If you could read my tabs, love, what a tale my links could tell ...
On the surface a strong jobs report (130K jobs & unemployment falls to 4.3%).
— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) February 11, 2026
And just about every detail makes it even stronger: participation up, involuntary part-time down, hours up, wages up.
The mystery of strong GDP and weak jobs is being resolved in the direction of GDP. pic.twitter.com/BDQT2q7eqq
Ed: GDP always wins over component metrics. This is one reason I wonder whether the low overall numbers last year are an artifact of aggressive immigration enforcement and a shift of jobs to legal workers. Furman isn’t exactly a sympathetic analyst for this administration, but he mainly sticks to the numbers.
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Ace of Spades HQ: The stats subtract that 42,000 from the 172,000 to say we created 130,000 net jobs, but to me... um, I feel like adding those "lost" jobs into the "created" column because we want to reduce government "employment." It's a waste that drags down the productive sector of the economy.
BTW, "Biden's Miracle Economy" counted on an exploding government sector to make job "growth" look good in the statistics.
Oh, and most of the non-government jobs "created" went to literal foreigners.
Ed: It’s worth noting that BLS sharply revised numbers downward for both 2024 and 2025 while recalculating its metrics, as they do on a regular basis every couple of years. The actual numbers during the last year of Biden’s term was around 100K per month, which is more than the average last year – but the GDP results were better in Trump’s first year.
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John Ekdahl was my best friend. He died today of cancer, at 47. I know that some of you knew and loved John, so I thought I’d let you all know. I have set up a GoFundMe for his family, which is linked in this tweet.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 11, 2026
John and I “met” on Twitter about 13 years ago, and then, a… pic.twitter.com/UO0wO1hwZO
Ed: I didn’t know John personally, except for mutual follows on Twitter and some fun messages there. I had no idea he was sick. Please click through to read all of Charles’ remembrance of John. He has a GoFundMe link at the end to help support John’s family.
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Jerusalem Post: Six Iranian diplomats smuggled suitcases of cash on commercial flights to Lebanon, to help Hezbollah rebuild its financial and operational ability, Iran International reported on Wednesday, citing newly obtained information.
According to Iran International, the diplomats include: former Iranian ambassador to Turkey Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian-Fard; former Iranian consul-general in Pakistan Mohammad Reza Shirkhodaei; his brother, Hamidreza; Reza Nedaei; Abbas Asgari; and former employee of the Iranian embassy in Canada, Amir-Hamzeh Shiranirad.
Taherian-Fard, who accompanied Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on a flight to Beirut in January, allegedly brought a cash-filled suitcase with him, “relying on diplomatic immunity to avoid airport inspection.”
Ed: Yet more reason to demand that Iran stop funding its proxy terror networks and curtail its ballistic missile systems. Both are intended to destroy Israel and force the US out of the region.
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MINNESOTA POLL
— Emerson College Polling (@EmersonPolling) February 11, 2026
2026 US Senate - Hypothetical Matchups
Angie Craig (DFL) 47%
Michele Tafoya (R) 40%
9% undecided
Peggy Flanagan (DFL) 47%
Michele Tafoya (R) 41%
8% undecidedhttps://t.co/9xfiwH67p1
Watch: https://t.co/2BP9pNfnmF
Ed: This is a pretty good start for Michele Tafoya, frankly. Given the current electorate in Minnesota, having a rookie candidate come within ten points of two established Democrat politicians this early in the cycle is a good sign that the DFL may have to throw real resources into this Senate race.
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Free Beacon: Democrats’ demand for the Department of Homeland Security to "improve warrant procedures and standards" when arresting illegal immigrants could grind ICE's enforcement and removal operations to a near halt, immigration experts told the Washington Free Beacon.
The policy would restrict ICE’s ability to rely on administrative warrants, which are authorized under the Immigration and Nationality Act and issued by senior agency officials after determining probable cause. They allow federal authorities to arrest immigrants illegally residing in the country—a civil violation—and carry out enforcement actions, including deportations. By contrast, judicial warrants require a judge’s signature and are typically only issued if an illegal immigrant has committed a separate federal criminal offense.
The heightened legal standard could severely handcuff ICE and other immigration authorities, according to Heritage Foundation Border Security and Immigration Center director Lora Ries. Factor in the longer review process that judicial warrants demand, a backlog in immigration courts that’s reached record highs in recent years, and the likelihood that "activist judges" seeking to "thwart and delay ICE" would deny a request, and the agency’s enforcement capacity could drop by 90 percent, Ries said.
Ed: That’s a feature, not a bug, for Democrats. Shipwreckedcrew wrote about this last week, too.
