Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld bring Fox News viewers their fresh takes on the top news of the day.
Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld bring Fox News viewers their fresh takes on the top news of the day.

Welcome!
I’m Bub Kuns, and today we’re talking about communism.
Although socialism — and its uglier big brother communism — are idealized by left-leaning academics and politicians, the reality is that today millions of Christians live in bondage under communist regimes like in China. In contrast to the “soft persecution” believers face under socialism, Christians are openly jailed and tortured for their faith under communism — and hostility towards believers in communist countries is only getting worse.
Radio Free Asia reports the Chinese government now forces Christians into “re-education” camps to dismantle their faith.
As Bob Fu, director of China Aid, noted, “China’s Christians say it is the worst persecution against them since Chairman Mao Zedong.”
Proverbs 29:2 reminds us that “when the wicked bear rule, the people mourn.”
And how should believers respond to their Christian brothers and sisters suffering under communism? We’ll discuss that another time.
For more information go to http://www.hopetools.net. Stay Bold!
Bub Kuns is (at heart) a storyteller. He is a director, producer, writer, performer and editor. Bub’s life mission is to help and guide people to love God with all their “heart, soul, mind and strength.” Part of how he does that is by providing truth-filled, accessible, captivating content that packs a little punch. Bub produces content that inspires, challenges and activates believers to use their talents and voices to make a difference in their communities and in the world for the cause of Christ.


Eight months ago, I wrote about the book, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, written by Victor Davis Hanson. In his book, he provides four historical examples: the city-state of Thebes, ancient Carthage, Byzantine Constantinople, and Aztec Tenochtitlan. The leaders believed their illustrious pasts would be enough to prevent their destruction. Alexander the Great, Roman Scipio, Muslim Mehmet, and the Spanish conquistador Cortés proved them wrong.
The book is a warning to us today, but I also realize that few people will read his book. That is why I would encourage you to watch his five-minute video summary produced by Hillsdale College, just click “Watch More.”

He says his book “is about the existential destruction of the losing side in a war. This is very rare in history. It doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, it should enlighten us how it does, why it does, and can it happen again?”
He explains that he wrote his book “not just as a historical journey to document the rare cases of a targeted nation being completely destroyed, but as a warning that human nature doesn’t change.” We naively assumed that globalization would create a common humanity and bring an end to global conflict. Instead, he “noticed that there were more and more existential threats coming from autocratic regimes.”
He wants us to be aware that what happened in the past could happen in the future. We need to learn from the past and protect ourselves in the future. As I mentioned in a previous commentary, the world needs a strong America so that we can prevent “the end of everything.”


Before leaving office, former President Joe Biden may have coordinated with Democrat governors to sabotage the incoming President.
From The Daily Signal. White House officials under outgoing President Joe Biden may have colluded with staffers representing a coalition of Democrat governors planning to thwart President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda, according to a watchdog group and internal emails obtained from the coalition, known as Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
The precise date of the meeting is not clear, but it appears to have been either Dec. 16 or Dec. 17. The emails refer to planning for the meeting but do not include the topics discussed.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis are the co-chairs of Governors Safeguarding Democracy, which is part of the Governors Action Alliance.
The emails were obtained by the private nonprofit watchdog group Government Accountability and Oversight through a public records request and shared with The Daily Signal.
The emails show that on Dec. 2, Governors Action Alliance CEO Julia Spiegel emailed Democrat state officials in numerous states about plans for Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
One of the agenda items was “WH Meeting & Priority Asks.”

The email further explained: “Gov. Pritzker’s Chief of Staff Anne Caprera will host a call with the administration to discuss lock-in asks. If your office would like to join this meeting, please email Julia Spiegel … by the end of this week.”
On Dec. 11, Allegra Chapman, managing director for Governors Safeguarding Democracy, sent an email to staffers for the governors of Illinois and Colorado with the subject line, “Time to talk on Fri re WH mtg pre-call?”
“Hi team! I’m reaching out now to set up a time for any/all offices planning to join the WH meeting next week (likely on Mon or Tues) to touch base first,” Chapman wrote. “That way, we can know who will be on next week, what the priorities are, what each office’s ask(s) might be, and who will cover what on the call with the WH.”
If the meeting occurred, it suggests the outgoing Biden administration followed the pattern of the previous Democrat administration, said Chris Horner, attorney for Government Accountability and Oversight.
Horner said this reminds him of the time after the 2016 election when the outgoing Barack Obama administration set legal probes of the first Trump presidency in motion. Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, was involved in digging into incoming Trump administration officials.
“One can’t help but be reminded by this of the outgoing Obama-Biden team’s work to plant land mines and derail its successor during the 2017 transition,” Horner told The Daily Signal in a statement.
Referring to the possible meeting between Biden officials and staffers from Governors Safeguarding Democracy, Horner said it raises the question of how they sought to plant landmines and derail Trump this time: “What information did the Biden White House pass along to assist with this ‘GSD’ (‘Governors Sock-puppeting for Donors’) project; what were these ‘priority asks;’ were any privileges or obligations violated in doing so; was Susan Rice involved, again; and, of course, will there be any accountability this time?”
The emails from Spiegel and Chapman did not state what was discussed in the meeting. But an email from Chapman to state officials on Dec. 20, which would have likely come afterwards, talked about immigration.
“Many offices worked with GovAct [Governors Action Alliance] to urge the Biden administration to finalize regulations that modernize and improve visa and employment authorization processes,” Chapman wrote.
“The administration has now taken action to finalize rulemaking in three requested areas: H1-B modernization; Automatic Employment Authorization Extension; and H-2 visa modernization,” Chapman continued in the Dec. 20 email. “Collectively, these rules have the impact of increasing protections for immigrants and improving outcomes for businesses in your communities in the face of anticipated federal actions next year.”
Before launching Governors Safeguarding Democracy on Nov. 13 after Trump’s election, the Governors Action Alliance launched the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, an abortion advocacy group that boasts it spent $535 million to expand abortion at the state level.
The Governors Action Alliance is a project of the Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, a left-leaning advocacy group that has given grants to liberal groups advocating for gun control and stronger environmental regulations, according to the Capital Research Center, a think tank that monitors nonprofits.
The Governors Action Alliance received $500,000 last year from liberal billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s group the Democracy Fund.
The Daily Signal reached out to the Governors Action Alliance and both Spiegel and Chapman directly for comment and to ask if the planned meeting actually occurred and what was discussed.
The Daily Signal also contacted the press offices of both Pritzker and Polis with similar questions about the meeting. The Daily Signal further reached out to the press contact for Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
None responded by publication time.
This article was originally published at The Daily Signal. Used with permission. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Joe Biden, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87270976.

