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All USAID employees were offered 8 months of pay & benefits. '60 Minutes' is a habitual liar - we all remember their careful editing of Kama's interview prior to the election.
60 Mins are such liars. As the Community Note states, all employees were offered 8 months of pay & benefits. pic.twitter.com/8djYsnWTJG
60 Minutes aired an interview of 2 USAID Contractors last night—one was Kristina Drye—the same woman ABC interviewed who confessed to taking “incriminating books” with her after @DOGE utesentered the USAID building.
Strangely, Kristina Drye has deleted her X account.
60 Minutes aired an interview of 2 USAID Contractors last night—one was Kristina Drye—the same woman ABC interviewed who confessed to taking “incriminating books” with her after @DOGE entered the USAID building.
PM refused to approve entry of mobile homes, earthmoving equipment to Gaza – reportPolitical official says issue to be discussed, after Hamas briefly balked at releasing hostages and claimed Israel violated truce by barring bulldozers, trailers from Strip
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly did not give approval for the entry of mobile homes and heavy equipment into the the Gaza Strip during Saturday night’s security consultations, in a potential breach of the ceasefire deal with Hamas.
“Following a security consultation chaired by the prime minister, it was decided that the issue of trailers will be discussed in the coming days,” the Kan public broadcaster quoted a political official as saying. “Israel is fully coordinating with the United States.”
According to reports, the ceasefire and hostage release agreement explicitly states that supplies and equipment can be brought in to Gaza to establish at least 60,000 temporary living facilities. The details of the deal have not been published in full.
Israel Plans 1,000 New Settlement Homes as West Bank Raids Intensifyby Brett Wilkins | Feb 17, 2025
Israeli authorities are planning to expand a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank by nearly 1,000 homes, a Tel Aviv-based peace group said Sunday as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territory.
Peace Now said Israel’s Civil Administration has issued a new tender for the construction of 974 new housing units in Efrat, a Jewish-only colony located about 7.5 miles south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron. The planned expansion will increase Efrat’s population of approximately 11,800 residents by 40% and geographically isolate Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank.
Emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to power, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet have vowed to annex the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 in violation of international law.
On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that “the goal for 2025 is to demolish more than the Palestinians build in the West Bank,” according toAl Jazeera. This, following the largest Israeli seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank in decades last year.
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, a CBS anchor claims that free speech caused the Holocaust. That's not a straw man. She actually said that. Also, yet another airplane disaster—why has this become a trend? Conservatives are outraged at an SNL skit. Is the outrage warranted? And a viral video has sparked a very important debate about child-free weddings.
00:00 - 00:21 Opening 02:03 - 23:34 CBS Claims That Free Speech Caused The Holocaust 24:35 - 28:20 A Delta Plane Crashes And Flips At Toronto Airport 28:21 - 35:03 Another Terrible Protest Song To Cringe At 35:04 - 39:55 SNL Skit Involving A MAGA Tom Hanks Creates Stir On X 39:56 - 45:40 Dozens of Maori Men Disrupt Pride Parade With Ceremonial Dance 47:25 - 57:10 Child-Free Weddings Are Canceled
Medicare Spent an Average of 27% More on People Who Switched from Medicare Advantage to Traditional Medicare Compared to Those Who Were Only in Traditional Medicare Dec 06, 2024
At the press conference in Riyadh at the conclusion of their four and a half hour talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and with Presidential Foreign Policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, Rubio, Waltz and Witkoff spoke very well. They were very diplomatic, very much in control of the discourse with aggressive, unfriendly journalists from the press. They showed themselves to be loyal, shall we say deferential to the President whose will they were carrying out. They also appeared to be fully up to the task.
From what the American negotiators said and to what Lavrov added in his own remarks to Russian journalists when the talks were over, we understand that the first issue that they addressed was to restore normal staffing and operating procedures at the respective diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow which had been cut to nearly zero under the Biden administration. This begins with the appointment and confirmation of ambassadors on each side. This is a precondition for successful work to prepare a summit of the national leaders that will address the many separate issues of common interest including peace in Ukraine.
