Wednesday, July 23, 2025

July 23, 2025

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

Top Intel Officials Contradicted Brennan: 'No Intelligence' To Support Key Russia Hoax Claim . . . Top officials working on an intelligence community analysis about Russia's interference in the 2016 election were overruled by CIA Director John Brennan. The dispute was over the "key judgment" in a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that Russia had interfered in the election specifically because Putin and the Russian government "aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances." "We have no intelligence to directly support this 'aspiration' point," said one member of the small group of individuals working with Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the assessment. The Federalist

The same people who call Trump a dictator don't seem to care that our spy and federal law enforcement agencies were subverting our democracy.

Politics

White House Targets Bloated Education Spending in Next Round of Rescissions . . . The White House plans to introduce another rescissions package soon that will include cuts to education funding, sources familiar with the matter tell The Daily Signal. Reforming the education system has been a bedrock of the second Trump administration. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March authorizing Secretary Linda McMahon to do everything in her power to dismantle the Department of Education. The department has laid off 1,300 career employees. Daily Signal

Trump ally Alina Habba ousted as top prosecutor job by 'rogue judges' . . . The MAGA movement erupted in fury on Tuesday after Alina Habba was abruptly ousted from her role as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor by what Trump allies are calling a group of 'rogue judges.' Habba, the former personal attorney to President Trump, had been serving as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey until her 120-day appointment expired this week without Senate confirmation. A panel of mostly Democrat-appointed judges bypassed Habba and installed her deputy, Desiree Leigh Grace, as the district's top prosecutor.

DOJ Removes Replacement for Habba

Massive Amounts of Taxpayer Cash Collected Under Biden Now Being Used to Sue Trump . . . The nonprofits that sued to block President Donald Trump's reforms during his first month in office had been awarded $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds in the previous administration. "Your tax dollars provide critical support for the web of woke groups trying to transform America," said Scott Walter, president of the Capital Research Center. "It's shameless of them to use your tax dollars to sue your government for even more of your tax dollars." Daily Signal

NYC Mayor Adams Says He Will 'Welcome' Help Arresting 'Dangerous' Criminal Illegal Aliens . . . New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he will "welcome" the help of border czar Tom Homan to arrest criminal illegal aliens like the ones who attacked a Customs and Border Protection officer in the city over the weekend. If Homan assists New York City in the apprehension of "dangerous people," Adams told reporters, he will support it, adding that if the border czar is going "after everyday individuals who are trying to complete the path to be a citizen, then I don't think we should do that." Daily Signal

Adams is seeking to become the single alternative to the communist Mamdani in the mayor's race. Sadly, New Yorkers will likely have to coalesce around Adams or one of the other dummies in the race if they want to stop something truly dangerous, a communist.

Hill Resolution Calls on President to 'Prioritize Protection of Persecuted Christians' in Foreign Policy . . . Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va. are calling out attacks on Christians abroad and asking the Trump administration to prioritize defending them. The two legislators introduced a congressional resolution last week denouncing the persecution of Christians around the world. The document specifically condemns "the persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries" and encourages "the president to prioritize the protection of persecuted Christians in United States foreign policy." Daily Signal

House GOP proposes renaming Kennedy Center opera house after Melania Trump

House stymied as Speaker Johnson's hand-picked committee rebels over Epstein . . . A rebellion over the Jeffrey Epstein files by Republican leadership allies on the House Rules Committee is giving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La) one of the trickiest conundrums of his Speakership so far. Members on the panel — often called the "Speaker's Committee" in reference to it being a tool of leadership — held up action on a host of planned legislation this week because they were terrified of Democrats forcing more tough votes on releasing the Epstein files. The Hill

Democrats fan Epstein flames

Culture

Far beyond Harvard, conservative efforts to reshape higher education are gaining steam . . . Officials in conservative states took aim at higher education before President Trump began his second term, driven in part by the belief that colleges are out of touch — too liberal and loading up students with too much debt. The first efforts focused on critical race theory, an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation's institutions, and then on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Since Trump took office, officials in states including Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Iowa and Idaho increasingly have focused on university governance. Associated Press

Proponents hope to make Ten Commandments next Supreme Court test of religion in schools . . . State laws requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms keep losing in court, but that won't matter if they win at the highest court in the land. Outside advocates believe supporters of laws in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas are actively trying to get the cases before the Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, those supporters are consistently suffering legal losses, including in some of the most conservative courts in the country. Lawsuits have challenged the laws. The Hill

US Olympics Committee bans transgender athletes from competing in women's sports . . . The United States Olympics and Paralympic Committee on Monday changed its eligibility rules to ban transgender athletes from competing against biological women, falling in line with President Donald Trump's executive order. The rule change directly mentions Trump's Executive Order 14201, signed in February, which is intended to "protect opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports." Just the News

In other news, the US Olympics Committee banned insane people from writing their rules.

CNN Trots Out DEI Doctor Who Doesn't Practice Medicine To Diagnose Trump . . . A CNN doctor who painted a dark picture of President Donald Trump's health appears not to have practiced medicine since her residency, instead spending her career as a diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist. She is also an "apostle" of a church whose leader describes Trump as the "antichrist." Chris Pernell, a frequent television doctor on CNN and other news stations, warned last week that President Trump's broadly unremarkable diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency could be more than it seemed. Washington Free Beacon

National Security

From tech podcasts to policy: Trump's new AI plan leans heavily on Silicon Valley industry ideas . . . An artificial intelligence agenda that started coalescing on the podcasts of Silicon Valley billionaires is now being forged into U.S. policy as President Donald Trump leans on the ideas of the tech figures who backed his election campaign. Trump on Wednesday is planning to reveal an "AI Action Plan" he ordered after returning to the White House in January. He gave his tech advisers six months to come up with new AI policies after revoking President Joe Biden's signature AI guardrails on his first day in office. Associated Press

Democrat Russia Hoax Investigator Is Now Top Lawyer At Trump's National Security Agency . . . A top lawyer for President Donald Trump's NSA previously worked for Senate Democrats on their discredited probe attempting to tie Trump to Russia and has a history of partisan anti-Trump activism. April Falcon Doss is the current general counsel for the NSA, the powerful cyber-intelligence agency. Doss also worked as an NSA intelligence lawyer from 2003 to April 2016. But in between those stints, she worked on the highly-partisan congressional investigation. Daily Wire

VOA managers met with Chinese to discuss more favorable coverage for Beijing . . . Voice of America (VOA) managers met multiple times with Chinese officials seeking to influence more favorable U.S. coverage of their country, Trump adviser Kari Lake told Just the News. Lake, the president's senior adviser for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said the meetings with communist China officials both in Washington and abroad were discovered as part of an investigation that exposed undue foreign influence on the VOA's operations. Just the News

Mahmoud Khalil Repeatedly Refuses to Condemn Hamas on CNN . . . Tuesday on CNN's "The Situation Room," Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and released by a federal judge, refused to condemn Hamas. Co-host Pamela Brown said, "Do you specifically condemn Hamas, a designated terrorist organization in the United States, not just for their actions on October 7?" Khalil said, "I condemn the killing of all Pal — of all civilians, full stop. And, but what I don't want to get into is." Breitbart

International

Ukrainians Protest Zelensky . . . Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday approved a law that placed previously independent anti-corruption agencies under executive control. The reforms, the latest move by the presidential office to consolidate power within a circle of loyalists, have critics fearing Zelenskyy and his team could abuse their special wartime authority.

Hundreds protested in central Kyiv and other cities around Ukraine on Tuesday for the first time since Russian leader Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. Politico

China experiments with merger of man, machine in pursuit of powerful new AI . . . China is racing to create a merger of man and machine that would give the communist country a powerful edge in the global competition over artificial intelligence. China's efforts to create a cognitive merger between man and machine involve brain-computer interface research, which has the nontherapeutic goal of "cognitive enhancement," according to the Georgetown University Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Washington Times

Money

U.S. and Japan Reach Trade Deal . . . The U.S. and Japan have reached a trade agreement, President Trump wrote in a social-media post Tuesday evening, saying he would set his so-called reciprocal tariffs at 15% for the country. Japan will invest $550 billion in the U.S., Trump said. The U.S. will receive 90% of the profits from the investments, he added. Japan will also open to trade, Trump said, listing goods including cars and trucks, rice and other agricultural products. Critically for Japan and its powerhouse auto industry, Tokyo's top trade negotiator said tariffs on autos will also be lowered to 15% from their current 25%. Wall Street Journal

Trump slashes 25% of IRS workforce with buyouts, firings of nearly 26,000 agency staff . . . The administration has slashed the IRS workforce by nearly 26,000 people through buyouts and firings, marking a 25% reduction in staffing as President Trump works to reverse President Biden's buildup at the tax agency. The cuts sliced through some of the most prominent IRS divisions, taking out 27% of the tax examiners and 26% of the revenue agents. Information technology is shedding 23% of its workforce, and the management and analysis division will lose 28% of its staff. Washington Times

You should also know

Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath Frontman and Heavy Metal Legend, Dies at 76 . . . Ozzy Osbourne, a founding father of British heavy metal, a latter-day solo star and a new-millennium reality TV luminary, died Tuesday after a yearslong struggle with Parkinson's disease. He was 76. A statement from his family reads: "It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. Variety

45-year-old Venus Williams becomes the oldest woman since Navratilova to win a singles match . . . Venus Williams became the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match in professional tennis, delivering some of her familiar big serves and groundstrokes at age 45 while beating Peyton Stearns — 22 years her junior — by a 6-3, 6-4 score at the DC Open. The only older woman to win a tour-level singles match was Martina Navratilova, whose last triumph came at 47 in 2004. The former No. 1-ranked Williams had not played singles in an official match since March 2024 in Miami Associated Press

Coca-Cola Makes Good On Trump Promise, Drops First Product Made With Cane Sugar . . . The Coca-Cola Company announced it will launch a new product made with cane sugar this fall. The announcement comes after President Donald Trump said he spoke with the company and convinced it to use cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Daily Wire

I'm sorry, but since when is adding sugar to something a health win? Sugar is highly processed, just like high fructose corn syrup. Just try adding sugar cane to your coffee and see how it tastes.

Guilty Pleasures

Lawmaker Calls for Research Into Trump Derangement Syndrome . . . Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, has introduced the Trump Derangement Syndrome Research Act of 2025. The legislation would direct the National Institutes of Health to study what Davidson calls "the psychological and social roots of what is known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, a phenomenon marked by extreme negative reactions to President Donald J. Trump." Still, no one has yet suggested "stopping the spread" of Trump Derangement Syndrome—TDS, for short—through mandatory masking or 6 feet of social distancing. Daily Signal

Finally, someone will investigate this. Because currently, there is no cure or even a reliable way to mitigate symptoms. People are suffering!

Cut to the News brings the day's top news to conservative-leaning readers and others with insight, humor, and concision.

Help CTTN reach more people by forwarding it to your family and friends. Click below to write your message and share the signup link by email.