The peace talks between America and Russia continue to dominate headlines, with leaders in Europe and Ukraine increasingly wary of how they’ve been excluded from those discussions. While President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and even Russian President Vladimir Putin have all acknowledged that Ukraine will be part of the negotiations when they begin in earnest, that is not how much of the Western world has seen this week’s events.
It didn’t help that the conversations with Russia’s representation have already essentially acknowledged that Ukraine will likely not be able to join NATO and that Russia will keep much—if not all—of the land they have taken so far in the war. Couple those accessions with Trump’s recent rhetoric in which he called Ukrainian President Zelensky a dictator and implied that Ukraine bore responsibility for starting the war, and it’s not difficult to see why many are wary of America leading the push for peace.
After all, one of Trump’s most frequent claims throughout his campaign was that he would bring an end to the war in Ukraine and that he would do it quickly. While he’s already missed his first deadline of having an agreement in place before he took office, the goal remains to achieve peace as soon as possible.
Most would agree that it’s better for the war to end sooner rather than later, but America’s allies—Ukraine most of all—are wary of prioritizing speed over justice and a peace that lasts.
An increasingly common refrain among many in the West in the wake of this week’s conversations is that the negotiations are a repeat of the same mistakes that enabled Hitler during the buildup to World War II.
After absorbing Austria in March of 1938, Hitler began to covet Czechoslovakia and made plans to take the Sudetenland—a region of roughly three million people of German origin—next. As his aggression escalated, France and Britain, both of whom had pledged to protect the country in the aftermath of World War I, did not feel prepared for a full-scale war with the Nazis. Instead, they prioritized peace.
The result was the Munich Agreement, in which European leaders essentially allowed Hitler to absorb parts of Czechoslovakia in exchange for promises to leave the rest of Europe alone.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned home to declare that he had achieved “peace with honor,” adding “I believe it is peace for our time.”
Winston Churchill famously retorted “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.” Churchill was proven right when Hitler proceeded to take the rest of Czechoslovakia the next year.
But while the parallels to America’s current conversations with Russia are easy to see, is Trump heading toward the same mistake? That question is a good bit more difficult to answer.
You see, the primary reason why the Munich Agreement failed to do more than provide a brief pause in the conflict that culminated in World War II is that France and Britain were not prepared to go to war with Germany. They needed peace more than the Nazis, even if that peace was not to last.
The situation in Ukraine is much the same: Ukraine needs peace more than Russia. The last three years have made clear that the most likely outcome of simply giving Ukraine more money and munitions is a slower pace of defeat. Victory is not a realistic option unless the US and its European allies are willing to take a more active role in the fighting.
So, as much as Ukraine may want to act like it is negotiating from a position of strength or should continue fighting until they are, that is never going to be the case in the current conflict.
As such, when Trump began his conversations with Russia by essentially ceding Ukraine’s ability to join NATO or reclaim all the land they’ve lost, he didn’t really give up anything that was within their power to keep.
Putin’s desires to maintain a buffer between his borders and those of NATO while also retaining control over the fertile lands of Eastern Ukraine have long been among his primary motivations for waging this war. He has little reason to come to the table if those are not part of the agreement.
The sanctions currently crippling the Russian economy, however, were notably absent from those early negotiations. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio implied they could be removed once peace was achieved, he also seemed to indicate that they would remain in place until that point.
Moreover, Trump recently declared that he is “all for” European peacekeepers in Ukraine after the war, calling such promises “a beautiful gesture” from France and Britain. The prospect of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil is particularly notable since Russia considers it an unacceptable condition for peace.
So, while it is certainly possible that any treaty with Russia will end like the Munich Agreement and simply delay a much larger conflict, it would be a mistake to presume that will be the case. There is still too much left undecided to know what the final agreement will look like.
What is clear is that there can be no peace unless everyone involved approaches the negotiations with a recognition of the fact that the West is not in a position to dictate the terms of that agreement. The only way to stop the bloodshed and wanton destruction that has already killed or injured nearly a million people is to recognize what is realistic to achieve.
As a culture not accustomed to losing in geopolitics and war, that is an understandably hard pill to swallow. Yet it remains the reality in which everyone involved must operate. And that need to accept reality applies to each of us as well.
One of Satan’s most effective tactics is convincing people to trust the narrative they prefer to believe rather than the reality in which they live. If we claim to serve the God who is truth, then rejecting that truth in favor of a more palatable lie undermines the very foundation of who Christ has called us to be. And make no mistake, there are few things more detrimental to both our witness and our walk with God than living in a lie.
As Dennis Prager once warned, “Lies are the root of evil more than any other of the sins that we commit because people who believe lies don’t know that they’re doing evil. That’s why it’s so terrible.” He goes on to give examples from the holocaust and slavery to illustrate the principle that lies are a necessary prerequisite to the belief that it is permissible to commit such atrocities.
And while most of the lies we accept as truth will not have consequences so grave as those, each one that we believe takes us further away from the Lord.
So where have your beliefs diverged from reality? Are there any lies you’ve accepted as truth?
If so, today is a great day to confess them to the Lord and embrace his truth as the guiding light for every facet of your life.
Will you start now?
“Self-awareness is indispensable to seeing the lines between what you want to be true and what is actually true.” —Jonah Goldberg
The post Is Trump wrong to negotiate with Russia? appeared first on Denison Forum.

