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February 2025

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How Pete Hegseth Can Purge Wokeness From the Military By Will Thibeau

By on February 20th, 2025

https://tomklingenstein.com/how-pete-hegseth-can-purge-wokeness-from-the-military/

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have a clear mandate to restore the United States Armed Forces as the global standard of military excellence, rolling back four years of decline under the DEI-obsessed Pentagon of the Biden-Harris administration.

They will face resistance to these reform efforts not just from the political Left and the Democratic Party, but from an entrenched class of senior officers whose bureaucratic ethos and commitment to woke ideology have undermined mission readiness, eroded cohesion and morale among the troops, and transformed our military from a merit-based institution singularly focused on national defense into a laboratory for costly and destructive social experimentation.

Hegseth’s success in setting the Pentagon straight will depend on his effectiveness in checking the overreach of these woke officers and restoring civilian control over our Armed Forces. That will require more than simply overturning race– and sex–based quotas, ending the indulgence of transgenderism in the uniform, or any of the other worthy and necessary measures to unmake the woke military at the level of policy. To achieve real and lasting change, Hegseth must enact structural reforms that remove not just the woke policies themselves but the climate and the culture from which they emerged. 

Below are three ambitious but achievable recommendations that Hegseth could adopt to tame the scourge of wokeness in uniform and restore control of our defense establishment to the American people and their elected representatives.

Eliminate woke officers by restoring civilian control of personnel processes.

It would be difficult to overstate the extent to which the upper echelons at the Pentagon have been taken over by left-wing ideology. In one analysis published by the Center for Renewing America, out of almost 600 generals and admirals, over 60 were found to have politicized their service to an objectionable extent — more than one in ten. 

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Musk brings the receipts as polling shows Trump and DOGE have public backing despite critics The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk has attracted its fair share of critics, though the agenda of dramatically downsizing government itself appears to have overshadowed the negative press, smear campaigns and public suspicion of Musk. BenWheldon

By on February 20th, 2025

https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/musk-brings-receipts-polling-shows-trump-and-doge-have-public-backing

Elon Musk is bringing receipts to substantiate his claims of large-scale fraud in the American government, undermining claims from detractors as he rides a wave of popular support for President Donald Trump and a government overhaul.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk has attracted its fair share of critics, though the agenda of dramatically downsizing government itself appears to have overshadowed the negative press and public suspicion of Musk.

Over the first month of the Trump presidency, DOGE has torn through federal agencies seeking instances of fraud, waste, abuse and other non-necessary expenditures hoping to dramatically reduce the scope of the federal government. The department has yet to post a comprehensive list of savings, but its website currently promises “receipts coming over the weekend.” So far, however, the department has already shown hard documentation of apparent fraud and waste via its X account.

Thus far, the agency has largely taken aim at executive branch agencies and has yet to post any workforce data on Congress or the Judiciary. But the executive branch agencies make up a substantive part of the federal workforce and payroll, accounting for more than 2.2 million employees and an annual expenditure of just over $211 billion.

Over the weekend, the department published its initial reports outlining the scope of federal agency expenditures and regulations, estimating that 18.5 federal regulations existed for each law Congress approved.

A change in approach

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While Trump Blazes, Congress Fumbles And Bumbles

By on February 20th, 2025

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/20/while-the-white-house-sizzles-congress-bumbles/

In our lifetimes, we’ve never seen anything like what we are witnessing at 1400 Pennsylvania Ave., as the Trump administration sets the town ablaze with rapid-fire executive orders, mass firings, and DOGE investigations. The White House is “flooding the zone” with an unprecedented sense of purpose and urgency.

But a mile-and-a-half east on Pennsylvania Avenue, Republican lawmakers act like it’s just another day at the office at the U.S. Capitol – an attitude that could end up dooming Trump’s presidency.

So far, Congress has passed one bill. And it can’t seem to get its act together on the make-or-break “reconciliation” bill that will determine the future success of Trump’s second term.

This is in stark contrast to 2021, when Democrats handed Joe Biden his $1.9 billion “rescue plan” in record time.

Like Trump, Biden laid out what he wanted in that bill before he took office. The House and Senate got to work and passed a “budget resolution” on Feb. 5 of that year – the first step to getting Biden’s massive “rescue plan” passed through the filibuster-proof “reconciliation” process. The final bill hit Biden’s desk on March 11.

Today? House Republicans still aren’t sure they have the votes to get their budget resolution bill passed against opposition from moderates and fiscal hawks over spending cuts.

And the House can’t agree with Senate Republicans on whether to push for one big reconciliation bill – favored by the House – or two separate bills being pushed in the Senate. Any differences would then have to be ironed out in conference committee.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Bibas family and the antisemitic moral corruption of the world’s institutions By Andrea Widburg

By on February 19th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/the_bibas_family_and_the_antisemitic_moral_corruption_of_the_world_s_institutions.html

Hamas has announced what many have long suspected: Shiri Bibas and her two red-haired children, Ariel (5) and Kfir (2), all three of whom Hamas militants and their civilian allies kidnapped on October 7, 2023, are dead. Well, more than dead. Murdered.

Given the symbolic significance those once-smiling redheads have had in Israel, their deaths serve as an important touchpoint to understanding the world’s complete moral collapse. That collapse is evidenced in how the world’s institutions (governments, academia, and the media) have responded since October 7. And while societies can survive for quite some time despite institutional financial corruption, moral corruption is a different story—and, the Bible would say, moral corruption against the Jews will destroy societies. Even Israel is not free from this stricture.

On October 7, thousands of men from Gaza, whether official members of Hamas or the usual sadistic hangers-on that are rife in Muslim-Arab society, flooded into Israel. They targeted civilian enclaves—a music festival and kibbutzim where ordinary people lived—and killed over 1,200 people.

The invaders went out of their way to make the killings as sadistic as possible, torturing people to death, including mass rape of women and, it seems, men. Children were slaughtered in their cradles. In addition, Hamas & Co. seized 251 people, almost all civilians and many of whom were children, including those Bibas babies, and dragged them into Gaza.

Israel has since recovered 141 living hostages and 77 dead ones. The testimony of the living and the condition of the dead speak to terrible, Nazi-like torture. Hamas is set to return more hostages this weekend, including the bodies of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Take it from an imam

By on February 19th, 2025

https://quadrant.org.au/short-reads/editors-corner/the-webs-hot-links/

Apparently, threatening to kill your Jewish patients — and, indeed, boasting of already having done so — is no big deal, just an “emotional reaction” to all that islamophobia.

Multiculturalism, ain’t it just grand.Sharon Stoliar asked NSW Health to prohibit  her fellow workers chanting ‘From the river to the sea’ and very soon found out that she was the one in trouble. The account of her ordeal, a transcript from Instagram, is below.

It seems more people than two hate-spewing Muslim nurses are in need of sacking:

I raised the alarm about this not long after October 7th happened. When nurses and midwives were chanting from the river to the sea whilst wearing NSW health uniform, I wrote an open letter to nurses and midwives explaining that this chant is a call for the annihilation of Jews, and that they should not be shouting this genocidal chant, let alone whilst wearing NSW health uniform. I also had meetings with AHPRA asking for something to be done about it.

But instead, what happened was this: AHPRA and the HCCC received eight complaints about me, mostly about that post I wrote, some asking for me to be deregistered.

Whilst initially dismissed, two of the complainants (who were ANONYMOUS) went on to ask for a review of the outcome, causing the HCCC to investigate and place formal “corrective comments” on my registration. All without my knowledge. And without giving me my legal right to reply to the complaints.

When I shared on Instagram about the rubbish complaints I was getting, all because I called on AHPRA to implement repercussions for staff who were wearing hospital uniforms while screaming out genocidal chants, not only did I have these formal corrective comments placed on my registration, but the sharing of what I was dealing with resulted in a not so nice letter to me that mentioned consequences of jail or demerit points for me.

This resulted in me needing lawyers to take it on to have those corrective comments removed from my registration, and to get a formal apology from the HCCC for this nonsense. And a clear statement that there was no threat of jail.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Australian nurses who wished death on Israelis The hatred of Israel has become dangerously mainstream. Brendan O’Neill

By on February 19th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/18/the-australian-nurses-who-wished-death-on-israelis/

It was bad enough when two Australian nurses were caught on camera saying they wouldn’t treat Israeli patients and instead would ‘kill them’. But now 50 of Australia’s Muslim community groups have rushed to the nurses’ defence. If a couple of Aussie caregivers doing a throat-slitting gesture to a man from Israel was chilling, the fact that so many ‘Muslim leaders’ are willing to stand up for them is outright terrifying.

