February 23, 2026

Now, on to the news…

The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump, which struck down the president’s sweeping emergency tariffs, should put to rest the liberal commentariat’s hand-wringing about the alleged partisanship of the court, argues Judge Glock.

“The ruling shows the Court is still performing the traditional conservative function of limiting the power of the administrative state, under presidents of all stripes,” he writes. It also shows that Chief Justice John Roberts’s “long campaign against unilateral executive control of the economy continues, regardless of who’s in the White House—and no matter what the partisans say.”

Read here for Glock’s analysis of the decision.

The Supreme Court’s decision against President Trump’s tariffs wasn’t revolutionary or catastrophic, Ilya Shapiro argues. It was more like “doctrinal housekeeping.” 

Indeed, it’s not that tariffs as a whole are unconstitutional, or that the president doesn’t have the authority ever to levy them. The Court held that the IEEPA—the law that the solicitor general relied on—doesn’t grant the president the authority to levy tariffs.

“IEEPA authorizes the president to ‘investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit’ various economic transactions,” Shapiro writes. “What it does not mention is tariffs.”

Read his analysis.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supports the arts and humanities and provides academic jobs for progressive scholars. Some left-wing academics have worked at Mellon-funded posts for most of their careers.

In this way, Mellon and other large, progressive grantmaking organizations function as patrons, in two senses: they fund otherwise-nonprofitable work and distribute jobs to their ideological allies.

In fact, John Sailer argues, these groups operate essentially like a political machine. “Like old school party bosses,” he writes, “Mellon and other foundations effectively funnel people into state-funded jobs” at public universities.

Read more on how the groups function here.

Colorado politics, once reddish and libertarian-leaning, have now turned a deep shade of blue, thanks in part to heavy migration from California. But now that Colorado’s politics resemble the Golden State’s, its demographic and economic fortunes increasingly do as well, notes Aaron Renn.

Like California, Colorado is losing residents to domestic outmigration, and overall population growth is anemic. High housing prices are pushing families away, and companies are fleeing the state in droves.

“It’s hard to identify a single decision that caused these trends, but broadly speaking, California-style blue governance is the culprit,” writes Renn. He describes how Colorado’s anti-growth and anti-business policies, as well as its far-left culture-war environment, have turned the state into “a cautionary tale of what happens when Democrats and Golden State refugees capture a state’s politics.” Read it here.

Born into a musical family, the 93-year-old composer John Williams initially studied to become a virtuoso. After serving in the military, he became a Hollywood session player, and by the late 1960s and early 1970s, was building his melodic style for television and film.

In John Williams: A Composer’s Life, Tim Greiving offers “the first truly comprehensive look at a career that has shaped popular American cinema,” Robert Steven Mack writes. “Greiving argues that Williams, along with ‘populist’ filmmakers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, helped resuscitate the lush orchestral sound demoted after the studio system’s collapse in the mid-1960s. Williams was a crucial part of Hollywood’s renaissance in the 1970s and 1980s, digging cinema out of the doldrums after a decade of cultural and political turmoil.”

Read Mack’s review.

Lionel Shriver discusses her new novel, A Better Life, with Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Douglas Murray.

“Communists have not stopped trying to take over the Western World, and the USA is their Number One target.”

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mattcoul, commenting on radical groups’ efforts in L.A.

Photo credits: Chip Somodevilla / Staff / Getty Images News via Getty Images