SONNY BUNCH: Robert Duvall, R.I.P.

It’s impossible to single out a lone defining performance by Duvall, who died Monday at 95 in his Middleburg, Virginia, home. He was in so many of the greatest films of all time that one loses track trying to count them. Where do you start? With To Kill a Mockingbird, I suppose, though his turn as Boo Radley doesn’t really give you a sense of what was to come. He’s one of those actors who had to age ever so slightly, who had to grow into that weathered face and earn that wry smile that suggested so much hidden knowledge.

That smile serves him well in the first two Godfather films, as consigliere to Don Corleone. The first time you see the movie you don’t know what it means when he grins at the mogul’s seamless transition of ethnic slurs, from guinea goombah to his “kraut-mick friend,” but you know it can’t be good. Duvall was lucky enough to have fallen in with that whole crew a decade into his career—Coppola, Lucas, and the other filmmakers who would change the world as we know it—so you have to mention The Conversation and THX 1138 and, of course, Apocalypse Now. Has there ever been a more quotable character with less screen time than Lt. Col. Kilgore? “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”; “Charlie don’t surf”; “Bomb them into the Stone Age, son.” He’s in the movie for maybe ten minutes and they’re all unforgettable, which is probably why he got his second Best Supporting Actor nomination for the role.

And then there’s Network, a movie I spent a lot of time with last year in the midst of all the drama surrounding CBS News and governmental pressures exerted on the broadcast networks and film studios alike. Duvall’s Frank Hackett is a vision of the future, the amoral corporate hatchet man whose only worry is getting the spreadsheet numbers up a few percentage points to make the shareholders happy at the annual meeting. If that means degrading the news division, fine. If it means killing the news division’s lead anchor, well, who is to say what’s right and wrong in this crazy world of ours? Of all the actors in that film—and there are a number of all-time greats, including Faye Dunaway and William Holden—I’ve always felt as though Duvall adapted best to the overlapping, rhythmic dialogue deployed by screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky in this film.

Also in 1976, Duvall played the Nazi colonel who set in motion the plan to kidnap Winston Churchill in The Eagle Has Landed, easily holding his own next to Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Anthony Quayle and Donald Pleasence.

He roomed with two fellow struggling actors in the 50s–Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman.Three wildly different types. What they had in common was an inability to be false. And they all won Oscars when, in 1960, the idea any of them could be leading men would have seemed insane.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) February 16, 2026

UPDATE:

We are entering a spiral now where we are going to start losing the last great generation of movie stars in bunches, now. It’s sad and unfortunate… all the more so because we have not replaced them.

— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) February 17, 2026

That clock’s been ticking for a decade now on rock stars, just as it was 50 years ago for big band-era stars.

THIS JUST IN: BILLIE EILISH ENDORSES ICE! Aussie Influencer Says Pop Star’s Mansion Joke Got Him Booted From the U.S.

An Australian influencer has lashed out at pop star Billie Eilish, claiming she got him “deported” from the United States after he mocked her Grammy Awards “stolen land” speech by launching a crowdfunding effort to “move into” her multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles.

To be fair, Eilish’s speech—in which she declared that nobody is illegal on stolen land—ranks among the dumbest celebrity remarks yet about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations launched by the Trump administration to remove criminal illegal aliens. No one stole this land. People conquered it. Those are not the same thing.

What the celebrity class refuses to confront is the obvious follow-up question: if the United States returned the land to Native Americans, which tribe would receive it? Tribes constantly fought each other over territory. No one can definitively determine original ownership. Conquest decided the matter. End of story. And by Eilish’s own logic, her mansion sits on “stolen land,” meaning she should either open it up to illegal aliens or hand it over to a Native American tribe.

That outcome seems unlikely. Virtue signaling costs nothing. Practicing what you preach costs everything. Hence, you’ll probably never see someone famous actually doing what they demand everyone else do.

“Billie Eilish got me deported from the US—I think her legal team contacted DHS,” Drew Pavlou wrote in a post published Sunday on X. “I spent 30 hours at LAX immigration trying to explain that my s—posts were just a joke and that I didn’t actually plan to personally move into her mansion.”

Conquest’s First Law of Politics: Everyone is conservative about what he [or she] knows best.

ED MORRISSEY: Too Dumb to Check: Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be AOCs.

Ocasio-Cortez tried to take a swipe at Marco Rubio, whose speech in Munich received broad acclaim and enthusiastic responses. She attempted to fact-check a gracious reflection on how much Europe has influenced American culture and heritage by … exposing her utter ignorance of history.

