Tuesday, February 17, 2026
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No one has ever accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of being consistent, or of having any actual principles, or of being much of an intellect, for that matter. Still, the fact that – while trying to bash a sitting president while in Munich – Newsom managed (accidentally, no doubt) to call a Big Lie on himself is a new milestone in self-owning.
At a Munich Security Summit, Newsom had this to say: “If there’s nothing else I can communicate today, Donald Trump is temporary. He’ll be gone in three years.” [snip] But that’s not what Newsom has been telling Americans.
No. Here in America, Newsom
Joe shared the story yesterday: a terrible shooting occurred at an ice hockey rink in Rhode Island, involving a domestic murder-suicide. The shooter was a biological man who was pretending to be a woman named Roberta Esposito but was born Robert Dorgan. (X) Dorgan shot and killed his wife and three of his children. Three others were also injured in the attack and are in critical condition.
We also got a glimpse into his social media activity, and you know the saying, ‘there’s always a tweet.’ Well, look what Dorgan posted before his attack. (X) The shooter also had a slew of mental health issues: (X)
The Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Sunday that Canadian tourists and businesspeople will be allowed to travel to China without visas, for stays of up to 30 days, beginning this Tuesday and lasting through the end of 2026. Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand confirmed the policy in a post on social media platform X, describing visa-free travel as a commitment China made to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during his visit to Beijing in January.
“This will take effect on February 17, making travel easier, supporting business exchanges, and strengthening people-to-people ties between our countries,” Anand said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is facing widespread ridicule after making a series of embarrassing gaffes in Germany that highlighted her ignorance in foreign policy.
On Friday, she spoke at the Munich Security Conference where she was questioned about the United States defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
AOC’s performance suggests she is not quite ready for the world stage.
When asked directly by Bloomberg TV’s Francine Lacqua, “Would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?,” the congresswoman gave a halting, word-salad response filled with pregnant pauses and qualifiers to avoid a clear yes or no answer.
A significant chunk of the money that should be spent on educating all children is being hoovered up by the special educational needs system, and it is increasingly being gamed by sharp-elbowed middle-class parents.
A report published last week by the think-tank Policy Exchange lays bare what many working in children’s services have suspected for some time. SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) spending has risen in real terms by 58.5% in the last six years, with a greater rise – 65% – in wealthier local authorities compared to poorer areas, where it increased by 51%.
It is hard to see public education in America as anything more than indoctrination factories. The latest efforts to push a far-left agenda are unfolding in anti-ICE rhetoric and demonstrations taking place at schools across the country, spurred on by teachers and administrators.
Now, remarks by Zander Moricz, Executive Director and Founder of the Social Equity and Education (SEE) Alliance at a February 2026 press conference hosted by the Florida Education Association (FEA), Zander Moricz, Executive Director and Founder of the Social Equity and Education (SEE) Alliance, are making headlines.
Moricz suggests that children protesting ICE is ‘required.’
Republicans have not held the governor’s mansion in California since 2010. During the Tea Party Wave election, Republicans swept into power nationwide, even in blue states—except for California. Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, threw nearly $200 million at the governor’s race, but she couldn’t overcome the old retread Jerry Brown, who had remained in California politics decades after his prior gubernatorial term. He served as mayor of Oakland and attorney general and then won the governor’s office again. Why do Californians hate themselves so much?
It was all downhill from there, as California Republicans slowly but surely faced a complete shutout of every corridor of power.
As RedState previously covered, there was a notable development over the weekend in the case of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old Arizona grandmother who was abducted from her home sometime between the late evening hours of January 31 and the early morning hours of February 1.
It centered around the issue of gloves - in particular, one glove with DNA evidence that was recovered around two miles from her Catalina Foothills home that "appears to match the gloves of the subject in the surveillance video" released to the public last Tuesday, according to an FBI spokesperson who spoke with NewsNation.
last wrote about AI at AT in mid December 2025, about how AI lets everyone in on “common knowledge” without the annoyance of “experts” controlling the distribution of knowledge. But today December seems like an age ago. That’s because people are now reacting to the latest AI models at OpenAI and Anthropic and declaring that there has been a radical change. Matt Shumer has been following AI all along:
Then, on February 5th, two major AI labs released new models on the same day: GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI, and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic (the makers of Claude, one of the main competitors to ChatGPT).
Elections in 30 local authorities will now go ahead, reversing the decision to delay them until 2027.
The Prime Minister’s latest U-turn follows the launch of the Telegraph’s Campaign for Democracy, which called for the delayed elections to go ahead this year.
The Labour Government had justified the delays by claiming that a looming reorganisation of local authorities would make elections expensive, complicated and unnecessary. However, it was accused of disenfranchising 4.6 million voters to avoid a wipeout by Reform UK on May 7th.
The policy reversal – which emerged two hours after Sir Keir had suggested he was done with U-turns – was announced in a letter from Steve Reed,
The search for Nancy Guthrie has now reached a little over two weeks.
Arizona authorities and the FBI have been working around the clock for the last two weeks in an attempt to find the mother of NBC star Savannah Guthrie, but as of yet, they do not have a name of a potential suspect.
On Monday afternoon, President Trump, in an interview with The New York Post, weighed in on the investigation and issued a warning to the kidnappers of Nancy Guthrie.
Trump warned the kidnappers must bring Nancy back alive immediately and even suggested the abductors should get the death penalty.
While the Ukrainian leader is going around the world showing off his defiance, back home things go from bad to worse: blackout and lack of heating, millions of draft dodgers, hundreds of thousands of soldiers going AWOL, massive corruption scandals unfolding… and of course, Russian forces keep advancing, even in the harsh winter conditions. Besides that, the destruction of the power generation and transmission grids deeply hurts the means of production in Ukraine, which now not only face energy shortages but the energy itself has become economically unviable.
California Republicans have been handed a great, big, knobbly, Fred Flintstone-style club to beat California Democrats over the head with, and that may just make a difference in this fall's elections in the once-Golden State. That club? Gas prices are the highest in the nation thanks to Democrats in general and the impeccably coiffed Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom in particular. For years now, they have tried to drive energy producers out of the state, and now they have succeeded. Refineries are shutting down. Entire companies are up and leaving.
Over the weekend, we got a nostalgic glimpse of what could have been had Hillary Clinton defeated President Donald Trump back in 2016. My colleagues Stephen Kruiser and David Manney both captured a uniquely "Hillary moment" that happened over the weekend. Here's how David described Clinton’s panel discussion appearance at the Munich Security Conference: Here’s how that turned out. Now that Clinton’s political career is firmly in the nation’s rearview mirror, we can laugh, can’t we? I mean, those things she said and did that once scared the bejeebers out of us for our country, we can laugh about them now, right?
Time to cure that communist chancre sore that’s been suppurating off America’s coast for over 60 years since that sissy JFK failed to send in the Air Force, the Navy, and the 82nd Airborne to back up the Cuban freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs. Fidel Castro should have been swinging from a telephone pole in 1961; maybe, then Kennedy would not have been murked by some Marxist malcontent from the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Lesson: Always take out the commies when you have the chance,
Democrats are changing maps of congressional districts in order to wipe out Republicans in Congress. While it’s atrocious, they are getting away with it since the Founding Fathers did not anticipate this level of cheating, so failed to place checks against it in the Constitution. The Supreme Court cannot step in and end the practice because they determined in 2019 that it is a nonjusticiable political question prohibiting judicial intervention; the Founding Fathers assigned redistricting to state legislatures with oversight by Congress under the Elections Clause.
Secretary Marco Rubio went out of his way in this joint presser to emphasize the personal relationship between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and U.S. President Donald Trump. Orban is facing a serious election challenge this April and all of the EU/NATO systems are actively trying to create pressure points to remove him.
Secretary Marco Rubio is in Budapest today for meetings with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government to include the signing of a civilian-nuclear cooperation agreement heralded by the Trump administration. Hungary is one of the few voices within the European Union who is pushing back against Brussels efforts to go to war against Russia.
Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab is preparing to eliminate race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other diversity-related factors from the criteria its board uses to assess prospective candidates, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Since taking office last year, U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a broad campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in both the government and the private sector, alleging that these programs are discriminatory. Several corporate giants including Morgan Stanley (MS.N), opens new tab and Citi (C.N), opens new tab have softened their diversity commitments amid pressure from the Trump administration.
Maduro raid questions trigger Pentagon
review of top AI firm as potential ‘supply
chain risk’ replies
review of top AI firm as potential ‘supply
chain risk’ replies
A dispute stemming from questions about the use of AI firm's Anthropic’s model during the U.S. operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has triggered a Pentagon review of the company’s partnership, with senior officials raising concerns that Anthropic could represent an alleged "supply chain risk."
Axios first reported on the growing tensions between the Pentagon and Anthropic, a tech company known for emphasizing safeguards on AI.
Anthropic won a $200 million contract with the Pentagon in July 2025. ts AI model, Claude, was the first model brought into classified networks.
Now, "the Department of War’s relationship with Anthropic is being reviewed," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told Fox News Digital.
The utterly despicable and mentally ill shooter who murdered his wife and children during a mass shooting event in Rhode Island identified as transgender. The lesson that comes from encouraging mentally ill people to indulge their insanity and to express violent hatred against those who do not affirm their illness is written in the blood of children killed at the high school hockey game. How many transgender shooters does it take to stop leftists from lauding the delusion that one can change one’s biological sex and demand everyone agree? It seems that shooter Robert Dorgan’s wife and children did not
The latest rationalization from the Left for illegal immigration is that nothing is illegal in America because America itself is illegal because it’s on “stolen land.”
That’s a non sequitur. An illegal act does not become legal simply because the victim is a trespasser. If a stranger breaks into your house while you’re on vacation and illegally occupies it, it’s not legal for another stranger to enter the house to shoot the first stranger while he’s sleeping.
Besides, all nations are on “stolen land.” All of Europe, for example, is on land “stolen” from Neanderthals that “modern” humans killed or assimilated.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers discovered more than $6.8 million worth of cocaine hidden inside a Valentine’s rose shipment at the Texas-Mexico border.
The massive drug bust at Laredo’s World Trade Bridge on February 10 yielded approximately 516 pounds of cocaine concealed among fresh flowers.
Officials reported the haul contained enough cocaine for roughly 190,000 lethal doses. A CBP officer flagged the tractor-trailer for secondary inspection after it arrived at the crossing. The driver had declared the cargo as roses and fresh flowers.
Officers deployed a canine team and non-intrusive imaging technology during their search. They discovered 211 packages of alleged cocaine tucked within the floral shipment.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) appearance at the Munich Security Conference has drawn a mixed response from members of her own party, underscoring a potential vulnerability of hers amid speculation she could mount a presidential run in the future.
The New York congresswoman took part in the annual international security conference alongside world leaders — including other potential 2028 contenders such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — last week, bringing her progressive, working-class platform to the global stage.
An interesting thing happened last weekend, President Trump went golfing with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. {SOURCE} Simultaneously, President Trump released the following statement from his Truth Social account.
(Via Truth Social) – “The Board of Peace has unlimited potential. Last October, I released a Plan for the permanent end to the Conflict in Gaza, and our Vision was unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council. Shortly thereafter, we facilitated Humanitarian Aid at record speed and secured the release of every living and deceased Hostage.