• The Courts Strike Back
  Three back-to-back federal court rulings on Tuesday provide reason to cheer.
  1. Lifting the ban on refugee admittances
  2. Ordering foreign aid money to flow
  3. Getting billions in frozen funds to flow

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• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – February 24, 2025
  …
  For the past three years Ukraine has held off Russia. As Anne Applebaum noted today in The Atlantic, civilian society in Ukraine has volunteered for the war effort, and the defense industry has transformed to produce both hardware and software to hit Russian targets: indeed, Ukraine now leads the world in AI-enabled drone technology. The Ukraine army has become the largest in Europe, with a million people. Ukraine has suffered attacks on civilians, hospitals, and the energy sector, and at least 46,000 soldiers have died, with another 380,000 wounded.

  At the same time, Russia’s economy is crumbling as its military production takes from the civilian economy and sanctions prevent other countries from taking up the slack. Inflation is through the roof, and more than 700,000 of those fighting for Russia have been killed or wounded. Applebaum notes that the Institute for the Study of War estimates that at the rate it’s moving, Russia would need 83 years to capture the remaining 80% of Ukraine.

  “The only way Putin wins now,” Applebaum writes, “is by persuading Ukraine’s allies to be sick of the war…by persuading Trump to cut off Ukraine…and by convincing Europeans that they can’t win either.”
  …
  Today, Macron visited Trump at the White House, where the visit got off to a poor start when Trump broke protocol by neglecting to greet Macron when he arrived. During the visit, the two men took questions from the press. Macron maintained a facade of camaraderie with Trump, but as Trump slumped in his chair and recited the inaccuracies that in the U.S. often go uncorrected, Macron seemed comfortable and in command. He interrupted Trump to contradict him in front of reporters and called out Russia for being the aggressor in the war.

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• COVID & Health News 2/23/25
  Respiratory illnesses are still HIGH now across the country and Influenza A is VERY HIGH. COVID wastewater levels are MODERATE in most places, but are still HIGH in the Midwest. (more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – February 22, 2025
  …
  Marshall notes that Trump is “reaching far down the pecking order to someone who isn’t even on active duty in the military for the critical position not only as the chief military advisor to the President…but the key person at the contact point of civilian control over the military.” In Trump’s telling, his support for Caine comes from the military officer’s support for him. “I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir,” Trump claims Caine said to him. Trump went on to claim that Caine put on a Make America Great Again hat, despite rules against political messaging on the clothing of active-duty troops.
  …
  They note that Trump expressed frustration with military leaders during his first term when they resisted illegal orders, saying, as then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley did, that in America “[w]e don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator…. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
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• Heather Cox Richardson – Letters from an American – February 21, 2025
  …
  Meanwhile, Jessica Piper of Politico noted that 62% of Americans in the CNN poll said that Trump has not done enough to try to reduce prices, and today’s economic news bears out that concern: not only are egg prices at an all-time high, but also consumer sentiment dropped to a 15-month low as people worry that Trump’s tariffs will raise prices. White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement: “[T]he American people actually feel great about the direction of the country…. What’s to hate? We are undoing the widely unpopular agenda of the previous office holder, uprooting waste, fraud, and abuse, and chugging along on the great American Comeback.”

  Phone calls swamping the congressional switchboards and constituents turning out for town halls with House members disprove Fields’s statement. In packed rooms with overflow spaces, constituents have shown up this week both to demand that their representatives take a stand against Musk’s slashing of the federal government and access to personal data, and to protest Trump’s claim to be a king. In an eastern Oregon district that Trump won by 68%, constituents shouted at Representative Cliff Bentz: “tax Elon,” “tax the wealthy,” “tax the rich,” and “tax the billionaires.” In a solid-red Atlanta suburb, the crowd was so angry at Representative Richard McCormick that he has apparently gone to ground, bailing on a CNN interview about the disastrous town hall at the last minute.
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• Zelensky’s five moves that set off Trump
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• Trump can’t quickly or easily kill the CHIPS Act, but he can fire the workers funded by it
  Reported layoffs suggest R&D functions may be hobbled, fab subsidies also at risk
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• Letter From a Federal Worker
  This is a heartbreaking letter that a federal worker has asked me to share with the public.
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• ”It’s become commonplace these days for Republicans to abandon everything they once believed to gain favor with Trump, such as their NATO allies. But Rubio’s flip-flop on USAID reinforces Trump’s triumph over the last vestiges of neoconservatism.”
  https://www.publicnotice.co/p/usaid-destruction-marco-rubio-soft-power

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To state the obvious, these times have been different.

I have continued my obsession with reading all kinds of news, from all kinds of sources, reading literally thousands of headlines every day, and delving into items that intrigue me.
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