Heritage Foundation draft report calls for ending U.S. aid to Israel

Heritage Foundation draft report calls for ending U.S. aid to Israel

Jewish Insider reports: The Heritage Foundation has composed a new proposal calling for the U.S. to cut off aid to Israel by 2047 and require the Jewish state to increase its purchasing of U.S. defense materials, Jewish Insider has learned. It was set to announce the report at an event on Wednesday, which has since been canceled, a source familiar with the situation said, after at least one of the headline speakers withdrew from participating. A draft of the report…

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Most Americans believe that Musk’s DOGE cuts are harming the country, poll finds

Most Americans believe that Musk’s DOGE cuts are harming the country, poll finds

Politico reports: Over half of voters believe Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency are hurting the country, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds. Fifty-four percent of voters believe DOGE, which the Trump administration has charged with slashing government spending, is harming the country. In comparison, 40 percent say Musk’s office is helping, according to the Quinnipiac poll. And 60 percent of voters disapprove of how Musk and DOGE deal with the federal workforce, while 36 percent approve. The…

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Judge orders reinstatement for most fired probationary federal workers; the firings were ‘based on a lie’

Judge orders reinstatement for most fired probationary federal workers; the firings were ‘based on a lie’

Government Executive reports: The Trump administration must reinstate to their jobs federal employees it has fired in the last month at six large departments after a judge on Thursday called the terminations unlawful. The reinstatements are to take immediate effect, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for Northern California said when issuing his preliminary injunction from the bench, and agencies were directed not to make any excuse for delaying the rehirings. Roughly 24,000 federal employees in their probationary…

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Inside Musk’s ‘digital coup’

Inside Musk’s ‘digital coup’

Wired reports: As America’s most decorated civil servants sipped cocktails in the presidential ballroom of the Capital Hilton, worrying about their table assignments and wondering where they fell in the pecking order between US senator and UAE ambassador, Elon Musk sat staring at his phone, laughing. Few of the guests at the Alfalfa Club banquet in Washington, DC, on January 25 knew what he knew: that a crew of senior executives and young Musk loyalists was preparing to occupy the…

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Republican lawmakers ‘just call Elon’ to avoid DOGE cuts

Republican lawmakers ‘just call Elon’ to avoid DOGE cuts

The Boston Globe reports: At Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, there is no official help line for members of Congress to call with questions about how the billionaire’s far-reaching effort to slash federal spending might affect their constituents. But many Republicans have something better: Musk’s personal cell phone number, or failing that, the numbers of some of his top aides. “I just call Elon,” said Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, when asked how he tracks down answers to…

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From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott American goods is spreading

From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott American goods is spreading

Peter Beaumont writes: The renowned German classical violinist Christian Tetzlaff was blunt in explaining why he and his quartet have cancelled a summer tour of the US. “There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” Tetzlaff said, describing his horror at the authoritarian polices of Donald Trump and the response of US elites to the country’s growing democratic crisis. “I feel utter anger. I cannot go on with this feeling inside. I cannot just go and…

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WSJ editorial board says they were being ‘kind’ calling Trump’s trade war ‘the dumbest in history’

WSJ editorial board says they were being ‘kind’ calling Trump’s trade war ‘the dumbest in history’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board says: President Trump wanted a trade war with the world, and Americans are getting it, good and hard. Stock prices continued to decline on Tuesday amid the latest Canada-U.S. tariff tit-for-tat. By the end of the day the two sides were talking about a temporary truce, but who knows which side of the tariff bed Mr. Trump will wake up on Wednesday? North Americans awakened Monday to the news that Ontario premier Doug Ford…

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The U.S. has covertly destabilized nations. Now, with Canada, it’s being done openly

The U.S. has covertly destabilized nations. Now, with Canada, it’s being done openly

CBC News reports: Former senior Canadian intelligence officials say Canada needs to be on the lookout for campaigns aimed at destabilizing the country amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s escalating 51st state threats. And they told CBC News that the most potent weapon wielded by the Trump administration to advance the cause of annexation would likely not be the intelligence agencies directed by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. “I would regard Mr. Musk as a problem,” said Ward Elcock, who…

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Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of economy, poll finds

Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of economy, poll finds

Politico reports: Americans have flipped their views on President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy since the end of his first term, according to new polling, amid a brewing trade war with America’s neighbors and stock market decline. When asked about how Trump is handling the economy, 56 percent of adults said they disapprove and 44 said they approved, according to a CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday morning. Throughout his first term, Americans had generally held a positive view of the…

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Trump is cracking down on colleges that are willing to be bullied

Trump is cracking down on colleges that are willing to be bullied

Jonathan W. Gray writes: The detention of Mahmoud Khalil signals a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s promise to crack down on campus dissent. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to punish colleges and universities that allowed what he characterized as “illegal protests” against Israel’s conduct in Gaza, singling out Columbia University for special opprobrium. His administration followed up on that threat on Friday by canceling roughly $400 million in grants and contracts. Combined with an earlier interruption of funds from the…

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How a global online network of white supremacists groomed a teen to kill

How a global online network of white supremacists groomed a teen to kill

  By A.C. Thompson, ProPublica and FRONTLINE, James Bandler, ProPublica, and Lukáš Diko, Investigative Center of Jan Kuciak This story was originally published by ProPublica The teen entered the chat with a friendly greeting. “Hello lads,” he typed. “Sup,” came a reply, along with a graphic that read “KILL JEWS.” Another poster shared a GIF of Adolf Hitler shaking hands with Benito Mussolini. Someone else added a short video of a gay pride flag being set on fire. Eventually, the…

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Republicans in Congress discover a timeless dimension in which votes don’t need to be counted

Republicans in Congress discover a timeless dimension in which votes don’t need to be counted

The New York Times reports: House Republican leaders on Tuesday quietly moved to shield their members from having to vote on whether to end President Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, tucking language into a procedural measure that effectively removed their chamber’s ability to undo the levies. The maneuver was a tacit acknowledgment of how politically toxic the issue had become for their party, and another example of how the all-Republican Congress is ceding its power to the executive…

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How the right created its own draconian version of woke

How the right created its own draconian version of woke

Thomas Chatterton Williams writes: One of the defining features of the social-justice orthodoxy that swept through American culture between roughly the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 to Hamas’s assault on Israel in 2023 was the policing of language. Many advocates became obsessed with enforcing syntactical etiquette and banishing certain words. “Wokeness,” as it’s known, introduced the asymmetrical capitalization of the letter b in Black but not the w in white. It forced Romance languages like Spanish to submit to gender-neutral constructions such as Latinx. It called for…

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In $4 trillion sell-off, investors turn away from the U.S. because it’s no longer a reliable trade partner

In $4 trillion sell-off, investors turn away from the U.S. because it’s no longer a reliable trade partner

Reuters reports: President Donald Trump’s tariffs have spooked investors, with fears of an economic downturn driving a stock market sell-off that has wiped out $4 trillion from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Trump’s agenda. A barrage of new Trump policies has increased uncertainty for businesses, consumers and investors, notably back-and-forth tariff moves against major trading partners like Canada, Mexico and China. “We’ve seen clearly a big sentiment shift,” said Ayako Yoshioka, senior…

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