📝 Bishop Robert Barron: In response to the executive order calling for policies to make in vitro fertilization (IVF) less costly and more available, Bishop Daniel Thomas and I issued the following statement as chairmen of the USCCB’s committees on Pro-Life Activities and Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth.

🔗 BishopBarron

⛪️👶 New Order Churches in Holmes County, OH, seem to have a comparable share of under 10 and 20 yo as Larsmo in Finland which has had a TFR around 3,5 for decades.

🔗 Ulmer

🇨🇭🇺🇸 Swiss January gold exports to the US reach highest for 13 years

Gold exports from Switzerland rose year on year in January as supplies to the United States soared to the highest in at least 13 years and offset lower deliveries to top consumers China and India, Swiss customs data showed on Thursday.

Switzerland, the world's biggest bullion refining and transit hub, alongside Britain which is home to the world's largest over-the-counter gold trading hub, saw a surge in gold transfers to the U.S. in recent months as President Trump readies wide-reaching import tariffs that some market participants fear could affect gold deliveries.

According to the Swiss data, gold exports from the country to the U.S. rose to 192.9 tons in January from 64.2 tons in December. This was the highest monthly amount of exports in the customs data going back to 2012.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/swiss-january-gold-exports-us-reach-highest-13-years-2025-02-20/

🇺🇸 Trump signs order to claim power over independent agencies

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a sweeping executive order bringing independent agencies under the control of the White House — an action that would greatly expand his power but is likely to attract significant legal challenges.

It represents Trump’s latest attempt to consolidate power beyond boundaries other presidents have observed and to test the so-called unitary executive theory, which states that the president has the sole authority over the executive branch. And it reflects the influence of Russ Vought, Trump’s budget chief, one of several conservatives in his orbit who have called for axing independent arms of the executive branch.

The theory was long considered fringe, and many mainstream legal scholars still believe it is illegal, given that Congress set the agencies up specifically to act independently, or semi-independently, from the president. These include the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of which enact regulations and can impose hefty fines on businesses that violate the rules.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/trump-order-power-independent-agencies-00204798

🇺🇸🇷🇺 Trump to abandon Russia war crimes prosecution

The US has signalled that it could leave an international effort to prosecute Russia for invading Ukraine, The Telegraph can reveal.

US envoys refused to label Russia as an “aggressor” at a meeting of a “core group” of countries preparing a Nuremberg-style tribunal to try Vladimir Putin for his war crimes, according to Western officials.

Washington is similarly refusing to co-sponsor a United Nations statement that supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and demands Moscow to withdraw its forces from the war-torn nation.

Mr Trump’s administration has also refused to sign off a planned G7 statement calling Russia the “aggressor” in the war with Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of the conflict on Monday.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/21/donald-trump-us-putin-zelensky-ukraine-russia-war-tribunal/

📝 Charlie Kirk: Trump deported 37,660 people during his first month in office.

📝 Keith Woods: If this number is consistent across Trump's term, he will deport about 1.8 million people.

Obama did about 3.2 million his first term with fewer illegals in the country. Am I missing something?

🔗 Keith Woods

🇺🇸 BREAKING: Trump Administration removes acting ICE director due to slow pace of deportations.

🔗 Dominic Michael Tripi

🇺🇸🇮🇱Trump's FBI Director Kash Patel:

We need America to wake up and prioritize Israel.

🔗 Clash Report

Normie conservatives- “White replacement in Texas is good because Mexicans are conservative.”

These guys have no idea how the younger right wing actually feels about this.

These Fox News talking points aren’t going to work anymore.

White replacement in the US is abomination.

If you want to live around Mexicans, move to Mexico.

🔗 Uncommon Sense

🇺🇸 How US allies may try to safeguard their intel ops from Trump

U.S. allies that regularly share intelligence with the U.S. are looking at ways to safeguard top-secret information from what they expect to be a very leaky Trump administration — but their options are limited.

These countries have long been worried that Trump’s track record of revealing classified information would continue into his second term. That alarm has deepened as Congress has signed off on his controversial picks to oversee intelligence operations and amid accusations that sensitive data is already being mishandled.

But cooperation on intelligence collection and sharing runs deep — and wouldn’t be easy to disentangle. Washington often gives more than it receives, and U.S. and European intelligence agencies often conduct joint collection and operations.

You “can’t just flip off a switch,” said a northern European defense official who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence relationships.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/us-allies-intel-sharing-trump-00205204

📝 Orania's Joost Strydom:

Negotiations in the 90’s between the previous government and the ANC were based on two basic foundational agreements: Afrikaners can keep land that were their property, and Afrikaners can have their own educational institutions and schools.

In the past few months both these agreements fell victim to the ANC’s dishonesty.

If some Afrikaners want to leave SA, I completely understand and, though saddened, wish them well.

Orania however is suggesting a new dispensation.

Territory for Afrikaners should be recognised.

Without a dispensational change, the ANC will continue to vilify Afrikaners in order to cover up their own failures and satisfy their voter base.

Recognizing a territory for Afrikaners will be stabilising for the region, in the interest of peace, and a net positive for everyone.

What we ask, we also extend to others that can maintain the same.

Be solution driven.

Be like Orania

📎 Joost Strydom

🇺🇸 Zionist Occupied Government

🔗 Keith Woods

🇺🇸 Heated exchange between President Trump and Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) over executive order banning transgender women in sports

President Trump: "Are you not going to comply with that?"

Governor Janet Mills: "I'm complying with state and federal laws."

Trump: "We are the federal law. You better do it, because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't...your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports..."

Mills: "See you in court."

Trump: "Good. I'll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be an easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics."

🔗 CSPAN

🇺🇸 Kash Patel sworn in as FBI Director on the Bhagavad Gita instead of the Bible.

📎 AF Post

🇺🇸🇷🇺 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Russia is a global power and the United States has to have communication with them.

🔗 BRICSinfo

🇺🇸📱🇲🇽Trump Says Cook Shifting Apple Manufacturing From Mexico to US

President Donald Trump told a gathering of governors that Apple Inc. (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook promised him that the company’s manufacturing would shift from Mexico to the US during a meeting at the White House this week.

Cook “stopped two plants in Mexico” and will build products in the US instead, Trump said on Friday. He spoke the day after he and the Apple leader — who Trump said also promised hundreds of millions of dollars in US investment — met in Washington.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-tim-cook-meeting-trump-220006653.html

🇺🇸🇷🇺 Trump-Putin summit preparations are underway, Russia says

Preparations are underway for a face-to-face meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said Saturday. It marked a clear departure from Western efforts to isolate Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

Speaking to Russian state media, Sergei Ryabkov said a possible Putin-Trump summit could involve broad talks on global issues, not just the war in Ukraine.

“The question is about starting to move toward normalizing relations between our countries, finding ways to resolve the most acute and potentially very, very dangerous situations, of which there are many, Ukraine among them,” he said.

But he said efforts to organize such a meeting are at an early stage, and that making it happen will require “the most intensive preparatory work.”

Ryabkov added that U.S. and Russian envoys could meet within the next two weeks to pave the way for further talks among senior officials.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-trump-putin-talks-89e19bc56677064f6f9a6d6e03de7362

🇺🇸🇺🇦 US President Trump says Ukraine is going to give the United States its money back.

"We're getting our money back."

🔗 BRICSinfo

🇩🇪 Polling shows the AfD is expected to lock down 145 seats in the Bundestag, only second to the center-right CDU, which is expected to land 220.

📝 Keith Woods: If it plays out this way, it will be a really interesting dynamic to have a conservative party governing with a nationalist party as the main opposition.

When was the last time that happened in a major Western democracy?

🔗 Keith Woods