AOC tries to take a swing at Sec. Rubios address in Munich:

“You are starting to see the ascent of the Right, even in places like Munich. Marco Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to Western culture.“ pic.twitter.com/Ksh5HpH5FL

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 15, 2026

Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to Western culture. My favorite part was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain. I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slave peoples would like to have a word on that.

What did Rubio actually say in his speech? “The entire romance of the cowboy archetype,” Rubio noted in his speech, “that became synonymous with the American West – these were born in Spain.”

And he is absolutely right.

Not only did the cowboy archetype originate in Spain, so did the horses they rode in on. Literally. Horses had gone extinct in the Americas for thousands of years before the first Europeans came to the Western Hemisphere. Spanish explorers reintroduced horses in the 15th and 16th centuries in their efforts to settle the Americas, as well as the cattle ranching that had long been part of the vaquero culture in Spain.

The Daily Wire offers a brief history lesson:

The word “cowboy” itself is a direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero (from vaca, meaning cow). The tradition began in the medieval hacienda system of Spain and was brought to the Americas by conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Gregorio de Villalobos in the early 1500s. These Spaniards introduced the first horses and cattle to the Western Hemisphere.

Cortés, huh?

She is named Cortez and yet is totally clueless about how Mexico came to have horses.

Imagine being named after the man who brought horses to the Americas and not knowing that. https://t.co/1TXLhal2Ba

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 16, 2026

With a bit of luck though, Gaia will save us all from POTUS AOC:

Look on the bright side: Just in time for us to avoid an AOC presidency. https://t.co/5eBhLoMcfP

— ConservativeNotCrazy (@IAMMGraham) February 17, 2026

BLOOMBERG: Cuba Is Struggling to Keep Lights On Amid Trump’s Oil Blockade.

Cuba’s blackout problem has worsened in the month since the US cut off oil shipments to the island.

Its grid was fragile even before a critical transmission line failure in early December temporarily severed the link between Havana and the Caribbean country’s primary thermoelectric power plants in Matanzas. Then the Trump administration blocked fuel shipments that supply 60% of the roughly 100,000 barrels of crude a day it needs to feed its aging power system.

Available electricity has plummeted since the start of the year. And it’s disproportionately affected rural areas and provincial hubs, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of satellite imagery. The level of light emitted at night in major eastern cities like Santiago de Cuba and Holguin has dropped as much as 50% compared to the historical average.

* * * * * * * *

In addition to Venezuela, Mexico had been a steady supplier of oil to Cuba. It delivered a small cargo on Jan. 9, according to Kpler, a data and analytics firm. A few weeks later, Trump threatened tariffs on any nation that supplies the island with fuel, cutting off that flow as well. As a result, Havana has now gone a full month without a major fuel delivery, the data show.

Some analysts estimate Cuba has enough oil left in storage to last fewer than 20 days, but no official figures are available. Last week, the government unveiled a series of contingency measures including reducing public transportation routes, shortening the work week to four days, shutting down resorts and limiting gasoline sales to consumers who can pay in dollars.

In 2019, Think Progress reported, that while Bloomberg News owner Michael Bloomberg wasn’t going to run for the White House, as “The former Republican (and then centrist independent) was always going to be a long-shot to win a Democratic primary, especially at a time when so much of the party’s energy is coming from its progressive wing.” But:

At the same time, Bloomberg points out that many of America’s most pressing problems can’t wait until 2021 — particularly climate change. “Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar, and neither can we,” he emphasizes in the statement.

He has spent more than $100 million in the past decade on the Sierra Club’s remarkably successful Beyond Coal campaign, which has helped close over half the country’s coal plants plants — 285 out of 530 — and deployed cleaner, cheaper energy in their place.

This effort, Bloomberg notes, “was the single biggest reason the U.S. has been able to reduce its carbon footprint by 11 percent — and cut deaths from coal power plants from 13,000 to 3,000.”

The former New York City mayor said Tuesday that he will build upon those successes by investing even more in the effort to shut down coal-fired power plants. “First, I will expand my support for the Beyond Coal campaign so that we can retire every single coal-fired power plant over the next 11 years,” he says in the statement. “That’s not a pipe dream. We can do it.”

But then he went much further, announcing “a new, even more ambitious phase of the campaign — Beyond Carbon: a grassroots effort to begin moving America as quickly as possible away from oil and gas and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy.”

An economy entirely powered by clean energy is the exact same goal laid out in the sweeping Green New Deal that has captured the nation’s attention over the past few months. Bloomberg points out that while any such deal “stands no chance of passage in the Senate over the next two years,” the science makes clear action must start now.

Indeed, the world’s nations unanimously approved a landmark report from scientists last October making clear that to have any plausible chance of averting catastrophic climate change, we must make sharp reductions in global carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 — and then quickly go to zero emissions.

Can Mike Bloomberg object to Trump’s treatment of Cuba? He’s heightening the contradictions, by giving Cuba’s socialist government a crash-course in decarbonization. As a result, Glenn asked on Friday on his Substack, “Will Cuba be Libre soon, and if so what happens next? And after that?”

RIP: Expansive Actor Robert Duvall, Dead at 95.

Every Robert Duvall performance is an unexpected one. Unlike many actors who have had the length of a career as long as his, his performances are unique and nuanced, diverse and always revelatory. Duvall’s roles as Tom Hagen in The Godfather and The Godfather II, Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H, Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, and Lt. Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now are the works that most people tend to reference as his most memorable performances. The ones that stick with me are Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies, Frank Hackett in Network, and Sonny Dewey in The Apostle.

Duvall said to American Cowboy magazine that Lonesome Dove’s Gus McCrae was the role that stuck with him the most. After he completed the 1989 television miniseries, Duvall said he was ready to retire.

I can retire now, I’ve done something I can be proud of. Playing Augustus McCrae was kind of like my Hamlet.

The world is grateful that he kept giving us Hamlet-level performances for another 30 years after that, until his last screen appearance in the 2022 period thriller, The Pale Blue Eye.

On Sunday, the Great Director called, and scene on his denouement. Robert Duvall has passed away at the age of 95.

One of the most versatile actors who ever lived:

Rest in peace Robert Duvall. A giant amongst actors.🙏 pic.twitter.com/swSL4weseb

— shane@mrbluesky99 (@mrbluesky99) February 16, 2026

DAAAMN: Watch Hillary’s Face as Czech Deputy PM Macinka Shuts Her Down in Heated Back and Forth on Gender.

Hero for the day. Thank you Macinka for laughing right in the Witches face. Too bad he did not have a pail of water.💦 pic.twitter.com/XfePdclZAB

— Lisa (@lalalainsd) February 16, 2026

BLUE STATES ARE MOVING LEGISLATION FORWARD TO RESTRICT HOW MUCH YOU CAN DRIVE:

The “15 Minute City” concept is gaining traction on the left, especially in Great Britain, where the Labour Party and leftist cities are seeking to impose harsh restrictions on vehicle use.

Here in the U.S., blue states are pivoting toward mileage caps, which would establish maximum “vehicle miles traveled” (“VMT”) allowed for an entire state, with regulators then creating “incentives” to reduce individual driving so as to achieve the VMT objective. From News Nation: “Massachusetts bill aims to reduce driving to meet climate goals”:

A bill in Massachusetts aims to reduce how much driving occurs as part of the state’s climate strategy. The legislation, spearheaded by Democratic State Senator Cynthia Stone Creem, would require transportation officials to set goals for “reducing the number of statewide driving miles.”

Because this is such an unpopular idea, Democrat politicians in Massachusetts are trying to hoodwink their voters by naming this legislation the “Freedom to Move Act.” There is just an amazing level of duplicity in the name of that legislation, since the specific intent is to limit individuals’ freedom to move about as they choose.

As Lauren Fix correctly notes about The Freedom to Move Act, “When reducing driving becomes a formal state objective, personal mobility inevitably becomes something to be managed.”

Meanwhile, over on the left coast, California is working on further punishing its citizens for the sinful act of driving a car. The deep blue state already has the highest gas taxes and most expensive gasoline in the country, with consumers paying about $1.50 more per gallon than the national average. The state Assembly (the lower house in the California legislature) has now approved a bill that would “study” the implementation of a mileage tax. From NBC San Diego: “California Proposal Causes Confusion Over Future of Road Mileage Tax; A California bill studying a potential mileage tax has passed the state assembly.”

The study would explore the concept of a road usage charge, where drivers could one day pay based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they purchase.

Rest assured that any California mileage tax will be in addition to gasoline taxes, not in lieu of them.

Flashback to Charles Cooke in 2017: The War on Driving to Come. Or as Iowahawk warned right around the same time, America “needs a Second Amendment protecting the right to keep and bear cars.”

