Can the Center Hold?
Posted By: Mercedes44, 2/5/2026 6:38:00 AM
It’s a worn-out trope by now to conjure yet again Yeats’s immortal poem, yet perhaps forgivable if we dissect its most famous phrase, “the center cannot hold.” Because exactly what we mean by “the center,” and how we determine what holds it together, may answer the question of how we might do exactly that. As it is, one example of the “center” is millions of friendships that remain strong, held between left-of-center pro-business Democrats who are skeptical about MAGA, and right-of-center Republicans who believe MAGA policies are the best route to our country achieving goals we all share: broadly distributed prosperity and an affordable middle-class lifestyle. But those friendships are fraying.
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California’s already sky-high gas prices are expected to surge after Valero abruptly shuttered its Benicia refinery amid a spiraling “oil crisis,” a new report claims.
The Benicia refinery began shutting down on Saturday, four months earlier than planned, a former Valero manager told the California Globe Tuesday. Thermal imaging showed the facility went cold as the Crimson Pipeline – which transports crude oil from Southern to Northern California – was also taken offline.
“We are in an unprecedented oil crisis,” oil expert Mike Ariza told the publication.
Valero Energy Corp. announced its plans last spring to pull the plug on its 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery by April,
LA Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered Palisades
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report 3 replies
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report 3 replies
Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered the official Palisades Fire response report to downplay the failures made by the city and fire department when the deadly blaze erupted, a new report said.
Bass, after seeing an early draft of the after-action report, wanted key findings of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings scrubbed or watered down — and even warned then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva the unedited conclusions could expose the city to legal liability, sources close to the Democrat’s staff told the Los Angeles Times.
Bass was cautioned that the self-serving tweaks in with the report was a “bad idea” that could torpedo her political career,
Can the Center Hold?
1 reply
It’s a worn-out trope by now to conjure yet again Yeats’s immortal poem, yet perhaps forgivable if we dissect its most famous phrase, “the center cannot hold.” Because exactly what we mean by “the center,” and how we determine what holds it together, may answer the question of how we might do exactly that.
As it is, one example of the “center” is millions of friendships that remain strong, held between left-of-center pro-business Democrats who are skeptical about MAGA, and right-of-center Republicans who believe MAGA policies are the best route to our country achieving goals we all share: broadly distributed prosperity and an affordable middle-class lifestyle.
But those friendships are fraying.
With nothing else to run on, Democrats appear to think that demonizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will be enough to win them control of Congress come November.
“In their campaigns, Democrats across the country are responding to the anger felt by many communities over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations,” reports CBS News. If they can sustain today’s anger, the argument goes, voters will turn out in droves to clip the Trump administration’s wings in his last two years in office.
But there are a multitude of reasons why this strategy isn’t likely to work.
First, November is a long way off.
Every so often there’s a piece of content in The New York Times or a similar publication that’s meant to create suspicion but without saying exactly why, usually for the purpose of politicizing something mundane. The story this week about National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard being on site during an FBI operation in Atlanta is one of those pieces of content, but in this case, the reason for the manufactured suspicion is obvious.
The Times on Monday wrote that it was “unusual” for Gabbard to appear at an FBI field office following the agency’s seizure of 2020 ballots from an election center in the ever-so-seedy Fulton County.
Nearly two-thirds of likely 2026 midterm election voters support deporting illegal aliens from the United States, a new poll released Monday shows.
In its latest survey of 1,004 likely 2026 voters, the political polling firm Cygnal found that respondents support removing illegal aliens from America and sending them back to their country of origin by a nearly 2:1 margin (61 to 34 percent). The poll also found strong support for ICE enforcement of federal immigration laws and agreement that illegally entering the United States is a violation of such laws.
Melinda Gates reacted to the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails involving her ex-husband Bill Gates, including horrific allegations Epstein made such that Bill was attempting to dose her with antibiotics to fight an STD without her knowledge, by saying Bill and other Epstein associates “need to answer to those things.”
I think we’re having a reckoning as a society,” Melinda Gates told NPR’s Wild Card podcast host Rachel Martin on Tuesday. “No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is onto something. And the right people are terrified.
