🚨 Defiance Fashion – March 04 2025

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm AM. 

Lead: Weapons Sales

Photo credit: Reuters

President Trump has reportedly paused all military aid to Ukraine. This reportedly "applies to all US military equipment bound for Ukraine that’s not currently in the country, including weapons that are in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in Poland to be delivered."

The Pentagon said that the pause will be "until the country’s leadership demonstrates a good faith commitment to peace."

The ultimatum gives me pause. This should be the end of the end, not because of President Zelensky's behavior. It should end because it is the right thing to do.

Most Americans support ending the war in Ukraine and more than half of Ukrainians want the war to end too, only you wouldn't know it if you only listen to Zelensky. He said this to the Associated Press on Monday:

"An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet. The peace that we foresee in the future must be just, honest, and most importantly, sustainable."

President Trump took to Truth Social to blast that statement, writing: "This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer! It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?"

Is this really the end of aid to Ukraine or is President Trump just punishing Zelensky for now? The personalities of this are a shame. Innocent people are still dying.

Tariffs Weren't A Threat

Photo credit: Bloomberg News

President Trump's tariffs on Canada and Mexico were not idle threats. They went into effect today.

The Trump administration wanted serious efforts from both countries to curb the flow of drugs over the border but, the White House says that t"hey have failed to adequately address the situation."

So, game on.

The original plan was to put a 10% tariff on China but on Monday, the White House doubled it to 20%.

The President also announced a plan to put tariffs on "external" agricultural imports. He told farmers to "get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States."

We are in unchartered waters now. The stock market faltered on the uncertainty of what tariffs will do to the economy.

The Atlanta Fed recently predicted a 2.8% drop in GDP in the first quarter of 2025. This may look bad but, as economist Peter St. Onge points out, "its not necessarily flagging distress. It's flagging that the country is healing" from the over-spending of the Biden administration. I like the optimism. Let's hope it's on target for all of our sake!

China retaliated by announcing new tariffs on U.S. food and agriculture products, which will go into effect on March 10.

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Protests at the Knesset

Photo Credit: Marc Israel Sellem

Protests broke out at the Israeli Knesset on Monday because guard personnel did not allow bereaved families of October 7 victims to attend a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The families are demanding a probe into October 7. They want to know what the Israeli government knew in advance, how it responded with lethal force on civilians and why the Prime Minister has repeatedly failed to negotiate for hostage releases when Hamas demands all along have been "all for all."

The Prime Minister says that anyone who wants an investigation like that is from the "deep state." He said that an investigative committee would only be "a committee whose conclusions are already predetermined, and they have been written, all concentrated at one end of the political spectrum."

He compared this to the political persecution of President Trump in the U.S.

"Most of the people see everything that is happening here, the cooperation between the bureaucracy, the deep state, [which] in the United States, did not succeed. And it will not succeed here either," he said.

The Prime Minster warned Hamas of "consequences you can’t imagine" if the remaining prisoners are not exchanged. He spoke of a "hell plan" to stop all aid to Gaza while resuming military attacks. The U.S. is apparently on board because Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had a call on Monday with Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz and they spoke of the two countries' "unbreakable bond."

What's Trending?

Photo credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is trending because the eighth launch of the Starship rocket happened on Monday from Texas.

Fort Benning is trending because the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth renamed an Army base in Georgia back to its original name. The name was changed to Fort Moore in 2023 by the Biden administration.

Bill Nye the Science Guy is trending because he went on CNN and said that "forest fires in the Carolinas…didn’t used to be a thing.” Only, that's not true. The largest wildfire in South Carolina history was in 1976 and the state experiences approximately 5,000 wildfires per year.

News By The Numbers

Photo credit: Getty Images

31 years. That is how long former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson has been an NFL announcer. He just announced his retirement from Fox Sports.

5 minutes and 40 seconds. That was how long Adrien Brody's Oscar acceptance speech lasted and some people didn't like it.

7,000. That is how many people the Social Security Administration plans to lay off, reducing staff from 57,000 to 50,000.

Did the FBI Hide The Epstein Files? 

Photo credit: Getty Images

The head of the New York FBI office has been ousted. He says that he was not given a reason for this but this internal memo from a few weeks ago may have something to do with it.

James Dennehy is a Marine Corps veteran. After President Trump took office, he sent a staff email calling the Trump administration "a battle of our own" and advising his staff to "dig in."

Dennehy said that this: “Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did. I was not given a reason for this decision.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi is now saying that the New York field office had withheld evidence about Jeffrey Epstein. She claims that this office had "thousands of documents" that were withheld when she requested them but she has them now and that her office is going through them for forthcoming release.

That doesn't quite explain the influencers with binders that happened last week. This narrative from the government has been hard to follow. They have over-promised and under-delivered. Could it really have been this one guy holding it up for the rest of us or is there something else to it?

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