Can the Center Hold?
Posted By: Mercedes44, 2/5/2026 6:38:00 AM
It’s a worn-out trope by now to conjure yet again Yeats’s immortal poem, yet perhaps forgivable if we dissect its most famous phrase, “the center cannot hold.” Because exactly what we mean by “the center,” and how we determine what holds it together, may answer the question of how we might do exactly that. As it is, one example of the “center” is millions of friendships that remain strong, held between left-of-center pro-business Democrats who are skeptical about MAGA, and right-of-center Republicans who believe MAGA policies are the best route to our country achieving goals we all share: broadly distributed prosperity and an affordable middle-class lifestyle. But those friendships are fraying.
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Mercedes44"
Telegram platform founder Pavel Durov is one of very few tech CEOs who is consistent in his efforts to protect information from the grip of government censorship. Today, Durov used his platform to warn Telegram users in Spain what is pending: [VIA Pavel Durov X Account] – Today, Telegram notified all its users in Spain with this alert:
Pedro Sánchez’s government is pushing dangerous new regulations that threaten your internet freedoms. Announced just yesterday, these measures could turn Spain into a surveillance state under the guise of “protection.” Here’s why they’re a red flag for free speech and privacy:
1. Ban on social media for under-16s with mandatory age verification:
In the past few years people have heard the term “rare earth minerals” or “critical minerals” as they relate to the manufacture of component goods that are vitally important in the lives of everyone. However, the term “rare” is somewhat of a misnomer. The minerals themselves are not rare; indeed, they have been around for hundreds of millions of years in abundant supply. It is the processing of those minerals into stable second stage commodities that has become rare.
As a result of western environmental rules and regulations, U.S, EU and developed nations have outsourced critical mineral processing (the dirty stuff) to China and Asia.
California’s already sky-high gas prices are expected to surge after Valero abruptly shuttered its Benicia refinery amid a spiraling “oil crisis,” a new report claims.
The Benicia refinery began shutting down on Saturday, four months earlier than planned, a former Valero manager told the California Globe Tuesday. Thermal imaging showed the facility went cold as the Crimson Pipeline – which transports crude oil from Southern to Northern California – was also taken offline.
“We are in an unprecedented oil crisis,” oil expert Mike Ariza told the publication.
Valero Energy Corp. announced its plans last spring to pull the plug on its 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery by April,
LA Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered Palisades
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report 14 replies
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report 14 replies
Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered the official Palisades Fire response report to downplay the failures made by the city and fire department when the deadly blaze erupted, a new report said.
Bass, after seeing an early draft of the after-action report, wanted key findings of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings scrubbed or watered down — and even warned then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva the unedited conclusions could expose the city to legal liability, sources close to the Democrat’s staff told the Los Angeles Times.
Bass was cautioned that the self-serving tweaks in with the report was a “bad idea” that could torpedo her political career,
Can the Center Hold?
3 replies
It’s a worn-out trope by now to conjure yet again Yeats’s immortal poem, yet perhaps forgivable if we dissect its most famous phrase, “the center cannot hold.” Because exactly what we mean by “the center,” and how we determine what holds it together, may answer the question of how we might do exactly that.
As it is, one example of the “center” is millions of friendships that remain strong, held between left-of-center pro-business Democrats who are skeptical about MAGA, and right-of-center Republicans who believe MAGA policies are the best route to our country achieving goals we all share: broadly distributed prosperity and an affordable middle-class lifestyle.
But those friendships are fraying.
With nothing else to run on, Democrats appear to think that demonizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will be enough to win them control of Congress come November.
“In their campaigns, Democrats across the country are responding to the anger felt by many communities over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations,” reports CBS News. If they can sustain today’s anger, the argument goes, voters will turn out in droves to clip the Trump administration’s wings in his last two years in office.
But there are a multitude of reasons why this strategy isn’t likely to work.
First, November is a long way off.
Every so often there’s a piece of content in The New York Times or a similar publication that’s meant to create suspicion but without saying exactly why, usually for the purpose of politicizing something mundane. The story this week about National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard being on site during an FBI operation in Atlanta is one of those pieces of content, but in this case, the reason for the manufactured suspicion is obvious.
The Times on Monday wrote that it was “unusual” for Gabbard to appear at an FBI field office following the agency’s seizure of 2020 ballots from an election center in the ever-so-seedy Fulton County.
