Milwaukee is the latest in a long list of US cities facing a rapid retail exodus in minority neighborhoods and once again the blame is being placed on the companies in question rather than the behavior of the residents as they protests the rising tide of “food deserts”.

At the beginning of July, city officials mounted a public outcry after Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. announced the decision to close at least five Pick ‘n Save supermarket locations, including one in Milwaukee’s Metcalfe Park neighborhood. 

The city was also notified by Walgreens that they will be closing at least seven locations over the next two years and CVS will be closing some locations as well.  Activists argue that the closures center around “black and brown neighborhoods” and that these areas “deserve access” to nearby grocery outlets.  

Kroger’s decision was discussed at a July 2 meeting of the Common Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee.  Many people walk or take the bus to buy food, said Alderwoman Sharlen P. Moore. If the store is gone, they may have nowhere close to shop.  “This impacts our city,” Moore said. “They’re closing quite a bit of grocery stores that are in neighborhoods that absolutely have no access to groceries.”

Angry residents presented a number of far-left arguments and solutions, including finding ways to force companies to keep stores open and “boycotting” the stores (which are closing anyway).  They also suggested recruiting help from the “Party Of Socialism And Liberation” (PSL) as a means to put pressure on exiting businesses.  Their motto?  “For the planet to live, capitalism must end”.

Though Milwaukee saw a promising dip in overall crime rates (except homicides) in the first quarter of 2025, the city deals with a continuing trend of high retail theft.  Leftists blame low wages and Trump policies which they claim are causing “inflation” (the majority of current inflation was generated under the Biden Administration, not Trump).  The neighborhoods losing the most retail access are neighborhoods with higher crime.  In other words, if the residents stopped stealing, those stores might stay open.

As usual, however, the narrative turns to victimization and marginalization. 

The situation is symbolic of the enduring conundrum for blue city progressives and their socialist ilk – They want to be able to steal from the wealthy in the name of “reparations”, but they can’t force the wealthy to stick around.  Companies can only be bled dry if they sit passively and expose a vein.  When they simply walk away, there’s nothing that leftists can do.  Walking away is kryptonite for socialists.

This is why protests like those in Milwaukee and other blue cities over food deserts achieve nothing.

No one is entitled to retail access.  No community deserves to have a grocery store nearby.  Businesses must be able to maintain enough profit to make a store location viable.   There are hundreds of grocery outlets in the Milwaukee region; the complaint is not that stores are gone, the complaint is that the people in affected neighborhoods don’t want to drive a few miles to the next closest location.

A fundamental adjustment in behavior in minority communities could very well revitalize their business environment.  All they have to do is stop committing crimes and the stores will come flooding back in.  

Authored by Fred Fleitz via American Greatness,

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard did an excellent service to our nation this week when she released a declassified version of a critical September 2020 House Intelligence Committee staff report on a major January 2017 intelligence report, known as an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), titled “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election.”

Gabbard’s decision came after a years-long tug-of-war over the release of this report between Republican members of Congress who believe it provides critical information about the Russia collusion hoax and the involvement of Obama officials and the U.S. Intelligence Community versus Democratic congressmen and deep state intelligence officials who have desperately tried to hide this report from the American public.

Press accounts have reported most of the essential details of the House report, such as how it was rushed out on President Obama’s orders to be published just before Trump’s first inauguration in January 2017. Media stories have also detailed how substandard intelligence was used to justify the ICA’s finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win and that this bad intelligence was included on the orders of CIA Director John Brennan over the objections of senior CIA analysts. The media has also reported the House Intelligence report’s finding that a hand-picked group of five analysts wrote the ICA and that it was not adequately vetted by U.S. intelligence agencies and analysts. It is also clear in the House report that, despite numerous statements by Brennan denying it, the fraudulent Steele dossier was heavily used in the ICA.

I am very familiar with the House Intelligence Committee report. I was permitted to read a classified version of the report when I served as Chief of Staff of the National Security Council in August 2018. I also discussed efforts by the White House to pressure the CIA to release the report a month before the 2020 presidential election with the late Lou Dobbs. This reportedly included President Trump visiting the CIA to retrieve the report personally.

Based on my understanding of this issue, here are five key points about the House Intelligence Committee report that most Americans may not be aware of.

