Authored by Andrew Korybko,

This will one day link with the existing “military Schengen” between the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, which Belgium and France plan to join, for creating a contiguous zone of free military movement between the Pyrenees and the approach to St. Petersburg.

The Baltic States’ Defense Ministers signed a statement of intent in late January for forming their own “military Schengen”, which refers to the agreement signed two years ago in January 2024 between the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland for expediting the flow of troops and equipment. Belgium and France are also expected to join the original “military Schengen”, whose members aim to slash to 3-5 days the estimated 45 days that it currently takes to send the aforesaid from the Atlantic to the Eastern Flank.

Upon their modernization, both in terms of infrastructure and legal coordination, the two “military Schengens” will form a contiguous zone of free military movement between the Pyrenees and the approach to St. Petersburg. To be sure, this is a work in progress that won’t be completed anytime soon, especially its Baltic portion. Poland only just opened the portion of the “Via Baltica” highway between itself and Lithuania, while the “Rail Baltica” between them and Estonia is even further behind schedule.

Nevertheless, the unmistakable trend is that NATO is optimizing its military logistics, particularly along its Eastern Flank whose members agreed to turbocharge their militarization during mid-December’s inaugural summit. In connection with that, readers also shouldn’t forget that the Baltic States and Poland are building something called the “EU Defense Line”, which combines the first’s “Baltic Defense Line” and the second’s “East Shield” into what’s de facto a new Iron Curtain that’ll include anti-personnel mines.

This Baltic Front of the New Cold War between NATO and Russia relies heavily on Poland, which already has the EU’s largest military and the third-largest in NATO, with plans to expand from 215,000 troops to 300,000 by 2030 then half a million by 2039 (200,000 of whom will be reservists). Both the Via and Rail Baltica megaprojects, which are the regional flagships of the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative”, will connect Poland to Latvia’s and Estonia’s borders with Russia for rapid force deployment in a crisis.

The involvement of the EU’s largest military in any such NATO-Russian crisis would inevitably drag the rest of those two overlapping blocs in any whatever war might then follow in the worst-case scenario. If the Baltic States hadn’t agreed to form their own “military Schengen”, and if the associated “Baltica” logistical projects weren’t being built, then potential border incidents could be more easily manageable. Instead, they’d likely result in a speedy deployment of Polish troops, thus escalating matters into a crisis.

Moving beyond the military significance of this recent development and into its political significance, Poland is clearly establishing a sphere of influence over the Baltic States, which is actually a return to history.

Casual observers probably aren’t aware, but the Warsaw-led Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth once stretched as far north as southern Estonia and even controlled parts of Latvia for centuries till the Third Partition in 1795. This is part of Poland’s plan to revive its long-lost Great Power status.

The overarching trend is that Poland is preparing to lead Russia’s containment along the Baltic Front, which could also place more pressure upon Kaliningrad (which borders Poland and Lithuania) and Belarus (which borders Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia).

The eventual merger of these two “military Schengens” could embolden Poland to more actively, even aggressively, contain Russia by ensuring that back-up would speedily arrive from the EU hinterland or even the US homeland in the event of a crisis.

Blowback was swift across the Arab world after US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee declared it would be “fine” if Israel took over the entire Middle East, words featured in a Tucker Carlson interview from Jerusalem published days ago.

Governments from Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman issued statements condemning the comments, joined by both the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League – a rare moment of quick unity for these countries.

In a joint statement they “express[ed] their strong condemnation and profound concern regarding the statements made by the United States Ambassador to Israel, in which he indicated that it would be acceptable for Israel to exercise control over territories belonging to Arab states, including the occupied West Bank.”

Most notably close American ally Saudi Arabia was among the first to blast Huckabee’s provocative statement and perspective. Saudi Arabia called it “reckless” and “irresponsible”.

Jordan too in a rare moment lashed out at Washington:

“The official spokesperson for the ministry, Ambassador Fuad Al-Majali, rejected these absurd and provocative statements, which constitute a violation of diplomatic norms, an assault on the sovereignty of the countries of the region, and a flagrant breach of international law and the Charter of the United Nations,” the ministry said in a sharply worded response.

Asked whether a passage from the Book of Genesis could be read as granting Israel the right to claim all the land between Egypt’s Nile River and Syria’s Euphrates, Huckabee didn’t hedge. He bluntly and without apology said it would be “fine” if Israel and its military took over the whole Middle East. 

