January 30, 2025
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Welcome to the news for independent thinkers
Leading the News . . .
More than 60 feared dead after jet hits helicopter, crashes into Washington river . . . More than 60 people were feared dead after an American Airlines regional passenger jet collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday and crashed into the frigid Potomac River near Reagan Washington National Airport.
"At this point we do not believe there were any survivors," District of Columbia fire chief John Donnelly said at a Thursday press conference. Donnelly said 28 bodies had been recovered from the river so far, in what was shaping up to be the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than a decade. Reuters
How disaster over the Potomac unfolded
Commercial plane split in two after colliding with Black Hawk chopper mid-air
Chilling air traffic audio from American Airlines plane crash reveals chaotic aftermath
Midair collision over nation's capital preceded by months of near misses, safety warnings
Politics
Tension builds around Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation with key GOP senators undecided . . . Tulsi Gabbard doesn't currently have enough votes to advance out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Fox News Digital has learned. The former Democrat representative's nomination to be director of national intelligence (DNI) under President Donald Trump is in danger as she lacks enough Republican support on the committee, sources confirmed. Fox News
She is the most endangered Trump nominee, but just because GOP senators haven't announced their support doesn't mean they won't.
Trump 47: The same, but very different . . . Trump 2.0 looks and sounds a lot like he did during his first go-around. But this time, the president is far more experienced and surrounded by a team that's spent years planning for its White House return, unleashing a fusillade of action that is testing the bounds of presidential power, sowing confusion and drawing fury from Democrats unsure how to stop him. "He seems much more comfortable, almost relaxed in how he's doing the job," according to Sean Spicer, Trump's first White House press secretary. Associated Press
White House rescinded funding memo after GOP senators 'hit the ceiling' . . . The White House budget office rescinded a memo ordering a broad freeze on federal grants and loans after Republican senators "hit the ceiling" over the order, which caught them completely by surprise and created confusion in their home states. Republican senators were careful not to criticize President Trump publicly after OMB released a broadly worded memo Monday that appeared to freeze broad swaths of federal funding but privately they were livid, according to Senate sources. The Hill
Bumps in the road are inevitable, but they'll be paved over soon.
Trump fires two Democratic commissioners on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Bob Menendez Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison, Fishing for a Trump Pardon . . . Former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez (D) fished for a pardon from President Donald Trump after he was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday on charges related to bribery and corruption. In July 2024, Menendez was found guilty of 16 federal charges, "which included bribery, obstruction, and acting as a foreign agent." Breitbart
Trump Signs Laken Riley Act Into Law
Trump Creates Task Force for Huge Celebration of America's 250th Birthday . . . On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a task force to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, which will take place on July 4, 2026. While the Left has tried to pummel any love for American history, Trump's move ensures anti-American activists won't have the last word. The anniversary is a perfect, symbolic occasion to announce that the "1619 Project" era of warping American history and turning it into a long tale of oppression is wholly over. Daily Signal
Inspector General Escorted Out Of Office After Defying Trump's Dismissal . . . Security agents escorted the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) out of her office Monday after she refused to comply with her firing by President Donald Trump, Reuters first reported. Phyllis Fong, a 22-year veteran of the department, reportedly earlier informed colleagues of her intention to stay, arguing in an email obtained by the outlet that Trump's termination orders "do not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are not effective at this time." Daily Caller
Culture
Abysmal National Report Card Shows Why Education Reforms Are Badly Needed in US . . . The latest National Report Card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress paints an abysmal picture of education across the US . . . . The report showed significant declines for students when it was published in 2022, but the decline was somewhat expected in the wake of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the assessment completed in 2024 and published Wednesday show little to no improvement in students' math and reading proficiency. Daily Signal
Trump cracks down on college campus support for Hamas with new executive order . . . President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at combating antisemitism on college campuses and pledging to crack down on non-citizens and resident alien "Hamas sympathizers." "To all the resident aliens who joined the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: Come 2025 we will find you and we will deport you," Mr. Trump said in a statement. "I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before." Washington Times
National Security
President Trump's foreign policy playbook has our friends and foes equally rattled . . . Economic warfare and "disabuse others from being tempted" will be the key tenets of Trump's playbook for his foreign policy during his second term. Traditionally, before Trump, Washington has relied on ideology, appeasement, foreign aid and thoughtless use of military power when it came to international relations. This misguided albeit bipartisan approach that guided U.S. statecraft for more than a quarter of a century has made America poorer, less safe and disrespected on the world stage. Moreover, it destabilized some parts of the world, such as the Middle East. Rebekah Koffler for Fox News
Hegseth creates new Pentagon task force to ban race, sex from promotion criteria
Trump to send 30,000 illegal immigrants to Guantanamo Bay . . . President Trump said Wednesday he would sign an order directing the government to expand a detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold up to 30,000 migrants, giving the government more space to help deport illegal immigrants. "We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens," Mr. Trump said at the White House. Washington Times
Well, Obama and Biden released a bunch of terrorists from there, so there are open beds.
