I found some good posts and commentary today on a random assortment of topics:
First, some background - in her February 17, 2026 newsletter on Tuesday, Heather Cox Richardson references the Munich conference and how the world is moving on without the US:
...Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that the word in Munich was that “Europe needs to emancipate itself from the U.S. as fast as possible.” In Germany, Der Spiegel reports plans to bring Ukrainian veterans to teach German armed forces drone use and counter-drone practices the Ukrainians are perfecting in their war against Russian occupation. Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney is working to reduce Canada’s defense dependence on the U.S., ramping up domestic defense production.Applebaum's substack piece about the conference is here: No, It's Not Back To Business As Usual:
Carney has advanced a foreign policy that centers “middle powers” and operates without the U.S. That global reorientation has profound consequences for the U.S. economy, as well. Canada is leading discussions between the European Union and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc to form one of the globe’s largest economic alliances. A new agreement would enable the countries to share supply chains and to share a low-tariff system. Canada also announced it is renewing its partnership with China. As of this week, Canadians can travel to China without a visa.
Today France’s president Emmanuel Macron and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi upgraded Indian-French relations to a “Special Strategic Partnership” during a three-day visit of Macron to Mumbai. They have promised to increase cooperation between the two countries in defense, trade, and critical materials.
Trump insisted that abandoning the free trade principles under which the U.S. economy had boomed since World War II would enable the U.S. to leverage its extraordinary economic might through tariffs, but it appears, as economist Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute wrote today for Bloomberg, that the rest of the world is simply moving on without the U.S....
...U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saturday’s key speaker, did not mention the war, or the democratic values that once motivated the NATO alliance. Instead, he offered a vision of unity based on a misty idea of inherited “Western civilization”—Dante, Shakespeare, the Sistine Chapel, the Beatles—which would fight not against Russia or China, but against the Trump administration’s real enemies: migration, the “climate cult,” and other forms of modern degeneracy.... In the hours and days afterward, I did not meet a single person of any nationality who thinks that the American-European relationship is returning to business as usual. On the contrary, I heard a lot from people who want to create a very different Europe instead. I heard bankers talking about greater financial integration, people in defense tech talking about new lines of production, politicians talking about “emancipation.”...And another thing - I think that basically the Trump administration has declared war on The Americas without anyone noticing. Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Greenland - we're all are targets for the US now because they think we all just belong to them. The US media just hasn't realized it yet.
Carney has.
Today Carney announced Canada's Defense Industrial Strategy:
Carney also noted Secretary of State Rubio's talk to the Munich Conference, with its messianic focus on Christian nationalism.
Philippe Lagassé Deconstructing the Defence Industrial Strategy Ambition punctured by prudence
It ends:
...As you’re skimming this newsletter, hucksters on LinkedIn are writing posts arguing that “the DIS is not just an industrial policy; it’s a strategic pivot” or some other vapid pablum that passes for analysis. A careful reading, on the other hand, reveals an ambitious plan punctuated by prudence and compromise. If Ottawa hopes to achieve even half of what’s set out in the DIS, the government will need to marshal far more vigour to match its vision.Annie Koshy Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy Signals a Structural Turn
... Defence is being framed as an engine of economic resilience, supply chain security, and national autonomy. It is being integrated into broader discussions about productivity, export growth, and industrial competitiveness.At The Line, Andrew Potter writes Who is our military for? If we are going to spend billions of dollars expanding the CAF, it has to be for something more noble than just keeping America happy.
The government presents this as a generational reset.
Whether it proves to be structural reform or strategic aspiration will depend less on the size of the commitments than on the consistency of their execution....
...Canada has to be courageous and clear eyed about all of this, as we look to find our way in the new “harsh reality” that Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke of in his Davos speech. We are getting ready to greatly expand our armed forces and spend billions on new equipment, including submarines, ships, fighter jets, and drones. There is talk out of DND of standing up a domestic “citizen’s army” of up to 300,000 reservists. One former chief of the defence staff has mused recently about keeping our “options open” regarding nuclear weapons. We have just signed on as the only non-European country to the EU’s new loans-for-weapons program.Comments about those radical mainstream environmentalists
Great. Bring it on, all of it. But there is one question we must answer before we start writing enormous cheques and wrapping ourselves in martial rhetoric: who is all this for? If the lesson of Afghanistan is that you can spend 13 years proving your loyalty to the empire and still be treated like an ungrateful freeloader, then maybe the grown-up move is to stop confusing defence policy with a long-running bid for American approval.
Because if we are going to rearm, if we are going to ask more young Canadians to sign up and possibly die, it should not be to try to earn the respect of a country that has already made clear it has none to give. It should be for Canada, not as a sentimental slogan, but as an actual hard-power strategic fact.
And if we can’t say that out loud, then even as we pretend we were never there, the truth is we haven’t really left Afghanistan at all.
This is a good take - basically, as soon as somebody could make money using solar power, it ceased to be a radical technology and became mainstream, even though it is literally pie-in-the-sky.
