☕️ SUBWAY CODERS ☙ Friday, February 13, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
Trump stabs climate change religion; Spotify coders ride the subway; Goldman lawyer who loved "Uncle Jeffrey" gets the chop; Hawley flays Ellison over fraud; Snow White 'unexpectedly' lost $170M; more
Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday the Thirteenth! And right on cue, things aren’t going too well for the progressive horde. Your roundup includes: Trump and Zeldin drive a dagger through the heart of the climate change religion by revoking the EPA’s endangerment finding — cue liberal hysteria; Spotify’s best coders haven’t written a line of code since December and we’re all Swedish vibe coders now; Goldman Sachs’s top lawyer resigns over “Uncle Jeffrey” Epstein gifts including a $9,350 Hermès bag; Senator Hawley barks at Minnesota AG Ellison and says he ought to be in jail over Somali fraud; and new filings reveal Disney’s Snow White remake lost a staggering $170 million — mirror, mirror on the wall.
🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍
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The Guardian called it a “gift to billionaire polluters.” The Times predicted deaths and Dengue (* not made up). You could practically hear the liberals hyperventilating through the safe-room paywall. Yesterday’s biggest story earned a whole section at the top of the New York Times’s web page, and was headlined, “Trump Repeals Key Greenhouse Gas Finding, Erasing EPA’s Power to Fight Climate Change.”
In what the White House called “the single largest deregulatory action in American history,” President Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin formally terminated the Obama-era “endangerment finding”— a 2009 regulatory determination that carbon dioxide, methane, and four other greenhouse gases endanger public health. That simple finding cascaded into hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of rules, guidances, crimes, and other regulations.
EPA built the finding into a massive temple to the climate gods. Then last year, EPA Chief Zeldin made an unimaginable promise. He said he would “drive a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” We applauded the sentiment, but nobody believed he could pull it off.
Yesterday, Zeldin officially slid the dagger right between Big Climate’s ribs. The climate change religion will need more than thoughts and prayers.
🔥 Cue the hysteria! “This shameful abdication will harm Americans’ health, homes, and economic well-being,” ranted Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), whose scientific credentials include barbecuing raw burgers with slices of cheese already on them and then posting the pictures on X. Not a genius.
The dearly departed “endangerment finding” followed a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA holding that greenhouse gases can be regulated under the Clean Air Act (but not must be regulated). Obama’s EPA took that ball and ran it in for a goal, publishing its 2009 “determination” that the six greenhouse gases threaten public health. It all sounds wonky, goofy, and harmless, but it was regulatory manure that fertilized vast fields of new rules and regulations.
Once CO2 was legally dangerous, the EPA could regulate basically anything that produces the common gas, like anything that burns fuel, moves, exhales, or farts. Cars, trucks, power plants, light bulbs, gas stoves— even backyard grills, if they felt like it. The EPA regulated reams of products, and would have eventually regulated cow ‘emissions,’ undersea volcanoes, and the hot air generated by Congress (which is by far the largest emitter on the planet).
That’s why revoking the “determination” didn’t just change a rule. It yanked the legal foundation out from under seventeen dreadful years of fantastically expensive and ever-expanding climate regulation. The downstream effects of ending it are impossible to overstate.
Every federal rule that used CO2’s “dangerous” status as its legal justification is now on shaky ground— and there are thousands of them.
Vehicle emission standards that added thousands of dollars to the price of every new car and truck. Power plant regulations that forced coal plants to close and drove up electricity bills. Energy efficiency mandates on everything from refrigerators to furnaces. Building codes requiring expensive “green” upgrades. Even federal procurement rules forcing agencies to buy electric vehicles.
All of it was anchored to that single 2009 finding. Yank the anchor, and the whole regulatory armada drifts out to sea. Industries that have spent billions on compliance are suddenly free. Energy costs should drop. And the armies of federal climate regulators who spent seventeen years building their empire will need to update their LinkedIn profiles.
Hey, it’s just about affordability. Right? Hello? MacFly?
🔥 The Times blamed “hard right” conservatives (its new label, replacing “far right”), and most of all —I am not making this up— Project 2025. The Times’ headline from Tuesday:
I don’t know about you, but I have lost track of the long list of evils that Democrats swear will destroy the planet every election cycle. Global cooling, global warming, oil shortages, oil excesses, nuclear winter, stranded polar bears, hair spray, mild viruses, scientists tinkering with dinosaur DNA, pickup trucks, MAGA hats, et cetera and so on.
The world actually ends, though, does it? At this point, the End of the World has more sequels than the Fast and Furious franchise, and roughly the same relationship to reality.
President Trump, in his classic style, told reporters the now-terminated endangerment finding was “all a scam, a giant scam” done by “stupid people.” They sneered at his unscientific language. Experts don’t talk like that! But they missed the gist; that was Trump’s unspoken point. Experts are stupid people who think they are smart.
