- Wednesday March 12th, 2025
- "It Is Not A Question of Who Is Right Or Wrong But What Is Right Or Wrong That Counts."
- --Geoff Metcalf
- Providing an on line Triage of the news since 1998
My son has narrated the last book I wrote.Please consider listening to it and encouraging others to do so too.(Click HERE)
World & Nation
Zeldin Promises to Cut 65 Percent of EPA Spending
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin vowed to slash spending by 65%.
"This agency will NEVER again waste any of your hard-earned tax
dollars. I made a pledge to cut 65% of @EPA total spending this year.
Here's how we are going to do it:," Zeldin posted Tuesday on X with a
short video.
Zeldin, a former New York congressman, said the EPA "awarded and spent
over $63 billion" last year under the Biden administration.
Rubio Says G7 Won't Discuss US 'Takeover' of Canada
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said the issue of how
the United States is going to "take over Canada" will not be discussed
at a gathering of G7 foreign ministers due to take place in Canada on
Thursday.
The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major democracies —
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States —
will meet at the river resort of La Malbaie, Quebec on March 12-14 for
the first time since President Donald Trump returned to power in
January.
When asked by reporters about Trump's comments on making Canada the
51st U.S. state, Rubio instead talked about the areas of cooperation
between the United States and Canada including defense of North
American airspace and Ukraine.
Trump Admin Halts $1B Program That Maintains Aging Affordable HousingArt Laffer to Newsmax: Trump Brings 'Sensible' Policies on EconomyTrump Says He Will 'Probably' Reduce Canada TariffsMove to Restore Birthright Citizenship Order DeniedTrump Nominates Sean Plankey to Head CISAMusk Eyes Social Security, Entitlements for CutsTrump Doubles Planned Tariffs on CanadaSean Curran Sworn In as Secret Service Director
FBI hands over subpoenaed documents that Republicans say Christopher Wray withheld
The FBI produced hundreds of pages of subpoenaed material to the House
Judiciary Committee on Monday related to Republicans' past
investigations after committee members said they never received them
from the Biden administration.
An FBI assistant director wrote in a letter obtained by the Washington
Examiner to the Republican-led committee that the tranche of documents
was related to the FBI's inquiries into threats to school
administrators, the pipe bombs discovered near the Capitol on Jan. 6,
2021, and violent extremists' alleged ties to a faction of Catholicism.
They also included material related to the FBI's engagement with social
media companies about foreign interference in the 2020 election.
The assistant director said the bureau was providing "phase 1" of the
subpoenaed documents as a sign that it was "restoring trust" in the FBI
and planned to be transparent. The FBI's letter came in response to
Jordan subpoenaing FBI Director Kash Patel days after he was confirmed
last month for documents that the chairman said former FBI Director
Christopher Wray failed to provide.
Jordan and Patel are allies, and the chairman heavily advocated Patel's
confirmation. Patel also gave thousands of dollars in financial
assistance to suspended FBI agents who came to Jordan with reports of
perceived politicization within the bureau.
Judge will not order Trump administration to restore canceled foreign aid contracts
A federal judge on Monday declined to order President Donald Trump's
administration to restore thousands of foreign aid contracts and grants
that have been canceled since the president took office, though he
found that the administration must speed up payments of close to $2
billion for already completed work.
At the same time, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington ruled
against the administration on a major legal issue, finding that the
president cannot refuse to spend money appropriated for foreign aid by
the U.S. Congress. He said that, while he cannot order the
administration to spend the money on specific contracts, it must
ultimately be spent, unless Congress says otherwise.
"The provision and administration of foreign aid has been a joint
enterprise between our two political branches," Ali wrote. "That
partnership is built not out of convenience, but of constitutional
necessity."
The order comes in response to lawsuits by organizations that contract
with, or receive grants from, the U.S. Agency for International
Development and the State Department, which sued to challenge the
administration's blanket freeze of nearly all foreign aid payments in
response to a January 20 executive order by Trump.
Trump to increase steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada to 50 percent in response to electricity surcharge
President Trump on Tuesday said his administration will increase
planned steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada in response to an
electricity surcharge the Ontario government imposed in the latest
escalation of a growing trade war.
The Trump administration is set to impose across the board 25 percent
tariffs on steel and aluminum on Wednesday, but Trump said he was
directing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to increase the tariffs on
Canadian imports of the metals from 25 percent to 50 percent.
The president threatened additional tariffs against Canada in the
coming weeks, pointing to plans for his administration to impose
reciprocal tariffs beginning April 2 on all countries with duties on
U.S. products. Those included tariffs on cars, which Trump claimed
would “essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing
business in Canada.”
The government of Ontario announced Monday it would apply a 25 percent
surcharge starting Monday on electricity exports to three U.S. states
in response to American tariffs on Canada. The surcharge will affect
electricity sales for 1.5 million homes and businesses across Michigan,
Minnesota and New York, the Ontario government said. In total, it could
cost up to $400,000 per day.
Europe Slaps US With $28 Billion in Tariffs
The European Union on Wednesday announced retaliatory trade action with
new duties on U.S. industrial and farm products, responding within
hours to the Trump administration’s increase in tariffs on all steel
and aluminum imports to 25%.
The world’s biggest trading bloc was expecting the U.S. tariffs and
prepared in advance, but the measures still place great strain on
already tense transatlantic relations. Only last month, Washington
warned Europe that it would have to take care of its own security in
the future.
Education Department to Lay Off Half Its Staff
The Education Department plans to lay off more than 1,300 of its
employees as part of an effort to halve the organization's staff — a
prelude to President Donald Trump's plan to dismantle the agency.
Department officials announced the cuts Tuesday, raising questions about the agency's ability to continue usual operations.
The Trump administration had already been whittling the agency's staff,
through buyout offers and the termination of probationary employees.
After Tuesday's layoffs, the Education Department's staff will sit at
roughly half of its previous 4,100, the agency said.
The layoffs are part of a dramatic downsizing directed by Trump as he
moves to reduce the footprint of the federal government. Thousands of
jobs are expected to be cut across the Department of Veterans Affairs,
the Social Security Administration, and other agencies.
State Farm exec fired over jaw-dropping comments about LA wildfire rate hikes, victims in secret recording
A State Farm executive has been fired after he was secretly recorded
alleging that the insurance company hiked rates for California
homeowners reeling from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires.
Haden Kirkpatrick, State Farm’s vice president for innovation and
venture capital, thought he was on a Tinder date when he started
talking about his company’s California subsidiary filing for an
emergency 22% rate hike for its homeowners’ policies, the Los Angeles
Times reported.
Kirkpatrick said the request was “kind of” orchestrated “but not in the
way you would think,” according to the video published by James
O’Keefe’s media company.
JAMES CARVILLE: Too many Democrats are losing their minds over Trump. It doesn't have to be this way
Here's how Democrats need to respond to the Trump presidency
On Feb. 25, The New York Times published an opinion piece in which I
urged Democrats to employ caution in dealing with the new incumbent
administration. More specifically, I called for a "tactical pause" that
would allow Democrats to "regroup, look forward and make decisions
about where we want to get to over the next two years." The reaction to
that piece was as depressing as it was predictable—a bicoastal
condemnation.
Molly Jong-Fast, the estimable commentator, took to Vanity Fair,
calling me out and calling for the Democratic Party to mount a
full-court press, "making noise on TV and social media" in response to
the chaos inflicted by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, on the
Pacific Coast, California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom shared with
Charlie Kirk on his new podcast, "This Is Gavin Newsom" just how much
he disagrees with me.
We saw the Newsom/Jong-Fast/Green strategy in play last Tuesday night
during the president's address to Congress —pink suits, paddles and
dry-erase boards aplenty.
Who was really running the country while Autopen Joe Biden snoozed and drooled?
A new analysis of former President Joe Biden’s use of autopens again
raised the question: Who, exactly, was running the country?
The fact that virtually every document Joe “signed” as prez, on top of
everything else we know about his mental decline, seems the final proof
that the buck wasn’t stopping with him.
The Heritage Foundation dove deep on official documents from Biden’s
time in office and found that nearly all bore the robot’s signature;
the chief exception was the one dropping his bid for re-election.
Which raises the question: What did the president even know about what he was signing?