1. The House Intelligence Committee report is a credible and carefully drafted paper. 

Although the House report was written by the House Intelligence Committee’s Republican staff, its fairness and balance are a credit to its authors and then-Chairman Devin Nunes.

The report says on page 1 that committee investigators spent over 2,300 hours reviewing the ICA and its source reports and interviewed 20 intelligence and FBI officers. Its conclusions reflect objectivity and would not be found in a biased, partisan report. For example, the House report concedes at the beginning that the ICA’s finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and to weaken an inevitable Clinton presidency used proper intelligence tradecraft. However, the House report took issue with the ICA’s distortions of intelligence tradecraft standards to assess that Putin had a clear preference for Trump to win and “aspired to help his chances of victory.”

The House Intelligence report also includes strong, nonpartisan recommendations, including a call for political appointees of outgoing administrations to recuse themselves from any involvement in intelligence reports drafted in the future under similar circumstances.

I spoke with the two principal authors of the House report after I read it in August 2018. I found them to be professional and knowledgeable. They answered all my questions and provided me with additional information that was not in the report. A CIA official told me earlier this month that one of the authors had been retained by the Agency to prepare the report for release. 

2. The Republican House report is more credible than a similar bipartisan Senate report. 

The authors of the House Intelligence Committee report told me they believed their report, written by the committee’s Republican staff, was more credible than a bipartisan report would be because many of the CIA officers they interviewed would not have spoken to a bipartisan investigation team. The reason was that Democratic staff and members of a bipartisan investigation might inform agency management about which agency officers had spoken to committee investigators, potentially leading to retaliation. I agree and believe this is why recent attempts by liberal reporters and Democratic congressmembers to use a similar bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee issued in April 2020 to discredit the House Intelligence Committee report are not credible.

3. The ICA omitted intelligence that Putin may have wanted Clinton to win the 2016 election. 

Many press reports about the House Intelligence Committee report focused on how weak and fragmentary intelligence was used to support the ICA’s assessment that Russia wanted Trump to win the 2016 election. However, the House report also notes that the ICA ignored two significant alternative hypotheses suggested by the intelligence and Russian behavior: that Putin either did not care who won the 2016 election or wanted Hillary Clinton to win.

The House report said some of the omitted intelligence analysis indicated that Putin did not have a preference in the election outcome because both Trump and Clinton would be bad for Russia and unlikely to improve relations.

Also notable was the omitted analysis that Putin may have wanted Clinton to win the 2016 election because she would be a more vulnerable president than Trump and Russia had a reserve of compromising materials to use against Clinton but not Trump. Similarly, the House report also noted that the ICA did not address that Moscow viewed Clinton as a weaker candidate due to Russian intelligence reporting on her psychological health. In addition, the House report said the timing and content of Russian operational orders “indicated that Moscow assumed they had unique leverage over Secretary Clinton that would be more useful if she won the election.”

On the other hand, the House report said some senior Russian officials worried that a Trump administration would have a hardline national security team hostile to Russia. The report also quoted a redacted Russian source who “cautioned about the risks to Russia of a Republican administration, noting that ‘those who would hold positions in a Trump administration should he win will likely adhere to conservative anti-Russia positions.’”

4. The House Intelligence Committee report was stuck for years in the “turducken safe” at the CIA for political reasons and due to CIA Director Gina Haspel’s inept and partisan leadership. 

Although the House report was completed by the summer of 2018 and considered an important and damning indictment of the Obama administration and U.S. intelligence agencies for politicizing intelligence to promote the Russia collusion hoax, House Republicans and the Trump White House were unable to convince CIA Director Gina Haspel to declassify and clear the report for release to the public.

Then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes sent the report to the CIA for clearance in the summer of 2018. The CIA dragged its feet in clearing the report and failed to do so before Nunes lost the committee chairmanship in January 2019, due to the Democrats winning control of the House in the 2018 election. After Congressman Adam Schiff succeeded Nunes as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the CIA refused to clear the report because Nunes was no longer the chairman and Schiff would not sign off on Nunes’s release request.

