February 10, 2026

YOU WON’T MISS WHAT COMES NEXT:

Posted at 6:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

I STUCK WITH THE PUPPY BOWL THIS YEAR: TPUSA Halftime Show Ruled a Fumble. “I’ve written this article three times now, going back and forth over how criticizing Turning Point USA (TPUSA) would go over with an audience full of Charlie Kirk fans, myself among them. After surveying social media and talking to a few people, I’ve decided it needs to be said: TPUSA’s alternate halftime show was a fumble, and an ugly one.”

Posted at 5:22 pm by Stephen Green

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE:

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Noam Chomsky’s Lame Excuses for His Years of Friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Back in 2023, Noam Chomsky confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that he received a March 2018 transfer of roughly $270,000 from an Epstein-linked account. That too was just an innocent favor, Valeria Chomsky insists.

Regarding the reported transfer of approximately $270,000, I must clarify that these were entirely Noam’s own funds. At the time, Noam had identified inconsistencies in his retirement resources that threatened his economic independence and caused him great distress. Epstein offered technical assistance to resolve this specific situation. On this matter, Epstein acted accordingly, recovering the funds for Noam, in a display of help and very likely as part of a machination to gain greater access to Noam. Epstein acted solely as a financial advisor for this specific matter. To the best of my knowledge, Epstein never had access to our bank or investment accounts.

Now, keep in mind, for just about all his intellectual career, Noam Chomsky has been a furious critic of American capitalism (“a grotesque catastrophe”), the wealthy elites of the U.S., and corporate influence over politics. He has written, “in this world there happen to be huge concentrations of private power that are as close to tyranny and as close to totalitarian as anything humans have devised… The corporations are just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism.”

Recall that Epstein ran a financial management firm that catered to billionaire clients.

So just the longtime friendship with a person who had the public persona of Epstein, never mind his horrific private acts, seems like an abrogation of his stated values. The not-all-that-well hidden revelation that Epstein was a notorious sex trafficker suggests that at best Chomsky was astonishingly oblivious to a man he spent considerable time with… or he didn’t look and didn’t want to know. He was all too happy to believe that his friend was being accused by “publicity seekers or cranks.”

For what it’s worth, some big former fans of Chomsky are disgusted.

Earlier: Ben Sixsmith on “The very strange downfall of Noam Chomsky.” “If you’re younger​​ than ​​35, you might have no idea how much of the internet used to be occupied by people arguing about Noam Chomsky. Left-wingers used to fight with liberals and conservatives at insane length over the merits — or lack thereof — of the ageing linguist and anti-war commentator.” As for Chomsky’s numerous enemies on the right, “These poor souls would have had no idea that all their work undermining Chomsky’s political reputation would become unnecessary when, at a grand old age, the man himself formed a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.”

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

WILL SHE CHANGE HOW SHE VOTES TO REFLECT THIS RADICALLY NEW COMMONPLACE INSIGHT?

Posted at 3:55 pm by Stephen Green

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: The Mandalorian And Grogu – Does Disney Actually Hate This Movie? “This is your first Star Wars feature film in more than half a decade. In fact, let’s not kid ourselves here. It’s basically a Hail Mary pass in the dying seconds of the game, a final chance to tie the score before it’s all over. And it’s been treated more like just another forgettable TV show roll out. [Does Disney] know something we don’t? Do they know that the film sucks and it’s got almost no chance at the box office? So why throw good money after bad?”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

“THE SUPER BOWL IS A LAGGING INDICATOR OF INDUSTRY HEALTH:”

Our industry spent $100 million on Super Bowl ads to build trust in AI.

We built the opposite.

I need to tell you about a parallel that nobody in that hospitality suite mentioned, although every person in the room was old enough to remember it.

Super Bowl XXXVI. February 2022. Crypto firms bought the ad breaks. Coinbase. FTX. Crypto[.]com. They spent $54 million collectively. The ads were flashy and confident and told 100 million Americans that the future was decentralized and inevitable and worth their money.

FTX collapsed ten months later.

Coinbase spent the following year in court.

Crypto[.]com’s CEO is now spending $70 million on AI domain names.

We spent more than double what crypto spent. I know this because Tech Brew calculated it this morning and my VP of Communications forwarded it to me with no comment. She always adds a comment. The absence was the comment.

Here is what I know that I am not supposed to say.

A lagging indicator means the peak has already happened.

It means the industry already believes in itself more than the public does. It means the money has been spent, the bets have been placed, and the audience — the 130 million people you needed to convince — sat through your pitch and felt nothing but annoyance.

I spent $8 million to learn something that a Harris poll could have told me for free.

Nobody wants what we are selling. Not like this. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But “maybe not ever” is not a phrase that survives a board meeting, so we say “not yet” and buy another ad.

The earnings call is in six weeks. When the analyst asks about brand strategy, I will say the word “awareness” and the word “consideration” and the word “momentum.”

I will not say “warm slop.”

I will not say “lagging indicator.”

I will not mention FTX.

I will not tell them about the sentiment dashboard, or the Slack message, or the eleven CMOs in the suite who watched the needle go red and poured another drink.

We will do this again next year.

In a Forbes column about Super Bowl ads 20 years ago titled “Advertising Vs. Entertaining,” Jack Trout wrote, “What’s the measure of success? Like a movie, it’s how well they are reviewed. The press is an enormous contributor to this phenomenon. Everybody weighs in on what commercials were most popular, leading to adjectives such as charming, hilarious, cute, crisp and funny. Sure, they will occasionally say a commercial is unfunny or silly, but you never read a critic saying, ‘I didn’t see a reason to buy that product anywhere.’ Hey, this is the Super Bowl, and the object is to entertain, not sell.”

Sure your merchandise may not move, or the viewers will passionately hate the new technology, but Don Draper’s successors will enjoy collecting their Clio Awards come springtime, built on your company’s advertising budget.

Posted at 1:55 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE MULLAHS CAN’T HAVE NUKES, PERIOD: Iran steps up arrests, floats ‘diluting’ its enriched uranium as Netanyahu heads to US. “The arrests — including that of Javad Emam, the spokesperson for the country’s main reformist coalition — came after Iranian and US officials held talks in Oman that both sides painted as positive. And they came on the eve of a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he will reportedly brief US President Donald Trump about Israeli intelligence on Iran.”

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

JEFFERSON DAVIS, CALL YOUR OFFICE:

Posted at 1:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds