SINCERETALK

In 2021, Steve Berger, an evangelical pastor who has attacked the separation of church and state as “a delusional lie” and called multinational institutions “demonic,” set off on an ambitious project. His stated goal: minister to members of Congress so that what “they learn is then translated into policy.” His base of operations would be a six-bedroom, $3.7 million townhouse blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Recently, the pastor scored a remarkable coup for a political influence project that has until now managed to avoid public scrutiny. He got a new roommate. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been staying at the home since around the beginning of this year, according to interviews and videos obtained by ProPublica. The house is owned by a major Republican donor and Tennessee car magnate who has joined Berger in advocating for and against multiple bills before Congress. Over the past four years, Berger and his wife, Sarah Berger, have dedicated themselves to what they call their D.C. ...

President Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters in the U.S. are cheering his Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, declaring they are “ proud ” of Trump and Vice President JD Vance. But across the globe, world leaders swiftly reaffirmed their support for President Zelenskyy, his country, and Ukraine’s fight to defend its sovereignty and democracy against Russia’s illegal invasion—making clear their allegiance is with him and his country, effectively icing out Donald Trump and the U.S. Meanwhile, at home, some Americans—perhaps already weary just weeks into Trump’s presidency—are voicing their belief that the President of the United States is behaving like, and may very well be, a witting or unwitting “Russian asset.” The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, who has written numerous books on the Soviet Union and authoritarianism, framed Friday’s events for MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace: “I think all of Ukraine’s allies, and all of not just Europeans who have a border with Russia...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — who unofficially leads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — may be playing video games at work, according to a new report. Gaming publication Kotaku reported Friday that the South African centibillionaire who recently ordered federal employees to send him an email justifying their jobs now has a sleek gaming computer in his DOGE office. Musk was previously working out of the West Wing of the White House, but the New York Times reported that he called it a "hovel" and relocated his office to the Secretary of War Suite at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Obama White House archives describes the Secretary of War Suite as "ten rooms designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch, a prominent New York architect of the late 19th-century" that was "occupied by 18 Secretaries of War until July 1939." “He installed a gaming computer with a giant, curved screen and blinking LED lights, and decorated his desk wit...

The partnership between President Donald Trump and centibillionaire Elon Musk appears to be intact despite rumors of friction between the Tesla/SpaceX CEO and members of Trump's inner circle. That may be due to work done behind the scenes by top White House advisor Stephen Miller. WIRED reported Thursday that Miller and his wife Katie are the "power couple" that shepherded Musk's journey from a tech magnate who sparred with Trump on Twitter into being the 47th president's key instrument in smashing the federal bureaucracy. Katie Miller is regarded as the "comms sherpa" for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. And Stephen Miller is Trump's top immigration advisor — a position he held in Trump's first administration. An unnamed Republican even referred to Miller as Trump's "prime minister," while another GOP source referred to Miller as "PM" (a designation for "prime minister") to WIRED. "S...

The new acting administrator of the Social Security Administration (SSA) is now announcing that he's carrying out "significant workforce reductions" at the critical agency that oversees trillions of dollars in payments to tens of millions of beneficiaries. According to a Thursday article in the American Prospect , Leland Dudek, who took over as acting administrator after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) forced out the initial acting administrator earlier this month , has ordered all SSA managers present him with plans to reduce their respective headcounts by up to 50%. The email Dudek sent Thursday evening announcing "agency-wide organizational restructuring" does not indicate any plans to deviate from that goal. The SSA currently employs roughly 60,000 people , who process benefits for more than 71 million Americans as of 2023. Dudek's email gives all SSA employees a deadline of March 14 to decide whether ...

A federal judge on Thursday handed down an order immediately halting President Donald Trump's administration from laying off thousands of workers across multiple federal agencies. The Washington Post reported that senior U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, ordered the Trump administration's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to rescind its orders to agencies to fire probationary-level employees. This includes the U.S. Department of Defense, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the National Science Foundation, among others. “Congress has given the authority to hire and fire to the agencies themselves. The Department of Defense, for example, has statutory authority to hire and fire,” Alsup said. “The Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to hire and fire employees at another agency. They can hire and fire their ow...

President Donald Trump on Thursday made a series of remarks—perceived as either signs of forgetfulness or deliberate “walk-backs”—once again prompting some critics to question his mental fitness, a concern that frequently shadowed him during the 2024 presidential election. During a White House press pool event in the Oval Office with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer , Trump —speaking to a group of administration-friendly reporters —was asked whether he still considers Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator”—a claim he repeatedly made just last week . “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that,” Trump responded to the reporter. — (@) “Not a good sign of his mental well-being,” observed Jack Torrey, former DC Bureau Chief for the Columbus Dispatch. READ MORE: Hegseth’s 30-Day Military Trans Ban: Will This Judge’s Questions Block It? “President stumbles and admits to forgetting what he said about Zelenskyy that set back relations with Ukraine and hurt our sta...

Sarah Scott believed the Uber she had requested was outside her friend's home in Hyde Park when she opened the gate to wait for it - and then narrowly survived a violent attempted kidnapping. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/h1uX2P4 via sinceretalk

Despite this being the worst flu season in 15 years , President Donald Trump's administration has abruptly cancelled a critical meeting that infectious disease experts were counting on to make sure the latest flu vaccine is the strongest. NBC News reported Wednesday that a scheduled March meeting of a key Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine committee has been scuttled without explanation, and no future date has been set. Members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee were told about the cancellation in an email. Wednesday's announcement followed the news of a similar meeting hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) being unexpectedly delayed . The meeting typically happens in the spring, so experts can decide which strains of the flu to include in the version of the vaccine that is normally ready for the public by the fall. Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist who chairs the New England Complex Systems Institute, n...

President Donald Trump's policies are already having a negative effect on the economy and one analyst believes a recession could be around the corner if downward trends in financial markets and employment continue. However, one guest on Fox Business host Charles Payne's "Making Money" insisted in a Wednesday segment that even if an economic crash happens on Trump's watch, Americans will be better off in the long run. The Independent's Charles Baragona posted a clip of economist Danielle DiMartino Booth arguing that even if the Trump administration's budget cuts and mass firings initially cause economic havoc, the potential rebound would justify it. "We have to loo back at history, right? Ronald Reagan was remembered as one of the best presidents in history. People forget that when he came into office in 1981 that he slashed federal headcount and actually pout the economy back into the double-dip recession of 1980 and 1981," Booth said. ...

By a slim 217-213 margin, House Republicans narrowly passed a bill Tuesday night that makes deep cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid and food stamps while simultaneously extending President Donald Trump's tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. Wall Street Journal congressional reporter Olivia Beavers tweeted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) had a group of Republicans "shaking his hand, back slapping and congratulating him" after the vote was confirmed. As Politico reported , the vote was initially slated to fail with multiple Republican holdouts expressing reservations about the scope of cuts in the bill. While the legislation makes $2 trillion in across-the-board spending cuts, Forbes reported that roughly $800 billion of those cuts came from federal support for state Medicaid programs, which provide health insurance for low-income families. But some Republicans, like Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Th...

Now that President Donald Trump's second term is in its second month, conservative attorney George Conway is arguing that his central guiding philosophy — along with that of his supporters in the GOP — is now crystal-clear. During a Tuesday interview on MSNBC , former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele asked Conway (the former spouse of ex-Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway) if he's seen anything change in the administration's approach to governing since Trump's second term began. Conway opined that Republicans "just want to burn it all down." "I don't see any rationality in what they're doing other than that it is a performative attack on the government, and it is an attempt. to destroy what they perceive to be as the enemy, which is the very government that they are charged with administering," he said. "That's the only way to explain almost everything this administration has done." READ MORE: 'He want...

Desperate to pass a budget that slashes $800 billion from Medicaid to help fund President Donald Trump’s tax cuts—potentially costing up to $11 trillion —Republicans are scrambling to counter a surge of damning town hall videos and testimonials from recently fired government employees detailing the vital services they once provided for the American people. It appears that the words Republicans have settled on to try to turn the American people to their side are “bureaucrats” and “bureaucracy.” U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain, a far-right Michigan Republican who voted against certifying 2020 electoral votes, serves as the Chair of the House Republican Conference. READ MORE: Refusing to Publicly Reveal DOGE Head, White House Says It’s Been ‘Incredibly Transparent’ On Tuesday, McClain lashed out at federal government workers and American voters who oppose President Donald Trump’s massive gutting of the federal government . “I want to start with last week videos of protesters yelling at ...

President Donald Trump is now proposing a revamping of the citizenship process that involves prioritizing the wealthy. On Tuesday, Trump — with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy at his side — told reporters in the Oval Office that he was planning the roll-out of a new "Trump Gold Card" for immigrants willing to pay for citizenship. According to Lutnick, this would overhaul the EB-5 program for immigrant investors to obtain green cards for legal permanent residency status. "We're going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million, and that's going to give you green card privileges," Trump said . "Plus, it's going to be a route to citizenship." READ MORE: Backlash: Top Trump pollster drops the hammer on Republicans Trump praised his idea as a means of addressing the national debt , insisting the "numbers" behind the proposal are "pretty good." "A...