Because of the confusing politics and competing jurisdictions over the House report, it was kept at the CIA in a safe within a safe, leading the New York Times to call this the “turducken safe”—a gun box-like container controlled by the House Intelligence Committee’s Republican members and located inside a CIA vault. The House Intelligence Committee’s Republican members refused to grant Democratic committee members access to their safe or allow them to review the report.

Haspel and NSA Director Paul Nakasone also objected to releasing the report, claiming it would reveal sensitive intelligence. In addition, Haspel and Nakasone reportedly opposed releasing the House report because they asserted it contained unverified information and “cherry-picked” intelligence. Democratic congressmembers also strongly opposed the release of the House Republican report. In opposing the report’s release in late 2020, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff charged that the report sought to whitewash Russia’s election interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Regardless of how ardently Haspel and Nakasone held their positions opposing the release of the House report, because the president is ultimately in charge of all U.S. intelligence and classification decisions, their refusal to cooperate with White House orders to release the report was, in my opinion, insubordination to a U.S. president. Moreover, DNI Gabbard’s action this week proved there were no valid national security reasons not to release a declassified version of this report.

5. President Trump and his senior White House staff regarded the House intelligence report as so crucial that Trump reportedly considered going to the CIA before the 2020 election to retrieve and release the report himself. 

According to my sources at the White House and the House Intelligence Committee, the White House believed in the fall of 2020 that it was crucial for the American people to read this House report before the November 2020 presidential election.

The White House ordered CIA Director Haspel to release the report before the election. She refused.

I received a phone call about this matter in late October 2020 from Lou Dobbs, the host of the Fox Business Network show “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and a close friend of President Trump. I often appeared on Dobbs’ show as a former CIA analyst. He called to consult with me about a possible trip by President Trump to CIA headquarters to retrieve the House Intelligence Committee report so he could release it. I told Dobbs that I feared this would not work because CIA Director Haspel would learn about the president’s visit in advance and hide the inner safe containing the report before he arrived. Dobbs agreed with me and said he would convey this to President Trump. Trump’s alleged visit to the CIA to seize the House report never took place.

I would like to again thank Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for finally releasing the House Intelligence Committee’s critical report on how President Obama, senior Obama officials, and intelligence officials were responsible for issuing a rigged and politicized intelligence assessment just before Donald Trump’s first inauguration to destroy his presidency. This fraudulent intelligence report hounded Trump throughout his first term and contributed to his first sham impeachment in 2019. This perversion of U.S. intelligence also did grave damage to the objectivity and trustworthiness of America’s intelligence agencies, from which they still have not recovered.

It is my sincere hope that the declassified House Intelligence Committee report and other documents on the Russia collusion hoax released by DNI Gabbard and CIA Director Ratcliffe will lead to prosecutions of those involved and congressional hearings that ensure accountability and to send a strong message to future administration officials and intelligence officers that if they participate in another scheme to weaponize American intelligence to meddle in U.S. politics or to destroy a presidency, there will be severe consequences.

One of the clearest and most recent tests of the Overton Window’s positioning, what society currently deems acceptable, came last week with two major ad campaigns from Nike and American Eagle. Unlike the backlash faced by Bud Light or Jaguar for pushing controversial leftist propaganda, these two brands steered away from woke landmines and promoted either a pro-family theme or actress Sydney Sweeney. 

To begin the week, Nike posted a pro-family ad featuring pro-golfer Scottie Scheffler’s win at the 2025 British Open at Royal Portrush on Sunday. Nike’s marketing department released a highly unusual ad … not the usual left-wing politics or ‘body positivity’ nonsense, but a pro-family sports ad celebrating fatherhood and family.

Based Americans, not infected with the Marxist woke mind virus, cheered online, with many demanding more pro-family ads and less “woke BS” ads

By Thursday, American Eagle Outfitters’ marketing department clearly understood what Americans wanted, and it debuted actress Sydney Sweeney, or rather her two most important assets, which were highlighted… repeatedly in a new ad.

Investors cheered as AEO shares rose 16.5% on the week, while the internet was thrilled “to see a beautiful woman in an advertisement instead of freaks.” 

