Monday, April 28, 2025

April 28, 2025

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

Hot out of the gate: Trump thrills base in dizzying first 100 days . . . President Trump is scheduled to hold the first rally of his second term Tuesday in Macomb County, Michigan, where Republicans are in awe of his actions in a little more than three months to stop illegal immigration, cut government spending, claw back regulations and implement a host of other policies through a flurry of executive orders. Macomb is the most heavily Republican county in the critical swing state, which helped carry Mr. Trump to victory in November. Residents thrilled with Mr. Trump's rapid-fire pace of fulfilling the promises he made in the 2024 campaign are expected to give him a warm welcome. Washington Times

How Trump Sealed The Border In His First 100 Days . . . Through a combination of policy changes, arrests and deportations, sanctions, and coordination with foreign governments, Trump says his administration has facilitated a dramatic 99.9 percent drop in border encounters. Daily Wire

White House lawn lined with illegal immigrants' mugshots showcasing ICE busts in Trump's first 100 days . . . The White House lawn has been lined with mugshot-style posters bearing the faces of 100 "arrested" illegal migrants — and lists of the despicable crimes some have committed. The placards, emblazoned with "ARRESTED," could be seen lined up along the White House driveway first thing Monday to showcase some of the worst offenders nabbed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump's first 100 days, a White House official told The Post. New York Post

Politics

Elite Universities Form Private Collective to Resist Trump Administration . . . Leaders of some of the nation's most prestigious universities have assembled a private collective to counter the Trump administration's attacks on research funding and academic independence across higher education, according to people familiar with the effort. The informal group currently includes about 10 schools, including Ivies and leading private research universities, mostly in blue states. Wall Street Journal

Trump says Columbus Day will now just be Columbus Day

Josh Hawley's populism puts him at odds with the GOP caucus . . . The lone Republican vote in the Senate last month to protect consumers from bank overdraft fees came from an unlikely Democratic ally: Senator Josh Hawley, the archconservative from Missouri best known for calling out "wokeness."And yet the overdraft vote was hardly the first time Mr. Hawley had stood apart from his Republican colleagues. In 2023 he introduced a bill to cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $25 per month, which died in committee for lack of Republican support. He has broken from his party by refusing to vote for cuts to Medicaid as part of the budget reconciliation process. New York Times

There's a lot of good in Republican populism. But at some point, you become so populist that you're a Democrat.

Culture

Should Parents Discard Embryos at High Risk for Becoming Fat? . . . Orchid, which labels itself as "the world's most advanced whole genome screening for embryos during IVF," was highlighted in a recent New York Times article headlined "This baby was carefully selected as an embryo." Parents who opt to use Orchid get an extensive analysis of their embryos' risk analysis for a variety of health conditions, including autism, severe obesity, Alzheimer's, inflammatory bowel disease, schizophrenia, diabetes, and breast cancer. Daily Signal

Truly frightening. We need to ask, what kind of society does this?

America's Founding Documents Are Selling Like Gangbusters . . . America's founding documents are selling at the fastest rate since 2004, when market research firm Circana began keeping track, prompting publishers to plan new editions. The rising civic interest is being attributed, at least in part, to the tumultuous state of America's political affairs. The U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers have sold a combined 162,000 copies this year, Circana noted—and that's only through mid-April. Daily Signal

The campaign to undermine our nation's founding and its Founding Fathers has been halted, or at least slowed, for now.

National Security

Harvard Trained Members of PRC Paramilitary Group After the US Sanctioned It Over Uyghur Genocide . . . Harvard University quietly trained members of a Chinese "paramilitary organization" on two occasions after the U.S. government sanctioned the group for its role in the Uyghur genocide. The Ivy League institution could face "a big legal problem" as a result, according to one foreign policy expert. Harvard originally noted in a blog post that officials with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) participated in the inaugural training, but that language was scrubbed following a Washington Free Beacon inquiry. Washington Free Beacon

In Ironic Twist, Man Who Allegedly Stole Kristi Noem's Bag Is Illegal Migrant, DHS Sec Says . . . The suspect who allegedly stole U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem's bag while she dined with family at a hamburger restaurant late Easter Sunday is a criminal illegal migrant, authorities said Sunday. The New York Post identified the suspect as Mario Bustamante-Leiva, 49, of Santiago, Chile. The suspect was a "serial offender" but he appeared not to have targeted Noem because of her person or position as DHS Secretary. Daily Caller

