Better in their words…

Markets set records; court ends catch-and-release; judge OKs DEI crackdown; anti-ICE protestors heckle Walz; Somalia eyes voter-ID elections; Trump drug policy rattles Swiss healthcare.

Source: SUPPRESSION ☙ Saturday, February 7, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS

ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY

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It’s another front-pager the Times chucked in favor of a story about a marine monument to Atlantic fishermen, and the “racist” video the President retweeted. “Stocks hit historic milestone as Dow crosses 50,000 points for first time ever.” They are going to need a bigger book to keep track of all the records President Trump is breaking.

In what the confounded experts are calling “statistically impossible” and “clearly some kind of data error,” the Dow Jones Industrial Average sailed past 50,000 points Friday, a milestone that sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists had confidently predicted would never happen because President Trump’s policies would first reduce the American economy to a smoking crater populated only by unemployed factory workers trading bitcoin for canned goods. CNBC, June 2024 (even before the election):

Sixteen! Sixteen Nobel laureates took breaks from polishing their prizes (which are apparently handed out like candy by Scandinavian Epstein fanboys) to warn us Trump would “reignite inflation.” And … the Dow just hit 50,000, with eggs and gas cheaper than ever. Too bad the Nobel Institute doesn’t have a return policy. Maybe the Committee should create a new category for people who excel at failing upward.

In possibly one of the worst takes in modern media history, only two days ago, the Motley Fool excreted this bit of journalistic vaporware:

The Motley Fool’s grim economic experts did a deep dive into a century of economic data, cranked up teams of AI analysts, crunched the numbers, and predicted with stunning accuracy to the tenth decimal place that there was a 50/50 chance of a market crash. Fifty-fifty! That’s like shrugging and saying, “let’s flip for it.” Some poor nitwit might have invested ten minutes in reading that rubbish; where can he submit a claim?

This whopping story is even bigger than it looks. The day before the 2024 election on November 4th, the Dow closed at 41,794.60. Yesterday it closed above 50,100. That makes nearly a +10,000-point expansion in one yearwhile consumer prices have been mostly flat or even fallen. In other words, the whole Dow climbed +20% higher than it has ever been, in a single year. The last time this happened (excluding recoveries) was during the so-called “tech bubble” in the 1990s. (The bubble never popped. Experts were wrong again!)

President Trump was pleased, as you can imagine, and posted about it often yesterday afternoon, in this vein:

Killjoy commentators and Democrats grumbled about how passing 50,000 doesn’t really mean anything, since it’s just a psychological accomplishment; after all, there’s not real difference between 49,999 and 50,000, which is like telling your wife that being married for 30 years doesn’t really mean anything special since, using logic, it’s just one more than 29.

Another possibility is that tariffs are working, investment is flooding into the U.S., American companies are actually becoming more valuable, and consumer sentiment is much stronger than the “polls” suggest. But don’t wait for corporate media to tell you any of that.

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“The border is now everywhere.” Yesterday, CNN ran a powerfully good story headlined, “Appeals court greenlights Trump admin policy of detaining undocumented immigrants without opportunity to seek release.” So-called ‘catch and release’ is over.

For over thirty years, when ICE arrested illegal aliens living inside the country —not on the border, but in places like Minneapolis or Houston— those detainees could slow deportation down to glacial speed by requesting a “bond hearing” to argue for their release on bail. Nobody really knew why; it was just how things were done. Norms and customs.

But the Trump Administration took a fresh look at the statute and said, hey, wait a minute, the law says people “seeking admission” to the United States don’t get bond hearings. It just says “shall detain.” Shall. It also says that, if you’re here illegally, you’re still considered to be ‘seeking admission’— you just skipped the line. In other words, a person who never bothered to apply for citizenship doesn’t magically get more rights than someone who at least tried.

