Lebanese PM forms new government including Hezbollah allies

Despite interventionist statements from White House officials urging the exclusion of Hezbollah from the government, the Lebanese resistance secured the representation it initially sought

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam officially announced the formation of a new government for Lebanon on 8 February, naming 24 ministers to his cabinet, including five allied with the so-called “Shia duo” of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.

“Reform is the only path to salvation, and the government will work to restore trust between the citizen and the state,” Salam said during a short speech from Baabda Palace following the announcement.

“The government will work in harmony among its members, and diversity will not be a source of disruption. I envision establishing a state of law and institutions, and we are laying the foundations for reform and rescue. No government formation will satisfy everyone, but we will work in unity,” the premier added.

Salam also stressed his government would “complete the implementation of [UNSC] Resolution 1701 and the ceasefire agreement” with Israel, stressing that Israeli occupation troops must “withdraw to the last inch of Lebanese territory.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/lebanese-pm-forms-new-government-including-hezbollah-allies

.@RepThomasMassie just introduced his audit the Fed bill. H.R. 24

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/24

https://twitter.com/i/status/1888321674585743590

Trump claims he has spoken to Putin about Ukraine – media

The New York Post has not provided any quotes from the reported phone call

US President Donald Trump has claimed to have discussed the Ukraine conflict with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the phone, according to the New York Post. The Kremlin has yet to comment on the claim.

The US president, who has repeatedly vowed to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict, made the remarks in an interview with the paper aboard Air Force One on Friday, which was only published the next day. The NY Post, however, hasn’t provided any quotes from the alleged phone call in its interview with Trump.

When asked how many times he had been in contact with Putin, he noted “I’d better not say.” The US president told the paper that he believed his counterpart wanted a cessation of hostilities. “He wants to see people stop dying,” Trump said. “All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason.”

It is unclear from what data he derived the exact figure, and what timeframe he was referring to.

According to the NY Post, he delivered the remarks while accompanied by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. While addressing him, he noted “Let’s get these meetings going. They want to meet. Every day people are dying,” the report said.

Trump has repeatedly said he wanted to meet with Putin to discuss the settlement of the Ukraine crisis. Moscow has said it is open to talks, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirming on Wednesday that Russia and the US have had contacts “between individual departments,” and that they have recently “intensified,” without providing further details.

Trump added that he “always had a good relationship with Putin,” asserting that if he had been president in 2022, he would have prevented the Ukraine conflict altogether, and has blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for allowing hostilities.

While the US president has not publicly revealed his peace plan, it reportedly involves the freezing of the conflict along the current front line, establishing a demilitarized zone patrolled by European soldiers, and suspending Ukraine from joining NATO.

Russia has ruled out the freezing of the conflict, stressing that any potential settlement must recognize “territorial reality on the ground” and see Kiev commit to permanent neutrality, demilitarization and denazification.

https://www.rt.com/news/612394-trump-putin-alleged-call/

To be clear, what the

@DOGE

team and

@USTreasury

have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:

• Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.

• All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!

• The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.

The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from

@DOGE

. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!

Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.

When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!!

This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888314848477376744

Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024

Summary

The Congressional Budget Office tracks authorizations of appropriations that have specified expiration dates and identifies, annually, appropriations that are provided for authorizations that have expired or that will expire by the end of the current fiscal year. For this report, CBO identified 1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations that are set to expire before the end of the fiscal year. CBO also found that $516 billion in appropriations for 2024 was associated with 491 expired authorizations of appropriations.

Background

Some provisions of law authorize the Congress to provide funds through a future appropriation act to administer a program or function. Such authorizations of appropriations, which are the subject of this report, differ from other authorizations (sometimes called enabling or organic statutes) that create a federal agency, establish a federal program, prescribe a federal function, or provide for a particular federal obligation or expenditure within a program. Appropriations provide funding to agencies to administer programs and functions.

Authorizations of appropriations constitute guidance for future Congressional decisions about funding that may be necessary to implement enabling statutes; the authorizations may be contained in the enabling statutes or enacted separately. Such laws may authorize appropriations for one year, for multiple years, or in perpetuity, and those authorizations may be definite (specifying the exact amount of funding that may be provided) or indefinite (authorizing the appropriation of “such sums as may be necessary,” with no specified upper limit). CBO refers to both definite and indefinite authorizations of appropriations as explicit. (CBO does not track implied authorizations of appropriations.)