As my colleague Bob Hoge reported, after Gabbard appeared on the scene at the operation to secure the multi-year crime scene that is the Fulton County, Georgia, Election Hub and Operation Center (see FBI Raids Fulton County Election Hub Days After Trump Vows Prosecutions for 2020 Election - Here We Go – RedState and 700 Boxes of Ballots Seized After FBI Executes Fulton County Warrant, Dems Try to Develop ‘Legal Plan’ – RedState), she was the subject of thinly sourced, scurrilous "leak" —
President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration (SBA) is stopping the issuance of small business loans to foreign nationals, requiring that a business be 100 percent owned by a U.S. citizen or U.S. national to receive such a loan. This week, the SBA published a memo requiring that, beginning next month, applicants for the agency’s primary small business loan be American citizens or American nationals.
“… effective March 1, 2026, SBA hereby revises Standard Operating Procedure 50 10 8 Lender and Development Company Loan Programs guidance related to businesses owned by non-U.S. citizens,” the memo states:
So far, we have not heard any statements from Delhi on this issue,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday. We respect bilateral U.S.-Indian relations, but we attach no less importance to the development of an advanced strategic partnership between Russia and India,” he said.
“This is the most important thing for us, and we intend to further develop our bilateral relations with Delhi,” he said, signaling that Russia would not lash out at India for whatever agreement it has made with the United States.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Tuesday that “we’re only seeing public statements” about the U.S.-India agreement, and “we’ll see how the situation develops.”
The U.S. shot down an Iranian drone targeting the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and a U.S.-flagged ship evaded an attempt by armed Iranian gunboats to force it to stop, as tensions escalated Tuesday in the Persian Gulf.
The Lincoln was sailing about 500 miles from Iran’s southern coast when an Iranian Shahed-139 drone “unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship” and continued flying toward the carrier even after U.S. forces took steps to de-escalate, spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said, without specifying the steps.
An F-35C fighter from the Lincoln then destroyed the drone, which caused no damage, Hawkins said.
Migrants flowing across the southern border during the Biden administration have become a trickle under President Donald Trump, according to a new analysis of federal data.
Border Patrol had 237,538 encounters with migrants at the border during the 2025 fiscal year, according to a Pew Research report.
The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1, which means that roughly four months of the Biden administration are included in the 2025 data.
The data showed a massive drop from full years when former President Joe Biden was in the White House.
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Tempers flare between Dem Rep. Maxine
Waters and Scott Bessent over inflation:
‘Can you shut up?’ 28 replies
Waters and Scott Bessent over inflation:
‘Can you shut up?’ 28 replies
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) lashed out at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — telling him at one point to “shut up” — after a tense exchange over inflation. Waters suggested that President Trump’s tariffs were inflationary and immigration enforcement was tanking housing affordability during a House Financial Services Committee hearing about the state of the US economy. “Will you be the voice of reason in the administration and urge Trump to stop waging a war on American consumers?” the California Democrat pleaded. “Yes or no?" “You seem confused as to the definition of inflation,” Bessent began before Waters interrupted him to re-ask the question.
The Washington Post is announcing mass layoffs Wednesday morning, dealing another big blow to a storied media company and a newsroom that has reached a breaking point. Executive Director Matt Murray and human resources chief Wayne Connell sent an email to staffers Wednesday morning instructing employees to "stay home today" but attend an 8:30 a.m. ET meeting via Zoom during which the Washington Post's leadership will announce "significant changes across the company." Those actions include shutting down almost the entire Sports section, closing the Books section and cancelling the daily Post Reports podcast, sources at the newspaper said.
Epstein Victim: Bill Barr, Leon Black
“Present” While Jay-Z and Harvey Weinstein
Abused Her 16 replies
“Present” While Jay-Z and Harvey Weinstein
Abused Her 16 replies
Newly unsealed files from the Department of Justice have thrust several high-profile figures back into the spotlight of Jeffrey Epstein’s sordid world. A redacted FBI intake form from July 2019 details harrowing accusations from a woman who says she was repeatedly abducted, drugged, and sexually assaulted in settings tied to the convicted sex offender. Among those named in her account: rapper Jay-Z (Shawn Carter), disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, billionaire financier Leon Black, and former Attorney General William Barr.
(snip). The victim described being snatched from her home in 1996 by an unknown person, only to wake up in what she believed was Epstein’s Florida mansion.
Democratic New York Rep. Gregory Meeks screamed at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday for over a minute while he attempted to answer his question.
