old military hand to me in the run-up to the Iran strike was simple: How long can the old man keep going back to the table and coming up aces?

That risk, for a normal politician, would require advance mitigation. Think back to the lengthy effort George W. Bush and his associates put into making the case for war in Iraq. The many briefings, public speeches, presentations before the United Nations, and an open effort on television and in op-ed pages to make the case for war were meant to warn people of the potential loss of life and materiel. The message was clear: Steel yourselves for the worst, but understand we’re doing this because we think it needs doing. Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction require it.

Of course, after the WMD turned out to be a pittance of what was expected, and Hussein’s threats turned out to be the actions of a blowhard maintaining his hold on power, the Bush administration was forced into an uncomfortable pivot toward a war built on positive vibes and spreading democracy. The whole prewar case turned out to be built on falsehoods, albeit falsehoods every intelligence service in the West purportedly believed.

Trump became, like so many Americans, an outspoken critic of this war after the fact, as it dragged on interminably and descended into chaos that cost American lives and resources. He took the lesson, as did many politicians in the rising generation, that boots-on-the-ground regime-change wars without clear goals in mind are a pointless and expensive exercise.

But Trump seems to have taken another lesson from it, too: that the messaging build up to such action is unwise and unnecessary.

So, if the political critique of President Trump’s approach in Iran is that he didn’t make the case to the American people, it’s true — he didn’t. He understands that he doesn’t need to.

Americans assess foreign policy and national security not as ever-running aspects of their daily lives, but as a binary: success, or failure. We like to win. We hate to lose.

What Trump has done is show that he knows more about the reality of these issues politically than any longstanding politician, consultant, or commentator. He understands the importance of unpredictability. He makes his decisions in his own time and believes Americans will judge him only if his effort is unsuccessful. And if it is a failure, no amount of prior argument — readying the ground with an awareness of risk, detailing the potential benefits to energy markets or a destabilized China — will make a difference anyway.

It’s a fundamental change in the way an administration conducts foreign policy. It’s in keeping with Trump’s roll the dice approach. And it’s also based on enormous confidence in what the United States military is capable of when you ask them to blow something up instead of changing hearts and minds.

Donald Trump understands the old Vince Lombardi dictum applies here: Winning isn’t everything — it’s the only thing.

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Rubio: Congress Can Vote On Whatever They Want

Daily Wire:

“Why not notify Congress ahead of this —?” the reporter asked.

“Well, we did,” Rubio pushed back immediately. “We notified Congress, well, we notified the Gang of Eight, we notified congressional leadership. There’s no law that says we have to do that. The law says that we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We’ve done that. I think the notification went today.”

“But we did notify members of Congress in advance,” he continued. “We can’t notify 535 members of Congress.”

When one reporter interrupted, arguing that Congress had to vote on a resolution declaring war, Rubio shot back, “Congress can vote on whatever they want, but there’s NO law saying we have to do that. And I’m going to say something because I see people on TV — look, that’s fine, if they want to take a War Powers vote, they can do that, they’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times.”

Rubio repeated that there was no law requiring a president to take any action to notify Congress about strikes before engaging, adding, “To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional, not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents. That said, we have followed the notification at 48 hours, and we’re here today.”

“I’ve done more Gang of Eight briefings than I got in four years of Biden! I was in the Gang of 8. We complied with the law and we will continue to comply with it,” he concluded.

According to the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the president must inform Congress within 48 hours after taking military action or sending troops into combat or imminent combat. A president can then continue such military action for only 60 days — with an additional 30 days for troop drawdown — without a vote from Congress authorizing the continued operations.

More:

• Tablet: The Iran Endgame for Donald Trump

• New York Post: Dramatic Video Appears to Show Downed F-15 Pilot Being Threatened by Pipe-Wielding Kuwaiti

• The Wall Street Journal: Gulf States in Race Against Time to Repel Iran’s Counterattack

• The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Success Against Iran Could Be a Game Changer for World Oil Security

• The National Interest: The Astonishingly Weak Case for War With Iran

• Punchbowl News: GOP Divisions on Iran

• Semafor: Why Republicans Won’t Rein In Trump’s Iran War

• Semafor: Trump Says No Fixed Timeline for U.S. Campaign in Iran

• MSN: This Is How Iran Plans to Endure Trump’s War

• RealClearPolitics: Trump Says He Will Not Ask Congress for War Power

• Politico: Iran War Briefing Tests Rubio and War Powers on Capitol Hill

• Politico Magazine: Vance, Trump and the Politics of an Iran War

• The Telegraph: Britain Scrambles Warship to Cyprus

Buckle Up For Bumpier Skies

The New Yorker:

In 2002, a team of researchers from NASA, the F.A.A., and six commercial airlines ran a series of experiments in Oklahoma City, in a decommissioned Boeing 747. They wanted to see how quickly a commercial jet could be secured in case of turbulence. They recruited a group of volunteer passengers, gave them all fake boarding passes and luggage, and had three of them carry around life-size baby dolls. Some of the volunteers were told to stay in their seats and act as if they were sleeping, reading, or working on a laptop. Others were told to stand in the aisles or sit in the lavatories. A crew of experienced flight attendants, drawn from the airlines participating in the study, made their way up and down the plane, serving fake food.

The research team ran nineteen drills in three days. Some began with a mild warning over the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be encountering a line of thunderstorms in about ten minutes.” The rest began more urgently: “All passengers and flight attendants, please be seated immediately.” The more emphatic announcement prompted a quicker reaction. Still, at best, only two-thirds of the occupants were buckled up after seventy seconds. On average, the passengers needed a minute and a half to take their seats; the flight attendants, who had to stow their gear first, needed at least four minutes. Fully a third of the occupants were still out of their seats after seventy seconds.

To the people on Flight SQ321, that would have seemed an eternity. Eight seconds after the captain’s warning, the plane plummeted. Within five seconds, it had dropped a hundred and seventy-eight feet—about the height of a nineteen-story building. There was no time to react, Azmir later told reporters. “Whoever wasn’t buckled down, they were just launched into the air within the cabin,” he said. Azmir had a window seat near the back. When a plane hits turbulence, it tends to seesaw from front to back, so the first and last rows rise and fall the most. “I saw people from across the aisle just going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling,” Azmir said. “People getting massive gashes in the head.” Some passengers were vaulted up so violently that they dented the luggage bins, or thrust their heads through the panels where the oxygen masks were stored. Those who were standing were sent somersaulting down the aisles; those sitting in the lavatories smashed into the ceiling. It was “sheer terror,” one passenger later said. Then, just as abruptly, the plane lurched up, slamming everyone back to the ground. In just four seconds, the gravitational force on their bodies changed from negative 1.5 g’s to positive 1.5 g’s, Singapore’s Ministry of Transport later noted. It was as if their bodies went from being helium balloons to being sandbags.

“I arrived back in the airport and I couldn’t stop vomiting,” another passenger said, after the plane had made an emergency landing in Bangkok. “I couldn’t walk.” A hundred and four passengers had to be treated for injuries. More than forty of them were kept for longer stays at the hospital; six had skull and brain injuries, including a two-year-old boy. Of the seventeen passengers who needed surgery, nine had spinal injuries, including an Australian woman named Kerry Jordan, who was left paralyzed. A year later, she still couldn’t brush her teeth or use a phone.

✍️ Feature

Christopher Kimball's Substack

Swearing Hill News: Carl Hess and The Four Freedoms

I spent summers and many weekends in Vermont growing up, working on a dairy farm. There was a gas station at the bottom of the hill coming out of town run by Carl Hess, who was famous for appearing in the Norman Rockwell painting, Freedom of Speech, the first of…

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a month ago · 30 likes · Christopher Kimball

🌍 Foreign

• The Spectator: “More Than Half Our Squad Were Executed” Inside Russia’s Rotten Army

• The Wall Street Journal: How Iran and China Think About War Strategy

🏛️ Domestic

• Semafor: What to Watch for on a Huge Primary Day

• Washington Free Beacon: New York Judge Says Columbia Cannot Expel or Discipline Students Who Stormed and Occupied Campus Building

• Washington Free Beacon: Sanders and Khanna Unveil $4.4 Trillion Tax Increase

• The Wall Street Journal: Harvard Poll: Democratic Supermajority Rejects Socialist Policies

• Politico: Third Way’s Centrist Democrats Try to Reclaim the Party’s Iran Foreign Policy

• Politico: New Jersey’s New Governor Takes On ICE

• Axios: Democrats’ 2026 Midterm Strategy Runs Through House Primaries and Jeffries

📰 Media

• Variety: HBO Max and Paramount+ in Talks to Combine Streaming Operations

• The Hollywood Reporter: EU Antitrust Review May Delay Paramount–Warner Merger

• Daily Wire: After Five Year Boycott, Trump to Join WH Correspondents Dinner

💻 Tech

• The Wall Street Journal: Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Pete Hegseth and the AI Debate

🧬 Health

• Axios: The Billing Shift That’s Driving Up Costs for Complex Care

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

• Variety: Why “Sinners” Could Win Best Picture — and Make Michael B. Jordan an Awards Contender

• Variety: “God of War” Creator Calls Amazon’s TV Show ‘Dumb’ and ‘Terrible’

• Variety: “The Mummy 4” in the Works With New Directors; Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz Sequel Script in Play

• The Hollywood Reporter: Bruce Campbell Reveals Cancer Diagnosis

🪶 Quote

“If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions either propagated by you or embraced by you, then I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows he is right. For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle.”

— Christopher Hitchens

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New Job!

Yesterday I announced that I’d be joining The Daily Wire as their new Opinion Editor, standing up a new section that we intend to turn into the best opinion page in America. My work at Fox News as a contributor and podcast host will continue, but my writing is now going to be exclusive to Daily Wire — and more importantly, we’re going to be building out a team in the coming weeks that will represent a real investment in opinion and commentary talent.

Daily Wire has an enormous footprint and the resources to grow even more, and I’m happy to join their team. My thanks to all the congratulations from friends and colleagues on X — there’s much work to be done, and I can’t wait to start!

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✍️ Feature

• Tablet: Paper Dragon: China’s Real Power Problem

🌍 Foreign

• The Hill: All Eyes on Iran: How Far Is Trump Willing to Go?

• The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Brings Tough Demands to Iran Nuclear Talks

• The New York Times: Israel and Iran Edge Toward War

• CrashOut Media: The Menchazo Leaves More Than 60 Dead

• The Daily Wire: Deadly Gun Battle Off Cuba’s Coast — Florida-Registered Boat at Center of Clash

• The Wall Street Journal: French Foreign Ministry’s Trolling Away

🏛️ Domestic

• Punchbowl News: Thune Talks Filibuster Strategy in the Senate

• Politico: Republicans’ Alarm Grows About Holding Texas Senate Seat

• Politico: Howard Lutnick, Trump’s Dealmaker, Faces Growing Tensions

• Axios: FBI Sought Patel, Wiles Phone Records During Biden Administration

• Axios: Trump’s Implied Endorsements for the 2026 Midterms

• Punchbowl News: Clintons to Testify on Capitol Hill

• Daily Wire Opinion: Trump’s Greatest Showman SOTU

• The Spectator: Trump’s State of the Union Address Was Pure Theater

• Axios: Al Green Faces Censure After State of the Union Protest

• NBC News: Minneapolis Woman Ilhan Omar Brought to SOTU Arrested

• The Wall Street Journal: Wall Street Traders Are Pouncing on the Tariff Refund Chaos

• CBS News: Bill Aims to Block Investors From Buying Single-Family Homes

• Washington Examiner: Trump Pledges New Retirement Account Plans

📰 Media

• Variety: Ted Sarandos, White House and Warner Bros. in Talks Over New Deal

• The Hollywood Reporter: Warner Bros. Discovery Q4 2025 Earnings Show Big Net Loss as Paramount, Netflix Diverge

• The Spectator: The Epstein Files and the New Satanic Panic

💻 Tech

• Slow Boring: I’m Not Convinced the AI Backlash Makes Sense

• The Cut: Bill Gates Told Staffers About Affairs With Russian Women

✝️ Religion

• Graphs About Religion: Who Is Telling the Truth About American Religion?

• Free Beacon: Jewish Students Are Segregated, Parents Claim, Sue California

🏈 Sports

• USA Today: Seven Players With the Most to Prove at the 2026 NFL Combine

• NHL.com: Jack Hughes Honored for Golden Goal

• New York Post: New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill Booed at Devils Game

• New York Post: Tony Dungy Likely Out at NBC as Network Looks to Retool

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

• Variety: Disney Chief Josh D’Amaro on Star Wars, Marvel and AI Strategy

• The Hollywood Reporter: Pro-Palestine Protesters Disrupt “Scream 7” L.A. Premiere

• Vulture: Is Sonja Morgan Getting Her Own Devil Wears Prada?

🪶 Quote

“We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.”

— Christopher Hitchens

One of the central contentions of Trump’s movement was that the world was run by a corrupt, deviant, and rootless élite, a cabal of cosmopolitan globalists who held themselves out as enlightened but were actually callous, self-interested, and predatory. (Trump positioned himself as an alternative to this group: if the rich weren’t like yo…

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Time Magazine on the team:

They stayed in the Olympic Village, this American men’s Olympic hockey team that won a classic 2-1 overtime thriller against Canada on Sunday afternoon, in a game that—bet on it—will be dissected and feted and reminisced about, quite wistfully, a quarter century from now. Maybe even sooner. The squad swore off the Four Seasons to live like everyday Olympians for a few weeks. The Hughes brothers, Jack and Quinn, and the Tkachuks, Matthew and Brady, each shared rooms with their siblings: Quinn mock-complained about the Tkachuks always leaving their door open across the hall.

“Olympic spirit, team chemistry, there’s something to that,” says American forward Dylan Larkin, who plays for the Detroit Red Wings. “We’re Team USA, and we get to hang and talk to figure skaters and speed skaters. Winning gold is contagious. And being around winners, being around great athletes, was something that I’m very appreciative we did.”

They honored Johnny Gaudreau, the late Columbus Blue Jackets forward who, as a seven-time All Star, almost certainly would have been on this team, had he and his brother, Matt, a minor league player who starred at Boston College, hadn’t been tragically killed in the summer of 2024; a suspected drunk driver stuck their bikes on the eve of their sister’s wedding. Larkin and Zach Werenski, Gaudreau’s teammate with Columbus, brought Johnny Gaudreau’s children onto the ice after Jack Hughes’ golden goal gave the U.S. its first Olympic gold medal since the Miracle On Ice in 1980.

Werenski and Matthew Tkachuk held up a #13 Gaudreau Team USA jersey during a team victory photo. Canada had 42 shots on goal, to the U.S.’s 28; the dexterity of the best player in the rink, Connor Hellebuyck, in goal—he had 41 saves—and some good fortune allowed the U.S. to escape with a win. “I think part of the puck not going in our net was somehow [Johnny] is standing there doing something,” says Larkin. “Laughing with Matty. Just somehow, they put a spell around our net where that puck didn’t go in. Ironic, because it’s on the defensive side. He would never have been back there.”

And they had Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils forward, who had a day. Hughes lost his teeth on the ice from high-stick to the mouth, put the Americans in a dangerous spot at the end of the third period when he got penalized for high-sticking, but then delivered the game–winner a few minutes into overtime. “The difference between a guy that wants the puck on a stick in that moment, if you watch the video, I turn and go back,” says Larkin, who shared the ice with Hughes during the game-winner, and indeed skated away from the action. “He wants it. And he f-cking put it in the net. That’s what superstar players do.”

And for a few hours on a Sunday morning at least, on a February day without the NFL or the NBA All-Star Game or the Daytona 500, this likeable group of American hockey players riveted a nation, and maybe even united the country. “The team was built with personality,” said Team USA coach Mike Sullivan. “We were loaded with personality. There are whiskey drinkers and milk drinkers. We have a lot of whiskey drinkers on this team.” A gap-toothed Jack Hughes, brother Quinn, and American captain Auston Matthews soon joined Sullivan on the press conference stage. They were wearing drinking goggles and sucked down Coronas.

More from The Free Beacon: So Proud to Be American

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Mexico Descends into Cartel Chaos

Following the killing of El Mencho. The Wall Street Journal:

Mexico’s military killed the country’s most powerful drug kingpin, Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, escalating the government’s war against cartels amid pressure from President Trump to curb narcotics trafficking and sparking a widespread, violent gang response.

Oseguera, a former Mexican police officer, was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The cartel also controls vast fuel-smuggling schemes and other underworld rackets across Mexico and the U.S., Mexican authorities said.

Oseguera’s killing marks the most significant operation yet in Mexico’s recent crackdown on cartels. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has expelled more than 100 convicted drug traffickers to the U.S. to appease rising demands from Trump, who has pressured Sheinbaum to allow U.S. military forces in the fight against drug gangs. So far she has rejected direct U.S. involvement but has strengthened security and intelligence cooperation.

Mexico’s Security Ministry said the country’s special forces killed Oseguera in the rural municipality of Tapalpa—close to Ajijic, a lakeshore community with a large American retiree community.

The ministry said the country’s central military-intelligence unit planned and executed the operation with Mexico’s armed forces, including the country’s air force and an elite national-guard unit trained to fight cartels. U.S. authorities provided “supplementary information.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Oseguera was a top target for the Mexican and U.S. governments. Last year, Trump designated the Jalisco cartel as a foreign terrorist organization, she wrote on X.

Oseguera controlled vast swaths of territory in Jalisco state and beyond and was known for sophisticated paramilitary tactics. He had been expanding his influence and was locked in a bloody struggle for control of neighboring Michoacán state.

The U.S. had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera. He rarely left his mountain compound, according to authorities. Few photos of him circulate. The cadre of men protecting Oseguera, known as the Special Force of the High Command, carry heat-seeking, shoulder-fired rocket launchers capable of piercing a tank, people familiar with cartel operations said.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement saw capturing Oseguera as a high-risk operation because of his military might and the risks of widespread violence. With this strike, Mexico had provided a “scalp to the U.S., putting off the threat of unilateral U.S. military action against the cartels,” said Mike Burgoyne, a former U.S. military attaché in Mexico City.

The Security Ministry said special forces were attacked during the raid. “They returned fire,” the ministry said.

Four cartel members were killed at the scene, while three others, including Oseguera, died from their wounds during air transport to Mexico City.

“That is a high-level special operation,” said Derek Maltz, former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He compared Sunday’s events to the U.S. raid that captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in January.

“You’re going after the top cartel leader who has been running wild for many years, and that requires intense planning, coordination and operational implementation,” Maltz said.

Oseguera, who grew up poor selling avocados, became the top trafficker of cocaine globally, say U.S. and Mexican authorities, eclipsing the better-known Sinaloa cartel’s dominant position in recent years. Oseguera’s cartel transports the addictive powder by the ton from Colombia to Ecuador and then north to Mexico’s Pacific Coast via speedboats and semisubmersibles.

Oseguera’s gunmen responded to his death by burning cars and trucks and blocking roads in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, as the government deployed security forces across western Mexico.

In the Pacific beach resort of Puerto Vallarta, videos showed black plumes of smoke wafting over the city. Professional soccer matches were postponed in Jalisco. Several Mexican, U.S. and Canadian airlines canceled flights to airports in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.

How they got him:

Security forces launched a massive operation to capture Mexico’s top drug lord after U.S. and Mexican intelligence agencies tracked one of his girlfriends to a secluded love nest in a colonial town, Mexican officials said Monday.

Early on Sunday, a team of elite Mexican army and National Guard special-operations soldiers descended on the community of Tapalpa in western Mexico, where Nemesio “Mencho” Oseguera, the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, remained holed up after his girlfriend left, Mexico’s Defense Secretary Gen. Ricardo Trevilla said on Monday.

The soldiers chased Oseguera and several bodyguards, surrounding them deep into nearby woods, Trevilla said.

A battle ensued, as Oseguera’s desperate bodyguards, armed with two rocket launchers, fired on the pursuing troops. In the fighting, eight people were killed, including Oseguera and two other bodyguards who were seriously wounded and then died in a military helicopter later.

Trevilla said Mexican intelligence services identified a man close to Oseguera’s lover who took her to Tapalpa, a mountain weekend getaway community surrounded by pine forests in western Jalisco state. Mexican officials said U.S. intelligence helped the operation.

“The intelligence process is very complex; it requires a great deal of time to gather a lot of information from diverse national and international sources,” Trevilla said with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum standing alongside him.

More than 50 people died in the aftermath of the raid during the gang’s counteroffensive. The dead included 25 Mexican soldiers and security officers and 30 alleged gunmen. There were also civilians caught in the crossfire, including a pregnant woman, authorities said.

Overcome with emotion, Trevilla paused as he lauded the soldiers who died on Sunday.

“We have strengthened our relationship with the U.S. Northern Command,” Trevilla said.

Sheinbaum said that she was notified of the operation early on Sunday. She instructed the setup of a central command.

The U.S. had a $15 million bounty on Oseguera.

Authorities seized heavy weapons and ammunition, two rocket launchers and eight vehicles used by Oseguera’s operatives; some of them were armored.

U.S. officials said that the U.S. Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel, a newly established U.S. military-led unit created to dismantle drug-cartel networks, helped with the mission.

Sheinbaum said that there were no U.S. boots on the ground. She reiterated on Monday that she has rejected direct U.S. involvement, but her administration has strengthened security and intelligence cooperation.

“All operations, from their planning onwards, are the responsibility of the Mexican federal forces,” Sheinbaum said. Two soldiers were injured during the raid.

A top financial operator for Oseguera was also killed in a gunfight at a nearby town as he attempted to flee in a car Sunday. The cartel operative was offering rewards of 20,000 pesos, equivalent to almost $1,200, for the death of any Mexican soldier involved in the operation, Trevilla said.

More:

• The Spectator: The Truth About Mexico’s Cartel Wars

• The Wall Street Journal: Gunmen Wreak Havoc in Coastal Resort Towns

• New York Post: Deadly Violence in Mexico Spreads After Cartel Boss Killed as Americans Warned to Shelter in Place

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• The New Yorker: James Talarico Gets His Pensive Looking Into the Middle Distance Profile

🌍 Foreign

• Hudson Institute: Donald Trump’s Iran Trap

• Brussels Signal: U.S. Diplomatic Decline and the Lost European Mind

• MSN: Iranian Protesters Recount the War Zone That Left Thousands Dead

• Al Jazeera: U.S. Military Begins Withdrawing From Key Base in Northeastern Syria

• The Telegraph: Greenland Rejects Trump’s Hospital Ship Offer

• Washington Examiner: Kim Jong Un Reelected as Daughter Takes Prominent Role

• The Wall Street Journal: Police Arrest Britain’s Former Ambassador to the U.S. Over Epstein Links

• The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Elite Troops, Hardened by War on Terror, Retrain for Arctic Combat

• The National Interest: Trump and a Chagos Islands Intervention With the U.K.

🏛️ Domestic

• Axios: House Democrats Plot 2026 Targets With Trump in the Background

• Politico: The Maine Senate Race and the Rise of Graham Platner

• Politico: Democratic Attorneys General Accuse Trump of Election Meddling Ahead of the Midterms

• Politico: Judge Cannon Nukes Jack Smith Report

• New York Mag: How AIPAC Is Reshaping Democratic Primaries

• The Telegraph: Secret Service Shoots Dead Man Attempting to Enter Mar-a-Lago

• Washington Examiner: Rep. Tony Gonzales Under Investigation After Alleged Affair With Staffer Who Later Died by Suicide

• Mediaite: Zohran Mamdani Mocked for Requiring Five Forms of ID to Be an Emergency Snow Shoveler

🗳️ 2028

• New York Post: Gavin Newsom Goes Viral After Telling Black Mayor “I Am Like You” then Citing SAT Score

• Axios: The DNC’s 2024 Autopsy and the Fallout Over Harris and Gaza

• Axios: Vance and Rubio Face the 2028 Question as Trump Looms

📰 Media

• Tablet: The Arsonist and the Big Tent: Trump, Tucker Carlson and the New Right

💻 Tech

• The New York Times: Binance Fires Employees Linked to Iran as Scrutiny Grows

🧬 Health

• Washington Examiner: FDA Creates New Approval Pathway for Personalized Rare-Disease Therapies

✝️ Religion

• The Free Press: Inside the Christian Civil War Over Anti-Semitism

🏈 Sports

• The Wall Street Journal: Liu, Klaebo, Shiffrin and the Stars of the Milan-Cortina Olympics

• The Athletic: The Best Gold Medal Moments in Winter Olympics History

• The Cut: The U.S. Men’s Hockey Team, Kash Patel and a Trump Phone Call

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

• Deadline: Ted Sarandos, Trump, Netflix and Susan Rice

• The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Reading Rainbow’ Reboot in the Works as Sony Strikes Deal With PBS

• The Hollywood Reporter: Tourette’s, the BAFTAs and the BBC in ‘Sinners’ Awards Night Controversy

• Variety: Nick Reiner Pleads Not Guilty at Arraignment

🪶 Quote

“I can claim copyright only in myself, and occasionally in those who are either dead or have written about the same events, or who have a decent expectation of anonymity, or who are such appalling public shits that they have forfeited their right to bitch.”

— Christopher Hitchens

The 6-3 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, removes a tool of diplomatic pressure that Trump has aggressively wielded to remake U.S. trade deals and collect tens of billions of dollars from companies importing foreign goods. The ruling didn’t directly address whether the government will have to pay back the tariff re…

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• The New Yorker: Silicon Valley’s Favorite Doomsaying Philosopher

🌍 Foreign

• The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Gathers the Most Air Power in the Middle East Since the 2003 Iraq Invasion

• POLITICO Europe: Macron Calls on Political Extremes to Clean House After Activist Killing

• Washington Examiner: Marco Rubio’s Tour de Force Speech at the Munich Security Conference

• Axios: Europe Scrambles to Boost Military Aid to Ukraine as Russia Presses On

• The Telegraph: Starmer Will Defy Trump Over Chagos Deal

• Yahoo News: Britain Relegated to Military Irrelevance Under New Plans

• The National Interest: Donald Trump’s Maritime Action Plan Is Sound Policy

• The Wall Street Journal: Epstein Accomplice Jean-Luc Brunel Evidence Raises New Questions

• The Wall Street Journal: Former Prince Andrew Arrested Over Epstein Probe

🏛️ Domestic

• Washington Examiner: Bowser Seeks Federal Help After Potomac Sewage Spill Declared Public Emergency

• Daily Wire: D.C. Utility Behind Potomac Sewage Spill Faces Scrutiny

• NBC News: Republican Lawmakers Face New Political Headwinds

• Axios: Why Republicans Are Anxious About Voter Turnout in 2026

• Semafor: Partial Government Shutdown Looks Likely to Stretch Into the SOTU

• POLITICO: MAGA Purity Test Plays Out in Texas Attorney General Race

• Punchbowl News: Hunt Campaign Rattles GOP Operatives

• POLITICO: Trump Pushes Clean Extension of Section 702 Surveillance Authority

• POLITICO: Pro-Israel Group DMFI Wades Into Democratic House Primaries

• Washington Examiner: Angela Alsobrooks Becomes First Senator to Endorse Jasmine Crockett in Texas Senate Race

• Free Beacon: ‘Jasmine Crockett Must Be Heard’: Democrats’ War on Black Excellence

• Mediaite: Colin Allred Mocked After Texas Black Democrats Endorse His White Primary Opponent

• Newsweek: Trump Picks Aide for Ballroom Construction Panel

• New York Post: Mamdani’s Budget Ultimatum for Hochul Sparks Albany Clash

• Mediaite: Nancy Mace Rejects DOJ Conclusion That Epstein Died by Suicide

🗳️ 2028

• MSN: Maybe the Time Is Right for an AOC Presidential Bid

📰 Media

• Showbiz411: UCLA Cancels Bari Weiss Journalism Lecture After Pressure

• New York Post: Anderson Cooper Decides Not to Renew ‘60 Minutes’ Contract

• Variety: EU Regulators Weigh Paramount–Netflix Battle With Warner Bros.

💻 Tech

• Daily Wire: Kids Don’t Need More Online Monitoring — They Need Involved Dads

• The New York Times: The Best Free Live-TV Apps for Your Phone

• Semafor: Prediction Markets Won Over Trump — Washington Will Be Harder

🧬 Health

• NPR: FDA Clears Moderna’s mRNA Flu Shot

🏈 Sports

• House of Strauss: What Did Casey Wasserman Actually Do?

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

• NBC News: U2 Releases anti-ICE Song

• Semafor: Senate Democrats Threaten Probe Into Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery

• Stereogum: Lana Del Rey Shares ‘White Feather / Hawk Tail / Deer Hunter’

• Variety: ‘Peaky Blinders’ Movie Trailer Teases Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan

🪶 Quote

“Your favorite occupation? Travel in contested territory. Hard-working writing and reading when safely home, in the knowledge that an amusing friend is later coming to dinner.”

— Christopher Hitchens

From the Financial Times:

When US secretary of state Marco Rubio took to the stage at the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday, he laced his address with reassurance, hailing the “unbreakable link” between the US and Europe dating back to the arrival of European settlers on the American continent.

“We will always be a child of Europe,” he said.

The crowd of European leaders, ministers and senior officials rose to their feet to applaud, but it was less out of admiration than pure relief.

The first 13 months of Donald Trump’s second term in office have created the biggest crisis in the transatlantic relationship for decades, as his aggressive foreign policy and transactional relationships with allies rattle long-standing US partners in Europe and disrupt their eight-decade-long security pact.

While Rubio’s tone was politer than the diatribe delivered by US vice-president JD Vance on the same stage the previous year — the first of a year-long series of blows dealt by Trump’s administration to the EU and Nato — the substance of the US message was little changed.

Rubio repeated the administration’s talking points, including lambasting European energy policies to “appease a climate cult” while “impoverishing our people”, and claimed that mass migration raised the prospect of “civilisation erasure”.

“Rubio is the best we can hope for from the [US] administration,” said a senior European minister who was in the room. “But he was still pretty clear that if the transatlantic relationship is not broken, it’s significantly different from what we are used to.”

European officials said that in many ways Vance’s 2025 speech was easier to handle because it was so overtly aggressive that it ensured unity in response. Rubio’s nuance made it harder to determine the threat, they said.

“That’s the thing: if you break stuff, it’s not so easy to put it back together,” said one European minister who was in the audience. “It is nice that [Rubio] held out a hand instead of poking us in the eye . . . but nothing has changed.”

More:

“Rubio sent the right message of reassurance and got a standing ovation, but behind closed doors Europeans say that there is no going back because the Greenland fiasco cut to the bone,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based think-tank. “The good news is that the tone from Europe this year is focused and pragmatic rather than reactive and emotional: that’s a positive change.”

And here comes the fallout:

The scale of unease is such that even Germany, a country that has always refused offers from Paris to join the French nuclear umbrella and counted on the US atomic shield, is considering changing tack. Merz announced on Friday he had “initiated talks” with French President Emmanuel Macron about the continent’s nuclear deterrence.

There is also anxiety in European capitals that the Trump administration fundamentally dislikes the EU as an institution and would rather deal with individual states — an approach that many in Europe believe undermines decades of European integration designed to ensure peace and prosperity.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a German conservative MP, said: “The impression of the speech of Rubio was more a damage control exercise with regard to the statements of Trump. But he clearly doesn’t appreciate the EU. He has a very nationalist view of Europe.”

