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Students Rise Across Iran: “Death to Khamenei” Echoes Through Universities
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 21, 2026
On the very first day of universities reopening, students across Iran took to the streets and campus grounds, chanting slogans against the regime and directly against Khamenei.
Student protests, reported… pic.twitter.com/mT16SVkXUr
Student protests, reported at Tehran University, Sharif University, and Polytechnic University, were met with violent confrontations by Basij forces stationed on campus.
On day one, students sent a clear message to the dictator: they will not be intimidated by Khamenei’s killers and terrorists.
Ed: Do they know something we don't, at least not yet?
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WSJ: A new wave of popular discontent is growing in Iran, with college students holding antigovernment rallies on campuses and grieving families using mourning ceremonies to air their opposition to the Islamic Republic.
Fueling the popular anger is the government’s bloody crackdown of last month’s protests, during which thousands of people were killed, many of them young. The repression had a chilling effect on the demonstrations, but also gave Iranians another reason to oppose their theocratic rulers.
Students at several universities gathered in large numbers Saturday—the first day of a new academic term—chanting slogans commemorating those who were killed and condemning security forces, according to videos verified by Storyful, which is owned by News Corp, parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
The student protests represent the most significant show of public defiance against the Islamic Republic since the mass protests were brutally crushed in January.
Ed: The timing is certainly interesting. I'm writing this in the early afternoon as I will be tied up at church this afternoon and evening. It's possible that Trump may act as soon as today, although I suspect he wants to wait for the USS Gerald Ford carrier task force to arrive first. However, if the streets fill with protests again and the IRGC and Basij begin firing on them again, Trump may not wait for long.
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Well this certainly didn’t go as you probably expected
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 21, 2026
Ed: Don't ask questions to which you really don't want to hear the answer. While I think that a legitimate and honorable argument can be made against military action against Iran, that's not what Massie was doing here. This was just a performative stunt, and it backfired on Massie.
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NY Post/Reuters: Cuban security advisers and doctors have been leaving Venezuela as Interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s government faces intense pressure from Washington to unwind Latin America’s most consequential leftist alliance, according to 11 sources familiar with the matter.
Venezuela’s Interim President Delcy Rodriguez has entrusted her protection to Venezuelan bodyguards, according to four of the sources, unlike deposed president Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, the late president Hugo Chavez, who both relied on elite Cuban forces.
Thirty-two Cubans were killed in the US military attack that captured Maduro on January 3, according to the Cuban government.
Ed: This looks more like an upgrade, considering the abject failure of the Cuban military to protect Maduro. Rodriguez is getting the Donroe Doctrine message loud and clear. The Cubans also cannot afford to provide these services any longer now that their access to free oil has been severed.
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Here we go again. EDVA judges do not pick our US Attorney. POTUS does. James Hundley, you’re fired! https://t.co/QnHHUZqhw1
— Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) February 20, 2026
Ed: Blanche is only partly correct. Congress passed and the president signed the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) in 1998, which does allow federal judges to appoint acting US Attorneys when the administration fails to successfully appoint and confirm a nominee within 120 days of an interim appointment. I've written about this several times over the past year, including this post in December.
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NBC News: The Department of Justice fired longtime litigator James Hundley from his appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia just hours after federal judges unanimously appointed him to the position. ...
Hundley said in a statement to NBC News that "despite my dismissal by the President, I will continue to support our country and its justice system in any way I can."
"It was a great honor to be appointed by the Court as Interim United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia," Hundley said in the statement. "I’ve been practicing law in Virginia for many years and have always held the Court and the United States Attorney’s Office in the highest regard."
Ed: The DoJ can still fire those appointees, but they can't appoint a successor interim US Attorney under the FVRA. Congress passed the FVRA with the explicit intent to stop presidents (including Bill Clinton, who signed the bill) from using serial interim appointments in order to avoid getting appointees confirmed by the Senate. That means the post will remain vacant until the White House appoints someone and the Senate confirms them, and that will impede prosecutions in the EDVA ... one of the more important posts for US Attorneys. This is a pretty good demonstration of the phrase "cutting off your nose to spite your face," and its root cause is the White House's failure to get these positions filled while they have a GOP majority in the Senate.
