Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: A Trillion Dollars Isn’t Really Too Much, Is It?

By Gayle McQueary Published on February 27, 2025

Buckle up, folks, because this week’s headlines are serving up a smorgasbord of drama, debate, and downright unbelievable news.

Debate Over Fetal Gender Identity Ignites in Colorado Legislature

Picture this: a packed chamber in Denver, lawmakers leaning forward in their seats; the air thick with tension as a meeting to discuss fetal gender identity begins. Yes, this meeting is about a bill requiring medical professionals to assign a gender to fetuses based solely on common sense biological markers — chromosomes and anatomy, no ifs, ands, or buts.

We would thank state Rep. Karen McCormick (D-Boulder) for making this bill possible due to a statement she made recently at a House Health & Human Services Committee meeting. She said, “We know even from fetal development perspective, that sex is defined in the first trimester” and that the “beginnings of the sense of gender identity start in the second trimester.”

https://twitter.com/Erin4Parents/status/1894543010589020564

We suppose we should take it as a victory that McCormick believes fetuses are showing brain function during the second trimester as they choose their gender in the womb, but it’s hard to do that with a nonsensical statement like this.

Jake Tapper Would Like You to Forget This

Remember back in 2020 when Jake Tapper accused Lara Trump of making fun of then-candidate Joe Biden’s stutter to hide his apparent confusion with a microphone? He ferociously defended Biden, going so far as to say he thought Lara “has no standing to diagnose somebody’s cognitive decline” before adding, “I would think that somebody in the Trump family would be more sensitive to people who do not have medical licenses.”

Why bring this up now? Because Tapper has a book coming out on May 20, cowritten with Axios correspondent Alex Thomson, about the “cover-up” of the former president’s “serious decline.” You seriously can’t make this stuff up. It seems that a front row seat as co-moderator for the June 2024 presidential debate with Donald Trump opened his eyes to see that Biden’s performance was not an anomaly, nor did he have a cold. Instead, he writes, “It was the natural result of an eighty-one-year-old man whose faculties had been diminishing for years.”

It’s always interesting to see how the journalistic tides change depending on who’s in power, isn’t it?

Bezos Champions Personal Liberty and Free Markets

Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is stirring the pot in his own way by announcing a major shakeup to WaPo’s opinion pages. You may remember its decision not to endorse a White House candidate during the 2024 election season. Halting the 36-year-long tradition of rooting for a candidate (who always just happened to be a Democrat) caused many to say that Bezos was cowering in an attempt to appease Donald Trump before he inevitably won in a landslide election.

However, Bezos appears to be driving home the paper’s core values, stating in a letter, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”

He continues, “Viewpoints opposing those pillars can be left to others.”

This clearly signals a sharp pivot from the Post’s historically partisan editorial stance.

Fans laud Bezos for doubling down on the principles that built the once-great paper, while critics, including some Post staffers, are accusing him of turning a journalistic institution into a megaphone for his billionaire worldview. It’s classic Bezos: bold, unapologetic, and guaranteed to keep tongues wagging.

Whether this move reshapes media or just ruffles feathers, one thing’s clear — ousted MSNBC host Joy Reid will not be writing any opinion pieces at The Washington Post anytime soon.

Chaos at Bielefeld Court: Shooting During Boxer’s Murder Trial

A murder trial in Bielefeld, Germany, took a turn straight out of a Hollywood thriller Wednesday when shots broke out outside the courthouse during the trial of former boxer, 34-year-old Huseyin Akkurt, who’s on trial for allegedly killing a rival, 38-year-old Besar Nimani, in a fit of rage last year.

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1894742763956035700

The trial, which began at the end of January, was already high-profile enough to prompt strict security measures around the courthouse. Several people, including two of Akkurt’s relatives (believed to be his father and brother) were injured in the incident.

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According to reports, one victim was shot in the leg, while another sustained a critical chest wound. Police have apprehended one suspect, but a second suspect reportedly barricaded himself in a nearby building. Please join us in praying for the safety of the officers and those injured in the shooting.

U.K. Judge Demands £18 Trillion in Slavery Reparations

In further shocking news, let’s hop across the Pond to the United Kingdom, where a judge has lobbed a £18 trillion grenade into the slavery reparations debate. That’s trillion with a “T” ($24 trillion USD, for those about to pull up a conversation calculator).

Patrick Robinson, a Jamaican judge and veteran of international courts, voted in 2019 for the U.K. to hand the Chagos Islands back to the people. Now, Robinson claims that Britain owes the people this staggering sum for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, as per a 2023 Brattle Group Report he helped produce.

Robinson actually believes this number is an “underestimation” of the sum owed to those traumatized by their ancestors’ past. During the trial of the former Yugoslavian president, Slobodan Milosevic, Robinson stated, “Once a state has committed a wrongful act, it’s obliged to pay reparations.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had already swatted down reparations talks, but the pressure’s mounting under the new British prime minister, Keir Starmer. Activists cheer it as a long-overdue reckoning, but £18 trillion is enough to bankrupt most nations.

Oops! Biden Administration Just Forgot the Key

Finally, a Havard Caps/Harris Poll reveals that 75% of Democrats don’t believe the open-border mess President Joe Biden created was a deliberate policy choice. Remember those chaotic scenes at the southern border, with migrants surging past overwhelmed Border Patrol agents? Many Republicans have claimed that Biden and his administration intentionally flung the gates open wide. However, this poll suggests that the vast majority of Democrats see it differently: a colossal screw-up, sure, but not a grand design.

Never mind the fact that of the six executive orders Biden signed on his first day in office regarding immigration included the immediate termination of the National Emergency Declaration that Trump had previously signed to curb illegal immigration. Or the fact that the Biden administration straight-up lied by accusing Border Patrol agents of using whips to beat migrants crossing the border. Are Democrats so desperate to save face by chalking the immigration crisis that began and ended with Biden’s official acts while in office up to incompetence rather than malice?

Along The Stream…

Pope Francis is ailing, and most likely in his final days. Will his liberal legacy continue with the next pope? Stream contributor Jules Gomes brings a detailed analysis of what’s likely to happen in the next conclave, “Cardinals Could Collude to Elect an Anti-Trump Successor to Pope Francis.”

Meanwhile, former White House insider Gary Bauer lists all the reasons Christians of every stripe should be thrilled with the fresh air blowing through the District of Columbia in “New Trump Administration Is Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom.”

 

Gayle McQueary is The Stream’s social media coordinator. She has a background in production and is a scary judge of profiting from your own chaos.