Wednesday, February 19, 2025

February 19, 2025

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

Trump signs order to claim power over 'independent' agencies . . . President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a sweeping executive order bringing independent agencies under the control of the White House — an action that would greatly expand his power but is likely to attract significant legal challenges. It represents Trump's latest attempt to consolidate power beyond boundaries other presidents have observed and to test the so-called unitary executive theory, which states that the president has the sole authority over the executive branch. Politico

Politics

Trump Signs Executive Order On 'Expanding Access To In Vitro Fertilization' . . . President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday from Mar-a-Lago that is focused on expanding access to in vitro fertilization. Trump's executive order calls for policy recommendations to make it easier for families to access IVF and to "aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, one cycle of IVF in the United States costs around $15,000. Daily Wire

Trump Orders 'All Remaining' Biden-Appointed U.S. Attorneys to Be Terminated

Covid vaccine faces suspension by Trump team . . . Covid vaccines could be suspended for all age groups in America under radical new plans backed by key health figures in the Trump Administration. Several experts poised for top jobs in US health agencies subscribe to the disputed idea the shots are causing widespread side effects and deaths. Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who has been nominated to lead the National Institutes of Health, has backed a petition calling for the mRNA vaccines to be paused and retested, DailyMail.com can reveal. Daily Mail

Stephen Miller spars with CNN's Brianna Keilar in wild exchange over Elon Musk's DOGE . . . Top aide to Donald Trump Stephen Miller got into a wild exchange with a CNN host after she pressed him on Elon Musk's government slashing work at DOGE. Miller, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff, laughed in CNN host Brianna Keilar's face when she expressed dismay about DOGE's latest cuts. 'We want to talk about who's making decisions here,' Keilar tells Miller in the contentious back and forth. Daily Mail

GOP club president pushed out over Barron Trump remarks hits back . . . "I've been killing myself trying to support the conservative movement," said Kaya Walker, a senior. Walker resigned Sunday night, after AF Post, a popular conservative news profile on X, tweeted quotes she had given Vanity Fair, calling fellow NYU student Barron an "oddity on campus." "He goes to class, he goes home," Walker told Vanity Fair of Barron. "[AF Post] took it to say that I was saying that Barron was strange for being a commuter — which I thought was crazy because I'm a commuter," Walker told The Post of the out-of-context tweet, which led many to wrongly accuse her of making fun of Barron. New York Post

Are conservatives now going to start canceling people too?

Culture

Anti-Israel protest erupts in Orthodox Jewish area of NYC as agitators chant 'Zionists go to hell' . . . An anti-Israel protest erupted into violence and mayhem as a swarm of demonstrators flooded a primarily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn on Tuesday night. One person was arrested after dozens of agitators chanting "Zionists go to hell" and waving Palestinian flags descended on Borough Park to protest a real estate event, according to police and reports. "How many kids did you kill today?" anti-Israel protesters chanted to the beat of a snare drum, as some flashed Jewish residents the middle finger. New York Post

Boy Wins Girls' Pole Vault Championship In Maine Days After State Pledged To Defy Trump Order . . . A transgender-identifying boy took first place in women's pole vaulting at Maine's Class B state championship on Monday, days after the state declared it would not enforce President Trump's executive order banning males from female sports at public schools. The victory by a boy in the female event helped Greely High School girls' track and field team clinch the championship by one point. Daily Wire

National Security

'Trump Effect': Illegal Border Crossings Could Be on Track to Hit Near 50-Year Low . . . The White House has touted January's 36% decline in border apprehensions—the lowest number of illegal aliens apprehended along the border in almost five years—as the "Trump effect." That total includes 29,116 apprehended at the border outside of official ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That's the lowest since May 2020. And that compares to 47,316 apprehensions outside of official ports in December. Daily Signal

International

Trump right to keep European allies from Ukraine talks, they'd be 'obstacle' to peace: Rebekah Koffler . . . Trump's likely rationale for excluding European allies out of direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations is this. First, there's no agreement among NATO members on the NATO membership for Ukraine. Some are for it and some are against. So it would be a waste of time to add this obstacle to the talks. Second, the Europeans don't add anything to the talks," Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst, former senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency and author of "Putin's Playbook," said. Fox News

Brazil's former President Bolsonaro charged over alleged coup that included a plan to poison Lula . . . Brazil's prosecutor-general on Tuesday formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat, in a plot that included a plan to poison his successor and current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot a Supreme Court judge. Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet alleges that Bolsonaro and 33 others participated in a plan to remain in power. Associated Press

GOP puts Red Cross on Notice After 'Neutral' Organization Participates in Hamas Propaganda Ceremony . . . When Hamas gunmen paraded emaciated Israeli hostages across a stage in Gaza earlier this month, they were flanked by two representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), an aid group that boasts of its neutrality. The agency's participation in the choreographed propaganda display—as well as its failure to visit the hostages as they struggled in captivity—is now drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Washington Free Beacon

'They Took Away My Humanity': Hostage Freed by Hamas Calls for Boyfriend's Release . . . About 450 days ago, Ilana Gritzewsky was set free after spending 55 days in captivity in Gaza, but she says a part of her never returned home. "My body returned, but my soul remains trapped," Gritzewsky said while speaking at an event at The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday. "I always feel that I am not really free. I cannot forget what happened, what I experienced." Daily Signal

Money

Musk expresses interest in sending out DOGE checks . . . Elon Musk said he will bring to President Donald Trump a proposal to send Americans rebate checks representing a portion of the money they save by slashing the federal government. On Tuesday, Musk posted on X that he "will check with the president" on Azoria CEO and co-founder James Fishback's idea to send out "DOGE dividend" checks. The plan calls for returning 20 percent of the savings generated by the Department of Government Efficiency back to taxpayers in the form of direct payments. Politico

This would be a very important message to taxpayers, making it clear that it's THEIR money that the government has been spending on DEI and other wasteful initiatives.

You should also know

Catholic bishops sue Trump administration to demand restart of refugee money . . . The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, asking a federal judge to order the State Department to restart the taxpayer money that the bishops say they need in order to help refugees. The bishops said they were giving assistance to some 6,700 refugees when President Trump shut off the government spigot with an executive order putting federal grants on hold. Now the bishops conference says it has had to dig into its own coffers and begin layoffs for 50 employees to make ends meet. Washington Times

Odds Of Asteroid Hitting Earth In 2032 keep rising . . . The chances of a building-sized asteroid hitting the Earth in the next decade has risen in small increments multiple times since it was first detected months ago. AFP reported on Tuesday that new data from NASA gave the asteroid known as 2024 YR4 a 3.1 percent chance of striking the planet in December 2032. It was only last week that NASA was saying there was a 2.3% chance the asteroid would slam into the Earth, up from a 1.2% estimation in late January. Daily Wire

Let's hope Elon speeds up his Mars project.

They're 100 Years Old—And Still Could Do Your Taxes . . . Else M. Rike will be 101 years old on March 24 but doesn't expect to take a day off to celebrate. She will be too busy preparing tax returns. William D. Brew, who lives in Henderson, Nev., and will be 102 in March, continues to prepare taxes for a handful of clients, down from a peak of around 30. Most of his customers have died, says Brew, a retired internal auditor who did tax work at the Western Pacific Railroad. "It's hard to get clients at my age," he says, "because they don't know how much longer I'm going to help them." Wall Street Journal

Guilty Pleasures

Michigan judge sentences Walmart shoplifters to wash cars in the parking lot . . . Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart and rewards shoppers who could see higher prices, or possibly lose stores, if thefts continue. The car washes will be free. Clothier believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars at weekend events at that location, north of Detroit, in March and April. Associated Press

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