The Fifth Circuit agreed, 2-1. Judge Edith Jones (Reagan appointee) wrote that “the text says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior Administrations,” essentially ruling that thirty years of doing it wrong doesn’t numinously make it right. The dissenting judge, Dana Douglas (Biden), fussily complained that, under the literal reading, “the border is now everywhere.”

Everywhere, Judge Douglas? Walmart? (Well, okay.) Is it on the Moon? In Roblox? At Dave & Buster’s? The line for Space Mountain? Burning Man? The Matrix? Olive Garden? The comments section of the New York Times??

Actually, if you think about it, Judge Douglas was unintentionally right. If you’re here illegally, the border is everywhere, because you never lawfully crossed it. You just dragged it with you.

🔥 The decision might sound technical, but the practical implications were huge. Now, if an alien crossed illegally and ICE finds them —wherever they are— they’re done. They won’t walk American streets freely again unless they win their removal proceeding (which is highly unlikely). In the meantime, they must stay in detention. They can’t go home to get their things. They are simply done, and the longer they fight, the longer they remain in detention.

Their choice now is to either agree to deportation, or cool it in detention while their lawyers waste time on futile filings. Then they get deported anyway when they lose.

After this decision, many more illegal aliens will simply surrender their frivolous court fights and accept deportation, which will both relieve court backlogs and also help convince many more illegal aliens to self-deport and avoid the trouble. (Thanks and h/t to Will Chamberlain’s cogent analysis.)

🔥 Either way, Judge Douglas’s dark warning that “the border is now everywhere,” frankly sounds less like a legal argument and more like something you’d hear from a cannabis-infused indigenous rights major musing at 2am. “Dude! What if … the border … is inside of us?” To paraphrase the majority’s response: “the border is wherever illegal aliens are, which is in fact how borders have worked since approximately forever.”

When Judge Jones correctly wrote that “the text says what it says, regardlessof the decisions of prior Administrations,” she was reading the law instead of vibes. Imagine that. The dissent complained about “thirty years” of contrary practice, as if repeatedly misreading a statute eventually makes it correct. By that logic, I’ve been mispronouncing “quinoa” for so long it’s now legally KWIN-oh-ah.

However you say it, what kind of infernal substance is quinoa, anyway? Oh, never mind.

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That wasn’t all. DEI firings are back on the menu. Yesterday, Courthouse News reported, “Fourth Circuit clears path for Trump’s DEI crackdown.”

Right after taking office, President Trump signed executive orders telling federal agencies to eliminate their DEI programs and requiring all government contractors to certify they don’t operate them either. Then a Baltimore federal judge (of course) promptly enjoined Trump’s orders, ruling they violated free speech and were unconstitutionally vague. But Friday, the Fourth Circuit “reluctantly” overturned that injunction — and here’s the kicker: an Obama appointee wrote the majority opinion.

Judge Albert Diaz ruled that Trump’s orders can’t be challenged head-on en masse, only through how agencies apply them to specific cases. “President Trump has decided that equity isn’t a priority in his administration,” Diaz wrote, “and so has directed his subordinates to terminate funding that supports equity-related projects. Whether that’s sound policy or not isn’t our call.” Translation: We’re judges, not legislators.

In a bizarre bonus concurrence —a little ‘last word’ extra opinion after writing the majority one— Diaz confessed he reached his conclusion “reluctantly,” opined that the evidence suggested a “sinister story,” and tried to buck up disappointed liberals: “Follow the law. Continue your critical work. Keep the faith. And depend on the Constitution, which remains a beacon amid the tumult.”

The odd missive was less like a legal opinion and more like encouraging someone whose dog you just ran over to “stay positive” and “maybe try a goldfish next time.”

Let’s not miss the significance. An Obama judge admitted —in writing, in a published opinion— that it’s not the judiciary’s job to decide whether Trump’s policies are “sound.” Someone check and see if hell froze over. When Judge Diaz told liberals to “keep the faith,” he seemed unaware that their ‘faith’ isusing the courts to override elections. In other words, he just excommunicated them from their own religion.

