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The Hurricane spins around hotspots of tension and conflict. Feel free to suggest your stories, opinions and ideas: UIHEN@protonmail.com
Border czar Tom Homan threatens to ‘seek prosecution’ after NJ Gov. Phil Murphy suggested he was harboring ‘illegal’ migrant
President Trump’s no-nonsense border czar Tom Homan is threatening to prosecute New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy after the Dem suggested he was sheltering an illegal migrant in his home and dared the feds “to try to get her.”
“If he’s knowingly harboring and concealing an illegal alien, that’s a violation of Title 8, United States Code 1324,” Homan said.
“I will seek prosecution or the secretary will seek prosecution. Maybe he’s bluffing. If he’s not, we’ll deal with that,” the border chief said. “It’s a foolish thing what he said, because I got note of it, won’t let it go, will look into it.”
Revenge going on: Trump administration axes $8 million in Politico subscriptions paid by taxpayers
The White House said Wednesday it was canceling Politico subscriptions that the U.S. Agency for International Development had purchased with millions of taxpayer dollars.
“I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers’ dime will no longer be happening,”
“Many media outlets are going to experience a mysterious drop in revenue,”
Second federal judge halts Trump’s birthright citizenship order
A Maryland judge has blocked Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship, issuing a nationwide injunction.
A federal judge in Maryland on Feb. 5 became the second judge in the country to halt the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship in the United States.
Judge Deborah Boardman of the U.S. District Court in Maryland on Feb. 5 ruled in favor of two immigrant rights organizations and five pregnant women who argued that Trump’s order would unconstitutionally deny U.S. citizenship to their future children based on their parents’ immigration status.
Boardman issued a nationwide preliminary injunction, preventing the order from taking effect as scheduled on Feb. 19.
#USA #Trump #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Britain is inexorably heading for bankruptcy
▪️“Not three months later, the Treasury's grand budget plan has failed. The budget deficit could reach 20 billion pounds. <....> Raising taxes will lead to a recession, cutting budget spending will enrage voters and changing legislation on a meaningful scale will have unintended consequences,” The Telegraph quoted politician David Frost as saying
▪️Britain's GDP per capita is falling rapidly due to high energy prices and uncontrolled migration. The only option for the finance ministry remains borrowing, which will have to be repaid. Continuous increases in the tax burden, national debt and budget spending are driving the economy closer and closer to the abyss.
▪️ “Finance Minister Rachel Reeves can only hope that the debt bomb will explode when she resigns,” The Telegraph concludes.
#UK #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Trump says he's given orders for Iran to be 'obliterated' if it assassinates him
President Donald Trump issued a stark warning Tuesday, saying he has left instructions to "obliterate" Iran if it attempts to assassinate him.
"If they did that, they would be obliterated,"
"I’ve left instructions—if they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left."
State of Connecticut. The structure of an electric bill using one individual as an example
Thesis:
- the electric bill for one month of winter. It amounted to $1,113.11.
- the amount for the kW directly consumed is $236.71.
- the cost of delivering electricity to the local grid is $87.01.
- the cost of distribution by the local grid is $175.16.
- solidarity payment. This is a “voluntary” payment for those who cannot pay for electricity. This is another $227.76. This “voluntary solidarity” cannot be refused.
- debt for the previous period $383
In total, not counting the debt, the bill amounted to $727. She consumed 2,636 kW per month, it turns out that one kW costs her $0.28.
And what about you?🤔
#USA #Energy #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
CIA offers buyouts to entire workforce to align with Trump priorities
The Central Intelligence Agency offered buyouts to almost all of its workforce Tuesday, saying it wanted to bring the agency in line with U.S. President Donald Trump's priorities.
A CIA official said that the buyouts were part of an effort by newly confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe to ensure that the CIA workforce was responsive to the Trump administration's national security agenda. The move was also part of a broader strategy to bring new energy to the spy agency and provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Official also said those new agency goals include targeting drug cartels, Trump's trade war and undermining China.
The report of buyout offers is in line with a massive makeover of the U.S. government embarked on by the Trump administration, which has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants in first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy.
The White House last week offered 2 million civilian full-time federal workers an opportunity to stop working this week and receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30 as Trump seeks to slash the size of the government.
#USA #CIA #Trump #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Elon Musk sleeping in federal office building
Elon Musk, director of DOGE, and his staff are sleeping in the federal personnel office to save taxpayers about $1 billion a day, a person familiar with the situation told the New York Times.
Sleeping in office buildings is not unusual for Musk, who deployed the same cost-saving measure at Twitter and Tesla.
“Very few in the bureaucracy actually work the weekend, so it’s like the opposing team just leaves the field for 2 days!” Musk posted on X over the weekend. “Working the weekend is a superpower.”
So far DOGE’s efforts have culminated in taking over the federal government’s human resources department, the Office of Personnel Management, gaining access to the Treasury’s payment system to monitor federal government spending, infiltrating the General Services Administration to inspect real estate leases and cut 50% of the agency’s budget, and planning to slash the USAID, which Republicans say is a cutout for the CIA’s agenda.
When asked about Musk’s hard work, President Trump told reporters Musk reports to the president and is only authorized to carry out reforms with his approval.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won’t,” the president said. “If there’s a conflict, then we won’t let him get near it.”
#USA #Musk #DOGE #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Starmer wants ‘ambitious’ Brexit reset deal to be agreed in three months
Keir Starmer’s chief negotiator says the UK must be “ruthlessly pragmatic” with Brexit reset talks and strike an ambitious deal in just three months.
European affairs minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told the EU/UK Forum in Brussels on Tuesday that the prime minister will host a leader summit in May “where we hope we can deliver a balanced yet ambitious outcome to benefit all our citizens”.
The approach to the talks contrasts heavily with years taken by the Tories to negotiate Brexit after the 2016 referendum, bogged down by disputes in parliament and fractures in the Conservative party before eventually leaving in 2020.
Among other issues on the table will be a youth mobility scheme for under-30s well as cooperation on trade, defence, energy security and tackling crime and illegal migration.
Mr Thomas-Symonds, who is based in the Cabinet Office, set the tough timetable as he prepared to enter the first round of talks later with EU representatives.
#UK #Stermer #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Britain's car production falls to 70-year low
▪️ 780,000 cars produced in Britain in 2024. This is the lowest since 1954, states Britain's The Guardian
▪️ In 2017, the British car industry set a target of 2 million units a year. But production volumes are falling rather than rising amid political uncertainty, including Brexit. A number of plants have already closed, and in 2023 Stellantis shocked the industry with a plan to close its van factory
▪️ Against this backdrop, British manufacturers are bracing for further upheaval if Trump imposes import duties on products from Britain's second-largest market
#UK #Trump #Economy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep
For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.
Here are only a few examples of the WASTE and ABUSE:
▪️ $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
▪️$70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland
▪️$2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
▪️$47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia
▪️$32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru
▪️$2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
▪️$6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
▪️Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even AFTER an inspector general launched an investigation
▪️Millions to EcoHealth Alliance — which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab
▪️“Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria”
▪️Funding to print “personalized” contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries
▪️Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban
#USA #USAID #Corruption #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
What’s wrong with DEI
The diversity, equity, and inclusion project keeps popping up as a possible subtext in a variety of recent tragedies.
In the case of the Los Angeles fires, Mayor Karen Bass, who cut the fire department budget, was warned of the mounting fire dangers of the Santa Anna winds and parched brush on surrounding hillsides. No matter—she junketed in Uganda. When furor followed, on cue, her defenders decried a racialist attack on “a black woman.”
Her possible stand-in deputy mayor for “security” was under suspension for allegations that he called in a bomb threat to the Los Angeles city council—a factor mysteriously forgotten.
The fire chief previously was on record mostly for highlighting her DEI agendas rather than emphasizing traditional fire department criteria like response time or keeping fire vehicles running and out of the shop.
One of her deputies had boasted that in emergencies, citizens appreciated most of all that arriving first responders looked like them. She further snarked that if women allegedly were not physically able to carry out a man in times of danger, then it was the man’s fault for being in the wrong place.
The point is not necessarily whether the key players who might have prevented the destruction of some 25,000 acres of Los Angeles were selected—or exempted—on the basis of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Rather the worry is that in all these cases, those with responsibility for keeping Los Angeles viable, themselves eagerly self-identified first by their race, gender, or sexual orientation—as if this fact alone was synonymous with competence and deference.
#USA #DEI #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
What Rubio said about multipolarity should get more attention
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s in his recent interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly surprisingly declared unipolarity an anomaly and treated a return to multipolarity essentially as a correction by the gravitational forces of geopolitics.
“So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not — that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with,”
he said.
Setting aside whether he truly believes this or is simply adjusting to President Trump's worldview, it is still very significant for the secretary of state to not only declare unipolarity over, but to also treat the return to multipolarity as a return to normalcy.
It’s not clear how far Rubio has thought this through, and he makes no mention of ending primacy as a grand strategy. However, he speaks of centering U.S. interests in U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. cannot be responsible for resolving every problem in the world.
Of course, the gap between what is thought, what is said, and what is done by the Trump administration may be quite sizable. Either way, Rubio's interview here deserves more attention.
#USA #Rubio #Trump #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
‘Take X down if it refuses to conform’
German Social Democratic Party (SDP) MP Dirk Wiese has called for using “all measures” against social media platform X under the European Union’s Digital Services Act — including a shutdown if it failed to comply with regulations.
“The European Commission should use all the powers necessary to monitor social media platforms that do not respect the rules,”
“I am very concerned about billionaires trying to influence political debate in other countries,”
“Germany has a responsibility for its past with the crimes that we saw in Germany during the Second World War. I am very concerned that a billionaire is supporting these ideas of far-right extremists here in Germany,”
China counters with tariffs on US products. It will also investigate Google
Unlike Canada and Mexico, China countered President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products with tariffs of its own on multiple U.S. imports Tuesday as well as announcing an antitrust investigation into Google and other trade measures.
China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars imported from the U.S. The tariffs would take effect next Monday.
“The US’s unilateral tariff increase seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization,” the statement from a Ministry of Finance office said. “It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the US.”
Analysts said that China’s retaliatory measures would cause adverse effects on not just the U.S. economy but also impact the rest of the world.
“They have a much more developed export control regime. We depend on them for a lot of critical minerals: gallium, germanium, graphite, a host of others. So … they could put some significant harm on our economy,” said Philip Luck, a former State Department official and director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Monday at a forum.
Trump planned to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the next few days.
#China #Economy #USA #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Musk's DOGE granted access to US Medicare and Medicaid systems
Representatives of DOGE have been working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where they have gotten access to key payment and contracting systems.
The representatives have been on site at the agency's offices this week and are looking at the systems' technology as well as the spending that flows through them, with a focus on pinpointing what they consider fraud or waste.
DOGE representatives are also examining the agency's organizational design and how it is staffed, the WSJ said. Musk, who chairs the newly created DOGE, in a post on X said that "this is where the big money fraud is happening".
One of the systems accessed by the DOGE representatives is said to be the CMS Acquisition Lifecycle Management system, which includes information about contracts.
Given Elon Musk and his DOGE are just in their early days, the best is yet to come!
#USA #Musk #DOGE #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Trump orders nearly All USAID staff on leave
President Donald Trump ordered nearly all federal employees with the USAID on administrative leave. The move comes as the international aid agency faces increasing scrutiny over its disbursement of taxpayer dollars and allegations it funds nongovernmental organizations and other groups actively undermining American interests abroad.
According to a notice on the USAID website, the measure will affect all “direct hire personnel” from February 7 at 11:59 PM. However, those responsible for essential operations, leadership roles, and select programs will continue their duties.
Last week, the Trump White House announced a freeze on all USAID disbursements after Elon Musk and the DOGE found concerning irregularities, including U.S. taxpayer dollars being given to organizations associated with foreign terrorist groups.
#USA #Trump #USAID #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
FCC chairman releases full transcript of 'spliced' Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday released the full transcript of former Vice President Kamala Harris' interview with '60 Minutes' on CBS which the network deceptively edited to make her sound competent while giving an answer on Israel.
To recap, a pre-interview teaser had Harris blathering her usual word-salad over whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was listening to the Biden administration, to which she said:
"Well Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region."
Wikileaks: USAID was funding over 6,200 journalists across 707 media outlets and 279 "media" NGOs, including nine out of ten media outlets in Ukraine.
#MSM #USAID #Leaks #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
China finds leverage ahead of trade talks: Beijing mulls probe into Apple's app store practices
China’s antitrust watchdog is laying the groundwork for a potential probe into Apple Inc.’s policies and the fees it charges app developers, part of a broader push by Beijing that risks becoming another flashpoint in the country’s trade war with the U.S.
The State Administration for Market Regulation is examining Apple’s policies, which include taking a cut of as much as 30% on in-app spending and barring external payment services and stores, people familiar with the matter said. Agency officials have spoken with Apple executives and app developers since last year, said the people, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive moves.
The conversations stem from long-running disputes between Apple and developers such as Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd. over iOS store policies — a source of tension between the US company and regulators worldwide. While Beijing has since 2024 targeted the practices of US tech firms from Nvidia Corp. to most recently Alphabet Inc.’s Google, regulators may not formally move against Apple if the current conversations go well.
#China #Apple #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
DOGE derangement syndrome 😂😭
#USA #DOGE #Musk #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
USDA removes climate change propaganda from websites amid federal spending review
In a move that has reignited debates over federal priorities and corporate narratives, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has instructed its employees to scrub references to climate change from agency websites.
The directive, issued last Thursday and confirmed by an internal email obtained by POLITICO, calls for the removal or archiving of landing pages and content related to climate change narratives.
This action comes as federal funding for clean energy and agriculture programs hangs in the balance, with the Trump administration pushing to halt wasteful spending from legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act. The decision echoes similar efforts during the first Trump administration to dismiss the climate change agenda, aggravating climate change activists and climate profiteers who were looking to cash in from the weaponization of science to promote corporate climate narratives.
USDA employees were ordered to delete or archive web pages discussing climate change and document all related content for review.
The directive could impact dozens of programs, including climate-smart agriculture initiatives and wildfire management resources.
#USA #USDA #Climate #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Murdoch gets last laugh after Trump dressed him down in Oval Office
The Wall Street Journal ’s editorial board needled Donald Trump for relenting on his tariffs just hours after the president called out the paper’s billionaire owner, Rupert Murdoch , while he was in the Oval Office.
The editorial , which ran under the headline “Trump Blinks on North American Tariffs‚” pushed against the notion that the president’s 25 percent import taxes on allies Canada and Mexico “are some genius power play, as the Trump media chorus is boasting.”
Earlier on Monday, when the 93-year-old conservative media mogul had visited Trump in the White House, the president told reporters he would “have to talk with him” about a separate critical editorial the Journal wrote about his tariffs. All Murdoch could do was look on.
When a reporter pressed Trump on the editorial, with Murdoch seated just feet away, the president couldn’t help but take a shot at the paper.
“I’m going to have to talk to him,” he said. “I’ve been right over The Wall Street Journal many times. I don’t agree with him on some things.”
On Monday, soon after the two men’s meeting, the Journal suggested Trump’s declaration of victory, which followed quickly, was overblown. Ahead of Murdoch’s visit to the White House on Monday, the Journal had published an editorial skewering Trump’s tariffs as “The Dumbest Trade War in History.”
#USA #Murdoch #Trump #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Berlin daily sex crimes soared by 79% last year, report finds
In Berlin, sexual crimes soared last year, according to local government data.
Authorities revealed that data gathered from a previously unpublished Berlin State government report found that a total of 7,475 crimes occurred in 2024, or an average of more than 20 a day, an increase of 79% on 2023.
Foreign nationals were disproportionally implicated in such crimes, with some 38% of all recorded incidents believed to have been perpetrated by a non-German national. That compared to the city’s foreign population of 27.5%.
The percentage of suspected foreign perpetrators was higher in some areas. Of the two rapes on average that took place in the city each day, half were suspected to have been committed by a foreign national.
The data implied 75% of all cases of serious sexual coercion, as well as group sexual coercion, were also believed to have been committed by non-Germans.
#Germany #Migrants #Crime #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
China is building the world's most powerful fusion research facility
▪️ The design of the research center under construction in China is largely similar to the National Fusion Center (NIF) in California. 50% larger than the US facility, it will be the most powerful in the world,” states The Times of India.