Yea… American Eagle is about to go vertical.$AEOpic.twitter.com/MtKqVadMND

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) July 23, 2025

Why these two ads matter: The Overton Window helps explain how figures like President Trump, Elon Musk’s X, and alternative media have shattered the leftist censorship matrix that unleashed a decade of cultural Marxism—an era marked by division and a relentless push of woke and beta males drinking soy milk. It’s as if the entire woke movement was designed to sabotage society from within. That era is likely over. And we marked this inflection point in recent quarters: 

• Oct. 2024: Overton Window Shifts Towards Liberty

• Jan. 2025: Hedge Fund CIO: Trump Has Blown The Overton Window So Wide Open, Anything Seems Possible

What happened in the ad world last week: 

The broader takeaway is this: the Overton Window, once artificially held to the left, snapped back last year toward the center-right. This realignment coincides with the tail end of the Fourth Turning—likely concluding in the early 2030s—and the Trump administration’s efforts to purge the ‘woke mind virus’ from federal agencies and the military. Corporate America is also abandoning wokeism in favor of just normal advertising. In short, the cultural Marxists’ plan to collapse the nation from within has hit a significant roadblock. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is unraveling, its green movement in shambles, its base flirting with socialism and Marxism, and its polling numbers sinking to historic lows…

Nature is healing. The era of walking on eggshells over what you’re allowed to say in public has come to a crashing end. Liberated from the woke mind matrix. 

And by the way, Volvo was way ahead of everyone… watch here. 

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,

Under the agreement reached between President Donald Trump and Columbia University regarding campus anti-Semitism, the Ivy League school will pay a $200 million fine to regain its eligibility for future federal money.

The July 23 settlement follows months of discussions between the two sides after Trump froze $400 million in federal grants to the school and accused its leaders of failing to address the harassment of Jewish students and campus disruptions.

Now, the Trump administration is hoping this deal establishes a model for other colleges and universities to follow.

Opponents in academia, meanwhile, championed Harvard University—the nation’s oldest—for its fight against the federal government.

Here are five takeaways from the settlement:

How It Came to This

Regular campus disruptions ensued after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, including pro-Palestinian protests and encampments that lasted for months, clashes with police, and the illegal occupation and vandalism of the campus building Hamilton Hall. The university canceled its main commencement ceremony last year due to safety concerns brought on by protesters.

Dozens of students were suspended, and nine were expelled. Columbia President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik resigned in August 2024 amid criticism of how she responded to campus protests. The alleged student ringleader, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and given deportation orders.

The Trump administration initially issued Columbia a ultimatum threatening to hold $5 billion in federal funding, but only froze $400 million as Education Secretary Linda McMahon and university administrators discussed corrective measures.

Shafik’s replacement, interim President Katrina Armstrong, stepped down on March 28, after McMahon announced that Columbia would comply with her demands.

In June, McMahon informed Columbia officials that because of Civil Rights violations, the school failed to meet federal accreditation standards, threatening the university’s reputation as an Ivy League institution and eligibility for student loans.

Discussions between interim Columbia President Claire Shipman and federal officials ensued. The agreement was reached weeks later.

Other Terms of the Agreement

Columbia will pay $20 million to Jewish employees harassed by co-workers or students at the university. Additionally, the settlement requires that hiring practices be based on merit and not race or gender, in accordance with Civil Rights laws.

The university will allow the federal government to review its Middle Eastern studies major and other programs and must hire faculty members who are committed to “intellectual diversity,” according to the White House’s July 24 fact sheet on the settlement.

University admissions officers will more carefully scrutinize applications from international students, share data on foreign students with the federal government, and reduce financial dependence “on overwhelming international student enrollment,” the fact sheet said.

Masked protests on campus will be prohibited, and Columbia will work closely with the New York Police Department if additional enforcement measures are needed. Student disciplinary measures will be handled by the university’s provost’s office instead of a faculty senate panel, according to the fact sheet.

“Columbia’s reforms are a roadmap for elite universities that wish to regain the confidence of the American public by renewing their commitment to truth-seeking, merit, and civil debate,” McMahon said in a July 23 statement.

How Other Ivy League Schools Fared

A White House official confirmed in April that the administration had frozen $1 billion in federal funding to Cornell University following an investigation into Civil Rights violations on that campus.

In March, the administration froze an undisclosed amount of federal funds at Princeton University following an investigation of anti-Semitism there, according to a campus-wide email from President Christopher Eisgruber published by the student newspaper.