Some farms avoid expensive commercial fertilizers by using free treated human sewage, which can contain anything that goes down a sewer.

The Founding Fathers expected elected legislators to remain closest to the sovereign people in both interests and affection. Those great men got many things right, but boy did they get that one wrong.
“Suppose you were an idiot,” literary legend Mark Twain once wrote. “And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
Nonetheless, according to a Gallup poll conducted Feb. 3-16, those beleaguered legislators may thank President Donald Trump for a 70 percent increase in their approval rating since Jan. 17, three days before the president’s inauguration.
Of course, one need not break out the champagne flutes just yet. After all, that approval rating could hardly have fallen much lower.
On Jan. 17, Gallup showed Congress with a 17 percent approval rating. In the latest poll, that number jumped to 29 percent.
Nor should we overstate the significance of Trump dragging unpopular legislators kicking and screaming toward respectability.
Recent history shows that Congress’ abysmal approval rating generally spikes when new presidents take office.
President Barack Obama carried Congress from 20 percent approval in Dec. 2008 to a high of 39 percent in March 2009. The same phenomenon occurred during Trump’s first administration and again under President Joe Biden.
Moreover, one might suspect that the most informed patriots in Trump’s MAGA movement would count themselves with the 71 percent.
After all, the best one can say about Congress is that so far it has done the bare minimum that Trump voters expect and has imposed no insurmountable obstacles to the president’s agenda.
For instance, Senate Republicans had no more than three defectors when they confirmed Trump’s most important Cabinet nominees. And those three “no” votes occurred during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s January confirmation.
Since then, MAGA has imposed substantial pressure on GOP senators who might otherwise have voted with the establishment.
Billionaire Nicole Shanahan, 2024 running mate for former independent presidential candidate and now Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., made a very public pledge to fund primary challenges to any senator who voted against Kennedy’s nomination.
Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act. But it has done little else of note.
Congress, of course, has spent decades cementing its place as the federal government’s least-popular branch.
Here, for instance, is a clip showing hundreds of legislators waving Ukraine flags on the floor of Congress:
Furthermore, now that Trump ally Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X and head of the president’s Department of Government Efficiency, has effectively exposed Washington, D.C., as one giant fraud-riddled crime scene, one must ask how many legislators in both major parties knew about the fraud and even profited from it.
Thus, the Founders’ vision of a representative republic guided by legislators who worked for the people has not materialized.
For the time being, however, one may focus on the positive by acknowledging, first, that the major impediments to Trump’s agenda have come from the judiciary and the corrupt bureaucracy rather than from Congress, and second, that GOP legislators thus far have at least done the bare minimum that MAGA has demanded.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Congress’ Job Approval Jumps 70 Percent Since MAGA Took Over in January appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Trump administration is making good on its promise to drain the swamp and restore law and order, as Attorney General Pam Bondi has fired Pamela Hicks from her role as Chief Counsel of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, President Trump made it clear last week that he would eliminate all Biden-appointed U.S. Attorneys who contributed to the weaponization of the justice system.
In a powerful statement, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
“Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before. Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining “Biden Era” U.S. Attorneys. We must “clean house” IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System – THAT BEGINS TODAY!”
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114027416979768016/embed
The move rattled left-wing operatives embedded in the DOJ, who have used their positions to undermine the rule of law and protect corrupt Democrats.
According to NBC News, one fired U.S. attorney received an official termination letter from Trent Morse, the deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, which read:
“At the direction of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as U.S. Attorney is terminated, effective immediately.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi wasted no time in carrying out Trump’s mission of restoring a fair and impartial Justice Department, leading to Hicks’ immediate dismissal.
“Earlier today, I was served official notice from the Attorney General of the United States that I was being removed from my position as the Chief Counsel of ATF and my employment with the Department of Justice terminated,” Hicks wrote in her LinkedIn post.
She continued, “I have had the privilege of serving in the federal civil service for almost 28 years, including 23 as an attorney for the Department of Justice. Serving as ATF Chief Counsel has been the highest honor of my career and working with the people at ATF and throughout the Department has been a pleasure. I thank my colleagues for their friendship and partnership over the years.”
https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:7298427360884785153
Despite the flowery farewell, Hicks’ tenure at ATF under Biden’s administration saw increased crackdowns on lawful gun owners while ignoring the real crime wave sweeping the country.
Her departure marks a step in restoring a justice system that serves the American people rather than the radical left’s anti-Second Amendment agenda.
The post Attorney General Pam Bondi Fires ATF General Counsel Pamela Hicks as Part of Sweeping Purge of Biden-Era Appointees appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Elon Musk called this the “biggest news of the day!”
On Wednesday night President Trump signed a new presidential action titled: Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative.
https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1892706199344185435
President Trump just authorized the DOGE Team to focus on “the deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”
The order gives government agency heads 60 days to identify the following classes of regulations:
(i) unconstitutional regulations and regulations that raise serious constitutional difficulties, such as exceeding the scope of the power vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution;
(ii) regulations that are based on unlawful delegations of legislative power;
(iii) regulations that are based on anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition;
(iv) regulations that implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority;
(v) regulations that impose significant costs upon private parties that are not outweighed by public benefits;
(vi) regulations that harm the national interest by significantly and unjustifiably impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives; and
(vii) regulations that impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.
(b) In conducting the review required by subsection (a) of this section, agencies shall prioritize review of those rules that satisfy the definition of “significant regulatory action” in Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993 (Regulatory Planning and Review), as amended.
(c) Within 60 days of the date of this order, agency heads shall provide to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget a list of all regulations identified by class as listed in subsection (a) of this section.
(d) The Administrator of OIRA shall consult with agency heads to develop a Unified Regulatory Agenda that seeks to rescind or modify these regulations, as appropriate.
This follows President Trump’s executive order in January named “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” which calls for agencies to identify and eliminate ten existing regulations for each new regulation created.
“The ever-expanding morass of complicated Federal regulation imposes massive costs on the lives of millions of Americans, creates a substantial restraint on our economic growth and ability to build and innovate, and hampers our global competitiveness. Despite the magnitude of their impact, these measures are often difficult for the average person or business to understand, as they require synthesizing the collective meaning not just of formal regulations but also rules, memoranda, administrative orders, guidance documents, policy statements, and interagency agreements that are not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act, further increasing compliance costs and the risk of costs of non-compliance,” the order states.
It is the policy of my Administration to significantly reduce the private expenditures required to comply with Federal regulations to secure America’s economic prosperity and national security and the highest possible quality of life for each citizen.
The order requires that “Unless prohibited by law, whenever an executive department or agency (agency) publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it shall identify at least 10 existing regulations to be repealed.”
It further requires that “any new incremental costs associated with new regulations shall, to the extent permitted by law, be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least 10 prior regulations.”
Agency heads are directed to ensure that the total incremental cost of any new regulations “shall be significantly less than zero.”
The Office of Management and Budget Director is directed to oversee and set guidance on new regulations under the new law.
The President has long committed to and campaigned on deregulation to foster economic growth and prosperity.
In 2017, President Trump signed a similar executive order, requiring agencies to eliminate “at least two prior regulations” before implementing a new one. Biden revoked Trump’s past deregulation order on his first day in office in 2021.
The White House issued the following fact sheet explaining the new executive order:
ELIMINATING 10 REGULATIONS FOR EACH NEW REGULATION ISSUED: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to unleash prosperity through deregulation.
- The Order requires that whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed.
- The Director of the Office of Management and Budget will ensure standardized measurement and estimation of regulatory costs.
- It requires that for fiscal year 2025, the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations, be significantly less than zero.
HALTING THE REGULATORY ONSLAUGHT: President Trump will halt the job killing and inflation-driving regulatory blitz of the Biden Administration.
- The Biden Administration imposed a historic $1.7 trillion in costs on the American people.
- Overregulation stops American entrepreneurship, crushes small business, reduces consumer choice, discourages innovation, and infringes on the liberties of American citizens.
- It also contributes to the high cost of living, including by driving up energy prices.
BUILDING ON PAST SUCCESS: President Trump’s first Administration undertook the most aggressive and successful regulatory reduction effort in history.
The post More Liberal Tears in the Forecast… BREAKING: President Trump Authorizes DOGE to Start Cutting Government Regulations appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
It was clear from Vice President JD Vance’s speech to NATO allies in Munich last week that at least politically, Western Europe and the United States under Donald Trump are moving away from each other.
Vance took European leaders to task over rampant state-supported censorship in many European nations.
“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China…what I worry about is the threat from within; the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America,” the Vice President said.

PHOTO: U.S. Vice-President JD Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a bilateral meeting at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Feb. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)
And while Vance simply defended free speech, some of the liberal European elites in his audience saw it as giving aid and comfort to their political enemies on the European Right.
Those parties are becoming a major force. In Germany on Sunday, the right-wing party, AfD, Alternative for Germany is expected to finish second in national elections. Their rise has been fueled by an economic crisis and disastrous open borders policy which led to last week’s Munich car attack by a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, killing a mother and her 2-year-old daughter while injuring at least 37.
Regardless of how well AfD does in the vote count, Germany’s other parties have vowed to keep it out of any coalition government.

PHOTO: Left-wing protesters demonstrate against the growth of a right-wing political party, in Hanover, Germany, Feb. 8, 2025. (Moritz Frankenberg/dpa via AP)
This comes after Romania annulled its presidential election when a right-wing candidate won the vote.
Vance addressed the issue of European elites trying to keep right-wing parties out of power.
“We shouldn’t be afraid of our people, even when they express views that disagree with their leadership,” Vance said. “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.”
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A seismic political shift was already under way in many West European nations. Now, with the reelection of Donald Trump, the movement has become even more energized.
What one European leader calls ‘The Trump Tornado’ has struck Europe.
“The elites, they’ve been shaken up by the election of Trump. They really feel that, you know, they’re next,” says Frank Furedi, executive director of the think tank MCC Brussels. “A lot of people are demanding that they be heard, they’re looking for a voice. There is a growing sense that the old mainstream parties have lost the trust and the connection with the public.”
Many British and European citizens feel they have become poorer and less free. Eurozone growth has stagnated under climate change regulations, and the average E.U. nation would now qualify as one of the poorest states in the U.S.
Germany, once among the world’s strongest economies, is now ‘de-industrializing‘ to meet radical green energy goals; what the Wall Street Journal has called the “World’s Dumbest Energy Policy.”

