Trump Enrages Christian MAGA By Naming ‘Heretic’ Pastor to White House

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-enrages-christian-maga-by-naming-heretic-pastor-paula-white-cain-to-white-house/

The president signed an executive order establishing a White House Faith Office and chose Pastor Paula White-Cain, his ally and spiritual advisor, to lead it.

White-Cain, 58, is a megachurch preacher from Florida who has endorsed biblical interpretations that some evangelical Christians believe go too far.

She is a proponent of “prosperity theology,” which teaches that God rewards the truly faithful with material wealth and personal success.

Critics say that by blaming financial woes on a lack of faith, prosperity theology can be used to exploit vulnerable churchgoers. Many Christians consider it a form of heresy, according to The New York Times.

Danon calls on UN's Guterres to condemn Hamas's 'cruel, inhumane' hostage treatment

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-841248

Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, wrote an official appeal to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, calling on him to condemn Hamas's "cruel and inhumane treatment" of the hostages following the release of three Israelis on Saturday.

Released hostages Or Levy, Eli (Eliyahu) Sharabi, and Ohad Ben Ami returned in critical condition, appearing starved after spending 491 days captive, and were said to have lost some 30% of their overall weight.

Trump's America—Land of Cruelty and Vengeance

 https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-americaland-cruelty-vengeance-opinion-2027498

Yet, for all his talk of "making America great again," it's evident that Donald Trump's version of greatness has nothing to do with leadership or moral rectitude. Trump's definition of greatness rests solely on the notion of power. To Trump, a great nation is not one that leads the world, but one that ignores its suffering in pursuit of self-interest.

Trump goes beyond simply promoting callousness, he relishes it. And now he's made this self-centered philosophy a cornerstone of our politics. Rather than extend helping hands to the world, we've made one hand into a stop sign and the other into a fist. "America First," we constantly hear from Trump's MAGA crowd; in truth they mean "America only."

Yet, as cruel and terrible as Trump has been and will undoubtedly continue to be, what's even worse is the fact that so many millions of Americans embrace his ideology, believing, as the antagonist Gordon Gekko once said that greed is good, and that our first and only priority is to look out for ourselves. If that means abandoning our allies, so be it. If it means mischaracterizing DEI efforts to maintain white hegemony, also OK. And if it means cutting off crucial medications to other countries, that's not our problem, they reason.

The MAGA world doesn't take issue with Trump going after political opponents or people in the Justice Department he doesn't like either because, as they see it, the world is a harsh and corrupt place, and no one else would do any different. They race to Trump because they see him as their glorious leviathan—the monster whose wings they can take shelter under to feel powerful. He justifies their every negative notion about the world, and for that they love him.

What they're all missing is that truly great nations are compassionate nations, and right now we're pretty far from greatness.

Trump Administration Hands Putin Three Major Wins

 https://www.newsweek.com/trump-putin-sanctions-wins-2028230

Donald Trump's move to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been welcomed by the Kremlin, it has been reported, amid a suite of measures by the new U.S. administration which could play into Vladimir Putin's hands.

Trump's executive order to impose sanctions on the ICC, comes in a week in which Attorney General Pam Bondi halted a federal law enforcement effort to combat secret influence campaigns by Russia and other adversaries.

The U.S. Justice Department is also disbanding an effort to enforce sanctions and target oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts

 https://www.wsj.com/tech/doge-staffer-resigns-over-racist-posts-d9f11a93?mod=hp_lead_pos3

A key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics.

Musk vows to rehire deputy who apparently joked about annihilation of Israel and Gaza

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/musk-vows-to-rehire-deputy-who-apparently-joked-about-annihilation-of-israel-and-gaza/

 US tech billionaire Elon Musk said Friday he was reinstating a deputy who quit a job giving him access to the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans after the staffer was linked to a racist social media account.

Marko Elez, 25, resigned from Musk’s self-styled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Thursday when The Wall Street Journal uncovered a welter of offensive posts on the account, including a boast from last July stating, “I was racist before it was cool.”

Musk — US President Donald Trump’s close confidante and point man on spending cuts — asked his 216 million X followers if he should reinstate “@DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now-deleted pseudonym.”

