Important Takeaways:
- America finds Europe’s retreat from shared values as the continent turns away from democracy and towards censorship “shocking”, Vice President JD Vance told leaders in Germany in a hard-hitting speech.
- Europe is increasingly acting like the ‘bad guys’ in the Cold War as it turns towards censorship and fails to uphold democracy, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told a stunned hall at Germany’s major annual Munich that despite obsession among the European elite about subversion by Russia and China, actually the greatest threat to the continent is “the threat from within”.
- In a withering check-list of failures of freedom heard of by Americans coming out of Europe in recent months including an annulled election in Romania, threats of social media crackdowns against “hateful content”, and even Christians arrested for praying in public, Vance said these developments are “shocking to American ears”. He said:
- For years we’ve been told everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials, threatening to cancel others, we have to ask if we are holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves because I fundamentally think we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values, we must live them.
- Now within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not. And thank God they lost the Cold War.
- The old Soviet Union lost the Cold War because they didn’t value the “blessings of liberty”, Vance said, warning you cannot simply “mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can’t force people what to think, what to feel, what to believe”. It is not clear Europe has learned those lessons of the Cold War, he said.
- Listing the particularly egregious cases of government overreach, Vance reflected: “In Britain and across Europe free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”
- Vance’s speech was not just observation, however, and he also made an “offer” to the audience of experts, stating there is “a new sheriff in town” in the form of Donald Trump, and that he is strongly in favor of freedom of speech. He said, to an almost silent room with only scant applause from a handful: “Just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite and I hope we can work together on that.”
- The speech, at the Munich Security Conference, made scant reference to the Ukraine War at all, one of the main topics of conversation hoped for by the European defense and security leaders attending the event this weekend. Doubtless this came as a shock to some given the preponderance of the conflict in the minds of attendees, but evidently saving Europe from itself is a high priority for the Trump White House.
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Important Takeaways:
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will only agree to meet in person with Russian leader Vladimir Putin after a common plan is negotiated with U.S. President Trump.
- Zelenskyy also said he believes Trump is the key to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and said the U.S president gave him his telephone number before Friday’s opening of the Munich Security Conference.
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Important Takeaways:
- The years-old contract was discovered by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and reveals that the Pentagon awarded $9.15 million to Thomson Reuters Special Services, LLC (TRSS).
- The contract was filed under the Pentagon’s ‘Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services’ and ‘Research and Development’ programs.
- The connection to the media company is likely what led to the outrage from DOGE, Musk and Trump over the huge contract.
- In a post to his Truth Social account on Thursday, Trump wrote: ‘DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study ‘large scale social deception.’ GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!’
- On the government website that tracks and publishes contracts the $9 million award to TRSS is listed on the purchase order as being for ‘Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) Large Scale Social Deception (LSD).’
- The goal of the ASED programs is to enhance U.S. cybersecurity by creating systems that detect, analyze and mitigate threats that exploit human psychology.
- There is a note on the contract award stating that some funding provided in 2020 and beyond was related to COVID-19 and included Disaster Emergency Fund Code (DEFC) ‘N,’ which means that money was distributed in an emergency capacity.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel sees opening for strikes on Iranian Nuclear Sites, U.S. Intelligence finds
- The finding was included in an analytical assessment produced around the new year as the Biden administration wound down. The analysis highlighted the risks of further high-stakes military activity in the Middle East after the degradation of Iran’s capabilities over the past year.
- The intelligence analysis concluded Israel would push the Trump administration to back the strikes, viewing him as more likely to join an attack than former President Joe Biden and fearing the window for halting Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon was closing, two of the people familiar with the intelligence said.
- The U.S. intelligence community produced a second report delivered during the early days of President Trump’s administration reiterating that Israel is considering such strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one of the U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence.
- S. military support and munitions would likely be needed for an Israeli attack on Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear sites given their complexity, U.S. military officials say.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Israel’s military declined to comment. Israeli officials have repeatedly signaled that there is an opportunity for more aggressive action against Iran.
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Important Takeaways:
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended Gabbard’s nomination in a speech on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, in which he highlighted her military service and focused on her promise to “right-size” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “I am glad that Ms. Gabbard plans to focus on identifying and eliminating redundancies and inefficiencies to restore the office to what it was originally designed to be,” he said.
- Gabbard is Trump’s 14th nominee to be confirmed since January 20.
- Gabbard’s confirmation would make her the most markedly anti-surveillance official to lead the intelligence community in the post-9/11 era. Her previous animus toward what she has described as the “national security state and its warmongering friends,” hell-bent on using the Espionage Act and other tools to punish its enemies, has raised questions about whether she might seek to reshape the rules by which American intelligence agencies have been collecting, searching and using intelligence for decades.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel’s security cabinet fully supports President Donald Trump’s demand that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas release all of its hostages by noon on Saturday or that “all hell is going to break out,” an Israeli official told Fox News.
- The declaration comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet Tuesday after Hamas announced it would delay the next release of Israeli hostages.
- “The decision I passed in the Cabinet unanimously is this: If Hamas does not return our hostages by Saturday noon – the ceasefire will end, and the IDF will resume intense combat until Hamas is decisively defeated,” Netanyahu said in a statement after the meeting.
- “In light of Hamas’ announcement of its decision to violate the agreement and not release our hostages, I instructed the IDF last night to amass forces inside and around the Gaza Strip. This operation is currently underway and will be completed as soon as possible,” Netanyahu added.
