February 17, 2026

SASHA STONE: AOC Crashes and Burns in Munich.

AOC makes the same mistake Kamala Harris always has. She tries to sound presidential and forgets to be herself. It’s okay to say you don’t know things or to laugh or to show humility, as Gretchen Whitmer attempted to do. But truth be told, both women came off so empty-headed that one can’t help but wonder why they’re there at all.

Mark Halperin says she did enormous damage to her political career.

AOC got her first real lesson in what it’s like to swim in the deep end. It was a good indicator that she is not ready to run for president. Unless someone else magically appears, it’s Gavin Newsom vs. Kamala Harris.

I did have to laugh at this paragraph in the Times story:

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez argued that efforts to make clips of “any five-to-10-second thing” from her remarks go viral online, especially in the conservative ecosystem, had been done to “distract from the substance of what I am saying.”

Now imagine that on repeat by every major news outlet in the land for ten years, and then she’ll get a tiny taste of what it’s like for Trump or any other politician on the Right.

Tellingly, the Gray Lady is doing major damage control for AOC: The New York Times Tries Impotently to Fix AOC’s Munich Disaster.

Elsewhere in his piece, [the NYT’s Kellen] Browning notes that Ocasio-Cortez was worried that, having been “microscopically dissected,” her message “was being lost in all the commotion.” But what she said was “her message.” One could dissect her words for the next ten years straight, with the best of intentions, and still one would not glean anything coherent or useful from them. This wasn’t the fault of “conservative social media” or “rocketing” or “speculation”; it was the fault of Ocasio-Cortez herself, who went to a security conference, was asked questions about security, and fell flat on her face at the first hurdle. The “commotion” doesn’t enter into the equation. What AOC said didn’t mean anything because AOC doesn’t know anything. Her ideas weren’t lost in translation. She didn’t “stall,” as Kellen Browning pretends she did. She wasn’t afflicted temporarily by madness or dehydration or anesthesia. She had no clue what she was talking about, so what she was talking about had no content.

Browning’s X homepage right now is absolutely loaded with AOC-friendly tweets, as if he’s her personal fixer at the Times. I know we frequently refer to journalists as “Democratic Party operatives with bylines,” but Browning is really living up to the meme right now.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

CUBA LIBRE:

Posted at 4:04 pm by Stephen Green

SCIENCE:

Posted at 4:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

NOT EVEN TWO MONTHS IN OFFICE, MAMDANI HOLDS THE CITY HOSTAGE TO GET WHAT HE WANTS:

Not quite Bane, but give him time.

Posted at 3:33 pm by Stephen Green

THIS IS GREAT NEWS:

Posted at 3:02 pm by Stephen Green

THE FULL MIFEPRISTONE TIMELINE: The FDA approved the chemical abortion drug in 2000 with four crucially important requirements, including being used only within the first seven weeks of a pregnancy, dispensed only by a qualified prescriber (with means to react promptly in case of an incomplete abortion or severe bleeding), patients had to have followup visits within 14 days, and all adverse events were to be reported.

Boy, have things changed since that initial FDA approval and the Sept. 12, 2001, death of Brenda Vise due to complications from a botched Mifepristone-induced abortion. The Family Research Council (FRC) went back and researched it all in depth to now provide this revealing timeline.

Posted at 2:48 pm by Mark Tapscott

BUT THEY ASSURED ME THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: The Bacon Paradox.

In 1998, three scientists won the Nobel Prize for discovering a molecule that saves lives. It relaxes blood vessels. It lowers pressure. It prevents heart attacks. It is called Nitric Oxide. The primary raw material for this miracle molecule is the very thing we have spent fifty years trying to banish from our breakfast tables. We are running away from the cure because we have confused it with the poison.

Here is the inconvenient fact that the “clean eating” lobby forgets to mention. Vegetables love nitrates. They soak them up from the soil like a sponge.

Beetroot. Rocket. Spinach. And yes, celery. These are the nitrate heavyweights. A 100g serving of rocket contains more nitrates than 5 kgs of bacon or hotdogs. If nitrates were truly the toxic assassin we are told they are, a salad would be a suicide note.

Yet, nobody is protesting against spinach (which has twice the level of rocket). We consider these vegetables “superfoods.” We blend them. We drink them. We feed them to our children.

So why is the nitrate in a bacon sarny a killer, but the nitrate in a beetroot a hero?

Read the whole thing — and hands off my bacon.

Posted at 2:47 pm by Stephen Green

NEWSOM’S ‘BRILLIANT’ COMMS TEAM REALLY STEPPING IN IT:

Biden was approaching 77 when DNC-MSM began running their “he’s got a stutter” stories in 2019. Newsom is 58. In 2026, that seems an awfully young age for his comms team to attempt to compete in the “oppression Olympics.” (Perhaps 58 seems incredibly old and infirm to the 20-somethings who are likely ghostwriting his tweets.

UPDATE:

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE FREE RIDE IS OVER:

Posted at 2:32 pm by Stephen Green

JIM TREACHER: Don’t Misgender That Murderer. “Another day, another trans shooter. But this one might be the craziest one so far. This man was named Robert Dorgan:”

A transvestite with Nazi tattoos? Well, it takes all kinds to make up a world.

And this is what Mr. Dorgan did. Providence (RI) Journal:

Police have identified the suspect who killed two and critically injured three others in a Feb. 16 shooting at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena [ice rink], before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves confirmed that the shooting was targeted and appeared to be a family dispute. The shooter was identified as Robert Dorgan, who also went by the name Roberta Esposito.

Specifically, he shot his ex-wife, three of his children, and a family friend while they were watching a high-school hockey game. He then shot himself. His wife and one of his children are dead.

Read the whole thing, including some “unexpected” New York Times anti-journalism, because, as Treacher writes, “Journalism means being as vague as possible about anything that might pose a problem for Democrats.”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

WHAT A MESS: Trump says FEMA will play ‘key role’ in coordinating response to Potomac sewage spill.

The collapse of a sewer line in Montgomery County, Maryland, last month spilled more than 200 million gallons of wastewater into the river. DC Water recently completed a bypass to temporarily reroute wastewater back into the sewer system, although local officials say it could take another 10 months to repair the pipe.

In a Monday afternoon social media post, Trump accused Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — a Democrat — of “gross mismanagement,” calling the spill “a result of incompetent Local and State Management of Essential Waste Management Systems.” He also attacked Moore for his role overseeing the rebuilding of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed in March 2024.

“While State and Local Authorities have failed to request needed Emergency Help, I cannot allow incompetent Local ‘Leadership’ to turn the River in the Heart of Washington into a Disaster Zone,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding: “The Federal Government has no choice, but to step in.”

A spill this size would’ve been much bigger news in a red state.

Posted at 1:45 pm by Stephen Green

OLD AND BUSTED: “One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter.”

The New Hotness?

Amazing how Bezos setting $100 million or so alight every year to keep the doors open at the Washington Post is considered “sitting on his wealth.”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll