🚨 Digging up bones – February 19 2025

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

Lead: The Art of the Deal

Photo credit: Secretary of State Marco Rubio

Peace talks between U.S. and Russia officials were “very good,” according to President Trump. They weren’t good for Ukrainian President Zelensky because one of the conditions of peace were that Ukraine hold elections.

Recall that President Zelensky canceled elections in 2024, declaring martial law, putting the Ukrainian people in a strangle-hold. They cannot stop the war and cannot vote out the person who keeps it going. President Trump quite rightly pointed out that Ukrainian support for Zelensky continues to plummet.

The U.S. State Department says that it will continue to build ties with Russia. They are considering lifting sanctions that did not work to harm Russia in the slightest but only harmed the sanctioning nations. Good idea. They are also calling for a ceasefire on the battle front.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the conversation was “very useful.” He said this to reporters: “We did not just listen but heard each other, and I have reason to believe the American side has better understood our position.”

President Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office and said that he was “very disappointed” with Ukrainian leadership.

“Today I heard, ‘We weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years, you should’ve ended it… You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal.”

This is the first time that a U.S. official admitted that Ukraine started the war in 2014, not Russia in 2022.

Prisoner Swap

Photo credit: NY Post

Hamas has agreed to release six living and four dead hostages in exchange for Palestinian hostages that Israel freed in 2011 but then re-arrested.

Among the dead hostages are two young children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, 2 and 5, and their mother. Their father was already released a few weeks ago. Hamas claims that these hostages were killed in an Israeli air attack. There is no proof yet as to which side killed this family but it’s awful nonetheless.

The prisoners that Israel will released were part of the 2011 deal for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit He has been held in captivity in the Gaza Strip by Hamas for five years before he was exchanged for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them women and young children.

If the ceasefire holds, there is still a question of what happens to Gaza. Arab leaders convened a summit to come up with a plan to counter President Trump’s plan to “own it.” Leaders from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are preparing to meet on March 4 and discuss investing $20 billion or more to rebuild Gaza.

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DOGE Court Win

Photo credit: Getty Images

A federal judge ruled in favor of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Tuesday. A group of state attorneys general had asked a court to prevent DOGE from accessing data at government agencies and a judge ruled against them.

A judge in New Mexico ruled that “Plaintiffs have not carried their burden of showing that they will suffer imminent, irreparable harm absent a temporary restraining order, and therefore Plaintiffs’ motion is DENIED.”

New Mexico was one of the states leading the case, along with Arizona, Michigan, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. They were also requesting that the court block DOGE from terminating government workers or placing them on leave. The states argued that they themselves would suffer harm if that continues but the judge didn’t buy that either.

“To show irreparable harm, the ‘injury alleged must be ‘both certain and great, actual and not theoretical, beyond remediation, and of such imminence that there is a clear and present need for equitable relief,'” the judge wrote. “The ‘possibility of irreparable harm’ is not enough.”

What’s Trending?

Photo credit: Bloomberg

Southwest Airlines is trending because the company announced its first mass layoff. The layoffs will affect 15% of the corporate workforce, not flight crew.

Cynthia Erivo is trending on news that she will play Jesus in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl this summer. She identifies as a queer woman. A queer Jesus didn’t go over well at the Paris Olympics but…maybe the casting was just wrong?

Grok is trending because a new version of the X AI bot was released and is reportedly 3 to 10 times better than other AI programs.

News By The Numbers

$44.6 million. That is how much hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin spent for a 150 million-year-old Stegosaurus. This is apparently the new status symbol of the rich and famous. Actors such as Nicolas Cage, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe have them in their homes.

13. That is how many counties in Oregon want to cede from the state and join Idaho. That movement has gained some momentum because Oregon State Rep. Mark Owens put forward a bill to research the impact of this happening.

45%. That is how many Democrats want their party to be “more moderate,” according to Gallup. That is up 11% from 2021 but Democratic leaders don’t seem to have got this memo.

Two-Party Justice?

Photo credit? Arise.tv

A Justice Department lawyer resigned after she was asked to investigate a Biden administration scheme to funnel Environmental Protection Agency money into hidden non-government organizations.

Last week, Lee Zeldin, the head of the EPA, said that after he was confirmed, he directed his staff to find hidden money that had been funneled through the EPA by the Biden administration and they found it!

“An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago of a Biden political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic,” Zeldin said, referring to this video where a Biden employee talked about funneling money into nonprofits, states, tribes. Tribes?

Zeldin continues: “The gold bars were tax dollars and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it. My awesome team at the EPA has found the gold bars. Shockingly, roughly $20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight. Even further, this pot of $20 billion was awarded to just 8 entities that were then responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency.”

Zeldin said that he asked the Justice Department to look into this but criminal prosecutor Denise Cheung refused. She says that she didn’t think there was probable cause to prosecute the case and resigned in protest. She said that other prosecutors agreed with her.

Zeldin only found this corruption seven days ago. How can she conclude there is no probable cause so fast? Could a Justice Department lawyer have a bias against prosecuting the Biden administration and – gasp! – a commitment to a two-party justice system???

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