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass gets absolutely obliterated on live TV during a pothole filling photo op.
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) February 20, 2026
She attempts to brag about paving 60 miles of Los Angeles streets, when the reporter informs her there are 22,000 miles to pave in Los Angeles.
For those keeping track at home… pic.twitter.com/lVhXIaUL5f
For those keeping track at home that is 0.27% of the city. Good luck with those bent and broken rims.
Reporting credit: @ericspillman @KTLA
Ed: Bass has been mayor for three years, and she's just now getting to the 0.27% mark. At that rate, Bass would need 24 more terms as mayor to address the crumbling streets of Los Angeles, which – by the way – don't have to deal with ice or snow, two major causes of asphalt decay. Bass keeps talking about "infrastructure" as a way to blame Trump, but the federal government plays no role in municipal street maintenance. The responsibility for that infrastructure lies with Los Angeles' city and county governments. And Bass.
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Axios: Top Democrats instructed members not to interrupt President Trump's State of the Union speech next Tuesday — so instead they're planning individualized responses to show opposition to his agenda.
Why it matters: Fresh off a slew of reassuring election wins, Democrats are trying to mobilize every faction of their coalition before the midterms — but a range of messages could dilute their impact.
Ed: It will make them look like ankle-biters, even more than a normal SOTU response would. This is a huge mistake, and it will indeed "dilute" the impact that Abigail Spanberger's response might have. Dumb strategy.
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The moral and mental collapse of Tucker Carlson is so colossal that one has to wonder if there is a physical malady behind it. https://t.co/58fe7Pp71f
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) February 21, 2026
Ed: Click through to see Ambassador Mike Huckabee's rebuttal to Carlson. Apparently, Carlson tried adopting Marc Lamont Hill's argument that Israel's population was primarily Ashkenazi, meaning Jews who emigrated from eastern Europe, and therefore not the authentic people of the Old Testament. As Amb. Huckabee correctly points out, two-thirds of Israel's population are either Mizrahi (those whose families remained in the Levant/Middle East) or Sephardic (those who lived in Spain before and after the Inquisition). The Mizrahi Jews alone account for far more than the Ashkenazi, somewhere between 40-50% of the population, many of whose families got ethnically cleansed from other areas of the former Ottoman Empire in the past century or so.
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Associated Press: President Donald Trump said Saturday that he was raising the global tariff he wants to impose to 15%, up from 10% he had announced a day earlier.
Trump said in a social media post on that he was making the decision “Based on a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday,” by the U.S. Supreme Court.
After the court ruled he didn’t have the emergency power to impost many sweeping tariffs, Trump signed an executive order on Friday night that enabled him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on imports from around the world. The catch is that those tariffs would be limited to just 150 days, unless they are extended legislatively.
Ed: That's why the White House wanted to use the IEEPA. This still gives Trump five months to use these tariffs to finalize trade agreements, but it's going to get more difficult from here on out.
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🚨 NEW: Zohran Mamdani Calls on New Yorkers to Shovel Snow During Tomorrow’s Blizzard
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 21, 2026
“You too can become an emergency snow shoveler. Just show up at your local sanitation garage between 8am and 1pm tomorrow with your paperwork.” pic.twitter.com/ZifhOhPbGt
Ed: Is this a demonstration of the "warmth of collectivism"?
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Update: I just had to add this one ...
I see this book every time I go to Barnes & Noble and it pisses me off every single time.
— Mike Coté (@ratlpolicy) February 21, 2026
Why? Well, it's called "Mona's Eyes," a clear reference to Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, yet the cover art is Vermeer's The Girl with a Pearl Earring. Drives me nuts! pic.twitter.com/VZOFH5DkqY
Ed: Come on, publisher man. How does anyone make this mistake with the most iconic eyes in all of art?
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