A week later, the federal Commerce Department cut $4 million of funding for Princeton University’s climate program, stating that it “fosters fears rather than rational, balanced discussion” and “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats,” which doesn’t align with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s objectives, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced.

The University of Pennsylvania announced earlier this month that it has complied with the administration’s demands following a Title IX investigation dating back to 2022, when a male identifying as transgender won an NCAA women’s swimming championship.

The athlete, Lia Thomas, was stripped of medals and records gained in women’s events, and the university was required to send a written apology to every swimmer who competed against Thomas. The school is to prohibit males from competing in female athletic programs or occupying women’s bathrooms or locker rooms.

Harvard was cited for anti-Semitism and continuing DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) practices, which the administration said are discriminatory and illegal.

The administration froze billions in federal funding, prompting a lawsuit from Harvard, which called the move unconstitutional and a violation of free speech. Proceedings in that federal court case are underway.

Trump also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and moved to end the university’s visa program for foreign students, resulting in an additional lawsuit. A federal judge blocked that executive action.

On June 20 and again on July 25, Trump indicated that Harvard is interested in a resolution but provided no details on a settlement.

What Critics Are Saying

The American Association of University Professors union, which represents about 45,000 higher education professionals across the country, said Columbia’s decision sets “an extremely dangerous precedent that will have tremendous consequences for the sector.”

“For higher education to function, students and faculty must be free to think and speak their minds,” Todd Wolfson, association president, said in an email response to The Epoch Times. “Students, faculty, and all who care about higher education must stand up and fight back against this unprecedented continuing assault. We have no choice.”

In her July 23 statement, Columbia’s Shipman maintained that the agreement was carefully crafted to safeguard its independence while also protecting “the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track.”

The Fight Presses On

Columbia’s settlement acknowledges that campus reforms will protect Jewish students and faculty, but it “does not admit to wrongdoing,” according to the university’s July 23 statement.

After these sanctions, the resignation of college presidents, and nine congressional hearings in less than two years, Republican leaders remain skeptical that U.S. higher education is serious about implementing permanent measures to combat anti-Semitism.

During the July 15 House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing, University of California–Berkeley Chancellor Richard Lyons said his school’s Palestinian Arab studies program chair, who was cited for apparantly praising the Hamas terrorist attack on social media, is “a fine scholar.”

City University of New York Chancellor Felix Rodriguez acknowledged that a current CUNY employee who had previously served as the organization’s chief diversity officer had worked for an organization with ties to Hamas.

Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) response: “This individual is not going to be fired because it’s all words, no action. You have failed the people of New York. You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”

Harvard, meanwhile, has not expressed any interest in a settlement like Columbia’s.

John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, said while Trump’s critics in this matter cling to the argument that the administration violated Harvard’s right to free speech, the president is following civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination by race, gender, or religion.

Regardless of how this case ends, the federal government can deny future grants, Shu told The Epoch Times. In addition, it can restrict admission to foreign students, on whom Harvard relies to pay full tuition and fees.

“Even if Harvard wins the instant case,” Shu said, “that doesn’t end its problems.”

Fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence and automation, the global job market is undergoing a major transformation.

To learn more about this trend, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized the 15 fastest growing jobs projected from 2025 to 2030, drawing on a global survey of employers.

Data & Discussion

The data for this visualization comes from the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. It forecasts net job growth between 2025 and 2030, based on a survey containing 1,043 unique responses by global companies, collectively representing more than 14.1 million employees worldwide.

Big Data and AI Roles Are the Fastest Growing Jobs

At the top of the list are Big Data Specialists, expected to grow by 110% by 2030. They’re followed by FinTech Engineers (95%) and AI and Machine Learning Specialists (85%).

This signals an urgent demand for professionals who can build and manage AI systems and extract insights from massive data sets.

Software and Cybersecurity Jobs Still Essential

Software and Applications Developers remain crucial, with 60% projected growth. Cybersecurity-related roles also make the list, including Security Management Specialists (55%) and Information Security Analysts (40%).