Meeks confronted Bessent on a firm in the United Arab Emirates that secretly bought a stake in President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency company and did not allow Bessent to answer whether he would hold a complete investigation into the matter. The congressman continued shouting at Bessent and demanded that he stop covering for Trump.
“All you have to ask is yes or no. No, Congressman. All you have to ask is yes or no,” Meeks said.
“The [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] is an independent entity.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues to dismay. Her attendance at the rancidly partisan anti-ICE Grammy Awards on Sunday was a joke. The 55-year-old Biden DEI candidate was nominated for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of her memoir “Lovely One,” which she unashamedly believes herself to be.
Melinda Gates reacted to the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails involving her ex-husband Bill Gates, including horrific allegations Epstein made such that Bill was attempting to dose her with antibiotics to fight an STD without her knowledge, by saying Bill and other Epstein associates “need to answer to those things.”
I think we’re having a reckoning as a society,” Melinda Gates told NPR’s Wild Card podcast host Rachel Martin on Tuesday. “No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him.”
Schumer Threatens To Shut Down Government
So Republicans Can't Stop Noncitizens
From Voting 13 replies
So Republicans Can't Stop Noncitizens
From Voting 13 replies
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY)threatened Monday to shut down the government unless Republicans drop their efforts to secure elections and keep noncitizens from voting. (snip) [A]s Congress debates a new spending bill (snip) Senate Majority Leader John Thune suggested there could possibly be efforts to vote on the SAVE Act as a standalone bill in the Senate. While noncitizen voting is already illegal, current federal law is largely toothless. Prospective voters check a tiny square box on a federal form attesting under penalty of perjury that they are a citizen. Such an insecure system has led to thousands of noncitizens either register to vote or even vote.
State Attorney General Letitia James said Tuesday she is launching a dedicated team in her office that will keep careful eyes on ICE agent activities around New York.
According to James, the operation — dubbed the Legal Observation Project — will be tasked with gathering information stemming from what she called “significant enforcement actions” throughout the Empire State while also sending personnel to observe and document ICE and protest activity.
The attorney general said these observers will serve as neutral witnesses, recording information that may inform future legal action. Their efforts will help ensure that accurate, real-time information is collected and preserved, and that any violations of law are identified
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is onto something. And the right people are terrified.
As my colleague Bob Hoge reported, after Gabbard appeared on the scene at the operation to secure the multi-year crime scene that is the Fulton County, Georgia, Election Hub and Operation Center (see FBI Raids Fulton County Election Hub Days After Trump Vows Prosecutions for 2020 Election - Here We Go – RedState and 700 Boxes of Ballots Seized After FBI Executes Fulton County Warrant, Dems Try to Develop ‘Legal Plan’ – RedState), she was the subject of thinly sourced, scurrilous "leak" —
Netflix users have been left confused after noticing that Michelle Obama’s 2020 documentary Becoming appears under the streaming platform’s kids category. The renewed interest in the former first lady's show appears to have been buoyed by Melania Trump’s documentary Melania debuting in theaters. Comments about the movie being in the kids section quickly spread across Threads, with some users encouraging each other to elevate Becoming in the platform’s rankings, while others were frustrated by the movie being included in the kids section. Newsweek reached out to Netflix via email for comment. The discussion around Becoming’s placement on Netflix has sparked
California’s already sky-high gas prices are expected to surge after Valero abruptly shuttered its Benicia refinery amid a spiraling “oil crisis,” a new report claims.
The Benicia refinery began shutting down on Saturday, four months earlier than planned, a former Valero manager told the California Globe Tuesday. Thermal imaging showed the facility went cold as the Crimson Pipeline – which transports crude oil from Southern to Northern California – was also taken offline.
“We are in an unprecedented oil crisis,” oil expert Mike Ariza told the publication.
Valero Energy Corp. announced its plans last spring to pull the plug on its 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery by April,
The Trump administration is pulling 700 federal agents out of Minnesota, White House border czar Tom Homan announced Wednesday, just over a week after he arrived in the Twin Cities to overhaul an immigration enforcement operation that was facing massive public backlash.
An “unprecedented” number of counties have begun informing Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they have an immigration target in custody, allowing ICE agents to collect the individual in the safety of the jail rather than on the street, Homan said. That change, which Homan said was facilitated by Minnesota’s Democratic leaders, will allow ICE to reduce its footprint by nearly 20 percent “effective immediately.”
“Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration