February 18, 2026

SKYNET SMILES: Mission autonomy software by Collins and Shield AI was integrated on the YFQ-42 and YFQ-44 CCAs by using the government-owned A-GRA architecture.

The testing focuses on proving that mission software can be rapidly ported between platforms, creating what the Air Force describes as a competitive and adaptable ecosystem for future autonomous air combat systems. The service explains this validates a core principle of the new acquisition strategy: decoupling software from hardware through an open, modular architecture to accelerate innovation and avoid dependence on a single vendor – the so-called “vendor lock.”

“Verifying A-GRA across multiple partners is critical to our acquisition strategy,” said Col. Timothy Helfrich, Portfolio Acquisition executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft. “It proves that we are not locked into a single solution or a single vendor. We are instead building a competitive ecosystem where the best algorithms can be deployed rapidly to the warfighter on any A-GRA compliant platform, regardless of the vendor providing the algorithm.

The Air Force’s CCA concept envisions large numbers of uncrewed aircraft operating alongside crewed fighters such as the F-35 and the future F-47. Once known as “loyal wingmen,” these aircraft are now expected to perform missions ranging from reconnaissance and strike to electronic warfare and decoy operations. The service has previously noted it intends to field in the long term at least 1,000 CCAs in different configurations.

We’ve come a long way from “kick the tires and light the fires.” But 1,000 seems low for CCAs meant to be “attritable” when the piloted aircraft is at risk.

Posted at 9:38 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Jesse Jackson and the Golden Age of Not Getting Along With Each Other. “esse Jackson was a polarizing figure, to be sure. However, his peak polarization days came during a time when we all weren’t so quick to get bent out of shape about things like that. Political Americans knew how to not get along better back then, if that makes any sense. People were just as passionate about politics then, but we didn’t have social media or 24 hour political news offerings on television. We would get our political fixes, then do other stuff. I used to golf in those days. It’s impossible to fret over the likes of Jesse Jackson when one has a short game that’s trying to give you a heart attack.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Stephen Green

THE ART OF THE DEAL: Trump renews threat to cut funding for $16B Gateway project.

In a fiery social media post, Trump reiterated his opposition to the proposed rail tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York City under the Hudson River as New York and New Jersey leaders demand the release of tens of millions of dollars in federal funding frozen by his administration.

“I am opposed to the future boondoggle known as ‘Gateway,’ in New York/New Jersey, because it will cost many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS more than projected or anticipated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. “The project will be financially catastrophic for the region, unless hard work and proper planning is done, NOW, to avoid insurmountable future cost overruns.”

Trump said the federal government is willing to meet with New York and New Jersey officials to discuss funding for the project.

I’m not sure what local officials might fear more: Losing all their federal funds, or having a developer like Trump come in to look at their books.

Posted at 8:36 am by Stephen Green

NATIONAL SUICIDE FOR PUTIN’S EGO: Russia’s Middle-Aged Poor to the Grinder. “What the data we do have show is that Russia will fight Ukraine to its last poverty stricken middle-aged man before pushing the papered urbanites in Moscow and St. Petersburg—or the flinty TicTok warriors of Chechnya—into the trenches.”

Posted at 8:23 am by Glenn Reynolds

WE’RE LIVING IN A PARODY:

Posted at 8:20 am by Glenn Reynolds

THE WEST IS IN TROUBLE:

Posted at 8:16 am by Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE: Gen Z Men & Highly Educated Lead Return to Religion.

The decline of religion remains a fundamental reality in most Western countries, particularly in Europe, where over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any faith. Even in more religious America, some estimate that as many as 100,000 churches will close in the near future. Meanwhile, the ranks of “Nones,” those outside religious communities, have grown so large that their numbers rival those of Catholics and evangelical Protestants.

Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival. Data emerging from the 2020s suggest that we are witnessing a complex spiritual restructuring that intersects with economic mobility, demographic resilience, and a profound intellectual realignment.

For the first time in decades, Pew Research notes, in the U.S. at least, Christianity has stopped its nosedive as more people begin to see the efficacy, and the rewards, of religious faith and practice.