Police in Washington D.C. reportedly tried to arrest a Republican member of Congress for an alleged act of domestic violence, but U.S. Attorney Ed Martin is apparently not signing the arrest warrant. That's according to a Monday article by NBC 4 Washington , which reported that an arrest warrant for Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) was sent back to D.C. Metropolitan Police unsigned. According to the report, Martin – who is the Department of Justice's top prosecutor in D.C. — said the case merited "further investigation" after declining to sign the warrant. NBC 4 noted that in the police report, an unidentified 27 year-old woman who was not Mills' wife accused Mills of assaulting her at his apartment. The alleged victim said Mills "grabbed her, shoved her and pushed her out of the door" and showed responding officers bruises that officers on the scene described as "fresh." READ MORE: GOP reps invite J6 rioter who stormed Capitol with knife and tac...

At least one federal agency is warning federal employees to watch what they say in their work emails, according to one email reportedly from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). On Monday, journalist Marisa Kabas posted the text of an email she received from a purported source at HHS that contained an ominous warning. The email warned workers that if they chose to respond to centibillionaire Elon Musk's email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asking them for five bullet points summarizing their work week, they should assume their words will be seen by America's adversaries. "There is no HHS expectation that HHS employees respond to OPM and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond," the email read. "That said, if you choose to respond, here are the guidelines you should follow: Respond to the email by the deadline established (today @ 11:59 P.M.). Keep your response at a high level of ge...

David Hayes, a Colorado bison rancher and three-time Trump voter, wants the government to be smaller, but he isn’t a fan the way Elon Musk is doing it. He shared his frustrations about Elon Musk with CNN in a segment aired Monday. “I don’t know how many people he's fired,” Hayes said. “And you know, Musk keeps saying, ‘Well, I found a billion dollars of waste here.’ And Social Security. There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that are collecting it that are between 100 years old and 150. Can you believe any of that crap? You can't substantiate it. You can't believe it. So that's a trust issue.” Musk’s claim that dead people are collecting social security has been disproven . READ MORE: Trump mass firings may be 'contrary' to law, watchdog rules Hayes called the president “unfocused” and “arrogant.” Still, he said he would still vote for Trump if he had a do-over of the 2024 election. Colorado Trump voter Esmerelda Ramirez-Ray, a conservat...

Auditor-General (AG) Tsakani Maluleke has appealed to National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza to deal with errant municipalities. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/tgIbDlq via sinceretalk

It is official - the Bachelor of Education (B Ed) degree is the most popular qualification among first-year students at South Africa's public universities. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/6TadEhm via sinceretalk

On Friday morning, the group of wounded soldiers was told to pack up as they were supposed to come home on Saturday. However, later that evening they were told that the plan to evacuate them had failed. from News24 news24/topstories/rss https://ift.tt/bgBuaAF via sinceretalk

Even though he had already won the 2024 election, President Donald Trump sued the Des Moines Register and celebrated political pollster J. Ann Selzer in December over a poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly winning Iowa, claiming. Now, Selzer is fighting back. On Friday, New York Times reporter David Enrich tweeted excerpts of Selzer's new 33-page filing in the case, in which she argued Trump's lawsuit should be thrown out on First Amendment grounds. The pollster argued that the president's claim of her poll being "fake news" had no legal or factual basis. "In the United States there is no such thing as a claim for 'fraudulent news.' No court in any jurisdiction has ever held such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims," Selzer's attorneys argued. "Those who have were promptly dismissed." READ MORE: 'Open season': Experts slam Trump...

Even residents of a county President Donald Trump won by a significant margin are outraged by the Trump administration's slashing of public services — and their Republican congressman's support of the cuts. The La Grande, Oregon-based Observer reported Friday that Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) was recently met by an angry crowd of constituents during a town hall at Eastern Oregon University. The outlet noted that the audience of several hundred people filled nearly all 435 seats in the McKenzie Theater, and more people filled the aisles and stood along the walls to hear their congressman. Attendees reportedly grew impatient with Bentz's presentation, yelled "we can read" while he went over PowerPoint slides and urged him to move to the question-and-answer portion of the meeting. At that point, the crowd indicated it was furious with Bentz's support of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not ...