Here We Go Again

 

Like Sherlock Holmes deducing a crime because the dog DIDN’T bark, we know something big must be up when Chuck Schumer is confronted by reporters and not only doesn’t go on at length, he also doesn’t attack President Trump. That’s the sobering conclusion many people are taking from Schumer’s brief comments and shaken demeanor after he left a White House briefing on potential attacks on Iran. All Schumer would say was, “This is serious. The administration has to make its case to the American people.”

We couldn’t begin to guess what he was told that shook him up so much that he became completely un-Schumer-like. Was it about Iran’s nuclear program, its threat to US bases or Israel, or the brutal mass killings of protesters? We don’t know, and we won’t unless the White House shares that information with the public, which is doubtful before any action is taken. But if something big does come down, this is a major clue that it won’t be unjustified.

 

Two Fingers

The legend usually centers on the Battle of Agincourt. According to popular tradition, French forces threatened to amputate the index and middle fingers of captured English longbowmen so they could never shoot again. Before battle, the archers supposedly held up those two fingers in a V shape to signal that they could still draw a bow. It is cinematic. It is memorable. It is almost certainly untrue.

No contemporary chronicle from 1415 mentions such a gesture. None of the major sources describing Agincourt refer to systematic finger amputation as a French policy. Medieval warfare could indeed be brutal, and mutilation was not unknown, but this specific practice, tied to English archers, lacks primary evidence.

The gesture itself, as an insult in England, appears clearly documented much later, particularly in the modern period. Its use as a vulgar sign developed centuries after Agincourt. Connecting it directly to medieval battlefields seems to be a retrospective invention.

What we do know is that English and Welsh longbowmen were decisive at Agincourt. Their rapid volleys disrupted advancing French men-at-arms, who were trapped in mud and narrow terrain. Discipline and positioning, not hand gestures, determined the outcome.

The V-sign story survives because it compresses complex history into a symbol. It turns logistics, terrain, and tactical patience into a single defiant image. But history rarely fits so neatly into folklore.

 

VDH discusses Susan Rice and threats of reprisal.

 

Bullet Points:

** Pakistan’s defence minister has declared ‘open war’ on Afghanistan, as his country’s military launched a volley of airstrikes in response to a Taliban attack on the border. Kabul, Afghanistan‘s capital, was rocked by multiple explosions in the early hours of Friday, with dramatic footage broadcast by Pakistani news apparently showing major blasts in built-up areas.

** What’s going on in Indonesia?

** California is like a drunk guy in a bar who doesn’t have a job but does have an account there. He’s buying everyone drinks, but he can never pay for them.

** (Right) WASHINGTON, D.C. — In what is being celebrated as the single greatest act of accidental comedy since the invention of the television, broadcast cameras at President Trump’s State of the Union address cut directly to Rep. Sarah McBride the exact nanosecond he said, “Because they refused to call their daughter a boy.”

The first openly transgender congresswoman — who identifies as a woman the same way the rest of us identify as “tired of this crap” — was captured mid-transition from resting politician face to “someone just read my medical records on live TV.” The timing was so surgically precise it made surgeons jealous, and liberals need trigger warnings. Conservatives immediately crowned the cameraman “MVP of the Night” and launched a petition to award him the Medal of Freedom. “It wasn’t a cutaway,” one viewer tweeted, “it was performance art.”

** Japanese girls don’t date black men unless you’re Michael Jackson. (Yes, I know that he’s dead, but I’m not sure that the women on Okinawa know that.)

** When all of France is depending on you.

 

ROK Nukes

An excerpted version of this article also appeared in Korean in Chosun Ilbo on February 12, 2026.

 

Insider Trading

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a rare moment of bipartisan self-awareness, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leapt to her feet and clapped as she’d just won the lottery Tuesday night when President Trump called for a total ban on members of Congress trading stocks based on non-public information.

“Finally!” Pelosi reportedly exclaimed, after devoting the last four decades of her life to turning a $174,000 congressional salary into a nine-figure fortune through a series of trades so perfectly timed they made Wall Street whisper, “How does she do that?”

“I’ve given everything to public service,” Pelosi told reporters afterward, adjusting the pearls purchased with last quarter’s suspiciously prescient NVIDIA gains. “And public service has given everything back to Paul and me — multiple times over. Now that we’ve cleaned up nicely, it’s only right that we shut this golden door behind us so these young politicians can’t do the same thing we did.”

 

Mandatory Union Dues

Almost eight years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that government and other public sector workers can’t be forced to pay union dues. That’s because unions frequently spend money on politics, and not all members agree on whom to support. But all these years later, the battles between employees and their unions continue. Today, Mikinzie Frost reports on a legal challenge mounted by two teachers in New Jersey. Marie Dupont has been a teacher in New Jersey for 20 years, spending most of her career at this school near Newark.

Union dues for NJ teachers are $1,500 per year. One could ask what the teachers get in return for that assessment.

Sean Spiller for NJ Campaign Ad: We’ve got to make sure we’ve got quality early education and child care. That is why I’m asking you to stand with me right now as I run to be the next governor of New Jersey.

Marie Dupont: We did not give them permission to use our money to back up Spiller’s political campaign.

The court found that forcing public employees to pay mandatory union fees constitutes compelled speech and violates their First Amendment rights.

But in New Jersey, Dupont argues her rights are being ignored. Her lawsuit claims the union’s use of millions of dollars in member dues has been deceptive. It says the union steered the money to Garden State Forward, a political group created and controlled by union officials. Then, Garden State Forward sent $40 million to Working New Jersey, a super PAC run by union insiders, and another group called Protecting Our Democracy. Both groups spent millions of that money on Spiller’s campaign efforts. All while Dupont says, some union members had no idea their dues were being funneled to fuel their union president’s political aspirations.

Mikenzie Frost: Has anyone from the union explained how this money from your dues went to these organizations when you made it clear that you opted out of that?

Marie Dupont: No. No, never. We didn’t get an answer.

David Osborne: There is not a lot that union members can do to stop their union from sending their money to politics.

David Osborne, from the Commonwealth Foundation, focuses on public employee rights and says the violations involving union spending are part of a national pattern.

David Osborne: Unions have increasingly dipped into union membership dues as a source of political funds. What union officials have found it far easier to do is just take the really big pot of money, take a little bit off the top, and send it to another political organization, which can do all the political spending from there.

A spokesperson for the NJCAA calls this lawsuit baseless and without merit, saying that it’s a member-led union with decisions on endorsements and spending made by its elected leaders. The union did recently ask a judge to dismiss this lawsuit, but that motion was just rejected, and an appeal is expected.

 

TEN – Count ‘Em – TEN

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court and sided with the state of Louisiana, allowing enforcement of a state law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in school classrooms. The court ruled that the Ten Commandments are both religiously and historically significant, and the “dual character forecloses any categorical rule against their display on public property.” Of course, the plaintiffs could appeal to the Supreme Court, but we don’t like their chances, considering the friezes on the SCOTUS building include two tablets representing the Ten Commandments, precisely because of their historic significance to the law.

 

Identify the Ship (and class)

1

 

2 & 3

 

4

 

5

 

 

End