The US’s New Infantry Rifle is Awesome

The army is trying to replace the M4 with a higher powered rifle that can better punch through modern body armor and hit people at farther ranges. However, it is heavy, has more recoil, and holds 20 rather than 30 rounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H54E5u_aI2I

Stunning’: Jeanine Pirro’s Failure to Indict Democrats Is a Big Deal

““The average person doesn’t appreciate how stunning” it is for a grand jury to outright reject an indictment, as a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. put it to me. “The rules are skewed so heavily in favor of the prosecutor that it’s almost comical. But the public is essentially saying, ‘We do not trust you. We are skeptical of you.’”

Pirro, like Attorney General Pam Bondi, is willing to use her power to try to intimidate and punish Trump’s political opponents — even if that means degrading herself, the office and DOJ, and wasting taxpayers’ money all at the same time. On top of that, Pirro has managed to antagonize federal judges in the district and racked up a long list of rebukes, which will only make it harder for her and her prosecutors to win in court in the future.

Through it all, Pirro is failing to win the indictments, let alone convictions, that Trump craves. She is stumbling not just by the traditional standards of a U.S. Attorney, but also by the Trumpian version.

The Trump administration’s abuse of the Justice Department to pursue Trump’s antagonists would probably be an even bigger story if they were succeeding instead of flailing. The department’s cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were borderline frivolous on the merits, but they got dismissed after a judge concluded that Lindsay Halligan, who was separately taken to task for serious prosecutorial errors before the Comey grand jury, had been illegally installed as the U.S. Attorney overseeing the cases in the Eastern District of Virginia. The DOJ tried to charge James on two more occasions, but grand jurors rejected those efforts.

Of course, Pirro had joined the pile-on against Trump’s adversaries even before last week’s case. In January, she opened a criminal investigation into whether Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell lied to Congress about renovations at the Fed’s D.C. headquarters. The investigation was roundly criticized as a pretextual effort to force Powell to lower interest rates, as Trump has been insisting. It is also blowing up in Trump’s face, with GOP Sen. Thom Tillis vowing to block Kevin Warsh’s nomination as Fed chair until the Powell investigation is resolved.

Pirro’s effort to indict the six Democratic members of Congress marks her highest profile flop to date, but it is far from the first. Remember Sandwich Guy? Pirro made a video mocking the man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent, then failed to secure felony charges from a grand jury before losing the fallback misdemeanor case altogether.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/02/15/jeanine-pirro-indict-democrats-failure-column-00782313

How Trump’s immigration raids are upending the education playbook

“Educators fear these immigration raids will have long-term consequences similar to the Covid-19 pandemic like increased student absences and anxiety and declining academic performance. They have already seen signs of this, with early data showing steep attendance drops despite their best efforts to keep students in their brick-and-mortar classrooms.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/24/school-officials-wrestle-with-how-to-protect-students-from-ice-00793035?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it

The EU is going to Ukraine empty-handed ― thanks to Hungary

“After a brutally cold winter in Ukraine, months of supposed peace talks that have produced little more than political theater, and with Russia showing no sign of stopping its barrage of attacks, the EU had been confident it could finally bring Kyiv some concrete help.
But the carefully choreographed support was spoiled when Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced his country would block Europe’s 20th round of Russian sanctions because of an oil dispute Budapest has with Ukraine, ratcheting up the two countries’ long-simmering feud.

Hungary’s move marked a “new low” for Orbán, Sweden’s Europe Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told POLITICO. “We’ve seen in previous decisions that Hungary is not acting in a way of sincere cooperation” with other EU states. “That should send an alarm to many of us. We’re seeing what Orbán is doing: he’s using Ukraine as a punching bag.”

The crux of Hungary’s row is the Druzhba pipeline, which stretches 4,000 kilometers from eastern Russia to Central Europe, providing vast quantities of oil for Hungary and Slovakia. Both have exemptions from EU sanctions on imports of Russian refined oil.

The pipeline has been offline since Jan. 27, when Ukrainian authorities said a Russian strike damaged it. But Budapest and Bratislava aren’t buying that, accusing Ukraine of intentionally keeping the pipeline inoperative.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said he was “really upset and frustrated,” adding Hungary’s move not only calls the EU’s support for Ukraine into question but its unity and ability to act decisively when major decisions are constrained by unanimity.

“I hope that Europe can deliver,” he said. And “that tomorrow it won’t be the situation when we will be saying, ‘We are sorry, 20th package is not there. We are sorry, €90 billion maybe next month, maybe somewhere in the future.’””

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-ukraine-visit-hungary-blocks-russia-sanctions-funding-feud-viktor-orban/

Saudi Arabia Has Oil, America Has This

High tech chips and lenses need super pure quartz, and the purest quartz in the world is found in the US. To turn it into usable silicon requires a smelting process that only a few masters know how to pull off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9V4jNTLGus

Why Iranians Are Increasingly Willing to Settle for Reza Pahlavi

“Pahlavi allies have crafted a hefty plan for a post-Islamist Iran, called the Iran Prosperity Project. It envisions an emergency phase in the wake of the regime’s fall during which Pahlavi and his aides say keeping the country stable will be crucial. But that emergency phase plan also gives the leader of the transition — presumably Pahlavi — significant power that makes some activists nervous.

While Pahlavi has long called for a secular democracy in Iran, he has also said Iranians should decide what type of government they want. The Prosperity Project envisions Iranians eventually having a choice between a “democratic monarchy” and a “democratic republic.””

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/02/24/reza-pahlavi-iran-trump-00793877?ICID=ref_fark

Illegal Tariffs Ruled Illegal (Again)

The Conservative Supreme Court justices can’t agree on what the major questions doctrine is and what exceptions to it should be.

The Supreme Court made a major change in how lower courts operate by limiting nationwide injunctions. Such injunctions could have prevented the US government from illegally taking all this money in the first place and avoided the issue of if, when, and to whom, the tariff money is paid back. This policy allows the president to act illegally for months or years until the Supreme Court finally resolves a case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BQsRxvkcZI

What Comes Next for U.S. Trade Policy After the Supreme Court’s IEEPA Ruling?

Congress should codify Trump’s trade agreements so Trump can’t keep going back on them and creating more uncertainty in the economy.

Trump still has a variety of tariff powers, but they are more limited and require more hoops to jump through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krb6SQKRdeg

F-22 Raptor getting some upgrades to help the US maintain air-to-air superiority while we wait for the next air-to-air fighter.

F-22 Raptor getting some upgrades to help the US maintain air-to-air superiority while we wait for the next air-to-air fighter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_0L9uASjA