Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times,

California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project is under investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The probe, launched Aug. 19, will focus on whether project officials knowingly misrepresented the ridership projections and financial viability of the long-delayed and expensive rail line to secure federal and state funds.

Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has requested a staff-level briefing, documents, and communications related to the project.

“The [California High Speed Rail] Authority’s apparent repeated use of misleading ridership projections, despite longstanding warnings from experts, raises serious questions about whether funds were allocated under false pretenses,” Comer said in a statement.

“The massive cost overruns and lack of progress warrant a reassessment of whether [the authority] acted with transparency and complied with the law.”

The High Speed Rail Authority was first established in 1996 to plan a railway connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. Costs for the project were originally expected to reach $33 billion, and Californians were told it would be completed by 2020. Voters authorized the rail line in 2008, but to date, the state has not laid any track, and the railway is now expected to cost up to $128 billion.

Officials at the authority dismissed the investigation.

“This is yet another baseless attempt to manufacture controversy around America’s largest and most complex infrastructure project,” an authority spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“The Authority has already addressed these recycled criticisms in its response to the FRA’s compliance review supported by facts, noting the ridership critiques are ‘nonsensical, cherrypicked and out-of-date, and therefore misleading.’”

President Donald Trump announced in February that his administration would investigate the project.

During Trump’s predecessor President Joe Biden’s final days in office, the project received $3.1 billion for the initial segment connecting Merced, Fresno, and Bakersfield—the largest grant the program had received. The funding came from Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the rail construction has created 12,000 union jobs.

The cost to build the initial 171-mile stretch through central California has increased by about $8 billion.

Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) presides over a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 5, 2025. Comer has opened an investigation into California’s high-speed rail project. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The Federal Railroad Administration, however, clawed back $4 billion in unspent federal funding in July after the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s responses to a compliance review were not adequate in addressing the administration’s concerns, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“Gov. Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “Federal dollars are not a blank check—they come with a promise to deliver results.”

The Merced-to-Bakersfield segment had a funding gap of at least $6.5 billion, of which $4 billion was promised by the Biden administration, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Inspector General.

Duffy said it was “time for this boondoggle to die.”

Weekend headlines have been taken over by more Trump administration house-cleaning and firings at the Pentagon, as late Friday it was reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed a general whose agency’s early intelligence report downplayed the destructive power of the Trump-ordered June strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse has been ousted from his role as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The official reason disclosed is “loss of confidence”. While the DIA is lesser known among the nation’s major intel agencies like the CIA or NSA, it coordinates all military intelligence among US armed forces, and is mostly staffed by civilians – but under DoD leadership.

Hegseth also removed Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, head of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL in charge of Naval Special Warfare Command, from their posts, according to officials.

While Gen. Kruse’s firing from the DIA chief seems retributive in nature, the reason for the dismissal of the Navy admirals remains unclear.

It further comes as the past week saw dozens of current and former national security personnel get their security clearances revoked. Trump admin critics have decried what they call a pattern of retribution against those seen as disloyal, and that it’s all politically motivated.

As for the circumstances surrounding the change in DIA leadership, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had following the 12-day war on Iran declared that US bunker-buster bombs and accompanying strikes had “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

But a leaked DIA report in the immediate aftermath suggested the uranium enrichment program was still intact, contradicting Trump. CNN had been the first to report in late June info from leaked assessment as follows:

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said.

The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.”

One unnamed defense official quoted in the report had made clear that centrifuges are largely “intact.” The unnamed person had described: “So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops.”

The growing list of firings under Hegseth:

Hegseth cleaning house at the Pentagon?

He has now sacked:

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Chief of Naval Operations
• Coast Guard Commandant
• Air Force Chief & Vice Chief of Staff
• Chief of the Naval Reserve
• NAVSPECWARCOM Commander
• DIA Director https://t.co/1YsG2IiqVp pic.twitter.com/sWTZQrCx9T

— RT (@RT_com) August 23, 2025

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but vigorously rejected the conclusions, describing it as mere raw and unreliable info that was in no way conclusive.

Trump had in the quick aftermath of the US bombing raid on Iran essentially declared mission accomplished and got Israel and Iran to abide by a ceasefire, which has held since. But Trump has used the narrative of having destroyed Iran’s nuclear program to claim that Tehran can no longer pose a nuclear threat, and that no further action is needed. 

