Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Most Americans cannot afford a $1,000 emergency expense, with inflation and high interest rates affecting their ability to save adequately, according to a recent survey by consumer services company Bankrate.

A full 59 percent of Americans aren’t in a position to use their savings “to pay for a major unexpected expense, such as $1,000 for an emergency room visit or car repair,” said a Jan. 23 report from the company.

This is up from 56 percent a year back.

“We are essentially a paycheck-to-paycheck nation,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. “Fewer Americans have the equivalent of a financial safety net to cover inevitable unexpected expenses, despite low unemployment and steady growth.”

To help alleviate the financial crunch, President Donald Trump issued an executive order for delivering “emergency price relief” for families and tackling the cost of living crisis facing America on his first day in office. The 12-month inflation rate, which has remained below 3 percent since July, has risen for the past three months.

Bankrate said Americans have been struggling against a “number of economic headwinds” over the past several years, including a slowing job market and high inflation.

In the survey, 73 percent of respondents blamed inflation, high interest rates, or a change in income or employment status as reasons why they were saving less to meet unforeseen expenses. This is up from 68 percent last year.

According to data tracked by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average city price of a dozen Grade A large eggs has risen by more than 182 percent between January 2021 and December 2024. The price of ground beef per pound is up by 41 percent, fresh whole chicken by nearly 30 percent, whole fortified fresh milk per gallon by 18 percent, and white pan bread per pound by almost 24 percent.

A quarter of respondents said they would have to fund $1,000 in emergency expenses by financing it with a credit card and paying off the debt over time. This is up from 21 percent in 2024.

Hamrick said the increase in cost of living is “prompting more individuals and households to turn to credit cards when in a bind.”

“They are a terrific tool when used wisely and effectively. But with interest rates still high, we need to avoid a deepening debt burden which could make it more challenging to save.”

High Cost of Living

The Trump executive order blamed the prior administration’s vast government spending, overregulation, and “destructive” policies for pushing Americans into an inflation crisis.

“Hardworking families today are overwhelmed by the cost of fuel, food, housing, automobiles, medical care, utilities, and insurance,” said the order.

Trump directed the heads of all executives and agencies to look for ways to cut down housing costs and boost supply, eliminate practices that raise health care costs, eliminate any requirements that contribute to higher home appliance prices, and get rid of harmful climate policies that increase the costs of fuel and food.

The cost of living crisis among Americans developed while the savings rate has gone down. Since 2022, the personal saving rate of U.S. citizens has mostly remained below 5 percent. Prior to the pandemic, the rate largely was above the 5 percent level.

A recent survey from Marist Poll and Yahoo Finance showed that only one in 10 banked households were “completely satisfied” with their amount of savings.

The rising cost of living was cited as the biggest hurdle to saving more, with two in three households saying these expenses are “not very affordable or not affordable at all” in their area.

“Looking to 2025, banked households are cautiously optimistic about their savings. A plurality (44 percent) think they will be able to save more money, and 32 percent believe they will save about the same in the coming year. 24 percent think they will save less money,” said the survey.

“Six in ten banked households in America (60 percent) are more optimistic about their finances in the coming year with Donald Trump as President. There is cross-generational consensus on this question, with a majority in every generation saying they are more optimistic. Gen Z (70 percent) is the most optimistic.”

Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which rules Syria from Damascus under Jolani, is still a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under US law. The only change which happened at the end of the Biden administration was that the US $10 million bounty on Jolani’s head was removed, at a moment Western officials have engaged the new regime in Damascus on a diplomatic level.

But The Washington Post has just revealed that American intelligence officials met with HTS representatives and passed them classified intelligence information. This happened during the tail-end of the Biden White House.

The Washington Post report begins, “In the chaotic days after the fall of [Bashar] al-Assad, the Biden administration began to engage cautiously with HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani.”

“The intelligence exchange with HTS has occurred in direct encounters between US intelligence officials and representatives of HTS, rather than via third parties.” The Post continues.

The report adds that this “has involved exchanges between the two sides, in Syria and a third country. It began roughly two weeks after HTS came to power on Dec. 8.”