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist Minister and previously the governor of Arkansas made clear. This led to a wide ranging conversation and back and forth over whether the modern nation-state of Israel, officially founded as a sovereign government on May 14, 1948, is synonymous with the Israel written about in the Old Testament, stretching back thousands of years.

Here’s how that contentious segment of the interview unfolded, according to a transcript and commentary: 

Huckabee was asked in an interview with US conservative commentator Tucker Carlson about his understanding of a biblical verse suggesting that land including parts of Egypt, Syria and Iraq had been divinely promised to the Jewish people.

Carlson said that according to the Old Testament, the boundaries would be “basically the entire Middle East.”

He continued: “Does Israel have the right to that land?”

“Not sure we’d go that far,” Huckabee said in reply. “It would be a big piece of land.”

Carlson then pressed him: “Does Israel have the right to that land?”

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee responded, before adding, “I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today.”

Carlson asked: “You think it would be fine if the state of Israel took over all of Jordan?”

BREAKING: US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee tells Tucker Carlson that Israel has the Biblical right to take over all of the Middle East.

“It would be fine if they took it all.” pic.twitter.com/BN4fXh03ga

— Tucker Carlson Network (@TCNetwork) February 20, 2026

That’s when Amb. Huckabee must have realized he was entering some hot diplomatic water, which would be sure to outrage Washington’s Arab allies in the region. And indeed condemnation from Middle East leaders has been swift, but it will probably just stop there – though some could pull their support for anti-Iran operations.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

As European governments ramp up their assault on online freedom, the Trump administration is striking back hard with Freedom.Gov—a portal designed to equip European and British citizens with tools to shatter digital barriers imposed by overreaching bureaucrats.

The move exposes the hypocrisy of so called “safety” laws that geofence truth, forcing websites to block users or demand ID, all while claiming to protect the public from their own thoughts.

A growing number of websites have chosen to simply block users rather than comply with arduous censorship demands in response to Europe’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act, with many more hidden behind government-mandated age-verification making linking a real-life identity to internet use a prerequisite for access.

Exclusive: The US State Department is developing an online portal to enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, sources told Reuters https://t.co/IPFDgr54bz

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 18, 2026

The U.S. government is launching a ‘Freedom.Gov’ website that will give British and European visitors the tools to access censorship-free parts of the internet they have been geofenced out of by their own governments in the name of public safety.

The new initiative is the work of the U.S. State Department and led by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, who has been a key figure in bringing President Trump’s message of freedom to Europeans in recent months.

Government insiders say the Freedom.Gov portal may feature a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tool to allow European users to bypass domestic controls and claims its use won’t be tracked.

A State Department spokesman is quoted as saying: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.”

A placeholder website for the planned anti-censorship service is already active. The Freedom.Gov site first became active in January and was blank apart from the text “fly, eagle, fly”. Today, an updated landing page proclaims “Freedom is coming. Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.”

Le département d’État américain vient de développer un portail en ligne qui permettra aux citoyens de l’Union Européenne de consulter des contenus censurés par leur gouvernement ! https://t.co/fQR6DcSL2F

Le site sera hébergé sur https://t.co/nS7pRHk4Hx
Ils envisagent… pic.twitter.com/7iXrx4fdt2

— Luc Côté (@lucquebec) February 19, 2026

In a crystal-clear message to the censorious British authorities cracking down on internet freedoms, the page also features an animated logo of Paul Revere on his famous 1775 midnight ride, warning the Minutemen of the approaching British troops.

The decision to launch the service will inevitably bring the U.S. into some sort of conflict with European capitals, given the pro-freedom move would force those governments to either defacto accept that their censorship laws will either be openly bypassed by their own citizens with the assistance of Washington, or to block Freedom.Gov, and clarify their opposition to the free dissemination of information.

This puts Washington in the unfamiliar position of appearing to encourage citizens to flout local laws, without stopping to note this is, of course, not actually unfamiliar at all. The United States through the CIA and other agencies maintained a large network of censorship-busting initiatives through the Cold War using the latest technology of the time.

Among those efforts was Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty, sending unfiltered news and other programming through high-powered broadcasts into the Soviet nations behind the Iron Curtain. 

This effort was something of a game of cat-and-mouse between the free West and the Communist East, with Soviet authorities attempting to block out the broadcasts with radio interference equipment of their own.