The (new) EPA said the repeal will save Americans at least $1.3 trillion and roughly $2,400 per new vehicle. Democrats, who have spent nearly 20 years claiming that the planet was on the verge of climate collapse, were hysterical and vowed to sue. Read the Times article for a laugh.
CO2 was perfectly safe for the entire history of human civilization, then became “dangerous” in 2009, and is now safe again, as of yesterday afternoon. The molecule didn’t change. The politics did. Thank goodness. The green scam is disappearing into hot air.
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Goodbye, learn-to-code days, we barely knew ye. Yesterday, tech influencers buzzed about a Tech Crunch story headlined, “Spotify says its best developers haven’t written a line of code since December, thanks to AI.” In an earnings call, the CEO said the streaming music company rolled out some of its biggest new features while its senior engineers sat back and supervised the machines. Canary, meet coal mine.
It’s a brave new world. “As a concrete example, an engineer at Spotify on their morning commute from Slack on their cell phone can tell Claude to fix a bug or add a new feature to the iOS app,” CEO Gustav Söderström said. “And once Claude finishes that work, the engineer then gets a new version of the app, pushed to them on Slack on their phone, so that he can then merge it to production, all before they even arrive at the office.”
So simple! “We foresee this not being the end of the line in terms of AI development, just the beginning,” Söderström added. No kidding. The “end of the line” is when the AI figures out it doesn’t need the guy on the subway either. Then Söderström cluelessly bragged about raising the subscription price three times last year. (I have no idea how you pronounce “Söderström,” so don’t even ask.)
Spotify’s internal AI system is called “Honk,” which is either Swedish for “revolutionary technology” or the sound their stock will make when investors realize they’re paying senior developer salaries for people to ride the subway and check Slack. The irony is thick, but there’s a thin silver lining. The company’s senior engineers aren’t losing their jobs —yet— in fact, they seem to be working even more now. It’s just a different job.
The streaming platform still, for now, needs experienced human programmers who brainstorm useful new features based on customer desires that are possible, and who supervise the AI to ensure it doesn’t go off the rails. It’s much less clear what value Spotify’s junior engineers add, since they don’t know what to tell the AI to do. Maybe go get the coffee.
Tech folks online are hotly debating their futures. Some sneer at the notion of AI replacement. After all, more features doesn’t necessarily translate to better products. Even in Sweden. But I can’t help thinking about that scene from Office Space. What would you say that you DO here? Oh, I ride the subway and check Slack.
Tech influencer Lenny Rachitsky agreed:
If you are interested in this sort of thing, read Lenny’s whole post.
I wonder whether software companies will continue to exist in their present form at all. Spotify does have assets: a library of intellectual property (Portlanders: the music rights). I wonder whether its future business model will be purely transactional; charging all our AIs for access to the music, so we can each use our own personalized interfaces. We are all Swedish vibe coders now.
Consider a random example. This week, a small business owner (not a coder) asked his desktop AI for help building out an Excel spreadsheet. The AI suggested building a whole new software instead:
He was like, sure, yeah, go for it. Three hours later, he had a fully customized, web-based business management system far beyond anything he could do in Excel.
Think about it this way. Right now, you spend time testing different music platforms to see which one you like best: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime. What if you spent a fraction of that time telling your own AI what you wanted the interface to look like? You’d still rent the music, but you’ll consume it however you want.
We are quickly reaching the point where something has to give. Spotify raised prices three times while simultaneously replacing its workforce with virtual robots. At least when Henry Ford automated the assembly line, he had the decency to lower the price of the car.
Not everyone is gloomy. Elon Musk thinks we are entering a new era of mankind, a “supersonic tsunami,” where labor is minimized, and everyone enjoys something he calls “universal high income.” When you have a couple hours, watch this January 6th podcast titled, “Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots.”
CLIP: Here’s a short clip from the podcast to give you a taste (2:45).
At around 51:00 in the longer video, the panel discussed the impact AI will have on the economy and our day-to-day lives. Essentially, Elon argues that working will be optional. Specifically, he said prices of goods and services will drop dramatically (you can see why), profitability will soar as labor costs approach zero, we’ll experience something like Universal High Income —not the traditional UBI/redistribution model— and he explains why he thinks saving for retirement will become irrelevant as abundance increases.
Taking it all in, if you replace “subway” with “cruise ship,” I might be down for working by cellphone. Either way, a whole lot of change is whirling toward us at, as Elon says, supersonic speeds. Hope you like change. Let me know what you think in the comments.
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Jeffrey Epstein’s cold, dead* hand claimed another scalp yesterday. (* allegedly.) Specifically, it claimed the blonde locks of Barack Obama’s former lawyer. The New York Times ran the story, headlined, “Goldman Sachs General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler Resigns Over Epstein Ties.”
The latest DOJ disclosures make it abundantly clear: Ruemmler, former White House counsel and now elite big-finance lawyer, lovingly called the convicted pedophile “Uncle Jeffrey.” But up until yesterday, Goldman Sach’s CEO David Solomon called her an “excellent lawyer” and even defended her as recently as last week.
Under swelling pressure, the mega finance firm “accepted her resignation” yesterday.
Not only did Ruemmler call him “Uncle Jeffrey” and “sweetie,” she got gifts like a $9,350 Hermès handbag, a $6,800 Fendi fur coat, spa treatments, massages, and wine from the convicted sex offender, and was one of the three people Epstein called the night of his 2019 arrest at Teterboro airport.
Here is one particularly sordid exchange, sadly typical, which implicates Ruemmler in potential trafficking:
To be fair, Ruemmler has since called Epstein a “monster,” which is quite a long journey from “Uncle Jeffrey.” The turnaround time on that character assessment— about five years and one DOJ document dump— was not impressive. CEO Solomon “accepted her resignation” yesterday and “respected her decision,” using the corporate diction companies deploy when they’re too embarrassed to say “we should have fired her six months ago.”
Awkwardly, Ruemmler isn’t technically leaving Goldman Sachs until June 30th. This lawyer detects the acrid stench of acrimonious negotiations over an employment agreement and mutual threats of litigation. One suspects her Slack status will be “Working from Home.” She has four and a half months to update her LinkedIn profile and figure out how to spin “resigned over Epstein connections” into a bullet point under “career highlights.”
This makes Ruemmler at least the third high-profile casualty of the Epstein file releases in a week, following the UK Prime Minister’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney (resigned Sunday), and Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp (resigned last week). All are progressives— and all are collateral damage in the Democrats’ “Get Trump” war.
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Yesterday, Fox News ran a “somebody says something” story, but the video is priceless. The article was headlined, Hawley clashes with Minnesota AG Ellison over fraud: ‘You ought to be indicted.’
CLIP: Cage match— Hawley v. Ellison (7:14).
For new readers, “somebody says something” means a news piece that doesn’t report any actual news; it just chucks out an inflammatory or controversial quotation. This one was hilarious.
During yesterday’s explosive Senate Homeland Security Committee, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) grilled Minnesota’s State Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was recorded on a call agreeing to help Somali fraudsters who were being investigated by the state. “Money is freedom,” Ellison assured them. They got the message. Within the next few days, the fraudsters donated $10,000 to Ellison’s campaign.
Ten thousand dollars apparently buys four years of freedom, which is what the Feeding Our Futures fraudsters got before the feds finally nabbed them while useless state investigators stood around looking down at their loafers.
In case you haven’t heard, or live in that godforsaken Northwestern town, Feeding Our Futures was a massive $250 million pandemic-era fraud scheme run through a Minnesota nonprofit. During covid, the federal government created a program to feed children who couldn’t get school meals during lockdowns. Fraudsters— mostly Somali nationals operating in Minneapolis— set up fake feeding sites, submitted phony invoices for millions of meals that were never served, and pocketed the cash.
The money —transported through Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in bags of cash— went to luxury cars, lakefront properties, Somali terrorist groups, and shady overseas wire transfers. Federal prosecutors eventually charged 78 people in what became the largest pandemic fraud case in the country.
But the scandal took a new twist after recordings recently surfaced showing that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison— the state’s top law enforcement officer— had been on a call reassuring the people under investigation, telling them he’d call and pressure the agencies investigating them. Nine days later, they donated $10,000 to his campaign.
Ironically, the recording appears to have been made by one of the fraudsters, and was presented as evidence for the defense in their trial. It never occurred to Ellison that the scam artists might be recording him. What a moron.
🔥 In the hearing yesterday, the two men were getting along as nicely as a Siamese and a rotweiler stuffed in a sack. The following excerpt will give you a taste of the elevated dialog decorating the esteemed Senate chamber:
Hawley: “You helped fraudsters defraud your state and this government... and you got a fat campaign contribution out of it. You ought to be indicted.”
Ellison: “You’re cherry-picking quotes.”
Hawley: “It’s my hearing, pal.”
Ellison: “I’m not your pal. Don’t call me pal.”
Hawley: “I should call you a prisoner, because you ought to be in jail.”
Ellison: “Well, see what you can do about it.”
I did not make that up. Ellison’s defense consisted of three parts: deny the tape existed, deny what the tape said, and demand the Senator not call him “pal.” The fiery exchange is worth a listen for entertainment value alone. It belongs in the Congressional highlights reel.
Glass-half-emptiers sneered and complained about the absence of arrests, as if prosecuting politically-connected people were as easy as just grabbing them and throwing them in front of a jury —a constitutional requirement— in a friendly blue district.
