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March 2025

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Social Security Administration Identifies $800M in Savings for Fiscal Year 2025 By Eric Lendrum

By on March 6th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/05/social-security-administration-identifies-800m-in-savings-for-fiscal-year-2025/

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has managed to identify at least $800 million in cost savings for the agency for the fiscal year 2025.

As the Washington Examiner reports, many of the savings have come from the reevaluation of contracts and grants, as well as payroll, information technology, changes to travel policy, consolidating office space, and switching from printed paper to electronic forms.

“For too long, SSA has operated on autopilot,” said Acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek in a statement. “We have spent billions annually doing the same things the same way, leading to bureaucratic stagnation, inefficiency, and a lack of meaningful service improvements. It is time to change just that.”

The main source of savings was a hiring freeze on SSA Disability Determination Services and a reduction in overtime pay, which accounted for $550 million. Another $150 million was saved by cancelling non-essential contracts in the agency’s Information Technology (IT) systems. The agency saved $15 million in canceled contracts and another $15 million in canceled grants.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Five Ukrainian Fables Trump pressured NATO, armed Ukraine, and imposed tough policies on Russia, while Europe postures without action—leaving real deterrence to the U.S. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on March 6th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/06/five-ukrainian-fables/

Fable One: Donald Trump Is Appeasing Russia?

Who wiped out the Wagner group in Syria? Who sold offensive weapons to Ukraine first? Who warned Germany not to become dependent on the Russian Nord Stream II deal?

Who withdrew from an unfair missile deal with the Russians? Who cajoled and berated NATO members to meet their military investment promises made following the 2014 invasion of Ukraine?

In contrast, who originally conceived a Russian “reset” in 2009? Who publicly virtue-signaled pushing the red “reset” button in Geneva with the current Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov?

Which ex-European leader got a million euros a year working for Russian energy companies?

Of the last four presidents, under whose watch did Putin not invade another country?

Which American president, in hot-mic style, offered to (and did) dismantle US-Eastern Europe missile defense plans in exchange for temporary Putin quietude (“space”) to aid his 2012 reelection?

Fable Two: A Trade War?

Donald Trump is not wildly slapping tariffs on Europeans.

He is simply saying that 1945 is now 80 years past and that the asymmetrical tariffs that Europe imposes on U.S. imports should be corrected. The massive trade surpluses Europe accumulates each year should give way to fairer, more balanced trade.

If Europe does not want tariffs, then simply calibrate its own tariffs on what America places on European imported goods, and work down jointly to zero tariffs on both sides.

Fable Three: America Is Bullying Europe?

The U.S. does not actively interfere in European elections and politics.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Rebuilding Gaza is Pointless Unless Hamas is Eradicated by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on March 6th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21453/rebuilding-gaza

The establishment of a new government in the Gaza Strip while Hamas maintains its military capabilities there unfortunately will not work. Hamas’s presence during reconstruction will only result in the emergence of the Lebanon model: Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy terror group, simply created a terrorist state-within-a-state.

Worse, having a new government that would oversee reconstruction and humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip while Hamas is still there would exempt the Palestinian terrorist group from its responsibilities towards Gaza’s residents. The new government would not be able to stop Hamas from rearming, regrouping, and preparing more attacks against Israel — as Hamas has unremittingly vowed to do.

The new government would be busy rebuilding homes and skyscrapers and delivering humanitarian aid, while Hamas and the other terror groups would have all the time in the world to rebuild tunnels and manufacture weapons.

Hamas never cared about the well-being of the Palestinians under its rule in the Gaza Strip. The terrorist group could have built schools, universities, and hospitals. Instead, it chose to invest millions of dollars in building a vast network of tunnels to attack Israel, smuggle and hide weapons, and torture Israeli hostages.

The reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the resumption of humanitarian aid should be conditioned on the removal of Hamas from power and disarming of all of Gaza’s terror groups.

Hamas should be completely excluded from any plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip because all it cares about is pursuing its Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel and murder as many Jews as possible.

As Arab and Western leaders continue to discuss plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip, the ran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has again rejected laying down its weapons.

For Hamas, preserving its weapons and military wing, Izz a-Din al-Qassam, is apparently more important than the reconstruction of thousands of homes and buildings destroyed during the Hamas-Israel war, which erupted after the terrorist group’s October 7, 2023, bloodthirsty attack on Israel.

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