Another tech giant heads to a red state

NY Post: "Palantir moves headquarters to Miami and joins growing tech exodus to Florida."

Palantir spent 17 years in California before leaving behind the crazy and heading to the relative sanity of Denver.  Still too crazy.  Miami will be this company's last stop.

Gavin Newsom: "Hold my beer, AOC"

Hot Air: "Gavin Newsom Gets Ratioed for His Dumbest Tweet Ever." 

The American media fails

Did you ever wonder why American Democrats get a harder grilling in Europe than they do in America?  How is it possible that AOC and Gretchen Whitmer are laid bare overseas while they manage to skate by in America?

This isn't the first time a European journalist has pushed back on a Democrat.

This is the thing about AOC and Gretchen Whitmer. They don’t try. They don’t even have to try. Because they normally are surrounded and protected by media that supports them and would never dare ask an even remotely difficult question https://t.co/Y9qpjwfYGf

— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) February 15, 2026

Maybe they're taking the hint

That Park Place: "Several Hollywood Actors Decline to Speak on Politics as Media Desperately Attempts to Bait Them Into Activist Soundbites." 

Viewership for the Oscars has halved since 2016, for some reason.

California and the wealth tax

LA Times: "Knives are out for California's golden goose"

We might as well run TV ads and erect billboards along the border proclaiming: “Welcome to California, the land of opportunity. Make a fortune so state politicians can grab a sizable chunk.”

We’ve already got by far the highest income tax rates in the nation, topping out at 13.3%. The top 1% of earners pay between 40% and 50% of the entire state income tax collected annually. The top 0.1% kick in about 20%.

California is infamous for its unfriendly business climate, with byzantine regulations and an agonizingly slow permitting system.

“It sends out the worst possible message to the people we need in the state, the people who produce jobs,” says Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable.

I know I keep commenting on this story but I love it on so many levels.  This ballot initiative is probably going to pass despite the objection from Gavin Newsom and California Democrats who cannot control the Frankenstein monster they've created.  As the stats above indicate, California was already heavily dependent on a top-heavy taxation system.  But the 13% (!!!) state income tax just wasn't enough to fund the profligate spending in Sacramento.

The hamster wheel in her head

Twitchy: "Kamala 2.0? AOC Faceplants In Germany While Trying to Answer a Question About China and Taiwan."

Pretty funny.  Very Kamala-esque. 

Damn, it's great to be a Democrat

Breitbart: "Media actively covers up Obama lawyer's chummy ties to Epstein."

Bad news about the Clintons?  Time to bury it in the Friday night news dump. 

Misleading headline

Townhall: "GOP Secures Votes Needed to Pass the SAVE Act."

This is not a HUGE VICTORY! nor is it MASSIVE!  The bill would still need to overcome a talking filibuster by the Democrats and - know what they're going to do? - talk and lie about married women needing to update their birth certificates.  They may take some heat for going against an issue supported by over 80% of Americans but they don't care.

It's not going to pass because of that Jim Crow filibuster.

Hmmm

Gateway Pundit: "Neighbor Says One Dead and Three Detained After SWAT Team Raids Home as Part of Nancy Guthrie Investigation." 

That's my idiot Senator

Hot Air: "The Sob Stories Always Fall Apart."  Back to Ireland.

Bending the cost curve down

Remember that old chestnut?  Ace: "Obama Architect David Axelrod: Confound These Republicans For Obamacare's Prices Skyrocketing and Them Refusing to Further Subsidize the Failing Program."

Resistance theater

Washington Post: "Partial government shutdown looms as ICE negotiations hit stalemate - Large swaths of the Department of Homeland Security are set to shut down Saturday unless lawmakers and the White House strike a last-minute deal."

"Large swaths" that will hit everything in DHS except ICE, which was funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill for the rest of Trump's term.  This is just another stupid and futile gesture by the Democrats to show the base they're fighting fighting fighting!

Americans love long lines at the airport.

It's disturbing if they really believe this

Twitchy: "CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Laughably Insists Her ‘News’ Network Is Fair, Accurate, and Not Out to Get Trump."

Uh-huh.  I'm not even going to debate on the bias of the mainstream media which is by now a proven and repeatable fact.  The question now is: do journalist really think they're unbiased or is it just something they say to protect their self-esteem?  They can't really have so little self-reflection.

Democracy dies in darkness

Pew Research Center: "Majority of Americans express low confidence in journalists to act in public’s best interests."

Since we first started asking this question in 2020, Democrats have consistently been more likely than Republicans to express confidence in journalists. This party gap has persisted over time, though it has decreased since 2020.

Gee, I can't imagine why.

This ridiculous framing is why Americans don’t trust the media.

President Trump securing the border, mobilizing federal law enforcement to arrest violent criminals, and deporting the worst of the worst illegal aliens is EXACTLY what’s driving the massive drop in crime. pic.twitter.com/yfiC4BUHbt

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) February 11, 2026

There goes Zuckerberg

WSJ: "Mark Zuckerberg Is the Latest California Billionaire to Buy a Florida Home - Local real-estate agents say the newly completed mansion on Miami’s Indian Creek will likely fetch between $150 million and $200 million"

Great job, Gavin Newsom:

With Zuck’s move to Florida, California’s total taxable wealth from billionaires has plummeted to well under $1T from over $2T just a few weeks ago. 

The loss of this tax revenue was totally avoidable but is now forever. All because Gavin Newsom stood motionless as this stupidly written bill, from a fringe union and a handful of socialist academics with an axe to grind, meandered its way into the public conversation without any action from him and freaked everyone out. 

These were all people that were paying 13%+ in state income tax every year WITH NO COMPLAINTS UNTIL A FEW WEEKS AGO.

And now, for the rest of time, the lost tax revenues from these folks will have to be paid for by the middle class because they are the only group left in California large enough that you can tax to fill the hole. 

The wealth tax idea was always stupid because, as I like to say, it's coming into your house and taking the Picasso off the wall.  People understand the concept of taxing income but a wealth tax is an entirely different animal.

Intolerant crybullies

Yahoo: "Bill Maher and Adam Carolla Bash ‘Exclusionary’ Liberals for Sticking to ‘Groupthink’: ‘They’re Not That Bright!’"

Bill Maher and Adam Carolla took turns verbally whacking liberals for being closed-minded and unintelligent bullies who want nothing to do with Americans who do not share their “woke” political opinions.

“They are very exclusionary,” Maher said on the Monday episode of his Club Random podcast. “They really just don’t want to breathe the same air if you’re not exactly with the groupthink — while they’re not that bright!”

I regularly punish myself by watching Kaitlin Bennett on Liberty Hangout interviewing anti-ICE automatons who collapse at the slightest pressure.

They want Bluesky-style exclusion IRL.

Political earthquake in Japan

Ace: "Japan's "Ultra-Right-Wing" Extremist PM Wins a Shockingly Large Victory By Running on Promise to Seriously Restrict Immigration to the Island Nation."

Super Bowl Sunday

So, obviously, the Patriots are going to win.

I'll say 23-16.