Thursday's Final Word

Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP

It's late in the evening, and I'm wondering which tabs to close...

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Ed: "Is my face straight?" That's an interesting way to start off an answer about your century-old NFL team looking to decamp for another state. How serious is the threat? Well ...

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Indy Star: The Chicago Bears have taken a big step forward in finding a new site for their stadium, and that momentum is moving fast toward Northwest Indiana.

On Thursday morning, Indiana lawmakers in the state House Ways and Means Committee unanimously approved an amendment to Indiana Senate Bill 27 that would pave the way for the Bears to move to Hammond. The proposal would create a Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority with the power to issue bonds, acquire land, and finance construction. ...

It also comes as a pivotal Illinois legislative hearing in Springfield that would impact the future of the Chicago Bears that was scheduled for Thursday was canceled.  

The hearing that was canceled concerned a controversial proposal to offer the Bears tax incentives and infrastructure support for a potential new stadium in the northwest Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. But that hearing has been canceled.

Ed: Interesting. Da Bears actually don't want public financing for a new stadium, which they will fund privately, but they want tax breaks and assessment freezes for the expected lifetime of the new facility. They also want a commitment of at least $850 million from Chicago and Illinois into improving the infrastructure that feeds into the new facility. That's actually a very reasonable ask from an NFL team in recent years, especially since the cost of the new stadium will likely run billions of dollars. Illinois' failure to successfully hold even a hearing to discuss those terms is probably a good indicaton that Indiana will soon have two NFL teams. 

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Ed: Brutal. And well-deserved for all parties targeted in this satire. 

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Andrew C. McCarthy at NRO: In the United States, and particularly at the federal level, crimes are statutory: Congress creates them and, to nearly all of them, applies a statute of limitations (SOL). There are exceptions, such as murder (no SOL), but most federal felonies must be charged within five years of the conduct alleged or the case will be thrown out as stale on a motion by the defense.

England is a common-law system: serious criminal offenses were defined over centuries of jurisprudence, not by statute. The offense for which Mountbatten-Windsor is apparently under investigation is called misconduct in office. It is a common-law crime that has no SOL. Hence, although the alleged occurrence of the conduct at issue over 15 years ago would make this kind of corruption case impossible to bring in the U.S., it is viable in the U.K.

Ed: I wondered about that this morning. Question asked and answered. I do think that it may still be a difficult case to win, as Andy explains later in his essay, but I seriously doubt that police would have arrested the Perv Formerly Known As Prince without being very, VERY sure about their case going to trial. 

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Ed: I suspect that King Charles knew they were coming, because the police would have had to coordinate with the military security at Sandringham. Perhaps he didn't get a LOT of advance notice, but the coordination necessary would have eliminated the prospect of getting blindsided. Plus, these allegations have percolated for a while, so the royals have had plenty of time to game this out. 

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Daily Mail: In a new book focusing on the Prince and Princess of Wales, author Russell Myers quotes a former courtier who said the proposals put to the couple 'clearly demonstrate that they were hardly left fending for themselves in an environment that wasn't interested in looking after them'.

Mr Myers also cites another palace insider who claimed that 'nothing was ever good enough' for the Sussexes, who would later relocate to Montecito, California, and pursue financial independence away from the Firm.

One of the more striking ideas discussed was a plan for Harry to become the monarch's representative in Canada, a Commonwealth country and former British colony. 

However, the proposal ultimately collapsed because the role of governor-general can only be held by a Canadian citizen.

Ed: We came thisclose to avoiding the Harry-Meghan soap opera! Alas. One has to wonder whether the Canadians might have objected even if Harry became a naturalized Canadian for the purposes of this arrangement. It would have been an interesting parallel, though, to the whole Edward-Wallis Simpson debacle of the abdication and their subsequent banishment to the Bahamas after the former king and his wife got too chummy with the Nazis. I suspect that even had that been possible, both Harry and Meghan would have rejected the arrangement, because they had no interest in public service. They wanted to get paid. 

