Tag: finance

For decades, homeownership has been a key milestone of adulthood in the United States.

In recent years, however, the middle-class ideal of homeownership and suburban comfort, once an embodiment of the American Dream, has gotten out of reach for many families, as elevated home prices, high mortgage rates and a period of stagnant real wages have left many families unable to even consider it.

As Statista’s Felix Richter shows below, only 25 percent of non-homeowners expect to buy a house in the next five years, according to Gallup – the lowest share since the question was first asked in 2013.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Among those aged 18 to 34, a key group of prospective buyers, intentions have also fallen sharply.

The share expecting to buy in the next five years dropped from 57 percent in 2013/2015 to 29 percent in 2025/2026.

At the same time, the share of non-owners who don’t see themselves buying a home in the foreseeable future has increased from 13 to 30 percent.

The rest expects to wait longer before buying a home, either to build up savings for a down payment or in hopes that prices and mortgage rates will come down from their current levels.

Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper (emphasis our own), 

China keeps finding inventive ways to burrow into the West, and Canada’s new appetite for Chinese electric vehicles may be the most consequential opening yet.

That is the warning at the center of a report published this week by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and written by Brenda Shaffer, an energy and national-security specialist who teaches at the United States Naval Postgraduate School.

China, she writes, “continues to find creative ways to infiltrate and influence the West,” embedding in its exports the capacity to surveil citizens, disrupt transportation and ports, and trigger blackouts and grid damage.

Shaffer situates the electric-vehicle question inside a wider argument about hybrid warfare. China, Russia and Iran, she notes, have each written attacks on Western domestic energy infrastructure into their war doctrines, erasing the old line between the home front and the battlefield. Even brief disruptions to electricity or transit, she argues, could spread public panic and erode support for a distant conflict — the defense of Taiwan being the obvious test.

The cars began arriving in June, the product of a strategic partnership Prime Minister Mark Carney signed in Beijing in January. Ottawa cut its tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 percent to 6.1 percent, opening an initial quota of roughly 49,000 vehicles in the first year. Carney has cast the imports as a low-cost route for Canadians switching to electric, and analysts cited by Shaffer expect Chinese brands to capture a fifth of the Canadian market.

Shaffer leans on an internal Public Safety Canada memo, obtained under access-to-information law, warning that opening the market to “high-risk vendors” invites connected cars that “collect significant amounts of data on Canadians, which can have intelligence value.” Her account of the official response is withering. Asked how Canada would protect drivers, the chief of the defense staff, General Jennie Carignan, told reporters only that “we don’t have a lot of Chinese vehicles so far,” and Defense Minister David McGuinty said he would raise the question with base commanders.

The danger, in her telling, runs well past cars.

A congressional probe found hidden communications equipment inside Chinese-made cranes at major American ports; the same cranes are common in Canadian harbors, where Transport Canada began assessing the risk in 2023. More worrying still are solar power inverters — the devices that feed renewable energy into the grid — of which China supplies about 70 percent worldwide. American investigators have identified undeclared communication components inside some Chinese inverters that experts warn could be used to switch them off remotely and destabilize power grids.

Lithuania has banned Chinese inverters outright and the European Union has moved to bar them from public funding, while Canada, Shaffer writes, has imposed no comparable limits — even as the January partnership commits Ottawa and Beijing to deepen cooperation on solar, wind and battery storage.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s auto policy would prohibit Chinese-made vehicles from proximity to Canadian Forces bases and other sensitive or strategic infrastructure.

In Washington, where opposition to Chinese electric vehicles is one of the few genuinely bipartisan positions, President Donald Trump has called the deal a disaster for Canada, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Canada would live to regret it, and the U.S. ambassador, Peter Hoekstra, vowed the cars would never reach American roads: “We’re not going to open the floodgates to have Chinese cars coming into the US from Canada.”

Shaffer’s alarm is echoed, from a different vantage, by Michael Kovrig, the former Canadian diplomat held in China for more than 1,000 days. In testimony to Parliament this spring, Kovrig described the deal as a “trifecta of risks” — structural dependence, unfair competition that erodes industrial capacity, and systemic pressure on government policy — and warned that the People’s Republic “weaponizes technology, supply chains and market access” to force acquiescence to its agenda.

Commenting this week on his own testimony, Kovrig wrote on social media that opening Canada’s market to Chinese electric vehicles “should be assessed not as a normal trade agreement, but as a tactical gamble that risks deep entanglement.” The Chinese Communist Party, he wrote, “pours enormous resources into the sector to build scale and sustain overcapacity.” He went on: “The pattern is to flood, consolidate and weaponize. We’ve seen China do this before with solar panels, steel, ships and drones, and EVs are now moving through the same stages in global markets.”

The warnings have not slowed Carney’s government, which is pressing ahead at full speed. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly spent much of last week in China, courting BYD, Chery, Geely and Shanghai Launch Automotive Technology to build electric vehicles on Canadian soil, and confirmed that the import quota will keep climbing — rising by 6.5 percent a year from 49,000 vehicles in 2026 to roughly 67,000 annually by 2031. Carney, caught on a hot microphone with Trump at the Group of Seven summit in France, defended the arrangement as “less than 3 per cent of our market, 49,000 cars,” telling the president, “It’s a cap, we capped, a hard line.”

Beijing is pleased.

Geely Holding Group’s Lotus-brand electric vehicles will reach Canada next month — the first such models sold under the 49,000-vehicle quota — China’s ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, told Reuters on Friday. The cars would arrive, he said, “and they will be holding a ceremony when the cars are delivered in Montreal,” a milestone in the trade pivot Carney has pursued to move Canada away from dependence on the United States.

On June 26, the Chinese Communist Party’s state-run China Daily approvingly reported Canada’s pledge to lift its exports to China by 50 percent by 2030. At a Canada Day reception at the Canadian embassy in Beijing, the mission’s chargé d’affaires, Mark Richardson, called Canada “a stable, reliable partner — a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term,” adding, “That includes with China.” Of Carney’s January visit, he said: “To say this has been a significant year for Canada–China relations would be an understatement. In many ways, it has been a turning point.”

He noted that Canada had become a major energy exporter to China and observed that “the first shipment of Chinese-made electric vehicles has arrived in Canada under a new quota that was agreed in January.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday called for a national tax on billionaires. Except, in the original version, it was anyone with a net worth of at least $100 million – as quoted by multiple outlets, citing a post from Newsom’s Substack account. 

As originally reported by Politico:

His plan to address the country’s yawning wealth gap includes “a true minimum tax on billionaires and those with a net worth of $100 million” and creating a national public equity fund to give all Americans a stake in the economic gains created by artificial intelligence companies. 

The post now reads:

“So here is what I support: A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay.”

Bitch please. 

Newsom also wants to tax inheritance – writing “We also need to rewrite our inheritance rules. Over the next twenty years, this country will live through the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in human history, with roughly $124 trillion changing hands. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth, with all the political consequences the founders warned us about.”

Notice he cites the massive wealth transfer, but not the level of inheritance he’s targeting – as most slippery slopes begin.

Newsom’s proposals come after he failed to stop California’s legislation from with placing a state-level wealth tax on the November ballot. 

Newsom’s proposal follows a failed attempt by the governor, billionaires and progressive groups of persuading the union behind the California tax, SEIU-UHW, to withdraw the measure before Thursday evening’s deadline. Newsom had even privately expressed assurances about an agreement, telling a wealthy donor he expected to negotiate the measure off the ballot, Bloomberg News previously reported. –Bloomberg

“For Newsom, it’s the worst of all worlds, because it puts him squarely in the middle of a national Democratic debate about equity, taxation and affordability,” said Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state. “His announcement might deflect from that a bit.”

Newsom also suggests creating a public equity (slush) fund that would ‘take a stake in the artificial intelligence economy.’

Anti-Billionaire-Tax-Billionaires

Shockingly, California’s billionaires aren’t exactly excited about all this tax malarkey. In fact, while the anti-tax coalition has been most prominently linked to billionaire Sergey Brin (who’s funding other ballot measures that could nullify a wealth tax), Planned Parenthood of California and several labor unions are weirdly also against taxing billionaires – arguing that the proceeds from the tax would benefit select groups, while potentially damaging the entire state’s budget because wealthy residents will flee. 

Even they know it’s just a slush fund. 

“We are ready to defeat this convoluted nightmare of a measure in November,” a spokesperson for Golden State Promise, a group backed by billionaire Chris Larsen, told Bloomberg, while a different coalition linked to doctors and school boards called California’s proposal a threat to “vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects.”

Either way, Democrats continue to actively scheme for ways to extract more money from capitalists. 

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to approve its policy of detaining illegal immigrants who have been in the country for years without releasing them on bond.

The petition in Raycraft v. Lopez-Campos was docketed on June 24, but at time of publication did not appear on the court’s website because of a sensitive-filings rule. The court’s public information office provided The Epoch Times with a copy of the filed petition on June 26.

Adopted last year, the policy represents a change from how previous administrations interpreted a specific provision of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). It also led to a flood of lawsuits from immigrants challenging detention.

Legal experts previously told The Epoch Times they expected that the justices would at some point intervene after several appeals courts issued conflicting interpretations of the law’s detention provisions.

Three federal courts of appeals have rejected the policy, while two have upheld it. The result has been uneven enforcement across the country, raising questions about how millions of illegal immigrants would be detained.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which amended the INA, required detention without bond for illegal immigrants seeking entry into the country.

The provision at issue, Section 1225 of the INA, says individuals seeking admission “shall be detained” if an immigration officer determines they are “not clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted.”

In President Donald Trump’s second administration, the government said this detention mandate applied to individuals who had already entered the United States. Multiple illegal immigrants have argued that portion of the INA didn’t apply to them because they were already in the country and therefore no longer seeking admission or undergoing a formal admissions process.

Instead, they said another provision of the INA – Section 1226 – applied and allowed them to receive bond hearings.

Trump’s interpretation introduced a dramatic change in federal policy, David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, previously told The Epoch Times.

The position that illegal immigrants apprehended in the interior of the United States may be held without bond “has not been the policy of any prior administration, including the first Trump administration,” Super said.

The policy is part of the administration’s broader immigration strategy, which includes ending so-called catch-and-release efforts, or releasing migrants as they await hearings after being apprehended at the border.

In the new petition, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer states that the case is about “eleven aliens who entered the United States illegally and are now present in the country without having been admitted.”

The respondents, who were apprehended between June and September 2025, were put into removal proceedings and charged with being inadmissible and being present in the United States without being admitted or paroled. To be paroled is to be allowed into the country subject to a later decision on immigration status.

Several of the respondents were also charged with not possessing valid immigration documents.

Sauer said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ruled that the respondents should be detained under Section 1225 for the duration of their removal proceedings. Several respondents asked for bond hearings before an immigration judge. The immigration judges eventually found that Section 1225 deprived them of authority to grant bond.

The respondents filed habeas petitions with federal district courts in Michigan seeking release. All the release requests were granted. In three of the four cases, the district court also found that detaining respondents without conducting a bond hearing violated their due process rights.

Sauer said the government released the respondents without holding a bond hearing and appealed to a panel of the Cincinnati, Ohio-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In a divided opinion, the appeals court affirmed.

The panel found Section 1225 does not apply to noncitizens already present in the country because they are not “seeking admission.” The panel also determined that the detention of the respondents without bond hearings violated their due process rights.

Sauer urged the Supreme Court to accept the government’s appeal.

The legal question is “whether aliens present in the United States after an illegal entry must be detained while their removal proceedings unfold.

“The correct answer is yes: 8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(2)(A) mandates detention for such aliens pending their removal proceedings, and there is no due-process problem with that result,” he said.

The Sixth Circuit’s holdings are “incorrect,” he said, and given the 3-2 split among appeals courts, there is now “an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others.”

“Immigration enforcement should not depend on geographical happenstance,” he said.

It is unclear when the Supreme Court will take up the petition.

Authored by ‘Cynical Publius’ via American Greatness,

As I read and hear the usual cavalcade of woke, retired Democrat generals and admirals like McRaven, McCaffrey, Franken, and others falsely claiming that Pete Hegseth is “politicizing” the senior ranks of the U.S. military, inside my head, I am screaming in rage at the impunity with which they spread this pernicious and wholly inaccurate falsehood.

Hegseth is doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE as he depoliticizes our military’s ranks by eradicating the very most political doctrine to ever infect the U.S. military since the U.S. Civil War: so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or “DEI.”

DEI is an expression of Marxism by way of the Frankfurt School. Instead of building Marxist systems based on economic class, the Frankfurt School’s teachings build systems based on grievance classes. Known also as “critical theory,” DEI espouses the concept that there is no such thing as objective truth, that all truth is instead subjective, and that such truth is subjectively decided by whoever is in power at the moment.

This philosophy is in stark contrast to the Constitution, which stands on the shoulders of natural law—the idea that profound truth is objective, ordained by God, and that all men are created equal, with certain unalienable rights.

DEI instead claims that there is an inherent imbalance in society driven by race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and sexual preference. Since “truth” is what you make of it via power, DEI uses force and power to strip individuals of autonomy and individuality in favor of their skin color or what is between their legs. DEI is a form of Marxism, and it is the ultimate expression of bigotry in modern society.

(By the way, given the manner in which DEI seeks to destroy the natural law principles underpinning the Constitution, it effectively sits in defiance of the sacred oath of U.S. service members to “support and defend the Constitution.”)

The U.S. military long had rudimentary forms of DEI in its promotion systems, with promotion board results constantly reworked to reflect the “correct” racial and gender balances. However, with the advent of DEI as a more formal, society-altering structure, under the Obama and Biden administrations, the wholly political DEI doctrine was massively forced on the military like a dog shoved into a car on its way to the veterinarian’s office for neutering.

White service members were told they are inherently evil based solely on their skin color. Combat arms professions were opened to women who, on average, were manifestly physically unqualified to perform required duties. Pressure mounted for 18-year-old females in the barracks to be forced to live with biological men play-acting as women. “Pride” celebrations were rampant. Racist DEI books became mandatory professional reading for officers and senior NCOs. The United States Air Force decided skin color was the basis for being an Air Force officer.

It went so far that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (“CJCS”), Mark Milley, said before Congress, “I want to understand white rage. And I’m white. And I want to understand it.” In doing so, he racially slandered every white troop under his command (yes, I know CJCS is not a command position, but you get my drift), and the political Left and the other woke generals rejoiced.

Where we once only saw red, white, and blue and the color of our uniforms, suddenly, the only color we were allowed to see was the color of human skin.

In the field and afloat, white male commanders learned to be very circumspect in disciplining wayward black, female, or gay troops, because it was just too easy to be labeled a “racist” or a “misogynist” or a “homophobe” in career-ending fashion.

Good order and discipline broke down.

Combat effectiveness declined as a result.

All thanks to politics—the politics of DEI.

And the retired admirals and generals you hear moaning today to Goebbelsesque propaganda rags like The Atlantic? Not only did they not object, they embraced it because that is how these wholly political officers were able to advance. Now that Pete Hegseth is purging our hallowed military halls of the diseased, racist, misandrist, bigoted, hate-mongering, Christophobic, intolerant, diversity-destroying, inequitable, exclusionary, expressly political doctrines of DEI, these political animals are OUTRAGED. They see their Brutalist, Marxist spiritual edifice in tatters, and they don’t much like it, so they lie and say it’s all “political.”

DEI is the worst thing that has happened to the U.S. military in any of our lifetimes. It was the ultimate expression of a political acid test shoved down the throats of everyone serving in a U.S. uniform. It was Marxism on a massive scale, specifically designed to polarize the ranks and make our military less combat effective.

DEI was and is an abomination.

And Pete Hegseth has unraveled this monster in a mere two years. We are rebuilding our military on top of the ruins of the failed DEI experiment.

In all of U.S. history, no one has done more to DEPOLITICIZE the U.S. military than Pete Hegseth.