All I can say is that Judge Diaz’s strange bonus concurrence reads like a Dear John letter. “It’s not you, it’s the Constitution. I’ll always treasure our time together. Stay strong. Don’t text me.”

The case continues, but the writing is on the injunction. DEI is on the chopping block, with more potential firings from resisting agencies, and contract denials for private contractors who refuse to prioritize merit. I told you these activist judges would get sorted by the Courts of Appeal.

🔥 In related news this week, CNBC ran this equally encouraging headline. Corporate struggle sessions are evaporating:

A nation heals. (With special thanks to tenacious conservative influencers like Robby Starbuck, who mercilessly hounded companies till they scrapped their stupid DEI departments.)

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t get much sleep last night, since angry, frustrated Anti-ICE protestors screamed maledictions at him and played loud music outside his house all night long. They didn’t like the deal he made with Border Czar Tom Homan to “lower the temperature” after two civilians got themselves shot in Minneapolis.

CLIP: Deranged protestors heckle Tim Walz for ‘caving in’ to Trump Administration (0:14).

Last week, terrific Border Czar Tom Homan made Minnesota an offer it couldn’t refuse: cooperate with ICE, or the 2,700 federal agents flooding the Twin Cities would become a permanent fixture. The deal was simple. Under so-called “Basic Ordering Agreements,” Minnesota county jails would honor ICE detainers without requiring a judicial warrant, hold criminal aliens up to 48 extra hours past their release date, and give ICE agents “reasonable access” to inmates for immigration interviews. In exchange, the feds agreed to pull 700 officers out immediately, pay jails up to $2,500 per inmate, and then everybody could pretend it wasn’t a total Walz capitulation.

Vice President Vance explained, “We’re not drawing down the immigration enforcement… the officers being sent home were mainly in Minneapolis to protect those carrying out arrests.” Seven hundred agents pulled. Two thousand remain. That’s still 2,000 more than before Operation Metro Surge started.

On Wednesday, Homan announced that an “unprecedented number of counties” had signed on, and the drawdowns began. Governor Walz grudgingly called it “a step in the right direction” while insisting he still wanted all the remaining 2,000 agents gone — a statement that satisfied precisely no one, least of all the anti-ICE protesters who showed up at his house last night screeching that he’d caved.

It’s priceless irony. According to protesters at his house, Walz “caved” to Trump, which is hilarious because Walz hasn’t caved to anything in years except possibly the Golden Corral. What actually happened is that Walz discovered —as all sane Democrats eventually do— that there’s no such thing as “woke enough.” You can let Minneapolis burn, hide your National Guard, and put tampons in boys’ bathrooms, but the moment you fail to personally assault an ICE agent, you’re basically Mussolini.

It’s the good old purity spiral.

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In Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home state of Minnesota, a single registered voter can “vouch” for up to eight others who want to sign up to vote on election day without IDs. Representative Omar sneeringly calls ID requirements “racist” and “voter suppression.” But Omar’s home country of Somalia —99% black— is holding its first real elections since 1969 (the year we landed on the Moon. Allegedly.) And guess what the “centerpiece” of the new Somalian elections is?

CLIP: NOW News reports on round-the-clock ID printing with fingerprint-verified biometrics in Mogadishu (0:26).

After decades of civil war and clan-based indirect elections, Somalia passed a 2024 law restoring universal suffrage (the right to vote). Voting begins this year. The new “one person, one vote” system requires biometric voter registration— citizens get photographed, fingerprinted, and issued voter ID cards. Not just driver’s licenses. No “vouching.” Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has announced that all future elections will require the new biometric voter ID.

No ID, no vote. No exceptions. (Somehow, Somalia will survive.)

Meanwhile, over in ‘Little Mogadishu’ (formerly known as Minneapolis), Representative Omar recently tweeted, “Our democracy depends on ending voter suppression!” The disconnect raises an obvious question: Is a tree racist when it falls in Somalia and no one is looking?

You cannot make this stuff up. While Minneapolis pushes to expand ID-less “voter vouching,” racially homogenous Somalia is making voters provide fingerprints. Maybe they didn’t get the “Jim Crow” memo. The irony.

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While the NYT gasses on about how TrumpRx isn’t a big deal and won’t really affect prices, the rest of the world is reacting like a salted snail being boiled in apple cider vinegar. Behold this remarkable Bloomberg headline: “Trump’s Attempt to Make Drugs Cheaper Is Pushing Up Prices in Other Countries.” Ouch.

For decades, Americans have paid the highest prices for drugs on planet Earth, more than citizens of any other country, effectively subsidizing the rest of the world’s healthcare. That allowed Democrats to point at the other countries as stellar examples of how well socialized medicine works. Well, bucko, there’s trouble brewing in them thar hills. Of Davos.

President Trump has now flipped the script. He insists that Americans pay the lowest price, at least equal to the best deal pharma offers any other country’s Marxist medical plan.

Unsurprisingly, the other countries who’ve been freeloading off us don’t like it. “The Swiss cannot and must not pay for price reductions in the USA with their health insurance premiums,” Switzerland’s hyphenated home affairs minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider insisted this week. So now it’s not fair. “‘Big Pharma’ should not be a swear word,” Swiss trade negotiator Helene Budliger Artieda said recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The basic problem is that, since Americans subsidize so many drugs, pharma simply can’t afford to charge everyone the same low price. Under the new rules, the average price must come up. But Switzerland is kicking. The Scandinavian darling is stubbornly refusing to pay more. The result is that some drugs are dropping off Switzerland’s socialized drug schedule, such as a Roche breast-cancer drug, which “might not be available to Swiss patients.”

Roche is a Swiss drugmaker. So, in other words, Swiss pharma is threatening to withhold cancer drugs from Swiss patients unless Americans keep subsidizing them. They’re holding their own country hostage. Brilliant.

💉 It is also unsurprising that we’re hearing the first and loudest complaints from Switzerland. Over half of its total exports are pharmaceuticals— drugs sold to Americans at inflated prices. In other words, 9 million Swiss built half of their export economy on overcharging 330 million Americans for medicine. Now they’re calling fair pricing an “existential threat.”

They’re not completely wrong. You will also be unsurprised to know that, thanks to American largesse, the Swiss tax their pharma giants to the moon. Add Trump’s new policies, and things are getting tight. “Lower prices will further shrink profit margins,” Bloomberg explained. “Add on a recent increase in Switzerland’s corporate tax rates,” the article continued, “and developing drugs in the country will become increasingly uncompetitive regardless of its long-standing expertise.”

The drugmakers can see which way the regulatory winds are blowing, and they aren’t waiting around. Swiss job losses are mounting. Novartis announced cuts to hundreds of manufacturing positions. Pfizer has sharply downsized its operations there, and Johnson & Johnson is exiting Swiss vaccine production altogether.

“I have never seen conditions in Switzerland this tough,” says Yuliya Feliziani, a pharma recruiter in Zurich. “Layoffs are increasing, and finding a new role has become exceptionally difficult, even for strong, experienced candidates.”

While I sympathize with ordinary Swiss whose socialist healthcare system is cutting them off from drugs because Americans aren’t paying ten times as much anymore, you can’t avoid savoring the irony as these “free” healthcare societies grapple with having to pay for their own medicines.

We are about to learn that we have long been paying for everyone else’s socialized healthcare.

Let the Times keep telling its readers that Trump’s healthcare policies aren’t really making healthcare more affordable. But it’s too late. Everybody already knows.

Have a wonderful weekend! Skate or sled back here on Monday morning, to launch February’s second week the right, C&C way, with all-new essential news and color commentary.

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