Authored by Emel Akan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he will give Russia and Ukraine two weeks to hold talks aimed at ending the war between the two countries, and if no progress is made, he will decide on the next steps, which could include heavy sanctions or tariffs.

“We’ll see what happens over the next two weeks. We’re going to find out which way it’s going to go,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump said he expects to watch the attitudes of both sides during that period before determining his course of action.

Calling it “a very important decision,” the president said he will determine “whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both—or do we do nothing and say, ‘It’s your fight.’”

Trump made the remarks in the Oval Office during an event announcing that the 2026 World Cup draw will be held at the Kennedy Center in Washington in December.

At the event, Trump showed a photo of himself with Putin, taken at last week’s Alaska summit. He stated that the Russian president may visit the United States for the World Cup next summer.

He later expressed his disappointment with Russia’s latest overnight strikes, which hit a U.S. factory in Ukraine.

“I’m not happy about it,” he said. “I’m not happy about anything about that war. Nothing.”

Last week, Trump hosted high-stakes peace talks with Putin in Alaska, which ended without a cease-fire. On Aug. 18, he met with Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House to discuss the Alaska summit and next steps.

Following those talks, Trump began arranging a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, after which he said the three leaders would hold a trilateral session. So far, however, neither Russia nor Ukraine has announced a date or location for the bilateral meeting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with NBC aired on Friday that there’s no agenda for a potential summit.

“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov said, adding no meeting was therefore planned for now.

During the Alaska summit, Putin agreed to accept security guarantees for Ukraine after the war.

Trump later announced that European countries would provide security guarantees to Ukraine in coordination with the United States, and suggested that Europeans agreed to provide troops on the ground to prevent future aggressions.

Lavrov, however, said on Aug. 20 that European proposals to deploy troops in Ukraine after the war would mean “foreign intervention,” which he said was unacceptable to Moscow.

Speaking during a press conference, Lavrov said Moscow won’t agree with collective security guarantees negotiated without the Russian Federation.

“It is a road to nowhere,” he said.

On Aug. 22, Zelenskyy criticized Moscow for demanding to be included in any security guarantees.

“Russia does not want, did not want, and will not want to end the war now,” Zelenskyy told reporters. “It wants to issue ultimatums, and to use those to delay the possibility of ending this war.”

In a surprise post on Aug. 21, Trump said that Ukraine cannot win its war without launching attacks on Russia, criticizing prior U.S. policy that only allowed Kyiv to defend itself, not attack.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”

Trump criticized the previous administration for limiting Kyiv.

He wrote, President Joe Biden “would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND. How did that work out?”

“Regardless, this is a war that would have NEVER happened if I were President—ZERO CHANCE. Interesting times ahead!!!”

Let’s make one thing very clear from the start:  LGBT pride flags are political symbols for a political movement with an undeniable agenda.  They are not “art murals” or expressions of civil rights, they are information weapons designed to saturate the American environment with far-left propaganda. 

Woke activists have no right to paint their ideological symbols on taxpayer funded roadways.  No political group has that right.  The fact that progressives and Democrats were allowed to hijack US flagpoles and streets as their own personal indoctrination tools shows just how far America has fallen into the abyss in the past several years.  Luckily, the pendulum is swinging back to center.      

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been disinfecting his state and killing the woke mind virus ever since his victory against the attempted coup by Disney in 2023.  Leftists were dumb enough to believe that Florida needed Disney more than Disney needed Florida and the end result was predictable.

This blitz against progressive infiltration has extended to Florida roadways which Democrats have exploited with impunity, bombarding residents with gay pride flags to remind them who really controls their communities.  A number of citizens in Florida have been prosecuted for “defacing” these flags painted on crosswalks as if they are protected public property.  Some people have even been accused of “hate crimes”.

In other words, LGBT activist propaganda is allowed to be embedded into every facet of daily life as a method of “protest”, but if you protest this by burning a tire mark through one of those flags then you’re not an activist, you are a “fascist” that must be punished.  Thus, the woke movement made it impossible to counter-protest their takeover by making counter-protest an act of hate.    

