Welcome back to the deep dive. We are looking
at a specific stack of reports today, all centered
around February 11th, 2026. Yes. And I have to
say, going through this material court filings,
economic studies, even TV ratings, it felt less
like reading the news and more like like watching
a high speed collision in slow motion. That's
a very fair assessment. It's messy. It is so
messy. It really feels like we're seeing this
head -on crash between the official story coming
out of Washington and, you know, the actual reality
playing out on the ground. Whether it's in a
courtroom, a grocery store, or even a football
stadium, there is this massive friction right
now. And that friction is exactly what we need
to analyze because, you know, in politics you
have spin. Everyone spins. That's normal. Sure.
But this stack of documents suggests something
else entirely. It suggests we're moving past
spin into a phase where the administration is
actively trying to legislate or litigate reality
itself. And the interesting part is that reality
is pushing back. It's pushing back hard. And
that's our focus today. So we have three main
battlegrounds to cover to really get this. First,
the legal system, a clash with military veterans,
and a huge move on immigration. Second, the economy.
They've got tariffs cracking party lines in Congress.
And third, the culture war, which has gone from,
I don't know, arguments on Twitter to literally
unbolting history from the walls of national
parks. That's full spectrum coverage. And the
common thread in all of them is this tension,
this battle between the narrative and the evidence.
OK, let's start with the legal side. This story
about the veterans and the grand jury. It just
jumped out at me because it feels like such an
unforced error. It really does. So walk us through
the setup here. We have this group of high profile
politicians who are also veterans. Right. So
this involves a specific group of Democrats,
all with significant military backgrounds. We're
talking about Senators Mark Kelly and Alyssa
Slotkin. OK. And then representatives like Jason
Crowe, Maggie Goodlander, Chris D 'Alucio and
Chrissy Hulahan. These aren't just, you know,
career politicians. Mark Kelly was an astronaut,
a combat pilot. And Slotkin was CIA. These are
serious people. Heavy hitters. Exactly. And they
released a video, just a 90 second spot. But
the content is crucial here. What did it say?
Well, the administration's reaction makes it
sound like they called for an uprising. But if
you actually watch it, they were just reminding
active duty soldiers of their obligation under
the UCMJ. the Uniform Code of Military Justice
to refuse illegal orders. Which, to be clear,
is standard military training. I mean, that's
day one stuff, right? It's the foundation of
modern military law. You know, since Nuremberg,
I was just following orders. It's not a defense.
They were just restating the law. But the White
House reaction was... Not that. It was explosive.
We have a post here from President Trump's social
media account where he labeled it seditious behavior
at the highest level. Seditious? That is a heavy,
heavy legal term. That's not just, I disagree
with you. No, that's you are trying to overthrow
the government. And he didn't just tweet about
it. He called for arrests. He explicitly said
an example must be set. And they tried to make
good on that. The DOJ, under U .S. Attorney Jeanine
Pirro, actually sought an indictment. They did.
And this is where the story takes a fascinating
turn. You know that famous saying about grand
juries? A prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.
Right. The idea being that a grand jury almost
always does what the prosecutor asks. It's usually
just a rubber stamp. And not this time. No. The
ham sandwich walked free. Yeah. The grand jury
refused to indict. They looked at this video
of veterans reading military law. and just said
no. That is a massive signal. It shows that,
despite the rhetoric, the actual citizens on
that jury, they aren't buying it. They're not
buying the narrative that this was treason. So
here's the strategic question. Why do this? Why
pick a fight with Mark Kelly, of all people?
That's the billion -dollar question. The reports
we have mention that this might be creating a
scray sand effect. Right, where you try to suppress
something and just end up making it a thousand
times more famous. Exactly. By targeting Mark
Kelly, an astronaut, a veteran, a moderate, and
calling him a traitor, the administration is
arguably doing his PR work for him. The source
material says he's looking more and more like
a viable 2028 contender because of this. They're
casting him as the hero in their own movie. Precisely.
You don't generally win over the middle of the
country by attacking people they see as patriots.
OK, so the administration hit a wall there, but
they seem to be having more success, or at least
they're trying a more sophisticated move on immigration.
Yes. This Fifth Circuit court ruling, it felt
a lot more technical than the veterans story,
but the implications seem way bigger. This is
much quieter. But legally, it's an earthquake.
And to understand it, we have to look at one
specific legal term. applicant for admission.
Break that down for us. What does that usually
mean? Traditionally, you have a distinction between
the border and the interior. If you're stopped
at an airport or a border crossing, you are an
applicant for admission. You have fewer rights.