PHOTO: Left-wing protesters clashed with police as anti-right-wing alliances demonstrated in Hamburg-Harburg on January 26, 2025. (Photo by: Georg Wendt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)
German economist and Journalist Sabine Beppler-Spahl says Germans see their falling standard of living and want a leader who will do something about it.
Beppler-Spahl told us, “There is a very strong mood within a large sector of German population for very fundamental changes, for real change. And who say ‘too many mistakes have been made. We see what is happening to the country. This is serious.'”
If Trump’s term is successful and Europe falls even farther behind the U.S. economically, it’s likely to put even more pressure on European elites as they try to keep right-wing parties out of power.

In case more evidence was needed to make it clear that the corporate media is the worst, nearly every major Western outlet has ignored the 70 Christians who were just beheaded inside a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has turned into a ‘persona non-grata’ for the administration of Donald J. Trump.
First, Zelensky turned back on the agreed proposal about sharing rare earth elements with the US as repayment for military aid, mistreating the Treasury Secretary. Then, he took it upon himself to lambast Trump’s emissaries for meeting Russian diplomats without a Ukrainian presence.
Finally, the former comedian accused Trump of living in a Russian ‘disinformation bubble’.
Trump is not one to stand for such behavior, and blasted Zelensky as a ‘Dictator’ who lured his country into an unwinnable war and ‘played Joe Biden like a fiddle’.
One source familiar with the White House’s reasonings tole the New York Post:
“’It’s nothing new to me. I heard months ago it’s time for an election and new leadership’, added this person, who said the public breakdown was a long time coming and that anti-Zelensky feeling is widespread within the West Wing.
A second source close to Trump concurred with the assessment and suggested that ‘the best case for [Zelensky] and the world is that he leaves to France immediately’.”

While there are people in the White House who still have a ‘traditional’ (uninformed) view on Zelensky, they have no access to decision-making. Even Mike Waltz has aligned himself with Trump’s unfavorable view of ‘Ze’.
“’President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelensky’, Waltz said Thursday at a White House briefing, where he appeared to indicate a slowdown in arms transfers was taking place, after a Ukrainian parliamentarian claimed ‘the weapons that were going to be sold have stopped being supplied’.
‘Trump’s administration obviously doesn’t like Zelensky and does everything to let everyone know that’, said a Ukrainian political analyst and active-duty soldier who asked not to be identified by name. ‘Recent remarks by the US president show that he wants Ukrainian elections ASAP and Zelensky replaced by someone more negotiable. This can be some who Trump and his allies trust: Military leader or businessman’.”
The Presidential elections in Ukraine were ‘postponed’ due to the state of martial law, giving Zelensky an absurd open-ended mandate.