DeSantis has ordered the immediate removal of all pride propaganda from public facilities and roads and state workers are already panting over the flags without oversight from city officials.  Local progressive politicians are, of course, having a meltdown, but there is no mercy in this dojo.

Activists have attempted to use chalk to recolor the crosswalks, apparently forgetting that it rains heavily and regularly in Florida.  

As for the Pulse Nightclub shooting, that was almost ten years ago, perpetrated by a Muslim who pledged allegiance to ISIS.  Today, leftists are aggressively seeking a political alliance with Muslim groups that promote the same Sharia law standards that inspired the nightclub attack.  They don’t actually care about the people who were killed, the event was simply a useful tragedy to use as a rationale for painting gay flags on roads. 

We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes. https://t.co/AXY1qxsZNW

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) August 21, 2025

Multiple Florida cities are now facing deadlines in the coming days after being ordered to paint over rainbow crosswalks.  In letters from the state transportation department, communities have been told to remove them by early next month. 

“I am outraged by the State of Florida’s decision to forcefully remove Pride crosswalks — symbols of love, support, and unity in our communities,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Thursday.  “These vibrant installations are more than paint on pavement. They reflect the values we hold dear in Miami-Dade: respect, appreciation of fellow neighbors, and the fundamental right to live and love openly,” she said in a statement.

A statement from the Florida Department of Transportation said the agency has a duty “to ensure the safety and consistency of public roadways and transportation systems.”  “That means ensuring our roadways are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests,” it said.

It’s not the job of city officials to commandeer public streets to project their personal values and politics.  Besides, the LGBT movement is not about “love”, it’s about control.  Controlling our words, thoughts and behaviors with fears of mob persecution and cancellation.  These are not good people with good intentions and their time is thankfully coming to an end.

Via American Greatness,

Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom is moving ahead with a controversial plan to redraw his state’s congressional maps by overriding the state’s non-partisan redistricting commission to counter redistricting moves by Republican lawmakers in Texas.

Newsom has launched a $100 million campaign that is backed by Planned Parenthood, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the California Federation of Labor Unions and a handful of billionaire donors.

Lawmakers in California approved the redistricting plan on Thursday, labeling it “Democracy’s Best Bet.”

Hello Governor Newsom,

In 2010, California voters passed Prop 20 by a landslide (62–38) to take redistricting out of politicians’ hands and enshrine an independent citizens’ commission in their state constitution. That was the will of the people.

Now you’ve launched a $100… pic.twitter.com/XvIrEnw3BK

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) August 21, 2025

However, serious concerns remain as to whether Newsom’s plan can survive legal scrutiny for a number of reasons.

In 2010, a decisive percentage of California voters (62-38) passed Prop 20 which took redistricting out of the hands of politicians and created an independent citizens commission in the state constitution.

Constitutional attorney Mark Meuser says Newsom’s redistricting plan would violate California’s constitution by holding hearings on a bill less than 30 days after introduction and by drawing maps without authority.

Meuser also says Newsom’s plan runs afoul of the state constitution by drawing maps contrary to its requirements and by drawing mid-decade maps, which are prohibited.

I believe Gavin Newsom and I have different definitions of “legal.”

To pass his redistricting plan, he must:

1. Violate the Constitution by holding hearings on a bill less than 30 days after introduction.
2. Violate the Constitution by drawing maps without authority.
3. Violate… pic.twitter.com/AXwV1HPNK6

— Mark Meuser (@MarkMeuser) August 20, 2025

Meuser further claims that Newsom will need to change the law that requires 131 days notice for special elections on constitutional amendments.

Newsom’s actions appear to put the will of billionaire donors and politically connected special interest groups ahead of the will of the people of California who voted to amend their state’s constitution to make redistricting less susceptible to political mischief.

Under these conditions, Newsom’s determination to save “democracy” appears to mean doing whatever it takes to claw back Democratic control of Congress.

Even if that means ignoring or undermining the will of millions of residents of California.

A recent report from Variety claims that the top echelons of Disney are scrambling to figure out how to entice the male demographic back into theaters, specifically Gen Z men.  Apparently, a media company alienating 50% of their audience base is, in fact, a bad business decision.  The mind boggles…   

Keep in mind, this is the same company that coined the phrase “The Force Is Female” and “Her-O” (instead of “Hero”…very clever).  This is the same company that tried to embed gay and trans characters into movies for toddlers.  This is the same company that actually went to war with the state of Florida to force them to accept LGBT and gender fluid indoctrination in public schools in opposition to the vast majority of the voting population. 

