Friday, February 13, 2026
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So, barmaid, bring a pitcher, another round of brew
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw?
—Jimmy Buffett, Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw)
It’s not just sex: Alcohol consumption has dropped by 54%, with youth (18 to 34) drinking falling ANOTHER 9% just between 2023 and 2025.
From TIME magazine’s article, “Why Gen Z is Drinking Less”:
[R]esearch from the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows that lifetime drinking, past month drinking, and past year drinking among young people began to decline around the year 2000. That means that such declines have especially impacted Generation Z, defined as anyone born from 1997 to 2012, and some Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996.
"A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money," Sen. Everett Dirksen is supposed to have said more than 50 years ago, and if you do that 370 times, according to California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, you might have enough to cover the Golden State taxpayer dollars diverted into Democrat "voter machines."
The details get a little technical — money laundering isn't supposed to be easy to follow, after all — so I'll break down Hilton's allegations as quickly and cleanly as possible before we get to the big picture.
According to Hilton’s unofficial CAL DOGE, after California voters approved the Prop. 64 Cannabis Tax
While much of Europe has spent the last decade apologizing for its own existence, Italy just did something totally different, and it’s got a lot of people applauding. Instead of issuing another tired, failed speech about “shared responsibility” and “global migration flows,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has just approved legislation that will use the Italian navy to stop illegals from reaching Italian shores in the first place.
You might have guessed by now that most of what the national press reports about President Trump’s immigration crackdown and ICE detentions is either intentionally misleading, lacking context, incomplete, or outright false.
Take the latest media outrage over the arrest and detention of an Irishman named Seamus Culleton, a man who arrived in America 17 years ago, is married to an American citizen, lives in Boston, has work authorization and a pending Green Card application. Culleton came here legally in 2009 on a visa waiver program but overstayed the six-month limit. )snip) an arrest warrant was issued for him by Irish authorities shortly after he arrived in the U.S.
Quentin, a 23-year-old right-wing activist, suffered a critical brain hemorrhage after being brutally assaulted for protecting a conservative women’s demonstration. A young nationalist activist suffered severe head injuries and was placed in an induced coma after being assaulted by ‘antifascists’ in Lyon Friday. The leftist militants attacked 23-year-old Quentin after a peaceful demonstration organized by the right-wing feminist organization Collectif Némésis during a conference hosted by Rima Hassan, an MEP for far-left La France Insoumise, at Sciences Po in Lyon.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that its Civil Rights Division lodged a new lawsuit against Harvard University, alleging that the Ivy League institution illegally withheld admissions material needed to decide whether the school is continuing to discriminate in the admissions process despite a 2023 Supreme Court ruling.
"Under President Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice is demanding better from our nation’s educational institutions," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. "Harvard has failed to disclose the data we need to ensure that its admissions are free of discrimination — we will continue fighting to put merit over DEI across America."
New Yorkers are embracing a free market.
Hundreds of people lined up Thursday for a chance to shop at the city’s “first free grocery store” — launched by Polymarket as it and other prediction betting platforms face increased scrutiny from state regulators.
The West Village shop — an apparent nod to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s government-run grocery store pitch — drew more than 400 New Yorkers, who lined up hours ahead of the 2 p.m. opening, eager to fill blue tote bags with no-cost produce, nonperishables and toiletries. “Times are hard.
Ex-Team USA medalist allegedly gunned
down in Starbucks drive-thru by madman
with long rap sheet replies
down in Starbucks drive-thru by madman
with long rap sheet replies
A beloved former Team USA skater was gunned down in a Missouri Starbucks drive-thru allegedly during an armed robbery by a maniac with a long rap sheet who was wanted for two similar shootings days earlier.
Gabrielle “Sam” Linehan, 28, was inside her car at the coffee hotspot in St. Louis’ Tower Grove East neighborhood when Keith Lamon Brown allegedly held her at gunpoint before opening fire just after 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to a probable cause statement viewed by The Post.