Nearly two-thirds of likely 2026 midterm election voters support deporting illegal aliens from the United States, a new poll released Monday shows.
In its latest survey of 1,004 likely 2026 voters, the political polling firm Cygnal found that respondents support removing illegal aliens from America and sending them back to their country of origin by a nearly 2:1 margin (61 to 34 percent). The poll also found strong support for ICE enforcement of federal immigration laws and agreement that illegally entering the United States is a violation of such laws.
Melinda Gates reacted to the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails involving her ex-husband Bill Gates, including horrific allegations Epstein made such that Bill was attempting to dose her with antibiotics to fight an STD without her knowledge, by saying Bill and other Epstein associates “need to answer to those things.”
I think we’re having a reckoning as a society,” Melinda Gates told NPR’s Wild Card podcast host Rachel Martin on Tuesday. “No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is onto something. And the right people are terrified.
As my colleague Bob Hoge reported, after Gabbard appeared on the scene at the operation to secure the multi-year crime scene that is the Fulton County, Georgia, Election Hub and Operation Center (see FBI Raids Fulton County Election Hub Days After Trump Vows Prosecutions for 2020 Election - Here We Go – RedState and 700 Boxes of Ballots Seized After FBI Executes Fulton County Warrant, Dems Try to Develop ‘Legal Plan’ – RedState), she was the subject of thinly sourced, scurrilous "leak" —
President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration (SBA) is stopping the issuance of small business loans to foreign nationals, requiring that a business be 100 percent owned by a U.S. citizen or U.S. national to receive such a loan. This week, the SBA published a memo requiring that, beginning next month, applicants for the agency’s primary small business loan be American citizens or American nationals.
“… effective March 1, 2026, SBA hereby revises Standard Operating Procedure 50 10 8 Lender and Development Company Loan Programs guidance related to businesses owned by non-U.S. citizens,” the memo states:
So far, we have not heard any statements from Delhi on this issue,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday. We respect bilateral U.S.-Indian relations, but we attach no less importance to the development of an advanced strategic partnership between Russia and India,” he said.
“This is the most important thing for us, and we intend to further develop our bilateral relations with Delhi,” he said, signaling that Russia would not lash out at India for whatever agreement it has made with the United States.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday that “we’re only seeing public statements” about the U.S.-India agreement, and “we’ll see how the situation develops.”
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Hillary Clinton attacked House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) on Thursday as she pushed for a public hearing after she and her husband agreed to testify before the committee as part of its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “If you want this fight,” she told Comer, “Let’s have it — in public.”
Former President Bill Clinton and his wife are set to testify on their relationship with the disgraced financier before the House Oversight Committee later this month. The plan was put in place after Comer rejected requests for a closed-door deposition and written testimony.
On Thursday, the former Secretary of State accused Comer of “moving the goalposts,”
Minnesota's ICE surge is leaving many with strong feelings of fear and anxiety. Many in the community and mental health experts are finding ways of handling it. "I mean, my last six therapy sessions have been basically all talking about this," said Nate P. (Snip) Fear and uncertainty are taking a toll on the community, with many unsure of how to cope. Mental health concerns are on the rise as immigration enforcement plays out in Minnesota and across the country. "We're seeing the images, it's hard to look away," said Marcus Schmit, executive director of NAMI Minnesota. "People are feeling
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues to dismay. Her attendance at the rancidly partisan anti-ICE Grammy Awards on Sunday was a joke. The 55-year-old Biden DEI candidate was nominated for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of her memoir “Lovely One,” which she unashamedly believes herself to be.
California’s already sky-high gas prices are expected to surge after Valero abruptly shuttered its Benicia refinery amid a spiraling “oil crisis,” a new report claims.
The Benicia refinery began shutting down on Saturday, four months earlier than planned, a former Valero manager told the California Globe Tuesday. Thermal imaging showed the facility went cold as the Crimson Pipeline – which transports crude oil from Southern to Northern California – was also taken offline.
“We are in an unprecedented oil crisis,” oil expert Mike Ariza told the publication.
Valero Energy Corp. announced its plans last spring to pull the plug on its 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery by April,
Mike ‘Pick Me’ Pence’s Opposition
To The SAVE Act Is Dishonest And Constitutionally Illiterate 21 replies
To The SAVE Act Is Dishonest And Constitutionally Illiterate 21 replies
Former Vice President Mike Pence really wants you to think he is a principled man. He really goes on and on about how he, seemingly alone, stands for those bedrock conservative values that made this country great. His foundation, Advancing American Freedom, even boasts “The Conservative Movement Lives Here.”