This is being presented by US officials as to combat threats being presented by a resurgent ISIS. For example, there have been recent reported plots against a key Shia religious pilgrimage site on the outskirts of Damascus, the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque.

“In at least one case, the U.S. intelligence helped thwart an ISIS plot to attack a religious shrine outside Damascus earlier this month, according to the officials,” the WaPo report says.

The serious contradiction in all of this is that American companies and citizens are still unable to do business or any interactions with Syrian entities under US counterterrorism laws and due to the long-existent sanctions. And yet, US intelligence is passing on classified information to Syrian leaders despite the terror designation and ongoing sanctions.

The other glaring contradiction is that the separation between HTS and ISIS ideology is thin and slim. Jolani himself was once the personal emissary of ISIS chief pf Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the early days of the anti-Assad war for regime change.

AntiWar.com has written the following review:

HTS grew out of the al-Nusra Front, an organization that Julani formed in 2009 in coordination with al-Qaeda’s central leadership. Juliani is a veteran of the Iraq War, where he fought for al-Qaeda in Iraq against US forces.

Even with this background, the Biden administration elected to try to develop ties with Julani. “It’s the right, prudent and appropriate thing to do, given that there was credible, specific information [about ISIS threats], and coupled with our efforts to cultivate a relationship with these guys,” one former US official told The Post.

They destroyed Iraq under the pretext of chemical weapons and Al-Qaeda. Then they devastated Syria to empower Al-Qaeda. https://t.co/tuzjQ3a5z1

— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) January 23, 2025

We’ve documented previously that in some cases ISIS fighters have simply changed out their black flag patch for a HTS logo: Watch: Syrian ‘Moderate Rebel’ Removes ISIS Patch At Prompting Of American Journalist.

Foreign fighters have also continued to thrive in post-Assad Syria, with reports of global jihadists terrorizing and pressuring Christians, Alawites, and Druze – most often in the countryside and far away from international media cameras. The US State Department in the early years of the Syrian war acknowledged that tens of thousands of foreign jihadists poured across the borders of Iraq, Jordan, and Iraq to fight Assad forces.

Recently pardoned Hunter Biden has once again found himself at the center of controversy, as newly surfaced bank records and corporate documents indicate that a shared bank account linked to the future first son was used in a fraudulent bond transaction tied to Burnham Asset Management. The firm was involved in a million-dollar securities fraud that saw two of Biden’s business partners arrested and convicted – while Hunter escaped accountability, Just the News reports.

Huntr’s former business partners, Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, were convicted for their roles in a scheme that defrauded an Oglala Sioux Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars. Federal authorities found that instead of investing the funds as promised, Archer, Galanis, and their associates misappropriated the bond proceeds.

While Archer and Galanis faced prosecution, Hunter quickly faded into the bushes, telling lawmakers in his impeachment inquiry deposition that his proposed role in the company “never came to fruition.” However, bank records and a signature analysis reveal that Biden was more entangled with the firm than he has publicly acknowledged.

A Shared Bank Account Used in the Scheme

Records show that a bank account linked to Biden and Archer – Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC (RSB) – was directly involved in the fraudulent bond transaction. According to a source close to the transaction, the bonds were transferred to and from the RSB account, possibly to capitalize on the Biden name – a pattern consistent with House Republican claims that Hunter Biden leveraged his last name for lucrative deals.

Last year Just the News reported the first evidence that the younger Biden was much more closely associated with the entities involved in the tribal bonds fraud. Corporate records show that Hunter Biden served as Vice Chairman of Burnham and was promised an $800,000 yearly salary. A signature analysis confirmed Biden signed the employment agreement with Burnham dated April 15, 2015. 

These documents were first collected by the SEC and FBI agents back in 2016, obtained by Congress during the impeachment inquiry, and recently shared with Just the News. New documents from the same probe of the tribal bond fraud show that Hunter Biden was closer to the action than previously known. 