So, when you see the legacy media and the usual generals and admirals who would not take Douglas MacArthur’s advice to just “fade away” screeching that Hegseth is “politicizing” the military, know that they are angry only because he is doing exactly the opposite. The star-laden critical theorists are losing, and they will not go down without a fight.

But losing they are, and so long as the 2026 and 2028 elections stay the course, they have already lost.

Do not buy the fabulistic “Hegseth is politicizing the military’s senior ranks” narrative. Exactly the opposite is true.

Authored by Danielle White via RealClearPolitics,

In a trial set to begin June 24, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta is asking a court to do something that should alarm every American, regardless of where they stand on abortion: punish nonprofit organizations with ruinous fines for speaking about a lawful medical treatment.

The target is not fraud. These charities offer their services for free.

It is not patient harm. There is no evidence of any patient being harmed.

It is not even illegal conduct. The underlying treatment remains perfectly legal.

The target is speech.

Heartbeat International and Real Options are pro-life nonprofits that provide information and care to women who first take the abortion drug but regret that choice and want to continue their pregnancies. California wants to impose penalties approaching $20 million because these charities have dared to tell women that another option may exist.

Twenty million dollars. That number alone should tell us what this case is really about.

No reasonable observer can believe that bankrupting charities is a proportionate response to truthful and non-misleading statements about a free service designed to help a woman exercise her constitutional right to continue her pregnancy. This is not consumer protection. It is political warfare conducted through the machinery of a government that wishes to silence speech it does not like.

What’s most remarkable is what California cannot prove.

After years of investigation, subpoenas, discovery, and litigation, the attorney general has failed to identify a single woman harmed by APR treatment. Not one. No parade of victims. No evidence of widespread deception. He set up a website practically begging for complaints and still could not muster a single woman claiming she was misled or harmed.

Instead, seven women have publicly shared the stories of how Heartbeat International and Real Options helped them successfully reverse their abortions. Three mothers are slated to testify from the stand about their joy at reversing their unwanted abortions.

Still, the state asks the court to punish the very charities who helped these women continue their wanted pregnancies simply because government lawyers disagree with their viewpoint on the scientific evidence regarding APR.

That is a dangerous precedent.

Scientific disagreement is not fraud. If it were, much of modern medicine would not exist. Medical consensus is not handed down from on high. It evolves. Researchers debate. Physicians challenge prevailing views. Studies are published, criticized, replicated, and revised.

The proper response to disputed science is more debate, more research, and more evidence – not government censorship backed by eight-figure penalties.

Yet that is precisely what California seeks.

The state is asking the court to declare that one side of a scientific debate may speak freely while the other side risks financial destruction. Today, the target happens to be pro-life organizations. Tomorrow, it could be anyone whose views fall out of favor with those holding political power or anyone who dares to innovate in the medical field.

And make no mistake: This lawsuit did not emerge in a vacuum.

Since the Dobbs decision, officials across the country have openly pledged to target pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations. California’s attorney general has repeatedly attacked what he calls “crisis pregnancy centers.” Against that backdrop, it is fanciful to view this lawsuit as a neutral effort to protect consumers. It looks exactly like an attempt to silence disfavored viewpoints through the coercive power of the state.

The irony is impossible to miss. Politicians who routinely invoke the language of “choice” now seek to suppress information that women are seeking in order to exercise their choice to withdraw their consent to their in-progress abortions and continue their wanted pregnancies.

This lawsuit demonstrates that AG Bonta does not stand for reproductive choice. He stands for abortions – wanted or unwanted.

In fact, according to AG Bonta in his trial brief filed last week, “That Defendants [Heartbeat International and Real Options] provided hope to these individuals only underscores the seriousness of their misconduct.” California argues that merely providing hope to women who wish to continue their pregnancies after they start an unwanted abortion is damaging.

A government confident in its position does not need censorship. It does not need speech codes. It does not need multi-million-dollar penalties for those who hold different views. It does not ask a court to issue a financial death penalty for charities whose mission is to provide free services and preserve life.

California has chosen suppression over science and punishment over persuasion.

The court should reject that effort. Not merely to protect Heartbeat International and Real Options, but to protect the principle that government officials do not get to decide which side of a scientific or moral debate is allowed to speak.

