Helsinki Redux – After Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met in Riyadh for a day to discuss Russia’s war against Ukraine -- without Ukraine -- President Trump falsely claimed Ukraine started the war. Scroll down, center column, for more…

Incredible DOGE Savings, Shrinking – The Department of Government Efficiency’s new website claims it already has saved $55 billion toward the goal of a balanced budget. This is “a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.”

But the site’s first major data release, its “Wall of Reciepts” cut that down to more than $16 billion in savings, and after correcting an apparent clerical error that entailed such mistakes as counting $8 million in savings for the Department of Homeland Security as $8 billion (what do you expect? DOGE founder Elon Musk paid $44 billion when maybe he should have paid $44 million for Twitter before cutting 80% of its work staff), according to an investigation by NPR’s Morning Edition, the actual actual savings is about $8.5 billion.

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Cutting the IRS – Prima facie, cutting the US Internal Revenue Service tends to be a popular idea across political philosophies. The Trump administration is expected to begin layoffs of about 6,000 IRS employees, mostly recent hires, The New York Timesreports. 

This comes down to another attempt to reverse policy by the previous president. The Biden administration had made new hires and boosted IRS funding in an attempt to revitalize the agency’s effectiveness in going after alleged tax evaders.

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Too Many Centenarians? – No, contradicting what President Trump says, tens of millions of dead people are not getting Social Security checks, The Associated Press reports. 

Speaking from Florida, where many centenarians live, President Trump on Tuesday said, “We have millions and millions of people more than 100 years old. They’re obviously fraudulent or incompetent,” President Trump said Tuesday at a briefing in Florida.

But newly installed acting Social Security Commissioner Lee Dudek set Trump straight: “The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits. I am confident that with DOGE’s help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people.”

--TL

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Helsinki Redux

WEDNESDAY 2/19/25

This is False – In a news conference following the one-day “peace talks” in Riyadh led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Trump blamed Ukraine for, apparently, invading its own land to start its war with Russia three years ago, Newsweek reports.

Trump said Ukraine did not need a seat at the negotiating table because it “should’ve ended [the war] in three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

Trump’s statement is reminiscent of his press conference after meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July 2018. Trump told reporters he believed Putin over the US intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election that Trump won. 

“I don’t see any reason why it would be Russia,” Trump said.

This is true … Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said President Trump is “living in a disinformation space,” The New York Times reports. 

The “decision on how to end the war with Ukraine cannot be made without Ukraine, nor can any conditions be imposed,” Zelenskyy said. “We were not invited to the Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us, I think for many others as well.

“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team.”

--TL