• A Texas Judge Just Gave Corporate America a Blindfold and Called It Due Process

    ByJustin Jest

    The coffee tastes like burnt toner and the courthouse air feels like old carpet glue. Somewhere, a printer is screaming out another spreadsheet of who owns what, who bought whom, who fired whom, who got a bonus for it. And in that fluorescent hum, a federal judge in Texas just did the kind of quiet violence elites love: paperwork violence.

    On February 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle in the Eastern District of Texas vacated the FTC’s revamped Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) premerger notification form rule. This was the rule that forced companies to cough up more information before they fused into the next monopoly-shaped organism. The order includes a seven-day stay, meaning the new form remains in place through February 19, 2026. Absent further court action, filings after that slide back toward the older, thinner, easier-to-game regime. The FTC posted a notice saying exactly that on its Premerger Notification Program page.

    This is not sexy news. No perp walk. No sirens. Just a door getting quietly unlocked for people who already have keys to everything.

    What got vacated: the front door of merger review

    The HSR form is the front door. If your deal is big enough, you file and you wait while the government decides whether it needs to take a closer look. The now-vacated rule expanded what companies must submit up front: more documents, more ownership detail, more internal planning material. More context. More truth, ideally.

    Business groups sued. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others pitched the rule as an unlawful burden. Judge Kernodle sided with them, concluding the FTC exceeded its authority and that the rule failed Administrative Procedure Act standards, including the court’s view that the agency did not justify the benefits relative to the costs. The effect is nationwide for HSR filers.

    Translation: the referee asked the richest players to hand over more game tape before kickoff. The richest players went forum-shopping for a judge who would call that request illegal.

    This is not “paperwork relief.” It’s anti-enforcement infrastructure.

    Watch the language that always shows up at the scene: “burdensome,” “compliance costs,” “red tape.” It’s the same cologne every time a watchdog grows teeth.

    This fight was not about whether a particular merger should be blocked. It was about information. About whether the public’s enforcement agency can ask basic questions before the damage is done. The court’s message is brutally simple: you can still try to stop the deal, but do it with less information, later, with more time burned.

    Here is the mechanism: starve the cops, then complain about crime

    Merger enforcement is a timing game. Companies want speed. Regulators need time. If you want consolidation to keep winning, you do not always need a bribe. You just need a process so thin and so rushed that enforcers are constantly sprinting behind the last disaster while the next one slips through.

    Step one: keep the filing minimal so the first submission is “complete” but unhelpful. Step two: force follow-up for facts that could have been disclosed up front. Step three: complain the agencies are slow and unpredictable. Step four: demand “certainty,” meaning fewer questions and fewer challenges. Step five: consolidate again.

    Follow the money: who wins when the lights go dim?

    Winners are easy to spot: M&A bankers whose fees scale with deal size; private equity shops that treat consolidation like a machine; executives paid for growth, not competition, wages, or resilience. The trade associations play their role too. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not your local downtown booster club. It is a national power organ for large corporate interests, and lawsuits like this are part of the business model.

    And who pays? Consumers, workers, and small suppliers who get squeezed after the merger closes and the “efficiency” plan arrives: layoffs rebranded as synergy, price hikes rebranded as inflation, service cuts rebranded as innovation.

    The quiet part is the point: if you cannot stop the merger, at least keep the government from seeing it clearly enough to stop it in time.

  • Inflation Slowed, the Fed Stayed Put, and Wall Street Still Wants More Blood

    ByJustin Jest

    The newsroom coffee tastes like burnt pennies. My inbox is full of market types performing the same old ritual: praying for lower rates while quietly enjoying what high rates do to everybody else. The neon glow of a trading app is not a sunrise. It is a warning label.

    The Fed held rates steady and wants more proof before cutting again

    On February 18, 2026, the Federal Reserve released minutes from its January 27 to 28 meeting. The message was cautious: plenty of officials want “greater confidence” that inflation is truly moving toward 2% before they support more rate cuts.

    At that January meeting, the Fed held the federal funds rate target range at 3.50% to 3.75%, after cutting rates three times in late 2025. Translation: parked car, engine running, foot hovering, eyes locked on inflation and the labor market.

    Inflation cooled on paper. Shelter kept biting.

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on February 13 that CPI rose 0.2% in January and was up 2.4% over the past 12 months. Core CPI rose 0.3% in January and was up 2.5% over the year.

    Shelter was still the big monthly driver. Energy fell 1.5% in January. That is the official math that makes bond desks purr and tenants laugh into their laundry baskets.

    Translation: “more progress” really means “less power for you”

    When Fed minutes say they want more confidence, they are not only policing the price level. They are policing bargaining power.

    Because inflation is not just a number. It is a fight over who gets to raise prices and who gets to raise wages. Headline CPI at 2.4% sounds like relief until you remember “shelter” is still doing pushups on your neck. A “cooling” report can still feel like financial asphyxiation.

    And the credit card interest you pay is not a metaphor. It is a monthly transfer of your future to a lender’s present.

    Here is the mechanism: tight money, nervous workers, sticky prices

    Keep rates elevated and borrowing gets more expensive. That cools investment and hiring. Businesses “optimize,” which is management code for layoffs, speedups, and scheduling systems that treat humans like defective inventory. Workers get jumpy. Wage demands soften. Demand cools.

    But we do not live in a textbook. In an economy with concentrated corporate power, prices can stay sticky even when costs ease. Competition is weak, so price cuts are optional and price hikes feel permanent. That is how CPI can improve while your lived experience does not.

    The Fed cannot build housing, enforce antitrust, cap rents, or stop price gouging. So it reaches for the lever it has: unemployment risk. Not necessarily mass unemployment. Just enough fear to quiet the room.

    The minutes reflect a split between those who might cut later if inflation keeps falling and those willing to sit tight, or even flirt with tightening, if inflation re-accelerates. Different flavors. Same institutional reflex: protect “credibility” first, absorb human consequences later.

    Follow the money: who wins when the Fed waits

    Wall Street wins twice: lenders benefit from fatter spreads, and cash earns more. Private equity benefits when stress becomes opportunity and wobbling balance sheets turn into sale signs.

    Who pays? Renters. People carrying credit card balances. Workers watching job postings vanish. Small businesses without bond desks and lobbyists. Families trying to buy homes where prices and borrowing costs can both be punishing.

    The quiet part: “independent” is not the same as “above class politics”

    The Fed is independent from elections. It is not independent from the political economy. Its inputs are data. Its outputs are power. Every rate decision is a decision about leverage: who can refinance, who can wait, who can demand more, who has to swallow less.

    We are told to treat inflation like weather. But inflation is often about pricing power, and pricing power is about consolidation. The Fed can dampen demand. It cannot force a dominant landlord to stop testing how little oxygen a tenant can live on.

    So CPI cools to 2.4%, core sits at 2.5%, and the minutes say: not yet. Not enough. Translation: not enough evidence the working public is fully back in its place.

    If inflation is cooling and the Fed is still squeezing, whose comfort is this system designed to protect?

  • Fed Minutes Say “Not So Fast” on Rate Cuts, and Main Street Is Still Paying the Tab

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I could smell the burnt coffee and printer toner from here, the sacred incense of America’s unelected priesthood. The Federal Reserve dropped its latest minutes and the rate-watchers read them like scripture, while Wall Street nods along like a dashboard bobblehead in a lifted F-150.

    Fed minutes: patience on cuts, and hikes still on the menu

    On February 18, 2026, the Fed released minutes from its January 27 to 28 meeting. The message was not a fireworks finale. It was a slow tightening of the leash: they are not in a hurry to cut rates again, and they want the public to remember that hikes are still possible if inflation stays above target.

    The committee kept the federal funds rate target range at 3.5% to 3.75%. The minutes indicate most officials think they are near what they call “neutral.” In Fed-speak, neutral is the place where they get to act like the economy is a wild horse and they are the only ones allowed to hold the reins.

    The pause is the point

    Almost all members backed holding steady. Two members dissented and preferred a quarter-point cut: Stephen I. Miran and Christopher J. Waller. Two guys in the room saying, “maybe ease up,” and the rest saying, “nah, we like it right here.”

    The minutes also say the vast majority judged that downside risks to employment had moderated in recent months, while the risk of more persistent inflation remained. Translation without the cardigan: they are less worried about jobs cooling and more worried about prices reaccelerating.

    AP’s reporting on the minutes highlights that many officials are hesitant to support more cuts until inflation declines further. That is not just a stance, it is a posture: arms crossed at the grill, telling you the burgers are “not ready” while your wallet is already catching smoke.

    Inflation is cooler, but the Fed still wants the keys

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported CPI for all urban consumers rose 0.2% in January, and prices were up 2.4% over the last 12 months. Shelter was the biggest driver of the monthly increase, and energy fell 1.5%. So inflation is cooler, but the minutes still lean on the idea that tightening is not off the table.

    Trump wants cheaper money, Main Street wants a break

    Donald Trump has argued that if inflation is cooling and jobs are steady, borrowers should get relief. The Fed’s vibe, in writing, is basically: we heard you, now watch us do what we want anyway.

    When the Fed holds at 3.5% to 3.75% and keeps hikes in the conversation, it filters down fast: credit card APRs stay nasty, auto loans stay heavy, and small businesses living on lines of credit keep paying like they are renting money by the hour. The minutes say policy is not on a preset course. Fine. Neither is a mortgage payment.

    So here is the takeaway, cooked low and slow: the Fed just told you they are in no rush to help borrowers, and they want everyone to remember they can tighten again if inflation gets cute. Are you buying the Fed’s patience, or are you tired of paying for their “credibility”?

  • Zeldin Tried to Repeal Reality: The Trump EPA Just Lit the Fuse Under U.S. Climate Law

    ByJustin Jest

    The courthouse air is always the same: old stone, cold vents, and the faint chemical perfume of people pretending their hands are clean. I’m mainlining burnt coffee while the Trump administration tries to do a magic trick with the atmosphere: make the science disappear by shredding the paperwork.

    This week, the backlash arrived right on schedule. A coalition of health and environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit over the Trump EPA’s repeal of the 2009 “endangerment finding,” the legal keystone that lets the federal government regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The named defendant is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, because somebody has to sign the receipt when you try to return public health for store credit.

    That’s the story. Not vibes. Not slogans. A deregulatory sledgehammer hit a load-bearing beam, and now we get to watch whether the building inspectors still exist.

    What happened: the 2009 finding got pulled, and the lawsuits hit the D.C. Circuit

    Here are the bones, stripped of PR perfume. On February 12, 2026, the Trump administration revoked EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding, the determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare and the foundation under major federal climate rules. By February 18, a broad coalition filed in the D.C. Circuit to contest the repeal and related moves affecting vehicle greenhouse gas standards. Public health and environmental organizations are in the mix, with litigation driven by groups that live and die by Clean Air Act footnotes.

    The administration’s posture is familiar. They say they’re reading the statute “correctly,” as if decades of scientific record are just a typo someone finally noticed. They treat the accumulated evidence like a spam email you can delete and then act shocked when people sue.

    Translation: “endangerment finding repeal” means “we are trying to un-write the duty to regulate”

    Let me translate the jargon into plain English anger.

    “Endangerment finding” is bureaucrat for: the government looked at the science and concluded this pollution harms people, so the Clean Air Act kicks in. It’s a prerequisite for regulating greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles under Clean Air Act Section 202, and EPA’s own materials have been explicit about that logic.

    So when the Trump EPA revokes it, they’re not just editing a paragraph in the Federal Register. Mechanically, they’re trying to sever the legal basis for requiring industries to measure, report, and reduce climate pollution, and they’re openly framing this as part of a broader reconsideration of rules built on the finding.

    Here is the mechanism: weaponized process, “lawful-looking” delay, and the public eating the costs

    This isn’t subtle. You staff agencies with people who treat regulated industries like clients, you target something foundational, you wrap the move in selective citations and a sermon about “costs,” and then you dare plaintiffs to spend years litigating while emissions keep flowing.

    EPA’s own messaging practically says the quiet part out loud: brand it as a historic deregulatory action, invoke Supreme Court decisions like a permission slip, and recast the endangerment finding as the original sin behind “unprecedented” regulation. The paperwork looks clean. The consequences are not.

    Follow the money: who profits when regulation gets gutted

    Who benefits when EPA stops treating greenhouse gases as a regulated threat? Industries that would rather not spend capital to clean up. Political networks that run on deregulatory trophies. Consultants and lobbyists billing hours to turn safeguards into suggestions.

    Who pays? The public, in the dumbest possible way: more pollution, more illness, and more climate damage, plus the economic whiplash of pretending compliance is the biggest risk on the spreadsheet.

    The plaintiffs’ claim is blunt: the repeal is unlawful under the Clean Air Act and inconsistent with the framework recognized in Massachusetts v. EPA. Translation: they want the court to force EPA to do its job even when the White House wants the agency to cosplay as a trade association.

    Now it’s in court, where evidence still has a chance to matter, and where the administration has to defend this move in the fluorescent light of the record.

  • Gateway Tunnel Cash Thawed: A Judge Flipped the Burger and DC Still Wants Credit

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I smelled it before the first talking head cleared their throat. That classic Washington stink, like cold coffee and paperwork left too close to the grill. The kind of air where “public interest” somehow means “you pay, we posture.”

    This time the smoke drifted up from the Gateway Hudson Tunnel project. After a court fight, the Trump administration released the last chunk of previously frozen federal reimbursement money. The swamp took a victory lap like it invented concrete, when all it did was stop stepping on the jobsite’s air hose.

    What happened (facts, not fundraising emails)

    • New York Attorney General Letitia James says the remaining nearly $130 million was delivered on February 18, 2026, completing the release of funding that had been frozen.
    • Her office ties the movement of money to the lawsuit New York and New Jersey brought against the Trump administration.
    • She points to a temporary restraining order issued February 6, 2026 by U.S. District Judge Jeannette A. Vargas, and describes reimbursements restarting in pieces, including $30 million on February 13 and another $77 million earlier this week before the final release.
    • Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says the Department of Transportation released $235 million total to the Gateway Development Commission, including $205 million for work done from August through December 2025 and $30 million for January 2026 work.

    That is reimbursement for construction already performed. Not a bonus. Not a gift basket. A bill.

    The judge grabbed the tongs

    According to the Associated Press, Judge Vargas ordered the administration to restore the funding after the states requested emergency relief, warning that a shutdown would cause irreparable harm and cut against the public interest. Once the order landed, the reimbursements started moving again.

    Also yes, construction is expected to resume next week. Which is a fancy way of saying: “the grill is back on after somebody stopped turning the propane off mid-cook.”

    The sideshow (renaming rumors)

    Reports circulated about claims that funding was being linked to renaming transit hubs after Trump. The AP noted the allegation was out there and also that it was denied or disputed. I am not carving that into stone. True or false, it is a distraction from the main event: Washington can freeze cash, then pretend unfreezing it is statesmanship.

    The bottom line

    If the government promised reimbursement for work already done, pay it. Do not punish workers and schedules to play power games. And do not act like cutting the check only after a judge steps in makes you a savior. Build the tunnel, stop the theater, respect the taxpayers.

  • The Climate Church Filed Its Lawsuit, and I Can Smell the Lawsuit Money Burning

    ByBrick Tungsten

    I walked into The Red Hat Saloon and the air smelled like hickory smoke, hot brake pads, and pure bureaucrat panic. That special aroma you get when a government form catches fire and the whole room feels ten degrees freer? Yeah. That was the vibe, because the Climate Church did what it always does when regular Americans get a little breathing room: it ran straight to court.

    Public health and environmental groups sue Trump EPA over the endangerment finding repeal

    On Wednesday, February 18, 2026, a stack of public health and environmental groups filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after the Trump administration, with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, finalized a repeal of the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding. They filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, because that is where these fights go to wrestle in the mud.

    The endangerment finding, issued in 2009, has been a foundational legal step behind federal regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, especially for cars and trucks.

    What EPA says it did on February 12, 2026

    The Trump EPA final rule, signed February 12, 2026, rescinds that 2009 finding and also repeals greenhouse gas emission standards for highway vehicles and engines. EPA is calling it the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history and says it will save Americans over $1.3 trillion. It also eliminates credits tied to the start-stop feature on vehicles, a feature that has annoyed drivers from sea to shining sea.

    • EPA argues that without the endangerment finding, it lacks statutory authority under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act to set greenhouse gas standards for new motor vehicles and engines.

    • EPA emphasized this action is about greenhouse gases and does not eliminate rules for traditional air pollutants.

    • EPA also described the repeal as removing regulatory requirements tied to measuring, reporting, certifying, and complying with greenhouse gas standards for vehicles.

    Who is suing, and what the fight is really about

    The lawsuit names EPA and Zeldin. Plaintiffs named in reporting include the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, plus public health groups like the American Public Health Association.

    The lawsuit crew says the repeal is unlawful and dangerous. EPA and the Trump administration say the old setup was regulatory overreach that piled massive costs onto the economy and consumers. The courts will decide what survives, and this is not a done deal. But politically, the split is bright as fireworks over a county fair: deregulation and affordability versus rule-by-lawsuit and climate clipboard control.

    So let them sue. I will be at the grill, listening to AM radio crackle, watching this administration keep doing what it promised.

    Live free, grill hard, and do not apologize.

  • Trump’s White House Gets a Remote Control for the Referees

    ByJustin Jest

    The coffee tastes like burnt pennies and surrender. Outside, the sirens do their distant Doppler hymn. Inside, the message is clean: the referees are being marched into the owner’s suite.

    A year ago today, Donald Trump signed an executive order with a title that reads like a public-service announcement right before the public gets mugged: “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies.” It sounds like a stern lecture. It functions like a leash. The target is the so-called independent regulators, pulled toward White House review with budget pressure and legal message discipline baked in.

    White House review for “independent” regulators

    The order requires independent regulatory agencies to submit significant regulatory actions to OIRA, housed in the Office of Management and Budget, before publication. It installs White House liaisons inside those agencies. It also tells executive branch employees they cannot advance legal interpretations that contradict the President or the Attorney General unless specially authorized. Even the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy gets carved out, because nobody wants to spook the bond market.

    Translation: agencies built to be at least somewhat insulated from day-to-day partisan command now get a pre-publication checkpoint staffed by the President’s political apparatus. OIRA is not a neutral traffic cop. It is the White House’s toll booth for rules.

    Translation: “accountability” for the regulated, not the public

    When the order says “Presidential supervision,” read “permission slip.” When it says “coherent execution of Federal law,” read “no surprises for donors.” When it says “efficiency,” read “delay anything that costs powerful people money.”

    OIRA review is where rules go to get sanded down until they are safe for the industries they are supposed to restrain. Add independent agencies to that pipeline and you do not invent a new machine. You just bolt on more gears and remove more brakes.

    The order also builds a little legal monarchy inside the executive branch. If the President or Attorney General declares what the law “means,” employees are told that interpretation controls. That is not legal clarity. That is message discipline backed by payroll.

    Here is the mechanism: paperwork, money, liaisons, interpretation

    Centralize the paperwork: OIRA review before publication means rules can be slowed, reshaped, or quietly killed. Not with a dramatic vote. With edits, meetings, “concerns,” and the bureaucratic art of waiting a document to death.

    Centralize the money: OMB gets power to review agency obligations for consistency with presidential priorities and adjust apportionments by activity, function, project, or object. Budget speak for “we can starve the parts of your mission we do not like.”

    Centralize the narrative: those embedded White House liaisons are not there for team-building. They are there to make sure the agency’s oxygen supply flows through a political valve.

    And centralize interpretation: if career staff cannot advance a legal position that conflicts with the President or AG, enforcement becomes whatever the political appointees say it is this week. That is how you turn law into a weather report. Sunny for friends. Storm warnings for enemies.

    The lawsuit trap: you cannot always sue a future power grab

    This is not theoretical. Democrats sued in 2025, arguing the order threatened the Federal Election Commission’s independence. A federal judge, Amir H. Ali, dismissed the case for lack of standing, essentially finding the feared harms too speculative at that time. That dismissal did not declare the power grab wise. It said the plaintiffs had not shown a concrete injury yet.

    That is the trap. You often have to wait until the damage is real, measurable, and already in the spreadsheet.

    If you want accountability, do the boring work that terrifies power: oversight that is not theater, inspectors general with teeth, FOIA pressure, and court challenges when concrete harms appear. Audit the edits. Track the delays. Name the lobbyists in the hallway. Vote like your regulators’ independence is on the ballot, because it is.

    If you are waiting for one dramatic moment when the republic “falls,” stop. This is the fall. It just sounds like paperwork.

  • How to Watch Trump’s 2026 State of the Union Live, and What the “Watch Guide” Is Really Selling

    ByJustin Jest

    Pull up a stool, America. The big civic question of the week is not “what will the President propose?” It’s “where do I click?” That tells you everything about how politics works in the streaming age: the State of the Union is a constitutional ritual, sure, but it’s also a full-blown distribution strategy.

    When is President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union?

    President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress is scheduled for Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 9 p.m. ET.

    This date didn’t fall out of the sky. Speaker Mike Johnson formally invited Trump to deliver the address on Feb. 24, and that invitation was reported on January 7, 2026.

    How to watch it live (the Fox News guide)

    Fox News published its watch guide on February 18, 2026, laying out how to tune in and how Fox plans to package the whole night.

    • Fox News Channel
    • FoxNews.com
    • Fox News App
    • Fox Nation
    • Fox One app

    Fox’s schedule also puts its coverage window in bold letters: coverage begins at 8:50 p.m. ET and runs until about 11 p.m. ET. Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are listed as bringing viewers into the main event at 8:50 p.m. ET.

    The speech is the event. The product is attention.

    I’m not mad that people want to watch. Good. Watch. The White House is also expected to stream it, including on YouTube, which means you’re not locked behind one cable box to witness a major presidential address.

    But let’s not kid ourselves about what a “how to watch” guide is really doing. It’s advertising the wraparound show: the pre-game, the post-game, the commentary marathon, and the platform hopscotch that keeps you plugged in from the first tease to the final panel.

    So yes, tune in on Feb. 24 at 9 p.m. ET. Just remember: the easiest thing in America is watching. The harder thing is demanding receipts after the cameras cut.

  • Maryland Just Cut the Wire on ICE Deputizing Deals

    ByJustin Jest

    The coffee tastes like burnt pennies, the kind you drink under fluorescent lights while government systems hum like a beehive. That is where you learn the oldest trick in modern power: outsource the hard stuff, then act confused when nobody can tell whose badge did what.

    Maryland just threw a wrench into that machine.

    Emergency law blocks Maryland agencies from signing 287(g)-style ICE deals

    On February 17, 2026, Gov. Wes Moore signed emergency legislation that bars the state, local governments, and county sheriffs from entering immigration enforcement agreements that authorize civil immigration enforcement. The bills are Senate Bill 245 and House Bill 444, and they took effect as an emergency measure.

    The Washington Post framed the move as Maryland banning partnerships with ICE, with the governor pointing to “unaccountable” power. Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services also described the law as stopping jurisdictions from deputizing officers for federal civil immigration enforcement.

    It targets existing agreements too, with a hard deadline

    This is not just a “no new contracts” warning label. The law defines an “immigration enforcement agreement” broadly as contracts or memoranda with the federal government that authorize civil immigration enforcement. It explicitly includes agreements under federal authorities including 8 U.S.C. § 1103 and 8 U.S.C. § 1357.

    Jurisdictions with an existing agreement are directed to use the termination provision immediately once the law takes effect, and that termination provision must be exercised no later than July 1, 2026.

    There is still some fog around the precise count of Maryland jurisdictions that had these agreements at signing. Some reporting has described eight counties participating, while other reporting has described nine sheriff offices or nine counties. The bill sets rules rather than listing participants, but the overall picture is clear: multiple agreements existed, and the law is built to end them fast.

    What 287(g) does, and why accountability becomes a mess

    The basic model is simple: the federal government signs an agreement with a local agency, trains local officers, and authorizes them to perform certain immigration officer functions under ICE supervision. On paper, it looks tidy. In practice, it becomes a jurisdictional blender.

    The program is pitched as a public safety partnership, but civil immigration enforcement is civil, not criminal. When that civil system fuses into local policing and jail operations, it becomes harder for the public, and for people caught in the middle, to tell which rules apply and who answers when something goes wrong.

    Money and incentives, plus the next legal fight

    Part of the growth story is budgets. DHS has promoted reimbursement and financial incentives for participating agencies. A September 2025 DHS release described more than 1,000 partnerships nationally and reimbursement opportunities starting October 1, 2025, including paying for salaries and benefits of trained 287(g) officers and offering performance awards tied to assistance to ICE’s mission.

    Maryland’s own messaging stresses this is about civil immigration enforcement agreements, not a ban on all coordination on public safety matters. Still, the next fight is predictable: what counts as an “immigration enforcement agreement” versus “communication,” and whether sheriffs will sue to overturn the law, as Maryland Matters reported some have discussed.

    At bottom, Maryland is trying to force a cleaner chain of command: real oversight, real accountability, and fewer blurred lines.

  • Hassett Wants Fed Researchers Punished After Tariff Study Says Americans Pay Most of It

    ByJustin Jest

    Washington runs on cold air-conditioning and hot narratives. And on February 18, 2026, the narrative took a swing at the math.

    What Hassett said, and what set him off

    Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, went on CNBC and tore into a Federal Reserve Bank of New York research analysis about the costs of tariffs. This was not a normal policy disagreement. Hassett suggested the researchers should face punishment or discipline for publishing it.

    What the New York Fed research found

    The analysis Hassett targeted argued that in 2025 the bulk of tariff incidence fell on the U.S. side, meaning U.S. firms and consumers, not foreign exporters.

    The estimates varied by month, but the central point held. The Liberty Street Economics post reported tariff incidence on U.S. importers of:

    • 94% from January through August 2025
    • 92% in September through October 2025
    • 86% in November 2025

    In plain English: you can call it “strategy,” you can call it “leverage,” you can wrap it in flags and slogans, but somebody still eats the cost. The researchers’ conclusion was that Americans paid most of it.

    Why the threat matters more than the disagreement

    The New York Fed is a regional bank, and its research output is not a formal Federal Reserve policy statement. That is exactly why the reaction is so revealing. If you are confident in your argument, you rebut the findings. If you are trying to control the perimeter of what can be said out loud, you go after the people who ran the numbers.

    Threatening discipline does not win the debate. It chills the room so fewer people want to publish the next inconvenient spreadsheet.

    The broader pressure campaign around the Fed

    The Washington Post tied Hassett’s broadside to a broader pattern of political pressure on institutions that produce inconvenient information, including economic data and research.

    It also lands while the Fed’s independence is under strain. Separate reporting described a Justice Department criminal investigation involving Fed Chair Jerome Powell tied to a renovation project at the Fed’s Washington headquarters, described as costing $2.5 billion. Powell has publicly pushed back against the probe, and Hassett previously downplayed the investigation in media appearances.

    And looming over all of it is leadership politics: Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell as chair, with Powell’s term ending in May 2026.

    If tariffs are as flawless as the sales pitch, nobody needs to talk punishment. They can publish better evidence and take the argument to the public. The moment discipline replaces debate, it is not confidence talking. It is fear of what voters learn when the facts are allowed to breathe.

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