Cut to the News

February 19, 2024

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Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

China's cyberattacks on US infrastructure are now at an unprecedented scale . . . As intelligence chiefs and policymakers gathered for this city’s annual security conference focused on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation urged them not to lose sight of another threat: China. Christopher Wray on Sunday said Beijing’s efforts to covertly plant offensive malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks is now at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” an issue he has deemed a defining national security threat. Citing Volt Typhoon, the name given to the Chinese hacking network that was revealed last year to be lying dormant inside U.S. critical infrastructure, Wray said Beijing-backed actors were pre-positioning malware that could be triggered at any moment to disrupt U.S. critical infrastructure. Wall Street Journal

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Politics

Trump allies take aim at Republicans who supported Ukraine funding . . . Senate Republicans who voted to advance aid for Ukraine last week are taking heavy incoming from allies of former President Trump, who are calling them out publicly and threatening primary challenges after they defied Trump’s calls to oppose the package. Donald Trump Jr., the ex-president’s eldest son, has led the charge against the 22 Republicans who backed the national security supplemental, many of whom are allies of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He called for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to get a primary challenge, and for West Virginia primary voters to reject the gubernatorial bid of Moore Capito, the son of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). The Hill

GoFundMe launched to help pay Trump legal bills . . . The wife of an investor has launched a GoFundMe to help fund former President Trump’s mounting legal expenses in the wake of Friday’s verdict in the New York fraud case. The GoFundMe has a goal of $355 million — the amount that Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay in penalties in a civil fraud case. As of Saturday night, the GoFundMe had already raised more than $185,000 from some 4,000 donors. The Hill

Haley refuses to say she will support Trump if he is the nominee

Biden admin cites "Indigenous knowledge" to block oil and gas leases . . . When the Biden administration stepped in last year to block seven oil and gas leases in Alaska, it said it was doing so in part to recognize the "Indigenous Knowledge" of the Native Americans who originally inhabited the land. The move was indicative of the administration's embrace, in late 2022, of "Indigenous Knowledge"—that is, Native American folk wisdom—as part of their scientific assessments. "Indigenous Knowledge" is a pseudoscience that posits native people possess unique insights into the laws of the universe, has pervaded the federal government. Washington Free Beacon

What does Indigenous knowledge have to say about the price of gasoline at the pump?

Presidential historians put Trump last on list of presidents . . . A new ranking of presidents by a group of self-styled experts determined that Abraham Lincoln is America's greatest president, while Donald Trump ranks last. The suvey also place Biden ahead of Reagan, overall ranking of 7th for Obama, 12th for Clinton, 14th for Biden, 16th for Reagan and 32nd for George W. Bush. Fox News

Sadly, the left controls the narrative not only about current events, but it writes history as well.

National Security

Iran, wary of war with US, urges proxies to cool it . . . Iran, eager to disrupt U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East but wary of provoking a direct confrontation, is privately urging Hezbollah and other armed groups to exercise restraint against U.S. forces, according to officials in the region. When U.S. forces launched strikes this month on Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, Tehran publicly warned that its military was ready to respond to any threat. But in private, senior leaders are urging caution. Washington Post

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International

Navalny's wife to continue crusade against Putin . . . Three days after the sudden death of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable rival, the location of his body was still unclear on Monday, and his mother was again rebuffed by morgue officials in the Arctic town of Salekhard, 33 miles from the prison colony where he died, Navalny’s press secretary said. But as Russian authorities continued to torment Navalny’s family even after his death at age 47, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said she would continue her husband’s crusade against the Putin regime. Navalnaya was in Brussels on Monday to address European Union foreign ministers who invited her in a show of solidarity. Washington Post

Read Nalvany's letters to former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, which I helped translate

Israel swimmer jeered at world championships. . . Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko was jeered by some of the crowd after finishing second in the women’s 400-meter medley on the closing day of the World Aquatics Championships in Qatar on Sunday. The 20-year-old Gorbenko was making poolside comments moments after the race when the jeers rang out at the Aspire Dome in Doha. Associated Press

Ozempic taking off in country with the most obese people . . . China has more obese people than anywhere else in the world, and they are increasingly turning to weight-loss drugs to solve the problem. That is fueling a gray market of drug sellers and buyers, who have little trouble getting around China’s rules on the use of Ozempic. Ozempic isn’t available for weight loss in the country, instead being reserved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. But users on e-commerce platforms are able to buy the shots, colloquially known as “miracle drugs,” simply by declaring they have been diagnosed with diabetes—without providing proof. Wall Street Journal

Money

Airline forced to pay after AI chatbot offers refund . . . Air Canada must pay a Vancouver man a partial refund for his flight ticket that was promised by the site’s chatbot, a Canadian tribunal ruled Wednesday. Jake Moffatt asked the airline’s artificial intelligence support chatbot whether the airline offered bereavement fares in November 2022 following the death of his grandmother. The chatbot said the airline does offer discount fares and that Moffat could receive the discount up to 90 days after flying by filing a claim. The airline’s actual bereavement policy, however, does not include a post-flight refund, and specifically states that the discount must be approved beforehand. The Hill

Hmm, as long as AI is unilaterally decided to slash airline ticket prices, what could be so bad about it?

Biden considers delaying EV mandate . . . The Environmental Protection Agency is considering relaxing one of its most significant climate change rules — tailpipe emissions limits for cars and trucks — by giving automakers more time to boost sales of electric vehicles, according to two people familiar with the matter. Rather than mandating a rapid increase in electric vehicle (EV) sales in the coming years, the agency could delay these requirements until after 2030, the two people said. Washington Post

If he doesn't delay the mandate, consumers will. They don't want these cars.

Culture

Harvard economist needed police protection after study found no racial bias in police shootings . . . Harvard economics Professor Roland Fryer needed armed security with him to go out in public after he published a study finding no evidence of racial bias in officer-involved shootings, he said in an interview with The Free Press founder Bari Weiss. Fryer, a top economist who became the youngest tenured black professor in Harvard’s history at just 30 years old, published a study in 2016 showing there was “no racial differences in officer involved-shootings.” After he published the study, “all hell broke loose,” Fryer told Weiss, noting people “lose their mind when they don’t like the result.” “I lived under police protection for about 30 to 40 days,” he said. Daily Caller

The left says Trump will curb freedoms even as it continues its assault on free speech. Do you feel like you can say what you want related to politics or social issues? Self-censorship is being forced on all of us.

MSNBC's Joy Reid says blacks "literally, physically built this country," deserve reparations . . . MSNBC host Joy Reid lamented that black Americans have not received sufficient reparations for “literally, physically” building this country, believing that former President Barack Obama’s eight-year tenure is the best they will get.

Reid said that black people “literally, physically, built this country” and therefore deserve much more than a two-term black president. Breitbart

You should also know

Doctors using AI to make critical health care decisions . . . Doctors are already using unregulated artificial intelligence tools such as note-taking virtual assistants and predictive software that helps them diagnose and treat diseases. Government has slow-walked regulation of the fast-moving technology because the funding and staffing challenges facing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration in writing and enforcing rules are so vast. It’s unlikely they will catch up any time soon. That means the AI rollout in health care is becoming a high-stakes experiment. Politico

Truckers refusing to enter NYC after Trump verdict . . . Some Trump-supporting truckers are refusing to transport loads to and from New York City after the former president was fined $355 million and had his ability to run businesses in the state suspended in Friday’s civil fraud verdict. A pro-Trump truck driver known as “Chicago Ray” posted a video to X following the verdict, sharing that he and several of his colleagues are declining NYC delivery jobs due to Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling. Breitbart

Guilty Pleasures

Video | Teen powerwashes rude customer at a car wash . . . A teen in Indiana is going viral after she defended herself against a rude customer who threw lemonade in her face inside a car wash. The video shows Anna Harycki, 18, spraying water from a powerful hose through the open window of a rude customer’s vehicle while working at a car wash. Fox News

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