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... often framed as “interference” or “regime change," is playing into the hands of the authoritarian regimes oppressing them, adding that their people have pursued every available peaceful avenue to obtain change: winning elections only to have them stolen, massive protests and street demonstrations, repeated rounds of negotiations, and years of sanctions and diplomatic pressure — and none of it advanced democracy. They tell @lilialuciano  that in their view, it was only the U.S. operation that captured Maduro that finally shifted the balance, highlighting how dismissing or undermining such efforts allows authoritarian regimes to maintain control.

Ed: These are good points and valid criticisms. However, not every group that claims oppression is entitled to American intervention. It's entirely legitimate for Americans to debate the policies and wisdom of these interventions, and whether such actions will result in positive change. It seems to have worked in Venezuela, and we really have exhausted the other options with Iran, but this is not the universal rule.

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ABC News: But Iran was still top of mind for the president, as he gave a 10-day timeline on Thursday to decide whether to continue diplomatic talks with Iranian officials or to order a military strike.

"We may have to take it a step further, or we may not. Maybe we're going to make a deal," Trump told the Board of Peace members. "You're going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days, but this meeting today is proof with determined leadership, nothing is impossible."

Ed: Yeah, well, maybe. Trump talked about a two-week deadline in June, and launched the attacks on Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz a couple of days later. I'd guess that military action will take place within a couple of days unless the Iranian regime offers real concessions on ballistic missiles and terror proxies. 

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Instead, Tehran countered with far narrower concessions, offering only limited adjustments to its nuclear activity.

Ed: Tick. Tock. 

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NewsmaxFBI Director Kash Patel said Wednesday that investigators have uncovered what he described as major funding streams tied to antifa. ...

Speaking on "The Dan Bongino Show," Patel said the FBI under President Donald Trump has been conducting a financial investigation into how demonstrations linked to the loosely organized far left movement are supported.

"These organizations don’t operate alone or in silence," Patel said. "They operate with a heavy, heavy stream of funding.

"And we started looking into it, and guess what? We found them."

 Ed: Follow the money, and "money doesn't lie," as Patel told Bongino. We'll see whether it tells more of the truth than we've seen about the organized insurrectionists, who have mainly escaped accountability since their first operations at the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. 

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Tom Knighton: Look, if this results in arrests, then sweet. It’s about damn time.

If it’s just more talk meant to keep the right happy but little else, then I’m sick of it. There are too many people who have gotten a pass for their crap for me to just shrug off more of that.

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From the illegal investigations into people on the right to the Epstein bunch, we know that there’s a lot of problematic things going on in the country that should result in arrests, but aren’t.

If this is just more of the same, then spare me.

Ed: We've heard a lot of happy talk on this and other points. The DoJ's handling of the Epstein files comes to mind. But if Patel's right, then we should start seeing some indictments soon. And then we can start patting people on the back, but not before then. 

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... despite having no legal status in the U.S. DHS says 45-year-old Morris Brown was identified as part of the major operation into MN investigating aliens involved in fraud.  

He’s also alleged to have committed marriage fraud and made repeated false claims to U.S. immigration authorities. 

Ed: But other than that, he's just an American born elsewhere, amirite or what? Believe it or not, it gets worse ...

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Fox News: The Washington, D.C., office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the arrest of an illegal immigrant and Iranian national who had a criminal history that included multiple charges relating to sodomy.

The arrest comes weeks after Gov. Abigail Spanberger reversed by executive order her predecessor Glenn Youngkin’s 287(g) agreement with DHS that allowed the commonwealth’s law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities to share resources and information to help apprehend illegal immigrants and criminals. ...

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Shayan Kahhal has a criminal history that includes charges of strong-armed rape, strong-armed sodomy of a woman, strong-arm sodomy of a boy and strong-arm sodomy of a girl.

The Virginia State Police’s sex offender page lists a rape and two forcible sodomy convictions from 2011.

Ed: Virginia Democrats want to protect Kahhal. It's that simple and that clear. 

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Ed: Me when I see the Oscar nominations and realize I've never heard of most of the films. Feel free to add your captions below. 

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Beege Welborn 2:40 PM | February 20, 2026
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