The isolation of Russia, the arms’ distance approach of dealing with a pariah state: that is all finished, kaput.
Evidently the repair work on state-to-state relations will proceed in parallel and not be held up by talks on ending the war, which is now acknowledged as something that will take some time. The U.S. side recognizes that a permanent and broad relationship with Russia is essential to deal with global issues of interest to both nations.
This will bring the relationship to the third phase of talks: about ‘geopolitical’ issues. Here we may expect the U.S. to try to drive a wedge between Russia and China, and to try to agree on what role BRICS will have in the coming multipolar world while not fundamentally threatening U.S. interests.
The cherry on the cake was the press conference later yesterday that Donald Trump held at Mar a Lago. In answer to reporters’ questions on why Zelensky was excluded from the talks, he said that Zelensky had been at the table for three years, with no positive results. As even today’s Financial Times recognizes in its article on the press conference, Trump was wholly dismissive of Zelensky and clearly wants to see him gone, removed by elections that the U.S. wants to be held within the context of the coming peace settlement. Trump remarked that Zelensky’s popularity rating in Ukraine has fallen to 4%. Compare that to the 52% support which the FT mentions with reference to polls by a sociological institute in Kiev.
The negotiating methods that Trump used from inauguration day to present are a perfect example of the alternating feint to the right, feint to the left methods that Mikhail Gorbachev used from early in his presidency to keep his fellow members of the collective Soviet leadership submissive. This is what the panelists in Solovyov’s show understood from their close experience with this at home.
It is high time for Americans and Europeans now to appreciate these consummate political skills within Team Trump, and to wish him well.
Those in the alternative media, just like those in mainstream who try to kick the tires, saying that Trump is motivated by narrow financial interests or other personal considerations that come from his vanity are being small-minded and are intentionally missing the big picture.
Russians comparing Trump to Gorbachev who oversaw a decline in the Soviet Union. Warsaw Pact Europe was a huge albatross around the Soviet Union with their demands for subsidized energy and trade. The US seems to be looking to force the EU to stand on its own while recognizing their economies are in relative decline to the rest of the world.
Medicare Advantage is highly profitable, with gross margins of $2000 per patient, 2-3 times higher than other health insurance sectors. Year after year.
The profitability derives from overcharging, via inflated diagnostic coding and risk selection, among other tactics. The overcharge exceeds $100 billion per year.
Talk about a head fake. After a surge in homebuilding in the final weeks of 2024, new data today shows a sharp pullback in activity.
Why it matters: Few sectors capture the story of the economy in recent years better than housing — Americans' frustration with high prices, elevated borrowing costs, CEO uncertainty, and a supply-demand mismatch (for goods and workers).
Two new economic factors could be added to that list of long-running housing issues: President Trump's trade war and deportation policies.
"ncertainty over the scale and scope of tariffs has builders further concerned about costs," Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Homebuilders, said Tuesday alongside an index that showed dampened industry sentiment.
The intrigue: High housing costs — made worse by an upswing in mortgage rates — are keeping some would-be buyers sidelined. Trump's policies could have more inflationary consequences than not.
Homebuilders rely heavily on immigrant workers, who could be difficult to find with a crackdown on immigration (though at least one top Fed official has pointed to immigration contributing to higher rents).
Data: Freddie Mac; Chart: Axios Visuals The new data crushes any supply-side optimism from late last year.
The pace of new home construction nationwide plunged by 10% last month, including a slowdown in single-family home construction (-8%) and apartment buildings (-11%), relative to December.
Bad weather held down construction in January, while the strong pace of construction in the prior two months was a bounce back from a hurricane-related slowdown.
Zoom in: Breaking ground on new homes is a leading indicator of supply — a positive development for prospective homebuyers facing a years-long affordability crisis driven by a shortage of homes.
"The overall housing market remains more than 3 million units short," RSM economist Joseph Brusuelas wrote in a recent client note.