WAS IT OVER WHEN THE VENEZUELANS BOMBED PEARL HARBOR?

pic.twitter.com/eO60CS78Lr

— Jim Verdi (@jjverdi) February 16, 2026

Related:

It’s literally impossible for cowboys to have been here before the Spanish because horses weren’t here before the Spanish brought them over https://t.co/SCGSZCW4Hy

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 16, 2026

UPDATE:

Actually the pre-horse Mexican cowboys have a long and rich heritage. pic.twitter.com/7K4v1H5Pc1

— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) February 16, 2026

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Spike Lee Makes Anti-Israel Statement at NBA All-Star Game.

Deni Avdija is the first Israeli basketball star to play in the NBA’s All-Star Game, as a starter for Team World. Avdija is proud to be there, telling the media, “It’s a dream come true,” to represent Israel on the court.

But because sports cannot be free of politics, this is how filmmaker Spike Lee showed up at the game, decked out in “Free Palestine” garb.

The NBA has their first Israeli All-Star (Deni Avdija) & Spike Lee decided to wear a “Free Palestine” outfit… pic.twitter.com/jwky5s0Q4K

— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) February 16, 2026

Exit question: “If he’s that desperate for an invite to dinner with [Mamdani] why not just buzz the guy?”

Well, he’s already endorsed him, and the two would likely get on very well: NYC Health Department staffer wished Israelis were wiped off Earth in vile resurfaced X post: report.

#JOURNALISM: LOL, John Harwood.

According to SPLC, the lefts gold standard on hate groups, there are about 15,000 white supremacists/KkK members in all of america…

The fact was Obama got a greater percentage of white voters than Gore, Kerry, or Dukakis and then trump in 2016 won almost a third of the counties…

— John Devlin (@Devlinside123) February 16, 2026

Tweet continues:

The fact was Obama got a greater percentage of white voters than Gore, Kerry, or Dukakis and then trump in 2016 won almost a third of the counties that had gone for Obama in both his victories…

Harwood should keep his race baiting leftist tripe over on blue sky…

Obama was the inflection point…finally, a black president to put an end to the last vestiges of the Left who continued to whine about racism…

Instead, the Press went on permanent holiday, anointed Obama the black messiah, even Jesus didn’t have someone waxing poetic about the crease of his slacks, and spent eight years becoming younger, more left, and less enamored of even a modicum of belief in free speech.

Flashbacks:

● CNBC Hack John Harwood Is Really, Really Upset That Al-Baghdadi Was Killed.

● NYT/CNBC’S John Harwood Advises Hillary Campaign, Gloats About Provoking Trump At Debate.

● CNBC’s John Harwood Has No Business Moderating A GOP Presidential Debate.

● CNBC Alters Transcript of John Harwood Question About Hillary’s Email.

● “Everyone in the [CNBC] newsroom knows [John Harwood is] extremely far left.”

● Tool de Force: CNN’s John Harwood Defends Biden, Insists Inflation Pain Is a GOP ‘Charade.’

AND NOW A WORD FROM FORMER PRESIDENT HOPENCHANGE:

My favorite Obama “coming together” moment was when him and Hillary financed a phony dossier to sabotage the rightfully elected President https://t.co/rW522q6p7S

— The Drunk Republican (@DrunkRepub) February 15, 2026

THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY IN MUNICH:

Making a reference to the infamous occasion in 1938 when the British prime minister flew to Munich to meet with Adolf Hitler in an act of appeasement, Newsom continued: “We’re all becoming Chamberlains in this space. People have to stand up.” The moderator of the panel didn’t press Newsom on quite where Trump fitted into that particular analogy.*

While certainly not as inflammatory in what she said, Ocasio-Cortez was similarly direct in her criticism of the Trump administration. Speaking on a panel exploring the rise of populism, the congresswoman declared that this was a moment in time where “we are seeing our presidential administration tear apart the transatlantic partnership, rip up every democratic norm”. Joining Whitmer later on a panel discussing the “seismic shifts in US foreign policy”, Ocasio-Cortez expanded on her point, theorising that “as the president struggles at home, in my view, he is making rash decisions globally.”

Does the AOC of 2026 remember the AOC of 2019, when she was making an endless serious of rash decisions and wanting to rip up every democratic norm in a power grab to ban all the things?

Also, why would AOC bother running for president to take office in 2029, when the world will be coming to an end in 2030?

* I’m not sure if the moderator needed to: Watch Faces of Germans As Gavin Newsom Compares America’s National Guard to Nazi Stormtroopers (Video).

Gavin Newsom goes to Germany and compares American law enforcement to Nazi stormtroopers.