This fragile development is especially noteworthy as it exposes growing divides and fault lines in American politics and culture.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 7:34 am by Stephen Green

21ST CENTURY BIGOTRY:

Posted at 7:20 am by Glenn Reynolds

THE DEMOCRATS’ INSANITY DEFENSE:

Flashback to late October of 2024: The Democrats’ Insanity Defense.

In the September debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump said something so ludicrous that many viewers must have dismissed it out of hand. “She did things that nobody would ever think of,” Trump said, while rattling off a list of some of the vice president’s most radical past positions. “Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”

The idea that the vice president “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison” seemed so patently absurd that The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser cited it in a column posted the next morning as an example of Trump’s lunacy: “What the hell was he talking about?” Glasser wrote of the trans operation lines. “No one knows, which was, of course, exactly Harris’ point.”

That reaction was understandable—the idea of the operations was, as Trump himself said, a “thing nobody would ever think of.” The problem was that it is true.

* * * * * * * *

The same GOP staffer, who is currently working on a competitive congressional race, told me that one problem his campaign regularly faces is that aspects of Democratic governance are simply too insane for voters to find credible, even when they are documented as official U.S. government policy. “When you outline the Democratic agenda, you have to water it down, because in both polling and focus groups, people just don’t believe it,” he said. “They are critical of things like boys in girls’ sports, but they tune out stuff about schools not informing parents about transitioning their children. They just don’t believe it’s true. It can’t be.”

Another Republican operative made a related point on the failure of the party’s attempt to message on trans issues in 2022, which was that the reality of the procedures was so gruesome that voters simply preferred not to think about it. “Phrases like ‘genital mutilation’ are disgusting and viscerally off-putting, even to voters who may be sympathetic to the Republicans’ position but will just write you off as a freak for talking about it that way.”

A similar dynamic plays out in foreign policy. On the one hand the Democrats conjured out of thin air the claim that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, which was, we now know, a conspiracy theory concocted by ex-spies and Clinton campaign operatives and seeded in the intelligence agencies and media by the outgoing Obama administration to cripple the new administration. That is to say that it is not a matter of partisan political opinion; it is simply false. Yet as of 2022, nearly half of U.S. voters, and a majority of Democrats, still believed that Trump was elected in 2016 due to Russian interference, and the hoax remains a mainstay of Democratic rhetoric. It even played a major role in the 2020 election, providing the predicate for the Biden campaign to collude with tech companies and retired spooks to censor reporting about Hunter Biden’s foreign influence-peddling schemes, which turned out to be entirely real.

Of course, plenty of insane stories ran in the paper that employs McAardle:

Not to be confused with other stories the Post simply invented out of whole cloth:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

EDITED BY JAMIE IBSON, WITH STORIES FROM MICHAEL Z. WILLIAMSON, JODY LYNN NYE, KACEY EZELL AND OTHERS:  Plausibly Deniable.

Plausibly Deniable

“Occasionally a few simply honest men are found upon committees. These are useful as adjuncts to give a kind of high moral character to the cause; but the rest of the committee generally think them bores . . . When any peculiarly delicate question arises, it is sometimes important to eliminate one or more of them temporarily from the real committee of management . . . and also of enabling him at any future time to declare truly, if necessary, that he never was present at any meeting at which even a questionable course had been proposed.” —Charles Babbage, 1864

“Who? No idea, never heard of him.” —Spies, mercenaries, operatives, and criminals everywhere

In Plausibly Deniable, we get a peek behind the curtain. We get to see what shouldn’t be seen, to know what they don’t want you to know, and to find out the true story of whodunnit.

Edited by Jamie Ibson, a wide array of established authors and rising stars contribute to this undeniable original anthology, including: Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z. Williamson & Jessica Schlenker, Craig Martelle, Jason Cordova & Melissa Olthoff, Jacob Holo & Edie Skye, Kacey Ezell and Nick Steverson, Marisa Wolf, Casey Moores, Jack Clemons, and introducing multiversal man of mystery, Buff Orpington.

They could tell you, but then they’d have to . . . well. You know.

 

Posted at 7:00 am by Sarah Hoyt