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How Academia Replaced the Church For the Left

The New Yorker:

In the past thirty or so years, the academy has replaced the church as the center of the liberal moral imagination, providing the sense of a community bound by ethics, a firmament of texts and knowledge that should inform action, and a meeting space for like-minded people. This isn’t an entirely new development, of course—American history is full of student-protest movements—but, rather, a consolidation of the university’s influence. Young people not only stopped going to church in large numbers, they also got fewer and fewer union jobs—and unions were the other institution in America that has historically produced a great deal of progressive change. College, particularly for middle-class and upper-middle-class kids, is now often the first and perhaps only place where young people are told that they are part of a community of their choosing, one that will prepare them to be “leaders of tomorrow” and instill in them a moral and ethical code of conduct.

So, if we accept that the university has become the incubator for social-justice movements in America, is it actually good at this job?

I began thinking about this question while reading about the effects of education on political polarization. It’s a familiar story by now: the more years of education you’ve received, the more likely you are to be a Democrat. In the past few election cycles, this correlation has become more robust. A number of conservative commentators, including Roger Kimball, Peter Wood, and Chris Rufo, maintain that political conformity overtook élite institutions of higher learning and turned every seminar room into some radical struggle session where students dutifully read Karl Marx and bell hooks. Even if you disagree, as I do, with their prescriptions to root out so-called radicalism wherever they find it, you can recognize that what they’re describing is not imaginary. In 1969, around the height of anti-Vietnam War protests and the Third World Liberation Front movement on campuses, the faculty at American universities were closer in political alignment to the general public. This held true until the end of the century, when a combination of factors—including the expansion of the social sciences, which tend to attract more liberals—led to the left-leaning academy that you see today. The extreme effects of this shift have been especially visible at élite universities; according to one conservative group’s report, seventy-seven per cent of faculty at Yale, for example, are or have largely supported Democrats, compared with just three per cent who are Republicans. But most forms of higher education have seen at least a doubling of its liberal-to-conservative gap since the nineties.

Wood argues that colleges are not only staffed with a disproportionate number of radicals who indoctrinate the students but also have turned everything from dormitory management to the dining halls over to the left. In this view, even students who might disagree with their radical professors will eventually succumb to progressive politics because it is embedded in every part of campus life. Wood and others—such as John McWhorter, who, in his book “Woke Racism,” contends that “wokeness” has become a religion on college campuses—understand that the contemporary university functions in some respects as a church, and they believe that it has taken up a dangerous and wrongheaded set of doctrines. (Wood co-authored a three-hundred-and-seventy-page study on my alma mater, Bowdoin College, because he believed that the school had become hostile to the teachings of Western civilization.) These critics do not want to change the basically religious function of the university so much as they want to swap out the sermons.

I would argue something more fundamental. Rather than fighting about so-called viewpoint diversity in higher education, and swapping different ideologies back and forth to match our political beliefs, we need to ask whether the university should have this role at all. To answer the question posed at the start of this column: the university is not good at incubating social-justice movements, or acting as a moral and ethical center of our culture. This is not only because its priests are mostly cloistered faculty but because not everyone goes to college, and many of those who do attend community colleges and commuter schools that do not play this role. The élite public and private universities are intentionally exclusionary, which is why seemingly every one of their commencement speakers talks about the assembled, in their caps and gowns, as the future leaders of America and the best of the best. The institutions that are fostering supposedly egalitarian politics limit upward mobility as much as they facilitate it. This has encouraged a type of blinkered and oftentimes unambitious style of activism among young people, which asks for many changes but does not challenge the system that provides them with their own lofty status.

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Does Colbert Want To Have to Interview Ken Paxton?

The Hollywood Reporter:

CBS‘ Late Show host Stephen Colbert says that lawyers for the network blocked him from interviewing Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful James Talarico, citing the FCC’s new guidance for political candidates on talk shows.

Colbert opened his show Monday by explaining the situation. “You know who is not one of my guests tonight: That’s Texas State Representative James Talarico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert told the audience. “Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on, and because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

Colbert went on to explain the FCC equal time guidance change, citing The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the matter and noting that historically talk shows like his (and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live and The View) had been exempt from the equal time rules, going back some 30 years.

“In his letter, Carr said he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows because he said some of them were motivated by partisan purposes. Well, sir, you’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC U because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir,” Colbert said. “Smelt it because you dealt it. You are Dutch ovening America’s airwaves. Let’s just call this what it is. Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.”

Keep in mind that these same rules were deployed under Joe Biden, when Kamala Harris appeared on Saturday Night Live. But that’s ancient history, Donald Trump hadn’t won again yet.

✍️ Feature

• Pirate Wires: Who Wrote California’s Wealth-Tax Proposal?

🌍 Foreign

• Semafor: Why Markets Should Care About Jimmy Lai’s Sentence

• Semafor: UN Extremely Worried Over Cuba’s Humanitarian Situation

• The Telegraph: Trump to Join Iran Talks Indirectly

• France 24: French Police Raid Paris’s Arab World Institute in Epstein-Linked Probe

• RealClearWorld: U.S. and Japan, a New Conservative Axis

• The Spectator: I Burnt a Quran. Now I May Have to Flee Britain

• The Guardian: Keir Starmer’s Flailing, Say Voters

• The Wall Street Journal: Britain’s Monarchy Can’t Escape the Shadow of the Epstein Scandal

• The New Yorker: The Jeffrey Epstein Files Are Peter Mandelson’s Final Disgrace

🏛️ Domestic

• Axios: Democrats Plan Subpoenas as Midterms Loom for Corporate America

• The Daily Wire: Transgender-Identifying Man Opens Fire at Rhode Island Hockey Game, Killing Two

• The Washington Free Beacon: Biden Official Who Created Disinformation Board Appointed as FISA Court Adviser

• Politico: Trump Has FEMA Coordinating Response After Potomac Sewage Spill

• The Hollywood Reporter: Karen Bass Says Casey Wasserman Must Step Down From LA28 Roles After Epstein Files

• Politico: NYC Mayor, Though Battered, Weathers His First Major Storm

• The Wall Street Journal: Jesse Jackson, Civil Rights Leader and Democratic Presidential Candidate, Dies

🗳️ 2028

• Mediaite: Jon Ossoff Goes Viral With Anti-Trump Speech, Sparking 2028 Talk

• The Washington Free Beacon: Wes Moore Stumbles During CBS Town Hall When Pressed on Exaggerations and Falsehoods

• Politico: Wes Moore Faces Redistricting Fight in Maryland

• Fox News: Ted Cruz Calls Gavin Newsom a ‘Historically Illiterate Clown’

📰 Media

• Variety: Anderson Cooper to Exit “60 Minutes”

• Semafor: Apple News’ Political Honeymoon Is Over

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• Axios: Trump, the TikTok Ban and Charlie Kirk

✝️ Religion

• Tablet Magazine’s Liel Leibovitz: A Letter to a Catholic Friend

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• The Wall Street Journal: HHS Medicaid Data and Minnesota Fraud

• Punchbowl News: Cassidy Presses FDA Over Drug Oversight

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• The Hollywood Reporter: Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix Set Vote Date as Paramount Talks Continue

• Variety: Robert Duvall, Star of “The Godfather” and “The Great Santini,” Dies

• The Spectator: Eye-Catching but Superficial: “Wuthering Heights” Reviewed

🪶 Quote

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbor and to say:—
“We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

— Rudyard Kipling

Annual inflation slowed in January, falling more than economists expected, helped by declining prices for gasoline and used vehicles.