In those Soviet countries, when the Western radio broadcasts did get through, those who tuned into them faced arrest “or worse” at the hands of the authorities. 

Today, the British government has already started to react to the use of VPNs to circumvent its new internet controls—imposed, it says, for the sake of public “safety”—and is moving to defacto outlaw them.

Pro-Freedom and anti-surveillance campaign group Big Brother Watch responded to the government’s plan to crack down on VPNs, saying: “The Prime Minister’s announcement that the government intends to restrict access to VPNs for under-16s represents a draconian crackdown on the civil liberties of children and adults alike. The only way such restrictions could be enforced effectively would be for VPN providers to require all users to undergo age-assurance measures.”

How will this be policed? That’s right, by making everyone prove their age to use the internet with a digital ID. How about letting parents decide what their kids have access to? https://t.co/AqnyPnGAxS

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) February 16, 2026

The group continues, “Having to provide ID or a biometric face scan to access a VPN utterly defeats the point of a technology designed to enhance privacy online. The ability to receive and share information absent state snooping is a vital part of living in a free democracy.”

“There is a reason authoritarian governments in countries such as China, North Korea, Iran, and Belarus ban or restrict VPNs. Anonymity and enhanced privacy allow journalists, whistleblowers, campaigners, and dissidents to communicate securely,” they further urge.

This latest escalation builds directly on the Trump administration’s earlier vows to counter British PM Kier Starmer’s censorship frenzy, where Under-Secretary Sarah B. Rogers warned that America would unleash its full arsenal against threats to X and free speech, treating the UK like Iran if needed. 

Rogers stated: “With respect to a potential ban of X, Keir Starmer has said that nothing is off the table. I would say from America’s perspective, nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech.”

It also extends Trump’s pattern of offering lifelines to UK and European dissidents, including asylum for “thought criminals” prosecuted for silent prayers or online posts challenging mass migration and gender ideology. 

Sources previously confirmed the White House was scouting cases, tying free speech erosion to Britain’s immigration failures.

The far left Spanish government has also openly announced its intention to outright ban X in recent weeks

French PM Emmanuel Macron also referred to free speech as “pure bullshit” this week.

Macron: “Free speech is complete bullshit”

The mask has come off. Anyone surprised?

pic.twitter.com/kmF18k0juS

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 18, 2026

These countries are in lockstep with the EU which is waging a censorship war against the free internet, particularly X.

Trump is using other means of fighting EU censorship simultaneously.

The Eurocrats have vowed to push back.

Freedom.Gov revives Cold War tactics against modern tyrants, reminding Starmer and EU elites that globalists can’t firewall the truth.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

Casual observers are convinced that Trump is a madman with no method behind his madness, but the reality is that he and his team – collectively known as Trump 2.0 – are slowly but surely implementing their grand strategy against China.

Every one of their moves abroad should be seen as a means to this end.

They want to comprehensively contain China and then coerce it into a lopsided trade deal that “rebalance[s] China’s economy toward household consumption” per the National Security Strategy.

Trump 2.0 doesn’t want to go to war over this, however, which is why they’re careful to avoid replicating the Imperial Japanese precedent.

Piling too much economic-structural pressure on China at once could spook it into lashing out in desperation before the window of opportunity closes. They therefore decided to gradually deprive China of access to markets and resources, ideally through a series of trade deals, in order to imbue the US with the indirect leverage required to peacefully derail China’s superpower rise.

The US’ trade deals with the EU and India could ultimately result in them curtailing China’s access to their markets under pain of punitive tariffs if they refuse. In parallel, the US’ special operation in Venezuela, pressure against Iran, and simultaneous attempts to subordinate Nigeria and other leading energy producers could curtail China’s access to the resources required for fueling its superpower rise. The combined effect thus far is already placing immense pressure upon China to cut a deal with the US.

This is the grand strategic context within which Russia’s talks with the US and Ukraine are taking place.

It too is coming under immense pressure after Trump 2.0 unexpectedly (from their view) perpetuated the proxy war in Ukraine, pioneered a breakthrough to Central Asia through last August’s “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” across the South Caucasus, and got India to curtail its oil imports.

Russia must now decide whether to cut its own deal with the US or become more dependent on China.

• The first scenario could include a resource-centric strategic partnership with the US in exchange for compromising on its maximalist goals in Ukraine, which could deprive China of access to the deposits that the US invests in as explained here.