In GERMANY. pic.twitter.com/4hn3yLg9bl

— L A R R Y (@LarryOConnor) February 15, 2026

“Our favorite part is how he pats the one German on the shoulder like, ‘Hey bro, you get it, right?'”

Exit quote: “He just handed the GOP a great campaign ad … so we guess we should all thank him for his efforts.”

TRUMP, CALL OFF THE ATTACKS ON IRAN — THEIR NEW STEALTH TECHNOLOGY IS UNBEATABLE!

Islamic Regime accounts are posting this “real footage” trying to be intimidating…

F*cking hell. I can’t stop laughing.pic.twitter.com/ozlBj4Y4dk

— Kosher (@koshercockney) February 14, 2026

QUESTION ASKED: Why Has Nancy Guthrie’s Case Become America’s Only Story?

None of this diminishes the anguish of the Guthrie family. Their grief is real and ideally should remain private as law enforcement officials investigate their mother’s disappearance. But cable news is not a family support group. They will exploit any story to capture your eyes. When coverage becomes wall-to-wall, it is all you will see.

The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie was not picked up by the media because of the scale of the event but because of the status of those involved. Cable news executives know that name recognition, tragedy, and uncertainty are the main ingredients of a media product that keeps viewers engaged. As cable news continues to fixate on this open investigation, there is one question Americans should ask: What other stories are obscured by these walls of one-track coverage?

Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record:

Gruesome Kidnapping Just The Career Boost Crime Reporter Has Been Waiting For https://t.co/f6yATCkJui pic.twitter.com/scEf17YOUu

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 13, 2026

GOODER AND HARDER, LA: The depressing decline of America’s most glamorous city laid bare… and the final straw that sealed its fate.

It was a pop culture paradise in the early 2000s, with throngs of fans lining the streets every night in the hope of spotting their favorite stars.

But the glitter is gone in Hollywood, according to one expert who says the City of Angels is officially dead.

‘In the year 2000, It was just a utopia. Everybody wanted to come to LA. Everyone wanted to party in LA,’ Real Estate Agent and native Angeleno, Makan Mostafavi told the Daily Mail.

‘The economy was great, everyone had money. Nobody complained about rent or payments or bills or any kind of headaches. Everybody was well off. Everybody was happy. Nobody had any kind of stress and everybody just had a great time.

‘[Now], when you do go out, everyone around you is so stressed out from rent bills, just stressed of everyday life, with everything that’s going on – the homeless, the crime, the high taxes, the just terrible road conditions.

‘It’s just not as fun anymore.’

And yet, they’ll continue to vote for politicians who advocate for more homelessness, more crime, and more terrible roads. (Actually, in California, fewer roads, but the ones that remain will be very terrible indeed.)

Earlier: Seen The Lights Go Out On Sunset. “The Movie business, like the Rock business, has always existed as a delicate balance between art and commerce… too much of the former and you get a bohemian artists colony that struggles to connect with an audience and where no one is making any money… too much of the latter and you get the modern ‘content’ business, where no one is having any fun… I’ll leave it to you to decide which problem has turned out the lights on Sunset Boulevard.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: In Munich, Democrats pledge a return to wealth taxes and climate hysteria.

This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) joined the many Californians now seeking their fortune elsewhere. The difference is that Newsom is planning to come back to California, even as billionaires, investors, and companies flee his state for greener pastures.

Newsom and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were selling a brave new world that looked a lot like the broken old world. It was an ironic moment. They were addressing countries at the Munich Security Conference that had previously destroyed their economies through socialist and far-left policies.

The rush of liberal Democratic officeholders to Europe was telling. A new poll shows that a record 58 percent of voters believe their party is “too liberal.” But Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez found a welcoming audience in Europe.

The global elite gushed over Ocasio-Cortez and sat enraptured as she rattled off socialist platitudes. That included New York Times correspondent Katrin Bennhold, who thrilled the audience by treating it as a given that Ocasio-Cortez will run for president.

Both Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez spoke of returning the U.S. to the good graces of the global elite. Newsom assured the Europeans that Trump’s reign is temporary, and that the U.S. will soon enough dismantle the “wrecking ball” that the administration has taken to the EU.

Newsom offered his leadership and his state as the model, proclaiming that “California is a stable and reliable partner” for Europe. The model includes high taxes, massive spending programs and greater bureaucratic regulations — precisely the policies that have driven the European economy into its current stagnation. In other words, Democrats were in Europe to offer precisely what Newsom outwardly condemned: “doubling down on stupid.”