Section 202(e)(3) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. §602(e)(3)) requires CBO to report annually to the Congress on the following:

All programs and activities funded for the current fiscal year for which the authorizations of appropriations have expired and

All programs and activities for which the authorizations of appropriations will expire during the current fiscal year.

The information summarized in the following section is drawn from the agency’s Legislative Classification System (LCS), the database of explicit authorizations of appropriations that are not permanent, which underlies the report.1 Later in this report, CBO describes the method it uses to determine which authorizations have expired or will expire and discusses uncertainty in the aggregated information.

Historically, House and Senate rules restrict lawmakers from considering an appropriation if it lacks a current authorization.2 The determination of whether that is the case is made by the Speaker of the House or the Presiding Officer of the Senate on the basis of advice from the relevant chamber’s Office of the Parliamentarian. Although this report is intended to aid the Congress by identifying explicit authorizations of appropriations that expired before, or will expire during, this fiscal year, it is not and should not be considered definitive with respect to the application of House or Senate rules.

For this report, funding for programs and activities with expired authorizations includes only those appropriations that could clearly be associated with the authorization in legislative text or legislative history. Other appropriations may be available to carry out such programs and activities.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60580

L.A. ‘Recovery Chief’ Steve Soboroff Agrees to Work for Free, After Grenell Exposes $500,000 Salary

Los Angeles “Chief Recovery Officer” Steve Soboroff said Saturday night that he would work for free, after coming under fire for earning $500,000 for three months of work, even though his salary was to have been paid privately.

Earlier in the day, as Breitbart News reported, Ambassador Ric Grenell, who is representing President Donald Trump in overseeing the recovery effort from last month’s devastating fires, criticized Soboroff harshly for his salary.

“Steve Soboroff should be embarrassed to accept $500,000 for 3 months work (and [assistant] Randy Johnson for accepting $250,000 for the same period). This is an absurd rate of pay,” one resident wrote on NextDoor, a social media app that connects neighbors. “Even if the funds are coming from philanthropic sources, why is the money not going to the many many people who have llost [sic] everything? Why would an elderly and wealthy man think it proper to take this money home? Disgusting.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/02/09/steve-soboroff-agrees-work-for-free-after-500000-salary-exposed/

Chelsea Handler hosting Friday night’s #CriticsChoiceAwards: “It was a huge year for biopics….Anora, about Melania Trump.” (IMDb on Anora: “A young sex worker from Brooklyn meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1888020058229596606

ROGER STONE: “Lindsey Graham is a Back-Stabbing Weasel!”

"He is a fish-faced enemy of the people."

“The South Carolina primary is an open primary. That means that people of either party, or people who are in no party, are allowed to vote. Traditionally candidates like Lindsey Graham have survived, because hundreds of thousands of left-wing Democrats, realize that in South Carolina the Democrat nominee has little chance of winning a general election, cross over into the Republican primary to give us candidates like Lindsey Graham.

https://rumble.com/embed/v6fq4eg/?pub=4

California defies Trump’s executive order, continues allowing transgender athletes in girls’ sports

California has announced it will continue allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, directly opposing President Donald Trump’s recent executive order aimed at protecting female athletes.

The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the state’s governing body for high school sports, confirmed it will adhere to state law, which permits students to participate in sports based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. This decision has sparked outrage as California once again prioritizes a radical ideological agenda over the safety and fairness of female athletes.

The NCAA, meanwhile, has taken a different approach, swiftly aligning with Trump’s order by banning transgender women from competing in women’s collegiate sports. The contrast between California’s defiance and the NCAA’s compliance highlights the growing tension between federal directives and state-level policies, particularly in liberal strongholds like California.

California’s controversial stance

California’s refusal to comply with Trump’s executive order is rooted in state law AB 1266, which has been in effect since 2014. The law allows students to participate in sex-segregated sports and use facilities consistent with their gender identity, regardless of their biological sex. The CIF has doubled down on this policy, stating it will continue to provide students with opportunities to compete “in compliance with California law.”

Sophia Lorey, Outreach Director for the California Family Council, expressed her dismay at the state’s decision. “I am disgusted that CIF is disregarding yesterday’s executive order and instead doubling down on policies that are not only unfair but dangerous for young women across California,” Lorey told Fox News Digital.