This sordid story started a week ago with the release of a video showing two nurses at Bankstown Hospital in Sydney engaging in the most abhorrent Israelophobic chatter. They were talking with an Israeli TikToker, Max Veifer, after encountering him on a video chat site. He told them he was Israeli. One of the nurses drew his fingers across his throat to suggest Veifer deserved to die. He said he sends Israelis to Jahannam – the Islamic version of hell. The other nurse said she would never treat an Israeli. ‘I won’t treat them, I will kill them.’

The clip went viral and the nurses were suspended. Australian PM Anthony Albanese slammed their ‘anti-Semitic comments’. There was horror across Oz that these nurses seemed to have sacrificed the core moral principle of medicine – ‘First do no harm’ – at the altar of their burning hatred for the Jewish State. Yet there’s a section of Aussie society that seems pretty blasé about the whole thing: self-appointed Muslim leaders.

A coalition of prominent Muslim groups has written an open letter criticising the ‘selective outrage’ over the nurses’ behaviour. It says the nurses were just being ‘emotional and hyperbolic’. Nice try. We all get ‘emotional’ at times but we don’t go around fantasising about the deaths of people from the world’s only Jewish nation. Emotion is no excuse for violent-minded loathing for a whole national group.

The letter says the nurses were raging against Israel, not Jews. They were expressing ‘frustration and anger’ over Israel’s ‘violent and inhumane policies’. Apparently, the ‘hypocrites’ who have called the nurses out – that would be most of Oz – are seeking to ‘weaponise accusations of anti-Semitism to silence dissent [on Israel]’. This, the letter concludes, is ‘dishonest’ and ‘dangerous’.

The only people being dangerous here are these snivelling excuse-makers for what was clearly an act of unhinged Israelophobia. Since when did anger over foreign wars justify calling for the death of citizens from the nations involved? I hated the Iraq War but I didn’t go around saying American people should have their throats slit. I oppose Rwanda’s meddling in the Democratic Republic of Congo but I don’t view Rwandans as some kind of subspecies who should be dispatched to the everlasting fires of hell.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Is the DOE DOA? The U.S. Department of Education is on the ropes, and it should be ended, not mended. By Larry Sand

By on February 19th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/19/is-the-doe-doa/

While the federal government has spent money on education and developed education policies since the 19th century, the U.S. Department of Education didn’t become a stand-alone agency until 1980 when, courtesy of President Jimmy Carter, it split off from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Carter advocated for creating the department to fulfill a campaign promise to the National Education Association. Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act in 1979. In response, the NEA subsequently issued its first-ever endorsement in a presidential contest.

Just what is the function of the DOE?

As former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos explains, it doesn’t run a single school, employ any teachers in a single classroom, or set academic standards or curriculum. “It isn’t even the primary funder of education—quite the opposite. In most states, the federal government represents less than 10% of K–12 public education funding.”

DeVos adds that it does shuffle money around, adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants, and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value. “In other words, the Department of Education is functionally a middleman. And, like most middlemen, it doesn’t add value. It merely adds cost and complexity.”

In 2024, the DOE employed over 4,000 people whose salaries and benefits came to $2.7 billion, and the department’s total budget for the year was $79 billion.

One of the purported reasons the DOE was brought into existence was to lower achievement gaps. But after spending over $1 trillion since its inception, it has done no such thing. The results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and math test, given to 4th and 8th graders, were announced in January and showed that 4th graders continued to lose ground, with reading scores slightly lower, on average, than in 2022 and much lower than in 2019.

Teacher union leaders are in a massive snit over the possibility of the DOE’s dissolution. Reacting to Donald Trump’s attempt to get rid of it, National Education Association President Becky Pringle released a statement on Feb 3, in which she maintains that his “latest extreme action will hurt our students and public schools.”

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said on CNN on Feb. 4, “The move is not legal. There are lots of things about the Department of Education that are in statute,” she claimed, referring to funds that go out from the department to low-income families, students with disabilities, English as a Second Language learners, and to work-study programs

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Car Jihad, Terror as Hamas Supporters Attack Brooklyn Jewish Community Daniel Greenfield

By on February 19th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/car-jihad-terror-as-hamas-supporters-attack-brooklyn-jewish-community/

Islamic terrorist supporters invaded one of the largest Jewish communities in the country with a pro-terrorist riot in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boro Park. Flying terrorist flags and assaulting local residents, the Muslim mob brought terror to a Jewish community in New York City as it had previously done to Jewish communities in Los Angeles and London.

But local residents fought back against the mob.

Videos and local accounts describe an attempted stabbing, an attempted ‘Car Jihad’ attack, and numerous assaults.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

NeverTrump European Scolds President Trump But Uncle Sam is no longer a patsy. by Bruce Thornton

By on February 19th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/nevertrump-european-scolds-president-trump/

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the erstwhile Prime Minister of Denmark, Nato Secretary General, and fervent supporter of the “rules based international order,” to which Rasmussen has “dedicated much of [his] life,” and that functions as a globalist, antinationalist foreign policy talisman that for decades U.S. taxpayers have financed.

Having returned to the White House, Trump is once again challenging that order with his America first policies and impatience with our allies’ refusal to share the cost of being the “world’s policeman.”  Rasmussen fears Trump has “gone rogue” and “no longer exercises his authority over geopolitical gangsters, or becomes abusive toward the world’s most steadfast rule followers” ––by which he means Europeans, especially the Nato nations.

In other words, stale NeverTrump clichés we’ve been hearing since 2016––and much longer when targets were conservative Republicans who challenged “we are the world” globalism. But what it’s really all about is a simple principle of that order: “Let you Yanks and the bad guy fight––and you pick up the bill.” Now Europeans are miffed because we again have a president who first looks to his own countrymen and their interests ahead of those of international oligarchs, plutocrats, and cognitive elites who malign the U.S. and its citizens who don’t get in line with the globalist program, as the Democrats have.

Another bad NeverTrump habit Rasmussen indulges was identified by commentator Salena Zito in 2016: When Trump uses his trademark hyperbolic bluster, the press and the Dems “take him literally but not seriously,” whereas his supporters “take him seriously but not literally.” They understand that such exaggerations, insults, and bravado are tools for getting international attention, gaining leverage, and creating uncertainty in our adversaries, which often include our nominal allies.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why Trump Must Insist on Removing Hamas From Power by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on February 19th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21406/remove-hamas-from-power

One of the group’s senior officials, Osama Hamdan… also threatened that Hamas would not allow any non-Palestinian party to enter the Gaza Strip.

Iran’s ruling mullahs have already lost their strategic ally with the collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Losing the Gaza Strip would therefore be another severe blow to the Iranian regime, whose declared goal is to annihilate the “Zionist entity.”

Similarly, Hamas’s longtime patrons and funders in Qatar will do their utmost to ensure that the terrorist group remains in power.

Hamdan’s statements are a clear indication that Hamas intends to maintain its control of the Gaza Strip at any cost. They are also a sign that Hamas is determined to continue its terror attacks against Israel.

Any deal that allows Hamas to remain in power would be disastrous for Israel, the Palestinians, and Arab states threatened by the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance.”

It would also undermine the Trump administration’s credibility in the eyes of many in the Middle East. The Trump administration will appear as if it is only good at making empty threats.

There should be no reconstruction of the Gaza Strip as long as Iran’s proxies remain in power. The idea of allowing the Palestinian Authority to return to the Gaza Strip as a civilian body that pays salaries and funds projects should be rejected by the Trump administration.

Even if the PA is permitted to deploy its own security forces in the Gaza Strip, it does not mean that they would be able to disarm Hamas and other terrorist groups. The PA did not do so when it was in control of the Gaza Strip between 1994 and 2007, and the assumption that it would do so now is catastrophically wrong.

The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has reportedly expressed readiness to cede control of the Gaza Strip and hand it over to the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

This assurance, however, does not mean that Hamas is willing to lay down its weapons or dismantle its military wing, Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Hamas wants the PA to return to the Gaza Strip only to pay salaries and fund various projects, including the reconstruction of the devastation. That arrangement would still exempt Hamas of its duties and responsibilities towards the two million residents of the Gaza Strip and allow the terror group to rearm, regroup and rebuild its military capabilities.

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