Especially when a woman’s right to continue her pregnancy and her unborn child’s life hang in the balance.

Danielle White, Esq., is general counsel for Heartbeat International.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on June 25 to promote regenerative agriculture practices in an effort to support farmers and boost the nation’s food supply security.

Regenerative agriculture is a holistic farming approach designed to restore degraded soils.

Trump said in his order that such practices can “strengthen soil health, lower input costs, improve chemical efficiency to reduce overall use, improve farm profitability, maintain yields, increase market value, expand access to new markets, and strengthen rural economies.”

The order directs the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Health and Human Services Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to research the effect of cumulative exposure of chemicals in the food supply.

It also instructs USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins to expand the reach of the Regenerative Agriculture Pilot Program, share its results with stakeholders, and build public-private partnerships to support farmers seeking to adopt regenerative practices.

Trump also directed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to prioritize the registration of alternative crop protection tools and review data on pre-harvest desiccation uses to ensure they meet safety and labeling standards, according to a White House fact sheet.

The order was announced the same day Trump hosted a dinner for farmers in the White House Rose Garden, during which the president revealed that he had asked Congress to approve a supplemental funding bill with $11 billion in relief payments for farmers.

“It was my honor to sign an executive order directing federal agencies to accelerate agricultural innovations that give farmers and ranchers the necessary resources to ensure American crops are the healthiest, and the most abundant, and the most affordable,” Trump said at the dinner. “And we’re always working for the farmer. We want to make it better and easier for you.”

Shortly after the order was issued, the USDA released its final Regenerative Feedstock Rule designed to help farmers generate new value from regenerative agricultural practices through biofuel markets.

Rollins said the rule creates a framework connecting regenerative agriculture practices to new markets within the biofuel supply chain for corn, soybeans, sorghum, and spring canola.

“Instead of mandates, we’re creating market opportunities. Farmers who choose to implement regenerative practices will have new opportunities to earn premium prices, lower their input costs, improve soil health, and strengthen the long-term profitability of their operations,” Rollins said in a statement.

The Regenerative Pilot Program, a $700 million initiative launched by the USDA last year, has completed more than 67,000 whole-farm conservation plans covering more than 49 million acres and over 1,500 conservation contracts valued at more than $200 million, according to the USDA.

Tuesday’s primary results weren’t just a bad night for the Democratic establishment. They were a warning shot that the party’s socialist insurgency has arrived, is organized, and intends to win. And the problem for them is that they have no idea what to do about it, which could spark a civil war within the party.

The Democratic Socialists of America have been running their own long game inside the Democratic Party for years. Now DSA NYC co-chair Gustavo Gordillo is willing to say the quiet part out loud. The DSA runs candidates on the Democratic ballot line, wins primaries, and places members inside Democratic caucuses. The difference is that they don’t answer to the party apparatus or its donor class.

“Our candidates run as Democrats,” Gordillo said. “We’re on the Democratic Party ballot line. We contest the primaries, and when they’re in the legislature, they’re part of the Democratic Party caucus. But we don’t agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes or runs its party apparatus.“

Gordillo identified a contradiction at the core of the party’s identity. “There’s a problem in the Democratic Party where they are funded by billionaire donors and at the same time they’re trying to represent the working class,” he said. “And in our opinion you have to choose between the billionaire class and the working class. It’s just impossible to satisfy all of them.”

This is the DSA co-chair. Let me summarize what he says in this video: We’re using the Democratic Party as a ballot-access vehicle, not because we share its goals. We build our own organization, get elected under the Democratic label, caucus with Democrats when it’s useful, pic.twitter.com/zYwsv4J8Bt

— The Undercurrent (@NotTheirScript) June 24, 2026

Establishment Democrats aren’t happy about this. “If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” former DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a post on X. “Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.”

Harrison argued that the Democratic Socialists of America should focus on “building the party you actually support.”

Others are clearly concerned that the rise of DSA-linked candidates will hurt the Democratic Party.