As more data and infrastructure moves online, organizations must also invest more in cybersecurity to defend against evolving risks. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024, the global average cost of a data breach is $4.9 million, up 10% from 2023.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Best Universities for High-Paying Tech Jobs on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Wesley Brown via The Epoch Times,

The nation’s health-care marketplace insurers are seeking the largest premium increases in more than five years, ahead of the upcoming Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment period in November, according to an analysis by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and health policy nonprofit KFF.

The July 18 report highlights several factors driving up insurance rates for 2026, as major health insurers submit rate filings to state regulators to justify premium changes for the upcoming calendar year.

“As in most years, rising healthcare costs—both the price of care and increased use—are a significant driver for increasing rates going into plan year 2026. The costs of healthcare services like hospitalizations and physician care, as well as prescription drug costs, tend to go up every year, and insurers often raise premiums to cover their increased costs,” the report states.

The Peterson–KFF analysis examined insurers in the District of Columbia and 19 states: Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington.

Finalized 2026 rate changes are expected to be published in late summer, and individuals will be able to see how their plans’ premiums are changing just before open enrollment begins in November.

The report states that heading into 2026, insurers expect that some policy changes will drive up their costs, increasing premiums beyond what they would otherwise be. Among these changes are enhanced ACA premium tax credits, which make coverage more affordable and will expire at the end of 2025, resulting in an average increase of more than 75 percent in out-of-pocket premium payments. The impact will vary depending on income and family composition.

“This is expected to cause healthier enrollees to drop their coverage and create a sicker risk pool,” the report states.

An earlier Peterson–KFF analysis found that the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits increased proposed rates by an average of 4 percent. It also stated that there would be gross premium increases, as healthier people are expected to drop their coverage in larger numbers due to increases in their net premium payments.

“Unless the premium tax credits are extended, consumers can expect increases in both the net premium payments and gross premiums,” the June 3 report states.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that, on average, gross benchmark silver premiums will ultimately be 7.9 percent higher than they would otherwise be as the risk pool becomes sicker, on average, and that many enrollees will become uninsured.

Tariffs could also drive up the cost of certain drugs, medical equipment, and supplies, the July 18 report stated. It further notes that some insurers report that tariffs—and the uncertainty surrounding them—are causing rate increases.

A June 18 KFF report stated that Optimum Choice of Maryland, Independent Health Benefits Corporation of New York, and UnitedHealthcare of New York are increasing premiums by 2.4 percent, 2.9 percent, and 3.6 percent, respectively, due to the impact of tariffs on pharmaceuticals.

Many insurers submitted proposed rates before Congress passed the budget reconciliation legislation and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized its rule on marketplace integrity and affordability. The legislation and new Medicaid rule, which explain how the ACA marketplace operates and how individuals enroll, were only finalized recently, and it is still unclear how insurers might respond, the report states.

“Early indications are that individual market insurers will be increasing premiums in 2026 by more than they have since 2018, the last time policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases,” the July 18 Peterson–KFF report states. It noted that premiums are increasing by a median of 15 percent across the 20 markets it analyzed.

Another factor creating uncertainty in the rate filing process is the implementation of the Trump administration’s ACA integrity rule. Based on what insurers have filed so far, this does not generally appear to be driving rate changes in either direction, according to the report.

“Insurers and state regulators are still finalizing rates for the upcoming plan year, so these filed premium increases may change,” it states.

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during a Friday interview with The Associated Press, accused President Donald Trump of not being sane—while defending former President Joe Biden and appearing diminished herself. 

Her remarks came after an AP reporter asked if she had any regrets about pushing Biden off the 2024 ticket over concerns about his mental acuity. 

“I don’t have any second thoughts, but I do have a second thought about the Republicans,” She began:

“If they want to measure mental acuity or sanity, they’re to look to their own president because the president of the United States, who was asked one question and answers by saying President Obama is guilty of treason. He is not of sane mind.” 

Pelosi’s remarks were striking, given that she appeared visibly tired and aged during the interview.

At 85, Pelosi is much older than Trump. She has previously been seen struggling to walk outside Congress after undergoing hip replacement surgery. 

Despite this, she was one of the leading forces behind pressuring Biden off the 2024 ticket over fears American voters would reject his candidacy, given his age and cognitive decline. 

Asked if she has spoken with Biden since the 2024 election, she replied:

“No, we spoke both on Ethel Kennedy’s funeral. So that was one time when … we were together. But no, I have no second thoughts. I think that he was a great president.” 