The left tried for decades to pass green energy subsidies, passed them, the subsidies worked, and now literally the entire planet's electricity grid is going to convert to solar+battery. It just doesn't feel like "tech" because it mostly produces kinda boring blue collar jobs instead of billionaires
— mtsw (@mtsw.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 9:51 PM
[image or embed]
Also, this is an oldie but a goodie:It's kinda annoying how solar panels were hung around the neck of the left as impractical pie in the sky treehugger shit *right* up until it started outcompeting every other energy source. Then suddenly, instead of going "hey the left was correct about solar" it's no longer a "left" idea!
— mtsw (@mtsw.bsky.social) February 17, 2026 at 9:54 PM
In his substack, Paul Krugman writes Turning Our Back on Clean Energy Why does MAGA hate the planet?Tell me you know nothing about the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer without telling me.
— John Walke (@johndwalke.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 8:01 AM
[image or embed]
... Solar and wind power have become cost-competitive with fossil fuels — they are, in particular, clearly cheaper than coal. Huge progress in batteries has rapidly reduced the problem of intermittency (the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow.) There’s now a clear path for a transition to an “electrotech” economy in which renewable-generated electricity heats our homes, powers our cars, and much more.Comments about more Epstein revelations
This transition would make us richer, not poorer. In fact, nations that for whatever reason fail to take advantage of electrotech will be left behind in global competition.
And at this precise moment — a moment in which acting to accelerate the energy transition would increase, not reduce, economic growth — the U.S. government has been taken over by people who want us to go backward on energy. The Trump administration has even introduced a mascot, “Coalie,” in an attempt to make an extremely dirty fuel cute. But coal isn’t cute....
... America’s hard turn against renewables and climate action won’t be decisive for the climate future as long as other countries continue to move ahead on green energy, which they are. For the most part, all MAGA will do is help make the United States backward, poorer, sicker and irrelevant.
The longer this goes on, the more I realize that nutcase babbling at the end of the bar was likely right all along -- far too many of the awful things that have gone on in the world for the last 10 or 15 years might actually have been instigated by Epstein's millionaire pedophile ring:
“.. Will take down (Pope) Francis,” Bannon wrote to Epstein in June 2019. “The Clintons, Xi, Francis, EU – come on brother.” 🤡 @cnn.com www.cnn.com/2026/02/14/w...
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 14, 2026 at 7:55 AM
[image or embed]
kavanaugh was epstein's first choice for the supreme court.
— calamity jim (@calamityjim.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 10:16 AM
[image or embed]
🚨 Breaking news in Epstein Case 🚨 The New Mexico Legislature has passed HR1 to convene a Truth Commission and investigate Epstein’s crimes in NM, including at Zorro Ranch—led by State Reps Andrea Romero and Marianna Anaya. Full explainer here: youtu.be/DnOTfR_msPw?...
— Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01) (@repstansbury.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 9:50 PM
[image or embed]
Thomas J. Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, stepped down from his role as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation — becoming the latest person felled by an association with Jeffrey Epstein. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/u...
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 9:50 PM
[image or embed]
Notice how “resigned” keeps meaning “got caught.” Now do Howard Lutnick.
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) February 13, 2026 at 4:38 AM
[image or embed]
Anyone who uttered such a blatant lie about completely severing ties with Epstein, only to take his own family to the island and go into business with him years later, cannot be trusted in any position of government. Lutnick must resign.
— Jay Kuo (@nycjayjay.bsky.social) February 13, 2026 at 1:48 PM
[image or embed]
This Is Definitely His Legacy….
— Brant Reeves (@bireeves95.bsky.social) February 16, 2026 at 3:10 PM
[image or embed]
On his substack, Canada Resists proposes an interesting use for the Epstein files: Epstein Files, Trafficking, & the Billionaire Cabal: Our Much Needed Common Enemy We need a common enemy to reduce political polarization. Exposing the billionaire cabal in the Epstein files might just direct all voters toward the real cause of their frustrations.
Before you (perhaps rightly) tell me I’m wrong, let me have this little dream, okay? I know I know it’s a long shot. But hear me out first. We know the US is very heavily divided, and attempts at common ground are utterly futile. The only thing that may help bridge the gulf is a common enemy. With that in mind, could Epstein’s files, revealing the billionaire cabal, provide that common enemy we all need?
...When or if the files are finally fully processed and the dots complete, I believe what will be evident to every working person in the country is that the rich and powerful make up a cabal and live in a tight, interconnected world of influence to which none of us ordinary folks are part. This is not a rightwing or leftwing or deep state thing. It is simply raw power of billionaires and billionaire-adjacent people who make the rules and are above the rules. A quote I saw the other day said “The world is a resort for the billionaires, and the rest of us are the hired staff”.
...the rightwing has been obsessed with and engaged in conspiracies around elite child trafficking rings for many years. The only difference is they were led to believe those elites were Democrats and not their favourite politicians....
...Voters on both sides of the aisle want the Epstein world uncovered. Doing so may identify the real enemy as the billionaire class, who are found in both parties. And while the Epstein scandal is unlikely to bring the whole regime down, one can dream right?...
Gold!
View on Threads
And come to think of it, yes, I have noticed this too:
View on Threads
No comments:
Post a Comment