Trump Endorses Sending DOGE Rebate Checks to Taxpayers

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President Trump on Wednesday endorsed sending Americans rebate checks based on a percentage of the savings achieved by the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting measures.

“There’s even under consideration a new concept where we give 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt because the numbers are incredible,” Mr. Trump said at the Future Investment Institute’s PRIORITY Summit in Miami.

Mr. Trump said by allowing the American people to get in on the action, they will help the federal government identify the fraud, waste and abuse that he was sent to Washington to clean up.

“By doing this Americans will tell us where there’s waste. They’ll be reporting it themselves. They’ll participate in the process of saving money,” he said.

Mr. Trump did not offer any details about the plan, including how many Americans would receive checks or how the process would work. (Read more from “Trump Endorses Sending DOGE Rebate Checks to Taxpayers” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Trump, Musk Emphasize the Importance of ‘Full Transparency’ in DOGE Efforts

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President Donald Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk emphasized the role of “full transparency” in efforts to root out waste, fraud and abuse in an exclusive interview on “Hannity.”

“You know what’s better than saying ‘trust me’? It’s just full transparency. So what we’re doing with DOGE, just go to DOGE.gov. You can see every single action that has been taken,” Musk told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a segment that aired Wednesday.

Trump and Musk discussed a range of topics during their wide-ranging interview, including DOGE and the president’s first 100 days in office.

Trump tapped Musk to lead DOGE with the aim of dismantling government bureaucracy, slashing regulations, cutting wasteful spending and restructuring federal agencies.

“To me, it was important for people to understand he’s doing a big job. He’s doing a very thankless job. It’s really a thankless job. But he’s helping us to save our country. Our country is in serious trouble. And I had to get the best guy,” Trump said. (Read more from “Trump, Musk Emphasize the Importance of ‘Full Transparency’ in DOGE Efforts” HERE)

ABC News Piece on Who’s in Charge Raising Lots of Questions

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Now that President Donald Trump in his second term is really looking to get to the bottom of wasteful spending, with the help of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), ABC News is now asking questions about who is in charge.

“Contradictory statements about Musk make it unclear who runs DOGE,” read the headline from Monday night, with the article shared over X on early Tuesday morning.

As the article mentioned about Musk and DOGE:

As its influence within the federal government grows daily, one question routinely emerges about the Department of Government Efficiency: Who is in charge?

That answer continues to evade the lawyers tasked with defending President Donald Trump’s administration in court.

…

However, according to Office of Administration Director Joshua Fischer, Musk is neither the administrator nor an employee of DOGE. Instead, Musk is a “non career special government employee” who serves as a senior adviser to the president. The filing compared Musk’s role to that of Anita Dunn, a longtime political adviser who served as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden.

“In his role as senior advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors. Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions,” the affidavit said.

(Read more from “ABC News Piece on Who’s in Charge Raising Lots of Questions” HERE)

Education Department Slashes $600 Million In Funding For ‘Social Justice Activism’ Teacher Training

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The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday it cut over $600 million in grants spent on training teachers in “social justice activism,” critical race theory, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology.

The grants were used to fund institutions and nonprofits involved in training teachers on concepts like “anti-racism” and claims about white privilege and white supremacy. The grants also helped fund discriminatory staff recruiting strategies that targeted candidates based on their race.

“It’s hard to overstate how radical these teacher trainings are — we are talking about forcing teachers to talk about their race at work, asking educators to ‘take personal and institutional responsibility for systemic inequities,’ promoting abolitionist teaching practices and defining equity as equal outcomes,” Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, said in a press release. “And not for nothing but all we see are declining outcomes for the students that these trainings purport to help most.”

The Department of Education noted several of the trainings — meant for future classroom teachers — the grants funded, including “Requiring practitioners to take personal and institutional responsibility for systemic inequities (e.g., racism) and critically reassess their own practices,” and “Receiving professional development workshops and equity training on topics such as ‘Building Cultural Competence,’ ‘Dismantling Racial Bias’ and ‘Centering Equity in the Classroom.’” (Read more from “Education Department Slashes $600 Million In Funding For ‘Social Justice Activism’ Teacher Training” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

U.S. And Russia Take ‘First Step’ With ‘Very Useful’ Ukraine War Talks, Agree Trump-Putin Meeting to Come

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Russia praised the first round of Ukraine war talks with the United States as “very useful”, while the American delegation said both sides had committed to “make sure the process moves forward in a timely and productive manner” and will work towards a Presidential meeting soon.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for the first in-person talks of high-level delegations since Russia invaded Ukraine almost three years ago in 2022. After four and a half hours of talks the meeting broke, with both sides relating they felt it had been productive.

In terms of normalising diplomatic relations between Russia and the U.S., both sides are said to have agreed to return to staffing their embassies in the respective nations.

One of the intended outcomes of the talks was apparently laying the groundwork for an in-person meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for the actual war-ending negotiation process. No date has been set for that meeting, but it was said work was happening to enable it.

Advisor to President Putin and former Russian ambassador to the U.S., Yury Ushakov, who sat around the table with Rubio and Lavrov, said after leaving the meeting that it was not likely Trump and Putin would meet within the next week but that both wanted to meet eventually. He said: “The delegations of the two countries have a lot of work to do. We are ready for this but it is still difficult to speak about the specific date of the meeting between the two leaders… The issue was discussed. We are working out the terms of this meeting”. (Read more from “U.S. And Russia Take ‘First Step’ With ‘Very Useful’ Ukraine War Talks, Agree Trump-Putin Meeting to Come” HERE)

3 Kids Found Living in ‘Absolute Squalor’ After Mom Abandoned Them 4 Years Ago

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Three children were found living in “absolute squalor” in a Michigan home riddled with mold and human waste after their mother abandoned them and left them to live on their own without soap or toilet paper for at least four years, authorities said.

The 34-year-old mother, who has not been identified as she shares the same name with one of her children, was arrested Friday, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said.

Human waste, mold, and garbage piles towering up to four feet tall were found throughout the Pontiac rental home where the children survived on food their mother or a stranger dropped off each week.

The children, a 15-year-old boy, and two girls, ages 12 and 13, had been alone in the home without supervision since either 2020 or 2021, the boy told deputies, according to the sheriff’s office.

Photo credit: Oakland County Sheriff

Deputies found the home in “deplorable shape” when responding to a welfare check requested by their landlord, who was concerned something happened because he had not heard from the mother since December and had not received a rent payment since October.

Photo credit: Oakland County Sheriff

(Read more from “3 Kids Found Living in ‘Absolute Squalor’ After Mom Abandoned Them 4 Years Ago” HERE)

DOGE Discovers $4.7 Trillion of Treasury Payments ‘Almost Impossible’ to Trace

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The Treasury Department sent $4.7 trillion dollars of payments without an identification code that links a Treasury payment to a budget line item, DOGE announced Monday, making the payments “almost impossible” to trace.

DOGE said the identification payment code, called TAS for Treasury Access Symbol, is now required — as of Saturday — to increase the “insight into where money is actually going.”

“Thanks to @USTreasury for the great work,” DOGE posted on X:

. . .

“Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!” Elon Musk posted on X. “This was a combined effort of @DOGE, @USTreasury and @FederalReserve. Nice work by all.” (Read more from “DOGE Discovers $4.7 Trillion of Treasury Payments ‘Almost Impossible’ to Trace” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Ex-Student Who Impregnated Teacher at 13, Now an Adult, Wants Her Sexual Assault Charges Dropped: ‘I Started Everything’

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An alleged sexual assault victim — who reportedly was only 13 years old when he impregnated his teacher during an illicit relationship — has come forward to call for the child sex crimes charges against the New Jersey woman to be dropped, according to a report.

The Daily Mail said it spoke to the former student — who is now an adult — and noted that he indicated that criminal charges against his former teacher should be dropped.

“They need to drop all charges,” the alleged victim said. “I wasn’t groomed or raped or manipulated by her. She never initiated anything. I started everything.” . . .

His former teacher — 34-year-old Laura Caron — delivered a baby in 2019.

Caron is a fifth-grade teacher at Middle Township Elementary School, which is located in the community of Cape May Court House on the southernmost tip of New Jersey.

Caron taught the alleged victim and his brother, according to police. (Read more from “Ex-Student Who Impregnated Teacher at 13, Now an Adult, Wants Her Sexual Assault Charges Dropped: ‘I Started Everything’” HERE)

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Former Migrant Shelter Director Says He Was Attacked After Blowing Whistle on Abuse

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After being attacked by an immigrant rapist, Jon Fetherston, a former Massachusetts migrant shelter director, is blowing the whistle about the “rampant” abuse in the Massachusetts migrant shelter system, which he said is “just a big, colossal mess.”

Fetherston, who served as the director of the Marlborough migrant shelter from 2023 to 2024, said that the amount of crime, domestic abuse and child neglect that takes place in the Massachusetts migrant shelter system is “mind-boggling.” In an interview with Fox News Digital, Fetherston revealed that he was grabbed and attacked by a Haitian immigrant after he was confronted about raping and impregnating his own teenage daughter.

The Maine Wire first broke the story about the Haitian migrant, Ronald Joseph, 42, impregnating his then 13-year-old daughter. Joseph repeatedly raped and impregnated his daughter while staying at a government-funded migrant shelter at a Holiday Inn in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

A report by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities obtained by Fox News Digital says that after being informed he would lose access to his daughter, Joseph “got very agitated and started yelling” at Fetherston that “this was all his fault, and he was to blame.”

Fetherston told Fox News Digital that as soon as Joseph heard he was losing custody of his daughter, he “reached across the table and grabbed me and got angry with me and started cursing and yelling and screaming and swinging at me because he realized what was happening.” (Read more from “Former Migrant Shelter Director Says He Was Attacked After Blowing Whistle on Abuse” HERE)

Associated Press Ban Will Continue Until News Organization Uses ‘Gulf of America,’ Trump Says

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President Trump said Tuesday the Associated Press will continue to be barred from White House events, the Oval Office and Air Force One until the news organization starts using “Gulf of America” to refer to the body of water between Florida and Mexico.

“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that’s the Gulf of America,” Mr. Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago. “We’re very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America.”

“They’re not doing us no favors and I guess I’m not doing them any favors. That’s the way life works,” Mr. Trump said.

The Associated Press has explained that the wire service intends to continue to use the “Gulf of Mexico” because the organization’s news is disseminated around the world, and AP wants to ensure that names and geography are recognizable to global audiences.

Mr. Trump bashed the news service as a left-wing outlet that he claimed was biased against him and Republicans. (Read more from “Associated Press Ban Will Continue Until News Organization Uses ‘Gulf of America,’ Trump Says” HERE)

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