“All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don’t blow it up,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both of whom represent New York, were unable to stop what happened, and now both are in serious political trouble. Jeffries was lucky in that Mamdani steered the DSA away from running a primary challenger against him. However, he may not be spared in a future election. Supporters of Tuesday’s victorious socialist candidates made the long-term stakes clear, chanting “you’re next” in reference to Jeffries after Tuesday’s victories.

Even moderates within the party are running out of patience and pinning the blame on the party leadership. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), considered a more moderate Democrat, suggested Thursday that both Jeffries and Schumer may need to step aside, framing the problem in terms that should embarrass both men. “To me, the lesson was simple. Democrats had too many priorities. They tried to make everyone happy and answer every question. When you prioritize everything, no one knows what you actually stand for,” Slotkin told Stephen A. Smith on SiriusXM’s “Straight Shooter with Stephen A.”

She contrasted that with Donald Trump’s 2024 approach. “He said, ‘I’m going to make your life more affordable. I’m going to put more money in your pocket.’ … He won because he kept his message simple and focused on the issue Americans cared most about.”

A year and a half after the 2024 election, the party still hasn’t settled on a direction. “That’s why I believe we need significant new leadership,” Slotkin said. “The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party.”

Sure enough, Politico reports that moderate Democrats are “sounding the alarm after massive losses in New York’s primaries.”

The far left is eyeing even bigger targets in key battleground primaries that will determine control of Congress as well as governorships in crucial swing states. Most immediately, moderates fear that a progressive primary sweep could imperil the party’s hopes of beating Republicans this fall.

They also have a more fundamental fear: that progressives are becoming more mainstream as they keep winning – reshaping the Democratic Party.

The socialists are winning this civil war, and they’re just getting started. Colorado Democrats head into their own primaries carrying the same internal contradictions. Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros is challenging longtime incumbent Diana DeGette in a district the establishment considers safely theirs. In the 8th District, progressive-aligned Manny Rutinel faces establishment-backed Shannon Bird, with the winner eventually squaring off against freshman Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.).

The progressive candidates may not sweep those races, but the political damage lands either way. Republicans will link centrist Democrats to the party’s most radical voices regardless of who holds which seat. Policy ideas like defunding the police or abolishing prisons entirely energize the activist base and repel competitive-district voters in equal measure. GOP candidates will make sure general election voters in Colorado know exactly what the rest of the Democratic coalition is demanding.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The national payment error rate for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) hit 10.62 percent for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, far exceeding the 6 percent threshold set by Congress.

“While this is a modest decrease from FY 2024, the FY 2025 rate still shows significant waste at the state level,“ the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a June 24 statement.

”Including both overpayments and underpayments, this year’s rate represents a collective $10.1 billion in improper payments nationwide.”

The payment error rate measures how accurately states calculate SNAP eligibility and the amounts that beneficiaries receive.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, established a State Quality Control Incentive provision under which states must pay a percentage of SNAP program bills if their payment error rate exceeds a certain limit.

A state with an error rate of 6 percent to 8 percent will be required to fund 5 percent of the benefits. This scales up as error rates get higher. States with error rates of 10 percent or more must fund 15 percent of benefits.

“[This has instituted] real financial consequences for states that mismanage taxpayer dollars,” the USDA stated, noting that these rules could come into effect as soon as Oct. 1, 2027.

States with error rates exceeding 6 percent are also required to submit a Corrective Action Plan to the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, explaining how they intend to address the root causes of the high error rates. Some states may end up getting financially penalized.

“These payment error rates are further proof that state accountability is severely lacking in SNAP,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

“USDA has taken historic action to help interested states curb SNAP waste, and I hope other states, regardless of political leadership, prioritize needy families and the American taxpayer over politics.”

Tackling Error Rates

A June report from the American Public Human Services Association detailed the results of a survey conducted among all 50 state SNAP agencies between May 19 and June 5, which was aimed at understanding how the agencies planned to improve their payment accuracy.

Out of the 39 states that responded to questions on state capacity and operational readiness, 92 percent said they had already completed a root cause analysis of the error rates or that such an effort was underway.

“States reported that payment errors stem from both participant and administrative factors, with responses suggesting errors are roughly evenly distributed between the two,” the report reads.