As a lawyer who’s tried my share of jury trial cases, I can assure you that getting a conviction is not as simple as “just play them the tape.” If you don’t believe me, you try it sometime. There’s an entire galaxy between some coded language on a recording and meeting the standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ Remember OJ? If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit!
Josh Hawley just publicly flayed Keith Ellison. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s a start. Baby steps. Keep it going.
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Let’s check in on the culture wars and see … whoops! Yesterday, Outkick reported, “Disney’s Disastrous ‘Snow White’ Remake Lost Them An Absolute Fortune, New Filings Reveal.”
Disney’s calamitous remake of the beloved classic Snow White featured an activist actress who wasn’t white, who arrogantly and often sneered at the original tale’s values, which she called “weird,” “outdated,” and “scary,” and repeatedly bragged that the new film would prove that “Snow White doesn’t need a prince.” The family-unfriendly company remade the sweet, gentle original character into a butt-kicking rebel leader who tore down the patriarchy.
OutKick reported that new UK financial filings reveal the true scale of Disney’s Snowy disaster: $170 million in losses. Not $170 million in revenue. In losses. Disney spent $271 million producing the film, which, for context, is roughly 180 times what Walt Disney spent on the original 1937 animated classic that literally built the company. In other words, the mega-corp could have produced 180 classic animated feature films for the same price.
Good times.
And then there were the dwarves. Or rather, the lack thereof. Disney replaced the iconic Seven Dwarfs with a CGI-generated collection of diverse companions transplanted from a college admissions brochure. Fans hated it so much that Disney had to reshoot the scenes, adding millions to the already bloated budget. The result pleased absolutely nobody, which, come to think of it, was the film’s theme.
Forbes had to dig through UK film production credit filings to get the real numbers, since Disney wasn’t exactly volunteering this information. “Hey investors, remember that cultural statement we were all so proud of? Yeah … it cost $170 million more than it made.”
It’s almost like they’re trying to wreck the company. Maybe destroying Disney is the real goal? Just asking.
Has anyone noticed that “modern audiences” —the demographic Hollywood supposedly keeps making movies for— never actually show up? They’re like the mysterious goat-sucking chupacabra: everyone talks about them, nobody’s ever seen one, and the people looking for them keep losing money.
Go woke, go broke.
The lesson of Disney’s Snow White remake hasn’t changed since 1937: don’t eat the poison apple. In this case, the poison apple was a $271 million movie starring someone who hated the character she was playing, targeted an audience that doesn’t exist, and replaced beloved dwarfs with ridiculous CGI caricatures.
Mirror, mirror on the wall— who could have seen this coming? Everyone. The answer is everyone.
Have a fabulous Friday! Circle around again tomorrow morning, as we dive into another new episode of C&C’s essential news and commentary in the Weekend Edition.
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Ilhan Omar has threatened to have President Trump executed. Here’s a naturalized citizen who made numerous illegal fraudulent statements to become a citizen. She has said her country of Somalia will always come first, she has magically become super wealthy with now over 40 million dollars in the bank in just 2 years, she has consistently shown her hatred for America, daily, and I ask why do we need Ilhan Omar’s in our country? Diversity is our strength? Is the reason we let her in because she is willing to rob America’s poor that other Americans are just simply unwilling to rob?
Remember the disabled Air Force veteran that threatened to kill Joe Biden on line, the man could barely walk. Biden’s FBI raided the disabled veterans house with a swat team, tear gassed him, entered his house and shot him a dozen times. They dragged his dead body out to the street covered him in a bloody white sheet and left him out in the hot sun for hours, just to show everyone this is what you get when you threaten a Democrat president. I realize he was just an old white guy. Doesn’t it make clear that this justice system is anything but blind. Where’s Pam Bondi on Ilhans assassination threat? Where’s the swat team? Didn’t the miraculous Merrick Garland, Americas Attorney General, set the legal precedent?
The spineless Republican Congress couldn’t even get a censure on Ilhan for mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk. This assassination thing seems to be an ongoing theme with naturalized Ilhan. Now she’s threatening the assassination of President Trump, and not one Democrat is calling her out.
I’ve heard rumors not if but when the democrats get back into power they want to make Ilhan Omar the U.S. Attorney General, I’m sure many senate republicans would definitely vote yes to confirm her not wanting to be called racist. Ilhan would put Merrick Garlands tyrannical rule to shame. Those who say don’t vote or stay home on Election Day better reconsider, you haven’t seen tyranny like the tyranny Somalian Ilhan Omar is wanting to serve. In the end You get what you’re not willing to stand up and fight for. J.Goodrich
Does anyone else find it funny that the same kids who sneered at the coal miners a decade ago and told them to "learn how to code" are now having their coding jobs replaced by AI? Should we advise them to grab a hard hat and learn how to shovel?