Odds and Ends — 10 February 2026

There is an irony to the undying Jeffrey Epstein scandal: It may never be more than an annoyance for President Trump, who knew Epstein well, but it could topple British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who never met the sex-offender financier. Starmer has a 71 percent disapproval rating and leads the least popular British government since World War II.
The reasons for the Labour Party leader’s deepening plight are moral, because decency and shame still matter in British politics. But they are also institutional. An American president is less democratically accountable than the British prime minister, because partisanship has disabled the checks that the Founders placed on the chief executive.

https://twitter.com/BulwarkOnline/status/2020893344478417026
- BulwarkOnline

https://twitter.com/hissgoescobra/status/2020991339320705525
- hissgoescobra

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2021023216781889931
- RonFilipkowski

https://twitter.com/OhRick4/status/2021016400601440279
- OhRick4

———— Ring ————

https://twitter.com/Jani__Gee/status/2020681687018135915
- Jani__Gee

https://twitter.com/cookiebotmonstr/status/2020759481483706688
- cookiebotmonstr

https://twitter.com/hammerswingames/status/2020681930388410683
- hammerswingames

https://twitter.com/SenMarkey/status/2020991127046750444
- SenMarkey

https://twitter.com/jmaynard_21/status/2020681991671239089
- jmaynard_21

https://twitter.com/LeVeonBell/status/2020907911724269846
- LeVeonBell

https://twitter.com/Angry_Staffer/status/2020901229031723140
- Angry_Staffer

———— Concentration Camps ————

https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/2020846058432282667
- shannonrwatts

https://twitter.com/tonyannett/status/2020868130566799667
- tonyannett

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/2020811438806200477
- propublica

https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/2021044934799929813
- donwinslow

———— Autocracy R Us ————

https://twitter.com/mccaffreyr3/status/2020725495827189976
- mccaffreyr3

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/2020701413949546994
- ABC

https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/2020927102493786535
- ReichlinMelnick

———— Blatant In-Your-Face Corruption ————

https://twitter.com/moetkacik/status/2020724044509663530
- moetkacik

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

Trump’s Tariffs Cost U.S. Households $1,000 Last Year

President Donald Trump’s tariffs cost the average American household $1,000 last year, according to new research from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
The cost is set to go even higher this year to $1,300 per household, assuming the existing tariffs stay in place.

———— Mors Imperii ————

https://twitter.com/MaxFlugrath/status/2020995853188727168
- MaxFlugrath

American Optimism Slumps to Record Low

The percentage of U.S. adults who anticipate high-quality lives in five years declined to 59.2% in 2025, the lowest level since measurement began nearly two decades ago.

https://twitter.com/DarrigoMelanie/status/2020910329417322798
- DarrigoMelanie

Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding

The Trump administration is planning this week to repeal the Obama-era scientific finding that serves as the legal basis for federal greenhouse-gas regulation, in the most far-reaching rollback of U.S. climate policy to date.
The finding provided the legal underpinning for the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules, which limited emissions from power plants and tightened fuel-economy standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act.