Finally, this is the same company that tried to bait and switch legendary male heroes for feminist “Girl Boss” heroes in every significant action/fantasy/sci-fi franchise they own the rights to. 

They turned Star Wars and Marvel, two of the biggest box office properties of all time, into the menstruation huts of the cinema world.  They went from making billions per project, to bombing harder than Nagasaki in theaters and in streaming. 

The crux of the problem is that media companies have systematically eliminated any factors that might remotely interest men.  This was not an accident, they did this by design.  This includes going to war against the “male gaze” and the archetype of the male protector (knight in shining armor).  Female protagonists alone are not a deal breaker, but remove all femininity, all sex appeal and browbeat the audience with anti-male messaging about how women “don’t need no man” and there goes your biggest potential cash pool.    

Disney has been at the forefront of the woke deconstructionist agenda to rewrite or destroy every masculine western pop culture figure of the past 50 years.  They treated these icons as sacrificial lambs; joyfully slaughtered to appease the demonic gods of feminism.  And now, they want the men they openly despise to come running back with wallets in hand?

That’s a new level of crazy.  But hey, that’s Disney.

Even worse, the Variety story doesn’t indicate that Disney ever plans to admit what they did wrong.  Anyone waiting around for an apology doesn’t understand how the political left operates – They never admit they are wrong. 

As Variety notes:

“Leadership at Walt Disney Studios has been pressing Hollywood creatives in recent months, multiple sources tell Variety, for movies that will bring young men back to the brand in a meaningful way…”

“Every film studio is looking for better ways to convert young audiences into habitual moviegoers. Numerous studies show that Gen Z men in particular are a lonely, gaming-obsessed group who were hampered in their formative years by COVID-19 lockdowns — not the easiest segment to grasp…”

It sounds like they still hate the Gen Z male demographic while pretending as if those men are mysterious, stunted and hard to please.  At no point does Disney question their previous DEI production policies.  The obvious conclusion is that woke politics and the targeting of masculinity drove the male demographic away.  Almost every Disney film with overt woke messaging has lost significant earnings in the past five years.

Some people argue that Disney doesn’t care about profits anymore and they are willing to sacrifice the box office in the name of promoting progressive ideology.  Clearly this is not true if the company (along with hundreds of other companies) is now scrambling to remove DEI from their marketing and find ways to get men back to the ticket counter. 

Even Disney still needs to bring in profits, not just to keep operations running but to maintain an image of cultural relevancy.  They can dip into their reserves and pump out all the woke propaganda they want, but it doesn’t mean anything if no one is watching.  Eventually they will collapse, and it will be for nothing.  Their large cadre of leftist writers were laughing a few years ago at the “chuds”; now those talentless hacks are crying all the way to their local LA homeless shelter. 

The bottom line is that when Disney says they want to court the male audience, what they really mean is that they need the moderate and conservative male audience.  To do that requires more than original IPs, it requires a complete overhaul of the Hollywood system and a return to masculine formats more common in the 1980s and 1990s.     

Disney no longer has the intelligence or imagination power on staff to create anything inventive or original.  To appeal to conservative men, they would have to hire conservative writers, directors and producers, which they will never do.  Instead, they will go through the motions of rehashing old franchises in a desperate bid to appeal to people’s nostalgia. This won’t work and the majority of their products will continue to flop. 

Even if they remove all woke messaging from their content, new movies still have to be good.  They don’t know how to make anything good and the DEI hires infesting their company halls will continue to drag them down into failure. Disney’s renewed quest for the male audience is a case study in Get Woke, Go Broke.    

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration is playing a role in the sharpest decline in monthly remittances to Mexico in more than a decade, analysts say.

According to numbers released this month from the Bank of Mexico (Banxico), income from remittances abroad stood at $5.2 billion in June, a 16.2 percent decrease compared with June 2024.

That represents the largest drop in 13 years, according to a report from BBVA Research.

Remittances in 2024 represented approximately 3.4 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product, according to the World Bank.