Because you haven't technically entered the country
yet. Exactly. But if you're already living in,
say, Kansas or Ohio, even if you're undocumented,
you have different due process rights. It's the
difference between standing on the front porch
asking to come in versus already being inside
the house. That's a great analogy. But this ruling,
it changes the map. The administration and now
the Fifth Circuit has decided that if you are
out of status, you are an applicant for admission
no matter where you are. So legally speaking,
the person already in the house is treated like
they're still on the porch. Correct. And the
consequence of that is mandatory, indefinite
detention without bond. No hearing. You just
sit in jail. For years, potentially. It could
be years. There was a dissent in this case, though,
from Judge Dana Douglas. Yes, and her dissent
cut right to the core of it. She wrote that this
interpretation means, and I'm quoting, the border
is now everywhere. The border is everywhere.
That is a chilling phrase. It implies that the
extraordinary powers the government has at the
border now extend to every single zip code. And
there's another layer here the sources highlight
called judge shopping. Well, the administration
knows this interpretation is radical. We're talking
360 other federal judges nationwide have ruled
against this policy. They lose almost everywhere
else. But what do they do? They physically move
the detainees. They are transferring people to
detention centers, specifically in Texas and
Louisiana. Because those states fall under the
Fifth Circuit. Exactly. They are manipulating
the geography of the prisoner to manipulate the
outcome of the law. It's moving the human pieces
to the one square on the board where the rules
favor them. It's creating a fragmented legal
reality where the Constitution means one thing
in Texas and something completely different everywhere
else. And that instability is part of this whole
battle for reality we're talking about. Let's
pivot from the courts to the economy, because
while lawyers are fighting over definitions,
regular people are looking at their bank accounts.
And the story here is about tariffs, but it's
really about a rebellion in Congress. This is
fascinating. We're seeing cracks in party discipline
that just weren't there a year ago. We have to
talk about the gag rule. Explain that. This was
Speaker Mike Johnson's rule. Yes. Johnson knows
the president's tariffs are controversial, even
among Republicans. So, to protect his members
from taking a tough vote, he implemented a rule
that blocked any votes related to tariffs. It
was a shield. Just, we're not even going to talk
about this. Right. But the rule expired. He needed
a vote to renew it. And yesterday, he lost. Three
Republicans, Bacon, Kiley, and Massey, voted
with the Democrats to let it die. Three people?
That sounds tiny. Why does this matter so much?
Under normal Congress, it would be noise. But
in this one... The margins are razor thin. Three
votes is a landslide. It broke the speaker's
control over the floor. There's a signal. It
signals that the fear of the terrorists is starting
to outweigh the fear of party leadership. So
now the gag is off. What's next? The report mentions
a discharge petition. Right. That's a maneuver
to force a bill onto the floor for a vote, even
if leadership hates it. Democrats are planning
to use it to force a vote on the Canadian tariffs.
Now, realistically, this isn't going to become
law, right? The president would veto it. So isn't
this just theater? It's not about making law.
It's about making a record. The point is to force
every Republican to go on the record, yes or
no, on these tariffs. Because the economic data
suggests that voting yes is getting politically
toxic. Very toxic. We have a study here from
the Keele Institute. It breaks down who is actually
paying for these trade wars. And it doesn't match
the talking points. Not at all. The administration
claims foreign countries pay the tariffs. The
Keel data shows that American consumers and businesses
are paying 96 % of the cost. It's basically a
sales tax. And who is getting hit the hardest?
Farmers. They're getting squeezed from both sides.
Higher costs for equipment and retaliatory tariffs
cutting off their export markets. The report
lists some specific states. Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota,
North Carolina, Ohio, Texas. Not random states.
Those are the Senate battlegrounds for the 2026
midterms. If farmers in Iowa and Ohio turn on
the GOP over this, the Senate is in play. It's
history rhyming. The notes mention that old song
from 1890, all on account of the tariff. Exactly.
In 1890, the Republicans were wiped out in the
midterms because of a tariff. The song went,
the Republicans this year have gone up the spout,
all on account of the tariff. Democrats are betting
2026 will be a repeat. And the voting data we
have seems to back that bet up. The special election
numbers look pretty grim for the GOP. They really
do. Special elections are like the canary in
the coal mine. And we're seeing it consistent.
a double -digit shift toward Democrats compared
to 2024. Not one or two percent. We're talking
swings of 20 or 30 points in some districts.
That's massive. And when you look at the demographics,
something surprising is happening with non -college
-educated voters. This is the key metric. We've
known for years that college -educated voters
have been moving away from the Manjé movement.
But the bedrock was always the non -college voter.
Now disapproval in that group is breaking 50%.
That's the firewall cracking. It is. If you lose
the suburbs and you start losing your working
class base, the math just becomes impossible.
So facing all this, how is the White House responding?
You'd expect a pivot, right? Instead, we got
a paper titled, Don't Be a Panikin, We're Winning.
Don't be a panikin. Seriously. I wish I was making
it up. And the source material makes this brilliant
comparison to... Joe DiMaggio. The baseball player.
Yes. When he retired, he insisted his contract
require him to be introduced as the greatest
living ballplayer. And the point is, you know,
Babe Ruth didn't need a clause like that. Right.
If you have to demand that people say, you are
winning, you probably aren't winning. It's the
any man who must say, I am the king. is no true
king rule. It just reeks of insecurity. It does.
Which brings us to the final and maybe most bizarre
battlefield, the culture war. We've talked laws
and money, but now we have to talk about the
Super Bowl. This is where the battle for reality
gets petty, but also really revealing. The administration
made a huge deal out of the ratings, claiming
a drop in viewership was because of the woke
agenda. Right. They put out a graphic comparing
2024 non -woke to 2025 woke. And Nielsen did
report 124 .9 million viewers, which is down
a bit. So on the surface they have a data point.
But if you actually zoom in on the numbers, the
narrative... completely collapses. It just dissolves.
The peak viewership of the entire broadcast was
137 .8 million people. And when did that peak
happen? During the halftime show? During the
halftime show starring Bad Bunny. The very thing
they labeled woke and claimed was driving people
away was actually the moment the most people
were watching. So the ratings dropped because
the game was a blowout, not because of the culture
war. Exactly. But the political narrative required
the drop to be ideological. You even had Republican
Congressman Andy Ogles calling the halftime show
porn. Wow. It just suggests that the silent majority
might actually just want to watch football and
listen to pop music. But while the Super Bowl
stuff is arguably funny, what's happening in
the national parks is it's really disturbing.
This isn't just spinning ratings. This is physical
erasure. This is the part of the deep dive that
actually worried me the most. We are seeing a
concerted effort to use the National Park Service
to curate history. The example in Philadelphia
at Independence National Historical Park. What
happened there? There were exhibits discussing
the role of enslaved people in constructing those
historic buildings. It's a factual part of the
site's history. The administration ordered them
removed. And they didn't replace them with something
else. No. The report describes empty bolt holes
and darkened spots on the wall where the plaques
used to be. That image of empty bolt holes, that's
powerful. It's not just that the information
is gone. The scar of the removal is left behind.
It's a very literal whitewashing. And it's happening
at Stonewall, too, where they ordered the removal
of rainbow flags. And then President Trump announced
he's installing a statue of Christopher Columbus
at the White House. And not just any Columbus
statue. No, he's dredging up the specific statue
that was thrown into the Baltimore harbor by
protesters back in 2020. He's giving it a place
of honor. It's a signal. It's not just domestic
history either. There's this incident with Vice
President J .D. Vance in Armenia. Right. Vance
visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial, did the
standard thing, tweeted about honoring the victims
of the 1915 genocide. A historical fact recognized
by the U .S. government. But he deleted it. Presumably
to avoid offending Turkey. So you have empty
bolt holes where slavery history was, missing
flags where gay rights history was, and deleted
tweets where genocide history was. It feels like
if a fact is inconvenient, you just hit delete
on a computer or on a wall. But this brings us
back to the Streisand effect. The sources argue
those empty bolt holes in Philadelphia might
end up speaking louder than the exhibits ever
did. When you blatantly remove something, you
invite people to ask, what was there and why
didn't you want me to see it? The silence becomes
the noise. Exactly. And that's the thread connecting
all these stories, whether it's the grand jury
refusing to indict, the judge dissenting on detention,
or the vote. swinging away, reality is stubborn.
The administration can say they're winning, they
can say the Super Bowl failed, but the data and
the people seem to be saying, no, we can see
with our own eyes. That is the friction. You
can litigate reality, you can spin it, but eventually
the actual cost of tariffs hits your wallet,
the actual votes get counted, and the actual
history remains. So for you listening, why does
this matter? Why care about a grand jury in D
.C. or a statue in Baltimore? It matters because
we're in a moment where your own perception is
under siege. The gap between the official version
and the observed version of America is getting
wider. You have to verify what you're seeing.
And there's a final question I want to leave
you with. We've seen them try to edit the past,
the slavery exhibits, the genocide recognition.
If they are willing to alter the physical evidence
of history that has already happened, what are
they doing to the present? That's the scary part.
If history is being rewritten in real time, what
current events are being edited before they even
make it into the record books? Something to think
about. We'll keep watching the bolt holes. Thanks
for diving in with us. See you next time.