Thursday's Final Word

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

'Cause I'm the tabman, yeah I'm the tabman, and you're working for no one but me ...

Advertisement

Ed: "Poll tax" isn't an idiom in this context; it's an idiocy. The cost of getting an ID is essentially nil, and we require ID for all sorts of commercial transactions, not to mention government transactions. Women have to find their birth certificates for passports, for driver's licenses in states that use Real ID, and thanks to Congress, for air travel, as mandated several years ago. So do people of color. These arguments are stupidly paternalistic, and note that Phillips never actually answers Scott's question – how would this prevent people from voting who are otherwise eligible?

===

Los Angeles Times: Republicans said the legislation is needed to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats warn it will disenfranchise millions of Americans by making it harder to vote. Federal law already requires that voters in national elections be U.S. citizens, but there’s no requirement to provide documentary proof. Experts said voter fraud is extremely rare, and very few noncitizens ever slip through the cracks. Fewer than one in 10 Americans don’t have paperwork proving they are citizens.

“Some of my colleagues will call this voter suppression or Jim Crow 2.0,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., presenting the package at a committee hearing.

But he said “those allegations are false,” and he argued the bill is needed to enforce existing laws, particularly those that bar immigrants who are not citizens from voting. “The current law is not strong enough,” he said.

Ed: I beg to differ from "experts," especially after watching millions of illegal immigrants pour across the border during the Biden Regency. Since then, immigration officials have found illegal aliens in police departments, as a superintendent of an Iowa school district, serving in elected office, and so on. Elections are limited to US citizens by the US Constitution, and the federal government has every authority to enforce that law. 

Advertisement

===

Ed: Women in Congress hardest hit!

===

American Spectator: “For a privileged minority,” Chomsky wrote therein, “Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.”

Chomsky clearly did nothing of the sort regarding his benefactor, Jeffrey Epstein, who sexually abused dozens of girls — with one alleged victim just 9 years old.

“What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides a public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts — which are impossible to answer (how do you prove that you are not a neo-Nazi who wants to kill the Jews, or a rapist, or whatever charge comes along?),” Chomsky counseled Epstein. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

A 97-year-old Chomsky, rendered disabled and incommunicado from a stroke, lies, like Epstein, the dead man he called his “best friend,” beyond any “reckoning” — a word favored by those calling public figures to account for their real and imagined misdeeds.


But what of his bootlicking admirers on the American Left?

Ed: I gotta say, I didn't have Chomsky on my Epstein Files bingo card. Given that it's the Left that has primarily weaponized Epstein to the extent that Chomsky laments, there is poetic justice in having this stain on his reputation. Nonetheless, it's not illegal to have corresponded with Epstein, even if it demonstrates moral idiocy, at the very least, after his 2007 conviction. 

Advertisement

===

Ed: Canada requires voter ID as well. It has to include a photo, must include the voter's address, but also includes access to a provisional ballot if a registered voter vouches for eligibility. 

===

Just the News: The State Department has concluded that Code Pink and People's Forum are linked to Chinese influence operations, according to a report the agency sent to Congress.

“Partisan hacks spent years peddling the phony Russia collusion hoax while turning a blind eye to the sprawling web of far-left activist organizations who push the agendas of the Chinese Communist Party,” Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers told The New York Post on Tuesday.

“Organizations like Code Pink and the People’s Forum denigrate the United States, whitewash the violence of Marxist regimes, and run cover for China while enjoying an influx of cash from a donor network with connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

Ed: This is not a surprise. We covered the connection last May. Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans married Neville Singham, who has backed far-Left and China-adjacent entities through the People's Forum, which gets its funding from Singham. 

===

Advertisement

Ed: The Trump administration has found many more lost children in their enforcement efforts than the Biden Regency ever did. At one point, the Left used to screech about lost children in the system. Now they complain that ICE houses them after being found. 

===

WSJ: The highly classified whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is related to a conversation intercepted last spring in which two foreign nationals discussed Jared Kushner, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

It couldn’t be determined which country the foreign nationals are from or what they discussed about Kushner. But the connection to Kushner sheds further light on the top-secret whistleblower complaint that bureaucratically stalled within Gabbard’s agency for eight months and was kept locked in a safe until it reached Congress in heavily redacted form last week.

Senior Trump administration officials said the claims about Kushner were demonstrably false, but declined to offer more specifics about the conversation on grounds that doing so could expose a highly sensitive surveillance method.

Ed: Curiouser and curiouser. The initial pushback on this story was that it was some sort of hit on Gabbard. Now it looks like the hit may have been on Kushner and it involved Gabbard in some way, perhaps in keeping it quiet. This all may be a giant nothingburger too, but it's worth watching to see whether anything develops from it. 

===

Advertisement

Ed: It's an interesting idea, but only in theory. Virginia would almost certainly have to approve that, and they aren't going to give up that tax base easily. Even if Congress could force it unilaterally – and let's set the ol' filibuster aside for the moment – the end result would likely be the migration of people in that area into the new collar counties of Virginia. I'm not even sure that would force out enough Democrat voters to make a difference in statewide elections in Virginia. The land is mainly in Arlington County, I believe.

===

Power Line: Climate alarmist Michael Mann was for quite a few years the go-to “climate scientist” in the left-wing press. But the Associated Press’s sub silentio deletion of Mann from its story on the Trump administration’s revocation of the Obama administration’s CO2 endangerment finding suggests that Mann may have lost that status. ...

Michael Mann is nowhere to be found in the revised version of the story. Why not? I assume it is because someone pointed out to the AP reporters that the Superior Court in the District of Columbia fined Mann for knowingly presenting false evidence to the jury in the defamation case where Mann sued National Review, Mark Steyn and others. The court sanctioned Mann more than $28,000 for his “bad faith litigation tactics.” The AP must have decided that Mann is no longer someone whose opinions they should present to the public as reliable and “scientific.”

Ed: Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Maybe that applies to media mutts, too. Or maybe Mann is just such an embarrassing figure that he's easy to ditch. 

===

Advertisement

Ed: This is amusing, but there is some exculpatory context. The reporter was asking the question in light of its potential disqualification from Oscar consideration, since it does not meet the prerequisite "diversity" thresholds, even if the foreign film category. As some pointed out on Twitter, "Parasite" won an Oscar despite its cast being entirely South Korean, while this film will likely be excluded for its all-Dane cast. The absurdity is well worth considering. 

===

Deadline: Activist investor and Warner Bros. Discovery shareholder Ancora Holdings threatened to vote ‘no’ on the Netflix deal and launch its own proxy fight if the WBD board does not engage with Paramount. ...

The WBD board “now has no choice but to deem Paramount’s amended offer as one that could reasonably be expected to result in a Superior Proposal, given Netflix’s presently inferior proposal and unaddressed regulatory issues. Once that happens, the Board could then engage in good faith with Paramount to maximize shareholder value, paving the way for WBD to secure an even higher offer. If the WBD Board refuses to do this, Ancora will vote “NO” on the inferior Netflix deal and seek to hold the WBD Board accountable at the 2026,” the firm said in a presentation posted on its website.

“The WBD Board opted to rush into a flawed deal with Netflix rather than earnestly pursue a superior offer from Paramount – in line with the directors’ fiduciary duties,” it said. Ancora, a nearly $11 billion firm, said it has an approximately $200 million economic interest in Warner Bros. Discovery.

Ed: Get ready for the Bari Weiss era, CNN. 

===

Advertisement

===

Editor's note: If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. If you're digging these Final Word posts and want to join the conversation in the comments -- and support independent platforms -- why not join our VIP Membership program? Choose VIP to support Hot Air and access our premium content, VIP Gold to extend your access to all Townhall Media platforms and participate in this show, or VIP Platinum to get access to even more content and discounts on merchandise. Use the promo code FIGHT to join or to upgrade your existing membership level today, and get 60% off!

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
David Strom 12:00 PM | February 13, 2026
Advertisement
Advertisement