For example, a bank account he shared with one business partner was used in part of the bond transaction scrutinized by federal authorities. One individual close to the bond transaction told Just the News that the bonds were transferred to and from the RSB account to associate them specifically with the Biden name, evoking a pattern identified by House Republican investigators that suggested Hunter Biden was trading on his last name to secure lucrative deals. -Just the News

While Hunter Biden’s former attorney George Mesires, argued that his client’s name was used without his knowledge…

“The defendants…invoked and used Hunter’s name—without his knowledge—to lend their business venture more credibility,” Mesires said. “As soon as Hunter learned of the illegal conduct, and that his name was being used in this unauthorized and inappropriate manner, Hunter took immediate steps to ensure that his business interests would not be associated with the Burnham Group or with any of the defendants.”

…however congressional testimony from Archer tells a different story. Archer testified that Biden was not only involved but held the position of corporate secretary at RSB and had “a handshake 50-50 ownership” of the entity.

Additionally, the RSB account was the primary conduit for Biden’s payments from Burisma Holdings, the controversial Ukrainian energy company at the center of Republican allegations that the Biden family engaged in influence peddling.

Hunter Biden Floated as a Board Member

Beyond the bank transactions, draft documents obtained by investigators suggest that Hunter Biden was considered for a leadership role in the bond transaction itself. A draft private placement memorandum for the Wakpamni Lake Community bond offering lists Biden as a potential board member for the issuing entity, Sovereign Re Capital Holdings Inc.

The document, which was reviewed by Just the News, describes Biden’s credentials, including his tenure at Boies, Schiller, Flexner, LLP, his work with Rosemont Seneca firms, and his position as Honorary Co-Chair of the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee – the same year his father became vice president.

It remains unclear whether this proposed role was finalized or if Biden actively participated in the bond deal. However, during Archer’s trial, his defense attorney, Matthew L. Schwartz, asserted that “Hunter Biden was part of this deal.”

Hunter Biden’s legal team disputed this claim, maintaining that he was never actively involved in Burnham or the fraudulent transactions.

Biden’s Testimony and Congressional Scrutiny

During his 2024 impeachment inquiry deposition, Biden reiterated his stance that his involvement in Burnham “never came to fruition.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) directly questioned Biden on the matter:

• Biggs: “Did you have any active participation in Burnham, either as an equity holder, director, or officer?”

• Biden: “No. I don’t think that ever came to fruition. I think that there was a proposal that I’d be a part of that, but it all fell apart in all of this.”

Despite his denials, congressional Republicans remain skeptical. With President Joe Biden’s recent sweeping pardon covering Hunter Biden’s actions from 2014 to the present, some lawmakers are looking for alternative legal avenues to continue their investigations.

Burnham Financial Group. Hunter was on the board.

Burnham Financial Groups activity with the tribe triggered a SARS report to the SEC

Hunters partners were prosecuted. Hunter left the board, Burnham delisted, and nothing happened to Hunter pic.twitter.com/EM5rRYiCwJ

— ThunderB🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@Pimpernell13) September 7, 2023

Could Hunter Biden Be Forced to Testify Again?

One avenue that Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) has floated is compelling Hunter Biden to testify again—this time without Fifth Amendment protections.

“With Hunter Biden’s pardon, he has no Fifth Amendment right not to testify and tell the truth,” Johnson said in an interview on John Solomon Reports. “So he could be… prosecuted for lying to Congress. He’s going to have to answer truthfully. So that’s a real possibility.”

During Hunter’s testimony he had total recall of conversations as to why he should join Burisma.

In the same testimony he couldn’t recall anything about communications surrounding multi-million dollar deals.

This dissembling demonstrates that he was not being factual with us. pic.twitter.com/rnsXzzaeaJ

— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) March 1, 2024

House Republicans are now weighing their next steps considering Hunter’s massive pardon in December, the investigation remains far from over. With documented financial transactions, corporate records, and sworn testimony painting an increasingly complicated picture, the Biden family’s business dealings continue to fuel questions about influence peddling and financial transparency.