New Secure Messaging Platform Offers Quantum-Resistant Defense Against Chinese Cyber Threats . . . A communications platform called Titanium Secure is positioning itself as a quantum-resistant defense against growing cyber threats from China and data harvesting by Big Tech companies. "We saw a need for conservatives to have their own platform where they could do several different things, and part of those was to secure communication and secure data," said John Reese, founder and CEO of Titanium Secure. Daily Signal

International

Huge power outage strikes Spain, Portugal and France . . . Spain and Portugal have been hit by widespread blackouts, with millions plunged into darkness amid scenes of mayhem across major European cities. Spanish officials are urgently investigating the cause of the outages and have said they are looking into the possibility of the blackouts being triggered by a devastating cyber attack. Daily Mail

Video | This is why Putin is 'playing hardball,' Rebekah Koffler explains on Fox News

Vancouver ramming attack suspect charged with murder as hundreds attend vigils for victims . . . A 30-year-old man was charged with multiple counts of murder on allegations he killed 11 people when he rammed a crowd of people at a Filipino heritage festival in Vancouver, as hundreds attended vigils across the city for the victims and the Canadian prime minister visited the site on the eve of a federal election. Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, was charged with eight counts of second degree murder in a video appearance before a judge on Sunday, hours after he was arrested at the scene. Associated Press

Conclave to elect a new pope will start on May 7

Money

Trump floats income tax cut amid growing concern over tariffs . . . President Trump floated a new income tax cut Sunday as a way to mitigate the impact of his sweeping tariffs, which polls show Americans increasingly believe will lead to higher prices. "When Tariffs cut in, many people's Income Taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated," Trump wrote in a post Sunday on his Truth Social platform. "Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year," he continued. The Hill

You should also know

60 Minutes star goes rogue with astonishing live on-air statement . . . What began as a tribute to a respected colleague quickly morphed into an extraordinary on-air condemnation of CBS parent company Paramount Global, which Pelley claimed had been taking a more active role in the show's journalism. Pelley suggested the interest from Paramount bosses had come amid a desperate bid to secure political favor from the Trump administration. Daily Mail

CNN Ratings Disaster: Primetime Audience Tumbles Below 500,000 . . . CNN's primetime ratings on Wednesday dipped below 500,000 viewers, with less than 100,000 of those coming from the 25-54-year-old demographic. CNN's ratings dipped below 500,000 after 9 p.m. "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" pulled 464,000 total viewers while "NewsNight with Abby Phillip" in the 10 p.m. hour followed with 459,000. "Laura Coates Live" finished off primetime's 11 p.m. hour for CNN with 269,000. "Anderson Cooper 360" was the only primetime CNN performance with over half-a-million viewers, pulling in 535,000. Daily Wire

Have you watched any of these shows? It's not just that they've all gone liberal. They are objectively terrible.

Axios reporter hits media for whiffing on coverage of Biden's decline . . . Journalist Alex Thompson called out the press for failing to properly report on former President Joe Biden's declining health at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday. Thompson, a reporter for Axios, accepted an aware for White House Coverage. His reporting closely documented Biden's disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump, the events leading up to it, and Biden's eventual decision to exit the race. "Being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves. We, myself included, missed a lot of this story," Thompson said. Fox News

Army Pilot Reportedly Failed To Follow Instructions Before Mid-Air Crash Killed 67 Over DC . . . The pilot of a United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk failed to execute a course change shortly before a deadly January mid-air collision with an airliner, The New York Times reported Sunday. The Jan. 29 mid-air collision between a commuter flight from Wichita, Kansas, and the UH-60 Blackhawk near Reagan National Airport killed all 67 people on both aircraft. Army Capt. Rebecca A. Lobach, who was piloting the Blackhawk on an evaluation flight, was told by her instructor, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves. Daily Caller

1 dead as Florida authorities declare a 'mass casualty' in boat crash . . . One person has died and at least a dozen people were injured Sunday when a boat crashed into a ferry off the Memorial Causeway Bridge and then fled the scene, authorities said.

The Clearwater Police Department posted on X that there were multiple injuries and the crash had been declared "a mass casualty incident" by the Clearwater Fire & Rescue Department due to the number of injuries. Associated Press

Guilty Pleasures

White House Correspondents Apparently Can't Tell Black Women Apart In Embarrassing Mix-Up . . . A camera for an internal feed at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner mistakenly cut to the wrong journalist during a speech by the organization's president. The association mistakenly showed NBC News White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor instead of Black Press USA Washington Bureau Chief April Ryan on the internal feed. Alcindor appeared aware of the error, mouthing "I'm not April Ryan" while the internal feed's camera was mistakenly on her. Daily Caller

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