“By prioritizing their idol of transgender ideology over the safety and rights of female athletes, they are knowingly exposing high school girls to unsafe competition and stripping them of opportunities guaranteed for them under Title IX.”

Lorey’s concerns are echoed by parents and athletes across the state. In Riverside, California, a lawsuit filed by two high school girls alleges that their school district allowed a transgender athlete to take a varsity spot on the girls’ cross-country team, effectively sidelining biological females. The girls claim they were told by school administrators that “transgenders have more rights than cisgender[s]” when they protested the athlete’s participation.

https://www.stationgossip.com/2025/02/california-defies-trumps-executive.html

Scientists Confirm Covid ‘Vaccines’ Trigger Autoimmune Hepatitis

A major new study has confirmed that Covid “vaccines” act as a “trigger” for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) – a lifelong liver disease.

The study was conducted by leading scientists at The Second Hospital of Jilin University in China.

The peer-reviewed study led by Drs. Chaojie Yu, Wenrui Wang, Qian Zhang, and Zhenjing Jin.

The results were published in the renowned journal Frontiers in Immunology.

The researchers found that Covid “vaccines” act as triggers for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) through immune overstimulation, molecular mimicry, and other immune-modulating mechanisms.

While AIH patients were initially assumed to be at greater risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes due to immunosuppressive therapy, the study questions this assumption by evaluating clinical evidence.

Additionally, it examines whether Covid vaccination is merely associated with AIH onset or if it actively contributes to autoimmunity development.

The study synthesizes findings from multiple retrospective and observational studies on AIH patients.

The scientists analyzed cases involving patients with COVID-19 and those who suffered AIH post-vaccination.

The authors evaluated the immune mechanisms linking SARS-CoV-2 to liver dysfunction, assessed vaccine-induced immune dysregulation, and reviewed genetic markers (such as cytokine SNPs and HLA polymorphisms) potentially predisposing individuals to AIH.

Data from registries, case reports, and genetic association studies are critically examined to detect patterns of autoimmune activation following COVID-19 exposure.

The authors break down the outcomes into categories including

AIH and COVID-19 Risk

SARS-CoV-2 as an autoimmune trigger

COVID-19 vaccination and AIH

Genetic susceptibility

Immunosuppressive Therapy and AIH Management

What follows is a summary of each finding by category:

https://slaynews.com/news/scientists-confirm-covid-vaccines-trigger-autoimmune-hepatitis/

>>22546442

.@SecDef Pete Hegseth: "The single dumbest phrase in military history is 'our diversity is our strength.' I think our strength is our unity. Our strength is our shared purpose."

https://twitter.com/i/status/1887950387723882946

Google to lay off 25,000 employees

Google has extended voluntary buyout offers to more than 25,000 employees in its platforms and devices division, a move aimed at ensuring the workforce remains “deeply committed” to the company’s strategic goals.

https://www.hrgrapevine.com/us/content/article/2025-02-04-google-offers-25000-staff-voluntary-buyouts-as-it-restructures

Google has offered “voluntary” buyouts to more than 25,000 staffers in an effort to ensure its workforce is “deeply committed” to its goals, the company confirmed on Monday.

The Big Tech giant extended the unusual offer last week to members of its platforms and devices division, which includes teams responsible for its Android software, Chrome browser and Google Photos, as well as hardware like the Pixel, Fitbit and Nest.

https://nypost.com/2025/02/03/tech/google-offers-voluntary-buyouts-to-ensure-workers-are-deeply-committed/

Google is offering buyouts to employees in its “Platforms and Devices” unit ahead of expected cuts.

There are more than 25,000 full-time employees working on the company’s unit, which includes Android, Chrome and hardware divisions Pixel, Fitbit and Nest, CNBC found.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/31/google-offers-voluntary-buyouts-to-hardware-and-platform-teams.html

The Pentagon is making waves by kicking CNN, The Washington Post, The Hill, and The War Zone out of their workspace.