International
Hamas frees 8 more hostages but Israel puts prisoner release on hold after a chaotic handover . . . Hamas-led militants freed eight hostages on Thursday as part of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but the chaotic handover of some of the captives, who masked militants shuttled through a rowdy crowd of thousands, drew an angry protest from Israel. The hostages released Thursday included a female Israeli soldier, a 29-year-old Israeli woman, an 80-year-old Israeli man, and five Thai laborers. The first hostage, soldier Agam Berger, 20, was released after Hamas paraded her in front of a crowd in the heavily destroyed urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Associated Press
US teenage girl shot dead by father in Pakistan over TikTok videos . . . A man who recently moved his family back to Pakistan from the US has confessed to killing his teenage daughter because he disapproved of her TikTok videos, police have told the BBC. Anwar ul-Haq was charged with murder after he admitted to shooting his daughter Hira in the south-western city of Quetta on Tuesday. The father, who has US citizenship, said he found his daughter's posts "objectionable". BBC
Man who burned Quran 'shot dead in Sweden' . . . A man who sparked violent protests after burning the Quran has been shot dead in Sweden, according to local media reports. Salwan Momika, 38, is reported to have been killed in an apartment in Södertälje, Stockholm, on Wednesday evening. Unrest broke out after Mr Momika set fire to a copy of Islam's holy book outside Stockholm Central Mosque in 2023. Stockholm police said in a statement that five people had been arrested after a man in his 40s was shot dead overnight. BBC
A New Zealand mountain is granted personhood, recognizing it as sacred for Māori . . . A mountain in New Zealand considered an ancestor by Indigenous people was recognized as a legal person on Thursday after a new law granted it all the rights and responsibilities of a human being. Mount Taranaki — now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Māori name — is the latest natural feature to be granted personhood in New Zealand, which has ruled that a river and a stretch of sacred land are people before. Associated Press
Now it can finally go ahead with that sex change operation.
Money
Trump bashes Fed after bank doesn't cut rates . . . In a post on Truth Social, the president accused the Fed and Powell of allowing inflation to spiral to four-decade highs in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession. "If the Fed had spent less time on DEI, gender ideology, "green" energy, and fake climate change, Inflation would never have been a problem. Instead, we suffered from the worst Inflation in the History of our Country!" The Hill
Microsoft, Meta Talk Up Their Big AI Ambitions and Spending Plans . . . Meta Platforms unveiled plans to make artificial intelligence more personalized this year, and Microsoft predicted "exponentially more demand" for AI products. The tech giants on Wednesday talked up their AI strategies and said they are sticking with ambitious investments in the technology despite the investor panic this week over the rise of DeepSeek. That Chinese company's claim that it built an advanced AI model with far less money. Wall Street Journal
As a reader pointed out to us, how much do we really know about DeepSeek? Does its low-cost funding include massive hidden investments from the PRC? How much was just stolen? Theft is a proven, low-cost method of obtaining products. Are the Chicoms trying to seed misinformation to adversely affect the market and our progress on AI?
Meta to Pay $25 Million to Settle 2021 Trump Lawsuit . . .
Meta Platforms has agreed to pay roughly $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit that President Trump brought against the company and its CEO after the social-media platform suspended his accounts following the attack on the U.S. Capitol that year. Of that, $22 million will go toward a fund for Trump's presidential library, with the rest going to legal fees and the other plaintiffs who signed on to the case. Meta won't admit wrongdoing. Trump signed the settlement agreement Wednesday in the Oval Office. Wall Street Journal
You should also know
Are we all aliens? NASA's returned asteroid samples hold the ingredients of life . . . Asteroid samples fetched by NASA hold not only the pristine building blocks for life but also the salty remains of an ancient water world, scientists reported Wednesday. The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that asteroids may have planted the seeds of life on Earth and that these ingredients were mingling with water almost right from the start. Associated Press
Guilty Pleasures
'Are You Supportive of These Onesies?': Bernie Sanders Demands RFK Jr. Condemn Baby Outfit . . . Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spent a good amount of time during his line of questioning to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attempting to force him to condemn a baby outfit. "I think the gist of what you were trying to say today is you're really pro-vaccine. You have started a group called the Children's Health Defense. You're the originator," Sanders began before drawing attention to some of the products on the group's website, which includes onesies reading, "Unvaxxed Unafraid" and "No Vax. No Problem." Breitbart
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