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Why did violent crime plunge? No one knows. And by "no one," I mean the New York Times. pic.twitter.com/iF0uAWMBF1
— Eddie Scarry (@eScarry) February 11, 2026
Ed: Axios couldn’t figure it out either. Or, more accurately, refused to figure it out.
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Axios: House Democrats are clamping down on disruptions at President Trump's upcoming State of the Union in the hopes of putting on a more stolid display of opposition, sources told Axios. ...
What we're hearing: There is little chatter in the caucus right now about progressives or any other group disrupting Trump's speech, the senior House Democrat told Axios.
- Instead, they said, the more resistance-minded lawmakers are expected to skip the event and go to an "alternative viewing site."
Ed: This reminds me of a scene from “That Thing You Do,” in which the lead singer professes his disgust with the label and stomps off from breakfast. Steve Zahn’s character quips: “There he goes off to write the hit song ‘Alone In My Principles’.” The progressives want to take their ball and go home, but no one’s really interested in their game or their show except themselves.
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Wasn’t this the guy who shut down the schools, beaches, and churches and then went to the French Laundry https://t.co/qWHrzzKEzc
— Adam Carolla (@adamcarolla) February 11, 2026
Ed: And now for a real governor ...
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Salena Zito at WashEx: Kemp argued that the wave of what he called false hysteria created real economic fallout across the state, hitting small businesses especially hard. He noted that many of the vendors who lost opportunities tied to the relocated MLB All-Star Game were local entrepreneurs, including many minorities, who had hoped to recover from a year of pandemic-related losses by selling food, merchandise, and other goods during the event. ...
A Pew Research Center survey done last year found that a whopping 83% of American adults support requiring some form of government-issued photo ID to vote, including 71% of Democrats and 95% of Republicans. Only 16% of Americans oppose it.
Voter ID likely receives broad support in part because Georgia proved it not only worked, but it drew out a lot more people.
“The results speak for themselves. We had record turnout in early voting after we passed the Elections Integrity Act. We had over 1.52 million black voters who turned out, which set a new record,” he said, adding, “I believe it was the largest African American turnout in the country.”
Ed: Democrats continue to put themselves on the 20% side of 80/20 issues. It's not hard to see why they have carved out that space on election integrity and immigration in particular. Unchecked illegal immigration and a lack of election controls make it a lot easier to manipulate elections.
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The inevitable and fully justified reaction by much of the population against a corporate AI machine that will strip them bare and guarantee many of their children an anxious existence of unemployment and irrelevance is not being a "Luddite."
— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) February 11, 2026
It's standing up to an invasion.
Ed: I'm beginning to see what Frank Herbert had in mind when he wrote Dune. IYKYK.
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Bill Glahn at American Experiment: As my friends would say, “Stop the Tape!” If you, a noncitizen, are in the United States without authorization, you are committing a federal crime. There is no exception in the law for successfully evading the law for decades (or years or months) and/or for having an otherwise clean criminal record in America. You are a criminal.
The law is crystal clear, “shall be detained,” so judges bent on ignoring the law have to be ever more clever. Politico reports that two district-level judges within the 5th circuit (TX-LA-MS) have invented a new constitutional right which prevents ICE from,
detaining people who have established roots in the U.S. without due process. Those roots amount, in legal parlance, to a “liberty interest” that the Constitution says cannot be taken away without at least a hearing before a neutral judge.
I’m otherwise a big fan of “liberty,” but these judges have manufactured a squatter’s right to remain in America without permission. Keep in mind that detainees have already received all of the process to which they are due, that is, they have been ordered removed by an Immigration Court.
Ed: I may write about this more tomorrow, but for now, this is relatively meaningless. District court judges do not set precedent. They can create this doctrine and apply it at will, but the Fifth Circuit will torch it into embers. And that will set the precedent, not to mention the laughter it will generate from at least seven of the nine current Supreme Court justices.
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BREAKING: France to call for resignation of Francesca Albanese at high-level opening of UNHRC on Feb. 23.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 11, 2026
🇫🇷 Foreign Minister Barrot: “She presents herself as a UN independent expert, yet she is neither an expert nor independent — she is a political activist who stirs up hate.” pic.twitter.com/obNd4wLWT0
Ed: The Trump administration has already sanctioned Albanese. France's condemnation is new, prompted by her remarks at an Al Jazeera forum that "humanity has a common enemy" in Israel. It's long past time that we cut off our funding of the UN while the entire organization panders to the anti-Semitic regimes and terrorists of the world.
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CNN has lost nearly two-thirds of its viewership since 2016 amid growing fears network is circling the drain https://t.co/y1riQXkikp
— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) February 11, 2026
Ed: They've put much of their online reporting behind a paywall now, too. That's a bold strategy, Cotton ...
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