The Pentagon has kicked CNN out of their workspace, replacing them with Newsmax. Along with CNN, The Washington Post, The Hill, and The War Zone are being shown the door to make room for outlets like The Washington Examiner, The Free Press, and The Daily Caller. This shake-up comes just after last week’s controversial moves to replace the New York Times, NBC, NPR, and Politico with conservative-leaning outlets such as OANN, Breitbart, and the New York Post.

https://citizenwatchreport.com/the-pentagon-is-making-waves-by-kicking-cnn-the-washington-post-the-hill-and-the-war-zone-out-of-their-workspace-newsmax-moving-in/

State Dept. Plans New $7 Billion Arms Sale to Israel

This comes as President Trump talks up an ethnic cleansing plan for the Gaza Strip

The State Department has formally notified Congress of its plans for a massive arms sale to Israel worth over $7 billion, including thousands of missiles and bombs, the Associated Press reported on Friday. This follows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington DC this week and Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will “own” Gaza after it is ethnically cleansed of its indigenous Palestinian population.

Per the State Department, Congress was notified of two separate sales, one is worth $6.75 billion. This first sale includes 2,800 500-pound bombs and 166 small-diameter bombs, along with thousands of guidance kits, fuses, bomb components, and other equipment. Deliveries of these bombs would begin later this year. The other package, worth $660 million, includes 3,000 Hellfire missiles and related equipment. Deliveries for this second arms sale are expected to take place by 2028. According to the AP, the use of these missiles will require the IDF to receive supplemental training by the US military.

Officials from the Joe Biden administration informally made Congress aware of the sale last month, at the time they said some of the weapons could be sent from current Pentagon stockpiles but most of the arms would take at least a year, or more likely several years, to deliver.

This comes as a fragile ceasefire in Gaza is still holding, despite the IDF killing dozens of Palestinians in Gaza since it was implemented and amid hostage exchanges on both sides. Israeli officials indicate that the increased military aid and arms sales are meant to compel Netanyahu to see the ceasefire deal through to its second and third phases, following the current 42-day truce. Last month, Trump released a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that the previous administration had paused over a dispute regarding the Israeli invasion of Rafah last year.

Earlier this week, Trump asked leaders in Congress to approve another $1 billion arms transfer, financed with US military aid, that includes 4,700 1,000-pound bombs worth over $700 million and $300 million worth of armored bulldozers. The bulldozers are infamously used to carry out violent assaults and home demolitions in the occupied West Bank.

The news of the additional arms sales comes as Trump is talking up his plan for Gaza to be ethnically cleansed before the US takes over the Strip and begins a huge real estate development project there. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the IDF to prepare for the “voluntary departure” of the Palestinians from Gaza in accordance with Trump’s plan. He said the Palestinians should be sent to Western countries like Ireland, Norway, and Spain which have recognized the state of Palestine and been highly critical of Tel Aviv’s genocidal onslaught.

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/02/08/state-dept-plans-new-7-billion-arms-sale-to-israel/

Australia just passed hate speech laws.

You have to tell people what they think they want to hear in the interests of ‘social cohesion’. Just nod and smile.

https://youtu.be/5RDBEpB0nto

https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/albanese-government-strengthens-hate-speech-laws-06-02-2025

Elon Musk just endorsed Ron Paul to lead a Federal Reserve audit.

Ron Paul, a long-time advocate for auditing the Fed, has championed this cause throughout his political career. With Musk’s backing, the push for an audit gains renewed momentum. The endorsement is seen as a strategic move to bring fresh eyes and a different perspective to the Federal Reserve’s operations.

The need for an audit has been a contentious issue for years. Proponents argue that it would help uncover potential inefficiencies and ensure that the Federal Reserve’s actions align with its mandate.

https://deepnewz.com/us-domestic-policy/elon-musk-endorses-ron-paul-former-representative-federal-reserve-audit-ea3b8d11

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-peoples-choice-why-doge-needs-ron-paul/

https://x.com/WinfieldSmart/status/1888367977424110012

And what about Chabad Jewish Cult????

Ambassador David Friedman: Make U.S.-Controlled Gaza A ‘Monument To The Failure Of Radical Islamism’

In an exclusive interview with Morning Wire, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman discussed President Trump’s plan to have the United States take control of Gaza, saying it could become a “permanent monument to the failure of radical Islamism” if executed correctly.

“Why not now take this extraordinarily valuable property in the hands of decent people, make it what it could be,” Friedman told Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. “Let’s create a permanent monument to the failure of radical Islamism. Because that’s what this will become.”

During a Tuesday press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump announced his plans to relocate all Gazans out of the area and to rebuild the strip into a U.S.-owned-development zone.

Friedman said the effort could be funded by the new American Sovereign Wealth Fund, a government-owned investment portfolio that will be used to purchase assets and invest for future generations.