Brown, 58, was caught on surveillance video wearing a high-visibility vest and helmet when he walked up to Linehan’s car,
The Fifth Circuit just handed Texas a major win on ballot harvesting, reversing a lower court and allowing the state’s ban on paid in-person ballot harvesting to take effect.
The ruling clears the way for enforcement of a key provision in S.B. 1, the 2021 election integrity law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). The statute targets compensated political operatives who interact with voters while they are physically handling ballots.
The law defines “vote harvesting services” as:
“in-person interaction with one or more voters, in the physical presence of an official ballot or a ballot voted by mail, intended to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure.”
Consumer prices rose 2.4 percent over the past year and 0.2 percent in January alone, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department.
The latest consumer price index (CPI) report, which was delayed by the brief government shutdown earlier this month, showed inflation coming in below expectations. Economists expected the annual inflation rate to fall to 2.5 percent in January from 2.7 percent in December, and monthly inflation to hold steady at 0.3 percent, according to consensus estimates.
The new inflation figures are a boost to President Trump and Republicans as they face pressure to show progress against rising prices.
Internal communications from the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that staffers rushed to publish a landmark climate regulation at a plum time for political messaging and [were] imagining "green hugs" with green groups ahead of the announcement. The regulation, known as the Endangerment Finding, expanded the definition of harmful air pollutants to include greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and therefore allows the EPA to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. The EPA proposed a rule to rescind it in July 2025 (snip), a decision critics have previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation would be a boon for key industries and consumer choice.
The Minnesota State Patrol quietly limited the ability of its troopers to contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during traffic stops involving suspected illegal immigrants, multiple sources tell Alpha News. (snip) The State Patrol makes more than 300,000 traffic stops each year. Multiple state troopers (snip) explained that the new directive came down sometime during during the summer of 2024 -- around when Walz was running for vice president. (snip) "There's no written policy and that's the point," one trooper said. (snip) The source said state troopers routinely pull people over who don't speak English and have no ID.
Unless Virginia voters reject the new congressional district plan created and passed by a Democrat legislature and signed by a “moderate” Democrat governor, Republicans are set to lose four congressional seats they currently hold. The new map allows only one of Virginia’s 11 districts to be represented by a Republican, despite Republicans representing almost half of the Virginia electorate. Meanwhile, Republicans in Indiana refused to redraw their congressional maps because of “principle.”
The contrast between Indiana and Virginia gets to the heart of the GOP’s biggest problem.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted “no one is clinging to power” and he is ready to hold national elections, but insists there will be no vote without a ceasefire and solid security guarantees from the U.S., making a vote any time soon unlikely.
The possibility of fresh elections in Ukraine to both get the public’s approval for a peace deal, and renew President Volodymyr Zelensky’s democratic mandate or choose a successor, suddenly burst into the open this week but was quickly tampered down by Kyiv.
Kids’ hospital is told to continue gender
affirming care for minors after California
AG ruling replies
affirming care for minors after California
AG ruling replies
A San Diego children’s hospital has been ordered to continue providing gender-affirming care to minors —despite a previous effort from the hospital to end the programs to save its federal funding.
Rady Children’s Health must continue providing the care, which includes therapies like puberty-blockers and hormone treatments, to patients under 19 until at least March 10, in a ruling from San Diego Superior Court Judge Matthew Braner Wednesday.
The decision comes amid a heated legal fight between the hospital and the California Attorney General’s Office. The AJ sued Rady after it announced it would stop offering the treatments and procedures.
Highlighting how the various anti-Trump factions of the Republican apparatus are using the Epstein drama to support their specific needs, Representative Nancy Mace announces yesterday she will use Epstein drama to, “go full blown scorched earth for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his friends. With no regard to our personal, or professional detriment.”
The background and political timeline hold the key to understanding the mooonbat crazy of it all.
Thursday morning South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette to succeed him when he leaves office at the end of the year. {LINK} This triggered the generally unstable Nancy Mace into an explosive fit of rage,
Former White House legal counsel/fixer to Barack Obama, and former personal lawyer/fixer of Susan Rice, Kathryn Ruemmler was Chief Legal Counsel for Goldman Sachs for the past six years. Throughout those jobs and networked professional relationships, Kathryn Ruemmler was also a personal friend and advisor to Jeffrey Epstein.
