By Ron Paul, MD
The Ron Paul Institute
February 17, 2026
Last week I had the pleasure to again appear on Tucker Carlson's popular broadcast. Although the program appears on several different platforms, on X alone the episode has been seen by more than two and a half million people. That does not include the various clips and shorts that people made and posted themselves. It is incredible how the reach and influence of the independent media has grown over the past decade or so.
By Wanjiru Njoya
Mises.org
February 17, 2026
In his book The Essential Rothbard, David Gordon observes that, "Rothbard was no ivory-tower scholar, interested only in academic controversies. Quite the contrary, he combined Austrian economics with a fervent commitment to individual liberty." One of Rothbard's important intellectual contributions to defending individual liberty concerns the subject of national self-determination.
By Ron Unz
The Unz Review
February 17, 2026
Over the last few years I've begun spending a considerable amount of my time on some YouTube channels, notably those of Judge Andrew Napolitano, Nima Alkhorshid, and Prof. Glenn Diesen, as well as that of the Grayzone.
The videos they offer have been most useful for the many excellent guests regularly featured. These include leading academics such as Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, former senior government officials such as Chas Freeman and Larry Wilkerson, former intelligence officers such as Ray McGovern and Jacques Baud, and a host of others.
By Larry C. Johnson
Sonar21
February 17, 2026
This will be a rather lengthy article, but you need to know what Russia and China are doing in a closely coordinated series of actions that show a serious commitment to counter US actions to punish and isolate Iran and Cuba. Let's start with Iran... Since the June 2025 12-day Iran-Israel war (which ended with a US-brokered ceasefire on 24 June 2025), Russia and China have provided Iran with a combination of diplomatic, economic, military-technical, and strategic support.
Moon of Alabama
February 17, 2026
In a speech held at the Munich Security Conference Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for a renewal of the colonial age:
In a perfect world, all of these problems and more would be solved by diplomats and strongly worded resolutions. But we do not live in a perfect world, and we cannot continue to allow those who blatantly and openly threaten our citizens and endanger our global stability to shield themselves behind abstractions of international law which they themselves routinely violate.
Humans think they want peace and prosperity, but few can handle the repose it provides.
By John Leake
Courageous Discourse
February 17, 2026
In his masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer observed:
Das Leben schwingt also, wie ein Pendel, hin und her, zwischen dem Schmerz und der Langeweile.
Life swings like a pendulum back and forth between pain and boredom.
Schopenhauer didn't believe this to be an accident, but an expression of human nature.
By Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter
February 17, 2026
The cascading consequences of such a blockade, which might not ultimately be imposed due it entailing a high risk of war with Iran, could simultaneously weaken Russia, India, and China.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump 2.0 is considering imposing a Venezuelan-like oil blockade against Iran. It hasn't yet done so due to concerns that Iran might attack the US' regional military assets and/or seize its Gulf allies' oil tankers, with either scenario destabilizing the global oil market and spiking the risk of war, so it might never ultimately happen.
By Jacob G. Hornberger
The Future of Freedom Foundation
February 17, 2026
Right-wing American statists are celebrating with great glee the U.S. government's economic strangulation of the Cuban people through its embargo and oil siege because right-wingers say they're opposed to socialism, which has long been the economic system of Cuba's communist regime.
What these right-wing statists and interventionists fail to recognize, however, is that they, like most Americans, fully embrace the socialist principles that undergird Cuba's socialist economic system.
SchiffGold.com
February 17, 2026
On Wednesday's episode of The Peter Schiff Show, Peter lays out a stark picture of how official data, monetary policy, and political posturing are masking deep problems in the U.S. economy. He walks through massive retroactive job cuts in the government numbers, explains why markets were misled by a faulty birth-death model, and ties the dollar's decline to a broader process of de-dollarization.
Lent is coming upon us quickly this year ! Will we sit still long enough to slow it down, or just let another one pass us by?
By Regis Martin
Crisis Magazine
February 17, 2026
I have often said," writes Blaise Pascal in the Pensées-the crowning achievement of his life's work, left unfinished at his death in 1662-"that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room." Even five minutes spent in solitude, it seems, is more than flesh and blood can bear.
By Milan Adams
Preppgroup
February 17, 2026
If things go sideways in a really bad way and I'm talking about the kind of bad that a region or country doesn't quickly or ever bounce back from, more than likely you and your family will die if you're not prepared. Are you prepared enough to ensure your family can weather a major catastrophe?
I tend to try and be as optimistic as I can when I consider possibilities involving an SHTF scenario.