“Zelensky has also vulgarly disparaged other leading conservative critics of his government — saying this month that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a major outside ally of Trump’s, should ‘stop licking’ Putin’s ‘ass’.”
VP Vance has stated that Ukraine wouldn’t exist without the generosity of the people of the United States of America. So, he should say ‘thank you’.
Trump manifested his outrage that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was turned away in Kiev – in a menacing tone.
“’We had a deal’, Trump said during remarks at a Saudi-backed investment conference in Miami. ‘We had a deal based on rare earth and things, but they broke that deal… they broke it two days ago. I’m going to resurrect it or things are not going to make him too happy’, Trump told reporters on Air Force One.”
Read more:
The post Zelensky Has NO Friends in Trump Team, They Want Him Gone – ‘Best Case is He Leaves to France Immediately’ – NYP appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Department of Justice under President Trump has determined that the multiple layers of removal restrictions shielding administrative law judges (ALJs) are unconstitutional.
The DOJ has concluded that current laws make it too difficult for the government to remove ALJs from their positions. These laws require multiple steps and layers of approval before an ALJ can be fired, which limits the President’s power.
ALJs in the United States are supposed to be “impartial officials” who preside over administrative hearings within federal agencies. They operate within the executive branch, not the judicial branch.
A letter from Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) outlined the DOJ’s stance, explaining that restrictions preventing the removal of ALJs under 5 U.S.C. 1202(d) and 7521(a) are unconstitutional under Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
5 U.S.C. 1202(d) states, “Any member may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
5 U.S.C 7521(a) states, “An action may be taken against an administrative law judge appointed under section 3105 of this title by the agency in which the administrative law judge is employed only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after opportunity for hearing before the Board.”
The DOJ’s position aligns with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd. decision, which struck down similar “multilayer protection from removal” for executive officers. The Court ruled that such barriers were an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s authority to oversee executive officers.
In the DOJ letter, Harris referenced this ruling, emphasizing that removal restrictions preventing ALJs from being held accountable create an unconstitutional chain of protection, limiting the president’s ability to ensure executive officials serve the public interest.
The DOJ has also announced it will no longer defend these removal restrictions in court, a major policy shift.
The letter reads:
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 530D, I am writing to advise you that the Department of Justice has concluded that the multiple layers of removal restrictions for administrative law judges (ALJs) in 5 U.S.C. 1202(d) and 7521(a) violate the Constitution, that the Department will no longer defend them in court, and that the Department has taken that position in ongoing litigation. See 2/11/25 Letter, Axalta Coating Systems LLC v. FAA, No. 23-2376 (3d Cir.).
In Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB, 561 U.S. 477 (2010), the Supreme Court determined that granting “multilayer protection from removal” to executive officers “is contrary to Article Il’s vesting of the executive power in the President.” Id. at 484.
The President may not “be restricted in his ability to remove a principal [executive] officer, who is in turn restricted in his ability to remove an inferior [executive] officer.” Ibid.
A federal statute provides that a federal agency may remove an ALJ “only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after opportunity for hearing before the Board.” 5 U.S.C. 7521(a).
Another statute provides that a member of the Board “may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” 5 U.S.C. 1202(d).
Consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Free Enterprise Fund, the Department has determined that those statutory provisions violate Article II by restricting the President’s ability to remove principal executive officers, who are in turn restricted in their ability to remove inferior executive officers.
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance in this matter.
https://twitter.com/ChadMizelle47/status/1892743547519893792
More from far-left New York Times:
The Trump administration told Congress on Thursday that it believed President Trump had the constitutional power to summarily fire administrative law judges at will, despite a statute that protects such officials from being removed without a cause like misconduct.
The move was the latest step in the administration’s unfolding assault on the basic structure of the federal government and on Congress’ power to insulate various types of executive branch officials in sensitive positions from political interference from the White House. The Trump administration disclosed its approach in a letter from Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general.
Administrative law judges preside over administrative hearings in executive branch agencies. They are executive branch officials, not life-tenured members of the judicial branch, but they still perform judges’ role, including by administering oaths, taking testimony, ruling on evidentiary questions, and making factual and legal determinations.
Examples of such officials include Social Security Administration judges who handle disputes about disability and retirement benefits; National Labor Relations Board judges who resolve unfair labor practice cases; and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission judges who hear disputes about matters like electric utilities and regional grids.
To insulate the officials from political interference, Congress enacted a statute that says disciplinary action, including firings, may be taken against such judges “only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after opportunity for hearing before the board.”
The post Trump DOJ Declares Multi-Layered Protections for Administrative Law Judges Unconstitutional, Dismantling Longstanding Shield for Unelected Bureaucrats appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Feeling unworthy, unloved, or stuck in self-doubt? The world tells you to love yourself more, but Scripture tells a different story. Libby Glosson unpacks why self-esteem culture is failing you and how the Bible offers a better way to think about your worth, purpose, and identity.
• Education Dept gives schools deadline on DEI
• Planned Parenthood employees report serious care issues
• HHS officially defines ‘woman’ in new guidance
• Male runner claims female racing victories
• Parents protest LGBT book in elementary library
• ‘Queer’ actress cast as Jesus in production
• HHS funds structural racism HIV study
• Parents sue TikTok over son’s suicide