Yesterday it was reported that Kathryn Ruemmler has resigned from Goldman Sachs.
NEW YORK – Goldman Sachs’s top lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, resigned on Thursday in the wake of the Justice Department’s release of emails and other material that revealed her extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier.
Russia announced it will limp to Cuba's rescue as the island bastion of communism in the Caribbean faces a complete economic breakdown due directly to President Trump cutting off black market Venezuelan oil supplies. Cuba has been an economic basketcase for decades, with its only exports being failed revolutionaries and miserable migrants. That situation changed markedly for the worse in early January when the U.S. military launched Operation Absolute Resolve; see Trump Announces Venezuelan Leader Nicolas Maduro and His Wife Captured Following ‘Large Scale’ US Strike – RedState.
At first, Cuba was pretty defiant, but then they all are.
As British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces calls to resign for his appointment of Epstein-tied Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, one is struck by the sudden instability of British governments. In the 28 years between 1979 and 2007, Britain had only three prime ministers, while in the 19 years since 2007, it has had seven, and may soon have eight. Only one of those, David Cameron, carried his party to a reelection victory, and he resigned a year after being beaten in the Brexit referendum. It's not just leaders who have stumbled. Even historically long-lasting parties have.
On Wednesday evening, the US House of Representatives voted to once again pass the SAVE America Act, the critical legislation that requires proof of citizenship and voter ID to vote in federal elections. The final vote was 218-213, with only one brave Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), crossing the aisle to vote in favor of protecting our elections.
But the real battle is in the Senate, and the momentum is shifting fast.
Just days ago, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) tried to dump cold water on the bill, reportedly dismissing the effort by claiming, “There aren’t anywhere close to the votes.” Thune, who initially hadn’t even signed on—
This week’s Japanese Diet election produced a stunning outcome as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, secured a historic landslide victory in a snap election for the House of Representatives. With 316 out of 465 seats—a supermajority not seen from a single party in the postwar era—Takaichi’s gamble on an early vote amid winter weather paid off spectacularly.
Just as stunning was how Takaichi scored this enormous win as one of President Trump’s strongest allies, contradicting claims by the mainstream media and many European leaders that President Trump’s strong foreign and economic policies are eroding America’s relationships with its allies.
Trade shapes power structures, and when two economies tighten bonds, the ripple spreads far beyond shipping lanes and customs desks. On Feb. 12, 2026, the Trump administration finalized a sweeping trade agreement with Taiwan that cuts tariffs, boosts American exports, and pours hundreds of billions into U.S. industry. Taiwan agreed to eliminate or sharply reduce tariffs on nearly all American goods, as duties on U.S. beef, dairy, and corn were reduced immediately to 0%. Pork belly tariffs fell from 40% to 10%, and ham fell from 32% to 10%. Taiwan also removed non-tariff barriers on motor vehicles, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals, accepting U.S. safety standards in those sectors.
Scott Bessent Floats Senate Banking Committee
Probe of Jerome Powell Instead of DOJ Investigation replies
Probe of Jerome Powell Instead of DOJ Investigation replies
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is signaling that if there is to be an investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, it should come from Congress rather than the Justice Department. According to exclusive reporting from Semafor, Bessent raised in a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans the idea that the Senate Banking Committee could investigate Powell rather than leaving the matter to federal prosecutors. This is not a minor procedural debate. It is a fight over whether scrutiny of the Federal Reserve is framed as a criminal matter or as congressional oversight, and that distinction carries real political and constitutional weight.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is calling for the indictment of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) over accusations that he accepted campaign contributions from Somali fraudsters for helping them evade investigation by state and federal officials. During a Senate Homeland Security hearing on Thursday, Hawley grilled Ellison about a report from the New York Post published last year that accuses the top Minnesota official of taking campaign contributions from Somalis involved in the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal,