Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Saturday, February 21, 2026

NASA is taking steps to potentially roll back the Artemis II rocket and Orion spacecraft to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after overnight Feb. 21 observing interrupted flow of helium to the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket's interim cryogenic propulsion stage. Read more


A high-impact nor'easter is about to crush parts of the Northeast with blizzard conditions, heavy snow and strong winds. The forecast has been fraught with uncertainty for days, but has finally homed in on a major storm from the Mid-Atlantic to New England, including New York City, Boston and other big cities. Read more


"Network" turns 50 " and somehow feels more shocking, more sobering, and more timely than ever

February 21, 2026 Read more


The Bucks County District Attorney's Office announced Saturday that it is conducting an investigation into the police response to a walkout by Quakertown High School students who were protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions.


Just like that, San Francisco's teachers strike appears to be over. The San Francisco school district's 50,000 students, many still struggling to recover from years of school closures and learning loss during the pandemic, will be back in classrooms next week after a tentative agreement was reached early Friday between district officials and United Educators of San Francisco - which represents 6,000 teachers, aides, nurses, counselors, security guards and other workers


Lives in the Balance - Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Graham Nash, David Lindley - Live


Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter drama is finally headed to trial"but first came the harder task: finding jurors who don't loathe the world's richest man. Nine jurors were seated Thursday in San Francisco federal court after the judge spent more than five hours slicing through a pool of 93 prospective jurors in the investor class action suit against Musk, according to reporting by Bloomberg Law. Musk's attorney, Stephen Broome of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, argued the hostility in the jury pool was extraordinary. "We have so many people in the venire who hate him so much that we're becoming desensitized," Broome said. In most cases, he added, a juror admitting they "hated" the defendant would be immediately excused.


A state legislator's former chief of staff faces charges of child sexual exploitation and child sex trafficking. Federal agents arrested Craig Scott Valdez, 36, early Friday in Juneau, according to court documents. Valdez is an Anchorage resident listed as having served as Republican Wasilla state Sen. George Rauscher's chief of staff since November. Valdez was terminated Friday hours after the charges were made public, according to a press secretary for the state Senate minority caucus, of which Rauscher is a member. Valdez was also elected as chair of the Anchorage Young Republicans in January 2025 and became the group's state committee chair last month, according to social media posts. A grand jury on Tuesday indicted Valdez on charges of sex trafficking a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor " for both allegedly producing and receiving child sexual abuse material " and coercion and enticement of a minor.


Lynch, who often makes controversial remarks about his bandmate in the press, continued, "I always say Don has the same exact personality traits and character as [Donald] Trump, except Trump's a better singer." Read more


That's because this document shows the FBI conducted not just one, but four, interviews with Trump's accuser. And, as I reported Wednesday, while the government gave all four of those interviews to Maxwell's legal team ahead of her trial, the government gave only one of those four interviews to us in the Epstein files." Read more


At least ten people have been killed in IDF air strikes on eastern Lebanon. Despite a deal between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah following 13 months of war, Israel has carried out near-daily strikes on Lebanon. The IDF also killed two Palestinians with drone strikes in the Gaza Strip and Israeli Settlers murdered American citizen Nasrallah Abu Siyam (19) in the West Bank.

Israel: Main Source of Instability in the Middle East


A federal grand jury indicted USAF SSG Richard Stefon Ramroop (35) and his spouse Manuel George Madrid (32), charging them with defrauding US Department of War of millions of dollars and using the illicit proceeds to curate and maintain a luxurious lifestyle.

$1.1m Estate


Friday, February 20, 2026

Let's be honest with each other for a minute and look at the landscape of American politics in this, the year of our Lord 2026. We aren't just fighting over marginal tax rates or parts per billion of carbon in the atmosphere, or whether we should build a bridge to nowhere anymore.


In January 2026, the U.S. government approved the potential sale of American-made missiles to Denmark to strengthen its defensive capabilities in and around Greenland. On its face, the transaction looked routine: a NATO ally purchasing weapons through the Foreign Military Sales program to improve readiness and interoperability.


Job cuts at the IRS's tech arm have gone faster and farther than expected, with 40 percent of IT staff and four-fifths of tech leaders gone, the agency's CIO revealed yesterday.


The Los Angeles Fire Department attempted to shield Mayor Karen Bass and other top brass from "reputational harm" caused by the city's handling of the devastating Palisades Fire that burned 23,448 acres and killed 12 people, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. The department tried to shape news media coverage with a plan formulated ahead of the release of the high-profile After Action Fire Report on the Palisades Fire, including efforts to "minimize tough Q&A" by asking to hold closed-door briefings with the Fire Commission and City Council, according to The Times, which obtained a 13-page city document through a California Public Records Act request. Read more


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