When not fumbling with security questions about issues such as Taiwan, Ocasio-Cortez was demanding that wealth taxes be implemented in the U.S. “expeditiously.” Such a tax on billionaires’ wealth, including unrealized gains, is currently being pushed in California. The predictable result is that billionaires and other wealthy citizens are rushing to leave the state and taking their investments and companies with them.

As Turley concludes, “Newsom and Ocasio-Cortez certainly found their element in Munich, and the EU certainly found the ‘reliable partners’ it has longed for in creating ‘a new World Order with European Values.’”

To be fair, this isn’t the first time that an anti-democratic regime has used Munich as the launching point to create a “new world order” with, alas, quite European values.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS:

Still kinda hot tbh pic.twitter.com/cp8HdAxK0w

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 14, 2026

QUESTION ASKED:

One of the most important questions too few people asked.
But @NickJFreitas asked it.
Because Nick is bloody brilliant.

“How did they know?”pic.twitter.com/rE5o7wguE4

— Chaya’s Clan (@ChayasClan) February 1, 2026

How did they know? For the same reason that Ted Kennedy knew that same media had his back when he was smearing Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings/show trial in 1991:

I liked political theater, so I watched that initially rooting for Clarence Thomas to be taken down. By the very end, I believed the seeds of my future were planted right there when I realized that Ted Kennedy knew something. What did he know that he could ask Clarence Thomas these questions of a man who came from humble beginnings as an African-American? What did he know about the media? What did he know about the political process? What did he know about Hollywood? That they would side with a known Lothario with Chappaquiddick, you know, in his background. That they would allow for him and his allies in the Democratic Party to ask this man in the realm of privacy have you ever rented any pornography. Do you know who Long Dong Silver is? It was so obvious that this was a takedown that eventually I started to see things through what I called the Democrat Media Complex.

—Andrew Breitbart, in conversation with Peter Robinson, April, 2009.

OLD AND BUSTED: “Get Clean for Gene!”

The New Hotness?

Obama said Democrats need to start cleaning up homeless tent cities.

Hillary is now saying mass migration needs to end and we need secure borders.

The memo has gone out.

Democrats are trying to moderate for the midterms. https://t.co/1c0OgEkeyc

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) February 15, 2026

More details here: Hillary Clinton says migration ‘went too far’ and ‘needs to be fixed in a humane way.’

While in Germany for the Munich Security Conference, Hillary Clinton participated in a panel titled, “The West-West Divide: What Remains of Common Values.”

During the panel, Clinton appeared to take a stronger approach to her previous stance on border security.

“There is a legitimate reason to have a debate about things like migration,” Clinton said.

“It went too far, it’s been disruptive and destabilizing, and it needs to be fixed in a humane way with secure borders that don’t torture and kill people and how we’re going to have a strong family structure because it is at the base of civilization,” she added.

Elián González has entered into the conversation:

There were zero riots and zero protests and zero media claims of authoritarianism over this. https://t.co/qLc8DyIoXI pic.twitter.com/Nla0dKt2fK

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 15, 2026

Media claims of authoritarianism? On the contrary, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times famously wrote in 2000:

I gotta confess, that now-famous picture of a U.S. marshal in Miami pointing an automatic weapon toward Donato Dalrymple and ordering him in the name of the U.S. government to turn over Elian Gonzalez warmed my heart. They should put that picture up in every visa line in every U.S. consulate around the world, with a caption that reads: ”America is a country where the rule of law rules. This picture illustrates what happens to those who defy the rule of law and how far our government and people will go to preserve it. Come all ye who understand that.”

And I was also warmed by the picture of Elian back in his father’s arms. Some things you can fake — like a 6-year-old wagging his finger on a homemade video and telling his father to go back to Cuba without him — and some things you can’t fake. That picture of Elian and his father illustrated the very parent-child bond that our law was written to preserve.

Hats off to Janet Reno for understanding that the Elian Gonzalez case was about both of these pictures: the well-being of a child and the well-being of our Constitution, on which all good things in our society rest. But hats off twice to Ms. Reno for understanding that these two noble virtues are not equal. The fear of causing some trauma to Elian by rescuing him could never outweigh the need to uphold the rule of law.
One only hopes that this affair will remind the extremists among the Miami Cubans that they are not living in their own private country, that they cannot do whatever they please and that they may hate Fidel Castro more than they love the U.S. Constitution — but that doesn’t apply to the rest of us.

One also hopes that now that Ms. Reno has ended the kidnapping of Elian by the Miami Cubans, the other hard-nosed lady in the cabinet, Madeleine Albright, will end the Miami Cubans’ kidnapping of U.S. Cuba policy as well. Ms. Albright could start by relaxing the embargo on Cuba.