Worse still, Pelosi compared Biden to Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt. 

“He had accomplishments that were seen in the same light as LBJ and Franklin Roosevelt. He didn’t have as long a tenure as they did, but he had the quality of legislation make a difference in people’s lives. It’s unfortunate that it went down this path, but I think that history will treat him well because he did great things for our country, a super patriot, loved America, honored our Constitution. A big contrast to what we have now.”

Via VigilantFox.com

Infamous vaccine pusher Dr. Peter Hotez recently had an uncomfortable moment during what started as a softball radio interview on Hello Houston.

Everything was going his way. The hosts praised Hotez for battling “disinformation” and hung on to his every word as if it were gospel.

But then, things went off the rails when a possibly vaccine-injured woman called into the show.

Carol, who says she keeps up with her boosters, asked Hotez over the phone why she suffered the “worst experience [she] ever had” just two days after her last COVID shot.

The moment felt like watching a train wreck in real time.

She described how she was so exhausted she was sleeping 16 hours a day, and had a “really bad cough with deep phlegm.”

At first, Hotez assumed she’d had a severe case of COVID. But to his shock, Carol told him she had NEVER had COVID.

Hotez scrambled for an explanation:

“So, what possibly could have happened is in between the time you got the booster and the immune response kicks in, you could have gotten some intercurrent viral infection, such as Covid or flu or a gazillion other things. So sometimes it’s hard to know what’s ascribed to a SIDE EFFECT of the vaccine versus some other intercurrent illness.”

Notice that in the last line, Hotez says the quiet part out loud: “side effect.”

He realizes: “Oh, sh*t, this could be a vaccine-injured person.”

But instead of acknowledging that possibility, he spins an explanation to confuse her into thinking the symptoms could have come from something else—just two days after the shot.

Just watch the clip. It’s never the jab with these people.

OMG: A heavily-vaxxed woman calls Peter Hotez asking why she suffered the “worst experience [she] ever had” two days after her last COVID booster.

This is like watching a train wreck in real time.

The woman was so tired she was sleeping 16 hours a day, and she had a “really bad… pic.twitter.com/6558g8ESh5

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) July 25, 2025

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just released a trove of apparently once-classified documents – with promises of much more to follow.

The new material describes the role of the Obama administration’s intelligence and investigatory directors — purportedly along with former President Barack Obama himself — in undermining the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. In addition, their efforts extended to sabotaging the 2016-2017 presidential transition and, by extension, the first three years of the Trump presidency.

The released documents add some new details to what over the last decade has become accepted knowledge.

Congressional committees, special prosecutors, and the inspectors general had all previously issued reports that largely confirmed the general outlines of the skullduggery that began in 2015-16.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign, later aided by the top echelon of the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, sought — falsely — to seed a narrative that Trump had colluded directly with Russia to win unfairly the 2016 election.

When that campaign gambit failed to alter the 2016 results, the Obama administration doubled down during the transition to undermine the incoming Trump presidency.

Next, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “all-star” legal team found no evidence of direct Trump-Putin collusion to hijack the election. But his investigation did sabotage 22 months of Trump’s first term, marked by constant leaks and hysterical rumors that Trump was soon to be convicted and jailed as a “Russian asset.”

By 2020, the frustrated intelligence agencies and former “authorities” now absurdly further lied that Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop had “all the earmarks” — once again — of Russian interference.

So, what could be new about Gabbard’s latest release?

One, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump but before his inauguration, Obama convened a strange meeting with his outgoing intelligence and investigatory heads — CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and a few others.

Contrary to a four-year Democratic Party narrative that “18 intelligence agencies” had long claimed Russian collusion, the top directors apprised Obama that their expert colleagues had found no such evidence of Trump-Putin collusion.

Yet outgoing President Obama allegedly directed them to ignore such an assessment. Instead, they began spreading narratives that President-elect Trump had been colluding with the Russians.

Leaks followed. Media hysteria crested. And soon Mueller and his left-wing “dream team” of lawyers targeted President Trump.

Further new information may confirm that Brennan’s CIA — and those he briefed in the Oval Office — had known for some time that the Russians themselves were confused about why they were falsely being accused of colluding with Trump to rig the election.