Cooler price increases overall represent positive news for the economy, easing concerns that the Trump administration’s steep tariffs will lead to broader ongoing inflation. Yet there are still some…

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As the fallout from the latest Epstein files release continues, including revelations about ex-Ambassador ex-Lord Peter Mandelson which have now put an actual Prime Minister on the hot seat, discourse so far has ignored a central question: why were credentialed neolibs the most susceptible to this gadfly pervert? It’s simple: these people all grew up cripplingly uncool. Model UN types who went to Brown and climbed the ranks at McKinsey hoping for social affirmation from their idea of a popular party bro — suave, connected, mysterious. Nerd sycophants who knew they’d be eaten alive at the University of Alabama. (Has anyone spotted any SEC grads in the files? Any at all?) That’s how you get Larry Summers desperately seeking relationship advice from the guy he knows who’s good with (very) young ladies. Basically, Epstein provided these powerful, successful nerds what they always craved when they were excluded in high school… with high schoolers, no less.

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The Woke Post Deserved to Die

New York Post:

The Washington Post’s newsroom layoffs last week brought a flood of media hate for Jeff Bezos, but they should have inspired a moment of reckoning for the woke left who went so crazy on Bezos’ dime while giving readers none of the content they wanted to read.

When he bought the newspaper, the Amazon billionaire was hailed as the savior of a grand old institution that had fallen on hard times.

He offered not just a lifeline, but a huge amount of investment to expand the role and reach of the paper, which had been lapped by newer competitors in covering the nation’s capital.

Instead of seeing this opportunity as a kick in the pants, motivating better coverage of the things that interest Washington readers, the Post leaned hard into woke, race-focused, pro-transgender, anti-Trump coverage.

Bezos gave them a chance to reset.

Instead, they became the “Democracy dies in darkness” newspaper on every last page.

No section was safe from the absurdity: Consider, for example, 2021’s ridiculous deep-dive feature story on the racist implications of birdwatching.

Because some birds are named after people who owned slaves, you see.

So it’s racist.

Washington, the name of both the city and the paper, is problematic, the Woke Post told us.

So are the many local monuments and statues built to honor America’s greatest historic figures — the very thing that brings tourists our way.

Perhaps jealous of The New York Times’ 1619 project, The Post pursued its own TEMU version for years.

Its staffers covered such deeply important questions as whether it was sexist to dislike the all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot, or racist to like Dungeons & Dragons.

They employed online hit-job artist Taylor Lorenz and a host of woke scold writers across all subjects.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in the sections that had nothing at all to do with politics — particularly the sports pages.

The Post’s sports section was once legendary, with names like Shirley Povich, Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, Sally Jenkins and Tom Boswell drawing readers with their lively coverage.

Yet the very paper that sold millions of copies on the back of Kornheiser’s cocky “bandwagon” columns boosting the ’90s-era Washington Redskins became a chiding, lecturing nag in the hands of a younger generation.

The death of George Floyd meant just one thing for them: Here’s our way to get rid of our local football team’s “racist” name.

Instead of covering the franchises locals love as sports, they covered them as politics.

So when the NHL’s Alexander Ovechkin was riding toward his historic goal performance for the Capitals, the big question for the Post was: Is it problematic to root for a Russian, given the war in Ukraine?

The crowds cheering him on certainly didn’t feel that way, but the city’s biggest paper clearly did.

Maybe that’s why the crowds stopped subscribing.

There’s a reason the sports staff’s most glowing coverage was reserved for trans athletes and for Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe.

It’s because the woke left’s highest aim is to inject divisive politics into everything — especially into the few remaining things that unite us.

In the run-up to the Super Bowl, the Post was doing its normal schtick: ignoring the storylines people care about to instead cover things that non-sports fans think you should care about.

Such as Excel-spreadsheeting competitions. Really.

It isn’t always true that going woke makes you go broke.

But one area in which that chestnut does apply is the case of a newspaper that’s supposed to appeal to a wide audience in a major city, and instead only speaks to those who want constant lectures on the new thing that’s racist, sexist or problematic.

You don’t lose $100 million in a single year by giving people the stories they want or need to read.

Media critics tried to blame the Post’s losses on Bezos and his decision to spike a 2024 endorsement of Kamala Harris.

But that’s ignoring the truth.

As acid-tongued social critic David Burge puts it, the aim of the woke left is to “target a respected institution, kill & clean it,” and “wear it as a skin suit, while demanding respect.”

The woke left tried to do that to DC’s biggest newspaper.

And not even one of the world’s biggest billionaires was willing to keep lighting cash on fire to support this amount of crazy.

There are markets for everything. The founder of Amazon, of all people, knows that.

But there’s no great market for the wokeness The Washington Post was selling.

For that news, America should be thankful.

Prediction Markets Thrive, But Are They a Safe Bet?

The Spectator:

On a cold January night in New York City, Chris Hayes walked off the set of CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert only to face a pressing ethical dilemma. As he left the Ed Sullivan Theater and walked on to Broadway, he got a text from a friend who covers technology for NPR with a screenshot of a Yes/No market that had been spun up on the prediction market Kalshi, based on what Hayes might say on the evening’s broadcast. What would he say about Donald Trump? Would he talk about affordability, Russia, China, Greenland or other topics? It was just a $22,000 market in volume, a minor amount. But what struck Hayes as truly bizarre about the market was this: it was a prediction market about something that had already happened.

Late-night show broadcasts, despite advertising and even title claims indicating otherwise, aren’t live. They are taped in the afternoon, and in the case of Colbert, in front of hundreds of tourists who stand in line to attend. “The crazy thing was that this wasn’t a future event,” Hayes later told his social media followers. “This had happened. We had recorded it. I, Stephen Colbert, the production staff and all the people in the building know what I said or didn’t say.”

Things got even stranger as broadcast time approached. Increased activity on Kalshi led the prediction market to be featured on its homepage, blowing the volume up to more than a million dollars, all on a conversation that had already taken place.

“What possible social utility, what possible utility whatsoever can be gained from a $900,000 betting market on a thing that’s happened? And obviously, I’m not going to go in and place a bet or tip my friends off to it,” Hayes said. “That would be unethical. But a lot of people would. And for a lot of the bets that are on Kalshi, it just seems like these are essentially opportunities for people with inside information to monetize their inside information.”

Hayes may be a ramrod of integrity, but others not so much, as we see with the concerning prediction-market plays in politics and the national security space. The ability to bet on everything – even though these are, technically speaking, contracts – also leads to the emergence of ridiculous whales. One Nostradamus of the net responded to the ebullient nature of Zohran Mamdani’s November election win by placing a $15,000 longshot Polymarket bet at 3 a.m. on the New York City mayor becoming the 2028 Democratic nominee. Upon waking, they apparently realized the foreign-born Mamdani is ineligible, and sold for an immediate $10,000 loss. But why does Polymarket allow people to trade on an impossibility?

The paid backers of these prediction markets – which include prominent Democrats such as Sean Patrick Maloney, president and CEO of the Coalition for Prediction Markets – repeatedly espouse them as a social good. “I know from my time in Congress that noise does not equal knowledge. And when truth gets buried, power shifts further away from everyday people to those who profit from confusion,” says Maloney in a walk-and-talk ad for his trade group. “But what if you could have better insight into what the future holds? Prediction markets, exchanges where people trade on the outcome of future events, existed for centuries.” So have soothsayers and psychics, but they are rarely the richest in the neighborhood. Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is having none of it, saying Maloney’s leadership of the group – which includes Kalshi, Crypto.com and Robinhood – “stinks like the swamp.” She may find a bipartisan friend in Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who has already introduced bans on stock trading by members of Congress and may soon look to these markets as a logical next step. But with Donald Trump’s family all in on the crypto-backed economy and the light touch of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, this may be an instance when the swamp wins out, at least temporarily.

In the long term, the established players in this space are more skeptical. Top experts at the major sports gambling sites are doubtful about the future of prediction markets. More regulation seems likely once there is a change in administration or the Supreme Court makes a ruling on the prediction markets. According to Eilers & Krejcik’s Gaming Online Gambling Outlook for 2026, prediction markets could reach $1 trillion in annual volume this year, with sports bets by far the most popular, valued at $435 billion. The more prediction markets look like an underhanded way to get around state restrictions on sports gambling, the more likely it is that government will respond. The report warns: “The rapid expansion of sports trading via prediction markets increases the likelihood that Congress revisits the permissibility of sports prediction markets and, under certain conditions, the regulatory treatment of sports betting itself.”

People at the Super Bowl this month were not able to live-bet on the game legally – California doesn’t allow sports gambling. But it does allow prediction markets, although the NFL banned adverts for these companies during the game. But that won’t diminish the amount of betting: the American Gaming Association estimated Super Bowl wagers in legal sportsbooks would hit $1.76 billion this year, not including prediction markets or less than legal methods.

More gamblers means more betting on everything including individual players’ performances. As a result, betting scandals take on a more personal quality.

After a turnover-filled performance against Auburn in February, Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes said the quiet part out loud: “I mean at the end of the game, some of the passes that we throw, I don’t know what to say other than sometimes I wonder if my guys are betting on games. I shouldn’t say that, but… erase that. I’m just wondering what’s happening.” With 39 college basketball players currently accused of point shaving, you don’t have to wonder. The biggest prediction-market play right now might be a bet on whether they survive. The more people lose, the more they will ask whether these markets are fair. Chris Hayes has already answered that $900,000 question.

✍️ Feature

The New Yorker: What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know Either

🌍 Foreign

• Semafor: China Set to Supplant the U.S. in the Next Decade, Analysts Predict

• Semafor: U.S. Opposes Israel’s Moves to Annex Parts of the West Bank

• The National Interest: In the Next Pacific War, America Will Be Imperial Japan

• Axios: Europe’s Leadership Crisis — Starmer, Macron and Merz

🏛️ Domestic

• The Spectator: No One Is Safe From a Wealth Tax

• Axios: Texas Senate Race Between Talarico and Crockett Focuses on Identity

• Punchbowl News: Collins Faces a Re-Election Fight

• Politico: A Congressional Candidate Made a ‘No-Negativity’ Pledge After Failing to Get Help Finding Dirt on a Rival

• Politico: Lutnick Grilled Over Epstein Links at Commerce Appropriations Hearing

• Politico Magazine: Samuel Alito on Antonin Scalia’s Legacy, Roe and Dobbs

• The New York Times: Republicans and Democrats Gear Up for Midterms as Fund-Raising Surges

• The Wall Street Journal: Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback

• Washington Examiner: ICE Director Refuses to Apologize After Calling Renee Good and Alex Pretti ‘Domestic Terrorists’

• Washington Examiner: Tom Malinowski Concedes New Jersey Special Primary to Analilia Mejia

• The Daily Wire: ‘Summer of Resistance’: Docs Reveal How California Teachers Were Trained to Fight Back Against ICE

📰 Media

• New York Post: Nancy Guthrie Investigators to Release Photo of Subject Tied to Her Mysterious Disappearance, NBC News Reports

• Variety: Warner Bros. Discovery Board to Review Paramount Hostile Takeover Offer

• Washington Examiner: Walmart’s ‘Blue-Sky Thinking’ About Undoing Will Lewis at The Washington Post

• The Washington Free Beacon: ‘The Finance Industry Is a Grift,’ Oren Cass Claims in the New York Times — Look Who’s Talking

💻 Tech

• New York Post: Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, 70, Spotted With 27-Year-Old Daughter of German Politician

🏈 Sports

• The Wall Street Journal: Ilia Malinin’s Backflip Is Redefining Olympic Figure Skating

• Deadline: NFL and YouTube Creators Team Up for Super Bowl LX

🎭 Culture & Hollywood

• Variety: Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel’s Feud Turns Political

• Variety: Bad Bunny, Super Bowl Producers, a Wedding and the Grammys — Inside a Wild Awards-Season Week

• The Hollywood Reporter: Ryan Coogler on ‘Sinners,’ the Oscars and Chadwick Boseman

• Vulture: Review — Finally, a Smooth-Brained ‘Wuthering Heights’

🪶 Quote

“I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.”

— Christopher Hitchens