Tex's Place

By Ben Smith California gas prices are climbing again, and the latest reporting shows the spike is accelerating. New  reporting  this week put the headline number plainly: "California drivers are reeling as average gas prices surged 40 cents per gallon in just two weeks to $4.58, far outpacing the national average of $2.92, driven by shrinking refining capacity from the Valero Benicia refinery wind-down and prior Phillips 66 closure in Los Angeles." The  average  California gas price is $4.58 per gallon, up from $4.46 last week and $4.18 two weeks ago. The national average, by contrast, sits at $2.92. That places California roughly $1.66 above the rest of the country. Here is what makes this different from routine volatility. Nationally, gas prices have trended down over the past year. California is  diverging  sharply. This is not seasonal fluctuation. It is a structural supply squeeze. Fresh  reporting  on the refinery closures driving the i...

By Tyler Durden Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has increasingly made his frustrations with the Trump administration public, but he  may have just crossed the line with the US President , who Zelensky admits can be tough and unbending. Zelensky has newly complained amid the latest Geneva trilateral talks that the US delegation could pressure him to make "unsuccessful decisions" and he is  urging Washington to back off , even using expletives to make his point. For starters, he claims that the Ukrainian public won't let him cede territory to Russia for the sake of peace even if he wanted to, as we  highlighted previously . But the latest colorful verbal broadside, cited by  Axios  on Tuesday as Russian and Ukrainian delegations convened in Geneva, saw Zelensky take direct aim at the head of Moscow's negotiating team, Vladimir Medinsky. Kiev's frustration at the state of dialogue has been boiling over. Medinsky has argued - along with numerous Russian offi...

Our destiny is in our hands, for good or for ill. By JOHN MAC GHLIONN By now, you’re probably sick of hearing about  artificial intelligence . It’s the kind of topic that arrives buried in buzzwords, reeking of Silicon Valley self-importance. Many conservatives have tuned it out for a simple reason: It sounds abstract, distant, and oddly bloodless. Lines of code. Data centers. Neurotic nerds arguing on podcasts. Not your problem. That instinct is understandable. It’s also wrong. Because AI is no longer confined to screens. It’s stepping into the physical world with far fewer safeguards than any serious society should tolerate, reshaping work, dignity, authority, and, ultimately, what it means to be human. Consider a  new site  called RentAHuman.ai. The name is creepy and entirely accurate. AI agents can post tasks, and real people bid to carry them out for small payments, often in cryptocurrency. The jobs are mundane or degrading: pick up a package, atte...

By Rick Moran The U.S. and Iran held indirect talks in Geneva on Tuesday on ending Iran's nuclear enrichment and ballistic missile programs. Donald Trump's advisers, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff,  met with  Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for three hours, with no substantive progress toward meeting any of Trump's demands. While the U.S. and Iran were engaged in fruitless negotiations, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a speech in Tehran, rejecting U.S. demands that Iran end its enrichment and nuclear programs. "Khamenei stated that Iran has a 'right' to have a 'nuclear industry,' which is a reference to Iran’s nuclear program and uranium enrichment capabilities,"  reports  the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Khamenei also described "Iran’s 'possession of deterrent weapons,' almost certainly in reference to Iran’s ballistic missiles, as 'essential and obligatory' and claimed that this ...

By Chris Donaldson Some of the Democrats who have whipped up a firestorm over the Epstein files as a way to politically harm President Donald J. Trump have been singed by the blowback after it was revealed that their names are also included in the documents. That includes one of the co-hosts of ABC’s “The View,” and on Tuesday’s edition of the IQ-draining daytime gabfest, Whoopi Goldberg tried to explain to viewers what her relationship was and wasn’t to the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile, insisting that she wasn’t Epstein’s friend or girlfriend after being “dragged” online. “In the name of transparency,” confessed the dreadlocked co-host, “my name is in the files.” After two weeks of silence, The View finally addresses Whoopi Goldberg being in the Epstein files and seemingly requesting to borrow his jet. JOY BEHAR: Anybody can be on this list. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Anybody. Well, this is my point. Because, I’m telling you when I tell you…  pic.twitter.com/7...

Would a mano a mano match help or hurt the Republican Party? By Tim Donner Those who watched the speech by Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend were undoubtedly struck by his impressive statesmanship and the unexpected standing ovation he received from European leaders. But one might draw another conclusion from the most important address ever delivered on the world stage by the man in charge of implementing President Donald Trump’s foreign policy: It looked like someone planning to run for president. Or if he isn’t, perhaps he should reconsider. There have been rave reviews of the speech all around, and, as arguably the most effective Republican politician in the nation not named Trump, Rubio is well aware of it. But, of course, there is a problem. The man Rubio calls his best friend in the administration, Vice President JD Vance, has done little or nothing to deny speculation that he will run for the top spot. Rubio has said...