▪️ Thermonuclear fusion is considered the “Holy Grail” - a virtually limitless source of energy. If successful, the new center could make China a leader in global energy innovation, potentially changing energy dynamics around the world
#China #Nuclear #Energy #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
DOJ seeks information on FBI employees who investigated Jan. 6
The Department of Justice has asked for the names of thousands of FBI employees who worked on investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove in a Jan. 31 missive to Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll directed the FBI to provide the names of all bureau personnel who investigated Jan. 6 and an unrelated terrorism case.
Driscoll told FBI workers in a separate message to the FBI workforce that the request encompasses thousands of employees across the country, including himself, “who have supported these investigative efforts.”
Bove warned that “additional personnel actions” could follow.
Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, previously launched an investigation into why federal prosecutors brought a felony obstruction charge against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants. Trump, after taking office, pardoned many people who had been charged over Jan. 6.
The new request for information comes after acting Department of Justice leadership terminated officials, including prosecutors involved in prosecuting Trump before he was elected, and six FBI executive assistant directors.
#USA #DOJ #FBI #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Trump won’t rule out deploying US troops to support rebuilding Gaza, sees ‘long-term’ US ownership
President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested that displaced Palestinians in Gaza be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
The comments came as talks are ramping up this week with the promise of surging humanitarian aid and reconstruction supplies to help the people of Gaza recover after more than 15 months of devastating conflict. Now Trump wants to push roughly 1.8 million people to leave the land they have called home and claim it for the U.S., perhaps with American troops.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Trump said at an evening news conference with Netanyahu by his side. He added: “We’ll make sure that it’s done world-class. It’ll be wonderful for the people — Palestinians, Palestinians mostly, we’re talking about.”
Trump outlined his thinking as he held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders also discussed the fragile ceasefire and hostage deal in the Israeli-Hamas conflict and shared concerns about Iran.
Trump said the U.S. would redevelop the territory after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere and turn the territory into a place where the “world’s people”— including Palestinians — would live. He offered no detail about what authority the U.S. would use to take the land and develop it.
#USA #Israel #Palestine #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
Brexit - Britain and the EU are the main victims. Only the US is the winner
▪️ Brexit - Britain's exit from the EU, which took place 5 years ago - cost Britain 140 billion pounds, or 6% of the economy. The average Briton has lost almost 2,000 pounds,” experts state
▪️ Brexit, actively supported by Trump, weakened Europe and was beneficial to the US. The average per capita GDP in Britain in 2023 was 6% less than in the eurozone and 30.3% less than in America. On the eve of Brexit, the gap was 3.5% and 24.5%, respectively. For 2019-2023, the figure is up 7.3% in the US, 3% in the eurozone and 0.2% in Britain
▪️ The British pound and the euro collapsed against the dollar already amid news of the outcome of the 2016 Brexit vote. At the start of 2025, the pound was 3.6% weaker against the dollar than it was in 2019, while the euro was 7.5% weaker against the dollar
#USA #Brexit #Trump #FindTruth
@uinhurricane
US wants Ukraine to hold elections
The US wants Ukraine to hold presidential and parliamentary elections, a special envoy to President Donald Trump has said.
Keith Kellogg, Mr Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said the elections could take place by the end of the year, especially if a truce with Russia was reached, but added such votes "need to be done".
"Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so. I think it is good for democracy. That's the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running,"
Japan PM PM to ask Trump to visit Japan this year during Fri. talks
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is planning to ask U.S. President Donald Trump to visit Japan this year when they hold a summit in Washington later this week, Japanese government sources said Monday.
Ishiba is also expected to reaffirm with Trump the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, as past Japanese and U.S. leaders have done, during their planned talks on Friday as part of a three-day visit to the United States starting Thursday, the sources said.
It will be the first in-person meeting between the two after Ishiba took office in October and Trump was sworn in for his second nonconsecutive four-year term last month.
Ishiba's U.S. trip comes as he seeks to establish a personal rapport with Trump to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance amid rising security concerns, with China ramping up military activity in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Taiwan Strait.
At their meeting on Friday, Ishiba and Trump are expected to issue a joint statement affirming that Article 5 of the bilateral security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China in the East China Sea, sources close to the matter have said.
#Japan #USA #FindTruth
@uinhurricane