Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Note to Ldotters:
Please remember, no duplicates, no blog posting
unless you have permission from staff, no local crimes and
no posting just to elicit nasty reactions.
Any post with three lines or fewer will be deleted.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Lucianne.com Ad-Free Subscription
Learn More or Enter Code
Latest Posts
A Biden official who launched the Disinformation Governance Board and served as co-chair of the so-called Ministry of Truth has been appointed to advise the powerful Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, prompting concerns from some Republican lawmakers. The presiding judges (snip) appointed Jennifer Daksal on Feb. 1 to serve as amicus curiae for the court. (snip) Grassley criticized the current amicus curiae appointment process at a Jan. 29 Senate hearing and lamented that the roster of current Amici contains some people with deeply concerning partisan ties."
A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general declared the United States is “finished” and claimed that even deploying America’s entire aircraft carrier fleet against Iran “won’t be able to do a damn thing” as U.S. and Iranian officials concluded a second round of nuclear talks in Geneva Tuesday under the shadow of an expanding American military buildup across the Middle East.
General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, a senior adviser to the IRGC’s commander-in-chief, made the remarks last Wednesday in comments to an Iranian state-affiliated news agency, according to a translation released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
On February 17, 2026, President Trump’s Department of Veteran’s Affairs announced it is ending the decades-old practice of reporting veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for using a fiduciary.
On February 27, 2024, Breitbart News reported:
Veterans’ gun rights have long been in the crosshairs of anti-Second Amendment politicians.
For example, in February 2016, during the Obama administration, Breitbart News noted that numerous combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who might need treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder were increasingly hesitant to pursue it because they feared a diagnosis of PTSD would be used to deny their gun rights under the Obama administration.
A decade after losing the presidency to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has learned nothing. In a testy exchange with Czech Minister (snip) Petr Macinka at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, Clinton responded angrily to the observation that Trump's rise has been made possible by left-wing extremism. (snip) The enemies of the West have always accused us of moral degeneracy. Hillary Clinton and her fellow progressives, however, have made it sinfully easy to paint us as both immoral and insane. When much of the political establishment argues that sex changes or children are a moral right, our enemies don't need to lie about us anymore.
Mamdani threatens 9.5% property tax increase
to fill NYC budget gap if Albany won't
tax rich replies
to fill NYC budget gap if Albany won't
tax rich replies
Mayor Zohran Mamdani laid out two potential paths Tuesday to close what he says is a $5.4 billion dollar budget gap in New York City. In one, Albany would raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers. In the other, the City would raise property taxes for the first time since the late 2000s. The City could generate $3.7 billion by raising the property tax by 9.5%, Mamdani said. (Snip) “If we do not go down the first path, the city will be forced down a second, more harmful path. Faced with no other choice…we would have to raise property taxes.
Trump Eulogizes Jesse Jackson, Underscoring
the Rev.'s Conflicted Relationship With
Barack Obama replies
the Rev.'s Conflicted Relationship With
Barack Obama replies
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to offer his condolences and pay tribute to the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. after the Tuesday death of the late civil rights activist and two-time presidential candidate. (Snip) The Reverend Jesse Jackson is Dead at 84. I knew him well, long before becoming President. He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and “street smarts.” He was very gregarious - Someone who truly loved people! Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way.
A man walked up to a 13-year-old boy and slashed his throat in an unprovoked attack near Daytona Beach Pier on Valentine’s Day.
The boy miraculously survived the attack.
The boy’s father said he could see “all the way down to the meat” after a man slashed his son’s throat.
The Clarke family was walking down the boardwalk in Daytona Beach on Saturday when 44-year-old Jermaine Long approached 13-year-old Sullivan Clarke and intentionally sliced his throat.
“I thought he was stealing Sully’s phone,” the boy’s mother, Lori Clarke told Fox 35. “As soon as he slashed him, I yelled, and I said ‘Hey!”
“I could see his neck gashed wide open.
When President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Robert Garson, floated the idea of asylum for Britain’s Jews last month, saying “the UK is no longer a safe place for Jews,” a natural response was to focus on the likelihood of more terrorist attacks against Jews by radical Muslims. This concern is warranted, as we were reminded last week after the conviction of two men for plotting to murder hundreds of Jews in an Islamic State-inspired attack in Manchester. Sky News contributor Sophie Elsworth, in a segment on the convictions, echoed Garson’s words, saying that the rise of antisemitism in the UK is “incredibly frightening.”
Beloved Georgia Teacher Killed by an Illegal
Alien Who Was Fleeing ICE—Guess Who's
Getting the Blame replies
Alien Who Was Fleeing ICE—Guess Who's
Getting the Blame replies
A beloved teacher in Savannah, Georgia, was killed Monday morning when a vehicle driven by a Guatemalan national, who was fleeing from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during an attempted apprehension, crashed into her car.
Thus far, there have been no leftist riots or calls to say her name.
Dr. Linda Davis, a special education teacher at Hesse K-8 School, was pronounced dead after the collision, which occurred very near the opening bell time.
The suspect, 38-year-old Oscar Vasquez Lopez—who entered the U.S. illegally and had received a final order of removal in 2024 under former President Joe Biden—initially pulled over, but then took off, prompting ICE agents to give chase.
One has to question the intelligence of the people who keep sending drug boats out into the Caribbean and the Pacific with the intent to smuggle their cargoes into the United States, given the rate at which Southern Command is interdicting these boats, converting them into flying spare parts and sending their crews to the bottom to serve as fodder for bottom-feeding fish and crustaceans. That's all worth doing, and now, on Tuesday morning, we learned that three more of these boats and crews were given a dose of the Smuggler's Blues.
Nobody Is Hurting Our Dogs
replies
Leave it to the Democrats and their regime media flunkies to take the 1 percent side of a 99 percent to 1 percent issue, but a whole bunch of them, including Gavin Hairstyle and Jake Tapper, got into a high dudgeon the other day because normal Americans rejected the demand of radical Muslims to give up our puppies. Given the choice between Fido and Muslims who hate canines, the American people came down four-square in favor of Lassie. This is why you don't ask a question if you don't want to hear the answer.
But let me reiterate something.
The decline of religion remains a fundamental reality in most Western countries, particularly in Europe, where over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any faith. Even in more religious America, some estimate that as many as 100,000 churches will close in the near future. Meanwhile, the ranks of “Nones,” those outside religious communities, have grown so large that their numbers rival those of Catholics and evangelical Protestants.
Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival.
Kimberly Strassel recently opined in the Wall Street Journal about the "hot air" of the talking filibuster strategy currently being considered by Senate Republicans as a way to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would mandate voter ID in federal elections, require proof of citizenship for registering to vote, and make states purge noncitizens from their voter rolls. (snip) The talking filibuster is a strategy that, first and foremost, imposes a physical and psychological cost of obstruction on filibustering senators. Second, it forces a public political process that (snip) doesn't allow them to hide behind a single vote.
It was called the “Munich Security Conference,” but it didn’t seem to be about security as much as it was about Democrats making fools of themselves on the world stage. I’m old enough to remember when the Logan Act was something Democrats clutched their pearls over – the unauthorized engagement of foreign policy by an American on behalf of the United States government – but that was different because they accused 47 Republican Senators of doing it. For them, no rules apply.
Well, one rule applies because it applies to everyone and it can’t be rewritten or ignored, it’s humiliation. You can be insulated from an awful lot in life,
AOC Gets Big Mad at Press Coverage of
Her Munich Disaster, and She's Never Been
More Exposed replies
Her Munich Disaster, and She's Never Been
More Exposed replies
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed in Munich this week, no doubt trying to fluff her "foreign policy credentials" for a potential 2028 presidential run. If you know anything about the socialist congresswoman, it went about as well as you'd expect.
Putting aside the shallowness of American politics, which apparently counts simply saying stuff at a security conference as real-world experience, Ocasio-Cortez clearly had a plan. She'd show up, riff a bit about billionaires, and claim democracy is under threat around the globe. It was supposed to be easy, but you know what they say about plans. (X) That wasn't the worst of it, though. During one session, the congresswoman
Here's another example of the violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants in America, as authorities in florida say an illegal from Venezuela tried to drown a Florida woman on the beach, in broad daylight. [Tweet, video]
Here's more:
A 26-year-old undocumented immigrant from Venezuela is facing an attempted first-degree premeditated murder charge after Martin County deputies say he attacked a woman on Stuart Beach and repeatedly held her head underwater, believing he had killed her.
Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek identified the suspect as Said Alexander Hernandez-Gonzalez, a Port St. Lucie resident whose work visa expired and who is now in the country illegally.
Andrew Sullivan Is A Trump Supporter,
But As With Most Things Political He Just
Doesn’t Know It replies
But As With Most Things Political He Just
Doesn’t Know It replies
I don’t want to bury the lede, so I’ll stay up front that yes, content creator Andrew Sullivan is still alive because blogging ultimately did not kill him. But just as important, he is a Trump supporter, even if, as with most things related to politics, he doesn’t know it.
Recall Sullivan as a pioneer of online writing in the aughts and also as the middle-aged white man who choked up on national television while referring to President Obama as a “father figure.” Sullivan now writes on Substack (snip) and he was recently the featured guest on Mark Halperin’s Next Up podcast diagnosing the ails of the Democrat Party.
Palantir is relocating its headquarters to Miami from Denver, the company announced Tuesday in a post to social media platform X. The software analytics firm is the latest big business to migrate to South Florida as executives seek to transform the region into a hub for innovation. Florida, which offers a friendlier tax environment, has welcomed a wave of billionaires in recent years. The region is also gaining more executives as California deliberates over a 5% wealth tax on residents with a net worth exceeding $1 billion. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly bought a mansion in Florida and
For years now, the left has treated mass migration as this moral, beautiful thing. And if you questioned it, that meant you were some heartless, xenophobic, or stuck in some outdated nationalist fantasy loop. Borders were sold as cruel, enforcement (ICE) was framed as oppression, and “diversity is our strength” wasn’t just a slogan; it was a cult
Now suddenly, two of the most powerful Dems in modern politics are singing a very different tune.(snip)
When Hillary Clinton says mass migration has been destabilizing and went too far, and Barack Obama says we are a nation of laws with borders that must be orderly and fair, that is a direct slap
Dr. Oz, the Administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), has been laser-focused on combatting Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse. Over the past month, he has travelled to Minnesota and California to highlight egregious home health and hospice schemes. One often overlooked scheme is the abuse of intergovernmental transfers (IGTs). CMS should put a stop to how states use IGTs to favor government-operated providers at patients’ and taxpayers’ expense.
Congress created Medicaid to help America’s most vulnerable access health and long-term care services. Both the federal government and the state were always meant to share financing responsibility. But states have long taken advantage of the federal government’s open-ended
If you get stopped at an airport security checkpoint with $100 or more in cash, Transportation Security Administration agents can fleece you.
TSA has stripped more than 10,000 travelers of their money since 2014, but the supposed “criminals” are almost never charged after their cash is taken.[snip]
In August 2019, 57-year-old Brown was flying out of Pittsburgh International Airport carrying her father’s life savings — $82,373 — which he wanted her to deposit in a joint bank account near her Boston home.
A TSA agent noticed the Tupperware loaded with the cash while scanning Brown’s luggage and summoned a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, who speedily announced he was seizing the money.
In the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency, few homegrown political controversies have been as tedious or corrosive as the prolonged Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
Among right-wing media figures, precious few bear more responsibility for fanning the Epstein flames than Steve Bannon. This was not because Trump’s administration was part of some cover-up. I purely believe it was because Bannon chose provocation over truth, spectacle over resolution, and self-preservation over honesty.
By early 2026, the factual record was no longer ambiguous.
A Trump administration official is accusing Democrat mismanagement of causing the massive sewage pipe break and spill in the Potomac River, and the government workers who have to deal with the spill just got defunded, discourtesy of toilet-brained Democrats.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is a subsidiary agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which Democrats just defunded. Leftists’ anti-ICE obsession consumes every other consideration. But FEMA has to deal with a massive sewage spill poisoning the waters of the river that runs through Maryland, Virginia, and D.C., because if there is one thing that is always true of Democrats, it is that they insist on creating catastrophes
In one of the most insulting moves ever, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is introducing legislation to make the LGBTQ pride flag a congressionally authorized symbol, giving it the same federal protections as the U.S. flag, military flags, and POW/MIA flags.
Yes, you read that right.
Chuck Schumer wants the pride flag to have the same status as Old Glory and the flags honoring those who served and sacrificed for this country.
Schumer's legislative push comes in direct response to the Trump administration's removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument outside the Stonewall Inn earlier this month.