As Just the News notes further, one Senator believes it may be possible to bring Hunter Biden back for more questioning. Now that he is protected by his father’s expansive pardon, Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wis., says Hunter Biden cannot exercise his fifth amendment right to avoid incriminating himself. 

“But what is interesting is, with Hunter Biden’s pardon, he has no Fifth Amendment right not to testify and tell the truth, and so he could be, we could prosecute him for lying to Congress,” Sen. Johnson told the John Solomon Reports podcast earlier this month. “He’s going to have to answer truthfully. So that’s a real possibility.” 

Authored by Sean Tseng and Jon Sun via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Chinese cyberattacks on Japan’s defense, aerospace, and advanced technology sectors are increasing at an alarming rate, indicating what experts refer to as a broader strategy to undermine the technological and military strengths of democratic nations, particularly the United States.

The Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) has reported 210 such incursions since 2019, fueling calls for tougher legal frameworks and closer international coordination to protect critical infrastructure.

The NPA identified the hacker group MirrorFace, which shares traits with Advanced Persistent Threat 10, or APT10, a group linked to China’s Ministry of State Security. The agency noted that the timing of the cyberattacks frequently coincided with standard working hours in China and excluded Chinese holidays, leading authorities to believe that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been supporting such attacks. 

The NPA has observed that these increasing cyberattacks have been carried out in three phases.

The first phase lasted from December 2019 to July 2023. Government entities, think tanks, and the media were primarily targeted, indicating an attempt to sway policy and public sentiment.

The second phase, from February to October 2023, marked a shift toward semiconductors, manufacturing, and academic institutions, focusing on Japan’s technological hub.

The third phase, starting in June 2024, has seen a resurgence in targeting academia, politicians, and the media, reflecting an ongoing effort to influence public discourse and shape policies.

Japan’s 2024 Defense White Paper found that the Chinese military’s cyber warfare unit had emerged from the former Strategic Support Force, which had around 175,000 personnel, including 30,000 dedicated to cyberattacks.

A high-profile target was the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Hackers exploited VPN vulnerabilities to break into its Microsoft 365 Cloud service, compromising around 200 employee accounts and exfiltrating over 10,000 files between 2023 and 2024, according to Japanese media.

Among the stolen data were details on JAXA’s Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, part of the agency’s manned lunar program. This raises concerns about China using this information to advance its own Mars endeavors.

With the MMX program set to launch in 2026 and China’s Mars sample return missions slated for around 2028, both nations are racing to achieve historic breakthroughs.

In response to ongoing threats, Japan established a dedicated Cyber Defense Unit in March 2022 to monitor government networks around the clock. In the following year, Japan and the United States agreed to strengthen cybersecurity cooperation at the highest levels.

Su Tzu-yun, director of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, recently told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that such measures would only be effective if they are backed by stronger legal frameworks and closer international coordination.

He said that current laws hinder the prosecution of state-backed hackers and the confirmation of their true identities. Su emphasized that tougher regulations and improved intelligence-sharing among democratic nations are essential to combat digital propaganda, sabotage, and data theft while upholding freedom of speech.

Similar CCP-backed cyberattacks have occurred in the United States in recent years.

In 2024, the Salt Typhoon hacking group, backed by China’s Ministry of State Security, stood out as the most serious threat, among others. It has compromised at least eight major U.S. telecom companies.

The group also hacked the phones of then-presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump and then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance during the election. Vance confirmed the breach on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” though he noted only non-sensitive data was accessed due to his use of encrypted messaging apps.

Last March, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed the indictment of seven Chinese nationals linked to a group called APT31 for cyber espionage targeting the defense, IT, and energy sectors, aiming to steal data and enable future attacks.

In 2023, Chinese hackers breached networks related to the U.S. military’s operational capabilities, including those in Guam, a strategic location for potential military operations in the Asia–Pacific region.

Meanwhile, Volt Typhoon has been compromising U.S. critical infrastructure, including U.S. water, gas, energy, rail, air, and ports since at least mid-2021, a threat first disclosed by Microsoft in May 2023.

The U.S. response has included sanctions on Chinese entities and a push for more aggressive cyber defense, led by agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency working alongside private industry.

Cyber analyst Lin Tsung-nan, a professor at National Taiwan University, told The Epoch Times earlier this month that these campaigns are part of the Chinese regime’s “unrestricted warfare,” where intelligence gathering, social media manipulation, and infrastructure sabotage converge.

He noted that cyber theft offers China a low-cost way to acquire advanced technology from Japan and the West and highlighted the extensive pool of state-sponsored hackers the Chinese regime has assembled for that purpose.

As governments and private sectors prepare for increasingly sophisticated hacking techniques—amplified by emerging technologies—the stakes keep rising, Su said.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to safeguard not only state secrets and intellectual property but also to maintain public trust and protect democratic institutions against growing cyber threats.

Xin Ning contributed to this report.

The hunt begins.  On day one of his second term Donald Trump put the federal government’s weight behind the national push to end DEI programs by signing an executive order that would effectively dismantle them from all aspects of the federal government.

The executive action calls for the termination of DEI programs, mandates, policies, preferences and activities in the federal government along with the review and revision of existing federal employment practices, union contracts and training policies or programs. 

Agency, department and commission heads have 60 days to terminate to the maximum extent allowed by law all DEI, DEIA and “environmental justice” offices and positions, action plans, equity-related grants or contracts as well as end all DEI or DEIA performance requirements 

Perhaps not believing that this action would come so quickly or so aggressively, diversity offices seem to have been caught completely off guard and employees are now scrambling to figure out how they can still keep their government paycheck.  Federal DEI employees are reportedly “unclear” as to their status and do not know if they are being fired, or if they are being moved to a new position.

In all likelihood, they will be fired.

Some officials have decided to preempt their impending pink slip, choosing to rehire themselves under a new label in an attempt to hide the fact that they are DEI.  Others are trying to rename their entire department as something more innocuous, hoping to float under Trump’s radar.  However, these efforts are all in vain. 

Minot Air Force Base is still doing DEI, but it is now called Organizational Culture Office to circumvent Trump pic.twitter.com/VRbLnjvaTe

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 24, 2025

A memo sent out by the Trump Administration to all federal offices warns that any attempt to hide or disguise DEI programs and employees as something else will be met with “adverse consequences”.  The memo notes:

“We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances…” 

“There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days will result in adverse consequences.”

The memo also includes an email at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) where employees are directed to make such reports. 

Senator Ted Cruz took to X recently to post that he had also been alerted to DEI contractors attempting to obscure their programs in order to avoid potential cuts.  Cruz specifically noted that DEI values incorporated into government funded scientific research was unacceptable.

My office has been alerted about an agency contractor attempting to obscure its DEI offices and programming in direct violation of the Trump administration’s executive orders.

For the past four years, Democrats mandated that all taxpayer-funded scientific research and… pic.twitter.com/ccxDf2nPWh

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 24, 2025

The message to woke activists within the federal government is clear:  You can run, but you can’t hide.  Trump’s memo underscores the administration’s take on diversity programs. 

“These programs divide Americans by race, waste taxpayer dollars, and result in shameful discrimination…”

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Supreme Court voted 8–1 on Jan. 23 to allow the federal government to enforce an anti-money laundering law that a lower court blocked late last year.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the new ruling.

The statute at issue, the federal Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), required millions of business entities to file information returns about their owners by Jan. 1, 2025.

An estimated 33 million small businesses face fines of as much as $591 per day should they fail to comply with the new rule, according to.a Treasury website.

Businesses with upwards of 20 employees, $5 million in annual sales, and a U.S. office qualify for exemptions from CTA reporting requirements.

The law provides that affected corporate entities must file reports with the federal government about their beneficial owners, which means individuals with substantial control over the entity or who own or control 25 percent of the entity.

Entities are required to provide the government with the names of their beneficial owners, along with their birthdates, addresses, and identifying information such as passport or driver’s license numbers.

The CTA’s reporting requirement was put on hold on Dec. 5, 2024, when the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas sided with challengers, granting a nationwide preliminary injunction—also known as a universal injunction—against the CTA.

The court found that the challengers would likely succeed with their claim that the act was unconstitutional.

On Dec. 13, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice, acting on behalf of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a federal agency, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to stay the injunction.

The agency argued the law was constitutional and that the challenge to it would probably fail in the end.

The circuit court’s motions panel granted the government’s request on Dec. 23, 2024, and suspended the injunction pending appeal. FinCEN then extended the filing deadline for corporate entities to Jan. 13, 2025.

On Dec. 26, 2024, the circuit court performed an about-face and sent the case to its merits panel, which restored the injunction to “preserve the constitutional status quo while the merits panel considers the parties’ weighty substantive arguments.”

The new Supreme Court order states that the Fifth Circuit’s ruling upholding the injunction is “stayed pending the disposition of the appeal” in the circuit court.

The Fifth Circuit has scheduled oral argument in the case for March 25.

Jackson wrote in her dissenting opinion that there was “no need” for the nation’s highest court to lift the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the reporting requirement.

“However likely the government’s success on the merits may be, in my view, emergency relief is not appropriate because the applicant has failed to demonstrate sufficient exigency to justify our intervention,” the justice wrote.

She wrote that the circuit court agreed to expedite the government’s appeal, even though the government only moved to enforce the law almost four years after its passage by Congress.

The government’s argument that the law needs to be enforced immediately is undermined by “the fact that the harms it now says warrant our involvement were likely to occur during that period.”

The government has not shown if will suffer “injury of a more serious or significant nature … if the Act’s implementation is further delayed while the litigation proceeds in the lower courts.”

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, a critic of universal injunctions, concurred with the court’s decision, but wrote that the Supreme Court should “go a step further and … take this case now to resolve definitively the question whether a district court may issue universal injunctive relief.”

In January 2020, Gorsuch criticized the growing practice of federal judges ruling beyond the scope of a particular case.

The Supreme Court should “confront” the “real problem” of nationwide injunctions, which raise “serious questions about the scope of courts’ equitable powers under Article III” of the Constitution, he wrote in a ruling.

That decision stayed a universal injunction that prevented the first Trump administration from enforcing its so-called public charge rule that blocked prospective immigrants from receiving permanent resident status if they were deemed likely to become dependent on government assistance.

The case is McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop.

The applicant, James R. McHenry, is a longtime U.S. Department of Justice employee who is serving as acting U.S. attorney general.

McHenry took over temporarily after then-Attorney General Merrick Garland resigned on Jan. 20, the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has nominated Pam Bondi, former Florida attorney general, as the next U.S. attorney general. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on her nomination on Jan. 29.

The lead respondent, Texas Top Cop Shop, is a police supply store in Conroe, Texas.

Janita Kan contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump appeared on Hannity at the end this week and offered a blunt, critical assessment of Zelensky’s decision-making in the Russia-Ukraine war.

He strongly suggested that Ukrainian President Zelensky’s policies have only prolonged the war. This includes the unspoken truth that prior Biden administration policies have only served to continue the killing, as billions in arms were pumped to Ukraine’s military, despite there long being acknowledgement that the Russian military machine was superior, and Russian forces have continued making significant gains.

“Look, Zelensky was fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful. He shouldn’t have done that because we could have made a deal and it would have been a deal that would have been — it would have been a nothing deal,” Trump told Sean Hannity on Thursday. Trump also at one point said Zelensky is “no angel”.

“We started pouring equipment… and they (Ukraine) had the bravery to use the equipment, but in the end, it’s a war that has to be settled,” Trump added.

But he also admitted: “Putin shouldn’t have done it (launching the full-scale invasion)… and it has to stop.”

Crucially during the course of the interview Trump indicated that he would have taken that deal. “I could have made that deal so easily. And Zelensky decided that I want to fight,” he said.

Trump further pointed out that his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden did a “horrible job” by allowing the war to start in the first place. Trump has long maintained that had he been in office after 2020 the Russia-Ukraine war would have never started, as Putin would not have invaded.

Russian President Putin himself dropped a bomb on Friday, with the following (as CNN puts it):

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Friday that “the crisis in Ukraine” might have been prevented if Donald Trump was in power at the time, saying he was ready to talk with the new US president about the conflict.

Trump has long claimed that the war in Ukraine would not have happened under his watch, but Friday marked the first time Putin suggested the same thing – while also repeating Trump’s false claim that the 2020 US election was “stolen.”

Here’s what Putin said in the televised comments: “I can’t help but agree with (Trump) that if his victory had not been stolen in 2020, then maybe there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022.”

Trump this past week said, “Zelensky — I will say this, he wants to settle now. He’s had enough. He shouldn’t have allowed this to happen, either.”

🚨Trump just bodied Zelensky😭

“He’s no angel. He shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen… When he was talking so brave… we gave them billions of dollars.” pic.twitter.com/tGCdymPVhF

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) January 24, 2025

The US President also told Hannity that “It’s gotta end. These are human beings that are being slaughtered” on the battlefield. Trump soon after the inauguration said he plans to meet with Putin “soon”. 

The US, Russian, and Ukrainian sides are jockeying for diplomatic positions based on building leverage, based on diplomatic rhetoric or on the battlefield. But the big determinant reality remains the battlefield, in the Donbass, where Russian forces are clearly on top and advancing by the day.

Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A bill to establish standards of care for babies born alive after failed abortions passed along party lines in the House on Jan. 23.

The 217–204 vote followed a heated debate in the chamber, during which Republicans stressed that the bill was not about abortion but the babies who survive the procedure.

“As a physician, it is beyond my comprehension that anyone would not intervene to save an innocent and defenseless human life,” Rep. Gregory Murphy (R-N.C.) said, defending the bill on the House floor.

“Neglect is harm. Neglect is immoral. Abortion is not the issue.”

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires medical professionals present at a newborn abortion survivor’s birth to provide the same level of life-saving care to that baby as would be offered to any other premature infant of the same gestational age.

The bill mandates the transfer of such infants to a hospital for additional treatment and also establishes reporting requirements for violations. Penalties for violating the law could include fines and up to five years in prison, though the child’s mother would be protected from prosecution.

Democrats, however, argued that infanticide is already illegal and that the bill is therefore unnecessary.

“This bill does not solve a problem,” Rep. Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.), an obstetrician, said before voting against the measure in the House.

“Doctors are already both honored and obligated to provide appropriate care for their patients. It is illegal to kill a newborn infant in all 50 states.”

From 2019 to 2021 in Morrison’s home state of Minnesota, there were at least eight reported cases in which newborn abortion survivors died post-birth, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. In five of those cases, no measures were reported to have been taken to save the babies’ lives. In the other three cases, “comfort care” was provided.

Other Democrats argued that the bill would allow for government interference in women’s reproductive health decisions and deprive parents of the opportunity to comfort their dying babies.

“Only 1 percent of all abortions happen at 21 weeks or later, and if they do, it is because of a serious fetal abnormality or the health of the mother,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said. “And if you are the one getting that news, it is heartbreaking, it is earth-shattering. And the last thing families need is government to interfere with their access to care.”

The bill’s passage in the House comes a day after Democrats unanimously opposed its advance in the Senate. With a 60-vote majority needed to invoke cloture, or limit debate, on a bill, the procedural vote failed 52-47.

That result was no surprise to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).

Thune had noted hours before that he fully expected Democrats to reject what he felt should be a noncontroversial bill.

“We should all be able to agree that a baby born alive after an attempted abortion must be protected,” the majority leader said on the Senate floor.

“But I think it is safe to say that what it all boils down to is this: Democrats will oppose legislation to provide appropriate medical care to newborn children who survive abortions because they are afraid.”

If Democrats recognized the humanity of a living baby, born in an abortion clinic after a botched abortion, they might be forced to acknowledge the humanity of the unborn baby in that same clinic, Thune said.

Republicans have tried numerous times in recent years to pass legislation protecting the lives of newborn abortion survivors. Those efforts have been blocked by Democrats.

Tens of thousands, or perhaps hundreds of thousands, of pro-life advocates are expected to flood Washington on Jan. 24 for the 52nd annual National March for Life.

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to speak at the event on behalf of the Trump administration. President Donald Trump will address the March in a video message, a White House official confirmed on Thursday.

Two former Politico reporters revealed how “cowardly editors” at their former publication carried water for Joe Biden in the 2020 election by actively working to suppress stories that were unflattering to Biden.

“Politico did that terrible, ill-fated headline: 51 intelligence agents, or former intelligence agents, say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation, or bore the hallmarks of disinformation,” said Marc Caputo, now the senior politics editor at Axios. “Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true.”

The other ex-Politico reporter, Tara Palmeri – who interviewed Caputo on her “Somebody’s Gotta Win” podcast, recalled how social media giants colluded to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, while Caputo noted that (pre-Musk) Twitter “punished” the New York Post for its accurate reporting – locking the outlet out of its account following a pressure campaign from the Biden DOJ.

“I was covering Biden at the time,” Caputo told Palmeri, adding: “And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop.”

Caputo added that he was working on a story about Hunter Biden’s shady dealings with Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, which Politico editors “killed” during the 2020 Democrat primaries.

“I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail,’” said Caputo, adding that the story was spiked without any explanation.

According to Caputo, readers “don’t understand the dumb decisions of cowardly editors that are made above us.”

As Headline USA notes further, Palmeri told Caputo that she worked for three months on a report she co-wrote in March 2021 about the Secret Service trying to obtain a copy of Hunter Biden’s gun-purchase form that he lied on, and eventually resulted in a criminal conviction.

“I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware,” she remembered. “But I do wonder if it could have, if it would have been published a little quicker if it was a different type of story.”

“It was the beginning of his administration, it was a honeymoon period — you know what I mean?”

h/t Julianna Frieman via Headline USA

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Apparently the second-deadliest foreign-inspired terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11 wasn’t enough for the boss of the New Orleans FBI field office to end his vacation early.

Early on New Year’s Day, 42-year-old Army veteran Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans’s famed French Quarter—killing 14 people who were celebrating the New Year. Police fatally shot Jabbar in a following firefight, and authorities later determined that the incident was inspired by the foreign terrorist organization ISIS.

Despite that, New Orleans FBI Special Agent in Charge Lyonel Myrthil took several more days to return to the office, according to a whistleblower working with the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

“Myrthil vacationed in Europe from late December to early January, which included New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Sugar Bowl and took multiple days to return to New Orleans after the terrorist attack on January 1,” Grassley said in a Tuesday letter to FBI Acting Director Brian Driscol and Acting Attorney General James McHenry.

“The FBI failed to note this in any of the joint briefings it provided to Congress and must provide more information.”

A lazy SAC of …..
According to a whistleblower working with Sen. Grassley’s office, the New Orleans FBI Special Agent in Charge did not leave his vacation early after the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in his city — one of the deadliest terrorist attacks since 9/11 pic.twitter.com/fCD8vpbWWF

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) January 24, 2025

Along with questions about the vacationing SAC, Grassley’s office seeks more information about the New Orleans attack, as well as info about the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on the same day. Grassley also wants to make sure whether those two attacks were connected—especially given that the driver of the Cybertruck, Matthew Alan Livelsberger, served at Fort Bragg and in Afghanistan at the same time as Jabbar.

“Similarities do reportedly exist between Jabbar and Livelsberger. For example, both individuals had experience in the U.S. Army and the vehicles in both incidents were rented from the same company, Turo. Further, according to reports, authorities claimed Livelsberger and Jabbar “likely overlapped at Fort Bragg and again in Afghanistan,’” Grassley noted. “It remains unclear whether there are additional similarities or connections between Jabbar and Livelsberger.”

Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson seek updates on the New Year’s Day attacks by Feb. 5.

Grassley and Johnson also wrote a separate letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking about Jabbar’s terroristic Facebook posts in the leadup to his attack.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.