- “We also welcomed the President’s revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
- The sides have carried out five swaps since the ceasefire went into effect last month, freeing 21 hostages and more than 730 Palestinian prisoners. The next exchange, scheduled for next Saturday, calls for three more Israeli hostages to be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
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Important Takeaways:
- Leaders in Europe and Canada have said they will not let Donald Trump’s plans to hit their steel and aluminum exports with tariffs go unchallenged.
- Trump said he was “simplifying” the rules and the measures would boost domestic production.
- “This is a big deal, the beginning of making America rich again,” Trump said, signing the proclamation, which said the measures would come into force on 12 March.
- “Our nation requires steel and aluminum to be made in America, not in foreign lands,” he added.
- The US is the world’s largest importer of steel, counting Canada, Brazil and Mexico as its top three suppliers.
- Canada alone accounted for more than 50% of aluminum imported into the US last year.
- The tariffs will raise the cost of bringing the metals into the US, sparking concern among businesses in the US that rely on the imports and many world leaders because it will make it more expensive for companies to sell their products in the world’s largest economy.
- Trump officials said the latest moves were aimed at stopping countries such as China and Russia from avoiding tariffs by routing low-cost products through other countries.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas has said it will not release the next batch of Israeli hostages this weekend as planned, citing alleged Israeli violations of the fragile ceasefire, a development that could derail an already fragile three-week-old truce agreement.
- “If they’re not here, all hell is going to break out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday night. He added of the ceasefire: “Cancel it, and all bets are off.”
- Trump said the final decision would be up to Israel, saying: “I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.”
- When asked if the US would join in a response to Hamas if hostages weren’t freed, Trump said: “Hamas will find out what I mean.”
- The president also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if those countries did not take refugees from Gaza.
- Another 16, including eight bodies, are due to be released as part of the first six-week phase of the ceasefire. In total there are 76 captives still held in the strip.
- The Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida cited alleged Israeli violations of the ceasefire deal, including delaying the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, blocking the arrival of aid and attacking civilians. He said there would be no more hostage releases until Israel “complies and compensates for the past weeks”.
- Israel denies the Hamas allegations.
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Important Takeaways:
- President Trump laid down a demand Friday for a “balanced budget” while a nonpartisan budget group estimated his tax priorities will cost at least $5 trillion over 10 years and perhaps double that.
- “BALANCED BUDGET!!!” the president posted on social media Friday.
- The federal budget hasn’t been balanced since the Clinton administration. The deficit for the current fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, is $711 billion, according to the Treasury Department.
- It’s especially tough to balance the budget without cutting Social Security and Medicare, which Mr. Trump has promised not to do.
- What the president appears to be referring to in his social media post is ensuring that the new spending and tax proposals that lawmakers are working on will not further add to the deficit, rather than truly balancing the federal budget.
- The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an estimate of the tax priorities that Mr. Trump laid out during this week’s meeting with House Republicans, finding the proposals would cost $5 trillion to $11.2 trillion over 10 years, depending how they’re structured.
- The bulk of that cost, $3.9 trillion to 4.8 trillion, comes from extending tax cuts enacted during Mr. Trump’s first term that are set to expire at the end of the year, including lower rates for individuals and small businesses.
- Republicans have talked about using a current policy baseline that would assume those tax cuts remain baked into law, effectively wiping the cost down to zero.
- Even if they do that, Mr. Trump is proposing plenty of new tax cuts that would need to be offset to achieve his balance goal.
- His plan to cut taxes on income from tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits would cost $900 billion to $5 trillion.
- The CRFB said the range is so wide because Mr. Trump and lawmakers have yet to provide details. The costs will depend on “if these forms of income are exempt from taxation only for income taxes or for both income and payroll taxes, if these exemptions are subject to strict guardrails to limit cost and make it harder for taxpayers to reclassify income as tips and overtime, and how taxpayers react to these proposals,” the group said.
- Another wide range, $200 billion to $1.2 trillion, comes from lifting the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction enacted as a partial offset to the 2017 tax cuts. Mr. Trump has sided with lawmakers from high-tax states who want to provide SALT relief for their constituents, but they have yet to come up with a specific proposal.
- Trump also floated cutting taxes on products made in America.
- “This could reflect his campaign proposal to lower the corporate tax rate to 15% for domestic manufacturing — or it could represent something more modest,” the CRFB said, estimating it will cost $100 billion to $200 billion.
- The president’s tax priorities also included a few proposals that would add revenue: closing the carried interest loophole that benefits private equity and reducing tax benefits for stadium owners. The CRFB assumed the latter refers to ending the tax benefit for some or all private activity bonds that can be used to finance professional sports stadiums.
- Taken together, those changes “could raise between $20 and $100 billion over a decade — enough to cover 0.2 to 1.8% of the tax cuts he reportedly outlined,” the CRFB said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Al Green, a Democrat, says Trump proposal to ‘take over Gaza’ is a ‘dastardly deed’ amounting to ethnic cleansing
- Green, a firebrand politician who launched a number of unsuccessful attempts to impeach Trump during his first term in office, is unlikely to find much traction on his latest effort. Pete Aguilar, the No 3 House Democrat, told Politico on Wednesday that impeachment was not an immediate focus of his caucus.
- Green said the “impeachment movement is going to be a grass-up movement, not a top-down”, and that “when the people demand it, it will be done”.
- “I know that it’s time for us to lay the foundation again,” Green said on Wednesday.
- “On some issues, it is better to stand alone than not stand at all. On this issue, I stand alone, but I stand for justice.”
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