“He’s looking at the incredible violence and waste and human misery and then he’s looking at what this could be,” Friedman said. “When I was working on this, we always had one gaping issue when it came to Gaza, which is, how are we going to get Hamas out?”

Friedman pointed out that Hamas has a lot of support and was democratically elected in 2006, though the terror group has not held elections since. But despite this, Friedman believes that many Gazans would willingly relocate for the chance at a better life.

“From my direct conversations with lots of people who come from Gaza, many people would love to leave,” Friedman said, adding that although some people will say they rather fight to the media, “there aren’t a lot of people who really feel that way.”

He added that he knew of many Gazans who wanted to leave before Hamas’ war with Israel began after October 7.

“I got a pretty good sense from people living in Gaza how desperate they were to get out,” he said. “It’s a terrible place to live. It’s under the most repressive radical Islamic regime, Sharia law regime that people want to get out and there’s a lot of educated people in Gaza because, oddly enough, there’s so little to do there. There’s actually a lot of people reading books. And so it’s not completely an uneducated place, and they want to get out and they want to move on with their lives.”

He estimated that more than 90 percent of “non-Hamas terrorist sympathizers” would want to leave.

“I would say we’re talking about probably a million and a half people at least who would gladly get on a boat and go someplace else,” Friedman said.

But Friedman says even Gazans who want to stay have to go.

“Whatever the legal issues may be, whatever the moral issues may be, they can’t stay,” He said. “There’s no place for them to stay. There’s not a building there which wouldn’t be condemned by any zoning board in the United States. They’re all going to fall down.”

The key is getting people to recognize that it’s simply not practical to stay, according to Friedman.

“I just think that once you reach the conclusion that the people who live there now have to leave for their own safety, for their own health, they have to leave. Then it opens up a much wider focus on what could be.”

Friedman said the United States should continue to pressure Jordan and Egypt to take in Gazan refugees, pointing out that Jordan receives massive amounts of financial support from the United States.

A good solution, according to Friedman, would be relocating the Gazans to Egypt’s large and rural Sinai peninsula, which Israel returned to Egypt in 1979.

“Sinai has basically been neglected by Egypt since Israel handed it back, so I think there’s opportunities there,” Friedman said.

Alternatively, Friedman said the over 20 Muslim countries could consider taking in 20,000 to 30,000 Gazan refugees each.

Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other key players have rejected Trump’s idea.

Hamas, the terrorist organization that raped, murdered, and kidnapped more than a thousand people in Israel on October 7, called Trump’s plan a “crime against humanity.”

Listen to the entire interview here.

https://www.womensystems.com/2025/02/ambassador-david-friedman-make-us.html

Top haredi leader calls for Arab rule over Israel, says Zionism brought 'disasters'

Rabbi Dov Landau blamed the conflict on Zionism and called for increased Torah study to protect the country from Arabs.

Rabbi Dov Landau, head of the Slabodka Yeshiva and one of the Lithuanian community leaders, called for the Arabs to rule Israel as they had in the past, haredi media reported Friday.

Reminiscing, he said, "It is possible to live well with the Arabs without a state."

He advocated for Arab rule over Israel, saying, "It would be quite good if the Arabs ruled here; the best situation, [if] the Arabs would rule, they would respect them (Zionists), not interfere with them, bring money to the country - the Arabs love money."

He said that had the Jews properly submitted themselves to King Faisal over 90 years ago, the conflict would not have happened. "If the Arabs had received such treatment, the situation would have been different. They also made the Arabs hate us."

"Never before have the Arabs been so hated in the whole world," he continued. "They'll stop one day; it's impossible to believe them anymore; maybe huge concessions could have been made. I don't know what to say, politically, I don't know, and what you don't understand shouldn't be talked about."

Attacking religious Zionists

Landau attacked religious Zionists and their rabbis in response to a question by a visiting rabbi.

The rabbis arrived to ask Landau whether Torah study had saved Israel from the Arabs. One rabbi complained to him of the many young men who were "surrendering their souls" and getting killed in order to "protect the people and the land."

Landau responded, saying they were being killed because their (religious Zionist) rabbis had taught them "distorted Torah."

"They brought physical disasters, not just spiritual ones, to the people of Israel," he said in reference to Zionism, which he believes is incompatible with Judaism.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-841327