Remittances are transfers of money earned in the United States to such parties as relatives, friends, or business associates abroad. Ninety-nine percent of the remittances sent in the first half of 2025 were made through electronic funds transfers, according to the BBVA report.

The drop occurred after a decade of growth. Between 2013 and 2024, remittances to Mexico almost tripled to $64.7 billion from $23 billion, according to BBVA.

Analysts attribute the decline to President Donald Trump’s deportation policies and the availability of alternative methods for sending remittances.

Some have suggested that the U.S. dollar’s weaker position against the Mexican peso has played a part as well.

“I think it’s all of the above,” said Ana Valdez, CEO at The Latino Donor Collaborative, a think tank that examines the economic impact of Latinos in the United States.

While remittances are also sent by U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, illegal immigrants frequently make the payments to Mexico and other countries. Valdez told The Epoch Times that uncertainty over immigration status for some, such as those who may have received temporary protective status, could impact remittances to Mexico.

One obvious reason for the decline in money flowing across the border is that fewer Mexicans are entering the United States, Rubi Bledsoe, a researcher with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Epoch Times. “It has been harder for them, I guess, to access legitimate avenues to seek asylum,” she said.

And those already in the United States may be changing their spending patterns.

Increased deportations and a reluctance on the part of employers to hire those without legal status could also be affecting remittances.

New York state immigration attorney Marina Shepelsky told The Epoch Times that illegal immigrants are lying low and have become more frugal out of fear of being deported.

“I think a lot of people are saving money now in case they’re deported, so they’re not sending anything home,” Shepelsky said.

She said she’s not surprised that people in the hotel, restaurant, and agriculture sectors, which depend more heavily on illegal immigrant labor, have been vocal about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and the prospect of losing workers.

“I’m worried about the effect on our economy,” Shepelsky said.

Deporting illegal immigrants is part of the Trump administration’s border security policy, prompting pushback in sanctuary states such as New York, Illinois, and California, where ICE has been conducting enforcement operations, sometimes at farms and workplaces, to find and deport those who are in the country unlawfully.

Democrats have long maintained that illegal immigrants are essential for farming, construction, and hospitality, claiming that most U.S. citizens don’t want those jobs.

Some experts disagree, saying that money leaving the homeland for foreign shores isn’t good for the U.S. economy.

According to a July study published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the U.S. economy loses at least $200 billion annually in remittances to foreign countries. The number is likely even higher now because the last reliable, bilateral data were published in 2021.

At the time, Mexico received the most remittances at $52.6 billion, according to the study.

Money being sent out of the country means that it isn’t being spent on goods and services in the United States. Tax revenue is also lost on the sale of goods and services that the remittance money would have generated.

Beyond that, the study pointed out that remittances intentionally or unintentionally support cartels, human smuggling, terrorists, and crime.

Remittance Tax

Republicans, who have argued that a remittance tax would discourage illegal immigration, were successful in getting a 1 percent remittance fee added to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

That tax becomes effective in January 2026 for certain types of remittances in which the sender provides cash, a money order, or a cashier’s check to remittance providers. Traditional remittance providers in the United States include companies such as Western Union and MoneyGram.

Vice President JD Vance cosponsored a similar bill when he was a U.S. senator from Ohio in 2023. That bill, called the WIRED Act, would have imposed a 10 percent fee on remittances flowing out of the United States.

“This legislation is a common-sense solution to disincentivize illegal immigration and reduce the cartels’ financial power,” Vance said at the time.

The revenue generated from a remittance tax under the bill could be used to fund increased border security measures and immigration enforcement efforts, proponents said.

On the other hand, Democrats contend that remittances increase the spending power of households in poorer countries, potentially reducing poverty and increasing demand for U.S. exports.

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García spoke out against taxing remittances under the Republican-led bill this spring, saying that “would destabilize immigrant families and economies here and abroad.”

“When immigrants send money home, they’re not just helping loved ones—they’re keeping entire communities afloat in countries like Mexico, Nigeria, and the Philippines,” he said during debate on the bill.

Bypassing Taxes

There are ways around traditional money-wiring services—and the new remittance tax—and those alternate ways of sending funds across the border could be a factor in the declining remittance numbers, according to Valdez.

People can send money to their family members in Mexico without wiring it, Valdez said. She said people are finding other ways to deliver money, such as “getting together with the neighbors, getting together with people that are actually traveling and bringing cash.”

Some could also be taking advantage of a new system, the Bienestar card, Valdez said. The bank card system, set up by the Mexican government, can be used for remittances and is advertised as bypassing the 1 percent U.S. tax on remittances because it’s considered a bank-to-bank transfer that doesn’t involve cash.

A left-leaning think tank is urging Democrats to stop repelling normal human beings with the use of a deep grab-bag of woke words and phrases. The road to electoral Hell is paved with good intentions, writes Third Way: “The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness.” 

Third Way is far from the first to warn leftists that their language is off-putting. Bill Maher has repeatedly pummeled them, and Vice President JD Vance has too, telling Laura Ingraham, “I mean, look, the autopsy for the Democrats, some free political advice from the president of the United States is: stop sounding like crazy people.” 

However, Third Way’s communique is distinguished by its long and specific list of annoying jargon. “In this memo, we are putting a spotlight on the language we use that puts a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities. These are words that people simply do not say, yet they hear them from Democrats,” said Third Way, which describes itself as a group of “passionate moderates” but is, in practice, an organization of center-leftists that evolved out of a gun control group, Americans for Gun Safety, and is led by a career Democratic pol, Jonathan Cowan.  

Elaborating on the theme with Politico this week, Third Way SVP Lanae Erickson said three potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates are exemplary communicators: Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego. She said that Beshear was recently “talking about the fact that ‘justice-involved individuals’ is not a thing that any justice-involved individual would call themselves.” 

“Over the years we’ve conducted, read, and analyzed hours upon hours of focus groups, and we’ve yet to hear a voter volunteer any of the phrases below except as a form of derision or parody of Democrats,” said the group. The memo breaks down the long list of offending words and phrases into several categories. 

THERAPY SPEAK: According to Third Way, these words tell others “I’m more empathetic than you, and you are callous to hurting other’s feelings.” They also make it “uncomfortable for many people to engage in hard topics,” the DC-based group says. 

• Privilege
• Violence (as in “environmental violence”)
• Dialoguing
• Othering
• Triggering
• Microaggression / assault/ invalidation
• Progressive stack
• Centering
• Safe space
• Holding space
• Body shaming

SEMINAR ROOM LANGUAGE:  Third Way says these words tell people “I’m smarter and more concerned about important issues than you.” The group warns that “when we use words people don’t understand, studies show that the part of their brain that signals distrust becomes more active.” 

• Subverting norms
• Systems of oppression
• Critical theory
• Cultural appropriation
• Postmodernism
• Overton Window
• Heuristic
• Existential threat to [climate, the planet, democracy, the economy]

ORGANIZER JARGON: “These words say “we are beholden to groups, not individuals,” said Third Way.  

• Radical transparency
• Small ‘d’ democracy
• Barriers to participation
• Stakeholders
• The unhoused
• Food insecurity
• Housing insecurity
• Person who immigrated

GENDER/ ORIENTATION CORRECTNESS: Third Way says this jargon tells normies, “Your views on traditional genders and gender roles are at best quaint.” 

• Birthing person/inseminated person
• Pregnant people
• Chest feeding
• Cisgender
• Deadnaming
• Heteronormative
• Patriarchy
• LGBTQIA+

RACIAL CONSTRUCTS: “These words signal that talking about race is even more of a minefield” with the danger of being called a racist if you fail to use the latest “correct terminology,” said Third Way.  

• Latinx
• BIPOC
• Allyship
• Intersectionality
• Minoritized communities

CRIME TALK: Third Way warns that these terms tell normies that “the criminal is the victim. The victim is an afterthought.” 

• Justice-involved
• Carceration
• Incarcerated people
• Involuntary confinement

Stop calling them language police. They are people who police language. https://t.co/4WZUbLpvOY

— Keith Humphreys (@KeithNHumphreys) August 22, 2025

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Conflicts of interest declared by vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dropped significantly before the advisers were all dismissed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a new study.

The reported conflict of interest prevalence rate at Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meetings declined from 13.5 percent between 2000 and 2004 to 6.2 percent between 2016 and 2024, researchers found after examining declared interests in a new tool released by the HHS, the CDC’s parent agency.

The average annual rates of conflicts reported by ACIP members fell from 42.8 percent to 5 percent.

There was also a decline over time in reported conflicts of interest for the parallel panel that advises the Food and Drug Administration, although the conflict reporting rate for that panel bounced back up from zero percent per meeting between 2008 and 2015 to 1.9 percent between 2016 and 2024.

The study was published by the Journal of the American Medical Association on Aug. 18.

“In the past, there have been high levels of reported conflicts on influential vaccine committees, but there has been substantial progress since the early 2000s,” study coauthor Genevieve Kanter, senior scholar at the Schaeffer Center and associate professor at the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy, said in a statement. “Although it’s important to remain vigilant, conflicts of interest on vaccine advisory committees have been at historically low levels for quite some time.”

The study was funded in part by the Harvey Motulsky and Lisa Norton-Motulsky Fund. Kanter and a coauthor also reported receiving funding from Arnold Ventures for unrelated work.

The study only examined declared conflicts of interest. An Epoch Times review found that multiple ACIP panel members in 2024 cast votes on vaccine recommendations even though they were receiving, or had recently received, money from companies that would be affected by the recommendations.

“HHS is ensuring radical transparency and restoring public trust,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told The Epoch Times via email. “Earlier this year we launched the ACIP Conflicts of Interest tool so the public can easily view historical conflicts.

“Secretary Kennedy is committed to eliminating both real and perceived conflicts to strengthen confidence in public health decisions.”

When dismissing all 17 members of ACIP in June, Kennedy said in an op-ed that “the committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”

He cited a 2000 report that found that conflicts of interest were rife among members of the CDC and Food and Drug Administration advisory panels. He also cited a 2009 inspector general report detailing unresolved conflicts of interest for a majority of special CDC government employees, such as ACIP members.

“These conflicts of interest persist,” Kennedy said at the time. “Most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines.”

ACIP advises the CDC on immunization schedules and other vaccine-related matters. The CDC typically adopts its advice.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday told reporters in an anecdote given to a press conference that Russian authorities had plans to directly attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office in Kiev, but that President Putin rejected the proposed action.

What’s more, Lukashenko said, is that it would have happened with the new Oreshnik missiles, which are medium-range hypersonics that Russian officials have touted as having the same destructive power as a low-yield nuclear strike.

RT News conveyed the Belarusian president’s remarks as describing unnamed figures in Russia suggested using the system against Kiev’s “decision-making centers” – but that Putin dismissed the plan by saying “absolutely not”.

“There would have been nothing left, if the strike would have taken place,” added Lukashenko.

There was no specific date or timeline attached to the story, and thus no way of verifying it – but very likely Russian military planners have long researched and prepared a large range of military options to present to Kremlin decision-makers.

RT has detailed that the “Oreshnik, Russia’s newly developed medium-range hypersonic missile system which can travel at speeds of up to Mach 10, has already entered serial production.”

“The system, which analysts claim cannot be intercepted, can carry nuclear or conventional warheads, and release multiple guided warheads,” the report added.

Putin PERSONALLY stopped strike on Zelensky’s office with DEADLY Oreshnik missile — Belarus’s Lukashenko

Ukraine FEARED Bankovaya Street, where Zelensky’s office is, might be targeted

REVEALS that, despite plans, Russian Prez CATEGORICALLY rejected them

‘Under NO circumstance’ pic.twitter.com/1G80V9eSJk

— RT (@RT_com) August 22, 2025

A number of pro-Moscow hawks and Russian military bloggers have long questioned why Putin has appeared restrained in his approach to the war – for example having never hit Ukraine’s military and intelligence headquarter buildings in the capital.

It could have something to do with Putin being very ‘lawfare’-oriented in the way he does things. For example, the long-running conflict itself is still at the legal designation level of ‘Special Military Operation’ and so is not considered a full war from Moscow’s point of view, which would require total societal mobilization.

Putin could also still be hoping for permanent settlement which leaves Russia in control, and with recognized sovereignty over the seized eastern territories and Crimea. It further seems that Russia is in no mood to try and occupy and administer the whole of Ukraine, fearing a disastrous quagmire and over-stretching of its armed forces.