He’s a constitutional conservative to his core. Until he isn’t.Let’s take election reform. The SAVE Act, the main provision of which is so overwhelmingly popular with normal Americans that it’s only natural that the denizens of the Washington swamp oppose it with near-religious fervor, has stalled in the Senate. The bill would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require
Traditionally, New York City mayors are supposed to visit injured police officers in the hospital, but Mamdani being such a historical figure is instead visiting a man who tried to stab a police officer in the hospital.
Video shows Jabez Chakraborty lunging with a knife at police officers before an officer shoots him.
Mamdani visited the attempted stabber in the hospital using him as the poster stabber for his police defunding campaign.
“This situation underscores just how urgently we need a different and more effective mental health response system,” Mamdani argued. “Jabez needs mental health treatment, not criminal prosecution by a district attorney.”
An in-depth investigation by City Journal is raising questions about whether a Minneapolis-based anti-ICE network is pushing civilians into dangerous confrontations with federal immigration agents after the shooting deaths of two activists in less than a month. (snip) According to City Journal, one group sits at the center of Minneapolis' anti-ICE movement: Defend the 612. The organization oversees a large network of Signal chats that monitor immigration enforcement, coordinate protests, and mobilize rapid-response actions across Minneapolis neighborhoods. (snip) [City Journal's] investigation found that members and "related officials have encouraged protesters to impede law enforcement; pushed civilians toward legally and physically risky confrontations; and helped mobilize a counter-protest that turned violent."
Chief Justice Roberts Finally Moves to
Secure Supreme Court Processes; Leaky
Media Hardest Hit 18 replies
Secure Supreme Court Processes; Leaky
Media Hardest Hit 18 replies
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has made a move to secure the deliberations, private discussions, and working drafts of the court. According to the New York Times, Roberts is requiring all clerks and permanent staff to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The writer writes about this in a hushed tone, as though she is laying out the plot of a murder mystery. But there is nothing mysterious about the erosion of the court's integrity, which points directly to publications like the NYT and POLITICO happily disseminating what is leaked to them. The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks
The Trump administration said Thursday that it has finalized a rule that creates a new government schedule that will make it easier for administrations to fire federal employees it views as hindering its agenda.
The rule, dubbed Schedule Policy/Career, converts a wide range of federal policy-related employees into a status similar to that of political appointees who can be fired at will.
The change is expected to impact up to 50,000 federal workers. Unions have opposed the change, arguing it politicizes the federal workforce, which previously was intended to be neutral and expertise-oriented, according to The Hill. “This is not about people’s views or ideas,"
The leftist domestic terrorists in Minneapolis have seriously injured multiple federal immigration officers and made international headlines with their violence and viciousness. Dazzled by this display of complete catastrophe, The Nation nominated the rioters for the Nobel Peace Prize.
There are times when reality is so far beyond satire that it ceases to be amusing and becomes alarming. Leftists couldn’t give a hoot if the officer Renee Good rammed with her car suffered internal bleeding, or if a Homeland Security officer lost his finger after a leftist bit through it, or if vehicular assaults against federal agents in America are up by 3,300%, with Minneapolis the top hotspot
LA Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered Palisades
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report 14 replies
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report 14 replies
Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered the official Palisades Fire response report to downplay the failures made by the city and fire department when the deadly blaze erupted, a new report said.
Bass, after seeing an early draft of the after-action report, wanted key findings of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings scrubbed or watered down — and even warned then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva the unedited conclusions could expose the city to legal liability, sources close to the Democrat’s staff told the Los Angeles Times.
Bass was cautioned that the self-serving tweaks in with the report was a “bad idea” that could torpedo her political career,
Each day more and more people are starting to realize/notice there are elements of the United States intelligence apparatus that are targeting Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. The need for control is a reaction to fear, and Tulsi Gabbard has the DC Intelligence Community very worried.
What you will read below is something that was written back in 2024 about the potential for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), if President Trump were to win the election.(snip)
Read the roadmap below –Written in 2024– compare it to current events and decide for yourself if this is something that rings a bell and may explain the IC apoplexy.