By Becca Lower Around noon ET on Tuesday, a man carrying a weapon rushed toward the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., but was quickly intercepted by officials, according to reports, then taken into custody. There were no injuries reported. Our officers just arrested a person with what appears to be a gun near the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Building. Please avoid the area. We will provide more information when new information is confirmed. pic.twitter.com/f9JQPYUq8O — The U.S. Capitol Police (@CapitolPolice) February 17, 2026 Moments later, a follow-up X post  announced  the temporary closure of the nearest intersections as they looked into the inident, with the area  reopened  three hours later: Maryland Avenue is temporarily closed between First and Third Streets, SW, while we investigate. Now, the United States Capitol Police has shared a press release with more information on the suspect. Here is a news release with the latest on our investigati...

By Sani Unutoa Mexico will not be joining President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.    Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has declined President Trump’s invitation to join the board’s first meeting. When asked by reporters why she declined the invitation, Sheinbaum said Mexico recognizes Palestine as a state and maintains that any plan for the Middle East must include formal recognition of a Palestinian state. Instead, Sheinbaum will attend the meeting as an observer.      More than two dozen countries have joined Trump’s Board of Peace, which aims to secure lasting peace in conflict zones starting in Gaza.     The board’s first meeting is on Thursday.  On January 22 nd , Trump held a signing ceremony to officially establish his Board of Peace while  in Davos,  Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. He declared it will become one of “the most consequential bodies” ever created. Original...

Good morning!     This is your daily forum to share what you've heard, what you've learned, and what you know, and just shoot the breeze.   Have a wonderful day my friends.   -Tex

By Bob Hoge Remember the  Where’s Waldo  books? Now it’s time to play, Where’s Bill? The Clintons have been very much in the news lately, what with Hillary bashing America and then pretending to tack to the political center at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, and the couple almost being held in contempt of Congress for their slippery attempts to testify about their Jeffrey Epstein connections. (They are now scheduled to appear before the Oversight Committee later this February.) Seeing as Mr. Clinton was a two-term Democrat president whose administration seems tame by today’s extremist Dem standards, you’d think he might get a mention when they honor their own — but noooo. It would seem that somebody decided he wasn’t worthy of a mention in a Presidents Day post by @TheDemocrats on X. No Bill: We honor their service to our country. Happy Presidents’ Day 🇺🇲 pic.twitter.com/Fx8SExCbG5 — Democrats (@TheDemocrats) February 16, 2026 Seems like a strange omission....

By Ward Clark One has to question the intelligence of the people who keep sending drug boats out into the Caribbean and the Pacific with the intent to smuggle their cargoes into the United States, given the rate at which Southern Command is interdicting these boats, converting them into flying spare parts and sending their crews to the bottom to serve as fodder for bottom-feeding fish and crustaceans. That's all worth doing, and now, on Tuesday morning, we learned that three more of these boats and crews were given a  dose of the Smuggler's Blues . Strikes against drug boats continue as @Southcom reports three lethal kinetic strikes were authorized by General Francis L. Donovan on February 16 against three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations pic.twitter.com/Y8QPyHyHQG — Just the News (@JustTheNews) February 17, 2026 At least one wag on X taunted the Democrats who oppose these strikes. pic.twitter.com/sQVfMMArx5 — Let's Use Common Sense (@IM4Common...

By Jennifer Griffin Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has ordered Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to remove Col. Dave Butler from his current job serving as chief of Army public affairs and chief advisor to Driscoll, who currently is in Geneva serving on the negotiating team to end the Ukraine war, Fox News has learned.  Butler served as the head of public affairs for the Joint Chiefs when Gen. Mark Milley was chairman, and was slated to receive his first star. His name appeared for two years in a row on an Army list of 34 officers selected for promotion.  That list has been held up by Hegseth for nearly four months because he reportedly has concerns about four to five officers selected by the Army board, but by law he cannot remove them from the list. Butler volunteered to take his name off the promotion list if it would help unlock the other promotions, according to an Army official. Driscoll, an Army veteran and close ally of Vice President JD Vance...

By Tom Knighton It's been funny how the anti-gun left has suddenly discovered the Second Amendment since Alex Pretti was killed. I'm not someone who thinks it's wise to bring a gun to a "protest," particularly when part of that protest is to interfere with federal law enforcement officers. Even if you don't intend to interfere with anyone, it's still just a bad idea as a general thing. It doesn't mean you don't have a right to do it, but there are a lot of things I have a right to do that would be a terrible idea. My right to free speech means I have a right to say, "Yes, those jeans actually do make you look fat," but we all know that's not the best way to live a long and happy life as a married man, don't we? In a recent piece  in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, one voice highlighted something that followed in the post-Pretti aftermath that I've been wanting to address for a while. In recent weeks, the conversation around p...