Many states have increased or are considering boosting their workforce, expanding training, adopting new technologies, and strengthening quality assurance functions to identify and avoid errors.

Commenting on the FY 2025 SNAP payment error rates, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Chairman Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) said efforts must be taken to ensure that the program is administered in a fair, accurate, and responsible manner, according to a June 24 statement from the committee.

“It is clear that improvements were needed to ensure SNAP is administered as intended to support those truly in need while protecting taxpayer dollars,” Boozman said.

“I applaud the states that are implementing innovative solutions to decrease error rates and be good stewards of federal funds. The reforms included in the Working Families Tax Cuts were designed to promote accountability for significant mismanagement.”

Working Families Tax Cuts refer to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

SNAP Changes

States and federal officials are making SNAP food purchase rules more stringent to direct beneficiaries toward healthier choices.

Beginning this fall, SNAP-authorized retailers are required to stock more nutritious items across four food categories—produce, protein, dairy, and grains.

Almost a dozen states also plan to ban beneficiaries from buying energy drinks, candy, and soda using SNAP coupons over the coming months.

However, on June 22, a federal judge blocked the USDA from restricting SNAP beneficiaries in five states from buying sugary foods or drinks.

The states—Colorado, Iowa, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Nebraska—had previously received USDA approval to impose such restrictions. The judge ruled that the department lacked the authority to approve these food restriction waivers.

A USDA spokesperson defended the department’s actions.

“The idea that taxpayer funds should not be used to purchase junk food should not be controversial,” the spokesperson said.

“USDA will not be backing down from the fight to Make America Healthy Again, including for ​families and communities reliant on ​SNAP.”

President Trump’s Iran agreement remains under pressure after a fresh round of retaliatory strikes by the U.S. in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Iran allegedly targeted a commercial cargo ship with attack drones, U.S. forces responded by striking Iranian missile, drone, and radar sites.

So the ceasefire is shaky but it seems …..

Against that backdrop, last night, American Conservative executive director Curt Mills and Will Chamberlain of the Article III Project joined prolific author Michael Malice to debate whether Trump struck the right deal, whether preserving stability in the Strait of Hormuz justifies the concessions to Tehran, and what the agreement means for the factional battle within the Republican party… also Israel 🙂

Below were the highlights for those short on time:

Voting Dems over Neocons in ‘28

The Iran war (and how a deal pans out) will have an effect on the future of the Republican Party, but the old guard retaking power could simply leave millions done with voting…

Mills said he supported Trump because he represented “a different type of conservatism,” warning that if the GOP simply reverts to “Jeb Bushism, Scott Walkerism, Mitt Romneyism,” then “I’m just not that interested in the project.”

Chamberlain challenged Mills’ past comments about voting for Ro Khanna over Marco Rubio, calling the idea “crazy” and accusing Mills of “enabling communists.” Mills responded that if Republicans nominate “the absolute worst nominee for my interests,” such as Rubio or Ted Cruz, while Democrats nominate “the only one that I feel like is responding and speaking plain English,” then “yeah, I would consider it,” which Chamberlain deemed  “insane.”

pic.twitter.com/OMmAQa0FH7

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 27, 2026

Side Debate: Deport Mehdi Hasan?

Chamberlain argued strongly for denaturalizing and deporting foreign born “commies,” namely Mehdi Hasan, Ilhan Omar, and the like.

Recently naturalized citizens who are hostile to the United States, he said, should lose their citizenship, saying, “Communism is where everything has its limit.”

Hasan may suck, Mills countered, but he’s not a communist.“Do you think Mehdi Hasan is a Marxist-Leninist… who has deep opinions about Trotsky versus Stalin?” Mills added that deporting legal residents over heated political disputes is a dangerous path and against the “American Spirit”.

Chamberlain still held that Hasan is “extraordinarily hostile to America and its interests… I think that he should be deported. He’s a British Islamist.” 

pic.twitter.com/DwsxHVHSUe

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 27, 2026

We highly recommend the full debate included below. Also feel free to watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify.

https://t.co/PgdhEZ2LUX

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 26, 2026