Of course, Russian operatives, like their Chinese counterparts, often seek to cause havoc in American institutions, such as hacking emails or spreading online disinformation. But they may have been nevertheless curious why Hillary Clinton was making such false accusations that they were working directly with Trump, and why the Obama administration was acting upon them.

Obama has now claimed these new charges are outrageous and beneath the dignity of the presidency.

He did not, however, flatly contradict the new information. He should have issued an unambiguous denial that he had never ordered his intelligence chiefs in December 2016 to ignore their associates’ assessments and instead to assume Trump’s collusion with Putin.

These sustained efforts of the Clinton campaign, Obama appointees, and ex-intelligence chiefs and their media counterparts between 2015 and 2020 severely undermined the 2016 Trump campaign.

They bushwhacked the 2017 presidential transition.

They hamstrung the Trump presidency.

And they may well have hurt Trump’s 2020 election bid.

Summed up, here is the damage caused by the Trump-Putin collusion lies:

1. They emboldened “experts” in 2020 to again lie blatantly and shamelessly to the American people that the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop was yet another fake product of Russian interference to help reelect Trump.

2. The media were equally guilty. Journalists partnered with current and ex-Obama appointees by disseminating fake documents like the Steele dossier and working with giants like Twitter and Facebook. During the 2020 campaign, the FBI and social media sought to censor accurate news stories that the laptop was indeed authentic and already verified as such by the FBI.

3. These operations may have had serious consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Dictatorial Russia is an adversary of the U.S.

But by needlessly and falsely claiming that Russia had intervened in two elections directly to partner with Trump, Obama-era officials and Clinton-campaign activists destroyed President Trump’s own credibility to sustain a workable relationship with a nuclear Russia.

In addition, the lying and extra-legal operations of the FBI and CIA only further convinced the paranoid Russians that they could not trust the U.S. government — given it had been engaging in the very conspiracy lies that were more akin to its own than America’s.

Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and others will likely never face legal consequences for the damage they’ve done to our institutions and foreign policy.

But that does not mean they should be exempt from an ongoing and disinterested effort to find and finally expose the whole truth.

How did Salesforce founder Marc Benioff’s TIME Magazine manage to so epically fumble something as basic as populating a relevant “Top Podcasts” list? 

Perhaps it’s because the list was actually curated by an MSM journalist wearing progressive blinders, ignoring reality, and selectively choosing cringe-worthy podcasts while dismissing both Spotify’s “The Podcast Charts” and Edison’s list of the top 50 podcasts in the U.S., which placed The Joe Rogan Experience at number one.

Meet TIME’s Eliana Dockterman, the author of the magazine’s “100 Best Podcasts of All Time” list, a compilation filled with cringe-worthy picks that cater to the increasingly out-of-touch Democratic Party base.

Media analyst Sasha Stone of Awards Daily (formerly known as Oscarwatch) commented on the list. She noted, “Okay, so this list isn’t anything official or well-thought-out. It’s a list for people who listen to Kara Swisher and The Daily. It’s the target demo for NPR’s Serial and Dax Shepard, but what it isn’t is a list that, in any way, reflects the greatest podcasts of all time. Nowhere near.”

Stone continued, “She also left off the podcasts that were truly influential, like the Free Press series the Witch Trials of JK Rowling.” 

“If it’s a personal list, fine. But some authority comes with TIME Magazine naming the best 100 shows and getting it so very very wrong,” Stone emphasized. 

Dockterman’s top picks for news and politics podcasts include The New York Times and NPR News. There’s really nothing more to say … readers can already profile this journalist who lost the narrative years ago. She needs some serious soul-searching. 

Dockterman didn’t just leave out Joe Rogan. She completely ignored Theo Von, whose podcast ranks number three on Spotify.

Again, she left out Rogan’s podcast. This is Edison’s list. 

TIME’s post on X was heavily ratioed, with many users calling the list “crap,” “trash,” and even saying “this can’t be real” …

Many others said they had never even heard of some of the podcasts on Dockterman’s list. This is a telling sign of the massive shift in where people now get their news. Increasingly, they’re turning away from the corporate propaganda machine that serves the deep state and globalist corporations and instead turning to alternative voices like Rogan and independent media outlets.