Fortunately, Albright didn’t take the advice of a columnist even further to her left, and as a result, as Glenn asked last week at his Substack: Will Cuba be Libre soon, and if so what happens next?

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

The Babylon Bee Ranks Humanity's Worst Inventions https://t.co/0chyKQi4Gy pic.twitter.com/i3tnXJPBnO

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 13, 2026

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Bugs Bunny Halftime Edition.

REUTERS: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran operations.

The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.

U.S. and Iranian diplomats held talks in Oman last week in an effort to revive diplomacy over Tehran’s nuclear program, after Trump amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action.

U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.

Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, said it had “been difficult to make a deal” with Iran.

“Sometimes you have to have fear. That’s the only thing that really will get the situation taken care of,” Trump said.

Asked for comment on the preparations for a potentially sustained U.S. military operation, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “President Trump has all options on the table with regard to Iran.”

Well, as long as the operation will only last a few weeks:

“This is going to be a two month war not a two year war” – Bill Kristol 2003 https://t.co/RIVFHi9p9g pic.twitter.com/prD5FlHNma

— a newsman (@a_newsman) February 14, 2026

MY, THAT’S AN AWFUL LOT OF BAD LUCK IN RECENT YEARS: This account shows how South Africa has decayed in just a decade, and it’s a warning to us all.

I’ve been seeing this account in my feeds for months, and there’s a reason why.

People are fascinated with the ruins of once-thriving civilizations.

pic.twitter.com/XQNzmqWNyf

— Jozi vs Jozi (@jozivsjozi) February 12, 2026

That’s a timelapse of Booysens Train Station in Johannesburg from 2014 to 2025. Within 11 years, what was once a clean, functional rail station was stripped for parts and reclaimed by nature.

This is happening all over South Africa, and you can see it on Google Maps:

Click over for many, many before and after photos.

Exit quote: “Understand, this is an experiment in race-based Marxism. It is no different than what woke groups like BLM want to do. America is at the beginning of the same experiment. We saw it in the late 2000s in Detroit during the financial collapse. Entire city blocks just disappeared as everything broke down.”

Classical allusion in headline: “Bad Luck” and the Evanescence of Imperfection.

This colloquy of gloom reminded me of a famous observation from the writer Robert Heinlein.

“Throughout history,” Heinlein wrote in 1973, “poverty is the normal condition of man.”

“Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded—here and there, now and then—are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people.”

Then comes the kicker: “Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.”

“This,” Heinlein added, “is known as ‘bad luck.’”

Of course, Heinlein was speaking ironically with that last bit.

The issue was not “bad luck” but virtue-fired stupidity.

All those “right-thinking people”—the people with the socially certified ideas, the kinder, gentler, mask-wearing, anti-fossil-fuel types—are on the ramparts, proudly toppling the atavistic instruments of their prosperity.

Very soon now, they will look around at the wreckage their good intentions have wrought and wonder who is to blame for the poverty, the chaos, the ruins that lay strewn where once, not so long ago, a vibrant civilization stood, supported by a mighty economy.

I don’t know if I’d necessarily call South Africa in 2015 “a vibrant civilization,” but its physical infrastructure didn’t appear to be descending into collapse back then, either.

AI, THE AMELIA MEME, REVOLUTION, AND THE FUTURE OF CELEBRITY:

Orwell wrote about government power being used to control the thoughts of individuals, and his thesis in 1984 was that this power would or could ultimately win.

But if Orwell saw the Amelia meme, he might have to rewrite the ending. Because the tools now exist to make it absolutely impossible to impose government narratives over the objections of common sense. The public won’t put up with it, and there are too many smartasses with technical savvy out there. Even in Orwell’s time, people were subverting official Soviet art to push anti-communist narratives.

We saw a taste of this a decade ago when the American alt-right, which is a very small number of people, popularized the Pepe the Frog meme. You didn’t have to be alt-right to think Pepe’s antics were hilarious, and the alarmed and befuddled reactions of the official Left, which included demands for the disavowal of Pepe by mainstream conservatives, made it all the more fun.

Not to mention the crackpot controversy over the “OK” hand signal and its “racist” overtones, which was shortly turned into a smartass rebellion against cancel culture by the non-woke.

And that’s what the Amelia meme has become. But with AI video apps that can’t be shut down (you can run Wan 2.1, one of the better AI video engines, on your own computer if it has enough memory), this isn’t just a cartoon character. It’s a walking, talking personification of the resistance to the British political class.