• As for the second scenario, Russia could continue its special operation indefinitely with growing Chinese support in exchange for China receiving unrestricted access to its resources at bargain-basement prices, thus greatly helping China prepare for war with the US.

Framed in this way, reaching a deal with Russia could facilitate China’s strategic surrender to the US without spiking the risk of war, while failing to do so could spike the risk of war if Russia turns itself into China’s raw materials reserve for the aforesaid reason and with the same outcome vis-à-vis the US.

This imbues Putin with leverage vis-à-vis Trump 2.0, but they’re also not desperate to reach a deal with Putin at any cost, ergo why they haven’t coerced Zelensky into his demanded concessions and might never.

If Trump 2.0 can’t cut a deal with Putin, then they’ll prepare for war with China, which their National Defense Strategy envisages given its explicitly declared World War-like military build-up.

Be that as it may, replicating the Imperial Japanese precedent in that case dangerously risks a 21st-century Pearl Harbor, thus imperiling their planned restoration of unipolarity.

It’s therefore better for Trump 2.0 to coerce Zelensky into giving Putin what he wants in order to continue peacefully containing China instead.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Amazon’s cloud arm has experienced two recent service disruptions tied to the use of its own AI-powered coding systems, stirring debate inside the company over how quickly such tools should be rolled out, according to FT.

One incident in mid-December led to a 13-hour interruption affecting a tool customers use to analyse AWS spending. Engineers had permitted the Kiro coding assistant to implement changes, and the system determined the fix was to “delete and recreate the environment.” An internal review later characterized the episode as an “outage.”

Staff familiar with the events said it marked the second time in a matter of months that an AI tool played a central role in a production issue. “We’ve already seen at least two production outages [in the past few months],” said one senior AWS employee. “The engineers let the AI [agent] resolve an issue without intervention. The outages were small but entirely foreseeable.”

AWS, which accounts for the majority of Amazon’s operating income, is investing heavily in AI systems that can act independently on human instructions and hopes to market them to customers. The episodes have highlighted the potential downsides of granting such tools significant autonomy.

FT writes that Amazon pushed back on suggestions that the technology was to blame, describing it as a “coincidence that AI tools were involved” and arguing that “the same issue could occur with any developer tool or manual action.” The company added: “In both instances, this was user error, not AI error,” and said it had found no indication that AI increases the likelihood of mistakes.

According to Amazon, the December event was an “extremely limited event” affecting a single service in parts of mainland China, while the other disruption did not touch any “customer facing AWS service.” Both were far smaller than a separate 15-hour AWS outage in October 2025 that disrupted customers including OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Kiro, introduced in July, was promoted as moving beyond “vibe coding” to generate software from structured specifications. After the December incident, Amazon said it added tighter controls, such as required peer reviews and additional training, while maintaining that customer uptake of its AI coding products remains strong.

Chinese regulators are tightening oversight of aggressive influencer promotions for investment products, worried that an AI-driven tech surge — encouraged by state policy — is overheating the market, according to Nikkei.

In late January, media reports said the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) penalized a fund firm, identified as Fund D, for paying unqualified online influencers to market its products. According to a CSRC document cited in reports, the firm “induced investors with incompatible risk tolerance” to buy high-risk offerings and “neglected professional compliance in pursuit of short-term growth.” The regulator did not comment.

The move reflects broader unease over market volatility. Nearly 4.91 million new mainland stock accounts were opened in January — the biggest monthly jump since October 2024 — as money poured into smaller tech names linked to AI, chips and aerospace themes.

While the blue-chip CSI 300 is up just 0.7% this year, smaller-stock gauges have surged. The CSI 500 has climbed 11.2%, and Shanghai’s tech-focused STAR board index has gained 10.5%. Some individual shares have skyrocketed: industrial equipment supplier Wuxi Autowell Technology is up over 120% year to date, while Puya Semiconductor and Focuslight Technologies have more than doubled. Supcon Technology has risen 65%.

One international brokerage analyst said the rally reflects limited alternatives — with low bond yields and weak property prices — rather than company fundamentals.

Speculation has also shaken commodity-linked products. Units of a Shenzhen-listed silver futures fund doubled in January, trading well above their underlying value as online guides touted quick arbitrage profits. UBS SDIC Fund Management halted new subscriptions on Jan. 28 “to protect the interests of fund unitholders,” and the exchange suspended accounts engaged in “abnormal trading behavior.” As silver futures fell, the fund’s units hit their 10% daily down limit for five consecutive sessions.

Beijing has promoted equity markets to advance technological self-reliance, easing listing rules and accelerating approvals for strategic sectors. Chip startup Moore Threads, for example, saw its shares jump fivefold on debut in December.

Nikkei writes that at the same time, officials are trying to contain excess speculation. At a January work conference led by CSRC chairman Wu Qing, regulators pledged to curb “excessive speculation and market manipulation” and “resolutely prevent drastic market fluctuations.” Managing retail sentiment is critical, as individual investors account for more than 80% of daily turnover.

Jason Lui of BNP Paribas said stability is key to attracting long-term capital. High volatility, he noted, risks drawing investors in at the wrong moments and reinforcing perceptions of boom-bust cycles.

Earlier, the CSRC fined influencer Jin Yongrong and barred him from the securities market for three years, accusing him of earning over 41 million yuan by promoting stocks to inflate prices before selling. Finance app Snowball Finance banned Jin and more than 20 other accounts.

Exchanges have also raised the margin trading deposit ratio from 80% to 100% to cool leverage. Meanwhile, ETFs associated with state-backed investors saw notable outflows, prompting speculation about official strategy.

Local governments continue pledging support for emerging sectors such as commercial aerospace, new materials and the so-called “low-altitude economy,” referring to drone services. A new national five-year plan is expected in March.

Regulators may face fresh tests after trading resumes on Feb. 24 following the Lunar New Year break, with robotics demonstrations set for the Spring Festival Gala and reports that DeepSeek and other AI developers plan new model releases during the holiday.

Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing an “overhaul” of the asylum process, according to a Friday announcement.

The proposed 220-page rule, which is likely to face legal challenges, aims to reduce the number of immigrants filing fraudulent asylum claims for work authorizations in order to better focus on security checks.

It also intends to cut back processing times and the massive backlog of pending claims, according to a statement.

If finalized, the rule would be among the most sweeping changes to the asylum system and work authorization process in decades.

“We are proposing an overhaul of the asylum system to enforce the rules and reduce the backlog we inherited from the prior administration,” a DHS spokesperson said.

“Aliens are not entitled to work while we process their asylum applications.”

Employment authorizations would be paused until processing times for asylum applications reach 180 days or lower, according to the proposal.

DHS said based on current wait times, it could take between 14 and 173 years to reach that 180 day or lower level to resume issuing work permits.

The proposal also would create more restrictive criteria for asylum-based work permits and bar illegal immigrants from receiving new permits or renewing existing ones.

“For too long, a fraudulent asylum claim has been an easy path to working in the United States, overwhelming our immigration system with meritless applications,” a DHS spokesperson said.

More than 17 million individuals applied for asylum in the United States between 2021 and 2024.

According to the proposal, an exception would exist for individuals who entered the United States illegally out of fear of persecution, torture, or another urgent reason but notified American authorities within 48 hours of crossing the border.

Long wait times on asylum applications have resulted in historic highs for employment authorization applications.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reports more than 1.4 million pending asylum claims, which is equal to the population of New Hampshire, the news release said.

DHS’s proposed rule falls in line with President Donald Trump’s executive order, Protecting the American People Against Invasion, signed on his first day back in office a year ago.

“Over the last 4 years, the prior administration invited, administered, and oversaw an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration into the United States,” his order read.

Several Biden-era executive orders on immigration were revoked by Trump’s directive, becoming the first of his actions of his second term to make good on his 2024 presidential campaign promise of launching the largest deportation operation in American history.

Finalizing DHS’s new proposal on the asylum system could take months or years. Public comment will be accepted on the rule for 60 days after the agency formally publishes it in the Federal Register on Monday.

The Trump administration may have finally blinked, also knowing that yet another US-led war in the Middle East remains deeply unpopular among the American people. No attacks have come this weekend, as some were predicting last week, as President Trump appears to be exercising some level of patience and restraint, for now at least.

“Iran has indicated it is prepared to make concessions on its nuclear program in talks with the U.S. in return for the lifting of sanctions and recognition of its right to enrich uranium, as it seeks to avert a U.S. attack,” Reuters is freshly reporting.

Tehran has said from the start of Trump’s military pressure campaign that it’s willing for serious negotiations centered on its nuclear program, but that it cannot ever abandon or limit its formidable ballistic missile arsenal: 

However, Reuters is reporting for the first time that Iran is offering fresh concessions since their talks ended last week, when the sides appeared far apart and heading closer to military conflict. Analysts say the move suggests Tehran is trying to keep diplomacy alive and stave off a major U.S. strike.

The official said Tehran would seriously consider a combination of sending half of its most highly enriched uranium abroad, diluting the rest and taking part in creating a regional enrichment consortium – an idea periodically raised in years of Iran-linked diplomacy.

Iran would do this in return for U.S. recognition of Iran’s right to “peaceful nuclear enrichment” under a deal that would also include lifting economic sanctions, the official said.

Russia has already offered to do just this, and China too could potentially play a role in receiving Iran’s enriched uranium.

It looks like a US attack is unlikely even in this coming week as well given that “U.S. and Iranian negotiators are expected to meet in Geneva on Thursday to discuss a detailed Iranian proposal for a nuclear deal. A senior U.S. official told Axios on Sunday morning the Trump administration expects to receive the proposal by Tuesday” – ahead of the next round of planned talks.

Also, Tehran is now floating the prospect of joint US-Iran oil and gas investment as part of the nuclear deal currently under negotiation. Hamid Ghanbari, deputy director for economic diplomacy at Iran’s foreign ministry, said Sunday that shared energy development could anchor a more durable agreement.

Oman Confirms New Talks Between US and Iran

Oman’s Foreign Minister, Badr Albusaidi, confirmed that the US and Iran will meet in Geneva on Thursday to continue negotiations to reach an agreement on the tension between them. pic.twitter.com/ROVHBgRTQq

— loolan podcast (@Loolanpodcast) February 22, 2026

“For the sake of an agreement’s durability, it is essential that the U.S. also benefits in areas with high and quick economic returns,” Ghanbari said, according to Fars news agency – effectively pitching hydrocarbons as the glue to hold any deal together.

He added that “the country must be prepared for all scenarios,” while “at the same time seriously pursuing the negotiations.” Beyond oil and gas, Ghanbari floated mining, urban development, and even aircraft purchases as potential areas of cooperation – a shopping list that in reality reads like a sanctions rollback wish list. Many Western analysts are calling it totally unrealistic.

Meanwhile, Washington appears to be hedging its bets. Even as talks continue, the Pentagon is reinforcing its posture in the Persian Gulf, with a second aircraft carrier reportedly en route. Iran in turn has warned its “finger is on the trigger” and that US bases in the region would come under retaliatory attack.

Lol even the Jerusalem Post is calling out Witkoff for his absolute bs here https://t.co/h5sdB9Wh5I pic.twitter.com/TDGf5S7Qth

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) February 22, 2026

The message from both sides is clear: prepare for a deal, or prepare for escalation – and Washington is keeping the carriers fueled and nearby just in case.

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Dr. Frankenstein was able to bring his monster back to life using just rusty tools and a cramped workshop. Researchers in California needed taxpayer funding from the National Science Foundation for their own reanimation experiment, with results that were not quite as impressive.

In 2012, San Diego State University and the University of California, Davis used part of a $325,000 grant to create “Robosquirrel,” a taxidermied squirrel with a robotic tail. The money would be worth $459,000 today. 

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses. 

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.   

Coburn’s Wastebook 2012 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $18 billion, including the origin story of Robosquirrel.

Key facts: Robosquirrel was built to study the predator and prey relationship between squirrels and rattlesnakes.

The researchers placed Robosquirrel in a cage with live squirrels so that it would smell like the real thing. Then, they placed the robot in a field with snakes and moved it along a track to make it appear alive.

The snakes were fooled. One even bit the robot’s head. But when researchers heated up Robosquirrel’s mechanical tail or made it wag, the rattlesnakes got scared and slithered away.

The project was still in its early stages in 2012. The researchers promised that more animals — including RoboKangarooRat and Robosquirrel 2.0, which could throw rocks at rattlesnakes — would soon arrive, though it’s unclear if they ever materialized. 

Robosquirrel made national headlines in Forbes, CNN and more after Coburn included it in his Wastebook. San Diego State University told ABC News that only part of the $325,000 grant was spent on taxidermy. The rest went to undergraduate research training.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.