So far, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has made significant cuts and taxpayer savings, including over $1 billion in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contracts, $6.5 billion in reductions from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), $502 million from the Education Department, and savings across several other departments such as Social Security, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services. Additionally, DOGE has laid off thousands of federal employees, terminated over 1,100 contracts, and restructured various government programs. And now, DOGE is considering sending a $5,000 check to every American as part of its efforts to provide financial relief to taxpayers.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created through an executive order by President Donald Trump, is tasked with reducing U.S. government spending and improving efficiency. Operating as an advisory body, DOGE aims to streamline operations, particularly in government IT systems, and save taxpayers money. Musk’s team has focused on eliminating wasteful practices, including cutting over $1 billion in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contracts, reducing the size of the federal workforce, and challenging agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to reallocate resources more effectively.
In the first month of Trump’s administration, DOGE implemented significant workforce reductions, laying off thousands of federal employees, including probationary workers. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs dismissed over 1,000 employees, while the Education Department fired at least 39 staff members and cut nearly $900 million from the Institute of Education Services. Other agencies, including Homeland Security, and Energy, also made cuts. At the Department of Health and Human Services, about 1,300 employees were laid off, including a large portion of the workforce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additionally, Trump’s administration removed at least 17 inspectors general, a move criticized by Democrats, and fired career prosecutors in the Department of Justice. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was essentially shut down, and foreign aid programs like those run by USAID were paused, leading to further layoffs.
DOGE claims to have saved $55 billion in federal funds, with $8.6 billion of this coming from cutting 1,127 federal contracts across 39 agencies. However, the total savings and specifics are difficult to verify as only a portion of the data has been disclosed. Additionally, DOGE has reported savings from fraud detection, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, program changes, and regulatory savings. Among the disclosed cuts are $6.5 billion from USAID, $502 million from the Education Department, and further reductions in Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Social Security.
On February 12, The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee’s inaugural hearing revealed significant waste, fraud, and improper payments across federal agencies, which collectively cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually. The Subcommittee, in partnership with DOGE, is working to improve payment systems, close loopholes, and implement better identity verification and auditing processes to eliminate fraud. Expert witnesses, including Dawn Royal and Haywood Talcove, emphasized the importance of eliminating self-attestation, using advanced technology for identity verification, and enforcing continuous auditing to prevent fraud. They highlighted the low investment in fraud prevention within programs like SNAP, where less than 1/20th of 1% of the budget goes toward detecting and prosecuting fraud.
One of the most alarming findings was the fraud rate in the public sector, which is around 20%, compared to the private sector’s 3%, largely due to outdated tools and processes. The committee outlined measures to curb fraud, such as eliminating self-attestation in welfare programs and implementing the National Accuracy Clearinghouse to prevent duplicate participation in social welfare programs. Additionally, the committee explored the impact of policy decisions made by the Biden administration, which some argue have exacerbated improper payments, leading to billions of taxpayer dollars being funneled into wasteful or fraudulent programs.
A key part of the committee’s efforts to address this problem is the Department of Government Efficiency’s push to modernize the 1974 Privacy Act, allowing for the use of AI and other advanced technologies to improve payment systems. These reforms aim to reduce improper payments, which have reached a staggering $2.7 trillion since 2003. The committee also examined how improper payments have contributed to funding left-wing activism and organizations, fueling concerns that taxpayer dollars are being misused to support partisan causes. With the DOGE’s ongoing work, there is a significant push to hold the federal bureaucracy accountable and ensure more efficient use of public funds.
The administration’s efforts to reduce federal spending also include a proposed $5,000 “DOGE Dividend” check to American taxpayers. This payout, more than double the average tax refund, could provide significant financial relief to households, especially since 70% of American households are financially unhealthy. While the proposal has sparked concerns among Democrats about inflation, it offers a contrast to previous government spending, which has focused on increased debt and funding programs for non-citizens and individuals not working. Given the amount of money already allocated to such programs, it would be refreshing for taxpayers to receive a return for the funds they’ve contributed to the system.
The post Cutting Waste and Uncovering Corruption: What’s Not to Love About DOGE appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Are we finally waking up from our lockdown and mandate nightmare? Here’s hoping, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as head of the world’s largest medical agency.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation as the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the US is the ultimate repudiation of the Covid policy response.
The scheme of lockdown-until-vaccination was the biggest effort of government and industry on a global scale on historical record. It was all designed to transfer wealth to winning industries (pharma, online retail, streaming services, online education), divide and conquer the population, and consolidate power in the administrative state.
By 2021, RFK, Jr., had emerged as the world’s most vocal, erudite, and knowledgeable critic of the scheme. In two brilliant books — The Real Anthony Fauci and The Wuhan Cover-Up — he documented the entire enterprise and dated the evolution of the pandemic industry from its postwar inception to the present. There was simply no way to read these books and think about the corporatist cabal in the same way.
The circumstances that led to his appointment at HHS are themselves implausible and remarkable. Perceiving President Biden to be a weak candidate — one who had forced masks and shots on the population and brutally censored tech and media — he decided to make a run for president, presuming that there would be an open primary. There wasn’t one, so he was forced into an independent run.
That effort was chewed up by the usual political dynamic that befalls every third-party effort — too many ballot-access barriers plus the usual logic of Duverger’s law. That left the campaign in a difficult spot. At the same time, two huge political shifts had become clear. The Democratic Party had become a vessel and a front mainly for the administrative state with a veneer of woke ideology, while the Republican Party was being taken over by refugees from the Democrats, in effect creating a new Trump party out of the remnants of the other two.
The rest is legendary. Trump linked up with Elon Musk to do to the federal government what he did when he took over Twitter, taking the company private, gutting the place of embedded federal assets, and firing 4 out of 5 workers. In the midst of this, and faced with a terrifying flurry of legal attacks, Trump dodged an assassin’s bullet. That triggered terrible memories of RFK, Jr.’s father and uncle, and thus sparked discussions about coming together.
Within a matter of weeks, we had a new coalition that brought together old antagonists, as many people and groups seemingly in the same instant realised their conjoined interests in cleaning up the corporatist cartel. With the newly freed platform of X to reach the public, MAGA/MAHA/DOGE was born.
Trump won and chose RFK, Jr., to lead the most powerful public health agency in the world. The barrier was Senate confirmation, but that was achieved through some incredible triangulation that made it extremely difficult to vote no.
In the big picture, you can measure the size of this titanic shift in American politics by the way the votes in the Senate lined up. All Republicans but one voted for the most prominent scion of the Democratic Party to head the health empire while all Democrats voted no. That alone is striking, and a testament to the power of the pharma lobby, which, during the hearings, was exposed as the hidden hand behind the most passionate opponents of the confirmation.
Is our nightmare over? Not yet. Writing not even a month into the second presidential term of Donald Trump, it is still unclear just how much authority he truly exercises over the sprawling executive branch. For that matter, no one can even agree on how large this branch is: between 2.2 million and 3 million employees and somewhere between 400 and 450 agencies. The financial bleed in this realm is unthinkable and far worse than even the biggest cynic can imagine.
Five former secretaries of the Treasury took to the pages of the New York Times with a shocking claim: “The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants.” This has included a career employee called “fiscal assistant secretary — a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.”
There is no reason even to read between the lines. What this means is that no person voted into office by the people and no one appointed by such a person has access to the federal books since 1946. This is startling beyond belief. No owner of any company would ever tolerate being barred from the accounting offices and payment systems. And no company can offer any public stock without independent audits and open books.
And yet almost 80 years have gone by during which time neither has been true for this gigantic enterprise called the federal government. That means that $193 trillion has been spent by an institution that has never faced granulated oversight from the people and never met the normal demands that every enterprise faces every day.
The usual habit in Washington has been to treat every elected leader and their appointments as temporary and transitory marionettes, people who come and go and disturb little to nothing about the normal operations of government. This new administration seems to have every intention to change that but the job is inconceivably challenging. As much public support as MAGA/MAHA/DOGE enjoy for now, and as many people from those groups are getting embedded in the power structure, they are outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by millions of agents of the old order.
This transition will not be easy if it happens at all.
The inertia of the old order is mighty. Even on the issue of health and pandemics, there is already confusion. CBS News has reported that Fauci-loyalist and mRNA pusher Gerald Parker will head the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response or OPPR. The report cited only unnamed “health officials” and the appointment has been celebrated by Scott Gottlieb, the Pfizer board member who nudged Trump into backing lockdowns in 2020.
All the while, this appointment has not been confirmed by the White House. We do not know if OPPR, created by Congressional charter, will even be funded. The reporter will not reveal his sources — raising the question of why any appointment having to do with health should be surrounded by such cloak-and-dagger machinations.
If Dr. Parker becomes ensconced in this position and another health emergency is declared, this time for Bird flu, HHS and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will not be in any kind of decision-making position at all.
The larger problems have to do with a broader question: is the president really in charge of the executive branch? Can he hire and fire? Can he spend money or decline to spend money? Can he set policy for the agencies?
One might suppose that the whole answer to these questions can be found in Article 2, Section 1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” And yet that sentence was written almost 100 years before Congress created this thing called the “civil service” that nowhere appears in the Constitution. This fourth branch has grown in size and power to swamp both the presidency and the legislature.
Courts are going to have to sort this out, and already an avalanche of lawsuits has hit the new administration for daring to presume control over agencies and their activities of which the president is and must necessarily be held accountable. Lower federal courts seem to be demanding that the president be that in name only, while the Supreme Court might have a different opinion.
The much-ballyhooed “constitutional crisis” consists of nothing other than an attempt to reassert the original constitutional design of government.
This is the background template in which RFK, Jr., takes power at HHS, and oversees all the sub-agencies. These agencies played a huge role in covering for the attack on liberty and rights over five years. His confirmation is a symbolic repudiation of the most egregious public policies on record. And yet, the repudiation is entirely implicit: there has been no commission, no admission of error, no one truly held responsible, and no real accountability.
The trajectory on which we find ourselves affords many reasons for champagne celebrations, but sober up quickly. There is a very long way to go and enormous barriers in place to get us to the point that we are really safe again from the marauding corporatist/statist complex and their plots and schemes to rob the public of rights and liberties. In the meantime, to invoke a common phrase, keep these new appointees in your thoughts and prayers.
___
Republished with thanks to Brownstone Institute. Image courtesy of Unsplash.
The post Is Our Five-Year Nightmare Finally Over? appeared first on The Daily Declaration.


The “conspiracy theorists” were right again.
The narrative surrounding the COVID crisis is crumbling, and now Dr. Deborah Birx is admitting what the “conspiracy theorists” knew all along in an apparent effort to save her own skin.
Dr. Birx, who served as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under President Trump, admitted during a recent appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored that the government botched the COVID response by overlooking early treatment.
“What I witnessed was a lot of undiagnosed disease that could have been treated early that then resulted in COVID deaths,” Birx lamented.
Birx literally echoed what dissident doctors had been saying from day one: Early treatment saves lives. Instead of listening, they silenced those doctors, threatened to take away their licenses and let people die.

In a 2022 exchange with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Birx was cornered into admitting that the Biden administration’s claims about the jab’s efficacy were based on “hope,” not science.
JORDAN: “When the government told us the vaccinated couldn’t transmit it [COVID], was that a lie or a guess?”
BIRX: “I think it was hope that the vaccine would work in that way.”
Now, Birx is throwing more health officials under the bus, claiming the vaccine rollout also ignored the science. She stated that the mRNA jab was developed to target those at high risk of severe illness, not specifically the general population.
“The messenger RNA vaccine should have been rolled out for the people that were at risk for severe disease because that’s what the vaccine was developed for,” Birx said.
She also confessed the COVID shot was never “designed” to prevent infection:
“That is not what the COVID vaccine was designed to do. It wasn’t designed against infection.”
Now she tells us.
This goes against the narrative we were all fed—that everyone needed to get vaccinated to “protect grandma.”
People lost their jobs because of this lie.
Four years later, they’re reluctantly admitting that young people were never the intended primary target for the jab—and that it wasn’t even designed to prevent infection.

In another surprising moment, Piers Morgan linked SSRIs and antidepressants to mass shootings, saying, “There’s a direct correlation.”
Morgan made these comments just before announcing he is “in favor of RFK trying to pull America away from its addiction to mind-bending drugs.”
“You have millions of young people who are taking completely unnecessary mind-bending drugs for things like anxiety, depression, often self-diagnosed. And guess what happens?
“You then have a load of weirdo-loner kids running around with their brains scrambled who commit mass shootings and stuff like that. There is a direct correlation, and we’re going the same way in Britain. Young people are getting massively overmedicated. So I am actually in favor of RFK trying to pull America away from its addiction to mind-bending drugs,” Morgan said.
Read more about the link between SSRIs and mass shootings on A Midwestern Doctor’s Substack page.
The Decades of Evidence SSRI Antidepressants Cause Mass Shootings
The Big Pharma-funded media’s lies that endless boosters are needed to “keep people safe” and that SSRIs have no link to mass shootings are now falling apart.
With RFK Jr. in charge at HHS, real conversations are finally happening—and people are waking up. Thank goodness.

This article was republished with permission.
The post Vigilant Fox: Infamous Dr. Deborah Birx Makes Two Shocking COVID Admissions appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Source: Shadow Government – Not on Hold
Fox News’ Griff Jenkins reports the latest on President Donald Trump’s executive order. The ‘Outnumbered’ panel reacts to his decision to block taxpayer dollars from funding illegal immigration. #FoxNews