It’s a Guy Fawkes mask, straight out of V for Vendetta.

And that personification makes for an impossible challenge to Keir Starmer’s government. (RELATED: Lord Mandelson: The Albatross Around Sir Keir’s Neck)

Exit quote: “A Tommy Robinson you can make a victim of Alinsky’s Rule 13. You can pick him, freeze him, personify him, and polarize him, and then you can arrest and imprison him, and in so doing make him an example for all those who might follow: is this how you want to end up? But you can’t do any of that to Amelia. And you’ll look like an idiot for trying.”

Read the whole thing, if only to see Amelia channeling Mel Gibson heroic pre-battle speech in Braveheart, and chatting with an AI Winston Churchill.

TOM CRUISE VS. BRAD PITT WAS FAKE. HOLLYWOOD’S PANIC ISN’T:

Did you catch the video clip for the upcoming movie featuring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise as the protagonists? There’s a full slobberknocker on a rooftop.

This was a 2 line prompt in seedance 2. If the hollywood is cooked guys are right maybe the hollywood is cooked guys are cooked too idk. pic.twitter.com/dNTyLUIwAV

— Ruairi Robinson (@RuairiRobinson) February 11, 2026

There’s only one problem: What you watched was fake.

Using AI tools to generate the fight, a Chinese tech company created the faces, voices, and movements that looked real enough to fool casual viewers.

The clip sparked immediate anxiety across Hollywood. If a machine stages a blockbuster fight between two A-listers without cameras or contracts, what else can it do?

Rhett Reese, one of the screenwriters behind the Deadpool franchise, warns that advances like these could “decimate” Hollywood.

It’s not an abstract idea; studios already use digital de-aging and CGI doubles. AI now eliminates more human labor from the process.

Jim Treacher responded to the imaginary Cruise and Pitt rumble by asking, “A.I. = Actors Inessential?”

It just feels like… It’s like you’re on the side of a mountain, and you’re looking up at an avalanche, and all you’ve got is a toy shovel.

I just don’t know how we stop this as a society. The incentives are too strong. If you can do something that amazing, that cheaply and quickly, people are going to do it.

There’s a good quote from a guy named Rhett Reese. He’s a screenwriter, Hollywood screenwriter. He wrote the Deadpool movies, he wrote Zombieland, a bunch of other stuff. He’s been very successful in Hollywood, so he’s looking at it from that perspective.

And he writes:

In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases. True, if that person is no good, it will suck. But if that person possesses Christopher Nolan’s talent and taste (and someone like that will rapidly come along), it will be tremendous.

I think that’s true. That’s kind of the bright side I’ve been trying to look at. The sort of democratization of this.

Some kid in… I dunno, Indiana? Is going to become a star by making movies that people want to see, using this technology.

In Hearts of Darkness, the brilliant documentary about the making of 1979’s Apocalypse Now, while he was in the Philippines directing one of the massive, sprawling and (at the time) expensive films ever made, Francis Ford Coppola mused:

To me, the great hope is that now these little 8mm video recorders and stuff have come out, and some… just people who normally wouldn’t make movies are going to be making them. And you know, suddenly, one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart, you know, and make a beautiful film with her little father’s camera recorder. And for once, the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed, forever. And it will really become an art form. That’s my opinion.

It took almost 50 years for technology to match Coppola’s vision, but for better or worse, that’s where we are today. As James Lileks asked in 2024: Art That’s Just for Me: What will the rise of artificial intelligence do to visual media?

In 10 years, there will be movies about every single person who boarded the Titanic. In the style of Robert Altman. In the style of Martin Scorsese. In the style of Steven Spielberg. There will be 100,000 fan-fic Star Wars movies as bad as the TV shows, all starring the person who dictated the scenario. There will be a subculture of people who exhaust the creative world of “Twin Peaks” with endless vignettes, and one or two will get it exactly right. In the end, we will watch our own movies more than others, and the theatrical experience will have gone from the great shared silver screen in the communal dark, to niche streaming, to watching our own particular curiosities and desires played on our own glowing rectangles. Millions of hours of movies, made for an audience of one.

I don’t know about that — I think the best AI video makers will garner their own followings, just as the most interesting YouTube channels acquire large numbers of viewers.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Me in 2005: Backyard Filmmakers Are Hollywood’s Greatest Fear. The entertainment industry’s real threat isn’t piracy, it’s backyard Spielbergs armed with digital movie gear.