Surgeon removed wrong organ then covered it up, widow alleges in suit

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/02/05/florida-surgeon-wrong-organ-lawsuit/

Thomas Shaknovsky removed a man’s liver instead of his spleen, and then the Florida hospital repeatedly lied about it, the lawsuit claims.

It’s Trump’s World and Kanye West Is Free to Post What He Wants

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-trumps-world-and-kanye-west-is-free-to-post-what-he-wants/

In the space of 11 hours, Kanye West broke almost every taboo.

Through 57 posts, the polarizing rap mogul launched an incredibly offensive machine-gun tirade of attacks on Jews, gays, feminists, the overweight, the mentally challenged, the woke, and other rappers. He supported Diddy. He lionized Adolf Hitler.

This time last year, there would almost certainly be serious consequences for any one of these posts.

“Ye” has a voice and now it is unfiltered. Elon Musk has other matters on his mind. He has made it clear he has no intention of censoring anybody on his X platform.

Amid the flurry of insults, West leaves his followers in no doubt that he is not backing down this time.

“If I get taken off of streaming services it’s only going to make me richer,” he wrote in one of his later, lower-case tweets. “Any and every control tactic you have at this point only makes me richer.”

Trump questions whether Time Magazine ‘still in business’ after Musk cover reveal

 https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5134297-donald-trump-time-magazine-elon-musk-influence/

President Trump weighed in on Time Magazine’s reveal of a cover featuring tech billionaire Elon Musk, seemingly mocking the outlet that named him its “Person of the Year” in 2024.

Asked on Friday if he had a reaction to the photo illustration of Musk behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk, Trump shook his head.

“No,” he said during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, “Is Time Magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that

Health Ministry: Hostages suffering severe malnutrition; Herzog: Crime against humanity

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/herzog-emaciated-hostages-a-crime-against-humanity-victims-group-evokes-holocaust/

The three hostages who were freed from Gaza on Saturday morning are suffering from “severe malnutrition” and lost significant body weight during their 491 days in captivity, the Health Ministry said on Saturday evening, after initial medical checks in the hours following their release.

“These are difficult scenes,” Health Ministry representative Dr. Hagar Mizrahi said at a press conference from Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where two of the released hostages were beginning their recovery.

The three hostages freed by Hamas — Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56 — looked emaciated and unsteady on their feet as they were released by the terror group, 16 months after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova music festival.

Foreign Minister: 'The only ones starving in Gaza are the hostages'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403603

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar posted a video accusing Hamas of starving the hostages released today, claiming they looked dangerously emaciated while the Hamas forces appeared well-fed.

''For over a year, the international community has danced to the tune of the false propaganda of so-called starvation in Gaza but the images we saw today don't lie - Hamas terrorists and other Gaza residents look perfectly fine

Israel Shows 'Shocking' Images as Three Hostages Released by Hamas

 https://www.newsweek.com/israel-shows-shocking-images-three-hostages-released-hamas-2028237

They were also made to pose holding certificates and speak in an apparently staged interview by Hamas militants, where they reportedly called for Israel to stop the war and stick to the ceasefire.

Photos of the event were released later in which all three men are visibly thin and frail.

Responding to the images, Netanyahu said: "We will not gloss over the shocking scenes that we saw today."

Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington

 https://time.com/7213409/elon-musk-us-government-trump/

The standoff at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue was not much of a spectacle. On the first day of February, a handful of men working for Elon Musk had come to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a few blocks from the White House, demanding full access to its headquarters. The agency’s staff refused. No guns were drawn. No punches thrown. Nobody involved the police. But in these early days of the Trump Administration, perhaps no other scene revealed more clearly the forces reshaping America’s government.

On one side stood an institution with a 64-year history, a $35 billion budget, and a mission enshrined in federal law. On the other stood Musk’s political wrecking crew. They identified themselves as members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a collection of temporary staffers with no charter, no website, and no clear legal authority. Its power derives from Musk, the wealthiest person on the planet, who has been deputized to dismantle vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy—slashing budgets, gutting the civil service, and stripping independent agencies of the ability to impede the President’s objectives.

Powerless! Trump stopped by judge’s nationwide ban, as ‘Pres. Musk’ hype breaks ‘law of power