Thursday Morning Minute: 'We're Walking, We're Walking...'

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Good morning, and welcome to RedState's "Morning Minute" — a brief glimpse at which stories are trending at the moment and a look ahead at what the day may bring. Consider this your one-stop shop for news to kickstart your day.

TOP O' THE MORNIN'

Red-Hot at RedState

SecDef Hegseth Gets a Rude and Disrespectful Welcome by US Military Command in Germany

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you're willing to greet your boss in wrinkled clothes and allow him to be heckled by dependent wives, you can imagine what else is going on out of sight.

OPINION: Trump Is Making FAFO Great Again

The cultural bullies who enjoyed torturing normal Americans during the Biden years are finding out what happens when you f-around.

TIME TO NAME NAMES: Trump to Reveal the Biggest Fraudsters and Beneficiaries of Gov't Waste

Not only will he be revealing names of the entities and perhaps individuals who are benefiting from the waste and fraud, but he also said he's bringing examples of ridiculous expenditures—plenty of them.

Trending Across Townhall Media

Texas Man Shot After Breaking Into Ex-Girlfriend's Home

It'd be great if an order of protection was all that was needed to keep victims safe from harm, but that's not the world we live in, and those individuals targeted by stalkers or abusers need to be able to defend themselves even if the courts have ordered their abuser to stay away.

POLITICO: You Know, The Economy Really Did Suck Under Biden...

Modeling an economy is as difficult as modeling the climate--there are too many variables, the statistics are too unreliable, and the models tell you only what you program them to tell you.

Lee Zeldin Just Discovered $20 Billion Laundered by the Biden Admin

Zeldin made it clear that the financial agreements with external entities are under scrutiny, emphasizing that “the financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated and the bank must immediately return all of the gold bars that the Biden administration tossed off the Titanic.” He insisted that EPA must reassume full responsibility for these funds.

Of Course, USAID's Fingerprints Are All Over the Russian Collusion Hoax

So, don’t buy the ‘people will die everywhere…forever’ propaganda about USAID. It was a covert operation meant to keep the political class wealthy and its interests protected.

Yes, They Really Are This Dumb: Rep. Jan Schakowsky Thinks 'Manufacturing' Is a Sexist Word

Uh-oh ... 'humanity.'
Will the oppression of women never end?

WHAT'S ON TAP?

Today on Capitol Hill...

Another big day on the Hill Thursday, as the Senate confirmation vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary is set to take place at 10:30 a.m. Eastern, followed immediately by the confirmation vote for Brooke Rollins as Secretary of Agriculture. (The Democrats have opted not to block/delay nominations. For now.)

Tulsi Gabbard, of course, was confirmed and sworn in as the Director of National Intelligence on Wednesday.

Also Thursday morning, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, the Judiciary Committee will vote on Kash Patel's nomination for FBI Director. (We can expect a filibuster on his nomination.) The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will also hold a hearing on Linda McMahon's nomination for Education Secretary.

In the afternoon, the Senate will hold procedural votes to break the filibuster on two more nominees: Kelly Loeffler for SBA Administrator and Howard Lutnick for Secretary of Commerce.

Other meetings/hearings on the Hill today include:

Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship — Topics include looking at moving up to 30 percent of the SBA workforce to duty stations outside of Washington, D.C. (a continuation of Wednesday's meeting)
House Foreign Affairs — The USAID Betrayal
House Budget — The Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025
Senate Foreign Relations — Hearings to examine navigating Syria policy after Assad

White House What's Up

President Donald Trump is expected to sign additional executive orders in the early afternoon on Thursday before meeting with Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India. They'll have a press conference after their meeting, followed by a dinner. And somewhere in there (likely during the EO signing), Trump plans to hold a press conference where he names names on all of the fraudsters and beneficiaries of government waste.

Vice President JD Vance is headed to Munich, Germany, on Thursday for the Security Conference.

Keeping Up With the Cabinet

Sec. State - Marco Rubio — Rubio is headed to the Munich Security Conference.

Sec. Defense - Pete Hegseth — Hegseth is also overseas and just finished meeting with his fellow NATO defense secretaries.

Attorney General - Pam Bondi — Bondi announced legal action against the State of New York and New York officials over their failure to enforce federal immigration law.

Sec. Veterans Affairs - Doug Collins — Collins released a brief video statement on Wednesday reminding folks not to believe everything they read in the press and affirming the department's effective collaboration with the DOGE team.

Sec. Homeland Security - Kristi Noem — Noem announced Wednesday that she'd managed to claw back the $59 million improperly paid by FEMA to luxury hotels in New York to house illegal immigrants.

Dir. National Intelligence - Tulsi Gabbard — Gabbard, as noted above, was confirmed and sworn in as DNI on Wednesday.

Admin. Environmental Protection Agency - Lee Zeldin — Zeldin released a blockbuster video on Wednesday noting that his agency had managed to locate and was working to retrieve the "gold bars" agency employees had attempted to toss off the "Titanic" in the waning days of the Biden administration.

Full Court Press...

I lied. I lied, and I'm so sorry. I thought I'd have a chance to put together that court case primer yesterday, but life had other plans. Instead, I'll offer you this:

Federal Judge Hearing Trump Spending Freeze Called Him a 'Tyrant,' Has Ties to NGO Getting Federal Cash

Federal Judge Puts Trump's Layoff Train Back on the Tracks

Also, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday that the DOJ was taking legal action against the State of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James, and others over their failure to comply with federal law regarding immigration. While Bondi referred to "filing charges" against the defendants, it appears the action is a civil suit akin to that filed against Illinois last week.

And Trump scored a legal victory Wednesday in his Florida lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board over their 2022 statement justifying their awards to outlets for coverage of the Russian collusion hoax, as the court denied the board's motion to dismiss.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

On Friday, Vance is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Rubio is expected to participate in that meeting as well. The meeting follows phone conversations between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Trump and Zelensky on Wednesday.

Saturday at noon remains the deadline issued by Trump for Hamas to turn over the remaining hostages. However, Hamas has since signaled it will resume the original plan of the ceasefire deal and turn over three hostages on Saturday. At this point, it is unclear whether this will prompt Trump to relent on the deadline.

MORNING MUSING

I'm sure I've mentioned this here on the pages of RedState previously, but what immediately came to my mind the second I learned that there would indeed be a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the new Trump administration was the movie "Dave." I loved that movie when it came out. (How is it 30 years old? How am I 30 years older?!) I need to rewatch it.