Crossroads with Joshua Philipp

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Judge Blocks Trump’s Order to Restrict Birthright Citizenship Jan 24, 2025

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In just the first week of President Donald Trump’s second term in office, legal challenges are now emerging against his incoming policies. Among the 200 executive actions he came prepared with was an order to restrict birthright citizenship. That order was met with lawsuits from 22 states, and now a federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump’s order.

Trump Moves to Purge DEI from Government; Sends Active Duty Troops to Border Jan 23, 2025

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President Donald Trump issued an executive order to end affirmative action for federal contractors. He also directed all federal staff working on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to be put on leave. And it doesn’t end there. Trump also put an end to the orders and policies of the Biden administration that focused on race politics. This is all a part of Trump's sweeping moves to purge DEI from the federal government.

Anti-Trump Resistance Forms Among Government Employees Jan 22, 2025

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President Donald Trump is now the 47th president of the United States. He has given some previews of his ambitious plans for office, including his 200 Day 1 executive actions. Yet this plan could soon meet with resistance. While the lead-up to the inauguration had been comparably smoother than the 2016 elections, when the nation saw large-scale anti-Trump protests, there’s now talk of how new challenges to Trump’s policies could begin.

America Changes Overnight as Trump Issues Flurry of Orders Jan 21, 2025

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Overnight, the United States has changed. Immediately following his inauguration and speech, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive actions in front of a live audience at the Capital One Arena.

With cheers from the crowd, he ended a long list of policies from the former administration and issued new orders, before heading to the White House where he continued issuing executive actions while speaking with the press.

Trump’s Inauguration: 100 Executive Actions Ready to Go Starting on Day One Jan 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump is being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States today. With this, the political landscape could change globally, and we already have a general idea of what’s going to happen, given that Trump has detailed what he has in store for his first days in office. He reportedly has 100 executive actions ready to go starting on day one of his new administration.

Trump Announces Plan for Hollywood; SCOTUS Rules 9-0 on TikTok Ban Jan 17, 2025

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Hollywood hasn’t been doing so well. Many of the major planned blockbusters have fallen flat, and some have blamed this on things like social justice and other issues that have steered Hollywood more toward policies than toward creating good movies.

President-elect Donald Trump is now saying he hopes to create a new “Golden Age of Hollywood,” and to do this, he announced the appointment of actors Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone to become special ambassadors to Hollywood.

Why TikTok, RedNote and Tencent are Dangerous Jan 16, 2025

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TikTok may soon be banned in the United States due to its China ties, but some users are now migrating to a platform even more strongly linked to China’s communist regime. The case with TikTok is now in the hands of the Supreme Court, which is weighing the constitutionality of banning the video app unless its China-based owner, ByteDance, sells it off. It appears the ban is likely to be upheld, and some TikTok users have been jumping to another platform that’s even more Chinese—RedNote. Technically, the name is Xiaohongshu, which is Mandarin for “Little Red Book”—as in the teachings of former CCP leader Mao Zedong.

In other news, TikTok may be just the first of many such companies that could be forced to either sell or get banned in the United States. The U.S. Department of Defense recently listed Tencent as a Chinese military company, and this could also have broad implications for tech and entertainment. Tencent owns the messaging app WeChat and has also been buying up large swaths of companies in the video game market—including many of the most popular games currently available. With the new designation, and with the passage of some recent U.S. laws, Tencent could soon go the way of TikTok.

Trump to Create ‘External Revenue Service’; Jack Smith Says He Had Enough Evidence on Trump Jan 15, 2025

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President-elect Donald Trump has announced his plan to create a new agency called the External Revenue Service. This is an inversion of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and, as the new agency’s name suggests, its focus will be on collecting money from outside the United States—including through the use of tariffs.

In other news, special counsel Jack Smith has officially left his position. The federal investigation and charges against Trump have now come to an end. But before leaving, part of Smith’s report on one case has been released to the public. In it, Smith alleges that had Trump not won the 2024 election, there would have been enough evidence for a criminal conviction. Trump, meanwhile, has strongly criticized the report and Smith, arguing it was part of a politicized campaign to target him.

As Trump Cabinet Hearings Begin, Veterans Rally Behind Hegseth Jan 14, 2025

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With the presidential inauguration now less than a week away, the Senate is holding hearings on the appointments of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees. The hearings could display the level of support, or lack of enthusiasm, that Republicans will show for the incoming administration. And there are also questions about how this will go for Cabinet selections who’ve been the focus of media attacks. Among these is Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, and already veterans are rallying on the streets of Washington D.C. in his support.

How Censorship Was Forced On Facebook Jan 13, 2025

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Censorship programs were forced onto Facebook and Instagram through outside pressure, said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who provided the details during an interview with Joe Rogan. Zuckerberg explained how programs for content moderation transformed into large-scale censorship systems after the COVID-19 outbreak. This ties in with his recent announcement that Meta will be ending these censorship practices, and working with the incoming Trump administration to push for freedom of expression globally.

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